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A/N Thanks of course to April who is being far more effective at proofing these chapters than I am being at posting them.

I realised that if I will sometimes with to switch persepective within a scene/chapter so I have resurected the ubiquitous
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to indicate this

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She is watching him. Oh, she tries to hide it, pretends that she is listening to her watcher as he calls the meeting to order and makes the necessary introductions, but her gaze flickers always back to him. When Giles introduces the Hispanic beauty sitting comfortably between his spread legs, she has an excuse to openly study the couple and her eyes trail over the girl appraisingly. Does she think of this woman as a rival? No, he is being foolish. He is being irrationally insecure. Buffy has no reason to contend with Carlotta.

He chastises himself for such folly. He has, after all, no call to be worried. Buffy is, and always has been, undeniably his girl. Her brief liaison with Spike was nothing more than an unhappy fling, a tainted comfort in a desperate time. His Buffy, his bright, beautiful, shining Buffy did not love the vampire. Spike himself had told him as much when they had forged their strange and tentative friendship in LA. Yet there is something about seeing Spike that disturbs him. He sees in the other’s graceful feline movements and easy confidence, in the predatory intensity of his gaze, something that he himself has lost. Something that has been exchanged for a beating heart and endless summer days spent lying beside her on hot Californian beaches. Something dark and compelling and, even he must admit, attractive.

He drags his attention back to the watcher. This is important. Slayers are dying; a nameless, creeping malaise is affecting almost all the girls. An incurable illness that spans around three months and, as Giles describes, five distinct stages.

Stage one: Dehydration and a reddening of the eyes and gums. Stage two: Headaches and an itching red rash across the arms and torso. Stage three: Loss of appetite, light-headedness and fainting. Stage four: Blistering of the skin, severe pain and vomiting. Stage five: Coma.

No one talks about what comes next, not with Kennedy and Carlotta in the room. They have lost four girls and nine are in a critical condition. Hundreds more are exhibiting symptoms of the later stages of what they are calling the “disease” for want of a more accurate description. And all slayers, barring what they have categorised as “the immunes,” and it seems Carlotta, are showing the early warning signs of “infection.”

The immunes—a handful of slayers immune to the ravages of this disease. Girls fitting a distinct age profile. It does not take a genius to come to the conclusion they have reached: that these girls are the true slayers, the potentials that would have been called had Willow not cheated destiny through the power of the scythe. Well, it seems destiny isn't taking it lying down.

Carlotta does not fit the profile. She is too old, was seventeen when Willow performed the changing spell, too old already at that time to replace Buffy or Faith. Try as they might to fit her into the pattern of the immunes’ age profile, she remains a square peg, refusing to slot into that particular round hole.

"So, say Carlotta isn't immune." Buffy is taking charge. She is at this moment truly the slayer and he feels the distance between them stretch until he fears that their bond will break. He knows that it will not, for she always manages to come back to him with perfect elasticity. "Then perhaps there's another reason why she's not displaying symptoms. I don't know something that's holding off the disease."

"Oh, like diet or climate." Willow's usual enthusiasm for research has been sharpened to almost hysterical levels by her girlfriend’s condition.

"Yes, quite," Giles agrees. "If we could identify what is preventing Carlotta from exhibiting symptoms, we could perhaps begin to better understand the nature of the disease. Although I must admit feeling quite out of my depth in this medical milieu."

"But it's not medical, is it?" Kennedy's voice is calm and assured. People listen now when she speaks; she only speaks when she has something to say. He didn't know her as a potential in Sunnydale, but he has been told she was little more than a brat. Now she is a slayer and her words carry weight. "It's mystical."

A glance at Buffy shows that she is looking at him again, watching him run his hands up Carlotta's bare arms and place a comforting kiss on her shoulder. Understanding blossoms on her face and he recognises the instant that realisation hits, a moment of intuitive perception that she would claim was the instinct of her calling but that he believes is of Buffy herself.

"It's the blood," she whispers, little more than a breath, a contemplative murmur that barely disturbs the air. And yet the room stills, waiting for her to continue. She glances around urgently, making eye contact with the key players: Willow, Xander, Spike, Faith and eventually Giles. "It's the blood," she repeats more firmly.

A moment’s pause and she continues, excited by her discovery, emphatic in the certainty that she is right. "It's something to do with the blood. I don't know, like there's too much power in it and their bodies can't handle it. It's the blood, Giles, I know it is."

And even after all these years, he questions her certainty, learning and logic still regnant over instinct in his scholarly mind. "An interesting theory, but why do you believe it's the blood?"

