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*Early evening, The Espresso Pump*
Spike looked around the coffee shop. Near the back he saw Giles sitting at a table and their gazes locked. Their early morning conversation had been cut short by some students looking for books, which apparently only happened whenever Giles needed some privacy. Spike though maybe it was part of the bad luck from being on top of the Hellmouth, but he didn’t voice his theory.
They’d rescheduled to this place after sundown. Which meant this was Spike’s chance to explain himself and get the man on board with his plans. So he sauntered over and sat down, as casually as possible. “’Lo Rupert.”
“I understand you might be more familiar with me than I am with you, but for the meantime I think I would be more comfortable if you called me Giles.”
Spike raised his scarred eyebrow. “And I understand you might have a pole stuck up your arse, but when one is greeted, one answers before admonishing the other on proper etiquette. Especially when the other might teach one about proper Victorian manners in a way that might make one’s great-grandmother bring out the rod.”
Giles cleared his throat a squirmed in his seat. “Yes, quite, hello to you too.”
In the meantime a waitress had approached so Spike ordered a coffee and a chocolate cake, ignoring Giles’s surprise at his choice. He wasn’t the average vampire, and the faster the other man understood that the better.
“So we were just about getting to the good part, weren’t we?”
Giles hastened to leave his coffee to the side and leafed through the notebook he’d used that morning to write things down in. “By my notes you were returning to Sunnydale to kill the Slayer after your failed trip to Los Angeles.” He adjusted the glasses on his nose. “You didn’t tell me why you were there in the first place, though.”
Spike looked around for a moment, making sure the gesture was caught by Giles. Everything seemed in order, but you never knew. “That’s a story for another time and another place. What I can tell you is that when I got back, full of piss and vinegar, I got caught by some government experiment gone wrong. They went and put a chip in my noggin that shocked me every time I tried to hurt a human.” The next part was going to be tricky, so Spike tried to be as careful as possible with how he phrased things. “Thing is the chip read violence regardless of any rhyme or reason. Every time I so much as bumped into someone on the street by mistake it would zap me. The worse the offense the more powerful the zap.”
The spark of interest he’d dreaded was there in Giles’s eyes as he wrote down his notes. “And did they implement these chips in other vampires or demons?”
“Far as I know they did, but here’s the thing: most of the more violent types—the ones they were after to control—are not that gifted in the brains department. So most of the fledges and demons they tried it on fried their own brains first few hours out of the vivisection with a side of electronic neutering.”
Giles stopped writing. “Vivisection?”
There was enough outrage in the man’s voice to give Spike hope for the future. “Yeah. They didn’t want to waste their precious painkillers on ‘Hostile Sub-Terrestrials.’ Thought of us as some sort of animals only without the Greenpeace seal of protection. The things they did reminded me of the Jerries under Hitler. In fact we later found out the good old US army took whatever documents they could find from the Nazis and decided to run with it.”
“Good Lord.” The expression was accompanied by more furious writing.
“I’ll fill you in on that bit of fun another time. Suffice to say I escaped and found my way at your door asking for sanctuary.”
Giles gasped. “Is that when you became a member of the team?”
Spike laughed. “Nah mate. You chained me up in your bathtub, barely fed me even though I was skin and bones by that point, and kept insisting I was up to something. Didn’t help your Slayer started dating one of the soldier boys and was this close to joining up.”
“I couldn’t possibly have allowed such a thing.” The conviction in Giles’s voice was clear, but to Spike it was still futile.
“You don’t exactly get much of a say when it comes to your charge, though, do you? The older a Slayer gets, the harder it is to dictate what she can and cannot do, and in this particular case, it never actually worked. Isn’t it one of the reasons you gits developed the Cruciamentum?”
“That’s an archaic and barbaric ritual.” His voice was filled with horror and disgust.
“Couldn’t agree with you more. You still had her go through it, though.”
“Impossible.”
“Take it from someone who’s been around a few: never say never.”
Giles stood back in his seat and took off his glasses. He put the end of the temple in his mouth with one hand and used his other to play with the cup of coffee in front of him. Spike would bet all the treasures buried with the Gem of Amara that old Rupert was about to ask one very important question. “I must say I spent some time this afternoon reading the records we have on William the Bloody. It proved to be a very interesting read indeed.” He placed the glasses on the table and pushed the coffee cup aside again, suddenly looking so much more the Ripper. “I need to know exactly why I should trust even one word out of your mouth.”
