Disclaimer: The characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel belong to Joss Whedon. All content in this story is meant to entertain and utilise the brilliance of the world and characters he opened up to us. No infringement is intended.


Chapter One

She sat on the top of a hill and peered down at the field below. Not far beyond were trees so thick that her sight was limited to barely skimming the surface. There was no indication that beyond the forest her life was crazy; nothing to show that danger and evil lurked behind every shadow. Buffy breathed in deeply, shivering at the chilled air that inflated her lungs as she began the process that would bring her some relief.

Bring her closer to him.

The darkness quieted around her, animals hiding and staring out at the crazy slayer perched on the grass-covered mound with her eyes closed, lips barely parted and a glowing talisman clutched desperately in her hands.

I can’t stand her anymore.

The thought burst from her consciousness and Buffy heaved a huge sigh of relief. No words had passed her lips but she’d confided in someone at last—even if she had no clue who that someone was. As long as it wasn’t Willow, it really didn’t matter. And if Buffy didn’t know to whom she was making her heart’s confessions, well, it didn’t terrify her as much as it probably should have.

There was no inflection in the reply that returned to her, nothing that could possibly clue her in on who the closest being in her life was, but it didn’t matter. Time had shown her that the true value fell on a willing ear—this person that gave her tender understanding at the drop of a hat had earned her trust and gratitude.

It’s a wonder you ever did!

Buffy’s body shook through an internal giggle, her body blind to everything around her while she focused on the warmth that always came with this connection. Her senses were on alert for danger, but from where she sat she’d be able to run in any direction long before an enemy could reach her. Besides, nothing evil ever breached the boundary of the forest. It was almost as if the Hellmouth’s influence faltered as soon as the trees gave way to freedom.

Hey now! Buffy chastised with a smirk. Things were of the good…once.

She held her breath, melting at every example of his presence.

Only once? That’s hardly satisfying, is it?

Buffy knew her secret companion was a man. No, male. She knew he was male and she wished he was a man—hardly dared to hope that she could have been so lucky to connect this deeply with someone so seemingly perfect for her, particularly when every contact had him stealing more little pieces of her heart.

He flirted with her constantly. Sometimes outrageously, and she soaked up every second of it. Buffy wasn’t that knowledgeable about men on the whole, but she was an attractive girl and she’d known flirting—at least, she had done before she’d become all Chosen and her romantic possibilities began to suffer.

Maybe not even once. The admission made her heart seize sharply with apprehension. Flirting was one thing, but she’d not spared a thought for diving into something more seductive. Something so embarrassingly personal. Not for the first time Buffy wished she’d been granted the ability to see him in her head. Not just visualise some romantic ideal which she knew she had no chance of duplicating in real life. The talisman hadn’t been provided to fill in her non-existent love life. Being emotionally isolated from people had made her vulnerable and the flirtatious acts had fostered more than a romantic yearning to be with her confessor. For all she knew she was mentally coming on to a monster, but the knowledge of who gave her this magical stone in the first place stalled her from outright panic. The Powers wouldn’t have wanted her to initiate a sacred connection with something evil. At least, she hoped they hadn’t because, ewww, that would be worlds of wrong.

It was funny how she’d been able to visualise so little about her telepathic companion and yet she had no difficult imagining him smirking at what she’d just revealed. Admitting her virginity to someone she’d never met was enough to inspire shivers of alarm at her behaviour, but to own up to it with hope and suggestion in her voice, Buffy just knew she was going to end up in big trouble. She was relieved—though disappointed—when he ignored the obvious opening and returned the conversation to what she’d opened it with.

So what’s Red done now that’s pissed you off?

It always struck Buffy strangely when he spoke like that. It conjured not-distant-enough memories of the previous year and the peroxide-happy vampire that she’d somehow never been able to dust. The same cocky jerk that she’d hated with the depth of her soul for his part in taking Angel from her. The memory of him flitted through her mind on more occasions than she liked, but Buffy was a realist. It was obvious such a tremendous failure on her part was going to take root and drive her crazy until he either came back to town and she turned him into ash, or he finally had his luck turn and killed her dead. Buffy was rooting for that first option, but it annoyed her that her attention could be so easily sidetracked to thinking about Spike when she had other more pleasant people to talk to.

Had someone who genuinely cared about her—even though he’d never met her.

With a shake and a stern internal lecture, Buffy straightened her spine and shrugged off the mental image of black leather and bleached hair, and concentrated on the one who’d given her more of his time than anyone—except her mother. This friendship she’d forged with the mysterious man at the other side of the talisman was the one shining light in her ever-darkening world. It meant so much to her in the absence of other friendships—particularly Willow’s. The redheaded witch might have once been her confidant, the girl she could giggle with and share secrets over chunky-monkey ice cream, but those days were long gone. They were so far in the past that Buffy struggled to believe those carefree, innocent days had ever existed.

Loneliness sparked her into talking, unloading more onto her unsuspecting mental-friend and Buffy again thanked the Powers for whatever foresight they’d had that she might need this. Many days her craved escape to listen to his rough wisdom and sexier implications was the only thing that got Buffy through. So often she’d felt like giving in but the fear of never trading barbs or secrets—or hey, even recipes—propelled the Slayer back into a fighting, kicking, screaming defence of her life. It was enough to leave whatever foe that had caught her renewed zeal as dead as she could make them.

I think she’s trying to kill me, Buffy admitted quietly. For reasons she couldn’t quite comprehend, the Slayer was terrified that Willow was able to tap into her mind and read every horrible, suspicious thought she’d ever had about the witch. Even now, in this place that was sacrosanct—guarded jealously—she worried that the witch knew everything about the connection. Whistler had said the talisman was protected with magic more powerful than Willow could even imagine, but sometimes Buffy wondered. It wouldn’t be the first time Willow had been underestimated.

Her secret friend didn’t reply immediately, but Buffy could feel the seething hatred that simmered beneath his advice.

Maybe it’s time you two separated, let her bugger up some other poor sap’s life.

The blonde conceded defeat. It wasn’t like she’d never thought of the possibility. But where would she go? Other than Willow, Buffy knew nobody. Giles was dead, along with Xander and Angel. And Faith also gone; Buffy had no idea who had replaced her sister slayer. She didn’t dare find her mother in fear of leading danger straight to her door. The Council hadn’t bothered sending her another watcher and all she had left was Willow. Grief had unhinged the witch, and while Buffy became increasingly fearful not only for herself but also for the world, she had enough sympathy and understanding to be unable to leave the girl on her own. She understood better than anyone why Willow had given into the lure of darkness to heal her pain. If it had been an option…no, nothing would have ever made Buffy turn her back so far on humanity. Just because she didn’t know any of the faces in the crowd these days, it didn’t eliminate the urgency or importance of her fulfilling her sacred destiny. She had a world to protect and she’d continue doing it until her time was up and the mission was passed onto another slayer.

Dark thoughts, little girl. Don’t even think of your time coming. It’ll be a good long while yet.

Tears stung her eyes as Buffy smiled sadly. This stranger always knew what was going on in her head, knew her intimately, somehow even knew her name. Buffy inhaled tiredly. The game had already arrived and she wasn’t ready. There was so much more she needed this night and arguing over not being gifted with a name always bugged her too much to continue making sense.

Not tonight. She couldn’t let it distract her tonight; tonight she needed the comfort of his concern far too much.

It’s coming; you and I both know it, Buffy replied irritably. She was so sick of the futility of her life—the lack of answers, the narrow path she had to tread. Why was she forbidden the life fulfilment that other girls experienced? Starting with a boyfriend…just one. Or at least knowing the damn name of someone she considered her friend. Seems like the perfect time to finally tell me your name, she prodded, despite knowing first hand his stubbornness at concealing it. Anyone would think he was afraid to reveal his identity, Buffy mused with a smirk.

Hopeful seconds ticked by and then an amused chuckle filled her completely with heat.

Now that wouldn’t be fair, would it? I guessed your name, you have to guess mine.

In her mind, Buffy pouted. As if she had any chance in hell. He never told her too much about himself, willing to listen to her ramble about Willow, mostly, and her dangerous, almost self-destructive night walks. It had astonished her that he knew of the monsters that only came out at night, but then she’d quickly decided he must have a fast track to the Powers in order to be the other half of this relationship in the first place. His connection to the Higher Ups kind of dispensed with the surprise at knowing of the existence of the demon world.

Ugh. Fine. So not in the mood for that aggravation. Let’s just agree that Buffy sucks in the guessing of all things and concentrate on how I’m going to survive Willow.

Sometimes, if she’d lost herself deep enough within the trance, Buffy could actually feel him place his arms around her. Her body would spark alight like a match, the tiny flame bounding around every nerve in her body until she was blazing and needy. It was inappropriate for her to be hinting at Willow’s darker plans to rid herself of her hanger-on slayer while silently hoping for a virtual touch of a more intimate nature. Who ever heard of being turned on by a ghost? By hands that didn’t exist? By a voice that was husky one minute and chilling the next? Not that she’d ever been warned about having pen pals that only ever contacted you in your head—and never sent photos. It was all new territory and Buffy was more than flying blind. She was flying blind but full of unrequited desire.

Slayer, any time…

She felt the explosive blast of frustration from him and could even imagine him pacing. She desperately wanted him to say he’d come to her; she felt it was high time they met in person, but the fear that that thought always brought quickly swelled and made all her muscles clench tightly. She wanted it so much she could taste it—wanted him like he was a pearl of the sweetest nectar on her tongue—and yet the reality of it scared her to death.

God, what if he was repulsive? What if he was old like Giles had been? Buffy stopped thinking that line abruptly. This secret friend had given her more support in the last year than anyone—he was the only one that wasn’t out to kill her. Was she so superficial now that she’d only value their meeting if he was good-looking and athletic? No, he’d be perfect because it was him. The initial contact might be a shock but there was something there between them—she could feel it humming through her veins and singing to her in a way that no song had ever done.

Yes? Buffy encouraged, leaning forward on her hill as she held on to the hope that this was it, that he was finally going to come to her.

Do you think…is it time for me to come?

Oh! The images that flashed through her brain like whipcord lightning strikes made her laugh.

Baby, only you can tell me that! Happiness surged through Buffy and she waited, breath held and heart pumping.

Cute, slayer. Real cute and as it just so happens…

Ewwwwwww! Buffy squealed in her head, but she was delighted. Their conversations had never turned this deviant before and it stirred something deep in her belly she’d only felt once before—a memory so long ago now she’d almost forgotten.

Right, so you can handle Red on your own then? he teased and Buffy only wished he was here right now so she could pop him one in the nose. He had to turn it back on her, didn’t he? He was about to offer and now he had to make her beg. Well, she would. This time it was warranted and as she realised how very much she needed someone at her side now—that as lonely as it was supposed to be as a slayer, she really wasn’t cut out for walking the path alone—the words spilled into her mind with a fear-laced desperation that made her wince.

Please come? I need you. I need someone to watch my back.

Buffy felt sick as she waited for his reply, so tired of fighting her one-time friend and sleeping with one eye always open, waiting for the inevitable. It was only a matter of time before Willow grew tired of sharing the hero gig with her, and while Buffy did it for the compulsion of saving lives, Willow was definitely in it for the glory alone. How could Buffy win against someone with that kind of desperate need to win?

Time ticked away so slowly, but finally he was ready. Buffy’s fanciful thoughts imagined a cool kiss against her lips, soft and barely there. But it was enough to seal the deal and she felt herself shiver in anticipation.

Okay Goldilocks, he said, his voice husky yet strong. You might not be so happy with what you get, but I’m on my way.

And then the connection was severed and he was gone.

Chapter Two


Stark silence bombarded her as Buffy slowly came out of the trance. It was always like this when he left first, denying her the link she so desperately needed. The world he abandoned her in was not one she enjoyed. Disappearing into her mind where she could hear him speak was infinitely warmer, and rather than wondering why that was possible, Buffy just shivered and stood, surveying her immediate surroundings for some misleading reason the woods had stalled in time. No owls hooted and no wind blew against her cool skin, yet nothing supernatural seemed to be poisoning the air and for that the Slayer felt relief.

And then excitement steadily infused her with the strength to leave the hill.

He was coming. He was coming.

She’d not felt this happy in so long and that sad realisation was enough to halt the progression of cartwheels down the slight decline, but still…he was coming. She’d finally see his face, watch his words as they fell from his lips, hug him to her body so hard she’d almost break his ribs. She felt euphoric and there was no way she’d let Willow and her snide comments and vague missions into danger bring her down. Finally, in a period of time longer than she could remember, she had a reason to wake up the next day. Sure, having the link had given her focus, had given her hope, but it hadn’t given her life!

Buffy stopped at the bottom of her hill and breathed deeply, smiling. So much had happened in her short life that she was wary of getting too hopeful about this, but she was positive he meant what he said. He was coming and everything would finally be okay.

She hated this feeling—feeling grateful for something others so easily took for granted, like a person by her side, because it inevitably brought back the memories of all those that weren’t. It hurt to think of those she’d failed and yet their ghosts sometimes didn’t scream loud enough. The guilt wasn’t piled high enough on her head. Some days she even managed to breathe easily. Buffy was so ashamed that that was true, but living did that to a person, as did the fight that never ended.

It had all started the day Spike had rolled into town, bringing that life-sucking ho-bag with him. Every ounce of reason dictated to the Slayer that he should have left his sire in Prague to take her rightful end. If she’d dusted, so much in Buffy’s own life might have been different—no, would have been different. Taking Angel from her had been the first kick in her steady defence against the dark and for that Buffy was laying the blame squarely at Spike’s door. If he ever showed his face to her again he’d be dust quicker than he could smirk.

That stupid ritual had done nothing but give strength to an insane vampire. It sure hadn’t been a positive experience for anyone but Dru. They’d drained Angel dry and Buffy had had to watch as he lost all his vampiric power to Drusilla and then crumpled in on himself and created an ashen ode to what he could have been. Retaliation had been sweet and at least Buffy could smile—even if it was vindictive and completely unbecoming of her—at the fact that the instigator had had his back snapped in half. It served him right!

Not that she’d managed to make sense yet out of why Drusilla would taunt her with the image of a broken Spike before they’d managed to get out of town. Turning up at the Slayer’s house, pushing a furious Spike in his wheelchair had really not been of the good. However, the fact that the vampiress had actually shown the foresight to surround herself with an army of vampires so that Buffy would have been a fool—and a dead one at that—if she’d even attempted to fight them all, proved Drusilla to be using faculties Buffy had assumed she’d been incapable of. That was more than a little worrying. Not that it had mattered because she’d never seen either of them again, and that was exactly how Buffy liked her vampires—either dust at the end of her stake or off worrying the other slayer she’d never met.

Drusilla had left Kendra in the school library with her throat slit before she’d left town. For that alone Buffy was going to make sure Drusilla, Queen of the Nutcases, was a footnote in slayer history before she was done.

Kendra’s replacement had started what Spike had failed to finish. Faith had bounded along, full of enthusiasm for the slaying—until she’d made a mistake and turned all dark and dangerous on the good guys.

They’d been fools not to realise exactly how dangerous.

Xander found out the hard way. The details were a little sketchy, but it was no secret he harboured a slayer fetish. Thus, when he’d gone missing one night and was discovered by Willow and Buffy in Faith’s trashy hotel room, naked, purple bruises livid at his throat and with eyes that couldn’t hide his naked fear, the conclusions had been absolute. There was no coming back from this; Faith the Vampire Slayer was lost to them and no amount of repentance would ever allow her to break through their consuming grief and be amongst them again.

As always, the memories unleashed raw, choking emotion in her throat. Buffy gasped at the pain and collapsed to her knees. Giles had been next. God, Giles had been her father. He’d protected her where her biological parent had pushed her aside. He’d had lapses, of course. The Cruciamentum had almost destroyed everything between them, but at least Buffy had some relief that she’d forgiven him before his cruel and violent death.

Faith had believed she’d struck at Buffy’s power centre—she’d wiped out the heart and then destroyed the encyclopaedic mind behind their success. She’d been wrong. Each and every one of her friends had strength to contribute to the fight and leaving alive one knowledgeable gypsy and an aspiring witch had been a mistake. While Buffy’s brute strength had been next to useless against her sister slayer—both of them still standing, or limping, at the end of every fight—Willow and Jenny Calendar had joined together in harsh, vengeful grief and totally decimated the enemy camp. The Mayor’s big Ascension was nothing but an annoyingly distracting buzz in the air as the duo set every disease upon him they could imagine, holding Faith in a binding spell so that she was forced to watch the closest thing she had to a father succumb to infection and rot alive.

It had turned Buffy’s stomach. Watching such a display of evil did nothing to help her heal from losing her mentor, or her friend. And added to it was the grief at losing Willow as well, because even then Buffy knew the redhead would never be the same. Ms. Calendar had left as soon as the dust had settled, claiming everything she stood for was gone, and Buffy found it hard to miss her.

Not when so much more loss had left her heart bloodied and sore.

Wesley Wyndham-Price had found it abhorrent to his sensibilities and had departed as suddenly as he’d arrived. Buffy knew he was still wandering out there somewhere, looking for his purpose, and truly, she wished him luck. He’d so quickly been rendered a watcher without a slayer, with Faith’s defection and Buffy’s refusal to give him the authority needed to do his job. But now, alone and constantly in fear of attack by her remaining contact in the world, Buffy wished he’d come back—naïve outlook and all. At least he wouldn’t be sending her into danger and hoping for her failure.

The walk back into Sunnydale proper was too short and Buffy marvelled at how quiet the night seemed to be compared to how dark and loud her thoughts had become. The only bright point had been enticing him to finally come to her, and now that Buffy’s euphoria had been shattered by her heaviest memories, she felt exhausted. Seeing her front door wasn’t a relief though, for she didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that whatever Willow had waiting for her behind it would be bad. Wasn’t everything Willow found for her to do these days? Almost impossible demons to fight—impossible to find, impossible to kill.

It was with a weary step that Buffy approached her house and ascended the porch steps. Soon everything she did would be shaded with excitement and maybe she’d finally have a chance at some happiness. But for now, there was duty and darkness.

Willow looked grave when Buffy finally returned. Anger vibrated around the room and Buffy took a step back in surprise before forcing herself to continue inside. The redhead stood with her arms crossed and her spine stiff, disapproval evident in the flat line of her pale lips.

“I’ve been waiting for you for hours. Even my locator spell wasn’t working. Where were you?”

Buffy quirked a brow as she casually pulled out a chair in the dining room of her old house and sat in it. “Gee, Wills. I thought you knew I patrolled at night. Every night. Fought some big hairy, crackly demon thingy. He was a bit sparky with the electricity so maybe there was some kind of magic dampener field or something that prevented you reaching me? I’m totally clueless.” Desperate to appear unconcerned, Buffy did a quick thank you prayer to whichever god had influenced her decision to keep a fruit bowl on the table and reached for an apple. The crunch of her bite was distracting enough in that it annoyed Willow about something other than her magic failing to do the simple task she’d set.

“Well, maybe that’s what I was trying to find you and warn you about,” she covered churlishly. All the softness had left Willow the previous year the second Xander’s body had been found naked and purple. She’d declared that Faith had fucked the life right out of him and had set about planning the other Slayer’s downfall. Buffy was exceedingly grateful she’d never given in to Xander’s many offers to date. Watching Willow decimate another human being had been rather gory and sickening; it was something Buffy had never wanted to see again but had been forced to as Willow made ever-widening excuses about which human scumbag could live and which couldn’t. It was a train wreck that Buffy couldn’t run away from; she wasn’t put on this earth to dole out judgement to humans. She was a vampire slayer: strong, proud and fixated on her mission. Willow was the one who blew their boundaries wide open.

Willow was the one that was slowly absorbing all the power and control.

“Well, I killed it,” Buffy puffed, her blasé attitude obviously pushing Willow’s Irrit-o-meter to the limits.

“Well, we still have a problem. A really big one and I needed to contact you about it urgently. We don’t have a lot of time.” She turned her back and stomped sullenly from the room and Buffy rolled her eyes in a manner that had become quite clichéd the last year. Willow made her grand announcements—somehow pinning blame on Buffy where there was no blame to be had—and Buffy buttoned her lips but rolled her eyes. They had a swell slaying relationship.

Before she could work up the effort to follow the witch, Willow had returned, her trusty laptop in one hand and some strange looking multi-pointed shell that she held next to her ear in the other. There was a serious furrow between her brows and Buffy was reminded of the conscientious Willow of old—where research and the desire to help Buffy stay alive was enough for her.

“There’s been some weird atmospheric disturbances happening in LA so I did a spell.” She looked up and Buffy wondered if she was supposed to be surprised. Willow and spells—both good and bad—were of the extreme these days. Barely an hour went by where Willow didn’t find something that needed a spell immediately to make matters right.

Buffy said nothing, knowing well enough by now that it didn’t matter, Willow would bound on with her discovery and ignore Buffy’s apparently-useless comments anyway. No better way to take the power in a relationship than when you simply ignored all input from the other person.

“Angelus is trying to end the world.” She paused, obviously hoping to get some kind of emotional reaction from Buffy—taking pleasure in inflicting hurt now wherever she could. As usual, she wasn’t disappointed.

Buffy exploded from her chair. “That’s impossible. Angel is dead. I saw him dust.”

The redhead smirked, her eyes flashing black and making Buffy’s skin crawl. “Oh, sorry. I forgot to mention that this Angelus is from another dimension.”

Hatred at Willow’s unnecessary cruelty burned deeply; Buffy slowly sank back into her chair and stared coldly at the preening witch. “Go on,” she seethed through tight lips.

Now that she’d achieved her cheap shot, Willow continued, unfolding her laptop and putting the shell down on the table. “Okay, this is bad. Angelus has attacked and killed a number of members of The Circle of The Black Thorn and demons from all dimensions are preparing an attack. There’s no way he can win this fight and that much evil in one world will do a lot of damage. I’m talking end of the world stuff—and not just ours. It’ll be like, dimensional tsunamis of damage. You’ll have to go and stop him.”

Okay, that bit sunk through Buffy’s hardened protective layer. “And why can’t the Slayer in that dimension do all the stopping? What, I’m intergalactic Buffy now?”

Willow stopped short, irritation dangerously close to the surface. “I didn’t say anything about sending you into space. You’ll still be on Earth, Buffy. It will be the same places and the same people—just…different. As for the other slayer...there’s no guarantee that she knows. I mean, the people in the other dimension might not be able to work this kind of stuff out. Maybe there’s no Willow there or if there is, maybe she’s…less like me.”

And wouldn’t that be a blessing to all concerned, Buffy thought spitefully before standing and heading for the stairs.

“Fine. I’m going to wash off the demon gunk, then you can tell me when we do this—”

“There’s no time,” Willow interjected, actually reaching out and grabbing hold of Buffy’s arm. It was the first time she’d willingly touched the Slayer since Xander had been buried deep within the earth. Buffy wished she’d continued to refrain because now the cold, claw-like fingers caused a sensation of revulsion to travel through her and Buffy wanted to get to the bathroom to scrub her skin clean now more than ever.

The touch had clouded her understanding of words briefly but Buffy panicked as soon as she realised what the witch was telling her. She couldn’t go. Not now! At least, not immediately; not without using the talisman to communicate to her nameless friend what was going on. For all she knew this was a trap—an elaborate and dangerous one it was true, but those words weren’t long shots for Willow when she had her mind set on achieving something, and getting rid of Buffy without a trace—not that she needed a trace—was a possibility the Slayer was willing to overlook. As far as Willow knew, no one would suspect a thing if she went missing. Her mother might grieve but believe her death to be at the hands of evil—especially if a torn up, contrite Willow was the one to deliver the news in person. The witch didn’t know about the talisman or the friend Buffy had at the other end of it. She didn’t know that someone was going to turn up here and demand answers. Buffy knew what Willow would do. She wouldn’t think twice about taking out the obstruction to her path to true, all-encompassing power. Destroying another slayer would be all the redhead would need to cement her position as a leader in the fight against evil—the fact that she was more than a little left of the good side was something no one, least of all Willow herself, would accept.

The talisman burnt a hole in her jeans pocket and Buffy felt the itch on her thigh. She had to warn him, tell him it was too late to be her saviour. Determination glittered in her eye and Willow backed away, a hardness taking over her as she stood up to the Slayer. “There’s no time, Buffy. The destruction of The Circle is already taking place. They plan to stand and fight in an alleyway and some of their army are already dead. You need to be there to stop it.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to do that against an infinite army from across all dimensions? I mean, God, there could be dragons. I can’t fly, Will.”

The other girl was panicked, already gathering together her ingredients and making the familiar sacred circle with sand, plonking herself down in the middle of it, along with her fascinating shell. Her hands were shaking and for the first time Buffy realised how big a deal this was. Despite Willow’s new wonky world view, she still lived in the world and didn’t want it to end. If the witch was this rattled, Buffy knew it was urgent. The Slayer surged forth and took control. Buffy patted the talisman and sent a mental apology she knew he’d never receive and prepared herself for the unknown.

“How do I get back?”

The portal opened with a whoosh, blue light gyrating and flickering in the small space.

Willow pursed her lips nervously and refused to look up and meet Buffy’s eyes. “I don’t know.” For a second she looked genuinely upset, as if realising that as much as she hated sharing the glory with Buffy, the blonde was still the only person she had left in this world. For that alone Buffy dismissed the risk of this being a trick, a plan to get rid of the Slayer.

“This is real,” Willow appealed and Buffy shrugged. There was no choice if this fight was going to end the world. She had to go.

“Okay. Just…find some way to bring me back.” She stared into the blue light, mesmerised with the possible death going through it might bring.

Willow looked up. “I will,” she promised, then nodded toward the light. “You better go. All the worlds need you.”

Buffy stepped forward, hesitated for just a second, and then took the leap.

She was at the world’s command.

Chapter Three

There was no way he was returning from this trip unless it was as dust particles blown half-way across the continent on the breath of a furious slayer. Still, the inevitability of his imminent demise wasn’t enough to stop him throwing everything he owned into an old brown leather bag, sweeping his dirty, repugnant quarters with disillusioned eyes, and striding toward the Desoto with a renewed spring in his step.

There were many challenges he was about to hit nose-on, but if Spike was a good judge of character—and he prided himself on being bloody amazing at reading people—one Buffy Summers was going to have the very stuffing knocked out of her the second he rolled into town and announced he’d been privy to her every thought, complaint and fear for the past year. He’d be lucky if he escaped with only his balls served to him on a platter.

A smirk betraying his complete insanity stretched across his mouth and Spike felt like whistling. Bugger it; he’d sing for all that was holy. His departure from not-so-good old SunnyD had been nothing short of despaired. He’d been carried away like a baby, deprived of his ultimate kill by letting the adorable bitch break his back. Oh sure, if he’d been able back then he’d not have even hesitated ripping her heart out through her mouth, but now…now he was brimming with admiration for the girl. Things had changed for him on so many levels that he still had to shake himself every morning he awoke to truly believe it all was happening.

Not that being in his new situation was always good, but he could never say it was boring.

The engine gunned to uproarious life and Spike laughed with joy as he scattered a crowd of people milling in an area they should have known to avoid. It was almost like the stupid morsels wanted to have pieces bitten out of them. Wasn’t his problem. He had other fish to fry and Sunnydale seemed to be the perfect little hell-like pond. One little chit he’d like to string up and scale would be Red. He’d have to come up with a plan there and hope that his impatience wouldn’t bollocks the whole thing.

Twelve months ago he’d never have imagined how dazed he could become with anger at someone hurting the Slayer. Twelve months ago he’d banked on being the lucky son-of-a-bitch that bagged his third slayer before having a celebratory drink with his fellow demons somewhere reputable for his gloat. So much could happen in twelve months and as much as he’d cursed the talisman that had taught him about hearts and souls, he was also grateful that his existence had found meaning. Feeling worthwhile when you were being punished for being a soft, useless vampire went a long way to mending bridges.

There was nothing to inspire a backward glance and Spike roared out of the industrial district in which he’d found refuge. His journey was finally beginning and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was making a mistake heading to Buffy without preparing her first. Without warning her that when he showed, he had no intention of burying his fangs in her smooth, supple skin; rather, his mind had been obsessively focused on the promise of a kiss and the honey taste of her flesh.

Not for one second did Spike question he was losing his marbles. He was changing, and for the most part he didn’t believe it was for the better; it wasn’t fitting, a vicious killer becoming the Slayer’s shoulder to cry on when fighting his kind got too rough for her. It wasn’t right—but he wanted it anyway. Those days when the talisman burned in his pocket and he felt her pain were the days that he slept better. Not for knowing she hurt, but from knowing she lived. Over months of intensity, Spike had been able to forge a link direct to her. He didn’t need the talisman anymore to know if she’d been wounded, or if Willow had made yet another cutting remark. He didn’t need the talisman to know when she’d fallen asleep for the night or when she’d turned to thinking about that plonker none of them should rightly miss, even if the two women in his life still did.

Angel was a burden they were all best rid of and Spike refused to shed any tears at his decision to harness the power of Sire’s blood to bring back the strength to his own. That Dru wanted to punish him for destroying her precious Angel meant nothing to him anymore, and now that she’d completely turned her back on him, Spike wouldn’t allow himself to wallow at not being enough yet again. He’d gained much understanding this last year, and that he mattered far less to Dru than Angelus had been enough to cut the emotional ties he’d had to her for good. He’d always love her, but he refused to be her whipping boy again. He refused to let her kill him slowly for saving her life.

He was barely on the road for twenty minutes—only a few hours from crossing back into Hellmouth territory—when a great searing fire braced against his chest and then pushed with a mighty thrust to blast his ribcage wide open. Letting go of the wheel, Spike roared in agony as he gripped his chest, the old car swerving dramatically from lane to lane, furious car horns the symphonic backdrop to his destruction. With the little presence of mind he had left, Spike recognised the wheels were tearing up dirt and rock and he slammed his foot down hard on the brake, screaming as he felt disaster loom up and cloud him in black. The car spun around fully before it stopped, but Spike kept on screaming, knowing finally what it was that tore his existence to shreds.

The pain receded slowly, his facial ridges protruding and his fangs just dripping to sink into some nosy bastard that tried to muscle in past Spike’s tears. He wasn’t grateful cars had stopped to check on him; he wasn’t grateful for anything right now excepting his car’s failure to burst into gasoline-fuelled flames. The last thing he needed was an audience as he was ruthlessly severed from the link he shared with her.

Buffy Summers was gone, and he was going to make whoever was responsible pay with their life.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

She passed through running, not even taking time to watch her home close off behind her as the dimensional fold collapsed in on itself. The talisman throbbed in her pocket and despite not knowing this part of LA—as if she could tell one alleyway from the next!—she suddenly knew the force of direction as her body led her somewhere unknown. She ran for ten minutes at full slayer-speed, breath whooshing from her lungs in perfectly trained rhythm and Buffy gladly handed herself over to auto-pilot. She trusted in the power of something she didn’t know, directing her into who knew what kind of hell, and believed it was what she was sent here to do. She had to find them, help them in this poorly thought out fight and keep the balance of worlds, or perish.

She stopped in front of a gleaming silver building, an office block that was nondescript and meant absolutely nothing to her, but Buffy knew that inside there was something so important that she was going to die this night if she didn’t go in. A scalding pain had settled against her thigh, the amulet almost screaming in either joy or pain. It was so different to the inanimate state it had occupied from the moment it was placed in her hand and it momentarily stopped her cold to find it reacting so vibrantly now.

Making no effort to influence the direction of her feet, Buffy stepped through the large glass doors and quickly made her way to the elevator, raising a perfectly sculpted brow as her finger jabbed the button directing her to the top floor. She was rushed upward, almost losing her balance with the disruption to her equilibrium as it came to a startling stop, the doors whooshing open on the most horrifying scene she’d witnessed in a lifetime.

Spike gaped at her, and he clutched harder the babe in his arms.

“Buffy?”

He’d lost focus on the demons about to attack him, she could see. That note of yearning in his voice was strange and creepy, yet Buffy’s first duty wasn’t to understand the speech inflections of a murderous vampire. Her sacred duty was to protect those that couldn’t protect themselves, and the innocent didn’t come any more so than a vulnerable little baby.

The three saggy grey-skinned demons attacked, their limbs accustomed to fighting in robes but not used to a slayer in their ranks. She appropriated a sword from one of the demons as it hit the floor hard from the impact of the sole of her boot. She killed with militant precision, mere seconds disappearing before their bodies hit the ground with brutal finality. Her eyes had never left his, alert to his every possible attempt to harm the baby and ready for what needed to be done.

“Buffy,” he breathed again, awe stroking his eyes and lips until she was swimming in confusion. That switch to attempted understanding undid her and before she could slam back into fight mode, he was upon her, the baby cradled carefully between them as cool lips savaged her own.

Shock exploded inside her. Buffy reeled mentally but physically was struck useless on the spot. There was nothing in their previous association for her to have ever suspected this kind of disarming attack in his arsenal, and as much as she wanted to kick him where it hurt and disengage from his fervent touch, the kiss did not betray any intent to kill.

