Truth, truth everywhere,
but not a drop to drink,
you can think what you like,
but it's not like what you think,

Talk, talk everywhere,
banished you can tell,
a thousand ears to turn away,
not one mouth to stay closed,

Eyes, eyes everywhere
and two more that now hold,
the pallor of your face
when all your palest lies are told,

Hands, hands tethered fast
to bonds you'd wish they'd hold,
to forgive completely only serves to let them go,

Bride for the King of Blame,
I'm Queen of Apology,
you see we take all care,
but no responsibility,
return this where you found it,

Truth, truth,
hand it down,
and we'll swallow it whole,
to avoid the taste,
but what's inside,
we'll never know.

Lyrics are from “Queen Of Apology” by Sarah Blasko



PROLOGUE:

“Do you think she walked around on clouds, wearing Birkenstocks and played a harp?” Anya asked, her eyes glazed over as she got lost in her imagination. She suddenly snapped back to reality when she felt the eyes of her peers fixated on her.

“’Cause those are just not flattering,” she continued, as if by way of explanation. “You know, the clunky sandals, not a harp. I mean, who doesn’t look good with a harp?”

Willow and Tara just looked at her, bewildered. Xander looked less with the surprise and more with the uncomfortable. Anya realised she’d just said one of the many “don’t say in front of the scoobies” comments and rushed to her own defence.

“What? I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking, right baby?” she looked to Xander for support.

Xander avoided the question and answered the only way he could think of that wouldn’t start an argument.

“You are attractive and have many good qualities.”

Tara looked up from the table.

“It’s totally not stupid to wonder what it was like for Buffy. But it could have been any one of a zillion heavenly dimensions. All we know is that it was a good place and she was happy there.”

“And we took her away from that. We wrecked it for her,” Willow said in a hushed tone, riddled with guilt.

Xander shook his head emphatically.
“We didn’t wreck, we didn’t know.”

“We didn’t wanna know,” Willow argued. “We were so selfish. I was so selfish.”

Xander was shaking his head again.

“Maybe we were. I just feel weird feeling bad that my friend’s not dead. It’s… too mind boggling. So I’ve decided to simplify the whole thing. Me like Buffy. Buffy’s alive, so me glad.”

“Not to be Miss Psycho Pep Squad, but we have got to stop obsessing about what we did and start trying to make things better for Buffy,” Tara stated quietly, matter-of-factly.

Anya nodded in agreement.

“I’m with Miss Psycho Pep Squad,” she said cheerily, raising her hand to show her support.

“Ah, we need to spend more time with her, just hang out. Maybe have… weekly dinners over here, or a… book club!” Xander said excitedly, until he saw Willow’s face. “Short books! Videos!”

Willow raised her eyes to meet the group’s again, a fierce determination shining in them.

“I can fix it. I know a spell,” she said in the same hushed tone as before.

“No! No more spells!” Tara argued, her voiced raised.

It was so unlike Tara to yell, that everyone gaped at her in astonishment. Even Willow didn’t know where this had come from. Tara had been distant with her the last couple of days, but she hadn’t explained what was bothering her.

Willow frowned. “I just want to make things right again for Buffy,” she grumbled, looking down.

“Well that’s not the way,” Tara replied firmly. “If we’re going to “fix” things for Buffy, we’re going to do it by helping her, not by using more magic. You can’t use magic to violate people’s minds that way Wil, it’s wrong.” Tara stared hard at Willow as she said these words, wanting to see what her reaction would be.

Predictably, Willow looked even guiltier than she had earlier.
“Ok, we won’t use magic. It was just an idea…”

* * *

Sprawled out on the bathroom floor, a book open on her lap, Willow held a torch over the pages to read the words. At 3:00am this was the only room she could really use in anything remotely resembling privacy.

“Truth spell, truth spell, where have you gone?” she chanted quietly as she flipped through the pages.

The idea of casting a truth spell had occurred to her earlier, after leaving the magic shop. Tara was still acting really distant and snappy. Willow had concluded that she was either really pissed about something, or she’d been possessed by an unidentified big bad. Since Tara wasn’t talking, it made the most sense to cast a truth spell. Then it dawned on her that it could be the one (metaphorical) stone for the (also metaphorical) two birds. It could double as a spell for Buffy too. Then she could finally get some insight into what Buffy was feeling and have a better idea of how to improve things for her, as well as finding out what was bugging Tara. Willow mentally patted herself on the back. Sometimes her intelligence was almost too much for her.

“There you are, my little truth seeking friend.”

She balanced the torch on the side of the tub, facing vaguely in the direction of the book, revealing the pages that were headed with “Truths Revealed Spell”.

“Ok,” Willow breathed, scanning the page quickly, but thoroughly. “’A white seven hour candle, a blue three hour candle, small piece of obsidian crystal, a picture of the person - well, we got plenty of those here - three drops of clary sage, three drops of lavender, two drops pine and three drops of calamus rots.’ I’m sure I can scrounge up most of this stuff… nutmeg and mugwort… Pick up a small piece of obsidian from the Magic Box, since mine went mysteriously missing… weird though, I swear I saw Dawn wearing obsidian the other day…”

Willow stopped rambling to herself to read on about the methods of the spell. She needn’t have bothered: the ingredients were pretty self explanatory.

“’Go to wooded area in same town as person, place the drops of oil onto sides of candles, smear around using photos face down, then roll candles in mugwort and nutmeg. Light the candle, say the incantation, yaddy-yadda, hold the obsidian over the candle light for seven seconds, place photo into flame and leave it be. Return in seven hours, light the blue candle and say “The spell is done,” hold obsidian in flame for three seconds, then blow out the flame and leave the candles, picture and obsidian in place. The spell shall run its course.’ Then shimmy shake those truths out girls, ‘cause those secrets are only gonna make you bitter! Easy peasy, coulda done this in tenth grade.”

Willow smiled to herself, closing the book and stretching her limbs on the cold tile floor. Tomorrow she would cast the spell.

Chapter 1

“Welcome to The Magic Box, would y- oh, it’s you,” Anya grumbled, cutting her welcome greeting short at the sight of Willow, who was now trying not to roll her eyes at Anya’s rudeness.

“Yes, it’s me!” She agreed cheerfully, wondering if Anya would catch onto the sarcasm.

She didn’t.

“What can I do for you? Would you like to spend lots of money? Because I can help you with that.”

Willow bit her tongue to hold in either a laugh or a bitchy retort, she wasn’t sure which.

“Well, I’m not exactly Miss loaded with cash here, but there is something I’m after.”

“You name it, I’ll find it, then you can pay for it,” Anya said eagerly.

Willow could practically see the dollar signs flashing in her eyes.

“I need a small piece of obsidian.”

“What do you need that for?” Anya asked nosily, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

She had been thinking lately that Willow may be getting in over her head with the magics, but no one else had said anything about it - except for Xander, who had actually agreed with her for once.

Willow narrowed her eyes in return, tempted to tell Anya to mind her own business. But she didn’t want to raise her suspicions anymore, so she told a half truth.

“To wear. I had a beautiful piece that went missing a few weeks ago and since I haven’t been able to find it, I thought I’d come and purchase one all [b]shiny[/b] new.”

She was sure to put extra emphasis on the word “purchase” to sidetrack Anya’s thoughts with money again (which was never much of a challenge).

Anya nodded with relief, already counting the dollars in her mind.

“Of course, we have some nice new necklaces made with various crystals. They came in yesterday. I remember seeing a couple done with obsidian. They’re right here…” Anya cut herself off.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just could’ve sworn we unpacked two of these yesterday and I haven’t sold one yet, so I don’t see where the other once could have gone… Dawn helped me out, maybe she dropped one. Grrr… this is why child labour is wrong, it’s not because of their “rights“, it’s because they just can’t handle the pressure of retail. If you want something done right, you just have to do it yoursel-”

“Heh-hmm,” Willow cleared her throat, desperately wanting to make it out of the Magic Box before midday.

“Oh right, yes, here it is anyway. You can wear it on the leather string, or take that out and remove the gold ring here and use it ornamentally. It’s rather nice to look at, on person and on furniture and it’s thirty dollars,” Anya concluded her sales pitch as she walked over to the register and rung up the sale.

“Thirty dollars?” Willow raised her eyebrows. “For a stone that size? It’s not gold plated or anything… is it?”

Anya frowned. “No it’s not, it’s just a very high quality piece of merchandise. But if you’re going to get all huffy, I suppose I can do it for twenty-nine fifty.”

“Gee, thanks Anya, that is mighty generous of you.”

Anya, once again, missed the sarcasm.


* * *

Buffy strolled in the general direction of the Magic Box, having just walked a reluctant-to-learn Dawn to school. She had listened to her younger sister’s whining all the way there.

“But I have a ginormous math quiz that I didn’t get to study ‘cause we were freaking singing all night!”

“That doesn’t mean you get to skip school Dawn, it means you use your free period and lunch break to study up.”

“Pfft, yeah, like you ever did that. You so would have cut,” Dawn mumbled under her breath.

Buffy raised her eyebrows indignantly, protesting her innocence.

“Hey, I so did study during my breaks for tests… once or twice,” she corrected herself. “And I never cut either!”

Now Dawn was looking at her disbelievingly, her own eyebrows raised.

“Ok, so there were a few misunderstandings. But I never just cut for the sake of cutting or to avoid a test, I cut to save that stupid school from vampires, or-or swimming pool demons! A-and ghosts and… stuff, only for them to punish me for not being in class…”

Buffy was lost somewhere down memory lane, as Dawn rolled her eyes.

“Why is it that whenever you do something wrong, it always happens to be because you were out ‘saving the world?’” Dawn complained, making air quotation mark gestures with her hands.

“Because it usually is because of that and because I’m the slayer and bec- just shut up and go learn,” Buffy had snapped as they approached the gates of the school yard, ushering Dawn inside.

Now, as she trudged to the Magic Box, she felt the weight of her responsibilities pushing down on her shoulders relentlessly. When had it all become so hard? Oh right, when Willow had decided to pull out of her heavenly vacation and bring her back from the dead. How could she forget. It had been a daily struggle since. Life on earth seemed so brutal after being where she had been.

Her mum was gone, she had to provide for Dawn and she was certain that she was doing a shitty job in that area. She was so snowed under with bills, she had actually almost reconsidered her earlier comment about burning down the house and collecting the insurance. She was trying to find a job she was actually qualified enough to do, preferably one that didn’t involve flipping burgers at the Double Meat Palace. Although money was getting so tight now that she was even reconsidering that option.

Then there was the ‘Spike’ issue. The way he had climbed under her skin and made himself at home there. When they had kissed two nights ago it had been the first time since being back from being dead that she had felt the ebb of pain stop flowing. Even if it had been only for a couple of minutes, it had been a heavenly reprieve. He had been the only one she could count on for support since being back. He was the first person she had told about not being in hell, about how it felt to be back. About how detached and depressed she was feeling. About the nightmares that woke her up every night, where she was trapped in her coffin beneath the earth and had to claw her way out. About the constant pressure from the Scoobies to be normal and happy and the way they watched her like hawks. She didn’t know why Spike was always around when she needed someone, why he was always there when she was alone and desperate to talk to someone other than the scoobies - but he was. She hadn’t even realised how he’d become more than an ally to her in recent weeks, until she noticed the way he showed up to patrol with her almost every night. Until she experienced the genuine compassion he showed her throughout her torment; the patience, the understanding, the love… Then they had to go and make with the kissage and now everything was screwed up even more. Buffy didn’t know how she wanted to handle her Spike situation. She didn’t know what she felt for him, only that being with him chased the pain away, albeit temporarily. But she realised she had better figure out how to approach the subject ASAP, as Spike was running towards her, a blanket over his head, attempting to stay within the shady confines of the sidewalk. She would’ve laughed at how ridiculous he looked if it weren’t for the sense of impending doom.

“Buffy!” He panted, a few metres away from her. “Oi! Stop!” He increased his pace in frustration of the way she ignored him and continued onwards.

“Bloody bint,” he cursed under his breath, before finally catching up with her.

He reached out and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around to face him.

“What’s that all about Buffy?” He questioned, searching her eyes for anything other than the tired, vacant expression he saw there.

Buffy, not feeling up to facing a confrontation, feigned unknowing innocence.

“What’s what about?”

“Oh, don’t be daft slayer! The bloody deaf routine you just pulled. If I actually needed my lungs I might’ve found myself in trouble when they both collapsed.”

“Sorry, guess I kinda vagued. Besides, if you needed lungs you‘d be screwed anyway, what with all the smoking.”

Buffy kept her eyes on the ground, a piece of lint on Spike’s shirt, anywhere but his eyes, so as to not allow him to see the truth: that she was having a major case of avoido girl.

“Nuh uh, not good enough Buffy,” Spike said gently, but firmly, tilting her chin up until she reluctantly faced him.

She said nothing.

“We need to talk luv, you know it well as I do. We kissed Buffy.”

“So?” She retorted defiantly.

Spike let go of her face like it had burnt his hand.

“So, what does it mean?”

“It means our lives had turned into a musical and it was a part of that. It means we had no control over our actions when we did… that thing. It means that for a minute in time I was criminally insane. It wasn’t real Spike and it wont happen again. Ever.”

