Part I

SEPTEMBER, 2001

Autumn was the time of year when Spike most disliked being in Southern California, and most missed the Northern Atlantic seaboard. There were too many palm trees in Sunnydale, and not enough deciduous trees making a show of the yellow and red foliage that he associated with the season. Had there been massive drifts of dead brown leaves falling through the air for his feet to scuffle through, that would have suited his melancholy mood far better than the cheerful tropical vegetation around him.

He walked through the cemetery, kicking idly at the few brown leaves he could find on the ground, but all his senses were on the alert for danger. Keeping busy was the only thing that had saved his sanity during the months since Buffy had died, and patrolling nightly for vampires and other demons was one way of keeping busy. Hostile activity had been on an upswing in Sunnydale since news of the Slayer's death had travelled through the demonic grapevine. And no new Slayer had emerged to deal with it. This left much for Spike and the rest of Buffy's friends to cope with.

Giles had been in touch with Quentin Travers by telephone. When the entire Council of Watchers and their whole globe-spanning network of agents had been unable to find a new Slayer anywhere, the conclusion they came to was that, since Buffy Summers had already passed on the call once in 1997 when she was temporarily dead of drowning, no new Slayer would arise upon this latest and permanent death of hers. Faith was now the only Slayer in existence, and Faith was in prison.

MAY, 2001

"So do you think they'll try to get Faith sprung from the hoosegow?" Xander asked. He, Giles, Anya, Willow, Tara and Spike were sitting in the back room of the Magic Shop, conferring about what was to be done. "I mean, bureaucratic finagling and pulling strings behind the scenes are what the Watchers' Council is best at, right? Even if they are based in England, I bet they've got the American judicial system and, uh, parole procedures and stuff like that sewed up in their back pockets."

"Certainly the Council is capable of doing that," Giles replied. Though Xander's sprightly manner of speech had largely returned to him, the older man spoke with a flat weariness that had never varied since the night of the final battle against Glory. Giles went through the motions dutifully, but his joie de vivre had vanished. "However, one of their agents who is a psychologist has spent time talking to Faith in prison, and they have determined that she needs to spend more time in penance and atonement before she can handle the responsibilities of a Slayer again. Were Faith released from prison prematurely, she would be likely to go off the rails again and become a danger to humanity. Better there is no Slayer at all battling the demons than for that to happen again."

"Still, the Council can't really afford to just wait around, can they?" asked Spike. "You'd think they'd just have this Faith bird snuffed, so a new Slayer can arise."

At this, the others stared silently at Spike, appalled. He shifted uncomfortably.

"Hey, what are you all looking at? I'm not the one being all ruthless and nasty here. I just know how the Council thinks, that's all. Everyone is expendable, right? Everyone is just a pawn in their big gameplan. That's their view of things -- don't blame me."

Everyone's eyes swivelled toward Giles. Stiffly, he replied, "The possibility of that course of action has been broached, actually. Oh, don't look so shocked, Willow -- Xander -- Tara. We've all locked horns with the Council before, haven't we? We all know what they're capable of. But in this case, they have decided that Faith's experience and fighting flair make it worthwhile to wait a while for her, rather than take a chance on a new and unseasoned Slayer. At least the Council is willing to wait and see if we, ah, survivors here can handle the demonic activity in Sunnydale for the time being. If we prove able to do so, and if no other major hotspots of demonic activity show up elsewhere in the world, well, then, Faith has a reprieve."

"So," Xander said musingly. "We're not only fighting to make Sunnydale safe for democracy; in a way we're also fighting for Faith's life."

Anya, sitting next to him, made a fist and punched him in the shoulder. "Ow!" Xander bleated indignantly. "What was that for?"

"I know you've never really gotten over her. That -- that little tramp Faith will always be . . . special to you!"

"Ancient history, Anya. Come on, who am I engaged to, anyway? Her or you? I just don't want Faith dead, that's all. Her or anyone."

The others nodded in agreement, and Spike added "Hear hear!" in a grim voice. When everyone looked at him in surprise, he said softly: "I've had enough death lately to last me a lifetime. 'Cept for deaths of demons. Them I don't mind making an exception for."