Heart thumping wildly, Buffy hesitantly parted her lips and was lost. His free hand wound into a fistful of her hair, her neck stretched almost painfully as his passion bent her head back. His mouth possessed hers, roughly sucking and biting her lips before he deepened the kiss further and ecstasy shot to life along her veins. A moan speared the quiet between them and Buffy felt herself crane closer, momentarily forgetting the baby he still held in his arms as she craved the connection she’d been denied with another human being since Angel had been taken from her.

By Spike.

Memory achieved what her treacherous body had been unable to do and Buffy tore herself away, panting hard as she treated him to a glare worthy of the true relationship between them.

Enemies.

Her hand lingered at her mouth, body shuddering at an unwinnable conflict—one side of her wanted to cling to that kiss with everything she had, but then the saner side wanted her to purge the revulsion from her lips and spit out her hatred. As usual, though, it was the wrong time to indulge in personal issues. She had a war to win, starting with the infant cradled against a notoriously evil vampire’s chest.

“Give me the baby.” A stake in one hand, she held out the other, hoping he wouldn’t decide to fight her and risk the baby’s life.

“No time, Goldilocks. Have to get the little one back to his mum. Bloody good to see you, though. Thought you were all caught up in the Immortal Wanker’s nightlife in Rome. Should have known not to underestimate you,” he said proudly and Buffy wondered what on earth she’d stepped into the middle of. Returning a baby to its family would imply Spike to be a good guy, and no matter how hard she tried to wrap her head around that, it was impossible. Before she had time to think, he’d stolen another light kiss and taken her hand with his free one and she was running again.

“What, um…I have to find Angelus,” Buffy finished strongly, purpose reverberating around the elevator cage.

“Oh, yeah. You lot still think he’s turned bad, huh? Completely off-base this time, luv. Had us fooled for a while too. Not to worry. We’ll be meeting up with Peaches soon as the bit is in his mother’s arms safe and sound. You’ll get your fight in.”

And he smirked at her. That same infuriating smirk she’d witnessed one too many times back in Sunnydale when he’d taken Angel from her; before she’d learned what the souled vampire could mean to her.

“I know Angel,” she spat, thoroughly sick at this messed up reality. “He would never set something like this into play. It’s totally suicidal.”

Spike stopped short and Buffy became aware with a burning, frightening need that she was holding his hand and how much she wanted to banish the nudge of sense that told her she needed to let it go.

“Far be it for me to question your unbelievably juvenile loyalty to that berk, but Angel is not evil and right now he’s exactly that suicidal. Only thing the bastard has going for him is that we’ll make an impact on our way out. Now stop yammering, princess. We’ve got a rendezvous to keep.” Spike turned sharply on his heel, his body a coiled spring of controlled rage that she didn’t understand as he tugged her along.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, other than what Willow told me—”

“Ah, the witch. Is that how you found out I was back from the land of perpetual torture? Or did the boy finally spill the beans?”

Buffy shook her head, confusion making her head ache. “Who the hell is The Boy? And…were you dead? When were you dead? And why would I care? Probably that loopy bitch that hauled you off did you in, and if that’s the case, colour me impressed you managed to drag your dusty ass back into the world.”

Spike stopped dead, again, the baby wriggling impatiently in his arms. “That’s cruel, Buffy. Even for you.” And he turned back to the path, deciding to ignore her as intently as he was ignoring the shard of hurt that tore through his heart.

“Okay, whoa up there, slick. I don’t know what’s going on here but there’s something that really needs to be said to clear the air, so, whatever Buffy turned your world upside down, I am so not her.” Feet braced against the pavement and arms crossed against her chest, Buffy wasn’t going anywhere until she could gain a better grip on this world.

“You got that right. My Buffy wasn’t such a raving, heartless bitch in the end. Knew you didn’t mean all that ‘I love you’ claptrap. Make it easier to run out of there and leave poor Spike burning to death from the inside out, did it?”

Eyes impossibly wide, Buffy felt her heart stop. There was something very wrong when a notoriously evil master vampire said she’d told him she loved him. Leaving him helpless in the arms of his embittered sire was probably the exact thing that could unsettle his mind—and the only explanation for the sheer lunacy that was flowing from his mouth like acid.

Buffy took a slow step backwards, needing distance from his distracting touch so she could figure out a way to get the baby off him. Although, he did kind of imply he was going to do the right thing there. Taking a deep breath, she studied him and for the first time she noticed the softness and vulnerability in his eyes.

“I’m not the Buffy from this dimension,” she confided quietly. “I was sent here because Angelus…or Angel,” she trembled, overwhelmed by the possibility of seeing him again and wondering what it was she truly felt. “I was told he was setting an apocalypse to end all apocalypses in motion and if he failed the fight, all the dimensions might come to a sudden and disastrous end.”

“You’re not my Buffy?” He nodded, accepting her claim as he tipped his head to the side and smiled indulgently.

“No,” she admitted, breath tight in her chest, and for just a second, she kind of wished she was.

Chapter Four

Eight hours earlier…

“Giles!!!”

The combined voices of Dawn and Willow carried with the force of thunder down the empty corridors of the new Council building. It was fractionally homier than the original, but Giles found it more manageable and he hoped it would add life to the organisation that had, quite frankly, been seriously lacking. Travers had kept a very tight, unemotional and not-so-impenetrable ship and Giles was counting on the numerous slayers hired as security to keep them safe. Foolhardy perhaps, but there were many measures in place this time to warn them should anything untoward happen again.

Now, the beginnings of a headache were rushing in on him and he prepared himself for the twin hurricanes that were about to lurch into his office and blow his quiet, comfortable existence apart.

“Giles!!” they exclaimed again, just as loudly—just as urgently, though this time within the small confines of his office. The blasted window wasn’t even open so his head reverberated with the intolerable sound of his own name.

“I’m quite positive I’m not deaf,” he grouched, wincing as he watched them gather a new wind.

“So it’s easy to forget that an old guy like you still has most of his faculties,” Dawn covered, waving her hand in easy dismissal. “Listen up. We’ve got information and it’s kind of urgent.” She gave a sideways look at Willow, and the redhead was almost overcome with the rush to relay the news.

“Absolutely,” Willow nodded in agreement. “The coven just confirmed we have big problems in LA, which…we kind of knew, being that we spy cam on Angel all the time. He tried to fool everyone with that hokey glamour spell, but luckily the camera still films the truth and all it took was a few words to remove the spell and hey presto, we have his whole plan in living colour.” She paused and Giles waited impatiently for the punchline. Not that what she’d said so far wasn’t fascinating, but worrying over Angel and his ill-thought out motives for taking over Wolfram and Hart had long been eradicated from his list of must-do’s each and every morning. Giles knew the pillock would undoubtedly end up dead sooner or later, and judging from the way both Dawn and Willow were almost turning blue with the slow rationing out of their news, he was ready to believe the time was nigh.

Willow made no indication that she’d resume her tale anytime soon and Giles spluttered an exasperated sigh. “Is there an actual point to your bellowing in Council halls or am I supposed to guess?”

The witch’s eyes widened and she clasped her hands together nervously. “Oh! Angel’s attacking The Circle of the Black Thorn tonight.”

That got his attention rather smartly and Giles was standing before he’d even thought to do it, his chair almost toppling over behind him. “What the devil is he thinking?” The exclamation didn’t require an answer for all three of them refused to even hazard a guess at Angel’s motivations.

“Who cares what he’s thinking?” Dawn proclaimed wisely. “He’s totally going to get Spike killed…again…and then Buffy will wipe the street with his superhero ass.” Not that she was going to deny the wonderful visual putting a twinkle in her eyes.

Giles stared at her dumbly. “Oh my, yes. Spike. Well, we simply can’t let this happen. There’s no telling what Buffy would do to all of us if Spike perished before she has the chance to reunite with him. Bloody idiot, tying himself to Angel. Doesn’t he realise that that vampire brings death to all who stand by him?” The glasses came off in an agitated swipe and Giles clutched them hard in his hand. Chaos was about to be unleashed and he had so little time to organise anything.

“It’s okay, Giles. Willow and I have already sent Buffy the word and she’s on her way with her little troupe of super-soldiers. We thought if we sent Faith’s in as well, that should even the odds up a bit.” Dawn smirked knowingly. As much as Giles fancied himself the head of the new Watcher’s Council, so much went on around him that he was often the last to know the finer details. Or in this case, any details at all.

Behind her back, Willow clasped Dawn’s hand tightly. It had been difficult to engineer this rescue without Giles knowing anything about Angel’s activities, but the fear that he’d order them away from the whole thing brought bile to her throat. She’d learned too late to do anything to help Fred, and while she was unsure that anything could have actually been done, Willow hated that she wasn’t given the chance to try.

“The Circle of the Black Thorn,” Giles mused, a growing smile of respect on his lips. “Bloody impressive move if he pulls it off.”

“Yeah?” Dawn stalked closer, enjoying the look of discomfort he revealed as she stood right in his personal space. “Not so much if he happens to bring Hell down on all our heads.” She backed off abruptly and flopped down in one of the visitor’s chairs Giles had fastidiously positioned on the receiving side of his desk. “Besides, the things he had to have done to get into that secret club I’m positive I wouldn’t want on my conscience. Aaand, he’s expecting every single one of them to die. Kind of a useless act when who-knows-what’s around the corner just waiting for the good-guy numbers to be depleted by a souled vamp or two.”

Giles tiredly nodded his concession of the teen’s point and then focused on Willow’s shaky frame. “They might need an experienced and powerful witch should it come to what I think it will. I seriously doubt Angel really understands what he is about to unleash. While the act of striking a massive blow in eliminating The Circle is a noble one, it’s also foolhardy in the extreme. Wolfram and Hart are much more powerful than that and this is a fight Angel and his friends can’t win.”

“At least…not alone,” Willow interjected, an excitement for winning the un-winable fight beginning to bubble in her blood.

“Not even with the help of friends, Willow. Good cannot exist without evil; it is the balance we must fight to sustain.” Giles saw her sad, defeated expression and raised it with a deep sigh of remorse. “What Angel is planning will undoubtedly unleash hell on LA, but the Senior Partners have access to evil from all dimensions.”

“And we have a super-powerful witch from one. We beat The First, Giles. We can totally do this.” There was no evidence of pleading in her composure; Dawn Summers had done a lot of growing and maturing since she’d lost her home. Brimming with a youthful measure of confidence obviously didn’t affect her calculations either.

The Head Watcher smiled fondly at the two girls. “As I am coming to continually accept, you are quite correct.” He turned from the proud teen and faced the aforementioned super-powerful witch; she’d once been just a girl who he’d first met when she was younger than Dawn. Exceptionally bright, but not the type one would guess would carve out a destiny in their perpetual fight against the world’s darkness. Marvelling at the amazing progress they’d all made, he smiled and nodded his assent. “Willow, report to sector five and perhaps you can claim the quick ticket to LA—just this once.”

“On my way, boss,” she called facetiously, already out the door and half way down the corridor. She’d only done the metaphysical jump twice before but both times it had been an indescribable rush.

Giles watched as she disappeared around the corner and then bowed his head in prayer. “And may all the gods give you every ounce of luck.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He didn’t usually drive during the day. The heat of the sun beating down on the black paint of his car, while not making it unbearable in the non-air-conditioned confines, always made him drowsy. The pain in his chest wouldn’t subside, however, so Spike had made the decision to push on and gain every mile ahead toward darkness, Sunnydale and the redheaded witch before he could make his head settle. Before he would determinedly calm the call for blood so he could think clearly enough to learn what he needed. And if he found that Willow Rosenberg had killed Buffy, the little witch would be fast finding out what it felt like to stare at the inside of a coffin.

He’d been parked across the street from Buffy’s house now for going on three hours, the sun the only thing stopping him from jumping out and kicking her door in before giving the aging house a gory new colour scheme. The curtains had been pulled open earlier in the day and Spike had watched as an obviously jittery witch studied from a number of old, musty texts in between her anxious pacing. If he wasn’t intent on slitting the treacherous bitch’s throat, he’d almost feel sorry for her.

Waiting for the sun to go down hadn’t helped him think of any workable plan, and now that the sky around him had long turned grey before sliding into very late night, Spike found his own brand of panic settle heavily in his heart. Buffy was either lost to him figuratively or literally and he was sick of being a useless wanker passively waiting to find out which it was.

It wouldn’t pay to rush in there unprepared—or even with the rudiments of a plan knocking around in his head. Willow had more ability in her little finger than Spike had had hot dinners and he wasn’t about to bargain his only link to Buffy for a quick kill. This town was notorious for twisting the normal on its head, and Spike wouldn’t allow himself to lose everything by being impetuous when he didn’t even know the full story.

The urgency to plan carefully deserted him completely when the object of his murderous thoughts suddenly came slamming out of the house and almost ran down the path into town. He’d concede it was a pretty swift jog for a human—there’d been no conscience decision to leave his car and follow, merely an automatic need to not let the evil little chit out of his sight. Melting into the shadows was easy for him—it was what a vampire did best—and not once did Willow betray she had any sense of him on her tail. His eyes glinting with malice in the full moonlight, lips twisting in pure hatred, he clung to her every step, breathed in her fear and felt his senses heighten with the intoxication. By the time he was through, he’d be drunk on her terror.

Not once did she look over her shoulder, and even in his lengthy experience Spike knew that was unusual. Most felt the creep of fear along their spine as eyes followed their path. Most could feel it in their gut as a killer stalked them. That Willow hadn’t reacted to him in the slightest told Spike more than he wished to know: either the bird was completely confident in her power should she be jumped by something big and scary, or she was distracted by something so serious and terrifying that it didn’t matter what she came upon.

Neither of those options settled well with Spike.

He wasn’t surprised when he followed her to a quiet street and watched as she stopped at the locked door of the little magic shop he remembered liberating of its shop keep on his last visit. He smirked as he saw her lips move, her quiet voice barely rippling the silence around her.

“Thought you was one of the law-abiding folk,” Spike growled into her ear, smirking finally at being dressed in her horror. Her back slammed into the glass door and perspiration broke out on her forehead before she remembered herself and straightened her spine.

“I wouldn’t look too closely at my throat, Spike. I could dust you before you even tapped into the vein.”

He tilted his head thoughtfully, all the while ignoring his gut as it roiled sickly at the smug expression on her face. It was true—the stories Buffy had told him in her darker moments had reassured Spike that ending up on the witch’s bad side would be the last thing he ever did, which meant that he needed to be on her good side. The quickest way he knew to do that was to remain in type. The bint didn’t have the first idea that he wore his evil as little more than a scar these days. And just because Dru had flogged all the big and the bad right out of him, it didn’t mean he’d forgotten how to act the part.

The leer was fuelled with repulsion, but Spike cheered on his ability to make anything look sexual. “That right, pet? Maybe it’s not your blood ‘m after,” he suggested, though he was bloody lost for words on what he could possibly want of her except her black heart on a plate.

His stomach churned as she turned thoughtful eyes to him. “What do you want, Spike?” She looked him up and down and he clasped his hands into fists and braced them against his sides to prevent the urge to slam into her soft body and do lots of beautiful damage.

“What do I always want in this town?” he replied truthfully. He stared deeply into her eyes until he was sure he'd touched ehr ruthless soul. "I want the Slayer."

Her self-imposed world of ice and nothingness was crashing around her ears.

Buffy felt frozen inside; her mind, her heart, her soul were all doing a slow thaw because that moment was fast approaching where she could no longer hide. The inevitable was finally catching up with her and she didn’t know what to do but sit as still as her airplane jolting through turbulence would allow and hope that things didn’t explode once she made it to the ground. She wanted to feel warm and after the experience of long and lonely months, Buffy knew there was only one thing that would give her back the flush of heat that had been so long missing from her life: Spike. Previously dead Spike would melt the solid ice within her—the pain of it making her want to scream—and maybe then she could see about breaking his nose for all he’d unnecessarily put her through.

She remembered with shocking clarity the conversation with Dawn that had unveiled the truth. Alone, at home, a bottle of antiseptic to clean her latest wounds and news that almost battered her heart to pieces. Long months spent alone and focused entirely on the mission because the pain of his loss had almost broken her in two; long lonely months where she’d craved his arms around her at night had been unnecessary—because for months Spike had been alive. He’d existed again in her world and he’d not called, not sent her a letter, not even sent her a stupid text message via stupid Harmony. If that wasn’t a sign of retracted love, Buffy didn’t know what was.

“How much longer?” she asked Juanita huskily, her throat raw and aching from hours of repressed tears.

“Not long,” the Spanish girl answered. “Maybe twenty minutes till touchdown.”

“Forty minutes to showdown,” piped in Emma a little too loudly, her trepidation almost giving the aircraft full of slayers a concussion.

Buffy rolled her eyes and then kept them shut. These girls had no clue what a showdown was until they’d witnessed an apparently discarded slayer beat unmercifully the vamp who’d claimed to want her so much but who then turned a blind eye to her existence.

Despite it being months since she witnessed his flame-ball rescue of the world, wandered through endless time of hollow rejoicing that the universe had not been deprived of this lowly spinning planet, Buffy felt the rapid flutter of her blood warning her that it was too soon. She wasn’t ready to see his face again. So much hadn’t been resolved and she needed that distance to sort it all out. Her feelings, her hopes and dreams. God, her reality was so twisted and yet Buffy knew that the first glimpse of Spike would shatter every preconception she’d clung to about her current life’s path and she’d be right back where she started: clueless.

Not that she didn’t want to see him again ever.

Knowing Spike had come back somehow had made every one of Buffy’s limbs lose all feeling—she’d turned to goo at the first impulsive thought she’d had to welcome him in her own special way.

Until Dawn had told her how long he’d been back.

Knowing he’d taken his time to contact her—and let’s face it, she was still waiting—had kind of deflated the buzz of anticipation that had hit her like an avalanche. She’d realised early on in those too quiet nights after the Hellmouth had sunk deep into the ground that it would kill her to dwell on his rejection. Buffy knew without a shadow of a doubt that Spike understood. Not once had she ever tarnished the twisted thing between them with lies. And once it had straightened out into something close to beautiful, Buffy had never even contemplated being anything but brutally honest with him. Often it did little but reveal how confused and scared she was regarding them, but at least she’d not painted a picture even he couldn’t believe. At the last he had to know. He had to know—because he knew her.

But what did it mean for them now?

The question hadn’t stopped spinning around in her head since she’d taken the call from Willow and directed her team to the airplane. The girls were used to heading off at a moment’s notice. It wasn’t like all apocalypses advertised themselves, though that would be totally helpful. Each apocalypse they’d faced since Sunnydale had been little more than a storm in an obscenely British teacup, but Buffy knew that this one would rival the worst she’d ever faced. Knowing that both Angel and Spike were involved almost dictated it as fact. One past lover had almost succeeded in sucking the world into Hell, and adding in the one she’d like to classify as her current lover—despite the very long absent activity that would give the term the literal ring of truth—Buffy didn’t expect this to be anything short of dimensional catastrophe. Taking on evil on such a level would bring retribution from planes they knew nothing of, and yet Angel jumped in with both eyes open and a handful of willing sacrifices. She was going to kick his butt from this world into the next, and if he managed to get Spike killed again in the process, she was going to tie his butt to her foot for the rest of eternity.

The wheels of the aircraft impacted the tarmac with a stomach-lurching jolt. Buffy groaned sickly and braced herself for the final roll to stop. She should be used to this by now but the mode of travel was completely unmixy with her equilibrium. There was no more time for Buffy to think—whatever was to happen with Spike would have to be left to the part of her that reacted automatically and she just hoped he’d be alive at the end of her outburst for her to say hello. Tears stung her eyes at the thought—to have the opportunity to say hello to him again. To look into his clear eyes of love and find the chance she’d been dreaming of. Such opportunities rarely presented twice and Buffy had no choice but to grasp this one with both hands and cling to it with her life. And if Spike wasn’t cooperative, she’d go all cave!Buffy on his ass until he remembered what they were to each other.

With that dilemma having seemingly reached a resolution, Buffy stood and ordered her troops quiet. It had taken some getting used to—leading up to eighty girls a turn—but like other challenges of her life she’d met it with charging success. Buffy Summers was a squadron leader and every time she thought it, she pictured Riley and giggled hysterically.

The doors were opened but Buffy blocked the exit and all the girls stood respectfully waiting. This was the time where orders were sketched out. Where goals and rousing speeches were released into the air. Where the last glance of healthy, strong women were glimpsed before they went out and devoted their lives to throbbing, conniving evil.

Buffy assumed her general’s hat and looked every single one of her girls in the eye.

“You all know why we’re here. There’s a fight out there that only we can win—the White Hats. This one is bigger than anything you’ve faced before. This one is one of the biggest and you need to know that you’ll quite possibly be facing death in its yellow, gleaming eye every sword stroke and every breath you gasp. It will see your fear and it will do everything in its power to win you to its realm. Don’t let it. We’ve come here to do only one thing; win. We’ve come here to keep the world as we know it safe for the generations of people behind us.” A gentle, affectionate smile graced her lips and Buffy fought back a sniffle. “I know you won’t let me down. Move out,” she barked, and stood to the side as the girls stomped down the steps onto the hot tarmac and ran for the number of buses waiting to take them to downtown LA. Buffy followed, making sure no one was left behind and that nothing was going to sneak up and attack from behind.

Willow stood beside the open door of the first bus, smiling absently as each girl bounded up the steps and claimed a seat as close to the back as they could. Without a word she preceded Buffy onto the bus and together they shared a seat at the front.

“This kinda feels like excursions when we were in school, except now we’re the teachers instead of the irrepressible teen spirit in the back.”

Buffy breathed out in a whoosh and rested her head back against the seat. “You have no idea how badly I wish that’s what this was.”

Willow looked at her friend and recognised the dark circles under her eyes as the dedication to duty that it was—peppered with too much emotion about what she was about to encounter when they reached their destination.

“I’m sure there’s a really, really good reason,” she offered. There wasn’t a person alive who could convince her Spike had kept his return secret because he didn’t want Buffy back. She’d seen the love between the two for what it was and Spike wasn’t the kind to turn his back on someone he cared about, whether they kicked him down or not. Besides, they’d been trying to get rid of Spike for years in one way or another. Willow refused to believe he’d let a measly flamey death stop him now.

“I’m not sure that it matters what his reasons are.” The Slayer already looked so defeated that Willow sucked in a harsh, concerned breath.

“Buffy, you can’t think it’s because he doesn’t love you anymore. I don’t think he’s capable of stopping an emotion that strong.”

Buffy smiled before leaning back and closing her eyes again. “I haven’t given up, Will. It’s just hard, you know? For so many months my heart has had to deal with him being dead, and even though my head now knows differently, it’s a huge hurdle to jump without the living, blindingly-white proof. And now that I’m about to see him finally, we could all be about to die. Again. It’s just…when does this ever get to be fair?”

Willow startled at the intent green eyes that were awash with tears but staring at her so confused and eager for the burden to be lifted. And she had nothing. Absolutely nothing to offer her friend who had seemed to live though so much—and die through even more—because she knew Buffy had it in a nutshell. Nothing ever got to be fair—for any of them.

“Maybe all you really need is That Look. You know the one, where he sees you and melts at the awesomeness of his dream come true?”

Buffy giggled. Oh yeah, she knew the kind of look Willow was talking about, and then some. Spike had perfected The Look in the most complimentary way—if only she’d learned to appreciate it before he’d died to save the world.

“Yeah, maybe that’s all we really need in life, to be looked at like we’re the moon and the stars wrapped up in the universe.” She kind of preferred that happier spin on things, and maybe if she could finagle one of those adoring looks from Spike this time, she might not feel like beating him senseless for leaving her in the dark about his return.

As for Angel…

Her expression darkening, Buffy turned to stare at the streets as the bus hurtled through. The traffic seemed to be flowing one way—and not in the direction they were speeding. Police sirens were almost deafening as they ignored the speeding bus and tore around them, the multitude of flashing lights so bright it made Buffy’s eyes uncomfortable.

“I guess we’re approaching Ground Zero,” she mumbled, not a little resentfully. Seriously, when was Angel going to realise that bringing about Hell on earth was so not the way to win friends?

“Definitely a big demony cloud on the horizon,” Willow agreed, and like the hardened warriors they both were, that mask of serious intention slammed down on both faces.

The bus almost immediately came to a screaming halt on the side of the road and Buffy stood, once again assuming her leader role and instructed the girls to fight for their world’s survival. And if they happened across any souled vamps they were to leave their asses to the boss. With an ear-splitting battle cry, the girls filed from the bus and took up positions around the war zone. Willow followed Buffy off the bus and then quickly scanned around for the most secure location to conduct her magic. She gave the Slayer a quick hug and then ran for cover.

It was already dark and Buffy looked up to see the approaching storm, and as the fact processed in her brain, the heavens erupted and rain splattered her face. In the same second she felt him: Spike. He was near and she was standing in the abandoned street, her hands empty of a weapon, wanting nothing more than to run to him and demand explanations and kisses, reassurances that he hadn’t been struck with the Buffy-curse like all the other men in her life. At her feet was her bag of weapons and almost absently Buffy rifled through it and let her palm close around the scythe. They’d had one made for Faith—a perfect match for the one Buffy now held in every way, blessed and everything—but the original would always be with her. For once, Faith seemed to not only understand, but was satisfied.

There wasn’t time for any more procrastination. The second had arrived when Spike would once again fight at her side and as always, it filled Buffy with an overwhelming sense of rightness. They belonged together and all she could do was pray that it wasn’t too late for her to finally get that.

Buffy ran, allowing her feet to guide her to where he stood waiting for the approaching army, allowing her present to merge with the past. A length away from launching herself into his arms and a flicker of the girl beside him had her stumbling over her feet.

Somehow…she was already there.

Chapter Six


The malice that shone in her eyes chilled his bones. Spike wondered briefly if power had tipped her toward madness, but then there were words—words he couldn’t believe were tumbling past her lips.

“She’s not here right now,” Willow improvised, spurred on by the questioning quirk of Spike’s brow. “But I know where she is. You want to finally add that third slayer notch to your belt, right?”

Hesitantly, he nodded. The thought made bile rise in his throat, but it’s what he needed the witch to believe. It’s what he needed to say so he could survive long enough to save Buffy from whatever her one time friend had done to her.

“You know me too well, Red,” he said with a smirk, fuelling her confidence in him.

Her smile was creepy and Spike felt a shiver run down his back. Buffy was no longer of this world; Whistler had been quite explicit when explaining the connection the former-enemies would have through the trinket, and Spike sure hadn’t been sleeping through the drone of it. His life had already been wrecked enough for him to wilfully ignore what life-changing treats he was up for; being hand-picked for the job of slayer-confidant had already thrown his whole perspective out of whack. Not knowing all the ins and outs would have been foolish. Spike might have been impulsive and rash, but he was never a fool.

Unless he was in love.

Initially he’d thought he could outwit the sodding Powers. Who were they anyway? Did they really believe all they needed to do was hand a bloke a shiny bauble and he’d just bow down and listen to the Slayer’s endless twaddle for the pure fun of it? Well, right, there had been fun. In the beginning. He’d soaked up all of the little blonde’s concerns and fears and he’d fed on them voraciously, picturing vividly how he could use each humiliating fact to destroy the girl who’d almost destroyed him, but who had definitely laid waste to his life.

But somewhere along their path, he’d begun to change. Honestly, he’d started long before then, but the realisation was slow to manifest in his brain. He’d been too busy reacting by blood than to listen to reason about anything, and when his blood started to feed him other, more vivid and sensual images, he’d almost passed out cold. The Slayer who’d been instrumental in breaking his back, making him hopeless and worthless and a victim of his insane and vengeful sire, had suddenly changed from being the one he wanted to punish with death to the one he wanted to protect above all others.

It was bloody barmy, but here he was now, staring into the cold face of the girl who’d held Buffy’s precious life in the palms of her hands, and all he felt was rage. It was all he could do to restrain his impulsive urge to strangle her, clenching his fists spasmodically at his sides instead of curling them brutally around her slim, treacherous neck. Nothing would have given him more pleasure than to see the life drain from her body as her shocked eyes locked with his.

Nothing but to see Buffy alive and welcoming right in front of him.

“I don’t know you at all,” she said, her voice coloured with surprise. “Not really. Buffy was the one that got the brunt of evil back then.” But then she seemed to remember herself and her spirits perked up. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t get to know you now. You look like someone totally worth knowing.” Her grin exposed all her teeth and Spike gagged. If there was one thing on this earth he’d really rather not do it was get to know Willow Rosenberg.

“Maybe later, luv. After I’ve consumed enough slayer blood to make a bloke fully relax.” He hoped it was enough to get the bint in a talkative mood. He could already feel his usual impatience dictate a quick death and it wouldn’t do to give into it now. Not when he still was without a clue where Buffy’s body was. At the very least he could give her a decent burial, and then slit her murderer’s throat in a fitting tribute of revenge.

The witch darted a look behind her into the shop, the wheels of thought ticking over in her head before she obviously reached a decision.

“Okay, I need to level with you. Buffy’s in another dimension right now and I don’t know how to get her back. I was just going to do some research in the magic shop. If you help me, I can get her back faster and you can do us both a favour and drain her dry.”

There was a coldness in the redhead’s eyes that Spike was sure he’d never seen in another human being before. He remembered this girl, friends with Buffy and keen to save the world by her side. She’d been flaky, quirky but a good kid as far as kids these days went. It was terrifying how someone could descend into the depths of evil so quickly and thoroughly.

But Red wasn’t his concern; Buffy was. And if what he was being told was true, he’d lost Buffy from this world unless he helped the witch get her back. At least she seemed willing to do that, even if she was happily handing the Slayer to him already-plated. Well, he’d do what he had to. What choice did he have?

“The books...” he stalled. “Not really my thing.”

“Making deals with demons? Never mine before, either. But we both have a mutual goal here. Buffy is standing in my way and you want to kill her. The quicker I can work out how to bring her back—and believe me, if I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t bother—the quicker we can both feel satisfied.” He didn’t miss the double-entendre, though he definitely wished he’d missed the lusty sweep of her eyes. When he managed to catch them, though, there was a brief hint of sadness that Spike fancied might be loneliness. He was just the bloke to recognise it and understand the extent one would go to heal that kind of pain. Not that it meant he should sympathise with her.

“So when you say the Slayer’s out of town, you mean she’s really out of town.” He figured if he had to rely on his jibes to get him through he was going to condemn himself and Buffy to Willow’s wrath. Still, what else did a bloke have left in the face of such bizarre circumstances?

“Yup,” the witch confirmed, and for the first time since she’d revealed Buffy’s whereabouts, Spike allowed himself to hope. “She’s in another dimension helping to fight an army of demons from collapsing the fabric of the universe. I really hope she makes it through because I’m kind of sketchy on what will happen to this dimension if she’s killed.”

Buffy was alive, and Spike felt the lump of grief that had almost destroyed him while on the highway shift. Cold, furious determination to get his girl back fuelled him now and he looked beyond the delusional witch into the dangerous depths of the shop. There was no thought or fear of Buffy’s reaction when he pulled her back through the dimensional rip, only zinging joy that she was alive and that he was going to rip Whistler’s bloody head off for not telling him about the ‘leaving this dimension’ loophole with the talisman.

“Bit careless, wasn’ it?” he wondered absently, barely making out a bookcase of old, evil looking books in the nearly pitch black shadows beyond the door. “Sending the Slayer off to save one world when it could possibly end our own?”

Her expression turned hardened even more and became downright arctic and Spike was unable to repress a shiver of foreboding.

“I’m confident I can get her back. And if you want to kill her half as much as you did last time you were here, you’ll help me find out how.” Without further consideration, Willow turned her back on him and walked into the shop, muting the bell above the door with automatic familiarity of the place’s layout.

Spike cursed his tongue and followed her at a respectful distance. The bitch might have a head full of false superiority that would surely do her in eventually, but he didn’t dare discount how easily she could render him a dust mound with the embarrassingly simple flick of her finger.

“Right then, let’s get to it. You’ve got a world to save and I’ve got a slayer to kill.”

He only hoped it wasn’t too late for either.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Buffy.”

He wasn’t mistaken. He could even tell the difference now it was pointed out to him. His Buffy shone and it had nothing to do with the reflection on that bloody beautiful weapon that was glued to her hand. It had everything to do with the connection that no amount of hiding could sever between them.

She stood as still as he recognised shock could do to her, and he hurt for all the confusion. This shouldn’t have been the moment they returned to each other, and not for the first time, Spike cursed himself for the gutless wanker he’d been. He’d been fooling himself all along: fooling himself that she wouldn’t care about his return, fooling himself that she wouldn’t kill him for lying to her about being back, fooling himself that Angel gave a toss about either one of them. He’d been fooled and a fool and he almost laughed to himself. It always happened when he was in love. Bloody always.

He shook his head at his own gullibility and then noticed where her eyes were focused. As much as he wished he held her attention, there was no fighting how bizarre she’d have to find it to come face-to-face with herself.

Slowly she turned back to him and he huffed out a relieved sigh at her look of comprehension. Until she opened her mouth and he realised she didn’t understand a bloody thing.

“Is this why you didn’t call?” she asked tremulously.

He hated when she did this, asking him stupid questions with hurt almost pouring from her in suffocating waves. Truth be told, he didn’t rightly recall why he’d never called. He didn’t know if he’d seriously believed the bollocks that he’d gone out in the only way she’d be proud of, or if he was too terrified to be rejected again. Whatever excuse he’d told himself, which ever thing he thought Angel would support, it reeked of William’s classic wankerish uselessness.

