--


Angel stalked across the empty hotel lobby. There were no sounds other than his footsteps. The hotel's favourite new noise was silence. But then again, what were you to expect when everyone who had recently worked there had been fired?

Obliterating the small inkling of doubt he had in his plans, Angel marched into the little kitchenette behind the lobby and pulled open the refrigerator door. He took out a packet of blood before slipping into his vampire visage and sinking his fangs into the plastic bag. After draining it of its gory, red contents, Angel tossed the bag onto the counter, slipped back into his human face and walked back out to the lobby.

He was just about to head up the stairs to catch a few more hours of sleep when the front doors opened. Angel's head snapped around suddenly as the scent of his visitors reached him. Darla walked in with Drusilla tagging along behind.

"Hello Angelus," his sire said with some amusement.

Angel couldn't control his anger or his human features. He was so hoping that she'd get the message and would just leave town when he'd set her on fire but here she was, in his territory even. He growled.

"Calm down. Not here to fight, just to bring some good news."

Angel stopped growling but kept on his demon visage to show Darla that he was listening but she wasn't welcome as a friend. Darla took this as a prompt to continue, so she did.

"We have an addition to the family. The youngest, our own Spike took himself a mate yesterday; sired her about a week and a half ago."

At this Angel frowned and grew thoughtful. The only person he thought Spike would have even considered as a mate was Drusilla but no, Drusilla and Spike had never actually claimed each other. He had often wondered why. Angel looked at Drusilla, thinking her reaction would be one of sorrow, that her childe had chosen a mate that wasn't her. But he was wrong. Drusilla looked, if nothing, gleeful at having become a grandsire.

"We're going to go visit William and the baby in her Hellmouth cradle," Drusilla said in a singsong voice and then lowering her voice to a whisper, she said playfully, "Want to come?"

It suddenly occurred to Angel what Drusilla had just said.

"Wait," he said, "You mean, Spike's in Sunnydale?"

"Haven't been keeping up with the gossip of the demon world lately, have we?" Darla said.

Angel looked at the floor, not realizing that his features had shifted back to human. "Buffy," he whispered. He couldn't let Drusilla and Darla go to Sunnydale. Chances are they would run into the Slayer and with a battle like that, it was anyone's guess who would come out alive, or not dusted at least. And he had to warn Buffy about Spike's new mate. He assumed that she already knew of his presence.

"Don't worry," Darla continued. Angel's eyes rose up to meet hers. "I'm sure your precious Slayer already knows about the new vampiress."

Drusilla started giggling uncontrollably. Both female vampires knew the identity of the youngest of their family but it was way too much fun to keep it a secret, rather than let Angel know.

Angel shot forward with inhuman speed and grabbed Darla by the throat, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to let her know he meant what he was saying. Drusilla watched with a mixture of fascination and nervousness, her eyes flickering back and forth between her elders.

"Go to Sunnydale and greet Spike's childe if you have to but don't go anywhere near Buffy." He growled for emphasis. He didn't want any of his three women getting hurt. Much as he hated to admit it, Angel didn't want to lose his sire again and had always felt obligated to look after his childe.

Darla smiled seductively. "Promise," she said at last. Angel released her as Drusilla started whimpering. Still smiling, Darla beckoned to Drusilla and the two master vampires headed for the exit. Angel watched them go.

Drusilla danced through the doors but Darla said one more thing before leaving.

"I almost forgot. If nothing else interested you, then maybe this will. Spike's new childe...has a soul."

Darla grinned and bounced out the door as Angel's eyes widened in shock.

--


There was about an hour until sunrise when Spike finally kicked open the door to his crypt. He had volunteered to finish up patrol tonight and was slightly tired from the battle he just fought with an unidentified, unfriendly demon. The demon had fought well and had gotten in a few bruising hits but the fight ended with the demon headless and Spike's axe stained.

He clunked the axe down onto the stone sarcophagus and shrugged off his duster before draping it on the easy chair and walking over to the trapdoor that led to the lower level. He pulled it open and descended the stairs, pulling it closed again after him.

It was quite dark in the lower level; only one candle was still burning, but Spike's eyes quickly adjusted to the low light. He kicked off his boots and stripped off his clothes quietly, mindful of his sleeping mate. He climbed into the bed next to her. She was turned away from him and the covers had slipped off, leaving the length of her back exposed to him.

He smiled and traced a finger up the length of her spine. She arched into her sire's touch and rolled over in her sleep. He slipped his arms around her and pulled her close. She let out a small growl of happiness before snuggling into him and slipping into a deeper sleep.

She could now lower the defenses she automatically raised when she slept, and relax. Her sire was here. She was protected.

He smiled again, kissed her forehead and also fell into a deep sleep.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy's first thought as she awoke was "is Dawn safe?" She opened her eyes, berating herself for falling asleep at Spike's crypt.

She arrived at the cemetery last night at 9:00 to patrol. Her new demon instincts liked to sleep during the day and keep her awake most of the night. Spike had joined her around midnight and they had patrolled for three hours until Buffy had started to get tired. Spike said that she could crash at his crypt if she wanted to while he finished up patrolling and she had accepted.

Buffy untangled herself from Spike's arms and sat up. After stretching, she slipped out of bed and got her watch from her pile of clothes. It was 4:30 in the afternoon. Buffy rolled her eyes and fastened the watch around her wrist.

Spike woke up as she finished getting dressed.

"Too early," he muttered.

She looked up and smiled tolerantly. "It's 4:30 p.m."

"Still too early."

She walked around the bed to his side and nimbly leapt on top of him. At this, he finally opened his eyes. She leaned down and fervently locked her lips with his. He returned the kiss with equal passion.

After a minute, she pulled away.

"Come on. We have half an hour to get to the Magic Box."

He sighed but made to get out of bed as she slid off him.

"Do you know how to get to there via the sewer system?" she asked as she sat down to pull on her shoes.

"Yeah, luv. Done it many times before," he replied, pulling on his jeans.

"Good," she said standing up. "Because I have no idea where I'm going when I'm underground."

"Pet could you get my duster? It's upstairs on the chair."

"Sure."

Buffy climbed up the ladder as Spike continued to get dressed. He heard her shove open the trapdoor, step out onto the landing, and then suddenly stop.

"Spike..." Buffy's voice carried to the lower level. Spike knew something was up and quickly scaled the ladder.

"What is it?" He said, coming up behind her, then stopping, just as she had done. Almost unconsciously, Spike slid an arm around his childe's waist and pulled her just a bit closer.

"Hello Spike. Hello Buffy," Darla said. Drusilla smiled gleefully at her side.

Spike eyed them warily.

Darla sighed. "What is it with the males of my family?" she wondered aloud.

"Why are you here?" Spike asked.

"Aren't you dead?" added Buffy.

"We're all dead here, honey." Darla replied.

"Dust then?"

"Yeah, well, an evil law firm resurrected me and now I'm back."

"You didn't answer my question," Spike said, his arm still around Buffy.

"We came to visit the new baby," Drusilla said while bouncing happily.

"Baby?" said Buffy.

"Just visit?" Spike said cautiously.

"Yes. Unlike /some/ people in our bloodline, I care about my relatives. And we haven't had a new addition to our line since Dru sired you. This is big news." Darla said.

"Oh, you mean me! How'd you find out?" Buffy asked.

"Are you kidding?" Darla said with smile. "You're the first Slayer to be turned in years. There isn't a demon in America and then some who hasn't heard. Congratulations, by the way."

Buffy was a little surprised but then, she realized, what had she been expecting?

Spike had relaxed his hold on Buffy by now, assuming she was safe. Darla watched as Drusilla skipped forward, almost dancing, toward Buffy. Spike almost put his arm back around her waist but then he saw that Drusilla was smiling and bore no threat.

Buffy was a little apprehensive as Drusilla approached her but stood her ground. Drusilla looked into Buffy's eyes for a moment and then threw her arms around the young vampire, pulling her into a hug. Darla, Spike and Drusilla were near grinning. Buffy was a little surprised but returned the hug and soon found herself smiling also.

Drusilla made a small high-pitched noise in her throat before pulling away. She took Buffy's hands in hers.

"You must call me Grandmummy," she said excitedly before bursting into giggles. Buffy couldn't help but widen her smile. She had never really had a grandparent before. Her mom's parents had died before she was born and her dad's had lost contact with her mom after the divorce.

"This is something I never thought I'd see," Spike said.

"Tell me about it," Darla agreed.

Spike picked up his duster from the chair and pulled it on before sitting down on the stone sarcophagus. Darla sat next to him. They watched as Drusilla pulled Buffy around in a dance, both of them laughing.

Buffy found that Drusilla was like a child, a child with a great deal of bloodlust but still. If Drusilla hadn't been sired, Buffy imagined that she would have been quite the innocent. She also found that she no longer had such a violent urge to stake Darla and Drusilla as she had at one point.

This was because her Slayer instincts had been half-matched, half- contradicted by her new vampiristic instincts. Vampires don't stake other vampires because it's in their nature. Another reason was because the vampire part of her mind recognized these vampiresses specifically as "family".

By staking Darla, Angel had broken an ancient taboo among vampires. You didn't stake your sire; you just didn't. The taboo applied to other members of your bloodline, but not as strongly.

"So how's it feel?" Darla said.

"How's what feel?" Spike replied, not taking his eyes off his sire and childe.

Darla smiled. "You've been the youngest for over 100 years and now she's the baby. She's the youngest in our line and you're her sire. You've got to protect her y'know. You never sired anyone before her did you?"

"I didn't."

"So. How's it feel?"

Spike looked over at his great-grandsire, and smiled.

"Pretty good," he said.

They stood up as Buffy and Drusilla wandered over.

"We should go," Darla said after a minute. Drusilla's smile faded a bit and she looked down. Spike casually slipped his arm around Buffy again.

"We're going to paint Los Angeles red. I'd invite you two but you're white hats aren't you?"

Buffy smiled with amusement and nodded her head. Darla smiled warmly at Buffy and then turned to Spike.

"Take care of her Spike."

"Sleep well little lamb," Drusilla added.

And with that, they left.

--


The 9:30 train to Los Angeles sped through the night. Darla sat down in her seat and looked out the window. She had already finished her half of the occupants of the carriage they were in. Drusilla was almost done, only one middle-aged lady to go. She was screaming of course and as much as Darla enjoyed that sound, she didn't hear it. She was too lost in her thoughts.

She marveled at how quickly a Vampire Slayer could become precious to her. Darla had been the eldest, the head of the family ever since she had chosen Angelus over the Master. Angelus loved being in control and she had let him teach Drusilla, torture Spike. But no matter how many times it had been Angelus leading the group, she had always had that magickal something that her family could sense. Even though she had been resurrected and re-sired, those magicks still held strong. When she became a vampire again, her position as head was re-installed. She was still the eldest and felt the need to look over her family of master vampires.

She had loved Angelus in her own way and had still loved him when he became Angel, after the anger over his soul had passed. She loved Drusilla like a sister, or a daughter. And it was nice when she was sired. It's always good to have another girl around. She had disliked Spike in many ways. He was not the most obedient fledgling and this she disapproved of but she admired his spirit. Drusilla had chosen well. Darla saw that William was the type who could handle the burden of immortality. And there had always been a special place in her non-beating heart for the youngest of her family. Now that part belonged to Buffy, though she was still fond of Spike's rebellion.

Of course being a vampire, love always had violence intertwined with it. Any human would think "they must really hate each other", but to vampires, it was just how they showed they cared.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Tara, Anya, Willow, and Xander were sitting around the table at the Magic Box talking.

"Well, at least she didn't do too much damage," Tara said.

"Are you kidding? Double-glazed windows ain't cheap. And the jamb needs to be completely repaired," Xander started. "Oh dear god, I'm the grownup who sees the world through my job. I'm like my uncle Dave the plumber. I must be shunned.

"Okay," Willow said. "So, what do you guys think she is? I mean, this may sound nuts, but I kinda got the impression that she was a-

"Robot," Tara finished.

Everyone nodded as the door that leads to the basement opened and Buffy and Spike walked in.

When Buffy had been turned, the gang decided that they were going to just treat Buffy as they always had. It would make things worse if they suddenly acted like she would bite them or something.

Surprisingly, Buffy wasn't as unnerved by her turning as everyone, including Spike, thought she would be.

Shortly after Buffy had woken up, Willow restored her soul with the same spell that haunted Angel except with a few modifications. The "perfect happiness clause" had been left out so Buffy was in no danger of losing her soul.

"Hey guys. What's up?" Buffy asked. She was still a little nervous about being around her friends but the uneasiness was slowly but surely ebbing every time she saw them.

Buffy took a seat at the table and Spike stood nearby.

"Hey Buffy," Willow said, "We were talking about this robot that was at the party we went to last night."

"Robot?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah. She threw a guy through a window." Xander added.

"She?"

"Yep. And not all that bad looking." Xander continued which earned another stare from Anya.

*He loves only me.* *He loves only me.* She chanted in her head.

"Ah," Buffy said. "So, what do you think she wants?"

"She kept asking about Warren, whoever that is," supplied Tara.

"It's gotta be the guy that built her," said Xander.

"It's an unusual name," said Willow, "There's hardly any except ... Warren Beatty and, you know, President Harding. It-it's probably not either of them."

"Will, can you track down this guy with only a first name?" Buffy questioned.

Willow nodded. "Given enough time. I can get a list of the Sunnydale students named Warren tonight, but ... then we'll have to call them or go to their dorms, so we probably can't start narrowing it down till tomorrow."

Buffy frowned.

"She could do a lot of damage by then," said Anya.

"She was looking for this Warren, but it didn't sound like she wanted to hurt him. She said he's her boyfriend." Xander said helpfully.

"I agree," said Willow, "I'm not sure this is a code red. Hey, is there a code pink? We need more codes." Tara smiled at her girlfriend.

"Okay. We'll track down Warren tomorrow. Tonight I better go rescue Giles. He's been watching Dawn while my mom's out on her date, and I have a feeling there's only so much he can take," said Buffy.

"Oh, Giles and Dawnie? I bet they ended up having a blast." Tara said with a smile.

Spike, who had been incredibly bored through the most of the meeting, snapped back to reality when everyone stood up.

Buffy wandered over to Spike and slipped her hand into his as Tara and Willow finished gathering up their things.

"Bye Buffy," Willow said and headed toward the door.

Buffy gave her a short wave and a smile.

"Bye Buffy. Bye Spike," Tara said quietly.

Spike was a little surprised. None of the Scoobies had ever really been civil to him before. He smiled at her.

"Bye Tara," he said. She looked down shyly and followed her girlfriend.

Xander waited by the door for Anya who was flicking off the lights.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Spike and Buffy walked up Revello Drive, their arms around the other's waist. They were quite content as they approached the Summers' front door.

"Dear god, Buffy, there's only so much I can take," Giles said exasperated, when he answered the door. Spike looked amused. "We're going to have to change the system. A fourteen-year-old's too old to be babysat, and it's not fair on her."

Buffy nodded and grinned. "What'd she make you do?"

"Um, well, we listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance ... then we ate cookie dough and talked about boys."

Buffy laughed and Spike smirked.

"I'm sorry. I'm very very sorry. Well, the gang informed me that a robot threw a guy through a window at the party they went to." Buffy said.

"A robot? Sounds interesting," Giles replied.

"We're gonna work on it in the morning. I mean, unless you wanna stay for a while, and then you and I could--"

Joyce appeared behind Giles, entering the house with a big smile.

"Who wants to hear everything?" she said happily.

"--listen to my mom talk about boys," Buffy finished.

"Right, must go," Giles said quickly. "See you tomorrow. Bye Joyce."

"Bye Rupert." She said while closing the door, then turned around. "Hello Spike."

"Hey Joyce."

Joyce had a big smile on her face. "Gosh, I'd forgotten how much fun dating can be."

Buffy smiled back. "I don't know. I was standing right here. I didn't see Prince Charming. I didn't even see a goodnight kiss."

Joyce, still smiling, walked past Buffy to put her purse down.

"It all looked pretty tame to me," Buffy said.

"Well, I suppose by your standards it could seem pretty. . .Oh dear." She cut herself off.

"What?" Buffy asked concerned.

"I left my bra in his car."

Buffy looked shocked and horrified, while Spike's smirk had returned.

"Mother!"

"I'm joking." Joyce said with a smile.

Buffy sighed. "Good god, that's horrible. Don't do that."

"I left it in the restaurant."

Buffy put her hands over her ears and started to run up the stairs. "No more! No more! No more!"

"On the dessert cart!" Joyce yelled up the stairs after her.

"I can't hear you!" Buffy yelled back faintly.

Joyce and Spike couldn't stop laughing for about three minutes.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

After Buffy had been wooed back from her traumatized state, and they had made sure that Joyce was okay and Dawn asleep, Spike and Buffy headed out to patrol. Buffy had told her mom that she would probably be staying at Spike's. Joyce had given a knowing smile and said okay.

--


After much brooding and several internal debates, Angel decided not to go to Sunnydale.

Buffy was strong; she could probably handle Spike and some new vampire. If she needed his help, which she most likely didn't, she would call him. Or Giles would call him. Buffy had fought Spike before and won. But then again, it had always been a close fight.

Angel shook away thoughts like that.

He couldn't over think this too much. If he did, he'd end up making himself nervous and going down to Sunnydale to watch Buffy from the shadows and the shrubs and she'd end up finding out somehow and she'd get annoyed and come down to L.A. to try and sort things out. Again.

And he couldn't have Buffy making an appearance right now. He needed to be as emotionless as possible and seeing her would unearth all those feelings he was attempting to keep buried.

Angel gave himself a mental shake and grabbed his coat. He had to pay another visit to Anne at the shelter.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy moaned as she was shoved up against the crypt wall, Spike's tongue plundering her mouth. Her hands twisted themselves into his hair, if possible, deepening the kiss.

Her legs came up and encircled his waist, her back stabilized by the wall. She moaned as he managed to get her shirt off, and her hands started working on his pants.

He broke the kiss and began leaving a trail of bruising kisses down her throat, which started underneath her earlobe and continued down to the middle of her chest, which was now sans bra, her hands back in his hair.

After they had managed to strip each other of any and all clothing, Spike pulled Buffy back into a kiss, pushing her down onto the bed in the process.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Later that night, Buffy lay spooned against a sleeping Spike, his fangs embedded in the crook of her neck, not near her jugular. He had his game face on, but it wasn't a deep bite. It was an act similar to holding one's hand as one slept.

Buffy was content--and not just post-coital content--lying with Spike's arms around her and with his fangs in her neck. She had dreamed of finding a state of peace since she became the Slayer, and now, ironically enough, she had found it in the arms of a vampire.

Buffy, still awake, thought about this, among other things.

She had a bloodline now. Neither her nor Spike had fully realized that she was now part of a line that included some of the most famous vampires that ever existed. She never thought she'd look at Drusilla and think "grandsire". It's funny how things work out. Oh yeah, that made Angel her great-grandsire Weird. Oh god, Angel. How the hell am I gonna explain this to him? Damnit.

Eventually, she decided that she'd talk to Angel when she had to or if he ever came to visit her. Whichever came first.

She relaxed her arms over Spike's and her thoughts drifted to when she was turned.

--


Author's Note: This is a flashback. Buffy's remembering stuff. It's set directly after "Blood Ties".

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Xander, Willow and Tara, Anya, and Giles all took their separate ways home after Buffy had insisted that she and Dawn were okay. Buffy had covered up most of the wound with her jacket and its dark colour helped conceal the amount she was bleeding. She didn't want her friends to worry so she acted fine, and walked with her back straight. Her act worked and her friends went home.

But Spike could smell the blood. He knew that the wound was deeper than Buffy was letting on and could see in her eyes that she knew too. But she didn't say anything, so he didn't.

"Why are you following us?" Buffy asked when she noticed Spike was walking in the same direction as her and Dawn. Dawn turned around and looked at Spike.

"Um. . . Buffy? He lives this way," Dawn said, giving her sister and odd look as Spike raised an eyebrow. Spike sped up his pace so that he was walking next to Buffy.

"Oh. Right."

They walked on in silence until they were next to the graveyard.

"Right. Night Nibblet. Slayer," Spike said and headed into the cemetery.

"Bye Spike," Dawn said.

Now that there were only two, the demon took aim. Hopefully, her plan would work and the Slayer would be dead. She had practiced for months. Being ambidextrous, she trained both hands to have deadly strength and aim.

In each hand she had an ominous looking knife with an incredibly sharp blade. Just another minute. The Slayer and her sister took a few more steps. And then the demon threw the knives, one after the other.

Buffy's instincts shot her hand out and grabbed the knife that was flying at Dawn's chest, inches from impact, so when the second knife flew out of nowhere and plunged into Buffy's own chest, she didn't have a chance to react.

Buffy dropped the knife she had prevented from skewering Dawn with a clatter on the sidewalk and looked down stunned at the knife lodged a little below her heart.

"Buffy!" Dawn cried as her sister fell to her knees. Her eyes started to tear.

"Spike!!" Dawn screamed. "Spike!! Help!!"

The demon dropped her invisibility shield and stalked toward the wounded Slayer and the screaming girl.

Dawn leant toward her sister protectively, though she knew she was useless in a fight.

But the demon didn't get within three feet of Buffy and Dawn before Spike showed up behind it and snapped its neck. He then ran toward Buffy.

"Buffy!" He yelled, falling to his own knees in front of her and putting his hands on her shoulders.

Spike took one look at where the knife was and realized that the wound was fatal. Dawn was looking down; she was crying.

"Buffy!" he yelled again.

Buffy's eyes had been staring blankly at the ground but as Spike yelled again, they rose to meet his. She gasped in some air.

"Spike?" she said quietly. Her eyes were slipping closed. She would have tumbled onto the ground had Spike not still had his hands on her shoulders.

Dawn's tears stopped suddenly. Everything would be okay now, she knew.

"Spike," Dawn started.

He managed to tear his eyes away from Buffy to meet Dawn's.

He didn't say anything so she continued.

"Sire her," she said boldly.

"Bit, I can't. The chip," he replied.

"That's not true. The chip only goes off if you're intending harm, which, in this case, you're not. You told me that. Why won't you sire her?" Dawn said, angry.

Buffy's breathing was slightly irregular now.

Spike looked down for a second. "She'd hate me for it," he said quietly.

Dawn's features softened. "No she wouldn't."

Spike looked up.

"Please," Dawn said, almost begging. "Save my sister. I need her."

"Do it," Buffy breathed out, barely audible. Her eyes were now closed.

Dawn and Spike both looked at her. Spike looked at Dawn, then back to Buffy.

"Okay," he said defeated and slipped into his demon visage.

He tilted her head sideways gently and brushed her hair out of the way. He leaned over.

"I'm sorry," he whispered softly in her ear, before sinking his fangs into her neck, draining what remained of her blood.

Dawn watched on as Buffy's head drooped sideways as Spike extracted his fangs. She picked up the second knife from the ground and handed it Spike who quickly sliced a cut in his wrist, drawing blood.

He held his arm up to Buffy's mouth and let the damning liquid slide down her throat. When she finished swallowing, she collapsed, limp against Spike.

He caught her and then turned her over, so she was supported by one arm. With the free hand he gripped the knife handle and in one swift motion, pulled it out.

Then he slid that arm under her knees and picked her small body up effortlessly. Feeling her cold and hearing no breathing and no heartbeat from her was unnerving Spike.

Dawn looked on hopeful. "She'll be okay now," she said quietly.

"Where should we go, Bit?" Spike asked.

"Back to our house. Mom'll be worried."

"Shell need her soul restored."

Dawn frowned. She had forgotten about that. "Right. How long will it take for her to wake up?"

"Few days," Spike said standing up with Buffy in his arms. "Should be enough for the witches to get everything in order for the soul spell."

Dawn nodded and they began walking to the Summers house, leaving the demon corpse to rot on the sidewalk.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy's first thought when she managed to crack her eyes open was "I'm hungry". Her second thought was "where's my sire?".

She sat up and looked around, vaguely aware that she had her demon face on. She was lying on the couch in her living room. Her enhanced hearing picked up the voices of Giles, Joyce, Spike, and Willow in the kitchen. And, if she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could make out the heartbeats of another four people, Buffy assumed to be Anya, Tara, Dawn, and Xander.

For a second she wondered how she was in here, what with the no-invite, no- entry rule but then figured they must have brought her in before the house recognized her as a vampire. She was just a dead body to the entranceway.

Buffy swung her legs over the side of the couch. Well, she was hungry and there were seven people for her to choose from. She licked her lips and stood up.

She started to head for the kitchen but just as she got to the doorframe, she came face to face with her sire.

They both stopped. He hid the momentary surprise of seeing her in game face. She however, was delighted that she had found her sire.

She broke the silence.

"Hey Spike."

"Hey Sla-Buffy," he replied.

