A/N This was written for the LJ community seasonal_spuffy. Many thanks go to my wonderful betas and cheer section, Holly and Schehrezade. Much appreciation also to Spikelovebite who has allowed me to cry on her shoulder during untold stresses too numerous times to mention. And vampkiss, without whose graphic gorgeousness my fics would feel decidedly nude. Without these four I would be a mess.


The heat of scattered fires skipped along the breeze, lifting the tail of his coat with an enthusiasm born from success. Spike was ebullient; the power of mystical blood thundering through his veins, diverting his attention from the scattered Chinese offerings running in frantic fear around him.

Food.

For the first time in twenty years, he couldn’t see the food. He cut a swathe through the screaming rebels, squeezed in between the two women of his unlife and floated on a euphoric high. He’d never experienced anything like it. Never known the power that came from usurping the other male of your family with the one thing he’d been afraid to do.

Angelus. The paternal leader of their little tribe, yet he’d not risked anything in his unlife before. But Spike caught the look on his face, the blend of fascination and pride with the nasty edge of revulsion. It was confusing, and frustrating. When would it be enough?

Just minutes before he had been writhing on the dirt floor with Dru, creating a memory that he would be proud of for the rest of his days. A memory that would set him up as a vampire to be reckoned with. Make his new name one that was recognised in all corners of the earth. Make him more than just Angelus’s childe. Drusilla’s nurse and playmate. It gave him prominence.

Burying his fangs deep in the Slayer’s neck would forever make him. He’d met his purpose, found his niche and it was a glorious discovery. And the best part was, he could rediscover his strength over and over again. Because Slayers would never run out. They would always be around to be sought, always be ready to be killed. Always be looking for that one fight that would give them the bliss of peace.

Spike almost couldn’t bear the high that kept him springing on his feet. He walked on a thread of dreams, of destiny, and could feel his connection already to something big. He had consumed the magic of a special one, had drained her of her life as another was busily being called. He’d skipped the easy death, a quick snap of the neck, to take her into his mouth, the silkiness of her red liquid life sliding like love down his throat. He knew that the experience would catapult him into something momentous, drive him along a path that had been without direction until he took that risk. Taken his existence into his own hands.

William the Bloody would never hide, would never be a coward, would never fail even if he was dusted. Unlike Angelus, who scurried like a terrified mouse whenever Spike stirred the crowds to a roaring retribution. It was fun. It was game. It was life. Something Angelus seemed to have suddenly lost.

They probably looked aimless, but it didn’t matter to Spike. Not now that he had a direction to head his unlife in. He’d see all parts of the world, taste all manner of fledgling women in his desire to meet and best them. He would take them down, one by one, or dust in the process. It was all or nothing for him—the passion of such a beautiful purpose flooded his senses and he knew that whatever occurred from now would bear the stamp of his greatness.

He could barely see his family, even though they stormed through Beijing beside him. Stood on the edge as he vibrated with power. Aimless yet charged, they strutted through the chaos, not quite searching for a place to rest, but gravitating toward it like was there right.

A feast later and they laughed and fucked the night away, relaxing in the secretiveness of a stone dwelling, the important people left dumped in their own blood. The grin wouldn’t fall from his face and as his eyes finally lulled shut, Spike replayed the fight, revelled in his victory, and made promises that his future would be everything his past was not.

Chapter One

A/N Huge thank you's to Holly, Schez and Tami again for getting me through with my sanity intact.

Giles had promised her future would look brighter, now that the Hellmouth was all zipped up and buried under a collapsed town—now that a certain irritating vampire was no longer hanging around to muddy the perfect waters. Funny how these past months in Italy hadn’t looked anything but shady and grim. The only brightness she’d been privy to at all was Willow’s intelligence shining through as she resumed her studies and aced it all, just like everyone had expected. Despite all those ‘brighter future’ pep talks from Giles, no one seemed to expect the same scholastic brilliance from Buffy. She’d been corralled into the family business—which she would so never have guessed was the all new improved Watcher’s Council.

She supposed it was possible. All those enthusiastic over-eager vibes she’d been exposed to from Giles could have sucked her in and made her all ‘steam ahead with the happy’ girl too, if only she’d been able to forget. Or if she’d been able to believe that her time with Spike had been just a requirement to saving the world like all her friends were telling her it was.

Buffy knew differently, though. She’d spent too many years with her head in the proverbial sand, only it felt much less gritty and a whole lot more like dirt. And every time she’d dragged it out to brave the sun, Spike had filled her vision. It wasn’t convenience that had joined her time with his—it wasn’t even an unlikely truce they’d struck in order to save the world. Buffy had sought him out—even before he’d regained his soul—and she knew deep down that it had been blossoming love that had made her want to be around him. Want to show him that he finally meant something to her. Or not finally, exactly—more like she was ready to let him see a little inside her heart and see that pretty shade of love. That she was consumed with affection whenever he was around—so much that she couldn’t think straight. When he was hurt—she was in agony. When he was being attacked, she felt murderous rage flow through her and a need to damage those that wanted him out of her life. Giles could just thank his lucky stars that she didn’t kill humans, because that night he’d conspired to make Spike dust, she really thought she could have hurt him.

She couldn’t even forgive Giles for getting it wrong now, because other than that watery smile she’d shared to show how proud she was of Spike, she’d made no effort to happy herself up and mislead them all into thinking she wasn’t grieving. As was his way, Giles just ignored the obvious and ploughed on with the distraction. At first it had been the getting used to a new city—God, a new country. Then it had been extra special bonding time with the brat little sister, followed laughably by the combined efforts to get her into dating.

A single Buffy was apparently a disastrous and unconfident Buffy. She gave them points for one lesson learned, though. There was no more of that awkward human/slayer match-making. Oh no, they’d finally received the memo on what kind of guy got her blood running hot. Apparently ones that could threaten the continuation of its flow in her veins. She had nothing to excuse her complete lack of observation about some of the guys her friends had set her up with. Their lack of a pulse completely got by her radar, so deep was her longing for only one member of the undead team. Only he was much deader than those eying her neck over a pasta and wine dinner date. And seriously, who could have ever predicted that her friends even knew ambiguously evil undead guys—or strangely human-shaped demons? Buffy certainly hadn’t, so that vamp tickle that had always set her on alert was pretty much ignored, believing any vampire activity must have been occurring around her and one of the many new slayers would take care of it.

She’d been ordered to rest. After fleeing the destroyed Hellmouth, a really good, hard look into a mirror had told her the real physical toll the past two years had had on her body. The first time she’d laid down to sleep—and not so soon after vanquishing the world of the First as one would imagine—revealed the mental and emotional damage that she’d been able to postpone a reaction to.

She’d lost Spike in the battle.

After fighting evil together—really together—for three years, he’d succumbed to a higher purpose right on the brink of when Buffy was ready for him. It was just so typical of her luck. From the moment he’d professed to love her he’d been suspended on the edge of truly dying—he’d been willing against Glory if it saved Dawn, he’d fought the odds to regain his soul, he’d fought her friends and her watcher just for the right to stand by her side. And in a twist of irony that made Buffy want to scream and kick the world apart, her first love had eradicated the presence of her last. Angel may have given her the instrument needed to save the world, but it had surely burnt up her own.

It was a night like so many others that found Buffy hiding in her room and contemplating the past. She had trouble sleeping now, amazed at how fast she had become accustomed to loving arms around her and a black t-shirt against her cheek. Everything around her seemed so much duller now. Though Spike had represented monochrome in its most extreme, she now saw that he added the most colour to her life.

Contrary to popular belief, Willow and Xander hadn’t lost sight of their parents. Xander hadn’t been able to get rid of them for the wedding that wasn’t, so it should have occurred to them all that once they’d all settled and the dust of their ruined lives had cleared, her two friends would be able to grasp hold of their pasts and be content. They’d lost things in the sinking of the town—of course they had.

Tara’s grave and Anya to name just two.

But their parents had had the sense to take almost all their possessions with them, so they still could cling to childhood memories captured forever at the click of a shutter. But still it didn’t make Buffy crumble in misery. They may have had all those mementos, but Buffy had Dawn. In all her years beside her friends, it had never occurred to her that they were both only children in the middle of family dysfunction. She was suddenly grateful to the monks for making Dawn and entrusting Buffy to the teen’s safety. With that responsibility had brought moments of strength from her vampire and had begun the slow process of her trusting him and allowing him by degrees into her life.

The Rosenberg’s and Harris’s hadn’t chosen to reside near each other once they left Sunnydale. It had taken only a week for both Willow and Xander to touch base with their family before they’d made it back to the core group and prepared to embark on the next leg of their journey. And embark they all did, Buffy feeling the flutterings of both nerves and fear that she was about to face a world that had been so closed off from her, and essentially alone. Where once upon a time she would have loved to see what the world had to offer, the option of leaving the Hellmouth had been a big self-imposed no-no. Spike had told her some stories of the places he’d visited, often instigating a festering craving to experience life the way he had—without all the blood and bad that he’d thrived on of course. But now that she’d had the chance, he wasn’t there to show her the reality of his tales.

Every place she went there was a memory of Spike tagged to it. London was wonderful—despite the cold and sludgy wetness of it—because it was where Spike was born, and reborn. Europe had many flavours merely because she knew Spike had trod the ground. Much of her time was spent wondering if she ever stepped on one of his long absent footprints. It all brought one alarming thought to Buffy, and she was finding herself broaching crazy because of it. She couldn’t do this without Spike. As much as he may have died for them all to live, it was infinitely difficult and extremely unsatisfying to do it without him.

The thoughts that occurred to Buffy scared her so much that she’d taken to hiding from people. From her own sister, too. Andrew lived with them and provided all the entertainment Dawn could possibly need, so the guilt of her detachment wasn’t quite as much as it could have been. But Buffy felt so afraid that if she stayed in their presence—particularly Dawn’s—she wouldn’t be able to stop talking about him. Not that she’d ever really started, but the urge to just say his name, to let her voice worship his memory with soothing lilting love, was getting way too strong for her to hold it back. So when she couldn’t escape to kill demons, she hid in her room, letting her friends and family pass beyond her bedroom door and pause to observe the panel with worry. It protected more than her heart—it meant they wouldn’t have to be faced with her preoccupation and she wouldn’t have to hear their disdain for a being that had deserved so much more.

For some reason, knowing that Willow had taken a break from her busy study schedule at Oxford to come and visit made it all so much harder. Made bad selfish thoughts tear through her head until Buffy found herself several times on her feet to seek out her best friend for one of those monumental examples of badness in their past.

Being resurrected had almost killed her. Buffy could still feel the slimy hands of death claw at her as she was returned to her own skin, her hair regaining life as it grew lush and healthy. She could still feel the ache that she mostly ignored to return to the one place that didn’t judge her every breath; her every thought and action. She’d hated them for bringing her back, and yet if Willow could bring Spike to her, she thought it was just possible a little of that hate could be chipped away.

She tried so hard not to start thinking that Willow owed her. Her friend had caused so much of her pain in life and really, now that she was so very able if not so willing, Buffy didn’t want to allow herself to fall so many levels that she became that kind of friend—the type that looked at their past and dragged out all the wrong moments and used it as ammunition to get her own way. But in the dark when she was alone, sometimes it was difficult to quiet that little voice that reminded her that if she’d remained in Heaven she wouldn’t know Spike’s love, she wouldn’t have wanted to return it, and she wouldn’t be here now mourning its loss.

That was when her thoughts got a little bit out of control. She’d justify it all in her head, know that it would be okay—he was a vampire, and he’d loved her. He’d want to come back to her, right? It wasn’t until she had her hand on the doorhandle that Buffy would remember the peace she’d felt, the familiarity of being home and accepted that being dead actually gave her. And she felt overwhelmed by guilt that she wanted to rip Spike away from that.

If that was where he was.

It was on Willow’s third day in her apartment that Buffy realised something. Willow was much more powerful than she had been before, now that she’d achieved the kind of spell most witches only dreamed about. She could tailor a spell to make sure they knew where Spike had come to rest—unless he’d very unfairly gone to Hell—before displacing him and maybe bringing him back to the world that had lived on without him, yet only thanks to his sacrifice.

It took another day to work up the courage to leave the quiet, private memories she’d hoarded within her bedroom walls in secret and seek Willow out. She was scared—she was big enough to admit that. And when she finally came face to face with her friend and saw the depth of her concern, it made the fear advance to terror. How could she ask this of Willow?

