Time LIne:

Currently: November 2003
Buffy's about 6 months pregnant.

History:
Annie turned four last February.
Buffy and Spike have been married four years.
Buffy turned 22 years old in January.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003 - about 6 months ago.

**~**

November 2003:


After dinner, Buffy, Spike, and Annie were playing a game of UNO! at the kitchen table and Annie was cleaning up! She’d beaten them both four games in a row. Spike thought she must be cheating, but he couldn’t figure out how she was doing it . . . he briefly thought of taking her to a kitten poker game with him and see how she did at that, but figured, if she did win, she’d want to keep all the bloody kittens as pets.


“UNO!” Annie yelled as she got down to her last card (again!) – holding it up proudly for her parents to see just the one card left in her hand. Her big blue eyes danced with amusement and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth in anticipation of beating her parents five times in a row.


“Bloody hell,” Spike muttered under his breath. He frowned and pretended to drop a card so he could look under the table and see if she was hording cards in her lap or something, but he couldn’t see anything to indicate she was cheating. Bloody lucky little rascal, he thought as he sat back up. He hated to lose at anything – even UNO! to a four year old – oh, excuse me, a four and a half year old – as Annie reminded him constantly. He was happy that “half” was the only fraction she knew – otherwise she’d be a four and three-quarter year old!


Just then, Buffy’s phone rang. “Saved by the bell,” Spike said, dropping his handful of cards into the pile on the table and admitting defeat – again.


“Willow?” Buffy answered, looking at the caller id. Willow and Tara had left just a few minutes ago to go get supplies at the Magic Shop in town.


“Buffy! Can you and Spike come down to the Magic Shop? There’s been an attack . . . the owner’s dead – it was a vampire for sure,” Willow informed her.


“Sure, Wills – we’ll be right there . . . ummm – could you or Tara meet us outside? We’ll have to bring Annie,” Buffy replied as she added her cards to the pile on the table.


“Sure, Buffy – Tara’s outside anyway. She’s still not comfortable with . . . this stuff,” Willow told her.


This stuff, Buffy thought. Tara must be the only sane person I know – everyone else is perfectly comfortable with 'this stuff' . . . have been for years. Buffy sighed and shook her head at the thought before telling Willow again that they’d be right there and asked her to call Giles, as well.


Giles had been feeling a little left out lately. After quitting the Council when Buffy did, he still acted as her unofficial Watcher and co-trustee for the Slayer Trust Fund with Wesley, but unless there was something extraordinary going on that needed researching, there just wasn’t that much for him to do anymore. She trained with Spike, she patrolled with Spike and, between the two of them, they’d met just about all the different types of demons there were around these parts nowadays. Since clogging up the Hellmouth with all that Turok-Han dust, the evil quotient in Sunnydale had definitely declined. Not that she was complaining, but she felt bad for Giles – he seemed so lost.


At the Magic Shop, Buffy and Spike left Annie outside with Tara before going in to survey the damage in the store. Willow had held off on calling the police until Buffy and Spike had a chance to look around – since the police had what amounted to a snowball’s chance in hell of actually ‘solving’ the murder, anyway. Giles was already inside when they came in, looking over the inventory books to try and determine what, if anything, may have been taken.


Spike and Buffy examined the body – definitely vampire – no doubt about that. The scent was vaguely familiar to Spike . . . like he had met this particular vampire before, but he couldn’t quite place it. He tried mentally listing all the vampires he knew: Angel – no . . . ummm . . . hmmm . . . Bloody hell, is Peaches the ONLY vampire I know? Spike thought harder . . . Harmony – no, she’s dust down with the army brats – not her scent, anyway. Bugger. I’ve turned into a full-fledged, poofy white hat and don’t even know a single vamp anymore!


“Good Lord!” Giles exclaimed as he examined the shopkeeper’s books, pulling Spike from his thoughts. Buffy, Spike and Willow looked expectantly at the Watcher, but Giles just continued intently studying the book in his hands.


“Good Lord, what?” Buffy finally asked.


“What?” Giles asked, looking up. “Oh, yes. This is extraordinary! Do you know what the profit margins are on magic supplies?” he asked excitedly.


"Well, if you don’t count dying, probably not bad,” Buffy replied. “This is like the fifth owner to die here in the last six years! Not great odds, if you ask me.”


“Perhaps, but this is simply unbelievable!” Giles said with excitement usually reserved for a research party.


Buffy rolled her eyes. “Can you tell us what might have been taken? Maybe it will help narrow down the vamp that did it.”





Giles began looking around the shop and checking the inventory list. “This is very odd,” he said after a time. “There seems to be a book missing here . . . a very expensive book written in Latin from the tenth century, “Sanctus Mica Sanguis.”





“WHAT?!!” Spike exclaimed, his voice raising at least three octaves as he said it, sounding like a thirteen year old boy whose voice was just changing. He walked over to look at what Giles was reading. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, running a hand heavily across his eyes and back through his hair when he confirmed what Giles had said.


“What is it, Spike?” Buffy asked, walking over to him.


“The Gem of Amarra. That book’s the key to findin’ it,” Spike told them.


“The Gem of Amarra?” Giles asked, looking away from the inventory book and at Spike. “That’s a myth.”


“Sorry to disappoint, Watcher . . . not a myth. And, it’s right here in the 'valley of the sun' and that book, loosely translated ‘Vampire's Holy Grail’, is the key to findin’ it,” Spike informed him. “I should know.”


“Why should you know?” Giles pressed Spike.


Buffy answered him with a sigh. “Trust me. He knows.” Turning to her husband she asked, “Do you remember how you got it before? Where it was?” referring to their life in the other dimension whose memories still lingered in their minds.


“Yeah, weeks and weeks of bloody hard diggin’,” Spike answered her, blowing out a long breath at the thought of all that digging – especially without any minions to help him.


Over the last six months since getting the memories from the other dimension, Spike had thought more than once of trying to retrieve the Gem of Amarra from its hiding place here in Sunnydale. But there always seemed to be something going on that required his immediate attention – like the nearly three months that he’d spent at the Coven’s safe house training with the new Slayers and then there was that psycho Slayer Dana and all the other day to day beasties that seemed to pop up unannounced.


The thought of trying to tunnel into the crypt without any help was daunting, as well. He really wanted to make up for the time he’d spent away from Buffy and Annie when he was at the Coven earlier this year, so spending hours and hours every day tunneling into the crypt that held the Gem fell further down his priority list.


Spike never thought that another vamp would ever find the book that was the key to its location - so he didn't think waiting would pose a threat. In the other dimension, he had only found it by random chance down in South America after Dru left him. He had wandered in a drunken daze into a small magic shop in a back water town looking for a love spell and found it buried under a pile of books in the back corner of the shop. If his Latin had been any rustier, or if he had been any more drunk, he wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but the word “sanguis” on the worn spine of the book was the giveaway. Blood = Vampire. How, in this dimension, it could have gotten from that shop in South America, to this one, here in Sunnydale, was a mystery.


“Well, maybe Xander can get some heavy equipment from his job site and, if you can remember exactly where it was, he can figure some way to reach the crypt faster,” Buffy suggested, half thinking aloud.


“PLEASE STOP!” Giles exclaimed, holding his free hand up. “You’re telling me the Gem of Amarra exists and it’s right here in Sunnydale?”


Buffy and Spike nodded with solemn looks at Giles.


“And we need to find it before whoever did this,” Buffy waved her hand in the direction of the dead shopkeeper, “does.”


“Indeed. The Gem of Amarra, if legend is correct, in the wrong hands could be quite dangerous. It’s the source of enormous power – making the vampire that has it undefeatable,” Giles agreed before turning his attention back to the inventory book for the store and the amazing profit margins it had.


“Well, not completely undefeatable . . .” Buffy said softly, looking at Spike and rolling her eyes. Spike shrugged and turned his attention back to the scent of the vampire that had killed the shopkeeper. He just couldn’t place it. Whoever it was, he was sure that it would certainly be the “wrong hands” for the Gem to be in.


**~**

Buffy, Spike and Xander walked around near the UC Sunnydale campus later that night until Spike finally got his bearings and showed Xander exactly where the crypt was that held Gem of Amarra.


“You’re sure?” Xander asked Spike for the third time.


Spike rolled his eyes. “YESSSS, Harris, I’m bloody well sure! It’s right under here.” Spike waved his arm around an area of green lawn across the street from the college. “’Bout fifteen feet square, I’d wager. Not really sure how deep it is; I tunneled into it from underneath . . .”


“It wasn’t too deep,” Buffy supplied. “You caused a huge cave in – opened a big sink hole in the road over there with your tunneling.”


“OK,” Xander said. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, so I should be able to get a back-hoe over here at dusk and start digging. I just hope no one notices and calls the cops or something . . .”


“Who’s gonna call the cops on a construction crew, Xand?” Buffy asked him. “They’ll just be thankful that you’re not IN THE ROAD slowing down traffic!”


Xander shrugged and hoped that she was right. He could get in a lot of trouble taking equipment off the job site and then digging a huge hole on what was probably private property and, with the baby on the way, he couldn’t afford to lose his job now.


**~**


Buffy and Spike were both right about the crypt that held the Gem of Amarra. The following evening Xander only had to dig down about six feet with the back-hoe that he’d borrowed from his job site to find the top of the crypt. He punched a small hole in it and Spike dropped down into the crypt to retrieve the ring that held the gem. Bypassing all the other jewels and treasures in the crypt, he took only the ring, the Gem of Amarra, and climbed back up and out of the crypt.





Giles was disappointed that they couldn’t all spend some time in the crypt cataloging and retrieving the various artifacts. Certainly, if the Gem of Amarra was in this crypt, there may be other historically or magically significant items there as well – artifacts that could be of use to them in the future – or, at the very least, that should be preserved in a museum. But they needed to get in and out quickly to keep whoever owned the property that the crypt was on from discovering them and possibly getting Xander in serious trouble for “borrowing” the equipment.


Xander covered the small hole in the top of the crypt with a sheet of heavy metal, then spread the dirt back across the hole he’d dug – leveling it out perfectly. The only evidence they’d been there when he was all done was the bare dirt where there once was grass – but that would grow back soon enough.


Xander breathed a sigh of relief when he got the back-hoe back to his job site without any complications. Even though he was foreman, it still wouldn’t look good to be using the company’s equipment for “personal” use. He was pretty sure that his bosses wouldn’t buy the excuse that he was helping save the world from evil . . . again.

**~**


Spike slid the ring on. He didn’t feel any different with it on, but he knew that he was; everything changed with the Gem of Amarra. Sunlight and stakes were no longer a threat; even fire - so deadly to him before, he knew, wouldn’t be an issue. He wasn’t too sure about beheading . . . he didn’t really want to test the theory that the ring would make him truly invincible against everything.


Spike rose early the next morning and slipped silently out of their bed, careful not to wake Buffy. He pulled on his PJ bottoms and left their room, went downstairs and out the garden door. He could feel the sunrise tingling down his spine as he ascended the stairs out of the garden to the street. When he got to the top of the stairs, he turned to face the sunrise and waited. He watched the sun as it rose over the tops of the trees; watched its rays, deadly to him without the ring, creep slowly towards him and then up his body until he was engulfed in its warmth and light. He closed his eyes and just let the feeling of the sun washing over him fill him with pleasure; he hadn’t had the sun’s rays on his body in so very long, he’d forgotten what it felt like. The only thing that resembled it was Buffy’s body against his – warming his skin and making him feel like part of the world, again. Like a creature of the light rather than the creature of the dark that he was.


Spike was so lost in his thoughts and just feeling the sun on his skin, he didn’t hear Buffy when she walked up behind him. Spike jumped slightly when Buffy wrapped her arms around his waist and dropped a soft kiss on one bare shoulder-blade before she leaned her body against his back. Spike laid his hands on hers and closed his eyes again with a sigh, the sun warming his front and she warming his back . . . it was something that only happened in their dreams.


After a few minutes, Buffy said, “Why don’t we go back up to Big Sur this week?” She so wanted Spike to see the beautiful coastline between L.A. and Big Sur in the daylight; and now it was possible.


“Sounds wonderful,” Spike said as he turned in her arms and kissed her before wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight. He still couldn’t imagine what he’d ever done to deserve her love, but he was grateful everyday for it.


**~**


Spike left his duster at home and even changed from his normal black, sleeved t-shirt to a white sleeveless tank top for the trip up the PCH to Big Sur. He wanted to feel as much sun on his skin as he could, but he stopped short of putting on shorts . . . that was just a little too "nancy boy" for his image.


Buffy leaned against Spike’s back and wrapped her arms around his waist as they rumbled up the coast on the Harley. They stopped even more frequently on this trip than they did the last. Every scenic overlook seemed even more “scenic” than the last and they just couldn’t resist stopping and taking it all in. Even when they vowed to NOT pull over until they’d gone at least ten miles, it seemed that there was something that just begged to be seen, and the promise of less stopping went out the window. It didn’t matter, though – they would get to their destination when they got there . . . this was too beautiful to pass by now that they could both see it and share it with each other in the light of day.





When nightfall finally came, it was easier to just keep going. They decided they could see the last part of the PCH on the way back, and Spike sped up the coast to their destination. He was anxious to get Buffy back in that hot tub at “their” cabin and on that big bed that overlooked the ocean. This time, their excursions to the ocean or the river or the forest could take place in the daytime. They were both looking forward to the new things they’d discover, and the new places they’d find, in the daylight.


**~**


Buffy and Spike were walking leisurely along a small path that wound through the redwoods. The trees were magnificent; huge, prehistoric specimens that simply boggled the mind with their age. If they could talk, these trees could tell quite a story of how the world had changed in the last five centuries – after all, some of them had been here to witness it.


Spike stopped and listened carefully . . . turning his head one way then the other to determine exactly where the sound was coming from.


“What?” Buffy whispered as she stopped behind him, looking around to try and see what it was he was listening to.


“This way,” Spike said, as he started walking again, venturing off the path and into the underbrush.


“Ummm, excuse me, Indiana Jones, but there’s no path there,” Buffy said, folding her arms across her chest and standing firm on the path they’d been traveling on.


“What’s the matter, Slayer? Afraid of a little cross country travel?” Spike teased as he blazed a new trail through the weeds and vines. “Do not follow where the path may lead,” he said. “Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”


Buffy’s brow furrowed in thought . . . Did he just make that up? No . . . not possible, she assured herself. “Ok, Shakespeare, lead on. But if we find a mountain lion or a bear, I’m leavin’ your lily white ass with it.”


Spike shook his head. How could she have possibly graduated high school and taken at least one college literature course and thought that was Shakespeare? “Emerson, luv,” he said over his shoulder as he continued stomping out a new trail.


“Huh?” Buffy asked, following a ways behind him.


“Not Shakespeare. Emerson . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Spike informed her. “American poet and transcendentalist."


“He musta not have been a very good poet if he had to take up being a dentist to make a living,” Buffy replied.


Spike stopped and turned around to look at her. His mouth opened and closed several times as he tried to decide whether to tell her a “transcendentalist” was not a bloody “dentist.” Finally, he just shook his head, shut his mouth, turned back around and kept going. “Don't they teach anythin' in school anymore?” he muttered under his breath.


“Where in the world are we going, anyway, Waldo?” Buffy asked as she caught up with Spike.


“It’s a surprise,” Spike said as he continued stomping the undergrowth down.


Normally Buffy wasn’t crazy about surprises, but somehow Spike always seemed to find really nice ones . . . like the underground hot springs at the Coven’s safe house. Buffy smiled at the memory and followed him closer as he made his way through the forest.


“Ok, stop,” Spike said after about fifteen minutes of trailblazing through the woods. “Stay here,” he told her – holding one palm up like a crossing guard trying to stop traffic.


Buffy stopped and rolled her eyes, but stayed put as he asked while he went ahead. Within a couple of minutes he came back. “Ok, close your eyes and follow me,” he told her.


“How am I supposed to do that?” Buffy asked with a hint of impatience.


“Slayer,” he said pointing to her. “Vampire,” he said, pointing to himself. “Now, close your eyes and follow me.”


Buffy rolled her eyes again but did as he asked. In fact, it wasn’t hard to follow him at all. Even without his presence tingling down her spine, he was stomping through the weeds and vines like an elephant. After a couple of minutes Buffy heard what sounded like water running . . . perhaps they were near the river. That must be what Spike heard back on the trail.


Spike stopped her and covered her eyes with his hand as he stepped behind her. “Ready for your surprise, luv?” he asked. She could hear the water now and it was loud; it was more than just the river; it had to be a waterfall, she realized. Buffy nodded her head and Spike removed his hand from in front of her eyes. “Open your eyes,” he whispered in her ear.


When Buffy opened her eyes she was met with the sight of a lovely waterfall that plunged down into a crystal clear pool of blue-green water. They were standing up high on a ridge above the pool on the opposite side from the waterfall. The pool was surrounded by large boulders and trees making it look like a private oasis made just for them. The sun was high in the sky, allowing them to see all the way to the white sand bottom.





“God, it’s beautiful, Spike,” Buffy said, smiling. “How did you know it was here?”


“Didn’ know . . . heard the waterfall and thought I’d take a chance,” he told her. “I think we’ll call it ‘Heaven’s Gate’. Whaddya think?” he asked her as he nuzzled her neck, drawing small circles on her hot skin with his tongue.


“Mmmmm . . .” Buffy moaned as she tilted her head to the side and raised one hand up to lightly stroke his cheek. “Sounds heavenly.”


Still standing behind her, Spike slid his hands under her tank top and lifted it up over her head and off her arms. Dropping his mouth back to her neck, he trailed his tongue down her spine, sending small electrical shocks out to all parts of Buffy’s body. When his mouth reached the clasp of her white lace bra, he unhooked it and pushed the straps down her arms so his tongue could continue its journey down her spine. When his mouth reached the waistband of her shorts, he slid his hands under the elastic and pushed them, along with her thong, down her golden legs and she stepped out of them, kicking her shoes off at the same time.


Buffy turned around to face him, sliding her hands up and under the tank top he wore, lifting it off and dropping it to the ground. She smiled at the sight of his body as the sun danced over his skin, accentuating the ripples of muscle of his chest and abs. She couldn’t resist running her hands over his soft skin – such a contradiction to the hard muscles that it covered.


“I wonder if you’ll freckle,” Buffy asked as she lowered her hands to his belt and tugged it loose.


Spike smirked. “Will you still love me if I do?” he asked her, his voice deep with his desire for her.


Buffy tilted her head and furrowed her brow as if in deep thought before answering. “Well, I guess I could live with it. It would be a hardship, no doubt . . . but as the Chosen One, I’m used to making these kinds of sacrifices - for the greater good, of course.”


Buffy smiled at him and caught his soft lips in a kiss as her hands continued working on unbuttoning his jeans. Spike ran his hands up and down her arms and back with feather touches, raising chill bumps on her skin, despite the unseasonably warm air and bright sunshine. Buffy moaned into his mouth as she slid her hands under his jeans and pushed them down, allowing his hard cock to spring out of its confines and press against her.


Spike kicked out of his boots and jeans as Buffy pulled away from the kiss and dropped down to her knees in front of him. Holding his rod in her hand she swirled her hot, wet tongue around the swollen head, tasting his pre-cum and teasing him with light touches of her tongue and lips on his sensitive skin.


