Chapter 1

It was almost a year now since the Hellmouth was destroyed and Sunnydale disappeared into a crater. A year since Spike...

Buffy bit her lip hard. She wasn’t going to think of Spike.

Strange how she missed Sunnydale. She’d spent seven years hating being tied to the Hellmouth, wishing she could see the rest of the world, wishing that she could leave Sunnydale. And here she was missing it.

She had seen the rest of the world now. She’d gone everywhere, locating the novice Slayers created by Willow’s spell, gathering and bringing them in for training. She was even living in Rome, in a small apartment that Dawn shared with her during holidays from that expensive boarding school that Giles had arranged for her. Giles being head of the new Council of Watchers made such a difference. A proper salary for Buffy. A proper job teaching the Slayers that were training in Rome, while still being on call if some problem arose somewhere that needed her expertise. Fashionable clothes. Home in a fashionable quarter of the city. Dates with fashionable men.

All meaningless.

All those beautiful cities—that were empty for her. The affluent life that she walked through numbly, feeling nothing but pain. The dates with the men who all didn’t have any faces for her, were just generically handsome mannequins that weren’t real to her. Meaningless. She’d stopped dating now; it had become a pointless exercise that only left her feeling more lonely.

She had thrown away everything that had real value to her. She had thrown away her heart.

‘I love you.’

‘No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it.’

Of course he hadn’t believed her. She hadn’t given him any sign of it before, hadn’t even known it herself until it had struck her in the gut in that final, terrible moment, when it was too late.

And then he had died. And she had let him die. She could have ripped that amulet off his head. Why hadn’t she? Because everything had been coming at her too fast, because she hadn’t had time to think, to process?

No excuse.

She had failed him. He had given her everything that he had, even given his life in the end. And she had given him nothing. All he had ever asked for was a crumb and she had given him a stone. Stony heart, stony purpose, iron contempt. Used him, abused him, in her self-absorption never even looked at him properly, never seen what she was throwing away.

Hadn’t even appreciated the soul. That terrible, magnificent achievement of his. No demon had ever sought a soul before. Even Angel had his soul thrust upon him. But Spike had fought for his. All for her, so that he would never hurt her again. Which hurt itself had been something she had driven him to, with her mixed messages, her no-no-no-yeses. How often had she said no to him, only to agree when he persisted—and then blamed him for her own weakness.

And when he had come back with that soul, all she had been was irritated. Annoyed at being saddled with the insanity the burden of that soul induced in him. Callously leaving him to struggle with it alone in the basement of the high school. Making cruel jokes about his lack of hygiene, which had been caused only by that insanity. Not caring about the agony that had driven him insane, only caring that it had taken away her strongest fighter.

Her eyes burned from wanting to cry. But all these endless days she had refused to cry, refused any ease tears might bring. She deserved the pain. Deserved to live with the loss and the guilt.

The others never guessed what she felt. They didn’t value Spike, didn’t really give him credit for the sacrifice that he had made, burning away in the Hellmouth to save the world. The amulet had done it, they said, refusing to see that it was Spike’s soul that had powered that amulet. Or that he could have saved himself if he had only taken it off. But it was not in Spike’s nature to take it off. He never went at things halfway, always threw himself headlong into everything, never counting the cost.

None of them were what they used to be, herself most of all. The cost had been too high. Giles was head of the Council now—and was slowly turning into Quentin Travers, cold, calculating and manipulative. Willow, all that joyous naiveté gone—the loss of Tara taking away the joy, having been Dark Willow taking away the naiveté, her new lover, that brash shallow Kennedy, in no way making up the loss. Xander, helping train Slayers, playing at being GI Joe, lacking an eye and lacking the heart that had made up for, oh, a whole list of foolishnesses, Anya’s death perhaps being the cause, despite the way he had treated her. Buffy herself—empty, a hollow shell, going through the motions, not really caring about anything.

Something irrecoverable had gone out of her relationship with the Scoobies that day they had thrown her out of her own house. Only Spike had stood by her. Of course, it was Spike, whom she had scorned and abused, who had stood by her.

She wondered whether Spike would even recognize her, the way she was these days. Angel certainly didn’t, kept looking at her in bewilderment, unable to understand why she didn’t respond to him the way she had all those years ago when she had been a naive teenager. But she saw him now, saw how he manipulated people, used them, played with their memories, even her, whom he claimed he loved. She had quietly found out a few things this last year.

But she was an expert on the many ways of using someone, wasn’t she?

Maybe Spike wouldn’t recognize her anymore either. No. She was wrong. Spike always knew what she was, what she was going through, even when she didn’t want him to know. And she wouldn’t be this way if he were back. Even if she were, he’d bring her back. He never gave up. Not Spike. Made mistakes, tried to correct them, kept on going. Tried and kept trying. Always.

‘Watch the heart.’

Always the heart with Spike. He hadn’t needed the soul. He had that heart.

She wouldn’t make the same mistakes either, if he were here now. She wouldn’t throw it all away, the way she had for years. She’d learned. She knew better now.

Too late, of course.

Her cell phone rang. It was Andrew, checking on the status of her latest mission for Giles.

“I’m going out there tonight,” she said. “I already cased the joint earlier this afternoon, just to get a feel for the place.”

“‘Cased the joint’?” muttered Andrew, offended by the phrasing, as she had known he would be. She smirked. “Honestly, Buffy! This is Stonehenge you’re talking about, not some ‘joint’!”

“I’m an uneducated barbarian,” she mocked.

Andrew sighed pointedly.

“Anyway,” said Buffy, lying back on the queensized bed that had come with the hotel room and in which she would be sleeping alone, “I went on the tour. Did you know there were still a couple of hundred tourists around, even though it’s late November?”

“The only time Stonehenge is closed is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Good thing it’s not summer. They get thousands of visitors then.”

“Right, right. So only a couple of hundred people will get eaten by this boogeyman of yours if it turns up right now.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” asked Andrew suspiciously. “It’s not funny. There’s something out there. The Wiccas say so.”

“But they couldn’t find it when they dropped in.”

“We thought with your special Slayer sense...”

“Ri-ight. Anything else special?”

“What do you mean?”

“Anything about today that might attract the creature? Any prophecy or power concentration or what the hell else? This handy-dandy guidebook that I picked up talks about solstices. I mean, maybe I should have come on the winter solstice or something.”

“That’s a whole month away!”

“My point exactly,” muttered Buffy.

“Really, Buffy,” sniffed Andrew. “You don’t have to be flippant.”

“God, you’re really starting to sound like Giles.”

“Why, thank you!” said Andrew, pleased, and Buffy rolled her eyes.

“I’ll go in just before midnight and see what turns up. The witching hour, right? Did your Wiccas think of dropping by around that time?”

“Of course they did,” snapped Andrew, offended. “We’re not stupid, you know.”

“Just touchy.”

She grinned at the long silence that suggested Andrew was counting to ten.

“Do you want one of the Wiccas to come with you?” he said finally, deciding to ignore her remark.

“What? To protect me?” Buffy asked, amused. “Nah. I’ve got that doohickey of theirs that will teleport me in. It should poof me out if I run into any trouble I can’t handle. Unlikely as that is.”

“There really is...”

“Yeah, yeah. Talk to you later.”

Half an hour before midnight, Buffy popped into the center of Stonehenge. Teleportation always left a queasy feeling in her stomach. She swallowed that down with an effort, dropped the amulet that had brought her here into her pocket where she could easily reach it if necessary, then looked around her.

“Whoa, creepy.”

When she had come here on the tour earlier in the day, she hadn’t been allowed past the ropes that kept tourists from trampling the site. But even from that distance away beyond the cordon, the vast stone circle had been impressive. Now standing in the center of it, the massive columns looming over her on every side, she felt a little shiver of awe run through her.

The sheer scale of the structure, the age of it! She turned carefully, mindful of any dips in the ground, the full moon allowing her to see without resorting to the torch in her pocket. She was glad she hadn’t come three days later when a lunar eclipse was predicted.

All around her, the monolithic circle swept, over a hundred feet wide, seventeen blocks of stone left out of the thirty that would have been there when it had been built, each block six and a half feet high and three feet thick, each weighing twenty-five tons, according to the guide book. Many of the lintels were gone or fallen, but she could see the ring that they would have made. Within that ring was another circle of smaller stones, many of those also missing—bluestones, which hadn’t looked blue by day, though the guide said they turned blue when wet. Inside the two circles, where she was standing, was a horseshoe of giant, upright pillars—the trilithions. There were three pairs of them with lintels across them and two pairs with the second stone and lintel lying on the ground. The tallest of the trilithions was more than four times her height, twenty-two feet, the book had said. The gigantic, looming weight of it towering over her took her breath away.

Over four thousand years old. Built by people using primitive tools, seventy generations of them. It had taken over sixteen hundred years for them to raise the structure, the equivalent of people working nonstop from the fall of the Roman empire to the present day. But they had never given up, kept on working determinedly; it had meant that much to them. She wasn’t a Wicca; she didn’t know if there was power of that sort here. But the will and the engineering genius and the sheer determination of the people that had built Stonehenge was potent, spoke to her.

She moved carefully around the stones, sliding through moonlight and shadow, her Slayer senses extended as far as they would go. Nothing moved except the wind in the grasses and the odd cloud scudding across the moon. She sensed no demonic activity anywhere. Looked like a washout. But she was not sorry she had come. She would never have thought of making the trip here otherwise, or of stepping into the circle itself. Tourists could, if they made appointments, but not in winter. It was November twenty-fifth; she didn’t have to worry about taking out an innocent tourist by accident.

November twenty-fifth. Thanksgiving back in the States. She winced suddenly, thinking of that Thanksgiving four years ago when the Initiative had placed that chip in Spike’s head and he had come to her for help. She had been so focused on having a perfect Thanksgiving, hadn’t even thought of what he was going through—unable to feed, unable to fight, all that he loved taken away from him. Everything had started from there though, the change in him and her own stubborn refusal to see what was right in front of her eyes. God! What she wouldn’t do to have that day back!

Her cell phone vibrated against her hip. She was glad she had muted it: ringtones would have been so incongruous here, almost sacrilegious. She was even more glad that someone had called, distracting her from her painful thoughts. She didn’t want to think of Spike and her own blind stupidity.

It was Andrew. “Anything?”

“Nada. Zippo. Zilch. It’s way past midnight and I’m freezing my ass off here. Are you sure...?”

“Yes, I’m sure! You couldn’t wait for dawn, could you?”

“It’s November! Dawn comes at seven-thirty! Hours and hours away!”

“Just a little longer,” wheedled Andrew. “Just a few hours.”

“How about I just pop back into my nice, warm hotel room and pop back here every hour on the hour?”

“Buffy...”

“It’s boring,” she complained, then looked up. “Oh, shit.”

Several hundred feet away, on the grassy plain that surrounded Stonehenge, a dull reddish-black line had formed, a line that seemed to stretch from the ground right up into the heavens. A pulsing black force was streaming from it.

“Uh, Andrew?”

“What?”

“It just became unboring. Where are your Wiccas? Wake up your Wiccas. A portal just opened up out here.”

“There are no portals around there...!”

“There is now. So not a good thing.” Buffy backed up and nearly tripped over the huge stone lying flat behind her. “Get me a witchy person, Andrew! Slayers don’t handle portals! Portals don’t respond well to stakes.”

“Are you pulling my chain?”

“Give me that, you idiot!” Buffy heard a woman’s voice exclaim behind him, then there was a clatter as if the phone had been snatched out of his hand. “Buffy, we’re on it! What’s coming through?”

“Some kind of energy. Black. Moving very fast. Coming right at me.”

“Where are you?”

“Center of Stonehenge.”

“Teleport out. We’re activating the megaliths.”

“You’re whatting the huh?” Buffy dug in her pocket for the amulet. “Well, look at that.”

The massive stones of the Henge had suddenly started to glow blue, the luminescence spreading and linking together.

“Kinda like a force field, right?” Buffy remarked. “Are you sure it won’t hurt the stones? Be a shame if...”

“It won’t hurt them. Buffy, just get out of there! This is no time for sightseeing!”

“Can’t.” Buffy looked down at the amulet in her hand. “Your pretty gem isn’t working.”

Emanations from the portal perhaps, nullifying the amulet. Guess she should have brought one of the Wiccas with her. But everyone had been thinking of demons, not esoteric forces. Which might just turn out to be a fatal error, she thought as the black wave rushed right past the blue field of the circle and roared towards her.

“Oops?”

The wavefront struck her. She was flung back, thrown right off her feet, to crash against the trilithion behind her. Her head struck the rock and she saw stars. The phone spun from her hand. She could hear it squeaking at her, calling her name.

Whatever the Wiccas were doing was working. She could see the portal beginning to close. Didn’t do her any good though. She was caught here, trapped between forces, between the blue pulses pouring out of the stone behind her and the raging black force in front, the two conflicting energies crackling through her like an unending lightning blast. Human bodies weren’t made to take that kind of stress, not even the body of a Slayer. Her brain shorted right out.

Then she was floating in space, looking down at a crumpled form lying at the base of the trilithion.

Her form. Oh, damn.

‘Dead again, huh?’ she remarked dreamily. ‘This is really starting to get old.’

She drifted higher. Andrew and the Wiccas would come once they had that force contained. She could see it starting to waver now that the portal was almost closed. But all they would find would be her body.

‘Oh, well. Easy come, easy go.’

She was almost relieved. She didn’t care anymore and it would be good to rest. Willow had sworn to her that she would never bring Buffy back again. No more freaking resurrections.

Below her, Stonehenge flared pale blue and she saw it as it must have been—every stone and lintel in place, the circle perfect and exquisite, a glorious structure. She didn’t know whether that was part of the spell the Wicca were doing or whether it was part of the swirl of time and space around her. The vision spun, then drifted away and faded into white.

All white now. She was floating in glowing white light that seemed to go on forever in all directions. Something opened in front of her.

‘Oh, there you are again.’

She knew it. That place where she had been safe and warm and loved and finished. That perfect place.

Except.

It wouldn’t be as perfect now. Spike wouldn’t be there. No perfection without Spike. But she had thrown that away.

Something else opened to her left. Another place. And in it...

She sensed Spike. Whatever that place was, she could feel him within it.

She caught her non-existent breath.

She was being given a choice. Heaven or Spike. A surge of joy went through her, unthinking, instinctive, coming from the very cells of her body. Didn’t matter where that place was, didn’t matter what she would find there. The two of them together, they would find a way even out of Hell.

Heaven would always be there. Heaven could wait. What she wanted was to be with Spike.

One place vanished, as if that innate response of her soul had been enough of an answer. The other opened wider. She found herself sliding towards it. Into it.

Was falling.

Landed with a jolt.

With her arms full of a bowl of mashed potatoes.

“Ohh-kay...”

She was in Giles’ flat. Giles and Willow were standing nose to nose arguing. Xander was lying on the couch, looking sick as a dog, with Anya beside him.

“Let’s give him some land,” Willow was saying.

“I’m sure that’ll clear everything up,” retorted Giles.

“Sarcasm accomplishes nothing, Giles!”

“It’s sort of an end to itself.”

Give who some land? Buffy looked around wildly. This certainly wasn’t a hell dimension. This was...

She’d gone back in time. That’s what it was.

“So we take this guy out,” Xander was saying.

What guy?

“There are two sides to it,” protested Willow.

“Slaying him? The representative from syphilis votes yea,” Xander shot back.

Ohh, wait! Thanksgiving. Hus. The Chumash.

“He’s a vengeance demon,” Xander was saying. “You don’t talk to vengeance demons. You kill them.”

Anya drew back, stung. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”

She had to get time to think. “Uhh, I’ll just go powder my nose,” she muttered, set down the bowl on the kitchen counter and fled. They were too busy arguing among themselves to notice.

She locked the door of the bathroom behind her and sat down on the edge of the tub, her fingers clinging to the coolness of the rim.

She had been thinking of this Thanksgiving back there in Stonehenge, thinking that this was where it had all started, wishing to have the day back. And she had been given that.

Given a chance to fix things. Not only for herself and Spike. But for Giles and Willow and Anya and Xander as well. Do it right this time. Save them all from what they had ended up becoming.

She got up and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. No one had two souls. So this was her soul in this earlier body. But where had that mind gone? That consciousness? Had it just been sublimated into her present one? She didn’t have a sense of two minds here, no sense of overlap or overlay. She had just been seamlessly integrated into this borrowed body, all her memories of the future intact.

Tell the others? And tell them what? She had died and wanted to be sent back? They might think she’d usurped this body, might try to make her leave, try to force her out and bring their Buffy, the original Buffy, back. She knew what Willow was capable of, even at this point early on in her sorcerous career.

Couldn’t have that happening. There was too much to fix. Had to keep Spike from dying. Had to keep her Mom from dying. And Tara. And Anya. So many deaths. Had to keep Willow from misusing her powers. Keep Giles the kind, gentle man that he was, instead of having him turn into a scarier version of Quentin Travers. Break Xander out of that self-absorption and prejudice against demons which caused his unthinkingly callous and selfish attitude towards Anya.

So much to do.

There was a knock on the front door. She heard Giles open it and then he and Spike talking.

Spike’s voice. “Come on, I’m parboiling out here. Invite me in.”

Spike! She shot to the bathroom door, struggled with the lock.

“No. It’s fairly unlikely,” Giles was saying as she managed to get the door open and flew out of the bathroom.

“Giles!” she yelled. “Let him in!”

“Are you mad? He’s a vampire! He’s dangerous!”

“Not any more! He can’t hurt anyone!”

“Yeah, sod it!” snapped Spike. “I can’t bite anyone. Ask Willow.”

“That’s true. He had trouble performing,” agreed Willow as Buffy was racing to the door.

“Looks like they’ve done me for good,” growled Spike. “I can’t bite anything. I can’t even hit people.”

Buffy reached the door. And there he was in his ragged blanket, white as a sheet, lips chapped, eyes red-rimmed, looking like death from starvation, already smouldering even in the indirect late evening sunlight.

“Giles!” she yelled.

“Oh, all right,” muttered Giles reluctantly. “Come in, Spike.”

She reached out and grabbed the blanket and yanked him into the house. “Spike, get in here!”

A year. A whole year. The blanket fell from her hands. Her fingers closed on the shoulders of his duster, shoving him back against the wall. She held him there, leaning on her straight arms, feeling him solid and real, real, under her palms. That beloved face with its strong bones and beautiful mouth and vividly blue eyes. That lean body vibrant under her hands, undead but so much more alive than any living person she knew. The scent of leather and cigarettes and, beneath it all, that unique, particular scent that was Spike himself.

She could have wept. Wanted to grab him, hold him tight...

Then she saw the amazement in his eyes.

This Spike didn’t know her.


TBC

Chapter 2


“You knew!” Spike yelled. “Sodding hell! I knew it! You set me up!”

She let him go hurriedly and stepped back. “No! I didn’t.”

“What do you mean, he can’t hurt anyone?” Giles asked. He had yanked open his weapons chest, caught up a crossbow and was now pointing it warily at Spike.

“Giles, put that down!” Buffy said quickly. “He’s got a chip in his head that keeps him from harming any living thing.”

Spike started to grab her by the throat, then checked, remembering just in time that any violence would make the chip fire painfully in his head.

“How do you know that?” he demanded furiously. “How could you, unless you were involved in doing this to me!”

“Spike, I really didn’t! I...Well, you see, it’s the Initiative.”

“The who?” asked Willow, puzzled.

“The government. They’ve got a lab under the college.”

“The soldier boys!” Spike exclaimed. “That lab. You know about it!”

“Professor Walsh is the head of it. I...uh...I just found out about it. I should have told all of you, but things have been so hectic...Riley, this T.A. I know. He’s a commando and...I’ve been keeping an eye on him and...”

“Riley’s a commando?” Willow blurted in shock.

“Yes.” She couldn’t take her eyes off Spike. She kept her lids down and her face still to hide her expression, but her gaze couldn’t help lingering on him. He had been dead, burned into ash down in the Hellmouth. And now here he was, standing in front of her. Alive. Angry and furious and aching to kill her, but alive. “They’re doing experiments on demons, trying to find ways of controlling them. Even of creating demon-human hybrids as soldiers.”

“Frankenstein monsters,” Willow breathed.

“God, that’s sick!” said Xander.

“We’ve got to stop them,” Buffy agreed.

“We’ve got to get this thing out of my head!” snapped Spike.

“I don’t know how we can do that,” Buffy said and looked at him with compassion as he sagged against the wall.

“Killing demons is one thing,” muttered Giles. “Experimenting on them like that...”

“Is evil,” agreed Buffy. “We’ve got to stop them. But one thing at a time. Right now, we’ve got to get Spike some blood. He’s starving.”

Spike looked at her with relief. “Thanks, Slayer.”

He had this utterly astonished look on his face. So had everybody else.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said firmly. “Giles, would you go out and get some before all the stores close?”

