banner by kargrif

Learning To Fly

Based on the song of the same name by Pink Floyd

S6--Buffy returns from the dead, but is a very different Slayer than the one that went to Heaven

Rating NC-17

Learning to Fly Chapter 1—A Ribbon of Black Into the distance, a ribbon of black—Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly” She was floating. Drifting in the light that surrounded her, and all was peaceful. All was good. Love shimmered in the air around her, and she wallowed in its purity. She was loved, not for being what she was or what was expected of her, but for just herself. She never realized how many strictures were placed on her, how many sacrifices she made, until now. She was touched, and touched others around her. It made her feel good that she could be known for who she was. Another came close, and she was enveloped in the warmth of mother’s love. She wanted to cry, but there was no pain, just the knowing, and she reached for the first time to touch a soul nearby. She sent her love into the touch, and they drifted together for a time, watching the scenes of life unfold before them. She missed them. All of them. Especially him. But there was no place for feelings like that here. No room for regret. There was only peace, love, joy, and she couldn’t help but feel a little smothered by all the good. There was more to it than good and bad, she thought rebelliously, but there was nobody to hear her thoughts. There was only her. There was no boredom, but somehow it seemed too placid and peaceful here. She questioned becoming a higher being, and it seemed that she was thought to be too young, too new for the job. She acquiesced, because there was no fighting here. There was only peace. Her mind kept drifting back to where she left and the people she left behind. The rebel in her wanted to be back there, fighting the good fight, but there was no room for that here in a place of goodness and light. They were allowed to watch the happenings of where they’d been, but most didn’t. It was all she did. She watched the people she loved fall apart, relying on alcohol and sex to numb them from reality. She watched her sister as she tried to reconcile the sacrifice. She watched the Watcher as he first tried to crawl into the bottle in Sunnydale, then left for England to crawl in the bottle there. She watched the soulless one, as he cared for her home, her sister, her friends, and all she left behind. She watched him closely. After a while, she only watched him and her sister. The others…they just didn’t. Didn’t keep promises made, didn’t care, and didn’t seem to miss her. She didn’t dwell on it. It made her happy, seeing him like that. Loving, caring. Good. She never thought of him as good, until she could see him. Really see him. She saw inside his heart, and saw the love and goodness there, and she wanted to cry for her loss, but there were no tears here. Life went on without her, and she didn’t have any choice. She was here. Life was there. It didn’t feel right, but it was, and that was her only balm. But even in the mist and cushion of the ultimate reward, she wasn’t at peace. She could never be at peace. There was too much left undone, and too much she’d left unsaid. It didn’t surprise her in the least to feel a tug from the other side. The tug turned into a strong, magical pull, and she would have panicked, but there was no place in this realm for panic, either. It pulled her out of the peace and love, and yanked her back to the plain she came from; back to the people who said they loved her. She almost hated them, but that wasn’t possible here either. She settled for indifference to them. Her soul was pulled and yanked and tugged toward the thin ribbon of darkness that had appeared in the mist, and she let herself go. Tired of fighting, tired of conflict, tired of everything, she let herself be dragged along toward what waited for her on the other side.

Chapter 2—No Turning Back

Stretched to the point of no turning back—Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"


“She’s in some hell dimension, and now you’re second-guessing it? What, you want to leave her there longer? What kind of friends are you?”

Willow’s voice was strident with her displeasure, and she glared at the other three co-conspirators. Tara tried to talk, but her nervous stutter hindered her, just like always. “W-willow, Giles s-said…”

“Giles doesn’t think that I can do this. But I can, you all know I can! I really helped when she was fighting Glory. I helped you, Tara, gave you your mind back. I can do this!”

“Willow, we don’t doubt that you can do this. It’s just—well, should we? Anya and Tara mapped out all the demon dimensions, and they couldn’t find any trace of Buffy. What makes you think that we’ll succeed?” Xander looked at the flushed redhead, and wondered if this was the best idea. They had talked about it, but then suddenly Willow had this whole spell in the works before they’d had a chance to make a decision together.

“Because we need her. That’s why we’re doing it and why we’ll succeed, because Buffy is needed here. Not lost or stuck in hell. Here, with us, the people who love her.”

Tara thought of Dawn, and how long it had been since any of them checked on her. They knew that Spike was there, but she still felt guilty for dumping all the responsibility of the house and Dawn on him. She kept her thoughts to herself, and wondered what happened to Willow to make her so sure of herself.

“I’m still waiting to hear from that guy on Ebay. We’re in negotiations for the urn of Osiris, but he isn’t giving in.” Anya looked at her nails, and said off-handedly, “I’m trying to get him to throw in some worthless collectible as a bonus. He should capitulate, for the price I’m offering.”

Willow paced, raking her fingers through her hair. “It has to be soon. We can’t keep covering things up with the Buffybot. Someone is going to find out about—that she’s gone, and then we’ll have Social Services to deal with and all kinds of hoorah to pay. We have to do this as soon as we get the urn in our hands.”

Xander stood, and put his arms around her shoulders. “We will. We have to wait just a little while longer.”

He and Anya escorted them to the door, the Scoobies meeting over. Anya leaned against the door, and sighed.

“Willow just can’t get over herself, can she?”

Xander shot her a warning look, but she blithely went on. “She thinks that because she was able to do all those other spells, this one will be a piece of cake. Doesn’t she know how much power this type of spell requires? It won’t be the big easy like she thinks it will.”

“Ahn, enough for tonight. My head is already spinning. I just want to crawl in bed.”

Anya smiled. She knew how to keep him from spinning, and right now, she thought he needed to be shown.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Tara couldn’t sleep.

She lay in the bed next to Willow, worries of all kinds flying around her head, and could not dismiss them for the life of her.

Willow had been driven all summer long to try and find a spell to resurrect Buffy. She brought home books of every manner of arcane knowledge, and hid some of them from Tara, which was unnerving. If they weren’t of the black magic variety, why would she hide them? Tara had only found them by accident, but she didn’t dare open them, fearful of the aura surrounding the books and the pettiness that had seemed to infect her girlfriend.

She knew that she should be grateful that Willow had given her back her sanity, but she was also afraid. Afraid that it gave her too much confidence. Tara knew that Willow possessed greater power than she did, but she also knew that power of that sort couldn’t be used selfishly for personal reasons. Somehow, that’s what she felt this resurrection to be—personal. Willow missed her best friend, and she would bring her back just to make her own pain stop.

Tara turned over, and felt her girlfriend snuggle up against her back. She moved slightly, breaking the contact, and felt guilty for it. She just didn’t want her to touch her like that, not right now.

Something inside Willow was…off. Her aura was muddied and dark, and just looking at her set alarms off inside Tara’s mind, but when she tried to speak to Will, she’d shut her down. She had even been so angry with Tara that one night Tara watched her eyes turn black.

It terrified her.

Her girlfriend was turning into someone, or something, that Tara didn’t know anymore. Willow was even starting to use her magic for mundane tasks like cooking and changing clothes. Cleaning became a magic trick too, as Tara watched dishes wash themselves and a broom sweeping the kitchen floor one night. When she said something to Willow, she blew Tara off, saying, “if I can get it done faster that way, I’ll have more time to spend with you, baby.”

Instead, it allowed her more time to spend with her head buried in spell books, and Tara fretted.

When she cast a simple contentment enchantment on a neighbor’s baby that was colicky all night, Tara went through the roof.

“Willow, you can’t just magick the baby’s pain away! It’s not right! The baby—“

“God, Tara, chill! The baby isn’t in pain anymore, the mom’s happy, and we can get some sleep for one night. It’s not a big deal.”

But it was a big deal. Tara saw Willow getting more engrossed in magicks too dark to ignore, and went to Xander and Anya.

“I don’t see how we can stop her. If she buys the supplies at the Magic Box, we can see how many and how much experimenting she’s doing. Plus, why not let me have her money? She’ll just get it somewhere else.” Anya was nothing, if not practical.

Xander rolled his eyes at Anya, but said, “As much as I hate to admit it, Tara, Ahn’s right. We can keep a closer eye on her if she buys her stuff from the Magic Box.”

When Tara found bags and boxes from other stores, she knew that belief had failed.

She lay awake at night, praying to the Goddess that Willow would see where her path was leading, and vowed to set an example. Tears rolled silently from her eyes as she mouthed incantations of protection for herself and her friends as she tried to sleep. She could feel the malignancy of Willow’s actions growing, but could find no solution to the danger except try not to get caught in it herself. If it came to a battle, Tara wasn’t sure she would win.

Willow snuggled closer, and Tara cringed on the edge of the bed, finally getting up and moving to the couch in the living room. She couldn’t stand for her to touch her. It made her think of dead things, crawling things, and the dark, itchy place that Glory had thrust her mind in. It made her think of revulsion and fear, and she had to get away.

In her once-beloved’s face, she saw a gaping, grinning skull.

Chapter 3—Flight of Fancy

A flight of fancy on a windswept field—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

Spike stalked through the streets of Sunnydale, the Buffybot trailing behind him trying to make small talk. He ignored the metallic voice, the annoying jabber as long as he could before he growled, “Will you shut your bleeding gob?”

She looked at him, frowning for a millisecond, and then bounced over to take his arm. “I love it when you growl like that, Spike. It’s so darn sinister and evil. Will you growl like that for me later?”

He shook her arm off, and cursed Willow for the thousandth time. You would think the bloody bint could figure out a simple program. It wasn’t like she had to encrypt bloody War and Peace.

He lit a cigarette, and stomped through the woods toward Revello Drive. The bot followed as she was programmed, and when a vampire jumped out behind her, she barely broke stride, staking him then running to catch up with Spike.

When he got to the house, he paused at the edge of the yard. “Laissez la barrière laisser tomber et me permettre le passage.” His vision shimmered, and he felt the tingles of Glinda’s magic raise the hair on his neck, and stepped into the yard.

Once the Buffybot had passed the boundaries, Spike turned, and made a brisk movement with his hand. “Sans couture et entier, la protection est proche de nouveau.” He never did like French, seemed like a right poncy language to him, but they didn’t want anyone with demonic or magickal powers to conjure their way into the house. At least it wasn’t in Klingon. That had been his other choice, and the more preferable, if Xander had any say. Thank the Powers he didn’t. He hated all those fricatives and guttural consonants.

He was concerned about the blond witch. He knew that there were major problems with Red and the magic, didn’t have to be a vampire or have superb hearing for that. Red seemed to be oblivious to the turmoil she was stirring, and Glinda had been woodenly going through the motions ever since…he couldn’t remember when.

He’d call her right now if he knew what was wrong. Maybe he should to find out what was wrong. Nah, Glinda didn’t want to confide in him.

He climbed the stairs, and went to check on Dawn.

For once, she was having a peaceful night. The nightmares seemed to be coming fewer and farther between, and for that, he was grateful. It was hard enough holding down a lanky fourteen-year-old without the earsplitting shrieks coming out of her mouth. With a little training, she could probably shriek loud enough to explode a vampire’s head. Maybe he should try to train her to do that.

He shooed the thoughts away, and closed the math book below the slender girl’s head. He pulled the blanket up and tucked her in, then kissed her forehead gently, departing as silently as he came.

The bot was still waiting for him in the kitchen. He sighed, and looked from it to the cubbyhole that he, Xander, and Willow had rigged for it to be stored in. There were two plugins for the battery packs, and a tiny area for clothes and makeup for the mechanical doll. Spike stared at her, wondering how he thought that thing could ever replace Buffy, and his heart twisted unexpectedly.

His voice came out rough and growly, and not a good growl. “Go on. Park you chassis in the cubby for the night.”

She looked at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Spike. I don’t mean to make you angry. If I do that special thing, will you like me again?”

“Argh! Just get away from me, and leave me alone.” He gave it a shove, and it slid into the cubby. He pulled accordion doors closed, and prayed that the godforsaken batteries on that thing would run down.

Even as he prayed, he knew the answer wasn’t forthcoming. They needed the damn toy, and not for shagging or checkers. That thing was the only barrier between the demon world and their hard-kept secret. They hadn’t heard of another slayer being called, and Giles was off in England, trying to research covertly between drunken bouts of guilt and loss, but Spike knew that there was no other. The only slayer now was in prison for an undefined period, and someone had to guard the Hellmouth. Since he was the strongest, it fell to him.

He really didn’t mind. It was for her. Everything was for her. He had to fulfill his promise, even if he couldn’t fulfill it that fateful night.

He made his way to the basement, and stripped down before lying down on the camp cot. Dawn kept trying to get him to move upstairs into Buffy’s room, but he finally told her to sod off, so she quit trying. He couldn’t. He didn’t belong there.

He was beneath her.

In the space between the cot and the wall, he reached for the only thing to be removed from Buffy’s room since her burial.

It was really a pitiful sight. Bedraggled, worn fur, mashed in snout, and one ear that looked like it had spent quite a bit of time in the Slayer’s teeth, but it was hers, and he loved it for that fact alone. It still carried a trace of her scent, and he pressed it to his face, inhaling deeply and fighting tears that only reared their ugly head when he’d had a particularly trying night.

Inexplicably soothed, the vampire curled his arm around a stuffed pig, and drifted off to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

From utter darkness, there was light, and she was in it.

Spike looked at her in wonder. She glowed from the inside, her beauty incandescent in the realm of his dreams. She smiled at him, and warmth suffused his aching heart.

“I see you, Spike. I see all that you do. Thank you.”

He couldn’t speak to her, for some reason. He could only stare at her, eyes wide. He thought he knew what effulgence was. He was sorely mistaken. He was a fool. A complete and utter fool.

She came to him, her arms open for him, and he fell into them weeping. She soothed him with tender caresses and kisses, then held his tear-stained face between her hands.

“I am always here with you. Death was my gift. Not only for Dawn’s sake, but for everyone’s, including you. I could not imagine my life without….

She stopped speaking, and turned her head as if listening. “I have to go. Someone noticed me gone. Remember. I am always here.” She touched his heart, and it gave a painful throb beneath her hand.

Spike woke with the stabbing pain of a heartbeat. He could still feel the vestiges of warmth on his skin from her embrace, and his mouth tingled from the touch of her lips to his. He was also completely hard.

He was losing his bloody mind.

Chapter 4—Standing Alone

Standing alone, my senses reel—Pink Floyd, "Learning To Fly"

Giles looked down at the bottle in his hand, momentarily confused, and then set it on the table.

He had been drinking for far too long, he realized. Drinking and not solving the problem. If Buffy went to a hell dimension, why was there no new slayer called? And what did that reveal, in turn, about Buffy’s demise? Was there a chance that she was alive?

Weary, he climbed to his feet and went to stand under a cold shower, still fully dressed. The water pelted his face and seeped into the corners of his closed eyes, mingling with unshed tears.

His daughter, the child of his heart that he never had, was dead. Buried in Sunnydale, underneath a weeping willow tree at the edge of one of the seventeen cemeteries. She was gone, and there was no change in the fabric of the universe.

His heart broke as reality set in, and he fell to the bottom of the shower, the freezing water mixing with the hot salty tears. Curled up in the fetal position, his heart emptying out the grief he should have loosed months ago, he vowed to put rest the questions surrounding her sacrifice, no matter what it took.

He stood again, and turned off the water. He disrobed, and left the dripping clothing in the bottom of the tub, then dressed in his tweediest suit, the one that made Buffy call him Uber-Giles, and made his way down to Council Headquarters.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dawn looked across the island at him where he stood in front of the stove, making her an omelet. She remembered crushing on him for a long time, since he made the Acathla truce with Buffy. She knew the memories were implanted, but they were so much a reality. He’d always treated her like a little sister, even that night. Now the idea of crushing on him was kinda…eww. Plus, he loved her sister. Even if her sister was dead.

He turned, and served her, and she noticed the dark rings around his eyes. Exhausted blue eyes swept over her, noticing what she was wearing, and a frown creased his forehead.

Thinking fast, Dawn said, “When was the last time you ate anything?” He knew she meant something in the ABO group, and he shrugged.

“Dunno. Don’t keep track.”

“Spike, you need to eat. You’re looking puny.”

“Hey, take that back, Platelet. I’m still the Big Bad.”

She smiled, crossing her arms. “Right. At this point, I could kick your ass.”

He crossed to the fridge and jerked it open, grabbing a bag out of the bottom bin. Yanking a mug from the shelf, he ripped into the bag and dumped it in the cup, shoving it into the microwave and pressing the timer button.

Her innocent voice drifted in through the haze. “Spike, I shouldn’t have to piss you off to get you to eat.”

His shoulders sagged. “I know, Bit. I…don’t think about me. It’s all about the promise.”

She came behind him, and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his back. “I miss her too, Spike. But missing her, and forgetting to do the basics to stay alive is like…passive suicide. She wouldn’t want that from either you or me. She told me to live. And no matter how much I know that it should have been me, it wasn’t.”

“She did it ‘cause she loved you.” He turned, and patted her head where it rested on his shoulder. “You were her legacy to the world.” He pulled away from her, looking deep into blue eyes eerily like his own. “And I’m not committing suicide. I just get sidetracked easily, and right now, I don’t have any kind of appetite. When did you get so smart, anyway?”

She flounced back to her stool, and started devouring his creation. “Always have been. Nobody listens to me.”

He took his mug out of the microwave, and leaned on the counter across from her. “I do, Bit, and you know it. Guess we have to take care of each other now, don’t we?”

“Yeah, ‘cause I don’t think Buffy’s coming back anytime soon,” she said around a mouthful of eggs.

He stopped. Became utterly still, as only a master can. “What do you mean by that, Nibblet?”

She ignored the dangerous tone, and continued to eat. “The dreams. Haven’t you had them too? I know you have. I’ve heard you. You talk in your sleep, you know that?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’ve had ‘em. They’re just dreams, Dawn.”

She knew he was trying hard to dismiss them, but drove onward. “Okay, so you are having ‘em too. Are they like mine? Buffy digging out of a coffin? Walking in fire?”

No, he thought, and started to answer, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Since it was day, Dawn went to the door. And opened it immediately when she saw that it was a shaking, crying Tara standing outside.

She pulled her in, and shut and locked the door behind her. “Tara, what’s wrong?”

Spike turned on the kettle, and went to coax Tara into the kitchen. He made her a cup of the herbal tea she liked, and sat her down next to Dawn, who kept her arm around her. Taking up his place and cup across from the girls, they waited for the honey blond to slow down, sip her tea, then blow her nose on the handkerchief that Spike handed her.

When she spoke, her voice was ragged, and she had to choke out the words. “I didn’t know where else to go. I’m sorry.”

“Glinda, you know that you can always come here. What’s up, sweet?” Spike’s soft tones were laced with the care and concern he had come to terms with, ever since their confrontation with her family. She treated him so differently from the others, even Buffy.

“Willow. She’s…going overboard. I’m afraid she’s getting into the darker magicks, and it scares me.”

“She shoulda been stripped of those powers a long time ago. She doesn’t have the maturity to use them.”

Both girls stared at Spike. He wasn’t sounding like the Spike they knew, and he realized it after he spoke.

“I know that you’ve heard the saying not to judge a book by its cover? I’ve had experience in magic. Not my own, but others—and Dru. There are consequences to magic, and Willow doesn’t care. Doesn’t have the wisdom to care.”

Tara nodded. “She’s…changing, Spike. She’s not the girl I fell in love with. She’s not herself anymore, turning into something else right in front of me.” She hesitated, then plunged wildly onward. “Her aura is muddy and dark, and when…when I touch her, I feel…contaminated.”

She watched his face changing into the smooth mask, and knew that he was hiding how disturbing that information was to hear. “What is she planning, Tara?”

Her head dipped, hair covering her face. “I—I can’t. Spike, I’ve tried to talk to Xander and Anya, and they are blowing me off. I called Giles this morning, and he doesn’t seem concerned at all. But I know that this is wrong, and crazy, and somebody is gonna get hurt!”

He leaned forward, and did his best to make his voice lethal and threatening. “What is the bloody bint planning, Glinda?”

Tara gasped. He looked dangerously angry, and she stood, backing up against the wall. “She’s gonna try to resurrect Buffy.”

She saw his chest swelling, as he drew breath to explode, and she said, “She can’t know that I told you, Spike. I told you, she’s getting into the dark magicks now, and she’ll do something…maybe even kill me. You and Dawn were never supposed to know.”

“She won’t hurt you, sweet. And I’m not gonna hurt her. She wouldn’t like it.” Nobody had to wonder who she was. “We’ll keep shut about it, and try and help you stop it.”

He pulled her into the living room, with Dawn trailing behind them, and sat her down on the couch. “Tell me everything you know.”

“I knew that Willow was going to do this.”

Both of them turned to stare at Dawn. She stared back innocently, and said, “What, you couldn’t see it coming? Willow thinks that she’s all that. She has since the infamous ‘will be done’ spell.”

“Dawnie, you’re starting to scare me with all this new insight. Where’s it coming from?”

Dawn avoided Tara’s eyes, and looked at Spike instead. “I don’t know. Spike noticed too. I think that it’s a leftover key thing. Beats me.” She shrugged.

Tara looked at Spike, and he shrugged too. “She usually only does it around me. Welcome to the club.”

Chapter 5—My Senses Reel

She drifted still, but with more purpose. She was…waiting. Yes, waiting, for the moment that was imposing on the horizon now.

She knew what they planned, and though she loved it here, was rested here, she remembered what it was and wanted it again. She missed the adrenaline rush of the fight. She missed the heat of slippery kisses. She missed the flush of love.

She remembered the jump. She remembered the last thought to cross her mind as a million volts of mystical energy ripped her soul from her body. It wasn’t of her sister, or her Watcher, or her friends down below, watching her swan dive into oblivion.

Her last thought was of him. Love for him.

She felt regret, although that wasn’t suppose to be here. She felt herself propelled toward the growing darkness.

She wondered if that was the portal to hell. If questioning the things you did was the way to go to hell. If remembering would drive you closer.

She knew this was wrong. She knew she shouldn’t be feeling like this. She knew that right now, at this moment, she should be at peace. She felt anything but peaceful. She knew what her friends were planning, and she felt rage, and the darkness was closer yet.

They couldn’t believe that she would find her own way back, if it were meant to be. What kind of friends were they? If they had that little faith in her, maybe they weren’t friends at all. Betrayal pushed, and she was a little closer.

She could almost see inside it now. Pure dark there. No light for a soul to guide it. No peace. No love. Nobody. Maybe her own private hell?

She didn’t get a hell sense from the darkness. She sensed…waiting. A waiting place.

She wished she’d paid more attention when Giles had spoken of transdimensional planes. Realizing she remembered a name, she tried harder. Willow. Yes, Willow, the one who thought she knew best. The one who wanted to rip her from here, only she wanted away from here too. But her hubris was overwhelming, and the anger it sparked got her a little closer.

Tara. Tara was sweetness and light, and no match for Willow. Tara needed someone who noticed her, not someone bent on life to make herself happy. She noticed that she was stagnant, and moved on, thinking hard, trying so hard….

Anya. Anya was so blunt it hurt, but she had no real feelings of like or dislike for her. She was simply there. Okay, maybe a little regret—she had helped them quite a bit with demon knowledge, and maybe she should have gotten to know her better. She noticed she was drifting slowly along, and then it popped in her head.

Xander. Xander made her laugh, made all of them laugh. But he had a bigoted streak a mile wide. Maybe it was all the trauma of being friends with the slayer, and having to stake your best friend, or maybe it was just to make himself feel a little better, but it annoyed her. It especially pissed her off when he attacked Spike the way he did.

And there was his name, there in the forefront of her feelings. She was whizzing through the cotton-candy feelings of this place, her mind chanting his name repeatedly. Love, hate, desire, anger, love, love, love, and she was moving faster and faster until she was…. There.

She looked around the dark, waiting. She thought of love, and found her peace.

Chapter 6—Fatal Attraction

A fatal attraction holding me fast—Pink Floyd, Learning To Fly

Spike lay on his cot in the basement, listening to the soft voices of the girls upstairs. He knew he should get a bit of kip, but he was too distracted by what had been said this morning.

Dawn was having dreams too.

Tara was in on a plot to raise Buffy from the dead.

Dawn was different somehow. Older.

He rested his head on his linked hands, staring at the pipes and conduits above him. He had wondered from the first about his dreams, but decided not to share them with anyone but the Watcher, in person. He was not about to tell Dawn what they contained. The images were perturbation enough for him, much less the chit’s sister.

They always started the same way. The endings were different. But he was sitting on the coffee table, holding her bleeding hands, looking into her eyes. His mouth moved, but he couldn’t hear his words. She looked at him.

Sometimes, she kissed him.

Sometimes she just stared at him.

Sometimes she staked him. Those bothered him. What could he say to her to make her stake him after all these years?

Now that he knew what Willow was planning, he realized that he could actually have his dream come true. It terrified him, because he couldn’t be certain of the end of the dream.

He turned over onto his side, and pulled Mr. Gordo from his hiding place. He blocked out the world, and went to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Willow waited all day for Tara, and like a spider, pounced when she was past the closet door and all the way in the apartment.

“Tara, sweetie, where have you been all day?”

Tara turned, startled, and saw the sparks in her girlfriend’s eyes. She was jacked up on magic, she realized, and knew she was in danger.

“I-I went to see Dawnie. Check on her and Spike.”

“Oh.” Willow seemed to deflate a little, then smiled wickedly. “We have some time before our night classes. Wanna?” she said, tilting her head toward the bedroom.

Tara fumbled with her head down. “I’m on my period, sweetie.”

“We don’t have to touch…we can use the magic.”

Tara frowned beneath her curtain of hair, then had a thought. “All right.”

She allowed Willow to kiss her once, then laid back on the bed. She felt the familiar tingles begin between her legs, and moaned in spite of her fear and disgust. “Oh, you like that, baby?” Willow purred, and Tara felt magical fingers prodding and caressing her all over. Her back arched as it overwhelmed her, but she kept control over the corner of her mind as she flung her arm out, grounding herself and providing a vessel.

She found a crystal on top of the table, and touched it with her fingertip as she chanted under panting breaths. Her orgasm hit her suddenly, and she almost lost her train of thought, but finally retained enough presence of mind to continue. She felt the dark magicks coursing through her, and it made her shiver even as she came again, but still she channeled enough magic away from the redhead that it exhausted them both.

She watched Willow’s eyes droop, and she curled up next to Tara on the bed. “Was it good, baby?” she asked sleepily.

“It was good. Rest, we’ll talk later.” Tara got up, slipping the crystal into her hand, and went into the other room. She put it in the pocket of an unused coat, and planned to take it to Spike in the morning. Until then, she hoped Willow wouldn’t feel the drain.

Chapter 7—How Can I Escape This Irresistible Grasp?

How can I escape this irresistable grasp?--Pink Floyd, "Learning To Fly"

Anya picked up the phone as soon as the box arrived. “It’s here.”

“We’ll be over later.” Willow replaced the receiver in the cradle and looked through the bedroom door at a sleeping Tara. There were two more ingredients that she needed, and she needed to get them today.

She dressed all in white, fooling nobody. She went into her closet, her secret place, and brought out the spell book and the sacred knife, her athame, that she had blessed and purified for this alone, with fire, earth, air, and water. She pushed them both into a carrysack, and silently let herself out of the apartment.

Tara watched her go through half-lidded eyes. She dressed quickly, knowing she was on limited time. Grabbing the crystal, she headed toward the house on Revello.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They looked down at the simple crystal on the table. Muddy swirls had formed overnight, and the crystal looked more like a sparkling chunk of mud.

“What do you think, Glinda? What should we do with it?”

“I think that she’s planning on doing the spell tonight. It really isn’t the right time for it, by the stars and planets, but she isn’t really concerned about all that. All she cares about right now is easing her own guilt, not anyone else. Even me.”

Spike looked up at her with sharp eyes, and was glad that Dawn was out of the house. “Channeled a bit more than just the power, didn’t you, luv?”

Tara flushed, and looked uncomfortable. “Yeah. It was…kinda creepy. I found out a lot that I’m not so sure I should have. I can’t look at her the same, Spike. Not after this.” She nodded at the stone, and he found himself agreeing with her.

“Don’t have to, luv. Come live here with Dawnie and me. I’m sure that Buffy wouldn’t have minded. And I know Dawn will love it.”

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll move in soon. Right after….”

Right. After the spell that shouldn’t be done. He walked her to the door, and she paused. “I’ll call you…if it happens tonight…or going to. Will you come?”

“I’ll be there. Even if I’m not supposed to find out, I’ll wander through the cemetery and pretend. I can act a little, you know.”

She touched his face, and smiled softly. “Yeah, I know. You act a lot. The others don’t see, but I do.”

It warmed his heart, and he smiled at her, like he hadn’t smiled since Buffy left. He wanted to kick himself for being a ponce, but he knew the little witch needed the boost, and it genuinely felt good to be trusted and cared for. He closed the door behind her, and hoped that this didn’t end in blood. Magic had consequences.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Willow called the fawn to her with magic, just enough to sooth its head to lay in her lap.

She almost felt guilt, then dismissed it with a toss of her head. They wouldn’t want to know about this. This is taking a step too far, but who cares? I’ll do anything to get Buffy back, and if it means this, then so be it. Tara wouldn’t like it, but she’s not the boss of me, she’s just my girlfriend.

She slit the fawn’s throat, catching the blood in a purified jar. When the last drop spilled on her hand, she raised it to her mouth and licked it off, just like the ritual specified. Capping the lid, she split the carcass and found the heart inside, beating its last laden beats. She cut it loose, and it quivered in her hand, then stopped completely. She felt the power coursing through her hand, and reluctantly put the heart into another consecrated container before cleaning her hands off on the towel she pulled out of the bag.

She felt…weaker somehow. Like she had lost some of her power. Dismissing her doubts, she packed the acquired ingredients away, and started back toward her apartment.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The four of them had dinner at Anya and Xander’s, and as soon as the plates were cleared, Willow changed. They watched her change, from the look in her eyes to the lines around her mouth, and Xander and Anya shared a look and a shiver, realizing that what Tara had said was right. This was dark, and Willow was being consumed by it.

“I want to see it.” There was a demanding tone, one that hadn’t been there before.

Anya went into the bedroom and returned with a box from an overnight service. “I do hope I’ll be reimbursed for these expenses. It’s getting hard to cover it up in the books, and Giles is gonna figure it out.”

Willow scoffed. “By the time Giles gets a clue, it’ll already be done.” She watched Xander cut the binding straps, then waved her hand over the box, trying to sense any magickal surprises. She felt the power inside creeping out on misty tendrils, and it made her dizzy. “Open it up.”

Xander lifted the flaps, and the magic flowed out and around them, blowing their hair with a mystical wind. They stood unknowingly on the four points of the compass, just as was necessary, and Willow smiled secretively.

She reached out, and took the mystical object from Xander. She looked at it critically. Coptic markings ran down the sides and in rings around the top and bottom. She turned it over, and found it free of chips and cracks. It was in perfect condition.

She set it on the table between them, and pushed them to place their hands over the top of the urn. When the other three had their hands in position, she placed her own right hand on top, then with her left, shoved the still-bloody athame through all their hands.

She started chanting as the blood dripped down the blade into the urn below. “Osiris, god of the dead and beyond, we consecrate by living blood the urn of the dead. Anubis, release her soul to the ether, to return to the body that you protect. So it is written, so shall it be.”

The urn took on a rosy flush over the orangey-brown of the pottery. She looked up at the frozen faces of her friends and felt a flicker of guilt, then crumbled the Lethe’s bramble over the bloodied openings in their hands, binding the healing spell and forgetting spell together with their own blood. They would never remember what she had done.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she released them from the momentary control, and they blinked. “Wasn’t the urn kinda orange when you took it out of the box, Xander?” Trust Anya to notice.

“No, I think that it was always that reddish color. So, when are we doing this thing?”

“Tomorrow night. The moon will be right, and there are just a couple of things that I have yet to do before I’m ready. Meditation and stuff. There’ll be trials, you have to understand that. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can interrupt us once we start. If we do…it may harm Buffy.”

They nodded, spellbound. “We’ll meet here at 8, then go to the cemetery, okay?” She headed toward the front door, then released them completely, waving her hand behind her. They looked around confused, then Tara moved to join her.

The door snapped closed behind them, and Xander and Anya looked around. “Huh? Short meeting. Well, I guess we’ll get this done tomorrow, huh?”

“I guess.” Anya wrapped her arms around him, keeping her traitorous second thoughts to herself. “Let’s go to bed, and get some rest. Tomorrow will take a lot out of us.”

Xander looked down, surprised by Anya’s apparent lack of interest in sex. This was not like his girlfriend, but he appreciated what she was saying. She was right. This would take a lot out of them.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Twenty-four hours later, they stood around a too-familiar grave. The headstone mocked them with its austerity. ‘She saved the world a lot’. What an understatement.

They took the positions that Willow indicated, and joined hands. Willow dropped her head to her chest, and began breathing slowly.

“What’s going on here?”

They turned as a group, and Spike stepped out of the shadows. “Practicing magic, Red?”

“You should go. You shouldn’t be here.” She tried to push him with her mind, like she had the others, and found his complete resistance to her annoying.

“Your magic won’t work on me, Red. Now if I was a betting vamp, I would say that you’re doing a spell that you don’t need to be. And you know I’m a betting vamp. So, what’s the word? Resurrecting things better left alone?”

“I think Will’s right, Deadboy. You need to leave. This is for Buffy’s friends.” Xander’s tone implied the opposite of Spike, and he bristled.

“I have earned the right to be here, whatever you’re doing. I keep her house in order, I watch her sister, and I keep my promises to her. Did you?”

Shame infused their faces, and he knew that he’d struck a nerve. “So whatever you’re planning to do to the Slayer, I deserve to be included. No matter what you think of me, Whelp.”

“Spike’s right. He does deserve to be here.” The firmness in Tara’s voice shocked everyone, including her. “Buffy would want him here.”

“I think you’re mistaking what the Evil Dead wants for what Buffy—“

“He needs to be here.” There was a surety in Anya’s statement that stopped Xander’s gibe. “Let’s just get on with this, okay?”

“If you’re gonna try and raise her, you need to dig her up. Otherwise, you’ll have a live slayer in a coffin.” He shuddered, and they noticed.

“The voice of experience talking. Okay, but we have no shovels.” Xander looked around, and spied a shed not far away. “Come on, Spike. If you want to help, you can at least put the vamp speed and strength to work for us.”

An hour later, they stood around an open grave, the coffin still inside.

“Can we get started now?” Willow was petulant at the delay, although what Spike had said made sense. As they moved into the points of the pentacle, which was actually a more powerful positioning for the spell, she nodded. “All right. Light your candles.”

It must have been forethought that she packed five of the fat, white candles. They lit them in the circle, and Willow drew upon the magic to pull the circle tight, not allowing the magic to leak out. They all kneeled in their places, and Willow started to read from the bound leather book she now placed in front of her.

“Osiris, keeper of the dead, we call forth the protector, she who was chosen to keep the world from harm. Release her into her vessel, protected and sacred to Anubis, guardian of the dead and their physical forms. We offer you the innocent,” she intoned, pouring the blood from the fawn into the urn. “We offer a heart to weigh in her stead,” she said, dropping the heart in the urn as well. “We offer the blood of those who love her,” she canted, and passed the athame around the circle. They each cut a small gash at the base of their left thumb, and dripped the blood onto the ground inside the circle.

Tara and Spike both watched her closely, waiting for her power drain to become apparent. She showed no signs of flagging yet. They looked at each other across the circle, and their doubts were crystal clear in their eyes.

“We reach into the ether for the soul of the Slayer. We demand you release her to us, back to this plane, back to her form. We demand it by rite of blood and heart and life.”

The power built within the circle, holding them paralyzed. It built until their senses screamed with it, then there was a lull, and it became stagnant. Their mouths O’d in silent screams, and Willow broke concentration long enough to yell, “Tara, help me! I can’t get enough power, and we can’t stop halfway!”

Tara nodded, and began to chant under her breath, the magical roar loud in her ears. She looked across at Spike, and saw him chanting as well, surprisingly, and he dropped something dark and shiny to the ground. She understood then why he was here and what he planned to do. Doubt filled her, but she continued to funnel powerful and controlled magic into the wild card spell that Willow had created to attempt this magical travesty.

Their bodies shared one heartbeat as the magic pulsed, then Spike raised his boot and brought it down on the dark rock at his feet. Power exploded outward into the closed circle, and rebounded to its rightful owner. Willow fell sideways, her mouth still working the spell as convulsions from the shock of the energy convergence coursed its way through her nervous system, down magical nodes to the source and burned her magic from her, from the inside out.

Blood red mist settled over the top of the casket, then through to the contents. Hands enjoined in the final stages of the spell, and Willow raised her voice over the maelstrom of magic and power and nerve endings raw with mystical abuse, “So mote it be!”

The whirlwind died as Tara touched the ground, thrusting the magic into the gravedirt under her knees, and they watched in an eerie silence the hole in front of them. There was a noise, like a gasp for air, then a rending where a fist punched through a hole, ripping of cloth, and Buffy was standing there. Wonder, awe, surprise, and guilt warred on four of their faces. Willow lay on the ground where she fell, pride all over her.

Buffy stepped out of the grave, looking around at their faces. Bending down, she picked Willow up off of the ground, helping her to stand. When she was on her own two feet again, Buffy drew back her hand and slapped her in the face.

“How dare you, you ignorant little girl?”

Chapter 8—Tongue-Tied and Twisted

Willow stared at her best friend in shock.

Buffy’s eyes glittered with anger.

“Buffy?”

His voice behind her. He was here, oh, God, he was here. She turned, and saw his face before her, and fairly flew to his side. “Spike.”

She turned wondrous eyes to him, much to the surprise of her friends. Her anger melted as she looked on the face she had missed so badly, the reason she was eager to return here to begin with.

She raised her hand to touch his cheek, and his hand came up to touch hers. Xander stepped forward, his mouth open to speak, and she put her other hand up to stop him. “Don’t. Don’t say a word to him, Alexander Harris. Or to me. He’s the reason that I came back.”

Willow sank to her knees, and began rocking. “I don’t feel so good.”

Xander changed direction, and went to help Willow to her feet. “We need to get you home. That spell took a lot out of you, Will.”

She touched her nose, and found it bleeding. She felt warmth on her neck that indicated blood trickling from her ears as well. “Tara, take me home.”

Tara took her arm, extending a tendril of awareness, and gasped when she felt nothing from Willow. Her power, what she had tapped into, was completely gone.

Willow turned her head to look Tara in the eye. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, Will. You did. The spell. Remember?”

Willow shook her head, negating her girlfriend’s insistence. “No, you did something. I know you did. I can’t feel the magic anymore.”