She saw the flash of hurt in his eyes and regretted her words. She didn’t know why she was being so horrible to him, but she couldn’t seem to stop. When all she really wanted was to kiss him again and see if the major sparkage extended beyond the Musical atmosphere. She was pretty sure that it would. Instead she watched as Spike resurrected the walls around his unbeating heart, putting his trademark smirk into place to cover the way she had so obviously hurt both his feelings and his dignity.

“So, gonna be like that is it? Just gonna deny what’s goin’ on here? Well, news for you pet, it’s not all about you, much as you’d like it to be. You can play the ice queen if that’s the way you want it Buffy, but I know it’s not what you want. I know what you really are, who you really are. I’ve tasted it slayer.”

Spike whispered this last sentence with malice, staring her down, doing that annoying (ly sexy) thing with his tongue behind his teeth. It totally turned her on, which only intensified her unjustifiable anger towards him.

Buffy stepped into him, raising her face to his, only inches away. She could sense his anticipation, his hope that she was going to bring her lips to his again. She was glad for his eagerness. It made the smashing of his pride that much more satisfying.

“You know nothing of me Spike. You never will. I don’t love you, I won’t ever love you. Get over the kiss Spike, ‘cause it was a one time experience and it was a mistake.”

Trying to maintain the unaffected visage, she turned on her heel, tossed her golden tresses over her shoulder and continued on down the road, leaving Spike standing under the tree on the sidewalk.

“This won’t go away Slayer, we’re gonna talk this out properly!” He yelled indignantly after her retreating form. “Maybe when the sodding sun isn’t out to play bloody peek-a-boo-pile-of-dust,” he grumbled to himself, before pulling the blanket back over his head and making a dash in the opposite direction.

Buffy didn’t know why she’d been such a bitch to Spike, he had been her rock since her return and to repay him she had crushed him. All the guy ever wanted was a measly crumb, yet she couldn’t even give him that. She was so incredibly screwed up, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She knew she didn’t love Spike, but she also knew that she had majorly lustful feelings for him. And wasn’t that how love usually started out anyway? But no, this was Spike she was talking about. SPIKE. The not-so-big-bad-anymore. He was an evil THING… Or so she had thought. But he had played guardian to Dawn while she’d been gone, when there had been nothing in it for him. He’d fought side by side with the scoobies, killing demons for the good guys. She sighed. Things used to be so simple: humans good, vampires bad. When had the black and white merged into such a murky grey? Spike had no soul, how could he claim to love her? And even if he did, what did that mean? Angel had loved her AND had a soul and he had broken her heart. But Spike wasn’t Angel.

“Gah, my brain is so going to implode if I keep arguing with myself,” Buffy muttered, massaging her temples with a sigh.

She made her way across the road, towards the magic box and was just reaching for the door handle when it was yanked open by Willow, who pushed past Buffy to get out in a hurry, saying a quick “Can’t stop, got a big fat list of things to do, see you at home!” as she went.

Buffy closed her mouth, recovering from hurricane Willow, and went straight through the shop, with a quick wave to Anya, into her training room out the back. Giles would be there soon and she was looking forward to the company of the only other person left (aside from Dawn) who hadn’t played a role in her resurrection and who wasn’t judging her every word and move to be sure she had come back “normal”.


* * *

“Maybe this map is in gibberish,” Willow mumbled, frowning as she turned the large diagram around in her hands.

She didn’t know which was the right way to read it or even which direction north was in. She had the ingredients for her spell in a small knapsack slung over her shoulder and thought that with the help of a map, finding a nice clearing in the woods on the outskirts of Sunnydale would be a cinch. She hadn’t realised how naïve that notion was until now. She scrunched the map in her hand with an exasperated sigh.

“And locater spell it is,” she conceded.

It revealed that she wasn‘t far from the clearing at all.

“Ha! I knew I was close, can’t fool me Mr Map!”

She finally pushed the last of the undergrowth aside and stepped into the clearing. It was perfect for her spell. Willow smiled with self satisfaction, strolling sedately into the centre of the grassy patch. She unpacked the candles, photos and other various ingredients, then removed the obsidian from her neck, breaking the gold clasp that attached the leather to the gem stone. Lastly, she took out the spell book, opening it to the truth revealing incantation.

Following the basic directions, Willow used the oils on the candles, rolling them both in the nutmeg and mugwort and lighting the wick of the white one. She cleared her throat.

“For Buffy and Tara.

Moon and tide save help me now,
I seek the truth here not yet found,
For underneath the fog there lies,
new possibilities for I,
So let this night be unlike others,
And let the noble show their colours,
And let the meek and cowards run,
For now the moon seeks out her sun,
And by the power that is three,
So as I will it, so mote it be.”

After saying the incantation, Willow held the obsidian over the flame, mentally counting to ten. She then balanced the pictures of Buffy and Tara on the top of the candle, so that they would both catch alight. She watched on a little forlornly as the pictures began to burn. They were nice shots. One of Buffy who had been laughing at Xander doing the funky chicken at the bronze, taken over two years ago, right before Xander had left for their last summer before college. She looked happy and more carefree than Willow had ever seen her look, before then or since. So much had changed in a couple of years.

The picture of Tara had been taken not long after they had first befriended one another, before they had become lovers. It had been of both of them, at one of their last Wicca Group events (before they had decided that the whole thing was bogus and that if they had to attend another baking drive, they would be forced to shoot themselves). Willow had ripped the picture in half to remove her own image from the spell’s path.

Satisfied that the photographs would continue to burn after she left the site, Willow put the unused oils and herbs back into her bag with the spell book and hurried back into the forest.

If she had looked back one more time, she may have noticed the scrunched up map she had left behind and the way Tara’s picture was sliding off of the candle as the flames licked and curled around it. Then she may have seen the rapidly burning photograph fall onto the ground beside the map of Sunnydale, spreading it’s flame onto the balled up paper diagram.

But she never looked back.

* * *

“Do you wanna just order a pizza?” Buffy asked Willow, wrinkling her nose at the black goo she was now scraping out of the pan and into the rubbish bin. From this little experiment she had concluded that some cooking ventures were doomed before they even began.

Willow didn’t answer.

“Hello, Wil? Anyone home?”

Buffy waved her hands in front of her friend’s face in a bid to bring her back to planet earth.

“Sorry Buff, guess I’m a little distracted,” Willow apologised.

“Everything ok?”

Willow watched Buffy scraping the base of the pan repeatedly. It looked like she might put a hole in the sturdy metal any moment now.

“Yep, all is fine and dandy in the world of Willow, no bad there…”

Buffy looked at her friend with mild disconcertion.

“Right, ‘cause you always refer to yourself in third person, Sméagol.”

Willow jumped off the kitchen stool suddenly, realising what the time was. She had to get back to the clearing to complete the last steps of the spell and throw the truth-telling wheels in motion.

“Wow, gee, is that the time? Real sorry Buffy, but I have to go… do this thing… for one of the girls from the Wicca group I used to go to, you remember the one…” Willow rambled as she gathered up her knapsack for the second time that day.

Buffy narrowed her eyes in response.

“You mean the one full of wannabe witches who baked pastries as a means of finding their inner spirituality? The ones you said were all a bunch of frauds? Sure, I remember. What exactly would you be helping one of them with?”

“Oh, she just wanted my help with this thing she’s trying to do-”

“What th-”

“Ok, gotta run, save me some pizza, k?”

Willow was out the door before Buffy could even begin to comprehend what might be going on with her friend. She was acting pretty sketchy and if Buffy didn’t have so much on her own plate, she might have been more concerned. As things stood, she picked up the phone to call Dominos.

“Hi, I’d like to place an order for delivery…”

* * *

Willow tripped ungracefully on a small shrub and stumbled into the clearing.

“Man, am I glad no one was around to see that,” she grumbled to herself.

She made her way over to the two candles, seeing that the first one had burnt out. Considering the fact that there was no breeze and she had been gone slightly longer than the intended seven hours, she assumed it had burnt all the way down. It looked like it had. She saw the pictures were now nothing more than a few small pieces and a pile of ashes ‘like a dusty vamp,’ she randomly observed.

Satisfied that all had gone as it should, Willow lit the smaller, blue candle, murmured the all important words “the spell is cast” and held the obsidian in the flame for three seconds. She then blew out the candle and left it alongside the other one, with the obsidian next to them both and the remains of the photographs scattered around the area.

Willow grinned to herself triumphantly, as she vacated the site once again.

“Ladies, it’s time to get your truth on.”

* * *

Oh I can hear you breathing
You’re picking up my scent
You’re trying to hunt me down
In the hope that I’ll give in

But I know these tracks
Better than I know you ever could
You’re breathing down my neck
But it will only make me win

Nobody wanted this
Not after all these years

Still the darkness draws us deeper
In just like a trap
But now I’ve got you here
I’ll never lead you back

For the garden’s end
Is where wilderness begins
You dug a hole for me
That I’ll bury you in

And if you raise the dead now
I might lead you back
And if you cut your hair
I might leave a map

Nobody wanted this
Not after all these years
Nobody noticed you
But now they’re on to you

You say you’ll have the last laugh

But the winters coming
And the snow will cover tracks
And I’ll be watching
Because I’m hunting you

And nobody’s buying it
Not after all these years
But somebody’s noticed you
And now I’m on to you

Lyrics are from “The Garden’s End” by Sarah Blasko

The pile of ash next to the tree outside Buffy’s window continued to grow, along with the number of cigarette butts. She peeked out once more, rolling her eyes when she saw that Spike was still there, looking up into her darkened room. She didn’t know why she was trying to be inconspicuous. She knew he could see her.

“Geesh, stalker much?” She mumbled, turning her back on the window and climbing back into bed.

She had just began her descent into the land of nod when there was a ‘taptaptap’ on her window. Her eyes flew open in annoyance.

“Go. Away.”

‘Taptaptap.’

“I’m trying to sleep Spike, get away from my window and go find someone else to annoy.”

‘Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap… taptaptaptaptaptap tappedy tap.’

Buffy flew out of bed with an aggravated growl, yanked the window open and reached her arm out into the cold night, grabbing a handful of Spike’s duster and pulling him into her room. She deposited him roughly on the floor and slammed the window down before turning to face him.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” She spat at him. She was about to punch the smirk right off of his face, but he held up his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Sorry luv, tryin’ to get some shut-eye? Didn’t mean to interrupt Slayer, if you wanted to get some sleep you shoulda just said so.”

Anticipating her reaction to his sarcastic teasing, Spike raised his arm and blocked her incoming fist. He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him as he tried to read her. The sound of Buffy’s alarm clock giving a small beep to indicate midnight startled them both back to reality.

“What do you want, Spike?” Buffy asked again, this time without the malice.

“You.”

No one was more surprised at the blatant honesty of his reply than Spike himself.

Buffy gulped, not ready for this kind of straight forward honesty. Why couldn’t they just dance some more? She looked at him, unable to hide her surprise.

“Huh?”

Spike sighed and opened his mouth to try again, with a more subtle approach.

“I meant to say that you’re drivin’ me bloody insane slayer. You’re around every soddin’ corner, couldn’t get away from you if I wanted to. In my head 24/7, you are. I’m always wonderin’ if you’re doing ok, what I can do to make it better. Always picturing your damn goldilocks and wanting to touch you.”

Buffy’s eyes were like saucers and Spike knew his probably didn’t look much different. He growled in frustration.

“That wasn’t what I was planning on sayin’ either! What the bloody hell is goin’ on?!”

Buffy cocked her head to the side, watching his struggle.

“You think about my hair?”

“’Course I think about your sodding hair Buffy, it’s always bouncin’ around, all shiny and golden, like something out of a shampoo commercial,” Spike mumbled.

Buffy felt the corners of her mouth twitching and couldn’t hold back the laughter that had evaded her since her mother had died. Spike wasn’t sure quite how to take this sudden outburst. He scratched his head in confusion, on the verge of making some cynical comment, when it suddenly occurred to him that Buffy was actually laughing. Buffy, laughing. The two words hadn’t belonged in the same sentence as of late. Whether it was at his expense or not was irrelevant, it was just nice to see her smile. He’d forgotten what a stunning smile she had. It made him smile - something that also didn’t happen very often, unless you counted smirking.

When she had pulled herself together, Buffy looked up at Spike once more.

“Sorry for the laughage, that just sounded so funny coming from the so-called ‘Big Bad’.”

Spike cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Hey, I am the Big Bad, slayer, don’t be forgettin’ that. I’m so bloody bad, I could just… kiss you. I mean I could… oh, balls. Can’t seem to say anythin’ right.”

“I think the real problem here is that you can’t seem to say anything wrong.”

Whoa, where had that come from?! Since when did she ever admit that anything Spike said was right?

“Come again luv?” Spike had to hear that more than once to believe it.

“You heard me. What’s with you, bleach boy?”

“What’s with me?! What’s with you?! Here I am, pourin’ out my soul-”

“You don’t have a soul,” Buffy was quick to point out. “And what’s up with me is that I’ve been dead for three months. My friends pulled me out of heaven and nothing feels right. The only emotions I can seem to connect with are pain and detachment, I have to avoid my friends to get any peace and quiet and the only person who makes me feel anything at all is a neutered vampire - who doesn’t have a soul.”

Buffy gasped. All of a sudden the honesty wasn’t so amusing. It was like it had been taken from her with force. Things she would normally omit had just tumbled out of her mouth. Private things. This was so not natural and sooo not with the good.

Spike pounced on her words eagerly, his eyes gleaming.