He’d spent a century killing every last part of that in himself and he’d fancied he’d succeeded. Even souled he wasn’t such a prat. He wasn’t a coward.

“’Course not,” he replied finally, cursing the rain that obstructed the clarity of the moment.

“But you’ve made another bot. An evil Wolfram and Hart bot. Is she evil Buffy? Wasn’t I enough? Did you come back without your soul? Damn. Andrew didn’t mention that part,” she criticised to herself.

And she had the bloody nerve to back up a few steps.

Spike felt anger course through him and he wondered not for the first time why everything had to be so bleeding difficult.

“I didn’t make another bloody bot, Buffy.”

“Then…who is she?” Her slender finger shook as Buffy pointed at herself and Spike could sense her fear in the way he sensed everything about her—in a gut-clenching, knee-knocking finality. She was in his blood—never mind that he’d never tasted the nirvana of her crimson vitality. Buffy was everything he was and he’d been the biggest idiot on the planet for not going to her the second he had the legs to do it.

“She’s you, pet,” he started before being elbowed aside, none-too-gently by the pint-sized twin of the girl he couldn’t take his eyes off.

“It would appear that I’m you,” the Buffy at his side confirmed, “but from a dimension that makes a bucket load more sense than this crazy place.”

His Buffy stepped closer, so close he could almost taste the salt of her tears for him, but as usual, he was deprived of the emotional moment by her preoccupation of her mirror-image.

“Wow,” she said in wonder, not wavering in her intent study of herself. “I look good.”

“I keep telling you that, pet,” Spike reminded, unable to hold back the satisfied smirk as she finally looked shyly at him.

“Shut up, Spike,” his Buffy replied automatically, but he could see the underlying smile that she tried to hide at the opportunity to say the familiar insult again. “Willow said this fight was gonna be bad,” she said, mystified eyes still glued to her own image at Spike’s side, “but she didn’t give it a rating of two Buffys.”

Nobody missed the other Buffy’s flinch at the mention of Willow. She seemed to get taller before their eyes as determination straightened her spine. “I appear to have come through without a weapon,” she told them instead of satisfying their curiosity. “And if I’m not mistaken, the hounds of hell are upon us.”

Buffy turned and Spike followed her gaze, frowning as a stampeding herd of evil blew its dust closer. Buffy tossed her twin the open bag of weapons and quietly approved as the seemingly younger slayer withdrew a gleaming short sword and an axe. All suited up, both girls turned to Spike.

“Come on then. Better find Peaches. Wouldn’t do to leave him defenceless against dragons and the like.”

A combined force of power, the three Champions ran toward the alleyway that was quickly filling with the remaining survivors of Angel’s crew. It was a sorry bunch and both Buffy’s looked on in sadness. It shouldn’t have come to this. The reality of death was encompassed by the missing friends and yet they were grieved little because of the fight still to come. Grieved unfairly. Gunn stood barely conscious and Buffy blanched at the matter-of-fact way his death was predicted by the strange blue woman in tight leather reminiscent of the best science fiction.

And before they knew it, all the descendants of Hell were released and came raining down on their heads—blades, teeth, nails slashing and bestowing death.

Spike took one look at both Buffys and prayed. This was an apocalypse he was determined they’d all three come out of alive.

Chapter Seven

“Found it.”

The emotionless burr of her voice was setting his fangs on edge.

“’Bout bloody time. A vamp could get serious eye strain from trying to decipher this garbled rubbish.”

“You are seriously whiny for a demon. Maybe you should hook up with an evil doctor and get some happy pills.”

The distracted comment just pissed him off more and Spike showed his displeasure at the lack of respect by slamming his useless tome shut. “Got anything to drink in this place?” He stood up and stretched, looking around the Slayer’s living room. It was homey in a rather bland fashion. Comfortable, but lacking in anything by way of a personal touch. He’d have expected photos of her mum at least, if not her now departed mates. Buffy obviously didn’t put much of herself into her surroundings and he wondered if the witch had managed to take over her house as well as her life.

“You can check the fridge. I think there’s some juice, maybe some soda.” Her nose still in her book, she completely missed his look of contempt as he stomped past her.

“I’m not a bleeding teenybopper,” he fumed under his breath. Then, louder, “Bloody vampire, Red. I don’t drink utter piss like juice and soda.”

She finally looked up and he could see the haze of calculation clouding her regard of him. Not that he’d condemn her for thinking more about how to get Buffy back than his temper tantrum, but it took some time to get used to not demanding attention like he was the centre of it.

“We don’t have anything else, and as for blood, you can take your fill when you deal with Buffy.” Her focus shifted once again to the answer to all their prayers and Spike held in the growl that wanted to rip violently from his throat.

His fangs itched. He hoped like hell that when he got Buffy back—after he’d calmed her hysteria over being saved by her enemy and following his saving the world—that she’d let him crack Red’s willowy neck. Nothing else was quite going to satisfy the yen he had for making this bitch pay for all the stress she’d put him through—not to mention the year of uncertainty and backstabbing Buffy had had to deal with. Seeing her corpse was going to be one gorgeous picture of finality.

Schooling his features so he didn’t betray his intense hatred, Spike turned away from the lure of the kitchen—and the expected drawer of knives—and asked her about the rescue.

“So, what have you found? A list of ingredients? Some kind of barter? Some bollocks incantation?”

She held up her hand to stall his litany of obvious suggestions and read further in the text. Then she stood, a smile so huge on her face he half wished it would just split her in two and save him the job.

“See, there was no problem with opening a portal to the other dimension. What I couldn’t do was open it exactly where Buffy would be, and as I’m not exactly inhuman, there’s a limit to how long I can hold it open. This text tells me how to aim the magic in the right place and with you here, we can just pluck her back through and then move on with our formerly scheduled lives.”

Of which yours will be severely shortened, Spike churlishly promised himself.

“Let’s do it then,” he demanded impatiently. “A vamp’s not getting any younger.”

Stockpiled energy exploded to his limbs; Spike was done waiting. There was a limit to his patience and if the witch didn’t get her bloody act together soon he was going to put her head through the dimensional thingamajig and hope it closed on her throat. He wouldn’t complain at a headless corpse bloodying up the carpet—not one little bit. Buffy might punch him in the nose but he was positive he could make her see reason—if he could prevent her from lodging a redwood through his chest.

“But…I haven’t even told you what I need to get her back yet,” Willow pouted, her voice and fake seduction technique thoroughly grating on his last nerve.

“What do you want? A bleeding medal? I don’t care how you get the bitch back here, I just want her here. Now get to it before I decide I’m too hungry to wait.” He knew the second her green eyes turned black he’d allowed his impulsive nature to destroy his chances of saving Buffy, but just as he readied himself for the strike, she’d regained her control and strode past him to set up the sacred circle.

Rolling his eyes, Spike took a second to give thanks to whichever Power was looking out for him and then followed the insane bitch. “What do you need?” he conceded begrudgingly, his lips tight and his hands ready to fight.

“You,” she replied simply, plopping to the floor and holding her hands out, eyes closed in a silent prayer.

“Oh that’s rich,” he exploded. “I’ve bloody been here for hours, you barmy bitch. You couldn’t have worked this out earlier?”

“Actually, no,” Willow stated calmly. “It didn’t say you specifically. I just needed someone that really wants Buffy back. I’m not even sure you’ll be enough, but it wasn’t exactly specific on what kind of ‘want.’ I figured it could come under the category of really ‘wanting’ her dead, so let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best. Okay?”

Holy fuck, the stupid bitch was completely off her tree.

“And what if I’m not enough?” he asked, knowing full well how often that question was answered in the affirmative.

“Then it’s back to the drawing board.” Her lack of interest was chilling and he wondered if she’d turned megalomaniac in the hours since they’d begun their research. There was suddenly no shaking this feeling that Buffy was doomed and Spike wanted to break everything in sight to avenge his hurt. He’d been too slow. He should have offered to come to her much earlier than this. Fear had held him back: fear of himself, fear of how Buffy would react, fear that he’d not be enough or that the Hellmouth would work its predictable charm and destroy his life some more. He’d not been ready and in his waiting he’d probably cost Buffy her life. If the Slayer didn’t make it, he’d never forgive himself. Not to mention he’d have to stand before the almighty Powers and explain his reluctance to do the job they’d bestowed upon him.

His rampage in this world would be over, no matter which way his future was sliced. Spike dropped his head in futility, but then a shot of heat hit him full in the chest and he looked up and coughed. A ghostly figure stood in the corner of the room, obviously invisible to the witch. It looked like the Watcher—the one obliterated by the other slayer—and the git looked like he was smiling at him. ‘Help her’ the ghost mouthed and Spike was filled with renewed vigour and determination.

“I’ll be enough,” he affirmed, strength and purpose rushing through him like a bursting volcano intent on a spring clean. “Let’s do this thing.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Had they won?

The demons had seemed to recede back into the night, leaving nothing but a widening stretch of corpses and a weary, wounded core of warriors. The darker man, Gunn, had somehow surpassed the blue one’s dire predictions and still clung to life, his breath laboured and his blood glistening, until this dimension’s Willow had swooped in and helped to dull his pain. Buffy looked on while the witch was thanked and hugged for saving the fighter’s life, but she wondered if the burden had merely been shifted for the moment when the crowd around him dispersed and he could pass without a condemning audience.

She didn’t know if this was winning; if the battle-worn figures who stood around her slapping each other on the back and congratulating their ability to stay alive in the face of certain death brooked the classification of success. She felt shell-shocked, confused, and not a little afraid as Willow’s curious eyes fell upon her.

“Hey, don’t tell me. You’re Buffy, right?”

The blonde was awarded a smile like she’d not received in so long and Buffy wondered if it truly were possible that there’d been a world where her life and that of her friends hadn’t been turned upside down and suicidal.

“Willow?” The second she was enfolded in a genuine hug, Buffy burst into tears. This wasn’t fair. She was standing alongside people who loved each other, who’d fought a fight together in a way that she’d forgotten—without the expectation of a winner between the only two fighting for the world. They were a team and she missed that so much she ached. Like a bolt from nowhere she remembered the talisman and wondered how her secret-friend had taken her disappearance. Despite wishing she didn’t have to go back, she knew she had to find a way. If not just to save her world, but to embrace the only person who gave her strength.

Suddenly she heard her own voice from behind her and she felt dizzy at how surreal this was. Turning, she caught her counterpart fawning over the vampire, brushing the bloodied locks from his face, bestowing the sweetest kiss to his lips as her eyes blurred with tears. “Don’t you dare dust. You hear me? Don’t you dare!” Her voice collapsed into broken sobs and Buffy looked on, confused at what such a situation should make her feel.

“But he has no soul,” she whispered, torn between awe and reactive disgust.

“Sure he does. Well, here he does. Quite a story too, if you hear him tell it.” Willow beamed at her and Buffy swallowed hard at the automatic offer of friendship, just through speech alone—the tone of a kind voice.

“She loves him?” How could this be? She would never fall for such a creature, despite the way he’d made her belly feel like it was experiencing an eruption of butterflies, nor with how his kiss made her body flush at the madness of delight.

“It’s been a really long time coming, and they’ve been apart for almost a year on account of Buffy thinking he was all with the dust in the wind. But yeah, I think this time she really does.”

Willow turned and watched her friend holding Spike tightly to her chest. “Not that she’ll admit it,” she giggled knowingly.

Spike coughed and all eyes were again fixed on him, waiting for his eyes to open and see the angel staring watery-eyed at his damaged form. “Bloody hell. When did demons become trucks?” He struggled to prop himself up and groaned at the useless effort, collapsing back in his Buffy’s arms.

“Silly vampire,” she sniffled and then the out-of-towner Buffy watched in horror and a strange sense of envy as a look grew between the couple, one of warmth and understanding, patience and love, awe and acceptance the likes of which Buffy herself had never received. Not even Angel had bestowed such a look upon her before his death and she found herself incredibly jealous, and once again her thoughts turned needily to her connection through the talisman.

This connection before her eyes was tangible, and it extended into quiet minutes before Spike coughed again and then broke the intent stare he shared with his slayer.

“Not that I want to draw your attention to Peaches, luv, but did anyone see where the big poof ended up?” Both Buffys and even Willow heard the fear in his voice and they automatically swept the surrounds to try and find him. But before they’d surveyed very far, a great crash sounded to the left and then a form of indiscriminate origin lurched out from beneath something huge and bulky all covered in the deepest red of blood ever known. The form stumbled and jerked spasmodically and finally it slithered and shook to a stop in front of them; the face was submerged almost fully in gunk, but with one determined swipe a face could be glimpsed as it swayed to the ground at their feet.

“Um, looks like he’s right here. And I kinda think he defeated the dragon.” Buffy squeezed Spike tighter and buried her face in his neck, leaving the onlookers to suddenly feel embarrassed at still standing and staring at the long overdue reunion.

A hand waved in the air despite the figure remaining face first to the ground. “Really did,” was heard in Angel’s distinctive voice.

Exhaustion was worn heavily on every face, despite the relatively short fight. “Did you do something to stop them?” Buffy asked the friendly Willow, still nervous about how close she stood to her. For some reason, she felt this Willow had worked hard for trust and thoroughly deserved the faith the other Buffy seemed to have in her. There was a sinking sense of depression that she’d been robbed in her world. Things could have been so different for her; she might have had a friend to make the passage through time a whole lot more pleasant, but all she’d had was a faceless friend through a talisman bestowed by the Powers—an entity that was more than a little meddlesome in their supposed support of her destiny. She’d fought for years for them, winning battle after battle that had threatened to tear her world through all manner of hells, and what had she received for it? A witch on the brink of killing her on a whim and a secret confidant who wouldn’t tell her his name. Compared to this fullness she witnessed in front of her, her life seemed barely worth struggling to sustain.

She quickly grew tired of watching a happier, more rounded version of herself become reacquainted with a vampire’s lips. The decision to turn her back and walk away—to find a secluded spot to either wait out her Willow’s return mission or realise her failure—was taken out of her hands as another thunderous roar rocked the destroyed buildings around them.

A blindingly bright rip of light tore through the sky and suddenly dimensions were split down the middle, shimmering and blending. All warriors jumped to their feet, more alert than was possible considering their combined injuries and exhaustion. Buffy stared in shock and then realised this was her doorway home, but before she could step toward it, she was thrown into even more confusion with the appearance of another Spike.

His entry was lightning fast, his eyes spinning around the scattered army of slayers and finally falling upon the Buffy that wasn’t her. He stared at the scythe apprehensively, but then she lowered it and turned to look bewilderedly at her Spike. In that blink of inattention, she was grabbed around the middle and yanked back toward the tear.

Before anyone could react, the Slayer had been pulled through the doorway and was gone.

Chapter Eight

Horrified silence greeted the kidnapping for heart-stopping seconds.

Almost before there was any real chance to make sense of it, Spike released a deafening roar and leapt after his slayer, bumping past Buffy as he went. It was what she needed to shunt her out of her paralysing shock, and in an acceleration fuelled with fury, she threw herself at the disappearing doorway, barely noticing the shove she’d received from behind as Willow did her best to keep up and follow.

One by one they filed through the rip, pandemonium greeting the mass entrance to Buffy’s living room.

Buffy had expected to run into a macabre scene of Spike holding the dead body of the other world’s slayer, her blood staining his lips ruby red, a third slayer notch finally on his belt. What she stepped into the middle of was an entirely different scene, and for the most part, it was one that elicited a grateful grin.

Good Willow was still grasping onto her shirt, her stunned eyes drawn toward the vision of herself lying flat on the ground and obviously completely out to it. Standing over her was a proud-looking Spike, though by this time, Buffy was hard pressed working out which one was which.

Everyone stood in different corners of the room, looking back and forth at each other warily, except for the Spikes. Once Bad Willow was assessed to be currently harmless, her attacker took stock of his audience and a frown marred his face. Disbelieving eyes swung from one Buffy to the next, and then caught on the spitting image of himself and his eyes went wide.

“Bleeding Christ. I’ve stepped into the Twilight Zone. Beam me up, Scotty,” he implored to the ceiling and then rolled his eyes as no one moved and no one spoke. “Don’t tell me you’re a bunch of mutes?” he accused sarcastically but with a glimmer of wicked fun in his eyes.

“Shut your gob.” Other world’s Spike stepped forward, blood still dripping from cuts on his face and hands. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, mate! But no one messes with the Slayer.”

“I’m not bloody messing with her. Was trying to rescue her from wherever this crazy bitch had sent her to,” he spat, jabbing violently at the lax figure unconscious on the carpet.

“Why?” The only reason Buffy could figure for his attempted rescue was for him to kill her as soon as they’d returned, only…he’d not even been standing near the slayer he’d pulled through the dimensional rip when she’d come barrelling through. His main concern seemed to have been to neutralise the unpredictable witch—for which she was several shades of grateful.

“Why what?” Piercing eyes bluer than anything she’d ever noticed before stabbed straight through her and Buffy realised how grateful she was that the correct parties seemed to be responding to each other, despite the lack of proper differentiation. He seemed to know who she was without being told and that impressed her more than she wanted to admit—if she was content to ignore his slip at taking the wrong slayer in the first place.

“Why would you want to rescue me?”

The quiet question seemed to startle him and Buffy could see the rampage of thoughts going on in his head. She was highly interested to hear his explanation—not that she wasn’t grateful, at least a little—so when he did answer it was with a vagueness that she found completely infuriating. Not that she’d ever found Spike to be anything less.

“Just did.” He crossed his arms and looked at her defiantly, silently daring her to ask more questions that she knew he wasn’t going to answer while he was surrounded.

“Do you have a soul?”

His spluttering protest was all she needed to get an accurate picture and Buffy actually smiled. She didn’t think things had gone all whacky when she wasn’t looking. He still appeared lethal, still surly and clothed head to toe in the most alluring black—if she was attracted to the bad boy image. Which she so was not!

“Bloody hell, Slayer. Can’t a bloke do a good deed without being accused of having a soul stuffed to the gills?” he demanded, hands propped angrily on his slim hips.

She looked at him nervously, obviously unsure how to answer, and then her gaze swung to the other Buffy who was watching the exchange with an amused grin on her face.

“Uh huh,” the older blonde agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Absolutely.” Then she yelped as the completely besotted vampire beside her dropped a severely weakened arm across her shoulders and squeezed affectionately.

“Never thought you realised,” he admitted bashfully. “Kind of…well, I thought it was the soul that mattered in the end,” he said.

Otherworld-Buffy looked at her Spike, a glimmer of saddened self-awareness betrayed in the solemn set of her lips and the shimmering state of her eyes. “Yeah. I guess we’ve got all sorts of things to discuss.” And then she kissed him full on the lips, expecting it to be a quick peck but quickly giving in to the storm of emotion she’d released in him, curving her body into his as he held her tightly against his lithe frame.

Buffy screwed up her nose and turned back to her world’s incarnation of the same vampire. He looked smug as he watched the kissing couple and Buffy suddenly went cold. He so better not be getting any ideas!

The room was quiet except for the obscene smacking of lips and the low moans of the slowly awakening witch on the floor and Buffy suddenly realised they had a situation on their hands. Before she’d managed to organise everything straight in her brain, a small voice asked hesitantly, “Um, not that I’m prying, because believe me when I say what happens in your dimension is totally your business, but…why did Spike knock me unconscious if he isn’t planning to eat all of us?”

In lieu of an answer, Spike stomped forward, his heavy boots scuffing the carpet, and brandished some ropes. Without asking, without needing to seek a consult, he took Buffy’s acquiescence for granted and started tying the witch up like a prize pig, a dirty piece of fabric arranged next to bind her mouth’s potential damage by separating her teeth and keeping her tongue dry and something black to blind her eyes.

The still free-wandering Willow sucked in a harsh breath, eyes wide with shock, and took a very large, protective step backward. “Okay, so…you aren’t planning to tie me up too, are you? Because I promise I’m good.” She swung around to gape at her fellow dimensional-travellers. “Guys, tell him I’m good. Please?”

The urgency in the panicked witch’s voice broke through the slow, languorous reunion kiss and Buffy blinked. “Huh?” Then she looked down and noticed the form of her friend—or the copy of her friend—bound thoroughly with ropes and now writhing furiously.

Suddenly the end of an apocalypse was dwarfed by the realities of an entirely different experience. Buffy clasped Spike’s hand and stepped back toward her Willow and the kitchen. “I’m beginning to think this is not the time to take anything for granted, right?”

“I’m sorry if this is confusing for you.” Buffy took comfort in knowing she was back in her own home, and that leant an understanding for what these dimension-hoppers might now be going through. “Imagine how it was for me tracking down Spike and being kissed by a vampire I’d known to be the most heinous in history?”

“Oi!” Both Spikes exploded at the unsavoury description and strangely it brought an identical grin to the lips of both slayers. But then the shared moment was broken with an irate “You kissed him?” Buffy decided that the only reason her dimensional Spike would even care was that it might sully his precious reputation. Despite knowing she should use caution around this known killer—and she was going to kill Willow for giving him an invitation into her house after she was done being grateful for his role in getting her home—Buffy turned her back on him and contemplated her visitors.

But it was otherworld-Buffy that took the leap of faith as she looked deeply into her double’s eyes. “Maybe it’s time you filled us in on what’s going on here. Starting with the kissing thing?”

“Hey!” Spike objected, affronted at his mistake being turned against him. “I bloody thought she was you.”

He got a glare for his trouble. “If you’d bothered to look me up at all this past year, you’d easily have spotted the differences. Can I point out the obvious? Younger, darker hair…less peppy?”

The home slayer took a deep breath and prepared to reveal the unsavoury truth about her existence while totally ignoring the less than complimentary points behind the quick image assessment. She told it all, leaving none of her unhappy experiences on the Hellmouth to interpretation and tried not to see the horror reflected in the three sets of eyes as Buffy, Spike and Willow listened to her story.

There was silence when she was finished, peppered only with unflattering growls from the unrepentant witch tethered with ropes. Buffy felt nervous as she waited for a reaction—their not believing her was a possibility that she’d rather not face. Dark Willow was likely quite a stretch of the believable in the first place, but the brutal deaths of people that probably still lived in their world might be something they just couldn’t accept.

As she tied herself in knots, waiting and wondering how this standstill would end, she felt the talisman in her pocket and realised finally that it burned furiously against her thigh. It was painful, and yet reassuring as well. She wasn’t sure what it meant, only that her connection to her faceless and nameless friend was far from broken. Buffy had been positive that Willow would have killed him the second he’d shown up and asked for her. That the talisman still hummed with their powerful connection gave her immense hope. As much as she craved these newcomers to stay—to give her a little of what she’d lost when everything had gone bad—she was desperate to get away to her hill and talk to him. Take the talisman from her pocket and hold it soothingly in the palms of her hands as she sought his companionship.

A gruff voice broke through her reverie and Buffy jumped guiltily.

“Reckon if we’re gonna be around for any length of time, we might want to do something about the name situation. It’s gonna get mighty confusing with two Spikes, two Buffys and two Reds to answer to.” There were nods of agreement from both women of the other dimension and so he made the call. “You two can be Will and…bloody hell…Liz?” He looked at his Buffy for her approval and her casual shrug made the nerve in Buffy’s forehead twitch. Fortunately her Spike jumped forward, his fury at being sideswiped with such an important decision vibrating around the room.

“Why do we have to change our names? This is our world you’re in now. Maybe you’re the two that should be going by Will and Liz.”

Spike stepped up to himself, battle-worn but suddenly all fired up with energy. His hands stuffed into his coat pockets, his lips arranged into an impressive sneer, he moved so close he was almost rubbing noses with his mirror-image. “Got one word for you, mate. Seniority.”

The newly-dubbed Will clenched his jaw, his backbone seemingly wired straight. He didn’t refute the claim, didn’t argue his point, but it seemed he was unwilling to back down. “Fine…Spike,” he conceded through gritted teeth. The grin from his counterpart elicited a growl of warning, but then both master vampires backed down and everyone breathed their relief.

“Okay, names are so not important,” Liz reminded, her voice a touch frosty. She wasn’t going to argue, despite hating every second of her new identity. She needed to get to her hill, but unfortunately not before she staked Spi…Will. Just because he’d saved her it didn’t give him a free pass to her town—or her home. And just because he seemed all soppy and soul-having in another world, it didn’t mean she should start believing he’d changed any since the last time he’d darkened her doorstep.

“What is important?” asked the good Willow meekly. Nobody seemed to notice that there’d been no split of her name.

Foreboding crept into her heart and Liz felt her gaze drawn to the struggling form on the floor. She wondered why the question had to be even asked.

“Her.”

Chapter Nine

She was suffocating.

Eyes, mouth, hands and feet: all were bound and useless and leaving nothing but her ears as a weapon.

A weapon that was equally useless—at least in regards to setting her free and wreaking a little bloody revenge.

Willow had barely registered that Buffy was back when a deafening boom exploded in her head and she was overcome with the most pervasive darkness she’d ever known. It wasn’t until the throbbing pain in her skull finally ripped through her unconsciousness that she’d recognised everything was a mess. Everything was all wrong and even though she could almost feel the dark circles forming beneath her eyes, even though she moaned at the splitting headache that was violently confirming she was still alive, Willow couldn’t form the first thought of what to do about it.

There were too many voices.

There was her own voice, more timid and confused than usual, but she wasn’t speaking due to the filthy rag that had been forced between her teeth and was annoyingly blotting her tongue of moisture. It was all crazy; nothing made sense and for the first time since she’d been a weak, nerdy school girl, the redhead felt paralysing fear. This was the opportunity Buffy had probably been waiting for, though how she’d managed to join sides with Spike was something Willow had no chance of understanding. There was no doubt in Willow’s mind that Buffy had been even more isolated that she had been the past year. Buffy had had no one left.

Except Buffy didn’t seem to be Buffy anymore; she was Liz and Spike had become William and Willow wondered if she was losing it. She’d remained on top of everything since she’d found Xander’s dead body, lying naked and helpless amongst Faith’s filthy sheets. She’d held it together when Giles had been torn from their lives. All that badness was behind her now and she’d been right at the top of everything since, wielding her magic and keeping all threats to her sanity and power at bay. Now, she was tied up and left painfully stretched out on the floor, and Willow knew that she was losing it. Knew that she was helpless against a group intent on taking her power away.

She should be thankful that they apparently felt they’d neutralised her; Willow could make out two separate conversations in two different rooms and it made the urge to be sick against her gag recede a little. None of them had any qualms about walking off and leaving her on the floor. They were all too busy sorting out their own dilemmas and now that the head-pounding agony was waning slightly, she realised this could be to her advantage. Nobody seemed worried about revealing secrets within earshot, and so with a wicked grin that more than likely looked positively macabre around her gag, Willow gathered material that would help her defeat these people. They weren’t her friends. Only one of them had had any relationship with her at all in this world, and while once it would have killed her if anything were to happen to Buffy, now she couldn’t wait to get the back-stabbing bitch out of her life for good.

Buffy, who was now, apparently, Liz.

God, as if having one Buffy vying for leadership wasn’t bad enough, now Willow was expected—or maybe not so much with the blindfold and the rope burn on her wrists—to just hand everything over like she’d been a casual white hat stand in for every villain or apocalypse that had rode into town like a really bad western.

She could hear Bu…Liz’s whiny voice in the kitchen and if she’d been able to snarl she would have. Seriously, the Slayer had outlived her destiny and it was high time Willow received the Hellmouth for all she’d sacrificed this past year. Hell, she’d earned it. She’d paid for it in blood and tears. She shouldn’t have to give any more of herself to the deities just to gain control over what had been hers for months. She’d sacrificed her one remaining friend for the allure of power and there was no way that Willow was going to step aside and let Buffy take it from her now.

Either Buffy.

Herself was a different matter.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“So, I’m like, really evil in this dimension?” Willow was unable to repress the tremor of fear that such a question conjured in her heart. There were times where she’d fallen into an alluring trap of justifying her actions during the darkest period of her life. She’d not really been evil. She’d done what she’d done because she’d cared too much: about Tara, about humanity. There was so much suffering in the world, within her own body, that the desire to end as much of it as possible had been overwhelming.

Had been essential.

But then she remembered the bits that she had to repeat to herself daily; the ones that forced her to acknowledge that there was nothing good in what she’d done. Trying to return Dawn to a ball of ancient and mystical energy, trying to kill her best friend despite Buffy’s repeatedly saving her life—both times of which Willow could now admit were entirely selfishly motivated. There’d been nothing good, just delusions and half-truths and it made her sick that the path she’d crashed into in her world might have been the stronger path in this one. With a crushing sense of horror, Willow realised for the first time how shallow she really was. She was incapable of handling loss, because with it came insensitivity and a thirst for control. The Willow tied up and left on the floor in the other room could have been her fate—if she’d been untouchable.

“I wouldn’t say evil exactly,” answered Liz cautiously. She turned and looked back through the kitchen door to see the bound legs of her partner-turned-megalomaniac and shuddered. No, Willow wasn’t evil exactly, but she wasn’t entirely good.

“Because you always tie up and blindfold the good guys?” the witch asked hopefully.

Liz’s right eyebrow skimmed her hairline and Willow slumped against the breakfast bar.

“Can’t blame a girl for being all denial-ly,” she muttered in self-defence. Though, relatively speaking, her Buffy probably should blame her if she ever got so big-headed as to forget the disasters of the past by trying to deny culpability for them.

“You seem kind of jumpy about this whole good/bad deal. Is there something I don’t know?” Liz asked, then rolled her eyes at her own obvious understatement. “I mean, there’s a whole other world of stuff I don’t actually know, because, obviously, I wasn’t there. But in particular? Did you go all dark and dangerous like my Willow?” she asked suspiciously.

Eyes wide and thoroughly caught, Willow had to fight hard not to lower her head in shame. That wasn’t her anymore, and she’d paid her penance. No one blamed her for the past; nobody held grudges that she was aware of, and just because she’d tagged along to another dimension, it didn’t make her responsible for this Willow’s decisions. They may be similar and deal with their pain in a really unhealthy way, but she wasn’t the one tied up here.

“I…did…some things,” she began slowly. “But I got better. Giles helped me and—”

And this Willow didn’t have a Giles. She didn’t have anyone but Liz, and as much as it hurt to think it—because admitting it out loud wasn’t going to happen in any lifetime—Buffy wasn’t enough. In her own reality Willow knew that Buffy hadn’t had a hope of scratching the surface of the pain that had welled up to explosive proportions in her body. Buffy had never had what it had taken to bring her back from the brink of a darkness that was propelling her toward insanity.

“My girlfriend was shot right in front of me and I went kind of crazy,” the witch admitted quietly. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault and I guess I was just lucky to have friends like Xander to stop me trying to punish the world.” A pause. Then, “I killed someone. Chased him down like an animal, strung him up and then stripped off his skin.” She flinched at Liz’s look of horror but forced herself to continue. “Sure, he killed Tara—and shot Buffy too. But murdering him in the way that I did…I know that was wrong. That’s something I can never take back. And as much as I hate him for what he took from me, sometimes I wish I could, you know? Sometimes an eye for an eye is just…really wrong.”

Liz had stubbornly refused to step away, despite the churning in her belly that warned her against trusting anyone Willow-shaped. But this woman had been honest with her, and the Slayer had to respect that. She had to admire it. If only her Willow had retained some of the character that had ordered Liz’s former admiration, then their situation might not have appeared so impossible to retrieve.

Suddenly one nugget of the information she’d just received struck her brain cells rather violently and Liz blinked. “Did you say girlfriend? As in…girlfriend?”

The redhead blushed. “I take it your Willow didn’t go down that track?”

Liz looked at her stunned. “My Willow didn’t go down any romantic tracks. She burned tracks. Oz didn’t look back when she went all dark and vengey.”

The witch’s bottom lip trembled and her eyes looked to be shimmering with sudden tears. “She turned away from Oz?”

Liz nodded and felt sympathy melting her caution. “He’s at SU. I see him now and again. You know, mainly around the full moon. Just to make sure he’s okay and all with the caging himself up to protect the less-wolfy folk.”

Willow allowed herself a small grin. So that hadn’t been any different in this world either. But Oz was here. “Did…Has he met Veruca yet?”

Wide-eyed, Liz shook her head violently. “I slayed that skank way before she could get her clutches into Oz. He’s not really been dating. It’s almost like he’s in stasis waiting for Willow to drop the power-kick and see reason.”

Hope seemed to bloom in the redhead’s heart and she shared the brightest smile she had in her arsenal. “That’s good. Really good. There’s hope then.” She seemed to come to a decision within herself, but before she did the sharing thing, she walked past Liz and located Buffy and Spike. Will seemed to be nowhere—until Spike indicated with a jerk of his head the front porch and the cloud of smoke that was coming through the open door.

“Guys, I think we should stay for a while. Maybe help Liz and…and me out?” She’d started off strong, but as soon as her eyes had fallen to the heap on the floor that was identical in everything but power to herself, she visibly wilted. Xander wasn’t here to do the inspiring speech that had brought her back to the rational world—the world that still held people she cared about.

But maybe this time, she could save herself.

Chapter Ten

Liz sat on her hill, talisman clutched in trembling hands, and prayed hard.

