Disclaimer: Must we do this? They're not mine, they never were mine, and they will never be mine, because if they were, I wouldn't be sharing Spike. Why? Because I'm selfish!
Author's Notes: The events of NFA happened a bit differently in my world because I need Fred around. You'll see more in the next chapter. Anyway, read on...



The Forgotten

The screen door was wrenched from its hinges so violently was it flung open, and Willow glanced up fearfully only to relax an instant later. It was only Buffy, whom she had not seen in two years, only Buffy, with whom she had not spoken in nearly a month; it was only Buffy, looking enraged enough to kill her where she sat on the front porch of her New England home.

“Did you do a forgetting spell on me?” the blonde asked coldly, her once brilliant green eyes hardened with rage and an inner torment so great that Willow dared not presume the cause.

“No,” she answered truthfully, confusion written clearly on her delicate features. “Buffy, what is this about? I don’t understand… What are you forgetting?”

“Spike.” Even as she spoke the name, horror filled her eyes. She had accused Willow, her best friend, yet the witch seemed unaffected. “I’m so sorry…”

Willow never imagined that a name, one simple, little word, could be so full of pain and sadness. Climbing to her feet, the redhead embraced her friend, offering what little comfort she had. Buffy resisted at first, but then she relaxed in Willow’s arms, sobbing silently against the taller woman’s shoulder. Without speaking a word, the witch led Buffy to the padded wicker couch on the porch and urged her to sit down, and together, they sat in silence for what seemed like hours as the blonde slayer – the original slayer – calmed her emotions.

“Can you tell me what happened, Buffy?” Willow inquired gently, stroking Buffy’s golden hair in a comforting gesture as she had often seen Buffy do her sister Dawn.

“The Immortal a-asked me to m-marry him,” Buffy stammered, “a-and I kept thinking about that spell you did when Spike and I were engaged. I didn’t answer – the Immortal, I mean – I didn’t answer him, so he kissed me, but I wanted it to be Spike… I couldn’t… I can’t… remember what his lips felt like.”

“Oh, Buffy, no. I would never do a forgetting spell on you,” Willow assured her. “People forget things like that, you know? You just… in time the memories aren’t as sharp, and then some go away entirely. As long as you remember him, you’ll be okay.”

“Would you be okay if it were Tara?” Buffy asked quietly, finally lifting her head from Willow’s shoulder.

“I’m not,” the redhead admitted.

“Will, you have to do a spell to see if anyone else has done one to make me forget.”

“O-okay, sure,” the witch agreed. “Do you think it was the Immortal?”

“I don’t know,” said Buffy dejectedly. “I do know that I told him I would never marry him and he just shrugged it off. Why did he even ask me if he didn’t care?”

“Um, Buffy, you’re looking for an explanation of the motives of a man who calls himself the Immortal. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that rational thought and the Immortal are non-mixy things.”

Buffy actually laughed, revealing the finest of lines around her eyes when they crinkled. She hugged Willow fiercely, though she was mindful of her greater strength. “I missed you,” she confessed.

“Me, too,” said Willow, hugging her friend in return. Buffy had changed since last she’d seen her. Her hair was a pale shade of blonde and nearly reached her waist, and her tan was darker than ever from living in the Mediterranean, making her hair seem lighter and her eyes all the more vibrant. She had never looked so beautiful; Willow also thought that she had never looked so broken.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called in so long,” the slayer apologized as she released her friend. “I’ve just been… I’m such a bitch.”

“No, you’re not, you’ve just been stressed out. This hasn’t been easy on any of us.” Willow couldn’t bring herself to admit just how difficult it had been for her. She still missed Tara as much as she had the moment she’d held her as she died.

“It’s been almost five years,” Buffy whispered, “and there hasn’t been a day when he’s not in my heart.”

“You loved him.”

“I did. I do. I told him, you know, back in Sunnydale. Do you know what he said? He said, ‘No, you don’t. But thanks for sayin’ it.’ After he spent all that time insisting that I loved him, the one time I had the guts to say it, he…”

“Buffy… I don’t know if I should say this, but… Would you have stayed with him if he’d said it back?” Willow asked carefully.

“I don’t… Yeah, I would have, or I would have tried to get him out of there,” she said shakily as realization dawned on her. Betrayal flickered in her eyes, closely followed by anger, and finally misery. “Oh, my God.”

Her heart breaking at the pain her friend was feeling, Willow confirmed her suspicions. “He loved you enough to save you. You never would have made it.”

“Why… does it… have to… hurt… so much?” the blonde choked out between sobs. She buried her face in her hands, feeling as though she would heave the contents of her stomach all over her expensive Italian boots.

“Because life hurts,” Willow said sympathetically. “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. A very brave, very wonderful woman said that once. It was you, Buffy. You have to keep living –”

“So one of us is living,” Buffy finished, remembering the time she had nearly danced herself back into her grave – or rather an urn. Spike had been there to stop her, to save her. Again.

“You can do it, and I’ll be here to help you. You’re the strongest person I know, but you don’t have to be strong now.”

“I miss Mom.”

“I know, but hey, I know the next best thing.”

“Cookies?” Buffy asked hopefully.

“Giles,” Willow corrected. Pushing up from the couch, she grabbed her mug, tucked her computer under her arm, and opened the door for Buffy. When the blonde retrieved her bag from the stair leading up to the porch and stepped inside, she followed.

“You didn’t hear the car pull up,” Buffy pointed out as she followed the redhead into the kitchen.

“I’ve kinda gotten used to not living on a Hellmouth. Must’ve let my guard down, plus I have an oogey-ness detector,” she replied with an impish grin.

“A what?”

“Remember the spell Tara and I did to let you know if Glory came around? It’s the same sort of thing, only it works with demons and other nasties,” Willow explained.

“Your own security system,” Buffy said, her tone half-teasing and half-respectful. “I’m impressed, Will.”

Blushing, Willow refilled her mug and offered a cup of coffee to Buffy. “As long as I don’t get another goddess complex, it’s all good.”

Laughing softly, Buffy took a sip of coffee and asked, “How’s Xander? I haven’t heard from him in a long time.”

“You mean Alexander Harris, famed demon hunter?” Willow responded with a laugh. “He’s doing okay. He met a girl named Annika.”

“Creepy,” said Buffy of the name similarity.

“Tell me about it, only she was never a vengeance demon, but she has strawberry blonde hair, loads of freckles, and green eyes. She’s also a black belt in karate and has an Olympic silver medal in archery.”

“Okay… She has a name similar to Anya’s, coloring similar to yours, and she could give me a run for my money in the physical department. Again, I say, ‘creepy.’”

Willow agreed, “I pointed that out to him and he was all, ‘You three are the best women anyone could ever hope to know. I have a little of each of you this way. Did that sound as freaky as I think it did?’ Of course, I told him no, but… You know.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said, “I know.”

“Make yourself at home,” the witch insisted as she led Buffy into the living room. “I’ll go get my spell books and call Giles. I’ll call Xander, too. Maybe we can have a mini-reunion.”

With an affirming nod, the slayer sat down on the worn leather couch, drawing in the comforting scent of patchouli, sage, and minty shampoo. Willow. Sighing, she leaned her head against the cushion, finally acknowledging just how much she had missed her friends.

She had missed Willow, with her strangely beautiful features and haunted green-gray-hazel eyes, the way she laughed inappropriately and told strange jokes, the way she always knew when cookies, ice cream, and stupid movies were in order. She’d missed her odd fascination with animal crackers – it had something to do with monkey pants – and the way she often slept in one of Tara’s old sweaters, which was far too large for her rail-thin frame.

She had missed Xander and his goofy yet handsome face, his dark hair and eyes, and the way he laughed from deep down in his belly. She’d missed watching him work, whether the task was fighting or carpentry related, and she’d missed his warm hugs. She missed the way he spoke of Anya so reverently, so lovingly, and how he said even Spike’s name with warmth and something akin to respect.

She hadn’t seen Willow in two years, and it had been four since she’d seen Xander. She’d seen Giles once a year since the destruction of the Hellmouth, something her former watcher had insisted upon. He needed to see her at least once a year to make certain she was still alive and well, he had said.

Now she wished that she had kept up with Willow and Xander, as well, but there had been a time when it had been too raw, too new for the once tightly-knit group to remain together. The recent pain of their losses, their history, their inner demons all banded together to drive them apart, and the gap had yet to be bridged. Buffy admitted that it was mostly her fault, but the others were not blameless. She knew that now.

In times of crisis, Xander responded by emotionally withdrawing and making sarcastic remarks, while Willow turned to the black arts, wreaking havoc and destruction wherever she saw could. Buffy herself reacted by running away, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally. She knew now that none of them were pure or innocent, that they all contained depths of darkness equal to any demon or vampire’s – perhaps greater.

Perhaps Spike, even soulless and primitive, in his own way, had been the purest of the entire group. She missed Spike, guiltily, most of all. She missed the way his hair had felt so soft in her hands in spite of its constant exposure to bleach, she missed the way his eyes changed from ice blue to a stormy shade that was almost gray, and how he’d had a habit of pursing his lips in a way that made his cheekbones more prominent. Above all else, she missed the way he saw her, all of her, the way no one else ever had.

She felt fresh tears sting her eyes, and she glanced up when she heard Willow’s footsteps, forcing a small smile for her friend’s benefit. “Hey,” she said softly, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. “Find anything?”

“Yup, and Giles is on his way here, I got Xander’s machine” the redhead answered with a cheerfulness that was only half-feigned. It was good to have Buffy back no matter what the circumstances. “About… about the spell…”

“What about it?”

“There isn’t one,” said Willow sadly. “I did-didn’t feel one when I hugged you, but I checked it out in my books just to be sure. There’s no spell, Buffy, just… just the effects of time.”

“Oh, God.” A part of her had hoped there was a spell, for it could be reversed, her memories returned, but now she had to face the reality that she would soon forget the little things. Eventually, she might forget more. “I can’t do this…”

“Her hands.” Willow sat down on the couch beside the blonde and gave a pained smile. “I can’t remember Tara’s hands anymore, and she used to make this little sound in her sleep… I can almost hear it, but I can’t remember exactly what it sounded like. Kennedy snored.”

“You broke up with her because she snored?” Buffy teased, vainly trying to lighten the mood.

“I broke up with her because she wasn’t Tara. I’m finished, Buffy.”

“So am I,” she whispered. “D-do you think I could maybe live here? I can’t go back to Italy, and I can’t go to LA and see… him.” How could she ever look at Angel again, the man she had once called her great love, when she would constantly be thinking of Spike?

“Buffy, of course! And Dawnie, too, when she gets done with school. How is she?”

“She’s good. She’s great, actually. She’s living with some guy named Dante,” Buffy replied with a dramatic eye roll. “What kind of a poncy boy name is –” Paling visibly at her slip-up, she fell silent.

“Buffy, it’s okay. I think we all do it. I said ‘bloody Hell’ the other day when I stubbed my toe, a-and I drink the same tea Tara used to, the one I never liked, and I… referred to Annika as Xander’s orgasm friend.”

“Liar.”

“Okay, the last part… not so much, but the other stuff, yeah. And I still sleep in Tara’s sweaters,” the witch admitted.

“I listen to the Ramones,” Buffy challenged.

“I listen to Aimee Mann,” Willow answered, catching onto her game.

“I drink bourbon.”

“I gave up fried food because Tara always said it was bad for my skin.”

“I tried Wheat-a-bix.”

“Mixed with blood?”

“Eww!” Buffy exclaimed, sounding for the world like Dawn. She giggled at the realization, and Willow soon joined her.

“This is nice,” said Willow after their giggle-fit died down. “You know, being able to remember and not…”

“Feel like you’re gonna die?” Buffy offered.

“Yeah.”

“We suck.”

“Agreed.” Author's Notes: Yeah, things are a bit different in my world. There was no wonkiness with Fred because I need her! Also, she's too adorable to kill.
I realize that I refer to Angel as Spike's sire. I'll explain it later.



Guardian Devil

“Angelus. Angel? Peaches!” For the third time in as many hours, Spike fought to rouse his sire into some semblance of alertness so the man could feed. He had never really liked him, that was true, but the sight of such an imposing man being reduced to nothingness brought a twinge of pity to even Spike’s heart.

Angel sat in perfect stillness and quiet, his hands clasped firmly together in his lap, his once-intelligent eyes blank and flat, unblinking. Even his characteristic way of breathing unnecessarily had ceased. For all intents and purposes, he was actually dead.

Things had all gone to Hell since Spike’s re-embodiment. Cordelia, Connor, Darla, Drusilla – he made a vague mental note to avoid people with C and D as their first initials – except Dawn, but then he would never see the Bit again. She, like Buffy, like all of the Scoobies, thought he was well and truly dead, and after seeing Buffy in Italy with the Wanker (or was that the Immortal?) he knew that he hadn’t a chance in the world with her. Of course, if Angel had shown his face, she would have climbed him like a tree.

Like a tree… Hadn’t she always smelled of nature? Spike shuddered inwardly when he realized that he could barely remember her scent. It had been something natural, he was certain of that, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. It had been far too long… He bitterly wondered if she ever thought of him the way he thought of her. Probably not. After all, her heart still belonged to the Poofter, didn’t it?

If Buffy could see what had become of her beloved Angel… The battle had been brutal, lives had been lost, and Angel, once fierce and strong, had been utterly destroyed. Physically, he was unscathed, but mentally, there was almost nothing left of him. It was enough to make Spike feel ill.

No one was entirely certain of what had happened to Angel. Gunn and Wesley had fallen, and Spike himself had been presumed dead for a brief moment, but then he had made his ‘miraculous’ recovery – he’d crawled out from under the body of a dragon. God only knew what had happened to the others, but the first thing he’d seen – other than the belly of the dragon – had been Angel staring blankly ahead, broadsword in hand, silent.

Fred attributed it to a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder, and Spike, who knew a little more about medical procedures and the like than one would think, had to agree with her. There was no other explanation for it, unless said explanation was otherworldly, which there was no indication of. He preferred to believe that his sire was just mind-fucked.