The entire room grew quiet and somber as they thought back on what Spike was referring to. Giles broke the painful silence by saying, "Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, Spike. You're the key player in the new gameplan, actually. Travers made a point of asking about you, about whether you were still interested in keeping up the fight. It seems you made quite an impression on the agents who interviewed you when they were in Sunnydale last winter, and now the Council as a whole is taking a great interest in you."

"A feeble crew, they were, those three who visited me. Can't say as I'm really flattered by their assessment." Absent-minded ennui was evident in Spike's voice. Very little really held his interest any more.

"Be that as it may, Spike," Giles replied, "the whole Council, to my surprise, seems quite receptive to the idea of relying on you and your strength for the time being. They wanted to send back one of the interviewers, Professor Frobisher to be precise, in order that she might, so to speak, watch you -- supervise you. But I felt you would probably work better with people you already knew."

"Frobisher! The woman's a fool. Good thing you scotched that plan. Yeah, I'll fight the demon menace -- for my own satisfaction. And you lot can tag along when you please. Or not. I don't care. Just leave me to it."

And in the months since May, that's how it had been. Spike patrolled with a grim, dogged dedication, and from time to time one or more of the others accompanied him; but he preferred to take the risks by himself, for he lacked confidence in his ability to watch a companion's back. Ever since losing the fight against the mysterious demon known as Doc, on top of Glory's tower, Spike had questioned his fighting ability. He was determined to do his best not to break his promise to Buffy again -- the promise he had made to protect Dawn till the end of the world -- and he told himself that by eliminating the demons that threatened the Sunnydale populace, he was protecting Dawn; but, in fact, he threw himself into each fight with a recklessness and abandon that did not bode well for his continued survival. So far, luck had been with him, and his risk-taking, kamikaze-style tactics had paid off. That could not continue forever.

SEPTEMBER, 2001

A rustle of dead leaves betrayed to Spike's sharp hearing the approach of two demons. They were attempting a clever, stealthy flanking attack, one to either side of him, but their idea of cleverness and stealth made the vampire smile contemptuously. It was one of the few times he had smiled at all in the past few months. They were Fyarl demons, large, greenish, brawny, and dangerous in a lumbering, ponderous way; but Spike could outmaneuver them without even trying hard. He didn't need to be as strong as they, so long as he was more agile and quick moving. *Not like that other demon, that Doc,* Spike thought to himself as he dodged the pair. *I was probably stronger than him, but he had the advantage over me then, same as I have the advantage over these Fyarl now.*

Circling, running rings around them, ducking from the swings of their massive arms, Spike was soon able to position himself so that he could stake first one through the heart, then the other. Fyarl demons, unlike vampires, could be harmed by any sort of sharp weapon -- it didn't have to be a wooden stake -- but a wooden stake was as effective as anything else. A faint flicker of pleasure coursed through him as he killed the two demons. But it wasn't like the old days; it wasn't like the exultant glee he would have felt at killing an opponent before. Before Doc's victory over him; before Buffy had to make up for that by sacrificing her own life.

Lost in an anguished reverie, musing bitterly over the past, Spike walked away from the demons' carcasses without noticing where he was heading. "Bloody hell!" he exclaimed in dismay, when he suddenly realized what part of the cemetery his fight against the Fyarl had brought him to. It was an area, shaded by willow trees, that he had managed to avoid until now. Giles and Willow had made a point of telling him where Buffy was buried in case he wanted to visit her grave (Spike had not been able to attend the burial itself, since the ceremony was a daytime one), but he had never been able to bring himself to make the visit.

MAY, 2001

The entire group, including Dawn, sat around the Summers living room making plans for Buffy's funeral. Giles and Willow were in charge, both careful to defer to Dawn's wishes as much as possible, but they also asked Spike's opinion on various matters. The vampire was quite touched that his views were being solicited. He hadn't really expected that.

