Fear In A Handful Of Dust

By Amy B

Chapter 1

“So Angel has a son.”

“Bugger that he has a son—the son of a bitch had all of your minds wiped to erase the son?”

How many times had the resigned statement and subsequent question been repeated, in private and in this company, since Wesley had discovered and shattered Angel’s betrayal? The stunned faces gathered in Wesley Wyndham-Price’s office reflected that, despite the repetitive nature of the questions, no answers were, as of yet, forthcoming. Thankfully, Angel would be away in meetings for the entirety of this week; all of them would need the time. It was becoming clear that Wesley’s instructions to Illyria, to push away the memories and cling to the realities created by Vail along with Wolfram & Hart, were going to be impossible to follow. For all of them, except Illyria, the ache of trust lost, so soon after the loss of one of their own, was acute and all-encompassing. For all of them, including Illyria, the betrayal weighed heavily.

Spike, of course, had had no memories stripped or replaced; all he was able to feel in that regard was a deep kinship stemming from fellow feeling. He too had had his mind magically violated several times over by Willow, and technologically violated by the Initiative. If anyone outside Angel’s group of friends could understand the vast impact of an invasion like the one undertaken by Wolfram & Hart on Angel’s orders, Spike could. Aside from that, his trust had also been violated. He had chosen to stay, had signed on to help his grandsire come what may, regardless of the hostilities and history that lay between them. Angelus had no sense of loyalty, but Spike had somehow managed to convince himself that perhaps Angel was different. To find that, even with a soul, Angel still repaid devoted loyalty with selfish service to his own self-interests was not necessarily unexpected, but disconcerting nevertheless.

Gunn, so recently rescued from Wolfram & Hart’s suburban hell, had felt alongside his return with Illyria the return of his memories. The shock of the mental violation, coupled with his memories of torment, had initially sent him into near catatonia. He had finally managed to struggle his way through, the tough street fighter scrapping his way to the surface yet again and allowing him to reestablish himself, bruised and beaten but far the wiser.

Lorne felt the violation just as deeply, and perhaps more so. To strip an empath demon of his emotional history and experiences, to bury them under layers of falsehoods and create fake emotions and experiences to conceal them, was a violation of the highest order. Not only had Lorne’s mind been defiled, but his very nature as well. The fact that a trusted friend, for whom he had sacrificed much, had been his violator shook Lorne’s faith in Angel to the core.

Illyria had known of the layering of Fred’s memories, that something had been removed and something different put in its place. While it should have had no effect on her, she remained troubled by how much of her host remained inside her in this shell. The soul was gone, burned away—that much was certain—but certain softer feelings, inappropriate for a being such as herself, somehow managed to survive. If for no other reason than that his trickery had thrown her strange new existence into even more tumult, Illyria found herself with curiously strong feelings of displeasure towards Angel. Seeing the effect that his deceit had on Wesley, however, spoke to the softness inside her that she was unable vanquish. Despite her own best efforts she found herself drawn to the damaged creature her shell had once loved.

Wesley was, for all intents and purposes, a broken man. Shattered by the knowledge of what he had done and what had been done to him, he had retreated into himself, rarely leaving his office except to observe Illyria’s training, speaking only when directly addressed, and avoiding Angel at all costs. At first it was the guilt that kept him away—the knowledge that he had been responsible, however unintentionally, for the loss of his best friend’s child, was a painful blade in his consciousness. Second to the guilt, however, came the anger—this man had tried to murder him, and by hiding his son’s existence had hidden that fact as well. Wesley and Angel had managed to somewhat move beyond Angel’s attempt on his life, and Wesley likely would have worked with Angel knowing the truth of all of the events. The fact that his free will had been stripped from him and his choice taken away, however, smacked of a hubris that he hadn’t expected to see from Angel again since the debacle with Darla.

The result of all of these interior motivations was a rather confused, disheartened, and directionless crew. They still came to work, went about their daily business as though nothing had changed; however, none of them could truly trust Angel. It was this distrust that left them wandering the halls in Angel’s absence and gathering, although with no previous plan to do so, on the couches in Wesley Wyndham-Price’s office long after Wolfram & Hart should have been empty for the day. As they looked at each other, the silent questions that had echoed through their heads began to tumble out.

“Yes,” Wesley answered Spike as he placed the agreement Angel had signed on the coffee table, “Angel did arrange to have all of our realities shifted in order that Connor be given a happy, normal family life.”

“Stupid git and his bloody ‘normal’ lives. Buffy’s the Slayer, but she should marry some normal bloke that she can get herself killed trying to protect. Kid’s born of two vampires, obviously he should be given to the soddin’ Bradys to raise. Bloody hell, I know the man has daddy issues, but not everybody wants a fucking suburban life.”

“Be that as it may,” Wesley interrupted, more than a little amused at Spike’s rant and relieved at the break in the tension that the diatribe seemed to have caused in the room, “what concerns me the most is not only that Angel ordered all of our memories blocked and saw it through, but that he was willing to write the case off when it threatened to counteract his will.”

“Why does that surprise you exactly, Percy? He made sure none of you lot knew I had a soul, didn’t he? Seems the poof’s right eloquent with the silences when it’s something that goes against the way he wants his world set up.”

“You omit that he asked your trust of him even while the demon murdered his son,” added Illyria, not quite willing to participate in the discussion but still interested in the tide of near-rebellion that seemed to surge under the surface of the discussion. “Why a leader should ask trust, rather than demand obedience, is beyond me, but it seemed important to him somehow.”

“So he did all this to protect Connor, but when the only way for Connor to survive was to break the spell he didn’t want it broken? Ain’t no way that’s right, man—why protect him just to have him killed?” asked Gunn, still struggling to put the pieces of the story together from Wes’s recollections and Illyria’s occasional input.

“I don’t think that Angel meant that he be killed. I simply think that, at that moment, keeping the spell intact was more important than anything else. I don’t doubt that he has real affection for the boy, but his continued insistence on us trusting him does concern me. Before I was content to trust him based on all that has passed between us, but after this…”

“You mean after you kidnapped his son and he nearly killed you in the hospital? After you only came back to help so you could mack on my girl?” Gunn winced even as the words were spoken out loud; it seemed that along with his memories his bitterness toward Wesley had also returned.

“Not exactly what I meant, Gunn,” Wesley answered tightly, “but yes, in light of getting my memories back, I am less inclined to trust him. I also think the rest of us should be wary; a scheme of this magnitude could still be only a smaller part of something larger. This is all that I could find in records, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this is all there is. Lorne, is there anything you can do to read Angel—maybe let us know what is in his head, just to put our minds at ease?”

“It’s not that I haven’t tried, scrumptious, but there’s no way for me to come out and just ask him to sing, especially not now. The on-staff psychics won’t go near him, and he’s not exactly the randomly musical sort. If I ask him to sing, Angelcakes will know I’m suspicious and that’s not a fire I’m ready to climb into just yet.”

“If this is all you found in contracts,” remarked Gunn, picking up the contract with Angel’s blood signature, “then there ain’t nothing else. I know that much for certain about this place—anything else that’s going on with him is all in his head. We’ve reached the end of the paper trail.”

Frustration was palpable in the room as each tried to find a way to have Angel tip his hand, to reveal something of what was going on. Finally, Illyria broke the silence.

“Perhaps I could provide some assistance. I pulled this one you call Gunn out of the other dimension.”

“Illyria, there’s a large difference between a shift between dimensions and a shift across time. You yourself told me that the world is as it is; how can you possibly be of assistance in this case?”

“Foolish creatures. The world is as it is only because you lack the capability to change it. Nothing is unknowable. You walk this world as though there are no others and so you are stuck blindly wandering down whatever paths you have set yourselves upon. You would do well to remember that I am unlike you. I wear this shell but I am a god…I need not follow a path set down by others and tread by blind fools.”

“Well, excepting the whole trail of fools, Highness, it’s a right interestin’ offer. I’m guessin’ you’re going to work some mojo with time, given how fun that seems to be for you?”

“Wait a moment, Illyria. Are you saying that the world isn’t mutable, that the choices we make effect nothing?”

“In your grief, Wesley, you see the situation as best assuages your own soul. Predestination is nothing but the will of humans bent to serve the will of those greater or more powerful than themselves. Anything beyond this moment diverges into any number of paths; all is mutable, but all endings are visible.”

“And how can you follow our path? If all is mutable, then any choice that is made could change the outcome. How can you can move forward and tell us what shall happen? Why would you help us?”

“Time is easily manipulated. Humans are so dogged in the treading of paths, it proves easy to follow its footprints forward across the ages. The ends of Angel’s actions are written in time itself. I can simply follow this path forward to its conclusion, or the conclusion of Angel’s presence, and return with this knowledge. Surely this should be sufficient for you know whether your obeisance to your leader is well-placed. I will help you because Angel has proved himself an unworthy leader and that weakness pleases me. I know that Angel wishes me destroyed. I wish to know whether I survive and if I am forced to remain in this helpless cage of flesh.”

“Then this could work, right? Illyria lets us know what’s going on in Angel’s head, and we get back to the business of helpin’ the helpless?”

“Charlie boy, you lot haven’t been near the helpless since you signed on to this bloody devil’s playground. How much of that is because of the way this place works, an’ how much of it is by Angel’s plannin’ is the question we need Shiva here to answer.”

“I’m afraid Spike is right. Nothing about this place allows us any similarity to what we once were. I know that we believed that we could work greater good with greater resources, but it does rather seem as though we are now the resources being exploited, instead.”

“So it’s a yes to Highness’s plan, then. Move forward, check out the possible nasty, and then on with life, or unlife as the case may be.”

“I don’t see that we have any other option. Illyria, how quickly could you begin you reconnaissance?”

“I can begin to shift as soon as you deem it necessary; I need only to know when you wish me to begin.”

“Should we call in any reinforcements? Perhaps Buffy…”

“Buffy doesn’t need to know word one of any of this until we have somethin’ a little more certain. She may not be exactly thrilled with the poof as CEO of Evil Inc. right now, but she ain’t going to be quick to believe he’s gone ‘Angelus’ bad again either. ‘Specially without the gettin’ laid to make him crazy. And then there’s the problem with her not knowin’ I’m back among the non-dusted, least I don’t think she does. Don’t know how she’ll take it, and don’t think it’ll be good news to break ridin’ along with the bad about His Royal Gitness. Better hold off ‘til we have some solid proof to take to her; soon’s we get that, we’ll face down the wrath and be rollin’ with slayers a-plenty.”

“So it’s the five of us, then. Until there’s proof,” sighed Wesley.

“Probably best that way, mate. Least for the time being,” agreed Spike.

“I’m in; don’t like the way any of this is turnin’ out, but I’m in,” promised Gunn.

“Happy to help, crumpet. There may be something along the way that will let me in Angel’s head, but for right now I’ll do what I can from the outside.”

“I’ve already sworn my assistance. I wish to make the investigation and be done with this; this lengthy focus on human concerns is beneath me.”

“Tomorrow then, while Angel’s still out of the office. We’ll meet in the lab; Illyria can shift during her testing session with Spike. After that, we’ll decide on whether any information needs to be disseminated further. Until then this will remain strictly between those of us in this room,” Wesley concluded.

A small cough from the doorway made them all start, turning apprehensively as one to face the intruder. Spike’s view was blocked by Lorne, and he tensed to move beyond the barrier presented by the demon; the next sound he heard froze him momentarily in his tracks. A bright, chipper, California-girl voice, asking in a tone generally reserved for her slaying quips “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to share with the rest of the class? ‘Cause, not to be boasty Buffy, but I’m fairly certain I sort of started the whole ‘distrust the evil empire’ movement.”

Chapter 2

Almost without thinking, and unable to deny himself any longer the glorious sight of the woman he loved, Spike surrendered to temptation. She was finally here, within his reach. Spike stepped aside and out from behind the protective cover Lorne provided and, in a voice barely above a whisper, asked tentatively, “Buffy?”

Spike gazed at her standing there flanked by her Scoobies, staring at him with her hands on her hips and her stubborn little chin jutting out determinedly like the warrior goddess she had always been. Cursing the weakness in his voice, he made a new attempt. This time he managed a slightly louder but no less emotional “H’lo, luv…I…um…”

Frustrated by his lack of eloquence (just who was he bloody kidding—frustrated by his inability to form coherent words), Spike felt himself freeze under her still, emotionless gaze.

“Spike,” she said coolly, maintaining eye contact with him but remaining still, “you always did have an incredible knack for knowing just what to say. At least you being here gives me one less thing I have to manage in the next five minutes.”

Heartbroken by the sheer blankness of her tone, but held captive by her level green gaze, Spike raised his scarred eyebrow and asked with more than a hint of confusion, mixed with anger, “Five minutes? And just what exactly were you predicting to have to manage in your first five minutes here in the City of bloody Angels? Especially with Captain Forehead on walkabout for the rest of the week.”

“Well, now that I know you’re here, that’s about as long as I could spend here in the same city with you,” Buffy began, only to watch Spike drop his head as a coldness, more desolate than death, gripped his insides. Taking one step forward, she started again, “That’s as long as I could manage to be here in the same city with you without touching you.”

Hardly comprehending, much less daring to hope, Spike’s head slowly lifted to meet Buffy’s gaze. He nearly staggered backward from the sheer brilliance of the grin lighting up her face. Rarely had she smiled like this; even more rarely had she ever smiled like this for him. Seeing an answering smile beginning to form across his handsome features, she took another slow step forward and whispered, “Any longer than that would just be hell, Spike. And we both know I’ve earned better. We both have!” Suddenly her tentative steps turned into a run, and she closed the distance between them, launching herself into his arms with a force that landed him against the wall. The kiss that resulted contained all the passion of long, lonely, grief-filled nights; of love given but denied; of mourning and longing, joy and lust, and a desire more eternal than death itself.

When they finally separated, foreheads touching as they both desperately gulped for air, the secretive, joyous smiles that grazed their faces spoke volumes of their emotions, to each other and to their captive and somewhat embarrassed audience.

The sounds of nervous throat-clearing brought them back to themselves and Buffy slowly unwrapped her legs from Spike’s waist, backing up only slightly and remaining in the protective circle of his arms. Lost in her eyes, Spike was too distracted to notice the tiny fist moving at light-speed toward his nose until it had made contact, snapping his head backwards from the force of the blow. Bringing his hands to his nose, Spike shouted “Bloody hell, you bleedin’ daft cow! What the hell was that for?”

Freed from the circle of his arms, Buffy began to pace in front of him, waving her arms dramatically as she ranted “You total bastard! I can’t believe you! You’ve been here all this time and you left me to go on thinking that you were dead! And I mourned you! All these months I have mourned you, and cried for you, and dreamed that you would come back, and you were here the whole damn time! And I still wouldn’t even know if Andrew hadn’t made with the ‘splainy on the plane, because he so knew I would kick his ass if we got here and then I found out that he knew, because obviously you’d be here…and how in the hell could you think I wouldn’t want to at least hear from you, you doof?”

“Buffy…luv…” Spike tried to interrupt, amused at the ramble and overwhelmed by the emotions she was so freely displaying, but Buffy was having none of it. The rant continued unabated, her arms flying as fast as her feet as she paced, tossing occasional glances this way and that but never veering farther than a few feet from him.

“I understand that you were scared, Spike, I really do, and I even get why, because God knows I was never touchy-feely Buffy with you….and I know that I waited too late to tell you and that you didn’t believe me, but I’m telling you again in front of everybody,” she paused for a moment, searching his gaze for his reaction to her words, “I love you, Spike, and I swear to God if you ever hide from me, or doubt me again I will beat you into dust.”

As his face shifted from amusement to a strange mixture of fear, joy, and adoration, the wild gesticulations began anew as she continued. “And I will dismember you piece by piece and put you back together just to do it again…I thought you wanted me to love you? You kept telling me I did, and then I tell you that I do, that I love you, and you’re all ‘No you don’t but thanks for saying it’ and what the hell was THAT anyway, you shirty bastard? You let me watch you…I had to see you burn and you wouldn’t even…”

“Buffy, luv…” Spike broke in again just as Buffy’s emotions tightened her throat and her voice failed her, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her roughly to him. His mouth descended upon hers, silencing her with lips and tongue in a gentle kiss that quickly became heated as he processed her rant and realized the true depth of the emotions she had just revealed.

Bloody hell, she loved him…had sworn it in front of the watcher and her mates and all of Angel’s crew…and never before had he felt what he was feeling now, much less from her: love, acknowledgement, adoration, completion, and oh God, passion that he could barely control and… “We need to get out of here NOW,” Buffy panted, whispering against his lips what his own mind had begun to chant, and they smiled at each other as they turned, finally acknowledging the now red-faced others in the room.

“Giles, could you… um… you know... make with the, er… expositiony bits… cause it seems like Buffy has some plans that we’re interrupting…” Willow interjected, blushing a bit at being the first to speak after the emotional display.

“Yes…quite” Giles quickly stammered, glasses off and handkerchief out, one lens already threatening to crack under the pressure he was exerting upon it. Buffy and Spike snorted simultaneously, each recalling a time their kisses had caused Giles to be grateful for blindness and amused by the prospect that he was about to inadvertently impose that condition upon himself again.

Spike looked up in near-shock at Willow’s words and Giles’ quick agreement, then hastily covered his emotional tumult with a raised eyebrow and a cheeky smirk as he teased, “Why Red, Watcher, one might almost take that as permission for me to leave here with the Slayer, unchaperoned.” Willow’s quick little wave, and accompanying genuine smile, knocked most of the wind out of his sails, but it was the next words spoken that left him completely gobsmacked.

“Well, Kinda Naughty,” said an eye-patched figure moving around Giles to stand by Willow, “we figure she’ll go with you no matter what we do. You’re only going unchaperoned because I don’t want to have to put out my one good eye from the horror of what I might see.”

Spike’s eyes shot from the Scoobies to Buffy (who wore a smirk that rivaled one of his best) and back to Xander, taking in the man’s lack of hostile body language and (holy hell, could it be?) genuine smile. “Well, then, Whelp,” he started cheerfully, minus his usual snark and with the beginnings of a genuine smile, “I guess we’ll just have to keep it kiddie-appropriate for you. Rate Watcher’s going on those glasses, they’re bound to turn to powder, and I don’t think we can afford two blind Scoobies right off. So then Rupert, it appears you have a story to tell?”

Chapter 3

Quick introductions followed. The passion of Buffy and Spike’s reunion aside, the tension in the room was too great to allow for much of anything else.

Greetings accomplished, Spike gently prompted, “The story, Rupert?”

Giles hastened to respond; it seemed as though his love of lecturing had remained undiminished. “Well, yes. Although how much of a story really depends much more upon what you know. All we have at the moment are vague impressions of a forthcoming imminent dark force.”

“Bloody hell—forgot how much dealing with you was like watching sodding Star Wars.”

“See, that’s what I keep telling him. Andrew and I try and try to convince him that all the vague isn’t really helping anyone, but nothing will do but ‘imminent forces, prophetic implications, world on the verge of infinite doom, blahdiddy blah.’ That’s why I’m learning the languages—at least that way I know whether or not there’s detail he’s hiding behind all that vague. And it helps when it comes time to translate it all into Scoobie-speak. Oh, and hi Spike. Kinda good to see you.”

“Really, Nibblet?” Spike asked, eyebrow cocked, bravado firmly in place to shield just how desperately he was hoping for a positive answer to his question.

“Oh, yeah. Of course, you and me are gonna have a talk after we’re done here and once Buffy’s done with you,” she paused and gave him a wicked wink that spoke far more of how much she had grown up than he really wanted to know, “…THEN I’ll kick what’s left of your ass for not telling us you were back.”

“Least you’re not telling me I’ll wake up on fire.”

“Well, there is that,” Dawn answered, smiling brightly just as Buffy squeezed his hand reassuringly. Dawn’s eyes told him there might still be some bridge-building to be done, but he could still have his Li’l Bit back in his life. He’d rebuild the damn Brooklyn Bridge from scrap for that chance.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, and I’m certainly glad that a reunion of sorts has been possible, but could we perhaps hear what call has brought the Council into this matter,” interjected Wesley.

“Yes, I do agree. Willow and I work very closely with a coven in Devon; they were instrumental in…”

“Bringing me back from the brink of eternal Elvira-hood?”

“Quite. It was the coven who first sensed the rising of the dark power that turned out to be Willow; they also had some very strong indicators in the early days of the rising of the First. They’ve sensed something else to be rising soon in Los Angeles, something so dark that both of their prior experiences seem rather pale in comparison. So far, however, they have been unable to come up with any sort of definite indicator as to what the force may be. Simply put, we only know that there is an enormous evil on the way, potentially a greater enemy than the First, and that this evil will appear here.”

Buffy’s hand had tightened to near-crushing pressure around Spike’s as Giles mentioned the First; the costs of defeating that enemy all too well-remembered in the face of the miracle next to her. Spike turned to her, giving her a quiet smile, and mouthed “we’ll be ok, luv” before turning his attention back to the discussion between the two watchers.

“It would certainly be helpful if there was some sort of direction in which the coven could point us.”

“Wesley, it sounded when we came in like you have a pretty solid direction that we should be looking towards,” Willow prodded gently, noticing the pain etched across the man’s features. She hated to awaken this in him, knowing how much he had suffered over the past years in Los Angeles, but any information that he had on Angel was too important to be buried under the weight of sorrow.

Wesley glanced at her and gave her a small smile, grateful for the understanding written so plainly on her face. She, too, had lost the woman that she loved, had killed the man responsible, and had seen more darkness inside herself than she had thought possible. Clearly, she had moved beyond it to forge some new self, even stronger than the Willow he had seen the previous year. She was the best possible example he could have asked for during this time of turmoil. Strengthened by that small revelation, Wesley steeled himself to recount his fears to this new group of allies.

“For this information to be its most pertinent, I suppose it would be easiest to start at the beginning, with Connor’s origins. I’m not certain…exactly how much do you already know?”

“Giles just knows the basics—Angel has a kid, I met said kid when I was re-ensouling Angel last year, suddenly the kid is never mentioned by anyone anymore. I never really got much more of the back-story than that. Fred only told me the high points,” Willow finished with a wince, noticing the grief-stricken looks briefly passing over the faces in front of her and tossing a glance towards Illyria. Whatever that was, it looked like Fred—it wasn’t, of course, but what exactly it was needed to be explained. If nothing else, it was just kind of creepy.

“And why didn’t I hear any of this? I was on the plane, too!” Buffy broke in indignantly, clearly not happy at having been left out of the loop.