“So you admit it now? Got a bit of a jones for the Big Bad, ‘ey? ‘Cause I make you feel, do I, Buffy?”

Buffy backed away from him, afraid to open her mouth again. This was ridiculous, they should be trying to figure out what was going on!

Her mouth opened of its own accord. Buffy shut her eyes to lessen the blow as much as possible.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Oh boy, was she in a whole lot of trouble.

Spike stared hard into her eyes for a minute, trying to figure out what exactly it was that he could make her feel. She met his gaze unflinchingly, until the intensity of the moment overwhelmed her and she looked at the floor.

“Something isn’t right here and it’s majorly with the weird,” Buffy stated, deciding a subject change was in order.

“Oh no you don’t slayer. You don’t just walk away from a conversation ‘cause it’s taken a turn you don’t like.”

“Spike, we don’t have time for this ok? We need to round up the others for some hardcore research to find out what the hell is wrong with us.”

“Pffft! Pretty obvious what’s goin’ on, luv. Bloody truth spell ain’t it,” Spike pointed out.

Buffy nodded thoughtfully, liking the change in direction their conversation had taken.

“Probably. But we need to know where it’s come from, how long it’s going to last and how many people are affected. What if it’s not just us?”

“Then Sunnyhell is about to become right entertaining,” Spike smirked.

Buffy shot him daggers with her eyes.

* * *

“Ok guys, I’m sorry, I know it’s late (at this point Anya grunted in annoyance for the third time since she and Xander had arrived) … and that I woke some of you up-”

“Ha! More like interrupted some of us who were having fantastic sex,” Anya mumbled.

Xander’s face turned the same red as his fiancé’s top. Fiancé. He really should tell the others about the engagement, he thought wearily.

“Eww!” Dawn cried.

She hadn’t been woken up by Buffy, but since she had still been awake, she had been allowed to partake in the scooby meeting.

“Ok, that was an over share, Anya. Young, impressionable ears in the room and all…” Buffy indicated Dawn.

“For the last time, I’m 15! I’ve actually known about the birds and the bees for a long time now!”

Buffy looked at Dawn.

“If you’re going to have these little outbursts all night, you can go to bed, which is where you should be anyway.”

“I’m good!” Dawn mimed zipping her mouth shut, locking it and throwing away the key.

“Ok, so as I was trying to say, something is making us answer everything totally truthfully. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing to some extent, but there are some things that should never be said. Spike and I are affected. He came into my room around midnight-”

“Why did you go into Buffy’s room?!” Xander cut in, looking fiercely at Spike.

Spike winced as he realised he wasn’t even going to be able to lie his way out of this one.

“Well, I was hoping to have a proper discussion with the slayer about our little kiss the other night and yeah, I might’ve been looking for a shag.” He rolled his eyes at himself. He deserved whatever he got.

“You were hoping for a WHAT?!” Xander yelled, now on his feet.

Willow’s mouth was hanging open.

“You and Spike kissed?!”

“I knew it was only a matter a time before those two got it on,” Anya commented nonchalantly, inspecting her fingernails.

Dawn looked positively beside herself with joy as she cried out exuberantly “That is so cool!” and practically jumped Spike to hug him. He patted her on the back awkwardly, acutely aware of an exceptionally pissed off Xander, who stood less than two metres away from him.

“You were hoping for a what?” Xander asked again, menacingly.

Spike rolled his eyes. This was going nowhere fast.

“Yeah, all right mate, I want to shag Buffy, not exactly a secret, you stupid git.”

“You thought I was gonna have sex with you?!” Buffy cried out from her place on the couch. She looked incredibly offended and not just slightly irritated.

Spike winced. He knew how bad it sounded, but it wasn’t like that… much.

“I didn’t say I thought you would, Buffy, I said I hoped you would. Big bloody difference,” he grumbled haughtily in his defence.

“God, you are such a pig Spike. Get out of my house,” Buffy ordered, in a frighteningly calm, low voice.

Spike didn’t move.

“I don’t just want a shag with you luv, believe it or not I actually care about you.”

Buffy got up off the couch to face him. She had forgotten anyone else was in the room with them. The all watched on silently, embarrassed to be caught up in the private drama between vampire and slayer.

“If it weren’t for the truth spell, you’re right, I wouldn’t believe that. There’s a big difference between having an obsession with someone and genuinely caring about them Spike, but you don’t get that because you’re a soulless vampire. Now get out before I introduce you to the sharp end of Mr Pointy.”

If looks could kill, then Spike would be six feet under… again. He sighed, defeated. There was no way she was going to talk rationally with him in this state, with all the scoobies looking on.

“Fine. But this is far from over, Buffy. You and me are gonna hold a real conversation one of these days - one you can‘t walk away from, pet,” he retorted, stalking towards the door.

“Except that actually, you won’t, Captain Peroxide!” Xander yelled after him, as he went out into the night, slamming the door behind him.

Silence fell over the group as they turned to Buffy. She had her head buried in her hands.

“Are you ok Buffy?” Tara asked, speaking for the first time since the scoobies had gathered in the living room.

Buffy looked up from the safe haven she’d found hidden in her palms and sighed.

“I‘m really not,” she replied wearily, when it suddenly occurred to her that someone else was missing from the group. “Where’s Giles, anyway?”

Willow looked embarrassed, but it was Xander who spoke up.

“Well, you see the thing is Buff, when you asked Ahn and me to pick him up on the way, we might’ve found him in a slightly non-British… intoxicated state.”

“He was drunk,” Anya clarified for anyone who might have misunderstood Xander’s explanation.

“Giles was drunk?” Buffy said, incredulously.

Anya nodded.

“And stumbling a LOT. He wasn’t even wearing his glasses.”

“No way,” Dawn piped up. This night just kept getting more and more interesting.

Anya nodded again. “Way.”

“Was he alright, should we have left him alone?” Tara asked, the first to show concern for the watcher’s state.

“He might be swearing off alcohol for life in the morning, but I’m sure the guy will live, albeit with one mother of a headache,” Xander replied.

Buffy sighed again. “Ok, I’ll fill him in tomorrow.”

Xander raised his eyebrows.

“And when exactly are you gonna fill us in, Buff?”

“I thought the rest was pretty self explanatory. We think there’s a truth spell over us - well, me and Spike at least. We don’t know how many people are affected. We need to find out where it’s coming from so I can make with the slayage.”

Everyone missed Willow’s look of realisation, followed by a pang of guilt when she realised she must’ve screwed up her spell. Everything had been all drama, drama, blah, blah, Spike up ‘til this point. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her until now. She shrank down into her chair, panic rising in her throat. This was bad.

“Ok, we’ve covered that Buff, I was referring to the Spike saga. Since when do you make out with Spike?” Xander questioned, refusing to let it go, despite the fact that it really wasn’t any of his business.

Buffy cringed, wishing she could just crawl under a rock and die - for the third time.

“Since he’s the only person who can make me feel alive,” she blurted.

Willow’s look of guilt doubled tenfold. It was her, after all, who had brought Buffy back from her grave. It was her who had pulled her best friend from Heaven after making the assumption that she was stuck in hell. She looked Buffy in the eyes, whispering her apology.

“I’m so sorry Buffy. I should have-”

“You know Wil, no offence, but I’m kinda tired of the ’I’m so sorry’ line. You guys have no idea what it’s like to be where I was and then to be pulled out of that and thrown back into… this. It’s the… worst… It’s… I’ve…” Buffy trailed off quietly.

A lone tear fell down Willow’s cheek unnoticed.

“Yeah, ’cause being here with your friends and your family is just so horrible, I can see why being around us would be hell to you!” Dawn yelled and ran upstairs.

“Dawn!” Buffy made to run after her, but Tara held her back.

“Just give her some time, she’s trying to understand.”

Buffy nodded, closed her eyes and counted to ten, then opened them once more.

“Ok, can we please stop asking me questions about Spike and being dead and just concentrate on the actual problem here?”

“You don’t think kissing Spike is an actual problem?” Xander asked in disbelief.

“Maybe it is Xan, I don’t know. But either way, it’s my problem.”

“I think it’s kinda cute,” Anya chimed in. “Plus, Spike is hot. What woman would deny a man with those cheekbones?”

“Anya!” Xander yelled in frustration.

She shut up.

“Buffy, I’m all for your privacy and everything, but Xander has a point,” Willow spoke up, watery gaze fixated on the carpet. “This is Spike we’re talking about.”

Tara felt inclined to speak up for Spike, since no one else was.

“What you do is your choice Buffy, besides, he’s done a lot of repenting in the last year.”

Buffy shot Tara an expression of gratitude.

“Ok, so now that we’re done discussing my sex life-”

Xander opened his mouth again. “Buf-”

“I SAID, now that we’re DONE discussing my sex life, can we start with the research, ‘cause this whole thing is giving me the wiggins. Not that I have anything against speaking the truth or anything, ‘cause hello, honesty is the best policy, but there are… certain times when it’s better to keep your mouth shut,” Buffy cut Xander off.

“How should we figure out who is under this thrall?” Anya asked thoughtfully.

“I know how,” Willow said softly, her eyes narrowing slightly at Tara, as she turned towards her. “We start asking each other some personal questions. Tara, baby, I know something is up with you lately, you’ve been so closed off to me. What’s going on?”

Tara’s mouth opened before she’d even begun to think of a response.

“What’s going on? Do you think I’m stupid Willow? That I wouldn’t figure it out? We had a fight and you used magic on me to make me forget!”

Everyone looked as shocked as each other at this personal revelation from Tara. Willow looked worst of all.

“Tara, I-”

“Forget it. I don’t w-want to hear any excuses or ‘I’m sorry’s, ‘cause I don’t think you really are sorry. You’d do it a second time, I know you would. I can’t believe you would even consider playing with my memories after what I went through last year. You’re relying too much on magic, Wil, and it’s s-starting to really scare me.”

Tara looked down at the coffee table, tears in her eyes. Everyone else in the room was beyond uncomfortable.

Willow was crying.

“I never meant to invade your privacy, Tara, all I wanted was for the fighting to stop. We were arguing over nothing. I’m so sorry baby,” she sobbed.

“Using spells is n-not the way to form a healthy relationship, you need to talk things through. It takes work and you just keep taking the easy way out of everything… I-I think we need to take a break Willow. I feel like I don’t know you anymore. I can‘t even trust you,” Tara whispered, her tears finally spilling over.

“No Tara, pl-”

Willow reached for her partner, but Tara pulled away.

“I’m sorry, I ju-just… need to be away from you, until you sort some things out.”

Tara stood up and turned to leave the room, finally looking around at the faces of her peers.

“You want to know how many more of us are affected by this truth spell?” she asked. “This should up your tally.”

She turned back to Willow solemnly.

“If I stayed here long enough for you to cast another s-spell on me to make this fight disappear… would you do it again?”

Willow couldn’t look her lover in the face when she spoke.

“Yes,” she whispered.

As the front door closed behind Tara, Willow dissolved into sobs.

The remaining three people consoled Willow until she had calmed down. Buffy felt terrible for having gotten so angry at Willow again over being taken out of heaven. There was only so many times you could get mad at someone for the same issue, the bottom line was that Willow had done it. There was no going back now and Buffy just had to forgive her, or else they only risked losing their once solid friendship. She resolved to try and let go of her anger towards her best friend. Buffy knew she had only done it because she had thought her to be trapped in a hell dimension. But hello, how many times had she saved the world, as if she’d be sentenced to a lifetime in hell! Deluded much?

“Ok, so, Buffy, Spike, Tara and Willow are obviously under the thrall,” Anya suddenly stated, quick to get back into research mode. “Do you feel different at all? ‘Cause I don’t feel any different.”

Everyone’s eyes shifted to her, as they all openly stared.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“Well sweety, you always call ’em as you see ’em anyway.”

Anya’s eyes narrowed at her fiancé.

“Never mind, Ahn,” Xander went on quickly. “Ask me something I would normally lie about.”

“Um… what size jeans are you wearing nowadays? ’Cause I know it’s not a 32 anymore.”

Xander’s face reddened for the second time that evening, but he was quick to appreciate that he had gotten off lightly. She could have made him reveal their still-secret engagement. Still, it wasn’t nice to have your fiancé imply that you were getting fat. He sighed in resignation.

“A 38 Ahn.”

“Ok, Xander’s under the spell too,” Anya reported.

Buffy looked up from the consoling of Willow at this news.

“Ok, so that’s all of us. We need to ask Dawn something too. Then we can find out what kind of Big Bad we are dealing with here and I can go kill it.”

Willow looked up at her three friends, her face streaked with tears.

“Guys, I’m really not in research mode right now, I promise I’ll help tomorrow but… right now I just need to be alone, get some sleep, y’know?”

Buffy nodded at her supportively.

“Of course Wil, take all the time you need. We’ll fill you in on whatever we find tomorrow, ok?”

“Thanks Buffy. Night guys,” Willow sighed sadly as she got up from the couch and headed up the stairs forlornly.

* * *

A couple of hours later, when the remaining three had failed to make any headway with the issue, Buffy sent the other two home (much to Anya’s delight, who was quick to comment on resuming her and Xander’s sex capades. When Xander had rolled his eyes, she had pointed out that several of her special ‘work outs’ would more than likely take him back down to size 32 jeans. He’d been quick to push her out the door after that).

Buffy climbed the stairs and quietly opened Dawn’s bedroom door to check on her. Dawn wasn’t in her room and the window was open.