“Buggering, sodding Hell, Angelus, snap the fuck out of it!” the blonde vampire shouted at the top of his considerable lungs. Again, there was no response, and he dragged a hand over his face and continued wearing a pattern in the rug with his pacing. After several moments of grumbling, pacing, cursing, and yet more pacing, Spike glanced at the brunette examining the machine that was monitoring Angel’s brainwaves – or lack thereof. “It’s no good, Fred.”

“What did you do the last time?” she inquired.

“Bloody Hell.” With a sigh of resignation, he bit into his own wrist, pried Angel’s jaws apart, and thrust the bleeding wound against his sire’s open mouth. Watching as a flicker of recognition returned to Angel’s mahogany eyes, he drew his wrist away. “Angelus?”

“It was so dark,” the brunette vampire whispered hoarsely. “And… and…”

“And?” Spike prompted.

“More darkness,” he said.

“Look, mate, I’m not one for this touchy-feely shit, but… Ah, Hell, we need you back. Think of all those people out there, walkin’ around like little Happy Meals with legs for Big Bads like me,” Spike taunted.

“You’re not a Big Bad,” Angel whispered. “You’re not bad at all.”

“Oy! You take that back, now!”

“Keep him talking,” Fred urged. It had been days since Spike had been able to provoke a verbal response from Angel, and the longer he remained coherent, the better chance he had at a full recovery.

“I’m trying…” He grabbed the mug of warm blood from Fred and took one of Angel’s hands, pressing the mug into it. “I’m not gonna feed you, peaches.”

Automatically, Angel lifted the mug to his lips and drank deeply. The unbuttoned sleeve of his shirt drifted down to settle in the crook of his arm, revealing a series of scars where an artificial limb had been attached to the remaining stump of his arm. With his advanced vampiric healing, the undead flesh had welcomed the creation of metal, wires, and synthetic skin as its own, and eventually, Spike knew, even the scars would fade.

“Peaches?” he repeated the nickname Angel hated most in an attempt to jar him back into reality.

Finishing the blood, Angel murmured, “I want to see her again.”

Spike didn’t have to ask which ‘her’ Angel had been referring to. “So do I, but… If you see ‘er now, you’ll give ‘er a bloody coronary. She’s only human even if she is the slayer.”

“Not human,” said Angel dreamily, reminding Spike far too much of Drusilla. “Above human.”

“How is she above human, Angel?” Fred asked, desperate to keep him talking as she watched in dismay when the monitor tracking his brainwaves slowed again.

“Dia duit,” the brunette vampire muttered in his native tongue. “Dia is Muire duit.” With those words, the line on the monitor flattened, and not for the first time, both Fred and Spike wondered how he could still be alive – or undead.

“What was that he said? Was that Gaelic?”

“God to you,” Spike translated, his ageless face somehow care-worn, older and world-weary. “God and Mary to you.” The Shorter Story

It was after nine pm when Rupert Giles pulled his rental car into Willow’s unpaved driveway. With a heavy sigh, the Englishman grabbed his suitcase from the backseat and slowly stepped through the broken door onto the screen porch. For a moment, he merely studied Willow and Buffy, but then he let his suitcase fall and opened his arms to the women as though they were his daughters.

In unison, the women stood and raced to hug Giles. Willow kissed his cheek warmly while Buffy toyed with a lock of his white hair as he stroked her golden locks. Rather than making him look ancient as it should have, it provided a sharp contrast to his relatively unlined face. After all he had endured, he looked more youthful than he had a right to.

Buffy was the first to break the silence, and she whispered, “I’m glad you came.”

“I told you, Buffy,” said Giles, his voice thick with emotion, “I’ll always come when you need me.”

Willow released him first and smiled in such a kindly manner than the former watcher was immediately reminded of Tara. “I’ve missed you, too,” the witch said.

“And I you,” Giles answered, gathering his suitcase when Buffy finally deigned to let go of him.

“Come on in,” Buffy invited, having made herself completely at home in the twenty-some-odd hours she had been there. She settled one hand on Willow’s back momentarily before stepping inside to remove the whistling kettle from the stove.

“N-now what is this you said about a spell?” Giles inquired of the witch as he followed her inside.

“That’s just it, Giles, I can’t find a trace of one, but Buffy seemed so convinced, and I believed her, I just didn’t feel any magic at work.”

“Yes, well, a-as sensitive as you are t-to magic, there are some spells not even you could… could trace,” the Englishman stammered in his comforting way.

“The tea’s ready!” Buffy called from inside the kitchen. “You two sit down and I’ll be right out!”

“Okay!” Willow answered before turning her attention back to Giles. “Why are you so convinced that there’s magic at work?”

“Be-because I’ve been forgetting things as well. I thought it was o-old age at first, but when you called me yesterday and explained things…” He followed Willow into the living room and gratefully took a seat on the leather couch.

“You, too?” Buffy asked worriedly from the doorway. Carrying the tray of tea and cookies, she set it down on the table and settled herself on the couch beside her former watcher.

“Y-yes, and it’s quite disturbing.”

“It hurts,” Willow added, her voice barely above a whisper.

“What of Xander?” questioned Giles.

“We don’t know yet,” Buffy replied. “Willow’s been trying to reach him, but she just keeps getting his voice mail.”

“I don’t know where Xander is,” the redhead stated.

Taking the cup of tea Buffy offered, Giles sighed heavily. “I suppose we’ll need to organize one of those… research parties we were so famous for.”

“Oh! Research party!” Willow squealed in delight. “We haven’t had one of those in ages!”

Buffy laughed softly, and she voiced what they were all thinking. “It won’t be the same without Xander here.”

The moment the words left Buffy’s lips, the man in question burst into the living room, crossbow in hand, patch firmly over his eye. “What happened with Buffy and… Oh, hey, Buffster.”

“Xander?!” the small group cried in tandem. Buffy and Willow leapt to their feet and launched themselves at the dark-haired man.

“Oh, my God!” Willow said excitedly. “I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday afternoon! How did you get here so fast? Where were you?”

“It’s so good to see you!”

Setting the crossbow aside, Xander locked his arms around the two women in a fierce embrace. “I know, I got the messages, but then my cell stopped getting a signal. I was in Canada, so it didn’t take me long to get here,” he replied.

When the two women ushered Xander toward the loveseat, Giles rose and hugged him briefly. “It’s good to see you,” he said, feeling the clenching of his heart again. His children, his chosen ones, were all alive and well, and he was as proud as any father.

“You, too,” Xander agreed, finally sitting down between Willow and Buffy. The latter reached out for one of Giles’ hands, loath to lose contact with any of them. “Now, will someone please tell me what the heck’s going on?”

“W-we have all been experiencing some, ah, some memory loss in direct relation t-to those we…”

“To those we love the most,” Willow finished.

“Y-yes,” Giles stammered.

“I’ve been forgetting things about… about Spike,” Buffy confessed, waiting for a swift rebuttal from Xander. She was surprised when it never came.

Instead, the man’s eyes saddened, and he nodded, “I’ve been forgetting things about Anya, just little things, but I just feel like there’s a huge, gaping hole in my gut.”

“I can’t remember Tara’s hands or the cute little sound she made while she was asleep,” Willow volunteered.

“I can’t remember the sound of Jenny’s laugh,” whispered Giles.

“I can’t remember the way Spike kissed,” Buffy admitted.

“I can’t remember her skin… the way it felt,” said Xander finally. “On a scale of one to ten, this sucks.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” the Englishman agreed.

“So… when are we gonna have the research party?” Willow asked eagerly.

“Shouldn’t we let Xander and Giles rest first?” Buffy inquired.

“Oh! Just forget about me,” Willow said self-deprecatingly. “I think my brain is all wonky.”

“That’s the other thing,” declared Buffy. “I remember some of the weirdest things so vividly and –”

“As do we all, I’m sure,” Giles interrupted, “and I’m certain that it’s our way of trying to regain the memories we have lost. We’re clinging to the ones we have desperately.”

“And they’re not all of Anya,” Xander stated. “I remember… The other day, I could hear Spike’s voice, just boom!”

“I was thinking about Miss Calendar yesterday,” Willow said nervously.

“I kept wondering if Anya would actually call Dawn’s boyfriend an orgasm friend,” said Buffy with a small smile.

“A-and I was just marveling at how much Willow’s smile resembles Tara’s.”

The quartet exchanged apprehensive glances, and Willow retrieved her laptop as Giles unzipped his suitcase and removed several large books. The research party had officially begun. Author's Notes: My Gaelic is extremely rusty, folks, so if any of you speak the language fluently, feel free to correct me and help me out!
More will happen in the next chapter, I hope, but for now, a chapter with nothing but Spike and Angel bickering and completely getting distracted will have to do.

Thanks to the two Kates, and to the one currently sitting across from me (ahem, sis!) it's not necessary to review online, you goof!
Thank you, Neo! I hope it will be. ::crosses fingers::
Ace, could we use Wind Beneath My Wings as our song? ::wink wink, nudge nudge::


All Apologies

“Spike!” Fred called excitedly from his sire’s room, jarring the sleeping vampire from his slumber – or some semblance of it – on the couch in the living room. “Angel’s awake and alert; he’s asking for you.”

Like the truly magnificent ponce that he was, the blonde vampire surged up from the couch and nearly took flight in his haste to reach Angel’s side. Of course, had anyone pointed out his race to his sire, he would have mocked them, laughed it off. He would have been humiliated.

Spike paused in the doorway, visibly relieved when he saw Angel standing rather than sitting, his eyes filled with their usual brooding misery rather than blank and lifeless, his hair gelled in its trademark pointed manner rather than flat and shaggy.

“Conas atá tú?” Angel inquired in his native Gaelic, giving Spike a pointed glance that clearly asked another question: Did he remember the language Angelus had insisted he learn all those years ago?

“Tá mé go maith,” the younger vampire answered, his cockney accent suddenly replaced with a soft, almost lilting inflection of the British upper class. Silently, Spike laughed at the absurdity of the situation – an Englishman was speaking Gaelic. Glancing at Fred, he clarified, “He asked how I was, and I told him I’m doing well.”

“Thanks for explaining that,” she said lightly. “I’ll let the two of you… catch up.” With that, the intelligent brunette inclined her head to the pair of vampires and left the room silently.

“You remember after all this time,” murmured Angel softly.

“How could I forget?” Spike quipped, instinctively straightening his posture. He was Angel’s childe, that would never change, but he was his own man now. He could stand up for himself.

Angel cringed inwardly at the reminder of how his lesser – or was it his greater? – half had finally taught the younger vampire the proper inflections of his mother tongue. He, no, no, Angelus had used every method of torture known to man, and some not known to man, and he felt assiduous twinges of pain now when he looked back on those times. But he was Angelus, wasn’t he?

“Peaches?” Spike asked warily. His sire wasn’t the most talkative bloke, that was true, but his silence was worrisome now, for lately silence meant catatonia.

“I was remembering… then,” the elder answered, “remembering how you learned Gaelic. I never –”

“Look, Angelus, I don’t know why you called me in here, but if it was to have a bleedin’ heart-to-heart –”

“Silence!”

Force of habit alone, dredged up by old memories after his use of Angelus’ native language, bade Spike to obey the command when Angel interrupted him as he had been interrupted.

Despite his previously harsh shout, the dark-haired vampire’s eyes remained gentle as he said in apology, “Let me finish, William. I never meant harm to any of you, even if the demon did.”

“That’s all well and good,” the blonde retorted, “but it doesn’t have a soddin’ thing to do with why you’ve been off in bloody La-La Land. Fred and I agreed that it had to be post-traumatic stress disorder that sent you into the whole fit of catatonia, but now I’m thinkin’ it was some nasty mojo or –”

“It was,” said Angel softly.

“Eh?”

“Nasty mojo, bad magic, something… I don’t know what, but I do know that I can’t remember things… people I know are important. I can remember the distant past, all the things I’ve done…”

“Y-you’ve been forgettin’ things?” Spike asked warily. “What kinds of things?”

“Buffy,” he answered simply.

Anger flared in Spike’s eyes at his sire’s mention of the woman he loved – the woman they both loved. “You left her,” he said heatedly, “that makes your claim on her null and void.”

“No,” replied Angel coldly, “my claim on her was broken when she died. You know that, or are you so foolish as to think that you could claim her with your dick.”

Spike growled in response and, before either vampire realized exactly what had happened, punched his sire with enough force to split his lip. Blue eyes widening, he immediately lowered his hand to his side, expecting a swift rebuttal that never came.

“One free blow,” Angel muttered, “you had it. The next time, I hit back. I love Buffy with everything in me. I love her with my entire soul.”

“Yeah, well, you lost that, didn’t you?” the blonde spat. “I had a problem and I soddin’ well fixed it! She needed someone to help, I helped! She needed someone to look after the Bit, and I fuckin’ did it! When she needed someone to beat and fuck and break, I was bloody well there! She wanted a vampire with a soul, and I got mine back! I died for her!”

“SO DID I!” Angel bellowed, his eyes blazing amber as he licked the trickle of blood from his lip. A moment later, he added bitterly, “AND I WENT TO HELL!”

Suddenly, Angel’s ire returned Spike’s senses to him, and he said maliciously, “‘S the difference between you and me, Peaches. You died, went to Hell, and blamed her for it. I’d do it all over again, burn alive again – for her – and never regret a second.”

Golden eyes immediately returning to their soft shade of brown, Angel sucked in an unneeded breath at the realization that, in spite of what he tried to believe, he did blame Buffy for the time he had spent in Hell after his disastrous raising of Acathala. The woman he loved more than life itself – or at least tried to – was also the cause of so much of his bitterness. “Gabhaim pardún agat…”

“Don’t beg me to pardon you, Sire, you should be begging her.” In spite of the detachment in his tone, Spike’s eyes softened. One could say that he hated his sire and it would be true; one could also say that he loved his sire – equally true. Their relationship was nothing if not complex.

“I should,” Angel agreed hastily. “I can’t.”

“I know.”

“You would.”

A mere inclination of his head was Spike’s response, and he lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply.

After a long pause, during which he watched Spike enjoy his cigarette with the fierce pride of a formerly abusive parent now in anger management classes. “You’re still here,” he murmured in amazement.

“That my cue to exit?” Spike retorted.

“No. Why, after almost three years of seeing me how I was, three years you could have been free of me – could have killed me – why are you still here?” the brunette asked seriously, and his childe knew that an answer was required.