She gave him a smile and then turned and headed back into the living room. Spike followed her.

She turned to face him.

"Spike," she said seductively. He eyed her warily as she leaned close to him. He stood still as she slipped a hand up so that it was resting on the back of his neck and leant over the other side so she was whispering in his ear.

"I'm getting hungry. It'd be so easy. I could take them all out. You could have them too. How long has it been since you've felt the sensation of warm, human blood on your tongue?"

He looked down. She smiled and moved closer to him.

"You could have me. I know you wanted me," she continued, her voice lowered more, and began rubbing herself up against him.

"Sunnydale could be ours. And I could be yours," the last word was barely a whisper and Spike probably wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been equipped with vampire hearing. She rested her forehead against his neck.

Spike was tempted. God, was he tempted. He could have everything; Buffy, rule of Sunnydale, maybe even get the chip removed. It's not like he had much loyalty to these

But an image of Joyce and Dawn flashed through his head and immediately, he regretted even considering Buffy's offer. They were the only two who treated him like a person. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he let Buffy hurt them. And besides, she just wouldn't be Buffy without her soul.

"Buffy. . ." he said and put his hands on her arms.

"Mmm?" she said and nipped at his neck.

"Sorry, luv."

He stepped back, holding her away from him. She looked at him with a pout.

"Why not?"

"Why not what?" Xander said as he entered the room, followed in turn by Joyce, Dawn, and the rest of the Scoobies.

"Nothing," Spike said, never taking his eyes off Buffy's. Xander recoiled slightly at Buffy's face but he didn't show it. He knew he'd get used to it soon.

"Buffy! You're awake!" Dawn said. She almost ran toward her sister to give her a hug but then remembered Spike's warning about how hungry newly risen vampires are.

She looked at everyone in the room and bit her lip. She was hungry. Spike led her back to the couch and pushed her down so she was sitting. She eyed everyone in the room like she would doughnuts at a bakery.

Spike stood near Buffy with his arms folded and everyone else stood or sat in random places around the room.

"Willow, do you and Tara have everything you need for the spell?" Giles questioned.

"Yeah. Everything's set up in the other room," Willow replied.

"Get to it then."

Willow and Tara headed out of the room to begin the spell.

"What spell?" Buffy asked from the couch.

"The one to restore your soul," Giles said.

Buffy stood up outraged. Joyce put her hands on Dawn's shoulders. Anya inched closer to Xander. Spike uncrossed his arms and Giles watched her carefully.

"What?! You can't do that!" she yelled.

"Sit down, Slayer," Spike said commandingly.

She didn't listen but there was a twisting feeling of uneasiness in her stomach.

*You should obey your sire. You're being a bad childe.* part of her brain was whispering to her. She did her best to ignore that feeling and concentrated more on her anger. With vampire and Slayer powers, she was the strongest vampire on earth. Or so she wanted to believe. If she had taken a moment to think, she would have realized that her strength was relatively the same and her agility been improved, but not by an outstanding amount.

"I am the most powerful vampire on earth-" Buffy started in protest.

"And I am your sire," Spike said dangerously, cutting her off and slipping into his demon visage on the word "your". He took a step toward her.

Buffy bit her lip in nervousness this time and, slipping out of her own demon face, looked down.

Giles and the rest watched in stunned fascination as Buffy then timidly raised her eyes to meet the glaring yellow ones of her sire. She swallowed. *Bad childe* the voice whispered again.

"Sit. Down." Spike growled.

Buffy ducked her head again and sat down quietly; then proceeded to stare at the floor for the rest of the meeting, a little ashamed that she had been told off by her sire.

Spike went back to where he was standing, his face slipping back to normal, and crossed his arms again, his eyes still on his childe.

A few minutes later, Buffy's eyes glowed a swirl of white and she stumbled off the couch to the floor with a gasp.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Spike murmured in his sleep. Buffy smiled.

He was incredibly strong to have turned her down. She wondered why he did it. She had been offering everything he could have wanted: her, Sunnydale drenched in blood.

And she had always tormented him about not having a soul. Well, in cases like Spike's, Buffy thought, maybe, you didn't need one.

She sighed happily and settled against Spike's chest, enjoying the feeling of his hard muscles against her back. When she had opposed to getting her soul back, she had been partly ticked off about not being able to have sex, because of the true-happiness clause. But Willow knew that Buffy would have been pissed about that so she altered the spell.

When a thought about the night she and Spike had claimed each other came to her mind, a smile came to her face.

--


Author's Note: Another Buffy flashback experience.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

It had been two days since Buffy had woken up as a vampire, been reprimanded by her sire and gotten her soul restored permanently. Two days since she had wanted to kill her friends and family and drain them of their blood.

Buffy had felt an enormous amount of guilt for those few but vivid thoughts and had apologized to everyone for shouting.

She couldn't face Spike. Not at the time. It wasn't that she hated him for what he had done. She had asked him to do it. She knew that she would have died and knew that she couldn't. She had to protect Dawn from Glory.

No, she couldn't face Spike mostly because she was embarrassed. Embarrassed that she had offered him gory freedom, embarrassed that she had underestimated his will to resist her, embarrassed that she had so blatantly let her feelings for him be put into shameless seductive actions, and embarrassed as a childe normally is after being chastised by her sire. So she hadn't seen him since. Not for two days, soon to be three.

Buffy was settling into a routine. She wasn't ashamed of what she was. It was a bit strange at first but actually, in truth, some things weren't all that different from her regular routine. She still worked mostly at night except now, she found, her demon drove her to sleep most of the day and to come alive at night. Instead of her usual schedule of staying up all day and half the night, she now stayed up all night and half the day.

She had stopped going to her college classes obviously because she could not move freely around the campus in broad daylight. She was considering night classes, after the whole mess with Glory had ended. Or maybe she'd try and find a job where she could take the night shift. Buffy decided she's cross that bridge when she came to it.

Joyce now made regular trips to the butcher shop so there was now always at least a few packets of blood in the fridge.

So, life went on. With a few adjustments, true, but life went on. And Buffy was doing well. At least on the outside. She had no regrets about asking Spike to sire her, well, except maybe the loss of her tan, but she was having internal battles with herself constantly.

A lot of her debates were between her Slayer and her demon, which was to be expected. Usually when she was patrolling the arguments would be on where she stood on staking vampires. Slayer duty on one side and how one should treat their species on the other. The Slayer almost always won though.

But some of the disputes were more subtle than a simple contradiction of instinct. The one she was having now while strolling through the cemetery, twirling a stake in her hand, was one she kept replaying in her head. And she still hadn't negotiated a suitable answer.

She was struggling to decide where she stood on how she felt about Spike.

Her demon half was begging her to seek him out, because any vampire is inevitably attracted to his or her sire.

Her other half, the part that wasn't constantly fueled by instinct, was confused. She had never felt as strongly toward anyone as she did now. She assumed that was her demon, and it was...mostly. But she was unsure, still slightly wounded from Riley's departure and not really feeling ready to hook up with another guy.

But this wasn't just hooking up, this was love. Her vampire side persisted.

Buffy stopped walking for a second and blinked.

*Love? Was that it?*

She shook her head in confused amusement. She didn't want to think about this now. She tried to concentrate on patrolling but there wasn't a lot of activity going on to distract her at the moment.

She had patrolled for barely half an hour when a familiar tingle ran down her spine, except this one felt different than the usual tingle.

"Hello luv," Spike said.

Buffy knew it was him before he began speaking. Her sense of smell had been dramatically enhanced when she had been turned. The smell the cigarette smoke and the scent of old leather that usually lingered around him was more vivid now. Plus, part of her registered his scent as 'sire', and she could have picked out that scent above any and all others, even in the Bronze on a Saturday night.

Buffy turned around and locked eyes with him for a second before looking down.

"It's okay," he said, taking a few steps toward her.

She looked up.

"Don't worry about it."

Just by saying those words, the guilt that had been nagging her from the back of her mind for the last few days evaporated, as Spike knew it would.

Buffy smiled.

"Thanks," she said.

He smiled back.

"Sure."

There was a small silence before Buffy started walking again. For a minute, she was worried that he wouldn't follow her, but she relaxed as he fell into step beside her.

"So.will you always be able to do that?" Buffy said, making conversation.

"Nah, it'll get weaker over time and you won't feel that guilty anymore. Pretty soon, you'll be able to ignore my commands completely if you want to, unless I get really angry. Then you might not be able to."

Buffy listened.

"Gotcha," she said.

There was another awkward pause.

"Do you hate me?" Spike asked suddenly, stopping.

"What?" said Buffy incredulously, also stopping.

"Forget it," he said and started to walk again.

"Of course I don't hate you," Buffy said, putting a hand on his arm to stop him walking.

He looked at her.

"It's not your fault. I said you could do it," she argued.

"I know," he said quietly, looking away.

They kept walking, making light conversation as they went, smiling and even laughing a bit. The awkwardness melted away and the friendship they had started to form before she was turned happily took the spotlight again.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

One rising vampire dust and ten minutes later, the conversation had turned to their vampire elders.

"I can't believe I'm related to Drusilla now," Buffy said.

"Neither can I," Spike said.

"And Angel. And Darla. God, Angel, how the hell am I gonna tell him?" Buffy asked. "I haven't even told him that you're in Sunnydale."

Spike looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Seriously, pet?"

She nodded, a grin blossoming on her face. Pretty soon they were both laughing.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

After another hour of patrolling and talking, and not much activity, Buffy and Spike were thinking about heading off home when they were interrupted.

"Spikey!" a shrill voice called.

Both Buffy and Spike rolled their eyes as they recognized the voice and turned to see Harmony stalking up to them, looking furious.

"What the hell is going on?" She yelled. "You're wandering around with /her/ again?"

She glared at Buffy.

"I'm not going to live with this! I gave you the best bunch of months of my life. I thought I could change you, Spike. I thought maybe if I gave and I gave and gave, maybe you'd come around. Maybe be a little nicer. Stop treating me like your dog. But now I see it's you. You're the dog. Who needs to be put down---"

And on she went for a few minutes, with Buffy and Spike tuning out the bulk of her rant.

While letting her mind wander, Buffy realized how close she and Spike were standing. They were nearly touching; barely an inch apart and leaning toward each other slightly. A week or so ago, Buffy would have moved away on instinct but now, to her surprise, she found herself wishing that that barely an inch had vanished. She wanted to feel him against her so badly. She held her eyes closed and basked in his scent for a moment before opening her eyes again to resume watching (but not listening to) Harmony rant.

Spike's thoughts were similar. He wanted to slip his arm around Buffy, and hold her close, mostly out of desire but another part of him wanted to see Harmony's reaction. He had forgotten that Harmony still claimed the position as his girlfriend. It hadn't been the first time. He wondered how long she could keep on talking. A while, Spike figured, since she didn't need to breathe.

Buffy got an idea. She looked at Spike, whose eyes were pointed in Harmony's general direction, but glazed. When he glanced back down at her, she grinned and whispered "Let's have some fun."

He grinned and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her close. She wove an arm around him. The contact they had been longing for was now in action. Each reveled in the other's touch but did their best not to show it. They were, after all, just acting so as to taunt Harmony.

"Showtime," Spike said in an undertone.

"---watching you chase after the Slayer and you can say good-bye to this," Harmony continued, pointing at her butt, "because you're not gonna see it any more. . .ever."

She thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.

"Unless you run into me somewhere and it's me walking away from you." She put her hands on her hips. "But even then ... I'll probably just ... you know ... back away."

Harmony looked satisfied with her tirade for a minute, before noticing something strange.

"Hey," she said, looking at Buffy confused. "You're different."

"Huh?" Buffy said.

"You...you're...different," she said again, as if she had explained anything.

Buffy continued to stare.

"She's a vampire, Harm," Spike filled in.

Harmony's eyes widened.

"Oh...Does that mean she's evil?"

"No. I have a soul. I'm still a good guy," Buffy said.

Harmony looked put out. And then, after an eternity of talking, she noticed how close Buffy and Spike were standing.

"Oh I get it!" She yelled, her glare returning to her face. "Now that she's a vampire, you're all lovey-dovey! I thought you just chased after her because she was the Slayer. Well, now she's not the Slayer anymore and she's no different than me and you still chose her?" Harmony was near hysterical.

"Actually, she's nothing like you," Spike said. "She has a brain."

Buffy casually flung the stake at Harmony and she was dust before she could think of a come-back.

Buffy and Spike were rejoicing and laughing and both forgot to let each other go when they started walking again, in the general direction of his crypt.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

It wasn't for another few minutes, when they had reached his crypt, that Buffy realized Spike still had his arm around her. She turned and faced him, meaning to tell him that maybe she should go; even though the contact between them did not feel at all wrong or awkward.

But she found that her movement, instead of putting her in a position to easily talk and look into his eyes at the same time, had actually just put her in a more controversial pose.

She leaned closer to him, her eyes settling closed. He slid his arms around her waist, pulling her closer.

He, almost hesitantly, leaned forward and captured her lips in a tender kiss, his tongue hovering before hers, begging for more contact. To his surprise, she slid her arms around his neck, and deepened the kiss.

She had never felt this with Riley. The passion of her and Spike's tongues dancing felt more right than any kiss she had ever shared with the commando.

As Spike's tongue plundered her mouth, she wound her hands through his hair, as his hands slid under her shirt, and rested on the bare skin of her waist. He knew he had found a sensitive spot when she moaned as his thumbs started to knead gently into her soft skin.

Buffy found herself backed against the door of Spike's crypt, her lips still caught in his. He released her for a second to reach past her to open the door. They tumbled inside, still entranced in each other. Spike kicked the door closed behind them.

They quickly covered the space between them and the opened trapdoor, and then managed to get down the stairs and head toward the bed, dragging each other's clothes off all the while.

Finally they collapsed naked onto the four-poster, with him on top. Her arms were raised above her head, pinned by her wrists by him. He pulled back, pausing for a second, leaning over her. Her eyes, which were alight with lust, met his. She gasped in an unneeded breath.

"I love you," he whispered. Her eyes sparkled as she wrenched her wrists free from his grasp. They shot toward his head where they wound themselves in his short hair and she pulled him down to meet her lips again. His arms wound around her back and head.

He broke away again, and began kissing her neck. Sensing what she wanted, he looked up for a moment, meeting her eyes. She saw the fire in his eyes and pulled him back down to her neck. His fangs entered her as he did. She screamed at the powerful orgasm that racked through her body.

She wrapped her legs around him as he slipped out of game face and with a small growl locked his lips with hers again.

She pulled away this time, and effortlessly slipped into her own vampire visage before dragging his bare neck toward her and sinking her fangs in.

Though she had never bitten anyone before, her new demon instincts easily took the wheel on the whole claiming process. He had taken her blood, and now, if she wanted to, which she desperately did, she would take his, and then the ritual was complete. They were mates by blood and nothing in the powers of any dimension could break that bond. The Powers That Be or a spell gone awry could erase both of their memories and their demons would still be able to recognize each other.

After another five hours of endless lust and passion, Buffy and Spike finally fell into a content post-coital sleep.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

---back to present

Buffy fell to sleep with her sire's arms around her and a smile on her face.

--


Author's Note: Back to regular time now, except with a little time jump forward. Just pretend the whole April confrontation happened at night, okay?

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy looked up at the bright stars as she carried the April-bot down the street towards Willow's dorm. She hadn't been quite sure what to do with her. She didn't think just leaving an android in a playground would be very smart but she couldn't bring herself to throw the bot away. It looked too human to just stuff in a dumpster. Plus, there was always the chance that someone would find her and mistake her for a dead body, and then there'd be a whole fiasco over her and Buffy didn't need that.

Then Buffy thought of Willow. Her friend would love to have a robot to study. And so Buffy had set off, carrying the seemingly lifeless April.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Fifteen minutes later, after half-carrying-half-dragging the droid through the college campus and earning a few odd stares from late-night passers-by, Buffy finally reached Tara and Willow's dorm room.

She propped April up against a wall.

"Oh my god. Is she okay?" A girl walking by asked.

"Yeah, she'll be fine," Buffy brushed her off as she knocked on the door.

The girl looked unconvinced but kept walking down the hall. Buffy impatiently knocked again.

A sleepy Tara creaked open the door.

"Oh," she said with a yawn, "hey Buffy."

She widened the door to allow Buffy entrance and then caught sight of the robot.

"What's with the robot?"

"I'll explain in a minute," Buffy said as she moved April into the room. Willow sat up in bed and flicked on the second lamp. Tara closed the door behind her.

"I couldn't just dump her somewhere," Buffy said to Willow and Tara's confused looks. "I thought maybe you'd want her."

Willow and Tara shared a look.

"Um. . .Buffy? I don't think either of us feels that way about robots," Willow said.

"What? Oh. . .no! I meant to study because you like robots, but I mean in the learning way, not the. . .y'know?" Buffy babbled.

Tara and Willow smiled at Buffy.

"Okay Buffy. Thanks for the um. . .present," Willow said.

Buffy nodded awkwardly.

"Well, I'll let you get sleep," Buffy said and turned towards the door.

"Bye," Tara said.

"Bye Buff. Have fun doing. . .creature of the night things," Willow called after her.

Buffy laughed and called goodbyes.

After Tara quietly clicked the door closed, she and Willow looked at each other and then at April who was leaning immobile against the wall.

"Um. . .we have our own robot," Tara stated, amused.

"That thing's gonna keep me up all night," Willow joked as Tara climbed back into bed.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

---12:13 a.m.

Buffy ambled through the cemetery, half-patrolling, half-looking out for her mate/sire/boyfriend.

She hadn't gotten far when a familiar pair of arms slipped around her waist.

"Hey Slayer."

She smiled.

"Hello lover."

Buffy leaned into Spike's chest, her back pressing against his hard chest muscles, as he kissed her neck. She closed her eyes.

Suddenly, Buffy didn't want to patrol anymore.

"Spike," she said, her eyes opening. "Let's go to the Bronze."

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

---12:55 a.m.

There was a DJ, not a band, tonight. Buffy and Spike sat at a table talking and laughing and sipping their drinks, until the song "Make Me Bad" by Korn started to play.

Buffy pulled Spike out to the dance floor where they started dancing to the fast beat.

Spike put his hands on her hips as she swayed to the music and closer to him at the same time. She slid her arms around his neck and ground into him, still in tune with the beat.

Still swinging her hips, she pulled his head closer to hers before letting go and raising them over her head.

They locked eyes for a moment.

Later, back at his crypt, their love-making session resembled their dancing.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

---2:06 p.m.

"I'll be back soon," Buffy promised, trying not to surrender to Spike's pleas for her to stay.

He sighed. "Okay," he said after a moment.

She smiled and kissed him on the lips before heading over to the sewer entrance.

"Wait," he called. He picked up a slightly-burnt blanket that had been near the corner, then turned and handed it to her. She took it.

"Thanks," she said before heading off.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy ran into her house quickly; the blanket was smoking as she held it over her head. She breathed a sigh of relief after she had slammed the door behind her, and tugged the blanket off.

"Hey, Mom!" she called before turning and see some flowers on the table beside the door. "Ooh."

She opened the card that came with the flowers. It read: Thank you for a lovely evening. See you soon? Brian.

"Still a couple of guys gettin' it right," Buffy muttered to herself with a smile, as thoughts of her sire flickered across her mind.

She hung up the blanket on the coat rack and turned to call up the stairs.

"Hey. Flower-gettin' lady. Want me to pick Dawn up from school?" She called up the silent stairs. She figured she could take the sewer system and come up through the basement of the school. That way she could avoid getting parboiled. Buffy frowned and looked down the hall toward the kitchen.

"Mom?"

She turned and looked in the living room, noticing her mom lying on the couch.

"What are you doing?"

She walked into the living room and stopped suddenly, her heart freezing in her chest. *Oh God* she thought.

Her mom was lying on the sofa, her eyes open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. One arm hung loosely over the edge of the sofa. She didn't move or blink.

"Mom?" Buffy whispered.

"Mom?" Quieter.

"Mommy?"

--


Author's Note: Another time jump: I left you at the end of "I Was Made to Love You" on my timeline. Now we're at the end of "Intervention". I'm not so good at tragedy so I kinda skipped the parts on Joyce's death.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy, in demon visage, Xander, and Giles helped carry an almost unconscious Spike back to his crypt via the sewer system to avoid the sunlight. Buffy had been frantic when she saw the state Glory had left him in.

As they approached the sewer entrance to his crypt, Buffy released him momentarily to kick the door open. Then they managed to get him up the stairs and lay him on the sarcophagus.

"Could you guys get some blood for him?" Buffy asked Xander and Giles. She stood next to the stone sarcophagus, itching to stand closer.

"I'll go," said Xander. He didn't like Spike all that much but he was learning to accept him. Xander noticed that Buffy had been growing closer to Spike, but he just atoned that to the whole sire/childe bond.

"I'll go inform the rest," Giles said. His view was similar to Xander's except that Giles had read in many books that usually sires became romantically involved with their childes. He was worried. He wasn't sure where he stood on letting Buffy get that close to Spike but knew that Buffy would be devastated if she lost him, so Giles had decided to just let this relationship happen. Spike would never hurt her, even though his chip no longer applied to her and, because of the bond, he would do everything to protect her. And vice versa.

Buffy nodded.

"Thanks."

Giles and Xander headed out, one on his way to the butcher shop and one on his way to the Magic Box.

As soon as the door closed, Buffy flew to Spike's side.

"Baby, you still awake?"

"Yeah," Spike said weakly.

She sighed and closed her eyes. She had been on the verge of hysterical before, so much that while fighting Glory's minions, she had vamped. Now that Spike was safe, she was calming down. Her face returned to normal.

"Worried about me?" He said with a small smile.

She opened her now-hazel eyes.

"Yes," she said before leaning over and kissing him softly on the lips, not wanting to hurt him.

"You ever going to tell them 'bout us?" he asked lightly as he closed his swollen eyes.

"I'm sorry. I will...I just don't want everyone to know yet. But it's not like I'm...you know...ashamed or anything..."

He smiled and opened his eyes to look at her.

"I'm beginning to think you just get off on sneaking about."

She let out a small laugh.

"Well, I think Tara and Willow suspect something. Dawn definitely knows. I'm not really sure about Anya and Giles, but I doubt that Xander's figured it out. Maybe they'll just all figure it out on their own."

Buffy kept talking as she tried to make Spike comfortable. A few minutes later, he drifted into unconsciousness.

Buffy kissed him on the forehead and sat on the floor, her back against the stone sarcophagus, and waited for Xander to return.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Back at Glory's now battle-scarred apartment, Jinx and Murk attempted to explain to Glory what happened.

"The Slayer was there," Jinx said.

"A lethal fighter," Murk added.

"She seemed to be everywhere at once."

"She had friends. With many weapons!"

"She seemed to be a demon herself."

Glory smiled innocently.

"And where's my vampire?" She said with a slight edge to her voice.

The demons looked at each other and began to stammer before falling to the floor in deep bows.

"Forgive us oh splendiferous one! But we have new information," Murk said desperately.

"Great, more information. What is it?" Glory said with an irritated sigh.

"It appears that the Slayer is now a vampire," Jinx said.

Glory faltered for second.

"Seriously?"

Murk and Jinx nodded furiously. Glory smiled.

This /was/ news. She was already thinking of ways to use this new info to her advantage.

--


Balloons and paper lanterns were hung cheerily from the trees around the park. People were walking around, some in costume, some holding carnival prizes. Children were happy and tugging at the hands of their parents. A group of cheerleaders wove pompoms and were going through a routine. A group of Chinese men were dancing with a large paper dragon that was decorated with bells and ribbons. Flags of many nations hung from the wires strung around the park.

Nobody noticed the two women sitting on a park bench, seemingly holding hands.

Glory squeezes Tara's hand again and Tara gives another cry of pain.

"Who...is...the key?" Glory said slowly and menacingly.

Tara forced herself to stop crying and look Glory in the eye, defiantly saying nothing, though the pain coursing through her hand and up her arm was near unbearable.

Glory glared.

"Fine. Let's get crazy."

Glory caressed the side of Tara's face with her other hand. Tara whimpered and tried to pull her face away.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Willow had never run so fast in her life. *No.* She thought. *Not Tara. If anything happens to her...*

"Tara!" She called as she entered the park and kept running, through the crowds.

"Tara!" Willow yelled again as she spotted Tara and Glory on a bench. The lady in red leered toward the witch and smiled evilly.

Willow began to chant a protection spell for her lover but she couldn't remember the ending, and was distracted and began to panic when she saw Glory place both hands on Tara's temples.

"No! No!" Willow cried.

As light began to stream out as Glory's fingers entered Tara's head, both Tara and Glory cried out.

Willow reached the edge of the path but was blocked by the men dancing the Chinese dragon and had to stop.

"That she I love must now be free!" She now yelled in a desperate attempt to finish the incantation.