“Come on, honey, let me get you home. It’s probably just the after effects of the spell. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

Mollified, Willow let Tara lead her down to the gravel road to their car. Xander and Anya stood there, still reeling, until Buffy noticed them. “Go on home. This took a lot out of you guys. Spike will take care of me.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Xander mumbled, and Buffy flared.

“If you want to see me, or continue to be friends with me, you’ll get over that right now. I’ve had a lot of time to think and a lot of things to think about and this is one of them. If I choose to be with Spike, Xander, you need to accept it and get over it. It isn’t your choice, its mine.”

Xander shuffled his feet, but refrained from replying. “Come on, Ahn,” he said, and they moved off in the direction of their car.

She stood there next to Spike, conscious of his eyes on her. Turning, she said, “Where’s Dawn?”

“Well, since I didn’t think you would appreciate her being at the resurrection party, I sent her to Janice’s for the night.”

“Good. We need to talk anyway. Just us.”

He let her lead him home to the house on Revello. She started up the sidewalk and bounced off the barrier.

He muttered the incantation, and the barrier lowered long enough for them to step through. “’S a protection barrier. Keeps everything out of the yard.”

“Good. I guess it wasn’t tied to Willow’s magic, then, was it?”

He looked at her closely. She seemed different from the old Buffy. “No,” he said. “Tara erected it for us. What about Red? What do you know, Buffy.”

She turned, and tossed him a look over her shoulder. “Magic has consequences, remember?” she said slyly, tossing his own words in his face.

He paled, then moved into the front room to sit heavily on the coffee table. He looked at her, wonder written clearly on his face, the worry lines disappearing and making him look younger. She sat across from him on the couch, and his heart leaped in his chest. The dream. It’s the sodding dream. She reached for him, and he took her hand, the knuckles bloodied from the initial powerful punch it took to ram her fist through the wooden casket.

“How long was it?” Her voice was soft in the silent house.

“One hundred forty-seven days. One hundred forty-eight today, but today doesn’t count, does it?”

“I watched you.”

He was silent. He had no answer to that.

She rubbed her thumb against the knuckles of his hands. “Actually, I watched everyone, but I watched you and Dawnie the most. Does that surprise you?”

He looked up at her and nodded.

“And I was telling the truth. I came back for you.”

She leaned forward, and kissed him softly on the mouth.

He scooted away from her. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. He tried to think of something to say and nothing at all came to mind.

She laughed softly. “I don’t believe it. Spike speechless.”

He stared at her. She leaned back, into the couch cushions, and crossed her legs, stroking his knee with her bare foot. She sighed. “I watched you a lot. Saw you patrolling, drinking, trying to grieve when nobody would let you. Saw you and Giles together. Saw you and Xander a couple of times. Watched you with Dawnie, after Willow finally gave up. Watched it all like some kind of daily soap or something.”

“You—you were in heaven.”

She coughed at his bald statement. “Do you think the Chosen one would go to hell? Not possible. Yeah, I was there. All I could think about was being here. Wishing I was home with you two. Wanting to be back in this body on this earth so badly, I created a rift in heaven with my mind. And everything bad that I forced myself to feel made it closer and closer, until I finally sped on through the breach. And do you know what thought I used? What memory was strong enough to take me to the waiting-place?” At his blank, confused look, she grinned. “It was you, Spike. It was remembering you, and how much I love you and wanted you. It’s always been you.”

He stood, paced around the floor for a moment, then stopped in front of her. “I have to…hell, I gave up the crypt, Clem lives there now. But I can’t…Buffy, I…bloody buggering hell…” he finished, unable to speak.

“Again with the lack of speech. I’ll have to write this on the calendar. What’s the what? Why can’t you stay here?”

He sat back down on the coffee table, and took her hands in his. “I’ve been having dreams, Slayer. About this. You and I, sitting like this, talking. Sometimes you kiss me. Sometimes you stake me. I don’t know what to expect from you right now. And I don’t really know what you expect from me.”

She tipped her head to the side, and considered him for a moment. It was a gesture that was so much his own that he nearly gasped aloud. “Spike, I expect you to love me, just like you always did. I don’t expect any more right now. You don’t have to leave. You’ve been living here for, like, forever, and you don’t have to give your home up for me.”

He couldn’t look at her for a moment, then turned the full force of his bright blue eyes her way. Her breath caught in her throat, and she melted. “Buffy, I love you, and I never stopped. But when you….”

“Died,” she supplied helpfully.

“Left,” he said, glaring at her, “I resigned myself to…being without you. I can’t switch on and off like this, Slayer. I have to get used to the fact that you’re back here now.”

“I understand, Spike. I do. Do you think that you could co-exist in the same house with me? At least for a while, until we both get our legs under us again?”

He stared at her. “Live here together? You and me? I…I suppose we could. Dawn would be here too, to chaperone.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please. Dawn would probably shove you in my bed faster than we could say, hey, I’m back. Don’t need a chaperone. We are just fine the way we are.”

He ducked his head, and she found his unease endearing. “I won’t push you, Spike. I won’t chase you.” She stood, and started toward the stairs. “I’m going to take a shower. I need to get this grave dirt off of me. God, what did you guys bury me in? Like I ever wore this dress in real life. What happened to my leather pants and jacket?”

He listened to her snark all the way up the stairs, then turned to the phone and tried to call Giles. All he got was a busy signal.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike got a busy tone because Willow was already on the phone with him.

“…and then, she climbed out of the grave, helped me stand up, and hit me. She slapped me, Giles, for saving her from hell!”

She could hear him moving around his flat while he talked. “I daresay that’s the least you deserve, Willow. That was a very dangerous stunt you pulled. You could have done yourself and Buffy permanent damage.”

“But I didn’t! Giles, I got her out of hell!”

“You can say for certain that she was in hell.”

“Well…no. But she had to be there, Giles. Glory opened up portals to hell dimensions….”

“Willow, did you consider that she might have just been in heaven?”

She was trying to formulate a response and coming up with nothing when Tara took the phone. “Giles, I think that you need to come back here, right away. She isn’t herself.”

More fumbling came over the line, and Giles cleared his throat. “All right. I’ll be on the next plane. Please, try to avoid doing any magic for now.”

“I don’t think that Willow will have a problem with that.” Tara said her good-byes and replaced the receiver.

Willow wanted a confrontation, and she wanted it now. “What did you do to me tonight, Tara?”

Tara stared back at her, masking her emotions and concealing her aura. She knew Will couldn’t sense auras, but preparedness never hurt. “I didn’t do anything to you, Will. If anything, I helped you.”

Willow snorted. “Right. You helped me. Well, sorry if I don’t believe you, sweetheart. I don’t think you helped me at all, I think that you did something to me. I will find out, you know I will.”

Tara put her arms around her girlfriend, and found herself shoved roughly aside. “Get your hands off me and get out of this house. Never try to see me again.”

Tara turned away, saddened by the rejection, but also strangely relieved. Willow’s aura was still the same dark, muddy color it had been, but now it was painted with ruddy streaks that radiated from her head and heart. There would be no reconciliation here.

She turned, and left the apartment for the last time.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Xander was puzzled.

Anya was sitting on the other end of the couch. She had showered as soon as they reached the apartment, and was wearing her ‘don’t touch me’ nightgown. He almost didn’t recognize it, it was such a rare thing.

She was flipping through a bride’s magazine, something she did a lot around him. Mention marriage, and women lose their minds, he thought. First, it started with the magazines, then segued quickly to the large, overstuffed invitation catalogues. Currently she was dress browsing.

He thought that maybe he ought to try to do something, so he sat down next to her and stretched his arm out on the couch. “Ahn….”

“Don’t say it, Xander. Don’t say anything.”

“Ahn, I don’t know what’s wrong. Could you at least tell me what’s wrong?”

She stood, her body vibrating with her rage. “I don’t know, Xander. We raised someone from the dead. She went home with a vampire. Willow’s gone and done something horribly wrong. Tara doesn’t smell right. The only thing that went right this whole night was Spike showing up. He’s the only thing that salvaged this whole operation.”

“Spike!” Xander’s lip curled in disgust. “Spike shouldn’t have been there. He wasn’t Buffy’s friend.”

She glared at him. “No, he wasn’t her friend. Neither was I. The only reason that I was there was because of you. Spike loved her. Loves her still. He had more right to be there than I did.”

Xander started to pace, his face twisted in a grimace. “How can you talk like that, Ahn? Spike is a soulless twisted monster….”

Anya rolled her eyes, and groaned. “By D’Hoffryn balls, Xander, that does not make a person. Do you really think that I have a soul, just because I’m human now?”

That stopped him. “Don’t you?”

She flopped her hands at her side. “How am I supposed to know? The fact is I don’t care. Soul or no soul, I am still the same person. I have killed thousands of men without a single shred of remorse. It was my job, and I loved it. But I can’t do it anymore, and so I adapt. No big deal.”

He stood there, horrified by her admission. She turned, and went into his room for a moment, and then came back out quickly, fully dressed. “I think it would be better for both of us if I went home tonight, Xander. We need to be apart from one another, and not using satisfying mutual orgasms to hide our problems. You need to change the way you think about demons and vampires and ex-demons before I can ever think about marrying you.”

She moved quickly to the door, threw her coat on, and left.

Chapter 9—Ice Is Forming

Ice is forming on the tips of my wings—Pink Floyd, Learning To Fly

Giles’ return to Sunnydale found measured chaos. The first Scoobies meeting was as frigid as the arctic, with glares and cool looks all around. Nobody spoke, which spoke volumes.

He looked around the room, and removed his glasses. “Yes, well, er, while I’m terribly pleased to find Buffy alive and well, however different she may seem to all of us, I must ask about the spell used to resurrect her.”

Dawn sat on the stairs, listening to the silence thundering in the living room. She hugged her knees, just as curious as Giles obviously was. Spike refused to tell her anything; he’d avoided the upstairs and Buffy like the plague, only coming out of the basement when he heard no other movement in the house.

Buffy…well, she was just scary. She wasn’t the same as when…before she left. She was really outspoken, not Anya-outspoken, but close. When Dawn first got home from Janice’s house, there were hugs and tears. Spike had been strangely quiet, not even watching television. When the time came and went for Passions, she knew there was something stormy on the horizon, she just didn’t know what.

Giles cleared his throat, and tried a different tack. “Buffy, tell me about the effects the spell had on you.”

She smirked. “I think it’s kinda obvious, Giles. Was dead, now alive. End of story.”

Giles rolled his eyes and sighed. “Willow? Spike? Someone?”

Xander shifted, then said, “Well, Willow said that Buffy couldn’t, uh, survive hell…being the Slayer and all. So, uh, we decided that we would search for her and try to get her out. We didn’t tell you or Dawnie because we didn’t want to get your hopes up if it didn’t work.”

“Very well. Willow, how did you create the spell? Do you still have it?”

“It’s at home.” She glared across the room at Tara and Buffy where they sat on the couch. “I was trying to save her. I didn’t expect her to attack me when she came back.”

“And I didn’t expect you to pull me out of heaven. No matter whether I wanted to be back here or not, Willow, I thought you were my friend.” She stood, and started pacing in the living room between the chairs. “You know, I was able to watch you all from where I was. I saw what you did. Saw how you abandoned Dawn. Saw you pursue a spell to bring me back, for no other reason except to make you feel better. You perform magic for selfish reasons, Willow. Reasons that have nothing to do with improving anyone’s life but your own.”

“That’s not true!”

“Oh, but it is. What about the ‘will be done’ spell? Was that not for selfish reasons? And look what it did to us, the people you claim to love.”

Willow whined, “But that was just a spell that went wonky.”

“Willow, all your spells go wonky. Don’t you understand? When you do things for your own reasons, they don’t turn out right.”

Willow’s mouth twisted in a bitter moue of disgust. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that any longer. I think my magic is gone.”

Giles stepped in. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

“I tried to do a little spell last night. Just a little one. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” Tara looked closely at her ex-girlfriend of one day. “You mean, nothing noticeable.”

“No. I mean nothing. I couldn’t even conjure a fairy light.”

Tara moved to sit in front of Willow on the couch. She put her hands, palm outward, in front of her, and they touched palms lightly. Tara looked at Willow's aura, and saw it clearer, though still darkened with resentment and anger. She closed her eyes and concentrated, sending a magical pulse from her core down her arms to Willow, where it rebounded into her, throwing her back from the table and tumbling her to the floor.

Spike bent down, and helped her to her feet. “Well, Glinda? What’s the verdict?”

“S-she’s a null. There is no magic in her anymore. Magic will not work for her anymore, or work on her.”

Giles removed his glasses and cleaned them thoughtfully. “What could have possibly had that effect?”

Surprisingly, it was Spike that answered. “An influx of magic too great for her center to handle. Or a spell too great for her development to handle. Too much or too little, that’s what does this.”

Buffy gaped at him. “How do you know that?”

He smiled softly at her. “Been around a while, pet. You pick things up as you go.”

“Yes, well.” Giles replaced his glasses. “Willow, I’m inclined to side with Buffy on this matter. You should not have been performing spells outside your realm of capability.”

“I could have done it. Something happened to me that night. I don’t know what it was, or who did it, although I have my ideas,” she said, looking pointedly at Tara and Spike, “but I have no proof. So I’m a null now, huh?”

Giles looked around the room. There were no signs of guilt on any of their faces, no shifting eyes. Spike forced himself to meet the Watcher’s eyes, icy blue clashing with cerulean. He was relieved when he looked away. “Willow, I cannot see where anyone would benefit from you losing your magic.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t, Giles, but I do.” She stood, glaring at Tara, and headed toward the front door. “I know when I’m not welcome,” she glanced at Buffy, “or wanted,” glancing at Spike, “so I’ll be going. See you around, Xander.” The front door opened and closed quietly, and a heavy feeling descended on the living room.

“That was uncomfortable.” Anya looked around the room. “Why would Willow think that any of us had anything to do with that?”

“She can’t take responsibility for her own actions, that’s why. She’s too immature to realize what effects she had on other’s lives.” Giles looked around the room, and sighed.

“Willow was only thinking of Buffy!” Xander stood, defending his friend. “She wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, she just wanted to make it better.”

“Did she really think that I was in hell, Xander?”

“We all did, Buff. All of us.” Xander fell back onto the couch, all the passion draining from him. He was so tired. “We all thought you went to hell. We had no idea that you could have gone to heaven. We thought the portal only opened onto hell dimensions.” He was near tears now. “We didn’t want you to suffer, Buff. We knew…what Angel went through…and we didn’t want you to suffer.”

Buffy went to Xander's side, and put her arm around him. “Is that the fate you think they would allot to the Chosen one? Really, Xander, think.”

“I know. It makes sense, more sense than you being in hell.” He buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know what is what, anymore.”

“Don’t cry, whelp. It’ll all turn out.” Spike stood from his leaning position against the wall, and looked at the group. “Feeling a bit peckish. Carry on without me.”

Xander lifted his eyes and glared at the departing back of his hated enemy. “And why is he still here again?”

“He is here because I want him here. That’s enough reason. This is my house, Xander, and my life. And I don’t want to remind you of it daily, so learn it in one. Buffy isn’t looking for love or approval anymore. From any of you. There’s a lot of time for reflection when you’re in heaven, and one thing that I realized is I can do this. On my own, if I need to.”

She looked up at Giles, and he shivered at the tone of her voice. “I don’t need anyone to tell me my choices are the wrong ones. Don’t need anyone to second-guess me. Don’t need a moral compass, I have one of my own.” She glanced around the room, and then past it to the staircase. “What I do need is people that love and support me to help me. Can you be that for me? Any of you?”

She let the relief show at the nods around the room. “Then, that’s enough. Now, what happened while I was gone? Besides the spell research?”

Chapter 10—Unheeded Warnings

Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything—Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"

Willow returned to the trashed apartment that she used to share with the love of her life. Everything had been ripped from her, magic, friends, and Tara, and she looked for reasons and people to blame.

She found nobody but herself.

She still believed that someone did something the night she brought Buffy back. There was a niggling sense of wrongness itching inside her mind, and she pulled out the notebooks full of scribbles to research the spell again.

She may be a magical null now, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t research magic. Maybe there was a way to change her null status. Maybe she could find a spell to restore her magic, and get another witch to perform it for her.

She pulled the books out of their hiding places too. If she could find a spell, she would be home free. She sat down with a cup of tea. She would find an answer to her dilemma, she was certain of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Xander paced back at his own apartment, and Anya sat on her corner of the couch, barely watching anymore.

“So all she wants us to do is approve of her sick relationship with Spike. Support her. Pat her on the back for nailing another one of the hateful dead.” He paused. “I wonder if that’s what it takes to turn her on, the lack of a pulse.”

Anya threw the bride’s magazine aside, and stomped toward the front door, muttering under her breath. Xander ran to stop her, and stood in front of the door.

“Ahn, what’s wrong now?”

She glared at him. “You know, I thought I could get used to it. All I’ve ever heard from you is Buffy, Buffy, Buffy. But now, it isn’t just Buffy, its Buffy's relationships, and Buffy's sex life, and Buffy's predicaments. And it’ll always be Buffy for you, won’t it, Xander? Nobody else measures up to Buffy, and nobody ever will. Are you ever going to realize that she doesn’t like you that way? You have no chance with her, Xander. None. Until you realize that, there is no place in your life for me. Goodbye, Xander.” She shoved him out of the way, and left quietly, closing the door behind her.

Xander stood staring at the closed door, not believing his incredible luck, good, bad, or otherwise.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike was sitting on the cot with his back to the wall, reading, when he heard the basement door open and caught a whiff of her scent. He closed the book, careful to mark his place, and waited for her to come to him.

He had done his best to stay away from her. At first, it was easy. The woman he knew was different from the woman upstairs. The one upstairs was stronger, more confident, more in control. Not like the one who had jumped. Well, there were hints of what she could become, with the right input, but she never allowed him to give that input.

She stood at the foot of the stairs, watching him. She did that a lot nowadays. So much so, he started avoiding her even more. Creeping around when he thought the house slept. Secluding himself.

She moved toward him across the basement, and it was the first time in the ages since he felt stalked like prey. “Buffy?” He hated the echo of nerves in his voice, but they weren’t new. Everything about the Slayer made him nervous. He wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Spike. Why are you avoiding me?” Her tone was soft and dangerous.

“I…I don’t know, Slayer.” She advanced on him further, and he drew himself up on the cot. “You’re different from…when you left.”

“When I died. Say it, Spike.”

“When you died. Satisfied?”

Her mouth curled in the ghosting smile that played across her lips. He’d seen it so many times since she’d been back that it lost its charm, for it was nearly always followed by a cutting remark or a growled threat. He wondered what end of her pointed tongue he would receive from her this time.

“No, Spike, I’m not even close to satisfied. In fact, I’m a little hurt. You’ve barely spoken to me since I’ve been back. You hide in this basement, you creep around the house in the middle of the night, and you don’t try to do anything with me. What’s up your butt? Why can’t you just accept that I love you?”

She was shaking, tears forming on the tips of her lashes. “You know, I watched you grieve. I told you that. I fell in love with you. I think I was already falling before I died. I was afraid. Afraid of Giles, afraid of my friends, afraid of Angel. Afraid of them all, and why? Because I thought they would think less of me for loving you. But after I got there? After I watched? I saw the meaning of true love. Even without a soul, you shined bright and true. You asked me for a crumb once. I’m offering you the full loaf and you hide like it scares you to death. Or life. Or unlife. Whatever.” She frowned, and he took the silent moment for his only chance.

“I do love you. I want you to be sure. If we do this, it changes everything. For both of us. And I don’t want you to beat me up and take it all back. I chased after you for the better part of a year, and lost you in the end. I can’t do it again, Buffy. I can’t be love’s bitch and lose again.” His voice cracked, and he shook the emotion off.

When he spoke again, his voice was cooler, distant. “We’re both different now. You’re more mature. Sure of yourself. I’ve had my heart broken. Even with you right here, it isn’t easy to mend.”

“I didn’t dive to hurt you. I jumped to save the world.”

“I know, pet. And I’ve thought of a thousand different endings, a hundred and forty-seven ways I could have saved you and the Bit. Kicked myself at least ten times that. Having you here has made me happier than you’ll ever know. But I have to know. I have to be sure. ‘Cause the next time you die? I’m in the sun the next dawn.”

“No.” Her knees thudding on the concrete floor punctuated her whisper, and he went to her side. “I will always find my way back to you.”

She threw her arms around his neck, and his hands went automatically to her hips, pulling her closer to him. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet scent of Slayer, honeysuckle, and tears.

“I missed you so much, sweetheart.”

Her hands flew like butterflies over his face, touching cheekbones and hollows and ridges. She rubbed her finger over the scar on his brow, and he pressed his forehead to hers. “What are you doing to me, Slayer?”

“Loving you, silly vampire.”

“Why?”

She pulled back to look into his eyes. “Why? Haven’t we waited long enough? Haven’t we both given enough to the Powers? Can’t we just take something for ourselves?”

He quirked the brow she still touched, and smirked. “That sounds more like something I’d say, pet. Something I would use to talk you into it.”

“Isn’t that ironic? Is it working?”

His face softened. “You can’t tell?”

“I’m not pressed that close. Spike, I love you.”

“I love you, pet.”

“I know.” She pressed her forehead to his again. “Spike, I want us to be together always. I want to marry you. I want to be your mate. I want you to claim me. All of it, the whole enchilada. You…God, it sounds so sappy, but you are my other half, the one thing I’ve always looked for, waited for. You make me strong.”

“I’m not perfect, pet. Never will be.”

“You’re perfect enough for me.” She stood, and dragged him to his feet. “Look at us. Perfectly matched. I fit,” she said, closing on him, “right under the curve of your chin. We touch at the most important places. Your darkness fits right against my light. Where I’m ruthless, you’re soft, and vice versa. We were created as perfect complements to one another. Can you see it? I saw it.”

His arms came around her. “I know, pet. Saw it myself, long before you ever did. True case of opposites attracting.” He paused, and the full meaning of her exposition hit his brain. “Was that a proposal?”

“Huh? Yeah, I guess it was at that.” She pulled away to look into his face, and he noticed the anxiety twisting her features, worry that she would be rejected yet again.

“I guess the answer would be yes, if I have to answer right this minute, pet. But isn’t it my place to ask you?”

“If I waited for you, I’d still be waiting for you to come out of hiding.”

“It wasn’t so much hiding, pet, as it was coming to terms,” he said. An idea flitted through his mind, and he grabbed it. “Would you go out with me? On a date?”

“You’re asking me out on a date?”

“Well, yeah. We kinda skipped that whole part of the courtship thing, didn’t we?”

She giggled. “Patrol dates don’t count?”

She started toward the stairs, pulling him by the hand. “So, are you coming upstairs now? Will you come back up and live with us instead of hiding from us?”

He smiled up at her. “Yeah, pet, I will.”

Chapter 11—Guide My Way Home

No navigator to guide my way home—Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"

Dawn was surprised to come home from school and find Spike and Buffy curled up on the couch together, watching television. Buffy noticed her first, and held her hand out to her, beckoning her forward. “Come sit with us, Dawnie. How was school?”

“School was good. What’s with all the lovey-dovey?”

Spike looked around Buffy, and smiled. “We’ve come to an understanding.”

“Oh.” She saw them look at one another, then turn back to her.

“We…want to tell you something, Dawnie,” Buffy started, and Spike interrupted her.

“We’re getting married.”

Dawn's squeal could make eardrums bleed, and this was no different. “I’m so happy!”

“We’ll tell the others later, but we wanted you to know. Because we love you, and you’re a part of all this.”

Dawn jumped on both of them, enveloping them in a huge hug. “We’ll be a family.”

“Platelet, come on! Watch the manly bits!” Dawn's leap had sent her knee into his gut, and was threatening to come down on his straining erection.

Dawn settled down, barely. “So, when’s the day? When do we get to celebrate?”

Spike chuckled. “Give us a bit, Platelet. We just decided today. Maybe a couple of months?”

Dawn bounced and pouted, and the whole couch shook. “When are we going to tell the gang?”

Buffy's eyes took on a sad cast. “I don’t know if there is much of a gang left, Dawnie. Willow's in a bad place right now. Tara isn’t much better. Xander and Anya are constantly fighting, it seems. Giles isn’t happy with any of us. That ole gang of mine seems to be falling apart.”

“‘Twas bound to happen, Slayer. They looked to you for their own guidance, and when you weren’t there to give it, look what they did.” Spike raked his fingers through his hair. “Seems like all they wanted was you to make it all better. You didn’t come back all blood and peaches, and spoiled their worldview. That can’t be a good feeling for them, pet. Maybe you should talk to them. Let them know you still care about them.”

She looked thoughtful. “Maybe I should. Maybe I should go see Will…she looked awful when she left the other day.”

She stood, leaning over to kiss Spike. “I think I will. Go see Will, that is. Stay with Dawnie?”

“Wait for you to come back, love.”

“Just like you always do, huh?” She grinned, and grabbed her coat. “I’ll be back shortly. Tara should be home soon, too. See you in a few.”

Spike turned to Dawn and handed her the remote. “So, you wanna watch the cheerleader movie again?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In a darkened apartment across the small Californian town, an emaciated form sat in front of a shaky pentacle drawn in chalk on the bare floor. Ripped carpet pieces surrounded her, closing her in, away from the dark forces that would rip power from her. Any power. If she had any left.

“Blessed Aradia, hear my petition. Return my magic to me. Bring me back to power to revenge myself. Aradia, hear my call! Aradia, Hecate…. Anyone…. Please. Please. I’m nothing without the magic. Nothing. Please, Goddess, help me.”

When no answer came, when candles didn’t light spontaneously and bitter herbs did not please, Willow collapsed on her side, sobbing uncontrollably. She needed her magic. Didn’t anyone understand?

She was lying on her side, willing herself to die when Buffy found her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She called home first.

Spike picked up the phone, thank God. She didn’t think she could tell Dawn or Tara.

“Spike, Willow's in the hospital. She looks…oh, God…she looks like she’s been casting since she left yesterday. She’s skeletal, Spike. Like she’s been drained from the inside. I almost didn’t believe it was her when I found her.”

“What are they doing for her?”

“Well, she’s in a coma. They’re giving her IV nutrition and fluids. Most of this hinges on whether she has the will to live.”

“I’ll keep things going here. You stay, long as you need to.”

“I’m just waiting for Xander right now. I’ll be home soon.”

She hung up the phone and turned around in time to be enveloped in a bear hug. She pulled away to look into Xander's miserable face, then hugged him again, harder.

“Breathing an issue here, Buff.”

She released him and he looked at the room across from the bank of payphones. “How is she?”

She wanted to lie to preserve his feelings, but she opted for the truth. He deserved the truth. “Skeletal. Comatose right now, but we don’t know if it was due to the lack of food or something else.” The way Buffy emphasized the words, he knew the something could have been magical. “The doctors have a lot of good things to say about her getting over this—complete recovery, they said. But right now, we don’t know.”

“Did you call Tara?”

“Yeah, I did. She and Willow didn’t part on good terms. I don’t know that her being here is such a good idea. She’s staying at my house right now.”

“Okay.”

Buffy looked around. “Where’s Anya?”

Xander grimaced, and Buffy was sorry she asked. “She’s gone right now. Wants me to get my priorities straight, I guess.” He didn’t want to tell her what the fight had been about. It just wasn’t something he was ready to share, or Buffy was ready to hear. At least, not right now, with Willow's life hanging by a thread.

They went to Willow's bedside together, supporting one another as they looked at the thin body suffuse with tubes and lines. Her fingers were paler than usual, skin stretched tautly over bones. Xander shuddered. Buffy was right to say that she looked skeletal. There was not an ounce of flesh on her anywhere. Her cheekbones protruded in stark relief, her closed lids sunken into her eye sockets and ringed by black circles.

Xander turned back to the Slayer and wrapped his arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder. She patted his shoulder and comforted him as best she could.

“How? How could this have happened to her?” he asked hoarsely, his throat raw from the tears.

“I don’t know, Xan. I found her in her apartment. She had trashed it completely, tore up the carpet and built herself a little cave. It was almost like she wanted to crawl up in there and die.”

“Was—was there magical stuff around?”

“Yeah, there was. Candle stubs, a pentacle on the floor, herbs burning a hole in a piece of carpet. It looked like she was trying to cast a spell and couldn’t.”

Xander pulled a chair to the bedside, and took the thin hand in his. “Do you think Tara's right? Could she have burned the magic out when she brought you back?”

“I don’t know, Xan. It could have. Magic’s weird, you know? I don’t know much about it, but Tara and Giles and Spike all think….”

“I don’t care what Spike thinks.”

She knew the flat tone and the inflection on the vampire’s name meant something, but she heedlessly continued. “They think that Willow was using a spell too powerful for her to control. Remember, Xan, she had no training whatsoever. It could have…well, Spike said….”

“Don't mention his name to me again, Buffy. I told you, I don’t want to hear what he thinks.”

She dragged him to the other side of the room, and lowered her voice, although she really wanted to scream. “What is your problem?”

Xander glared at her. She didn’t wither, like she used to. If anything, she stood taller. “I cannot stand that vampire, and I don’t understand why you didn’t stake him any of the hundred times in the past when you had the chance.”

Buffy sighed. So this was Xander's Spike thing, surfacing again. She was angry, but she was also tired, and knew that this was neither the place nor time. “I don’t think that this is the best place for this talk, Xan.”

“You keep bringing him up, not me.”

“You know what, Xander? He’s gonna be a big part of my life from here out. If you don’t want to hear his name, maybe you don’t need to be around me, and vice versa. I’m going home. I need to see about Dawn.”

“Yeah, run home to the evil dead. Hurry, he might find a new obsession before you get there.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it firmly, with resolve. She looked at the living dead girl laying on the bed, sending her loving thoughts, and left quietly. Xander stood there and watched the door close, still fuming, then went to the side of his fallen friend, picking up the bony hand and stroking it lightly.

“Well, it’s you and me, Will. I’m right here, and I won’t leave until you can leave with me. Just like when you had your tonsils out. Remember?”

Chapter 12—Unladened

Unladened, empty and turned to stone—Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"

Buffy returned to a quiet house.

Tara sat in a chair, sipping herbal tea. Her face was swollen and eyes rimmed with red, and she was breathing the steam off the tea. Dawn's eyes were red as well, but she was resolutely refraining from crying, immersed in a book. Dawn, reading? Buffy would investigate that later.

Spike was in the kitchen, a tumbler of something amber and potent in his hand. Giles sat on the tall stool across the island from Spike, with less in his glass.

She didn’t expect to see Giles, but afterthought made it make sense. Her house had been Slayer central, most of the time. Her house and the Magic Box. It seemed only right that he was here.

It also highlighted the glaring holes in their lives. Their missing members, weighing heavy on all their minds.

Giles turned to Buffy. “I think that we need to recover what actually happened that night, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Somehow, she interpreted the Giles-speak to mean the thing that had preyed on her mind since the meeting. “We need to get the whole story. From two of them, at least.” She shot a look at Spike, then went into the living room to Tara's side. “We need to talk.”

Tara followed her silently to the kitchen. She climbed on one of the stools, placing her tea gently on the countertop, and turned bloodshot orbs on those gathered.

“I did this to her.”

Buffy leaned her chin on her hand, and sighed. “What happened?”

Tara took a sip of tea, then cleared her throat. “She was becoming…obsessive. Really intent on bringing you back. She wouldn’t listen to anyone. She pushed and bullied and argued that you were in hell, and if she had the power, why not use it? She kept saying that it was what you would’ve wanted, Buffy. She…may have even used a spell, because it was suddenly our plan. Use magic to bring Buffy back, and don’t tell anyone.”

“Why do you think that magic was involved?” Giles removed his glasses, and laid them on the counter. “Perhaps it was just a compulsion.”

“It’s the same thing, Giles. It’s just a nicer word. Spell, compulsion. She did something to bring us all to the same side. She was researching night and day. She started hiding her research from everyone, including me. She created a magical room in our closet, Giles, and hid everything in there under a spell-lock. I couldn’t even touch the books.”

“What did you do?” Buffy asked.

“I stole her magic.”

Tara's blunt statement fell into the silent room, flat and uncompromising. They stared at her, then looked quietly at each other, before Giles cleared his throat. “How did you do that?”

Tara dropped her head, shielding her face with her hair. She cringed to tell them, but she had to. Her guilt was muddying her aura and threatening her magical control. She couldn’t stand it any longer.

“I—it got to the point I couldn’t sleep in the same bed with her. Her aura was so dark and it felt…malignant. Not bright with good intentions, but selfish reasons. Evil. So one night, we…we made love…and I drained some of her power into a crystal on the table. Pulled off just enough to clear her aura a little, then stopped.”

“What did you do with the crystal?” Giles prodded.

“She brought it to me.” They turned to look at Spike, who mumbled under his breath while looking at Tara, “Can’t let you take all the blame, Glinda.”

Tara smiled gratefully, and Spike continued. “Glinda here brought me a rock. Didn’t look like a crystal at all. Nothing to show it was ever one. Black and brown and muddied with swirling patterns, it was, and the bad just radiated from it. She gave it to me for safekeeping.”

Giles picked up his glasses, and started cleaning them. He could almost…but no, he needed to hear the rest from them. “What happened to the crystal, Spike?”

“I took it with me to the cemetery that night. Couldn’t see leaving it here, too chancy. Put it in my duster when I left, almost forgot it.”

“So you had it with you when you went to the cemetery. Then what?” Buffy's voice took on a flat tone, inquisitive but completely void of emotion. She was trying hard to control her feelings.

“I stopped them right before they started, made the Whelp help me dig out the coffin. The spell started, and then it seemed to stall.”

“Stall?”

“There wasn’t enough power to continue. She called out to me for help. There was static in the air, and it seemed like it was dragging the breath right out of my lungs.” Tara's eyes were distant with memory, when Spike picked up the story again.

“I don’t know what happened to the damn stone, but it fell out of my pocket.”

Tara looked at him. “I thought you dropped it.”

Spike shook his head. “Didn’t even think about it, Glinda. It was almost like it jumped out of my pocket. Before I knew it, my leg was up and down, and the thing turned to powder, and the magic was released. I could feel it swirling around, the spell worked, and then all the magic was gone.”

“Tara?”

“Yeah, that was about the way it went, Giles. It went through me, and right into Will. When it did, it just stopped.”

Giles picked up his glass and drank the whiskey remaining in the bottom, then held the glass out to Spike, who refilled it wordlessly, adding a hefty splash to his own cup.

They were shocked to see Tara holding her cup out as well. Spike poured her a tiny bit, and she gulped it down, grateful for the searing in her gullet to override the pain in her heart.

“So that’s what burned her magic out. Her own magic. It must have been too much released at one time.” Buffy nodded, pleased with her grasp of the mystical, and looked at her companions around the table.

“Willow was turning to the dark. She deserves to be stripped of her powers. Now there is balance.”

They all turned to see Dawn standing in the doorway, her eyes blank as she moved mechanically into the room. “Balance is the judgement of the Powers, and balance has been achieved.”

Awareness filled the teenager’s eyes, and she fell to the floor.

Chapter 13—Empty

She could hear him, but all was dark, and she couldn’t see him. Couldn’t look for him. Didn’t dare move. Who knew what could get her in the dark?

It didn’t matter anyway. She had lost it, lost it all, and never would get it back. And it was because of them.

She knew they did this to her. They always resented her. Watched her. Monitored her. Kept her from doing the right thing.

And they would never pay, because she lost it, and could never get it back.

She curled up in her corner; her back firmly pressed against the walls surrounding her, and surrendered her soul to the black. There was no place for her now, she was nothing again, and she would be nothing forever. She blocked out the persistently familiar voice, and pressed her fingers deep into her ears. There was no one for her. She was alone.

Trapped inside her own personal hell. How ironic. Her maniacal laugh drowned out the voice, finally.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Tara sat in lotus on her bed. Incense perfumed the room, and crystals scattered every flat surface. She made peace with Buffy, Giles, and Spike over the things she had done. Whether out of love, fear, or self-preservation was not of any importance now. She had to make peace within, and with the Goddess, before her mental turmoil caused her more problems.

Her constraint on her magic had been tenuous in the past few days, even moreso now with Willow in the hospital. She wanted to fly to her ex-girlfriend’s side and talk to her, climb inside the coma with her to drag her out the other side, but prudent thoughts smashed her idea to the ground. The seething resentment she’d felt from her at their last meeting would turn into an all-out war if she pushed her, especially mind-to-mind. With the guilt already affecting her control, it would turn out badly.

She would have to make her peace with the Goddess first, then try to help Willow. It was the only path to take. The only clear way to healing Willow right now was to heal herself first. All other paths were blocked, and would lead to the darkness for both of them.

She thought about what Dawnie had said before she’d fallen. Balance had to be restored. She understood that. Perhaps Willow's magical null was part of a greater balance. Trouble was, Willow wouldn’t see it that way.

Tara tried again to clear her mind, and finally succeeded. This was going to take a while.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Anya left the Magic Box alone.

She was alone a lot now. The gang didn’t come to the shop often anymore. Buffy and Spike spent as much time together as they could. Dawn was in school. Tara was in school, and mourning the physical condition of her ex. Willow in the hospital. Xander at her bedside.

Giles was the only one she did see with any regularity, and usually he was in a rush to get to his books. She was able to garner a little information about the gang from him, however sparse it might be. None of it surprised her.

She was hurt by their lack of attention. She would have at least called to check on them—but then she realized that she hadn’t called them either. Her shoulders sagged, and she trudged dejectedly down the street toward her apartment.

There was so much she didn’t know about them, and they knew nothing about her. Did any of them even know she had her own apartment? A telephone? Anything?

She doubted it. Really doubted it. She had only been inside because of Xander. Only been included because of who she was with. They didn’t really like her. They tolerated her.

Saddened, she went into her empty apartment. Lacking even the urge to eat or shower, she undressed quickly and went to bed, turning to the pillow to muffle her tears.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dawn looked at the three faces studying her like she was a bug. “Can you please stop?”

“Stop what, Dawnie?” Buffy sounded normal, but she gave off a definite wiggy vibe.

“Stop staring at me like I’m some kind of oracle. It was just a fluke that happened.”

“S’not the first time, Nibblet.” Spike would have to remind her of that, and she cringed when she saw the surprise on Buffy's face. Guess they hadn’t had a chance to cover her weirdness during their discussions.

Dawn glared at him, but he missed it completely, turning to speak to Giles and Buffy instead. “She’s been…different, since all the stuff with Glory. Right insightful. Like she can see past the shite that we all cover our intentions with.”

“Insight, huh?” Buffy considered her sister with a long, quiet look. Dawn squirmed harder under her sister’s hairy eyeball, and finally Buffy turned back to Giles and Spike. “Has anyone checked into it?”

“How, you mean magically? Bloody hell, Buffy. You just heard how dark Red was getting. I wasn’t letting her get anywhere near the Bit.”