Willow snorted with barely-concealed laughter as she answered. “Maybe because you were busy tearing Andrew a new one for the entire length of the flight, Buffy. It just seemed like you had something more important on your mind than Angel.”

“I guess I did,” Buffy answered, pouting a bit at being left out but fairly unapologetic for missing the briefing on the plane now that she’d remembered the reason for her distraction.

“Did you, now?” Spike asked her, cocking his eyebrow at her and then allowing his gaze to wander from her eyes to her pouting lip and back. “Might wanna watch that lip, luv. Know I have a bit of a soft spot for it…”

“Nothing soft about the spot you’re talking about.” Buffy giggled back in a whisper against his ear, causing him to grin and their audience to hide smiles and roll their eyes; their joy, even in this dire situation, seemed at least a bit contagious.

“Alright, alright, cuddles with the still walking & talking dusty undead aside, there’s some stuff we need to know. How did Deadboy have a baby, exactly? Thought he couldn’t get groiny without losing it?”

Wesley resumed his story, more than a bit relieved by the lighter sensibility that had entered this discussion since the arrival of Buffy and her friends. The wounds within him were still raw, but the presence of others was helping. “A year after Angel’s arrival in Los Angeles, Darla was resurrected by Wolfram & Hart as a terminally ill human. Angel attempted to save her but was unable to stop Wolfram & Hart from having her turned by Drusilla. Something about the experiences with Darla, and the loss of having her turned, snapped him; he didn’t lose his soul, but he was no longer stirred by it, either. He allowed Darla and Drusilla to kill a number of the firm’s lawyers, fired all of us and tried to eliminate the two of them on his own. He failed, however, and ultimately had relations with Darla.”

The pained gasps from the Scoobies were little surprise to him. Of course they’d known Angel slept with someone in order to have a child. However, they had been the ones to suffer when Angelus had made his first reappearance in a century the last time such a thing had happened.

“He didn’t lose his soul,” Gunn hurried to add, noticing but not understanding the change in the stress level of the newcomers. “That night’s what brought him running back to all of us, but a few months later something else came running in too.”

“Angel had a son…” Buffy whispered, trying to wrap her mind around the strangeness of what she was hearing. “Darla was pregnant? But I thought that couldn’t happen?!” she exclaimed, volume escalating as she turned stunned eyes to Giles. “Dead seed and all that—you said…”

“Buffy, I’m quite certain that this was a matter of prophecy. Vampires cannot and do not procreate. Although in the strictest sense, turning could be considered a type of breeding…” Giles allowed his academic ramble to taper off, given that his slayer was showing no signs of interest in continuing the conversation following his reassurance.

“Relax, luv,” Spike bent to whisper in her ear, stroking the back of her hand with the pad of his thumb gently, “no little fanged nibblets to breastfeed in the offing for you.”

He chuckled as she slapped him and whispered “Pig!”

“Erm…if I might….Connor was indeed born of prophecy; Darla sacrificed herself that he might be born, and Angel began to raise his son. Wolfram & Hart, however, had other plans and brought forth in time a vampire hunter whose family Angelus and Darla had slaughtered. Holtz decided that to take the son would be a far greater punishment than to simply destroy Angelus, and so he kidnapped the boy…with some help.”

No one missed the grimace of pain that crossed the younger watcher’s face at the memory, and Lorne decided that for once the narration wouldn’t have to involve the ripping open of old wounds. He hadn’t seen Fred’s fate in time, but he would do what he could for this wound of his friend’s.

“Scrumptious here had a prophecy that told him that Angel would kill Connor. Angelcakes was already acting mucho strange around the baby, also part of Evil Incorporated’s plan, so the prophecy didn’t seem that far-fetched. Wesley didn’t want to hurt any of us more than necessary, so he took the baby to raise.”

“Holtz’s paramour slit my throat and stole Connor.” Wesley finished the story in a near-whisper, fingers ghosting against the scar on his throat, and then looked up in surprise at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. Willow, perched on the arm of the couch with her hand just resting on his arm and her level gaze meeting his, loaning him silent strength for the endurance of pain conjured by the past. “When Connor returned, he was essentially a feral warrior who had been raised in the most hellish of dimensions and taught to hate Angel above all else.”

“We all tried to get to him, to let him know Angel wouldn’t hurt him, but he wasn’t havin’ none of it. He sank Angel to the bottom of the ocean and left him there for months; English saved him, but nothin’ was gonna bring Connor back from that. When Cordelia came back all demon-infested, that was just the last bit that he needed to lose it—kid was barely hanging on by a thread after we got rid of Jasmine,” finished Gunn.

“So Angel may have had some altruistic motives for wanting his son to be given a new chance at life, then?” queried Giles, still trying to make his way through the information he was receiving. They’d heard of Jasmine—he’d discussed that much with Angel in the days immediately following Sunnydale’s destruction, a bit of apocalypse comparison among fellow warriors—but any information regarding a son had most definitely been excluded.

“He had absolutely altruistic motives for that action—I truly believe that,” answered Wesley, “although he did not have the same for having everyone’s memories erased, and reality shifted in order to accomplish it. Doing that erased not only Connor’s existence, but all of the strife and stress that our relationships as a group had suffered as well. Quite simply, he erased our memories of things he, and we, had done wrong in order to create what seemed, to him, a better world. All of these things, coupled with his refusal to break the spell, even when it was the only thing that would save Connor’s life…”

“Reeks of hubris,” Giles finished, sighing inaudibly. God, how desperately he had hoped that this wouldn’t happen. Since he had learned of Angel’s takeover of Wolfram & Hart, he had been apprehensive of what the power would do to the vampire. Memories of the near-apocalypse resulting from Willow’s loss of control ran on a loop in his head. It was in memory spells that her desire to bend the world to her will had first shown itself, and her ability to achieve a world to her liking, if only for a short while, had resulted in a hubris that had torn his slayer from heaven and almost ended the world. What would be unleashed now that Angel seemed to be making the same selfish, devastating choices?

As if by some unseen force, the eyes of all the Scoobies, including Spike, met for a moment; surprisingly, it was Willow who broke the silence.

“So it’s the beginning of the end for Angel, then.”

Chapter 4

“We don’t know that!” Gunn exclaimed, although it was clear to all concerned that he was simply saying it out of his remaining sense of loyalty. He knew it, too. He would’ve never found himself in this room if he didn’t believe that Angel was on his way to something very, very bad.

“We don’t know that it’s not, either, young man. Angel is on a dangerous path, a path one of our own has tread before, and there’s very little that will shake him from that now. Angel has always been given to a certain grandiosity,” here Giles paused to throw a slightly amused glare at Spike after the bleached vamp’s exaggerated snort, “and that tendency, coupled with the amount of power he currently finds at his disposal, means that he is extraordinarily unpredictable at the moment. He may not be able to stop himself.”

“But his soul…” started Gunn, only to be interrupted by Wesley.

“His soul wasn’t enough to keep him from the dark path with Darla before. It merely pulled him back before he was too far gone to return. We have no reason to have faith that it should be enough now, especially not with the stakes as high as they are.”

“You lot have no concept of what the soul actually does, do you? The soul didn’t pull Angel back before he was too far gone; Angel had to make the conscious decision to slink back to the bosom. I’m willin’ to bet he only decided that shaggin’ Darla was the bottom of the barrel because it hurt the hell out of his pride to think he’d sunk so low—he’d reached bottom on his self-pity scale, ‘s all. Bloody hell, for years I’ve had to listen to the superiority of the Poof because he had a soul and that made him noble. Soddin’ soul doesn’t make you noble… tells you that everything you’ve ever done wrong is bad and lets you know just how bad in Technicolor, but that’s not somethin’ any git with a teaspoon of sense can’t figure out on his own.”

Spike’s brow furrowed as he contemplated the slights he had suffered over the years from the Scoobies due to his lack of a magical get-out-of-bloody-jail-free soul. As his level of tension increased, he found that he couldn’t stop himself from pacing. “I always knew right from wrong… so did Angelus… so does any fledgling, but when you’re a vamp you just don’t care. The ponce had a soul for years before he started doing anything approaching noble, and that’s only because of Buffy. I had the chip—you lot always told me that the chip wasn’t a soul. Bloody well knew that—if I’d really wanted you lot destroyed, I coulda done it chip or no. You helped me—bought you a certain amount of grudging respect—and over time I came to like some of you, ‘n love one of you. Knew enough to help Buffy… loved the Bit like my own child… helped you guard the hellmouth… and all of that without that bright sparkly soul.”

“So you’re saying what, exactly?” interrupted Giles. “That everything we know about the soul…”

“Is suspect because it came from Peaches? Yeah, Rupes… got it in one. Why would he tell you the truth about it? Not like there was anybody else before me to shake up that little view of the world he gave you, and you never really asked me ‘bout it, did ya? Angelus and Angel aren’t two bloody people, any more than I am. He’s not bleedin’ schizophrenic; the Poof could just never handle shades of grey, soul or no soul…not surprisin’ he’d want you lot to have the same soddin’ blind spot. The soul… it… throws everything into sharper relief, yeah? But it doesn’t make you a new person—good ‘n bad are still there like they always were. Good without the soul is psychological strength… knowin’ who you are and what you’ll stand for.”

He sighed in frustration and scrubbed his hands agitatedly through his hair as he searched for the right words to help this lot understand. “Angelus, with the soul or without it, always defined himself by others… their fear, their hate, their pain, their adoration, their trust… never bloody well knew who he was. I got my soul cause I did the one thing I swore I wouldn’t do… the thing I wouldn’t stand for…” here Spike’s voice broke, and Buffy wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing small kisses to his chest and stroking the base of his spine softly. Her silent support allowed him to finish, although considerably more subdued. “Angel didn’t go lookin’ for a soul… he got it from rotten luck an’ some very brassed-off gypsies. He never had a moral code to violate, even when he was a human—he’s never had to own up to doin’ anythin’ wrong, and now he just won’t. He’s decided he’s above mistakes and he’s draggin’ you lot along in those decisions whether you like it or not.”

The group looked by turns chastened, intrigued, and somewhat convinced; Wesley, however, took up the voice of the opposition. “How can you say that he’s never had to own up to doing anything wrong? The guilt that attends the soul…”

“Is just that—guilt. Nauseatin’, cripplin’, horrifyin’ guilt if you’ve done the kinda things Angelus and I used to do. But there’s all kinds of guilt; you can hit a parked car and not leave a note and feel guilty about it—doesn’t mean you owned up to it. Every bad thing Angel’s done is laid at Angelus’ door, but they’re the same bloody person. I own everything I’ve done… it’s all on me, in here, and I deal with it best I bloody well can. Angel hides himself under the blanky of Angelus and taught you lot to do the same—if the soul was scarpered when he did it, then it’s not his to pay for. But it’s all him… that’s the big bad truth in his closet. He knows it’s all him… that all that dark-n-nasty is much closer to who he is than even he wants to believe… that’s why he can’t let you believe it.”

For a moment, pained silence reigned in the room. For Angel’s friends, Spike had provided deeply disturbing insight into the man to whom they’d tied their lives and, to no small extent, their fates. It seemed now as though they had indeed built their castle on shifting sand. They had been so quick to believe, so quick to trust—even after the Darla debacle—that realizing that the darkness they had all seen in Angel might actually rule him was just another sharp blow to already demoralized psyches.

For the Scoobies, the news didn’t seem wholly shocking, a fact that surprised Spike. He knew how the whelp had always felt about Angel, and knew that Red didn’t really trust him either, but the looks passing between Buffy and Giles told him that the very issues he had brought up had been, at least in some small part, discussed between the two of them. Damn, but he was proud of his girl… looking beyond what she had been told. Of course, it had taken him getting a soul and going up in flames and the git taking over Evil Inc., but she had finally taken the steps to look at the issue on her own. She really had grown so much… he had been right. She was one hell of a woman. He squeezed her gently and she looked up at him, giving him another brilliant smile before turning to face the room again.

“Alright, guys, battle plan? I don’t think any of us wanna sleep here tonight, and we need to move quick if…”

“Luv, we’ve already got a plan.”

“Oh… well…. that’s good. So this would be the plan you weren’t going to tell me about?”

“Well, yeah. No reason scrappin’ a perfectly good plan ‘cause you lot had to run in and share the glory, now is there?”

Buffy gave him a glare that made it clear that he would be paying for that little remark, though not in an entirely unenjoyable way. Turning back to Wes, she asked, “So, Wes—the plan?”

“Yes, well… Illyria has offered her services in following Angel’s path through time to let us know what his coming actions will be.”

“And she can do that because….? Who is she again? And, um, why does she look like a goth dominatrixy Fred?” asked Willow, relieved that she could finally investigate the whos and whys of the being in front of her.

“Illyria…” Giles appeared to be turning the name over in his head, searching his mental databases for the source of the familiarity the name had triggered. “Good lord… Illyria is one of the Old Ones, buried in the Deeper Well… but how is this possible? The legend is so old as to be believed only a myth.”

“Giles, you were contacted regarding this; Illyria’s tomb was drawn from the Deeper Well and delivered here. She infected Fred…” Wesley stopped, unable to finish the thought so horrible that he had yet to grasp it fully. “Illyria… inhabiting Fred… was the reason Angel asked you to contact Willow to assist…”

“I recall the conversation, Wesley, and that’s part of the reason that we’re all here. I didn’t send for Willow immediately because I simply couldn’t contact her, as I attempted to explain to Angel; also, he was rather spare with the details. He didn’t seem to want to explain the situation very clearly, and although I understood it to be a deeply emotional time for your group here, I don’t take kindly to be ordered about like a minion. He refused to give me clear information or let me know exactly what we were dealing with, and quite frankly, I wasn’t inclined to trust him with an extraordinarily powerful witch. An impulse I’m rather grateful for at the moment.”

Wesley looked both chastened and extremely uncomfortable, as did Gunn and Lorne. Illyria had turned her attention from the conversation to the plants in the corner of Wesley’s office early on, but at Willow’s question had turned back to the assembled group. Head cocked to one side, she approached Buffy slowly, stopping a few feet away.

“This one has extraordinary power for one so small and young. She pulses with strength beyond that of the half-breeds. What is she?”

Buffy took one step forward, but Spike’s hand on her arm stopped her. “She’s not tryin’ to be rude, pet…’s just how Shiva is. She’s not exactly been around these parts in a few millennia.”

Buffy turned to Spike, a small frown crossing her face before she realized that, whatever was going on here, he had a pretty good handle on it. At the very least, he’d nicknamed whoever this was—that meant she had a certain standing with him. She turned back to the strange figure in front of her and replied calmly, “I’m the Slayer.”

“This is the warrior for your kind you spoke of, Wesley? She is your race’s hope for salvation from the demons?”

Spike’s grip grew a little firmer, but Buffy was already squelching the urge to show the strange woman just how much of a warrior she was. She had faced down a goddess before—for that matter, she’d stood toe to toe with the First Evil. While she could feel the power radiating off the figure in front of her and knew that this woman put Glory to shame and could give the First a run for its money, she knew instinctively that power would respond to power. Keeping a level gaze with Illyria, she simply stated, “What can I say? I’m stronger than I look.”

“So you are.” Illyria replied flatly. Interest apparently sated, she returned to the corner and her murmured conversation with the ficus.

Buffy looked at Spike and the others, taking in the amused grin on his face and the mingled amused and confused expressions on the faces of the others. “Ooookay, guys, so Illyria is going to track Angel through time and let us know what he’s planning.” Looking at Spike, she mouthed “You are so going to explain all this later” before turning back to Wesley. “That works, I guess, as long as he doesn’t do anything other than what she sees between now and then…”

“I have already explained far more than I am required to. Further explanation…”

“Illyria, if you’ll allow me,” interrupted Wes, certain that the condescending tone of the god would not go over well with the new arrivals. “According to Illyria, paths through time are not set. Free will still exists, but we are rather predisposed as a race to continue on one path once we have set upon it. For this reason, she feels certain that she will be able to travel forward and report back to us Angel’s actions. The explanation is far more complicated, and I’ll be happy to go into further detail later, but for now this explanation should be sufficient.”

“Indeed. So this, erm, excursion will take place…”

“Tomorrow, Rupes. I work with Blue here every day… testing her skills, strengths and whatnot. Won’t cause any raised eyebrows if we’re in there again, and with the Poof gone nobody’ll come in to observe ‘cept Wes. She’s a bit of a handful… nobody else wants in the line of fire.”

“Well, then, should I perhaps be here? I could observe with Wesley…”

“And immediately raise suspicion. Rupert, I think it might be best if you should all remain hidden until we’re quite certain of what we’re facing. We can gather again tomorrow, away from the office and discuss what Illyria found and what steps we should take next. Have you found accommodations? Perhaps we should arrange a time to meet at your hotel?”

“That might be best, yes. We’ll be staying in an apartment complex the Council owns; I’ll be happy to provide you with the address. Actually, it might prove useful if you should stay there as well tonight; I’d like to hear more of this plan and of what exactly has been happening here.”

“I think you might be correct. I should catch you up on events tonight. We should make every effort to hide your presence here until we’re absolutely certain that you’re needed; a secret weapon would be quite a good thing, I’m beginning to fear.”

“I’ll get the security tapes,” interjected Gunn, tugging his jacket on as he started to leave the office. “I’ll just dupe some of last night’s and throw ‘em in—the guys’ll never know the difference… empty halls are empty halls.”

“I’m just going to go sleep, cupcakes. A sleepy empath is no help to anyone, and Blueberry Streudel there may need me tomorrow.”

Plans made, the group began to file out, Giles and Wesley following Gunn and Lorne with the rest of the Scoobies trailing behind. Hanging back for a moment alone, Spike and Buffy turned towards Illyria, the only straggler remaining.

“Blue, you walkin’ the halls here again tonight?”

“I need no rest; I find myself better engaged in exploring my surroundings.”

“Alright, then, Highness—be seeing you for the usual tomorrow.” His closing remarks had been for naught, as Illyria had already disappeared down the hall, and finally Spike and Buffy found themselves alone in the corridor leading to the elevators.

“So where might you be plannin’ on settlin’ in tonight, pet?”

Buffy stopped and turned to look at him, annoyance writ large in her expression. “What part of the dramatic declaration of love did you not get, there, Spikey? I think I might be ‘settlin’ in’ where you do, for as long as we’re here.”

“What’re the watcher and your mates gonna say ‘bout that, luv? Wait a minute…we?”

“If they have any sense at all, they’re going to say ‘Have a good night, Buffy, and we’ll see you tomorrow.’ New day for us, Spike—they know, and they’re OK with it. May not understand it, but they’re OK with it. And even if they weren’t…. not letting you go again. I’m just not. So that’s it… they get that, if nothing else. Don’t mess with Buffy’s boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Spike asked, quietly incredulous. Such an inadequate word for what they were to each other, but it was still the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. His mind, however, quickly reeled back to the question she hadn’t answered. “We, luv? You said as long as we’re here? Do you mean the Scoobies, or…”

“No, Spike, WE.” Buffy answered, rolling her eyes despite her smile and pointing her finger back and forth between the two of them. “You and me, in a relationshippy sense, as indicated by the we.”

“So you go where I go?” he asked, wonder laced with a bit of Big Bad bravado in his voice.

“Looks like you’re finally getting the plan, Blondie… I got nowhere I’d rather be.”

Chapter 5

“So you plannin’ on hangin’ round my neck like a monkey all night, luv?”

“Yep!” Buffy replied brightly from her perch on Spike’s back, legs around his waist and arms around his neck. “And don’t be such an ass…it’s not like I’m too heavy for you to carry.”

Spike laughed a bit, hitching her up slightly as he walked towards the garage. “Not complainin’, luv—not at all. Take you as long as I can have you, ‘s just…’s a bit new, innit? Not like we were ever this friendly…or this open…before. Hell, your watcher and the whelp just watched you jump on my back after you told them you were stayin’ with me and nobody said a word ‘cept for the Bit and Red gigglin’ like demented schoolgirls and Andrew goin’ on about the glorious reunion of Arwyn and Aragorn. ‘m not used to this, luv.”

“Well, they did kinda see me jump on your front too… with the whole grand reunion smoochies… and I told you—get used to this. You died to save to save the world, Spike—that buys you a certain amount of slack. Willow and Dawn are happy I’m happy, and they both lean towards the liking of you anyway. Giles admitted he was wrong about you in the first hour out of the hellmouth… doesn’t mean things are all hugs & bunnies between he and I, but it helped that he realized what… who you were. And Xander… well, Xander and I had a lot in common after…”

“Anyanka…?”

“Didn’t make it out. Died protecting Andrew, of all things,” Buffy giggled through sniffles and the tears that had started to spill. It was somehow easier to deal with the big emotional revelations this way, when they didn’t have to maintain visual contact. Spike had always been better at the emotional than she was; she’d been working on it, but she still had a years-long tradition of holding in her feelings that was tough to break. For now, his hands on her knees holding her up were support enough to let her continue.

“We both lost someone we loved in that fight, and I think… Xander found me one night, laying on top of the bus crying, and we talked—really talked—about you and Anya and what you meant to us. I think he saw then that it was real… that we were real to me… and he understood. Xander and I were the two left behind. There were a lot of those nights when we couldn’t sleep, and we took turns—he told me everything he could remember about Anya, and I told him everything about the year I came back, the way I turned to you, needed you… the way you took care of me. And then how things went bad, how much I hurt you… how you tried… that night… which he sort of knew but not really. And how you got your soul, and came back for me. I don’t think he’ll ever really understand what it meant for you to do what you did with the soul… but I think he’s trying to. He told me on the plane after Andrew told me about you that he’d never seen me look so happy, and that he was glad ‘Deadboy Jr.’ did the right thing and came back for me—that it was time for one of us to take the happiness the Powers or whoever wanted us to have and hold on to it.”

“Bloody hell…” Spike whispered through a throat suddenly impossibly tight with emotion. “Never thought the whelp…”

Buffy’s arms and legs tightened slightly around him, hugging him as best she could. “Xan grew up, Spike. He fought and loved and lost, and it made him a good man.”

“That it did, luv… seems that it did.” Why was he swallowing around a lump in his throat? Shouldn’t mean this much that Xander of all people approved of he and Buffy, but it did. Spike shook his head slightly, deciding for himself to definitely blame the gushy feelings on the soul—poncy William and his need to belong. Yeah, it was all William.

“You doin’ alright, there, Big Bad?” Buffy asked, sliding forward until her cheek rested against his and squeezing him tightly.

“’m fine, Slayer. Just a lot to try to take in all at once, is all.”

“I know… and I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t coming down all at once like this... whoa, pretty cars!”

