PROLOGUE

The Wolfram and Hart jet was waiting to fly them back to L.A. but Spike had a lot on his mind.

“Peaches, I’ve been thinking…” He said.

“That’s never good.” Angel muttered.

“I’m not coming back.”

“What? Is this about Buffy?” Angel asked.

“No. Well, yes but not the way you mean. Look, there’s nothing for me in L.A. or here, for that matter. You’ve moved on, you’ve got dog girl, you shouldn‘t still be chasing Buffy. Buffy’s moved on, with the soddin’ Immortal. Bloody hell, even the li’l boy’s dating. Girls of all things; didn’t see that coming. And Buffy, she must have known we were in that club and she couldn’t get out fast enough.

“You heard what the li’l boy said, ‘Buffy loves you both..’ but she wasn’t going to face us, either of us. She’s moved on, it’s time I did, too.”

“Have you finished?” Angel asked.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t force you to come back but I thought you’d decided to stay with us.”

“That was before. The stuff with Fred, after that, it was over for me. I know I said it felt right, to stay but it feels wrong, now. I would have given my life to save her but we didn’t get the option. Now Illyria’s walking around and you lot treat her like a new part of the team. That place’ll kill or screw up all of you, before it’s finished, probably why they’re letting you run it… I‘m clearing out, before it gets round to me.”

“You’re right.“ Angel said and Spike looked at him as though the world had ended. “Don’t.“ He said, as Spike opened his mouth to say something sarky. “There’s only two of us. Vampires with souls.“ He clarified, “We really shouldn’t be in the same places, together.“

“Like royalty; kings and their heirs never travel together.“

“Yeah, that’s us, vampire royalty. Two targets, instead of one. Do you need anything, money…?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. See you around.” He walked away.

“We’ll miss you,” Angel murmured, as he watched Spike leave.

* * * * *

CHAPTER ONE

It was full dark when he walked silently down the gangplank, moving with all the stealth and grace of a deadly predator; which, of course, he was. It was meant to be summer but the rain, which was just starting to get heavy, was cold. He looked up at the sky.

"Welcome home, Spike." He muttered to himself.

"I was going to say that." The voice was feminine and tinged with mock childish disappointment.

"And who might you be? Welcoming committee is it?" Spike asked, turning to the dark doorway where the young woman was standing.

"You could say that." She stepped out of the shadows, with an air of caution, as if she thought she’d spook him. Spike breathed in deeply, scenting her.

"You’re a slayer."

"Yes. I’m your bodyguard while you’re in England."

"Bodyguard?" His voice incredulous, "Whose bright idea was that?"

"After what happened to you in L.A. the Council felt..."

"Bloody Watchers council, what do they care?"

"An ensouled vampire in a world full of slayers? No way that that can go wrong. When they heard you were coming, they thought someone should make your stay as easy as possible. We don’t want any more misunderstandings."

"How did they know I was coming?"

"Seers. Look, we can talk in the car, it’s dryer." She gestured to where a black limo was parked, a damp looking chauffeur poised by the doors. Both looked out of place, parked at the docks.

"Any reason why I should trust you?"

"Spike," She said, with an exasperated sigh, "It’s pissing down with rain and we’ve got a long way to go before dawn, now cut the bollocks and get in the sodding car."

"Well, when you put it like that," he said, following her lead, "I never could resist proper English spoken by a posh bird."

There was plenty of room in the back of the car and the young slayer shrugged out of her wet raincoat, giving Spike a better look at her. She had short dark hair and a slim figure, a delicate, almost elfin quality that instantly attracted him. He felt a strong surge of lust as he looked into her blue/green eyes.

"Lily." She said, holding out her hand to him. He took it, briefly and felt an almost electrical crackle at the touch of her skin on his. She picked up a large brown envelope from the seat and handed it to him.

"Practical things first," She said, "In here’s everything you need to establish your identity in the modern world. You just need to provide specimen signatures and look into the web cam, there."

She gestured above her head and he looked, instinctively. "We’ve set you up with diplomatic immunity, so the police can’t touch you when you break the law."

"When I break the law." He said, with a dry laugh.

"We’re anticipating that happening quite a lot.” She smiled, counting off on her fingers. “Speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, riding a motor bike without a helmet, driving while intoxicated, carrying deadly weapons..."

"Hold on, you’re a slayer, how do you get round that one?"

She took a few items out of her pocket.

"Perfume spray bottle - full of holy water, pencil - custom made, from hardwood; makes a good stake, rape alarm - it’s meant to make a noise but actually..." She activated it and, instead of an ear splitting shriek, a vicious blade shot from the end. "Flick knife, illegal in this country but sometimes nothing else will do."

"I'm guessing slayers got organized."

"Yeah, Rupert Giles heads up the new council and Buffy runs the slayer college, in Rome."

“And the gadgets?”

“Andrew Wells, geek extraordinaire. Fancies himself as ‘Q‘ from the James Bond films; on the days when he‘s not a nineteenth century literary giant or an extremely annoying film maker.”

“When he came to L.A… Giles had told Wesley he was sending his top man.”

“That’s Giles-speak for ‘expendable’. What happened to you in L.A. was..."

"Could have been worse." He said, firmly.

"If she'd been sane, it would have been. I've got to make sure nothing like that happens here."

"I'm sure no one on the council would care."

"The council’s different now, more flexible. The younger element makes them less stuffy and the ones that know you personally, don’t see in black and white. You are totally unique. You have a soul. You've saved the world, more than once. It would be a disaster if you were killed."

"Heard of Angel, have you?"

"No comparison, he was cursed, you fought for your soul, not the same thing at all." She dismissed Angel with a flick of her hand.

"Also, he’s dust. I felt him go a couple of months ago. Do you know what happened?" Spike said, his voice tinged with regret.

"He ran into trouble with the senior partners of that law firm in L.A. No one knows the details but a lot of people died."

“How did Buffy take it?” Spike asked, wondering if Angel’s precious Shanshu had happened and he and Buffy were finally together.

“I don’t know, I’ve never met her.”

“Not been to the college, pet?”

“It’s not compulsory, so, no.”

“Watcher training you?”

“Watchers are a bit thin on the ground, these days.”

“Some bodyguard.” Spike muttered.

“Not so much in the physical sense, more to make sure that no other slayers have a go at you. I can fight, though.” She said, firmly, as if challenging him.

"So, where are we heading?" He asked, thinking that it might be fun to take her up on it. He hadn’t felt this drawn to a woman in a long time.

"The ancestral pile. We have a large cellar and it's been completely kitted out with you in mind. Speaking of which," she gestured to a small fridge, "Can I offer you anything?"

‘Yeah, you - naked and chained across my bed, whimpering and begging me as I slide my…’

"Spike?"

She'd opened the fridge to reveal various alcohols and a blood pack.

"Sorry pet, miles away; I'll take a bloody J.D." He said, wanting to test how squeamish she would be about him drinking blood. She nodded, mixed it and handed it to him, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He sipped it and found it mixed just the way he liked.

"Human?" He asked, savouring the taste.

"Yes, we buy it in. I had some medical problems before I became a slayer, we never cancelled the order. No one questions our need for it. Any surplus, we sell at cost to the local demon bar. It's medical grade, so it's clean. If I ever need a transfusion, we have it on hand."

"You could make a big profit on the stuff."

"The owner's a friend and the local vamps who drink there are staying out of trouble. It's not like we need the money."

"Speak for yourself, pet."

He’d just spent months bumming round Europe and had had to stow away on a cross channel ferry, to reach England; he could have used some cash.

"We've already set you up a bank account to cover any expenses. The card and pin are in the envelope. There's a hundred in the account for any essentials you might want straight away, and a further fifty goes in on the first of every month. Obviously all your living expenses are covered, so it's just fun money."

"Severely limited fun, by the sound of it."

"I don’t know what you were getting at Wolfram and Hart but with the current exchange rate, fifty grand in pounds is around seventy grand in dollars! If you’re telling me you can’t have fun with that much cash, well, you’ve been spoiled."

"I’ll try to manage." He said, not wanting her to realize that he’d thought she was talking pounds and not thousands of pounds. He really hoped that this wasn’t some kind of trap, or worse, a joke.

It wasn’t a joke, anyway. The ‘ancestral pile’ turned out to be a small stately home, in reasonably good repair, considering it wasn’t open to the public.

"If we opened our doors, then any vampire could just walk in here." She explained as they walked up the steps to the main doors. The doors opened as they got to them, Lily stepped over the threshold.

"Come in, Spike." she said, making it sound like a normal courtesy, for the benefit of the young maid who had opened the door. "I'll show you your room."

She led him up the stairs, and down a hallway to a pleasant suite of rooms.

"Very nice but aren't cellars usually below ground?"

She smiled and led him to a connecting door.

"The staff think that you're my lover, a bit of a scandal but a good smoke screen for what you really are. These rooms connect with mine,” She led him into her rooms and to a large built-in bookcase. She showed him the switch that opened a section and revealed a spiral staircase, leading down.

"This has been here since the house was built. It's always good to have an escape route."

"There's another way out, then?"

"Yes, into what was the main stable block. You could come down here, through the cellar, out to the stables, grab a horse and go. You still can, we keep the cars there now."

He followed her down, feeling slightly nervous, this was starting to feel wrong. The Initiative had been set up like this and although he was fairly certain he could take Lily in a fight, he had no idea what kind of back up she might have, waiting in the cellar. The trauma of losing his hands, in L.A. had made him wary around slayers who weren’t Buffy, he realized. He was tensed and ready to fight but he would give her the benefit of the doubt - for now.

Ahead of him, she swung a door open and walked calmly through. Spike paused, drew a deep breath in through his nose and, scenting only her, followed.

It was a good sized room, a lot like the downstairs of his old crypt in style. Subtle electric light instead of flaming torches and candles, expensive looking rugs on the walls. There was a king size bed with lavish looking black satin sheets and decorative wrought iron, that begged to have chains added.

"It got converted into a bomb shelter in the eighties. It's very secure, sound proof, radiation proof and, of course, sunlight proof. None of the staff know it's down here, they think you’ll be staying in the room upstairs." She handed him a bunch of keys. "The fridge is well stocked but if you need anything, there's a phone by the bed. Deliveries will come by dumb waiter." She gestured to a small square door on the wall. "You’ve also got full broadband, HD TV, a gaming console, stereo…"

"Can I leave?"

"Not yet,"

"You gonna stop me?"

"No but the sun'll be up in a little while. What's wrong, don't you like it?"

"Very nice, as cages go."

"Cages? I’ve just given you the keys!"

"And I suppose those are decorative." he pointed to the nearest wall. Manacles on chains hung from it.

Lily blushed and something about the innocence of it made Spike want to scare her a little. He took her hand and led her to the wall. "Tell me that these aren’t for me." He said, silkily as he fastened one of the manacles to her wrist.

"W w well, yes but only in the recreational sense." Lily stammered, blushing even more. "I understand that you have, certain…needs."

"Got needs have I, pet?" He said, enjoying her embarrassment as he chained her other hand. He undid the first three buttons of her dress. "Do you know what I need, right now?"

She shook her head as his face changed, his eyes yellow and his mouth full of fangs.

"Right now," he growled, "I need slayer blood." he pulled the dress down, slightly, to expose her neck. He had no intention of feeding but he wanted to see her reaction. To his shock, she turned her head away so that even more of her neck was exposed to his hungry gaze. He breathed her in. The scent of her was both familiar and exciting.

"You’re aroused. You actually want me."

"Yes," She turned to look him in the eye. "I want you, Spike."

‘Buffy’s moved on.’ He thought, ‘I can too‘. The scent of Lily’s arousal was overpowering, as he ripped her dress open the rest of the way, buttons flying. All she had underneath was a tiny pair of white lace panties which he tore to shreds.

He kissed her, hard and she responded, their tongues exploring as his hand stroked lower to her hot, moist centre. He slipped a finger inside, causing her to gasp and push against him, her tightness making him harder still. The tip of his finger grazed her maidenhead.

A virgin. It didn’t seem possible, how old was she? He took his hand away and stopped kissing her. She whimpered her disappointment.

"We need to talk." He said.

"Later, I promise but please, don't stop."

"Are you sure?" He didn’t want her chained like this for her first time. He wanted it to be special.

"Oh god yes." she said, with a vehemence that tugged at his memory.

"You trust me not to hurt you?"

"No, I trust you not to harm me."

He nodded at her understanding and wrapped one hand around her throat, squeezing, gently, until the pressure caused her to black out.

Moving fast, he supported her weight across his shoulder while unlocking the manacles. He carried her to the bed and laid her on it, positioning her carefully. In the top drawer of the bedside cabinet, he found handcuffs which he used to fasten her hands to the bed head.

Stripped of his clothes, he knelt between her legs and began exploring, with his tongue. He flicked at her hard little clit, holding her legs, as she writhed her way back to consciousness. She moaned and whimpered as he sucked on her hot little pleasure centre, feeling her orgasm building. As it hit, he pushed his finger all the way in, breaking the barrier with his sharp, black varnished fingernail. She screamed her ecstasy as he added another finger, stretching her for what was to come.

When she had calmed, a little, he took his fingers out of her and sucked the blood from them. The taste of virgin slayer blood caused him to harden even more. He put his tongue inside her and collected every last drop. She felt so tight around his tongue, he couldn’t wait to slide his huge erection into her.

He trailed his tongue up her body to lavish it on her hard little nipples, his hand teasing her opening. He wanted her to beg for it, to be so desperate, that the pain of it would mean nothing. He trailed his tongue higher until they were kissing again, the swollen tip of his manhood rubbing against her slit.

"Are you ready for it?" He asked, when she broke for air.

"Yes," she gasped, "please Spike, I need you inside me, every inch of you, please…"

He slowly slid the tip into her, intending to take her gently, tenderly, for her first time. He buried the images of the other virgins he had taken in his long life. So many, taken with violence for Drusilla's amusement, their hot tears on his face as he drank his fill from their throats, his ecstasy as Dru licked their blood from his manhood. Occasionally, she would cloud their minds, so that they believed that they wanted whatever was done to them but, until Lily, he had never had a truly willing virgin. The romantic in him wanted this to be like a wedding night. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about the pain/pleasure sexual response in women and slayers healed fast. This was going to be wonderful.

* * * * *

Lily awoke with her head on Spike's chest, his arm around her. His pale skin was cool beneath her cheek, she kissed him.

"That was worth waiting for."

"Do I know you?" He asked.

"I’m Lily, we met last night." She replied, raising her head to look at him. Just the sight of her eyes, the pupils dilated, her gaze intense, made him harden again.

"No, I mean before that. I feel like I know you."

"After the day we’ve just had, you do know me."

"Were you saving yourself for someone special?"

"Mmmm." She murmured her assent, kissing her way across his chest.

"Won't he be angry?"

"Well, he has got a bit of a temper, and he has been known to stake vampires…" She looked up at him, her eyes full of love.

"Why me?" Spike asked.

She lay her head back down and began to speak.

"I was sixteen when the dreams began."

"Dreams?"

"Yeah, these were a little different to slayer’s prophetic dreams but I wasn’t a slayer, back then.

"I was kneeling, half naked, in a cave. I’d been beaten and violated but knew that I had won. I felt triumphant and ready for my prize and this demon put its hand on my chest and the pain was unimaginable. The thing that I had fought for, yearned for, wanted more than anything, was terrible beyond endurance. And I was stuck with it.

"You know what I felt, don't you?"

"When I got my soul back." Spike said, softly.

"I felt what you felt, when you felt it. I was in a coma, ‘dreaming’ your life, until Willow’s spell made me a slayer."

"All of it?"

"Everything you saw, did, thought, felt. Doesn’t anything good ever happen to you?"

"Today's been pretty good." He said, stroking her hair.

"I woke up screaming your name. I wanted to go to Sunnydale, or what was left of it and find you. I knew that you weren’t completely gone."

"So what happened?"

"It was reported as a massive earthquake. Hardly any loss of life because most of the population left in the days leading up. The miracle of Sunnydale, they called it. They had experts on, talking about people's instinctive avoidance of disaster, how trains that crash statistically carry less passengers than when they don't crash. People have bad feelings and don't get on, that kind of thing."

"I’ve heard that."

"Anyway, that was the theory. The entire town had a bad feeling and left."

"That's pretty much what happened."

"I know. Anyway, it wasn’t a place you could visit, deemed unsafe and, after my initial shock of waking, I could feel that you were at peace, so…"

"I don't remember."

"Nothing?"

"To me it was instantaneous, I was burning up in the hell mouth and then I was in Angel's office at Wolfram and Hart. I feel naked."

"What?"

"You’ve been inside my head, you know everything, I feel exposed."

"I don't know everything, only what you felt and thought during that time."

"Why aren’t you afraid of me?"

"Because I’ve been inside your head."

"That should make you afraid."

"It makes me admire you."

There was a bleeping sound from the dumb waiter. Spike slid smoothly out from under her and crossed the room.

"I ordered breakfast, while you were sleeping." He said, bringing the tray and setting it down on the bedside table.

They feasted, in bed together and Spike opened the brown envelope that was addressed to him. In a brief note he was asked to complete the required forms for ID and also invited to meet Lily's father. He opened the first envelope and smiled when he read the name that Lily had given him. Spík Cendri.

"Set you aflame do I pet?" He asked, as he signed his new name on various forms.

"Always." she replied, with a smile.

"You didn’t want to go with ‘William‘, then?"

"You don't think of yourself as William, you think of yourself as Spike. I changed the spelling to make it look foreign. You won't have to use it very often, it's just in case."

"It's alright, I like it. Now, why does your father want to see me?"

"He's just curious to meet you. The whole slayer thing was a bit of a shock to him and you being a vampire……"

"I get it, will he have a stake?"

"No, of course not, he's a very supportive parent." She laughed. "I don't know about you but I need a shower."

She headed to a door in one corner of the room and Spike went with her.

“We didn’t have a two way link, did we?” Spike asked, as he tenderly soaped her.

“No, I don’t think so.” She decided to put him out of his misery. “The reason I’m so familiar to you, is simple; we’re related.”

“What?” Spike spluttered, dropping his hands from her.

“Only distantly.” She said, reassuringly, “I’m descended from your uncle on your mother’s side.”

“Uncle Henry?”

“Yeah, he was my great-great-great-great grandfather.”

“I should have recognised the place, I was here once, when I was a child.”

“The allowance you’re getting, was set up by your uncle, after your father died. It’s had a long time to mature.”

“My father set one up, too.”

“That’s how we knew that you’d survived. When you and your mum disappeared, it was assumed that you’d taken her abroad, for her health. No one believed that you could have had anything to do with the murder of your servants; a few years later, there was speculation that they may have been Jack the Ripper’s first victims. Anyway, you were still using your money, abroad. The lawyers figured that you married and just never came back.”

“When did you realize?”

“That you were a vampire and family? While I was dreaming you. You were a little insane, for a while and you dreamed about your childhood, your turning, your mum…”

“Don’t.” He said, his voice full of pain.

She pressed her wet, slippery body against him and kissed him as she rubbed soap into him.

“I can’t help but love you,” She murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. “But you don’t have to love me.”

Spike said nothing, just kissed her harder and held her tighter.

An hour later he was knocking quietly on the library door.

"Come in." Said an aristocratic voice.

Lily's father was more or less what Spike expected. He was about the same age as Rupert Giles and had a similar air about him. Spike expected this to be a frosty meeting.

"Come on in, my boy; have a seat. Drink?" Sir Robert said, warmly.

Spike blinked in surprise at this turn of events.

"Thank you, sir." He said, his good upbringing reasserting itself.

"Robert, please. You’re family."

"You don't mind that I‘m a vampire?"

"Yes and no. There are some things we need to discuss." He handed Spike a glass of very fine single malt whiskey and they sat together, like civilized men. Sir Robert cleared his throat.

"I presume that you have just spent the last ten hours, repeatedly violating my nineteen year old daughter."

Spike choked on his drink.

"What makes you think that?" He croaked, his vocal cords burning from the whiskey.

"According to the kitchen, you ordered ‘champagne breakfast for two’ for six o’clock this evening. Very romantic; nice touch."

"I thought so." Spike murmured, carefully sipping his scotch.

"You have to understand my concerns, this whole slayer thing came out of nowhere. Lily was a normal, healthy teenager; then one day she couldn’t be woken up. Not a coma, not really; she was just asleep and dreaming. I hired a nurse and kept her out of hospital but the injuries…"

"Injuries?"

"She didn’t tell you?"

"About the dreams but.."

Sir Robert handed him a stack of photos. The first showed Lily lying in bed, hooked up to various machines, an I.V. in her arm. The picture was shocking to him because she was stripped to the waist and there were deep, bloody slashes across her left breast. He remembered trying to cut out his soul, at the beginning. He had been insanely convinced that it lived in his chest, near his heart and if he cut deep enough… He shuddered at the thought of Lily enduring that. The next photo showed her suffering extensive burns to her chest, arms and face. Guilt swept over him, another self inflicted hurt that he had inadvertently visited on her. Relieved that Willow’s spell had woken Lily up, before he had burned in the hell mouth, he handed the pictures back without looking at the rest.

"Then, the harbingers came.” Sir Robert continued. “To protect her, I evacuated the staff and watched over her myself. I moved her to the cellar because it was easier to defend. Rupert Giles had told me what to expect."

"You’re a watcher?"

"No. We were at school together; I never liked him - cold, ruthless bastard but I knew he was into this stuff, so I got in touch. He told me Lily was a potential slayer and that she was in danger."

"How did you stop them?"

"They stopped coming after a while but they were easy enough to deal with."

"Protection barrier, witchcraft?"

Sir Robert laughed.

"No, my boy, I shot them."

"How many?"

"Forty-seven. They didn’t all come at once, of course; they made it easy, two or three at a time. They’re buried out there." He gestured to the window. In the garden was a large rockery - boulders and earth with a scattering of plants. "For the first year, nothing grew, but now…"

"No one thought it strange that you were burying bodies?"

"Of course not, I hired a marquee and a JCB and had some very expensive boulders delivered. Misdirection is the key. Being filthy rich helps too, of course.

"My point is, that I am very protective of my daughter. I lost her mother nine years ago, so it’s just been the two of us... Now, she's informed me that she needs to be with you and you come from a good family.” He smiled, “You have class, breeding and strength of character, so I accept her choice. You seem to accept it too…"

"but?"

"She's my only child and will inherit everything but only on condition that she produces an heir. I don't care how, so long as she's discreet. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No sir."

"Good, welcome back to the family."

He shook Spike's hand with what felt like genuine warmth and left Spike feeling slightly dazed. Lily was waiting for him outside the door.

"How did you get on with him?" She asked.

"Better than I expected. Now, what do you do for fun around here?"

"I’ll show you around."

"Is there a hell mouth?"

"I’m afraid not. You won't be bored though, we have a multi-dimensional hot spot."

"And what's one of those, when it's at home?"

"It's like a weakness between dimensions, not really a gateway but things come through sometimes."

"Bad things?"

"Sometimes very bad things. C’mon, I’ll take you there."

CHAPTER TWO

Buffy was keeping busy. The months since Angel’s death had been only slightly harder than the time before it. She had never stopped mourning Spike and she wasn’t sure she had room to mourn Angel as well.

Damn him, anyway.

She remembered her rage when she had realized that she was being watched. Rage that hadn’t quit until Giles was pulling her away from a battered and bloody human. Angel’s spy.

Couldn’t he leave it? Couldn’t he just accept that she was her own person? She should have spelled it out to him, at their last meeting. She should never have told him that crap about cookie dough. She should have told him that she was in love with Spike.

She was just a coward, when it came to admitting her feelings. Even to herself.

She should have confronted him when he had shown up in Rome.

She hadn’t been ready. How could she face him, when, effectively, they were both responsible for Spike’s death? How could she be civilized, in his company, when, deep down, she wished that he’d burnt up in the hell mouth.

She hadn’t known that it would be her last chance.

The Immortal had helped her out, that night. He had connections and he knew that Angel would show up, to retrieve some demon bigwig’s head. That, coupled with Giles’ spy, reporting from the hospital that Buffy’s latest casualty had regained consciousness and had phoned L.A., made it a certainty that Angel would show. The Immortal had taken Buffy clubbing and she’d left strict instructions to Andrew, that if Angel turned up at the apartment, he should make it clear that she was not available.

It had worked…up to a point.

At the night club, she had danced and tried to recapture the way it had felt before. Before she had loved either vampire, back when she could still be young and carefree. She thought that if she could pretend to be happy, convincingly enough, she might believe it, herself.

She had sensed Angel as soon as he entered the club. Why couldn’t he take a hint?

She had danced up a storm, putting on such an act of pretended happiness. Then, suddenly, it had felt like someone had doused her in ice water.

Spike.

It had felt as though Spike was in the room, as if he and Buffy were the only people in the room. The music had faded from her hearing and she had bolted for the exit.

The Immortal had booked her - just her - into a hotel, that night. She couldn’t go back to her apartment, in case Angel showed up. Not only could she not stand to be in the same room as him, she was fairly certain that if she were, she would happily stake him. When she did go back, she found that Andrew had moved out. Giles had sent him on a ‘special assignment’. Finally, some good news!

Now, of course, Angel was dust. For reasons known only to himself, he and his friends had taken on The Circle of the Black Thorn. Then again, his behaviour had been strange, for a while.

When Buffy had gone to see him, after Willow’s resurrection spell, he had bent her ear about some prophesy. One day, he had said, he would be rewarded for his good deeds, by becoming human. He had droned on and on about the life that he and Buffy would have, then. He hadn’t asked her what she wanted, he had just assumed. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the way her friends had assumed that she needed rescuing from heaven. She had gone back to Sunnydale, realizing that she was sick to death of not being consulted in the running of her life.

After the collapse of the hell mouth and the fall of Sunnydale, Buffy had been stunned to learn that Angel and his friends were now running Wolfram and Hart! They had been fighting the law firm for years and now, suddenly they’d changed sides. Maybe, when Willow re-ensouled him, this last time, it hadn’t quite taken. Buffy couldn’t bring herself to care.

After that, things had gotten weird.

The Watcher’s council was slowly being reformed - not all the watchers had died in the London bombing - the world full of untrained slayers, needed people. Giles had gathered them in Rome, to plan the next move.