There it was. Spike had wondered exactly how long he had until the prejudice would start to show its head. Sure, it was nothing as bad as it would be post-Angelus, but Giles was still a Council trained Watcher. And that meant limited to no actual personal contact with the supernatural world—save for his demon worshiping youth.
“Fair enough. We can leave the long version for later.” He took a deep breath and placed both palms on the table, looking straight in Rupert’s eyes. “Thing is, under the bleached hair and leather, past the fangs and the blood, part of me never let go of that git who got turned by Dru in an alley over a century ago. What the books don’t say—because I made sure nobody knew—was that I wasn’t some street thug, but a mild mannered wannabe poet from the Victorian upper middle class.”
“What’s that—”
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Just providing a bit of context: not all fledges are created equal. The thing is I fell in love with my mortal enemy and I used everything I could to make her mine, keep her when she was near, and get her back when she went away.”
“That sounds, ah, intense.” Giles had obviously struggled with finding an appropriate word. Spike knew what he meant, since he’d heard it thrown in his face enough times.
“It was obsessive, ‘s what it was. Took getting the soul back to get me to see how wrong I was sometime.” He breathed deeply. “Didn’t change the fact the love beneath it all was real. At the end though, before it all blew up around me and I found myself here, when we almost thought the First Evil was going to win… We built something there, something lasting, something… I would never betray that. I fucking burned alive for that. ”
“And you are trying to recreate that with the Buffy you found here.”
“Gods no. The Buffy that’s about to move here is fifteen mate. She’s just a child. A child with a bloody destiny, but not much more than that. What I want is to help her survive, grow up into the amazing woman I know she can become, and maybe help her not suffer all the things she’s had to suffer through the first time around. I’m not asking for anything in return.”
Giles was looking at him dispassionately. “That all sounds very compelling, however there is still a glaring lack of proof that this isn’t some scheme by a member of the Order of Aurelius. The same order you yourself said is here now, preparing for the Master’s resurgence.”
Spike felt a pang in his heart. It was going all wrong. Giles would be Giles, only earlier. He’d failed spectacularly. If only he could think of something, anything, that would prove he’s a changed man, worthy of the Watcher’s trust. Problem was, though, that all the things he knew were either going to happen too far into the future to help, or were so general that he could have found them some other way than by interaction with Rupert. Except a few things he’d learned while living with the man that hopefully hadn’t changed that much over time.
“You keep a bottle of 30 year-old Macallan hidden in a secret compartment in your desk, on the left hand side.” He moved in a little closer, whispering across the table. “You keep the really good one in the underwear drawer.” He cocked his head and winked. “Which is not the best idea when your flatmate is a recently chipped vampire with too much time on his hands and a penchant for scotch.”
Giles drew back sharply. “How do you know I didn’t buy those bottles at a later date? Or moved them over time.”
“Well, the first answer would be that you told me you go them with the severance package from the British Museum. Second would be that you got the desk from your Grand-mum, so it came with the secret compartment, and nobody trades up to secreting their liqueur with their pants.”
Giles started to clean his glasses. “Yes, quite.”
Spike stretched his back and slouched back. He’d managed to find the right proof. Who said scotch was bad for you?
~~~***~~~
*Late at night, Giles’s apartment*
Spike woke up from a short nap to find Giles writing furiously in his Watcher’s diary. The sight brought a pang to his heart, but he shrugged it off and went to look for whatever was left of Rupert’s good booze.
After he drained the last two glasses from a bottle of expensive scotch, he presented his host with a glass and took a seat close to him.
Giles barely acknowledged the offer, busy as he was with writing down everything Spike had told him about the world he’d come from. Considering how sleep deprived and drunk Spike had got by the end of his story, and taking in account how much alcohol Giles himself had consumed, the whole thing must have been full of gibberish.
It was time for cooler heads to come together and make sense of it all.