“We know other people, Spike.”

“I know, Slayer, but it was bad enough when Red had her nose stuck here all the time. Between her and the Whelp, I couldn’t do anything right. Red got sidetracked, and the Whelp didn’t have the time anymore with work and the wedding, so it fell to me, which was just fine with us. Right, Bit?”

Buffy's eyes widened, and she clapped her hand to her forehead. “Crap! I forgot what Xander said at the hospital.” She looked at Giles. “Giles, have you talked to Anya?”

“I saw her at the shop tonight, Buffy. Why?”

“She and Xander are on the outs. He said he ‘needed to get his priorities straight.’ I don’t know what that means, but it also means that Anya's out there alone, with no support. We were her only friends, you know. Do you know where she would be?”

Giles sighed. “Doubtlessly at her own apartment, Buffy.”

“What’s the address?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy looked at the address on the paper in her hand, then up at the building in front of her.

The half, as in 301 ½, must mean the upstairs. She looked at the mailboxes in the hallway, and in the center was Jenkins, listed in 8b. She climbed the stairs, her legs aching by the time she got to the top. How did Anya stand this all the time? She never really thought much about Anya before. Didn’t think of her as a friend, that was for sure.

Now, climbing the dark staircase, she couldn’t imagine she would ever do this for someone she didn’t think was her friend. Anya was her friend. She was just strange. What the hell, all her friends were strange in their way. Anya fit in perfectly.

She tapped on the door, and strained to hear movement inside. There was no peephole. The walls were stained, cracked, and dilapidated, and Buffy felt the vibrations in her feet from heavier treads that made the upstairs floor shiver beneath them.

The door cracked open, and an eyeball peered out of the crack. “What do you want, Buffy?”

She could hear the exhaustion in Anya's voice, but it was laced with apathy and suspicion. “I came to see about you, Anya.”

“Why? Why bother?”

“Because you’re my friend.”

The door closed in her face, and she waited. She started to turn when the door flew open, and she found herself with an armful of ex-demon. Anya's tears soaked through Buffy's thin shirt quickly as she sobbed in her arms. “I thought nobody cared!”

Chapter 14—Turned to Stone

Anya looked around Buffy's living room at the caring, kind faces, and she wanted to cry all over again.

Buffy had bundled her back here without a word, packing her a bag as she sat on her twin bed and cried her eyes out. She knew that the Slayer didn’t understand her sob-filled babble, but didn’t bother to try again—she knew she would have to tell them all. Warn them about Xander—especially Spike.

So she ended up here, wrapped in a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate in her hand. Buffy sat next to her holding her free hand. Tara was curled up in a chair across from her, sympathy written all over her face. Dawn was at the dining room table doing homework, but kept tossing her looks, as did Spike where he sat helping Dawn. Giles paced back and forth, occasionally glancing her way, but mostly keeping his eyes on the ground.

“Okay, Ahn. We need to know—what happened? Xander just told me that he needed to get his priorities straight. What was he talking about?” Buffy hated pressing her, but they needed some straight answers.

Anya sighed, but she knew they needed to know. “Xander is very anti-demon.”

“And that fits in how?”

“Anti-demon anything. Especially Spike.”

Buffy looked confused. “And that means what?”

Spike stood, and came to the door, leaning against it to watch Anya's face closely. She sighed again. “Xander is…obsessed with you and Spike. He thinks that you should stake him. He hates him passionately, and I’m afraid he’ll try to do something.”

“Like what, demon girl? Try to dust me?”

She looked at Spike and nodded. “That, or get others who don’t like you involved in all this.”

Spike looked at Buffy. “The great Ponce.”

Anya shook her head. “No, Xander hates Angel more than he does you. No, almost as much. I’m talking about the Watcher’s Council.”

Giles' head snapped around, and he whipped of his glasses, his hand automatically reaching into his pocket for his handkerchief. “Are you certain?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m fairly certain that without Willow distracting him right now, he would have already done something.”

Giles looked from Buffy to Spike and back again. “Buffy, we simply cannot let the Council become involved in your—ahem—personal affairs. I have, er, acquired a modicum of respect for Spike during your absence, however, I think the Council would view things differently. I was hard-pressed to keep them from eliminating him as a threat during the Glory incident.”

“The Council of Wankers wanted to off me? I must be more famous than I thought.” Spike leaned back against the door with a pleased smile, stroking his hand proudly down his abs.

Buffy glared at him, huffing. “Spike, that is exactly the type of fame you don’t need. We have enough problems without the Council threatening to dust you. That’s my job!”

Instead of coming off as a threat, it came off teasing, and Spike grinned at the Slayer. “Yeah, so? What else is new?”

No one could miss the by-play between the two, but no one would ask. No one but Anya.

“So, what is going on with the two of you? You look like two people who should be enjoying multiple orgasms frequently together.”

Buffy turned back to her, grin suddenly absent. “I’m sorry, Ahn.” She looked back at Spike, and said, “there’s something that we need to tell you.”

Spike took two steps, and was by her side. She reached for him, and he grabbed her hand, sensing her sudden case of nerves.

“Spike and I are getting married.”

Silence greeted her words. Giles quietly removed his glasses, polishing them thoughtfully. Tara looked into the bottom of her teacup. The only one who would meet their eyes was Anya.

“Well, it’s about time. Anyone could see that you two were perfectly mated from the beginning.” Anya sipped at her hot chocolate oblivious to the stares that turned her way.

“What do you mean, perfectly mated?” Giles' voice was quiet, but they all turned their head to look at him, then back at Anya.

“Perfect mates. Complements. Like yin and yang.” She waved her arm nonchalantly. She gave a huff when they continued to look at her blankly and she began to explain when Dawn's voice cut her off.

“The Slayer and her Vampire create balance. Their acceptance of their roles is the largest hurdle to overcome. There will be no resistance from any quarter. Balance is maintained.”

Dawn stood in the doorway, her eyes glazed again and her hair blown back by a mystical wind. Giles stepped as close as he dared, then said, “Balance is maintained. So this is predestined?”

“There is no predestination. There is balance. For every good there is an equal evil. Balance exists in the universe. In all universes. On all dimensions. On all planes. Balance must be maintained, or entropy and chaos will result.”

“Er, yes. And Buffy and Spike maintain the balance?”

The question went unanswered as Dawn fell to the floor again.

Chapter 15—A Soul In Tension

A soul in tension that’s learning to fly—Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"

Once again, Dawn woke to faces gathered around her prone body. This time, she was on the couch.

She sat up, and everyone drew back as she did so. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

Spike touched her knee. “Yeah, you did, Bit. How do you feel?”

She listened to her body for a second, then shrugged. “Fine. Normal. What was it this time? Pronouncements of doom and gloom by the look on your faces.”

“Not necessarily, Dawn. You spoke of balance again. Just as you did when we spoke of Willow earlier.” Giles loosened his tie, and looked strangely at Dawn and Tara. “Tara, can you—read Dawn?”

Tara looked nervously at the group of faces. “I don’t know. I—I can try.”

Much as she had with Willow, Tara sat across from Dawn on the coffee table. They put their hands together palm to palm, and Tara looked directly at Dawn, holding her eyes. “Clear your thoughts, as much as you can. Imagine your mind like a blackboard, and a large eraser clearing all your muddled thoughts away.” She watched Dawn visibly relax, then continued in a soothing voice. “Let your mind drift like a leaf on the wind.”

Dawn's eyes closed, and Tara closed her eyes as well. After a few moments of tense silence, Tara began to speak, her tone eerie. “I see before me a key, a key of mystical energy. The key had no task, no use other than what it exists to do—open the portal between worlds, dimensions, planes. She is the steward of the universe, the maintainer of symmetry and stability. She sees imbalance and rights it. Sees wrong, and corrects it. Fulfills need.”

“How? How does she do it?” Buffy leaned forward, and Spike pulled her back to keep her from breaking the connection, wrapping his arms around her. She leaned into him, and tried to maintain her control.

“She does not do it herself. It is the will of the Powers. The Powers correct it. She is just the conduit.”

“Can this have a harmful effect on Dawn? Her physical form?” Giles asked.

“The conduit can only be harmed while in her physical form. Once released from her physical form, she will revert to her previous state.”

Tara slumped, her hands falling to her lap. She was gasping for breath, trying to get enough oxygen. “That’s all,” she rasped. “That’s all I can get from her.”

Dawn fell back on the couch, limp. Buffy rushed to her side, grabbing her wrist and counting her pulse. Spike pushed her aside, and picked her up effortlessly. “She’s asleep, pet. I’ll take her up to bed.”

She watched him leave the room, then turned back to the others, her thoughts whirling at the speed of light. “Okay. So let’s recap. Spike and I were meant to be together by the Powers That Be. Anya says that we’re perfect complements for each other. Dawn says as the Key that we are to maintain balance. What does all this mean?”

Giles sat down on the couch next to Buffy, and patted her shoulder. Tara looked at her. “The planes of existence have to remain in balance, not only one to another, but also in themselves. How much do you know about chaos?”

“Not much. Missed that class, so refresh me. Chaos is…?”

“Chaos is the absence of balance.” Anya munched on the apple she grabbed off the dining room table. “Takes forever to balance things out again. That’s how the universes were created. Creating balance from imbalance. I hear it was a really delicate process.” She took another bite, and asked nobody in particular, “So, how long has Dawn been holding the stewardship?”

Puzzled looks ringed the room, and Anya sat down on the couch next to Giles. “So you don’t know anything about that either, I take it?” He shook his head in negative, and Anya rolled her eyes. “How do you people do your jobs if you know that little about the demon world and the Powers?”

Giles loosened his tie further and cleared his throat. “The Council has very little information about the demon world, Anya. To my knowledge, there is very little mention of the Powers That Be in any literature.”

“Any human literature. There are whole books on the subject in the demon world. D’Hoffryn has a dozen or more.”

Buffy looked at Giles. “Remind me again why we never used Anya's demon contacts for information before?”

Giles looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps because we didn’t know that she maintained those demon contacts, Buffy.”

“I’ve never been coy about my demon days, Giles. I was always getting shut down. Not by any of you. You were all very nice to me and let me speak. I never felt superfluous or ignorant or too brash. You’ve always treated me well.” Tears beaded on her lashes, and Anya dashed them away. “When we first started dating, Xander demanded I stop referring to demon things. It made him uncomfortable.”

“Still does, or I’d wager it does, Anya.” Spike sauntered to the corner of the couch and sat down on the arm, curling his upper body around Buffy. “The Whelp has funny ways. He’s never been right,” Spike said, tapping his temple with his finger.

Anya giggled and nodded, then was suddenly sober once again. “I really don’t want to divulge this, but I feel like I need to at this point. Buffy, Xander is more than just obsessed with you and Spike being together. He is obsessed with you, personally.”

Buffy frowned, and Spike growled above her head. She slapped his knee, and said, “Obsessed with me? How? He’s one of my best friends.”

Anya leaned forward holding the apple core and pinned Buffy to the couch with her serious look. “I’m not kidding here, Buffy. He is obsessed. What you wear, where you go, who you date, what you’re doing with your life. If he wasn’t your friend, I would be worried.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Xander was still holding a limp hand, talking a mile a minute. “Willow, we did everything we could to be her friend, and she constantly throws us aside for the evil dead. I can’t understand that. I never could. First Angel, now Spike. At least we don’t have to worry about Spike turning evil. He already is. We can only hope that Buffy will notice he hasn’t changed, even with the chip, and stake his sorry ass. If not, we’ll take matters into our own hands.”

Chapter 16—Condition Grounded

Condition grounded but determined to try—Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"

They gathered around the table in Buffy's dining room. It was strangely comforting and familiar, the books dotting the table, heads bent over research, notepads filled with a number of scribbles. Buffy looked around, and her stomach clenched in memory. This was home.

Spike sat next to her. Since they had made their peace with one another, he was never far from her side. She knew that in the past he wasn’t one for reliability, but it seems that with all that had happened, he had changed.

He reached over and took her hand, massaging it gently to relieve the cramping from all the note taking. Anya had requested and been granted access to D’Hoffryn’s entire library. She had returned from Arashmahar with three stacks of dusty tomes, and she said there was more when they needed them. Almost every single one was written about the Powers, the stewardship, and the Key.

Tara stood, stretched, and moved toward the kitchen. Buffy thought of her as the mother of them all. She fed them, made sure they had drinks at hand, and just cared for them overall. She went into the kitchen now, and Buffy could hear her in there preparing food again. How many meals was that? Too many, without her help. She smiled at Spike, silently thanking him, and followed the blond witch to the kitchen.

Tara was silently stacking sandwiches on a plate and adding them to a tray with fruit, cheese, olives, pickles, and other assorted snack items. Two mugs stood off by themselves, and Buffy knew before looking that they were filled with blood for Spike.

Buffy had never been at ease with Tara. The whole lesbian thing kinda threw her a loop, plus the fact that she was her best friend’s girlfriend put a hamper on their relationship. Being in heaven had forced her to rethink a lot of the things she did, especially in her personal relationships.

It was hard now that she was back. Hard to remember all that she had learned, both about herself and others. Hard to remember how peaceful she was there. If she had learned nothing else, she knew that she was the hub of this particular wheel. She drew these people together. It was her job to keep them together. For some reason, it seemed important.

“Busy day, huh?”

Tara turned and nearly dropped the teakettle. “Yeah. Busy.” She busied herself, wishing desperately to be ignored, but Buffy wasn’t playing that game anymore.

“Tara, how are you doing?”

Her blue eyes wide and startled, the blond stared at the Slayer. “F-fine.”

Buffy circled the island, and put her arm around Tara's shoulders. “You don’t have to pretend, Tara. You’ve been through a lot in the past few days. And now with Willow….”

Tara ducked her head, but Buffy was wise to that trick, and raised her face to the light with her finger under Tara's chin. “No, don’t hide it from me. We’ve all hid too much from one another, and that’s done. How do you really feel?”

Tears began streaming down Tara's cheeks unheeded by either woman. “Guilty. Horribly guilty. I feel like I did this to her, Buffy. Like there was something else I could have done, but didn’t. I can’t get over this…darkness inside me. It’s affecting everything I do right now.”

Buffy squeezed Tara's shoulders, then released her. “Tara, I know that you know this, but I had to learn it the hard way. We all make our paths in this life. Choices. Willow made her choice a long time ago, starting with her ‘will be done’ spell. She wants things easy, and doesn’t have the time or patience to work for anything. Magic made it easy for her. What happened was not your fault. She was playing with things that were too much for her, and she has to pay the price.”

Tara nodded, and Buffy continued. “Remember the threefold rule? You’ve told her, I know, but do you remember? What you do, whether good or bad, comes back on you threefold, in this life or the next. This was her own doing, Tara. No matter how much I wanted to come back, she took it upon herself to make the decision for me. What if I wanted it to be over? Wanted the chance to rest, knowing my job was complete? I would still be here now, because I wasn’t given the choice. Instead of grieving, she was Miss Instant Gratification, and wanted the pain to go away, so she figured out a way to magic me back.”

Tara nodded in understanding. “That helps, Buffy, but I shouldn’t have meddled with her magic. If I hadn’t….”

“If you hadn’t, you could have very easily been killed. All of you. That spell was too much for a group of witches to perform, much less a pair of witches, an ex-demon, a vampire, and a man.”

“They didn’t want Spike there.”

Tara's quiet admission stopped Buffy in her tracks. “What do you mean?”

“I think that Willow was using compulsion to keep us from talking about this to anyone, so one night I put a protection crystal on. When I remembered what was said, I came here to Spike and told him everything. He wasn’t happy about it. Said there were consequences.”

Buffy had to rein her temper to a halt before it exploded. “I see. And what about the rest of you?”

“Well, I can tell you that part.” They turned, and saw Anya standing in the doorway. “You were taking an awful long time, so I came to see what was keeping you,” she offered, shrugging off their puzzled looks.

“So the rest of you….” Buffy prompted.

“Willow and Xander knew that Spike would object to the spell, so they made the decision to keep him and Dawn in the dark. Spike was the only thing that went right the night we brought you back, Buffy. He was—it was important for him to be there.”

“I had no idea.” Buffy's voice was soft in the quiet kitchen. “There was so much…God, I blocked so much out of my mind, ignored so many of their comments and pokes.” Sensing Spike, she turned to see him standing a short distance behind Anya. “How did you ever tolerate it? Mine, theirs, Giles—I don’t think that there was a single one of us who was ever nice to you. Why did you hang around?”

He smiled, and the love radiated from his face. “Had to, pet. I couldn’t leave you.”

“We all let this get too far, didn’t we? Willow's magic. Xander's bigotry. We let things go, let them slide for so long, they thought they had the right. They were my friends.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth now where they used to be her lifeline. “With friends like that, who needs vampires?”

“Hey!” Spike was by her side in a heartbeat. “Take that back!”

“Okay, I need vampires. If nothing else, it gives me a job.” Giles cleared his throat, and they all turned to see him behind Anya in the doorway now.

“I looked up and you were all gone,” he said simply. “Speaking of your job, Buffy, when are you going to patrol again?”

Buffy looked at the others, and grinned. “See? That’s why I keep him around. He keeps me grounded with the mundane crap. I’ll start patrolling again tomorrow night, Giles. I think we’re about researched out tonight. Let’s eat, then we’ll catch a few zzz’s and regroup in the morning.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy refused to let Anya return to her cramped apartment. “You’ll stay here with us.”

“That’s really not necessary Buffy. I can go back to my place.”

“Anya, you don’t need to go back there. You can stay here. We have plenty of room.”

“Where? Giles has the couch, Dawn's in her bed, Tara has your mom’s room. Where will I sleep?”

Tara looked at Anya and ducked her head. “You can sleep with me. I won’t….”

Anya flipped her hand in the air. “Oh, I’m not worried about the lesbian thing. I’m accepting of all lifestyle choices and lesbians do provide many satisfying orgasms. I wouldn’t mind sleeping in the same bed with you if you don’t mind. I snore.”

“Willow did too, so maybe I’ll sleep better.”

Everyone laughed, and the tense moment passed. They retired to their respective rooms, and Buffy went around the house, methodically checking the doors and windows. Spike watched her closely, waiting until she went into the kitchen to approach her.

“Pet, I’m going to sleep in the basement, okay?”

She turned to him with a pout. “Why? Did I do something?”

He ran his hands up her arms, and pulled her to his chest. She leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder. “Why do you want to stay in the basement?” she murmured against his tee shirt.

He caressed her back through her clothes. “I don’t think that I could keep my hands off you, sweetheart. ‘Ve waited so long….”

She raised her face to his. “Do you really think I can? Remember, I watched you….” She let her voice drop to a seductive drawl, and the vampire blanched slightly, remembering drunken wanks that ended with him sobbing her name and covered in his own spunk.

“Slayer…I didn’t mean…it wasn’t out of disrespect….”

She cupped his jaw with her impossibly soft, warm hand. “Spike, please. I know that.” She ran her hand up his jaw and tugged gently on his ear. “I was flattered.” She dipped her fingers into his curls and moved closer, her mouth scant millimeters from his. “I wish I could have been there with you. Hey, I am now.” She moved closer, whispering against his lips, “Let’s not waste another minute of our unlifes.”

He was tense, every muscle coiled and ready to spring. She brushed his mouth with the lightest of kisses, and he neither moved nor twitched as she hovered over his mouth. Her breath was sweet with unspoken desire, and he could smell her blood swirling sensuously beneath her skin, beckoning him closer.

She looped her thumbs in his back beltloops and pulled him off-balance, and he threw his arms over his head to brace himself against the wall behind her. The position left him open and vulnerable, and she took full advantage of it, stroking him with one hand while the other kept him unbalanced and unnerved.

Her mouth still brushed his, and she took advantage of that as well. “I don’t know that I made this clear to you, Spike, but I belong to you. Heart, mind, body, and soul. Buffy isn’t a little girl anymore, she’s a woman who knows what she wants and how to get the job done. And sweetie, what I want is you. In my bed. With me.”

She yanked him just a tad harder, and he fell forward, his mouth pressed to hers. He moaned and reached for her, lifting her into his arms and carrying her up the staircase.

Giles watched the kissing couple go upstairs, and took his glasses off. “Dear Lord,” he muttered, and prayed that they weren’t the noisy types.

Chapter 17—Circling Skies

Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies—Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly”

He kicked open the bedroom door with his boot, and carried her to her girlhood bed. There had been other lovers in her bed, he knew; they were not an issue, not now, not ever again. He would be her last. He knew that too.

Their kisses were heady and passionate, and he was loath to stop, even for a moment. He did, though, and sat her down on the bed long enough to close the door and lock it securely. He stood over her, looking down on her slight form and bent head, amazed by the gift she bestowed on him.

She looked up at him, her insecurities reflected in her eyes. “I know I’m different, Spike, but…do you still love me?”

He fell to his knees in front of her and laid his head in her lap. “I didn’t fall in love with part of you, Buffy. I fell in love with all of you. The best and worst of you. We understand one another. We know what drives the other. You’re a helluva Slayer, and a helluva woman. It takes someone strong and brave and special to fight their way out of heaven.”

Buffy wrapped her fingers around the curls at the base of his neck, her voice soft but unyielding when she spoke. “I know it’s been hard on you and Dawn. You don’t know what to expect from me anymore. Nobody does. That doesn’t mean that I’m not the same inside. I’m just tired of taking the guff I used to over my choices. They belong to me, not to the group, and it’s been so difficult to try and get that through their heads. They don’t have the responsibilities that I do. They didn’t die to save the world. I think that I deserve a reward for something extra like that.”

He looked up at her from her lap. “So I’m your reward?”

She grinned down at him. “Isn’t that nice? I picked it out of the book the Powers had on hand, and it’s perfect for me.”

“Izzat so?” He leaned up to face her, hands flat on either side of her.

“That’s right.” She smoothed her hands up over his chest, pushing his duster off his shoulders when she encountered it impeding her progress. He shrugged it off and draped it over the end of her bed, and she continued to caress him, fascinated by the play of muscle and tendon as he moved under her stroking palms.

She ran her hands over his face, tracing hollowed cheeks and pouting lips with sensitive fingertips, then moving up to brush against a scarred brow. He purred as she touched him, arching his neck to press his face into her hand, and she smiled at the look of sensuous pleasure that softened his features.

“Spike.” He heard his name on her lips, and he opened his eyes. She was glorious in the shimmering of the streetlights sifting through the leaves. Her eyes were shadowed but he knew that she was watching him, and he was unable to tear his attention away from her face.

“Buffy.” It came out husky with need and desire, and he cursed his poncy inner self for revealing the depths of his feelings so soon. She smiled, and the curses changed to blessings as relief washed over him from head to toe. He took her hand, that tiny hand that dealt death and pain to demons and vampires, and pressed it to his chest. “I’ve never regretted being a vampire until this moment, pet. I wish I had a heartbeat so you could tell how much you move me.”

“If you had a heartbeat, Spike, you wouldn’t be here with me now. Things happen for a reason. Balance, like Dawn said. Your dark to my light. And in that light, some darkness, and in the darkness, some light. Yin and yang.” She touched the curls on his forehead, her hand coming down to cradle his cheek. “I need you. Just like you are, and no different. Not human. Just Spike.”

She started unbuttoning her shirt, and said, “Spike, I want you.” Slipped her arms out of the shirt, and tossed it carelessly at the foot of the bed. “What do I have to do to convince you?” she said, as she unclasped her bra, and tossed it aside as well. She toed her shoes off and pushed them under the bed with her heels.

She looked up to see him completely slacked faced. “You don’t seem to hear what I’m saying,” she said, smirking. She unzipped her pants, and hooked her fingers in both pants and panties and raised herself slightly to push them to the floor to join her other clothes. She sat in front of him completely exposed and waited for him to make the next move.

He stared at the vision before him. Her skin was shimmering silk, begging for his touch. He admired the perfection of her; her body was toned and muscled, from her sculpted belly to the curve of her calves, from her perfect, tiny feet to her perfect, full breasts. She was the epitome of the Slayer at her prime: flawless, ethereal, primal. He could smell the heady scent of her arousal; it was like honey coating his tongue. She called to him at gut-level, and he was powerless to resist.

He leaned forward, and traced her jawline with his nose, scenting her like a cat, burying his face in her hair. He rested his forehead against her ear and breathed in her unique scent, filling his senses and his mind with her. Her pulse quickened under the tip of his nose, and he could smell the enticing perfume of blood and desire mingling in her veins.

“Buffy…oh Buffy…I want you so much, love.”

Her arms came around his shoulders, and she pressed her breasts to his chest. Her nails tapped an exquisite rhythm on his spine as she waited for him to get his fill. He inhaled, one last lingering drawing of breath, then pressed his mouth to the tender flesh he’d been nuzzling.

He heard her soft sigh of surrender, and licked a trail with his cool tongue down the side of her throat. Her head lolled lazily on the stem of her neck, and her hair brushed his hands as she threw her head back to bare herself to him.

He brushed his palms over the skin of her shoulders and felt the shivers ripple her gleaming flesh as he moved. He kissed the hollow of her throat, and her purr of delight vibrated against his lips and tickled them.

His fingers touched her reverently, her body his church as he worshipped her, memorizing every curve and nuance of her. He stroked her breasts lightly, her nipples pebbling under his touch, straining for more contact. She arched against him in a vain attempt to deepen the caresses made purposefully light and groaned in dismay when her attempt failed.

He smiled at her as he touched her belly, her skin’s softness belying the strength beneath. Grazed her sides with palm and fingers, then with nails, watching her gasp as he scratched itches she didn’t realize existed.

She reached for him, shredding his clothes with desperate fingers as she scrabbled for skin to skin contact. Clawed hands grabbed for his denuded skin as she pulled him to her, wanting to feel his body completely with her own. Panting and writhing, she shimmied up onto the bed, towing him with her, and deposited them both in the center of the mattress as she dragged his mouth down to hers.

She fisted her hands in his hair, loosening the gel’s hold on the strands, ringlets bursting out all over. Her mouth was a volcano, her tongue homage to Pele as she teased him with licks made of fire and flame that seared him, heart and mind. He felt her mouth curve into a smile as she felt his passion rising to meet her, and finally he threw caution to the wind. If she wanted this wholeheartedly, who was he to stop it?

Desperate kisses changed from desperate to deep, careful to passionate as he delivered her hunger to her tenfold. This was the night he’d dreamed of for so very long, and he gave over to the need burning a hole in his gut. His Buffy, his Slayer was here beneath him, loving him and needing him, and he was electrified by the thought. Static touches sparked as skin raked skin, and he filed every sensation into his memory for later perusal. For this moment, however, there was only here and now and her, filling him with life, and he relished in its multiplicity of flavors.

He tasted her mouth, her skin, her very essence as they melded. He hesitated when he felt a barrier he thought long gone, and paused long enough to raise his head and look into the purity of the flame in her eyes before pushing through, tearing useless membranes that Slayer healing had healed. She bit her lip, and he smelled her blood thick and erotic on the air.

She offered him her mouth, stained and gnawed, but he bowed his head in refutation to her offer, declining gracefully her generous gift. She frowned, but he moved inside her and she lost her train of thought with the sensations of fullness that engulfed her. This dance was ancient and primal, with no direction needed from either one of them as they ploughed through the mundane and into the sublime. This dance was a pavanne of passion, a timeless tango that threw them into the realms of gods and monsters.

He felt her as she ascended to her heights beneath him, her body straining for release as she twisted under him, her throaty moans giving way to gasping pleas for surcease he was more than happy to provide. He changed angles, moved differently, and she sucked in her breath at the new and different sensations he provoked. This was what she had come back for. This feeling of flying and falling and floating on the clouds of love and feelings and light. She closed her eyes as the world spun lazily around them, wondering if anyone else had sensed their rapture.

She didn’t care. She belonged to him and he to her, and they were together, and that was all that mattered to her now.

Chapter 18—Earth-Bound

If he looked closely enough, it almost looked like she was just sleeping.

Xander looked closely at Willow a lot. He could see a difference in her skin, how it pinked with the little nutrition that the IV fluids were providing. Her fingers were gaining little in girth, her hand no longer ethereal in his, simply thin. His voice was reedy from talking for so long; he had spoken of good times and bad, their lives from birth till the arrival of the Slayer, and how much he needed her.

He could see now that he had never let go of the feelings he had for her. As he watched her lying on the pristine hospital sheets, he wished with all his heart that he could hear her voice one more time.

“Xander?”

He rested his head on the bed, believing his wishes to be so loud in his head that he could imagine her, speaking his name. He still believed it, until her hand moved slightly beneath his.

“Xander?”

He looked up and sought out her sherry-colored eyes in her too-pale face. She gave him a weak smile, a minimal curve of her lips, and he smiled back. “Took you long enough to wake up.”

“I’m not sure I wanted to. Xander, what happened to me?” she questioned, her eyes darting around the sterile room.

He couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m really not sure, Will. Buffy said she found you in your apartment with magic stuff around you. What were you doing?”

She closed her eyes, and tears of memory and regret dripped from their corners. “I was trying to get my powers back. I thought…maybe….” Her broken whisper stopped abruptly, and she turned her face away from him. “I can’t live without my magic.”

“You can, Will. You were fine before you knew anything about magic. You can be again.”

He watched her closely, mentally begging her to look at him. When she finally did, her face was closed against him, blocking him from her heart and mind. “Maybe I don’t want to live without it, Xander. Maybe I don’t want to live without the magic.”

“Willow….”

She turned her face away from him again. “You could never understand. You never felt it…never had it…just leave, Xander. Leave me alone.”

He stayed until her breathing evened with sleep, then crept out of the hospital room to head to the house on Revello. Willow waited until he was gone before she let silent tears trickle out of the corners of her eyes.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Xander walked slowly up the sidewalk to the house until he heard the screams that drifted out of the cracks and crannies. It was only then he that decided to run and burst through the front door.

The screaming was louder, and seemed to emanate from the kitchen, and that was where he headed. He ran into the kitchen, hurrying to save the screamer, and ran headlong into a waterfight. He skidded, trying to stop on the waterlogged floor, and fell onto his back, sliding across the kitchen to stop at the back door.

He looked up to find them all staring at him, eyes wide and mouths gaping. Buffy was the first to speak. “Xander, what’s the matter?”

“Heard screaming…thought you needed help….”

“Yeah, we could use you—make the teams more even.” A hand presented in front of his face, and he grabbed it before he realized whom it belonged to. He levered himself to his feet, and came face-to-face with Spike.

Xander snatched his hand away, and gritted his teeth against the snarky comment that came unbidden to his lips. “I came by to let you know that Willow was awake. Not that anyone cares, or anything.”

He looked around, surprised to see Anya there with the rest of them. When did she start hanging around with Buffy? He couldn’t stop the resentment from poisoning him, filling his mind with thoughts of plots within plots. Shaking it off, he glared at his girlfriend. “Making new friends, I see.”

Buffy unconsciously fisted her free hand. “They were always my friends, Xander. I just didn’t know it.”

“Didn’t waste any time either, did you?” He wiped his face with his hand, and turned to face the others. “So, what else has been happening since I’ve been hanging around the hospital? Besides consorting with dead things.”

Buffy's eyes flashed, and Xander immediately regretted his words. His pride, however, would not allow him to take them back. “Picking up the pieces of my life, Xander. That’s all. Getting Dawn to school, paying bills—you know, all the mundane things the living have to do.”

“When did Willow wake up?” Tara's soft voice filled the silence between them, and Xander relaxed slightly. At least Tara was still one of them.

“This afternoon. She’s…she seemed really depressed. She said she doesn’t want to live without her magic. I tried to talk to her, but she told me to leave.”

He stared at Tara, pleading with his eyes, and saw the softness disappear as she struggled within herself. “She brought this on herself, Xander. I can’t help her. I don’t think any of us can.”

Xander sputtered before his words finally made sense. “You have to! She wants to die, Tara. She wasn’t herself.”

Tara took a step forward, and laid her hand on Xander's arm. “Her path and my path are no longer the same, Xander. She made her choice, and threw me out of our apartment and our life together. She chose to walk alone, and I have to respect that.”

Xander's face twisted into a mask. “So you’re not going to stand by her either, are you? What about you, Buffy? Are you deserting her too?”

“I think that there are issues that Willow and I have to work out before we can be close again, Xander. She’s still my friend, but it will take me some time before I can trust her again.”

“I thought as much. Her sacrifices to bring you back didn’t matter much, did they? You’d rather hang out with the evil dead, huh?”

Buffy took a step in his direction, and forced herself to stop. She knew she would damage him if she let herself get any closer. “Xander, you get a pass because you’re my friend, but this is the last one. Willow did what she did for her own reasons. I didn’t ask her to bring me back. I didn’t even need her help, I was finding my own way. I am with Spike because I love him. If that is too much for you to accept or deal with, then fine. But there will be no more evil dead remarks. No more degrading Spike. No more butting in. I’m done with it. All. Of. it. Any questions?”

His mask in place, he looked around the kitchen at all their faces. “Nope. No questions.” He bit his tongue against the various remarks he wanted to make, remarks that he knew would shatter what was left of their friendship. Instead, he turned and left the house.

With little to be said, a quite group of water warriors started mopping up the kitchen floor.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He walked the streets for a while, confused about where to go. He could go home, but it reminded him of the failed relationship with Anya. He could go back to the hospital, but Willow had made it clear that she didn’t want him to sit with her anymore. He could go to his parents, but he didn’t want to listen to their drunken expositions on what he should do with his life.

He ended up at Willy’s.

Sitting between a Fyarl and a Snaggeroth, he drank shot after shot of whiskey and mourned all the things he’d lost in just the one day. His girlfriend, best friend, other friends, all gone in a heartbeat.

He found himself staring at the only other human in the bar, the bartender, Willy. He ached to feel the sensation of knuckles busting flesh and bone, and wondered where the ache came from. He held up his shotglass for another round, and saw the questioning look from the weasel behind the counter.

“Another one, Willy. I need to get really, really drunk.”

“So I see. Where’s the Slayer?” Willy asked, looking around the bar for any signs of the destructive blond.

“Don’t know, and so don’t care. Prob’ly banging her boyfriend, for all I know. That’s inside information, and I am most definitely outside of all that now.”

“Done pissed her off good, huh? Knew it would happen.”

“Huh? How did you know?”

Willy looked both ways, then leaned forward. His voice held the conspiratorial tone of a close insider, and Xander found himself straining to hear the bartender’s words. “You’re too human. Too normal. Slayers can’t handle normal.”

Xander's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, normal?”

“Slayers. They don’t handle normal, everyday humans well because, well, they aren’t. And never will be. It’s a jealousy thing, I think.”

“You think that she dropped me because I’m normal?” Xander laughed bitterly. “No, man, she dropped me because I can’t see the ‘good’ in demons.” A growl made him backpedal, “Not you, man. Another demon. Different one. Anyway, he’s evil. He’ll tell you himself. But she lets him touch her, and it makes my stomach turn.”

“Sounds like you got a jones for the Slayer is what it sounds like to me,” he commented. He’d been a bartender long enough to know when a guy liked a girl or not.

“No! Buffy's my friend. That’s all,” Xander argued back. God, it sounded lame even to his own ears. He downed the shot, and nodded his head toward the glass. “We’ve been friends since high school. We never….”

“Doesn’t mean you didn’t want to. Doesn’t mean you still don’t. Face it, sonny, you got a thing for this girl, and nobody she’s with is gonna make you jump for joy. If you can’t be friends with her then give it up and leave her alone. Find someone else.”

“I thought I had. She left me.”

“Over the Slayer?”

“No, because I didn’t like Spike. I was talking one night….”

“Spike? You mean Spike, William the Bloody Spike?”

“Yeah. Why?” Xander was too drunk to hear the warning in the other man’s voice. “What of it? I hate the stupid bleach blond bastard. I wish I could dust him.”

Willy pointed his finger, and Xander turned halfway on the barstool to see the named bleach blond standing behind him. “Think you should know, Whelp, my parents were married.”

Xander fell off the stool and stared up at Spike, terrified. He cringed back from the proffered hand, and Spike reached down and caught him by the scruff of the neck, ignoring the flash of pain when Xander yelped at the contact. He jerked his head at Willy, drawling, “Give us a couple of bottles, will ya?”, then dragged Xander over to one of the booths lining the wall farthest from the bar.

He tossed him into the bench seat, and sprawled across from him. Willy brought two bottles of whiskey, one shotglass, and one drinking glass, and then scurried away quickly after seeing the look in Spike's eye. With a sour look, Spike twisted the top off one bottle and filled the shotglass, then the other glass. He slid the shot across the table, and picked up the other and downed it in one long gulp.

“So, Xander, what’s your plan now?”

Xander tossed the shot down his throat, wincing at the strong whiskey before he answered. “What do you care? You have what you wanted. You’ve got Buffy and Dawn. Tara loves you. Anya respects you. Hell, you probably have Giles in your back pocket too. Why do you give a fuck about me?”

Finally. He didn’t know if it was the drink, or the timing, but finally Xander felt like he had the balls and the right to tell this freak where to get off, and if it was the last thing he ever did, he was gonna do it.

“You know, I should have staked you a long time ago, when you first started stalking Buffy. No, before that even. When you were chained to a chair in Giles' house. I should have staked you then.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I kept thinking that Buffy was going to do it. Stake you. I waited and waited for her to get sick of your sorry ass and dust you, but she never did. I should have gone ahead and did it ‘cause I knew she couldn’t.”

“How did you know?” Spike asked again in the same monotonous voice, showing no emotion.

Xander looked down at the table while Spike refilled their glasses. “Don’t ask me that, man. Not tonight.”

“All right.”

He stared down at the shot in front of him, feeling lower than low. Drinking in a demon bar with his worst enemy. This was his own private hell.

“Why are you here?” he asked the shot in front of him.

“’Cause I see a man throwing his friends and loved ones away because of a plain case of ignorance. Y’know, Harris, I’m not an idiot. I may not know exactly why you hate the sight of me, but if you let that destroy the relationships you have with the messes I left at home, you’re an idiot.”

“You’ve got some nerve….”

“What? Coming in here and telling you some hard truths? At least I have the stones to do something. You—you’d rather drown your sorrows in a demon bar with me than to go face those ladies down and beg for their forgiveness.”

“What for?” Xander sneered.

Spike sipped his second glass, looking thoughtful. “Well, how about Dawn, for instance? Did you mean to hurt her feelings? Abandon her? Make her feel unwanted and unloved? That’s what you did, and she’s in her room, crying. You never even looked at her while you were there. Never said a word to her.”

“Didn’t mean to hurt Dawnie.”

“She looks up to you. Worships you. And you step on her feelings like that just because you don’t like me?”

Xander looked miserable. “I need to tell her I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, and Glinda too. Glinda never did anything to deserve that attack today. She and Red were a done deal before Red got herself sick. It wasn’t her fault.”

