Revelation
Chapter 1: The Anniversary
Disclaimer: If I owned this, Spike would’ve gone to Buffy when he got back. Like he should have. Damn you Whedon!

It was May 20th, the anniversary of the closing of the Hellmouth. One year since the destruction of Sunnydale. One year since Willow called all the slayers. One year since they stopped the First. One year since the biggest fight of their lives. One year since the last time she saw him. But she tried to push that aside for this evening.

Today was a happy occasion; it was the first time all the Scoobies were together since forever. It was like Thanksgiving, but no Native American vengeance spirits. They decided to meet at Buffy’s apartment in Rome, and since no one wanted to do all the cooking they went for a potluck dinner. Faith brought chicken wings, Xander brought chips and dip, Willow and Kennedy brought cookies, Giles brought a blueberry pie, Andrew made meatloaf, and Buffy and Dawn made lasagna.

“So, how’s everybody been since we last talked?” Buffy asked, feeling happier being with her old friends.

“Me and Kennedy have been havin’ fun in Brazil.” Willow said, holding her girlfriend’s hand.

“Yeah, you both got a great tan.” Dawn said, noticing the bronzed skin of the witch and Slayer.

“Thanks, we met a bunch of neat Slayers and some new magic.” Willow said happily.

“And lots of romantic beaches.” Kennedy added, smiling at the red head.

“But what about you Faith, last I heard you and Robin really hit it off?” Willow asked, wondering where the former principal was.

“What can I say? The guy didn’t surprise me like he said he would. Besides, I think me bein’ a slayer was fuel some Oedipal complex.”

“A what complex?” Dawn asked.

“That means he was attracted to her because she reminded him of his mother.” Willow supplied.

“Ewww.” Said Dawn pulling a face.

“What about you B? Still with the Immortal?” Faith asked.

“A world of no.” Buffy said, feeling bile rise in her throat at the memory of that bastard. “He cheated on me.”

“Sorry.” Faith said, not wanting to piss Buffy off now that they were on the same page.

“It’s al right, I kinda knew hat he was just rebound anyway.” Buffy said, some deep buried feelings rising. “I think I just wanted someone to take my mind off of…Spike.” She finished sadly.

“You really miss him, huh?” Xander asked, not noticing that Andrew was squirming slightly.

“Yeah, I do.” She said, remembering their last moments together. “I wish he still here. I wish we could’ve had a chance at a fresh start.”

“You still could.” Andrew said quietly.

“Huh, Andrew?” Buffy asked, half distracted by something Willow was saying.

“Um, Buffy,” Andrew started, trying to find the courage to say what he was thinking. “There’s something I think you should know.”

Knock-knock-knock

Andrew was cut off by a knock at the door. Dawn got up and walked to the door, opening it to reveal three strange beings; a green man with horns, a blue skinned woman in a leather leotard, and a pretty cute guy with purple eyes.

“Demons!” Dawn screamed, the rest of the Scoobies ran to the door, weapons in hand.

“Wait!” Willow, Faith, and the green demon yelled simultaneously.

“Wait? Why wait?” Xander asked, axe raised.

“That’s Lorne, he’s one of Angel’s friends, and he’s not evil.” Willow said, putting her sword down.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sweet tart.” Lorne said, stepping into the apartment, accompanied by the strange blue skinned woman and the handsome man with purple eyes. “Good to see you again Willow, Faith how’s it goin’?”

“Fine, yourself?” Faith asked, a little surprised at Lorne’s demeanor. Willow noticed too, Lorne was always happy and cheerful, now he looked like he lost his best friend. Which wasn’t far from the truth.

“What’s wrong?” Willow asked, hoping this was just a social call and not an apocalypse alert.

“A lot, Sugarplum.” Lorne said, his voice heavy with emotion. “Can we sit down? I think you need to sit for this info.”

“OK.” Buffy said, not liking the direction this conversation was going.

“First, introductions. This is Groosalugg and Illyria, and I’m Lorne.” The green demon said, gesturing to his comrades.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Buffy, this is Dawn, the man with the glasses is Giles, the guy with the eye patch is Xander, that’s Kennedy with the crossbow, and you know Willow, Faith, and I guess Andrew.”

“Yep.” Lorne said, taking a deep breath. “I’m afraid that I bear not good news.”

“Wonderful, cause we never get tired of that.” Xander said, rolling his eye.

“I know that you all have cut your ties to Angel since he took over Wolfram & Hart, but I’m guessing you heard what happened in LA two days ago.” Lorne said, resting his head on his hand. They heard all right; it was called a terrorist attack, it was being referred to as the “Hell A” incident. Half the city was leveled, and there was no sign of what did it. “Things have been bad in LA this past year, that was the result.”

“You did that?” Xander asked incredulously. “I thought you were a good demon.”

“I am, I know that you think Angel and the rest of us went to the dark side, but we didn’t. Not at first.” Lorne said, trying to form the words. “We tried to change it, to make Evil Inc. a force for good. We were so stupid.”

“Indeed, I tried to tell you this before.” Illyria said looking around. “The Wolf, Ram and Hart cannot be turned from the darkness. Even Spike saw that.” Lorne tried to stop her from blurting it out, but it was too late.

“Spike?” Buffy asked, her face turning pale. “What do you mean Spike? What Spike?”

“He was a white haired vampire, very strong for a half breed.” Illyria said, her monotonous voice not letting the rest of the people in the room know that she missed him.

“I don’t know what kind of sick joke this is, but Spike is dead and has been since last year.” Buffy gritted through her teeth.

“This isn’t a joke puddin’.” Lorne said, looking sadly at the slayer. “Spike was alive again. And he was with us most of this past year.” Buffy refused to hear this.

“You’re lying, I saw him burn up in the Hellmouth. How could he be with you and Angel?” Buffy asked, disbelievingly.

“The amulet that he used to close the Hellmouth was sent to Wolfram & Hart, it fell out of a delivery and his essence was released. He spent three months as a ghost, till he became corporeal again.”

“That’s not possible, if Spike was around then he would’ve been looking for me and Dawn.”

“He wanted to, he really did, but he couldn’t.” Lorne said, hating to break the poor girl’s heart. “He and I went drinking one night and he sang and I read him.”

“Singing? Reading?” Giles asked, perplexed.

“I’m psychic, I read people’s minds and futures when I hear them sing.” Lorne said, explaining. “I read his thoughts. He remembered his time with you, and he remembered your last words to him. He didn’t believe you, I’m sorry, but he didn’t. He was afraid that you were just saying it to make him feel better when he died. He thought that if he came back you wouldn’t take him back, or do a repeat of the year you came back from the dead, or that you’d take your last words back, that you’d never love him. And when he saw that you were dating some guy named the Immortal, I guess he thought it was over”

“No!” Buffy said, shaking her head as tears welled up in her eyes, flat out refusing to believe what she was hearing. “He believed me. He-he just said that to get me out of there. He believed me!”

“I’m sorry.” Lorne said, hating every second of this.

“No, no, no, no! Even if, IF, that was true and Spike didn’t come looking for me, Andrew went to LA a few months ago.” She said victoriously. “Andrew would’ve seen him and told me about it, he can’t keep a secret to save his life. Go on Andrew, tell him he’s nuts!”

The Scoobies looked at Andrew for his side of the story. He held eye contact with the group and then hung his head in shame.

“Andrew?” Dawn asked, staring incredulously at Andrew.

“Andrew?” Buffy asked, her voice wavering. “Andrew!”

The young Watcher looked up at the Slayer’s forceful tone, the guilty look on his face said it all. Andrew mumbled. “I’m sorry. He made me promise not to tell.”

“No, this isn’t happening.” Buffy said, realizing it was true. “I have to see him, talk to him.”

“I’m afraid that’s another bit of bad news.” Lorne said, taking a deep breath. This was gonna be hard. “Angel came up with this plan to take the Senior Partners on. They were using a secret society of powerful demons called the Circle of the Black Thorn to run all their evil schemes on earth. Angel said that if we took them out, it would bring all of Wolfram & Hart’s plans to a screeching halt. But the Senior Partners wouldn’t let us get away with it, they’d do anything to completely destroy those involved. Myself, Illyria, Gunn, Wesley, Spike and Angel killed all the members of the Circle, and then the real trouble started.”


***Flashback***

Lorne trudged towards his car, his mind in turmoil. He killed a man; maybe not a good man but he had killed him anyway. He lost his faith in “the good fight”, the price was too high. Angel was right; he didn’t spend his life obsessed with good and evil, he just wanted to make everybody happy, after losing everything and everyone he cared about he lost his innocence and his will to be a champion. And now he was walking away from his friends as the biggest fight they had ever been involved in was coming. He knew he was taking the coward’s way out, but he just couldn’t take losing what he cared about anymore.

LA was deserted; apparently the humans got the hint that something bad was coming. The sight of the, normally busy, LA streets now empty sent shivers down Lorne’s back. He had to hurry, before he changed his mind. He had almost reached his car when something ran into him; he looked up and saw a familiar pair of purple eyes and brown hair.

“Groosalugg?” Lorne said, climbing to his feet.

“Lorne! Good to see you old friend.” Groo said, shaking his hand.
“What are you doing here?” Lorne asked, noticing a sword in his hand.

“The coven that took me in said that a powerful force of evil was coming to this city. I though that I might be of some use.”

“I guess they could use your help.” Lorne said, turning away.

“Why are you here, Lorne? Are you on some mission, where are Angel, Cordelia and the others?”

“Sorry to break this to you, Groo baby, but Cordelia’s gone.”

“What?! How, what did this?!” Groo demanded, enraged that his former princess was dead.

“She was possessed by a fallen Power and it sent her into a coma, she never woke up.” Lorne said, sadly recalling one of his many lost friends.

“And Angel? Fred? Gunn? Wesley? Where are they?!” Groo asked, his heart breaking at the news of Cordy.

“Probably fighting that evil force, or dead.” Lorne said, almost inaudibly. Groo grabbed the lapels of Lorne’s jacket and shook him.

“Why aren’t you with them? What are you doing?” Groo asked fiercely.

“I’m leaving.” Lorne said.

“You’re leaving them to fight alone?” Groo asked incredulously.

“We tried to fight Wolfram & Hart, and it took Cordelia and Fred. I can’t do it anymore, Groo.”

“You can’t just give up! You have to fight!”

“I TRIED DAMN IT!” Lorne shouted. “I tried to fight the good fight, I tried to make a difference! And it cost me Cordelia, Fred and my self-respect! It’s just not worth it anymore!”

“All the times you helped Angel, all the lives you helped save, and they aren’t worth it? Cordelia once said something that made me realize what it means to be a champion; all it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.” Groo said, as Lorne looked away. “You can’t just abandon them. If you do, then everything they fought for was in vain, and you’re no better than the servants of the evil that took our friends. You do nothing, and you let evil win. I can’t watch that happen.”

Lorne looked at his car, barely 20 feet away; he could just get inside, turn the key and leave this unsavory life forever. He could escape and just go back to doing what he loved: singing. No battles to the death, no dismemberment, no watching people dying, just making beautiful music. But he couldn’t; deep down he knew he couldn’t. He remembered Fred’s agony, Cordelia’s sacrifice, everything they’d been through. He looked at Groo, and his expression hardened. Distasteful or not, these people were his friends. He hated this lifestyle, but he loved them. He wasn’t going to let them get slaughtered. He wasn’t going to let the Senior Partners get away with this.

“You got an extra sword?” Lorne asked his mind made up.

“No, but I have an axe.” Groo said, handing it to him. They ran through the rain towards the alley near Hyperion, and, most likely, their death. They came up behind Angel, Spike, Gunn and Illyria as the massive horde of demons charged.

“Oh my.” Groo said, staring at the legions of beasts.

“This is nothin’. The Halloween party, now that was hell.” Lorne said drolly.

They heard Angel yell, “Let’s go to work!” and the battle began.

Angel began slashing through a few of the Fell Brethren’s warriors and a large frog looking demon. Spike snapped the necks of a few Voynok demons. Gunn, even injured, managed to take out a Kith’ harn demons. Illyria smashed through the ranks of monsters, fueled by her rage at loosing Wesley. Lorne began hacking through some of Sebassis’ soldiers, while Groo slashed into a group of Suvolte demons.

“Come on you buggers!” Spike shouted as he smashed a Lubber demon with a trashcan. The bleached vamp ran and helped Angel with a horde of Sebassis’ troops after the Mohra vaporized. “Need some help, Broody pants?”

“Like I need your help.” Angel snickered as they hacked them apart, barely avoiding the poison darts.

Gunn chopped off head after head of the demons that charged him, exhaustion and his wounds were beginning to wear him down. It wouldn’t be long before he succumbed to the fight. Gunn was surrounded by tall Deevak demons, this was it. Gunn raised his axe and prepared for his last fight, but the tallest demon snuck behind him and cut his throat mid swing.

“GUNN!” Lorne shouted as the demon then plunged his knife into Gunn’s stomach and twisted it. Angel and Spike ran over to the fallen soldier as Illyria held off the monsters, but they were too late.

“Gunn, stay with us, Gunn!” Angel shouted, but the eyes of his comrade were already glazed over. The former lawyer and street fighter shoved his axe into the souled vamp’s hand and whispered a final message.

“I’m sorry.” Charles Gunn’s last words held so much meaning. So many regrets. Not being able to stop his sister from being turned, loosing people on the streets, letting Fred die. He was trying to say he was sorry, hoping that some higher power or the people he would’ve died to bring back would forgive him. The loss ignited a new wave of rage in the survivors, they weren’t battling for their survival anymore, now they just wanted to send as many of these bastards back to Hell as they could before they were struck down.

Angel and Groosalugg were swung their swords as dozens of demons charged the two champions. Having a sword fight with one opponent is hard, but fighting fifteen at once is next to impossible.

“This isn’t looking well for us.” Groo said, trying desperately to fend off the horde of creatures.

“We probably aren’t going to live through this.” Angel said, as he swung his sword and slashed an arm off a large insect demon. “But we can take most of these bastards down with us.”

“Agreed, old friend!” Groo said as he ran his sword into the head of a demon that looked like a cross between a lion and a vulture. The two champions fought on against the creatures, until suddenly they all backed off. The two warriors raised their swords, not knowing what to expect. The demons that faced them stepped aside to reveal a giant snake, its head as the size of a small car and its body reached down the alley and around the corner. “Oh dear.”

“Well, good thing I’m not afraid of snakes.” Angel said nervously. The giant snake hissed angrily at them, baring fangs as long as their swords. The huge viper lunged forward; the vampire and half demon jumped out of the way barely missing the fangs. The snake reared up and watched as the two potential snacks, waiting for the right moment to strike. Angel and Groosalugg moved from side to side, but the huge serpent followed every movement. In a flash the giant snake wrapped its coils around the two champions and squeezed them till they felt a few ribs break. The massive hissing beast’s head came closer to its prey, the huge yellow eyes looking hungrily at the two defenders. It hissed and opened its jaws and lunged at them. They clamped their eyes shut and felt something hit them, but they were still alive. They opened their eyes to see Lorne standing over them with his axe and the snake’s severed head laying on the ground.

“Thank you, Lorne.” Groo said, as he and Angel extricated themselves from the snake’s coils.

“Yeah,” Angel said, looking at Lorne. “Duck!” Angel picked up a dagger one of the demons dropped and threw it at Lorne. The green demon ducked and the knife flew into the throat of the hulking rhinoceros monster that had sneaked up on Lorne.

“Thanks.” Lorne said, as a wave Sahrvin charged at them.

Illyria may not have been the all-powerful god she was, but she had enough strength in her to pulverize her enemies. She had completely snapped, the grief of now having lost Wesley and Gunn sent her into a rage. She struck anything that moved, her strength causing her fists and feet to go right through the bodies of her adversaries. A Grox’lar beast came at her, she knocked his head off. A two-headed Cyclops came from the left, she punched his chest in. A fire devil came right at her, she threw him through a wall. Demon after demon kept attacking and they all ended up with gaping wounds or missing heads.

Spike was having trouble with his part of this fight, mostly because he was the only one besides Illyria who didn’t have a weapon. He was pretty good at hand to hand combat but after you punch someone in the face a few hundred times you start having trouble fighting. A trio of Cyvus Vail’s Kith’harn demons and a Grappler demon had him cornered, he jumped up onto a dumpster trying to get out of the way of their weapons. The demons climbed up after him, but were met with kicks upside the head. The bleached vamp swung of a drainpipe and landed by a pile of steel re-bars, now he had a weapon. He faced off again and beat the attackers with the steel bar until it bent on one end. He was winning the fight, when a huge demon about fifteen feet tall with a mace lumbered forward. The creature swung its mace forward and smashed the dumpster he had previously climbed on. Spike ran at the monster and whacked its leg with the bar to no effect. The monster swung the mace again making a huge hole in the ground as Spike rolled out of the way. He grabbed another re-bar and charged it again. He ran behind the huge creature and with all his strength he drove the steel bars right through its legs. The monstrosity howled in pain and fell over. Spike jumped up onto a fire escape and kicked the things head as he got up. The creature fell forward and Spike saw the chance. The ladder was right over the creature’s head, so the souled vampire jumped onto the ladder and it came rolling down and crushed into the monster’s skull.

The group of champions continued to fight as more demons flooded the alley. The ground was littered with dozens of bodies of dead demons, but they just kept coming. In the three hours since the fight started, Gunn had fallen; at least 400 demons were slaughtered but there were thousands more where they came from. They had to fall back.

“RETREAT!” Angel ordered, as the dragon let loose a fireball into the alley. The Fang Gang escaped the alley before the fire hit, but half the demons in the alley didn’t. The five warriors hopped a fence and ran as the army regrouped.

“There’s so bloody many of them, even the Hellmouth didn’t have this many.” Spike said, wiping the blood from his eyes.

“I told you it’d be hell.” Angel said looking back to see if they were being followed. “And just incase this isn’t enough, someone released the Failsafe before the office collapsed.”

“The Wolf, Ram and Hart have a truly impressive host.” Illyria said, as the demons began chasing them.

“Yeah, but I wish they weren’t so impressive. Oh God damn it!” Angel said as he saw the dead end of the alley.

“Now what?” Spike asked, as the mob of hell beasts closed in.

“Angelcakes, it’s been a pleasure.” Lorne said as the second assault on Wolfram & Hart’s army began. The second wave of demons was even more vicious than the first, even Illyria was getting out of breath from the fight. 12 zombies armed with stakes had backed Angel into a corner. Zombies weren’t smart, but they were a force to be reckoned with if there were enough of them. Angel was about to raise his sword, when suddenly something flew into the crowd of undead. Angel saw a figure maneuvering amongst the zombies with great ease. In a minute, the zombies had been reduced to a pile of body parts, giving Angel a clear view of their attacker.

“Hey.” Conner said, raising a large crowbar.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” Angel asked outraged.

“You gotta do what you can to protect your family, and that’s what I’m doing!” Conner said, swinging the crowbar into the face of a giant vulture.

“Conner, get the hell out of here!” Angel ordered, thrusting his sword through the chest of a demon with no mouth.

“Sorry, can’t.” Conner said smashing the crowbar into a Sahrvin’s jaw. “Gotta save my dad’s ass!”

“GO HOME NOW!” Angel shouted, both to be heard over the roars of the demons and to show Conner that he was serious. Conner stared at him for a moment, then sneered. The young man raised his crowbar and charged at his father.

“DUCK!” Conner yelled to his father. Angel ducked down, letting Conner to bash in the head of the demon sneaking up on the vampire.

“Thanks.” Angel said as Conner turned to face him.

“You’re welcome.” Conner said, gloating. Suddenly an earsplitting roar grabbed the attention of the father and son. They looked up and saw the dragon swoop down towards them. Angel jumped out of the way, as the monster swooped at him. The vampire looked at the dragon and saw that Conner hadn’t gotten out of the way in time. The beast had Conner in one of its talons. It flew up high above the battle and then just let go of Conner. Angel watched helplessly as his boy dropped over a hundred feet and lost sight of him as he fell behind a building.

“COOOOOONNEEEEER!!!” Angel screamed in anguish. He tried to run to his son, but a blast of flames blocked his path. He looked up and saw the dragon swooping around again. “Come on you bastard!

The dragon swooped down for another fireball, but Angel was ready. As it circled, Angel ran up a fire escape and stood on the roof of the building it neared. The great beast struck at the vampire and missed, Angel jumped onto its back and ran his sword into one of its eyes. The dragon roared in anger and pain, and Angel answered by stabbing its other eye. The monster thrashed at the vampire blindly, sending fire into the army of demons. Angel avoided the flames as the dragon breathed out blast after blast in hope of killing the champion. Angel rode the monster for five minutes, tricking it into incinerating half of the demonic legion. But luck couldn’t last forever. Angel lost his grip on the dragon’s head and fell into another wave of flames from the monster.

“Angel!” Lorne called, seeing souled vampire vanish into the fire. The dragon’s bleeding finally became too much and it collapsed on its cohorts. The dragon crushed the demons nearest to them, allowing them to run for it. They ran as fast as they could towards the Hyperion, hoping the army wouldn’t find them before they could plan their next move.

“Angel and Gunn are dead, the armies of the Wolf, Ram and Hart will not waste time finding us. What is the next course of action?” Illyria asked.

“I agree with this strange blue person, we must come up with a strategy.” Groo said, wiping blood from his sword.

“We have a plan.” Spike said, surprising the group. “Angel said if he didn’t survive this fight, I was supposed to bring the survivors here. There’s sewer access in the basement, we can get out of the city that way.”

“I’m lovin’ that plan.” Lorne said.

“A strategic withdrawal is acceptable.” Illyria said, as if they needed her permission to go with the plan. Suddenly they heard a faint roaring coming from outside.

“I think we should go!” Lorne said as they ran towards the basement. They came to the trapdoor as they heard the stampede of monsters getting closer. Groo pulled open the door and Illyria and Lorne descended into the sewers. Spike held the door open for Groo, and looked down after them.

“Spikester, come on!” Lorne called, but the vampire didn’t move an inch. “What are you waiting for?”

“I’m not coming with you.” Spike said, a sadness and fire in his eyes.

“What are you talking about?”

“I went out in a blaze of glory a year ago, and I’m going to now.”

“You can’t beat them! You won’t survive!” Lorne shouted at the vampire.

“I know, but you will, and they will.” Spike said, thinking of his favorite girls.

“What do you plan to do, keep hacking till one of them gets lucky?” Lorne asked incredulously.

“No, Angel took care of it.” Spike said, smirking. “He packed the hotel with a surprise for those buggers, and it needs someone to spring it. If you get out, go see Buffy for me. Tell them I love them, and me and Peaches went out as heroes.”

“I don’t know you, but you are a true champion.” Groo said, looking at Spike with pride.

“Farewell Spike, you would have made a superb pet.” Illyria said, in as affectionate a statement as she could make.

“Give ‘em hell, Spike. Give ‘em hell!” Lorne said, knowing he couldn’t change his mind. Spike gave them a mock salute and closed the door. The three demons ran through the sewers as they heard all hell break loose above.

“Whatever Angel left, I hope it packs a punch.” Lorne said as they ran through the tunnels.

Groo asked as they ran, “What sort of trap could possibly stop such a huge number of—”

BOOM!!!

They stopped as they heard a huge explosion above, wondering what Spike or the army had just done. They turned behind them and saw a light coming around the corner, and the smell of smoke. They began running as fast as they could when they realized that a huge fireball came barreling down the tunnel after them. They saw an opening at the end of the tunnel, it was an outlet drain. They were out of the city! They jumped out the pipe and into a river as a huge wall of flame burst through the pipe after them.

“Yeeeuuuuck!” Lorne sputtered as he surfaced. “Come on, let’s get to the shore!”

The three of them swam ashore, smelling to high heaven from the sewer water.

“That was unpleasant.” Illyria stated, picking a piece of soaked paper off her suit.

“Indeed. It reminds me of the scum pits of Ur and… Holy Tarkna! ” Groo said, pointing back to the city. The three surviving members of Angel Investigations saw LA in ruins. They were a mile away and they could still see the fires. Pillars of smoke rose from the city, making the storm clouds seem even darker.

“My God.” Lorne said, realizing that his only home in this dimension was burning to the ground.

“What do we do now?” Groo asked, jarring Lorne from his thoughts.

“Well, Spike asked us to get a message to the Slayer that he and Angel talked about. I guess we better honor his wish.” Lorne said, sadly.

***Present***

“No.” Buffy gaped at him, not believing what she had just been told.

“I’m sorry, Sugar. He loved you more than life itself, and if I could bring him back I would.” Lorne said, hating the look of anguish on the young blonde and brunette’s faces. “I’m gonna open a night club down the street, maybe you can stop by some time.”

“We might do that.” Buffy said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry,” Lorne said, motioning to Illyria and Groo that they should leave. “If there’s anything I can do…” Lorne started, but decided against it. He just turned and walked out the door. The Scoobies sat in silence; Buffy hadn’t looked so lost since Glory took Dawn, they were afraid that she had gone catatonic again.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy said standing up, trying to hide her tears. “I’m sorry to cut our big anniversary party short, but I need to go to bed.”

“We understand.” Willow said, trying to sound comforting. “We’ll take care of the dishes, you and Dawn get some rest.”

