It was noisy, inside the bus they'd stolen, and only getting louder the farther away they got from Sunnydale. (Well, from the crater that Sunnydale used to be – she'd have to get used to thinking of it that way.) While the front was reserved for the wounded and stayed relatively quiet, comforting talk punctuated by the occasional soft cry of pain, the back of the bus was filled with excited chatter from girls who could no longer contain their energy now that the crisis was truly past.

They'd won. Not just survived, which was itself something they hadn't expected to do, but won, permanently closed the Mouth of Hell itself and defeated its minions that had dared to walk the world of mortal men. Defeated the First Evil itself, if not forever then for now, and that was good enough. Even a temporary victory had seemed impossible only a day before – but they'd done it.

So the back of the bus was rapidly devolving into a semi-hysterical party as the girls worked through their terror and jitters and turned them into relief, excitement, laughter and crying and hugging and joy.

Buffy sat in the front.

She didn't begrudge the girls their happiness, but she couldn't bring herself to share it. They'd done the impossible? Well, okay. But as the Slayer she'd done the impossible on a nightly basis for years, not only surviving vampire attacks but destroying the monsters that had thought to prey on her. It was hard to get excited about that anymore. Defeating evil? Commonplace. Getting run through with a sword was new, but nearly dying wasn't.

Why should she celebrate? She'd just done her job, same as always.

And in the past, there had rarely been a cost to be paid for her victories. They'd taken for granted, all of them, that Buffy would fight the bad guys and come out on top, with nothing more to show than a few bumps and bruises. At the very least, if anyone besides her was going to get hurt, it would be only one or two people, and they'd mostly recover. Mostly – there were horrible exceptions, Angelus murdering the love of Giles' life being one of the worst.

The trouble was, it was always the people closest to her that suffered along with her, if she couldn't contain the damage, couldn't keep it from just affecting her. "Only one or two people" in the past had meant the Scoobies and Giles, or Faith. Or Spike. Or Tara.

Not this time. This time Buffy had gotten dozens of people involved in the fight. This time, there was suffering in spades.

Worse, this time, Buffy hadn't been the one to pay the heaviest cost – which would have been only fair, if she had, and no more than Buffy was used to. She took the risks, she should pay for them, right?

This time it was everyone around her who had paid. Paid, and paid, and paid until a round dozen girls lay bleeding at the bottom of the crater behind them, hearts falling silent that would never beat again, eyes that would never see the sun, voices that would never again ring out in laughter. Or whining – Buffy had heard a lot of fearful whining in those last days. Had been too caught up in duty to have much sympathy. But these girls would never be around to annoy her, or make her smile, or ask her to demonstrate another move, another style of fighting, ever again.

She hadn't taught them enough. Or they hadn't learned it quickly enough. Either way, they were dead, and they were never coming back. They'd paid Buffy's price for her.

Anya had paid. This had never been her war to fight – she'd only stayed out of love for Xander – and the cost of their victory should never have been paid with her life. Andrew was alive, because Anya had kept a Bringer's blade away from his back. But now Anya was gone in his place.

And Spike…

Oh, Spike had paid. Where Anya had stayed for Xander, Spike had stayed for her. And only her – he said it himself, he'd never been anyone's champion, didn't think of himself as one. Certainly he had no reason to care about Giles or Wood, much less the rest of the world, and yet he'd saved them. Billions of people around the world were still alive and oblivious to how close they'd come to annihilation, because of Spike. He'd sacrificed himself, walking eyes-open into the mouth of hell itself, knowing there was no way he'd ever walk back out again.

And he'd done it for her.

Those girls, Anya, Spike… all of them paid the price, and she got to run away (run, run, run away, fight again another day), and leave the corpses behind her.

There was a trail of bodies, Buffy thought, everywhere she'd ever walked. Here, LA – it didn't matter. People would tell her that she'd saved lives because of her work, but they didn't call her a Savior. They called her the Slayer, because that was what she did. That was all she was for.

Once, years ago, in the name of duty, she'd killed the man she thought she loved. She'd even said it to him, "I love you," right before she plunged the sword through his chest and he vanished into a vortex, dropped away back then into the hell that they'd just defeated today.

She'd done it again today. "I love you," she'd said, and for the first time since Angel she'd meant it when she said it, meant it wholeheartedly. She'd come this close to healing her heart from the wounds Angelus had inflicted. And then she'd run away like the coward she knew she really was, deep down underneath the Slayer strength and Slayer speed and stupid, worthless Slayer healing.

What good was the healing when it only worked on her? Couldn't bring her mother back. Couldn't fix Xander's eye.

Couldn't bring Spike back.

Her throat ached with the need to cry for him, a need she wouldn't indulge yet. Not here, not in front of the girls or anyone else. Spike wouldn't have wanted the melodrama. So she swallowed hard around the ache, and kept her face turned to the window as her eyes burned and her throat grew tight and her head felt like someone was driving nails into her temples.

She didn't deserve to cry for him. Didn't deserve to feel better after leaving him there to die. She may not have plunged a sword through him the way she did Angel, but still, she'd as good as killed him herself when she handed him that amulet and asked him to wear it for her. No; she didn't get to comfort herself afterward with stupid platitudes and group hugs.

Spike was gone, and it was her fault.

A single tear crept down her cheek. She reached up to brush it away, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Wood shift on the seat directly behind her. They'd gotten his wound stabilized, at least, but he was in no shape to drive. He was looking right at her, damn him.

"It was really him," he rasped. "That shut it down?"

Buffy swallowed, took a deep breath. Her throat was almost too tight to get words out. "Yes," she managed to say. "It really was."

Wood – she'd never again grant him the familiarity of calling him by his first name – hesitated before saying quietly, "It was a good death. A good way to go."

Maybe that was some kind of apology he was offering. An olive branch, something. If it was…

"Better than the one you planned for him," she said. Looked him dead in the eye before turning to stare out the window again.

If it was, she did not accept it. Couldn't.

Spike was gone, and it was her fault.

The desert flashed by outside as they headed north, fleeing to Los Angeles and temporary shelter with Angel and his people, but it didn't really register.

All she saw, all she could see in her mind's eye, was Spike. The wonder on his face, mingled with pain as the amulet sank hooks into his soul and used it to blast a hole through tons of rock, clear up to the sky. The golden light bathing his features, turning him into some kind of otherworldly, fae creature instead of the vampire she'd known and loved.

Loved. She could admit that, now, when it was too late. She'd told him the truth in the cavern, but in the end it hadn't mattered. Hadn't saved him, hadn't convinced him to drop the amulet and flee with her. No, he'd become something greater, exalted in his last moments, and she was so proud of him she could hardly breathe – but it meant that he'd moved beyond the point where he would ever need her, or her fickle, selfish love, ever again.

She blinked, and behind closed eyelids Buffy saw their hands clasped, flame flickering between their fingers that, by some miracle, only felt pleasantly warm to her even as it scorched his skin. The beams lancing out from the amulet, seeming to come directly from his heart as they pierced the darkness of the cavern, destroying every enemy they touched.

Destroying him.

And now he was gone.

The shock of it should still have been too new, too raw for her to really believe, but she forced herself to think it; played with the phrase, turning the words over and over again in her head: Spike was gone.

Spike was gone.

Buffy would never see him again. Never get to hear his sardonic humor, catch him smirking at her out of the corner of her eye, feel him trailing her from what he thought was a safe distance while she patrolled. Never hear the snick of his lighter as he put a cigarette to his lips. He would never show up unannounced to irritate her anymore. He would never sit next to her on the back steps, silent but able to comfort her with just his presence.

Never kiss her. Never touch her. Never make her body sing when the rest of the world left her numb at best, and hateful at worst.

He would never look into her eyes again, with tenderness or anger or pain.

He would never try to convince her he loved her, ever again.

And it was her fault.

Her choice to accept the amulet Angel offered, her decision to include Spike in the final battle – in all their battles against the First, against Caleb, as her most trusted aide – her idea to name Spike her Champion.

Her choices before that, to push him away, to make him think he was unworthy of her, to think he had to redeem himself in her eyes and that throwing his life into the inferno was the only way to do it.

Champion, she thought sadly. The word itself made her chest hurt, made it hard to breathe. Champion, another word for hero. And he was, oh, he was, he'd almost single-handedly saved the world from being overrun by the hordes of Hell, and died a hero's death – but he'd still died. Paid the price it was her job to pay. Paid for their victory, paid for her life, paid for the lives of an entire world that she wasn't sure she even cared about saving anymore.

It was different, when the cost of victory was her own life. She could pay that, had paid it, willingly. But now…

Now, Spike was gone, and that price – Spike in exchange for the world – was too high for her. She wasn't sure she could do it anymore. Go on protecting a world that had no idea what it had lost today.

Spike was gone. It was her fault.

And he had died, not believing her when she said that she loved him.

The days passed. The wounded were given time to recover; plans were made to rebuild the ruined Council of Watchers; ideas were bandied about concerning how to gather and train all these new Slayers. Willow's spell had reshaped the world, and all around Buffy, the others were scrambling to adapt.

Amidst all the activity, Buffy was still.

Oh, Buffy was still the original Slayer, even if she was no longer the only Chosen One. She couldn't afford to have some kind of girly breakdown, the way a couple of the former Potentials had done once the pressure was off and they could give in to their pain.

But she didn't participate in the planning. Didn't offer ideas. Didn't volunteer to gather up the newly-called girls around the world.

Didn't really talk at all, anymore. There was nothing she particularly cared to say to anyone. There was nothing she could say that she thought they would understand or sympathize with, and even if they did, she didn't especially want anyone's pity. Everyone there had lost someone, after all.

It wasn't their fault, and she didn't really want to go into it with them, that the one she'd lost was someone she hadn't valued while she had him.

How much had Spike done for her, over the years? And how much had she taken for granted, or deliberately scorned, belittling him and all he'd ever given her? Gifts she'd never asked for, so she counted them worthless and threw them back in his face, time and time again.

Not this time. Not ever again. In the days before that final battle, she felt that she'd finally come to see him – Spike, and William who was hidden under the façade – for who he really was. If he'd survived, she thought she would have finally learned not to take him for granted, to act as though she were somehow entitled to everything he'd ever done for her. As if she'd had the right to inflict everything she'd ever done to him. As if she somehow deserved all his devotion and loyalty, and love.

She deserved nothing. Looking back, she wasn't sure she ever had.

So Buffy kept to herself. Didn't choose to burden anyone with her pain when they had their own to work through. She went to bed when the others did, but she didn't sleep. She put food on her plate with the rest of them, but could never manage more than a few bites before grief leached the flavors out of everything. She hadn't known sadness could do that. She kept herself moving – got out of bed, got dressed, kept herself showered and combed and all the rest – so no one could really say for sure that she was falling apart.

But they were just motions, and without Spike in her life anymore, they were meaningless. Words were just gibberish, not worth gathering the energy to listen to, or to say. The words "I love you" hadn't meant anything when she'd finally gotten over herself and said them, hadn't given him a reason not to die; now, she found it difficult to see what purpose words really served at all.

Actions were as senseless as searching for the corners in a round room, and just as wasteful of her efforts. None of her actions had saved those girls, or Spike. All her actions had ever done was to push people away, or to get them killed. So, for the most part she didn't bother anymore.

Buffy sat in her hotel room and looked at the wall, or sat with the others and looked at her hands, or sat near a window and looked out over a world that didn't have Spike in it.

Windows were best. For the most part, people left her alone when she looked out windows.

Even better, when she looked out windows, if people left her alone long enough, sometimes she could feel Spike sitting next to her, as if they were still out on the back steps, and he was offering her comfort just by his presence. It was nice. An illusion – she knew that – but a nice one all the same.

Time passed, and then one day not long after the battle she found herself sitting beside Giles at the window, in the balcony that overlooked the hotel lobby, clearing his throat. Trying to get her attention.

"I'm leaving, Buffy," he said. "Going to Edinburgh, as we discussed – er, well, as the rest of us discussed."

She just looked at him. His words didn't seem to require a response.

"I wanted – I'm not sure when we'll see each other again," he said, "and before I left I wanted to tell you – I'm sorry."

She blinked, slowly. Waited.

"I was wrong," he said gently. "About Spike. About your trusting him. His sacrifice – without him…"

"Yes," said Buffy.

"I don't know if you'll ever be able to – if you'll ever feel comfortable, confiding in me again," said Giles. "And I understand if you'd prefer not to. I failed you. Failed myself, as well. Deliberately blinded myself to what was in front of me all along, and broke your trust in the process. I know I can't – can't wave my hand and make all of that just disappear." He looked down for a moment, blinking rapidly. Looked back up and said, "But I can offer you my apology, at the very least."

Buffy studied his face, licked her lips. "Okay," she said.

"Okay," he repeated in a whisper. Looked down again, smoothed his hands across his lap. "Yes. Well." He was blinking quickly again as he stood, held out his hand. "Well. Goodbye, Buffy. I hope we see one another again soon."

She studied his hand, the lines in his palm, the ring he wore on one finger. He seemed to be waiting for her to do something, so after a moment she held her own hand out, took his and let him squeeze it.

A handshake. After all their years together, after everything that had happened between them, they were reduced to shaking hands in farewell. But she couldn't muster up the energy to give him anything else. It was just another gesture that meant nothing to her anymore, just more wasted motion, but it seemed to make Giles feel better, so maybe that made it okay.

"Bye," she said softly.

"Goodbye," he replied. There were tears standing in his eyes, looking as if they were on the verge of falling, but he turned away before she could see it happen.

Giles was leaving her again, walking out of her life, probably forever this time. Although he'd said he wanted to see her some time – soon, he'd said – Buffy really didn't know what those words meant anymore.

And then she blinked, and when her eyes opened again he was downstairs at the lobby door, suitcases in hand. She looked out the window, watched as he loaded his bags into the trunk of a taxi, watched as he climbed inside.

Watched the cab till it disappeared around a corner and was gone.

More days passed. Buffy got up in the morning and got dressed, and put her pajamas back on at night and went to bed, and those were pretty much the milestones of her day. In between, she did very little. Went through the motions of eating, pretended to listen when people spoke to her, and sat by the window where it was easiest to feel Spike's presence, silently comforting.

Willow came and sat with them – with her, she corrected herself, it was just an illusion – came and sat with her, one day. Said some things about how worried she was, how Buffy needed to eat more, how this kind of grieving wasn't good for her. That got Buffy's attention, briefly.

"I'm not trying to bring him back, Will," she said, voice hoarse from days of disuse. "And I'm not trying to destroy the world rather than deal with the hurt and the," her voice wobbled, "the unfairness of him being gone."

Willow reared back, eyes wide. Buffy hadn't really meant to cut her like that, but… who was she to tell Buffy what kind of grieving was okay and what wasn't? It was hers, this loss. It was all of Spike she had left, and she held it closely to her. Cherished it the way she'd never allowed herself to really cherish him.

"I – Buffy," Willow began. "I just meant – okay, maybe you're not gonna go all dark-Buffy and end the world or anything, but… I can't help but worry that you're on the way to ending yourself."

"I'm not going to try anything like that," sighed Buffy. As if she could end her life, when Spike had thrown his into the abyss to save her. She turned her face back to the window; this conversation may as well be over.

But Willow wasn't finished. "No," she said, "I don't think you're suicidal. But you're not really… trying to live, either. You might not plan on ending your life, but you don't seem interested in keeping it, you know? And I'm… I'm really worried about you, and the worst part is that I can't stay to make sure you're going to be okay."

"I'll be okay," said Buffy. She wished it was a lie.

Buffy didn't want to be okay, but dealing with her mother's death had taught her that, eventually, she would be. Eventually there would be days when she didn't think of Spike every waking moment. That was part of why she was at the window now, why she planned to stay here as long as she could. Eventually the day would come when she wouldn't be able to feel Spike sitting next to her, close enough to touch, just out of sight past the corner of her eye. She wanted to enjoy the sensation while it lasted.

"I have to go," said Willow after a moment. "Kennedy and I – we have an assignment in Brazil. That sounds so secret-agent. We're a buncha bigwigs now…" When Buffy didn't respond, Willow leaned in, hugged her shoulders gently. "You'll get through this, Buffy. I wish I could stay, but – you're strong. You'll be okay. I know you will."

"So do I," said Buffy. It didn't matter that she didn't want to be.

Willow left. Buffy didn't remember whether or not they'd said goodbye; if Willow had, Buffy didn't remember answering.

Time passed. Minutes, hours – Buffy didn't really care how long. It wasn't time for bed yet, that was all she knew. She sat, and looked out the window, and every once in awhile thought she could smell the leather of Spike's duster.

It was an illusion. God, how she wished it was real, but it wasn't.

One day Xander came and sat with her. Might have been the same day as Willow's goodbye – might not. Buffy wasn't really interested in keeping track.

For a long time he didn't say anything, which was nice. No speeches, no trying to pry poor Buffy out of her shell. Just sat on one side of her while she felt Spike sitting on the other side. She didn't turn her head; knew if she did he wouldn't really be there, and she didn't want to spoil the illusion.

Maybe that was a little insane, wanting to hang onto something she knew wasn't real, preferring the illusion to the reality. Or maybe that was normal – maybe that was how regular people lived every day, pretending that their version of reality was the truth. It would explain an awful lot about Sunnydale and how the general population somehow managed to go on not-believing in demons, vampires, and all the rest of it.

But whatever. Buffy didn't really have the energy to think about it.

So she sat in the window, and not-really-Spike sat with her, and Xander sat with her, and no one said anything for awhile, until Xander spoke up.

"I miss Anya," he said.

Buffy closed her eyes and nodded. Amid all the meaningless gibberish people were spouting lately, here were words that meant something real.

"I'm sorry," she replied. And she was, although those words usually didn't mean much when other people said them. That was just what they were supposed to say, right? I'm sorry for your loss. As if they had had anything to do with it. But Buffy was sorry, and unlike most people, she had reason to be.

Anya's was one more death that was her fault, after all.

"Andrew keeps telling me," Xander struggled with the words, "that she saved his life." He sniffed, ducked his head. "I miss her… and I'm mad at her for being so stupid… and… I'm so, so proud of her."

"Yes," said Buffy. She was proud of Spike, too. And she knew, like Xander did, that the feeling would do nothing to bring either of them back.

He looked at her, one good eye and an eye patch that was her fault too. "Giles has me headed to Africa," he said. "Looking for new Slayers. I'm… kinda hoping the time alone will help."

Buffy said nothing.

"I just wish I knew what would help you," he went on. "But for what it's worth – I'm sorry."

Buffy waited. Looked at him for a long moment before turning to gaze out the window again. "Giles said he was sorry, too, before he left," she said eventually. "For trying to have Spike killed. Why are you?"

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him shrug uncomfortably. "Being an ass, mostly," he said. "We – Spike tried to fit in with us, and stuck around that summer you were gone, and none of us really ever let him forget he was supposed to be evil. We never really… let him be good."

"No," said Buffy, "you didn't."

Xander stopped, cleared his throat. "Yeah, well," he said. "He hurt you, and then he went nuts, and, you know, he was a vampire in the first place. It was a little hard to see past any of that. I couldn't figure out how you could just let it slide."

"I love – loved – him," said Buffy, turning to face him again. Admitting it to another person for the first time. She took a long, slow deep breath, held it for a second before letting the words out on a sigh. "But it doesn't matter. Doesn't mean anything."

"How does loving someone not mean anything?" he asked.

"Loving him," she said. "You, apologizing. They're just words. They don't mean anything. You're too late, Xander. Spike's – gone." Couldn't say died. Not yet.

She turned her face back to the window.

After another long silence, Xander just said, "Yeah, I guess so." Buffy could tell that she'd cut him too, the same as she'd cut Willow. Hadn't meant to. Couldn't dredge up an apology.

"I am too," was the best she could do. "Too late, I mean. We waited too long, and now none of it matters. What we say, what we feel…" her voice cracked, and the tears she didn't deserve to cry began to leak out of the corners of her eyes. "There's no point to it, anymore." Buffy shut her eyes tight, grit her teeth and fought for control. "It's just… empty. Like we're all just faking it now. Motions, gestures. You know. They don't mean anything. Because we waited too long. Because we were… cowards…" Her chest heaved, and one sob managed to break free before she wrestled herself back to stillness. Tears spilled down her cheeks and spattered on the legs of her jeans. "None of it matters anymore."

"Oh, Buffy," sighed Xander. He reached out and put his hand on her arm while she fought to stop crying, but she shook her head and shrugged him off gently. Just sat with her head bowed over her lap, her hands tightly gripping the edge of her seat, every muscle tense, until she heard him get up and walk away.

She was wiping her eyes, a minute later or an hour, when she felt his hand on her arm again. Shrugged, but he didn't let go.

She looked up, irritated, only to find there was no one there.

That was the first time it happened.

The next time, she was walking to the bathroom and felt someone's hand on her shoulder, and when she turned around, startled, all she saw was her empty hotel room. It took a second before she realized what felt so familiar about it – any time she walked away from Spike and he wasn't done talking to her, he'd reach out and grab her shoulder, exactly like that. Spin her clear around if he was feeling vehement enough.

"Spike?" she'd whispered, feeling a little foolish as she did.

There was no answer, of course, but it was still… kinda nice. Feeling him like that. Before, she'd had to shut out the world, sit alone and still for as long as she could, to feel as though Spike might be near her, just out of sight, not talking to her but still there. She told herself it was only an illusion, but she couldn't make herself let it go. It was so much better than thinking of him the way he really was, burned to ashes and dust at the bottom of a crater in what used to be her hometown. Better than reminding herself with every breath that his death was on her hands.

Of course, she never really stopped thinking about that, but still. Feeling his presence was… soothing.

As the days went by, Buffy felt him near at least a few times each day. Sometimes it was the smell of his leather duster, other times a caress of cool fingers at the back of her neck, making her shiver. Once she thought she heard him chuckle at something Dawn said, and that unnerved her enough that she had to ask.

"Dawn," she said cautiously, "do you think… could Spike haunt us, somehow?"

Dawn had chewed her lip in thought. "I dunno," she'd said. "He had his soul in the end, so… maybe, I guess. If it meant finding a way to bug us, I'm sure he'd try."

"Do you ever – sometimes, I – do you ever feel him around?" she asked.

Now Dawn looked at her with sympathy – or maybe it was just pity for the crazy grieving woman – and replied, "No, Buffy. I wish he were here, but… he's not."