“Uh, yes, all right,” said Giles and reached for his jacket. “Buffy, are you sure...?”

“I know what I’m doing, Giles. The rest of us will get on with Thanksgiving.”

“Shouldn’t we, uh, tie him up or something?” asked Xander as Giles left. “I mean...”

“Unnecessary,” said Buffy shortly. “Would he even be here if he could hurt anyone? Spike, sit down. You look like you’re gonna keel over any second. Can I get you anything?”

“A drop of that wouldn’t hurt,” he said dryly, jerking his chin at the brandy bottle Anya had left on the kitchen counter.

“Oh, sure.”

She got him some and handed it over, careful not to let their fingers brush. He cocked an eyebrow sardonically at her and she nearly wept just at that expression, so familiar to her, retreated hastily back into the kitchen. He watched her, frowning.

Willow and Xander were back to arguing about Hus. Spike turned his head to listen to them, his brows rising incredulously.

“Oh, someone put a stake in me!” he exclaimed at last.

“You got a lot of volunteers here,” retorted Xander.

“I just can’t take all this namby-pamby boo-hooing about the bloody Indians.”

“Native Am...” began Willow.

“You won. All right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land.”

“That’s exactly my point!” shouted Willow.

“What’s your point?” Xander demanded. They were all talking over each other now. “To make up for it, we should let him go around killing people?”

“We should talk to him. Apologize or something...”

“You exterminated his race,” said Spike scornfully. “What could you possibly say that would make him feel better?”

“It’s just one lonely guy,” Willow protested. “Oppressed warrior guy who...Whoa!”

An arrow had slammed into the wall behind her and another skimmed Anya’s shoulder before thudding into the chair back behind her.

“More than one,” remarked Spike, sensibly making a dive behind the couch.

“Down!” yelled Buffy when the others just stared, too stunned to follow his example. “Take cover!”

Xander rolled off the couch and hit the floor, pulling Anya with him. “There’s a dozen of them!”

“Only one that matters,” muttered Buffy. She located Hus at the front of the attack and flung the heavy cast-iron frying pan at him with all her Slayer strength. It hit him in the stomach, knocking him down and she was over the top of the pass-through in the next second. “And only one weapon that counts.”

Bodies burst through the darkening windows. There was a scramble as the Scoobies flailed out, trying to fight back. Buffy ignored all of that, struggling with Hus for possession of his knife. She tore it out of his hands. He turned into a bear, battering at her with those powerful arms and dagger-like claws. She ducked them and slammed the knife into the bear’s chest.

The bear turned into Hus. Hus turned into green smoke and vanished. So did his followers.

There was an ‘Oof!’ from outside, then a thump as a body hit the ground.

“Everyone okay?” Buffy asked, looking around.

“Looks like,” said Anya, helping Xander back onto the couch. Willow was leaning on her straight arms on the dining table, looking horrified.

“Very nice, Slayer,” said Spike, grinning with genuine appreciation from his position sitting on the floor, one elbow on the back of the couch. “Less than two minutes from start to finish. Must be a record.”

Buffy grinned back. “Had a bit of an edge.” Prescient knowledge that she hadn’t had the last time around—that the knife was the key.

“Two seconds of conflict and I turn into General Custer,” Willow was muttering. She had fought back against the Chumash attacking her.

“It’s called self-preservation,” said Spike dryly.

“I feel lousy.”

Buffy left them and went out the front door. The sun had gone down and the courtyard was dark and empty. But bushes were quivering on her right where somebody had ducked behind them.

“Angel,” she said clearly. “Come out of there.”

There was a long hesitation. Then Angel came sheepishly out from the bushes.

“Turning into stalker-boy?” she asked, one eyebrow up.

“It’s for your own good,” he muttered.

“Heard that before. As you can see, I’m on top of things here.”

“Buffy...”

“If Doyle says I’m in danger, the right thing to do is to give me a call and tell me to watch my back. Not to come sneaking around, hiding in shadows and conspiring with my friends to keep me in ignorance.”

“I was trying to help!”

“I don’t need your help! I’m the Slayer! I can handle things perfectly well on my own. As I’ve just demonstrated. I don’t need you undercutting my position.”

“Buffy, I wasn’t!”

“Angel,” she said patiently. “Say this was a military operation. Say we’re the leaders of two squads. You learn of a danger to my squad. But instead of telling me about it, you go to my troops. You tell them I can’t hack it, that you have to do it for me. You don’t even allow them to tell me about it because I might be distracted, I wouldn’t be able to handle things. And you think this is not undercutting my position?”

“It isn’t like that!”

“It is. You chose to leave Sunnydale, Angel. You chose to walk out of my life. But you can’t leave it at that. You keep on trying to run my life, trying to tell me what to do. Well, I’ve had it with that. Here I’m the boss. I’m in charge.”

He looked at her in bewilderment, unable or not wanting to understand what was different about her attitude. “You’ve changed,” he said weakly at last.

“I’ve grown up. Go back to L.A., Angel. That’s your turf. This is mine. And I won’t have you interfering.” She realized that she was being somewhat abrupt, shrugged a little and smiled ruefully. “Lecture over. Want to stay for Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Uh, no,” he muttered and started to back away, looking wounded.

“Angel,” she said and he stopped, looked at her nervously. “I do things differently, okay? You might hear about things happening in Sunnydale that you don’t agree with. If you do, call me and we’ll talk it out. Don’t just come charging in here, all hell bent for leather, and start nuking the hell out of things. Maybe those things are the way I want them. Whatever happens here is by my choice. Just remember that.”

He nodded jerkily and faded into the shadows. She realized that Giles was standing on the other side of the courtyard, his jaw hanging.

“That was harsh,” he breathed. But he didn’t look displeased. After Jenny Calendar’s death, Angel was definitely not one of his favorite people.

“It had to be said. You really should have told me he was here, Giles, but I know how persuasive he can be.” She turned and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need anybody telling me what to do. And that goes for you too. You’re my Watcher and you’ll always be my Watcher, whatever the Council says. I need you, Giles. I need your experience and your strength and your integrity and your support. I’m going to be leaning on you a lot...”

“I won’t mind that,” said Giles and they both smiled.

“But—and it’s a very big but—I make the decisions. I’m the Slayer. We’re not going to agree about everything. That’s normal. No two people ever do. But, if that happens, let’s talk it out. I’ll listen to you if you’ll listen to me. Just don’t go behind my back like Angel just did.”

“I won’t,” said Giles. He looked at her thoughtfully. “You have grown up.”

“Mm. Different dynamic. Not teacher and student. Adults and friends. Can you live with that, Giles?”

“It’ll take a few mental adjustments.” They smiled at each other. “But, yes, I think I can live with that.”

“Bit of adjusting on my side too. I’ve been too self-absorbed, what with college and all. Gonna try to do better.” She looked at him seriously. “I value you, Giles. You know that, don’t you? Stay with me.”

“I will.” He reached for his glasses, British to the core and completely embarrassed by emotion. But his shoulders had straightened and he was looking a lot happier.

Buffy laughed and took the bag he was holding so that his hands would be free to polish his glasses. They were both smiling as they went into the flat.

“Sent Angel off with a flea in his ear, did you?” smirked Spike. Of course, he had overheard, with that acute vampire hearing.

“He had it coming.” She looked around at everyone else. “The next time he comes shoving his nose into our business I want to know about it.”

Everyone looked embarrassed and nodded quickly. She waved a hand to indicate that the incident was over and took the bag over to the kitchen.

“Spike. Blood. Want it heated up?”

“Ninety-eight...”

“Point six. Right. How many packets?”

“Three.”

“Take it slow. Don’t overload your system.”

“Need two right away, Slayer. I’ll do the last one slow.”

“Okay.” She poured two packets into an oversized mug she located in Giles’ cabinets, put that into the microwave, left the third packet on the counter and placed the rest into the fridge, still in the bag.

He came to stand beside her, his gaze fixed on the mug circling inside the microwave. She saw him swallow hard, wanting it now and struggling to endure the time it took to heat.

“Pig’s blood,” he muttered, resenting his own need. “Reduced to that! Pity that fight was over so soon. One of you might have had the decency to bleed a little. Demongirl, did that arrow...?”

Anya checked her shoulder. “Sorry, Spike, not even a graze.”

“As if we’d let you drink from her!” Xander exploded.

“Quit pulling his chain,” Buffy muttered under her breath to Spike. “He doesn’t know you’re kidding. Doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, Xander, for all his gags, not when it comes to himself.”

“Noticed that.” He gave her an amused, sideways glance. “But who’s kidding? Not gonna say no if anyone wants to volunteer, especially you, Slayer.”

“Slayer blood.” She grinned involuntarily. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Would only need a couple of sips, it’s that powerful. Could save all that money on pig’s blood.” His voice dropped into a deep, sensual purr. “Could make it feel really good, Slayer. A real rush. You have no idea.”

“I’ve heard. Plus, it’s an aphrodisiac for you,”

“Oh, yeah,” he sighed.

They both laughed. Buffy became aware of the dead silence of the rest of the room and looked around at four appalled faces.

“That is not funny!” said Giles, horrified.

“Eww! Gotta agree, Buffy!” said Willow while Xander looked on the verge of an apoplexy.

“Geez! Lighten up, guys!” exclaimed Buffy. “It’s just a joke!”

“You’re right. No sense of humor, that lot,” murmured Spike and exchanged an amused glance with Anya, who still saw things from a demon perspective.

“We do so have a sense of humor,” protested Willow. “Except ours isn’t macabre, like yours.”

“Guess you have to be a killer like the Slayer and me to appreciate it.”

“Buffy isn’t...!”

“Spike, stop it,” said Buffy warningly and shook her head at the others. “He’s jerking you around. Can’t you see that? Just don’t take the bait.”

“Our friendly neighborhood vampire,” growled Xander. “At least he’s toothless.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed in cold hostility. “Won’t be that forever, wanker.”

“My point exactly!” yelled Xander. “Why are we helping him again? Why don’t we just stake him?”

“We can’t hurt a defenseless creature,” sighed Giles to Buffy’s relief.

“So don’t hurt him. But don’t help him either. Just throw him out!”

“He’ll be a valuable asset against the commandos,” Buffy said quickly.

“He’s not going to tell us a thing. He’ll just jerk us around the way he’s been doing so far!”

“We’ll see,” Buffy temporized.

The microwave beeped. Spike yanked the door open, grabbed the mug and downed its contents in shuddering, desperate haste, then leaned on his straight arms on the counter, his head hanging, just breathing. Buffy placed the third packet of blood in front of him and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder before remembering herself and drawing away. He turned his head to stare at her.

She turned away hurriedly to hide the concern on her face. “By the way, how are you feeling, Xander?”

“Better,” he said grudgingly. “I think that Chumash spell is wearing off.”

“I think you’ll be all right in a couple of hours. Come on, guys. I don’t care about it being perfect anymore, but let’s get a decent Thanksgiving dinner up anyway.”

They went about that, the three women doing most of the work with Xander still recovering on the couch and Giles mostly getting in the way. Bachelor cooking apparently didn’t extend itself to turkey with all the trimmings.

“Well, it’s not an official, secular holiday in Britain, the way it is here,” said Giles defensively. “We have a church service at the end of harvest, but no big dinner.”

“Hymns and things?”

“Yes. The churches just choose a Sunday, even different Sundays so that neighboring parishioners can visit back and forth. It’s not one special Thursday as it is in North America. And in Canada, they have it in October.”

“Guess their harvests have to be quicker.”

Spike had recovered his refilled mug of blood once the microwave beeped a second time and was now sitting on the stairs, a little removed from the group, watching them all in silence, his eyes narrow and intent. He had discarded his duster and red shirt, and sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, sipping every now and again at his mug. His face was very still, the crease between his brows deeply indented. He was thinking and that usually meant trouble.

His silence was unusual, worried her. The last time around, he had been all backtalk and gibing remarks. But then the last time around, they had tied him up and ignored his needs. The comments had been to get their attention, get them to listen to him and hopefully supply his wants. He didn’t need to do that this time. Instead he was studying them, that quick, clever brain analyzing the group dynamics and figuring out how to use them to his advantage, searching for the weak points. Oh, she knew him, knew how he thought.

She kept stealing glances at him, needing to reassure herself that he was actually there, a reality, not just a figment of her imagination. She wanted so badly to just put a hand on him—nothing more, just feel him solid and real under her hand. He was already looking better, vampire healing on overdrive and already utilizing the blood he had consumed. Veins still showed blue where the skin over his strong, prominent bones had gone thin from dehydration, but his lips were healing and the eyelids that had been red-rimmed were already fading to pink and would soon be back to normal. The color was slowly coming back into his face and he was no longer as frighteningly white as paper.

She let out a little breath of relief, then realized that he was looking back at her, his head tilted quizzically to one side and his scarred eyebrow lifted. She became aware that she had been staring at him, that their gazes had been locked for minutes on end. She turned away hurriedly, feeling her face go hot. His eyes were amused, vividly blue and intent. He was thinking again.

Spike was indeed thinking. Something was going on with the Slayer and he meant to find out what. When he had woken up in that lab, he had really believed that she was the one who had arranged his capture. His one furious thought once he had broken free had been to hunt her down and kill her in retaliation. But once he realized what had been done to him, he was pretty certain that she had nothing to do with it. Say what you would about the Slayer, she didn’t play games. She was as straightforward as he was: she would kill him outright and she would kill him fair and square, enjoying the fight as much as he did. She didn’t have the necessary callousness and lack of ethics to cripple him in this way, tear off his wings and pin him like a bug under a microscope, then coldly watch the creature squirm and struggle and break its heart trying to fly free.

That realization was what had brought him to come to her for help once Harmony, his last resort, had refused to do so. Dru would have helped him, but she was in Brazil, over four thousand miles away. Going to her was out of the question; he would never have survived that long a trip. Phoning and asking her to come to him was even worse. Dru was crazy; she would either end up in trouble herself or blithely turn up a year from now when it was way too late.

And asking for help from any vamp other than Dru or Harmony was an invitation to be staked. Vamps were like sharks; the slightest hint of vulnerability was like blood in the water. He’d have been dusted or worse in a second. And worse, he acknowledged with a shudder, really meant worse. He’d never gone in for the pre-show himself, but he’d watched Angelus. Worse was unspeakable. Whatever the Slayer did to him was light years better than what his own kind would.

The worst the Slayer would do to him was turn him away. He had been pretty certain that she wouldn’t stake him outright. She wasn’t capable of dusting someone obviously harmless and asking for help. She would either take him in or turn him away. It was a gamble. If she took him in, the most he had expected was irritated tolerance or exasperated indifference. He’d have had a few gibes thrown his way, would have been tied up for a while perhaps until the bunch of them were convinced that he wasn’t capable of hurting anyone. But in the end he’d have been given the blood and the protection he needed to survive.

What was happening now though was a pure shock. The Slayer yanking him in, defending him, yelling at the Watcher to go get him the blood he needed, looking at him as if...as if...

What was in her eyes when she looked at him? Pain, regret, gentleness, wistfulness...It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

Sexual awareness. That made sense. They had always been aware of each other. That had been there right from the beginning. It hadn’t mattered, of course; she had Angel, he had Dru. But that male-female awareness had always been there. He was accustomed to that. Spike was hot and knew it. Twelve decades of feminine reactions told him so. William had never been hot, but Spike was and he used it. Didn’t have to use force to feed; just had to trail his coat, smoothly practiced in the flirtation and non-explicit sexual promise that lured women in to where fangs would finish the game.

What he wasn’t accustomed to was...responding. Dru had always been his focus. But something about the Slayer, right from the beginning...The force in her, the swing of that damn shampoo-commercial hair, the way she always bested him in battle. Oh, that was a turn-on, that was, fighting with her!

But she was the Slayer and you didn’t think that way about the Slayer. It was just not done. And he was the Big Bad. A little off his game right at the moment, but just wait, he’d be the Big Bad again once he found a way to get this chip out of his head.

Didn’t matter what Dru said. ‘You’re covered in her...I can see her floating all around you...When I look at you, all I can see is the Slayer.’ What the hell was that? All he’d done was make a truce with the Slayer. To suggest anything else was just ridiculous. Dru being mental and jealous, that’s what it was, excusing her own infidelity.

Slayer was watching him again, that sideways glance under her eyelashes. Beautiful eyes, when they weren’t cold as a sword blade. Beautiful neck displayed in that off-the-shoulder blouse, a real turn-on, that neck, to a vamp. Lithe, supple, beautiful body that really would be something else in bed, all that Slayer strength and stamina. Wonder what it would be like to...

Sodding hell! He had to stop thinking like that! Why was he suddenly thinking like that?

He was thankful when a bustle announced that dinner was ready and he had something to distract his thoughts.

To Buffy’s relief, dinner turned out to be a success. She couldn’t have taken anything else going crazy right now. Everybody had several helpings and Xander was vocal in his surprise that Spike loaded a plate too.

“I thought vamps only drank blood.”

Spike shrugged. “I like variety.”

“Try the stuffing,” said Buffy, passing it to him. “It’s got a pretty strong taste.”

“Ah, you know about us,” he said lightly. “Picked that up somewhere in your murky Slayer past, did you?”

Something was going on with him, Buffy realized. His eyes were dark and confused and exasperated. Well, she supposed dealing with that chip would be enough to throw anybody for a loop.

She nodded. “Vamp tastebuds are dulled to everything but strong tastes. Found that out.”

Willow’s eyes were wide. “How? Angel never ate anything but blood.”

“Oh, well, Angel,” shrugged Buffy. “He’s unadventurous.”

Spike laughed abruptly and gave her a sideways-slanting, meaningful glance. “In many ways.”

She gave him one back. One month of Spike’s innovative techniques in bed had proved that to her.

“Found that out too.”

Spike’s eyes lit with laughter. “Like spice, do you, Slayer?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“What are we talking about?” asked Xander blankly.

“Food,” said Buffy hurriedly to forestall Anya’s opening mouth. She gave Anya a very hard and pointed look and Anya, for once getting it, hastily took another bite of turkey.

“Not as simon-pure and simon-simple as you seem, are you, Slayer?” said Spike under his breath.

“Believe it,” retorted Buffy, then they both fell silent when Giles cleared his throat loudly.

The rest of the meal passed without incident, though Willow and Xander kept giving them suspicious glances and Giles kept frowning at his plate. Afterwards, Anya and Xander decided to go home. Even though Xander was recovering fast, he still felt weak and shaky. Buffy and Willow washed dishes while Giles paced the livingroom restlessly and Spike sprawled in an armchair watching him with amusement.

“What are you planning to do with him now?” Giles burst out at last. “I must confess, Buffy, I’m not going to sleep well with him wandering about loose around my house, chip or no chip.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Giles. He can stay at my place.”

“At the dorm?” squeaked Willow in horror.

“C’mon, Willow. There’s no extra bed at the dorm. At Revello Drive. Tons of room there.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Giles thundered. “And put your mother in danger?”

“She’s not home, remember? She’ll be at Aunt Darlene’s for another week. That will give us plenty of time to figure out what to do with Spike. That okay with you, Spike?”

“Yeah, sure,” shrugged Spike. But he looked as surprised as Willow and Giles did.

Buffy dried the last dish and put it away, then took the bag of blood packages out of the fridge and handed it to Spike.

“We’ll get going then. See you back at the dorm, Will, once I’ve got Spike settled.”

Willow nodded, glancing helplessly towards Giles who was polishing his glasses frantically. Buffy knew that the minute she and Spike were out of the door, the two of them would have their heads together, discussing this new development.

“Why are you doing this, Slayer?” Spike asked edgily as they headed up the street towards Revello Drive.

“Why did you come to me, Spike?” she asked in return.

“Because you’re a sucker for sob stories.” Mockery. He seemed nervy and uptight, had an irritated, challenging edge to him.

“Well, there you are then,” she said agreeably, defusing his attempt to quarrel. They went the rest of the way to Revello Drive in uneasy silence.

She was aware of his gaze on her face as they walked along, but he looked away every time she glanced towards him. She kept sneaking glances at him too, under her eyelashes, watching the play of moonlight and streetlight across the planes and angles of that handsome face. It was hard to take her eyes off him. They were way too aware of each other, kept a careful distance as they walked. He was frowning tightly; she biting her lip.

When they reached the house, Buffy unlocked the front door, then took the bag of blood packages from Spike and headed for the kitchen, switching on lights as she went.

“Unless you want to be a big pile of dust in the morning, you’ll have to help me cover up the windows in the guest room,” she said, then realized he was still standing outside. “What’s the matter? It’s quite safe.”

“Have to invite me in, remember?”

“Oh!” Buffy laughed. “Your invite’s still standing from before. I took off Angel’s, but I never took off yours.”

He put out a hand to test it, then stepped through the front door, his brows raised disbelievingly. “Why the hell not?”

“To tell the truth, I forgot.”

“Pity I didn’t know about that before,” he muttered.