Willow waved a sheet of paper in the air so that everyone could see it. "Okay, this is what we've got so far. 'Buffy Anne Summers, 1981-2001. Beloved sister, devoted friend. She saved the world a lot.' That'll pretty much fill up the space on the headstone, but there might be room for one or two more lines of engraving. Can anyone think of anything else we should add?"

Silent shrugs were the only answers to her question.

"What about you, Spike? Is there anything you'd like to have added?"

"Hmm." Spike pondered. "Well, I can think of a lot of things to put in, actually. 'Fierce fighter.' 'Mighty warrior.' 'Brave crusader.' 'Most formidable Slayer ever.'" Spike paused for a moment to master himself; his voice had begun trembling with emotion. Then he continued, "But all that's kind of implied by the last sentence down at the bottom, isn't it? So, no, I don't think you have to add anything. It'd just be, uh--", he hesitated, searching for the right word, "--redundant."

Touched by his remarks, everyone fell silent, except for Xander who, sotto voce, murmured in Anya's ear "Thank goodness!"

"Hey, I heard that!" Spike retorted sharply. "What do you mean, Harris? Thank goodness for what?"

Xander made no reply, and the silence grew awkward for a moment, until Anya put in: "He thought you were going to suggest engraving something inappropriate. Something sort of, you know, offensive and demony. He was worried he might have to put a stop to it."

"Right," replied Spike, stung more than he was willing to reveal. "I guess you have lots of experience with that, don't you, Harris? Always having to ride herd on demon-girl the way you do. Well, I, fortunately, have been kicking around this world long enough to learn a thing or two about what's proper. More than you could ever learn in your brief twenty years of existence. So why don't you just go--"

"Spike, please." It was Dawn's voice, a rare occurrence. She had spoken very little since her ordeal. Everyone's eyes turned to her now, as she sat, drawn and pale, curled up in a fetal position on the couch.

"I'm sorry, Niblet," Spike said with unwonted gentleness.

"No, I'm sorry," said Xander, chastened. He was looking at Dawn as he spoke, but then his gaze turned to take in Spike as well. "Really, I am."

SEPTEMBER, 2001

"Sorry." The word reverberated through the long days and months; Spike felt he had been continuously sorry, and nothing much else, from spring through summer to autumn. He spoke the word again, aloud, as he gazed at Buffy's headstone for the first time, using his vampiric night-vision to make out the words engraved on it -- the same words they had all agreed on so many weeks ago.

In keeping with the cliche, time had largely healed the wounds of Buffy's young friends. Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya all grieved for her, but they had their own lives to carry on with. Xander and Anya were busy with their wedding plans, Willow and Tara with their studies and their witchcraft. It was different for Dawn, of course. Watching Buffy give up her own life to save her sister's was an experience that even the most resilient youngster could not get over easily. And Giles, older, less resilient, more committed to being Buffy's watcher, bore a special burden of grief. Spike shared Dawn's feelings of guilt and self-reproach, along with Giles's inability to adjust and adapt: an inability multiplied all the more by Spike's greater age. Four months stretched long in Willow's, Tara's, and Xander's lifespans, long enough for healing to take place; from Spike's perspective, four months were only an eyeblink in eternity. The loss of Buffy was as sharp and raw to him now as it had been the day of her death. He couldn't spend every moment weeping, as he had that morning beneath the tower where her body lay broken and lifeless; but there was not a single day he had not wept.

As he gazed at Buffy's gravestone, at the simple, poignant phrases engraved on it, his knees buckled helplessly and he knelt, weeping yet again: strangled, reluctant sobs at first, then, with utter abandon, a cataract of tears. Some of them fell on the mound of soil, with its sparse grass cover, that lay over Buffy's coffin.

When his tears had run dry, the poetry took over, as it always did these days. Spike had thought very little about poetry for the past hundred and twenty years. But somehow, ever since Shakespeare's lines from ‘Henry V’ had arisen in his mind just before the final battle against Glory, a floodgate had opened, and Spike found himself remembering poems he had memorized as a boy, a human boy, almost a century and a half ago. Along with fighting demons, and keeping Dawn company, poetry was one of the few things that kept him going from one day to the next. Most often it was Shakespeare's.