How could she ask it of Spike? God, what if he came back wrong and hated her? Could she live with the same degree of abuse she’d given him? How could she not? She owed him so much—if not for the beatings she’d given him then for the calm acceptance he’d given her when no one else knew she needed it. Of course, this time would be different. She’d be the one in love and him the one in doubt. Did she have enough faith in the love that Spike had been lavishing on her for the three years before he erupted into flames?

Those arguments were so valid, yet Buffy couldn’t discard the selfish need to have him back. Just to surrender in his embrace once more would be worth everything to her. But even if she couldn’t have that, even if he came back hating her, she could live with it just to see his face again. But it wouldn’t go like that, not if Willow took proper precautions this time. Not if they knew where he was before they attempted to bring him back.

Buffy’s bottom lip wobbled and her eyes were watery when she stood before Willow, the words stuck in her throat. All it took was one step and Buffy crumbled in Willow’s arms, all the built up grief and plans tumbling out in a fury of emotion that neither girl could comprehend what was actually said. Willow’s embrace was warm and firm and Buffy gave into the need to be held by someone; even if it felt slightly wrong—it comforted just the same.

Succumbing to the expected despair of failure, Buffy blocked out everything around her and just let it go. The grief that none of them had allowed her to share now broke forth and defied their coldest shoulders. And she was surprised. There was no pushing away, no shocked exclamation as to why she should be broken and in pain. All she received for her careful hiding was a warm hug and tearful commiserations.

Buffy soon became the centre of a three way hug as Dawn attached herself and added her tearful contribution, and Buffy suddenly realised that maybe her pain hadn’t been so isolated at all. Here was her sister and her friend, completely understanding what the loss of Spike meant to her—and not a judgmental word of denial was uttered.

“I am so glad you finally got that out. It’s been like living with ghost Buffy the past few months. The scary sad presence drifting around the place but never really seen. It’s good to actually see your face again,” said Dawn with a watery smile, looking to Willow in case her outspokenness backfired and she had backup.

Willow’s eyes were filled with her relief, and maybe a tinge of remorse, and Buffy felt the tightening in her heart toward another bout of self-release. No way was one tearful episode enough to wipe away the grief, to replace that hollow of loneliness that the loss of Spike had caused.

“Okay, I’m confused. You’ve been waiting for me to go all with the waterlogged grief look while you’ve been throwing dateage material at me?” Her voice held a tinge of whine and disbelief, the hurt still there that they could think she’d want to move on so quickly after her last two years of disastrous relationships. And move on to someone that wasn’t Spike-shaped when she hadn’t had anywhere near enough time to resolve that the hesitant start they’d made back to each other was so totally over. A relationship promising depth and fulfilling love was wiped out of her flaming hands without a backward glance.

Buffy couldn’t miss the pointed look that Dawn and Willow shared, no matter how blurred her vision was. It made her feel angry, wary that yet again her feelings were expected to be swept under the carpet, denied for the truth that they were in favour of some warped view of happiness they expected of her.

“B-Buffy, I don’t know what to say. I know that we weren’t confidant buddies in those last days before the fall of The First, but we weren’t blind. We knew that Spike meant something to you, and even if you just cared for him as a friend, we expected you to grieve.” Willow paused to take a noisy breath in and looked at Dawn again. Buffy had lost a little of her defensiveness and waited to see what else would be said. Gaining some courage in the face of Buffy’s clear disbelief, Willow persisted, hoping that finally they could clear the air. “We tried to get you to open up by making you angry—thus the evil bad dateage. Kinda didn’t work, but it was a last resort, Buffy. You clammed up so tight and you look so unhappy and we don’t want you to be unhappy, really just want you to be mega with the wattage and please don’t kill us.” She finished on a teeny scared pitch that just begged to remember the early, more geeky Willow. The one that cared and tried to see what Buffy actually needed to be happy. Somewhere along the way that had been diverted by suspicion and prejudice until the one thing that might have made her happy was severely out of bounds.

Buffy gave into her first true response and giggled, shaking hands covering her mouth as hysteria threatened to erupt. And then the real impact of what they’d done for her—for Spike—really hit her. They wanted her to grieve and they’d wanted her to admit the truth. They’d finally been ready to hear it and Buffy had kept the power and beauty of Spike all to herself when everything about his specialness should have been shared. He’d saved the world. Her vampire champion/lover/friend had saved the world for them all to continue living and breathing and she’d kept him her guilty secret because she loved him and didn’t think anyone would care to know it.

So maybe she could take the risk and tell Willow what she wanted—and maybe she wouldn’t be condemned. Maybe the witch could see her pain and do her utmost to right so many wrongs. Maybe she could locate Spike and retrieve him from whatever hell dimension he’d fallen into so that Buffy could finally be forthright and honest with him.

And just maybe pigs might fly.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

In a rare act of intuitive goodness, Andrew had come home and tempted Dawn out to the movies. As much as she loved her sister, Buffy really didn’t want her around for the tell-all-and-beg. Willow and Buffy had retired to her bedroom to hash out the angst and for Buffy to share a wish.

It had taken an hour to argue her point, another twenty minutes of staring at Willow’s too-wide eyes and not collapse again in another round of grief. She couldn’t lose the plot now—not when it was finally out in the open and the possibility of success was so close. Not when she could almost feel Spike in her arms and his hair against her lips. God, she tingled, hope almost making her heart beat too painfully for her chest.

“B-but Buffy, you remember how bringing you back wasn’t one of our most shining moments. I mean, what if Spike hates you for bringing him back? W-what if he’s in Heaven?” There were tears in her voice that just the memory of the pain Buffy had almost buckled under inspired. Her face looked miserable, her eyes scared and Buffy wondered if she’d been half crazed to think up such a scheme. No, not crazed. Desperate. Desperate to have her friend back, her greatest support even if their love could never get off the ground. If it didn’t match, or if they slipped past one another in the night and friendship was all that could be caught, then she would take grip of it happily. With relief.

She wasn’t going to do it. The resolve on her face that gave her the look that caused so much solidarity and fun in their younger days was planted so firmly there now that Buffy felt the resignation slash her heart to pieces and her throat clogged. Willow was going to refuse and she really would never see him again.

“Oh god,” she gasped and the mental and physical pain felt overwhelming. Buffy felt all the strength revolt from her body and she ended up lax and exhausted on her bedroom floor, nothing left to say and nothing left to do as Willow watched helplessly.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know that eventually she’d be okay—the loss of Spike and the pain it wrought would one day recede and life would continue to go on. But it didn’t stop it for now and as if all the tears and memories and plans and schemes she’d focused on for the past months were swept away, Buffy was left reeling from the emotional impact of an end.

The end of an existence for Spike and the end of a dream for her.

“Okay.”

The voice was small and Buffy almost missed it in the darkness that she’d fallen into. Willow was pale and scared when the despair shifted and she could see around her without the shaded haze. The hope that welled up inside was almost too much to bear and Buffy begged without words for a repeat.

“I’ll do it,” Willow said again, firm resolve making her nod and then smile at the shocked Buffy with tear streaks down her face. “A-as long as you understand I’m doing this for you, not because I need to flaunt how good I am?”

Buffy could see the vulnerability and almost laughed. She didn’t, though, knowing that Willow had tried as hard as the rest of them at various points to put the demons of their pasts behind them. But she’d do it, and that made Buffy feel the strange tingle of life again.

In the first speck of peace to cross over to her since the end of The First, Buffy felt calm. And she thanked the witch who would bring it back permanently—as ironic as it was that she deprived her of it in the first place.

Now they had a resurrection to plan.

Their quaint little apartment suddenly become home to a planning committee akin to a wartime offensive. Paper, books and boxes that were depressingly empty of Italian pastries were scattered across every flat surface, all while Willow delegated research to her minions: Dawn and Andrew. Buffy had wanted to help, truly she did, but the fact that she had never been able to achieve a balance between Action Buffy and Research Buffy meant that she paced while she read, or tried to read yet quite often emitted hisses of frustration when it just didn’t jive with her plans.

As much as she wanted to be the one to discover what was needed for the spell—incantations, ingredients, a miracle—Buffy just wasn’t seeing it. And she so wasn’t going to let on that it was because her eyes blurred with tears every time she thought of Spike and the possibility that she would have a second chance to do the big ‘I love you’ speech. Maybe this time, rather than being so off the cuff in the face of certain flamey death, she could try out the far more eloquent one she’d been saying in her dreams ever since. Throw in a phrase of two to show him how much she really got the ‘love isn’t brains’ diatribe he’d aimed once at her doomed and young relationship with Angel. After all this effort, if he still didn’t believe her then he was just too boneheaded for words.

It was only a small section of the original Scooby group, but to see Willow and Dawn sharing the traditional research secrets with Andrew lightened her heart. The earnestness on their faces gave Buffy renewed hope that she’d been trying hard not to build up in her head. It took her some time to really embrace the acceptance, having so long bottled every emotion up in fear of it exploding into grief she’d thought they would frown upon. Seeing her sister, best friend and even Andrew so willing to make her happy, at the risk of making a major mistake, forced a feeling of awe to take her over. As much as she’d always loved her friends, awe was not something Buffy had ever experienced in regards to them. Pride, anger, wariness, love, but never pure unadulterated awe.

Giles had called several times during their research sessions. Buffy was convinced he could feel the stirrings of hysterical spell searching all the way over in England and was determined to act peppy and push him off the scent. What she so did not need right now was Giles and his paranoia where Spike was concerned. For the first time since the spell activating so many little girls to power, Buffy felt wonderful about being able to tell Giles to get someone else to ‘do it.’ If he had a mission to locate more of her, she wasn’t going to be a part of it. Months spent aching for the one she lost was so close to being at an end that she couldn’t bear the thought of being sent away and severing the urgency she was feeling from Willow and Dawn.

They’d picked it up from her, of course. It was almost a giddy feeling to right some wrongs and to allow true love to finally conquer all. So swept away in the idea of once again being able to stare into fathomless blue eyes had Buffy stepping almost blindly over the loophole that he may not have ended up at peace, and instead was watching his step at a too hot and fiery place.

It was day three, and the house looked like fifteen famished Xanders had hit it in a rush. Buffy held back the groan wanting to escape as she took in the mess, but as soon as Willow said ‘uhuh’ thoughtfully, it was all forgotten. On that triumphant day, Willow found the spell to locate Spike, and by that night they were ready to sit down and try it. No fuss, no pressure, just Buffy tapping her foot for every second that Willow prepared. She literally growled at Andrew as he entered with his oven-gloved offering of celebratory cookies—most likely in an effort to divert attention away from the possible bad results of the spell.

It was hardly a road bump in the anticipation.

Buffy felt sickness swirl in her stomach as Willow lit candles, chanting as Dawn waved incense and waited for the one moment that Buffy dreaded. The white milked through her eyes as Willow settled into a trance, and Buffy tried to push the pain and agony of nerves away, concentrating on finding out that Spike hopefully wasn’t swanning happily around in Heaven. She found the guilt of hoping Spike hadn’t been judged deserving of the place of eternal rest was slowly lessening—even if it was selfishness that had spurred on the feeling.

She was kind of disappointed not to see some kind of map that plotted out Heaven and Hell in easy colours, printed for ease of viewing. There seemed to be nothing that would show the onlookers the information Willow would learn, and that just added to the nervousness as Buffy clutched her hands to her chest, stared at her zenned out friend with her heart and nerves shining from her eyes.

Buffy wasn’t even going to pretend she understood the phrases Willow used, nor the other elements of the spell. It had been explained, but while the ideas got complicated Buffy just concentrated on Dawn and Andrew’s understanding nods and felt secure that her sister wasn’t objecting. Dawn showed a knack for the study of demons and this crazy secret intellectual world they lived in while Buffy just wanted to go and beat the crap out of the bad guys. Or demons, because she wasn’t really the Slayer of Human Bad Guys. Not that that reversal sometimes wouldn’t be such a bad thing!

An explosion of sparkles and smoke had Buffy jumping to her feet and racing to a spluttering, possibly choking Willow. The overcome witch waved her hand in front of her face, trying frantically to disperse the smoke that made her breathing difficult. “Don’t panic.” Cough. “I’m completely fine.” Cough, cough.