Spike moaned and tangled his hands in her long, golden hair as he watched her. He loved how her hair looked in the sunshine, now he could be with her in the light and actually feel it – warm and glowing in his hands. He let it fall through his fingers. Like the water falling over the cliff behind them, her hair flowed freely, softly through his fingers as Buffy licked up and down his hard length. Her tongue darted in and out of her lips, barely touching him as she moved her mouth from the tip of his cock down to his balls. She took them in one hand, caressing them softly, before sucking one of his jewels into her hot mouth and twirling her tongue all over it.


“Christ!” Spike exclaimed as he watched her mouth move from one to the other of his balls, giving them both equal treatment. He held her hair to the side so he could see her lovely mouth as it sucked and licked his balls and then started nibbling with her teeth and lips back up his hard length. When Buffy reached the head again, she sucked it into her mouth, hollowing her cheeks and swirling her tongue all around his cock.


“Fuck!” Spike exclaimed as she sucked down on him, his hands now hopelessly tangled in her hair, as she took more and more of his length into her hot mouth. Buffy put her hands around his slim hips and clamped onto his bare ass cheeks as she started bobbing her head up and down his cock, taking as much of his length into her mouth as she possibly could. She controlled his hips with her hands on his ass, pulling him to her when she went down and pulling him away when she pulled back.


Spike closed his eyes and just let the feeling of her hot mouth and tongue engulfing him flow through his whole body . . . the sun on his back warmed him and made him feel again like he really was a man . . . a man that belonged in the light . . . not a monster that lived in the dark.


“Chirst, Buffy . . . Yes . . . Jesus . . . yes . . . Fuck . . . so bloody good . . . Buffy . . . so hot . . . God . . yes . . yes . . . .fuck! YESSSSS!” Spike exclaimed as she slammed his length harder and harder into her mouth, sucking him fiercely and hitting the back of her throat with the head of his cock.


“Buffy!! Christ woman!! YESSSSSSSS!!” he screamed as he felt his balls tighten and that familiar surge build to the boiling point. Spike came with a loud growling roar as Buffy continued pumping him into her hot mouth . . . his cum filling her mouth to overflowing as she tried to swallow it all down.


She loved the power she had over him . . . she loved to make him scream her name and lose control. She smiled slightly around his cock as the memory of the very first time she’d done this crossed quickly through her mind. “Nectar of the Gods,” Spike had told her . . . Nectar of the Gods, indeed, she thought as she licked the last of his cum from his cock and released her hold of his ass as she pulled off him.


Still smiling she looked up at his expressive face. Spike’s face showed every emotion that he was feeling; if you just paid attention, you could almost read his mind just by watching his face. Now there was a look of complete rapture on it, pure love and pleasure, and it was all for her.


Spike pulled her up to him and captured her lips in a hungry kiss, licking the small drops of cum that had escaped her mouth off her skin before his tongue delved into her, tasting himself in her hot mouth.


“God, I love you,” he murmured against her lips.


“I love you too, freckle boy,” Buffy said with a smile, pulling back to look in his eyes.


“Butch and Sundance it with me . . .” she said, her eyes dancing as she tilted her head towards the pool of water below them.


“Don’t think Butch ever went down on Sundance, luv. Would put a whole new spin on the legend, though,” Spike smirked as he grabbed her hand. They both took off running towards the edge and jumped as far as they could out into the clear water below. It wasn’t nearly as high as the cliff they’d jumped off of in Mexico, but it was high enough to make them both scream out in joy and excitement as they fell towards the surface of the cool water.


Buffy’s feet hit the sand on the bottom of the pool and she pushed off and back up to the surface. She surfaced with a laugh and looked around for Spike, but he hadn’t surfaced yet. Buffy spun around in place as she tread water and finally saw him swimming on the bottom, heading in her direction. “Not gonna dunk me this time, buster,” she said aloud as she watched him approach from underneath her. “I can seeee yooouu,” she sing-songed, more to herself than to him, as he started up from the bottom towards her.


When Spike turned towards the surface she could see the devilish smirk on his face; she acted like she didn’t see him until he got nearly to her. Then she quickly did a dolphin dive down towards him, kicking her feet in the air as she descended right at him, surprising him. She grabbed one arm and, flipping around quickly, she kicked her feet in a scissor kick and pulled him back to the surface with her.


“Not so stealthy in the light of day, freckle boy,” she smiled at him when they were both at the surface again. Spike smirked again and pulled her to him, capturing her lips in a soft kiss.


“You know me too well, pet. Guess I better change my ways . . .” he murmured against her skin as he moved his mouth to the sensitive spot behind her ear. “Better stop doin’ this, for example,” he said, twirling his tongue on that spot which he knew drove Buffy crazy. Buffy moaned and tilted her head to the side, pulling her hair away from her neck to give him free access to her golden skin. “And this . . .” he murmured, as he circled his fingers around one hard nipple before pinching and pulling on it lightly under the cool water, making her back arch and her head fall back. “And definitely better stop doin' this . . .” he continued, moving his hand down her body, across her swollen belly to her mound and slipping a finger between her outer lips to find her aching clit, causing her to buck her hips against him.


“Stop and die,” she whispered to him, as she wrapped her arms and legs around him and took his lips in a hungry kiss as he continued to tread water, keeping them both afloat. Buffy pulled and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth before darting her tongue between his lips, tasting and teasing him with it, as she explored his tongue with hers. Spike smiled against her lips, yeah, she knew him too well . . . but he knew her, too – every inch of skin, every spot that drove her crazy . . . every moan, every shudder . . . he knew them and loved them all. He could never get enough of making her skin tingle, her heart race and her body writhe in utter bliss from his touch. It gave him as much pleasure to make her cum as it gave her . . . he loved it when she screamed in ecstasy, when he knew he’d taken her to heaven.


Spike pulled away from her, grabbed her hand and started swimming towards the waterfall. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a ledge behind the waterfall that would be just perfect for them. Buffy allowed him to pull her along, kicking her feet to help keep up as he swam across the clear water with her in tow. She wasn’t sure where he was heading, but she really did know him well . . . she knew it would be another wonderful surprise – that’s just how Spike’s surprises always seemed to be.


As they approached the waterfall, they dove under the surface and went down as far as they could under the pounding water and then back up to the surface on the back side of it. Spike smiled . . . a perfectly smooth ledge, just a couple of feet behind the pounding waterfall, greeted them. “Heaven awaits, m’ lady,” he said giving her a boost up out of the water and onto the cool stone surface before following behind her.


The water falling from above seemed to vibrate the air around them and a fine mist of cool water covered every surface, including their bodies. Spike leaned into her, pressing Buffy down on her back on the smooth stone as he kissed a trail of goose bumps down from her ear to her nipples.


Twirling his tongue around one dark areola before sucking her nipple softly into his mouth, elicited a moan from Buffy as she ran her hands through his soft, wet curls and down his shoulders. Spike gave equal treatment to her other breast before running his tongue down her body to her belly button. He stopped and circled it with his tongue . . . listening contentedly to the strong heartbeat of their growing baby just under it. Spike sighed and kissed her belly before trailing down further to her hot, wet apex.


He lifted her legs and draped them over his shoulders as he dropped down to his stomach between them. Spreading her outer lips with one hand to revel her quivering, pink quim. He licked her juices as they ran down from her slit towards her ass, lingering with his tongue around her tight ass and teasing the sensitive skin there before delving his tongue deep into her burning womanhood.


“Oh God!” Buffy moaned when Spike entered her with his tongue as her hips tilted and lifted towards his heavenly mouth of their own volition. Spike darted his tongue in and out of her heat as he teased her clit lightly with one finger.


“Spike . . . God . . . feels so good . . .” Buffy moaned to him as he teased her with feather touches. Another finger found its way to her puckered ass and rubbed lightly across the sensitive skin there. Buffy’s hands let go of Spike’s hair and went to her body, running her fingertips up and down her sides and across her breasts and nipples in touches that mimicked the soft teasing that Spike was doing to her with his fingers and tongue.


“Jesus . . . yes . . . baby . . . Oh, God . . . fuck . . . Spike . . . yes . . . yes . . . oh baby . . .” Buffy could feel her orgasm building as Spike teased her most sensitive spots and her words came faster and louder as the feeling of floating on a cloud rolled over her, out from her core through her torso and to each limb.


“Aaaaaaggghhh . . . GOD YESSS!” she screamed as her body began to shudder under his touch, her back arched up off the cool stone and her legs tightened around his head as her hips bucked up against him.


Spike pulled his tongue out of her and quickly replaced it with two fingers when he felt her orgasm starting. He took her clit between his lips and sucked and licked it as he pumped his fingers hard in and out of her burning cunt. He growled deeply against her bundle of nerves and sent her over the edge as she pulled and twisted her nipples harder, still matching his touches.


Buffy’s words degenerated into screams on each exhale, and, when the full force of her orgasm hit her, changed to a long, ear piercing scream of release. It felt like the sound, if not allowed to escape her body, would explode within her and shatter her into a million bliss-filled pieces.


Spike kept pumping her, adding another finger to her dripping hole and slamming into her hard and fast . . . trying to carry her away, like a feather on the wind . . . up and up and up higher yet.


Buffy had no sooner started back down from her first orgasm than she felt the next one building right behind it. “YESSSS! HARDER!! YES, SPIKE! FUCK ME!” she screamed at him, writhing and bucking against him as the feeling returned to her groin and started flowing out across her body again.


“YES! SPIKE . . . YESSSSS!” she screamed as he pumped her hard with his fingers.


Spike thought he was going to explode himself as she continued to cum under him. Her juices flowed out onto his fingers and hands and down her ass – overwhelming him with her sweet aroma. Spike pulled out of her and quickly repositioned himself onto his knees, pulling her hips up off the stone to meet his thick, hard cock. He slammed into her with one hard thrust and sent her back over the edge into heaven with another long scream as her hips thrust back against him and she took him in completely.


Spike started pumping into her, hard and fast, watching Buffy’s face as she gasped for air and seeing pure the rapture there as she screamed out on each exhale . . . unable to get enough oxygen in her lungs to do more, as he carried them both higher and higher.


“YES . . . SPIIIKKE!” she finally managed as yet another wave of bliss passed through her body and she shuddered and bucked against him. Her inner muscles gripped his cock with power that would’ve been painful to anyone other than another warrior as her orgasm overtook her.


“BUFFY! GOD YES! SO FUCKING TIGHT! FUCK!!” Spike screamed. He felt like his blood was boiling in his veins as he pumped into her harder and faster, slamming his pubic bone against her clit and sending more and more waves of pleasure out to all parts of her body.


As another orgasm slammed into her, Buffy drew a deep breath, unable to control even her own breathing. Her body sucked more and more oxygen into her lungs as she flew through the clouds until the feeling of bliss overwhelmed her entire body. The scream of finding absolute heaven started deep within her, escaped her throat and, if not for the waterfall dissipating it, threatened to be heard all the way back in L.A. Her back arched up off the stone and she grabbed hard onto Spike’s thighs in an effort to get even more of him within her, to get even closer to his body.


“YES BUFFY! Cum for me! GOD YES! BUFFY! ARRRGGHHH!” Spike screamed as she convulsed and writhed under him, digging her nails into his thighs and bucking against his hips. His roar of release joined her screams as his cum shot deep into her core. He kept pumping into her, his cum filling her and spilling out, running down her ass and covering his balls as they slapped hard against her with each thrust.


When he felt her grip on his thighs relax and her body’s convulsions ease down to small shudders under him, Spike pressed his spent cock into her one last time and stopped, just reveling in the feeling of her heat around him and the beauty of her body in the sunlight.


Sun beams shone through the waterfall and danced small rainbows across their bodies as he leaned forward and dropped a soft kiss on Buffy’s lips. Buffy opened her eyes, wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and rolled them both slowly to the side, keeping him buried in her as he went down onto the stone ledge beside her.


Buffy traced the rainbows on Spike’s skin with her fingers as they lay together in a comfortable, happy silence behind the roaring waterfall. He watched her eyes as they moved over his body, following the dancing colors on his skin and smiled to himself; she was such a contradiction. A strong, brave, smart, passionate woman but still filled with the humor and wonder and heart of a girl. He loved all her contradictions . . . all the sides of her and it made him wonder again what he’d done to deserve her love.


“Give all to love; obey thy heart,” she whispered, meeting his eyes with hers and stilling her fingers on his skin. “I love you, Spike.”


Spike tilted his head, which he had propped up in one hand, and considered her words. Certainly she hadn’t just made that up. “I love you too, Shakespeare,” he replied.


“Emerson,” she corrected him, smiling. “Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and transcendentalist.”


Spike laughed. Yes, she most definitely was a bundle of contradictions.

Time Line:
Currently: November 2003
Buffy's about 6 months pregnant.

History:
Annie turned four last February.
Buffy and Spike have been married four years.
Buffy turned 22 years old in January.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003 - about 6 months ago.

**~**


November 2003:


When Spike pulled the Harley into the garage after the long trip back from Big Sur, Buffy jumped off and raced into the house . . . she really had to go . . . now! Spike grabbed the few things from the saddlebags and followed behind her a couple of minutes later.


Annie met him as he came in door from the garage. “Papa! Papa!” she exclaimed excitedly as she threw herself at him. “I got crabs!!”


Spike dropped the stuff he was carrying on the table just inside the door, caught her under the arms and lifted her up into a hug. “What’d you say, Niblett?” he asked, brows knit in confusion.


“I got crabs!” Annie repeated. “Wanna see?”


“What the bloody hel- - ck are you on about?!” Spike was trying to be good, he really, really was. But, after a century plus of saying “bloody hell,” it isn’t something you can just stop saying in a day, or a week, or even a year!


“BAD WORD!” Annie exclaimed, holding her hand out for her penny.


“WAS NOT!” Spike argued carrying her as he walked further into the great room. “And you’re changin’ the subject. What ‘ave you got?”


“Crabs!” Annie confirmed. “I’ll show you!” she said, squirming to get down.


“CRABS?” Spike repeated back to her, a look of utter concern and confusion on his face. “Who the bloody h - - eck said you had crabs!?”


“Aunt Willow and Aunt Tara!” Annie told him as she continued squirming to get down.


“WHAT?!!” Spike exclaimed, holding her tighter and not allowing her down. What ‘ave those two been smokin’? he thought, before asking, “Did you tell your Mum!?”


“No, she had to pee,” Annie informed him.


“Bloody hell . . . BUFFY! Where the bloody hell are you?!” Spike exclaimed as he carried Annie towards the first floor bathroom where he assumed Buffy had gone.


“BAD WORD!” Annie exclaimed, but Spike just ignored her and kept walking.


Buffy emerged from the bathroom feeling oh so much better. The baby seemed to want to do nothing but kick her bladder for the last ten miles of their trip home.


“Spike, what is it?” Buffy asked him as she walked towards him and Annie.


"You won't believe what those crazy bints have been tellin' our daughter!" he said, looking as if he was about ready to kill Willow and Tara.


“Tell her,” he said to Annie.


“I got crabs!!” Annie told her excitedly, a huge smile on her face as Spike set her down.


“I’m pretty sure they have an ointment for that now,” Buffy said as she bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing.


“Are you off your gourd or have you all been smokin’ some wacky-witch weed!?” Spike asked, looking at her like she’d lost her last marble.


“They told her she’s got fucking crabs!” he exclaimed as he held one finger up to Annie to stop her from saying “BAD WORD!”


“Have you seen them?” Buffy asked.


“There’s nothing to bloody well see! It’s a load of bollocks is what it is!” Spike said, keeping his finger raised to Annie as she folded her arms across her chest and stuck her bottom lip out in a pout worthy of a Summers girl.


Buffy crinkled her nose up and said, “Maybe you should just take a look, anyway, honey.” Buffy knelt down to Annie’s level and said, “Show Papa your crabs, sweet girl.”


Annie grabbed Spike’s hand and began tugging him towards the research area. Spike allowed her to pull him along but looked back at Buffy with confusion as she trailed behind them.


“See!!” Annie exclaimed as she led Spike to a low table that had been set up at the end of a row of bookcases. “Bert and Ernie! They’re my crabs!”


Spike looked at what Annie was trying to show him . . . they were . . . crabs. Hermit crabs if he wasn’t mistaken . . . actual, live Hermit crabs in an aquarium.


“Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath. He turned to Buffy. “You KNEW about this?” he asked, waving his arm towards the aquarium.


Buffy burst out laughing and nodded her head, unable to speak. The look of utter confusion and dismay on Spike’s face was priceless.





“You bloody women,” he muttered to himself, looking back at the aquarium that housed the two Hermit crabs. “What the bloody hel-ck are they for?”


“They’re my pets, Bert and Ernie!” Annie said, picking one of them up and offering it to Spike to hold.


Spike backed up a step from her and held his hands up to keep her from putting the crab in his palm. “Crabs are NOT PETS,” he informed her. “They’re sushi.”


Just then, Willow and Tara came down the stairs, hearing the last of the conversation. “NOT SUSHI!” Willow exclaimed. “They’re Annie’s pets!”


As the witches came up next to Annie and Spike, Willow took the crab that Annie had in her hand and held it up towards Spike. “You said we couldn’t get a kitten . . . you never said anything about crabs,” Willow informed him.


“Have you lot lost all your bleedin’ marbles?” he asked, sweeping his arm around to encompass all the women and Annie. “Why would you want crabs as pets?”





Willow gave “Bert” (or was it “Ernie”? It was hard to tell . . .) back to Annie before answering Spike. “All the books say that it’s important to instill a sense of responsibility in children. Having pets is one of the best ways to do that . . . and, since we couldn’t get a kitten . . .” Willow shrugged and looked at Spike, like – it’s your fault for saying we couldn’t get a kitten – so there!


“I never had a bloody pet when I was a boy! See how well I turned out?” Spike pointed out.


“Yeah – ‘William the Bloody’, kinda proves my point, doesn’t it?” Willow told him with a small smile and raised brows.





“Buffy!! Tell them . . .” Spike turned to his wife who was still smiling from the amusement of Annie telling Spike she had crabs.


Buffy shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. “A kitten would be a lot more fluffy and cuddly than crabs . . .” she pointed out, tilting her head to the side and giving him her best determined face.


Spike looked around at the women surrounding him. They ALL had their arms folded across their chest and determined looks on their faces, including Annie.


Spike bent his head forward as he shook it slowly and rubbed his hand on the back of neck in defeat. “Fine! Fine! Have your kitten, then! But I better not hear ‘P-U-S-S-Y’ one bloody time from that girl’s mouth!” he told them – pointing to Annie.


“No fair spellin’!” Annie said, stomping her foot and sticking her bottom lip out even further. “What does it mean?”


“It means, we get a kitty!” Willow said brightly, thinking that she better get a top to put on Bert and Ernie’s aquarium so the kitty didn’t turn them into sushi.


**~**


Spike was lying on his back, his eyes closed with his arms folded behind his head for a pillow, as the sun warmed his face, bare chest, legs and feet. The Gem of Amarra had completely changed their lives. Now he really could be what Buffy deserved . . . a man that could be with her in her world . . . in the light . . . rather than making her live in his world of darkness.


He had a silly grin plastered on his face as he listened to the waves crash against the shore a few feet away. The ocean smelled wonderfully fresh and clean, and even though the water was really too cold to go swimming in this time of year (at least for humans without wetsuits), it was a warm day and the beach was a wonderful place to have a nice, relaxing picnic and soak up some sun.