“You’re my bloody sire,” he replied. And it was as simple, and as complicated, as that.

Emptiness

Buffy flung the manuscript she had been looking over across the table with a frustrated shout.

“Guess you didn’t like that one, huh?” Xander quipped with his trademark sarcastic grin.

“There’s nothing in there, Xand,” Willow said, understanding of Buffy’s disappointment. “There’s stuff about forgetting spells that make you forget everything –”

“As was the case with your spell,” Giles commented gently, remembering the spell Willow had performed to make them all forget their pains, which had inadvertently erased their memories.

Without warning, Buffy giggled aloud, and three pair of eyes turned to look at her with concern. Immediately, she amended, “I was just thinking of Dawn and her necklace… Umad… and Spike’s ridiculous brown suit.”

“R-randy!” Xander burst into a fit of laughter and adopted a horrid English accent. “‘Randy Giles? You might as well have named me Horny Giles, or Desperate-For-A-Shag Giles!’”

“‘I knew there was a reason I hated you,’” Willow added with a laugh, and at last, even Giles chuckled at the memory. Soon, the group was gasping for breath and clutching their sides as they recalled various moments from that night – and many others.

“D-do you remember the time Anya and Dawn were bickering about whether or not Spider-man got paid for saving people?” Xander questioned between laughs.

“And you said that action was his reward?”

“And then you said that Anya was like, ‘You never take my side!’ and it was almost World War Three?”

“That’s the time!”

“And do you remember when –”

“A-as enjoyable and… and comforting as this may be,” Giles interrupted, “we’ve found nothing of value yet.”

“There’s nothing here, Giles,” Willow protested when the Englishman passed her a book to read through. “There are only spells like the one I did, complete memory wipes where you can’t remember anything at all, and spells that apply to certain memories, like o-of a place or an event.”

“This applies to certain memories,” said Buffy firmly. “This applies to the memories of the people we love most.”

Exasperated, Xander retorted, “Yeah, but there’s nothing on record about that!”

“Then it… it could be a new spell, or something,” offered the witch. “Or even a new use for an old spell?”

“I think we all agree that we’ll find nothing in these books,” said Giles. “I can’t believe I actually said that… I suppose now we must ask ourselves ‘why?’”

“That’s what I want to know,” Buffy agreed, her tone fierce with anger. “It’s bad enough that he… that they’re all gone, but now we’re losing memories, too?”

“I know that no one wants to hear this, but isn’t it possible that we’re all just forgetting stuff?” Xander inquired. “Does there always have to be a Big Bad involved?”

“Th-that was the first thing I thought,” Willow said gently, “and I don’t feel any magic, but Xander, we can’t all forget the same sort of thing just… just boom, can we?”

“Willow is right,” Giles conferred. “Much as I would like to believe that there is nothing more sinister at work than the fallibility of the human mind, I think… I feel that something is wrong.”

“So do I, and I have Spidey sense.”

With a pained smile, Xander nodded his agreement and said, “Actually, I’m kinda glad everyone agrees that it’s a spell, because that way…”

“Our memories can be put back?”

“Yeah.”

“Willow, will you try again?” Giles asked, turning to study the witch. “Not now, of course, I assume that you are even more exhausted than the rest of us.”

“No,” the redhead replied as she lit a circle of candles and placed them in the center of the group. “I’ll try now. Everyone join hands.” As she spoke the words, Willow’s eyes took on the uncanny shade of black that signified the use of powerful magic.

“Is this where we sing songs about flowers and love?” Xander teased as he took Willow’s hand in one of his, Giles’ in the other.

“Oh, dear Lord…” the Englishman muttered under his breath, linking his hand with the tiny golden one of his slayer’s.

Buffy, in turn, grasped Willow’s free hand, and the group simultaneously closed their eyes without Willow’s instruction to do so.

“Mnemosyne, Titan of memory, mother of the Muses,” Willow began in a voice so fierce that those gathered had no doubt that all creatures of both Heaven and Earth would hear her. “Here we sit, your servants, Children of Light and Protection. We call upon you to guide us. Show us the cause for our loss.”

At the witch’s nod, the company leaned forward and extinguished the candles with a simultaneous exhalation.

The plumes of smoke danced momentarily before taking the form of a woman, and Willow, acting as their leader, bowed her head in respect.

“You called upon me, Witch,” said the disembodied Titan in a voice that was kinder and softer than what was expected.

“Yes. We’re in need of aide and knew that we had to turn to you,” the redhead stated confidently.

“It is Themis you seek,” Mnemosyne replied, “not I.”

“T-this has to do with our memories,” Buffy added quietly.

“It is not memory that ails you, Slayer. This is a matter of justice, not forgetfulness.”

“But…” Willow protested.

“Seek Themis in two days’ time,” answered the Titan. “She will know the answer to your questions. I am sorry I cannot help you.” The smoke swirled around the candles until they were relit, and then evaporated, leaving the quartet frustrated yet heartened.

“Yes, well… At least now we have something to go on,” said Giles encouragingly.

As the black receded from Willow’s eyes, she nodded her agreement. “Yeah… Now we have something to go on.”

“What if we forget more by then?” Xander asked the question no one else dared voice. “What if we forget everything?”

“We’ll figure something out, Xan.” Buffy offered a reassuring smile and leaned over the candles to hug him. “I promise.” As You Were

Angel was dreaming; it was one of his bittersweet dreams of Buffy. In it, she sat on a worn leather sofa beside Willow, and even in his dream state, he noted that the witch looked frail, so frail… Giles, ever-present and venerable, sat next to Xander, who apparently fancied himself a crossbow-wielding pirate in the dream.

For a moment, he allowed himself to take in her beauty as though seeing her for the first time. Her golden hair was paler than he had ever seen it, though not as pale as Spike’s, and her green eyes glistened with weary sadness and a fierce, hardened intelligence one could near gain in any formal institution. Her skin was a deep bronze, which made her eyes all the greener and her hair seem even lighter. She was a golden goddess, his true love, the ephemeral beating of his undead heart.

It was as though he were non-corporeal as Spike had been, yet even more ghostly. He was there, clearly, for he could see them, hear them laughing at Willow’s recollection of something amusing Oz had once said about monkey pants – whatever that meant – yet he was not seen or heard, himself. It was frustrating and liberating at once.

And as the conversation grew more serious, he heard it. A name was mentioned gravely and with reverence. Spike’s name, in fact, and Angel knew. As it sometimes happened in dreams when one realizes that they are in fact dreaming, he understood that this was no dream at all – he was seeing Buffy and her friends as they were, and Buffy missed Spike.

“Sometimes,” said dream-Buffy softly, her voice almost like an echo in his preternaturally animated brain, “I think I see him in a crowd, and I want to tell him that… I’m sorry.”

Angel vainly wished that he could speak to her, but he knew that his presence in their reality was for a greater purpose than his reunification with Buffy, much as he would have liked that to be the case. He understood it clearly, and he hated it. He was the go-between for his love and his childe.

Even as his sleeping conscious thought the words, he roused, but not before burning the image of Buffy, fierce, strong, and unbelievably beautiful, into his mind. Dark lashes parted as he returned to wakefulness, and he dragged a hand over his face with a pained sigh of breath he didn’t need as he rolled gracefully to his feet. He knew that Spike would be awake – reading, as he always did when he thought no one was watching him.

Following the plumes of smoke billowing down the hallway from his living room, Angel found Spike just as he had imagined him: sitting in a chair, hunched over a copy of Orwell’s 1984, a forgotten cigarette dangling from his tapered fingertips. At the same moment he opened his mouth to warn his childe that he was in danger of singeing his finger, the younger vampire lifted brilliant blue eyes from the book to meet his gaze.

“Fred’ll worry ‘bout you if you don’t get your rest,” said the blonde vampire, finally crushing out the neglected cigarette.

“I had a dream,” Angel began.

“Buggering Hell, Angelus, if you tell me you had a dream you were a Jedi, I’ll scream,” Spike interrupted with trademark sarcasm. He fell silent at his sire’s pointed stare.

“About Buffy,” he finished. “Only it wasn’t a dream, I was actually there with her. She’s with Willow, Giles, and Xander, and –”

“Oh, please. Of course she’s with them. She’s always with them… I thought she was in Italy with the Wanker.” Perplexed, the younger vampire gestured for Angel to sit down and set his book aside.

Pain evident in his eyes, the brunette stated, “She was… talking about you. She said that she sees you everywhere and that she wants to apologize.”

Agony, hope, passion, love, and a riot of emotions that passed by too quickly for Angel to name encompassed the blonde vampire’s features until his countenance of detachment returned; Spike remained silent.

“For whatever reason,” Angel began, “I was meant to see her, to hear that, and to tell you. I-it sounds self-important, I know. William, this is bigger than we previously thought.”

Finally, at the use of his real name, he replied, “I thought as much. Not about your vision, but about this bein’ bigger than we thought. Why else did you suddenly pop outta your nice little self-made Hell?”

“I had a link with Buffy,” the elder mused aloud.

“I have a feelin’ we’re bein’ used, here, Peaches.”

“I agree, but by whom, and what for?”

“Good questions, those,” said Spike.

“Call her,” Angel commanded, pushing his cell phone toward his childe. “She misses you. She… she loves you and needs you. Something is going on, and I sincerely doubt it’s only affecting the two of us. She obviously remembers you, but, my God, what if there’s something she can’t remember –”

“And it’s hurtin’ her…” the blonde finished. “I’ll call ‘er, I will, just… not now. I need to think of what to say. W-we don’t even have her number!”

“You’re stalling,” replied Angel. “I always have her number. She’s programmed into my cell phone.”

Sucking in a breath he didn’t need, Spike flipped the phone open and glanced at his sire pointedly. “Can’t bloody well make a call with you sittin’ right soddin’ there, now can I?”

Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Angel pushed to his feet and strolled into the kitchen to warm blood – he would even feed his ungrateful childe, his true pride and joy. He could hear the sound of Spike pushing the button to dial Buffy’s number even from the other room.

“Sl-Buffy?” Spike murmured nervously. “It’s me.”
Leaving Again

Buffy felt it before she knew for certain. She had spent the morning baking cookies, cakes, and various other good and calorie-laden treats as she recounted the old and sometimes not-so-good times with Willow while Xander and Giles discussed demons. The afternoon had been spent devouring said calorie-laden treats and yet another research party – this time the group had researched Themis.

Sometime around three pm, Buffy felt a strange tingle that usually indicated the presence of a vampire, and yet Willow’s magical alarm had not sounded, nor could the witch sense the physical presence of anything. In the end, they attributed it to a phantom tingle brought on by talk of the past – and of Spike. Still, Buffy knew that the presence she had sensed was not Spike’s. It had been Angel, but that was impossible. Angel was still in Los Angeles, undead and presumably well. She had not spoken to him in nearly four years.

When her cell phone began ringing frantically, the slayer hesitated to pick it up, and Willow’s green eyes locked with her own. Somehow, the witch knew that the called was someone important. Finally, with a sigh of resignation, the blonde flipped the phone open and put it to her ear. “Buffy,” she simply stated her name.

“Sl-Buffy?” the familiar accented voice question. “It’s me.”

“Spike?” Buffy asked incredulously, holding the phone up so the others could hear him when she caught Giles’ pitying gaze.

“You’re probably lettin’ everyone hear this, so… Hello, Watcher, Red, Harris, and whoever else is sittin’ there,” the vampire replied knowingly.

“I-it’s just us, Spike,” Willow stammered into the mouthpiece. “We’ll, um, we’ll let you talk to Buffy alone now.”

“Appreciate it, Red.”

Returning the cell phone to her ear, the blonde slayer shook her head when her friends rose to file out of the room. Instead, she pushed to her feet and shakily made her way into the kitchen, sitting heavily in a chair. Spike was alive – or undead – and he had called her. He was back.

“You still with me, Slayer?” Spike asked with uncharacteristic shyness.

“Yeah. I’m in the kitchen now. What…? How are you…?” she stammered. She could hear the others whispering frantically in the sitting room, and if she listened carefully, she imagined that she could hear Giles cleaning his glasses.

“I’ll explain that later,” he said quickly. “Listen… Peaches ‘ad a dream, only it wasn’t a dream, really. He was –”

“He was here,” Buffy finished.

“Yeah, ‘e was there. Said there was no way he just popped in for no reason. Somethin’ wonky’s goin’ on ‘ere in LA, pe-Buffy,” he corrected at the last moment.

“This is so… sudden…” She blushed furiously when she remembered the last time she had said those words to Spike, during Willow’s botched spell when they had been engaged.

Those words brought a smile to the blonde vampire’s lips, and he pressed on. “Angelus has been in some sorta coma for the last few years, driftin’ in an’ out. Now he’s awake, and yeah, that is sudden. Not only that, but I’ve been forgettin’ things… here and there, just small things –”

“About me?” she asked hopefully.

“Yeah, and… How did you know that?” Spike inquired as he lit a cigarette.

“There’s some kind of spell that makes us… makes us forget things about the ones we… the ones we love the most,” the slayer finished bravely. “Willow’s been forgetting things about Tara, Xander’s been forgetting Anya. With Giles, it’s Jenny, and for me it’s…”

“Peaches?”

Her voice was scarcely above a whisper when she replied, “You.” The following silence from the vampire’s end of the conversation have Buffy pause, and she waited for him to pull one of many cold remarks from his collection; she waited for a denial that never came.

“You always smelled like somethin’ warm and soft, somethin’ natural, but for the life – or unlife – of me, I can’t –”

“Vanilla and… and a hint of lilac. That’s what you always said,” the slayer offered. “Spike, we have to get to the bottom of this. We have to find out who’s doing this and why.”

The blonde vampire smiled ruefully when Buffy switched back into slayer-mode so quickly. At least now he could almost imagine the scent. He wanted to ask what she had forgotten about him, what possible thing would upset her enough to make her think she saw him everywhere. “Give me the directions an’ we’ll be out there soon as we can,” he replied after a long pause.

“No,” Buffy said. “I’m… we’re coming to you.” She knew that the symbolism of that act would speak volumes, and that at least the William part of him would understand the significance of it.