Winifred Burkle had come, the day after Angel’s death. The sweet, shy young woman had walked in, in the middle of one of the interminable meetings. She and Willow had talked quietly, for a little while and then Willow had introduced her to Roger Wyndam-Pryce. Willow had come over, then and gently told Buffy that Angel was gone. Meanwhile, Roger Wyndam-Pryce had excused himself from the room and gone outside with Fred. That had been the last time that Wesley’s father had been seen alive.

Parts of him still turned up, now and then and Buffy found herself smiling over it.

‘When I get this chip out, they’re gonna be finding your body for weeks!’

It was at times like that, when she found herself smiling, inappropriately, because of something that Spike had once said to her, that she realized that she would never be over him.

So, she trained slayers all day and prowled Rome at night, killing anything that needed killing. She no longer had a death wish - what was the point of heaven when she knew, full well, that Spike wouldn’t be there?

All she could do was keep busy.

* * * * *

Lily and Spike walked down the lane in comfortable silence, Spike's mind racing. What had happened to him? He hadn’t behaved like this since… well, that time in L.A with Harmony but he felt he’d had an excuse, then. Now? He was moving on and if it didn’t work out, with Lily, he hoped it wouldn’t hurt her too badly. He loved Buffy, had for years and always would but Lily accepted him in a way that Buffy never had and probably never could.

He had tasted her blood while they made love - a big no-no for Buffy - but Lily had thoroughly enjoyed everything they had done. His vampire nature didn’t frighten or disgust her, even when he had ‘vamped out’ in the most intimate moment, using his longer ‘demon’ tongue to reach deeper inside her than any human could.

He realized, suddenly, what was missing from their time together - shame. She wasn’t in the least bit ashamed.

“We’re coming to the stone circle, that’s where the hot spot is. There‘s a convergence of ley lines.” Lily said, pointing ahead to a field.

“The seven maidens.” Spike murmured. “I remember, there’s a poem…”

“’Seven warrior maidens fair,

Wood in hand - dust in their hair,’” Lily quoted.

“They were slayers!” Spike realized.

“’Spill their blood ere seven moons,

Stone of life and blood drenched runes.’” Lily finished. “Now that there are so many slayers, it was easy to do. Someone, we never found out who, spilled the heart blood of seven slayers on the recumbent stone, on seven consecutive full moons.”

“That created the hot spot?” Spike asked, looking at the circle of seven stones, all almost as tall as him and the slightly larger carved stone slab that lay in the centre of the ring.

“Yeah. The traffic all seems to be one way,” She pointed at a shimmering area over the recumbent, centre stone. “Things come through but so far as we know, nothing has gone through from this side, that hadn‘t come from the other place, first.”

“Don’t people notice?” Spike asked, gesturing at the shimmer.

“People dismiss it as a heat haze.”

“Humans.” Spike said, shaking his head.

“Heads in the sand.” Lily said, laughing.

“So, how do we know if anything has come through, recently?”

“We go and ask.”

She led Spike out of the field and down to the village. They stopped at a non-descript building and Spike sniffed the air.

“Demon bar.” He said, gesturing down the steps that led below street level.

“Yeah. You’ve been promised a free drink.”

“I’m not usually that popular in these places.”

“Everyone’s welcome here.” Lily replied, opening the door at the bottom of the steps.

The first thing Spike noticed, was how clean the place was. He could smell demon, of course, that was how most of these places got clientele. It’s not like they could advertise but this was a million miles away from Willy’s.

“Spike, so glad you could make it.” Lorne said, genuine pleasure in his voice. “Hey, Slay Belle, didn’t I tell you it would be OK?” He said to Lily, putting a couple of drinks in front of them.

“You did,” She said, blushing.

“Your auras get any closer, we’ll have to get you two a room.” He continued, with a big smile.

“Oi, we’re not singing.” Spike said, protesting that the green skinned demon seemed to be reading them.

“Not on the outside, maybe, kids but believe me, inside you are.”

“Anything we should know about?” Lily asked, sipping her drink.

“No, it’s been really quiet in the stones.”

“What happened with Angel?” Spike asked, “And how did you end up here?”

“You remember Cordelia?”

“How could I forget.”

Spike had been totally floored when Angel had told him and the gang, that Cordelia had not woken up and had, in fact, still been in a coma and dying - despite the appearance that she had been walking around and solid enough for Spike to bite her. He’d never experienced an astral projection that convincing before.

“Before she… went… she passed her visions on to Angel and he hatched a plot to take out The Circle of the Black Thorn, er, the senior partners instruments on Earth - apocalypse stuff.” He added, at Spike’s blank look. “He’d been planning it, secretly, since before you left.”

“That’s why he agreed, when I told him I wasn’t coming back.”

“More likely he thought you’d stake him.” Lorne had a grim, serious look on his face that didn’t quite suit the usually bubbly demon. “He went ’undercover’ to find out who were members, he had to convince them that he was evil. He managed to spread a rumour that he’d engineered Fred’s death.”

“Yeah, if I’d believed that…”

“There’s worse; Drogan came to L.A to warn us about Angel’s treachery, the circle captured him and as part of his Black Thorn initiation, Angel killed him.”

“Son of a bitch. Yeah, I’d have staked him or died trying. How’d he finally go, good scrap, was it?”

“Angel and I had an agreement, I would kill Lindsey for him and then I’d be leaving. I don’t know the details of the final fight.”

“You, killed Lindsey?” Spike hadn’t thought Lorne capable of cold blooded murder.

“Yeah and even though he was pure evil, I’m not proud of it but Angel wanted him out of the way, in case we lost. Didn’t want him rebuilding things.”

“Any of them make it?”

“Illyria. She travels around, using natural portals; she turns up here, sometimes.”

“Survivor, that one.”

“You could call it that. She misses Wesley, spends most of her time dressed as Fred.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, right, you weren’t there… it was when you and Angel went to Rome; Fred’s parents showed up, unexpectedly. No one had thought to tell them she was… anyway, Illyria turned herself into Fred and the Burkles left, thinking that all was well.”

“And Wesley?”

“Stopped speaking to her, for a while. She took his death hard. He was the only one who understood her.”

“What’s the deal with the stones?”

“Side effect of the empathy, Big Bad. Every time something comes through, I get the tingles. Mostly, they’re disorientated from the trip, a lot of them come in here for a drink, settle their nerves. If they’re the peaceable kind, it’s fine; if not, Slay Belle takes care of them.” He inclined his head further up the bar.

Spike realized that Lily was talking with a rather serious looking young man. He was painfully skinny, wearing goth style clothes and had runic symbols tattooed up both arms. He handed Lily two packages and she squealed with excitement.

“Spike,” She said, “This is Garri, he’s a local warlock, he’s been tracking something down, for me.”

Spike shook hands with the young man. Garri peered at Spike’s hair.

“Who does it for you?” He asked, running his eyes lasciviously over the rest of Spike‘s body.

“I..er.. do it myself.” Spike replied.

“He’s also a hairdresser,” Lily whispered to Spike.

“How do you manage, without a mirror?” Garri asked Spike, curiously.

“Practice.”

“I’d be happy to come over and do it for you, anytime. Any friend of Lily’s etc. Enjoy your present, see you round, I hope.” He winked and headed for the door.

“Seems OK, hope he’s being careful with the magic’s.” Spike said, watching him leave.

“He’s been working on a temporal retrieval spell. It pulls lost objects out of time.”

“Sounds advanced, what did he retrieve? He said something about a present.”

Lily smiled and handed him the larger of the two packages.

“Open this one first.” She said, hardly able to contain her excitement.

Spike took the package - about the size of a TV remote but thicker - and tore the paper off. Inside, was a case containing a very expensive looking, stylish pair of sun glasses. Spike looked at them, puzzled and Lily handed him the other package. He opened it.

“How?” he asked, stunned. “It was destroyed.”

“Snatched out of time in the instant before its destruction. It’s yours, now. Put it on.”

Spike slipped the Gem of Amara onto his finger, it promptly disappeared.

“Huh?” Spike said, he could still feel the ring but it was invisible.

“It’s a glamour, this way, no one will know you’ve got it, so no one will think to take it from you.” Lily said, with a smile. “The watcher’s council don’t know about it. I wanted to give you something special.”

Spike didn’t know what to say. He thought of all the trouble he had gone through, to find this gem and now a slayer had just handed it to him.

“We can watch the sun come up, in a few hours.” Lily said, with a smile.

Buffy was bored. The slayer college was closed for the holiday season and Dawn was taking a short break with some of her new friends. Willow was away somewhere, with Kennedy and Xander was just away. Giles was always busy and even Andrew had a life - at least, Buffy hadn’t seen him since ‘That Night’.

‘That Night’, was how she referred to it, in her head. The night that Angel had come and the ghost of Spike had sent Buffy fleeing from the night club. So much had happened since ‘That Night’.

Giles had reluctantly revealed that Winifred Burkle was not what she seemed. He confessed that he’d received a phone call from Angel, months ago, saying that Fred had been taken over by an ‘Old One’ and could Willow come and help. Since Wolfram and Hart and, hence, Angel couldn’t be trusted, Giles had turned him down flat and hadn’t even bothered to tell Willow. When Fred had turned up, at the Watchers meeting, Giles had assumed that Angel and his friends had coped with the crisis, after all.

Willow had been furious. She had liked Fred and would have done anything to help. Buffy had just chalked it up as one more instance of Giles thinking he knew better. She hoped that losing a senior watcher had taught him a lesson.

Buffy logged on to the website.

‘The Watcher’s Website’ was mostly Andrew’s baby but even Giles had agreed that it needed to be done. After so many records had been lost in the bombing of Council Headquarters, it made sense to put as much as possible online. Andrew had been sent to England, to Giles’ private library, to scan books. He’d been warned about the ‘Moloch’ debacle and knew enough about the demon world, not to repeat it.

‘Angelus’ Buffy typed, then clicked on ‘search’.

She’d been doing this for a while. Reading up on Angel’s past. She hadn’t wanted to know, before but now he was gone, it didn’t matter. What she had learned, reading between the lines, had stunned her.

Angel and Angelus really were the same person.

For years, she had been convinced that, with his soul, Angel was not Angelus. Convinced that a soulless vampire was incapable of love, she had treated Spike like dirt. Angel’s fault. He had been so evil, without his soul, that it had ruined her for Spike’s love.

Now, she had the evidence and, for the first time, saw it all clearly. Willow had said it, years ago, while Angelus was terrorizing them all, ‘You’re still all he thinks about.’

Angel had told her himself, that he had seen her, in L.A., just before she met her first watcher. He had followed her to Sunnydale and done the whole ‘mysterious stalker’ bit. Turning up, giving cryptic messages, ‘helping‘.

Lying to her. Pretending he was too scared to enter the Master’s lair, when really he didn’t want her to find out about his past, before he was ready. Worming his way into her life and her affections. Manipulating her - an underage girl - into falling for him.

Angelus had operated the same way, obsessing over young virgins and tormenting them to the point of insanity, before raping and killing them.

Corrupting the innocent.

Of course, Buffy herself had to shoulder part of the blame. She had wanted the fairytale. The young heroine and her dark prince, living happily ever after.

What a crock.

He’d admitted to her himself, what he’d done to Drusilla but he had never recognized what he had done to Buffy. He had seduced her, on her seventeenth birthday and the act of taking her virginity had given him that moment of perfect happiness. Buffy knew for a fact, that he had slept with other women, since her and come away with his soul intact. Obviously it was the taking of innocents that really did it for him.

Angelus was, of course, famous for psychologically tormenting his victims and Angel’s trying to convince Buffy that she had to have a ‘normal’ life, was just as bad. How dare he talk her into striving for something that she could never have? Amazingly, Cordelia had said it, years ago in Sunnydale, ‘I’m Buffy, freak of nature; naturally I choose a freak for a boyfriend…’ Why had Buffy never listened to her friends?

Then again, she had. She’d listened to Xander, with his prejudice against all things vampire. She’d imagined the looks of horror on their faces if they’d found out she was sleeping with Spike; what would they have thought if they’d known she loved him?

She wasn’t sure exactly when it had dawned on her. She loved Spike. She remembered coming down the stairs, hearing him blustering at Dawn - unrealistic threats, he loved Dawn - the anxiety evident in his voice. The look on his face when he saw her. No one had ever looked at her that way; it wasn’t just the whole ‘coming back from the dead’ thing, either. This man loved her.

She’d done her best to spoil it, of course; trying to button her blouse with raw, bloody fingers - as if Spike was looking anywhere but at her face. Sitting, staring into his awe-filled eyes, she felt love swelling inside her and probably would have told him but for her friends. Bursting through the door, all talking at her, proud of the terrible thing they had done. Spike, her only lifeline, leaving…

Corruption of innocents.

It was all here. Angelus’ crimes. He had considered Drusilla to be his masterpiece. Tormented to insanity, raped, sired and stripped of her holy orders and, hence, God’s protection. All she could do was turn to her abuser, with adoration. She was still the same person, without her soul. Still insane.

In the twenty years before Spike, Drusilla sired quite a few ‘playmates’, all of them short lived. Then, she turned William the Bloody. Everyone assumed that he’d earned that name in some foul, depraved way but Spike had confessed to Buffy that it was because of his lack of skills as a poet. Bloody awful poetry.

How was it that a sensitive, virginal poet became one quarter of ‘the scourge of Europe’? Reading Angel’s file gave Buffy the answer: Angelus.

Spike loved Drusilla but she practically worshiped her sire; Spike would have changed to impress her, the way he would change over a century later, for Buffy. Angelus had a fondness for training young vampires, to be like him. The previous century, it had been carving crosses on the victim’s cheek, as an affront to God; by the time Spike came along, psychological torture was the order of the day. Turning gentle, refined William into a monster, using his natural feelings for his sire, to goad him into greater excesses, was the perfect combination of victim and trainee.

More than ever, Buffy found herself wishing that she had had the strength to stake Angelus.

* * * * *

“…Have a free sample, bitch!” The vampire sneered, as he pounded Lily in the back. Seconds later he screamed as he became dust on the point of Spike’s stake.

Spike swore, as he saw the empty hypodermic sticking out of Lily’s back. He pulled it free.

“Feels funny…” Lily murmured, then her eyes rolled back and she slumped against Spike.

They’d come upon the group of vampires, hanging around the back of Lorne’s club, openly dealing. The inevitable fight had ensued.

Spike had been amazed, the first time he had watched Lily fight, then he had realized: of course she would fight like him. That’s why she hadn’t needed to train in Rome, she’d picked up all his fighting skills. Trouble was, she was right handed but she’d ‘learned’ to fight left handed. Despite Spike trying to train it out of her, there was still a slight awkwardness to her fighting style. Now, because of the sheer number of vamps, one of them had got in a lucky shot.

Spike scooped Lily’s limp body into his arms and carried her back into the club.

"What happened?" Lorne asked as he led Spike to one of his spare rooms.

"Vampire stuck her with a hypo." Spike replied as he lay her on the large bed. "Orpheus. Overdose, I‘d wager."

"I’ve only seen one girl recover from that," Lorne said, "Faith."

"What was she doing, messing with it?"

"Dosing Angelus."

"You mean Angel."

"No, I don't."

"How did she survive?"

"She didn’t go through it alone. You'll have to help Lily."

"How?"

Lorne couldn’t meet Spike's eyes.

"You’ll have to drink." he said, at last. "Deep." he added, when Spike said nothing.

"I can't."

"You have to."

"You don't understand, I don't do that anymore. After The First got me to…kill and sire… What if I can't stop?"

"We both know that that won't happen, you have enough control. Believe in yourself."

Laying next to Lily on the bed, Spike slipped the Gem of Amara off his finger and under the pillow - he couldn’t even get drunk while wearing it - reluctantly brushed her hair back from her throat and looked at the inviting sight of her throbbing jugular. The drug in her blood made her smell even more enticing than normal and he understood why this stuff was so popular amongst vampires. He leaned in, gently kissing her, feeling her pulse beating under his lips. Almost without him realizing, his fangs slid into her and her loaded blood filled his mouth. He swallowed and fell into the old rhythm: pull swallow, pull swallow; don’t stop ‘til you feel the heart falter. His head spun and he fell back onto the bed, a thin line of Lily’s blood staining his lower lip.

* * * * *

It was bright, in the cellar, not at all the way it looked now. The walls were stark, cold concrete and the floors were bare. In the corner was a curtained area and Spike walked towards it.

“There’s nothing worth seeing, behind there.” Lily said.

Spike started; how long had she been standing next to him?

“All I did there was sleep.”

She took his hand.

* * * * *

They were in another cave, the one beneath Sunnydale. The First had Spike tied to a rock and was pretending to be Drusilla.

“Little girls tear so easily… Like pink paper.” She said and Spike, hanging miserably from his leather cuffs, flashed back to all the young girls he had raped, for Dru’s amusement.

He had tried to tell Buffy. Chained in her basement, finding out how his strings were being pulled, he had wanted her to kill him; to hate him enough to kill him but he just couldn’t say the words. Not to her. Not Buffy.

So, he had let her read between the lines, knowing that she would never figure out that, when he did those things, he was only competing with Angelus. Why had Dru never loved him the way she loved Angelus?

Why would Buffy never love him the way she loved Angel? The question burned in his mind as he watched himself - broken and despairing - consoling himself that Buffy believed in him.

Looking closely at his other self, he could just see Lily, like a double image, looking out of his eyes and suffering with him. The question burning in him was the wrong one.

Why could he not love Lily, the way he loved Buffy?

He was fond of her and he was willing to stay with her, fight at her side against multi-dimensional nasties but nothing could ever touch the feelings he had for Buffy.

Had he moved on or was he just paddling in that Egyptian river?

“You don’t have to love me.” Lily touched his face and everything around them blurred.

* * * * *

Another basement. Earth floor, recently disturbed. All the people he had sired while under the control of the First, digging their way out.

So many, just minions but still, every one of them weakened him. How many had he made in a night?

Buffy was there, witnessing his shame. She’d kill him this time, for sure.

The First, wearing Spike’s own face, taunting him, telling him that he was going to die at Buffy’s hand; not realizing that he wanted it. He considered it a final act of love; she had taken him in so many different ways, why not his existence, too?

Singing. NO, not the singing. The singing that would make him kill. Kill Buffy.

And still, Lily looking out of his eyes, screaming at him to stop.

“I can still taste them.” She said, watching the scene unfold. “Their blood in my mouth, the betrayal on their faces.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “I tried so hard to make you stop.”

“You had to live it and still be just a spectator. What kind of power would demand that of a child?” Spike asked.

“I wasn’t a child. Not once I woke up.”

“You were when you fell asleep. Why do you love me?”

“Because I know your soul.”

Reality shifted.

Another cave. The demon’s cave, in Africa.

“YOU HAVE WHAT YOU CAME FOR, VAMPIRE. NOW, LEAVE.” The demon said.

Spike staggered out of the cave. He was exhausted. There was no part of him that wasn’t screaming in agony. Burns on his skin, broken ribs, cuts and bruises on his insides, caused by bugs of all things.

His soul.

He had no words for the way that that felt.

He was half way to the village when he decided to stop. What was the point of carrying on?

He could hear his victims, inside his head, crying out their outrage at what he had done. He knew that they would never be silenced and why would he want them to be? He deserved to burn in hell.

He would just lie here, in the sand and wait for the sun to rise.

“You’re going to throw it all away?”

He looked up; standing over him was a woman. She was white - bleached bone white - middle aged but still attractive and had long silvery-blond hair. She spoke with, what sounded like, an English accent.

“You’re a long way from home.” Spike said.

“So are you, William. Will you waste your prize?”

“Prize?”

“You have your soul. You, an evil soulless vampire, asked for your soul to be restored.” Her voice made Spike shiver. It was clear and somehow crystalline. It made him feel as though he were drinking pure, clear, cold spring water, on the hottest day of the year.

“It hurts.” He whispered.

“Nothing that is worth having, comes without a price.” She held her hand out to him. He slapped it aside.

“I’m hungry, don’t get too close.” He growled.

“Oh, William,” she laughed, “You can’t kill me, no matter how hungry you are.”

“Say that again, when I’ve been gnawing on your wrist for an hour.” He muttered, as she led him to her place.

She had, what looked like, a stone lean-to, up against the cliff but, when Spike got inside, he realized that it was partially underground. There were no windows and the sloping sides made it look like the inside of a small pyramid. There were stone columns, hieroglyphics and flaming torches on the walls.

Once she had him comfortable on her bed roll, she knelt beside him and put her wrist against his lips.

“I can’t feed from you.” He said, “I have a chip.”

“I know. Feed.”

Bracing himself for the pain but unable to resist, he sank his fangs into her. The chip didn’t fire.

“I’d forgotten this.” Spike said to Lily, as they watched him feed.

“I hadn’t. What was she?”

“I don’t know. I fed from her for hours, she tasted human. She gave me the strength to make it back to Sunnydale. The locals called her ‘The White Ghost’; I must have taken enough blood to drain her dry four times over. I thought I’d dreamed her.”

They stood in the woman’s home and watched Spike drain her, watched her shrivelling in his arms until she was a fragile husk. Her skin like paper and her blood vessels collapsed and empty.

Incredibly, she stood up.

Slowly, imperceptively, her body restored itself and she turned from where she had been watching over Spike, to the corner of the room where Spike and Lily stood, watching.

“Eternity’s gate opens wide,

“Multitudes do dwell inside,

“Have a care whose blood you spill,

“She’ll forgive - you never will.” She recited, looking straight at them.

“I don’t remember that.” Lily said.

“Because it didn’t happen then, child, it‘s happening now.” The woman said.

Spike - the Spike on the bed, moaned and the woman turned back to him. Extending her wrist to him again, she let him feed some more. He pulled her close to his body and slept.

Although there was no way to tell, from watching, both Spike and Lily knew that a lot of time passed, this way. Both of them had lived through it, after all.

Abruptly, the woman gently shook Spike awake.

“You have to go back to the hell mouth, now.” The woman said.

“I’d sooner stay here and die. Or stay here with you.” Spike said, looking up at her, hopefully.

“You owe it to the child of your blood, who even now lives within you. Return to the mouth of hell and your destiny.”

“She knew I was there.” Lily said, as the scene before them changed again.

* * * * *

Back to the start, a curtained off bed in a stark concrete bomb shelter. This time, Spike strode over to it and pulled the curtain aside.

Both Lily and Spike expected to see an earlier version of Lily, sleeping, hooked up to machines.

The Lily that confronted them was awake. She was sitting up on the bed and was heavily pregnant. She looked up into Spike’s eyes.

“Won’t Daddy be pleased!” she said, excitedly.

Lorne had a problem. He’d never had a vampire walk into his bar and timidly ask for sanctuary. Like his place in L.A., ‘Lorne’s’ was protected against violence of all kinds, including, that most violent of species - human. He did the only thing he could think of, gave the vampire a drink and phoned Spike.

The latest arrival from the other dimension was huddled in a dark-ish corner, crying quietly. Spike put a hand on his shoulder.

“You alright, mate?” He asked.

The vampire looked up at Spike.

“Dalton?” Spike asked, incredulous.

“Master William?” Dalton was equally shocked. “No, you’re not him. He could never be…” He gestured at Spike, managing to convey the notion that ‘Master William’ could never look the way Spike did.

“You are Dalton, though, aren’t you?” Spike had regretted Dalton, since his soul had given him a conscience. The bookish vampire had reminded him of his human self. Poor Dalton, happiest reading, researching; treated appallingly by Drusilla and finally burned to a cinder by ‘The Judge’ at Dru’s silly ‘end of the world’ party. Spike had been powerless - stuck in that damn wheelchair - but he still carried the guilt.

“Yes. Where are we? The Pylean said a different dimension.”

“Yeah but not to worry, you can go back through.”

“No!” Dalton sounded panicked, “I’ll dust first.”

“That bad? How do you know it’s better here?”

“No one seems to be afraid, I’ve got a free drink. Paradise. Is there a Dalton here, already?”

“There was, he was destroyed, by Drusilla…sort of.”

“Drusilla?”

“Vampire? Insane? Aurelian?”

“In my world there’s only one Aurelian that counts, Lilith. No offence.”

“None taken. What about Darla, Angel, The Master?”

“A slayer took out The Master.”

“Buffy?”

“Shush, we’re not allowed to say that name.” Dalton, whispered, clearly terrified. “Lilith burnt out the tongue of the last one she heard speak it. She’s insanely jealous.”

“What about ‘Master William‘.”

“You’re him but not. You’ve lived a different life - different choices - he understands the way the dimensions work. He’s studied, I’m not good enough to explain.”

“I’ve not been ‘William’ for a lot of years. Name’s Spike. Tell me about Lilith.”

“She’s strong, she can thrall other vampires as well as humans. After she was turned, she hunted down and killed the other Aurelians. Then she took down the Watcher’s Council. She rules this entire county, farms human slaves for food and sex. I know vampires are meant to be evil but Lilith? There are just no words…”

“So, why’d she spare this other version of me?” Spike wondered, aloud.

“She can’t kill him, he sired her.”

* * * * *

The phone rang in Giles’ office. Andrew Wells, calling from England.

“Mr. Giles, I think we’ve got trouble. It’s Buffy, she’s been accessing the database.” He said, slight panic in his voice.

“What, specifically has she been researching?” Giles asked, his usual unflappable self.

“Er…specifically? Angelus.”

“She’s not researched Spike?”

“Er…no but I think it’s only a matter of time.”

“You haven’t put anything recent about Spike, on line, have you?”

“No, of course not; I finished his entry with his heroic closure of the hell mouth. Everything he’s done since is hard copy, need to know, only. Buffy will only find out, if Spike calls her and he’s having far too much fun.”

“Then there’s no problem.” Giles said, with a sigh; Andrew was such a drama queen but at least his records of Spike’s activities would be meticulously accurate. “He and Lily are getting on?”