Spike gave a sigh, put his drink aside and went to the kitchen to prepare a proper cuppa. Luckily his memories of the place were good enough to allow him to manoeuvre. Cups in the upper left cupboard, tea—leaves, not bags, never those—in the upper right, teapot in the drawers under the counter, water from the faucet, and everything was ready. He drew strength and peace from the simple act of making the tea. Of course, had it been one of his girls in the other room he’d have made Joyce’s hot chocolate recipe, though he never really managed to get it to taste exactly the same.
Still, delving into the intricacies of time travel called for tea.
“Here you go, Watcher, the perfect drink for our task.”
Giles focused his bloodshot gaze on Spike for the first time since he’d woken up. The watcher clearly needed sleep and lots of it, but wouldn’t be able to rest until he wrote everything he could down. “So you said the Slayer encountered the First once before the final series of confrontations.” He checked his notes. “Yes, at Christmas in two years’ time. Do you remember any details about that encounter?”
Spike made a show of drinking his tea and didn’t speak until Giles caught on and downed half of his drink as well. “Sorry to disappoint, but I was deep in Brazil around that time. Nothing like celebrating the holidays surrounded by half-naked people.”
“Yes, I’m sure to a vampire that is as close to heaven as one can get.”
“Close, mate, pretty darn close. But that’s not what we were discussing now, was it? From what I was told, the Slayer didn’t actually set eyes on the First that time around. In fact it was halfway through the last year there that the First showed itself to the Slayer.” He frowned and sat up. “You think there’s a reason to that? I mean, far as we were told the First could only come through if the Slayer line was weakened, and it took it gathering its bloody harbingers, and gaining strength through the Turok-Han for it to even deign to talk to the Slayer. What if it wasn’t just avoiding her out of some strange superiority complex, but was avoiding her because there’s something unique to her that could possibly hurt the First, even without the Scythe?”
“Good Lord, if that is in fact the case then it would be a real boon.”
“Boon?” Spike snorted. “I didn’t use that term before I was turned, why on Earth would you use it a century later?”
“Well I—”
“If you start saying things like ‘I swear,’ and ‘my word’ I’m out of here until you remove the pole from your arse and the wax from between your ears.” He looked Rupert straight in the eye. “Less Primly MacPriss, more Ripper, got it, mate? Buffy doesn’t need a useless knob, she needs a Watcher.” He made a face. “And none of those Travers approved automatons, either. You’ll need to step up and be a man. I know you have it in you, ‘ve seen you do it, but I need you to get there faster, and you mustn’t forget Buffy comes first. Always. You have her back and she’ll be there, night after night, doing her duty, and stopping any apocalypse. But you have to be there for her.”
Giles was visibly shaken, which was exactly what Spike was going for. He needed to scare all the Council teachings about being away and aloof right out of the git, or risk ending up with the hardened, jaded man who almost had Spike dusted for trying to do what he couldn’t—be the Slayer’s right hand man.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I hope so. I really hope so.” He leaned back in his seat. “Want to go through it all now that I managed to get a bit of kip, or would you rather I do a quick patrol and we start over tomorrow?”
“Patrol? You’re going to go out and kill your kind?”
Spike burst out laughing. “You just finished writing down how I helped save the whole bloody world from the First Evil and his band of merry Uber-vamps, and you’re surprised I’d go out to kill a few fledges for my nightly bit of mayhem? Mate, there’s so much you still need to learn about how vamps work.”
“I must inform you I was properly trained—” Giles stopped talking and took his glasses off to massage his eyes. “My training and information on vampires, and quite possibly other types of demons are not up to par according to you, are they?”
Spike settled for a smirk and a shake of his head.
“And are you going to help me, ah, clarify the incorrect information?”
“I can tell you all I know, and there’s nobody stopping you from writing it in your dream journal there, but if you send any of it back to Merry Old, it’s more likely you’ll get fired and replaced with a newer, more brain-washed version even faster than last time.”
“Good Lord.”
“Bloody buggering hell indeed.” Spike winked and slapped his thighs. “And with that bit of interesting news, I’ll be off to do a bit of active reconnaissance. Don’t wait up, but do leave the door unlocked, will you? Don’t have my own digs yet and I’d rather not spend the night somewhere under the Master’s control.”
“The same Master that is your Great—”
“Old Batface isn’t a great anything, except perhaps windbag. The bugger is stuck in the Hellmouth like a cork pushed down in a bottle, but it doesn’t mean he’s powerless, or that his followers are completely useless. I need to find out exactly how things are set up so I can help Buffy, seeing as how last time around it was all over before I blew into town.”