"Oh, I know this." Dawn raises her hand like an excited child. "Because it's always the blood." She looks at the vampire as she speaks, clearly pleased with herself, and he smirks affectionately at her.

"Be that as it may." Giles’s voice is stern as he attempts to maintain order. "It's hardly proof. And it does not explain why Carlotta appears unaffected. Perha—"

"No, it does." He should know better by now than to question her when she is this certain. "It explains it exactly." She holds her watcher’s gaze before turning to the vampire. "It's because she's anaemic. Isn't she, Spike?"

Spike’s jaw twitches and he meets her eyes determinedly. Something passes between them, some secret communication that he is not privy to, and she gives a barely perceptible nod.

"Really, Buffy, how can you possibly know that?" Giles’s exasperated voice is cut off when Carlotta stands, head held proudly as she answers the question with a defiant flick of her hair. The dark waves fall back off her shoulder as she tilts her head and exposes the still-pink bite marks that mar the slender column of her throat.

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"Spike, you sick fuck." Xander's disgusted voice shatters the stunned silence of the room; the Brazilian slayer’s eyes narrow and her body tenses as if ready to attack. Buffy fears for a moment that she will have to intercept the young slayer, when Spike appears at her back, one hand wrapping around her hip in gentle restraint, the other skimming over the mocha skin of her bare arm. The girl relaxes visibly and her own hand reaches up to cup his face over her shoulder.

"Finally got yourself a little slayer chew toy, eh?" His face is contorted in a loatheful sneer and she can barely recognise her friend at all. "So this was your sick little wet dream all that time you were macking on Buffy, making out like you loved her." He spits the word “loved” out as if it where rotten flesh in his mouth.

"Xander." She tries to intervene. Spike’s expression is for the moment passive and he has yet to respond, but she knows him well enough to know there is only so much he will take for harmony’s sake; moreover, the slayer in his arms is bristling with barely-contained rage. He whispers something in her ear and she relaxes a little, but she fears it is only a brief respite; she needs to calm Xander down and quickly. "Xander, that's enough."

The young man's malicious gaze lands on her now and disgust drips from his eyes. He snorts and she feels his contempt burning through her skin. "And even now you defend him, still thinking that this worthless piece of shit is actually worth something." It’s an accusation. He is bitter and hateful and betrayed, and she cannot understand it. Why now? Why suddenly now does his latent hatred of the vampire boil over into vicious malignity? It is more than a few fading bite marks on a stranger's neck, but she cannot tell and right now she doesn't care. That after all this time and everything that has happened, he can still speak this way to and about Spike angers her to the point of violence.

"I said that's enough, Xander." Her voice is pure threat before it breaks to emotional disbelieve. "God, what is wrong with you?"

He gives her one last accusing look before turning his eyes, seething with hatred, to regard Spike with disdain. "You're not worth it." And he is gone, stalking towards the door.

"Xander!" she calls angrily after him, but he ignores her and her voice collides only with the slamming door.

"Let him be, Slayer." Spike's voice is full of compassionate understanding and his eyes full of pity as he watches the now closed door. "The boy's just angry is all."

"Angry!" She doesn't understand, and she turns her frustrated anger on the vampire. "What right does he have to be angry with you now?"

A sad smile touches his lips and he pulls the girl in his arms close. Immediately she recognises the symbolism of the embrace. He is anchoring himself, grasping tightly to the life that this girl represents. "I'm alive, ain't I?"

She doesn't understand. Xander knows what Spike did for them, what he sacrificed. Knows it is not the vampire's fault that he has been resurrected. Why even after all that happened in the hellmouth… In the hellmouth. She screws her eyes closed as she completes the vampire's sentence: "And she's not."

He is looking at her when her eyes slide reluctantly open and she feels so close to him; across the painful atmosphere of the silent meeting room, despite the beautiful young slayer cradled against his chest and Angel's large hand stroking her shoulder in a gesture of comfort and support, she feels close to him.

In this moment of painful understanding and the bitter realisation that her best friend is still so utterly broken, the only comfort she can find is in the blueness of his eyes. And so she stares, she loses herself in the familiar solace of him and stares into his cobalt eyes until the ache in her chest dims and she can manage a tight smile and a tiny nod. Then it is back to business.


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A/N I'm being very slack on thanking the lovely people that leave reviews, but I can barely find time to post (I hate work) I hope anyway that they know how much I appreciate them.

Kissess (sloppy ones) for all and I promis a double helping of prophecy tomorrow





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