“Oh yeah; at first I couldn’t get a signal in Spike’s basement because, you know, bomb shelter and then I realized that with their broadband hook up I could…“

“I don’t need the technical stuff, the watch works, yes?“

“Yes, perfectly.” Andrew said, proudly, “She thinks it’s just the standard issue, slayer GPS watch. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve found out about slayer-vampire sexual practices…”

“Spare me the details and don’t phone again, unless you actually have something to report.” Giles hung up. “If I had my way,” He muttered, “There’d be no such thing as ‘slayer-vampire sexual practices’. Whatever happened to just staking them?”

Andrew was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he was deeply annoying and not entirely stable. On the other, he came up with some really good ideas. The Slayer GPS watch, was a fantastic invention. With so many slayers in the world, keeping track was fraught with difficulty. So, every known slayer had a watch - virtually indestructible, to withstand the slayer lifestyle - it contained a tracking device; this meant that when locator spells showed up a slayer, the council could figure out if it was an ‘as yet unknown‘, or an ‘already registered‘. Each watch transmitted a different code, which was linked to the slayer’s identity. Every known slayer could be tracked and found; an excellent safety feature. Of course, Lily’s watch, did something quite different…

Giles was worried about Buffy; she seemed, if possible, more disconnected now, than she had been when Willow had snatched her out of heaven. Spike’s ‘death’ in the hell mouth had affected her, deeply and now Angel was gone, too… Giles wondered why she was researching Angelus but he knew he couldn’t ask, not without giving away that Andrew had been keeping tabs on her use of the database.

* * * * *

Spike had a lot to think about. As always, when he needed to think, he was tooling round the county on his motor bike. Lily had been right about helmet laws and the local police had finally quit stopping him, over it. Diplomatic immunity was a wonderful thing. With the Gem of Amara on his finger, he didn’t have to worry about sunrise, in fact it was his favourite time of the day.

He watched the first pink rays of dawn, as they came through the trees and marvelled at the staggering variety of reds and golds on the leaves. He’d forgotten how much he had loved the autumn, when he was human. Night had a beauty all its own, that human eyes couldn’t appreciate but he had missed the vividness of day.

His meeting with Dalton had shaken him. Somewhere, on the other side of the stone circle, was another version of him. Master William; a vampire who had sired a hugely powerful and spectacularly evil, woman: Lilith. So powerful that she was Master of the Aurelian line and William’s title ‘Master’ was used, by her, as a mockery. This other version of himself, was a scholar, an intellectual, who had had the bad luck to sire the wrong person.

There was no Watcher’s Council. This Lilith, had managed to track down and personally kill or have killed, every member. Slayers were called, who had no conception of what they were and had no one to train them. Spike had a fairly low opinion of watchers but he could imagine the chaos that would reign, without them.

Buffy was dead.

Dalton couldn’t give him details, just that she had died. Why? What had his Buffy done differently, to this other world’s Buffy, that enabled her to survive? He found himself shedding a tear over this other Buffy - better shacked up with The Immortal, than dead.

Dalton was fixed up with a room at Lorne’s place, to be revoked if he was found drinking any blood but the bagged stuff. He seemed happy enough with the conditions. Spike was keeping him in the dark about his relationship with Lily and about the slayer situation, in general. He didn’t want the poor fellow to be terrified that he’d end up staked. He was already worrying that vamps would come through the stones, looking for him, without finding out that the world abounded with slayers.

* * * * *

Buffy had finished her dossier on Angelus/Angel and, looking at it, wondered what she had compiled it for. It only dealt with the vampire’s past crimes, in relation to how they had impacted on Buffy’s life. The way his relationship with her, even with his soul, had harked back to the atrocities of his pre-soul days. It wasn’t really any use but it did show her how, if she had never met Angel, she might have given Spike more of a chance.

She drew up a list of main points.

1) Whistler - a demon, working for The Powers That Be - persuaded Angel to stalk Buffy, with the intention of ‘helping’ her.

This made Buffy angry because it implied that The Powers didn’t think that she would be a competent slayer, which was odd because, surely, The Powers had chosen her in the first place.

2) Angel had ‘fallen in love’ with her and had skilfully manipulated her into falling in love with him - the ‘forbidden’ nature of their love only made Buffy fall harder.

3) He had then tried to undermine her slayer identity - convincing her that she needed a normal life and a human boyfriend.

4) She had bought into this idea, fighting against her slayer-ness and trying to be normal. Why had she done this? She had had a taste of normalcy when Giles had put her through her Cruciamentum and she had hated it. She was going to be a slayer until she died, it’s not like it could be cured. The only explanation she could come up with, was, clever manipulation.

5) Angel hated what he was and, therefore, Buffy should hate what she was.

6) Angel and Giles had found the prophesy concerning Buffy’s death at The Master’s hand and had tried to keep it from her. Therefore:

7) Neither Giles nor Angel respected Buffy’s judgement, both of them considered her to be a child.

8) Angel was afraid of slayers and had no respect for women.

This was a conclusion that Buffy hadn’t expected but, given the evidence, she was certain she was right. Angelus had avoided slayers. Spike, on the other hand had sought them out. Why had Spike sought out slayers? For the challenge. For the dance. For the thrill of a fight that he could lose. To Spike, Buffy had never been a child, she had always been a respected foe; until she had been his respected love.

Spike had never tried to change her, even though he knew she wasn’t perfect. Angel had put her on a pedestal and chipped away at her, to try to make her into his ideal. Why bother? Why not go find his ideal woman and leave Buffy alone?

9) Angel had ‘loved’ an ideal. Spike had loved her.

It wasn’t until the writing on her printout started to blur, that Buffy realized she was crying. The tears were pouring silently down her face and soaking the paper. Her throat felt like it was closing up and the tears wouldn’t stop…

* * * * *

A large bucket of popcorn sat between them.

On the screen Captain Kronos: vampire hunter, was prancing about in a pair of girly tights and making a big thing out of burying a load of dead toads. He patiently explained to his friend that if a vampire walked over one of the toad-graves that the toad would be brought back to life by the vampire’s life force.

Spike chuckled.

“Can you really do that?” Lily asked, giggling.

“Never tried, pet but, I doubt it. It’s probably an old wives’ tale to explain how come live toads are dug up out of the ground, sometimes. Nice plot device, though. He can track the vampire, that way. It makes a change, seeing vampires that drain life instead of blood, too.”

“Yeah, I love these old Hammer films, so much more class than the recent stuff.”

“He’s a bit up himself, though; just coz he’s killed a few vampires…”

Spike leaned against Lily as he reached for the popcorn, then, abruptly, he froze. Picking up the remote control, he hit the mute button.

“Huh?” Lily turned to look at him.

“Shush!” Spike put his ear to her abdomen. The sound he was hearing was unmistakable.

“What did you do?” He asked, looking into her eyes, his voice a shocked whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“Some clinic, what?”

“Spike, you’re scaring me, what’s the matter?”

“I know your dad wants this but we should have talked, first.”

“Spike. What. Are. You. Talking. About?”

“The baby. Don’t deny it, I can hear the heart-beating.”

“Are you saying I’m pregnant?” She was incredulous and Spike realized that she really hadn’t known.

“Sorry, pet. I thought you’d been at the sperm bank or something.”

“Yuck. No, there’s only been you. How can there be a baby?” She whispered the question, tears running down her face.

“We’ll go see Lorne. It’s not the first time this has happened.”

“Not? You’ve got other kids?”

“No, Angel had one, though. With another vampire.” He added.

His mind raced, as they left for Lorne’s bar. He remembered how easily they had both dismissed the Orpheus dream. How could there be a child? If he was meant to have a child, he wanted it with Buffy. Damn. He so wasn’t over her. Lily deserved better but he was fairly sure he couldn’t give it to her. He had tried to love her the way she loved him but, although he did love her, he wasn’t in love with her. They got on so well and that was the problem, there was no conflict. He and Buffy, fought. He missed that.

There was a rowdy Halloween party, happening at Lorne’s, when they got there but, he took one look at the pair of them and ushered them into a back room.

“Well, kids,” He said, soberly, when they’d both sung for him, “There’s definitely a baby coming.” He looked at Spike, “It’s yours, Big Bad and she’s destined for great things.”

“She? You can tell that?” Lily asked.

“Oh, yeah. An ultrasound won’t, for a while yet but take my word, she’s a girl.”

“Human?” Spike asked.

“Probably not but that’s not really the issue, kiddiewinks. When Angel’s little tyke turned up, everybody bad wanted a piece. If I were you, Slay Belle, I’d put it about that you went for a frozen Papa.”

“Huh?”

“You know; you visit the bank, make a withdrawal, thaw it out…”

“Yeah, yeah, will do. Please stop talking, now.” Lily said, blushing.

“About Captain Forehead’s ‘tyke’,” Spike said, hurriedly changing the subject. “I met him at Wolfram and Hart - not so little and also not Angel’s. Then later…”

“Angelus’ past coming back to bite Angel in the ass. Long story short, Holtz, one of the many wronged by Angelus and Darla, took baby Conner out of this dimension and brought him back a few months later, as a stroppy teen and serious nutcase; Angel did a deal with Wolfram and Hart and psycho boy ends up living a different, well-balanced, sane life.”

“That was the carrot they dangled to get Angel to come on board.” Spike said, realization dawning.

“In one. Long and short, kids, you don’t have to worry about Slay Baby growing up too quick.”

“’Probably not’ you said. Probably not human.” Lily said, staring at Lorne.

“Well, Peach Pie, Conner sure looked human - passed the hospital blood tests with flying colours…”

“But?”

“He had a demon side,” Lorne said, gently. “Enhanced strength, speed - a lot like a slayer, actually. I’ll bet your added strengths don’t show up on blood tests, either.”

“No…”

“Besides, I’ve done a reading and I can feel nothing but good from the little sweetheart. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I‘ve got a party in full swing, out there.”

Watching Lorne head out to the bar, Spike stood behind Lily and wrapped his arms around her. Something about Lorne was bothering him but he didn’t want to say anything and risk upsetting Lily.

“See, pet, everything’s gonna be fine.”

“It’s all such a lot to take in. I never imagined this happening. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Yeah, I feel so stupid not to have taken precautions.”

“Don’t talk daft, pet. Neither of us would have even considered it.”

“You’re not angry? Earlier…”

“Well, yeah, coz I thought you sneaked off to some clinic without telling me.”

Lily started to laugh.

“Frozen Papa..” She gasped, between giggles.

“Yeah,” Spike laughed, “Lorne’s got such a way with words.”

Laughing, they made their way back home.

Lily’s pregnancy was progressing well but wasn’t yet public knowledge. Her father knew, of course and he’d made sure that a top Harley Street fertility clinic was poised to deny any involvement. This denial, would guarantee everyone’s belief that Spike was not the child’s natural father.

In the meantime, she and Spike were still slaying…

Dust was flying, in the stone circle as Spike and Lily fought, back to back against hoards of inter-dimensional vampires. They’d lost count of how many they’d dusted and Lily was beginning to envy Spike not needing to breathe the dust laden air.

Garri ran across the field towards the battle.

“Spike,” He yelled, “You wearing?”

“Yeah.” Spike yelled back, knowing Garri was about to do something clever.

The young warlock shouted something incomprehensible and threw a handful of powder into the air. There was a bang and a flash of light, like a firework going off and the field was suddenly daylight. Every vampire, except Spike, burned up and dusted.

“Thanks,” Lily gasped, coughing dust as the darkness fell, again. “Is this still about Dalton?” She addressed this last question to Spike.

“I hope not, if it is, they won’t give up ‘til they’ve got him.”

There had been a few attempts by the vampires of the other dimension, to retrieve the hapless fugitive. All Dalton could say on the subject was that Lilith didn’t like to lose.

“I really think it’s time you left the slaying to me, pet.” Spike said, gently, as Lily coughed some more dust from her lungs.

“That’s a bit Victorian, isn’t it?” She croaked.

“Well, that is the way I was brought up. The ladies have the babies and the gentlemen kill the demons.” Spike said, with a smirk.

“Nice sunlight spell, Garri.” Lily said, to her friend.

“Yeah.” He agreed, modestly, “Buy you two a drink? Clear the dust from your throats?”

They headed towards Lorne’s. Spike slipped his arm around Lily’s waist.

“Seriously, pet, think about it. Who knows what damage you breathing vamp-dust could do to little Jennifer Anne.” He said.

They had already named their child, in honour of both their mothers. Neither of them were comfortable with just referring to her as Her. It was only one step up from referring to a unborn child as ‘It’. Lorne had assured them of her gender and good health, it seemed right to treat her as a person.

Lorne had their drinks ready, by the time they worked their way through the other customers, to the bar; pineapple juice for Lily, Spike and Garri both drinking Jack Daniels but with different mixers. Spike still smirked over the night that a tipsy Garri had accidentally downed his ‘Bloody Jack’ and spent the rest of the night being violently sick.

Lily downed her pineapple juice in one.

“Keep them coming,” She said to Lorne.

He winked and slid another her way. Lily was obsessed. Everything about pineapple was wonderful, beautiful; the colour, the texture, the smell, the taste - oh God, the taste…

How had she lived this many years without realizing? Since the start of her pregnancy, she now loved pineapple so much, that she was seriously considering getting a tattoo, to proclaim her devotion for the world to see.

“How’s Dalton doing?” Spike asked Lorne.

“Oh, you know, terrified. He hasn’t been out of his room since that vamp tried to get him.”

A week ago, a lone vampire had come through the stones, wandered into Lorne’s and tried to stake Dalton. Lorne’s anti-violence spell had held and Spike had followed the vamp outside and staked him. Since then, more had shown up and were keeping Spike and Lily busy.

“Here’s to my last night of slaying,” Lily said, raising yet another glass of pineapple juice. “For a while, anyway.” She added.

Spike smiled, sensible girl. It would have taken loads more effort to persuade Buffy to give up slaying…

* * * * *

Buffy wandered into Giles’ office, without knocking, to find him on the phone. As she excused herself and turned to wait outside, she was sure she heard him say ‘Spike’. A few seconds later, Giles called her back in.

“Who was on the phone?” She asked.

“Andrew. He was ringing about the database. He was wondering if he should delete all the bad things that Spike did in his past, just because he died a hero.” Giles improvised, hurriedly; knowing that Buffy had heard him mention Spike.

“What did you tell him?” Buffy asked, doing her best to sound neutral.

“I told him no. The catalogue of evil deeds, serve to prove how much he changed and how different he was from other vampires.”

“Oh. Right.” Buffy could think of nothing else to say.

“Buffy, I know I said we’d have lunch, today but I’ve really got a lot to do and, thanks to Andrew’s pointless phone call, I’m running late. Can we do it another time?”

“Yeah, sure.” Buffy said, trying not to sound disappointed.

They were all so busy, now. She missed the group sitting down together, talking, eating, planning the demise of some evil threat…

Giles watched her leave. He felt bad about what was happening but it couldn’t be helped. There was no way he could sit across a table from Buffy, after what he had just been told. Andrew had phoned to tell him that Lily was carrying Spike’s child, just as the prophecy had said.

It had come to light, when Andrew was initially sent to England, to scan and back up the archives. He had come across the parchment and, out of curiosity, translated it. It stated that the ‘souled one’ would be reunited with a ‘warrior of his blood’ and there would be a child. With Spike dead, Andrew had assumed the prophecy referred to Angel and had flown straight to Rome to talk to Giles, in person.

No one trusted Angel, anymore. His Wolfram and Hart involvement had seen to that but this prophesy was important. It was while they were discussing what to do, that the ‘Dana’ problem came to light. Giles made, what was probably, the least thought out decision of his career, he sent Andrew to L.A.

His reasoning was twofold. Firstly, Andrew was expendable. Secondly, he could assess the Angel situation and report back, in a ridiculous amount of detail. It turned out to be a good move.

What he reported back was wholly unexpected and put a new slant on things. Spike was back. His soul intact, he was back from the ‘dead’ and working in opposition to Angel and the others, or at least, independently. Best of all, he hadn’t contacted Buffy.

Now that Giles knew that Spike was alive, he was fairly certain he knew who the ‘warrior of his blood’ was. Before relocating to Sunnydale and the battle with The First, Giles had been fascinated by Lily’s case. A potential slayer, comatose and manifesting severe injuries. A strange form of stigmata, which seemed to suggest that the girl was psychically linked to someone else. Strangest of all, she had woken, from her coma, the instant she had become a slayer.

Giles had flown to England, at once.

The girl was only a teenager but seemed older, more confident, especially when you consider she had spent so long sleeping.

“Rupert.” She had said, coldly, when he had first walked into her room. After, she had instantly reverted to ‘teenage girl with unexpected super powers’ but the recognition had been there.

Giles had known, for certain, then.

He watched her fight, under the guise of an assessment and was struck by how like Spike’s her style was. This became more obvious, when she wasn’t fighting and was clearly right-handed. Somehow, while in her coma, Lily had been ‘channelling’ Spike.

Giles sat Lily and her father down, to talk.

“How are you finding the life of a Slayer?” Giles asked, watching her, carefully.

“It’s different.” She said, brightly.

“You got your kit, I see,” He said, gesturing to her watch. “You really don’t have to take it off when you fight, they are designed to be very tough.”

Giles was, of course, grateful that she had taken it off. It had made it easy for him to replace it with the ‘enhanced’ model.

“Our head of technology, Andrew Wells, put in a lot of time, testing them. He also came up with the creative alternatives for weapons, specifically for use in countries where the authorities frown on its citizens going armed. It wouldn’t do for us to have to bail slayers out of jail.” Giles said, with a smile.

Lily and her father laughed, dutifully.

“I need to talk to you about a special project. In L.A., there’s a vampire.”

“More than one, I should imagine.” Lily said, dryly.

“Yes, quite.“ Giles laughed. “This one is special, though. He has a soul. His name is Spike.” Giles watched Lily’s face, carefully and he was certain he saw her eyes change, just for an instant. She was hiding her reactions well. “He might be coming to England. We have seers, looking into it and we should be able to determine, when and where. We would like you to take care of him.”

“When you say ‘take care of him’…”

“I mean exactly that. He has a soul, he fights on the side of good and he needs to be protected from… slayer misunderstandings. He had a very narrow escape, in L.A. recently and we want to make sure that nothing like that happens here.”

“You want me to act as a bodyguard to a vampire. Sounds fun, sign me up.” Lily said, politely enough but Giles got the idea that she was fighting the urge to hit him.

“Good. I’ll leave you a copy of Spike’s file - read up on him. As soon as we know when he’s due to arrive, we’ll let you know.”

Giles risked shaking Lily’s hand, before he left and, looking into her eyes saw something he had last seen in Buffy and Dawn’s eyes. A look that said he had betrayed someone they cared about.

When he got back to his hotel room, he found that Andrew had emailed a file of Lily’s family history. Several generations back, in the late 1800s, the younger sister of one of Lily’s forebears had been taken abroad for her health. A seemingly unremarkable occurrence, she had left in the company of her adult son, William. After they had left, someone had entered their house and brutally murdered all their servants.

It had been a bad year for society people. There had been mysterious disappearances, a house full of dead servants and then, some of young William’s peers had been tortured. Each had had a sharp object driven into their skulls, slowly, until they died. The sharp object was a railroad spike.

Giles came to the obvious conclusion. Spike and Lily were of the same blood.

* * * * *

Spike was having fun. He was fighting at the stone circle, he was hopelessly outnumbered and best of all, he didn’t have to worry about Lily or Jennifer Anne. Lily understood that it was for the best but she wasn’t happy about staying home, while Spike patrolled. At least she knew he would be safe, he had the gem of Amara, after all.

One of the vampires Spike was fighting, threw something from a small jar into his face. Momentarily distracted, Spike realized that it was blood, just as three of his assailants charged at him, overbalancing him onto the centre stone, where the portal was. There was a blinding flash and then a huge net was thrown over him. Swiftly the vamps bundled him up and dragged him off the stone.

“Lilith wants to see you.” One of the vamps said, nastily and Spike realized, with a sinking feeling, that he was on the other side of the stones…

Spike was fuming, as he was dragged across the field, helpless, in his net. What was the point of the Gem of Amara if it couldn’t stop this sort of thing from happening? This capture had obviously been well thought out; however hard he struggled, he couldn’t get free. All he could do was watch, as he was dragged to an almost identical house, to the one he shared with Lily and her father, in his own dimension.

As he was bumped down the stone steps, to the cellar, Spike couldn’t help but be curious. He was finally going to meet the infamous Lilith. Hated and feared, even by her own kind, she was, by all accounts, worse than Angelus. He couldn’t imagine what circumstances would lead to him siring such a monster…

He couldn’t speak for the Spike in this dimension but he didn’t go around siring people. After the first time, he never had - he didn’t count the ones that The First had tricked him into doing - he hadn’t even done that treacherous friend of Buffy’s. Knowing Buffy would stake the boy, when he rose and because Spike always kept his word, he had got one of the minions to do it; the same with ‘skanky school girl’, when he had first come to Sunnydale.

Spike had long ago vowed never to turn anyone, ever again.

He could feel a wave of energy, getting closer; the unmistakable signature of the most powerful master vampire he had ever felt. Evil so thick in the air that he could taste it.

“Well, if it isn’t my little prince.”

Spike looked up and swore, softly under his breath, as he realized. Lilith, the very pinnacle of vampiric evil, was…

His mother. In this dimension, he hadn’t dusted her. Like him, she had renamed herself.

He should have realized.

“Look at you, all grown up.” She sniffed the air, “And fucking the slayer.” She looked at him, through the netting. “All dirty with your soul, too. How ever did that happen?”

Spike gazed at her, in horror. She looked the same as she had, when she had first risen; beautiful, glowing… She was…so….

“Wake up.” The voice was familiar. “Wake up, William.”

Spike blinked. Lilith was gone and he was out of the net, sitting on the floor in a tiny stone cell and bound to the wall with some very sturdy chains.

“Name’s Spike.” He said, looking around to see where he was and who was talking to him.

“I know, I was trying to get your attention. Over here.”

Spike’s gaze fell on the far wall of his cell, where there was a metal grating. Looking at him, through the grating was a very familiar face.

“Master William, presumably?”

“You’ve heard of me?” William sounded surprised.

“Dalton mentioned you. Can you get me out of here?”

“Oh, Spike, I can’t even get myself out of here.” William said, with a despairing sigh.

“How long have you been a prisoner?”

“Since the beginning.”

“Why didn’t you kill her?”

“The way that you did? I had the worst of all luck. The two of us struggled, like the two of you but in my reality, Drusilla came in and started laughing, she distracted me and Mother staked her.

“I was already weak, from siring Mother and losing my sire… well, it just about finished me. While I was unconscious, she got me into a carriage and brought me here. By the time I woke up, I was in this cell. I’ve been in it ever since.”

“What about Uncle Henry…?” Spike asked.

“Mother wiped them all out. Only cousin Julian survived; he was away, at school.”

“And then?” Spike prompted.

“Two vampires came. Angelus and Darla. Angelus was so angry over Drusilla’s death. Mother thralled and killed them both. She has a talent for it.”

“That’s how she got me in here.” Spike said, disgusted with himself.

“Yes. You just walked in and held out your wrists for the manacles. Don’t feel bad. She can do it to anyone. Except me and that’s just because I sired her.”

“She didn’t kill you.” Spike murmured. In one way, he was glad he hadn’t struggled, if he had, Lilith might have found the Gem of Amara, invisible but still tangible, on his finger. He inwardly shuddered at the thought of her with that much power.

“She’s afraid to. After what happened to me when Drusilla died, she won’t risk the same thing happening to her. Who knows, while she is weakened by my death, someone might take the opportunity to finish her off. Besides, she likes to torment me.”

“How do you know what happened in my reality?” Spike asked.

“I’ve made a study of the other dimensions. You killed Mother, as did all the other versions of us. It was only I who messed it up. You killed Mother and then spent a century in thrall to Drusilla, while you waited for our soul mate to be born.”

“Soul mate?” Spike asked but wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer. As for being in thrall to Dru, well it would be a lovely cop-out but he didn’t think it was true…

“Buffy. The one girl in all the world who is perfect for us. Once she was born, Drusilla began to lose her hold on you.”

“Us?”

“All of us, across all the dimensions where we exist. Drusilla saw, before she sired us. Don’t you remember what she said? ‘You, walk in worlds the others can’t begin to imagine.’ and in all of those worlds, we were meant to be with Buffy.”

“What about you?”

“My Buffy died. Obviously, I never met her; I was stuck in this cell. She led a similar life to your Buffy, although she never met me, or Angelus. She still died twice, was torn out of heaven…”

“How did she finally die?” Spike asked, wanting to know and not wanting to know.

“She spontaneously combusted, while compelled to dance. No one could stop her and, to tell you the truth, she didn’t really want them to. Her sister is queen of a demon dimension, now.”

“My Nibblet had to marry that…that..” Spike roared, pulling at his chains.

“Yes. Well, my Nibblet. Even though I never had the pleasure of meeting Buffy, those monks still made Dawn out of the two of us, just as they made your Nibblet out of you and your Buffy. The Key had to be protected, she needed two strong parents; who better than the greatest slayer the world had ever seen and her soul mate.”

Tears were rolling down Spike’s face, now, as he tried to deal with this new information. Buffy had said it, that Dawn was made from her but if she was only made from Buffy, she would be Buffy’s clone. Obviously, she had a second parent, why had Spike never wondered about that? He closed his eyes and visualized Dawn, her beautiful blue eyes looking up at him, as if he was her big brother and her hero. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love her, even before the chip… no, that wasn’t right, before the chip, she hadn’t existed but he remembered… even without the chip he couldn’t have harmed her.

The logistics made his head hurt.

“Spike?”

“Yeah. I’m OK.” Spike replied, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes, scrubbing the tears away. ‘I’ve had a daughter, all this time…’

“Against what you and I might believe, she’s happy.”

“What?”

“My Dawn. He treats her well, loves her and she’s happy.”

“But, he killed Buffy..”

“That Buffy was glad to go, the dancing is a form of suicide. Dawn knows that.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“I have had little else to do. Lilith indulges me. Within reason, she’ll bring me whatever I want. It started with a scrying glass. I learned to use it, first to study the past; all the years I’d missed, locked in, down here. Then, I discovered that if I soaked it in my own blood, I could follow other versions of myself, see how various decisions played out, over the years..”

“How many of us have our soul?”

“A few and not all for the same reason. You’d be surprised.”

