Several Weeks later

“It’s time.”

Four figures were seated in a darkened room surrounded by magical paraphernalia.

The four of them rose and began to pack everything they would need for the night. Silence surrounded them as they moved in tandem and left the room.

The door clicked shut with a finality that all of them recognised.

After this evening, everything would be different – there was no going back…

*********

The clatter of silverware was all but smothered by the chatter of conversation around the dining table.

Anne and Dawn sat opposite each other and Spike sat at the head, facing towards the door. Alert at all times, he scanned the front door as he listened to the girl’s chatter about their day- they were like a pair of Blue Jays. He was constantly amazed at how his unlife had changed – once he would have drained these two birds and picked his teeth clean with their bones, and now…

Now he protected them both with his unlife.

There was a sense of family here, but it was tinged with sadness – he could see in Dawn’s eyes the sorrow she carried with her for her fallen sister and for the recent absence of Giles in their lives.

Spike wondered at the lack of sorrow in himself towards the Bit’s fallen sister, in a way he wished he could share her sorrow. Dawn was his and to see her suffering day and night for her dead sister hurt him. He sighed, wishing he had some memories that he could share with Dawn to join her in her mourning – but there was nothing.

Nothing but an empty void in his mind and heart…

A flash of blonde hair filled his mind and a lingering smile on a beautiful pair of un-scarred full pink lips appeared in his mind’s eye. Spike closed his eyes and jerked his head slightly as a pain jabbed him between the eyes. It went unnoticed by Dawn and Anne; surreptitiously he rubbed his temples, before reaching for his beer and taking a swig. ‘Wonder if the Chip has given me a tumour or sumthing…’

He eyed the windows warily, on full alert. Ever since the appearance and rapid decapitation of Vampire Xander he had been on tenterhooks, waiting to see what the Hellmouth spat out next in challenge to the safety of hearth and home. Since the repeated sighting of Red’s alter-vamp-ego on patrol, he had been on high alert, anticipating an all out attack. Adding to his frustration were several aborted attempts at fighting her, all of which ended with her retreating and saying it wasn’t time yet. There had been a maliciousness to her that had set his fangs on edge.

Also, the three vamp stooges were plain embarrassing – they were vamps and still arses.

One of them he recognised from the first and only year she had been in College. Spike cringed as a pain shot through his temple; unnoticed by any of the diners, the corner of Spike’s eye filled with blood. His subconscious veered away from her and focused on Jonathon.

What was wrong with that plonker? He was always getting into trouble, and now he was a vampire! Sad thing was, he was still largely pathetic within the world, if the whole attempt at thralling birds at the Bronze was any reflection of Jonathon and his mate’s pulling ability.

Spike also recalled the entire sorry episode where the entire town had hero-worshipped the short magic-caster; even he had respected Super Jonathon. Now the poor sod was a pitiful vampire who had allied himself with Warren.

Spike knew the git from somewhere but couldn’t quite place his finger on it. Every time he tried his brain throbbed; frustrated, the maudlin vampire focused on the blond rat-faced boy who had been there, too. The bugger had been called Andrew and that was about all he could recall about the nondescript vamp. Spike wasn’t too concerned about them; it was their leader that filled his undead heart with dread.

He was more concerned with the vicious redheaded vamp; she was going to cause trouble-- he was sure of it.

It was only a matter of time.

He needed to get out there and track down the bitch and rip out her shrivelled heart – it’d been bad enough seeing the Whelp with fangs, but Red… It was just wrong. What unsettled him most was that she had the scent of an Aurelian vampire. She had been sired by one of his own – but now he had no loyalty to his vampiric family. Instead, he was willingly aligned with a group of mortals.

A group of mortals who should’ve known better than to play with Magicks! The fault for the presence of Vampire Willow could only be laid at the feet of the Scoobies – he knew that they had meant well by their bringing over of Anne. But they could’ve closed the friggin portal!

Spike’s eyes flicked over to the reason for the portal and smiled at her animated face as she chatted to Dawn. Anne was coming out of her defensive shell and- with the two of them- was more like a teen than a hardened warrioress. An image she presented to the world, she wore her battle scars with pride and never flinched from the stares.

