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A/N I am a bad and wicked bear, who deserves to be throughly birched for her lazyness. You all are well within your rights to spit in my general direction. I am really sorry about the lack of updates I got a bit bogged down with this chapter and work kept getting in the way.

Thanks to Patti and cgordon20(?) who emailed me to kick me up the bum. Special thanks as always to my fabulous proof reader April who was there to promptly turn the chapter around once I finally finished it.

Extra Special thanks to whoever nominated Prophecy & Warmth at the Spuffy awards. Do you like how I slipped in that I got nominated?

He, he, I got nominated. Woohoo yeah. Me. Nominated at the Spuffy awards, sharing nomination space with the great Kantayra, and Kallystan. With the authors I love like Euridyce, Thursday, Bogwitch, pperlandgirl and too many more to mention.

I got NOMINATED, you can vote for me if you want, I mean if you really really want, it doesn't take long. So you could, maybe a little vote for me?

Right I've made you wait long enough fo rthe chapter so here we are (And I really am sorry about the wait):

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He just stares at her, watching her thrash wildly against her chains with an expression of numb horror. It is clear that whatever Spike had expected when Carlotta rose, this was not it.

Her screams are interspersed with loud, feral growls and inhuman screeches and, worse still, brief moments of pitiful whimpering. She jerks against the magically enhanced chains with enough force to shake the iron pillars that hold them and draw blood around her wrists. God, how could there be any blood left in her? Surely it had all drained onto the bathroom floor.

"Anjo?" His breathy question is barely audible, even to her standing so close to his side, almost but not quite touching, yet it is enough to still Carlotta's desperate struggles for a moment and she tilts her head, confusion clearly evident on her distorted features. The ridges melt away revealing her beautiful, pleading face, her loss-filled ebony eyes.

"Spike," she whispers, and a watery smile tugs almost imperceptible at his lips. "Sire."

She watches hope shatter on his face with a regretful sense of déjà vu. Lotta is straining towards him now, ridges once again distorting the smooth, mocha skin of her face, turning it sallow and lifeless. "Sire." There is lust and hunger in her voice. Then she staggers back with a whimper and the screaming starts again.

……………………..

Willow is to blame for this. The thought is alien to him. Even after everything that has gone before, despite that she has proved more than once that she is capable of far worse, still his mind struggles to apportion blame to his oldest friend. Willow is to blame for this. If it were not for her selfish duplicity he would not be staring at the horrifying, heart wrenching scene before him.

She has suggested they leave and Giles is supporting her. She has a point; it is their presence above all others that seems to agitate the newly-vamperised slayer. Lotta strains against her chains, keening and growling in an odd display of animalistic devotion. Her glowing yellow eyes are fixed on Spike, the only intelligible sound among her growls and mewls is "Sire." When her attention focuses on Buffy, the reaction is no less extreme, alternately hissing and spitting menacingly, and screaming and whimpering in fear and horror.

Willow is right; for Carlotta's own sake they should probably leave while she casts the calming spell and they attempt to feed her the potion-laced blood the witch has hurriedly prepared. But even that she is right doesn't make her suggestion any less unseemly: she is, after all, to blame for this.

Carlotta lets out a loud, anguished wail, and he feels his own body jerk in fright. "Please, Spike." It is Giles who is now remonstrating with the vampire. "Just for a little while. Just until we can calm her."

"What you gonna do to her?" he asks softly, his eyes fixed on the keening vampire, his hand clamped over Buffy's where it lies against his arm.

"We won't hurt her, Spike, I promise." The reassuring words that do little to temper the mistrust written on Spike's face and, more surprisingly, on Buffy's. "The plan is to sedate her with the calming spell, just enough so that we can give her the sedating potion. She needs to feed. Once she's had some blood and she's calmer you can come back down."

"He's right, Spike. It's not helping her, us being here." Buffy's voice is so soft he can barely hear her, and he supposes he isn't meant to. The words are for Spike, gentle, reassuring, intimate. Her tone, her body language, all of it is a declaration of solidarity. There can be little doubt whose side Buffy is on in this.