Just him and Buffy . . . and Annie . . . and Xander and Anya . . . and Willow and Tara. Yeah, it was a whole “family” outing. The only one that refused to go to the beach was Giles, begging off saying he didn’t have any proper swim trunks . . . and he had a strict policy against showing his bare legs in public, anyway.


A shadow blocked the sun from Spike’s face and, when he opened his eyes, he saw Buffy standing over him.


“What’re you all smiley about?” she asked him.


“Just watchin’ you, luv,” he told her as he looked up at her.


“You had your eyes closed, doofus,” she pointed out.


“I could see you if I was blind,” he informed her as he reached a hand out and touched her leg where she stood over him; the smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth.


Buffy smiled and shook her head as she knelt down beside him. “Well, you better let me put some more sunblock on you or you’ll go from ‘freckle boy’ to ‘crispy critter’ before long - like the rest of the pale-faced foreigners around here.”


Spike sat up and Buffy lathered his back with sunblock as he did his chest and legs. He normally wouldn’t wear shorts . . . but he thought that, since it was the beach, that wearing swim trunks wouldn’t damage his image too much. Buffy got him some like the kids wore these days, fairly long and baggy and slung low on his thin hips. Plus, he figured if Xander could wear swim trunks . . . well, that would just make Spike look all the better in his.


As Buffy rubbed the lotion all over his back, Spike watched the kids on the beach run along the edge of the water and toss their skim boards down before jumping on them and skim-surfing in the shallow water. The better ones rode their boards out into the breakers, turned on the first wave, and surfed back to shore. Spike laughed when one of the boys fell flat on his face and the girl he was trying to impress rolled her eyes and walked away.


“I suppose you could do better?” Buffy asked him as she finished lathering his back with SPF-50.


“Pfffftttt!” Spike snorted. “In a heartbeat!”


“Have you ever seen a skim board before, Spike?” Buffy asked him as she stood back up.


“Doesn’t matter. Just basic strength, balance and timing. ‘S no different than fightin’ or dancin’ or lovin’ . . . and I can do those well enough,” he told her with a sly smile.


“Uh-huh,” Buffy responded slowly as she watched the kids run, throw the skim boards then jump on them and glide across the thin layer of water where the waves met the sand. She’d seen more than one bite the dust . . . or the sand, as it were; it really wasn’t as easy as it looked.


“Hey guys!” Buffy called out to the others. “Wanna see Spike skim board?”


“YEAH!!” Annie cried as she ran up to her parents, her big blue eyes dancing in anticipation.


“Don’ have a board, luv,” he informed them.


Buffy smiled and quickly scanned the beach before walking over to where a few of the boys with the small boards were standing around talking. She gave them her best smile and said something that Spike couldn’t hear over the waves breaking on the shore, and one of the boys handed her his board.


Bloody hell, Spike thought.


“Ok, surfer boy . . . hear ya go,” Buffy said as she walked back up to Spike and held the board out to him. “Let’s see whatcha got.”


By now, the whole gang had gathered around to see what was going on . . . all eyes turned to Spike as Buffy held the board out to him.


Spike pursed his lips together and raised his chin, putting on his best “Big Bad” look before standing up and taking the board from her hands.


“Maybe Harris would like to go first . . .” Spike offered, knowing that anything Xander did would make Spike look like the best skim-boarder in the world.


Xander backed up waving his hands in front of him. “Oh no, big guy. You’re on your own with this one!” Xander informed him. “I like my limbs just as they are . . . unbroken.”


“You don’ think I can do it, do you?” he asked, looking at Buffy.


“I DO! Show ‘em Papa!” Annie exclaimed excitedly jumping up and down.


“Please do show us . . .” Buffy smiled at him and waved her hand towards the shore.


Spike sauntered slowly closer to the water with the board and watched a couple of the better boarders, paying more attention now to when they threw the boards in relation to the waves coming in and where they put their feet on the board and where their center of gravity was.


“So, you just gonna stand there and look cool, surfer boy?” Buffy asked as she walked up behind him. She couldn’t help hearing The Surfaris singing, “Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha WIPEOUT,” in her head.


{{Can you hear it? If not, here ya’ go – click below:
YOUTUBE: WIPEOUT! The Surfaris

}}


Spike rolled his head slowly around and tilted it from side to side, as if getting a kink out of his neck, before he positioned the board in his hands the way he’d watched the better boarders do it.


“Just watch,” he told her as he took off running in the surf. Spike dropped the board and jumped on it, bending his knees to lower his center of gravity and holding his arms out for balance. Annie squealed in delight as Spike hit the board and starting gliding over the shallow water gracefully before slowing and finally coming to a stop. Spike stepped off the board and picked it up . . . a look of utter victory on his face – as if he’d just slain the nastiest beastie in the world – as he sauntered back to where Buffy and the others were standing.


Buffy laughed and clapped her hands before giving him a big bow when he got back to the group. “Why did I ever doubt you?” she said smiling when she stood back up.


“Don’ know when you’ll learn, luv. I can do anythin’,” he told her with a smirk.


“Do it again!!” Annie exclaimed. “Do it again, Papa!!”


“Well, the boy prob’ly wants his board back . . .” Spike started, not wanting to press his luck.


“Do it again!” Annie said again, jumping up and down in excitement.


“C’mon Spike. Do one of those where you go into the wave and flip around and ride it back to shore like a real surfer,” Anya said, pointing to one of the boys down the beach doing just that.


“Yeah! Do that!” Annie squealed tugging on Spike’s arm.


Bloody Christ, Spike thought as he turned and watched the boy that Anya was pointing at.


Buffy caught Spike’s eye and cocked a brow at him. “You can do anythin’,” she said to him in a poor imitation of his accent.


“Fine!” Spike said, shaking his head quickly from side to side and curling one lip slightly in a confident smirk.


Spike walked closer to the boy that Anya had pointed out and paid attention to what he was doing and how he was doing it before turning back to his “groupies” with a confident look. “Fortune favors the brave,” he muttered to himself before taking a deep breath to steady himself.


Spike tossed the board into the surf, this time at an angle going out towards the waves rather than parallel to them, and ran after it. Jumping on as he had before and balancing himself, he rode the board into the deeper water and up onto the face of the first wave. When he pressed his back foot down and leaned his body over to make the board turn back towards shore, the board flew out from under him and he crashed down into the cold water.


Buffy burst out laughing, as did all his other “groupies” . . . even Annie had to laugh.


Spike retrieved the board and came back to shore with a determined look on his face. He glared at his friends who were still laughing and held up a finger at them indicating that he wasn’t done just yet.


“He who laughs last, laughs longest,” he muttered as he turned back towards the waves and took off again. This time, he nailed it! Going up the face of the wave and turning at just the perfect moment to ride it down and back to shore.


{{Wanna see what that looks like? Here ya’ go, click below:

YOUTUBE: Skimboard Wipeout and Nailed it . . .

}}


Spike swaggered back to the group with the board under his arm, his lips pursed together in victory. Everyone clapped and Annie jumped up and down yelling “YAY!” as he made his way back to them.


“Lesson’s over, kiddies,” he told them as he handed the board back to Buffy. “Better give the boy his board back.”


“I KNEW you could do it!” Annie exclaimed as she reached up to give him a hug.


“That’s my girl!” he said as he picked her up and returned the hug.


“You CAN do anything!” Annie concluded, wrapping her arms around his neck.


Spike laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, long as I got you to cheer me on, Niblett.”

Time line:
Currently: December 15th, 2003
Buffy's about 7 months pregnant.

History:
Annie turned four last February.
Buffy and Spike have been married four years.
Buffy turned 22 years old in January.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003 - about 7 months ago.

**~**

December 15th, 2003:


Buffy came in from Christmas shopping and set the bags she was carrying down on the couch in the great room. “Anybody home?” she called out to the empty room.


Tara walked in from the kitchen and answered her. “Yeah, we’re all home.”


“Where’s Spike? I need some help getting everything in and hidden before Annie sees it,” Buffy told her.


“He’s in the training room . . . he got some kinda package in the mail and took it in there,” Tara told her, waving her arm towards the closed door of the training room.


Buffy walked into the training room to find Spike staring intently at the TV in the room, the remote in his hands was pointed at the VCR above the TV and Buffy could hear the tape stop and start as he hit the “pause” and “play” buttons. Normally, they used this TV and VCR for training . . . they’d tape workouts and sparring matches and go over their form . . . but this didn’t sound like one of those tapes, this sounded like . . . porn or something.


“Whatcha watchin’?” Buffy asked as she walked up behind him.


Spike jumped. He had been concentrating on the TV and hadn’t heard or felt her come in. Spike hit the “play” button again, folded his arms across his chest and backed up so she could see the screen.


Buffy looked at the TV. A look of utter confusion on her face as her mouth dropped open. “W-what’s that?” she asked, looking from the TV to Spike.


“You tell me,” he answered curtly. “You seem to have the starin’ role . . . along with Angel.”


“What?!” Buffy looked back at the screen. There was moaning and groaning coming from the pair who were obviously making love, but the picture was too dark and she couldn’t see who it was.


“What are you talking about?” she asked Spike, looking away from the TV and back to him.


Spike looked as angry as she’d ever seen him . . . with a tinge of hurt in his eyes as he watched the TV. He didn’t look at her, just stared at the image on the screen, pointed the remote at it and pressed the fast forward button. After a few moments, he hit the “pause” button.


“That . . .” he said, pointing to the TV, “. . . is you.”





Buffy looked back at the screen. It did look like her.


“And that . . .” Spike continued as he pressed the “play” button and the dark haired man in the video turned over to reveal a very unusual tattoo on his shoulder, “. . . is Angel.”


“Spike, that’s . . . that’s not true,” Buffy looked at the TV and then back to Spike. He’d obviously watched this many times to know just where to pause and play the tape.


Spike let it play until the woman in the tape let out a long primal scream as she came and the man called her name. “Yes! Buffy! God!”


Spike pursed his lips together and stared at Buffy, his eyes narrowed in anger. “That is you,” he repeated. “You were supposed to be in South America . . . guess you got back a little earlier than you said.”





“No . . . Spike . . . no . . . that’s . . . it’s a trick. You KNOW better!” Buffy pleaded with him as she looked from him to the TV screen. The date stamp in the corner of the video said July 31st, 2003 . . . during the time when she was in South America and Spike was in Canada.


“Do I, now?” Spike asked angrily as he stopped the tape and ejected it from the player.


“YES! You do!” Buffy insisted. “You can’t possibly believe that!” she said, waving her arm at the tape.


“It’s a trick . . . magic or . . . or something,” Buffy continued, reaching for the tape. Spike snatched it out of the VCR before she could reach it and started walking out of the room with it.


Buffy followed quickly behind him. “Let Willow and Tara look at it . . . they can tell if it’s magic!” Buffy pleaded as he strode out of the training room and into the great room.


“Like bloody hell am I lettin’ them see THIS!” Spike said, turning back towards her and waving the tape around in the air. “Me seeing you fucking Angel is bad enough.”


“Spike, please!” Buffy pleaded again as Spike turned and started walking towards the door.


Buffy caught up with him and grabbed his arm to stop him. Spike spun around towards her, his other hand clenched in a tight fist as he brought his arm up, poised to strike at her. “LET. GO,” he said through clenched teeth.


“You’re going to HIT me, now?” Buffy asked, narrowing her eyes at him and raising her chin in defiance. She couldn’t remember him ever hitting her in anger . . . not like this . . . not just for anger’s sake. “Over this . . . this craziness?”


“LET. GO,” Spike repeated, his jaw clenched, every tendon in his neck standing out taught against his skin.


Buffy released his arm as tears stung her eyes. “It’s a trick,” she said again, softly.





Spike turned and headed out the door, the only sound in the room seemed to be his boots as he stomped heavily across the floor.


“Where are you going?” Buffy called after him.


“OUT. Don’t wait up,” he called coldly over his shoulder as he went out the door towards the garage.


Buffy heard the Harley rumble to life and then roar out of the garage. She could still hear it for a long time as it roared down the street and carried him away.


Buffy dropped down heavily in the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands as tears of frustration and anger and hurt flowed from her eyes. How could he believe that? How could he believe that I would ever cheat on him . . . and with Angel of all people? Haven’t I shown him and told him over and over again how much I love him?





“Buffy, what’s wrong?” Tara asked, walking up to Buffy and laying a hand on her shoulder.


Buffy looked sadly up at Tara, her face wet with tears. “Get Willow and Annie,” she told Tara. “We need to go to L.A. . . . right now.”


**~**


Spike paced back and forth across the lobby of the Hyperion. Not a bloody one of Angel’s people were in the place to tell him where Angel was or when he’d be back. So, Spike waited, growing angrier and angrier with each passing minute as he replayed the tape in his mind.


He didn’t know how Angel did it . . . a thrall or a spell maybe, but he was very sure that it was Buffy and Angel on the tape. Angel had pushed him too far this time. Today, Angel would find out what it felt like to be dust . . . right after he felt every bone in his body breaking and every bit of his guts being ripped out . . .


“Spike, what’s up?” Angel called as he came in the door with Gunn, Cordelia, Fred and Lorne trailing behind him.


Spike was in game face and on him in a moment, pinning him down on the ground and pummeling Angel’s face with his fists.





“YOU BLOODY WANKER! You’ve gone too fucking far this time!” he screamed at Angel as he continued to rain his fists down on his face. Angel, caught off guard by the attack, tried to defend himself by putting his arms over his face. Spike just changed tactics and grabbed him by his ears and starting banging the back of Angel’s head against the hard marble floor of the lobby.


Angel’s arms dropped away from his face as he lost consciousness. Spike pulled the video tape from his duster pocket and began shoving it into Angel’s mouth. The hard plastic broke into a hundred pieces, cutting Angel’s mouth as well as Spike’s hands, and the tape became tangled and cut into small pieces as Spike shoved harder and harder in an attempt to make Angel eat the vile thing.


“You want ‘er? Here ya go! ‘Ave ‘er! You bloody son of a fucking bitch!” Spike screamed at him, still shoving the pieces into Angel’s mouth and down his throat.


Gunn, who had finally recovered from the shock of the unprovoked attack, kicked Spike in the ribs and off Angel. As Spike scrambled back to his feet, Gunn stepped between Spike and Angel, who was still lying semi-conscious on the floor.


“What the fuck is your problem?!” Gunn screamed at Spike as he blocked him from getting back to Angel. Spike grabbed Gunn by the shoulders and tossed him out of his way like a rag doll . . . his anger pumping adrenaline through his body and making him even stronger than normal.


Spike stood over Angel the second Gunn was out of his way and began kicking the fallen vampire in the ribs and stomping down hard on his arms with the heel of his boots. Each time his boot came down he heard a satisfying “crunch” as bones shattered under his strength.


Gunn recovered and tackled Spike, sending them both sprawling onto the floor as Angel moaned in agony. Spike punched Gunn in the jaw to get him off, but Gunn held on and drew a stake out of a pocket at the side of his pants leg and pressed it against Spike’s chest.


“STOP THIS NOW!” Gunn screamed at him, pressing the stake harder against Spike’s chest. Spike let out a cold, sinister laugh before putting his hand atop Gunn’s on the stake and pressing down hard. The stake pierced Spike’s rib cage and down into his heart. Spike just continued to laugh as Gunn’s eyes went wide with fear and confusion. Spike kicked Gunn over his head and off him before standing up and pulling the stake out of his chest. The wound healed as quickly as the stake was out of him; the Gem of Amarra protecting him, as he knew it would.


Cordelia and Fred had retrieved crossbows from the weapons cabinet while Spike was fighting with Gunn and stood over Angel now. Lorne moved around the group and went to help get Gunn back up.


“I got no quarrel with you lot,” Spike said calmly, game face still on, as he sauntered slowly back towards Angel with the stake still in his hand. “Peaches and me . . . we need to come to a little understandin’ is all.”


“Spike . . . we don’t want to hurt you, but we will,” Cordelia informed him, her finger on the trigger of the crossbow.





Spike stopped and smiled at her as he held his hands out wide. “Take your best shot, luv,” he said. When nothing happened, he continued, “C’mon now . . . better take it while you can, ‘fore you have to sweep your precious Angel up with the Hoover.”


Fred fired an arrow into Spike’s upper thigh and he smiled as he pulled it out, dropping it to the floor. “Didn’ anyone teach you were the heart is, luv? That may be the path to it down there . . . but that don’ count with crossbows.”


Cordelia fired directly into Spike’s chest, a perfect hit on his heart, and Spike laughed as he pulled it out and dropped it to the floor with the other one.


“What the fuck?!” Cordelia exclaimed as she loaded another arrow into her weapon.


“STOP!!” came a new voice from the doorway and everyone looked up to see Buffy moving quickly towards the group.


“This ain’t your fight, luv – it’s mine!” Spike yelled at her. “Go the fuck home!”


Buffy took in the scene quickly . . . Angel was writhing in pain on the floor, the video tape strewn in pieces around him as he clutched at his ribs with apparently broken arms; Fred and Cordy were standing over Angel, crossbows at the ready and trained on Spike, and Lorne was trying to get Gunn to his feet behind her husband. Spike, she saw, had a stake in his hand and two arrows at his feet.


Buffy stormed up to Spike and pushed him hard in the chest, backing him up away from Angel and his people. “You stubborn son of a bitch!” she screamed at him as she pushed him again until his back was against the counter at the back of the lobby.


“You had to go off half-cocked instead of getting some real answers, didn’t you?” Buffy continued to yell at him as Cordy and Fred laid their weapons down and helped Angel sit up and get the pieces of video tape out of his mouth and throat.


“I’m fully ‘cocked’, luv,” Spike informed her as she stood in front of him. “Just ask Angel.”


“Can I know what I’m getting beat up for this time?” Angel asked, still in a daze. Fred and Cordy had gotten him sitting up and leaning against the wall on the other side of the lobby.


“SHUT UP!” Buffy and Spike both said in one voice as they turned briefly towards him and then back to face each other.


“That tape is a fucking lie!” Buffy continued addressing Spike.


“You don’ know anythin’!”


Buffy looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Don’t I!? I’m pretty certain I’d remember THAT, Spike!”


“Not if he did a spell or a thrall on you!” Spike pointed out.


“I don’t do thralls . . .” Angel protested weakly.


“SHUT UP!” came from Buffy and Spike again as one voice directed towards Angel.


“Angel doesn’t do thralls,” Buffy pointed out to Spike.





“Angel can do thralls if he wanted to take the time to learn . . . he’s a bloody vampire, isn’t he? And he can get witches to do spells . . . have you forgotten his little soul losing adventure?” Spike countered. “Why are you defending ‘im after all he’s done?!”


“Why are you attacking him after all he’s done?” Buffy countered as she placed her hands on her hips and stood toe to toe with her husband.


“Can someone tell me what I’ve done, now?” Angel asked again.


“SHUT UP!” again came from Buffy and Spike.


“You can’t see the truth of him through those rose colored glasses, Slayer!” Spike told her. “Everything he’s done, he’s done to hurt us and this is no different.”