Buffy finally got to her friend through the billowing cloud only to find tears streaming down the pale cheeks and the girl beginning to choke out giggles from her raw throat. A powerful cough interrupted the slight hysteria and Buffy dragged her up off the floor, a concerned look fighting with her impatience to hear the results.

The two girls stepped clear of the smoky confusion and Willow stumbled to the couch. Flopping down, she looked at her audience as she attempted to come down from the high that magic almost always induced in her.

“Well,” she began, then stalled as she chose the best way to say it. Because like it or not, knowing Spike was in Heaven would have been super reassuring and yet the possibility of Hell made this whole enterprise far more interesting and free of the guiltage, and the babble in her head was just as ludicrous as it was out loud.

Buffy stared at her friend hard, her fist curling and preparing to exact an answer any way she saw fit if Willow wanted to continue playing the mute routine. She looked away from the wide eyes that showed that Willow had guessed her desperation, and then the words she’d longed to hear spilled forth.

“He’s not there,” the witch stated solidly. Authoritatively.

Buffy felt the mass of tension exit her body in a terrifying rush and suddenly felt extremely weak at the knees. He wasn’t in Heaven, or any dimension that could be mistaken for the peaceful realm. Voice shaking, body vibrating with the need to move swiftly toward the next step, Buffy implored Willow to elaborate.

“So he’s been in Hell all this time, then?” She was hardly looking for the answer, in her mind being more than rhetorical, so was almost knocked metaphorically on her not-so-padded ass when Willow answered in confused negative.

“Ah, apparently not so much.”

The gasp was almost torn from her throat and Buffy felt such a painful contraction of her heart that the small amount of strength she’d retained gave out and she finally slumped to the floor.

“You mean, he doesn’t exist at all? That the amulet sucked him into nothing? That’s just so wrong.” Dawn voiced what Buffy had been thinking yet without the hysteria the Slayer had felt was about to explode from her body. But still, the sadness in her voice was overwhelming.

“Wrong, yet sadly accurate,” Willow admitted with a frown. “It doesn’t seem quite possible, but I swear I sent the call out to every dimension but ours and he’s nowhere to be found. I’m so sorry, Buffy. B-but I guess it makes our mission a bit easier?”

Buffy snorted at that. Easier? Oh completely, if you found making a vampire return from nothing but thin air a simple act. But then again, maybe Willow did think that. Maybe she could handle anything, and why was she still doubting that? Willow had achieved some pretty amazing feats in her time—mystical engagements between enemies, re-ensouling vampires, enacting the end of the earth and lets not forget the believing in the crayon story so as to unenact it. If that was even the opposite of what she’d done. Releasing an ancient power so that it called every single potential into their birthright was an act that still boggled Buffy’s mind, despite her taking advantage of the result to have more than an occasional early night.

“Can you do it?” There was no doubt that Buffy knew that Willow knew what she was asking, and Andrew and Dawn’s eager looks at the witch just confirmed they were all on the same page.

There was the trademark Willow look of indecision and lack of confidence before the cover of empowered witch fell into place and she nodded. Buffy didn’t want to know the mechanics of it, didn’t care for the explanation as to how it was possible despite Spike apparently not even existing anymore—and what happened to his soul? Buffy nodded unknowingly then excused herself.

Turning her back and rushing, not walking to her room, tears burned her cheeks and throat as she contemplated a lost soul, not deemed important enough to remain in existence though it was fought hard for and won heroically. That hurt a whole lot more than Buffy would have ever expected, but like the parts of herself she’d lost when she was torn out of Heaven, like little sacks of baggage checked in and lost between boarding and disembarking, the loss of Spike’s soul was devastating. He’d won it because of her—for her, and she considered it her gift. The greatest gift anyone had given her besides life, and she wanted it back. It was beyond wrong that it could have been blinked out of existence along with her town and along with a hero.

It proved that justice was blind.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Dawn giggled as she flirted with the security guard. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the disappearing swish of Andrew’s appropriated leather-jacketed style, and counted down the minutes till she could crow in his face of her success.

Kicking herself for her momentary lapse in attention, Dawn turned mega-wattage back on the hunky Italian and couldn’t resist the urge that had her reaching out and squeezing a very swollen looking bicep.

“So, you look like you work out.” She was awed without doubt; muscles like this didn’t grow on just any man, and she had enough teenage years behind her now to know major salty goodness when her sister let her out of the house long enough to use her eyes. As said hunky male began chattering to her in husky chauvinistic Italian phrases that Dawn totally wished still went over her head, she thanked her lucky stars that Buffy was so consumed with the missing Spike misery that she allowed some free time for Dawn to get a taste of the Roman nightlife.

Running a hand up and over his very firm chest and shoulders, Dawn could feel the drool slip out of her mouth and hoped this guy would see it for the compliment it truly was. Very slowly she moved, thanking her natural gift of flirting for getting this guy to turn his back, enthusiastically taking his business card with his phone number on it just as Buffy clocked him over the head. He hit the ground with an awkward thump, yet all Dawn could do was bounce excitedly, flash her success at her sister, and tear around the corner to brag to Andrew.

She didn’t even slow at the unconscious body on the ground, just waved the card around squealing—quietly of course, because covert was the objective of the night—and jumping in Andrew’s face. “I so win.”

Andrew looked way too confident for a geek with sci-fi separation issues. “Guess whose contact was gay? I have a date for Friday night.” His smirk rivalled those of the best, and the best, as they all knew, was Spike.

“No way,” Dawn spluttered, stomping her foot and looking at Willow for confirmation.

“Sorry Dawnie, it’s definitely way.” The redhead giggled, already picturing the photo opportunities of this bet.

Buffy caught up to the group and looked at Dawn in amusement. “Sucks to be you, little sister.” She dragged the beefy security guard into the shadows like he was nothing but a sack of potatoes and headed into the building.

“I get to choose your underwear,” Andrew taunted and scuttled away as Dawn aimed a baleful glare his way.

“You little creep. You’re not even gay, are you! I am so not cleaning your room in my underwear, you perv!”

“Ah, but my little Dawn, you made the bargain and thus must stick to the rules of the game lest you lose all credibility.”

She looked a little uncertain, but conceded grumpily. Making bets and winning was more fun than she usually had to look forward to, thanks to Buffy’s overly strict Friday night routine. Although being forced to watch crap Italian shows had helped her learn the language so much faster. If she didn’t go along with this hideous loss, she may never have the opportunity to humiliate Andrew ever again, and that would be a loss sorely missed.

“Fine, but if you even try to choose a g-string, I’ll pour bleach all over your new nerdy watcher-wannabe wardrobe.”

Buffy had left their squabbling behind as she walked closer to the spot. She didn’t need to have magic oozing from her fingertips to see why this was the best place to make her dreams a reality. The Pantheon demanded awe and Buffy felt so drained of spirit and essence that just standing in this place that offered her hope renewed her in ways she’d never expected.

It had taken a week to get to this point. A week of endless fear and emotional exhaustion, broken occasionally by Andrew and his hilarious attempts to be helpful. Endless study had Willow discovering the most amazing things. A flawless crystal created by none other than Leonardo da Vinci—and sarcastic cracks about her momentary confusion as to why Leo off the Titanic would waste his time on something that didn’t make him look pretty were really unacceptable. Willow deemed this priceless piece to be essential to her spell—the one she hadn’t even found yet, and whoo boy was the recovery of that a doozy that would have made Giles totally wig if he knew anything about it.

Buffy knew it was one of those moments that she’d share with Spike—once he’d been resurrected and they’d taken care of the nose breaking to force him to believe her loving declarations—and they’d laugh heartily over it before making love for days.

Willow hadn’t shared much information about the crystal, and Buffy had the feeling it was because she’d decided to hold as much of the guilt for what they’d planned to do from Buffy as possible. Not that she couldn’t have taken it, but the evidence of her continuing grief was still more than plain to anyone who took the time to look. It would only take having Spike back in her arms for Buffy to let go of the depression that was swelling around her. She barely smiled, hardly letting her lips quirk when Andrew had walked back into their apartment, holding out the crystal respectfully to Willow while everyone stared at him in dumbfounded approval. No amount of imploring would have him tell how he did it, though; he had just tapped his nose to indicate it was a secret while the left side of his face twitched. He turned to head to his room, his walk jerky as smoke billowed out from under the flapping of his coat and his knees appearing all rickety. His mumbled platitudes to Spike were seriously wigworthy, but the girls let it go, allowing his strange hero worship while it so far worked to their advantage.

The spell was discovered—of all places—to be residing in the Vatican. The words that would save her vampire were located under lock and key of the earthly agents of God. If Buffy wasn’t so frantic with worry that things would go without a hitch, she might have been laughing her ass off at the irony. The recovery of that was a secret too, but Willow at least went along with Andrew on that mission. Buffy and Dawn had spent several hours swallowing their urge to laugh hysterically when the pair returned with a weathered and ancient book under a protective arm, yet with hair electrified and standing on end. Willow’s almost scared expression and frantic hissing every time they looked about to open their mouths to ask the inevitable was enough for them to have mercy and drop it. That and the several threats to forget all about the spell if they even dared to inquire what had happened.

And all of it had led them here, to the moment that Buffy couldn’t hide from and the one that would give her back the chance of which she’d been cheated. While she stood in the centre and peered up to the endless blackness of the sky through the circular opening at the apex of the dome, she felt the balling up of fear in her belly.

What if this was wrong? What if Willow had read the cosmos wrong and Spike really was out there somewhere happy, loved and warm in a way that only being truly finished could make him? Spontaneous shivers struck her and Buffy tried to hug her cold body back into the warmth of the night. All week she’d blocked out the doubts, refusing to remember all the spells that had gone wildly wrong in Willow’s early days. She had control now; she had respect for nature and the elements that gave her her power. It was the least Buffy could do to believe in her skill. Especially as the witch was only doing it to benefit her.

It was too late for second thoughts now. Buffy could feel the power thrumming through the air even as she stood quietly by and watched Willow, Dawn and Andrew set the scene around her, somehow feeling it all so close to hand but barely registering the slight interference with her surroundings. The night changed around them, though Buffy was willing to bet that only she noticed it. She was so still she could hear the soft buzz of insects flying by, or the loudness of the silence the others were abruptly interrupting as they dragged huge ormalu candelabras into an inner circle for light, the metallic scrape of the bases over ancient marble floors almost deafening. But it was too distant to make Buffy feel more than a little uncomfortable. She was focused on what was to happen, how she’d greet Spike when he flashed back into her life.

Buffy was forced out of her meditative state as Andrew bumped into her and nearly sent her to her knees under the heavy candelabra he’d been struggling backwards to place under the oculus.

“Whoa, watch where you’re standing, Buffy. We’re trying to raise the undead dead here!” Dawn jumped in before Buffy had the chance to pummel Andrew for helping to return her undead lover, even if he was clumsy and more likely to stumble into the spell and return them the mother of Frankenstein than Spike. “And I know I haven’t mentioned it before, but as soon as you get Bleached and Repentant back I’ll be staying at a hotel with Willow and Andrew. Last thing my young ears need is to be corrupted with the moaning and groaning of you two.”

Buffy snapped her mouth shut before she gave into the temptation to yell at anyone and losing her support for this entire act. She felt so jittery now, nervous and wondered what it could mean. It didn’t feel like what she would have expected to be getting her dream back. It was almost like a warning and as strong as it was becoming, Buffy was fighting it off even more.

“What was with doing this in a church again?” Buffy nibbled at her lips, feeling a creeping itch start to abuse her skin. The urge to scratch and hum and then cry was getting more and more powerful the closer Willow was to being fully set up.

“Well, we picked it for more than its churchy origins,” Willow explained patiently. “Before this place was even built, the site was rich in pagan rites, for all the old gods Greek and otherwise, hence the Pantheon nameage. Then the nature of the building itself—really, really old.” She held out a hand as if to show the weight of the point, then lifted her other in a scale of comparison. “Spike, also of the really old. And the religious aspect is totally of the good. I know you think it’s a contradiction to raise the undead on sanctified soil, but really, Buffy, it’s completely perfect. If the Powers truly object to us bringing Spike back over—” She paused at the look of horror that took over Buffy’s face, “—then they won’t approve the spell. I’m so sorry, but we need this. Need someone to be able to make that final decision. I couldn’t find him, Buffy. I’m pretty sure that means he doesn’t exist out there, but just in case he does and the Powers don’t want him moved, they have the authority here to stop me going too far.”