The lines that came unbidden to his mind this time were "My only love sprung from my only hate!/ Too early seen unknown, and known too late!/ Prodigious birth of love it is to me/ That I must love a loathed enemy." *Yeah,* thought Spike, *prodigious is the word all right. Like a prodigy -- a freak of nature -- something that shouldn't exist. Why did I, of all people, have to go and fall for a Slayer? The same thing I always used to criticize Angel for having done! The lines fit, all right. But are they Romeo's lines, or Juliet's? Isn't it the heroine that speaks those couplets? Can't I think of something less girly for myself? Maybe something by Mercutio? Always fancied that character. Him, and Iago, and Lucio. Never wanted to be the hero -- or the heroine -- myself.*

But Spike was not permitted to muse in peace. Startled, he felt the ground beneath his knees begin to quake. Rubbing from his eyes the tears that blurred his vision, he looked around him wildly, trying to make out what was going on. In front of him, the soil was giving way and a lambent glow was issuing forth from beneath the ground. It formed a column reaching up into the air -- a column of light that pained Spike almost as if it were sunlight. Spike edged backward in consternation, then rose to his feet when he had gotten some distance away from the radiant column. Here, the ground was stable, but immediately in front of Buffy's headstone, there was a fissure, with crumbling soil sliding down into it. And something was rising out of the fissure, inside the column of light: a silhouette was all Spike could see at first, just a black form outlined in dazzling light -- but a heartbreakingly familiar silhouette.

"Buffy!" the vampire exclaimed in astonishment. Wild, sudden hope pierced him, painful and exhilarating.

"Spike." The voice that came from the core of the column was familiar, yet strange -- strange because it was spoken so much more warmly and kindly than it ever had spoken to him before. "I've been waiting so long. Why didn't you come sooner?"

And stepping forth out of the column came Buffy: not a decomposing corpse, but Buffy in the bloom of life and youth and health, with her hands outstretched toward him and a delighted smile on her face.

Spike had led an uncanny supernatural existence for 120 years. He thought he had seen everything, and could be taken aback by nothing. In his time he had once or twice been knocked unconscious by enemy blows, but he had never even come close to fainting from sheer emotion.

Like a marionette with its strings cut, Spike collapsed to the ground in a swoon.

About 20 yards away, crouching behind a large gravestone, a figure dressed in black trousers, a black turtleneck sweater, and a black watch cap pulled out a cell phone and punched in a number. "It's happened. You should come right away."

Buffy knelt down beside Spike's prone, sprawling body and gently tried to revive him. She was still kneeling there, holding his head on her lap and stroking his hair tenderly, when a large black limousine pulled up several minutes later. Buffy looked up, puzzled.

"Last thing I remember, it was against the rules to drive vehicles in this cemetery -- other than hearses."

The uniformed chauffeur who had exited the limousine did not answer her. He was busy opening the door behind him. A grey-haired man with a patrician demeanor stepped out.

Buffy cocked her head. "Quentin Travers, as I live and breathe."

"So you do, Miss Summers. It's good to see you looking so healthy. How about getting you and your unconscious friend out of here now -- shall we?"

Spike remained unconscious for another hour. He missed Buffy's joyous reunion with her sister and friends in the back room of the Magic Shop. Giles, with bad memories of Travers' last visit to Sunnydale, had been reluctant to leave home in the middle of the night to open the shop at Travers' behest, especially since Travers refused to explain over the telephone what it was all about. But when Giles arrived at the shop and saw Buffy step out of the limousine, the Watcher's joy knew no bounds. It was the happiest moment of his life. When his excitement had died down a bit, Giles phoned Xander and Willow and asked them to bring everyone, including Dawn, to the Magic Shop. Upon seeing Buffy the five young people were incredulous at first, then delirious with joy. Buffy herself was far calmer, but delighted to see her sister and her friends once more. Amid the embraces and the joyful tears, there was a hubbub of voices clamoring for explanations, but Travers was not forthcoming. "I only want to have to tell this once. We'll wait for the vampire to re-awaken. He needs to hear this too."