“Yeah? Well, maybe you can’t see the truth of him through your . . . whatever the opposite of rose colored is . . . glasses, Spike. Not everything he’s done has hurt us . . . he’s helped us more than hurt,” Buffy countered.


“He tried to rape you!” Spike reminded her.


“He helped you rescue me from The First,” Buffy reminded him.


“He got his own soddin’ soul removed – and mine along with it!” Spike continued.


“He kept me from dusting you – more than once – when I was triggered!” Buffy countered.


“He let you wear that soddin’ Amulet in the Hellmouth,” Spike pointed out.


“Which, we both know, would’ve worked and closed the Hellmouth for good,” Buffy shot back.


“And taken you away from me and right to him when you burned up!” Spike countered again.


"And my free will would've brought me back to you!" Buffy retorted.


Buffy and Spike stood silently for a few moments, staring each other down, as Angel’s crew did what they could to try and bandage Angel’s wounds and set the breaks in his arms.


“Look into my heart, Spike . . . you know this isn’t true,” Buffy said to him softly. “Let Willow and Tara look at the tape.”


Spike glared at her for several long moments before he dropped his game face and gave her a small nod. He tucked the stake into the waist of his jeans at his back; his chance to dust Angel was past . . . for the moment.


Buffy went and got Willow, Tara and Annie from where they were waiting outside and brought them in. Lorne took Annie out for some ice cream while the adults examined the tape. Everyone picked up as many of the pieces of the tape case as they could find, as well as the tape itself and put them on the counter. Willow slowly ran her hand over the debris to try and pick up any trace that magic may have been used on the tape. When she was done, she looked up at Buffy and shook her head slowly . . . she couldn’t pick up any sign that magic had been used on the tape itself.


“HA!” Spike said in victory. “I told you!”


Buffy glared at him. “That doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t change that what’s on that tape is a lie.”


“Can I know what’s on the tape?” Angel asked from where he now sat on the sofa at the side of the room.


“SHUT UP!” again came from Buffy and Spike.


“Can you make the tape play again, Willow?” Buffy asked her friend.


Willow looked at the mess that used to be the videotape, made a face, and shook her head “no”.


“I might be able to,” Fred offered, looking at Buffy for permission to try.





Buffy nodded and Fred began gathering the largest pieces of tape up. “It’ll take a while to splice it all back together . . . and it won’t be in order . . . ‘cause . . . well . . .” she said as she held up all the pieces in explanation.


“OI! Now you’re gonna let the whole soddin’ world see it?” Spike protested, waving his arm towards Fred.



“You brought it here . . . don’t bitch to me!” Buffy told him as she grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Fred and the tape – afraid that he might try to rip it into even smaller pieces – and shoved him down on the round seat in the center of the lobby to wait.


**~**


“Ok, I’ve got it the best I can,” Fred announced a good while later as she wheeled a cart out with a TV and tape player on it.


Spike, Buffy, Willow and Tara joined her near the lobby counter where she plugged in the equipment. Angel, Cordelia and Gunn came out of Angel’s office to join them but Spike stepped in front of them and stood firm. “Six is a crowd,” he said evenly as he tilted his head indicating they could just wait elsewhere . . . out of viewing range of the video.


Fred handed the remote to Willow and said, “Actually, I think five is a crowd for this . . .” as she joined the rest of Angel’s crew at the round seat in the center of the lobby.


Willow started the tape and was immediately met with someone who sounded like Angel calling Buffy’s name . . . obviously in the heat of passion . . . even though the picture was too dark to see what was going on.


“Oh, Goddess,” Willow said, turning down the volume.


“What the hell was that!?” Angel asked, walking back towards Spike and the others.


“As if you didn’t bloody well know!” Spike said, stepping forward and stopping him from advancing.


“Angel, please go sit down,” Buffy said to him, as she grabbed Spike’s arm and pulled him back to the TV. Angel gave Spike a death glare – which Spike returned, but they both did as Buffy asked. Willow played the spliced tape a few times as she, Tara, Buffy and Spike watched and Angel and his crew waited.


Buffy kept trying to watch for a frame that would show the stomach of the Buffy in the tape . . . who she was sure was NOT her. If she could just get a glimpse of her stomach, she could show Spike that it wasn't her. She was pregnant then . . . not far along, not huge . . . but enough to see a little bulge. But there just was never any clear view of that part of her, or that Buffy's, anatomy.


“This is a bloody waste of time, Slayer,” Spike informed her. Each time the tape played Spike got angrier and angrier and he’d had about all of this that he could stand. It wasn’t bad enough that he’d seen it, but now Red and Glinda, not to mention Fred, had these images in their brains, too; images of Buffy with Angel.


“You think Angel’s so fucking innocent . . . fine! But I ain’t watching another soddin’ minute of this! Face it. It’s real! It’s you and it’s him and it’s real. Do what you want . . . I’m gone,” Spike told them as he pointed a finger first at the TV, then at Buffy and finally at Angel as he spoke.





“Spike!” Buffy called as he turned and stormed towards the door, glaring at Angel as he walked past with his duster billowing behind him as he moved across the lobby of the hotel.


“Fuck,” she said tiredly as she watched Spike leave the hotel and heard his motorcycle start up out on the street. Buffy rubbed her weary eyes . . . maybe Spike was right. Maybe Angel had done a spell or a thrall on her . . . but she was so sure that she would know . . . somehow, she would know if that had happened.


Buffy looked up at the TV again, which was still playing and suddenly exclaimed, “STOP!”


“Look!! Look at her chest!” Buffy said, pressing her finger against the TV. “Can you zoom in on that?” Buffy asked, looking hopefully at Willow.


“This isn’t CSI, Buffy . . . it plays and it pauses . . . it doesn’t zoom in,” Willow informed her.


“Fine. Look at her chest!” Buffy insisted.


Willow and Tara looked at what Buffy was pointing at but didn’t see anything unusual . . . well, unless you count Buffy naked and having sex with Angel unusual.


“That’s. Not. Me,” she said triumphantly.


Willow and Tara looked at her with confusion. Buffy tugged the collar of her shirt down to show the scar on her chest from when she’d worn the Amulet in the Hellmouth, and pointed back to the screen. “No scar,” she told them. “That’s not me.”


“Can I see?” Angel asked hopefully from the round settee in the center of the lobby.


“NO!” came as one voice from Buffy, Willow and Tara.

Time Line Spans:
December 24th, 2003 - December 28th, 2003

Buffy's about 7-8 months pregnant; due in February 2004
Spike stormed out of the Hyperion on December 15th after Buffy stopped his attack on Angel


History:
Annie turned four last February.
Buffy and Spike have been married four years.
Buffy turned 22 years old in January.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003.

**~**


December 24th, 2003:




Buffy and Annie laid together on the couch in the great room watching the lights of the Christmas tree dance and sparkle off the tinsel, ornaments and the presents under it, but neither of them was very excited about the prospect of celebrating Christmas without Spike. After leaving the Hyperion ten days ago, Spike hadn’t returned to the mansion or called or even contacted Buffy through their bond. When she tried to contact him, he had her shut out, so she couldn’t tell where he was or what he was doing. She hadn’t even been able to tell him that the Buffy in the tape with Angel wasn’t her.


In her mind, the tape was obviously of a Buffy from some ‘bizarro-world’ dimension where she was with Angel instead of Spike. How it had gotten here, and who delivered it to Spike, was a complete mystery. Of course, Spike would say that Angel had done it to drive a wedge between them. Buffy had questioned Angel at length about it after Spike stormed out, and Angel swore that he knew nothing about the tape – he didn’t send it; he didn’t make it; he knew nothing about it . . . but maybe if he could look at it, he could figure out where it came from. That, of course, was a ‘world of NO’.


Buffy didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but there were plenty of other suspects in Buffy’s mind. The Watcher’s Council led the pack as far as she was concerned . . . even though she quit them, that didn’t mean they quit her – and they never approved of her being with Spike . . . soul or no soul – he was still a vampire in their eyes – no different than any other vampire. There were also any number of enemies . . . known and unknown that would want Buffy and Spike separated – they were much stronger together . . . much easier to defeat apart.


Willow had done numerous locator spells looking for Spike, but none had worked. She’d done it so often that she just left the map and supplies out on the research table now all the time. Buffy wondered what good locator spells were when they could be so easily foiled with amulets from the magic shop . . . but they did work sometimes and she didn’t know anything else to try. Spike could be anywhere in the entire world at this point and Buffy had no idea how to find him.


Annie also knew that something bad was going on, but the adults wouldn’t tell her exactly what. They told her that Spike was on a mission and would be back soon, but Annie knew that locator spells weren’t done for people that were just on a mission . . . she’d seen them too many times in her young life. She also knew that even when her father was on a mission, he would call her every night, if at all possible, and certainly it never went longer than two or three days between calls – he hadn’t called her at all for ten days now. She had counted them.


“Doesn’t Papa love us anymore?” Annie asked sadly as she lay with Buffy on the couch.


Tears stung Buffy’s eyes and she closed them tightly to hold the flood back. “Of course he does, sweet girl. He loves you more than anything,” Buffy told her, squeezing her daughter tighter against her side.


“Why doesn’t he call us?” Annie asked.


Buffy sighed heavily. She wished she knew the answer to that.


Buffy’s mind drifted back to the long days when Spike had disappeared before, when Angel first returned from the hell dimension and Spike misunderstood her intentions when she told Angel that she forgave him and would always love him.


Buffy knew, despite his outward bravado, Spike still had a poet’s heart, William’s heart, and was easily hurt. But he wasn’t a quitter. She remembered how angry he was when he thought she had given up on him, on them, when she went down into the Hellmouth alone to fight The First. She felt sure that, no matter how broken-hearted he may be, he wouldn’t simply run out on them now. Now he would fight for her, and for Annie, if he thought anyone, most especially Angel, was going to take his family away from him.


There were a thousand possibilities to explain Spike not calling Annie or coming home – none of them good – and they’d all weighed heavily on Buffy’s mind. She prayed that the Gem of Amarra would protect him from harm . . . but she could find no explanation for him not at least calling Annie other than serious harm befalling him.


“Mama?” Annie prodded her.


“I don’t know, baby . . . he’s probably just really busy with the mission and can’t find a phone. You know, like the time I was in South America . . . I couldn’t always find a phone, remember? But never doubt that he loves you, because he does – with all his heart.”


“Can we wait until he gets back to open the presents?” Annie asked as she hugged tighter to Buffy’s side.


“Sure, baby . . . that would be fine. We’ll just have Christmas when Papa gets back.”


**~**


Sunday, December 28th, 2003:


“What about Wolfram & Hart?” Buffy asked looking around the lobby at Angel and his crew.


“Buffy, you really don’t want to get in bed with them,” Angel told her. His injuries from the beating he took from Spike over ten days ago had all pretty much healed, although he still had some pain in his forearms where Spike had shattered the bones.


Buffy had driven up to L.A. with Annie so she could try and find some clue as to where Spike was. She didn’t know what else to do and she was tired of sitting around waiting for Spike to come home or a locator spell to work. Lorne had taken Annie out for ice cream again while Buffy spoke with Angel and his people about how to find Spike. She’d already talked to the Scoobies and Giles until they were all weary of hearing her talk about it, especially since they didn’t have any answers for her – so, she decided to try Angel’s gang to see if they could come up with anything new.


“But they have resources we don’t have,” Buffy argued. “You’ve worked with them before.”


“I worked with Lindsey before – there’s a big difference. Lindsey had a small shred of decency left in his soul . . . the rest of them don’t,” Angel told her. “You’ll owe them for the rest of your life if they help you. If you don’t believe me, ask Lindsey.”


“What about that Morgan woman? She seemed all keen to help you before,” Buffy prodded him.


Angel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m still waitin’ on them to call in the marker on that. Buffy, I’m tellin’ you, help from Wolfram & Hart is not an option.”


“What about you, Cordelia? Can’t you get a vision or something?” Buffy asked, looking at the brunette.





“It doesn’t work that way, Buffy,” Cordy informed her. “They show up when the PTB decide, not me.”


Buffy sighed. They didn’t have any new ideas on how to find Spike, either.


“Can’t you feel him? Your bond should be stronger than mine,” Buffy asked Angel – it was a long shot, she knew.


“Buffy, I didn’t turn Spike . . . if Dru was here, maybe she could find him, but, believe me, your bond is much stronger than mine with Spike,” Angel told her.


Buffy nodded slowly and rubbed at her eyes. She was so tired, she hadn’t been sleeping and she was worried about Spike and about Annie – she missed her father so much. It wasn’t like Spike to not call Annie . . . where could he possibly be that would stop him from at least calling his daughter?


**~**


Buffy looked at the clock on the wall . . . six in the evening – the sun had been down an hour already. The meeting with Angel’s crew had broken up a while ago and Lorne and Annie still hadn’t returned. How far away is that ice cream shop, anyway? Buffy got up off the seat in the center of the lobby and walked into Angel’s office where he was reading a book.


“Where is that ice cream shop? I’ll just go get her so we can get going,” Buffy said to him.


Angel told her where he thought Lorne and Annie had gone and Buffy headed out on foot from the hotel, following Angel’s directions. Angel offered to go with her, but Buffy assured him that she could find it . . . he didn’t have to come.


At the ice cream shop Buffy asked the clerk if he had seen Annie and Lorne. Lorne was just slightly unforgettable, being tall and green and dressed like a Las Vegas circus act. The clerk told Buffy he had seen them, but that had been over two hours ago.


Buffy went back out to the sidewalk and looked around. She didn’t see any other shops or playgrounds or anything that would’ve been of interest to Annie, but that didn’t mean Lorne didn’t know of one and took her someplace else. She decided to just head back to the Hyperion . . . they were probably there waiting for her, anyway.


When she walked into the hotel lobby, Angel came out of his office. “Did you find it alright?” he asked her.


“Yeah, but they had left a long time ago,” Buffy told him. “They aren’t back yet?”


Angel shook his head.


“Where else would they go?” Buffy asked him. She was starting to get a bad feeling . . . a bad ‘Mom’ feeling and she felt her stomach tighten slightly with worry.


“I’m sure they’re fine, Buffy,” Angel told her when he heard her heart rate increase. “Lorne probably took her shopping or something . . . he’s kind of a fashionista.”


Buffy rolled her eyes . . . that was an understatement! “Does he have a cell phone?”


“Oh, yeah! I always forget about those stupid things. Mine never works right. Those things were definitely cooked up by a bored warlock,” Angel said, heading back into his office to get the number.


Buffy and Angel both tried calling Lorne’s cell phone, but got no answer after several attempts. “Maybe his isn’t working right, either,” Angel offered as Buffy’s stomach tightened further.


“Can you track them?” Buffy asked Angel.


“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go.”


Angel tracked Lorne and Annie to the ice cream shop and then down the street past it and around the corner to a children’s clothing store. The clerk said she did remember them. They had purchased a couple of darling dresses that were on the half-off sale rack, but that had been a couple of hours ago, now.


Angel continued tracking them down the block towards a toy store when he suddenly stopped. Buffy nearly walked into his back and had to put her hand out to keep from bumping into him face first.


“What?” she asked, stepping to the side and up next to him.


“It stops here,” Angel said, looking around.


“It stops here? There’s nothing here . . . try again!” Buffy told him.


“Buffy . . . it stops here . . . they must have . . . gotten into a car or something,” Angel offered.


“A CAR? What the fuck?! I thought you said Lorne was okay!” Buffy accused.


“Lorne is OK, Buffy . . . he’s not gonna hurt Annie!” Angel defended.


“Then where the fuck are they!?” Buffy asked, her stomach now officially doing flip flops and tightening into an ever larger knot of worry and frustration as she looked up and down the street for any sign of her daughter or the green demon.


“I don’t know,” Angel said as worry creased his features as well.


Suddenly, Angel’s cell phone started ringing. He pulled it out and looked at the caller id, it was Lorne. “Lorne! Where are you!?” Angel said without preamble.


“What? Who is this?” Angel asked with a furrowed brow, putting a hand over his other ear to listen more intently. As Buffy watched and listened to him speak on the phone, her heart rate increased . . . this was bad . . . this was very bad. Not only was her “Mom” voice yelling at her that this was bad, but her Slayer voice was, too.


“Hello? Hello?” Angel said into the phone before pulling it away to look at the screen . . . “call ended” it said. “Fuck!”


“What!! What the fuck’s going on!?” Buffy asked, pulling the phone from his hand and looking at it, as if it would give her the answer.


“They’ve been kidnapped,” Angel told her, laying a hand on her shoulder.


“WHAT! What do you mean ‘kidnapped’!? By who? What do they want? Where’s Annie?! Is she alright?!” Buffy asked looking at him with wide eyes and waiting for answers.


“They want the Gem of Amarra,” Angel told her.


“Oh my God,” Buffy said as tears stung her eyes. “Spike has it . . . Spike . . .”


“Yeah, we kinda figured that out when a stake through the heart did nothing more than tickle his funny bone . . .” Angel told her.


“We have to get Annie back! We have to find him!” Buffy looked at Angel with wide eyes.


“And fast . . . they want it by Wednesday . . . three days . . . or they’ll kill Lorne first, then Annie . . .” Angel repeated what the kidnapper told him on the phone.


“Oh, God,” Buffy’s knees gave way and she would’ve collapsed on the sidewalk if not for Angel catching her first.


“We’ll find Spike, Buffy . . . I promise . . . nothing will happen to Annie,” Angel told her as he pulled her to him, holding her in a hug as she buried her face against his chest and just said, “Oh God,” over and over again.





**~**

The first thing Buffy did when she and Angel got back to the Hyperion was call Willow and tell her what was going on and ask her to do whatever extra she could do to find either Spike, Annie or Lorne.


Then, she called Lindsey at the Coven’s safe house in Canada and asked him to have the witches there work on finding the three missing people, also. She then asked him to set up a meeting for first thing in the morning with Lilah Morgan at Wolfram & Hart. He agreed, but warned her about getting help from them.





“You’ll owe them for the rest of your life . . . even beyond that, Buffy,” he’d said.


“It doesn’t matter; I have to get Annie back. If it takes getting in bed with the devil himself, I will,” she told him.


“Buffy, the devil works for them,” Lindsey warned her.


“It doesn’t matter,” Buffy repeated before hanging up.


**~**





“This is a waste of time, Angel,” Buffy protested later that night as he handed her a pen and a clipboard with a blank “Missing Person” form on it.


“Just humor me,” he told her as he scanned the police station for a familiar face. Since everything magical had been a bust, Angel thought perhaps some old fashioned gum-shoe police work might be the way to find Spike.


“He could be anywhere in the world,” Buffy continued to protest as she started filling out the form.


“Which means he could be right here in L.A. . . . L.A. is still part of world, more or less,” Angel countered as he spotted the familiar blond that he was searching for sitting at a desk in the detective’s section of the station.


“C’mon . . .” he said to Buffy as he started walking back towards Detective Lockley’s desk.


Buffy trailed behind him, still filling in the form as she walked with Spike’s name, date of birth (well, not his actual date of birth, but the one on his license), address, last seen location, when he went missing, vehicle information . . . and on and on it went.


Angel stopped in front of the detective’s desk and waited for her to look up and acknowledge him.


“Angel, I thought we had an agreement . . . you leave me alone and I leave you alone,” the detective said without looking up.


“Well, this isn’t actually for me,” Angel explained, pulling Buffy up next to him. “Kate Lockley, this is Buffy Summers-Weckerly. Buffy needs your help.”