Night had been old in the sky when she’d finally managed to settle her guests and then slip out the front door. Spike had volunteered to watch his double and so Will had been given the full run of her house. If she didn’t trust herself—or Buffy’s ability to protect everyone under the same roof—she’d never have made it out. Liz was almost grateful to see her own double sharing her room just so that she could finally escape.

And now her body battled to ignore the chill of the air so that she could beg an unknown entity to have spared the life of her secret friend. There hadn’t exactly been the chance for interrogating Willow about any strangers that might have been nosing around her house during Liz’s dimensional absence. There’d been no knocks on the door since she’d been back, either, and she knew how Willow worked. If someone had confronted the witch about Liz’s disappearance, the result wouldn’t be pretty. Of that she had no doubt.

The talisman tingled in her palm and Liz closed her eyes and held her breath.

Did Willow kill you?

The silence lasted too long. The suspended breath was a fire in her lungs; Liz gasped and fell sideways, the pain in her heart more than she could bear. How could she have procrastinated through the night without knowing she was now totally alone?

That wasn’t true. Not strictly speaking anyway. She suddenly had a house full of people that were on her side and while the relief was dizzying, how was she going to survive when they all went back home? How was she going to survive with a cold talisman and a colder soul?

A scream was building within her body, gathering all the pain and futility and grief and preparing to blow her apart with its release. Every muscle tensed, wailing in agony at this new loss that seemed even more unfair than all the others she had suffered through. A sob came first, bulging in her throat and causing every part of her to ache.

Loss; gut-clenching debilitating loss surrounded her and Liz didn’t know how to cope. How to make the searing pain stop so she could let go her clasp on the talisman and writhe around on the ground like the shell of a girl that she was.

No, Sweetheart. I’m here.

Everything stopped: the drone of the crickets, the howls of evil from closer to town, and especially the rasping sobs wracking Liz’s collapsed frame.

It hardly felt real—the voice that had echoed in her head. The answer she’d craved had finally been given to her and she was acting like a depressive idiot that couldn’t even wait on a simple reply before she’d given in to the belief he was gone from her life. She’d had no faith in his ability to handle himself, despite knowing he was more than forearmed against the witch. What had she been thinking?

The sudden jolt of her heart pounding an erratic rhythm had Liz rushing back and she focused on the link. Testing it, though for what she didn’t know; for some reason the pause in his reply to her had her worried.

Is everything okay?

Not that it possibly could be. How could everything be okay when her life was in complete turmoil? The girl she’d gone to school with, fought demons with, talked about boys with was tied up like a criminal and her own image wore more experience as it played kissy face with a demon that Liz was programmed to kill. And said demon doing double-time in her own house, along with the twin of her power-mad friend, only this incarnation a good witch.

Everything’s just peachy. How ‘bout you? I was worried. Couldn’t find you. Thought the bitch had killed you like you was expecting.

Liz couldn’t mistake the note of petulance and disappointment she could hear in his voice. The talisman had always throbbed in her hand or in her pocket so it hadn’t occurred to her that it might not work the same way for him. She wondered if the stone would go cold if he should die; if ridding the world of him would take all life from the talisman as well?

I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but Willow didn’t give me any time. She said if I didn’t help in the other world then it could mean the end for our dimension as well.

The quiet stretched on again and it made Liz restless. She couldn’t stand it if he was mad at her. Even with the reinforcements from another world, Liz needed him on her side like no other.

Are you angry with me?

When had she become so weak? She shouldn’t care if her duty didn’t suit someone else’s vision of her. There were things she had to do in this world, and she’d long ago resigned herself to the fact she had little time to achieve it. There was no time for romance; no time for attachments of any kind—especially not ones that made her second guess who she was and how she acted.

No matter how much it hurt to be alone.

No, princess. ‘Least, not with you. I could cheerfully rip Red’s head off and not mourn the loss. Please let me do it. One word and she’s a footnote in history.

That was kinda more blood thirsty than usual. It was a good thing Liz knew her friend or she’d be approaching a very wiggy moment or two. Not that she could blame him. It hardly bore mentioning how terrified she’d been that without a word Willow might blink out of existence anyone who came looking for the Slayer. If she meant half as much to him as he did to her, then Liz could easily contemplate how much despair he might have encountered to arrive in Sunnydale and find her gone.

It’s okay. Willow’s kinda all tied up right now.

The thought brought a giggle to Liz’s lips and she replayed the event in her mind. Sp-Will had taken great pleasure in roping the witch up like a prize calf. His eyes had glittered with an intent satisfaction for rendering her mute, blind and immobile and Liz wondered what could possibly have motivated him to do it. Such thoughts of course leading her to contemplate when he’d had a brain transplant and made saving slayers from other dimensions a casual afternoon’s entertainment. She still had to find out what he was even doing in Sunnydale, let alone in her house. And if Willow had allowed him inside and through the portal to grab her, why had he then turned on the redhead and been the first to destroy any chance she had to cause chaos with the newcomers that had flowed through the rip?

Her head hurt.

Is that right? He replied, pushing through her diverted thoughts. And what else is happening?

What else was happening? If she only knew! How did she explain to someone that three interlopers from another world—three interlopers that just happened to be her, an apparently souled-now-but-formerly-evil-vampire and an extremely powerful witch that put this world’s Willow to shame, if just in power and emotional strength—had taken over her home and yet as bizarre as it all was, she wasn’t in any rush to send them back where they’d come from?

Spike. He’s in my house and yet I can’t stake him because he’s kind of the reason I made it back home. How is that fair?

A blast of cold hit her full in the face and Liz shuddered. Since when did it get arctic on the Hellmouth?

Maybe the bloke’s turned over a new leaf. Maybe he doesn’t go for the throat anymore.

Liz snorted.

That is so not possible. Mr. I’m-gonna-do-my-third-slayer? I think he’d rather be dust than change sides.

Something warned her that she was being extremely judgemental—that all evidence to the contrary was not only staring her in the face when she walked back through her front door, but was evidenced by the obvious love her counterpart held for the vampire in the other world. It made her feel envious that there was something possible for her future—but Spike?

Why not? Maybe killing a slayer is the last thing on his mind.

The thought gave her pause and Liz actually felt goose pimples dart over her flesh at the possibilities that suddenly sprung to life in her imagination.

She heard a husky chuckle inside her head and sighed, then his voice rumbled suggestively, Maybe he’s thought of a more satisfying way of ‘doing’ a slayer.

Okay, the tingles had burrowed under her skin now and were blasting every nerve ending to exhilarating life. Liz sighed but knew deep down that so many things had been different in her world and if she was stupid enough to expect her Spike to end up like Buffy’s super-souled Champion Spike, she’d wind up seriously dead.

Besides, she didn’t even find him the least bit attractive, and as for any other redeeming features…well, saving her life probably counted as the only one. Not that it was a bad feature to have, it just wasn’t enough. She was just lonely, seeing possibilities where none should even exist. Spike was loud, obscene, uncouth, and most importantly, a vampire. It was best she remembered that and did her duty the first available opportunity. For all she knew, Dru was holed up somewhere in town and Liz’s preoccupation was leaving many an unprotected snack in town.

Oh God, Drusilla…

Where?

There was a curious mixture of confusion, loathing and desperation in his question and Liz wondered what it could mean. Sure, she’d undoubtedly mentioned the crazy vampiress over the course of her year talking to her secret pal, but why he’d find the reappearance of the brunette to be so alarming was anyone’s guess.

It just hit me that if Spike is here, then his hobag sire probably is as well. I’m sitting here chatting to you, all comfy on my hill, and she’s probably snacking on the Hellmouth’s clueless population.

He actually chuckled—and did she fancy she heard a trace of relief in the sound?—and Liz revelled in the spread of warmth it elicited inside her.

You’ll find out one way or another, Slayer. Now, time for me to go beddy-byes.

Alarm erupted from out of nowhere and Liz jumped to her feet.

You’re leaving? But you haven’t told me where you are. Why you’re not here?

The wind whistled through the trees beyond her hill and she shivered apprehensively, waiting for the rejection she sensed was coming.

And as if her secret friend couldn’t find the words to set her mind at ease or break her spirit further, Liz felt the whisper of a kiss against her cheek and knew that he’d gone.

She’d never felt so lonely in her life.

Chapter Eleven

He nearly dropped the talisman to the carpet as he looked up and found piercing blue eyes shimmering with mirth. He registered his double first, and as Will clamped his lips tight and prepared himself for the ribbing he knew he’d be likely to give himself after revealing himself as a whipped tosser, he saw her. It seemed wrong somehow—that a Buffy from another world should know of his secret identity before he’d gathered the balls to spill it to his own. That this Buffy should hold no appeal for him whatsoever.

“What’s with the bauble? Dangerous bits of gear, those,” Spike advised wisely, his lips set in a grim frown.

Buffy immediately appeared contrite, turning to her vampire with tears streaking her cheeks. Will looked on in fascination and knew he’d have to extract that gem of a story, one way or another. First, he had to throw them off about the talisman. He couldn’t chance they bring it up with Liz—the silly chit obviously still hadn’t put two and bloody two together and he was going to be staked good and proper if she got wind of who her secret confidant had been the past twelve months from anyone but him.

“Nothing special,” he replied and almost immediately wished he could kick his own rear. Yeah, he was trying to fool his own double—probably the only creature in the world that knew him as well as he knew himself. Typical—being that Spike was him. And he was Spike. And they were all royally up the creek.

It was Buffy that cocked a sceptical brow and then smiled through her remnant tears. “Looks kinda special. And since you’re obviously trying to throw us off the scent, I’m gonna go with really special. So what is it?”

Will blinked. Christ. When was he ever going to learn to keep things hidden?

“It’s nothing you need to worry about, all right?”

Lightning fast, Spike had the thing out of the other vampire’s hands in a tick of the clock, and he and Buffy began to busily examine it. “Doesn’t look like my Liz Taylor special,” Spike admitted. Then his eyes narrowed and he looked all about to chastise Will like he was a recalcitrant child. “You should just tell her. A secret like this is bound to blow up in your face, and here’s a hint: you’re flammable.” Spike handed the talisman to Buffy, then stared at his double, arms crossed while he propped himself up in the doorway.

“Pretty,” Buffy commented distractedly, apparently mesmerised by the flashy lights deep within the red stone. She shook herself out of it and then handed the heavy jewel back to Will. “I’d tell her delicately. I can be almost certain she’s not going to take it well that she’s been worrying and sharing her secrets with a vampire—especially you.”

“Steady on, luv,” Spike objected. “What about romance and…romance?”

Buffy looked at him like he’d screwed his head on backwards and was talking to the hall and not to her. “Let’s take a walk down memory lane? How did I react when you first told me you had a little crush on me?”

“Oi! Who said anything about a crush?” Will denied, but the stony silence and the knowing twinkle in Spike and Buffy’s eyes was enough to crush any other objections to nothing.

“Slayer’s right. Might want to go delicately,” he advised. Then, as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, he stared at Buffy and licked his lips.

Equally hypnotised by the heat of fiery blue eyes, Buffy gulped and nodded. “Delicately. Uh huh.”

Will rolled his eyes and shuddered at their revolting display of unguarded lust and barged past them, not even apologising as Buffy bumped into the doorframe and said ‘ouch.’ “Get a bleeding room already,” he suggested and stomped down the corridor. Knowing he was in love with Liz and seeing another incarnation of himself get to live the dream he knew he’d never be able to made him want to hurl. God, he could really go for some killing right now. His hands itched to bust open some beasties face and be bathed in their blood.

But before he could make it down the stairs and out of the house, the witch stalled in fright in front of him. Her eyes wide and apprehensive, she slowly stepped back, easily recognising the twist of his lip and the flexing of his arms.

“Before you go getting confused, I’m the other Willow. The…uh…good one. The one you didn’t tie up and gag.” She grinned nervously and took a step back—which unfortunately tipped her backwards over the steps and she windmilled suspended in air, ready to feel the whistle of wind in her ears as she tumbled down the stairs—until Will grabbed her and hauled her a good couple of feet away from them.

“Christ on a stick. Maybe I should have!” he exploded, unable to decide if the hostility he still felt aimed at this one was because he could smell the darkness on her as well or because he couldn’t differentiate between her and the one downstairs. And then he took a quick count: Buffy and Spike were making out in Liz’s bedroom, he and Willow were doing a jig upstairs to escape a painful death for the witch, and Liz herself was probably in her safe zone where she’d always go to contact him. That meant the witch was left downstairs somewhere with no supervision. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, thrusting Willow to the side and taking the steps in one graceful leap.

The anxiety in his voice had been enough to ensure him a following and by the time the household had gathered around him he was grasping nothing but a tangle of ropes. Four worried sets of eyes met but William and Spike read each other as easily as a book and immediately echoed the other’s sentiment.

“Balls.”


~ * ~ * ~ * ~

There were serious unity issues in that house, thought Willow as she hurried away from her home-turned-prison. After struggling for hours both physically and mentally to break free from her tethers, she was too exhausted to do anything but a distraction spell to aid her escape. She was reasonably certain it would buy her at least an hour to distance herself, but she’d never cast a spell when this tired before, so who knew what she’d actually managed?

She’d become too cocky. How else could she rationalise away the fact that she’d never prepared herself a safe hole? One of those places the good cop/bad cop shows always told about when you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar and you needed to get lost fast—just long enough to hide from ones enemies and work out a way to make them all pay!

Willow breathed deeply, trying to centre herself and maybe regain enough focus to do a cloaking spell. The absolute last thing she needed right now was for Buffy and her merry band of clones to find her and mete out whatever punishment they’d decided on. She needed time to recover—to plan what she was going to do to fight back and squash Buffy into the ground. She had home world advantage here and she’d be damned before she’d let them take it away from her.

Which didn’t quite eradicate the cold or the dirt she currently found herself surrounded in. She needed somewhere safe—somewhere warm and possibly with furniture. There was only one place she could think of, and now that she’d reached the outskirts of town, Willow rolled her eyes. How typical that she’d think of the perfect place to hide once she’d travelled far beyond it.

Fatigue stretched along her limbs and Willow felt her knees buckle. Pushing a weary hand through her tangled hair, she heaved a sigh. There was nothing for it. Out here she was a sitting duck for any vampire that moved. She needed to be somewhere where she could not only hide out, but be protected as well.

Turning back to look into town, determination rolled down her spine and she took that first vital step to return. She wasn’t escaping like some nervous mouse. She was a force to be reckoned with and there was no way she was going to show that degree of weakness to her enemies.

Nerves made her skittish and Willow made sure to check every street thoroughly before she walked down it, surveyed every shadow for threats before she neared them. It felt like hours before she was forcing open the once familiar back basement entrance to the Harris’s home. The creak of the doors made the redhead feel sick inside. She rapidly blinked to stall the rush of tears inspired by memories she refused to relive, then darted a look around the property to be certain the sound hadn’t attracted any unwanted attention. There was no point worrying about the Harris’s hearing her. She could hear the blast of the TV from where she stood outside and had already noticed all the windows to the house seemed to be closed. It didn’t take a genius to figure they were both probably passed out drunk in front of the box.

Ice encased her heart as she stepped into the basement, quickly pulling shut the doors behind her. Nothing had changed. Xander had been preparing the space to be his private getaway from the dysfunction of upstairs before he’d been… Willow grinded her jaw and moved to the bed. She just needed to do the spell and then she could sleep and rejuvenate.

Quickly looking around the basement, the witch shuddered at the abandoned death of it. This would have been where Xander spent his newly adult years—had he survived losing his virginity. They could have had Scooby meetings here—well, ones that were of the unofficial because try as she might, there was no way Willow could picture Giles entering the dark, below ground living space.

Forcefully she pushed away the memories—the feelings screaming at her. She was above this now. She had no time for trips down memory lane. She had no place inside her willing to be opened up to the pain that grief brought along with it. Her friend was gone—her mentor was dead—and there wasn’t a damn thing that could be done about it but avenge the senseless acts until the bitterness left her throat. It never would while Buffy survived. Even if she hadn’t wrought the killing blow, it was the association with her that ultimately killed everyone. Xander had had a thing for slayers, and Buffy wouldn’t let him exploit it thus turning him onto the doomed path of Faith. And Giles…wasn’t she meant to protect her watcher above all others? And why had she left it to Jenny Calender and Willow to punish Faith to the full extent she’d deserved?

Reinforced anger and hatred fuelled her now and the witch hurriedly set up for her cloaking spell. Within a minute it was complete and the lethargy of success filtered through her limps and nerves until she could barely keep her eyes open.

Reassured of her safety for now, Willow huddled on the mattress, clenched her eyes closed and willed herself to sleep.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~


“This is not good,” Willow muttered nervously.

“The last thing we should do is panic,” Buffy said, though as soon as her gaze met Willow’s, she couldn’t help but look down guiltily.

“It’s okay,” Willow conceded. “I remember how scary it was last time—even if I was on a huge power high and I was the thing that was terrifying.” The witch looked ashen, as though history was about to explode into a rerun, with her mirror-image as the starring villain.

“This isn’t you, Willow. Just because she’s you in this world, she’s not you, and I know you’re smart enough to understand what I just said, even if I’m not.” The weak grin that accompanied the declaration was enough reassurance for both females of the group, but it was short-lived as Liz entered through the back door and encountered them all in a huddle, Will hanging on furiously to the loose ropes as his jaw ticked in frustration.

“How the bloody hell did none of us notice the bitch was getting free?” he demanded before staring pointedly at the couple that had been unable to keep their hands to themselves since they’d entered the dimension.

Spike stared pointedly at the pocket that hid the talisman and Will’s lips straightened into a white line of fury. It was his fault. He’d thought with so many supposed heroes in the house he’d be free to touch base with Liz—and there was no way to express how eager he was for their doubles to get the hell out of his world and back to their own so he could have his and Buffy’s name back for keeps. He should have risked scaring her by not replying to her call and kept his eyes on the witch.

“She’s going to incinerate us all like bugs.” His matter-of-fact statement was met with cold silence, Willow shrivelling up inside herself at the stark confrontation of what she’d once been. “The bitch is going to go out there, power herself up and wipe us off the face of the earth.”

“Steady on with the doom and gloom, junior,” Spike ordered, his own tone toughened to an authoritative burr. “The Willow in this world might have been dabbling in magic, but we’ve got the real super witch right here. Our Willow could obliterate your Willow without batting an eye, so how about you calm down and stop scaring the girl.”

“Okay, so we actually have something in our favour,” Liz admitted grudgingly. “Thing is, our Willow is not only resourceful, she’s vengeful and sadistic. I suggest you think of something fast or our run here is going to end abruptly.”

Disappointment rolling from her back, Liz turned away and headed up the stairs to her room. She’d thought with Willow captured she’d had a chance to survive her former friend. The prospect of death settled heavily and Liz couldn’t think of one reason why she should bother to stay up and help plan a path for self-preservation. She felt so tired. All year she’d sidestepped Willow’s obvious objective to get rid of her and now it felt like whatever she did, the witch was going to succeed. Even bringing back help had achieved nothing.

“Where are you going?” Will demanded harshly, his patience all but dried up.

Liz didn’t answer him.

Chapter Twelve

The Bronze was exactly how the Slayer remembered it. Pumping with music, jollity and fun while the darkness of the underworld crept through the shadows, greedily observing its prey.

After Liz had left them in an uncomfortable circle in the living room, the situation had loomed more and more dangerously over their heads. Willow had been shaking with fear and that had just astounded Buffy, but she could see why the witch was in crisis. The redhead was being confronted with the worst side of herself after she’d healed and paid penance, and this had to mess with her head. Buffy saw that it was high time that they forged ahead as a group and worked out how to help the warriors of this world.

And so with the impromptu Bronzing.

The three dimensional travellers sat in contemplative silence and watched the buzz of life around them. This scene had been dead to all of them for over a year now and it was more surreal to them than stepping through a dimensional rip had been. Strangely, exiting their world for another hadn’t seemed half as bizarre as standing in a club that had sunk to the bottom of the Hellmouth during their defeat of The First.

“Can you believe this?” asked Willow wistfully, her attention flitting from one Bronze staple to the next. The tall cups of soda, the mix of college and high school kids, the live band and the almost imperceptible demons that stalked the weaker of the room.

“I’m finding it kind of difficult to believe this whole day,” Buffy agreed, her eyes inevitably drawn to the vampire at her side. Her expression was soft as he grinned at her. They so needed to talk. All this gazing and lusty undertones was making her happy, but they weren’t resolving anything and one day soon that might not be such a good thing. “Kind of thought with the defeat of Angel’s apocalypse that we’d get the chance to unwind, you know? Where was our post-apocalypse party?” Buffy pouted. She’d been missing too many of those lately. It sucked being the grown-up Slayer sometimes.

Music wonderfully familiar hit their ears and Buffy froze. Everything inside her warned her that things were about to become even more unsteady, but at least the rush of excitement indicated a good kind of unsteady rather than one of the gasping, wheezing, sucking variety.

“Oh boy.” Willow’s voice revealed all kinds of emotion, but the total eradication of the witch’s previous guilt complex gave Buffy the courage to look to the stage. The sight she saw lifted her heart in ways she couldn’t define. To see a familiar face—even if it was just a replica of the one she’d known in her world—gave her monumental joy.

Willow bounced in her seat like days of old and Buffy couldn’t help but giggle.

“It’s Oz!” they shouted in giddy unison and both began to clap along to the music, leaving Spike scratching his head in confusion.

“What are you birds on about? This music is bloody atrocious,” he grumbled, but then he caught sight of the once familiar guitarist and understanding blossomed. “I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore,” he quipped, earning himself an indulgent smile from his girl and a huffy pout from the witch.

It was so difficult to mentally wander back to the days before the Initiative. Before Adam and Dawn—and Joyce’s death. The ones where Buffy had been trying to make a relationship work with Riley and Willow and Oz were happy, when Spike was free as a bird without any behaviour modification what-so-ever and The Magic Box was undergoing new, more aware ownership. Their past was staring them in the face and for the first time Buffy felt the fierce impact of it. Somewhere in this world her mother lived—and may not be dying any time soon. The impulse to locate her and go there was so strong that it brought a knot of tears to her throat.

But it was a desire that Buffy could never give in to. As much as she needed to see the living and breathing reality of her mother, the woman that existed in this world wasn’t her. Just as Willow should let all the pain of her past go—refusing to allow it to intermingle with the exploits of this world’s Willow—Buffy needed to leave the realities of this world to the rightful characters in this play. Maybe when all was dealt with, a few wise words into the receptive ear of Liz might encourage the girl to seize every chance she had with her mother and cherish it for the limits it would have.

Too soon the music from the Dingoes had mellowed the three out and the girls at least were tapping their feet and nodding their heads in time to the beat. The urgency of the situation that had brought them to the club in the first place had slipped minds momentarily, Buffy and Willow happy to succumb to their memories for an hour.

When the band’s final set was complete, Buffy noticed Oz’s covert glance in their direction and the telltale furrow of his brow that was the single indicator that he was nonplussed at their appearance.

“Oz!” Willow called out over the rising din of the crowd preparing for the next act. It was rare to have two bands playing the one night, but Buffy could see that Willow didn’t mind the Dingoes shorter set. She hadn’t seen Oz since the whole Initiative near-disaster and the eventual decision to explore the relationship possibilities with Tara instead of renewing things with her returned werewolf. And guilt aside, it was obviously a moment that was helping the witch to settle into this world.

Buffy saw the straightening of his spine and the way he looked off after his band mates and knew that he wasn’t as enthusiastic to return Willow’s greetings as the redhead was to give them, but he came to some kind of internal decision and casually walked to their table. Noticing Spike seated with them didn’t result in much more than a quirk of the guitarist’s brow and Buffy smirked. It was so good how certain things never changed. No matter which dimension they happened to be in.

Oz nodded at Buffy, his eyes seeming to say more to her than his lips ever had and Buffy smiled brightly, hoping that it was enough to allay all his concerns. She had the feeling Oz was going to find the news that they’d been zapped over from another dimension a lot easier to swallow than the possibility that his Willow was calling him over in an act of non-hostile celebrations.

“Hey,” he greeted, his voice casual yet reserved as he stood before them, hands stuffed in his jean pockets.

“Hey,” Willow all but gushed. Buffy found the interchange interesting; she’d always thought her friend would be reasonably cool should they cross paths with Oz again. While Willow hadn’t had a partner in her life since Kennedy had hightailed it to Scandinavia—with very few parting tears from anyone—Buffy would never have guessed that having Oz back on the scene might inflame her interest in the man again.

“Um, why don’t you take a seat?” Buffy charged in, the silence stretching between them all beginning to feel uncomfortable.

Oz reacted to the invitation with a quick glance over his shoulder. “I don’t know if—”

“I’m so sorry about the whole Veruca thing,” Willow rushed in, rolling her eyes at herself before she stood and leaned nervously toward Oz. “I know it wasn’t your fault and yay Buffy for the whole turning up on time thing, because that could have ended really badly. You know, with the me and having my throat ripped out or becoming her chew toy or something. And I know that you coming back just as I was getting to know Tara really had to suck with the timing, and being caught by the Initiative—and I’m so sorry that that happened because, well, bye bye wolf-control—” Desperation to have him stay had activated her tongue, and on topics that this Oz knew nothing about and with a bolt of horror, she feared she couldn’t stop.

“Sure. I can stay.” Oz took up a seat and another long minute stretched by with the four of them checking each other out. Then, before Spike could jump in and tell them all to relax before their eyes popped, Oz nodded decisively. “You’re not my Willow and Buffy, are you?”

“Better bloody not be. This blonde bint is taken,” Spike interrupted petulantly. He didn’t know this boy well—or at all if the truth be told—but already he liked the intuitiveness behind the apathetic exterior.

Buffy grinned. This felt like old times—except for the absence of Xander and the not so subtle inclusion of Spike. Still, it brought a nostalgia so strong for her Hellmouth that tears stung her eyes. “How are you, Oz?”

“Oh, you know,” he said as he shrugged. “Same old.”

“So I guess you’re wondering who we are…or…or at least why we’re here?” Willow asked hopefully. This might not be her Oz, but the attraction and happiness he still wrought was obvious to everyone at the table. Buffy decided then and there that as soon as they got back, she’d send out a search party for the wolf—preferably weeks before the full moon.

“I just figured you were Willow and Buffy—and Spike,” he added with a nod at the vampire. “Who has a soul,” he observed quietly, approval evident in the subtle upward shift of the corners of his mouth.

“You can tell that?” Willow asked awed. “Of course you can tell that. You’re super-sensitive guitarist wolf guy. I bet you can tell lots of things,” she babbled nervously.

A fully-fledged smile broke out on Oz’s face. “It’s good to see you again, Will.”

The redhead blushed, but Buffy caught the edge of sadness in her expression before she ducked her head and realised how hard this must be for her friend as well as for herself. At least her mother wasn’t in Sunnydale, making the decision to not interfere all the more clearer. But Oz was right here—at their table—and the differences between their Oz and this one were indistinguishable.

“So if you’re here, things mustn’t be good.”

The slump of Willow’s shoulders immediately told a story of misery, and Buffy felt even worse for her friend. The witch had been brimming in confidence the past year—in a healthy, good way—and this entry into a world so similar and yet completely unlike theirs was doing more damage to Willow’s self-esteem than anything else could have accomplished.

Before they could tell the story of their appearance in this world, or the latest news about the out-of-control Willow and Liz’s apathetic acceptance of her fate, Spike leaned over and kissed Buffy’s cheek, informing them of his choice to go patrolling and hopefully scoping the place out for current evil plots. Buffy smiled indulgently as he left the table, her eyes drawn to the swish of his coat and the power he always exuded when he cut through a crowd. Love shone in her eyes and was obvious to all who cared to look and her focus on the problem at hand was lost for the length of time it took him to disappear from the Bronze.

Buffy flushed under the pointed grins of her friends.

“Have you and Spike had a chance to talk yet?” Willow generously gave up her Oz-inspection time to indulge in best friend duty. Buffy shook her head, her shoulders drooping sadly but hope suddenly sparking to life in her eyes.

“Maybe I should go find him and talk?” she suggested eagerly. As soon as Willow opened her mouth to reply, Buffy was blowing her kisses in the air and grabbing her coat. “Meet you back at the house,” she called and then the Slayer was gone.

“That’s the Buffy I remember from years ago,” Oz reminisced, and then he peered into Willow’s eyes, suddenly overwhelmed to have a Willow he also recognised from more carefree days sitting right in front of him. “So tell me your story.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It was damned inconvenient.

Will paced back and forth in the living room, reeling in the impulse he had to kick the coffee table to splinters every time he passed it or burying his fist in the sheetrock.

They’d all buggered off and left him. While he was used to being alone these days, he’d never thought he’d feel so useless and ignored when in a house meant to be sheltering four others. He’d never thought Bu…Liz would let him out of her sight without a proper explanation on what he was doing here.

Her lack of interest in him was pissing him off. He was fighting depression at her apathy and the best way for him to do it was to get angry. They had a rogue witch on the run who could blast them to ash in a twitch of her evil finger and all his partners in this fight were off shimmying at the Bronze or sleeping off their death wish.

Well, he was tired of it. It was about time someone else took on a little of the concern he’d been ripped apart with for the past few days. He was mentally exhausted and would it bloody kill the ungrateful bint to give him a good look at her?

He was steadfastly ignoring the guilt that rushed through him and screamed ‘Boo’ every time he imagined the revulsion on her face when he revealed who he truly was. Yeah, he was a gutless wanker, but what was a vamp to do in a situation like this? Wasn’t like the Powers That Are Off Their Fucking Nutter handed him a ‘How To’ book about revealing himself to the Slayer.

Well, wasn’t the first time he’d taken his life into his hands. With a stance fuelled by irritation and impatience, Will stomped up the stairs and only momentarily stalled outside Liz’s bedroom door. With a good shove the door cracked against the wall and the Slayer sprung up, clasping her coverings to her breasts.

“Up and at ‘em, Slayer. No time for sleeping when there’s an out of control witch on the loose.” He stepped closer, ignoring the flushed red fury on her face as he realised her shoulders were bare. “Are you naked under there?” he asked hopefully, tilting his head to the side in hopes of angling a better look.

The ‘pissed off’ look suited her, Will decided with a chuckle. No wonder he’d fallen for the brat as soon as he’d laid his demon eyes on her. The girl almost vibrated with energy—even when abruptly torn from sleep—and he just loved what it did for her. The heaving chest, the flashing eyes, that unique slayer musk that made his mouth water. She was a cruel wench, that was for bleeding certain.

“You are seriously risking all your parts by coming in here,” she spat and Will had never seen her look more glorious.

Desire so strong hit him in the gut and almost winded him. This was a dream come true—and he should know, he’d strained through many of them while he’d been getting to know her better through the talisman. All he needed was for the sheet to lower just a little and he’d be a drooling lump of goo and the Slayer wouldn’t have any trouble at all dusting his incoherent ass.

And dusting him would likely get her killed. Now was not the time for this. While he wanted her with everything Satan had ever promised, he had to get his mind out of the gutter and back on the disaster at hand.

“Look, we need to do something, right? I’m going barmy waiting down there for someone to invent a grand plan. We’re sitting ducks unless someone gets some bloody initiative. The other witch is too upset about being the double of our little blessing of insanity to do any good right now. We need to find the witch and we need to obliterate her before she does us. Think you could drag your stunning ass out of that bed and be useful?”

Liz blinked sleepily, sluggishly replaying everything the vampire had just bombarded her with. “Did you just say I have a stunning ass?”

Will snorted. “Like you didn’t bloody well know it. Now I’ll just stand here and wait while you get up.” He leered as she looked about to stand and drop the sheet, but sense clicked in at the most inappropriate times and she threw the nearest thing at his head. Her clock hit the wall behind him and left a dent in the plaster. “Fine, I’ll go. Selfish bint,” he groused, but shut the door behind him and leapt down the staircase, a smile forming on his lips.

At least now he had a buddy to pace with.

Chapter Thirteen

Willow was so hungry she was nauseous. Having awakened in the depths of night by something as unscary as an owl in the Harris’s backyard, her stomach all but roared at her. Feeling shaky with fatigue, she pushed herself up and tried to see through the surrounding darkness. Knowing Xander, he’d have stuffed some kind of snack food into the corners of his new home; she just had to be sniffer-witch and find it. And the prospect of eating seriously stale chips did nothing to dull her stomach’s need for something to fill it.

Her legs shook as she levered herself from the bed. There was a lamp somewhere, and she found it as soon as she bumped against the bedside table and it went shattering to the cement floor.

“Crap!”

Not that she needed it. What use was man-made electricity when she could light up the stars with just a word passed through her lips?

Her brain felt fuzzy, but still something niggled through and she sighed in relief as a small thumb-sized ball of light appeared before her eyes. So, maybe not the stars tonight. She still was too weak to do much more than sleep. Too weak to indulge her thirst for carnage.

A memory of a long ago Saturday afternoon rolled into her mind and Willow cringed as she replayed a Twinkie battle to the death upstairs in Xander’s old bedroom. His parents had been gone for the weekend and she’d pinned all her hopes on some self-realisation by her friend and her much-anticipated first kiss. She’d been handed soda and snacks and they’d had a fun time watching all of their favourite movies, but smoochies had never been on the cards. It made her angry now. If he’d had less rocks in his head and given her a chance, he wouldn’t have been at the mercy of Faith. God, he could have picked her and yet he’d always turned to the dangerous women.