But the little touches, the sense that he was with her somehow, grew stronger as the days passed, and Buffy started to wonder if she was really imagining things after all. They boarded a plane and flew away – to Rome, Dawn explained, along with a scolding that she really needed to pay more attention to what was going on – and for the entire flight Buffy kept having to fight the urge to move to the window seat so that Spike wouldn't have to risk sitting in the sun. Every time she let herself look, though, all she saw next to her was an impatient Italian woman who clattered away on her laptop until the battery quit, and kept demanding alcohol from the flight attendants whether they were serving or not.

They landed and she could feel Spike stalking along behind her in the airport, all the way through baggage claim and out to the cab that took them to their new… place. Buffy couldn't bring herself to call it a home. Couldn't betray the memory of her mother's house like that. This whole building belonged to the Watchers' Council, and she couldn't forget that, couldn't get comfortable enough to relax anywhere except in the privacy of her bedroom. Nothing in it really belonged to them; it was just a glorified hotel where they got to stay for free.

Feeling Spike's presence was the only thing that made staying there tolerable. Once, she would have been willing to swear that she woke up with Spike's arms around her. That morning, Buffy kept her eyes shut tight, refusing to move or do anything that might break the spell, for as long as she could. Didn't want to spoil the illusion.

She knew he was dead. She knew she might be delusional. She just couldn't make herself care.

Buffy made it through one day, and then another and another, going through the motions of life until Dawn told her nearly three weeks had passed since the closing of the Hellmouth. Her routine in Rome, if you could call it that, was the same as it had been in Los Angeles: wake up, force herself to eat a little, and eventually go to bed. In all the empty moments in between, she sat quietly and soaked up the sensation of Spike's presence near her.

He wasn't a ghost, she had reluctantly concluded. Buffy never heard him speak, never actually saw him other than as glimpses out of the corner of her eye that vanished whenever she turned to look. She'd only heard his laugh the once; the touches and the scent of leather were, themselves, not as common as the simple, vague impression that he was with her, somehow.

But he wasn't, not really… well, probably not, she told herself. Feeling Spike's presence like this was just something her mind was coming up with to cope with him being gone. A part of Buffy's mind was trying to delude her into thinking he still existed, even though she knew he didn't.

It couldn't last. She knew that.

But it felt so real, and oh, how she wished that it was.

Then one day she and Dawn were out walking in the hills outside Rome, because Dawn had insisted to her that she needed some fresh air, that it would be good for her, help with the grieving process, and a bunch of other stuff that Buffy didn't really believe. But she went along, if only to get Dawn off her back and give her more peace and quiet to feel Spike near her.

She stood at the top of a hill and looked down into a grove of almond trees, and felt Spike standing just behind her. Fingertips caressed the back of her neck – or maybe that was just the breeze. But she could smell cigarettes and leather, and if he were really there, Spike would have been standing so close she could have leaned into him while he held her from behind. Buffy took a deep breath and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation.

She stood like that, swaying with the motion of her breath, for about a minute, before the world tipped sideways.

Buffy felt dizzy, and something inside her wrenched as if it was being tugged out of her by invisible hands, out through her heart and her solar plexus. Eyes wide, she put a hand to her stomach and gasped, unable to catch her breath as her knees hit the rocky soil and she toppled over onto her side. Dimly she could hear Dawn calling her name in a panic, but she couldn't focus on that right now.

Something was taking Spike away from her.

No, she begged silently, no, no, not like this, no, don't go… Buffy reached inside herself, her eyes closing over a flood of tears, reached for that place where her awareness of Spike came from… but there was nothing.

He wasn't there anymore. She couldn't feel him, couldn't find him.

Spike was gone.

The knowledge crashed over her. She'd been living in a fog, hanging onto the illusion that Spike still existed, was still in a condition to care about her, could possibly still be anywhere near her. She was so stupid – an idiot, a moron, insane, delusional. She'd been fooling herself all along, and now she was waking up to the reality everyone else had been waiting for her to see. Spike was gone.

No, not gone. Dead.

Because of her.

Between one breath and the next, she began sobbing hysterically, calling Spike's name over and over as Dawn lifted her partway out of the dirt and wrapped her arms around Buffy's shoulders.

"Spike, Spike," she wept, kneeling, leaning helplessly into her sister's embrace.

"It's okay," Dawn murmured into her hair. "It's all right, Buffy."

"No," she cried, "no, he's gone, you don't understand."

"I know, Buffy, I know…"

"No, you don't!" Buffy sobbed, her body wracked with the force of her cries, chest heaving. "No, he was here, I could feel him, you don't understand, he's gone, Dawnie, he's gone, he left… Spike… he's… oh God, Dawnie, Spike's dead, oh God… oh, no, no… God…"

And then words left her and all she could do was wail her pain, all the sorrow and despair in her broken heart, to the empty Italian sky.

"…And we'll find out why they really brought us here," said Angel to his team – his friends. Adjusting to life at the top of Wolfram & Hart, law firm, wasn't going to be easy, but if this was what it took to redeem himself – to protect his son – then he would do it, whether his friends stuck by him or not. He picked an envelope up from the stack on his desk, tore it open. "Meanwhile, we do the work our way. We deal –" He stopped, startled, as a gaudy pendant on a chain slithered out of the envelope and onto the floor.

It was one he recognized, only too well.

"– with whatever comes next," he finished. Angel stared at the pendant, then took a step back in surprise as it began to glow. A whirlwind sprang up and scattered the papers on his desk as it grew, black with soot and ashes and flecked with brightly glowing sparks, as if a bonfire were hidden somewhere deep inside the gemstone of the amulet.

The ashes coalesced into the shape of a man, forming from the bones outward. It was a little like watching a vampire dust, thought Angel, only in reverse…

The sparks swirled inward, and the soot condensed onto the bones, adding flesh, skin, clothing as a hot wind raced through Angel's office. And then the shape was screaming, gasping, doubled over in pain, and the whirlwind had stopped, and Angel realized that he knew the man standing before him, its back turned but the blond hair and leather duster impossible not to recognize.

…no, he understood suddenly. It was exactly like watching a vampire dust, only in reverse.

"Spike?" asked Wesley, astonished.

"Spike," Angel replied grimly.

It looked like "whatever comes next" had already arrived.

Pain. The amulet's power has hold of him now, right and proper, going to use him up to destroy the baddies. It reaches deep into him, finds his soul and latches on. Hurts.

Love, worry, concern, tenderness for Buffy. Sorrow that this is the most she'll accept from him, that this is the only time she can make herself say she loves him. He knows better, knows he isn't enough for her and never could be, but still, it was nice of her to say so.

More pain. A little fear – yeah, all right, a lot of fear, then – but nothing worth admitting to. It's the ultimate challenge, it's going to eat him alive, and the thrill has him laughing in ol' Death's face.

"I wanna see how it ends."

Searing, blinding agony as his body is consumed in holy fire, agony that seems to go on forever, until the moment when it doesn't anymore. There is a glimpse, an instant barely remembered later and possibly invented, of peace, or maybe just oblivion. Of rest. Can we rest now, Buffy?

Then the pain returns, along with sight and sound, and he hears himself screaming, feels his body being stitched back together. Pain that seems to go on forever, until it doesn't.

Gasping for unneeded breath, surrounded by chaos. A Babel's Tower of voices, faces coming into focus, an unfamiliar room instead of the cavern, people he doesn't recognize. Human, one demon – "easy, slim, no one's going to hurt you" – someone else saying his name… "second only to –"

"– me." And he knows that voice. Turns, and there the sadistic bastard stands. Angel. Too cowardly to just shove the stake home and kill him cleanly, too cowardly to risk his own arse wearing the amulet himself.

Too cowardly to stand by Buffy's side, when she needs it most.

Spike roars and lunges… and passes right through his grandsire, and into the desk behind him. Realizes with a twisting sense of dread that while he doesn't feel the pain anymore, he isn't feeling the desk, nor anything else either.

"Oh bugger."

There's a moment of stunned silence – good to know everyone else is just as gobsmacked as he is, at least – before the cacophony starts up again. Who, where, how, all questions he'd bloody well like to have answers to himself.

"From this," says one of the men. British. Has an officiousness to him that Spike has learned to associate with Rupert and the rest of the bloody Council of Wankers. Just his luck to find himself in the presence of another one. But he's holding up the amulet, the one Spike wore into the pit, right there at the literal sodding Mouth of Hell. Damn thing looking none the worse for wear, even though it apparently did quite the number on Spike.

"What is that?" says the woman. Pretty enough little chippy.

"Something I gave to Buffy before –" the bloody ponce starts to say.

Buffy. Christ, how could he forget? What's happened to her while he was burning to ash?

"Buffy! Is she –"

"She's okay," says the ponce.

"Where," he needs to know, "where is she?"

"Europe, last I heard," says the ponce.

How is that possible? An instant ago they were in the pit together, facing the hordes of hell.

"Want to see her," says Spike. "Want to talk to her." The ponce says she's all right, but Spike needs to know. Needs to see her again with his own eyes.

The ponce doesn't care. Here they are, Angelus once again looking at Spike and seeing only William the fledgling. Of course he starts a pissing contest over which of them gets to claim Buffy for their own.

And Spike, fool that he is, disoriented and confused, the aftershocks of mortal agony only now fading, falls for it.

He's almost grateful when that stupid bint Harmony sticks her two pence in, sidetracks them both, gets things back to the point.

"…an ally of hers for some time, at least, that's what Angel told me," says the not-quite-a-Watcher. Narrows his eyes at the ponce. "That's all Angel told me."

Yeah. 'Cause Angelus has never liked to share – not his toys, not his kills, and certainly not his place at the top of the mountain. King of his own little hill, he is, our Liam.

More with the voices, these strangers asking too many questions, Angelus on the defensive, and no one telling Spike what he needs to know.

"What the bloody hell is happening?" he demands.

They adjourn to some laboratory, the lot of them crowding into an elevator together, everyone else giving Spike a wide berth. It's rude gettin' in someone's personal space, elbows jostling, when you're all crammed together like that. It's creepy when you discover there's nothing physically there to jostle against.

Spike stands in his corner, arms folded tight across his chest, enduring the racket, giving clipped answers to their questions and listening to the Cliffs Notes edition as they answer his. It's been near three weeks since Sunnydale; he's in Los Angeles, not hell, "though a lot of people make that mistake" says the demon. Seems an all right fellow if a bit light in his loafers. They got the amulet in the mail, the bloody post for Christ's sake, and out he popped for no reason anyone can determine. None of them, including Spike, has any idea how he got in there in the first place.

He follows the chippy inside, Angel and the black fellow behind them, the Brit and the demon bringing up the rear. They're muttering something about what an interesting story it all makes, but Spike isn't listening to them. He's thinking about something the ponce said earlier, back in what is apparently his office.

It was that throwaway phrase, "last I heard". Buffy's in Europe, "last I heard." The ponce said it as if it were no big deal. No – as if Angelus didn't have tabs on his little girl, didn't know exactly where Buffy was, what she was doing, and with whom. What she ate for breakfast in the morning.

What a complete, steaming pile of horse shit. Spike knows Angelus too well. He's willing to bet the ponce knows exactly where Buffy is.

See, Angelus has never, not once in all the decades Spike has known him, allowed his prey to slip out of sight once he's picked her out of the crowd. The great broody forehead might not be killing anymore, but that "artist" who loved to manipulate and control, who would take whatever he could from another person in order to make them his and his alone, that person is still there. Angelus never lets go, never shares what he thinks is his. Always has to be king of that little hill.

"Buffy's not mine to keep," his gleaming white ass. Ponce is lying to himself if he really thinks he's not trying to keep her, even now. The bastard may tell everyone he's a completely different person with the soul, may even believe it himself, but Spike knows better, knows that some things don't change. Some things are so deeply ingrained in a man's nature that he can't leave them behind, on any threshold.

Scanner girl – Fred – says he's not a real ghost. He flirts with her a bit, reflex more than anything, even though she does have a cute smile. But his heart isn't in it. He turns away, passes his hand through a few pieces of lab equipment, just for the novelty of it and for something to do besides stand there like a bleedin' science project.

He feels nothing.

"What the hell am I then?" he asks the room in general.

"Whatever he is," oh thanks, Watcher-wannabe, can't be bothered to speak to Spike, only about him, "it's clearly tied to this amulet." He's looking at the thing through a microscope, murmuring about essence while Angel scoffs.

"Last I heard, it was buried deep inside the Hellmouth. How did it end up here?"

Of course, thinks Spike. If you can't be the hero, you wouldn't want the guy who did the deed, Buffy's real Champion, to find his way back and show you up, now would you?

Then Fred starts using words like "destiny" and "higher purpose" and it's Spike's turn to scoff. He knows what he is, and some bloody savior of the world is not it. He loves Buffy, but he can never be enough for her, so he went into battle by her side fully expecting not to come back out again. Died willingly so that she wouldn't have to – it was the only gift he had left to offer her. And yeah, he saved the world, but it wasn't out of some desire to redeem his past sins. It was for her. Only now it looks as though his offering has been rendered worthless by the sodding higher powers, and for what? Just to see how thoroughly they can fuck Spike over? Here he's been dragged back from the dead, and he saw exactly how well that went when it was Buffy's turn.

The room blurs for a moment, and when his vision clears everyone is staring at him. He realizes he's not standing in quite the same place he was a moment ago.

"Where'd you go?" asks the black fellow. Go? What, now he's pulling vanishing acts too?

Right. Spike's had enough of this, thank you.

"This is your fault," he says to Angel. Sodding coward couldn't wear the amulet himself, couldn't stay to fight at Buffy's side. Didn't dare – or maybe couldn't be bothered – to risk his wide, pimpled ass when it came down to brass tacks.

"She made the call," says the ponce. "Wasn't my choice."

"And this bloody well wasn't mine," Spike snarls. "I'm not you." And thank Christ for that. "I don't give a piss about atonement or destiny. Just because I got me a soul…"

And shock all around. The almost-Watcher looks up from his microscope, checks he heard Spike correctly, turns to Angel. "You never said."

Ponce gets all evasive. Little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Didn't seem worth mentioning. You know."

"Seems to be a lot of that," frowns the black fellow. Well, of course, thinks Spike. Being unique is yet another way for the ponce to place himself up top of his own little hill, the way he likes. The only thing Spike can't figure is that these friends of his actually seem surprised to have seen our Liam's true colors.

"Or maybe Captain Forehead was feeling a little less special," he says. Smirks as he sees the arrow hit the target. "Didn't like me crashing his exclusive club – another vampire with a soul in the world."

And now Angelus is in his face, growling. "You're not in the world – Casper." And goes stalking off, likely to brood or glower or whatever it is he does when he knows someone is right who isn't him.

Bullseye.

Doesn't make him feel any better though, knowing the bastard is right too. He isn't in the world. Spike whirls around, sweeping his arm through table, chair, people, and microscope, wishing to God he could hit them all and maybe smash a few things on the floor.

He's as surprised as anyone when his hand comes into contact with the amulet, sittin' there under the Brit's nose, sending it flying out from under the microscope and skittering across the worktable.

The Brit and the chippy are looking at each other in surprise. Cautiously, Spike walks around the corner a ways before he remembers he could just go through, and stops, waist-deep in worktable. Scoops his hand through the table's surface and under the amulet. The chain swings through his fingers as if it isn't really there, but the jewelry itself is solid in his hand, the points around the edges digging into his palm as he squeezes.

Spike looks up at the other two left in the lab, eyebrow raised.

"Perhaps your connection to the amulet is more extensive than I thought," says the almost-Watcher. Really, couldn't sound much more like ol' Rupert if he tried.

"Yeah. I'm gathering that," says Spike.

He leaves them to it, poking and prodding at the Liz Taylor jewelry since they can't poke and prod at him, and explores for a little. Finally finds the ponce and goads him for a bit, but again, his heart isn't in it. What he wants is to be with Buffy, so when Angelus tells him, "Get out of here, Spike," he does.

Or at least, he tries to. For the rest of the bleeding day he walks, runs, practices vanishing and reappearing, and generally does what he can to make his way out of Los Angeles. Seems he can mostly appear wherever he chooses, if he focuses hard enough. With luck he'll get good enough at the parlor tricks to concentrate on Buffy and be at her side in an instant.

Only it never happens. He reaches the edges of the city proper, "Now Leaving Los Angeles", and feels a fishhook catch his guts and yank him back to the lobby of the great evil law offices. Every damn time. A dozen different attempts in a dozen different ways all get the same result.

It's after nightfall when he gives up, puts himself just outside the ponce's office where he's speaking with the almost-Watcher – former-Watcher, actually, according to him. Mr. Wyndham-Pryce is there, muttering with His Broodiness over why their higher-ups gave the amulet to them if they knew it would do this to whoever used it.

So maybe Angel was the intended target, after all. Nice to know our Liam has problems of his own, but that doesn't make Spike any happier about having been swept up in affairs that should have had nothing to do with him. God knows he's never happier than when he's away from the ponce and any of his dealings.

"What are you doing here?" asks the ponce when he spots Spike in the doorway. "I thought you left town."

"Don't think I didn't bleeding try," Spike says. Explains to them about the fishhook, how it always seemed to catch him right at the city limits.

"Hmm," says the former-Watcher. "I suspected as much. The amulet is Wolfram and Hart's property. It's bound to this place, and since Spike is connected to it…"

"Hey! I'm nobody's bloody property, Percy," Spike snaps. "So what – I'm just stuck here forever?" He glares at the ponce. All of this is his fault, anyway. "I bet you're loving this, aren't you?"

Dream come true, says the ponce. Spike will show him a bloody dream come true.

"Where do you think you're going?" Angelus growls, as Spike turns and stalks away.

"To fix your problem," Spike calls over his shoulder.

They follow him, of course, but they can't get a hand on him. One of the only advantages Spike can think of to being a ghost. He concentrates and puts himself back in the laboratory, while they're still banging through doorways and stomping down halls.

Spike is pleased to see Fred still there, clicking away on her computer. She startles as he appears in front of her, and he can't help but smile.

"Sorry," she says, "I, uh, didn't see you come in." She laughs nervously. "You know us science types, get all wrapped up in our work…"

"Pet," he says kindly, "is that amulet still down here, from earlier?" When she nods, he says, "Be a lamb, then, and get it out for us? There was something I just wanted to check before I forgot about it."

She hands it to him just as Percy and our Liam thunder through the door. He smiles at her and walks over to the nearest lab table. It's got a good solid bit of equipment on it with some sharp corners that should do nicely.

"What are you doing, Spike?" growls the ponce.

"Told you," says Spike. "Solving our problem."

"It won't work," says the Watcher. "Spike, the amulet is protected, except perhaps on hallowed ground. Its magic makes it virtually invulnerable." He stops, catches his breath. "And if you did manage to destroy it on hallowed ground, you'd be destroying yourself as well."

"You think I planned to come back from being burned to ash at the mouth of Hell?" says Spike bitterly. "Think I'd look forward to haunting you lot for all eternity? What, Spike the wisecracking ghost sidekick? Bugger that for a game of soldiers."

"You… you want to kill yourself?" asks Fred. Sweet of her to care, really.

"I'm already dead, pet," he says to her gently. Glares back up at Percy and the ponce, adds, "and if it's so bleedin' invulnerable then why is it the only thing I can touch? You said I was connected to it, right?"

Watcher nods thoughtfully. The ponce scowls.

"What happens if he can break it on unhallowed ground?" he mutters.

Watcher shakes his head. "Perhaps nothing at all," he says. "Perhaps Spike would be free to leave Wolfram and Hart, or perhaps he would still, er, cross over. No longer be trapped between realms as he is now. We've simply no way to know what will happen… assuming anything happens at all."

Angel sighs. "Fine. Go ahead, give it your best shot," he says.

"As if I needed your permission," Spike replies. Rolls his eyes. Angelus, trying to be in charge even now.

"Thanks for the help," he says to the chippy. It'd be just Spike's luck for nothing to happen at all, but he has to try. Takes a deep, utterly unnecessary breath, says, "Let's see what this does," and slams the amulet down on one corner of the lab machinery.

The world goes white.

"Fred! Fred, are you all right?" She opened her eyes, blinking away afterimages, to see Wesley kneeling beside her, hands gripping her arms. He smiled in relief as she focused on his face, and she let him pull her upright.

"I… yeah," she replied. Somehow she'd ended up sitting on the floor, propped against the cabinets under one of the lab tables. Her butt was a little sore from where she'd landed, but otherwise… "Yeah, I'm fine."

Still blinking, Fred stood, surveying the lab for damage and looking at Wesley in bewilderment when she found none. She had expected to see the aftermath of an explosion around her, centered on the spot where Spike had smashed the amulet, but… apart from the flash of light and something knocking her down, she didn't remember there being any sound. And the lab itself seemed intact, only…

"Where's Spike?" she asked. Wesley was still looking at her in concern. "And – sorry – what about you? Angel?" She spun in a slow circle, taking everything in. "Is everyone okay?"

"We're fine," said Angel, standing at the bottom of the balcony steps. "There was this… wave of energy, I guess… it knocked us back a couple of steps but you were closest to it. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Well, I sat down a little hard, but I'm pretty sure my butt can take it," she smiled. "But I don't see Spike."

"Idiot probably destroyed himself," muttered Angel, and Fred frowned at him. She opened her mouth to say something, but a crash from the storage room interrupted her.

Oh, she thought, peering inside. There was the explosion.

While the side of the wall that faced the lab was completely intact, inside it looked as though a wrecking ball had smashed through it, seven or eight feet up, and continued across, right to left, through the center set of shelves and into the shelving on the opposite side of the room. At least the top third of the center shelves was destroyed, the side opposite the impact curling outward in a welter of torn and twisted metal. Across the narrow aisle, the metal-and-wire shelves on the far wall were crushed flat and the concrete blocks behind them dented and cracked.

The floor of the little room was no better. Cardboard boxes had burst from the impact and flung their contents to the far corners of the room; broken equipment, scattered papers, and broken glass were spread everywhere, covered in a litter of concrete and gravel. Dust hung in the air from the destruction.

In between the two sets of shelves, Spike knelt awkwardly with his back to them, his black duster covered in debris and splayed out around him. He was leaning against the far shelves with one arm and trying to pull himself upright with the other, but as Fred watched, his foot slipped and his knees buckled, dropping him back to the floor hard.

"Spike!" she exclaimed. She picked her way quickly through the mess to his side.

Spike's head wobbled as he twisted and looked up at her, eyes a little crossed. He was bleeding from a cut somewhere on his scalp, staining his white-blond hair a brilliant red as it trickled down along his temple, and another gash on his cheek. He blinked, eyes wide and staring, and struggled to focus on her as he smiled.

"Looks like it worked," he slurred.

"God, are you okay?" she asked, pulling one arm across her shoulders as Wesley came up behind him. Between the two of them, they managed to get Spike upright, swaying where he stood as they tried to turn him around in the cramped space.