Kate looked up at the young woman who was busily filling out a form on the clipboard in her hand and then over to Angel. “And your interest in this is?” Kate asked Angel.


“Purely a friend of the family,” Angel assured her. “Buffy’s husband is missing and she really needs to find him quickly. I thought you could . . . you know, expedite an APB or something on him.”


“We don’t normally put out APB’s on missing adults,” Kate told him. “They have the right to be missing . . . it is a free country.”





Buffy looked up from the form which she’d finally finished filling out. Pulling it off the clipboard she handed it to the detective. “I really need to find him. It’s a matter of life and death . . . literally,” Buffy told Kate, her eyes imploring the other woman to help her. Buffy hoped that, if the detective knew Angel, she would know that when she said that it was a matter of life and death that the other woman would know it wasn't an exaggeration.


Kate looked intently at Buffy for a few moments, and then down at the form, before she started typing on her computer.


“What have you tried doing to find him?” Kate asked them.


“Everything . . .” Angel answered her.


“Does he have credit cards?” Kate asked.


“No, he doesn’t like them . . . he uses cash,” Buffy told her.


“Has he taken any cash out of the bank since he went missing?” Kate asked.


“Not since the first night . . . he took three hundred out not far from Angel’s . . . not far from where we last saw him,” Buffy told her.


“Cell phone?” Kate asked.


“Yeah, but he’s not answering it,” Buffy said.


“Is it turned on?” Kate stopped typing and looked up at Buffy.


Buffy shrugged. “I guess . . . it rings like four times before going to voice mail . . . of course, voice mail is full now . . . he’s not retrieving the messages.”


“If it’s turned on and he’s in town, we can ping it and get a general location for him,” Kate informed them. “What’s the number?”


Buffy gave Kate the number and Kate told them that it will take a while to do. They should just go home and she’d call them when she had any information. In the meantime, she’d report Spike’s Harley as stolen, so it would go on the alert system for the whole city tonight and across the wire to the whole country in the morning.


Buffy and Angel agreed and they left the police station and went back to the Hyperion. At least it was something . . . a small thread of hope to cling onto in an otherwise hopeless situation.


**~**


Buffy lay in the bed of one of the rooms at the Hyperion trying desperately to go to sleep. Apprehension and fright about her kidnapped daughter, added on top of the worry she already had about her missing husband, made sleep impossible. Her mind raced with thoughts of where Annie was, what may be happening to her, how scared she must be. She hoped she wasn’t cold . . . Annie hadn’t had a coat on when she left with Lorne earlier, but now it was chilly outside. Did the kidnappers feed her? Was she tied up and gagged? Had they hurt her? God, please . . . please, PLEASE don’t let them hurt her, Buffy prayed silently as she squeezed her eyes shut trying to stop the tears.


SPIKE!!! SPIKE!!! Where the fuck are you!? ANNIE NEEDS YOU! Buffy screamed mentally to him and waited . . . but she got no response from her husband.


“Spike, please . . .” Buffy said aloud as she turned over again in the bed and hugged a pillow to her chest. “Please come home. Annie needs you,” Buffy whispered to no one as her tears fell on the pillow and sobs wracked her body.

Time line:
Currently: Monday, December 29th, 2003
Buffy's about 7 months pregnant; due in February 2004

History:
Annie and Lorne were kidnapped on Sunday, December 28th (previous day).
Spike stormed out of the Hyperion on December 15th after Buffy stopped his attack on Angel

Annie turned four last February.
Buffy and Spike have been married four years.
Buffy turned 22 years old in January.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003.

**~**

Monday, December 29th, 2003:


6:00am:




Detective Lockley called very early the next morning and told Angel that they had no luck locating Spike’s cell phone. Either he wasn’t in the city or he had it turned off. She had sent the report of Spike’s Harley being stolen out across the nationwide wire. If she heard anything back on it, she’d call him, but there was little else she could do. Angel thanked her and hung up; he didn’t relish the thought of having to tell Buffy the bad news.


7:00am:


Buffy walked into Angel’s office about an hour later and plopped down in one of the chairs. She’d finally managed to get some sleep, but her dreams were filled with nightmares about what might be happening to Annie and Spike, so she woke feeling even worse than she did before she fell asleep. She prayed that the dreams were just that, dreams, and not Slayer dreams . . . not portents of the future . . . or the present, for her family.


Angel told her about the phone call from Kate and Buffy simply nodded as she felt that last thread unravel and slip from her grasp. She had no more tears to shed, so she simply closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall behind her with a heavy sigh when he’d finished speaking.


“How did they even know about the Gem?” Buffy wondered aloud after a few minutes of silence. “Why did they think you could get it for them?”


Angel had wondered that same thing last night, but it soon dawned on him how someone might know. “Lorne and Gunn might have spun a few yarns at Caritas about a vampire that wouldn’t go down . . .” Angel informed her. “Anybody that heard them could’ve figured it out, if they had any knowledge of vampire lore. Spike's name might have been mentioned once or twice . . .”


Buffy blew out a long breath. Any number of humans, demons, or vampires could’ve overheard them in the club, and if they each told two people and they each told two people and they each told two people . . . the possibilities were limitless . . . it was a math test from hell. "X" to the power of “n” and you have no idea what “n” OR "x" is. Buffy hated math.


7:30am:


As Buffy stood up to leave Angel's office, the tears that she thought couldn't possibly exist began to fall from her eyes again. Angel came around the desk and took her in a hug as she cried on his shoulder.





"It'll be OK, Buffy . . . we'll figure something out to get Annie back," he told her, but she had no idea how anything was going to be OK. She'd lost Annie and Spike and felt utterly powerless . . . something she wasn't used to feeling . . . to get them back.


When Buffy had re-composed herself she went back up to her room to shower and get ready for her 9:00am meeting with Lilah Morgan. It was her last hope, making a deal with the devil for the life of her child. She didn't know what the cost would be, but it didn't matter - she would give anything to get Annie back.


8:30am:


As Buffy was getting into her car, Gunn came running up and stopped her. Detective Lockley just called with news . . . they found Spike’s Harley.





“Where is it?” Buffy asked Angel when she got back in his office.


“‘No Name’, Arizona,” he told her.


Buffy looked at him with a furrowed brow. “How am I supposed to find a town with no name . . . in Arizona?”


Angel sighed. “It has a name, Buffy. The name is ‘No Name’,” Angel explained.


“That’s a stupid name,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes. “Is Spike there, too?” she asked hopefully.


“She doesn’t know yet. Apparently the honorary police officer went fishing this morning after he responded to the stolen vehicle report,” Angel informed her.


“The honorary police officer,” she repeated slowly. “There’s one . . . and he’s honorary?” Buffy asked, unable to believe that was even possible.


Angel shrugged. “It’s about a six hour drive. We better get going. You can call Lilah on the way and cancel your meeting.”


“I think I’ll just postpone it . . . just in case,” Buffy offered as she turned and they both walked out of the hotel and down to the underground parking to get Angel’s car.


**~**


Buffy had no problems navigating to No Name, Arizona as Angel drove. The Necro-tempered glass in Angel’s car was sooo much better than the black paint that Spike had kept on the windows of the Desoto. Of course, that was before they'd retrieved the Gem of Amarra. At this point, she would’ve given anything to be navigating for Spike, trying to look through painted windows, missing the road signs and having him look at her like she was ‘daft’ when she told him to turn the car around. She wished they’d never heard of the Gem of Amarra. Buffy sighed . . . wishes and horses.


Buffy’s stomach was still in knots as they made their way through the desert. She hoped that the kidnappers had left Lorne and Annie together . . . at least Annie would be with someone she knew that way and not all alone and maybe he could keep her from being too scared. The kidnappers hadn’t called back to say when or where they wanted to do the exchange or even let her or Angel speak with Annie or Lorne. And now, they were in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t even any cell phone reception, so if the kidnappers did call, they’d get voice mail. Perfect.


3:00pm:


Angel drove slowly down the main road of the ‘town’ . . . well, it appeared to be the only road in the town of No Name, Arizona. There were three bars, one pawn shop and a very small police station in the ‘town’, which was nothing more than a small group of buildings in the middle of nowhere. Where the people came from to frequent the bars was a mystery. Angel pulled up in front of the police station and cut the engine.


“I can’t go in,” he told Buffy, looking at the sun which was still high in the afternoon sky.


“It’s ok,” she assured him. “I can.”


Buffy got out of the car and went into the police station. She knew immediately that Spike was there somewhere – she could feel his presence tingle down her spine. Tears of relief stung her eyes and she blinked them back as she walked up to an old man, sitting behind an even older desk, reading a newspaper. There was a very old, heavy brass name plate on the desk in front of him that said “Chief of Police” on it. Buffy rolled her eyes as she walked up to the desk . . . he was honorary chief of himself, apparently.


“Hi,” Buffy started. “Ummm . . . I think you may have my husband here . . .William Weckerly?”


The man looked up from his paper slowly and looked Buffy up and down before answering her. “Yep,” he said simply and turned his attention back to the paper.


Buffy raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “Yep!? ‘Yep’, I can see him or ‘Yep’, I can take him home or ‘Yep’, he’s fucking dead and buried out back?”


“Got a mouth on ya’ doncha, missy? Just like him . . . keeps getting him more days added to his sentence,” the man told her, looking back up from his paper.


“His sentence for what?” Buffy asked.


“Well, let’s see . . . drunk and disorderly, public intoxication, assault and battery, resistin’ arrest with violence . . . oh, and now . . . possession of stolen property,” the man told her holding up the stolen vehicle report on the Harley.


Buffy lowered her head and rubbed her eyes before looking back at the man. “And how much of a sentence does all that add up to?” she asked.


“Well, it woulda just been ten days, but he keeps mouthin’ off ‘bout needin’ to make a phone call and cursin’ me out . . . so now, it’s up to thirty days . . . ‘course, that don’ count the stolen property charge,” the man informed her.


“First of all, don’t you need a judge to change a sentence? And second of all, don’t prisoners have the right to make phone calls? Isn’t that one of those, you know, Miranda thingies – like on Law and Order? Or don’t you have TV out here?” Buffy asked with disdain, her hands going to her hips.


“Offered to let him make all the phone calls he wanted . . . said he couldn’t do it in the daytime. I don’t work nights, missy,” the old man informed her as he reached out and turned the name plate on his desk over. The other side read: “Judge”.


“Handy,” Buffy commented, wondering silently if he turned it over again if it would say “Jury and Executioner” as well. Then, what he’d said about the phone calls sank in. Looking at him with a furrowed brow she asked, “Where is the phone, anyway?”


The man waved his arm towards the window. Buffy looked out . . . outside, in the middle of the sun, was a phone booth. That shouldn’t have been a problem though, with the Gem of Amarra. Oh, God! Don’t tell me he’s pawned the Gem of Amarra!


Buffy took several deep breaths to try and calm down. She gave the man the sweetest smile she could manage and said, “Look, isn’t there something we can work out here? I kinda need to get him home . . . he’s . . . he’s missing work and with the baby on the way, well we really need him working.”


“Wellll,” the man started. “I guess if you could come up with two hundred and fifty dollars to bail him out . . . we could just call it even on the drunk and disorderly . . .”


Buffy closed her eyes and sighed with relief. “Fine, that’s fine. I can do that.”


“You’ll have to have him back here for trial on the stolen property charge, though.”


Buffy nodded as she dug the money out of her purse. “Sure, no problem. Can I see him now?”


“Help yourself,” the man said waving his arm towards the door behind him. “Be a spell to get the paperwork done, anyways.”


Buffy stepped through the door to find two holding cells. Spike was sitting on the floor in one of them, his knees pulled up towards his chest with his arms and head resting on them.


Hearing the door open, he spoke without looking up. “Told you before, you bloody daft git, I can’t make a fucking phone call in the middle of the sodding day!”


“Talk like that will get another day added to your sentence,” Buffy said as she walked up to his cell.


“Buffy!” Spike exclaimed, jumping up. “Thank God! Get me the fuck outta here!”


Buffy rolled her eyes. “Spike, why didn’t you just tell me where you were? Why did you shut me out?! I’ve been looking for you for days! Annie’s been kidnapped and they want the Gem of Amarra in exchange . . . God, tell me you still have it!”


“WHAT?!” Spike exclaimed, moving up to the bars that separated them.





“The Gem of Amarra . . . do you still have it?” Buffy asked him.


“Barney Fife’s got it . . .” he said quickly, waving his arm at the door. “They took everythin’ when they tossed me in ‘ere.”


“Thank God.” Buffy sighed in relief.


“Who has Annie!? When? Where? Why didn’t you tell me, Buffy? Why did you shut me out!?” Spike asked her . . . each thought and question coming quickly on the heels of the last as he felt his stomach tighten in fear and anger over Buffy’s news that Annie had been kidnapped.


Buffy looked at him in confusion. “I didn’t shut you out! I’ve been trying to contact you since you left! You shut ME out!”


Spike shook his head. “I didn’t shut you out, luv . . .” he said slowly, reaching one hand through the bars to touch her face.


Buffy closed her eyes as his palm caressed her cheek and tears of relief slipped out the corners of her eyes. Everything would be okay now . . . Spike was back and together they’d get Annie back . . . it would be okay . . . it just had to be.





“Why, then . . . why couldn’t we communicate?” she asked softly after a few moments as she laid her hand atop his where he continued to caress her face.


Spike shook his head. “Don’ know,” Spike said sadly. He reached his other arm out through the bars and pulled Buffy to him, his arms encircling her as she leaned against the bars that had held him prisoner and kept him away from her and Annie.


A thousand thoughts and emotions ran through Spike’s mind at once as he held her.


Anger at himself for taking off and leaving Annie and Buffy alone . . . he was just going to go for a ride to cool off before going home, but he got here in the middle of nowhere and he was still fuming, so he decided to have a drink . . . which led to another drink and, nearly two hundred dollars worth of drinks later, he was completely broke, shit faced and ready to fight with anyone that looked at him sideways . . . which was anybody that looked at him at that point.


He woke up in jail with a pounding head and plenty of cuts and bruises from the bar brawl that, according to Barney Fife, he had started. It had only gotten worse from there when he couldn’t contact Buffy and couldn’t get the pillock to give him the ring back so he could make a phone call or let him make one at night. Spike had tried to escape, but, apparently, whoever built this jail went the extra mile . . . Fort Knox couldn’t have been more secure than this no name jail in the middle of nowhere that held him.


Whoever had Annie wanted the Gem of Amarra. Spike’s anger with himself grew stronger as he considered this . . . he’d been selfish to keep the ring. He knew someone was after it – after all, they’d killed the Magic Shop owner and stolen the ancient tome that held the key to finding it. Spike should’ve just gotten rid of the Gem . . . destroyed it or . . . or something. Now he’d put Annie in danger because of his own selfishness. If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.


Tears welled in the back of Spike’s eyes as he held Buffy through the bars of his cell, knowing that all the she and Annie were going through now was his fault. How could he have been so stupid?


“We’ll get ‘er back, Buffy,” Spike said softly. “I promise we’ll get her back. If I have to go straight into hell to get ‘er, I will,” and I’ll bloody well take whoever has her with me, Spike added silently as his anger turned outward at whoever it was that had dared touch his little girl.

Time Line:

Time Spans: Monday, December 29th, 2003 - Tuesday, December 30th, 2003

Buffy's about 7 months pregnant; due in February 2004

History:
Annie and Lorne were kidnapped on Sunday, December 28th.
Spike stormed out of the Hyperion on December 15th after Buffy stopped his attack on Angel.
Angel and Buffy found him on Monday, December 29th.

Annie turned four last February.
Buffy and Spike have been married four years.
Buffy turned 22 years old in January.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003.

**~**

Monday, December 29th, 2003:


4:00pm:


“Oh, you’ve got to be jokin’!” Spike exclaimed, throwing his arms out in exasperation and stopping short as they stepped outside the tiny police station about a half an hour later and he saw Angel waiting for them. Barney Fife had given Spike all his possessions back, including the Gem of Amarra, which was now back on his finger, protecting him from the afternoon sun. “You brought him?!”


“Spike, I didn’t bring him, he brought me,” Buffy told him. “He was the one that figured out how to find you, so you should just . . . just let it go.”


“Pffffttt!” Spike snorted. “Wouldn’ be in this mess if it weren’t for ‘im and that bloody tape!”


“Spike, please . . . we need to worry about Annie and not get distracted by smoke and mirrors,” Buffy told him as she walked ahead of him towards Angel’s car. She had explained to Spike while they waited for the Chief of Police/Judge/Jury/Executioner to fill out the paperwork for Spike’s release, that she could show him, prove to him, that it wasn’t her on the tape. He still remained unconvinced that it wasn’t Angel that sent it to him, though.


Buffy opened the door and looked back at him, holding it open and waiting for Spike to get in the car. He couldn’t take the Harley – it was “stolen property” at this point and had to stay here – at least until they could get Detective Lockley to straighten that out.


Spike sighed and dropped his chin to his chest, rubbing one hand on the back of his neck; Buffy was, of course, right. The important thing right now was to get Annie back. He could deal with Angel later. Spike pursed his lips together to keep from saying anything more, climbed into the back seat and Buffy joined him.


“Let’s get out of this one horse town before ‘Barney’ changes his mind,” she said to Angel from the back as she slid against Spike and laid her head on his shoulder with an exhausted sigh. Spike wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against him as he attempted to glare a hole in the back of Angel’s head with his eyes.


Angel started the car and headed back out of town the way they’d come. Not a word was exchanged between the two vampires the entire six hours of the trip back to L.A.


**~**


As soon as they had cell phone reception, Buffy checked both her phone and Angel’s for messages or missed calls. There were none. She didn’t know if that was bad or good. She hoped that the kidnappers would call . . . tell them when and where the exchange would take place and let her talk to Annie, but, on the other hand, she was glad they didn’t call and get voice mail . . . that might have been worse.


Then she called Willow and told her they had found Spike. Willow told her the locator spell for Annie and Lorne wasn’t working . . . obviously whoever took them was well aware of how magics worked and how to block them.


**~**


11:00pm:


It was late when Angel, Spike and Buffy got back to the Hyperion and it had been a very long day, but Spike insisted that Buffy show him where Annie had been kidnapped.


“Angel tracked them, Spike . . . there’s nothing there,” Buffy told him.


“Angel couldn’ track a bloody rhinoceros in the fucking zoo,” Spike informed her as he headed towards the door that led to the lobby of the Hyperion.


“Who do you think taught you to track, Spike? It wasn’t fucking Drusilla!” Angel retorted at Spike’s back as he strode away from him. “It’s been too long now anyway,” Angel informed him.


“PFFFTTT,” Spike snorted and just kept walking.


Buffy hurried after Spike and followed him into the lobby of the hotel. They both stopped short just inside the door. The large area seemed to be filled with people . . . with friends, with family.


Fred, Cordelia, Xander and Anya stood at the counter watching as Willow and Tara tried yet another different locator spell to try and find Annie and Lorne. At the round seat in the center of the lobby sat Faith, Wesley, Giles and Gunn. Buffy’s eyes filled with tears again as she realized that all her friends had come to help find Annie. Giles saw Spike and Buffy first and he stood up and moved quickly to where they had stopped just inside the door from the garage.