Even though that was what Buffy wanted—to not give into the desire to be selfish and bring him over at all costs—Willow putting the possibility of failure into words made her freeze. She felt her blood turn to ice and infuse her body with a damning cold she feared she would never lose. This was how Spike must have felt all the time—totally dead inside but still moving and thinking and parodying life. She had no more words for Willow, finding the need to preserve her energy a more serious consideration as she felt her knees go weak and her body shudder.

With the new boost of light from the freshly lit candles, Buffy looked up and so wished she hadn’t. It was there in the curve of the dome, the omen she really didn’t want to acknowledge. Heaven, and in that second Buffy knew it would all go wrong. Tears gathered and spilled over and down her cheeks while in front of her Willow poured her thrice blessed sand in a perfect circle before taking her place in its centre.

Wiggling her butt till she was comfy on the cold marble floor, Willow then took out from a black silk bag a crystal the size of a small egg, placing it carefully, reverently in the middle of a larger circle of blemish free quartz crystals.

Peering out at Buffy under her lashes, she swiftly brought out a dark glass beer bottle and sat it so that it touched the central crystal from which all the power from her casting would be directed.

“What the hell is that? Are we conjuring Spike from the beer drinking dimension?” Buffy stared at the bottle with a mixed look of confusion and appalled curiosity.

Willow blushed, obviously wanting to delay this conversation, but Buffy was insistent, needing something, anything to distract her from the sense of badness that this was all going to blow up in her face.

“I, ah, kinda needed something of Spike’s to channel the energy and locate some kind of signature that he would have left behind. Dawnie said that you didn’t have anything, that it was one of the things that…which I get, I truly do. I lost everything I had of Tara too, and really we’re so lucky to have this—”

“Willow, where did the bottle come from?” She’d surpassed curious now and was getting a nasty feeling that someone might have gone past certain boundaries.

“A-Andrew had it.”

Dawn flinched as Buffy turned incredulous eyes upon her housemate and quirked a brow.

“Wanna let me in on why you were carrying one of Spike’s beer bottles to the final fight, Andrew?”

He looked scared, his eyes wide as he stared at Buffy.

“No,” he squeaked and Buffy decided it was just better to let it go with a shrug. She really didn’t want to know. It could only be horrifying or disgusting, and now was so not the time to learn about more of Andrew’s disturbing little habits.

It was time to kick it up a notch and Buffy gasped as the wicks of seven pure, thick beeswax candles burst into flame around the sand circle, burning brighter than an ordinary candle would under a natural force. It was a good reminder of how serious this was, of how totally out of her realm it was, and Buffy felt that warning buzz again that she was at Willow’s mercy to get this right. Buffy knew she could trust Willow—the search for Spike had been absolute and he was nowhere. He wasn’t in Heaven and he wasn’t in Hell, and it was criminal that a man—a vampire like Spike could save the world and end up nowhere. That was no reward, no payment for sacrificing his existence. These thoughts helped to add strength to her waning belief, and with a straighter back, Buffy peered into the bright shimmering light and said a quiet prayer of thanks to the Gods for so far not shutting them down. Then another to ask they allow him through.

And then it was show time, and Buffy wondered at the brittle grasp she had on the situation as Willow called upon masters of otherworld power, and implored them to do her will.

Almost before her lips had even parted, the swirling sky parted and settled above the eye of God staring down upon them. Before Buffy could breathe in, she felt a rush of adrenaline almost manifest in the room as heavy winds began to circle them and then rushing their bodies with a force that almost knocked them over. The questions Buffy had held away from her, the ones she’d really not wanted answers to was hitting her hard now, the guilt slapping at her face while tears came faster and wind battered her to her knees. It screamed, speeding from the sky through the eye until it took them over, made Willow’s hair fly wildly around her head and trying to force her focus off the spell she’d positioned in front of her.

Each of the clear quartz crystals lit internally, shedding even more light on the event than Buffy ever felt was needed, though it still remained mostly dim. Until the main rock acted like the Spike’s fatal amulet and conducted lightning and blinding light to its thrumming centre before shooting it straight through the dome, clashing with the already lively night. The burning in her eyes was severe and Buffy finally buckled under the combined forces, falling to her knees and moaning for it to end. Pain ricocheted within her skull and Buffy only just heard the cracked voice of her friend calling out to Pluto, not quite demanding he release the dead as she struggled back to her feet.

Asking for such a gift required sacrifice; Buffy had expected that. And being the longest lived Slayer she’d thought herself capable of withstanding the most obscene amount of pain. But not this—not knives that sliced her heart from inside her chest and then stabbed it a hundred times before squeezing the vestiges of life from it in a full and angry fist. Somewhere distant she could hear her own scream and wondered objectively if she was being a bit of a coward, even as a crowd of furious spirits combined to thrash her alive.

“Minerva, take our sacrifice and renew our wish to return the wise. Let us recover the one taken; Pluto, release William the Bloody into our loving arms and let this suffering of the one who loves him be at an end.”

Lightning arced through the sky and into the room straight down from the hole in the dome, striking the glowing crystal with a momentum that made it explode spectacularly, sending the shattered shards to all quarters of the room. The force pushed a barrier of resistance against them and they were knocked off their feet—except for Willow who had already been sitting. A final scream as the promised pain was delivered unerringly throughout Buffy’s body and the jagged light slammed around the room, joining the candelabras in a circle of mystical electrical energy.

All around them was angry, howling winds, jerking lightshows mere centimetres from their bodies, and then a roar of fury erupted through the night—through Willow’s well thought out incantation. The witch dropped to the floor in a dead faint, vulnerable to the fury that appeared next to her in the sacred circle. Buffy clashed eyes with a stranger and a scream was torn from her throat. He skipped over her friend, focused briefly on Dawn and Andrew, then licked his lips before looking over her body suggestively.

And then he pounced, his minor disorientation just enough to make this first attack falter, despite Buffy’s distress. Who was this? It wasn’t Spike, couldn’t be Spike, yet the face was familiar and the eyes belonged only to a man who’d loved with his whole self.

This one wanted to kill her and with his rebound attack, Buffy ducked his fists before shouldering into his belly and running him to the wall with fierce intent. Her hand circled his throat, and in the split second she had to observe the vampire face displayed just for her, Buffy could admit that it was him before slamming his head back into the wall and stepping back from his slumped unconscious form.

It was Spike.

He’d just come back wrong.

The shaking had started as soon as Buffy let the final chain drop to the floor, her energy diving with it as she slumped back against the wall. Her horrified eyes hadn't once left the vampire that was now restrained with chains bolted to the floor and reclining on her bed. Every cell of her body was screaming—she had never felt so scared in her life.

She'd apparently gotten what she'd wished for—and hadn't she learned that lesson the last time everything went to hell? Wishes were bad. She should have been happy that Spike had found his niche at the end and let him. But noooo, not Buffy. Buffy couldn't cope with losing another man she'd given her heart to—particularly as he'd not believed she'd actually done it.

The cold seemed so much frostier now that what they'd planned had resulted in a massive booboo. Admittedly with the wild and wavy light brown hair and the little tie to keep it back, plus the fresh jagged cut in his brow, it was a rather sexy accident. But still, as much as this apparently was Spike—and a really frighteningly evil Spike—it wasn't her Spike, and for the first time, Buffy appreciated his metamorphosis.

There were clues here—she just wasn't putting them together yet. The clothes—okay, as canny with the styles of the day as she might be, she was no fashion major. The hair style and clothes only told her he was a long way from his time—but she didn't know how far back. Was he freshly turned, or old? Was he still a fledgling or had he achieved the title of master? While she studied his face, Buffy had a niggling memory of when he'd received that scar on his brow and watched now as fresh blood dribbled from the newly opened wound to slide across his forehead and down to the pillow.

Memory finally kicked in and Buffy felt the drop in her gut as realisation made this situation seem suddenly so much worse. Oh God, he was fresh from killing one of her sisters-in-arms and she'd brought him straight into the bedroom of another slayer. The knowledge set her heart thundering and her blood racing through her body in panic. This was not going to be a warm homecoming, full of love and tears and happy kisses. If he was loose she had no doubt this would be a fight for her life, as well as her sanity.

Discovering he was awake and staring at her neck hungrily made her feel sick. Made her stomach turn, and then clench violently in guilt. She'd done this. This was her fault. She'd brought an unchipped, not-so-charmingly evil Spike to her world and there was no telling what effects such an event could have on it.

Moaning cries of devastation were slamming hard at her throat for release and Buffy felt the overwhelming grief hit her again and this time felt no way of holding it back. He chuckled in high amusement as she lost the fight to control herself and began sobbing while sitting on her floor. The door peeped open and Dawn came in, fear holding her stiff as she edged closer to Buffy, her eyes never leaving a suddenly furious Spike...William as he jerked powerfully at the chains.

His intent was clear as he took in the newcomer. She smelled more the same of the Slayer than most little sisters did, and that intrigued him—but not enough for him to want to keep her alive. Her blood would tell as many stories if she was kept alive or drained dry. It could be kind of interesting to see what parts of a sibling clung to the essence of the girl that made a slayer. Angelus had told him they always walked alone, distantly at the side of the crusty old gits that trained and led them to their end. This sister could be revolutionary, not to mention tasty.

The power of his first still zinged through his veins, keeping him high and charged as he faced this situation that defied understanding. He lived in a world that was the underbelly of reality, and yet he couldn't, for the life of him, find one example in his own world that explained where he was, why he was here, and why he'd been summoned to another slayer so soon at all. And one that apparently drowned herself in every fruit and flower known to man.

It hit him like Angelus's fist to the head. He couldn't sense his sire, couldn't feel the security of his family close by. Whoever this girl was—sobbing uselessly on the floor—she'd taken him from his love, from his kin, and for that he was going to make sure this room was as blood red as it could be before he left it.

"S-Spike?"

His eyes swivelled urgently back to the new girl, the young girl that was so terrified she stunk. She knew his name even though he was dead certain he'd never seen either of them before. His muscles bulged against the chain and he knew it would take a bit of work and he could break it, but he could wait. Might be fun to play. Slayer was obviously not up to any type of dealing with the situation.

"An' how does a pretty girl like you know about a bad man like me?" He eyed her lewdly, eyes roving over her developed shape until shiny blonde hair snagged his attention and he was checking out the Slayer again. His cock throbbed in reaction, still so very much caught in the heady experience of fucking Dru over a corpse in China.

"We k-know you. Don't you remember us?"

The tears in her eyes were really very amusing. He couldn't help but laugh, and laugh more at her flinch and quick scuttle backwards away from him.

"Buffy," she said urgently, shaking her sister while never taking her eyes off HIM, and it made him feel so good. Angelus may claim he was useless, but he struck terror in one that was a slayer's sister. That alone would infuse his blood with pleasure for weeks to come.

He sensed the second the atmosphere changed.

"Dawnie, really not a good idea for you to be in here." The Slayer raised furious but dead eyes and stared him back into humourlessness. Then she stood and the table was flipped, Spike not knowing if he'd been caught to be played with, to be staked at a girl's leisure.

"What's wrong with him, Buffy? Why is he dressed like that and what's wrong with his hair?"

"Oi!" He was bloody offended now. Wasn't like he looked like poncy William, in the stiff shirt and with floppy boy hair. He had style now, he had power and he knew that the aura of strength just dripped from him. He intimidated now, struck fear in even the most fearless of creatures, and he resented this slip of a girl implying that he was still that useless git that couldn't even get one person to take him seriously. Even his old mum had thought him a joke in the end.

"He's not our Spike, Dawnie. Please, just go out and wait with Willow and Andrew. Better yet, go off to that hotel room you mentioned."

The younger girl looked shocked, and not a little disgusted.

"Ewwww," slipped through lips that were turned in distaste. "Do not tell me you're going to do the wild thing with him." She pointed with an unsteady finger.

"What?" Buffy turned to Dawn impatiently. "Of course not. I want you all out of here and safe in case he accidentally breaks free."

"No way. Not leaving you here on your own with him. Willow could do some kind of spell that will stop him from getting free of the chains or something."

Okay, that was really not a part of his plan.