Spike laughed and fished in his pocket for the keys to the car du jour he had grabbed on the way past Harmony’s desk. Pressing the auto-unlock button, he hid a grin when the car turned out to be a classic Thunderbird…had to be karma. Feeling his grin against her cheek, Buffy started giggling uncontrollably as he let go of her legs and she slid to the floor. “Let me guess… Angel’s car?”

“They’re all Angel’s, luv… this just happens to be a favorite,” Spike replied, very close to unmanly giggles himself. “Was just thinkin’ it’s a great streak of luck… leavin’ the Poof’s office in his favorite car with his ex to whom I plan to do unspeakable things…”

“Unspeakable?” Buffy repeated, eyes slightly glazed as she moved towards him, pressing herself against him and tipping her head backwards. “Promise?”

“God, I love you, woman,” Spike growled, pulling her impossibly closer and crushing his mouth to hers. They both lost themselves completely in the moment, Spike backing Buffy up towards the car before lifting her and sitting her on the bonnet.

Buffy raised her legs around his waist, circling her hips to grind against him as she broke away from his lips panting. “Want you, Spike… god, want you so much… wanted you for so long,” she gasped, dropping her legs from his waist and scooting forward, pushing him backwards gently while she ran her tongue and teeth gently across his jaw and down his throat.

“If you want me, luv, why push me away?” Spike asked in a husky whisper, only to gasp as he was shoved up against the car door, small impatient hands tugging on the waistband of his jeans. “Buffy… what’re you…?

“Has it been so long that you’ve forgotten, Spike?” Buffy giggled, dropping to her knees as she started to drag the zipper down. “I think once you called it cheating… most people just call it blowing.”

“Bloody hell… I remember, luv… believe me…god!” He nearly whimpered as he felt her hand wrap around his erection and deftly remove him from his pants, but he couldn’t stop the groan that escaped his lips as he felt her tongue slide up the underside of his shaft. His hands flew up into her hair, and he looked down to see her looking straight back into his eyes, tracing her tongue around the head of his cock before closing her lips around him and easing him further into her mouth. The sight of that beautiful mouth wrapped around him when he had resigned himself to never even seeing her again nearly pushed him over the edge, and he closed his eyes and dropped his head backwards, determined to enjoy every second of this blessing.

Buffy hummed softly in approval, bobbing her head and easing him more deeply down her throat. When her lips were wrapped tightly around the base of his shaft, she slid her hands up the backs of his thighs to cup his ass through his jeans, pushing him gently forward before sucking in her cheeks and pulling backwards. Spike seemed to know intuitively what she wanted; tightening his hands in her hair he began to rock his hips back and forth, gradually increasing his pace. Buffy’s hands had moved forward and beneath him to cup and gently squeeze his sac through his jeans, and she focused on the contractions of her throat around him as he sank fully into her mouth and the maneuvering of her tongue around all the super-sensitive areas she knew so well as he pulled back. Desperate to bring him off, to have that one further proof that he was really there with her, she began to bob her head faster in opposition to his thrusts, forcing him deeper down her throat and drawing back until he nearly escaped the confines of her mouth.

Spike could hardly get his mind around what was happening, but he couldn’t really be bothered to care. All he knew was the absolutely glorious feeling of Buffy’s warm mouth wrapped around him and oh, Christ, that marvelous little throat letting him in and contracting around him. He could hardly believe that Buffy had begun this, much less encouraged him to thrust into her mouth at will while her hands played elsewhere; she’d blown him before, of course, but never had she let him have complete control. When she began to move in synch with him, slamming him into her throat and pulling back with her tongue working feverishly against his veins and the tender little ridge right beneath the head, he stopped trying to control himself at all. He gave himself over to mindless thrusting, groaning and babbling what he knew was utter and unintelligible nonsense about her beauty and perfection as he felt his balls begin to tighten. Summoning all his remaining faculties, he managed to choke out a “Buffy… love you…” before he lost complete control, holding her head still as he came in short, quick bursts.

Spike sank against the support provided by the car against his back, both grateful that Buffy had had the foresight to move him here and impressed that he was still standing. He looked down to see Buffy smiling at him, tucking him back into his pants before re-fastening them and standing up to face him. He focused his slowly-recovering muscle control into pulling her tightly against him, brushing his lips gently against hers before deepening the kiss, her arms wrapping around him as their tongues tangled gently. Buffy finally pulled away, positively beaming with happiness, and Spike felt a catch in the breath he didn’t even need as he felt his eyes fill with tears. Buffy didn’t mention them, simply pulled him forward gently and pressed light kisses to each brow before pulling back, meeting his gaze, and whispering, “Baby, let’s go home.”

Mercifully, the drive to Spike’s apartment was short—at least with the way he was driving. Buffy had never been so simultaneously annoyed with and thankful for traffic lights in all her life; every red light offered a new opportunity for heated kisses and frenzied explorations, bittersweet for their brevity but absolutely exhilarating.

As they merged onto the sparsely-trafficked freeway, Spike reached across the small space separating them, allowing his hand to slide slowly up her thighs. Buffy moaned softly and leaned back against the seat, parting her legs and pressing her hips up in a silent plea. Spike chuckled, glancing out of the corner of his eye to take her in, absolutely radiant in her desperate lust—eyes glazed and fixed on him, lips parted, chest rising and falling rapidly with each panting breath. God, she had always been so beautiful this way, so wanton and vulnerable all at once. Damned if he could resist her now or ever.

Turning his eyes back to the road, he allowed his hand to move the few remaining inches until he was cupping her mound, gasping at the intensity of the heat and moisture he could feel even through the denim of her pants. “Christ, luv,” he murmured reverently as he moved his fingers gently, manipulating the seam of her jeans against her clit. Her gasped cry of his name let him know that she was close to her release, and her hand wrapped around his wrist as if to trap him there. “Not gonna leave you wanting, precious girl,” he promised, speeding the motion of his fingers slightly and smiling as the volume of her whimpers rose. “Come for your Spike, Buffy. Let me do this for you. Such a beautiful, beautiful girl… can’t believe I have you here with me, luv. Never gonna let you go again. Gonna make you feel just like this every day… make sure you know how much I love you.”

Every word from his mouth was taking her one step higher, closer to orgasm. His voice had always been able to do that to her, to ratchet up desire she didn’t think could get any more desperate. But now… every syllable and every delicious motion of his hand had her begging in wordless syllables for release. Not able to tear her eyes away from him, she tightened her grip even more on his wrist as she pressed her thighs together. “Spike, oh God…” she moaned before her words faded into pants and gasps as orgasm overtook her.

Thankful for the late hour and the nearly empty road, Spike couldn’t help but turn his head to watch as she came. Shuddering against his hand, lower lip caught between her teeth as she whimpered and gasped, widened and unfocused eyes still not moving from his face—he knew effulgent was a ridiculous word that made him sound like a ponce, but right now he didn’t care. That’s what she was, arbiters of poetic quality be damned, and she was his.

As soon as the last tremors had faded, Buffy scooted closer to Spike and rested her head against his shoulder, slipping her hand from his wrist to entwine their fingers. Her other hand briefly came to rest on his shoulder before reaching up to run through his hair, finishing what he had started during the meeting and tugging it completely free into freeform curls and spikes.

Spike had turned his head again as Buffy had curled into him, placing a quick kiss to her forehead before turning back to the road. He frowned briefly before succumbing to her lighthearted makeover, proud that he managed to only briefly grumble, “Don’t know why you wanna make me look like a git, luv.”

Buffy simply laughed and leaned up to brush a kiss across his cheek. “Like curly…curly makes you look all ravaged and yummy.”

“Oh.” Spike couldn’t stop the little smile from crossing his face. “Muss away, then.”

“Done mussing… but I haven’t even started with the ravaging,” Buffy responded in a voice so husky with desire it made Spike’s foot descend on the gas pedal with every bit of force he could muster as he veered off the freeway at their exit.

“Hold that thought, luv…there in a heartbeat.” Never had he thought he would be so grateful for an apartment so near the bloody freeway. The morning traffic jam symphonies were hell on vamp hearing and the exhaust smells weren’t exactly English rose gardens, but what a sweet compensation for the pain was the treasure sitting next to him. He made the sharp turn into his parking lot, then braked hard in the first parking space he could find. Slamming the car into park, he turned his head and met Buffy’s lips for a passionate kiss, pulling her towards him as he slid out of the car. Lifting her into his arms as she wrapped her legs around his waist, he slammed the car door closed and fought the urge to break into a run as he carried her towards his apartment.

Spike forced himself to break away from Buffy’s mouth on his way to the door. It wouldn’t do to drop her, and truth be told his balance was nearly shot, a condition not at all helped by the grinding of her pelvis against his erection or the presence of her teeth and tongue along his jugular. He sobbed with relief when the door came into sight and he quickened his pace, reaching it and pressing her up against it as his hands dropped to madly search his pockets for his keys. Growling with frustration as he groped futilely in his empty duster, he heard a jingle and looked up to see Buffy’s mischievous smile and small hand dangling the keys in front of him. *Little wench has the pickpocket skills of a Whitechapel strumpet.*

“Um, Spike? You might wanna look into getting an internal monologue, ‘cause I’m pretty sure you just called me something I’d normally kick your ass for calling me.”

Spike’s eyes widened as he realized he had muttered that last bit out loud. He had the grace to look sheepish, although it was clear from the laughter in her eyes that she wasn’t really angry. “Ta, luv… but are you sure you don’t wanna maybe prove some other skills in that direction?” he asked, eyebrow raised and smirk firmly in place.

“Oink, Spike,” Buffy answered, rolling her eyes to hide her snort of amusement. “Now would you like to open the door… please?”

Spike swiftly twisted the key in the lock, and Buffy’s arms shot back around his neck as the door swung open behind her. Recapturing his balance and managing to avoid tumbling forward into the apartment, Spike tightened his arms around her waist and made it through the door only to be pushed against the other side of it by Buffy’s strong arms. Their tongues continued to tangle heatedly, and Buffy’s hands slid back down towards his jeans. Spike tore away from her lips, and the look in his widened eyes stopped her in her tracks.

“Buffy, luv… not this time… not like this, please.” He could hardly get the words out, but the horrific sense of déjà vu wouldn’t let him continue without voicing his fears. He knew in his head that everything was different—hell, he had heard it, seen it, and felt it—but as he stood there against the door with her around him his memories merged with the present and he couldn’t have said for certain where he truly was. As Buffy unwrapped her limbs and slid down to stand in front of him, he closed his eyes and began mentally berating himself. *Just brilliant, you soddin’ wanker. Throw your bloody dreambird off of you because you can’t let the past go. I’m just sure she’ll take it well.*

Buffy took a step back, angry at herself for not having the sense to know that this was the wrong way to go about this first time. When she had seen him and held him earlier, everything had just melted away; she had almost been able to forget the painful history behind them in the miracle of his presence. Now, however, it all came back full force, and she realized that Spike had shown more terror in his eyes in that one moment of unshielded emotion than she had ever thought him capable of feeling. He thought this was it for them, that she was just going to use him again, and it broke her heart.

Praying silently that she was handling this correctly, she met his gaze and held her hand out to him. When he reached out and laced his fingers with hers, she smiled softly and said, “I love you—I want you to know just how much. Take me to bed, Spike. Let me show you how much things have changed.”

Taking a tremulous breath and gracing Buffy with a smile that was nothing short of beatific, Spike led her towards the bedroom. “’S not exactly the Plaza, luv…”

“But it’s home,” Buffy finished for him.

Chapter 6

It was hard for Buffy to believe that Spike could live in a place as sterile as this tiny apartment. Granted, he didn’t need much, but he hadn’t needed much when he lived in the crypt, either. And how strange was it that a stone monument should seem so much warmer than an actual human dwelling? She couldn’t help but compare the bare walls and stark coloring here with the rich, vibrant colors and fabrics with which he had surrounded himself in Sunnydale.

Something about the lower level of the crypt had always seemed so completely decadent—candles playing with light and shadow, satin sheets and worn but still beautiful rugs providing point and counterpoint of sensation, dark woods that seemed to absorb light and reflect it back in deeper, more seductive shades of itself. That room had been designed as a sanctuary—as much Spike’s as hers, she knew that now, though then she had believed it to be all for her—and she hadn’t been lying when she had told the slayers-in-training that it was cozy. Spike was nothing if not ruled by physicality, and his sensuality had been borne out by the pleasure palace he had created in that makeshift home.

Buffy had taken so much time to reflect on every little nuance of him in her memories, afraid to let anything slip for fear of losing him forever. Thinking about the nights they had spent in the basement of her house, holding each other in sleep, had brought forth memories of other nights spent in his crypt, in each other’s arms for a very different reason. Those nights had brought comfort in their own way, but nowhere near the sensation of completion she got from closing her eyes and resting her head against his chest, knowing that she was safe because he would protect her.

“It’s spartan I know, luv… but ‘ve not been here long an’ there hasn’t been time for decoratin’ with Fred an’ Blue an’ all…” Spike’s voice shook her from her thoughts, and she looked at him only to find him ducking his head shyly and absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck.

“Spike, shush. You’re here. That’s all I need.” Buffy answered, squeezing and then releasing his hand as he led her through to the bedroom. She couldn’t help but notice that the bed was a little small, but that just meant closeness would be called for. That fact coupled with the satin sheets that met her fingers when she bent to turn down the bed combined to create a deeply wicked smirk that she turned on Spike.

He gave her the sweetest grin in response—no trace of snark or innuendo, just pure masculine joy stemming from having a beautiful woman by his bed—and she shivered with lust. This time was going to be different, she knew—more meaningful than any of the other times they’d had sex—but that didn’t mean that she didn’t know what she was in for. She had very vivid memories of what was awaiting her, and they set her on fire.

And then suddenly, inexplicably, she was nervous—so nervous that she could hardly stand. She pressed her hand against her stomach, wondering at the fluttering that seemed to have taken it over, and caught Spike’s worried glance out of the corner of her eye.

“Just….nervous, I guess.”

“This is somethin’ new for us, yeah?” he asked, almost blushing and looking up at her through his lashes as he focused his gaze on his boots. And just like that, she was over it. He was at least as nervous as she was, if not more so. Whatever happened, they were in this together.

“Well, we are starting out in a bed this time. That’s definitely new,” she teased, delighting in the boyish grin that lit up his face as he raised his head again and met her eyes.

“I had sex with Harmony.” *What the fuck?* The sentence was out before Spike could stop it, and it had certainly not been what he had planned to say. From the look on Buffy’s face, it wasn’t exactly what she had planned to hear, either.

*O-kay. Not what I was looking for there.* Buffy just stared at him, blinking. His eyes were impossibly wide, and it was clear he had no idea what to do now. What was that supposed to mean for her? What exactly was she supposed to say? “Um… I’m sorry?”

“Buggerin’... Buffy, I have no idea why I just said that, but I guess it bears the tellin’ before…” he gestured helplessly to the bed. “Know the more annoying of the whelps probably told you most of this on the plane, but he didn’t know everythin’. You need to know, and I need to tell you all this anyway, luv…might wanna sit for a bit.”

Once Buffy was seated, Spike started pacing in front of her. “I was a bloody haunt when I came poppin’ out of that bauble I wore in the hellmouth—couldn’t touch, couldn’t taste, couldn’t do anythin’ really ‘sides hauntin’ Peaches, an’ I kept fadin’ in ‘n out—one of the Wolfram and Hart resident spooks tryin’ to send me to hell in his place. Tried to leave, to find you, but every time I got to the city limits I got yanked back to that place. You were the first thing I asked about, luv… wanted to know if you were OK. All the Poof would tell me was that you were in Europe, that you were fine. That you didn’t really—that you didn’t really love me—didn’t even care about me. That’s been a recurring theme,” Spike added in a tight whisper.

His pacing, while giving him an outlet for the tension coursing through him, caused him to miss the look of pure murder that crossed Buffy’s face at his last revelation. Spike might not have believed her declaration in the hellmouth, but Angel knew better—she had told him Spike was in her heart, and she had told him more than that when she had called to tell him where they had all ended up after the smoke had cleared from the battle with the First. That he’d broken Spike’s heart on purpose by hiding what he knew, and by extension broken hers also, simply hardened her heart a bit more against her first love. The more she discovered about Angel, the more she doubted she’d ever really known him at all.

Spike had stopped in front of her when he noticed that she had gone completely still, her face getting angrier by the moment. He wasn’t entirely sure what had done it, but he thought it had been the bit about Angel and what he’d said. Seeing the cold fury on her face gave him a warm feeling in his stomach—one more proof that she was apparently willing to take on hell itself for him. He waited until she looked up at him and gave him a reassuring smile before he continued, returning to his laps around the room as well as his story.

“He hadn’t told anyone here ‘bout you ‘n I—not that that was a surprise—or ‘bout the soul; ‘s far ‘s they were concerned I was still an evil vamp for the stakin’. Even once they knew they still weren’t real welcomin’, an’ I just kinda wandered about. Fred… the bird whose body Blue’s wearin’… she was kind, kept me sane… tried to help me get m’body back.”

“Which explains why you’re so close with… what’s her real name? Blue?”

“Name’s Illyria, luv, but yeah. She’s not Fred—anyone could tell that—but she’s what’s left of a right nice bird, so yeah… got a bit of a soft spot for her. ‘Sides, she’s good fun all on ‘er own, once you’ve learned her a bit.”

“So if Fred couldn’t get you back, how did you get all touchable again?”

“Still not right sure, pet. Box shows up in the mail one day for me, open it up, flash of light and there I am, a real boy again.”

“And that’s when you and Harmony…?”

“Yeah,” Spike sighed, unable to meet Buffy’s eyes. *Way to let her down, ponce. Undying love ‘til you shag some other bint.*

“Why don’t you let me try to… see if I can figure out what you’re telling me?” Buffy asked calmly, and Spike was just certain that a storm was just raging beneath. Would be just his luck if all that fury she had going for Angel had just transmogrified into righteous indignation at him. Still unable to meet her gaze, he nodded.

“You, the most physical person of anybody I’ve ever known, were stuck not able to touch, taste, or feel anything. Once you finally could, I’m willing to bet the first thing you did was eat, am I right?” she asked, putting her hand under his chin and gently forcing his head up to meet her eyes. He nodded slightly, confirming her suspicion, and she moved her hand back.

Confused by the… was that really understanding?… in her eyes, he couldn’t look away again. Instead, he watched her closely, trying to figure out exactly what was happening.

“Once you’d eaten, you realized there was something else you hadn’t done in what I’m sure felt like forever. You didn’t know where I was, didn’t have much hope of finding me or of me caring if you did, and you were, well, horny, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Spike said, eyebrow raised, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Any minute now.

“So Harmony’s there. Harmony your ex, who’s familiar and who you know you can get into bed with not much more than a smile, so you go for it.”

“Well… yeah.”

“Okay,” Buffy said brightly.

“What?” Spike asked, looking at her like she’d very much been replaced by the Buffybot.

“I said okay, Spike. I’m not happy about it, but I get it. You used somebody because you wanted to feel. Not the best move, but understandable. Been there, too, remember? Do it again and I will so kick your ass, but I’m giving you a pass on this one because of ghostiness and confusion and my asshole ex.”

“Uh-huh.” Spike stared at her, far from convinced. “And you’re sure you’re Buffy. Not feeling, well, programmed at all?”

“Spike, if you don’t get your ass over here right now, the only program you’re gonna see is the Buffy punches annoying bleached vampire program. Now come here and make with the smoochies, dammit! Unless you wanna tell me you ‘shagged’ Angel, too?” she added with a wicked grin.

“Bite your tongue!” Spike gasped, absolutely horrified. The look on his face was priceless, and Buffy couldn’t stop the attack of giggles that doubled her over.

“Nothing better I could do with it?” Buffy finally replied innocently, her giggles gone as she took a step towards him. It was the look in her eyes that gave the depths of her desire away and that damn near brought him to his knees.

“Can think of a thing or two I’d rather you do with it, luv. Got any suggestions yourself?” Spike swaggered the rest of the distance between them, placing his hands on her hips and pulling her towards him.

“Well, how ‘bout I start like this?” Buffy asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning up to brush her lips against his. Running her tongue along his bottom lip, she smiled to herself when he groaned and opened his mouth, allowing their tongues to touch and tease each other slowly. It seemed like they’d had every kind of kiss over the course of their relationship, and they’d covered most of those bases again tonight. Still, this one seemed somehow different. They lost themselves in each other as the kiss deepened, becoming more passionate but never crossing the line into rough—there’d be time enough for that later, but this was their fresh start.

Spike slid his hands slowly up from Buffy’s waist to her breasts, teasing and tickling along her sides as he covered the distance. When he cupped one gently and flicked his thumb across the tightened nipple, Buffy’s mouth broke from his in a gasp. Taking advantage of the distance, he slid his hands quickly back down to the waistband of her thin t-shirt, sliding it up and off. It was his turn to gasp when he realized that she wasn’t wearing a bra, and he raised his scarred eyebrow in question and teased, “Naughty little kitten, aren’t we?”

She smiled back coquettishly. “It’s in my purse. I took it off in the parking garage when you went around to get in the car.”

“Beautiful, wonderful girl, you are,” Spike answered, grinning and moving back to kiss her. Their lips touched again, and Buffy allowed the kiss to deepen and continue until she felt Spike’s hands on the button of her jeans. She waited until he had unbuttoned them and lowered the zipper before she pulled back and pushed his hands away. He looked at her, confused, until she gripped the hem of his own shirt and began dragging it upwards.

“It’s only fair, you know… I show you mine, you show me yours?” She tugged the garment up to his neck before he finished what she had started and stripped it off over his head. Once her hands were free from the task of baring his chest, she found her fingers tracing first his nipples and then every plane and cut of his abs, slowly moving lower and following the line of his hipbone down to the low waistband of his jeans. Sliding her fingers along the top of the denim and feeling his muscles tense under her hand, she again worked the button and zipper, leaning forward to brush her tongue along first one nipple then the other. The low growl she received in response made her smile, and she moved lower, allowing her tongue to retrace the path her fingers had just followed. The growl intensified, and she suddenly found her feet no longer touching the ground as she was lifted into a tight embrace and then lowered carefully to the bed.

Spike knelt before her, sliding his hands slowly up the backs of her legs, over her ass, and around to her hips, curling his fingers around her pants and dragging them slowly down her legs, catching her panties along the way. Buffy whimpered at the exposure, raising her hips slightly, and Spike leaned forward and traced his tongue lightly around her bellybutton. He chuckled hoarsely against her when she moaned in protest and raised her hips a bit more in another wordless plea. Rather than give in to her demands, he slid further up her body, cupping her right breast as he licked and nibbled gently on her left. His tongue flicked first gently and then a bit more roughly against the rosy pebble-hard flesh, tormenting her with the variations in pressure until she bucked against him and her hands threaded through his hair.