Spike looked assessingly at the Slayer, ignoring the twinge he felt in his head at the word. She had started to wear her hair in a ponytail rather than plaited so severely that a German milkmaid would’ve been envious at its neatness. Dawn’s influence on her clothing was minimal- Anne still wore her utilitarian outfits – but every now and then a flash of colour was beginning to appear and he suspected that they were snagged from Buffy’s wardrobe. Spike winced again as the pain built in his skull.

He felt something pop in his head and struggled to suppress a whimper. He didn’t want to appear weak in front of the girls.

He was proud of Anne’s faltering steps away from the life she had lived…but he was discomforted by her burgeoning attraction to him; it hurt in so many ways that he didn’t understand. He wondered if her new behaviour was obvious to the others, or if he was imagining it?

Ever since that night when she had reached for his hand, Spike had become a little wary of her. That was the first time he had noticed that Anne had been pilfering clothes from Dawn’s sister. She had been dressed to the nines and had been flashing her bits to all the hormonal boys at the Bronze.

Spike had not realised at the time that she had dressed for him – not until they were returning to the house after the ‘talk’ with Willow and Anne had caught hold of his hand. Spike still felt shocked that the poor bint had misinterpreted his friendship for anything more. Spike eyed Anne as she ate and wondered if he could get Tara to have a natter with her- he wasn’t gonna touch it with a bargepole! He wondered why the others had been so allusive for the last few weeks, he had barely seen any of them. Most of his time spent with Dawn and Anne. He needed to talk to Glinda or Red and get them to have the ‘birds and the bees’ natter with Anne.

The intuitive vampire knew that the problem was that Anne was utterly inexperienced in the realms of love and relationships. Her life before coming here had been only for the hunt and not for anything else. If she had allowed herself to be distracted by a bloke, she would probably not have survived as long as she had.

But her flirting was starting to worry him on many levels.

He liked the bird as a friend and nothing else. But his inner William was holding him back from saying anything; he knew what it was like to be rejected and wanted to spare her that pain. However, a line was going to have to be drawn. She needed to know that, yes, she had a place in his heart and his life, but not as a lover--only as a friend and patrol buddy.

The agony he was going through every time Anne batted her long eyelashes at him was getting to the point where he was beginning to suspect that the chip was startin’ to malfunction. Spike knew that sex and violence went hand in hand with vamps, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t work out why Anne’s fumbled attempts at seduction were causing the chip to fire. It wasn’t as if he were responding to her sweet attempts, so why did the chip punish him?

Maybe he should get someone to check out the blasted thing before his brains dribbled out of his ears?

Despite all this, Spike was proud of her…she was changing for the better and it looked good on her!

It wasn’t much and he doubted that the Scoobies would’ve noticed, but she was relaxing into her new life. Since Willow and Anne had talked, he was hoping that things would become easier. Things had, but the core Scoobies were still secretive around Anne, and by association, Dawn and himself – which was beginning to piss him off alot!

Spike picked up a Spicy Chicken wing and gnawed on it contemplatively as he continued to ponder the enigma that was Anne. Recently Spike’s sharp sense of smell had noticed a faint trace of perfume on her clothes and skin that was familiar and made his entire body ache-- not just his head. Spike had consciously decided not to breathe around her and the pain had lessened immediately.

He tossed the stripped chicken bones onto his plate and licked his fingers clean. He was unaware that Anne was watching his long pink tongue intently; she flushed and looked back at Dawn before Spike spotted her drooling.

The oblivious vampire combed his fingers through his hair as his mind moved back to what had been bothering him recently about Anne. Initially, he had not really seen her as anything but another Slayer, but over the weeks they had become friends. He had seen her discomfort with the others and had tried to help out. He had approached Giles and asked the Watcher to train Anne, asking him not to mention it was his idea.

But to his chagrin, Anne had surprisingly rebuffed the half-hearted offer – instead turning back to him. So the blond vampire had taken up training with her – it was a slow and hard process. He had to watch every move so as not to fall to the floor screaming in pain from the chip, but they had developed a programme and it was working. Spike had noticed that Anne had a tighter style of fighting and was regimented. He was trying to teach her to loosen up and be more inventive, less predictable, mimicking his own moves.

The two of them not only patrolled together, they talked and had become friends.

As a vampire he’d had minions, and Dru – but never friends. Something that as William he had craved and, once turned, it had never crossed his mind again. Once he had been chipped, the blond vampire had been isolated from the demon world – even more so when he had started fighting and killing his own kind.