“Indeed. You’ll be able to spend the night here, of course, and tomorrow we shall continue our discussion.”
“Ta, Rupert.” Spike grabbed the duster from next to the door on his way out. Some poor bugger was about to have a very bad night.
~~~***~~~
*Later, in one of Sunnydale’s cemeteries*
Spike had done his rounds, found his snitch and beaten the information he needed out of him, followed by a swift dusting, of course. He was doing just one more sweep before going back to the watcher’s when he found himself next to a strange mausoleum. It looked more like a pyramid, and that reminded him of something, only he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
When the door opened and he found himself face to face with an old crone he suddenly remembered. “You’re the Guardian, aren’t you?”
The woman smiled, although it looked rather bitter. “Yes I am. I know who you are too, William.”
The statement gave Spike pause. If he remembered correctly the Slayer had said the woman was full of some primal energy—white magic and the like. Of course that demented priest had managed to gut her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have some tricks up her sleeve. And for her to know him meant she knew of the two slayers under his belt. What if she wanted revenge? “Changed vamp here, got me a case of the soul something frightful. All white hats in my closet.”
The smile on the Guardian’s face turned more genuine at that. “I know who, what, and from where you are. But you better come in, so we can discuss this better.” She gave a furtive look around the rest of the cemetery.
Spike followed her inside at a loss for words, but with renewed hope in his heart. Ever since he’d been dropped in the past he’d wondered why that happened. Maybe she had some answers. At the very least, she was the first person he’d met who hadn’t needed any convincing. He hadn’t realized how difficult it had been on him until right that very moment. “Why am I here?”
“To talk, silly.” She must have interpreted his expression correctly as the representation of murderous thoughts, so she dropped the jokes. “I have some powers that allow me to monitor the Slayer line. Recently something unheard of has happened that allowed me to see where you came from. In general I can only see things related to slayers, but for some reason my scrying showed me what you went through. Well, a Powers representative also tipped me off.”
“Bugger. I was afraid those wankers had something to do with all of this.”
“I’m afraid they’re the ones to blame for transporting you here.”
Spike sighed and went to light up a cigarette, only to be stopped by a raised eyebrow from the woman. He sighed again. Visiting goody-goody people was putting a real dampener on his smoking. “So what did the ‘Powers that love to screw with you’ want with yours truly?”
“I don’t know.”
Spike wanted to rip something to shreds.
“I’m not a representative of the Powers, or anything of the sort, and the only thing their messenger told me was that they brought you here to mend some things that had gone wrong in your timeline.” She seemed to be weighing how to say what was next. “Your consciousness was copied and put into the body of the Spike from this universe, soul and all. That was only possible since the potential for this Spike to become the same as you was the greatest, so all the Powers did was to, well, speed up time in a way.”
Spike’s mind was a whirlwind of H. G. Welles, Doctor Who, and other such sources of information on time travel. “So what’s that mean for the universe I left?”
She looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure, but from what Trish said there’s still a you there, still doing anything you were going to do.”
“But why?” It was all he could do not to stomp his foot like an upset child.
“I don’t know. All I know is that you’re supposed to fix something. What exactly that is…”
“Yeah, great, brilliant. Any other useless information to tell me? Is Angelus a wanker?”
“Look young man, you know who and what I am, so I’ve already told you more than I should have been able to. The real question is: what are you going to do?”
“Well first I’m gonna find me one of those Powers wankers and have myself a real good day. They’ve been yanking my bloody chain for too long, but this last bit, the putting me in what, another universe? That takes the fucking cake. And they didn’t even have the balls to say it to my face.” He kicked at a wall. “Argh.” He panted and tried to calm down. He wanted a smoke. Not even the months spent in LA as a ghost made him crave a cigarette this much.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” She sounded so maternal it made Spike’s teeth hurt, like having too much candy. “What is your plan for what’s to come?”
