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many many thanks to my reviewers. it really makes my day when i receive them
Buffy knew it was the answer. The Orbs of Thesula that Travers had gathered around him had to contain the essence of the slayers. They just had to. Buffy ran from the room to where all the Orbs they had retrieved had been set up. She started searching through them: there were hundreds. All full of the dancing smoke that she had first seen. If you held them just so you could make out a face, a girl’s face, in each one. Buffy kept searching.

‘What is it love, explain to us and maybe we can help?’

‘When we brought Angel back from being Angelus, we used one of these Orb things to hold his soul while Willow did her witch stuff. I know I saw a face in one earlier and I thought I recognised it. But didn’t know who. Now I remember who, it was Nikki Wood, the slayer you killed in New York.’

Spike immediately felt the weight of his deed on his own soul and looked upset. Buffy caught that bit.

‘I’m not trying to make you feel bad, honest, I was just trying to say who I saw. I’m sure it was Nikki.’ She kept searching through each Orb.

‘Brother Roberto, could you get Giles please, and Marcus? This is going to take magic to free them and that’s their job, not mine.’

The elderly monk scurried off to find the vampire and the watcher. It was the least he could do and just watching Buffy run around the room was making him feel tired.

Buffy kept on searching through the piles of Orbs, and now he knew who they were looking for, Spike helped…he could remember the beautiful woman he’d killed in New York all those years before.

Buffy just kept looking. Amongst all the Orbs there had to be the one she first picked up. Giles watched in wonder as the slayer speed was being used for something other than fighting.

‘Giles, have you ever met another slayer? Other than Faith and me, I mean?’ Buffy asked then shouted, ‘Kendra! If I’m right Kendra should be here as well.

‘Xander, look for Kendra: Spike, do you remember her? Well look for her as well, you too Giles, keep searching.’ Buffy picked up Orbs at random.
‘This won’t work,’ Giles said, but before Buffy could lose what little temper she had left he carried on, ‘we’re searching the same pile again and again. Buffy, start at the far end. Spike: check that table over there.’ He pointed at a second table filled with Orbs sitting on their ornate stands. ‘And I’ll begin here. We’re looking for either Nikki Wood or Kendra? Yes?’

‘Perhaps he kept records? We’ve brought over hundreds of books, some magic, some seemed just diaries and things.’ Angel commented.

‘Right, get the other slayers in here, we need them searching the library he had. Have you brought everything through?’ Giles asked Angel and Spike, ‘and where’s Marcus and Charles?’

‘They’re upstairs. The women were getting a little fed up of the name-calling and their vamps went to comfort them.’ Spike smirked. He could hear exactly what sort of comfort the women were getting. He traded looks with Angel. Preternatural hearing had its downside sometimes.

‘Well will someone go and get them: we need all the help we can get.’ Giles was getting exasperated.

‘I’ll go,’ volunteered Rachael. And she left quickly, to fetch extra pairs of hands.

Xander kept searching, as did Buffy. ‘There must be nearly a thousand Orbs here. I didn’t realise there were so many in the world,’ Xander commented.

‘There weren’t. When we looked for one for Angel, I could only find reference to about five,’ Giles explained.

‘That’s because the others had all been taken from this realm.’ said a dark voice from the door.

‘Morty!’ yelled Dawn from behind him and threw herself into his arms.

‘My sweet Aurora, how are you, quite the young lady. If you grow this beautiful every time I leave you, I must stay close or you will drive all the young men wild with desire.’

‘The Immortal,’ growled both Angel and Spike. Here was one thing they could agree on. He was the bane of both their lives. They hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done with Dru and Darla and doubted they ever would.

‘What do you want?’ snarled Spike. He felt a hand on his arm but shook it off. Giles didn’t need a fight here and now.

‘To see my dear friends’ he said with a grin. ‘Buffy you look radiant. I’m delighted to see you again, Cara,’ he added, kissing her hand. Spike growled again.

‘My dear Lord Carrington. I have no intention of muscling in on your wife or daughter, I am merely here to see if I might be of service. I have a little knowledge of the things with which you are dealing.’

‘Still talks like a bleeding poofter.’

‘Spike,’ hissed Buffy, ‘he was a good friend to us.’

‘I bet,’ said Spike and stormed out of the room, nearly slamming the door off its hinges. There was no way he was going to watch Buffy all over one of his greatest enemies. He nearly ran to the kitchen, tears blinding him as he went.

