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Part Six:

“Has this been confirmed?” Giles asked as he stared at the images before him.

“Well I confirmed that Angelic sent the image, but that it is one hundred percent Spike? No,” Willow replied without the stammer that had once hindered her.

“Then we fuel up ‘Watcher Air’ an Willow and I go confirm this is Spike,” Xander said with more exuberance then either expected. Xander’s shocking desire to go get Spike cause both Giles and Willow to raise a questioning eyebrow.

Giles took off his glasses with a sigh, and then answered, “First off please stop calling the private jet owned by the Council as ‘Watcher Air’; Second Spike has had over two years to return to Buffy it maybe possible that he has moved on, and does not wish to return.”

“I think he’s afraid.”

“Don’t give me that look. I see this from a different perspective then either of you. I know what it is like to push the one you love away out of fear. I also know the fear of trying to go back to the person you love after you disappear, and ask back into their life. You cannot possibly know how terrifying that can be, and I don’t think there is a snowballs chance in hell that he’s moved on, and neither do you. But that is beside the point. Right now the only way we get Buffy back is through Spike. So I say again ‘fuel up watcher air’ and let’s go collect the bleached wonder.”

“And just how do you propose to ‘collect’ Spike as you put it?” Giles asked.

“I’ll take Willow.”

“Take Willow? Shouldn’t you be asking ‘Willow’ first?” Willow asked giving Xander a resolve look.

“Ahh, come on Wills, you can make sure that Spike comes with us without him or someone else ending up with a lot of bruising. He tries to make a break for it, and then does a little Wiccan kung-fu. Then we take Spike back to Buffy in a nice big bow.”

Giles threw his glass down to get the attention of the two scoobies. "Ah, well then I guess everything is just all perfect then. And so after ambushing Spike you're going to take him to Buffy, and then everything is going to be perfect? That is incredibly naïve. If Spike is afraid of confronting Buffy how do you think he is going to react when he is suddenly confronted by her? And then let us not forget Angel's possible influence on this whole affair."

"Angel? What would Angel have to do with this?" Willow asked suddenly confused by Giles comments. Xander and Giles looked met each others eyes knowingly.

"Spike's already afraid of facing Buffy, that she would never really love him. So he spends a year with Dead Boy Senior. Hell Angel's leaving her alone to let her live a normal life probably played right into his fear, made avoiding her seem all that easier."

Willow nodded in finally understanding what Giles and Xander were talking about. "So if we want to get Spike then we need to find him."

---

Andrew had spent the last year in a kind of nightmare, one that almost surpassed the last year in Sunnydale. Of course there wasn't any threat of death, but maybe that made it worse. Buffy hadn't talked to him since the night she made her heroic dash to L.A., but that wasn't as bad as Dawn. Dawn did talk to him although talk was a loose interpretation. She vented her anger on him. Blamed him, and on occasion hurt him. Then she would cry with him. Cry for Spike, and for the fact that love never seems to work out.
He knew Dawn was using him, but he didn't care. He felt it was his punishment for Spike's death. For not telling Buffy the moment he'd gotten back from L.A. about Spike being alive. Yet, as much as he wished it when he woke up in the morning, despite his dreams, nothing had changed.

Right now he was doing research about a demon. Slamming the book closed after finding nothing for the sixth time. He'd felt like he'd been demoted. Just then the door to his room opened, and Andrew heard someone enter. "I'm a little busy right now. Could you…" Before he could finish his sentence he felt a pair of soft lips on his.

"Dawn?"

"Don't talk."

----

Spike lit his cigarette, and inhaled in slowly. The cigarette helping to calm the shacking in his hands, and keeping him relaxed. The sane part of his head told him that he shouldn’t be out. That he should be inside so that his injuries could heal properly, but the other part of his brain told him that it wouldn’t matter. The part of him that needed to be healed would never be healed. He would never hold Buffy in his arms as she told him that she loved him. He would never be anything more to her then Angel’s replacement, and ally in a fight.

He could never fill the space in his soul that had been filled by Angel’s ‘Fang Gang’. Their outright acceptance of him as a champion, and that he could be their friend. The first anniversary of their death would be a nightmare for him, and he knew that booze would not be enough to make him forget that. So he was out again looking for a fight looking for release, looking to forget, and more importantly looking to find enough pain that he could sleep.

The fight with the Faryl demons had left him feeling sore and with bruises that hadn’t fully healed. Still he knew that despite the agony he was in now that allowing himself to fully heal that the emotional pain would be worse. Ahhh hell, Spike thought. Too many thoughts, too many memories, and none of it means a damn. Taking one last look out his window at the skyline of Chicago, Spike spun and grabbed his bottle of Jack Daniels. The bottle was half empty in a less then a minute.

Spike through the glass of whisky into the wall, and then tried to walk only to fall onto the floor unable to move. “Buggar!” he said shortly before passing out.