“I know.” Defeated.

“And you make her feel like scum. What kind of bloke are you, Harris?”

Xander slumped down in the bench, but Spike continued to sip and muse. “Buffy? Well, hell, Buffy probably does deserve your rants. After all, she is with me. That’s enough reason to hate anyone.”

“I don’t hate Buffy.”

“Yeah, you should. Makes you feel strong and right, hate does. Done it myself. Works real well with the ego. I’m right, an’ you’re not, and I hate you. See?” Spike pounded his chest with his fist. “Kinda gets you right there, you know?”

“I don’t hate Buffy. I just don’t understand….”

“Yeah, that’s another good reason to hate. Wasn’t there a whole Klan built around that? I don’t understand, and you’re different, and I hate you. See? Back to the hate thing again.”

“Why is she with you? Why couldn’t she ever see me?”

Spike looked on Xander sympathetically. “Oh, so tha’s how it is.” He pursed his lips, and made a decision. “Let me tell you about a poet named William.”

He told Xander about Cecily.

Chapter 19—Wing and a Prayer

Above the planet on a wing and a prayer—Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly”

Xander listened to the story with a sense of déjà vu rippling its way through his mind. It surprised him to hear of Spike as a geek, but even more so that he couldn’t get the girl. Spike always got the girl, by hook or by crook.

Sometimes, there are things you hide from yourself until you’re ready to admit them, Xander thought as he listened.

He was jealous. Of Spike. Because he thought Spike was cool. His mind was perpetual high school, and Spike was the cool jock that got all the chicks and tormented Xander mercilessly. But this wasn’t high school, this was life, and Spike, by his own admission, was a geeky loser. Just like him.

“Whelp, you still with me?” Spike looked at the bleary-eyed youth sitting across from him, snapping his fingers in front of his eyes. Buffy would have his ass if the boy got hurt, brassed at him or not.

“’M still with you. So you were a geek too.”

“That’s one way of putting it. Cecily thought I was beneath her. Maybe I was.”

“Nope. You’re the cool guy that always gets the chicks, even if they don’t want you. I’m the zeppo. The loser.”

“What about Anya? You had her. You wanker, you had her and hurt her feelings. Now tell me, after sitting here an’ drinking the better part of a couple of bottles with me, am I such a bad bloke to be around?”

“Not so bad, for a vampire,” he found himself saying. Boy, did alcohol have a way of loosening your tongue….

“And in all the time you’ve known Anya, is she so bad?”

“She’s just so freaking blunt. God, a little innuendo goes a long way.”

Spike waved his hand, disregarding what he’d said. “But is she bad? If you had to put her on a badness scale of one to ten, is she bad? Where would she be?”

“‘Bout a one, truthfully.”

“Now, here’s the hard question. Why does a soul matter so much to you and Buffy? Is it like a natural chip that keeps you from doing bad things to people?”

“No, no, nothing like that. People do bad things whether they have a soul or not.” Even in his drunken state, Xander had a moment of epiphany. Souls didn’t matter. They didn’t keep you from hurting the people you loved. He’d hurt the women he loved more today than Spike had in the last four years combined.

His head banged the table in front of him. Again. And again. And Spike knew that he’d seen the light.

“Getting what I’m saying now, aren’t you? Demon girl hasn’t hurt anyone in years, but you make her feel less human because she isn’t sure she has a soul. I know I don’t, but I don’t hurt people anymore either. I can’t, I don’t want to, and Buffy wouldn’t like it. Having a soul doesn’t make you better than anyone. Its what you do to people that matters.”

“I am such a dipshit.”

“Won’t argue you there, whelp.” Spike pulled his head off the table, and looked into red-rimmed eyes. “Come on. I’ll help you get home, and you can talk to the ladies in the morning.”

He tossed some bills on the table for the liquor, and picked the drunken man up, slinging one arm over his shoulder. Spike took him to the empty apartment, and tossed him down on the bed to sleep it off.

Xander caught the edge of his duster as he turned to go. “Spike?”

“Yeah whelp—what is it?”

“Thanks. You’re not a bad guy—for a vampire.”

“Yeah. You’re not bad for a human, either. Get some sleep, then come to the house tomorrow.”

Xander heard the door close quietly, then it all went dark.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy turned to him when he entered her room. “Awake, pet?”

“Yeah. You find Xander?”

“He was at Willy’s. Took him home, put him to bed.”

“He all right?”

“He will be. Eventually. Needs to grow up.”

He stood uncomfortably by the door, unsure of his place. Sure, they had taken this…whatever to the next level last night. He didn’t want her to think he was taking things for granted. The last thing he needed was a broken nose, if she stayed true to form.

He saw her hand reaching for him where he stood by the bedroom door. He didn’t realize how tense he was until he relaxed and reached back, touching her fingers. He stripped quickly and tossed his clothes nearby in a pile, then rounded the bed to slide between cool sheets and into warm arms.

She snuggled next to him, wrapping him in arms and legs and pulling him close, and his heart swelled with feelings he hadn’t felt in a long time. “So glad you’re home. I couldn’t go to sleep.”

He couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. She pressed her nose against his chest, and surprised him completely with the next statement out of her mouth. “Tell me more about claiming.”

He stared down at the top of her head, and cleared his throat. “Well…what do you know?”

“Just a little. After—well, you remember Will’s ‘will be done’ spell? I looked it up…’cause you said something about it that one time…and all Giles' book said was it was part of the mating ritual between vampires. Didn’t go into much detail.”

Spike ran his fingers up and down her arm, and thrilled at the silken skin under his fingertips. “Well, it…binds us together…it’s a forever deal, Buffy. It can’t be undone, except by death. ‘Course, usually when one half dies, the other doesn’t last very long.”

“I know. I kinda thought it would be like that.”

“But I’ll be able to feel you and you’ll be able to feel me. Sometimes there’s telepathy. Sometimes you can even give your partner strength, or one partner can go without food for a time. Every claim is different, sweet. Just depends on the couple in question.”

She snuggled closer to him, and then a thought struck her. “I get it. Kinda like the Klingons on Star Wars—we leave a piece of ourselves in the other’s mind.”

“Actually, pet, that’s the Vulcans on Star Trek—but yeah, that could be a way of putting it. I’ll always be there on the edge of your mind for you, and vice versa.”

She sighed, and nuzzled his chest with her nose. “That would be nice. To always know where you are. Always have you with me. When can we do this?”

Spike looked down at her. Tired of seeing the top of her head, he reached out his finger and tipped her head to meet his eyes. “Buffy, do you really know what you’re sayin’? There is no going back. No erasing it. Never apart.”

She looked back at him, her eyes clear and steady. He was amazed at the amount of resolve in just the look in her eyes, much less the set of her mouth. “I’ve not told anyone about being there. It was light. I felt loved. Complete. I finished my job, and it was time to go Home, wherever it is that we go when we die. I…touched others. Knew them, by how they made me feel. I felt my mom. My mom, Spike.”

Tears threatened, but none spilled as she continued speaking. “I wasn’t happy like I should have been. Something was missing. Left undone. I knew it. I felt it. I should have said all those things to you that night, instead of just…staring. Holding back. Being afraid of how you made me feel. If for one minute I would have thought about you and me and being together when I was on that tower…. Spike, I would have let Dawn jump. I wouldn’t have stopped her. All I wanted was to be with you, and the rest of the world could have gone to hell for all I cared.”

He could only stare as she continued. “I felt all this pain and regret over something I didn’t do, and they felt sorry for me, I guess. I was drifting, and was drawn to a difference in this place. I saw things that were happening here, and it seemed to pull me closer. The thing that made me rocket on through, was the thought of you.”

She raised her hand to caress his cheek, and her eyes shined in the darkness. “I came here for you. I was fighting my way back to you. I had too much left to say. Too much left undone, and I got that second chance and I’m not wasting it. I love you. Yes, I want this, more than anything in the world.”

He was agonizingly mute, mulling over her words and regaining his equilibrium. Swiftly recovering, he snatched her closer to him and buried his face in her hair, inhaling her fresh scent and hiding his tears at the same time.

“God, Buffy, I missed you so.” She stroked his back, soothing him as he shivered against her.

“I missed you too. I’m so sorry, baby.”

She held him, silently rubbing his back as he calmed with her touch. He finally raised his head, and said, “Thank you. For telling me.”

“You need to know. I didn’t come back here for anyone else. Everyone else I could have left behind. Not you. Never you.” She ran her fingers through his curls, and smiled tenderly. “You needed me the most.”

“I do.” He looked at her earnestly, and she read the depth of his love behind those two simple words.

He avoided her eyes suddenly, and she frowned. She caught his chin, and pulled his face around to her. “What is it?”

“Does Angel know you’re back?” he mumbled.

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t call him.”

He stared at her, open mouthed, and she giggled at the look on his face. “What? Did you just miss all that sweet, romantic stuff I just said? I worked on that, mister, and you’d better appreciate it.” Her tone belied the words, and the laughter bubbling in her voice as she tried to look stern.

He kissed her soundly, and said, “Oh, sweet miss, I did hear those kind words of love and devotion dripping like pearls from your succulent lips.”

She batted her eyes, and looked up at him through her lashes. “Oh Mr. The Bloody, you talk so pretty!”

He growled, and pulled her closer into his arms. It was late, they needed sleep, but they needed to connect more.

Chapter 20—My Grubby Halo

My grubby halo, a vapor trail in the empty air—Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly”

Spike rolled until he was above her, looking down into her face.

The significance of her words finally penetrated his brain, and he was filled with awe and delight. She watched the emotions skimming across his features with relief.

Their eyes met, and she drowned in the depths of his love. Swam in his desire for her. Luxuriated in the knowledge that they belonged to no one else but each other.

“Buffy, I love you. I love you, pet, with everything in me.”

She reached up to caress his face. “I know, Spike. I love you too.”

She rolled her hips against him, and gave him a wicked smile. “Wanna get dirty, Mr. The Bloody?”

He grinned, his tongue firm behind his teeth as the scent of her arousal hit his olfactory nerves. “Why, I would love to, Ms. Slayer.”

He skimmed her shirt off before she could speak, and gripped both her hands in one of his as he teased her with the other. “Dirty, huh? That what you want, Slayer? The Big Bad?”

Her answer was a breathy moan. “Yeah, Spike. Give it to me good.”

Last night was about love and desire. Tonight, it was about passion and sex. Spike stretched her arms out above her head, and tied them to the headboard with the scraps of the nightshirt she had been wearing moments before. She knew the bonds would only hold her if she let them, and so did she, resting acquiescent beneath him, her eyes large, yet still full of trust.

He ran his hands over the softness of her skin as he nibbled on her jaw. “So beautiful, Slayer. So…pliant. Aren’t you afraid of what I’m gonna do to you?”

She moaned. “I’m more afraid of what you aren’t going to do. Spike—” she said, catching her breath as he caught her nipple between his lips. She threw her head back, and pushed herself further into his mouth. He looked up at her, surprised, but didn’t relinquish his hold. Instead, he reached his hand to tease the other nipple into hardness.

She groaned again and threw her legs around his waist, grinding her pelvis against him. There was too much material for him to fully enjoy it and he reached down to tear the scraps of lace that passed for knickers from her golden mound. Releasing her nipple and giving it one final kiss, he brought her panties to his nose to inhale the scent permeating the fabric, then tossed them over the side of the bed. “You may want to stop wearin’ your pretties to bed, Slayer. They don’t last long.”

She replied with a grunt, and he slid down her body, securing her knees open with his hands and leaving a wet trail with his passage. He hovered above his goal, lavishing in the heady perfume wafting into his nostrils, then wetly kissed the inside of her thigh. “You smell like bloody ambrosia, pet.”

He pillowed his head on her thigh, and blew a cool breath across her curls. “Eh, not a natural, are you? But such a pretty pussy, waitin’ for me to pet it.” He watched as her nethers twitched under the weight of his gaze, and said, “Yeah, it wants me. Tell me you want me.”

He could hear her panting above him. Her heartbeat thundered under his ear, and it picked up and changed tempo at his command. “You want the Big Bad to touch you, don’tcha Slayer?”

“God, yes, please touch me, Spike. I’ll do anything—“

“We’ll save that little promise for later, pet.” He reached out his finger and stroked a glistening curl, then brought it to his lips. “I’ll bet you taste as good as you look, too.”

Without giving her a moment to think, he swiped his tongue from bottom to top, and she jerked spastically beneath him. “Yeah, I knew I was right. You taste bloody wonderful.”

He tossed her thighs over his shoulders and held her in place then applied his tongue to where it would do the most good. He opened her fold by fold, teasing her to the brink of insanity, then plunged his appendage deep into her sodden core. His nose brushed against the nubbin of her clit and she sobbed and begged for pressure there, arching and rubbing to no avail.

Her sobs turned to shrieks as he sucked her clit into his mouth and prodded it with the tip of his tongue. Her heels drummed on his back ineffectively as he tormented her, then locked around his head as he forced her over the wall and into the shining sparkling bliss of orgasm.

Holding her firmly to his face, he rolled and put her above him, her knees splayed around his head and his mouth barely moving. She gripped the headboard for dear life as he started to move his tongue once again, thrusting her over that glistening precipice to complete loss of control. She ground herself against his teeth, craving more, and he obliged her willingly, alternating between nipping and licking the swollen bud above his eager mouth. Her juices bathed his face and chest and he wallowed in the evidence of her desire, thrilled that she wanted him. His cock was rock hard and wanting to thrust into her with abandon, but he wanted this to be good for her first and foremost.

She sensed his need, and tore her hand out of its bonds to reach behind her, gripping his cock in her fist. She could feel his gasp against her sensitive flesh as she squeezed it, then stroked it from base to tip, swirling her thumb enticingly over the engorged head. Grind, stroke, grind, stroke, she built her rhythm on the sound of the blood pounding in her ears, blocking all sound as she keened her need in greedy sucks for breath and feral grunts of passion.

She slid down his body, leaving a wet trail of juices on his skin, pressing her breasts hard against his chest. She retained enough sense to maintain her grip on his swollen cock, and raked it across heated folds of skin as she spoke.

“Spike—you should know better about getting the best of the Slayer. I give as good as I get, sweetheart. You of all people should know that by now.”

He was her captive, hypnotized by the flush of desire spreading across her skin, infecting him with need. He watched as she positioned him at her entrance, then slowly eased herself onto him, engulfing him in liquid silk. She was flame to his moth, and he would immolate himself to touch her fire.

She sat down fully on him, and rolled her hips experimentally. “Mmm…nice and full…a girl could get used to this, Spike.”

He groaned. “You’re gonna kill me, Slayer.”

She grinned, and raised herself up, her hands on his chest. “I know, slayee…but what a way to go.”

She started rocking slowly, her clit brushing against him, then flexed her thighs, experimenting again, to move herself up and down. She felt so complete with him inside her, and she ached for him to make it permanent. Forever. That’s what she wanted.

She stilled her inner demon that whispered sedition in her ear, and concentrated instead on the glorious stretching sensations in her pussy. That sense of fullness that she craved before she knew what it was. She slammed her pelvis against his, and bones ground flesh between them and prompted a loud gasp from her lips as he nudged against something deep and firm inside her.

“What was that?”

Spike looked up at her, surprised, and realized this was the first time she’d felt that sensation. “That, darling girl, would be your cervix. I like to call it your sweet spot. You liked that, didn’t you?”

Nervous, she licked her lips. “Is that bad?”

He shrugged. “Some women can’t take it. Hurts ‘em.”

“Oh, that didn’t hurt at all, mister. I can take it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I imagine you could.” He grabbed her hips, and jammed her down onto his cock firmly, several times in a row, until her eyes were glazed and her breathing erratic.

“See?” she said, panting. “Told you I could take it.”

Grinning, he rolled them again, firmly connected to her. She was flat of her back with her thighs in his hands, and he watched the flush building again, tingeing her skin red as she climbed up and out of control again. “Let’s see how well you can take it, Slayer.”

She wanted it hard, needed it—she gritted, “You…don’t have…the stones….”

“Oh, I’ve got the stones, little miss,” he said, not missing a beat, and she felt them slap against her ass. He did have the stones. She reached up to pull him down to her mouth, and devoured his tongue as he pillaged her, their bodies smacking together loudly in the quiet room.

With every move inside her, something unimaginable was building—something so great, she could barely afford to wonder at its magnitude. She felt her muscles scrunching into tight bands as she climbed, and it almost made her afraid. This was so much more than anything she’d ever known, and she knew it. It would change her forever.

She gripped his shoulders with her nails, raking them down his back and planting them deep into the cheeks of his sculpted ass, pulling him deeper and harder inside her willing body. He saw stars as the scent of borrowed blood filled the air, and his sac bunched against his cock, preparing to jettison in homage to the exquisite pleasure she was giving him. She squeezed him tightly, inside and out, and he pressed his forehead to hers, watching her face with her eyes screwed shut and her lips pulling back in a rictus of ecstatic pleasure.

She opened her eyes, and found his face close, right above her. “I—love—you—Spike,” she whispered, and his completion was upon him. His hips jerked spasmodically forward as he spilled inside her and something sparked in answer inside her as she joined him, tumbling over the edge with him as she cried his name shrilly into the night. Conscious of their housemates suddenly, he silenced her cries with his mouth, swallowing her screams of delight as she came repeatedly with every little movement of his body.

He made a conscious effort to be still, and she twitched beneath him. Her blood pounded in both their ears now, and she smiled against his lips. “I love you, Spike. Love you.”

He sighed into her hair, and buried his face in her neck. “I love you too, pet. Sleep. We need it.”

Still intimately joined, they fell into exhausted slumber. Sometime during the night, they slipped apart, but still held tight to each other.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They knew they were loud last night, even to their own ears. They didn’t realize how loud until they entered the kitchen the next morning.

Four pairs of dark-rimmed eyes stared at them from four tired faces. There were other emotions clearly displayed, their owners being too tired to conceal them. Giles was concerned and dismayed; Anya looked decidedly jealous. Dawn was simply disgusted. Tara smiled sadly, happy for them, but missing Willow.

Tara reached out a heavy hand, and touched Buffy's forehead lightly. A silvery spark ran down her finger and glittered on her golden skin, then disappeared. “If you…when you…need to…j-just say ‘Silencio’, and it will…form a bubble around you. Please?”

Buffy looked embarrassed. Spike, surprisingly, threw his head back and laughed.

They stared at each other around the room as the vampire laughed until tears formed in the creases around his eyes. “Oh, pet, I do think that we’ve outdone ourselves. We’ve embarrassed the lot of them.”

“Yeah, and me too,” she said sullenly. “Why was that so funny?”

He shrugged, still chuckling. “Possibly just the looks on their faces. Possibly because I’m just so bleedin’ happy. Maybe all of it combined.”

She smiled, and he felt the room lightened. It was akin to standing in the sun. He favored them all with a grin, and moved to fill the teakettle. “Cuppa, Rupert?”

“Certainly.”

Buffy turned to Giles. “We need some fake papers for Spike as soon as we can get them. I want to get married.”

Giles rubbed tired, bloodshot eyes as his glasses dangled from the other hand. “Why married? Isn’t claiming enough?”

“Nope. I want it all legal and binding in all my worlds. Human and demon. I don’t want anyone or anything thinking that they can tear this apart.”

As if fated, the doorbell rang. Dawn ran to answer it, and came back to the kitchen, face pale and sober. Xander was close behind her.

In a word, he looked terrible. The days of sitting with Willow and getting drunk had finally taken their toll, and his face was haggard and gray with exhaustion. His hair stood on end from repeated rakings with his fingers, and his clothes were wrinkled and stained.

“Xander, I’m not going to feel sorry for you, no matter how bad you look. You know how I feel.” Anya turned away from him, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Let me get this all out before I explode.” Or before I lose my nerve, he added silently. “I owe everyone in this room an apology.” He took a big breath, then looked at each one in turn as he spoke.

“Dawn, I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to ignore you. I never mean to. Tara, I’m sorry I came off so judgmental and hateful. I have absolutely no right. Giles, I’m just sorry I showed you my worst side.”

He paused, and then waved his arm at the three main focal points of his gaze. “But you three. You three, I have wronged beyond apology.”

He looked at the ground, and then at Spike, setting his mouth. “I have treated you like the dirt you were buried under since the day I met you. No matter how many times you saved my hide, I still ragged on you constantly and did everything I could to make you feel small. Part of it was my own insecurity, part of it was resentment, and part of it was just plain envy. I hated you because I wanted to be like you. Cool and menacing and somebody besides the joker. I don’t deserve anything from you, but someday, if it’s in your heart, I hope we can be friends.”

He turned to Buffy next. “Buffy, I don’t deserve you either. I…well, a long time ago I put you on this pedestal. You kept jumping off or falling off, and I kept shoving you back up there, determined that you were going to be the person I wanted you to be. I had no right to tell you anything, not about your love life, your choices, or what you want to do. It is none of my business, and I made it my business anyway. I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of those awful things.”

He turned last to his fiancée. “Anya, I owe you the biggest apology of all. I set you up to fail. I was trying to hold you to some unmeasurable standard that nobody in his or her right mind should have, and then was overbearing when you didn’t. I treated you like dirt too, and made fun of you to your face, and you loved me through it all. I ignored a big part of you, made you shut up about it, and thought I was right doing it.” He moved toward her, and knelt down in front of her. “Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins, I love you with all my heart. All of you, human and ex-demon, soul or not. I understand if you don’t want to, but…will you marry me?”

Tears streamed down Anya's face as she looked down on him. “Oh, Xander, of course I will! I love you so much, and I’ve missed you. Tara's not nearly as nice to sleep with, and Spike and Buffy are way noisier than we are. Plus, we have a nice private apartment to have our orgasms in. Let’s go home right now.”

He grabbed her and kissed her, then remembered the others in the room. He looked around at them hopefully, praying for their compassion.

Dawn, Buffy, and Tara crowded around him and Anya, sandwiching them in between them in a group hug. He could hear their tears and squeals in a rising cacophony of girlish love and pleasure, and it warmed his heart to the bottom.

Nothing could conceal his surprise at the hand held out to him, however. He stared at Spike's hand, disbelief written clearly on his face, and looked back up to check his eyes, a conditioned response. Spike didn’t flinch, just looked back at him calmly, waiting patiently, and Xander took the cool hand firmly in his grasp. “Spike.”

“Xander. Guess this means I can’t call you Whelp anymore.” He grinned, and Xander returned the open smile.

“Why not?”

“Because a man isn’t a whelp.” It wasn’t the words but what lay behind them that sealed the friendship between them.

Giles stepped forward and shook Xander's hand as well. “Apology accepted, Xander.”

“Thanks, G-man.” He grinned foolishly again when Giles winced, and then threw his arms around Anya and Dawn, laughing. “I love you guys.”

“They love you too. Now, let’s go home and have lots of orgasms together, honey. It’s been a while,” Anya whined.

Xander smiled down at her, and kissed her again. “We’re outta here, people. Feel free to interrupt us in about a week.”

With a light heart and lighter step, he and Anya left the house with promises to return as soon as they had, in Anya's words, “many orgasmic episodes of make-up sex”.

The mood much lighter in the house, Buffy turned to Tara. “What did you do to me before?”

“Huh?” Tara looked at her, bleary-eyed and confused.

“When you touched my forehead a while ago. You touched me, and shocked me.”

Tara looked suddenly guilty. “I just…I gave you a little piece of magic. So you and Spike could be together and not keep us all up all night long.”

Giles looked interested. “You can do that, Tara?”

For some reason, Tara looked at Giles with a secretive smile. “I think that there are a lot of things that we can do, Giles. It’s just, finding them out is all the fun.”

Chapter 21—Vapor Trail

Willow felt strong enough to get into the chair by that afternoon. The doctors had no explanation besides severe dehydration for her coma state. They had no idea what mystical forces they were dealing with. She was struggling with a plastic cup of Jell-O and a plastic spoon, dropping more than she was eating, when Buffy came into her room.

Tension immediately filled the room as the two women stared at each other across the emotional chasm between them. Willow broke first, dropping her eyes in front of the Slayer's scrutiny, and motioned her to the other chair in the room.

Buffy sat down on the edge of the chair. Her spine stiff and her mouth set, she looked resolutely at Willow until the witch started to squirm, then finally broke the thick silence in the room.

“So how do you feel?”

“Weak. The doctors think I’ll be okay. They said I was really dehydrated, and might not have made it if I hadn’t been found when I was.”

“Are you sorry I found you?”

Willow looked at the Jell-O still in her hand, and set it on the table beside her. “No. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. I’m worthless to everyone.”

Buffy immediately started talking. “That’s not true. Giles said that if you’re magically null, then you can’t cast spells, and you can’t be affected by them either. You’re like a truth seeker person. Nobody can influence you with magic anymore.”

Willow refused to feel hopeful. “Yeah, so? Big deal.”

“Will, it is a big deal. You can tell if anyone’s being affected by a spell. Giles will explain.”

Willow looked down at the fingers in her lap, writhing like agitated snakes. “Are you still mad at me?”

Buffy went down on her knees in front of the redhead, forcing Willow to look in her eyes. “How could you ever think that I would go to hell, Will?”

Tears sprouted in Willow’s eyes. “I didn’t know, Buffy,” she babbled. “I missed you so bad, and I should have known that you wouldn’t, but we were all hurting so bad, and I never even thought….” She buried her face in her hands, tears flowing freely, and Buffy brought her arms around her to rub her back soothingly.

“Will…Willow…it’s okay…I was trying to get back here anyway.”

Willow looked up at her, too tired to cry. “Why?”

“Because of the people I love.”

Willow clung to her, her human lifeline, and Buffy tried her best to soothe her. She rocked her like a child, smoothing her hair as she crooned in a low, loving voice.

When Willow's crying had calmed to hiccups, she raised her tear-stained face to Buffy. “What am I gonna do, Buffy? I’m useless. I can’t help you anymore.”

Buffy brushed the hair out of her eyes, and smiled gently. “I will always depend on you, Will. There is so much more to you than the magic. You lived without it before. Don’t worry about it.”

“Xander said that too. Oh, Buffy, I told him to leave me alone. You don’t think…?”

“Xander will probably be by soon. He’s making up with Anya right now.”

“And Tara?” Willow's eyes were hopeful.

Buffy paused for a moment before answering. “Tara has been staying with us. She’s all right. A little down, but that’s to be expected.”

“I miss her so much, Buff.”

“I’ll let her know, okay? When do they think that you can go home?”

“Soon, I hope. Maybe tomorrow?”

Buffy got off her knees, and dusted her pants off. “Well, you can’t go back to your apartment. Don’t count on the security deposit back, either. You could live with us for a while. Until you feel stronger….”

Willow reached for her and grabbed her arm. “You’re my best friend, you know that, right?”

“I know, Will. I’ll be back to pick you up tomorrow.”

She gave her friend one last lingering hug, then left her sitting in the chair by the bed, her eyes still red from the tears that streamed freely down her face.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Less than two hours after sunset, there was a knock at the door. Dawn ran to answer it, expecting Janice, but when she opened it, she was shoved to the side by a large, broody vampire with an attitude that preceded him into the room.

“Buffy!” Angel’s voice echoed through the house, and the Slayer stuck her head out of the kitchen, then pulled it quickly back inside.

“Shit.”

Spike had felt him coming long before he arrived, and guilt consumed him for not warning her, but he knew that this particular demon she had to face down herself. “I’ll be right here, love.”

She looked up at him and noticed his guilty look. “You knew he was coming,” she said flatly.

“I did. I….”

“You could have told me.” She turned, and went to face the only obstacle in their way, alone.

“Angel.” Her voice was cool. “What did you want?”

He reached for her, and she stepped back, not wanting his hands on her. “Why didn’t you call me the minute you came back?” Her scent hit him, and he smelled Spike all over her, a hard look shuttering his features. “Never mind. I know.”

“Did anyone ever tell you the smelling thing is gross? And is it any business of yours anyway? Where were you when my sister was grieving? Where were you when Spike was keeping the demon population at bay? Did you ever call him and say, ‘hey, Spike, hear you need a break—well, here I am, buddy.’ Or childe, or whatever you call him this week.”

“I think that asshole would be the word of the week, Buff. Why?” he questioned, his face a mask of confusion.

Her eyes gentled at the thought of the blond vampire, and it pissed Angel off even more than normal. “He loves me. Simple as that. He loves me.”

Angel moved toward her, and she danced around the dining room table, keeping something large and wooden between them. “I love you, Buffy. Spike can’t love. He doesn’t have a soul.”

She laughed, and it was bitter on the lips and grating to her ears. “A soul? What a joke, Angel. You have a soul and lost it. Got it back too, thanks to my friends. Ted Bundy had a soul. John Wayne Gacy had a soul. Look what they did. And what good is a freaking soul if you can’t keep it anyway?” Her eyes sparkled with anger. Frankly, she was tired of his posturing. “You know, after you’ve been where I’ve been and seen what I’ve seen, then you can judge. Me, Spike, my friends, anyone you want. I don’t care anymore. Take your soul, cuddle up with the damn thing, and pray it keeps you warm at night.”

“Buffy—“

She held up her hand. “Enough, Angel. I’ve had enough. Go back to LA. There is nothing for you here in Sunnydale anymore.”

He looked about to cry, but she was beyond caring.

Spike chose that moment to come out of the kitchen and the souled vampire found another target. “You!” Angel bellowed, and started to move in his direction.

And found himself face to face with a very pissed off Slayer. “Angel,” she said, her tone low and menacing, “I have asked you to leave. No, told you to leave. I suggest you do so, before I have to make a point.” She gestured at the stake that appeared in her hand, not even noticing her pun, a rarity for Buffy. “Leave my house and don’t come back.”

Spike touched her shoulder. “Buffy, love—“

She whirled on him. “You shut up! I am tired of this—he comes swooping in anytime he wants, criticizes my choices and feelings, then goes back to, what did you call it? Oh, ‘his city’, and lives his life however he pleases. Did you know that he’s sleeping with Cordelia? Cordelia, for God’s sake! It’s disgusting!”

“Buffy,” Angel started again, and she whirled back to face him.

“Don’t. Don’t even say it. You have obviously gone on without me. Made a life for yourself. Don’t I have the same right? Leave me alone, Angel. I’m not waiting for you anymore, just like you didn’t wait for me.”

She stalked across the room and opened the front door. “Angel, I revoke any invitation I have ever given you. Get out.”

He moved unwillingly toward the door, inextricably pulled by magic. “Buffy, don’t do something you’ll regret….”

“The only thing that I regret at this point, Angel, is that I’m not tossing you into the sunrise.”

She waited until he was outside the door, and slammed it in his face.

Spike watched her agitated movements back and forth in front of the door. “Don’t you think you were a bit harsh, pet?”

She turned on him. “No. I don’t. I can’t be harsh enough. What was I supposed to do, put my life on hold for that idiotic brooding bastard? For what? A sexless relationship? Really, please—I’m not without feelings, Spike. You of all people know that.”

He grabbed her arm, and touched her face gently. “I know, sweetheart. I know. The ponce still loves you, though.”

“But I don’t love him. Not like I did. Never like that again.”

She looked up at him, and relaxed in his arms. “I don’t love him like I do you. Not anymore. That was…a teenage crush. Not what I feel for you.”

She forgot the faces surrounding them, watching the unfolding drama of her life. She forgot her sister, stunned into silence and standing by the stairs. The only thing that existed for her was him.

She raised her hand to touch his face, and Giles cleared his throat, bringing her to pause. “So, er, Buffy, I take it that Angel is not a welcome presence here.”

She turned to face them, Tara and Dawn and Giles, and saw them waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Nope. Not until he sees me as something besides property.”

The front door opened again, and Xander and Anya entered. “Hey, what’s…up?” he said, trailing off as he saw the serious faces in the room. “I just saw Angel outside, and he looked like someone took his favorite toy.”

“I did.” Buffy grinned at the couple, and noticed their linked hands and happy smiles. “I take it you had some awesome make-up sex?”

Again with the gaping faces and dropped jaws, except Anya. “Oh, yes! Xander gave me many multiple orgasms and groveled nicely, and we are back together.”

“I knew that you would appreciate that remark, Ahn. I went to see Willow today.” She threw a look towards Tara, then continued. “The doctors expect her to make a full recovery. She may get out of there as soon as tomorrow.” She lowered her head, before raising it to meet Tara's eyes. “I invited her to stay here. If she wants. If you don’t mind, Tara.”

“I can go,” Tara immediately replied back.

The blond witch’s remark stormed the room. “You will not. If that’s too uncomfortable for you, we can do something else.” Buffy moved to where Tara sat on the couch, seating herself next to her and taking her hand. “She still loves you, Tara. She…she was worried about you.”

Tara glanced up as if looking for guidance before turning back to Buffy. “I still love her. It doesn’t change what’s happened.”

Buffy smoothed the blond hair with her other hand. “No, it doesn’t. Willow is going to need our help to get through this. She can’t do it alone. Right now, aloneness and Willow are un-mixy things. That’s what led to the badness before. With all our help, she can learn to live with her actions and what they did.”

“Magic has consequences. ‘Ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” Spike said.

Buffy looked up at Spike gratefully, then back at Tara. “Can you help us? Will you?”

Tara raised her face, tears sparkling in her eyes. “Yes, I will. I love her. I don’t want her to be alone in this.”

Buffy pulled her into a hug, and motioned for the others to join them. “We aren’t alone in this, none of us. Never again.” As comforting arms surrounded them both, the warmth filling them up inside, Buffy repeated, “None of us ever have to go through the bad times alone ever again.”

Giles broke away from the group hug first, his British reserve overcoming the warmth of the moment. He removed his spectacles and polished them thoughtfully while he watched the others disengage from the tangle of arms, then cleared his throat. “Buffy,” he started, then found he couldn’t continue.

Buffy looked up at Giles. “I take it that the research has turned up some info on the stewardship?”

“Er…yes. I’m afraid that it isn’t what we expected.”

They gathered around the dining room table, all eyes on him, and he dreaded telling the Slayer their discovery. He cleaned his glasses, unwilling to meet their eyes, then replaced them on his face and busied himself with the books spread in front of him.

Buffy interrupted his avoidance tactics. “I know that you don’t want to share, Giles, but this is really important. What did you find out about Dawn?”

He sighed. “The, er, stewardship is usually given to someone that possesses natural immortality. A vessel, so to speak, that is strong enough to handle the strain of the burden placed on them by the Powers That Be. In many cases, this would be someone akin to a vampire or demon, perhaps even a Slayer. How Dawn seemed to acquire this is beyond me at this time. Our research has not revealed the method that the Powers use to divine who would be the steward on this plane.”

Buffy leaned forward in her chair. “Could it be because Dawn is the Key?”

“That could be one possibility, Buffy. Perhaps they thought that a vessel for the Key energies would be strong enough to perform the duties of steward.”

“An’ what’s the Bit supposed to do as the steward?” Spike asked, his hands reaching for those of his two girls, Buffy and Dawn. They clasped his hands readily, an action that did not escape Giles' attention.

“The steward is…a conduit of sorts. She…Dawn…has an innate sense of balance in the particular plane of existence that she inhabits. When the forces of evil and darkness grow too powerful, she alerts the Powers, although we have not yet discovered how. The Powers then correct things by creating or altering the good or evil.”

“What does that mean, Giles?” Tara looked across the table to the gangly teenager, and wondered how this was affecting her. She didn’t have to wonder for long.

“So I’m what, their good/evil smoke detector? What about all those crazy things that I’ve been saying, and the blackouts, Giles?”

Anya spoke up before Giles could continue. “The blackouts are because you’re only human, Dawn. You wouldn’t be having them if you were some kind of superbeing like the Slayer or a vampire, even if you are still the Key—which we really don’t know yet.” She turned to look at Giles, and said, “You know—I should have thought of this days ago. Why not ask someone who knows a lot more than we do about the Powers?”

“And who would you suggest, Anya?” Giles asked, curiosity filling his voice.

“Why not ask D’Hoffryn?”

Chapter 22—Empty Air

Since it was night, and because Buffy didn’t want holes burned into her flooring or carpeting, Anya did the summoning spell outside. They stood a safe distance away on the front porch watching her as she drew the circle of power in the grass around her. Her chanting was a soft susurrus on the wind as she called the Lord of Arashmahar to their plane of existence.

A subtle wind arose, and the smell of brimstone and sulfur filled the air as the tall horned demon made his entrance. He reached down to the petite form kneeling in the circle at his feet, and raised her to stand. “Anyanka? What brings you to call me here?”

Before Anya could reply, he turned to look at the assembly on the porch. Spotting a familiar face, he smiled, and it was terrifying to behold. “Slayer. So nice to see you again. Did your friend cast another spell?”

Buffy stood tall, though her stomach churned inside her. The only thing holding her back from killing this demon was Spike's arms securely around her. “No—why would you ask that?”

“I see you with the vampire. Oh, it’s obviously of your own will this time—I didn’t see that coming.” He waited until Anya stood beside him, then said, “I assume that you have called me here for a reason?”

“Oh, Lord of Arashmahar, the great and mighty—“ Anya started, and she was cut off by a wave of his scaly blue hand.

“Please, Anyanka, enough with the crap. What do you want? I assume that it has something to do with the stack of books that you borrowed the other day.”

“We need to know more about the Key and the stewardship for the Powers That Be.”

D’Hoffryn turned his gaze back to Buffy, and smiled widely again. Tara and Dawn gasped, and pressed their faces into each other’s shoulders, not wanting to see that look. “Slayer, your candor is refreshing. No ceremony, just cut to the chase. Well, do you want me to tell you this out here? Or can we go inside and have a cup of coffee and talk?”

He glided on unseen limbs up the short flight of stairs and through the door. Xander whispered to Anya, “He drinks coffee?”

“Only if it is strong enough, boy,” D’Hoffryn answered over his shoulder. He waited while the others in the group seated themselves around the dining room table, then glanced absentmindedly at the books scattered willy-nilly. “I see you took some of the better texts for your research, Anyanka. Why are you needing me?”

It was only when he laid eyes on Dawn's face that his demeanor changed. “The Steward. I should have known. With all the other supernatural beings in your midst, her presence was masked.” He bowed low in front of Dawn, and the teenager let out a tiny noise of protest before sitting silently, shivering.

Buffy stood behind her sister, and put her arm around her. “Okay, like that. What was that, anyway? What is the steward, what does she do, what does it have to do with my sister, and…and just what?” she finished lamely.

Another frightening smile graced his face. “It’s quite the honor for the Powers to choose her as the steward. Actually it is more of an honor position, so to speak. She is…oh, Anyanka, what is an analogy that these people will understand?”

“A barometer?” Anya supplied readily.

“A barometer! Yes, a barometer. Just by her presence on a plane of existence, she alerts the Powers that there is too much evil or too much good, and they take measures to ‘even things out’, so to speak.”