Her tiny whimpers were fast becoming louder moans, and he replaced his mouth with his hand on her left breast as he teased his way across her chest with teeth and tongue to pleasure her right. Her hands tightened in his hair to hold him to her as he continued the blissful torment of her right nipple, and her legs wrapped around his waist as she ground herself against him, circling her hips in figure-8 movements. Her moans increased steadily in volume as the rough denim rasped over her clit, and her hands slid from his hair to wildly caress his face, neck and shoulders in short, random strokes.

He could tell by her responses that she was perilously close to orgasm, and he slid down her body slowly, nipping and licking along the exposed flesh until he reached her sex. Breathing in the scent of her arousal, so strong now as to be almost overwhelming, he dipped his head and slid his tongue in gentle, torturously light strokes up and down her outer lips, gathering and savoring the moisture he found waiting for him. Her legs instantly rose to rest on his shoulders, and he ran his hands softly up the silk of her legs while he slid his tongue further into her. Spike pierced her entrance only slightly before removing his tongue and running it instead along her inner lips and up to her clit. Closing his lips around the tight bud and nipping it gently before soothing it with his tongue, he moved one hand from her outer thigh to the inner and brushed a few light finger-strokes over the delicate flesh there before easing two fingers inside her passage.

Buffy’s hips shot farther up off the bed as her thighs tightened around his head, and those cues together with her hoarse cry of “Please… Spike” were enough to let him know that she was on the verge of release. Curling his thrusting fingers inside her, he applied gentle pressure to the soft swollen tissue that greeted them on each pass and intensified his torture of her clit, nipping harder and lashing his tongue against her in random, varying patterns that sent her higher and higher with every touch. Her hands came down to tangle in his hair, and he closed his lips around her clit one last time, increasing the pressure of his mouth and tongue against the hyper-stimulated little bud.

He reveled in every gasp, plea, and cry; the more nonsensical and breathless she became, the more he exulted. All too soon he felt her release begin in the fluttering of her inner muscles around his fingers and the clenching of her thighs around his head, and as orgasm tore through her she tightened so intensely that he found himself frozen in place. Not content to simply let her come down gently, he took advantage of his captivity, teasing and tasting her into another, briefer release and again savoring every gasp and cry before leaning back gently against the legs that were now bonelessly draped across him.

Spike stood slowly, staring down at her in utter joy. As he looked down at her spread wantonly before him, glistening from her exertion with her hair mussed wildly about her, he wondered how he could have ever hoped to continue his life without this. Never would he have been able to forget her taste, the passion she raised in him that she met in equal measures, the sounds and smells and thousand other elements that made having sex with his slayer a brush with divinity.

Buffy looked up at him through glazed eyes, drinking in every aspect of him: the sharp planes and angles of his face, softened by that delectably full lower lip and rounded chin; the flawless ivory skin that covered sinfully taut muscles; narrow waist, flat abs and well-defined hipbones just begging to be tasted. And under that denim… God, he was even more perfect than the rest of him could suggest. But the attributes that outshone all others were those beautiful, shockingly cobalt eyes—those eyes that held the key to his every thought and emotion, eyes which opened a window into the heart that was supposed to be dead. What a miracle the Powers had accomplished, bringing him back to her. She held her arms out to him, the smile on her face widening when she saw the almost boyish grin that lit up his.

Spike toed off his boots quickly and stepped between her spread legs, dropping down to kneel on the edge of the bed. Once he was within her reach, Buffy slid her hands down his body to the waistband of his pants and pushed them down as far as she could, unconsciously licking her lips as his erection was freed from the confines of his jeans. Spike watched, mesmerized, as her tongue traced her lips and was caught off guard when she tugged him forward, pulling him on top of her. A mutual groan sounded through the room; Buffy reacting to the feel of the cool hardness pressing against her clit, Spike responding instead to the heat and wetness he had never dreamed of experiencing again suddenly pressing so erotically along his shaft.

Buffy brought her legs up around Spike’s waist and slid her feet into the jeans still wrapped around his thighs, pushing them down his legs until they slipped off his feet to the floor. The movement of her legs had also worked to settle him between her thighs, and the head of his cock was now perfectly positioned against her opening, close enough to apply an absolutely torturous amount of pressure. Buffy locked her legs around his waist and brought her arms up to encircle his neck, and their tongues tangled in one more slow, sweet kiss as he pressed his hips forward and slid himself inside her.

Their joined mouths muffled the sounds of their gasps as he pressed forward, stretching the tight walls surrounding him slowly in gentle rocking thrusts until he was fully seated inside her. Completely surrounded by her heat, he held himself still and broke from the kiss to allow Buffy to breathe. He closed his eyes for a moment to attempt to rein in the emotions flowing through him with lightning intensity, and felt tears of joy and gratitude burning his eyelids. Determined to hold them in, to not ruin what was proving in every single instant to be the most beautiful experience of his existence, he squeezed his eyes even more tightly.

Buffy was in ecstasy, head thrown back and eyes closed to better savor every sensation. Wrapped in Spike’s arms with him buried deep inside her, surrounded by his love and his strength, she was unable to think of a time that she had felt greater bliss. Her memories of heaven were fading every day, but she was nearly certain that nothing there had ever come close to the glory of this moment. Sex with him had always been incredible, but to be here with him after he had been miraculously returned to her, to be openly in love with him and loved without bounds in return, elevated the experience to an entirely separate plane. She felt his arms trembling around her and she looked up at him, noticing instantly how tightly his eyes were closed and knowing instinctively the reason why. With shaking hands she reached up and brushed her fingers across his sharp cheekbones before pressing a light kiss to each closed eye.

“Open your eyes, Spike… it’s okay. Be here with me… let me see you…please, let me see you.”

Spike’s trembling increased as she touched his face, and he dropped to his elbows over her in an attempt to stabilize himself. Her soft kisses and softer words, however, forced him to open his eyes despite his tears, and he looked down to see that hers too were damp and shining. “This is real…” he said in a choked whisper, and she nodded and rocked her hips gently up against him.

“Keep looking at me, baby,” she requested, locking her eyes on his as he nodded his agreement. “This is real, Spike… you’re here with me, and I’m here with you… can’t ever let you go again… won’t…” Buffy chanted softly as Spike began to thrust in time with her movements, meeting every lift of her hips with a strong downward thrust.

“So bloody beautiful… never dreamed… never even let myself hope… God, Buffy… never thought I’d see you again… never thought I’d earn this…” Spike answered in heated whispers. The emotional force of their reunion inspired them to a level of passionate secrecy, each softly spoken word carrying more force than the headiest screams of pleasure.

Their lips met again, tongues melding with increased fervor as the speed of their movements increased. Spike could feel the quivers that signaled Buffy’s orgasm begin around his cock, and he lost himself in an instinctive rhythm as the clenching of her walls grew stronger. Her hips rose faster and harder to meet his, his pelvis brushing hard against her clit with every thrust and shooting ardent bolts of pleasure through her. Their words had long since faded into nonsensical syllables, bits of vows of love and promises of forever occasionally breaking through.

Buffy forced herself to keep her eyes open and locked on his as she came, tightening around him forcefully and trapping him against her with deceptively delicate limbs. She had never before let him look her in the eye as she orgasmed, because she had feared both what he might see in her while her guard was so thoroughly discarded and the undying devotion she knew she would see in him. She had nothing to hide now, and she refused to hide from him any longer, so she held his gaze as her eyes glazed over in bliss and her lips parted to issue forth the pants and moans whose ecstatic meaning he had long before committed to memory.

Spike was transfixed by the look in her eyes, by the gift that she was giving him in her refusal to turn away. He could see straight to the core of her, and all that waited there for him was unabashedly passionate love. The revelation intensified his already acute need for release, and his thrusts escalated to almost bruising intensity as he sought his end in her.

Buffy knew exactly how to give him what he sought; she slid her hands down his back until she was cupping his ass, pulling him into her repeatedly as she began to rock harder against him, rolling her hips every time their pelvises touched. She could tell by the sharp inhale of breath and the tightening of his jaw that he was right on the edge, and she slid her hands back up to hold the back of his head as she rotated her hips one final time. As she felt the first spasm of his cock inside her, she tilted her head and struck quickly, sinking her teeth into the right side of his neck with all of the strength she could muster, tearing through skin and muscle until the wound began to bleed freely. Swallowing reflexively as her mouth filled with the coppery fluid, she took four quick but substantial gulps before tenderly licking the wound clean and pulling her head back to meet Spike’s shocked gaze.

Spike had frozen, lost to rapture, when he felt her teeth rip into his neck in a bite somehow savage and tender all at once. Despite his lack of movement, his orgasm continued and extended as the unbearably erotic sensation of her taking in his blood sent him into a sudden second release, forcing every trace of his seed out of his body and into hers. He felt her muscles begin to quiver around him again, and he looked down at her silently, completely stunned. She looked radiant, flushed and glistening, his blood staining her lips a wicked crimson.

Buffy smiled up at him, the first twinges of another orgasm responding to his seemingly neverending one. She held his face between her hands as she met his gaze and vowed in a strong, clear voice, “mine, Spike. Bound by blood unto eternity.”

Spike’s eyes widened impossibly farther for an instant before he gave her a look so heated it alone could have sent her over the edge. She watched as his bones shifted, the guise of the demon coming forth, and at the gentle urging of her hands he dropped his head and sank his fangs deeply into the right side of her neck, obliterating all of the marks already there, taking her as his and only his. Her walls contracted around him as she gasped out his name in climax and he gloried in her pleasure, but even this abandoned to frenzied desire, he was still careful of her welfare. Taking only a few small mouthfuls, he tore the marks slightly and carefully removed his fangs, rasping his tongue gently across her wounds as he started her healing process. Spike’s human mask fell back into place as he met her gaze again, and he echoed her declaration in tone and passion. “Mine, Buffy. Bound by blood unto eternity.”

His mouth descended upon hers, and she met him with a frenzy that matched his own. Tongues explored every possible inch of the other’s mouths, and the taste of blood added a deeply primal element to the already rampant passion. Once the last trace of blood had been removed from lips, teeth, and tongue, Spike pulled back and rested his forehead against Buffy’s. She slid her hands down along his arms to twine her fingers with his, and they exchanged brilliant smiles as they spoke together the final word of their claims.

“Yours.”

Chapter 7

Wesley Wyndham-Price looked like hell.

*And for that brilliant insight into the human condition, Rupert old man, you should be knighted.* Giles scolded himself mentally for his idiotically banal observation; of course the man looked like hell. He’d lost the woman he loved, watched a being he didn’t understand take over her body and continue existence in her shell. The man was living a waking nightmare.

It had been some years, but still Rupert Giles knew that in those dark days after Angelus had murdered Jenny Calendar, he himself had worn this same grotesque mask of grief tempered by emotional strength and British reserve. Truth be told, there were days he was certain that the mask was still very much in place, no matter how much living he had attempted to put between the past and the present. Sad to say that Angelus had killed much more than Jenny; in a very real way that Giles was only beginning to understand, Angelus had also killed his ability to love fully, to trust implicitly, to withhold judgment, and (in no small way) to believe in his slayer. Some crucial part of Giles’ belief in Buffy had died that night along with Jenny, and he realized only far too late how bitterly unfair to her and others that had been.

But none of these morose ruminations would help the drained husk of a man standing before him, staring out the window onto the cold dark streets of residential Los Angeles in the early morning hours. He very much doubted that Wesley would ever love or trust completely again, but that didn’t seem as much the issue; the man before him no longer wanted to even try. It was obvious from every aspect of his person, from the way he held himself to the way he avoided physical and visual contact at all costs; Wesley Wyndham-Price was in the world, but no longer of it.

Giles had no idea as to what this man’s personal voyage had been since he had left Sunnydale a priggish Watcher defrocked of his Council collar, but whatever it was had made him hard as steel. Unfortunately for Wesley, the same fires that gave him his hard edges had apparently made him brittle, and the stress fractures of years of a life too fraught with strife had widened into full-blown chasms. Only time could tell whether there was iron enough inside to allow Wesley to find his way back up from the depths, but as of this moment Giles’ gut instinct was, tragically, that there was not.

Willow, too, was appalled at Wesley’s condition, though for far different reasons. She had seen him only last year, and although their conversation hadn’t forced her to put him at the top of the Willow Rosenberg Conversational Indicators of Craziness scale, he hadn’t exactly bottomed out on the ‘normal’ end of it, either. He had been so hesitant and yet so hard-edged and rough, such a strange combination of the Wesley she had known and the Wes he had become. She hadn’t been lying when she told him that he had been to a dark place, though he had thought she was only placating him, and she had hoped that perhaps he had managed to put it behind him. She realized now what she must have seen; the dark hadn’t been left behind, not by a long shot. It had still been there, lying in wait for an opportunity to be unleashed.

Willow herself had existed for months in that same stasis, letting her friends believe that she had dodged the black magic bullet when all it took was one very real copper-jacketed projectile to bring it all ripping to the surface. Her love had been taken by man, Wesley’s by the supernatural, and the loss had driven them both to near insanity. Not for the first time she shuddered inwardly and said grateful prayers to the Powers for sending her Giles and the Coven; she had no doubt that had they not intervened, she would have ended up very much like Wes was now. She felt that she had an obligation to both a fellow-sufferer and to a friend—take the good deed and pay it forward. Heal Wesley as much as possible, show him that tomorrow was still there for him.

Wesley, for his part, was all too aware of the close attention being given him by Rupert and Willow and was infinitely grateful that all of the others had gone to bed, leaving just the three of them to their discussion. He had a feeling that he was becoming a character study for Rupert and a project for Willow, and strangely it was only the first idea that truly disturbed him. It chafed just under his skin, the feeling that he was constantly under observation and testing, being watched for his reactions to increasingly cruel stimuli. That part of the analysis of his feelings didn’t extend to the two in the room with him, of course; even in his embittered state, he couldn’t be that uncharitable. Nevertheless, the close attention was raising his hackles, and he had to force himself into slowing his breathing and calming himself.

Staying silent, he stared out the window and allowed himself a moment to reflect on this virulent hatred of being a bloody spectacle. The irony of being a Watcher who hated being observed was not lost on him, but he found it somehow impossible to laugh, the oppressiveness of the situation being enough to rein in his personality. The feeling of being watched and being tormented had been there from the first day at Wolfram and Hart and had only intensified over time, and he had never felt more smothered by it than on the day Illyria had stripped Fred out of her own body. That was the day that he had realized that not only had they not outrun or outplayed the devil, they had delivered themselves right to its door and allowed it to observe weaknesses, insecurities and personality glitches. They had freely provided every possible bit of material the firm had needed to bring them to their knees, and up to that point only Fred, the most innocent of them all, had paid an eternal price. It was impossible not to wonder when the bill would come due for the rest of them. Small wonder he’d not slept since.

He started violently when he felt a hand on his shoulder; entranced by the empty street and the bleakness of his thoughts, he hadn’t even sensed anyone’s approach. Turning quickly on his heels, he looked at Willow and took in the soft, sympathetic smile gracing her face. *Dear girl. She really is trying,* he thought, returning the smile with a hesitant one of his own, his cheeks almost aching from the effort. He hadn’t been much inclined towards smiling lately; when Fred had died all desire to be happy had disappeared, and the very thought of joy anywhere in the world had been disgusting. Somehow now the impulse was getting easier to see as acceptable, perhaps because he was beginning to believe that he might not be altogether abandoned to his grief and betrayal.

“Wes, do you wanna maybe talk to Giles and I about Illyria? I mean, I know it’s not easy… and you only have to tell us what you think we need to know… I mean, we don’t have to get way personal…but… well… but if they need my help with whatever it is they’re doing, I need to know what I’m getting into… and I need to know who and… well, what she is,” Willow finished, wincing sympathetically at the pain that had again masked Wesley’s features.

Wes took a deep breath and walked to the tapestry-upholstered sofa in the corner of the study, seating himself across from Giles. Looking about, he couldn’t help but think that everything the Council touched seemed to be as stuffy and rarified as the aura they had tried to create for themselves. Heaving a deep inhale, he squashed the desire to flee that memories of the Council had provoked and turned his attention to Willow. “What exactly would you like to know?”

“How did Illyria get to Wolfram and Hart from the Deeper Well, Wesley? What of her guardian, of Drogyn?” Giles asked, unable to stop himself now that he was so close to getting the answers he had longed for since his aborted phone call with Angel weeks before.

“Apparently Illyria’s release from the Deeper Well was pre-ordained. Angel and Spike traveled to the Cotswolds to discover what they could, and Drogyn told them that there was nothing he could have done to prevent the disappearance; he in fact hadn’t noticed that she was no longer there until such time as Angel and Spike appeared. They tried…” Wesley broke off for a moment, trying to catch his breath. “Drogyn was prepared to cast the retrieval spell, but to pull Illyria back to the well would have destroyed everyone she touched between Los Angeles and her tomb. Fred’s life would perhaps have been spared, but at the cost of millions of others; there would have been chaos unleashed upon the world… she would never have wanted that in her name, for her sake,” he finished almost inaudibly, staring at his shaking hands before dropping them to his knees in an effort to keep them still.

“When Angel called me, Wesley,” Giles began gently, needing to explain to the younger man exactly why his conversation with Angel had been so rancorous, “he wouldn’t give me any sort of detail. He demanded Willow, but would not tell me why he needed her or what he hoped she could accomplish. Our trust of him… well, diminished severely when we learned he had taken over the very law firm he had been fighting for years. I myself haven’t exactly felt any sort of affinity towards him since… well, quite honestly, since Angelus reawakened, really. I was always able to overcome my mistrust, however, by telling myself that he was working towards redemption, righting wrongs and protecting the innocent. His link to the Powers through the visions only seemed to confirm that. His takeover of Wolfram & Hart, coupled with his loss of the guidance of the Powers, indicated strongly to all of us that something was deeply amiss, and it was decided that we would treat any request from him as highly suspect pending further inquiry.”

“We didn’t want to say no, Wes,” Willow added. “I… I really liked Fred. In a lot of ways she was a lot like me and we got along really well… not that I wouldn’t have wanted to help if it had been somebody else,” she hastened to add, hating that even now her tendency to ramble was running away with her. “I don’t think any of us was really completely comfy with Angel after Angelus,” she resumed, “even Buffy, if she’s being really honest with herself. But Giles is right—as long as he was fighting the good fight, it was easier to be all ‘go team go.’ But the visions went away when Cordy went into the coma, and you all took over the evil empire, and everything was all topsy-turvy. And then he got all weird and demand-y with us, and I was a little scared. All the black magic is still in me, Wes, and if he got ahold of it… it wasn’t something we could chance. But I’m so sorry,” she finished softly.

Wesley sighed and leaned back against the couch, resting his head against the bare wood along the top of the frame. The bit of discomfort kept him solidly anchored as he thought about what they had said. He realized with no small amount of shame that he hadn’t even thought about what it meant that the visions had expired with Cordelia’s illness. Doyle’s death hadn’t stopped them, and there were certainly candidates for transfer—he supposed that the Powers could have even used Spike or Lorne if it had been necessary, or simply sent someone altogether new—but the cold fact remained that they hadn’t. Since their move to Wolfram & Hart, the Powers had been uncharacteristically silent.

“You were right,” Wesley answered finally, straightening and meeting Giles’ and Willow’s eyes in turn. “Although I failed to see it, you were right. And I can’t help but think…” Wesley paused, eyes widening as he realized the probability of his next statement, “I can’t help but think that perhaps their lack of assistance during Fred’s… passing and Illyria’s resurrection were the Powers’ opinion on what we have done. Surely had we not fallen from their graces we would have been warned,” he continued, brain working overtime as he thought through the matter aloud. “They could have interceded or warned, but they chose not to… or perhaps they feared to. Perhaps we were meant to have Illyria—we need her for some coming conflict, and a warning would have endangered her.”

“In terms of coming conflicts… this plan of yours, Wesley,” Giles asked, academic mode firmly engaged and positively rabid for answers, “depends absolutely upon Illyria. Are you certain that she can be trusted?”

“As certain as I am about anything these days,” Wesley replied, a ghost of a smile flickering across his lips. “She attempted to raise her army and failed; they are long since dead, and her sole disciple is no longer an issue.”

“Can you be certain of this?”

“I put a bullet through him and watched his blood drain from his body, Rupert. I’m quite certain he was effectively neutralized,” Wesley answered, an air of confidence he did not feel cloaking the words to mask the guilt. If he had expected recriminations, however, he would not find them from the two in the room with him; each had taken human life, Giles with an eye to the future and the greater good and Willow for vengeance. Neither was certain into which category Wesley’s actions fell, but they were both hesitant to make the judgment call.

“Illyria, being an Old One, has a certain relationship with time—she’s not bound by it, as we are. So she will walk forward through time, following Angel’s path. That is the plan, yes?” Giles asked, running down his mental checklist of questions. At Wesley’s affirmative nod, he continued, “I’m assuming you asked after the matter of free will—how we might be certain that what Illyria sees is actually what will come to fruition. Were you satisfied with her response?”

“Of course I asked, although the answer to that question involved some rather unflattering ruminations on mankind and our inability to see beyond our own noses, as it were. As to the response, I’m not entirely certain I’m comfortable with taking definitive action based on what still seem to me to be mere possibilities; perhaps we should hold back until we’re certain that what she has seen is in fact coming to pass, that he is indeed following the path Illyria traveled. There will most certainly be a moment beyond which we cannot wait, but perhaps holding action until that point would be more, well, sporting, for want of a better word.”

Willow rolled her eyes and suppressed a grin as she watched Giles nod seriously in agreement; honestly, the two of them were so Watchery. Giles on his own was all Monarch of the Glen and Wesley was the rugged demon-hunting occult whiz, but put them together and there had to be at least a full can of starch in those stiff upper lips. Shaking herself from her internal monologue, she raised her hand and interrupted. “Um, guys… I might be able to help. At least, I think there might be something… kind of a mystical tracking spell, really. I mean, even holding off to see if Angel does what Illyria sees him do, we’re still not with him all the time to know what he’s up to… maybe the spell would help? Kind of a progress report on what he’s doing versus what we’ve seen he’s going to do.”