“Thank you.” Buffy said, walking quickly into her room and locking the door behind her. She couldn’t believe it. Angel was gone, he’d always thought he’d be there and he was gone. They might not have been together, and even suspected he’d switched to the other side, but to think that her first love was gone was like being punched in the gut. And Spike. Spike was alive, and he had been for almost a year. And he didn’t come to her because he didn’t believe her. They had a chance to start over. He was back. And now he was gone again. She had so many chances to tell him that she loved him, so many times she could’ve made him believe it. But it was too late. They could’ve been together, she could’ve spent the last few months in his arms. She could’ve told him she meant it, and that she still meant it. She loved him, somewhere along the wayside she fell in love with him and he’d never know it.

“Why? Why?” Buffy sobbed into her pillow. “Why didn’t you come for me? Why couldn’t I tell you I loved you before it was too late? Why couldn’t I save you? Why did you have to be such a damn hero?” She whispered in pain and despair. She just lay in her bed, clutching her pillow wishing it was Spike in her arms, crying her heart out. Her heart was breaking for the two vampires who she had loved; they were gone and this time they wouldn’t come back.


To be continued. (You don’t really think I’m ending it there, do you?)

Chapter 2: Pain and Loss
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything from Buffy or Angel, but I’m borrowing them to fix Whedon’s mistakes.

It had been 4 days since Lorne’s revelation; Wolfram & Hart’s influence on the world seemed to be fading. Their offices all over the world were abandoned and many people who presumably were their clients were being arrested or turned up dead. Taking out the Black Thorn worked, but Buffy had never looked worse.

Angel’s death was inconceivable to her, it was a horrible blow to know he was dead, but the news of Spike was the straw that broke her back. When Spike died destroying Sunnydale she mourned him, she never let it show how much his loss affected her, but everyone got the vibe that she was really hurting. Now she didn’t bother hiding it, she was completely destroyed. She hadn’t spoken since that night and her friends were really getting worried. She didn’t cry, but seeing the despair in her eyes made it clear that she gone way past crying. The deadness in her eyes was disturbing; she never looked like this even when things got bad Angel or Riley, or even when she came back from Heaven. She went out at nights to patrol, a sure sign that she was in trouble because she hadn’t patrolled since they got to Rome, they already had 6 slayers in Rome so there was no need for her to go out. But every night she went out with a stake and came back hours later covered in guts and dirt. Sometimes after patrol, she’d stop by Lorne’s club ‘Caritas’ and hear what Spike did while he was back. She would just lay in her bed staring at the ceiling, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. She thought of all the times she and Spike had together, she remembered all the missed opportunities to tell him she loved him, she thought of his last moments and his refusal of love. She hoped, she prayed that he just said it to get her out of there, that he knew inside that she meant it. She missed him so much, but at least he died knowing he was loved. Or so she thought. He didn’t believe her, and that’s why he never came back. He had a second chance, they had a second chance, and it was gone because when she finally admitted that she loved him he didn’t believe.

Dawn had taken it hard as well; she hadn’t stopped crying since she found out. She always loved Spike like a brother, but things were strained between them after the bathroom incident. After the First showed up Dawn wanted to tell Spike that she still loved him, but then the Bringers kidnapped him and they became distanced once the potentials around. She had tried to find a way to tell him that she still loved him and thought of him as her older brother, but then there was the thing when they kicked Buffy out and the big fight with the First and then it was too late. She never told him that she still loved him, and now he had a chance to start over with them and it was gone. He could’ve been with them all this time, he could’ve been there to see Rome with her, he could’ve been with Buffy, the love of his life, but he wasn’t.

The Scoobies decided that they should stay in town until Buffy and Dawn were feeling better. They all met at Xander’s hotel room, which he now shared with Andrew since it was decided that he wasn’t welcome in the Summers’ house anymore. They looked into the information of he “Hell A” incident, in futile hopes of finding information on Spike. Everything between the Hyperion and Wolfram & Hart was devastated, the wreckage was worse than anything LA had ever seen. The city was deserted when it all went down, only four human casualties were found. Lindsey McDonald was found shot twice in the ruins of a mansion near the edge of town. Charles Gunn was found with his throat slit and a large knife in his chest in an alley. Conner Reilly was found near the remains of the Hyperion hotel with a huge gash in his stomach and several broken bones; he was pronounced alive, but in a coma. An unidentified brunette woman was found buried in the wreckage of the Wolfram & Hart building; it was originally thought she died when the building collapsed but it was deemed a suicide when they found a bullet in her head that matched the ones in the gun in her hand.

“Crap, the green dude wasn’t exaggerating.” Kennedy said, looking at photos of the disaster.

“I remember seeing pictures like this of wrecked cities when we studied World War II, but to think this happened only a few days ago…” Willow said shaking her head.

“According to Lorne, this Lindsey guy was with him and Angel,” Xander said, looking through the reports. “But Lindsey was going to stab them in the back so he killed him.”

“Yeah, and the Smurf girl was Fred.” Willow said sadly. “Too bad they didn’t call me, I liked her, I could’ve helped.”

“Actually, they did call you about something.” Giles said, cleaning his glasses.

“What?! Why didn’t you tell me?!” Willow asked shocked.

“Well, after they tried to take Dana, I thought hey might be trying something.” Giles said, mentally kicking himself for not listening. “God forgive me.”

“I still can’t believe Spike was back and he didn’t come looking for Buffy and Dawn.” Xander said, looking through another file. “I mean they were his life, or unlife.”

“I guess B’s last words really pushed him, whatever she said.” Faith said, looking at the pictures of the wreckage.

“What did she say anyway?” Willow asked. “Andrew, you were with them for the last few months, what did they say?”

“They didn’t really talk about Spike, and I never brought him up cause I didn’t want to rat on him. I’m so stupid.” Andrew said, his voice cracking. He felt like an even bigger idiot than before, all that talk about Buffy had moved on and that she didn’t trust them anymore. If he had said something when he and Angel were in Rome this might not be happening. “He and Angel were here, a few weeks ago they were in Rome because they heard that she was with the Immortal. I told them she’d moved on, that she was happy with him. Then a week later he cheats on her and now Spike’s dead. Oh God, what did I do?”

“I think maybe we should talk to Buffy about this.” Xander said, putting a file down.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kennedy asked. “With the way she’s taking this, is opening even more old wounds a good plan?”

“She loved Spike.” Xander said, looking at the floor. “She never told any of us how much Spike meant to her, she’s been carrying this by herself all along and I think we need to help her deal. Cause, whatever we find isn’t going to bring him back.”

“You’re right.” Giles said, getting his keys. “We need to speak to them before they do something rash.” They got into Giles’ car and drove back to the Summers’ apartment. They entered to find Dawn lying on the coach holding one of the few pictures of Spike that they saved from Sunnydale, her eyes puffy and red from crying all night.

“Dawn, are you OK?” Willow asked, kneeling down by the miserable teen.

“Yeah I’m great,” Dawn replied, her voice hoarse from crying. “I just found out my best friend has been back from the dead for months and the reason he never came to see me and Buffy was because he thought we didn’t care about him. He died thinking I hated him.”

“Dawnie.” Willow said gathering the teen into her arms, as she started sobbing her heart out. “I’m so sorry, Dawnie.”

“I miss him so much, Willow.” Dawn said, holding her for dear life. She just sat there, until Dawn just fell asleep crying in her arms.

“I’ll take her to her room.” Willow said, getting up with Dawn in her arms.

“So, how do we do this?” Xander asked the gang as Willow came back from Dawn’s room.

“I think it might be best if just Willow, Xander and myself see her for now. No offence intended, but she wasn’t exactly close to the rest of you.” Giles said. Faith, Kennedy and Andrew nodded and sat down as three of the original Scooby Gang went to see the fourth.

“Buffy?” Willow asked, pushing the bedroom door open. She looked into the dark room; Buffy lay curled in the fetal position on the bed, the blanket wrapped tightly around her, just starring off into space. “Buffy, it’s Willow.”

“And Xander,” Xander said, walking followed by Giles “and Giles.”

“Buffy, I think we should talk.” Willow said, sitting next to her on the bed. The slayer just stared into space, Willow feared that maybe she’d gone catatonic again. “Buffy?”

“I don’t wanna talk.” Buffy said in a strangled voice.

“Buffy, I know you’re hurting, but we’re trying to help you.” Xander said, standing near the bed.

“There’s nothing anyone can do to help.” Buffy said, still in a small voice.

“Losing him is that bad?” Xander asked, knowing the answer.

“I should’ve told him sooner. I should’ve told him earlier, then he would’ve believed me.”

“Believed what?” Giles asked.

“That I loved him. I told him, I told him right before it all came crashing down. But he didn’t believe me. He said ‘no you don’t, but thanks for sayin’ it.’ I had so many opportunities to tell him, but I was too ashamed.”

“Ashamed?” Willow asked, confused.

“I went to him when I got back, to talk and vent about being back from Heaven. After the musical I kissed him a few times, but I kept telling him it was just a slip. Then I found out about his chip. He could hit me and it wouldn’t shock him, I thought that I must have come back wrong. I gave up a little, we fought a little but it degenerated into a night of unrestrained sex. I ran off the next morning, but I kept going back almost every night. I’d go to see him, we’d do it and I’d just run off saying that it was wrong. I used him, I just used him whenever I wanted. I even beat him to a pulp for trying to stop me from turning myself in for that girl’s murder. And all he ever gave me in return was declarations of love. I had Tara look into it for me, only to find out that I didn’t come back wrong. I just got a mystical tan or something; I was still the same inside. I begged her to tell me that I was wrong, that there was something grossly wrong with me for wanting to be with him. I couldn’t bear the thought of you guys finding out, the looks of disgust you’d have.”

“I’m so sorry.” Willow said, rubbing Buffy’s shoulder.

“I broke up with him after Riley came back with his wife. He didn’t take it well, and then there was that whole fiasco with him and Anya. He came over to apologize, I told him that I had feelings for him but I couldn’t trust him enough to love him. He tried to convince me that it was OK to like him, that I didn’t have to hide my feelings from him anymore. He said that I felt love for him when we slept together; he thought that if we just did it again everything would be fine. When we had our little sessions, no always meant yes, he just didn’t realize I meant no this time.”

“Buffy, don’t act like that was your fault!” Xander said, stepping forward.

“I’m not, he knew it was his fault, he looked horrified when he realized what he tried to do.” Buffy continued. “So he left. He went through some mystical trials to get his soul back, he came back to Sunnydale with his soul and it drove him crazy. The First kidnapped him and bled him to release the Ubervamp, he was beaten and tortured for days but he ever gave in. He knew I believed in him and that I’d come for him. I kept him at arm’s length after that, I was so afraid I’d lose him again. I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t let my feelings show, but it shined through. It didn’t cloud my judgment about the First, but it almost killed him when Wood and Giles tried to get rid of him. I felt like someone was trying to take away my world. I buried whatever love I had for anything for after the battle was over. I tried to be the general, but I guess you remember what happened.” The Scoobies remembered the worst night of their friendship, the night they kicked her out of her own house.

“I walked around until I found a house to stay in, I just went to the bedroom and lay in the bed until the next night. I thought about all of you, how much I let you down, the girls that died, everything. Until Spike came, he told me that I was right about something being in Caleb’s vineyard but I didn’t move. Everyone had given up on me and I had given up on everything. He tried to get me to get up and go back but I didn’t. I told him how I had disconnected myself from the people I cared about, and I told him that he just wanted me because I was unattainable. Do you know what he said to that?” Buffy asked, fresh tears spring in her eyes. Her friends listened intently.

“I’ve been alive a bit longer than you, and dead a lot longer than that. I’ve seen things you couldn’t imagine, and done things I prefer you didn’t. I don’t exactly have a reputation for being a thinker. I follow my blood, which doesn’t exactly rush in the direction of my brain. So I make a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong bloody calls. A hundred plus years, and there’s only one thing I’ve ever been sure of: you. I’m not asking you for anything. When I say I love you it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you, and I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You’re a hell of a woman. You’re the one Buffy.” The core Scoobies stared dumbfounded, tears their eyes from the most heartfelt speech they’d ever heard.

“I asked him to stay with me that night, I asked him to hold me while I slept. He gave me the strength to get the Scythe from Caleb, he gave me the confidence to win the fight. He told me the next night that that night was the best night of his life. Then Angel showed up, he gave me that amulet that Spike wore in the Hellmouth. I gave Spike the amulet; I called him a champion, my champion. He wore it and it destroyed the First’s army and collapsed the Hellmouth. The place was falling down around us; I begged him to come with me, but he said that he had to stay and finish it. I grabbed his hand, it burst into flames but I kept holding on. I told him that I loved him, and he said I didn’t. ‘No you don’t but thanks for saying it.’ I let him die thinking I didn’t love him. And now I find out that he came back, that I could’ve told him what he meant to me. That I meant it when I told him I loved him, and now it’s too late.” The Scoobies stood incredulous, tears rolling down their faces.

“I’m so sorry, Buffy.” Giles said, not believing that he had tears in his eyes about Spike.

“It’s my own fault. If I had said it before he would’ve believed me. He would’ve come home, to Dawn and me. But he didn’t. Because he I let him die thinking I didn’t love him. I gave him the amulet, and it killed him. I killed him. He died and… Oh God.” Buffy said, voice barely above a whisper.

“Buffy.” Willow tried to console her, but Buffy just stood up and waked towards the door. “Buffy, please let us help you.” Willow pleaded.

“There’s nothing to help, Will. He’s gone, and it’s my fault.” Buffy said, exiting the apartment. She walked to the cemetery, hoping to find a vamp or demon to let loose on. Lucky day, she finally ran into a vampire.

“Hello little girl, ready to die?” the vamp sneered.

“No, I wish I was, but that would mean he died in vain.” Buffy said, punching the vamp in the stomach. She pummeling him without stopping, she just kept punching and kicking. She just beat him until the bloodsucker was bruised, battered, and most of his bones were broken. He lay there, bleeding and broken, but Buffy continued to let loose punch after punch. She punctuated each hit with her words.

“I…” punch

“loved…” punch

“you…” punch

“you...” punch

“idiot!” punch

“Why…” punch.

“didn’t…” punch.

“you…” punch

“believe…” punch

“me?!” punch

“Why…” punch

“didn’t…” punch

“you…” punch

“come…” punch

“back…” punch

“you…” punch

“stupid…” punch

“vampire?!” punch, punch, punch, punch. She pulled back for another punch, but stopped when she saw the vampire she was attacking. It was worse than when she beat Spike up outside the police station.

“Please just stake me already!” The vampire begged, blood dripping from his mouth. She raised the stake and plunged it into the broken vampire’s heart. She screamed into the night, her body and mind racked with pain and sadness.

“I love you, Spike. Where ever you are, I hope you know that I was telling the truth.” She just sat there, trying to fight the pain and praying that Spike would come back, or at least know that she really loved him.

She walked out of the graveyard, feeling even worse then when she entered. She walked the streets of Rome, as beautiful as it was it just made her think of Spike and their missed opportunities. She decided to stop by Caritas and see Lorne. She walked through the entrance, handing her stake over to the bouncer, Val Trepkos. She saw the demon bar was packed with human, demons and vamps; she remembered that the place had a no-violence spell on it, otherwise she’d probably let her frustration out on a few of Lorne’s clientele. She noticed Illyria wander around the club; she wasn’t sure exactly what Illyria’s job was, she just seemed to just hang around the club. She saw Groo at the bar, serving a martini to a Torto demon and his parasite.

“Groo.” Buffy said, getting the champion’s attention.

“Lady Buffy, what brings you here?” He asked, shaking her hand.

“I need to see Lorne.” She said. “Oh, and a glass of water, please.”

“As you wish.” Groo said, immediately getting her drink. “Lorne’s outback getting more of this strange drink called Tickle-ya.” Groo said, holding up a near empty bottle.

“It’s called Tequila.” Buffy corrected.

“Oh right.” Groo said, snapping his fingers.

“Thanks, I’ll wait for him.” Buffy said, sitting on a stool.

“Greetings, Slayer.” Illyria said, suddenly standing beside her.

“Hi, Illyria.” Buffy said, sipping her water.

“You have shed blood tonight.” The former Old One said.

“Yes, I have.” Buffy said, remember how she tore into that vampire earlier.

“You were attempting to deal with your grief for Spike through violence.” Illyria said bluntly. Buffy studied Illyria, her frankness reminded her of Anya.

“Yes.” Buffy said simply.

“Did it help?” Illyria asked.

“No.” Buffy sighed.

“I thought not.” Illyria replied. “The crunch of bones, the tearing of flesh, the taste of blood has become unfulfilling to me. It did not help my grief when Wesley died, it will not help you with yours.” She said, and then walked off.

“Nice talking to you.” Buffy said under her breath as Illyria went away. She was right though, she could beat up all the vampires in the world and it still wouldn’t make her feel better.

“I meant to say before,” Groo said in solemn voice. “I offer my most heartfelt condolences for the loss of the one called Spike. He seemed like a brave champion.”

“He was.” Buffy said, folding her hands.

“I’m back.” Lorne said, hauling a case of Tequila behind the bar. “Hey, Groo, be a lamb and go grab some more olives and maraschino cherries. We’re getting a little low.”

“At once, Lorne.” Groo said, and went back to the storeroom.

“Hey Lorne.” Buffy said, giving the green guy a little wave.

“Hello Buffy, nice to see you again.” Lorne said, going behind the bar. “How you holdin’ up, Sugar?”

“Not good, Lorne.” Buffy said, as Lorne saw the sorrow in her eyes.

“Well, take it from someone who knows, drinking won’t take the pain away. You can drink my whole inventory but it won’t make it better.” Lorne said, remember the days he spent getting drunk after Fred died.

“I know. I’m not here to drink.” Buffy said looking at the green demon. “I’m here to sing.”

“What?” Lorne asked, she never sang before.

“I want to sing a song for him. Maybe he’ll hear me where he is. And besides, you can read me and help.”

“OK Pumpkin, you can go on after the Thrachnog demon.” Lorne said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. The Thrachnog demon stopped early when its heads got into an argument when one slipped on a verse. Buffy walked up onto the stage and looked through the songbook. She picked one and picked up the microphone.

I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When I cried you'd wipe away all of my tears
When I'd scream you'd fight away all of my fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

You used to captivate me
By your resonating light
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When I cried you’d wipe away all of my tears
When I’d scream you’d fight away all of my fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

When I cried you’d wipe away all of my tears
When I’d scream you’d fight away all of my fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

When Buffy finished the whole bar was dead silent. Everyone, human or demon, was crying their eyes out at the heartbroken song and the emotion of the blonde woman singing it. Then the whole place stood and applauded.

“I do not understand,” Illyria said looking at Lorne. “That sound makes grief and sadness rise in my mind, and drops of water are flowing from my eyes. What is this?”

“Music Bluebird,” Lorne said, wiping his eyes. “I guess nobody’s immune to it. Excuse me.” Lorne walked up to the stage, Buffy smiled through the tears hoping that Spike heard her. “Well that was great folks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer everybody.”

“I hope he heard me.” Buffy said, wiping her eyes.

“He did, Crumpet he did. Now, step to the right.” Lorne said. Buffy looked at him strangely but took a step to the right. “Little further.” Lorne pulled Buffy to the edge of the stage.

“What’s going on?” Buffy asked, wondering why Lorne was acting so weird.

“You’ll see in 5…4…3…2…” before Lorne could get to one, several bolts of lightning struck the stage. They began to weave and zap around the stage, making the area bend and shimmer. A huge light opened out of the bending and lightning, something opened a portal in Caritas. Again. The shock wore off as Buffy heard the faint sound of screaming coming from the portal, and it seemed to be getting louder and closer by the second. There was a bright flash and something flew from the portal, crashing into the three tables closest to the stage. The portal closed and Buffy and Lorne looked down at the wreckage of the three tables and the thing from the portal lying in a heap.

“What the hell?” Buffy cried, looking at the smashed tables.

“Don’t ask me, Cookie.” Lorne said, frazzled by this. “Why does this always happen in my bar?”

They went over and saw the thing from the portal was a human body. Lorne turned it over and looked at its face. Buffy gasped; the duster, the black clothes, the platinum hair, the scar. Buffy couldn’t think, she couldn’t move. She just said one word in a voice barely louder then a whisper.

“Spike?”

Chapter 3: Forgotten
Disclaimer: I don’t own it. But I’m using the characters anyway.

“Spike?”

Time had stopped. Buffy stood frozen in place, staring at the face that she thought she’d never see again. She was too shocked to scream, laugh, cry, faint, or even breathe. He was barely four feet from her, and she was too stunned to move an inch closer to him.

“Spike? Spikester? Spike, wake up!” Lorne asked, shaking the unconscious vampire. He pushed the overturned tables and chairs so he could check for any injuries. Spike had no pulse and his body still felt cold, so he was either still a vampire or he was just a dead body. He had seen a lot of weird things after someone sang, but this was really out of left field. “Groo, come over here and help me!”

“What should we do, Lorne?” Groo asked, running over.

“Nothing seems broken, at least nothing of his.” Lorne said, looking at the smashed tables. “Take him to our apartment in back.”

“As you wish.” Groo said, picking up the blonde vampire up and throwing him over his shoulder. The Pylean champion went through the doors in the back of the club still carrying the vampire.

“Great Aretha’s Ghost, that’s Spike!” Lorne said incredulously, running a hand through his hair. “Well, at least it wasn’t a Drokken this time.”

“Spike?” A small voice from behind Lorne asked. He turned and saw the thunderstruck Slayer staring after the unconscious vampire, tears streaming from her wide eyes.

“Buffy?” Lorne ventured, but she still just stared after Spike. “Buffy!”

“Huh?” Buffy asked, snapping out of her daze. “Oh God Lorne, am I hallucinating or was that really…?”

“You’re not seeing things, Darlin’, I saw him too.” Lorne said, holding her shoulders.

“What? Why? How?” Buffy asked, her mind racing.

“Those are the five thousand dollar questions.” Lorne said, shaking his head.

“Lorne, I set him on your bed.” Groo said walking back out.

“Good, take over out here, Buffy and I are gonna check on him.” Lorne said heading to the back, Buffy not far behind.

“You guys live here?” Buffy asked following Lorne through a hall into a well-decorated room.

“Yeah, it’s not much, but with just Groo, Illyria and me living here, we don’t need much space.” Lorne said, taking off his coat and setting it on a chair. “Besides, with today’s gas prices, it pays to not have a long commute to work.”

“So, what are we gonna do?” Buffy asked as Lorne led her to his bedroom.

“Uh…I haven’t really thought that far ahead, lamb chop.” Lorne said, as he sat on a chair by the bed.

Spike lay on Lorne’s bed still unconscious, in less than a second Buffy was right next to him. She traced her fingers along his face, mapping the well-defined cheeks and caressing the scar she thought she’d never see again.

“Spike can you hear me?” Buffy asked, shaking him lightly.

“Ugh.” Spike groaned, Buffy gasped in relief. Spike rubbed his head and opened his eyes “What the hell’s going on?”

“Spike.” Buffy said, looking at him in disbelief.

“Wha… what did you call me?” Spike asked, squinting at her.

“Spike…” Buffy said, confused. “Your name.”

“What, who are you?” Spike asked. Hurt flashed over Buffy’s face.

“It’s me, Spike. It’s Buffy.” She said, but he just stared at her confused. “Spike don’t you know who I am?”

“No, should I?” Spike responded, wondering who this woman was.

“Oh God. Lorne, he’s lost his memories.” Buffy said, turning to Lorne.

“AHH!” Spike shrieked. “Who are you and why are you green?”

“Hey to you too Spikester.” Lorne said, rubbing his temples. “Oh boy, not this again.”

“Not what again?” Buffy asked, her brow furrowed.

“The memory loss thing.” Lorne sighed. “This was a barrel of monkeys when this happened with Cordelia.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Spike asked.
“Nothin’, Sweet Pea. OK, gotta think, gotta think, gotta think.” Lorne said, tapping his head. “Maybe the portal was from a higher plane. Cordy had amnesia too when she came back from the higher planes.”

“Portal, higher plains, what the hell are you talking about?!” Spike asked, growing frustrated.

“Um,” Buffy was at a loss. “Well, things are kinda complicated.”

“I got time, I think.” Spike said, sitting in a chair. Buffy and Lorne sat in a few other chairs and began trying to explain.

“Well, you’re name’s William…” Buffy began.

“William?! What kind of nancy boy name is that?” Spike shouted.

“Well you were born in England before you became...” Buffy supplied.

“I’m English? Oh no way, I am not one of those tea slurping Mary Poppins…”Spike started, but stopped mid-sentence like he just realized something. “Bloody hell! Sodding, blimey, shagging, knickers, bollocks. Oh God, I’m English.” Spike grumbled. “Wait, before I became what?”

“Um,” Buffy and Lorne exchanged looks. How do you tell someone he’s a bloodsucking fiend with a soul? “Well you see, you aren’t exactly…human.”

“What?” Spike asked, looking at Buffy like she was crazy.

“You’re…well…you see…you…and…well you and…Lorne help me out here!” Buffy pleaded with the green demon.

“Spike, just go in the bathroom and look in the mirror.” Lorne said, pointing to the bathroom door.

“Uh, OK.” Spike said, standing up. As he reached the door he turned to them again. “Hey, I thought you said my name was William, why’d you call me Spike?”

“It’s just a nick name.” Buffy said.

“Oh.” Spike seemed satisfied; he walked into Lorne’s bathroom and turned on the light. He looked in the mirror, but he didn’t see his reflection. “What the hell?!”

“This is gonna be fun.” Lorne sighed.

