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Chapter 20:

"Giles? We have to go to L.A." Buffy demanded as she burst into his apartment.

"Hello Buffy. How nice to see you. Some day perhaps you'll learn to knock."

"No time, we have to go to L.A. ASAP. Grab your keys and coat." Instead of waiting for him to do so, Buffy pulled a coat from the coat rack by the door, and began to look for his keys.

"Perhaps we should slow down a bit. What has happened."

"Darla."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

To Buffy's dismay her Watcher wasn't flying into action, instead he was cleaning his glasses.

"Darla. She's back, she's human, and she's after Angel. L.A. now."

Having found his keys, Buffy began to haul her Watcher to his feet.

"Now hold on just a second. Are you sure? More importantly, why not just call Angel and warn him?"

"Because he needs help Giles. I need to go help him. And I'm sure. Spike told me." When she saw that Giles didn't consider Spike to be a reliable source, she continued, "he didn't mean to. It just slipped out. See there's this law-firm Wolfman & Harp, and they brought Darla back. But you see, they manage Spike's money. Turns out he's loaded. Anyway, not the point. He saw her there, and they said something about a plan and Angel, and WE HAVE TO GO."

"First of all, Buffy, I believe you mean Wolfram & Hart. Secondly, I doubt even they have the power to do such a thing. Thirdly, Angel has a phone. I suggest we use it to call him. If he needs our help, he can ask for it. Then perhaps we can see about going to L.A. In the mean time, I suggest you calm down."

"Giles, I can't take that chance. Please. I need a ride to L.A."

"Then I suggest you look somewhere else. You know, I do have things to do. I can't just pick up at the drop of a hat and go traipsing around the country."

"It's not around the country! It's just a couple hours away. And what do you have to do? You don't work, you don't go to school, and your girlfriend isn't in the country right now."

"Yes, well. Thank you for pointing out the inadequacies in my life. Now good bye," he dismissed her as he closed the door in her face.

"Fine. Be that way. I'll just find someone else to take me."

Unfortunately, that proved harder than she thought. Xander had to work, and didn't have his own car, anyway. Neither did Willow or Anya, and her mother wouldn't take her or lend her the car, claiming she had too much to do preparing for a new show at the Gallery.

Buffy was determined - and more than that, she'd always been self-reliant. If she could take a bus to L.A. when she was seventeen and running away from home, she could certainly grab one now. Not that a trip to the Sunnydale bus station was her idea of a good time.

She had just packed up some things: several changes of clothes, stakes, and even a crossbow. That's when she realized that there was one more person she knew with a car. Spike. All she had to do was think of a way to convince him. She grabbed her bag and started toward the cemetery and his crypt.

She'd paid him for stuff in the past, but now he had money, so that wouldn't work. She didn't really see hitting him working, either. Not only was it not likely to convince him, but she didn't think she could bring herself to hit Spike anymore. She'd thought about it, that's for sure. That satisfying crunch whenever she broke his nose. But she knew she wouldn't be able to forgive herself if she hit Spike. It was one thing to punch your mortal enemy, it was another to hit a guy whom you'd slept with and had taken you out to dinner.

Things had forever changed between her and Spike. If she hit him now, part of her would always think of it as abuse. Knowing Spike probably wouldn't really hold it against her didn't make it any better - it made it worse. She still remembered from good old Hellmouth High, Debbie, who had defended her boyfriend Pete even after he hit her. Debbie who had been killed by her Jeckel and Hyde boyfriend. She'd never blamed him. She'd always forgiven him. The thought that Spike might forgive her for hitting him made her sick to her stomach.

'Oh god,' she thought. 'What if he ever gets the chip out? What if I have to fight him? To kill him?'

She stopped dead in her tracks at the thought. Then she laughed. A passerby looked at her strangely, and no wonder. Her laughter was half hysterical. What if she had to kill Spike? She'd killed Angel, hadn't she?

Tears began to run down her face at the memory. Buffy had put a lot of swords through a lot of things in her time, but she could still remember exactly how much resistance there had been as she had thrust the sword into Angel's chest. The way the sword cut through him, the tiny sound it made, the way it shook in her hands. It was possibly the most tactile memory she possessed, a memory she was sure she would carry to her grave.

How could she possibly doubt that she would kill Spike if it ever came to it?

There was of course a third option when it came to convincing Spike. Sex. But Buffy could see the path that would lead to. She could imagine a future in which whenever she needed help or information from Spike, he made her sleep with him. She could imagine him demanding specific sex acts depending on what she wanted or needed from him.

The thought frightened and disgusted her, in no small part because it also turned her on. Her mind began whirling with the thoughts of the kind of things Spike might want her to do. All the ways he might want to do her.

She shook her head, trying to clear it of such thoughts. She didn't really want that, she knew. If she wanted anything from Spike, it was the impossible. A real relationship. A loving, caring, relationship between equals. Of course, Buffy was starting to believe that the fact that Spike was a vampire was the least of the reasons that wasn't possible. In fact in some ways that made it more possible with him than with any other guy.

She knew. She'd always known. From the first time that Riley had discovered that she was the Slayer, that he felt inadequate. It was stupid. So she was stronger than him, so what? In almost every relationship in the world, the man was stronger than the woman, that didn't mean the woman wasn't the man's equal. It was one thing. One small part of who she was, and not, Buffy thought, the most important part.

Riley was better than her at a lot of things. That didn't make him better than her in general, or make her a lesser person than Riley. It just made her a different person than Riley. But he had never seen it that way.

Spike would be different. She knew that she and Spike could have a relationship and spar on a regular basis, and that she would never have to hold back. She could beat him in every single fight, and he would never be insulted, never take it personally unless he thought she was holding back.

She was at the cemetery now, and she still hadn't figured out how to convince Spike. She'd just have to play it by ear. Spike's crypt came into view and Buffy completely forgot about everything she'd been thinking. the door to his crypt was wide open. He never left it open.

She dropped her bag and ran to the crypt yelling, "SPIKE?!"

She peered inside at the gloom. The place was a mess. The lid of the stone coffin had been overturned and a corner of it had broken off. There were smashed bottles everywhere. In one corner a knocked over candle still burned. Luckily, since it lay on the stone floor the place was in no danger of burning down.

"SPIKE?" she cried again.

But there was no answer. Who ever had done this was long since gone. Quickly Buffy scanned the floor. It was dusty, but there were no large piles of dust. It was all the natural kind that just accumulated over time. No vampire dust.

That was both good and bad. Good in that it meant that Spike could still be alive somewhere. But bad because it meant that either none of his attackers had been vampires, or there had been so many, or they had been so good that Spike hadn't managed to dust a single one before they took him away.

Just to be sure Buffy checked the lower cavern. It seemed undisturbed. The fight must have completely happened upstairs. Buffy grabbed a machete that Spike kept, and went back outside to retrieve her bag. She pulled out a stake tucking it behind her back, under her jacket, and then retrieved the crossbow. She threw the bag and the rest of her stuff into the crypt and closed the door. She would come back for it when she had found whoever had decided to mess with Spike. Whether they were demon or vamp, she was ready. And god help whatever got in her way.





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