“Damn it, Dawn!” She moaned, taking Dawn’s shortcut out the window to go and find her. “Why does she do this all the time; can’t she just get a punching bag?”

Buffy sprinted down the street, deciding to check if Dawn had wound up at Janice’s house. She hadn’t. Buffy could think of only one other place she would go, the same place she always seemed to turn up in when she ran away. She headed towards Restfield cemetery.

Maintaining her speed until she reached the outskirts of the cemetery, Buffy slowed down as she made her way to Spike’s crypt, walking amongst the headstones.

* * *

Tears were still falling down Willow’s face as she ran through the woods. She had allowed herself some alone time to cry for all the mistakes she had made with Tara and for the price she was now paying, but the urgency she felt to fix the spell she had somehow screwed up could not be ignored. What would the scoobies do if they discovered that she had caused this? What would they think of her? She’d just lost Tara, she couldn’t bear to lose her closest friends as well. It was all too much. Between Tara, the spell and the scoobies, Willow knew, deep down, that Tara had been right. She was using too much magic. And she didn’t know how to stop. The raw power of it was too primal, too fierce for her to fight. She couldn’t control it and she didn’t want to. She was addicted to it.

Finally coming into the clearing, Willow ran to where the remains of the candles still lay. She bent down and kneeled in the grass, picking through the wax and the tiny pieces of ash and paper that were now scattered all over the place. She picked up a small piece of the paper, frowning as she turned it over. It was tiny, but there was something drawn faintly on it. It wasn’t a piece of a photograph, but Willow knew she hadn’t burned anything else. She squinted at it more closely. It looked like part of some kind of grid, with a greenish background. She could make out some smallish letters and winding lines. Her eyes widened. She gasped. It was the Sunnydale map!

“But how?” She thought aloud.

When had she dropped it and why hadn’t she even noticed? And beyond that, how does a map substitute a photograph? And if the whole map of Sunnydale had burned, didn’t that mean -

“Oh, nooo! No, no, no, not happening! The whole town? Under a truth spell? Ohhh, this is bad, this is very, very bad. Willow, you suck! Think. What to do, what to do? The spell has to run it’s course. Oh this is so much with the badness…”

Willow was pacing back and forth in blind panic. She had no way to reverse the spell and no one she could turn to for help: she was screwed.

* * *

Approaching the door to Spike’s crypt as stealthily as a pissed off slayer is capable of, Buffy stood there for several seconds, her fist raised to knock, but never striking the hard surface. Her eyes narrowed when she heard a sound which could only be identified as a the giggle of a teenaged girl - Dawn, followed by a cockney British accent bellowing “oi!” - Spike.

‘And screw the politeness that is knocking,’ Buffy thought angrily.

She kicked the door open and barged into the candle lit crypt. Dawn and Spike, sitting face to face on the mausoleum, spun around guiltily from their game of thumb war.

“Up, now!” Buffy barked, before either of them could say a word.

Spike held up a hand in his defence.

“Hey, I didn’t know the Bit wa-”

“Save it for someone who actually has the time, or the patience, to sit here and listen to your crap, Spike. Because I don’t.”

“Don’t get mad at Spike, I was the one who came-”

Buffy cut her sister off abruptly.

“I don’t wanna hear it, Dawnie, just get your things and let’s go.”

“Now hang on just a minute Slayer, you don’t just come bargin’ in here, all high and mighty and-”

“Don’t you dare tell me how I should and shouldn’t act! I came into Dawn’s room and found her gone, I was looking all over town for her, freaking out by the way, and the whole time she’s sitting here with you, playing goddamn thumb wars! And what’s worse is that you were letting her,” Buffy raged at the peroxided vamp, who had pulled himself up from the mausoleum and was now up in her face.

Dawn was getting her bag from the chair that was perched directly in front of the television, her head bent in embarrassment. She felt awful for Spike, he hadn’t done anything wrong. She couldn’t stop her attempts to uphold his plight for innocence in her half baked run-away-from-home plan.

“Buffy, it’s not Spike’s fault, I was here when he got home and I refused to leave!”

“Spike is the so-called ‘grown up’ in this situation Dawn, he should have brought you home!”

“Bloody hell Buffy, what did you want me to do, drag her there?! Yeah, there’s a right idea, or I coulda sent her out alone, into the night, where all the big bads are lurkin‘, jus’ waiting to take a chunk out of a tasty, young chit like her! She might be your sister Buffy, but I care about the soddin’ Bit jus’ as much as you do. Only reason she’s still here is for her own safety.”

Spike was holding Buffy’s arms firmly, looking her directly in the face and speaking to her as though she were a very small child. A very slow, small child. There was a moment between them, as both tried to read the undercurrents below the surface of the other, before she shrugged out of his grip and turned towards the door, where Dawn was hovering in humiliation.

“Just stay away from us.”

Buffy’s voice came out a shaky whisper, before she joined her sister at the still open doorway, and ushered her through it. As the two of them trudged through the cemetery and onto the street, leaving Spike standing dejectedly in his crypt, Buffy ruefully wished she had come off sounding as threatening as she had intended to.

* * *

“God Dawn, what were you thinking?!”

“I don’t know, I was mad at you,” a second voice grumbled. “And why did you take it out on Spike? He didn’t deserve that.”

“You’re right he didn’t deserve that. What he does deserve is a nice, slow staking,” voice number one went on.

Willow didn’t have time to hide before she realised Buffy and Dawn had come directly onto her path and now stood before her in surprise. She couldn’t let the questions start. If they did, she’d be in big trouble. Well, bigger trouble.

“Hey Buffy, Dawn. I gotta go, really need to be alone right now.”

Willow’s ramble was laced with sadness and she dashed off in the other direction, before either of the girls could ask her what she was doing out and about in the streets by herself, at night. She took the long route back to the Summer’s home, trying and failing to come up with a way around the gigantic mess she had created. When she got home, the house was still empty. Climbing beneath the sheets on her bed, Willow sighed and resolved to fix things in the morning, after some much needed rest and hopefully with a clearer head.

* * *

“That was weird,” Buffy muttered as Willow loped off down the street away from them.

Dawn was looking even more puzzled than her sister.

“Uh yeah, majorly weird. What’s up with her?”

Buffy sighed. She was too tired for anymore drama tonight.

“Tara broke things off with her, after you made your exit.”

There was no subtle way to put it and it wasn‘t like she could lie.

Dawn stopped in her tracks, her mouth hanging open in shock.

“What?! Why? What happened?”

“It’s a long story, Dawnie. Basically, Tara thinks she’s using too much magic,” Buffy loosely explained.

“That’s it? But… they’re so in love and… and…” Dawn trailed off.

“I know, but sometimes no matter how much people love each other, they find that they just can’t make it work.”

“Oh.”

Buffy put her arm around her younger sister reassuringly.

“I’m still mad at you for running away like that. There are gonna be consequences, Dawn,” she was sure to remind the teenager.

“That’s fine, I’m still mad at you,” Dawn quipped in reply.

Buffy took a sidelong glance at this girl who reminded her so much of herself at that age in many ways (and in many ways not) and raised an eyebrow.

Dawn was looking thoughtful.

“So what’s going to happen? Will Tara… move out?”

“I don’t know yet sweetie, they might work it out, who knows? Everything’s a little up in the air right now,” Buffy replied.

Dawn’s thoughtful expression re-emerged and she stared hard at her sister as she asked:

“Do you think Willow’s using too much magic?”

Buffy wished she had more concrete answers to give, but the fact was, she didn’t.

“She doesn’t use it for evil - at least, not intentionally - and that’s gotta count for something… I don’t know, I guess I’ve been a little caught up in my own… stuff. I’ll start paying more attention,” she promised.

A nod was Dawn’s only reply and the two sisters approached their house in silence.

Willow was up with the sun, padding quietly through the halls, splashing cold water on her face and carrying her shoes as she tip toed down the stairs. It was a little after 6:00am and she knew time was short. Sooner or later those dreaded questions would begin: “Hey Willow, what have you found?”, “so, what do you think Willow?”, “Do you have any idea where this spell could have come from, Wil?” and so on and so forth. She was freaking out about the very prospect of her friends finding out what she had done. They weren’t just her friends, they were family. And now that she had lost Tara, to lose them too would be beyond devastating. Since there was no one she could confess to about the spell, she had to find a way to end it on her own. She snuck out of the house and onto the street, making her way into the shopping district.

* * *

Spike awoke with a bitch of a headache.

“Bugger,” he grumbled, slowly opening his eyes. He tried to sit up. Oops, too fast.

“Oh bloody hell, someone stake me,” he groaned, falling back onto the concrete surface of the mausoleum.

He sourly blamed Buffy for his hangover from hell, since she had come in screaming at him and putting him in a foul mood. What else was there to do after that, but drink a bottle of Jack? Spike frowned angrily at the empty bottle on the floor, about two metres to the left of him, grumbling again.

“Thought you were meant to be the answer to my prayers, mate.”

Ok, so he was still half cut. This realisation only made him dread how much worse his hangover was going to be when he was fully sober. Bloody bint had him in a drunken stupor. Yeah, yeah, so he was usually in a drunken stupor anyway, whatever. He maintained that this particular drinking binge was still her fault. He hated how she had him by the short and curlies. And she bloody knew it too, didn’t she.

“Face it mate, you’re pathetic, is what you are. Can’t even stand up to a soddin’ slayer anymore.”

Apparently she also caused him to talk to himself. That had to be her fault too, everything was.

Spike sighed in resignation. At the end of the day she was his golden goddess and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her and the Niblet. He needed to straighten things out with her. He needed to engage her in a conversation that she couldn’t walk out of as soon as she damn well felt like it. This time she was going to hear him out.

* * *

“This is so much fun!” Dawn squealed gleefully to a much less enthusiastic Buffy.

“Oooh, oooh, I’ve got another one!”

She was actually jumping.

“And when do I get to fire questions of personal randomness at you?” Buffy came back wryly.

“Ummm, how ‘bout never? So, how bad was Riley in bed?”

Buffy looked positively mortified. Her face reddened. She tried to hold it in, really she did. But there was no fooling a truth spell.

“He wasn’t bad bad, but he wasn’t the best either. I think he brought his military soldieryness home more often than not, ‘cause he was kinda mechanical, but at least he taught me how to fake it,” she gushed. Her mouth dropped open.

“You are so dead, Dawn,” she added.

Dawn was giggling so hard, she couldn’t breathe.

“You can’t keep asking me this stuff, it’s private!” Buffy cried in frustration at her sister’s laughter.

“Ok, ok, one more!” Dawn gasped, her face as red as Buffy’s, but for entirely different reasons.

“You know it wasn’t Spike’s fault I was there last night, don’t you?”

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Did you really blame him at all, or where you just taking it out on him to make yourself feel better?”

“Fine! I was taking out my anger on Spike, ok. He deserved it, after the things he said,” Buffy grumbled.

“Do you love him?”

“No! … I… have feelings for him. Damn it Dawnie, you said one more question!”

“Oooh, the warm, mushy kind?” Dawn teased, completely disregarding the last part of what her sister had said.

“Maybe. I dunno. God Dawn, stop it!”

Dawn laughed again, before becoming somewhat more serious.

“Buffy, it’s ok. Spike was awesome while you were… gone. He was the only one who really looked after me. Everyone else was kinda wrapped up in their own stuff. And he cares about you, really cares about you, underneath the tough act.”

Buffy sighed.

“It’s not that simple Dawnie. Spike and I… we have a lot of history, most of it bad. And he doesn’t have a soul. The only thing that’s standing between him and total bloodshed is a chip.”

“Pffft. Do you really believe that?”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore. I don‘t think I want I believe it though.”

Dawn cast her eyes back down to her plate and busied herself with her blueberry pancakes, hope building in her. She knew what Spike was; where he had been, yet she still believed without a doubt that he was her sister’s equal and that they could be really good together. They were like opposite sides of the same coin.

“What are you thinking?” Buffy murmured, eyes watching the teenager intently.

“About how you and Spike are meant to be together,” Dawn blurted, then frowned. “Hey, no fair,” she whinged.

In a bout of immaturity, Buffy stuck her tongue out in reply.

“That’s what they call karma, little sister. From the legendary saying ‘what goes around comes around’. And by the way, I’d hardly say that Spike and I are destined to be together. We’d be like the couple from hell.”

Dawn raised her eyebrows and smirked sardonically. The look was so Spike, it was unnerving.

“Whatever you say,” she retorted mockingly.

“Just hurry up on those pancakes and get your schoolbag ready.”

Dawn raised her eyebrows in the Spike expression once more.

“Buffy, it’s Saturday.”

* * *

“Oh dear,” Giles mumbled, pushing through the records that were strewn haphazardly across the floor, in search of his glasses. “This can’t be good.”

He looked up from his search distractedly at the sound of the doorbell ringing.

“Right, I’ll just have to be blind for the moment,” he resolved, making his way to the front door.

He swung it open, then winced, as the bright sunlight shone directly in his eyes.

“Hey Giles, how’s the hangover?” Anya asked, brushing past him as she entered his apartment.

“Like several little Dawn‘s are whining in my ear, thankyou Anya.”

“You are looking a little shabby there,” Xander blurted as he, too, invited himself into Giles’ apartment.

“I’ll be quite alright, but your concern is touching,” Giles muttered sarcastically, closing the door behind them and joining them in the living room, where they had already made themselves comfortable on his couch.

