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Chapter III: What Happened to Buffy

A few days later found Spike, Raven & Lorne in London at the Watcher's Council waiting in a large conference room for Giles and the Scoobies to make an appearance. Spike had yet to sit down and had been pacing the floor continuously since they had arrived while the other two watched him dubiously.

"They make us drop everything at moments notice for their emergency then they keep us waiting here until its convenient for them." He growled for the third time in twenty minutes.

"Yeah, but the cheese tray they left out is delectable." Lorne told him. Spike stopped pacing for a moment and shot him a death glare. "What?!? I'm just saying..."


"Calm down, Spike. Working yourself up this much before we've even seen anyone isn't doing any good." Raven tried to soothe him.

"If they don't show up in the next five minutes we're out of here. Apocalypse be damned."

"I think that's the whole point of an Apocalypse." Lorne muttered. Spike just shot him another glare.

Several minutes later the door finally opened and Xander walked in looking sheepish. "I'm sorry we kept you waiting. Giles, Illyria and Angel got stuck in a meeting and I got tied up."

"No problem, Whelp. We love that we flew half way around the world to be ignored." Spike snarked at him.

Xander looked slightly embarrassed, but he met Spike's gaze levelly. "You need to know there has been some concerns from some of our people about you being here. Some of our team members aren't happy about it. I've tried to explain that we need your help, but they don't want to hear it."

Spike snorted. "So Rupert still wants me dead, eh?" He stood up and motioned for Raven and Lorne to get up as well. "If you think I'm going to stick around and wait for the Watcher to try and kill me again..."

"Its not Giles you have to worry about Spike." A bitter voice interrupted him. Spike turned and saw Dawn entering the room, the hatred on her face plain for anyone to see, focused directly on him. Willow and Andrew followed closely behind her.

"Nibblet?" Spike asked surprised.

"I told you before you don't get to call me that anymore!!" She marched up to him and stuck her finger in his face; her face was twisted with fury. "And let's just be clear, I was against them finding you. I told them to leave you under whatever rock you crawled beneath. I don't think you'll be helpful at all to us and you'll probably just wind up destroying someone else I care about!"

Spike opened and closed his mouth several times, but didn't know what to say to the angry young woman in front of him. He tried to figure out what he did that made her despise him so. Was she still mad about the attempted rape of Buffy in the bathroom?

Raven positioned herself next to Spike trying to draw Dawn's attention away from him for a moment.

"Excuse me." The petite girl said. "I can see you are very upset with Spike, but this situation will be easier on all of us if you try to calm down. Maybe we can talk through some of these issues you have with Spike. We have an Apocalypse to worry about we don’t need to be fighting amongst ourselves."

"Who the hell are you?" Dawn demanded. She then looked over at Xander. "Who the hell is she?" She asked again.

"Dawn, this is Raven." Xander spoke carefully as if that could hold back the young woman's rage. "She's Spike's..."

Dawn didn't let him finish. "You brought your latest skank with you?!? Here?"

"Dawn!!" Willow exclaimed.

"That's enough, Dawn." Xander snapped. He walked around the table and grabbed her arm. "We told you this was necessary."

"NO. Its not." Dawn wrenched free of his grasp as she looked at them all wildly. "After what he did to Buffy, how can you consider working with him?" She glared at Raven. "Are you a Slayer too? Are you the replacement for the Slayer he killed in China?" She sneered at her. No one noticed Giles, Angel and Illyria enter the room.

"All right that's it, Dawnie, let's go." Xander grabbed her arm again prepared to drag her from the room if necessary.

Raven's voice stopped him. "First of all, I'm not a Slayer, but I did spend a good portion of my life guarding a Hellmouth. Second, I'm Japanese, not Chinese. And third," Raven's voice lowered and she sounded deadly now. "I'm no one's replacement."

Dawn gave her a tight smile before looking into Spike's eyes. "Don't bet on it."

"Dawn that will be enough." Giles snapped alerting the rest of the room to his presence for the first time. "I don't care what your personal feelings for Spike and his companion are, we have more important things to worry about right now."

"Do you even care about what happened to Buffy? How can you let him in here after that?"

"What happened to Buffy wasn't Spike's fault, Dawn." Angel said, his voice sounded flat.

"He wasn't anymore to blame than the rest of us." Willow told her gently.

"Including you." Xander added.

Dawn's face crumbled and tears started pouring down her face. She turned and quickly ran out of the room.

"I'll go make sure she's ok." Andrew said. He turned back at the doorway. "Its nice to see you again, Spike." He said with a small smile, and then left without another word.