“Buffy wouldn’t want us without it.”

“Not so. There are realities where neither of you thought it necessary.”

“I don’t understand how that can happen.”

“Tiny things can cause big changes. The butterfly effect, I believe they call it. For instance: In Sunnydale, Buffy is thrown out of her home. She goes to another house, where you, later, find her.”

“One of the best nights of my life.”

“In your reality. In another, Buffy died, from a gun shot - some over-zealous person, protecting their property - before she ever reached the other house. You found her body and faced the sunrise. In another, she couldn’t sleep, you lit a lamp and the two of you made love. While you slept, two vampires saw your light, walked into the house and drained Buffy. From that, two futures - in one, Buffy dies and you face the sunrise. In the other, you sire her, take her to Africa and win her her soul. Of course, there’s also a version where you didn’t win her soul, where you staked her and then yourself. Oh, and one where the two vampires kill you as well.”

“Busy night. Buffy’s really a vampire, somewhere?”

“Yes and you’re extremely happy, together.”

“So, why’s my Buffy shacked up with the bleedin’ Immortal?”

* * * * *

Buffy was dreaming. In the dream, it was the night before the final battle with The First. She and Spike had just made love, in her basement. They’d fallen asleep, cuddled together, on the narrow cot. That had been real; in this dream version, Buffy had woken up. She realized that she was no longer in Spike’s arms. The arm around her belonged to a young, dark-haired woman. Slayer. Somehow, Buffy knew she was a slayer.

She gazed into Buffy’s face with such tenderness and gently pushed a stray hair out of Buffy’s eye.

“I remember how it felt; to love you.” She said, softly.

“Who are you?” Buffy asked.

“When the call comes, follow your heart.” Was her only reply.

Buffy woke up.

* * * * *

“What do you mean, she’s not? I was in Rome, I saw her. She was in a night club, dancing with that poxy Immortal. As soon as she sensed me, she ran off…” Spike explained.

“She was putting on an act. It was all about Angel, she wanted him to leave her alone and The Immortal was helping. They’re friends, that’s all. She‘d no more sleep with him than she would Xander!”

“But, she knew I was there…”

“She sensed you, thought it was your ghost or her guilt. She doesn’t know that you’re still alive. No one bothered to tell her.” William explained, patiently. “Actually, that’s not quite true… Of the people that know that you’re not dead, most of them are keeping the knowledge from her, deliberately. Only one, hasn’t bothered to tell her. Why is that, Spike?”

“I thought she’d be better off, not knowing. I went out, all heroic like, she’s better off remembering me like that…”

“Better off? She loves you, you stupid man. She’s alive but she’s not living, she’s just existing. She’s like me, she knows that the only person she can truly be happy with, is dead and gone and she‘s facing the rest of her life, alone.” William was close to tears, now and Spike wondered what it must be like, for him, to have sat in his stone cell for all of these years.

Scrying. Spike knew how much time that took to master. It involved meditation techniques, patience; how bored had William been to get to the point where he watched other dimensions the way Spike watched telly?

“Why us?” Spike asked, suddenly.

“Why us, what?”

“Soul mate to Buffy, protector of the key… why us?”

“I can’t say with any certainty… but, I’ve watched our pasts, all the way across dimensions. The past is easy to watch because it has already happened. The future? Never certain. I can watch the possibilities but I can’t tell which decision will be made by which of us. Our beginnings were all the same, though. Mother conceived us, on her wedding night, on the Rune Stone.”

“Seriously?” Spike didn’t quite know how to take this new information. “Mother, did it outdoors?”

“She had her wedding, here. Uncle Henry threw her a big party. He was always so fond of his little sister. She was rather tipsy from the champagne and took Father to see the stone circle. It was a warm night… she lost her virginity and conceived us, on the centre stone.”

“Blood’s the thing, isn’t it? Those vampires threw blood in my face, before they dragged me across to here. Slayer blood.”

“Yes, The Seven Maidens respond to slayer blood. That’s why no one from your dimension has come over here, accidentally. Not even the boy who opened it on your side. A slayer can, some demons can; vampires need to have slayer blood on them but not us. We have a connection to the stone, we can cross anytime.”

“Why here?”

“How do you mean?” William asked, puzzled.

“There’s so many dimensions, how do we know where we’re going to end up?”

“Oh that’s easy, there are only two open. Seven slayers have to spill blood on the Rune stone on seven consecutive full moons. Do you realize how hard that is?”

“In your world, maybe.”

“Exactly. It was easy, in your world, with so many slayers. It was a lot harder in mine but Lilith managed it. She just loves slayers. They are all that she drinks, she opened the portal to try for another dimension‘s Buffy. You can‘t imagine her rage when she found that her minions couldn‘t pass through the portal, until it was opened somewhere else, as well.”

“So, who…”

“Shush!” William said, abruptly. “She’s coming.”

Lilith swept into the main room of the cellar, the look of pure evil on her face, giving the lie to her beauty. She was wearing a long, white robe, transparent enough that Spike could see that she was naked underneath. The cellar was laid out so that the barred doors of every cell looked out onto the central area. Spike got the impression that Lilith liked to perform. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach; he just knew that this would be bad.

* * * * *

Lily stood in the centre of the circle, looking at the Rune stone. Everybody had told her not to do this. Consider the baby. After all, they said, Spike has the Gem of Amara.

She’d been to see Dalton. The quiet, studious vampire had been holed up in his room at Lorne’s, since the first attempt on his life. Lily had knocked on his door and explained, without him opening it, who she was and why he shouldn’t be afraid of her.

He’d let her in. Once he’d checked her for weapons, he switched on the light, gallantly losing his major advantage. Lily had looked around the room - he’d re-decorated.

Lily’s first thought was that he must have been a fan of ‘The Omen’. Like the paranoid priest in that seventies film, he’d papered his walls with pages from the bible.

“I wanted crosses.” He had said, holding up his hands to show the gloves he was wearing. “It would have cost too much. This was easier, too.”

“No one can do any kind of violence, in this building. You must know that.” Lily had replied, reassuringly. “Tell me about Lilith.”

He had.

She had then had a long chat with Lorne. He’d done readings for both her and Spike, in the past but it was the things he hadn’t said, that interested her. She wasn’t stupid; from the moment she’d found out there was a baby, she’d been uneasy. She knew that most mystical births tended to go badly for the mothers. She’d asked about Darla’s pregnancy.

Lorne was certain that Jennifer Anne would be born healthy. That, to Lily’s mind, gave her a little over four months of guaranteed life. She’d attended to some important things and now, she was going to get Spike back. She climbed up, onto the stone and stepped into the shimmer.

There was a flash but, as she looked around, her first thought was that nothing had happened. Then she realized that she was facing the other direction, as if she had been turned around. Weird.

She hefted her axe and headed off towards the house...

* * * * *

“Spike.” Lilith purred. “Such an evocative name, tell me, ‘Spike‘, why did you choose it?”

“Why did you choose Lilith?” Spike countered.

“Why, she was the first feminist, darling. Why else?”

“She has other connotations.”

“So does ‘Spike’. You seem to have little in common with my limp, docile, Master William.” She used ‘master’ in a patronizing way, as though referring to a young boy. “I just know that your ‘spike’ gets plenty of use. With the slayer, it seems. I’m fond of slayers, myself. Must run in the family.” She said, in a playful tone, that may have been intended to be flirtatious but which Spike found sickening.

He wanted to ask her what her plans for him were but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Besides, his mind was still reeling from the things that William had told him.

“Did William tell you of my fondness for slayers? I put you boys in adjoining rooms, so you could talk. I hope you’ve been getting along.” She made it sound as if they were having a sleepover.

“Mummy’s got a special treat for her boys.”

Did Spike imagine it, or did he hear a sigh of despair from the grating that connected him to William’s room?

Lilith heard it too and her features changed instantly, into her hideous, demon face. Spike looked at her, feeling strangely detached - he’d dusted her once, he could do it again. He had never regretted staking her. All of his guilt and regret had been over siring her, in the first place. Nothing compared to the horror of seeing his mother’s sweet face, perverted this way.

He looked beyond her, as he heard someone else come into the main room. She was stark naked, clearly in a deep thrall and looked a lot like Lily. Spike caught her scent, definitely slayer. A few things marked her as this dimension’s Lily and not Spike’s - scars that his Lily didn’t possess, a brutally short haircut and, most importantly, she wasn’t pregnant.

Lilith lovingly chained her to the stone wall, with manacles to her wrists. She tenderly ran her fingertips over the well-muscled young slayer’s body, eliciting a small moan of pleasure. Spike knew that the sexual response was part of the thrall and not a sign of consent. He looked away.

“Not enjoying your treat?” Lilith said, turning to Spike, while still caressing a very compliant Lily. “You will watch.” She continued, coldly and Spike found that he couldn’t help but turn back to the spectacle.

This Lily had clearly been a prisoner for some time and, judging by the various bite marks on her, had been enjoyed many times. Lilith bent to suckle on her erect little nipples, sinking her fangs hard into the breast tissue and drinking deep. Lily arched her back against the cold stone, groaning as though in the throes of approaching orgasm.

Spike could smell the girl’s arousal as Lilith pushed her fingers into Lily’s wet little slit, plunging deeper as her legs parted, to make access easier. He winced inside, as Lilith produced a large wooden stake from the pocket of her robe and gently introduced the pointed end into the dripping hole that her fingers had just vacated.

Lily was writhing shamelessly as her orgasm built, her wrists straining at the metal that bound them. The stake wasn’t in far enough to harm her and the slow twisting motion that Lilith was using, was obviously pleasurable. Abruptly, with a hideous smirk on her face, Lilith drove the stake all the way in. Lily screamed, her agony clearly breaking the thrall that she’d been under. With a final vicious twist, Lilith withdrew the stake, now dripping with blood and, discarding it, grabbed Lily’s ankles. With a practiced move, she flipped the girl’s legs over her shoulders, grasped her buttocks and dipped her head so that she could drink from the now free flowing, scarlet fountain she’d created.

Spike looked into Lily’s eyes. They were already starting to glaze, from shock and blood loss but it was still obvious that she was trying her best not to cry out. Not wanting to give Lilith the satisfaction.

Spike knew that look. He’d seen it on both of the slayers that he’d killed, along with a weary acceptance that, for them, the harsh life of a slayer was over. The look of peace was starting to descend, when Lilith released Lily’s legs and stood back from the feast. Blood was coursing down her chin and she licked it, absently as she opened her robe and ran a fingernail down her naked breast. She pressed Lily’s mouth to the wound and forced her to drink.

“Did my little princes enjoy their treat?” She asked, when she’d finished.

“Yes, Mother.” William replied, in a dead sort of voice, that said he’d seen it all before.

“Yes, mother.” Spike heard himself say, obviously Lilith was still controlling him.

He squirmed with self-loathing, hating his weakness. She was not his mother, she was only Lilith.

“I’m so glad you had fun,” Lilith purred, her cheeks flushed with stolen blood. “When the new slayer arrives, I’ll see what other games we can play.”

She went off, up the stone steps, her robe heavy with blood.

“She’s gone to ..er.. sleep with some of her favourite slayer minions.” William said, awkwardly. “How are you feeling?”

“Like if I’d lost both eyeballs, before I saw that, I could have died happy.” Spike replied, fighting nausea.

“I know just what you mean.”

“She does that often? Sires slayers?”

“Yes. She has a harem, she only beds females and she prefers slayers. They’re considerably more willing, once they’ve been turned. Did Dalton tell you how she flies into a rage whenever Buffy is mentioned?”

“Yeah, something about burning tongues.” Spike replied, wondering where this was going.

“Buffy was the unattainable prize. She was the slayer who killed The Master, died and came back to life. Thwarted all attempts at capture. None of the minions that were sent to collect Buffy, returned. Lilith had to make do with Buffy’s replacement, Kendra and later, Faith. Lily’s the latest in a long, almost unbroken, line. The next potential to be called, will have already been located. Minions will bring the poor unfortunate, here.”

“How does she know who’ll be next?” Spike asked, hoping to take his mind off what he had just witnessed.

“The same way the watcher’s council used to. When she got her first taste of slayer, she hunted down members of the council. They used a powerful seer to locate potentials. Lilith sired her and, now she locates them for her. The council tried to interfere, now there’s no council. So… no guidance for newly called slayers, these days. They’re mostly easy prey.

“Buffy, though, was different. For some reason, the seer didn’t locate Buffy until after she was called; not just in this reality, either. Buffy was a surprise, in every human dimension.

“And now, Lily.” He gestured at her poor violated body, “She was family; direct descendent of cousin Julian. One slayer amongst many, in your world. The Slayer in this and quite a few others. She knew what she was, grew up with the story of what happened here. She was tough, she killed two of Lilith’s slayers, before she was thralled and defeated.” William said, admiringly.

They both fell silent, as they heard footsteps on the stairs. Spike watched in surprise as Nikki Wood came down, carrying a blood pack. She went to the door of William’s room and pushed the pack through a specially made hatch.

“Thank you.” He said, politely, picking it up off the floor.

“Oi, Nikki, where’s mine?” Spike shouted, as she turned to leave.

“Lilith’s orders, yer starve ‘til yer learn manners. And how do you know ma name?”

“In my reality, I killed you, back in ‘77.” Spike saw no reason to lie to the girl. “Oh and your Robin tried to kill me, a while back. I let him live.” He added, watching her face.

“Why?” She asked, with a puzzled look.

“Why what, love? Why’d he try to kill me or why’d I leave him alive?”

“Either. And I ain’t your love.”

“He tried to kill me because I killed you. I let him live… I suppose, for the same reason.” Spike told her, smiling as he remembered the other Nikki objecting to him calling her ‘love’.

“He was a man, grown?”

“Yeah, strong for a human, good fighter. I suppose you lost touch with him when you were turned.”

“He was ma first meal.” She left, without looking back.

Spike sat in silence, listening to William suck on his daily ration of pig’s blood. He didn’t begrudge him. It’s not like he could share it - Spike’s chains wouldn’t reach that far. He wondered how long Lilith was planning on starving him. He certainly wouldn’t be persuaded by hunger, to play any of her sick games.

“She seems strong, for a minion.” Spike said, to William, once the sucking sounds had ceased.

“Slayers always are. Lilith found that out, the hard way. If you try to make anything stronger than a minion, out of a slayer… let me just say, there’s a reason she chains them first. If they can’t break the chains when they first rise, then they’re safe but if the chains are broken…” He pointed to the ceiling above Lily’s body.

Spike looked, there was a sprinkler.

“Holy water.” William said. “Triggered to come on instantly if the newly turned slayer, escapes. It’s never been used, though. Lilith’s careful.”

“You said there’s a reality where Buffy…”

“Is a vampire. Yes. She’s in love with her sire, she would never harm him.”

“I’m guessing she’s not a minion, though.”

“No. Spike didn’t actually choose to sire her. He was wounded, she latched onto his wound and drank until she died. She’s extremely powerful. Her thrall is at least equal to Lilith‘s.”

“Do they all get that?”

“To a certain degree. Aurelians, thrall is one of their traits. Not Angelus, though.”

“No,” Spike chuckled, “I had to keep my abilities well hidden.”

“Yes. I really admired that about you. You endured so many abuses, at his hands, without ever revealing your power.”

“Don’t much use it. It’s cheating.”

“Yes, you had a strong sense of fair play - for an evil soulless thing.”

“You’d know.”

“Yes.” William said, sadly. “I have no soul and no soul mate. You, on the other hand, have both and a child on the way.”

Spike started thinking about his Lily, something he was trying to avoid doing; while her doppelganger hung, naked and dead, from the wall outside his cell. He knew it was irrational but he felt he was dirtying her, thinking about her after what he’d seen Lilith do. He hoped she was being sensible, staying at home and looking after herself and Jennifer Anne.

A quiet sound on the steps made him look up. He cursed, under his breath. Lily was creeping down, carrying a large axe.

She’d come to rescue him.

Lily had her own private room, in the hospital. When she’d woken up, the first person she saw, was a very concerned Spike. She tried to sit up.

“Take it slowly,” He said, gently helping her. “The doctors say you almost lost the baby.” He adjusted the bed, so she was propped up. “You should never have been swinging that big axe, in your condition.”

“You’d rather I’d left you there?”

“No but now, you’re stuck with bed rest until you give birth.”

“That long?”

“’Fraid so but not to worry, I’ll be here as much as I can. You’ve got the telly, I’ll bring DVDs and books, you’ll be fine.”

“You mean I’ve got to stay here?”

“Yeah, they want to keep a close eye on you. Now, get some rest, I’ll be back, later.” He kissed her forehead and left.

Lily watched him leave, relieved that things had worked out. She’d found her way to the cellar of the look-alike house, without meeting any vampires. She was ashamed that she’d been horribly sick when she had seen the other Lily but Spike had been reassuring. She was entitled to take it badly, he’d told her, as she had swung the axe to hack through his chains and release him. After all, it wasn’t every day that you found your ‘twin’ hanging dead, naked, violated and bled out.

As they made it to the top of the stairs, their luck almost ran out. Lily had never seen so many female vampires, all ex-slayers. She had started swinging the axe, tricky in close quarters but she had managed to clear a path and they had made it back to their own dimension.

Lily had then embarrassed herself again by fainting after they came through the portal. She had woken up in hospital.

After Spike left, she spent a lot of time, thinking about the other Lily. In her world, she had been the only slayer and, like Lily, she had no watcher. If Willow’s spell hadn’t called all the slayers, would Lily be the slayer, now? No, she realized, as she fell asleep, Faith would have to have died…

* * * * *

Spike was feeling real despair, now. He pulled on his chains, swearing in frustration. The Gem of Amara made him invincible but it didn’t make him any stronger and the chains wouldn’t budge. If it had just been the metal cuffs on his wrists, he would have considered taking off the Gem and gnawing his own hands off but Lilith had seen that one coming. At some point, he wasn’t sure when, she had thralled him and added a chain around his neck. All he could do now, was watch.

Lily had come to rescue him and now she was in the cell opposite his. Laying docile, on a bed, in a deep thrall.

“Isn’t it delicious, darling?” Lilith gloated, “She thinks she’s in the hospital. She thinks she’s rescued you and has to lie down until the baby’s born.”

Spike said nothing, just seethed, quietly.

“A slayer having a baby with a vampire.” Lilith smirked, “What powers might it have?”

“It’s not mine.” Spike said, coldly.

“Little liar. Mummy can always tell, don’t you know that? Not to worry, your little trollop won’t be harmed until after my grandchild arrives. And then, you and I will fuck her and drain her, together. Just think, I’ll have two identical slayers to share my bed.” She said the words with such relish, as if already tasting slayer blood.

After she’d left, Spike tried shouting to Lily but she was way past hearing. Trapped in a world of Lilith’s making. Desperate, he started pulling at his chains, again…

“There’s really no point. Those chains won’t break, they’re too strong.” William said, when Spike had fallen silent.

“Spelled?” Spike asked.

“No.”

“Then there’s always hope.” Spike said, tugging some more.

“Yes.” William agreed, “But, consider your chances of breaking them and getting Lily out of here without anyone noticing.”

“Is there another way?”

“Lilith wants you broken and willingly participating. It isn’t as much fun, for her, if she has to thrall you. She’ll tell you that all you have to do is whatever she wants. Don’t. I’ve seen prisoners come and go, she never keeps her word.”

“I’m not going to help her kill Lily, or any other slayer. Do you see anything helpful in the future?” He asked, trying to forget that, once again, the vampire that was once his mother was trying to get him into bed.

“The future is never clear, as I told you. The best I can see, is just choices and you don’t have many.”

“What bloody use are you?” Spike shouted, in frustration.

“None, that I’ve ever been able to determine.” William said, sadly.

* * * * *

Lily was as happy as she could be, considering she really didn’t want to be in hospital. Spike had come back, bringing a big stack of books and DVDs, in a large box. He’d snuggled on the bed with her, and they’d watched films until she was tired and then he’d left.

She’d asked him about patrolling and he’d been vague, said there was nothing much to report and she shouldn’t worry. He really didn’t seem like his usual self. Of course, she thought as she drifted off to sleep, he was probably traumatized by his experiences in Lilith’s cellar…

* * * * *

The nurse that brought Lily’s breakfast, was strangely familiar. Lily was sure she knew her from somewhere.

“You can call me Nikki,” She said, when Lily asked.

“You’re American?”

“Yeah, it’s an exchange thing, see how other countries have different procedures, yer know?”

Something tugged at Lily’s memory but she couldn’t quite pin it down. Nikki handed her a tall glass of pineapple juice. Lily gulped it down, greedily.

“I know the feeling, Girl.” Nikki said, with a smile, “When ma Robin was on the way, it felt like there weren’t enough pickles in the world, to meet ma needs. Not to worry, hon, with yer daddy picking up the bill, you can have all yer want.”

Lily blushed, obviously they all knew whose daughter she was. She blushed again when Nurse Nikki asked if she needed help to use the bathroom.

* * * * *

Spike watched, as Nikki did her ‘nurse’ routine for Lily. He saw the slight frown on Lily’s face as she tried to work out where she had seen Nikki, before. Of course, Lilith had no way of knowing that Lily had Spike’s memories of killing Nikki. At least they were taking care of her, he thought, as Nikki helped Lily to the en suite bathroom.

William had told him about the ‘waiting room’, where Lily was being kept. Lilith kept her captive slayers, alive and thralled, in relative comfort until she could afford to drain and sire them. She wasn’t above taking the odd sip, now and then but she was careful not to kill them until she had the replacement lined up. William had been fairly certain that Lilith wouldn’t risk messing with Lily, for fear of damaging the baby.

Nikki emerged from Lily’s room and walked across to the barred door of Spike’s cell.

“Did you sire me?” She asked him, “When yer killed me in your dimension.” She clarified, at his blank look.

“No,” Spike replied, looking up at her. “I didn’t even taste you, I just broke your neck and stole your coat.”

“Ma coat, why?”

“Because,” he said, looking embarrassed, “It was a great coat.”

“Yeah,” she said, remembering, “I guess it was. Yer don’t have it now?”

“No.” Spike put a lot of regret into his voice, “For years, it was like my second skin, all those handy weapon pockets. ‘Course, Robin recognized it as soon as he saw it, tried to take it back. Then, last year, I sort of got blown up, in Italy. The coat was ruined.”

“Yer got blown up, and yer sad about losing ma coat?” She laughed, “Man, you’s one of a kind.”

“Not quite,” Spike said, jerking his head in the direction of William’s cell.

“Oh, he don’t count.” Nikki said, smiling. A scraping sound distracted her.

Spike turned to look. The other Lily, still hanging against the wall, had woken up and was struggling.

“Oops, I’d better get her outta here, before her majesty hears and realizes something’s wrong with her little health care fantasy.”

She went over to vampire-Lily and undid her manacles.

“C’mon little sister,” She said, sympathetically, putting her arm round the girl, “Let’s go get yer some blood and,” She said, looking her up and down, “Some clothes.”

Spike watched them leave and wondered if he had found an ally in Nikki. Maybe, he thought, if he was nice enough to her, she might help. At this point, anything was worth a try…

* * * * *

Lily wasn’t sure when she started to think that something wasn’t right. It was a vague, niggly feeling, that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

It had to do with her visitors. She’d had visits from everyone she’d expected but something was off. Her father had been too quiet, no, that wasn’t right, they were all too quiet. Even Spike and Spike liked to talk. Sometimes, she thought she could hear him, talking to someone else, outside her room.

She wondered if it was her. Had the doctors told her father and Spike, that she was going to die? Was it a medical certainty? Would her life end, when Jennifer Anne was born? That would explain the stilted conversations she’d been having but it didn’t explain the strangest thing that she’d noticed.

Spike only visited at night.

She hadn’t questioned him about it. Some deep rooted instinct had stopped her but she wondered…

* * * * *

Spike was starving. His vague plan of befriending Nikki, wasn’t working. Everyone in the household was too afraid of Lilith, to move against her.

She had the whole county under her thumb. Humans actually competed to become minions, simply because it was considered a better option than being food.

Food humans, were kept chained and cannulated, for any vampire that wanted a snack. Worse, they were so plentiful that they were totally expendable - if a minion felt like it, he or she could torture captive humans, in any way they saw fit.

Un-life was good, for obedient minions. Any, even minor transgressions were punished harshly. The tongue burning incident had been accomplished, slowly, drip by drip with holy water. Lilith was more than happy to personally apply the same punishment to other, even more sensitive areas…

No one was going to help Spike.

He was emaciated, now. He wouldn’t ‘die’ but he kept drifting in and out of consciousness. For a long while, he imagined that he was chained in Giles’ bath tub. Giles asking him what happened to vampires that couldn’t feed. Spike couldn’t imagine what was funny about starving humans - but he remembered saying it…

He saw Dawn, his Nibblet, her huge blue eyes looking into his. He remembered how he had felt when she had threatened him. Somehow, she had found out what he had tried to do to Buffy and, much as she loved him, she couldn’t let it go. She’d delivered her threat, beautifully; holding his gaze, speaking with calm sincerity.

He’d known that she’d meant it. Part of him had been proud of his fiery Little Bit but mostly, it had hurt. He had just wanted to break down and cry - tell her about his soul and explain his total remorse - instead, he had tried to keep up his ‘soulless’ act.

Big failure.

Oh, he remembered how he was before his soul but after, the focus had shifted and, try as he might, he couldn’t fake it.

Had Dawn ever forgiven him? He couldn’t remember. Had she mourned his ‘death’? William would know, William knew everything. Spike was tired, now but he’d ask William, later, after he’d slept…

* * * * *

Lily gazed out of the window, at the hospital grounds. As ever, the sun was shining down on the immaculate flower beds and perfect lawns. Her vague sense of unease was back. Had she ever seen anyone mowing the grass? Tending the flowers? Weeding?

“You shouldn’t be out of bed, without a nurse.”

“Sorry, Doctor,” Lily said, getting back into bed.

The doctor was such a nice lady; so caring, she made Lily feel as though she was the only patient. Doctor… what was her name again? Looking up into her eyes, Lily couldn’t remember. Did it matter?

What had she been thinking about? Something to do with the gardens? She turned to face the wall, seeing a window, seeing outside. The gardens were perfect, why had she thought they were wrong?

