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Author's Chapter Notes:
Author’s Note: I’m back with another chapter a little sooner than I expected. There was a slight problem at literally the last minute with my dad’s EKG so he was released and his surgery was postponed for a couple of weeks to get things checked out.

This chapter is not so big with the action, but we finally do get a few answers. If my laptop continues to hang in there (pets poor laptop) and I get a chance, I’ll try to post the next chapter tomorrow.

In the meantime, on with the show…
CHAPTER TWENTY

Weapons bag in hand, Buffy paused halfway down the stairs, looking for Spike as she scanned the inn’s near-deserted common room and adjoining tavern.

The day that wouldn’t end was finally drawing to a close, which made her profoundly grateful. She was so ready to leave this place and get back to her own world. A place where night and day came and went in a reasonable amount of time, and strangers didn’t stare and whisper just because they saw you snacking a couple of times in the 15 hours that separated lunch and dinner.

It had been that long, and then some, since the raider attack and Spike’s near brush with immolation. The escaping demons had been dealt with, Tondor was safely reunited with his family, and Buffy had spent the last few hours in her room, tossing and turning and worrying about Spike.

Once it had become clear he wasn’t impervious to sunlight, they had all joined him in a mad dash to the inn. By the time they’d made it inside, Spike had sustained second-degree burns. Most were on his hands; one marred his left cheekbone.

Reema had swung into action, herding Spike to the nearest seat and fussing over him as she applied a homemade ointment meant to ease pain and protect wounds. At the same time, she ordered her eldest daughter to look after Buffy’s cuts and scrapes.

Buffy had been less than thrilled. She could tell Nareetha felt the same. Apparently, so could Angel, who quietly intervened, snagging the tray filled with wet rags and salve from Nareetha’s hands as he guided Buffy to a nearby chair. Neither woman protested.

With first aid underway, the debate resumed over what had really happened. Spike blamed the dimension’s unusual sun. Angel loudly disputed this but remained conspicuously silent on the subject of Spike’s mysterious coma. Buffy pointed to the prophecy yet again, and Spike continued to resist.

In the end, Gunn suggested turning to the Lupwa.

“Anything magical or mystical? They’ll know. And their compound isn’t that far. Spike can’t go to them, but maybe I can talk them into coming here.” Meeting Angel’s skeptical gaze, he shrugged. “They’re not big on the venturing forth, but it’s worth a shot.”

He’d left then, heading out to saddle a hemoth for the ride into the woods, and returned faster than anyone had expected, the trio of healers following in his wake. Elderly men, they were dressed in plain, coarse-looking robes, with craggy features and long gray hair hanging in multiple braids around their shoulders. Trundling up to the door in a rickety wooden chariot, they stood erect, gazes fixed straight ahead, appearing none too pleased to be there.

As it turned out, appearances were not deceiving. The Lupwa ignored Gunn’s attempted introductions, their faces reflecting identical sour expressions as they descended the built-in steps at the rear of the chariot and entered the inn. They zeroed in on Spike before Gunn could even point him out.

Spike eyed their approach with a wary expression but surprised Buffy by remaining silent. As the healers formed a triangle around him, she saw him tense a bit. When they did nothing more than close their eyes, he snorted and relaxed.

The men stood that way for what seemed like an hour but couldn’t have been more than five minutes. During that time, Spike never once looked her way.

Finally, the drawn-out silence became nearly unbearable. Buffy could see the same tension reflected in the other faces around her, especially Spike’s. But just as he seemed on the verge of rebelling, the Lupwa healers bowed their heads, lifted their arms and, like a trio of synchronized swimmers, began what Tondor later identified as the ritual Dance of Completion.

When they came to a halt, the “diagnosis” was pronounced. Spike, it seemed, was “between.”

“Between?” Buffy pushed past Gunn, planting herself in front of the tallest healer, the only one who had actually spoken. “What does that mean? Between what?”

He stared down at her as if assaulted by a foul odor. But after a long moment of silence, he confirmed what she already suspected. “The ten’ak is more than what he was and less than what he is. We can tell you nothing more.”

With that, the healers turned as one and seemed to glide, more than walk, toward the door.

“Wait! You mean like…first he was human and then he was a vampire, right? And now he’s…both?”

Spike growled. “Told you, I’m not human. Not anywhere close. Think I would know if I’d suddenly developed a pulse. And what the bloody hell do you mean by ten’ak?”

The Lupwa ignored them both, clearly intent on leaving, but Angel stepped forward to block their path. He bowed, slowly and with greater ceremony than Buffy ever would have expected from him.

“We ask your pardon, but there’s one more thing we would know, if the wise Lupwa will grant us that gift.”