Anya turned around on the couch, in search of Giles, finding him fumbling around in his kitchen. Rather than making the effort to stand up all over again, the ex-demon called out from the comfort of the living room, “Buffy said her and Dawn will be here asap! Oh, and FYI, we‘re under some kind of truth spell, so you‘re probably affected too.”

“Fantastic,” Giles mumbled, trying to process this information and remember where he’d put his glasses the night before.

“Honey, it’s not pronounced ‘asap’, it’s not a word. It’s A.S.A.P.; an abbreviation for ‘As Soon As Possible’,” Xander corrected, speaking to her as though she were a five year old. “We’ve been through this how many times?”

“So what? Why does it matter, Xander? Why can’t I just pronounce words the way I like?” Anya retorted irritably.

Xander sighed. “Because it pisses people off, Ahn.”

“People? What people?!”

“Me!”

“Could you two please knock it off, I have a rather agonising pain in my head, that your bickering only seems to make incredibly worse,” came Giles’ weary voice from the kitchen.

“Well then, tell Xander to stop being such an ass!”

Xander rolled his eyes. “Honey, the ass wont be me when you’re walking around saying nonsensical words like ‘asap’.”

“Why do you even care?! You’re always picking on me. Getting all high and mighty and ‘gee whiz, I don’t have anything better to do, why don’t I complain about Anya’s English skills?’! Why don’t you try joining my team instead of playing against me, once in awhile?” Anya complained.

Xander sighed again. “You know I’m always on your team, Ahn, I just thought you should be aware of the whole ‘asap’ thing, because, you know, I care about you and don’t want you to make a grammatical fool out of yourself. Plus, it was kinda bugging me.”

Anya pouted childishly on the couch, her arms folded over her chest. “Well-”

Another loud knock on the door interrupted the argument and made Giles wince.

“Coming!” He called out, hoping to avert any further knocking.

He opened the door slightly, careful not to let the sunlight hit his face. He mentally noted that this is what it must be like for vampires: knowing sunlight equals much pain. Buffy and Dawn stood on his doorstep, bright and cheery and very wide awake.

“Hey Giles! Wow, you look like crap!” Dawn cried as she entered the small and rapidly filling apartment.

Buffy gasped at her sister’s rudeness.

“Dawn!” She cried, berating the teenager. She stepped inside and was quick to rectify herself when she came face to face with her watcher. “On second thoughts, I’m with her. Geez Giles, what and how much of it, did you drink last night?!”

“Yes, once again, I thank you all for your touching concern and I do believe it was a bottle of whisky, in answer to your question,” Giles replied haughtily and began to massage his temples with his eyes closed.

Buffy raised her eyebrows.

“Like, a whole bottle?”

Giles opened his eyes.

“I’m quite sure it feels like a whole bottle’s worth of hangover, yes,” was his snappy retort.

“Okay, okay,” Buffy backed off, gesturing peace with her hands. “No big, didn‘t mean to care.”

“Hey Buff. How’s the truth treating ya?” Xander sang out from the couch.

“Mostly crappy. How are we all this morning?” Buffy said, false cheer in her voice as she sat down in the chair next to Dawn’s.

Anya shot a Xander a glare that went unnoticed by noone. “Well personally, I would be better if certain people didn’t keep nagging at me for stupid non-reasons.”

Xander rolled his eyes. “Making up your own version of the English language is hardly a ‘non-reason’.”

“Whatever!” Anya huffed indignantly. “You’re just -”

*Knock knock knock*

“And yet again I wonder if the knocking on my door shall ever cease,” Giles complained, massaging his temples again, as Dawn got up and opened the door.

A blur of black came running in, topped by a smoking blanket.

Spike.

Buffy rolled her eyes and let fly with the snark before he had even pulled the blanket from his head. “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah, what’s he doing here?” Xander repeated in annoyance.

“Shut up, whelp. I’m here to help crack this sodding spell.”

“Pffft, yeah, telling the truth would be a problem for you,” Xander mumbled.

Buffy looked sheepish at her own bitchiness. “Oh.”

Spike focused on her, ignoring Xander‘s snide comment. “Yeah, ‘oh’ is bloody right, luv. Don’t know what possessed me to put myself in the same room as you after your little movie of the week display last night, but - well, yeah I do actually, it’s ‘cos I’m in love with you.” Spike winced at himself and wished he could crawl under a rock.

An uncomfortable tension filled the room, matched only by the equally uncomfortable silence that accompanied it. Buffy’s cheeks were blazing, as she kept her eyes on the floor. Several seconds passed, with Spike watching Buffy intently, silently pleading for the crumb she never gave and Buffy trying to disappear into the carpet, with everyone else‘s gaze moving back and forth, between the two. And then, like the greatest gift on earth, Giles’ telephone started to ring, shrilly.

Giles clamped his hands over his ears and Anya cried out “I’ll get it!”, making a beeline for the phone. “Hello, Mr Giles’ residence, how may I help you?” she recited, her business phone skills in check. “Willow!” she exclaimed a few seconds later, capturing everyone in the room’s undivided attention. “Where are you? Uh huh….. Like how bad?….. Oh, that bad….. Yes, everyone’s here. Well, you weren’t home so Buffy left you a note…. Yes, you’re right, that’s not particularly important in the bigger scheme of things…. Ok, we’ll be right over. Meet us outside the supermarket end. Ok, bye.” She hung up the phone and sat back down in her chair, picking up one of Giles’ records from the floor as if nothing had just transpired.

“Um, Ahn?” Xander questioned.

She looked up from the Cream album she held in her hands. “Yes?”

“What did Willow want?”

Anya dropped the record back onto the floor. “She wants me to tell you all that some suspiciously apocalyptic behaviour is going down at the mall and that we should all meet her there.” Her eyes caught Xander’s and she smirked. “Asap,” she added.

“Well gee honey, thanks for the urgent memo,” came his sarcastic reply.

Buffy looked troubled, but a sense of relief washed over her at Willow’s timely distraction. “Was that really all that she said, or did you just vague it up some?”

“Hey, I’m just repeating what I was told,” Anya defended herself.

“Right then, I guess we should be going,” Giles interjected at this point.

Dawn jumped up to stop him. “Maybe you should stay here, you really aren’t looking so top form there.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, I’m perfectly all right, I have survived a hangover before, you know.”

“Right. Of course you have,” Dawn mumbled, sitting back down.

Spike sighed as the room was heading for another silent spell. “So shouldn’t we be goin’ to meet Red right about now?”

Everyone scrambled to their feet, as though having just remembered that they were meant to be somewhere. Spike rolled his eyes. Was it just him, or was everyone suddenly becoming intensely stupid under this spell?

“Guess I’m goin’ through the tunnels. See you at the good ol’ Sunnyhell mall,” he said to others, parting ways with them when they clambered into Giles’ car.

When Giles pulled onto Main street, he was met with utter chaos. People on the sidewalks were caught up in brawls, wildly throwing punches, drivers on the street were cursing out of their windows at other drivers. There was a trash can on fire and a young mother holding her child as she reined verbal abuse on an adolescent boy, who was obviously responsible for lighting it. It was madness. No one seemed able to hold back anything.

“Good Lord, this is terrible!” He exclaimed, driving slowly and carefully, so as to avoid the pedestrians and other cars.

“It’s like they’ve all lost total sense of control,” Buffy whispered, taking in the devastation.

Anya shrugged. “They have. It’s obviously the truth spell.”

Xander raised his eyebrows. “So the whole town is affected?”

“Looks that way,” Buffy whispered again, in horror. How could telling the truth result in such a crisis? Where did it stop being a good thing and turn into something so bad? Was this really what became of people when they started being honest? She shook her head in amazement.

Anya ducked her head as a paper fireball went flying past her head. “Giles, put the top up!”

“Oh, right!” Giles quickly reached for the button to bring the roof up over his convertible.

When they reached the mall, it was like the mother ship of chaos.

“Hey, it’s like the hellmouth of truth,” Xander commented as Giles pulled into a parking space.

Buffy nodded at him in agreement. “You’re not wrong.”

“Wow, this is insane, Buffy. People are crazy!” Dawn cried, surveying the scene in shock.

Buffy nodded again. “You’re right, it’s gonna be hell in there, no pun intended. And Willow’s in there. We have to get her out.”

Anya rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, one of the most powerful witches on the face of the planet needs our help to get out of a shopping mall.”

“Look, you guys can wait here, I’ll meet Willow and bring her out,” Buffy said firmly.

Xander raised his eyebrows. “And then what? We leave the crazies in the mall and let them destroy each other and everything?”

“I don’t know! Giles?”

Giles cleared his throat. “Maybe Willow can perform a freezing spell, to hold everyone in place while we figure this all out,” he suggested.

Buffy jumped as a fist pounded on her window. It was Spike, the blanket over his head again. “Oi! Let me in!”

She opened the door, mindful of the fact that there was no room in the car. She pushed her seat back against Dawn’s legs, providing a small space for Spike to kneel in on the floor infront of her. He jumped in. It was uncomfortably squishy. “Bloody crazies,” he grumbled, looking out the window.

“Huh?” Buffy asked, trying hard not to be distracted by Spike’s closeness.

Spike waved his hands infront of her face. “Out there,” he pointed and frowned. “You alright, Slayer?”

“A little Claustraphobic,” she murmured.

Spike smirked, knowingly. “I know it’s hard, bein’ in close quarters with a devilishly handsome bloke like myself, but there’s a time and a place, Buffy, and this ain’t it.”

“I know that, moron!” Buffy retorted.

“Yes, we all know Spike’s a moron, not exactly a news bulletin there. But are we going in or not? Because personally, I think we’ll all be better off if we stay in a group. Minus Captain Peroxide, preferably, but hey, whatever.”

Spike smirked at Xander, shaking his head at the smartass boy. “You really are a git.”

“Yeah, coming from a -”

“Let’s not begin with the arguing again, please!” Giles intervened. “I think Xander may be right, we should stay together, find Willow and bring her out. Once we have everyone to relative safety, we’ll find a course of action to stop this mayhem. Buffy and Spike will lead upfront, and we shall all follow behind. Stay as close as you can. Let’s go.”

No one had a chance to point out possible flaws in this plan, before he and Buffy had both opened their doors and launched themselves into the fray. Xander and Anya followed suit, putting Dawn between them as they walked behind Buffy, Spike and Giles. The small group huddled together, attempting to be as quick and inconspicuous as possible. Until a boy of about fifteen knocked Anya with his elbow as he came charging past them.

“Hey, you watch where you’re going young man, or I’ll tell your mother her son’s a rude little sh-”

Xander clamped his hand over her mouth. “Way to go on the stealth Ahn,” he muttered, not letting her go until they were several metres away from the youth, who was now giving them the one finger salute.

Once inside the mall, the group noted wearily that the scene was even worse. In a closed in area, with bigger crowds, mayhem wasn’t a strong enough word. Carefully, and much more slowly, the scoobies made their way to Woolworths, expecting to find Willow. When they finally arrived, however, Willow was nowhere to be seen.

“Well, where is she then?” Spike asked gruffly.

Buffy looked around, biting her lip in concern for her friend. “She’s meant to be here, she said to meet her outside the grocery store of the mall. Which is here.”

“Maybe she went inside?” Anya suggested.

Xander nodded in agreement. “She probably decided to get a few things while she waited. I mean, I’ve seen the inside of the Summer’s fridge and it’s a pretty sad sight to behold,” he joked.

“Why don’t we go in and look for her then?” Dawn prompted her sister, who was shaking her head at Xander’s comment.

Buffy looked up, coming to a decision. “No. You guys wait here. Stay with Spike, I’m gonna go in.”

“Bollocks! I’m not stayin’ here with the whelp like a sodding baby sitter, I’m with you, Summers. The Watcher and the other two can look after the Bit.”

“Spike! This isn’t the time to be uncooperative! Can’t you just do what I say for once in your undead existence?!”

Spike raised one eyebrow cockily, trademark smirk in place. “No.”

Buffy sighed. “Whatever, let’s go then. Stay with Giles, Dawnie.”

The vampire and slayer entered the grocery store and walked down the main strip, looking down each of the aisles as they went, hoping to catch a glimpse of fiery red hair. The reached frozen foods with no sign of Willow.

“Ok, let’s just go down this way and make a sweep along the other end of the aisles, just in case we missed her,” Buffy suggested.

“Right,” Spike agreed. “So, when you plan on gettin’ off your high horse and bloody discussing a few things, Slayer?”

Buffy stuck her arm out to stop him. “Spike, not now. I told you to let it go.”

“Pffft, yeah, problem is, it’s not what you meant, Pet, is it?” He brought his hand down over hers, never breaking eye contact.

“Not really… But that is so not the point!” She snatched her hand back, anger flaring at him for making her answer something honestly.

“Then what is the point, Buffy? What are you so bloody afraid of?”

“God Spike! Don’t you ever listen when someone says to back the hell off?! You want to know what I’m ‘afraid’ of? I’m afraid of my friends finding out, my watcher. Of seeing their undisguised disgust at me, of them thinking that I’ve lost all sense of sanity. I’m afraid of what will happen if I fall in love with another vampire. How it won’t work because there’s so much other stuff in the way. I’m the Vampire Slayer, Spike, and you’re a vampire. It’s so wrong. What do you think that would mean for us? That we’ll fight side by side for the forces of good and you’ll just abandon all your natural instincts? We‘ll play ‘happy families‘ with Dawn?”