“That would be most helpful, Willow,” Giles answered, smiling gratefully at her. Really, she had come into her own as a witch of the highest order, and still the eager scholar in her survived and thrived on the challenges of this life they all led. He was so proud of her. “This would be something that you could cast…”

“Tomorrow, if we need it. Stuff’s all here in my extra suitcase,” she finished, yawning sleepily and stretching. “I really think I’m going on to bed, guys… jet lag and happy reunions and apocalyptic battles kinda conspire to wear a girl out.” She smiled at them, waved quickly, and left them alone in the study.

Giles headed instantly for the bottle of scotch on the sideboard, pouring two glasses and bringing one to Wesley. He took a slow sip before resuming his seat.

“Wesley, I know we’ve never been, well, anything but civil, really… but would you like to talk about… anything?”

Wesley looked up, touched and more than a little bit surprised, and gave another of his hesitant smiles in response to the kind look in the elder Watcher’s eyes. “I’m afraid there’s really not much I can say, Rupert. Winifred is gone, and Illyria is here. It’s devastating in its very best moment, but at this point there is nothing I can do but accept it. And as for Angel, this is not the first time I’ve felt the sting of his duplicity. I wish that it hadn’t happened, and I wish that the fact that it did hurt less, but these are the facts before me. It was facts we were trained to deal with, Rupert, not emotions; I suppose we both learned the hard way exactly why.”

Giles shared Wesley’s sad smile and nodded, and the two men returned to sipping their scotch in quiet contemplation. Giles was again the first to break the silence.

“Wesley, if I might… what do you think about… well, how is Spike?”

Wesley didn’t try to hide the shock on his face. “I was under the impression that the two of you didn’t exactly get on, Rupert.”

Giles sighed and stood, walking to the window. “We didn’t. There were moments of… well, comradeship, for lack of a better word, during the summer after Buffy’s passing. Before that as well, really. And then, after her return… she was so withdrawn from life, and I saw them drawing closer, saw him engage her… and I was almost… I was envious. Spike was the first to know that she had been forced to dig herself out of her own grave, the first to know that she had been in heaven, the one she turned to with all of her problems or for assistance. He was the only one of any of us who could involve her in life again. I left before they began their relationship; by the time I came back when Willow lost herself in the magicks, he had gone to Africa for his soul. Buffy has never said what caused him to seek the soul, only that it involved their relationship and was between the two of them.”

Giles emptied his scotch and poured another, leaning against the sideboard as he continued. He looked lost in his reverie, and Wesley thought it best to let the man work through what he needed to say. Everything he was hearing was information he had yet to receive, and he was more than a little intrigued by the blonde vampire who sometimes seemed to have Angel running scared.

“The guilt from the soul made him a perfect pawn for the First, and it attempted to use him in its plans. He fought back every step of the way, I see that now… it tormented him, tortured him, preyed on his soul, and still he fought. But when Buffy chose to remove his chip, all I could allow myself to believe was that now he was even more of a danger. The First was still controlling him and he was loose in a house full of potential slayers with no deterrent from killing them, except his soul. I should’ve known that to be enough, known to trust Buffy’s judgment, but after…”

“After Angelus you couldn’t trust in him. It’s understandable, Rupert.”

“That it might be, but I didn’t just want him out of the house. I conspired with Nikki Wood’s son to have him killed, and I did it all without Buffy’s knowledge.”

Wesley couldn’t contain his shock at this, and he looked at Giles with widened eyes. He knew enough about what Spike had done in the hellmouth and the way he’d saved Fred to know that despite the rough edges he was far from the evil he had once been. Wesley was only beginning to see just how much of a champion Spike had become; he deserved the title if for no other reason than that he’d sought the destiny for himself.

“I know, Wesley. I was a fool, and I damn near lost Buffy because of it. I did lose her trust and her confidence; she only just recently speaks to me without looking as though she’s trying to discern my plans. I didn’t want to believe that she loved him because of the legacy of Angelus; I didn’t want to believe that he truly loved her, because that meant everything we knew about demons from the Council was wrong. But I stood on the edge of that chasm with my Slayer still alive and I knew that it had to have been true; that he had loved her and that I’d nearly destroyed the world because I was a narrow-minded nit. The look on her face when Andrew told her Spike was alive, Wesley—I haven’t seen that level of joy on her face at any point in my relationship with her. I doubt she’s been that happy since she was called. And so help me, if Spike makes her that ecstatic with his mere presence in the world, I want her with him. I know at the very least that he’ll protect her with his life, and that’s…”

“More than you could say about Angel,” Wesley finished for him, knocking back the rest of his scotch. “To answer your question, Spike seems to be well, Rupert. Angel had told us none of the details of Spike’s last few years at Buffy’s side. We didn’t know of the soul or of his relationship with Buffy, or for that matter of his role in closing the hellmouth; all of that information came to us from Spike himself. He came back as a spectre, which I’m sure you heard from Andrew, and although we’re not quite certain how he was brought back to physical form, there seem to have been no ill side effects of the transformation for him. After Fred… he decided to stay and fight alongside us, that he wanted to do what was right, because she had worked so tirelessly to help him before he became corporeal. We haven’t exactly been welcoming on the whole, but he still seems to contribute with everything in him, and he’s carving out a place for himself.”

“He has a history of that,” Giles answered, mouth twisting in a sardonic grin.

“Quite. He has been crucial in working with Illyria, and she responds to him in what, for her, are friendly terms. He’s brash, rude, and tends to the annoying and abrasive; he’s also noble, brave, bright, and dedicated. That he sought his soul indicates to me that he is perhaps the most extraordinary creature I’ve ever come in contact with. If you truly want my opinion… All told, Rupert, I believe Buffy to be in very good hands; I would be hard-pressed to think of better. Including Angel’s.”

“Thank you,” Giles answered, giving Wesley a smile that made it more than clear that he had just allayed the trepidations of a father more so than those of a Watcher. “Considering the matter she was researching in my books on the plane,” continued Giles, rising from his position on the sideboard and moving back across the room towards the door, “I’m immensely glad to hear that. Shall I show you to your room? We are after all facing a rather stressful day tomorrow.”

Chapter 8

Buffy and Spike lay, unmoving, for long minutes as they waited for the claim to take effect. Completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of what had just happened, neither felt any need to shift their positions; Spike remained semi-erect inside her as they contented themselves with slow, languorous kisses and teasing touches, small nipping bites to accessible skin followed by soothing licks. The contact was both intensely erotic and tremendously comforting, the touches of lovers secure in their relationship and the knowledge that they have their forevers stretched out before them.

Buffy tensed a bit as something inside her started to change—almost imperceptible at first, but steadily growing in intensity. Such a strange sensation, she thought—a niggle in the pit of her stomach that brightened to an almost incandescent heat before reducing itself to an all-encompassing warmth. She gasped as it took hold, realizing that it burned with the force of Spike’s love for her—as if she needed it, she now had physical proof of just how much he loved her, and it took her breath away.

Spike took in the slight unfocused look of her eyes and the little gasp of pleasure that she gave and realized that his claim had formed. He couldn’t help the cocky grin that shaped his lips as he took in the look of ecstasy on her face, although it widened into something much more boyish and awestruck as he felt her claim begin to take shape inside him. He hadn’t really known what to expect any more than she had, and the torrid rush that swept through him made him almost think he was alive again. The brief fire dimmed slightly to a glow that radiated through him, stoking both his passion and his affection and returning both in kind. He looked down at her, saw her watching him with such utter joy that he knew in an instant exactly what the claim was showing him. This was how she loved him—passionately, affectionately, completely and with such devotion it shook him to his core.

Buffy looked up at him and recognized the second he felt it, the very moment he could truly grasp every aspect of her love for him. She had long known how deeply he loved her, how he felt—he had spoken the words and performed the actions, leaving no room for doubt in his wake. He had mourned her passing and honored her death, guarded her sister and supported her friends; comforted her and loved her as best he could when love was something she couldn’t recognize; hurt her and been so devastated that he had sought and won his soul as recompense; given his life so that she might live. Everything he had done had borne out the utter limitlessness of his ardor and devotion.

Buffy herself had demonstrated no such clarity of emotion or deed, a truth of which she had been painfully aware while she had mourned his sacrifice. He had died afraid to believe that she loved him because she had trained him to never take her on faith, to never believe that the ground on which they stood together was any more stable than shifting sand. Now that he was back with her she was determined that he would never have reason to doubt her love again. She, too, had seen the best and the worst of him and come to the conclusion that he was one hell of a man. She smiled up at him and focused all of her energies on pouring everything she felt through their nascent bond.

He stilled and felt himself grow impossibly hard inside her as she used the bond for the first time, sending a bolt of adoration mixed with lust and joy coursing through him. He began to rock his hips gently against her, thrusting unhurriedly as he focused on transferring his own wealth of emotion to her. They exchanged wicked grins as her walls tightened almost painfully around him in response to the lust he had conveyed.

Oh, but this was going to be fun.

There was to be no delicate tenderness to this round of lovemaking. Now that vows of love and reassurance had been given and accepted, the frenzied hunger that had characterized their relationship until their most recent coupling was again making its presence felt.

Spike growled low in his throat as he rolled onto his back. He added an arched brow to the smile already gracing his face as Buffy’s lower lip jutted out into a pout before she began to rock her hips gently against his. “Expecting to get royally ravaged, were you then?”

“Well, I did have certain… hopes,” Buffy replied, the last reply more a moan than a word as she shifted until she was upright, the tip of his shaft pressing against her womb. “But if you’d rather not oblige me, I might have to make my own fun.”

“’m a bit spent at the moment, luv. You might need to drive for a bit. Let me get my strength back an’ all,” he teased, lascivious grin and lust-darkened eyes putting the lie to his words.

“Well, you are, like, really old,” Buffy snarked playfully as she rose up on her knees, sliding up until he slid out of her. They both groaned in protest, but she moved quickly to reposition herself, using tiny surges of her hips to slide her slickened lips slowly along the underside of his shaft. She gasped as the head of his cock brushed against her clit, then smiled as his eyes rolled back in their sockets. His hands flew up to grip her waist, and she was certain that she would have his handprints tattooed in livid purple on her flesh for at least a week when she was finished. *Good,* she thought rapturously as the rocking of her hips increased slightly in speed, keeping the friction intense but still controlled, focusing on her teasing. “Told you I’d make my own fun if I had to,” she said, voice husky as she slid one hand down her torso to flick and twist her clit gently. Unsurprisingly, Spike’s eyes followed her hand and widened as he took the sight that awaited his gaze.

“Christ, Buffy,” Spike gasped out. She had never done this before—let him watch her touch herself. He had done everything short of outright pleading… and bleedin’ hell how much harder he would’ve begged if he’d had even a clue of how mindbendingly erotic the realization of the fantasy would be. “That’s it, luv… show me… bloody… beautiful little… vixen… so wet… burning,” he panted, hands on her hips attempting to shift her faster towards a more frenzied rhythm.

“Ah, ah, ah, Spike. My fun, my rules,” Buffy teased, resisting his attempts at taking control of her game and maintaining her pace. She was imminently close to her orgasm, but she was trying to hold on; she’d never felt such a complete rush of sexual power as the one that had shot through her body when his eyes traveled from her caressing hand up to her face and back again. Why exactly had she never done this before?

A sudden wave of lust nearly knocked her off of him, and she looked down to see a too-innocent face topped by eyes positively glittering with their deviousness. “You sneaky bastard,” she gasped appreciatively, finding it very hard to complain about his use of the claim when it resulted in such absolutely sinful sensations. “Oh god,” she whimpered as she began to move her fingers faster, circling around her clit in a tease before flicking it directly.

She wasn’t going to be able to make it much longer, damn him… she closed her eyes and dropped her head back, letting him use his grip on her hips to control her sweeps along his length as she focused on the movement of her fingers. If she was going over, she wasn’t doing it alone… concentrating on the surges of pleasure resulting from their combined actions and the burgeoning heat in her belly, she funneled as much as possible through the claim before she gave over to the orgasm that wouldn’t hold off any longer. “Spike!” she cried loudly, giving over to mindless babble as both hands moved to his stomach, nails clawing at his abs as she fought desperately to stay upright.

It was the orgasm that snapped his control, tearing through her while the bond between them was still open. Spike’s commanding growl resonated through the room as he used his hold on her hips to flip her backwards onto the bed, rising onto his knees and thrusting forward into her at lightning speed. She shrieked as he rammed home, sending her into a second climax before the first had finished, and his powerful thrusts pushed her backwards across the bed until her head and shoulders dangled from the end. Grasping for purchase, she dug her nails into his ass, holding on desperately as she shuddered and stammered her pleasure.

“Absolutely… fucking… glorious… woman,” Spike ground out in time with his thrusts. “Perfect… little… quim… perfect… little… mate,” he continued, feeling Buffy contract around him and watching the bliss pass across her face. “Love… you… Buffy,” he groaned and stiffened, thrusting jerkily and feeling his balls tighten as release grew imminent.

Buffy turned her head and bared her neck, whimpering. “Please, baby… please… love you… need you.” She was beyond lightheaded as a result of both her position and the near-constant orgasms coursing through her, but god how she wanted him again, wanted his bite during this harshly passionate coupling.

Spike tried to pull back even as his demon came forward, but she wouldn’t let him; hands sliding up from his ass, she pressed his head against her neck and screamed as his fangs penetrated and just as quickly withdrew. He managed somehow to run his tongue along his marks and rasp out “love… mate… Buffy!” before giving over to pants, groans, and growls as his cock spasmed inside her clenching passage. Their mouths met and mated as fiercely as their bodies had as they spent the last of themselves and began to slowly come down from their pleasure.

It was Buffy’s girlish giggle that shook him from his torpor. Pulling his face back from the crook of her neck and leaning up on his elbows, he looked down at her and couldn’t help but join in her merriment. The rich baritone sound joined with her higher-pitched tinkling laughter and filled the room, making it instantly warmer from the joy contained within.

“You look a bit flushed, luv,” Spike commented between bursts of laughter. Being upside down for the better part of a shag had turned her a bit more than rosy in the face, and combined with the completely bedraggled look of her hair and the sweat that sheened her skin, she looked well and truly wanton and thoroughly ravaged. Who was he kidding—she looked positively edible.

“You’re one to talk there, luv,” Buffy teased back, gripping his elbows as he slid his hands under her shoulders and pulled her back onto the bed. “For somebody whose body stays at room temperature, it looks like you’ve gotten all sweaty. And your face isn’t exactly lily-white at the moment either!”

“Ooh… feisty little wench, aren’t you?” he asked, bending to claim her mouth in a remarkably chaste kiss. Brushing his lips softly against hers, he ran his tongue gently across her lower lip before pulling back. “What would you say to a shower, kitten?”

“I think I would ask if you thought I smelled,” Buffy pouted playfully, allowing him to nibble at her bottom lip for a moment before she pushed him off of her and stood. “Now up, mate of mine. You promised me clean. After clean will come snuggly talky bits and more shagging, so move it.” Buffy looked over at him, only to see him staring at her as he sat stock-still. “Spike? Honey?”

“Say that again,” he begged hoarsely, eyes burning heatedly into hers. “Say it again, Buffy. Please.”

Buffy ran her last statement back through her head, trying to figure out what he wanted to hear. It only took a moment for her to realize what he was reacting to, what he wanted repeated. He had said it before; she hadn't, not until now. She stood up and walked around the bed to stand in front of him, arms around his shoulders. “I said, mate of mine,” she paused, watching the beatific grin form across his features, “that I want to shower, and snuggle, and talk, and shag, though at least two of those can be combined. How does that strike you, my mate?” Her deliberate repetition of the word made the already enormous smile grow even wider, and she couldn’t resist brushing her lips against his. Taking his hand, she stepped back as he rose from the bed and pressed a kiss to his cheek before pulling away. “Now to the bathroom. Lead me, brave warrior.”

 

“Well, that was just... neat,” Spike crowed, watching lecherously from the bed as Buffy towel-dried her hair as she stood by the dresser.

“Neat?” Buffy asked, more than a little offended by the paltry compliment. “What do you mean, neat? This has been ‘great big night o’ naughty firsts’ for Buffy and it’s only NEAT for you?” she finished, hands on hips and eyes narrowed.

“Well, yeah, luv. Everybody starts somewhere below the top, you know... need somethin’ to work towards an’ all,” he taunted, baiting her as he stared absolutely transfixed at the naked breasts now perfectly framed by arms crossed in annoyance.

Buffy's mouth opened and her eyes widened; he could just see the rant of righteous indignation taking shape in her brain. After only a fraction of a second she snapped her mouth shut, narrowed her eyes, and moved towards him with predatory grace. “Spikey dear... seems like I’m one up on you and your little mind games now,” she said calmly, with more than a hint of mischief glinting in her eyes. “And you had better thank the Powers for that, too, because I can promise you I would happily be Mrs. Big Pile of Dust if I didn’t know from the claim that you were jerking... me... around!”

Spike burst out laughing at the mixture of annoyance, amusement, and affection gracing her features and reached out to wrap his arms around her waist. With lightning speed he tugged her down to the bed beside him as he himself stretched out, and she curled like a kitten into his side, head on his shoulder.

“Mean,” she grumbled playfully, biting his nipple as punishment before she moved her head back to his shoulder and tilted back to look at him.

“’m a bad, rude man, it’s true,” he agreed cheerfully, arm coming to rest around her waist and hand beginning to trace small patterns on her lower back. “But it was funny, you standing there all puffed up and righteous… kinda like the old days. ‘Sides, made your chest look exquisite.”

Buffy rolled her eyes at him and sucked in her cheeks in a failed attempt to short-circuit her grin. “So… anything you wanna ask me?” she teased playfully, knowing full well he had at least one question that he was nearly choking on.

Spike rolled up onto his elbow, facing her, and Buffy scooted up until her head was on the pillow. Looking down into her eyes, he was still amazed at the depth of feeling he saw there, and he mirrored the relaxed smile that she gave him.

“Buffy, you claimed me.” It wasn’t a question—more an awestruck declaration, really—but that was the only thing he really cared about at the moment.

“I told you I wasn’t letting you go again, Spike. When you were gone, it was—it was a lot like being yanked out of heaven again, really. I wasn’t warm or safe or complete anymore. All I could think of were those nights with you in the basement, when I felt like we could take on anything because we were together. I kept the picture in my mind of that night in the kitchen, when I told you I was there with you in that house—that look of joy on your face. I used it as proof that I had made you truly happy at least once… that I had been at least a little bit good for you, even though you put everything you had into being good for me.” The tears came unbidden, and she didn’t even try to wipe them away.

“Every time I tried to sleep I would hear you whisper ‘Honey, I’m home’ and feel you in my arms and I wouldn’t dare open my eyes again because I knew you wouldn’t be there. It hurt because you had died without believing that I loved you, because I had known for a while that I did—I just always thought there would be time later to tell you, to make some grand romantic gesture, and then all of a sudden there wasn’t any time at all. You gave everything you had to me, Spike, and I just took it all, but I never gave anything back but crumbs… and you made do. But they weren’t enough for you, Spike… you deserved everything I had, and I was too scared to let go and give it to you.” The tears came faster now, and she stared at him through flooded green orbs, begging him to understand, to forgive her for the way she’d left things between them for so long.

Spike reached over and wiped Buffy’s eyes gently with the pad of his thumb, ignoring the stinging in his own. “’s okay, luv. We’re here now… an’ you did the best you could then. Had enough on you without…”

Buffy silenced him by placing her index finger across his lips. “Don’t excuse what I did, Spike. Forgive me, if you can, but don’t say it’s okay… it’s not.”

Spike nodded, his own tears falling freely now, and he sniffed and scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “When did you… when did you love me? When did you know?” he asked softly.

“The night that Giles and Principal Wood… when I realized what Giles was doing I was so scared, and I ran faster than I ever had. I just knew—I had to get to you in time, and while I was running I realized that there would never be anyone else as completely perfect for me as you. We were made for each other, Spike. No one has ever understood me like you do, or even tried to… or even wanted to. I knew that if I didn’t get to you in time part of my life wouldn’t be worth living anymore. And that’s when I knew. I think I’d loved you even longer… I think I started to the day you took Mom and Dawn in… and when I came back and saw you with Dawn, watching over her… and when you had counted the days and you watched over me…”

Buffy trailed off for a moment, taking a deep, shuddering breath before she continued. “I think it’s safe to say I’d been falling for a while, but seeing you walk out of that shed I knew, and it took my breath away. I should’ve told you then, but I was just so relieved I couldn’t speak. Or that night in the house, but I was so numb, and I needed you so much… and I was selfish, again. I took from you and didn’t give back… but I tried to show you. I tried to let you feel it in my arms, even if I couldn’t get the words out yet. And when you told me it was the best night of your life, I thought that maybe you had felt at least some of it. But I wasted so many chances… was such a fool… and you didn’t know. You weren’t sure of my love, the way I was always sure of yours. I failed you.”

“Luv, you didn’t…”

“Please, Spike—please let me finish?” At his nod, she drew another shaky inhale and gave him a watery grin. “When Andrew told me that you were alive, or, well, here… I knew that I had a second chance—that somehow I’d gotten lucky enough to have the chance to do the right thing this time. And I knew that I’d been right—that there was no one else but you for me in this world, and that you felt the same way about me. So I told Giles I wanted all of the books he had with him on vampires, and when he asked what I wanted to know I told him I wanted to research a claim.”

Off Spike’s shocked look, she smiled at him, even managing a little giggle. “I wasn’t going to lie, and I wasn’t going to let him stop me, Spike—that was the first chance I had to do the right thing by you this time, and I did it. He just handed me the books—he had gotten them together when he heard Andrew say that you were back. He told me to think carefully but to listen to my heart; that he was proud of the woman I’ve become and trusted me to do what was best. So I did—I thought, and I researched, and I memorized the ritual and I figured out where I wanted to mark you, and where I wanted your mark on me. I wanted you as my mate, Spike—there could never be anyone else.”

Spike was elated and overwhelmed and… well, he was fighting off William and the urge to find pen and paper immediately. This was by far the most honest with her feelings he had ever seen Buffy, and he knew that she meant every word. Lying there face to face, he could see it clearly in her eyes, and he could feel it through the claim. He had no idea how to respond, or what to say. He closed his eyes and focused on his joy and sent it through to her, and as her gasp of wonderment parted her lips he leaned over and kissed her gently, a slow, sweet kiss that promised more than words ever could.

He pulled back reluctantly, eager to lose himself in her again yet needing to be as honest with her as he had been with him. Lying in bed on their sides, facing each other, talking quietly… it all just seemed so domestic; he had to let her know just how much their mating meant to him. “Buffy, no one’s ever really wanted me like this before,” he began, raising his eyebrow in a successful effort at shushing her as she opened her mouth to object.

