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Chapter 18

“Have you completely gone off your rocker?” Spike asked, standing up, standing between Willow and the bed. Standing between a very powerful witch and a very vulnerable slayer.

“Spike, let me explain.”

“I understand you’re trying to fix it, but I don’t think killing her will bloody help!”

“Spike!” Willow exclaimed. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“It’ll only be for a minute, but I can bring her back. The prophecy didn’t say anything about that.”

“Didn’t say anything about twins either. You ask me, the prophecy’s a bunch of bollocks.”

“It might be, but don’t you…you know, want to be safe?”

“I don’t want her to die!”

“It’ll be a second. She won’t even know.”

“I’ll know, Red!” he seethed. “You’re not touching her.”

“Look,” Willow said, shoving the book at him. “Just for a split second. Buffy’ll be dead, and the prophecy…”

“What about the other slayers?”

“The babies won’t be born yet. So the prophecy won’t be fulfilled. Besides, what was it? Something about killing either Buffy or the baby before the first breath? It’ll take care of it, Spike. It’ll work.” Spike thought about the words for a minute, and he looked back at Buffy’s still form.

“You’re sure you can do this?”

“I can, Spike.” She didn’t sound a hundred percent confident, but who would, putting their best friend’s life in their hands?

“And you can bring her back?”

“The spell’s right here. You can look at it yourself. I’ve brought her back before. But this’ll be easier. She’ll only be gone a moment. Just a second. Her soul won’t have time to…”

“Red, I hate to burst your bubble, but when she came back, she said it was longer…she was gone a lot longer wherever she was than here on Earth. Our second could be days or longer for her.” What if she comes back and doesn’t want me anymore? What if she hates me for letting this happen?

“We’ll have to take that chance if we want her back, Spike.” Spike thought hard about this, knowing only that if he was going to have her in his life, this was their chance to make it happen.

“What do you need?”

“I have everything. I just need you.”

“Me?”

“Or Angel.”

“Why?”

“It says here…hold on.” She took the book back from Spike and flipped through the pages. “Ah. Here. Look.” Spike looked over her shoulder. “Umm…the essence of...”

“The dead? Well, I guess that would be me.”

“If you don’t want to, I’ll get Angel.”

“Leave him out of it. It’s partly my bloody fault she’s here. Guess it’s partly his too, but I’ll help her. She wouldn’t be pregnant if it wasn’t for me wearing that bloody amulet. What do I have to do?”

“It just says you have to hold her hand.” Spike chuckled under his breath.

“That won’t be a problem. Been holding her hand, hoping she’d wake up and punch me in the head or something. Anything would be better than this.” Willow made her way to Buffy’s bedside and sat down on the opposite side Spike had been sitting. He resumed his vigil by the bed too.

“Oh wait!” Willow exclaimed. “I do need something.”

“What?”

“The amulet. Do you have it?”

“Angel does. Probably down in the lab still.”

“Could you ask him for it?”

“I’m not leavin’ her, Red.”

“Spike, I…I’d like a minute with her.” He eyed her. “Please?” Sighing, he nodded, knowing Buffy would hit him upside the head if she knew he gave her best friend a hard time.

“Alright. I’ll be back in two shakes.”

“Thanks.” Spike nodded and headed out of the room. Willow frowned and took Buffy’s hand in hers.

“Hey, Buff,” she said softly. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but we’re going to get you out of this. I just hope…I hope the results are better than last time. But if it’s not, and if you hate me, that’s ok, because we need you. We need you here, and we need the rest of the slayers too. The army’s growing, and from what Andrew says, Europe’s slowly becoming covered in vamp dust.” She smiled a little. “But that doesn’t make you any less important. You’re the Slayer. I don’t care what Faith says. You were a slayer long before she ever was, and despite what anybody might think, despite what she thinks, you’re the strongest one there is. So we need you, Buffy.” Willow took her friend’s hand, and she frowned.

Buffy’s skin was cool, almost as cool as a vampire’s. It was frightening how still her body was. How peaceful and how…dead she looked at the same time. Buffy had changed a lot in the past couple of years. She’d had to grow up a lot and take care of her sister, as well as her friends, and then she’d had to save the world. She had to save the world from me.

“He loves you. I knew he did before, but I’ve never seen him so worked up over you before…not like this, anyway. Buffy, I know we couldn’t understand your relationship with him before, but when we get you out of this, me and you? Major brownie pig out slumber party like when we were in high school. We’ll talk about boys…well, you’ll talk about boys, and I’ll talk about…” She frowned again, swallowing a lump in her throat.

I’m about to voluntarily kill my best friend, and I can’t stop thinking about somebody who’s already gone. She squeezed Buffy’s hand, and she took a deep breath.