“So that you could have killed me while I was asleep? You wouldn’t do that, Spike.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t?”

“You fight fair.”

His mouth twisted a little and he gave her a wry look. “So do you, Slayer. That’s why I came to you. You’ve got principles. You fight fair.”

“Honorable enemies,” she nodded. There was a little warm silence. Then she realized that they were staring at each other again. She jumped awkwardly. “Um. I’ll find something to put over the windows. There’s a ladder down in the basement if you don’t mind bringing it up.”

She put the blood packages into the fridge, then went to find some older but heavier curtains that Joyce had stored away. They put those up, then Spike took the ladder back down to the basement again.

“Here,” she said when he came back up. “Extra key. Just in case you need to go out for anything.”

“Thanks.” He took it, frowning.

She looked him over. His lips and eyes were back to normal, but the veins were still showing blue at his temples.

“You look like you still need more blood. Drink whatever’s in the fridge. I’ll get in some more tomorrow.”

He flung up his arms. “See? That’s what’s getting my goat! What’s with the concern, Slayer? What’s with the house and the blood and the...I mean, I should be tied up at Watcher’s, still wondering whether I’m gonna get fed or not!”

Which was what had happened the last time around. She flushed.

“What the hell’s going on, Slayer?” he yelled at her.

“Nothing! Is it so surprising that people act decently? Well, I guess for a vamp it is...”

His hands slapped the wall on either side of her as she tried to slide away, his straight arms and his body hemming her in. She stepped back hurriedly. One step, that was all she could go. Not far enough not to be aware of that cool, strong body vibrating with intensity so close to hers, that beautiful face bent to stare at her, the tempting cavern of his open mouth only a breath away. Her hands pressed hard against the wall behind her, trying desperately not to just grab him. She had wanted him so much all these months, needed so much to feel him quick and alive and so fine against her.

“Think I don’t feel it?” he said fiercely. “The heat. The heat between us. It’s not right. It shouldn’t be there. We’re enemies, Slayer.”

“Yes, we are.”

But the heat was there in his eyes. Not the love that had always made her feel as if she were the center of his universe; or the devotion that made him willing to do anything she wanted, even die for her; or the vulnerability that had allowed her to cut him up so cruelly; or the tenderness that she had always rejected and ignored. Not that. But the heat. The heat was there.

“You feel it too,” he said and leaned helplessly forward.

Her mouth opened to him without a thought. And, oh, God, there it was. The feel of him. The taste of him. The long slides of his tongue against hers. His weight heavy upon her and his body vibrant against hers. Her arms clenched across his back, holding him fiercely to her. Her body strained to his. She kissed him desperately, despairingly. Their mouths twisted together, devouring each other.

So many months. So many lost, lonely months.

They kissed and kissed again, unable to tear their mouths apart, passion flaring insistently, imperatively. She’d stopped thinking, not caring about anything except that he was here in her arms, drowning in the feel of him, her whole brain whited out.

She clung to him, her hands dragging at him, moving and gripping over him, sliding over his face and his hair and every inch of him that she could reach, unable to believe that he was here and real and solid in her arms.

“Spike,” she whispered. “Oh, God, Spike!”

The sound of her voice brought reality crashing back. They jerked away from each other at the same moment, leaned against the wall, panting, their breaths rasping in their throats and their bodies shuddering with the intensity of what had just passed between them.

“God, what is this?” he groaned. He was leaning his forearm against the wall, his forehead against his wrist, lips skinned back in a snarl from his teeth. “What’s happening?”

She was beyond words. He turned his head a little to look at her, that sideways, sloe-eyed look, all heat and dark intensity. She almost grabbed him and yanked him straight down to the floor.

“We’re both insane,” he muttered.

Buffy fled.

TBC

Chapter 3


She wouldn’t use him like that again. She wouldn’t. Whatever it cost her. She wouldn’t be the cause of his death. Not again.

Loving her was what killed him. He’d still be alive if he hadn’t loved her. He’d be with Dru who would get him the blood he needed and he’d be safe and he’d be happy.

Couldn’t let him fall in love with her again. Didn’t matter that she loved him now. Didn’t matter that she desperately wanted him. Loving her was a death sentence for him. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Are you cutting your classes today?” Willow asked in surprise when Buffy made no move to get properly dressed the next morning, only yanked on an oversized tee and comfortable track pants.

“Got a project I’ve got to work on.”

She didn’t know whether she was here for good in this borrowed body. Maybe she was only supposed to stay for a while, or maybe the Scoobies would find out and have Willow forcibly eject her from it. So much would go wrong if that happened. She had to leave a message for the other Buffy, just in case that Buffy came back, blockhead stubborn and totally ignorant of what was going on.

‘Check your diary!’ she left on the computer, priority flagged where that Buffy would see it the moment she brought the computer up. She herself, the older Buffy, would look immediately. Just plain curiosity would guarantee a look from the younger Buffy.

The diary lived in the bottom drawer of her dresser and had a lock on it, so Willow wouldn’t dream of reading it. Buffy spent the whole morning writing in it, carefully detailing all the things that had to be prevented, step by step, and what she thought would be the solutions. She spent a great deal of time explaining Spike, knowing that her younger self would violently resist any suggestion that she would in any way have feelings for Spike. ‘You just have to make sure he doesn’t care,’ she wrote. ‘You’d do that anyway, wouldn’t you?’

All this might not be needed, but she wasn’t going to take anything for granted. Besides, writing it all out clarified things in her own mind. She sat chewing on the end of her pen, thinking every step of her plans over carefully, making sure there were no missteps anywhere. The benefit of hindsight was marvelous, made everything beautifully clear.

She made her afternoon classes, then picked up some blood and headed for Revello Drive just as the sun was going down.

Spike was sprawled on the sofa, watching TV without much interest. He looked bored and antsy. He also looked absolutely delicious, since he was wearing only his jeans. She tore her gaze away from those clean bones and solid, supple muscle and totally lickable sixpack.

“Get dressed,” she muttered and his mouth opened to make some crack.

Then their gazes met and the heat was there, instantly, devastatingly.

“Yeah,” he said abruptly and jerked to his feet, as nervous about it as she was. They were both in the same position, wanting it and terrified of it.

She was putting the blood away in the fridge when he came back down, his Docs on, pulling his T-shirt over his head.

“Got a favor to ask,” she said as he came and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb of the kitchen.

“Yeah, what?” he asked suspiciously.

“I want to take out the Initiative.”

His eyes lit up. “Do you now? Won’t mind helping with that. How?”

“They’re on a skeleton staff right now. Thanksgiving Day weekend. Just a couple of techs and a few guards watching the demons they’ve trapped, that’s all. They won’t be full strength again until Monday.”

“And you know this how?”

“Got it out of Riley, though he doesn’t know that he’s told me. He isn’t aware that I know he’s a commando and I’m very good at reading between the lines. I want to go in, break the prisoners out, destroy their experiments and wipe out all the info on their computers.”

His brows rose. “Tall order. Think you could pick up one of their scientists while you’re at it? Someone who can get this chip out of my head?”

“I think they’ve all gone for the weekend. But I can try.”

“Would you?” His eyes were slitted and suspicious. “Even though that would let me kill again?”

“Make a deal with you. You get that chip out, you leave Sunnydale. Go back to Dru, go anywhere you like. Just don’t come back here.”

He was silent for a moment. “You know you should dust me instead, Slayer.”

“I know.” She bit her lip. “Would you try to kill me if that chip were out?”

“Yes!” he said harshly. But his eyes were confused. “No.”

They looked at each other helplessly.

“Th-that favor I wanted,” she said hurriedly, desperately trying to get her mind back on track.

“Oh, yeah.” He sounded as relieved as she was at the change of subject.

“You have access to the demon community. Can you get me in to see the leaders?”

His brows shot up. “What, so you can kill them? Think I want every demon in Sunnydale gunning for me and me not able to fight back?”

“I won’t kill them. I just want to talk to the peaceful ones, the ones whose people don’t belong in the Initiative’s cells.”

He was looking at her intently, quick brain immediately making the connection. “You want them to help you. You want to make a truce.”

“Yes.”

“Slayer dealing with demons. World must definitely be coming to an end. What will your Watcher and his Council say?”

“I can talk Giles around. And he doesn’t belong to the Council anymore. So we just won’t tell them.”

“Got a couple of contacts at Willy’s,” he said slowly. “Could get you that meeting, I suppose. But...”

She looked at him questioningly and his lips tightened.

“I can’t go in there. Not and come out alive. And it’s no good you going there alone. You’re the Slayer. There’s no demon, peaceable or not, would talk to the Slayer about his own.”

“Yes, but...”

“Think I like saying this? I don’t. Most of the demons in Willy’s aren’t the peaceable kind. Gotta be pretty hardnosed walking in there. Can’t talk soft. I’d get torn apart. Talk tough with nothing to back it up with? Get torn apart worse. Can’t fight back, Slayer. Remember?”

“You can fight back, Spike. That chip only works on humans. It doesn’t work on demons.”

“What?” He jerked away from the doorjamb, straightening to his full height.

“You can do whatever you like to demons.”

“You shitting me, Slayer?”

“No. Swear.”

“Well, how about that?” He started to laugh, softly and dangerously. His eyes had lit up.

She smiled, watching him. He looked as if he’d gotten a new lease on life, hands on his hips, teeth bared and set on edge in a nasty smile.

“All the violence you like, Spike. As long as it’s against demons.”

“Well now. Think it’s time to party,” he purred.

Willy’s was jumping when they got to it.

“Lemme take lead,” Spike muttered as they paused in the doorway. “If things go sour, Willy has an axe under the counter where the cash register is.”

“Right.”

A ripple of silence was spreading as demons noticed who was standing in the doorway.

“What’s she doing here?” someone snarled.

Spike ushered Buffy in with ostentatious courtesy. “My guest.”

“Then you take her right out of here again,” a Rathorn growled, looming up at Spike’s left. “She’s not welcome here. And neither are you, vampire, so long as you’re with her.”

Spike’s hand slashed out. The knife in his hand sliced neatly across the Rathorn’s gullet. The Rathorn fell down, spasming wildly as it died. Bystanders leaped back hurriedly to avoid its flailing limbs.

Spike looked around, grinning widely, in full gameface, the light flashing on his fangs. “Anyone else got a problem with who I bring in here?”

There was a dead silence. Towards the back of the room, the more nervous of Willy’s clientele were already sliding discreetly away out of the bar.

“Come for a friendly drink, is all,” Spike told the room. “Not looking for trouble. Doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy it if it comes.”

His smile made that vividly clear. A pathway opened up leading to the counter where Willy was jittering back and forth.

“Spike...” Willy blurted.

“O-neg for me and a wine cooler for the lady.” Spike looked around, brows lifting challengingly at the rest of the bar. There was a general turning away and pretending they didn’t exist amongst the crowd.

“F’Chrissakes, Spike...” Willy spluttered.

“Could always start with you, wanker. You know what I consider a fun evening.”

Willy held up his hands and reached for bottles.

“Kibble here?”

“Uh...”

Spike reached out without looking and grabbed the collar of a Riherejk demon trying to sneak away into the crowd.

“Going somewhere, Kibble?”

The Riherejk shook its head wildly, trying not to give away the fact that it was slowly strangling as Spike twisted its collar.

“Got a job for you. Slayer wants to talk to Louth and Frihas and Tasik. Set it up for us.”

The Riherejk gasped something desperately in a language all clicks and pops.

“‘Course you can do it. Smooth talker like you. You tell ‘em it’ll be worth their while. No fracas, just talk. Isn’t that right, Slayer?”

“Swear,” said Buffy, smiling.

The Riherejk gabbled something pleadingly. Spike slammed its head onto the bartop. Buffy glanced around. Willy was at the far end of the counter, his back turned, wiping glasses frantically with a dirty rag. Every other bystander was several feet away, their backs also turned, talking loudly and pretending that nothing was happening.

“Nothing like diplomacy,” she muttered under her breath.

Spike grinned. “Know why we call him Kibble? It’s because Riherejks are so tasty to almost every other demon around. Isn’t that right, tosser?”

Face mushed into the bartop, the Riherejk squeaked pitiably.

“Um, you’d better let him breathe, Spike,” Buffy suggested.

Spike eased up a little. “Two Cs or dinner with you as the entrée, Kibble. Your choice.”

The Riherejk thumped the bartop with his hand abjectly and Spike let him up.

“You’ll find us here. Half an hour. Better hurry.”

The Riherejk ran.

“I don’t have two Cs, Spike,” Buffy protested under her breath. “All I’ve got with me is a five.”

“Good enough. He won’t be back for at least an hour. Plenty of time. Game in back, Willy?”

Willy nodded and held open a hidden door. A mixed lot of demons looked up at them warily from the green-felt-covered table as they entered. Buffy saw with relief that they were playing for cash, not kittens.

“Uh, that’s the Slayer...” someone said nervously.

“She’s just watching,” explained Spike. “Here to ensure fair play, right? Grab a seat over there, pet, take the load off, drink your cooler. This won’t take long.”

It didn’t. Forty-five minutes later, Spike stood up with four hundred in his hands.

“Thanks, boys,” he said cheerfully. “C’mon, pet.”

Everyone scowled resentfully as they left.

“You cheated,” Buffy muttered under her breath when they got back to the bar. Willy put out another cooler and shot of blood without asking. The body of the Rathorn had been removed and the floor where it had bled was clean.

“Everyone was,” shrugged Spike. “I just cheated best.”

Buffy sighed. Spike collected their drinks and headed for a free table. She joined him as he sat down and stretched out comfortably, his feet on an empty chair and his ankles crossed.

“Kibble should be back soon,” he said as she picked up her cooler and drank straight from the bottle, remembering Willy’s dirty rag on the glasses. “Got your spiel worked out, Slayer?”

“Mm. Would you buy it, Spike?”

He leaned his head on the back of his chair and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“Vamps wouldn’t. A Master might, but you don’t have a Master in Sunnydale, just a bunch of lone wolves all looking out for number one. Don’t care as long as it isn’t them under the knife. The peaceable ones though—Brachen, Krasevics, Firoud, that lot—they’re team players. They’ve got communities here, family. They care about their people. Don’t like having Aunt Wilhelmina cut up alive. They’ll listen.”

“You were down there. Who do the Initiative have in their tanks?”

He gave her a sardonic smile. “‘Who’ not ‘what’, Slayer?”

“Who,” she said firmly. His scarred eyebrow rose and he studied her with interest.

“They’re indiscriminate, these soldier boys. Got all kinds down there. Don’t understand the difference. All you have to be is a demon to qualify and that means have some kind of ‘unnatural’ ability that says you’re not human. I’m surprised they haven’t come after you, Slayer.”

“They don’t know about me yet. Those abilities are what they’re after. They want to make the perfect soldier.”

“Bio-engineering,” he nodded. “Been thinking about what I saw down there. This chip in my head. Sounds so good and noble, doesn’t it? Like they’re saving the world by making vamps unable to feed. But this is just the first step. What they really want is to...”

“Control vamps,” she said. “Turn them into attack dogs and use them against enemies.”

“Yeah. Then make those enemies into vamps and control them in their turn. A self-perpetuating resource.”

“Plus soldiers enhanced with drugs, with abilities like the Polgara stakes, and chips to ensure obedience. What else are they doing?” she muttered.

“You don’t want to know, Slayer. Some of their experiments...” His lips compressed grimly. “Vamp healing, for instance. Dig out an eye. See how long it takes to grow back. Dig it out again. How often can one do it before the organ fails to regenerate? No anesthetics of course. Might interfere with the experiment. But then demons don’t feel, right?”

She felt sick.

“That kind of scientific research is just another word for torture, pet. Humans across the world have done it, to animals and to other humans. Been just as good at torture as demons are. And when humans do what demons do, well then, tell me, what’s the difference? Humans become just another kind of demon, don’t they?”

Kibble was back, bending to whisper in Spike’s ear. Spike nodded, pulled out his winnings, peeled off two hundred dollars and slapped it into Kibble’s hand, then handed Buffy a hundred and put the last hundred back into his pocket.

“Your stake, my expertise. Fifty-fifty sounds fair.” He grinned at her and got to his feet. “Come on, Slayer. They’ve got a meet-point set up. Neutral ground. Nice little abandoned factory, just like a drug deal on the telly.”

The factory was located amidst a scatter of other abandoned buildings on the outskirts of town. Buffy’s Slayer sense picked up presences moving all around it.

“Lot of them out there,” she said quietly to Spike.

“They wouldn’t come without their bodyguards,” he said as quietly. “But the very fact that they’re here means that they’re willing to listen.”

There were three distinct groups within the factory, each standing warily a little distance from each other. A long, rectangular table had been placed in the center of the open space, with three chairs at one end and two at the other. A Coleman lantern at the center of the table provided light. That was for her benefit, Buffy realized, as demon eyes had no trouble seeing in the dark.

A deep, rumbling voice from a formidable demon in the group on her left asked a question and was answered by a similar deep voice from outside.

“Huh,” said that individual and snapped his fingers. His entourage faded away, leaving only one behind.

“That’s Louth,” said Spike softly in her ear. “A Hadraden.”

Louth looked human in his well-cut suit, except for being very tall with an enormously deep chest and having eyes with pupils that flashed green like a cat’s in the dark when he turned his head. The other two groups were also breaking up now, leaving only their principal and one guard.

“The Brachen is Tasic,” Spike murmured. That was a big, red-eyed, green-skinned demon in a short kilt, with blue spikes all over him. “The Krasevic is Frihas.” He was small, but the most demonic looking of the three, reptilian, with a pebbled, brown hide and a long, thick tail, a gold torc around his neck his only nod towards clothing. “You boys all know the Slayer?”

There were grunts of acknowledgment.

“What do you want of us, Slayer?” Louth asked. He had apparently established himself as the spokesman for the three.

Buffy moved towards the table. The three leaders took their places at the far end of the table, their respective guards remaining where they were at the periphery of the circle of light. Spike dropped casually into one of the two chairs at their end.

“Do you know about the Initiative?” she asked, laying a hand lightly on a chair, but not sitting down.

“Human soldiers taking our people. We know.”

“I want to shut them down.”

“Why?” demanded Tasic, the Brachen, harshly. “You are human. You are the Slayer. You kill our kind.”

“Have I hurt any of yours, Tasic?”

“No,” he admitted reluctantly.

“You don’t hurt anyone, I don’t hurt you. I’m the Slayer. I fight those who harm. Do no harm and you get a free pass from me.”

“Interesting,” rumbled Louth. “When did this go into effect? When you found you needed our help?”

“Have I bothered any of the peaceable kind of demons ever?”

All three of them thought that over. Buffy had always known of the demon community existing in Sunnydale, but had left the peaceable ones alone. There were enough of the other kind around to keep her busy without buying trouble in the shape of the quiet ones. And after getting to know Clem and Lorne and others, she had never wanted to start a wholesale driving out of all demons from Sunnydale.

“What about him?” asked Tasic, jerking his chin at Spike. “He’s a vampire.”

“The Initiative’s put a chip in his head that keeps him from harming humans.”

“Doesn’t keep me from harming demons,” growled Spike warningly.

“He’s a case in point,” said Buffy. “He can’t bite, so I leave him alone. The other vamps though? They’ll get staked.”

“I see where you’re going with this,” muttered Louth.

“It’s simple. I’m the Slayer. A Slayer fights evil. Even though they’re human, the Initiative is evil.”

All three demons drew a long breath, then exchanged glances.

“We want our people out,” said the Brachen flatly.

Buffy nodded. “So do I. But I want more. I don’t want the Initiative collecting any more of you. I want them out of Sunnydale. I want that lab closed and never reopened.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” asked Louth.

“I want you to help me storm that place, get everyone out of the cells, and then blow up certain areas of the facility. I’ve got a friend who’s a hacker. She can find a way for us to get in, can get those cells open, and then send a virus through their computers that will turn everything into alphabet soup. Once the place is shut down, I want you to help me make sure it’s never fixed again.”

The Brachen smiled nastily, revealing a row of sharp teeth. “When?”

“Sunday night. That’ll give us time to set things up. And they’ll be even more short-staffed then. I’ll need explosives. Can you get those for me?”

“Can,” said the Krasevic, suddenly breaking its silence. It had its tail between its hands and was pulling excitedly on it. Krasevics were merchants and excellent scroungers. “Not state of the art though, Slayer. Just plastique and detonators.”

She smiled at it. “Good enough, Frihas.”

“Collateral damage,” rumbled Louth. “There will be some, Slayer.”

“I want to keep that at the absolute minimum. I don’t want anyone killed if I can help it. The Initiative’s bad, but most of its soldiers are just following orders. Not only that, deaths will draw investigatory committees and whatnot like flies. I want this to be set up as an accident, a short or something, that sets off fires in some unfortunate areas and triggers a massive computer failure. The first thing I’m going to have Willow do is fry the cameras right across the installation. Then there won’t be any images of us sneaking in. If you run across any guards, you knock ‘em cold and then we’ll take them topside when we liberate the prisoners.”