"Yeah, mostly," said Spike. He blinked again, "Only there's two of you and I'm pretty sure you're not meant to be twins, pet."

It was more than a little odd to hear such a dangerous vampire, at least according to Wesley, giggling drunkenly as they guided him back toward the lab. He staggered sideways and nearly fell as they helped him into a seat. "Bit of a slap and a tickle, that was."

"I'll take your word for it," Fred said. "Here, just… get your bearings back while I run some tests, okay?"

"Yeah, all right," he mumbled. "Almond trees…" He put a hand to his head, wincing as he found the cut on his scalp. Studied his fingers for a moment and then grinned, licked the blood off the tips.

"What was that?" asked Wesley. He flicked the table lamp on nearest the stool where Spike was perched as Angel approached. Spike hissed and ducked his head away from the sudden light. Swayed in his seat and threw a hand out to steady himself against the worktable.

"Drama queen," muttered Angel, arms folded.

"No, that would be you," Spike replied. "Try and remember we're nothing alike, won't you? Ponce," he added in an undertone.

"Small favors," grumbled Angel. "God, Spike, do you ever think things through? You had no idea how powerful that amulet could be."

"Yeah, well, neither did you," said Spike, "being that you were too much of a bleeding coward to actually use the bloody thing, weren't you?" He sat straighter and glared at Angel. "'Sides, I figure you do enough brooding and moping about for the both of us, you great git."

"If you don't mind," said Wesley, shooting a look at them both, "Spike, you said something strange just now… something about trees?"

"What? Oh. Yeah," he replied. "It's nothing. Just – for a second I thought I remembered…" He looked away, focusing on nothing, before he shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Wasn't real."

"Even so, it may be useful information later on," persisted Wesley. "Perhaps something to do with the amulet and its powers."

"I doubt it," frowned Spike. "I thought I remembered standing near some almond trees, was all. Like an orchard, or something. Only it was daytime, and…" he stopped, shook his head again. "It doesn't matter."

"And what?" Angel pressed.

"And Buffy was there," Spike snapped, glaring at him. "I was with Buffy. That make you happy?"

"No," said Angel. "You hit your head too hard. Daytime? With Buffy? You're hallucinating."

"I didn't say I thought it was real, now did I?" demanded Spike. He moved to stand, but Fred's hand on his shoulder kept him down. "'S what I remember. Your pet Watcher asked, I answered, end of story."

"How are you feeling now?" cut in Fred, before they could continue.

Spike sat back on the stool, rolled his shoulders. "Bit better," he said. Looked at Angel before adding, "Steady enough to walk out of here, that's for bloody certain."

"Good," said Angel.

Fred rolled her eyes and moved to stand between them. Spike shifted his gaze away from Angel and back onto her. "No broken bones, anything like that?" she asked.

"Nah, pet," he said, "thanks for asking. I'm just – gettin' used to bein' solid again, I reckon." Spike rolled his shoulders again. His eyes flicked toward Angel and away, and he shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Fred bit her lip in thought.

"Well, I'm getting some unusual readings," she said. "I'd like to keep you here for just a little while longer – I mean, if that's okay with you?"

Spike smiled at her. "Beautiful woman says she wants to keep me around," he said, eyebrows twitching. "At least I'm smart enough not to run away whenever that happens."

"Shut up, Spike," growled Angel.

"Make me." Spike folded his arms and leaned back. "Tell me, Peaches, is it really your curse or just that you haven't got the balls to handle a relationship with her now she's not a child anymore?"

Angel started forward as Spike surged to his feet, but Fred beat them both to the punch. "Enough!" she said. "Both y'all are, what, more than a hundred years old, right?" She looked back and forth between them, exasperated. "Try acting like it, already."

Spike sat back down, smirking at Angel, daring him wordlessly to press the issue.

Angel looked away. "He started it," he muttered under his breath.

"And you can just put on your big-boy britches and end it," she declared. "You're in my lab and I have work to do. Didn't I hear you talking earlier about some necromancer you have to deal with?" At Angel's shrug, she went on, "How about you find Charlie and go do that. Wes and I can take it from here."

"Fine," said Angel, turning toward the steps. "Try not to take too long, though. The sooner you're done dealing with this idiot, the sooner we can get back to handling problems that are actually important."

"Oh, no fear there," Spike retorted, "I'll be bloody thrilled to get out of your overdone hair fast as I can, and on my merry way – back to Buffy!" he shouted at Angel's retreating back.

The sound of the door slamming was his only reply.

"Ugh," said Fred, "you can grow up too. Just because you've already taken a beating doesn't mean I won't smack you upside the head if I have to."

Spike took a deep breath, let it out with a sigh and a wince. "Sorry, pet," he said. "We've got history. Get under each other's skin like no one else can."

"Perhaps if you didn't try quite so hard," murmured Wesley, and both she and Spike grinned. "Fred, you mentioned some unusual readings?"

Fred blew a wisp of hair out of her face, tucked it behind her ear. "I lied," she said.

Both men blinked at her.

"There's so much residual energy hanging around from that amulet getting smashed that I can hardly pick up anything definitive," she explained. "All I've been able to tell for sure is that you seem to be back to your regular vampire self… but the more sensitive instruments keep getting surges of static whenever I try for more detailed information. Brainwave activity, interdimensional residue, anything like that – it's just completely skewed." She shrugged helplessly. "I wanted to ask you some questions, and you were looking like you didn't want to talk in front of Angel, so I lied. I was hoping he'd get bored and leave when I mentioned more tests, but you just had to keep pushing his buttons…"

"Yeah, well," said Spike sheepishly, "like I said. History." He rubbed a hand along the back of his head, frowned and ruffled grit and debris out of his hair. "So. Ask away, then."

"Right," she said. "How are you feeling, really?"

Spike made a face. "Tingly," he said. Glanced back and forth between her and Wesley to gauge their reactions. "Pins and needles sort of thing, all over. Thought it might fade, but instead it's been getting stronger."

"Spinal injury, do you think?" asked Wesley. "From the level of destruction in the storage room I'd say you struck the walls with an incredible amount of force."

"No," said Spike. "I've had spinal injuries. Was bloody paralyzed once. This isn't the same." He rolled his shoulders again, grimaced as he folded his arms. "It's gettin' to where it bloody well hurts… and I'm getting more sensitive to light and noise. This lamp is still hurting my eyes. And your computer monitor is going to drive me right around the bend here in a few minutes, if that high pitch keeps up."

"Perhaps you were right about needing to adjust to a corporeal form again," offered Wesley, "but even so I would expect the sensitivity to fade as you adapted, rather than getting worse."

"Yeah," said Spike. He was gritting his teeth now, ducking his head away from them as his hands tightened on the worktable. "Could you turn that bloody thing off?"

Fred leaned over and switched off the table lamp as Wesley walked over to her desk. Her eyebrows went up as she watched Spike flinch in time to the sound of Wes's shoes striking the tiled floor, followed by a sigh of relief when Wes pushed the button and powered down her monitor.

"Better?" she asked, trying to pitch her voice low.

"Different," Spike replied, his eyes shut. He sniffed once, jutting his chin out like he was bracing for a showdown. "Tingles are still getting stronger. Hurts." He shrugged his duster off and let it slide to the floor. "Like my skin is too tight."

"Maybe you should lay down," she said. "I mean, you did hit pretty hard. Maybe you should rest?"

"Or feed," suggested Wesley. "You've been, er, elsewhere, for nineteen days, but perhaps time moved differently wherever you were."

"Maybe," he replied. He still wouldn't open his eyes and his hands were clenching and unclenching on the edge of the table. "Come away from the window." He swallowed and began to take deep breaths as if he were nauseous.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"Need to lay down," he muttered, and they quickly got his arms over their shoulders and helped him stand.

"There's a break room we use, just past the storage room," said Fred. "Sometimes we have experiments running that we can't leave alone, so there are cots and things set up."

"Yeah, all right," said Spike. His Adam's apple bobbed as he walked between them, placing each foot carefully as if he were walking on ice.

"You're still in pain?" asked Wesley.

Spike didn't answer. Halfway up the corridor he stopped once and hunched over, exhaling a soft little grunt as his face twisted, the muscles in his arms rigid as they struggled to keep him upright. They shuffled a few more steps up the hall after the fit passed, before he stopped again.

"Something… something isn't right," he said. Finally opened his eyes as he lifted his head up. "There's… Buffy? No. No, she isn't here, is she. The window…"

"Can you tell us what's happening?" asked Fred.

"Something isn't right," muttered Spike. He swallowed with a little shudder, closed his eyes again. "I don't feel right… Something's…" He went limp, sagging between her and Wesley as they fought to keep from dropping him.

They'd no sooner gotten him lowered carefully to the floor when he began to convulse. His fingers curled into clumsy claws and his back arched, eyes rolled up and jaw clamped tight. His legs kicked out and went rigid before starting to quiver and twitch randomly. His breath came and went in ragged, animalistic grunts and gasps.

"Do vampires even have seizures?" Fred asked, holding his head to keep him from banging it on the tile.

Wesley slipped in beside her, took Spike's head in his hands. "Call medical," he said. "Then call Angel. I'll stay with him." Fred dashed back to her desk and called the infirmary, a corner of her mind still bemused at the idea that she could just say "the patient is a vampire" without anyone batting an eye.

Once she was assured that a team was on its way, she dialed Angel's office. Listened to it ring, looked over her shoulder and up the corridor to where Wes knelt over Spike. It looked like Spike's fit, or whatever it was, had passed; he lay flat on the floor, bending one knee before his foot slid back out and his leg went limp. Raising one hand weakly as his head moved. It looked like he was trying to say something; as she watched, Wes leaned in closer to hear better.

"Yes?" Oh, right, Angel.

"Uh, Angel – it's Fred – um, we need you in the lab. It's Spike."

"What has he done this time?" came the irritated response.

"Had a seizure, for one thing," Fred replied, annoyed. "I realize you two don't get along, but I thought you might want to know anyway."

She heard Angel sigh on his end. "Fine," he said after a second, "I'll be down in –"

Up the hall, Spike snarled like some kind of angry tiger, a sound Fred couldn't remember hearing before outside of a television documentary; in person, it made every muscle in her body freeze stiff. She watched, eyes wide, unable to make a sound as he shoved Wes off him and into the wall, and scrambled to his feet. Growling softly, he took in his surroundings, eyes glinting an inhuman gold as they caught the light.

He spotted her, and all of a sudden she couldn't breathe. The phone slipped from her fingers, unnoticed.

"Fred? Fred!"

Spike charged.

The girl. The girl. Get to the girl.

Something was wrong. The floor. He was on the floor. The man leaned over him. He was weak.

Shove the threat away. Get up. Fight.

A woman. He could smell her fear, hear the frightened hammering of her heart.

Prey.

He charged and she didn't even try to get away, and he growled deep in his chest. Grab her arms, lean in – no.

Mustn't hurt The Girl.

He shook his head, confused. Leaned in again to catch her scent, just there, behind her ear. She was delicious. She was intoxicating. She was…

Not prey.

Pulled his head back, looked her up and down. Took in her wide eyes, her quick breath. Her fear – but not her terror. A memory – her hands on his shoulders. Her teeth, not bared at him but showing a smile. Words. Not a threat. Not prey. Not a fellow hunter.

An… ally?

But not his mate, either. This was not The Girl. The scent wasn't right.

Something was wrong. This girl was an ally. This girl could make it right. Could take him to The Girl.

Let go of her arms, step back. Push on her shoulder. Nudge her, gently, carefully, toward the door. No knocking this girl down. Not that kind of shove.

He had to get to The Girl. This girl could help.

Wesley picked himself up off the floor, knowing he would be too late. Spike was… if he was interpreting what he'd seen correctly, Spike was no longer completely aware of his actions. Likely he would believe later that he was dreaming when he attacked Fred, assuming he remembered it at all; the brain was a strange place immediately following an epileptic seizure.

That wouldn't make Fred any less of a corpse.

Wesley staggered up the hall, holding his head, and nearly dropped to his knees again when he spotted them. Spike, still wearing his demonic features, had his hands on Fred's shoulders, but instead of feeding on her, he seemed confused about what to do next. One corner of Wesley's mind wondered whether Spike had suffered such serious brain damage that his feeding instincts had been disrupted; the rest of his thoughts were occupied with trying to find a weapon, something to fend the vampire off, some way to protect Fred from a painful, terrifying death. It would be all but impossible to sneak up on him, though, and if Wesley's timing were off, if he were caught, it would be all over.

Except, while Wesley stood there for endless seconds, frantically trying to come up with a strategy to save Fred, Spike tipped his head, shook it – as if he were actually thinking, which in his state shouldn't be possible. After a moment, though, he seemed to reach some kind of decision; to Wesley's immense relief, Spike let Fred go and stepped back, swaying a little on his feet before he reached out again with one hand and… nudged her. When Fred didn't respond, he reached out and pushed again, a little harder.

"I don't – Spike?" Fred squeaked. All things considered she was holding it together remarkably well. "I don't understand what you want."

Spike showed no signs of comprehension, only looking at her, eyes half-shut, for a long moment before reaching out again. Clumsily, he grasped her sleeve and tugged her forward. Wesley feared he was either pulling her in for the kill or about to drag her off somewhere to hide the body, but when Fred shuffled a step forward, Spike let her go again.

What was going on?

Just then the medical team burst through the lab doors, two men wheeling a gurney and a third sliding down the balcony rail to land on the lab floor; more crowded in behind them as Wesley watched. Fred jumped, and Spike whirled with a snarl and shifted his feet into a defensive crouch. He grabbed Fred's sleeve again and shoved her behind him as one of the orderlies brought a tranquilizer gun to bear.

"Don't!" called Wesley.

Spike spun again at the sound of his voice, his fangs bared and a steady growl ripping the air as he glared at this new threat. Wesley froze, held his hands out to his sides, and kept his gaze focused on the medical team. "He's had a seizure," he said, pitching his voice low. "He's not entirely conscious just now, but he hasn't harmed anyone." Wesley stepped forward slowly, cautiously. "I'm sure we'd all like to keep it that way."

Out of the corner of his eye he watched Spike shuffle backward, where he could keep a better eye on both Wesley and the medical team. Interesting that he kept Fred behind him, he thought. The placement was significant, Wesley was sure – protective, or possessive. He only wished he knew which it was.

One of the paramedics spoke up. "Dr. Burkle, could you please step away from the v- … from our patient?"

Bad idea, thought Wesley.

"I-I don't think he'll let me do that," said Fred. Spike jerked his head back toward the men on the balcony, his growls becoming louder as his footsteps staggered slightly.

Of course, thought Wesley. Ordinary people – living people – nearly always fall deeply asleep following a seizure, their brains exhausted from the storm of activity; for all that he was a vampire, it was nevertheless remarkable that Spike had gotten up off the floor at all. He had to be on his last reserves of energy. All they had to do was wait him out. Wesley looked toward the balcony, and – yes. One of the paramedics had caught on as well; he was whispering in the ear of the orderly with the tranquilizer gun, gesturing at Spike. As Wesley watched, the orderly lowered his gun slightly.

Fred had her hands on Spike's shoulder and arm and was murmuring to him, soft words reassuring him – he was safe, it was all right, no one was going to hurt him. For his part Spike didn't seem to comprehend what she was saying, but he responded to her tone and her touch, letting her shuffle him sideways – away from the medics, Wesley noted – and toward one of the stools nearby. He kept most of his attention on the men gathered on the balcony, only glancing in Wesley's direction once or twice. When Wesley didn't move, Spike seemed to relax somewhat. His fangs were still bared and he kept himself between Fred and everyone else in the room, but his stagger was more pronounced and his growls were fading away.

"That's it," Fred was saying, "it'll be okay, they're here to help, you're –"

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Spike?" Angel. He slapped the door open and walked through like he owned the place – with complete confidence, and complete disregard for what everyone might be doing inside.

The chaos that erupted at that point, Wesley thought later, was likely inevitable. Of course Fred and the medical team would startle at the interruption; of course Spike would react with a roar and a step forward. Of course there would be simultaneous shouts of "Sir!" and "Angel!" and "No!" coming from all directions.

Of course the tranquilizer gun would fire, twice, odd little bursts of sound like a cat sneezing, louder than they should be amid all the shouting and movement. One dart struck Spike full in the chest, but Fred was still there, her hand on his arm, and they were both moving; the second dart caught her on the back of her wrist, and she cried out at the sudden sting and snatched her hand back, plucking the dart out quickly.

Not quickly enough; the dart had done its job, and she was already swaying on her feet as Wesley sprinted to her side. He managed to lower her gently to the ground as Spike stumbled back to one side, knocking the lab stools over with a clatter and landing hard on his knees. By the time Wesley turned around, Spike had toppled over onto his side, face slack and eyes staring blankly as his features shifted back to human appearance. He blinked once, gazing at nothing, and his hand moved aimlessly across the floor, but he was otherwise still.

The medical team quickly got to work, moving the gurney into place and tending to Spike. His head lolled but he made no sound as they lifted him into place and tightened the straps across his body. One medic was on the phone, telling the infirmary to ready another bed for Dr. Burkle. Two more were checking Fred's vital signs as she lay in his arms.

"I'm so sorry," said the orderly with the gun. "She just –"

"I know," said Wesley. "Will this drug hurt her? What about the dosage?"

"She should be all right, sir, but we'll monitor her carefully. She should just sleep it off and be fine. Another gurney is on its way."

Angel stepped forward, a hangdog expression on his face. "I could carry her," he began, but Wesley stood and cut him off with a look.

"I rather think you've done enough, Angel," he said softly. "Don't you?"

"I'm really worried, Giles." Dawn was pacing as best she could in the tiny hallway just off the doorway to their apartment's tiny kitchen, back and forth between their bedrooms and the living room as far as the telephone cord would let her. Two steps toward Buffy, turn; two steps toward the back of the sofa, turn; repeat. "I've never seen her like this," she said. "Not even after… after Mom."

"It's understandable that she would be, er, distraught," Giles began.

Dawn cut him off. "No, Giles, this isn't 'distraught'," she said fiercely. "She didn't stop crying, and I mean really really crying, hard, for like three hours. She didn't stop until after she threw up. She threw up, Giles – I've only heard of people doing that in like soap operas or something." Two steps, turn, two steps, turn…

"Yes, well," Giles soothed, "Buffy was under – we placed her under – a tremendous amount of strain in the weeks leading up to the final battle. It's not surprising that she should react so, er, intensely, once she allowed herself to do so. Once she no longer felt herself to be under so much pressure."

Dawn bit her lip. "I wish I could believe you," she said. "But she… when she first fell apart she was saying things about Spike. She wasn't making sense."

"They were," Giles stammered, "well, close, for some time, I gather…"

She rolled her eyes. Stopped in the kitchen doorway. "I know that, Giles. This was different. She made it sound like Spike was standing right there, like she thought he was still around somehow. She was freaking out about him being," her voice wobbled, "him being gone… but she was making it sound like it had only just happened. Like right in that second." Two steps toward Buffy, turn. Two steps toward the back of the couch. "Like I said – she wasn't making sense. And like I also said – I'm really worried."

There was silence on the line for a moment, then Giles said, "Should I come? Would you… do you think it might help if I were there?"

Dawn sighed, leaned against the wall. "I dunno. Maybe. Yeah."

"I'll make the arrangements," he replied.

They talked for a few more minutes more before hanging up; Dawn pressed the back of her head against the wall for a second, her eyes shut. With a sigh, she went into the kitchen and poured a glass of ice water, took it up the hall to Buffy's room. The door had been pushed closed but not latched; it swung open when Dawn knocked.

Buffy was lying on her bed, facing the wall. Still dressed; Dawn had gotten her shoes off for her, after the worst of the crying had passed, but in all the time Dawn had been on the phone Buffy hadn't done anything else to get ready for bed. Hadn't changed into her pajamas, hadn't pulled the covers back. Really, it looked like she hadn't even moved.

In English class, Dawn had read a couple of stories where people "turned their faces to the wall". Especially in Ireland and Scotland, it seemed like, mothers would learn that their sons had been lost at sea, or daughters would be heartbroken that they couldn't marry their true loves, and they would go into their rooms, lie down on their beds, and "turn their faces to the wall".

And then they would die, of despair and grief.

Dawn swallowed back her fear and came in to sit on Buffy's bed. Buffy didn't move, but Dawn could see that her eyes were open. Every now and again she would blink, or swallow, but other than that she was still.

"I brought you some water," she said.

For along moment, Buffy didn't react, but then she rolled over and sat up. She wouldn't look at Dawn; her eyelids were horribly swollen and red, but the rest of her face was pale, almost bloodless, with huge dark circles under her eyes like bruises. Like that time after she'd let Angel drink from her, and ended up in the hospital. She looked half-dead already, thought Dawn, and the way her hand shook when she took the glass and drank brought the fear back all over again.

Buffy's hands never shook.

Dawn watched her take a few swallows, and took the glass back when Buffy handed it to her. Her sister lay back down and started to roll over again. To face the wall.

Dawn's hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"Please don't," she whispered.

Buffy closed her eyes. When she opened them, she just stared up at the ceiling, blinking her puffy eyes, and didn't say anything.

"You… you're hurting," said Dawn after a minute. "And it's okay. I get that. When Mom… I remember what it was like. I wanted it not to be real. I wanted to, to shut the world out – but at the same time I needed someone to cry with, you know? I accused you of not caring when really you were trying so hard to be strong for me…" She had to stop and blink away her own tears. "And you don't have to be strong right now, if you don't want to. It's okay – really. But please don't shut me out. Don't – don't turn your back on the whole world, just because you hurt so much right now. Okay?"

Buffy took a long, slow breath. When she spoke, her voice rasped and squeaked, worn out from hours of anguished sobs. "Why not?" she asked. "And don't tell me it's because the world needs me. I'm so… so sick of the world needing me. I don't care anymore what the world needs."

"I wasn't going to," said Dawn. "It's just, I remember how much worse it hurt when it felt like I didn't have anyone there with me. And if you cut yourself off... if you roll over and just stare at the wall like that… then you'd be alone. You'd have to go through all this by yourself. And you don't have to. Maybe… maybe this time you need the world, instead of the other way around."

"I don't need the world," said Buffy. Apart from the way it kept breaking, her voice held no tone at all. No anger, no sadness. No life. "I don't want it anymore. What has the world ever done for me? I've given it everything, over and over again. Everything I had. And the world – the world I'm supposed to care about, and save, and protect from evil – all it ever did was take, and take, until it took everything I had to give."