“Is that a trick mirror or something?” Spike asked walking back out.

“No, it’s not a trick.” Buffy said, avoiding his gaze.

“I’m assuming I’m not invisible, right?” Spike asked, desperately trying to make sense of this. They shook their heads. “OK, what’s going on?”

“Well, um… about a hundred years ago…” Buffy started saying. The three of them sat in Lorne’s room for the next hour as Buffy and Lorne explained the history of Spike to Spike.

“And, that’s about it.” Buffy said, trying to keep this conversation calm. Spike just stared at them, trying to process everything they had just told him.

“Wow.” Spike said. “So…I was born in England a hundred years ago, I got vampified...”

“Sired.” Buffy corrected.

“…Sired by an insane girl vamp named Drusilla, and we spent the next century together.” Spike continued. “I was a real badass vampire until I was captured by the United States Government, who put a chip in my head so I couldn’t hurt people. I started helping you, the Slayer, legendary killer of vampires and demons, and I fell in love with you. Then, I went and got my soul back and died saving the world from the First Evil. And then I got brought back and fought alongside another vampire with a soul against an evil law firm. And I died again when we killed a cabal of demons who were secretly running the world. And now I suddenly I crashed into karaoke bar for demons out of a big portal. Have I got this right?”

“Yep.” Lorne said, smiling reassuringly. Spike was silent for a minute.

“Bye.” Spike said, walking towards the door. Buffy ran in front of the door to stop him.

“Spike, please listen to us.” Buffy said, trying to keep Spike from getting out.

“No, I will not listen to you! You’re crazy! Let me out!” Spike said, trying to pull Buffy away from the door.

“Spike, please.” Buffy asked, holding his hands. “Please trust me.” Spike didn’t know why, but something inside told him that this woman genuinely concerned about him.

“Fine.” Spike said, sitting on the bed. “But I still don’t buy this vampire crap.”

“Well if the mirror wasn’t enough, then try this.” Lorne said, offering him a small cross. “Touch it and see what happens.”

“Oh for God’s sake, what is this gonna OW!” Spike yelped as he touched the cross. “What did you do, put it on a stove?”

“No,” Buffy said, holding the cross in her hand to show that it didn’t hurt her. “It hurts you because you’re a vampire.”

“No way.” Spike said in disbelief, beginning to realize it was true. “So I’m a vampire.”

“Yep.” Buffy said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“But I’m a good guy?” He asked, the slayer and demon nodded. “Jeez, it sounds like a plot for a comic book or a cult TV show or something. What do I do now?”

“I’ll go get the Furies on the phone, they know a few memory restoration spells that could help.” Lorne said, heading out of the bedroom. “As long as we don’t use the one with the bottle, we should be fine and dandy. Buffy, stay with him and try to keep him calm, but don’t get to comfortable.”

“Sure Lorne.” Buffy said as the demon left.

“It’s really frustrating.” Spike thought out loud.

“Well not remembering who you are would be frustrating for anybody,” Buffy said, not looking directly at Spike. “Least your name’s not Randy this time.”

“What?” Spike asked, not getting that last part.

“Nothing.” Buffy said, staring at her shoes.

“Why won’t you look at me?” Spike asked, noticing that she had been avoiding his gaze since the green guy left.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Buffy said, looking out the window.

“You damn well do.” Spike said crossing his arms.

“It’s nothing.” Buffy lied, still looking away.

“What is it?” Spike asked, reaching over and turning her face towards him.

“It’s a lot to take in, you being back.” Buffy said, pulling out of his grip. “I spent the past year thinking you were dead, then I find out you’re alive and died again, and now you’re right here next to me.”

“You’re not happy to see me?” Spike asked, scooting away from her.

“No!” Buffy wheeled around to face him. “I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time, it’s great that you’re back. But it’s just, it’s a little overwhelming.”

“I imagine it is.” Spike replied, looking around the room. The two of the sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, both were looking around the room avoiding eye contact.

“I meant it when I told you I loved you, I know that probably doesn’t mean much, considering you don’t remember our time together.” Buffy whispered finally breaking the silence, tears welling in her eyes. Spike just stared at her for a minute, not sure how to respond.

“It might mean something when I get my memories back.” Spike said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Besides, even without the memories, having a gorgeous woman say she loves you is always a good thing to here.” Buffy chuckled at that.

“I wish I said it sooner.” She said, looking away so he wouldn’t see the tears fall. “If I did, we wouldn’t be here trying to get your mind fixed, we’d be at home in bed snuggling after a night of vamp slayage. Maybe followed by some…other stuff.”

“Looking forward to that, myself.” Spike said, waggling his eyebrows. Buffy let out a small sob at seeing a trademarked Spikism, prompting Spike to put an arm around her. “Don’t cry.”

“I missed you so much.” Buffy said, leaning against him. “I know this’ll sound weird, but could you just hold me?”

“Sure.” He said, wrapping his arms around her. She hugged him back, enjoying the feeling of his arms around her. She hadn't felt so good and safe in a year. She just sat there, enveloped in his presence and thanking whatever power sent him back to her. Spike didn't know what to think, he really didn't know anything about this girl. He didn't even know who he was, but this just felt so right.

“Hakuna Matata, Peach Pies!” Lorne said, coming back in. “I got the…oh, am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Buffy said, pulling away from Spike. “I just wanted to um, well…”

“I understand, Lemon drop.” Lorne said, smiling reassuringly. “Long lost love, tragic death, unexpected return, heartfelt reunion. It’s got Lifetime movie of the week written all over it.”

“So, you got a spell or whatever that’ll get back my lost marbles?” Spike asked.

“Yep, just needed to run out and get a little mandrake root and cinnamon.” Lorne said.

“Cinnamon?” The two blondes asked at once.

“You’d be amazed how many spells and rituals use cinnamon. I’ll just…” Lorne trailed off and looked at Spike doubtfully. “Um, before I go would you mind singing for me, Spikey?”

“Why?” Spike asked, really confused.

“Well, the last person I read who came back from another dimension was possessed by an evil goddess who ate people. I just want to make sure you’re really you and you’re not gonna turn evil and establish a shiny happy new world order.”

“O… Kay.” Spike replied, not knowing what in the hell he was talking about.

“Just need a few verses.” Lorne added.

Spike started to sing the first song that came to mind.
“Early one morning,
Just as the sun was rising
I heard a maid sing
In the valley below
Oh don’t deceive me,
Oh never leave me,
How could you use
A poor maiden so?”

“Oh thank God.” Lorne sighed. “It’s really him.”

“You sure?” Buffy asked, hopefully. “He’s not a clone or robot or anything?”

“Nope, just our old Blondie Bear.” Lorne said.

“Great, now that we’ve established that I’m me, can we get back to makin’ me me again?” Spike asked, wanting to get on with this. “Oh, and if you call me Blondie Bear again, I’ll have to hurt you.”

“Oh right, just a sec.” Lorne said, running back out of the room. He came back with a bowl and a bag of ingredients, and began mixing a potion. “In just a few we’ll have a Spike potion up and running.”

“You sure this’ll work?” Buffy asked, eager to get Spike back.

“Positive, the Furies know spells like Martha Stewart knows cooking.” Lorne said, mixing the cinnamon in the bowl. He stirred it once and it glowed green for a moment, indicating it was ready “OK Spike, open up.”

“I have to drink that?” Spike asked disgusted at the contents of the bowl, which looked like something a cat spit on the rug. “Oh you can’t be serious.”

“Sorry.” Lorne said sheepishly, handing him the bowl.

“No way.” Spike said, smelling the pungent odor of the potion.

“Just think of what’ll happen after you drink it.” Buffy said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“The snuggling and other stuff after vamp slayage.” Spike concentrated and drank it in one gulp. It tasted like dirt and sour milk, and it was all he could do not to barf it back on Lorne. “Yeeuuucck!”

“It should kick in any second.” Lorne said.

“I hope that stuff …” Spike started saying but then stopped as his mind was jumbled with a rush of memories.

Have a woman in my life…What’s another word for “gleaming?” … It only hurts for a moment…You knew. You knew she was mine… It's “Spike” now. You'd do well to remember it, mate… “His benevolence, the Immortal.” … I'm sorry, love, I don't speak Chinese… Don't ever go to a “free virgin blood” party. Turns out it's probably a trap… Ciao… Don’t want the dance to end so soon, do you, Nikki? … Home sweet home… Well this is just… neat! … Debase the beef… canoe… You can't see the stars, love. That's the ceiling. Also, it's day… It's a big rock. I can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big… And you've got people, billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs… SHE’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET, DRU! … I caught her on a park bench, making out with a Chaos demon!… I love syphillis more than you… You think? Cause I’m not the one cained to the ceiling with hot pokers in my side… Don't be ridiculous. I'd bite you in a heartbeat… It's what Caesar did, and he's not going around saying, ‘I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it.” …Just say yes, and make me the happiest man on Earth… We’re out of Weetabix… No pain! I can hurt a demon!… Funny hearin’ a Fyarl demon say serviceable.”… I don't care if it's playing 'Rockin' the Casbah' on the bloody Jew's harp, just get it out of me! … You think Riley was out knitting booties for your future offspring while Maggie stringing you up? …Can any of your damn little Scooby club at least try to remember that I hate you all? …I get this chip out, you and me are going to have a confrontation…. Actually, all of that sounds pretty convincing. I wonder if Danger Mouse is on… You were a Boy Scout? …Feel it in my bones. It’s, uh… call it the Yoko Factor…. Well, let’s go save ‘em, by gum! … Dracula? Poncy bugger owes me eleven pounds, for one thing… What, Evil For Dummies? … Oh, very nice! I was on your side! …Oh God, no! Please no! …That's just a family legend, am I right? Just a bit of spin to keep the ladies in line… Out. For. A. Walk. Bitch… Every Slayer has a death wish… Ah, that's the stuff! Slayer musk, it's bitter and aggravating! …Well, yeah, can’t exactly work the counter at Burger Barn, can I? …Sometimes I envy you so much it chokes me… Yeah, I could do that, but I’m paralyzed with not caring very much… Money, little nip of blood out of some stray victim… Huh! I guess that’s you, Nibblet… I. Love. You… Bloody hell! You threw me through a window! …They’re for Joyce… The god of what, bad home perms? …Well, I’m not good, and I’m OK… You go ahead and play peek-a-boo with Mr. Sunshine all you like… No. Ben is Glory. Glory’s Ben. They’re one and the same… Till the end of the world. Even if that happens to be tonight… She’ll never be exactly… Hey! Little Bit? Dawn! DAWN! …Every night I save you… Knew I could get a grin… So, who’s gonna advance me a tiny tabby, get me started? …Feel like a bit of the rough and tumble? …So let me rest in peace … Randy Giles?! Why just call me Horny Giles or Desperate-for-a-shag Giles? …Oh, the pain. The pain… is gone… Bollocks, it was a bloody revelation! …Hey, that’s cheating… What’s in the DoubleMeat Nuggets? …Do you trust me? …I had a… muscle cramp. Buffy was, uh, helping… I love you. You know I do… It’s a happy occasion. You meet my friend? …Oh balls! You didn’t say it was a Glarghk Guhl Kashmas'nik! …Got anything that’ll dull the ache? …I’m gonna make you feel it! …Bitch is gonna see a change… Wait, first stage? Bugger… Make we what I was, so Buffy can get what she deserves. I tried to cut it out… Tragedy. Is there blood… I’m a bad man! …Can’t hear you. Can’t hear you… You’re wearing your brother’s jacket… Here. I… I think I bured them… Buffy, you have to kill me… She does. Because she believes in me… She will come for me… Touch them, and lose your privates… Who you gonna call? God, that phrase is never gonna be usable again, is it? …You tried to record the ultimate evil? …Think I still dream of a crypt for two with a white picket fence? …I don’t know your feelings, big guy, but to me a tussle like that is good for the soul… Shut your face about the Zima… I gave him a pass. Let him live, on account of the fact I killed this mother… Angel’s as dull as a table lamp, and we have very different coloring… “It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield.” …You’re the one, Buffy… It was the best night of my life… No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it… AAAAAHHHHH!!!! …I’m no bloody ghost! …And me, I’m just left to fade into nothingness… You’re right. I do deserve to go to Hell. But not today! …Hey, Angel’s getting’ some! Good on you mate! …Angel went right off on the mail guy… Oh, uh, Eve’s stuck in the elevator… I-it’s Mountain Dew… All of it won’t matter… And on the way, if a stranger offers you candy don’t get in the van! …So were we, once upon a time… She’s evil, you gormless tit! …So, sailor boy finally came back for a yo-ho-ho, did he? …YOU’RE A BLOODY PUPPET! …No. Not this girl. Not this day… Things are gonna get ugly. That’s where I live… What you’ve never heard of Knight Rider? …Third, no touching my clipboard… So what sort of damage are we looking at if Illyria Chernobyls on us? …The Immortal?! …I’m in… Finally got ourselves a decent brawl.

Faces, people, feelings, experiences all flooded his mind. He remembered everything, and he screamed the last thing that ran through his mind before he passed out.

“OH BUGGER!”

Chapter 4: The Last Stand
Disclaimer: Joss owns all

Spike woke up from a nightmare with a gasp, sitting up in Lorne’s bed. He looked around and remembered what was going on. Portal. Club. Memory loss. Potion. Lorne. Buffy. BUFFY! He looked around and saw Buffy asleep in bed next to him and Lorne asleep in a chair by the bed. He saw sunlight behind the drawn curtains and guessed had been unconscious for several hours. He tried to move off the bed, but as he did he woke the snoozing Slayer next to him.

“Huh, Spike!” Buffy exclaimed, waking up Lorne.

“Tootsie Rolls are Mickey Mouse!” Lorne said, waking from a strange dream. “What? Oh Spike, you’re awake! Do you remember anything?”

“Yes, Lorne, I remember everything.” Spike said, looking around the room. “So, I guess you, Illyria and the purple eyed fella survived.”

“Yep, thanks to you.” Lorne said, shaking the vampires hand.

“Eh, it’s nothing.” Spike said letting go of Lorne’s hand.

“Oh what the hell.” Lorne said, pulling Spike into a hug. Spike rolled his eyes as the demon hugged him.

“Lorne.” Spike said, getting Lorne’s attention. “Let go.”

“Sorry. ” Lorne said, letting go and backing away from the vampire. “Besides, I think she’d rather be hugging you anyway.”

Spike turned around and saw Buffy looking at him, a smile on her face.

“‘Lo Buffy. I uh, heard you sing.” Spike said, looking at her with a watery smile. Buffy smiled, tears in her eyes. “You were great.”

“Thanks.” She said, scooting closer to him. “I meant it, you know, when I told you I loved you.”

“I know, he told me.” Spike said, taking her hand.

“Who told you?” Buffy asked, confused.

“Weird guy I met on the higher plains or whatever. Said his name was Emanuel.” Spike explained.

“So you were in the Higher Planes. Ha! Knew it! And you met someone up there?” Lorne asked, interested.

“Yeah, showed me a bunch of stuff about you and Buffy and the collapse of Wolfram & Hart.” Spike clarified.

“What happened, Spike?” Lorne asked. “Last I saw you were about to go one on one billion with the Senior Partners’ army, what happened to you?”

“It’s a long story. You might want to take a seat.” Spike said. Upon hearing this, Buffy settled in Spike’s lap and wrapped her arms around him.

“This seat’s good.” She said, smiling.

Lorne smiled and sat down in an easy chair. “So, what’s the story?”

“Ok, here’s what happened…”

***Flashback***

Los Angeles

The Hyperion Hotel

The Hell A Incident

7 days ago

“Angel and Gunn are dead, the armies of the Wolf, Ram and Hart will not waste time finding us. What is the next course of action?” Illyria asked.

“I agree with this strange blue person, we must come up with a strategy.” Groo said, wiping blood from his sword.

“We have a plan.” Spike said, surprising the group. “Angel said if he didn’t survive this fight, I was supposed to bring the survivors here. There’s sewer access in the basement, we can get out of the city that way.”

“I’m lovin’ that plan.” Lorne said.

“A strategic withdrawal is acceptable.” Illyria said, as if they needed her permission to go with the plan. Suddenly they heard a faint roaring coming from outside.

“I think we should go!” Lorne said as they ran towards the basement. They came to the trapdoor as they heard the stampede of monsters getting closer. Groo pulled open the door and Illyria and Lorne descended into the sewers. Spike held the door open for Groo, and looked down after them.

“Spikester, come on!” Lorne called, but the vampire didn’t move an inch. “What are you waiting for?!”

“I’m not coming with you.” Spike said, a sadness and fire in his eyes.

“What are you talking about?!”

“I went out in a blaze of glory a year ago, and I’m going to now.”

“You can’t beat them! You won’t survive!” Lorne shouted at the vampire.

“I know, but you will, and they will.” Spike said, thinking of his favorite girls.

“What do you plan to do, keep hacking till one of them gets lucky?” Lorne asked incredulously.

“No, Angel took care of it.” Spike said, smirking. “He packed the hotel with a surprise for those buggers, and it needs someone to spring it. If you get out, go see Buffy and Dawn for me. Tell them I love them, and me and Peaches went out as heroes.”

“I don’t know you, but you are a true champion.” Groo said, looking at Spike with pride.

“Farewell Spike, you would have made a superb pet.” Illyria said, in as affectionate a statement as she could make.

“Give ‘em hell, Spike. Give ‘em hell!” Lorne said, knowing he couldn’t change his mind. Spike gave them a mock salute and closed the door. Spike grabbed a few boxes and threw them on the trap door to hide it. He ran back up the stairs towards the lobby, he had to hurry and reach the honeymoon sweet before the demons arrived. He remembered his conversation with Angel before setting out.

***

“What do you think all this means for that Shanshu bugaboo? If we make it through this, does one of us get to be a real boy?” Spike asked.

“Who are you kidding? We’re not gonna make it through.” Angel said, resigned to their fate.

“Well, as long as it’s not you.” Spike said, getting in one last gibe before the end. He went to the weapons chest, picked out a sword and turned to leave.

“Wait,” Angel called as he reached the door. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

“If this is about Buffy I…” Spike began, but Angel cut him off.

“No, this is about tonight.” Angel said grimly.

“I’m all ears, Hair Gel.” Spike said turning to face him.

“You know the Hyperion Hotel?” Angel asked.

“Yeah, your old HQ, Fred told me about it. Been there once or twice. Why?”

“There’s a trapdoor in the basement that leads to the sewer tunnels. It opens into a tunnel that leads out of the city, if I don’t make it, I want you to take everyone who’s left there and get them out of here.”

Spike looked at his grandsire with an eyebrow raised. “Right then, if you croak I take everyone and run like hell.”

“Not exactly.” Angel said, taking a deep, unneeded breath. “There’s something else in the hotel, something that we can use against whatever the Senior Partners send after us.”

“What’s that?”

“A detonator. In the honeymoon suite.” Angel said, looking Spike in the eyes. “ The hotel is packed with 3 tons of high explosives, as are some of the buildings in the surrounding blocks and all the buildings Wolfram & Hart owns. The buildings are abandoned so human casualties will be minimal. The bombs are filled with a mystical toxin that was designed to kill anything demonic within range of the blast; it reduces demons to dust like a staked vampire. If the explosion doesn’t kill them the toxin will. That should give the survivors enough time to escape through the tunnels.”

“But someone needs to be there to set it off.” Spike guessed, realizing what Angel was asking him. “So I lead them to the escape route and stay to set off the demon napalm.”

“I know it’s not…”

“I’ll do it.” Spike interrupted, getting a surprised look from Angel. “Don’t look so surprised, I signed on to see it through and turns out I care enough to die for the cause. These are my friends too now, they’re decent people and I want them to survive. And I may never see them again, but Buffy and Dawn will get a better life from this. Now come on, we need to go be heroes.”

***

Spike ran to the lobby of he hotel, hearing the roar of the demons outside. He looked at the front doors, a shadow of something huge coming down the street. He ran up the stairs as he heard the demons smashing through the front doors. He reached the top of the stairs as a whole section of the wall was smashed in; he turned and saw the strangest thing he’d ever seen. It had 3 heads, tentacles, hundreds of eyes, 12 mouths, teeth 3 feet long, 2 giant talons and it had to bend over to fit in the lobby. Spike felt psychic waves of rage emanating from it, and he remembered feeling the same thing when he fought the zombies in the basement of Wolfram & Hart while Angel and Cordelia were fighting Lindsey. He ran down the corridor as more demons followed it inside.

“So that’s the failsafe specially designed to kill Angel.Too bad it’s here to kill me, would’ve bought it a pint.” Spike said to himself, running down a hall. He tried to repress his feelings of loss for his grandsire with humor. It wasn’t working.

Spike ran as fast as he could, the sound of the demon stampeding after him. He was almost to the suite, but he was cut off. A door opened and he was assaulted by a group of Fell Brethren warriors who came in through a window.

“There’s the one who took the Holy Vessel and killed our leader!” They roared, brandishing their swords. “You shall feel the holy wrath of the Fell!”

“Oh bugger your holy hogwash.” Spike said, grabbing a sword from the nearest Fell Brother and easily sliced off his attackers’ heads. “I killed your boss with only one hand, like you’d be trouble.”

He started running towards the room again as he heard the thunderous footsteps behind him. He didn’t need to look around to know that they were gaining on him. Spike made it to the suite, the demons right on his heels. He ran in and locked the door behind him, and just to be on the safe side he shoved a couch, a coffee table and a cabinet infront of the door.

He then began looking for the detonator. He ran all over the room, until he saw a small cell phone like device next to the television. He looked at the device, it was armed and the red blinking button was begging to be pressed. Then it really hit him; this was it, it was the end. No special trinkets to bring him back, no box full of flash, just death. He had all these months to go to her, and now this second chance was over. He wished he’d talked to her one last time, to tell her that he loved her, but it was too late. He regretted a lot of things in his life; the countless lives he’d taken, turning and staking his mother, attacking Buffy in the bathroom, but the two things he regretted most was not being able to save Fred and not seeing Dawn and Buffy one again, even if for just one last time.

CRASH

He looked up at the sound. The demons outside the room trying to break through the door, it was only a matter of time.

CRASH

He thought about his chances of fighting his way out. He could take on quite a few demons at once and win, but just how many was he going to have to fight? He went to the window and looked down at the street, he gasped at the sight. The street was overrun with monsters; they were everywhere, he couldn’t see a place on the ground that wasn’t teeming with demons. Sebassis’ troops, Mohra demons, Fell Brethren warriors, Vahrall demons, vampires, Skilosh demons, Mok’Togar demons, Hellhounds, Lilliad demons, the Order of Taraka, Boretz demons, cyborg fighters, Fyarl demons, Grox’lar beasts, Lubber demons, Suvolte demons, Chaos demons, Haxil beasts, zombies, Nezzla demons, Voynok demons, Kith’harn demons, Prio Motu demons, Jaarvlen flesh eaters, Grappler demons, Sluggoth demons, Kaliff demons, Ethros demons, Polgara demons, Durslar beasts, Rwasundi demons, Davrik demons, Wraithers, Ghora demons, Quellor demons, Thesulac demons, the Miquot Clan, the Scourge, soul eaters, Thraxis demons, the Sisterhood of Jhe, Lei Ach demons, goblins, Lur-ites, M’Fashniks, trolls, Haklars, Nahdrahs, gargoyles, Howlers, Grimslaw demons, Kungai demons, Kleynach demons, Glarghk Guhl Kashma’niks, Senih’D demons, another dragon and more creatures that he’d never seen before. Thousands of them kept coming down the streets, hundreds of them poured into the hotel. He was trapped, completely boxed in. There was no way out of this; even at his best he couldn’t take on half this many demons by himself. This was the end, and he knew it.

CRASH

Spike saw the door begin to splinter; they were seconds away from getting in.

“Death, glory, and sod all else.” Spike muttered, his grip on the detonator tightening.

CRASH

They had broken through; the demons ran into the room intent on destruction. Spike stood there with his finger on the detonator as they charged him.

“Dawn, Buffy, where ever you are, I love you.” Spike whispered, and he pressed the button.

KABOOM!!!

The bombs in the depths of the hotel exploded, blowing up the whole building. The demons looked on as the hotel exploded, vaporizing the demons closest and sending fire and wreckage into their ranks. Then they felt the mystic shockwave hit them, the demon toxin reducing them to dust. They began to retreat but another building exploded. And another, and another. They couldn’t escape the attack, the toxin spread a mile in every direction and in a matter of moments Wolfram & Hart’s entire demon army was dust in the wind. The explosions started fires all over the city; the demons had destroyed a dozen buildings looking for the murderers of the Black Thorn, a huge section of the city was a crater thanks to Angel’s bombs. Los Angeles was a war zone, but the war was already over.

“Bugger.” Spike said waking up. He sat up and looked at his surroundings. It looked like the living room of the Summers’ house before Sunnydale was destroyed. He stood up and walked into the other rooms; it had the same kitchen, same foyer, and same bedrooms, the only room he hadn’t checked was the basement. He approached the basement door, when suddenly he heard singing. He put his ear to the door and, sure enough, he heard someone singing “Wind Beneath My Wings.” He opened the door and slowly descended into the basement, he saw a man sitting on the bed by the window.

“Thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.” The man finished singing and smiled at Spike. He was dressed in a brown jacket, jeans and a pair of work gloves. He stood up and walked over to him, extending his hand. “Hey Spike, nice to see you.”