“All the prisoners?”

“I know there are a lot of species down there, not just Hadraden, Krasevics and Brachen. I want them all out.”

“I was thinking of the dangerous ones,” said Louth grimly.

Buffy bit her thumbnail. “Mm. Right. Can’t have them running loose.”

“Leave that to us, Slayer,” Spike said, a little tight smile on his lips. He and Louth shared a dry glance. “Think we can handle that.”

“Okay.” She didn’t want to know. “The prisoners are your responsibility. You guys deal with that. There’s a lot of toys the Initiative has that might be helpful if we could only find a way to get at them. Those heat and motion detectors, for instance, so we could know the movements of their personnel. Or radios for communication.”

“The Firoud can get them for us,” said the Krasevic. “Can get in anywhere unseen, the Firoud.”

Things were shaping up nicely.

“Maps,” said Louth.

“I’ll get you some proper ones once Willow hacks into their computers. But I can draw you a rough idea right now if there’s pencil and paper.”

Frihas flipped his tail to one side and hissed at his bodyguard who disappeared and returned a few minutes later with several sheets of paper and some markers. Buffy used the time to go over what she remembered of the Initiative’s lab. Now she whipped off a reasonable sketch of the layout and the accesses, everybody leaning over her shoulder as she drew and asking questions.

She had a sudden picture of what this must look like—her surrounded by four demons, conspiring to take down a human facility. The Watcher’s Council would have a stroke. She glanced up and saw Spike looking back at her, his eyes vividly blue and full of laughter. He knew what she was thinking, and of course it appealed to his sense of humor.

“I’ll leave you guys to set things up,” she said. “I’m going to make a quick pass through the cemeteries and then go back to talk to Willow and my Watcher. I’ll have a better idea of our tactics tomorrow. Is there any way of keeping in touch with you?”

“Runners,” the Krasevic nodded. “They’ll keep in contact.”

“Okay.”

She was thinking how this was breaking down: the Krasevics for supply and stealth, the Brachen for muscle, Louth and his Hadraden for brains. If she could only get Willow and Giles on board, they had a very good chance of pulling this off.

To her surprise, Spike came with her. She had expected him to stay at the council of war that was taking place in the factory.

“Just going on patrol, Spike. Don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Might be a chance of a fight.” He raised his brows at her. “Think I’d pass up a chance for a good fight? Haven’t had a decent spot of violence for quite a while.”

“Oh! And what do you call that business with the Rathorn back at Willy’s?”

“An appetizer.”

She laughed. “Okay then.”

To Spike’s satisfaction, they ran across a gang of five vamps at Tranquility cemetery. Buffy took her time with the one she picked, giving Spike the opportunity to blow off some steam. He was a ferocious fighter, graceful and deadly, had made an art form out of combat over the decades. The only thing better than watching him in action was fighting him herself. Vamps dusted one by one.

She staked her own vamp while Spike took on the last one remaining. Spike sent it staggering towards her by a spin kick to its breastbone and, since it was right there in front of her, Buffy staked it. Spike’s fist that had been heading for its chin went right through dust and hit Buffy instead.

She staggered back. “Oops. Guess I shouldn’t have done that.”

Spike was standing with a hand halfway to his head in anticipation of the pain that hadn’t come and his jaw hanging. “That didn’t hurt! Slayer, I hit you and it didn’t hurt!”

“Um...” That was a puzzler. When Willow had pulled her out of Heaven, the fractional changes that had occurred on a molecular level in her body, that ‘deep tropical cellular suntan’, had confused the sensors in Spike’s chip and he had been able to hit her without pain. But those changes had happened a year from now. This body would not have gone through it. Was it not just her soul that had come back, but also in some fashion her body? That needed thinking about.

But in the meantime...

“Guess Slayers aren’t completely human,” she said lightly, “what with the supernatural abilities and all. You gonna try to kill me again, Spike?”

Something flickered behind his eyes.

“Might,” he said harshly. “Have to think about it.”

“You do that. I’m gonna go back to the dorm now and talk to Willow.”

She felt his burning gaze on her back as she walked away. She didn’t know what she would do if he really did try to kill her. Couldn’t kill him. Couldn’t even bring herself to hurt him. She had been responsible for his death there in the Hellmouth. Maybe there would be a kind of justice to it if he killed her this time.

Willow was just shutting down her laptop preparatory to going to bed when Buffy got back to the dorm.

“You’re awful late, Buffy.” Willow looked worried. “Good thing tomorrow’s Saturday and we don’t have any classes. Is there a problem?”

“Need your help on something, Will.” Buffy sat down cross-legged tailor-fashion on her bed and explained.

“We’re working with demons now?” Willow exclaimed, flabbergasted, and Buffy winced. If Willow was this taken aback at the idea, how would Giles react?

“Well, they’re non-harmful, Will. And they’re willing to help. The Initiative’s too big for us to take all by ourselves without someone getting hurt...”

“I can see that.” Willow was looking thoughtful. “Makes sense. It’s your call, Buff. You’re the Slayer and if you say it’s all right, it’s okay by me.”

Buffy let out a little sigh of relief. “Can you do it? Get into their computers undetected, play games with their defenses?”

Willow’s eyes were shining with excitement. “Abso-posi-lutely!”

“Government facility,” Buffy warned. “Best anti-whatevers around.”

“Pretty good hacker here, Buffy.” Willow flipped open her laptop again, raring to go.

“Start tomorrow morning, when you’re fresh. We can’t afford even one mistake here. How about the virus? We need to totally destroy every byte of info they’ve got and make sure they can’t ever recover it. Can you cook something like that up that fast?”

Willow blushed. “Well, actually...I already wrote a virus like that. Just to see if I could, you know? Wouldn’t ever have used it. Honest! But it’s awesome and it would great to have a chance to see if it would really work!”

Hackers. That’s how viruses started. Ego. Someone writing a program and then implementing it, unable to resist showing off, showing the world how brilliant one was, getting a huge charge out of watching the entire global net affected by something one had created. Willow had done that with magics, but the seeds of those actions of hers had already been there, in her genius with computers.

Couldn’t complain in this case though. Willow’s little bomb was exactly what they needed.

Willow went off to brush her teeth before bed. Buffy rose and studied herself in the mirror on the dresser.

This wasn’t the body that she would have in the future. She was thinner in the future: she had honed herself like a knife-edge in preparation for the battle with the First, and then become even thinner and almost gaunt in the year following, mourning over Spike. This body was the one she had really had in this present, this year that Spike had become chipped—figure more curvaceous, face less hollow-cheeked and strained.

She had left her future body lying on the ground at Stonehenge. But past and future minds had merged when her soul was sent back. Perhaps, in some way, past and future bodies had merged also. That would explain why Spike could hit her without pain. She wasn’t sure what the purpose was or what all the ramifications might be, but it looked like she was going to find out.

When Buffy woke up the next morning, Willow was already up and humming away happily as she worked on her laptop.

“Oh, this is a walk in the park,” she said. “Not exactly NORAD here. They should be ashamed of themselves. A two-year-old could get in. I mean, it’s just sad. Guess they don’t think anyone in Sunnydale could give them trouble. Want their cameras down? Shoot, I can take them down in sections as our teams pass through, bring them up again without anybody noticing they’ve got intruders, crash the whole system when everyone’s ready to make a break for the outside.”

“Perfect!” said Buffy. “What about maps of the layout?”

Willow nodded towards a pile of printouts on the table. “Knew you’d want them. Maps of the whole enchilada. The accesses, the cells, how to get to that Room 314 of yours, everything. And copies for our allies.”

“Sweet!” Buffy shot off the bed and ran to brush her teeth and wash her face.

Twenty minutes later, she was hurrying out of the dorm, the neatly collated and clipped together maps in her hand. Somewhere, a runner would be waiting for her.

“Slayer!” a voice hissed once she got outside and she saw the small, gray, nondescript form of a Firoud waving at her from behind a bush. It bowed deeply as she ran up to it.

“Got a job for you,” she said, stepping behind a tree so that they would both be concealed from people coming out of or going into the dorm. She handed it the pile of paper. “Will you distribute these to everyone concerned? Don’t worry about Spike. I’ll give him his tonight.”

“Will.” It handed her a foot-deep carton. “Frihas say give you.”

The box held uniforms, lab coats, ID tags, heat and motion detectors, and four state-of-the-art communication devices, the kind that was nothing but an ear piece connected to a narrow, finger-long voice transmitter that would lie along the cheek, and a clip to hook the whole thing over the ear.

“Awesome! Very well done!”

The Firoud beamed, bowed several times, then took off. Buffy carried the box upstairs to Willow.

“The Firoud can scrounge anything!” she said as Willow pounced immediately on the heat and motion detectors. “Everything here is Initiative issue. I wonder how they got them.”

“Snuck in and stole them probably.” Willow was already working on one of the motion detectors. “I’m gonna get these to feed into my laptop as well. That way we’ll know where everybody is at all times.”

“I’m going to see Giles and tell him what’s going on.”

“Wait.” Willow was checking the clothing. “Here. I think this lab coat is meant for him. It’s his size. There’s two more for us. And I think that uniform is meant for Spike. I’ll have the ID tags fitted with our pictures by tonight.”

“Giles the scientist. Perfect. He sure can talk the talk if we run into anyone.” They grinned at each other. “You’re coming with, aren’t you, Will?”

“Try to keep me away. Besides, you need me, in case anything goes wrong. And there’s stuff I have to be on the inside to access. But leave Xander and Anya out of it. Xander’s still too shaky from those Chumash diseases.”

“No argument there.”

Giles came on board the minute everything was explained to him. That the Initiative had to be stopped was a given and, cut loose from the Council, he was more flexible and open to the idea that all demons weren’t evil. But from the wry twist of his lips, he was having trouble with the concept that demons were going to help them take out the Initiative.

“You don’t have to come with us, Giles,” Buffy said. “I just wanted you to know what was going on.”

“I’m coming. I need to see...” He broke off, flushing a little.

“Yeah. Seeing is believing.”

For the benefit of the sunlight challenged among the demons, like Spike and apparently also the Hadraden, they had decided to make the attack after the sun went down on Sunday, which it did at four forty-five p.m. By five, everyone was in position at the Initiative’s back door and Willow was tapping into the defense grids to make sure their intrusion would go unnoticed. Buffy noticed with amusement that Giles was very much on edge, keeping a nervous eye on the demons surrounding them and flinching whenever one brushed against him.

The group would split up into two teams. There was no way to hide the fact that the Brachen were demons. They would wait until Willow opened the cells and then go in and grab the prisoners. The Hadraden, in Initiative uniforms, looked human and would go with Buffy to Room 314 in search of Adam and any other experiments. Spike would stay with the Brachen, acting as liaison and hopefully keeping their killing instincts in check.

“Remember,” said Buffy sharply to Tasic. “No killing of Initiative personnel. Knock them out and then take them topside with the prisoners.”

“Understood,” growled the Brachen grudgingly.

“And you,” she said to Spike. “Let the Brachen take point. Stay behind them. Remember, you can’t hurt humans.”

“Stop worrying about my ass and start worrying about your own, Slayer,” snapped Spike. He gave her a mocking smirk. “Might think you have other intentions towards my ass.”

Buffy gave him a scathing look. Louth gave them both a thoughtful one.

“We’re in,” announced Willow with satisfaction.

They slipped silently through the tunnel and paused where the main corridors began.

“There’s a small concentration of guards at the cells,” said Willow, checking the readings off the heat and motion detectors. “That open space is clear, but there are several people scattered around. Techs or guards at security points, I suppose. There’s someone in the Commander’s office.”

“Guess he didn’t take the weekend off,” muttered Giles.

Louth told off four of the Hadraden to go that way, handing one of them a motion detector.

“Just watch,” Buffy whispered to them. “Take him down only if he sees you.”

“Yes, Slayer.”

The teams split up, Spike and the Brachen heading towards the cells, Buffy and the Hadraden heading for Room 314.

The vast open space that normally would have been teeming with people was deserted. Both the heat and motion detectors showed no presence. They ran across the area swiftly in a flying wedge, Louth at point and Buffy, Willow and Giles in their lab coats protected within the vee formed by the uniformed Hadraden shielding them. The door to Room 314, with its sophisticated carded and coded lock, stopped them.

“Got it, got it,” muttered Willow, hooking her laptop to it. “Give me a minute here.”

“Hey, you!” someone shouted. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Authorized,” rumbled Louth. “Transfers from HQ. Walsh’s orders.”

He held up a small leather folder. The folder had nothing in it, but the guard coming towards them didn’t know that.

“I’ll have to check w...” The guard folded up as the Hadraden who had slid behind him cut him down with one neat chop below the ear.

“Sorry,” muttered Giles who had forgotten to watch the motion detector he was in charge of in his interest in what Willow was doing.

“My fault too,” said Louth, who had another.

“We’re in,” said Willow triumphantly and the door to Room 314 opened.

“We’ll do this,” said Buffy. “Willow, the computers.”

“Right.” Willow headed that way.

Louth jerked his head and Hadraden went with her. She was essential to their plans and everyone knew she had to be kept safe.

“This is an abomination,” said Giles, looking down at the grotesque figure lying on the steel table in Room 314, that terrible, revolting blend of human and demon and machine.

“Yes,” growled Louth, also disgusted. “What’s the power source?”

“Uranium core here,” said Buffy shortly, reaching out to tap the immobile body, then grinned as Louth smashed through Adam’s chest and ripped it out. “Yeah, that works.”

“More here,” said another Hadraden, checking neighboring rooms. “Various stages.”

“Set the charges,” Buffy ordered. “I don’t want anything left of any of them.”

They got to work.

“Virus is in,” said Willow, running up to Buffy a few minutes later. “It will activate when I give the command.”

“Perfect. Louth!”

“Almost done, Slayer.” He nodded as his people started coming back from wherever they had dispersed to. “Done.”

Willow reached out and punched a button. Sirens started whooping and the lights began flashing in red pulses.

“Evacuate!” a thunderous computer voice was bellowing over and over again. “Evacuate! Facility will be sealed in five minutes!”

“Oh, cool, Willow!” Buffy tapped the communication device hooked over her ear. “Spike! The cells are open.”

“Right,” said Spike curtly, then broke the connection.

Their group started running back the way they had come.

“They’re in confusion,” Giles said, keeping an eye on the detectors. “But they all seem to be heading for the exits as ordered.”

“Good.”

The cell blocks were a lot closer to the back exit than Room 314 was. By the time Buffy’s group managed to get there, Spike and the Brachen had got all the prisoners out. Most of the demons were already racing off in all directions. A couple of vamps still hanging undecidedly around took one look at the Slayer and decamped at high speed.

Spike tilted a brow at her from where he was lounging against the metal door. “What took you so long?”

Buffy ignored that pointedly. “Casualties?”

“Coupla demons who didn’t have the brains to just get out and not start trouble. Dead now. We brought the bodies up.”

“Initiative personnel?”

Spike jerked his chin at a few unconscious forms on the ground. “Alive.”

Willow was scanning her laptop. “Everyone’s out, Buffy. No one’s left down there. I’m putting the place on lockdown now and activating the virus.”

Spike swung the doors of the back exit shut. Then they could feel the reverberations as heavy metal barriers slammed into place all over the facility.

“Tasic,” said Louth. “You and your people go. We’ll take it from here.”

The Brachen faded away. The rest of them ran towards Riley’s frat house, some of the Hadraden carrying the unconscious Initiative staffers. The area around the frat house looked like an ants’ nest that had been stirred with a stick. Initiative people were running all around. Buffy could see their commander, Colonel What’s-his-name, yelling and waving his arms.

“Isn’t this just neat?” grinned Spike.

“Amusing,” agreed Louth. His people were merging with the crowd, dropping unconscious bodies in artistic positions here and there. “A lot more exits than I supposed.”

“Whoa!” gasped Willow as the ground beneath their feet shook.

And kept shaking as the charges the Hadraden had set began to go off.

“How many did you set?” Buffy gasped as the explosions continued. “I didn’t want this many!”

“I did,” rumbled Louth. “There won’t be anything left of that place by the time this is finished.”

“Louth...”

“We’re ready for them now. They try to rebuild, none of their machines will work. They send troops in, their weapons and tasers and toys will fail. We can arrange that.” He looked at her grimly. “You said no deaths, Slayer. You’ve got that. We didn’t promise anything else.”

Buffy saw Spike grinning at her. She sighed.

“Well, I guess that works.”

“Slayer, look out!”

Buffy looked up to see a lamp post, jarred loose by the shocks, falling towards her. Then something struck her from the side and flung her away.

She hit the ground on one shoulder and rolled, coming up on hands and knees to see Spike crumpled under the heavy weight of the lamp post.

“Spike!”

Hadraden were already hoisting the lamp post away and lifting Spike to his feet. He winced.

“Bloody hell! I think I’ve bust my collarbone.”

“You moron!” Buffy staggered up and flew at him. “You could have busted your head!”

“Well, I didn’t, did I?”

“What the hell were you thinking?” she yelled at him.

“That it wouldn’t kill me. It’s metal not wood. But it would have killed you, Slayer.”

“What the hell kind of vamp are you? You’re not supposed to be saving the Slayer!”

“So next time I won’t!”

They were standing nose to nose, screaming at each other. She wanted to hit him, grab him, shake him to pieces, but his injury prevented that. What was it with Spike? He didn’t even care for her and here he was sacrificing himself for her again!

“Don’t you ever do that again! Not ever!”

“Geez, Slayer! Grateful much?”

“I don’t need your help!”

“So you won’t get it!” He spun and stamped away.

“Interesting,” remarked Louth, watching the two of them. “They seem uncommonly concerned about each other.”

“Well, he does owe her something,” mumbled Giles, desperately grasping at denial.

Louth gave him an amused look, then exchanged a glance with Willow who was standing with her mouth open.

“He is an unusual kind of vampire.” Louth studied Spike thoughtfully as he stalked away, duster flying. “Might have a place for him in my organization.”

“Anything that gets him out of our hair,” muttered Giles.



TBC

Chapter 4

Spike disappeared. Went to ground, maybe, to lick his wounds and heal. Once Buffy recovered from the absolute, sheer terror of having him once again fling himself between her and harm, she went looking for him. But he was nowhere to be found. Not at Revello Drive, not at Willy’s or any of his usual haunts.

She needed to know that he was all right, that he was doing something about that broken collarbone. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. This was too much like that other time. The time when she had beaten him up and left him in pain in that alley beside the police station. Left him to bleed and maybe burn when the sun came up and hadn’t even thought to check. Hadn’t even thought of him until he had turned up at her birthday party, the welts on his face that remained even though a whole week had gone by proclaiming how badly she had hurt him. Hadn’t cared about him or that he might died—and all he had been trying to do was help.

Maybe he had left Sunnydale, she thought as the days went by with still no sign of him. He had definitely left Revello Drive. She discovered that on a return visit. His blood packages were gone from the fridge, the coverings taken down from the window of the guest room and everything left scrupulously neat, a note in the center of the bed. One curt word. ‘Thanks.’

Maybe it was better this way. Maybe he’d gone back to Dru. He could, now that he knew he could fight demons and had a way to earn the money he needed to buy pig’s blood on the way to Brazil. He’d be safe with Dru. Far safer than with her.

But, God! she needed to know that he was all right.

Oz sent to get his things from his dorm. That was an awful shock to Willow, walking into his room and finding it stripped and bare.

“Devon said that he sent for his stuff,” wept Willow. “I guess that means he’s planning on settling down somewhere...else. Not here.”

“I guess so,” said Buffy weakly.

“He could have sent me a note. He could have sent something, just to say he was all right.”

And thinking of her.

Buffy held Willow while she cried and thought how complicated things could become. She had no doubt that Oz was thinking of Willow and he had probably thought that a note would only bring up painful memories, hadn’t thought that the lack of a note would do the same. No way to win in that scenario, unless Oz actually came back.

“I feel like I’ve been split down the center and half of me is lost,” wept Willow.

“I know. It feels like that now. It gets better,” she said helplessly. “It really does, Will.”

“You’re thinking of Angel. The way he walked out on you. You’ve been there.”

“Yes.”

“The way you talked to him on Thanksgiving...You really are over him, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” But she wasn’t over Spike. Never would be. All one could hope for was: “It dulls. The pain dulls. You learn to live with it. You deal.”

“Why can’t I make it go away? Isn’t there some way I can make it go away? Just ‘cause I say so? Can’t I just make it go ‘poof’?”

Now why did that sound so familiar? Uh-oh! That ‘will-be-done’ spell! That’s what Willow was thinking about!

God, it was tempting to let Willow do it! ‘Why doesn’t she just go marry him?’ That’s what Willow had said the last time around. And there Buffy and Spike had been—all cuddly and cozy.