Choosing to ignore the small thrill that went through him at his slayer’s words, he pressed on, “Buffy, there’s somethin’ else you should know, somethin’ about Peaches.”

“What about him? I-is he all right?” she inquired worriedly. Her love for Spike aside, there was a part of her that would always belong to Angel, and they both knew it.

“There was a slight… apocalypse,” said the vampire, unknowingly using Giles’ phrase. “He lost part of ‘is arm, but the prosthetic’s attaching itself and acting as if it were his own flesh and blood. There’s some scarring, and he’s a bit wonky ‘bout it, but yeah, other than that and this mess, he’s fine.”

Buffy laughed in spite of herself, flashing a reassuring smile at her former watcher when he peered into the kitchen in concern. After all they’d been through, Spike still thought she would be more concerned with Angel’s arm – but then she’d never really given him reason to think otherwise.

“Buffy, luv, what’s so funny?”

“N-nothing,” she stammered. “It’s nerves. It’s… if he’s fine, then there was no reason to tell me, was there? I mean, I doubt I’ll be looking at his arms. It’s… How is this possible? What happened with… was it the amulet?”

“Slayer, if you and your Scooby gang are plannin’ on comin’ out here, you’ll need plane tickets. To get those, you’d have to call the airline,” he said gently. A moment later, realization dawned on him, and he amended, “I’ll still be here when you hang up the phone, hear? I’m not goin’ anywhere, pet.”

He’s still doing it, the blonde slayer thought. We’re thousands of miles away and he’s still reading me like an open book.

“I know,” she answered. “Spike, I… I’m glad you’re back.”

“So am I.”

Neither hung up.

“Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re still here.”

“Yeah. You didn’t hang up, pet.”

“I know.”

“Buffy, I still… I’ll see you when you get here,” the vampire said. “I’m hangin’ up now…”

As soon as the connection ended, Buffy whispered, “I love you.” Flipping the phone shut, she took a moment to compose herself before returning to the living room, back in slayer-mode. “Willow, I need you to book us plane tickets for the next flight to Los Angeles. Giles, pack as many of Willow’s books as you can into a suitcase, get Xander to help you. The rest, we can have Angel –”

“Buffy?” Willow interrupted.

“—and his crew look into. Also, Will, you need to bring everything we’ll need to contact Themis—”

“Buffy,” the former watcher said with more force.

“—and I’ll call Dawn and let her know what’s happening. For all we know, she could be forgetting Mom, and that would totally devastate—”

“BUFFY!”

“Huh?”

Smiling kindly, Giles indicated the already packed suitcases, and Willow held up the confirmation numbers for their booked flight to Los Angeles while Xander looked on with a strangely proud smile.

“Guys, give her a break, she had a moment,” the dark-haired man teased.

“Oh,” the slayer exclaimed as she finally took in her companions’ states of readiness. “Oh, God. I was rambling. Um… let’s just go now, okay? Moment forgotten?”

“You were incredible,” praised the Englishman. “But then, I’ve always thought you so.”

“Guys? Our flight leaves in less than four hours. We have to go. I offered to do a transportation spell, but Giles –”

“Giles rightly believes that you need to conserve your energy,” said former watcher commented.

“Okay… Going!” Xander hoisted two large suitcases – one Willow’s, one Buffy’s – while Giles gathered his own luggage.

Buffy, some of the spark returning to her haunted green eyes, led the group out of Willow’s home, her head held high. She knew from experience that a single second could change the course of a person’s life, and she remembered each moment that defined hers – the first time she had heard of her calling and her subsequent meeting of Rupert Giles, the start of her friendship with Willow and Xander, the first time she had seen Angel, her truce with Spike and the Acathala incident – the list went on and on. She also knew that there was one moment, one bright, shining moment that dominated all others.

This was it.
Frienemies

“How did it go?”

Spike glanced up from a fascinating spot on the floor at his sire’s question, and he shrugged nonchalantly. “Fine, I suppose. Weren’t you listening?”

“A little,” admitted the brunette vampire. “How is she?”

“Shocked. Worried. She’s just… she’s Buffy.” Bitterly, Spike knew that Angel would understand all that was implied in those few words. Still, there was hope now, wasn’t there? She had barely seemed concerned with Angel’s arm, she hadn’t wanted to hang up. She wanted to apologize. She was coming to Los Angeles.

Buffy. Was. Coming. To. Los. Angeles.

“Fuck, she’s comin’ here!”

“You expected otherwise?” Angel asked gently.

“Don’t be glib, Angelus,” the blonde snapped heatedly as he lit a cigarette. “She’s bringin’ the watcher, the witch, and the whelp.”

“They make quite a team.” After a pause, Angel added, seemingly at random, “I never liked you, William, even when you were evil.”

“Oy! I’m still evil!” the vampire protested. “Let me keep one bleedin’ delusion.”

“Why should I?” demanded the brunette. “You have everything else. You have Buffy.”

And Buffy, both vampires knew, was everything. She was the greatest prize, not humanity. Whoever won Buffy was the true champion. “No one ever really has Buffy,” replied Spike finally.

“I did,” Angel corrected. “You do.”

“Oh, for the love of God!” Spike exclaimed, his natural accent breaking through the cockney façade. “Are you or are you not the love of her life?! She gave you everything she had, and it was never enough for you! You value your own self-loathing more than her, and yet you keep part of her to yourself. You can never let her go, even when you claim you have.”

Rather than halting his childe’s words, the elder vampire listened silently. He had to admit it – grudgingly – that William had always been his most intelligent childe when he actually took the time to apply his intellect.

“You’re clever, you know,” the blonde continued. “You always wait until just the right moment to show yourself again, and she falls. The difference between you and I is that I love her enough to let her go. Could you ever do it? Let her go?”

“She’s all I have left, and it’s my fault. I know that.” That statement wasn’t entirely true. He had Spike and Fred. He had countless helpless mortals in need of aide. He had his eternal suffering and misery.

“You’re a right git.” The cockney accent returned full force, as did the defiant gleam in Spike’s blue eyes.

“Yeah,” the elder agreed. “I know that, too.”

“Oh, God, you’re in a soddin’ coma for years and suddenly we’re gettin’ along. It’s bloody sick, is what it is.”

“Spike…”

“What?” he snapped.

“People are allowed to grow, to change, to –”

“Here we go…”

“Shut up, William. I’ve had a lot of time to think, and things seem much clearer now than they ever have before. We’re going to have to work together to get to the bottom of this, you know that.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t mean we have to be best mates,” the younger vampire said reasonably.

“I still don’t like you,” said Angel. “I doubt I ever will, but the point I’m trying to make is that, like it or not, we’re family. We’ll never solve anything if we’re constantly at each other’s throats.”

“And you’re just now seein’ this? You always were a few fries short of a Happy Meal.”

“Not the brightest crayon in the box.”

“You’re doing it again,” Spike complained.

“What am I doing now?” Angel’s patience with his childe was wearing thin, but he was determined to try to get along with him to make things easier for Buffy – and to prove to her that he was still the better man, that he had been the one to reach out to his childe.

“Pretending you don’t hate me, tryin’ to get along. It doesn’t suit you,” he stated simply.

“Dún do bheal!” the brunette vampire finally shouted. “Just shut your mouth!” he repeated in English.

It was then that a thought finally occurred to Spike, and a small smile that was purely hateful touched his lips. “You’re gonna try to win her back, aren’t you, Liam?”

Angel’s eyes widened at the accusation. It wasn’t far from the truth. “No,” he insisted. “I just want Buffy to know that I never stopped loving her.”

“She’ll choose you in a heartbeat, even if she does love me. Do you know why? Because she’s never forgiven herself for sendin’ you to Hell, it still eats away at her. More than that, though, you were her first love.”

“This isn’t about you.”

“Isn’t it?” asked Spike. “You’ve always had to be the best; you always have to get in one… last… dig. Like with Dru.”

“This has nothing to do with Drusilla, William.” Angel’s voice was both fierce and weak at the same time. It did have something to do with Drusilla – it always would. He knew that Spike no longer loved her as he once had, but the memory of having her stolen from him was still fresh. It was still enough to make him believe he would do the same with Buffy.

“It’s her decision to make, not yours. Tell her everythin’, tell her you’ll become human if you save enough people. Tell her, Liam, and don’t be stupid. But let me tell you one thing: if you hurt her, I’ll send you back to Hell permanently. May the best man win,” he said coldly. With that, he turned away and strode down the hall in a flurry of black leather.

Resentfully, Angel whispered to the empty room. “He already has.”
The Arrival

The journey from Maine to California was long and uneventful, and when the exhausted group finally arrived at the Hyperion, their individual complaints – the seats were sticky, there was a screaming baby behind my chair, the food was horrid, it was stuff – had melded into one concise statement: plane rides sucked.

“What time is it?” inquired Xander for the fifteenth time in as many minutes.

“Do you own a watch or not?” Giles answered the question with one of his own.

Grumbling under his breath, the dark-haired man began to push the sleeve of his shirt up when Willow indicated the nearby clock, which stated that it was a little past one in the morning.

The diminutive blonde glanced around anxiously when the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end and the barest of tingles began in her slayer senses. A vampire was nearby, and it wasn’t just any vampire; it was Spike… and Angel was with him. She was overwhelmed by the thought of seeing them both again after so long. It had been five years since she had seen Spike, and almost that long since she had seen Angel. So long…

Giles settled a hand on his slayer’s back protectively, sensing her apprehension as thought it were his own. “You’re tired, Buffy,” said the man gently. “I-if you wished to postpone this, I’m sure that they, um, would both understand.”

“No,” she replied with a calm she didn’t feel. “I want to see them now.” Even as she spoke the words, the vampires came into view, Angel at the forefront and dressed impeccably as ever, Spike following on his heels, worn leather duster and indifferent smirk firmly in place.

“My God, Xander…” the Wicca murmured, turning to study the pair. There was Angel, as solid and brooding as he always was, and then Spike. Spike!

“He’s actually alive… or undead,” Xander spoke the witch’s thoughts aloud. Hearing his voice on the phone, knowing he was back, they were wholly different from seeing him in person. The demon hunter felt a twinge of pain at the thought that Spike and not Anya had been given a second chance.

“Buffy…” Angel began warmly, holding out one of his hands for the slayer’s.

Spike remained silent, instead inclining his head in greeting. All he wanted to do was push his sire out of the way and draw Buffy – his Buffy – into his arms where she belonged and never let go of her again. Still, he should have known that she would turn to Angel first, even if they had both offered their hands. Angel would always come first.

Buffy glanced back and forth between the pair and finally took Angel’s outstretched hand, squeezing it gently. Out of habit, she craned her neck and placed a gentle kiss upon the former love of her life’s lips. She felt a pang of guilt when the statuesque vampire closed his eyes and dropped his head slightly, a sign of wistful happiness.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” said the slayer after reassuring herself that he was indeed well.

And all the while, Spike watched in silence, his blue eyes clouded with a myriad of emotions he couldn’t bring himself to dwell on. At length, he took in Buffy’s appearance, the nearly white-blonde of her hair, the dark bronze of her skin, the sadness in her eyes that was disappearing even now. It was a startling realization that her green eyes had remained locked with his even while she had kissed Angel. Without warning, he found his arms full of the blonde hair and bronze skin he’d been admiring, and he instinctively closed his arms around her.

“Spike,” she whispered softly, weariness, relief, and a hint of anger filling her voice in turn. “You didn’t tell me… I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” In spite of her anger, she couldn’t bring herself to release him.

“I’m so bloody sorry.” Spike buried his face against Buffy’s throat, inhaling deeply to memorize her scent again. She smelled, as she always had, of vanilla and lilacs.

“Angel,” Giles intervened by thrusting his hand out toward the vampire when he noticed his mixed expression of contempt and contentment as he watched Buffy and Spike. The former watcher doubted he would interrupt the pair, but Angel’s obvious suffering would be disturbance enough if Buffy noticed it.

“Rupert,” the brunette answered pleasantly, shaking his hand firmly. With another glance at his childe and his love, he added, “I’ll show you to your rooms. I’m sure Buffy will find her way later on.”

“Hey, Angel,” the redhead commented off-handedly as she gathered her luggage. She was glad to see that he was well, that was true, but silently, she commended Giles for his ability to diffuse what could have potentially become a disruptive situation. Had she been reunited with Tara, she knew that it would have been nothing short of a crime punishable by death to be interrupted.

Xander also took note of the man’s dedication to his slayer, and he respected Giles’ capacity to tolerate Angel’s presence after what had happened with Jenny so long ago. He had foolishly believed that since Giles had been involved with another woman that he had moved on, yet the former watcher had been forgetting things about her. Giles, like he and Willow, knew how it felt to lose their soul mate forever. Selflessly, he was grateful that Buffy was no longer a member of that club.

Buffy and Spike, meanwhile, remained completely oblivious to the departure of the rest of their group, both absently tracing familiar lines of muscle and bone through cloth barriers and stroking varying shades of blonde hair. It was Spike who finally consented to relinquish the pillow of Buffy’s shoulder to meet her gaze, and he grinned rakishly.

“You look older, somehow,” commented the blonde slayer, absently stroking his cheek. In truth, she wasn’t entirely certain if he looked older, or if her mind had just conjured an image of him so flawless and gleaming that his skin seemed a bit more worn, his eyes a bit sadder.

“‘S the soul and all this fighting, I suppose,” he replied with a shrug. “That, and comin’ back from ghost world. I really wouldn’t know, pet, seein’ as how they’ve yet to invent a mirror for vampires. You look… God, Buffy.”

“Is there somewhere else we could go,” she questioned suddenly, ignoring his comment on her appearance for the time being, “so we’re not standing here in the lobby all night long?”

With a slight nod, the blonde vampire curled an arm around his former enemy’s shoulders and led her away.
This Is How a Heart Breaks

“Have you come up with anything yet?” Angel asked as he helped Willow unpack her books, studying the titles curiously. “You didn’t need to bring all of this,” he added after a brief pause.

“I work better with my own books,” said the witch. “We haven’t really found anything except that we’re supposed to try to contact Themis tomorrow.” At Angel’s confused expression, Willow offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

“At least it’s something to go on.”

“Yeah, and I’m thinking that we were definitely meant to be here. I mean, Hyperion, come on. That can’t be just a coincidence. It was like we were being led here.”