Allowing just that one small memory to possess her made Willow feel more tired than before. She quickly found a bag of chips and dragged it back to the bed, barely getting there before her body collapsed on the old mattress. She’d have to go out later and get something a little more fulfilling and nutritious—and not to mention fresh, she thought with a cringe of distaste. But at least her tummy had stopped objecting.

Before she’d consumed half the bag exhaustion reclaimed her, eyes drifting closed once again on the world.

Her last thought was of her ex-friend’s betrayal. It would serve to fuel her dreams through the rest of the night until morning blessed her with a return to consciousness.

The bag fell to the side and a handful of chips fell over the bedspread. They’d be crumbled by morning.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy finally caught up to Spike at their cemetery—or his, which was closer to the truth of it.

“Hey! You must have run all the way here,” she puffed as she drew in alongside him.

“Yeah. Thought I could do with some fresh air,” he admitted.

“But you don’t breathe,” Buffy teased, her arms spontaneously circling his waist as her head found the natural indent between his chest and shoulder.

“True,” he admitted and Buffy could recognise the smirk in his voice without even needing to look at his face.

“So you were just taking a run down memory lane?” she asked, tipping her head back so she could look into his eyes and remind herself of how beautiful the shade was.

“Yeah. Been a while since I’ve seen the crypt. Kind of missed it, you know?”

The sadness was crushing in on her again. She felt like an aluminium can, memories and regrets slamming into her on every side. “Yeah, I do. I missed it too.” And then, before her courage disappeared and they stayed locked in this emotional limbo forever, “I missed you more.”

Spike stopped walking and Buffy held her breath. This was the moment she’d been terrified of, ever since it occurred to her there’d be more moments after the initial reunion—if they’d both made it out of the fight alive.

“I’m sorry, Buffy.”

That was all he said, and she was left puzzled about what in particular he was apologising for. Was he showing his regret at not believing her declaration during their last seconds together? Or was he apologising for dying on her? Or was it merely that he’d not returned or not even called to let her know he was back? Did he know how hard she’d grieved? Had he finally realised he’d torn her heart out as well as disintegrating the Hellmouth?

“Sorrys aren’t enough, Spike,” she whispered, half-terrified she’d say the wrong thing and everything she wished for would suddenly blow up in her face, leaving her cold and alone once again.

“I know that,” he admitted, his blue eyes burning as he searched her soul. “But it’s a start, yeah? I did the wrong thing, but don’t I always? Not that I’m trying to make excuses for not calling you. There is no excuse—only fear. And as surprising as it is, I had a boat load of that. And guilt. Heard about Anya from the boy.” He ducked his head and Buffy saw the glistening tear that had formed in his eye, and while the jealousy in her rose up and howled, she couldn’t deny that the loss had been devastating—even if it had surprised the heck out of them all.

“It’s been a difficult year for everybody. Well, except maybe Dawn. She’s been having a blast running rings around Giles, being all secretive girl behind his back. He thinks he’s the Head of the Council, but I think Dawn knows more about that place than he does.” Buffy took a step forward and almost collapsed in relief that Spike followed. For some reason keeping movement going while she was trying to untangle her thoughts was much more of the helpful. “I can’t forgive you for not calling me when you got back,” Buffy decided. “Not yet anyway. It hurt to lose you, and to find out you were here almost the whole time and chose to stay with Angel over getting in touch with me? I don’t understand it. I don’t think there’s anything you could even say that could clear that up for me, and I’m half convinced you shouldn’t even try.”

Spike stilled again but they’d finally reached his crypt and Buffy didn’t want a confrontation out in the open. She wanted to see the place that had been a haven more often than her own home had been. She wanted to see what she’d destroyed when she’d bombed the vampire’s very own basement. She wanted to reclaim all the cobwebs and shadows and she wanted to lament the loss of this place that had been so unlikely in its delivery of comfort.

“Shouldn’t try to make you understand why I was such a cowardly bastard? Not that I think you’d have trouble with that concept exactly. Or do you think I shouldn’t try to…to get you back?” His voice boomed in this strangely empty room and Buffy winced. There was panic there, she recognised, but also a strangely familiar sense of acceptance. All those little intimacies—the kisses and the looks—hadn’t penetrated his thick skull after all. He still thought they had to fight to get to the place they’d almost reached before he’d gone up in a blaze of sunlight.

Buffy snorted. The idiot still didn’t realise they’d already surpassed that. As far as she was concerned, they were a done deal and God help anyone who tried to make the situation otherwise.

Oh well, actions always did speak louder than words to Spike.

In a move too casual to be misconstrued, Buffy tossed her battered black leather crop jacket onto the sarcophagus, doing a silent cheer as she watched Spike’s gaze trail its progress. He missed the quick unbuttoning of her shirt, but his eyes bugged as he saw it drift down to land perfectly on top of the jacket.

“Buffy?” He turned in time to catch her breasts fall from the lace cups of her bra, and that scrap of fabric quickly joined its companions on the cement block.

“Yes, Spike?”

The floor was dusty, but Buffy was resolved—not to mention desperate to feel his flesh against hers once again—and screwed up her nose delicately as she toed off her boots and kicked them to land with a thud in the general direction of her clothes.

“What are you doing, pet?” His voice was rough and raw and it sent every breed of tingle down Buffy’s spine. God, these memories were beyond good and she sighed in anticipated pleasure as her pants fell open at the clasp and she pushed them down her legs.

“Seizing the moment, Spike. You know, it’s kind of cold in here.” It was one detail that was too bizarre for her to have forgotten, but the chill of the crypt had definitely slipped her mind. She’d never had the chance to feel it when she’d been here, despite so often being naked.

“Hard to heat a room made out of stone.” He seemed stunned. His eyes zeroed in on tight, rosebud nipples and felt his palms itch to cup them.

“See anything you like?” Buffy asked sweetly, slowly inching her panties down her hips and allowing them to pool at her bare feet. Her heart was thudding madly in her chest and despite the cold, a volcano of heat was rushing through her veins and sparking every nerve to life.

“Buffy, I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” he admitted, and like the big jerk he was, he tried not to look and actually took a step backwards. “This isn’t what you wanted back in SunnyD. Remember that last night? All you wanted back then was to be held. You should get dressed, luv, and we’ll talk about this, yeah?”

Buffy pouted. “No.” She couldn’t believe she was going to have to pound some sense into him while she stood shivering and naked in a hopefully uninhabited crypt. She probably should have thought earlier to check for signs of this being someone’s home. Oh well. “I did want this, you big…poop head. I can’t believe you’re being all chivalrous and…and idiotic. You idiot. I’ve done nothing but regret not telling you I love you earlier than I did. I want to feel you naked against me again. I want you, you big dope. Now stop being stupid and strip.”

God, was she being too forceful? She was. Crap. He was gaping at her and Buffy felt like slapping herself for sucking so badly with expressing herself. A whole year talking to a grief therapist had done nothing to help her make herself speak sensibly and chronologically.

And then his duster went flying and Buffy was laughing, running to him as he tore his clothes off and tossed away his boots. Her mouth found his in a crash so sublime she almost wept. Tears bathed her cheeks as he finally kissed her in the way of old—hard, passionate, a kiss meant to imprint ownership in a way that no other ever could. It was a kiss from a man and Buffy realised with a start that no one had ever touched her lips like this—and no one ever would.

“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth, her eyes glistening as she caught hold of his, demanding he see the truth of it for real and daring him to refute it again to her face.

“Buffy,” he breathed and she relished in the return of that awed look he always gave her when something so monumental occurred. She felt like she deserved it now—felt like she knew what to do with devotion that limitless. The days of uncertainty had been burnt away with the fire of a Hellmouth sinking to its final home and Buffy hugged him closer, finding her lips against his throat and giving in to the desire to nibble his flesh. Tasting him on her tongue made it all so real. Made him hers and she was never letting him walk away from her again.

“Make love to me?” Her hands skimmed his flanks, hoping that she could waylay any talk of waiting by renewing his association with her flesh—with her touch. Not that he’d had much knowledge of it. All their time together had been centred on what his fingers, teeth and tongue had been able to do for her. Showing a mutual desire to explore him would have been dangerous and Buffy had always controlled the urge with the steely determination of a slayer punishing herself for being weak. Letting him touch her had been the worst thing she’d thought she’d ever done. In reality, the cruelty had been in not touching him back. Just as cruel to her as it had been to him. If she’d touched him, maybe she could have known the truth between them before she’d thrust him out of her life.

Though she’d already asked, his expression begged her for permission and once given, Spike reared against her, his mouth going in for the kill as he tried to consume all of her at once. “I will cherish you for as long as we have, Buffy,” he breathed against her breast, defying her to lose concentration as he gently sucked a tight nipple between his teeth and worried it to the point of aching.

“We have forever, Spike.”

And then there was nothing left for words. Words were a cheap alternative when his body spoke so eloquently and hers received his touch more happily than ears.

Her skin was hot to the touch and her heart hammered within her chest. Spike swept his tongue across the burning nipple and hesitated about moving onto the next. Buffy curled her fingers into his hair and lifted his head up to receive her lips instead, and as she felt his tongue thrust its way into her mouth, his hands curved around behind her knees and he hoisted her up, her legs scissoring around his waist in the way they both loved. Her hot centre rested against his abs and Buffy sighed into his mouth as the rest of her body melted against him. The tip of his cock nudged against the cleft of her ass and Buffy moaned and writhed in need.

Pulling her crotch away from his belly, Spike tipped himself up and speared into the wet, burning part of her flesh that would suck him in like a favoured lollypop. He didn’t even have to move, Buffy bearing down on him until he slid all the way in, stretching her wide and igniting every nerve ending on her flesh.

“God, Buffy, my imagination never came close to knowing how good you feel.”

As far as she was concerned, neither of them would need to rely on imagination again. There was nothing better than feeling the man you loved inside your body, prodding every hidden place that no one had ever bothered to find. Nibbling on his lips, Buffy finally initiated a rhythm, her hooked legs enabling her to push up until he was bulging at her entrance, and then slowly encase him again, revelling in the way her body never rejected him—always welcomed him in deeper than the last. He brought her body to life, and made her question every mistake she’d made since knowing him.

“I love you,” she told him again, and as she felt the first powerful clench of her muscles and his answering pulse inside her, Buffy hoped this perfect moment would never end.

“Sweetheart, you know I love you. I always will.” And together they explored a galaxy of stars that were glitteringly familiar—no matter which world they created them in.

Chapter Fourteen

Looking dishevelled and as if dusting a vampire in her living room was her greatest wish, Liz glared at Will and tapped her foot. “This had so better be good, because I’m not in the mood for any more crap tonight.”

Arching a perfectly scarred brow, Will wondered what she’d do if he pounced on her and kissed her hard enough to make her forget her name—both old and newly attributed. “And what crap would that be? You were out for most of the show.”

Liz turned away and walked into the kitchen. If there was one thing she was not going to share with all the new players in Sunnydale, it was her special connection with one apparently hiding, secret friend. Especially when she didn’t know his name or whereabouts. People would think she was crazy, but if Will knew, well, he’d make fun of her and wear her down with the evil lashings of his tongue. No! No evil tongues, lashing or otherwise. That way lay images with which she’d much prefer to never sully her brain.

“Things have been intense and I needed some space, not that I need to explain myself to you.” Having him around her was playing havoc with her commonsense. She kept turning her back on a notorious vampire—one with an enviable reputation for killing slayers—and not only had she allowed him to retain access to her home, she’d somehow adopted him with the impromptu sleepover.

“Yeah, been right intense around here too. ‘Spike,’” he emphasised with dramatic air-quotes and a cringe of distaste on his lips, “is a bloody wanker. Who does he think he is, taking dibs on my name?”

Liz giggled. The thought of Will cursing himself tickled her silly.

“Oh don’t tell me you just love the little fluffy-Buffy. She’s nauseating.” He made as if to stick his fingers down his throat and Liz slapped at his arm. She felt infuriated all of a sudden, and not all of it was due to Will’s lack of taste in belittling what was essentially her.

“She’s nauseatingly in love, you mean. And with you.” There was no controlling the shudder of revulsion that hurtled through her body.

“Oi! Watch what you’re knocking.” Will jutted out his jaw and glared at her, his hands furiously sweeping aside his duster so he could clasp each hip bone with agitated fingers.

“I don’t see the problem in knocking something I’d rather stab my eyeballs out than sample,” Buffy retorted hotly. If there was one thing of which she was convinced, it was that any sickly sweet overtures between her and this vampire were never going to happen. Her stomach was turning just at having him this close to her.

“You infuriatingly ungrateful bitch,” Will spat, his eyes glittering golden as hurt and indignation battled each other for dominance. He’d never wanted to rip her throat out more than at this precise moment. Being rejected had that affect on a bloke, and Will was beyond pissed at how pig-headed the love of his life was turning out to be. Take his face and name away and she was a right cuddly kitten, wanting to crawl into him sight unseen. But actually standing with him, face-to-face, and she wanted to stake him faster than…

“Ungrateful?” she screeched, stepping closer. “I’m supposed to be grateful you saved me from that other dimension?”

Will blinked. “Well, yeah.”

“News flash, Romeo. You grabbed the wrong Buffy, and not only did you not save me, you’ve created a whole world of other issues that need fixing. My Willow might not have been bent on killing me the second I arrived home if it wasn’t for your cowboy act of lassoing her up like a prize calf. I might have actually had time to think of something, but nooooo, unsouled SPIKE had to ride on in to the rescue.” She stopped to take a breath, and then blinked stupidly for a few seconds. “And what’s with that? You do remember you’re a vampire, right?” And then memory slid in and she gasped in shock. “Oh God, how could I have forgotten?” Eyes turned steely and murderous. “Where is she?”

Will’s turn to appear stupid. This conversation had torn around so many racetracks he felt bleeding well dizzy. “What?”

“Your ho. Where is she?” Liz was shaking, reaction from everything that had happened since the afternoon making her internal resources clash with themselves and she wondered if she was heading toward a break down.

“I don’t have a bloody clue where Dru is and haven’t for the past year. Your guess is as good as mine.” His expression was rife with unhidden hurt and Liz stood confused, then jumped as he turned abruptly and stomped away from her.

“Where are you going?” she asked in a small voice.

Barely stopping, he tossed over his shoulder, “As riveting as this conversation is, there’s a witch that needs finding. You can stay there feeling sorry for yourself, but I’m off. If I don’t make it back, you know she set me on fire, or performed some other equally deadly to vampires trick.”

The thought made her pause.

“Maybe…I should go with you?” Liz asked in a small, confused voice.

“Your funeral,” was the reply and the continual talk of death just made her insides shrivel up more. Still, he had tried to help her, and she was being ungrateful to not even be a little lenient toward him.

“Thanks,” she muttered and almost slammed into a hard, leather-clad back as Will stopped in shock.

“What was that?” He couldn’t stop the smile blooming on his lips if he’d tried, and with his back still to her, he didn’t even attempt it.

“For trying to save me. That was…thanks.”

No point in drawing out the obviously painful, he thought with a grin. “Don’t mention it.”

Liz rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at his back. That will be so much easier than you think, Bleach Boy.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Are you sure you can’t think of anywhere else she might be holed up?” Will asked with a huff. They’d been all over Sunnydale, and other than bumping into the other Willow walking to Oz’s van with the plan of returning back to Revello Drive much more mellowed out than when she’d left earlier, they’d come up with nothing.

“We’ve been to the magic shop, and the high school library. She has no friends that I know of. We really don’t confide in each other anymore,” Liz admitted, both annoyed that she had to be hunting down a girl that was once closer to her than any friend ever had been, and irritation that Will just wouldn’t get lost. She wouldn’t lament his disappearance in the slightest.

“Well, what about the bone yards? Think she might have gone to visit some graves and then maybe bunk down in an empty crypt?”

Liz eyed him sceptically. “I guess it’s a possibility, but I somehow doubt it. Willow likes her creature comforts.”

Will leered. “Or maybe she just likes her creatures?”

“Ewwwwww!” Liz exclaimed in disgust. “Could you be any more of a pig?” She stomped off, determined to not see him again if she couldn’t get rid of him. He complied with her silent wish and stayed behind her, and it was all she could do to admit she hoped he wasn’t checking out her supposedly stunning ass.

Twenty minutes later and they’d reached Restfield Cemetery. It didn’t take too long to search the available crypts, taking out a vampire or two while she was at it. On one occasion she’d even accidentally turned and found Will tussling with one of his own kind before he buried a wooden stake in its chest and was consequently covered in the exploding dust. He brushed himself off and looked up to find Liz staring at him with her mouth gaping open.

“What was that?”

Will sighed. “What did it bloody look like? Knitting scarves?”

“You killed a vampire.” And then another reality occurred to her. “And you’re actively not killing me. What gives?”

The continual low expectations of him was really beginning to grate on his nerves. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, little girl.” He swept past her and took the lead, stopping suddenly at the next crypt and uncharacteristically waiting for her to precede him closer toward it. The unmistakable sounds of sex emanated from the partially open door and Will grinned cockily.

Liz got to the door and had her foot ready to smash it open when she caught the sound of her own voice moaning. A hand drifted up to cover her mouth so she wouldn’t scream and she quickly turned and slammed her back against the wall beside the door. “Oh God,” she whispered frantically. Her eyes clashed with Will’s and she shuddered violently, sickness rising up in her belly until she was sure she was turning green.

Two strong hands suddenly slammed against the stone wall on either side of her head and Liz jumped a foot in the air in shock. She couldn’t move. She wanted to slam her knee into his groin and run hard and fast from this surreal episode of a monster drama, but her limbs were frozen stiff.

“Oh Spike,” she heard, and flushed hotly at the raw passion she barely recognised in the voice. “Harder. Please…want you…deeper. So good, baby.”

Oh God, they’re having sex. I’m having sex with Spike. This is so wrong.

Molten blue eyes penetrated her soul as he imprisoned her against the wall. Will had a look in his eye she couldn’t comprehend, but her skin felt tight and hot as the sounds of enthusiastic sex from inside surrounded her. Liz felt claustrophobic as Will moved closer, the leather of his sleeves brushing against her shoulders as his chest just barely made contact with her breasts.

She felt sick, and yet her nipples had frozen into hard little pebbles, straining for an unfamiliar touch.

“Buffy, you’re so warm around me. Ugh. Squeeze me like that again, gorgeous.”

Liz knew the second Buffy did it, her own vaginal muscles synchronised as Will thrust his hips at her. A scream formed in her throat and her mouth opened to release it into the night air when his lips slammed down on hers, shocking her into silence.

His lips were softer than she’d expected. She didn’t know why she thought they’d be less life-like than Angel’s had been, but she had. He tasted bitter, but not in a revolting way, and his technique was a whole lot more gentle than his approach so far had been. For a snapshot of time, Liz could see the appeal the other Buffy had felt for her Spike, but this couldn’t happen for her. As the realisation cleared her head, she moaned softly. Clinging to the first kiss she’d had in years, Liz savoured the sensual massage of his tongue before thrusting him away hard. Panting, she caressed her mouth with a shaking hand, her eyes wide and wary before she took off at a run.

Will watched her from where he’d tripped backwards on a rock in the grass and fell. Regret seared through his chest and he closed his eyes and let his head fall back to the ground. Inside he could hear all the huffing and puffing and he felt envious. In another world he and Buffy were shagging like bunnies and it was just his luck they’d brought it here to brag right in front of his face—and like the stupid, predictable wanker he was, he’d come on too fast with Liz and she’d bolted like a terrified bunny.

But Christ her lips were sweet.

With a giddy grin, Will relaxed in the grass and listened to his double shagging his girl. One day he’d have the balls to tell Liz the truth of who he was, and in his cosy little dream world, she’d lose that prejudice that blighted her view of the world and fling herself into his arms.

He was a bloody poof for believing in happily ever afters.

Chapter Fifteen

Revello Drive

“It’s still not working.” Willow looked down at the map of Sunnydale and felt like crying. Here she was, this supposed super-witch and she couldn’t even locate herself. “I’m so sorry, guys.”

“Hey!” Buffy threw an arm around her friend’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “This isn’t your fault. The other Willow obviously knows how to block a locator spell. No biggie. She’ll mess up eventually.” Then, put off at Willow’s affronted look, she added, “Well, maybe not. But we’ll find her. We have to so we can go home.”

“Right. You got any ideas about that? Because Liz and I scoured Sunnydale and I didn’t get so much as a whiff of ‘er.” Will stood propped against the wall, his arms crossed and his hip jutting out, anger and impatience emanating around him.

The three interlopers shared a concerned look but nobody answered.

“Great. So essentially what you’re telling me is, you’ve got nothing?”

Buffy nodded. “Pretty much.”

In a subdued example of Spike’s well-known temper tantrums, Will humphed and left the room, presumably off to get rid of the bags under his eyes with some sleep.

Buffy turned and looked indulgently at her vampire. He had similar bags from lack of sleep, but instead he was grinning like the cat that licked the canary to a sensual death and who obviously wanted to do it again. She sighed tiredly before moving over to snuggle against his body on the couch. Willow sat forlornly in an armchair, worrying her hands over her ability to achieve nothing.

“So I guess what we need is a plan,” Buffy suggested, though her voice indicated how much of one she didn’t have to share.

“Yup. One of those would be of the good right about now,” interjected Liz as she entered the room, a bowl of cereal in her hands. She looked up and saw Buffy and Spike all cuddly together and went to sit at the desk chair on the opposite side of the room.

“Okay,” started Willow, finally straightening her spine and taking control. “What would Giles do?”

Buffy looked pole-axed. “Oh my God, Giles. And Dawnie. They won’t know where we are.”

Spike waved his hand carelessly in the air, his response nonchalant and totally lacking any concern. “I’m sure Peaches’ll let him know what’s happened. Once they get through flogging the git, they might even mount up a search party. Can you imagine that? The whole Scooby gang vacationing in downtown Sunnyhell.” The thought obviously tickled him pink as he momentarily disappeared into his own imagination.

“You shouldn’t verbalise thoughts like that on the Hellmouth,” Liz warned through a mouthful of cereal. If there was one thing she was well versed on it was that the oddest things sprung into being because of the Hellmouth’s strange twist on reality. Fact was way stranger than fiction in her backyard and Liz was totally over it.

“You’re right,” Spike conceded without argument. “Back to business then,” he stated crisply, and then preceded everyone into a block of thoughtful yet exasperating silence. Several times Buffy leaned forward, her lips parting as if to impart a sudden thought, but then whatever she’d grasped left her and she slumped back into Spike’s comforting arms. After ten minutes both blondes sighed.

“I’ve got nothing,” admitted Buffy, her cheeks pink. It was humiliating to be the senior slayer in this scenario—having been successful through numerous battles—and she couldn’t think of squat to get them through this.

“I guess this is just one of those ‘on-the-run’ plans then?” Willow asked, a fever of excitement returning some slight colour to her face. If there was one thing that animated the witch it was a challenge, and tracking down her evil double was proving to be a real doozy.

“And don’t we just excel with those?” Buffy wasn’t kidding. The big moments were all with the plans, sure, but the lead up to it was totally by the seat of their pants. The adrenaline rush that got them through immensely dangerous situations that probably should have seen them all ending up in a plot in the ground. Except she’d done that and it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“Well, I guess it’s pretty pointless to try and formulate a plan to find Willow when she’s currently unlocatable.” Liz sat back, her apathy shifting only enough that an intently staring Spike caught it. It made him smile, and sigh in relief for the Spike of this dimension. Will had an uphill battle as it was—whether he informed her of his talisman connection with her or not—and it would be torture to see the poor bloke suffer through what Spike himself was only now putting behind him. And to tell the truth, if Spike had to witness all the angst of what was him and Buffy all over again he’d be hard pushed not to dust either himself or his double.

“So we wait?” Buffy confirmed, then with a swift nod of her head, “We hope that we catch sight of her before she decides to turn us into toads.”

Willow shuddered. As a plan it was obviously lacking—the whole lack of her doppelganger being magically gagged for one—but with her own magic being spectacularly unsuccessful in this instance, there was absolutely nothing that she could do. Or think of to do. Willow had never felt so vulnerable in her life. Whether she continued to live and breathe was totally in the hands of the one person she should have been able to trust with it. However, putting faith in this world’s Willow to do the right thing was as smart as leaving Andrew in charge of the Watcher’s Council with all the world’s slayers and his limited edition Princess Leia costumes at his disposal. Yeah, ‘smart’ didn’t actually figure into that equation in the slightest.

“At least I can put up a protection field around the house. I doubt she’s strong enough to penetrate that. As long as we all stay here for now, we’ll be fine.” She hoped. Gulping hard, Willow avoided all eyes and withdrew into herself. Being the victim of a witch on the edge might have done wonders in helping her cool her jets when she’d gone through it.

Feeling weak and useless wasn’t much of the fun at all.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

They were all bloody useless.

Will lay on the floor of Liz’s room and felt his face deform in rage. How the fuck were they going to get out of this if both slayers were content to wait for the psycho bitch-witch to come to them?

Emotions extreme and from every directions were tying him in knots. On the one hand he wanted to shake Liz till her teeth rattled and her sense made a shocking comeback, but on the other he was terrified out of his mind that Red was going to fly in on her broomstick and banish them all to the pits of Hell. Why the fuck had he waited so long in coming here? Was his fear stronger than his commonsense these days?

Will growled angrily and rolled over, mashing the pillow beneath his cheek with a tense fist. He’d been listening to them all gasbagging downstairs like a seniors group for too many hours to count and he was sick of it. The inaction, the talking in circles—it was driving him out of his skull. The witch had had plenty of time to find a base of operations and to recoup any power she’d expended during her escape and Will just knew they were all waiting for the penny to drop. They should be back out there, right in it, looking for her till the last second before sun was up again. Instead, they cowered behind another witch’s brazen attempts to counter herself. He’d be bloody buggered if he was going to be here when this dimension’s Willow arranged for the sky to fall on the house and flatten them all.

Be fucked if he was going to let Liz offer herself as an apathetic sacrifice to Red’s demented cause.

A chilling realisation had his eyes widening and his gut clenching in horror. They’d all been operating under the assumption that the witch was friendless—that she’d attempted all her plots to kill Liz completely on her own. Where did she get her information? How did she know about each and every ugly that came traipsing across the Sunnydale line, sending Buf…Liz into the line of fire almost on a nightly basis?

Fuck they were stupid. She obviously had to get her knowledge from somewhere. There was someone in this pissant town that still knew Red, and thus someone she’d probably chance contacting before turning them into fish food became her priority. A bitch like her would need to feel secure before she launched an all out offensive against her enemies, not to mention she loved this world she was attempting to tyrannise. She was going to work out how to kill Buffy, Spike and her doppelganger without sucking her own world into the realm of extinct dimensions.

Will winced. Christ they were screwed.

Sleep was out of the question now. He had a lead and he couldn’t let his body rest when his brain was on overdrive. Tossing the thin blanket Liz had unwillingly allowed him onto the bed, Will bounced to his feet and reached for his coat. The security of the soft leather was sorely needed—now more than ever—and it was with relief that he tugged on his boots and shrugged on his coat, allowing the Big Bad to fill his senses and give him the strength he needed to get them all out of this.

His body felt too heavy, weighed down by responsibility and fault. He should have arrived in Sunnyhell months ago and forced Liz away from the place. Risked a broken nose and a possible dusting by telling her who he really was but gotten her out of there. In an existence that had seen far more than anything had the right to, Will could admit one thing to himself, and as lonely and small as it made him feel, it also burned him up with warmth. Liz was the only thing that mattered anymore. Everything else he’d had over the years was gone—taken or withdrawn like he’d been a very bad boy. He’d grown to live with it. Accepted it as his due. Until he’d been given hope in the form of a jewel that he kept zealously in his pocket. His motivation may have been twisted in the beginning, but he’d quickly learned to value the chance he’d been given. Being evil had never been enough when it mattered and on the edge of everything was the accusation that he’d always been trying; it had never been natural. He’d killed slayers because Angelus was frightened of them. He’d slaughtered pregnant women because it was Darla’s favoured delicacy. He’d been as wicked as his Princess had required for him to stay favoured at her side. The very second he’d made an error of judgement—and only Drusilla would see saving her life as being a mistake—he was out on his ear, with the burns and lacerations to prove it. So yeah, maybe it was time to stop existing for others and try to do something different with his life.

Maybe it was time to be good.

With his stomach curling around that revelation, Will opened the bedroom window and glanced up at the stars. He was willing to bet that Dru was looking at them this very second, wailing over the distinct loss of her childe. The silly bint had always told him he was made for something special—now it was time for him to discover what.

A final glance over his shoulder at the closed door was all he needed to push him out of the house. They were still bellyachin’ downstairs and the witch was loose in the town. If he didn’t take pains to snuff her out, who the hell would?

He leapt to the ground silently and slipped into the shadows.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“You know we’ve been going about this all wrong,” Spike announced matter-of-factly while he slipped his hands behind his head, his eyelids sore as they stubbornly stayed open.

Silence greeted the statement and he sighed.

“We’ve been completely focused on the witch. Well, she’s been Queen of this town for how long? I doubt she works totally alone. There has to be someone here that she would have run to. Asked for help. Someone in this bloody town knows of Willow Rosenberg and her bid for total bloody control of the minions.” His tone betrayed his exasperation inspired by the hours of talking over their non-plan and helping to reassure the Willow-in-residence that she wasn’t being blamed for anything that this dimension’s Willow had going.

Enlightenment threatened and Spike gloried in having some direction finally. Until Liz opened her mouth and betrayed how completely unaware she’d been of the woman she’d allowed to take over her home.

“There’s phone calls sometimes, but I don’t recognise the voice. Some guy, sort of stilted and commanderish but respectful as well.” She shrugged, already apologising for being useless at sorting out the mystery and Spike rolled his eyes. This girl was like his resurrected Buffy, though she’d not had the benefit of a stint in heaven to make her so lifeless.

“Only one git I know who talks like he’s got a stake up his arse,” Spike prodded, then grinned as recognition made his girl’s and Willow’s eyes gleam in excitement.

The relief was tangible as they shouted the name together.

“Riley!”

It had probably taken a lot longer for Willow to think of calling Riley Finn than it should have.

Not that it surprised her. Nowadays she saw people as little more than pawns to do her bidding. And having a relationship with Riley was not only a convenience that fed her body, but also a necessity for her to keep up with the goings on in her town. He had the scoop on a surprisingly large amount of the demon activity around them that the rest of the world was amazingly, yet predictably hush hush about, but a tiny little spell would have him babbling all sorts of things. It didn’t hurt that she ensured his preoccupation and descent into the baser emotions by consuming his dick at the same time.

She felt unaccustomed fear walking into The Bronze and it made the energy around her spark dangerously. They’d pay for reducing her to this: scared of her own shadow and reliant on a military man to exact her revenge. Of course the fear would wane eventually, but as much magic as she had at her fingertips it somehow didn’t register as enough against a doubling up of super-powers in her home. And herself. She had no real inkling of how powerful her double was in her own world and Willow had done too much underestimating in this scenario to do it again. At least, not right on the heels of her lucky escape.

Riley was alone, exactly like she’d ordered. He stood at a shadowed table in the corner and Willow released the breath she’d been holding while she’d searched for him. Her back straight, she walked to him, her eyes drawn to the bulky figure leaning hard on the surface of his table as he sucked from a straw. It seemed a completely feminine thing for a soldier hunting demons to do, but the gentleness of the Iowa boy was what had drawn Willow to him in the first place. It just screamed of gullibility and weakness of the mind and as much as she took pleasure in the firm lines of his body, it more than suited her expectations to subsume him to her will whenever the need arose.

“Hey, Willow. Didn’t expect to see you again quite so soon.”

The voice of her old boyfriend had her standing frozen to the spot, her shocked expression falling on his friendly smile. A stab of sharpened pain almost splintered her heart and Willow’s eyes turned black to ward it off. This wasn’t what she wanted—or what she needed. Oz was well in her past—through his own actions rather than her own. He couldn’t do this now, walk up and act like nothing ugly had ever passed between them.

His words shook her but similarly broke the ice encasing her brain. Finally she was making sense out of the situation and it made her ill to realise that a Willow from another world had been enough for him to approach her again. Enough for him to smile at her again.

Her lips twisted sourly and she glared at him, fury whipping up inside her and making her feel like her own hair was sizzling at the roots.

“Fuck you,” she spat furiously and then swept away to Riley, kissing the soldier hard on the lips while curling her responsive body suggestively into his. Riley reacted as expected, his clumsy palm trying to score the reward of her flesh. Caught briefly in the moment of engineered passion, Willow glanced up and found Oz gone. Her disappointment wasn’t so deep that she pushed Riley’s seeking hand away. She knew the deal. She had to put out to get something back, and this time, she was going to be reimbursed big.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Liz blinked at the vision at her front door, and then blinked again. A long time had passed since she’d had Oz on her doorstep and while it renewed a little of the happy flutters having actual friends had given her, it also warned her to be on her guard. Everything she’d known over the past twelve months had been flung none-too-gently out the window.