Buffy frowned. “And this is a good thing?”

“Yes, it is. The steward for the Powers can sense good or evil in a person. They are highly insightful in all manners of things, and can even be an oracle of sorts. She can alert you to rising evil here on the Hellmouth, and her presence alone can avert disaster.”

“Why was Dawn unable to aid us when she was being sought by Glory, then?” Giles asked.

“She probably wasn’t the steward at the time. There is only one steward on each plane, and…. Did you say Glory? As in Glorificus? The hell goddess?”

“Yes,” Giles replied.

“Well, that is the reason in a nutshell. Glory’s prison, the human Ben, was the steward on this plane. I take it that Ben is deceased?”

Giles looked uncomfortable, and Anya answered. “Yes. He died while Buffy was trying to save Dawn from the portal her blood created.”

“That is how she acquired the stewardship, then. Dawn was the closest supernatural being with a soul to assume the stewardship.”

“Oh. So they have to be souled?” Buffy asked, still unsure of what this all meant.

“Yes. If they have no soul, then they cannot accurately monitor good and evil. That is why the steward cannot be a vampire, though they have souls also.”

Spike started at this bit of information. “Vampires have souls?”

D’Hoffryn turned to him, and smiled cruelly. “Vampires have souls. They are repressed, however, by the demon inside them. Pushed to the furthest corner of their minds. Contrary to what the Watcher’s Council has expounded for many years, vampires are not soulless beings.”

Buffy looked across the table at Giles, but refrained from saying anything. Giles looked simply gobsmacked by this news. He whipped off his glasses and reached for his kerchief while he studied the texts in front of him. “Er, the only real references we were able to find in relation to the steward was a vague mention of Ma’at,” he said finally, unable to meet either Buffy or Spike's eyes. “Can you clarify this?”

D’Hoffryn rubbed his hands together, chuckling under his breath. “I wondered when someone would bring that up. Ma’at was a dear friend of mine. Is a dear friend, since her essence is what gives the steward power. She is truth embodied, divine justice given form. The ancient Egyptians were the first to acknowledge Ma’at as she should have always been, and gave her the symbol of the feather, since it is her essence that the hearts of the dead are measured by to judge where they will go in the afterlife.” He peered over his glasses at Dawn and said, “I believe that you have something to show us, young lady?”

“What? Huh? Show you what?” Dawn stammered.

Buffy gasped. One of her “false” memories surfaced, and she said, “Dawn, your birthmark. The one on your hip.”

Dawn face grew heatedly red, and she hissed at nobody in particular, “I am so not showing this bunch my butt!”

Buffy yanked her out of the chair and turned her around, dragging her pants partially off her hip. Below the hint of lush curves beginning to form was a slightly raised, reddened area. Giles replaced his glasses, and looked at it closely. “It seems to resemble a feather.”

“Yes, a feather! The symbol of Ma’at.”

Tara looked at Dawn's hip, then back at D’Hoffryn. “Feathers. Didn’t the Egyptians weigh the hearts of the dead against the weight of a feather?”

D’Hoffryn started to reach forward and muss Tara's hair, but stopped at the fear etching her features. “Exactly right. Ma’at was the feather their hearts were weighed against. She was purity and truth and light, and if their hearts outweighed her, then they were condemned and their hearts consumed by the father of the vampires, Ammit.”

Silence greeted his comment as those gathered stared at one another.

Chapter 23—Across the Clouds

Across the clouds I see my shadow fly—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

Xander chuckled and broke the dumbfounded silence in the room. “No wonder you have always had a thing for the heartbeat-challenged, Dawnie.”

Buffy opened her mouth to pop off a smart remark, but was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. “Who can that be? We’re all here.”

Xander sobered immediately. “Not all of us, Buffster.” He picked up the phone, listened, and mumbled a short reply. As he hung up the receiver, he turned to the assemblage and said, “And that was the missing member. Seems that after a lot of fast-talking, they’re letting her go. I’m going to go get her.”

Buffy stole a look at Tara, and saw worry, sadness, and fear flit across her face and settle in the expressive curve of her full mouth, thinning her lips slightly. “This will turn out okay, Tara. We have to help her. We have to try.”

Buffy reached, and Tara took her hand across the tabletop. “I know, Buffy. But—when we…well, she said that she never wanted to see me again.”

Dawn gripped Tara's other hand tightly, and gave her a smile. “She was angry and afraid. She…understands more now.” Tara looked into the teenager’s eyes, and saw wisdom deeply reflected there in their blue depths that she’d somehow missed before. Opening her otherworldly senses slightly, she scanned Dawn's aura. It was the usual brilliant green, but there was a feeling of age, a texture of awakening ancient knowledge that was overpowering.

Still open, she scanned the others in the room; D’Hoffryn was surrounded by a maelstrom of color radiating in all the directions of the globe. She understood suddenly that he was connected in all ways to the demons of Arashmahar, knowing their every deed and choice, much like a god. A slender tendril of red stretched between his aura and that of Anya, who was sheathed in shades from the warmer side of the spectrum, from red to yellow to orange. Xander sided more to the shades of orange with a smattering of muted blue as he looked from one to another.

Giles flickered from bright blue to bluish gray, with streaked yellow lightning flashing from his head, crackling around him dangerously. When she looked at Spike and Buffy, her breath caught in her throat, and she gasped aloud and drew the stare of everyone in the room.

Separately, they would have been breathtaking; together, it was almost too much to process for the young witch. Their auras were, for lack of a better word, exact duplicates of one another. An aurora of color sheathed them, cycling through the rainbow in synchronized ripples, shimmering brightest over their heart chakras. Where he had his hand resting on Buffy's shoulder, there was a bright light surrounded by shadow, and she had enough presence of mind to stammer, “Spike, step away from Buffy for a moment.”

He did, and the light/dark bond stretched between them, an umbilicus that connected them even though they stood apart. She was startled out of her daze by Giles ever-questioning voice.

“Tara, what do you see?”

Tara shook her head, still trying to process everything she’d seen. “Their auras—they’re connected. There’s a band of…I can’t describe it…light and shadow between them. Dawn's aura has changed. So has Buffy's. There’s an age…a maturity there in them both that I never saw before…Buffy came back. D’Hoffryn—“

He raised his hand, and her voice stopped in her throat. “I don’t think that we need to continue, Sarhadai. I guarantee that I won’t underestimate you again, however.”

Anya looked up at D’Hoffryn, confusion on her face. “Why did you call her that? What does she see in your aura? D’Hoffryn, what are you hiding?”

“None of your concern now, Anyanka.” He waved his hand, and Tara found herself able to speak, but her mind whispered negatively in her ear. Filled with secret knowledge, her mouth curled in an enigmatic smile that prompted several glances between other parties that Tara missed noticing. Buffy, Giles, and Spike exchanged several pointed glances, and Buffy sighed internally as she realized this meant another topic to research on top of everything else.

Xander broke the mood, lumbering toward the front door. “I’ll be right back with our little invalid, folks. Don’t move.”

As the front door closed behind him, they turned their questing faces to Anya. “What did D’Hoffryn say, Anya?” Giles asked.

Anya shrugged. “It’s in Arashmaraii—it means ‘wise woman’, or ‘gifted woman’—it’s usually only used for those of power.”

D’Hoffryn’s voice echoed above her. “And you think it was wrongly used? Can you be sure, Anyanka?”

She looked up at the tall horned demon king, his skin glistening in the warm lights of the room, then turned to look back at Tara, her eyes wide and fearful. “You know that I didn’t get to retain anything when I was made human. I can’t see it.”

D’Hoffryn traced a sigil above Tara's head, and a bright light erupted from her. It throbbed with the rhythm of her pulse, and Anya gasped at the sight. “She’s a guardian!” she said, throwing herself behind the blue demon’s flowing robes.

Giles immediately grabbed one of the books from the table, and flipped haphazardly through the pages. “There was something in this one, I believe, about the guardian…. Ah, here it is. ‘The guardians protect the steward while on this plane, and provide the means for balance to maintain.’” He looked up, confusion wrinkling his brow. “None of these books are very clearly written, D’Hoffryn, if I may say.”

D’Hoffryn snatched the book from the watcher’s hand. “They are perfectly fine if you read the backprint.”

“Back print?” Giles squinted, and looked over the demon’s arm at the book. With another frightening smile, D’Hoffryn waved his hand over the book, and the print faded to be replaced by glowing letters. He handed the book back to Giles with a smirk. “See? Backprint.”

Giles took the book, stammering, “Oh, er, yes. Backprint. Well, er—‘the guardians are warded to protect the steward against harm and ill will. They have immeasurable power, and are known by the ability to literally see the intent behind the action. They are consciously unaware of their abilities and powers, and often protect the steward without thought of their own personal safety.” The glowing letters faded, and Giles closed the book, holding his finger to keep his place.

Buffy raked her fingers through her hair. “So my sister is a steward, my friend is a guardian, and I’m marrying a vampire. Can my life get any more strange?”

As if on cue, the front door opened, and Xander helped Willow inside. “Hey, Buffster, good thing you live so close to the hospital. What did we miss?”

His voice trailed off as they took in the scene around the dining room table. Tara was still bathed in a slowly fading effervescence, Anya still cowered behind her ex-boss demon, and Spike rubbed Buffy's shoulders in an effort to get her to relax, Giles with the large book in his hand, and Dawn….

Dawn was standing up slowly, her hair writhing like snakes in the mystical wind that surrounded her and affected nobody else. She gripped Tara's hand tightly, and her voice, when she finally spoke, echoed eerily in the stillness of the room.

“The witch. The proud one. You come before us now, after your judgement. You have been subtracted from the equation. You have been nullified for your pride. The judgement is sufficient, for there is no further recourse, and you will continue to exist knowing that your use of power for personal gain brought you to your downfall.”

Electricity crackled on the air, and a rushing sound filled the room suddenly. Willow yelled, trying to be heard above the wind. “I didn’t do it for personal gain! I was only trying to help you, Dawnie!”
“You were helping yourself. You abhor feelings of pain and loss. You dwell on others’ shortcomings, and overlook your own. You must learn to live with your emotions to attain balance. Without balance, there is chaos, and many of your actions perpetrated chaos.”

Tears streamed down Willow's face. “I didn’t mean to!” She turned, and buried her face in Xander's shoulder. “I didn’t mean to,” came her muffled sob.

The wind stopped as quickly as it started, and Dawn sat down, arms folded across her chest.

It wasn’t Dawn who replied to Willow's excuses, but Buffy. “You may not have meant it to come out that way, Willow, but it always does. It seemed like the spells that you do always benefit you first and foremost, and everything and everyone else is just secondary.” She moved closer to soften the blow that her next words would be. “I didn’t need your help to get back here. I didn’t want it. I got it anyway. Will, what if I hadn’t wanted to come back? What if I was happy and finally at peace? Would you have still done the spell?”

Willow threw herself at Buffy, and was grateful when she caught her. “Omigosh, I never thought of that! Buffy, I’m so sorry!”

Buffy's shirt was sticking to her skin, wetted by the profuse amount of tears the redhead seemed to be crying. She didn’t want to think of the other body fluids involved, and patted her friend’s back awkwardly. “Okay, Will…we’ve found some things out. About Dawn. And Tara.”

Willow dashed her tears away with her fingers, then wiped her face with the kerchief that Giles handed her with a soft smile. “Really? What?”

Buffy led her to a chair, and Willow sank gratefully onto the seat. Buffy moved behind Dawn, gripping her sister’s chair, and cleared her throat. “Dawn is…gosh, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Another deeper voice over Willow's shoulder interrupted Buffy. “Allow me. Greetings, Ms. Rosenberg. Although, you are not as well now as you were at our last meeting.”

Willow turned to see D’Hoffryn towering over her. She startled in the chair, and her hand flew to her chest. He chuckled, and it froze her blood. “No, Willow, I’m not here because of you. It’s because of her,” he said, jerking his beard at the sisters on the other side of the room.

Willow stole a glance at them, and found identically shaped eyes, one set blue and the other hazel, studying her closely. “Right then. Dawn?”

“It seems the Key took on another duty while her sister took the fall, literally. At the death of the former steward, she took on the stewardship for the Powers That Be, which, in effect, is an incarnation of the Egyptian goddess Ma’at.” He turned to Giles, and said, “Concise enough?”

“Amazingly concise.” Giles fiddled with his glasses, but refrained from what the Slayer teased him was his “nervous tic”. He folded his arms, and said, “Do continue.”

“Thank you. Tara, your mate, is the steward’s guardian. She will do whatever it takes, no matter what, to protect the steward from harm. She is also her mentor and guide, to assist her in protecting this plane from descending to chaos.” Again, the demon turned to the watcher, who pantomimed applause. With a slight bow, D’Hoffryn retreated slightly.

Willow looked around, wide-eyed. “And where do I fit in now,” came her quiet whisper.

Spike answered her, to her surprise. “Well, between the three of them, they are under constant attack. Magical spells and the like, Red. You can monitor them. If they act funny and you don’t, we’ll know that something’s afoot.”

He cringed. It sounded lame to his own ears, would she believe it? He watched the hope filling her face, and gave her a smile while sighing with relief. “See? You’re an important member of the team.”

Buffy picked up the thread. “Plus, big with the computers there, Willow. And liking the research? Always a big plus.”

Xander tapped her shoulder softly with his fist. “Couldn’t do it without you, Wills.”

She looked up at Giles, whose misty eyes and encouraging smile warmed her. “I’m afraid that Xander's right, Willow.”

Buffy grinned. Her face hurt from smiling so much, and all she wanted to do was crawl up the stairs and hide in her bed with Mr. Gordo. “See? Everything good.”

Willow nodded slightly. “Yeah, everything’s good.” It escaped no one that there had been nothing from Tara or Dawn. Anya noticed thin lips on both girls from her hiding place behind D’Hoffryn, and wondered what Willow had in store for them.

Willow was wondering as well. As the others busied themselves speculating on Dawn's and Tara's new or improved power, she looked down at her writhing fingers under the edge of the table and wondered where she would ever fit in with any of them again.

A low voice whispered in her ear, unnoticed by everyone else in the room. “You know, I’m only a chant away, Ms. Rosenberg. Only a chant away.”

Her mouth curled in a moue of self-disgust. “Not for anyone with no magic. A null.” Even the word made her cringe.

“The chant calls me, with or without power. It isn’t tied to magic at all, Willow.” The voice was seductively smooth, and she relaxed into its comforting burr. “Remember.”

“I’ll remember.”

Tara looked with her new awareness, and saw a tendril of D’Hoffryn’s aura twining itself into Willow's. It set off bright sparks in the witch’s aura, electric in their intensity, and Tara's eyes narrowed. Willow had a sleepy smile on her face, and she filed it in her mind to investigate later. No need to worry Buffy if there was a way for her to avert another disaster where Willow was involved.

She snapped to the present when D’Hoffryn announced that it was time for his departure.

“Although it was pleasant beyond words, I really need to return to Arashmahar. My best wishes to you and your vampire, Slayer.” He bowed slightly. “Consider me at your disposal, steward. Have care with whom you trust. Protect and serve, guardian.” He whirled, his robes moving around him, and Willow saw Anya for the first time in her hiding place behind him.

Anya gave Willow a guilty shrug. “Tara was scary.”

Willow gave her a weak smile in return, then looked at her ex-girlfriend. “I get that, Anya. I really do.”

Chapter 24—See My Shadow Fly

There was a surprising lack of activity in the cemeteries that evening.

Buffy held hands with Spike, relishing the feeling. Her entire focus narrowed to the feeling of calluses against her palm, his fingers twined with hers. Her pulse pounded in her fingertips, and she wondered if he could feel it too.

She stole a glance at him, and she knew that he felt it. His jaw muscles clenched and unclenched beneath the glow of his skin in the moonlight, and his brows drew together in concentration. A quick look down the length of his body told her his attempts at control were unsuccessful, and she grinned, inexplicably pleased by that.

She took a deep breath, and said brightly, “Not much to kill tonight, is there?”

“Nope.”

“That’s what I like. A nice, quiet Hellmouth.”

“Right.”

She frowned at his lack of response. “Wanna spar?”

His eyes snapped to her with surprise. “I can’t hit you.”

A thought crossed her mind, and she voiced it aloud. “If you aren’t trying to hurt me, it won’t hurt you, will it?”

“Don’t care to find out if it will or not, Slayer. Had enough shocking experiences for this unlife.”

She pouted. “Then what are we going to do for fun? Nothing to kill, you won’t spar with me, so what is there to do?”

His gaze closed on her mouth, and he was trapped, good and proper. She licked her lips with the tip of her tongue, and his eyes followed it from one corner to the other.

“See something you like, Spike?”

Her teasing voice pierced his lack of concentration on the situation at hand. “Eh, Slayer?”

She put her hands on her hips and cocked them in a parody of his favorite stance. “I said, see something you like, Spike?”

He reached for her, and she danced back on her heels. With a mischievous grin, she taunted, “If you want what you see, you’ll have to catch me!” She turned, at took off at a full run.

He was gobsmacked for only a moment, and then took off after her, his duster flapping behind him.

Either she forgot that he could track her by smell, or didn’t care. His demon slid to the fore, guiding him literally by the nose as she flitted pell-mell through Sunnydale. She was a crafty one, he thought as he doubled back to the mouth of one alley. She had run down the dead end, jumped high enough to catch the edge of the roof, and masked her scent, but the perfume of Slayer sweat and arousal left its essence on the wind, an invisible track to mark her path.

He stopped and raised his head to sniff the wind. It pulled him left, and he loped off in that direction until he caught the drift of ashes and sense of satisfaction. Yes, she’d been here, moments before. He narrowed his eyes to peer into shadows lining the buildings and rooftops, and inhaled against, seeking her signature.

Ahead, above, he found what he sought, and ran across the street to leap cat-like onto the roof of a car, and from there, to a windowsill, then grappling his way to the roof.

No Slayer, but her bra, draped artfully over an unused television antenna, leftover from earlier days. Clever minx, he thought, stuffing the lingerie into his pocket, having no intentions of returning it. Grinning, he crossed the roof of the building and jumped to the next, secretly liking this game.

Baby wants to play, he thought, so let’s add some fun to the game.

He raised his voice slightly, aware of her own enhanced hearing. “Slayer, come out to play.”

Listening closely, he caught the whisper of her girlish giggle, and leaped to the ground. Her path suddenly diverted out of the business district, and into the warehouses that surrounded the western edge. Familiar places dotted the area—to the left was the quickest way to his old lair in the factory, and to the right….

To the right was a sight he never wanted to see again. The tower. That tower, the one that filled his nightmares with painful agony and his days with ego-searing uncertainty. If only’s crowded his senses, and he shoved them under with a growl, pushing reality back. She was alive and that’s all that mattered.

He growled again when her path diverted, and came to a halt inside the dilapidated aluminum fence that surrounded the rickety frame.

She stood at the base, looking up. He watched her silently as she stood unmoving, her eyes trained on the piece of air that had swallowed her convulsing form whole and spit her out onto the pile of bricks still stacked precariously at her feet.

“This is where it all changed,” she said, her quiet voice carrying on the still night air.

She glanced over her shoulder, and looked back at him briefly before turning her eyes back to the sky above. “I…saw—all of them, standing there staring. You were the only one on the ground that cried. Dawn cried. You cried. Willow looked like I’d killed her fish. Xander looked shocked, like I had another choice left at that point. Anya—well, you know Anya. Matter-of-fact Anya. I never got to know her very well, before…that day. Tara was sad. And Giles…I hope he isn’t there the next time. I don’t ever want to see that look again.”

She turned to face him, and he saw salty tears spilling fearlessly down her cheeks. “Even then, I kept watching you. You were hurt. Crawling. Trying to reach me. And they were cruel to you even then.”

He stepped toward her, the memories of fresh grief grabbing at his gut. “Buffy, don’t. Please, love, I don’t think that I can take this.”

Her smile was sad as she shook her head. “I have to, Spike. I have to be fearless about this, or I can’t go on. This is where I died. This spot is where I landed, and I watched it all from the portal like I was on the wrong side of a mirror. And I watched you cry and howl, watched you crawl, and watched you be kicked away again, and I knew how wrong I’d been. My soul wept for you, William, and there was nothing I could do but come back to you to right the wrongs.”

She turned back to the pile of bricks and laughed bitterly. “You know, my grandmother was pretty religious. Well, kinda religious. When mom and dad were splitting up, she kept telling my mom that ‘everything happens for a reason’. I’ve thought about that a lot, recently. Somehow, I’m beginning to believe that it’s true.”

He reached her, and gripped her shoulders, pulling her back to rest against him and wrapping his arms around her. “It probably is, Buffy. Sod fate, it’s the bloody Powers that made us go through all that. Mix things up and see what happens and all.”

She turned in his arms. “No, that’s not it. Not all of it. I needed the break. I needed the change in perspective to see you properly, and not through the eyes of the Slayer. I needed to grow up and learn to be on my own so I could be with you, Spike, because it was what you deserve.”

He frowned. “What do you mean, pet?”

“You deserved a woman who was strong enough to stand up against anyone for you. You deserved to be number one in somebody’s heart. I couldn’t be that person before I died. I still believed that I needed everyone to approve of what I wanted to do. I had to die before I figured out that I had no say in their choices, but I was giving them full control of my life.”

She looked behind her to the tower, and looked up to the creaking platform swaying crazily in the breeze. “When I decided to jump, it took all that control out of their hands, and they couldn’t handle it. Willow broke, Xander broke, Giles broke bad, and you and Dawn were the only ones who seemed to keep it together.”

“Didn’t keep it together, love. Just hid it better than the others,” he whispered hoarsely against her hair, his voice thick with emotion. “Didn’t want to live. Wanted to fall asleep in the sun, but couldn’t do it. Made you a promise.”

She turned back to him, her eyes faraway, and said, “That’s exactly it, though. You never gave in to your grief or impulses. You drank animal blood and cooked for Dawn and kept her going, and the others…well, they had lives afterward, but you didn’t. How many nights did you sit beside my grave, crying? How many times did you visit an empty room? How many nights did you fall asleep with an old stuffed pig?”

He jerked, surprised at her uncanny flashes of insight and slightly embarrassed. “Er…too many.”

“Way too many.” She pulled him close, and buried her face against the firm column of his throat. “Let’s forget all of this, and close this book. I have a future again; the phone call came in from the governor. I got my reprieve. I just had to do this before I put this to rest, both inside myself and between us.”

She raised her face for his kiss, then released him and grabbed his hand, leading him away from the doomed monument to her demise. “Anyway, you came back here enough. Hair shirt, or what?”

“You have no idea what a hair shirt is, Slayer, do you?” he asked with a smirk.

She swung their linked hands between them. “Uh—a shirt with hair? Made of hair? Is it important?”

He kissed her knuckles as they turned their path toward home. “Not at all, love. Not at all.”

He watched her as they walked, and was curious about her mercurial moods lately. One moment she was angst and drama personified, the next serious, and then full of laughter the following. There were times they flashed through her interactions so swiftly he could barely keep up.

Impulsively, he stopped. “Buffy, are you all right?”

She was deep in thought, and his question yanked her back to herself. “Yeah. Contemplating, you know? Why this, what that, the usual post-death thoughts. Who else did I hurt that I needed to make amends to, what else do I need to undo…that sort of thing, so I can go back there when it’s time.”

“What else did you leave unfinished. I get that.”

She shrugged. “Knew that you would. You would be the only one who would.”

She sighed. “I feel so different from them now. I’ve always felt alone, because, hey, Chosen One. Can’t get more alone than that. Even after Faith got here…I had to be all good moral girl, White Hat Buffy, to show the newbie the way.” She tipped her chin to look at him, and said, “I have never felt comfortable being who I am before. It didn’t fit. Now it does, and the rest of it doesn’t matter. Not like I thought it did.”

He nodded, and she continued. “I saw…what could be, if I would only let it…I wouldn’t have to be alone. Wouldn’t have to be all self-sacrificy and lonely. Wouldn’t have to patrol on Friday nights because there would be someone there to take me out if I wanted to go. Wouldn’t have to sit alone at the Bronze while my friends danced and had fun. Been there, done that, and I’m done with it.” She dropped his hand and whirled around madly. “I’m in love with the most wonderful man, and he loves me too, and I’m happy! For once, I’m really, truly happy.”

Spike watched her, fearing her sanity and grinning at her loud proclamations. “Dizzy is what you are, pet, with all that spinning.”

She grabbed the lapels of his coat, and planted a firm kiss on his soft lips. “Dizzy? Yeah, I probably am. Dizzy with love, a second chance, and possibilities. You make me dizzy, with your touch and your taste and all the nasty things that I want to do to you and with you and for you.”

She moved closer to him, and could feel his hardness pressing against her belly. She pressed their foreheads together, and she started whispering to him, her voice low and seductive. “I want to suck your cock. Nobody has ever come in my mouth, do you know that? I want to taste your come, Spike. Spike spunk.” She giggled, her head spinning with sensation. “I want you to fuck me in every position in the Kama Sutra, and when we’re through that, we’ll invent our own positions. I want to have you inside me, in every orifice. I want your fangs in my neck and my nipple and my clit, and I want to know what I taste like to you.”

He was panting unnecessarily, he knew, but the pictures she was bringing to mind made him do it. Where was she coming up with some of this, he wondered, then she grabbed his cock through his jeans and he lost track of what he was thinking.

Her mouth worked against the column of his throat, and he could barely hear her whisper over the loud throbbing of her heart. “I want it all, baby, and I want it with you. Tonight, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives. Let’s go home.”

Stricken dumb, he nodded, and followed her down the road to her—no, their home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They barely made it up the stairs with their clothes on.

Buffy slammed her bedroom door, leaning hard against it as she watched the vampire pacing the room in front of her. “Silencio,” she whispered, proud that she remembered the word, much less remembered to say it.

Spike paused by the bed, wondering what his Slayer was up to when she gave him a shove and he fell back to rest on the mattress with a bounce. He watched her fumble with something across the room, then music started, and he jerked with surprise. It was the first song off a mix tape that he had made for the Slayer long ago, his poncy side loosed by alcohol. Funny, he hadn’t seen that tape since….

His eyes narrowed when he realized exactly where the tape was and when he’d last seen it. She turned, and saw his look, grinning evilly before she replied, “You know, if you didn’t want me to have it, you shouldn’t have put ‘To Buffy From Spike’ on it. It was to me, so I thought…what the hell.” As the Ramones sang about being her boyfriend, she bopped around the room.

“I listened to this a lot after—well, you know. It surprised me. Especially the poem at the end of it.”

Spike looked confused and slightly panicked. “Poem? What poem?”

She looked back at him, her hands on her hips. “You don’t remember the poem?”

He shrugged, and had the grace to look ashamed. “I barely remember making the tape. I was pretty deep in my cups when I started. What does it say?”

She flipped the tape over and rewound it a bit, then paused. “You were drunk? Like, drinking drunk when you did this then?”

“Doesn’t mean that I didn’t mean it, pet. Just means that…well, see, I loved you so much, and you wouldn’t even look my way….” His voice trailed off, and he heard her giggle.

“I see. William couldn’t come out to play unless Spike was sleeping, huh?”

He looked offended. “I highly resent that inference, Slayer.”

“Right. Well, resent it all you want—I know that William made this tape, and you will too, here in a minute.”

She hit play, and leaned against the dresser.

His rich baritone came out of the speakers, and he cringed at the words. “I know that you’ll prolly never hear this, Slayer, since you hate my guts, but this is something special that I wrote just for you.”

He listened, horrified, as his bloody awful poetry spouted out of the speakers, then buried his face in his hands. “God, Slayer, how can you listen to that drivel?”

“It’s not drivel!” She was across the room and straddling his lap before he could reply, pulling his hands away from his face. “I thought it was beautiful. Still do. It’s the only thing that kept me from staking you after the little robotics experiment you pulled.”

“That? That kept you from staking me? Why?” He flipped his hand at the stereo, now silent, and shook his head. “That was terrible, Buffy.”

She tangled her fingers in his curls that he left loose for her. “I knew that the robot wasn’t just because you wanted to have sex with me. I knew that you really did love me. I just didn’t want to face up to it.”

Tugging on his hair, she tipped his face up and saw the adoration plain in his eyes. “I always knew, deep inside. I just didn’t want you to know that I knew. Now, less talky, more sexy.”

He had no arguments to that idea, and proceeded to let her know that when he crushed her to him and their mouths crashed together.

Clothing flew as they stripped one another, and soon their naked bodies pressed together, skin to skin. She pushed him backward until he lay flat on the bed, then threw her hair over her shoulder, lightly brushing it across his skin.

“Goldielocks. Isn’t that what you called me that one time?”

“Yes.” It came out in a hiss as she trailed silken tresses across the tip of his erection where it reached upward, angled sharply and almost parallel with his taut stomach. She shook her head, and individual strands teased and tickled his entire groin, balls to base to top, and he started to reach his hand out.

Her head snapped up, eyes blazing. “Keep your hands to yourself, mister,” she snarked, then grinned quickly before frowning up at him again. He chanced a grin in return, and saw the gleaming sparkle in her eye before she bent her head back to what she’d been doing. Oh, yes, driving him completely buggering mad.

She wrapped his cock in her long locks, her hand gripping it all and holding her hair in place. It was amazingly soft, silky against his skin, and he couldn’t hold back a groan of surprise when she started to move her hand slowly, the hairs shifting and sliding against one another and his cool skin. The sensation teased him for want of her as the scent of her diffused over him and through him. He could smell the sweet musk of the Slayer's demon, lurking just under the surface of her everyday self; the sweet honeysuckle perfume of her shower gel; the fresh, salty tang of her arousal; and the rich metallic taste of her blood. The aromas mingled and aroused him fully, man and demon, and his bones slipped unnoticed into his full game face.

He could almost see the heat radiate from her as she took him fully in her mouth for the first time. She swallowed him down slowly, relaxing her throat and opening it up to take his complete length. He watched her, brow furrowing with concentration, as she licked up his shaft, then back down, then her throat engulfed him again, and he roared, throwing his head back.

Another look at her changed his plan to grab her and plunder her as she said with her eyes what her mouth couldn’t. Don’t you dare—it’s my turn, they said, and he stilled himself. He folded his hands under his ass, gripping the bedclothes to still himself. The comforter twisted quickly into ridges and wrinkles as she suckled him, teasing him mercilessly with her tongue in his slit, around the crown, and down to the small patch of flesh behind his scrotum.

It was there that she nibbled, then bit down gently, and his ass flew up off the bed in surprise. Her hand tightened almost painfully on his cock, then slackened when she realized he wasn’t trying to get away. She nipped a path from one cheek to the other, always ending at that small piece of flesh, worrying it between her teeth as her hand slowly measured him from base to tip and back again. He shouted when her tongue teased the tight ring of muscle lower down, and he raised his head off the bed.

“Pet, please…” he started, but was unable to finish as she flipped him over, his knees on the floor and his curvaceous ass in the air. She pinned his hands to his back with one hand, his thumbs in one deceptively strong fist, and she nibbled on his buttock gently before speaking.

“Please what, Spike?” She scraped her nails over the soft skin, red welts raising instantly as he shivered beneath her. She reached beneath him, and cupped his balls in her hands, tugging lightly as she bent her head to nip at where they joined his body. He tightened beneath her; every muscle knotted in ropy pleasure as her fingers grazed his hard length, now pressed against the side of the bed. Her tongue left moist trails down the split between the cheeks as she brushed her nipples down the back of his thighs.

She released his thumbs and he readied himself for another abrupt position change, when he felt one of her digits wriggle into his tight rectum. His mouth o’ed in surprise and eyes flew open wide as she stroked him with one hand and fucked his ass with the other, pressing on his ‘sweet spot’ without mercy, much as he had hers. He growled when she removed her finger, then moaned loudly as she moved him back onto his back like a rag doll. Her finger slipped inside him easier this time, as did the second, and she wrapped her lips around his cock once again.

She was maddening with her rhythm. In she would plunge on the downstroke, her fingers crooked and raking his prostate with every stroke. Out on the upstroke, slow and possessive, her eyes full of hidden knowledge as she watched him writhe under her ministrations. She moved slower, swallowing around his length as she circled her fingers slowly inside him. She moved quickly, slamming the palm of her hand against his ass as she deepthroated him so rapidly he was afraid she would choke. She changed her rhythmic strokes repeatedly until he felt the pressure building to a fever pitch and his balls drew themselves up tight against the base of his cock.

She must have sensed it, heard the change in breathing pattern or felt the tension in his groin, because now she kept it steady, with long strokes and deep pleasure that burned him with his intense need. His fingers found their way into the silken strands of hair that started it all, and he shouted as he began to come, his warmed spunk jetting into the back of her throat as she swallowed around his entire length. He could feel a third small finger invading his body and welcomed it fully as it brought him to climax again.

His knees began to shake and his thighs to tremble as she continued the pressure of her fingers inside him until she had wrung a third powerful climax from him. She let his now-spent cock slip from her mouth as she slid her fingers out of him, and crawled up his body to rest her head on his chest, pointed chin digging without mercy into his sternum.

When he could move again, he raised confused yet sated eyes to look at her. She grinned back at him, and he let his head fall back onto the mattress. “What was that?”

He felt her shrug. “A Slayer blowjob?”

She felt his stomach moving, and then his silent laughter became audible as he roared with his mirth. “All right, a Slayer blowjob! Oh, I’m liking this, Buffy. I’m liking this a lot.”

She poked him in the side. “You better like it, mister. I like to call it the Slayer special.” She pillowed her head on his shoulder and stared at the ceiling, so achingly familiar she had each crack and wrinkle memorized. “There’s so much I want to do. With you, but not just sex. Going places. Seeing things. Taking Dawn with us and showing her the world.

He tipped her head up to meet her eyes. He expected tears, not the gleam of anticipation that seemed to shimmer from them. “We have all our unlives, sweetpea. To go and do and see as much as we can. I don’t know what kind of tour guide I’ll be, but I’ll show you the world. You and the Bit.”

Chapter 25—Out Of The Corner

Out of the corner of my watering eye—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

It was very early in the morning when the phone rang shrilly throughout the house. Giles rolled off the couch with a start, and made a futile search for his glasses as he dragged himself from sleep, stumbling over the coffee table to get to the telephone. He picked it up with a sleepy “Hello?”, and nearly fell to the floor when Quentin Travers’ voice bellowed into his ear.

“Giles! When were you going to tell us that Buffy Summers was alive?”

Giles looked helplessly at his Slayer as she came down the stairs, closely followed by Spike, a sense of peace radiating from bothe of their beings. His mouth moved soundlessly, and he heard Travers make an tsking noise over the intercontinental telephone connection. “We should have known when you didn’t notify us of her demise that any other occurrences on the Sunnydale Hellmouth would be kept from our knowledge as well. Nevertheless,” Quentin continued, “We’re sending the new Slayer to replace Miss Summers. You’ll take over as her watcher, since you are familiar with the locals and the particulars of the Hellmouth.”

“Wh-what about Buffy?” Giles stammered, stunned by the entire conversation and gaining the attention of Buffy and Spike.

“Miss Summers? She is…expendable.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Expendable my ass!” Giles winced at the Slayer's language, although he had similar sentiments that were much more elegantly expressed in his head. So far, he’d not been able to elucidate any of them, especially after Buffy had taken the phone out of his hand and yelled a few choice expletives at Travers before he had wised up and rang off.

“Expendable,” she exclaimed, pulling a face like she had something sour on her tongue. “Do they realize…? Of course, they don’t care. I was always a thorn to them…never followed the rules, was a bad Slayer, although not bad like Faith was…never read the handbook, never did what they wanted me to do…Giles, do you think they’ll send a wetworks squad after me?” She stopped pacing and froze on the edge of a step, swinging around to look piercingly at the man she trusted most in the world.

Giles was still hunting for his glasses, finally locating them under the edge of the couch. “I don’t know, Buffy. There is always the possibility…” he started, climbing to his feet and replacing his spectacles.

Spike gave a snort and put his two cents into the conversation. “The Council of Wankers better not pull anything of the sort. She’s done her part for the world, now it’s high time she was able to live for herself. Not to mention having a sister to take care of.”

“Yes, well, I’m quite aware of Buffy's responsibilities, Spike. I don’t believe that Quentin will force the issue, however.”

“Don’t know much about the Wankers, do you Rupert? He’ll do that and more, unless we put a stop to it.”

Giles brow furrowed, and he sat down on the edge of the couch. “What are you talking about, Spike?”

Spike threw himself in the chair opposite Giles, and motioned for Buffy to join him. She perched on the arm of the chair, and leaned into him, and he smiled up at her before he turned to face Giles, his soft look hardening as he began to speak.

“The Wankers have always taken care of their own, Rupert, and you know it. That includes taking them out when they find it necessary, don’t they?” Spike wrapped his arm around Buffy's waist, and pulled her tightly against his side. “They’ve killed slayers who didn’t follow the rules before, Watcher. They won’t lay a hand on Buffy, or there will be mayhem they never expected. All I have to do is say the word.”

Rupert looked at the vampire with his arm around the Slayer, and a chill ran down his spine at the image his words produced. He rubbed his face with his hand, and sat back on the couch. “Spike, I find it unlikely that Quentin will choose to take such drastic action as what you propose.”

Buffy stared with horror-filled eyes at Giles. “What does Spike mean, the Council has killed slayers?”

“It was long ago, Buffy…” Giles started, and Buffy interrupted him.

“I don’t care how long ago it was, Giles. Has the Council killed slayers?”

He saw no way out of this predicament that Spike had put him in, and gave a deep sigh of resignation. “Yes, Buffy, there have been times that the Council of Watchers has been forced to eliminate slayers who…performed at less than the acceptable standards.”

Buffy stood, clearly agitated. “That’s it, then. I’m done with them. The bastards.”

Spike watched her back as she went into the hall leading to the kitchen, then turned back to Giles, a remorseful look on his face. “Sorry, Watcher,” Spike offered, to Giles' surprise. “I didn’t want her to have only half the facts. Combine the variables of the equation, and you know what they’ll do…especially if they realize she’s considering a relationship with me.”

“I concur, Spike,” Giles finally said after a moment. “Aligning herself with a master vampire will not endear her to them in any way. I’m afraid that Buffy will not see it in that light, however. She will see it as a direct attack on her, and that could be her undoing.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy couldn’t sleep, so she cleaned.

She was half in, half out of the oven, her elbow moving erratically as she scrubbed at the imaginary dirt on the floor of the appliance. Spike leaned against the doorframe and watched her wordlessly as she attacked a menace that she could deal with at the moment.

“Slayer,” he said, and she startled, bumping her head against the top of the oven. She pulled herself out, rubbing her head, and glared up at him, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “Buffy. Why are you cleaning the oven?”

