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Author's Chapter Notes:
thanks to PrettyGirlBPD, ariadne, cordykitten, jennifer pam s and dusty for thier reviews. I appreciate every one.
Buffy made her way slowly down the stairs, resting on Spike’s arm. Her legs weren’t quite her own yet. She gripped his arm tightly as she looked at her friends gathered together on the chairs, quietly chatting. They were her friends but Spike was her heart. She took a deep breath and started to speak.

‘I need you all to be OK with this, guys.’ Buffy looked worried. ‘But if it’s a choice between you or Spike, I’ll miss you but I’m not giving him up again.’

Xander looked really upset at Buffy’s pronouncement. ‘Do you really have to, Buffy?’ he asked, almost petulantly.

‘Yes Xander, I do. I love you but he’s my heart and soul: I can’t be without him.’ Buffy looked at her lover with such devotion that Xander nearly gave the game away.

‘Damn,’ he said but without much venom in his tone, his eyes glinting with mischief.

Buffy looked like she was going to cry. She couldn’t believe that after everything they’d gone through, he’d turn his back on Spike and her now, of all times. After everything they’d found about how they’d been manipulated. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. Buffy was crying, looking at Xander with an expression that made his heart break. Spike felt his demon coming to the fore: he was furious at Xander for rejecting them again, and Buffy knew it. And then Spike watched in amazement as Willow hit Xander across the back of the head.

‘Stop it Xander, you’re upsetting her.’

‘Well she’s upset me, another thirty two minutes and I'd have won! If she’d only come downstairs at her normal time, if you two had made up properly with the hugging and kissing and the whatever I would have won the pot, now Willow gets the money and I have to do the washing up. How could you Buffy, for once couldn’t you have done the smoochie bit with the undead before the spells and getting him thinking bit?’

Buffy realised she’d been set up and started to laugh, a real laugh from deep within her. Her legs felt wobbly and Spike supported her a little more, helping her across to the seat by her oldest friends. When she sat down she hit Xander gently on the arm: she didn’t want to bruise him. Xander grabbed his arm and whimpered: well maybe he deserved it.

'You, you… man, you! I’ll kill you for that: you had me worried!'

Xander just looked at her, rubbed his arm and grinned. 'Makes a change, you’re normally the one scaring the shit out of us,' he laughed.

Xander looked at Spike. ‘I didn’t mean to make her cry, fangface,’ he said apologetically.

‘I know you didn’t whelp, if you had I would have ripped your head off for you.’

‘She is still here.’ Buffy pointed out, but couldn’t keep an angry or sad face for long as they continued to clown around. Xander had always managed to cheer them all up.


The witches smiled at one another and carried on sorting out the herbs and charms they would need for the spell. It seemed odd to see Spike standing in sunshine thought Willow, it seemed not only to be shining on him but from him: he was effulgent.

When they finally all settled down to free Spike from the spell Buffy was anxious. She trusted Willow and Cathy was one of their own. Morgana was stronger than any witch Willow had ever seen, but this was Spike, and she was desperate for him to be ok.

Various members of the extended crew watched as the three witches formed a crystal circle around the vampire. A vampire who was sitting in sunshine, due to the effects of the Gem of Amara. Then the witches took their places, making a triangle outside the circle, with Spike being in the very centre of their power. Willow felt around her, she couldn’t seem to influence the vampire at all, then her eye caught Morgana and Cathy.

‘The Gem’s stopping me from casting on Spike.’

‘Well it’s good for something, not just making me look like a bad version of Liberace then,’ joked the vampire. Everyone knew how much he hated magic, his jokes covering his discomfort.

‘Yes, well, you’re going to have to take it off to let us clear the spell.’

Spike slipped the gem over his head and placed it on the floor. As soon as it was out of his hand he started smoking from the sunlight.

Spike yelped and grabbed for the gem. He sucked at the burn on his hand as he slipped the gem back over his neck.

‘We forgot one bit, Red,’ he said, still sucking on the burn. Buffy tried to reach him but bounced off the shield Willow had formed earlier. She looked frightened for her lover. Xander held onto her, giving her someone to lean on.

‘Oops,’ Willow said with a small grin.

‘Oops?’ exclaimed Buffy ‘Oops? How can you Oops, Willow, he’s hurt!’

Spike smirked, his lady was getting all protective.

‘Makes me feel all manly, you protecting me like that,’ he said, lifting one eyebrow at her and distracting Buffy from getting angry at her friend. The witch hadn’t meant to hurt him.

The tongue behind the teeth was definitely overkill though, Buffy felt and his grin told her that he could smell her arousal even through the shield the witches had put up. Damn Vamp senses.

Morgana waved a hand at the offending window and it was covered by a thick dark curtain. Willow admired the ease with which the older witch used magic. It seemed a part of her very soul and being. A couple of the watching slayers felt the drop in temperature as power was pulled from the room to aid the magic users.

Spike looked at the necklace in his hand and pulled it off his neck again. He placed it on the floor in front of him and sat back down. The witches looked at one another, and with a nod started chanting something in Latin. The soldiers looked at one another, nervous as the temperature in the room fell and the shadows seemed to come alive. They were trained to deal with hostiles, and they had seen magic users before but this was powerful and deadly.

The slayers seemed unfazed after their first response to the magic use; they watched and chatted quietly amongst themselves. Even Dawn seemed almost complacent about the magic round her. She watched as the light centred itself on Spike and the shadows on the outside of the circle. Buffy held out her scarred hand against the solidity of the circle. She whimpered as Spike screamed as the pain ripped through him, forcing his back into an arch, his game face coming to the fore to aid him control the agony his mind was in. This was worse than anything the Initiative had thrown at him.
.
A beam of bright light hit him directly between the shoulders and he collapsed. Willow brought down the circle immediately, allowing Buffy to scoot over and gently place his head on her lap. She stroked his brow ridges and kissed his fang filled mouth, not noticing the fangs had nicked her mouth. Spike awoke with the smell of Buffy surrounding him, the taste of her blood in his mouth and the feel of her under him. He growled quietly.
'Oh thank Goodness you’re ok!' she cried and continued kissing him, hard tears falling down her face and onto his. Spike looked up at her, she truly was the light of his life. In full game face he stared nipping and kissing Buffy’s neck and face, his hand trailing down her neck and breast.

Riley coughed loudly to alert the vampire to their audience; Spike and Buffy blushed beautifully and took a step away from each other. Spike then yelled and held his head. It was throbbing like he’d been hit by that bloody chip again, then all the memories hit him at once. The warehouse where Sam Riley and the others had sheltered. The watcher helping Robin set him up to be killed, the hundreds, no, thousands of memories that hit him. Some horrid: Dru and Angel torturing him; but some more precious than life itself. Buffy telling him how much she loved him, his demon happily submitting to her, their life together full of laughter and joy. The way Joyce had accepted him into her house, sharing hot chocolate and gossip. The way she’d trusted him to help in the gallery. And all the pain of Buffy hurting him because she’d been made to, the way she’d tried to escape the master magician every time she’d managed to remember what was going on. He remembered Rome and how their reunion had really gone. He felt so angry, violated. How must Buffy feel? He remembered Giles goading him into losing his temper and break his word to Buffy.

‘Do you remember anything?’ Willow asked quietly.

‘Oh yes,’ Spike said with venom in his voice, ‘I remember the bloody lot.’ His eyes glowed yellow and he looked round the room in full demon face. ‘I remember everything.’ His arm went round Buffy's waist and pulled her in close to him, sheltering her under his arm. ‘I remember the whole bloody lot.’





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