Nodding his agreement, the vampire inquired, “You don’t know about my dream, do you?”

“You mean when you astral projected into my house? Yeah, Buffy told us about that on the plane in between screaming fits,” Willow replied.

“Buffy had a screaming fit?” he asked worriedly.

“Oh, no, sorry,” she hastily apologized. “There was a screaming baby in the seat behind her that nearly drove us all crazy until we did have screaming fits.”

Chuckling with false amusement, the brunette vampire thumbed through one of the thick, leather-bound manuscripts the witch had brought with her. “How have you been?” he asked politely.

“I’ve been,” she said cryptically. “I usually have one or two of the slayers dropping by my house every couple of weeks, so I’m never really alone, but… You know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Angel agreed. “I definitely know how it is.”

“Listen, a-about Buffy… She doesn’t want to hurt you…”

“I know.”

“The whole thing with Spike is complicated.”

“I know.”

“Is that all you can say?” the redhead asked bitterly.

Indignant, the vampire questioned, “What would you like me to say?”

“I don’t know, I guess I just expected you to be angrier,” she responded.

“I… I’ve never been a great conversationalist.”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” muttered Willow.

“I can hear you.”

“Oh! Sorry. I guess I’m not used to being around vampires anymore, and I usually talk to myself when I’m alone, so… Actually, I’m pretty much used to being alone for the most part because I don’t really get out much,” she rambled.

A soft smile on his lips, Angel settled his hand on Willow’s shoulder for a moment, and after a long pause, he finally summed things up in a concise statement. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah,” the witch agreed. “It’s been a very, very long time.” Though they had never been close, she turned and embraced the vampire briefly.

Even as he returned her hug, Angel felt the tension in her arms and smelled it in her blood. Breaking the awkward moment by drawing away, the vampire began looking through another of the books. “If we were all losing parts of our memories, why are you supposed to contact Themis?” he inquired.

“We already tried Mnemosyne; she was the one who told us that it was a matter for Themis.” Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Willow finished arranging her books and sat down on the couch. A moment later, she was on her feet again and rummaging through the mini-bar for a drink as she added, “I wonder if it’s only us.”

“So do I, and moreover, I wonder why this is happening. I think it has something to do with my… coma, for lack of a better word for it.”

“A-are you doing okay?” Willow asked anxiously, popping open her Dr. Pepper. She remembered that Angel didn’t drink soda, but still she gestured to the mini-bar and gave him a questioning glance. At the shake of his head, she closed it.

“I get headaches occasionally, but other than that, I’m as well as can be expected,” he answered.

“We were never really friends,” the witch said blatantly, “but we both want Buffy to be happy, right? That’s always been our common ground.”

“That and the fight against evil,” he agreed. “I’m not going to do anything to come between Buffy and Spike, but… I actually wish she was still with Riley.”

“Riley never made her happy.”

“And I suppose everything was roses and hearts with Spike?” Angel retorted acrimoniously.

“Angel, Buffy’s not really a roses and hearts kind of girl.”

“Woman. She’s a woman now.”

“She was a woman when you thought she was a girl,” the redhead countered gently.

“I know that now,” said the vampire. “She should be a roses and hearts kind of woman. It’s what she deserves, what she –”

“Needs?”

“Yes.” As the word escaped his lips, Angel realized his mistake; it was the same oversight he had always made in regards to Buffy. He foolishly believed that he knew what she needed when, really, he hadn’t the faintest idea. What he thought she needed was really…

“That’s what you want for her,” Willow voiced his thoughts aloud. “You want her to have the big yellow house with a white picket fence, a husband, a dog, and two-point-five children. You want her to have a normal life, and that’s what we all wanted for her, but, Angel… that’s not Buffy.”

“It’s just that… I know Spike. I’ve known him for over a century, and when I think of the way he must have treated her, how violent it must have been when they…” he let the sentence fade when he discovered that he couldn’t bear to speak the words aloud.

“Buffy’s not, that is, she wasn’t… She wasn’t happy to be alive… then. She was violent,” whispered the redhead.

The brunette vampire averted his gaze as he replied, “I know, and if I could have helped her, then maybe… Maybe she…”

“She would never have fallen in love with Spike,” Willow finished.

“Maybe she never would have touched him,” he spat.

With a heavy sigh, Willow finished the rest of her drink and set the can aside. “Why are you here, Angel? I-in my room talking to me, why are you here?”

“There’s something important I need to talk to you about. If I save enough people, I can become human again.” At Willow’s surprised expression, he continued, “Don’t tell Buffy. You’re right, she was right, I do always make the decisions when it comes to us, and this is the last one.”

“If she knew…”

“She would feel duty-bound to choose me over Spike no matter what her heart told her. She would think it was her place to help me adjust to being human again. I can’t let her do that.”

“N-no, I don’t think so. You have to tell her, Angel. She has to know everything so that she can make the decision she feels is right,” Willow stated reasonably.

“Did you ever believe that we would last?” Angel inquired suddenly.

“No.” Her answer was scarcely above a whisper. “And n-not just because she’s a slayer and you’re a vampire, it just never felt right.”

“It did to me. I love her.”

“So much so that you’ll lose your soul if –”

“No, I won’t,” Angel interrupted with a bitter laugh. “When Jenny Calendar located the spell, she found the original, t-the one without the curse attached. Whistler confirmed it while I was still in Sunnydale. There is no curse.”

“You knew,” the witch said despairingly. “Y-you knew all this time, and you left her. My God, Angel… You say that you love her, but you left her.”

“I did what was best for her…”

“No!” Willow barked. “No, Buffy told me what you said about how she would want someone who could make love to her, a-and…”

Angel dropped his head in his characteristic way as he muttered, “I could have… could have fucked her, but… I was punishing myself. And her.”

“Punishing Buffy? If you love her, why would you want to punish her?”

“I spent centuries in Hell, Willow,” the vampire whispered, his voice laced with pain and self-loathing. “And even if I hadn’t resented that, my demon hated her for making me feel human. She was never… she’s not safe with me.”

“She’s not safe with you, and you still want to get her back? You resented her for killing you to save the world?” Willow asked incredulously. She had always suspected, always known it in her heart, but hearing the words aloud sickened her. “She made the most painful decision of her life and you resented her, then you turned around and hurt her in the worst way. Get out.”

“I… I had to tell someone, and –”

“And you thought you would get sympathy from me? You c-can’t just sit there and claim you love her when you hate her!”

“I could never hate her!”

“Maybe you don’t, but Angelus does. At least Spike –”

“Yes, William’s demon loves Buffy, mine wants to destroy her,” Angel bit out. “I know that, and it’s killing me! Spike was always the most human of us… and even if I become human, I’ll always remember being in Hell. It’s tearing me apart.”

“It’s nothing less than you deserve for what you did to her.”

“I know.” And with that, the vampire strode from Willow’s hotel room in a flurry of dark cloth, his undead heart leaden with misery.

If the Roof Doesn’t Fall

Buffy listened patiently as Spike explained all that had happened since his death, mixed emotions flickering in her expressive green eyes at each turn. She nearly became physically ill when she heard of the loss (and subsequent regain) of limb and almost-loss of unlife he had endured, all without her at his side.

She studied his hands with newfound interest, and she knew that she would never again be able to suppress her shudder when she heard the word reaper. Noting the storm of pain and rage in his eyes as he recounted everything he and Fred had tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to rouse Angel from his coma, she felt her respect for him double. It made sense to her now; Spike, in his own way, loved Angel. The blonde slayer stole a glance at the overflowing ashtray, watching Spike chain-smoke as he spoke. At length, he fell silent, and she brushed an errant curl away from his brow tenderly.

“So,” he said finally, breaking the silence, “that’s all you missed.”

“It’s a lot,” she replied.

“Well, yeah. Five years, that’s a long time.” Lighting yet another cigarette, the vampire met Buffy’s eyes bravely as he asked, “Why are you here with me an’ not Liam?”

“Do you remember what you said to me once, that you’re not known for being a thinker? You were right,” she retorted, her tone half-bitter and half-saddened. “I love you, you moron.”

“No, you don –” Spike never had the chance to finish his statement; instead, he found himself nursing a split lip, and when he dared look into the slayer’s eyes, they blazed with anger.

“Don’t you even dare,” she hissed. “I’ve been forgetting things about you, not Angel. You knew how hard it was for me to say the words, and you had the audacity to tell me what I was feeling? You had the nerve to fucking thank me?!”

“What were my soddin’ options?!” he shot back. “Should I have let you die with me?! You had to keep on living –”

“So one of us is living, I remember. It was my choice to make, Spike. You took the decision from me just like –”

“Slayer, don’t…” the blonde vampire warned, knowing what was to come.”

“Angel,” she finished defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive manner. “You saved the world, Spike. Maybe I could have found a way to get you out of there, and maybe I would have died with you, but it was my choice. You were… you are so brave, but what you did… You should have trusted me.”

“It wasn’t about trust, pet. I trust you with everything in me.” His voice was softer then, more William than Spike, but his façade of macho bravado was firmly in place a moment later. “It was about takin’ a gamble. I don’t play that way, not with your life.”

Buffy’s eyes widened when she realized all that he implied with one single statement. As she had once refused to sacrifice Dawn to save the world, he would have refused to let her die, even if it meant that the First would win. It wasn’t the most rational decision, and it certainly wasn’t the right one, but it was a decision born of love – a decision which had required much forethought.

“See it now, pet?” the vampire asked cockily, but the arrogance wasn’t reflected in his eyes.

“You… you knew, didn’t you? You knew you weren’t going to walk away from that battle.” She held his gaze defiantly, seeking confirmation.

Scoffing, he replied, “Course I knew. You don’t get a honkin’ piece of jewelry and a nice, fancy honorary like ‘champion’ if you’re gonna walk outta there in one piece. That’s not the way it works.”

“Oh, God…” For a moment, the slayer’s golden skin took on a slightly green tint, and she touched her fingers to her lips as though that would prevent her from heaving. “Did you believe me?”

“Yes.”

A single word, no more than a whisper, and Buffy remembered the exact moment she had realized that she loved him. It had been that night, that horrid night when she had been tricked into believing she had killed Warren’s ex-girlfriend, when Spike had walked her home and ‘taken care’ of things. It had been then, when she had seen exactly how far he would go to protect her, even if it meant that she loathed him, that she had realized exactly what he meant to her.

“We always hurt the one we love, pet,” the vampire said, eerily accurate in his choice of reminders. “I’m sorry I had to hurt you then. I didn’t want that to be your last memory of me, but…”

“It was that night, when Warren…” she began cryptically. “I was… awful to you. I said and did things that I can never take back. I hated myself so much, hated being alive so much that all I wanted to do was hurt the way I was hurting. I thought it would make it better, distract me, maybe, or just make me into the monster I thought I was. You were right when you said I came back wrong –”

“Buffy, no, I didn’t –”

“Let me finish,” she said firmly. “I came back wrong because I came back ungrateful and cold. Instead of seeing that I was brought back for a good reason, because my friends love me and need me, all I saw was their selfishness. I was so happy where I was, and it was warm… Here, everything was so bright and cold. I thought that… if I couldn’t have the happiness I had wherever I was, that meant I didn’t deserve any happiness at all. I drove away the ones I loved the most, and… and I’m sorry.”

Releasing a pent up breath of air he didn’t need, Spike rested his forehead against his slayer’s, letting the words was over him. She truly meant it; she was sorry for hurting him in the past, she loved him. “I never minded, not really. Even if you were pummeling me into the dirt, I didn’t mind it, ‘cause at least you were touchin’ me. You were feelin’ something other than cold, even if it was anger.”

“That’s not making me feel any better,” she said lightly. “You never deserved to be treated that way… worse than an animal.”

“Can we forget about the past, just for tonight?” questioned the vampire, recalling the last time he had said something very similar, that last night in Buffy’s basement. “That was the best night of my life.”

“Mine, too,” she admitted. “And you died the next day.”

“Well, yeah. That other night was the second best night of my life, that was the first time you ever really let me hold you like that. It was bloody terrifying.”

“Again, you died not long after.”

“I remember, believe me,” he murmured, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear for her.

“You escaped the oogey aftermath of me revealing my sensitive side,” the slayer teased.

Though he returned her grin, Spike’s eyes softened, and he said decisively, “I didn’t want to escape. We’d just gotten to the best part, luv. I would have waited for you as long as you needed me to.”

“I wanted to say it that night,” Buffy admitted. “It’s… that’s what I wanted to say afterward, and you wouldn’t let me.”

“Might’ve lost my nerve,” the vampire replied with feigned indifference. His pretense quickly broke, and he added, “I couldn’t go into battle hearin’ those words echoing in my brain, seein’ your eyes… Leavin’ you, knowin’ you’d hurt… it was the most painful thing I’ve ever done.”

“D-did it hurt when you…?” she asked, her voice almost inaudible even to his vampiric hearing. She shuddered inwardly as she remembered his initial cry of pain when the amulet activated, but then Spike, who had once whimpered and grunted over blows not even a human would have cried out from, had remained courageously silent.

“Well, yeah. I was on fire, pet, course it hurt,” he admitted, a glimmer of pride returning to his eyes. He had been burning from within, and yet he had only groaned in the beginning. He’d had to be audacious for his slayer, and in the end, he’d even laughed.

Tears in her eyes at the thought of how much he had suffered, mostly because of her choices, Buffy confessed, “I’m so tired…”

“Shall I take the comfy chair?” the vampire teased, already gathering her into his arms and carrying her to the bed.

The slayer didn’t respond until Spike had settled down on the bed and tucked her against his side securely; her head found the curve of his shoulder instinctively, and she marveled anew at how well she hit against the planes of his body. Finally, she answered, “I’ll be here when you wake up this time.”

“So will I,” Spike assured her. “So will I.”
Five Years

(Sunnydale, 2003)

It was so shiny, so shiny and heavy… It was almost amusing to Spike that something so garish, so effulgent would finally bring about his end. He had survived Angelus’ and Darla’s brutality, Drusilla’s insanity, turning, and later killing his own mother, numerous attempts on his life – by demons, humans, and other vampires alike – three slayers, the Initiative, and his unlife would be ended by a trinket. It seemed too pointless, too casual for one of the youngest demons ever to achieve master vampire rank, and yet he would die willingly and without pause. For her.