"Tara!" Willow yelled again as she strained to see around the people walking in front of her and blocking her view.

The crowd cleared momentarily and all Willow could see was Tara sitting alone on the bench, her head lolling to one side.

"No!!"

Willow ran over and threw herself onto the bench. She grabbed Tara by the shoulders, but her girlfriend didn't react or even look at her.

"Tara, Tara, are you okay?" Willow said out-of-breath.

"It's dirty. It's all dirty. And all over me!" Tara said distractedly as she brushed at her stomach.

"Dirty. Dirty. I'm bad. Bad." Tara whimpered.

Willow started to cry.

"Tara. Oh god, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She pulled Tara's head down onto her shoulder and rocked her gently, tears streaming down her face.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Willow looked at Tara, her eyes flickering down to Tara's bandaged right hand, and then back up to her eyes.

"She's my everything."

"Well, you can get her released first thing in the morning. But she's gotta spend one night in the psych ward. Just for observation. We'll keep an eye on her, do a couple basic tests, then you can take her home. Does that sound fair?" The doctor said kindly.

Willow nodded uncertainly.

"Well, sit tight then, and I'll send a nurse by in a few minutes to pick up Tara." The doctor continued. He walked out of the room as Anya and Xander give Willow concerned looks. Willow stood and brushed hair back from Tara's face. Tara doesn't seem to notice the kind gesture.

"Man, words cannot express how much I hate this place." Xander said. And he meant it. Memories that Xander never wanted to dredge up again thrived in Sunnydale's hospital: Willow's coma, Buffy's blood-loss from Angel's bite, sitting in the waiting room, waiting for news about Joyce. Hospitals never held good news for Xander.

"It's dreadful," Giles agreed.

"It's like communism," Anya also agreed, in her own way.

Buffy walked into the room, late because she had to travel underground and drop Dawn off at Spike's.

"Hey. Will, I'm so sorry."

She hugged Willow, and looked at Tara, who's staring vaguely at nothing, over Willow's shoulder.

When they pull apart, Willow has tears in her eyes again. She looked at Tara who gave her a huge smile.

"They kill mice." Tara said cheerily while nodding her head for emphasis.

Willow's tears start to fall but she makes no sound.

"Tara." Buffy said and hugged her, but Tara didn't react. Buffy pulled back slowly and looked at Willow.

"I'm sorry it took me so long, but Dawn's safe with Spike, so I-I can stay as long as you need."

Willow put her hand over Tara's non-bandaged hand.

"I'm so scared." She admitted to Buffy.

Buffy put her hand on best friend's cheek.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Spike led Dawn through the lower level of his crypt. He moved a little slowly and with a slight limp. He was still in some pain from Glory's thrashing, even though Buffy's care had helped his wounds greatly.

Spike saw the worried look on Dawn's face.

"No one's gonna hurt you." He reassured.

"Oh yeah? Same no one who did that to you?" She replied skeptically.

"What, these? It's just a few bruises."

Dawn eyes the large bruise that's still apparent on Spike's face.

"Nothin' to write home about," he said and moved past her. He stopped and turned back to see Dawn's nervous expression.

"Hey, chin up, platelet. Don't get scared. Maybe Glory doesn't wanna kill you, maybe it's something--"

"Worse?"

Spike didn't respond and continued walking until he noticed that Dawn had stopped following him. She sat on a rock. Spike turned to watch her as she sat there looking scared, facing away from him. He slowly walked toward her.

"Hey."

He put out a hand to touch her hair, but pulled it back quickly as Dawn turned back toward him.

"You wanna know what I'm scared of, Spike?" Her voice nearly cracked and she swallowed some tears. "Me. Right now, Glory thinks Tara's the key. But I'm the key, Spike. I am. And anything that happens to Tara...is 'cause of me. Your bruises, your limp...that's all me too. I'm like a lightning rod for pain and hurt." She lost the internal battle with her tears and started to cry. "And everyone around me suffers and dies. I...must be something so horrible...to cause so much pain...and evil."

Spike shook his head. *How could a girl so young think she was evil?* He remembered some of the things he had seen in his long life. *No...this girl wasn't evil. Evil isn't hereditary, it's earned.*

"Rot."

Dawn wiped away some tears with her hand and looked up at him, her eyes still watery.

"What do you know?" She said with a perfect teenager attitude.

"I'm a vampire. I know somethin' about evil. You're not evil."

"Maybe...I'm not evil. But I don't think I can be good." She looked up at Spike with a hopeful expression. She desperately wanted to be told by someone that the Key was meant for something good. But she didn't know anyone she could ask.

Spike considered her words for a minute. And then said:

"Well, I'm not good, and I'm okay."

Dawn looked down with small smile. There was a lull in the conversation.

Dawn's smile got bigger and she looked up at Spike and said:

"So...you and my sister, huh?"

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy leant against the wall in the hospital hallway and watched the nurse try to coerce an upset Tara into her wheelchair. Her mind was racing a mile a minute.

She knew that Glory was getting closer. What if Glory ditched her plan to figure out the Key's identity and just picked her and her friends off one by one until she stumbled across it? She was running out of ideas to keep Dawn and everyone else safe.

Willow watched the nurse wheel Tara away. She started to run after her but Xander stepped into her path.

"Willow. No. It's just for one night." Xander said.

"Yeah, I-I know, but...it's a whole night. I don't think I can sleep without her." Willow said as she got a last glimpse of Tara over Xander's shoulder.

"You can sleep with me," Anya offered.

Everyone looked at her.

"Well, now that came out a lot more lesbian than it sounded in my head."

Buffy came forward.

"Will, you just have to rest. Okay? Right now there's nothing you can do."

Willow thought for a minute.

"Yes there is." She said and walked out the door.

"No. No way." Buffy said. She chased Willow out into the hallway and stopped her.

"You cannot even think about taking on Glory."

"You saw what she did to Tara. I can't let her get away with it."

"No. You /have/ to let her get away with it. Even I'm no--"

Buffy suddenly stopped, struck with an idea.

*Get away with it? Or maybe, get away /from/ it?*

She looked at Willow, who had a puzzled expression on her face.

"What?" Willow asked.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"She's getting too close. First Spike, then Tara. We have to get out of here." Buffy says to Xander, Anya, Giles, Spike, Dawn, Willow, and Tara who are all gathered in Xander's apartment. The blinds are down, effectively blocking out the sunshine.

Tara has taken her pills already so she's calm. She's now sitting on the couch, next to Willow, her head resting on her girlfriend's shoulder.

Spike and Giles are standing while the rest are sitting in random chairs.

"We can't fight her."

"W-well not yet, no, but-"Giles said surprised.

"No, not ever. She's too strong, Giles. We're not gonna win this with, with stakes, or spells, or pulling out some uranium power core. She's a god and she's coming for us. So let's just not be here when she starts knocking."

This outburst was followed by silence until Anya said:

"Run away?"

Buffy looked at her.

"Finally, a sensible plan."

"That's not what she meant." Xander said, then turned to Buffy. "Is it?"

"Well, we can't stay here!" Buffy exploded. "She'll just kill us off one by one until there's no one left standing between her and Dawn."

"Buffy, we all understand the severity of the situation, but there must be another way."

"No. We stay, we die. Show of hands for that option." Buffy said harshly.

Everyone was silent.

"All right. Nobody tells anybody we're leaving. Move as fast as you can. Just pack up whatever supplies you need and that's it, we're gone."

Dawn found a bright side to the situation.

"Cool. Don't have to study for that geometry test," she said quietly.

"What about wheels? I don't think everybody's gonna fit in the Xandermobile." Xander asked.

"Just get your stuff together. I'll handle the rest."

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Gronx was fussing over a ripped slinky red dress of Glory's and following Ben around the mansion.

"I didn't ask for any of this. I just want to be normal." He said.

"We play the hand we're dealt." Gronx said briskly.

"Nothing's mine, is it? This life, this body, it's all infected. The only thing I ever cared about she's taken away from me." Ben said, referring to how his other side got him fired from work. "You know why I wanted to be a doctor?"

"Flattering drawstring pants?" Gronx offered.

"To be close to people. To witness their lives and their deaths, to be there alongside them, a part of everyday humanity." He sighed. "Maybe it's the drugs."

He walked past the little minion.

"Drugs, sir?" She said and followed him.

"Find the right combination, keep her buried where she belongs."

"Impossible!" She exclaimed. "Her magnificence can never be fully contained! She is a perfect, all-encompassing light, one you should feel honored to be bathed in."

"Oh, yeah, I'm thrilled. Especially with the part where she gets her key back and I cease to exist."

"True, this oh-so-appealing form will of necessity be shrugged off."

"Not if I get the key first." He turned to leave but Gronx stopped him.

"And if you did...what then? Could you do it?" She said with an almost smug attitude.

Ben looked annoyed.

"Take a human life with your own hands?" She continued. Then said comfortingly. "Oblivion is such a small inconvenience in the service of a deity. Accept your fate. I mean, you said it yourself. This life was never really yours anyway, was it?"

"It doesn't matter how I came by it. It's mine. And I plan on keeping it."

--


Giles drove the used RV down a long stretch of highway. Dawn, Willow, Tara, Anya, and Xander sat around the table, each lost in their own thoughts. Spike sat on the floor beside Dawn, looking irritated, while Willow studied a book.

The silence was making Anya edgy so she did what she usually did and said the first thing that came to her mind that wasn't 'We're all going to die!'

"Shouldn't somebody be asking, 'Are we there yet?'"

Willow looked up from her book briefly, then returned to her reading. She caught a few words every time Tara became calmed or distracted enough by something not to make a fuss. Though Willow just skimmed, so she could keep an eye on her girl.

Anya wasn't daunted by the lack of response and turned to Xander.

"Isn't that what small entertaining children do?"

But Xander didn't say anything. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, his lunch would come out.

Dawn ventured into the poor-excuse for a conversation.

"That kinda only works if you know where you're going."

Anya nodded and pondered this as Xander groaned softly.

"Do we know where we're going yet?" Anya asked no one in particular.

Right then, Buffy came out from the back. Everyone looked at her. She appeared rather gloomy.

"Couldn't sleep," she said simply and wandered over to Spike. She sat down on the floor between his thighs and leaned against his chest. He put his arms around her waist.

This earned a surprised look from Xander that would have been more enthusiastic if his face hadn't been turning an odd shade of green. He knew that Spike had been staying over at the Summers house a lot recently but he had denied any obvious signs that implied Buffy and Spike were together. He just comforted himself by telling himself that a sire was merely helping his childe through a difficult time. That was all.

Willow glanced up and gave a tired smile before returning to her book. Tara noticed nothing and continued intently watching something on the wooden tabletop. Anya thought they were a cute couple.

This came as no surprise to Dawn, who had been sleeping a few doors down from the room her sister now shared with Spike. Or trying to sleep. She couldn't count the amount of nights she had fallen asleep with her headphones on, to block out sounds she didn't need to hear emanating from their room.

Everyone looked up as the vehicle jostled and bumped.

"Is anybody else queasy?" Xander groaned.

Nobody answered and there was more silence.

Anya was getting fed up.

"So. Where are we going?" she asked again.

Buffy sighed.

"Anybody got an idea?" she said.

"Las Vegas," said Anya.

"Angel," said Dawn.

"Anywhere far away," said Xander.

"Fish it out!" yelled Tara.

"Wait," Buffy said suddenly. "What was that Dawn?"

"Angel," she said. "He has a hotel now right?"

Buffy bit her lip.

"Um..." She said and looked at Spike.

The idea was perfect. Angel was close by but not too close. He had plenty of guest-space. He had weapons on hand if needed. But going to Angel's would mean confrontation and her having to come up with a very good reason as to why Angel was not allowed to stake Spike.

*Well, what was more important? Her sister's safety or her "secret" relationship with Spike?* Buffy asked herself.

Spike looked like he was thinking the same thing.

Buffy's eyes never left his.

"Yeah...okay." She said.

"Giles," she called, finally tearing her eyes away from her mate's. "Head to L. A."

--


In the Hyperion, Cordelia was plunked in a chair, with Gunn, Angel and Wesley arrayed in front of her. She did her best to explain her recent vision but found that talking was not helping her pounding headache, so she wasn't doing very well.

"He had to be crazy. But he didn't feel crazy. He felt normal, you know?-- Until he started stabbing himself." She said.

/How does one fully explain the vastness of emotions one receives with a vision? I don't remember Doyle's visions being this complicated. Maybe it's because I'm a woman./ Cordelia thought.

"But you don't know where this occurred." Wesley prompted.

"I told you. It was in a house. It could have been in an apartment. In a kitchen."

"We got to narrow it down a little." Gunn pointed out.

"An nice kitchen?! I don't know!" Cordy said, getting frustrated.

"It's alright. We'll figure it out." Angel said.

"Let's start by calling the hospitals." Wesley suggested.

"And say what? Did my uncle check in with a knife in his eye? They only give out information to relatives." Gunn said and then noticed Angel and Wesley looking at him. "I just got the calling the hospitals job, didn't I?"

"I'll go to the morgues." Wesley offered

"Alright. I'll hit the streets, roust some demons, see if there's a new terror in town." Angel said.

"Good idea." Wesley said as he went to get his jacket.

As Angel got his own jacket he turned to Gunn.

"Keep an eye on her, will you?" Angel said. He was concerned about the seer.

"Sure."

Angel pulled on his coat and walked over to where Cordelia was sitting and put a comforting hand on her arm.

"We'll be back," he said. And he swept out the door.

Gunn turned to Cordelia.

"Can I, ah, get you anything? A cup of tea?"

Cordelia gave him a look. If looks could eviscerate...

"You'll let me know." Gunn said and sat down at the counter, near the phone with the phonebook and a notepad.

He threw a look over his shoulder at her. She was now sitting in her chair, one hand pressed up against her forehead, her hair obscuring her face. A worried look crossed Gunn's features before he started to concentrate on his given task.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Dawn and Willow looked up at the hotel.

"Nice place huh?" Willow said. "Well...big place anyway."

Everyone was outside stretching and breathing the fresh air--well, as fresh as Los Angeles air can be--except for the two vampires, who were still under the safety of the RV's roof.

Buffy stared morbidly at nothing out the window in the direction of the hotel.

"You should probably go in first." Spike said.

Buffy didn't say anything.

"Not that I won't be right behind you," Spike rambled on. "I just don't want to be staked on sight or anything."

"Uh-huh," Buffy said distracted.

Spike looked at her for a moment and then pulled her into a hug. She breathed in unnecessarily and wrapped her arms around his neck. He nuzzled her neck and quietly slipped his fangs into it, reopening the bite-mark he had claimed her with. She closed her eyes, content for now. He pulled his fangs out and licked the wound twice.

"Go on. Take the blanket and sprint," he said as he gave her a smile and a small shove toward the open door of the RV.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

She officially hated sunlight. Buffy decided as she ran toward the door of the Hyperion and burst inside. She threw off the flaming blanket and stamped out the flames.

"Geez," she said.

Gunn stood up when Buffy rushed in and gripped a stake that had been lying on the counter.

"Buffy?" Cordelia said weakly.

Buffy looked up.

"Cordelia? God, what's wrong?" She started to walk over to the sitting seer, but Gunn stood in her way.

"Don't go near her," he said and held up the stake.

"Hey," Buffy said and raised both hands in surrender. "I'm a good guy."

"Right," said Gunn.

"I am!"

"Prove it."

Every word echoed painfully around Cordelia's head.

"Um..."

Just then, Willow stepped in the front door. She held the door open with one hand because she was about to run out again. Sunlight streamed through the open door in torrents, bathing the witch in it. Cordelia winced at the light.

"Buff...where's the blanket? I just want to get it so Spike can...um...hi." She said the last part to Gunn.

Buffy pointed to the scorched blanket on the ground near the door. Willow picked it up and headed outside.

When Buffy looked back at Gunn, he had lowered his stake.

Gunn wasn't sure what to think but he didn't see why a human would be hanging around with a vampire if the vampire wasn't good. Unless the human was addicted to the biting thrill and the vampire was a whore. But that didn't seem the case.

Buffy gave a small smile and headed over to Cordelia. Buffy kneeled next to her chair.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Cordelia said tiredly

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Gunn sat at the counter, talking on the phone with the last hospital on his list. Cordy was indulging in a cleaning spree and was currently dusting any and all shelves she could find on the main floor. The gang from Sunnydale sat around the lobby talking or snuggling with their paramours or just thinking.

Cordelia was a tad miffed about the surprise visit but didn't say anything. She was very wary of Spike, and was completely baffled as to why Buffy was sitting calmly next to him, with his arm around her shoulders. She'd asked Buffy about her sanity earlier and Buffy said she'd explain when Angel got here.

Angel returned from his demon search just as Gunn hung up the phone, and looked gloomily at the list of crossed out hospital names.

Angel looked shell-shocked when he walked in the door to find the whole crew from Sunnydale and some new faces sitting or standing around the lobby. Nobody said anything for a minute. Everyone just stared at each other; there were one or two blinks. The only sound was coming from Tara, who was humming a tuneless song to herself. Cordelia stopped dusting and turned around. Giles, Dawn, and Willow's eyes flickered back and forth between Angel, Spike and Buffy, and Tara. Xander eyes focused on any inanimate object they saw. Anya looked on with interest, desperately wanting to break the quiet but not wanting to ruin the moment. Angel never took his eyes off of Spike and Buffy, and they stared defiantly back.

"Hi, Angel," Buffy said at last.

After the initial shock of seeing her had worn off, Angel sunk into a depression at the fact that he couldn't hear her heartbeat. He could tell that Spike was her sire. Why else would he be there? But he saw a glimmer of a soul in Buffy's eyes and the depression lifted. Of course they would have restored her soul. But that still didn't explain Spike.

"Buffy," he breathed at last.

She glanced quickly at her sire before standing up and walking toward him with her hands in her pockets. She gave sort-of a half smile and said.

"Something's happening in Sunnydale and we need to be away for a while. Do you think we could stay here?"

"Sure," Angel said looking concerned. "Buffy, I..."

He looked around and noticed Anya's interested look.

"Can we talk in private?"

Buffy looked slightly nervous and turned to look at her sire.

"Go on," he said quietly but with no scorn. Buffy bit her lip and gave a small nod.

"Okay." She said and followed Angel to the office in the back.

Now, Angel saw why Spike was needed. One of Buffy's greatest fears in high school was to be turned into a vampire. When she had been turned, she must have been terrified. And the greatest comfort to a fledgling is his or her sire. Any mature vampire or demon or even an experienced human could see that Buffy was still a fledgling by the way she respected her sire like a parent and looked to him like a child would. But that didn't explain why Spike was traveling around with white hats, didn't explain why the Scoobies would /let/ him travel with them. But he was hoping Buffy could explain that.

--


"I'm so sorry" was the first thing he said to her after the door had closed.

Buffy frowned.

"Don't be."

"But..." Angel said. "This must be awful for you."

Buffy exhaled unnecessarily and rolled her eyes to the side of the room.

"It was a little weird at first, but I've gotten used to it."

"But with /Spike/ as your sire?"

"He's different now."

"No...he...you don't...know him like I do." Angel argued.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Outside, Dawn was telling a story to an attentive Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn, while the Sunnydale gang relaxed some, listening in every now and then.

"So then Glory thought Tara..." Dawn turned and pointed to the witch. "...was the Key, and brain-sucked her." Dawn sighed with guilt. "That's why she's...kinda crazy right now."

Spike wasn't listening. He was lost in his own thoughts. Whoever stated that vampires didn't have feelings was wrong. Vampires have feelings alright, with or without a soul. They just didn't have a conscience to reign those feelings in. And Spike knew for a fact that vampires had to have feelings because of how hollow he felt for those two days after he sired Buffy, while she lay dead to the world on the living room couch. And he knew he loved her. There wasn't a doubt in his mind about that. Then he had those unstable thoughts of Angelus taking away his Slayer. He knew Buffy had loved him with all her teenage heart. And even though Buffy had /said/ she loved him, he knew that she was still slightly disoriented from the new sensation of having a sire. Every childe is highly influenced by their sire for several months, tagging along until they start to earn their own footing in the demon world. But Buffy wouldn't be earning a name for herself in the demon world. Not an admired name anyway. She was the first fledgling to be good from the beginning. It was anyone's guess how she would end up. Spike wasn't looking forward to the day when Buffy became fully her own person and not just the fledgling-childe anymore. Spike figured that her "love" for him would quickly drop away, once Buffy was back in the fully in- control state of mind she was in before becoming a vampire. When /he/ had reached that point of epiphany, his obsession with Drusilla had faltered and he disappeared for a few days. But, unlike Buffy, he didn't have a conscience and an actual life that one might desire to return to. Spike had hated his human life. So he returned to Drusilla, this time as her paramour, not just her childe. But Buffy had options. Buffy had friends. She could drop him and return to her life when her freedom epiphany hit. And if she did, Spike knew, she would return to Angel's arms. The minute Buffy turned to his grandsire, Spike vowed to stake himself. He couldn't watch her turn away again.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

When Angel had seen Buffy, a vampire and been cursed with a soul too, his immediate reaction was sorrow at her loss, but then joy. This gave leeway for him and Buffy to be together. But then Buffy dropped a bombshell on him: she loved Spike.

Angel's mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to sort out everything Buffy was telling him.

She /asked/ him to sire her? He loves her? She loves him? What?

Angel shook his head for a minute.

"So...please don't stake him." Buffy finished. "Or me," She added as an afterthought.

Angel had learned from the demon community that, in a roundabout way, Spike now worked for the white hats. He had gone out shortly after Darla and Drusilla's informative visit. But he hadn't known much about the Scoobies' personal lives. Though learning that piece of information sparked more confusing thoughts. Like why Spike would have sired someone if he was good. Or how Spike became good. He didn't have a soul. But Buffy had just explained the whole story, with the chip and the demon with two knives and so on and so on.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Dawn had finished with her story of "why we're at your hotel" and everyone was currently just spacing out, when Angel suddenly stomped out of the office, grabbed his coat, and left the building, leaving Buffy standing in the doorway looking irritated and slightly hurt.

--


Angel had returned to the hotel a little before midnight because the A.I. had a case to work on and Angel thought he had figured everything out.

Angel wasn't too informed about the "sire obsession period" childes went through but he knew that when it ended it was like getting an epiphany. Angel was confident that Buffy would come to her senses then and realize that she didn't love Spike. He was not sure if Buffy would stake him or not. She did seem very attached. And Angel knew how hard it was to stake your sire. He himself couldn't do it twice.

One thing Angel couldn't fathom was why Spike would put up with Buffy's friends. He could convince her in her current mind set to come away with him albeit with some difficulty but still...It would probably happen. He understood Spike's attachment to Buffy. No vampire would just abandon a Slayer childe. But even so...why was Spike so romantically involved? Angel couldn't figure it out.

He returned to the hotel to find all the Sunnydale gang settled into their rooms. The only remaining A.I. member was Cordelia, who was sitting in the lobby with her head in her hands. Angel felt a rush of guilt at having forgotten about her vision-induced migraine. As he walked through the front door, she looked up at him. Her eyes were red.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

The next morning was dreary; gray clouds hung in the sky. Inside the Hyperion's lobby, Angel accepted a box from a delivery guy and handed him some money.

"Thanks. Keep the change."

The delivery guy raised an eyebrow.

"Wow. A whole dollar just for me. I'm the luckiest delivery man ever." He said on his way out.

Angel shook his head slightly and closed the door, before setting the box on the counter. Cordelia looked up from her desk.

"What's all this?"

"Lunch. I was hungry."

He set a few wrapped sandwiches out in a row on the counter top. Cordelia, enticed by the food, got up and approached the offering with a wary look on her face.

"You don't eat food."

"Oh, I can. It doesn't keep me alive, but, you know, sometimes I get a hankering."

"You had a hankering for turkey, ham and roast beef sandwiches?"

Angel pointed to a sandwich near the end.

"You missed the vegetarian."

"Soup and salad, too? What is going on here?"

"I forgot what you liked," Angel said quietly.

"Why didn't you ask me?"

"Well, you said, why is everyone asking you if they can get you anything, and-and I didn't wanna /do/ that..."

"So you did this - instead."

"Yup." Angel said in an even quieter voice.

Cordelia let the suspense build for a second.

"I love you," she said, grateful, at last.

Angel's worried look melted into a big smile as Cordy picked up two of the sandwiches.

"And you ought to do that more often." She said and headed back to her desk.

"Buy you food?"

"Smile."

She reached her desk and hunched over as another rerun flash of her recent vision seared through her head. Angel came over to her, the worried look reappearing on his face.

"What?"

"Okay, this is weird." Cordelia said, looking up. "Before he put the knife in his eye he was happy. He was /happy/ about his eye. Like it was new or - something."

"New?"