“Who are you and where am I?” Spike asked.

“Oh right, you aren’t exactly the most social vampire.” The man said, rolling his eyes.

“Who are you?” Spike asked, staring a hole in the man. “How do you know I’m a vampire and where the hell are we?”

“You can call me Emanuel, and as you probably guessed, we aren’t really in Buffy’s house.” The man answered. “I just thought familiar surroundings would make you more comfortable.”

“OK, so where are we really?” Spike asked, still not trusting this guy.

“It’s a little part of what you call the Higher Plains.” Emanuel replied.

“Wait,” Spike said, not believing what he was implying. “You’re saying we’re in Heaven?”

“Well, no, this isn’t the Heaven, it’s just a little pocket of reality in the suburbs of Heaven.” Emanuel said, sitting back down. “This is where people’s minds go when they need to get a message from God.”

“A god? Oh no, if this god’s anything like that Glory bitch, I’m out.”

“Oh man, I remember her. Never liked her, she was the kind of evil and arrogance that just ruins your day.” Emanuel said, making a face as if remembering a past encounter with Glorificus. “Besides, she was a god, this message is from THE God.”

“THE God, you mean He really exists?” Spike asked, disbelievingly.

“Well yeah, you don’t think it’s just a coincidence that crosses and holy water hurt vampires, or that Buffy went to Heaven do you?” Emanuel said, sitting back.

“Well, I never really saw anything solid on Him. And besides, I just hear about the Powers That Be.” Spike explained pulling up a chair. “So, what are you? My guardian angel or something?”

“Not exactly, but it doesn’t matter. As for the Powers That Be, they were born in the Creation, but who do you think did the Creating?” Emanuel asked, pointing towards the ceiling. “They help Him keep things running on the larger scale, but He keeps His eye on the lives of individual beings.”

“Really, then where the hell was He when Buffy needed Him?” Spike asked, suddenly remembering all the times he’d seen Buffy almost die. “What was He doing, sitting on His all-powerful ass havin’ a beer?!”

“Please Spike, calm down.” Emanuel said, trying to keep things civil.

“Calm down?! You say that He keeps watch on individual people, then where was He when Buffy died? Where was He all the times when Angel lost his soul?” Spike ranted, suddenly getting angry remembering all the times things went bad for people he cared about. “Where was He when Glory took Dawn? Where was He when we were fighting the First? Where was He when Dru and me killed all those people? Where was He when Joyce died? Where was He when an Old One destroyed Fred’s soul?”

“Spike!” Emanuel said, grabbing his shoulders. “Sit down and let me explain a few things to you.”

“Fine!” Spike said, sitting down hard.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked this and it probably won’t be the last. First off all, He doesn’t intervene unless it’s absolutely necessary. All the times you or Buffy or Angel stopped the world from ending, you had it under control and stopped it, so it wasn’t necessary. Second, He was there to take Joyce home when the aneurysm hit. And third, the guy who told you Fred’s soul was destroyed was wrong.”

“What?” Spike asked, caught off guard by that statement. “Knox and the doc that got the sarcophagus to Wolfram & Hart said that bringing Illyria back destroyed Fred’s soul.”

“No, no, no!” Emanuel said, getting his confusion. “Fred’s soul wasn’t destroyed!”

“What?!” Spike asked, jumping up, shocked.

“The process that brings the essence of an Old One into a human body doesn’t destroy the person’s soul; it kills the human and permanently fuses the body with the demon’s being. The process severs all possibility of any other spirit inhabiting that body, that’s why people mistake it for the soul being destroyed. Souls can’t be destroyed, anything that dies in a mortal plain still exists somewhere else. Even demons that die don’t just cease to exist.”

“You’re saying Fred’s soul…” Spike began, absorbing all this information

“Is enjoying eternity with Wesley.”

“Oh thank God!” Spike said, relieved beyond belief.

“You’re welcome. Now on to business, I still have that message.” Emanuel said, crossing his arms.

“Right, so what does the Big Man want?” Spike asked, lighting a cigarette.

“He wants you to go back to Earth.” Emanuel said matter of factly.

“Oh come on!” Spike said, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. “I already died twice savin’ the world and lost the woman I loved more than anything, what more do you want?”

“We want you to go back to Buffy.” Emanuel said, getting a shocked look from Spike.

“Ok, this is really Hell isn’t it? You’re gonna spend eternity telling me that I’m going back to Buffy right?” Spike sighed.

“No I’m serious, we need you back on Earth with her.” Emanuel said, sighing at the vampire’s pessimism.

“Right.” Spike said, disbelievingly. “She doesn’t want me and she sure as hell doesn’t need me and besides she’s with the Immortal.”

“Not anymore she’s not.” Emanuel said. “She broke up with him a few days ago and now he’s dead.”

“He’s not with her and he’s dead?” Spike asked, grinning. “What happened? Was it violent?”

”Oh brother. You and your violent fun.” Emanuel sighed. “What do you want to know first, Buffy dumping him or his death?”

“Buffy dumping him.” Spike said, with the anticipation of a five-year-old child waiting for a Christmas present.

“OK, first a question: do you remember Ilona Costa Bianchi.”

“Ilona Costa Bianchi? Why does that name ring a bell?” Spike asked, recognizing the name.

“She was the CEO of the branch of Wolfram & Hart in Rome.” Emanuel said.

“Oh yeah, I remember her. ‘Gypsies are filthy people.’” Spike quoted and then spat on the floor. “‘We shall speak of them no more.’”

“That’s her.” The messenger nodded. “Well, one day Buffy found the Immortal making out with her in his villa.”

“That bastard cheated on her? Is he insane?” Spike asked incredulously. “She’s beautiful, smart, stronger than any woman I’ve ever known. What more could someone want in a woman?”

“Well he’s ‘The Immortal’, he doesn’t know what real love is. We’ve watched him for centuries up here. He is without a doubt the most fickle being on Earth. Everything he did was based on whims and self-interest. He’s one of those people who lives as if the world were his own private amusement park.”

“I take it you and the Big Boss aren’t too happy with him either?” Spike asked grinning. ‘Finally, somebody who doesn’t like the Immortal.’

“Well, we have compassion for all things, but that doesn’t mean we approve of what they do.” Emanuel said.

“So then what happened?” Spike asked, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“Well, he tried to make it right with her; he said he’d show her the true meaning of pleasure. To which she replied, ‘I know what pleasure is, and I haven’t felt it since the man I love died.’ He said he’d do things that she’d never forget, things that she couldn’t imagine. He even offered…” The man said looking away.

“Offered what?” Spike asked, wondering why this guy’s demeanor had changed.

“Well… you remember what he did with Darla and Drusilla in 1894?”

“Yes, but what…What?! He wanted to have her and some other bint?!”

“Yep, but that’s not what really got her mad, it’s who he suggested join them.”

“He wanted that Ilona chit, God I’ll kill him!” Spike ranted angrily.

“It wasn’t Ilona, it was another woman close to Buffy who hated him from the beginning.”


“He wanted Willow? But she’s with that Slayer, Kennedy.”

“Not Willow.” Emanuel said, not looking forward to Spike realizing who the other girl was.

“Faith. He wanted to do two Slayers at once, that bastard!”

“Not her either.” Emanuel said, knowing Spike was on the verge of figuring it out.

“Well it can’t be Anya, I heard she was dead. The only other girl who’s close to Buffy is…” Spike’s eyes became the size of saucers. He couldn’t mean her. He looked at Emanuel’s nervous smile and his suspicions were confirmed. “Oh God no!”

“Dawn never liked him, he thought he could make up with Buffy and get Dawn on his side at the same time by… sleeping with both of them at the same time.” Spike looked ready to explode.

“WWWHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!” Spike hollered, jumping up and knocking over his chair. “I’LL KILL HIM! I’LL TRACK HIM TO WHEREVER HE IS AND KILL HIM! I’LL RIP OUT HIS INTESTINES AND STRANGLE HIM WITH THEM! I’LL CASTRATE HIM AND MAKE HIM EAT HIS OWN TESTICLES! I’LL STAB HIM WITH RED HOT POKERS EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY!” Emanuel just sat there and let Spike rant and vent his anger for the next twenty minutes, in which time he screamed every horrible painful way to kill the Immortal he could think of.

“Are you ready to let me continue?” Emanuel asked, after Spike sat back down. The vampire nodded.

“OK, she didn’t like his proposition either, she threw him out the window of her apartment. But after you guys took out the Circle of the Black Thorn, things really went south for the Immortal.”

“What?” Spike asked confused. “But we just did that, I just got here after we killed them.”

“Oh right, sorry. Time doesn’t work the same here, there’s only the now but on Earth time’s still going on.” Emanuel explained. “Anyway, after the Circle of the Black Thorn was killed, Wolfram & Hart’s operations went belly up. You threw a monkey wrench into their plans. Enchantments that they put on the government, the police, the FBI, the IRS, and the UN have been broken. Their clients’ affairs were thrown into the light. Plus the army of demons that you destroyed used up a lot of their resources and connections. Their funds went down the toilet. And many of their clients and employees were captured, killed, or fled to other dimensions. The Senior Partners are estimating it could take years to recover from this setback. Some are even discussing the option to abandon operations on Earth and look into some other dimensions, but that’s undoubtedly just a trick to try and lull their enemies into a false sense of security. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the last of them.”

“OK good the plan worked, but what does this have to do with the Immortal?” Spike asked, not seeing the connection.

“It seems that a large piece of the Immortal’s fortune was invested in Wolfram & Hart stock, when they went under he lost everything but the profits from his books. That would’ve been fine, but he owed a lot of money to a lot of people and they all came to collect at once. He paid all he could but he still owed a lot of people, and most of the people he owed were Wolfram & Hart clients who needed to get out of dodge. He tried to duck them and go into hiding with Ilona.”

“Bloody welcher.” Spike muttered.

“But he hadn’t counted on a Grefpag demon bombing his car. They got into his limo and it exploded.”

“Serves him right.” Spike smirked. “But I still don’t know about going back. Buffy has her friends, her Watcher, and an army of Slayers, what does she need me for?”

“Well for starters, she loves you.” Emanuel said, matter of factly.

“Don’t know where you get your information, but she doesn’t love me.” Spike said,

“Yes she does, she told you so.”

“She was just making it easy on a dying dead man.”

“Is that right?” Emanuel asked, a glint of amusement in his eye.

“Yeah, that’s right. So quit lying to make me feel better.”

“I’m not lying. I am incapable of lying.” Emanuel said.

“Then you’ve been misinformed.” Spike said, wishing this guy would stop tormenting him.

“I haven’t been misinformed either.”

“Well then you’re just really thick.” Spike snarled. “Why’d she even hook up with the Immortal?”

“What they had was short term, Buffy knew that. Even the Immortal knew that. She just wanted someone to help take her mind off of losing you.”

“Why do I not believe you?” Spike asked, trying not to get his hopes up.

“Because your insecurity and bad romantic past has you convinced that it’s impossible for her or any woman to feel that way about you, so you’re denying it so you won’t get your hopes up and thus get your heart broken.” Emanuel said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Spike just stared at him. It was like he read his mind.

“What, were you a shrink in a past life?” Spike asked, a little put off by the angel’s accuracy.

“No, I’ve just been around a long time.” Emanuel said, glad that he’d hit a nerve.

“Whatever.” Spike said, shaking it off.

“Besides, how do you know what she feels?” Emanuel said, pressing his advantage. “You haven’t spoken to her at all since you got back so you don’t know what she’s been through. All you’ve got to go on is what Andrew told you, and he didn’t tell you very much.”

“All right, halo boy, then what has she been through?” Spike asked reluctantly.

“She was unable to sleep for the first three months after the fall of Sunnydale. She thought of you when she was with the Immortal. She’s been crying every night since she found out you were back and died again. And the only reason she hasn’t killed herself been because that would mean your sacrifice was for nothing.”

“What are you talking about?” Spike asked, not believing what he was hearing.

“She meant it William, and if you don’t believe me then believe your eyes.” He said, turning on a television. The picture showed Buffy lying in bed surrounded by the Scoobies, telling them every detail of their time together. Then it switched to her beating up a vamp, screaming about Spike not believing her. And finally it cut to Buffy singing in Lorne’s new club. He saw the love and despair in her eyes, and he knew. He finally realized that she meant it. “She needs you, especially with what’s coming.”

“What?” Spike asked, that last comment catching his attention.

“There’s a big fight coming, and she’s going to need you in it. If you don’t she’ll die, and not the noble death she had when she sacrificed herself, it’ll be slow, humiliating, and agonizing. She’s going to need your help, and your love now more then ever. What do you say?” Spike looked at Buffy on the TV, it took one second to decide.

“Send me back.” Spike said, not taking his eyes off the TV.

“All right then.” Emanuel said, pointing to the television. A portal opened where the TV stood. “Jump in, it’ll take you to Lorne’s club in Rome where she’ll be waiting for you. You’ll have a slight case of amnesia, but it’s temporary and Lorne’ll have a spell to restore your memory.”

“Wait, I’m not gonna come back as a ghost again, am I?” Spike said looking at the portal.

“No, the portal will restore your vampire body. Now get going. Oh, and by the way, I will be keeping an eye on you from up here, so watch yourself.” Emanuel said giving him a small push towards the portal.

“What the hell?” Spike said to himself. He gave the angelic being a salute and jumped through the portal. He fell through the mystical tunnel at what felt like a hundred miles per hour until he was shot out into the club, landed hard on a table and was knocked unconscious.

***

The Slayer and demon just sat dumbfounded at the vampire’s tale.

“Wow!” Buffy said, barely above a whisper.

“I think ‘wow’ is an understatement, this is the kind of wow that comes by finding out that Jennifer Lopez won an Oscar.” Lorne said, shaking his head. “I need a Seabreeze.”

“So, you’re back.” Buffy said, still holding him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come looking for you Buffy.” Spike said, morosely.

“You’re here now, and you better not be going anywhere.” She said, resting her head on his chest.

“Not a chance Slayer.” Spike said smirking.

“I missed you a lot, you know. I hated that you didn’t believe me. I love you, Spike.”

“I’ll always love you, Buffy, I just hope that’s enough to get us through this.” Spike said, hugging her tight.

“We made it this far, and one of the big reasons I’m here is because of you.” Buffy said enjoying the feeling of his embrace. “I don’t know where a real relationship with you will lead, but I want to find out. We’ll deal with this and whatever comes next.”

***
In Los Angeles, reconstruction still had a long way to go. The firemen, police and National Guard had spent the past week digging through the rubble and wreckage in the aftermath of the disaster; luckily they hadn’t encountered any human casualties besides the four bodies they found earlier and the destroyed buildings were empty. The total number of leveled buildings was 47, and it was strange that there was only one of them that wasn’t owned by Wolfram & Hart. The office of Wolfram & Hart seemed to be ground zero for this disaster, after it collapsed the explosions started. Such chaos and destruction, no wonder it brought Ethan Rayne so much joy.

“Find anything?” asked the fire marshal to Ethan.

“Nothing, sir.” Ethan said, resuming his search. It was so easy to pass himself off as a fireman it was scary; an old uniform, a small glamour and he was in. He stayed with the group that was digging through the remains of the Wolfram & Hart building, he needed to find it or he’d face serious consequences from his new employer. He’d been searching for it all week and no trace of what he was sent for.

“Where the bloody hell is it?” Ethan asked under his breath, searching through a burnt out office. He finally uncovered a smashed desk, and inside a drawer was the object of his search. The crystal amulet of a champion that destroyed the Hellmouth, the chaos worshipper grinned holding up a key piece in the master plan. Ethan stashed the trinket in his pocket, now he just had to wait out this shift and make his escape. All this destruction was fine, but Ethan couldn’t wait until the real fun started.

Chapter 5: Reunions
Disclaimer: Joss owns the characters. However, since he treated them so bad on his shows, I’m putting them in foster care in my story.

Buffy, Spike and Lorne walked out of the bedroom and into the apartment. They saw Illyria standing in the foyer leading out to the club. Her mouth twitched as if she were about to smile, or what passed for a smile with Illyria.

“Greetings Spike, it is pleasing to see you again.” Illyria said, in her monotone voice.

“Good to see you too, Blue.” Spike smirked.

“Ah, you are awake.” Groo said entering the room. He began shaking Spike’s hand. “You’re bravery at the battle in Los Angeles was greater than any I have ever seen. Many warriors would be to afraid to face a flame beast or even a drokken by himself, but you took on an entire army of beasts even worse. You are truly a champion!”

“Um thanks.” Spike said, his hand still being shaken by Groo. “Can I have my hand back?”

“Oh of course.” Groo said, letting go.

“So, what should we do now?” Spike thought aloud.

“Um…” Buffy was at a loss. “I kinda haven’t thought that far. Oh my God, I never called Dawn or anyone to tell them I’m here!”

“Dawn’s old enough to be home alone.” Spike said.

“Not in her condition!” Buffy said, growing anxious.

“‘Condition’? What condition?” Spike asked, suddenly worried.

“She hasn’t taken the news of you being back and dying much better than me.” Buffy said, “I left her with Willow and Giles and everybody back at our apartment. I should’ve called!”

“Buffy, calm down.” Lorne said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Considering what happened last night, I think it’s understandable that you got a little sidetracked. I’ll go call them and tell them you’re here.”

“OK, but don’t tell them about Spike yet, I think we need to do that in person.” Buffy said, calming down.

“You got it, Honey buns.” Lorne said, going to the phone. As Lorne picked the handset up, they heard banging on the door of the club.

“Who could that be?” Gro asked.

“Let’s see.” Lorne said walking to the intercom. He pushed the button on the intercom to see who it was. “We’re not open till 11 am.”

“Lorne, it’s Andrew. We can’t find Buffy anywhere; she went out last night and didn’t come home. Have you seen her?” the watcher-in-training said, hurriedly.

“Call off the dogs, Sweet Potato, she’s in here with us.” Lorne said back.

“Oh thank Yoda,” Andrew sighed, relieved. “How’s she doing? Is she all right?”

“Well, yeah actually.” Lorne said, smirking at the Slayer and the vampire.

“Can I come in and see her?” Andrew asked franticly.

“Sure, I’ll come out and let you in.” Lorne said, grabbing his keys. “Um, do you guys wanna come with?”

“I guess we should, they’re probably worried enough as it is.” Buffy said, looking back at Spike. “I wonder how the dork will react?”

“As long as I don’t get staked I’m happy.” Spike said as they followed Lorne out front. Lorne unlocked the front door and Andrew ran immediately to Buffy not even noticing Spike.

“Buffy listen please, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you, but please don’t do this to yourself!” Andrew begged, shaking her a little. “I know you loved him, but you can’t just stop living because of it. I miss him like crazy too, but you can’t just…”

“Hi Andrew.” Spike interjected.

“Hi Spike.” Andrew said distractedly, and then turned back to Buffy. “Buffy, please think what you’re doing to yourself. You…” Andrew suddenly realized who he just said “hi” to and went pale. He turned slowly and saw Spike standing there, and promptly fainted.

“Well, that went well.” Lorne said, grabbing Andrew’s shoulders. “Gimme a hand, would ya Spike?”

“At least he didn’t hug me this time.” Spike said, as he helped the green singer get Andrew into a chair.

“Groo, be a dear and get me a glass of water.” Lorne asked. Groo obeyed. Lorne took the glass and threw the water in Andrew’s face, the excitable young man sputtered and woke up.

“Wha…what?” Andrew said, wiping his face. He looked up and saw Spike, his face grew afraid and angry and pulled out a cross. “Get thee hence, unclean spirit! You got a lot of nerve to do this, Spike slash the First! Buffy and Dawn aren’t suffering enough, so you come around looking like Spike?! You’re lucky I can’t touch you or I’d…uh get Faith to kick your ass!”

“Uh… what’s the Boy Wonder talking about?” Lorne asked, confused.

“He thinks I’m the bloody First.” Spike said, approaching Andrew and swatted the cross out of his hand. Andrew was dumbstruck, he looked at the cross laying on the floor and saw a small burn on Spike’s hand from touching the cross. The First couldn’t touch things and it certainly couldn’t be burned. Which meant this wasn’t the First. It really was Spike!

“Spike?” Andrew asked, his voice less than a whisper. “Spike?! SPIKE!”

“Oh bugger.” Spike groaned as the little nerd, once again, hugged him and started crying.

“I don’t believe it! You’re back! A fallen warrior of light dying a hero’s death twice, only to be returned to the world by forces beyond human understanding. A former creature of darkness destined…”

“ANDREW!” Spike said loudly, cutting off Andrew’s monologue. “If you don’t shut up and let go of me, I’ll burn all your sodding comic books after I kill you.”

“Letting go now!” Andrew said, quickly backing away from the vampire. “But one question, how are you back? Lorne said you died in a battle of Lord of the Rings proportions in Los Angeles, what happened?”

“Long story short; I fought, I died, I got sent back to help Buffy.” Spike said, keeping his distance from Andrew in case the little ponce tried to hug him again. “At least I’m not a bloody ghost this time.”

“A ghost?” Andrew asked, confused. “When were you a ghost? Were you like Patrick Swayze or Slimer?”

“Oh bloody hell, the first few months I was back I was noncorporeal. I couldn’t touch, couldn’t feel and I sure as hell didn’t make haunted pottery or slime Bill Murray.”

“This shell remembers meeting this strange annoying human, he seems to talk only of nonsense and gibberish.” Illyria said studying the one called Andrew. “What purpose does he serve under your command?”

“Hey! I’ll have you know, Smurf girl, that I am trained in several methods of killing demons and vampires and other stuff!” Andrew said indignantly.

“What is this word ‘Smurf’ that everyone calls me?” Illyria asked, tired of this human’s mindless prattle.

“I have all the episodes of The Smurfs on tape, I can show you later if you want.” Andrew said, trying to be helpful.

“OK, this is all good but what do we do about Spike?” Buffy asked the group, steering the conversation back on track. “It’s daylight out, so what should we do?”

“Well, I got a car and a blanket if you want me to drive you.” Lorne offered.

“I don’t know about this, Love.” Spike said unsurely. “According to what you’ve all been saying, everybody thinks I’m no longer among the unliving. Might be a shock to see me just waltzing into your apartment, probably think I’m the First like this little bugger did.”

“Well we need to think of something,” Buffy said, sitting in a near by booth. “Cause we need to tell them you’re alive before we can go further with this.”

“With what?” Spike asked.

“With whatever’s going to be between us.” Buffy said, looking Spike in the eyes.

“Well, I’m really good at relating delicate situations, I could tell them.” Andrew offered.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” Spike said flatly.

“Maybe we could call them and tell them to come here.” Lorne offered. “Maybe a little intervention type thing.”

“No!” Buffy said loudly. “Last few times we had an intervention it ended really badly. My friends kicked me out of my house and there were zombies and let’s not go into it.”

“OK, no intervention.” Lorne said, backing away.

“Why do you procrastinate on such simple matters as telling that an acquaintance has returned from the dead? Would they not be pleased to see him back as we are?” Illyria asked, becoming irritated at this talking in circles.

“Ah my fair goddess, you have clearly not heard the long and complicated history of Spike and Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyrs. Such many adventures and troubled times are far beyond anything you can imagine, little one.” Andrew said in his best narrator voice. The next thing he knew he was pinned to the wall by a very angry Old One.

“Do not dare presume to speak down to me mortal!” Illyria said, furious at this human’s tone. “I am Illyria, God-king of the Primordium, shaper of things! I was conquering worlds before the lower species learned to tell right from left! I traveled time and space and saw worlds that you couldn’t imagine! Worlds where iniquity was in the very air, life and death were meaningless and pain was God! Your limited mind couldn’t conceive the power that I ruled with, I have seen things beyond human imagination and you dare to speak to the Great Illyria in such an insolent tone?!”

“Whoa.” Andrew said, awestruck and suddenly excited. “That is so hot!”

“What?” Illyria asked, cocking her head, noticing heat radiating from the strange human’s body. “This pathetic being is lusting after me, why is he not afraid of my wrath?”

“I don’t believe it, Andrew has finally found someone who speechifies even more overblown than he does.” Buffy said, snickering. “Plus she does kinda look like a comic book character.”

“Yeah, ‘sides I figured if Andrew wasn’t batting for the other team he’d be into dominating women.” Spike said, smirking.

“Illyria put him down, he wasn’t trying to disrespect you he just doesn’t know better.” Lorne implored the former Old One.

“Very well,” Illyria said, dropping Andrew, but still glared at him. “Speak to me again in such impudent manner and the last thing you shall hear will be your own tortured screams as I tear your heart out.” She hissed as she walked away.

“She is so cool!” Andrew said, looking after her smitten.

“OK, how about we just get in my car, drive to your apartment and get it over with?” Lorne suggested again, seeing this was going nowhere. “If you want to get a start on this you actually gotta start, otherwise you’re just sitting here waiting for something to happen that you could make happen.”

“You’re right.” Buffy said, after a moment of thought. “Waiting is what screwed everything up for us in the first place, I’m done waiting.’

“Glad to here it, pet.” Spike said, grinning like an idiot.

“OK then Mouseketeers, let’s get goin’ then.” Lorne said, grabbing his keys and tossing a heavy blanket to Spike. Buffy, Spike, and Andrew piled into Lorne’s car and the green demon drove back to the apartment.

The ride only took fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The Slayer and the vampire kept running through possible scenarios of what might come next. There were so many ways this could go wrong, not the least of which involved everyone leaving in a huff and a possible attempted staking. They mustered up their courage for what was probably going to be a total fiasco.