Spike recounted the latest turn of events in his mind, relived the past few nights in vivid detail. He consoled himself with the knowledge that he would be able to die in peace after finally knowing how it felt to be truly close to another person, more importantly, to her. She had chosen him to comfort her rather than turning to one who’d known her longer, and he was secretly thrilled that he could offer her something the potentials, her friends, her watcher, and even her own sister could not.

And yet there was something Angel could give her that even he lacked. The pain of seeing his slayer kissing his sire was still fresh in his mind, as was the knowledge that she had sent him away. While it was true that his sire would be needed to head the second front in the event of their failure, he couldn’t help but wonder if her love for Angel had made the decision for her. Was she willing to sacrifice him in place of Angel, or did she actually believe in him?

In the end, it was his choice, and it had been decided. He would die to prove that he was her champion, whatever that meant. How it would end, how painful the process would be and all that it would entail remained to be seen, but all Spike needed to do to strengthen his resolve was remember that fateful night after Buffy had faced Glory. The memory of her body, spent and lifeless amongst the rubble, gave him the courage he needed to remain steadfast. He would never allow that to happen again.

He gazed into the jeweled charm that was his death sentence, his usual smirk replaced by a look of calculated determination. Buffy was so certain that they would win, and she was right, but not without a cost, not without great pain for all of those involved. Not all of the potentials would make it and, for all he knew, any one of the others could be killed as well. Buffy, he knew, would endure as she always had, otherwise his gift would be of no consequence.

Spike put the amulet aside when he heard the familiar pattern of footfalls on the stairs, and he pushed to his feet gracefully, meeting Buffy’s gaze when she paused at the bottom of the staircase. Their eyes remained locked for a moment, communicating wordlessly with a single look.

For Spike, it was a soft good-bye, one last memory of her to carry him through his eternity in Hell; for the slayer, it was a new beginning, the next level of their relationship.

“We’re going to win,” proclaimed the slayer determinedly as she closed the distance between them. Rather than immediately kissing him, she traced the line of his cheekbone gently, a fierce gleam in her eyes.

“We always win. Course we’re going to win now,” the vampire agreed, and in spite of his imminent death, he felt no remorse. He would be granted one last night with her, and it was enough. It was more than he deserved.

As she stroked his cheek, Spike brushed his thumb over her lower lip with a gentleness she had never permitted him to show her before. “This is different, isn’t it?” she inquired. “This isn’t like last year. It’s a fresh start.”

Rather than simply lying to her, the vampire drew her into his arms and asked, “C-can we forget the past tonight? We’ll do this right and proper.”

Buffy was obviously nervous, for she had never allowed her emotions to come into play, but he deserved no less, especially since he had seen her with Angel. “I’m sorry you saw me with him,” she said gently, hoping he would understand all that she left unsaid. “Things are complicated, but… he’s not here now.”

“Hey, now,” he chided gently, “none of that matters right here. This is different, nothing like last year.”

“A fresh start,” the slayer repeated, standing on her tiptoes to capture his lips.

There was no brutality to the kiss as their lips parted simultaneously in welcome. Buffy cupped the nape of his neck to draw him closer as Spike cradled her face in his hands, deepening the kiss with so much reverence that she almost wept. She saw with perfect clarity that, even with his soul, he was essentially the same man he had always been.

He’d tried to kiss her like this in the past, to touch her with gentleness and adoration, and she had been so blinded by her own self-loathing that she couldn’t allow it. He did love her, and tonight, she was determined to return the sentiment. Finally, she could tell him.

Somehow, without breaking their kiss more than absolutely necessary, Spike managed to maneuver them onto the cot and rid them of their clothing, and he noted with a small smile that his golden goddess became a little timid when she realized that he was studying her. “This is somethin’ else,” he reminded her.

Buffy visibly relaxed and smiled shyly up at him, fighting the urge to cover herself with her arms. Instead, she let his eyes drink their fill of her, secure in the knowledge that this was something else, and that she had no reason to be self-conscious.

“You’re amazin’, pet. I always wanted to tell you… tell you…” he stammered, suddenly losing his confidence when the gravity of the situation fully sank in. This was the last night they would ever spend together, his last chance to tell her everything he needed to say, and he had to do it carefully. He could never let her know that this was good-bye.

“Tell me,” she prompted. “You can tell me now, Spike. You can tell me anything, because this is different. We’re different now.” Luckily for Spike, she attributed his sudden shyness and vulnerability to his soul, and possible worry over the upcoming battle. It never occurred to her that their time was running out, and that Spike knew it.

“Right, then.” Bravado back in place, he curled a lock of her hair around one of his fingers. “I love your hair, even when it’s short, and your eyes, I could get lost in them… I love this funny little dip in your nose,” he traced said area with his finger as he spoke. “I love that your lips aren’t perfect, and that you have scars. You’re a warrior, Buffy.”

As she had done many times during her previous encounters with Spike, the slayer wept silently, only these were tears of awe and joy rather than bitterness and pain. All the things he’d wanted to say to her… Now, she could hear them. She caressed his scarred eyebrow, refusing to dwell on how many times she had abused that area in the past.

“I love your bizarre version of English, and the way your breasts fit perfectly in my hands,” he continued, gently rolling one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger as he interspersed praise of her body with tribute to her character.

Buffy whimpered when his lips closed around the hardened peak and suckled languidly. He had been allowed to pinch, slap, and even bite them on occasion; this was an entirely new sensation that built slowly in her belly and warmed her throughout.

As Spike admired the contrast between his pale hand and his slayer’s golden skin, she shifted beneath him restively. Smirking without malice against her breast, he let his hand drift lower to skim her lower stomach, barely stirring the fine hairs there. He remained silent for a moment while his hand drifted lower and his fingers teased her clit.

Gasping, she arched against his hand eagerly and cupped the nape of his neck, drawing him down for a languorous kiss. When she was forced to relinquish his lips to breathe, she finally realized how clear his eyes were, and she saw the same emotion reflected in them that she had once dismissed.

With a warm smile, the vampire changed the rhythm of his fingers from light and teasing to a more masterful pace as he watched the play of emotion in her green eyes, and a purr of pure delight left him when they darkened to a nearly emerald shade. He slipped two fingers into her, easily locating the spongy area of flesh on her inner wall.

She mewled and writhed, her eyes fluttering closed at the riot of sensation Spike was causing. In the past, he had often demanded that she keep her eyes open, but now the order never came, and it was that which made her force her eyes open again to watch him. Firmly believing that she would explode if she didn’t come soon, she jerked her hips firmly against his hand.

“Shh,” he soothed, his voice softer and more cultured, “feel it build. I love watching you like this, so free. Do you have any idea how it makes me feel knowing I can do this to you?”

“N-no,” Buffy stammered, feeling vaguely proud of herself for being able to speak at all. She clutched at his shoulders desperately, trembling with the start of her climax as he increased the pace of his thumb against her clit while curving his fingers inside her.

“You make me feel human.”

At Spike’s admission and a particularly delicious press from his thumb, she moaned softly as she came, her back arching off the bed, her fingers digging into his shoulders; for the first time, she had no desire to draw blood with the rake of her nails.

“That’s it, ride it out,” he urged, slowing the movements of his thumb as his fingers continued to explore her g-spot. He stroked her leisurely until she came for a second time with a breathy whimper. As she lay panting beneath him, he rested his ear over her heart. “I love how you respond to me, but do you know what I love most? Your heart.”

Peppering the crown of his head with kisses, the slayer murmured his name repeatedly until he urged her legs around his ribcage and entered her slowly. She whined at the realization that the position of her legs would allow him to stimulate the elusive spot inside her. Formerly elusive, anyway. She giggled softly and with pure joy as he began to move, and she craned her neck to kiss him thoroughly.

Spike took his time, memorizing every sound she made and each detail of her face as he thrust into her lazily, his weight braced on his arms. Secretly, he was surprised that he hadn’t dissolved into a fit of tears, insane laughter, or both. The last time… Merely thinking about it made him feel ill, and he wanted to savor this, to truly be with her for the first time – even if it was also the last.

Hours and innumerable orgasms passed, and still he kept on. Buffy had no idea how they could continue for so long without being raw, but any ache she felt only added to her pleasure. The slayer lost count of how many different positions they moved into, but she did notice that she kept drawing him back on top of her, something she had rarely allowed in the past and now craved. As another orgasm built, she had an inspiration and cradled his head in her hands, urging his face against her throat. “Do it,” she pleaded.

Jerking his head up in surprise, the vampire met Buffy’s gaze with amber eyes, though his face had reserved its human planes. He searched her eyes for a moment and as she tilted her head to expose the virgin side of her throat, he slipped a hand between them to tweak her clit, his visage changing as he buried his fangs in the soft flesh.

Buffy’s orgasm was instantaneous, and she tightened her legs around him so firmly she would have snapped his ribs had he been human. Sobbing breathlessly, she kneaded the nape of his neck without conscious thought, silently pleading with him to let go.

Spike stiffened at the first taste of her blood, his arms locking around her as the rhythm of his thrusts increased. Listening to her moan in ecstasy and the clenching of her inner muscles around his cock broke the last of his self-control, and he took long pulls of her blood as he came with a long, drawn out sound that was half purr and half groan. As his face reverted to its human appearance, he licked the wound to urge it to heal, babbling words of love and praise.

The slayer was content to hold him in silence, and finally, she found the courage she needed to say the three words he had so desperately wanted to hear from her. “Spike, I l—”

His eyes opening suddenly, he captured her lips in a searing kiss to silence her. “Tell me tomorrow, pet,” he said gently. “When it’s over.”

“Okay,” she sleepily agreed, nuzzling his cheek lazily as he rolled to the side and drew her firmly against his chest. Closing her eyes, she drifted into a peaceful sleep, secure in her belief that she and Spike had been granted a second chance, that they would win.

Spike remained awake for the remainder of the night, watching her sleep. This was the last night he would spend with her in his arms; tomorrow night, and an eternity of nights after that, would be spent in Hell. He deserved it, he knew, but for a brief while, he had been permitted to know what Heaven felt like. He would be her champion, even knowing it meant that he would never see her again, for her place was in Heaven. For the first time since he had been newly sired, he prayed to God. For her.
No Love, No Glory


“Themis, Titan of justice and order, mother of the Fates and the Seasons, hear our call,” Willow said firmly. The witch, her black eyes providing a sharp contrast to her white hair, sat cross-legged on the floor as the group waited for something to happen.

For a moment, it seemed that nothing would happen and their pleas for aide would go unheeded, but then the air shifted tangibly, and a gentle glow filled the center of the circle formed by those gathered. Themis’ presence was nothing if not reassuring, and she studied the group in silence for long moments before speaking. “You are the ones Mnemosyne spoke of.”

It was Xander who asked the question they all had on their minds. “If you knew we needed you, why didn’t you just come to us?”

“It was a test, Alexander. This is all a test,” replied the Titan.

Outraged, Angel and Spike demanded simultaneously, “All of this has been a test?!”

Buffy seethed in silence, and her former watcher shot her a reassuring glance when he feared she would say something to anger Themis.

“It is not my test, nor is it the doing of any of my brethren. It is the Soul-eater.”

“The… Soul-eater?” Willow asked nervously.

Xander added, “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Am I going to… lose my soul?” Angel questioned, preparing to distance himself from the group immediately.

“Were the Eater’s mission to be completed, it would devour your demon soul, as well.”

“Aside from the obivious,” inquired Spike, “what does this Soul-eater do, exactly? Why is it attacking us, and why take our memories? That's the test?”

“So we’ll give up,” answered Buffy, her brow creased with thought. “I… it was killing me, not being able to remember things, because that meant you were really gone. It would have been easier for this Eater thingy to attack me.”

“For a slayer,” said the Titan, “you are highly intelligent. Yes, I believe you are correct. Did the Eater remove its obstacles, it would be much easier to consume the world. You, all of you, are warriors, champions of the light. I believe that you would have been saved for last.”

“I-is the Eater corporeal?” Giles asked.

“Yes, very much so. The Eater is one of you, a human, though I am not permitted to give you the exact identity.”

“Permitted?! I don’t give a damn if you were soddin’ permitted, you’ll bloody well tell us!”

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Spike on that,” confirmed Angel.

“I expected your anger,” the Titan said gently. “It does no good for you or your childe to shout. I cannot tell you because I was not permitted to see.”

“We’ll try Prometheus, then,” Spike muttered, lighting a cigarette to calm his nerves. He wanted to throttle the Titan, but no, the bitch wasn’t corporeal.

“You know all too well what that is like, do you not?” Themis asked of the blonde vampire, laughing softly at his shocked expression. “Yes, I hear your thoughts. Here, I am not corporeal, nor do I think myself a bitch. Were it in my power to do so, I would show you the Eater’s human form.”

“It is human, though? And what about contacting Prometheus?”

Themis turned to Xander as she replied, “Yes, the Eater has taken human form, and contacting Prometheus will do no good. This is your test. You must find the Eater and bind its soul to its human form. Only then can it be killed.”

“We’re together now,” said Angel. “The Eater failed. It didn’t destroy us the way it wanted to, and now we can fight it.”

“How do we fight it? Can you tell us that much?” the slayer requested.

“And, um, from whence it came?” Giles added.

“Bugger that! How does it kill?”

“All good questions,” whispered Themis, “all I will answer in time. The witch’s strength is dimming even now, and the Eater will not attack today. Expect me when you are ready to know the answers.” With that, she was gone.

“Cryptic much?” Xander asked bitterly.

“Was I ever that infuriating?” queried Angel in reference to his habit of disappearing at random.

“All the time.” When Buffy remembered something the Titan had said, she glanced between Spike and Angel. “Your childe?! I thought Drusilla…”

“Bloody Hell…”

“That was nifty,” Willow murmured sleepily, collapsing against Xander’s side. Even a goddess found channeling the proper energies to make the Titan visible exhausting.

“Yes, well, I’ll help Xander get Willow to bed. Interesting as it may be, this is something best left for the three of you to discuss.” The watcher pushed to his feet and lifted Willow against his chest as Xander rose, and then they silently slipped from the conference room, leaving Buffy alone with Angel and Spike.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So… what did you tell her?” Angel leaned back against the wall, watching his childe curiously.