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

About an hour later, Anya entered the lobby, looking well-rested. After Angel had retreated to his office, she and Cordelia began an interesting discussion, mostly about Xander, but with some other topics mixed in. They reminisced about how much they had hated high school, and Anya remembered Cordelia's wish that Giles had reversed.

"/That's/ why you're human? Then it's my fault. God...I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Anya said sincerely. "I'm happy. And I've got Xander."

The two had become pretty good friends and were talking over the sandwiches when Buffy came down the stairs yawning.

"Hey Buffy," Anya said. "Cordy and I thought of something."

"Is this about Xander?" Buffy said warily.

"No, it's about you. You'll save a lot of money, now that you're a vampire."

Buffy gave them an odd look.

"Yeah...I guess," she said after a moment.

Buffy walked over and asked if there was any blood in the refrigerator. Cordelia blanked for a second at the oddity of Buffy asking for blood before saying that yes, there was.

"You don't need to buy tampons anymore," Anya supplied.

Buffy raised her eyebrows at the ex-demon's tactlessness. Cordelia looked unfazed. They had obviously already discussed this. "Well, for yourself anyway."

Buffy stared at her and then ambled over to the mini-fridge.

"You'll only have to buy food and stuff for Dawn now. Think of the savings," Anya continued gleefully as Buffy pulled out a chilled package of blood.

She vamped and bit through the plastic. Cordelia and Anya watched as Buffy drained the entire bag's contents. When she was done she crumpled up the plastic bag in her hand and let her face lose its demonic features. She noticed the two girls staring at her and she sheepishly smiled and wiped her mouth with her hand.

"Sorry. I haven't eaten in over a day."

Simultaneously, Anya and Cordelia both shrugged and went back to their sandwiches. Buffy ran her tongue over her teeth in her closed mouth and threw the empty bag in the garbage can.

Angel, who had creaked the door open an inch or two, was filled with sadness when he saw Buffy vamp and eat. He hated that she had to be this way; hated that she had been infected with a demon her soul would have to battle for eternity; hated Spike for doing this to her; hated that his annoying grandchilde could have her in a way he never could. He opened the door and walked out.

Buffy turned around, and for a minute, nobody moved. They all just stared at each other. Angel nearly winced at how much Buffy smelled like her sire. The scent was fresher than yesterday, but Angel didn't say anything.

"Morning," Buffy said at last, albeit awkwardly.

"It's lunchtime." Angel said.

"Oh." Buffy said quietly. "I'm still getting used to the whole nocturnal thing."

Another long pause.

"I'm...sorry about last night. I just...needed to think." Angel offered finally.

Buffy nodded to show that she understood and then gave Angel a small smile to show she forgave him. Then the awkward silence resumed its position in the conversation slot.

"Hey Buffy, where's Spike?" Anya asked out of curiosity. She /really/ hated useless extended silences.

"Showering," Buffy replied with a little confusion, but she let it go.

Just then, Dawn bounced into the lobby looking for food.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Most of the Scoobies and the A.I. team were lounging about the lobby when, later that afternoon, Wesley and Gunn returned from investigating and informed Angel on everything they'd learned during the day. Unfortunately, the information found was interesting but not enough to help them solve the mystery of Cordelia's vision.

"We're at a dead end," Gunn said dejectedly.

Wesley sat down on the edge of the desk with a frustrated look on his face.

"I thought we had more than that," he said.

"There is only one thing we can do now." Angel said.

The Scoobies noticed an immediate change of attitude in the L.A. gang.

"Oh, god. Oh, no." Cordelia said in horror.

"The karaoke bar." Wesley said. The very thought made him wince slightly.

"Karaoke bar?" Buffy said, confused.

"Angel's gonna sing?" Gunn queried.

"Hell no," Spike objected.

"Isn't there some other way?" Cordelia said, near pleading.

"There has to be. Think, damn it!" Wesley said.

Angel looked from one person to the next. "Hey! Wha..?"

"Karaoke bar?" Buffy asked again.

--


== 1 week later ==

It had taken a few days, but the Scoobies were mostly settled in to hotel life by now. They knew where the lobby's bathroom was, and where their rooms were, and where all the local shops were (courtesy of Cordelia). There was some tension between Angel and Spike with Buffy in the middle for the first few days, but Spike and Angel acted very maturely about the situation and avoided each other.

Spike figured Buffy's epiphany wouldn't hit for a few months at least, so he made the best of her love and kindness for now, and take her staking later. Angel watched them with forced apathy. Every time they went up to their room together, or kissed, or came down together in the morning, he'd remind himself in his head that he just had to hold out for a few more months. A year tops.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"Spike," Buffy moaned throatily as he slammed into her a final time. She gasped in unneeded air and he growled as they came. It wasn't an earth- shattering orgasm, but it was a brilliant wake-up call first thing in the morning.

He slid off her and pulled her into an embrace. Buffy sighed contentedly.

"We should probably get up," she said without opening her eyes.

"Mm-hmm," he said.

Neither of them moved until Buffy felt cheeky and opened her eyes. She opened her mouth and bit Spike's shoulder. Immediately his eyes opened and he looked at her with feigned annoyance. She grinned, her eyes flickering yellow. Without warning, he started tickling her.

"Ah! Stop it!" she said through fits of giggles.

"Make me," he said with a smile, thoroughly enjoying how his Slayer was wriggling.

Somehow, through her laughing and wriggling, Buffy managed to get her hands to clutch Spike's head and drag him toward her for a kiss. Still laughing, her mouth claimed his and he finally stopped tickling her, and instead traced patterns up and down her back with his fingers.

He pushed her onto her back and held her wrists above her head loosely. He leaned in for a kiss and when his lips brushed hers he said "I'm gonna get the shower first."

Her eyes opened.

"Hey!" She said. He laughed as he headed into the bathroom.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Angel walked away from the door without making a sound. He had been walking down the hall simply to get to the staircase when he had heard some unmistakable sounds emanating from Buffy and Spike's room.

He knew he should have just kept on going, like he had every day for the past week, but for some reason, today he stopped. His vampiric hearing picked up every unneeded breath, every moan. He closed his eyes and listened to Buffy mewl and pant like a bitch in heat until he couldn't stand it anymore.

He breathed deeply as he approached the end of the hallway.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"Please baby," Willow said in an almost pleading voice.

Tara whimpered, on the verge of tears, and clutched at Willow's skirt.

Xander, Willow, Dawn, Anya, Wesley, Giles and Cordelia had made plans to get out of the hotel. Giles and Wesley would visit the ancient bookshops to see what information they could gather on the Key and Glorificus, while the girls and Xander would hit the town.

But just as they were walking out the door, Tara caught sight of them leaving and had gotten scared and had torn after Willow, clutching at her like her life depended on it.

Willow knew Buffy would be down any minute. Buffy had promised Willow she'd look after Tara for the day.

Willow was torn between wanting to go shopping and wanting to stay with her girlfriend.

Just then, Spike came down the stairs looking freshly washed. He stopped as he took in the scene in front of him.

"Come on, honey. Please?" Willow coaxed. But Tara continued to fret and held on like a lost child.

"What's happening?" Spike asked.

"Tara's upset that Willow's going out, duh." Dawn said.

"Right," Spike said distractedly.

Spike wasn't completely positive he wouldn't be staked for what he was about to do but he figured he might as well try. He walked up to wear Tara was on the floor, her arms around Willow's legs, and squatted down.

"Glinda? Tara," Spike said in a soothing voice.

She looked at him warily and he smiled and locked eyes with her.

"Hey," he said quietly, never looking away.

Willow felt Tara's arms loosen slightly. Spike reached out and took Tara's good hand in his own. She didn't pull away. Angel watched from the office's doorway.

"Come on, pet." He said calmingly and stood up. Tara stood up too.

"W-what if the bad voices are right and it turns all gray?" Tara said, nearly panicking again. But Spike held her hand firmly and looked her in the eye again.

"Shh...They won't. See her?" He said and indicated Willow.

"She's bright," Tara confirmed, her eyes flickering to Willow for a second.

"Isn't she brighter than the gray voices? Doesn't she take the voices away? She'll always come back."

Tara swallowed some tears and looked at Spike again. He smiled at her and she smiled tentatively back.

Hugging her cast-bound arm close to her chest, Tara turned, her hand slipping out of Spike's. Then she looked at an amazed Willow with a smile and sloppily waved her hand.

Angel went back into the office. He had seen Spike do that before. He had been the only one who could calm Drusilla down after she had one of her fits. It was a very light form of the thrall the Master used. Except instead of outright controlling a person's actions like the Master, Spike taught himself to just calm a person's mind until they acquiesced. So he just put Tara's delusional fears of Willow not returning to rest.

"I don't know how long she'll remain this calm. Might want to hurry." Spike said to a near-speechless Willow, Xander, Dawn, Wesley, Anya, Giles, and Cordelia.

"Um...right." Giles said after a moment.

"Thanks Spike." Willow said with gratitude. "You have to let me know what you did later." She said as she went out the door.

After everyone had left, Buffy skipped down the stairs.

"So what I miss?"

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"I didn't like that," Xander said.

"What?" Willow said through licks of her ice-cream. Dawn looked up from her milkshake.

"Spike going all mind-controlley on Tara."

"He didn't hurt her. She looked happy. Maybe he can get her to eat something. She's become more restless lately."

"I still didn't like it."

Willow sighed.

"Are you ever going to stop picking on Spike? He's not that bad."

Just then, Cordelia and Anya, their arms loaded with shopping bags, walked up to the little table outside the ice-cream shop.

"Hey guys," Cordelia said. "Wow. Is anyone else getting major deja-vu?"

Xander, Anya, and Willow all raised their hands. Dawn sucked up her milkshake loudly through a straw.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"So then this guy's all 'hey baby, what's your sign?' and Willow gives him this look and says 'a big neon one that says 'lesbian'' and the guy just kinda walked away looking annoyed." Later that day, Dawn was telling Buffy the highlights of their outing.

"Sounds like you had fun. I wish I could have been there." Buffy said a little sadly.

"Buffy. Don't worry. There's lots of things we can do together at night. Like say...patrolling."

Buffy gave her sister a look.

"Dawn..."

"Please Buffy. I need to learn sometime. What happens if one night I'm attacked or something?" Dawn gave her sister a large pout, her attempt to get Buffy's mind off not being able to go out working.

"Alright. After this whole Glory mess is over, I'll start training you."

Dawn grinned. Giles walked into Buffy's room via the open door.

"Or better yet, Giles will start training you."

"What?" Giles said nonplussed.

Both girls laughed. Giles sighed.

"Did you need something Giles?" Buffy said after a second.

"No. I just wanted to give you this." He said and handed her an aged book. "It's a record of all the Slayers."

"Like the Watcher Diaries?"

"No, actually. These stories are nonbiased. The author is unknown, though I think the book is continuously written with a specific spell."

Buffy flipped open the book near the end and was met with her own history.

"Oh cool." Dawn said, looking over Buffy's shoulder.

"As you can see, it's pretty up to date. I saw in one of the old bookstores Wesley took me to and I recalled how you had wanted to learn about past Slayers and how unhelpful the Watcher Diaries had been."

"Wow. Thanks Giles. This is...amazing." Buffy smiled as she closed the book. "Did you find anything referring to the Key?"

"Sitting right here." Dawn said.

"I did actually. The monks that made Dawn your sister actually kept a record. The store owner was reluctant to let it go but I paid him well."

Giles produced another book. This one looked older and dustier than the Slayer Records.

"It includes the history of the Key, the spell that transmogrified it from its original form to human form, and information on how to return it to its original form." Giles continued.

Dawn looked scared. But Giles smiled warmly.

"Not that we would ever consider it in a thousand years."

A thought nagged at the back of Buffy's head. /If this information was so easy to obtain, why hadn't Glory or her minions discovered it?/

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Ben looked at the small bottle of pills in his hand. Would he really do it? He, himself, couldn't honestly say.

/Come on Ben,/ he thought to himself. /You keep complaining that she's taken your life away, that she's got the power. Well, here's your chance. Here's where your power lies. This has to be better than being left to rot in oblivion./

A grim smile spread across his face and Ben realized that if he didn't do it now, he'd never get another chance.

He wandered into an alleyway near the video store. /Well, this is Sunnydale. Who's going to notice one more body in an alley?/

He leaned against the wall, twisted the cap off the little plastic bottle with a crack, and a memory flit across his mind.

--

"You know why I wanted to be a doctor?"

"Flattering drawstring pants?" Gronx offered.

"To be close to people. To witness their lives and their deaths, to be there alongside them, a part of everyday humanity." He sighed. "Maybe it's the drugs."

He walked past the little minion.

"Drugs, sir?" She said and followed him.

"Find the right combination, keep her buried where she belongs."

--

"I guess it was the drugs," he said, before collapsing, the empty bottle slipping from his hand.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"Buffy!" Angel said.

"Buffy!" He yelled louder.

She was screaming and thrashing around in her sleep and Angel couldn't figure out how to wake her up.

"Buffy!" He said and shook her by the shoulders. Her vampire visage melted onto her features and she swiftly sunk her fangs into Angel's wrist. He pulled away.

"Spike!" He yelled after a snap decision.

Spike came running into the lobby, where Buffy had been napping, with Dawn right behind.

"Get her up." Angel said.

Spike quickly went over to his childe, took her by the shoulders, and shook her gently, much like Angel had done. Except when Spike did it, Buffy snapped awake and sat up abruptly, efficiently slamming her head into Spike's.

"Ow!" They both yelled simultaneously. Buffy fell back down on the couch.

Dawn laughed at the sight of them both rubbing their heads while Angel looked at the fading bite mark on his wrist.

"What happened?" Dawn said after she had finished giggling.

"Glory's dead," Buffy said simply, slightly shaken.

Everyone was silent for a minute.

"I guess that means we can go home." Dawn said quietly.

Angel unfocused his eyes and thought for a minute. He had been hoping for a miracle, that Buffy would hit her epiphany while she was staying at the Hyperion. It was extremely improbable but he had hoped...

His eyes wandered back to the twin puncture marks that had begun to heal on his wrist. Buffy had bitten him. But that was all it was: a bite-mark. Her fangs had left a permanent mark in Spike's neck, and vice versa. Those marks would be there for eternity. But the marks on Angel's wrist would vanish like any other wound.

"Yeah, Dawnie," Buffy said, looking up at her sister, her face returning to normal. "We can go home."

--


Willow closed her eyes for a second and breathed deeply. The only sounds she could hear were the quiet whirring of her laptop, the air-conditioner which has been on all summer, and Tara's steady breathing. They had the house to themselves tonight. Dawn had gone to a friend's house for a sleepover and Buffy had taken this opportunity to spend the night at Spike's. Not that he didn't sleepover at least twice a week. Willow smiled and opened her eyes.

Tara lay asleep in the double bed they had managed to squeeze into Buffy's old room. Willow sat cross-legged next to a lifeless April, who was lying in the middle of the floor, face up. She had been dressed in a skirt and simple top to make access to her stomach easier. Said stomach had been pulled back, revealing a mass of complicated wires, computer chips, and electric machinery. Willow poured over her laptop, which sat on her knees and was connected via several bright wires to the mechanisms in April's robotic stomach.

Willow had been sad a lot all summer. She still blamed herself for what had happened to Tara. So Willow had taken to working on reprogramming April for about two hours every night, after Tara had gone to bed. It took her mind off things.

It was mid-July and Willow was nearly done. She had re-written almost all of April's programs but was having difficulty with installing them. Willow sighed and threw her head back, closing her eyes.

Getting an idea, Willow restarted April's main computer. When the android's computer was running again, the codes began uploading successfully. Willow smiled at her handiwork.

Suddenly, Willow's eyes lit up. Setting down her laptop, and leaving it to finish its uploads, she went over to her and Tara's bookcase of spell books and pulled out a few volumes.

She turned, looked at Tara, and smiled.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Spike lay awake on the stone sarcophagus, his mate resting on top of him, and a light sheet covering them both. He marveled at how her body melded with his as she slept. Usually when she slept over, they'd sleep in his bed, but the summer heat had driven them to seek a cooler alternative.

She stretched like a cat and opened her eyes tiredly as she wriggled up his body to get closer to his face. They locked eyes and she smiled and leaned forward into a kiss. When he didn't respond, she re-opened her eyes

"What?" She asked confused.

When he exhaled and didn't meet her eyes, she propped herself up a bit, reached out, and laid a hand on his cheek. He looked at her, his love for her shining out his eyes.

"What?" She asked again, softer this time.

"I just...don't want you to regret this...regret us," he admitted, looking down.

"Why would I regret this?"

He looked at her. He wanted to be honest and to tell her the truth, but he didn't know how to tell her that what she thought was true-love-at-last was actually only a temporary after-effect of being turned. He'd love her until it killed him, whatever she was, wherever she went, whoever she became, and he didn't want to turn down the love he was now finally receiving in return. He knew it was selfish. But he could feel guilty for a century after she snapped back to reality, while he only had a short time to bask in her unconditional love.

So he looked at her, and lied.

"I dunno, pet. Just a bad thought I guess," he said and pulled her close.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"This may end," Giles said. He assumed Spike knew of Buffy's coming epiphany, and had guessed--correctly--that Spike hadn't informed her about it. He didn't want to alert Buffy but he didn't want to see either of them get hurt. Giles thought for a moment of the irony that he now cared about a soulless vampire's feelings.

Spike looked at him, wondering why the ex-Watcher didn't just bluntly say "this will end".

"I know."

There was a pregnant pause in the conversation. It was late, near midnight. The only sounds Spike and Giles could hear were the thumps of Buffy's sparring match with the punching bag emanating from the backroom.

Giles took a deep breath.

"You have to turn her away now," he said at last.

"No."

"But a turned-Slayer's epiphany could be disastrous. Such a contrast could drive her mad."

Neither of them noticed the sudden lack of thumps. Buffy crept across the room and put her ear against the door that separated the main part of the Magic Box from the training room.

"Turning her away now and leaving her to face it alone would her hurt more. Even if you don't like it, the biggest comfort to a vampire childe is their sire. That never changes. Even Angel is at his most content when Darla's around. She'll need her sire, and that's me."

Giles closed his eyes in debate, thinking of the best way to put what he wanted to say.

"I hope you can handle her rejection, if it comes. It'll hurt."

*There it was again.* Spike thought. *The '/if/ she ends up not loving you' attitude.* Where Giles got the idea that Buffy could love him after her epiphany, Spike couldn't fathom, but what he took for support was appreciated.

"She doesn't love you, you know," Giles said slowly.

Spike knew that was true, but he hated hearing it just the same.

"Yes, I do," Buffy said coming out of the training room. She glared daggers at Giles. "Is this a vampires-can't-love thing? Cause if it is--"

"It's not," Giles interrupted.

She puts her hands on her hips.

"Then what is it? Because I do love him."

Spike, who had been quiet through the ex-Slayer's entrance, spoke up.

"No you don't, pet," he said quietly.

She turned her attention to him, frowning.

"What?" She said in a slightly calmer voice.

"You don't," he said quietly, looking away. "Not really."

She lowered her arms and looked slightly hurt. Then she walked up to him slowly.

"Look at me."

He did.

"I love you."

She smiled warmly at him and slipped her hand into his, their fingers lacing.

"Nothing's going to change that."

Spike didn't look convinced, but he gave her a sad smile and pulled her into a hug.

"I really wish, pet, I really wish," he said softly.

Because of Spike, Giles hadn't a doubt in his mind that vampires, sans soul, could love. It was a different shape than human love, but it was no less true. It wasn't that vampires didn't have feelings, he realized, they just didn't have a conscience to rein them in.

He felt a heavy feeling settle over his heart as he watched the two vampires' embrace.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Tara's prone body spasmed on the bed. Willow grew concerned but continued repeating the chant for a spell she had written in her spiral-bound notebook. It was no leather-bound Grimoire but it got the job done.

Willow's concern was lessening. She had gotten chills when Tara had been lying completely still, devoid of breath a few minutes ago. Now her lover looked like she was suffering a seizure and was whimpering, but she was breathing.

A ripple blasted through the room, hit the walls, and rebounded toward Tara. There was a crystallized ring as they entered her body, and then suddenly she arched her back and her eyes flew open with a gasp.

"Tara?" Willow said in a hushed voice and dropped her notebook. She rushed from the circle of sacred sand she had been standing in and to the bed.

Tara lay panting and gasping for air. Willow clambered onto the bed and leaned over her.

"Baby?" Willow said, one of her hands comfortingly on Tara's shoulder and the other in her hair, behind her lover's head.

Tara's breathing calmed and her eyes swiveled to meet Willow's hopeful ones.

"Will?" Tara said breathlessly.

"It's me," Willow said through a tear-accompanied smile. "I'm here."

Tara's gave a distressed look and tears formed in her eyes.

"Oh Will...I got so lost."

"It's okay," Willow said and shifted her weight so that she was holding a still-shaking Tara. "Everything's okay now."

--


Buffy sighed and put her head in her hands. She was looking forward to tonight's patrol, so she could get out of the house.

The Summers house had gone from housing two women and a vampire, to housing three women, a vampire, and a robot. The sudden addition of April and Tara about a month ago had a big impact on the residents' lifestyle. True, April didn't need to eat, but she did need a place to recharge for a night a month. They usually set her up on the couch.

Buffy dragged her eyes open and lifted her head to look at the mortgage bill again. She nearly winced. They needed money badly. And Buffy was at a disadvantage when it came to getting a job. She couldn't do anything that involved going out during the day and she only had a year and a half of college under her belt.

She sighed again, and toyed with the idea of asking Spike for help. She knew he stole what he needed, and knew he'd steal a lot more for her if she asked. But stealing was wrong. And while it suited Spike, who didn't have the credit to prove himself qualified for a job in the human world, it wouldn't suit her. Her medical reports were recent enough and as far as society was concerned, she was still alive; therefore she would have to get by as if she were. And she knew that if she were alive she wouldn't steal.

Buffy shook her head and tried to sort her thoughts. Then she stood up. Folding the bill into her pocket, she decided tomorrow she would search for what limited jobs she could find where she could take the night shift.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"Buffy?" Dawn said as she entered her house the next day. She was in a good mood. Her sister was taking her patrolling for the first time today, /and/ school had gone relatively well.

"Buffy?" Dawn said again as she closed the door behind her.

"Hi Dawn!" Said an overly cheerful voice.

Dawn turned around. The android was standing in the doorway to the kitchen with oven mittens on.

"Oh. Hey April." Dawn said and walked past her into the kitchen.

"How was school?" She asked enthusiastically.

"It was alright," Dawn said and swung her backpack onto the floor. "Where is everyone?"

"Buffy's sleeping. Willow and Tara are in class. Willow told me to clean the house and cook dinner. Chocolate chip cookie?"

She zealously held out the plate to Dawn, whose good mood ebbed a little.

"Uh...thanks."

April smiled brightly.

"You're welcome!"

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Later that night, Spike, Dawn, and Buffy entered the Magic Box. Dawn groaned slightly, the muscles in her legs protesting the movements.

Xander, Tara, and Willow sat around the table while Anya manned the counter. April was set to work cleaning some of the merchandise. Giles wasn't in sight.

"Hey girls," Xander said when he spotted them. "And Spike."

"How did--" Willow started, looking up from her book.

"Hello Buffy, Dawn, and Spike!" Chirped April.

They each gave her a small nod of recognition to make her happy. April was satisfied with the replies and continued to alphabetize the candles by their colour names.

"Once again," Willow said, vaguely regretting having restarted the robot. "How did patrol go?"

Dawn groaned again and flopped into the free chair.

"That bad huh?"

"Dawn did dust a vampire though," Buffy said.

"Oh...well done Dawn," said a familiar British voice from above them.

Dawn and Buffy both looked toward the small balcony area where the books that weren't for sale were kept.

Giles expertly came down the ladder, a book in one hand.

"I've just been researching the book I found in Los Angeles, concerning the Key...or, a key, I should say."

"Huh?" Buffy and Dawn said simultaneously. Giles had everyone's attention.

"Apparently, Dawn is /a/ key. There are three in total."

"So, should we be worrying that some other baddie's going to use these keys?" Buffy inquired, slightly worried. The lengths she had gone through to protect Dawn had been exhausting, though well worth it, but it would be difficult to protect three keys.

"No I shouldn't think so. Glory was after Dawn because she is the main key. It is possible to take down the walls of reality with the main key, but you'd need the second key to stop dimensions from bleeding into each other, and the third to put the walls back up. Obviously, Glory saw no need to go after the other two keys."

"Are the other keys girls too?" Dawn asked. Maybe they could start a club.

"No. One, I believe, was transmogrified into a grain of sand and thrown into the Kalahari Desert in Africa--"

"Smart monks," Willow interrupted.

"--and the third is unknown. But I'm sure we're safe, what with the location of the first two."

He smiled warmly at Dawn, who gave him a smile back, before she yawned.