God, what it would be like to be in his arms again, to be kissing him and holding him and... Damn it, this time she’d yank him into bed right away. No waiting for that freaking wedding night, like they had the last time. Yank him out of Giles’ place and over to Revello Drive and into bed for the duration of the spell. It was a spell, after all, and Willow would reverse it in the end. But until then, she’d have him! She’d have him! His hands, and his mouth, and his body in her...

Oh, God, no! It was wrong! And so many other things could also go wrong. Maybe Giles would stay blind this time. Or Xander or Anya might get killed by the demons chasing after them because Xander had been made a demon magnet. Or Willow could decide to really become a vengeance demon this time around.

Couldn’t take the chance.

Buffy was awake when Willow crept out of bed that night. She heard the faint squeak of hinges as Willow opened the trunk that contained all her spell components. She lay still, wondering whether to break things up now or whether she should wait until Willow was actually trying to do the spell.

Break the spell in the middle, she decided. Stopping Willow before she started would only make Willow try again another night or any time she was left alone, and Buffy couldn’t stay with her forever to prevent that.

A few minutes later, she pushed the swing door of the communal bathroom open quietly. Willow was sitting inside a circle of lit red candles, with an incense censer, a bowl, a goblet and trays of herbs all neatly set up around her.

“Harken, all ye elements,” Willow was saying, “I summon thee now...”

Buffy came in fast as Willow reached to drop something into the bowl. Buffy kicked over an arc of candles with a sweep of her foot, then knocked the bowl flying.

“No!” cried Willow. Then Buffy was on her knees beside her, holding her tightly.

“Not this way, Will. I know this spell. It goes wrong. It backfires. Don’t do it!”

“Buffy...” Willow collapsed. Buffy rocked her back and forth.

“I know it hurts. I know, Will. But this is not the way.”

“I have to do something,” Willow wept.

“We’ll figure something out. My Mom’s back from Aunt Darlene’s. She’s good at things like this. We’ll talk to her, okay?”

Willow nodded feebly where she was crying into Buffy’s shoulder.

“Just don’t use magic. Promise me, Willow.”

“I promise,” whispered Willow.

But something more had to be done.

Buffy went around to see Giles first thing the next morning.

“We’ve got to get her someone who knows how to use magic and can show her what she can and can’t do,” she said once she had explained what had happened. “Willow’s got a lot of power and you know what can happen if someone with power doesn’t get the proper training. You’re a Watcher, Giles. You’ve got contacts. Can’t you find someone either here or in England who can teach her?”

“Yes,” said Giles. “Yes, I can and I will.”

“I knew I could count on you, Giles!”

Giles was frowning. He sipped at his breakfast cuppa slowly.

“Buffy,” he said at last. “How did you know what that spell would do? You’ve never been knowledgeable about magic.”

Buffy jumped. “I-I, well, I just, uh, heard about this one...”

“Don’t be ingenuous.”

“Uh, I won’t, if I knew what that meant.”

“I’ve been slow on the uptake,” Giles muttered. “But things have been bothering me. I’ve been dismissing them. I’m starting to realize I’ve become very good at that. But I’m not a fool, Buffy.”

“I never thought you were, Giles,” she mumbled.

“All that information about the Initiative. Riley might have given away some of it, but not to that extent. You knew too much, Buffy. About their plans and their operations and that Room 314 and Spike’s chip and even the physical layout of their facility.”

“Well, uh, the Firoud and Louth and Willow hacking in...”

Giles shook his head. “It won’t wash, Buffy. You’re acting like a different person. Older, more mature. Do you know you even move differently? More assured. Combat ready, if you see what I mean. I think if I saw you on patrol now, you would be far more skilled at fighting than you were even a fortnight ago.”

“Giles...”

“Can we say possession?” murmured Giles.

“No, dammit, we can’t! I knew you’d start thinking this way! I’m me, Giles! I’m Buffy! Only...”

“Ah yes. I knew there was an ‘only’.”

Buffy sighed. “I’m Buffy. But I’m Buffy from 2004.”

“Excuse me?”

She looked at his pole-axed expression.

“I know this sounds insane, Giles...”

“Oh, yes, quite.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his hands roughly over his face.

“I died, Giles. I ran into something I couldn’t handle and I died. And the Powers That Be gave me a choice. Heaven or something I wanted even more: the chance to come back and fix things. And...and I really wanted that. So...”

“I see,” said Giles blankly. He put down his tea, got up, and went and poured himself a large Scotch and downed it in one swallow.

“And then here I was in your flat and it was Thanksgiving and I had my arms full of a bowl of mashed potatoes and you all were talking about Hus and...”

“I think I have to sit down again,” said Giles and did so. “What about our Buffy?”

“See, that’s the whole thing! I don’t know! I’m Buffy. And I don’t have the sense of two minds or anything. But I’m the older Buffy with all the memories of the last few years that haven’t happened yet and I don’t know where the younger Buffy has gone, except that she might be somehow merged with me.”

“I feel a bit strange,” said Giles.

“So do I,” said Buffy.

They sat staring at each other blankly for a while.

“Um,” said Giles at last. “Do you have any proof...?”

“Not one iota. I can’t even tell you something that might happen tomorrow, because everything’s already changed. The last time around, we didn’t take out the Initiative so early. Adam got loose and went around killing things and there was this huge battle and we finally won. But there were a lot of casualties, so I wanted to do a preventive strike this time where nobody gets hurt and...”

“So that’s how you know about Willow,” Giles said slowly.

“Last night’s spell backfired, Giles, and went all squirrelly. That’s why I stopped it. Things could really have gone wrong. But the thing is, Willow gets to be really powerful. And because she has no one to keep her in check and teach her about consequences, she goes over to the dark side for a while a couple of years from now. So, whether you believe me or not, you’ve got to get a tutor for Willow. It’s imperative.”

“I will.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Would you like to tell me about Spike?”

Buffy flinched. “What about Spike?”

“Let me see. The last time we encountered Spike a few months ago, he was trying to find the Gem of Amara in order to kill you and the two of you were at each other’s throats. But that was the younger Buffy. You, the older Buffy, seem peculiarly protective about him.”

“He...well, he helps us in four apocalypses.”

“Four!”

“And he dies in the last one. Sacrifices himself for us. That was the big one, Giles, and if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have a world anymore.”

“Good Lord!”

“Whatever you do, don’t dust him, Giles. I don’t know if he’ll do it this time, but we can’t take the chance. Gonna try to get him out of here, try to get him far away from Sunnydale. I’ll wear that freaking amulet myself, if it comes to that,” she muttered. “But I’m not gonna have him burn up again. Maybe he’s already left Sunnydale. I haven’t seen him around for a while. I hope so. He’d be safe then.”

Giles was staring at her. “You sound as if you...care about him.”

Buffy jerked to her feet and spun away. “I do, okay? And he’s earned that. Several times over. We’ve got history. Oh, I can’t explain, Giles! It’s too complicated! Just don’t do anything to him. Or let anyone else like Angel or Xander do anything to him. With that chip in his head, he can’t hurt anyone now.”

“All right.” Giles drew a deep breath. “Can you tell me what’s going to happen?”

“In the future, you mean?” Buffy bit her lip. “I don’t know if I should. If you knew, maybe it would change things. I don’t know. Things are already changing. I just have to stay on top of it, keep the bad things from happening. But I’ve written things down. If something happens to me, if I get myself killed this time around, just look in my diary. Willow will show you where it is. It’s all there.”

“All right.” Giles had a peculiar look on his face. “I have to think about all this. It’s a lot to digest all in one go.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was hoping never to have to tell you.”

She didn’t know how Giles was going to take this. Maybe it would turn him into her enemy. Maybe he would try to find some way of getting rid of her and bringing his own Buffy back. She didn’t know. But even if he did get rid of her, he would still end up looking in her diary. He wouldn’t be able to keep from doing that. And if he did, he would make the corrections that she had listed. He would have to. Those corrections were necessary and he would see that. She could trust him to take care of things, whatever happened to her.

She just had to find some way to keep Spike safe before Giles did anything to her.

The best way was sending him out of town. But she had to find him to do that. She was filled with a helpless, inchoate rage—at him for ducking out on her like this, at herself for yelling at him, at the whole situation for being as complicated as it was. She had never been good at emotional issues and being older didn’t make her any better at it. She much preferred things she could stake.

It was irrational to be this frustrated and furious. She spent the day calming herself down, went to her classes, did her patrol, took a long, soothing bath, all the normal things. Which were all just putting off matters and she knew that. When she finally ran out of excuses that evening, she went down to see Willy who always knew everything that was going on in Sunnydale.

Bur Willy wouldn’t say anything about Spike, not even whether he was still in town.

“Ask Louth,” he mumbled.

“I’m asking you,” Buffy said dangerously.

“Slayer, I know you can hurt me. But you won’t kill me. Louth will, if I start talking about his business.”

“All right,” she growled. “I’ll ask Louth. Where is he?”

“I don’t know.” He backed away hurriedly, flinging up his hands at the look on her face. “I really don’t, Slayer!”

Buffy reached out and grabbed Kibble before he could duck away.

“Where’s Louth, Kibble?” She held up a twenty as incentive.

Kibble spluttered something.

“Oasis,” Willy translated.

Haute cuisine on the best side of town. Figured. Why didn’t anyone take her to places like that? Maybe Spike would have, if she’d ever let him.

“Thanks.” She handed Kibble the twenty and a big smile. Kibble nearly folded up with relief.

Louth was with an extremely lovely brunette whose pupils reflected green in the subdued lighting of the Oasis. He looked up, amused, as Buffy stopped beside his table.

“42 Landry,” he said before she could open her mouth. “Basement flat.”

Buffy glared at him, then growled, “Thanks,” and left. God! Was she that obvious?

42 Landry turned out to be a one-storey, modern house on the good side of town. The main floor was all glass and windows, certainly no place a vamp would choose, and if she hadn’t been told about the basement flat, she wouldn’t have noticed the concealed stairs on the left side of the house, leading downwards to a door tucked within a deep overhang.

No bell. She banged on the door with her fist.

“Had to be you, Slayer,” said Spike dryly when he opened the door. “Surprised you didn’t just kick it in.”

She glared at him, somewhere between fury at his casual attitude and relief that he was all right. He was wearing only black jeans slung low across his hips and a black, silky shirt hanging open at his sides, baring his chest and stomach. Her brain hung itself up on all that taut, tempting muscle and sleek skin. She bit her lip. Big mistake to have come here. She should have sent a message instead, arranging a meeting. Why hadn’t she?

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Collarbone.”

“Oh! It’s mended.” He pushed the right side of his shirt back to bare his collarbone and flexed his shoulder. Muscle and bone moved smoothly, no trace of the break left. “Louth’s people fixed it up and vamp healing took care of the rest. Was only cracked anyway. What do you want, Slayer?”

“May I come in?”

He shrugged and stepped back grudgingly. “If you have to.”

She blinked at the sight of the flat. It was all open concept and very modern, Eames and Breuer chairs in groupings on the wide expanses of polished wood, state of the art entertainment center, state of the art kitchen on one side, large archway without doors leading to a bedroom with a kingsized bed, probably a state of the art bathroom beyond, the expected door at the far end of the living room providing the necessary second exit all demons insisted upon. All leather, steel and glass, spare and functional. Anything more different from his crypt with its rich rugs, candles and hangings, clutter and cosiness, couldn’t possibly be imagined.

“Uh, unexpected.”

He followed her gaze and shrugged again. “Not my taste. Louth’s. Only temporary. Gonna have my own place soon.”

“Why’d you move out of Revello Drive then?”

“Didn’t need you any more, did I?” His gaze was mocking. “Got a place in Louth’s organization. Money and a job I like. Beating up on demons. Can’t hassle me on that, Slayer.”

She sighed. “I didn’t come to give you a hard time.”

“Why are you here then?”

“Wanted to say thanks for shoving me out of the way of that lamp post. I should have said that before. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

His brows rose. “Well, there’s a change. Never thought I’d hear the words ‘Thanks’ or ‘Sorry’ from you, Slayer.”

She bit her lip. Years later, he could still have said the same. Neither word ever came easily to her.

He seemed determined to quarrel, his eyes narrow and dangerous beneath frowning brows.

“Look...”

“Want a drink?” He headed towards the kitchen, silent in his bare feet. “Haven’t got much except blood and booze, but I might have a soft drink somewhere.”

“No, thanks.” She drew a deep breath. “Why are you still in Sunnydale, Spike?”

“Ah, now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.” He gave her a mocking grin. “Come to run me out of town, have you?”

“I would have thought you’d want to leave. Sunnydale hasn’t turned out to be that good a place for you, has it?”

“Still haven’t got this chip out of my head.”

“And you won’t. An ordinary surgeon couldn’t do it and the Initiative people who could, like Engelman, are being pulled out. Give it up, Spike.”

He said nothing, just glowered at her.

“That’s not why you’re staying, is it?” she said, realizing it.

“Got a place here,” he said brusquely. “Got money enough for blood and smokes. Got backing. Why should I leave?”

“It’s not safe for you here.”

“And why should you care about my safety?”

She spun away, hands clenched so tightly at her sides that her nails bit into her palms. “I would have thought you’d go back to Dru.”

“What, and have to deal with more chaos and fungus demons? Had it with that. She kicked me out, Slayer. Right. Not gonna go back for more. I’m done.”

“She’d get you human blood.”

He laughed suddenly. “Now there’s a change! The Slayer tempting me with human blood! You should be staking me at the very thought. Why aren’t you?”

“Spike...”

He flashed towards her in a sudden burst of vampire speed. She found herself slammed against the wall, his hand around her throat.

“Maybe I want more. Maybe I want Slayer blood. Haven’t thought about that, have you? Can’t hurt humans. But I can hurt you. We found that out, didn’t we?”

His eyes were furious, the pupils dilated within a thin ring of blazing, intense blue.

“Is that what you want?” she purred. Her own anger and uncertainty had vanished on seeing that anger and uncertainty in him. Her hand lay on his chest, feeling that cool, silken skin, that nipple hardening under her palm. Oh, she had power over him, even now. Not love, but lust—and wasn’t that the way she wanted it? She could have him, wanted to, felt drunk and reckless, reason flying out of the window in this rush of heat. “Slayer blood?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Another notch on your Slayer-killing belt.”

“Yes!”

“Nothing else?”

“What else?”

Her thumb moved over his nipple, pressing lightly. He looked down in surprise and she felt him shiver.

“You tell me,” she murmured.

She saw his lips part, heard the catch of his breath.

“What the hell are you playing at, Slayer?” he asked violently.

“Why did you keep that lamp post from killing me? So you could kill me yourself?”

His lips tightened and a diagonal muscle in his cheek jumped as his jaw set hard. “Yeah.”

“Liar.”

“Dammit! Fight me, Slayer!”

“No.”

“I’ll drink your blood!” he snarled. “I’ll drain you dry!”

“Is that what you really want? Take it then.”

His weight came hard upon her. She shuddered and her arms clenched around him, hands siding under his shirt and across his back, clutching at him. Her brain was fuzzy with conflicting emotions —desire, anger, frustration, recklessness. She could see the same conflict flashing through his eyes.

This was all wrong and she knew it and she didn’t care, not with the feel of him against her and his breath on her face and his face filling her vision. Unwise. Mad, crazy, stupid. All those words. But she had never ever had what she wanted without guilt, fighting it all the way, never able to just enjoy. She wanted it. Just once. Wanted something to hoard, to remember.

She could feel him vibrating with intensity against her. He went into gameface, one hand shoving her head back, the other yanking the collar of her leather jacket aside, exposing her neck.

“Well, I will then,” he growled and his fangs flashed, then sank into her neck.

He had never drunk from her. Not once. Not ever. The Master had, Angel had, Dracula...but not Spike. She couldn’t remember Dracula’s bite, but the Master’s and Angel’s had hurt. Spike taking her blood didn’t hurt. The draw of his fangs brought unexpected rapturous, voluptuous pleasure. He had told her it would. She knew people paid for it. But she had never experienced it before, hadn’t really realized what it would feel like. She gasped, her knees turning to water, her whole body melting and clinging to his.

Maybe he would drain her. She didn’t care. If she weren’t here, he’d be safe. He wouldn’t burn, wouldn’t get caught up in the battle at the Hellmouth. Giles and whatever Slayer was called after her would take care of that. She’d gone through too much, lost too much, reached a point beyond thought and reason, a point at which only one imperative remained.

“Won’t fight you, won’t hurt you,” she muttered. “Won’t. Whatever you want. Don’t care.”

“Bloody hell! What is this? What the hell is this?”

He hadn’t taken much, just a sip. It had been anger and threat, no more. Her neck stung, but even that slight pain vanished as her Slayer healing rapidly sealed the wound.

“What is this thing between us, Slayer?” he yelled at her.

His eyes were all heat and confusion. She smiled, holding him to her, feeling him shuddering hard and urgent against her.

“What do you want, Spike?”

“I want you out of me! You’re in my throat, in my gut! I want you out!”

He kissed her bruisingly hard, their mouths twisting together, helplessly, demandingly. There was no taste of her blood in his mouth; his fangs had taken it directly into his veins, bloodstream to bloodstream. But it wouldn’t have bothered her even if there had been. She kissed him back fiercely, greedily. And, God, the taste of him, the feel of him! Even if it was just for a moment.

He tore his head back and they gasped against each other’s mouths. He was as breathless as she, and he didn’t need to breathe. She knew him, knew how passion worked in him, forcing him to struggle for air, that one hardwired reflex alone betraying what he was feeling.

“Getting to you, Spike?” she purred in triumph, unable to keep from feeling that, even though she knew she should push him away.

“Doesn’t make sense. Any of it.” His mouth raked her throat and her bones went liquid, her whole body fusing to his. “Came back to kill you. Meant to. Meant to. Except. Keep wanting you. And that’s just wrong. Wanting the Slayer. That’s sick.”

“Yes.” She tried to get her head together again, tried to concentrate on what was really important. “You’ve got to leave Sunnydale.”

“Yeah.”

But their bodies moved and ground demandingly against each other.

“Gotta burn you out,” he muttered. “Have you and it’s over. That would do it. Yeah. Get enough of you. No more craving. Burn you out of me.”

Maybe that would work. Satisfy the craving and maybe it would be over. Hadn’t worked before, but then he had loved her before. He didn’t love her now. Or was she just rationalizing because she wanted him so badly? She didn’t care.

They kissed and kissed again, their mouths devouring each other, bodies moving and twisting insistently together, hands sliding and clenching over each other, yanking at clothes. Her leather jacket fell to the ground. They had both forgotten sense. This was blind, instinctive, imperative desire, unleashed and beyond check.

She had wanted him too long. A year, a whole year. Longer. Since that one short month when they had been lovers. Now with his mouth on hers and his hands moving over her body and all her senses filled with him, her brain shorted right out. Nothing left in the world but having him.

She knew him intimately, knew all his buttons, set them off deliberately, her nails clawing over his body, her teeth raking his neck, that trigger point for a vamp.

She felt him jerk and shudder against her, saw his eyes go blind.

“Christ, Slayer!”

She had shoved his shirt off. He gasped as she bit his nipple.

“Come on,” she growled. “Come on!”

She was whirled off her feet, spun through space, thrown down through empty air to crash onto her back on the bed. Then his weight fell on top of her. They were both beyond the point of gentleness. This was all heat and violence. Raw, clamoring hunger. Her sneakers had gone, fallen off at some mad point. Her tank top and then her bra went too, torn off now by his hands. His mouth took her breast.

“Oh, God, yes!”

She keened, arching to him, thrusting her breast into his mouth. His tongue had gone raspy, like a cat’s, and oh God! the way it felt, raking over her nipple, pressing it to the roof of his mouth. His eyes would be golden, she knew; he’d be halfway in gameface. No one but Spike had ever used that ability on her and it felt incredible.

It called to the Slayer in her. He matched both sides of her, Buffy and the Slayer. The one time Angel and she had made love, he had stayed human in deference to her virginity and her shyness, had been careful, gentle. The humans she had slept with, Riley, Parker, had been, well, human, hadn’t had the strength; she had always had to be careful with them. She didn’t have to be careful with Spike; she could do anything, be anything. He set her free. To do all those little nasties that weren’t nasties. Nothing anyone did consenting in lovemaking was nasty, was just natural and right. She understood that now in a way she hadn’t understood then, screwed up in her own head as she had been.

They were ripping off each other’s jeans. His length sprang into her hands and she felt him jolt and gasp.

“Want you in me, Spike!” They were both past the point of foreplay. “Come on! Come on!”

He snarled against her face. Then he was between her thighs, hands on the bed on either side of her, coming into her hard. She arched to him, clenched upon him.

“Oh, God, the way you feel!” she gasped. “No one else ever...”

He filled her to the point she thought she would break in half, and yet it was exactly right, exactly enough, no one had ever been as right for her as Spike. No one else ever moved the way he did, ever did that little twist of the hips that hit every right spot in her body. She moaned with delight into his mouth.