"No bloody way. You keep your mojo dolly far from me, Princess. Always consequences with magic. You might accidentally shorten my dick and trust me, that would be a national tragedy."

He wasn't expecting the smile. It stunned him how beautiful she looked when the tears had dried on her face and she could share a joke. No, not a joke, because losing his willy—not funny at all.

"Yeah, we're all up on the consequences thing. But please! National tragedy? Regional, maybe."

The bloody chit winked at him—and made fun of his cock. The fury at his helplessness welled up in him again and he roared as he snapped and yanked at his chains.

"Outside, Dawn. Now!" She didn't stop to look at Dawn, hopefully trusting her to be afraid enough to leave Buffy to handle this situation of her own making.

The door clicked shut and Buffy took the two steps to the bed and grabbed Spike around the neck, shoving him down and holding him flat to the mattress.

"Okay, one, the Boxer Rebellion look? Really, really sexy. I mean, breathtakingly so. You never ever let me into that little snippet when you were unloading about how you killed that slayer. But the growly thing? Has to stop right now. I'm willing to tell you what's the what, but not if you're just gonna try and snap those chains and kill my sister and friends. The Spike I know definitely would have listened first and made the decision after, so let's try and be like him huh? Besides, I know every one of your moves and you haven't been able to beat me in years. Just give me five minutes of thinking he's back, okay?"

The tears were back in her eyes and it floored him. She spoke like she knew him, knew things about him that he'd apparently told her. So, despite his confusion, he was mighty intrigued. The struggling stopped completely, and once he'd given up the possibility of imminent freedom, he was able to pay attention to her touch. She'd lost the reason to hold him down, now that he was cooperating, but her fingers still rested—though gently now—around his throat. Her thumb was even stroking his flesh, and he was ignoring the twitches that sensation alone was wringing from less in control parts of his body. He was banishing the terrified understanding that she knew more that his past, she knew his body and knew it well.

"You are so right," she continued, finally conceding to what she should have known and accepted all along. "Magic has consequences, and even though you're 'him'—I can see that you are—you're not my 'him' and that's just all kinds of wrong."

He was intrigued despite himself. Oh, he hadn't lost the urge to rip her throat out, but there was a story here and he wanted the gist of it. He was far too curious for his own good.

"What the bleeding hell are you on about?"

Buffy ignored the demand, losing herself in the Spike she'd hoped would come back to her but knowing now how very stupid she had been. But not just her, Willow too. Of course their Spike wasn't going to come back. He was gone, wasn't he? Hadn't Willow's locator spell found that her Spike had been obliterated—soul and all—in the devastation of the Hellmouth? How on earth had they been arrogant enough to think they could bring him back from nothing?

It wasn't all lost, though. At least she had a Spike, and one lying on her bed too.

"The first thing you need to know," she started on a whisper, and suddenly diverted with the pain of losing Spike all over again. "Is that I love you. Whatever you think of me, and no matter how much you hate me for what we've done, remember I did it because I loved you. Love you."

Right, no way was this girl in her right mind. A slayer in love with a vampire—and one that was making it his business to seek slayers out and deprive them of their life—was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

He snarled. "Don't hit me with your barmy bollocks. Save it for the doctors at Bedlam. Tell me what the fuck I'm doing here, then get your arse into gear to send me back."

"W-Willow's working on it," Buffy said, carefully pulling her hand away from his throat but then placing it against the wound on his brow. "You told me how you got this."

He was rigid with waiting. Despite his shock at her confession, and his desperation to believe her completely off her nut, he had a devastating insight that more was going on here than he could understand or easily accept.

"You died," she confided and he felt something shatter.

"Dru?" He had to know, if she was all right. Couldn't give a bugger about the slapper and her john, but his Dru, he'd shrivel up and dust if she was gone. And it was a good way to blank out the disturbing snippets she was releasing with each vindictive curl of her tongue.

"Oh your precious psycho was just fine last time she came to town. I'm sure Angel probably knows where she is, but we'll get you back way before he knows anything about this. Actually, he's never gonna know." The ensuing eye roll was completely unconscious. "That's all I need—him knowing we tried to bring Spike back."

The relief he'd felt to know that Dru was fine wherever he was, was short lived. It suddenly occurred to him that this girl knew his history—his future or parallel life if he'd switched dimensions, and he'd definitely heard of that possibility—and she'd implied that Dru was just dandy without him. As much as he loved her, that hurt. Though it struck a chord with his natural insecurities. How could he doubt that it might happen in the future when he knew that up until his latest kill, he'd been fighting to keep her by his side? There was so much going on, so much being said that he felt like his head was swimming with too much information.

"Just bloody get on with the explanations. You've exhausted me with your cryptic stories."

She smiled again and he felt the ire slip. Her eyes shone when she wasn't burying them in tears and he found himself wondering about the shade and how unique it appeared to be. Such a discovery was the thing of poetry and that reminder was enough to tamp down this betrayal of himself. He wasn't that precious little William anymore. He killed things worthy of pretty verse, not conducted adjectives of expression.

"My Spike died closing the Hellmouth."

He could see how much pain was involved with her saying that, and for that he felt like crowing cruelly—until he realised it was his loss that was hurting her so much. Then he was confused and didn't know what kind of reaction to have. Who to kill to make sure it never happened. How to deny furiously that it wasn't possible that a vamp like him could do what she was claiming, yet knowing that he had a perverse desire to keep the world as it was. If it was under threat, he could well see himself bond with his enemy in order to save it.

"Tough break," he compromised, though straight after felt thoroughly disgusted with himself. He felt his gut turn at her sniffle and then she was holding his hand and he thought he was going to hurl all over the pretty bed covers.

"I waited too long," she told him, snuffly and heartbroken by the way her eyes shone again with seemingly endless tears.

"Right. Well, I'm sure I dusted not so broken up about it. Vampire, after all." He was quite satisfied with that one. As if he'd give a bugger what she'd waited too long for. And if it was what he suspected she was about to lie at his feet, he'd much rather block his ears and sing God Save the Queen. And if that didn't show how desperate he was, nothing would.

The creases in her face as she screwed it tight showed how much his uncaring statement shattered her.

"I can't even call you a bastard, because you're him. But that was just mean and vindictive, and I'd forgotten how exactly like that you were before you—" She looked away and stared into some distant time, rivers of tears dripping from her chin as her body shook with the effort of not breaking down completely. Not in front of this uncomplicated vampire. Right now he was all about the hunt, feed, kill. He was the example of evil that Buffy spent her life eradicating before they made her fellow humans their nightly beverage of choice.

"You change," Buffy persisted, knowing that he'd probably reject the notion, but not really caring at the moment if she caused some kind of vampire meltdown at the knowledge. She felt so devastated that the spell had gone wonky, so raw emotionally and it was both a pleasure and painful to have Spike on her bed—no matter what timeframe he came from. This one hadn't yet been shown how his life could be, hadn't embraced the possibility that he could love anyone but Drusilla. This one didn't love Buffy and wouldn't ever choose to in a pink fit. The circumstances weren't there, and as much as Buffy would love to believe the fairytale—that no matter the time or place, it would take just one look for them to recognise their place beside each other—she couldn't lie to herself. Too many things led to their developing feelings, too much time for Buffy to finally get the picture.

"Well, I don't want to change, so bugger off. Send me back to Dru and I'll forget you ever did this to me."

Buffy looked up at him and the misery was laid bare. "I can't. Not yet. Willow's working on it."

"Right, so that means you'll send me back eventually though, right?" His tone was so hopeful, so eager to return to his Dru that Buffy felt the sudden urge to stake him.

"Your sick obsession with her is just so wrong." It made her feel every shade of ill and Buffy had to move away.

""Why? Because I'm not slobbering all over you? Who bloody would? What did your last lap dog die of?"

There was no hiding the shattering effects of his words, but she managed to stand and step away, her eyes hard and filled with hate.

"Oh, he died saving the world like a true champion. He burned up and took out the Hellmouth with him. I guess it was stupid of me to think—" She wasn't going there. This wasn't her Spike, and that was that.

Just inside of the door, she stopped. He was looking at her, his eyes amber and fangs dripping hungrily.

Buffy didn't even blink.

"You have a choice. I don't know how long you'll be around, but it took us over a week to work out the spell that brought you here in the first place. You might want to consider altering your diet so you can be relatively free. 'Cause snacky on the necky? So not moving from that bed. Like I said, your choice. Oh, and you might want to go by something other than Spike, or William, because right now? I feel like punching you or staking you every time you open your mouth. My Spike was a hero and you're doing nothing but destroying all his hard work. I won't have it. Consider going by something else."

By the time his brain caught up to what she was saying, the door had clicked shut and he was left alone.

He braced himself for one brutal tug on his chains when she yelled back through the door. "Oh, and Willow has enchanted the chains. You're not going anywhere."

He roared as he yanked and pulled at the metal, not even seeing any weakened give in the links. In a burst of fury, he kicked the crap out of whatever he could reach. By the time he calmed down, hardly anything was left untouched or intact.

Violence always made him feel good.

Chapter 4
“Really, Buffy. How could you have done something so…” Giles struggled for the words and finally gave in to an explosion of temper. “Bloody selfish?”

“Yeah, Buffy,” taunted the object of their not-so-civilised argument; Buffy’s badly thought out plan and loud mouthed pain-in-her-ass consequence. “How could you?”

Buffy stared at him, the impostor—except he really wasn’t---and almost snarled. He was Spike, just a hundred years before his more favourable evolvement.

“Would I still be selfish if I just poked you in the heart a teeny little bit with my big stake?” she asked, making sure that her brand new extra voluminous mascara was getting maximum workout while her hand sans weapon pumped the air obscenely.

Spike stared at her shiny lips and licked his own, tilting his head to the side as he looked her up and down and then slid his own hand down to cup the bulge that always took him by surprise as soon as she opened her mouth and got narky. “Depriving yourself of a real man, Slayer?” he leered. “Some would call that selfless. Me? I’d just call that bloody stupid. Besides, you couldn’t do it. Not when I wear the face of your nauseating little sweetie bear.”

Buffy visibly wilted, the eyelash batting dropping several notches as all the fight went out of her. An irritated cough reminded her none too gently that she and BR Spike weren’t the only ones in the room—BR because she’d correctly identified him with that scar and the drool worthy locks as the obscenely evil Spike that had just killed his first slayer during the Boxer Rebellion. And she was being chastised for causing a dilemma in the ranks that everyone seemed to want to blame her for. Okay, so it was kinda her fault, but it wasn’t like she managed it totally on her own. Willow had helped. In fact, Willow had done the whole freaking spell. Buffy had just held back with arms that ached to right a wrong that so apparently wasn’t going to happen now.

The tears were not quite a surprise—at least not to her. The empty chasm that was her heart was, and staring at the vampire that was supposed to love her but really really didn’t, didn’t help.

Ever since he’d appeared, she’d felt the life drain out of her. Not in small dietary supplements, or a free tap to her neck, but figuratively losing her grip without Spike there to make her grasp strong.

“A-And to go around calling yourself The Immortal,” Giles continued, his initial disgust morphing into something close to admiration. “That’s just…bloody brilliant actually, but I’m not going to admit that to the Council. Seems like it’s made the real Immortal rather irritated and he’s making a few slip-ups. I have Slayer Division Six tagging him now. It’s really rather flushed him out. Well done, Spike. The Council has been concerned about his influence for centuries.”

“Right. Well, that was my last bleeding intention—to help out your Council of Wankers.” His eyes flashed before bunkering down again as Buffy loomed threateningly over him.

“Ah, a distinct impossibility actually. The Council is now made up largely of women. It turned out that many of the wives of our operatives—those that were killed last year—knew as much about the operation as their husbands. Apparently once in, the Council becomes their lives. It’s been rather handy in the reformation.” Giles stopped, smiling quite confidently as he gave into his compulsive urge to scratch at his glasses with his regulation hanky.

What was left to do but sulk? Spike, aka The Immortal, slumped back in the easy chair and began to fiddle with the neckline of his new top the Slayer had bought him. It was a rather startling shade of midnight blue and he was really not getting fonder of it like she’d claimed he would. The focus had switched back to Buffy, however, and that was all the entertainment he needed.