He lets his eyes return to Willow as she begins to lay the contents of her bag on the a low table against the far wall, her back turned to Spike and Buffy, and tries hard to see her as he always had. Sweet, good Willow, who always had everyone's best interests at heart. Caring Willow who would never deliberately hurt any creature. But the scales have fallen from his eyes, and when he sees her surreptitiously take a syringe from her bag, he feels no desire to cover for her.

"What you got there, Will?" he asks, letting accusation colour the bright tone of his voice. She jumps a bit and turns instinctively towards him, just enough for the others to see what she is holding.

Perhaps it was a mistake to expose her in front of Spike. The vampire's grief-reddened eyes are filled with rage, and despite his disillusionment with Willow, he suddenly feels very real fear for her. But it is Buffy, not Spike, who attacks first.

"My God, Willow." Her tone is full of shocked disappointment and he must wonder disloyally that Buffy can still be surprised by Willow's digressions. "You can't even wait a few hours, can you? Where the hell is your consideration?" Consideration for Carlotta? For Spike? Consideration he himself had hardly showed, but which even he sees now cannot conscionably be withheld.

She ducks her head, shame faced. "I'm sorry, Buffy," she murmurs, "but Kennedy's getting worse, and I just…" She trails off, gesturing helplessly with her hand, syringe still clutched between her fingers.

"I know, Will." Buffy nods understandingly and touches her shoulder. "But not so fast, okay? It's not fair. Carlotta's a mess and this is really hard on Spike." She rubs her hand up and down Willow's arm in vigorous comfort and gives a tight smile. "Just give it a couple of hours."

"In a couple of hours another slayer could be dead," Willow insists, her eyes pleading. "We can't risk that; we have to get the blood for the spell." She's off now, all babble and persuasion, reason and moral trickery. "The easiest time to get the blood is when she's all spaced out. I know it's not so much with the thoughtful but it—hello, vampires: it's not like they have feelings we can hurt."

Buffy's eyes widen in disbelief and her hand comes up open palmed. She is going to slap Willow. Buffy is going to slap Willow. His stomach turns in recognition of the fact. Oh, he knows that the slap will be gentle, that her slayer strength will be contained, but still he feels like he is watching in slow motion as their friendship dissolves forever before his very eyes.

Spike catches her hand on the down stroke and turns her away from Willow, pulling her into his arms as the strain of the last few days breaches her emotional defences and she lets out a small, strangled whimper and buries her head in his chest.

Carlotta chooses this moment to come out of her whimpering state and begin thrashing against the chains, shaking the whole room with the force of her struggles and shredding the air with her inhuman screeching.

He has to do something, for Buffy fighting back tears in Spike's arms, for poor tortured Carlotta, even for Spike himself looking lost and desolate as he cradles Buffy's small frame against his chest and stares ashen faced at his screaming girlfriend.

"Go," he murmurs, moving closer so as they turn their combined attention to him. "Go on, I'll make sure she's okay." Buffy's face is a picture of surprise and gratitude as if she never could have expected such thoughtfulness from him. Surprised, yes, and rightly so, but trusting also, and thankful. Spike gives him the slightest of nods and he feels suddenly unworthy of their unconditional confidence and swears silently that he won't let either of them down. "I won't let them touch her, I promise."

………………………..

He had been far enough away from the basement when it started that her screams were muffled and eerie, an unknown, distant horror that only the foolish or the audaciously brave would investigate. He finds now that he is neither. After two centuries of nightmare it is surprising to understand now that he is a victim of natural human fear: fear of sounds in the night, of darkened stairs and distant, inhuman screaming.

He finds himself warmly cocooned in his restored humanity, finds himself withdrawing a little more each day from the reality of the horrors he has seen, the horrors Buffy and her friends still willingly face day after day. He had lingered upstairs, walled safely in his room, door shut tight against the faint sound, until he had been unable to ignore the rumbling of his stomach or the pressure in his bladder any longer and had ventured out to fulfil those inherent human needs that he has become so accustomed to in so short a time.

The walk back from the bathroom takes him closer to the back stairs than he would like and his steps quicken as he hastens out of earshot of her now intermittent cries.