They surged against each other, thrusting and straining with a force that would have harmed anyone else. They were matched, the two of them. She didn’t have to worry about hurting him, could let herself go, claw at him, clench upon him, and he only groaned in rapture. And she was the Slayer; hard as he pistoned into her, it was only unbearable pleasure.

All heat and violence, like leopards coupling in the spring. Teeth and nails and fangs.

His eyes were blind and yellow as their bodies strained and fought, thrusting each other higher and higher, mindless, lost in sensation.

“Mine,” he growled, fangs sliding suddenly into her neck. “Mine.”

She felt the draw as he drank. He had never done that before, any time that they had made love. She had never realized what an unbearably exquisite sensation that would be during lovemaking, an excruciating rapture, her whole body flaming and flaring to a point higher than she had ever been before. That double penetration: the hard drives of his cock and the draw of his fangs. Pure ecstasy.

“Oh, God, yes! I am!”

She clawed at his back, bit at him, felt him starting to seize up. There was the taste of blood in her mouth. She must have bit him harder than she thought, but he only gasped in pleasure. She felt him jolt and pulse within her again and again.

“You’re mine too,” she snarled as that jerk of his hips took her too right over the edge.

“Oh, yeah, Slayer, oh yeah,” he gasped as her sheath rippled and clenched upon him. “God, don’t stop doing that! Christ, Slayer...!”

Her brain whited right out.

“Bloody amazing,” he was muttering, heavy upon her as her brain started stumbling back from that place of agonizing delight. “Bloody unbelievable! Never felt anything like that! Again, Slayer!”

He was still partially erect within her and rapidly hardening. She grinned involuntarily.

“Guess Slayer blood really is an aphrodisiac,” she purred and pulled him deeper into her as he laughed.


TBC

Chapter 5

She lay caressing him while he slept, his head in the curve of her shoulder, her lips against his hairline and her hand running delicately over and over the planes of his body. She had never allowed herself to sleep with him in that month when they had been lovers, never allowed herself to caress him like this, always leaped to her feet and fled away once the sex was over, ashamed of herself. Couldn’t even call it lovemaking, that one month; could only call it sex. Oh, he had made love. But she had only fucked him.

A year later they had slept together. Those last two nights before the final battle. The first night just holding each other. The best night of his life, he had called it. ‘Were you there with me?’ he had asked the next day, wistfully, hopefully. And she had temporized, once again with the mixed messages: yes...no...I don’t know...does it have to mean anything? Which was the reason that the next day she had allowed him her body and slept beside him the whole night. But even then she had been temporizing and he had known it. Which was why when the truth of her feelings finally hit her at that very last moment and she had blurted it out to him, he hadn’t believed it. Had burned instead.

Her arms tightened fiercely about him. Not this time.

Spike drew a breath and turned his head a little deeper into the curve of her shoulder, his arm tightening around her waist. Then he stopped breathing again. He was still asleep.

She smiled against his forehead. They had worn each other out, unable to stop, unable to get enough of each other. She didn’t know how many hours it had been this time because there wasn’t a clock on the bedside table. But she had a feeling they had broken all the records they had set during that one insane month. Slayer blood. He had been bad enough when it was just vamp stamina powering him, but with Slayer blood providing its aphrodisiac—honest to God, she was amazed she had survived it!

Could have eaten him alive though. Wanted to. Wanted to fuse him to her, never let him go. Mustn’t though. Had to let him go. Had to send him away where he would be safe.

She kissed his eyes in his sleep and felt his lashes flutter against her lips, stroked him again and again, his chest and shoulders and back and loins, cherishing the feel of him, memorizing it. Had to send him away. Had to find a way to send him out of Sunnydale.

Spike had come awake when her lips brushed his eyelids. With an effort, he made himself not breathe, checked that betraying reflex of his, just lay still in astonishment, relishing her caresses. This was all new to him. This...tenderness. A hundred and twenty years of the rough, twisted, torturous games that constituted vamp lovemaking with Dru had never yielded up this feeling. Gentleness had been his perversion, not Dru’s, who had taken advantage of it, but had never valued it. But then Dru hadn’t loved him, had always belonged to Angelus.

He had never had his gentleness returned, and now that it was, it hurt something in him, tore open wounds and yearnings that he hadn’t even realized were there. Slayer’s hands moving delicately over him, Slayer’s lips sliding softly over his face...It was sweet. Agonizingly sweet. The backs of his eyes stung.

Always wanted someone to care for him. Always wanted to be...

No! Not that word! Not with the Slayer! Christ! What was she doing to him? He was the Big Bad! He was evil! And he had no intention of being anything but evil! She wasn’t going to turn him into another big fluffy puppy with bad teeth!

Her face pressed against his cheek. Her lips slid along his jawline. Oh, Christ! His nonbeating heart hurt.

“You’re awake,” Buffy said. His chest had heaved suddenly against her.

“Yeah.” He turned his head abruptly and kissed her hard, rolling her over onto her back.

“Mmm,” she purred, holding his weight upon her, her arms tight across his back. “You feel so good.”

“What is this between us, Slayer? What the hell is it?”

“It’s wrong.”

“Tell me about it.”

“This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“Feels good though,” he muttered and they kissed deeply. “You’re something else in bed, Slayer. Bloody animal! And that Slayer blood!”

“Liked it, did you? Turned you into a machine.”

Spike snickered helplessly into her shoulder. “Flattery will get you everywhere, pet.”

They grinned at each other.

“Mustn’t do this again,” she muttered.

“Must,” he growled. “Want more.”

“Spike...”

He caught the backs of her knees and pulled her thighs up around his hips, rubbed himself deliberately against her. She moaned, her body arcing to his and her arms clenching involuntarily around him.

“Tell me you don’t want more.”

“Oh, God!” she groaned. “I do want it. But it’s not right. You know that.”

“I know. What’s happening is crazy, Slayer. It’s insane. But...”

“You have to leave Sunnydale.”

“Not yet. Not yet. Haven’t had enough of this yet.”

“Do it until you get bored, get jaded, is that it?”

“Burn you out of me,” he muttered.

“One night wasn’t enough to do that?”

“No! Wasn’t for you either.”

“No.”

They kissed hungrily, hands kneading and caressing, bodies shuddering and sliding against each other. There was time, Buffy thought vaguely. There was no hurry. He didn’t have to leave right away. Or was she just rationalizing again?

“Don’t fall in love with me!” she said suddenly and vehemently.

He laughed involuntarily. “There’s a twist! You keep coming up with these unexpected things, Slayer. The cliché is that, the morning after, you insist that I do.”

“It’s not a joke. I mean it.”

“Demons don’t love, pet. Surely that Watchers’ Council of yours has told you that.”

“And that’s a crock. I’ve seen you with Dru, Spike. You loved her for a hundred and twenty years.”

He looked down at her in complete stillness, frowning. “Yeah,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I don’t know about other demons, Spike. But I know you.”

“How do you know?” he muttered. “It doesn’t make sense. You know too much.”

“I just do.”

He shivered suddenly as her tongue licked his nipple. “Like that. I didn’t even know myself that I was sensitive there. Dru never...”

“Vamp loving is rough. But you like being stroked, don’t you? Gentleness.”

He caught his breath in shock. “How...?”

Her lips slid up his throat to distract him. “Necks now. That’s a turn on for any vamp.”

“Buffy...”

“Wasn’t very gentle last night though.” She ran her hands over him, shaking her head at herself. “You’ve got bite marks all over your shoulders and neck, scratches down your back. I’m sorry.”

He grinned. “Oh, well, that! Bites to a vamp, pet? Only a turn-on. You’ve got your own bite mark.”

He rubbed a thumb gently over the two neat punctures on her neck and she gasped and arched involuntarily against him with the jolt of pure pleasure that shot through her.

“Whoa! Wow, what was that, Spike? Do all bite marks do that when touched?”

“No.” He was looking utterly astonished. “I felt that.”

“What?”

“I felt that. Felt what you were feeling. That shouldn’t be happening.”

“You felt it? How can that happen?”

He ran his thumb lightly over the punctures again and they both shuddered.

“It’s more than a bite mark!” he said in appalled realization. “It’s a claim mark! Oh, Christ, pet! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!”

“Do what? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t even remember doing it. Just remember taking your blood. I was so out of my head...” He rubbed a hand helplessly over his face. “Did I say anything...?”

“Like what?”

“Anything possessive.”

“Well, you said: Mine. You said it a couple of times.”

“Oh, bollocks! And did you agree?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose. I said I was.”

He dropped his forehead against hers and laughed helplessly. “That would do it.”

“Do what? What’s the big deal about this claim thing? What’s a claim anyway?”

“It’s a link between us. It ties us together.”

“What!” Buffy, you idiot! Give way to your own selfish desires and here’s the punishment. Mean to make him leave town, sleep with him instead because you couldn’t bear not to have him just one more time—and end up tied to him!

“You...belong to me,” he muttered. There was an odd look in his eyes, a blend of ruefulness and satisfaction. “That’s what the claim does. I asked it of you and you agreed.”

The worst part was that she wanted to belong to him.

“But...but...What exactly does it do?”

“A one way claim?” he muttered. “It’s kind of like a minion link.”

“A minion link!” Buffy was horrified. “You mean I’d have to do whatever you say?”

“Yes, but...I wouldn’t! Don’t want a slave, pet. Want an equal.”

They stared at each other.

“But you could,” she growled.

“Won’t,” he said intensely. “Swear!”

Somehow she could feel that he meant it. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

“Is it permanent?”

“No. A deep-set command might be permanent if I made one. Like a command made in hypnosis, you know? But I won’t be doing that. And the claim itself wears off in two or three weeks if it’s not renewed.”

“Guess you can’t bite me then,” she said ruefully. She was sorry about that. She realized that she wanted him to take her blood, wanted that glorious rush of feeling.

He gave her that sideways, sloe-eyed look. “Oh, I can bite you, pet. Just have to remember not to say anything possessive. And you have to remember not to agree.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Slayer tied to a vampire,” Spike said. “I can just see the looks on those Council wankers’ faces!”

They both laughed involuntarily.

“Can’t leave town until the claim’s worn off,” he murmured. “Tends to be kinda painful for both of us, stretching the link like that. A couple of hundred miles is tenable, but more than that is not a good idea.”

“So you have to stick around for a couple more weeks?”

“Yeah.”

“Crying shame.”

“Isn’t it?”

They grinned at each other.

“You must’ve totally fried my brain if I don’t remember making that claim,” he muttered. “Says something about you, luv.”

She pulled a strand of his hair down over his forehead and studied the result with pleasure. “Well, I don’t remember much myself, so you totally fried mine.”

He kissed her slowly and luxuriously.

“Getting to like this,” he purred.

She bit his shoulder lightly. “Don’t start liking it too much.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Spike, I mean it.”

“Slayer, you gotta stop thinking and worrying everything to pieces. Just enjoy the moment.”

She had never been able to do that. Ever since Merrick had told her she was the Slayer, her life had been so fraught. Struggle and worry; apocalypses, demons, the Hellmouth, even the Scoobies. She had never been able to stop worrying about all of that, never been able to just relax and enjoy. She had two weeks of Spike and then she would have to make him leave. All right. She wouldn’t think about that, wouldn’t spoil this present delight with thoughts of what was to come.

“You’re right,” she murmured. “Just going to enjoy.”

“Good.”

His tongue was rasping over her skin. She shivered and arched to him, digging her fingers into his thick hair and holding his head to her. Last night had been all about satisfying cravings that they had both tried to deny, had been all fierceness and hunger and desperation. Today they could just indulge.

“Buffy,” he was murmuring as his mouth roamed all over her. “Buffy.”

“I like it when you say my name,” she said dimly, drowning herself in the feel of him. “Not just Slayer.”

“Never felt right before.” He raised his head to look down at her. “Not going to stop saying Slayer though. It’s what you are. This dangerous, deadly, glorious creature. You’re Buffy and you’re the Slayer. And both are beautiful. You’re a wonder, pet.”

Riley had wanted her to be just another girl, normal and ordinary and depending on him. Riley had resented the Slayer side of herself, so much stronger than he. And so did Angel in a way. Angel saw her as young, vulnerable, wanted her to be that, to do as he said. What Angel really wanted was for them both to be only human, with him the one making all the decisions.

She threatened their manhood.

Spike didn’t feel threatened. He was too strong for that, sure of what he was, comfortable in his own skin. Love’s bitch without qualifications and happy to be that. He valued excellence, valued her strength that matched his, never wanted to be human, never wanted her to be less than she was. He loved her being the Slayer, responded to both sides of her, wouldn’t have her any other way. He didn’t mind her taking the lead in some things because he took the lead in others, the things she was afraid of, like emotions. They were exactly matched, balanced. She was his sun; he was her shade.

“You’re a wonder too,” she murmured. “You’re special, Spike.”

She felt his pleasure. She ran her mouth down his throat and over his chest. He purred, a vibration that shivered deliciously through her body as he lay upon her.

“You like that,” she smiled. “I can feel it. I can feel you enjoying it. Is that the claim? Is it supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. Claims are so rare, pet. They’re hardly ever done. I’ve never done it before, not with anybody. And a claim with a Slayer is unheard of. Don’t know how that’s going to work. I know I’m supposed to feel you. But you feeling me...That’s different.”

She ran her hands down his sides from armpit to the back of his knees and felt him flex against her, felt his enjoyment. He ran his hands over her ribcage, bent to mouth her breast; and she felt not only his mouth upon her breast, but the sensation he felt doing it and the sensation he felt coming from her when he did it. The feelings echoed between them, reverberating through every nerve, an upward-swirling, intensifying spiral of delight.

“Oh, God, I’m coming apart!” she gasped.

“Swear I’m gonna dust before this is over,” he groaned.

They twisted about each other, hands and mouths and bodies sliding and straining over each other, drowning in that tidal wave of doubled and quadrupled sensation. He took her hard and they both cried out at the feeling, every nerve on fire, bodies struggling and thrusting against each other, minds blanking out and sinking into each other. Her sheath clenching and gripping upon him; his cock driving into her, going as far as it could go and then just that little bit further, hitting every sweet spot in her body, hips twisting at the end of every thrust to strike her clit. Every sensation enhanced, reflecting and echoing over the link.

His fangs sank into her neck.

“Oh, God!”

It was too much, unbearable, that draw of his fangs flinging them both so much higher. Her brain blanked right out as they both convulsed.

“Oh, God, I think I passed out!” she gasped when the world finally steadied about her.

“I know I did,” he muttered, limp upon her. “Don’t know what that was. Could dust right now. Never going to get better than this.”

They looked at each other helplessly.

***

A Firoud was the last thing Giles expected to see on his doorstep. He very nearly flung himself reflexively backwards into his house, seeing that small, gray form with its little, gargoyle face peering up at him. Willow and Xander were gasping in shock behind him. Giles almost slammed the door on it, then remembered that Buffy had said that the Firoud had helped them in the fight against the Initiative.

“Frihas send,” it squeaked. “Please, must see Slayer.”

“Erm, she’s not here,” Giles muttered, recovering himself. “What do you Firoud want with the Slayer?”

“Is that a Firoud?” Willow asked, stepping forward excitedly and not even noticing Xander trying to grab her arm and keep her back.

“Wil-low,” said the Firoud, as interested, and bowed several times. “Hack-er. Very smart.”

Willow beamed at it and it beamed back. Xander made a gagging sound.

“Thank you.”

“Er, yes,” said Giles, trying to get control of the situation. “Um, perhaps I can take a message for Buffy?”

The Firoud nodded. “You tell, please. Grathar come Hellmouth. Five, six. Pack, yes? Very bad.”

“What are Grathar?” asked Willow. Giles knew though and was horrified

“Very bad demon. Very big. Dan-ger-ous. You tell Slayer.”

“Right away,” Willow nodded.

The Firoud bowed and fled.

“I wondered what they looked like,” Willow said. “They weren’t on the raid, but they got us our supplies. Cute little things, aren’t they?”

“Eww!” Xander looked sick. “How can you say that, Will? It looks gross and anyway it’s a demon.”

“I think it looks cute. And it may be a demon, but it’s on our side. Don’t be so prejudiced. If you’d been on that raid, you’d have seen...”

“Well, I wasn’t. You left me out of it,” growled Xander resentfully.

“You were still sick and we needed everybody in top form,” said Giles firmly. He was getting sick of Xander griping about not being on that raid on the Initiative; if he’d come on that raid, he’d only have been grinching about having had to be in close proximity to demons anyway.

“Buffy said she was going to start at Tranquility tonight,” Willow said. “I’ll go and tell her about the Grathar.”

“Willow, wait!” Giles exclaimed, but Willow was already gone. “Bloody hell!”

He grabbed Xander with one hand as the boy started to follow Willow, then tore his weapons chest open.

“That little idiot! It’s not safe! She could run right into them and the Firoud’s right. Grathar are dangerous.”

“But we have to warn Buffy,” Xander protested.

“Yes. Here!” He flung an axe to Xander, snatched up one himself. “Now we’re ready. Come on!”

They caught up with Willow at Tranquility cemetery. She was standing with her hands at her mouth, staring at a vicious fight going on in the middle of the cemetery.

“Um, I think Buffy already knows about the Grathar,” Willow mumbled as they stumbled to a stop beside her.

Buffy was in a blur of motion, hammering at the six massive demons surrounding her. To his shock, Giles realized that Spike was with her, fighting them as well. The two of them made a smooth team, weaving and ducking around each other, unexpectedly switching opponents every now and then, keeping the demons off-balance and off-stride. And the whole time they were laughing and trading jokes, as if this were only some highly enjoyable exercise.

“Buffy!” Giles yelled.

“Oh, hi, Giles!” Buffy caroled happily. “Lookee what we got!”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” muttered Giles. “What does she think this is, some kind of game? Catch!”

Buffy caught the axe he threw her. “Oh, sweet! Just what we needed! Spike!”

To Giles’ shock, she threw the axe to Spike, leaving herself defenseless again. Cursing, Giles ripped the axe that Xander was holding out of his hand.

“Buffy, here!” He tossed it to her.

“Thanks!”

She caught it neatly, whirled and decapitated one of the Grathar. Spike had already dispatched another. The rest was just a rout, the two of them joyfully chopping down Grathar. In no time, the whole thing was over, Spike chasing down the last one. He hamstrung it with his axe as it tried to flee, then chopped off its head efficiently as it fell.

“Now that was fun!” he said, swaggering back.

Giles looked down at the huge bodies littering the grass. The Grathar had fangs that sabertooth tigers would have envied and claws three inches long. He felt sick to his stomach.

“Thanks, Watcher,” said Spike. He slammed the blade of his axe into the turf to clean it of Grathar blood and entrails, then handed the axe to a numb Giles. “Gave us that bit of an edge.”

“Yeah,” said Buffy, doing the same. “It would have taken us longer to get rid of them if you hadn’t come along.”

They leaned on each other’s shoulders, laughing. Giles stared at them in wonderment. Xander scowled.

“So how come you’re all so buddy-buddy with Spike?” Xander demanded. Giles looked at him in exasperation. But that was the question, though Giles would have posed it more tactfully.

“Oh, Spike’s helping me now.”

Xander glared at Spike. “Why?”

“Like fighting,” shrugged Spike and looked at the several bodies scattered in pieces across the turf. “Gonna have a bit of a cleanup problem here, luv.”

Three or four Firoud slipped out of the shadows and bowed. Buffy grinned at them.

“Maybe not. Will you guys take care of it?”

“Will,” a Firoud nodded. “Good eating,” it explained.

“Oh, gross!” exclaimed Xander.

“Meat’s meat,” shrugged Spike and went to supervise the cleanup.

“And you make allies with that?” muttered Xander, giving both the Firoud and Spike the same disgusted look.

Buffy gave him a hard look. “Yes,” she said flatly and Xander subsided with ill grace, seeing the warning in her eye.

“Perhaps if we discussed this,” Giles said in a conciliatory tone.

Buffy’s brows rose. “And voted on it? Slayer business is not a democracy, Giles. I make the decisions.” She looked Xander right in the eye. “I don’t mind listening to your opinions. But I’m through with being told what to do.”

“I was thinking of laying everything out in the open,” said Giles and Buffy nodded, realizing he meant her whole back-from-the-future thing.

“Not a bad idea. When?”

“Friday at my place?” Giles suggested. “I’ve got that tutor of Willow’s coming then. It would be a good opportunity to go over everything then.”

“Okay.”

“What are they doing?” asked Willow, watching the Firoud busy working on the Grathar.

Buffy glanced over. “I think they’re cutting steaks.”

“Oh, God,” muttered Xander, looking as if he were going to hurl.

Willow giggled involuntarily. “Um, why don’t you and Giles go home, Xand? Buffy and I’ll go back to the dorm. That is, if you’ve finished patrolling for the night, Buff.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Buffy would rather have gone on patrolling with Spike, but from the looks on Giles’ and Xander’s faces, they would insist on coming along and that would defeat the purpose.