“Buffy, I am so disappointed in you and Willow. What exactly had you hoped to achieve by doing this?” Giles had tucked his hanky back into his pocket and replaced his glasses upon his nose, his smile turning upside-down as he thought of the one vampire in the entire world he’d thought himself rid of. He knew it was unfair prejudice that made him feel that way—knew it was more than likely the guilt he was feeling was for not believing Buffy was right all along in supporting Spike. If he had the vampire back he’d be forced to apologise, and he just didn’t think there could ever be the right words to take back something like an attempted dusting.

“What did I hope to achieve?” Buffy’s voice was wobbly. She was so tired of this perpetual ache in her throat and this expectation that she’d not known what she had been asking Willow to do for her. Yes, she’d been entirely selfish. But when had she ever been? When had she ever put her own feelings first and fought for what she needed to get through the day? When had she allowed herself to be first in her fight to save everyone else? Just how much and for how long was she meant to sacrifice herself and her own happiness? This had been her time and she had so much that she wanted to take back, to make sure she got to say and force certain undead people to believe, that she really didn’t care how disappointed Giles was in her.

“What I hoped, Giles, was to bring Spike back. I was going to tell him how very much I love him, how much I need his support and just his existence to drag me through each day. And then I was hoping to show him through lots of hot naked sex that he is the one thing in this world I will die before losing again. Selfish? You betcha. And if you think I’m going to apologise for that, you’ve got space demons in your head.” She ignored the snort and derisively curled lip of sandy-haired Spike, catching instead the confused look on Giles’s face and feeling a blush rise on her cheeks at how much Andrew was influencing her thought metaphors now.

He continued to look at her oddly, enlightenment not coming until she whispered ‘Andrew’ in embarrassment.

“Right, of course. I-I don’t really expect you to a-apologise for how you feel, Buffy. I just wish you had consulted me on this beforehand. I—” He cringed before snagging his glasses from his face and holding them aloft, making it easy to avoid Buffy’s eyes while he continued the lie. “I might have been able to help.”

Buffy scoffed, her very audible ‘pffft’ causing the barely restrained ‘Immortal’ to hold himself together. He was highly entertained by how these creatures danced around each other, ignored each other’s feelings and it was bloody comical how this slayer loved a vicious vampire and her watcher wanted to belt her sane because of it.

“Shut. Up!” Buffy shouted at him, advancing menacingly until he’d sat up a bit straighter and tried to hold the laughter in.

“Right, chit’s a bit tetchy on the topic,” he confided in the Watcher with an insincere wink. Then he turned back to Buffy, his eyes lingering hungrily on her barely restrained breasts. He could seriously get to love the clothing women adorned themselves with in this timeline. “How ‘bout you and I go out on the town, luv. Go dancin’ maybe? Have some fun. Don’t rightly guess you’ve been having much of that lately.” He’d sounded almost concerned, and it was a little trick he’d clung to over the years, knowing it came in handy to reel the bait in before he sank his fangs into vibrating lively flesh. If the bint was going to hold back a good hot meal, the least he could do was take her out and torture her with the lack of being her precious Spike.

Though not being wanted in favour of his souled and wimpy alter-ego truly pissed him off. Even more than seeing Angelus lose himself between Dru’s widely parted legs.

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” she pouted grumpily, but the expression changed and he saw the quick veiling of pain. That just really rubbed him the wrong way, and if his cock was going to swell one more time when he thought of rubbing against her enemy flesh, he could very well do damage to it. Unless…

“You’re a right frustrating little bitch, you are. You know what? You wanted Spike, you got Spike. Go put on whatever you bints call seductive in this time and let’s go. I’m dying for a neck shake and if you’re not there to take care of me, I might not be able to stop at just one.”

That angry flash of temper in her eyes was a bloody turn on, and the threat of violence was always going to have control over his libido. Besides, he’d just killed a slayer. What could be better than luring one into bed and fucking her breathless? At least she wasn’t ugly. Not that the dead one was either, but the chosen bints did nothing for him. Nothing except get the blood roaring in his ears. Maybe the constant crying about how he wasn’t ‘her’ Spike was beginning to get to him. If using his cock would shut her up then he could see all kinds of rewards.

“I did NOT get my Spike,” she refuted violently. “I got some try hard wannabe that is using the name of some enemy that managed to get Dru into bed. And while we’re on that: newsflash, so not of the hard to achieve. That skank jumps into bed with anything that has the right shaped protrusion.”

Fangs burst out and his face almost erupted with bumpies and the insane urge to attempt to decimate the slayer in a room full of weapons.

“Okay, okay, so that was low. What I really meant was, they don’t even have to be the right shape. As long as they can screw Dru into the ground—and ooh, I made a rhyme—she’s Mrs. Happy Demon. You should be pleased for her that her tastes are so simple.”

He went for her throat. One minute he was panting heavily with repressed fury, hate contorting his demon face, and the next he’d lost all sense of control and had roared his hatred as his hands closed around her neck.

“Buffy!” Giles shouted as the pair slammed into the far wall away from his desk. A portrait of his dearly departed mother cracked down the centre as it hit the floor, glass tinkling as it left the antique frame. “Buffy, you’re destroying my office.”

Buffy ignored him and laughed manically, kicking Spike in the balls and then kneeing him in the face.

“OUCH!! You just bit my knee!”

“You bloody deserve it, bitch. Teach you to kick a vamp when he’s got his fangs out,” he gasped between protective squeezes of his balls and wild swings for her head. “Stay bloody still so I can kill you good.”

“Awwww, is the wittle master vampy needing the big bad slayer to go slow so he can get a hit in?” Buffy ducked as a chair came flying at her. It sailed over her head, embedding in the office wall and to the echo of Giles screaming in fits of pique.

“Stop acting like spoilt children,” he shouted, his normal control slipping badly as he made to grab up every valuable piece he’d stupidly brought to this Roman branch of the new Council.

“Fuck off, pops,” came the snarled reply and Giles dove under the desk with his collection as fists, bodies and cheap decorator items spun and flew around the room.

“Look, face it, fang face. Things are sooo much better for you when you dump that deranged whore. She doesn’t miss you even the littlest bit.”

The lights suddenly went out as Spike tested his new status and ploughed Buffy bodily into the wall, shorting all the electricals in the building and plunging them into uncomfortable darkness.

While the muted thudding continued, Giles tried to get comfortable under the desk and contemplated how wrong he might have been to keep Spike’s return a secret from Buffy. Definitely two of the buggers in this dimension was a bit much to take. And truth be told, he preferred the other one. Not that the blood still almost figuratively dripping from this one’s fangs didn’t put him a little off the creature.

Though posing as the much wanted Immortal was almost doing a civil service.

One final thump and everything went deathly still.

Giles, for all the bad he’d suspected of Spike in the past, had gone beyond the expectation that he was biding his time to kill Buffy. As much soul searching as he’d done since the collapse of Sunnydale, he felt he’d grown enough to admit that the glistening emotion that was hardly ever absent in the vampire’s eyes as he’d gazed at Buffy wasn’t the malice he’d wanted it to be. He rather thought it was indeed the love that the vampire had claimed to feel for so long—and he could only admire Buffy for not only recognising the truth of it and using it to her advantage, but also in her tenacity to let go of all her friend’s prejudices and reclaim the man she’d loved so deeply in return.

He’d been a fool. A blind, damaged fool that had taken the example of Angelus and let it sour every experience for him. As a watcher—being trained to take notes as his life would consistently persist with the unexpected—he should have known that one souled vampire would not necessarily be the same as a second. And being that Angel and Spike had never shared one single similarity, he’d been beyond stupid to persist in believing that a vampire like Spike, showing such strength of regard for far longer than his fateful decision to court Buffy in the most darkest way possible, would ever degrade into such an evil creature.

Buffy had shown how very much wiser she was than all of them.

Giles located a torch in his drawer and made a hesitant effort to see why the silence was so still. Crawling out slowly, his limbs feeling the cramp all the way down to his aged calf muscles and knees, he found them. A clone-like Spike but with longer, more naturally coloured hair was passed out on top of his slayer, and Giles felt a tickle of humour twist at the edge of his lips. Buffy’s hands were now loosely caught in the wild curls while fangless vampire lips rested against her throat. Never in his wildest dreams had Giles thought such a sight could be amusing to him, but they looked so much like children who had suddenly fallen asleep during a playful tussle that he was unable to help himself.

Looking intently at her face, Giles could now see the lines that sadness and grief had hopefully not made permanent. He could have prevented this. She could have all these weeks been frolicking naked—right, he wouldn’t think exactly what she could have been doing as that image was disturbing enough to have him stabbing at his glasses to combat the embarrassment.

Pain-filled moans began to drift from the pair and Giles saw it as a cue to leave. He’d need to find another office—with electricity—so he could make a collect call to LA. No point in running up his phone bill when Angel had the coffers of evil at his fingertips. Giles wouldn’t have trouble at all making a bet that their finances were a lot more infinite than his. And besides…Spike!

Before things could be said or begun that he’d really rather not have to hear, he left.

It was time he made peace with a vampire.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy awoke to what felt like a brick wall compressing her diaphragm and blood definitely dripping into her hair.

She hadn’t felt so exhilarated in months.

“Hey,” she prodded, her quick upward hip thrust quite obviously not her best move as something long and hard pressed into her thigh. A subtle twist and Buffy stopped breathing as it probed her suddenly wet crotch and cool lips sucked at her neck.

No way was she dreaming that the life-sized fantasy doll was Boxer Rebellion Spike. Before she could give in to the dream of it being her Spike, of being able to touch him and love him and just TALK to him, Buffy attempted to push him from her body.

Apparently a determined and very latched on vampire wasn’t so easy to budge.

“What’s your ‘urry?” he drawled lazily, lustily as his hand began a roaming trip across her belly and underneath her shirt.

Buffy squeaked and violently thrust his hand away, desperate to get away from this situation before she gave into something she just knew she’d be ashamed of later. His lips felt the same, his bulge felt agonisingly the same, but it really wasn’t. Buffy knew it wasn’t really him. Knew that he was so far from loving her that it could only lead to a quick release and then certain heartbreak.

“You know? That dancing idea was kinda of the good. Let’s go do some of that?” she asked hopefully, groaning as a hand brushed beneath the swell of a betraying breast. She ached for his touch—for Spike’s touch, and that’s what acted like a bucket of cold water. She wouldn’t betray his love like this. He fought so long and hard for her to see who he really was that it would be worlds of wrong for Buffy to give into a version of Spike who wouldn’t even appreciate what the event meant.

“This is wrong,” she said, finally pushing him onto the cold, hard floor of reality.

“Who bloody said? Felt right to me. Warm flesh, pretty perky bits, and nice hot blood to wash the revulsion down with. Couldn’t ask for anything more right.”

“You’re disgusting.” Buffy kicked him, not really knowing where she got him in the dark but from the sounds of his writhing pain, it was somewhere that hurt—a lot.

“You know, if you don’t lay off the crown jewels then they’re not gonna be as receptive to you in the future as you might think. In fact, pretty certain right now they’ll curl up and die as soon as they see you coming. And that’s not in the pleasurable way.”

Buffy glared at where she thought he was, then gave into the lip that wanted to wobble in misery.

“You so suck,” she got out on a weak, hurt voice and then ran from the room, leaving a bewildered and horny Spike, aka The Im-bloody-pressive-in-bed Immortal. And bugger if he’d lost his chance to show the bint his estimable skills in that arena. He’d want to fix that blip up before the whole of Rome was onto him and out for vampire dust.

He was just about to take off like an evil vampire in the night when a clasp of steel gripped his arm.

“Not so fast. Did you really think I’d forgotten about you? As if I’d let you go wild on the populace. Nobody would hate Rome that much.”

“Well, Nero might have had a shot, pet,” he grinned, almost giddy that he’d made her come back for him.

As Buffy dragged him back through the corridors of Rome Office: Council of Watchers, Buffy completely convinced herself that she hadn’t been about to put her own heart and comfort ahead of a dangerous vampire on the loose. She may have convinced him to behave with the threat of not being sent home if he was naughty, but she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that a good stern eyeballing ensured he stuck to the plan. Doing evil was habit to him now.

Buffy was so ignoring the possibilities that might come with Willow not being able to send him back.

Spike thought it was bloody hilarious watching Angel’s face when the little contraption in his pocket began to vibrate. Even funnier when he’d finally worked out which button to push to hear his caller, only to be asked to hand the phone to Spike by some whiny sounding receptionist. But then his own shocked facial expression was worth a few as Rupert bloody Giles barked out commands in his ear. The first being to keep his trap closed tight so Angel didn’t find out who he was talking to.

