Tara watched Spike from the stairs, worried. He had been sitting in the same chair since the Slayer’s friends had left several hours ago. The conversation this afternoon had not gone how either of them had expected, and Tara knew that the groups’ reaction to Spikes story was causing him additional stress. Stress he could ill afford.



“It’s not your fault, you know,” Tara said as she walked into the darkened living room. She sat on the coffee table across from Spike with her hands in her lap.



“What’s not my fault, pet?”



“Any of it.”



“Yeah, know that don’t I?” Spike chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Nothing that wanker does is my fault. Should’ve seen this coming though, ducks. Knew he’d been here with the Slayer, should’ve expected his presence wouldn’t have been all rainbows and bloody puppies.” Spike let his head fall back against the chair, his eyes falling closed. He was tired, so bloody tired.



Tara smiled but said nothing. She knew Spike well, and her years with him had taught her that sometimes he just needed to rant a bit, get the words floating around his head out.



“Know we need them, need to be here, but do we really?” Spike didn’t wait for an answer, not expecting one. “Whatever we’re up against, I could handle it, right? Done it so far.” Spike sighed as he sat forward, head down and his forearms resting on his knees.



“Spike…”



“I know, I know. Words on a paper and all that rot. Just wish we hadn’t come here, wish I didn’t have to bring you lot here, you know that right?” Spike looked up to see Tara nod, her lovely blue eyes filled with understanding. “What I really wish though, was that Peaches hadn’t of been here first. Wanker makes everything harder than it has to be, guess he hasn’t changed.”



“We’ll find a way, Spike, we always do.” Tara tried to reassure him.



“That we will, Glinda, that we will,” Spike replied as he stood, stretching his muscles. “I’m gonna head out, see if I can’t find some nasty to beat information out of. You gonna be okay here for a while?”



“Sure, Spike, we’ll be fine,” said Tara. “You go.”



**************************



On the other side of town, a small group of tired fighters sat in Giles’ living room.



“Maybe it’s not true?” Willow asked, breaking the silent contemplation. She was grasping at straws, desperately hoping that Spike had been wrong. She’d always thought that she had done a good thing, re-ensouling Angel. But now she was seeing her actions in a possible new light, one where she hadn’t brought back a heroic fighter for good by gifting him with his soul, but had rather performed a dark curse that punished not only a dangerous monster but also his innocent victim. His young girl, potential Slayer, victim.



“Yeah,” Xander jumped in. “This Spike guy’s just some vampire, evil undead bloodsucker. We’re just supposed to believe anything he says? Yeah, right! And what about all that stuff he made up about Riley! Riley’s a good guy, he’d never do that! We can’t believe anything he says!”



“Xander, do shut up,” Giles ordered in exasperation. “We all saw the marks on Riley’s arms. There is no way he obtained those bites while patrolling or any other way, and lived. The only explanation is that Spike was indeed correct and Riley has been visiting the vampire bite shops.” Giles continued to wipe his glasses as he stared at Xander. He certainly hoped that Riley headed his Slayer’s warning to get out of town, because if he ever saw the idiot again he would not be held accountable for his actions. “As for the rest of it, until we are able to research further, I believe we would be remiss not to believe he is being forthright.”



“He is,” Anya stated bluntly, not bothering to look up from the magazine she was flipping through. “It’s a well known story, at least among vengeance demons. Everyone was quite impressed, wish I’d been there.” After several moments of silence, Anya glanced up to see everyone starring at her, mouths gapping. “What?”



“Anya,” Giles began, “are you saying that you know of what Spike was telling us?” At her nod, he continued, “why did you not tell us this before?” Giles bristled, clearly angry with her, although Anya wasn’t sure why.



“I assumed you knew. Angelus was here for several years, and even if he didn’t tell you, it is written about extensively in several books.” Giles anger shrank a bit under Anya’s implication. “Besides, you all treat me like I’m an idiot, just because I like to talk about money and sex. You wouldn’t have listened.”



