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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“None taken,” Oz confirmed with a nod.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gone.





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