“I told her about Dru, how she found me, but…” Looking away, he forced himself to meet Buffy’s gaze. “What I never told you was that Dru was too weak to finish the job. She gave me her blood, but I was dying anyway. Angelus found her standin’ over me, wailin’ about how he was gonna leave her, how she… needed me.”

The slayer nodded her understanding and squeezed his hand lightly as she looked to Angel for confirmation. “So you finished it, you sired him.”

“Drusilla was right. I was planning on leaving her because her madness was becoming… tiresome, but that wasn’t what she meant. She meant the soul. Even then, she knew, but I just couldn’t stand hearing her screaming, so yeah, I gave him my blood.”

“Thank you both for telling me,” Buffy said, “it explains a lot.”

“Our eternal pissing match?” Spike joked.

“Your love for each other.”

“But we don’t love each other!” both vampires protested.

“My point exactly,” Buffy laughed.

“Bugger.”

“I second that.”

“Just admit it and save your… well, I guess you don’t need breath, do you?”

“He’s my bloody sire, damnit,” the blonde said dismally. “I may not like the bloke, but yeah, in my own way, I guess…”

“You stayed for years when you didn’t have to, you don’t have to say anything. And I never staked you when I had the chance, so… I’m hoping that’s self-explanatory, because Delia already told me I had the taste of a gay man, and I really don’t need… What?”

Buffy and Spike had both dissolved into a fit of laughter at Angel’s words, and soon, even he had to smile at the memory. Cordelia had been so happy then…

“Qu-queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the vampire edition!”

“Bloody Hell, don’t make me choke!” Spike chortled as he tried to take a drag off his cigarette.

“I am not gay!” Angel said firmly.

“I know!” Buffy giggled. “That’s why it’s so funny!”

“Oh, God, it’s happening again!” Spike complained.

“What now?”

“We’re getting along!”

“You… you are!” the slayer cried in shock. “I must have missed the memo that Hell had frozen over and pigs were flying.”

“Don’t worry,” Angel assured. “It never lasts long. I’ll do something to piss Spike off, or I’ll remember how much he annoys me and we’ll be at each other’s throats again.”

“Have you told her yet?” the blonde vampire asked.

“Like that,” the elder muttered.

“Tell me what?”

Glowering at Spike, the brunette dragged a hand through his hair. Then he did the unthinkable; reaching across Buffy’s lap, he swiped Spike’s cigarettes and lit one, inhaling deeply. “If… if I save enough people,” he began shakily, “I can become human again.”

“My God, Angel…” With a giddy laugh, she embraced him warmly. She knew how much it meant to him, how much he had longed for such a thing. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I’ll let you two –”

“Sit,” Angel commanded, surprising both the slayer and his childe.

Obediently, the blonde vampire remained seated.

“Buffy, I didn’t tell you because I thought it would make you choose me over Spike, I told you because I thought you should know,” he said dejectedly.

“Angel, there’s no decision for me to make,” Buffy whispered, releasing him carefully as though she feared that breaking the contact would somehow harm him. “I’m… I’m with Spike now. What I said to you that last night was just smoke and mirrors, and when I kissed you, it was just…”

“One last time, just in case,” Angel finished knowingly.

“Yeah.”

“I know. Now, I’ll get to work on researching the Eater. The two of you should… get some rest.” Painful though the words were to speak, Angel knew that he had to do it; he had to let them both go.

Buffy, for whatever reason, needed his permission to be truly happy with Spike, and his childe needed the reassurance that he wouldn’t try to come between them. With a heavy sigh, the benevolent vampire crushed out his cigarette and rose, offering a hand to Buffy and Spike both to help them to their feet.

Something akin to awe glistened in the slayer’s eyes and she took his hand and stood, and she kissed him chastely on the lips with a murmur of, “Thank you.”

Spike was less inclined to take his sire’s hand, but in the end, he clasped it and hauled himself to his feet, pocketing his cigarettes as he stood. “Yeah,” he added, “thanks.”

Without warning, Angel dragged the blondes into his arms for a hug, and while it lasted only briefly, it was more meaningful to all of them than any words, for they all know how much courage it had taken for him to do it.

“Liam… I'm...”

“Tá mé ceart go leor,” Angel replied with a pained smile.

“Huh?”

“He said he was okay,” Spike translated when his sire finally released them. The blonde vampire knew that it was physically painful for Angel to lose contact with the slayer; he knew from experience.

When he reached the door to the conference room, Angel took in the sight he had dreamt of seeing for years – Buffy smiling and happy. “Go maire tú an lá,” he whispered as he skulked down the corridor.

“Go raibh maith agat!” Spike called after him. At Buffy’s confused glance, he explained, “He said congratulations, I said thank you.”

“You speak Gaelic?” the slayer asked curiously, smoothing her hand over the center of Spike’s chest. She wanted to rip his shirt off and see for herself if the amulet had left a burn there.

“Angelus insisted on it, and if you don’t stop that, we won’t be resting like we should be,” he teased, but the mischievous glint immediately faded from his eyes at Buffy’s apprehension. “Pet?”

“It’s stupid, but… The last time we… you died the next day,” she whispered, finding a fascinating spot on the floor to stare at.

Nodding his understanding, the vampire closed his arms around her and rested his chin against the crown of her head. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but I’m not goin’ anywhere, luv.”

“I couldn’t do it again,” she admitted. “I couldn’t lose you again. When… that day in Sunnydale, I wanted to stay.”

“I thought you were gonna stay. My God, Buffy, if I have to die a thousand deaths, it’ll be worth it to know you’re alive and well.”

“I wasn’t well!” Buffy shouted, jerking away from him as though he’d burned her. “You didn’t see how I was when I was alone and knew no one could see me. You didn’t see Dawnie and me, how we used to sit around talking about how much we missed you!”

“The niblet,” he said fondly. “How is she?”

“Don’t change the subject! You were gone! You were always there, and then poof! No more Spike. No more annoying innuendo, second-hand smoke, bad punk music… You were just gone. You have no idea how that feels.”

“One hundred forty-seven days,” Spike countered. “I know exactly how it feels.”

Gasping at the recognition that Spike knew exactly how it felt, even if she had been gone for months rather than years, she launched herself into his arms and locked her legs around his hips.

Spike was instantly reminded of their first time together in that old, abandoned house, but he remained calm and stroked her hair reverently as she sobbed against the side of his throat. “Shh… S’okay, pet, I’m here.”

At length, Buffy calmed. “Spike?”

“Yeah, luv?”

“I think we should… go rest now.”

Drawing back to look into her eyes, he was relieved to find that he wasn’t being hopeful. She meant it. Grinning from ear to ear, he wrapped an arm around her hips and hurried from the conference room as though his very unlife depended on it.
Insanity


“Where are we going, Slayer?” Spike wondered as Buffy tugged on his hand insistently, drawing him away from the lavish bedroom into the bathroom. The bathroom. Stiffening, he jerked his hand free of hers as though it burned him. “Uh…”

Buffy folded her arms over her chest and pinned him with a stern expression. “Why do you think we’re in the bathroom?”

“Buffy, no,” he protested. “That was… it was… There’s a nice bed in the other room.”

“And here we are, in the bathroom. Why could that be?” she asked pointedly. “Think about it, William. Why are we here?”

“B-because we’re different now?” he ventured.

“And?” she prompted, sitting down on the side of the tub and holding out her hand for one of his.

“And you… trust me?” he continued, crouching down in front of her. Rather than taking her hand, he brushed a lock of her hair away from her face nervously, willing himself to forget the last time he had been in a bathroom alone with her.

“I love you,” she said simply.

That did it. Buffy found herself flat on her back in the tub within seconds as Spike’s mood changed like quicksilver. He covered every inch of her face with kisses, his arms locked around her so tightly it would have been painful to a human. Unfortunately, he’d climbed in the tub so quickly that he’d gotten the shower curtain tangled around his legs, and a shift of his hips yanked the curtain – supportive rod and all – into the tub on top of him.

“Okay, ow,” he laughed when the shower rod whacked him in the shoulder.

“We’re insane,” Buffy giggled, swatting the offending metal away from them. “You’re going to have to move unless you plan on using that monstrosity as a condom.”

“Outrage! I’m not puttin’ up with anything comin’ between me and my slayer,” he said firmly, squirming to toss the evil shower curtain out of the tub. He winced when he heard the sound of metal against tile, and he was certain that it had chipped the floor. “Insanity is fun,” he added.

“Um, if you’re not putting up with anything coming between us, what’s all this?” the slayer asked teasingly, tugging at the hem of his shirt for emphasis.

“Was a bit distracted by the giant metal stake, pet,” he replied, shedding his duster and shirt in a single fluid movement. Without warning, he closed his arms around her and rolled so that she was sitting astride him. “Better view,” he explained with a smirk.

“Uh huh, sure. You didn’t want my back to be against the cold tub, admit it,” she joked, removing her shirt and bra quickly. “Okay, there’s still something between us. Somebody’s been lax.”

“Patience is a virtue,” Spike insisted, peppering her collarbone and throat with light, playful kisses. “Course, no one’s ever accused me of bein’ virtuous.”

“Pig,” she admonished, exploring his chest with her hands. Though they were hardly visible to the naked eye, she could feel several new scars there, and she traced them lightly until he shivered.

“Bitch,” he answered with a trademark grin before his mouth latched to one of her nipples.

“Insufferable… ooh… Never mind. Sufferable. Very, very sufferable.”

Releasing her nipple, the vampire smirked, clearly proud of himself. “S’what I thought.”

Arrogant vampire. She’d show him. Smiling wickedly, the slayer pressed her hips down firmly against his and began to move, eliciting a deep purr. “I think Spikey likes it,” she mocked.

“Not… funny!” he gasped indignantly. If she wanted to play, he could play, too. Shoving her skirt up, he tore her panties off and grasped her hips, dragging her upward to straddle his face. She protested for all of two seconds, stopping the instant his lips fastened to her clit.

Okay, um… She’d been meaning to do something, but she couldn’t remember what it was to save her life. Whimpering and arching her hips desperately, the slayer twined her fingers into his hair and leaned her head against the cool tile to brace herself.

He teased her unmercifully with his tongue, barely brushing the point of it over her aching clit until she babbled some inane threat and pleaded softly. Deciding he’d tortured her enough, he attached the swollen nub with blunt teeth, flicking his tongue over it until she came with a hoarse cry that vaguely resembled his name. Smirking when she slid down to rest her head against his shoulder in a boneless heap, he kissed the crown of her head.

Buffy lazily traced the buttons of his jeans for long moments as she waited for her wits to return, feigning a dazed state far longer than necessary. Craftily, she popped the buttons open, distracting him by worrying one of his nipples between her teeth. When he was completely lost to the ministrations of her teeth and tongue, she pounced, impaling herself on his shaft gracefully.

“Oh, Hell…” he gasped, taken by surprise when he suddenly found himself engulfed in her heat.

The slayer lifted her head from his chest to watch the myriad of expressions that graced his features. Each time, he looked every bit as awed as he had the very first time she’d taken him in. He’d never looked more beautiful, surely, and she thought he’d also never looked so at peace. They decided simultaneously that the time for playfulness had passed, and both leaned forward to close the gap between them, their lips meeting in the middle.

Spike cupped her hips to angle her just so, and when she released a keening cry against his lips, he knew he’d found the perfect position. The rest, he left up to nature, and as Buffy rocked against him eagerly, he couldn’t help but groan. She muttered something unintelligible into his mouth, bracing her hands against his chest as her soft cries turned to desperate mewls of pleasure.

Each time the slayer tried to speed up the movements of her hips. Spike clasped them tightly to keep the steady pace, listening in delight to her whines. At length, when he could do little more than tremble and pant unnecessarily for breath, he found her clit and twisted it lightly. Her eyes wide with surprise, Buffy yelled as her climax burned through her, and she mindlessly urged Spike’s face against her throat.

He found the mark he’d left on her all those years ago and pierced the thick scar tissue with ease to soften the guttural roar that threatened to escape him as he came. Moving his hips lazily to coax the end of her pleasure from her, the vampire finally collapsed back against the tub with a ridiculous smile of perfect happiness. “Was that magic?”

“Uh huh,” Buffy mumbled.

“You all right, luv?”

“Fire bad, tree pretty.”

“Gotcha. Just don’t drool on me,” he teased.

“Hey!” She swatted his arm weakly, squealing when he stood and carried her from the tub to the bed. “Should I be insulted that I can hardly talk and you’re moving already?”

“I’ve got stamina, pet. S’why you love me.”

“Mmm… show me that stamina.”

Just as he was going to do that very thing, Spike heard a knock on the door. “Shit.”

“Eep.” Scrambling to climb under the blankets, Buffy drew them up until only her eyes and the top of her head could be seen.

“I see how it is,” Spike said grumpily, “you’ll leave me to face the wolves alone.” Righting his jeans, he moved to the door and jerked it open, a brow lifting in surprise when he saw Xander. “Errr… Hey, Harris.”

“Hey, Spike,” the man said pleasantly, which was never a good sign when Spike was concerned. “Do you know what’s on the other side of these walls?”

“Is this a trick question? Errr… insulation, some pipes, maybe?”

“MY HEAD!”

Wincing, Spike had the decency to look ashamed of himself. Buffy, from her cocoon of blankets, giggled. “Right, then. We’ll keep it down.”

“You do that.” With that, Xander stalked away, muttering something about shoddy sheetrock.

Closing the door behind him, Spike burst out laughing and launched himself onto the bed, landing beside the slayer. “That was close.”

“Uh huh… Now, where were we?” she asked coquettishly.

“Tricky,” Spike commented off-handedly as his hand stole beneath the blankets. “Right… about… here.”

Gasping, Buffy nodded emphatically. “What was our… um, our record?”

“Five hours, pet. You want to break it?”

“It’s gonna be soooo broken,” she declared, tackling him back against the bed with surprising speed.

“Break away, baby.”

The Beginning

“It’s started.”

All eyes focused on Rupert Giles as the Englishman stood at the center of the conference room, wiping his glasses frantically as though he could wash away the problems of the world with a sweep of a cleansing cloth.