Was it important?

Was anything?

“Time for your blood test, my dear…”

* * * * *

Spike was starving. That damned chip wouldn’t let him feed and he couldn’t go to any other vampires for help. They’d kill him, for his weakness.

Was that the reason? Or was it something to do with a ring? Yes, that was it, he couldn’t let anyone have the ring.

Maybe he was a Hobbit.

He laughed. Yes, that sounded right. He had to protect the ring. He was wearing it and that kept it invisible. No, if he was a Hobbit, wearing the ring would make him invisible. Wouldn’t it? Wasn’t that how it worked?

He couldn’t quite remember. Either way, he wasn’t taking it off.

‘Spike’ was an odd name for a Hobbit, he thought… maybe it was William the bloody Hobbit. He laughed some more.

Buffy.

That name was even funnier. So how come he felt so sad, when he thought of it?

Bloody chip, starving him to death. Buffy would help, wasn’t that what she did? Help the helpless? It was Thanksgiving, too, wasn’t it? When bloody Americans all gave thanks for… something or other. Maybe extend the hand of friendship to those less fortunate. Hopefully not feed him to the bear. How was a bear in the dining room, related to giving thanks, anyway? He wasn’t sure but he vaguely remembered a Thanksgiving dinner where there had been one…

He’d go in daylight. They’d find him less of a threat, then. All he needed was his blanket…

Buffy’s phone rang and, not too surprisingly, she answered it.

“Miss Summers?”

“Speaking.”

“Miss Buffy Summers?” The voice on the phone had a lovely English accent, which always made Buffy think of Spike but the man sounded as though he was around Giles’ age.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Buffy, the…” His voice dropped to a whisper, “Vampire slayer?”

“Yep, who am I speaking to?”

Sir Robert told her.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy replied, “You said that as though you thought I’d know who you are but I don’t.”

“I’m Lily’s father.” His voice broke, slightly as he said Lily’s name.

“Lily?” Buffy hadn’t heard of her but for some reason a vision of the dark-haired girl from her dream, swam before her eyes.

“She’s a slayer. Giles promised me she’d be alright but she’s gone through the portal, chasing after that damned vampire… No, that’s not fair, he really is a decent chap and she loves him so much but the baby’s due soon and she hasn’t come back… Giles won‘t return my calls, treacherous bastard…”

“Sir Robert, please, slow down. Tell me about this vampire.”

“Giles asked Lily to look after him, while he was in England because of what happened with the other slayer, in L.A. but Lily had her own agenda. She’d had a mental connection to him, starting when he got his soul back, right up until she became a slayer…”

A the mention of the vampire’s soul, Buffy’s heart started to pound.

“Sir Rober…”

“Just Robert, please…”

“Robert, this is very important, what is this vampire’s name?” She held her breath, silently praying that he wouldn’t say ‘Angel’.

“Calls himself Spike, although his mother gave him a perfectly good name…”

“And he’s alive?”

“As much as any vampire. Of course, he might not be, now…”

“You’re in England, yes?” Buffy said, making a decision.

“Yes, will you come?”

“I’ll be on the next flight. Give me your number, I’ll let you know when I’ll be landing.”

“Whatever you do, don’t tell Giles. If he’s up to something and he always is, he’ll try to stop you.”

“Oh, he and I will be having a little chat, one day but not yet, I’m too angry with him.” Buffy replied.

Buffy was seething with rage when she hung up the phone. How dare Giles do this to her again? Somehow, Spike was alive, Giles knew about it and he’d said nothing. He’d watched Buffy mourning Spike; all the while, knowing that Spike was still out there.

Did all her friends know? Once again, she was being treated like a six year old, kept in the dark for her own good. She threw some clothes into a holdall and, saying nothing about her plans, to anyone, headed out.

* * * * *

Buffy had time to think, on the flight. She knew that Dawn would be worried and promised herself that she’d call, as soon as she landed but she wouldn’t be telling even her, where she was.

Buffy could picture her future encounter with Giles. She would be angry and Giles would be so infuriatingly calm and reasonable. He would tell her, calmly and patiently, how these difficult decisions were essential to a good leader and how, obviously, Buffy - with all the mental capacity of a six year old - wasn’t the right person to make them.

* * * * *

Buffy was in Sir Robert’s library, sitting where Spike had sat, so many months ago. She was looking down at the photo of Lily, taken when she was manifesting Spike’s burns.

“I was with him, when this happened…” Buffy said, absently. She looked up at Sir Robert’s questioning look. “The burns. He’d just told me about getting his soul back,” She explained. “We were in an abandoned church, he was… it was like he was insane. There was this huge cross and he embraced it. It was so horrible. He just stood there, resting against it and there was smoke coming off him, his flesh was sizzling and it was like he couldn’t feel it. He just didn’t care.”

“You love him.”

“Yes. With all my heart.” Buffy answered, without thinking and realized that it was the first time she had really told anyone. She had always been so afraid of what people would think of her. As if it mattered. Now, here she was, telling an almost-stranger. A man whose daughter was actually pregnant, by the man that Buffy loved.

Sir Robert put his hand on her shoulder.

“He loves you, too.” He said, gently. “Don’t get me wrong,” He continued, when Buffy looked up at him questioningly. “He cares for Lily, loves her, even but it doesn’t touch what he feels for you. I could see it, in him. He’s been trying to move on, the way he believes that you have…only, you haven’t. Now that I’ve met you, I can see that.”

“Tell me about Lily.” Buffy said, not wanting to think about a scenario where Spike would have to choose between them.

“Well, the coma, you already know about. After she became a slayer, she tried to put Spike behind her, as it were. We didn’t have a big vampire problem, in fact her biggest threat was being caught with a weapon. The police have really cracked down on that sort of thing.” He added, at Buffy’s frown. “Then, Wells turned up, with a ‘Slayer Kit’, gave us a big song and dance about destiny and flowering womanhood and explained all the gadgets. The GPS watch, of course, is now useless because it can’t track across dimensions…” He paused and swallowed, obviously thinking of his little girl, lost in another reality.

Buffy thought of her own ‘slayer watch’, sitting on her dressing table in Rome. Good luck tracking me, Andrew, she thought. She’d paid cash for her flight, too…

“I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry. Wells told her that, as she was already slaying vampires, she didn’t have go to the college in Rome; she had been nervous about meeting you… and, of course, she had a lot of demon knowledge, gained from Spike, so, she elected to stay here.

“Things were going fine, quiet, even. Then, six months down the line, Giles showed up. He said he had a special assignment for Lily.”

“Spike?” Buffy asked.

“Spike. He explained that Spike, an ensouled vampire, was in L.A., fighting evil and might be coming to England. He said, that if that happened, he wanted Lily to look after him.”

“I don’t get that, why would Spike need looking after?” Buffy asked.

“Because of the ‘Dana incident’.” Sir Robert replied, as though it was obvious.

“Something else I’ve been kept in the dark over, I guess.”

“She was psychotic, in an institution, when she became a slayer. Due to a mistake in her medication, she escaped. Spike tracked her down but she overpowered him. A sane slayer, would have dusted him but Dana, imagining him to be the man who kidnapped and tortured her as a child, drugged him and made sure he could never touch her again. She cut his hands off.” He finished, at Buffy’s questioning look.

Buffy blanched.

“They were re-attached.” Sir Robert reassured her. “Hardly left a scar.”

“He told you all this?” Buffy asked, thinking the Spike she knew wouldn’t want to talk about, what he would consider, his weakness.

“It was all in Wells’ file. Giles gave it to Lily to read, when he gave her the assignment.”

“There’s a file. Of course.” Buffy muttered, “Wait, Andrew knew?”

“He was there. Wrote a file on Spike’s activities. Giles has been keeping all this from you, yes?”

“Yes and God knows what else. All I knew, was that Andrew was being sent on various assignments, around the world. Damn Giles. He’s been like a father to me but I wish he’d stop trying to make all my decisions.”

“He was your watcher, when you were first called?”

“Well, not my first but from fairly early on.”

“And your …ah.. biological father?”

“Ran off with his secretary.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say, that a father’s job is not to make decisions for you. As far as I’m concerned, a good father should let his daughter decide for herself and be ready to pick up the pieces, if it goes wrong. I may not have been happy that Lily was in love with a vampire but I had to trust her judgement. At least the vampire in question had fought for and won his soul…”

“That never seemed to make a difference, to my friends. Mom liked him, though.” Buffy said the last part, almost to herself. “Tell me about the portal.” She said, looking up.

“That opened a few weeks after Giles had visited. Not that I’m implying a connection, the stone circle’s been there for millennia. There’s a poem and, knowing about the existence of slayers, it’s rather obvious that it refers to spilling the blood of seven slayers, on the centre stone, on consecutive full moons. Someone had already started doing that, months before Giles came. We knew nothing about it, until visitors started turning up.”

“Visitors?”

“Demons, to start with. Apparently, some travel around, using pre-existing portals. Lily handled the rowdy ones. She’s a superb fighter - her connection with Spike - but she won’t kill for the sake of it. If a demon’s peaceful, she won’t harm them.”

“That’s good. It’s one of the things we try to teach at the college, so many slayers think that demon equals bad but reality’s never black and white.”

“Things became much easier, when Lorne showed up.”

“I’ve heard of him, friend of Angel‘s?”

“Yes. He’s an empath and he’s set up a bar in the village. He knows whenever the portal’s used.”

“He’s guarding it, now?”

“No, Garri is. He’s a friend of Lily’s, they were at school together. He’s a warlock. Since Lily went through the portal, he’s been down there, every night; throwing sunlight spells at any vampires that come through.”

“Sounds useful, a friend of mine tried to develop a spell for that. I hope this Garri’s being careful.”

“He did a lot of research on the stones - local legends, rune translations - he wants to go through and try to rescue Lily but a person needs slayer blood, to pass and we don’t have access to any, not since Lily went.”

“She’s really carrying Spike’s child?”

“Yes, there’s no doubt that it’s his. She was… untouched… before him. We put it about that he wasn’t the biological father, apparently vampire’s babies command a high price - being so rare - so we had a fertility clinic deny involvement.”

“Huh?”

“Worked like a charm. They deny it, everyone thinks they’re lying.”

“Else why mention it? Brilliant.” Buffy said, admiringly.

“We thought so, unfortunately we hadn’t bargained on Spike being kidnapped and dragged into the portal. When that happened, I knew that nothing would stop Lily going in after him.”

“If she’s alive, I’ll bring her back.”

“Oh, she’ll still be alive. Lorne is adamant that Jennifer Anne will be born healthy. What I’m afraid of, is that Lily will be killed after the birth.”

“When’s she due?” Buffy asked, gently, fearing that she was about to see this sweet, kind man, cry.

“Two weeks or so. She told me, before she went, to get in touch with you, if she failed to return. She said that you could be trusted and you would be strong enough, it‘s taken me a while to track you down…” He turned away, abruptly and rummaged in a drawer. He handed Buffy an envelope. “She wrote you a letter, before she left.”

Dear Buffy (the letter said),

If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. Sorry to sound melodramatic but there’s no point glossing over it.

This feels awkward, I know so much about you and you know hardly anything about me. My dad will have told you, by now, about the connection between me and Spike. Try not to dwell on any of the things that you inadvertently shared with me, while you were with Spike - I was only with him from the time he won his soul, until I became a slayer. I came to love him, through sharing his feelings and his belief in you was overwhelming.

Don’t think badly of him that he fell straight into bed with me. He knew that you’d moved on and he was desperate to prove that he could do the same and, vampires are always attracted to family members. Usually, they kill them, the blood being such a strong lure but, of course, Spike had to be different. He left most of his family alive and so, generations later, here I am.

Now, it’s the generation still to come, that I have to worry about. I know what you’re thinking, if I’m so worried about Jennifer Anne, why jump through a portal to rescue Spike? Answer, because I love him and he is Jennifer Anne’s parent as much as I am and she’ll need him.

Back when Mr. Giles phoned to tell me when and where Spike would be entering the country, I went to sing for Lorne. He hadn’t been here long, then but word had soon got around about his talent. He told me that Spike would love me and I would be happy with him, for the rest of my life. My being a slayer and Spike a vampire, I assumed that Lorne was referring to the obvious difference in our life spans. He won’t say but I now believe that I won’t live through the birth. For the sake of our child, Spike must live.

I’m so sorry to put this on your shoulders, Buffy but I feel there is no other choice; if anything should happen to Spike, I would be eternally grateful if you would raise Jennifer Anne. Of course, my father will want to be involved but you are strong enough to protect her. Lorne says that she is destined for greatness, whatever that means. I’m sure that there will be enemies, that she will need to be kept safe from.

If you decide to pass through the portal, be warned that the ‘master’ vampire, over there, is Lilith. According to Dalton, she has the strongest thrall ever! She lives in that dimension’s version of my father’s house and, obsessively protective of her ’life’, she never leaves. She kills and sires slayers. She has minions track them down, capture and bring them to her. Both Kendra and Faith are there. Slayer minions have strong thrall of their own. Be very careful.

I’m sorry to have to tell you that Lilith, before she was turned, was Spike’s mother. She was the only person he ever, willingly, sired. Whatever happens, over there, he’s bound to be emotionally scarred.

I feel I should say that Spike still loves you. Yes, he’s fond of me but I know, from the time I spent sharing his consciousness, that what he feels and will always feel, for you, is so much greater. Had he not been on the rebound, from you, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Even though we have never met, Buffy, I remember how it felt to love you.

Lily

* * * * *

The sun was coming up, when Buffy climbed onto the Rune stone.

Lily was in the early stages of labour, when it happened. One moment she was on her bed in a hospital room, surrounded by concerned nurses who were assuring her that Spike was on his way and then… She wasn’t.

Her reality turned inside out, as she realized that…

The four concerned nurses around her bed, were, in fact, vampires. They were holding her down for the doctor, the one that had seemed so nice and who now, held a large knife and was slicing…

The pain of what was being done to her, had broken the thrall.

Lily struggled, desperately; looking round the room, frantically trying to spot something she could use. Everything she saw, made her feel even worse, if that were possible.

How long had she been there?

There was no window. No television. No DVDs. No books. What had she been doing? All those nights snuggling with Spike, watching films, none of it had been real. What had she really been doing?

She couldn’t move and Lilith was pulling Jennifer Anne, out of Lily’s ruined abdomen.

Lily struggled harder, trying for a glimpse of her baby’s face, knowing she’d probably never get another chance. Lilith strode to the door.

“One of you girls, sire that for me, would you.” She said, gesturing towards Lily, as she swept out, clutching her bloodstained grandchild.

Adrenaline flooded Lily’s system and she managed to get her leg free for a few seconds. It was enough. With a spectacular kick, she broke the neck of the dark-haired girl that had held her by the ankle. In the resulting confusion, Lily managed to similarly incapacitate the other three. She clutched at the door frame, breathing hard into the pain and looked down at the four slayer-vampires, with broken necks, littering the floor. Not dust but unable to move until their spines healed, they lay, helplessly watching as Lily made her move.

* * * * *

Spike was dreaming. He had laid Lily’s limp body on the bed and Lorne was telling him that the only thing he could do for her, was to share her Orpheus dream, by feeding.

He didn’t trust himself. What if he lost control? Lorne was assuring him that he wouldn’t, when he heard Lily murmuring.

“Please, Spike, just do it.” She breathed, softly, in his ear.

The smell of her blood was flooding his senses and he took her in his arms and gently kissed her throat. His fangs had slipped into her before he realized it and he started to draw her blood, hot and so sweet, into his mouth.

She was whispering to him, telling him how much she loved him, urging him on as he drank her…

* * * * *

Buffy stepped through the portal. She looked around at the new dimension and realized that it looked exactly the same as the one she’d just left.

She’d left at sunrise so she’d have the advantage of daylight, for the maximum number of hours. Dalton had drawn up a plan of the cellar of Lilith’s lair, explaining where Lily and Spike were likely to be.

Buffy had decided to go in through the house, rather than use the tunnel entrance, through the stable block. Dalton had told her that the tunnel was heavily guarded and that the tight space, coupled with booby traps, made it a hard place to fight in.

The main house, although fortified, was not as well guarded. Lilith, it seemed, relied, too heavily, on her reputation and a few barricades, to keep people out.

The windows were bricked up. Buffy had been prepared for that, what she hadn’t been prepared for, were the screams.

Piercing screams of unimaginable agony, thankfully muffled by the brick work. Buffy swore, as she kicked the front door in, what the hell was happening in there?

An eerie silence greeted her, as she cautiously stepped into the house. Whatever had caused all that screaming had clearly stopped.

She had expected to be overwhelmed by vampire signatures, after all, an entire household full, was the biggest nest she’d ever been in. Instead, it felt like there was only one; Spike.

She heard a baby crying, upstairs somewhere.

She wanted to go straight to Spike but she could tell that he and the baby were in different directions. She switched on her torch and played the beam around the walls until she’d located the light switch.

Once the light was on, she realized that she was standing in dust. A great many vampires had been finished off, in here.

She followed the sound of the baby.

* * * * *

Spike felt great. He’d drunk his fill and so much energy was flooding his body that he felt like he could fly. He hadn’t felt this good since…

No.

His demon retreated, leaving his human soul to deal with what he had done.

Please, no.

Lily lay, drained, in his arms. She felt cool against his skin, now warm from her blood.

She was dead and he had killed her. His demon, starving, had tricked him - with a vision of the past - into draining her.

He had bagged his third slayer.

When he had first gone to Sunnydale, looking for Buffy, he had never dreamed that killing a slayer could ever cause him so much pain.

* * * * *

Buffy followed the sound of crying, all the way to the master bedroom.

The walls of the room were lined with tapestries. Beautifully hand worked, incredibly life-like, depicting hideous scenes and images. Orgies of sex and bloodletting. Unimaginably vicious depictions of torture. So realistic, they had to have been drawn from life. Someone had a hell of a hobby.

The baby was on the huge bed, naked, smeared with blood and surrounded in dust. She’d stopped crying and was now whimpering, quietly. Buffy picked her up. She felt cold.

Improvising, Buffy stripped a pillow case from one of the pillows at the head of the bed and gently wrapped the baby in it.

“Are you Jennifer Anne?” She asked, softly, looking into the baby’s big blue eyes. “We need to find your mom and dad. Find out what the hell happened here.”

“The new Guardian is born.” The voice came from behind Buffy.

Buffy spun around, ready to fight, despite her fragile burden.

“But… you died.” She said, gazing at the Guardian. The last time she had seen her, the woman had died at the hands of Caleb. “Are you this dimension’s Guardian?”

“No, Buffy. In all dimensions where humans walk and slayers exist, I am the only Guardian. I have lived for millennia, did you really imagine that I could be killed so easily, by that monstrous boy child?”

“Well, yeah, that is…”

“Neither he nor your charming soul mate, were capable of that.”

“Soul mate… you mean Spike? He tried to kill you?”

The Guardian smiled.

“No. I sought him out, immediately following the restoration of his soul. I had to be certain that he would live through the trauma.

“For generations, I awaited his birth. He was perfect; born of an uncalled potential - Anne, sired by an uncalled potential - Drusilla, a vampire so strong and yet so flawed - and because of her flaws, he retained so much of himself, despite the siring.

“Best of all, his soul was paired with yours, one who could become a slayer. I overruled the usual powers and you, against all expectations, were chosen. His love for you, would change his attitude to slayers. He had to be protected, he had to fulfil his destiny.”

“Closing the Hellmouth?” Buffy asked.

“No. Ensuring the birth of the new Guardian, by joining with his slayer kinswoman.”

“It was predestined?”

“Yes. In only one of hundreds of dimensions, the chain of decisions would add up to the birth of the new guardian.”

“There are dimensions where Spike never met Lily?” Buffy asked, cradling Jennifer Anne under her jacket, for warmth, and feeling her snuggle, contentedly.

“There are dimensions where you and he are pair-bonded and he is incapable of touching any other. There are dimensions where he chose to stay, fight and die with his grand-sire. Every decision changes future outcomes.”

Buffy shivered at the thought of Spike, dying in L.A., with her never even knowing that he had survived the Hellmouth.

“I have to find him and Lily.” Buffy said, a sense of urgency sweeping over her.

She set off, in search of the hidden staircase which would lead her to the cellar. She hoped she wouldn’t have to fight while holding the baby but there was no way she was leaving her.

* * * * *

Spike had used his new strength to break the two chains, which had connected his manacles to the cell wall and, with a sickening lurch of his insides, realized that the chain around his neck, wasn’t there. Had never been there. Lilith had made him imagine it was there.

He gathered Lily into his arms and started to weep, quietly.

“Spike?” William called to him, through the grating. “Spike, listen to me.”

“Shut up,” Spike growled, “Or I’ll come in there and put you out of your misery.

William shut up.

That was how Buffy found Spike. After believing him to be dead - mourning him - for almost two years, she had found him; sitting in the doorway of a cell, holding a dead slayer and sobbing.

“Spike?”

He looked up at her, blankly.

“You are my Spike, aren’t you? You’re not the one from this dimension?”

“No, Mistress Buffy,” The voice came from behind the door of the cell next to Spike’s, “That would be me.”

“Spike,” Buffy was still addressing her Spike, “What did Lilith do?”

“Lilith?” He finally spoke, his voice thick with tears.

“To Lily? What did that bitch do to her?”

“I did it.” Spike replied, turning his head away, shamed.

“I don’t believe that.” Buffy took in the bloodstained gown that Lily was wearing, most of the stains at waist level. She was fairly certain that she knew what had been done and she really didn’t want to think about it.

“It’s true.” Spike said, dully. He gently turned Lily’s head, so that Buffy could see his bite mark on her throat. He looked up and, for the first time, noticed Jennifer Anne, in Buffy’s arms. “Is that…?” He asked.

“I think so. I found her upstairs. All the vampires here are dust, except for you two. What the hell happened, Spike?”

“I told you, the new Guardian.” The voice came from behind Buffy.

“You.” Spike breathed, “The White Ghost. You fed me, after…”

“Yes.”

“Helped to clear my mind, for a while.”

“To ensure you survived to join with the vampire slayer, Lily.”

“And now, I’ve killed her.” Spike said, bitterly.

“You did nothing that she didn’t want. The vampire, Lilith dealt the fatal blow, when she tried to steal the child.”

“A wound like that, didn’t kill me.” Buffy said, without thinking. Spike winced. “I mean…slayer healing…” Buffy said, realizing that she was making Spike feel worse.

“You, Buffy, are the strongest slayer that ever lived and, you are the one who found the scythe; pulled it from the rock. Such is its power, that you, the first slayer to touch it for millennia, have been rendered unkillable.” The Guardian explained. “Where is the scythe?” She asked, abruptly, giving Buffy no chance to question her previous statement.

“In Rome, there’s no way I’d have got it through customs.” Buffy said, unwilling to admit that Giles had it locked up in a safe.

“Ah, your watcher has it. That is one of the reasons a new Guardian was needed.”

“What about Lily?” Spike said, emotion choking his voice, “You were just using her?”

“In your dimension, you chose to leave your grand-sire to his battle and journeyed, instead, to the country of your birth. As that decision was made, Lily’s future was mapped out. Were it not for Lilith, she would have survived. The blame lies with whoever opened the portal, on your dimension‘s side of the stones.”

“All I know is, she got free, came for me and I murdered her.”

“That’s not how it happened.” The Guardian said, calmly. “Your captive brother can prove that to you.”

Buffy went to Spike and crouched next to him. She’d missed him so much and now he was here, in front of her, she didn’t know what to say to him.

“Stay away from me,” He growled.

“Don’t you want to see your beautiful daughter?” She asked.

“She’s better off not knowing me, they both are.”

“Both..?”

“Her and Dawn. You didn’t know?” He added, at her gasp of surprise.

“No but I should have. It makes perfect sense.”

“Keep them away from me. I’m just a killer. I always hurt the girl, Buffy…” He started to sob, again.

Buffy didn’t know what to do. Spike was starting to sound the way he had in the school basement.

“The Guardian says that the other Spike can help.” She said.

“William.” Spike said, quietly. “He can’t help, no one can. I deserve to be staked.

“At least come and see what he has to say, first.” Buffy said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

Spike finally lay Lily gently on the floor and got up. Buffy put her arm around him but he shrugged her off.

William’s cell door was solid and had a hatch, roughly cut in the middle. It was locked from the outside. Buffy broke the lock and opened the door.

William, instinctively backed away, as Buffy, Spike and The Guardian walked into his tiny room.

“Forgive my manners,” William said, apologetically, “This is the first time I’ve had guests.”

Buffy looked around and whistled, softly.

“Willow would have a cow, if she saw this.” She said, admiringly.

William’s room was a weird mixture of technology and mysticism. He had a computer system and a broadband hook up, which looked normal enough but he also had a cable, one end going into the computer, the other end split into two and attached to a scrying glass and a vial of blood. The cable pulsed red every so often. Definitely not normal.

“Show him.” The Guardian said.

“I record the images from the scrying glass, onto my hard drive,“ William said, proudly, busying himself with the keyboard.

The image on the screen, swirled and resolved itself into a moving image of Lily, while she was on her bed, in the waiting room.

Spike watched, tears streaming down his face, as Lilith, alerted by Nikki, that Lily had gone into labour and, realizing that she’d lose the thrall, produced a knife and started cutting.

Buffy gripped Spike’s hand, as, fighting nausea, she watched Lilith perform a primitive caesarean, dragging little Jennifer Anne from her mother.

She almost cheered, watching as Lily got her leg free and swiftly broke the neck of a vampire who looked suspiciously like Faith.

Spike scrubbed the tears from his eyes as he watched Lily stagger across to his cell, open the door and crawl into his lap.

“Please, Spike, just do it.” Lily whispered, hoarsely, “Don’t let them sire me. Just finish it, use my blood to get out of here and save Jennifer Anne.”

Spike’s jaw clenched and he clutched at Buffy‘s hand; he watched the screen as Lily pulled his mouth to her throat. He had been so emaciated, from starvation, that he could hardly believe he had needed to be persuaded, to feed.

“Please, I love you so much, Spike. You have to get out of here. I’m dying anyway. Please.”