“Don’t worry,” said Willow quietly as Giles and Xander went off. “You can drop me off at the dorm, then take off to wherever you’ve been spending your nights.”

Buffy blushed vividly. “Um...”

“Kinda had to notice that your bed’s empty every night. And you haven’t been sleeping at Revello Drive either. Your Mom would have mentioned it.” She lifted her brows at Buffy. “She’s nice, your Mom. Things have been better since I started talking to her. That was a good idea of yours.”

“I’m glad.”

“So. Spike, huh?”

Buffy jumped. “Willow...”

“Things have been starting to add up over the last few days.” Willow looked at her curiously, then grinned. “I can understand. He’s really hot and, hey, one can’t help noticing, great bod there. And from your happy vibes, pretty good between the sheets, huh?”

“Willow!”

Willow laughed, then sobered. “Vampire. Scourge of Europe. No soul. All those really psycho things, Buffy.”

“He’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks.”

Willow’s eyes widened at the pain in her voice. “I thought it was just the sex. But...You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Buff drew a painful breath. “Yeah. I love him.”

“But how...why...?”

“Long story, Will. I’ll explain it on Friday.”

“So it’s part of that. Whatever Giles has been jittering about.”

“Mm.” Buffy rubbed a hand over her face. “Don’t tell Giles or Xander. It’s not going to matter what I feel in a couple of weeks anyway.”

Willow looked at the sadness in her face and touched her shoulder lightly. “Okay.”

“What’s wrong, pet?” Spike was hurrying up. “What have you been saying to her, Red?”

“Nothing,” Buffy said quickly. “She hasn’t been saying anything.”

“You’re upset.” His arm came about her shoulders, a protective movement that Willow noted thoughtfully.

Buffy didn’t see the way he was looking at her, but Willow did. The tenderness, the care and concern. More going on there than meets the eye, Willow thought, watching him.

“Just at the way things are,” Buffy was saying lightly. “No big.”

“Don’t borrow trouble, pet.”

“Just live in the moment.” Buffy smiled at him. “I’m trying. Let’s get Willow back to the dorm.”

On the greensward, the bodies of the Grathar had been dismembered and were now being carted away.

“It’ll all be gone by morning,” Spike said, following Willow’s gaze.

They walked back to the dorm. Willow noticed that Spike had quietly taken Buffy’s hand and that they were walking along with their fingers tightly interwoven. Definitely more going on there than what showed. She studied Spike surreptitiously. Something was different. He’d changed. It wasn’t the deadly and dangerous Spike that had come with Drusilla to Sunnydale and tried to kill them all. It wasn’t the Spike who had turned up a year later, all drunk and vulnerable, and even though he hadn’t actually done it, still threatening to eat Xander and cut her face with that broken bottle. It wasn’t even the angry and frustrated Spike of Thanksgiving, desperate to get his chip out.

Something that had always been there coming to the surface.

Willow considered that. They had all been afraid of Spike and with reason: killer, vampire, evil. But now he was changing, had changed, and Willow was having second thoughts.

“Guess I won’t see you till lunch time tomorrow, Buffy,” she said as they stopped in front of the dorm. “I’ve got an early class, so I probably won’t be there when you come back in the morning.”

“Uh...” Buffy blushed and Willow grinned.

“Then there’s this Wicca group meeting I want to go to. Socializing’s tough when no one else is into the weirdo things I’m into. Would be nice to meet other people who like spells and stuff. Though that tutor Giles has got coming’s really gonna help.” Willow waggled her fingers teasingly at Buffy and Spike. “So. Have fun.”

“She’s adjusting,” said Buffy in wonder, watching Willow walk into the dorm. She turned suddenly and put her arms tightly around Spike’s neck.

“That’s a bad thing?” Spike asked in bewilderment.

“Stupid,” she muttered into his chest. “I’ve been so stupid. Should have told them. They’d have had a fit and then they’d have adjusted. Everything would have been so different if I’d done that. Just didn’t have the guts.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hadn’t been able to face their condemnation. Too much of a wimp to resist even for a moment their constant interference in her personal life. So many things had gone wrong because of that. Slayer. Yeah, yeah. Had the stones to fight demons, but none when it came to emotional issues. Was a flat out coward there. And they had all paid for it, Spike most of all.

She kissed the corner of his jaw. “Let’s go back to your place. Got to fill you in on something.”

He tilted his head quizzically. “Okay.”

Neither of them were at ease on the angular leather-and-steel furniture though there was nothing actually uncomfortable about it. It just didn’t suit them. They always ended up sprawled happily on the kingsized bed, which had become their playground.

He frowned when she pulled on his discarded T-shirt. “Hey, take that off.”

She pushed away his hands, laughing, as he tried to lift it off her. “I want to talk and you’re too easily distracted. One flash of bare breast and the only sounds we’ll be making for the next two hours is grunting and groaning.”

“And you don’t get distracted?” Then he laughed as she pulled the sheet over his naked hips. “Does that mean you do?”

“Oh, yeah. Top half’s distracting enough.” They kissed slowly, then she drew back, smiling. “We have to talk.”

“The most terrifying words in the English language.”

“No, seriously.” She clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “This meeting on Friday. Giles found something out about me. He wants me to tell the others and, yeah, I think I should. But I want you to know first.”

He pushed himself higher up the bed until he was leaning back against the rails of the headboard. There was a warmth in the way he was looking at her and his eyes were soft.

“You want me to know whatever it is before your friends do?”

She had never done that in her other life. Her friends had always come first. She had always put them before him and now she couldn’t understand why, though at the time it had always seemed so reasonable.

“Yeah. It’s going to be hard to believe.”

“Is it a Slayer thing? If it is, I’ll believe it.”

“I suppose it is.” She bit her lip nervously. He put out a hand and took hers. Their fingers folded together, a reassuring contact, her small, slender hand with his big, cool one. “Okay, here goes. I’m not this time’s Buffy. I’m Buffy from 2004, from the future. Ran into some real bad shit up the line. Died. Got sent back here.”

There was a small silence. His hand tightened on hers.

“Why?” he said at last.

“Why what?”

“Why’d you get sent back? You’re the Slayer. Slayer should be shunted right into Heaven.”

“They were gonna. But I wanted...I wanted to come back and fix a few things. The Powers That Be, they let me.” She looked at him in surprise. “You believe me. Giles didn’t really.”

“I can feel it over the link. That you’re telling the truth.” He drew a long breath. “So that’s why you were so different.”

“When?”

“Thanksgiving. When I came to you for help.” He lifted her hand to his mouth, pressed the backs of her fingers against his lips. “Were we lovers? In that future?”

She caught her breath. “Yeah. For about a month.”

“Only a month? Did something wrong, did I? Figures.”

“No! You didn’t!” Tears welled in her eyes. “I did. I went wrong.”

“Hey, no.” He caught her to him and she clung to him, her face pressed hard into the curve of his shoulder. “Buffy, don’t.”

“You died, Spike! You died. I got you killed. It was my fault! Not gonna let that happen again.”

“That’s why you want me to leave Sunnydale,” he said slowly.

“Yes! I don’t want you caught up in my battles again. I’m the freaking Slayer. I’m the one who’s supposed to save the world, not you.”

“Save the world. Me?” His voice was utterly horrified. “Say it’s not so, pet!”

“You did.”

“God! Musta gone mental! Thought I was the great poof or something.” He shuddered. “I’m evil! I don’t do things like that!”

She couldn’t help smiling. “You already have, that one time with Acathla. For Dru’s sake and because you like the world the way it is.”

“I remember.”

“The next couple of times you did it for me.”

“Well, that makes sense,” he muttered. “Kinda thing I would do. Love’s bitch.”

She drew back and laid a hand against his cheek. “The last time, the time you died. You did it for me. But you also did it because it was the right thing to do.”

He thumped the back of his head a couple of times against the headboard. “Please don’t say that!”

“It’s true.”

“Buffy,” he said helplessly. “I’m no hero.”

“No, you’re a champion.” She kissed him softly. “Dru’s knight. Mine too...in black leather.”

He snickered involuntarily and she laughed too.

“Fighter, that’s what you are, Spike. Warrior. If you can’t fight for the dark, you’ll fight for the light. Can’t help it. And that’s what gets you killed. That’s why the minute this claim fades, you leave Sunnydale.”

“Buffy...”

“You stay, you die. Simple as that.”

His eyes were intensely blue, his gaze intent upon her face. “You gave up Heaven to come back and keep me from getting killed? For me?”

“And for my Mom,” she said hurriedly. She knew him. Love’s bitch. Admit that she loved him and he would never leave. He would stay and burn. He wouldn’t care. “And for Anya. And a girl called Tara. And several other people you wouldn’t know. Lot of deaths happened.”

“What are you leaving out? There’s something. I can feel it across the claim.”

“There’s nothing!”

“You’re holding back, pet. You’ve shut the door on me. You learned how to do that very fast and that tells me it’s important.”

“You’re holding back too, Spike. I can feel that. This claim. We’re both fighting it.”

“We’re not fighting the claim,” he said. “We’re fighting openness.”

He was right. Of course he was right. He saw too much, while her genius lay only in denial.

“Maybe we don’t trust each other.”

“Bollocks, pet. Would we be here together in this bed if we didn’t trust each other?”

“Maybe not on the things that matter.”

There was a small silence.

“Maybe,” he said.

“We’re not good for each other,” she said fiercely. “I’ll be glad when this claim is over!”

“It will be. It’s hanging fire right now. Not exactly taking. You have to give way to it. You have to agree. And you don’t.”

“Then why is it there at all?” she cried despairingly.

“Maybe because you want it. Maybe because we both want it.”

He tipped her over flat on her back and kissed her bruisingly hard. Her arms closed fiercely about him, pulling him down upon her. She did want it. In her heart of hearts, she didn’t want to let him go.

“Not tired of you yet, Slayer,” he muttered. “Starting to wonder if I’ll ever be.”

“You have to!”

“Have to doesn’t mean bollocks, pet.”

God! Did he always have to be right?


TBC

Chapter 6


“What’s he doing here?” growled Xander, glaring at Spike.

“I want him here,” said Buffy curtly as she and Spike stepped into Giles’ flat Friday evening.

“What’s with you and the Evil Dead these days?”

“What’s with you and demongirls?” Spike mocked, nodding in a friendly fashion to Anya who smiled back.

“Anya’s human!”

“She wasn’t for a thousand years. Killed a lot more people than Angel and I put together ever did.”

“You were amateurs,” agreed Anya and looked nostalgic. “I had a very good kill-count.”

“Anya!” Xander snapped repressively and Buffy gave him an amused look.

“She’s proud of it, Xander. You’re sleeping with someone who used to be a demon. Face up to it. What was your biggest coup, Anya?”

Anya had to think about it. “The Russian Revolution, I think. Or maybe the time I made Napoleon invade Russia. Tons of deaths on both sides. Russia was always good for deaths.”

“Was that one of yours, pet?” Spike asked with interest. “How’d you fix that?”

Anya beamed. “Oh, well, see, I made Nappie...”

“We don’t want to hear about it!” Xander snapped.

“I do,” said Spike wickedly. “Watcher, you wouldn’t have any booze around, would you?”

Giles sighed, but poured him some Scotch.

“Let her talk, Xander,” said Buffy. “We’re all in the in. And she would love to talk about it.”

“No, she wouldn’t!”

“Of course, I would,” said Anya, surprised. “Except you don’t let me.”

“Yeah, you keep stepping on her, Xander,” said Buffy. “It’s not kind. If you want a human girl, go find a human girl. If you want Anya, accept her as what she is and stop trying to change her. Grow up, for Heaven’s sake.”

Xander did an excellent imitation of a goldfish and Anya beamed. Spike grinned and Giles looked resigned.

A tap on the door heralded Willow’s arrival. Giles let her in.

“We just have to wait for one more person,” he said and went over to where Spike was listening with interest to Anya’s tale of dalliance with Napoleon. Giles didn’t want to miss that; it would make such an interesting annotation to his Watcher’s diaries.

“How’d your Wicca meeting go?” Buffy murmured to Willow as they went to get a couple of soft drinks from the fridge.

“Kind of a bust,” Willow sighed.

"So, not stellar, hunh?"

"All talk, no walk. Blah blah Gaia, blah blah moon, menstrual lifeforce power thingy. You know, after a couple of sessions, I was hoping we would get into something real, but..."

"No actual witches in your witch group?"

"No. Bunch of wanna blessed be’s. You know, nowadays every girl with a henna tattoo and a spice rack thinks she's a sister to the dark ones."

“I'm sorry it was a bust. I know you were looking to go farther in that department."

“Well, at least Giles has got this tutor coming. And there was this one girl there who seemed to have something. Girl called Tara...”

“Tara Maclay?”

Willow looked up in surprise. “You know her?”

“Uh, seen her around. Really nice, even if she’s shy.” Buffy smiled at Willow. “You should bring her around sometime.”

Willow looked pleased. “Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”

Giles was at the door again, this time letting in a tall, slender woman who looked to be the tutor Willow had been expecting. Everyone looked at her with interest. She was casually, but elegantly dressed in a long-sleeved, black, scoop-necked top and a calf-length, black, pencil skirt, her only adornment the thick wave of black hair falling like a mane to her waist. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was striking, and all three males in the room instinctively straightened up to their full heights.

“Er, this is Regan Forbes,” said Giles awkwardly. “She was going to move to L.A., but has been persuaded to settle in Sunnydale instead.”

“The Hellmouth is so interesting,” explained Regan, smiling around at all of them.

Buffy had stepped back towards Spike who lifted his brows at her mockingly before going back to studying the witch appreciatively. Buffy kicked his ankle and he grinned.

Giles was making introductions, automatically starting with Xander who was standing closest.

“I’m the All-American, ordinary guy in the group,” said Xander modestly.

“Er, yes,” muttered Giles, while Anya stepped quickly forward and wound her arm pointedly around Xander’s.

“And I’m his girlfriend, Anya.”

“A demon,” said Regan thoughtfully.

“Ex-demon,” said Xander at once.

“One of the issues,” murmured Buffy.

“I see. And you’re the Slayer. Buffy Summers.”

“That’s me.” Buffy shook hands warily.

Regan’s gaze had gone past her to Spike who had his scarred eyebrow up challengingly.

“A vampire.”

“Spike. A new addition,” muttered Giles.

“Not part of the group,” said Xander quickly.

“Temporarily part of the group,” corrected Buffy firmly. “He won’t hurt you. He has a chip that keeps him from harming humans and he’ll be leaving Sunnydale in a little while. He is not to be harmed.”

“Unless you really want to,” said Xander under his breath,

“Not,” repeated Buffy flatly, giving him a hard stare.

“Yes,” said Regan with no expression at all. It was clear that she knew Spike’s name and the whole ‘Scourge of Europe’ connotation.

“And this is Willow,” Giles said hurriedly.

“You do have talent,” said Regan, looking her over with interest.

“Really?” Willow smiled jubilantly. “All I’ve done so far is float pencils.”

“You’re capable of much more.”

“Oh, yeah,” muttered Buffy. They were all awkwardly taking seats, Giles making with the hospitality and Willow talking nineteen to the dozen, excited and happy.

Spike had backed up to sit on the stairs, deliberately keeping a distance from the group. Buffy came to lean against the wall beside him, then dropped a hand so that her fingertips brushed his knee. He gave her an upwards glance from under his eyelashes.

“Opinion?” she muttered.

“Power,” he said simply. ‘Keep an eye out,’ that meant.

She was aware of Regan studying her as the others talked. Willow and Xander were explaining how they had become caught up with the Slayer; Anya was telling her how she had lost her powers. And Regan kept watching Buffy thoughtfully, her Wiccan sense for esoteric forces probably picking up an anomaly.

“Why don’t you come over here and join us, Buffy?” Willow said in surprise after a while.

“Yeah, and get away from the Evil Dead,” muttered Xander.

“Comfortable here,” said Buffy without moving.

“Vampires attract her more than the living,” snarked Xander, emboldened by Regan’s presence. “Lack of a pulse seems to be a turn-on, from past experience.”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed.

“Getting awful brave, the whelp,” Spike remarked under his breath. “Suddenly got balls, now that he thinks he’s got a real witch to back him up.”

“Slayers do tend to pair with vampires,” commented Regan.

“Pair?” gasped Xander, gagging at the very thought. “Pair?”

“If they survive long enough to be looking for a potential mate.”

“Ma...Do you have to use these loaded words!” Xander looked sick.

“Humans can’t keep up, can they?” Anya remarked sympathetically to Buffy. “You always have to hold back. And that vamp stamina and refractory period? That’s a real plus.”

Xander was horrified. “Buffy’s not...! She’s not...!”

“May I remind all of you that my personal life is none of your business?” said Buffy coldly.

Giles was looking at Regan. “What do you mean, Slayers tend to pair with vampires? I’ve never seen that in any of the Council’s books.”

“They don’t want you to know. Slayers have an affinity to vampires, perhaps because of what Anya said. It’s a moot point. Most Slayers die early. Others have been indoctrinated so much by your Council that they never actually talk to the vampires they slay, the only communication between them being stakes and fangs. Buffy here is one of the rare cases where circumstances have allowed intercourse on a prolonged basis.”

Xander turned purple. “Inter..inter...”

“Conversation,” said Regan patiently. She raised a brow at Giles. “He seems to have a very one-track mind.”

“Buffy is not sleeping with Spike!” yelled Xander.

“Yes, I am,” said Buffy suddenly. Spike looked up at her, surprised and pleased, then got to his feet warily. Their hands linked.

Xander seemed to have no breath. “Y...y...!”

“I’m sleeping with Spike. We have a relationship. I’m happy. I like it that way. And no one has the right to interfere.”

Xander jerked a stake out of his pocket and leaped at Spike. Buffy slapped the stake away and gave him a hard shove that sent him tumbling back onto the couch.

“The next time you make a move like that, I’ll break you in half,” she said in such a dangerous voice that everyone stared at her in shock.

“What’s wrong with you?” Xander whispered. “What has he done to you? You’re not acting like yourself at all!”

“Well, that’s the thing.” She looked around at all of them. “I’m not the Buffy you know. That’s one of the things Giles called us all here to discuss.”

Giles nodded. “Yes, I think you’d better tell them.”

Buffy laid it all out—her death and return, the battle with the First, Spike’s sacrifice there in the Hellmouth, her determination to change all the bad things that happened.

“So I’m not going to let you hurt Spike,” she finished. “He’s too important to the future. Plus, he’s chipped now and no danger to anyone. And anyway he’s going to be leaving Sunnydale in a little while.”

She hoped they wouldn’t notice that important and leaving were mutually contradictory statements in this context. They didn’t. Spike was no longer what they were worrying about.

“You’re not our Buffy?” Willow whispered, breaking the stunned silence.

“I am Buffy. Except I’m Buffy with four years more experience and knowledge about the future.”

“But what about our Buffy?” snapped Xander. “What’s happened to her?”

“I don’t know! I’m Buffy, Xand.”

“You don’t act like her! You’re saying things, doing things that...that...” He cast a hate-filled glare at Spike. “Things she would never do!”

“I learned, Xand. I grew up.”

“Is it possible?” Willow asked, looking helplessly at Giles. “Giles, is this at all possible? Do you accept it?”

“I don’t know,” Giles admitted.

“She could be a demon!” Xander said. “It could be a demon taking possession of Buffy’s body! Look at the way she’s acting! All we know is what she’s telling us. She could say anything and we wouldn’t know whether it’s true or not!”

“She can’t be a demon,” Anya said. “She has a soul. I can feel it.”

“Is there any way to find out who she is and whether she’s telling the truth?” Willow asked.

Giles looked at Regan. “There might be.”

She nodded. “The spell is set. I just have to activate it.”

“That’s why you wanted me to tell them about this today,” Buffy said to Giles. “When Regan was here.”

“I’m sorry, Buffy. But I had to find some way to verify your story.”

“Damn the verification!” Xander snapped. “Is there any way to get our Buffy back?”

“Wait!” Willow exclaimed. “If we get our Buffy back, what happens to this one?”

“She goes back to the future where she belongs!” said Xander.

“But she died in the future! We’d be killing her by sending her back!”

Spike snarled into gameface. “You’re not going to hurt her!”

Buffy caught him back before he could forget himself and spring at them. “Spike, no!”

“You want this Buffy around, don’t you?” Xander flung at him. “You get to fuck this one! Our Buffy would never let you touch her!”

“I’m not going to let you kill her!”

“She’d go to Heaven, wouldn’t she?” Anya interjected. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“You’ll be taking away her life!”

“Regan,” said Giles grimly. “Do it.”

A golden sphere of light suddenly snapped into place around Buffy and Spike, englobing them where they stood. Spike looked up at it and snarled. Buffy held him tightly from flinging himself at it.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said to him fiercely. “I’ve done what I came here to do.”

“No!”

