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Author's Chapter Notes:
tthnks for all the great reviews.
jon this one's for you
Spike looked back at the door in front of him. He could see the slight red haze that showed where the barrier was; glimmering half an inch from its surface, malevolent and dark, pulsing with an evil, unholy light. He put his palm against it and watched as his hand slipped through it without even a tingle. Joyce had been right: he could get through it.

Spike took a deep, un-needed breath, and tried to calm himself down. If Joyce had been telling the truth about the barrier, then she’d been telling the truth about everything else as well. Buffy had loved him; he felt such an idiot for even listening to Angel and staying in LA. He should have gone to her first moment he could, then none of this would have happened.

The noise from the teenager behind him finally permeated through to his brain. Dawn’s screeching could still melt ear wax, and he knew he had to turn to face the youngest of the Summers women… not that he wanted to without ripping off her head or at least tanning her hide. How could she turn her back on Buffy again? Hadn’t she learned her lesson after the debacle in Sunnyhell?

‘Spike, is that you or are you the First? I won’t be haunted again!’ Dawn yelled at him before she hit him gently on the arm to check that she could touch him; then she remembered that she still hated him and hit him even harder, venting her frustration of the last year on him. Spike tried to ward off the blows without hurting the …tall... woman… in front of him. Dawn could look him straight in the eye. That surprised him: he didn’t think he’d missed that much of her growing up. He evaded another blow before catching her arms in his vice-like grip.

‘Now you stop that right now niblet before I fight back: you don’t get to do that any more, Dawn,’ he growled, releasing her before rubbing his arm. He stood back to get a good look at the young woman in front of him. She had grown into her beauty; no longer a gangly youth she was now truly a woman, with curves in all the right places.

‘You hurt Buffy and you didn’t bother letting us know you were back and you hurt me!’ Dawn’s complaints could be heard as she flounced off in the opposite direction, screaming at the top of her lungs for Giles. Maybe there was some of the child left in there after all.

Spike gave himself a shake. Didn’t seem like his Niblet had forgiven him, and he could still hear her yelling for Giles and Willow as she made her way through the building - but he was immune to stakes at the moment, thank God. Spike touched the brass handle and slowly opened the door to look inside. Buffy lay as if asleep, her hair shining in the sunlight and her head resting on a leather pillow. It broke his heart; she looked so relaxed and peaceful, but he could hear no heart beat, no sigh of her breath, and it made him feel empty. The light of his life had been snuffed out by her own hand.

‘What are here for, Spike, and what are you trying to do?’ Giles’ voice broke through the silence.

‘Just what I was told to,’ the vampire replied in a bored voice. He really didn’t want to deal with the ex-librarian at the moment, not with Buffy so close. He laughed quietly to himself. He was standing in broad daylight and the wanker, watcher, was holding a crossbow aimed straight at the vampire’s heart.

‘You can’t go in there,’ Giles could do a growl as well, mused Spike as he turned slowly to look the watcher up and down.

‘You going to stop me?’ he hoped he sounded more bored than he felt; at this particular moment he was trying not to snap the man’s neck or rip his head off his shoulders.

‘No, but the barrier will.’ Giles never had liked the bleached menace, and couldn’t understand why he was here. He pulled the trigger of his bow and watched in horror as the bolt flew through the air and landed in Spike’s chest… and NOTHING happened.

‘That tickled,’ Spike said with a grin before pulling out the arrow and throwing it on the floor in disgust. Giles looked in horror at the debris.

‘You could eat us…’ he stuttered.

‘Why would I want to poison myself with rancid blood? Even the thought makes me want to heave. Still haven’t learnt anything have you, watcher? Do you really think I could’ve appeared inside your home without a higher power organising it? You really are a pillock aren’t you?’ He looked the man up and down and was disgusted at what he saw; time had not favoured the older man.

Spike smiled as he watched Giles face when he registered what the vampire had said - and the fact that he was already over the threshold of the room. It was not a pleasant smile, more like the one a cat gives a mouse just before he strikes. A predator’s smile, and Spike hadn’t even let his demon through.

‘But we tried everything,’ he was stammering, trying to understand how something so evil could succeed after everything they had done had failed.

‘Obviously missed a trick; now if you‘ll excuse me I’ve a slayer to try and wake up.’ Spike deliberately shut the door on the watcher and Dawn. He didn’t want to deal with the witch and he could hear Willow running down the hall. She skidded to a stop as she saw the door shutting in front of Giles and she tried to touch it but she, like all the others, was shocked away from the barrier. The Scoobies were left just standing in the hall, trying to work out what had happened.

‘What do you think he’s doing in there?’ Willow asked the older man who stood just staring at the door.

‘Whatever I have to, Red, whatever I have to,’ came the answer as the door shut.

Willow looked ugly. Her lips were pinched and there was a sullen look on her face. She didn’t like what was happening; she was supposed to be the big gun, she was supposed to be the one who rescued the situation at the last minute. She was supposed to be the heroine. Willow stomped her way back down the stairs, sulking all the way. She wanted a drink and to look into some more spell books. She was still angry at Buffy’s selfishness: there were demons all over the world, hell mouths were opening up everywhere and she knew she had to be the one to close them, not that lazy slayer upstairs, who couldn’t even be bothered to hang around.

Joyce and Merrick listened in to the witch’s thoughts and couldn’t believe the hubris she was displaying, as though she was the only one who had ever done anything. She had used the power of the scythe to tap into the slayer’s own power, using Buffy of course, without thinking about the consequences. But then she never did.
Time for the second part of their job…





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