"Somebody want to drive me home?" She asked.

"Sure Dawnie. Come on April," said Willow. She and Tara started to gather their things. As did Anya and Xander. April smiled and obediently followed.

"Good idea," Buffy said. "Me and Spike'll finish patrolling."

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Things had been awkward all night.

The two vampires had barely said anything to each other during the last sweep of the cemeteries.

Ever since that scene in the Magic Box, they weren't sure how to act around one another. Buffy was fretting that her mate was rejecting her; Spike was torn between wanting to love her with all his unbeating heart and AWOL soul, and doing what he thought human, lucid-thinking Buffy would want.

She kept coming back to the same answer: she must be pushing him away. Maybe she was realizing it early this time. She sifted through her thoughts and memories, trying to figure out what was happening. She knew that something was going on, but she couldn't determine what exactly.

He kept coming back to the same answer: take the love you got now and take her scorn later. It wasn't a fun prospect, but it was better than isolating her now and then later losing her forever.

Before they knew it, they had reached her front door.

/Now what?/ they both thought, looking at their feet.

"Um..." Buffy said very quietly. He looked up as she tentatively stepped forward and put her arms around him in a hug.

She smiled when she felt him relax into her, his arms sliding around her to hold her close.

She pulled back after a few seconds to look at him. He leaned down and swiftly kissed her. The kiss was calm, each vampire holding back, not sure how far the other wanted to go.

With a small smile on both their lips, they reluctantly let go of each other. Buffy bowed her head slightly, and Spike, smile still in place, began to walk down the pathway through the front yard.

He wasn't halfway when he heard her running footsteps behind him. He had just enough time to turn around before Buffy was upon him, pressing her body against his, wrapping her limbs around him, and sliding her tongue into his mouth. Spike took full advantage, holding her everywhere he could. Each vampire's hunger sated as their passion grew.

--


Nearly three months passed, and Sunnydale slipped into a surprisingly chilly winter with an average of 28 deg F.

During these cold winter nights/mornings, Buffy had insisted that no mate of hers was going to be sleeping in a stone crypt. So that season, Spike spent his sleeping hours snuggling up with Buffy in her room with the heat cranked up. Her skin felt warm again. Spike loved it.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

The sun had set and the temperature was dropping sharply without the daylight to warm it. Anya wrapped her coat tighter around her as she walked briskly into the famous one Starbucks of Sunnydale. Shivering, Anya stepped inside.

As she unbuttoned her jacket, Anya saw that Willow was already in the back area with her laptop and a large, steaming, foam-chocolate sauce-coffee- cream concoction. She was snuggling into one of the comfy chairs and hadn’t noticed Anya’s entrance. Buffy hadn’t either by the look of things as she was preoccupied with making another complicated coffee drink for some man who was getting impatient.

“Hi Buffy,” Anya said when it was her turn to order.

“Hey Anya. What can I get you?”

Anya placed her order and then tried to act nonchalant while walking quickly to snag the only other comfy chair before some other person did.

Buffy wasn’t too pleased with her job choice but her other options consisted of the Doublemeat Palace and the Chinese Laundry. At least she didn’t have to wear a ridiculous outfit. Buffy actually liked the Starbucks shade of green. She had, of course, volunteered for the night shift. The manager had thought she was nuts. People on the night shift disappeared by the barrel in this town.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

“So...Willow. What are you doing?” Anya said.

“Huh?” Willow said, not looking up from her laptop screen.

“I said, what are you doing?”

“Oh.” She glanced up. “Just figuring out some new ideas...codes and things...for April.”

Her eyes drifted back to the screen and she resumed typing.

“Ah yes. How is April?” Anya said patiently.

“Willow!” Anya said indignantly when the redhead didn’t reply.

“What?!”

“I’m attempting to make civilized conversation such as one is supposed to in a coffee shop and you’re not participating.”

“Sorry. I’m busy right now.” Willow said shortly before returning to her work.

With a sigh, Anya set her coffee on the table and grabbed the latest issue of Cosmopolitan, which had been left on the small, tasteful surface. Getting comfy in her seat, she began to flip through it aimlessly.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

The sun had set, she had finished her coffee, and Anya was rereading the magazine for a fourth time, looking for a way to kill the boredom while she waited. Why had she thought it was a good idea to show up early?

Flicking past page 86 again, Anya stopped when she saw the article “How To Tell You’re In Love” again.

She had an idea. It would kill time at least. She could apply it to her and Xander’s relationship but that would be too easy.

Anya’s eyes scanned the room.

Buffy. Perfect.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

How To Tell You’re In Love

1. You watch each other walk away.
2. You sit superclose in social settings.
3. Your pupils enlarge when you talk.
4. It looks like a tornado hit your bed.
5. You’re happy to lean your heads together.
6. You dress alike.
7. You have a special tickle or lip bite.
8. You’re always grooming each other.

Anya was having difficulty recalling the minor mannerisms of the two vampires but unwilling to let her plan go foiled, she settled on simply needing both of them to be there. She conveniently disregarded number three; she doubted she would be able to get that close to tell. Catching a glimpse of their room would have to be postponed. Number six was true. Buffy had taken to dressing in black and darker colours lately.

That was all she could gather at the time. Looking up at the sound of the door opening, Anya smiled.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

In her head, Anya had checked off numbers one, five, seven, and eight at different times throughout the evening.

Xander was the last to arrive. Ironic, since he was the one who had asked them all there.

After a quick glance at the clock--which read 9:15--Anya greeted him warmly. The only people in Starbucks now besides Buffy were Spike, Anya, Dawn, and Willow. Dawn had nearly finished her homework and Willow was done with her work.

Buffy’s night shift ran from seven thirty to eleven on regular days. But because today was Sunday, Buffy got off at nine.

“Where’s Tara?” Buffy asked.

“Oh. She had some studying to do. Said she couldn’t make it,” Willow replied vaguely.

Buffy knew something was up but if Willow didn’t want to talk about it then it wasn’t her business.

“I guess you’re wondering why we’re here...or you’re here. Um...uh...there's something Anya and I...want to tell you.” Xander said.

He walked over to Anya and put his arm around her shoulders, before turning to face the rest of the gang.

“We're getting married.”

“Oh my god,” Dawn said with a big smile.

“Congratulations!” Buffy said from Spike’s side.

Willow however wasn’t smiling. She felt that if Xander got married, it would splinter her, his, and Buffy’s friendship trinity even more than Buffy’s turning had. She knew that she should be glad for her friend. But all she could say was:

“That...that's...wow.”

Xander and Anya had big smiles on. So did Dawn and Buffy. And even Spike looked happy for them. Willow felt like she was the only person who realized that her two best friends were distancing themselves from her. Instead of drowning in her thoughts and emotions now, Willow decided to delay her pain, and attempt to be happy for Xander now.

“It's a big wow,” Xander said and squeezed Anya’s shoulders

“I...I thought you were waiting for the right moment,” Anya said, caught off guard but still thrilled.

Xander gazed fondly at her.

“I did.”

Xander pulled her into a kiss.

“We have to do something,” Buffy said with a grin.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

“Buffy and Spike are in love,” Anya said matter-of-factly to Xander on the drive to the Summers residence. She was still glowing, and kept glancing at her hand and smiling.

Xander was silent for a few seconds.

“Yeah. I know,” he said quietly.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

The party had been moved to the Summers’ living room. There was some music playing from the old radio. Giles had been called and had arrived shortly.

“And he said he couldn't imagine the rest of his life without me, and then he gave me this!” Anya said, proudly showing off her engagement ring to Dawn.

“Which I'll be paying for the rest of my life,” Xander said with a grin.

“Can I try it on?” Dawn asked.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Anya said with a big smile.

Giles and Buffy appeared from the kitchen, carrying several colourful, plastic cups.

“Sorry we couldn't do the big fancy. You kinda caught us with our parties down,” Buffy said before going over and sitting next to Spike on the couch.

“Oh, that's okay. This is just the first premarital celebration. There'll be lots more. With gifts,” Anya said enthusiastically.

Tara and Willow appeared with bowls of snacks.

“Sure, maybe we'll even have time to decorate for the next one,” Tara said.

“Why wait?”

Willow spoke a few words of Japanese and a shimmer ran through the room. When it passed, the room was decorated with paper lanterns and streamers.

Dawn laughed with pleasure while the others looked around at the enchanting decorations. Tara and Giles, however, looked unhappy and shared a disapproving look.

“This is so much better than the way it usually looks. Thank you,” Anya said before hugging Willow.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Dawn heard the semi-raised voices as she approached the kitchen.

“You're always coming down on me for, for doing magic that couldn't harm a fly. What's your problem?” Willow snapped.

“Willow, I j-just wish that you would stop and think about what you're--”

Tara cut herself off when Willow’s gaze slipped toward the door. Dawn looked nervously between the two witches.

“Sorry. Just checkin' on the chips.”

“It's okay. We're done,” Willow said, grabbing the bowl of chips and walking out of the kitchen. Dawn gave Tara an anxious look before following Willow back to the living room.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Dawn was fast asleep on the couch. Occasionally, she’d mumble something or give a snore, but on the whole she was quiet.

Anya and Xander had left with Anya expecting post-wedding-announcement sex not long after Willow had huffily announced that she was going to bed about half an hour ago.

Buffy had gone into the kitchen to refill her drink with Spike assisting her twenty minutes ago. Neither had reappeared yet.

That left Tara and Giles in the living room. Their quiet voices carried to the kitchen but they weren’t terribly concerned about Buffy or Spike listening in, and it wasn’t a huge secret anyhow.

“I guess restarting April and reconstructing my sanity kind of gave her a buzz,” Tara said before taking a sip of her root beer.

Giles nodded.

“Where is April?”

“We plugged her in to recharge in our room. Willow’s upgrading some combat abilities so that maybe she could go on patrol.”

“Ah, that will be helpful.”

There was a slight pause in the conversation before Tara said:

“I just don’t want to see her get hurt.”

For a second Giles thought she meant April.

“That’s the last thing any of us want.”

“I’ve seen people who’ve been really hurt by magick. And not just physically.”

Giles nodded again, and Tara took another sip of her drink before reaching for the chips.

--


The first thing Dawn noticed when she blearily opened her eyes was the smiling face of April leaning over her.

“Um...good morning,” Dawn said warily wondering what Willow had programmed into the bot last night and if it would be harmful to her health.

April gave a glorious, bright smile.

“Good morning Dawn! I made you breakfast.”

Dawn glanced over April’s shoulder and saw twelve blueberry muffins stacked in a pyramid on top of her desk.

“Thanks. What time is it?”

“7:03,” April said, reading her internal clock.

Dawn winced; she had another hour to go before school began and she knew she couldn’t get back to sleep now that she had woken up. Then Dawn noticed something.

“Is that my shirt?”

April nodded emphatically.

“Okay then...definitely going to talk to Willow about that one,” Dawn mumbled as she edged out of her bed sideways to avoid the robot that was invading her personal space.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

After dressing, and showering, and brushing, and eating, and other numerous morning tasks, Dawn still had fifteen minutes to kill.

“April? Do you know if Buffy’s working tonight?”

April looked up from dissembling the toaster.

“No. She did not tell me. Should I find out?”

“No. I’ll go ask her. What are you doing?”

“Yesterday morning Buffy exclaimed that the toaster was broken after she burnt three pieces of toast.”

Dawn snickered.

“That may have just been my sister’s inability to cook.”

“I don’t know how to respond to that. But thank you for saying it.”

She then went back to her project. Dawn shook her head in amusement and walked upstairs to her sister’s room.

Dawn put her hand on the doorknob but froze when she heard someone moaning and what sounded like a large piece of furniture banging against the wall. She swallowed and her eyes widened.

“Oh...”

She turned and speed-walked down the hallway without looking back.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

That evening, as she walked up the path to her house, Dawn already knew that no one was home.

Sure enough, she found a note from Buffy with a twenty for pizza attached on the refrigerator.

Same thing every evening: Buffy’s working, Willow and Tara are at classes, Spike’s off doing whatever Spike does when he’s not doing Buffy. And Dawn was there alone with April---who was oftentimes switched off---until around nine or even ten sometimes.

Dawn walked in her front door, her eyes on her shoes. She missed the times when she and Buffy had been close. They could talk to each other about anything. Then they just became more and more distant after Buffy’s calling as the Slayer. And now Dawn barely saw her. Not just because of the nocturnal issue. She was always either working or fucking her boyfriend. Not that she didn’t love Spike, but she wanted sister time too.

Dawn sat down on the couch miserably. At least she got to see Buffy when they went patrolling, but that was only for two or three hours once a week.

Sometimes she wished she could just forget everything, never out loud of course; Dawn wasn’t stupid.

She tried to think of ways to lighten her mood and eventually settled on going patrolling. She had never gone by herself before but she was confident in her abilities, which had improved greatly over the last few months. And she’d only visit one or two cemeteries. Dawn gave a small smile. She’d leave a note for Buffy. Let /her/ come home to a piece of paper and an android for a change.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Willow and Tara had been catching up on some homework in the campus library when Buffy had called Willow’s cell phone, ordering a search party for her missing sister, who hadn’t returned home in hours.

So now, half an hour later, the two witches were desperately trying to spot the teenager in the crowds milling about at the Bronze.

“Do you think she's here?” Tara yelled over the music.

“What?” Willow screamed back.

“Do you think Dawn might have come here?”

“It's where I'd be if I were fifteen and on the lam.”

They began to walk around, dodging people while trying to catch a glimpse of Dawn.

“Really?”

Willow gave a short laugh.

“Well, not me at fifteen, 'cause, hello, spaz.”

“You?”

Tara had never seen Willow act all that shy. As a matter of fact, she was more the dominant one. Tara smiled at that thought.

“Yeah. Hard to believe such a hot mama-yama came from humble, geek-infested roots?” Willow said as she began climbing the stairs to the balcony.

“Infested roots, trying to turn me on?” Tara said, following her.

Willow looked back with a smile.

“I have to try now?”

They shared a brief kiss and continued up the stairs.

“Come on, let's look over here,” Willow said, cutting around a couple who appeared to be drunk.

“Do you see her?” Tara asked.

“No, there's too many people.”

“Maybe we can have security---”

“No, that'll take too long,” Willow said frustrated.

They climbed another partial set of stairs to the second balcony level and Willow immediately headed over to the railing to look down on the people dancing. She began to chant.

“One among many, many fade to one---”

Tara’s eyes widened and she grabbed her girlfriend’s hand.

“What are you doing? Will?”

“I'm just gonna clear the crowd,” Willow explained patiently, like she would to a child.

“How?” Tara asked; she didn’t like the sound of this.

“I'll just shift everyone who isn't a fifteen-year-old girl into an alternate dimension,” Willow said with an eager smile as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?” Tara said incredulous and horrified.

“No, it'll be for like a fraction of a second. They won't even notice.”

“Will, no, you can't!” Tara was frantic. So many things could go wrong with a spell of that nature, and so many of those things could be lethal, and there were so many people that could get hurt.

“Why?” Willow said confused. Didn’t Tara want to find Dawn?

“Well, what if something went wrong?”

“Well, it won't!” Willow said with confidence that was turning quietly to irritation.

“But w-what would Giles say?” Tara stuttered out.

Willow frowned disbelieving, and turned toward the dancing crowd below.

“Sukut!”

The crowd noises all vanished away, leaving the entire club silent; although the people continued to dance and the band kept playing like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Willow turned to Tara with a gaze that was a mix between a glare and hurt look.

“Are you taking his side now?”

Tara sighed, wondering how Willow could be so powerful yet so childish.

“This isn't about sides.”

“You two have been talking about me behind my back. You know how that makes me feel?” Willow said, still convinced she was the victim.

Tara finally got out exactly what she felt.

“Willow, you are using too much magic. What do you want me to do, just, just sit back and keep my mouth shut?”

“Well, that'd be a good start,” Willow sneered.

Tara looked at her girlfriend, speechless for a few seconds before saying:

“If I didn't love you so damn much I would!”

She turned and stormed away, trying to fight the tears that were beginning to form in her eyes.

“Takulum,” Willow said offhandedly, restoring the sound, as she stared at Tara’s back, which was fading into the crowds.

“Tara!” She yelled frustrated. She debated going after her or not. In the end, Willow didn’t move. She knew she could set this right. Already, she had begun piecing together an idea.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Willow knew she should continue searching for Dawn but her argument with Tara had thrown her concentration off. The only thing she was focusing on was getting home quickly to do the spell she was sure would help. Tara would no longer be mad at her, and while she was at it, she would help relieve Dawn of some teenage misery.

The entire house was empty, which was to be expected, seeing as everyone was out looking for Dawn; Willow unlocked the front door and made a bee line for the bookshelf where she kept a bag of emergency herbs behind Joyce’s old books.

She picked a large sprig of Lethe’s bramble from the bag as she knelt down by the fireplace.

“For Dawn and Tara, this I char,” she chanted.

She struck a match and set the twig and flowers on fire.

“Let Lethe's Bramble do its chore. Purge their minds of memories grim, of pains from recent slights and sins.”

She took out a clear crystal a small pouch on her belt and held it in the flames.

“When the fire goes out, when the crystal turns black, the spell will be cast.”

She swiftly pulled the crystal back and concentrated intently on what she wanted her friends to forget. She met a slight obstacle when she realized (with some guilt) that she hadn’t paid enough attention to Dawn lately to know what it was that she wanted to forget. Thinking quickly to keep the spell’s flow, she set the magick to take away memories that Dawn herself actually wanted to forget.

“Tabula rasa. Tabula rasa. Tabula rasa.”

She returned the crystal to her belt-pouch with a smile.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

The girl frowned as she began to wake up. She was definitely not in a bed and not comfortable either. She was on...grass?

Groaning slightly, she opened her eyes and picked herself up. She looked around at her surroundings, growing more confused by the minute.

She was in a cemetery. At night. By herself.

Maybe she had fallen asleep and would remember why in a few minutes. Only thing is, she didn’t feel sleepy. She wasn’t yawning and her eyes were wide- open.

Maybe she had tripped and hit her head. She tenderly felt around her skull for a wound. Finding none, worried thoughts joined the confused.

She then realized that she was clutching something in her hand. Opening her hand slowly, she then gave an incredulous look to the wooden stake she held.

“Huh?”

*Vampires maybe?* she thought to herself before quickly climbing to her feet.

Turning to leave, she found herself face to face with someone. She let out a frightened yelp, jumped backwards, and held up her stake.

The woman didn’t flinch but continued to watch the girl with fervent eyes that kept flickering around, like she wasn’t truly focused on the girl in front of her.

The girl’s first thought was that the woman was a vampire. But...she had never heard of beautiful vampires before. Vampires had fangs and could fly...she thought anyway.

The pale woman finally fixed her stare into the girl’s eyes, and the girl found herself frozen in place.

“Oh dear heart. Alice has forgotten Wonderland,” the woman said in a breathless voice, reaching out to stroke the girl’s cheek.

The girl finally found her voice.

“A-Alice? Am I Alice? Is that who I am?”

The woman grew rigid in her movements and merely peered at the girl.

“Please,” the girl pleaded in a quiet, desperate voice. “I don’t know. I don’t know who I am. Who are you? Where am I?”

The woman drew back and her hands flew to her head. She tangled them in her own hair and pulled.

The girl watched with uncertainty as the beautiful woman began to utter things that didn’t make sense.

“Names on chains are covered by the witch’s shadow and she doesn’t know she’s standing in the light. But she won’t. She won’t? And now the baby’s sweet key...forgotten like her lock.”

The woman opened her eyes and the girl saw them glisten when the woman fell to her knees slowly and look up to the stars.

“But will she still follow the white rabbit?”

Once again, the girl found herself under the watchful, dark eyes of the woman. Abruptly, the woman stood up and then seemed to sway in the breeze for a moment. The girl stared back intently, trying to find something, anything familiar in this puzzling stranger.

The woman began to walk away. To the girl, it looked as though she were dancing but didn’t know the music: graceful but not focused. The woman stopped when she realized the girl was not following.

“Come sweet Alice. Let Drusilla lead you through this Wonderland.”

She held out her hand to Alice, who hesitated but then quickly scampered over and slipped her hand in the offered one.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

“We can use her,” Tara said.

Buffy frowned and looked over at the robot, who looked interested and enthusiastic as usual.

“How?”

“Willow told me that April has a search engine.”

“Like Google?” Xander asked, knowing it was a dumb remark but had felt like saying it anyway.

Everyone looked to the door as Willow entered the Magic Box.

“Hey guys. She wasn’t at the house. Hi April. Hey, did you know she has a search engine?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said as Willow ambled over to stand next to Tara. “How do we tell her to fetch?”

“Easy. April...”

April looked over at Willow expectantly.

“...find Dawn. Uh...please,” she added as an after-thought.

“Yes Willow,” the android said obediently and then turned to walk out of the shop.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

The gang sans Giles and Anya, who had remained to man and close the Magic Box, half-walked half-jogged after April, who was strolling through the cemetery at a brisk pace.

“I feel...kinda bad...we only ever use April for chore stuff...like when we need her for work,” Tara said slightly out of breath as she speed-walked alongside Willow.

“Aww...want me to make her more humany?” Willow said. She was in a good mood; her spell was working flawlessly.

“You can do that?”

“Sure...all it takes is some more...easy-as-pie-yet-very-complicated programming.”

“Like...she could be a Scooby member...and actually have...her own life?”

“Well...that might take...some time...but yeah.”

April suddenly jolted to a stop and everyone followed suit. She looked around, searching for something and then turned to face Willow.

“We look like a bunch of joggers out for their graveyard run,” Xander said, panting slightly.

Buffy nodded her head.

“I am sorry Willow. I have encountered a disruption in my locating program. You may need to fix me,” April said, looking concerned.

“Maybe not. There may just be a lot of magick floating around. That sometimes throws off electrical tracers,” the redhead said.

“So now what?” Buffy asked.

“Now we do this the old fashioned way,” Spike said and slipped into his demon features. Buffy got the idea and mimicked him.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Alice sat on the stone steps of the interior of a particularly large mausoleum. She was cold, confused, lost, and getting hungry.

Her companion, whom Alice had learned was called Drusilla, lay on her back on the top step, still as the dead. *Which she might be*, Alice reminded herself.

Drusilla tilted her head back so that she was looking at the girl upside down.

“Such a warm, pretty little thing,” Drusilla said with a giggle and stretched her arms above her.

Alice suddenly began to worry if she had made a wrong choice. After all, she didn’t have any experience to fall back on, none she could rely on anyway. She didn’t know this pale woman but she did have a few memories. One featured a girl with golden blond hair pushing her on the swing. Alice thought that she looked younger and she recalled that they were both laughing.

Coming out of her reverie, she looked sharply at Drusilla, who was now kneeling near her.

“Does your blood glow green too? Does it taste green?” She asked with wide, curious eyes while her hands pawed around Alice’s shoulders and neck.

“I-I don’t know,” Alice said and her companion made a high-pitched sound of disappointment in the back of her throat at not getting an answer to her questions.

Drusilla shifted on her knees, so she was now behind Alice.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Alice said in a small voice.

She felt Drusilla’s cold fingers wind their way gently into her hair and tensed.

“I would never hurt you, Glory’s girl,” she said with sincerity and began twisting Alice’s long hair into two plaits. “No...never hurt the Baby’s key. Because the Baby now belongs to Spike and they need to know...need to know...”

“Need to know what?”

Drusilla had completed one braid with expertise and care and was about to begin the other when she paused. Leaning forward, she whispered into Alice’s ear.

“Bad bad things are coming. Bad for all. But the clock ticks in the distance and the pixies will not visit my ashes, which lie in a swept pile near the clock.”

“But what does that mean?”

Drusilla took a shaky breath and sat back on her feet. Her eyes caught sight of the piece of hair that wasn’t plaited and she deftly continued her work.

“Bad bad things...Baby must know...the Baby can end it...but she cannot stop it from beginning.”

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

After wandering around the cemetery for ten minutes and after Xander’s fifth joke comparing vampires to bloodhound dogs (get it?), Buffy found Dawn’s scent; and at the exact time, Spike discovered Drusilla’s.

Buffy followed the scent trail to wear Spike stood. She looked in surprise at Spike when she discovered Drusilla’s. They both realized that the trails went in the same direction.

“Would she hurt her?”

“I don’t know, pet. There’s no blood; so maybe not.”

Buffy turned to face the Scoobies, who were lounging on and around a group of headstones.

“We found her.”

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Alice was cradled comfortably in Drusilla’s arms when she heard someone.

“Dawn!”

Alice looked up at the sound and Drusilla’s eyes rolled to the door of the mausoleum.

“Dawn?” A female voice said as she ducked inside through the half-closed stone doors.

Alice watched as the face of the girl from her clearest memory erupted into a relieved and happy smile. The smile didn’t waver when her eyes settled on Drusilla.