“This will work. I know it will. I’ll wait for Giles to get here, but I’m going to do this, Buffy, and you’re going to come back, and this will all be over.”

“Got it, Red.” Spike came walking in, Angel, Fred, Wesley, Gunn, and even Lorne right behind him.

“Willow?” Angel asked. Willow got up and came over to give him an awkward hug. Despite the fact that he’d once tried to kill her and that he was her best friend’s ex-boyfriend, it was still nice to see a familiar face, when she normally never saw anybody she knew except for Kennedy.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

“Spike said you’re going to kill Buffy?” Gunn asked with raised eyebrows.

“What’s this about, Willow?” Angel wondered, as Spike silently stalked over to sit at Buffy’s bedside.

“It’s in this book,” Willow pointed out. Angel skimmed the pages, with Wesley reading over his shoulder. Fred poked her head around to get in on the reading too, while Willow moved back toward the bed.

“You’re sure this will work?” Wesley asked shortly after finishing reading a small portion of the text.

“Do you have any other ideas?” Willow wondered. It was marked for a reason. It had to be.

***

“Where are we going, Mommy?”

“Not much further.” Buffy looked at her child in the back seat, bucked securely in the safety seat. The night air cooled the car, and Buffy cranked up the heater.

“I’m sleepy, Mommy.”

“I know. Just close your eyes and go to sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there.” She watched through the rearview mirror as the child’s eyelids drooped, until he was completely asleep. She looked over into the passenger seat to see Spike staring straight ahead. “Spike?”

“They’re coming. They’re close.”

“It’s ok. We’ll be there soon.”

***

Giles had arrived about an hour ago, and after several long minutes of discussion with Willow, Wesley, Angel, and Spike, he had agreed with them, believing that the best possible measure to take at this moment was Willow’s spell, and he was going to be there all the while just in case anything went wrong.

“Anything happens to her, and…”

“It’ll be my fault, Spike.” Willow’s fear was obvious in the way her voice shook, and Spike figured he must be bloody crazy to be letting her do this. But, there was no other way. If they ignored the prophecy, thousands of people could die, if it came true. The best possible thing to do was to make a clean cut, heading it off before all the chaos could start.

“She’ll wake up, won’t she?”

“She should. If she doesn’t…”

“We’ve failed,” Giles finished for her. “This should shatter the prophecy, thus waking Buffy out of this…this state.”

“We should get started.” Willow looked around at everyone except Spike and Giles. “Stand back there.” The commanding tone of her voice was a change from the shy school girl attitude she’d possessed a long time ago. She’d come a long way, and he only hoped that her strong powers could bring Buffy back.

“What do I do?” Spike asked.

“Hold the amulet, and hold her hand. Press it against her palm.”

“Like this?”

“Good.” She glanced at Giles. “Ready?”

“More importantly, are you ready?”

“I have to be,” Willow replied. She took a few calming breaths, knowing that the future of the world was riding on her success right now. Opening the book to the right page, she studied the pages for a few minutes. Nobody in the room made a sound out of fear of distracting her.

Willow began the chant, whispering words of an ancient and powerful tongue. Some was Latin, but some couldn’t be discerned, even to Lorne, who had heard just about every language known to man, woman, or demon.

Spike’s eyes stayed fixated on Buffy. He was willing her to wake up. Willing her to open her eyes and for this nightmare to be over.

Willow’s words grew louder, stronger, faster. Spike found himself holding his unnecessary breath. He was squeezing her hand, and he only hoped that this time around, he wouldn’t be turned into ashes and embers.

His fingers began to tingle. Was it the amulet or the fact that he was gripping her fingers so tightly? Last he knew, you couldn’t cut off a vampire’s circulation. They had none. Come on, Slayer. Come on. Do this. Wake up. Come back to me.

“By the will of Osiris…” Spike continued clutching her hand. And in a moment, Willow’s words stopped, and just like that, Buffy’s hand went limp. He almost called out to her, but he closed his eyes, willing himself to trust Red to get this done. Please.

Please, do this right. Please. Bring her back. Bring her back to me. Willow began to chant again, this time louder, and Spike felt his hand begin to warm, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“What’s going on?” Gunn whispered, only to get a glare from Angel and a look that could kill.

“Ah,” Spike groaned, as the warmth turned to pain. “Bloody…”

“…bring the lost soul back to its corporeal body…” She continued chanting, and Spike felt himself starting to burn. No. Not again. No… “Return to us!” Spike felt a sudden surge of energy pass through him from the amulet, and felt it fade again but this time into Buffy. Within a moment, the entire room filled with light as bright as that which had burned him up months ago, and the force of it all sent him flying back, landing with a thud against the wall and falling into a heap on the floor.

Then everything went still.





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