“It looks like the last one who cleaned it was my mom. I can’t believe how filthy it is.” She glared at more imagined grime, and Spike took the scratch pad out of her rubber-gloved hand, and tossed it in the sink.

“Pet, I don’t think the oven has been used since your mum died.” He helped her to her feet, and wrapped his arms around her. “Travers wouldn’t dare do anything to you, love. Not with all of us here to protect you. Not with Dawn and Tara and Giles and me to fight him and his goon squad off.”

She leaned against him, and buried her face in his shirt. “I’ve faced their squad before, Spike. It isn’t pretty.”

He lifted her chin, and looked her square in the eye. “I’m not suggesting it is, pet. I just know that you are more than a match for them, and you do too. You got out of the last jam they had you in, now didn’t you?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Ever since then, though….” She let her voice trail off to silence, and he knew she was reliving memories he wasn’t part of. “I just don’t want to go through that again.”

“You won’t have to, pet. I still have contacts, and so does Demon Girl. You think that I won’t make good on my statement in there? I meant what I said. We’ll have a demon uprising in this town like the world has never seen.”

She looked up into his face, her tremulous smile belying the turmoil inside her. “I know you did. That’s why I love you so much. You always mean what you say, and say what you mean.”

Giles heard their voices in the kitchen, but couldn’t get the gist of what they were saying. He watched them walk up the stairs together to Buffy's room, and prayed the Slayer would not regret her choices.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Early the next evening, they were back in their usual spots. Giles sat at the head of the table, books open around him. Willow sat at the other end, listlessly researching on the computer. Tara sat next to her, watching her closely as she thumbed through a book lying in front of her. Dawn sat between Tara and Giles, doing her homework. Anya and Xander lined the other side of the table; Anya looked longingly at the wedding dresses in the brides’ magazine she hid behind her large book, and Xander read a comic book behind his.

Buffy and Spike were in the kitchen, cooking. Actually, Spike was cooking, and Buffy was snarking about the food. “What makes you think that hot chocolate needs cinnamon in it, Spike?” she asked from her perch on top of the counter, watching his fluid moves with lazy eyes as he moved around the kitchen.

“Because that’s the way your mother made it, Slayer. Don’t you even know how your mother made hot chocolate?”

“I don’t ever remember her putting cinnamon in it, Spike, and I watched her make it for years.”

They were interrupted by a knock on the front door. “Who can that be? Everyone’s here.”

Curiosity overwhelmed her. She went to the door, and opened it, to find a young girl with long black hair and brilliant violet eyes. “Hi. My name’s Eden. I’m the new Slayer.”

Buffy stood there, mouth open, as she watched Quentin Travers walk up the stairs to her front door to stand behind the new Slayer. “Miss Summers?” he said, with an unpleasant smile. “So very nice to see you…alive, that is. Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

Travers and his new Slayer sat on the couch with the Scoobies gathered around the chairs that held Buffy and Giles. Buffy's mouth was a thin line of compressed anger, waiting to spill onto the Head of the Watcher’s Council at the slightest provocation.

Travers knew that he was treading on thin ice. “So, Miss Summers, what are your plans now?”

She folded her arms, mimicking the stance of the friends surrounding her. “Well, I won’t be working for you anymore, Quentin. I thought that I made that clear to you last year.”

He smiled, and it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes, you did, Miss Summers. Although I must say, your death was…fortuitous. At least, for the Council, it was. Why your Watcher never reported it is beyond me.” He stood, and paced precise, even steps where he stood, then looked up at her. “It allowed a more…malleable Slayer to be called, one that the Council could control and shape into the type of Slayer necessary for these days and times.”

Buffy crossed her arms and gave him a cold look. “And what kind of Slayer is that?”

Quentin gave her another small smile, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Why, a soldier. Does what she’s told, follows every order and never,” he said, pausing for effect, “allows a vampire to live.”

He turned on his heel to glare at Giles. “Their Watchers will be of a different breed as well. More reliable, less headstrong, less likely to shirk or be derelict in their duties as a Watcher. The complete opposite, in fact, of you, Mr. Giles. What made you into the failure that you are? You showed such promise at the Academy,” he said, his tone dripping with false remorse.

Giles gave Travers a cold look. “Perhaps because of the relationship that I have with Buffy. She showed me that the traditional can coexist with the modern, and it doesn’t’ have to be done by the book. And since you hold me in such inestimable contempt, you will accept my resignation from the Council. I could not imagine watching another Slayer after Buffy died. I still cannot imagine doing so.” Giles extended a folded sheet of paper to Travers. “I believe that you will find this in order.”

“Your resignation, Mr. Giles? Really, do you think that you need to go to such measures? Throwing yourself upon your sword. Overtly dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Not at all.” When Travers ignored the sheet of paper, he laid it on the table in front of the man. “I will not be a part of your organization anymore, Quentin. You know that you and I have differed in the past over some of the Council’s measures, and your…intimidation of Buffy is unacceptable.”

“I see.” Travers took the folded letter, and placed it in the inner pocket of his jacket without looking it over. “Unfortunately for you, your tenure is not over until the girl’s replacement Watcher is dispatched, so she will have to remain here with you.”

Buffy stood, her temper rising over “Mr. Head Council" was still trying to order her around. “Oh, no way. My house is not becoming Slayer central for any Slayer that isn’t me. Take your newbie and get out.”

“Miss Summers, you are being quite unreasonable.” Travers stood, and buttoned his jacket. “I think that you can house Eden for the short amount of time it will require to arrange other accommodations for her. Kindly send me an invoice for any costs for her lodgings.” He started toward the door, and Buffy's voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Has she gone through the Cruciamentum yet, Quentin?”

He turned smartly, and put on his blandest mask for the slayers standing there looking at him; one was quite confused, and one the picture of innocence. “You will be pleased to learn that we have discontinued that practice, Miss Summers. We found it to be…antiquated. We perform other testing methods now.”

“Good, because I would hate to have to come out of retirement because you screwed up another Slayer.” She grinned, and Travers pulled his jacket down sharply, then took a step toward her.

“Miss Summers—you have always been too…independent for the Council’s comfort. Please ensure that you are not…detrimental to our future endeavors.”

Spike stepped in front of Buffy, his voice a low rumble. “Is that a threat?”

Travers smiled, pretending to notice Spike for the first time. “Ah, the vampire. How are you, William? Doing well in the bosom of the enemy, I believe.”

“Sod off, Travers.”

“Shut up, Spike. Quentin, get out of my house.”

He went toward the door, and looked slyly over his shoulder. “Take care with my Slayer, Miss Summers. I am holding you personally responsible for her safety until her watcher arrives. If anything untoward should happen to her, you will hear from the Council.”

“I’ll bet,” Buffy muttered, turning to look at the new addition to the family.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Since Eden and Dawn were the same age, it was decided that they would share a room for the time being. Dawn immediately hated the invasion of her space, and reminded everyone of it, both frequently and loudly.

“She smells funny. And she doesn’t pick up the bathroom after she showers—she leaves hair all over the tub, and—“

Spike put his hands in the air in front of him. “Enough, Bit. She’ll be gone soon enough, and you’ll be moaning about how much you miss her, mark my words.” He leaned across the counter from Dawn in the deserted kitchen, everyone strangely absent for the day. It was a rarity when he got to spend time with the Bit alone anymore, ever since Buffy's return.

“No I won’t. I don’t have any privacy anymore!” She quivered her lip, trying on Buffy's pout. Spike arched his scarred brow, and she grinned, quickly abandoning her pretense. “We never get to talk anymore because she’s here.”

Spike looked around. “Hmm. Seems we’re talking now, Nibblet. What’s on your mind?”

She propped her chin on her fist, and looked at him gravely. “Will I ever be normal, Spike?”

He mockingly drew back, staring at her in horror. “You aren’t normal?” He pressed his hands to his chest. “Oh, my unbeating heart!”

Dawn giggled, and slapped him on the arm. “You know what I mean. First I’m a Key, now I’m a steward, whatever that is. Why can’t I just be a teenager for once?”

Spike's face took on a serious look. Leaning on his elbows, he said, “Honestly, Bit. Don’t you think that your sister has said that enough times that you don’t have to echo it? She’s been the Slayer since she was fifteen. And yeah, she whined about being a teenager too. She also went and did the job—slayed people she knew—missed dates, proms, and dances of all sorts. Complained loud and long, but never shirked. The way I see it? You have the easier job. You’re like one of those barometer birds…when the pressure’s on, you dip your beak, and it goes into the water. Bloody genius, those things.” He blinked, and stood straight. “Anyway, Platelet, is anyone around here normal? I mean, we have a Slayer, a Watcher, a witch who ruined herself, an ex-demon, a Key who’s now a Steward, a witch who’s now a Guardian for the Steward that was a Key, and a chipped vampire. The only one who’s even close to normal is Xander, and if that’s normal, well, I’ll stay a vampire.”

He watched the giggle forming on her face, then burble out of her mouth, changing her entire demeanor. Her eyes sparkled with the idea of abnormal being normal, and he felt his spirits lift.

“Anyway, Nibblet, she’ll be gone tonight. Her watcher got here yesterday, and she and Buffy are moving her stuff right now.”

Instead of the relief he expected, he saw Dawn's eyes filling with tears. “She’s leaving? Already?”

Spike circled the counter and wrapped his arms around his Bit. “Thought you wanted her to leave, sweetheart?”

She buried her face in his shirt, and snuggled deeper into his arms. “I thought I did. At least, until you said that, I thought so.”

“Just think, poodle—with Eden gone, we won’t have to worry about the council finding out about you or Tara. We can rest easy now, Bit.”

Dawn moved away from him, and flapped her hands ineffectively at her face. “I know. I’m just such a blubberbag since Buffy came back. Does all this seem like a dream to you?”

He leaned his hip against the stool under the edge of the island. “Sometimes. Especially with things the way they are now. I’da never believed it if someone told me it woulda worked out this way.”

Dawn turned quiet, her voice soft when she spoke again. “Do you—Spike, do you sometimes think about what could have happened? I mean, if Buffy hadn’t wanted to come back?”

He looked into Dawn's wide eyes, and instinctively knew that she wanted his real opinion, not the platitudes he would have told the others if they asked the same thing. “It would have been hell, Dawn. Pure hell, for her and for us. She would have been a broken thing, with no desire to live, and no reason for living.”

“You think?”

“Bit, I’ve known your sister a little bit longer than you have. I know she would have been like that. She would have put on the brave face for everyone, but she would have been damaged beyond repair.”

Dawn's face fell. “You’re probably right. Good thing she wanted to come back, otherwise we would be dealing with a lot of grief.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Willow dragged her feet as she exited the classroom, knowing that Tara was waiting patiently outside the room. She couldn’t stand the looks of sympathy that seemed to dominate her friends’ expressions since she got out of the hospital. Everyone treated her like she was okay, and she didn’t have the heart to tell them that she wasn’t.

She wondered exactly what she could have done wrong, to bring this punishment on. She was doing Buffy a service, she thought, and it didn’t seem fair that she was being punished for it. Buffy still looked at her in her peculiar way, and Willow knew that she wondered if she could be trusted. How could she not trust her anymore? She had given up the one thing that was most important to her in the world—her magic—just to bring her back from the beyond.

Just like Buffy to take her powers for granted. Seemed like that was the norm for her—take everyone for granted. Just because they were friends and all, you would think that she had an exclusive contract with the Slayer.

Not her…not Willow…she was going to be proactive girl from here out. She slipped off to the side, away from Tara's searching eyes, and mingled and hid in a large group that was going down the other half of the hall. She was going to find her own way, and to hell with anyone who didn’t like it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy wiped sweat from her forehead with her shirtsleeve as she finished wrangling the single-size mattress up the spiral staircase. This was not one of the days when Slayer strength came in handy, especially with prissy Watchers in tweed running the show.

She looked down to the first floor and saw Giles and Fitzpatrick, Eden’s new Watcher, with their heads over another important book of useless knowledge. Eden, already up the stairs with the boxsprings, followed her glance, and sighed loudly. “It seems when they get a book in their hands, they lose all sense of purpose, doesn’t it?”

Buffy heaved, and the mattress went flying over Eden and into the room. “At least he gave you the cool room with the window access and the spiral staircase and took the crappy little downstairs room. How is he paying for all this, anyway?”

Eden shrugged. “I don’t know…I guess the Council is paying for it.”

Buffy bristled with an indignant look and huffed breath. “Well! Those jerks could have offered to pay Giles or me either one, and never did. They just let my mom pick up the entire tab for years. Moneygrubbing bastards,” she mumbled.

Eden gave a small chuckle as she and Buffy assembled the bed. “You know, I really appreciate how you took me in and all. I never expected you to be that nice, especially after some of the things that Mr. Travers said on the flight over.”

Buffy straightened, and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. It’s hard enough for me to tolerate that asshole without knowing exactly what he says about me.”

Eden felt the tension emanating from the blond Slayer, and tried to diffuse it. “Oh, he said good things too. He told me that you are the longest-lived Slayer in the history of the Council. And that you could teach me some of your tricks to staying alive and coming back to life.”

To her surprise, Buffy laughed. “Believe me, someday you’ll want to lay down and rest too. Especially when you’ve been doing this as long as I have.” She flipped the blankets, and they settled perfectly over the mattresses. “I just have stubborn friends. They wouldn’t let me go.”

Chapter 26—My Watering Eye

Buffy threw herself down on the couch and propped her feet up on the coffee table. “Well, Eden is moved out with Fitzpatrick, now maybe things can get back to normal around here. What’s the what, Giles? Any new baddies who need ass-kicking?”

Giles looked fondly at his Slayer. “Actually, er, Eden will be taking over patrolling the Hellmouth, Buffy. You can consider yourself officially retired as of today.”

She sighed, and laid her head on the back of the couch. “Retired. That’s such a beautiful word, retired. No more patrol, no more life in danger, no more fighting bad guys—um, demons. Retired.” She breathed deeply, then raised her head to look at Giles. “So what do I do?”

Giles smiled. “Well, although they didn’t mention it to us, the Council was interested in having you come to London and train potential slayers.”

Buffy shook her head vigorously. “Oh, no, no, no, not me. I don’t want to be anywhere near the Council, especially not after Quentin decided that I was ‘expendable’. I still can’t get over his nerve….” She looked into the dining room, where Dawn sat doing her homework, her eyes going soft. “No, I think that I need to just keep things as low key and normal as possible for Dawnie, at least until summer. Not to mention, finding out more about the steward-thing, and Spike's soul, and—”

Giles' reply was forestalled by Tara's breathless arrival. She stood inside the front door, panting and trying to catch her breath as she leaned against the doorframe. “H-has anyone s-seen Willow? I missed her c-coming out of class, and I’ve b-been looking for her all day.”

Buffy stood, and went to assist the still-breathless girl to the couch. “We thought she was with you.”

As her breathing slowed, Tara leaned weakly against the arm of the couch. “I waited for her after class, but somehow missed her. I’ve looked everywhere for her. The Bronze, the café, our old apartment, everywhere I could think to look. I got scared because it’s getting dark, so I ran home as fast as I could.”

Buffy looked outside. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“And Willow's out there, with no magic to protect her! Buffy, we have to find her!” Genuine fear and concern were in the blond witch’s eyes, and Buffy's heart did a little fillip in her chest. Tara was right; Willow had no protection whatsoever now; although it never hindered her when she was younger, she’d grown used to using magic for everything. Now that it was gone, Buffy was afraid that Willow had forgotten how to deal with things the old fashioned way.

She wrapped her arms around Tara's shoulders, and gave her a squeeze. “Spike and I will go and look for her. Baby?”

He stood up, his lanky form belying the strength he possessed. “Ready when you are, pet.”

She grabbed her jacket, and they went out the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy turned to look at her beloved vampire. “Do the smelly thing.”

“Eh? What are you talking about, Slayer?” He asked, even as he raised his head and sniffed at the air, starting off in the direction of the college.

“Gross, but effective,” she commented, breaking into a trot beside him. She looked up at him, and said, “Does everyone smell different?”

He concentrated hard on Willow's signature. “That they do, Buffy. Usually Willow smells like linen and sandalwood, but since she burned herself out, she smells like…oh, electricity that’s smoldering…a burnt fuse. You know?”

“Uh-huh.” Spike changed directions, moving faster now to catch her friend’s fading scent, and she kept pace with him. They were in the residential section, not far from Revello, but still a part that seemed unfamiliar to Buffy.

Spike stopped in front of a modest single-story home. “I don’t believe it. The wanker.”

“Huh?” Buffy stopped beside him, looking up at his profile. “What is it?”

He looked down at her, and grabbed her by the elbow. “Her scent stops here. This is where Warren lives.” At her blank look, he supplied, “Warren? The Buffybot? The robot girlfriend?”

Understanding dawned in Buffy's eyes, and she started toward the house. Spike pulled her back by the arm, and gave her a glare. “Slayer, you stay here. Let me go in and suss out the situation.”

“But Spike—“ she started, and he interrupted her mid-sentence.

“Buffy, you don’t know this bloke like I do. He’ll hurt you, got a feeling in my gut. Just stay out here, unless you hear me yell, okay?”

She looked at him, unconvinced, and saw the fear in his eyes. Nodding once, she positioned herself by the door, waiting for his signal.

He entered through the basement door, just as he had so long ago for the damn bot. It only took a moment for him to realize what was happening.

Willow was tied to the floor, naked, in the center of a chalk-drawn pentacle. Her eyes were glassy, from drugs he supposed, and two other men were lighting candles around her. One held a large cow femur bone with glyphs on it, and the other had some type of large knife.

Warren sat in a comfortable chair, tipped back and relaxing, as he watched them prepare for the sacrifice about to happen. He grinned evilly, until Spike yanked him out of the chair and onto his feet.

Spike knew that he was at a disadvantage since they were human, so he yelled, “Slayer! Come on in, pet!”

Jonathan looked frightened. He held the bone in front of him like a shield, as Andrew looked for someplace to run to. Warren dangled from Spike's hand, trying to reach something behind him and failing as he looked at the angry visage of the vampire holding him off the ground.

Buffy came down the stairs, slowly and cautiously, until she saw Willow tied in the circle. She started toward her, and Jonathan jumped in front of her, shaking his bone at her. “Oh, for crying out loud, Jonathan!” she said, and grabbed the bone, snapping it in two pieces. He wailed, and magical energy filled the air, then dissipated quickly.

Stalking across the room towards Andrew, she stood for a moment, wondering how she knew him, then grabbed his knife-wielding hand and twisted it behind his back.

Andrew shrieked girlishly. “Ow! That hurts! Don’t!”

“Shut up, kid. Little boys should not play with knives.” She knelt next to Willow, and cut the ropes pinning her spread-eagle to the ground, then stuck the knife into the top of her pants. “Now, what were you planning on doing?”

Warren spoke as Jonathan and Andrew huddled together, terrified of Buffy. “You can’t stop us, Slayer. We’re onto you, and we are gonna rule this town. You will cringe at the mention of the Trio!”

“Trio? More like the Three Stooges, if you ask me,” Buffy said.

“She broke my bone, Warren! Do something!” Jonathan wailed. Andrew whimpered, still upset over the loss of his knife.

“Right, like I can do a lot from here. I can’t even get to my controller right now,” Warren sneered.

“What, this little thing?” Spike picked the gun-shaped item up off the desk with his free hand, and pointed it at the two sidekicks across the room, ignoring the sparkling pain that shot through his head. “If I pull the trigger, what does it do to them, wanker? Blow them away?”

“I’ll never tell you!” Warren shouted defiantly.

Spike turned the gun on him. “All right, then, I’ll point it at you. What does it do?”

To his surprise, his captive’s face crumbled, and he started to babble. “Don’t, please. Don’t point it at me, it might go off.”

Spike placed the barrel against Warren’s head, pressing it firmly against the temple. “What. Does. It. Do?” he questioned slowly.

“It subjugates the will! Makes a person do whatever I want them to; all I have to do is issue a command. Please, don’t point it at me!” He was blabbering, he knew it, but the gun was pressed to his temple, not the others’, and he knew that Spike was evil and wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

“What did you use it for last? Like I can’t tell, but I want to hear it from you,” Buffy said, folding her arms across her chest.

“On her! We used it on her! To get her to come back here, and….” Warren's voice trailed off, as he realized the trap he’d fallen into.

The Slayer's eyes narrowed, and she stepped forward. “What did you do, you little creep?”

Jonathan spoke up from his cowering position in the corner. “He had sex with her, then decided we should sacrifice her for more power! It was his idea, his and Andrew’s!”

Buffy looked over her shoulder at her friend where she still laid on the chalk circle, still as death except for the slow, measured rise and fall of her bare chest. “How long will she be like this?”

Warren babbled again. “It wears off in about another hour. Please, don’t hurt me!”

She held out her hand, and Spike laid the gun in her palm, glad to stop the firing of the chip. “Jonathan, Andrew, move over here. Stand next to your friend.”

“He’s not my friend! Buffy, I promise, he’s not my friend!” Jonathan wet himself, fearing for his life. Buffy scrunched up her face at him and continued to motion for them to stand next to Warren.

“You’re here, and you were standing over Willow with some kind of bone, therefore I believe that he is your friend. Get over here.” She turned back to Warren as she examined the gun. “So, I take it this button here does something?”

Hatred filled his eyes, and for a split second, she was afraid. Shaking it off, she said to Spike, “You know what? I think I’ll just push it, and see what happens to them….”

Warren backpedaled quickly. “No, no—no need for that, Slayer. It—uh, that—that makes it permanent. The will is completely subjugated, and—uh….” He looked to Andrew and Jonathan, who were approaching him slowly. He tried to signal him with his eyes, then said, “Will you two make a grab for her? For god’s sake, do I have to tell you everything?” He watched, disappointed, as his minions fell over each other’s feet to land at the feet of the Slayer, his controller still in her petite yet deadly hands.

Desperate, Warren tried again. “Uh, Slayer, if you use that on us, isn’t that betraying your sacred oath or something? To protect humanity? Isn’t that what it says in the Slayer's Handbook?”

She looked down at the gun, then at him. “Huh. Never read the handbook. What did Giles say? Oh—‘it would be a complete waste of time, Buffy. I’d wager you wouldn’t adhere to a single rule or suggestion in it’.” She did a fair impression of the Watcher down to the expression, and Spike couldn’t help himself—he chuckled.

Warren turned his eyes to Spike then. “What about you? She’s a vampire slayer. Why are you helping her, anyway? She kills your kind.”

Spike set him down and stepped back. “If you think you can take her with human strength, go for it—I could use a spot of bloodshed, even if I’m not the one doing it.”

Warren cowered with his friends, now off the floor. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, Slayer.”

She pushed the red button, and aimed the controller. “Actually, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. I could have forgiven you kidnapping Willow. She put herself in danger—at least it was you three idiots, and not someone really dangerous. No, you raped her too. That’s unforgivable.” Her hand didn’t even quiver as she pulled the trigger.

She was surprised. There was no report, no sound. Their eyes grew glassy as their will was suppressed, and they stood still, waiting for orders, it seemed.

Willow moaned, and sat up, rubbing her head. “What happened?”

Buffy rushed to her side, kneeling on the cold cement. She threw Spike's hastily shed duster over her friend’s shoulders, and helped her stand up, wrapping the leather around her to cover her. “How do you feel?”

“Ugh. Sore, and…dirty.” She saw Warren standing behind Buffy, and started to go around her. “That dirty bastard! He used me…like…Buffy, he….” She collapsed in the Slayer's arms, tears streaming down her face. “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t stop it. He…told me not to move…and I couldn’t…and his friends…they watched…oh, Buffy….”

Buffy looked over her shoulder to Spike. “Make ‘em move.”

Spike looked surprised and confused. “Why? Where are we taking them?”

Buffy's smile was evil. “What good is the steward if she has nothing to do?”

Understanding dawned in Spike's eyes, and he frowned. “Buffy, are you sure it’s such a good idea?”

She and Willow turned to face him. Willow's eyes were red-rimmed, and filled with hate when she looked at the three zombies standing there. “Take them to Dawn. Let her do whatever she can do. But bring that thing too, just in case,” she said, jerking her chin at the gun-controller in Buffy's hand. “Just in case.”

Buffy shoved the controller in her jacket pocket, and shrugged. “So how do we get them to move?” she asked aloud, staring at the immobile beings.

“I’m guessing we just tell them to.” Spike looked at the glazed eyes of the three berks next to him, and said, “All right, boys, move it up the stairs and out the door.”

To his shock, they turned, and marched out of the basement. Spike, Buffy, and Willow followed them. When they reached the sidewalk in front of the house, they stopped, waiting for more orders. “Go to the Slayer's house,” Spike said, and he was surprised again when they turned the right way and made a beeline for Revello Drive.

Buffy looked at her friend and lover. “Okay—is nobody else nervous as to why they know where I live?”

“I’d wager they’ve been watching you, Slayer.” He looked askance at the backs of the powerless trio, walking quickly ahead of them. “Look—they’re going to the back door.”

“Okay, creep me…new locks tomorrow—dead bolts. Look, they’re going right in.” Buffy watched in horror as the trio of idiots walked right into her home.

Fortunately, they stopped in the kitchen. With blank faces, they waited expectantly for further orders. Buffy ushered Willow by the frozen statues, and urged her to go shower. “We won’t do anything until you are back…other than tie them up.”

Willow's face took on an evil cast. “Yeah, do that. I want them to be awake when it happens.”

Buffy watched Willow's back as she climbed the stairs, still wearing Spike's duster. She turned to look at him, trepidation in her eyes. “Spike, she still isn’t herself, is she?”

He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her back to rest against him. Disguising their conversation as a chance to neck, he rested his head on her shoulder and whispered into her ear, “I don’t think that Willow was right to begin with, pet. She was too addicted to the magic…and not nearly worried enough about consequences. No, she isn’t herself, and won’t ever be again.

Buffy looked toward the kitchen, then motioned for Spike to follow her. Together, they tied up the inept misfits that called themselves the evil Trio, and waited for Willow to come back downstairs.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Willow returned quickly, coinciding with the return of the boys’ awareness.

Jonathan immediately started whimpering about his innocence and his bone. Andrew shivered in his seat, totally silent. Warren alternated between smirks and glares. Willow folded her arms across her chest, and waited patiently.

Buffy went upstairs, and knocked on the door to Dawn's room. She knew Tara was in there as well—the girls had been nigh on inseparable since D’Hoffryn’s pronouncements a week ago. She didn’t want to impart the news, but she felt it fair that they know what they were getting into beforehand.

“Um—we have a case for the steward to judge,” she started, and Dawn looked up at her with wide eyes.

Buffy couldn’t look at either one, so she stared at her feet. “Spike an I found Willow…she was, uh…tied up…and, um…been coerced into having sex…with Warren.”

Dawn let out a piercing wordless yell. “Warren? The robot boy?”

“Um, yeah. She wants to have the steward judge them.”

Tara's soft voice was commanding in tone, yet held her concern. “Is she all right?”

Buffy's head snapped up, and she met the blue eyes of the guardian head-on. “Tara, she’s seriously freaky right now. I don’t want to be in their shoes, I can tell you that. If she had her magic, I’ll bet she would have torn their skin right off their bodies.”

Tara shook her hair over her shoulder. “We’ll be down in a moment.”

Buffy sensed she was dismissed, and she waited outside the closed bedroom door as soft, soundless chanting filled the air. It seemed that Tara was teaching Dawn centering exercises, and helping her control the enormous power buried inside her. I suppose this could be of the good, Buffy thought as she descended the stairs. After the first couple of appearances the steward had made, her sister seriously wigged her.

Dawn seemed older now, more mature and less like the 16-year-old she should be. Her eyes were still their familiar blue, but there was something old behind them, and it unnerved Buffy to look into them for very long. Why was she wigged by her flesh and blood, literally? Probably because she could take me out if she wanted to, Buffy thought, as she joined her friend and lover in the kitchen.

Warren had advanced to the talky stage, and was mouthing the crudest remarks he could think of. They were a deliberate goad, pricking the egos of both the people in the room opposite the three of them, and Buffy grabbed a large roll of duct tape out of a drawer and slapped a large piece over Warren's mouth. “I should have known you would brag, you dipshit. Even when you made that sick replica of me, you just couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”

Spike stared at her. “He bragged? About the bot?” he turned to Warren. “You bragged about the Buffybot?”

“Baby, it was all over town. He couldn’t stop talking about the fake Slayer he created for his minion the vampire.” Spike's face darkened, and he started to take a step, then looked at the Slayer's face. Reading her body language, he relaxed, then leaned against the cabinets lining the farthest wall.

“Yeah, pet, he said that he had the most fun breaking in your robotic twat.” With a smirk, Spike watched Warren blanch and Buffy redden, and Warren knew that they were gearing each other up to kill him.

He couldn’t talk; he could only widen his eyes further and further as he listened to their banter, and the redhead’s silence. He could feel the weight of every gaze, every look from each person in the room, even those of his friends.

He looked at them, and tried silently to remind them of their own guilt in this, which they readily ignored. He had told them what to do, not the other way around, and they would gladly let him take the fall.

There was a sound behind them as Xander and Anya stumbled into the room. They looked sleepy and disheveled, like they had just crawled out of bed, and looked around the room dazedly. “We—we were summoned,” Anya finally finished, then leaned against Xander. “Good thing we put clothes on. What is going on here?”

“Um…Willow wanted the steward’s services. I think that you’re probably, um, like witnesses,” Buffy started, then silenced by Giles' equally unnerved expression as he joined the throng in the rapidly crowding kitchen.

“Oh, dear. Perhaps we should move this to a larger venue?” Giles suggested as he cleaned his glasses.

“Good idea, Giles. Spike, grab Warren's chair. Xander, you get Jonathan, he’s the smallest. I’ll take Andrew.” She picked the man up, chair and all, and hauled him into the more spacious living room.

Spike and Xander were both behind her, Xander struggling slightly. She helped him set Jonathan down, then backed up to sit on the arm of the couch. Spike settled on the seat, and they both stared menacingly at the tied-up offenders.

A low hum filled the air, and all eyes were drawn to the staircase. Tara entered the room first, glowing softly in her role. Her eyes were blue mists in a blank face, and she took up her position closes to those the steward would judge.

Dawn glided down the stairs, the gangly teenager gone. Her eyes were closed and covered with a thin scarf. Its free ends drifted slightly on the eerie, gut stirring sensations of the strong magics swirling through the air, and she moved without look or pause through the room to stand before the men, hands graceful at her sides like resting birds.

Giles, Anya, and Xander sat with simultaneous thuds, stunned at the sight before them. Spike and Buffy exchanged a look, and then without reason, rose from their seats to stand to the side, in front of the fireplace.

Dawn extended her hand in front of her, and it hovered over Warren's heart. Green tendrils escaped his chest, and curled lazily around her fingertips, and she sighed low, from deep in her chest. It was a heavy, laden sound, and they felt the depth of sorrow inside each of them upon hearing it. It rattled their bones with the volume of certainty, though it was deceptively quiet.

“You have sinned against your fellow man, and are planning evil and sedition at this very moment. You would destroy each person in this room without mercy, given the chance. Your soul weighs heavy, and is foul with hate and contempt, especially of all that is female. You fear women, so you hate them. You see their power, and rail at your powerlessness, and so are threatened, for they hold the key to what you can never truly own—themselves. They sense your repugnance for those of their kind, and turn you away, so you seek to control and destroy them, singly or multiples, in every aspect of their being. You have harmed many such as Willow, and some have been forced by death to keep silent. Their souls weigh on you as well, Warren Meers, and for them you will be judged as well.”

Her hand stretched to Jonathan next. “You are too afraid of living to live, and too fearful of being noticed to be seen. You created a living monster that took life, and repented not what you had done, but resented your world was destroyed by the Slayer. You would have used magic for evil tonight with the spell that still weighs on your mind—mating and slaying a human and demon to call the denizens of the inner hells to do your bidding. You used magic for ill, and it is just; you, too, will be judged, Jonathan Levinson.”

Andrew shook as her hand approached his chest, and he jerked around in the chair until it started to topple over. Tara raised her hand, and the chair sat four-legged on the floor, with no movement whatsoever from Andrew able to get him away from Dawn's approach.

As the mist entered his chest, his body bowed within its confines, his eyes widened in a silent scream. Dawn flinched, and he flinched as well, as the essence of his heart was drawn into her open palm. “You are most troubled, Andrew Wells, and the difficulty is within you, not of without. Banning external influence, you are more damaging to yourself than you are to others. You have, however, been influenced to raise mischief and mayhem within the lives of the Slayer and her kith and kin, and called demons to battle for your friends. You assist in the deepest evil to earn approval, and willingly use your talents for the malfeasance they plan. For this, Andrew, you will be judged.”

She turned to Spike and Buffy where they stood at her side, their backs against the fireplace. “Do you know of your roles in this?”

“Not a clue, Nibblet,” Spike drawled.

She removed her symbolic blindfold, and opened her eyes.

They were still blue, but the swirled with ancient knowledge of man and his foibles and sins. They were aged inside her youthful face, and in their depths lay the essence of the Key as well. Thousands of years of wisdom lay behind those eyes and thousands of years of sadness as well. They were changeable as the rivers, memories flowing through them like flotsam and jetsam, churned by the passage of time and the ages.

It was, for them both, like looking at both a loved one and a stranger.

Dawn stroked her hand along Spike's cheek, and awareness filled his deep blue eyes. “You are Annit. You are my right hand, giver of justice, eater of black hearts that pass not through to Aaru. You are the bringer of eternal death and torment to the souls of those unworthy. You are Divine Retribution, made flesh. You are brother, lover, father, friend.”

She turned to Buffy, and the Slayer gaped silently at her face. Dawn smiled gently, and said, “You are Bes. You are the defender of good against evil, and the guardian of the righteous. You are fecundity embodied, sensuality worshiped, all that is good and pleasurable. You are the personification of Divine Benevolence. You are sister, lover, mother, and friend. You are guardian of mankind.”

She extended her hands to both, and led them to stand before the men she was judging. “It is you who carry out the sentence, perform the deed, for I cannot. It would sully truth and justice with the weight of souls, and I dare not overstep my bonds.”

She stepped back, and turned to Tara. “For Annit to carry out my hand, he must be whole. Would you please?”

Tara stepped forward. She touched her forehead to Spike's, and held her hand to the back of his head. Blue eyes clashed as they stood that close, and Spike could smell the magic burning the air, brimstone to his sensitive nostrils. She stood, and brought her cupped hand to rest between them, palm up, as she stepped back.

Spike looked down, and saw the chip lying in the palm of her hand. “Oh, Glinda, what have you done?” he whispered, and Buffy leaned forward to look and see what they were talking about.

Her eyes widened, and she tossed a glance over her shoulder to look at Giles. He was mesmerized by the scene before him, and couldn't see around Spike, so had no idea the import of what Tara had done.

Tara moved back, the chip still in the palm of her hand, and Dawn moved to stand in front of Warren. “I judge you guilty, and you will die the death of the million deaths. May you remember exactly, each and every death you experience, what brought your downfall upon you—hate.”

She moved her hand in front of Warren's chest, and the ghostly outline of a beating heart rested in her upturned palm. “Eat of his soul, then eat of his body, but do not drain him—it is not by you he will die.” She handed the misty form to Spike, who raised it to his lips, pouring it into his mouth. He then leaned forward and slipped into game face to sink long-unused fangs into the side of Warren's neck, drawing three mouthfuls, then pulling back.

Dawn turned to Buffy, and drew another portion of the boy’s aura into her hand. “You must show benevolence. Mercy. Consume and return what is good and right with the soul, so he may one day aspire to return, to attempt entry to Aaru.”

Buffy tipped her head back, and sucked the mist into her mouth with relish. She examined what little good was in this boy’s soul, and exhaled in his face, returning it to him. Awareness filled his eyes, and his cheeks flushed with shame at the memories of his actions.

Dawn turned to Andrew, and they repeated the process. Spike ate his heart’s essence; Buffy drank down his soul. Spike drank from his neck, and Buffy returned the good of him, and exhaled his demon knowledge into the air above her head.

They stood before Jonathan now, and Dawn intoned, “Of all, this one can be of the most danger. He must be stripped of magical knowledge completely, else we will see him rise in power again, without guidance, to perpetrate evil.”

Spike bent his head, and drank from him as Buffy discarded the magic, separating it skillfully inside her. As she bent to exhale into Jonathan’s face, she heard a grunt of realization, then a screech as Willow launched herself at Dawn.

“You did it! You stripped me of my powers, you little bitch!” She leaped onto Dawn, and was clawing at her eyes when she was removed by a wave of Tara's hand and held motionless in the air.

Dawn turned to Willow, her eyes stormy blue. Her voice boomed in the room, rattling their bodies and vibrating long after in their bones. “You tamper with things that you shouldn’t. I do not have that power, however. You have been judged. Do not tempt fate,” she added cryptically, her voice dropping down to her natural tone.

Willow struggled, and said, “It had to be you! You’re the only one who could have done it.”

“She didn’t do it, Willow. I did.” Willow stared, mouth agape, at her ex-lover. Tara met her eyes unflinchingly, without breaking her gaze. “You were dealing in dangerous magics, and you had shut us all out of what you were doing. You played us to go along with your schemes to bring Buffy back. You even bespelled us with Lethe’s bramble to keep us from remembering. You used blood magic, and slaughtered to obtain it. You went about it all the wrong way, Willow, and you should stop pushing now, before the judgement the Powers bestowed becomes harsher than what it is.”

Willow laughed weakly. “Like they can take anything else away from me? They took the one thing that made me useful and special to the gang. They took my reason to be here. The only thing left is my life, and the way it is now? They can have it.”

She sagged limply in the stasis field holding her still, and tears ran down her face. “I feel violated, not by these idiots, but by the people who loved me. Let me go.”

Tara let her feet drift slowly to the floor. Willow turned to the door, then turned back to Dawn. “Dawn, thanks for the judgements. I hope they suffer. I hope that you all suffer, too. You deserve it.”

Tara pressed a finger to each of the tied men’s foreheads, and they untied them. They moved slowly, as if sleepwalking, and exited the house through the front door. “I sent them home to sleep it off. They won’t remember anything about any of this,” she said, answering their silent question, her voice dull with exhaustion.

“Speaking of, what the hell just happened here? Buffy and Spike drinking misty air, Spike biting, Tara making magic, Willow leaving.” Xander stood, and ran his hands through his perpetually mussed-up hair. “What did you do to Spike, Tara?”

She held out her hand, and it lay in her palm, artfully crafted to look benign. A twisting gold wire edged the rim, and plastic surrounded the miniature controls. Giles peered at it over his glasses, and looked sharply at Buffy, then Spike. “Is that what I believe it to be?”

Spike shrugged. “Yeah. It’s my chip.”

