B/S Fan Fiction

Facing It

By Rebecca

Disclaimer: Of course they're not mine.

Rating: PG

Summary: Buffy tries to straighten things out. To everyone who is in fierce denial after seeing the end of "Conversations With Dead People." Shades of B/S.

Feedback: Yes please! Review, or write me at beckyg19@yahoo.com

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She had never felt so betrayed. Not when Angel turned. Not when Riley went to those vamp sluts to get his jollies. Not when her friends tore her out of heaven.

Spike, her Spike, was killing again.

She beat on the door, heedless of what the neighbors might think. "Open up, Xander!"

An eternity later, the door opened and there stood Xander, his hair disheveled, remote clutched in one hand. The volume on the TV was turned up loud, and Buffy glared at him. "Where is he?"

Xander blinked. "Who?"

"Spike." She pushed past him, into the apartment. In the living room she stopped and looked around. The blond vampire was nowhere in sight. "You let him out?" she asked in disbelief.

"Huh?" Xander's brow furrowed. "Hell, no! I just -" He had the grace to look slightly ashamed. "I just couldn't take any more of loony-tunes babbling, so I made him go sit in the closet."

"You mean he's here?" She couldn't help the relief that made her shoulders sag, that made her heart give a funny jump in her chest.

Xander gave her a queer look. "Yeah."

Then she remembered. Webb had been sired the previous day. Tonight he had been a vampire. The fact that Spike had been at Xander's tonight did not prove anything.

She marched over to the closet and flung open the door. Spike was sitting in the corner, his head on his drawn-up knees. Despite the high volume of the TV, she could hear him muttering to himself. She reached in and grabbed Spike by the upper arms. It took little effort to haul him out of the closet. "What did you do?" she cried.

Spike would not look at her. "Want to come up for some coffee?" he murmured.

The TV droned on in the background, some black-and-white war movie. Exasperated, Buffy snapped, "Would you turn that down, please?"

"Sorry." Xander, as ever, hurried to obey her. "I just couldn't stand to listen to him anymore."

"Went to the Bronze," Spike agreed. He raised his arm and pressed the heel of his right hand against his forehead. "She had smokes. Wanted to share."

Xander flung out his arms. "You hear that? He's not crazy anymore, you said. Not talking to people that aren't there, you said. Well look at him! He's been doing that all night."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. Her heart beat faster, dreading the answer. "Spike, were you at the Bronze tonight?"

He nodded, but still he would not look at her. "She had smokes."

"Who?" Buffy demanded.

"The girl. At the Bronze."

Her blood ran cold. He had done it again. Killed a woman. She had trusted him once and he had repaid her in violence on the bathroom floor. Now she had trusted one of her friends to him. What if it had been Xander? What if Xander was the one dead?

"Would you stop that?" Xander cried. "You weren't at the Bronze! But I gotta tell you, I'm wishing you had been, because maybe then I could have watched my movie in peace."

Buffy turned to Xander. "He's been here all night with you?"

"Hello? Haven't you heard a word I've been saying?"

She looked back at Spike, who was slumped in her grip. He seemed truly distressed, the way he had been at his worst in the school basement. "Want to come up for some coffee?" he slurred.

Xander pointed. "First time he said that, he started screaming. All, "no" and "stop it." That's when I tossed him in the closet."

Buffy took a deep breath. "What happened to that girl, Spike? What did you do to her?"

For the first time since she had pulled him out of the closet, Spike looked at her. His eyes shone with confusion and tears of pain. "I hurt her," he whispered. "I hurt the girl."

"When?" Buffy demanded. "Tonight?"

Spike nodded, then cocked his head to the side, his eyes wincing shut. The hand at his temple pressed harder. She had seen him do this often before, first with the chip, but in the basement, as well. Something was hurting him. "She was at the Bronze."

"Spike." She shook him a little, not to hurt him, but to get his attention. "Spike, listen to me. This is very important. Last night, did you go out? Did you hurt anybody?"

Xander shook his head. "I can field that one. That would be a big no. He was here, as always. Mooching off me, mumbling all the time, just another wild and crazy night at Casa de Xander."

Some of the hurt fury, the pain of betrayal, began to fade away. Buffy looked at Spike, cringing in her grip. She knew she was holding him hard enough to hurt, but he didn't even attempt to struggle. And that was when she knew. This was not a person capable of killing anyone. Spike had a soul now, and then there was the chip to remember. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn't kill someone.

The relief was amazing. It washed over her and left her dizzy in its wake. She dropped Spike to the floor, and backed away, trying to still the trembling in her limbs. "He didn't do it," she breathed.

"Again, I say, huh?" Xander watched her cautiously. "Buffy, what is going on here?"

She looked down at Spike. The vampire lay where he had fallen. He was muttering again, clearly agitated.

"I think Spike is having visions," she said. "Someone - or something - wants him to think he's killing people again."

Xander frowned. "But why?"

Buffy shook her head. "I don't know." Her theory did not explain why Webb would have thought Spike sired him.

She knelt on the carpet. "Spike?" She could afford to be gentle, now that she knew he was not a killer again. She was reaching out to touch him when the door flew open, and a very distraught Willow marched in. "Xander? Buffy!"

Buffy got quickly to her feet. "What is it?" Willow looked as though she had been crying, and there was a wildness to her eyes that made Buffy's skin crawl. "Will, what's wrong?"

"Tara!" Willow exclaimed. Then with a huge effort at self-control, she took a deep breath. "I was talking to Cassie. She said, she said she had come to see me, that I would kill all my friends if I didn't stop using magic." Her face darkened in anguish. "Oh, God. She said I would kill everyone, and the only way to stop it was to kill myself, instead."

Buffy gaped at her. "Cassie Newton?" She felt her heart sink. Cassie was a vampire?

"But it wasn't her," Willow said. "It wasn't a person at all. It- I don't know what it was, but it was evil." She licked her lips nervously. "I think it was the thing, the thing from beneath us."

"The devouring thing?" asked Xander. "Great, 'cause I'm not sick of hearing that yet."

Buffy looked at her friends, then glanced down at Spike, who was still lying at her feet. "Xander, call Anya. I'm going to get Dawn and bring her back here."

"What's going on?" Willow asked, her voice shaking with emotion.

"I don't know," Buffy said grimly. "But we are going to find out. Something out there is afraid of us. It knows we can hurt it. It's trying to separate us, keep us from each other." Her eyes flashed. "And I am *not* going to let that happen."

She lifted her chin, defying whatever evil was out there. "Whatever that thing is, it's going to have to face us. All of us."

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END