On the screen, Spike finally succumbed to temptation and sank his fangs into Lily. She appeared to feel no pain and, in fact, had a small smile on her face, as Spike fed and she died.

Buffy was crying, now and Spike put his arm around her.

“I love you.” She said, through her tears.

“Can I hold Jennifer Anne?” He asked, not wanting to respond to the amazing thing she’d just said, in case he’d got it wrong.

Buffy handed the baby to him, without a word.

Jennifer Anne, opened her eyes and gazed sleepily up at her father.

The Guardian gently led Buffy out of William’s room and into the main area of the cellar.

“I can make him forget.” She said, quietly.

“Huh?” Buffy responded.

“Spike. I can make him forget all this pain. Meeting Lily, fathering Jennifer Anne, Lilith, all of this. I can put him back to how he was; raise the new Guardian, myself. It’s up to you. Decide, Buffy, what do you want?”

Buffy couldn’t quite believe what she was being offered. A chance to be with Spike, without the shadow of Lily. She could actually fix it so that Spike would be happy, again.

She was about to make the most important decision of her life…

Buffy looked at the Guardian’s gentle face and imagined how it would be, if Spike didn’t remember this pain. How it would be if he didn’t remember that he had a daughter with a slayer who wasn’t her. If he didn’t remember Lily’s death.

“I’m sorry but no.” She said, at last.

“No? Can I ask why?” The Guardian said.

“It’s not my right. I hate that all my life, other people have made choices, for me; parents, watchers, friends, lovers. Spike never did that.

“Willow, my witch friend, did a lot of forgetting spells, probably more than I know about - I’m sure I only know about the ones that went wrong - no one should have that kind of power.

“I love Spike, with all my heart, have for years. I’ve had trouble admitting it, even to myself and I’ve hurt him so badly, that when I finally told him how I felt, he didn’t believe me. I’ve messed with his head enough.

“I know this is bad, beyond bad - what’s happened and the way he’s feeling - but we can’t just wave a magic wand and make it go away. It’s his life, it’s part of him; to make him forget… that should be his choice. If I make it, I’ll be raping his mind…it’ll be like…” Words seemed to fail her and she shook her head, sadly. “If he still wants me, I’ll do my best to help him through his grief. It‘s all I can do.”

“In the years since I over-ruled the powers and made you the slayer, you have never disappointed me.” The Guardian said, smiling. “Oh, you’ve made mistakes, everyone does but when it comes to doing the right thing…I made the right choice, in you. Oh and you’ve just made the right choice.”

“You really love me?” Spike said, from behind Buffy.

“You were listening?” Buffy asked, turning to face him and blushing.

“Vampire hearing, pet.”

“Yes. I really love you, Spike. For two years I’ve been mourning you. I’ve been blaming myself and Angel, for what happened to you and I still have nightmares about the moment I told you I loved you and you told me I didn’t. I…”

Spike kissed her.

Holding him, she could feel Jennifer Anne’s tiny body, squirming between them, as she searched across Buffy’s chest, with her little mouth.

“I think someone’s hungry.” Buffy said, breaking the kiss and looking down, with a smile.

“Lilith has baby supplies, upstairs in the kitchen.” William said, standing in the doorway of his room. “She was planning on raising the baby, herself.”

“We’ll go find it, fix her up with baby formula.” Buffy said, “How hard can it be?”

Spike looked at William, noticing how he stayed just inside his door, as though behind an invisible barrier.

“You coming out of there any time soon?” He asked.

“I’m…not sure.” William replied, “I’ve dreamed of getting out but now that I can…I…”

“Do you need more time?” Buffy asked, gently.

Dalton had told her about poor William and she figured that he had become institutionalised. He felt safe in his room. Buffy couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He seemed so fragile; so like Spike and so unlike…

“I’ll stay with him.” The Guardian announced, “There are some things I need to talk to him about.”

Buffy and Spike made their way to the kitchen.

“I’m sorry.” Spike said, quietly.

“What for?” Buffy asked.

“Being with Lily.”

“Don’t be. You cared for her and you thought I was seeing the Immortal. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I should have got in touch with you, once I had re-corporealised.”

“When you did what?”

“Re-corporealised. It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

As they sorted out baby supplies, together, Spike told Buffy everything that had happened to him, since the Hellmouth.

“You’ve obviously had more fun than I have.” Buffy said, when he’d finished. “I’m so sorry about Lily. I think I would have liked her.”

“Even though we were…?”

“Well, not that part but I can hardly blame her for loving you, can I? And she was way better than that airhead, Harmony. She wrote me, Lily, I mean; before she went through the portal. She’d told her dad to find me, if anything went wrong.”

“I wondered how you came to be here, for a while I thought you might be a ‘thrall dream’.”

“A what?”

“That’s how Lilith kept Lily prisoner. She thralled her and made her think she was in hospital. Thralls can be broken by extreme pain, so, as soon as Lily went into labour…”

“Don’t.” Buffy shuddered at the memory. “Jennifer Anne’s the new Guardian, do you think the other Guardian plans to raise her?” She asked, changing the subject.

“She can plan all she likes. Jennifer Anne is my daughter, she stays with me.” Spike said, firmly, looking down at his baby as she contentedly sucked from the bottle of baby milk that Buffy had made up.

“I’d like to help with that…” Buffy said, shyly, “If you’ll have me.”

For once, Spike ignored the obvious innuendo. He nodded.

“I never stopped loving you, Buffy.” He said.

“I know, Robert told me.”

“Oh, God, how can I tell him what happened?”

“You didn’t kill her, Spike. If anything, what you did comforted her. She knew she was dying and she knew that she could give you the strength to get out of here. She died with a smile on her face, saving the man she loved.”

“You’ve changed, Buffy. What happened to you?”

“For two years, I thought you were dead. I had time to think. All the mistakes I’d made.

“I kept wondering, would things have been different if I’d not done certain things? If I’d not kissed Angel, in the Guardian’s tomb, if I’d let him wear the amulet, the way he wanted, instead of insisting he went back to L.A. in case we failed. If I’d worn it, the way I planned…” She looked thoughtful, as she took a breath and continued:

“I had time to replay all the bad things I did to you, how I messed you up, pressed buttons until I drove you to…” She blushed. “I went on and on at you about your soul, like you weren’t real without it, like I could just dump on you and it didn’t matter. You didn’t matter…” She was close to tears, now.

“I realized that Angel never really loved me, just an idea of me and I realized that you loved the real, imperfect me; even without your soul…”

“You grew up.” Spike said, softly.

“Yeah, I’m cookies.”

* * * * *

William stood in his mother’s bedroom and wept. He and the Guardian had been through the house, releasing the human prisoners and, while checking out the other rooms, he’d happened upon this one. William had taken a look at the tapestries and come undone.

The Guardian had helped him to leave his tiny, cellar room. She had fed him, from her wrist and his first taste of human blood, in so many decades, had made him feel he could take on the world.

Not this, though. In his mind’s eye, he could see his mother, stitching. She found it relaxing, even through her illness. Flowers, verses, birds, maybe. Not this. Bad enough that he had had to watch her, with her slayer prey but to see this record of her depravities; to imagine her studiously working on these abominations…

Spike was right. Lilith was not his mother. His sweet natured, innocent mother had died, over a century ago, when he had sired her.

Now, thanks to Lilith’s endless quest for power, she was dust, along with every vampire in the house. He looked at the dust on the bed, all that was left of her. Every vampire dust, except William and Spike.

The Guardian had explained it to him.

He wished she was here, now, to clear his mind again, with her blood. She’d told him that she had an errand to run but would be back, soon.

God, he had to get out of this room…

* * * * *

“Mother was a potential slayer?” Spike said, shocked.

“That’s what the Guardian told me, she said that’s why you were so perfect for her, ah, breeding programme.” Buffy replied, sipping the tea that Spike had made. ‘Typical Englishman,’ She thought, ‘First sign of a crisis, the kettle goes on.’

“Dru, yeah, after all, she had prophetic dreams… OK, she had them while she was awake but still… Mother? I wonder if she knew?” Spike continued, deliberately not picking up on Buffy’s reference to the Guardian’s plan.

“And I wasn’t exactly at the top of the chosen list, it seems. Which explains a lot.” Buffy continued.

“Huh?”

“Well, for a start, it explains why ‘The Powers That Be’ tried to set me up with Angel. They thought I was a mistake.”

“Bloody brilliant mistake, you ask me. Wait, they set you up?”

“Yeah, some ‘good’ demon went and dragged Angel out of the gutter, where he was living on a diet of rats, cleaned him up and pointed him in my direction. My very own stalker. Told him I’d be useless without him, or something.”

“Bloody cheek. When did you find this out?”

“Years ago. The night you helped me defeat Acathla.”

“You never told me.”

“We didn’t really talk, that night. You left me to die and drove off with Dru.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s OK. If you’d stayed and helped me kill Angel, I’d have probably resented you for it. As it was, he got his soul back, just in time for me to drive a sword through him and send him to hell. God, I felt guilty about that.”

“Why? It was what you had to do. What was the alternative? The whole world goes to hell with him? How did he get back, anyway?”

“Hell spat him back. I never found out why.”

“Probably sick of him; brooding all over the place.” Spike said, with a smirk.

“Yeah, the last thing hell needs is a buzz kill.” Buffy agreed, smiling. “I can’t believe I was so cut up over him. The Guardian said you’re my soul mate.”

“William said that, too. Must be true. I would never have drained you, even without my soul.” Spike said, pain in his voice.

“Does this world have a Buffy?”

“She died. Because William never left this house.”

“So I’d be dead, if it wasn’t for you? How different was her life, from mine?”

“Not very. She died, saving Dawn and Willow brought her back, same as you.”

“She died because you weren’t there for her, after heaven?” Buffy blinked back tears. “Without you, no one would have been there for me.”

“She burned.” Spike said, quietly.

“While dancing…the way I would have. God, I wanted it. I was almost angry at you for stopping me but I was so numb, I couldn’t even feel anger. I’m so sorry for the way I treated you.”

“S’okay, pet. We were meant to be there for each other. Back then, you needed someone who wouldn’t back down. I guess I do now. We won’t be apart again, will we?”

“No.” Buffy said, firmly. “I’ll call Dawn, when we get back to our dimension, tell her…”

“Tell me what?” Dawn said, from the doorway. “Oh my God, Spike!!!” She squealed, rushing to give him a hug.

“Careful, Nibblet, I’ve got my hands full, here.” He said, showing her Jennifer Anne. “Are you real? No, it’s got to be a thrall dream. You’ve grown.” He continued, confusion in his voice.

“It’s good to see you, too, Spike.” Dawn said, grinning. “Is this my baby sister? Oh my God, she’s so cute.”

“How did you find me?” Buffy asked, “There hasn’t been time.”

“Depends on how you travel. The Guardian brought me.” She added, at Buffy’s confused look. “That ‘tomb’ of hers, is actually a multi-dimensional gateway. It’s where she lives. Oh c’mon, Buffy, how long had you lived in Sunnydale, without ever seeing a pagan pyramid in the cemetery? Did you really think that she just sat around there for thousands of years, waiting for you to come and see her about the scythe?”

Buffy shook her head, just thinking about it…

“She’s right, pet. That pyramid was in Africa, when I first got my soul back. She took me in, fed me, healed my mind - well, for a while - and when I left, I was back in Sunnydale. Even had my bike. I’d forgotten, thought it was a blackout… you know.” Spike said and Buffy remembered how broken he had been, when he’d found out what he’d been doing during his ‘blackouts‘.

“So, I come out of the apartment and there’s a pyramid sticking out of the sidewalk.” Dawn continued, “Everyone’s just walking round it like it’s always been there. The Guardian’s standing out front, holding the scythe. She magicked it out of Giles’ safe…”

“And you just came with her? She could have been evil, for all you knew.” Buffy said and Spike nodded in agreement.

“Oh, purleese, I do have some instincts, you know.” Dawn said, rolling her eyes. “The gateway was making my blood fizz, so I knew it was important. Besides, you told me about the Guardian, remember? She told me that my family needed me, so, here I am.”

“She told you about…your…ah..parentage?” Spike asked.

“Yeah. It’s OK, I’m not freaked. It’s less of a shock than when I found out I wasn’t real. Besides, it explains why I’ve always loved you.” Dawn said, happily.

“Not always…” Spike said, softly.

“Yes, Spike, always.” Dawn replied, firmly. “Even when I was threatening you.”

“Huh? When did you threaten Spike?” Buffy asked.

“When I first came back to Sunnydale, after my soul… While I was still pretending…”

“Oh.” Buffy said, just as the Guardian came in, holding the scythe.

“Here you all are,” She said, “It’s time to start the next phase.”

“If the next phase involves taking my baby daughter away, you can forget it.” Spike said.

“Of course it doesn‘t, Spike.” The Guardian said, gently, “Although, I will have to be there for her, while she grows into her powers.”

“What powers?” Buffy asked.

“I thought you understood. Jennifer Anne is responsible for dusting an entire house full of vampires.” The Guardian said.

“What?!” Spike spluttered, looking down at his baby, who had finished her milk and was now asleep; snuggled in the crook of his right arm. He held her there as if he had been doing it his whole life.

“We thought that you did that.” Buffy said. “How could a tiny baby…?”

“She was threatened and acted on instinct. Nevertheless, she has a great deal of control, for one so young but, as she grows, she will need guidance.”

“Control?” Spike said.

“She destroyed every vampire within this house, save for two. What would you call it?”

“Wow.” Dawn said, looking at her little half-sister and sounding deeply impressed. “The stake is not the power, huh?”

“How..?” Buffy asked, awe in her voice.

“Hard to explain, unless you have the same ability.” The Guardian said.

“Like trying to explain what I feel, when I hold the scythe.” Buffy said.

“Yes. Or the way Dawn feels, in the vicinity of an active portal.”

“OK, what’s this next phase, then?” Buffy asked, looking at the scythe in the Guardian’s hand.

“As you know, Buffy, I am the guardian of the slayer line but, until now, I have been alone. Unlike all of you, there are no other ’versions’ of me and there are many dimensions for me to watch over. The slayer legacy is being exploited by the watchers. In all the dimensions, except this one and that’s only because, in this dimension, they were completely destroyed.

“For millennia, the chosen one has had to answer to a council of power hungry men and women. They use the girls, mercilessly, knowing that, as one dies, another will replace her. They see no need to concern themselves with the individual needs of a completely disposable being.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Buffy said, vehemently.

“You yourself have personal experience of this.” The Guardian stated.

“Yes. The cruciamentum, when I was eighteen. Since then, Giles, my watcher, has continued to make decisions, concerning my life, without consulting me. He even tried to have Spike killed. For my own good, of course.”

“For your own good.” The Guardian echoed, “And who decides what is good for you? What gives them the right? Since the first watchers - the shadow men - violated a helpless girl and made the first slayer, these people have thought themselves superior, in every way, to their charges. This has to stop.”

“You’re not suggesting we kill them all, are you?” Buffy asked, worriedly.

“I would never ask anything of you, that would be against your nature. So, no, even though slayers have died at the hands of watchers, I am not suggesting that.”

“That doesn’t still go on, though; watchers killing slayers? Not in our dimension.” Dawn put in.

“I’m afraid it does. The poor broken child, Dana, was the most recent.”

Spike swore, under his breath.

“You disapprove?” The Guardian asked, surprised.

“Of course I bloody well disapprove. Yeah, what she did to me was bad but the poor little chit had been through hell, there was no need to…”

“What’d she do?” Dawn asked.

“She mistook Spike for her abuser and cut off his hands.” Buffy said.

“Oh. My. God. They grew back?” Dawn asked, looking at Spike’s hands.

“Not exactly, Nibblet,” Spike said, with a smile, “Surgery was involved and witchcraft too, I think. I was pretty out of it. Good as new, now, though.” He said, wiggling the fingers of his free hand. “Andrew and a bunch of slayers took Dana from Angel. Told him it was on your orders.” He added, turning to Buffy.

“I knew nothing about her, until Robert told me. Before he got in touch, I didn’t even know that you’d survived the Hellmouth. I can‘t believe they killed…” She shook her head in disbelief. “In my name…”

“How did they..?” She asked then , uncertainly, looking at the Guardian.

“Lethal injection. I believe it’s quite popular, in your country.”

“I can’t believe Giles would…”

“On this occasion, he did not. This killing was the responsibility of Roger Wyndham-Pryce.”

“Percy’s dad?”

“Yes, Spike.” The Guardian said, with an indulgent smile, “Wesley’s father. I believe you met an automated facsimile of him.”

“The robot, yeah. Percy shot him. Got all angsty over it; then it turns out his dad’s alive and well - in England.”

“Not anymore.” Buffy put in. “Nowadays, he’s fertilizing the soil around Rome.”

Spike shot her a look.

“Illyria came, after the battle in L.A., disguised as Fred, took him away and killed him.” She explained, “Bits of him keep on turning up.”

“Why would Blue..?”

“He was an abusive parent to his son and, for reasons of her own, Illyria took it upon herself to avenge this.” The Guardian explained. “Justice of a sort. He had passed sentences of death on other slayers, who didn’t live up to expectations.”

“So, we’re agreed that this has to stop. Now, how do we stop it?” Buffy asked.

“Your dimension, is the ideal place to start. It has few watchers and a great many slayers. Once they are trained, some of them can travel to other dimensions to act as watchers. Being slayers, themselves, they will have a unique perspective. For example, Buffy, what was your biggest problem, as a slayer?”

“There were lots, mostly the day to day stuff - trying to work slaying into my everyday life - school, friends, love..” She glanced at Spike, who smiled. “and, later on, not being able to have a career, having to flip burgers for a living…” Buffy shuddered, remembering.

“So, some sort of financial support…”

“Would be good. And, how come some potentials were taken from their families? Kendra didn’t even remember hers.”

“The council had the policy of removing potential slayers, for training, at an early age. Not always with the parents’ consent. In reaction to this practice, the Powers began to choose from undiscovered potentials. With varying levels of success.”

“Faith.” Dawn said.

“Yes. Although, under the right circumstances, she made a very good slayer.”

“Now that she’s reformed, you mean?” Buffy asked.

“No. In the dimension where she did not have to live in your shadow.”

“God, you mean it was my fault?”

“Not at all but, in the dimension where you, Buffy, left the hell mouth to travel to England with your vampire mate; Faith didn’t have to live up to you.”

“There’s a dimension where I left Sunnydale, before Faith came?” Buffy asked, just as Spike said:

“There’s a dimension where Buffy and I are mated?”

“Yes. To both questions.” The Guardian said, with a smile. “In that dimension, the vampire, Angel, left Sunnydale before his curse could be broken - taking your sire with him, Spike. The two of you, found a solace in each other which grew into a deep love. You performed a mating claim on one another, after Buffy’s cruciamentum. On that night, Roger Wyndham-Pryce, believing that Buffy had failed the test, expunged her from every human memory, save for his own. Once her own mother no longer remembered her existence, Buffy was happy to leave for a new life, with Spike.”

“I didn’t even know about the mating claim, back then; how..?” Spike asked.

“The two of you followed your instincts and became bound, in the strongest possible way.”

“Good on ‘em.” Spike said, clearly happy with the way life had turned out for another version of himself and Buffy.

“Is there anything that can be done for William?” Buffy asked. “The Buffy in this world, died without ever meeting him.”

“There is a Buffy, in a dimension where vampires don’t exist, outside of fiction and there is no need of slayers. Her William, died, almost a century before she was born. She has been incarcerated in an institution, ever since she started to dream your life, Buffy, in the same way that Lily once dreamed Spike’s.”

“I remember.” Buffy said. “That demon that stuck me…”

“Caused you to experience flashes of her life. An existence so real, that you almost lost yourself. She realized this and sacrificed her hold on reality, to free you. I think that she and William, if handled properly, could heal one another.”

“Does he know?” Spike asked, “That scrying glass of his…”

“Yes, a very useful device, which he uses with incredible skill. He has been following her life for some time and, if we can persuade him to leave his room again, I will take him to her. We’ll bring her back here and I’ll try to heal her mind. After that, she can start to live her own life, with William.”

“So, guys, what about this new slayers council thing?” Dawn asked.

“Yes, Buffy, how do you feel about it?” The Guardian asked.

“I’m not certain what you want me to do.”

“If you agree that the watchers council must be disbanded, I would like you to either help with it or to allow me to take care of it in my own way - no deaths, I promise - in yours and other dimensions. I would also like to recruit slayers, from your slayer college, to travel to alternate dimensions and act as watchers - training and supporting the newly chosen. This would be on a voluntary basis, of course. You don’t have to answer, right away. First, I suggest that you go back to your own dimension, rest for a few days, think things through. I’ll come to see you, when things are sorted out, here. You can give me your answers, then.” She smiled and handed Buffy the scythe.

“This is yours. Never let it be taken from you again.”

Buffy took the scythe. The familiar feel of comfort and slayer power, filled her heart.

“There’s something I need to know, before we leave.” Spike said, looking the Guardian straight in the eye. “Who opened the portal, on our side of the stones.”

“Acting on instructions from Roger Wyndham-Pryce and using blood samples taken from the slayer medical testing centre, Andrew Wells opened the portal.”

There was a cracking sound and the teacup that Spike still held in his hand, broke. Dawn jumped, startled.

“Sorry Nibblet.” Spike said, opening his fist to reveal pieces of china embedded in his palm. He flexed his fingers and the shards fell to the table, leaving bloodless cuts behind. Cuts which almost instantly closed.

“How..?” Dawn asked.

“He has the Gem of Amara.” The Guardian said. “It was Lily’s gift to him.”

“Andrew’s dead.” Spike growled, ignoring the looks he was getting from Buffy.

“Spike, how did she get the gem? Angel destroyed it.” Buffy asked.

“I’ll explain later. First, I need to kill Andrew.”

“Spike, you know I can’t let you kill him.” Buffy said, her hand on his arm.

“Why not, Buffy? After all he’s done.” Dawn put in.

“Because he’s human.”

“You sure about that, pet?”

“Yeah, maybe he’s a really annoying, dangerous kind of demon that just looks human.” Dawn said, hopefully.

“He can’t be allowed to get away with it. Lily would still be alive, if not for the portal.” Spike added.

‘And I’d still be in Rome, thinking you were dead.’ Buffy thought, selfishly. Out loud, she said:

“He will be punished…”

“Yeah, coz it worked so well, last time.” Spike said, disgustedly. “How many people died because he opened the seal? Starting with the boy he killed…”

He broke off, realizing the awkward decision he would now be facing, if Lily had still been alive. What would he have done? He had loved Lily, as much as he was capable of and adored Jennifer Anne, in a way that only a parent could truly understand but he was in love with Buffy…Lily had never had him - heart and soul - the way that Buffy did and always would. He would have been forced to choose…

“That’s my fault.” Buffy said, “I was so wrapped up in my own grief, after…that I let Giles take care of the details. I should have taken charge and insisted Andrew got locked up or something.”

“Do you really believe that your watcher would have listened to you?” The Guardian said. “Go back to your own dimension. Consider things.”

* * * * *

It was dark, when Buffy, Dawn and Spike - carrying Jennifer Anne and still muttering under his breath all the torments he wanted visited on Andrew - walked the short distance to the stone circle. Buffy went through first, then Spike, then Dawn.

Dawn emerged from the portal to find Buffy and Spike, helping a young man who had, apparently, been bitten by a vampire.

“Who did this to you?” Spike asked, as Buffy helped Garri up.

“It was Lily.” He groaned, holding his hand to his throat.

“She was a vampire?” Buffy asked.

“Yeah and someone’s really fucked up her hair!” Garri replied, more shocked by vampire-Lily’s harsh haircut than by the attack.

Dawn sniggered at the camp young man’s priorities.

“That was the Lily from that dimension.” Spike explained. “She was the slayer, before she was sired. She must have been out of the house when the others were dusted.”

“I think she’s gone home. To Lily’s home in this dimension, I mean.” Garri said.

“God, what if Robert or the servants invite her in?” Buffy said.

She and Spike took off at full speed to the house, leaving Dawn to help Garri and look after Jennifer Anne.

Buffy sensed a vampiric presence as soon as they entered the house and, together, she and Spike ran to Robert’s study.

Robert was sitting calmly across his desk, a blank look in his eyes, holding his wrist to vampire-Lily, as she drank.

Lily looked up from her meal and instantly captured Spike and Buffy, with her eyes. Both of them froze and stood, conscious but unable to move.

“Give.” Lily said, moving to stand in front of Buffy.

Unable to resist, Buffy handed her the scythe. Lily lowered it to the floor and looked at Buffy, through narrowed eyes. Buffy nodded and held out her wrist…

Dawn and Garri, tiptoed through the open front door and Garri led the way to Robert’s study, where they could hear sounds of movement.

Dawn’s heart almost stopped, when she saw what was happening and she wished she‘d thought to leave Jennifer Anne somewhere safe.

Buffy was on her knees, feeding a vampire - Lily? - from her wrist. Spike was just standing still, a dead look in his eyes. The slayer scythe lay on the floor. Dawn wondered, briefly, if she could edge past and retrieve it.

All thought died, as Lily let go of Buffy and, looking up, thralled Dawn and Garri. She breathed in, deeply; scenting the air.

Standing up and leaving Buffy, Lily walked to Dawn and sniffed at Jennifer Anne. She smiled, Buffy’s blood still staining her teeth and lips.

“Give.“ She said to Dawn.

With a terrible despair but unable to resist, Dawn found herself about to hand over Lily and Spike’s baby to a monstrous vampire version of Lily.

Jennifer Anne stirred in Dawn’s arms and her eyes opened wide. Light spilled from them and radiated out until it filled the room.

Spike felt every hair on his body stand up, as though from static electricity. The light was so bright, flaring through every colour of the rainbow, that none of them could see the room. The sound of screaming filled their ears.

In her mind, Buffy was transported back to the Hellmouth, watching Spike, as he radiated light to every inch of the cavern, on the worst day of Buffy’s life.

The screaming stopped and Jennifer Anne closed her eyes.

They all blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden drop in light levels and the disorientation that followed the thrall. When they could see again, they found that Robert was unconscious on the desk and vampire-Lily was dust.

“Bloody hell.” Spike breathed, holding his hand out to Buffy.