Chapter 27—A Dream Unthreatened

A dream unthreatened by the morning light—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

They needed answers to too many questions, but they were all ready to drop from exhaustion. Dawn had already fell asleep at the table sitting straight up in the chair, her mouth slightly open and head lolling crazily on her neck. Buffy looked at her with tired eyes, and said, “Guys, I think we’ve all had enough excitement for the night. Let’s go to bed, and start fresh in the morning.”

“I concur. The words are starting to merge together, even for me.” Giles removed his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t believe we are going to find any answers tonight.”

Tara stretched her arms above her head with cat-like grace. Buffy noticed the move, and saw that Spike was staring at Tara like a cat looking at a bird out of the window. Her slap on his arm nearly knocked him off the chair. He looked at her, abashed, and planted a kiss on her cheek, whispering, “Talk—later.”

She nodded, and said aloud, “Spike, baby, could you carry Dawnie upstairs for me?”

He moved to Dawn's side, ready to pick her up, and Tara moved a little faster, blocking his way. He looked up at her, a frown marring his features. “Glinda, there’s no need to be all protective. I’m one of the good guys.”

Tara looked almost ashamed. “I’m sorry, Spike. Reflex reaction. They’re getting harder to ignore.”

He lifted his Bit into his strong arms, and looked over her sleeping form to the lesbian/witch/guardian. “I understand, sweets. Don’t think a thing of it. I’m glad that Dawn has someone watching her back.”

“Me too.” Buffy slipped up to stand next to Spike, stroking her sister’s head. “I know that she’ll be safe with you around.”

Tara ducked her head, blushing as she followed them up the stairs to Dawn's room. The three young adults looked down at her slumbering form where it barely dented the mattress, and Buffy and Spike sighed in unison. “It all changed so quickly, didn’t it? Dawn, Tara, you, me. Willow. Xander and Anya. Eden and Travers. I haven’t even been back a month, and it’s already so different around here.” Buffy laid her head on Spike's shoulder, and looked at her sister. “Dawn, and the whole steward thing…kinda knocked my socks off.”

Spike rubbed his thumb over her hand where she had threaded it through his. “I saw it coming, pet, just didn’t know what it was. Didn’t expect this, though—did you, Glinda?”

“No—not this…but I knew that something was different.” She bent at the waist to brush a lock of hair out of Dawn's eyes. “We’ve been working on some control issues, and ways to harness the power. You can really tell, can’t you? She’s made such great strides in the last two days.”

“Two days? That’s all the time you’ve been working with her, just two days?” Buffy turned incredulous eyes on her friend.

“Yeah. She’s a quick learner. It all comes naturally to her, being the key and all.” Tara backed away from the bed, and turned to the couple. “Well, I’m off to bed. Good night.”

“Wait a minute.” Tara paused at the tone of Spike's voice, before he continued. “Glinda, why the chip? Why now, after all this time?”

She turned her enigmatic blue eyes on him, and he watched the milky blue shutter her irises, giving her that otherworldly look again. Her voice was that eerily calm tone again when she spoke. “The Steward needed her hand to do what she cannot. Both hands. You couldn’t with the chip, so it was necessary to remove it.”

“You know more than you’re telling us, don’t you, Tara?” Buffy stepped forward, searching her face, and Tara smiled gently.

“We can explore the whys tomorrow, Slayer. The body tires and requires rest before we can continue our discourse. Good night,” she said with a parting bow.

Buffy stared at the open door Tara left through. “This is getting stranger and stranger, Spike.”

“Kinda poetic, pet. Don’t you think?”

She led him to their room, and whispered the magic word, making their voices impervious to the rest of the house. Turning and leaning her back against the door, she crossed her arms and stared at the vampire next to the bed undressing, oblivious to her stance. He finally looked up expectantly and found her fully clothed. It was only then that he realized that she was waiting for his explanation.

“Pet, I wasn’t staring at Tara like that. You know that, right?” He looked up at her, his eyes sultry beneath his raised brows. “Did you notice—Tara and the Bit both seem….” His voice trailed off, and she picked up the thread.

“Yeah. Dawn's graceful. Like she all of a sudden knew…everything. What happened…what was going to happen…what did happen…when it was happening. Did that make sense?” She walked over, and sat next to him on the bed.

He put his arm around her, and kissed her forehead. “In Buffyspeak, it made perfect sense, pet. I think the better word would be—omniscient.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the events of the day crashing down on her suddenly. “And we’re her—what, helpers?”

“Guess so, pet. Got the power. Felt it. Hell, still do. Hand of retribution. Bloody hell, Slayer.”

She could hear the awe in his voice. “Me too, baby. It’s like a humming, in my bones.” She looked up at him, and said, “The chip?”

Giles had handed it to him after close inspection, without saying a word. Xander started to speak, and stopped cold, shooting Anya a silencing look as well. Buffy saw an intimate glance pass between her sister and her friend, and glancing at Spike, she saw he had seen it too. They ignored it during the subsequent research, concentrating instead on the ceremony they had just witnessed.

He ran his fingers over his leg, and found it there in his pocket, pressed between the fabric of his pants instead of between the lobes of his brain. He searched himself, seeking violence, and finding none. Although awake, the demon was content. It curled in the corner of his mind, satiated on evil and blood, watching and waiting, for what he didn’t know.

“End of an era, pet. Don’t think I need it anymore.” He looked down in his hand at his electrical leash, his internal prison that had ruled his unlife for what seemed an eternity. “My unlife is exactly how I want it. I’m sharing it with a woman that I love. People I love and want to protect. Not just talking about Dawnie. Talking about Glinda and Demon Girl, and Rupert. Xander. Red.”

He took her hand and dropped the chip into her upturned palm, and closing her fingers around it. “You hold my heart, Buffy. I don’t need the chip to stop me from doing anything. I don’t want to do it anymore. That’s not my unlife.”

She threw her arms around his neck, the piece of plastic secure in her hand. “I love you, Spike. And you’re right. You don’t need this now. You have yourself.”

He sagged with relief against her, only then realizing how tense he’d been. “I didn’t want to, you know. Bite them.”

She frowned. “You didn’t? Even after what they did to Willow?”

He leaned back to look at her. “You expected me to drain them, didn’t you?” He stood and raked his fingers through his hair, his curls in wild disarray. Stalking around their room, he paced as he thought out loud. “Bloody hell, Slayer, their blood was bitter…I had to force myself to swallow it. The murky ball was worse. Like inhaling acid, even though I don’t use my lungs. It may have been human, but they were rotten inside, in their hearts, and I could taste it for a long time after.” He stopped in front of her, his hands on his hips. “Didn’t you see me slip off after the research started? Had to brush my bloody teeth.”

She giggled and reached for him. She drew him down on the bed, and patted his back. “Spike. I tasted it too. God, the hate in their souls…for everyone that they believed slighted them in the least…it tasted sour to me. Like…spoiled milk. Kind of.”

“Yeah. Bad blood. Couldn’t get the aftertaste out of my mouth. Was making me sick.”

“I know the feeling.” She stood, and began disrobing. “God, I feel drained.”

He stretched and watched her lithe body revealed. She had quickly adapted to sleeping naked with him, her warmth pressed into his coolness, and they both slept better for it. “Let’s sleep, pet. Don’t think that I could do anything tonight anyway, what with their poison inside me.”

She looked at him with shocked eyes. “How long will that last?”

He shrugged as he skimmed out of his jeans. “It should be out of my system by the morning. At the latest. Why?”

She slid into bed, then held the blankets up for him, allowing him to slide in behind her. “I just don’t want it to hurt you, that’s all.”

He snuggled up to her, pressing his face to the smooth skin of her back. “S’ok, love. I’ve dealt with worse. Hell, I’ve been worse.”

She sighed and allowed herself to relax and drift off, comforted by his presence and his love.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Giles was already gone by the time they rose the next afternoon. Tara was in the kitchen, cooking what looked to be an early dinner, and Dawn was still at school.

Buffy sat down on the stool at the island, grateful for the mug of coffee that Tara handed her. “Where’s Giles?” she asked between sips.

“Off doing some business,” was Tara's cryptic reply.

“Oh.” Buffy stared into the mug for a moment, unsure of how to broach the next subject. “Tara—you—you and Dawn seem to, uh, know stuff. Care to enlighten me?”

“And me.” Spike stood in the doorway, having slipped in on light feet, dressed in his jeans. He gave Buffy a cryptic look as well, and sipped at the blood Tara handed him direct from the microwave.

Tara wouldn’t meet their eyes, and as she reached to grab Buffy's cup for a refill, a strong hand gripped her wrist. “Tara. Spill it. What’s going on?”

Sighing deeply, Tara settled down, her bird-like hands fluttering to her sides. “You know that Dawn and I have been working together. We were…trying to strengthen her control, trying to tap into her energies to focus them. Exploring her power.”

She looked at the blond pair watching her, and shrugged. “I really don’t know what we did…how we accessed—well, there was just this…knowing. What we do, what your roles in it were, how everything fit. How we fit. It was a real eye-opener.”

Buffy looked at Spike, her face shuttered, and Spike turned back to Tara. “And?” he prompted, watching the blond witch’s cheeks flush.

“And…what? You were there last night. You saw what we did. The four of us. Passing judgement, weighing their hearts and souls. That’s our mission. It’s what we do.”

Buffy leaned forward, tapping her finger on the rim of her cup. “And how did we change them? What exactly did we do?”

Tara frowned. “If it is the way our memories tell us, then we judged their intentions by the weight of their hearts. We judged their balance, good and bad, with their souls. Dawn can’t do anything about their imbalances. That’s where you come in.”

“With the mist-sucking and the blood,” Spike said, frowning down into his cup.

“For you, yes. You eat their ‘hearts’—the evil machinations and such—and remove the desire to do evil. For Buffy, she separated the bad character flaws and designs, and gave them back their good qualities.” Tara frowned again, then added, “We should follow their cases. See what our work wrought. If it worked the way that Dawn and I believe that it did, then, well, they should be productive members of society.”

Buffy looked askance, then had another thought, voicing it before she could second-guess herself. “You and Dawn—you’re more than just guardian and steward, aren’t you?”

Tara blushed, her face beet red. “There are…feelings there…they aren’t sexual or anything, but…Buffy, I would never do that kind of thing, not with Dawnie!” she implied emphatically.

Buffy patted Tara on the arm, flashing her a small smile. “I know. Neither one of you are very good at hiding your feelings, though.”

Tara's eyes transmitted her extreme sense of guilt. “When we were…when I was teaching her some techniques on control, she, um, was flirting with me. I…uh…don’t want to influence her into doing something…contrary to her nature….”

“If she was flirting with you, Tara, then I don’t think that it’s contrary to her nature,” Buffy said coolly. “I would ask that you wait until she’s a little older before you take it any further, please.” She shook her head. “I have to keep reminding myself that she’s not a little girl, but a umpteen-thousand year old Key and a body-jumping steward with heaven knows how much experience.”

“Kind of boggles the mind, doesn’t it, Slayer?” Spike grinned, then reached into his coat pocket where it hung by the back door. “I’m going to the basement to smoke. All right, Buffy?”

“Sure.” He shot her a surprised look, expecting her to rail at him for smoking in the house, and she looked back at him fondly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.. “I can’t expect you to go outside in broad daylight, now can I? Plus, I know already that you’ve been smoking in the basement for some time now. Go, smoke. Tara and I will be right here.”

She waited until the door closed behind him, then turned back to Tara. She took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, Tara—about the chip….”

Tara arched her eyebrow. “The chip needed to come out for some time. That isn’t what worries you, though. That isn’t what you were going to ask me about.” Her eyes shimmered with hidden knowledge beneath their surface.

Buffy pouted. “So if you know so darn much, why don’t you just tell me?” She looked expectantly at Tara, then finally gave up. “Okay, so you aren’t reading my mind. How is this gonna change us…me and Spike? Is being the hand of Retribution going to make him bloodthirsty again, or being the hand of Mercy make me soft? And what else did it do to change us?”

Tara's voice surrounded her, soothing and calm against her exposed nerves. Like a hand reaching inside her, it caressed her fears and quieted them; like a balm, they smoothed over the hackles that had rose on the back of her neck. “Becoming the Hands of the Steward is no mean feat, but you will adapt in your tenure. It has not changed your essence, only your spiritual selves. In short, you have only magnified what you have always been. As the Slayer, you bring mercy to those you slay, the vampires whose souls you release and the denizens of the demon world that you return to their rightful places in the continuum. As the hand of Mercy, you also bring peace of a different kind, peace of soul to those whose souls would otherwise be too heavy to bear the burden of their wrongdoings.”

She turned to look at Spike, unnoticed by the basement door. He watched with interested eyes, until he was touched by the voice of the Guardian as well, then he was drawn to stand at Buffy's side as her magical voice regenerated his belief in himself, as well as Buffy's faith in him. “You too have changed, vampire, but only for the good of all. As the physical incarnation of Ammit, you ingest their evil in the broadest of senses, eating away their darker emotions and painful feelings until all that is left is the purity of intent they were born with. They experience a spiritual rebirth into a new life, one that you provide them with. You will not crave blood, for you must take in the blood of the sinner to seal the pact they make with the Powers That Be. Your demon is satisfied, and you are using him for the purpose he was created for—the purification of the human race.”

Buffy struggled to remain upset, but found herself smiling instead. “You mention Ammit. Didn’t D’Hoffryn say that he was the father of all vampires?”

Tara frowned slightly before her face smoothed out again. “There is jealousy among the gods as well, Buffy, let us not forget. Set informed Ammit that there were unjudged slipping through the cracks, so to speak, and tricked him into creating helpers to eat the hearts of the judged. Ammit, however, did not grant them access to their humanity, and when they rose from the dead, they killed indiscriminately of those waiting to pass. Osiris, the king and ruler of the dead, and his brother Horus, ruler of the day and the sun, punished Ammit by making his creatures enemies of the eye of hours, the sun. It was Ammit who created the moon by digging out one of Horus’ eyes, allowing his children passage in the night.”

“What about this Bes bird?” Spike said, interrupting her. "Who is she, and what has she to do with Buffy?” Spike leaned his chin on his fist, and listened to the creamy tones as they washed over him. His eyes closed of their own accord as Tara continued.

“Bes was the protector of the home and household, and her mark protected evil from befalling the dwellers. She thus continued in her protector state, only expanding her safeguarded to include those who would be victims of the children of Ammit. It was from her spiritual essence that the first Slayer was created.”

“And now it all comes full circle. Ammit and his wife, Bes; the Guardian and the Steward. I think I finally have made some sense from all of this.”

They all turned, the spell of Tara's voice broken, to see Giles standing in the center of the doorway, a thin volume in his hand. “I have yet one question left to be answered, which is moot at this point. Are you the incarnations of the deities, or the deities themselves?”

Tara looked at him with knowing, amused eyes. “If you know the answer, then why ask the question? Dawn and I are the deities themselves, housed in human forms. Buffy and Spike are merely their incarnations on this plane.”

“As I thought.” Giles closed the book he held, and turned to address Buffy and Spike. “If I may speak with the two of you at your earliest convenience?” Without waiting for their reply, he turned and left the room.

Buffy glanced at Spike, then Tara, and went in to find Giles seated on the couch, an envelope lying on the table in front of him. She perched on the edge of the couch, her whole body tensed as she looked at her mentor and father figure for so many years.

“What’s up, Giles? You look all serious-like.”

“I have acquired the papers that you requested, Buffy, with the name specified. I find myself concerned, however, about the course of action you are pondering. Although retired, you will always remain on the Council’s radar. In their mind, you will always be their Slayer.”

“Yeah? I’m not afraid of them, Giles. I’ve not been afraid of them for a long time.” Spike sat on the arm of the couch and faced the Watcher as well. He noticed their strength together; they seemed to lean toward each other, filling each other with their presence. He shook his head at the fanciful thought, and glared at the vampire in question.

“You have funds, I expect? To care for her and her sister, until such time as her sister decides to maintain a house of her own?” he asked formally. Buffy frowned at him, then turned to look at Spike, who had grown uncharacteristically solemn. The look on his face was completely foreign, as was the tone of his voice when he answered.

“I would care for her as I would anything dear and precious; with all of my being and all my funds and the forfeiture of my life should I fail. For such is the way of my family, and those who have come before me, as it will be for those who come after. Our hearts, once given, will not be denied their bounty. Our love, once imparted, will never be withdrawn. Such is the pledge.” Spike's hand had drifted up to cover his heart, and the accent, so much like Giles', unnerved her.

She placed her hand over his where it rested on his chest, and whispered, “What was that?”

When Spike remained silent, Giles spoke softly. “It was an ancestral family pledge of marriage, Buffy. The Giles' family pledge, to be exact.”

He was polishing his glasses in an agitated manner when Buffy turned back to face him. “It seems that Spike is, er, related to me. An uncle of some such.”

Chapter 28—Roof Of The Night

Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

Hours later, she was still giggling. It would hit her suddenly and the laughter would start. She would end up rolling on the floor, holding her stomach that was sorer than if she’d fought a dozen vamps. Helpless tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but the situation was too priceless.

On opposite ends of the couch, watching her mirth at their expense, were a perturbed Watcher and a pissed-off vampire. They had given up telling her to stop long ago. It was futile to hope that she would find less humor in the situation as the hours passed, her bouts of humor starting soon after the last.

Spike was Giles' uncle, many times removed, a situation that made Giles extremely uncomfortable, and Spike extremely smug. At least, at first. Now, he wasn’t so certain.

As soon as the sun had set, he grabbed his duster and left the house. He headed to his crypt; he hadn’t been there in ages, and he hoped that Clem had continued his occasional stays to keep out squatters.

He kicked open the door, relieved to see things as he left them, with the exception of the half-eaten bag of Cheetos evidence that Clem had been around lately. He moved quickly to the trapdoor leading to the cavern below, and dropped down onto the raised platform base. Eschewing light, he vamped out to look for a particular feature in the cavern.

He moved quickly to the far wall, and reached his hand up and over into a small niche in the wall. His hand closed around the desired object and he brought it out into the dark before him. He opened it and the scents of a lifetime filled his nostrils, swirling maniacally in his brain, calling forth memories he’d thought long forgotten.

In the bottom of the box, a ring, dragged off his sister’s finger by a dishonest undertaker. Of a singular design he’d created himself, he had twisted it off the ugly man’s wife with low-toned accusations and threats, barely hearing the man’s stammered excuse of finding it after the funeral.

A single, perfect amethyst rose in the center, held in place by two full bloom roses, one of silver and one of gold. Entwined stems formed the band; leaves curled up on either side of the stone to embrace the points of the marquise cut.

He looked at the ring, and thought of the hand he’d created it for. He hadn’t thought of her in over a hundred years.

He closed his golden eyes, and could see her slender hands, creating finer embroideries than the noblest of women; her laughing hazel eyes, her lips pressed tightly together, for it was unseemly for a lady to laugh out loud in mixed company. Her head bent, she would listen to the talk after dinner, her eyes bowed but her ears missing nothing.

His heart ached as he thought of Johanna for the first time in a century. He’d gone by her grave, as well as his mother’s empty plot, the last time he’d been in England, but that had been well over fifty years ago. The time passes, sometimes quickly and sometimes slow, and you learn with the age that things matter less, people matter more…time stretched, and he was lonely in a crowd.

He marveled at the way he felt. Changed. Different. He thought about the lust for violence that seemed to dominate his unlife, almost since his making. He had devoted himself to the thought of being in love with someone unable to love him in return. Devoted years to someone who….

No. He wasn’t dwelling on Drusilla or the past. She wasn’t worth it, after so long. Buffy surpassed her in every way. His goddess. His beloved.

He pushed the ring into his blue jeans pocket, and tucked the box into the pocket of his duster. He tried to toss off the nostalgia that was suffusing him, but it wouldn’t loose its grip. He meant the words he’d said to Giles that afternoon. The blasted pledge. Who could have known it would survive after so many years?

He knew that Giles wondered why he threw it away for the unlife of a vampire. Money, privilege, a modicum of power, enough to satisfy any young man on the breech of independence, as he had been. How do you explain how bloody boring it all was? Day after day, the same thing repeated, until they put you in the ground with whatever killed you—consumption, heart attack, or murder.

He stretched his senses, and felt Drusilla down the sire bond. She was far away and ignored his seeking tendrils of awareness, turning her back on her lost childe. Good. Didn’t want her anyway. No, the one he needed to talk with was further on, and he touched him, brushed against him with his mind, calling to his demon, and Angel lifted his head, miles away in Los Angeles.

He’d better get back to the house; Angel would be calling him soon.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy opened the envelope, removing the contents and strewing them across her bed. On closer examination, she found everything in order; green card, birth certificate, passport, diplomas—everything that she had asked Giles for, and more.

There was nothing standing in their way now. They could marry and have a life together, without the Council, without the Aurelians, without any hindrances.

She wondered how Dawn and Tara would feel about traveling. She hoped they would come with them. Leave Sunnydale, all the memories good and bad, and take to the road to see the world. The only thing to do was to ask them.

Leaving the papers scattered on her bed, she bounced down the hall into Dawn's room, not bothering to knock. “Dawn, how—” Her mouth dropped open and no other sound emerged when she saw the tableau before her.

Her sister and Tara locked in a passionate embrace. Dawn's one eye, visible just past Tara's tilted head, open and staring at Buffy.

Daring her to interrupt.

She turned and closed the door quietly behind her, then beelined back to her room. She so didn’t want to see her sixteen-year-old sister getting it on with one of her friends. Her female friends. Especially Tara.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike answered the phone on the first ring. “Spike.”

“What do you want, childe?” Angel’s voice was tinged with hate and jealousy, but it didn’t make Spike flinch as it had before. He didn’t flinch; he was beyond all that.

“I wanted to invite you to the joining of the house of Summers and the house of Aurelius. And I need to ask you some things.”

There was cold silence on the other end of the receiver. “You have the audacity to invite me to the joining of the houses with the woman that I intended for my mate?” Angel snapped, his control failing and his demonic face coming to the fore.

“Angel, I need your advice. As my sire. Are you willing?” Spike was tired, and his voice carried his exasperation over the phone lines.

Anger simmered in Angel’s heart, but he couldn’t ignore the pleading tone Spike had adopted or the ritual words he’d used. He knew how much it was taking for Spike to ask him. “Speak, childe. Ask, and I will answer, if it is within my knowledge,” he finally said after a moment’s pause.

With few words, Spike relayed the events of the last few days, culminating with their parts in Dawn's ritual of judgement. Angel listened quietly, amazed, but refused to let Spike hear the awe in his replies and terse questions. When Spike had finished, he said coolly, “And the point?”

“The bloody point, Peaches, is can we make it? Can Buffy and I have a relatively normal life with all this mystical shite happening with her sister and us, and with us being vampire and Slayer?”

Angel took a deep breath, preparing to give Spike the greatest gift he could manage. “Spike, to be honest, if anyone can make it together, you and Buffy can. I know that you love her. I can feel it from here. And no matter how much it riles me, she loves you back. Yeah, if I were a betting man, I would say that you’ll make it, no matter what unlife throws at you two.”

Spike was quiet and Angel started to ask if they’d been disconnected when his voice came over the line. “Thank you, sire. I will listen and learn from your wisdom.” The ritual words spoken, he hung up, leaving Angel to stare at a dead phone line and cry.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She wandered the streets for a time, her eyes blank but her mind traveling at the speed of sound. She felt the stares of the people passing, but they mattered little in the scheme of things. No one mattered anymore. Alone and friendless, she pondered the changes in her life since that fateful night, and her heart cried crystalline tears for the loss of innocence, the loss of power, the loss of everything she had known for so long.

She found herself in a bar, sitting on a stool and listening to some idiot go on and on about a warlock named Rack. How powerful he was. How he could fix almost anything. A spark of hope ignited in her soul, and she curled up into the chatterbox’s embrace, hoping to draw information from the blathering that never stopped. She forgot that she was dirty from the streets and sewers, and smelled to high heaven. She forgot everything except the name—Rack.

After some coaxing and a touch of promised sexual favors, she got him to promise to take her, since magic was a prerequisite for visiting Rack’s place. Hooking her fingers in her coat, she slung it jauntily over her shoulder as she followed him out of Willy's bar. The rat-like eyes of the bartender followed her, his ears noting the company she kept, and he shook his head as he polished the counter. Slayer wouldn’t like this at all, he thought, wisely keeping to himself for once. He didn’t need any trouble, so he never mentioned it, then, nor days later when they came around asking questions again.

She looked up, and saw the stars again where there was darkness and night. There was hope; she just had to find it. There was someone who could help her, but she would have to make sacrifices. She would sacrifice anything or anyone to have a fraction of her magic back. She hoped she could convince Rack of that fact.

Chapter 29—No Sensation To Compare

There’s no sensation to compare with this—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

Spike found her sitting cross-legged on the bed, papers stacked around her. She had been reading through them and sorting them, he thought. Stepping closer to the bed, he then realized that they were in stacks signifying their importance.

One stack contained a passport, a birth certificate, and a green card. Another had a sheaf of parchment, and it looked like college diplomas. A third had odds and ends; baptism certificates, awards, small accomplishments that would be included in a scrapbook of achievements.

“What’s all this, pet?” he asked, climbing onto the bed behind her. He pulled her back into his arms and she melted against him, molding her body to his, bringing a smile unbidden to his face. Not long ago, she would have pushed him away, now she sought comfort in his arms. Quite a change, he thought.

Buffy tilted her head, looking back over her shoulder at him. “Just your life—updated. I asked Giles to get them for us.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes, and he looked deeply into hers. “So, this does what? Makes me real? Was already real, pet.”

“It makes you legal. There’s a big difference.” She leaned against him, her head on his shoulder and her fingers caressing the hairs on his arms around her. “We need to start knocking on doors now, okay? I found Dawn kissing Tara this afternoon.”

“Oh.” He refrained from saying anything further; he knew that this was bothering her, but with their own age difference, he deduced that discretion was the better part of valor. “So, er…what’s the papers for then, pet?”

He had inkling, but he wanted to hear it from her. “This is so you and I can…we can be a real couple now—not that we aren’t already,” she added hastily. “But with these, we can have a legal marriage, with a license, rings and everything.” He heard uncertainty creep into her voice as she said quietly, “I mean, only if you want to.”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, pet.” He leaned her up, and moved from behind her, kneeling in front of her on the floor next to the bed.

He took her small hand in his, and looked up at her. He was silent for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts and trying to formulate the words for what he so desperately needed to say to her. “We’ve been through a lot of changes lately, you and me. You came back, I’ve lost the chip, and we’ve been picked to help your sister. My head’s still spinning, but even now, the only thing that I can think of is being with you. Loving you.” He pulled the ring from his pocket, and twisted it between his fingers, nerves inexplicably besetting him. “Buffy, I love you with all of my being. Will you consider becoming my wife, my partner, and my mate?” His voice shook with emotion, and he was anything but the cool, confident, snarky master vampire she knew.

Her fingers trembled as she took the ring from an equally shaking hand. She raised teary eyes to meet his. “Spike…yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Till death or dust we part, I’ll marry you, and be Mrs. The Bloody.” He took the ring and slipped it on her left hand. “Where did you find this?” she asked quietly, staring at the precious stone that now adorned her ring finger on her left hand.

“Had it for a while, pet. About a hundred plus years. I had it made for my sister, for her birthday. She was born in February too.”

She watched him closely from under her lashes as she examined the ring. “It’s beautiful. I didn’t know that you had a sister, Spike.”

“Her name was Johanna. She was four years younger than I was. She died of influenza and consumption, just before my twenty-first birthday.” He tried to keep the sadness out of his voice, but failed miserably.

Buffy raised her head to see the tears glistening on her beloved’s lashes. “Did she ever get to wear it?”

“She never took it off, from the moment I gave it to her. I thought she was buried with it, until I saw it on someone else’s hand. The undertaker had stripped it off her before they put her in the ground and given it to his wife.”

“What did you do?” she asked, thinking about bloodshed if it would have been her sister and her sister's ring.

“I jerked it off of the fat biddy’s hand, and told him if he wanted to live, he would never do such a horrible thing again. He didn’t know that it was one of a kind, otherwise he might not have been so brash.”

She cupped his cheek, and brought his head to her shoulder. “I think it’s gorgeous. And it fits like it was made for me.” She held her hand out in front of her, admiring the beauty of the ring. “I’ll take good care of it, I promise.”

He climbed onto the bed beside her, and they curled around one another. “I know you will.” He rubbed her shoulder to ease the stress of his next words. “So, you caught Dawn and Tara kissing, eh?”

She blushed and buried her face in his chest, embarrassed at the memory. “Yeah. Kinda freaked me out, too. I mean, I know that Dawn is like, a thousand plus years old, but in this timeline, she’s only sixteen—and if you count how long she’s been alive, then it’s only about a year. Do they even know at that age what their preference will be?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Don’t know, pet. I suppose they could. Did you always know that you liked boys?” he asked, arching his scarred brow.

“Well,” she said, her voice uncertain, “I guess. I don’t remember ever feeling inclined to kiss any of my girl friends. Willow seemed like she liked guys, too, before she met Tara.”

“Sometimes you fall in love with the person, not the sex. I mean, would you have ever thought that you would be with me? If there’s an oxymoron, that would be our relationship, don’t you think?”

She giggled. “I don’t even know what an oxymoron is. Is that like a super-moron?” At his incredulous look, she slapped him on the arm. “I do know what it is. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a total idiot.” When he continued to stare at her, she said, “I looked it up one time.”

He started to laugh, and she started pouting. He took one look at her, and chucked her under the chin with his finger. “I’m not laughing at you, pet. I’m laughing with you. There’s a difference, you know.”

“I know. Somehow, it feels the same, though.” He chuckled again deep in his chest as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. She snuggled into the curve of his arm, and sighed deeply. “I thought at first that Willow and Tara would get back together though. How am I supposed to face Will now? I’m sure that she thought the same thing.”

“Buffy, love, you have no control over what Tara does with her life. Just because your sister and Tara seem to have started a thing doesn’t mean that you have anything to do with it. Red can still be your best friend. Remember, she broke up with Glinda, not the other way around.”

She looked up and smiled at him. “You’re right, you know that? Now, enough of the friend talk. How about some us talk for a minute.” She took a deep breath before asking her next question. “When do you want to do this mating marriage thing?”

He looked at the ceiling, thinking hard for a moment, then back down at her face. He still wondered at his luck and what a breathtaking beauty she was, and let his feelings shine in his eyes. “How about—Saturday? That should give you enough time to plan.”

“Saturday!” She sat straight up in the bed and pivoted, sitting on her knees and looking incredulously at him. “Are you kidding? Do you know what goes into planning a wedding?”

He waved his hand. “No problem, pet. Put Anya on the job. She’s a whiz at planning and execution from her years as a vengeance demon. A little blood for me and Angel, a little food for the Scoobies…Giles will give you away, of course, and we have a stereo, so there’ll be music. See? All in hand.”

“Angel?” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s Angel got to do with anything?”

“Well he’s coming, of course. Already asked him.” He looked up at her where she hovered over him, still staring open-mouthed. “What? He’s my sire. I have to invite him. It’s protocol.” When she continued to stare, he said, “we vampires are a pretty regimented lot, darling. It’s like…asking permission to marry. To bring another into the line. Since Angel was my sire, I wanted to avoid the bloodbath if he decided that he wanted to protest.”

“Damn it, Spike, he’s also my ex—you could have said something to me before you went and invited him.” Her eyes narrowed further as realization flooded her, and she started slapping him on the chest. “You invited him already? Before you even asked me? Awful sure of yourself, weren’t you?”

He caught her hands and pulled, and she tumbled onto his chest. “Love, you had already told me that you loved me, wanted to be my mate and partner, and basically already said yes. Was I supposed to be afraid that you’d refuse me?”

She pouted so prettily he could barely resist her, but forced himself to listen to her answer. “Well, yes. At least, worried that I might… Oh, poo.” She let her body go lax and flopped against his chest. “I guess not, baby. I don’t know. It’s demeaning to think that I’m so transparent.”

He chuckled, and it rumbled pleasantly against her nipples. “Now, you’re never transparent, pet. Solid as the day is long, promise.”

A sly look crossed her face, and she said, “I’m solid? Are you sure? Maybe you better feel me to make sure.”

He ran his hands over her back, and said, “Pretty sure you’re solid, pet. Feel pretty solid to me.”

She rolled off of him and stretched on the bed beside him. “I don’t know, Spike. Maybe you better check me all over.”

He gave her his deliciously evil grin as he began skimming his hands over her body.

Chapter 30—Suspended Animation

Suspended animation, a state of bliss—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

The week flew by, it seemed, on fleeting feet as Buffy and Anya worked themselves to a tizzy on the wedding.

“I can’t believe he expects us to get this all done in a week,” Buffy grumbled good-naturedly as she and Anya visited the florist.

Anya ignored her, concentrating on the flowers. She handed a list to the florist, who was already intimidated by the determination in her eyes. “We want a bridal bouquet of blue anemones, white roses, and baby’s breath, with holly and ivy for the greenery. Is this something that you can provide?” she asked curtly.

The florist, a short woman with gleaming, greedy eyes, surveyed the list. “I have a lovely selection of lilies…” she began, and Anya snatched the list from her hand, startling the florist.

“There are specific meanings for flowers, and if you cannot provide them, we can go to another shop that can. You aren’t the only florist in Sunnydale, you know.”

“No, no, I can do that. I just thought—“ the florist stammered, and Anya waved her explanations away with a languid hand.

“We have specific needs here, and this is the list. A bridal bouquet, a bridesmaid’s bouquet, two boutonnieres, enough of the bridal flowers to cover a trellis, and a couple of floral arrangements.” Anya ticked the items off on her fingers, and the florist nodded, dollar signs flashing in her eyes.

“When will you be needing all these?” the florist asked.

“Saturday morning. Afternoon at the latest.”

The florist gasped, her eyes widening. “It’s already Tuesday. I don’t know if I can—“

Anya moved to take the list out of the woman’s hand, but she held it away from her. “I’ll see what I can do. There really isn’t much call for holly at this time of year, although I’m sure that my LA providers can get me some,” the florist assured them, nodding wisely.

After discussing the particulars of money, and Anya dealing the woman down to a fraction of her original quote, she and Buffy left the shop to go to the caterer’s.

“I don’t know why we are having this thing catered, not like the gang would be expecting more than a bag of Cheetos and a bottle of soda,” Buffy muttered, and Anya turned on her, exasperation on her face.

“Buffy, stop it. You either want a wedding, or just an everyday Scooby party. You can’t have both. If you want a wedding, then let’s go to the caterer’s, pick out three appetizers and a main course, or we’ll just go to the grocery store and buy your Cheetos. Think, though. This will be the only wedding that you and Spike will ever have. Do you think that he wants Cheetos at his wedding?”

Buffy dropped her gaze, and Anya was on the verge of apologizing when she raised teary eyes to look at her friend. “I’m sorry, Ahn. I don’t mean to be difficult. I just…what if this doesn’t work out? What if we do this and Spike realizes that he doesn’t want me?”

Anya pulled Buffy into a hug. “Buffy, Spike would want you if we dressed you in burlap and blood larvae. Speaking of, when is your final fitting of your dress?”

Buffy gave her a watery smile before sniffing loudly and composing herself. “About twenty minutes, so we better get to the caterer.” Buffy giggled, and she and Anya walked down the street to the building housing the caterer and the bridal shop. “What is the whole meaning of flowers thing? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Flowers have their own language. Anemones stand for undying love, which undoubtedly you will have, considering that Spike is a vampire. Baby’s breath is similar, indicating everlasting love, and white roses indicate eternal love. Most important is the greenery—the holly stands for defense, happiness and foresight, and the ivy is for fidelity and friendship. I know that you don’t have a clue about this, but Spike will understand. It was a very big thing in Victorian time.”

Buffy nodded. “Spike may not appreciate it, but the William within will. Knowing him, he probably knew all that stuff when he was alive.” She wondered for a moment if he had chosen bouquets for Cecily Adams, then shook off the feelings of jealousy that coursed through her suddenly. That was a hundred years ago, Buffy. He loves you now.

Shivers coursed through her as she recalled just how well he loved her and she smiled. Anya gave her a sidelong glance, and said, “Okay, just stop that right now. There will be no time to fantasize about orgasms until we get you married. There’s still too much to do.”

Anya's knowing look embarrassed her, and she blushed from head to toe. “How did you know?” Buffy asked, a sheepish look on her face.

“I’m a woman too, Buffy, or did you forget?” Anya gibed good-naturedly. “Sometimes remembering orgasms is the only way that I can make it through a boring day. Thinking about money is another thing that brings that look to my face.” Anya steered her inside the caterer’s door, and they looked over the menu possibilities as they waited for him to finish with another customer. “Not to mention, you’ve been drifting since we started this wedding planning,” Anya whispered. “You know, it may not be a bad idea for Spike to restrain his sexual impulses until the wedding night.”

“What? Why?” Buffy whispered back. Anya was the last person she expected to tell her to stop doing anything that had to do with sex.

“Well, to uh…build stamina. Keep the mystery. Um…D'Hoffryn’s balls, Buffy, I don’t know!” Anya stammered, suddenly embarrassed herself.

Buffy linked her arm with Anya's as they bent their heads together over the printed menu flyer. “Don’t worry about it, Ahn. I’m sure that Spike still has a lot of tricks up his sleeve that I don’t know about.” Buffy had a thought, and went with her impulses instead of ignoring them. “Anya, is everything all right between you and Xander?”

Amazed, Anya stood and turned to look at her. “Everything’s fine. Better than it was before. Sometimes, though….” She let her voice trail off, and Buffy picked up the thread of her thought.

“You’re wondering if he respects you as a person.”

“Exactly!” Anya slapped one hand against the other. “I mean, he listens to you and Willow, but whenever I open my mouth, he just cringes, and I think that he isn’t sure about what’s going to come out of it. I know that I’m too frank for Xander, and that bothers him. How do you get over some of that stuff, Buffy?” Buffy's heart went out to her as she stood there, her eyes revealing how frustrated she was and how hard she was really trying.

“To be honest, Ahn, it comes with time. Either he gets over it, or you do. You know, it took me a long time to respect Spike for what he is and how far he’s come. Even without the chip, he doesn’t want to maim and slaughter anymore. For him, that’s a biggie—I never expected that, honestly. I thought that once the chip was out, all bets were off, but that’s not the way of it anymore.” Buffy smiled dreamily. “He loves me. Really loves me and that amazes me sometimes. I’ve never had good luck with love, you know.”

“I know. You were an anti-love magnet. Now, it seems different. You seem different.” Anya nodded to the man behind the counter, and they moved up to speak with him.