Giles could only stare at Anya. He couldn’t believe that they, that he, had been so foolish as to overlook what was obviously such a valuable resource right in front of them. Anya, though she appeared as young as the other children and was superficially focused on money among other things, was in fact older than all of them combined. She had lived over 1100 years as a demon and undoubtedly had vast knowledge of the demon world they had never bothered to ask her about. Giles felt his headache grow at his own, rather blatant, shortsightedness.



Before he could gather his wits to respond to Anya however, a loud sob pulled his attention to Willow, who seemed to be falling apart on his couch. She had tears streaming down her face and was struggling to pull in breaths as Oz rubbed her back in an attempt to comfort her. When he was able to hear what the young woman was saying over and over again however, he couldn’t help but find himself silently agreeing with her.



“What have I done… What have I done… What have I done…”



************************



Buffy struggled to keep her mind blank as she made her way to Giles’ apartment later that night. She had been aimlessly wandering the streets, alleys, parks, and cemeteries of Sunnydale since running from Spikes house earlier that day. When the sun had sunk below the horizon, she had taken her frustrations out on any denizen of the night that had crossed her path.



It was late by the time she reached her Watcher’s door, but she knew that Giles would not have gone to bed yet. She wasn’t wrong.



Giles opened the door, stepping aside once he saw that it was his Slayer. Buffy looked disheveled and… haunted.



“Buffy,” Giles began.



“Don’t, Giles. Just, don’t.”



Giles sighed, making his way to the couch were he sat watching his Slayer pace the room. He feared how the information they had received today would affect her, and seeing her now, filled with barely restrained tension, he almost felt sorry for any creature that had or would face her tonight.



“I saw Riley earlier tonight,” Buffy said, having stopped to stare blankly out the living room window. Giles felt his eyebrow raise and his mouth purse, but wisely chose to wait and see where she was going with that statement.



“At first, I just wanted to run up to him and just yell at him for still being around, you know? But he was all angry and stompy, and I just… so I followed him. Something told me to see where he was going.” Buffy closed her eyes for a moment. “He went to this house over on Elmwood, went in and I just… watched the place…”



She turned suddenly and pinned Giles with a hard look. “Did you know?” At the questioning look on Giles face, she clarified. “Those, those places, did you know about them?”



“In theory, yes,” Giles answered slowly, carefully. “Did I know there were any such establishments here in Sunnydale? No, Buffy, I did not.”



Buffy nodded her head, seemingly accepting of his answer and turned back to the window. “It’s gone, burned.” Buffy said coldly. “He’s gone too, something about a helicopter.”



It seemed that Buffy had said all she was going to on the matter, and Giles decided to let it rest for the night. He watched his Slayer, her arms wrapped around her chest, wondering what else, if anything, she would say to him.



“Do you believe him?” Buffy asked so quietly he almost didn’t hear her. He didn’t need to ask her whom she meant.



“Anya says he is telling the truth.”



“Huh? Anya?” Buffy asked, her face turning to him, scrunched up in confusion.



Giles smiled slightly as he removed his glasses, unsurprised at Buffy’s reaction. His own had been similarly unbelieving.



“Yes. It appears we have been quite thoughtless where Anya is concerned. Why it never occurred to me that an 1100 year old ex-demon would have valuable information, I will never know.” Giles shook his head. “She was however, able to confirm the generalities of what Spike told us, having heard of the incident herself when it happened. So, yes, unless proven otherwise, I believe him.”



Buffy was quiet for a few moments. Her own mind touching on the ridiculousness of assuming Anya knew about nothing other than money and orgasms.



“Okay,” Buffy said. “I’m gonna go now, do another sweep before I head home. See you tomorrow Giles.”



“Yes, see you tomorrow my dear.” Giles watched a distraught Buffy leave his apartment and walk off into the night.