Finally someone got hold of some smelling salts to wave in front of Spike's nose, and his eyes blinked open blearily. He found himself lying on the table in the back of the Magic Shop, staring upwards at the faces of seven people bent over him. One was a stranger; another was the face he knew best in the world, the face that haunted his imagination both waking and sleeping. "Buffy! Buffy! Then it's true? It's really true? I thought -- I thought it was just another one of those dreams I keep having. And I'd wake up from it like always, and you'd disappear, and the world would be all dark and empty again."

Spike sat up cross-legged on the tabletop, and Buffy slid sideways onto the table next to him. "No, Spike, it isn't a dream. It's really true. Feel!" And she threw her arms around him and pulled him close. Spike buried his face in her hair. It felt as he had always known it would, soft and silky and redolent of her fragrant scent. There was nothing of death, nothing of the grave, about her. Spike felt his heart was about to explode from happiness.

"But--but how, Buffy? It's so wonderful, so glorious. It's too good to be true."

"Come on, Travers," said Giles with some asperity. "It's high time for explanations."

"Very well, Giles. Miss Summers and Mister, ah, Spike, if you would get off the table and take a chair along with everyone else, I shall explain."

Spike, Buffy, and everyone else sat down in the chairs around the table. Travers opened a briefcase and took some papers out of it. In the dry tone of a lecturer he said: "What explains this seemingly miraculous occurrence is an ancient collection of Sibylline prophecies known as the Per Impossibile scroll. Per Impossibile is a Latin phrase used in logic and argumentation, to deal with hypothetical situations that are contrary to fact -- situations that cannot actually come to pass. A literal translation of 'per impossibile' would be--"

"Through the impossible, or by means of the impossible." Everyone's eyes turned to Spike in surprise. With an awkward laugh he added, "Well, it's just schoolboy Latin. Pretty elementary, really."

"Yes. Quite," Travers replied. "At any rate, the Per Impossibile prophecies deal with vampires and Slayers, and with things so unlikely to happen that they essentially are impossible. And for that reason, few scholars have ever taken the prophecies seriously. For example, if a soulless vampire--"

Travers' gaze fell on the photocopied sheets of paper before him, alighting at the words "If, per impossibile, a soulless vampire should ever endear himself to a slayer so that she wept at his death, and her tears fell on his ashes, that vampire would instantly be reconstituted, whole and sound, and resume his unlife with his vigor restored." Reading silently to himself, Travers hesitated, then said, "Well, we needn't bother with examples that are not pertinent to the present case. The only one of the prophecies you need to know about is this one." Locating a sentence farther down on the sheet, Travers read aloud, "'If, per impossibile, a soulless vampire should ever come to love a Slayer, and weep at her death so that his tears fell on the soil of her grave, those tears of love and grief would have the power to restore her to life and health.' Of course, no one ever thought such a thing would ever come to pass. But it has now. This will probably be the only time in history, too. You should all savor this moment."

Everyone was silent with astonishment. Then Giles said angrily, "You knew about this all along? You knew Buffy could be restored to life by Spike's tears? Then why on earth didn't you tell us? What were you waiting for?"

Unexpectedly, Tara spoke up. "Magic doesn't work like that, Giles. You had to wait for Spike to do it on his own, didn't you, Mr. Travers? You couldn't just -- force it along."

"That is correct, Miss McClay," Travers answered. "If we had told Spike about the prophecy, so that he deliberately went to the grave to make the resurrection happen, that would have invalidated the prophecy. Even if he were genuinely weeping from grief, he would have had other motives besides sheer grief, and the magic would not have worked. The per impossibile miracle cannot occur unless it is a spontaneous act done of his own accord. Therefore, we had to wait."

"Well, you were pretty Johnny-on-the-spot here, weren't you, Travers?" Xander demanded sharply. "Just how long have you been in Sunnydale, anyway?"

"Since the day of Miss Summers' burial," answered Travers. "I and two of my operatives have been staying at the Sunnydale Radisson, keeping round-the-clock covert surveillance on Mister Spike. Frankly, we were about to give it up as a bad job very soon and go, ah, deal with the other Slayer at the state penitentiary."