“Um, hi,” she stumbled. Then she smiled brightly and patted herself on the back for her quick adaptation to even the strangest happenings. “Whatcha doin’?

Oz stared then shook his head, his chest almost bursting with a dry chuckle. “Man, this is weird.” He looked past her shoulder to the appearance of Willow standing in the foyer and he smiled indulgently. “I’ve seen Willow.”

There was an explosion of ‘Oh!’s’ and he was dragged inside.

“Where is she…me…her?” Willow fumbled in confusion, already dragging out her magical paraphernalia to exploit this unexpected lead.

“She was schmaltzing with that TA in Psych. Riley Finn? Looks like they’ve been pretty friendly with each other for a while.”

Buffy and Spike turned to Willow, accusation tinged with a hint of amusement aimed straight at her and the witch’s face crumpled guiltily. She stared hard at the ground, then feeling brave, “Well…in the beginning…there was sparkage,” she defended. Then she utilised the pout and blushed at the combined laughter the admission earned.

“Could have told me that years ago, Wills. Might have saved a whole lot of heartache,” Buffy chided, grinning, then snickered as the witch ‘eeped’ and ran up the stairs.

“He made your heart ache? I thought you didn’t really love the git.” Spike stood detached, arms crossed and jealousy radiating from his tightly wound body.

Buffy rolled her eyes. If there was one thing she could depend on it was an ensouled vampire to always take things the wrong way.

“Of course he did, you dummy. Finding your boyfriend paying vamp whores to suck him dry—no matter how you feel about him—kinda hits a girl where it hurts.”

Spike grumbled about soldier gits never being good enough for his girl and then slumped tiredly into the nearest chair.

“Okay, so now we have something we can work with, right? Now we can formulate a plan?” Despite the words, Buffy could see that Liz was struggling to give a damn.

“Yeah, a whole lot we can work with,” the senior slayer replied dryly. “I completely forgot about Adam and the Initiative.” Then her eyes widened and she clashed with Spike’s horrified gaze. “We should warn Will not to let his guard down.” Spike treated to her a look of adulation for her concern about a soulless vampire and reached out to grab hold of her hand.

Willow stepped from the staircase back into the foyer, her expression worried. “Kinda too late for that. He’s gone.”

“I knew it,” exploded Liz, suddenly the most animated and annoyed she’d been all day.

“Knew what exactly?” inquired Spike, an easily recognisable edge to his voice. Buffy cringed, knowing what was coming and yet helpless to kick the other girl sharing her face before she opened her mouth and betrayed how narrow-minded and clueless she was.

“That he was a no good, stab-in-the-back son-of-a-bitch that I should have staked as soon as I had the chance, not let him go to ‘sleep’ in my room.” She was glaring at Spike, her palm curling around a stake that appeared as if by magic.

“Put it away, little girl,” Spike commanded softly, giving Buffy goosebumps with the masculine power of it.

Liz wavered and resentment burned in her eyes. Finally, she dropped the stake onto the desk. “Fine. But if he comes back and kills us all in our sleep, just listen to me say ‘I told you so.’”

“Sure, luv. If it makes you feel better about being wrong.” He turned to his Buffy, uncertainty suddenly draining him of his confidence. “I’m sure he got sick of us being so namby-pamby about looking for the witch and he’s gone off looking for her alone.”

Buffy nodded and smiled. “With your track record and waiting patiently, I so don’t doubt it.” She squeezed his hand and then allowed the General Buffy façade to slip decisively in place. “I think we can be certain that if Will is out there, he’s going to get caught by the Initiative. Experience kind of implies it,” she said quickly, warding off Spike’s humph of indignation.

“So what?” Liz flopped back down into the desk chair and stared at the ceiling. “Whatever the hell this Initiative thing is you keep mentioning, let them rid the world of another blood-sucker. Saves me the trouble.”

Spike seethed and was one second from exploding out of his comfy chair and biting the clueless bint when Buffy grasped his arm tightly and held him down. “Now, now, Spikey. We can’t all be Enlightened Buffy.”

He shot her a filthy look and sunk back further in his chair.

“Besides, I was never this clueless.” Buffy jumped at Spike’s snort.

“You positive on that, pet? Seem to remember many a clueless Buffy moment.”

“Hey!” she objected, though it was kind of weak even to her own ears.

“Look, you two can have your old married couple spat later. Some of us aren’t going to survive should Willow get whatever she’s looking for before she takes revenge on being blind-sided.”

“Oh ho! So now she cares!” Spike exclaimed sarcastically.

“I care,” objected Liz. “I so do care. But I’m not going to sit here while you two have some argument about things I have no interest in, and frankly, so not clueless.”

Buffy and Spike shared an amused look. “Oh yeah, totally clueless.”

“Fine. Bu—Liz is freaking clueless. She doesn’t trust Will, the bloodthirsty and murderous vampire that has so nicely gained an all season’s pass to her home. Can we move on now?” Her voice was trembling with anger.

“One would have thought you wouldn’t be in such a rush to throw your only mate in this world to the wolves.” A quick look to the side took in an enigmatic Oz. “No offence intended, mate.”

“None taken,” Oz confirmed with a nod.

“Mate? What mate? I so do not have a mate and I don’t want one.” Liz’s eyes were huge.

“You read too many vampire romance novels, luv,” Spike accused with his tongue pushed suggestively to the back of his teeth.

Liz’s eyes swung back and forth between the older girl with her own face and the irritatingly accurate vampire.

“He meant friend. It’s one of those weird British words that don’t make sense. He wasn’t implying sex, though I’d highly recommend it if I were you, which, I am. So bonus! Will is your friend.”

Bulging eyes was enough to advise the room that Liz was screeching toward breakdown point. “Are you people on drugs?” she screamed. “Not only do I have no friends, but a vampire would never be one of them.”

Sick of wasting time but still enthusiastically nurturing the spark of joy that making this slayer eat her words had produced, Spike sprung to his feet and had the younger slayer hauled to her feet with his hand shoved deep into her jean’s pocket. She was so shocked she didn’t move, but she did squeak when his fingers brushed too close to her crotch. Too soon he’d wrapped them around his prize and yanked out her precious talisman.

He opened his hand triumphantly, watching as Liz’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“How dare you!” She snatched the jewel back and hid it deep inside her pocket. The most overwhelming cloud of rage was descending upon her at his audacity. He knew nothing of her, her life or her friends—or complete lack thereof.

Before anyone knew what was happening, her fist shot out and connected brutally with Spike’s nose, a familiar cracking noise filling the stunned silence. As he slammed backward into Buffy, Liz turned on her heel and ran out the door.

Gone.

Chapter Seventeen

There were real moments when the little things touched her. Actually rubbed up against her and melted into her heart. Walking beside the boy she was sleeping with, her hand curled lovingly inside his, Willow wondered when it was that she’d accepted letting go of the majority of these moments. Riley was far from the grand love of her life, and the one that she’d pictured as her happily-ever-after had dumped her the second revenge had gripped her by its savage claws, but he was hers and he loved her. He wasn’t honest with her—but Willow knew he loved her. Riley was simple like that. He loved his folks, he adored his boss, and he slept with girls with whom he planned on spending his life. It made her feel minutely guilty, but in typical Willow-style, she managed to not just shrug it aside but to stick steadfastly to her agenda.

It worked out nicely that her agenda rubbed shoulders so beautifully with Riley’s mission.

She didn’t think Riley even suspected that she knew what he did when he wasn’t dressed super casual and enticing her into bed. When they weren’t having picnics on campus or dancing at the Bronze. She’d been so careful when using magic around him so that he didn’t suspect she was anything but a harmless co-ed happily dating the TA of her favourite Professor. Up until now that had suited her fine—more than fine, it had been perfect. But now she needed the kind of power the Initiative could offer and she wasn’t exactly sure about how to reveal herself to her lover without him freaking out on her. Not that Riley was the freaking out sort.

It was all kinds of romantic that he led her to a recognisable tree just out of sight of the university grounds and turned swiftly to trap her against the trunk. His eyes gleamed with passion and while Willow’s heart picked up an extra beat in anticipation, she wasn’t enjoying his obvious infatuation quite as much as she did when being caught by Buffy wasn’t so fresh on her mind. Still, she submitted to his kiss, knowing more than anything that allowing him to feel cherished would get her the reaction she sought a whole lot better than if she pushed him away.

It wasn’t so hard to do. Riley was a good kisser. He felt nice against her lips and his mouth was warm. Every second he shared with her meant so much to him and that couldn’t fail to touch Willow just a little bit. Couldn’t help but make her wonder if: if Xander hadn’t been torn from her life; if Giles hadn’t been a calculated slaughter that had backfired on the other team badly; if Willow hadn’t sunk within the lure of magic and turned her back on humanity completely. There were so many ‘if’s’ that might have altered her relationship with Riley, and yet even then Willow knew it wasn’t going to last. Riley Finn was a soldier to the last and he would be happier with a girl who understood how that side of him ticked—how any side of him ticked. Willow was too preoccupied in the scenes behind the man to really care.

“Willow?” His lips clung to hers even though it was obvious he wanted to initiate conversation and the redhead was more than happy to delay whatever it was he wanted to ask her. His self-discipline was strong though, and he pulled away from her with a moan, lust still glistening in his eyes.

She felt dazed and a little cheated. His sensual demands were working well to shift the worry from her shoulders and Willow felt a little resentful that he was bringing reality into their interlude so soon.

“Uhuh?” Non-committal was her. Not that it ever worked. The first night she’d slept with him had been motivated by nothing more than a need to feel something—anything to dull the pain that welled up inside her sometimes. Moments like those were rare, but the decision to have Buffy removed from Sunnydale forever—no matter what it would take—hadn’t settled on her conscience half as well as she’d hoped. Still, it was a decision she refused to waver from and seeking solace with a man—any man—had become an urgency and she was ever grateful for the appearance of Riley in her life. Consuming him had given her a renewed focus—had awarded her new power through knowledge he was unaware he’d given her. But it had also caught her heart and the eventual end of what they had, while not love on her part, would still smart when it happened.

“I was hoping you’d come home with me for Spring break? Maybe get to know my family a little bit?” He looked so hopeful and yet all Willow could do was gape.

“Um, to…Iowa?” She said it like it was a place she’d never heard of, never mind wanted to visit. There was no holding back the nervous smile though, because no matter how much she refused to give her heart to Riley, it thrilled her that he wanted her to meet his parents. It was one of those ‘next steps’ in a relationship and it bowled her over that they’d even reached that.

And then it horrified her that she’d be expected to be meek and nice to people as simple as Riley. Oh no, she couldn’t go there. Besides, she had more than a few issues she had to clear up before she could think herself safe to do anything.

“Oh Riley…I…can’t believe you want me to meet your family. That’s so sweet,” she avoided and then jumped into his arms and sucked his tongue insistently between her teeth. He reacted in the way she’d intended—in the way she’d known he would. What man ever knocked back deep kisses with a hot and needy woman unzipping his pants?

He drew back sharply, his eyes wild and chest heaving for breath. “Willow, as much as I love you, I don’t think we should do this here. I’m a TA. I can’t afford to get that kind of a reputation.” He stopped and then singed her with the brightest of his smiles. “I have a free bed though.” He was dragging her away before she had the chance to feel disappointed. As a distraction technique it had done its job and for that Willow was relieved. Hopefully once they reached his room she could tie him up in so many knots he forgot all about his parents and impending trips to states best left to farmers than witches. If she couldn’t then she was obviously doing something monumentally wrong. No guy should be thinking of his mother while a girl was naked and writhing in his lap.

Not that Riley was your typical guy.

Willow grinned as she allowed herself to be tugged back to campus. How could she be sorry? Her body was fired up and ready for action and Riley was going to find a little session of truth was just what the professor ordered.

Two birds, one stone.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Will had traipsed all over Sunnydale and come up with little more than a bad taste in his mouth, and that had come from an unconscious drug addict collapsed outside one of the seedier bars in town. One slurp had been enough to warn him why the unfortunate had been spared his life—exposed on the Hellmouth at night as he was. The git reeked with death, despite his veins still pumping blood sluggishly through his wiry thin body. He was a bit on the nose too and if there was one thing that had the majority of vamps running, it was a lack of hygiene in their human prey. This one was really beginning to pong and Will wondered what he was bloody thinking, not noticing it earlier. He was too preoccupied—too worried about Liz’s inattention and disinterest regarding her own life.

He hadn’t been interested enough to imprint the witch’s scent to memory so now he had a snowball’s chance in Hell of tracking her. Only after two hours of useless wandering was he convinced that he might actually have been better off to go and consult with Liz and her new chums—sniff their witch a little so that he had something to work with. Knowing his bum luck, though, she’d have taken offence and magicked his balls off.

A low growl erupted from his throat, frustration evident in the tightly controlled muscles of his body. He was ready to spring, rip something’s head right off its shoulders and he was getting bloody impatient with waiting. Used to be you could visit the Hellmouth and meet up with all manner of uglies. Now the place felt deserted—almost a ghost town, if you didn’t count the humans. Liz had told him she’d been a busy little slayer lately but he hadn’t thought she’d had this kind of impact.

Eventually Will found himself close to campus, perched on a ledge and guarded heavily by trees, wondering just what it was about humans and the way they made themselves fodder for the enemy by sneaking out on their own for romantic trysts and the like. The next second he was thanking them for the baser impulses making them stupid as a head of thick, auburn hair caught his eye.

“Bingo.” He smirked, crouching low and leering at the vision below him. Little Miss Not-So-Happy was attempting to persuade her boy toy toward the carnal side of things and it looked like she’d been swayed to be a little less bad. It suited her, Spike thought. This bad girl image she’d assumed through adversity. Not that the Too-Scared-Of-Her-Own-Shadow Willow wasn’t a bundle of laughs as well. But this one made it easy to want to kill her whereas the other one made a bloke feel a tad guilty.

“That’s right, little girl. Taunt the Big Bad all you like, because he’s found you now and he’s going to wipe you right off the face of the…Arrrgggghhhh!”

Pain jagged through every nerve in his body and Spike felt his eyeballs bulge out of their sockets. It was the most revolting sensation he’d ever experienced and he didn’t have command over even the smallest muscle to get himself free of whatever had him trapped. But he’d twist himself loose eventually—as soon as the electro shocks that speared through him dulled enough for him to once again feel his fingers and toes.

When he heard the sizzling of the hair on his arms, Will felt panic set in. Pure, unadulterated panic and for a second he wished he’d already told Liz who her talisman buddy was—risked the fallout of telling her he was in love with her—because if that water had already flowed under the bridge then he may have stood a chance of rescue. As it was, she hated him in a manner that didn’t bode well for his survival.

The pain stepped up a notch and Will felt awareness slipping into darkness. His last thought before he hit the ground hard was that at least he hadn’t been bested by the witch. That way lay instant incineration. At least this way he had the time to close his eyes.

And close them he did.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It isn’t true.

The darkness echoed around her in agreement with her denial, and yet it was dishonest with its sincerity. Liz felt the changes vibrate around her and wondered how she’d been so blind—and how stupid.

For two hours she’d been sitting frozen on her hill, shivering in reaction to Spike’s coldly delivered bombshell, begging for a non-communicative non-Spike person to answer her call. She’d begged him to tell her he wasn’t a vampire—that he wasn’t someone who’d once vowed to kill her as a playful pastime of his eternity. The lack of replies had not only been quiet, they’d been deafeningly so in a way she couldn’t ignore. Someone was refusing to answer her—or they couldn’t, and as she’d found Willow hadn’t decimated him on his arrival the last time they’d chatted through the talisman, Liz rather accepted this non-response to be from temper more than destruction.

Dammit! Why won’t you just tell me? If you’re Spike, say so. If you aren’t, put me out of my misery. Please?

The tears that flowed in careless ribbons down her cheeks made her angry. Made her furious for trusting in an unsighted friend. God, why had she been so stupid? Why had she taken a jewel from the Powers and put all her heartache into the relationship it gifted her? And more so—she’d flirted. She’d felt a depth of connection that should have been enough to refute the possibility of it being with Will.

But everything made too much sense now with his face filling in the year long blank.

It doesn’t matter, she denied hotly—bravely. It doesn’t matter to me who you are.

She paused, emotions swirling at a terrific pace in her heart.

Because no matter what you are or who you are, you’ll always be a vampire. And vampires? I slay.

Chapter Eighteen

He was pulled groggily from the darkness by her voice, pleading, begging him to be someone other than who he was, and then he was slammed back into hopelessness with her last vitriolic declaration. The past year’s confidences were flung away as if nothing had happened and he could see the playing field now through her expectations. A slayer and a vampire—nothing important except for the predictable fight ending with one of their deaths.

It brought a tear to one dried eye and while his body screamed at him for its recent abuse, he let it slide back into his hair without a move to wipe it away.

His head hurt.

No, that wasn’t anywhere near close to the pounding, drilling pain he experienced ripping through his skull. It didn’t hurt—it bloody agonised over the decision to explode. And through it all was the pain that once again he was unloved, discarded as a thing of little value and the injustice of it all nearly ripped his chest apart.

The futility of his existence slammed him hard between the eyes and Will could have wept. Beneath all his assertions that it didn’t matter if Liz never loved him so long as he could be there for her and help her through the loneliness of being who she was, that her heart continuing its steady beat would be more than enough for him, it was little more than a devastating lie he had conned himself with. He could never be happy without her love—as a creature of the world’s making, he couldn’t exist without it. Maybe if he’d been Angelus he could exist alongside others with nothing but the sadistic pleasures of ruined flesh—but he wasn’t Angelus.

He wasn’t Angelus and he’d never really even come close.

Will had thought that, at the very least, Liz would come to value the friendship they’d struck up over the past year. He hadn’t expected her to welcome him with open arms. Then again, he hadn’t expected her to find out his identity from anyone else but him. He thought he’d prepared himself well for the heartbreak of her hate, but the daydreams had tricked him into truly believing in requited love.

The truth had ruined all his strength, torn him into useless shreds of the man he’d been behind the face of a demon. He was weaker than he had ever been and Will felt next to pathetic. He had no will to get up and save himself—where would he go if he managed to escape? What had been done to him and how easily could they track him if he actually broke free of this place?

He had no one to blame but himself for this less-than-favourable turn of events. Buffy and Spike had tried their best to warn him and he’d fobbed them off, thinking he knew better than two beings who obviously had a few more years experience of his changing nature under their proverbial belt. He’d been a git, sure enough. And now he was jailed in a cell of bloody Perspex with no way in or out, a monkey on display without even a peanut thrown his way.

A blood bag fell innocuously from the ceiling and his stomach rumbled at the vision of red. Mouth dry as chalk, he felt like he could feed for a week, if he found the right donor for his meal. Will nearly crawled to the packet and ripped it open with his teeth, poised to sink in his fangs and gulp down the sustenance when a warning had trembled from the lips of one of the unseen inmates on the other side of his wall.

His prison was complete—drugged blood on tap.

Not only had they taken his freedom, rolled him into some observation cage like he was nothing more than a rodent that could do a few tricks, but they’d even taken away the certainty of being fed. Will roared his fury; hurt and fear clashed violently within him and he had a bit of trouble trying to focus. He had to get out of there. He had no clue what these people were about, but with the spectacular view of demons upon demons opposite him as far as the eye could see, he wasn’t betting it was for the good of puppies and Christmas.

It certainly wasn’t for the good of him.

He needed a plan—one he could navigate through by the end of the day so it didn’t bugger up. Rudiments of one assembled in his mind and Will set to waiting for his opportunity. It’d come. It was the only thing of which he was certain; hoping to speed it along, he laid out on the floor as if unconscious.



~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Buffy rolled her eyes at the sobbing, broken vision of herself. Liz was sprawled defeated on a hill and clutching the sparkly pendant when she should be combining forces with them to save Will. The vampire had been missing all day and it really hadn’t taken much for Buffy and Spike to realise he’d been captured by the Initiative. Owing to Spike’s vivid experiences under the experimentation of Professor Walsh, they didn’t hold much hope that Will wasn’t already chipped. In fact, by current calculations, he should be waking up in a cold white cell, about to suck up some drugged blood from a sterile packet before the weak voice of a terrified inmate warned him off it.

“God, I am so predictable,” Buffy relished, eyeing the stirring form of her younger self as Liz sat up finally, a torn look of defiance on her face. “I knew I’d find you here.”

“Did you follow me?” Liz accused angrily, swabbing her tears from her cheeks with an agitated hand.

“As if I needed to,” Buffy refuted sweetly. “I’m you, remember? Didn’t need to do anything but wonder where I’d go if I had a mystical link to a super hottie with bleached hair and fangs. Alone time is definitely underrated,” Buffy quipped, smiling pleasantly as Liz’s expression clouded further.

“If I’d known this talisman bound me to a vampire there’s no way I would have ever used it,” Liz denied hotly, the blood rushing to her cheeks.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Buffy agreed before walking up the incline and taking a spot next to Liz, looking out at the not-so-scenic view of trees and Hellmouth. “If it makes you feel any better, I’d have staked him as soon as I found out. No questions asked.”

The grin of justification burst onto Liz’s face and her body relaxed.

“But I’d be wrong.”

The frown heralded the sudden cool in the air and Buffy sighed, flopping back in the grass and staring up at the canopy of stars high above her. “There’s no way in Hell that I would have given Spike the time of day back in the early days. The only thing I wanted from him then was a jar of his ashes that I could display as a trophy in my room.” Sadness crept into her smile and Liz looked on in horror as the obvious love the senior slayer held for the vampire leached into the air around them and made her shiver. Her gaze abruptly fell from the sky and turned to the shining talisman Liz still gripped in her hand. “Not that this ever happened between us. I think things went kinda differently in my world, but one thing looks like it’s shaping up the same.”

Liz’s eyes almost glowed in the light from the dimmed moon as she waited nervously for Buffy to continue. Without being told she knew that the thing that was developing the same in her world was this connection between the vampire and the blonde slayer and the thought made her stomach roil in objection. It was wrong to have a link with the vampire; for the life of her she couldn’t work out what the Powers were thinking by instigating it in the first place. She was furious at the position they’d put her in and the mess they’d created for her—and blindsided by the untarnished truth of who she’d been fantasising about for the past six months at least.

“Spike loved me for a long time before I finally got the memo.” Buffy’s shining eyes bore down hard on Liz and she waited for the girl who was a younger, more stubborn version of herself to lose a little of the defiance before she continued. “I never gave him the chance with me he needed—and then he was dead. After three years of him professing to love me, of supporting me when no one else really did, of fighting on my side whether it made sense to him or not, I finally realised that what I felt for him was a lot deeper than respect. I’d ignored the way he made me feel for so long that it became a habit. Feeling tight all over and all mushy inside became my natural state and not once did my little Buffy brain realise that what I felt was a whole lot more than reluctant friendship. When I finally admitted it to myself, he was standing in the Hellmouth and looking so beautiful as he burned up from the inside and saved the world.”

Liz was alarmed at the sheen of tears that turned into perfect little drops as they slid gracefully from beneath Buffy’s lids.

“For almost a year I grieved for him, hating myself for being so stupid. And then I found out he was back and living in LA with Angel, all without one single word to me about it.” There was no condemnation in her voice; if there was one thing Buffy had learned during her romantic solitude, it was that there were many reasons behind everything and that she just didn’t have the heart to blame Spike for even one more tiny thing—even if concealing his return from her constituted a thing loads bigger than tiny.

“My point is, Will’s been your friend and look, he came here to save you. He’s a vampire, sure, but he’s going against his nature because he has feelings for you. Don’t be stupid like I was. Actually give him a chance to show you who he can be. You might be surprised at what you see.” Buffy winked and then jumped to her feet, swiping the ground from her ass with her hands as she quickly looked around. Liz watched her with her mouth hanging open and the talisman burning a hole in her palm. “Besides, he’s pretty much chipped now and couldn’t hurt you even if you bug the crap out of him. Which you do, but he loves you for it anyway. Or, I assume he does. Maybe he doesn’t love you, but I think that’s probably a long shot—otherwise he would have already bragged about hearing all your troubles for a year, really rubbed it in your face. Oh, and he might have been more on your Willow’s side when it came to it, instead of trying to protect you as soon as he got you home.”

Liz blushed. She didn’t like to think of what he’d done for her, but maybe she should. If he’d been anyone else—any thing else, she’d have showered them in her gratitude. It had taken a Herculean effort just to summon up the words to thank him.

“I…I can’t…”

“Fall for a soulless creature of the night?” Buffy guessed with perfect insight.

“It’s wrong,” Liz hissed impatiently. This entire conversation was pointless. She killed vampires, she didn’t make-out with them. A healing memory of Angel flashed into her mind and Liz gulped. Well, she had no leg to stand on if she denied there was an attraction—or had once been. Will was okay-looking at least.

“Oh come on, okay-looking? I may have hated Spike with everything I was back then but I was never blind. Spike’s gorgeous and I wouldn’t believe you if you disagreed—I’ve totally been Denial Girl. I’m you, remember. I know what you’re attracted to, and as much as you tell yourself it isn’t Spike, just try listening to your heartbeat when he’s around. Trust your heart and for once go for what you want. You can have it, no matter what the Council says.”

Liz watched Buffy walk off, her hips swaying with confidence as she descended the hill and quickly blended in with the trees at the bottom. Much had been said and she had a lot to think about, and as tiny alterations already began to sew together new and more objective thoughts, she surmised it possible she was seeing things a little bit differently. More clearly. Positively.

With a relaxed smile, Liz settled back into the soft grass and remembered some of the conversations she’d held with her faceless friend, recalling some of the amusing anecdotes he’d doctored for her slayer ears, and then the innuendo that had convinced her they could be more than distant talisman-buddies. Those nights of sorrow he’d been her figurative shoulder to weep on, when she was about to break from the hopelessness of it all and he renewed her will to live just by being there. Just by being her friend.

Liz swallowed hard. She’d been a fool, reacting first when she should have clung to the relief she knew she’d felt when he confirmed that Willow hadn’t destroyed him. He’d worried with her and laughed, cried and planned, all through a link that had grown in meaning without the need to really know an identity. Spike couldn’t have been pretending all this time. The vampire was renowned for his impatience, so if he’d planned to kill her by being her confidante for a year, she couldn’t believe it. The fact that he’d dragged his heels for so long to come to her—to finally reveal his face to her—indicated he was afraid of her finding out who he was.

Fear was something she had trouble associating with Spike.

Her response to him had obviously been too hasty. Liz bit her lip and grasped a handful of grass, staring at one particular star that was not exactly extraordinary but was shining brightly enough to catch her eye. And while she watched it seemed to fall from the sky, streaking fast to an atmosphere hostile toward it. Liz jumped to her feet and hurriedly made a wish.

She only hoped she wasn’t too late.

Chapter Nineteen

“But…you said Buffy was happily reuniting with Spike in a miraculously safe LA,” Dawn accused, her blue eyes scanning the guilty faces of the two men she’d trusted more than any other in the world. And then her gaze fell on the heroic Angel and she came very close to a snarl at his hang-dog expression. “Where the hell is my sister?” she demanded, no longer patient with this reluctant meeting.

Giles coughed and Xander rubbed his eye patch, looking nervously to his co-conspirators in the ruse before carefully stepping forward, his hand outstretched toward Dawn in an effort to calm her reaction.

“From what Angel said—”

“Angel said?” interrupted Dawn almost malevolently. “So Angel knows where they are? I take it Spike’s with Buffy? And maybe Willow, too, being that she hasn’t answered any of my calls for the last two days?”

Giles coughed again and then attempted to impart the only real knowledge they had managed to glean so far. “Angel has recounted what he saw and we’ve contacted the coven in order to try and trace them,” he reassured, though it was obvious from his voice that worry had been living at his side for those same two days.

Keen eyes glared at Angel and Dawn strode toward him, determination to know exactly what was going on in every step. “What, exactly, did you see?”

Angel blinked and then shot a hurried look to Giles and Xander before crumbling at their lack of support. “Right. Well, I’d just killed the dragon—”

“Oh spare me the “I-am-a-hero” speech. I am so not in the mood.”

“Fine,” he huffed, completely put out. “There appeared to be two Buffys, though I didn’t notice that until I heard all the buildings around me rattle. We all thought more demons were about to arrive from another dimension. Instead, someone who looked exactly like Spike came running through this tear in front of us, grabbed Buffy and then ran back through. The Spike we know kind of freaked out a little bit,” Angel marvelled, tilting his head to the side in amazed contemplation, “then took off after her. That’s when I saw the other Buffy, and Willow grabbing hold of her before they both disappeared through the tear and then it sealed up and everything was silent.”

Dawn stared at him, stunned. “You’re telling me that a rogue Spike kidnapped Buffy, and then the real Spike flipped, chasing after my sister, and another Buffy then chased after him with Willow hanging on for dear life?” At Angel’s nod she cracked, a snort of amusement preceding the giggles. “Did anyone check Angel for hallucinogens?”

“He’s not imagining it, Dawn. We have corroborating stories from a number of Buffy’s team. Not to mention the mystical evidence at the scene.” Giles thought it prudent to intervene now before Dawn got carried away as usual. They’d dillydallied enough and it was urgent that they made more headway with recovering their head slayer. And Willow…

Giles took out his handkerchief and clutched it tightly in his hand. Buffy was like a daughter to him, of course, but what he felt for the witch defied description. His experiences with Willow over the last few years had allowed her to burrow deep into his heart and if anything had happened to her, he didn’t think he could live with himself.

“So you’re actually telling me my sister and best friend have been kidnapped, presumably into another dimension, two whole days ago and you’re only just telling me about it now? Gee, I thought things would change once I…” She shook her head. Who had she been kidding? No matter how old she got she’d always be Buffy’s kid sister. Just because the Slayer herself was showing good faith and sharing the important things with Dawn now it didn’t mean that anyone else was suddenly going to. There wasn’t even any point getting angry at them over it. All that would do now would be to delay the rescue effort. Her brows furrowed and her eyes narrowed on the Head of the Council. “There is going to be a rescue, right? You aren’t just going to leave them there?”

“Of course we’re going to go rescue them,” Xander nearly shouted, clearing his throat and regaining his control. “We wouldn’t leave them there, Dawnie.”

“Good. Because I’m going.” Dawn crossed her arms across her blossoming body and defied anyone to argue with her.

Not one of them even tried, though at least two sets of chocolate coloured eyes seemed to be distracted by the outline of her breasts. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, she released her arms and allowed them to drop to her sides, her face flaming when Xander and Angel just focused more intently on her slightly visible cleavage.

“Quite right,” agreed Giles, completely missing the not-so-subtle ogling by the other two, but the whip crack of his voice was like a bucket of cold water and both brunettes suddenly came back to themselves, shuddering and squirming in reaction.

Dawn hid a smile and stored the information away for another day. She hadn’t seen Angel since the day they’d stopped in LA after the Hellmouth had collapsed, and then he hadn’t paid much attention to her, being so blinded by the sight of Buffy and her not-so-mortal wound beneath her shirt. And Xander had disappeared so soon after they’d reached London that she hadn’t even had the chance to wish him luck on his travels, let alone say goodbye. She felt resentment toward both of them, and if she could use her boobs to get one back, well, she was a woman now. Where would be the wrong?

“So when do we go?” she asked, eager to go find Buffy and kick Spike for being an idiot all year.

There was a loud ‘pop’ in the room and a wild-haired blonde witch stood straight as an arrow in the centre of the room, her eyes shrewd as she looked at each and every one of them. Finally her scan was at an end and she turned to Giles, her finger pointing behind him at Dawn. “That one was never in this other world and the other two are deceased. As are you. I think it would be of great advantage to take them all.”

“Hey!” spluttered Angel and Xander together. Neither of them were going to stay behind when Buffy was in who-knew-what kind of danger. Still, hearing they wouldn’t be facing their own doubles put a bit of a dampener on the experience.

“Thank you for coming so urgently, Julia,” Giles greeted dryly.

“This mission is foolhardy,” the witch informed him harshly, her green eyes piercing. “Willow will know how to get them all home if it is at all a possibility.”

“And yet we must still go after them,” Giles said in his most official, though resigned voice. “I am afraid that after all we have been through together, if one is to be lost then so should the rest.”

“Way to be with all the gloom, G-man,” chided Xander.

“I am merely being realistic,” Giles defended irritably. “I have no doubt that Willow would know the way home, and yet it has been two days. We cannot leave them alone only God knows where.”

The others nodded solemnly and the witch merely pursed her lips and nodded abruptly.

“Very well,” she said. “Might I suggest we do this in a larger room?”

Giles consented distractedly and then shepherded the others out his office, leading them all down the hall and into a large and conveniently empty conference room. “This should do I think?”

The witch ignored his query and began to set up for the spell. “I was able to trace the exact exit point of the dimension where your people are trapped. I can send you somewhere close to this point.”

“Why not the exact point?” asked Angel curiously.

“Not only would arriving in the same spot be quite dangerous, only the witch who cast the original spell would be able to do it. I am obviously not that witch,” she admitted with smugly.

“Yes, yes,” Giles interrupted, annoyance making his voice clipped. “No one would ever accuse you of opening a portal for your own gain.” He had the satisfaction of seeing Julia’s lips tighten and her eyes flash angrily at him. There was no need for him to feel fear she might use her power to turn him into a frog—she’d tried it on many an occasion during their infancy through to adolescence and he had it on authority that she still tried to perfect the spell at least once a month. If she hadn’t managed it in the last forty-five years, Giles was more than quietly confident she never would.