An oppressive silence filled the room; everyone was lost in their own thoughts and memories for a few moments, before Giles broke the silence.

"I suggest we get down to business, we have a lot to go over and ..."

"No." Spike's voice was firm. "You want our help, then you give me answers first."

"Answers?" Giles asked almost innocently.

"Yeah, answers." Spike nodded. "Why does the Bit blame me for what happened to Buffy and what exactly did happen to Buffy? Why does Angel look ill every time her name is brought up? And why does Red and the Whelp look like they are going to cry every time I mention her?"


Giles sighed heavily. "All right." He sat down and everyone else followed his lead. Spike watched Giles carefully as he seemed to collect his thoughts. The past decade had not been kind to the older man. Dark circles haunted his eyes and deep wrinkles creased his face. More than that there was the defeated look in his eyes, as if he had already seen the end of the world and they had lost. Spike waited for him to begin so he was surprised when it was Xander who began the tale.

"It started about five years ago we really hadn't seen too much of Buffy since Angel showed up after the battle in LA." Xander told him. "She never really got over your death in the Hellmouth and then when she found out that you had come back and didn't tell her, well..."

"She took it pretty hard. Actually she took it worse than hard, she was devastated." Willow picked up the story. "You know Buffy, though. She wouldn't talk about it and she wouldn't show how much it hurt her."

Xander sighed. "She threw Andrew out of their apartment and told him if he ever came near her again she would kill him for not telling her you were back. She also shut us out after that, she shut everyone out, even Dawn. Honestly, we probably let her, we were too caught up with everything that was going on in our own lives." He and Willow exchange and guilty look before Xander went on.

"Dawn said Buffy seemed to give up on any kind of normal life after the battle in Los Angeles. She broke things off with the Immortal. She became almost completely nocturnal, she would sleep all day and hunt or patrol all night. She found a demon bar that held fights every weekend and signed up to participate.
Dawn never really got to see too much of her, either, she was busy with school and trying to have a normal life. Dawn worried about her sister, but she couldn’t get through to her. Then one morning Dawn was getting ready for school when Buffy came home covered in blood. Dawn saw her come in and asked what happened, but Buffy wouldn't answer her, she walked right past her looking dazed and locked herself in her room."

"Xander and I were both here working when Dawn called begging us to come to Italy. We left immediately." Willow said quietly. "When we got there, Dawnie was beyond freaked. Buffy still hadn't come out of her room and she was terrified her sister was lying there dead. We knocked on Buffy's door and called in to her that we were there. Nothing happened for a few minutes so we knocked again. Then the door flew open and out came Buffy still covered in blood, her clothes were soaked with it. She grabbed me by the shoulders and started yelling at me. She wanted to know what I had done to her." Willow's voice broke slightly and Spike could see tears in her eyes. "I didn't know what she was talking about. That's when we saw the knife in her hands." Willow looked over at Xander as the tears began to fall down her face, and Xander took over again.

"She raised up the knife and stabbed herself in the chest with it." Xander said.

"Oh my god." Raven breathed. "She killed herself!!" She looked at Spike to see him sitting there stunned.

"No. She didn't die. She couldn't die." Xander said.

"What do you mean she couldn't die?" Spike asked.

"My resurrection spell did more than resurrect her. It made her immortal." Willow whispered.

"Bloody Hell." Spike exclaimed

"We finally managed to calm Buffy down and get her cleaned up, but she was still upset. She kept telling us she was hurting Dawn more by being around her and living like she was, but she couldn't stop. Hunting and patrolling were the only things that didn't make her feel completely alone." Xander went on.

"She said all the men she loved left her because she was such a horrible person. She couldn't be a normal person and she didn't know what to do anymore. Now that she was immortal, she was terrified it was going to be like this forever."

"Willow and Xander called me at this point." Giles jumped in. "Since patrolling and hunting had become her main comfort I thought that sending her out into the world to work specific hot spots of demon activity would be ideal. I believe you have heard already that we had lost control of some of the Hellmouths by sending inexperienced Slayers in. I thought Buffy could get to see the world and meet different people as well as indulge in the violence that seemed to become the focus of her life. I didn't know what else to do with her." Giles took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes tiredly. "I felt like it was my fault for taking her childhood away and making her into this. I was her Watcher, if I had done a better job than none of this would have ever happened to her."

Spike looked at Angel. "Where were you while all this was going on?"



Angel gave him a thin smile. "When Buffy found out I knew you were back I got the same treatment Andrew got. She told me she would never forgive me for keeping the two of you apart. Of course we all thought you died after the battle in LA."