Reaching the door of his room it is a closer sound that halts him, a low mumbled conversation, the words unclear but the voices unmistakable. Buffy and Spike, together in his room. He freezes, cursing his heart for pounding so loudly in his chest as he leans left to see them framed by the slightly open door.

Spike is sitting on his bed, head dropped despairingly into his hands, grief and dejection screaming from his posture. Buffy is kneeling in front of him, between his knees, her hands on his thighs, her profile intense with concern and shared pain.

She is murmuring something to him in a soft, comforting voice. He can't make out the words, but Spike meets her eyes for a moment before dropping his head again with an audible sigh. They are distracted, their supernatural senses dulled by grief and worry. They don't know he's there, don't sense him take a tentative step forward into hearing range of their soft, and intensely private conversation.

He shouldn't listen; he should respect Spike's grief, Buffy's need to be there for her friend, but he is insecure when it comes to the vampire and he finds the need to know what they are saying far outweighs the tinge of conscience.

"They'll calm her down, Spike, and then you'll be able to talk to her." Buffy's voice is firm and gentle, filled with determined promise. "It'll be okay."

"No it won't, slayer." How can Spike make the moniker sound so familiar, so that in his ears it sounds more like a lover's sobriquet than the title of her calling? "You don't get it. She…" He breaks off and shakes his head against the uselessness of it. "I'm her sire now, she'll never stop craving me, not ever. And she never did, not Carlotta. I told you before, she's the only person who ever loved me just for me. Bloody hell, Buffy, I can't explain it."

He remembers enough to understand what the vampire is saying, remembers, a little vaguely now, what it is to be bound to your sire. He remembers loving Darla against his will. Even after his soul, he remembers the hold she had on him. The irresistible pull of her: mother, mistress, sire. And he knows enough about Spike to understand that, for him, obligated love is worse than no love at all, that he would never have chosen to bind Carlotta to him, that it is hollow and meaningless in his eyes.

Buffy couldn't understand, doesn't know what it is to be a vampire, eternally compelled to desire to your maker.

She can not understand, and he doubts too whether Spike, who has never sired more than a minion, can understand yet what it is to—godlike—breathe life into a lifeless thing. That as the architect of another being, you can never love that being as anything other than an extension of yourself, never again be equal with your creation. It is not the love of a parent, of mothers or fathers who would die for their children. It is the proprietary, superior love of the architect, love of a thing created in your own image, and that is no love at all.

Or perhaps she does understand, because her hands are travelling up his denim thighs, skimming over his ribs and chest. There is nothing sexual in her touch as she forces him to look at her. And perhaps it would have been easier for him if it had been. This is far more intimate; her eyes are speaking to the vampire, silent communication he has never shared with her.

"No," she says, in a voice at once gentle and almost unbearably earnest. "Spike, you're wrong. You're not that difficult to love."

The words could be meant only in comfort and compassion, but in his ears they sound like a declaration and a betrayal. Spike shatters against her words and then he is sobbing in her arms and she is guiding him back onto the bed. Onto his bed. Curling him, unresisting, against her, wrapping her slim arms around his shaking body and tangling her legs with his as if trying to maximise contact.

She is beautiful now: fealty, compassion, and kindness. Watching her turn herself over completely to the comfort of another, he sees everything he ever loved about her. And he can't decide which he hates more, her charity or his lack of it.


.......................................

A/N Thanks to my loyal reviewers

Cordy Kitten - So sorry about the wait. Angels a dud, he really doesn't get it, and as he moves futher from his vampire roots it might get worse.

Prophecygirrl - Sorry to disappoint on the updates front. Glad you felt Carlotta's confilct worked, I wasn't sure I'd got it accross quite right

Hey Pin -Thanks so much for your encouragement. Yeah I've always thought it odd that vampires charge manically at the slayer even knowing that she'll kill them. Spike went in search of slayers to kill. I think it's a much part of their instinct to hunt slayers as it is the other way round. I like Faith and Dawn they're less demanding of Buffy than the friends so sometimes they provide good balance for her.


PROMISE - I will endeavour to write faster and not leave another big gap between chapters.

If I fail to deliver on this promise feel free to throw things at me (or email and complain) I work well under preasure

Kissess for all and thanks for your patience

The(Bad)Bear





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