Spike saw Angel’s narrowed eyes and knew that he’d picked up Giles’s abrupt manner, and in an effort to award himself a little bit of privacy, Spike had to get up and move to the back of the plane.

“What can I do for you, Rupes? Kinda up in the air right now, though. Peaches has us on a wild Immortal goose chase.” He felt like it was an occasion to grin—pun and all—yet there was nothing about chasing down Buffy’s new love interest that didn’t violently turn his stomach. When Angel had let slip that she’d moved on—and with whom—Spike wondered if he’d actually been right all along to not get in touch with her. It hadn’t been the easiest decision. His first impulse had been to run to her. He’d actually felt physical pain being so far away from her. Like someone had ripped off his arm and posted it to her in Rome.

He’d made the decision in opposition to advice he’d received—and he knew that if certain beings knew who he confided in these days that it wouldn’t be just his arm in Rome. His guts would make a pretty decoration for her flat, too. Giles had come in handy when Spike had been searching for someone to support his decision not to go to her, though his century of reading people had suddenly fallen flat. Rupert had completely stumped him with an apology worthy of several cases of plonk, and then he’d berated Spike for being the coward he’d never before been.

Despite having the apparent approval of Buffy’s father-figure, Spike had still chosen to let Buffy live her new life, free of all the hassles and the dramas that had depicted her every day on the Hellmouth.

It seemed he’d been right. Buffy had moved on—to one of his most hated fellow demons in point of fact, and as much as he loved her with everything he was, he was hard pressed to respect this decision. Hard pressed to forgive it even more.

“Y-yes, The Immortal. Er, I did try and warn you to go to her. I-It appears that there is a bit of a story there,” Giles hinted, his short burst of a chortle seriously strained. “Spike, if you get the chance, do go to Buffy—but don’t stake the bugger with her. You might end up with a result not very satisfactory to anyone.”

Spike could feel tears of resentment spring to his eyes and he clenched his jaw in frustration. “The Slayer is Angel’s concern. If she’s decided to move on to that dickless bastard, then who am I to stop her?”

Giles’s burst of laughter was more genuine this time. “Dickless, you say? I will, er, have to inquire from Buffy, though I suspect she might be rather affronted by that claim. Not after the lengths she went to get…over you.”

That really got on his goat. After all he’d done to prove to the crazy bint that he loved her wholeheartedly, she would go and easily get over him in the arms of the Don Juan of the demon world. The old Spike would have tore over there and flattened the pair of them—and really, the bastard had it coming after what he’d pulled with Darla and Dru. But no, he wasn’t the old Spike. The new Spike had wisdom and maturity he’d never tapped into before. Not when he had evil to fall back on. His demon embodied his own ancient wisdom, though unfortunately none of it was geared to keeping the heart safe of a young girl, let alone an insecure slayer.

“Put a bloody cork in it, Rupes. Nothing you say can get me to go back there. I’ve done the right thing for her, she’s hap—”

“Done the right thing for her? Why you selfish little prat. How is letting her move on to another demon—and one, by the way, you’d find frighteningly familiar—come even close to doing the right thing? I refuse to allow you to let this opportunity pass without at least giving Buffy the courtesy of knowing you are alive. I think she deserves that much, don’t you? Simply for being your only supporter and believing in you to the exclusion of all else.”

Trust the Watcher to push Spike along on the usual guilt trip. All it ever did was feed his need to see her and slaughter the resolve that kept him away. While he was far from having motive, he definitely had means, expecting Angel to dive into seeing with his own two eyes his precious Buffy’s defection within the next two hours. By virtue of his current position, Spike was along for the ride whether he liked it or not.

And he liked it—if he was honest with himself. He was so desperate to lay eyes on her again that he could have wept for how much the ache ate away his urge to stay away.

“I love Buffy,” he said in a hoarse, tired voice. “Nothing can change how I feel. But she doesn’t need a vampire holding her back now she has a chance.”

“A chance to destroy the equilibrium of the universe, you pillock. I’m warning you now, as someone who would rather stake you than marry you off to my d-daughter, that this whole Immortal situation is nowhere near what you think it is. Stop being such a bloody coward and go claim your woman. You have no idea what she’s been through while waiting for you to stop fiddling with yourself. Do it, Spike. And one day you’ll really thank me.”

Spike cracked a smile at that. The thought of ever owing the Watcher a word of thanks was priceless. He’d never done him any favours before, though long distant memory told him how different it could have been. Once.

“Seems I don’t have a choice. The Poof is hellbent and determined to make sure the Slayer isn’t being duped or spelled into being with the git. I think it’s probably temporary madness from her missing me, but you—”

“You don’t know how right you are,” Giles interjected and Spike could hear a tussle going on in the background and then the mouthpiece being covered as the man shouted in exasperation at someone.

“Andrew givin’ you a spot of bother?” Spike grinned, nowhere near forgetting what a trial it was to be around such an impressionable lad.

“Among others,” was the terse reply and Spike felt himself buckling a little under the nostalgia of his more recent past. All this time he could have been back—being hated by Harris, suspected of treachery or some other such evil by Willow and Dawn, and Buffy… Well, he had no idea about Buffy. She’d said she loved him, and as much as he believed her, he was too afraid to give them the chance and find it wasn’t for keeps. Because she was human, right? She’d loved Angel for years, and then to say that she’d finally shifted that to Spike? Well, it was a little more than hard to take. Bloody impossible to make the mental shift and allow the possibility.

It was what he’d wanted—why he’d gone and fought for his soul. But even though he knew it was his lack of one that always held her back, gave her the excuse to never believe what she could feel for a monster was the tender feelings, he’d always known it could never happen. He wanted her to have what she deserved, it was true. And after what he’d done, a soul was small recompense. On the flip side, he’d always expected to get what he deserved—now that he had a soul. Soulless he could be selfish in believing deserving went with want. He’d wanted her love and there was no explanation he could have been given to convince him that it was completely out of his reach. Until he’d accepted the change and saw himself for what he truly was. A walking nightmare that could only offer his heart for her protection and his body for her life. He hadn’t even deserved to die a hero, and yet he had. Not that Peaches believed it.

To Angel, he was just a vampire that had a yen for trying to be him. Wanting Dru, wanting Buffy, getting himself a soul. Sure, he’d set the benchmark, but Spike had walked away with the prize. With the understanding. While Angel turned his possession into something to gain friendly support from people he regularly betrayed, Spike only wanted Buffy to be happy. He’d gotten it for her—because he’d made her suffer that long year after she’d been brought back. It was his gift of apology that he would never treat her hurtfully again. He expected nothing from it—which was lucky as he was the bloke that always walked away with nothing.

And now one Rupert Giles wanted him to wallow back in the one situation that would be broiled with hopelessness, but which would give him a dose of the one thing that made him feel alive. Buffy’s sunshine was like a drug, and for a being that knew he would dust if he didn’t remain in the dark, he craved it with all his might.

With a gut wrenching sense of doom, Spike nodded at the phone with tears in his eyes.

“Rupert, I’ll be sure to say hello. You’re right—it’s the least I can do.”

And thus ended the call and Spike’s determined self-banishment.

He had an hour left on the plane with Peaches. Might as well get his money’s worth teasing the Poof into a powerful brood.

Anything to block out the building fear of seeing Buffy again.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy was going to kill him.

Spike being an asshole was not news to her. She’d witnessed years of his attitude and vindictiveness toward her friends, but nothing like this. God, he’d never been like this. Even when he was insulting her knees and her inability to keep a man for ‘more than one go’ after Angel and then Parker dumped her, he’d never been so thoroughly hateful.

Back then he hadn’t been playing her. He’d been taunting her, sure. He’d exploited her weaknesses, her fears so that he could find a way to make her stop the fight—become too focused on her pain so that he could win.

But this Spike. Oh. My. God. Relentlessly evil just did not cover it. The way he looked at her was filled with so much hate and resentment, and yet the constant flirting and attempts to get her into bed—or more accurately, anywhere he could—threw her into so much turmoil that Buffy was ready to tell Willow not to worry about sending him back because her stake had accidentally slipped and he was gone. Poof into the warm Italian breeze.

Except she just knew Willow would give her the geeky sci-fi talk about how killing this Spike would rule out her Spike and losing him Buffy just could not deal with. So she endured, pushed him away when his appendages drove too deep into her flesh, and tried to keep her hands off sharpened wooden objects.

But tonight he was crossing a line.

One month of being out and dancing with him while he kept up his ‘Immortal’ act was one month way too many. She’d managed to find ways to be around him without losing her mind, and familiarity had taught her so much about her Spike—and it made her love him so much more.

In the beginning she’d drooled at his longer, more naturally coloured hair—at the pirate-like strap of leather that held it back and made him appear rakish. His clothing had been dated but somehow appealing in a ‘whoa did that neutral flowing shirt suit him’ kind of way. His accent was rougher, more concentrated to be bad than Buffy remembered her Spike being, though she suspected after a century it had become second nature for him to lose the polish and settle into it like he belonged. This Spike exploding about “bloody colonials” made her cringe for the harshness of it. It strengthened the craving for the natural smooth insults of her Spike in a way that was deep and agonising.

It gave her new appreciation for peroxide and eyeliner. And it made her heart squeeze with despair.

All Buffy had left now was to lose herself to the music, remaining alert enough to stop Spike from going and munching on the unsuspecting public, but also losing herself enough to fantasy to believe he was really with her.

The feel of him near her was overwhelming. As Buffy danced with him, he was everywhere around her. But for tonight, it was the first time she felt him inside her as well and that scared her more than she had words to express. Buffy had been forcing Willow to put everything she had into the spell to send him back, refusing even to let her friend leave Rome to return to her own life. No way were they leaving a Spike who belonged back in the beginnings of the twentieth century to roam free and munch on the people he would later die to save. The real sequence of events had to be reversed, and if they could manage it, with him losing all knowledge of where he’d been this past month and who he had been with, then she could see nothing but ruin for her. This Spike would not let himself fall in love with her, and that alternative to not having any form of Spike in her life at all was enough for the loss of that to hit Buffy hard. In light of this she would gladly hide in her room till it was time for the next apocalypse. It was a pity that she so sucked at recognising the important things until they were ripped away and gone.

It was painful to have to spend so much time with him—and yet it was immeasurably entertaining as well. She’d learned the whole origin of the Immortal thing—why he’d felt the need to take over the name and systematically ruin the real one’s reputation. After hearing what he’d done with Darla and Dru—and seeing how angry it made Spike—Buffy was all for allowing the odd romancing of the women and then snickering as he had to make excuses for his inability to deliver on the suave promises. Sure, Buffy felt kind of sorry for them—in a way that you could for lonely women jumping at men for one night of fun. She so wasn’t getting any from her vampire, so seeing these women try to snag Spike and then run away in embarrassed rejection was just what she needed to sustain his presence.

The music pulsed through the club and Buffy gave into it, relying on her natural slayer senses to remain alert to any tricks Spike might try to pull. Considering the regularity he liked to get violent with her, and the number of times he’d managed to scratch her neck with his fangs, he’d not yet really tried to break away. She guessed she had his desperate love for Dru to thank for that.

They both felt Angel at the same time.

Buffy knew by the widened eyes and the growling that Spike had sensed him at her back before rushing off to cause some kind of trouble—of this she had no doubt. It was when she turned around almost lazily, wondering if she could really be bothered to see Angel that she came face to face with him and knew why she’d felt his presence so strongly tonight. Inside her as well as around.

Spike stared at her, his face vulnerable, his hair white and his coat as black as sin. He raised a shaking hand to brush a strand of hair away that had become stuck to her lips and they both sucked in identical tortured breaths.

Buffy blinked, almost terrified that if she moved even an eyelash he would disappear and she would be left with nothing but an incredibly vivid hallucination.

He hadn’t moved, and the love in his eyes shone as bright as it had in their last moments in the cavern. Buffy’s heart thumped rapidly and she felt that the shock may cause a heart attack. And then he opened his beautiful mouth and she knew it was him, knew he’d come for her and that she didn’t have to cry alone anymore.

“Hello, cutie.”

“You’re dumping me for ‘im?”