“End of the line.” Lorne said as they pulled up to Buffy’s apartment building. He regretted his choice of words when he saw the apprehension on Buffy and Spike’s faces.

“Thanks for the ride, Lorne.” Buffy said getting out of the car, guiding Spike, who kept tripping over the blanket.

“Anytime, Sugar pie. Come and have a drink on me once things are settled.” Lorne offered.

“Thanks, we will.” Buffy said as she, Spike and Andrew walked inside. Lorne watched them walk inside; he couldn’t help smiling at the love he sensed between them. He felt a small weight lift off his shoulders, finding out Fred’s soul was in Heaven with Wesley and seeing two people who loved each other reunited warmed his heart. ‘Maybe there’s some hope in this world after all.’ Lorne thought. ‘Hope they find some happiness together, they deserve it.’

“Ain’t love grand?” Lorne said to himself, driving away. Meanwhile, the slayer, the vampire and the nerdy watcher had made it to the door to the apartment.

“I really hope this goes well.” Buffy said, taking out her keys.

“Hope the Nibblet’s happy to see me.” Spike muttered.

“She will be.” Buffy said, unlocking the door. “Guys, we’re back.” Buffy called as she and Andrew went in, Spike lagging behind so the others wouldn’t see him right away. They saw Xander, Faith, Giles, and Kennedy sitting in the living room, no sign of Willow or Dawn.

“Oh thank God!” Giles said, standing up.

“Buffy, where have you been?” Xander asked, walking over to her. “We were worried sick! Were you hurt?”

“No, I had to clear my head so I went slaying and I stopped by Lorne’s club.” Buffy said a small, almost unnoticeable smile. “Something happened, something incredible.”

“What?” Xander asked, slightly unnerved by Buffy’s strange behavior and expression on her face.

“A miracle.” Buffy said, turning towards the door. Xander followed her line of vision and his jaw hit the floor.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Xander yelled, his mind unable to process why the guy that Buffy had spent the past week mourning was standing in the doorway. The two Slayers and the watcher jumped up at Xander’s outburst, not seeing what he was yelling about. They looked past Buffy and Andrew and saw Spike smirking at the looks of shock on their faces. Xander grabbed a sword. “Buffy, Andrew back!”

“I knew this wouldn’t be easy.” Spike groaned at the whelp’s reaction.

“You bastard,” Xander said, his voce full of venom. “You make me sick! How could you do this to Buffy and Dawn?! Don’t you think they’ve got enough to deal with without you here playing ‘guess what dead guy I can look like’?”

“Oh bloody hell. I. Am. Not. The. Bloody. First. You. Idiot.” Spike muttered, as he reached out and knocked on Xander’s forehead. The one eyed former carpenter looked at the bleached menace with the kind of shock he hadn’t shown since the first time Anya asked to have sex with him, then he fainted.

“You really know how to make fellas swoon.” Buffy said, smirking as Spike scowled at her.

“Wha…how…what did you do?” Giles asked, not knowing how to react to this.

“I didn’t do anything, I went to Lorne’s club and a portal opened and…he came through it.” Buffy explained the situation.

“Where were…where did you come from?” Giles asked, cleaning his glasses.

“The Higher Plains or whatever they’re called, got sent back to help in a big fight coming.” Spike said, taking out a cigarette.

“Oh goody, always up for one of those.” Faith groaned.

“Yeah, and judging from what I was told, it’s gonna be a bad one.” Spike said, flicking his lighter on.

“Splendid.” Giles groaned, putting is glasses back on. “Did they or he or whomever give you any details on this impending doom?”

“Nope, just said it’s gonna be big and bad and if I don’t help Buffy could die. Again.” Spike said, his tone sounded casual but Buffy could detect a barley noticeable waver in his voice.

“Why did they-he whichever say why you especially must be present?” Giles asked, not entirely convinced that there might be trouble from Spike returning.

“He just said that Buffy would need my help.” Spike said, making the Watcher looked nonplussed. Giles never trusted Spike even with his soul, but he had tried to make peace with him after his sacrifice at the Hellmouth. He didn’t trust him, or at least this strange reappearance. If Spike was involved it would be real trouble, and the last thing he thought Buffy needed was more trouble. Even worse was how this would affect Buffy; he had seen how badly she was hurt by his death, but if the two of them were together it might cause even more pain.

“Where’s Dawn and Willow?” Buffy asked, she’d wondered where her sister and her best friend were.

“They’re in Dawn’s room.” Kennedy supplied, speaking for the first time. “She’s been trying to comfort Dawn about this whole thing, it really hasn’t been going well.”

“Do you think it’d be all right if…if I go see her?” Spike asked Buffy, a little hesitant to just run into the room and say, “Hey Dawn, turns out that whole death thing didn’t take.”

“Hell yeah,” Faith said, having seen the previous night how miserable the teenager was. “The girl hasn’t stopped bawlin’ all night. She started throwing up from crying so hard, after a while Willow did a sleep spell to get her to bed. She woke up a few hours ago, Willow’s been talkin’ to her trying to keep her calm since then.”

“Oh God.” Buffy said, looking at the floor. “Spike, we have to see her.”

“All right, but could you maybe go in and sorta prepare her or something? I don’t wanna give the bit a bloody aneurysm.” Spike asked, the thought of Dawn unhappy made up his mind.

“OK.” Buffy said, walking toward Dawn’s room with Spike right behind her. Buffy pushed the door open a little and saw Dawn looking at the ground with Willow’s arms around her, rubbing her back and saying that it’d be OK.

“Buffy you’re home!” Willow said, looking up as did Dawn.

“Hello Buffy.” Dawn said, wiping her eyes with her shirtsleeve.

“Hey Willow, hey Dawn.” Buffy said, noting the unshed tears in her baby sister's eyes.

“Buffy,” Willow patted the space next to her on the bed and Buffy sat down. “I’m so sorry. I want you to know that I’m here for you. I thought that, maybe, if you want, I could try to…”

“No!” Dawn said glaring at the redhead, tears falling freely from her eyes. “No. I know that they let him in Heaven. It’s not possible that they’d send him to…to the other place after everything he did. He deserves some peace.”

“I know he went to Heaven, Dawnie, it just wouldn’t be right if he wasn’t.” Willow said, rubbing Dawn’s shoulder. “I just thought that, well, in a choice between being dead and being with his favorite girls, wouldn’t he choose being with you guys?”

“If he wanted to be with us, he would’ve come when he got back.” Dawn said sadly, turning away. “It wouldn’t even be his choice, it’d be ours. We made that mistake once.”

“Um guys,” Buffy said, getting their attention. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What Buffy?” Willow asked. She hoped Buffy hadn’t done something foolish from her grief, having been down that road herself.

“It’s nothing bad, but prepare yourselves for a shock.” Buffy said, seeing the interested yet puzzled looks on their faces. She got off the bed and went to the door. “I went slaying last night, and then I went to Lorne’s club and…well, look.”

Buffy went to the door and motioned for someone to come in. Dawn and Willow’s jaws hit the floor when they saw the bleached menace walk into the room; they just gaped at a face they were certain they’d never see again. Dawn stared at Spike for a few seconds before the wheels in her head started turning; this couldn’t be Spike, it was the First just trying to torture them with this manifestation of their friend.

“YOU! You piece of shit!” Dawn growled, her sadness replaced by rage. “How could you do this to us?! To him! How dare you look like him?! He loved my sister and me more than an evil scum like you will ever know!”

“Nibblet, please calm …” Spike began, but Dawn cut him off.

“Don’t you DARE call me that!” Dawn raged. “Don’t you do that! Don’t you dare come in here and try to…God, just get the hell out of here!”

“Dawn, please let me explain.” Spike tried again, but Dawn wouldn’t let up.

“Explain what, that my friend is dead and that you’re just doing this for fun? Got the memo. Now get the hell out of my room and GET THE HELL OUT OF HIS BODY!” Dawn demanded, her voice dripping with venom. She looked away but her blood was still boiling; she knew that the First was incorporeal but she didn’t care, she had to hit something. She pulled back and swung at the apparition of her former friend.

“OW!” Spike yelped as Dawn’s fist connected with his face. “Why does everybody go for the nose?”

“Wha…?” Dawn’s jaw dropped as she felt her fist sting from the punch, the First was intangible so how did she just hit it? She looked at Spike with wide eyes, if it wasn’t the First, then that meant…no it wasn’t possible.

“Dawn?” Spike asked, as Dawn just stood there still staring at him. It finally clicked that this wasn’t the First and it wasn’t a dream. This was real. This was really happening! Spike was there, in her room!

“Spike?” Dawn asked, her voice barley a whisper.

“Yeah Dawn, it’s me.” Spike said, trying to convince her that it was real. Dawn stood there, mouth agape, letting it sink in. She lowered her arms and redirected her gaze to the floor, suddenly not knowing what to say.

“Hi Spike.” She said, backing up slightly, still not looking at Spike.

“Dawn?” Spike ventured, perplexed by Dawn’s change in demeanor. “Nibblet?”

“It’s great to have you back, Spike. I uh, I got some things to do so I better go.” Dawn said, before turning to the door. Spike, Buffy and Willow just stared as the youngest member of the Summers clan grabbed her coat and hurried out the door and of the apartment.

“This is just not my day for reunions.” Spike said sarcastically. Buffy went out into the living room, but Dawn had already left.

“What happened?” Xander asked, as he regained consciousness. After seeing how sad Dawn had been about Spike being gone, the last thing anybody expected was for her to just run out like that.

“I said hi, she thought I was the First and she hit me, she realized I was real, then she said hi and ran out of the room; that’s about it.” Spike said, confused at this reaction from Dawn.

“Maybe she just needs time to let it sink in.” Willow suggested, trying to be helpful.

“Or maybe she’s kinda freaked out.” Kennedy said. “I mean someone she loved just came back from the dead, wouldn’t that throw anyone for a loop?”

“She seemed to have no problem when she saw me.” Buffy said, remembering her encounter with Dawn at Glory’s tower after she was resurrected.

“Perhaps she just needs time to sort out her feelings,” Giles suggested. “As I recall Spike and Dawn didn’t part on good terms.”

“Neither did we.” Spike said staring daggers at the Watcher, still brassed off by his treatment of Buffy in the last days of Sunnydale as well as his refusal to help save Fred. “But you didn’t dash out of the room when you realized I was real.”

“Yeah, but Giles didn’t spend two months in grief counseling after you died.” Xander said, then clamped a hand over his mouth.

“What?” Spike asked, the sudden knowledge that his Little Bit went to see a physiatrist.

“After it sunk in that you were gone Dawn really took it hard.” Willow explained. “She blamed herself for not talking to you or saying goodbye before the Hellmouth blew up.”

“Yeah, the whole ride from Sunnydale she just stared out the back of the bus at the crater. She didn’t say anything until we got to a motel,” Faith said, slumping on the couch. “Not a pretty picture, from what B told us.” Spike turned to Buffy, wanting to hear the rest of this.

“I went to get some ice for our her injuries.” Buffy said, not relishing recalling the memory of that day. “When I came back, she was curled up on the floor in the bathroom. She smashed the mirror, she had blood on her hands and she couldn’t stop crying. Our house, Mom’s grave, and you and Anya were gone. Having pretty much everything in your life suddenly taken away kinda makes you a little crazy.”

“She and I sat together in our room and talked,” Buffy said, remembering that day a year ago like it was yesterday. “After talking with her, it was pretty clear that she had a lot of unresolved issues with you and Sunnydale. Giles and me talked and decided to get her into some grief counseling. It took a while but she finally made peace with the fact that you and everything else was gone. I guess with this whole thing, it tore open a bunch of old wounds and rubbed salt in ‘em.”

“Oh God.” Spike said, running a hand through his platinum hair. He knew things with Dawn hadn’t ended well, but grief therapy? “So what do we do? Should we go after her, or give her some time to adjust or what?”

“I don’t know,” Buffy said, sitting on the coach. “Maybe someone should go and try to calm her down. Besides it’s Tuesday, we don’t keep an eye on her she’ll get kidnapped by a demon or something.”

“Oh God, she’s right.” Said Xander. “We better go get her before a hell god or a music demon tries to use her as a key-bride or something. Oh, and I’ll be wanting an explanation for the Bleached Wonder being back after we get back.”

“OK, Dawn usually likes to hang out at the Trevi Fountain.” Buffy said, addressing the Scoobies. “Other than that, she hangs out at Alle due Fontanelle. Willow and Kennedy, you two go to the fountain. Xander and Giles check the restaurant. Spike and I will take the tunnels to some of her other hangouts. Faith and Andrew, stay here in case she comes back.”

“Oh God no, B.” Faith said jumping up at the suggestion. “I’ll go anywhere you want, but don’t make me stay with the geek.”

“Fine,” Buffy said, realizing that being stuck in a closed space with Andrew for any period of time was a nightmare. “Faith, check out the mall.”

“You got it, B.” Faith said heading out the front door, followed by Willow, Kennedy, Xander and Giles.

“Andrew, if Dawn comes back, call on my cell phone.” Buffy told Andrew.

“You can count on me, Buffy.” Andrew said, pulling out one of his X-Men comics and sitting on the coach.

“Let’s go.” Buffy said as she and Spike left the apartment. The group walked down into the lobby; Willow, Giles, Xander and Kennedy walked through the front entrance and Spike and Buffy went through a door that led to the subbasement where the sewer access was. Spike held open the trap door as Buffy descended into the tunnels, a feeling of nostalgia washing over them.

“Sewers of Rome. Every tourist’s favorite sight seeing destination.” Spike said, as they walked through the tunnels.

“You know, I kinda missed this.” Buffy said, smiling at Spike.

“I did too, well except for the sewers.” Spike said, smirking. “You’d be surprised how many times Angel’s crew dragged me threw the sewers.”

“Which reminds me you big jerk,” Buffy said, as they walked through the stinking tunnel. “I still would like an explanation for you not coming after me.” Spike saw the look in Buffy’s eyes and knew he had a lot of explaining to do.

“I’m sorry about that,” Spike said, looking down the tunnel and away from her. “I was all ready to come to Europe and find you. But then I got to thinkin’ that I couldn’t just show up after going out in a blaze of glory saving the world and expect to pick up where I left off. It’s hard to top an exit like that. And I thought that you didn’t mean what you said in the Hellmouth, I really really hoped you did, but a little voice in the back of my mind kept saying I was just deluding myself. And since my blood still doesn’t flow in the direction of my brain, I listened to it.”

“Well, won’t be the first timed you made a bad decision.” Buffy said kindly, taking his hand. “Well, now you know the truth.”

“Yeah.” Spike said, smiling at her. “We still need to find the Little Bit though, and decide how we’re going to do this thing between us.”

“Yeah we do, but there is going to be a thing between us.” Buffy said, smiling.

“Glad to hear. Let’s hurry and find Dawn before gets into trouble she’s so famous for getting into.” Spike said, remembering that his Nibblet was out there somewhere in this huge city. The two continued through the sewers, silently promising that things would be different this time around.

Across town at the Trevi Fountain, Dawn Summers sat and thought. Her eyes traveled to the water in the fountain, and she noticed the plethora of coins on the bottom. She remembered all the coins she had thrown in, every single one was to wish that she could see Spike again. She had always loved Spike, at first she had a little crush on him but after Buffy died she began to look up to him like the big brother she never had. He never put on airs with her or treated her like a baby; she could talk to him about everything that she couldn’t tell her friends or her sister. If it wasn’t for him, she probably wouldn’t have survived the grief of Buffy’s death, and she knew it was the same for him. They were each other’s strength during those unbearably long 147 days.

But after Buffy returned, Spike almost never came to see her. She found out that was due to him and Buffy sneaking off to have sex, she had been secretly hoping that they would be together but from what she was told it wasn’t exactly a healthy relationship. She had hinted at the two of them should get together, she had hoped that them being together would be the thing to get Buffy the kind of guy she deserved and get some stability and happiness in their lives.

Then he tried to rape her sister. She had never been so mad at him before, she never really understood why Xander and everyone despised Spike so much until she heard that. She knew that he probably never really cared about her, that he was a monster, but she had hoped that there was some small piece of decency that could make it OK for him to be part of their little family. When she heard what he tried to do that notion was shot to hell. She had hated him for that, for betraying his promise not to hurt the two of them. She slowly learned to forgive him as Buffy and he became closer, but with the way things were there wasn’t any opportunity to try and make peace with him.

But then she remembered what had to be the single worst thing she had ever done, she turned her back on her sister and threw her out. She thought at the time that it was the right thing to do; she thought Buffy needed some time to get her thoughts in order. Or at least that’s what she told herself. She couldn’t get the image of the betrayal in Buffy’s eyes out of her mind the whole time, and when Spike and Andrew got back she felt even worse. Spike said that they were sad ungrateful traitors, and when Xander and Willow said that they all decided and that they were her friends she realized what they had done. Giles, Wood, Kennedy and Rona had been waiting for an opportunity to get control of the situation since Wood almost killed Spike. She had sensed that Buffy had taken more of a leadership role and Giles had been pushed aside. And how Wood had been bitter about the thwarting of his attempt to kill Spike. She remembered Spike’s words when he and Andrew got back.

“You sad, sad, ungrateful traitors. Who do you think you are? Oh, that’s ballsy of you. You’re her friends and you betray her like this? You know, I think I do Rupert. You used to be the big man, didn’t you? The teacher all full of wisdom. Now she’s surpassed you and you can’t handle it. She has saved your lives again and again. She’s died for you. ”

She had died for her, and she turned her back on her. She saw Giles had taken over as “the Watcher” to Faith, she saw the way things had become when Buffy left. It wasn’t just about Buffy’s plan; it was about Giles and Wood’s vendetta. Spike may have tried to rape her sister, but she and the Scoobies had succeeded in raping her of her dignity. She couldn’t look her sister or Spike in the face till after the battle at Sunnydale, even when Buffy tried to say a goodbye incase she didn’t make it. She knew then that even though she had forgiven him, he’d never forgive her for turning on Buffy. She made her sister “take time out of the apocalypse”; the whole town was empty except for the First’s minions and random vamps and demons, she could’ve been killed in a minute. Her sister could’ve died again, because of her. She didn’t feel like she deserved to live through the fight, she should’ve gone under not Spike and Anya. She never told him how much he meant to her, that she still loved him and that she was sorry for everything.

It took her so long to get over it, not as long as it took Buffy but still it was a while. If it hadn’t been for Andrew listening to her rants and cries she might never have been able to live her life. She went to school and made new friends and she went on with her life. She missed him everyday as did her sister, but they went on. Until Lorne showed up and told them that Spike had returned, then everything collapsed.

He was back. All the unnecessary mourning and sadness, all the opportunities to start over and it was gone before they even knew it. Spike chose not to come and find them, he stayed away because he thought that she and her sister wouldn’t care that he was back. Andrew knew it and he didn’t tell them. Spike told him not to tell them, and for the first fucking time in his life he keeps a secret. She began to trust Andrew and when she heard that he kept this from them, knowing how badly she and Buffy were hurting, she couldn’t stand the sight of him. And now suddenly Spike’s back again. How do you deal with that? What do you say to make it right? How do you try to be friends again with someone you threatened to set on fire in his sleep? How do you look someone in the eyes when they died thinking you didn’t love them?

“DAWN!” Dawn was jolted out of her thoughts by a voice shouting at her from the other side of the fountain. She looked up and saw Willow and Kennedy rushing towards her.

“Hi Willow, Kennedy.” Dawn said, as her two friends came up to her.

“Dawn, are you OK?” Willow asked, as she and Kennedy sat beside the junior Summers.

“Not really, I just don’t know what to do.” Dawn said, looking at the quarter in her hands. “Spike’s gone, Spike’s back, Spike’s gone again, Spike’s back again and I just don’t know how to deal with this.”

“Dawn,” Willow said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I know it must be confusing, but isn’t this a good thing?”

“Yeah, you’ve been so bummed about him dying again, so aren’t you happy he’s back?” Kennedy interjected.

“I just…I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.” Dawn said miserably. “He tried to hurt my sister, that’s not the sort of thing you’re supposed to forgive. And I did, I forgave him. Does that make me a bad person?”

“Dawn honey, no!” Willow said hugging Dawn. “Forgiveness is never wrong.”

“Then do you think he can forgive me?” The former Key asked.

“Dawn, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Kennedy said, trying to help her girlfriend comfort the miserable girl.

“I let him die thinking I hated him. Do you know what it feels like for someone you loved to die and you never got to tell him what they meant to you?” Dawn asked.

“Yeah, I do actually. My old Watcher, Lisa. My parents were always off somewhere, my half-sister never talked to me and I never really met anyone else. Lisa was my only friend.” Kennedy said seriously. “She talked to me, listened to me, put up with me.” She said smiling at the memory of her Watcher. “Just before she died we had a big fight. I skipped school and our training session to go to the movies; we really blew up at each other. Said a lot of things I didn’t mean, and then the Bringers came through the window. Lisa told me to run for it while she held them off. I got away, she didn’t. She died and I never told her that I thought of her as the mother I always wanted. So believe me I know.” Willow looked surprised at her girlfriend, she had never heard about this from her before. More tears fell from Dawn’s eyes as she heard of the young Slayer’s painful memory. “My advise is this; you got a second chance to make things right, don’t throw it away.”

“She’s right Dawn, there’s not a day goes by that I wish I could tell Tara how much she meant to me, and I know Xander feels the same way about Anya.” Willow said. “I know we haven’t exactly been big fans of the Bleached Menace, but if you really care about someone you should try to make it work. So what do you say we go home so you, Buffy and Spike can talk?” Dawn thought about it for a minute, she needed to at least try to make things right.

“OK.” Dawn nodded and stood up. She, Willow and Kennedy stood up and began walking home, ready to head back and make a fresh start.

As they began walking, a black van sped into the square and three guys in black jumped out. The two closest to the three girls hit Willow and Kennedy with stun guns, the slayer and witch fell to the ground as the third guy grabbed Dawn and hauled her into the van.

“DAWN!” Willow shouted running after the van, but it was already out of sight. “We gotta call Buffy!”

Chapter 6: Starting Over
Disclaimer: Here’s what we own: Jack and crap, and Jack left town.


Willow pushed the speed dial on her cell as she and Kennedy ran through the streets of Rome back towards Buffy’s apartment. Meanwhile in the sewers, Buffy told Spike what had been going on in the months following the Battle of Sunnydale.

“…And after Giles got money from the secret off shore accounts of the old Watchers Council, we started setting up the new one. We spent three months in England setting it all up, we even managed to track down the surviving Watchers. And once headquarters was set up, we split up to different continents to find other Slayers.” Buffy continued as she and Spike trudged through the tunnels. Now she wanted to here what Spike had been up to. “So, what all happened to you in LA?”

“Long and fascinating tale, ghost story in fact. See…” Spike began, but was cut off by Buffy’s cell phone ringing.

“Hello?” Buffy said into the phone.

“Buffy, it’s Willow!” came the voice of the frantic redhead.

“Willow, what’s wrong?” The Slayer asked, recognizing Willow’s “Oh crap, the world is ending” voice.

“We found Dawnie.”

“Oh, well isn’t that a good thing?” Buffy asked, dreading the answer.

“No, a bunch of guys took her and sped off in a black van!”

“What?!” Buffy shrieked into the phone, almost causing Willow to drop the phone. “How? Who? Did you see their faces?”

“No, they had masks on. Kennedy and me are heading back to your apartment. I’ll call Xander and Giles, you and Spike should head home.”

“Got it, bye Will.” Buffy said, hanging up her cell phone. “Shit! Willow says someone kidnapped Dawn.”

“Again? Bloody hell, that girl’s a trouble magnet.” Spike grumbled, as they ran back through the sewers. “After we save her, we need to implant a homing beacon in her head or something.”

At the Summers’ apartment, Andrew had gotten bored waiting, so he called up a friend to get the latest comic book news.

“No, you are out of your mind!” Andrew said into the phone “Tobey Maguire IS Spider Man! …You’re crazy, Tom Lenk can’t act and he’s to skinny to be Peter Parker! Oh you’re crazy…”

“ANDREW!” A voice shouted out of nowhere, jolting the young watcher from his conversation and sending him crashing to the floor. He looked up and saw the other Scoobies looking at him, weapons in hand.

“Um, I gotta call you back.” Andrew said hanging up his phone. “What’s going on?”

“Somebody kidnapped Dawn.” Buffy said, scowling down at the geek.

“WHAT?!” Andrew said, jumping up horrified. Since they left Sunnydale he and Dawn had become the best of friends, and her being in trouble was a terrifying prospect.

“Me and Kennedy were walk her home and a van screeched in and some guys took her.” Willow said, extremely scared for the youngest Summers girl. “We tried to stop them but they were so fast.”

“It’s OK, Will. Right now we need to find her…again.” Buffy said, grabbing a sword. “Andrew, call Maria, Clarice, Isabella, Carmella, Rachelle and Teresa, we might need some Slayer assistance

“On it!” Andrew said, speed dialing the resident Slayers.

“I have a few informants around the city, they might tell us something.” Buffy said, “In the mean time, Willow search the net for any info on black vans that were sold in the last six months or try to match the license plate.”

“It went by too fast to see the plate, but I’ll look it up.” Willow said, pulling up to the computer.

“Me and Spike will check the local demon haunts, see if there’s a new player in town.” Spike grabbed a crossbow and started for the door with Buffy. “We’ll meet up here later if we don’t come up with anything.”