It wasn’t until Buffy was standing in her dress with pins poking her all around that she was able to answer her friend’s observation. “I am a different person now, Ahn. I would have never gone against the grain like this before I died.” She ignored the fitter’s startled look, and went on. “I would have just let them rule my life and tell me what to do, no matter how unhappy I was, just to keep them my friends. I guess I finally figured out that if they were my friends, they would love me no matter what. And if I have to sit through one more intervention, there will be bloodshed,” she finished with a wide grin.

Anya looked at her standing there in the Victorian dress that Buffy had chosen and smiled. “I can understand that. I never did like the intervention thing myself. D'Hoffryn tried that once or twice, and didn’t like the results.”

“Oh, yeah? What did you do?” Buffy asked as she turned for the still startled fitter, completely oblivious to her puzzled looks.

“Wake up with snakes and gollith worms in your bed, and see how much you like it,” Anya replied, grinning herself.

Buffy laughed and it made her seem younger somehow. “Anya, you are priceless.”

The fitter, still shaking from comments she’d overheard, interrupted them. “You can go take the dress off now, Miss Summers.”

As Buffy stepped off the platform, she took a double glance at the figure walking outside the window. She looked familiar, yet didn’t. “Anya, is that Willow?”

Anya turned, and said, “Buffy—you’d better come closer and take a good look.”

Buffy moved toward the window and looked closely at her longtime friend. She was paler than a vampire, and gaunt, like she hadn’t eaten for days. Dark rings rimmed her eyes, and her eyes…her eyes themselves were completely black. As Buffy and Anya watched, they noticed her weaving gait, and then Willow stumbled out into the busy street, nearly falling in front of a car and never once flinching.

“Anya, go grab her. I need to get out of this dress.” Buffy ran to the dressing room and removed her wedding dress as quickly as she could, then went back out into the main part of the shop. She listened with half an ear to the fitter’s instructions, and watched out the window as Willow and Anya seemingly argued, Willow shaking Anya's grasp off her arm.

Buffy ran out of the shop to where her friends were indeed arguing on the corner. Anya was saying, “But Willow, you look terrible! We need to get some food into you, and get you cleaned up.”

Willow sneered at her. “I don’t want your help, or need it either, Anya. Let me go, now.” Willow's eyes turned to Buffy, and she gave her a cool look. “And I certainly don’t want your help, you traitor.”

“Traitor?” Buffy felt rage rising, and tried unsuccessfully to tamp it down. Something snapped inside her, and she let the floodgates open. “Traitor. You drag me out of heaven and back to this godawful town to do a job I always hated just because you didn’t want to grieve, and you call me traitor?” she cried indignantly, her voice rising as her feelings became more heated. “I was always your friend, Willow. Always. No matter what mistakes or choices you made. And you have the balls to stand here, looking like some kind of homeless street person, and call me a traitor? That’s rich.” She grabbed Anya's arm, and pulled her away from what was her best friend.

Almost as a second thought, she turned back to where Willow stood, weaving slightly, and said, “You know what, Will? Losing your magic was the best thing that could have happened to you. You were getting in over your head, and you could have hurt all of us in a bad way. If that’s being a traitor, then thanks, I’ll stay one, because me? I liked you without the magic. You were my friend before you had the magic. Too bad you can’t see that.”

“With friends like you and your little bitch sister, who needs enemies?” Willow started to follow them down the street, screaming as she walked. “I never abandoned you, and you’ve abandoned me. Thrown me away, like I was some piece of trash. Well, no more, Slayer. If you think that I’m just going to lay down and die, you’ve got another thing coming. I’ve got friends, powerful friends, and they’ll make you pay, I swear it.”

Buffy dropped Anya's arm and turned to confront the redheaded ex-witch. “If you do anything, and I mean anything, to hurt me and mine, I will kill you,” she said in a flat, deadly voice. She saw Willow cringe, and she knew that her threat had penetrated her fog of self-pity. “Now, get away from me, and don’t ever let me see you around here again. It might be a good idea for you to leave Sunnydale altogether, you know? Make a new start, somewhere you don’t have to run into us, because we’re not going anywhere.”

Willow stood shaking, Rack’s magical infusion wearing off as they spoke, and her defiance crumbled as she felt herself getting weaker and weaker. “Buffy,” she whined, falling to her knees. “Buffy, I’m sorry. Don’t leave me.”

Buffy and Anya continued on to the Magic Box, ignoring the pleading, sobbing woman on the sidewalk behind them. Anya started once to turn around, and Buffy yanked on her arm. “Don’t. Just don’t, Ahn. It isn’t worth it,” she forced out through the growing lump in her throat.

“Buffy, she was your best friend…” Anya started, and Buffy interrupted her.

“Was being the key word in that sentence. She isn’t now, not if she can blame Dawnie for her mistakes.” She looked at Anya and saw Willow getting to her feet out of the corner of her eye. “And threatening us? So not good. I wonder who her powerful friends are now?”

“I don’t know Buffy, but there are a lot of bad elements in town who would love to see the Slayer go down in flames, and you know it.”

Buffy shrugged. “Yeah, and vamps too, but when have I ever given in to defeatist thinking like that?” At Anya's pointed look, Buffy laughed. “Okay, maybe once or twice in my life. Not anymore. Different Slayer. Retired Slayer.”

“Hey, I wonder if you could push the Council into some monetary remuneration for the work that you’ve done. A pension, or something,” Anya said, her eyes gleaming at the thought of money and how to procure it from the greedy Council.

“Maybe. Maybe I’ll just have to settle for not being killed or attempts on my life on a regular basis.” Buffy grinned, and opened the door to the Magic Box. “That would be of the good for sure, and lengthen my life by quite a bit.”

Giles looked up from his book on the countertop and removed his glasses. “What would lengthen your life, Buffy?”

She swung her legs around the chair at the ‘war table’, so named after the last year’s battles with Glorificus. “Being retired.”

Relief was visible on his face. “Er, yes, that would definitely prolong your life expectancy, Buffy. How are the wedding plans coming?”

She shrugged, and glanced at Anya. “Fine. Ahn’s a whiz at this stuff. We saw Willow,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“Willow?” His glasses were in his hand in the space of a heartbeat, his nervous scrubbing at the lenses second nature. “What happened?”

Buffy shrugged again. “Not much. She looks like a homeless person, her eyes were pure black, and she threatened me and told me that she had ‘powerful friends’. Don’t know who, but it obviously wasn’t me. Called Dawnie a bitch and me a traitor.”

He stared sightlessly down at the frames in his hands. “I see. So, she has definitely left our organization, then.” He was silent for a moment, and Buffy could see worry building in the lines on his face. “She could be very detrimental to you, Buffy. She has knowledge of our practices—“

“So, we change our practices, right?” She got up, and grabbed Giles, hugging him close. “Don’t worry about it, Giles. I’ll be careful, and you stop fretting about it. Willow won’t get to me. I guarantee it,” she said with an assured nod of her head.

Giles patted her shoulder awkwardly. “I simply do not understand what she is thinking right now, Buffy.”

She bounced away from him, and sat back down. “She always needs someone else to blame. It’s a Willow thing. Take the easy way, don’t suffer, and blame anyone but yourself. She’s always been that way, Giles. Think about it. The ‘will be done’ spell? The overuse of magic? The resurrection spell? Easy way out of grief, work, anything that made her life too hard for her to handle.”

“Yes, I believe that you are correct, Buffy. Although I’m only surmising from hindsight, I can see where you would draw that conclusion. Willow did habitually use of magic for mundane tasks, and as well as those tasks that were more complicated.”

Buffy turned to Anya. “See? Take a complete, simple sentence, and Giles can turn it into a British version, complex and so not understandable.” Her infectious grin made even the Watcher smile briefly as he wondered how she would handle his impending departure, although he still had not informed her as of yet.

As she moved around the shop, Giles watched her feline grace that seemed reminiscent of another less alive than she, and he thought on the many changes that had occurred since her resurrection. He had no qualms about leaving her in Spike's hands; on the contrary, it seemed that Buffy's maturity was a definitive reflection of the vampire’s influence, and he pondered speaking to Spike of the same before their wedding on Saturday.

His contemplation of recent events was interrupted by the arrival of Dawn and Tara. They glided into the shop together, unmistakably together in a couple sense, but not touching. Their movements seemed choreographed, although there was no verbal communication between them, and he observed them quietly as they interacted with Buffy and Anya over by the counter. It was much like watching a pair of dancers or figure skaters during a performance, he thought, as they walked in tandem, stopped at the same time, even using the same hand gestures and facial expressions.

He could also tell, without seeing their auras or even a glimpse of affection between them, that they had started a sexual relationship as well. As he mused on the energy that sparked between the slight brunette key and the dark blond witch, the front door of the Magic Box crashed against the wall with the tinkling of breaking glass, and Willow stood there, rage pulsing through her body, fairly vibrating with it. Evidently he was not the only person who noticed the lovers.

“You bitch! Not only do you steal my magic from me, now you’ve stolen my girlfriend as well!” Willow advanced on Dawn with fire burning deep in her eyes, and Giles was surprised to see Dawn standing her ground.

Dawn didn’t have the chance to answer the accusation, however; Tara did. “She didn’t steal anything from you, Willow. You lost it all on your own, including me.” Her voice was strong, not the quiet, soft-spoken tone it usually was.

Willow turned teary eyes to look at her ex-lover. “Tara, baby, you don’t have to stay with this little thief and her sister. Come with me, baby. We can be happy together again.” She reached out a clawed hand to paw at Tara's arm, and Tara slapped it away, a grimace on her face.

“Do you think that I could ever be with you again, after all that you’ve done? Must I spell it out to you, Willow? I. Don’t. Want. You. Is that clear to you now?”

Willow's face crumbled further, and Giles couldn’t help the ache in his heart for what was once a vibrant young woman. She turned and ran from the shop, her heart-rending sobs echoing behind her long after she was gone, and he watched the group of young women that stared at the closed door, a mix of expressions on their faces.

Buffy broke the silence, finally, and turned to the remaining girls, a false smile pasted unconvincingly on her face. “Who wants to know about the wedding planning?”

That shattered the uncomfortable silence, and Giles observed Dawn's arm creeping around Tara's shoulders in a comforting gesture. He listened to them chattering like magpies, and wondered what would happen to the ostracized redhead now.

Chapter 31—A State Of Bliss

“Buffy, it’s time.”

Buffy whirled, her full skirt billowing around her, and gave her sister the look of the truly terrified. “Oh my God, Dawn…what do I do?”

Dawn laughed out loud at the fear on her sister’s face. She stepped forward, and looked at her sister, love and admiration in every line of her features. “You go out there and face your fear, just like you have night after night since you were chosen.”

Buffy started to pace, clenching and unclenching her hands. “Right. Face my fear. Go right out there.” She whirled on Dawn again, panic lighting her eyes. “Do you have a stake?”

Dawn giggled, and her face took on the familiar lines of the sixteen-year-old once again. “Oh, for crying out loud, Buffy, it’s Spike, not some Big Bad. Come on! Everyone’s waiting.” She grabbed Buffy's hand, and started dragging her out of her bedroom. Pausing at the door, she turned and put her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “By the way, you look absolutely stunning. Spike is so gonna drool all over himself,” she added with another girlish giggle and knowing look.

Buffy looked back at the full-length mirror that had been mysteriously delivered to the house earlier that week. She had to admit, she did look pretty edible, considering all the headache and trouble she went through.

Her gown was made of the purest white silk, with a full flaring skirt. Leg-of-mutton sleeves billowed, then tapered to points that were attached with elastic to her middle fingers, covering the backs of her hands. Lace covered every inch of the gown, from the high neckline to the pointed bodice and over the full skirt. She twirled in front of the mirror and watched it bell around her, pleased with the effect. “I do look pretty good, don’t I Dawnie?” she murmured, lost in thought again.

“Hel-lo? Bridal Buffy? Time for the wedding now. Stop daydreaming.” Dawn grabbed her hand again, and led her to the open door. “Come on, Buff. Spike’ll think that you got cold feet.”

“Couldn’t be colder than his,” Buffy snarked, showing some of her normalcy for the first time since seeing Willow in the Magic Box. “He has the coldest feet of anyone that I’ve ever seen.”

“Hello, vampire. At least there’s no surprises.” Dawn helped her down the stairs, holding the front of the dress out of the way for her, and together they descended to the living room. She lifted the veil off the stand, and carefully put it atop Buffy's carefully coifed hair. “There. Giles is waiting by the back door. Be careful going through the kitchen. I’ll see you outside.” With a quick kiss, Dawn was gone.

She picked up her bouquet, and quick-stepped to the back door, where Giles waited in a tuxedo for his surrogate daughter. His face was a picture of amazement when she appeared; she knew he thought her wardrobe consisted of leather pants and tight tee shirts. He removed his glasses and she saw tears glistening in his familiar eyes, and hurried to his side.

“Don’t,” she commanded. “If you start, then I will, and now is so not the time. Thank you for doing this, Giles.” Sincerity filled her eyes as she looked up at the man who had fulfilled the role of father for her for so long.

“Buffy—“ Giles started, his voice thick with emotion. “I have never seen you look more beautiful. Spike is certainly a lucky man, to gain such a breathtaking companion for his bride.”

“Kind of a good thing he doesn’t breathe then, isn’t it?” she teased, letting out a giggle that calmed her nerves. He smiled and replaced his glasses, taking her small, powerful hands in his.

“Buffy, I feel that today is a day that I will never forget. You…you are the daughter that I never had, my dear, and I must tell you—I have always been proud of you. Your mother would have been proud of you as well. You have grown into a fine young woman, and I have never been more delighted than to escort you down the aisle. Shall we?”

She looked up at her Watcher and so much more with shining eyes. “Giles, I love you. Really love you. You are so much more than just my Watcher—you’re my friend and my father, in my heart. I can’t tell you how much you have changed my life, and don’t even want to think about what life would have been like without you. Would you take me to my future husband?”

He offered his arm, and she rested her hand in the crook. “I think we both look pretty spiffy, don’t you?”

“Spiffy is an understatement, Buffy.” He heard the strains of Bach floating through the closed door, and reached to open it. “I do believe that is our cue.”

It was a small, intimate affair. Anya sat in one of two chairs on one side of the aisle, and Clem, Tara, and Angel sat on the other side. As they started out the door, a figure emerged from the side of the house where she had been waiting, and made her way to the empty chair next to Anya, who looked shocked to see her there.

Drusilla smiled back dreamily, gently fingering the lace at her cuff as she watched the pair gliding down the white satin that covered the grass in the back yard. Flowers perfumed the air, and there was an electric sense of excitement that seemed to grow exponentially as father and bride made their way toward the group waiting patiently for their arrival.

Spike gaped at the sight of his bride. He’d never dreamed of marriage, not since being turned, and here he was, marrying the woman of his dreams in a few moments. When Dru had appeared, he started to intercept her, but a gentle touch from Xander, his best man, drew him back, and instead he waited for an unlife’s dream to come true.

Angel was shocked as well to see Drusilla. He started to rise, but Tara's gentling hand stayed him, and he looked at her with confusion as Dru took a seat. She nodded in Dru’s direction, and he saw the dark vampiress place her finger over her smiling mouth, shushing him, then shaking her head. Still, he tensed, wondering what had gotten into her mind that she would come here tonight.

Giles handed Buffy off to Spike with a smile, then went to stand next to Dru, who reached out and patted his hand. Fingering the stake in his pocket, he listened to the minister with half an ear as he watched every move that was made.

The bride and groom only had eyes for each other, though. They stared at the sight of the other next to them, taut with nerves but wanting to go through with this. This was a new beginning for them both, and they were anxious for it to start.

“Dearly beloved,” the minister intoned, “We are gathered here together in the company of friends and family, and in the eyes of God, to join this man and woman in holy matrimony. Love is a wondrous and blessed thing, a gift from the Powers That Be, and they have chosen to show that love to the world for all of eternity. They came to stand before us separately, but after tonight, they will stand together for always, a beacon in the dark for those who do not believe that such a union could ever exist.”

Turning to Spike, he looked stern for a moment. “William Giles Darling, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold from this day forward, no matter what may come, till death parts you?”

Spike looked up at the man, his eyes sparkling with tears. “I do.”

The minister then turned towards Buffy. “Elizabeth Anne Summers, do you take this man for your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold from this day forward, no matter what may come, till death parts you?”

Buffy looked into the eyes of her beloved, and her heart swelled with love. “I do.”

The minister continued. “The bride and groom have chosen to share their feelings with us now. William?”

They turned to each other, marveling at the sight before them. Spike looked dashing in his tux as he looked lovingly at the woman in front of him. Catching her hands in his, he drew them to his mouth to kiss her fingertips, then said, “Buffy, my love, you are the answer to prayers and the embodiment of dreams. I will cherish you with all my heart, and I dedicate my unlife to making you the happiest woman on the planet. I love you, you make my unlife complete.”

She smiled radiantly at him, and the minister motioned for her to speak. “Spike, I have waited for this day for what seems like forever. I will love you and cherish you until the breath leaves my body. You are my other half, the darkness to my light, and I cannot imagine ever living another day without you. I love you, heart and soul.”

Smiling, the Barno’th demon minister motioned for the rings, and Xander smiled and handed them to him, where he placed them on the blank pages of an open book. “Please take the rings. Repeat after me. With this ring, I thee wed, and so do I pledge my faithfulness and my troth.”

Their voices shaking, they repeated the words, then slipped the rings onto each other’s fingers. “What your vows have joined together, let no one put asunder, lest it ignite the wrath of the Powers That Be. You may now kiss the bride.”

Spike lifted Buffy’s veil, and cupped her face in his hands, staring lovingly into her luminous eyes before lowering his mouth to hers. Their lips met in a tender, touching kiss that carried worlds of unspoken words and a plethora of feelings. The small crowd erupted in applause, and they turned to face them, now and forever together.

Angel quickly made his way to Drusilla, who swayed to her internal music and smiled. “My prince has found the sunshine, and happiness fills his heart again. Daddy has a baby to love and grandmother is dust again, and Princess is all alone.” She grasped his hand, and looked up to see the tortured look on his face. “Don’t be sad, Daddy. The pixies say that they will bring your son back to you, and he will love and hate you, just as you loved and hated your father. The circle goes round and round and round and is complete. Let us go now and give the kiss to family, then I will leave.”

Drusilla glided across the lawn to where Buffy and Spike stood together under the canopy of roses receiving hugs and handshakes, and the group surrounding them parted to let the crazy vampire through. She stopped in front of Buffy, and smiled slyly, taking her hand and stroking it. “I knew that my dark prince would find the sunshine again. I always knew. When the pixies told me that I needed to make him for the sunshine, I thought they lied to me, but I know now that they had their plans too, just like the Powers That Be.”

Buffy looked at Drusilla through new eyes, and saw the loneliness that she tried to hide. “Will you be okay, Dru?”

Dru reached a hand up to touch Buffy's face, her touch as light as a feather. “Satin skin, silken tongue. Oh, yes, Spike's dark princess will be fine, she will find her pleasures where she can, she will. Miss Edith keeps me company and shares secrets with me. Take care with my prince’s heart. I told you before, he loves well, if not wisely.”

Buffy cupped the hand that rested on her face, and stroked it gently. “I will Dru, I promise. You take care of yourself, too.”

Dru turned to Spike and bright gelid tears filled her eyes. “My pretty, pretty Spike. My William. Such love you have for the life in her, I can see it all over you. She still flutters about your head, but I can see your dark princess there as well, hovering like a fallen angel over your shoulder. Remember Icarus, my little prince, and what happened to him when he tried to touch the sun.”

“I’ll remember, Dru,” Spike said, and she leaned forward carefully and kissed his cheek, minding not to touch him anywhere else. She stood tall and proud before them, smiling sadly at the two of them.

“One last thing, and then I’m off on an adventure of my own. Miss Edith has told me a secret that I need to share. Mind the people you think are your friends, for they will hurt you quicker and deeper than your enemies ever could,” she finished cryptically, staring off into the distance, as if seeing something they couldn’t

Spike felt a spark of alarm at her words, but hid his feelings from his new wife and the rest of the group as he nodded. “We’ll be careful, Dru, and keep that in mind.”

She touched his cheek and turned away, swaying gently as she made her way to the shadows surrounding the yard. They watched her silently as she left, but didn’t notice as she paused near a bush at the corner of the yard. “You’d do best to leave. You do not belong, even less than I, and they would harm you if they knew that you were here.”

When the listener didn’t reply, she continued on her way, shaking her head in dismay. There was danger all around, and her prince and his princess would have many trials ahead. She would have to remain close to assist them if they needed her, she decided.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy watched Spike draw the curtains from her vantage point on the king size bed in the bridal suite. They were exhausted, not only from the festivities, but from the emotional stress they’d been under all week. He turned to her and the gleam in his eye made her spasm in anticipation of what was yet to come.

He stalked across the room like an animal, his eyes trained solely upon her as he moved cat-like toward the bed, the air feeling suddenly warmer. He licked his lips as he came to stand before her where she sat and kneeled in front of her. His voice was low in the silence of the room, but Buffy heard every word over the pounding of her heart in her ears. “Did I tell you how beautiful you looked tonight, love?”

“No,” she replied breathlessly. “How beautiful was I?”

“If my heart were beating, it would have stopped when you walked out the back door. Buffy, you are the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever laid eyes on in my unlife, and I’ve seen many a woman.” He reached down to slip her shoes off, his hands cupping and caressing her feet in silken stockings. She giggled, then stood and turned to present him with her back.

“Can you help me with these buttons? They were a nightmare to do up.” She lifted the thick fall of her honey blond hair, and showed him the fastenings at the back of her dress. “And be nice when you do it. I’d like to be able to save my dress, since it’s the only one that I will ever have.”

“Only one you’re ever going to need, pet,” he reasserted as he stood. “I have you now, ‘m never gonna let you go.” She felt her knees turn to jelly as his fingers brushed against the exposed nape of her neck, working the first of the hundred and twenty buttons that ran down her spine. “I’ll take my time and do it right, love. Only what you deserve.”

The room was quiet as he undid her buttons slowly, the only sounds her breathing and the rustle of the material as it slowly exposed her golden skin. Spike caressed her neck as it came into view with exquisite tenderness, and Buffy gasped from the sensation of his fingers alone. When his mouth brushed her spine, she closed her eyes, her body throbbing in sensatory bliss as her groin clenched in desire for his touch.

Spike concentrated on her breathing, matching his unnecessary breaths to her own jagged rhythm as he worked the buttons free. He flashed in his mind back to the time when he was a man, and this was the ultimate in intimacy to his virgin imagination, and he felt himself grow harder with the memory of his Victorian upbringing. So much had changed over the last hundred years, but the little touches that Buffy had included in their wedding meant so very much to him. It meant that she had accepted him both as the monster and the man, proving her love for him tenfold in his eyes.

As he spread the dress apart, he saw the underclothing she had chosen, and it twisted his gut to see the merry widow corset beneath the heavy satin of her gown. His fingers flew over the buttons quickly in his attempt to bare her to him, and she turned her head slightly, her breath warm on his ear. “Slow, lover. We have the rest of our unlives.”

He reached the bottom of the row, and she stood, turning to face him. He noticed absently that she had undone the buttons on the forearms of the dress, and they hung loose as she shrugged her arms out of the sleeves, holding the bodice to her chest. She caught his eyes, green drawing blue, and let the dress fall to the floor to lay in a puddle of material around her feet.

He stopped breathing at the sight of her. She wore a merry widow, as he surmised during his adventures with the buttons, but never did he imagine that his sweet Buffy would wear something this naughty. It cupped her breasts, jutting them out and leaving the nipples exposed, their pink tips visible over the lace frills that edged the demi-cups of the corset. It nipped her waist even tinier than normal, then flared out slightly to add to her curves. Garters held up white silk hosiery, and she stood shyly in the dim light, her hands demurely clasped in front of her. “Do I look okay?”

He fell to his knees and gazed up into her face in adoration. “You know, you have a willing slave, love. You are more than just okay. You’re gorgeous.”

She smiled, and kneeled beside him. “Let’s get you out of that tux.”

Fortunately, the tux was less trouble than the dress, but they were both panting with desire and anticipation before his trousers even hit the ground. Buffy had to remind herself several times that it was rented, or else she would have just shredded the darn thing. When the tux did finally hit the floor to lay among the growing pile of clothes, he stood above her in all his naked glory, his cock jutting proudly from a nest of light brown curls. “Hey,” she said, “You look pretty gorgeous yourself.”

He started to reach for her and stopped when she reached for him instead, grasping his hard length in her hand and bringing the velvety head to her mouth, kissing it lightly before she engulfed it in her hot, greedy mouth. She took his full length down her throat as he buried his fingers in her curls, then drew back slowly, his moan of delight echoing in her ears.

She held onto him still as she stood, and brought her lips up to his. “I forgot—we haven’t even kissed yet,” she said, seconds before her lips claimed his in a deep, passionate kiss.

He was glad for her Slayer strength as he gripped her forearms tightly. At least he didn’t have to be afraid he would break her like a normal girl. Their tongues tangled in each other’s mouths, and he could taste the sweet icing from the wedding cake and the copper tinge of blood from when she’d accidentally bit the inside of her jaw while munching on canapés at the reception.

Her hand gripped him firmly, and she turned him around to face the bed, backing onto it and climbing into the center and pulling him with her. “So, leading me around by my danglies now, are you?” he teased, voice low.

She smiled. “Haven’t I always?” He started to snark back at her until he realized she was teasing him, and he gave her a wry smile.

“I suppose,” he admitted freely. “I’ve let them lead me ever since I first saw you. In the end though, I followed my heart, and it always led me right to you, pet.”

His admission touched her heart, and she looked up at him through a veil of fresh tears. “I love you, Spike. Heart and mind and soul.” She cupped his face tenderly, smoothing the sharp edge of his cheek with her thumb. “You have all of me, forever.”

“And you have all of me, for eternity.” His mouth swooped down to capture her lips in a tender kiss that both soothed and excited them both. His mind swirled with the overwhelming smells that surrounded them—the rich, heady scent of her arousal, the sweetness of honeysuckle and roses, the air freshener the hotel used, the clean, crisp smell rising off the bedding, and he realized he had slipped into his game face when the slick trace of copper teased his nostrils and his tastebuds flared to life with the taste of her blood in his mouth. He realized he had nicked her lip with his fang as it descended and started to apologize until Buffy ran her tongue over the same fang once again, purposely scraping it, then thrusting it deep into his mouth.

“You’re playing with fire, Slayer. You know what the taste of your blood could do to me?” he growled, kissing the soft skin behind her ear, rubbing his cheek against hers.

“Hmm…make you more passionate?” she purred, and she felt his cock twitch in her hand.

He searched his heart for violence once again, and found none. Instead, he found need and desire, not only to possess her again and again, but to make her his for all time. “That it might, pet. But it calls to the demon, and he demands his due at times.”

He drew back, and she looked deeply into the golden eyes that looked down on her from above. Even now, in the eyes of the demon, she could see the depths of his love for her, and she banished any fear of harm from this man from her heart forever. “You would never hurt me, Spike. I know that. You do too. I trust you.”

He nodded in agreement, admitting to them both the rightness of her statement. “So, you still want to go through with the other thing too, right?” he asked, still uncertain whether that was a step either one of them were willing to take.

Her eyes widened, and she almost laughed. “To have you bound to me forever? You bet your ass, baby. I want everyone to see that you belong to me and vicey-versy.” Her voice became husky with passion and a gleam sparkled in her eyes. “You’re mine, and you’d better get used to it, like right away, because I don’t plan on giving you up.”

She pulled his head down to her, and nibbled on his ear delicately. “Make love to me please, Spike. I need you.”

“But—” His protests were stalled when she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled her to him, his cock slipping into her wet folds and deep inside her before he was able to say anything more. She arched her hips to meet him, and he found himself moving without conscious thought, his body driving him forward even as his mind screamed for him to take things slow to make this first time memorable.

Buffy clamped down on him with her inner muscles, something that she knew drove him wild, and he moved faster and harder against her. Her gut knotted as the tension built in both of them, and she felt her orgasm building deep inside her long before she knew that she was so close to climax. She started whispering to him in his ear, holding him close to her throat as they moved together.

“Spike, I love you so much, for the man that you are and the man that you were. You excite me, you support me, and you make me feel more of a woman than I’ve ever felt before in my life. I want to be yours completely, forever and always. My husband. My beloved. My best friend. I’m so close, baby. So close. Don’t stop, love, don’t ever stop loving me or making love with me. You are my life.”

Spike closed his eyes and concentrated on what she was saying, and his heart soared. His Buffy. His wife. His mate. With his demon still at the fore, his heightened senses revealed that his beloved was close to orgasm, and he moved slightly to change the angle in which he penetrated her to find that extra special spot, deep in her core. She gasped aloud when he found it, and he started thrusting deeper and harder into her until she stiffened beneath him. Her inner muscles fluttered and rippled along his length, and he knew that she was coming—for him, always for him.

He slowed and waited for her to finish, then started thrusting into her with all his strength, wanting to make this time memorable for both of them. She grabbed his arms and dug her nails into his skin without conscious thought as she neared her peak again, and he bent his head to her neck.

Buffy tossed her head back and forth wildly. God, this was more than she’d dreamed it could be, this feeling deep inside of belonging to someone. He pressed a kiss to her neck, marking his spot, and she waited for a sharp pain, but there was only more pleasure as his fangs glided into her skin. She felt his mouth working against her throat, suckling on the marks that he made, and her body exploded in a kaleidoscope of sensation, forcing a cry from her as she arched against him, spiraling upward into the clouds and beyond. Seeking to silence her own screams of passion, she clamped her teeth onto the taut muscle above her mouth, and she was shocked beyond belief when she felt warm fluid gush from his skin.

He raised his head from her throat, a satisfied look in his golden eyes as he met the utter confusion in her green orbs. “You are mine, Buffy Summers Darling, until dust.”

Receptively, she said, “And you are mine, William Darling, until dust and beyond.” The words barely left her lips when he stiffened against her, his orgasm hitting him like a fast freight train, and he gripped her hips in his hands, pulling her body to meet his in frenzied passion. A feeling of belonging enveloped them both, completing them both. They belonged to each other now, for now and always.

He collapsed across her body, panting unnecessarily, then bent his head down to swipe his tongue across the marks on her neck, smiling as mini-orgasms shook her from the light contact. “I love you, Buffy,” he murmured against his marks.

She kissed his neck where her teeth had marked him, and was gratified when he had the same reaction; his body jerked with the contact, and she felt his cock twitch and swell inside her, even though he’d just come. “I love you, Spike. Forever and beyond.”

Sated and exhausted, they untangled long enough for Buffy to strip off the corset and hose, then climbed between the sheets of the king size bed. Spike curled around her back, holding her close with both hands, and she snuggled against him, a satisfied smile on her face. “Did I hurt you, love,” he asked, and was rewarded by an emphatic shake of her head.

“God, no. Can we do that again?” she murmured sleepily, and he chuckled.

“The claim? As often as you like, although your friends might not want me to use your neck as my chew toy.” He smoothed her shoulder and kissed her hair, and she half-turned to look at him.

“Screw my friends. I belong to you, not them, so I don’t care what they think. Not anymore, at least.”

He held her close as she drifted off, feeling the beating of her heart against his hand. Married. Never in his unlife had he ever believed that this could be possible, but then again, miracles happened, and he was holding one of the greatest of them in his arms. “I love you, Buffy Darling,” he whispered, then allowed himself to drift off, thinking that this was the closest thing to Heaven that he would ever experience. More than Heaven—this was to him the definition of bliss.

Chapter 32—Misfit, I

Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I—Pink Floyd, “Learning To Fly”

Willow had watched it all from her vantage point at the edge of the yard, hidden in the bushes. She saw Drusilla prance across the lawn and found herself hoping for a bloody ending to all of their happiness, and was sorely disappointed when she heard the well wishes the vampiress had spoken to the newly wedded couple.

She gritted her teeth to keep from shouting at them, railing at them for their happiness. Her fists clenched and unclenched with rage when she noticed the closeness between Dawn and Tara. Her Tara! She wanted to run over and snatch her away from the little bitch who had risked all their lives less than a year before, but she restrained herself, shaking with her anger and need for revenge.

She thought that she was discovered when Drusilla walked right over to where she was standing and stopped next to her. Her voice drifted low and urgent through the bushes. “You’d do best to leave. You do not belong, even less than I, and they would harm you if they knew that you were here.”

She didn’t speak, biting her tongue until she tasted blood. The vampiress finally moved away, and she was able to relax and watch once again.

They were all so happy and carefree. Didn’t even think of her, not once—not while they toasted each other with the flutes of champagne, not while they stuffed themselves with hors d’overes, not when they made such a big deal of cutting and eating the wedding cake. She almost laughed when Buffy bit the inside of her cheek while she was stuffing her face, but then frowned again when Spike and the others made such a big deal about it.

She observed quietly as they danced under the stars, the music muted by a wave of Tara's hand. She had to strain her ears to hear their voices then, but the night was almost over, she thought.

She seethed and cursed them silently as they opened wedding gifts from their friends and family. Suddenly, they were saying good-byes and heading off to somewhere else for the night. She saw tears on Giles' face as he hugged Buffy, and shook Spike's hand. Good, maybe he was sorry they had done this horrible travesty of a ceremony. Her hopes were dashed when his words drifted across the yard to her, and her mouth made a moue of disgust. “I am so very proud of you both.”

Proud, she scoffed. Proud of a Slayer that betrayed all she stood for, all she was supposed to stand for, being against evil and all that. What a crock it was.

She had high hopes that Angel would make a scene, but he only looked sadly at the couple. He had worn that sick puppy look all night, but now it seemed even more pronounced as he hugged Spike. “Feel free to call on me anytime either one of you need anything, Childe. I would be honored to assist you.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Spike had replied, although it sounded insincere. Maybe in a million years, when Buffy's dead, Willow thought.

Xander and Anya hugged the couple, and Anya was babbling something about doing couple things together now. Xander rolled his eyes, and threw Spike a look that Spike and Willow both understood. Anya being Anya, she was curious as to what kind of couple things they would do together. A dirty thought entered her mind that she quickly banished before she started giggling. She didn’t think that Buffy and Spike would be into the group thing—which was the only thing that she could think of that Anya would have any interest in.

Next Dawn hugged them both tightly, and whispered something to each of them that made both Buffy’s face flare brightly while Spike smirked, but it was too low for Willow to make out. Tara hugged them both as well, but her comment was made out loud, so it was easily discerned. “We’ll take care of the house, Dawn and I. And each other,” she added, turning to look at the little bitch next to her. Again, Willow seethed with anger, but pushed it down deep. Best to save it to use later.

Buffy and Spike started toward the DeSoto, parked at the side of the house, and Willow moved further into the bushes. They passed so close to her that she could have reached out and touched Buffy's dress if she’d wanted to, but she pulled away, almost fearful of the contact, trying to keep her breathing to a minimum. She watched the car drive away, then turned her attention back to the yard.

She saw they were cleaning up and talking, and again she strained her ears to hear what was being said. Mostly it was drabs of how beautiful the wedding was, how lovely they all looked, until she heard her name.

“I missed Willow being here. It didn’t seem the same without her,” Xander said.

Of course not, you fucking idiot, she thought. It will never be the same.

“Oh, Buffy had talked about inviting her, but that was before she attacked her in the street and said all those terrible things,” Anya replied.

Tara looked over at the bushes where Willow stood, almost like she knew she was there. “Willow is consumed with hatred and blaming everyone else for her misfortune. She had no place here on such a happy day.”

Bitch! Willow thought, then Dawn put in her two cents, and her fists clenched with rage once again. “She had better not show her face around here again, either. I don’t think that Buffy would like it, and I know that I won’t either. Especially now,” she added, wrapping her arms around Tara's waist.

Angel looked at all of them, then drank directly from a bottle of champagne. “I don’t know what happened. Can somebody fill me in?”

They all hurried to tell lies about how she, Willow, had become more obsessed and dark and evil while Buffy was dead, and her drive to bring Buffy back. Dawn laughed, laughed, at her loss of powers, and had the cheek to say, “Really, it was her own fault. She shouldn’t have been playing with such dark magics. It was poetic justice, if you ask me.”

“Does anyone know where she is now?” Angel asked, and they all threw a variety of looks, from incredulity to shock.

“Who cares?” Anya finally said with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “She made it clear to us all that we weren’t friends anymore.”

“Well, she might need help,” Angel said lamely.

“The only help that Willow could benefit from would be psychiatric, Angel,” Giles said, adjusting his glasses. “I don’t think that she would be accepting of it, however. She feels she did no wrong.”

I didn’t do anything wrong, she thought. I only wanted Buffy back—I had to do some of those things to get her back here, and all they can do is downgrade me. Some friends they were!

She clamped down on her ire, and soon they all went into the house. Probably to talk about her some more, she thought.

She fingered the object she carried in her pocket and made her way out of the bushes, turning her back on her past and everyone she thought she loved.

She made her way to the tall cliffs that surrounded Sunnydale. With only the stars for her light, she took the talisman out of her pocket and pressed it between her palms. “I call upon D’Hoffryn, lord of Arashmahar and keeper of justice.”

There was a flash of light, and the tall, blue-skinned demon stood before her. The smoke dissipated quickly in the light breeze, and he looked down at the petite redhead. “Ah, Miss Rosenberg. I thought that I would be hearing from you. What can I do for you?”

She was afraid, but she felt like this was the only way for her now. “Is your offer still open? I mean, I know that it’s been a while since you made it, but—“

D'Hoffryn extended his hand to her where she kneeled on the ground, having fallen there when he arrived. “Of course, Willow. I told you when I gave you the talisman; you have a gift for vengeance. Remember?”

“I guess. So, what happens now?” she asked, her voice tremulous with nervousness.

“We go to Arashmahar, you enter the apprentice class, and you can be a full vengeance demon before you know it.” He grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet, and started to wave his arm to transport them. “We do have to change your name, though, to something more suitable for a vengeance demon. How about…Wilheminda? Yes, Wilheminda. Sounds like a perfect name for you.”

She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Does it mean something?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said smoothly. “Outcast, for that is what you are now, isn’t it?”

She gave him a wry grin, and nodded. “Yeah, I guess I am at that. Wilheminda. And I’ll have powers again?” she asked, hope filling her heart.

“Oh, yes,” D’Hoffryn said, stroking her cheek. “My dear, I think that you will be the most powerful vengeance demon I’ve ever seen. Not only your imagination, but your pain and anger call to me. Come, let’s go to your new home.”

She turned to face the lights of Sunnydale, her heart light in her chest again. Power. She had found the perfect source, one that Buffy couldn’t touch and had no control over. She would make them all regret the day they had ever been mean to her. She would make them pay for making her feel like a misfit again.

With her hand in D’Hoffryn’s, she saw the lights of the town where she was born, raised, and stripped disappear into a flash of light. Yes, they would rue the day that they had ever known Wilheminda.