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~*~

Ah, FUCK! Buffy!

Wincing, not just at the pain she felt shooting through her but at the disturbingly pornographic images that flitted through her head with that particular exclamation, Buffy said, “What’d you do?”

“Stubbed m’ sodding toe,” he replied through gritted teeth. “Why do they keep statues on the floor, anyway?”

Buffy glanced at the statue in question. “It’s made of cast iron,” she said cheerfully. “If it fell of the table then it would crush every bone in your foot like a pasty bony beetle.”

“What a simile.” He placed a hand on his chest dramatically. “Be still, my heart. She’s just as talented as Keats himself.”

“Har-dee-har-har,” Buffy said sarcastically. “Okay, so how are we supposed to get rid of Angelus?”

“I still stand by the staking idea,” Spike said flippantly. “Give the git a splinter, he goes poof. Nice, simple, easy.”

“No,” Buffy said firmly. “That is not the way to go. We need a spell.”

“Hence the reason we’re in a magic shop,” the other Slayer muttered dryly, plopping down at a table conveniently located next to the book shelves.

She quelled him with a dark look, taking the seat opposite his. “We need a spell,” she repeated, “Which is why we’re waiting for Willow.”

“Thought you said the redhead was a sub par witch at best,” he complained. “What the hell is she gonna know ‘bout fixing evil vamps? We oughta be asking the Watchers.”

“Oh, right.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “That would go over really well. ‘Hey, Jenny, you know that uber-evil vampire that almost killed you? Yeah, well, we’re gonna try to make him good again instead of doing our sacred duty and just killing the guy. We thought you’d understand. Wanna help?’”

“Overdosing a tad on the sarcasm, luv,” Spike informed her. “’m not saying we ought to run to the Watchers immediately—well, fine, I was, but I don’t really think that’s the answer. Just don’t like our options, is all.”

“Me neither,” she admitted. “But it’s all we have.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes.

“So,” Buffy said, breaking the companionable quiet. “Think Willow’s ever gonna show?”

“Red doesn’t seem like the type to break an ‘pointment…”

“Did you just call my best friend ‘Red’?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s disrespectful, you know. She could come in here and curse your ass off.”

“Right. Because you’re the paragon of respect, talkin’ about girls messing with my arse—“

“Who’s messing with your butt?”

Both blondes jumped when the origin of their argument breezed into the room. “Er—no one,” Buffy said quickly. “There’s no butt-message. Of any kind.”

“A ‘butt message’, Summers?” Spike quirked an eyebrow at her. “Your butt’s been talkin’ to you lately?”

“You’re a perv,” Buffy informed him flatly.

“Uh, guys? Not that the gutter isn’t a, a nice place to be and all…but don’t we have to find a spell to keep Angel from killing everybody and a-attacking innocent pets and stuff?”

“Pets?” Spike looked cute when he was confused, Buffy decided.

Although, come to think of it, she was confused, too. “Wait. Willow, did something happen to your goldfish?”

“Um…” Willow stalled.

“Willow!”

“Yes!” She cringed. “They’re kinda…dead now.”

“Bastard,” she cursed under her breath. “Look, Wills, we need to get Angel back to happy fluffy soul-having land, and we need it now. Do you know of a spell that will—“

“Ooh! The curse!” Willow was all but hopping on the balls of her feet. “I can just…re-curse him. He lost it with a moment of happiness, right?”

“Yep. From what I know, it was a ‘Wham, bam, thank you ma’m’ kind of thing,” Buffy said, her nose wrinkled with distaste.

“How’d the bird get him to sleep with her in the first place, d’you know?”

Spike didn’t miss the guilty glance the two girls shared. “Right. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Last year, Angel and I had…a thing,” Buffy said, cringing.

“A thing,” Spike repeated. He tried to feel for her with his mind, but she had firmly closed her emotions from him. “What sort of thing, exactly?”

“I-it wasn’t Buffy’s fault!” Willow hastened to assure him. “When she moved here—“

“I was new,” Buffy cut in, “And Angel was all handsome and mysterious—“

“But then Drusilla showed up, and she found out that he was all fangy and stuff—“

“And he told me that we could never do anything because he was in love with me and meant to be with me but if he slept with me than he’d lose his soul—“

“That’s a lot of ‘with you’s” Spike said, carefully arranging his expression to something that resembled blankness more than insane jealous rage. “So, ‘m guessing that somehow Drusilla made him think he was screwing you?”

“Oh, ew.” Buffy suddenly looked sick to her stomach. “So did not need that thought.”

“So Drusilla mindfucks Peaches,” Spike said, affecting a bored drawl, “An’ now we’ve got an insane master vampire who wants all of our arses nice and dead, am I right?”

“Pretty much.”

Willow looked rueful. “Does anyone else miss the carefree frolicking on the beach, back when all we had to deal with was tests? I do.”

The Slayers exchanged a glance. That was something that, no matter how long they were friends, the others would never understand. Neither Spike nor Buffy had ever had a normal teenage life; for them, frolicking on the beach was as much a myth as vampires were for most people.

Willow being Willow, she caught on right away. “Oh. Oops. Um…awkward. So! Who’s up for research?”

“Research. Research is good. How are we gonna break this thing?” Buffy asked, standing up and heading for one of the many bookshelves.