She blinked, and finally, finally looked at Dawn. Dawn had thought that would help with how scared she was feeling, but instead it made it worse: Buffy's eyes looked the way they had after she'd first come back from the dead. Only not even like that, because then she'd been as much shell-shocked as anything else. This time there was no surprise; no betrayal; no hurt. This time there was only despair in Buffy's eyes, and a bitterness so deep it made Dawn feel sick to her stomach.

What kind of hell did a person have to go through to get to the point where that kind of pain wasn't even a surprise anymore?

"Spike was right," said Buffy.

Dawn blinked. "Spike? I-I mean, about what?"

"I told him I loved him," she said. "In the cavern, during the battle. Finally. And he said, 'n-no you don't.'" She turned her face back toward the ceiling. A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye. "He was right."

"Buffy!" Tears sprang up in Dawn's eyes, too.

"This world? Being the Slayer. I gave it everything I had. Everything I was," said Buffy. "Being the Slayer took everything from me. It took my freedom as soon as I was Called. No choice. When they put me in an institution, I lost my faith in Mom and Dad. They were my heroes, and then they… I lost that. I gave up on telling them the truth, trying to make them understand. I turned to Giles, gave him my trust, and he took it and broke it. Him. Xander. Willow. Manipulated me; kept secrets; judged me whenever I didn't act the way they thought I should. Being the Slayer took my friends from me. Took away my capacity to be a friend, eventually. I couldn't be there for them. Didn't know how. Instead, I used them, the people who could have been my friends, and watched my sacred duty chew them up and spit them out." She stopped, swallowed. "I gave my life for my sacred duty. I gave my death for my sacred duty, and it still wasn't enough. They had to take my afterlife, too."

Dawn reached out and stroked Buffy's hair. She wasn't even sure Buffy noticed.

"I gave up any hope of living a normal life. Being the Slayer took that, too. An education, a job outside of fast-food. I lost friends. I lost other peoples' friends. I lost Mom. I lost my virginity to Angel and my innocence to Angelus. Never would have happened if I wasn't the Slayer. I would have had a regular boyfriend, my first time. Instead, trying to just be a girl – trying not to be the Slayer just for a little while – trying to love… took Angel away and put a serial killer in his place. By the time he came back it was too late, and I had to kill him anyway. Send my love to hell, in order to save the world. After that I was so twisted around… love?" Buffy closed her eyes and scoffed once, softly. It was the most emotion Dawn had heard in Buffy's whole speech.

"Love is about giving, Dawnie. When Spike and I got together, all I did was take. I was giving away everything to the world and to my calling, and the only way I could stand it was to take from Spike, and not give anything back. I took from him until I broke him. And then he left because he blamed himself for hurting me, when I pushed him to that desperate place. So it was back to me and the world again, and my stupid, sacred duty. And I gave and gave, and gave, and the world just kept taking. And then the First came. I gave everything I had left trying to protect all those Potentials, trying to lead an army when I was only ever supposed to be the One Girl In All The World. And when I did what they demanded of me, and tried to lead them, tried to make those choices and decisions, they decided they didn't like how I was doing my job, and they took even that from me. You all did. You even took away my right to stay in my own home."

"And we never said we were sorry for that," whispered Dawn, as her tears fell.

"Doesn't matter," Buffy answered, her voice dull and rasping again. "Spike gave me the strength to get through those last few days – because I didn't have any strength left of my own to give. I still don't. So when I told him I loved him and he said I didn't, he was just showing me the truth, the way he always does. Did. Because by that time I'd given everything. Or had it taken. Same diff." She took another long, slow breath, let it out in a sigh. "I couldn't really love Spike. Can't. Because there's nothing left in me to love with."

Buffy fell silent, gazing up at the ceiling. Dawn wept, quietly, and stroked Buffy's hair, as the shadows grew long against the wall.

"I get what you're trying to tell me, Dawnie," she said, after Dawn's sniffles had grown quiet. "You want me to trust that I can lean on my friends, and let them hold me up, so I don't have to go through this alone. Instead of turning my back on the world. But I don't have that trust. I don't have anything left in me anymore. It's all gone, Dawnie. I've been sucked dry. I thought Spike was the last thing the world would be able to take away from me, and then today…" her lip began to tremble again, "today the world took away even the sense of his presence around me. He was dead but I could still feel him, you know? And it helped. But the world took that away too. Now all I have left is this… empty hole inside. It's all there is. All the trust is gone. I gave it all to this world I'm supposed to protect. Supposed to still find a way to care about, somehow. But see, the world isn't going to give me anything back, Dawnie. I know that now. It's taken everything else, but I'm not going to let it have the satisfaction of watching me try to depend on it – hope it'll somehow put me back together again – when it never has before."

Buffy blinked once, slowly; then she rolled over again, and turned her face to the wall.

Dawn stood up, her legs aching from sitting in one spot for so long, and left, shutting the door behind her. She went through the motions, washing out Buffy's water glass, using the bathroom, fixing herself something to eat, setting the table for one; but the whole time all she could think about was how scared she was for her sister. How exhausted, defeated – broken – Buffy had sounded.

She sat at the table and stared at her dinner, her head in her hands and tears welling up in her eyes. She had no idea of how to make things right for Buffy. Wasn't sure it was even possible. Dawn had said yes to Giles coming, but it wasn't because she thought he'd actually be able to help Buffy. No.

She'd said yes because Dawn was terrified that Buffy was going to die, and she didn't want to have to watch it happen all alone.

It was dark in the apartment, and silent, and her food was a cold and disgusting lump on her plate, when Dawn finally decided to go to bed. Again, she got up, went through the motions. Got another glass of water for Buffy, snuck into her room and put it on her bedside table. In the dark, it was hard to tell, but she thought Buffy's eyes were closed. That could mean she was asleep, or it could just mean that she didn't want to talk anymore. Dawn wasn't sure which.

She'd just finished brushing her teeth when the phone rang.

"Dawn?" came the voice on the line. She hadn't even said hello yet. "It's Willow. What's happened to Buffy?"

She'd just finished brushing her teeth when the phone rang.

"Dawn?" came the voice on the line. She hadn't even said hello yet. "It's Willow. What's happened to Buffy?"

"Willow? Huh what?" Dawn cupped the phone in both hands, ducked into the kitchen. "I – what?"

"Something's wrong with Buffy," came Willow's voice over the line. There was a burst of static – apparently the connection between Italy and Brazil was a little shaky, but then Dawn was feeling a little shaky herself. "I was calling to ask if something had happened to her."

"What are you – I mean, yeah, I guess," Dawn began, "but – did you talk to Giles today or something?"

"No, no," Willow replied. "Sorry. I'm being all confusing girl, huh?"

"Well, kinda, yeah." Dawn flipped on the kitchen light, squinting against the glare. "I mean, if you didn't talk to Giles… wait, did you do something to her? Willow!"

"What? No, nothing like that, I swear! I just –" Willow took a deep breath. "Sorry. Wow, totally getting off on the wrong foot here. Sorry. Here, how about this – I'll tell you what I know, and I'll tell you how I know it so you don't wig out, and then you can tell me what's going on with you and Buffy, and we'll go from there, okay?"

"Okay, but this better be good," Dawn warned. She resisted the urge to pace up and down the hall again, reaching for the little bar stool they kept near the phone. "Buffy so does not need any crap like this right now."

"No, no crap, Dawnie, I promise," Willow said. "I mean, I know I've given you good reasons to worry in the past, but this time you don't have to. I was just doing an earth magic exercise. It's completely different from the bad magics, and it's something the coven in England taught me when I was recovering from the bad magics. Okay? It's completely safe."

Dawn couldn't help the sigh that escaped. "No offense, Willow?" she said, "But… I have heard that before."

"Rrgh, I know, okay? I know! Please, Dawn," said Willow, "I called because I'm worried about Buffy. You tell me – should I be, or not? Do I have time to explain in detail what I did and why it's safe? Is Buffy in danger, right now, right this second? 'Cause from what I felt, I kinda got the impression that she was."

"She…" Dawn bit her lip, sat down on the kitchen stool. "I think she's asleep right now. At least, she's in her room." She sighed again, heavier this time. "I'm sorry. It's just –" Dawn stopped, took a deep breath. "It's just that I'm halfway to Wigville, and yes, you should be worried, but I guess I'm taking things out on you, and you probably don't deserve that. Anyway. To answer your question, about Buffy… there was some stuff earlier today, but there isn't anything going on right now."

"Well, that's good to know, I guess," said Willow, her tone relaxing, "and thanks. For keeping an open mind." There was a pause, and Dawn could hear Willow shuffling around, wherever she was. "If Buffy's not in any immediate danger," she said after a moment, "if it helps, I could give you kind of a little lecture on, on magic theory for you to understand exactly what I was doing. Would that – do you think that might make you feel better? I mean I'm not trying to distract you, 'cause believe me I'd rather be focusing on helping Buffy right now, but I also want you to not wig out and I figure maybe a little background might help. Is that okay?"

Dawn chewed her lip for a second, shifted her weight on the stool, and plucked at the hem of her pajama shirt. "I guess so," she said finally, "but again – this better be good."

"Okay, great," said Willow. "Okay. Where do I start… okay. Um, the main difference between what you'd call good magic and bad magic, or black and white, o-or whatever, has to do with where witches draw their power from when they get ready to do a spell, okay? Before, when I was all with the bad magics – well, the way those work is basically, you grab a convenient power source, slap your will on top of it, and then turn it loose. The herbs and crystals and props and things help shape the power so that it will kind of "listen" better, or else help fit your willpower to the energy better, or maybe kinda both, if that makes sense? It's dangerous, for a bunch of different reasons."

"The addictive thing," said Dawn.

"That's one reason, yeah," said Willow, "but another is that… um… well, if there's one rule to magic – any kind of magic – it's that everything is connected, and because of those connections, every spell a witch casts has a price tag on it. It's like, if you pull on something over here, you better be prepared to push on something over there, or the power flows will be unbalanced and things will go boom. One way or another, there's always consequences."

"Spike said that once," said Dawn. She tried to ignore the little ache in her chest when she said his name.

"Yeah, he did," said Willow, "and hoo-boy, was he right. I didn't know any better at the time, so I used to treat magic like it was just another kind of computer programming; I figured I could just take blocks of code, or subroutines, whatever I needed and just plug them in to get the result I wanted, you know? And the thing is, as a quick-and-dirty approach, it does work – grabbing energy from elsewhere is actually pretty easy, even if you don't have any power of your own, which is why you and Giles and anybody else can do spells if you have the right ingredients and things. And if you do have power of your own, if you don't know any better it feels like a pretty simple shortcut. Oh, I'll just use the Pool of Karadon, oh, I'll just sacrifice that chicken, you know? And since your own power isn't the only thing in the equation, it's easy to convince yourself that there isn't really a price to pay, or that you can get away with paying it by using that other source of power instead of your own. Which you can't, by the way; in fact usually the price is higher because you also end up owing something to whatever entity you took power from in the first place. Plus, with everything being connected, the energy you grab to shape into a spell also shapes you, and shapes your power, whether you notice it or not. Um, hence addiction, hence dark and scary things happening… hence why I don't do that anymore."

"But you still know something about Buffy and you used magic to find out," said Dawn.

"Right," said Willow, "but like I said, that was earth magic, totally not the same thing – which is why I'm trying to explain the difference, remember?"

"I know," said Dawn. "And I appreciate you taking the time. I am listening, I swear." Her lip was starting to hurt from all the chewing on it, but at the same time, all this magic talk was actually pretty interesting. If nothing else, it helped to take her mind off her worry for Buffy, if only for a few minutes.

"Okay, so, earth magic doesn't work the same as the bad magics, well, not mostly, anyway," said Willow. "The rule still applies – everything is connected – but earth magic is all about connecting, see, because we're all connected to the earth just by virtue of being here. Remember before, how I said if you pull on something here you need to balance it by pushing on something else over there?"

"Yeah," said Dawn.

"I used to treat magic like programming, and the bad stuff does kinda operate that way. But earth magic is more like, like managing an ecosystem. Or like playing music on the strands of a spider's web, while you're sitting in it. Everything is connected, in ways you can't even imagine. It's so beautiful, once you really see it, so intricate, so… heh. Sorry," said Willow. "It's pretty amazing stuff."

"I gather," said Dawn. "But back to the topic?"

"Right," Willow replied. "So. Everything is intertwined with everything else, and all of it is connected to the earth. To use earth magic, you strengthen that connection, reach through it to the person or thing you want to affect, and then you use your mutual connection along with your willpower to make the changes you're looking for. The price tag is right there in front of you, because again, the energy shapes you as much as the thing you're, um, targeting. Plus there are things earth magic won't let you do, or at least, not without a lot more effort involved, and that's its own kind of price tag. But since you're not taking any shortcuts that way, the things you can do end up being more powerful than they would if you just, y'know, stole power from a demon or made a sacrifice or something."

"Okay," said Dawn, "but you still haven't told me what this has to do with Buffy."

"I'm getting to that, I promise," said Willow. "In fact I'm getting to it right now. So. When I was with the coven over in England, part of my – rehab, I guess you could call it – part of my rehab was, they gave me these exercises to do, so I could learn the whole connecting-to-the-earth thing. Once they were sure I could do that, they gave me exercises where I reached through the earth a-and practiced making a connection to something familiar. They're not spells, not really – they're more like preparation or, or laying the groundwork, or something along those lines. Like, they might be 'step one' of a spell if I was going to do one, but by themselves they don't do anything. Anyway," Dawn heard her sigh quietly, "since I was pretty homesick, and grieving for Tara and everything, a lot of times I practiced by connecting to you guys back home. Like touching your part of the spider web, or… Ooh! I know! What I was doing was like, like reaching out and just touching your shoulder with a fingertip. Barely any contact at all, just enough to establish the connection. Am I making sense so far?"

"So far, yeah," said Dawn. "You're saying you didn't do anything to Buffy – and I believe you, so, you know, thanks again for the explanation – but you contacted her and then something happened?"

"Well, not happened-happened, but I definitely noticed something," said Willow. "See, the exercise barely makes any contact, but even that teeny tiny connection can give me some very primitive feedback about what kind of state your energy is in. We're talking, really basic data, like if you're alive – 'cause otherwise I wouldn't be able to find you to connect to… at least I don't think so, although I guess maybe… or, or it could tell me if you're okay or maybe what you were feeling if it were really strong, or whatever. I wouldn't be able to get anything beyond that without casting an actual spell, but the really super-basic stuff like that does come through."

"And Buffy had a really, um, emotional day today," said Dawn. "Maybe you felt that?"

Willow made a worried little sound, almost hidden behind the static on the line. "Ohh… I hope that's all it was, Dawnie, but I got a bad feeling," she said. "See, things have been really hectic lately, you know, what with the apocalypse and all, and I realized that I'd gotten out of the habit of doing my exercises. So I sat down to do them today, just a little bit ago. Connected with the earth, which feels really different in Brazil by the way, and reached out, just like I usually do, right? And everyone else felt pretty much the same as always, but when I got to Buffy… she felt… wrong. Really messed up. Not just tired or upset, which we all kinda are, or even mourning like Xander is over – you know – over losing Anya. Buffy was, she…" Dawn heard Willow take a deep breath. "B-Buffy felt…"

There was a long pause in which Dawn could only hear the static hissing over the line. "What?" she pressed. "Willow? Buffy felt what?"

"Shredded," said Willow, her tight with worry. "Like something had attacked her and just… just mauled her, on a spiritual level. She felt –" Willow's voice was wobbling and Dawn thought she heard a sniffle, "Dawnie, she felt like she had pieces missing. Of… of her soul."

Willow's voice was wobbling and Dawn thought she heard a sniffle, "Dawnie, she felt like she had pieces missing. Of… of her soul."

Dawn's gut went cold. "She what?" she gasped, finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden.

"I-I mean, that's probably wrong," said Willow, her voice high and frightened, "I mean, I don't think I'm actually touching someone's soul when I do those exercises, a-and I wouldn't want to, I thought that kind of thing was all with the black magics and I don't do that anymore, Dawnie, I don't! But she, Buffy, she felt so… I didn't know what to think, you know, I thought maybe she'd been injured or something, like in a car accident maybe, only not just some fender-bender but really banged up, you know? So I finished up my exercise as fast as I could, and I tried to calm down, you know, and then I called you. Because I'm worried, Dawnie, really worried, what if something terrible has happened, or the First, what if –"

"It's not the First," said Dawn. "At least, I'm pretty sure it's not. She, um. It was daytime and we were out walking and she had… kind of a breakdown…" Her eyes grew wide as she realized. "But she also kept saying 'don't go,' over and over, like maybe something inside her was leaving – and later, tonight I mean, after she calmed down a little – she told me that she'd been able to feel Spike around her and then it was like he was taken away from her. And now," she felt the tears rising again, "now she looks at me and it's like she's dead inside, Willow! She looked at me and it was like when she'd first come back, after she'd been pulled out of Heaven – she just looked so lost, and…"

"Oh, Dawnie…"

"And I'm really afraid she's just gonna give up and die!" Dawn was crying in earnest now, trying to keep quiet for Buffy's sake, her voice raw and hitching on every other breath. "It's like in those folktales where p-people turn their faces to the wall and die, she just lays there on the bed and she's facing the wall, and, and I can't get her to even look at me most of the time and then when she does… when she did, she just looked… a-and before that, when it first happened, she was crying so hard she couldn't even talk, and then she threw up she was crying so much. She cried herself sick, Willow, and now she's just laying there, and I don't know what to do!"

"Shh, Dawnie, shh," said Willow, "it's okay, it'll be okay…"

"No, it's not okay, it's not…"

"Okay, no, but it will be, Dawn, it will be, I promise it will be," said Willow, frantic to soothe her.

"I can't do this," cried Dawn. "I'm… I'm not the grownup, I don't know how to take care of her, and she's hurting so much, Willow, you didn't see…"

"Hey," Willow cut in. Her voice was watery but forceful; Dawn could almost see her putting on her resolve face. "Hey, you won't have to, okay? You say the word and I can be on a plane just like that. I can leave first thing in the morning if there's a flight. If you need me. You won't have to deal with this on your own, Dawn, I swear. And, and Buffy won't either. We'll figure this out, and we'll get through it. We'll get her through it. I swear."

Dawn's eyes closed, and she leaned her forehead against the edge of the doorway. It helped; God, it helped, but even so, she couldn't help but ask, "You really think there's something we can do to fix this?" Her sniffles echoed over the line.

"I think we won't know if we don't look," said Willow. Dawn could hear her taking deep breaths as she fought to clear her head. "We just… we – okay, we need to, to calm down and think."

"Okay," said Dawn. She hunted around for a paper towel, blew her nose. "Okay. 'Cause Buffy needs us, right?"

"That's right, kiddo," said Willow. "And this time we're not gonna let her down, right?"

"Right," said Dawn. Her own deep breath was shaky, but it helped. "Also, not a kid."

"Sorry." Willow's answering chuckle was pretty thin, but it helped, too. "Okay," she said. "Okay. Um. Buffy. We need to put our heads together."

Dawn sat back down on the bar stool, took another deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay, first things first," she said. "Giles. I already talked to him – not about the magic stuff, 'cause I didn't know that part, but I told him I was worried and he said he'd come. He asked if I thought it would help. And I don't know if it'll help, having him here, but at least there will be two of us for Buffy, right?"

"You did good, Dawnie," said Willow – and she might not be a kid anymore, but holy cow that felt good to hear. "I'll call him first thing in the morning, his time, since he still doesn't like to do the email thing, and get him caught up with what I found out."

"Okay," said Dawn. "What else?"

"Well…" Willow began, "Regular stuff, I guess… you know, chicken soup, plenty of quiet, give her whatever she needs. I mean I'd call Xander if I could, but…"

"But Buffy was going on about Spike and even if Xander wanted to he'd have a tough time putting that aside," finished Dawn. "Plus he's in Africa somewhere… ooh! Your coven. Have you talked to them?"

"No, not yet," she replied. "Same time zone as Giles, plus I called you pretty much right after I finished up with my exercise. But Athenea and the rest of them do check their email, so I can drop them a line as soon as I get off the phone with you. Good thinking. I totally want to check out the whole soul thing, and maybe they'll know some more about what I felt from Buffy. Maybe they know ways to help heal something like that."

"You're… you're not gonna try and just fix it, are you?" Dawn asked, carefully. "I mean – I want her to feel better, and I hate that she's hurting so much, but – from what I saw and what you're telling me, this isn't something you can just throw a couple spells at and make it all better, you know?"

"No, you're totally right," said Willow. "And I wasn't even thinking of doing that… but I can't blame you for asking. No, I was thinking that Buffy could maybe use some nice safe healing energy, just to help in general, to support her system, but I don't even want to risk that without knowing more about what she's going through."

"Careful is good," said Dawn. "We can do careful."

"Definitely," said Willow. "Um… I hate to bring it up, but – should we call Angel?"

"No," said Dawn flatly. "Angel hates Spike, and to be honest, even if he didn't I'm not sure he'd be much help for Buffy."

"Are you sure?" Willow asked.

"Pssh-yeah," Dawn snorted. "Even after everything she's been through, he still treats her like she's in high school and needs him to hold her hand, but then whenever things actually get tough he just bails. Usually right about the time that she lets her guard down and starts to lean on him, too." She realized she was still holding her paper towel, and tossed it angrily at the garbage can. Missed. "I love you Buffy, trust me, Buffy, let me in, Buffy – oh, wait, whoops, we can't be together and I'm too weak, it's too hard for me to stick around and make myself useful, look at the time, gotta run, but I'm sorry and I looove you, so that makes it all okay." She tucked the phone up under her ear so she could fold her arms. "Spike was right," she said. "Angel is a git."

There was silence on the line for a moment, then: "Um…wow," said Willow. "I… I guess I never thought about him that way before. I mean, Angelus, sure, he's pretty much the definition of 'horrible' without his soul, but… wow. Are you… is he really like that?"

"Trust me," said Dawn. "The little sister sees all, the little sister hears all, but does anybody ask the little sister what she sees? Does anyone care to know her opinion? Nooo. She's just the little sister, what does she know."

Willow chuckled. "Don't hold back, there, sweetie, tell us how you really feel."

"Heh," said Dawn. She bent down and picked the paper towel off the floor. "Sorry. I'm just tired, I guess. It's just… when they were together, you guys saw everything filtered through Buffy, you know? And sometimes you only saw what she wanted you to see, or maybe what you wanted to see – you know, like Xander could only see 'vampire' and missed everything else. But Buffy's never been any good at hiding that kind of stuff from me. It's part of why I drive her nuts," she grinned. "The little sister knows all… and I'm telling you, this little sister says no Angel unless Buffy specifically asks us to call him. And even then, I'm gonna argue with her."