Alice sat up slowly.

“Am I Dawn?”

“What?”

“I said, am I Dawn? I kinda don’t know who I am. Dru’s been taking care of me.”

“Oh Dawnie.”

“The baby’s here,” Drusilla said happily.

“Buffy?” Spike said as he entered the crypt, followed by Willow, Xander, and Tara.

“Holy---Drusilla!” Xander said, taking a step back.

Willow frowned and edged closer to Tara, who looked nonplussed at the presence of the stranger.

“Hey Dru,” Spike said in a sociable tone.

“Do you remember anything?” Buffy said to Dawn.

“Not much...nothing specific or present-day anyway.”

“Did you hit your head?”

“Hello?! Am I the only one who’s noticed the crazy evil lady?” said Xander.

Drusilla leaned forward conspiringly.

“No bumps on her pretty head,” she said and then snapped her head sideways to lay her piercing eyes over Willow.

Willow took a step back in disbelief. *She knows.*

“The little witch knows why doesn’t she? All scrabbling through twigs and crystals.”

Willow own eyes widened.

“Willow did this?” Spike asked.

“I-I didn’t mean to...for it to go like this,” Willow stuttered.

“Can we talk about this when we’re not in a creepy stone house?” Xander asked.

Buffy nodded.

Willow looked at Tara who quickly avoided her eyes.

Drusilla began to hum a tuneless song.

“What are you doing here Dru?” Buffy asked, a little impatient.

“Bad things far far far away in the distance mangle themselves into our family,” she said with a sigh and then looked at Buffy like a mother whose child had won first prize in a contest.

“Our Baby will be the only lady in our family then and the Baby must know...you can end it...but you cannot stop it from beginning.”

“When will this happen?” Spike asked; he had the theme of her vision already deciphered.

“Not long after I am cold, chewy dust and ashes.”

She gnashed her teeth together.

“Not until the ground floor becomes you’re only haven.”

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Willow lay in her bed wide awake, replaying the events of the evening in her head.

Try as she might, she couldn’t find the strength to reach over and turn off the desk lamp, she couldn’t stop seeing Tara’s betrayed look.

Damn Drusilla for seeing her spell! Willow was positive that everything would have gone smoothly if it hadn’t been for her. Except for Dawn. She had muddled up that part of the spell. But how was she to know that the teenager had wanted to forget everything?

That was another thing that had been bugging Willow. Why hadn’t Buffy staked Drusilla? Sure they were related through Spike and she hadn’t hurt Dawn but still...

Willow rolled over in an attempt to get comfortable without Tara next to her. This was going to be a long night.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

“So Tara’s just...not going to be living here anymore?” Dawn said.

“Yeah,” Buffy said quietly; she was facing the refrigerator.

“But I can still see her, right? I mean...she’s still our friend.”

Buffy glanced over her shoulder.

“Of course she’s still our friend Dawnie,” she said comfortingly as she turned around clutching to her chest two huge bowls, each containing a mountain of ice-cream. She closed the freezer door with a bump of her shoulder and then sat next to Dawn, setting their desserts down as she did so.

“She and Willow just have some issues they need to work through. When someone in a relationship needs space---which happens a lot---it’s always wicked exaggerated when they live together,” Still talking, Buffy got up and walked over to the fridge again.

“That why Spike spends some nights at his crypt?” Dawn chuckled.

“Yes,” Buffy said while digging out a packet of blood. “Plus he knows we need girly time. And he doesn’t really want to be part of girly time.”

She then transferred the liquid to a mug and popped it in the microwave.

“But you love him right?” Dawn said through mouthfuls of ice-cream.

Buffy smiled.

“Yes, I love him Dawnie.”

Dawn returned the smile.

“Think Tara and Willow will get back together?” she said as the microwave beeped.

“I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to say.”

Sitting back down next to Dawn, she dribbled some blood over her heap of vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.

Dawn had become immune to most of Buffy’s newly acquired and odd food habits, but once in a while, a case came up where Dawn just couldn’t find the strength to ignore it. This was one of those times. She wrinkled up her nose.

Buffy noticed her sister’s reaction and gave a short laugh. Then taking a big spoonful of ice-cream, hot fudge, and blood, she stuck her tongue out at Dawn and plunged it all into her mouth.

“Eww...”

“Hey, it’s good. And at least now I know you won’t steal any of mine.”

--


“Our mission is to eliminate the hazard of the turned Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers, and, if necessary, William the Bloody called Spike. Load up the tranq guns. Our orders are not to harm any involved humans so we’re going to neutralize the turned Slayer and then remove her from the scene before staking her. Understand?”

The collection of men and women gathered in front of him nodded.

“Let’s move out.”

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

April was holding a pile of fresh laundry.

“She keeps borrowing my stuff too! Willow!” Dawn crossed her arms and glared at the still-smiling April. “She’s like the little sister I never wanted.”

Buffy laughed.

“Feel my pain.”

Willow hurried over and took the clothes from April, handing them over to a pouting Dawn.

“Um, we’ll get you your own clothes, okay?” Willow said to the robot, who nodded pleasantly.

“Come on. I’m meeting Xander and Anya,” Willow said to Dawn as Buffy took the pile of laundry from her.

“Can I drive?” April asked.

“She drives?” Said Buffy.

“Yeah...uh. Tara wanted April to be more humany. So I’m...working on it,” Willow stuttered.

Buffy smiled.

“Yay. Driving robot. Whatever. Can we go now?” Dawn said from the doorway.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Spike was already inside when April pulled up to the movie theatre. Dawn scrambled out of the car.

“Sorry Dawnie,” Willow said from the passenger seat. She still hadn’t unclenched her hands from her armrests. “I’ll try and give her some more common sense.”

Dawn gave the car an incredulous look as it screeched off, and then went inside to meet Spike. Their movie was at 6:45.

Willow and April entered the Magic Box ten minutes later.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

“I suppose you’ve all guessed why I’ve called you here,” Giles said as he polished his glasses on his sweater.

“Buffy.” Xander said. They had already relayed information about their encounter with Drusilla to Giles.

“Yes.” Giles said.

Anya looked at Xander.

“I’m concerned about her ability to carry-out her duties as a Slayer. I thought that her demonic state wouldn’t make much of a difference. I overlooked the fact that she would probably feel some sort of a-a connection to her, well, ‘family’.”

He looked at the sombre faces around him; Willow’s big eyes peering out from her red hair; Anya’s closed stance; Xander’s clouded eyes; even April looked grave.

“I just hope she only feels that way toward specific vampires from her bloodline. She should be here soon. I was hoping we could speak with her and...alert her to our concerns.” Giles hesitated. “Let’s just be there for her. As friends.”

Willow, April, and Xander nodded. Anya still didn’t move or say anything.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

“Well. That was a lick and a tickle,” Spike said sarcastically.

“Aww...it was cute,” Dawn said, still munching on her vividly yellow, industrial-sized bag of M&M’s.

“It was a movie about fish.”

“But it was cute. You didn’t like it at all?”

“I liked the sharks.”

“You would.” She said with a giggle.

He laughed and lightly punched her on the shoulder.

A car screeched to a halt down the street from them.

“That’ll be April,” Dawn said with a sigh.

“Not too fond of the bot’s driving skills?”

“They’re worse than yours. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Yeah well, you failed your Drivers Ed class so I wouldn’t be talking.”

“Hey! Meanie.”

“Dawn!” April called from the car. “Willow requested I take you home right away. It’s dangerous.”

“I’m 16! And it’s only 9:30. And I’m with Spike. How much danger could I possibly be in?” Dawn yelled back.

“I don’t know. Don’t shoot the messenger,” April said with a sad smile.

Dawn sighed again.

“See ya Nibblet,” Spike said and hugged the teenager.

“Bye Spike.”

As April sped toward the Summers’ House, Spike turned and headed for the Magic Box.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

“So why the meeting?” Buffy asked from her position near the counter, Spike’s arm loosely around her shoulder.

Giles took off his glasses before speaking.

“Concerning our recent encounter with--”

Suddenly, all the lights in the building save the exit sign were shut off.

“What’s going on?” Willow asked.

Fifteen people, all dressed in black, swiftly and silently entered the Magic Box. You didn’t need vampire hearing to determine the amount of weapons cocked and armed and aimed at them.

“Miss Summers. If you will come with us,” the apparent leader said in a London accent.

The term ‘Watchers Council’ flitted through Giles and Buffy’s heads.

“Not happening mate,” Spike said, his arm still around her.

“Ah yes...Mr. Spike. We anticipated difficulty from you.”

The nameless Watcher pointed the gun at Spike...and then all hell broke loose.

Willow began rapidly firing off immobility spells in every direction, taking care not to hit her friends.

Anya ran behind a book case and pulled the fire alarm, setting off a blaring siren and flashing red light. Xander followed her and pulled her down to the ground with him.

Watchers were firing their tranquilizer guns at anything that moved.

Giles was face to face with an opponent and was grappling with the gun.

Buffy and Spike leapt apart to dodge several bullets, which effectively shattered the glass case behind them. Buffy knew Spike couldn’t fight these humans so she kept as close to him as she could while dodging tranquilizers and fending off manual attacks from Watchers.

But while she was distracted by two assailants, another had managed to get near Spike. And he had a knife.

Buffy turned around in time to see Spike successfully block a punch but then take the knife to his left shoulder.

In a possessive rage, her face slid into her demon visage and she strode over with a murderous look in her eyes.

Spike had grit his teeth and fallen to his knees; unable to strike back, he simply bore the pain. As an effort, he gave the man a shove backwards with the other arm.

The Watcher stumbled into Buffy. Running on pure instinct and fury, she grabbed onto him and swiftly sank her fangs into the man’s exposed neck.

Buffy’s eyes widened. This was the taste of human blood? It was like nothing she had ever had before. It was the ambrosia her body had been perpetually craving, the perfect food, the perfect drug.

When Giles caught sight of her, he stood stock-still. Willow gasped and her spell casting faltered. Xander and Anya’s eyes widened as they peered through the bookcase. They all looked on shocked as Buffy dropped the drained man’s now-lifeless body and stood tall, panting unnecessarily.

The three Watchers still standing tore out of the Magic Box.

To Spike, Buffy had never looked more glorious, with the blood of her first kill smeared on her lips, her demon in full front, red lights flashing behind her, bodies and shattered glass scattered about. He looked at her in awe for a few seconds before realizing the impact of the situation: Buffy had just murdered a human being.

He stood slowly, one arm over his wounded shoulder--he had removed the knife with some pain a few minutes ago--and stalked toward her until they were face to face.

She eyed him warily with her yellow eyes, like a predator regarding another. She was still manic from being filled with her first taste of human blood and hadn’t come down from the primal high yet.

Everyone in the Magic Box was noiseless, whether from anticipation, shock, unconsciousness, or death.

Spike opened his mouth slightly and leaned forward silently. Her eyes remained straight ahead but every fibre of her being was concentrated on his presence. He swept his tongue across the small streak of blood on her cheek. She closed her eyes and turned her head, drawing him in for a kiss, while all her friends watched on in horror.

--


The Scoobies sat around the table in the Magic Box, awkwardly silent. No one seemed willing to bring up what happened last night although that was the point of this meeting.

Xander sighed, and decided to start.

“I guess we should talk about what happened.”

“Yeah,” Willow breathed.

More silence reverberated through the store.

“I-I hadn’t realized that Buffy had relinquished so much control to her demon,” Giles said, taking off his glasses.

“She is sorta...embracing it more,” Willow said.

“I just...assumed she’d be able to handle her situation. Maybe it’s because of Spike’s presence,” said Giles.

“Of course it’s because of Spike,” Xander said. “I’ll bet she’d be just fine right now if Captain Peroxide wasn’t there pulling her over to the dark side of the force.”

Anya snorted. Everyone looked at her but she didn’t say anything, so neither did they.

“So. What do we do?” Willow asked.

Giles sighed and replaced his glasses.

“I don’t know. Talk to her?”

“And say what?” Anya interjected with an edge to her voice. “‘Gee Buffy. We don’t think you’re good at killing YOUR OWN KIND, especially when it comes to the vampires you’re related to by blood. We don’t like that you follow your instincts; act more like a human because it’s morally superior to being a demon.’?”

She held everyone’s speechless attention.

“I don’t understand all of you. You keep forgetting or just ignoring that she’s a vampire now, pretending like it never happened. Sure she’s still your Slayer but she’s /also/ a demon. It’s not easy to go around lightheartedly killing your own kind.”

“She hasn’t suffered any large bouts of depression lately. Buffy knows that she’s balancing human lives against the lives of soulless vampires,” Giles argued.

Anya nearly went ballistic.

“What the hell do souls have to do with anything?! Look at how Buffy acted. Look at Spike. Look at me!”

“You don’t have a soul?” Xander said with a frown.

She glared.

“Being human is NOT a guarantee that one has a soul and being a demon is NOT a guarantee that one doesn’t. And souls aren’t substantial enough to actually make a difference, except in rare cases.”

There was another silence in which Anya continued glaring at everyone.

“I understand where you’re coming from Anya. But...demon instincts or not, she still cannot be allowed to take human lives at will,” Giles said calmly.

“Who says she’s going to?” Anya countered. Her feelings toward the Slayer had softened considerably since Buffy’s turning.

“Anya’s got a point,” Willow said, before Giles could speak. “I mean...she only killed that guy because he hurt Spike. It’s not just vampires that would kill for their significant other.”

Anya nodded.

Xander hadn’t thought of the situation like that before. He understood things a little better now. Xander had been quiet through most of the conversation, but now he said:

“I get that. I’m still worried about her though. I just...don’t want to lose her forever because Spike thinks she looks good in dark colours.”

Everyone fell silent again until Giles quietly said:

“You don’t understand the attraction of human blood. Now that Buffy’s had a taste of it, she’s going to want more.”

Nobody knew what to say to that. Nobody had a solution to that. So once again, the Magic Box was silent until Anya finally spoke.

“Well...I guess we should talk to her then.”


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


“No. I gotta go,” Buffy said laughing as Spike pulled her back for another kiss.

“Come on, pet. Five more minutes.”

They were standing in the middle of his crypt. She was fully dressed in a loose, black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans, while he was still stark naked.

He placed his hands on her hips and drew her close. Her black purse slid to her shoulder as she slid her arms around his neck. When his hands glided to and began undoing the button on her jeans, she pulled back.

“No. Bad. I have to get to work.”

He sighed but dutifully rebuttoned her pants as he rested his forehead against hers.

After one more distractingly tantalizing kiss, she eventually left.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Buffy turned toward the cash register.

“What can I...”

She paused when she noticed Riley, standing there dressed all in black with a bulletproof vest on. His expression is grim, not exactly a great thing to notice when suddenly seeing an ex-boyfriend.

Buffy honestly didn’t know what to say. Her coherent thoughts were as stunned as she was. Not just seeing him again, but realizing everything that had happened since he had left. How do you start a conversation?

“You.” was the best Buffy could come out with at the moment.

“Hey.”

“Lemme guess. Something really bad?”

“Yeah.”

After making an excuse to her male coworker about cramps and a headache, Buffy quickly left, following Riley out of Starbucks.

Riley eyed Buffy’s bare shoulders and the sweater tied around her waist, as they walked down the street. It was a cool evening.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Buffy gave a distracted glimpse of a smile.

“All the time.”

She ignored Riley’s puzzled expression, so he resumed walking and began to explain the situation to her.

“We've been tearing through every jungle from Paraguay up, taking out nests. As soon as we put one Suvolte down, a dozen take its place. They're breeders, Buffy. One turns into ten, ten becomes a hundred. This gets out of hand and there's a war with humans? Humans are gonna lose.”

“And now they’ve come here.”

“Not technically. Only one made it this far up but we took him out. Unfortunately, we needed it to locate its nest.”

“Nest?”

“We think it came to the Hellmouth to breed. And this problem gets worse. There’s a dealer who got a hold of the eggs and is planning to sell them to the highest bidder on the black market.”

Buffy nodded.

“Bad guy with eggs. Got it. I’ll talk to Spike, see if he knows something.”

They approached a dark-coloured jeep with a woman leaning casually against it.

“Hi hon,” Riley greeted her.

Buffy raised her eyebrows.

“Gonna introduce us?”

“Right,” Riley said with an abashed grin.

“Buffy, this is my wife, Sam. Sam, this is Buffy, the Slayer.”

Both women shook hands, each with a genuine smile on her face.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s mine.”

Buffy eyed the car.

“Nice wheels.”

“Came with the car,” Riley said. “Come on. We’ll give you a ride to the cemetery.”


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Anya was going to throttle someone.

“I think we died in this car on the way to the airport, and now we're stuck in hell.”

Xander glanced at Anya from the driver’s seat.

“The radio said no traffic,” Xander said frustrated as he reached for one of the numerous, half-empty bags of chips on the dashboard.

“It's a hell radio, of course it said that. We'll never get to the airport in time to pick up your stupid uncle.”

“It just gives my uncle Rory more time at the bar. Trust me, he'll be happy.”

“Great. So he can sleep off his drunken stupor on our newly re-upholstered couch,” Anya said through a mouthful of chips.

“He can't afford a hotel.”

“Why are you defending him?” Anya said puzzled.

“I'm not. I hate my uncle. I hate my whole family. That's why I'm marrying you, to start a new family. Have children, make them hate us, then one day they'll get married, we'll sleep on their couch. It's the circle of life,” Xander said smiling.

“Well, the Knarals are teleporting in in twenty minutes. If I'm not there to greet them? Somebody's getting incinerated.”

“Why did we ever agree to have your friends, who are demons, and my family, who are monsters, stay at our place?”

“Well, I can only do so much, Xander. Planning this marriage is like staging the invasion of Normandy.”

“Without the laughs. We should have eloped.”

“No! I've been through too much planning this wedding, and it is /going/ to happen. It is going to be our perfect, perfect day if I have to kill every one of our guests and half this town to do it,” she said heatedly.

Xander glanced over at her bag of chips, noting the colours of the packaging.

“Mm. Cool Ranch?”

“Cajun Fiesta.”

Xander grabbed the bag from her and she reached for another one at her feet.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Buffy, Riley, and Sam wandered through the main cemetery in Sunnydale. The conversation had hit a roadblock, so Riley started it up again.

“How you doin'?”

Buffy nearly laughed

“Complicated question.”

“I hear ya. Got some, uh...big stories to tell you too. If we ever get half a second.”

“Did you die?”

“No.”

“I'm gonna win,” Buffy said with another distracted smile. She was hungry.

After a pause, Riley said.

“We should split up. Buffy, you and Sam check this cemetery and surrounding ones. See if--”

Suddenly, Buffy let out what sounded like a cross between a yelp and a squeak and jumped forward, holding her hands to her sides.

She turned around and came face to face with a smirking Spike. Riley and Sam turned also.

“Bastard,” she said in a mock-angry voice. He chuckled as he circled her until he stood next to her with an arm hanging lazily over her shoulders.

“You were downwind from me,” she stated with a pout.

“Yeah. I win. Pay up.”

She playfully glared but dug in her pocket for a minute before handing over three singles.

“Such large pots.” Sam laughed.

Buffy grinned.

“Well. It’s all I can spare for stupid bets at the moment.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to--”

“Nah. Don’t worry about it.”

Sam smiled again.

Riley was surprised but hid it well. Spike and Buffy had obviously grown closer since he’d left.

“Spike.” His voice was void of any emotion.

“Whitebread.”

Buffy lightly smacked him.

“Be nicer. Oh and that’s Riley’s wife, Sam.”

Sam gave a friendly smile and said hi.

Spike nodded and saluted her.

“So...what are we doing?” Spike asked.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


As luck would have it, Buffy, Spike, and April ran into an anonymous demon carrying the nest of Suvolte eggs the next night, while patrolling.

Buffy viciously swung a sword at it while Spike enthusiastically went after any unarmed part of the demon with his fangs and fists.

“Hi!” April waved and pointed to the axe still buried in its back. “I need that back.”

The demon roared and flung April into a large, cross-shaped headstone.

With attacks from three sides, it didn’t take long for the demon to collapse.

Buffy walked over to help April to her feet as Spike looked at the crumpled heap of branches and what looked to be mutated artichokes. He figured those to be the eggs.

“What do we do with these, pet?” He asked as Buffy ambled up to him, dragging her sword.

Buffy half-shrugged, dropped her sword, and proceeded to jump/stomp all over the nest until all eleven eggs were unrecognizable.

“Ah,” she breathed. “I think that should do it.”

“Yes that seems to have finished them off. Do you think Willow be mad that I have ripped my new shirt?” April inquired.

“New shirt?” Buffy asked.

“Willow took me to the mall the other day where she graciously purchased for me many delightful new clothes,” April relayed with a smile.

“That’s good for you. And no, I doubt Willow will get all angry-pants. She’ll probably just zap it fixed.”

“Zap?” April frowned.

“You know. With magick.”

“Ah yes.” April smiled again.

“April?” Buffy said.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you head on home? Tell Willow and Dawn not to worry.”

“Okay. Goodbye Buffy and Spike.”

As she took off for home, Buffy turned to Spike with a glint in her eye and hot adrenaline still cascading through her from the fight. He let his head tilt to the side as he curled his tongue against his teeth.

She got closer to him, and leaned forward until their noses brushed.

“You want something?” She breathed into his parted lips which were so close to hers.

Her hand traveled up his thigh to the obvious bulge in his jeans. Buffy curled her fingers around his arousal, her nails biting into the denim. She stroked her palm up and down him, until his eyes closed and he growled with pleasure.

“Want to be inside me?” Buffy whispered huskily. The sound of her voice barely made it the short distance between her lips and his.

She waited until his eyes fully closed before saying:

“Then catch me.”

Her hand stopped moving and there was pause. In that split second, Spike’s eyes shot open and Buffy took off at a run, laughing.

“Minx,” he called with a grin and chased after her, his jeans chafing slightly.

As they raced through the cemetery in their odd fetish of cat and mouse, they both crossed paths with a scent that was so familiar it was nearly unrecognizable. And both dismissed the scent without a second thought, Buffy too focused on getting to the small clearing that was surrounded by trees before Spike caught her, and Spike was too focused on catching his girl.

Riley lost sight of them as they disappeared behind several trees. Slowly and quietly, he crept toward them until he was as close as he dared. Peering from behind an aged oak, Riley eyes watched silently and without emotion.

He had never seen Buffy or Spike fight like this. Each punch or kick was thrown with immense passion and violence, and Riley found himself confused. Buffy’s leer in the graveyard was hard to misinterpret and now they looked as though they were battling to the death.

Buffy landed a punch that hurled Spike to the ground on his back but when she tried to leap on top of him to continue her attack he used his legs to catapult her over him. She landed ungracefully. Quicker than Riley could follow, both were back on their feet, facing off again.

Riley wasn’t sure who an eminent snarl came from as it was lost in a cyclone of fists and kicks and head-butts and fangs. Suddenly, they parted, both rolling back to a safe distance. Spike had a gash above his left eye although Riley hadn’t seen any weapon on Buffy.

Spike’s eyes never left his adversary’s as he raised the back of his hand to head level and dragged his tongue over the small amount of blood slathered on his knuckles. Buffy blinked in surprise. Concentrating for a second and without looking down, she realized that Spike had managed to slice a small, shallow but bleeding nonetheless cut along the inside of her forearm.

As Spike’s tongue finished its hungry journey across his knuckles, his face warped into his vampire façade.

“Mmm...there’s my boy,” Buffy purred, and then they leapt into their brawl again.

The demon enhanced Spike’s strength enough to catch Buffy--who still appeared human--off-guard until he had her under a full-body pin; his hands kept her wrists pinned to the ground on either side of her head. She writhed under him until Spike started panting at the sensations her wriggling body was causing to course through him.

Buffy arched her back and stretched her head up slightly so she could lap at the cut above his eye. While Spike’s head was bowed and he was distracted, Buffy curled a leg up around his waist, effectively pulling him closer and giving her the ability to push them into a barrel roll, until she was lying on top of him. Both moaned at the friction in their groans that that motion caused.

It was then Riley realized for the first time just how much Buffy had had to hold back when she had been with him. If he and Buffy had tried to imitate what she had just done with Spike, he would have landed a few bruises in a good scenario, a concussion or a broken bone in a bad one.

She leaned back a little as he leaned forward, still kissing frantically, allowing both time to toss their jackets carelessly off to the side. He sat up and she wound her fingers into her hair while he gripped her hips. Clutching tightly, she forcefully wrenched him away from her. They locked eyes for a second, both panting unnecessarily, before she yanked him--still in his demon visage--toward her exposed neck.

She gasped and her eyes rolled up in ecstasy as his fangs sank into her pale throat.

Riley’s eyes widened. He should have guessed from the start that Buffy would become his chew toy. And if it hadn’t been Spike, it probably would have been another vampire. She couldn’t stay away from them.