"So she doesn't know I'm still here?" Spike asked.

"No she was told, but we'll get to that." Giles said quietly.

"So she feels alone, rejected and you lot send her out into the world to fight Big Bads? Let me guess that’s when you lost her?"

"It actually gets much worse." Xander said dully.

"How can it get much worse?" Spike demanded, his anger starting to get out of hand.

"Buffy was on assignment in Brazil when she was kidnapped by a Master Vampire and its minions. She had been reporting in infrequently so it took us a couple of weeks before we knew something was amiss." Giles continued, he ignored Spike’s snort of disbelief. "I had received a report from Brazil about vampires that seemed to have super strength attacking small towns. We tried to contact Buffy, but when we couldn't reach her, I sent two younger Slayers in to investigate both the attacks and Buffy’s disappearance. Both girls were killed within 24 hours, but not before one managed to get a report out.” Giles sat his glasses on the table and took a deep breath to gather himself for what was coming next.

“Her report stated that Buffy had been kidnapped and the vampires responsible had planned on turning her. Unfortunately you can't properly turn an Immortal they can’t die. The vampire responsible had her chained to a wall where she was used by the whole nest, they tortured her, raped her, beat her and drained her repeatedly. At some point, maybe the first time or maybe after repeated attempts, a demon did enter her body, but by then she was catatonic from her mistreatment." Giles looked at Spike who just stared at him wide eyed. "You know how powerful Slayer blood is. So I'm sure you can imagine what a daily diet of it did to the nest. We sent Faith Xander and Willow down to try and rescue Buffy with a full dozen younger Slayers."

Willow had gotten her tears under control and picked up the story again. "I lost Faith during the battle and I don't know exactly what happened, but by the time I reached Buffy she was standing over Faith in game face with blood around her mouth. Faith's throat had been ripped out. There were several minions also lying on the ground with their throats ripped out as well. I don't know if they got Faith and then Buffy took care of them or if Buffy got free and killed Faith and the minions in her rage.
I put a sleeping spell on her and we got her out of there and brought her back here to recuperate."

Willow took a deep breath. "She never came fully back. Every time she was awake the Slayer part of her and the demon part of her would be fighting inside of her for control. There was also the emotional and mental damage from the torture and abuse she under went. After weeks with no progress and I finally decided to try and go inside her head, like I did after Glory took Dawn. I tried to show her how to partition her mind and gain control over the factions fighting inside of her. Not long after that, she managed to break my sleep spell and get out, she left a note scribbled on a sheet of paper that we should let her go and not try to find her. Xander went out to try and find her and I tried to track her with magic. We were able to follow her for a while, but then we lost her in Africa a little over three years ago.”

"Tell me you killed the vamp responsible for this." Spike growled at them. "Tell me you tortured the son of a bitch and then dusted him." No on spoke. "Well, did you make him pay for this?" He demanded.

"Spike, it was Dru." Angel told him.

"No." Spike shook his head. When no one denied Angel's words Spike slammed his hand down on the table and yelled. "NO!!" The tears that up until now were pooled in his eyes brimmed over and ran down his face, but he didn't notice. Raven tried to reach out to comfort him, but he stood up and turned away from everyone at the table.

"She thought if she turned Buffy we would go back to her. She wanted to get her family back. That's how Buffy found out you were still alive. Drusilla knew of course you weren't gone. She would have sensed it." Angel explained

Everyone was so caught up in the drama unfolding before them none of them noticed Illyria stand up and begin to walk towards on of the walls curiously. She stared at it intently almost as if she could see through it.

Spike turned back to the group sitting down. "You should have told me. I could have helped. I could have..." He felt nauseous, the room around him seemed to swim and turn. Drusilla, his sire, and the woman he loved for over one hundred years was responsible for destroying the light of his life. Because of him.

"What?" Xander asked him. "What could you have done? She thought you abandoned her. When we tried to get Angel in to see her, thinking that might help she went completely ballistic and almost killed him before Willow could put her back under. She was like a wild animal."

"We think that's why we can't find her. We think she lost all semblance of herself and she's probably somewhere in the Congo living no better than an animal." Giles told him. Spike sat back down defeated.

"So you've just given up on her?" He asked. His voice sounded hollow even to him. His mind couldn’t fully process this. Buffy was driven insane by the same woman who made him, out of revenge for him falling in love with her. It was his fault that she was turned into the one thing she never wanted to be.

"No." Giles said forcefully. "Even now I have put out word with all of my contacts that we are looking for her or any information on her. I even contacted Riley who has become quite high up in the American military."