“Home truths, luv… ‘ve never really belonged anywhere. As a human I was a right ponce. A good man, but not one of the crowd; was content to stay home and take care of mum and moon over birds from afar. The one night I didn’t, the night I tried to belong, I found Dru—well, she found me. An’ with her… well, she loved me as best she could, and God only knows I loved her, but I didn’t fit there either. Dru will always belong to Angelus, always ‘til she’s dust—he made her that way; but then she went an’ made me. He didn’t want anyone around that wouldn’t accept his authority, ‘n I’d had enough of bowin’ and scrapin’ when I was a human. I was good enough for her to care for an’ play with, an’ they both knew I’d take care of her, but I was more a lover than a mate. I was her diversion—not her world. Not like she was mine.”

Buffy simply squeezed his hand more tightly, letting him finally verbalize things he’d obviously been wrestling with for years. Once again she was amazed by the man in front of her, the sheer depth of feeling and devotion that he possessed. He really didn’t know any other way to exist than to throw himself into the world around him, to keep loving and hoping to be loved. So many years he must’ve felt so alone. She blinked back the tears that had formed and snapped her attention back to him. He wasn’t alone anymore.

“Then came the damned chip and me throwin’ in with you lot,” he gave a short bark of self-deprecating laughter before continuing. “Don’t think I’ve ever belonged anywhere less than with the Scoobies, but time went by and it started to feel right… well, less wrong… like I could belong. An’ then I fell in love with you, an’ I knew that my place was by your side… whether I wanted it, whether any of you wanted me, whether you ever accepted me… I belonged with you. Even after I… even when I woke up in that cave in Africa crazed with the guilt from the soul I just knew I had to get back to you, that with you was where I needed to be. An’ when you told me you believed in me, saved me from the First… all those nights after that when we would have these tiny moments—well, I knew you’d seen it too… that you felt how right we were, even if it scared the hell out of you. And so it was enough. I wanted with everything in me to believe you in the hellmouth, and in a lot of ways I did, but… Told you once I saved you every night in my dreams—didn’t stop when Red brought you back and I saw how shattered it left you. So I couldn’t have stopped what I was doing in that cavern—not when I was finally really saving you.”

Buffy’s tears were coming faster now, and she wiped quickly at them before wiping his away with delicate fingers. He smiled tremulously at her, and she knew that these words had been so long in coming for him… she could feel his relief that he’d finally gotten to tell her, that she was finally listening and accepting how he felt.

“I already told you ‘bout when I showed up in Peaches’ office, luv. He told me you didn’t really care about me, that even when you were with me you had been thinkin’ ‘bout him, that you’d never really love anybody but him… all these little nasties that I tried not to believe but that still cut so bleedin’ deep. Once I finally got my body back I was too soddin’ cowardly to find you… afraid it really wouldn’t matter to you, afraid you wouldn’t care. So to see you tonight, to have you in my arms… that means everything. But to have you claim me, to be your mate… God, Buffy, I don’t think I’ll ever come any closer to heaven.”

He closed the tiny amount of distance that remained between them, and their already tangled fingers clasped more tightly. “I love you with everything that I can ever possibly be, Buffy Summers,” he whispered against her mouth before teasing her lips open gently with his tongue.

Buffy moaned against his mouth and brought her leg up to drape over his hip, wrapping herself around him as best she could. Breaking the kiss for an instant, she murmured, “You are the best man I will ever know, Spike, and I love you with all of me.”

Their lips came back together, the pressure greater this time. He positioned himself against her and pressed forward, sliding himself fully inside her waiting channel in one strong, gentle thrust. Their hips rocked with no sense of hurry or urgency, slow thrusts and leisurely kisses allowing their exhausted bodies the pleasurable respite of connection once again. The outside world lost all meaning, and it could have been hours or only minutes that they surged gently together before their ardor overtook them. Their hands unclasped, Spike’s moving to cup Buffy’s breast and tease the tightened nipple while hers moved to trace the strong lines and contours of his face before running through his hair. Whispered vows of love broke into short strangled cries, muffled by their joined mouths, as they came together in a climax as gentle yet fully enthralling as their coupling.

Spike rolled them the half-turn to the bed, and Buffy’s head quickly tucked itself into the crook of his neck. He leaned down, pressing one last good-night kiss against her lips, and their “I love you”s were whispered while their lips still touched. Closing his eyes, Spike drifted off to sleep, imprinting this glorious night upon his mind as the best of his long existence. As she curled against him and closed her eyes, Buffy made the same change to her memories before following him into dreams.



Chapter 9

A/N: It never made sense to me that Illyria couldn't control her powers, so in the Fearverse, she can. Gotta love artistic liberty! As always, a HUGE thank you to Always_JBJ, a brilliant beta and extraordinary friend. Thank you for everything, sweetie.

Buffy woke first, stirring slightly and mumbling sleepily as her eyes drifted slowly open. At the feeling of the cool, firm flesh under her cheek and the arm banded tightly around her, she couldn’t suppress the elated grin that shaped her lips. It hadn’t all been a dream—he was real, and he was here, and he was her mate. She had an urge to sob with joy and relief, but she contented herself with a small silent prayer of thanks to whoever had sent him back to her and another silent promise to him and to herself to love him the way he deserved.

She snuggled closer, burrowing her head even further into his shoulder, and giggled softly at the little snorts and snuffles that he gave as he curled himself around her. His arm tightened, and he murmured a soft “love you” that had her peeking up to see if he was awake; head tossed back, eyes tightly closed, a small smile etched onto his face, the arm and leg not encumbered by her splayed widely across the bed—oh, he was most definitely still asleep… and he just looked so happy. He looked so boyish like this, so peaceful and calm, absent all the frenetic energy that characterized him in his waking hours. She had had a few opportunities to see him like this before the end of Sunnydale, memories that she had clung to ever since, but now she could truly take him in and savor the sight as the blessing it was. She slid one hand across his chest and grasped the hand that he had flung off to his side; linking her fingers carefully with his, she let her eyes drink him in for a few more moments before tucking herself back against him and surrendering to her drowsiness again.

The first sensation Spike felt upon stirring was warmth. He felt heated, inside and out, and it took him a moment to realize why: he had Buffy draped over the right half of his body, looking every inch the well-ravished woman. As well she should; kiss-swollen lips, bed-ravaged hair, luminous glow to her skin, and… He reached up with the arm banded around her waist to tenderly move her hair off of her shoulder and couldn’t help the possessive masculine grin. She was wearing his mark, would wear it for the rest of her life… and an exquisite one it was at that. He brought his hand up to his own neck, ghosting his fingers across her bite there; felt like his girl had made a hell of a mark on her own, even without fangs.

The claim was the glow he felt on the inside, this unbelievable feeling that burned inside him with love and gratitude and tenderness and joy. His little Slayer had taken him as her mate, had tied the rest of her eternity to him… tears of thanksgiving burned his eyes, and he blinked desperately to hold them back. He’d meant everything he had told her; he had believed far more of Angel’s bollocks than he’d ever intended to even let himself hear, so the fact that she’d come back for him, that she loved him… those were miracles. This was something else entirely… this was every bloody dream and fantasy he’d ever had come true, and he was still reeling from the fact that any of it had happened at all.

He well remembered the few nights in Sunnydale when she had allowed him to hold her as she slept; sadly, they had only come about when she was emotionally devastated or terrified. He couldn’t even remember now having nights when he didn’t ache to hold her, an ache that demon, man, and soul shared down to the very core of their essences. That may well be why the three nights in his entire existence when he’d slept with what could only be described as utter peace had been spent in her arms. But this night—he’d never sleep that well again, he was sure of it. The peace, the contentment, the joy… it was nothing short of incredible, and he was staggered by the blessing. Only weeks before he’d been incorporeal and running from hell itself… Buffy stirred slightly and blinked sleepily at him as her lips curved into a languorous smile, and he was completely overwhelmed. He traced her face lightly with his fingers as his chest began to shake with a mixture of laughter and sobs as he realized just how amazing his world had become.

Buffy watched for a moment, confused as he simultaneously smiled and sobbed, before she quickly scooted up the bed until their faces were even. Wiping his tears gently, she kissed his brows, his cheekbones, his nose, and his chin, dusting his face with delicate caresses until he stilled. She pulled back and smiled at him, once again reaching one hand down to link with his, and pressed a final kiss to his lips before she placed her head on the pillow next to him.

“’m sorry, luv… I’m sure you’re thinkin’ I’m a right ponce, with all the tears, but… it’s just so much, Buffy,” he murmured, still overcome but trying with everything in him to present a strong front.

“You don’t have to do this with me, Spike… pretend you don’t feel when I know that you do, or pretend not to feel strongly. I love your heart, Spike, and the way you feel everything so much… I admire that in you, and so many times since you’ve been… gone… I wished that I’d been able to be like that, just once. To just tell you how I felt because it was how I was feeling and leave the rest of the world on their own.”

“You’re doin’ it now, luv,” Spike said, giving Buffy a boyish smile so joyful that it melted her heart all over again.

“I am,” she agreed, returning the smile in kind, “and I will continue to do it for the rest of our linked existences, hubby.”

“Hubby?” Spike asked, scarred eyebrow raising teasingly.

“Well, yeah,” Buffy answered playfully, shifting until she was stretched out atop him. “I don’t figure that telling every random stranger who notices our big idiot grins that we just got mated is going to go over so terribly well, you know? So I figured since, ritually speaking, we’re now married all vampily ever after, that makes you my hubby,” she finished, smiling brightly and laughing out loud at the bemused expression on his face. “Oh, come on, Big Bad… you can be my mate, but you’re gonna go all commitment-phobe over the word hubby?”

Spike growled playfully and rolled her beneath him, running his tongue along his mark teasingly. “Not hardly, slayer. Just a bit surprised… since that’d make you my wife, then, wouldn’t it?” He chuckled for a moment, then took her mouth in a kiss that left her breathless before asking, “So I guess this means you’ll be wantin’ a ring, then, luv?”

“Nope. Got this nice little bite mark going on… plus I’ve still got a lovely little skull ring from the last time around… unless you want to buy me something shiny,” Buffy finished, the glazed look in her eyes making it clear that despite her words, shiny things would be most definitely welcomed.

“Right then, gorgeous. Sparkly baubles on order for Mrs. the Bloody as soon as we get all this other mess straightened out,” he chuckled, ducking his again to trace tender little kisses and nips down her throat.

Buffy pressed her head deeper into the pillow, exposing her throat to Spike’s delicate caresses. She gave over to the passion for a moment, losing herself in the feeling of his lips, teeth, and tongue against flesh now made forever sensitive by their joining. Reluctantly coming back to herself, she raised her head and pressed a lingering kiss to her mark against his throat before pulling back. “Deal. Work now, glittery goodness later. Now up, Mister. We need to go and get showered so we can make with the jumpy and find out just how much we need to kick Angel’s ass.”

“Well, I’m all for the brutalizin’ of Peaches, luv, but I thought there were other ways we could… well… ease into the day,” Spike murmured seductively, the tip of his hardness brushing against her slickened folds; it was more than apparent how both of them would rather spend their day.

Buffy arched upwards into him briefly, then groaned slightly as she pulled away and wiggled up the bed out of his grasp. She added this moment to the very long list of reasons why it sucked to be the Slayer. “No, Spike… we really need to go…” she whimpered, her protest coming out as much more of a plea than she would have preferred due to her own rampaging lust. God, she would gladly give Angel a second ass-kicking just for leaving her like this…

“I know, luv. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though,” he sighed disappointedly, and the tone of his voice made her reach down and turn his face up towards her. She burst into giggles at the outrageously pronounced pout that had jutted out his lower lip, and she crooked her finger at him, luring him up the bed.

“Look at that lip… gonna get it,” she teased, nibbling it gently before slowly deepening the kiss into a soft, loving caress. He pulled back first, giving her a smile that was somehow both heated and shy as he stood.

“So I’ll drop you by the Watcher’s, then, and see you when we come by for the debriefing, yeah?” he asked as he rummaged through the dresser, pulling out the ubiquitous t-shirt and jeans before turning back to her.

“Um, that would be a world of NO, Spike. Where you go, I go, remember?” Buffy reminded him, annoyance slipping into her tone.

“Buffy, we don’t know how this thing is gonna work. I’m gonna go with Blue just to be another set of eyes, but I don’t want you in this if we’re not sure… and we decided last night that we didn’t need Angel suspicious. You show up, suspicious is the least of what he’s gonna be, luv, an’ you know it!”

“I know all that, Spike, and I don’t care!” Buffy argued back, jumping out of the bed and wrapping herself in the sheet. “You don’t get to decide what’s safest for me, Spike, and you don’t usually try—that’s part of the reason I fell in love with you. But the same goes for me—I don’t get to make decisions for you. You think I’m all happy about you going with Illyria when we don’t know if this will work? I’m not, but it’s what we need to do. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to be there while you do it, Spike… I just got you back and I’m not losing you again! I can’t be miles away from you while you do this, wondering where you are and when you’re going to make it back. So if Angel gets suspicious… hell, even if Angel comes in all damage-bound, I could give a damn, Spike. You’re not doing this without me. Now get your undead ass in the shower before you ruin my happy day!” she finished, stomping her foot and looking for all the world like a very angry five-year-old.

“Buffy…” he started, his tone a mixture of annoyance and resignation; her raised eyebrow and the determined set of her chin, however, told him that he’d be better off saving his words and his breath for other arguments in which he stood a chance. “Fine,” he ground out, jaw tense. “But ’m not trying to make decisions for you, Buffy. ‘ve never done that, and now isn’t the time I’d start. I was just tryin’ to stick to the bloody plan and save you what is gonna be a soddin’ nasty confrontation with Peaches when the time comes ‘round. He’s not gonna be there today, but he’s the head of the firm, Buffy, an’ every eye in that place belongs to him. I don’t want to be apart from you any more than you do from me… hell, I don’t want to leave this soddin’ room, Peaches and the fate of the world be damned… but ‘s what I have to do. You want to be there, so be it. But the bitchy princess routine is puttin’ a hell of a damper on my soddin’ happy day, too, so can you drop it, please, and come here and kiss me?”

Buffy just gaped at him for a minute, racing to follow him around the bends of his argument until she processed his last request. Grinning mischievously, she tucked the sheet around her and crawled seductively across the bed, snickering to herself as she watched his eyes widen and his adam’s apple bob as he fought to swallow. Standing on the other side, she took the remaining steps towards him as predatorily as possible before untucking the sheet and opening her arms, wrapping them and the sheet around him. She tipped her head up just as his lips crashed down on hers, and she found herself grateful for her hold on him as she felt herself melt in his arms. Gods, but that man could kiss.

Spike raised his head and cocked his eyebrow at her, smirking at the breathless lust written in every aspect of her features. Good enough for her—playin’ that game with the master himself. Leaning down and giving her one last tiny kiss on the tip of her nose, he said, “shower, Goldilocks. Wanna come with?”

Buffy’s wide-eyed nod was his only reply.

_______________________________

Walking into Wolfram & Hart during working hours was a gauntlet that neither Buffy nor Spike was particularly eager to walk; steeling themselves in the elevator on the way to the executive floor, they gripped hands and drew deep breaths as the door opened onto the bustle of activity typical of the firm.

Not more than two steps out of the elevator, however, a resounding screech halted them both in their tracks. Turning towards the noise, they rolled their eyes simultaneously as they saw Harmony barreling towards them.

“WHAT are you doing? You know that’s the Slayer, you freak! I thought you were past all that twisted obsession… and you know that Bossie is so gonna kick your ass when he finds out!” Harmony finished, managing to look petulant and tremendously pleased with herself all at once. Just before she turned to flounce away, she looked at Buffy and added cattily, “I guess this is what you’re stuck with, Blondie Bear. I hope she’s good enough after the taste of me you just had.”

She hadn’t made it further than a half-step away before she found herself slammed face down against her own desk, Buffy’s hand fisted tightly in her hair. Spike had released Buffy’s hand as soon as Harmony had affected her best Sunnydale bitch look, having a feeling that nothing good would come from this; besides, those hands had just been reattached, thanks ever so, and he didn’t fancy losing them again due to a bloody catfight. He simply stood back and watched his love work, cocky smile on his face; he might be a master vampire in his own right, but it still did a man good to watch women fight over him.

Buffy bent to look her in the eye, smiling sweetly as she threatened her in a low, cold voice. “Harmony, do you need a little refresher course on what the Slayer is? ‘Cause it seems like you might have forgotten just what I’m capable of and how well I can kick your ass. Spike told me about what happened with you, and believe me when I say that I’m a thousand times better on my worst night than you could ever be. But if you step within fifty feet of my mate,” she paused for effect, suppressing a laugh at the ditzy vamp’s widened eyes, “I will make you pray for a quick death. I’ve been retired for almost a year, Harm… I might have forgotten a lot.”

Letting go of Harmony’s head, she backed up and again linked her fingers with Spike’s, taking in his grin and snorts of ill-concealed laughter as she tugged him towards Wesley’s office. Both of them heard Harmony’s muttered “Bitch,” but it was Buffy who turned around and gave her a glare that had Angel’s secretary whimpering and darting for the cover of her desk.

“Oh, and Harmony,” Buffy sang out cheerily, “if Angel calls and you feel the need to tell him anything about me, don’t. I want it to be a surprise. You get me?”

As she turned back towards Spike, and Wesley’s office, she couldn’t fight her laughter anymore. Illyria had watched the entire scene with her head cocked, clearly intrigued at the show of strength although ignorant of the motive behind it; Lorne, Gunn, and even Wesley, however, were flushed and snickering, as much at the conceited air surrounding Spike, as at the interchange between Buffy and Harmony. Buffy’s giggles grew as she took in Spike’s expression, and she shook her head as she dragged him forward towards the office.

“Come on, Big Bad Egomaniac. We have work to do.”

The light mood lasted only a few moments longer before remembrance of the task that lay ahead dampened out the laughter, and mouths so recently curved into smiles reshaped themselves into serious lines.

“How do we do this, then? Blue and I head in, ‘n the rest of you follow? Or united front all the way?”

“Perhaps it would be best if Buffy and I accompanied you and Illyria now, and Charles and Lorne might follow in a few moments? My attendance at these sessions is normal, and Buffy would logically not want to be separated from you, so our presence would be the least suspicious. Charles and Lorne, however… Perhaps you should go to your offices, make an appearance, and then join us in the testing laboratory,” Wesley suggested, and Gunn and Lorne nodded in agreement. They left Wesley’s office first, leaving the remaining four to their determined silence.

“Shall we go, then?” Spike’s voice seemed to break the spell, and as one, they moved to exit, Spike and Buffy in the lead with Illyria and Wesley following. The procession was silent and fairly grim; although Buffy and Spike initially tried to break the oppressive pall with a few playful whispers that fell strangely flat, they soon resigned themselves to undertaking what seemed to inevitably be a somber mission walk accompanied by only the muffled sounds of their footfalls on the lush carpeting.

The banging of the doors behind them echoed through the testing lab, and the four of them watched each other closely. It was Buffy that broke first from the silence, turning to Spike and murmuring, “Be careful, please.”

He reached up to cradle her cheek in his hand, brushing the fingers of his other hand tenderly against his still-livid mark and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “I will, luv. Got you to come back to, don’t I?”

She nodded, smiling at him with misty eyes before pulling herself together and crossing to face Illyria. “I know that you probably don’t understand what’s going on between Spike and I, and I’m not sure that you care. But I will ask you, warrior to warrior: guard your troops. He means more to me than I can ever say, and all I ask is that you do your best to bring him back safely.”

Illyria blinked briefly, clearly trying to process the emotion that she could sense coming from Buffy, and finally gave a brisk nod. “I would not see him come to harm. I thought to keep him as my pet, but it seems as though you have assumed him already. Regardless of your ties to him, he has importance here, and he will return with me. You have my word.”

Buffy nodded resolutely and smiled in thanks, turning and mouthing her pet? at Spike, who just raised his eyebrow and smirked in reply. Stifling a slightly hysterical giggle, she returned to the shelter of his arms, looking up only when she heard the telltale banging that announced the arrival of Lorne and Gunn.

Wesley turned to Illyria, eager to put an end to both the stultifying silence and the uncertainty. “What do you need from us, Illyria? How shall we facilitate the shift for you?”

“You need do nothing. I can find Angel’s path well enough, and physical contact with Spike will be sufficient to bring him with me. Will the empath be included? His services could prove helpful to the half-breed in the interpretation of emotion and motive.”

“Lorne?” asked Wesley, willing to allow the demon to make his own decision in the matter. He well remembered how much Lorne disliked interdimensional travel and couldn’t imagine that a shift in time would be any more amenable. His services could be of use, but he would leave the final call to Lorne himself. Far too many decisions had been made for them already.

“I can help,” Lorne answered firmly. “I’ve gone walking through Angelcakes’ head enough times to know that I could help to ID what we’re seeing and what he’s feeling. I’m not sure I’d feel right if I didn’t go… I need to so I can put my own mind at ease. Let’s go, tartlets… let’s see what our boy’s going to try.”

Buffy squeezed Spike’s hand and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, letting him move away from her and towards the training circle in the middle of the room. Illyria stood in the center, Lorne and Spike to her sides. She closed her eyes, and everyone in the room could feel the power thrum through the atmosphere in the moments before a light burst forth from the god. Shooting her arms out quickly to the side, she placed one hand on each hitchhiker’s chest, and the light wavered only briefly before the three of them disappeared from the room.

Buffy stifled a sob and closed her eyes, focusing on the warmth inside her that was still burning strongly. She opened her eyes and met those of Wesley and Gunn, who looked as tense as she herself felt, before smiling tremulously. “Wherever they are, they’re safe. I can feel him.”

“Through the claim?” Wesley asked, clearly intrigued by the opportunity to investigate a vampiric claim outside the normal avenues of grimoires and compendiums. The bite marks had not gone unnoticed, merely unmentioned, although he felt that he could now allow the researcher in him a bit more leeway.

“Yes, through the claim,” Buffy answered, fingers unconsciously caressing Spike’s mark. “So now that we know they’re OK, it’s just a matter of waiting for them to come back.”

A few long minutes passed, the three of them standing in a comfortable, though tense, silence before eventually finding seating on the training equipment spread throughout the room. Buffy’s pained gasp drew their attention back towards her, however, and they watched as she clutched her stomach reflexively before looking up and meeting their gazes.

“Whatever they’re seeing—Spike is NOT happy.”