"Sounds reasonable to me," said Willow.

"Thanks. Besides," Dawn sighed, her moment of humor fading, "some of the things she was saying today… some of it was about – well – about love, and some was how much she's had to give up or had taken away from her, because she was the Slayer. So I think even if Angel did show up, he'd just be a reminder to Buffy, of how messed up she thinks she is."

Buffy didn't want to sleep. She hadn't been doing anything physical to wear herself out, wasn't really tired – at least, not in her body. Her head and her heart were exhausted, but Buffy doubted sleep could really take care of those. On the other hand, feeling like this? No; she didn't really want to be awake, either. Dawn's voice outside her room, murmuring on the phone to whoever, was just the kind of steady background noise that worked every time to knock her right out. It wasn't that her high school history class had been boring so much as Mr. Dinkelman's voice had been so… calming. Calmed her right into a nap, every time.

History class… Sunnydale… Slaying… Buffy's mind wandered from thought to thought, unaware she was falling asleep at all until she found herself out on patrol. Again. God, she couldn't even get away from her duty when she slept. It was chilly out, and the fog was rolling in, even though the stars were out overhead; Buffy zipped up her jacket and sighed. Nothing like a challenge, she thought, giving the vamps and other beasties something else to hide in before leaping out and trying to kill her. Whee. Fun.

Not.

Fog or no fog, it was actually a quiet night for once. Well, of course it was, some part of her mind supplied – the Hellmouth was closed. Nothing would be out in this cemetery, not tonight or any other night, ever again.

No vamps. No beasties.

No Spike…

Buffy pushed the thought away, and kept walking.

After a while, she found a headstone at a comfortable height – polished granite, curved edges – and hoisted herself up to sit. The fog was really thick now, even swirling around her feet where they dangled, just above the damp grass. Thoughtfully, Buffy pulled her stake out of its usual hiding place at the back of her waistband. Hefted it in her hand, feeling the weight of it, the texture of the wood, polished smooth over the years. Ran a fingertip over the whittled end, letting the splinters just tickle her skin without pricking.

I'm not the only Slayer anymore, she thought. There's dozens. Maybe hundreds. I could finally give it up.

I could quit.

Slowly, contemplatively, she brought the stake up and touched it lightly to her chest. Studied the placement, moved the tip over a little. Just over her heart – in between the ribs so it would go in easily – there.

Buffy could hear Spike's voice, from that conversation a couple years ago – "You're just a little bit in love with it… There's a part of you wants to know… what's it like?"

But I already know what it's like, she thought. A moment of pain, yes, but then peace. Finally, peace.

What about Dawn? Another part of her asked. Doesn't Dawn still need you?

No. Not really, she answered herself. Dawn's growing up. There's nothing to keep me here anymore. I can finally leave, if I want to. I can finally go back.

But do you want to? Do you really?

Buffy had been wearing a shirt and jacket, but in the way of dreams, once she had the stake in just the right spot, her clothing vanished and the point rested against bare skin. The damp raised goose bumps along her arms, made her nipples pucker uncomfortably. The fog drifted between the stone markers and wrapped around tree trunks, thicker now as the air cooled. Her hair tickled the back of her neck.

Buffy thought for a moment, pulled the stake in a little, so it dimpled her skin. I don't know. Maybe, she thought. And I'm dreaming, anyway. Ignored the clarity of her perceptions, as she thought that – ignored the texture of the stake in her hand and the granite under her palm, the scent of wet grass and fog, the sight of the stars twinkling overhead. All of this is just a dream. I could do it. I could do this, and still wake up. No harm done. Nothing would really happen. And if it does happen, then… then on the outside, it'll look like I've just gone quietly, in my sleep. Nothing to hurt Dawn, or anyone else.

No one would have to know.

Buffy took a deep breath in and held it. It felt good; the first really cleansing breath she'd had in a long time, it seemed like. Good, she thought. If this is my last breath, then it should feel good.

Is it really your last breath, though? came the question, from that other part of her mind.

I don't know, she replied.

Despite the seriousness of the question, and the stake pushing into her breast, Buffy couldn't help the little half-smile that crossed her face. You never could make up your mind about anything, she told herself. Not the important stuff, anyway. Not until it was too late and all your options were gone.

Yeah, she thought. Point.

You're going to kill yourself with a bad pun? Really?

Puns, quips, and wisecracks, she answered. It's what I do. Anyway, this is just a dream. Doing… that… it doesn't count if you're dreaming.

Buffy pulled harder; the tip of the stake began to hurt. She'd break the skin any second now if she kept the pressure up. She could feel her heartbeat vibrating through the wood in her hand.

Well, this is ouch, she thought to herself. I don't want to be hasty here, but if I'm gonna do this, whether it counts or not, could I maybe just do it and get it over with? Agony is not a requirement.

Buffy brought her other hand up to wrap around the stake. Flexed her fingers, adjusted her grip.

Took another breath, nervous now.

Pulled.

"Hey. Wes? Are you awake?"

Wesley's eyes opened and he sat up, wincing at a crick in his neck and wiping the corner of his mouth. The Wolfram & Hart infirmary didn't encourage visitors, and the hard plastic chair he'd dragged in from the lobby was intensely uncomfortable.

"Fred," he husked. Cleared his throat, tried again. "Sorry. I hadn't expected to doze off." He rubbed at his eyes, blinking sleepily and fighting back a yawn. "How are you feeling?"

"Pretty good, actually," she said. She seemed alert enough, from what Wesley could see, sitting up in the infirmary bed and fiddling with the oxygen monitor on her finger. "A little queasy. A little embarrassed," she chuckled, "but otherwise I feel like I'm caught up on sleep for the first time in months." Fred ducked her head and smiled up at him through her lashes. "Is it bad that I'm kinda glad I got hit with that tranquilizer?"

Wes felt himself smiling in response. "I suppose as long as you don't make a habit of it…" he began, and was rewarded with another smile and a bit of shy laughter. He pulled himself stiffly to his feet, nodded toward the door. "Can I get you anything? You must be thirsty."

"If it isn't too much trouble," she replied. "And, you know, if you can find someone to spring me out of here, that'd be great. Oh! What about Spike? How is he? Have you heard anything?"

"A bit," he said. "Let me get you that drink first." He couldn't help brushing his fingertips across the back of her hand before he left.

After flagging down a passing nurse, it took longer than Wesley expected to find the vending machine, and then to pick something that Fred might enjoy without upsetting her stomach. It'd been some time since he'd had much experience with such things, but he still remembered the nausea that some drugs could trigger. By the time he got back, a bottle of water in one hand and a bottle of fruit juice in the other, Fred was sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the infirmary bed, biting her lip while trying to put her hair back up into its bun. The nurse had brought a doctor with her to Fred's room and was standing off to one side, tucking her blood pressure cuff back into her coat pocket.

"…so as long as you agree to take it easy for the next twenty-four hours or so, I see no reason not to let you go," the doctor was saying. The tag on his lab coat read David Carter. "Give yourself time to get the last traces of the drug out of your system. I admit I'd really prefer it if you went home, but as I understand it Dr. Sato – he's our head of neurology – wanted to speak with you concerning the other patient that was involved in last night's incident."

"You mean Spike?" Fred asked.

"If that's the vampire's name, then yes," said Dr. Carter. "He's not one of my cases so I'm afraid I can't tell you much more. I generally don't work with the non-humans anyway," he admitted. "I don't really have a background in xenobiology, and apart from that I have an irrational fear of being dismembered and eaten. I try to make it a policy to avoid that happening…"

Wesley coughed politely into his hand.

The doctor chuckled weakly, then scribbled something inside the manila folder he was holding. "So. Any questions?"

"Nothing strenuous, stay away from solid foods until the nausea is gone, get a good night's sleep tonight," said Fred. "Did I miss anything?"

Dr. Carter snapped his folder shut with a smile. "Sounds like you've got it," he said, offering his hand for Fred to shake. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Burkle, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce. Welcome to the firm."

Rather than heading home, Fred convinced Wesley to take her to the small commissary two floors above the infirmary. "The chicken soup here is actually pretty good," she said, "and I need something in my system before we meet with Dr. Sato."

At three in the afternoon, the commissary was practically deserted; apart from a tired-looking woman behind the counter and a trio at another table (two human, one tk'Uktik folding its ten legs across two chairs), Fred and Wesley were the only people there. They were halfway through what passed for lunch before anyone else came in; another human, he paused in the doorway for a second, spotted them, and then made a beeline for their table with a huge smile on his face.

The man was Asian, and the laminate card around his neck said "Sato" in large letters next to a photo that looked very little like him – partly because the photo showed someone much… tidier, Wesley decided. Unlike Dr. Carter in his pristine lab coat, Sato was wearing rumpled blue surgical scrubs and a pair of scruffy loafers under a business suit jacket with the sleeves shoved up past his elbows. He was younger than Wesley would have expected, and his hair was sticking up every which way thanks to the pair of wire frame glasses Sato had propped up out of the way above his forehead.

"Very sorry to interrupt you," said Dr. Sato, "but I could not risk the possibility that you would leave before I was able to speak with you. If my findings are correct –" He stopped himself with a little shake, and his glasses slipped down to plop on the tip of his nose. "Forgive me," he said. Nudged the frames into place. "Let me begin again. I am Dr. Makoto Sato, head of neurology and assistant head of non-human medicine here at Wolfram and Hart infirmary. Please, may I join you?"

Introductions all around, and an order of double-strength coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich as the doctor pulled up a chair. "This latest case… I have not slept since he came in last night," said Dr. Sato with a grin. "This is breakfast for me. Very glad to learn that you had come up here or I might have forgotten to eat anything."

"I'm no expert, of course," said Wesley, "but given that vampires are technically dead, it seems a little odd that Spike's case would be referred to a neurologist, doesn't it?"

"Well, seizures," said Fred. "I mean, I'm not an expert either, but I do know that seizures are caused by out-of-control brain activity. And remember, before he recorporealized, my scan detected brain wave signatures. Which is weird all by itself, when you think about it."

Sato nodded vigorously, his mouth full. "Hai. You are both correct," he said, "so I was a little skeptical to hear that my seizure patient was a vampire. These are not concepts that belong in the same sentence, do you see? But I enjoy a challenge." He swallowed with an effort, licked a crumb off the corner of his mouth, grinned again. "I spoke with Mr. Angel earlier and he said that Mr. Spike – is that really his name? – that Mr. Spike had a tendency to defy expected parameters. Not his exact words, of course."

"Of course," said Wesley. "Angel was here? I don't recall him stopping by Fred's room…"

"I could not say," replied Sato. "I only requested for him to come to my department so that I could perform a few simple tests."

"Tests?" asked Fred. "There's – did something happen to Angel?"

"Not at all," said Sato. "I simply needed to gain some understanding of what brain scans ought to reveal in a typical vampire. In order to assist Mr. Spike, of course. I tested Mr. Angel, also his receptionist, and all the other vampire staff members I was able to locate. There were not many. Only eight, but still I was able to discover certain consistent patterns."

"Such as?" Fred leaned forward in her seat, ignoring her bowl of soup.

"Perhaps most fundamental is that, when at rest, there is no detectable brain activity. This I expected," said Sato. "As you have said, Mr. Wesley, the body is not living. The demon which animates it only utilizes what it must. Even when in motion, there are only a very few indications that the brain is even sending nerve signals to operate muscles. The demon appears to move them directly, with only indirect participation by the brain. While a typical scan compensates for artifact signals, it is still possible that what I detected were the muscles sending responses back to the brain, rather than command impulses generated by the brain itself." He drank a little coffee, wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve. "When the vampire is speaking, there are indicators to suggest activity in the cerebral cortex. The demon is utilizing memories stored within the brain, perhaps. But for the most part, the demon is… how do you say… a mystical presence, rather than a biological one. Background activity does not present."

"Present?" asked Wesley.

"Show up in test results," said Fred. Dr. Sato nodded and took a large bite of his sandwich.

"If that's the case," said Wesley, "then it should be impossible for a vampire to have a seizure, independent of an outside stimulus such as electric shock."

"Hai," said Sato, "very good. It is possible to induce convulsions in that way, but the cause does not originate in the nervous system. Not a true seizure."

"But wouldn't something like that produce an immediate reaction?" asked Fred. "Spike had just gone through… well, I'm not sure yet how to classify the energy source, but it would have to be pretty significant in order to take someone from ghost-like to solid and corporeal again. But he didn't collapse until almost ten minutes after that."

Sato grinned, an "I know something you don't" sort of smile, and picked up his coffee mug.

"Impossible, hai?" he said. "A vampire should not exhibit any but the most minimal brain activity, and that all associated with higher functions. An entity without a physical body should not be capable of producing such energy at all." He beamed at them, inviting them to share his excitement. "Even more impossible for a vampire at rest to present clear signs of activity – vigorous activity – originating in the brain stem."

Fred's eyes grew wide. "And Spike did?"

"He has not stopped!" Wesley watched, bemused, as Sato wiggled in his seat, a full-body shiver of such delight that he apparently didn't even notice when his coffee sloshed out of the mug and splattered the floor. "We have monitored Mr. Spike constantly since he was admitted. There have been two events – that is to say, two more seizures – during the night. Both of them mild. But in between, the output from Mr. Spike's brain stem has continued without pause!"

"But that's –" began Fred.

"Impossible!" said Sato. "I know!"

"Please," Wesley interrupted. "I'm afraid I haven't studied any sort of human physiology since primary school when I was a child. What is so significant about your discovery?"

Sato leaned forward, eyes shining. "Mr. Wesley, the brain stem is the most primitive part of the human brain, and concerns itself with the most basic of functions. It is responsible for maintaining consistent body temperature. With management of digestion and elimination. With respiration. With heartbeat."

Wesley blinked. The doctor couldn't be saying…

"Mr. Wesley, the brain stem is responsible for the mechanics of life."

There was a Man, and he was in a Place, empty and dark. Occasionally the Place would fill with light, lightning bolts and firefly flickers in every color the Man had ever imagined or could remember. With the lights would come sound, noise, everything from softly-spoken words to shrieks and squealing feedback to bone-rattling reverberations almost too low to be heard. When they came the Man could also feel strange sensations, bewildering and random, pain and pleasure and prickling, tingling, in his arms and legs and teeth.

While all this happened, thought was impossible. The Man only knew that he was, and the Place was.

When all this subsided, the Place would become empty and dark again, and the Man would remember. There was something he needed to do.

Something he was searching for… no. Someone he was searching for.

It occurred to the Man that he was walking. Sensations resolved themselves into legs, moving in rhythm to a drum somewhere far behind him. Its beat was uneven and faltering, so the Man ignored it and moved forward.

The Girl. The Man remembered now. He was searching for the Girl, trying to get to… Her.

"Her" seemed like the right word. Yes. The Girl was Her.

Around the Man, the Place began to change. The darkness was no longer absolute; lights resolved into little glowing pinpoints far overhead. It occurred to the Man that there had been no such thing as "overhead" until the lights began to define it. Below the Man – another new concept – legs swept across ground. New shapes came into being, concepts like "grass" and "tree" and "stone" coming to the Man as he walked.

The Man became aware, gradually, of the concept of Outside. Somewhere Outside the Place, hordes of other beings existed, like the Man and yet not. Like the Man as he had once been – and with that thought came a new concept, "time", and along with it "before" and "now".

There came also the notion of the Man, Himself, as distinct from these other beings. Some of them were Men, too, but they were not Him. He was…

He was something called "Spike".

The recovery of that concept unleashed a flood of others. Comprehension washed across the Man – across Spike – and he found himself now walking through thick fog, stars twinkling overhead. No idea where he was.

No, that wasn't quite right… No bloody idea where he was. Yes. That was better.

He had to find the Girl. The Man could feel the Girl – no, he fought to keep his awareness together – Spike could feel the Girl. They were connected… Spike struggled to think. That connection… another concept, the best one of all. It was called "love".

Spike loved the Girl… loved Her.

Loved "Buffy".

Another wave of understanding engulfed him. Yes. Oh, yes.

Spike loved Buffy, and he needed to get to her.

Through the fog now, he could see the shapes of grave markers, all different sizes and shapes, the occasional bunch of fake plastic flowers sagging under the weight of the damp air. Dripping onto the grass. Tree branches overhead now and again; one of them dripped down the back of his neck and he shivered, muttered a curse. Sodding thing. Distractin', is what it was.

Spike concentrated, felt within him for that point where his love for Buffy was anchored. He pulled up the collar of his duster against the damp and the chill, and followed love as it led him forward.

Buffy'd had this particular stake for a couple of years, now; kept it sharp, smoothed the splinters out of it every so often. The tip finally broke the skin along the inside of her left breast. The first drop of red seeped up into the wood, following the fibers, staining it with living blood for the first time.

Buffy winced at the sudden, bright pain. Wuss, she thought. You can get body-slammed, thrown clear through a wall, pummeled by monsters from hell and not bat an eyelash, but an oversize splinter has you flinching like a baby.

Just because I'm ready to… just because I know what's on the other side of the pain doesn't mean I actually like having to go through the pain to get there, she retorted.

The second drop welled up and began to trickle down, a dark line tracing the edge of her breast, before she felt it – that tingle along her spine that said a vampire was nearby. Oh, of course there was. Buffy rolled her eyes. She was naked from the waist up in a cemetery with a stake to her chest – a little busy, here – and now was when they finally decided to show up?

Buffy huffed out a breath and concentrated. Whoa. Definitely an older vampire. Strong. This one would not make for an easy kill. Senses alert, she hopped off the gravestone and took a couple steps out, giving herself room to move and peering through the fog for any sign of its approach. Barely noticed, her shirt and jacket flowed back into place as her attention shifted.

Oh, sure, drawled the little voice inside. There's nothing to keep you here anymore, you're ready to finally go back to that peace, but the first sign of a vamp and you just drop what you're doing and go right back to your sacred duty.

Buffy frowned. Remind me not to use that level of sarcasm on myself ever again, she thought.

Looking, listening… nothing… nothing… there. A vague shape moving between the stones, coming toward her. It didn't seem to have noticed her yet – maybe she could get the drop on –

"Tryin' to off yourself, Slayer?"

Oh. Oh, god.

"There'll be none of that, now," it said mildly. "Killin' you is supposed to be my job, last I checked."

It was still too dark, the fog too thick to make out details, but she'd know that walk anywhere. She came up out of her fighting stance, her heart starting to pound as the mists thinned. The shape resolved, edges sharpening around a patch of blackness amid the shadows – duster, punk-rock mosh-pit stomping boots – and the stars overhead gave just enough light to illuminate white-blond hair, glint off a heavy silver belt buckle.

She couldn't feel her fingers and it was hard to breathe. The stake made a quiet little noise, or maybe she did, as it landed in the grass, and tears welled up in her eyes.

Buffy tried to say his name, but no sound came out. He kept walking, no slower, no faster, just calmly approaching her until at last he stood in front of her, close enough to touch if she dared. One tear spilled over, hot as it flowed down her cheek.

"Hullo, pet," said Spike.

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He'd found her, or at least, this was where the tug in his heart had led him; as far as he could tell, Spike was standing in a cemetery with Buffy, and she was talking to him. But things felt off, somehow, everything just slightly skewed from what it ought to be. The cemetery, for example – he couldn't place it; it was as if it had been built from the memories of all the graveyards they'd ever toured together, but wasn't any one of them in reality.

When Buffy spoke, the words made perfect sense for the barest instant, but then… then the concepts they represented seemed to vanish before he could really understand them, the sounds and shapes she made sliding away, just out of reach of his comprehension. The harder he tried to keep them, the harder he tried to listen, the less he was able to grasp; instead her words would echo weirdly and dissolve into sound without meaning.

Right, skip the listening, then; they could always communicate with their silences as easily as they ever had with words. Only… Buffy – or, perhaps, the shape in front of him that was supposed to be Buffy – she would flicker whenever he looked directly at her for too long; it was as if, like the cemetery, she herself were made of pieces and tatters, bits of memory rather than the real thing.

Even the tatters overlapped inconsistently: Sometimes when he looked at her she was clothed, dressed for patrol in a shirt and jacket, sensible boots, that sort of thing; other times, she was half-naked and bleeding from a scratch on her chest, and then there were times where she appeared to be so desperately wounded that only willpower could possibly be holding her together and upright. Spike couldn't tell which of those was the true image.

Confused, he tilted his head at her, tried to smile, but she didn't seem to notice. She would pause, and he would try to say something, and after a moment she would answer whether he was actually finished talking or not. Her expressions overlapped, earnest, sad, loving, suffering, and more besides – but at least they were all focused on him. That was something, wasn't it? Far as he could tell, Buffy was talking to him, didn't seem to have any difficulty perceiving him, didn't seem to notice anything strange. And yet, it was as if she didn't really see him, only some projected image on a screen that responded in ways that made perfect sense to her.

It occurred to Spike that whatever she was seeing of him was something that she controlled, not him. Only she didn't seem to realize that, seemed to accept completely that whatever she saw was perfectly real.

Frustrated, Spike reached out to touch her. Maybe he could break through whatever this barrier was between them, if he could just make contact, yeah? Only a force pushed his hand away before he could get close enough, like magnets pointed the wrong way toward each other; the harder he tried to reach her, the farther off course his hand went.

To be so close, and not be able to touch… he could almost cry.

Lightning crackled across the sky and right in front of his eyes, in weird colors that defied description. Somewhere he heard a drum beating, hesitant and out of rhythm; with every faltering blow of hand on drumhead, the cemetery around him would shift and waver, less and less real with every passing second. Only Buffy remained constant, or at least, as constant as a flickering, overlapping set of images could be.

Fireflies began to spark around him. Sounds vibrated, shaking apart the headstones and the trees, and the entire place, wherever they truly were, began to dissolve into chaos and void. Buffy didn't seem to notice.

"Pet," he said finally, "Buffy. I don't know if you can hear me, but I love you. I'll look for you again, soon as I can. I promise you, love. I'll find you. 'Nless you find me first."

The world crumbled. Thoughts, names, concepts went with it.

Then there was only the Place, and the Man within it.

"Hullo, pet," said Spike.

"Spike," she said, still almost completely silent. "Oh, god, Spike." She fought for breath, struggled for air enough to do more than whisper. "How are you here? You died. You burned."

"You of all people should know death doesn't have to be permanent," he replied. Lifted one shoulder, and the corner of his mouth. "What d'you reckon, love? Does comin' back put me in the ranks of you hero-types?"

"You – you're really here," she said. It wasn't an answer to his question but it was all she could wrap her mind around just then.