----

Xander looked across the expanse of O’Hare International Airport. Only now did the enormity of their problem hit them. This was not Sunnydale. This was a city with millions of people, and suburbs of millions more. Spike could be just about anywhere, and they had no clues to really find him.

Willow was following him, and looking exhausted from the flight from England. He knew was unsure of what they were doing. She wanted Buffy back, but she was as concerned as Giles that they didn’t know much about Spike’s feelings now. Xander was sure Spike hadn’t lost his love for Buffy, and all they needed was to grab him. Bring him to Buffy, and all would be back to normal.

Okay so maybe that was a little too on the optimistic side, but after all they had been through it really should be this easy. Not to say he was comfortable with Buffy and Spike being together, but he had lost Anya. He would not have Buffy go through that if he could stop it. No one would stop him, not Giles, not Willow, and not Spike himself would prevent him from completing this mission.

“Ahh, don’t you smell it Willow?”

“And what exactly are you smelling Xander?”

“The smell of action, of purpose, of…okay I really have no idea what I’m smelling, but we have vampire to hunt so get a move on.”

“Xander, I think we should go to our hotel and sleep for a little while.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise you spend the rest of this trip dancing around Chicago in a string bikini.”

“Sleep, sounds great. Don’t you agree Willow?”

“Yeah, sleep sounds perfect.”

“Then first thing tomorrow the two of us go find the local Slayer and her watcher.”

-----

Willow looked over at Geoffrey and Angelic. She had to admit they were kind of shocked at the sudden arrival of her and Xander. Especially considering how Xander had entered the apartment with the emergency key Geoffrey had given the council, and found the watcher and slayer en fragrante delicto.

Not that she was necessarily against Slayer/Watcher romance, but still. In her mind she was seeing Buffy and Giles which almost kept her up all-night long. Of course she was trying to figure out how to find Spike. Ever since she had arrived in Chicago there was something she had sensed. A dark sadness that seemed to be a soul’s desperate cry that was somehow strangely familiar. It was as if she had heard such a cry before, but Willow wasn’t sure.

All she knew was that tonight she had to figure out a way to find Spike. All the locator spells she’d tried had failed to find Spike because they had nothing of his to focus the magic on. And leaving a message for Spike was not likely to draw him out. So how do they get him out in the open. I mean what could possible draw Spike out of the shadows? They couldn’t find Spike, not without him learning of their presence, so what to do?

At that moment Angelic and Geoffrey were getting up to begin training. “Good morning Willow,” Angelic said as she grabbed a sword. Willow just nodded a response

“Yes, a good morning Ms. Rosenberg,” Willow watched as Angelic and Geoffrey battled each other. Their swords sparking as they met, and suddenly Willow’s eyes flared.

“EUREKA!”

At that moment only Willow cared she had shouted out a famous quote in the history of science. Xander cared that a loud screeching Willow had woken him up, and Angelic and Geoffrey were looking at her as if she had just turned into a boy.

“EUREKA”

Xander smiled, “That’s great Willow. Now let your mouth tell us in more then one word what it is you are screaming about.”

“I figured out how to find Spike.”

“Okay. Willow its early could you please just use your mouth to tell us what your big beautiful brain has come up with? Okay?”

“Okay, well what is the one thing Spike cannot resist?”

“Buffy?”
“Good Guess, but besides Buffy.”

“Willow seriously just tell us okay. No more Q&A okay?”

“Okay a fight. Or more specifically a slayer in a fight. So all we need to do to get Spike is have Angelic in a fight.”

Xander clapped his hands together and spoke, “So lets just grab a vampire and have Angelic do a little Damsel in distress. Spike comes a running, and we got our vamp.”

Willow shook her head. “I don’t think that will be enough. I think we need to get a lot of vamps.”

“Wait are you suggesting we place my slayer in grave danger to draw out a vampire?” Geoffrey said in a very sarcastic tone.

“Well okay now that you put it like that it doesn’t sound like such a good idea.”

Then something strange happened. Angelic just laughed. “Okay, not a child here. I’m a slayer, and we have a mission. Spike saved me. I think I owe him something. So now lets try to figure this plan out a little better so, you know it doesn’t end up with getting ambushed by a seas of vamps, okay?”

-----

Angelic felt herself get a little worried as she approached the alley. Willow’s plan would work, but still she was a young slayer and the idea stirring up a Faryl demons nest. Especially after how badly they had beaten her not too long ago, but it would definitely bring Spike to them at a time and place of their choosing. I wonder if all Slayers feel as scared as I do before doing something this crazy. There are a lot of slayers now I could probably ask, but the only ones that would really know would be Faith and Buffy. And like many of the younger slayers the elder slayers were intimidating and hard to talk to.

Well I’m saving the vampire that loves you, and that you love so maybe this will let me get the confidence to talk to you without stuttering. Or maybe it will lead to my death. Yet, as she took each step towards the nest her confidence grew. Destiny is leading me this way, I can feel it, and now I have to know where it ends.





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