Chapter 10

“Well, that was just… bloody disturbing,” gasped Spike as he finally felt solid ground under his feet again. “And coming from a man who’s been tortured by the original Evil, flash-fried in a pillar of fire, and damn near sucked into hell in the space of six months… that’s an understatement, Blue.”

“I’m gonna have to go with Lemon Meringue on that one… this makes dimensional travel look like a drive down the freeway during rush hour—slow if not particularly steady.” If possible, Lorne was somehow greener than he had already been, and he and Spike had taken a moment to rest their backs against the wall behind them. Illyria, as might have been expected, seemed unfazed by the shift, merely cocking her head in an effort to discern exactly where they were.

Quick glances at their surroundings found them in the observation deck of the training lab, watching Wesley and Angel who in turn were watching Illyria. If she found anything odd about observing herself, she didn’t let the disturbance show, merely turning her attention intently to the two men in front of her. Spike and Lorne followed her lead, and it didn’t take Spike long to realize that the vampire was seething with barely-concealed rage that Wesley was quite effectively ignoring. Casting a glance at Lorne out of the corner of his eye, Spike could see that the other demon was feeling the rage even more acutely than he was; he looked positively staggered, as though the sheer force of it was enough to sweep him from his feet.

Spike’s blood chilled as he heard Angel murmur “Serve no master but your ambition,” something his grandsire had apparently heard Illyria say, before telling Wesley that Illyria may be an important resource after all. The significance of Angel honing in on that particular pearl of wisdom may have gone unnoticed by anyone else—it was obviously not raising any particular red flags with the watcher, assuming he was actually listening to Angel at that point—but Spike knew in an instant that those six words could have been Angelus’ mission statement. He was certainly never one to be charitable to his grandsire's souled counterpart and his vaunted mission, but even Spike found himself stunned that Angel could be reverting, soul and all, to the self-important hedonism that had characterized his darker self.

Angel moved to leave the observation room, and Spike, Illyria, and Lorne followed closely behind. Moving unseen even though the office seemed to be bustling, they followed Angel’s lead and entered his conference room just as the door swung closed.

It was going to be beyond strange to watch all these little dramas play themselves out, Spike thought to himself, and they were hardly minutes into the entire excursion. He’d always been an outsider, always carefully watching, observing, analyzing the groups in which he sought membership from their peripheries; this, however, was something else altogether. This was watching the future and, in a sense, being powerless to stop it. Except that by the watching of it, they were gaining the power to stop it. Bugger the mental mathematics… it was bloody fuckin’ strange to watch your own future play out while you hung about in the corner like a soddin’ wallflower. There—got it sorted. Spike shook his head to clear his mind and then turned his attention back to the sights and sounds before him.

The three observers stood together as they gazed at the demon clan surrounding the pretty young pregnant woman, all of them gathered around the table at the head of which sat Angel. Hamilton stood in the corner, easily recognizable after his extraordinarily memorable introduction, but even had they not known him a few moments of careful examination and the notice of his extraordinarily condescending air and impeccable suit would have been enough to let them know that he was the new liaison to the Senior Partners; only someone with that much power could get away with that attitude inside this building. They watched as Angel went over some sort of adoption treaty, line by line, with the young woman, glossing over the explanation of the ritual sacrifice whose demonic name the three of them instantly recognized. The word was the key—the baby was not a messiah, but a sacrifice, and Angel was leaving that crucial fact out of his explanations.

As the young mother signed the contracts and handshakes were exchanged by those present, the fact that Angel had just brokered—with no apparent stirrings of conscience or soul—a deal that would eventually see a baby sacrificed by a demon clan hit home.

Illyria was unconcerned; this had little to do with her outside of the simple fact of her giving audience to the act, and infants seemed just a more pitifully mewling version of their full-grown alter egos. One less was nothing to her, just as one more forced no modifications to her calculations of the world. What this indicated in her calculations of the dark half-breed, however, was something else entirely; despite his protestations of protection of human life, he was willing to sacrifice it in its most helpless form. If nothing else, it was a show of brute force that was beneath a true warrior and thus insulting to her in its barbarity and lack of valor; there was no need to expend energies on the weak when there were far stronger to be defeated.

Spike found himself wishing that he could be much more surprised than he actually was; Angelus had always had a thing for the young, and the only baby he’d ever seen him treat with anything less than savage hunger was the one Darla had attempted to feed him after the soul. The remembrance made Spike’s own soul roil a bit, but he attempted to placate it with reminders of Connor; apparently Angel had done something right with an infant, because Connor had made it to full-grown. Of course, there was the possibility that that had more to do with Wesley than with Angel; perhaps if Wesley hadn’t taken the baby Angel would’ve devoured his own son the way he’d devoured countless others… and this way lay images that his heart, soul, and stomach couldn’t take. He stopped himself from thinking further, forcing the sights before him into short, quantifiable statements—Angel just sold a baby. Add it to the list.

Lorne sagged against the wall, trying desperately to reconcile the cold-visaged infant broker before him with the warm, loving new father Angel had been only two years before. Remembrances washed over him: the affection and tenderness that Angel had demonstrated towards baby Connor, the love that seemed to light his never-easy soul when he sang lullabies to his son, the fury and anger and crippling depression when Connor had been taken, the shattering of the vampire’s soul that had nearly sent Lorne himself into catatonia when he walked in on the half-mad vampire rocking a burnt stuffed animal and singing Irish lullabies. How had that vampire become this… monster in front of him? Surely he wasn’t… he hadn’t come to this, not on Lorne’s watch. How had he not seen? He clung to the hope that something down the path would be different, would explain this atrocity, would let him believe that this evil wasn’t still inside a man he still wanted to believe was his friend.

“Blue, think we’ve seen all we need to see here,” Spike prodded, more to spare Lorne further anguish than out of concern for himself or the mission. He didn’t want to stay and see any more, and he had known going into this exactly what Angelus could be capable of; the empath, however, looked as though he’d just taken a walk inside the darkest corner of the shared soul of humanity, and Spike didn’t fancy losing him, especially when they were still so early in their mission.

Illyria simply nodded, and Spike and Lorne moved to flank her instinctively; it might be time to move, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. They knew what to expect this time and tried to brace for the searing pain and staggering dizziness that accompanied the shift, but it still left them panting and scrambling for purchase when they finally came to a rest with solid ground once more under their feet.

The confusion as to their location ended when Lorne murmured “corporate jet,” but Spike found that he wasn’t nearly as okay with observing himself sleeping in a corner of the cabin as Illyria had been watching herself wander the training room. Apparently he’d gotten right pissed before he’d gone to sleep, he thought, looking at the mound of tiny liquor bottles that surrounded his feet. Rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of himself, he turned his attention to Angel, whom he could hear speaking in low tones at the other end of the plane.

He walked closer, and was able to make out both Angel’s end of the conversation and that of the… thing on the other end of the phone. What in the hell had Angelus gotten himself into that he was skulking about talking to the sodding Immortal on the telephone? Oh, it had been years, but you never forgot the voice of the man who’d kept you chained in a barn while he cuckolded you. But Angelus had been there, too, so why would… Angel’s “Make sure she’s away from the apartment tonight” and the heavily accented response, “Yes, I will take good care of your Buffy,” nearly brought Spike’s demon to the fore. Angel was pimping Buffy out to the thrice-damned Immortal? What the bloody hell… He found himself clenching and unclenching his fists and his jaw as he tried to remind himself that he couldn’t touch Angel here and therefore couldn’t rip the bastard’s head off his soddin’ worthless body… not yet, anyway.

“You are to take care of my Buffy for tonight only… you’d do well to remember that,” Angel growled into the phone. “Spike is with me and she is not to know that he’s alive… there was no getting rid of him once he found out she was in Rome, but she’s mourned more than enough over the bleached moron. Maybe this way he’ll lose hope… move on like a good little sap… I’ll have him back out by tonight, but she is to be away from her apartment and anywhere they might see each other until then, capisce? Ilona in our Rome office has your payment. You keep her busy, you persuade the boy and Dawn to go along with the cover story—she’s moved on, she’s happy, it’s hopeless for him—and you get paid; you screw this up and I will rain hell itself upon you.”

A wave of possessive rage washed over Spike as he witnessed this attempt to usurp his new mate, and he knew that it was coursing towards Buffy through the claim. He couldn’t stop it, and truth be told he had no inclination to. He reminded himself that Angel had no way of knowing that she had come back for Spike, that things had changed and this wouldn’t happen; even so, he had the need to reaffirm that she was his, though the waves of love and reassurance coursing back from her helped to ebb some of his fury. He found himself fighting the demon for control with every unnecessary breath; interfering bastard trying to keep them apart. So the Poof was paying the sodding Immortal to keep he and Buffy separated? *But I thought she never loved me, Angel. She was always thinking of you… Bastard. Some confidence you’ve got in the love of your ‘soulmate,’ you brooding ponce. Can’t believe I bloody played right into your hands ‘til she showed up here.*

Still, Spike forced himself to remember that it could be only Angel’s characteristic possessive jealousy causing him to enlist help in keeping them apart; the fact that he was using the bloody Immortal, however, smacked of something darker. Angelus had hated the git every bit as much as Spike had, if not more so, and they both knew that he had reserves of dark power at his fingertips. So why him to keep Buffy occupied? Buffy was a beautiful woman, and there had to be scores of men in Italy that wouldn’t have to be paid to keep her company. Unless she didn’t want to go out—unless she wasn’t moving on. Unless Angel wanted her completely snowed under until… what?

And what boy was he supposed to ‘persuade’? Andrew? He was the only one living with Buffy, besides Dawn… Oh, Spike was not liking this at all. Even the currents of calm and love that Buffy was conveying to comfort him, having sensed his rage but knowing nothing of the cause, weren’t enough to stem the black rage that was building, and he really wanted to tear the bastard’s head off. Angel was paying the bloody Immortal to fucking enthrall Buffy and Andrew and possibly even the Bit if she got in the way… all to keep Buffy away from Spike—to keep her under Angel’s thumb, even if she never realized. He was stripping the three of them of their free will, but he was sending Buffy out with a nit who had no morals or conscience and the power to enthrall her into anything… Fury was just not a strong enough word.

“Shiva, get me the fuck out of here NOW,” Spike growled angrily, and although she looked ready to take him apart piece by piece in recompense for the tone in which he was speaking to her, and Lorne looked not a little terrified of the now-barely controlled vampire, she merely placed her hands back on their chests as soon as Spike returned within her reach. This time, Spike welcomed the nauseating jerking sensation; it gave him something other than his rage to focus on and removed him from the temptation of trying in vain to draw and quarter Angel with his bare hands.

Apparently, however, the feeling of needing to rend and tear Angel wasn’t about to disappear anytime soon, he thought ruefully as they came to a stop in the corner of Angel’s office, their visit perfect timed to observe a conversation between Angel and the dapperly-dressed Hamilton. The stunned face of Wesley just outside the door told the three of them that they’d just missed a hell of a confrontation, but the conversation they were monitoring shot upwards in importance with the first words spoken.

“The Senior Partners were very pleased with your choice of sacrifice, Angel. There have been rumblings that it was about time you came on board. It’s no secret they weren’t happy with you before now.”

“And you don’t seem to get that I don’t care whether they’re happy with me or not, Hamilton. Happy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be… ask the good people of Sunnydale what happens when I get happy, and I’m sure they’d agree. I’ve told you what I want—in with the Black Thorn. Make it happen.”

“Well, the sacrifice was certainly sufficient… and a stroke of brilliance, really. To take arguably the most innocent of all of your people and turn them over to an Old One… well, that was genius. However, the Partners have some concerns about Illyria’s continued existence and would like for you to begin making contingency…”

The brief tortured glances exchanged by Spike and Lorne conveyed a world’s worth of emotion. Angel had murdered Fred. Just as sure as if he’d drained her, he’d killed her. And now, apparently, plans were in some stage of development for getting rid of Illyria as well.

“I told you I Don’t Care what the Partners think. They wanted a sacrifice, I gave them one. And a damned good one. What I do from here on is my business, Hamilton, not the Partners’, and not yours. If they want to know, they can come here and ask me, but my plans do not run through you, do you understand me?”

“You would be wise not to take that tone with me, Angel. I will not pander to you. I’ve already told you once that I’m not a little girl…”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not still a sniveling bitch, though, does it, Ham? You work for them, I work for them. Notice the way that hierarchy works? At no point in it do I report to you. Only difference between us is that I don’t owe my life, my immortality, or my balls to them. So if the Partners want info from me, they come to ME. You are my liaison with them, not the other way around. Now, about the Black Thorn.”

“Single-minded, aren’t you, Angelus?” Hamilton sneered, a bit of his ineffable cool slipping at the diatribe he’d just endured. Angel stood to full height, meeting Hamilton nearly nose-to-nose, and the face-off that resulted made the air thrum with tension. Not surprisingly, Hamilton blinked first, pulling back and biting out an “I’ll take care of it” before strolling angrily out of the room, nearly removing the door from its hinges as he ripped it open to pass through.

In any other context, Spike might have found it amusing to watch his grandsire rip into the seemingly unshakeable prick and get a response… but after what he’d just heard, he was finding it hard to stand. He’d loved Fred more than a little; sweet little bird doing everything she could to help him even though she didn’t even know him, and fighting Angel every step of the way besides. What was it she’d said to Angel in the hospital that first day she got sick? “Handsome man save me from the monsters,” he whispered quietly in remembrance, devastated by her faith in the person who had surrendered her willingly to the forces they were supposed to fight. Hesitantly raising tear-blurred eyes to meet Lorne’s, he took in the tears slipping down the empath’s cheeks and gave him what he hoped was a comforting smile. *‘s hard to remember how to comfort in a moment like this.*

Lorne felt as though he’d been stripped to the very core of his being; he didn’t know how much could be left of him after this. The physical ache inside him was growing greater, gnawing at the edges of his already-frayed emotions with teeth of steel-sharpened truth. There had long been times when he had hated feeling so much, had hated the access that allowed him to see inside people and reach the dark that lurked beneath even the brightest of lights. But to see Angel… Angel, whom he’d read so many times over the years he had memorized the windings of the interior paths like familiar roads towards home… Angel, whom he believed he didn’t need to read anymore because the bonds of friendship should be strong enough to allow him the necessary glimpses inside… to see his Angel so cold, so calculating, and so downright heartless made him wish for the first time that he could shut himself down completely. Just close himself off from the world, from the visions and the gifts and the glimpses, and live in a world where artifice was blinding and sufficient. He had taken beatings for this vampire whom he had called friend, endured torments and faced the sort of terrors he had shied away from for years, only to come face to face with the one darkness he had thought he could save himself and the world from. It seemed as though Angelus had never been as far away as he had always hoped and believed.

Illyria was merely concerned for her own existence. She felt nothing for the soul that formerly inhabited this shell; had it not been for the sacrifice of that soul, she would still be entombed for the ages. The departure of that soul may have caused no small amount of emotion in the others, but to her it was as necessary an evil as ever had there been; she would expend no base feelings for the loss. This cage of flesh was not a home; it felt artificial and overly structured and insufficient to contain the majesty and fierceness of her power. However insufficient it may be, though, it was still her current sanctum, and was pitifully vulnerable to outside attack. Whatever this half-breed thought to unleash upon her could potentially murder her; that could not be permitted to happen. Without waiting for signals from the others, she moved towards them and shifted. She had seen enough.

This time, the darkness of the cavern in which they found themselves combined with the physical sensations of the shift to make it even more difficult to acclimate to their surroundings. Spike shifted without thought, bringing the demon to the fore to aid his vision in the fire-flickered darkness of their current location. The room was ringed with robed figures and empty save for the one less richly-robed figure slumped in the small circle of light in the cavern’s center. His gaze flickered to the side only long enough to ensure that both Illyria and Lorne had adjusted to the darkness, but the moment’s inattention was nearly long enough for him to miss the entrance of another figure, this one in rapid forward motion through the wall of flames.

Tensing as the figure came to rest in front of the slumped body at the center of the room, Spike needed only a moment to recognize not only the coat but the general bearing of the newcomer; only one person he knew managed to lumber and swagger simultaneously. “Angel,” he growled, watching his grandsire pick up the shape in front of him and shake the hood back from the familiar face. “Drogyn,” Spike whispered, watching the man beg for his life and then springing forward only to freeze, realizing he was helpless to stop Angel from sinking his fangs into the Keeper’s neck. He stood still, mutely horrified as Angel drained the man and dropped the empty husk to the floor. He sank back against the back wall of the cavern, watching the rest of the ritual, mind racing to catch up with what he had seen. Drogyn… had deserved better. The man had been a warrior, a hero, a guardian, and he had been beaten, abused and reduced to begging for his life? The romantic in him bemoaned the fall of the noble guardian; the demon in him screamed for blood at the disrespect shown the warrior.

Blinking against the bright lights that suddenly filled the room, he watched the shadows melt, watched hoods removed and robed figures move to mingle as Angel was congratulated upon his membership in the Circle of the Black Thorn. His sacrifice was again celebrated, the violence with which he’d rent Drogyn’s throat and passed his final test was praised. There was nothing about this that was good, nothing reassuring; hell, Spike had stopped looking for goodness in anything they were seeing four stops before. These people were the inner circle of hell itself, the most forsaken ring of Dante’s Inferno… and Angel belonged to them now. He watched as the dignitary from the party greeted Angel, mistaking Angel for Angelus and congratulating him for his “return to form;” Angel’s response sent ice through Spike’s veins. Lips curved into a cold smile bleaker than anything that had ever curved Angelus’ lips, Angel simply nodded and replied, “It’s still Angel, Sebassis. But you never really know, do you? Maybe the soul just makes us more… creative. More cagey. Maybe it’s always been in me.” Spike remembered Angelus, and he had felt until recently that he had a pretty good handle on Angel as well. But now, as he took in the darkness of his grandsire’s eyes, the passionless voice and the domineering gaze, Spike realized that, on some level, Angel really had been just like this all along—and whatever had held the worst of Angelus at bay inside of Angel was gone.

Illyria seemed to know that they were done here, or was simply bored with what appeared to be a cocktail party. Within seconds they were facing themselves, listening to Angel convince them as earnestly as they had ever seen him that he needed them to help him to bring down the Circle of the Black Thorn, appealing to the “helping the helpless” line that had been their motto since they’d come together. They watched him repudiate everything they had just seen him do so gleefully. God, he was good. It was giving Spike a sodding headache, and apparently Lorne wasn’t doing much better with it; he could see the demon pinching the bridge of his nose as if to ward off a headache, and he felt a stab of pity for him. As difficult as this was for Spike, he had known going into it the depths of evil that lived inside Angel. Spike had, after all, learned how to be a monster under Angel’s tutelage, and though it chafed his soul to admit it, he had been a damn fine monster.

But Lorne—Lorne had believed in the soul and in the power of that soul to buy redemption, and had believed that the man and the soul combined could overcome the demon. He had never understood the situation as well as he should have, had never realized that the demon was in nothing near harmony with the soul and was constantly scratching away at Angel’s resistance. He knew these things now. He should have discussed the soul with Angel, discussed Angelus with Angel… done anything other than ignore the elephant in the room as he had always done. But it was too late for that—for questions, for investigation, for discussion; seeing Angel now that the resistance was gone, when the demon was in full control even though the soul remained intact—that’s what was tormenting the empath. Angel had found a way to bring the demon and the soul into balance, but at what cost? How could any of them have known that the only balance the soul would find with the demon was a common ground of mayhem?

Watching Angel say it had all been an act—well, now that was a trip. Spike had been a damn fine actor when he’d had to be, and he’d known Angel to have that same gift; but when the chips were down, Angel just didn’t have it. He didn’t have what it took to convince so many disparate groups of people that he was what they needed. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to convince Buffy that he was Angel and not Angelus for longer than a day. And he’d been keeping this act up for two months? This acting, here in this little showstopping performance, was Angel’s forte; quick, dirty moments when he could be whoever you needed him to be before the inner self that he could never fully repress began to slip through. No, Spike was certain that everything they’d seen had been pure Angel, no artifice… but this little show could have its own category at the Oscars.

But at least now they knew what the bloody Circle did, Spike thought wryly, listening as Angel explained that Cordelia had passed on knowledge of the group in their last kiss. She’d set him on the path, all right… but Spike sincerely doubted that the cheerleader or the Powers had wanted Angel traipsing down this particular road, becoming one of the Senior Partners’ bringers of evil upon the earth. And the bastard was willing to take them all out… had them all signing on for a fight he knew damn well they couldn’t, wouldn’t win. Where he led, they followed, and he was leading them into certain death. Despite knowing what he knew of Angel’s motives, Spike couldn’t help but be proud as he watched everyone in the room agree to the fatalistic quest; no matter what their leader proved to be, these people truly were heroes—and for once he was willing to include himself in that tally.

“Lorne, if you’re ready,” he murmured with uncharacteristic tenderness, and the demon looked away from the sight before him and nodded, a sheen of tears filming his eyes. Illyria reached out for them, and in a moment they were gone.

And in his apartment? Well, this was a dawdle… why exactly were they meeting in his apartment? Spike watched, snorting in amusement as Angel proclaimed that one of them would betray him. Always had been a pompous git, and what was it with vampires and crucifixion references anyway? Good on future?Spike for calling Angel on it, too… would’ve been right disappointed in himself if he’d let the old git get away with something so ridiculous. So this was the last big pep talk before their final day on earth, then? This was the mission meeting. Spike watched as his Lorne followed Angel and his future counterpart off to the side, watching as the demon grew slowly more furious until the rage was as palpable a thing as Spike had ever been in the presence of.

Lorne listened as Angel asked his future self to kill Lindsey, and tried to remember that violence here would do no good. He didn’t think he’d ever felt fury so acute in all of his life, and he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it. How could Angel ask that of him? Lorne had been a steadfast ally, as stalwart as they come, but he had always drawn the line on killing—anyone or anything. He didn’t do it; his nature wouldn’t allow it; you simply couldn’t be open to all the pain in the world, all the best and worst that someone could experience, and then take life. The psychic blowback would be crippling—didn’t Angel see that? Or was that what he was hoping for? Did he need Lorne distracted so badly that he was willing to drive him insane? He wasn’t surprised when his future version accepted the request; when hadn’t Lorne done Angel’s bidding? He was a friend in need, and Lorne was nothing if not a steadfast friend; he knew even now that if his Angel—not this twisted, heartless creature in front of him, but the Angel he had thought he knew years ago—had asked this of him, he would have complied, risks to self be damned. And that was what made the betrayal of the request all the more grievous.