Giles drew Buffy into a hug and reached out and laid a hand on Spike's shoulder. “What can we do?” Giles asked them.





Buffy shook her head as she returned his hug, being careful not to squeeze him too tight. She wished she knew what to do. As soon as Giles released her, Faith was there and Buffy was pulled into a hug from her sister Slayer. Not the kind that Faith usually gave - quick and hard - but a strong, lingering hug meant to give strength to Buffy.


“What are you guys doing here?” Buffy asked Faith and Wesley when Faith released her. “I thought you were in Cleveland.”





“Tara called . . . we came,” Faith told her as she put a comforting hand on Spike’s shoulder.


“I’m not . . . I’m not working for the Council anymore . . .” Buffy told them.


Faith and Wesley both shook their heads. “This isn’t about that. This is family,” Faith told her. “We’re here to help. Tell us what to do."


Buffy wiped tears from her eyes and shook her head slowly. “I wish I knew what to do . . .”


“Well, I bloody well know one thing to do,” Spike said as he headed towards the front door of the hotel with Buffy, Faith and Angel following closely behind him.


When Spike was outside, he stopped and closed his eyes as he drew in a deep breath. He may not be able to track Lorne after this many hours, but he was sure he could track Annie; her scent was as ingrained in him as Buffy’s.


Angel walked up beside him and said, “I told you so.”


Spike opened his eyes and glared at his grand-sire before turning and walking in the direction of the ice cream shop, following Annie’s scent.


After the ice cream shop, he tracked them to the children’s clothing store and then further down the block towards the toy store. About half way there, he stopped abruptly, at the same spot that Angel had stopped. He walked around slowly, examining the sidewalk, the pavement, the parking meters . . . anything that Annie, Lorne or the kidnappers may have touched. A few feet away was a newspaper box, when he got to it he stopped again.


“Bloody hell,” he muttered as he leaned closer to the box. It’s the same vamp that killed the shopkeeper at the Magic Shop, he thought . . . the scent was unmistakable and still vaguely familiar to him. Spike closed his eyes to concentrate on matching the scent with a face.


“You never learn, Spike,” Angel said from behind him.


“I may be a slow learner . . . but eventually . . .” Spike opened his eyes and looked at Angel. “Say that again . . .” he said to Angel, his brows knit together as pieces of a puzzle began clicking into place in his mind.


“You never learn,” Angel repeated.


“You never learn, Spike,” Spike said to himself, repeating what Angel said originally. “I may be a slow learner, but eventually . . . I . . . catch . . . on . . .” Spike said slowly as he tried to pull a dreamy memory from the depths of his mind.


“I had a plan . . . A good plan. Smart. Carefully laid out. But I got bored . . .” Spike spoke quietly to himself as he turned back to the paper box and the scent there.



“Have you lost your mind, Spike? What are you talking about?” Angel asked as he moved closer to the blond vampire.


Buffy was looking at him with concern too. What is he talking about? What plan?


“Oh God!” Spike suddenly exclaimed as the last piece of the puzzle clicked to place in his mind.


“What! Spike, what is it?” Buffy asked as she moved up next to him trying to figure out what was going on.


Spike’s legs seemed to turn to rubber and he dropped to his knees on the sidewalk as he realized who it was that had taken Annie. “Marcus . . . it was Marcus!” Spike exclaimed as he looked up at Buffy with fear in his eyes.


Buffy shook her head. Spike was scaring her more than she already was, if that was at all possible. “Who’s Marcus?”


“Oh God!” Spike exclaimed again as his whole body seemed to collapse from within onto the sidewalk, as if every bone in his body had suddenly turned into jelly.


“SPIKE! Who’s Marcus!?” Buffy repeated, kneeling down beside him and turning him by the shoulders to face her.


Spike shook his head and closed his eyes, unable to look at Buffy.


“WHO THE FUCK IS MARCUS!?” Buffy screamed at him, shaking him by the shoulders until he opened his eyes again.


“He’s . . . he’s the most vile creature in the world . . . God Buffy . . . he’s a . . .” Spike broke down, he couldn’t even say the word. How could he tell his wife that their daughter had been kidnapped by a pedophile? And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he was also the coldest creature Spike had ever met. Torturing his victims, young or old, was what pleased Marcus the most, right before he used them for his own pleasures and drained them, leaving only their broken, lifeless bodies for their families to find.





The memories of how, in the other dimension, Spike had hired Marcus to torture Angel for the Gem of Amarra flooded Spike’s mind and he began to cry for his daughter. Clinging to Buffy like he was being sucked into the pit of hell and she was the only thing in the world that could save him. Sobs wracked Spike’s body as horrible images of what could be happening to Annie invaded his mind unbidden. His sweet, innocent girl who had never hurt anyone in her life; who loved chocolate and old bedtime stories and kittens and even hermit crabs, was now in the hands of the devil himself.


Buffy held Spike to her. She still didn’t know who Marcus was but, obviously Spike did. The most vile creature in the world, Spike’s words filled her mind and the knot in her stomach drew tighter until she thought she might throw up.


Buffy looked up at Angel and Faith for answers, but they both simply shook their heads; they didn’t know who Marcus was, either.


Suddenly, Angel’s phone began ringing. Pulling it out and looking at the caller id Angel said, “It’s them – it’s Lorne’s phone.”




Spike jumped up suddenly from where he was on the ground and grabbed the phone from Angel just as Angel hit the button to answer it.


Spike screamed into the phone, “If you touch ONE HAIR on that girl’s head, the only way you’ll see the bloody Gem of Amarra is by swallowing your eyeballs, ‘cause it’ll be shoved it so far up your arse it’ll never see the bloody light of day again!”


“SPIKE!!” Buffy, Faith and Angel all yelled at once. Faith grabbed the phone from his hand while Buffy was standing back up from where she had been kneeling on the sidewalk next to Spike.


“Hello?” Faith said into the phone. There was a pause and she repeated, “Hello?"


“Can you hear me? Are you there?” she asked as she turned away from Spike to keep him from grabbing the phone back out of her hand.


Faith held one hand out towards Spike to keep him back as Buffy made it to her feet and stepped between her husband and Faith.


“Yes . . . Yes, we have it. Yes, Yes, OK . . . Hey . . . Hey! Let me talk to Annie!” Faith was saying into the phone as the others listened and waited.


“FUCK!” Faith screamed as she pulled the phone away from her ear to look at the screen. “Call ended,” it said.


In that instant, Spike grabbed the phone from her hand and pulled his arm back as if to sling it against the nearest wall.





“NO!!” came from the other three in one voice as Buffy grabbed the phone away from him.


Buffy shoved the phone back towards Angel and pushed Spike gently but firmly away from him. “Spike, you have to calm down! That’s the only phone they know to call!” she told him as she backed him against the nearest parked car.


“You don’t know Buffy . . . you don’t know Marcus . . .” he told her. His whole body was trembling in fear and rage. His blue eyes glistened and streaks of gold rose and fell within the blue as his human side struggled to keep the demon within him contained.


“Ok, Spike . . . but that’s not going to solve anything. We have something now . . . we know who it is . . . maybe we can find where they’re hold up . . . but please promise me that you’ll calm down,” Buffy pleaded with him. “Breathe,” she told him. “Just breathe a minute, ok?”


Spike closed his eyes and nodded before taking a deep breath to try and calm down and steady himself as Buffy turned back to Faith and Angel. “What did they say?” Buffy asked Faith.


“He wanted to know if we had the Gem, I told him ‘yes’,” Faith started. “He said if we didn’t want anything to happen to Annie that we had to follow their instructions precisely. He said that she was fine – for now – and with the ‘green guy’, but that could change if we fuck up. He wouldn’t let me talk to her. He said we can talk to her when he has the Gem . . . and NOT shoved up his ass,” Faith relayed to them, looking pointedly at Spike.


“He said he would call back at 4:00am Wednesday morning with more instructions. The exchange is to take place at dawn . . . What time is dawn?” Faith asked.


“Six fifty nine,” came from both Spike and Angel.


“I guess now wouldn’t be the time to say ‘jinx’ . . . huh?” Faith asked, trying to lighten the mood slightly.


Buffy sighed. Definitely not the time to say ‘jinx’, she thought. “Ok, let’s go – now we have something to do,” Buffy said to the group as she grabbed Spike by the arm and ushered him past Angel and back towards the Hyperion.


1:00am, Tuesday, December 30th:


Back at the Hyperion, Buffy told everyone the situation. Somehow, seeing Spike lose it so completely, switched her mind into Slayer mode . . . protector and guardian of her family.


“Tell us about Marcus,” she said to Spike. “How do you know him? Who is he?”


Spike paced back and forth in front of her for a couple of minutes as he thought. How was he going to tell Buffy who and what Marcus was? He tried to think of some way to not tell her . . . to not worry her more than she already was, but he knew that he had to tell her the truth. It could be important when the time came to get Annie; it may even help find her before tomorrow’s sunrise . . . he was going to have to tell her, and everyone else, who and what Marcus was and how he, or at least a part of him, knew the vile creature.





Spike stopped in front of her and took her hands in his as he related the memory from the other dimension. He spoke directly to Buffy, keeping her eyes locked with his, but loud enough for everyone in the lobby to hear. He described the dreamy memory of how he had hired Marcus to torture Angel into giving up the location of the Gem of Amarra. But, when he finally had the Gem within his grasp, Marcus double crossed him and took it for himself. Then he told her that Marcus was not only an expert at torture, but he was also a pedophile.


Buffy simply nodded her head and closed her eyes in an attempt to hold back the tears that were threatening again. Now she understood why Spike was so upset; why he said what he did to the kidnapper. She could hear the gasps and crying and worried whispers from their friends as a thousand different images and thoughts raced through her mind – none of them good. Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she fought to re-focus her mind back from terrified mother to Vampire Slayer . . . THE Vampire Slayer – the one in charge.


Buffy opened her eyes and gave Spike a determined and grateful nod and he released her hands. Buffy turned to face the rest of the group; she knew exactly what she wanted everyone to do now and she wasted no time in letting them know, too.





“Ok, Angel and Gunn: You guys head out and get in touch with the local snitches . . . see if anyone can give you any leads on this vamp named Marcus. And check this warehouse that Spi . . . that was used in the other dimension – sometimes things like that overlap.


Faith and Wesley: You know this detective Lockley, right?” Buffy asked. When they both nodded she continued, “Good, you go see her and have her ping Lorne’s phone and see if she can find it . . . tell her . . . I don’t know – tell her whatever you need to to get her to do it. Then, we need her to drop the stolen vehicle report on the Harley . . . but she can do that later . . . just get her to ping Lorne’s phone.”


“It’s 1:00am, Buffy . . . I doubt she’ll be at work,” Wesley pointed out to her.


“Then find her house and get her to work!” Buffy told him before turning her attention to the others in the room.


“Giles, Xander and Anya: Get me whatever research you can on this vampire Marcus – maybe he has some history here in L.A.; places that he’s frequented before – maybe he’s a creature of habit.


Willow and Tara: Keep trying different spells to find Annie or Lorne . . .”


“What do you want me to do?” Cordelia asked.


“Have a fucking vision!” Buffy screamed at her in frustration.


“You know it doesn’t work that way,” Cordy informed her again, frowning and folding her arms across her chest.





“Yeah . . . whatever. Help with the research then,” Buffy told her with an exasperated sigh, thinking that maybe next time the PTB sent a vision involving her or Spike that they may just be occupied elsewhere.


When Buffy stopped talking everyone took their assigned tasks and went to work. “I’m goin’ with Gunn . . .” Spike said as he turned away and started following Charles out of the Hyperion.


“No, you’re not,” Buffy told him as she grabbed his arm.


“Why the bloody hell not?” Spike asked, turning back towards her.





“I need you here,” Buffy said. “Spike, it’s going to come down to us, to you and me, to get Annie back. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I haven’t slept in days. We have to get some rest . . . we have to be ready in case anyone finds anything sooner. You need to stay here with me now.”


Spike pursed his lips together to keep from arguing with her and gave her a small nod. He didn’t feel like he could sleep now if . . . well, if Annie’s life depended on it. But, Buffy was right, it would ultimately come down to them; they had to be ready, sharp – they couldn’t fuck this up.


Buffy gave him a small, sad smile before turning to Giles. “If anyone finds anything that we can use to get to Marcus sooner, come get us, ok?” she told him and he nodded.



As Buffy and Spike made their way upstairs to the room she’d slept in the previous night (had it only been the previous night? It felt like so long ago) the others all went to work to find what they could about Marcus while Willow and Tara continued trying different spells to locate Annie and Lorne.



“I don’t think they’re going to have sex this time,” Anya commented as she picked out a book from Angel’s research library. “Although, a good orgasm or two would really help them get some rest – you know, release some of that tension? Did you know that after sex, the brain releases endorphins that decrease stress and induce a state of euphoria? But I doubt Spike could even . . .”





“ANYA!” came from the entire group that remained in the lobby – cutting her off.


Anya shrugged. “I’m just saying, as worried and tired as he is, even with his vampire constitution, he probably can’t get it u. . .”


“ANYA!”


**~**


Spike wished he could do something, anything, to make everything all right again. He blamed himself for the mess they were in and for the pain that the two people he loved more than anything else in the world were going through now. He had to find a way to fix it and vowed to himself that somehow, someway, he would get Annie back no matter what he had to do and he’d most definitely make Marcus pay for what he’d done to his family.


“C’mon, pet,” Spike said as he lay down on the bed and pulled Buffy with him. “Try to rest now,” he told her as he held her against him. “It’ll be ok. I promise.”


Buffy laid down and snuggled against Spike as he put one arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. She was beyond exhausted and couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. They stained her face as she held on to her husband and hoped and prayed that he, with her help and the help of all their friends, would be able to keep that promise.


Buffy fell into a nightmare filled sleep as she lay in Spike’s arms. Images of what may be happening to Annie filled her sleep for most of the night and she woke more than once during the night only to find Spike still awake. He would hold her and soothe her, humming his lullaby softly to her, until she would fall asleep again in his arms. He wished he could do more. Spike knew that their friends, and possibly even Angel, were doing everything they could to find Annie and Lorne, and he wanted to be doing something as well, but he knew that Buffy needed him here right now, so this is where he stayed – at her side.





As Buffy tried to rest, Spike went over a hundred scenarios in his mind of how to outsmart Marcus, how to get Annie back without giving him the Gem. But, Spike knew, if giving Marcus the Gem of Amarra was what it took to get Annie back safe and sound, then that’s what he would unquestionably do. He would do anything to get Annie back safely . . . give anything.

Time line:
Currently: Tuesday, December 30th, 2003
Buffy's about 7 months pregnant; due in February 2004

History:
Annie and Lorne were kidnapped on Sunday, December 28th.
Deadline given for the exchange is Wednesday, December 31st, 2003
Spike stormed out of the Hyperion on December 15th after Buffy stopped his attack on Angel. Angel and Buffy found him on Monday, December 29th.

Annie turned four last February.
Buffy and Spike have been married four years.
Buffy turned 22 years old in January.
All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003.

**~**

Tuesday, December 30th:
6:00am:


It seemed like Spike had just dozed off into a fitful sleep when he heard hysterical screaming coming from downstairs. It was so loud even Buffy heard it, and they both jumped up and headed down to see what was going on.


The screaming had stopped by the time they got to the lobby. Spike hurried ahead of Buffy and simply jumped down from the second floor foyer to the floor of the lobby. Tara was crying and holding onto Willow; it was her, he realized, who had been screaming. Even Anya was upset enough to have her face buried against Xander’s shoulder. Giles was knelt over something lying on the floor.


A quick thought that it could be Annie flashed through Spike’s mind and he rushed forward. “Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed as he reached Giles and saw what had upset everyone so much. It was Lorne, or Lorne’s body, at any rate. He had been decapitated. His head and body dumped just inside the door of the Hyperion with a large note pinned on his chest that read, “Disrespect me again and this will be the girl.”


Spike was still absorbing the whole scene when Buffy stepped up next to him. “Oh God!” she said, her hand going to her mouth to try and hold back the bile that threatened the back of her throat.


Spike turned and put himself between her and Lorne’s body, pulling her into a hug and blocking her view of the green empath demon. “Shhhhhh . . . . it’s ok . . .” he whispered to her as he stroked her hair and held her against him.


“They . . . they . . . killed him,” Buffy whispered as she shook her head from side to side against Spike’s chest. “Oh God, they killed him! Annie . . . Annie’s all alone . . . they killed him! Oh, God.”


“Well, technically, they just separated my head from my body,” Lorne informed them as he opened his eyes, which caused the screaming to begin anew and Giles to stumble backwards away from the disembodied talking head.





“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed as he released Buffy and turned back towards Lorne. “What the bloody hell kinda trick is that, Green?” Spike asked as he knelt down to get a closer look at Lorne.


“It’s a Deathwok clan thing. You remember them from our little jaunt to Pylea, don’t ya, Sweet Cheeks?” Lorne asked Spike, looking up from where his head lay on the floor of the lobby.


“Yeah . . . I guess. Met your mum and all, but don’t recall no mention of anythin’ like this!” Spike told him, still looking at him with confusion.


“Well, we try not to talk it about too much. Actually, I prefer to not talk about Pylea at all,” Lorne said, rolling his eyes. “Here, give me a hand, will ya, handsome? I seem to have lost mine momentarily,” Lorne told Spike.


Spike looked at him like he’d lost more than his hands, which, technically, he had, but he sat Lorne’s body up against the nearest wall and then took the green demon’s head and placed back atop it. Lorne did some adjustments and everyone watched with wide eyes as his head suddenly re-attached to his body as if nothing had ever happened.


“Ah . . . there,” Lorne said, tilting his head from side to side and around in a circle before standing up as everyone continued to watch him in stunned silence.


“I don’t know who said what, but that was one sorely pissed off vampire when he got off the phone last night,” Lorne informed them, looking directly at Spike. Lorne could tell very well that it was Spike that had pissed the vamp off; even without Spike singing, Lorne could see the barely contained rage rolling off him in waves.


When everyone just continued to stare wide eyed at him, Lorne asked, “Well, isn’t anyone gonna ask me how Annie is?”


“Yes!” Buffy said, moving forward towards him, as the shock finally wore off. “How is Annie? WHERE is Annie?”





Lorne wrapped his arms around Buffy, pulling her into a tender hug. “Your Sweet Girl is fine . . . last I saw her, she was fine. No one had touched her,” Lorne said to Buffy to assure her. He wished he was as sure about Annie’s safety as he sounded, though.


Marcus was one royally ticked off vamp when he and the other two guards dragged Lorne out of the room he and Annie had been held in, and it had been obvious to Lorne that Marcus had more of an interest in Annie than just a ransom. But, there was no need to voice any of that . . . it would only serve to worry the child’s already overwrought parents.



Lorne sent up a silent prayer to the PTB to watch over Annie now that she was all alone with the kidnappers as he held Buffy in a tender hug. Lorne had always considered himself a lover, not a fighter, but he swore to himself that he'd make Marcus pay if the vamp laid one sleazy paw on that sweet little girl.


“Oh, thank God,” Buffy said as she leaned against the green demon and returned his hug. Spike closed his eyes and let out a long sigh of relief . . . now, if they can just get her back, everything would be ok.