Riley didn’t notice when Buffy’s free hand had wiggled between her and Spike’s grinding bodies to unzip any offending zippers.

Riley was mad. She broke up with him because of his addiction to being bitten when she turned out to be just as bad as he was, though he paid money. He couldn’t get as angry as he wanted to; he knew the attraction, the erotica of a vampire’s bite. He wasn’t jealous--he loved Sam; they were happy--but he was worried about Buffy’s welfare. There was only so far an addiction could carry you before you get killed.

Riley looked up from his thoughts to see Buffy rip Spike’s fangs out of her by the hold she still had on his hair. She gave him a pointed grin before sliding forward onto him. Spike’s eyes fell closed and Buffy’s mouth opened in a silent scream.

Riley wondered if Buffy’s friends knew about her and Spike. He doubted it. The Buffy he knew would have been ashamed about this when brought to the light of day. Maybe she wasn’t the Buffy he knew. He would have to find out, he decided as he crept away from the clearing sparing one last glance at the passion-fueled pair.

--


“Did you build her?” Sam asked Willow, glancing over at April who had been switched off for the night and was now lying on the couch.

“No. This weirdo did but then he abandoned her and Buffy took her to me for reprogramming. Do you want tea?”

Sam followed Willow into the kitchen and Willow set the kettle on.

“Sure. Thanks. So...Riley says you're coming on as one majour-league Wicca. How’s that going?”

Willow stance grew tense.

“I can’t do the magicks. I...I won’t do it anymore. I got addicted...the way addicts do.”

Willow started bustling around, getting the mugs, the sugar, the tea bags, anything to keep her busy.

Sam looked upset and bit her lip.

“Hey. I'm sorry.”

Willow didn’t look at her but she stopped bustling around.

Sam continued.

“You know, back in the jungle...we had not one, but two hard-core shamans working for us...they were working the dark magicks, and...got addicted. And now they're gone.”

Willow turned and looked at her. Sam continued speaking

“Gone...as in...there's nothing left. I've never met anyone with enough strength to quit before.”

Willow glanced down but said nothing.

“I'm just saying,” Sam said.

There was a pregnant moment of silence before Willow looked up with a little smile.

“Thanks.”

Sam smiled a bright, genuine smile back.

“What made you quit? If I’m not over-stepping anything...I’m curious.”

“Um...my girlfriend left me after I botched a pretty big spell that almost got someone hurt. After that I decided I was done but I slipped once. We were being attacked and it was just reactionny.”

“That’s okay. Done anything since that?”

The kettle began to whistle and Willow switched off the stove.

“Nope,” she said with a smile and began to pour the hot water.

“Do you take milk and sug--”

Suddenly the front door slammed open and Riley walked in looking a little hurried.

“Both please,” Sam answered Willow.

“Hey Riley. Want some tea?” Willow said.

“Buffy’s not--”

“I know. I know. She’s not coming home tonight. April told me,” Willow said as she handed Sam her mug.

“Thanks.”

“No. I mean Buffy is...she’s with Spike!”

Sam and Willow giggled and gave each other looks that clearly said that they had gossiped about this already.

“Well...yeah, Riley,” Willow said with a smile.

“Yeah. It’s just she and...he bites her.”

“Vampires do bite, remember?”

“But he shouldn’t. It’s wrong. I know this. What if she gets hurt? What if he kills her?”

Willow couldn’t help it; she started grinning as she spoke.

“Buffy’s happy and what if--”

Suddenly Willow burst into laughter, cutting herself off and spilling some of her tea as she put it on the counter. Sam chewed on her lip and almost choked in an attempt not to follow suite.

“Riley, honey...” Sam started after regaining a little composure.

Riley shook his head, frustrated at Willow’s reaction. Why didn’t she care if her best friend was toying with death?

Riley threw his hands up and stomped out of the kitchen through the back door.

Sam looked at Willow with an expression of amusement on her face.

“Think he knows she’s a vampire?”

Willow gasped in some air.

“Not a chance.”


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Buffy’s dreams were nearly as intense. Somehow they made managed to get themselves to Spike’s crypt and after several more hours of hot, desperate love-making, they finally collapsed in exhaustion on the stone sarcophagus.

And now she dreamt. The images bled together in a strange phantasmagoria. Some visuals were gentle: her and Spike in the sunlight, their hands linked; her alone holding a big, bright pink rose; her surrounded by all her friends, again in sunlight.

The scene shifted and grew darker as she looked over from the vibrant flower and watched Spike walk up to her. He held out a thorn-riddled red rose. She looked at it, then back at him and found him in his demonic visage. She dropped the now-dead pink rose and took the red one from Spike, letting her own face change.

Buffy suddenly looked down at her hand; it had been nicked by a thorn. No sooner than Spike brought her hand to his mouth to lick it clean then she began to be barraged by more violent images: her and Spike screaming, clawing at each other during rough sex, their demon sex; her letting go and sinking her fangs into his neck; her feeling his fangs in her throat and reveling in the pain that danced tantalizingly close to pleasure.

All this time, she hadn’t stirred in her sleep. Neither set of visuals disturbed her enough to rustle her sleeping state. She didn’t know which genre of images she preferred. She knew which one she was /supposed/ to prefer but she didn’t want to give up her demon just to pick flowers in the sunlight. And as her dreams were proving, Spike could give her flowers too.

Spike hardly had dreams anymore. The Sandman saw no need to visit the dead and only did it periodically: if it was important or if he was bored. The last dream Spike had had informed him that he had fallen in love with the Vampire Slayer. It had had so much impact because that had been Spike’s first dream after a span of a dreamless two years.

For all the enhanced vampire hearing, neither of them stirred when Riley kicked the crypt door open. When he noticed neither of them had woken up he paused to take in the scene in front of him.

The scene was like a painting of the perfect vampire lair: two naked, pale bodies intimately entwined together on a bleak stone sarcophagus, both barely covered by an aged back, leather coat; his head nestled lazily in the comforting valley of her chest, one of his hands resting on her visible inner thigh possessively; one of her hands was on his back, the other locked in his silvery hair; a burnt-out cigarette butt was still loosely docked in his other hand, which was dangling off the edge of the sarcophagus.

Riley considered just leaving right then and there. It really wasn’t his business anymore if Buffy wanted to be with Spike. Then Riley noticed the prominent bite mark on her exposed neck and changed his mind. He wouldn’t leave her as a vampire’s meal ticket. She was better than that

It was then Riley realized with a heart-stopping jolt that Buffy wasn’t breathing.

“Buffy?!” He yelled and ran toward the sleeping couple.

*Oh God. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. He did it. He killed her.* Riley thought in a panic as he approached them. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her insistently.

“What?” She whined, tired and annoyed, as she lifted her head and blearily opened an eye.

“You’re alive,” Riley said relieved.

Buffy frowned and lay her head back down.

“No I’m not,” she said half-asleep. Her eyes closed again.

“Buffy!” Riley yelled and shook her again. This time Spike woke up too, seeing as his head was on her chest and Riley was aggressively shaking her shoulder.

He groggily looked up as Buffy eyes snapped open again, this time they were yellow and irritated.

Riley stepped back in shock as Buffy’s face fully changed and she propped herself up on her elbows.

“What the--oh it’s you,” Spike said indifferently and dropped his finished cigarette before turning his head so that he was facing away from Riley, in an attempt to get back to sleep. Even just a few hours in bed with a Slayer can really take it out of you. Not just literally.

Buffy looked affectionately down at the vampire on her chest.

Riley smacked his forehead. *That’s why the chip didn’t go off last night.*

“You...you killed her,” Riley said accusingly to Spike.

“Uh-huh,” Spike said in a sleepy stupor.

“How? The chip should have gone off. Is it malfunctioning? Does she have a soul?”
Riley babbled.

Buffy and Spike both groaned. They weren’t getting back to sleep anytime soon.

“Riley!” Buffy interrupted.

He looked at her and Spike.

“You turn around so I can get dressed?”

Riley hesitated, not wanting to turn his back on two potentially dangerous vampires.

“C’mon. I promise not to bite you while your back’s turned,” she said with a hint of mockery.

Finally, the gentleman in him won over and Riley turned around. He stared at the crypt door and listened to Buffy and Spike share a quick kiss before bustling around getting their clothes.

“This is gonna hurt,” Spike said.

Riley turned around at this not to find either vampire poised to attack but to find Spike sitting on the sarcophagus, still shirtless. Riley realized he was referring to a particularly large bruise on his side that the Slayer had given him in their brawl has night.

Buffy looked up at him from the floor where she was pulling on her socks; her face was human again.

“Bloody morning after bruises,” he muttered.

Buffy chuckled and stood up.

“Like you didn’t enjoy them. And I’ve got a few of my own to complain about.”

“This is bad,” Riley started unceremoniously.

Both vampires raised their eyebrows and looked over at him.

“Buffy. Come on. You’re better than this.”

“Better than what?” She asked suspiciously.

“Him.”

She rolled her eyes. Spike drowsily watched the conversation, still not fully awake.

“Why?”

“You’re addicted.”

“To what?”

“Being bitten.”

Spike chuckled.

“She’s the one biting half the time, mate.”

Riley tossed a glare his way.

“I don’t want you to spend your life--”

“Unlife,” Buffy muttered.

“--as some idiot vampire’s chew toy.”

“Rather I be your chew toy?” Buffy asked, vexed.

She was hungry. She had given Spike a few marks last night but those bites were for foreplay not hunger. As erotic as they were, she was still hungry.

“What? No.” Riley said quickly.

She stepped forward and let her face melt into her demonic features.

“Sure? If I remember correctly...” she said slowly with a hint of seduction. “...you like being bitten. And I’m hungry. So that works out then.”

Her yellow eyes told Riley that she wasn’t bluffing. He fearfully took a step backwards.

She was about to take another advancing step when she was stopped by Spike’s commanding grip on her arms. She was confused as to why Spike would stop her.

He jerked her backwards until she was pressed against his bare chest; his arms encircled her, effectively pinning her arms to her sides and her to his body.

A small gasp escaped her. He was holding her so tightly that it had forced most of the air out of her lungs.

“What?” she breathed quickly.

“You’ll be biting no one but me, Slayer,” he said with a touch of menace to his voice.

She frowned. He hadn’t called her Slayer for a while. It had been ‘Buffy’ and ‘pet’ and ‘luv’ for months.

When conscious, her body hadn’t yet learned that it didn’t need to breathe. Her breath came in shallow gasps.

“Jealous...much? I was...just going...to eat...him,” she panted.

Riley looked at the lock Spike had on Buffy and took another step back. He figured he had better prepare himself to run if Spike was the only thing standing between his life and his death at Buffy’s hands.

“‘Course I’m jealous. Your fangs are mine, Slayer. And you’re one of the good guys. You don’t kill people,” he spoke dangerously low into her ear.

“Haven’t...eaten,” Buffy hissed.

“I have bagged blood in the fridge, you know that. What would Dawn think?” Spike whispered suddenly. Buffy’s ragged breathing faltered for a minute before she began gasping again. Spike’s iron grip hadn’t budged.

Riley watched on, stunned, as Buffy’s face slid back to her human façade. Her eyes were downcast and she seemed lost, trapped between her instincts and her human emotional attachments.

“Dawn...” she whispered.

“How would the Bit feel if you came home with blood on your hands?”

She had stopped breathing and hadn’t noticed. Her eyes were becoming increasingly glassy.

“Get out of here Riley,” Spike said in a commandingly. “Go back to your wife where you belong.”

Buffy gasped in a shock of air and began exhaling distressed sobs. Spike let the strength in his grip wane and immediately Buffy began to sink towards the floor. She would have collapsed if Spike hadn’t held her up. His arms had shifted from being her prison to her source of comfort as more traumatized sobs wracked her body.

Riley hesitated for a split second more before turning on his heel and hurriedly striding to the exit.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


“Well, the wedding itself was held in a military chopper just before a hairy night drop into hostile territory,” Sam was saying.

“Huh! And just curious, what's a chopper rental run these days?” Xander inquired.

Riley and Willow exchanged an amused look.

“Oh, well, actually, we commandeered it from a local guerilla squad, so...cheap.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah.”

Willow, Giles, and Dawn ambled over to where Sam, Riley, and Xander were standing. Riley wasn’t saying much.

Sam turned to Willow.

“You have my email, you promise you'll keep in touch?”

“Oh definitely! You won't get traced? I don't wanna lead the bad guys to your location by mistake.”

Sam smiled.

“Our line's secure.”

Willow smiled back.

“Oh, huh, duh, of course it is! I keep thinking of you like regular people, but no, you're not.”

“Oh, right, like demon-hunting is all exotic to a girl from Sunnydale.”

Sam hugged Willow and Xander while Dawn walked up to confront Riley.

“So you gonna say goodbye this time, or just...split all secret-agenty like last time?”

The sound of a helicopter began wafting down to the group gathered in the Summers front yard.

“Depends. I warrant a hug?”

Dawn didn't smile but she stepped forward and granted Riley a stiff hug. Then he pulled back to look at her face.

“Goodbye, Dawn.”

“I thought it would suck less this time. It doesn't.”

Riley smiled fondly at her.

“Be strong for your sister all right?”

Dawn frowned with a confused expression on her face.

“Yeah...okay.”

“It was really nice meeting you all,” Sam said before tapping Riley on the shoulder. “You ready for Nepal, agent?”

Riley bid Xander and Giles goodbye and followed Sam onto the street. The helicopter noise grew significantly louder and its lights glared down, illuminating the cluster of people.

Riley and Sam moved a bit away from the others.

“Fire-fights, bug hunts, big body counts...yeah, I could use a break,” Riley said answering Sam as a thin wire descended from the helicopter. Riley attached it to his belt, and he and Sam put their arms around each other. Riley tugged on the line twice to signal the pilot.

Willow waved as they rose into the air. Riley stared at Sunnydale and wondered if he should have told Giles or Willow about Buffy’s actions.

“Bye!” Willow called.

“Bye! Bye Riley! Bye Sam!” Xander yelled.

Dawn, Xander, Willow, and Giles all watched until the chopper’s lights disappeared from view.

“Where’s Buffy?” Giles inquired.

“Where else?” Willow answered.

Giles understood and frowned as his thoughts again drifted as to how to confront Buffy about her increasingly-violent actions.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Spike held Buffy close and waited until she had cried herself out. Eventually, the combination of her slumber being cut short, her desperate tears, and the appalled feeling she had at herself rocked her to sleep. Her head was on his bare shoulder and her breathing was shallow and irregular.

Spike sadly sighed and gently nudged her sideways until he could easily slip one arm under her knees and set the other one under her upper back. Slowly, he lifted her up and still only wearing his jeans began the journey to her house.

Silent, unregistered tears slid leisurely down his face as he walked through the misty night. What had he done to his sweet Buffy? Spike swallowed visibly. It didn’t matter now. She’d probably return to normal by morning and resume the life she was trying to lead before he killed her. That life included locking him out.

She sighed in her sleep and Spike committed to memory exactly what her room-temperature body felt like in his arms. He doubted that she’d ever willingly fall into them again. If her bout of weeping hadn’t been a sign that her epiphany had come, nothing was.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Author’s Note: If you’re disappointed because I didn’t bash Riley enough or whatever just remember that Joss never utterly bashed one character so neither will I.

--


The morning light shone in geometric shapes across the floor of the Magic Box; Anya was staring at them.

“I don’t get it,” Dawn whined. “Why would they be all snuggly one day and then the next day she’s suddenly uber depressed and they’re all...unsnuggly?”

Giles looked at her from across the table. Dawn’s unfinished history homework was spread out before her; Xander and Anya sat on either side of her.

Giles sighed.

“Buffy’s reached a-a point in time that occurs after one has been sired. In layman’s terms, a sort of epiphany that...well, right now, Buffy’s just now understanding the full impact of her situation, that she is a vampire.”

“So she didn’t know she was a vampire before this?” Xander asked.

“No, she knew but the extent of it is just hitting her. It’s rather like coming down from a high, I suppose.”

“Does she still love Spike?” Dawn wondered out loud.

Giles sighed again. “I don’t know.”

“Of course she loves Spike. The magazine said so,” Anya interjected, looking up.

Xander and Giles stared at her while Dawn directed her gaze back down to her homework.

“That doesn’t make sense. You don’t just love someone one day and not love them the next. Otherwise it wouldn’t be love.”

--= =-- --= =-- --= =--

Buffy sat forlornly in the fetal position on the floor of the upstairs bathroom wearing nothing but her old robe. Her eyes were red but dry now; she had cried herself into a hazy state of thinking.

Exhaling her unneeded breath, she slowly pulled herself up using the wall as a support. She had been trying to keep her breathing at a steady pace but found it to be more of a burden than a comfort.

After gaining her balance she turned around and came face to face with the empty space where her reflection should have been. Buffy stared at the empty mirror, a mixture of horror and sad acceptance playing over her features, not that she could see them.

She took a step backwards so her back was against the wall. Collapsing down onto the floor again, one of her new instincts registered how close she was to the small ray of light that was shining through the window onto the floor.

Buffy looked at it dazed and slowly reached toward it, her fingers stretched out as though they belonged to the hand of a curious child. Her fingertips brushed against and slid under the light. Almost immediately, her skin started to smoke. She wrenched her hand back and cradled her burned limb against her chest.

She glared at the beam of sunshine with despair and she suddenly remembered her dreams from last night. She thought of her in the sunlight, the pink rose, the red one, the carnal acts that had been so vivid because she had just performed them in reality with a demonic glee. She thought of Spike.

For the past few months, she had been sleeping with her murderer. And she had reveled in every second of it. She knew he had killed her by her request but she wasn’t supposed to be enjoying her death. He wasn’t supposed to be enjoying her death.

He couldn’t understand. Sure, he probably had his own...whatever it was she was going through now. But it wasn’t like he had a soul for it to have really made much of an effect. She had a conscience and she had killed a person. And what scared Buffy was that she had killed on instinct and fury. It had been an unconscious decision. And she had nearly killed Riley. But Spike had stopped her. He stopped her. Why?

Buffy thought back to the blur that was last night and tried to recall what Spike had told her while he was holding her still. /You’ll be biting no one but me...I’m jealous...Your fangs are mine, Slayer...one of the good guys...You don’t kill people./ The memories were hard to focus on because at the time she had been concentrating so hard on getting air into her dead lungs. Spike had stopped her from biting Riley because he was possessive.

/You don’t kill people./ But that wasn’t true. She had killed on impulse. And it had felt natural.

Buffy curled back into the fetal position.

She /had/ to learn to control her demon instincts. She couldn’t let her demon rule her. She might hurt someone.

Buffy’s thoughts drifted to Darla and Drusilla. Her first reaction was the usual “family” recognition thoughts. Her second was disgust at the first. Why would she ever feel anything remotely tender toward either vampire? She regretted letting them go, Drusilla twice. How many people had they killed because of her blind eye? Yet Drusilla hadn’t harmed Dawn because of her connection to Buffy.

Buffy pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes.

“Buffy?” Willow said as she knocked on the door. “Come on Buffy. Please come out. I made sandwiches. And I warmed up some blood.”

Buffy looked at the door, not intending to open it but her stomach rumbled at the mention of blood. She still hadn’t eaten. As much as she hated her food schedule, nothing else would fill her.

Willow sighed in relief as Buffy unlocked the door.

--= =-- --= =-- --= =--

Tara’s eyes widened as Dawn began to take on the monster in front of her.

“Good god, that's a lot of shake.”

Dawn looked up and nodded.

“I mean, I know, part of our big movie and milkshake fun day, but...good god, that's a lot of shake.”

“Helps to wash down the Raisinettes,” Dawn laughed as she drank from a very large chocolate milkshake.

“Promise me that you will eat something green tonight. Leafy green, not...gummy green.”

They both laughed.

“The movie was fun,” Tara continued.

“Yeah. It was ironic when all those cute inner-city kids taught their coach a valuable lesson,” Dawn replied.

“You know that I will always be there for you, right?” Tara said bluntly.

Dawn looked at her, her smile wavering.

“There, there was actually more of a lead-in when I practiced that at home,” Tara confessed.

“I know.”

“It's just...I wanted you to know that my moving out had nothing to do with you, and I, I will never stop loving you.”

“I know.” Dawn said again. “Do you think you'll ever get back together?”

“I wish I knew.”

“But you still love her.”

“Very much. I just...sometimes...other things get in the way.”

“I know. Buffy was talking to me about...things like that.”

“Oh? How is Buffy...coping?”

“Not so swell I guess...she wasn’t leaving the bathroom last time I checked. Maybe Willow managed to coax her out.”

Tara nodded and both girls fell silent at the mention of Willow's name.

“Uh, she's been doing a lot better lately. She's been really good about...being careful...a-about stuff,” Dawn said though her milkshake.

“Buffy?”

“Willow.”

“Well, good. Great, that's...that's great.”

--= =-- --= =-- --= =--

“Hello! We're home!” Dawn called into her empty house a few hours later.

”Looks like no one's here,” Tara commented as she flicked on the light.

Dawn wandered into the kitchen to find any clues. There we go: two notes stuck to the refrigerator.

“Willow says she’s gone schooling and Buffy’s gone patrolling/Bronzing. Well...it’s better than moping in the bathroom,” Dawn said as Tara came up behind her.

“That’s a little harsh. We don’t really know what she’s going through,” Tara said as Dawn took her arm and pulled her into the living room.

“Well then I, I should really get back,” Tara said, eying the sunset out the window.

“Or, you can stay and wait for them,” Dawn said perkily as she sat on the couch. “Then you can get a chance to catch up with...everyone.”

”Yeah, I-I don't think that's such a great idea.”

“Okay. Your call,” Dawn said feigning nonchalance and picked up the TV remote. “I have the TV to keep me company until they get back.”

Tara rolled her eyes. “What about April?”

“Willow’s hooked her up to her computer. Again. So she’s out of commission for a few days.”

Dawn looked up at Tara with huge eyes.

“Fine. I'll stay, but just until they get back. And only to make sure that you're not alone, this...has nothing to do with...anyone else,” Tara said though she was secretly hoping Willow would be home soon. Tara missed her.

“Sure. Cool. Up to you.”

Dawn snuggled up next to Tara and lay her head on Tara’s shoulder. Tara smiled and they both turned their attention to the TV.

--= =-- --= =-- --= =--

Buffy stared forlornly into the plastic cup of alcohol. She wished that the bartender had given her a bottle so she could cradle it and wallow in her misery properly.

/Spike probably has a bottle./

Whether it’s the alcohol or the tense rein she’d been keeping on herself lately, this final thought snapped something.

While looking down into her plastic cup of alcohol, Buffy started crying.

--= =-- --= =-- --= =--

Spike leaned his back against the far side of the stone sarcophagus, so that he was hidden from the sight of the front door. His duster lay next to him, several bottles of beer nestled in it.

He let the alcohol numb his throat, turn his thoughts apathetic. He drank until he realized he hadn’t picked up enough booze to get himself drunk, and then fell asleep to try and forget about how quiet his tomb of a home sounded.

--= =-- --= =-- --= =--

Willow noted the open front door and the lights that had been switched on as she entered the Summers’ residence.

Closing the door behind her quietly, she moved into the living room and smiled at the sight of Tara and Dawn fast asleep on the couch.

She easily located the remote on the far side of Dawn’s blanket-covered figure and clicked the TV off. She turned and stood there, watching them for a moment before moving forward to shake Tara on the shoulder.

“Tara. Tara!”

“Hmm?” She said as her eyes drifted open. “Oh. Sorry. God, I just closed my eyes for a minute.”

Willow chuckled as Tara stood up and stretched. This shift caused Dawn to stir.

Tara leaned down to wake Dawn up.

“Come on sweetie. Head upstairs to bed now, okay?”

Dawn gave a drowsy smile and nodded, her eyelids drooping. She hugged the blanket that Tara had put around her earlier closer and groggily made her way upstairs, directly to her bedroom. She figured she’d just brush her teeth in the morning.

Alone with one another, each Wiccan suddenly found herself tongue-tied.

“How are you?” Willow said. /Could this get any more awkward?/

”Fine, thanks, I'm...I'm fine. I, how are you?” Tara stuttered.

“Great! I mean...Fine. I'm, I'm ... finey McFine. Fine,” Willow said with a flickering smile.

“Well. I should probably...” Tara began and indicated the door.

“Oh, yeah, great. You should,” Willow said embarrassed.

Tara nodded and looked down as she walked toward and opened the door. She could feel Willow’s pleading eyes watching her.

Standing in the door frame, Tara turned around.

“Do you want...uh...We should have some coffee some time,” Tara suddenly said nervously. “Uh, maybe some day...this week after class?”