“Well, I figured we’d just redo the curse,” Willow said, looking relieved that her subject change was being gone along with. “You know—put his soul back in.”

“Is that possible?”

Willow drew a sheet of paper out of her backpack. “Well, Jenny thinks it is. She reworked the spell.”

Buffy snatched the piece of paper from Willow’s hand. The curse was in Latin, and definitely not anything approaching readable. “This makes no sense,” she said bluntly.

“Turn it over,” Willow suggested. “There’s a shopping list on the back.”

Buffy obeyed and saw, in Willow’s neat handwriting, a list of ingredients. Some were simple, like rosemary; others, like—Buffy wrinkled her nose—skin of rat would probably be harder to find.

“Some of this stuff is just downright gross,” Buffy informed her friend.

“But hey, once we’re done—boom! Good Angel will be back.”

He’d better be. Spike’s voice sounded loud in her head, almost making her drop the paper. Else, my plan’s gonna have to be put into action.

We’re not going to kill him, Buffy said firmly, So stop that.

Sorry, pet, but he just ‘bout killed our Watchers. I’m not gonna say I wouldn’t be glad to end him.

Buffy raised her eyes and met Spike’s. “I know,” she said, looking at him. “But if there’s a way to keep him alive—Spike, I can’t even count the number of lives he’s saved over the years. He’s worth saving.” Please, she added silently, letting him see some of the desperation and anger that consumed her.

She wasn’t terribly attached to Angel, not really…but damned if she wasn’t pissed with Drusilla for taking him from her.

He held her gaze for a moment before standing up. “Right, then,” he said determinedly. “Let’s get all these ingredients together, yeah?”

Thank you.

~*~

“Te implor, Doamne, nu ignora aceasta rugaminte. Nici mort, nici al fiintei... Lasa orbita sa fie vasul care-i va transporta, sufletul la el.”

Sparks danced around the now-glowing orb. Buffy and Spike exchanged a nervous glance from their places next to Willow on the library floor; aside from the very definite creepy factor of the magic, nothing really seemed to be happening. Giles and Jenny had told them that the power flowing through Willow would be very obvious, but aside from the glowing and the sparks, nothing really seemed to be happening.

After a few minutes Willow said, “Guys? I’m, uh, really not getting anything here.”

Buffy sighed. “Maybe we should’ve had Jenny here with us…”

“No, pet. We talked ‘bout it, remember? The Watchers are our weak spot, and Angelus knows it.”

“Well, apparently that’s not our only weak spot,” Buffy shot back. “The spell didn’t work!”

“Guys! Don’t worry about it, okay?” Willow looked at the two Slayers anxiously. “I—I can find a way to make it work.”

“Got any ideas ‘bout why it didn’t work?” Spike asked shrewdly.

“Um…” Willow bit her lip. “No. Not really.”

“Right, then.” Spike stood up and drew a stake from his duster. “Let’s go hunting, then.”

“Spike, no!” Buffy jumped up hastily. “We have to try again, maybe we missed something—“

“We didn’t miss a damned thing!” he barked. “You’re so fucking hung up on the fact that it’s your precious Angel that you can’t see the big picture. He’s a vampire, Blondie, and you know what we’re supposed to do with them!”

His voice was so angry, so derisive, that instead of ripping him a new one like she’d planned Buffy found herself standing utterly still, staring at him like he was one of those weird armless statues in a museum.

“Spike…” Her voice was small and weak and she hated it but God, what was she supposed to do? He’d completely closed off their connection again, but the anger in his face was enough to make her worry.

“Don’t even start.” Disgust radiated from him. “Every second that bastard is walking is another second an innocent person’s life is in danger. But you don’t see that, do you? All you’re worried about is Angel-love being able to fit into an ashtray!”

Before she had a chance to respond—or burst into tears, she honestly wasn’t sure which would happen first—he left, duster swirling, the perfect picture of righteous indignation.

She was going to chase after him, but Willow laid a hand on her arm. “I—I think he wants to be left alone,” she said quietly.

“Left alone, my ass,” she bit off. “He’s going to find Angel and try to kill him.”

“Not that I’m not supporting you one hundred percent, but…is that such a bad thing? He—he did try to kill Jenny and Giles.”

Buffy stared at Willow disbelievingly. “Are you kidding? Angel is two hundred years old, Will! He’ll squish Spike like a bug! He’ll chop off Spike’s finger and leave it for me to find like he did with Giles! If Spike goes off to fight Angel, he will die!”

Willow’s eyes were wide at the shrill edge of hysteria that had entered Buffy’s voice. “B-but how can you be sure?”

“Three Slayers, Willow,” Buffy said wearily. “Angel’s killed three Slayers. And that’s just from the female side.”

Silence reigned in the library for a moment before Willow let go of Buffy’s arm. Panic that matched her best friend’s had entered her eyes. “Go! Go now!”

Buffy didn’t need to be told twice. She sprinted for the door, hoping that she’d be able to catch up with Spike before he made the biggest—and the last—mistake of his life.

~*~

A/N: I completely made up the Angel figure. For all I know, he’s only killed one. I’m too lazy to do the research. =P But I figure from the line in FFL about Spike being “one of us” that he’s offed at least one, maybe more.





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