“You know, it’s possible that this wasn’t a mercenary kidnapping at all,” Dawn interjected. “Maybe it was a mercy mission. You know, a deranged Spike trying to get his Buffy back but taking the wrong one by accident.”

“That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there, kiddo,” teased Xander, though he winked and Dawn knew that he’d already considered the possibility.

“As reassuring as that thought might be, Dawn,” cautioned Giles, “we cannot allow it to make us rest easy until we know for certain.

“Of course, Giles,” she agreed, though deep in her heart, Dawn knew she was right. Buffy and Spike were more right together than anyone would admit and she found it hard to believe that the couple would be as stupid in another world as they’d been in this one.

“Is everyone ready then?” the witch interrupted again, a frown of disapproval on her face.

“As we’ll ever be,” murmured Angel and Giles together, making Dawn and Xander roll their eyes.

Within seconds there was a howling breeze around them, a tear ripping apart the fabric of the world they knew and leaving them with a slim gateway into another—one that hopefully would unveil the mystery of the missing slayer and her vampire and friend.

“Tally ho then, good witch,” Xander called, running toward the blinding light and snagging Dawn’s arm on the way. She screeched as he pulled her through and immediately they were gone, leaving a determined Giles and a curious vampire to follow blindly.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Will groaned.

His head mocked him painfully as he struggled to sit himself up and he gave thanks that at least there were no bright lights to make it worse. All his strength had been sapped in the effort to escape, all his adrenaline tapped leaving him flat and weak now that he was out. He’d found a crypt, in the cemetery closest to the university campus as the thrill of getting free hadn’t lasted much past the exit point. He was barely able to stagger into the crypt and then hide himself inside a stone sarcophagus and beneath an ancient corpse.

“Bloody hell,” he moaned and regretted it the very next instant. He needed blood to rejuvenate his healing abilities and to give his body warmth. Will fancied he’d never felt so bone-numbingly cold in all his years as a vampire and it was a sensation he’d rather not extend if it were at all possible.

Yet he feared going outside.

He had no understanding of what had happened to him, only that his skull throbbed and the thought of feeding his hunger was making it worse. He knew that soldiers were involved—there was no hiding that military stench and he’d been around enough wars in his time to recognise it instantly. Not that the precision of his cage amid a row of identical cages hadn’t given him a little clue.

Feeling defeated, Will sank back amongst the detritus in his tomb and waited.

In his pocket burned the talisman and accepting his already weakened state, he allowed his hand to sink within the fabric and grasp it tight. The silence around him was telling. She’d meant it—every devastating word. She wasn’t coming for him—not without a stake attached to her hand. If he waited here he’d be a dead vamp, just biding time. But where was he going to go, and what purpose could running possibly serve? There was something wrong with him anyway, so maybe it was time to let it all go. He’d lost his heart to a woman who’d never love him and it was a mistake he kept on repeating; a vamp that never learned his lesson was better off dust, he thought.

He’d been an idiot to think another Spike and Buffy—obvious in their feelings for one another—would be all he needed to show Liz the possibilities. You couldn’t force a blind person to see. Seeing wasn’t the important bit anyway, and Liz didn’t feel anything. Not for him, not for the world. He’d lost her and he couldn’t work out where. She’d slipped away during one of those moments when they weren’t linked and Will felt just as defeated himself.

He was pathetic and he knew it.

Stomach growling viciously, head clanging violently, Will closed his eyes and willed himself toward unconsciousness.

Darkness was the only haven he had.

Chapter Twenty


“Holy crap!”

Xander was still clutching hold of Dawn’s arm, staring around him in total amazement.

“You know, I’m so used to not being in Kansas anymore that when I am in Kansas, it completely throws me.” He threw her a familiar goofy grin before grabbing her hands, spinning her around in a circle, then whooping loudly while jumping with her in jubilation. The gangly and euphoric celebration in being back on the Mouth of Hell nearly wiped out Angel as he stumbled out of the dimensional rip and Dawn giggled, loving the wind rushing through her hair as Xander resumed spinning her around and around.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Angel spluttered, but Giles arrived behind him and he had a smile on his lips and a tear in his eye.

“I never thought I’d see this place again,” the watcher admitted affectionately, looking around him at the familiar cemetery. “Restfield,” he sighed, and then spied the crypt that had been Spike’s home for the better part of their final years in Sunnydale.

“What was to miss?” Angel asked in confusion. Dawn rolled her eyes and started looking around. Being in a cemetery—a place of rest—reminded her of all the people she’d been unable to visit since her home had been rendered a massive hole in the ground.

“You think my mom could be here?” she asked Giles, a catch in her voice. His look of sympathy did little to control the emotional wobble of her bottom lip.

“Joyce might be completely well in this dimension, Dawn. It’s unlikely that everything has occurred here identically to our world.” He patted her shoulder comfortingly and at once the three were in contemplation of what this world could mean. It hadn’t escaped their attention when the witch had revealed that none of them existed here. It was a daunting prospect to possibly learn what each of their fates might have been if circumstances had been different.

Angel had lost interest almost immediately in their conversation and instead was glancing this way and that, trying to pinpoint the direction he could sense Spike’s presence. His gaze settled on a crypt in the viewable distance and, as though lured by an invisible force, he began to walk toward it.

Xander shrugged but followed. They had no leads at all and their best option was to go to Buffy’s house, but that would leave them out in the open with no super-strength protection if Angel planned to go off wandering.

They bunched up behind the vampire, confused at his blind obsession to head directly to Spike’s crypt, and then dawning realisation hit them and Xander and Dawn shared a look of excitement.

“Do you think it’s possible?” he asked, slightly awed.

“And then some,” she confirmed, and with another ecstatic whoop, they were off, sprinting negligently toward Spike’s old home and calling his name loudly the second they burst through the worn wooden door.

They were greeted with silence, a multitude of dust and the smell of neglect. Shoulders slumped in disappointment they were ready to leave, and would have if Angel’s bulky frame hadn’t blocked the exit.

“He’s here,” he said, his keen eyes looking around for the smallest scrap of evidence that the crypt wasn’t as vacant as it at first appeared. There was a partial footprint in the layer of dust near the bier and he smiled in satisfaction. Striding over to the stone coffin, Angel lifted the heavy lid like it was nothing but a thin plank of wood and propped it against the side. Peering inside, he snickered at the sight presented to him beneath the ancient bones. “What the hell happened to you?”

The words hadn’t been quite the incentive for the others to crowd around and observe the discovery, but the weak cough that exploded from the sarcophagus’s depths had all three of them running.

“Oh my God, Spike!” Dawn squealed, her hand diving in to start pulling him out.

He made no efforts to co-operate; his energy seemed to be sapped with just focusing on their presence. Xander gasped in recognition once the weakened vampire stood slumped against the slab, his eyes wary and exhausted. His lips were white and cracked, his face pasty and clammy and his body shuddered with the effort to stand. His eyes swept over all of them but finally fell upon the young brunette who had hauled him out of his self-imposed prison with a concern he’d never met with in a human before. She didn’t look a thing like Buffy, but he’d bet his dye job that the chit was the Slayer’s sister.

Only he knew she didn’t have one.

“I’m so glad you’re alright,” she squealed at a pitch high enough to stun his eardrums and then she’d launched herself into his lax embrace and he stared, surprised, at the men she’d obviously been travelling with.

One was the Watcher he’d seen in ghostly form before he’d dived through the tear in dimensions and retrieved the wrong Buffy. The git definitely looked better when he was less transparent. The next was someone he vaguely remembered catching a glimpse of the year previously when he’d first come to town. The boy that followed his girl around like a lost puppy until he’d trusted the wrong slayer to show him how to be a man. Only this one was older, filled out and apparently fancied himself a pirate.

And then the third.

“Angelus,” Will croaked, his eyes burning resentment as he glared at his grandsire. It was obvious this entourage was from the other Buffy and Spike’s world and Will figured he should be grateful it was this pillock rather than his batty ex that had wandered along to his apparent rescue. He wasn’t going to rush and fill him in on what Will had done to Angelus in this world, though. He hadn’t completely lost his head—yet.

There was a short reprieve in silence as the girl still pressed her face into his chest, her arms squeezing him tighter than he would have allowed had he had any strength to object. And then the boy—Harris—hesitantly stepped forward and rested a reassuring hand on the lass’s shoulder.

“Dawn, this isn’t our Spike.”

And wasn’t that just the rub of it, thought Will bitterly. This lot would come to rescue their Spike; everybody apparently bloody loved their Spike to the point of nauseousness. His lip curled in resentment and Will slumped back even more on his not-so-successful hiding place as he contemplated his predicament.

“No, ‘m not. That git dubbed me Will for the duration. Take them back so I can be myself again, would you?” His request was dripping with derision and impatience and he felt justified in his private celebration for holding it all together. Liz would have been proud—if she gave a fuck about him.

“Oh,” Dawn sniffled in delayed understanding. “That’s okay. You don’t need to be our Spike to get a hug.” And she smiled at him.

Will looked at her in wonder, his hands shaking as they came up to clasp weakly at her arms. He couldn’t hold back the grateful grin and she received it with a gentle kiss to his cheek.

The Watcher stepped forward then, clearing his throat loudly to cover his overt examination of the vampire in front of him.

“If I’m not mistaken, you’ve just escaped from the Initiative. Am I right?” He waited calmly, not a speck of condemnation or intolerance on show and again Will was left floundering at this unexpected display of acceptance.

“If they’re the wankers that go about shooting a bloke in the back with electrical shocks and then do weird scientific experiments designed to do a vamp’s head in then yeah, that’s what I’ve escaped from.”

Giles nodded, obviously grasping enough from Will’s brief description to confirm his suspicions. He peered intently at the vampire, absorbing the decimated state he was in and comparing it to a memory. “You must be quite hungry,” he concluded after a quiet minute and Will nodded his head in agreement.

“Every time I think of it, though, my head feels like it’s gonna implode,” Will admitted shrewdly, eyes narrowed and watchful. He was careful not to word it in a way that reminded them he sucked the blood from humans to keep his body moving. He didn’t kill anymore—couldn’t. Not with the Powers breathing down his neck and then a slayer to impress. The second he realised he loved her he knew she’d never allow him near her if he was whittling away the population.

“Yes, you’ve been chipped,” the Watcher told him and Will’s attention perked up tenfold.

“I’ve been what now?” he demanded.

“You’ve had a behaviour modification chip placed in your brain so that whenever you think of killing humans you’ll get zapped. The pain will act as a deterrent and renders you—”

“You say impotent and I’ll bleeding well bite you, no matter the pain,” he warned sharply. Not that there was any pleasure at all in threatening to off the Council lackey, but Will was done being made the butt of some cosmic joke.

Giles grinned nostalgically and Will found himself softening.

“You lot would be here to help then?” he prompted hopefully.

And they did. Together they rallied around him and headed off to Revello Drive, deeming it safe after Will’s hurried explanation of evil Willow and her bid for ultimate power.

Dawn rolled her eyes as they strolled along. “Not this again,” she grumbled.

Will glanced appreciatively at the girl that shared Buffy’s blood. He could smell it on her—could sense the power that rushed through her veins. The lure of it was amazing and yet he felt no desire to taste. Had no desire to kill. He smiled inwardly, as if he’d passed some kind of secret test that he’d set for himself.

It wasn’t until the newly familiar door of Liz’s home came into sight that his apprehension returned. “Not sure you should take me in there,” he felt compelled to point out, though he was too weak to do anything but be pushed up onto the front porch.

“Don’t worry, Big Bad. I’ll protect you,” Dawn declared, ducking low so that his arm fell unresisting across her shoulders. He could get used to these people—being accepted gave him a high more addictive than anything he could get on or off the black market. And even though he could tell she had no super-strength, that there was no magical talent running through her veins, there was not one doubt she could deliver on her promise.

“I’ll hold you to it, Bit.”

Her giggle was like a symphony of love.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Willow woke slowly, relishing the pleasant ache of her body as she stretched sensually against her bed mate. Eyes still closed, she grinned sleepily as her reactive nipples brushed against an unyielding chest. Her belly hollowed and she bent further back, moaning at the hardness that suddenly brushed between her legs and probed her slick and eager entrance.

“Morning,” she heard, muffled at a distance as a wet tongue circled the now engorged bud before it was sucked completely into Riley’s mouth. The pain was a sweet one, darting forth to connect to her pussy and infusing it with sensation. Her lower lips clenched tight and against the misleading objection, Riley diligently pushed and they both sighed as he sank into the warm depths of her.

Willow wasted no time in pushing him onto his back and taking a seat. She loved the deep stab of his cock as she wriggled around on top of him, sliding up and down while he stroked her body and then pinched her perky nipples hard. She loved being in this position—being in control. She could ride him like this forever, she’d decided one day in the middle of a sweaty session. There was nothing she didn’t love about how Riley’s body suited her own and this was the primary reason why she’d decided to not share her predicament with him at all.

It was time to go to the boss.

Riley had fucked her raw, leaving her a laughing, satiated mess before they’d finally fallen asleep. Through the night she’d awoken to find him curled into her, his lips brushing her shoulder with absent kisses as he slept. It was sweet and Willow realised she couldn’t lose this—not yet. Her only recourse now was to go to her professor and confess all she knew, offer up Buffy as the perfect lab rat and then insinuate herself so deeply into the project that Maggie Walsh would have to take her into her confidence.

And then she’d strike.

He must have sensed her distraction, thought Willow as she felt his fingers sift through her hair, grasping a handful and nudging her head closer to his. His lips bestowed a soft and sweet kiss on hers and Willow felt her heart expand. She shouldn’t be allowing this kind of affection—she had few defences against it.

A shudder of pleasure raced through her body and Willow moaned. She shouldn’t be allowing it, not at all, but it appeared she was powerless to stop it. He made her powerless in moments like these and it was the only time the witch could accept that maybe the answers weren’t all about who had control. Maybe the question was why she needed it.

Mouths fused hotly together and bodies indulging in a slow, sensual rhythm, Willow Rosenberg suffered a momentary episode of weakness.

“I love you,” Riley rasped against her lips and Willow sniffled, welcoming in the next second his pulsing release deep inside her body. Receiving his fluids against her internal flesh seemed so much more personal than being naked with him and it was something Willow was proud she could give him. She didn’t love him, but she did care.

“I know,” she replied softly, sincerely, because she had absolutely no doubts that he did.

She just had no love left to return.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Miss Rosenberg, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

Professor Walsh stared imperiously down her nose at the over-confident student on the other side of her desk and held her breath. Startling accuracies about her secret work had already tumbled from the redhead’s lips and she was trying hard to tamp down the impulse to panic.

“Yes, you do. I know all about the Initiative—where it is, and what you’re doing down there. I know that you’re collecting demons—though I admit I don’t know why. And I know that you can’t resist the opportunity to find out if the legend of the Vampire Slayer is real. It is, by the way. And I can hand her to you.”

Maggie sat back in her chair and thought fast. There was obviously little point continuing along the standard denial route. This student had always shown she had quite an aptitude for research work and now it was apparent she wasn’t above some kind of manipulation to find out whatever she needed to know. Still, there was one motivating reason to listen to what the girl had to say, because she was right. Maggie already found it impossible to dismiss the lure of an actual slayer. That such a girl was real…

“What do you want?” There was no point hoping the redhead didn’t want something, because so far the interview had had a definite switch of power to it. Maggie’s eagerness to hear more of the legend-that-was-apparently-a-reality won out over her natural desire for a winning cover-up.

“I want to be part of the Initiative,” Willow stated with calm and cold determination.

Maggie laughed, completely surprised but highly amused.

“What could you possibly offer this project?” she jeered and then gasped in shock as Willow’s eyes definitely flashed black.

“I am offering you the Slayer on a silver platter. Find a place for me in your operation—I’m good with science,” Willow suggested threateningly. She relished the shiver she inspired in the older woman. She knew that Maggie was very powerful in her own right, and now Willow was easily diminishing her control.

For Maggie, the urge to refuse was strong, and yet a carrot dangled provocatively in front of her face and she found it impossible in the end to resist.

“Alright,” she conceded through tight lips. “I’ll create a position for you, but I will expect you to contribute equally to this project. We’re on a tight schedule.”

Infused with success, Willow smiled confidently, not holding back the menacing evidence of her strength. It would do Maggie good to know she wouldn’t be made a fool of—or tricked. Professor Walsh had always impressed her as a teacher. As an evil genius she definitely lacked the stamina.

“Don’t bother trying to bury me in the mundane side of your operation. I want top clearance or there’s no deal.” Her expression was icy as she held the professor’s furious stare. Maggie dropped her eyes first, cleared her throat and then stood abruptly.

“How do you know about the Slayer?” As far as Maggie knew, the Slayer was supposed to work alone—her identity had been kept secret for hundreds if not thousands of years. How a girl like Willow Rosenberg could know the truth was startling. And with that knowledge, she refused to be taken for a fool because a deranged student thought she could hijack Maggie’s life’s work.

“I live on the Hellmouth, Professor. You’d be surprised at the things I’ve seen.”

The smug confidence of the redhead was screaming at Maggie to kick the girl out of her office and never look back, but there was also that niggling curiosity that there were secrets to this place she’d chosen for her research that a resident hadn’t hidden their eyes from.

“How do you expect to explain this to Riley, or does he know about this slayer as well?” Betrayal swum rapidly to her heart and Maggie felt the blood rush to her head. She’d considered Riley Finn to be like a son—one she’d never intended to have but was grateful to be blessed with. He was everything a woman like her could want in a child—subservient, unquestioning in upholding his duty, and lacking all the curiosity many of his fellow soldiers didn’t.

Before the redhead could reply, there was a sharp double knock on her door and then it burst open, admitting the focus of their conversation, irritation ticking at his jaw. Both women stared, surprised at his unaccustomed behaviour.

“Professor,” he addressed respectfully. “There’s something I need to tell you.” He sidestepped, aware of the student in consultation with his boss but not at first registering who it was. “Willow?” There was tempered affection in his voice but then a frown settled across his face. “Everything okay?”

That was so like Riley, Willow thought, smiling her own greeting. Showing concern even when there were obviously bigger issues at stake.

“Professor Walsh was just offering me a job—as a scientist in her lab downstairs. I accepted,” she giggled before throwing herself into his arms, squeezing tightly and smirking into the collar of his shirt. “She’s just been filling me in on how everything works,” she admitted next, taking sadistic pleasure in the uncomfortable flush of the professor’s cheeks and Riley’s jaw-dropping reaction.

“That’s um…whoa! Welcome aboard,” he greeted enthusiastically, enveloping Willow in a bear hug so sincere that a tiny flash of guilt rippled through her nervous system. “We’ll have to celebrate properly tonight,” he apologised, regret flavouring the air.

“That would be perfect,” she agreed, and found herself strangely looking forward to it and more time with Riley. “Anyway, you better tell us what’s happened. You know, time is money and all.”

The soldier looked uncertainly at his boss. As much as he loved Willow he knew better than to reveal top secret information in front of a civilian—even if they had been newly employed in the labs.

Willow swept her gaze over the professor and felt anger taint her blood. Her irises enlarged and turned inky, a clear warning to the academic that she’d better give Riley the go ahead toward revelation or there could be unexpected consequences.

The professor nodded imperceptibly to Riley and thought hard on the slayer information she’d be rewarded with. “Yes, Riley. What is it?”

He snapped back to attention, a soldier in civvies all the way as he gave his unfavourable report. “There’s been an escape, Ma’am. Hostile 17 tricked the guards and he’s made it out.”

Willow’s brow perked in curiosity. “Who is Hostile 17?” Before his lips parted in explanation she felt a sudden moment of premonition. It wasn’t totally surprising to hear of demon captures and she knew enough to expect that the ones that passed their initial examination and were implanted were awarded with an official number in order for tracking. She was kind of surprised at the low number, however, considering how long the Initiative had been in place. Seventeen implied that the success of the experiment so far wasn’t as high as she’d have liked.

“A vampire we tagged two nights ago. Bleached hair, leather coat—it’s amazing how these things cling to their past,” the commando joked with a shake of his head.

Riley had no idea, Willow thought vindictively. Relief was flushing away that prickle of guilt from earlier and she was able to finally feel confident that her plan to obliterate Buffy and her new support group was completely up and running.

“Well, we can’t have that.” With a frosty stare at her new boss and a warm smile for her boyfriend, Willow headed to the door, opened it and peered back over her shoulder, for all appearances the sudden leader of the group. “Let’s go get him back, shall we?”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Liz had walked for hours. She’d walked for so long her leg muscles were aching. And yet, she was still no closer to knowing how she should feel. No closer to reconciling Will as the man she’d been confiding in for the past year.

He knew all her secrets. Knew every detail of every single horror that had been her life since she’d been Called and every second she’d unloaded her heart to him she’d been grateful. For his presence and for his care, because that had shone through bright and clear. Her faceless, nameless friend had hurt for every one of her pains and he’d done his best to give her confidence and support through an invisible link.

She could understand now why he’d never wanted to share his name with her. Or why he’d not come to her earlier. Her initial reaction to his presence—despite the example of his reformed nature—had been far less than welcoming. Or accepting. Even after Buffy’s lecture she could feel her heart melting a little bit, but there was still quite a tall wall to climb before she could completely change her mindset from Spike evil/Spike bad to ‘maybe Will’s not so evil after all.’

Why did she always get handed the hard stuff to work through?

With a sigh, Liz turned back to Revello Drive. The only thing she knew for certain was that she missed him. When he was on the other side of her talisman he was the most important person in her life and losing the innocence of that was many shades more painful than the discovery of his real identity.

But the Powers had sanctified this relationship.

It was a fact that Liz was still trying to wrap her head around. What had they been trying to prove by giving a vampire permission to delve into the depths of her psyche? Since when was it a good thing for a slayer to bond with a notoriously evil and powerful master vampire? Did they not work for the side of good anymore?

Or had Will switched sides right under her nose?

The thought stopped her dead in her tracks. He’d come to her rescue the second she’d revealed how scared she was of Willow—he’d plotted with the witch so far as it worked in order to get her back, even if he had retrieved the wrong Buffy. He’d managed to knock Willow out and had tied the witch up before she could blink at how fast things were happening, and though she didn’t realise it at the time, Liz now recognised that he’d done it all for her. Did it all to protect her.

For all intents and purposes, he was still the Spike she’d known the previous year—in looks at least. She didn’t know if he was out killing, though there didn’t appear to be any escalation in vamp-attributed deaths recently. She didn’t know if he was cooking up some scheme or if he’d come to Sunnydale with some plan other than to fulfil a promise. If she put faith in her talisman friend rather than picturing Will in his place, she couldn’t deny that his presence was reassuring and infused her with a warmth she’d not felt in such a long time. She’d been frozen for too long, just waiting for the final curtain to fall and Willow’s last bid for power. When she put it in that perspective, there was only one thing left to feel. Gratitude.

Was her affection for her secret friend now displaced then?

Before Will had been unveiled as her confidante she’d considered him to be so much more than just a friend. The potential beginning to blossom between them had changed her view on everything and now Liz realised that she had to make a very important decision. Did knowing who she’d been falling for make a difference to her ability to fall fully? Or did the nature of who and what Will was make it impossible for her to resume their relationship on any level?

Liz reached her house and slowly climbed the porch steps. Her mind and heart were so torn on this issue that she wasn’t sure she could even reach an answer. Hand resting on the front door, her heart filled with dread, the only thing she knew for certain was that she had to find him.

She had to rescue him and maybe then, she’d know.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“You know where they’re keeping Will?” Liz asked, apprehension and nerves making her voice shake. Apparently once she’d made up her mind to rescue Will, emotion had dug in its claws and she was desperate to see his face again—desperate to see him safe and unharmed. Desperate to find out what this Initiative was and bring it down.

Spike stepped forward, his eyes burning with approval. “You gotta plan, sweetness?”

Liz began to crumble as she looked at the souled vampire. Why was she always so late to connect dots and work out the bigger picture? She shrugged helplessly before absently snagging a stake from her back jeans pocket and began twirling it nervously. Did she have a plan? Other than to beat Willow to a bloodied, red-haired pulp, not so much. But Will had come to Sunnydale to help her, and if that meant she had to bear through a few misplaced kisses and totally bleach her brain of hers and Will’s twins having sex in a crypt then so be it. That kind of thing might be a long time coming—if it ever was going to—and if there was a possibility, she’d rather explore it without all the x-rated imagery she’d already been slapped with.

“Only plan I have is to get him out and destroy whatever is going on in there. Which should be easy, right? You’ve already done this once.” Liz didn’t like the shared look of regret between Buffy and Willow.

“Wasn’t easy for us at all,” sighed Buffy, filled with a sudden sorrow. “In fact, the only way we could take down Adam was for me to combine my life force with Xander and Giles—two people your world is sadly lacking.”

Just as tears of hopelessness threatened, a rapid series of knocks bounced off her front door and Liz snapped to attention. Everyone but Will was here: Oz had been playing friendly in the back with Willow, and Buffy and Spike were just playing. Funny how it seemed slightly less nauseating now that the fear of never seeing Will again had really hit her.

It occurred to all of them in the same instant that they were sitting ducks for the Initiative. They’d protected the house—and themselves while they remained in it—against any of crazy!Willow’s magical attacks, but the Initiative soldiers were human and could walk right in. The front door wouldn’t be much of a deterrent if the witch had managed to convince them they’d find demons in the house.

On guard and geared toward attack, they gathered protectively around Liz. As well as they could be with an instant’s premonition, they prepared for whatever was on the other side of the door as Liz slowly made her way toward it. There was no point checking through the window for who it was—their best chance was to attack without any warning to the enemy on the porch that they understood the deal; with a deep breath, she threw open the door and nearly collapsed in astonishment at the group that greeted her.

“Oh God, Spike!” Totally forgetting the designated names for the other Spike’s duration, Liz threw her arms around Will and carefully dragged him into the house. Everyone watched in shock as she gazed at his waxen pallor fearfully and positioned him on the couch. “You didn’t tell me he’d be like this,” she shrieked accusingly, seemingly not knowing what to do first—berate those with the knowledge they’d held back or hug Will back to undead health. Then she looked back toward the open door and felt her knees tremble. An enclosed bubble of memories she’d locked away so she could survive Willow’s vindictive company without all the hurt to distract her began to pulsate and then it burst, screams of futility and grief overtaking her as she saw them standing before her alive and then as the last time she’d seen them—slaughtered for the cause.

Memory and commonsense came second to the horrors of the past and for one frightened blink, this is what Liz believed Willow had sent to unsettle her. What Willow believed would finally defeat her. That the witch had known that just being able to touch Giles and Xander again would undo her in a way nothing else could. Before she could decide to cry out or collapse, Buffy and the other Willow had rushed forward, squealing, and she recognised herself as a fool.

Flushing hotly in embarrassment, blood slowly calming from an inferno of panic, Liz stepped forward and tried to not look too deeply into the newcomers’ faces. Except for one. The tall teen had something about her that was instantly recognisable to Liz but try as she might, she couldn’t place her. The girl was barely restraining her excitement and then with trembling shock, Liz realised she was caught in the teen’s arms with all her air being squeezed out of her. For several seconds her brain shut down—so unused to being touched as she now was—and she couldn’t decide if this child was sent as an assassin and Liz was about to fall down dead, or if the bands of steel squishing her toward the next life was just a youthful show of affection.

“I’m Dawn.”

The squeal nearly blew her eardrums, so close they were and Liz used her last resources to try and step up the process of identifying the girl. With a lurch, Liz stood away gasping, her arms outstretched from pushing herself out of the octopus-like grasp. Taking the time to reassert her equilibrium and make a closer study of the stranger, Liz finally shrugged, defeated. “Nope. I’ve no clue who you are.”

Dawn just giggled then went and stood beside her sister.

Liz blinked. How did she know that?

“Bit’s got slayer’s blood thundering through her veins,” Will choked from the couch, making Liz jump the proverbial foot in the air. She spun around, tossing a distracted ‘Nice to meet you,’ over her shoulder and proceeded to fuss over Will. She’d work out the mini slayer sister mystery when she was good and not-so-insane.

She couldn’t look him in the eye, not when her last words to him through the talisman were echoing loudly in her brain. She felt ashamed, and not all of it was for being a bitch. Healthy doses came from being so contrary too—she was plenty confused so Liz had no idea how Will was faring.

“He needs blood more than anything,” Spike observed, his face almost split in a grin.

Liz missed the smart ass expression on the souled vampire’s face but Buffy didn’t and she thwapped him half-heartedly on the shoulder.

“Slayer, if I’d got this kind of reception when I happened along your little Thanksgiving dinner, I might have been a tad more helpful.”

“Sure, honey,” Buffy nodded condescendingly. “I’m so sure you’d have been all with the good fighting when there was the possibility of bloodshed for you to enjoy!”

Spike smirked then ducked his head sheepishly. “Right. So I wasn’t on the track to be reformed just yet. Still, just saying…”

Buffy grinned and squeezed his hand. “That day was a priceless memory—bears and all. No way would I change it for anything.”

“Good to see you two made it with the mushily-ever-after. Can we go home now?” groused Xander good-naturedly while slapping Spike on the shoulder. The vampire stumbled forward in shock.

“That’s quite a bit of force you got behind there, floppy boy,” Spike goaded. “You been working out?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Xander returned the volley, ending with a wink. Dawn snickered heartily as Spike appeared to be blushing before he quickly eradicated the strangeness by stepping away from the burly lumberjack and standing on the other side of Buffy.

“Has the boy turned queer, Slayer?” he stage-whispered for all to hear. Xander and Giles shot him equally vitriolic expressions of disgust but Angel chuckled along at the joke.

“Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhh.”

The jollity of the room was cracked apart by the wounded cry that speared through the air. Liz had jumped back from Will, barely missing his tortured movements to grasp his head as obvious pain wracked his body. Her face was a picture of shock and uselessness, her hands flexing spasmodically with nothing in them to remain steady. Suddenly she remembered that experience was mere steps away from her and she spun on her heel, desperation clear to all with the way her body vibrated with the need for action.

“What’s wrong with him?” she demanded, torn between stomping to them and forcing an answer out of them or falling back to Will’s side to at least offer some kind of comfort.

Spike shrugged, gaze darting between Buffy and Rupert before bouncing back onto Will. “This didn’t happen to me. Not till after the First anyway.”

“The First of what?” Liz asked, her voice rising and becoming noticeably shaky.

Spike ignored her and faced Buffy. “Looks like when the chip acted up.”

Buffy’s eyes widened fearfully and she strode to Liz’s side. “We have to get the chip out.”

“An’ how do you propose doing that, Slayer?” Spike asked, exasperated. “We don’t have any guilt-motivated soldier boy’s to convince to cooperate. This chip just went in—I hardly think the Initiative’s medical team is gonna line up outside and agree to take it out.”

Buffy couldn’t miss Liz’s anguish and it struck every one of her nerves. If only she’d cared about Spike like this earlier—if only she’d cared about his pain from the beginning of the chip. If she’d had compassion and respect for a creature that had proven he’d deserved it—well, things might not have taken two deaths and several apocalypses to come full circle.

She looked wildly around the room, already knowing the bogus flower shop route was completely out. Willow. The witch had turned a whole world’s potentials into slayers over night. Surely she could zap a little chip out of the vampire’s head?

“I know you can do this, Wills.”

Willow blinked at the blonde, not immediately following her suggestion. Then her eyes widened in a flood of understanding. “Oh!” She stepped forward and began touching Will’s head, feeling for the already healing wound exposing where the chip had entered his brain. “Okay, might want to get out of the way for this,” she warned, then wasted no time to check before mumbling some Latin and holding her hand out to receive the metal. There was a zap of electricity and then it sat in her palm, circuits still joined to a little grey matter sizzling against her skin. Horror transformed her pretty features and Willow shuddered. “Ewwwwwww.”

“Perhaps you should take the tracker out of his back while you’re at it?” Giles suggested, earning an appreciative ‘Thanks, mate,’ from Spike for doing so.

Willow sucked up her revulsion and concentrated on the tracking device the Scoobies knew was placed in his back and seriously hoped her hair wasn’t going to frizz this time. Seconds later and she had another chunk of metal in her palm and without waiting for further instruction, she turned them into multi-million dollar, scientifically useless lint.

Liz stared at the witch as if she’d never seen magic performed before—or at least, none that had actually benefited anyone else—and then rushed the witch into a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered, her throat clogged with emotion.

Willow nodded, glad to do something to wipe a little of the haunting sadness from this slayer’s face and then stood back as Liz helped a severely depleted Will to his feet.

“I’m gonna take him up to my room to rest. Can someone here organise some blood?”

There was action, and speech, and excitement exploding back into life as she quickly manoeuvred Will from the room. Together they slowly ascended the stairs, a cup of warmed blood waiting for them at Liz’s bedroom door with a friendly, smiling Dawn attached to it. Liz had barely even noticed when the girl had raced by them on the stairs. Dawn pushed open the door and placed the mug on the bedside table, smiling happily at the couple before she left the room in a similar whirlwind to the one she’d arrived in.