******

Dawn slowly regained consciousness; her head was throbbing from when they, whoever they were, knocked her out. She looked around; she was in an office type room full of vampires and guys with guns.

“I say we kill her.”

“No, we need the girl alive.”

“There’s too much money in this deal to kill her.”

She tried to move but she was tied to a chair. She tried to speak, but saw that they had gagged her. Her muffled squeak got the attention of the kidnappers.

“Ah, I see our fanciulla is awake.” Said a Goran demon in a tuxedo with a bad comb-over who seemed to be the leader. Dawn grumbled through her gag some more as the demon approached her. He pulled the gag from her mouth and addressed her politely. “And how are you feeling singorina?”

“Screw you, pal.” Dawn hissed, spitting in his face. The demon pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face, then produced a carpenter’s knife and held it to her neck.

“You really should respect your elders.” The demon said calmly. He set the knife down on the table behind her, replaced her gag and smacked her hard.

“I still want to eat her. After what her sister did last night, a little payback is in order.” Said a large vampire who was obviously the alpha of the bloodsuckers. “I mean come on Alfonso, what’s a little bitch like her worth?”

“Twenty five million, Mr. Bart.” The demon responded. The group looked at each other, considering the prospect of how much their shares would be.

“That’s fine with me.” Said one of the humans. Dawn shuddered at the hungry looks Bart and the other vampires. She was panicking, how could she get out of this? She scanned the room looking for something, anything to get her out of this. Then she remembered the demon guy set the knife on the table behind her. She tried to reach out with her fingers, see if she could get the knife. She moved her hand and she felt a twinge of pain and a drop of blood drip down her fingers, it was the knife. She strained and gripped it between her middle and ring fingers, slowly dragging it towards her. Inch by inch she was able to pull the knife into the palm of her hand. Now she just had to wait for the opportunity to escape.

******

“Nothing.” Xander said as he and three of the Slayers entered Buffy’s apartment.

“Same here.” Said Faith as she entered, followed by Maria and Clarice. “I beat up most of the demons in local bars and nobody knew anything.”

“Times like this, I miss Sunnydale. At least there when she disappeared there was limited group of places to find her. She’d be at the Bronze, Spike’s crypt, the hospital that once, uh…the Bronze. Here, it’s a city full of ten million people and the cemeteries are so much bigger. You’d think people would wanna be buried in a more cozy grave yard.”

“Big city life, big city trouble.” Spike said, seething that they still couldn’t find her.

“Anything on the net, Will?” Buffy asked, desperate for any information.

“Nope, nobody has bought or sold a black van in the last six months.” Willow said morosely, she hated it when she couldn’t get something done.

“How about stolen cars?” Buffy asked. “Maybe the van was stolen and someone reported it missing. I mean, kidnappers; not exactly the guys who buy what they can just steal.”

“Bingo.” Willow said, pulling up the file. “A black van was stolen near the club down the street about a month ago. Ooh, there’s a picture.” She turned the laptop around and showed off the picture of the stolen vehicle. It was the exact same one they saw.

“That’s the one.” Kennedy said, pointing at the screen.

“Well, now that we have established it was stolen what do we do?” Giles asked, cleaning his glasses. Buffy was silent, she didn’t know what to do. Her element was in small town Sunnydale, this was one of the biggest cities on earth and her baby sister was out there somewhere. She hadn’t felt so lost and unprepared. The group stood in silence and tried to think of something to find Dawn. Then Spike’s eyebrows shot up.

“Wait, I got an idea!” the bleached vamp said, getting the Scoobies attention. “But it’s a little strange.”

“Anything’s worth a shot.” Buffy said,

“Right then, let’s go.” Spike said, and the group filed out of the apartment, hoping that whatever Spike’s plan was it would work.

******

Dawn anxiously sat and waited for any opening to cut the ropes and escape, hoping against hope that her kidnappers wouldn’t find the knife first.

“Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me I have to make a call.” Alfonso said, leaving the room. Dawn looked around the room; seven vampires and eight men with guns, escape was looking not likely. She tried to think of any possible way that she could distract them, but nothing came to mind. Dawn was jolted from her thoughts by a snarling vampire inches away from her face.

“You’re not leaving this place alive.” Bart growled, brandishing his fangs.

“Back off, Americano!” said Carmine, one of the Italian thugs, pressing a stake dangerously close to the vampire’s chest. “Alfonso says the girl lives, then she lives.”

“Like I give a damn what he says!” The vamp said, fully intending on starting a fight. The other humans and vampires began approaching their comrades in preparation for the imminent brawl. “Besides, I gotta get some decent food, everything here is too greasy.”

“Say that again?” The thug said, gripping the stake harder. The other Italians and vampires closed in, hoping to keep things from getting out of hand.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Bart said sarcastically. “I said all the people here are too gre…”
The vampire didn’t get a chance to finish as Carmine lunged at him. Their counterparts grabbed the two hotheads and tried to hold them back.

“Io omicidio tu bastardo!” Carmine shouted, trying to escape the grasp of his friends and drive the stake through the vampire’s chest.

“Lemme at him!” Bart shouted, barely being held back by the other vampires.

“Will you two break it up?” one of the humans shouted trying to separate the pair.

“After your buddy is dead!” Bart shouted getting out of his colleagues’ grasp. Carmine broke the grip of his men and the two began struggling. The others tried to break them up, but got pulled into the fight instead. In less then two minutes it was an all out battle, humans vs. vampires.

The mêlée was just the opportunity Dawn needed. She cut the ropes with the carpenters knife, the guards were to busy beating the shit out of each other to notice anything beyond their fight. The ropes on her wrists fell to the floor and she slowly stood up, still nobody noticed. ‘For once, being ignored has an advantage.’ Dawn thought to herself. She cautiously inched towards the door, going virtually unnoticed by the mercenaries and vamps. She was out the door and down the hall before she heard a gun go off. Alfonso came back in and he was mad as hell.

“What the hell is going on here?!” Alfonso said, firing a shot into the air to get his cronies’ attention. “I had to tell my employer that I had to call him back, and he is not the sort of fellow to hang up on. I hired you to help me get the girl to the drop off point and…where is the girl?” the gang looked at the chair she was tied to and around the room, she was nowhere to be found.

“You lost her!” Bart growled to Carmine, ready to start another fight.

“ENOUGH!” Alfonso shouted, getting the attention of the group. “Find that girl or, not only will you not receive a share of money, you will either eat lead or kiss daylight! NOW!”

Dawn looked out from her hiding place in the air vent. ‘At times like this, it pays to be thin.’ Dawn thought to herself as she crawled through the vent system. She felt like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, she was stuck in a building with Eurotrash bad guys who wanted her dead. Too bad she didn’t have a machine gun or some plastic explosives like he did. Or at least be a little taller and a lot stronger.

She was crawling past a vent into a small office, when she heard voices, one with an Italian accent and one with an American accent. She figured that the American was a vampire since none of them were Italian. She felt her heart stop from fear when she saw the door fly open and a vampire and a large man with a gun entered the room.

“Have you found her?” came the Italian voice.

“No, I haven’t found her!” The American voice gritted out. “I don’t get it, her scent is all over the place. Where is she?!”

“Well maybe she marked her territory before she ran.” Said the Italian voice sarcastically.

“You know, you really shouldn’t make fun of someone who eats your species kind for breakfast.” The vamp snarled.

“You don’t have the guts to spill Italian blood.” The mercenary said, getting into the dead man’s face.

“Yeah you’re right, Italian food gives me indigestion.” Dawn sensed a scuffle was about to start and decided to move on. She began crawling again, hoping that their fight might give her time to escape. She was almost clear of the grate when she moved her leg wrong and inadvertently kicked the grate. The rattle of Dawn’s foot hitting the grate jolted the two kidnappers from their quarrel.

They ran over to the vent and the vampire ripped it off the wall like it was a candy bar wrapper. He stuck his head in and saw her legs moving away from the vent. He pulled his head out and stuck his arm in after her. He flailed around trying to grab her leg, but she was just out of reach.

“She’s in the air conditioning system!” The Italian said, into a walkie-talkie.

“That’s why I could smell her everywhere, the A.C. was carrying her scent all over the building.” The vamp growled. “Come on, we gotta tell the boss.”

******

“Oy, this is guy is murdering Bobby Mcferin.” Lorne groaned as a Senorch demon sang the most off key rendition of “Don’t Worry Be Happy” ever.

“The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don't worry, be happy
Don't worry, be happy.”

There was a scattered applause as the bloated demon walked off the stage, as well as a few shouts of “You suck”. Buffy, Spike, the Scoobies and the Slayers entered the club.

“Hold it.” Said a tall, muscular demon who, they guessed, worked the door. “Your weapons stay here, there’s no violence in Caritas.”

“I don’t know about this, Buffy.” Giles mumbled, not fond into a room full of demons unarmed.

“Relax, Giles.” Buffy said, handin her stakes over to the demon.

“You betcha chief.” Spike said, handing over his weapon. The other Scoobies surrendered their weapons as well, but it took a little convincing to get Giles to hand over his axe.

“This is your plan, we sing karaoke while we wait for the kidnappers to send a ransom note?” Xander asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“No, Fred once told me that when Angel and his team hit a dead end, they’d sing for Lorne.” Spike explained. “Since he’s psychic he can tell us where she is.”

“He’s right, Lorne saw Spike come back after I sang last night.” Buffy explained.

“Still would like an explanation on that.” Xander said, earning him a glare from Spike.

“After we save Dawn, promise.” Buffy said, surveying the club for Lorne. She saw dozens of demons and humans commingling, but no Lorne.

“Oh you’re kidding!” came a voice from the bar. The Slayer turned and saw the green demon getting some obvious bad news. “We can’t be out of bat’s milk, I just bought a case yesterday!”

“Lorne!” Buffy called as they went over to the bar. The Pylean turned and saw the blonde Alayer, the blonde vamp and their friends looking like something bad went down.

“Oh, hey Buffy, Spike, everybody. What can I do for you?” Lorne asked, sensing that they were in distress. “Oh, I see the troops are assembled and you’re probably not here for the free nachos.”

“My sister was kidnapped, we need your help.” Buffy said shortly.

“I haven’t heard anything from my clientele, but I’ll…” Lorne began but he was interrupted by Buffy.

“No, we need you to read us so we can find her.” Buffy said hurriedly.

“Oh! Right, silly me.” Lorne said, slapping his forehead. “OK, who’s going to sing?” The group looked at each other, none really feeling in a musical mood. They just stared at one another for a few minutes. “Oh come on, somebody has to sing.”

“Oh sod it.” Spike said, marching up to the stage. A short Glurg demon was looking through the songbook, until suddenly he was grabbed from behind by Spike. “Shove off, mate.” Spike said pushing the demon off the stage. “OK, here’s a song by one of the best groups ever. Don’t like it, tough.”

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
You cunt, I'm not a queer
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
And each and every highway
And yet, much more than this
I did it my way

Regrets. I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention.
But dig, what I have to do
I'll see it through with no devotion
Of that, take care and just
Be careful along the highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

There were times,
I'm sure you knew
When there was but but
Fucking else to do
But through it all,
When there was doubt
I shot it up or kicked it out
I faced the wall, and the wall
And did it my way.

Knocked out in bed last night
I've had my fill, my share of looting
And now, the tears subside
I find it all so amusing
To think, I killed a cat
And may I say, oh no, not their way
But no, oh no, not me
I did it my way

For what is a brat,
What has he got
When he finds out that he cannot
Say the things he truly thinks
But only the words,
Not what he feels
The record shows,
I've got no clothes
And did it my way!

The more unruly patrons of the bar applauded at a rendition of “My Way” worthy of Sid himself, everyone else just stood shell shocked.

“Vamp’s got some pipes.” Faith said, applauding the song.

“I think ‘My Way’, I think Sinatra.” Lorne said, gulping down his Sea Breeze.

“That wasn’t Sinatra, that wasn’t Sinatra at all.” Willow said, reeling from the loud and crude song the vampire just sang.

“OK, there’s your bloody song, now where is the Nibblet?” Spike asked, coming back from the stage.

“She’s downtown in an old hotel down on Via Gaeta street.” Lorne explained. “She’s being held by eight humans, seven vampires and a Goran demon with a really, really comb over.”

“Thanks Lorne, we gotta go.” Buffy said, quickly.

“Wait!” Lorne called after them. “I have something that might be useful.” The green guy ran in back of the club and returned with a small case. “These are very good against vampires. Spike’s used them so he can show you how to use them. Now get goin’!”

******

Dawn continued to crawl through the vents; she hadn’t heard any voices for almost fifteen minutes. Maybe they thought she got out already and ran out to head her off. She had to find a vent that led to a room she could get out of. Then she heard…

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG

Dawn froze, the sound of gun shots reverberated through the tunnel from somewhere below her. What were they doing?

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG

She gasped as several holes were blown in the duct ahead of her. ‘They’re shooting into the vents to get me!’ Dawn thought panicking. She tried backing up through the vents.

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG

The shots rang out again. The junior Summers looked behind her and saw the way back was shot up. She had to go forward. But then she heard the voices again.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!” came the voice of the demon Alfonso.

“We’re trying to get her, Alfie.” Growled a vampire.

“No, you fool! We need her alive!” the demon shouted. Dawn heard them start arguing again, this was her chance. She started moving down the shaft, trying to get out of range of the voices. She was right over the bullet holes when she stopped. Her weight was making the tunnel creak, and vampiric hearing could pick it up. She slowly tried to put one arm forward, no creaking.

“Well, I’m sorry Alfie, but a human bitch like her isn’t worth this much shit.”
The vamp Bart hissed. Dawn moved her other arm, nothing.

“Did I forget to mention to you vampiros how much this deal is worth?” the demon raged. Dawn moved her left leg forward, not a sound.

“I don’t give a damn!” the vamp hollered. Dawn moved her other leg, and her luck ran out. Her leg moved and it made a loud creak, the voices stopped and knew they heard it. She had to bolt before they shot at her again. Unfortunately, the bullet holes had weakened the duct enough that the weight of a full-grown teenage girl collapsed it.

CRASH!!!

Before she knew what happened, she had fallen through the ceiling and was on the floor surrounded by bad guys.

“Um…hi there.” Dawn said weakly.

“Hello signora.” Alfonso said as the Italian guys grabbed her and hauled her to her feet. “Take her back and tie her up. And I want two of you to guard her.” In five minutes Dawn Summers found herself right back where she started, tied up, surrounded by bad guys and trying to think of a way out.

“Yes signore, we have the girl… Ah excellent, and where do I take her?” the demon asked into his cell phone. “Of course, I will inform you as soon as we get her to your men. Arrivaderci.” The demon jumped and whooped in delight. “We’re gonna be rich!”

“Good, then can me and my boys eat the brat already?” the vampire Bart asked, sick and tired of this deal.

“No, my friend, she is not for snacking she is for my buyer.” Alfonso said, putting away his cell phone.

“Fine, then how about I just rip a limb off?” the vamp growled again.

“No, why must you Americans be so violent?” Alfonso asked, getting irritated by these hired vamps.

“That bitch’s sister killed my brother last night!” The vampire raged. “No, not just killed. She fuckin’ DESTROYED him! I heard what she did, beat him to a pulp, stabbed him with a stake eight times before dusting him! I want some payback!”

“Ascoltare tu arruso, io noleggiare tu …” The demon hissed, but was cut off by Bart.

“SPEAK ENGLISH!” The bloodsucker snarled, smacking the former butler.

“I hired you to keep the Slayers off my back until I can get the girl out of the country.” Alfonso said, grabbing the lapels of the vampire’s jacket. “You want to get your payback then you wait until this deal is done and I get my money!”

“Fine! But when she gets here the Slayer is mine!” Bart said, throwing the demon’s hands away.

“So…” She asked a man standing close to her, trying to sound confident. “What do you evil henchmen guys get paid?”

“Shut up!” The taller man said, brandishing his rifle.

“OK.” Dawn said fearfully.

“No, no, the girl’s right Alfie!” Bart raged. “when the hell are we going to get our cut?”

“Listen you…” But Alfonso before could finish that sentence they heard a loud crash. “What was that?” the demon asked, looking around nervously. He was answered by the door being kicked open to reveal several Slayers, two watchers, a witch and a really pissed vampire.

“You kidnapped my sister, not nice.” Buffy said as the Alfonso’s men raised their guns. “Uh oh, Willow little help?”

“Sure, Buff.” The red head waved her hand and their guns flew out of their hands and melted. “No gunplay allowed.”

“Thanks.” Buffy said as the Scoobies charged the gang. The vamps launched into the fray as the demon tried to reach Dawn and make a get away.

“Where do you think you’re goin’?” asked a very angry Spike, coming between Alfonso and Dawn. The demon butler tried to back off, but then it clicked in Spike’s head where he’d seen this guy before and he snarled into his game face. “You bloody pillock! You’re the bastard who stole the Capo’s head! Oh now I’m really gonna enjoy killing you.”

“Signore, can’t we talk?” the little weasel asked.

“No.” Spike answered, grabbing Alfonso by his collar. “I’m not an Yank but I’m going to do, as you put it, the American thing and rely on violence to solve my problems.”

“O Dio.” The demon whimpered as Spike threw him across the room and through a window. Spike ran over to Dawn and started undoing the ropes.

“You alright, Bit?” Spike asked, as he took out the gag.

“Watch out!” Dawn screeched as she pushed Spike out of the way of one the Italian mercenaries with a stake. The sixteen-year-old former key grabbed the chair she was tied to and smashed it over the thug’s head so hard it splintered into pieces.

“Damn,” Spike said, impressed by Dawn’s attack. “knew there was a bit of violence in you.”

“Come on, we gotta help.” Dawn said, and they leapt back into the fight.

“Hello bitch.” Bart said, landing a punch on the Slayer. “You don’t know me, but you met my brother last night.”

“Oh?” Buffy said, remembering the vamp she beat to a pulp the previous night. She blocked another punch and hit him with a roundhouse kick in the jaw. “Oh, him. Sorry about that.”

“I’m gonna rip out your throat and bathe in your blood!” The vampire lunged at her; she jumped out of his path and drove her forearm into his lower back.

“God you bad guys need to learn a new tune.” Buffy said pulling out a stake. Bart flipped onto his back and kicked the stake from Buffy’s hand. He jumped to his feet and pinned her against the wall.

“Lost your stake, Slayer!” Bart laughed, bending down for a bite. His fangs were an inch from her skin when he felt his chest get pierced. He looked down and saw a stake protruding from her sleeve and sticking into his chest.

“Wrong.” She said as Bart crumpled to dust. She reset the stake into the pop action sheath; these new gadgets Lorne gave them were so cool. “These are neat!”

“Buffy!” Dawn cried as another vamp rushed the blonde Slayer. Spike ran over, closely followed by Dawn, and punched the vampire out. The opposing undead man got back to his feet and was met with a stake from the British vampire.

“Better get back to the fight, Luv.” Spike said and they ran into the brawl. It lasted almost twenty minutes before the vampires were dust and the kidnappers were unconscious and tied up.

The gang returned to the Summers’ home, each sporting a few cuts and bruises from the fight. And they all seemed in a nostalgic satisfaction.

“You know, that was kinda fun, like old times.” Xander said, setting his axe down.

“Oh yes, truly wonderful.” Giles said sarcastically, rubbing the knot on his head. “Once again I accompany you people on a mission and once again I am knocked unconscious.”

“Oh come on Giles, didn’t feel good to be back in the trenches?” Willow asked, feeling a buzz she hadn’t felt in almost a year.

“As much as I am loathe to admit it, there was a certain feeling of nostalgia to tonight’s events.” Giles relented after a moment of thought. “Did you see how hard I hit that ponce? He was like ooohh and uuhhh and…Oh Lord, I sound like an American.”

“I’m just glad we got Dawnie back without any major collateral damage.” Willow said, applying iodine to Kennedy’s forehead. The brunette Slayer hissed as it was applied. “Sorry sweetie.”

“And these pop action stakes Lorne gave us are cool.” Faith said unhooking hers.

“If you don’t need us anymore, we need to go patrol.” Maria said, as the other Slayers walked towards the door.

“Sure, you guys can go, and thanks for the help.” Buffy said, shaking hands with them as they left.

“OK, now if everything is out of the way, could someone please fill me in on how Spike has returned to the unliving?” Xander asked as he bandaged his cut hand.

“All right already.” Buffy said, sitting down. “I went to Lorne’s club last night, and I sang a song. After I sang, a portal opened on stage and Spike came through it. Well actually he flew out of it and crashed into a table.”

“Where did the portal come from?” Giles asked, interested.

“Spike said it was some higher plains like Heaven or something.” Buffy said, looking at Spike.

“You were in Heaven?” Xander asked disbelievingly, earning him glares from Buffy, Dawn, Spike and Andrew. “Sorry, didn’t mean it like that. Please, go on.”

“Well um, Spike knows more about the details then I do.” Buffy said, asking for Spike to continue the explanation.

“I blew up the hotel in LA and when I woke up I was in the old Summers house from Sunnydale. Except it wasn’t really Sunnydale and it wasn’t the real house, it just looked like it to make me feel more comfortable. I met a weird guy, or maybe he was some type of angel, who said that I needed to come back.”

“Why did you need to come back?” Willow asked, as Kennedy gave her an ice pack for her head.

“The bloke, name of Emanuel, said that another apocalypse was coming and if I didn’t help out Buffy might not survive this time.” Spike said, taking a swig from his flask. “And I’m sure as hell not gonna let that happen.”

“This Emanuel guy, do you think we can trust what he told you?” Willow asked, suspiciously. “I mean, last time I got a message from beyond it turned out to be the First trying to get me to kill myself.”

“When did that happen?!” Kennedy asked alarmed, as was everyone else.

“It was before I met you, that night when that big Poltergeist thing happened at the house with Dawn.” Willow explained. “Could this guy have been lying to you?”

“If he was lying, why would he send me back?” Spike asked, not entirely sure about that weird angel or whatever the hell he was.

“Maybe you weren’t really in Heaven.” Xander speculated aloud, again getting glares. “I’m sorry but I’m just thinkin’, maybe it was some hell dimension in disguise and he wanted you back as part of his evil plan. Or not.”

“I don’t know.” Spike said, remembering his encounter with Emanuel. “Something about him, I don’t know how to explain it but if he was evil I would’ve sensed it. Even with the First I wasn’t completely convinced it was real. When this bloke talked it seemed impossible that what he was telling me wasn’t true.”

“Did…did you see? I mean, um.” Xander asked, stumbling on his words, but Spike saw what he was thinking. If he really was in Heaven, he knew who he’d want to know about.

“No, I didn’t see Anya,” Spike said, before looking around at everyone else. “Or Joyce, or Tara. Sorry.”

“Why you?” Giles asked, his Watcher training of considering every possible scenario that could pose a threat to the world. “I’m just wondering why they sent you back specifically. If this was such an enormous responsibility, why was it specifically you who could do something about it? Why not Angel or the First Slayer?”

Giles hadn’t intended on starting off with offending or fighting with Spike, but that’s what happened. Spike asked indignantly. “Well, why not me? Why is it so unbelievable that I could be trusted with saving the world and protecting the ones I care about?”

“I didn’t say that.” Giles backtracked. “I only meant that a vampire returning from death, final death, is unprecedented, and I’m just concerned as to what could be so disastrous to call for one to be returned to earth.”

“I don’t know what the Big Bad is, the ponce just said that if I don’t come back Buffy won’t win the fight.” Spike responded.

“But why you?” Giles prodded. “I don’t understand what affect you could have on such a…”

“Did you miss my exit? Died blowing up the Hellmouth, stopping the First’s army, and saving the world?” Spike asked angrily, Giles seemed to think this over. “Whatever.” Spike said, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t know what’s coming or what I can do to stop it, but I do know that someone up there thought that I may be able to do something about it. And I’m going to, got a problem with that you gormless tit?”

“Did you just call Mr. Giles a tit?” Andrew asked after a moment of tense silence.

“OK everybody,” Buffy said, not wanting to get into a big argument. “We’ve all had a long day, so how about we just call it a night?”

“I’m with you,” Willow said, grabbing her coat. “All the excitement made me sleepy.”

“You really tired?” Kennedy asked, a hint of mischief in her voice.

“Well…maybe we could have a little fun before bed.” Willow whispered as they left.

“I think I’ll be headed out to.” Xander said, getting up. “Come on Andrew, I’ll order Dare Devil on cable.”

“Cool!” the geek squealed in joy. “Bye Buffy, bye Dawn. Glad to have you back, Spike.”

“Um, Andrew” Buffy said, catching them just as they were walking out the door. “If you want, you can move back into your room tomorrow.”

“Oh, thanks Buffy.” Andrew said, “I’m really sorry about everything.”

“It’s alright, but you and I need to talk about keeping secrets.” Buffy said jokingly, but there was an underlying seriousness.

“OK, see ya later.” Andrew said, walking out.

“See you in the a.m., B.” Faith said, shaking her sister Slayer’s hand. “Nice to have ya back, Blondie.”

“Goodnight Buffy, Dawn.” Giles said, and then grudgingly added, “Spike.” Buffy shut the door and she, her sister and Spike were alone.

“I’m gonna turn in, see you in the morning.” Dawn said, not looking directly at Spike.

“Wait, Dawn.” Spike said, walking over to her. “I know it’s kind of a shock me being back, but it’s gonna be alright.”