Buffy stared blankly at the Spike that had almost sent her insane with his hateful leering and out of control desire for blood. “Huh?”

“You’ve been with this wanker all this time?” her Spike exploded with more than righteous rage at his jealousy.

“Whoa, let’s just go back a step. Too many Spikes, and I can’t handle one on a good day. Now, no, I haven’t been with him. That would be…wrong.” Even Buffy cringed at that, quickly jumping in to cover the implication of those overused words with the truth. “I couldn’t be with him when I was still grieving the loss of the man I truly love.” Her eyes shone hopefully, almost boring into peroxided Spike so that he might finally get her message and believe it.

The intensity was shattered as Willow came tearing into the room, dragging an excited Dawn and Andrew with her. “I’ve worked it out. Spike, get ready. You’re going home tonight and then I’m on the first plane out of this crazy place.”

Dawn took one look at the longing on her sister’s face as she stared at the Spike she’d known and loved and saw the sudden importance of relocating for a couple of nights, if not for life.

“Willow, book me tickets too. I think it’s about time I got to know the British branch. Giles is gone already, right? And Xander is back with another slayer?”

Buffy didn’t even jerk to attention, allowing the sister she usually kept under strict lock and key from the way too friendly Italian boys to make plans that would take her away. She stared deeply into the soulful eyes of the vamp she wanted to reassure herself was really there and decided that British boys would be of the good. And besides, Giles was arguably worse than her.

And then Angel spoke and ruined the spell that had swept Buffy away.

“There is no way that this is happening.” He looked at the Spike he remembered fresh from killing his very first slayer, and then back to the pain in his ass that he’d allowed to tag along in his life for the past months. There was no hiding the monumental shift in behaviour—in outlook. And he hated it. Hated that it was Spike and he’d been capable of it at all.

“Oh it’s happening, Peaches. I won’t be seeing you back at Evil HQ.” Blue eyes melted as they met Buffy’s and got lost in the sea of her unexpected emotion.

Large shoulders slumped in defeat and the cursed vampire turned toward the door after one more deep soulful look at who he knew was the love of his life, but who he could never have.

His hand fell on the brass door knob and the Spike on borrowed time called out in panick.

“Hey! Where do you bloody think you’re going? You can’t let this happen. Don’t let me turn out to be this repulsive milksop. Surely after all we were to each other you have more respect for me than that? To let me be with a slayer…that’s just—” The distaste and revulsion was more than evident in his tone, but the look on his face proved too much for Buffy’s Spike and he strode forward, a finger angrily jabbing his younger, more disrespectful self in the chest.

“Oi! Mind your manners in front of the Niblet and the ladies. Your time isn’t now. An’ you should know better than to question who I…you fall in love with. Not like you’ll remember a bloody thing when you go back anyway. Go back to shagging Dru when she’s not off with one of her other pet demons and you’ll be right for another century.”

The sharp punch to his ribs from the little spitfire at his side might well have cracked one of them, but Spike revelled in Buffy’s display of jealousy. He almost gave in and kissed her for it, the relief in having his Buffy back—as sexily violent as ever—almost enough to make him come in his pants like an overwhelmed school boy.

Until his younger self opened up his mouth again. At least it was to piss off Angel, and who could get angry with that agenda?

“An’ look at you, all housebroken. Bet you’re off shaggin’ some dog-faced cow because the true love of your life makes you go all damage bound. You sicken me,” he said, his voice dripping with disgust.

“Righty who then, let’s go do this thing. Time’s a wastin’,” Willow reminded and then everything was full of bluster and purpose as Spike’s aplenty and a happy slayer followed the witch, the key and the loafer out the door into the night.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy stared up through the dome at the swirling light show and squeezed Spike’s hand.

HER Spike.

The one she’d mistakenly pulled in from the past was sitting across from Willow, his eyes intent on her neck as he subconsciously licked his lips. He made her nervous; Buffy could see that. He’d been more reluctant to don his original garb than she’d expected, wanting to take the easier t-shirt back in time with him to the extent of a vicious punch up with her that had left him bruised and the definite loser. Besides, she was keen to see again that shade of blue offset against Spike’s white hair. She had memories that at the time weren’t so happy. Now she could make them so while being able to guiltlessly drool.

After the turmoil of his arrival, Boxer Rebellion Spike’s return was remarkably quiet and natural disasters free. And this time they’d kept to their feet and there was barely any wind at all.

Willow bounced to her feet, chipper and eager to leave as she collected up her candles and other magical paraphernalia. She’d gathered Dawn in, spoke quietly to the girl and then they’d both hugged the happily reunited pair and left, leaving a slightly confused Andrew to wander off behind them.

Buffy had never been so glad to see their retreating backsides.

But now it left her alone with him—a mile of unsaid words and misunderstood feelings between her and the man she wanted for always.

“Can we start again?” There was so much yearning inside her that Buffy just couldn’t wait. Both her hands were held in his tepid ones, his thumbs gently stroking her palms in that breathtaking way he had of touching her deeply with the lightest brush of his flesh against hers.

“What exactly do you want, Buffy? I’ll be here for you no matter what. Don’t think I won’t be. But you have to tell me what you want from me, because I just can’t decide that anymore.”

“Do we have to talk? Can’t I just show you?”

No matter the warmth of her eyes as she soaked him in, Spike couldn’t dismiss the feeling of panic that those words set in motion. But he’d said he’d be there, he’d be anything she wanted him to be, though it was frightening to finally be where he’d longed for without the words that would reassure him of his position.

The nod of his head cost him buckets of self-esteem, but he held her hand all the way back to her apartment, and he took off his duster and shoes like he thought she expected him to. He stood in just his jeans when Buffy left to go to the bathroom, not having moved even an inch by the time she’d returned.

He’d never before seen her wear any kind of nightwear, the few times he’d managed to share her bed being when she was fully clothed and prepared for an attack of Bringers. The outfit this time was skimpy, but it was enough to show him that it wasn’t her naked body she’d wanted to show him, and just that small amount of covering gave him hope.

Without words he positioned himself on her bed, allowing her to pull out the covers and then covered themselves as she crawled into his arms. She had left a light on, and the relief Spike felt at that fed his awe that he finally had Buffy in his arms. With approval. From every quarter he had approval to be with her, and it was like the best feeling in the world.

She never looked away from him, staring intently with watery eyes and a wobbly bottom lip until the emotion spilled over and her face dived into his chest and she let months of sorrow go. Her small hands settled against his flesh, squeezing him and holding him tight to her as she muffled her gratitude to have him back into his chest.

Spike was overwhelmed—and stupid. Rupert had done his best to warn him in typical cryptic fashion about his earlier self being in existence—though to be fair no one would likely have picked up the clues and put the mystery together. And he’d tried to tell an ignorant vampire that the one woman he’d spent so much time loving and fighting for was desperate for his return—so desperate she’d summoned an earlier version that would rip her throat out as soon as ask her name.

It felt better than good to be back in this position—even if it never went any further. But it brought back memories, feelings, promises that Spike was hard pressed to get out of his head now that he’d been reminded.

Wasn’t now the time she’d told him they could discuss what had happened that night? The one that had first seen them snuggle together guiltlessly and on the verge of something neither had expected to ever revisit their relationship again? Spike wanted that discussion now, wanted it out in the open what it all meant, what her hopes were for bringing him into her room and sharing her bed—even if they were decent and not touching in the way that led to naughtiness.

When she finally spoke, he knew that the same memories were running through her head. The same issues needing to be resolved.

“I told you once that we would talk when the fight was over. I was such a fool. I know better than anyone how stupid it is to leave things unsaid—feelings ambiguous. I was trying to fix that, you know? At the Hellmouth, when you were all shiny and pretty thanks to the impending death. I was too late and you didn’t believe me—or if you did, it was too late to let you feel what it meant for us.”

Spike stayed still, his jaw locked and tears gathering at the hope of hearing what he’d waited and wanted to for so long. What did it mean for Buffy? What did loving him translate to her?

“This is our bed. Ours. I want you in it every day for the rest of my life. Well, unless my old and ugly body needs the space later on. But while I’m young and pretty, I want you with me, loving me, showing me how wrong I was to let you go all those times I was an idiot.”

His heart was breaking at her sadness, and Spike touched her cheek, feeling the beauty of her make his fingertips tingle.

“I’ll be sticking with you even then, Goldilocks. P’raps we should invest in a King?” He smiled in relief at her giggle, wondering if she even knew the surprise that was waiting on down the line for her. His girl had taken a fatal wound to her belly, and had stood straight back up to decimate the uber vamps who had tried to take her world away from her. He had a feeling that the larger sized bed would be used more for fun than elderly recuperation. Though he could see it being a bonus when they came home bruised and bloodied from yet again saving the world.

Not that his girl wasn’t imaginative in her own ways.

“So we’re okay?” The insecurity in her voice was heartbreaking and Spike nodded, holding her tighter until she pushed away from him and looked intently into his face.

“Can we kinda make with the smutties now? You have no idea what it’s like to—”

“Buffy, don’t finish that sentence. How ‘bout we begin with a kiss?”

The Slayer smiled as she leaned in with eagerly, gasping softly as his lips settled against hers and she finally knew what it was like to be in love and on the same page with her future.

It was a kiss of fire, doing little but remind them exactly of the passion Buffy had doused prematurely when Riley had swooped down to the Hellmouth. When his presence had forced her to own up to her behaviour and she’d abandoned the only thing that had made her feel alive. Accepting that she finally was now only added to the intoxication of his lips and Buffy died a third death to know he was forever hers. His tongue was a revelation and she kicked herself for having forgotten the slick heat of it as he tasted her mouth. It kick started her heart in ways that resurrection spells and resuscitation hadn’t. Her face fiery red, Buffy let her lips be manipulated by a master, letting the buzz that she felt from the contact move throughout her body.

When his hand settled on her hip, Buffy moaned and moved closer. Her leg slipped up and over his until she was straddling Spike and lying fully over his body. She shouldn’t have felt self-conscious. It wasn’t the first time she’d been in this position with him—and many other positions she’d been in with him should have drawn a much redder blush to her cheeks.

His hands slipped up the back of her thighs and under the slip of her nightgown, finding flesh at her hips and circling it with his thumbs. His fingers rested in the waistband of her panties and Buffy found herself cursing the fact that she’d tried to be demure, wishing now that she’d left caution to the wind and come to their bed naked. Only she’d known he was worried about them starting from there, and she really hadn’t wanted to begin with that kind of statement. She wanted him, absolutely, but she loved him now in so many ways that defied expression, sex being the main one they’d never had trouble with. Or at least the not so tender side of the argument.

“Buffy,” he almost gasped, his eyes droopy with passion and hesitation. “You sure this is what you want, pet? You want me like this?”

Her heart broke. After all they’d shared, he still thought she’d think the passion and love she’d find only in his arms was a mistake.

Calloused fingers rubbed up and down her back and Buffy could feel his worry. Goosepimples rose on her skin and she felt the burst of her love almost overwhelming the moment.

“I never stopped wanting you like this, Spike. Now I just want it all. I want everything, and you’re just the vamp to give it to me.”

And then they were lost in the pleasure of skin, amazement lending an intensity that had been absent from any other time but their first. They stared straight into each other as naked flesh settled together and Spike’s smooth length filled Buffy up whole. She stretched comfortably, feeling the bliss that came from accommodating the man she loved and surrendered to the happiness of having him inside her once again.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips, finding it difficult to talk and breathe as he slid out of her then thrust his determined return.

“Buffy,” he whispered and she felt the salty tang of his tears on her lips. It was the gift that she should have given him so long ago, and she’d denied herself as much as she’d tugged all of his hope away from him. But now she was giving it back and would spend the rest of her life proving it. He’d never have reason to doubt her sincerity again; never have reason to believe she could love another with the depth of passion that she loved him.

Each time he brushed against a spot that made her start, she whispered the words. Not that they were passion induced only, but because they were perfect moments to capture his awed gaze and compound the enormity of the moment.

They came together more gently than any of the times they’d been together, and despite not breaking any furniture, houses or sound barriers, Buffy felt like it was the most beautiful moment of her life. She snuggled into her boyfriend’s warm embrace and gave thanks to a Power that finally knew how to give rewards.

She fell asleep with a different rush of tears on her face and to the words of love and forever on her vampire’s lips.

This time she would have her happily ever after.



The end.