“Sums it up.” Buffy said, weakly, equally stunned by what they had just witnessed.

“That was so cool.” Dawn said, smiling at her new sister. “You OK, Buffy?”

“A little freaked, I haven’t been thralled like that, for a long time.” Buffy said, picking up her scythe.

Feeling it tingle, she turned her wrist over and watched as the bite mark faded as if it had never been. None of the others noticed.

“Spike, where’s our Lily?” Garri asked, weakly.

The look in Spike’s eyes told him what he needed to know.

“Oh.” Was all he said, a tear slipping down his face, as he felt the loss of his best friend.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy said, “She was gone, before I got there.”

“She thought she would die.” Garri said. “But she risked it because she knew nothing bad would happen to her baby. She hoped she could rescue Spike and get back here before Jennifer Anne came. When she didn‘t come back, I started trying to track you down, Buffy. Those watchers don‘t make you easy to find.”

“I need to find Andrew.” Spike growled.

“What do you need that closet case for?” Garri asked.

“He opened the portal. He needs to die. Slowly.”

“He killed seven slayers?”

“No.” Buffy said. “He used blood samples from slayer medical tests. A step up from last time.”

“Huh?”

“The last time he tried to open something, he used the blood of his only friend.” Dawn said.

“Harsh. Obviously more messed up in the head than I realized.”

“Not as messed as he’s gonna be.” Spike said, his voice low and menacing.

“Spike,” Buffy said, trying to distract him. “We need to get Robert somewhere a bit more comfortable. Does he need an ambulance?”

“I don’t think so, his heart sounds strong, I think he’s just passed out from the shock of the thrall breaking, when Lily dusted.”

Together, he and Buffy carried Robert to his bedroom.

“I’ll stay with him,” Spike said, as they lay him on the bed. “I need to talk to him, when he wakes up.”

“OK. I’ll go check the rest of the house - see if anyone else is hurt.”

* * * * *

The rest of the house was empty. Evidently, Robert had given the servants some time off. Buffy smiled, he probably figured they’d end up seeing stuff that he couldn‘t explain…

She found Dawn, in the kitchen, warming up soup.

“Where’s Jennifer Anne?” Buffy asked.

“Sleeping on the sofa, in the little family room, down the hall. Garri’s watching her. I figured we’d all want food, ‘specially you bite-ees.”

“I feel OK.” Buffy said, putting her scythe down on the kitchen table. “I healed.” She continued, showing Dawn her wrist.

“That was fast.”

“I think the scythe did something.”

“Healed you?”

“Yeah, maybe. The Guardian said… she said I can’t be killed. She said because I pulled the scythe out of the stone… was the first to touch it… the first slayer to touch it I mean…”

“I wonder…” Dawn murmured.

“What?”

“Well, when you first brought it home, Faith was badly hurt. We thought she might not make it…?”

“You think that when she held the scythe..?”

“Maybe. It’s probably a slayer thing.” Dawn said, putting a large mug of soup on the table in front of Buffy. “I’m going to hand out these,” She indicated the other steaming mugs, on a tray. “You coming?”

“No, I need to think.”

“You’re gonna brood about Spike, aren’t you?”

Buffy shot her a look.

“OK, OK, I’m going.”

Buffy sipped her soup. Dawn was right, of course; she was brooding. For two years, she’d been missing Spike. For two years, she’d fantasized about what she would say to him, if she were given the chance. Now, here he was and here she was… and she had no clue what to say.

Oh, they’d talked. How he’d survived, what he’d done, since the Hellmouth… but there was something unreachable about him. In the two years since she’d last seen him, he’d made a huge effort to move on and, made a good show of succeeding.

Buffy was sorry about Lily, she really was but deep down inside, a nasty, cold, hard part of her, was glad that Spike wouldn’t have to choose. He still wanted her - he’d said as much - but, for the first time since they’d been together, Spike had a life. He had lived here, for the best part of a year, in this beautiful house, with these lovely, well balanced people. He had friends. Humans, demons, it didn’t matter. Here, he was accepted.

Buffy had never offered him that. If his life hadn’t fallen apart, would he ever have loved her? Before his chip, he was feared and respected, as a master vampire should be but after? Even when he’d been helping her, she’d let her friends despise him. Endless, casual insults - mostly from Xander - disapproval and mistrust from the others.

Tara, along with Dawn and Buffy’s mom, had treated him like a person but, even though Spike had once said to Buffy that she treated him like a man, it hadn’t been true. He’d been a monster, an ally, a shoulder to cry on, a sex toy and a punching bag but, to Buffy, he hadn’t been a man; until it had been too late.

The night before the final battle with the First, they had held each other and, unable to sleep, they had made love. For Buffy, it had been a revelation. No violence, no using, just tenderness and mutual pleasure. She had ached to tell him she loved him but, it had gone so long unsaid, that the words just wouldn’t come. He hadn’t said them either. Instead, they had held each other and slept.

The next day, they’d gone to the Hellmouth, pretending that everything would work out but he knew and she knew that he knew, when she’d handed him the amulet, he was accepting his death.

What would have happened if she’d worn it? There was probably a dimension where that had been the case; she’d have to ask the Guardian. God, there was probably one where they’d lost.

She couldn’t get the images of that last night, out of her head. The feel of him, smooth and sensuously firm, under her fingers. The look of surprise on his face, so like that look of awe, back when she had first taken him. The way her body had melted into his, just from the gentleness of his kiss. The way he watched her face, as he slid into her, gauging her response and tempering his movements to match. The way she had murmured his name, over and over, as this gentle lovemaking took her higher and he filled her with his cool seed…

And, all the while, the hateful necklace under the pillow, its chain coiled around it; waiting, with its promise of death.

What if she had worn it? She had no problem with sunlight and, once all the turok-han were dust, she could have taken it off and gotten out…

She sighed, Spike would never have let her. Deep down inside, he was still a Victorian gentleman…

“Buffy?” Dawn’s return interrupted her thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“I thought you should know, we’re sleeping in Spike’s room, with Jennifer Anne. Garri’s gone home and Spike’s still in with Robert; I think he’s told him… it’s gone really quiet, in there…”

“Best not to disturb them - Spike’s upstairs room, yeah?”

“Yeah. We didn’t think he’d want us in his basement room…”

“No.” Buffy wondered, briefly, why Spike needed a basement room, when he had the Gem of Amara… “I’ll sort out some baby formula, before I come up.”

* * * * *

Giles was concerned.

Buffy and Dawn had both disappeared - Buffy a day and half ago, Dawn just this morning - and, even more worryingly, so had the slayer scythe.

It had been in the safe, in his locked office. The CCTV, which Andrew had installed, showed that no one had been in.

Maybe it had melted, he thought, with a wry smile.

He sighed, everything was going tits up. Lily and Spike had both vanished - Spike through the portal that formed the centre of the stone circle - Lily, in an attempt to rescue him. The baby was due soon; damn them both for screwing this up.

The prophesy had been clear, there would be a child and the child would be crucial to the future of the slayer line. The parents had to be Lily and Spike, no one else qualified, not in this dimension. Giles had done all he could to help it along, short of artificial insemination. He shuddered - as most of the girls at the slayer college would say - don’t go there.

Lily’s father had stopped calling. Was that a significant development? Either Lily had come back or… he’d found someone else to help him.

Buffy. He’d managed to track down Buffy, told her about Spike and she’d gone to England. Giles carefully rolled this theory around, in his mind. Would Buffy have sent for Dawn to join her? Unlikely. Unless, of course, she wasn’t planning on coming back…

He phoned Andrew.

* * * * *

Buffy was exhausted. The sun was coming up and she’d been awake half the night, watching Jennifer Anne. That baby was totally unnatural. Well, duh! Obviously she was unnatural - she was a slayer vampire hybrid who could dust vampires by shining light from her eyes - but and here was the kicker, she didn’t cry.

Yeah, she’d been crying in Lilith’s room, that was how Buffy had found her but, as soon as Buffy had reached the room, Jennifer Anne had fallen silent. Since then, she hadn’t been left alone. Buffy was fairly certain that this remarkable child only cried when she was alone and needed to attract attention.

A baby who didn’t cry should be every parent’s dream but, Buffy, totally freaked out by the lack of crying, had spent a lot of the night awake, making sure that Jennifer Anne was still breathing.

God, she was so beautiful. She already had hair - short, glossy and dark - and her eyes were the deepest blue that Buffy had ever seen; darker blue than Spike’s but they had that same, knowing way of looking at her. There was a definite intelligence, behind those eyes - again: duh - she was already dusting vampires and, more importantly, choosing which vampires not to dust…

So, Buffy had sat up half the night, working out which little Jennifer Anne sound meant she needed feeding, which meant changing and which was just for cuddles. Finally, they had fallen asleep, Buffy on her back with Jennifer Anne snuggled on her chest.

That was how Spike found them, a few hours after daybreak. Dawn was already up and using the connecting bathroom.

“Buffy?” He whispered, gently shaking her arm.

“Hmm?” Buffy murmured, blinking up at him.

“Sorry to wake you but Robert’s made a huge breakfast. I think keeping occupied is helping him…”

“We’d better do it justice, then.” Buffy said, sleepily sitting up and handing Jennifer Anne to Spike.

“How’s she been?”

“Amazing. She doesn’t cry, she just sort of squeaks when she needs something.”

“That’s why you look so tired?” Spike said, smiling.

“Yeah. I stayed awake, just watching her.”

Spike looked in awe at his peaceful, sleeping daughter and felt a surge of warmth towards Buffy. Without even thinking about it, he had left Buffy to care for his baby daughter; the baby he had had with another woman. It had never occurred to him, as he watched over Robert and, later, told him the bad news about Lily, that Jennifer Anne wouldn’t be welcome in Buffy’s arms.

It had been a rough night. He and Robert had ended up consoling each other, in the time honoured way - drinking large amounts of good scotch, talking about Lily and sobbing, manfully.

Spike had woken up, alone; sprawled in a ‘comfy’ chair, his back screaming its protest and the tip of one finger, on fire. Swearing, he had flapped the flames out, ducked out of the sunshine and swiftly retrieved the Gem of Amara from his pocket, sighing his relief as, once back on his finger, it made all his physical pains subside.

God, it had been a while since he’d got that drunk. Sunnydale, in The Poof’s bloody garden. He’d handled that all wrong, he thought, remembering. He should have built on the tiny bit of trust he had established with Buffy but noo, he’d gotten drunk and hurt her friends. Ignoring how good fighting with her had felt, he’d pushed off back to try again with Dru and that had gone soo well, he thought, sarcastically.

Now, here he was again, feeling wrecked until he put his ring on, whereas Robert was already up, laying waste to the kitchen as he fixed a breakfast that could feed twenty.

‘God.’ Spike thought, as he carried Jennifer Anne downstairs to meet her grandfather, ‘I must be getting old.’

* * * * *

(TWELVE HOURS EARLIER)

Andrew was excited - he had a mission. Mr. Giles had phoned to say that ‘Slayer Zero‘, ‘The Key’ and ‘The Triple S’ were all missing. He, Andrew - special watcher agent - had been deployed.

OK, reality check; what Giles had actually said was that Buffy, Dawn and The Sacred Slayer Scythe had gone missing - possibly to Lily’s place.

If that was, indeed, the case, Andrew Wells was going to fetch them back…

Buffy pushed her fork, suspiciously, into the substance on her plate. Was that bits of hardboiled egg? She glanced across at Dawn, who was shovelling the stuff into her mouth like she was starving.

“In a rush?” She asked.

“Garri’s coming over to take me shopping. I left all my stuff at the apartment.” Dawn replied, pushing back her empty plate and smiling as Robert put another one, this time piled high with more familiar bacon and eggs, in front of her.

“Don’t you like your kedgeree, pet?” Spike asked, smirking at Buffy.

“I’m not really a breakfast person.” She said, then, realizing that she might hurt Robert’s feelings, she put a fork full of the weird stuff into her mouth. “This is actually quite good.” She said, tasting it.

“I’ve not had it in years,” Spike said, smiling at Robert, “I didn’t think people still ate it.”

“I didn’t realize that vampires ate, until I met Spike here.” Robert said, winking at Buffy.

“He likes to be different.”

“Eat up, pet,” Spike said, “You look like you haven’t had a decent meal in ages.”

“Do you have English money?” Buffy asked Dawn, trying to distract Spike from the obvious conclusion that she had lost weight, whilst pining for him.

“Er…” Dawn started.

“Not to worry, Nibblet,” Spike said, rummaging in his pocket.

He handed her his debit card. Dawn looked at the name on it, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“This your real name?” She asked, puzzled.

“Course not. Pin number’s 1630, easy to remember; treat yourself.”

“How much…?”

“Much as you like, Bit. Enjoy; make a day of it.”

“If you two don’t mind..” Robert said, addressing Spike and Buffy, “I’m going to be very anti-social and spend the day pottering around in the garden. I need some time…”

“Of course.” Spike said.

“We understand.” Buffy said, at the same time.

“If I might make a suggestion…” Robert continued, “You two should talk. It’s obvious, to me, how you feel about each other; you should talk it out. I get the feeling it’s been a long time coming.”

* * * * *

Robert watched, a pang of guilt gnawing at him, as Spike and Buffy disappeared upstairs. He felt ashamed that he had used his own grief over Lily’s death, to manipulate them. He sighed, hearing Jennifer Anne make a little squeaking sound as Spike carried her away, she was the most important thing, now; not what Robert had waiting for him in the icehouse.

Most houses like this one, had an icehouse. Usually outside, below ground level, well insulated; ice was put in in the winter and, in the days before refrigeration, was available all year. Many of them had secret entrances, tunnels from the main house; after all, it wouldn’t do for one’s servants to have to carry ice across the garden at night, in the rain…

He thought about what he was planning. Would Lily have approved? Probably not. Would Spike? Definitely and, after he considered, would even agree that Robert was doing the right thing by leaving him out of it. Still, he felt guilty.

He had left Spike, sleeping the sleep of the dead, in the early pre-dawn hours and gone in search of ‘something for his aching head’. Excessive drinking was all very well but it did take its toll. At the top of the stairs, before heading down to the kitchen, he had paused, as he often did, to gaze out of the large picture window. From here, you had a stunning view of the grounds and he particularly liked seeing it bathed in moonlight. This time, though, he had seen something unexpected…

Adrenaline flooding his system, almost instantly curing his headache, he had raced to the garden, to take care of this new problem.

Knowing he wouldn’t have time, until later, he had put the whole situation on ice, as it were; he wanted this to last.

Once the initial phase was done, he had gone to one of the guest bathrooms and had a very thorough shower - the vampire sense of smell was legendary - and, just to make sure that no telltale residual scent hung about, he had then cooked a massive and fragrant breakfast.

* * * * *

“You like to take risks.” Buffy said, as Spike gently lowered Jennifer Anne into the antique family cot, next to the bed.

“Mmm?”

“Giving Dawn your plastic, like that.”

“It’s not like she’ll spend it all.” He said, satisfied that his baby daughter was comfortable.

“I wouldn’t count on it, what’s the limit, anyway?”

“It’s not a credit card, she’s limited by what’s in the account.”

“Well, that’s something.” Buffy laughed, as a new thought occurred to her: “I don’t suppose you’ll be the first father to have his bank account turned into shoes.”

“Just think of it as back-dated allowance, pet. All the years I didn’t know… I owe her. ‘Sides, you’re both gonna need stuff, if you‘re staying here.”

“Robert won’t mind?”

“No. He told me last night, he’d like me and Jennifer Anne to stay on. We’re all the family he has left and he likes you; seems to understand us more than we do.”

“And Dawn?”

“Well, he hadn’t met her, last night but the way they were getting on, this morning…”

Buffy gazed down at Jennifer Anne, now sleeping peacefully in her cot.

“She’s so beautiful.” Buffy murmured.

“You think so?” Spike asked, amusement tingeing his voice.

“Don’t you?” Buffy asked, turning to look at him, surprised.

“God, yes.” He replied, vehemently, “But I can’t be objective. I’m seeing her through a parent’s eyes; for all I know, she’s just ordinary.”

“You’ve seen her dust vampires, right?”

“Yeah. Interesting technique.”

“Tell me about it. I wonder what her range is?”

“Dunno. She’s only ever done inside the house.”

“She could make slayers obsolete.”

“There’s only one of her.”

“There used to be only one of me.”

“Feeling surplus to requirements, pet?”

“Yeah, a bit. Not just because of all the other slayers…”

“Huh?”

“You don’t need me… you’ve got all… this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. People who accept you for who you are. Family.”

“That was the best part.” He said, sitting down on the bed, with a sigh.

“Being with Lily?” Buffy asked, sitting next to him, careful not to touch, wondering what was appropriate.

“Yeah. At first, I thought it was because she was a slayer, that I found her so irresistible, you know? Then again, I didn‘t fancy Faith, despite what you might have thought…”

“It was because of her blood. Lily, I mean.”

“Yeah. Family blood calls. Usually, vampires just want to feed…”

“With you it was desire…”

“My mother, after I sired her, tried to…”

“Yeah?” Buffy didn’t need to hear him spell it out.

“I really didn’t want… I staked her… mostly because I was so shocked…”

“Victorian sensibilities.”

“Maybe. Maybe, she was just too close. I know I could never feel that for Jennifer Anne or The Nibblet, for that matter,” he shuddered at the very idea. “But Lily…”

“Her blood was more diluted, further from yours but close enough to call to you.”

“You’re not disgusted?”

“I love you, you haven’t disgusted me for a very long time. If ever.”

“Huh?”

“I told you, I’ve had time to think. I replayed every moment I ever spent with you.”

“That can’t have been good.”

“That first night, when you walked into The Bronze and said someone was getting bitten outside…” She continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I was drawn to you then, until I realized that you were a vampire.”

She looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time since they’d sat down.

“Willow was really scared of you, you know.”

“Really?” Spike sounded shocked.

“Yeah, she thought you were the most terrifying vamp she’d ever seen.”

‘This doesn’t make you any less terrifying..’ Spike could almost hear Willow saying those words, as he flashed back to that disastrous time in Buffy’s dorm room, when, newly chipped, he had tried to ‘settle’ for Willow. The way she had cried, when he had held a broken bottle to her face, the year before, in the burnt out remains of his factory lair…

“She said there was something so… predatory about you, more than any other vamp she’d encountered… but all I felt around you was… I don’t know… horny, I guess.

“When you had me down on the floor, on parent’s night… that stuff you said, later, about my being in love with death… I wanted it, that night, in the school. Your bite, I mean. And I didn’t want you to do it fast, the way you’d said, I wanted it to last…”

“All the times we shagged… you never let me…”

“Because I knew, especially then, dragged out of heaven, I knew, I wouldn’t want you to stop.”

“Don’t.” His voice cracked on the word and Buffy knew that he was remembering Lily and what she’d made him do.

“She’s there, now. Heaven, I mean.”

“I know. There’s nowhere else she could be.”

“Does Robert know?”

“Yeah. I told him, last night. I think that’s why he’s not taking it as badly as he could. Course, he was pretty wrecked, he might not remember the details of the conversation...”

“Spike..?” Buffy started, hesitantly.

“Yeah, pet?”

“Tell me about this vampire… claim.. bonding… thingy.”

Spike smiled at her way with words.

“The ‘vampire claim bonding thingy‘, is, I think, the main reason your watcher wanted me dead.”

“Not because I had your chip removed and he didn’t trust my judgement?”

“Yeah, probably that too… but the idea that we might claim each other… that must’ve really freaked him out. I imagine he believed I couldn’t do it, while my chip was still working.”

“But your chip didn’t work on me any more.”

“Did you ever tell him that?”

“I’m not sure.” Buffy wrinkled her forehead, the way Spike found so cute, as she thought about his question. “He was in England, when we found out, remember? And when he came back, you’d left and we were busy trying to stop Willow destroying the world. So, no; in fact, I’m not sure I told any of them, even when Xander came into my bathroom, just after…” She felt him tense up, “Oh, I told Tara.” She continued, as if she hadn’t realized where she had been heading. “I wanted her to do research, find out how I came back wrong and just how wrong I was…”

“Sorry, pet. I should never have said that to you. You’re the most right thing in this world.”

“Good to know. So, what’s your un-chipped-ness got to do with us bonding?”

“There’s… um… biting involved.”

“But Giles must have known your chip didn’t work on me, when I told him we’d been sleeping together. We could never have done…”

“Librarian, pet.”

“Oh, you mean he wouldn’t have realized how rough…”

“I doubt it. Also, he sees himself as a father figure, for you; no father wants to think of his daughter in those terms. No decent father.”

“I guess not.”

“Why did you forgive him, after your cruciamentum?”

“You know about that?”

“You mentioned it to The Guardian. Since I fell for you, I’ve done a lot of research on slayers, to try to understand you better; I read about that dirty trick.”

“Oh. Well, I guess when Travers - head watcher - sacked Giles; I s’pose I felt sorry for him.” She saw Spike’s puzzled look. “Giles told me, at the last minute, about the test. Made it invalid. Then, I still had to go through with it because Kralik - the vamp I had to fight - kidnapped my mom.”

“Kralik? You managed to kill that head-case? With no slayer powers? God, how did I survive you, all these years?”

“And what about me? Huh? Slayer of slayers…” She broke off, realizing that there were tears in his eyes, “Oh, God, Spike…I didn’t mean… I’m so sorry.”

“S’okay,” He said, pressing the heels of his hands hard into his eye sockets. “It keeps hitting me, over and over, what I did.”

“Why does my foot always have to live in my mouth?”

“Natural slayer flexibility?” Spike deadpanned, his tears retreating.

Despite herself, Buffy laughed.

“So, if Giles hadn’t been sacked by the council of wankers, do you think you’d have still forgiven him?”

“Maybe not, does it matter?”

“It might. This ‘Travers’ person may have sacked Giles, precisely so you would forgive him. The two of you bound together in the face of a common enemy…”

“God, listen to you, ‘bound together in the face of a common enemy’ you’ve been in England way too long. You could have a point, though.” She shivered. “The Guardian’s made me all paranoid, now. That thing she said, about Giles not being responsible for Dana‘s death, like there were others he had killed.”

“I think, she meant Ben.”

“Huh? Glory Ben?”

“Yeah. After Glory retreated, the last time, Giles made sure she wouldn’t be back…”

“By murdering Ben.” Buffy said, her voice flat and resigned.

“He was pretty busted up, he’d have probably died anyway…”

“Really not the point. God, after all I said, before that fight. He really never took any notice… only when it suited him. The Guardian’s right, he’s as bad the others. Whatever she has planned, I’m in. You?”

“I’m with you, no matter what, you know that.”

“Yeah.“ She smiled at him, then her eyes narrowed, “And how come we’ve changed the subject? There’s biting, for this bonding thingy; what else?”

“Love-making and a declaration.” Spike said, sounding a little nervous.

“What kind of declaration?”

“I haven’t been able to find out. ‘Heartfelt words’ is all that any of the books say. I get the idea it’s secret. I tracked down a demon couple, who were so bonded it was untrue… asked them about it…”

“And?”

“They wouldn’t say. They said it was instinctive. That I would know when, who with and what to say, when or if, the time came. We both would.”

“You and… whoever?”

“Me and you… or no one.”

“We’ve made love; that last night…why didn‘t we…?” Buffy sounded hurt.

“It wasn’t right. Not then, not with me about to go to my death. If we’d bonded that night, you’d have died with me… or soon after.”

“That’s the downside, I imagine. What’s the up?”

“You’d stop ageing. I wouldn’t have to watch you grow old… and, I’m fairly certain that there would be a mental connection.”

“What, like telepathy?”

“Yeah.”

“And if, for example, I wanted this, with, for example, you; would you want it, too?”

“Hypothetically speaking?”

“Yeah, Spike, hypothetically, if the time was right.”

“Yes. I would. More than anything.”

Smiling, Buffy leaned into him, for a kiss.

“Me too.” She said.

When she came up for air, she pulled away, a little.

“You taste different.” She said.

“Not smoking any more.”

“Because of Jennifer Anne?”

“Partly. Being chained to a wall for months, forced me to give up; Jennifer Anne’s a good reason not to start again. Besides, it’s not the pleasure it used to be.”

“Why not?”

“The Gem of Amara. Poisons, like alcohol and nicotine don’t effect me while I’m wearing it.”

“Have you had it implanted, or something?” Buffy asked, looking at his hands.

“No,” He took her hand and ran it across his finger, so she could feel the ring.

“It’s invisible. How?”

“Magic. Garri got it for me, some complicated spell that drags lost objects out of time, then, he put a glamour spell on it so no one can see it.”

“Good thing Lilith didn’t find it. She wasn’t suspicious that you didn’t starve to death?”

“Vampires can’t starve to death. We just get thinner and weaker, makes it a good torture. No permanent damage. Just ‘do what I want and you’ll get fed’ no harm done.”

“What did she want you do?”

“You really don’t want to know.”

“OK.” Buffy kissed him, again.

“Not that I’m complaining, pet…” Spike said, breaking the kiss, “…but aren’t you going to nag me until I tell you?”

“No. I trust your judgement. If you say I don’t want to know… well, I already know loads of things I’d rather not.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“In what way are you ‘cookies‘?”

Buffy laughed.

“Angel said something about ‘cookie dough‘,” Spike continued, sounding slightly confused, “when we thought you were with The Immortal… I wondered what he was on about…”

“It was a weird analogy I used, when he turned up in Sunnydale, that last time. To explain why I wasn’t ready.”

“Wasn’t ready for what?”

“To make decisions on my future. Years ago, he walks out of my life, claiming it’s for my own good and then, he can’t take it when I find someone else.”

“Bloody hypocrite.”

“I tried to explain that you were in my heart…”

“Bet that went down well…”

“But I couldn’t tell him I was in love with you - not when I hadn’t even told you - then, I get back home and have to take the same jealous vampire crap, from you…”

“Sorry, pet…”

“…And then in Rome, he’s having me watched…”

“He always was a stalker…”

“Yeah, him and Angelus? Pretty much the same person.”

“Well, yeah. Coz if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have needed to feel so much guilt.”