“I don’t care what you do to me,” she said to Regan. “I won’t fight you about that. But don’t you dare hurt Spike! You may be a very powerful witch. But I’m the Slayer. I can still do a lot of damage before you can stop me. And if you even try to hurt Spike, I will.”

“I have no intention of harming him,” Regan said. “He is not my concern. You are.”

“All right then.”

“Slayer!”

“Spike,” she said softly against his ear, so quietly that only he would hear her. “If I disappear, if they bring the other Buffy back, I want you to get out of Sunnydale. They can handle everything else that needs to be done. But I want you to leave and never come back. Promise me.”

“No,” he said and looked down at her. His eyes were golden and blazing with rage, the pupils narrowed to pinpoints. Predator’s focus. Killing focus. He would be seeing in tunnel vision right now.

“Spike, snap out of it! Listen to me!”

“No! If anything happens to you, I will do everything in my power to kill everyone in this room. That’s what I promise!”

Despite the chip in his head, he could probably do it. And that chip in his head would kill him if he did it. But he didn’t care. Her blood turned to ice.

“You mustn’t!”

“I will,” he said and his voice was deadly. He kissed her bruisingly hard, then glared at Regan with those killer’s eyes.

“Step out of the circle, vampire,” Regan said calmly, ignoring that focused gaze.

“No!” He was holding Buffy so tightly that even with her Slayer strength it hurt.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Regan. “It just makes it a little harder, that’s all.”

“Giles,” said Buffy steadily. “Remember my diary.”

“I will,” said Giles.

“Some switch, isn’t it?” Spike flung at him bitterly. “Watcher killing his Slayer. Vampire trying to protect her.”

Giles’ face looked white and sick, but he was grimly hanging on to his duty.

“Oh, don’t!” Willow begged. “Please don’t! It’s Buffy!”

The sphere flared. Buffy felt something pressing and pulling at her.

“Well, it’s not a demon,” Regan confirmed. “It is your Slayer, Buffy Summers. Now let’s see...”

The pressure grew, a strain on every cell in her body, like claws tearing at her. She caught her breath, trying not to cry out in pain, because she knew that would send Spike right over the edge. But he could feel her pain over the link. She could feel him fusing himself to her, taking the strain, trying to keep it off her.

“Don’t,” she said to him, because he was trying to take it all, trying to get between her and whatever Regan was doing. But he wouldn’t stop.

“It’s more difficult than I thought,” Regan muttered. The stress was visible on her face. “Why isn’t it working? Something’s interfering.”

“Damn right,” Spike muttered.

“Not you, vampire, though I know what you’re doing. Something else. Something’s holding her here. She’s linked to something on this plane.”

Buffy felt Spike’s hands tighten. He looked down at her, smiling grimly. She smiled breathlessly back.

The sphere was starting to fray. It flared even brighter suddenly, so blindingly that everybody gasped and flung up their hands against the light. Then it collapsed, rushing inwards so abruptly that both Buffy and Spike jumped. The painful pressure clicked off, like a switch being thrown.

Then there was only Regan, sitting weakly on the couch, all the energy drained out of her.

“There’s no separation,” she said in a faint, exhausted voice. “One mind, one body. All one piece. No separation possible.”

Spike gave a snarling laugh of triumph.

“But it is Buffy, isn’t it?” Willow exclaimed.

“It is Buffy Summers. If there were two, they’ve merged now. They can’t be split. I guess the Powers That Be want it this way.”

“Well, all right!” said Spike. “No going back!”

Xander looked at him with hatred. But everyone else was looking relieved.

“I need to lie down for a few minutes,” murmured Regan wearily, trying to rise.

“Take my bed upstairs.” Giles came quickly to help her.

She staggered to her feet, holding on to his arm for support, then looked at Buffy. “Don’t be angry. It was necessary.”

“I’m not angry,” said Buffy. But Spike was growling dangerously at her shoulder. She reached back and gripped his wrist hard. “I do understand. And it didn’t work, so, hey, no big.”

She looked around at the others as Giles helped Regan up the stairs. Both Willow and Anya were looking relieved, but Xander was still scowling. She could feel Spike vibrating with rage behind her. She had to get him out of there before that broke loose.

“Can we call it a night?” she said as Giles came back down the stairs again. “I think we’ve all had enough for one day.”

“Yes,” agreed Giles. “Buffy...”

“It’s all right, Giles. You only did what you had to do. I know that. I’m only glad it worked out the way it did.”

“So am I!” said Willow and Anya nodded.

“What’s that on your neck?” Xander asked suddenly.

“What?” Buffy put a hand to her neck, surprised.

“It’s a bite mark!”

“Oh, that!” Buffy laughed and Spike gave them a nasty grin.

“He bit you? You let him bite you?” gasped Xander, horrified.

“Oh, yeah. It’s a real rush.”

“Very pleasurable for both of them,” Anya nodded and both Xander and Giles gave her appalled looks.

“It really is.” Buffy gave them all an amused glance. “See you tomorrow, guys. Spike and I are gonna go home and relax.”

“Been a slice,” said Spike with bitter contempt.

There was a dead silence as the two of them left.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Xander demanded of Giles.

Giles didn’t answer. He was pulling books off the shelves.

“What?” asked Willow and Anya together.

“What if he can control her through that bite?” Xander had his hands clenched into fists. “That would make sense of the way she’s acting!”

Anya was frowning. “If it were a minion bite, yes, he could control her. But she’s not a vamp, so she can’t be a minion.”

“Isn’t there any other kind of bite? A...a thrall type bite?”

“Well, there’s something called a claim. I don’t know very much about it. But she’d have to agree to that and I can’t see her doing that.”

“Claim,” Giles muttered. “That’s the word I was searching for. I know I read something about that a long time ago. Where did I see it?” He glanced up at them in exasperation. “Well, don’t just stand there. Start looking.”

Everyone reached for books.

“Here’s something about a claim,” said Giles some time later. He skimmed rapidly through that chapter, then sighed in disappointment. “It’s talking about a mutual claim, which seems to be something like a marriage. Can’t be that. That gives them equal power over each other. Anybody else find anything?”

They all shook their heads.

“Ask Angel,” Xander said suddenly.

“That might not be such a good idea,” muttered Willow.

“He’s a vamp. He’s been a vamp for over two hundred and forty years. If anyone should know about controlling someone through a bite, he would!”

“Don’t you ever give up?” asked Willow, aggravated.

Xander thumped a fist on the coffee table. “What’s with you all of a sudden, Will? Don’t you care that Spike might have some kind of power over Buffy?”

“I don’t think it’s that kind of power,” mumbled Willow.

“What else could it be?”

Willow opened her mouth, then thought better of it. That speculation would enrage Xander even more. She glanced at Anya who gave a tiny shrug.

Giles had been staring into space, frowning. “Well, it can’t hurt to ask,” he said finally and reached for the phone.

It took a few minutes to get through to Angel and explain that the reason that he was calling was because Spike was in town and had been for quite some time. Angel was immediately concerned.

“He’s dangerous!” exclaimed Angel. “Why is he still around? Why haven’t you dusted him?”

“We can’t,” said Giles and explained about the chip. Then he had to wait until Angel stopped laughing. That took a while. “Yes, I suppose it is amusing. The end result, though, is that he’s helping Buffy fight demons now.”

“It’s a scheme!” said Angel at once. “Spike on the side of light? Never! Don’t trust him!”

“Buffy does. The reason I called is, well, we just found out that he bites her.”

“What!” Angel’s yell was so loud that Giles had to jerk the phone well away from his ear.

He brought it back cautiously just enough to speak into it. “We were wondering...is there any way that he could control her through a bite?”

Angel...howled.

Everyone jumped—the sound came through so clearly, full of rage and fury. Then the line went dead.

“Guess Spike can,” said Xander blankly.

***

Spike was still quivering with rage when he and Buffy got back to his place.

“Spike, calm down.”

“They’re supposed to be your friends!” He slammed his fist against the wall. “Those...!”

He went off into a passionate stream of invective which rapidly reached Shakespearean heights. Over the link, she could feel his anger and his fear. She had never felt his emotions come through over the link as vividly as this before.

“Spike, I know you were scared, but they really were trying to do the right thing.”

“Scared? I was bloody terrified! They’d have got their sodding version of the Slayer back. But I’d have lost you!”

“Spike...”

He whirled and caught her to him, crushing her so tightly against him that she felt their bones would fuse together.

“Can’t lose you. Can’t. You’re my Buffy! Mine! Whatever Buffy they’d have brought back, it wouldn’t have been you! You would have died!”

“But I didn’t.”

“No thanks to them.”

His hands were sliding over her—her face, her hair, her back, as if he had to touch to take in that she was still there with him. She knew what he was feeling: she had felt like that when she had seen him on Thanksgiving, needing to touch to know that he existed.

“I’m still here,” she said gently and kissed him. “Still your Buffy.”

“Mine.” He kissed her over and over again, painfully hard, mouth demanding.

“Yes. Yours.”

A surge came over the link—love, devotion, tenderness. Everything that she had used to see in his eyes in that other reality suddenly there in him here.

“Spike!”

“I love you,” he said.

“Oh, Spike, no! You mustn’t!” But her arms closed about him, holding him as tightly as he was holding her. “I told you not to!”

“Yeah, well, I don’t take orders very well. Never did.”

The link was suddenly opening, deepening, dragging at both of them. His love and fear crashing over her in waves across the link, which was tearing wider and wider. She was drowning in him, his emotions, the demands of his body.

“And you love me,” he said in sudden triumph. “I can feel it over the link, what you were holding back.”

She had been holding it back for fear he would return it. No point now. She could feel that love and passion and tenderness in him, see it once again in his eyes. Fear for her had triggered it, laid that last brick of realization in place for him. And with that realization the link flared wide, as if it had been waiting for just that moment, a flood tide of feeling drowning them both.

“Oh, what’s happening?” she gasped.

“The claim,” he muttered. “The claim. It’s starting to really take.”

His mouth was in the hollow of her throat, cool lips that set off a blaze of fire in her veins.

“Oh, yes,” she murmured, pushing at his duster. He let it fall behind him, stripped away her own jacket. She could feel him heel-and-toeing out of his boots.

The link had flared wide. They could feel each other vividly, both emotions and sensation. They stumbled blindly into the bedroom, pulling at each other’s clothes, their bodies needing to fuse together as much as their minds were.

“Need you,” he muttered. “Need you with me always.”

“I’m with you,” she gasped. She was.

He pulled her tank off, dropped it on the floor beside the bed, reached around her to unsnap her bra. She yanked his T-shirt over his head.. Her bra was gone, her sneakers. He bent her back over his arm, his mouth moving and suckling upon her breasts.

“Oh, God, Spike!”

She clutched at him and they staggered against the bed, lost their balance and fell onto it.

“Oh, yeah,” he purred and she arched as that vibration shivered through her body as he lay upon her. The link threw him her pleasure and she felt him smile as his mouth slid back and forth over her ribcage and his tongue slid into her navel. She ran her hands down his back, bit his shoulder and felt his pleasure. The link was deepening, tying them together, every caress doubled and redoubled, a delirious rapture.

Her jeans were gone and so were his. He moved over her, fitting himself to her, and she held him fiercely, skin sliding against skin, bodies rubbing together, mouths twisting, minds linking.

“God, I love you so much!” he muttered.

It was everything she wanted, everything she had thrown away, and desperately tried to prevent from happening again for his sake. Given to her as a gift in the other reality, a gift she had rejected, offered to her again now. She couldn’t refuse it a second time. That would be tempting not only fate and providence, but the Powers That Be.

“I love you, Spike!”

She saw his face helpless and open and vulnerable to her, more naked in that moment than his body, felt how much he had wanted that, wanted to be loved all those decades and never had it happen.

“Oh, Buffy!”

“I do,” she whispered and the link confirmed it for him. “I do.”

“Have to...” he panted. “Must...”

“Oh, please, yes!”

He came into her hard. He filled her, mouth and body and mind. Nothing but him. Nothing that mattered in the world but him and their bodies thrusting and straining and striving together. She saw his face above her, so beautiful, so beautiful, in its pleasure, eyes watching her with that dark, helpless intensity of wonder and delight, lips parted and gasping as he drove into her.

Their minds fused as their bodies fused, in rippling surges, deeper and deeper into each other, all their separate pieces fitting together and interlocking, sensation ricocheting back and forth, sweeping them higher and higher until she thought every nerve in her body would burn to cinders under the pure, agonizing perfection of it. She lost herself, drowning in it, in him. They were no longer two people but one when her climax crashed over her like a tsunami.

She came drifting up out of the well of shuddering delight, slowly finding herself again.

“Oh, God! That was...”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Didn’t think it could possibly get better than it already was, but it did. Just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it, pet?”

“God! Is it supposed to do that? The claim?”

He raised his head from where he had been burrowing contentedly between her breasts and looked down at her with tender amusement.

“Buffy, did you bite me?”

“I keep trying not to, but I keep doing it.” She rubbed at the fading teeth marks on his shoulder. “Sorry about that.”

He grinned. “Love it. But that first night. Did you bite me?”

“Back then?” She blinked. Her head was so muzzy with happiness that it was hard to remember. “Yeah, I did. You had bite marks all over your shoulders and neck.”

“Any still there?”

“Just one. Kinda like a scar.”

“And didn’t you ever wonder why that one didn’t fade away like the others?”

“I did wonder. But, you know, that was the deepest one, so I thought it would take longer...” She looked at him with sudden suspicion. “Okay, what are you trying to tell me?”

“When you bit me, did you say anything?”

“I...Oh, God, I did! I said...I said, ‘you’re mine too.’ And you said...”

“Yes. I must have said yes. Mutual claim, sweet.”

“But that’s...like a...”

“Marriage. Permanent link.”

Her jaw dropped. “By accident? Something like that can happen by accident?”

“Not exactly an accident. The claim, it reads desires, intentions. Love has to come before the link.”

“But you didn’t love me then!”

“I was more than halfway there. I wanted it, pet.”

She stared at him. “You did?”

“Claim picked up the desire. Made the connection, then hung fire, getting stronger and stronger the closer I came to realizing that I loved you. Tonight it took over.”

His hands were moving over her body.

“Wait! Stop that. Ooh!” She shuddered against him and he laughed. “But you have to leave...”

“Can’t now, kitten. We’re linked. Permanently.”

“But I don’t want...”

“Won’t burn,” he said, picking it up out of her mind. “If I die, you die. Believe me, I’m gonna take that amulet off. Not gonna let you die.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s one of the disadvantages of the claim. It links us so tightly that if one of us dies, the other one dies too.”

“That’s not a disadvantage,” she muttered. “I like it. I don’t want to go through that again, living when you’re dead.”

“Buffy,” he said helplessly and kissed her. “God! Don’t even know how to say...”

She kissed him back tenderly. “Don’t have to. I can feel it. Just like you can feel me.”

“Yeah.”

She had him again. The way she wanted him—loving her again. She had been willing to give him up. She’d finally learned to make the necessary sacrifice for his sake, as he had for hers. She would have made any sacrifice, up to and including her life, just as he had. Oh, yes, she’d learned. She matched him now in depth of feeling.

And then to find that she didn’t need to make it after all! She swiped at the tears spilling helplessly from her eyes.

She had it all now, everything she wanted, right here in her arms. The rest—all of the other things that had to be fixed? They’d fix them. Together. It would be easy. Nothing could possibly hold out against the two of them working together.

The PTB had given her everything she had yearned for. A free gift. Which she truly didn’t deserve any more than she had the last time. But this time she knew not to throw it away. She held him fiercely tight.

“Love you,” she whispered, glorying in being able to say it. “Love you so much.”

“Oh, pet!”

They moved together again, unable to keep apart, sinking into each other. The world spun away.

“I think my brain’s fried,” she muttered hours later. “But you’re still up for it. God!”

“Slayer blood,” he purred, his eyes dancing. “Think we broke another record.”

Something crashed against the front door.

“What the fuck!” snarled Spike.

“Whoever it is, I’m going to kill them,” Buffy muttered. “What time is it?”

“An hour before dawn.” He was reaching for his jeans. “Oh, Christ! It’s the sodding poof!”

“Angel?” Buffy reached for her own jeans and tank top. “What the hell is he doing back in Sunnydale? I told him to stay in L.A.”

“Someone may have told him about us.” Spike was grinning like a shark. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this!”

The door burst open just as Spike was zipping up his jeans and Angel smashed through, murder in his eye. Spike bounded happily into the livingroom and hit him solidly. Angel crashed onto his ass and skidded backwards across the polished floor to the doorway where Xander had to jump to avoid falling over him.

“Gotta love that Slayer blood,” Spike murmured as Buffy came out of the bedroom, pulling down her tank.

“See, I told you he was feeding off her!” Xander yelled at Angel, pointing to the bite mark visible on Buffy’s neck.

“Is that what this is about?” Buffy’s eyes widened as Giles panted in, followed by Willow and Regan. “Geez, bring the whole town, why don’t you?”

“Whoa, what happened to you, Spike?” gasped Willow.

Everyone stared at the claw and bite marks across Spike’s naked torso. Then Giles looked away hurriedly and Willow blushed in realization. Spike looked down in surprise, then grinned.

“Oh, the usual fun and games. Kitten’s got claws.”

Xander made a choked, snarling sound and whipped up the crossbow he was carrying. Buffy leaped in front of Spike. But Regan was even faster—a flick of her hand and a transparent barrier formed in front of Buffy and Spike. The crossbow bolt struck it and bounced harmlessly away.

“Thanks, Regan,” said Buffy.

“I dislike stupidity,” Regan nodded in acknowledgment and they both smiled.

“So do I.” Buffy began to move towards Xander. “I think I’ll break Xander in half. Told him I would if he ever tried to hurt Spike and I like to keep my promises.”

Xander gasped and leaped behind Giles who held out his hands to keep Buffy back.

“Do I have to deal with you too, Giles?” Buffy asked dangerously.

“No, Buffy, listen!” Giles waved his hands at her. “It’s Spike! He’s put something called a claim on you! Angel told us about it. He can lay commands on you...”

“Yeah, that’s why you’re acting the way you are!” Xander yelled from behind the shield of Giles’ back.

Angel was clambering to his feet, his eyes fixed on Spike. “You son of a bitch! You son of a bitch! You’re not going to get away with this! I’m going to tear off your head! That’ll break the claim!”

“Well, come on then,” grinned Spike.

“Everybody stop!” Buffy snapped, then struck Angel on the breastbone with the heel of her hand when he failed to obey. Angel slammed back against the doorjamb, then had to clutch it to keep from falling again.

“Buffy!”

“I told you, Angel. If you hear about something happening in Sunnydale that you don’t like, call me instead of coming in and nuking the landscape.” She looked around at the rest of them. “Are you all here for the same ridiculous reason?”

“Angel went all Rambo,” sighed Willow. “Regan and me, we were just trying to stop it. But the concept of talking things out so doesn’t seem to translate.”

“For God’s sake, Buffy!” Xander yelled. “Didn’t you hear what Giles said? Spike’s put a...”

“Claim?” Buffy smiled sweetly. “Oh, yes, he claimed me. But it gets better. I claimed him back.”

Spike turned a little so that the human teeth marks on his neck showed clearly and grinned triumphantly at Angel.

“Mutual claim,” he said and laughed with complete satisfaction at the horror dawning on Angel’s face.

“Buffy!” Angel whispered. “Why?”

“Because I love him,” said Buffy simply. She wrapped her arms around Spike’s waist, he dropped his around her, and they both laughed at the thunderstruck company.

“You can’t! You can’t!” gasped Angel.

“Oh, but I do.” She looked sternly at Giles. “I told you we had history, Giles. I told you I cared for him. And that was before the claim. Now explain to that idiot behind you just what exactly a mutual claim means.”

Giles sagged down onto the arm of a chair.

“Essentially, it’s like being married,” he said weakly to Xander. “Except the important part is that we can’t hurt Spike.”

“What!”

“Their lives are linked. If we kill Spike, we kill Buffy.”

“Checkmate,” murmured Regan and Willow laughed.

“And now you gits can take it elsewhere,” growled Spike. “Slayer and I wanna go back to bed. Bit short on sleep here. Been kinda occupied the last several hours.”

Xander regarded him with loathing and Giles looked resigned. Angel turned and stumbled blindly out of the door.

“Now that really felt good,” murmured Spike to Buffy as he watched Angel go. “Shoving it to him like that.”

“Did it make up for two decades of shit?” she murmured back.

“Oh, yeah. And the best thing about it? It’s the gift that keeps on giving. It’s gonna rub him the rest of his life, every time he thinks about you loving me. Couldn’t be better!”

“You really are still evil, aren’t you?” she laughed.

“Count on it.”

“Oh, I do.”

He grinned down at her as Regan and Willow shooed a downcast Giles and Xander out of the front door.

“Better still,” he purred. “Come back to bed and let me prove it.”

Buffy laughed and did.


The End