"In a manner of speaking, yeah," said Spike. "Tryin' to come back, at any rate."

"I don't," she began. Swallowed around the tightness in her throat, swiped the tears from her cheeks. "I don't understand."

"Well, it's a bit like you, innit," he smirked, "not really here, not really gone. Only from the look of things –" he paused. Looked down at the stake in the grass at her feet. Looked up at her through his lashes, quirking his eyebrow in that way he always used when he was trying to provoke her. "– maybe we're headed opposite directions. That it, pet? Me back to kickin', you back to kickin' off?"

"I –" she began. But what could she say? It was a mistake, she didn't really mean it? This wasn't what it looked like? Yeah, right. I'm a coward might be closest to the truth, but it still shamed her to admit that to him.

"Doesn't seem like the Slayer I remember," he taunted. "What, you were worried one of us would get his one good day and decided to deny us the pleasure?"

"It isn't like that," she said. Willed him to understand. "It's – I don't have anything left in me. I don't have a reason to stay."

"Bollocks," said Spike.

"No, it's true," Buffy said. "This – after this last apocalypse – it took everything I had just to survive, and, and make sure the others would get through it. All my strength, all my willpower, all my… my faith. I had to lead them. Had to hold them up, and myself too, and I couldn't, I just – I tried, but – and then –" She held out her hands to him, empty and pleading. "By the end, all I had left was you, and then you… I mean, it wasn't your fault, but… I just don't have anything left in me, and they still expect me to pull it together. To – well. You know them. You know they do, or they will once they all have a chance to catch their breath."

"Maybe all you need is a chance to catch your own," said Spike. Reached toward her hair, but didn't quite touch.

Buffy looked at her toes. He shoes were wet from the dew in the grass. "The thing is… I'm not sure I want to anymore."

"How's that, then?" Spike shifted his feet, as if he wanted to step forward into her space. Buffy found herself leaning toward him, waiting for his embrace, but he kept his distance.

"Why should I rest – why should I even try to – when I know I won't get the chance to really enjoy it?" she asked. "When I know that my duty is waiting there on the other side? Along with everyone else's baggage and issues and needs and, and expectations for how I'm supposed to act," she scoffed bitterly. "It's like – god. Have you ever tried to sleep when someone is constantly tapping on your door, poking their head in, asking you if you've gotten enough rest yet, pestering you constantly so that you never get any actual sleep? And then after awhile they start implying that you have no business being so tired in the first place?" She leaned back against the nearest gravestone, hugging herself tightly, and shut her eyes. "It feels like that. It feels like that's all it's ever been. And after awhile you start to think, god, why even go to bed at all?"

"An uphill climb," murmured Spike. "Swimming upstream…" He leaned to one side until his shoulder thumped into the marker next to hers, a tall skinny obelisk with its name obscured by long grass and deep shadow. Rested his head against it as he looked into her eyes. "Yeah," he said kindly. "Reckon I know what that feels like."

They sighed, the two of them, at the same time. It was comforting, Buffy thought; almost like all those times they'd sat together on her back porch.

The silence stretched between them, and Buffy reveled in it, letting it grow and cover her in a blanket of stillness. Of peace. Somewhere in the distance, lightning flashed across the sky; Spike shifted just enough to glance up at it before putting his head back down. Smiled at her and said nothing.

Gradually, Buffy felt herself calm. The bitterness faded, not gone, but pushed to the background where it was more or less bearable. The weariness, the utter spiritual exhaustion, no longer seemed quite so impossible to endure.

"You're not really here, are you," said Buffy after a while. "I'm just dreaming. Right?"

"'S a good question," said Spike. Lightning flashed again, illuminating a far-off bank of clouds. Storm on the horizon, moving in slow.

"You got an answer?" She took a deep breath and thought maybe she could smell the rain, far away though it was.

He pushed himself away from the obelisk, rolled his shoulders and pulled his duster tight around his body. "Even if I did," he said, "'m not sure I'd be allowed to tell you. You know, answers from the beyond and all."

She huffed a little breath of laughter, shook her head at him.

Spike looked over his shoulder at the lightning, studied it for a moment before turning back to face her. "All I can tell you is that I love you," he said finally. "You know I do."

"I do," said Buffy.

"That'll never change," he said. "Promise. If there's any way for me to come back for you… well. You know that, too. At least, you'd bloody well better. I'll find you, love, unless you find me first."

Thunder rumbled, closer now, and Buffy risked a glance overhead, to see if the stars were still out.

When she looked back down, Spike was gone. Buffy shut her eyes, pained at the loss of him even though she knew he'd only been a figment in her dream. When she opened them again, Buffy gasped: in the place where he'd been, the mud-caked form of the First Slayer now stood.

It was weird seeing her like that – well, okay, it was weird seeing her in a dream at all – but the primitive young woman wasn't hidden behind flames, this time. Wasn't stalking her, or crouching low, ready to attack or defend against a threat. She simply stood, her arms at her sides, naked from the waist up apart from the mud and some kind of pendant around her neck, and gazed solemnly back at Buffy.

Buffy opened her mouth, meaning to ask why the other girl was there, but before she could say anything, lightning flickered, and Buffy blinked, and the First Slayer vanished too.

Wesley blinked, uncertain how long he had been staring at Dr. Sato after hearing… well. What was it exactly that he was hearing?

"I'm not entirely certain I understand," he began slowly. "That is to say, your explanation of the, er, physiology, was clear and concise, thank you. But the implications – or perhaps, the potential implications…" Wesley stopped, shook his head to clear it. "Are you saying that the activity in Spike's brain stem is causing the seizures? What does it mean that a part of his brain is trying to regulate bodily functions that he couldn't possibly need as a vampire? Could he –"

Could Spike have begun the process of becoming a living being? But Wesley didn't want to ask that question just yet. Not out loud. Not until he'd had a chance to reexamine the texts that referred to the Shanshu Prophecy.

Not until he'd made up his mind what to say to Angel.

Apparently none of his unease was apparent on his face, because Dr. Sato only bobbed his head, as if he were trying to bow while still seated. Sato picked up his grilled cheese sandwich again, gestured at Wesley with it. "It is only a theory, of course," he said, "because we have never seen anything quite like this before; however, I believe that the seizures are partly physical, but also, possibly, partly mystical as well."

Oh, he would take another bite of his sandwich instead of elaborating. Wesley frowned, began to work it through.

"You said that ordinarily the demon controls the body directly, without utilizing the brain," he mused, "and now the brain itself is attempting to control at least a part of the body. You think that they're in conflict, in a manner of speaking."

"Just so," said Sato. He beamed at them both. "That may be a mystical cause for Mr. Spike's present condition. As for the physical, it is very amazing to watch, hai? Very exciting! We may learn very much from our observations. You see, I think that in Mr. Spike's case, the brain stem is attempting to send impulses to the rest of the brain, which is either not responding at all, or only creating random signals in response."

Fred leaned forward. "Spike told us that he felt pins-and-needles, a few minutes before the first, um, episode," she said. "'Like my skin is too tight', is what he said. And he was really sensitive to light and sound, more so than usual."

Sato's expression shifted gradually, from delighted to intrigued. "Interesting," he said, "interesting…" His eyes were far away. "Sensory input perceived differently… I wonder."

"Yes?" asked Wesley.

Sato said nothing for a long moment, clearly lost in thought. Wesley and Fred waited. His voice, his focus, were still elsewhere when he said, "It will be interesting to see if activity increases, as time goes on."

"Dr. Sato?" Fred prompted him.

Sato blinked, shook himself again. "Very sorry," he said. "I only wonder whether more of Mr. Spike's brain will begin to respond to stimulus. Higher brain function. Whether the demon will continue to command the body directly, or if it will utilize the brain instead."

"But – why would it need to do that?" asked Fred. "I mean, you said yourself the only reason Spike's brain stem would normally be active is if he were…"

Her eyes widened.

Don't say it, thought Wesley.

"…alive."

Sato's eyebrows went up.

It was the First. That primitive, cave thug, proto-vampire bastard had been playing with Spike again, must've just just finished holding him underwater. Didn't need to breathe, but water didn't belong inside dead lungs any more than it did live ones, and it bloody well hurt when it got in.

That must be what it was.

Flat on his back and choking, Spike's body heaved, struggling to bring up everything that had gone down. Weakly at first, then with more strength, he coughed, heavy and wet, until finally he hacked up something thick and foul-tasting that filled his mouth. Only semi-conscious at best, he barely managed to roll to one side and spit it out before the coughing started again, harder; it went on and on until his sides ached with the force of it, stopping only when his throat and mouth were coated with sticky, disgusting slime. He gagged and spat and coughed some more, again and again, until finally his chest felt lighter, emptier, and the fit subsided.

Exhausted and sore, Spike slid back into unconsciousness, still on his side, it never occurring to him that no tormentor had lain a finger on him the entire time that he lay there. He'd never opened his eyes, never realized that he was on a padded gurney instead of the sand and grit of a cave floor. Never saw the thick globs of black mucus he'd expelled instead of water, splattered on the tile below him.

Never noticed it when the muscles of his abdomen began to move from time to time, their rhythm faltering and hesitant, but the lift and fall of his ribs visible all the same.

It was two days before they could arrange a meeting with Angel. He and Gunn had needed time to recover from handling a former client, a necromancer who'd been displeased to discover that Wolfram and Hart was no longer in the business of supplying him with corpses from freshly-robbed graves. Wesley could have told Angel – had tried to, in fact – that a sorcerer with power over the dead would be exceptionally dangerous for a vampire to face head-on.

Angel hadn't wanted to listen.

Angel was like that, sometimes, but perhaps if they all still worked at the Hyperion, Wesley would have been able to corner him, convince him to develop some sort of strategy instead of depending on his sense of self-righteousness to see him through.

Wesley pursed his lips. As much as Angel believed they could change Wolfram and Hart from within, he couldn't help the dread that came from knowing that their new headquarters would change them, as well. The process would be inevitable; inexorable as wind erosion and just as difficult to perceive in the short-term. It would begin with the little things; perfectly legitimate reasons not to speak to one another as work took precedence, for example. But how long would it take before he and the others weren't even crossing paths for days on end; how long before they noticed?

How long before it stopped mattering to them? How long before their tight-knit family, their friendships, were nothing but a fond memory?

In fact, the process had already begun. They'd never had to compare schedules before, Wesley thought; never needed to go through intermediaries, to leave messages with secretaries and assistants. Make bloody appointments just to see each other.

And then there were the topics themselves.

"You're telling me that Spike's alive?" Angel growled. "That he's turning human?"

"Not precisely," said Dr. Sato. They were all gathered in Angel's private conference room to discuss Sato's findings and what they might mean; Gunn leaned against one window and Lorne was reclining off to one side, while the rest sat around the table with Angel at its head. The doctor pushed his glasses up his nose, tapped delicately on a sheaf of papers in front of him. "The changes in brain activity –"

"You're telling me that limey pain in the ass is stealing my Shanshu?"

Well. Most of them were there to discuss Sato's findings. Angel seemed already to have made up his mind.

Wesley pinched the bridge of his nose. "Angel, please," he sighed. "There is nothing to suggest that –"

Angel slashed one hand through the air, his eyes hard and mouth tight with indignation. "He has a heartbeat, Wes, tell me how that's nothing to suggest!"

"Semantics," said Sato. Angel glared at him and the doctor simply gazed back with perfect calm. "I have told you that his heart beats. That is not the same as having a heartbeat." He tapped the sheaf of papers again, with just the tip of his ring finger. "As you would know if you did not permit your personal feelings to interfere with your ability to listen."

The entire room fell silent at that. Fred's face was a picture of surprise, Gunn was rubbing one hand across his mouth to hide a smirk, and Wesley fought to school his own expression to stillness. Angel, for his part, looked stunned at such a direct rebuke. Another way that life here was changing them, Wesley thought; the actions, motives, and decisions of executives like Angel simply weren't questioned if one wanted to keep one's position on the corporate ladder.

It looked like Angel was getting used to the treatment. Embracing it, in fact. Wesley frowned.

Lorne coughed politely, breaking the tension. "Yeah… Sorry, Doc, but I don't really speak medical. Would you mind going over it again?"

Sato nodded. "Of course, Mr. Lorne," he said. "We have been monitoring Mr. Spike's brain activity since he was brought to the infirmary two days ago. Of course, it is most unusual for a vampire to exhibit such activity at all. I have already explained why, ne?" When Lorne nodded, he continued. "We now also monitor his heart and respiration, among other responses, because Mr. Spike's brain activity suggested that his body would attempt to use those organs. And we have found that Mr. Spike's heart will sometimes beat," he paused, narrowed his eyes at Angel, "though only for short intervals. The longest period of activity lasted only eighty-seven minutes, and in that time his pulse varied between six and twenty-one beats per minute. That is not sufficient to sustain a living body, even if it were continuous, which it has not been. It is common for Mr. Spike's heart to beat for only a few seconds and then return to inactivity for hours at a time. So you see, he does not have a 'heartbeat' in the sense that Mr. Angel is concerned about."

Lorne nodded; Angel leaned back in his chair, arms folded.

"You mentioned respiration?" asked Fred.

Dr. Sato nodded. "Hai, Dr. Fred. Similar. Erratic, interrupted for long periods of time, and insufficient for survival." He scratched under his chin, where Wesley could see he'd missed a spot shaving. "However, it is my belief that these responses may improve, based on the lab results we've received."

"You're talking about the stuff you found on the floor under his bed?" asked Fred. "I was wondering about that. I mean, with the amulet and all, we were thinking it might be some sort of ectoplasm…?"

But Dr. Sato was grinning again. "Approximately eighty years' worth of nicotine residue. It appears that Mr. Spike smoked tobacco regularly."

Fred and Gunn both made faces, while Lorne muttered a soft "eugh". "Living lungs would attempt to clear themselves daily," said Sato with a nod. "You are familiar with the phrase 'smoker's cough'? Dead lungs would of course have no need to clear themselves at all. Mr. Spike, on the other hand…" He scratched under his chin again and shrugged.

Wesley sat back in his chair, trying to fit the pieces together. "It seems almost as if Spike's body is preparing for life, while not yet actually living," he mused.

"Just so," said Sato. "His SATs – pardon me, the oxygen saturation level in his blood – remains below twenty percent. In a living human, a saturation lower than eighty-five percent would be fatal within minutes. In addition, not one of his blood samples or cell cultures reveals living tissue." He leaned forward in his seat. "Mr. Angel," he said, "as a vampire you are not living, yet you imitate life by walking, speaking, and other such behavior. All we can say for now is that Mr. Spike seems to imitate life in greater detail. That may change, but for now it has not."

"What makes you think it might?" asked Gunn.

"The coughing," said Sato. "Mr. Wesley observes that the body seems to be preparing for life. The lungs have already cleared to the point that Mr. Spike's blood, when it circulates, can collect a small amount of oxygen, even if it is not a viable amount right now. I have ordered precautions to be taken, in the event that Mr. Spike resumes kidney function or other excretion."

"Which means what?" asked Gunn.

Wesley cleared his throat uncomfortably. "A catheter," he said, "among other things." Gunn grimaced, ran a hand across the back of his neck.

"As brain activity continues to increase, we may see other organs begin to perform their normal functions," continued Sato. "So far we have seen a focus on eliminating waste from the body. Lungs expel carbon dioxide. Blood – circulating blood – carries waste to the kidneys. We have not observed kidney response, but if it begins I will feel more confident that Mr. Spike is preparing to return to life. And of course, if any of our cell cultures indicate the presence of living tissue, we will know for certain."

"I still," grumbled Angel, "want to know why the words 'Spike' and 'living' are showing up in the same sentence."

"I cannot answer that, very sorry," said Dr. Sato. "I can only tell you what we have seen, and how it appears to be occurring. Why is not only another matter, it is a completely different discipline from medicine altogether."

"Yes…" said Wesley. He didn't realize the rest of the room was waiting for him to continue until Lorne spoke up.

"Care to share with the rest of the class, cupcake?" he asked.

"Hm? Oh." Wesley shook himself. "Dr. Sato – and Angel – just brought it to my attention that we've been neglecting the mystical approach to Spike's… predicament. A different discipline, you see. I haven't been able to find much more information about the amulet than what Angel gave Buffy prior to its use. But we also haven't considered its effect on Spike apart from the physical changes he's enduring. We haven't looked at what it may have done to him on a spiritual level – or demonic, if you prefer."

"You've been covering the ancient wisdom stuff," said Gunn, "but I might be able to uncover something in Records. Where the amulet came from, who brought it here and when. That'd help, right?"

"We should see if it ties in to the Shanshu prophecy," said Angel.

"I can try and analyze the amulet again – or, well, what's left of it anyway," Fred offered. "There might be something I've missed."

"I'm sure you've covered everything, Fred," Wesley smiled. "Perhaps you could assist Dr. Sato I some way?"

"I could give it a shot," she said. "I mean, I'm mostly a physicist, but if it's okay with you, Dr. Sato, I could look over your results so far?"

"Of course, Dr. Fred," he replied.

"For my part," said Wesley, "I'd like to see if there are any experts on staff who could tell us more about Spike's, er, metaphysical wellbeing."

"I know a guy who knows a shaman," offered Lorne. "I mean, he doesn't work for the firm, here, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing."

"Look into it," said Angel. "Dr. Sato, keep us posted." The doctor gathered his papers, gave a little bow to each of them, and left.

When he was gone, Angel pushed his chair back and stood. "Is there anything else?"

"Buffy," said Wesley.

Angel froze. "What about her?"

"I assume you have her contact information," said Wesley.

"Well, yeah," said Angel, "but why would you need it?"

Wesley's eyebrow rose; out of the corner of his eye he could see Gunn stiffen in his seat. "You don't think she should be notified that Spike is here?" Wesley asked. His eyes narrowed when Angel hunched his shoulders and glanced off to one side. "Angel?"

"It's just Spike," Angel hedged, "she wouldn't –"

"Guy saved the world," said Gunn, "I'm pretty sure she would." He pushed away from his spot against the wall to step closer to the head of the table.

"If one of us turned up somewhere, you'd want to know, right?" said Lorne. "I mean, especially if you thought we were dead." He leaned forward in his armchair and looked at Angel, elbows on his knees, his usual cheerful demeanor gone.

"Well. I mean… it's Buffy," said Angel. "She's going through a lot right now, she doesn't need –"

"How 'bout you let her decide what she needs," said Gunn. He folded his arms and scowled, his head tilted back, the three-piece suit no disguise for the street fighter underneath.

"I'm pretty sure I know what she needs where Spike is concerned," said Angel, irritated. "He's a pain in the ass whose entire purpose in life is to screw things up for everyone else. You saw how he acted. She's better off without him around trying to –"

Fred slapped her hands on the table and stood. "I don't believe you!" she said, eyes flashing. "Spike was right – you really would be happier if Buffy were still some little girl so you could decide who she gets to talk to and who you can keep from her. And Spike – you don't think he deserves any consideration, just because you have history with him and you don't want him anywhere near Buffy!"

"Fred, it's not like –" Angel began, but Fred cut him off again.

"He showed up here and it's like you turned into a twelve-year-old," she accused. "You told me before how you and she can't be together, but what – you're going to sit there and tell me you somehow have the right to decide who she can be with? What is this, Angel? You can't have her, so nobody else can, either?"

"Spike's no good for her," Angel returned, but this time it was Wesley who interrupted.

"We have only your word on that," he said levelly. "Just as we only knew Spike was an occasional ally because you chose not to tell us anything more about the true depth of his involvement in Buffy's cause. And we were unaware that Spike was granted a soul, because, and I quote, it 'didn't seem that important' – to you – to tell us." Now Wesley stood slowly, leveling Angel a look bordering on disgust. "So good of you to step in and make those judgments on our behalf."

"Are you forgetting who we're talking about here?" demanded Angel. "Spike? The guy who showed up a few years ago and had me tortured? Am I the only one here who remembers that?" He glared at them all in turn, furious, and once again Wesley was reminded of the changes Wolfram and Hart would work upon them.

"I mean, come on," Angel was saying, "he tried to kill Buffy half a dozen times, but oh, now he's supposedly switched sides so it's all okay? Buffy – she had him wear the amulet, not me. And it burned him up. It killed him. His coming back was a fluke. She had to know it was gonna – he was probably just the throwaway g–"

"Oh, no," said Gunn. "Now I know you were not just gonna say Spike was the 'throwaway guy'."

Angel froze, brought up short by the anger simmering in Gunn's voice.

"Angel." Wesley pulled his attention away from Gunn before the shouting match could start. "First you were angry that Buffy chose Spike instead of you to wear the amulet," he said quietly. "And you insisted to me that you didn't know what the amulet's power would actually do. Yet you somehow expect us to believe that Buffy would have understood the amulet's true purpose."

Angel opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"And then we find out that the amulet would have killed you if you'd worn it," said Gunn. "If it killed Spike, it woulda killed you too. And now that we know that, instead of it being an honor to wear the damn thing – an honor you thought you deserved over him – now all of a sudden putting it on means Spike was the designated red shirt?"

Lorne scoffed. "I wonder that makes Doyle."

Angel rounded on him, fists clenched, voice low and guttural. "What did you say?"

"I'm just following your logic, Angel-cakes," said Lorne. Now he stood, too, shaking his head in disbelief. "Doyle died so we wouldn't have to. From everything you've just said, I guess that makes him – what did you call it? – oh yeah, the throwaway guy."

"Doyle was a hero," Angel bit out, "and you know it." He stepped toward Lorne, teeth bared, but as soon as he moved Gunn was in front of him, just inches from his face.

"Then maybe you should consider the idea that Spike was, too," he said. "I don't even know the guy – I wasn't there, I don't know what went down – but I do know he was on Buffy's team and he got killed in the fight. So just maybe he was a hero, too. And if you were thinking of anybody besides yourself you could admit the possibility."

Gunn locked eyes with Angel for a long, tense moment; Angel glared, his lip curling, but Gunn refused to back down, the only sign of his anger his narrowed eyes and the muscle jumping along his jaw.

Finally, Angel looked away and stepped back, and Wesley heard Fred let out the breath she must have been holding. Lorne passed a hand across his forehead and adjusted his tie; Gunn turned and picked up his briefcase.

"Fine," Angel gritted out. "But I still don't think Buffy –"

"Cordelia," blurted Fred.

Angel's brow furrowed, confusion and hurt chasing one another across his face. "What?"