“We already do fight side by side for the forces of sodding good, Buffy. I’ve changed, you know it, I know you know it.”

“Spike, a chip in the brain does not equal change. That thing is like a holding cell and when it stops working, you’ll go back to killing,” Buffy argued.

Spike growled and grabbed her by the arms, holding her still, so that they were face to face. “It’s not the chip, Buffy, it’s me. I’ve changed. I couldn’t go back to killing, chip or no chip. Not after I’ve… after you… Bloody hell, can’t you see it? I know I’ve done a lot of… less than admirable things in my time, hell, I’m the first to admit that I don’t deserve you. But who cares what they all think? You give me a chance, Buffy. One chance. And I won’t let you down. Because I love you.”

Buffy’s eyes were blurry with unshed tears. He couldn’t lie, she knew he meant every word of what he said. But how? How could he really love her? He had no soul. She looked at the ground. She looked back up at Spike.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But I can’t.”

Spike swallowed and looked away. When he spoke again, his voice came out in low, even tones, as though he was trying to maintain his self control. “I’m not Angelus.”

Buffy’s head snapped up at the mention of his name. “I know you’re not. But that doesn’t change my decision,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, William.”

“And you’re sayin’ the great ponce himself had nothing to do with that decision?”

Buffy sighed. “Of course he did, on some level, but overall? No.”

“Then why can’t you give me a shot? I’ll make it so good for you, Buffy,” Spike said, grazing her cheek with his fingertips. The emotion in his voice was almost too much for her. He was trying so hard not to beg.

“I just gave you a list of reasons, Spike. Please, let’s just find Wil, ok?”

“Buffy, just listen to m-”

“No. We have to find Willow. That’s why we’re here. Now, let’s go.” She pulled out of Spike’s grip and picked up a fast walking pace, not wanting to give him the opportunity to keep talking.

Spike looked so defeated as he followed her half-heartedly. With his head down and his posture robbed of its arrogance, he was a pathetic sight. And he was past caring. There was no confident swagger left in him by that point.

* * *

Dawn looked up from the corner where she and Giles were huddled with the others and saw Buffy and Spike re-emerge from the supermarket, without Willow. Buffy was looking uncomfortable and Spike was looking like he’d just lost his best friend. It didn’t take long for the perceptive teenager to figure out that something other than looking for Willow had happened in their absence. She tried to meet Spike’s gaze, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“No Willow,” Buffy announced, worriedly.

Xander forced a laugh. “I gotta say Buff, when you walked out without her, my first thought was that you’d found invisible Willow. And what’s up with him?” He asked, indicating Spike. “He looks like he just saw a stake.”

“Nothin’, just faced brutal rejection, is all,” Spike blurted and then wished he had seen a stake. Buffy looked at the ground solemnly.

Xander let out a faux sigh. “Spike, Spike, when are you going to come to your senses and stop hitting on Buffy?”

“Never, mate,” snarled Spike. “Not giving up on her that easy.” He was surprised by his own admission and the realisation that being turned down by Buffy again was nothing. She’d turned him down before. He would break through to her sooner or later, he refused to let her slip through his fingers. His face a show of pride once more, Spike squared his shoulders, attitude intact. Nothing the whelp had to say to him was more than he could handle.

Xander‘s eyes narrowed at the vampire. “Ok, one, I’m really not your mate. And two, she’s never going to sleep with you, so give up the creepy obsession already.”

“You know, I realise you’re a bloody stupid git, but tell me, why are you always makin’ half assed jokes at someone else’s expense?” Spike asked, smirking when Xander’s face was stricken with panic at the realisation of the truth he was about to bestow on them all.

“Because my alcoholic parents gave me a pretty crappy upbringing, which taught me early on that true feelings should be repressed, hence my using humour as a defense mechanism.”

Spike smirked at Xander, who was currently staking him with his eyes. “Thought as much.”

“Right,” Giles stepped in, playing a fatherly role for what felt like the umpteenth time that day. “So, Willow is not where she said she would be, which is very unlike her. I think now is the time to split up and do a thorough search of the shopping centre. We’ll meet back at the car in twenty minutes. Dawn, you go with Buffy.”

“Ok,” Dawn agreed, walking with her sister.

There was silence for a couple of minutes, before Dawn started in with the questions. “What happened in there, Buffy? Spike looked shattered.”

“He asked me to give him a chance, I said no. And I really don’t wanna talk about this now, Dawnie.”

“Well, too bad! What is your deal? He loves you, really loves you and you said yourself that you have feelings for him, so what’s the problem?”

“I don’t even know where to begin with the problems list and did I mention how much I don’t want to talk about this right now?”

“Yeah, you did. Ok, so there’s lots of small problems. Every relationship has those, right? Big deal. What’s the real problem Buffy? Do you even know? ‘Cos I’m kinda thinking that even you don’t know why you‘re pushing him away.”

Buffy glanced at her sister, startled. She hadn’t really thought that there could be anything else. There were so many issues with the idea of her and Spike, that she hadn’t pushed them aside and gotten to the core of it.

Dawn waited patiently, watching the slayer’s face screw up in deep thought.

Buffy thought about how she’d felt (or not felt) since her return from Heaven. She thought about how distanced she’d become from her friends and her sister, about how Spike had been by her side whenever she needed someone to talk to, how he was the only one who understood what she had been through. The only one who seemed able to make her feel anything. She remembered Dawn telling her about the way Spike had looked after her while she was gone, taken good care of her, protected her with his life. She pictured the way he would often look at her when he thought she was oblivious and how he had always looked out for all the Summers women. Then she thought about how she had treated him when he professed his love to her. The disgust she had bestowed on him, the beatings she had given him, her horrible words… ‘you’re beneath me’. Her gaze met Dawn’s unflinchingly.

“I’m waiting for him to realise he’s not the monster. I am. The way I’ve treated him… Sooner or later he’ll realise that he deserves so much better than that, won’t he?”

Dawn took her sister’s hand. “Buffy, you’re not a monster and he does deserve better than to be treated like crap, but now that you know that, you can treat him with respect.”

“But what if I can’t?” Buffy whispered, staring off into nothing. “What if I don’t have anything to give? He gives and he gives and I just take… How come I never saw that? I’m so detached right now, what if I can’t be enough? And then he leaves like… like the others?”

Dawn’s heart just about broke to her sister talk that way. She knew that if it weren’t for the spell, Buffy would not be talking this freely. “Spike would never leave you. He loves you so much, he’s not going to stop loving you because you’re going through a hard time. He’ll be there for you for as long as you need.”

Buffy shook her head emphatically. “But I don’t love him Dawn. I do have feelings for him, but they’re not… that yet. And what if they never are? How cruel would that be? And there‘s still the whole vampire thing, I mean that‘s not going to go away and it‘s still a problem. I kill his kind, Dawnie. Then there‘s the whole no soul thing, even though sometimes I think he has more humanity in him with no soul than Angel had with one… All this time I thought it was all about worrying about what everyone else would think… Thinking I’m better than him. That was never it…”

Dawn was quiet, instinctively knowing that Buffy needed to absorb the weight of this newfound revelation. She was aware of what a huge step it was for her sister, this realisation of what was truly holding her back from happiness - from Spike. They walked on in silence once more, Dawn mostly searching for Willow and Buffy lost in thought.

* * *

When the group reconvened at Giles’ car twenty minutes later, there was still no sign of Willow. No one was saying it, but they were all graduating from the mild concern category and moving on into fully fledged worry. Buffy tried to meet Spike’s gaze, but he looked away. They all decided not to go into panic mode until they had been to Buffy’s house and made sure that Willow hadn’t ended up back there. As the others climbed into Giles’ convertible, Buffy watched Spike’s retreating form, as he made his way carelessly through the angry mob, to the sewers. She knew she wouldn’t be seeing him back at her place. And she really didn’t blame him.

* * *

Willow wasn’t at the Summer’s home. Upon this realisation, Giles’ picked up the phone.

“Who are you calling?” Buffy frowned.

Giles looked up, as his fingers dialed a number. “Tara. We need someone who can cast a spell to put a freeze over the town, otherwise those Neanderthals are going to tear it and each other apart.”

“Good thinking, but do we want her to know that we can’t find Willow? Should we be worrying her this early on?”

“Well, I think it’s best that we be open with her and I’m sure she will be willing to help.”

Xander and Anya sat with Dawn on the couch.

“I wonder where she is,” Anya murmured thoughtfully.

Xander squeezed her hand. “I’m sure we’ll find her, Ahn. She’s got the best people on the case, don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m not worried. She’s one of the most powerful witches I’ve ever come across, in eleven hundred years. I think she could hold her own with pretty much anything, or anyone. Who could possibly cross Willow’s path and come out the victor?”

* * *

Opening her eyes, Willow surveyed her surroundings. She was in some kind of cave and she was a metre or so above the ground. Her arms were bound at her sides. She tried to pull free, but couldn’t. Looking down, she saw that she was inside a glowing green bubble type thing, like a shield. It held her tightly, rendering her immobile. So whoever now held her captive was down with the magicks. This didn’t sit well with Willow. She couldn’t use magic to save her own ass if she couldn’t even move. She tried opening her mouth to speak. Nada. She’d lost the use of words, also. She began to panic. Where was she? Who would bring her here? And more importantly, why?

“I’m here!” Tara panted, barging through Buffy’s front door, into the living room. “What’s going on?”

“Hey Tara, come sit down, ok?” Buffy said softly to the gentle witch.

Tara nodded and came over to the couch, taking a seat next to Dawn.

Buffy wasted no time with formalities, launching straight in. “Willow called us this morning, from the mall. She said the town had gone crazy, but the mall was especially nuts. We went to meet her there, but she never showed. We searched the entire mall for her and came up trumps, so we came back here. I know it’s easy to say this, but Tara, we want you to try not to worry yet. It’s only been a few hours and we need you - Willow needs you - to keep a clear head, ok?”

Tara nodded again, dumbfounded. “Do you h-have any idea where she might be?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh… So what do you need me to do?”

This was where Giles came in. “Tara, I don’t know if this is possible for you, but if you could try, it’s imperative that we find a way to stop the chaos that has broken loose across Sunnydale. I was wondering if you would feel up to casting a freezing spell. I understand that it would be temporary, but just to hold it for as long as you can would be extremely helpful.”

“Wow. The whole town? That’s some pretty hardcore magic. I m-mean, obviously I’ll try, but I’ve never cast a net that wide before. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to hold it for very long. Magicks like that are more Willow’s strength than mine, she’s a much more powerful witch,” Tara declared, feeling the pressure to be able to live up to Willow’s standards in her absence.

“I understand that it will be gravely difficult,” Giles responded sympathetically. “However long you can manage it will be very much appreciated. If we can stop the people of Sunnydale from tearing it apart, even temporarily, it will minimise the ultimate damage factor considerably, I would think.”

“Ok. Then what? Is there a plan where Willow’s concerned?”

“Well, actually, that’s something we could really use your help for as well,” Xander jumped in, suddenly. “We were thinking that before you start on the freezing spell, you could do a locator spell on Wil, see if it shows up anything. You know, instead of using tinfoil and jello.”

Everyone looked at him strangely, Tara included.

“Or hommus,” he added as an afterthought.

The scoobies stared at him in further confusion.

“Uh huh. And after this is all over, we’ll get Xander a brain transplant,” Buffy commented, poking him in the arm.

Anya crossed her arms over her chest sulkily, muttering under her breath “and he says I’m the weird one in this relationship.”

“Ok, so I’ll do the locator spell now, I just need the ingredients,” Tara jumped in, not wanting to waste anytime. “I’m sure Willow would have everything I need… So, if one of you could, you know… get them for me?”

Buffy placed a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Tara, it’s still your room too. You’re the only person who’d know where all the right ingredients are, anyway. Go ahead and get what you need, ok?”

“O-ok then, if you’re sure.”

“Of course I’m sure.

Tara removed herself from the couch and went upstairs to find what she needed.

* * *

Willow’s gaze moved over her surroundings, taking everything in. The ground beneath where she was hovering was like an altar of some sort; raised up from the ground and circular shaped. In the opposite corner of the cave the was an odd netting strung out between two boulders, the wall across from it and the ceiling. It looked like the web of a giant spider. There were candles lit at random, on rocks and in holders on the walls.

Willow gasped as she noticed something large and black emerging from the giant web.

‘Score one for me, it actually is a giant spider,’ she thought to herself as she watched two other spiders follow the first. They were huge. The size of horses, maybe. The sight of them raised the hair on her arms. This could, in no way, be good. As she watched on, Willow was more shocked at what happened next. The first spider morphed into a human woman, right before her eyes. She blinked. That totally had not just happened. Yeah, it had. The other two did the same. They were now young, attractive twenty-something women.

Willow eyed them warily. ‘Maybe someone put crack in my latte. ‘Cos this is weird, even by my standards,’ her brain was telling her.

The three ex-spider women approached the dais where she hovered, smirking with wicked intent.

The first one, who had quickly established herself to Willow as the leader of this mutated trio, stepped forward. “Hello, witch.”

Meh, she’d been called worse.