“I know, it’s good having you back. Goodnight. Dawn said, still being a little distant. With that she walked into her room. She sank to the floor as she shut and locked the door of her bedroom. She couldn’t face him, not yet. She still had so much to apologize for, so much to say and do before she could really talk to him. Before they could begin to be friends, assuming he could forgive her. But she wasn’t ready yet.

“So…I guess we talk now.” Buffy said, folding and unfolding her arms.

“Yeah, guess so.” Spike replied, becoming very anxious. Buffy and Spike sat across from one another in silence for ten minutes before they started talking.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Buffy asked, Spike’s silence convincing her she already knew the answer. “Is it true? You didn’t believe me?”

“Yep.” Spike said, looking at the floor.

“I’m sorry.” Buffy said, sniffling slightly.

“Well, it’s not like I haven’t made bad decisions before.” Spike said, trying to alleviate her guilt.

“Yeah, but those screw ups didn’t make the two of us spend a year apart, thinking you were dead and mourning you.” The young blonde woman said, trying desperately to keep things from getting out of hand.

“You mourned me?” Spike asked breathlessly.

“Of course you bonehead!” Buffy cried. “Do you really think that I wouldn’t want to know you were alive?”

“Well, things weren’t exactly flowers and chocolates between us at the end.” Spike said, dredging up memories of when he found her kissing Angel in the crypt.

“Still doesn’t mean that you meant any less to me.”

“Well, when I saw that you moved on…”

“Moved on?” She asked incredulously. “I didn’t move on, I thought about you all the time.”

“But you were with the Immortal.” Spike said, remembering seeing her dance at the club with that bastard a few weeks ago.

“It’s not what you think. He and I…we were never serious. I mean I liked him, but…” Buffy sighed; trying to come up with the right words was never her strong suit. “I just hated the fact that you were gone. I thought that you’d want me to try and live the new chance of life you gave me. It was hard, really, really hard. After a while I met the Immortal. It was Parker Abrams all over again, only without him running after the first time.”

“Really didn’t need to know that part, Pet.” Spike said, trying to block mental images of her and the Immortal.

“I kept telling myself ‘look how much I’m over Spike, look how I’m with someone and it’s got nothing to do with Spike.’ I didn’t realize until we broke up that it was all about you. The Immortal, dancer, writer, mountain climber and rebound guy.” Buffy said, ruefully. “When ever I was with the Immortal, I never felt anything like I felt with you. I didn’t know it at the time but I didn’t want to feel anything. You were all I wanted, and I couldn’t have you. When I found out the Immortal cheated on me, I was more upset at his way of making up then the fact that he cheated. I don’t know if it was an unconscious decision, but I shut down after you died. I swore that I’d never give my heart to anyone else.”

“You really love me, don’t you?” Spike asked, still thinking that any minute she would say something like “You’re a soulless monster, I hate you.”

“Yes I do.” Buffy said, looking him square in the eyes. “And I want you to be in my life.”

“I guess we have a long road ahead of us, huh pet?” He said, shaking his head at what lay ahead of the two of them.

“Yeah we do, but I want to be with you. We can’t just start back where we were, but we can start over.” Buffy said, still holding his hand. “But maybe we should take it slow. Wait a little on the sex stuff, start with going out to dinner or taking walks. I want us to have a real relationship, I don’t want to screw this chance up.”

“Fine with me, Pet.” Spike said, “But we are going to get back to the sex stuff at some point, right?”

“Oh yeah!” Buffy said, emphatically. “Believe me, I’m looking forward to that too.”

“What about the Immortal?” Spike asked. “From what Dru and Darla say he’s quite the master in bed.”

“He slept with Darla and Drusilla?! When did this happen? No wait, I don’t even want to know.” She said, inwardly cursing that bastard. “Yeah we did have sex. He was good, but not the best.” She said, looking at the souled vampire intently. Spike felt like he could jump and cheer like a little kid, but decided against it. “Besides, even if he hadn’t cheated on me or suggested we have Dawn do it with us, which is just wrong, I would’ve dumped him eventually. I would’ve dumped him in a minute if someone had called me.”

“Again with the sorry.” Spike said, smirking his cockiest smirk. ‘Even the Immortal is nothing compared to me, choke on that Captain Hair Gel!’ he thought happily.

“I missed that smart ass smirk.” Buffy said, a wistful smile on her face.

“I missed that sweet smile.” Spike said, feeling happier then he had in a long time. Then it really hit that Spike was back, the dam broke and Buffy ran to him and hugged him. Spike returned the hug, holding her and stroking her hair saying that it would be all right. They stood there in each other’s embrace for several minutes, enjoying the feeling of being back together.

“Please say we can do this and not screw up.” She said, desperate for some assurance they wouldn’t mess up this second chance.

“We can do this.” He answered, holding her tighter.

“Good. Defiantly good.” She said smiling. After a few more minutes of hugging they broke apart, still wanting to be close to one another.

“So, where do I sleep?” Spike asked. Normally he would’ve asked that in a more seductive tone, but with the present circumstances it was an honest, innuendo free question. Buffy looked at him and wanted nothing more than to say “You’re sleeping with me.” but they had promised that they’d take it slow.

“The coach is pretty comfy,” Buffy said, coyly patting the coach. “And I can get you a blanket to cover up with, I’ll even check for one that doesn’t have Hello Kitty on them.”

“Thanks, Luv.” Spike said as he took off the duster and stretched out on the sofa. Buffy walked over to the closet and took out one of the few blankets that didn’t have cutesy cartoons on them. “See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, Spike.” Buffy said turning towards her bedroom, but stopped and walked back to him. She bent down and gave him a soft kiss much like the one she gave him when Glory had beat him up. “It’s great to have you back, Spike. I love you.”

“I love you too, Buffy.” Spike said expecting to wake up in bed any second. She turned and walked to bedroom, closing the door after one last glance back at the vampire. He curled up on the couch for a night’s sleep, assuming the excitement of this dream come true would allow him to sleep.



******

Alfonso paced back and forward in his little apartment, his right arm in a sling and a martini in his other. He knew he had to call his new employer, and if he knew this guy, it wouldn’t be pretty. He had already failed once when his former master, the Immortal, sent the Capo’s head to LA, and it was made clear that kidnapping the young girl was his last chance. He nervously picked up his phone and dialed his superior.

“Hello?” Came the voice on the other line.

“Uh hello Signore Rayne.” Alfonso said nervously into the phone.

“Hello Alfonso, what do you have to report?” Ethan asked, knowing something was wrong from the tremor of fear in the former butler’s voice.

“Well signore, the girl is no longer in my possession.” Alfonso said, sweating bullets.

“I see, and may I ask why?” Ethan asked irritated.

“She was rescued by the Slayer and one of the vampires that I encountered when I stole the Capo’s head.”

“What? The two vampires from Wolfram & Hart should’ve been obliterated in the devastation in Los Angeles.” Ethan responded, confused and angry. If what Alfonso was saying was true, it could mean huge trouble for his new employer’s plan.

“I thought so as well, but mio capo, it was him I swear!” Alfonso said, wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

“I see.” Ethan said shortly. “You know that my employers and I were trusting you then too, right?” The chaos worshipper asked his hired lackey. “We trusted you and the Immortal to get the Goran demon’s head and make sure it didn’t reach L.A. We paid you a hefty sum to make sure that the city became a war zone so we could acquire the amulet unnoticed. And your former employer and inspiration sent it right to the vampires to impress the Slayer, thus throwing us off schedule.”

“But Signore, Los Angeles did become a war zone. And you did get the amulet, no?” Alfonso said, desperate to stay on this wizard’s good side.

“True, no thanks to you. You lost us the head and the girl, not a very competent minion, are you?” Ethan said, a feeling of cruel amusement at the thought of this little weasel squirming. “Still, I guess I can overlook this rather large slip-up.”

“Oh thank you, Signore Rayne. Grazie, grazie mio amico!” Alfonso said, relieved and grateful for the chaos worshipper’s mercy.

“Yes I can, but my employers can’t.” Ethan said, smiling as he burst his bubble. “They’ve gone through way to much planning and trouble just to let some bloody incompetent like you ruin it.”

“But signore…” the demon tried to interject, but it was no use.

“But, since you have at least attempted to help us, I’m sending you on a little vacation.” Ethan said, pulling out a book of spells. “Ah here we go; there’s a little dimension called Azergorhk you’ll enjoy. It’s wonderful this time of year, just watch out for those tentacled fiends. Gorthoc zan zok Azergorhk plidslif!”

“No please, Signore…AAAAAHHHHH!!!!” Alfonso turned and saw a huge portal open in the ceiling of his apartment, and a dozen tentacles that ended in crablike pincers shot out of it. The demon tried to run for the door, but two of the tentacles grabbed him. The butler tried to reach his knife, but the tentacles didn’t allow enough movement and it dragged him kicking and screaming back through the portal, which closed after them.

“Good help is so hard to find nowadays. Well then, bye bye.” Ethan said, hanging up after he heard the scream subside. The chaotic wizard turned and faced his roommate. “I take it you hear all that?”

“Yep. Quite the x factor that little bastard can be.” Sirk said seething. This wasn’t supposed to happen; the plan was for the two souled vampires to be out of action when the big show went down. “Oh well, we can still make it work. My superiors haven’t spent the last hundred centuries working on this just to let that little popcorn fart mess it up. We won’t need the girl for a while and we can deal with Spike when the time’s right. In fact there’s an old friend heading to Rome to deal with him as we speak.”

“What do we do now?” Ethan asked, pulling out a bottle of scotch.

“We get ready for the next step of this operation.” Sirk said, smiling in anticipation.

“And once we get to the next step, you’ll give me the power you promised?”

“Would I lie?” Sirk asked innocently.

“Right cause you’re the epitome of honesty and decency.” Ethan retorted, smirking at the irony of the traitorous Watcher’s question.

“Touché, but let’s remember who got you out of that government detention center. Don’t worry, when we pull this off you’ll have enough power to make that little red head’s magic look like a rabbit out of the hat trick. In the mean time, we need to do a spell. Something special for that damned vampire.”

Chapter 7: Real Love


“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” Harriet Beecher Stowe

Buffy Summers lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling, reeling from the occurrences of the past few days. She had spent most of the past week in a deep state of depression mourning over the guy who was now sleeping on her couch. A million different thoughts and feelings raced through her till she wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry, laugh or scream. So she chose to just lie in bed and try to sleep, and think about what was ahead of her and her lover. She wondered what she could’ve done to avoid all this heartache, all the missed opportunities to tell Spike how she really felt. But then, she’d always had trouble in love. Angel was supposed to be her “one true love”, but he gave her more grief than anyone else in her life. Riley was supposed to be normal and he ended up leaving her because he couldn’t handle her being the Slayer. Spike…well, he was unusual.

She remembered the first time she really started to get feelings for him, almost three years ago. She had hated him for showing her what Riley had been doing behind her back, even if it wasn’t really him she was mad at. She hated Riley for doing what he did; almost getting himself killed because he thought she didn’t really love him. Well she did, or so she thought. She really liked Riley, she trusted him and enjoyed his company, but in hindsight she realized that she loved him but didn’t love him. She thought of him more like a brother than a boyfriend, even with the kissing and lovemaking. ‘Eww.’ Buffy shuddered at the implications of that thought. Buffy told him that she had given him her heart, body and soul; but it wasn’t true. Xander was right about how she had behaved with Riley.

“You shut down, Buffy. And you've been treating Riley like the rebound guy. When he's the one that comes along once in a lifetime. He's never held back with you. He's risked everything. And you're about to let him fly because you don't like ultimatums?” She had been treating Riley like the rebound guy, she didn’t mean to, but the kind of love that she felt for Angel just wasn’t there with Riley. He was a great person, but he wasn’t the guy. When he left, she thought that maybe she was destined to be alone. She couldn’t keep Angel, Scott Hope or Parker, and now the guy who she thought she could trust walked away too. Why did she always end up alone? What was she doing wrong? Why couldn’t she keep a guy she liked in her life?

After that fiasco, Spike declared his love for her. It was a nightmare, she couldn’t keep guys she liked and the guy she hated wouldn’t leave. If she felt bad before, the idea that only a vampire could be attracted to her made her feel diseased. Sure he wasn’t exactly unattractive, but he was a vampire who tried to kill her for years. Yeah, with the chip he was harmless, but the thought of a soulless monster being infatuated with her just added to her insecurity. Dawn loved him like a brother and she knew her mother played cards and drank cocoa with him occasionally, but she refused to believe that he could be anything other then a muzzled vampire.

The night after he told her, she went to his crypt and saw the shrine he had of her. As she tried to leave, Spike and Drusilla knocked her out. When she woke up she found herself chained to the wall with Spike telling her that he would kill Dru for her. She had him uninvited from her house for that stunt. She never told him, or anyone else, but she felt a pang of guilt from the look on his face when he realized he was blocked out.

She thought about starting to date again, but after her encounter with April, Warren’s girlfriendbot, she decided that maybe she should just try to get to know herself. However, she didn’t have much of a chance to when she came home and found her mother had died. Losing someone is always hard, but when the person who has taken care of you since you were born, who even when things looked blackest you knew would be able to keep thing together, it’s devastating.

After the sudden death of her mother, she began to wonder if being the Slayer was making her hard and unfeeling. She went off on the Vision Quest and was given a cryptic message from the First Slayer. “Death is your gift.” She thought that she meant what Spike had told her that night he told her about the two Slayers he killed, that death was her art and that part of her wanted to die. And she was partially right, as was Spike. She hated to admit it, but she did have a death wish. She was so tired of the constant pain and horror that being the Slayer, and she just wished she could stop and rest. She would find out the message would turn out to have a much deeper meaning later.

When she and Giles returned from the desert, she came face to face with herself, or at least a cheerful, Spike obsessed clone of herself known as the Buffybot. The fact that Spike had that robot built just reinforced her belief that he was no good, but that was secondary to the revelation that he was captured by Glory. She was so sure that he’d rat out Dawn to save himself, that his infatuation and obsession with her wouldn’t be enough to keep him from telling Glory about Dawn. She went to him as the Buffybot to see if he told Glory anything, he’d be more likely to talk to his sex toy then one of them. She was shocked at the state Glory left him in. He was bleeding profusely and his face was a mask of bruises and cuts, she wondered if he would even be coherent enough to talk to her. She told him that she’d tell Glory who the Key was so Spike wouldn’t get hurt again, but he surprised her and said that he’d let Glory kill him before he told her about Dawn. That actually made her realize that Spike did care about her and her sister. She gave him a kiss then, in thanks mostly but she couldn’t deny that she felt a little spark when their lips touched.

When the time came to take on Glory, she knew she could turn to Spike as the only one besides her who was strong enough to keep her safe. He told her that he’d protect her “till the end of the world, even if that happens to be tonight.” But things went down horribly. Spike tried, but a demon was able to throw him from the tower and bleed Dawn, the portal opened and that meant her little sister would have to die to save the world. But then the First Slayer’s message made sense; Dawn was made from her blood, so the blood that flowed through her veins ran through her own. Her death would close the portal. She told her sister that she loved her and to live for her, and threw herself into the maelstrom of energy. Death was her gift, hers would give the world and her loved ones new life and she willingly gave it.

Then she was brought back to life, if you can really call what she had at that time a life. Her friends thought that she was in some hell dimension, so they used a dangerous spell and brought her back. But she wasn’t in Hell she was in Heaven. Her job was done and she had earned her eternal rest. She was at peace and they pulled her back into the world where she’d have to be the Slayer again. She was so mad at her friends, but she couldn’t be angry with them. Their hearts were in the right place, and they had no way of knowing what they did to her. She had to be Super Happy Buffy, she couldn’t tell them what they’d done or they’d never forgive themselves. So she told Spike.

He didn’t judge her; he didn’t pressure her to be like she was before. She didn’t have to walk on eggshells with him; he was just so glad that she was there at all. She liked spending time with him, except for that time she got drunk and puked her guts out. He made her feel like herself again; she could really talk to him and be herself. She tried to suppress it, but she began to feel an attraction to him. She couldn’t let that happen, she might find solace with him but she couldn’t let herself feel for a soulless monster.

After the song and dance demon came to town, she lessened her hold and kissed him a couple times. She became even more depressed after his chip didn’t react to her; she was positive that she had come back less than human. She had to be a monster, so she might as well act like it. She wanted Spike for sometime, so she took what she wanted. She thought that after that night in the abandoned house, she had gotten the tension out of her system, but it didn’t work. She went back for the feeling of escapism she got from sex with him over and over; she used him with no thought to his feelings. She led him on, insulted him, mentally toyed with him, she hated herself and she took it out on him. He tried to save her from the self-destruction that she was careening towards; he tried to get her to live again and tried to stop her from turning herself in on a murder she didn’t commit, and she just kept punishing him. She beat him to a bloody pulp and never looked back to see if he got out of the alley before sunrise. How could she do that to someone who just wanted to help her? Because she wouldn’t let herself believe that what she felt was real.

She lied to herself about her feelings for him; she was too afraid of her friends’ reactions and her history with men in her life. Slowly she came to her senses and made the decision to go on with her life, and that meant she had to stop her sick tryst with Spike. She apologized for the way she had treated him and said that they had to move on. She saw him again after that, and she still tried to tell him that what they had wasn’t real. He showed up at Xander and Anya’s not wedding with some floozy. If what they had wasn’t real then why did that hurt? She went to see him with the Trio’s camera and told him that the feelings were real, but just on his part. She knew that would hurt him, but she had to push him away.

She hurt him so many times; it was only a matter of time before he hurt her, intentionally or not. Willow hacked into the Trio’s surveillance system and she, Willow and Xander caught the show of Spike and Anya having sex on a table in the Magic Box. Xander went to the store n a murderous rage, ready to kill Spike for touching Anya. Then the whole affair came out, her friends reactions were as she expected. She didn’t want to deal so she just decided that she wasn’t even going to talk to Spike about the thing with Anya, but Spike wouldn’t cooperate with that plan. He came to see her after a patrol to apologize for hurting her with that thing with Anya. He told her that he cared about her and said that she should’ve just let Xander kill him. She told him she couldn’t let that happen, she remembered the conversation well.

He tried to convince her that she didn’t need to hide her feelings, to let herself feel it. She didn’t know whether it was Spike’s demon nature, his desperation to reach her emotionally or just the familiarity of this “Yes, no” dance that they’d gone through so many times that made him not realize what he was doing to her. She had never been more afraid then those horrible two minutes when she tried to throw him off her. She was never hurt physically, but the fact that he tried to do that shook her to the core. Part of her wanted to believe that he wouldn’t hurt her like others had, but after that she couldn’t believe that anything good could come from them being together. With the way things had been between them all that year, it was only a matter of time before things got out of hand and something like that happened. Looking back, Buffy couldn’t help but think if she hadn’t screwed with Spike’s head so often then that night might never have happened. There is NEVER a justifiable reason for rape, but if the two of them hadn’t let things get so out of hand between them then it might never have gotten to such a horrible point.

It was three months before she saw him again. She ran into him in the basement of the new high school, he was covered with scars and clearly insane. She could barely look at him after he returned a few days later, now seemingly possessing his lost marbles. He put on a show and tried to be the Big Bad, he even went vamp face and taunted her when he got into a scrap with Anya. They exchanged blows and she ran off to find the worm demon that Anya turned a girl’s boyfriend into. Spike followed and began using his patented violence to subdue the Tremors reject, but he went for the kill just as the worm was turned human again and his chip fried his brain. It also seemed to send him back into his state of delirium.

He ran off after he babbled about some impending doom, and she went after him. She found him in an old church, and he still sounded crazy. He babbled on about a spark, she didn’t understand what that meant until he mentioned Angel. He said that he wanted to give her what she deserved: someone with a soul. He went through a mystic trial to get his soul restored, the concept that a soulless vampire would want, let alone fight for his soul to be returned was inconceivable. The vampire she saw cry in the church wasn’t the Spike she had known, he was a broken, pitiful man begging to be forgiven. The encounter really changed Buffy’s view of him; maybe he wasn’t the monster she thought he was. It was heartbreaking to see him like that, but she still wasn’t sure how to deal with him.

For a few weeks he just stayed in the basement of the new high school, she stopped to see him every other day. She learned that there were three modes to his insanity; the first was almost catatonic, the second ranted about stuff that made no sense at all for hours, and the third would mumble or scream about how horrible he was. She also noticed that he often had conversations to thin air; at the time she thought it was another side affect of the soul, but she realized later that it was the First talking to him.

She finally got him out of the basement, and he began to regain his lost marbles. He stopped acting all Looney Tunes but he seemed different, especially to her. He acted distant, it seemed like he was avoiding her. That came to a head after her conversation with the vamp, Holden Webster, when he told her that Spike sired him. Spike still had his chip and he had a soul now, so how could he be feeding on humans again? She wasn’t going to take the word of a vamp; she had to see it for herself. She followed him to the fare ground and saw him with some girl. It made her anxious, not only because of the idea that he might be feeding, but she felt a twinge of an emotion that she really didn’t want: jealousy. One of the most notorious vampires in history may be killing again and she’s jealous because her vampire is spending time with other women. Self involved much?

‘OK, so maybe I was a little jealous, but that doesn’t mean I was wrong on either counts.’ Buffy thought to herself. As much as she wished it wasn’t true, Spike called her up and led her to the basement of that old house. He told her he didn’t remember everything but that he might’ve killed someone, and then suddenly he turned into a roaring monster. Fighting Spike was bad enough, but the mob of newly risen fledglings didn’t help matters. She was held up by the vampires for Spike, she saw in his eyes that he wasn’t gonna stop, he was ready to drain her dry. She watched as he tasted the blood from a cut, and was relieved to see he’d regained his senses. She had an easy enough time disposing of the vamps, but seeing Spike huddled in the corner shook her more than she could believe. Spike sat there, begging her to kill him, until he looked to the side and told some unseen thing that he did what it wanted. That’s when she knew that the unknown Big Bad that had been playing them was also playing with Spike.

She took him home to keep an eye on him, which just thrilled her friends. The whole sordid tale of their relationship, Spike feeding again, the looming Big Bad, the whole situation had everyone on edge. And on top of everything else, Willow brought Andrew back from her trip to the butcher shop. The perfect cherry on their Sunnydale sundae: a formerly evil, currently annoying hostage. As it stood, Anya and Xander were having better luck talking to Andrew than she was with Spike. Apparently, as an added bonus to the soul, he had tapped into the most common of all human feelings: self-hatred. For the first time in over a hundred years he was experiencing guilt, sorrow, and that nagging voice that whispers in your ear that you’re no good. A conscience tells you right and wrong, and now Spike began to see that he had done truly terrible things. Then he broke free, smashed through a wall and tried to kill Andrew.

They chained him back up in the basement, and then Xander figured out that something had brainwashed him to attack on a certain signal. She went down to see Spike to tell him and he told her to kill him before he caused more damage. She tried to reason with him, tell him that he wasn’t the same man he was before, but he wouldn’t hear it. He said that even with his bright new soul, he was still a monster. She tried to convince him that he could change, but he told her that she knew he would never change and wanted him to be a monster. He said that she wanted the pain that being with men like him gave her, needed the hate to be the Slayer.

She wondered if he was right, just like when he said she had a death wish. She wondered if she did enjoy the pain and the hurt, if deep down she wanted to experience the Hell that she fought so hard against. She knew as a Slayer she was drawn to the darkness, did that part of her want to be physically and emotionally abused? No. She wouldn’t let it. Faced with your dark side you have a choice, you can give in or you can resist. The darkness is only as powerful as you let it be, and it can be defeated by telling it “I will not let you control me.” She knew that Spike had that will power to resist his evil nature, his soul was proof of that. She believed in him, and when she told him that his face was couldn’t have been more shocked if she had just told him to bite her. She debated to say more than that, but the Bringers broke up their little moment and kidnapped him.

She and her friends had known something was coming, but you know you’re out of your league when you’re up against the First Evil. Fiends from Hell are one thing, she knew how to deal with those, but how can you fight the root of all evil, especially when you can’t even lay a hand on it? Then Giles showed up with the Potentials and the fun just kept on leaving. This was happening because she was alive; the First had the opportunity to wipe out the entire Slayer line because her friends brought her back from the grave. She tried to repress the guilt that news gave her; the guilt-ridden Buffy that was around the previous year couldn’t protect the girls, save Spike, or deal with the First.

She and Giles went to the Christmas tree lot where she encountered the First four years earlier, it wasn’t there but something else was. The Ubervamp the First raised was unlike any vampire she’d ever faced, never before had she received a beating like the one it gave her that night. It was stronger than any creature she’d faced, except maybe Glory, and it could match her fighting style with a precision she’d never faced before. Even with the injuries from that fight, the thing that really got to her was that, as strong as the Ubervamp was, it was just one and certainly not the last of the First’s surprises. She’d faced everything Hell could offer and now she faced the thing responsible for the existence of all the things she’d fought against. She knew that night as she sat in her room that this was the end. This wasn’t her average big fight, this was going to be her last stand. Then she would let it be the last stand, she’d make it and take the First down with her.