Taking their cue from Angel, they all waited as the same healer Buffy had addressed pondered the matter. When he finally nodded his assent, Angel bowed again. “We need to understand what’s happened. Why Spike…why the ten’ak…has changed.”

The healer shook his head. “It is not for us to speak of this. Only They Who Exist Between have the answers you seek.”

Spike glared. “Right. Guess that would be me, then, and I’ve already told you, I’m not—”

Gunn interrupted. “I think he means The Powers.” As the others looked at him, he shrugged. “It’s one of those things that came with the brain upgrade. We call them The Powers That Be, but they have other names, too.”

Angel gave a resigned sigh. “Of course they do.”

While Buffy didn’t understand everything Gunn had said, she latched on to the important part. “So where do we find these Between/Power guys?”

Gunn shook his head, his expression pained. “Wish I could tell you. Got a bunch of knowledge that was shoved into my brain and most of the time I don’t even know all the crazy-ass stuff that’s in there. Kind of just pops out. Usually when I need it, but…not always.”

Spike shot him a sour look. “And would it be telling you what a ten’ak is?”

Angel turned back to the Lupwa. “They Who Exist Between…how do we find them?”

The master healer regarded them all with raised eyebrows. “They cannot be found. As I have said, they exist Between.”

Spike snorted. “Yeah, well, there goes the neighborhood.”

Angel pressed harder. “In my world, there were ways to communicate with them. I think a master healer of the Lupwa would know those ways. Is there an Oracle we can seek out? Maybe a Conduit or two?” When the Lupwa failed to respond, his expression grew more intense. “Please. We need to reach them. It’s important.”

The healer turned slightly, as if holding silent communion with his brethren. Then he turned back. “There is a way. To know more, you must seek. But for those who seek, there is no return.”

Buffy frowned. “Seek where?”

“Like the man said…Between,” Gunn murmured. He straightened, looking around as if waking from a deep sleep. “They’re in the void…the trans-dimensional plane between worlds. That’s why we can’t go there. If we go, there’s no coming back.” He looked at the Lupwa. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

The healers bowed their heads in unison. Then they turned and moved single file to the door. Exiting the room and the inn, they left an uneasy silence in their wake.

Seconds passed. Gunn cleared his throat. “Well, at least that tells us what we need to know. Sort of.”

Spike snorted. “Speak for yourself, Charlie boy. Only thing I want to know is what the bloody hell they mean calling me a ten’ak.”

Now, hours later, the memory of Spike’s dogged disgruntlement brought a wry smile to Buffy’s face. He’d been more concerned with a potential insult to his honor than about anything else they’d learned. But with Reema’s help—and Gunn’s interpretation skills—he’d finally been persuaded that “ten’ak” was not, in fact, a derogatory remark, but merely the Lupwa term for “patient.”

It was at that point Tondor had arrived, much to the vocal relief of his wife and daughters. After a touching family reunion, he confirmed the fate of the retreating raiders. Then a stern Reema had declared it “sleep time” for the non-natives in the room and shooed them off to their respective beds for a few hours’ rest.

Between that, Angel’s concerned hovering, and the exhaustion Buffy could no longer deny, any private talk she’d hoped to have with Spike was put on hold. From across the room, their gazes had met and held, but she couldn’t read his expression. When she’d stood and moved toward the stairs, he had lagged behind, thwarting her once again.

Later, she’d lain in bed half expecting to hear a familiar knock at the door. He’d always come to her, whether she wanted him to or not. But all those months he’d been back without telling her proved things had changed.

Why would he even want to talk to her? He scoffed at the prophecy, but only to spare her feelings. She knew that. It had been his and she’d taken it away. No matter how much he cared about her, that had to hurt.

Following a mostly sleepless “night,” Buffy had risen, dressed and made her way to Spike’s room, hoping to find him awake and ready to talk. Instead, she’d discovered a bed that clearly hadn’t been slept in, with only the weapons bag stuffed beneath it.

Hearing a noise in the hall, Buffy had grabbed the bag, thinking to use it as an excuse for being there. Then she’d mentally kicked herself. She didn’t need to pretend. That was the whole point of what she’d come to say, right?

So she’d waited, but the sounds had passed on by without pausing at the door. Frustrated and still gripping the bag, she’d left the room, heading off to the second most likely place to find him.

And there he was, sitting at a table in a secluded corner of the tavern, nursing a tankard of ale or possibly blood.

Except…he wasn’t alone.

Nareetha stood next to the table, holding his hand, lips curved in a sultry smile as she bent down to thrust her overly generous bosom into his face. And from where Buffy stood, it looked like Spike was appreciating the cleavage assault just a little too much.

Jealous Buffy grabbed a stake, Adult Buffy went poof, and the inner struggle ended almost before it started.

Which left her with only one thing to do.


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TBC in Chapter Twenty-One





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