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April 8, 2005-LOS ANGELES

"Where do you suppose they went on their honeymoon?"

Xander smiled at Dawn, "Like I've said already a thousand times, 'I don't know.' He wouldn't tell anyone where he was planning on taking her. It was kind of an obsession with him, which doesn't really surprise me all that much. Giving her a happy ending after what happened, we all wanted that. So, he didn't tell. And, I didn't ask."

Dawn's face glazed over as her mind sifted through all the romantic places Spike could have taken her, "Do you think it was the beach? Buffy loves the beach. Or, maybe he took her to England? You know, take her to visit his old stomping grounds?"

Xander sighed. He was no match for a girl who'd been raised on fairy tales, "I don't know Dawn. And personally, I'd rather not have a play-by-play running through my head, if you don't mind."

Dawn smirked, "Jealous?"

"Yes. Now, let's get back to research mode."

"I don't understand why we don't just call them. I'm sure they'd come back."

Xander leaned in close over the table, "Maybe we're not calling them, Dawn, because they're on their honeymoon?"

Dawn reached into her purse, which she had tossed on the table after Giles summoned the gang to George's old garage for a powwow, and took out her cellular phone, "If Buffy didn't want to be interrupted, then why did she leave her cell phone number?"

He shrugged, "Habit? She's not the only Slayer, now. I'm sure we can handle this on our own, Dawn. I'm still not sure why Giles even called us here. This is L.A. after all, it's not like a mysterious death is all that mysterious."
**************************

It seemed to Buffy that long moonlit walks and lovemaking in the sand just weren't in the cards for them. Not that he hadn't tried to give her those things, he had. And the nights were wonderful. Having him there, she felt like she was the only person in the world. He looked at her as if he could see the moonrise in her eyes, and she kind of liked being that important to someone again. After Willow's spell that awakened all the potential Slayers, she kind of missed being the only one. She didn't think she would, but she did.

No, the nights were fine. Cataclysmic in fact, in a very good way. It was just the days that bothered her. She wasn't worried about herself. It was Spike she was concerned about.

His days were filled with fitful sleep. Drusilla's attack seemed to hit him much harder than he had ever let on. Though there was a permanent scar that Drusilla left them both with.

The viciousness of her attack had affected their future in a way neither of them had foreseen. Drusilla had hurt them in a way, and in a place that couldn't be spoken of. A place that Spike wouldn't share with her. She tried to assure Spike that it wasn't important to her. That he was all that mattered to her because he was, all that mattered to her. He was the past and the future to her. Nothing else mattered. Spike did not see things the way she did. He became fixated on the idea that he was somehow responsible for her condition. She tried to tell him that, even if she didn't have children of her own, they could always adopt. Once she felt it was safe to take responsibility for something bigger than a goldfish, they could always adopt. But that day was perhaps years away.

At least it sounded more sincere than the "cookie dough" speech. Maybe it sounded more sincere because it was.

Her assurances did not assuage the guilt he felt at being, at least in part, responsible for her ordeal. She knew that, and she wished that there were something she could do for him, to help him through this.

He said that he knew that there would be sacrifices that had to be made for him to be with the one person he knew was right for him. If that meant becoming a vampire so that he could be around when that one girl came into being, so be it. And, if being around when she came into the world meant that having Nibblets of his own was out of the question that was just how it had to be. But, when it came to her? That was another story altogether.

He'd said it. But, when he did, she noticed a light went out of his face. It was almost as if he'd finally given up on a dream. Let go of something he'd just realized that he grew out of. Something he didn't even know he wanted until the possibility of having it had been snatched away from him.

After that, the dreams about the little girl started. It was then that Buffy knew just how much Spike had wanted it, the whole dog and white picket fence and two kids, one boy, one girl, just to give things a kind of equilibrium thing. And it broke her heart because she knew that, somewhere in Spike's subconscious mind, he'd constructed this child that haunted him as a means of dealing with a loss he didn't even know he was feeling. A teenager could be explained. Maybe it was a Slayer dream, something he shared with her as a result of what happened on the Hellmouth. The loss of hope was a horrible thing. And Buffy knew that the sudden appearance of a baby was just a manifestation of the loss he was feeling.

She knew how he felt, because she was feeling it, too. She wanted to help him through it, if he would only let her help.

"Spike, could the things that happened in your dream, could they be memories of things that have already happened?" Buffy tried to reason with him, "I mean, Angel and Drusilla did have a thing for children, you know, when they were evil."

Spike paced in front of the curtained hotel room window, "Love, I only hope this is just stress. Do you really think I wanted to interrupt our honeymoon with tales of the boogieman?" he sat back down on the bed, visibly shaken, "I'm half taken to believe that I've gone round the bend again, like before. That would be preferable to this," Spike ran his fingers through his hair in distress, "What's in my head now, Angelus couldn't even fathom. Not even he's that twisted," he shook his head, trying to summon the words that would let her understand, "No, Love, this was cold. So cold that..." he lost the words and looked at her. He looked so lost that her heart tore in two for him. He was near sobbing when he next spoke, his words muffled by the comfort she was trying to give him, "I've done some things that would make your blood run cold, Buffy. But this? It was like I'd seen it all before. It was like I knew what was going to happen. Like I was seeing it all in slow motion, only I couldn't stop it. It was all happening again and I couldn't stop it," he looked at her, his face bewildered and his eyes searching as he held her tightly, "But how can that be when you're still here?" he paused and studied her closely, "You are still here, aren't you?" Spike's eyes looked as if they were balancing on the precipice of insanity. He looked at her as if something had broken inside of him, "It hasn't touched you? Please, say it hasn't."

She was resolute, "No. It hasn't touched me. I'm still here," Buffy's voice was strong even though the sight of Spike this vulnerable was, to be honest, more than a little frightening, "And, it won't touch me, because we wont let it. If you think the best place for us right now is back in Los Angeles, then we go back."

"I'm sorry, Love. This is probably nothing but newlywed jitters," he said sheepishly.

She tried to comfort him, "Vampires get those too, huh?"
*************************************

Rupert Giles had never seen anything like this. Not in all his days on the Council of Watchers, before the change or after. Not even his foray into the world of dark magic prepared him for what he was reading.

"What caused this?" he asked, hoping that he was somehow missing some important factor, "Have you contacted the authorities about this?"

"No," Angel said, "That would only cause a panic. This is why I came to you first. If anyone would know if the girl's condition was just an aberration, or something more ominous, it would be you."

"But why would you come to me with this? You know I don't trust you."

Angel nodded, "That's exactly why I came to you," he put his head down, in deference to the enormity of the information he'd just laid on the Watcher's shoulders, "I know that the Council has the blood profiles of all the active Slayers. And none of them have ever had numbers like that, am I right?"

"Yes."

"If this were to be released on the general population," Angel shook his head, "It would make the Ebola virus look like the common cold. It needs to be contained."

"I agree. But how?"

"If there were some way to limit it. Target it to one, specific population, maybe then, it could be controlled."

Rupert felt his jaw twitch and his voice harden as he looked at a creature that had tortured him just for the pleasure of hearing him scream, "Which population do you suggest?"

Angel sighed, "One that's strong. One that may be able to adapt quickly enough to survive," his voice became hard as stone, "One that has been thrown out of equilibrium of late, due to certain actions."

"The Slayers. Willow's spell. You'd endanger Buffy?"

"To save the world from extinction?" Angel nodded, grimly, "Yes, I would."

"What have you done with the body?"

"It's been cremated. And, the medical waste incinerated," he nodded toward the papers in Giles's grasp, "Once you burn those, no one will know that Lorraine Angelus even existed."
*****************





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