The next few days passed relatively quietly, more Potentials came to Sunnydale, they did research on the First that yielded no results, but at least the First or the Ubervamp didn’t make a move yet…or so they thought. A Potential that was in the house was actually the First, planting the seeds of doubt in the girls’ minds, and it was no doubt been trying to get Spike to join the dark side again since it captured him. She needed to get rid of the Ubervamp to get Spike back, and she needed to show the Potentials that they could fight and win against the things that go bump in the night. So, she, Willow and Xander came up with a plan to kill two vamps with one stone, just as long as it wasn’t her vamp that got killed. Killing the Ubervamp was a tough fight. She showed the girls and she showed herself that she could fight and win. With the Ubervamp gone, getting into the First lair was a breeze, the Bringers were too involved with chanting to see her slip in and they were dead before they knew what him ‘em. She grabbed one of their knives and went to find Spike, and she found him tied up, bruised, scarred, and delirious. When she approached him he thought she was just the First tormenting him, but the look on his face when she cut him loose, she wasn’t sure which of them would burst into tears first. She let him lean on her until they got to Xander’s car, and after they returned to Revello Drive, she practically carried him down to the basement. He passed out from exhaustion the minute she set him on the bed, but she was up for a few hours just watching him sleep.

The following days weren’t any easier, Spike being back was a load off her mind but it was a slow process to heal him, and she was willing to help him through it. But just when it looked like she wouldn’t have to worry about Spike anymore, the chip started firing at random in his head. After an awkward conversation with a flower shop owner, that turned out to be a government agent, they went to the old Initiative HQ to see if they could find anything on the chip. She hoped they’d find some kind of instruction manual or something on the chip, Spike was hoping they’d find some of the drugs the Initiative used to keep the captive demons docile. The inside of the old base was high on the creepy scale, the obligatory enveloping darkness, the dozens of rotting human and demon bodies, and then they found the sole survivor of the battle between the Initiative soldiers and Adam’s disciples.

Thankfully the conversation with the “flower shop owner” wasn’t a waste of time, cause a special ops team found them after she killed the demon. The scientist told her that if left as it was, the chip would continue to send of the shocks until it dusted Spike. They gave her the choice: they could repair the chip so it worked like before or remove it entirely. She was kind of stunned at the idea, and, despite Giles’ reaction, it wasn’t an easy choice to make. For four years that chip had been the only guarantee that Spike couldn’t hurt anyone, even when he was trying to do good, she always thought that if it stopped working or he got it out then he’d go back to being a killer. All the times they had sex he never bit her, but she still thought he’d kill and feed if it was somebody he didn’t care about. The presence of the trigger now made the chip useless, he could kill without the chip stopping him; hut it wasn’t just the chip that stood in the way of him killing now that he had a soul.

It all came down to a question of trust. Could she trust him without a chip in his head? Yes, she could trust him not to hurt them all, he was a good man. She never told anyone, but there was one other factor of her decision that, the situation made her remember her mother. Seeing someone she loved in pain because of something inside them, the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to stop the pain, the helplessness of knowing that they could die and she couldn’t help. Her mom died because that Goddamn thing in her head ate away at her brain, tore up her mind until she couldn’t recognize her own daughters. It was so bad they had to cut open her skull to fix it, but it was too late. Just when it looked like she was going to be fine it killed her. No way was she going to let that happen to somebody she loved again. Of course, Giles wasn’t exactly thrilled with this information.

As the weeks wore on, things just kept getting worse. More and more Potential Slayers came to Sunnydale, and soon you had to be up at 5 a.m. to get into the bathroom without waiting in line. The language barrier was becoming a big problem; it took them three weeks to realize Chao-Ahn was lactose intolerant. She had suspected that the new principal, Robin Wood, was not what he appeared to be, but thankfully he didn’t turn out to be an evil rat like Snyder, he even turned out to be the son of a Slayer. It was good to find out all that, but frankly she’d just like to forget that “date” ever happened. A few nights later, the First talked a Potential into hanging herself, then something snapped inside her. This wasn’t the average fight, this wasn’t one of those “Around late May something bad is gonna pick a fight” apocalypses she’d seen. This was all or nothing, and as it stood, they weren’t going to win. The girls weren’t ready to fight, Willow was still to gun shy with her magic, and Spike’s soul had sapped him of his lust for violence; with that combination they were more unprepared than they ever had been. Looking back, she kicked herself for the harsh words to all of them; in one sweeping generalization she belittled all of the Potentials’ work, Willow’s recovery from magic, and the miracle of Spike’s soul.

They pulled out a box that belonged to Wood’s mother and found some weird ancient shadow puppets, shadow puppets that opened a portal to some weird prehistoric dimension where she met the men who made the First Slayer. They chained her up and planned to do to her what they did to the First Slayer: infuse her with the sprit of a demon. They’d take away her humanity, just like they had with the First Slayer. She wanted to beat the First, but there was no way she’d let those bastards rape her soul. She beat the Shadow Men and destroyed the demon spirit, but then they showed her just what she was up against. They showed her a vision of a vast underground cavern filled with tens of thousands of Ubervamps. What chance did they have against the First’s army? Her dream with the First Slayer was right, it wasn’t enough and it never would be enough to stop it. That night, she realized the fear she’d had since the whole mess started was justified. The inevitable and terrifying reality that she’d been trying to deny was well founded. No matter how hard they trained or prepared, they couldn’t beat the First.

She began pushing the team harder, making sure everybody was in top form, ready to fight. They might not be able to defeat the First, but they wouldn’t just lie down and let it take over. They’d fight to the last man or woman, they might lose but they’d go down fighting. The other Scoobies had their experience and years of demon fighting under their belt, but the only real fighters they had were herself and Spike. She could take care of herself, but the First was focusing a lot of its efforts on Spike and she couldn’t lose him. He was her rock, her strength; he knew her like nobody, not even her friends knew her. She hadn’t felt so safe with someone since she and Angel were together, and even that paled in comparison. They were getting close, becoming comfortable with each other, no wonder an attempt on Spike’s unlife was in the works.

Giles couldn’t trust that Spike was good, his Watcheryness wouldn’t let him trust a vampire and his father-daughter relationship with her didn’t want her to be involved with someone he saw as undeserving of her. Robin Wood had a grudge going back to when he was a little boy when Spike killed his mother. When Giles used the charm to study the trigger, finding that it was still active, it was the perfect excuse to take Spike out. They said, maybe they even believed that it was all for the mission, when it was really all about their own vendettas. After the failed attempt to kill Spike, Buffy never looked at Giles the same way again. She realized that though she had become the leader, he had still seen himself as her Watcher, her guide, and her teacher. Like she was supposed to lead, but under his guidance; the same puppet show control the Council had before it was destroyed. Now when she saw Giles, she saw Quentin Travers, the despotic head of the Watchers Council, she saw the Shadow Men that tried to force a demon into her. She doubted she could ever really forgive or trust Giles again after that.

As if things weren’t bad enough, bigger trouble came to Sunnydale in the form of a woman hating good ol’ boy priest named Caleb and the return of Faith. Faith, the other Slayer; the one person, besides Angelus, who did more to screw up her life than anyone else. As if morale wasn’t bad enough, Miss “Want-Take-Have” had come back into the picture. She took the girls out for drinks, she flirted with Spike, and Potentials were looking to get her out of there and put Faith in her place. They never really found out Caleb’s whole story, but it was obvious he was working as one of the First’s top agents. The First had been one step ahead of them since this started, they had to take the upper hand by taking whatever Caleb possessed. They launched an attack on Caleb’s base at an old vineyard, and it ended up with two deaths, almost everyone injured, and Xander with is eye poked out. Never in her life had she hated being the Slayer more. She was their leader and she lead them into a trap so obvious that nobody, not even Andrew, would have fallen for it. Well, maybe Andrew would’ve.

It shouldn’t have happened, she should have been able to keep them from dying. That’s what a Slayer is supposed to do: keep people from dying. What the hell kind of Slayer lets people, especially her friends, get hurt? After that, she was surprised she didn’t see the next thing coming. She didn’t think she was wrong that Caleb had something worth getting, but considering her failure as their leader, no wonder they turned their backs on her. Even her own sister said she couldn’t do her job. That night when she walked the abandoned streets of Sunnydale, she wished that the First would come on out and just end it. She felt like she had failed them all, and the following day and night she just wished she could go to sleep and never wake up.

She went into that guy’s house and lay in the bed, trying to will herself to sleep. She couldn’t take the guilt, rejection, sorrow, and loneliness. She desperately wanted to escape, even temporarily, into the oblivion of sleep, but the Sandman wouldn’t be visiting her until the next night, when Spike came to her. She tried to block out his words of encouragement, telling herself that he was just saying all this because he was in love with her and couldn’t see the truth. She even tried to push him away by saying he was only interested in her because he couldn’t have her. He proved her wrong, he proved undeniably that he loved her with all his heart and soul. When he gave her that speech telling her she was the one, she had never felt so loved, so special. He gave her her confidence back. She felt like somebody who worthy of love and trust, somebody who could win fight against anything, she felt like, well, the Chosen One.

It gave her back her confidence and she was able to infiltrate Caleb’s vineyard and get the Scythe. He told her that night holding her while she slept was the best night of his life, but she never told him that it was also the best night of her life too. He asked her if it meant anything that she was with him all night, but as usual, her stupid fears surfaced. If she said it did, then what they had was real, and if what they had was real then it would only be a matter of time before he left. So, she did what she'd always done before: she avoided dealing with it. He dropped it when he saw she wouldn’t say one way or the other, and said they’d go be heroes. Later she went to an old temple where she met that weird old woman, Caleb showed up and she finally killed him and Angel showed up and she kissed him.

She didn’t really know why she kissed Angel. She didn’t really feel the same way for him as she did once, and she new she felt something strong for Spike. Looking back, she thought the main reason was because it was easier to indulge in a past love than deal with the reality of a current one. Angel was her past, her fantasy, and that made him safe. He couldn’t hurt her because he wasn’t a big part of her life anymore, he couldn’t leave her because he already left. She was too scared to deal with feelings for a real relationship, so she hid in the comforting fantasy of her high school love. When he said he’d fight with her in the big battle, it shifted her priority. If he was in this fight and they all died, there would be no other heroes left to stop the First. She needed him to get his team ready to fight if it came to that. But that wasn’t the only reason, and even he could see that. If he was around, he’d see her and Spike interact, and if he did, he’d see that they were involved. Her friends weren’t perceptive enough to figure how deeply they were involved, but Angel was. If he saw the truth of her and Spike’s relationship, if he saw that she was in love with him, then she and everyone would have to admit it was real. It was a subconscious thing about how loss of loved ones affected her, if it was real then they’d leave. She couldn’t let it be real, if it was real then it would end up the same way it had with all her other “real” relationships with people she loved. She loved her father and he left her; she loved Angel and he left; she thought she loved Riley and he left; she loved her mother and she died; she loved Giles like a father and he left; but she never admitted that she loved Spike, and he stayed. She feared that if she allowed herself to love Spike, then he’d break her heart and leave just like everyone else had.

Buffy went back to Spike after she gave Angel her whole “cookie dough” speech (to this day she still groaned at the total absurdity of that analogy) and Spike wasn’t exactly in good mood. He saw her and Angel kissing, not exactly a good way of convincing somebody that you have serious feelings about them. He just shrugged it off and demanded the amulet. She was terrified to give it to him, considering she didn’t even know what it was supposed to do. What if it turned out to be a mystical A-bomb? She’d lose him. But as he pointed out, there wasn’t really anyone else in the group who could wear it. She said it was meant for a champion, he immediately backed down, thinking that she would never see him as a champion, but she walked forward and gave him the amulet. They slept in each other’s arms that night, but even that wasn’t comforting enough to stave off the dread of the battle ahead.


The First dropped by for a taunt, but it unintentionally gave her the idea to activate all the Potentials’ Slayer powers. It was decided the next day, they’d take that day to prepare for the fight and the day after, they’d go to the Hellmouth for the final show down. That night she went to Spike in the basement, and shared what they thought was their last night on Earth. She watched him sleep that night and silently pledged that if they survived the battle, they’d start over. They’d have a real relationship, and she’d tell him she loved him.

Walking into Sunnydale High that day felt worse than walking into the Master’s lair all those years ago, she had an awful feeling that many of them wouldn’t walk away from this one, maybe none at all. Giles, Wood, Xander and Dawn stayed upstairs to handle any Ubervamps that got past her team, and Willow went to perform the spell to call the Slayers. She, Spike, Faith and the Potentials went into the Hellmouth, and faced off against the First’s army ready to fight to the death. They fought hard but they were outnumbered, for every one Ubervamp they killed, twenty more popped up.

Suddenly she heard a scream and an explosion; she turned and saw Spike standing in a ray of sunlight with the amulet glowing. A beam of sunlight shot from the amulet into the cavern, every Ubervamp in its path was dusted in a second, and it was even destroying the cavern itself. They felt the ground shake as the power of the amulet rocked the foundations of the Hellmouth itself, they needed to get out of there. The others ran out of the cavern, but Spike still stood in that shaft of sunlight, he was stuck there as the conduit for the power of the amulet. She realized with pure terror that he wasn’t going to get out. He couldn’t leave with the amulet frying the place and if he took it off he’d get fried from the sun light outside. She saw the whole cavern begin to collapse and knew time was running out. She had to do something to get him out of there, but he wouldn’t even consider it. He was dead set on finishing the fight, even if it meant his final death. She grabbed his hand, trying to get him to run, but even when their hands burst into flames she saw that he was staying.

Tears clouded her vision as she said the only thing she could think of to get him to come with her: “I love you.” But it was too little too late; he smiled and said “No you don’t but thanks for saying it.” To say she was stunned would be an understatement; it took the tremor of the collapsing Hellmouth to bring her back to reality. He ordered her to go, and she ran out and left him there. She ran faster than she had ever run before, her body was on the brink of exhaustion but she kept going until she made it to the roof. She raced over the rooftops of Sunnydale, the town collapsing right on her heels. She leapt onto the bus and rode it as it rocketed past the city limits. She and the rest of the Scoobies got out of the bus and surveyed the damage; the entire town was now a crater several miles wide. Sunnydale, their home for seven years, was gone, the Hellmouth was gone. She was numb, shell shocked by the fact that she was free. After all this time, she wasn’t the one and only Slayer anymore. She could be normal, she could have a life, she could have a future! She and Sp…oh that’s right, Spike was gone. Her mind was so jumbled, she barely heard Giles ask what caused the destruction. She told him it was Spike and that was the last thing she said for several hours. She stayed silent until later that night when she and Dawn were alone.

Dawn stayed in the room while she went to get ice, and when she came back, she heard her crying. She set the ice on the table and found her in the bathroom; she lay on the floor with her bleeding hands covering her face.

“Dawn, what happened?” she asked, examining the little cuts on her baby sister’s hands.

“It’s all gone.” Dawn croaked, her tears washing the tiny smears of blood from her face. “Our house, our stuff, Mom and Tara’s graves, it’s all gone. I know it was an evil town, but it was our home!” Buffy hugged Dawn as she cried she couldn’t help crying herself. “And Anya and those Potentials, they’re all dead, and they deserved better than to get buried in that crater! And Spike! He’s gone and I never told him I forgave him! He was my best friend and the last thing I said to him was ‘Pass me that crossbow.’ How could I let him die thinking I hated him? I’m an awful person!”

By now, Buffy had broken down too. She hugged Dawn tighter and began to speak through the tears. “No, Dawnie, you’re not. We all have things we wish we’d said or not said to people we lost. There are a million things I wish I’d said to Spike if I’d known that was the last time I saw him.”

“He loved you so much.” Dawn said, gripping her sister’s clothes in her fists. “I don’t know what he thought of me, but…”

“He loved you too!” Buffy said seriously. “He always thought of you as his ‘Little Bit’. Don’t ever think you didn’t mean anything to him.”

“I loved him too.” Dawn said, her eyes welling up again. “But I never told him so. I never told him I forgave him, and now it’s to late. He must have thought I hated him.”

“Never!” Buffy said, sniffling. “He was the most perceptive person I know, he knew you loved him.”

“Did you love him?” Dawn asked as she rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. Buffy tensed at the question, the final moments in the Hellmouth replayed in her head.

I love you

No, you don’t but thanks for saying it.

“Yeah, I loved him.” She said, her voice quivering. The two of them cried and hugged each other for a while, then slowly they switched to reminiscing of good times of their lost friends. It still hurt, but it was a little easier with each other’s shoulders to cry on.

The group went to LA after that night, it wasn’t an easy encounter. She told Angel about the battle, but other than that, she didn’t spend much time with him. She felt like her feelings for Angel just help convince Spike that she didn’t love him, and part of her blamed him for bringing that amulet that killed Spike. The group left for England a week later. They held a memorial service a month later in London; they erected graves for everyone they lost in Sunnydale all the way back to the beginning. She visited Spike’s grave often while they were in England. She loved him and was so proud of him for proving that he was the champion she always said he could be.

Buffy put up a brave face until she and Dawn were in Rome, then she really let herself mourn Spike. She couldn’t believe that Spike was gone forever, she half expected him to pop up with one of his rude comments all the time. He wasn’t supposed to die. They were supposed to get through the fight and start over like a real couple. She looked back over the way she treated Spike and she was ashamed of herself. He stood by her when everyone else turned against her, he gave her confidence back. He asked her if that night he held her meant anything, and an hour later she was kissing Angel. No wonder he didn’t believe her. She couldn’t admit she loved him when he was there, because she was afraid he’d leave but not telling him didn’t stop him from dying. She would’ve given anything to go back and just tell him the truth, so he wouldn’t have had to die thinking he was unloved. She walked around and took in the fantastic Roman sights, but in her heart she could only wish Spike was here to enjoy it with her.

Then the dreams started. At first they would replay the last few moments in the Hellmouth, right up until she told him she loved him. She’d tell him and he’d say she didn’t, and then she’d do things different. She’d rip the amulet off him and run. She’d drag him out of the cave while he was still wearing it. She’d wear the amulet herself so he could escape. She’d actually have Angel be the one to wear the amulet so Spike could get away with her. Sometimes, she’d just stay with him until the end; even when their hands caught on fire and the ceiling came crashing down she didn’t leave him. Once, she’d been standing on the edge of the crater with her friends and she suddenly ran back in and dug him out of the wreckage of Sunnydale. Dozens of times, lots of different ways; every night she’d save him. Until her subconscious came up with a new way to torture her.

After a while she’d replay instances when she’d treated him awful or times when she regretted not telling him her feelings, with a twist. The first time that happened, it was a version of the morning after the first time she and Spike had sex with the roles switched. Instead of her running off, it was him that told her that it was wrong. He called her convenient and wrong, she experienced every awful thing she said to him. As the dreams continued, she experienced every horrible thing she ever said or done to him; every name called, every punch thrown, every single thing she ever did to hurt him. Once she dreamt of Spike being brutally tortured by a monster wearing a mask, and when she ran in to save him she took the mask and saw that the monster’s face was her own. If she thought she hated herself that year the Scoobies brought her back, now there were times when she could barely look herself in the mirror.

It got so bad that she actually contemplated suicide, but every time she did she felt like she would somehow nullify Spike’s sacrifice by dying. For six months she reflected on Spike, and then one day she was walking by the ocean. For the first time in months, she noticed just how beautiful it all was. The sun, the ocean, her life, everything that she and everyone had was because of Spike. He died so she could be happy and live. She promised that day that his death wouldn’t be in vain. She would live every day to the fullest, and make sure Spike was remembered. But she also swore that she’d never love another man again.

She shut down any impulse of romantic tendency; she refused to even think about guys or pursuing another relationship. If a guy hit on her she just ignored him, and with all the would-be Casanovas in Rome it wasn’t easy. The guys were sure cute, but all she wanted was the pair of blue eyes, some pronounced cheekbones and British accent that belonged to her dead love. She couldn’t watch romantic movies without thinking of him and breaking down, even some Disney movies had an affect on her.

She let her hair grow out, like he always liked, but she didn’t bleach it often, which sometimes resulted in very pronounced brunette roots. She went to the club with Dawn often, but she never tried to meet anyone. Until one day she met a very unusual guy. She was in her favorite club, and suddenly the bar tender handed her a drink and said it was from the guy sitting further down the bar. He was taller than her, dark hair, gorgeous, dressed in a $1,000 suit and a voice like an angel. She hated him immediately.

He talked with her for an hour, she wasn’t interested, but the months without any satisfaction were beginning to make her antsy. The guy introduced himself as Lucius Giovanni, the Immortal. She had some research done and found out the Immortal was considered like a rock star of supernatural beings. He’d been around for thousands of years and done a lot of good and a lot of bad in his time. Well, this guy was her type: at least 100 years old, dark past, might be evil, and annoying at times. She talked to him more often, and slowly she began to like him, but not love him. She even told him that she wasn’t in love with him.

He replied “Cara, please understand that I am not exactly in love with you either, at least not in the sense of spending all of eternity with you. Don’t misunderstand me, Miss Buffy, I care about you, but I could never limit my affections to a single partner. I really like you, and I wish to make what we have last as long as it can, but I will never settle down with any woman.”

She didn’t care he felt that way, because that’s exactly how she felt. She liked him, enjoyed his company, and the sex was good, but it wasn’t going anywhere with them. They’d have their fun, get whatever they could out of it and when it ended it ended. Dawn wasn’t comfortable with this, but she told Buffy that if this is what it took to move on then she should do it. For two months, she and the Immortal were together, but then one night, something happened that Buffy would regret. She had just come home from her job and she noticed a figure sitting, facing away on the couch.

“Hi Lucius.” She said, not seeing his face as she walked towards the kitchen.

“Hello luv.” said a painfully familiar voice. Buffy froze, she almost couldn’t bear to turn around to see and hear Spike’s voice coming from Lucius’ mouth. She turned and felt her a lump rise in her throat at what she saw. Where the Immortal stood was Spike wearing a leather coat over Lucius’ expensive suits. Buffy knew it wasn’t really Spike, but it was a damn good imitation.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Buffy asked, unnerved and attracted by this simulation of her twice-dead lover.

“Isn’t this what you want?” The Immortal asked in Spike’s voice. “A bleach blond, cigarette smoking, alcoholic, dirty minded vampire?”

“Stop it.” Buffy said, her voice almost a whisper.

“I thought you’d like this,” He said, reverting to his real voice. “I know you think about him, especially when you sleep with me. ”

“Shut up.” Buffy said, fighting the conflicting feelings of desire and disgust.

“Come on, Darling, you know you want it this way.” Lucius said, seductively slipping back into Spike’s voice. She did want it, as much as she tried to deny it, seeing Spike again, even if it wasn’t real, set her skin on fire like it hadn’t in a year. She was torn; Part of her wanted to just forget that Spike was gone and pretend that he was with her for a little while, and the other part was angry and disgusted at the Immortal for pulling a stunt like this and at herself for being turned on by this.

“No.” Buffy whispered. Her voice was devoid of emotion, but the look in her eyes told the Immortal that she was very tempted by his little game.

“Come on, luv, a bit of the rough and tumble?” Lucius said, once more in Spike’s voice. Finally the Immortal came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered, “I love you, Buffy.”

Buffy couldn’t stand it anymore; she whirled around and crushed her lips against the Immortal’s. She ripped his shirt off while he tried slowly removed her clothes, but she wouldn’t break the kiss long enough to do it. She pushed him onto the sofa and straddled him. With one hand she ran her fingers through the bleach blonde hair and with the other she unzipped his pants.

“Oh, Cara mia!” The Immortal groaned.

“Shh, shut up.” Buffy said, looking into the mystically altered face of her lover. “Just be him. Just be Spike.”

This wasn’t about making love by any stretch of the imagination; this was escapism, about feeling something other than despair and loneliness. This was the same as the night she and Spike brought the house down in Sunnydale. The next morning when she woke up, she expected to see Spike with her, but all she saw was Lucius. She bolted to the bathroom and ran the shower full blast. She felt dirty. She couldn’t have Spike, so she fucked something that looked like Spike, it was no different than the Buffybot. Spike deserved better than to have his memory defiled because she wanted sex with a Spike blow-up.

She decided to break up with Lucius that night, but during a walk she saw him making out with some woman. She read him the riot act, but inside she was glad for the excuse to break up with him. Lucius pleaded for her to understand, saying he’d pleasure her in ways she never dreamed possible. And then he went and made that stupid suggestion of a threesome with her sister and she threw him out the window.

That was a little over a week before Lorne showed up with the news that Spike had been back the whole time and died again. When she found out, she was crushed, she felt even worse than before. Spike was alive and they had a second chance, but because he thought she didn’t love him, he stayed away. She had done such a bang up job convincing him that she didn’t love him, he didn’t want to come to her because he thought she’d reject him. The following days were a living hell, and when she saw Spike come back in the bar it was like being back in Heaven.

She had been given another chance, and she wasn’t going to waste this one. She was going to make him believe that she loved him, she was going to say everything she never said in Sunnydale, the two of them were going to have a real relationship. But one thought kept coming to the surface; the nagging question of whether or not they could make it work. There was so much that still needed to be said, so much work on both their parts. Xander’s words that night when Riley left Sunnydale came to her.

“If he's not the guy, if what he needs from you just isn't there, let him go. Break his heart, and make it a clean break. But if you really think you can love this guy ... I'm talking scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need ... if you're ready for that ... then think about what you're about to lose.”

With Angel and Riley she wasn’t ready for that. Spike was the guy, and she did love him. She was ready to face the real, tough, gritty, complicated, scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need kind of love. It wasn’t going to be easy. A rough road lay ahead, but it would be worth it because she and Spike were in love and this time it would be real.

“Even if I have to kill him again to convince him.” Buffy said jokingly. She wrapped the blanket around her and slowly let sleep claim her.