“Thank God I don’t have a sister,” Liz bemoaned gratefully. She could barely take care of herself let alone a bundle of energy like that. “I mean, I’m sure she’s lovely and everything—”

“Yeah,” Will agreed in his gravely, bone-weary rasp. “Bet the Bit’s a bloody peach. Still wouldn’t want to get caught in her way.”

Liz couldn’t hold back the grin and she actually allowed herself to share it with Will as she gently lowered him onto her sheets. It felt like a lifetime since she’d last graced them, yet she knew the second Will remembered and she flushed. Of course he’d remember—he’d taken pleasure in pointing out her nakedness.

Silence stretched out between them and the longer it continued, the more confused Liz became. Confused, and ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” she admitted, then waited for the sarcasm that was her due.

“What for?”

The crinkle between his brows appeared cute to Liz and she melted even more. Refusing to give in to that ‘he’s-a-vampire-and-I-slay-vampires’ mentality was working wonders at helping her see her bed-guest more clearly. Her heart thudded with realisation. This was Will: faceless, nameless shoulder that she’d cried on when the perils of living with Willow had become too much and she’d known her time was running out. Will, whose flirtatious innuendos had warmed her blood and made her body ache for contact. This was the guy she’d trusted not only with her secrets but to come to her aid at the first whimper of her need. She’d trusted him and he’d come.

How lucky was she to have a friend like that?

Back ramrod straight and courage in her heart, Liz admitted it to him as well as herself.

“I’m sorry for thinking of you as a vampire first and last.”

Will was obviously perplexed, his face crumpling up adorably into a frown.

“What else exactly were you supposed to do, pet? I’m the bloody wanker too gutless to tell you who I was. Can’t blame you for not taking the news well when you finally found out.”

Liz smiled down at the bedding that was covering Will’s legs and felt herself flushing. “Definitely might have been nice if you’d told me yourself,” she agreed, wondering at how warm she felt at his dry chuckle.

“That’s it, Slayer. Put the boot in when a vamp’s not feeling his best.” He’d already finished the blood Dawn had brought to the room and Liz looked up and saw a gentle resurgence of colour to his skin. He still looked grey and a little blue around the lips, his expression pinched, but there was a renewed light in his eyes that Liz realised she’d never noticed before—not when she’d only been looking for the cold confirmation of a brutal killer.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” It felt like a secret and as the words balanced on the air and then sank into Will’s psyche, nerves hammered through her body hard until Liz felt the pain of rejection before she could even receive it.

He looked awed that she could share such words with him and with a hand that shook, he cupped her cheek and wondered if he’d ever have the courage to try and kiss her again.

“That means a lot, Buffy.” For something so momentous he wasn’t going to muddy the waters with a name that was meaningless to both of them. On the surface she was Liz—but only until the house cleared out and their guests returned to their own dimension. Then she’d be Buffy again and he’d be free to press his advantage and hopefully end up with happiness all around.

And right now, Liz didn’t look like she’d mind so much.

“I’ll get you some more blood,” was all she said, but the hope that burned in her eyes as she caught his gaze one final time before leaving made him feel stronger than he suspected any blood ever could have done.

It was enough to bring a hardened evil vamp to tears.

A/N All opinions on the name Liz are held by Dawn and Dawn alone. Please do not take offence if your name is Liz. I meant none.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“So, what’s the sitch?” Xander asked, rubbing his hands together like he hadn’t been near an apocalypse in the last three days. “Got any Big Bads for the Xander-Panda to rough up and take down the slippery slope of death?” His eager eye swept over his friends and then to the familiar ginger-haired guitarist staring strangely at him from where he stood behind Willow. “Hey! It’s Oz! How are you, buddy?”

“Good,” Oz replied, his voice free of inflection. “You? I see you’re not dead.”

“Me?” Xander grinned. “Only in one eye.” And he pointed out his festive pirate patch for those in the room who were blinder than him.

“Cool,” Oz responded, and Buffy rolled her eyes. Of course there’d be male bonding over the eye patch. It all made perfect sense.

Willow hesitantly raised her hand, waiting for Xander to turn back to her, and once he had, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. “You got any more rousing crayon speeches? I’m kind of all out,” she admitted with a voice saturated with failure.

Xander’s eye widened dramatically. “There’s an evil Willow on the loose?”

Buffy nodded. “And it gets worse. She’s apparently boinking Riley.”

The bulging one-eye trick really shouldn’t have been anything but gross, and it was, though it utterly fascinated everybody in the room.

“I’m seeing this as not being a good thing?” Xander guessed correctly and then grinned at Willow’s acute embarrassment.

“Believe me,” she muttered, her voice almost failing with fatigue and humiliation. “So not.”

“So what are we looking at here exactly?” Angel stepped forward, unused to being in the back of the pack and rather eager to do what needed to be done so he could get back to his own world. He still had a post-apocalypse girlfriend to find. He only hoped she hadn’t run off altogether.

“We’re looking at a megalomaniac witch who’d fry you soon as look at you,” Spike reported drolly. He uncurled himself from around Buffy, happy at the lack of reaction from Peaches so far but unwilling to push his luck. “The bint’s lost it; all her marbles rolled south for the winter. Saw her buddy and her mentor murdered and now thinks she has to control the world—she’s not off to a bad start, either. Got it in for Liz bad and my guess is she’s probably trying to get the resources of the Initiative behind her.”

Xander blinked his one good eye and Angel, Giles and Dawn looked around for an unfamiliar face. “Who is this Liz?” Giles asked on behalf of all of them. It was irritating to get the story late as it was without even knowing who all the characters were.

“That would be me,” Liz said with distaste as she finished descending the stairs and enlightenment broke out on three faces at least.

“Liz? What kind of crappy name is Liz? What was wrong with Anne? Or Elizabeth—I like Beth. That would have worked,” Dawn advised, completely missing Spike’s irritated expression.

“Your sister’s boyfriend came up with it,” Liz confided with a dirty look to the vampire. “Ask him why he figured he’d give me such a name. I am supposedly the love of his life.”

“Not quite, pet. You jus’ look like her. There’s a difference, see,” Spike justified, and then bestowed a loving look on his glowingly gorgeous girl.

“Whatever,” she replied, suddenly more chirpy than she’d been mere seconds ago. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder why she felt no connection at all with this Spike, or why Buffy hadn’t felt the need to rush to Will’s side with more than friendly affection. Now that it did, Liz found it suited her more than a little that the respective vampires seemed perfect for just one slayer—whether she had an identical face or not. Nothing threatened the closeness she’d shared with Will when she hadn’t known who he was but relied on him anyway.

“So, do we have a course of action yet?” Liz finally looked her fill of Xander and Giles—and felt nothing. Nothing past the longing ache in her chest at least. There was no devastation that made it hard to breathe—no uncontrollable urge to have back what she’d lost at any cost. Just like she’d been able to accept the sight of her own face walking around her house, so had she mentally placed these doppelgangers in a segment of her brain that didn’t release memories too hard to cope with. They were here and she was okay with it, seeing them and not the Xander and Giles she’d shared smiles with and spilled heartbroken tears for.

“Not as such, no. What exactly is the objective here?” Giles inquired as he removed his glasses and rubbed the back of his aching neck.

Spike glanced at Willow and hoped she would one day forgive him for his matter-of-fact views on the situation. “To take out the witch.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

He recognised this house.

It felt like a lifetime ago, but when he’d first come to Sunnydale he’d glimpsed a girl that he had no choice but to follow. She’d been small and golden—even in the moonlight—and so fast and strong that taking on a vampire twice her size and yet coming out on the undusty side had seemed like child’s play. His equipment had told him she was human and so he’d left her alone—having no reason to approach her without revealing who and what he was. She was poetic in the way she moved in the dark and even then he’d known she was a force of good. He was intrigued and smitten.

But she wasn’t for him.

It had saddened him at the time, but then he’d met Willow and he’d forced himself to get over it—and he had. He’d fallen in love with the redhead and if all went according to plan, they’d have an announcement within the next six months he could be proud of.

But that hadn’t wiped away his shock that she was turning this girl in for being a slayer. A slayer. One girl in all the world, chosen to fight vampires. It read like a fairytale and Riley Finn wondered how it could possibly be true. And even if it were, wasn’t she still human? Her blood was warm and she wasn’t possessed with anything but extra-strength and an uncanny ability to kill monsters that little girl’s like her were supposed to be afraid of. Was it right for Maggie to want her for observation? Was it right for Maggie to want to cage her and study her like an animal?

He wasn’t going to lie to himself. He knew deep down the kind of woman Maggie was, and on some nights it was hard for his conscience to accept his seemingly blind devotion to her. The woman was cold and cruel—she’d rewarded him and his men with her own form of affection but he suspected that was more for what kind of creatures they brought her than for care on her part for any of them.

That Willow wasn’t displaying any kind of remorse for what was going to happen to this Buffy terrified him. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her black-eyed determination and nearly pee his pants in fright. But every time he’d convinced himself it was nothing. And he had apparently been right, because she never said a harsh word to him—never belittled him or patronised him despite her obviously encyclopaedic knowledge of the shadowy realities of this town.

“I’m picking up three hostiles on the infra-red,” reported a voice on his radio and Riley clenched his jaw. He had to force his mind onto this mission—at the very least they needed to recapture Hostile 17 and according to Willow, he was more than likely in this house.

“Copy that,” he confirmed and breathed hard. This was it, the moment he hadn’t been waiting for. Willow was anticipating God only knew what in the car down the street with the professor, claiming to be able to neutralise this slayer as soon as she passed beyond her front yard. He couldn’t see how, but the professor trusted his girlfriend in ways he’d never seen her trust another before.

“All units advance on my signal. Isolate the insurgents and wait for my command. Do not destroy. This is a recovery mission. I repeat, do not destroy.” He waited a beat till all radios had crackled their understanding of orders, then with a sinking heart and adrenaline fuelling his body, he held his radio close to his lips and barked the final order.

“Move in.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The doors had been barricaded against them.

If Riley had stopped then to think about that, he might have halted the advance. Hindsight was a bitch, he thought, as he contemplated how he had led his team stupidly into the middle of an ambush.

More than the usual number of strikes with the portable battering ram had been needed against each entry point—it had been as if each door had been held in place with stronger glue than he’d ever used and a vampire against it for good measure.

He knew now how foolish that thought had been. There were factors operating within the house that Riley still didn’t understand, but that was little surprise when he had the bigger mystery of how Willow had managed to enter the house ahead of him without his even noticing. He’d left her with Maggie himself, already concerned about his girlfriend being in the middle of a possibly hostile situation. His worry was misplaced while it looked like she was playing both sides in a sick and twisted—yet incredibly confusing—way.

The doors had barely budged an inch with each hit with the ram. His team was persistent, however, and as soon as they’d gained entry, they’d stormed the interior. His head was still spinning at how unreal everything that had happened next was. When asked, Riley would have to admit it had felt like rolling through dough, trying to push each limb ahead of his body while desperately trying to retain hold of his weapon. Time had somehow slowed to the point where every word he said—every command he gave—had been stretched one syllable at a time into a bottomless pit of nothing. Not one word made sense to his own ears so he was willing to bet that all his men heard was gibberish. Not that it mattered anymore. Not with each and every one of them tied up and helpless.

They hadn’t seen them until it was too late—and even then it had been pathetic watching his men try to avoid capture. Avoid being taken by vampires. Moving too slow—like the six-million dollar man in reverse—Riley had barely registered the blonde blur that had circled him and then disarmed him, knocking out his knees till he fell to the floor. He’d been unable to think fast enough to struggle and yet they’d had time to strip him of weapons and tie is hands and feet together tighter than a drum.

And now the world seemed clear again—the air had settled back to normal speed and his eyes and mouth didn’t feel so dry. Though obviously he’d been hit in the head without feeling it because he was seeing double.

“I’m really sorry we had to do this, Riley,” the blonde said quietly.

He nodded in understanding, then reared up his head and stared deeply into her eyes. “What exactly did you do?”

Willow stepped forward, her composure jittery but confident. “Um, hi.” She emphasised the greeting with a wiggly-fingered wave and the soldier was struck with how girlish and innocent his girlfriend suddenly seemed. “I…uh…kinda slowed down time a bit—just so Buffy and Spike could contain you. Also, didn’t want you firing at anything, because, well….house pretty?” She chewed her lip self-consciously, almost shrinking at his disbelieving expression.

“You…slowed down time?” Maybe he’d suffered several knocks to his head.

“Uh huh,” she nodded quickly, sighing deeply in relief as the short red-headed boy he recognised from one of the local bands stepped up and held her hand.

“You can do that?” Riley persisted, glaring hard at this newcomer.

“She really can,” Oz confirmed and the smile Willow shone on him was beatific and grateful.

Riley’s gut sank. “What the hell is going on here? Willow?”

His girlfriend’s eyes went extremely wide and she was suddenly looking around for help. “Guys?”

“This isn’t your Willow, you prat. Can’t you bloody tell the difference?”

The vampire Riley knew only as Hostile 17 stepped from the stairs in the foyer and slowly entered the living room. Trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey wasn’t quite the situation he’d been thinking of when setting off on this mission but Riley refused to give in to fear. The vampire sneered at him, hatred sparking dangerously in his cold gaze that Riley wondered if being defiant was the best course of action, but then the creature’s words registered and he did a double-take.

“Huh? How many Willows are there?”

“A-at least two, actually,” said another, older British man, though being older amongst vampires was all a matter of conjecture.

“And this one isn’t mine?” He watched as the redhead avidly shook her head and he could see how much she believed she actually was closer to being the shorter guy’s girl than his. A headache exploded behind his eyes and Riley slumped tiredly in his constraints.

“So, there are two Willows, this one isn’t my girlfriend, and she can stop time?”

The room seemed crowded all of a sudden, with replica slayers and vampires and a bunch of other miscellaneous people he’d never seen before. It was like stepping into the middle of a circus without ever having seen the tent.

“Look, I know this is confusing,” Buffy began, “but your Willow is kind of trying to kill us all. We’re just trying to stop her.”

And with that startling revelation bouncing around in his head, Riley found himself rather abruptly gagged with a suspect looking cloth and the group he’d been sent to capture escaping out the back door. Confused and now worried eyes communicated his distress to his similarly bound team and together they struggled against their constraints.

Willow and the professor were unguarded.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Her irises had been completely consumed with darkness by the time they arrived. Lightning stretched from her fingertips, holding Angel high against a tree as it scorched his flesh. His mouth was open wide, inhuman screams of pain being torn from his throat but falling onto an apparently deaf world. The sight was terrifying from every standpoint, and while the professor held back, staring in fascinated horror, the witch thrived on the hum of her invincible power.

“How stupid do you believe me to be?” she screamed as soon as they came into view, and while Will and Liz looked ready to tackle her, Buffy and Spike held them back, jaws clenched tight with fury and fear at the way Angel was being tortured.

“Let him go and I know my mind will change,” Buffy all but snarled, her helpless expression unable to turn from Angel’s painfully writhing form. It was like seeing Willow once again go for Warren, though she really didn’t fancy seeing how a vampire would get on without his skin.

“She doesn’t need to put him down,” their Willow said, anger radiating from her as she confidently took to the front of the group. With a seemingly careless flick of her wrist she released the vampire, shooting Angel halfway down the street to rest out of sight and back near the house. With a bit of mind-prodding, she sent a reluctant Dawn after him.

The darkness seemed to swallow the night whole as a blisteringly furious witch threw an invisible wall at them, knocking them to the ground and allowing her to stand tall over them.

Buffy groaned, winded. Liz was slow to her feet, actually taking the time to check on Will and Giles before she turned back to face her witch. Otherworld Xander was already there, his hand outstretched and his one good eye pleading for the witch to renege on her vicious intent and share a new day with them.

“Remember the yellow crayon, Will?” His eye seemed alight with the childhood memory and Liz groaned. This was all they had?

“What the hell are you talking about?” the black-eyed Willow scoffed. “Is that all you’ve got?” She advanced on the identical image of her dead friend until she stood right in his face, and then she slapped him hard and laughed. “Did you seriously think you could come here and retell some sad old story from your own world and I’d fall to my knees and sob?”

Xander’s slow, confused nod indicated that he actually had and the fear his friends felt for him escalated dramatically.

“Go home, Harris,” the witch screamed and she replicated the other Willow’s neat trick and flicked him back several yards, taking joy in his yell of pain as he struck the ground hard. “Anyone else want to try a stupid otherworld anecdote? Come on, I’m due for a really good laugh.”

With bones protesting her prior knowledge of how much this was going to hurt, Buffy attacked, her punches hitting air and her legs effortlessly knocked out from under her.

“You I just want to squash like a bug,’ the witch admitted carelessly, and then Buffy could feel something heavy pressing her into the ground and the air being forced from her lungs. Panic kicked her from the inside and she struggled, knowing her face was turning blue from a lack of oxygen while her body felt like it was snapping into several pieces. Spike was at her side in seconds and Buffy willed him away, willed him out of nut job Willow’s sight so that he’d stay safe.

Evil Willow sent spears of fire at him and one immediately penetrated his shoulder, eliciting the first scream from Buffy’s bruised airways she’d been able to since having the ability forcefully taken from her. The flesh disintegrated as Spike fell backwards and howled, his strong hands seizing the projectile and yanking it out of his body, even as they burned and blistered with the effort. “Bloody…fuck!” he exploded, his gravely voice wracked with agony.

“Leave them alone,” Good Willow begged, and Buffy had to roll her eyes though they ached in their sockets. The depressing pressure on her chest immediately lifted, however, and she wondered if maybe the good witch could actually get through to the bad.

“Awwwwwww, webe them awone,” the evil redhead taunted. “You think you’re better than me, don’t you?” She laughed and the unhinged sound echoed into the street. Her eyes narrowed into blackened slits so that nothing but evil shone through as she glared at her twin. “You are obviously unable to handle real power,” she accused, hatred and disgust for the identical witch evident to even the dumbest observer.

“W-well, as it happens, you’re wrong. I can handle power just fine—I just don’t like to when its source is evil.” Willow stood back pouting, clearly unknowing what to do in this situation. She had half a mind to duel herself to sense but something told her that wasn’t going to work. This Willow had been alone, drifting in the world for too long. She had not started her slide into the darker side of magic out of curiosity—she’d not been seduced by the power slowly. She’d been changed by it for a long time now—seeking vengeance for those she’d loved and lost. Maybe if someone had been left to guide her onto the right track a year ago, there might have been hope. Now Willow saw nothing in her counterpart’s expression but cold, oozing hatred for the fighters of the balance. She wasn’t motivated any longer by trying to do good in the world—whether the notion was misguided or not. She wasn’t reacting to the pain of humanity or the hopelessness that dwelled in every beating heart.

“You’re weak,” spat evil Willow contemptuously and good Willow shrunk back in offence. “You are weak and pathetic and it would really be better for you all if you just open up a portal and take your equally pathetic friends home.”

Alarm and hope spread through all of them at the implication. She was scared to kill those not from her world, still unsure what kind of impact it would have on her own.

Buffy dragged herself to Spike and touched him desperately, eager to make sure he was okay and only singed on the outside rather than burning up from the inside yet again. She hadn’t skipped through worlds to lose him now and as much as she didn’t want to kill Willow—any Willow—she wasn’t going to risk all of their lives for a lunatic witch high on her own abilities.

Energy crackled in the air and frightened, veteran eyes zeroed in on the powered-up witch. A storm was gathering around her, making her untouchable and dangerous. She floated menacingly on the angry currents of her own making and her hair fanned out in the violent wind that whipped up out of nowhere. Buffy could see her own red-headed friend shrink back in horror and knew that confronting what she’d done not long enough ago was too taxing for the reformed witch. Liz and Will stumbled ahead, trying to reach the black-eyed witch who was gunning for their lives and being thrown around like a couple of wet dishrags for their trouble. Both fighters were bruised and bleeding and yet a matching determination inspired them to continue. Buffy wondered why the witch hadn’t just struck them down permanently and been done with it.

In her gut, Buffy knew it was almost over. This world’s Willow’s unsteady façade, barely kept in place normally, was now slipping low and the Slayer recognised that the end was so very close. She gasped as once again Liz crawled her way to her feet, furious determination spurring her forward. Willow didn’t throw her back immediately, allowing her progress to be sure and deadly. The redhead’s blackened eyes glinted with dull light reflected from her sparking fingers, her lips twisted in a caricature of a smile that chilled Buffy’s blood.

She remembered this—diving for Willow, desperate to stop her before she tried to turn Dawn into formless energy, the Magic Box into rubble and Anya into steaming demon refuse. Buffy had failed—she wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, or just plain enough to stop Willow. Slayers weren’t meant to combat magic—and slayer’s friends weren’t supposed to lose it and defect to the other side.

With pain she wished she didn’t have to bear, Buffy watched as Liz crumbled to her knees, the witch magically strangling her throat and laughing at the screams and curses coming from the girl’s vampire. Tears tracked down Buffy’s cheeks, her gaze fixated on what had once been her in her own world—her best friend intent on leaving her dead.

“Noooooooooo!”

The objection came from everywhere, and then a tremendous bang ripped through the chaos and blood gurgled at Willow’s mouth, leaking slowly from the corners of her lips. Losing focus, Liz dropped and the witch peered down to stare in shock at the big hole in her chest. Her magic fumbled some more, the storm dissipating around them as she was abruptly dropped to the ground. Shock held everyone still, except for Will who had rushed forward and was now carrying Liz away from the fray. Yet relief won the day and the crowd surged forward to be sure. To see it for themselves.

“Oh God,” Willow muttered, her voice choked with horror. “Th-that’s what I look like dead?”

“Be thankful you’ve still got muscle tone,” Buffy hissed, finding the emotion bunching in her throat too much.

Maggie Walsh stepped forward, her hand shaking around the outstretched gun. “Nobody move,” she ordered, and nobody did. The professor looked down at the girl she’d liked—before she’d tried to force her way into the middle of things she didn’t understand. No, it was better like this. She just had to help Riley accept it.

Hard eyes flitted back to Buffy, a look of opportunity suddenly blooming on her face. “You’re the Slayer,” she confirmed for herself, but before she could process anything else, a black blur was in her face and the gun torn from her hands.

“Don’t go pointing bloody guns at her, you psychotic bitch.” Spike struck her temple with his fist and the teacher went down, her body apparently boneless as she hit the ground.

Now that the action had passed, the air was filled with stunned silence.

“Well,” started Giles, and then he stopped because he couldn’t think of one more thing to add.

“You know, home’s looking kind of good right now. I like our apocalypses so much better than the ones in this world.” And as Xander tried to turn away from the image of Willow dead on the ground, he accepted the shuddering body of the one that still lived. She gripped his hand tightly and Xander held her against his body, rocking her in a reassuring hug.

Willow gave into the warmth of Xander’s comfort and cried.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The wicked witch was dead.

The finality of her situation slammed into Liz with a thud. Willow was gone. Dead. She thought she should feel relief but the only emotion swirling in her gut was remorse. Failure so strong threatened to drive her to her knees and Liz fought hard the desire to run—to get away from all these people who hadn’t failed their Willow—when she’d been the biggest failure of all.

She was humiliated and alone. Despite all those who surrounded her, murmured condolences and self-righteous words of forgiveness, Liz was alone, and it hurt more than any gaping wound could have.

And she was lost. Wandering between the beige walls of her house did nothing to stay the ferocious beat of her heart. Her last remaining friend was dead and Liz had failed her stupendously—and what’s more, for months she hadn’t even cared. Apathy had robbed her of the will to fight the inevitable. There’d been opportunities, surely, where Willow had been touchable.

“There was nothing you could have done.”

The quiet voice that had snuck up behind her made Liz want to scream. It seemed doubly wrong that not only was Willow face up in a morgue, but that the good version of the woman sharing her face was alive and well, whispering condolences in the empty spaces of Liz’s house. Deep down she knew that seeing her double being shot in the heart hadn’t been a wonderful experience for the witch, but Liz found it hard to care right now. Everything that had been holding her back was gone, and instead of feeling euphoric and in the mood to celebrate, she couldn’t push away this twinge in her throat that was making her want to cry.

Her heart felt heavy with uselessness, but as she struggled to bite off a retort to the witch she couldn’t bear to look at, Liz felt the talisman burn in her pocket. Funny how she hadn’t had the heart to take it from her body now that she knew her secret friend was no longer secret—or far away. It gave her comfort to feel the tingle of his presence—she recognised it now. When he was close it burned soothingly into her skin and it was the only time in the last few hours when Liz had felt close to calm.

He hadn’t approached her yet. His distance was making her almost as crazy as this overwhelming guilt was. Liz sucked in a harsh breath and forced herself to look at the surviving Willow.

“You know, in my head I know that. I do. It’s just—” She couldn’t explain this ache that had settled deep inside her.

“You miss the girl who used to be your friend.” Willow smiled sadly and Liz felt a consuming urge to smite her where she stood. She hated that the redhead was right.

Nodding against the tide of emotion ignoring her command for control, Liz crumbled at last, tears drenching her cheeks and sobs tearing at her throat. “Why did she have to change?” Strong arms enveloped her and Liz didn’t need the talisman to know it was Will. She didn’t need anything to tell her how right it was that she still had him to fall on when things became too much.

Willow’s quiet steps moved away and Liz gave in to the support of Will’s body, glad she’d listened to Buffy and not pushed him away completely. There was so much ground still to cover—so much about him still to discover. What she’d seen established between the other slayer and vampire still chilled her, but Liz refused to see that kind of relationship as inevitable. Refused to consider it an impossibility either. She wanted to be open-minded but above all, she wanted to be true. To herself and to Will.

Eyes glistening with grief, she pulled slowly from Will’s chest and gave him a watery smile of gratitude. “Thanks. It’s been an…interesting day.”

“Not quite the word I’d use, pet. Still, it’s over now, yeah? No more looking over your shoulder for when your friend’s gonna bury a hatchet in your back.” Concise and to the point—Liz had to admire that.

“Is everyone ready to go?”

Will stood back and contemplated her with his head tilted to the side. “You think you might miss all the activity around here?”

Liz shook her head fast. “No way. I am so ready to have my house back.”

He looked disappointed and Liz knew she was going to have to address this soon. She’d already planned on having him stay—not just in Sunnydale but in her house as well. It had been lonely enough with Willow there, but to be on her own completely, it wasn’t a situation she thought she’d enjoy. There’d be time to ask him when everyone else had gone.

A little imp on her shoulder goaded her into moving forward and some tightness in her chest shifted as her lips felt the smooth plain of his cheek as she kissed it. “First things first,” she promised and then took his hand gently, tugging him toward Buffy and the crowd preparing to open another portal in her house.

Willow’s cheeks were wet as she gathered her magical paraphernalia and Liz looked to Buffy, her brow quirked in question.

“She just said goodbye to Oz,” the Slayer mouthed, not wanting to distract the witch now that she was focused on getting them home. “Look,” she started out loud, “there’s some things you should think about doing because you can totally trust Riley to take care of the Initiative issue now that Maggie’s been arrested for murder. Spike and I sorted him out and he knows all about Adam and what to say during the investigation into the project. Firstly, my mom died of an aneurism. You might want to get back in touch with yours—maybe she’ll even want to move back in. Secondly, you need a watcher. I wouldn’t recommend contacting the Council—maybe you should try and find Wes. Maybe he’s ready to help you now? Third—jobs in fast food are hell on your hair and your clothes—”

“You’ll never get the smell of bloody grease out,” Spike agreed, wrapping his uninjured arm around his slayer.

Buffy peered up at him with adoration glaringly obvious for all in the room to see and sighed. Then, as she opened her mouth to depart with more of her hard-won wisdom, Dawn stepped up to the plate and threw her arms around Liz.

“The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Someone very wise—though deeply deluded—told me that once.” With tears in her eyes and a proud look on her face as she turned back to her sister, she stepped away.

Everyone was either wiping away a tear or in trouble of blubbering on the spot when Willow’s spell worked and a portal miraculously opened in Liz’s living room. Angel hobbled toward it, throwing a quick wave over his shoulder as he hurried through, Giles and Xander next. Dawn kissed Liz and Will on their cheeks and then raced on through, leaving Buffy and Spike to watch the images of themselves as they were beginning their extraordinary path.

“Be happy,” Buffy ordered, and then she was gone, pulling Spike’s arm and snagging Willow on the way through.

The otherworldly light flickered out and Liz was alone in her house—alone with a vampire she’d once feared and now admired.

There was a whole world waiting at her fingertips.

Oh My God!! It's finally all done.

I need to take this opportunity to shout out some thank yous. First of all, massive hugs to skybound2 for contributing the most wonderful banner and story specs I could have had. I really hope that you've enjoyed reading it. Thank you also to spuffy_haven for hosting the competition.

I am of course indebted as always to my wonderful betas, each of them contributing something different and hopefully all teaching me better ways to express myself. hollydb, slackerace and schehrezade_1--you are all three infinitely fabulous and I'd be lost without you.

Lastly, thank you all who have read this and even more to those that left me feedback. I know I don't always get back to you but everything you say means so very much. Now, for the final curtain.



Epilogue

“Oh. My. God. Did you have to cut off its head like that?” Buffy stood completely covered in yellow slime, her hair plastered to her face, her body shuddering with revulsion.

“But, pet,” Spike gasped as laughter fought his words. “You look bloody priceless.”

Buffy glared before swooping down on one of the mutilated appendages of the thing she’d spent the better part of forty minutes fighting and proceeded to club Spike about the head with it. “You are far from funny, vampire!”

Spike snorted loudly, then tripped backwards over the corpse, laughing even as his head struck the ground. “Don’t…need to…be….luv. You’re bleeding hilarious enough without me.”

Eyes narrowed dangerously, Buffy stomped on Spike’s fingers and left, strutting up the path that led to the cemetery gates and beyond it to home.

“Damn irritating pig,” she muttered furiously.

“Oh come on, Buffy,” he whined, and the Slayer melted. She couldn’t help it. Every time he used his voice like that she was like putty in his hands, even when the tone betrayed frustration.

“Come on what? I wore my best pants tonight!” she pointed out, her voice adopting that annoying wobble it did when she was doing her best not to cry. “We were going out—somewhere special, you said. Now everything is ruined.”

“Oh sweetheart.” Spike hazarded a step toward her and cupped her chin, that mouth-watering soft look glazing his eyes. “We’ll get you all cleaned up and everything will be fine.”

Buffy was suddenly wondering what would be fine. Her brain was caught on the promise of getting ‘all cleaned up’ and hoping Spike was bringing the rubber ducky and a sponge to this impromptu play-date.

“Do we need to go out?” she wheedled, and the grin he treated her to was so hot she burned.

“Not at all,” he promised, putting on a burst of speed to get her home all the quicker.
He ploughed through the front door as if it was invisible and Buffy giggled as she was dragged up the stairs. He shoved her under the needle-like cold spray of the shower, using his hands to scrape as much of the goop off as he could. “Hot water makes stuff shrink, yeah?”

“I’m not worried. Cold water would so not be most men’s friend. You, though, are the exception to the rule,” she teased with a saucy wink. “Besides,” she added balefully, “I think the leather’s history no matter which way you look at it.” Still, hot water might have made the pants impossible to be shimmied out of.

“Good thing your mum’s off visiting your aunt for Thanksgiving. Your slime-covered self might have scared her witless,” the vampire kidded as his hands worked through her revolting, tangled hair with a spontaneous shampoo.

“And you molesting her daughter wouldn’t have shocked her at all,” Buffy returned in an identical tease.

He stripped her and it felt like magic had returned to her house. His hands swept over her skin and Buffy sighed.

“I love you, you know.”

It had taken a year for her to realise it, but once she had Buffy could have kicked herself for being so stubborn. She’d seen the love that could exist between them with her own eyes but she’d been too young—too scared or too stupid—to accept it for the gift it was.

“An’ I love you too, you deranged bint.”

Buffy giggled. Once upon a time she’d have been offended by Spike’s long list of British profanities, but now she found them almost endearing. Her eyes danced as she turned to face him, pouting distractedly at his unclothed form.

“Can we have the warm water now?” Buffy asked hopefully, her skin covered in goosepimples.

“We can have anything you want now, Princess,” he said, bending forward to kiss her gently. Buffy curled her fingers in his hair, loving the feel of his slicked-down curls as she unruffled them.

“Have I told you how glad I am the Powers made you my talisman buddy?” she whispered, overcome with emotion for this vampire in her arms.

“Only every time I make you come screaming.” He nibbled at her lips as his hands massaged her rump.

“You are so bad,” Buffy approved as she curled her naked body tighter against his. “Hey…do you think there’s some way we can get in touch with Otherworld Buffy and tell her we did like she ordered?”

Spike looked at her in wonder. “Not that one of that bunch won’t be back for a visit again soon—took us a bleeding month to force Harris back after his last visit—but what was it exactly she ordered us to do?”

Buffy looked deeply into her boyfriend’s eyes and knew that whatever happened, it was true. She was in the place she belonged and she never planned to leave.

“To be happy.”

He smiled indulgently. That was exactly what they were.




A/N It seems I can’t post this so far as is because it’s under the word limit, so I’m just going to add a little bit of waffle here at the end. Um…thank you all again, and be on the look out for a new two part fic from me shortly. I plan to now go and complete Will To Love before I start on a fic for seasonal_spuffy.

Okay, got the word limit now. Bye!