Spike looked at her as if she’d suddenly gone insane. “What do you think I’ll do?” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “I’ma help Buffy, that’s what. You’re tuned in to Slayer TV, yeah? Well you should have noticed me doing something different, maybe something smarter, and definitely faster. I’m in this for the long haul. ‘S just— would’ve been nice to be asked, or for someone to have waited for me on the other side: hey mate, we bollixed up your life again, but don’t worry, here’s what we’ve done, now enjoy. Instead I’ve been going at this alone for weeks.”
She touched his arm in a gentle way. “You don’t have to be alone.” She let out a puff of air. “The last time around the people helping the Slayer all hated you, for one reason or another. In this universe, in this time, they are mostly blank pages, ready to be written upon. You have the opportunity to do things right, to help and be helped, and make them your friends. The mother and sister will help you, the watcher has potential, and…” She cleared her throat and drew herself up. “I am here. I am the last of my line, but perhaps now, at the twilight of the guardians, we’ll finally manage to fulfil our duty. And then I can rest.” Her voice cracked at the end.
Spike was almost overcome with the urge to hug her, but kept himself back. He didn’t quite do hugs, so he settled for patting her hand. At the same time his mind was working a mile a minute. Of course, she was right. He hadn’t given much thought to the rest of the Scoobies. Sure, they existed and odds were Buffy would become their friend again, but other than that he hadn’t planned anything for them. Well, other than ‘keep them alive.’ So the idea they could become his friends was a sobering one. It also sounded exciting.
He’d already started changing the dynamic of his relationship with the watcher, more out of necessity than anything else, so at least it was possible.
Could he do it? Could he and the Scoobies become mates? It had been close there at the tail end of Sunnydale. There had been ups and downs, but overall he’d felt more included than ever. Well, except that summer that he refused to think about. But maybe if he managed to get to them before the prejudice, before Angelus, and without the baggage of broken bottles and broken hearts, then it could be done.
There were others to consider as well. Where was Tara at this point in time? He couldn’t remember when she’d said her mother had passed, so he couldn’t remember if she’d still be at her home—not that he knew where that would be—or if she’d already taken off to wherever she went before Sunnydale.
What about Anyanka? Would his presence influence the Whelp enough to not bugger things up with the Cheerleader, so would the Vengeance demon not be summoned? There were so many things to take into account, so many possible outcomes. He felt somewhat like Paul Atreides. But would his choices be better?
He’d already had some rock-solid self-imposed rules about what he’d do. Among the first was ‘no digging in Sunnydale until the Master is gone.’ Sure, there was a great deal of treasure buried under the city, with the Gem of Amara and the Scythe just the top of the pile. There were all kinds or rare items, a whole treasure trove, a haunted colonial mission, and many other things to be found, but while the Master was still underneath them all no heavy machinery could be used without tipping off half the bloody Order of Aurelius. The last thing he needed was for someone like Darla or Luke wearing Amara’s ring and funnelling blood to the old fucker.
What other things could he play around with? Here he thought he’d at least made some sort of a plan, but as usual, most of his thoughts revolved around the Slayer and her family, so the rest of the picture was somewhat blurry around the edges. The Guardian’s words had brought things in perspective, but he now had even more questions. Which reminded him of something he’d been meaning to ask. “By the way to nothing, what’s your name?”
She laughed. “Abigail, but you can call me Abbie.”
“Well then Abbie, I have a question for you: would you meet with Buffy’s watcher? He’s not exactly made from the same mould as the rest of the wankers you’ve been hiding away from and I think he’d be willing to hear you with an open mind.”
She grew silent for a long time. “I will think about it. Even if what you say is true, what I saw wasn’t all that flattering, and I don’t think the time has come for me to reveal myself yet. Perhaps at a later date.” She took a step back. “Until then you may come talk to me once in a while, if you so desire. And please, bring Buffy with you.” The smile lighting up her face was bright and warm. “I’d love to meet her in person.”
He smiled back. “I’ll do that. But in return I need you to tell me how to find some people. A couple might be in different dimensions than ours. Can your mojo do something about that?”
“I think I know who you might mean, but I cannot help you. What you need is a witch, or a mage. Preferably a powerful one.”
He swore. If only Red was up to snuff, or if there was a single conjurer out there he could trust not to double-cross him. Then again, maybe there was. Rupert wasn’t exactly powerful, but he had connections, and if need be, he could channel. His newfound plan might be possible yet.





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