“I’m sure you’ve got questions for us, but since you can’t speak, I’ll just fill you in, start to finish,” she/it said. Her voice was low and raspy and Willow noted, kinda sexy. She spoke with a thick accent, but it wasn’t easily recognisable. And she was striking to look at. They all were. All three shared the same emerald green eyes and full red lips, pale skin and long black hair, that fell down their backs in waves. In some strange sense, they looked vaguely spiderish, even as humans. Then again, maybe it just seemed that way to Willow because she’d seen them change…

“We are Arachardim. Our race is an ancient one and not often found on these planes as we exist in another dimension. Our world is several away from this one. Jurakai was once a beautiful place, where life thrived, but now it is quickly becoming another hell dimension. There have been many wars between various races, which has led to famine and drought, among other things. Vegetation is sparse. Races are dying out, which is throwing out the entire food chain. Sounds like our homeland is all but doomed, right?”

She eyed Willow, as if expecting a response, despite knowing that Willow couldn’t give her one.

“Wrong,” she answered her own question. “There is one person in Jurakai who can fix everything; make it as if the first war that was waged never happened. Not to mention the ones after that. He is a powerful sorcerer, but the powers required to perform such magicks would kill him. In order for him to successfully save Jurakai, he needs to devour the brain and the heart of the most powerful witch in the earth dimension.”

Her eyes swung up to capture Willow’s gaze again. “And if our searchings have led us correctly, then that would be you.”

* * *

“Can you try again?” Buffy asked impatiently, then felt guilty for taking out her frustrations on Tara.

Tara looked forlorn. “I can, but it’s a basic spell and I know I did it right. Willow’s not on the map.”

“Pffft,” Xander scoffed. “What kind of locator spell is it when it can’t even locate someone?”

“A pretty pointless one, if you ask me,” Anya agreed.

“Well,” Giles began, leaning forward, frowning. “It can mean one of two things. Either Willow has been taken outside the boundaries of Sunnydale, or her location is being cloaked by other magicks.”

“Ok, so how do we find out which it is?” Buffy asked.

“We could try a revealing spell to find out if she’s being hidden by magic,” Tara suggested.

Buffy nodded. “Ok.”

“I’m going to need a lot more supplies for this. Anya, can we get whatever Wil doesn’t have here from the shop?”

“You will be paying with cash, yes?” came Anya’s eager response, her eyes shining with dollar signs.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Ignore her, Giles doesn’t care, do you Giles?”

“Of course not Tara, whatever you need WE will happily give to you,” the watcher replied, shooting daggers at the ex-vengeance demon.

Anya leaned back on the couch, muttering again. “Sure, fine, just take whatever you need. You know, it’s not like we’re trying to run a business or anything.”

“It’s FINE,” Giles reiterated firmly.

“Ok, I’ll see what Willow’s got, cast the freeze out over town and then I can go over to the Magic Box to get what we need to unmask any potential cloaking spells. Wanna come with, Dawnie?”

“Sure. I’ll help you go through Wil’s stuff first.”

They both went upstairs, leaving the others to their own devices.

“It’s getting pretty late guys. I should be out patrolling and it’d be a good way to see if I can find out anything about where Wil could be too. Help yourselves to whatever you want in the kitchen… which isn’t much,” Buffy declared, getting to her feet and stretching.

Giles nodded. “Yes, that’s a good idea Buffy, you should go ahead. I’m sure we can fend for ourselves for a while.”

“Although we might have to order in pizza, if your fridge is anything to go by,” Xander chimed in.

“I’ll find out if there’s any new Big Bads in town, there might be a link to Wil that we don’t know about yet,” Buffy added, ignoring Xander’s comment. She headed for the door, grabbing her coat on the way out. She could hear Anya berating him as she went out into the night, “Xander, you’re always thinking about food. I think you have an obsession” and Xander’s sarcastic comeback, “what, like the one you have with money?” Buffy shook her head as she walked down the driveway, buttoning up her coat as she went. That comment was bound to open a can of worms.

* * *

Since she was already going past Restfield, Buffy told herself that it was business, not pleasure, that took her inside the gates. She wasn’t thinking of Spike, no, not at all. Who was she kidding, she was totally thinking of Spike. She started chanting under her breath, “Must avoid hot bloodsucking fiend. Must not think about hot bloodsucking fiend. Must concentrate on turning all other bloodsucking fiends into small piles of dusty goodness” and it soon became her mantra. She should have seen the black silhouette under the tree, the burning tip of the cigarette, the smoke curling in tendrils up towards the clouds. Unfortunately, she didn’t. And she was soon met with mocking laughter that she knew without a doubt was accompanied by a self-righteous smirk. Buffy stopped and sighed, turning back to the tree under which Spike stood.

“You know, hiding behind trees at night, following girls that walk past, could easily be misconstrued as stalking,” she threw at him.

Spike laughed again. “Oh, don’t go gettin’ all high and mighty ‘cos I caught you talking about how hot I am, Slayer.”

“Believe me Spike, that’s the least of your worries.”

“What, you goin’ to stake me good and proper?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “No. You know I won’t stake you, Spike.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know it.”

An awkward silence filled the air - the kind that was practically foreign between the two as they were usually trading barbs with each other.

“So…” Spike began.

Buffy raised her eyebrows questioningly. “So what?”

“You going to apologise to me, or what?”

“Apologise for what exactly?” She asked innocently, although she knew what he was referring to.

Spike took a step towards her. “For bein’ a self-righteous bitch today, that’s what.”

“Spike…” Buffy looked at the ground, more ashamed of herself than she cared to admit. “You know I am,” she said softly, unable to meet his gaze. “The things I said to you today were… not of the nice. But still, you could lay off the ‘self-righteous bitch’ line from time to time and, you know, throw something new into the mix.”

His eyes lit up with the little half smile he attempted to cover. He was trying to be mad at her afterall. But he couldn’t help it; she was adorable. He didn’t realise how that little smile had caught her attention. A genuine smile on Spike’s face was almost as rare as a vampire strolling the streets during daylight; it just didn’t happen. Instinctively, Buffy’s hand reached up to his face. For a moment he thought she was going to give his nose its weekly punching, but instead her fingertips grazed his prominent cheekbone, before sliding down to his jaw and moving along towards his chin. Her eyes were locked with his the entire time. He held his unneeded breath in anticipation. Her soft touch caressed his lips and he couldn’t hold back anymore. He leaned forward, capturing her lips with his. The kiss was soft and sweet and Buffy felt the rest of the world fall away. Everything that was going on, the fact that Spike was a vampire, all the pressure she was under, even her own self loathing. It all disappeared, until there was nothing left but them and this moment and the undeniable connection that they shared. She felt his hands in her hair, on her face, the small of her back. She couldn’t remember ever having experienced a moment so beautiful and tender in any of her three lives. Her hands traced the contours of his face and arms as the kiss deepened, becoming more and more intense, his tongue dancing with hers. This was the closest she’d come to Heaven since actually being there. And the realisation frightened her. She pulled away abruptly.

“Spike,” she gasped.

His eyes were still glazed over, a picture of desire mingled with pleasure. “Yeah?”

“We can’t be doing this, I can’t be doing this.”

The spell was broken. Spike rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell Buffy, if the last two minutes are anything to go by, we’re damn well meant to be doing this.”

She shook her head, backing away from him. “It’s not right, I can’t do it, I-”

“Calm down,” Spike said firmly, seeing her distress. He stepped forward and place his hands tightly around her arms. “What’s the problem, luv?”

“The problem? I don’t even know where to start with the problems. Willow’s all MIA and-”

“Red’s still missing?”

Buffy eyed him sardonically. “Uh, duh.”

“Bloody hell,” he said again. “The bint could be anywhere by now. Why didn’t you say something before?!”

“Ok, for starters, there was the mocking me thing. Then you went and got all with the swoony and - and then with the kissage! When exactly was I supposed to say something?!”

“Oh, I don’t know, before all of that, maybe?”

“Before I saw you? Spike, you and sense so do not go hand in hand.”

He chose to ignore her last comment. “So what’re the scoobies doin’ about it then?”

Buffy sighed. “Tara tried a locator spell, it didn’t show up anything, so now she’s getting together some supplies to do another spell that’ll reveal whatever magicks are (theoretically) being used to cloak Wil’s whereabouts.”

Spike raised his eyebrows. “And that’s it? That’s your plan?”

“Well, I’d like to see you come up with something better,” Buffy retorted defensively.

“Yeah, wouldn’t be much of a challenge love. Let’s go,” he replied, tugging her arm to make her follow.

“And where would we be going, Mr Big Plan?”

“For starters, we’re hittin’ Willy’s. Sodding rat would know if there’re any newbies in town. Might lead us somewhere. We’ll go from there.”

Buffy nodded her consent on his strategy.

“And just so you know, Buffy, after all this is over, we’re gonna sit down, you and me. Gonna talk about all this - and by this I mean us - and gonna get to the core of what is and isn’t goin’ on here, yeah?”

Keeping her eyes on the ground in front of them, Buffy nodded again. “Ok.”

She didn’t have to look at Spike to see the glimmer of hope in his eyes.

* * *

Willow was panicking in a big way. If she could open her mouth, she would have been screaming her lungs out. ‘Yeah, screaming them out of me and right into some evil sorcerer’s mouth,’ came the added sentiment.

The Arachardim were in a frenzy, morphing in and out of their spider shapes, organising for the “big event”. Willow watched them work, fascinated, despite her own fear. They moved with graceful precision, their long black tresses swishing from side to side. There was no denying how stunning they were to look at. Yet, Willow knew she would have found them more attractive if they weren’t planning to steal her vital organs.

She was fully aware that time was of the essence in that there wasn’t much of it left for her. She had no idea how to get out of her predicament, there was only so much she could do when she was bound by magic to not move or speak. And apparently Arachardim were completely unaffected by and oblivious to mind control, since she’d already tried that. There wasn’t much else she could do without the use of her voice.

Tears of desperate frustration pricked the corners of Willow’s eyes. She was utterly helpless and no one had a clue where she was. Buffy was her only hope, so she concentrated solely on that. Buffy would come. She always did… except that this time she would have nothing to go on, nothing to lead her to the dingy cave where her best friend was imprisoned. And that thought chilled Willow to the bone.

* * *

“Ok, i-it’s done,” Tara sighed. The anxious looks of Giles, Anya, Xander and Dawn relaxed visibly. “It’s n-not very strong. It should last an hour, two at the most. I know that’s not long, b-but what I actually did was set the freeze and then sent out calming, soothing emotions. T-that way when the freeze fades out, people will feel really sedated, relaxed, you know?”

Giles put his hand reassuringly on the young witch’s shoulder. “Thank you, Tara, that was a stroke of genius. You’ve done very well.”

Tara nodded, embarrassed at the praise.

“Sedated huh?” Xander raised his eyebrows. “Kinda like cost effective, side-effect free Xanax.”

Tara frowned, missing the humour. “Sort of.”

“Xander, that’s really not the important issue here,” Anya scolded him. She was still annoyed at him for his earlier (and slightly true) comment about her obsession with money.

Dawn could see that the pair were headed for yet another argument. “So what now?” She asked Tara, forcing Xander to withhold whatever snarky comment he’d been about to make.

“Well, I g-guess you and me go to the Magic Box and get the supplies. You know, for the revealing spell.”

“Yes, it would be best to go now, while the freeze is still in effect,” Giles stated, nodding his head.

Dawn jumped up, eager to get moving. “Ok, let’s go Tara,” she said, pulling her up from where she was kneeling on the floor. “You two, try to stay, you know, calm and stuff. As in, don’t kill each other,” she added, looking pointedly at Xander and Anya.

“I’m not the one who’s the problem,” Anya said haughtily.

Xander made a ‘pffft’ sound under his breath. “Sure you’re not.”

“Hey, I heard that!”

“Well, that was kinda the point, you know, when I opened up my mouth and said the words.”

Giles sighed, letting his head fall back onto the top of the couch ledge. “Please let me lose the ability to hear sounds,” he murmured.

All three jumped up in fright, as the door slammed behind Dawn and Tara.

Anya frowned. “Why are people always leaving in the middle of our conversations?” she asked her fiancé. “Are we not enjoyable company?

Spike and Dawn sat quietly on the couch as the others entered from the kitchen, carrying the ingredients for the spell. They laid everything out on the carpet, how Tara instructed them to. Then they sat in a circle, with Tara at the head, all of them linking hands. Tara had asked if she could draw strength from all of them, as the freezing spell had taken a lot out of her. They had all happily obliged and now Tara sat, with Buffy on one side of her, followed by Spike, then Dawn, then Xander, who was next to Anya. Giles was next to her, on the other side of Tara. They were ready.

Buffy was very aware of Spike’s cool palm in her hot one. She was sure she wasn’t imagining the tinglies she was feeling in that hand, or the ones that were sparking from where their crossed knees were touching each other. She shivered, the recognition of the fact that Spike was the only person who had ever physically effected her so strongly undoing her just a little. But she was definitely warming to the fact.

* * *

Beads of sweat were rolling down Willow’s face as she constantly tried to break the bounds that held her with every ounce of her strength, but to no avail. She was acutely aware that time was of the essence - in that there wasn’t a whole lot of it left. She looked up and into the face of the Spider Trio leader, having not even noticed that the now-woman had approached her.

“Your struggling is a waste of your strength. Save it for the feeding,” she ordered, a cruel smile contorting her pretty features.

One of the lackeys stepped forward at that point, cocking her head to the side and watching Willow with interest. “Let her speak.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we don’t have time to listen to her beg for her life.”