Everyone spent a moment in silent thought. Then Giles, still angry, said, "Why have I never heard of these Per Impossibile prophecies, Travers? Anything that so closely concerns vampires and Slayers . . ."

"It wasn't a plot to keep you in the dark, Giles," answered Travers. "The prophecies are extremely obscure, and had been all but forgotten through the centuries, because they were considered to be so nonsensical and useless. There was only one of our Council researchers, Professor Frobisher, who knew the first thing about them. And even for her it was only a distant memory of something she had studied years ago. She had quite a job ferreting out the text of the prophecies this winter and translating it into English. She was prompted to do so only after our earlier visit to Sunnydale, when she interviewed Mister Spike and realized he had fallen in love with the Slayer."

"Hey, I never said anything of the sort!" interjected Spike. Had he been capable of blushing, he would have at that moment. "The Frobisher woman's an idiot."

"The Frobisher woman," replied Travers, "has her limitations, but about certain things she is extremely perspicacious. We can all be thankful for that, or the lot of you would be extremely bewildered right now, I should think."

"Yeah, that's for sure," said Xander. "But there's one thing I still don't understand. The phrasing of the prophecies. Why do they keep saying 'a soulless vampire'? I mean, vampires always were soulless, up until Angel anyway. And these are ancient prophecies, right? Way before Angel's time. Why would they bother to make a point of saying 'soulless'?"

"Prophecies, by their very nature, deal with the future," replied Travers. "The coming of Angel, the one and only vampire with a soul, was also foreseen long ago. There is an entire set of prophecies dealing with Angel and his special destiny, but they have nothing to do with Slayers."

A contemptuous snort could be heard from Spike's direction. Ignoring it, Travers continued: "The whole point of the Per Impossibile prophecies is that they deal with things that could not and should not occur. Now, given that Angel has a human soul, there is nothing impossible or even unlikely about him loving Miss Summers, or grieving at her death. It would not go against his nature. Thus, there is no special magic associated with Angel's tears. They have no miraculous efficacy."

"So Angel couldn't have brought Buffy back, even if some of his tears did fall on her grave when he was here for her funeral," said Willow.

"That is correct, Miss Rosenberg. It would not be a per impossibile act under the definition of 'per impossibile.' That is a very special kind of magic. And in this case, a soulless vampire is a prerequisite. Hence the specific phrasing of the prophecy."

"Okay," said Xander. "But there's just one thing I still want to know. You keep going on and on about 'pair eem-po-see-bee-lay,' meaning impossible. Right? Well, impossible means -- impossible! I mean, come on! Where's this great love coming from, anyway? I mean, how can it BE?"

Everyone's eyes turned toward Spike. "What, I'm supposed to have all the answers?" he muttered, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. "I just feel what I feel, that's all." He looked down at his hands. "Thought it was weird, from the very beginning. I didn't like it. Tried not to feel it. It was just too strong for me, that's all."

Travers said, "I hope you all realize that this miraculous occurrence can never be repeated. If Miss Summers should be killed again, her death will be final and irrevocable. The magic will not work a second time, now that Mister Spike is aware of it. And I rather doubt we shall ever find another vampire who feels the same way he does."

"I'll take my chances," said Buffy smiling. "I've got a new lease on life now, and that's more than I ever expected."

"Buffy, I'm going to make damn sure you don't get killed again," said Spike earnestly. "There can't be anything else as dangerous as Glory and her dimensional thingy ever coming up again, now can there? And any everyday garden-variety menaces, vamps and demons and whatnot, well, we can deal with them all right. You're going to live, Buffy. You're going to be the longest-living Slayer ever in history."

"Let us hope so," said Travers. "But, Mister Spike, I hope you will take care to avoid hubris. Ah, what I mean to say is--"

"Overweening pride," Spike cut in. "Yeah. I know. It's just schoolboy Greek."

"Very well, but do you get the point?" asked Travers. "You must realize that, while Miss Summers may go on from strength to strength, and you can indeed give her a modicum of help, your strength will never again be what it once was, Mister Spike."

"Oh? Why's that?"

Continued in Part 2

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