“You know what?” Buffy said, putting her arms around his neck and pulling him to her. “I don’t want to talk about him, any more…”

* * * * *

In the silence of the icehouse, Robert surveyed his victim; the harsh overhead light, revealing everything. The wide terrified eyes, the thick, black tape across the mouth, the ropes biting cruelly into soft skin…

Robert, who, not so long ago, had condemned Rupert Giles for being a ‘ruthless bastard’, was about to torture a fellow human being, to death…

“Was that meant to happen?” Buffy asked, running her fingers gently down Spike’s naked chest and feeling a shiver of pleasure build up in her.

“Must have been or we wouldn’t have done it.” Spike replied, sounding more relaxed than Buffy had ever heard him.

“No, I mean the passing-out thing.”

“I think,” he said, slowly, “That it was just too…”

“Intense?”

“For us to stay conscious.” He finished, accepting her word choice as though it had been his own. “You really do love me.”

“Well, duh.”

“No, I mean I can feel it. It radiates, you glow with it. I don’t know how I never saw it before… it’s…”

“Effulgent?”

“Minx.”

“I saw it, too. Myself, as you see me. You know I’m not that beautiful in real life, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, softly, “You are.”

His fingers played with the silver skull ring that he had discovered, hanging from a leather thong around her neck.

“I can’t believe you kept this, all these years.” He said, moving his hand, slightly, to tease her nipple.

“Hey, it’s not every day a girl gets engaged.”

“We were both so ‘disgusted‘, when the spell ended…”

“…And now, we both know that we were faking it.” She said, smiling and snuggling closer; loving the feel of his cool, naked skin against hers.

“You had it in your pocket, when I closed the Hellmouth…” He said, remembering her memory.

“And the locket… I wanted… I dunno… something…”

“…in case we all died…” He added.

“…like a talisman.” Buffy finished.

Spike opened the little gold locket that lay next to his ring. Pictures of Joyce and Dawn smiled out at him.

“The three people I love most… I never had a picture of you… Giles had one, in one of his books,” She said, feeling Spike’s surprise before he voiced it, “An old one, with Drusilla… Didn’t cameras use mirrors?”

“’Pends on the camera…” And, as he said this, Buffy realized that she could remember; being him, having to stand perfectly still, with Dru, in front of the camera…

“OK, that was weird…”

“Tell me about it, I just got a flash of being shagged by Captain Cardboard… was he really that shit in bed?”

“Ooh yeah. Why were you thinking…?“

“…I was feeling what you felt, when we…“

“…And you remembered how it felt for me with…“

“…him.“ He shuddered.

“How do we stop this from happening?” Buffy asked, tightening her hold on him.

“I’m not sure we can and now it’s started, we’re gonna be thinking all the things we’d rather not…”

“Like when I was telepathic…”

“When were you..? Oh, wait, I remember… poor love… Bloody hell, Joyce and Rupert, who would’ve thought.”

“Not me, that’s for sure.” Buffy said, laughing at the memory.

“So, here’s the thing, any memory of mine is now a memory of yours and visa versa but they’re not all gonna be in our heads all the time…”

“…they just pop in when we think about stuff…”

“So maybe, we should stop thinking…”

“…and start doing…”

They were interrupted by a quiet squeak from Jennifer Anne, who had woken up hungry. Buffy smiled and reached for a bottle, blessing Lily’s foresight. Convinced that it would be necessary, she had ordered in baby supplies, including ready mixed baby formula, back before she went to rescue Spike.

Spike expertly cradled his daughter, as she hungrily drank her milk.

“You look like you’ve been doing that your whole life.” Buffy said, impressed.

“No, never; Victorian men had almost no contact with babies, even their own. ‘Women’s work, don’t you know.’” He said the last part with an exaggerated upper-class accent and a knowing smirk. “When we found out Lily was pregnant, we both read a lot of books. Bitty-Bit here, hasn’t complained yet, so I guess I’m doing OK.”

“You’re a natural. I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful father…”

“Don’t blame yourself, pet.” Spike said, hearing the catch in Buffy’s voice and feeling the pain behind it. “Your father was a git, leaving you, like that but it wasn’t your fault.”

“He said it was, one time. Oh, I know it wasn’t real,” She said, as Spike raised an eyebrow, “Just ‘my worst nightmare’ but it still hurt.”

“And because of your watcher‘s worst fear, you know what it’s like to be a vampire…”

“Yeah. I didn’t enjoy it any way near as much as you do. Lucky me, I got to dig my way out of the grave, twice.”

“That part’s not fun. Dru insisted on burying me, even though it really isn’t required.”

“Now I feel like I’ve done it three times!” Buffy said, laughing.

“Yeah, ‘cept when I did it, I didn’t need to breath. It was harder for you.”

“That wasn’t the hardest part…”

“I know. I remember how it felt, for you; one moment in heaven and the next…”

“You remember how I felt, when I saw you..?”

“If your friends hadn’t come in, when they did…”

“I know. Think of the trouble we’d have saved.”

“I finally get it, now…”

“…I can still be alone, with you here…”

“…you didn’t mean it as an insult, you meant it like this.” He said, encompassing the whole ‘bonding’ experience, into the one word.

“…before I even knew that ‘this’ was possible.”

“They should never have brought you back but I’m glad that they did.”

“They kept you out of it…after all you did for them…”

“…I would’ve had to have tried to stop them…”

“…magic always has consequences… Oh my God, Tara?”

“I don’t know, pet. Maybe. There’s always a price and it would have been for Red to pay it.”

“I need to see The Guardian.”

“It won’t help.”

“I just need to know.”

“I know you do, pet.”

“Buffy?” Dawn shrieked, excitedly, bursting through the door, without knocking. “Oops, sorry, Guys.” She left, again, equally fast.

“It’s OK, Nibblet.” Spike called, “Just give us a sec.”

Buffy struggled into a robe, while Spike just wrapped the bed sheet around himself and resumed feeding Jennifer Anne.

“How did the ‘talking’ go?” Dawn’s voice sounded amused, even muffled by the door.

“You can come in now.” Buffy said, opening the door. “We didn’t realize it was so late.”

“How was the shopping trip?” Spike asked.

“It was… WOW!” Dawn said, excitedly, “Where did you get all that money? Have you always been rich? When I put the card in the machine and all those zeros came up, I nearly died. Seriously, Buffy, he could probably have bought all of Sunnydale.”

“I didn’t have it, then; also, no one told me you were broke. It wasn’t until Buffy came back and had to start working… I mortgaged my house, in England…”

“…and because of me, you lost it… and the money.” Buffy said, wearily, as Spike’s memory hit her.

“Not to worry, kitten.”

“What’s going on with you two? You’re being weird.” Dawn asked, a puzzled look on her face.

“We…er…bonded.” Buffy said.

“What, like demons do?” Dawn asked, “That’s so cool.”

“You know about that?” Buffy asked, surprised.

“Hey, all the time Giles was away in England, I was research girl, remember? You won’t believe the stuff I found out. OK, most of it kinda gross… like the demon that has a horn instead of a…”

“Tell us about your shopping trip, Nibblet.” Spike said, firmly; cutting off Dawn’s unfortunate sentence, before she said anything too shocking.

“Well, the mall wasn’t that big but I managed to get most of what we need…”

“And a lot of stuff we don’t?” Buffy put in.

Dawn glared at her but carried on talking.

“Garri’s brilliant, so patient, he didn’t mind how much I tried on and he told me straight away if something didn’t look good on me. Aren’t gay men the best?”

Depends what you want men for. Buffy thought and Spike chuckled.

“You got the telepathy thing, then.” Dawn said, looking at the two of them.

“Yeah. How can you tell?” Buffy asked.

“Well, that time, I could see it. You obviously thought something… dirty?… which made Spike laugh. What does it feel like?”

“Not like with Willow, not a voice in my head exactly… more like the thoughts are… sort of mine… but not…”

“It’s hard to explain, Nibblet…”

“…Like there’s just one of us…but somehow two…” Buffy said, frowning slightly.

“Explanations will have to wait, Guys.” Dawn said, abruptly, smoothing the hairs on her arms, which had suddenly all stood upright. “The Guardian’s coming.”

Spike handed Jennifer Anne to Dawn, grabbed his clothes and vanished into the bathroom, leaving Buffy to get dressed while Dawn took over ‘feeding duties’.

Minutes later, they were heading downstairs, to find The Guardian waiting patiently outside the front door.

“Ah,” She said, “I thought that Dawn would know I had arrived.” She looked Spike and Buffy over, carefully. “I will need to speak to you two, in private.”

Spike led her and Buffy into a side room.

“Firstly, I believe congratulations are in order.” She said, smiling. “Both for your bond and for your pregnancy, Buffy.”

“My what?” Buffy asked, thunderstruck.

“She’s very new, just a golden spark in your aura but there is no mistake…”

“But… we can’t…” Spike said.

“We’re not… the same blood…” Buffy added.

“You don’t have to be, not for a child, only for that child to be a guardian.” The Guardian said, sounding surprised that they hadn’t known.

“But I’m a vampire…” Spike said.

“Yes but the Shanshu prophecy…”

“Was for Peaches…”

“Was for you. Angelus could never truly be redeemed, not while he let his personality flaws dominate his life.” The Guardian said, gently.

“But I’ve not become human…”

“No. The prophecy was never about that. Shanshu - to both live and die - have you not died?”

“Well, yeah…but…”

“You died when you were sired, your soul ripped away. Yet, the strength of your love for Buffy, drove you to recapture that soul and with it, you were able to close the Hellmouth and defeat the ancient First Evil, thus saving the entire world…”

“Well, yeah…”

“You willingly gave your life, for that - your second death - then, you wandered, ghostlike, tied to the Wolf, Ram and Hart, until you were restored. Your reward, is the immortality enjoyed by the living - the creation of new life. The new Guardian will have the joy of a sister.”

“Will she be human?” Buffy asked.

“The child of a slayer and a vampire? How could she be? I believe the word is Dhampir - able to destroy vampires at will, with a touch - she will be a great asset to this world and others.

“Secondly, I have a gift for Jennifer Anne and, thirdly, I have brought Lily’s body home. William has used his ‘computer’,” The word sounded strange on The Guardian’s lips. “To falsify the official records of this world and make it appear that she died in childbirth, overseas. Her father will be comforted to have her returned. Closure?”

Buffy nodded, smiling at The Guardian’s use of the word.

“Now, Buffy, I believe that you needed to see me. Was it about my proposal?” The Guardian continued.

“Oh, yeah, we’re both in.” She said, dismissing the easy decision. “But…um…about the spell that Willow used to bring me back from the dead. You know about that, right?”

“I follow the lives of all the slayers, Buffy; even if I don’t always know their names.”

Buffy smiled, remembering their first encounter.

“You wish to know the price paid for your return to life.”

“Was it Tara?”

“The price was innocent life and your friend, Willow, tried to cheat. Magic is mostly symbolism and, usually, the unpleasant act of betrayal committed against the young woodland creature, would have sufficed…”

“But not that time.” Buffy said, unshed tears burning behind her eyes, at the thought of what ‘act’ Willow had had to commit.

“A larger sacrifice was required and it was for Willow to pay. The Powers she invoked, took the lives of her unborn children.”

“Willow was pregnant?”

“No. She gave the lives of those not yet conceived. She became irreversibly sterile. The children she was destined to bear with the werewolf, will never be born.”

“Oz? But he and Willow broke up, she’s gay.”

“How you children love to label yourselves. ‘Straight’, ‘gay’, ‘human’. Love is. It’s hearts and souls, not gender and bodies, or even species. How many times did you tell your bond mate that he was not a man?” She smiled, “I, for one, have seldom seen anyone more masculine.”

Buffy could feel Spike smirking and knew that he was silently agreeing with everything that The Guardian was saying. In fact, he had said something similar, to Buffy and Angel.

“I thought because he had no soul…” Buffy whispered, blushing with shame.

“No human soul. When he won that back, for you, you found that it made little difference. Now, here you are, happy and bearing his child. Willow‘s friendship with the arrogant young slayer, has already ended. When Oz re-enters her life, well…” She shrugged and smiled at them both. “Now, I need to see Jennifer Anne.”

They went back out, into the hallway, where Dawn was sitting, holding Jennifer Anne, her bottle empty.

“So, what’s the sitch?” Dawn asked, standing up.

The Guardian opened her hand and revealed a tiny carved stone model of her pyramid home.

“I brought this for the new Guardian.” She said.

At the sound of her voice, Jennifer Anne stirred and reached out. The Guardian placed the stone in her hand, even as Spike was about to protest that it was too small for a baby to have.

Tiny baby fingers closed over it and there was a slight blue glow.

“What have you done?” Spike asked, as Jennifer Anne opened her hand to reveal no stone but a tiny tattoo of a pyramid on the palm of her left hand.

“It will grow as she does and, when she is ready, it will be both her home and her means to travel the dimensions, as mine is.”

“Oh-kay,” Spike said, slowly, in a voice that said he was totally weirded out. “How’s that work, then?”

“She will know, when the time is right. Now, Buffy, Spike, the three of us have to start changing the watchers of this world.”

“Right now?” Buffy asked, incredulous. “Don’t we get time to deal…?”

“That will have to come later, Buffy. Your watcher has arrived.”

“OhMyGod, you’re not gonna hurt Giles, are you?” Dawn asked, in a panicky voice.

“That shouldn’t be necessary.” The Guardian said, calmly. “We just need him to change his mind.”

Spike took Jennifer Anne from Dawn, if trouble was coming, he wanted her close to him. He could feel reassurance coming from Buffy and knew that he, Jennifer Anne and their newly conceived child, Joy? - he didn’t know which of them had named her, only that they had - were, along with Dawn, the most important things in her world. Not that they expected Giles to be in a murderous rage but Spike felt an unaccustomed warm glow, at the feeling of togetherness.

Family. He hadn’t realized, ever since Dru had sired him, he’d been craving it. Putting up with years of abuse from Angelus, Darla, Dru and even Buffy, just to have that feeling of belonging.

He realized, now, that, although drawn to Buffy at the beginning, what had really made him go to her, when newly chipped, had been the whole ‘family’ thing that the ‘Scoobies’ had going.

He could feel Buffy, as though she was another facet of himself, tense at the thought of seeing Giles; unsure how to deal with the level of betrayal committed by her surrogate father and it was his turn to reassure her, that, no matter what, they were together.

It was an anticlimax when Giles walked in through the front door - opened, by Dawn, when they heard his rented car pull up.

“Buffy…” His voice trailed off, when he realized he didn’t know what he could say. She knew.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Was all she said.

“It was for the best…”

Buffy strode over and slapped him, hard, the sound ringing in the spacious hallway. Dawn winced.

“Whose best?” Buffy demanded, as Giles straightened his glasses, a red hand print clearly visible on his face.

“When Andrew told me about the prophesy…”

“Oh, the prophesy,” Buffy sneered, “There’s always some damn prophesy, isn’t there? What did this one say? ‘..and the chosen one shall be kept in the dark by the people she should be able to trust…‘ Or maybe ‘…the chosen one shall mourn the death of the only man she ever truly loved, while her so called friends, knowing that he still lives, shall keep shtum…’” She broke off, as Giles, unexpectedly laughed. “What?” She demanded.

“Where did you pick that word up from?” Giles asked, “You’ve only been in England a few days.”

“Yeah? Well, it feels like a lifetime. It’s my home, now.” She said, defiantly; realizing that she didn’t just know English slang from her bond with Spike but a whole lot of other languages - human as well as demon - along with a deep affection for England.

“Who’s this?” Giles asked, looking suspiciously at The Guardian.

“I am the Guardian of the slayer line, Watcher…” She made his title sound like an insult.

“I told you about her, Giles, remember? The lady who put the scythe in the rock, for me to find.”

“You said Caleb killed her,” Giles said, instinctively putting his hand out to The Guardian. “Pleased to meet you…” As she took his offered hand in hers. “Now, about Lily and Spike’s child…”

The Guardian gripped his hand and he abruptly lost the powers of speech.

“Buffy..?” Dawn started forward but Spike stopped her.

“It’s OK, Nibblet, she’s promised not to harm him.”

Giles was on his knees now, a low moaning coming from the back of his throat and tears in his eyes.

“It’s done.” The Guardian said at last, releasing his hand and stepping back.

Giles looked up at Buffy, tears running down his face, the pain of betrayal in his eyes.

“Oh God, Buffy, how could I have? I never realized… How could you ever have forgiven…? You trusted me…”

“What did you do?” Dawn demanded, glaring at The Guardian.

“I simply showed him another point of view.”

“Huh?”

“I showed him how the slayers saw it. Every slayer, from the first to the most recent to suffer betrayal at the hands of the council.”

“You can do that?” Dawn was incredulous.

“All Guardians are empaths and we can share that gift. Haven’t you noticed how calm you all feel around Jennifer Anne? I think that Buffy and Spike’s reunion would have been a little more fiery, without her.”

“Oh, I think there was probably fire.” Dawn said, smirking.

“Could you have done this to Caleb?” Buffy asked, looking at Giles as he sobbed on the floor.

“I could have shown him but one such as he, so secure in his own righteousness…”

“Sociopath.” Spike said, grimly, “No one else truly exists, for them, except themselves.”

“Wesley’s father would have been impossible to convince.” Buffy said, remembering and seeing him through Spike’s memories; the robot a perfect copy.

“You are quite right, Buffy.” The Guardian agreed, “When we travel to other dimensions to ‘straighten out’ the watchers, we will have to be quite creative, with some of them.”

“C’mon Rupert,” Spike said, offering his free hand to Giles, who was still on the floor, “I think you need a drink.”

“How could I have been so wrong about you?” Giles whispered, taking Spike’s hand and getting unsteadily to his feet.

“Dunno, mate; might have been the vampire thing…”

“Can I watch when The Guardian does Andrew?” Giles said, with a shaky smile, “Or has she already done him?”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“He’s meant to be here?” Dawn asked.

“Yes, he was coming down last night, to find out if you, Buffy and the scythe were here… Report back… You’ve not seen him?”

“Bloody hope Robert hasn’t seen him.” Spike said.

“Shouldn’t think so, I saw him as I was driving up; digging over that huge rockery, out there.”

“Shit.” Buffy and Spike said, simultaneously, both seeing the significance of that.

“What?” Giles asked.

“Huh? Oh, it’s just that we’ve not…” Buffy started, nervously.

“We’ve been so busy with our reunion, we forgot to check that Robert’s OK.” Spike said, smoothly.

“God,” Buffy said, more convincingly, “As far as we know, he’s not eaten since breakfast…”

“Lily’s death hit him hard…” Spike added, handing Jennifer Anne to Buffy.

“She’s dead?” Giles asked, distracted from thoughts of Andrew, “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you all about it,” Spike said, leading him away, “I know where there’s some very good scotch…”

‘What do we do?’ Buffy silently asked Spike.

‘Nothing we can do, Pet. If Robert’s killed him… well, it serves the little git right, dunnit.’

‘S’pose.’

* * * * *

“’I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name;

There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;

But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart

The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.’” Spike quoted, as Lily’s coffin was lowered into the ground. “She gave me the greatest gift and I loved her with as much of my heart as was free.”

They stood quietly, in the family burial plot, a very private funeral party. Robert, with Spike and Buffy standing either side of him, dropped a single white rose into the grave.

“Your children don’t belong to you, they are only borrowed,” Robert said, “You always lose them, to their own lives, their own decisions… you can only hope that you prepared them, for the world… ” He broke down and Spike put an arm around his shoulder.

“I never had the honour of meeting Lily,” Buffy said, her voice thick with emotion, “but, through Spike, I know her courage and strength. She‘s in heaven now, with her mom.”

“The life of a slayer, is often short and always violent,” The Guardian said, “Although, in this dimension, Lily is dead; in others, she still lives, still fights. Here, she has earned her rest.”

“We were friends..” Garri said, fighting back tears, “from our first day at school; I’ll miss her for the rest of my life.”

“She sang for me,” Lorne said, “For the future of her child and, knowing that Jennifer Anne would live, she braved her own uncertain future. So young, so courageous…” He dabbed his eyes with a black silk handkerchief.

“When I was growing up, my sister was the slayer,” Dawn said, “And every night, I’d lie in bed and worry that she wouldn’t come back; that this patrol would be her last… She had no choice… Slayers now, there’s so many, any of them can turn away from it… say no and do something else with their lives. Lily could have chosen that. She was so brave, choosing to fight evil…” She started to cry. “When we buried Buffy…”

“Shhush,” Buffy said, soothingly, her arm going around Dawn, “Don’t think about that…”

Giles was the last to speak:

“After Sunnydale fell, there were very few watchers left in the world and I wanted to rebuild the council in a better way. Then, one of the few remaining watchers informed me that I didn’t have the authority; I was, apparently, nothing. It seemed that I had been chosen as watcher to the greatest slayer that ever lived because no one expected her to survive. That senior watcher is now dead because, it turns out, he was an abusive parent and, unfortunately for him, his son grew up to become, among other things, the favourite of a very powerful entity. Sadly, before his death, he had arranged for the ‘Seven Maidens’ portal to be opened; indirectly causing Lily’s death.

“I am determined to help make the watchers council a force for good, not just in this world but in other dimensions. The council will no longer be made up of power hungry men and women who are content to let innocent young slayers pay for their arrogance and stupidity.”

Buffy smiled, inwardly; typical Giles, so wordy. It was hard to believe that just a couple of days ago he had sobbed on Spike’s shoulder, barely able to form words, as he relived his ‘Guardian’ experience. Millennia of wronged slayers, starting with the violation of the first girl to be chosen - the extreme pain of a demon soul forcing its way in; rape of the worst kind - and ending with Dana; her phobia of needles making her final moments of life, into her worst nightmare.

Worst of all, for Giles, had been experiencing his own betrayals of Buffy; her cruciamentum, when the person she trusted most had stripped her of her power and left her helpless. Leaving her, when she needed him - in a small way, when she started college, in the worst way, later - fleeing back to England, when, torn out of heaven, she had been so close to taking her own life. Trying to have Spike killed. Experiencing Buffy’s feelings about that, had totally changed Giles’ attitude to Spike.

Spike and Buffy hadn’t told Giles about their bonding or their coming child and he was blissfully unaware that while he was drowning his sorrows with Spike, Buffy was ‘with’ them. When Giles asked that Buffy not be told the details, Spike had, straight-faced and with sincerity, said that she’d never hear it from him…

* * * * *

The Guardian had left for Rome, taking Giles and Dawn with her - Giles, to introduce her to all the new slayers, Dawn because she wanted to pick up some personal items from the apartment - so, Spike and Buffy felt the time was right to confront Robert.

He was sitting in his study, gazing pensively out into the garden. The rockery loomed large.

“We need to talk.” Spike said.

“I liked what you said at the funeral. Very apt. Byron?”

“Yeah.” Spike said, refusing to be distracted, “About Andrew…”

“It was going to feel so good.” Robert said, a far away look in his eyes. “I saw him outside, subdued him, stashed him in the icehouse and, while you two were talking things out…” He cleared his throat, “Cordless power tools.”

Buffy winced.

“I didn’t want you to be part of it, Spike. I knew you’d want to but your Buffy would never have forgiven you…” He laughed, abruptly. “Lily was my daughter, it felt right that I should be the one… I didn’t realize he’d be so scared.

“I explained exactly what I was going to do… showed him each tool… I wanted him as scared as he could be…”

Spike nodded his understanding; successful torture relied heavily on the psychological.

“Part of it, I think, was getting my own nerve up… How did you handle Giles?” He asked Spike, suddenly.

“Got him drunk, planted the idea that the little boy might have figured out how to go through the portal…”

“Good work. He’ll think he’s lost in another dimension. Won’t go digging around.” He smiled, a bitter humourless smile.

“Are you alright?” Spike asked, gently. “I know how badly a person can be damaged…”

Robert laughed, bitterly.

“I never even got to touch him. Oh, I hit him, in the garden, made him easier to handle, tied him up… Scared him to death…” He laughed again.

“But if you didn’t hurt him…” Buffy began.

“Scared. Him. To. Death.” Robert repeated. “Little bastard had a heart attack, before I even started on him. Died of fright.”

Spike could feel the urge, building in Buffy and knew that when the explosion came, it would be big. So big it would take Spike over the edge with her.

“You want to know the worst part?” Robert asked, unaware of what was coming. “I actually tried to give the little sod CPR. Bloody hell, I was planning on killing him and I end up trying to save his worthless life.”

It was too much and Buffy lost it.

Robert stared in amazement, as Buffy dissolved into helpless laughter, closely followed by Spike.

“Oh, God,” She spluttered, “You had power tools… and… he… and…and… then… and… you… Oh, god… I can’t…” She clung helplessly to Spike, who was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up.

“You’re not angry with me, then.” Robert said, dryly, when the two of them had quietened down; causing Buffy to start again.

“Bit late for that, innit mate? If you were worried how we’d take it…”

“I wouldn’t have done it. You’re right, of course. Buffy?”

“I don’t know.” Buffy said, dabbing at her damp eyes with her sleeve. “A few years back, I might have been but now…? I’m old enough to know that things aren’t always black and white. Andrew dying that way? Sorta karmic.”

“I’m going to miss you two, while you’re away.”

“Actually, it won’t be so bad,” Buffy said, reassuringly, her hand on Robert’s shoulder. “The Guardian said that too much inter-dimensional travel wasn’t good for… us, so she’ll start by taking us to worlds where we already exist, we talk to our other selves, get them on side and leave them to handle the details. We come back here and wait for however long it takes for The Guardian to finish up.”

“Could be months in between. ‘Sides, I don’t want to be away from Jennifer Anne for more than a few days at a time.” Spike added.

Truth be told, it was Buffy’s unborn child, little Joy, who couldn’t handle too much travel but, together, Spike and Buffy had decided not to reveal her existence for a couple of months yet.

“I understand perfectly,” Robert said, “She’s a wonderful baby and I’m honoured to be taking care of her while you’re away. Just being in the same room with her…”

“Yeah, mate, I know. It’s her empathic gift, makes you feel like everything’s OK.”

“You look in her eyes and it’s like she knows…” Buffy added.

“Yeah,” Spike said, thoughtfully, “Knows everything…”

The front door slammed, loudly.

“Hey Guys,” Dawn shouted, in the hallway, “I’m home!”

THE END