************************



Spike heard the sounds of fighting long before he saw them. Under normal circumstances he would have been mad, jealous even, to come in at the end of what was obviously a knock-down, drag-out battle. Hell, normally he would have just jumped in to get a piece himself while the getting was still good. He’d been looking for a good row, someone or something to pound his frustrations out on, but the night had been frustratingly uncooperative.



Tonight however, he found himself content to just watch. It wasn’t often that he had a chance to watch a Slayer at work. He’d mostly avoided them over the years. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fight them, on the contrary, he would love nothing more than a fists-and-fangs beat-down with a warrior he could consider an equal. But that was all he would want, a fight, while they would be trying to kill him. And he’d never been particularly suicidal. So, he’d made it a point to stay away from wherever the active Slayer was said to be if it could be helped.



Spike leaned against a headstone and pulled out a cigarette. He thought the Slayer knew he was there, had seen a moment where her body had tensed in awareness before she had returned all of her focus on the Fyarl demon she was currently beating to a pulp.



She was amazing. Fluid and deadly, like bloody poetry in motion. Spike gave a chuckle at his bad pun and felt himself smile at the possibility that this was a Slayer he would get the opportunity to fight. He just knew fighting her would be unlike anything he had ever faced. Without thought, Spike found himself adjusting his pants as his cock hardened at the idea.



The Slayer threw a vicious snap kick at the Fyarl’s knee, forcing it to the ground before catapulting onto its back and snapping the things neck with an audible, sickening crunch. The battle ended at her whim.



Spike slowly inhaled from his cigarette, watching her still crouched form, chest heaving from the fight. She had yet to look at him.



After a few more silent moments, Buffy stood slowly and turned in Spikes direction. She headed for a headstone across from where he leaned, still not acknowledging him.



“What happened here?” Spike asked.



Buffy’s head snapped up, green eyes meeting blue. “I beat the shit out of a Fyarl demon,” she snarked.



Spike couldn’t help it, he chuckled.



“Saw that part, Slayer, right good show it was too.” Spike pinned her with an intense look. “But that’s not what I meant and you know it.”



Buffy shrugged and looked away. She knew what he meant, of course. He wanted to know what happened with Angel, she just wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him. Actually, she was pretty sure that she definitely didn’t want to tell him. But he had been right about Riley… and Anya, who was apparently a really reliable source of information, said he had been telling them the truth.



Buffy studied Spike while he lit yet another cigarette. He was dressed in all black from his tight t-shirt and jeans to his boots. A well worn leather duster, black of course, hung from his frame like a second skin. She looked at his face for what felt like the first time, and found she liked what she saw. Defined jaw line, full lips, razor sharp cheekbones, deep blue eyes and eyelashes she would kill for. All of it topped off by slicked back, bleach blonde hair that practically glowed in the moonlight. He was probably a few decades out of style, but she couldn’t say that it didn’t work for him.



Hoping she was making the right decision, or at least one that wouldn’t come back to bite her in the ass, she decided to tell him the truth. The very short, very abridged version maybe. Quid pro quo, or something, right?



“I came to Sunnydale when I was 16, met Angel a few nights later. The PTB’s had sent him here to help me. We started dating and fell in love. One thing led to another…” Buffy trailed off, not sure what to say exactly.



“And you shagged?” Spike offered.



“Yeah. I mean, I think so. That’s like British for, um, sex, right?” Buffy asked, her face scrunched up in uncertainty and embarrassment. Spike nodded. “Yeah, so we, um, shagged, perfect moment of happiness and he lost his soul.” Buffy paused, pained at the memory, failing to notice the way Spike’s eyes widened and his arm froze halfway to his mouth. “Angelus messed with us, killed Willow’s fish, killed Giles’ girlfriend Jenny and tortured Giles. He tried to wake Acathla, Willow put his soul back in and I sent him to Hell to stop Acathla from opening. He came back a few months later. Things didn’t, um, they didn’t work out. He left last Spring, said it was too hard to be around me…” Buffy trailed off again. Telling this story was never her favorite thing, but if what she had found out today was true, there was a whole new level of badness involved. The badness of Angel knowing all about his curse and what could happen. And, even though she kind of hated herself for thinking it, the badness of knowing that he might have known how to bind his soul and he still chose to leave her.