“I'm free tomorrow,” Willow said with a small smile. “Uh, you could, you could bring a friend...if you know, you want--”

“I wasn't gonna--I--I mean, if you have a friend--”

“No! I'm, oh, I-I'm friendless,” Willow said quickly.

“Yeah, yeah, no friends,” Tara said quickly. “I--I mean, I have friends--”

“Right, many dear friends, yeah.”

They both laughed and fidgeted nervously.

“Coffee,” Tara said with a sigh and a smile.

“With us. Who are...just friends,” Willow said shyly and both nodded at each other, content as friends. For now at least.

--= =-- --= =-- --= =--

Buffy’s undead state prevented her from getting far past tipsy. She wasn’t sure if this was a good or a bad thing.

As she walked up the path to her house, an achingly familiar tingle raced up her spine. She stopped, half-way to her house, and turned her head toward the large oak tree.

“Spike,” she whispered, the breeze carrying her voice.

He materialized quietly from the tree’s shadow but unlike other times when he had appeared with a smirk and a cigarette; his eyes were sad but focused on her.

Drawn by an unknown magnetic force, they quickly eliminated the small distance between them. Leaning forward, their lips gently met. His hands snaked up her arms to her shoulders. The kiss grew deeper but before it sped by the blurred point of no return, Buffy pulled back.

“I don’t know if we can do this,” she said, her voice barely audible. Her eyes had opened and were focused on his face and then met his eyes when he raised them after this remark.

“Why in bleedin' hell not?” He said hoarsely.

She shook her head, trying to shake off the tears and the lump in her throat that were quickly forming.

“I just...I don’t trust you. I don’t trust my demon around you.”

Spike was stunned and slightly hurt. He let his hands drop back down to his sides.

“What the hell have I done to make you not trust me? How many times have I saved Dawn’s life? Your own?”

“That’s not it! I trust you with my life. And my sister’s life. But...you want me to be your dark princess and I can’t be that. I’ll hurt someone.” By now the tears had began to leak out of her eyes and down her cheeks. Taking a deep breath for comfort rather than necessity, she said: “I’m not Drusilla.”

Spike looked at her incredulously.

“You think I want you to be Drusilla? What, are you shrink wrapped? I just want you. Buffy. I’ll try not to make you wicked and immoral, whatever you want. It's one hell of a switch but I miss you. You’re all I’ve got left. You’re life for me.”

She looked fiercely away through her tears. How could she be his life when she could barely grasp her own? And she didn’t know if she liked the idea of acting as life for them both. And besides...

“I’m dead,” she said harshly before determinedly finishing the distance between herself and the front door.

“I know you, Slayer! You’ll come back,” he yelled at her backside before she slammed the door. He didn’t see that as soon as Buffy closed the door she collapsed, still gripping the doorknob, as her tears ran freely. She covered her mouth to muffle her sobs.

“You have to,” he whispered sadly to the night.

--


Buffy strolled up the walkway to her house on Revello Drive. The paper bag containing a Doublemeat Palace Hamburger was loosely clutched in her hand. Dawn had requested her sister pick up dinner for her after Buffy got off of work.

She paused right before the stairs. It had been two days since she had had that encounter with Spike. Feeling just as confused but a little more in control of expressing her emotions, Buffy faced this meeting head on.

“Spike? Is this going to become a habit?”

She turned to see Spike appearing from behind his tree.

“Ah, it's a fair cop, you caught me, Slayer. However, in all honesty, I think we have to say this one doesn't count. After all, I wasn't exactly hiding,” he said, walking toward her.

“No, Spike.”

“No? What kind of answer is that, you haven't even heard the question yet.”

“I don't have to. We both know what you're thinking.”

Spike grinned and Buffy had to bite her cheek to prevent herself from imitating him.

“And we both know...that I'm not the only one thinking it,” he said as he approached her. Before she knew what was happening, he had an arm around her back and his lips on hers.

She moaned and responded in full. Dropping the paper bag, she wrapped her arms around him, one hand latched onto his hair and the other clutched at the nape of his neck, doing anything to pull him closer. His arms slid around her waist with the same plan.

Suddenly, she pulled back panting. Planting both her hands squarely on his chest she feebly, though effectively held him at bay.

“No. I-I don’t. No, I can’t. I should...” Without finishing her sentence, Buffy frowned in confusion. Forgetting about Dawn’s dinner on the ground, she ran inside.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


It wasn’t until Buffy had gotten into the kitchen did she realize that she abandoned the bag of fast food. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to go back for it. She slumped into a chair and let her head fall into her hands.

This was how Willow found her.

“Hey, workin' lady. Rough night?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said quietly without lifting her head. She heard/smelled Dawn approach after Willow. “Sorry Dawn. I forgot your dinner.” She looked up after saying this. “I could try to cook you something.

Dawn smiled and shook her head.

“Ready for a bold suggestion?” Willow said, smiling at Dawn, then at Buffy. “Blow it off! Dawnie and I are headed out to the Bronze.”

“Um, do I have your permission and wanna come along?” Dawn asked with a grin. “You like how I slipped in that permission request like that?”

“Very smooth,” Willow said.

“You guys go.”

“Really?” Dawn said excitedly.

“Buffy, are you sure? I-it might do you good to get away from the mopey lifestyle for a night. See your friends,” Willow said.

“Who'd love to see you,” Dawn added.

“I'm sure. I've seen enough action for one night,” Then Buffy turned to Dawn. “Home by eleven?”

“On the dot.”

“Have a good time.”

Dawn smiled, and she and Willow headed out. Buffy wondered what they would think if they saw the DoubleMeat Palace bag.

Then Buffy said quietly to herself, “Somebody should.”


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Xander and Anya sat at the bar eating chips from several plus-size bags, completely oblivious to the lively atmosphere of the Bronze and solely focused on the notebook in front of them bearing the wedding seating chart.

“See...this seating chart makes no sense. We have to do it again,” Anya said irritably. Xander nodded. “We can't do it again. You do it.”

“The seating chart's fine,” Xander said wearily. “Let's get back to the table arrangements. I'm starting to have dreams of gardenia bouquets.” He winced and reached into the nearest large bag of chips again. “I am so glad my manly coworkers didn't just hear me say that.”

“Will you stop wolfing down those chips? One more bag and you'll pop right out of your cummerbund.”

She grabbed the bag of chips away from him, looked in it and stuck her own hand in, oblivious to Xander’s upset look.

“You're not even hungry, you're just nervous,” she explained.

“Yeah!” Xander said smacking the bar top. “Wedding, one week! We have friends, family, demons flying in, a to-do list getting no shorter, and do NOT--” He grabbed the bag back. “--take my chips.”

They stared at each other angrily until Dawn came over, holding two plastic cups.

“Hey guys! How's the soon-to-be-newlyweds? Nervous?” She said cheerily.

“No!” They both yelled.

Dawn’s eyebrows rose. “Okay. I'll just be over here then,” Dawn said dubiously.

She shrugged and went over to where Willow was fiddling with a pair of pool cues.

“Your Arnold Palmer, milady,” Dawn said as she swapped Willow a drink for her pool cue back.

“Thanks. So how are Mr. and Mrs. High-Strung?”

“I'm betting they explode.”

“You know, when I was little, I used to spend hours imagining what my wedding to Xander would be like. And now I look at them I just think...‘Nee-hee-hee!’” She said with a mocking laugh.

“You're awfully chipper tonight,” Dawn said with a giggle.

“Can't hide it,” Willow said, smiling.

“Hmm. Big wedding coming up...lots of date possibilities...you and Tara are...having coffee as friends again. You wanna call her? Invite her over?

“Oh, no. Too soon for so bold a maneuver.” Willow smiled. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“That's progress!”

“Hence the happy.”


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Buffy drowsily crawled down the stairs in her pajamas. Glancing at the clock and groaning, she noted that it was 3:10 in the afternoon.

She found Dawn munching on a snack in their dim kitchen; all the blinds on the windows had been pulled shut as this had been their usual state for a few months.

“Hey Dawnie.”

“Hey. Huh. Bronze was fun last night. In a total home-by-eleven-ish way. You should have come.”

“Well, next time.”

“Okay,” Dawn said with a sigh as she swallowed the last of her Rice Krispie treat. She stood up, tossed the wrapper into the garbage can, turned and grabbed her backpack. “I’ll see you later.”

“Where are you going?”

“Linda’s? Remember? I have that English project with her and Tessie.”

“Oh, yeah. That's good. Uh, do you want dinner first?”

“It’s only 3:00. See you this evening? Unless you're working,” Dawn wandered around the kitchen island towards Buffy. “Or, you know, tomorrow's cool. Don't work too hard.”

She kissed Buffy on the cheek and Buffy smiled in return.

“Bye.”

After she heard the front door close, Buffy just sat in the kitchen listening to the clock tick and staring into space. Making up her mind, she went back upstairs to her room and began digging under her bed until she found what she was looking for.

She pulled out the history of Vampire Slayers that Giles had given her, thinking that maybe this would give her some clarity as to what to do. She couldn’t live like this forever.

Buffy frowned. Well...technically she could but that wasn’t the point. She climbed onto her bed and opened the large, old book to the very beginning.

“‘The Definition of a Vampire Slayer’,” she read out loud before scanning the page.

/Yadda yadda...one girl in all the world...blah blah...weapon of the Powers That Be...protector of humans...wait a minute.../

Buffy read the page twice. Written were the words, ‘The Vampire Slayer acts as a guardian for her species, the human race. She alone is their protector, whether she fights on the side of good or evil forces depends on the situation, whichever benefits the human race more.’

Nowhere did it say that the Vampire Slayer was always the good guy. Nowhere did it the Slayer that she had to wipe out every nonhuman being she came across, just the threatening ones. Nowhere did it state that it was against the Slayer’s nature to love a demon. Nobody ever said that she couldn’t love Spike.

Although Buffy had known there was no written law against what she had with Spike, it was still an incredible relief to discover what her job truly was, instead of the inaccurate mumbo-jumbo rules of the Watchers Council.

Buffy bit her lip thinking about her recent encounters with her sire.

Her eyes widened. What would she say to him? What would he want her to say? Would he want her back? She was confusing herself. Of course he’d want her back. He had to. Ignoring the warming sensation that was centred on his mark in her neck, her thoughts raced on the possibility of his rejection. This feeling was enhanced by her fretting demon who did not like that she was pondering the possible abandonment of her mate. Mate! That’s right! They were mates and mates don’t just abandon each other, epiphany-thing notwithstanding. Right?

“Stupid, irritating, bleached vampire. I oughta...” she paused and smiled. “Oh god, I love him so much.”

Laughing, she waltzed over to her closet to look for something to wear.

--

Dawn fiddled with a fork and stared glumly at her empty plate. Willow checked the window for the umpteenth time and April was standing at the stove, making pancakes. She turned around to face Willow, who still had her face pressed against the glass.

"For golly's sake, Willow, even if Buffy was coming, being a vampire she would not walk home in broad daylight."

Dawn looked up and Willow looked over her shoulder at the robot, who had a hand on her hip and a spatula in the other.

"Sorry. I know," Willow sighed and let go of the thick blinds in favour of sitting next to Dawn at the table.

"You don't have to apologize. We're all worried about Buffy." April then turned back to the pancakes.

"Think she's okay?" Dawn questioned as April set a short stack in front of her.

Willow patted the younger girl's hand. "I'm sure she's fine Dawnie. She's...just been monster wrestling all night and the sunrise probably took her by surprise and she just got stuck somewhere and is waiting for nightfall."

Dawn nodded, Willow's confidence spreading to her. She picked up her fork and began to nibble on her pancakes.


--= =-- --= =-- --= =--


One would assume that a vicious battle to-the-death had occurred recently. Magazines and books were scattered across the floor; a desk had been toppled along with numerous lamps--some of them now housed broken bulbs; the only piece of furniture still in its original place and seemingly untouched was the neatly made bed.

Spike had never sought out or given any thought at all to his feelings concerning Oriental carpets, but when he came across a man and a woman unloading a late-night delivery of them several weeks ago, he refused to let such an opportunity pass. When Buffy finally woke up, the first thing she noticed was the brightly patterned Oriental rug she was lying under. Not to mention the two that had cushioned her as she slept.

Lying on her side, she frowned at the unfamiliar pattern. She began to shift when Spike kissed her bare shoulder. Buffy closed her eyes for a second, relishing in the feel of his lips on her skin, then turned to face him. Her arms came up and grabbed his head, pulling him toward her and kissing him passionately. He moaned and his arm snaked around her waist. She rolled him over, putting her on top.

Their tongues retreated after a minute and he pulled himself up to a semi-sitting position, leaning against another carpet--this one rolled up--which served as a makeshift pillow throughout the night.

Pulling back and opening her eyes, Buffy registered the bruises and hickeys she had left on his face and neck. She ran her hands down his chest, lightly tracing the fingernail marks and scratches (plus another hickey) as memories from the night before swam in front of her eyes.

-flashback-

Amidst a burningly passionate kiss, Buffy almost viciously wound her arm around Spike's neck. She groaned as he pushed her roughly up against the wall of the underground room of his crypt, his hands on her shoulders keeping her pinned.

Panting, she shoved him away and followed him as he stumbled backwards across the room. When she got closer to him she repeated the action, pushing him again and following promptly. The instant after Spike felt his back slam against the opposite wall, his mate's lips locked back onto his with him responding in full. He lifted her up against him without hesitation and her legs curled around his waist in a vice.

Buffy reached her hand down between their grinding bodies to do away with the barrier his zipper posed. Her barriers had already been removed; she had conveniently forgotten to wear underwear and her leather skirt had ridden up to just below her hips, allowing both vampires to press intimately together. Buffy gasped and her eyes closed.

She lifted herself up and in one thrust of her body against Spike's he was buried to the hilt inside of her. Breathing unnecessarily, they stared at each other in awe for a moment, revelling in the way it felt to be back in the embrace of one another after a long period of despairing abstinence. Then Buffy began to move up and down slowly; her eyes remained locked on his until her face melted into an unabashed expression of pleasure and her eyes closed.

Her fingers scrabbled in the leather around him then curved into his hair, gasping all the while. Returning to their fervent kiss, Spike then turned them around and pushed her up against the wall she had cornered him against. She reached up a desperate arm, grabbing the wall behind her to steady herself, as they continued to writhe against each other.

Buffy threw her head back against the wall, panting; Spike rested his head on her chest. When she rocked her hips forward, wrapping her arms around him, he lost his balance and they both fell backwards, still connected in the throes of passion.

He landed on his back with his girl on top of him, her hands grounding on either side of his head. They stared into each other's eyes, both breathing heavily; the presence of the other caused them to forget that their lungs were lifeless.

His hands slid up underneath her own and she contentedly interlocked their fingers. She groaned as he began to rock against her again, her hand clutching his convulsively, her nails pinching into his skin as though he was her lifeline and another reassuring chain link was added every time either orgasmed.


--= =-- --= =-- --= =--


Willow fidgeted and then went to check the window again. April watched her and rolled her eyes.

Dawn pushed her empty plate away and went over to the fridge for the carton of orange juice.

"Um, should we call Xander? What if they're all in a ditch somewhere?" She proposed as she closed the refrigerator. "Ditches are bad. Mom always used to talk about the ditches."

Dawn took a glass and poured the juice. April carried the pancake batter bowl to the sink and added some water. Willow looked over to Dawn.

"Nobody's in a ditch. We'll call, but...we'll give them some time before we wake them up."

Dawn's eyes swivelled to the clock on the microwave which read 9:50.

"I'll bet they're up. Please can we call them?"

Willow sighed. "Yeah. Alright Dawnie. Go for it."


--= =-- --= =-- --= =--


From her position straddling Spike, Buffy sank forward to rest her head in the crook of his neck, closing her eyes as she did so. Spike ran his arms around her and let his own eyes lazily slide shut. They rested in a thoughtless, drowsy trance until Spike recognized something surprising and his eyes shot open. He pulled back to look at Buffy who returned his gaze blearily.

"Luv, are you purring?" He asked bemusedly.

She frowned for a moment as the sound still softly emanated from her chest, which was pressed intimately against his.

"I am..." She said, as much a statement as a question. She felt the vibrations radiating from her suddenly cease but there was still a rumble emitting from between their bodies.

She grinned up at him. "So are you."

She nuzzled her cheek against his chest and tightened her arms around his waist and sure enough the purring got deeper. He smiled as he felt her own hum resurface, joining his as his arms tightened around her.

"God," Buffy said softly after a minute, sitting up, her eyes drifting open. "We left Dawn all night. She'll be worried sick," she reluctantly reminded him.

"Mm-hmm," Spike said distractedly, not taking in a word Buffy just said.

Spike shifted her so that he was holding her with one arm. His other hand trailed lazily, naughtily down her side. His eyes opened when Buffy pushed his hand away. /Baby wants to play./ He grabbed her wrist and she struggled against him.

"Stop!" She said tetchily.

"Make me," Spike said, grinning.

"No. No!" She said strongly although she could already feel her body responding to his.

She continued struggling for about another half second, then latched a hand on either side of his face and pulled him toward her for a kiss. She put her arms around his neck and moaned. They kissed for a moment before the part of Buffy's brain that could still think pulled her back.

"No, no, I-I have to--"

"Stay. We're stuck here." He looked upward to indicate his point. "Sun's up."

That was all it took. Buffy looked at him for a brief moment, then she sank like liquid back into his kiss. Their moans mingled as Spike turned her around and lay her down, lying on top of her. He broke their kiss to move down to lavish her exposed neck with his mouth. Buffy gasped, threw her head back, and moaned again.


--= =-- --= =-- --= =--


Meanwhile, Dawn slammed the phone down in frustration.

"Tara hasn't seen her either. Dammit!"

Willow sighed and April looked up from page 316 of “Great Expectations”.

"Calm down," she said as she turned the page. "Lamenting obscenities will not affect Buffy's state of absence."

Dawn turned around furiously; she was about to blow a gasket at the robot.

"April," Willow said suddenly. "Besides telling Dawn and I off, can you figure out any other possibilities of where Buffy could be?"

"Yes Willow," April said cheerily as she lowered the book.

Willow and Dawn watched as April tilted her head slightly and began to prattle off a list of prospects in the manner of a bored secretary. "Buffy is not at Xander and Anya's, nor the Magic Box, nor Tara's. Perhaps she has been kidnapped by demons, humans, or an unknown enemy; or is hiding, in shelter from the sun alas without phone access; or has been staked; or maybe she has fled from Sunnydale in hopes of obtaining a more favourable future; or perhaps she is with Spike."

Two sets of eyes widened at the mention of Spike, and Dawn and Willow looked at each other.

"Would she have?"


--= =-- --= =-- --= =--


Hours later, as Buffy lay sleeping in the bliss of her sire's arms, Spike was still awake, staring at her shoulder, thinking about what would come next.

He snuggled into her as his thoughts ran a mile a minute. Well now that he had the girl, really had the girl, he had better take care of her. No more trying to pull her to darkness or away from her friends and Watcher. Not much anyway, Spike decided.

She unconsciously began purring softly into him.

Then suddenly, it hit Spike: he was in it for the long run. Even after he had sired Buffy, he had still, in the back of his mind, considered his position on the good team temporary but now with this golden, purring girl in his arms...he knew exactly what to look forward to for the rest of his unlife. He smiled a smile of pure joy into his lover's shoulder.

--


Author’s Note: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed this story. It meant so much to me and really kept me going. It’s been fun. Thanks again.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Three days. It had been three days since Buffy returned home in the evening with her hand in Spike’s, assuring everyone that she was not dead. Three days ago she was met with the knowing smiles of Dawn, Willow, and even April.

Lying on her side, wide awake in her bed, Buffy’s half-awake mind remembered those last few days in a content, dream-like trance. Her eyes blinked open and then she felt a cool finger stroke the length of her spine. She shivered slightly and unconsciously rolled over into Spike’s arms. He gave a lop-sided grin as his arm skimmed up her legs to settle on her hip.

“Didn’t know you were awake, pet.”

She smiled sleepily.

“What...is that?”

“What?”

“That back tingly thingy.”

“‘S an old sire’s trick. The first thing Darla ever showed me while I was fledge.”

Buffy frowned.

“You slept with Darla?”

“Nah. Came home too close to dawn one night, Angelus was already asleep but she wasn’t.”

She slid her arms around him so her fingers could graze his back and let her head fall to rest on his shoulder.

“So that’s why I’m in your arms every morning,” she said playfully. “And here I thought it was love.”

Spike’s hand came up to grasp her chin, tilting her face toward his.

“It is,” he said quietly and serious before capturing her mouth with his own. The kiss began with a mix of tenderness and love but passion and lust soon became the main focus point. Eyes closed, his lips still locked with hers, Spike tugged the sheet down their bodies.

Buffy giggled and pulled back a minute to catch her lover’s eyes.

“God. I missed this,” she said before leaning forward to steal another kiss her leg brushing up against his side in an invitation. Not that he needed it.

Spike smiled into her mouth. He would never get used to having a writhing, wriggly Buffy in his arms.

The paths they’d taken to reach this state of joy—their contented purrs rolling around their bedroom walls—had been riddled with obstacles but in the end their inner demons knew their mates. Throughout this unlife-altering ordeal, not once did Buffy’s mind flicker to Angel.


--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--


Lorne turned a shimmering crystal that sprayed a rainbow of colors in his hand as he held it out to Fred.

“I would have been here sooner, but I had to stop and get it enchanted. Cedrian Crystals don't actually come that way,” Lorne said as Fred took it eagerly.

“Will it work?” Gunn asked.

“It should. Cedrian crystals are said to contain millennia of stored mystical energy and it's about the size of a "D" battery.”

Cordelia and the Groosalug walked in. Cordelia threw her purse on the table before her eye was drawn to the contraption on the desk.

“That's gorgeous,” she said, moving closer.

“And priceless,” Fred added.

“Though in this instance priceless meaning 'without price' as in free. A six-horned Lach-Nie owed me a favor. Don't ask,” Lorne said, rolling his eyes.

Cordy pointed at the contraption on the desk in front of Fred: "I meant that."

“Oh. Standard issue army surplus Geiger counter,” Fred said as though she merely mentioning a new pen.

“We picked it up at a yard sale,” Gunn said.

“Shiny,” Cordy commented.

“What is its purpose?” the Groosalug inquired

“We're gonna use it to see if scary monsters came through the portal,” Gunn explained

“Anything that came out of Quor-toth should have left behind a kind of para-plasmic radioactivity. Of course, I'm working of the principal that everything in nature seeks a relaxed and stable state,” Fred babbled.

“I know I do,” Lorne commented off-handedly.

“Hey. So, how is he?” Cordelia said, turning to Gunn.

Gunn looked towards the stairs. “Well, still being all mature.”

“Really. Where?”

“Upstairs.”

Cordelia swapped between sighing in exasperation, chewing her bottom lip, and glancing up at the ceiling.

“I'm gonna go talk to him,” Cordelia said, her mind made up.

Groo watched Cordy as she walked towards the stairs. He let out a sigh, feeling as though her heart was walking away from his too.

Cordelia’s heels clicked as she walked down the dark hallway toward Angel’s room. She knocked quietly before sticking her head in. Angel was sitting in a comfortably-upholstered armchair. Cordelia had no idea where to start a conversation so she tried for neutral ground.

“Hey...I guess Fred is working on a way to determine if anything else came out of the portal.”

Angel didn’t look up; his gaze remained steady on the pad of drawing paper on his lap.

“That's good.”

Cordelia stared at the picture under his quickly skimming pencil.

“So, maybe if we're very, very lucky, later today we'll be able to kill something. You'd like that, wouldn't...”

Cordelia’s focus wavered as her gaze was drawn to the floor, where multitudes of drawings were littered haphazardly about. Some were crumpled, some were unwrinkled. “...you?” Her eyes darted from picture to picture.

Spike with Drusilla.
Spike with his demon forth, snarling.
Buffy.
Buffy grinning.
Spike smirking.
Buffy sleeping.
Buffy with Spike.
Buffy and Spike laughing, holding each other.
Buffy in her demon visage, looking dangerous.
Buffy and Spike kissing, his hand in her hair.
Spike with his fangs in Buffy’s neck with her delight clearly expressed on her face.

“Sure,” he said disinterestedly.

Cordelia blinked, coming out of the reverie the numerous drawings had concocted.

“Okay. Well, I just wanted to check in and let you know that I was on the clock and tell you that you're doing the right thing. With Connor. But...”

Angel’s hand stopped moving but he didn’t look up.

“This isn’t really the best way to get over Buffy. You could release tension like you normally do...y’know, fighting the good fight?”

After a beat, Cordelia turned to leave. She unconsciously felt her heart break a little when he didn’t stop her. After she closed the door, Angel looked at his completed drawing before tearing it out, crumpling it up, and tossing it over his shoulder.

The picture of Spike kissing Buffy with his demon visage in place fell quietly to the floor.