Behind Giles, Illyria began to tap on the wall in front of her. Everyone turned around to see what she was doing.

"Illyria, if you don't mind, now isn't the time for...well whatever it is you are doing." Giles told her irritated.

"There is something here. I can sense it." Illyria told him.


Giles peered at the wall she was poking at. "There is nothing there but an empty wall and an ugly picture now please come sit down."

Illyria didn't move just continued to stare at the wall. "Illyria, please, we still have a lot to go over regarding our plan of attack."

Illyria didn't even acknowledge him. "I know you are there. You may as well show yourself." She addressed the wall.

Giles looked at Angel pleadingly.

"Illyria. Sit down. There is nothing there." Angel told her sternly. Illyria turned to Angel angrily.

"I tell you something is here." Just then out of the shadow on the wall a man appeared.

"She is right. There is someone here." He said.

Everyone immediately stood and got into defensive position, but he just faded back into the shadow of the wall. A few seconds later he reappeared across the room again out of the shadows.

"If you will all relax I will explain my presence here and then you can decide if I am a threat or not." He told them.

"I would say showing up at this meeting uninvited makes you a threat." Xander said. He had a gun pulled and was holding it towards the man.

"Your bullets won't have any effect on me." He told Xander, and then he looked at Giles. "My name is Ian Thorpe." He introduced himself. He was British by the sound of his accent. He appeared to be a handsome young man in his early 20's with short dirty blonde hair. He wasn't a large or intimidating but one look in his eyes showed the cold determination of a viperous man.


Lorne gasped in recognition. "You're the leader of Ian's Rogues."

"That's right I am." Ian nodded.

Spike looked questioningly at Lorne.

"They are a mercenary group; bounty Hunters, guns for hire. They will take any job with no moral issues as long as you have the money to pay for their services."

"That is also correct." Ian agreed.

"What are you doing here?" Giles asked.

"I'm here because you have shown interest in one of my associates and I came to offer my team for the mission you are about to undertake." Ian said.

"I don't think we would be interested in hiring mercenaries." Giles said coldly. "If you would let yourself out the same way you snuck in."

"So you haven't been looking for Miss Buffy Summers?" Ian asked innocently.

Spike was out of his chair and grabbing for Ian's throat before anyone could stop him. Before he reached the man, however, Ian melted back into the wall only to appear across the room again out of another shadow.

"I'm sorry. Did I hit a nerve?" He asked with an amused smile.

"What do you know about Buffy?" Xander asked.

"I know she has been working with me for the past 3 years, since about the time you lost her."

"I don't believe you." Giles said. "Buffy wouldn't work for someone who puts monetary gain above what's right."

"You are free to believe what you want, but here are the facts; we know that you have been searching for her for several years now, but up until now we had no reason to contact you, we also know about the mission you are planning into Bhutan to stop the combined forces of the First Evil and Wolfram and Hart, we also know about the plan to resurrect the Thunder Dragon."

"You seem to know an awful lot about what's going on here." Willow said angrily.

"We have our ways." Ian smiled at her. "You won't get far into Bhutan with the Vampires unless you have a way for them to travel during the day. Most of the country is undeveloped with no shelter for them during the day. I also know that the team you have here won't be enough to stop the force you are going up against."

"What exactly are you proposing?" Giles asked him.

"You could choose to hire my team and we would ensure you successfully complete your mission."



"Hire you?" Angel asked disbelieving.

"Now I know you are lying, mate. Buffy would never charge her friends to help them save the world. That's what she does." Spike told him.

"No, that's what she did. And as you have just heard all that ever got her was pain and torment. Things are different now. We'll need 2.5 million dollars to begin with and another 5 million dollars upon successful completion."

"That's preposterous." Giles spluttered.

"That is non-negotiable. Take it or leave it."

"I don't think..."

"Here is the address of a residence in Katmandu." He put a piece of paper on the large table. "If you decide to accept our offer you can arrive here in three days time. So you know that Buffy is really a part of our team and agrees with the fact that you should pay for our services you can hand the money directly to her and your witch can use her magic at that time to verify she isn't under some sort of spell. Do not try to contact us again if you choose to refuse our help and don't try to perform any other sort of magic compulsion on her at that time because we have measures in place to make sure you won't succeed."

No one said anything else. "I'll leave you now. I'm sure Illyria will be able to confirm when I leave the building." With that he melted back into the shadows leaving the people at the table to look at each other in confusion.

"I told you there was something here." Illyria said triumphantly.





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