‘Now what was all that about?’ Asked Buffy as she followed him.

‘Why don’t you go back to your beloved Morty?’ He growled.

‘Because I’m here with you,’ she answered, ‘and I know all about your insecurities, but we don’t have time to deal with them now. You are mine and I truly am yours, you great idiot.’

Spike started to smile. Only Buffy could make him feel better by insulting him. ‘I saw you with him, you know. Angel and I came to Rome on business and came to see you, but you were out with him. We saw you in the club.’

‘I didn’t know and neither did Morty, or he would have told me. He found me crying one day in a church. I must have lit about fifty candles, for you, Spike, and I was crying as though my heart was breaking. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I was patrolling and desperately trying to find a vamp strong enough to kill me, but there was nothing. I died on the inside. I had finally told you I loved you and you didn’t believe me. I just wanted to follow you and tell you again.

‘Dawn was really worried. She had Andrew guard me during the day and at night she didn’t let me out of her sight for months. My soul was dead and I wanted my body to follow. The only one that understood was Xander, and he’d left.

‘Then I met Morty. He talked to me about you; every one else was terrified to mention your name. But he told me something about you every day. Told me that you’d met before. Said he stopped you and Angel from going on a rampage by kidnapping you both and tying you up in a barn whilst he had his way with Dru and Darla. He’d wanted to kill you but hadn’t been allowed. Seems you both had work to do and the time spent trying to pay him back kept those alive who needed to be.

‘He made me laugh again, he made me realise that it was worth living again, for you. He was my friend: nothing more. I know his reputation. He told me all about it himself, but he didn’t even so much as try and kiss me. That was all he was, a friend, a really good friend who helped me when no one else would or could.

‘He knew who I was and had set body-guards on me for the first few months, until I was strong enough to protect myself. He protected me and Dawn when I couldn’t.

‘We didn’t know you were the assistant that had come with Angel, we just knew that Wolfram and Hart had sent a couple of people. If I’d known it was you I would have been waiting for you as the plane landed.
We found out later, when Morty got some paperwork through. I nearly killed Andrew when I found out he’d lied to me, only by omission, he just hadn’t told me you were in Rome alive, but it was a lie. Morty stopped me after I’d gotten in a couple of slaps. I was broken all over again. You were gone for over a year: 378 days, 14 hours and 17 minutes; would you like to know how many seconds?’

Spike shook his head. He’d never really realised how his death had affected Buffy. He’d just seen her dancing with The Immortal and got jealous and to see the same man here, now friends with his darling Buffy and his Dawn, Oh my God Dawn, he’d left her there with that snake.
Buffy could feel him tense again.

‘Dawn will be fine. Morty treats her like an indulgent Uncle. Gets her tickets to concerts, takes her shopping, chases away all the boys and Dawn loves it, she missed you so much as well and I couldn’t keep it together to help her. If it hadn’t been for him we would have both followed you where ever you went.’

‘Bit of a waste of time me dying if you two stupid Bints did something silly like that,’ he mumbled into her hair.

‘I’ll stop being friends with him if you like? I won’t do anything to upset you, ever. I love you and nothing is more important than that.’

‘If he was that good to you I suppose I owe him some thanks, but if he ever lays so much as a finger on you I don’t know what I’ll do to him.’

‘Try and play nice?’ Buffy asked.

‘Anything for you and the Nibblet, love. Hey, he called Dawn my daughter: he knew.’

‘I’ll hit him for that, OK?’

‘OK Buffy. I do love you. I know I get jealous but I’m still waiting for the fates to snatch you away from me, keep thinking I’m so far below you.’

‘As if, you world saver, you. Now come and play nice, we have work to do.’

‘I never want to lose you pet.’

‘Never going to happen, and when this is all over and we get some time, you and I can see about extending this claim to a full mating claim, if you want?’ Buffy added shyly.

‘If I want!!! Nothing would make me happier, if that’s what you want. Its forever pet: no divorce, no dying to get away from each other, one mate can’t live without the other.’

‘I know, and if it’s what you want I’d be the happiest woman in the world.’

‘You’d make me the happiest man if you said yes.’

‘Yes, yes, yes a thousand times yes!’

‘Tomorrow I’m getting you a proper ring.’

‘That’s for tomorrow, and whatever you choose I’m going to love, but don’t you think we should return to the work now, before they send a search party after us?’ And holding hands Spike and Buffy made their way back to the Orb room.





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