"I'm sorry, Angel," she said quietly. She wouldn't look at him, focusing instead on her fingers as they twisted together and pulled at the buttons on her lab coat. "I know you don't like to talk about her. About what happened to her. But if Cordelia were to wake up – right now, today – would you really think it was okay for the hospital to keep that from us? Shouldn't we get to choose whether or not to go see her, if that happened? Or would you really, honestly think that someone else had the right to make that choice for us?" Fred looked up then, her face sad but determined. "I know you and Spike don't get along. But if you decide not to let Buffy know he's back, just because of whatever bad blood is between you, then you're taking her choices – her right to those choices – away from her. She doesn't deserve that."

Fred moved toward the door, Lorne behind her, as the others stood in silence. She paused with her hand on the doorknob. "I know you're the man in charge here at this big corporation now," she said. "And I know we all owe you a lot. But even being CEO doesn't give you that kind of authority, and it doesn't mean that you don't owe anything to anybody else."

She and Lorne left, closing the door quietly behind them.

"What she said, man," added Gunn. He stalked out, face still hard. Wesley heard him muttering, "Maybe when you get your head outta your ass…" before he was out of earshot.

The two men left watched one another, saying nothing; Wesley could tell Angel was hoping he'd speak first, release the tension and let Angel escape from the moment. Instead, he waited, his posture calm, face betraying nothing of his disappointment.

Finally Angel slumped, ducking his head and resting his fingers along the edge of the table.

"Wes?" He started to speak, stopped. Traced his fingers across the table. "Do you…?"

"You have a lot to think about," said Wesley. "And not only as regards Spike, or Buffy."

"I don't understand," said Angel.

"This place is changing us," said Wesley, "changing you especially. The vassal does not gainsay the lord of the manor. It never used to be that way between us," he explained. "You used to value our input; seek it out. Today, however… You seemed genuinely surprised that any of us would disagree with you just now."

Angel frowned at the table, but said nothing.

"You're beginning to treat us less as your friends, and more as employees," said Wesley. "Have a care to the way this place – its atmosphere, its culture – affects your own behavior. Otherwise it won't be long before you find you prefer to be surrounded by yes-men than by the people who've stood by you in your darkest hours. Once that happens, I think you'll find that you've ceased to care about changing Wolfram and Hart from within; instead it will have absorbed you and eliminated one of its strongest adversaries."

Wesley waited, but Angel only turned away to look out the window. Disappointed, Wesley gathered his things and moved toward the door.

He was almost gone when Angel said quietly, "Spike said the same thing."

"Did he?"

"Well – not in so many words," said Angel, still facing the window. "And, y'know, he was a lot less polite about it. But yeah. That day while he was still a ghost. He said that attacking from the belly of the beast would just get us digested, or something like that."

Wesley nodded. "Perhaps Spike was a more valuable ally than you would prefer to believe, after all," he offered.

Angel looked over his shoulder. "You really think I should call Buffy?" he asked.

Wesley didn't answer, and Angel grimaced. "Stupid question, huh."

"A bit cowardly, yes," said Wesley. "Though it might be best if you give me her contact information, and I can attempt to reach her instead."

"I don't actually have it – not all of it," said Angel. "I do have her address. She's in Rome. And I have someone keeping an eye on things over there."

Wesley raised an eyebrow.

"All right, keeping an eye on her." Angel sighed. "I can get in touch with my guy, have him track down a phone number and get it to you. Should be later today."

"Good." Wesley nodded. He didn't entirely trust Angel to make the call if left to his own devices, although he would prefer not to come right out and say so. From the way Angel's shoulders dropped, Wesley was fairly certain that Angel understood anyway.

He left Angel to gaze out over the city, and hopefully to think about everything that had been said today.

Interlude

"You're telling me it didn't work?"

"Apparently not," she said. "Whatever the Senior Partners were trying to accomplish, they failed."

"'Failed' is a pretty strong word where the Senior Partners are concerned."

"Angel never used the amulet. On top of that, it doesn't look like it worked the way they intended it." She unbuttoned her jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. "I'd say 'failed' is exactly the right word to use, in this case."

It was almost a smile, the way his lips quirked. "Arrogant. If they'd done their homework –"

"Don't give me that," she said with a chuckle. "It's not like you knew anything about another vampire with a soul, either."

"No, but I'm not in a position to know. They could've found out." He knuckled at the stubble under his chin, his eyes faraway for a moment before catching her gaze again. "So what do you think? Does this work in our favor?"

"Hmm…" She sat and bent over to pull off one shoe. "It definitely throws a monkey wrench into the Senior Partners' plans for Angel, but I don't know how much of a stumbling block it will actually turn out to be. They still have another hold over him that they could exploit."

He sighed. "We could just leave things alone, see how they develop."

"You don't sound like you think that's a good idea," she said. Flexed her toes and rolled her ankle, reached for the other shoe.

"I don't want to give them any time to recover their momentum," he replied. "You said they could still get to Angel. And this other vampire is a wild card. He could become another tool for them to use, or he might end up helping us."

"Assuming he recovers," she said.

"Assuming," he agreed. "Seems pretty clear to me that there are other factors at work there."

"The Shanshu?" She pulled off her earrings and dropped them into the jacket pocket.

"No way to tell for sure, just yet," he shrugged. "But if they're off-balance now, I think we should keep them that way."

"Angel and his merry band, or the Senior Partners?" She stood again and began to unbutton her blouse.

"Both," he said. He looked her up and down, pleased, as the blouse slipped from her shoulders.

"But from here, how do you think you'll be able to do that?"

He held out a hand and she stepped forward to meet him. Delicately, she lifted one stockinged foot to rest by his hip where he sat.

"Won't be a problem," he said. Slid his hands up her calf, behind her knee and under her skirt to reach the top of her stocking and begin to slide it down.

Her mouth fell open in a sigh of pleasure. "Ohh, that's nice," she said. "But you haven't answered my question."

"I wasn't looking for 'nice', baby," he grinned at her. He leaned forward, planting little kisses along the inside of her thigh as her eyes fell shut and she began to squirm.

"Still doesn't – ahh – answer the question," she said. She reached out for balance and threaded her fingers through his hair. She tightened her grip and pulled his mouth away from her leg. "How do you plan to get to them?"

"Easy," he said. He hooked his arm behind her knee and tugged her until she fell into bed with him. "I've got you, for starters." Dragged his hands up her sides to slip his fingers under the edges of her bra. "I think I'll have you arrange a meeting in a couple days."

She moved to straddle him, leaning forward to nip at his bottom lip. "A meeting? Are you sure that's wise?"

"Hell no," he replied, "and I'll wait till we have more information before I have you set it up. We'll need to play this carefully." He pulled back to look up at her; there was a wicked edge to his smile this time. "But it'll definitely mess with their heads."

It was two days before Willow and Giles were able to leave for Rome; days that couldn't pass quickly enough, in Giles' opinion. Dawn's call describing Buffy's condition had been worrisome enough without adding delay and ridiculous, bureaucratic obstacles to his efforts to go to her. Hearing from Willow shortly thereafter had done nothing to ease his concerns. Giles sighed inwardly, standing in front of the luggage carousel and waiting for his bags to come round.

It was an odd thing, he thought, flying when the bulk of one's journey was north to south; one expected to end up in a different time zone and deal with jet lag, expected to be exhausted, of course; and then one found that the time on all the clocks was off by no more than an hour. But he was still exhausted, he thought. Perhaps it was just the travel, but he doubted that very much.

Wearily, Giles went through the usual motions of travel, familiar but tiring no matter how many times he did them. Stand elbow-to-elbow around the baggage claim carousel with strangers and hope he wasn't the one who smelled so pungent after hours on the plane. Reach forward and pull a battered suitcase off the conveyor, check the tag; find a way to politely shove through a crowd of people in a foreign country, all as tired and travel-worn as he was. Follow the signs, ignore the worst of the racket, and try not to step on anyone or be stepped on. Locate Customs, stand in line, passport please, was this visit personal or business – a good question, that, he thought – and finally, welcome to Italy.

Enjoy your stay, they told him; as to whether or not he would, well, that was something else Giles doubted very much.

Finally out of the worst of the crowd, he rubbed at his forehead and glanced around the terminal to find somewhere to wait for Willow. The two of them had managed to coordinate their flight schedules so that they could arrive within an hour or so of one another, with the hope that doing so would make things easier on Buffy and Dawn. No need for three of them to wait hours for the fourth to arrive, straining everyone's nerves and patience before they could all get down to business. Assuming both flights arrived on time, he and Willow should be able to meet up in no time at all.

And in fact, Giles was just getting comfortable, at a pub called "The Duck and Dog's" of all things, when his new cell phone vibrated in his pocket, startling him so that he nearly spilled his pint. The message – at least, Giles presumed it was intended to be a message – read, off n min r so.

"Honestly," he muttered to himself. Computers and the like were bewildering enough without putting deliberate effort into making them even more incomprehensible. "Trust Willow to approach modern technology as if it were yet another arcane language." Meanwhile Giles was certain he would never grow accustomed to repeatedly punching a number key on his telephone in order to produce a single letter of the alphabet. Never mind the Number of the Beast, apparently "666" was now also an invocation to the letter "o".

Duck & Dog Pub, he managed to respond, hunting about for each letter, and really, this was ridiculous, the entire exercise was preposterously slow, Terminal C. Hopefully he wasn't located too far from G-8, or wherever she claimed to be.

So he nursed his pint and waited, and only a half-hour later, there she was at the pub entrance looking round for him.

"Hi, Giles," she smiled once he'd beckoned her over. "Got your message… but I guess you figured that out, since, hey, here I am." She gave him a hug and quick peck on the cheek. "I'm glad you got mine, anyway. Cell phones don't always do what they're supposed to once you land in a foreign country."

"Yes, well," he replied, "I'm not entirely certain yours did. What on earth is this gibberish? The 'at' symbol I understood, but G-8? I checked, you know, and this airport doesn't even have a G Terminal."

Willow started laughing. Giles suppressed another sigh; of course she'd laugh at the old man who mistrusted anything more modern than the card catalog.

"Here, let me see," she said, still beaming. "I just used lots of abbreviations – it's not 'G-8', it's 'gate'. Get it? The whole thing just says, 'at gate, get off in minute or so'. As in, off the plane?"

"Ah," he said, "of course. Very clever. Nearly impossible to decipher, but clever nonetheless."

Willow laughed again as he finished the last of his beer and dropped a few bills on the table. "You know, it's only been a couple weeks and I've still missed you like crazy?" She dragged her carryon around to bump her knee. "How have you been? You look pretty tired – I mean, no offense or anything. I just figured you've probably been crazy busy, what with all the Council stuff."

"You have no idea," he said. Their conversation was interrupted while they negotiated the crowds and found their way to the car that would take them into Rome proper. It wasn't until they were comfortable in the back seat and on their way that he could continue.

"You're right," he said, "I am tired. The work is urgent, it's impossible to prioritize because all of it is of the utmost importance, and we've none of us had even a moment simply to catch our breath from the – well. From the destruction of Sunnydale." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "At least one of us is in good spirits," he added, his face softening. "In fact you seem abominably cheerful. Aren't you suffering even slightly from jet lag?"

"Oh sure," said Willow, "it's just that I'm four hours earlier, so it's only mid-afternoon for me. Plus, you know, Brazil. They've got a whole lot of that Mother Earth energy to go around. I'm feelin' pretty peppy even now." She wriggled in her seat, twisting until she could lean against the back seat. Looked at him for a moment. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly.

Giles bit back his first response, which was to say "not really" and finish the ride in peace. "If you insist," he said instead. "Although, really, my troubles are nothing so dire as all that. No more than anyone else is dealing with, just now."

"But that's just it," said Willow. "We're all just barely out of Sunnydale – out of a war, you know, against the biggest bad we've ever faced, and we haven't had a chance to, to decompress. To even figure out how to cope, much less start coping. We're all dealing with a lot." Willow reached down, drew a fingertip aimlessly through the plush of the seat's upholstery. "And I think, from what I've learned about Buffy's condition right now, all of us being open and honest – with her, with each other, with ourselves – it's going to not just be important. It'll be part of her cure."

"Group therapy, Sunnydale style," he said with a tired smile.

"Or just a really cheesy New Age church service," said Willow with another laugh. "Talk out your problems and save a soul." She looked down at her hands, smile fading. "Although, since we mean it literally, I guess it isn't really all that funny, is it."

They were both silent for a long moment, just watching the lights go by out their respective windows.

"I suppose it would be best to cut right to the heart of it, then," said Giles finally. "I am overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work to be done; homesick for the town that has been my home for the past several years, Hellmouth and all; nearly paralyzed with worry and regret for my Slayer; and – if I truly must be completely honest – not at all certain I'm even up to the tasks set before me."

"That bad, huh?" said Willow.

"I miss the Magic Box," he replied. "Come to that, I miss my days as school librarian under that odious principal, Snyder; at least in those days my responsibilities were clear-cut – and they were the sort of work I'd trained years for. I could rest assured that I knew what I was doing, in the library if nowhere else." Giles took off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"Now I find myself occupied with attempting to rebuild the world headquarters of the Watcher's Council from the ground up," he went on. "To, to reconstruct records, and finances, and an entire library of occult texts… Never mind the task of locating and re-establishing communication with Watchers and Council offices elsewhere in the world. Each and every one of them needs some sort of proof of my credentials, which is only reasonable given what happened in London, but good God I have gotten heartily sick of bending over backwards and, and jumping through hoops, simply to prove to them that I'm not some sort of terrorist or agent of evil."

"Sounds pretty stressful," said Willow. "Frustrating, having to convince people over and over again."

"Yes, quite," said Giles. "Things were quite challenging enough to satisfy me when I was simply a Watcher – although, to be precise, with Buffy as my charge, I suppose those days never were simple, were they? But now –" Giles caught himself with a shake of his head and a long sigh. "Now I find myself suddenly flung into the role of Council Director, and it seems as though every waking moment has taken on a degree of complexity whole orders of magnitude greater than anything I've ever had to manage before. These past few days I've hated the work, because every minute of it was one more that I couldn't simply drop everything and come to Buffy's assistance! And if I were to be completely honest with you, and myself, I would be forced to admit that I have very little confidence in my own abilities to manage it all. Not the directorship, and not Buffy's troubles. Assuming she'll even have me, after all that's gone between us." He closed his eyes and touched his fingers to one eyebrow. Subconsciously hiding his face from Willow, he suspected.

"That's not the worst of it, though, is it?" she asked quietly.

"No," he forced himself to say. Forced himself to drop his hand from his face, to look at her as he spoke. "No, it isn't. From an administrative standpoint – and I realize how incredibly shallow, or, or cold, this makes me sound – from a purely administrative standpoint, all the work before us now would have been challenging enough if there were still only One Girl in All the World to guide and train. Now, however, suddenly every Potential in the world has found herself Called, all of them, whether they were prepared or not. Whether they'd even been identified or not. And from a more humane perspective…" He looked away, blinking rapidly. Cleared his throat against the tightness he felt building there.

"I fear we've done a terrible thing, Willow, awakening all those girls like that. They way that it was done… I understand it was necessary, and I'm not in the least condemning your actions – but I think of Buffy, and everything that she's suffered over the years. Everything she's been forced to endure for the sake of duty. How many girls have we condemned to that same fate? Hundreds? Thousands?" He cleared his throat again. "A terrible thing. I fear that the consequences of what we've done will be felt for years to come… and I'm petrified that the responsibility for every last one of those girls' lives now falls to me."

Buffy answered the door only because she was supposed to. Somebody knocks, you answer it, right? It was one of those things.

To be honest, she probably wouldn't have even bothered to get up off the couch when she heard the knock, except Dawn had told her that Willow and Giles were coming, and that they would be here any minute, and that Dawn had to use the bathroom; so if somebody knocked could Buffy please let them in?

So she'd opened the door; that was easy enough. After all, there wasn't any kind of rule that said you had to give a damn about who was on the other side waiting.

Not even – or maybe especially – if it turned out to be a Watcher who used to be your surrogate father, and a powerful witch who used to be your best friend.

Buffy stood there and stared at the two of them for a minute before remembering that they would probably want her to invite them in.

She didn't do invitations, not anymore – veteran of the Hellmouth, after all – but she did open the door wider and step back out of the way, a little, enough for them to drag their suitcases in behind them without rolling over Buffy's toes.

The two of them were saying things, but Buffy simply didn't care enough to pay attention; Dawn was out of the bathroom, she could answer them. Instead Buffy went back into the kitchen and stood staring at the package of saltines on the counter. Dawn kept telling her she needed to eat, and she knew Dawn was right, but her appetite was just… gone.

Lots of things were gone, though; she'd told her sister that a couple days ago. Or whenever it was.

Buffy had only just pulled one cracker out when the knock at the door had come. Now it lay on the counter, a little salted square of off-white, just taking up space, same as she was.

Oh, right. She was supposed to be eating something.

Buffy lifted her hand, heavy as it was, and set her fingertip in the middle of the cracker, pressing down gently until it split apart with a soft crunch. Now the counter held only crumbs and salt, and four odd-shaped pieces that would never go back together again.

Her, Willow, Xander and Giles. Buffy, Mommy, Daddy, and Dawn. Heart and soul, body and mind.

The girl, the Slayer, the vampire, the man.

She stared at them, her finger in the middle, and then remembered again that she was supposed to be eating. Turned her hand over and looked at the little bits stuck to the end of her finger, then stuck it into her mouth with a little sigh.

Crumbs and salt.

"Buffy… Buffy?"

It took a minute to realize that Dawn was standing in the kitchen doorway, calling her name.

"Um… Could you come out here? We kinda needed to talk to you," she said. "I mean… that's why they came – was for you."

Buffy said nothing, but she let Dawn take her hand, lead her back to the couch, and sit her down with Willow curled up at the other end and Giles in the nearest armchair. She thought that she might have been irritated with them for showing up like this, if she were able to get the energy together to care. But caring would require her to make an effort, and as she'd told Dawnie, that effort was simply beyond her capacity now; there was nothing left in her to give this world, including her curiosity.

Let them talk at her, Buffy thought; just like with the door, there wasn't a rule that said she had to give a damn anymore.

That changed when Giles opened up his suitcase, pulled out the Scythe, and laid it across her lap.

They'd only been apart for two weeks, but when Willow once again got a good look at her friend, standing in the doorway of their cozy Roman apartment, it was all she could do not to start crying right then and there. That Buffy was damaged, Willow already knew – the magic had warned her of that much, at least – but to look at Buffy in person, to see the effects of that damage written all over her for anyone with eyes to see, was nearly unbearable.

Buffy resembled nothing so much as a ghost, trapped in a still-living shell. Her hair hung lank and unwashed, she was dressed in clothes that looked like she'd slept in them more than one night, and her face was bare of makeup. Her lips were chapped and pale and the circles under her eyes looked like bruises, and her stare… Willow hid a shiver. Buffy's face held something that went deeper than grief and was more devastating than despair.

She looked as though she'd had her heart stolen from her, ripped right out of her chest while leaving her still alive to bleed forever. The scary part was that Willow thought that might be exactly what had happened, given the hints she'd gotten from her magic exercise the other day.

Buffy stood there just staring at Willow and Giles, until Willow couldn't be sure whether her friend would say anything, burst into tears, or simply close the door in their faces. She couldn't even be sure whether Buffy was actually looking at them, or through them to something else far away. At last, though, Buffy seemed to remember herself, and stepped aside to let them enter. She didn't answer Giles when he spoke to her, just wandered off to the kitchen and went back to staring, this time at something lying on the counter.

Drusilla, she thought suddenly. Buffy's behavior, the injury wrought upon her very soul, reminded Willow of Drusilla. And wasn't that an optimistic thought to have when looking at one of her best friends, possibly the strongest person Willow had ever met. It shouldn't be possible… but from what she could see, Buffy the Vampire Slayer had finally broken, collapsing under the weight she'd carried for so long.

Goddess, Willow hoped she was wrong.

"Thanks for coming," Dawn said quietly, stepping in from the hallway and waving them toward the living room. She, too, looked worn and sad, no doubt from seeing Buffy in this state and doing her best to care for her over the past couple days. She perched at one end of the sofa, but didn't let herself slouch back against the cushions; couldn't seem to make herself relax, tired as she had to be. "You, uh… you can see what she's like."

"Yes, quite," said Giles. "She, er… has Buffy been like this the entire time since the, er, episode you described?"

"Pretty much," Dawn replied, twisting her fingers together in her lap. "She barely eats – won't eat at all unless I remind her, and even then, she hardly takes more than a couple bites. I can get her to drink water, usually. But that's it. She almost never talks, and I don't think she's sleeping either." Her expression crumpled, and she fought tears to say, "I've tried, but she just…"

"It's all right," said Giles. "You've done as much as could be expected of anyone, Dawn. Considering the nature of her injury, as it were, you've done remarkably well." He leaned forward long enough to rest a hand on her shoulder. "It's only natural to feel worried about her condition, but please – you needn't add guilt to the burden you're carrying just now."

Willow slid closer to give Dawn a brief hug. "Giles is right," she said. "The way she is right now isn't your fault, and you've done a great job taking care of her until we could get here. And now you're not by yourself anymore, sweetie," she soothed, running a hand over Dawn's hair. "We're here, for you and for Buffy. We'll do everything we can to help you both."

Dawn nodded, wiping her eyes. "Thanks, guys," she said with a little sniffle. "I know you will. It's just been…" She stopped, took a quick breath. "Thanks." Once Willow was back in her spot, Dawn rubbed her palms across her legs nervously. "So, you found something out before you got here, right?"

"We both did, yes," said Giles. "But I'd like Buffy to be here for this conversation, if you could convince her."

"I'll get her," said Dawn, "but she's been pretty spacey. Just because you say something to her doesn't mean she's listening. Sometimes I don't think she even registers, y'know, that anyone else is in the room with her."

"I thought that might be the case," said Giles, "and I brought something which I believe may help, a little."

So Dawn got up and brought Buffy out of the kitchen, leading her by the hand as if she were a small child or especially frail old woman, and sat her down on the sofa nearest to Giles. Buffy's face was so blank, Willow thought; it was hard to tell if she simply didn't care that they were there with her, or if she was so far gone that she didn't recognize them, or maybe wasn't even aware that she and Giles had come.

It was awful.

"Buffy?" she asked, but got no response. Which, okay, Willow hadn't been expecting an answer, but to not even see a reaction was unnerving.

Giles was bent forward, fiddling with the clasps on his suitcase where it rested at his feet. After a bit of fumbling he opened it and pulled free the Slayer Scythe.

"Whoa," said Dawn. "How in the world did you get that through Customs?"

"A simple concealing charm, of course," said Giles, "though that's not really the important thing, just at the moment. I brought it… well. Let's just see if my hypothesis was correct; if I'm right, then my reasons for bringing it should become quite apparent." He leaned forward, and carefully laid the Scythe across Buffy's lap.