So caught up in the direction of her own thoughts, it took her a while to notice that Spike was still silently starring at her, his face and body frozen in shock.



“What?” Buffy asked.



“Huh? Oh, uh, nothing, Slayer,” Spike squeaked, cringing at the cracking and high pitched sound. Smooth, he thought, real smooth.



“That’s not nothing face, that’s something face.” Buffy pressed. “Look, whatever it is, just spit it out. Why not add to the badness, huh? Hey, maybe my head will just explode and some new Slayer can just deal with it all?”



Spike couldn’t help a tiny grin at the Slayer’s attempt to lighten the mood. “What do you know about how the curse is broken, Slayer?”



“Moment of pure happiness,” Buffy shrugged.



“It’s a little more complicated than that.” When Buffy just stared at him, he looked away. “Curse is a curse, yeah? It’s a punishment on the demon, not a bloody gift. All curses can be broken, and that’s usually a good thing. The Gypsy’s didn’t want that though, didn’t want the punishment to end, so they came up with a loophole that would be damn near impossible to beat.” Spike let out a suffering sigh, and cursed the Powers for having to be the one to explain this to the girl. Deciding on a different tactic, he asked Buffy, “moment of pure happiness? What’d you lot, uh, think that meant?”



“Well,” Buffy blushed, “you know, we um, made with the shagging, and he loved me and I loved him, so when he, um, you know… moment of pure happiness.” Buffy finished lamely. Articulate, thy name is not Buffy. For some reason, talking about this with the peroxide vampire was making her feel like a naive little girl. It was bugging the hell out of her, and if she had to say ‘shag’ one more time, he was gonna be sorry.



“That’s part of it, yeah. Those Gypsy’s were bloody clever though. They made it so that every part, ever side, had to have that ‘pure happiness’, as you call it, at the same bloody time for the curse to be broken. Damn hard to do, that.” Spike paused, waiting to see if the Slayer would understand. When her face just scrunched up in confusion, he felt like he was talking to a brick wall.



“Huh? But… what?”



“Look, Slayer, I’m not real sure how to say this in a way that won’t sound a bit crass, so I’m just gonna say it. The demon and the soul had to experience pure happiness at the same time. For Angelus, that should have been bloody impossible. That soul in there, not his soul, yeah? Nothing that made his demon happy should have made that girls soul happy too. Way I figure, the soul had gone forever without love, done nothing but drive Angelus crazy with guilt for a hundred years. Finally connecting with another soul, especially a Slayer like she would have been, must have given her that happiness. And Angelus, well he probably hated you, but he was having sex. Sex with a young virgin girl, mind you, and that would have made him bloody ecstatic.” Spike took a long drag of his cigarette. “So, there you have it.”



Spike watched her face. Watched as she tried to work out what he was saying. Watched as her confusion grew at first, recognized the moment she put it together, saw the immediate denial, watched as knowledge warred with denial, saw acceptance set in, and finally, observed a brief flash of pain and horror cross her features before she seemed to shut down completely. He wondered if she had finally reached her breaking point. He wondered if Slayers had a breaking point.



“I don’t… I… I have to go,” Buffy said, as she jumped off the headstone. She was halfway across the cemetery before Spike could even register what she’d said.



He stared after her as he took another drag and then tossed his cigarette to the ground.



“Bloody hell.”



*************************



“He is gone, sir.”



“What?” He turned dark, dangerous eyes on the shuffling man.



“The… the house, sir. He left and hasn’t returned,” he gulped.



“The girl?”



“Gone,” he whispered. “The place is empty.”



“How long?”



“I… I’m not sure. A few days?”



The sound of glass shattering as he threw his tumbler at the wall reverberated through the dark room.



“Find them.”

TBC...