“Do you know where they are?” Spike asked, looking at Lorne.


Lorne grinned devilishly and released Buffy from the hug. “I do . . . I know exactly where they are, Sweet Cheeks. The tour of one kidnapper/vampire lair will leave shortly . . . just as soon as I get a drink, for some reason my throat is drier than the Sahara,” he said, rubbing his throat where his head had re-attached itself to his body. “Oh, waiter!” Lorne called, walking quickly towards the kitchenette and holding one hand up as if to flag down a waiter in a bar. “Seabreeze, please . . . make it a double!”


**~**


Giles called Wesley, Faith, Gunn and Angel back in from their assignments and everyone headed out with Lorne to the kidnapper’s lair. This included Anya, who Xander had asked to stay at the hotel and wait for them, since she was pregnant and without the protection spell that Buffy had on her unborn child. But Anya insisted that she be allowed to go too, she could at least watch the cars . . . being pregnant didn’t make her stupid or helpless, after all.


10:00am, Tuesday, December 30th:


Lorne led them to a warehouse down by the docks and explained where in the warehouse they had been held. Angel parked his car next to a manhole and dropped quickly down into the sewers after Gunn removed the cover for him. Gunn joined him down there – they would guard the sewer exit of the warehouse where the kidnapper was holding Annie.


Buffy positioned Giles, Wesley, Xander, Cordelia, Fred, Willow and Tara, all armed with crossbows and stakes, around the perimeter of the warehouse and instructed them to keep in view of at least one other person the whole time. Buffy didn’t think the vamp would be able to escape out into the street in the middle of the day, but if anything happened and they had to give him the Gem of Amarra, then . . . well, anything was possible. Anya, true to her word, stayed with the cars.


Buffy, Spike and Faith followed Lorne silently into the warehouse. Once inside, they ducked behind some old equipment and Lorne pointed out a walled-in office in the back of the building where he and Annie had been held. There were three vamps, Lorne told them. The leader, Marcus, usually slept during the day while the other two were on guard duty. There were three rooms within that enclosed space. One was for Marcus, one was a common area where the two other guards spent their time and one was where he and Annie had been held, in the back of the area. You had to go through the common area and past the room Marcus was in to get to the room Annie most likely would be in.


The three warriors left Lorne by the door of the warehouse and they crept silently towards the back of the large area where the offices were, careful to stay behind cover of old equipment or stay low as they moved across the expanse.


Buffy was sure the vamps inside the office would be able to hear her heartbeat; hell, she could hear it pounding in her ears – it felt like it would beat right out of her chest at any moment. Knowing that Annie was so close had her heart racing, and worrying that the kidnappers might have moved her after getting rid of Lorne had the knots in her stomach doing cartwheels, as she followed Spike and Faith from cover to cover across the floor. Buffy sent up a silent prayer to whoever may be listening to keep Annie safe during the upcoming battle. She knew that three vamps would have no chance of winning against her, Faith and Spike, but if the vamps got to Annie and used her as a shield, then anything could happen.


Spike got to the door of the office area first and stood with his back against the wall next to it as he waited for Faith and Buffy to catch up to him. If he had a heartbeat, he knew that it would be pounding out of his chest right at that moment . . . being so close to Annie, yet so far away. He closed his eyes and listened . . . he could clearly hear Faith and Buffy’s heartbeats as they made their way up to where he was. Buffy’s sounded like his felt: afraid for their daughter, nervous, anxious and angry. He wished he could communicate with her through their bond and assure her . . . give her some comfort. He really missed being able to do that.


He had been mad when he thought she had shut him out and stewed about it the whole time he sat in that piss-ant jail. As soon as this was over, they would have to get to the bottom of who was fucking with them and why they could no longer communicate through their bond. His money was still on Angel, even though he knew it would be hard to convince Buffy of that without some real proof.


Spike re-focused his wandering mind and brought himself back to the moment as he tried to listen through the door for Annie’s heartbeat, but he couldn’t hear it. The door was thick steel and she was probably just too far away with too many walls between them. His stomach tightened into a knot as the possibility that she wasn’t even here any longer, that she had been moved – or worse, rose to the front of his mind.


Faith stepped up silently next to him and brought Spike’s attention back to the current situation. Buffy moved up on the other side of the door from Spike and Faith and she met Spike’s eyes with hers and held his gaze for what seemed minutes, but certainly couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.


Her heartbeat pounded in Spike’s ears and sounded to him like a hundred-thousand crazed football fans stomping their feet in unison at Wembley Stadium during the finals of the World Cup – or one mother, in mortal fear for her daughter’s safety. The fact that she had to go through this at all, that Annie was going through it, made his guilt for keeping the Gem and his rage at Marcus for doing this to his family suddenly spring up from a low simmer to boiling over.


Spike morphed into his demon self involuntarily as the anger built within him and he gave a quick nod to Buffy, telling her he was going in and she acknowledged it with a nod of her own. She would’ve liked to have had her scythe with her; but it was back home in Sunnydale and there was no time to retrieve it, so she had Mr. Pointy at the ready, while Faith wielded a broadsword with a stake in her waistband as backup. Spike had a stake at the small of his back, but he wore his weapon now. He was sure that he needed nothing more than his anger, his demon and his bare hands to take these motherfuckers down.


Spike stepped out away from the wall and faced the door. As he drew one booted foot back to get ready to kick the door open, Buffy stepped in front of him and held up her hand. Turning to the door, she tried the knob gingerly . . . it turned easily in her hand – it wasn’t even locked! She looked back at Spike and rolled her eyes. Spike just shrugged and rolled his own eyes . . . it would’ve felt a lot better to kick the door in, but, of course, it would have awoken anyone inside that was sleeping and taken away the element of surprise.


Buffy stepped back to let Spike open the door. She was relieved when the hinges didn’t even squeak as he swung it slowly open and stepped inside. Inside, the two vamps that Lorne had told them about sat on ratty furniture watching an old TV whose horizontal hold had long ago lost its grip.


They both jumped up as Spike entered the room.



“Hey fellas,” Spike said casually. “Marcus around?” he asked as he walked towards the nearest vamp. Buffy and Faith waited outside and listened as Spike sauntered in like he belonged there.


“Who are you?” one of the vamps asked him as Spike got closer to them.





“Me?” Spike asked followed by a small chuckle that was anything but amusing. “Well, I’d be Spike. You lot may have ‘eard of me,” he continued as he got within arm’s reach of the first vamp and laid his hand on his shoulder like an old friend. The vamp looked at him in confusion shaking his head slowly from side to side . . . like when someone knows you, but you have no idea who they are and you’re trying desperately to remember their name.


“Spike?” the vamp asked.


“That’s right. Spike. As in the vamp whose daughter you kidnapped you daft son of a bitch.” As the last word came out of Spike’s mouth he grabbed the other vamp’s head in his hands and twisted with all his strength as he vented all the anger and frustration that had been boiling up in him and twisted the vamp’s head clean off – reducing him to a pile of dust in just a matter of seconds. The other vamp started backing up away from Spike towards the hallway that lead to the other rooms, but Spike was too fast for him and blocked him from reaching it.


The vamp opened his mouth to start yelling – to alert Marcus and any other guards of the danger, when he suddenly dissolved into dust. When the dust fell away, Spike saw Buffy standing behind where the vamp had been, Mr. Pointy still hovering in the air where the vamp’s un-beating heart had been just a moment before.


Spike turned and moved down the hallway silently . . . now he could hear Annie’s heartbeat down at the end of the hall and a small amount of relief washed over him . . . she was here, she was alive . . . now, if she was just unhurt, as well. Spike stopped in front of the next door in the hallway, the room that Lorne said Marcus used during the day to sleep in, and turned the handle slowly. It also opened easily – these vamps were definitely not expecting visitors. Spike looked back at Buffy and Faith who had moved up behind him in the hallway. There was no way Marcus was getting out of here as anything more than a pile of dust.


Spike swung the door open and stepped into the small room as he quickly scanned it for Marcus, but the room was empty. Bloody hell! Spike thought as he came back out into the hallway, pushing past Faith and heading towards the room where Annie was.


As Spike reached the door to the last room, he could hear someone talking . . . it was Marcus he realized.


“Won’t be long now, sweetheart. It’ll be just you and me and we can have some fun out in the sunshine. Wouldn’t you like that?” Marcus asked.


“I wanna go home,” Annie told him. Spike could hear the pout in her voice. “I want my Mama . . . . Where’s Lorne? I wanna see Lorne,” Annie whined. Spike could hear a small tremor of fear in his daughter’s voice and knew she was on the verge of tears.


“You sure are a pretty thing. Did anyone ever tell you how pretty you are? Such lovely long, curly hair . . . so soft . . . just like your skin . . .” Marcus started.


The rage in Spike exploded and all caution was cast to the wind as he kicked the door open and burst into the room, but he wasn’t fast enough. Marcus had been standing right next to Annie when Spike burst in and he grabbed her around the waist and held her back against his chest as he morphed into game face and turned to face the intruders.


“Annie!” Buffy screamed as she followed closely behind Spike into the room.


“MAMA!” Annie screamed back as she struggled in vain against the arm that held her captive.


Marcus backed up with Annie, putting the bed in the room between him and the two warriors who stood near the doorway.


“You’re early,” Marcus informed them.


“Got bored,” Spike replied as he started moving further into the room.





“If you want this girl back alive, I suggest you just stop right there,” Marcus warned him, as he pulled the screaming and squirming Annie up higher and threatened her neck with his fangs.


“NO!” Buffy screamed as she put a hand out and stopped Spike from moving further into the room. “We have the Gem . . . HERE!” she said, holding Spike’s hand up to show Marcus the ring.


“We can still do this. Just . . . just put the girl down and the Gem of Amarra is yours,” Buffy said as she tugged the ring off Spike’s hand and held it up for Marcus to see.


“Gem first,” Marcus said.


“No fucking way!” Spike yelled at him, leaning towards him as Buffy held him back. “Girl first.”


“I’m pretty sure what I have is more important to you than what you have is to me. Gem first,” Marcus told them. “And get away from the door.”


“Ok . . . ok . . . here’s a plan . . .” Buffy said in a voice much calmer than she thought possible at that moment. She held the Gem up for Marcus to see again and then bent down and placed it on the floor in the doorway. “We’re gonna move out of the way and you just come over here, grab the ring and drop the girl on the bed and you can go . . . nice and easy – everybody’s happy.”


“No bloody way! Buffy! He’ll take them both!” Spike informed her as he turned to face her, his brows knit together with worry and anger.


“No he won’t . . . will you Marcus?” Buffy turned back to the kidnapper with a small fake smile on her face. “Because that girl is more trouble than she’s worth . . . I’m telling ya’. Trying to get out of here with that screaming, squirming baggage, just not worth it, is it Marcus? I mean . . . there’s plenty of fish in the sea . . . or kids in the sunshine, just out there waiting for you . . .”


Marcus looked at Buffy closely as he considered her words. She actually was probably right . . . carrying Annie out of here would just draw attention to him, attention he didn’t need. After a moment, Marcus nodded and waved his free hand at Buffy and Spike as if to move them away from the door and out of his way. “Deal,” was all he said.


Buffy pressed against Spike and moved him off to the side and out of the doorway, despite his continued objections. “Trust me,” Buffy whispered to him. She hoped that she said it low enough that only he could hear her. Spike met her eyes and she silently implored him to just listen to her, just trust her on this.


When the warriors were out of the way, Marcus moved slowly towards the doorway, shifting his hold on Annie so that he was carrying her like a sack of potatoes under one arm, as she continued to struggle against him to no avail.


When Marcus reached the doorway, he knelt down and grabbed the ring that held the Gem of Amarra off the floor with his free hand and slid it on his finger. At last . . . the world was his! Laid out like a sunny smorgasbord for his pleasure and entertainment.


“Now the girl!” Spike said as he pushed against Buffy and tried to move towards Marcus.





Marcus flashed a cruel and ruthless smile at him and said, “Shoulda’ listened to the vamp, honey . . . he was right – I’ll take them both.” Marcus turned quickly and started heading out the door.


“GO HIGH!” Buffy screamed as soon as Marcus stepped across the threshold.


“What the bloody . . .” was all Spike could get out before Faith’s broadsword sliced through Marcus’ neck with a sickening, bone crunching sound. Faith had been waiting just outside the door . . . just in case something like this happened.


Marcus’ head was severed cleanly from his body and his head, his body and Annie all tumbled to the ground just outside the doorway, but Marcus didn’t turn to dust. He was still holding tightly to Annie, despite being headless, when Buffy and Spike reached them. Spike worked to pry Annie out of the headless vamp’s grasp as Buffy tried to calm Annie down and get her to stop squirming.


“What the fuck!?” Faith exclaimed as Marcus tried to retrieve his head with his one free arm.


“Get the bloody ring off!” Spike yelled at Faith as he finally got Annie free of Marcus’ grasp. Buffy fell backwards onto the floor from where she had been kneeling and pulled Annie into a hug as she soothed her with soft words full of love and relief. “It’s ok sweet girl, shhhhh . . . ok baby, everything’s ok. We’re here now, baby girl . . . shhhhhh . . .” Annie clung to Buffy and cried against her shoulder as Buffy stroked her back and rocked her on the floor.


Marcus, however, hadn’t given up yet and was still trying to retrieve his head and put it back on his neck and keep the hand that had the ring on it away from Faith and Spike.


“Bloody fucking hell!” Spike screamed in frustration. “Can’t get a bloody ring off a headless fucking vamp and Buffy took it off me like takin’ candy from a goddamn baby!”


“Give me that bloody sword!” Spike demanded of Faith. Faith handed him her sword and Spike raised it high over his head and came down with it hard into the hand that Marcus was using to try and pull his head close enough to re-attach to his neck, pinning it to the floor. Spike then angrily kicked Marcus’ head down the hallway away from them, flinging blood all the way along its path. He and Faith flipped him over and Faith was finally able to pull the ring off his other hand.


As soon as the Gem of Amarra was off him, Marcus’ body and head both dissolved, leaving nothing more than piles of dust. Spike would’ve liked to have had a bit more time with Marcus . . . time to pay him back for what he put Buffy and Annie through before dusting him . . . but it just didn’t work out that way this time.


Spike turned back to where Buffy was sitting on the floor holding and rocking Annie and knelt down beside them to take them both into his arms. Relief flooded over him when he realized that the only thing he could smell on Annie were her tears and the fading scent from Lorne, from where he’d comforted her. There was no blood . . . there was nothing else.


Tears threatened his own eyes as Spike held his girls – his whole world – in his arms there on the dirty floor of the warehouse. If any harm had come to Annie, he knew that he would never be able to forgive himself. Nothing was worth what Annie had been through . . . not sunshine, not freckles . . . not even being the man that Buffy deserved to have, held a candle to making sure that no such suffering befell his family again.


Spike stood up and went back to where Faith was waiting by the door. He held his palm out and, without a word between them, Faith dropped the ring into his hand. Buffy looked up to see what he was doing and saw him set the Gem of Amarra down on the floor, pick up a heavy brick and raise it high over his head as he prepared to throw it down hard on the ring and destroy it.


“NO!” Buffy screamed as she scrambled, still holding onto Annie, across the floor and grabbed the Gem before Spike could crush it.


“Bloody hell!” Spike yelled as he nearly smashed the brick on her hand, stopping it just in time. “What the fuck, Slayer!?” he said, looking at her with a furrowed brow. “That ring’s been nothin’ but trouble . . . for Annie, for you . . . for all of us. It’s got to be destroyed,” he informed her.


“No,” Buffy said more calmly as she sat back and pulled Annie back into a hug. “It gave you your life back, Spike . . . you deserve your life back – you’ve earned it,” she said sadly, her eyes pleading with him to find another way.


Spike sat down next to her and Annie and took one of Buffy’s hands in his. “Buffy, I have a better life with you and Annie than I could’ve ever dreamt of in my wildest dreams. I don’t need that bloody ring to have my life back . . . I just need you and Annie to be safe. I’m sorry that I can’t be the man you deserve," he told her as tears welled in his eyes. "I don’t want you to have to live in the darkness, you deserve better than that, better than me . . . but I can’t take the chance with your life, with Annie’s or with the sprog’s; it’s just not worth it, luv.”





“Oh, Spike. You’re more than I deserve . . . don’t you know that yet? Marcus would’ve done anything to get the Gem of Amarra . . . and you . . . you’re willing to destroy it just like that – to give up everything it gave you, in order to keep us safe.” Buffy shook her head slowly. She knew how much it had meant to Spike to be able to come into the sun. How he loved the feel of it on his skin, after spending so many years in the darkness. Any vamp in the world would give their right arm for that Gem . . . and here he was going to destroy it without another thought – to make sure she and Annie and the ‘sprog’ were never threatened again because of it.





Buffy handed the ring back to him and met and held his eyes with hers as she spoke to him softly. “You really are more than I deserve, William. And the darkness? Well, you may have heard of me . . . Vampire Slayer? She who hangs out in cemeteries? It kinda goes with darkness – it’s a job requirement,” she told him with a small smile as she pulled him towards her with the hand that he had been holding and took his lips in a soft kiss.


“I love you and Annie more than anything, Buffy . . . more than sunshine, more than . . . more than freckles,” he said with a small smile of his own as he pulled back to look into her eyes and laid one hand on Annie’s back as she still clung to Buffy.


Buffy nodded. “I love you, too, William . . . more than sunshine . . . more than . . .”


“Chocolate?” Spike asked, interrupting her, as a hopeful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.


“Wellll, let’s not get carried away now . . .” Buffy said with a small laugh.


“I love you more than chocolate,” Annie said in a voice hoarse from crying. She turned in Buffy’s arms to face Spike and wrapped her arms around his neck.


Spike laughed as he pulled her into a hug. “Well, I’m glad I outrank chocolate for at least one of m’ girls,” he said as he dropped a kiss on top of Annie’s head. “I love you, Sweet Girl,” he whispered to Annie, burying his face in her long hair, as the tears that had been threatening fell from his eyes. Thoughts of what she’d been through the last days, of how scared she must have been, flooded his mind. He never wanted her to feel that way ever again. The ring would have to be destroyed, there was no other way to keep his family safe.


“I love you both more than you’ll ever know.”

Time Line:

Spans: Tuesday, December 30th, 2003 - January 8th, 2004

Annie was just rescued at the beginning of the chapter.
Buffy's about 7-8 months pregnant; due in February 2004

History:
Annie will be five on February 14th
Buffy and Spike have been married four years; will be five years in February
Buffy will be 23 years old on January 19th.

All the Potentials were endowed with full Slayer power in February 2003.
Buffy and Spike learned of the other dimensions in May, 2003.



**~**

Tuesday, December 30th, 2003:

As Spike, Buffy and Faith emerged from the office space within the warehouse with Annie, Lorne was right there waiting for them by the door. Annie was so very happy to see Lorne. He’d been so nice to her during their captivity. He had told her over and over that her parents would be there to get her soon, that they loved her very much and assured her that everything would be okay. Even when she told him that she didn’t know where her father was . . . that maybe he didn’t love them anymore, Lorne assured her that that was not true, that her father loved her more than anything in the world – and he should know, he was an empath demon – he could tell these things.


She was scared when the vampires had taken Lorne away and he hadn’t returned – afraid that something bad had happened to him. Annie was relieved to see him unhurt and gave Lorne a big hug. He promised to come and visit her in Sunnydale soon and often as he picked her up and returned her hug.