Buffy looked down at the weapon, took a deep breath and held it as she blinked three, four times. She reached forward, fingers twitching, and wrapped her hands around the Scythe. Her expression changed ever so slightly, just the faintest hardening around the edges as she… came back to herself, was the only phrase Willow could think of to describe it.

"What the hell is this?" Buffy asked, her voice hoarse, quiet, but pitched low and carrying a hint of steel. She kept her eyes down, seeming to study the Scythe as she spoke.

"It's meant to help," said Giles.

"Help," she repeated. Buffy's face grew harder and her voice took on more of a growl. "With what, exactly?"

"Well, er, your emotional state, I suppose you'd say," Giles began, but Buffy caught him as he paused for breath.

"Right," she said. "My emotional state. Sure." Buffy ran her hand along the shaft, from the base of the axe blade to the socket that held the wooden stake. "Dawn called you, I take it?"

"Yes, shortly after the, er, incident," he said, pressing his palms together in his lap. "She explained as best she could what had happened to you… well, as much as she understood, at any rate."

Buffy nodded once, slowly. "And you just decided it was time to fly down from England and bring the Scythe here, to help," she said. "Not to stage an intervention, not to remind me of my duty, or tell me I'm being immature." She looked up finally, her expression somewhere between a scowl and that blank, thousand-yard-stare expression she'd had when they first walked in. "Just because of my emotional state."

Giles reached up to touch his eyebrow, clearly trying to leave his glasses on and resist his usual nervous habit. "I assure you, Buffy, we've planned nothing of the kind," he said. "No, no 'intervention' as you call it, or, er, confrontation whatsoever. We're here because we care about you and we are worried for you, nothing more."

"Somehow I doubt that," Buffy said drily. "Gee, why do you think that is?"

"It isn't like that, Buffy," Willow tried. "It's – we think there's something wrong with you." And oh, crap, as soon as the words came out Willow knew she'd phrased it wrong. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She grimaced at her clumsiness. Goddess, why did anyone ever let her talk at all?

So it was no surprise when Buffy turned away from Giles to glare at Willow, an expression of utter disgust on her face. Willow couldn't say she didn't have it coming.

"Right," Buffy scoffed. "Of course you do. You always think that, when I stop acting all chipper and perky. Buffy's upset, so something must be wrong with her – with her. Buffy's got an opinion we don't agree with, so something must be wrong with her. Buffy doesn't react well to being programmed to act like the fucking robot, but clearly that means there's something wrong with her, 'cause God knows there isn't anything wrong with us when we pull this crap on her."

Oh.

Um.

Willow blinked, risked a quick glance at Giles to see if he had anything to say to all that. She rubbed suddenly damp palms down her thighs and tried to come up with something herself, but… well, the idea in coming here had been to be completely open and honest with one another, and if Buffy had been hanging onto this resentment for so long, it could only be a good thing for her to let it out now, right?

Could be worse, after all, she thought. The last time Willow had gotten all bitter, she'd ended up trying to kill her friends and end the world. If Buffy wanted to rip her a new one, Willow decided she could take it.

She hoped.

Buffy clearly decided that Willow's silence spoke for itself, because, "God," she went on, "one of these days both of you will realize I'm not a high school sophomore anymore, and your lives will get a whole lot easier. And so will mine. Because then you won't feel a need to spend so much energy trying to get me to behave the way you want me to behave." She shook her head, closed her eyes for a second. "That'd be nice."

There was nothing for Willow to do but keep being honest and hope that Buffy was willing to hear her. And if she wasn't willing, well, it probably still would be really good for Buffy, if Willow went ahead and gave her openings to vent all this anger. Just don't goad her, Willow thought. Don't take it personally. This isn't about you – let her say what she needs to say. Don't be a jerk.

"Buffy," she tried softly, "I swear. That's not why we came. It isn't like that."

"No? Really?" The glare was back, aimed right at her, and Willow fought not to flinch. She had no intention of attacking Buffy, but she wasn't going to back down, either.

"I swear, Buffy," she said again. "I swear we're just here to help."

"I've seen the way you help," Buffy sneered. "You can keep it."

And yeah, that hurt, but again – not undeserved.

Giles cleared his throat. Willow watched as her friend jerked her head around to glare at him, her grip tightening on the Scythe. "Buffy, I understand your suspicion –"

"Suspicion," Buffy spat. "Right. Because after everything you've done to screw me over, it would be suspicious of me to think that you might have some ulterior motive for being here."

"But we don't," said Willow, "please…"

"Let me guess," Buffy cut her off, breathing heavily in her anger. "'Buffy's upset that Spike is dead, she's deluded herself into thinking he's important, but hey, I'm sure once she gets her hands on the Scythe again, she'll get right back to killin' things and everything will be just fine' – is that about right? Am I close?"

"No, Buffy, really…"

"Oh, no, wait, you said that's not it. You swear, even. Well, that's okay then. I guess I should be grateful, right, since you actually don't have any plans to cheer me up by any means necessary?" Buffy's glare hardened, and she actually bared her teeth at Willow. "Rewrite my memories?" she demanded. "Make me over into your own version of what Buffy is supposed to be? I guess I should just jump up and down with glee because you don't plan to throw me out of my own home this time, right? 'Cause you're really only here to help. You don't have any plans." She shook her head with a scoff. "Do you actually expect me to believe that?"

"As I said," put in Giles, "I understand your suspicion – I do, truly – but I assure you, we have absolutely no intention of trying to, to manipulate you, o-or pressure you, in any way. Dawn told us about the, er, incident, and after some consultation…"

"Consultation," Buffy muttered in disgust.

"…we thought that it might be to your benefit if we could bring you into contact with the Scythe again," he concluded. "Nothing more than that."

"And again," said Buffy, "why should I believe that?"

Willow took a breath, but it was Dawn who jumped in next. "But Buffy," she said softly. "It… it is helping."

Buffy froze, looked at her sister for a long moment. Willow held her breath.

"What?" she finally said. Wary, distrusting.

"Well… this is the most you've said in two days," Dawn replied; her eyes were kind and her tone gentle. "And – and it's the first time you've made eye contact since that night. You've been… you were… kinda out of it, a-and then you touched the Scythe, and it was like you… woke up."

Buffy looked down, seeming to study her hands where they gripped the Scythe with white knuckles. She took a breath and flexed the fingers on one hand, then the other. Another breath, and her shoulders began to drop, her rigid pose softening just slightly.

When she looked at Giles again, her eyes were still full of skepticism, but the deep, bitter anger that had flooded them was receding, and it was all Willow could do not to shake her fists and whisper "Yes!"

Whatever had happened to Buffy, it looked there was still a chance to reverse it, both the recent wounds and the old scars. Thank the Goddess, there was still a chance to heal the damage – Buffy's, hers, theirs.

"Fine," said Buffy. "Talk."

Sorry for the delay. Motivation issues, holidays, and most recently getting sick for about a week. Angst is hard to write and keep motivated, you know?

There was a small part of Buffy's mind that found itself shocked, astonished, at everything that had just come out of her mouth. These were her friends, her family; how could she treat them so badly after all they had gone through together? And yet, she couldn't help the surge of – of triumph, maybe? Of vindication? Whatever you wanted to call it, it felt good to get all this stuff off her chest, resentments she hadn't even realized she still carried.

Better than good. It felt tremendous.

If this was what they meant by helping, then Buffy could stand to take a little more of it, please.

Giles was sliding forward in his seat, drawing himself up for lecture mode. Buffy found herself sizing him up the way she would an opponent; and again, there was that rush of shock, a tiny bit of shame, coupled with this tremendous sense of freedom.

There was nothing that said she had to take him at face value anymore, if in fact there ever had been – no rule that said she had to accept what he had to say without questioning or even rejecting it completely, if she chose to.

Even so, he looked sincere – a bit pleased that she was willing to hear him out, but without any hint of smugness in his expression, lines of worry and care marking his eyes and forehead. His shoulders were taking on a relieved slant, and it surprised Buffy to realize that she had paid enough attention over the years to be able to tell when Giles was lying; again that tiny twinge of shame that she'd even think to check or want to, but to be fair to herself, it really hadn't ever occurred to her before now to look.

"If I may, Buffy," he was saying, "this was exactly the sort of reaction I was hoping to see. Well, admittedly I suppose I might have preferred something a bit less angered, but that's rather beside the point, I think. The point is that you, er, seem to have more energy compared to what you were feeling before… if I may, what were you feeling, before you touched the Scythe?"

Buffy closed her eyes and turned her face away for a long moment, unsure exactly how much of herself she wanted to permit him to see. Still. They said they were here to help, and so far…

"Nothing," she finally said, gritting her teeth. "And I don't mean, 'I don't want to talk about it' nothing. I mean… broken, empty. There was nothing in me to feel with. I had to work to care enough to be able to feel anything."

"I suspect that if you were to place the Scythe on the table, and take your hands off it, that sensation might return," he mused.

"And wouldn't that be a cute experiment," Buffy growled. Not gonna happen, either. She flexed her fingers around the haft of the weapon.

"Yes, quite," said Giles. "But I think we needn't try that unless you choose to. At any rate, now it appears that you are drawing on the power of the Scythe to bolster your own strength, and it is allowing you to, to express, to feel something. And of course, the Scythe itself is a Slayer weapon, so one can hardly expect you to take it up and find yourself suddenly filled with the, uh, 'milk of human kindness', I suppose."

"Peace on earth, goodwill toward men?" Buffy's mouth quirked up at one corner.

"Something like that, yes," he said. "Regardless, that connection, that borrowed strength, is something that I believe you need very much right now, given our information so far. You see, Willow may have phrased it badly earlier, but –"

"But you do think there's something wrong with me." It wasn't a question.

"I think you've been injured, Buffy," said Giles gently. It was something else she hadn't realized – the fact that she'd missed that tone of voice over the past few years. "I think that whatever happened to you was not simply an emotional event, but a mystical one as well."

It would be just like them to pass off what Buffy was going through as the result of some spell, or thrall, or whatever; but Giles still didn't seem to be broadcasting any hint of "you're not allowed to feel this way", and Willow was keeping her mouth shut and, when Buffy glanced over at her, looking surprisingly free of either guilt or defensiveness. Dawn, for her part, was chewing her lip with worry and hanging on their every word.

Fine, then.

"I'm listening," said Buffy.

Giles let out a breath and his shoulders dropped a little further. "Given everything you've endured," he said, "these past several years and particularly these past few weeks, it would make perfect sense that you might, er, have s-something of a breakdown, if you will, or some sort of cathartic event, where you might finally permit yourself to, to grieve, to mourn your losses, once you were no longer under such intense pressure to behave as the Slayer. Once no one was looking up to you, placing their demands upon your time and energy, burdening you with their expectations, I suppose an incident of this sort might even be inevitable. It would make sense for you to feel, er, sadness… loss… and you've every right to feel that way, naturally."

"Nice to have your permission," she couldn't resist muttering.

Giles ducked his head for a second. "And of course," he went on, "as you said yourself, we've not always been, er, as supportive of you, as we could have been, in retrospect. We haven't always… encouraged you, backed your decisions…"

"That's one way of putting it," said Buffy.

"We know, Buffy," Willow put in. "We haven't been the kind of friends you really deserved, and part of the reason we came is because we want to change that."

And there was that wave again – that sense of shock at her audacity, that she should speak to her Watcher like this, that sense of "how dare you" mixed all through with an overwhelming sense of "woo-hoo!" And oddly, it felt familiar, too – hadn't she used to talk back to Giles all the time? Hadn't she stood up for herself and disagreed with her friends, back in the dim distant past before everything fell apart between them?

And if this was the result, why the heck had she ever stopped?

Were Giles and Willow actually saying they wanted to fix their dynamic and go back to the way things used to be, back when they were a family?

"Yes, exactly," said Giles, and Buffy had to pause for a second to realize he was agreeing with Willow. "So, again, it would make perfect sense that you would experience some anger, resentment, and again, your feelings are perfectly justified, and I for one have no intention of trying to convince you to, to 'buck up' or to force you to pretend to be happy when you are not."

Buffy took a couple deep breaths, and finally leaned back into the couch cushions, pulling the Scythe with her. Leave it to the Slayer to want to cuddle with a deadly weapon.

"None of that sounds like mystical injury or whatever you were calling it," she said.

"No," said Giles, "but your reaction – the nature of it, how suddenly you, er, collapsed – along with some of the things Dawn tells me you said, led me to believe that there was more going on here than simply a reaction to the trauma you've had to endure. And as it turns out, Willow agrees and has some further evidence to support our theory." He took off his glasses and glanced at her cautiously. "I would, of course, prefer to have a more detailed account, directly from you, of your experience, if you would be willing to describe it."

She narrowed her eyes; no, she decided. There was a limit, just at the moment, to how much she was willing to share with them, and, for better or worse, she felt the need to test this new-leaf support and respect thing they claimed to have going on. If they badgered her, well, she'd have her answer as to how far she could really trust them.

"I'm not," was all she said.

Giles cleared his throat. "Yes, er, perfectly understandable," he replied. "As I said, I've no intention of pressuring you to give us anything beyond what you are comfortable with; later, perhaps, if you feel it might be helpful for us to have that information, you might change your mind."

Well. That was refreshing.

"Now, as to that evidence I mentioned," he went on, "really it was Willow who discovered the most critical clue…" Giles gestured toward her and sat back, apparently finished for the time being.

Willow opened her mouth, but Buffy held up a hand before she could say anything.

"Dawn," she said quietly. "Would you mind making a pot of coffee or something, please? Maybe dig out some snacks?"

Her sister blinked in surprise. "Uh – sure!"

You know what, fine, Buffy thought. If her friends were actually here to offer help – real help – then she and Dawn should probably at least try to make them feel welcome. Plus, Dawn had been pushing her to eat something for the past couple of days and with the Scythe in her hands, Buffy thought she might actually feel hungry enough to manage more than a couple of bites.

She didn't miss the relieved smile that Dawn broke into, as she hopped up and dashed into the kitchen.

There was a Man, and he was in a Place, empty and… bollocks.

There was Spike, and he was Somewhere all right, and it might be dark but it wasn't exactly empty, being as he was there and so was Somebody Else. Felt like a dream, that sense you get where you know everything is real, and at the exact same time you also know that everything isn't? It was like that. Place was dark, but that might only have been because he wasn't looking at it the right way… or because nothing really existed here apart from him and the Somebody Else. Dreams usually had something else in the background, didn't they?

Made no sense.

And the Somebody Else who was here made no sense either, being as Spike had never seen her before and even if he had recognized the face he was pretty damn sure he wouldn't have invented this kind of dream-costume for her to be standing about in. Naked, sure; he'd had plenty of those dreams, every bloke did. But only naked from the waist up, and coated in mud? Bint looked like something out of National Geographic.

You'd think in a dream that the people in it would be doing something, but the bird just stood there gawking at him out of her ghoul's mask of black and white clay, dreadlocked hair sticking out every which way. She had a pendant of some kind round her neck on a leather thong, and a skirt that might have been made from skin or strips of rotted cloth. No obvious weapons, and no straw hut behind her or a bonfire or whatall; she wasn't waving a spear in his face or doing some kind of witch doctor dance, or any of the things you'd expect from someone looking like she did. She just stood there, staring at him, and he should have thought her ridiculous or half-witted but instead she nearly gave him the shivers.

He stared back at her as long as he could, noted the definition of hard muscle hiding under the mud, caught something of dignity – pride, maybe; strength, something – in her posture. Something predatory in her absolute patience, but her eyes didn't give away whether he was meant to be prey or what.

For himself, Spike wasn't in an especially predatory mood, so her patience beat his.

"So who are you supposed to be, then?" he asked her. "Bloody Ghost of Christmas Past?"

From absolute stillness to deadly motion in the blink of an eye, she launched herself at him, one hand crooked into a claw and aiming for his eyes. He barely managed to duck in time, and used her own momentum to fling her past him and into the dark. She came to her feet and whirled, stance low and on guard, but didn't attack.

"A ghost," she said. Her voice was a rich alto, and echoed strangely. "And alive. Dead, but I live on."

What the bleeding hell was this, Spike thought.

"Think I know a little about that," he said cautiously. "The part about bein' dead and still kickin', at least."

She shuffled her feet across dirt that hadn't been there a second ago, sun-baked mud, cracked and dusty. The girl, whatever she was, blurred toward him before spinning, ducking low to knock him off his feet while aiming a high kick to the side of his head. Spike let himself fall, blocking her kick and turning it into an ankle grab as he rocked backward and pulled. The girl grunted as her palms slapped the earth, then reversed her spin, trying to twist free. Again, Spike used her own momentum, and threw her off him sideways, adding in a quick palm strike to one of her knees as she went. Probably didn't do much but it couldn't hurt.

Spike kipped to his feet and rose smoothly; the girl was already up, but just like before, she paused.

"We are nothing alike," she said. "And identical."

"You realize that doesn't make a bloody bit of sense," he griped at her. Bloody hell, if this was his dream, why couldn't he for once get a bird who wasn't bleeding insane, violently disliked him, or both?

Again the girl flung herself at him; Christ, she was fast, and he was hard pressed to keep up against the flurry of punches and kicks she aimed at him. Bits of dried mud flaked off her body and got in his eyes at one point, and she landed a right hook that nearly spun him off his feet. He countered with a knee to her ribs and an elbow into her breastbone that sent her tumbling.

Again, she came to her feet, her stance defensive, and again she held her attack. Made no sense.

"Riddles are all I can offer," she said. "You must earn clarity."

Earn… an idea sparked in his head, and Spike held his tongue; froze his stance and waited to see what would happen.

The girl remained still.

Spike waited.

The girl did nothing.

Spike narrowed his eyes at her. "You're going to come at me every time I say something, aren't you?" he challenged.

He could have sworn he saw amusement under the paint on her face, just before she sent a single side kick toward his stomach that he blocked easily. She dodged quickly out of range again, and stopped.

Well, well, well.

"Okay, so you're saying my soul is damaged somehow. Mangled, or whatever. What – are you saying something attacked it?" Buffy had curled up in her corner of the couch, the Scythe still on her lap, only now she gripped it tightly with one hand while trying to balance a plate of cheese and crackers with the other.

"We're not completely sure," said Willow. "I mean, that was the first thing I thought, for sure, because it just looks so – messed up. But I talked to the coven, and…" She frowned worriedly, shook her head. "They gave me some suggestions, but a lot of them don't quite make sense. Like, they almost do, they maybe could, but then…" She trailed off with a helpless shrug.

"I'm sorry to say my own research turned up very little, and I suspect that it is of very little value at all," said Giles. "Of course, I thought to narrow my search by looking up anything related to the First Evil, to, er, apocalyptic battles, and to the more obscure bits of prophecy related to the Slayer, so perhaps it's unsurprising that I wasn't more successful."

"Doesn't matter," said Dawn into the silence, and they all looked up to see her standing in the kitchen doorway, struggling not to drop the three drinks she was trying to carry all at once. "Scooby stuff always started off like this. Bits and pieces of information that maybe didn't make sense at first, but we laid it all out there no matter how weird and we figured stuff out."

"What's this 'we', kemosabe?" asked Buffy drily.

Dawn scowled at her. "It would have been we if you'd stopped treating me like a ten-year-old just a little sooner," she said. She made her way carefully back over to them, her tongue sticking out slightly. "So, whatever. Just start with what the coven told Willow and go from there."

"Right," said Willow, taking a deep breath. "Well, this probably isn't much, but… the closest thing they could come up with to match what happened with you? Was something like giving birth."

Buffy raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

"You're, er, the coven, suggested birth because of the, the sense of separation that Buffy described?" said Giles, gamely taking the bait.

"Kinda, yeah," said Willow. "They said it actually fits pretty well except for there being, you know, no baby or anything."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "All right, fine," she said, "I'll bite. What makes it such a great fit."

"Well," said Willow, "there's a whole lot of speculation about when babies get their souls, and a whole lot of debate that I'm not going to go into, you know, 'does life begin at conception' and all that stuff. But it turns out that whenever it does happen, the soul itself is fragile, kinda like the baby is, and the mother protects it on a mystical level the same way that she's carrying the baby physically. I mean, she doesn't grow the soul or anything, but somehow she protects it until the baby is born, and even for a little bit afterward. About half of the coven ladies think it's partly to give the soul time to get used to being on this plane, and partly to give the baby and the soul time to merge together and become a living being, without any outside distractions. But I guess that's neither here nor there."

"Okay…" said Buffy.

"Okay, so, look at childbirth for a second. When a baby is born, there's this whole, living person, that's been completely a part of the mother's body for nine months, plus an entire internal organ, the placenta, just as big and complicated as a person's liver, that was built from scratch and now it just gets, um, shed I guess you'd call it. And it's all natural and supposed to happen, but when you think about it that's a pretty huge separation. And of course the mom's body takes quite a while to go back to the way it was pre-baby." She took a drink, squinting at the ceiling as she tried to come up with an easy description. "Even though it's natural and the mother's body is built to handle the whole thing, it's still a big deal, and kinda traumatic."

"And you're suggesting that something similar happens between the souls of both infant and mother," prompted Giles.

"Something like that," nodded Willow. "Just like the baby was, in a very real way, an extension of the mom's body for all that time, the baby's soul kinda belongs to both the mom and the baby, for a little while. Supposedly the baby's soul can even influence the mother to some extent. But then when the baby is born, that soul leaves the mother behind, and it's another one of those separations that is both totally natural and still pretty traumatic, all at the same time. Just as the mom – um, sorry Giles, girl stuff – just as she bleeds for awhile after the baby comes out, on a soul level she's, technically, kind of wounded. Her soul needs time to recover."

"But if that's what was happening," said Dawn, "then there's two questions you gotta answer. The obvious one is where the heck the baby is, or whatever it was that Buffy was carrying around with her, and the other one is why did it hurt Buffy so badly if this is supposed to be a normal thing."

Buffy's breath hitched in realization. "Spike," she whispered. "I was carrying Spike. His soul." She gasped again, a tear slipping down one cheek. "Somehow. I think… that's what it was."

Oh, god. To know that it wasn't her imagination; that the presence she had felt was real, was really him… She blinked back tears, fighting for control. Felt Dawn's hand on her shoulder, and after a moment, another tentative touch on her knee. She glanced up to see Willow beside her; her eyes held only compassion, and Buffy couldn't even remember the last time they'd shared anything this painful, this… intimate.

The Scythe might not be giving her the kind of energy that was suited for this kind of thing, but still. Buffy hadn't realized just how much she'd missed her friend. How much she'd needed her.

For the first time in years, she dropped her guard and simply let the tears fall.