“H-he’s right,” stammered Willow as she held up a print out of the police investigator and coroner’s report. “A man in Paradise, California dropped dead suddenly, and one of the eye-witnesses, who was dismissed as being crazy, stayed that she saw a shadow form in front of the man and… suck something blue out of him.”

“His soul?” inquired Angel.

“Yes,” confirmed Giles. “It appears that, um, this woman, Amelia Markham, sees auras. She saw the Eater draw the life-force out of Henry, uh, Willow, what was his name, again?”

“Service.”

“Right, Henry Service.”

“What do you make of it?” Spike asked as he shoved a bowlful of Chex Mix in Buffy’s direction. “For God’s sake, Slayer, you’ve got to eat something; you’re as thin as a rail.”

“Aha!” Giles exclaimed. “He agrees with me. Perhaps you’ll listen to him.”

“I’m not too thin!” the slayer protested, “And you’re getting off track.”

“Buffy,” Angel said gently, “if you turned to the side and stuck out your tongue, you would look like a zipper.”

Willow giggled. Giles looked taken aback, Xander bit his lower lip to stifle his laughter, and Spike smirked.

Buffy, however, looked none too amused. “Fine,” she snapped as she consented to eat some of the evil snack food. It would go straight to her thighs, it was horrible, it was… really, really good. “It’s just… I haven’t been very hungry for the past few years.”

“I’m back now, pet, and I intend to make sure you’re eatin’ properly. Now, ‘bout this Markham bird, how do we know she sees auras and what-not?”

“She’s, ah, listed as an aura seer,” answered Giles.

“Listed?” Angel asked before his childe could even open his mouth.

It was Willow, though, who answered, “When Giles reformed the Watcher’s Council, he thought it would be a good idea to get listings of known psychics, witches, seers in particular areas… that sort of thing.”

“Clever,” Spike complimented.

“Yes, um, anyway,” the former watcher continued, “seeing as how Themis informed us that the Eater was in the form of one dear to us, I believe were her exact words, we now have to-to figure out who it is.”

“Fred!” the blonde vampire exclaimed, cupped his forehead in dismay. “She’s the only one who’s dear to us who isn’t bloody here.”

Her green eyes widening, Willow inquired, “Where is Fred?”

“Chico,” Angel replied bleakly. “That’s not far from Paradise. I sent her there to look for an artifact that might be of use in binding the Eater to its mortal form.”

“Is it an amulet?” Spike asked in a vain attempt to lighten the mood. “I’ve had enough of your soddin’ jewelry.”

“Cut the crap, William,” Angel snapped.

“Hey, we’re all stressed out right now. Everybody just sit back and chill, okay?” Xander intervened. In spite of his dislike for vampires, namely Angel and Spike, he tended to side with the latter. Spike, at least, hadn’t left Buffy willingly.

To Buffy, it was obvious that Spike’s banter was a cover for his pain. She knew that he genuinely cared about Fred, that the woman had worked to re-corporealize him. She had stayed and cared for Angel after all that she had seen. “Fred’s a good woman,” she said finally. “Maybe… maybe she doesn’t even know what she’s doing.”

“Correct, Slayer.” Themis’ voice, husky and lilting, had replaced Willow’s soft stammer. “When the Eater takes control of her body, she is unaware of what she is doing. She cannot control it.”

“Is there a way we can force the soul of the Eater out of her and bind it in an orb or an amulet… something?” Angel asked desperately, stunned by Willow’s suddenly pallid hair.

“If the host is strong enough to survive the loss of the soul, anything is possible.”

“The host? That’s Fred you’re talkin’ about! She’s not just so bloody host, she’s a person!” Spike protested heatedly.

“That is all I can tell you for now, I am sorry. I told you, I will give you whatever information I am permitted to share… when you are prepared to hear it.” With that, Willow’s hair returned to its normal fiery shade, and she gasped shakily.

“Will?” Xander and Buffy questioned simultaneously, both rushing to their friend’s side. Xander vaguely remembered his time as Dracula’s ‘butt-monkey’ and wondered if Willow felt as violated as he had.

“I’m fine, just tired… again.”

“Well,” Giles muttered, “that was rather interesting. Willow, you need to take a rest. Angel, did Fred say when she would return?”

“She’s scheduled to be back tomorrow. I think it would be best if… if we waited for her. We can’t let her know, at least not right away, not until we know more.”

Spike immediately leapt to his feet. “That’s not fair, Liam. If you were bein’ used like that, wouldn’t you want to know?”

“Angel’s right, Spike,” Buffy said gently. “We don’t know what Fred would do if she found out right now.”

“Sh-she might kill herself, and then the Eater’s soul would just inhabit another body,” Willow elaborated.

“In which case, we’d be back and square one,” Xander added.

“We’ve never gotten off of square-bloody-one!”

“Yeah,” Angel agreed. “I think that’s obvious by now.”

“Bugger.”

Everyone had to agree with Spike’s synopsis.

Beautiful Minds

The decision to keep Fred out of the loop had been one of the most difficult Spike had ever been forced to make, and as he watched the dark-haired woman skirt back and forth between several of her beloved machines in an attempt to calibrate something-or-other, he regretted it more than ever.

Why the Eater didn’t strike now, the vampire knew not, but he was silently grateful for the momentary peace. It was the calm before the storm, and he was well aware of it, but like any calm, it was welcome. He caught Buffy’s glance and held it, offering a secretive smile when she looked equally confused by Fred’s brilliance.

“…and if the spectrum of this equation explains both the velocity and longevity of Angel’s deteriorated mental state, I might be able to figure out what happened to him in the first place. Did that make sense?” the bright young woman asked with a cheerful smile.

“Um… Angel’s brain short-circuited after the battle and your machine thingy might be able to tell us how it happened and why he’s better now?” Buffy ventured.

“Right!” Fred exclaimed animatedly. “Spike, don’t poke at that!”

The vampire in question held up his hands, his eyes filled with false innocence. “I was just wonderin’ what the little spinnin’ thing was for.”

“Do you have any idea what might have caused this or why it affected Angel?” the slayer asked, restraining Spike’s hands to prevent him from accidentally damaging something in the lab.

Glancing around apprehensively to make certain Angel was nowhere around, the brunette nodded. “When I first got back from Chico, Willow and I had a talk about it, and she said that she thinks the mystical reason it affected Angel was because… because his soul was forced on him, it left him open to whatever happened… maybe a surge of trans-dimensional energy.”

“Because his soul was forced on him?” Buffy wondered aloud.

“Willow compared it to… history repeating itself. It’s like when women get involved with one abusive man after the next.” Fred didn’t notice when Spike visibly deflated at her words, and she carried on, “Spike wasn’t vulnerable to it because he fought for his soul. He’s… the true champion.”

At the sadness in Fred’s voice, Spike protested, “Hey! I’m no hero. I just let the fire come, like I said.”

“You saved the world.”

“And you saved me from Pavayne,” she insisted. “You are a hero.”

“So are you, ducks,” the vampire said wistfully.

Sensing that spending more time in the woman’s presence would only make the inevitable more difficult for Spike, Buffy glanced at her watch and cursed softly. “Spike, we have to go. Willow said she needed us to be there for her spell, remember?”

Catching on, the vampire nodded gratefully. “You wanna come, Fred?” he inquired, knowing that she would never leave her work.

“No, you go on. I’ll let you know if I find any physical causes for what happened that night.”

“Thanks, Fred,” Buffy said sincerely as she ushered Spike from the lab. Once they were out of the woman’s line of sight, the slayer visibly deflated. “I’m really sorry…”

“Not your fault, luv. It’s just the way it is.”

“But you’ve known her for a long time, Spike. You don’t have to act like it’s not upsetting you when I know that –”

“What the soddin’ Hell do you want me to do, slayer? Should I go drink myself into oblivion? That’s not gonna help Fred, now is it?”

Buffy was astonished by how much he had changed over the years. The Spike she’d known, even after he’d gotten his soul, would have immediately lost himself in bourbon rather than trying to handle the pain in a more constructive manner, just as she had once resorted to withdrawing and refusing help. They had both matured considerably. “No,” she said finally, “that won’t help Fred. I don’t know that anything will.”

“Buffy!” Willow greeted, racing to meet the bleached pair. “I talked to Fred, and I’ve been doing some reading. Giles and I think we’ve figured out why… you know affected Angel instead of Spike!”

“Peaches’ soul was forced on him; I’m the true champion, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“Oh,” the witch mumbled, disappointed that she had not been the one to explain it. “Essentially, yeah. W-when someone is cursed, it leaves them more open to mystical forces because of the power needed to influence their make-up,” she elaborated.

“You explained it to Fred in a strange way. Smart thinking, Will,” the slayer said warmly.

“That’s one beautiful mind you got there, Red. Really is.” The vampire gave a bitter smile, for he had lost track of how many times he had said that very thing to Fred. He had saved the world, that was true, but he was unable to save a woman who had risked her life to help him a thousand times. His mind, he thought, was not so beautiful.

tbc Author's Notes: Due to the fact that my muse is MIA, I'm proud I could write this much, LOL.


A Strange Friendship

The soft ticking of a grandfather clock was the only sound that filled Angel’s office, and neither vampire spoke as the elder gestured for Spike to take a seat. If the pair had been at odds a moment ago, they were on the same side now; both wanted to find a way to save Fred.

“You heard Red,” Spike said at length. “If we exorcise the Eater’s spirit from Fred, it’ll just possess someone else. I don’t bloody know what we’re going to do.”

“The Orb of Thesulah,” the witch in question interrupted from the doorway. “I’d completely forgotten about it, but it’s what we used to hold Angel’s soul until it could be returned to him.”

A glimmer of hope filtered through Angel’s mahogany eyes; he had never been so relieved to hear mention of the Orb as he was in that moment. When last he had heard of it in such a way, Angelus had been in the driver’s seat. He shuddered at the memory.

“The spell’s not the same, though, is it?” inquired Spike as he lit a cigarette.

“Don’t smoke in here,” Angel replied automatically.

Rolling his eyes, Spike returned, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I-it’s not the same,” stammered Willow, “but I might be able to find another way. I just thought I’d let you know that we’re not just doing nothing.”

“Thank you, Willow.”

“Thanks, Red.” The blonde vampire, to his own surprise as much as Willow’s, spoke in tandem with his sire. It was not often that they were so in sync with one another; Spike took it as a bad sign. Was he becoming a poofter?

“Th-that’s all,” she said as she retreated. It was a rare thing to find Spike and Angel in the same room together and not bickering; it was something she had no desire to interrupt. It would be so much easier on Buffy if they could learn to get along.

“Well,” Spike began, deliberately taking a heavy drag from his cigarette as he met his sire’s gaze, “I guess this little meetin’ isn’t necessary.”

“Spike,” Angel warned. “Just don’t. You won, all right? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“It helps a bit,” the blonde admitted.

Angel sighed unnecessarily; he had thought things had been resolved between them when Spike had explained to Buffy how he, not Drusilla, had sired him. He should have known better; Spike would never forgive him for being Buffy’s first love. “Then I’ve said it; Buffy’s with you now. She’s… she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her,” he said begrudgingly.

“Yeah, well, I try.” Though his words were flippant at best, the sincerity with which he uttered them took both vampires by surprise. He did his best to see that Buffy was happier than she had ever been, at least happier than she’d ever been in life. “She’s with the whelp now,” Spike offered, answering Angel’s next question.

“When I spoke to her before you came back, she said that they were spending a lot of time together because they’d both lost someone they loved that day. I couldn’t believe it at first, that she loved you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Did you believe her when she said it the first time?” Angel queried. He was trying for Buffy’s sake to find some sense of camaraderie with his errant childe, and, if he admitted it to himself, because he’d missed him – or at least Angelus had missed having someone with a high testosterone count to one-up. With his soul, the demon’s hatred and superiority had twisted to become a need for companionship with the man who was both brother and son to him.

Spike, in the eerie way he understood the needs and wants of others, knew what his sire was doing. Angel felt alone, and rather than suffering in silence as he had once been content to do, he reached out for a helping hand. This, the Angel who had been taught by Whistler to be in the world but not of it, the Angel who had been locked within his own mind for years, needed a friend. The poncy boy William part of him empathized, and so Spike relented. “‘Course I did. I just had to get her out of there.”

The Spike Angel knew was selfish, but ultimately good-natured, yet this was something he was not prepared for, the realization that his childe had love her all along. Even without his soul, he had been willing to sacrifice everything for Buffy, for her happiness. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“You’ve always loved her, even when you hated her. You loved what she was.”

“It was an obsession for me,” the younger vampire clarified, “I wanted to cap off my third slayer, add another notch to my belt. I could never do it, didn’t know what it meant for years, but she knew.”

“Drusilla.”

“Dru… she knew all along.” Drusilla had known that, as William, Spike had loved without limit and idealistically, and that, even as a vampire, that part of him had never dimmed. Oh, she had mocked him for it, but she had known it long before he’d figured it out.

Heaving a sigh, Angel admitted, “Sometimes I miss her. I know it’s something leftover from Angelus, but it’s there. I missed you, too. I never liked you, but I missed you.”

“You’ve got a funny way of showin’ it, Peaches.” Spike would not answer the question in his sire’s voice, but of course he had missed him in his way. He’d missed him almost as greatly as he loathed him. The complexities of the thought process of a vampire were endless and confusing – especially to the vampires involved.

“I know,” the elder said simply.

“Back to that, again? When you don’t know what to say, you always say that you know, and don’t do it again.”

Rather than speaking the hated words, the brunette shrugged. “I’ve never been a great conversationalist.”

“I seem to remember Angelus prattlin’ on for hours ‘bout nothin’ in particular.”

“I'm not him, Spike, or should I call you William?”

“Not unless you have a yen to wake up on fire.”

“Go on,” Angel prompted. “You’ve got a girl waiting.” A girl who should be mine, he thought bitterly.

“I know when I’m not welcome.”

“That’s a first.” At his childe’s heated glare, he added, “You walked right into that one.”

“I did at that,” Spike agreed with a hearty chuckle. “Did at that.” Pushing to his feet, he strode out of the room without another word, or even a backward glance. Willow would find a way to save Fred, and he had Buffy waiting for him. All was right with the world.

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