Buffy and Spike thanked Lorne for what he’d done for their daughter, as well, and told him he was always welcome at the mansion – no need to call ahead, just show up. He was one of the family now.


As the whole gang gathered in the warehouse and started giving Annie hugs and kisses, Buffy slipped away and made her way to Angel, who was standing off to one side of the gathering.


Walking up to him, she gave him a small smile and said, “Thank you for your help with finding Spike and, well . . . for helping me. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to do it by myself.”


“You’re stronger than you sometimes think, Buffy,” Angel told her with a sad smile of his own as he watched Spike pick Annie back up after the last of the gang had given her a hug and told her how happy they were to see her and how much they loved her. “You were just under a lot of pressure . . . you came through when it really counted – you always do.”


Buffy shrugged. She wasn’t so sure about that. She would never have thought to go to the police and report Spike as missing . . . and if they hadn’t found Spike, well, she didn’t want to think about that at all.


“Still, I owe you . . . WE owe you. I just want you to know, I’m really grateful for your help, Angel.”





Angel nodded, gave her a smile and shrugged. “It’s what we do . . . help the hopeless . . . or something like that . . . I don’t know, Cordy made it up. You’ll probably be getting an itemized bill . . .”


Buffy laughed. “Well, she knows the address . . . I’d rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it,” she told him with a genuine smile . . . something she felt like she hadn’t done in days.


“We’re gonna go . . . get Annie home. I think she’ll be more comfortable in her own bed,” Buffy told Angel before giving him a hug, which he returned with a sigh.


“Don’t be a stranger . . .” he told her as he released her from the hug.


“You either,” Buffy told him before turning away and heading back to the group.

**~**



Later that night, Spike and Buffy sat on each side of Annie’s small bed as Spike tucked her in.


“What story to you want t’night Niblett?” Spike asked her. “First time I saw your Mum or how your Mum rescued me from the Army brats or how your Mum and the girls dusted the bad vampires with their magical sun . . .”


“Why you went away . . .” Annie said, looking sadly at Spike with big blue eyes and a pouty lip.


Spike took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he thought how to possibly explain that to a four and a half year old. “I’m really sorry about that, Niblett – more than you know. I didn’t mean to go away so long . . . I wanted to call you . . . I thought about you every minute . . . I just . . . I was just . . . I got my feelin’s hurt and I . . .” Spike’s voice trailed off. He really had no idea what to say to her.


“You remember when Johnny told you he would be your field-trip buddy and then he buddied with Sarah, instead?” Buffy asked her.


Annie nodded.


“And, it hurt your feelings, didn’t it?” Buffy asked and Annie nodded again.


“And you said you wanted to beat Johnny up?”


Annie nodded.


“Well, Papa got his feelings hurt and he went out for a while ‘cause he wanted to beat up the person he thought hurt his feelings,” Buffy continued. “But we all know that beating people up is wrong, don’t we?”


Annie nodded . . . Spike just narrowed his eyes and frowned at her.


“So, when I went and reminded him of that, he got a little upset . . . just like you did when I told you you shouldn’t beat up Johnny. So, Papa went for a little ride on the motorcycle, intending to come home soon, but he was captured by a very bad man.”


“Like me and Lorne?” Annie asked.


“Exactly like that,” Buffy told her. “And the bad man wouldn’t let Papa call us, even though he wanted to.”


“So you had to rescue him?” Annie asked.


“I did . . . Angel and I had to rescue him from the bad man so he could come and help me rescue you . . . ‘cause you know he loves you very much and would never stay away from you if he could help it. You know that right?” Buffy asked Annie.


Annie nodded slowly, looking up at Spike who turned his eyes from Buffy back to Annie.


“I love you more than anythin’, Niblett. I didn’t mean to stay away so long . . . I didn’t mean to hurt your feelin’s,” Spike told her.


Annie reached up and hugged Spike’s neck and he returned her hug. “I’m sorry,” Spike told her as he held her tight. “I love you.”


“I love you, Papa,” Annie told him. “I missed you.”


“I missed you both, too.”


“We saved Christmas for you,” Annie informed him, still hugging his neck.


“You’re a sweet girl. We’ll make it the best Christmas ever, okay?” Spike asked her.


Annie nodded against his shoulder and released her hug.


“Ok, Niblett, you go to sleep now. You know you’re safe here, right?” Spike asked her.


Annie nodded and lay back down and Spike re-tucked her covers around her as he dropped a kiss on her forehead. When he stood up, Buffy leaned down and did the same.


“I love you, Annie. Good night, sweet girl,” Buffy told her before standing up and heading for the door with Spike.


Outside in the hallway, with Annie’s door closed behind them, Spike said, “So, I acted like a four year old, that it?”


Buffy rolled her eyes. “If the shoe fits . . .”


Spike blew out a long breath as they walked down the hallway towards their room.


“So, who’s this prat Johnny? Sounds like a tosser to me . . . ya’ shoulda let her beat him up – teach him some proper manners,” Spike informed Buffy.


Buffy laughed. “Yeah, I probably should’ve . . . it would’ve made a cute story at their wedding.”


“Bloody hell! She’s four!” Spike pointed out.





Buffy rolled her eyes and laughed. “She’s gotta start sometime.”


“Yeah, well, it can bloody well wait a year or two . . . or thirty.”


**~**


Buffy looked around, trying to get her bearings . . . Ok, this must be a dream, she thought as she recognized the basement of Sunnydale High . . . the NEW Sunnydale High from the other dimension. She began walking, wandering aimlessly really, around the basement, through doors, down corridors until she came to a door she recognized.


Opening it and stepping inside she found Spike. He looked just as she remembered him from the other dimension when he’d been living in the school basement after fighting for and winning his soul back. His hair was long and curly and growing in dark at the roots.


“Spike!” she called as she walked up to where he was squatting against one wall. “What’s going on?”


Spike stood up quickly. “Buffy! About bloody time! Where the hell have you been?”






“Time for what?” she asked him as she came up next to him.


“Got sumthin’ to show ya’,” he said taking her hand and leading her to the stairs and up out of the basement.


“What’s going on? Is the bond back?” Buffy asked as she followed him out of the basement and down one of the hallways in the new high school.


“No. Your bond ain’t comin’ back . . .” he informed her as he walked into one of the classrooms. Miss Calendar was at the front of the room and stood up when they came in. Buffy pulled her hand from Spike’s grasp and stopped in the doorway.


“What’s going on . . . is this some kind of trick?” she asked, standing firm in the doorway and not moving into the room.


“It’s no trick, Buffy . . . we just need to show you sumthin’,” Spike told her. “It’s about the bond.”


“It’s about Angel,” Miss Calendar said as she pressed a button on a remote control and the whole wall of the classroom turned into a giant TV screen.


Buffy looked at the images on the TV wall. It showed Angel in a dark room . . . she couldn’t tell where. There was a table in front of him with two black candles on it. Angel lit the candles and began to speak slowly in Latin as he poured a drop of blood from a medical vile first onto one of the candles, then onto the other, extinguishing them. The meanings of the words were lost on Buffy, but it sounded very much like the bonding ritual he had performed for her and Spike at their wedding . . .


“At rector of prosapia Aurelius , EGO, Angelus quod in nomen of Vinco, ordo vinculum inter Buffy Anne Summers-Weckerly, The Slayer quod William the Bloody privatus. Is iam sto unus. Nos iam sto unus.”


When he finished speaking, the image went away and the wall re-appeared.


“What does it mean?” Buffy asked, looking between Spike and Miss Calendar. “It sounds like the claim ceremony he did at our wedding,” she said, looking at Spike.


“Buffy, we aren’t married . . . I’m not your Spike,” Spike told her. “My Buffy’s been havin’ these dreams . . . just like this, of Angel and this strange ceremony. We couldn’t figure ‘em out for a while – then I remembered you said something about doing the claim, that’s how you found me in the old distillery. Then I knew – this should’a been YOUR dream. The PTB must be crossin’ wires or the whole soul sharin’ thing’s getting mixed up or somethin’ . . .”


Buffy looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “You’re from the other dimension? Where you were in L.A. with Angel and I made you go to Rome?”


“Yeah,” Spike told her. “We didn’ know how to make a portal that would for sure go to you, so Red came up with this dream jumpin’ thing. Been tryin’ to contact you for a coupla weeks . . .”


“I haven’t been sleeping much . . .” Buffy told him. “What does it mean?” Buffy asked again.


“Roughly, Angel says, ‘As leader of the Clan of Aurelius and in the name of the Master, I order the bond between the Slayer and William the Bloody released. She now stands alone. We now stand alone,’” Spike told her.


“WHAT!? What are you saying? Angel released the bond? How can he release the bond!? It was a blood thing . . . you need blood!” Buffy exclaimed, finally moving into the room where Spike and Miss Calendar were.


“He had some blood . . . in a vile,” Spike pointed out. “He’d need blood from both of you to break the bond . . . maybe it was mixed?”


“Blood in a vile . . . Oh God, Annie’s blood! It was in the freezer!” Buffy realized. “She’s our daughter . . . made from both of us.”


Spike shrugged.


“Buffy, I’m sorry,” Miss Calendar said as she came up next to her. “I’m sorry about Angel . . . I guess restoring his soul wasn’t enough . . .”


Buffy nodded. Now she knew why she and Spike couldn’t communicate . . . Angel released the bond. Was Spike right about the tape? Was it really Angel that sent it to him? And what about Annie and Lorne? Had he arranged all that, too? But then why did Angel help her find Spike and rescue Annie?


“Buffy?” Spike asked, walking up next to her and laying a hand on her cheek. “You ok, luv?”


Buffy shook her head slowly. “Confused . . . just confused is all.”





“Does your Angel fuck with you guys?” Buffy asked Spike.


“Doesn’t really have a chance . . . we’re in Rome, he’s in L.A. . . . and he’s got a new girl to keep him occupied . . . wolfy girl name a’ Nina,” Spike told her. “Plus, he knows I’d kick his bloody arse if he did.”


Buffy smiled sadly. “Yeah, that kinda runs in the family, I guess. Thanks . . . thanks for doing this.”


Spike shrugged. “You’d do the same, Slayer . . . you have done . . . and more,” he told her. “You saved my life, literally and . . . well, thanks for sending me to Rome. You were right.”


Buffy smiled at him as tears well in her eyes and she nodded. “She loves you.”


“Yeah,” he said, dipping his head shyly and rubbing the back of neck. “I woulda never known . . . never risked my heart again, without you,” Spike said, looking back up at her with a small smile.





Buffy drew Spike into a hug. “You both deserve to be happy, Spike . . . to be loved and in love and happy.”



**~**


Buffy woke slowly from her dream and wiped the tears away with her fingers. She turned over to see if Spike had woken up, but he was still asleep. It really wasn’t him in the dream; it was the other souled Spike from the other dimension. Angel really had broken the bond and released the claim.


It was all so confusing. Why would Angel do that and then turn around and help her find Spike again? Had Angel sent the tape or was it Marcus? When did Marcus know who had the Gem, anyway? It was too late to question him, now. Buffy had assumed that the kidnapper had learned of the Gem from Gunn and Lorne’s story at the demon bar, but maybe Marcus knew who had it even before that.


The other Spike said he’d been trying to contact her for a couple of weeks. So that meant his Buffy had been having this dream at least that long . . . about the time the tape had arrived. If I had known about this THEN, this whole mess might’ve been avoided, Buffy thought.


“You people really need to look into some quality control . . . or hire some more help or something,” Buffy whispered to the PTB.


“Huh?” came a sleepy question from the bed next to her.


“Nothing, baby . . . go back to sleep,” Buffy said to Spike as she turned over and cuddled next to his side as he lay on his back. He put an arm around her and pulled her against him and Buffy laid her head on his shoulder. Spike was right all along. It was Angel . . . at least part of it was – how much, she didn’t know. There was only one person now that could answer that question – Angel.


**~**


December 31st, 2003:


Spike woke late the next morning. It felt so good to be back in his own bed with Buffy next to him, her body warming his through the night. A small smile tugged at his lips as he turned over to hug against her, but he found only an empty bed. On Buffy’s pillow was a piece of paper, folded and standing up like a tent so he would see it.


--
Hi lover,


Everything’s ok – don’t worry.


Faith and I had to go take care of a couple of things. We’ll be back as soon as we can. It’s important – I know we just got home, but trust me . . . this is for us.


I have the Gem of Amarra; we’re gonna take care of it. Spread the word – we don’t have it anymore. Tell everyone down at Willy’s that Angel has it.


I may not be back for New Years . . . save me a kiss and give Annie a big hug for me.


I love you . . . more than chocolate.


-Buffy

--


Spike frowned. What the bloody hell!? We just got Annie home after all that time and Buffy’s leavin’ again?! Spike re-read the note with a sigh, “It’s important – I know we just got home, but trust me . . . this is for us.”


Spike agreed that they needed to get rid of, or destroy, the Gem, but why would she give the bloody Gem of Amarra to Angel, of all people!? Well, maybe someone will toss his ass in jail and take it away from him . . . Spike smiled slightly at the thought.


He had to trust that whatever it was that was taking her away was important . . . he just wished he could contact her and find out more . . . As soon as she got back, they would have to find out why they couldn’t communicate through their bond . . . He really did miss being able to feel her, to know she was always there and she was alright – without it, it felt like part of him was missing, like a piece of his soul was missing.


**~**


January 8th, 2004:


Spike and Buffy had the kitchen table full of wrapping paper and even more Christmas presents for Annie . . . as if what was under the tree already wasn’t enough. They had decided that they’d celebrate Christmas and Buffy’s birthday together this year, on January 19th, which gave them lots more “Christmas shopping” time – and, bonus! Everything was on sale!


Although Spike was supposed to be helping with the wrapping so they could get done before Willow and Tara got back from the zoo with Annie, he saw himself as more of a supervisor rather than laborer here. He preferred just buying pretty blue boxes that didn’t require any wrapping and Buffy never seemed to mind those, either. Of course, it may have been the lovely trinkets INSIDE the box that made the lack of wrapping paper seem unimportant.


Spike watched Buffy wrap present after present and he handed her tape and scissors and bows and ribbons as she went . . . hmmm, maybe this wasn’t supervision after all, this is more like a go-fer than a supervisor. No matter, at least he didn’t have to wrap the paper around those bloody boxes and make it all match up without being too big, or too small or lopsided or crumpled . . .


“Anybody home!?” came from the great room. “Buffy? Spike?”


Buffy and Spike walked out of the kitchen to find Cordelia and Gunn waiting for them in the great room. It was Cordelia that had been yelling.


“Buffy!” Cordelia exclaimed when she saw them. “Where’s Angel?!”


“I have no idea,” Buffy told her with a shrug.


“He left to meet you over a week ago and no one’s seen or heard from him since! What happened?!” Cordy asked her, moving closer to Buffy and Spike as she spoke.


“Nothing happened. We gave him the Gem of Amarra . . . he was taking care of putting it somewhere safe . . .” Buffy told Angel’s people with another shrug.


“Where the hell was he going with it? Why didn’t he call and tell us he was going to be gone?” Cordy asked her.


“I have no idea, Cordelia – he’s a grown vampire, I’m sure he has his reasons. Have you tried his cell phone? Ya know, I think he got better at using that lately,” Buffy told her as she folded her arms across her chest.


Spike stood behind Buffy and simply watched the exchange between the two women. Other than telling him that she had given the Gem of Amarra to Angel, Buffy didn’t elaborate further on the three day excursion she had taken with Faith at New Years, and Spike hadn’t pressed her or Faith about it. He did as she asked and spread the word that Angel had the Gem . . . it was possible that someone had taken it away from Angel and he was a pile of dust in the desert about now. That gave Spike a warm and fuzzy feeling, just thinking about it . . .


“Well, I think you know more than you’re sayin’,” Gunn told Buffy, as he stepped up next to Cordy.


Buffy shook her head and shrugged. “You can think that all you want, Charles . . . It’s not my turn to watch Angel. Maybe you should put a big bell around his neck so you can find him . . . like they do those cows over in Switzerland.”


Gunn stepped up closer to Buffy, his hands clenched in angry fists. Buffy unfolded her arms and prepared to defend herself, but Spike stepped between Gunn and Buffy.


“You don’t wanna’ do that, mate,” he told Gunn. “If the Slayer says she don’ know where Peaches is, then she don’ know.”


“What about you!? Do YOU know where he is?” Gunn asked Spike in an accusatory tone as he stood toe to toe with him.


Spike smiled a kind of evil smile and said, “If I knew where he was, I’d tell you so you could go Hoover ‘im up.”


Gunn drew back his arm and swung at Spike, but Spike caught Gunn’s fist and stopped it in mid punch before twisting it, turning him completely around and pinning Gunn’s arm in an iron grip behind his back.


Spiked leaned in close to Gunn’s ear and in a low voice said, “We don’ know where he is. Now, I suggest you run along and look for him far away from here, ‘afore anything bad happens to you lot.”


Spike released Gunn’s arm and shoved him towards the door. Gunn turned around and glared at Spike, but didn’t move back towards him. Spike hooked his thumbs over his belt buckle, squared his shoulders and widened his stance, giving Gunn his best Big Bad look.


Buffy stepped from behind Spike and addressed Cordelia, “Like he said . . . we don’t know where he is, so why don’t you run along now? Next time, just call – it’ll save you that long drive.”





Everyone stood in silence a few moments, not moving. Cordelia glared at Buffy and Gunn glared at Spike, but in the end Cordy and Gunn gave in first and started moving towards the door.


“He helped you . . . he helped you find Spike and get Annie back,” Cordy told her as she walked towards the door. “We ALL helped you.”


“Yeah, you were all a big help . . . send me that bill and I’ll get you a check in the mail,” Buffy told her as she folded her arms back across her chest.


“What is WRONG with you?!” Cordy asked incredulously as she stopped and turned back towards Buffy.





“Absolutely nothing’s wrong with me,” Buffy told her. “I just finally figured out that I’d been doubting the wrong vampire. I took my rose colored glasses off. You should try it, Cordy.”


Cordelia shook her head slowly. “He’s a good man, Buffy.”


Buffy laid a hand on Spike’s arm before Spike could comment. “Well, I hope you find him. Maybe he’s on the beach in the south of France soaking up some sun . . .”


Cordelia sighed, rolled her eyes and shook her head as she turned back walked out the door with Gunn.


When they were gone, Spike and Buffy walked back into the kitchen and the wrapping that was waiting for them.


“You gonna tell me where he is?” Spike asked her.


Buffy looked at her husband and shrugged. “Exactly where I told him he’d be if he fucked with my family one more time.”


“Remind me to never get you mad at me, Slayer,” Spike said with a look of mock fear on his face. “Jus’ keep those rose colored glasses on ‘round here.”


“Don’t need ‘em . . . you were right all along. I’m sorry that I doubted you, Spike,” Buffy told him as she dropped a soft kiss on his lips.


“Do you really love me more than chocolate?” he asked teasingly.


“Mmmhmm . . .” she murmured against his lips. “I love you covered in chocolate even more . . .” she told him as she nibbled on his bottom lip.


“Mmmmm . . .” Spike mumbled back to her. “I’m sure that could be arranged.”




**END**