“But since we’re about to take that life from her, along with her power, she should be honoured with the right to some last words,” the second lackey was now saying, from the back of the cave.

The leader frowned, not liking the way her authority was being undermined. “Fine,” she said tersely, waving her arm nonchalantly at Willow.

Opening her mouth to speak for the first time in more than a day, Willow gasped in fresh lungful of air, but noted with dismay that her body was still tightly bound in place.

The leader narrowed her eyes at Willow in expectation, then rolled them impatiently. “Well, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

“I - how - what are you?”

The leader released a small groan of intolerance as her two lackeys watched Willow with something akin to curiosity. “Didn’t we already go through this? I do NOT have the patience for insolence.”

“I know you’re called Arachardim, I know you come from another dimension and that you can morph into - spiders, but I mean, like, what are you, exactly? In, y’know, human terms? How do you breed? Like humans or -or spiders?” Willow knew she was grasping at straws with stupid questions, but she knew she needed to buy herself some time, come up with something resembling a plan, before they took away her ability to speak again.

“Asking these things you do not care to know about won’t buy you any time. I suggest you question us for things you really want the answers to.”

Damn these stupid, smart spider-people.

“But since you asked, we can breed as either spider or human, depending what form we take at the time of consummation.”

Willow nodded. “Right. Ok then. How did you bring me here? I don’t remember anything.”

The leader smiled. “It wasn’t hard. We approached you in the shopping mall and since it was utter chaos in there, we put a thrall over you and made you come with us willingly… then we knocked you out.”

“Well, that explains the dull achey in my head,” Willow grumbled. “My truth spell! It went all kablooey, were you guys responsible for that one too?”

“No,” she replied. “That was something you achieved on your own. You were being a careless, sloppy witch. We were watching on and saw it happen, but we did not interfere. Merely let nature take its course. But we soon realised it was a blessing in disguise, an opportunity not to be wasted. So we seized upon it and used it to our advantage.”

Willow was impressed, despite herself. “Wow, very resourceful, that’s what ya are.”

If only she still had her psychic bond with Tara. It was something they had forged after Oz had left (again). They had used their powers to tune into each other’s psychological frequencies and hold conversations with each other over long distances. At first it was a neat novelty. If one was cooking something for dinner and missing a vital ingredient, she could just speak into the other’s mind and as her to pick it up on the way home. Very much with the convenient and so much more cost effective than the telephone. Eventually it had become kind of grating, though. Like when Willow had been in a lecture, furiously note taking and Tara’s irritated voice had come into her brain, chiding her for not letting out the kitten in the morning, since she had now peed on their bed. After that, they had made a mutual agreement to only use the connection in emergencies, to call on each other for help.

‘Too bad she must’ve cut the connection when we broke up the other night,’ Willow thought to herself wistfully. ’Help me Tara, I need you.’

* * *

Tara gasped, dropping the candle she now held in her hand and spilling hot wax on Spike in the process.

“Ah!! Jeez Glinda, bit off your game?!” he scowled.

“S-sorry. It’s Willow,” she whispered.

Buffy’s eyes widened in confusion. “Huh? Where?”

Tara looked at her, the surprised expression still on her face. She pointed at her temple. “Here. The connection. S-she hasn’t broken it.”

“Ahh, call me simple here,” Xander started, then looked to Spike, who was just opening his mouth to make a smart retort. “That wasn’t an invitation to you, Captain Peroxide.” He turned back to Tara. “But what connection are you talking about?”

Tara smiled slightly, lost in a memory. “We linked our minds psychically, so that we could call on each other if we ever needed to.”

“And she spoke to you just now?” Giles questioned, slightly impressed.

Tara nodded.

“Well, what you waitin’ for luv, find out where she is,” Spike urged, not forgetting the matter at hand.

Tara nodded again, closing her eyes. ’Will? Can you hear me? I just heard you. Are you ok?’

‘Tara! You heard that? I thought you’d severed the link! Where are you guys? I’m soon to be sacrificed in a weirdo spider ritual, could really use a hand!’

‘We were just doing a revealing spell to find you, do you know where you are?’

“Well, gee, haven’t been outside in, what, two days, but I’m pretty sure it’s the caves in the forest. The ones up the hill from the clearing, you know where I mean?’

‘Yes, we’re coming.’

Tara opened her eyes to six expectant faces peering at her anxiously. “You w-were right Buffy, it is a cave in the forest.”

“But where? We need specifics or we’re gonna be too late,” Buffy replied.

Tara shook her head. “I know w-where it is. We can drive most of the way, b-but we’ll have to go by foot for the last part.”

“Awesome, let’s go!” Dawn cried enthusiastically, jumping to her feet and heading for the front door.

Buffy’s arm was in front of her, blocking her path in mere seconds. “Not so fast, Nancy Drew. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Buffy! I’ll help, I’ll be good!”

“Nu-uh. You plus spider demons equals big distraction for us. We need to concentrate on getting Wil out, not worrying about you, ok?”

Dawn frowned indignantly. “You wouldn’t have to worry about me, ‘cause I’d be with you guys. Common Buffy, I’m not a kid anymore! When are you gonna let me be a part of things?!”

“I work hard to keep you away from all this, Dawnie. I’m trying to give you a normal life. The life I didn’t have. Please don’t make this hard, just stay here with Xander and Anya. Please,” Buffy begged softly, not wanting to waste anymore time.

Xander jumped in at the right moment, distracting Dawn so that Buffy, Spike, Giles and Tara could slip out the door. “Common Dawnster, it’s way more fun hanging out with us. Who else do you play The Game Of Life with that asks to trade her children in for more money?”

Dawn just scowled at the door her sister had disappeared through just moments before. “Whatever.”

* * *

Giles removed his keys from his pocket as the group approached his car, but was held back from unlocking the door by Spike thrusting his hand out.

“Ahem,” the blonde vampire said, indicating that Giles should hand over his keys.

Giles raised his eyebrows. “You’ve got too be kidding.”

“Just gimme the keys Rupes, we don’ have time to stuff around.”

“Over my dead body!” Giles scoffed.

Spike sighed. “That could be arranged. Look, don’ be a git, we all know that if you get behind the wheel, we won’ get there ‘til tomorrow. And we’ve got to get Red out, yeah?”

“Spike, you are seriously deluded if you believe I’m going to let you drive the convertible!”

“Bloody hell, stop bein’ a self righteous wanker and just gimme the sodding keys!”

“I think not! You -”

Finally, Buffy intervened. “Both of you shut up! We don’t have time for this machismo crap! We have to get Willow and we have to do it NOW.”

Giles nodded in agreement.

“Now give Spike the keys, Giles,” Buffy went on and Giles promptly stopped nodding and scowled.

“It’s my bloody car!” He protested.

Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. “Yes, we all know it’s your car, but for now, Spike is driving it. No arguments! Let’s go.”

Spike was smirking ridiculously as he plucked the keys from Giles’ hand.

Giles was cursing under his breath as he climbed into the back seat, but Spike could make out the words “insipid, arrogant fool.”

Unable to help himself from rubbing extra salt in the wound, Spike turned around to face the elder Brit. “Yeah, I’m the moron when you’re the one who’s filled your sodding record collection with Stiff Little Fingers vinyl over The Clash.”

“Here we go,” Buffy muttered, closing her eyes momentarily. The pair continued, having not even heard her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me, Rupes.”

Giles could barely contain his anger as Spike turned back to the front and turned the ignition over, revving the convertible. “And you believe that that is a mistake on my part, do you?”

“Bloody right I do!” Spike scoffed, shaking his head as he pulled away from the curb and sped down the street, tires squealing for added effect.

“How can you possibly favour The Clash over Stiff Little Fingers? That is pure insolence, Spike.”

Spike laughed again. “You must’ve been on a hell of a lot of shrooms back in the day, Watcher. SLF were nothin’ but mediocre Clash-wannabes. They sang with half the passion and played with a third of the talent. Gotta say, I’m disappointed in you, Rupes.”

“Half the passion?! YOU must’ve been on some rather strong psychedelics yourself if that’s the way you see things! Stiff Little Fingers had just as much talent as The Clash - and by the way, I also have some of their records, it’s not like one must choose between the two,” Giles argued, frowning intently.

Spike‘s comeback was sarcastic: “Not at all, only those who have a sense of musical decency.”

“Musical decency?! Why, you were just-”

“Ok, enough is enough. I don’t want to hear another single word about The Clash or - or those finger guys again! Just shut up, we’ve got bigger issues tonight,” Buffy interrupted.

There was silence for a further two minutes, until Spike brought up The Buzzcocks, at which point the two men began to bicker once more. The rest of the bumpy drive was filled with talk of various British rock and punk bands.

Finally, Spike pulled up to the track, which Tara claimed led to the caves where Willow was being held.

“Right then Glinda, since you know where we’re actually goin’, I suggest you take the lead, luv,” Spike said, ushering the shy witch forward.

“And I’ll lead with you,” Buffy added, stepping forward as she glared at Spike and Giles. “You two British morons can follow behind us. And no more punk band talk, we’re going for stealth here.”

Spike looked positively indignant. “I have to go with this git? Bloody brilliant.”

“Well, I’m less than thrilled too, you know,” Giles added, crossing his arms over his chest.

Buffy sighed, making her way up the start of the track, Tara by her side. The witch was nibbling her lower lip, her eyebrows almost meeting in the centre of her forehead.

“She’ll be ok, I promise,” Buffy consoled her, forcing a smile that she hoped was convincing.

Tara’s eyes were glazed with unshed tears. “I-I hope so. It would just be so awful if she - and if the last thing I said to her was - you kn-know?”

“Believe me, I do. But that isn’t going to happen, we’re going to get her out of there before anything else happens. You have my word on that.”

“Thanks Buffy. I’m worried about the magic, she does need to stop, b-but I really want us to make things work.”

“I know you do, and they will. It just takes time.”

The group were accompanied by silence for the remainder of the trek. They finally came upon the entrance to the cave, at which point Buffy whipped around to face the others.

“Ok, this is how we’re going to play it. Spike and I will go in first, so we can take out any ginormous spiders that might come at us. Giles, you and Tara stick close behind, have whatever you think you might need ready for usage, k?”

Giles nodded and turned to the witch beside him. “Tara, if these creatures get beyond Buffy and Spike’s control, do you have the strength to initiate another freeze?”

“I-I think so. Since the spell’s already been cast, I can initiate a kind of renewal over it, which won’t drain me n-nearly as much as casting it did. Plus, a few demons is a lot less than an entire town,” Tara explained.

Buffy pursed her lips in anticipation. “Good, let’s do this.”

“Hang on a minute there, luv,” Spike said, grabbing her arm. “Forgettin’ something?”

Buffy looked confused. “Huh?”

Spike stared into her questioning eyes and pulled her closer. He leaned into her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, before bringing his lips down on hers. The kiss was tender, saying all kinds of things for which words would not suffice. But when they pulled apart, Buffy was trying not to meet the shocked gaze of Giles, whose mouth was literally hanging open.

Giles made a quick recovery. “What on earth is going on?!”

Spike looked hopefully at Buffy. “Tell him.”

“No.”

“What? Why the bloody hell not?”

Buffy tore her hand from his grasp. “Because this isn’t the time! Willow needs us and she needs us NOW.”

Spike tried unsuccessfully not to look as crushed as he felt. “Sure luv, any excuse is a good one, huh?”

Buffy was suddenly ignited by a fury she couldn’t contain. “You really think that’s why? God, you’re such an ass sometimes! Are you forgetting that I actually can’t lie, even if I wanted to? You want me to do this now? Fine, here it is.” She turned to face Giles. “Giles, Spike and I are together. As in, together together. Yep, we’re all with the togetheriness.” She turned back to Spike. “Happy?”

“As a matter of fact, I am,” he smirked.

Buffy rolled her eyes, but reached for his hand whilst doing so.

Giles looked positively mortified. “How? Why? How?” Was all he could utter. “And why?”

Buffy sighed. “Lots of reasons. Spike has changed. A lot. He’s been there for me in a way that no one else could’ve been since I came back. He’s looks after Dawn like she’s his own. And he loves me. I swear I haven’t gone off the deep end,Giles, you just have to trust me. ”

“Loves you? Buffy, he hasn’t got a soul.”

“Maybe not in the literal sense, but he feels. In many ways he has more emotional depth than Angel had with a soul. I know his love is real, because I can feel it whenever he’s around me,” Buffy explained, smiling warmly at Spike as she did.

Spike returned the smile, squeezing her hand in a gesture of support.

Giles cleared his throat. “There is a significant difference between love and obsession, Buff-”

“It’s not obsession. Believe me, I know. Things are different now. He can make me happy, Giles. Can you please try to respect that?”

Giles’ frown faded. To hear Buffy mention being happy was worth just about anything - even the notion of her being with Spike. And she was right: Spike had done a lot of good. “I‘ll do my best.”

Tara chose this moment to intervene. “I t-think it’s great. It’s been kind of obvious for awhile now that y-you both have feelings for each other.”

Spike nodded. “Thanks Glinda, means a lot.”

Tara smiled. “But I th-think we need to hurry.”

“She’s right, let’s go,” Buffy agreed, making her way through the entrance, Spike by her side. She was hit by the realisation that this was exactly how she wanted things to be: her and Spike, together. The knowledge warmed her heart from the inside out.