The loneliness had set in and he recognised that same loneliness in Anne. He had gathered from their long talks that she had been alone in her world and, until recently, had been a loner. Much like himself…Spike thought that maybe that was why he had been drawn to her. Spike eyed Anne and wondered when the feelings she had for him had changed. He knew that he had never given her signals, but after all her recent attempts over the past few weeks at seducing him, he was worried, wondering if he had.

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

“And standing in the middle of a cemetery clutching lit candles is a good idea in whose book?” Xander quipped nervously as he stared at the others. He adjusted his grip on the candle and wiped the sweat from his brow with the other. “Hell! I should just paint a target on my ass and stand here yelling ‘nummy treat over here!’”

Unable to resist, Tara gave Xander a lopsided grin. “Xander, you could probably fend them off with your manly weapon!” She ducked her head and smiled at the look of shock on Xander’s face.

“No one gets to see Xander’s manly weapon but me!” Anya squeaked as her hands darted to the crotch of Xander’s pants and she gently petted her favourite weapon.

“Ahn!” Xander danced away from Anya’s intimate and knowing touch and flushed bright red. He then turned to Tara, his brown eyes filled with shock that the usually subdued Wiccan had been big with the raunchyness. “Bad Tara! No flashing of my you know what!” He shook a disapproving finger at the blonde and smiled at her.

Tara’s jaw dropped in surprise, “I m…meant your candle! You could set fire to a vamp, not that!” She pointed to his pants and turned bright red.

“I’m sure he could set fire to a female vampire with his nicely shaped and long…” Xander clamped a hand over his garrulous girlfriend’s mouth with a long suffering groan. Turning, Xander grinned at Tara and rolled his eyes at her.

Willow ignored their banter as she set up. Pulling out the Hart’s blood she laid the bottle on the ground and tried to suppress the shudder that went through her at the memory of killing Bambi - it’s small body struggling in her arms as she cut it’s throat was a memory that would never leave her.

Anya and Tara stood silently watching the treeline – worried that they would be interrupted or killed by a vamp or a demon. They had all been on alert when they had dug up Buffy’s coffin.

It had been Anya’s idea – the ex-demoness was stunned when no one else had thought of it. She had gone on to happily reminisce about several vampire risings she had witnessed where the fledges had been too weak to break out of the coffin, let alone crawl through the six feet of soil that covered their final resting place.

After several moments of stunned silence, Willow had sent Xander to find some shovels; on his return they had cleared the grass and soil off the coffin. But they couldn’t face opening it; none of the four wanted to see their friend’s rotted corpse.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Xander asked hesitantly.

Willow’s eyes caught his in a firm glare. “Yes, Xander, it is! We’ve been over and over this…Buffy needs us to save her! When Glory used Dawn’s blood to open a gate into her hell dimension, Buffy jumped into it to close it! Her soul is in HELL, you want to leave her there?” Willow looked back down and carefully repositioned the Urn of Osiris at the foot of Buffy’s grave and then knelt down.

“Willow, sweetie, are you all set?” Tara looked down at her lover. Fear and pride warring in her eyes-- she knew that her Willow tree could do it, but she was scared that the ritual might damage her.

Willow smiled up at Tara and looked lovingly at her. Tara’s gentle strength and love warmed her heart. After sighting her vamp alter ego several times on patrol and at the Bronze over the past weeks, she had been unsettled and terrified.

The reminder of her skankier self had freaked her and she had nearly backed out of the ritual. It had been Tara’s soothing presence and soft-spoken words of reassurance that had restored her shaken confidence.

That, and also the exit stage left of Giles. He had sloped off in the middle of the night, leaving a note that had shaken them all to the core. Willow had been angry yet relieved when they had found the note in the Magic Box. She was sad to lose her confidant and friend, but at the same time, with him out the way they could do the ritual without any interference.

She felt a twinge of guilt for insisting on excluding Spike from the resurrection – but she knew that it was the right thing to do; he might have stopped them from doing it. She felt badly about leaving him out of the loop, in the past weeks they had barely had any time for hanging out. All so caught up in their plans to save Buffy, the core Scoobies had been absent from Spike, Dawn and Anne’s lives. They had carried on without them, all but ships that passed in the night.

Willow took a deep breath and glanced over at the others, they were as ready as they would ever be. And she knew she was.

And now it was time.

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