Angel and Lorne rejoined the others, and the distribution of assignments happened quickly, each of them given a task just an inch beyond what should be possible for them to accomplish, Spike realized with fury. Illyria and Spike might survive, although it wouldn’t be easy going for either; but to put Percy up against one of the most powerful warlocks in history? Or Charlie boy up against a pure-demon senator and her all-vampire staff? They were being handed off to certain death… for what? But once again he was proud of these people… proud of their bravery and spirit and sense of what was good and right, and he knew he’d feel the honor of their presence all the more acutely when they could finally return home.

He watched them file out to have their last perfect day; watched himself depart, leaving Angel alone in the apartment, and heard him mutter “Doesn’t matter if you’re the only one up for the Shanshu, William. After tonight, I’ll be in charge.” It was more than Spike had expected—what did he mean, Spike was the only one up for the Shanshu?—and it still chilled him, but he froze when he heard his grandsire humming under his breath as he walked to the door and closed it. His eyes shot to Lorne, who had slid down the wall to land in a crumpled heap of brightly colored silk on the floor as the sounds had begun. It hadn’t been much, but maybe…

Lorne looked up through eyes made even more red by the heartbreak and fury that lit them from within and said in a voice vibrating with emotion, “Illyria, anytime you’re ready we can go back home. My little Angel Dust there just told me everything we need to know.”

Chapter 11

Buffy, Wesley, and Gunn had relapsed into their comfortable but strained silence following her revelation that the discoveries Spike and the others were making were anything but good. The two men made a show of attempting to work on paperwork, then gave up any semblance of productivity in exchange for an extremely unfocused game of poker; no matter their attempts at distraction, however, by the end of the first thirty minutes the burden of the delay was obviously weighing heavily, etching itself into the tense lines of their faces and the rigidity of their posture.

For a good portion of their wait, the stillness was generally punctuated only by the sounds of papers or cards shuffling or by Buffy’s gasps as Spike’s emotions rolled through her, dizzying in their intensity. She wasn’t exactly comfortable with the way she became the center of attention every time some new wave of feeling came into play, but she couldn’t make herself remain silent. She felt his frustration, his annoyance, his scorn, his grief, his jealousy?, his confusion, but above all else his rage, and her attempts at sending comfort through the bond seemed to be successful only in mildly soothing the fury that ballasted every other emotion. She was beginning to feel exhausted from the attempts; she hadn’t exactly gotten a lot of rest the night before, and now she was faced with the full brunt of Spike’s emotions. The man felt everything so intensely, and she was floundering under the weight of it all; she was still new to this ‘open to all emotions’ business, and he was wearing her out.

She hadn’t expected that what they would find would be good; she had, in fact, been braced for Acathla-level badness, so she wasn’t terribly surprised when everything she got from Spike seemed to support her preconceived notion of what they were facing. Out of everything he was feeling, nothing was out of the realm of what she’d expected except for the jealousy. What the hell was he jealous of? And so jealous that it had made his mark tingle to the extent that she nearly had to excuse herself from the room? Those were answers he’d be ponying up as soon as he showed his face back in the training room… and she’d kissed him silly and forbidden him to ever leave her side again. So she wasn’t doing so well with the separation thing; she could admit it. She’d just gotten him back and he goes time-shifting; not exactly the way a girl wants to spend her sort-of honeymoon. Tonight was theirs, though. They’d have their briefing, they might even do dinner with the others… but then the rest of the night was just the two of them. She knew that they had a lot longer than a few nights… she’d meant what she said when she told him that where he went she went… but she was overwhelmed with the need to be near him now, to remind herself of everything she had nearly lost forever so she’d never take it for granted again.

Buffy had been subconsciously running her fingers over the bite marks on her throat for nearly as long as Spike, Illyria, and Lorne had been gone, and Wesley found it fascinating. He longed to ask her if it helped, if it provided comfort or allowed for a greater connection; he wanted to research a claim now that he had a chance, because it had always been a matter of interest to him and the available information had been scarce. But he and Buffy had never had that sort of a relationship; he had been an object of scorn, even though he’d tried his best to cast off his priggish Watcher skin and become a real, flesh-and-blood person for her and her friends. He realized now that it hadn’t been enough, that as much as he had believed he had set his childhood lessons upon their ear by attempting to help his Slayer heal her vampire paramour, he had really not done much; he had still bowed before the Council, still been cowed by their threats, and still attempted to insulate himself from their wrath, very nearly at the cost of Buffy’s life. He had, of course, failed, and the resultant dismissal from the Council had sent him down the road that showed him what true change, true development of character and purpose, really meant. It had been years since he had been a prig, but he was fairly certain that, to Buffy, he’d been somehow preserved in amber as a clueless twit. He should’ve known that if he could grow, so could she.

Buffy had felt Wesley’s eyes on her, and she ran through the subconscious list of ‘reasons people stare’ quickly in her mind; she was sure her nose was clean, her mascara may have run but she was fairly certain that she had used the waterproof, her clothes were all in place, and her hair wasn’t sticking up. *Then what?* she wondered, realizing after a moment that her hand was in constant contact with Spike’s mark. *Once a Watcher…* she thought to herself, finally recognizing the gleam of potential discovery in his gaze and smiling affectionately, remembering all the other times she’d seen that fire in Giles’ eyes. And at least Wesley looked engaged in something, like he was truly interested in part of the outside world; she knew enough from talking to Spike that Wesley and Fred had been an item and that she’d died right as everything was beginning. Years of losses had made her wise; Buffy knew the pain of fractured dreams and loved ones taken too soon all too well—had lived it over and over. It was a relief to see that he seemed to be moving slowly back into the world; she had committed mystical suicide after her mother’s death, and if not for Dawn may have done the same after Spike’s. It had taken months after his death to make her begin to care again in the smallest of ways, and even then she couldn’t bring herself to be as involved as she once had been; she had wanted the world to move on without her, to leave her behind, but last night had shown her why it hadn’t. Determined to stoke the flame of engagement as best she could, to keep him tethered at least a bit to the world in the hopes that he, too, could find a little peace, she caught Wesley’s eye and gave him a lopsided grin. Raising one eyebrow in question, she teased, “Go ahead and ask me, Wes. I’m pretty sure your brain explodes or turns all blue or something if you hold back like that.”

Wesley was stunned; he hadn’t imagined that she would willingly entertain any conversation pertaining to her claiming, much less instigate such a conversation herself. She had played every detail of her relationship with Angel so close to her vest, revealing information on a strictly need-to-know basis; of course, now he knew why. Everything about that relationship had been fraught with angst and melodrama, and it seemed unlikely that she’d ever been truly happy with him, though she had most certainly loved him. Angel’s strained relations with the friends and family that were so crucial to her, coupled with his characteristic aloofness, had doomed them in many ways. Her relationship with Spike, whatever its beginnings, was obviously now more open, more mature, especially given its now-eternal bond, and she obviously felt extraordinarily secure in their feelings for each other; though she was clearly worried, there was still an aura of calm around her, and he could hardly recall whether he’d ever seen her look so relaxed and at peace. Giles had been correct; Buffy was undoubtedly very happy.

He realized that he was simply staring at her now-bemused face, and shook his head slightly to free himself from his reverie. “Terribly sorry. I was simply thinking that you looked tremendously happy… if you’ll pardon the observation.”

“I am,” she answered, smiling brightly, and it was obvious that she was almost eager to discuss the matter with him.

He wondered about that for a moment before he realized what a truly momentous occasion the claiming represented; of course she was eager to talk about it. She was a 24 year old woman who had just bonded herself to the love of her life for eternity; eager was probably the least accurate word he could find to describe how she must be feeling. “Would you like to… talk about it, Buffy? I don’t mean to be intrusive, and you certainly don’t have to answer my questions. I simply believe it to be a fascinating subject, but the literature is far from comprehensive…”

“Oh, I know!! Do you know how hard it was to find a book that would even tell me what the ritual involved, like the amounts of blood and the words I needed to use? It’s all spread out over a dozen different books—there should so be a database of this info, or something,” she finished huffily, and for a moment she looked exactly like the teenaged girl whom he had first met.

“I doubt it comes up all that often,” he answered, fighting a smile, and she looked up and grinned back at him.

“I think you might be right on that one,” she laughed. “But still, it would’ve been nice. So what do you want to know? I’m a font of knowledge… for once. And how weird is that?” she asked, winking at him playfully. She may have just been getting to know him again, but she still hated seeing him so devastated, and the heaviness of the atmosphere in the room was getting to her. She needed to have some lighthearted moments while she battled Spike’s emotions, and it looked like it couldn’t hurt Wesley to have a few, either.

“Yes… well… how does it feel? You seem to want to maintain contact with the mark…”

“Oh… that’s a comfort thing. It makes me feel better… but to be fair, I’m not sure if that’s because of the claim or because it’s a reminder that he’s here and with me. The claim itself feels kinda tingly… in the good way,” she answered, stopping for a moment to blush herself when she noticed that Wesley seemed to be flushing a bit. “Sorry…um, not that kind of good… well, not necessarily… although it is fun and tingly that way, too… I mean, it has its uses… but that’s so not what I’m feeling right now… I mean, I do, but it’s not the main thing… and oh, just gag me or something till they get back, please?” she asked, having reached full blush as her explanatory ramble turned vaguely pornographic. Gunn’s snickers at least made her pull her hands off her face, and she decided that the sight of Gunn laughing and Wesley biting the insides of his cheeks to keep from doing the same was worth her own humiliation. “Yeah, yeah… yuck it up, boys. Babble Buffy’s in town.”

“You gotta admit, Blondie… it was pretty funny…” Gunn said between snickers, unable to stop himself from laughing now that the tension of the situation had been broken.

“It…really was,” Wesley added, allowing himself to laugh now that Gunn had given over and even Buffy was giggling.

“OK, so I suck at this font of info thing. Long story short… claimy bite equals big fun for people involved in said claim. It also means super-cool emotional communication. It’s still new, so I’m not sure how far it’ll go… but I can feel what he’s feeling, and he should be able to feel me, too, but he’s a little occupied right now… I mean, we played around with it a bit last night and I am so not going down this road again… anyway, we know it works both ways. I’ve been trying to calm him down and help as much as possible, but he’s really pissed, so how much I’m helping is anybody’s guess.”

“This is fascinating,” Wesley murmured, obviously running through a list of possible questions in his head as he tilted his head in an effort to look more closely at the mark. Buffy had just turned her head a bit to give him a clearer view when she felt a sudden surge of adoration jolt through the claim, timed perfectly with a deadpan British drawl.

“Leave you alone for a bit, Percy, and you’re already movin’ in on my girl?”

Buffy scrambled to her feet and flew across the room, landing with an audible thump against Spike as he wrapped his arms around her and picked her up off the ground.

“Miss me, Goldilocks?”

A kiss that would’ve knocked the wind from him was his only response, and he allowed himself a moment to just glory in her presence again, to forget everything he had seen and the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach and just surrender to the pure love pouring off of her. She pulled away for breath and smiled at him, tightening her arms around him in a quick hug before shimmying back down to the floor.

“It was bad, wasn’t it?” she asked quietly, and her eyes flickered from Illyria to Lorne before returning to rest on Spike.

“’Fraid so, luv. Think we oughta hold off ‘til the big group sing later on, but don’t think it’d be oversteppin’ to say it’s one of the worst things I’ve seen. If it’s all the same, though, let’s leave specifics ‘til later—they aren’t pretty, and I don’t think anybody’s gonna be up for recountin’ them more than once. ”

“Lorne?” Wesley asked, noticing the pallor that seemed to have descended over the demon’s normally luminous skin.

“Wesley, this is a level of bad we didn’t see coming. At least when it was Cordelia… it wasn’t really Cordelia. But this is Angel… really Angel, all the way. Soul and all. Nobody’s riding shotgun with him.”

Lorne’s use of his actual name chilled Wesley to the bone; he could have counted on one hand the times he remembered being referred to without a nickname to soften the blow. The grim look on Spike’s face; the stricken air that seemed to cling to Lorne; the quiet, if sad, acquiescence that colored Buffy’s features; and the fact that even Illyria seemed disquieted all spoke to the apocalyptic nature of the danger they were facing. That the danger was taking the shape of trusted friend, colleague, ex-lover, grandsire… that just made it all the more poignant, but it never crossed his mind to doubt that they would deal with the threat. These were not frightened schoolchildren or naïve colleagues—not any longer. Loss had made them hard, made them wise to the fact that evil in a friendly guise was still evil; Angel would now be facing a far different group than those he had betrayed and turned on in the past.

“So what are our plans?” Wesley asked, and if the air of calm purpose that surrounded him surprised anyone, no one let on.

“Reckon we oughta work out specifics once the whole gang’s together and we’ve got it all out in the open. But it might not hurt to start sharpenin’ some wood. ‘M thinkin’ a forest worth of redwoods for me, ‘n then whatever the rest of you lot want.”

There were nods of assent and then just silence for a moment as they stood together, mentally preparing themselves to continue their days pretending as though the rugs hadn’t been pulled out from under them.

Buffy, however, needed more than ‘I’ll tell you later.’ She looked up at Lorne, knowing that he knew the answer to the question burning inside her, and said simply, “Does he lose his soul?”

Lorne’s eyes widened a bit, and he looked at Spike as though seeking permission to answer. Spike wasn’t sure on the answer himself—he had his suspicions that the Angel they’d seen was as soulful as ever, but he couldn’t help wanting to know as well. He gave an almost unnoticeable nod, and Lorne answered, smiling a bit sadly.

“He’s Angel right now, and will be for a while; he wouldn’t lose the soul for a while. Not until we’re too long gone to do anything about it, ladyfinger. The rest of us, I mean. You… well, you’re going to get to see Angelus, but not quite the same Angelus you’ve seen before.”

“What does that mean?” she asked quietly, brow furrowed as she tried to decipher his meaning.

“It means that for everything we saw, the soul’s not running the show anymore, so the demon doesn’t mind it. Isn’t listening to it, but doesn’t care to get rid of it either. At least for now. But later, cream cake, after we’re gone…” he trailed off, nodding to indicate everyone but Buffy and causing her to grip Spike’s arm even more tightly.

“The soul goes walkies.” Spike’s question came out flatter than he’d intended, more a statement than a query, but a look at Lorne’s face told him he was right.

“Looks like you’ve gotten it, my little lamington. Now, I really think I need a seabreeze or ten before I continue on with this day. I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me… but trust me when I say you don’t need me until tonight.”

“Of course,” answered Wesley, deferring to the demon’s needs although he was nearly desperate to find out the details for himself. Respecting that those who had witnessed Angel’s actions during the shift might need time to synthesize what they’d seen, he said simply, “So the rest of us should return to our offices, then… finish out the day before we reconvene with Rupert?”

“That might be the best thing,” Buffy answered, glancing curiously at Spike out of the corner of her eye. It was so strange… as soon as they’d gotten the big ‘evil Angel’ reveal out of the way, all the jealousy she’d felt through the claim while he was gone came back full force, giving her this undeniable urge to prove herself to him and setting her insides on fire with need. She knew he was doing it to her on purpose… she just couldn’t figure out why.

“So then, we’ll all meet up in the carpark, yeah?” Spike asked, tugging Buffy towards the door. She looked back at the others as apologetically as she could manage given her excitement to get out of that room, too, and let Spike drag her down the hall.

“Where are we going?” she asked, a little startled by the sheer predatory gleam in his eyes as he glanced back at her.

“Peaches’ office,” he growled, never slowing his steps though she attempted to stop and succeeded only in having her arm wrenched forward for her troubles.

Skipping a bit to regain her footing, she whimpered, “You don’t have to be all shirty about it.”

“One of these days I’ll teach you how to properly use that word,” he laughed, coming within view of the office. “And don’t whine… ‘s not becoming.”

“Oh I’ll show you becoming!” she squeaked, offended, as he barreled past the obviously objecting Harmony and slammed the door to Angel’s office behind them. In the matter of an instant she found herself pinned to the door by the entire length of his body, the hand he had been using to guide her now used to pin her to the hard surface behind her with both hands above her head. He leaned forward and ducked his face into the curve of her neck, scenting her as he moved up along her face and down the other side until he reached his mark on her throat. “Spike?” she asked, the question a breathy moan that she didn’t even attempt to make sound more commanding; frankly, she didn’t care why the hell he’d become cave Spike just as long as he’d keep acting like this.

“Mine,” he growled, sucking roughly at his mark before pulling back to meet her gaze and allowing his eyes to flash amber. He looked so much like the predator he was by nature, the predator she sometimes almost forgot he was… and god it made her hot.

She nodded, eyes wide and glazed with lust, and assented, “Yours, Spike.”

He released his hold on her wrists, but only for an instant; lifting her up and over his shoulder, he stalked towards Angel’s desk and laid her out atop it, watching her hair fan out behind her head as she stared at him, confusion and desire warring on her face.

“What’s going on, Spike?” she asked as he hovered over her, and the look on his face took her back to their first few encounters, back when Dru had been the love of his life and her world had been all blood and peaches with Angel. He’d admitted to her under the most pleasurable sort of torture that he had been attracted to her immediately—that he couldn’t get her out of his head, and that was why she’d pissed him off so much. Once she looked back through eyes older than those of the teen she had been, she could recognize the look of feral lust, the equal desire to devour and ravish that had transformed his face as they fought. He was looking at her that way now, eyes shifting from blue to gold and back so rapidly that it seemed one blur of color, and she couldn’t have said which she wanted more; she decided she’d happily settle for both.

Her question received no answer other than the sensation of his hands sliding up her skirt, and she caught her breath as she felt his fingers tease her clit through her panties for just a moment before he ripped the tiny scrap of fabric off of her body. She arched her hips upward, forgetting completely where they were and that she should probably be arguing for a change of location, and whimpered as his hands left her skirt as quickly as they had slipped inside it, taking her panties with them. She heard the distinctive sound of metal rolling smoothly against metal and dimly realized that Spike had opened one of Angel’s desk drawers; she propped herself up just far enough to see him tuck the ripped lace panties under some paperwork before shoving the drawer closed again.

“Spike… what?” she asked, only to have her question cut off by the bruising pressure of his lips against hers as his tongue explored her mouth voraciously, taking her in a brutal kiss that left her on the verge of collapse.

“Smell of you should drive the bastard barmy, love,” he murmured, tugging her skirt up into a bunch around her hips before seating himself in Angel’s chair and pulling her roughly to the edge of the desk. She started to lean up again, the desire to see him overwhelming, but his guttural “Stay down, Buffy” held her rooted in place, trembling with anticipation. She didn’t have long to wait; she choked back a scream as he thrust two fingers inside her as his mouth descended on her clit.

Buffy scrabbled for purchase on the desk, her fingers crumpling paperwork and ripping files as she sought something solid to help her anchor herself. She finally settled for putting her arms over her head and holding onto the side of the desk, knuckles white as she thrashed against Spike’s talented mouth and fingers.

God, just the taste of her… he wanted to tear Angel into tiny pieces just for trying to keep him from the sweetness that was Buffy. He knew that he was being rougher with her than he had been in a long while, but he simply could not control himself. He needed to mark her, to reassert that he owned her, body and soul, that it was his claim that bound her. Holding her down with his free hand on her chest, he lashed his tongue against her clit as he continued to torment her with his fingers, curling them upwards to press against the sweet spot inside her. She tried again to raise her hips, and he merely growled and pressed harder against her chest in response. The message was clear; she was going nowhere until he was through with her.

Buffy had no idea what the hell was happening, but she knew that she never wanted it to stop. She was sure that being pinned by a master vampire was supposed to set off some sort of alarm bells, but she figured those had been silenced by the claim; the only thing she was in danger of at this point was death by orgasm, and she’d willingly chase that dragon if only he would… just… She shrieked as his teeth teased her clit before he closed his lips around it, nipping, licking, and sucking until she was sure she’d die if she couldn’t come soon. Just as she sobbed helplessly, drowning in lust and begging wordlessly for release, he slid another finger inside her and gave her clit one last hard suck, then followed it up with a nip that registered just on the pleasure side of pain and sent her shaking and gasping over the edge into release.

He heard the sound of wood splintering and raised his head, using his fingers to extend her orgasm while he watched her face. She was incredible, radiant and wild and flushed… and she had cracked Angel’s desk as she came. He was already harder than he had ever been, but that discovery caused a new wave of satisfaction to course through him, hardening him further; maybe it meant he was a shallow bastard, but he gloried in the fact that she had cracked the Poof’s heavy, solid desk because of the pleasure he had given her.

Buffy cried out at the loss of his touch when he abruptly pulled his fingers from her, but quieted down as she found herself suddenly facedown on the desk, balancing on only the balls of her feet on the floor and with Spike’s very erect cock pressing against her folds. She didn’t even remember being moved. She groaned his name as he thrust his hips forward, sliding his shaft between her wet lips in a tantalizing promise; grabbing the damaged end of the desk again, Buffy pushed back against him beseechingly and moaned happily when she felt his hand fist in her hair.

“Whose are you, Buffy?” he asked, his voice hoarse and quiet, choked by emotion and lust. “Tell me who you belong to.”

“I’m yours, Spike. Your mate. Your girl. Always your girl… please baby… show me again… make me yours again,” she cried as he continued to tease her, now with the head of his cock just inside her entrance. The pressure, the torment that came from him being so slightly inside her and denying her more was positively maddening, and she resigned herself to outright begging if that’s what it took. “Spike… please… love you… you have to… please.”

“Please what, Buffy?” he asked, sliding his free hand over her hip to tease faint circles around her clit as he eased just a fraction of an inch further inside her.

“Fuck me… please fuck me, Spike!” she groaned in response to the exquisite torment, trying in vain to push back against him. His grip on her hair helped him keep her in place, and she decided that she’d be as obedient as possible if it would ensure that these feelings kept shooting through her. God, this was primal… this was something they had never had… rough sex, yes, but never this… this completely primitive lust only just tempered by mutual adoration… and it left her breathless and wanting. Her scream echoed through the office as he sank fully inside her without warning, burying himself in one powerful stroke.

Spike was absolutely reveling both in the feeling of having her tight heat surrounding him and the utter bliss of hearing the sounds she was making as she rushed headlong into climax. He slammed into her roughly, each stroke more forceful than the last, and her rapidly escalating whimpers and cries were doing nothing to tame the demon that wanted to reclaim every inch of her all over again. His senses were on overdrive, and every possible element of their coupling seemed magnified: the sound of flesh hitting flesh, the soft pounding noise as he drove Buffy into the desk again and again, the squeak of her hands against the smooth surface as she tried to hang on, the silk of her hair in his hand, the luminous glow of her skin, the smell of her arousal and the feeling of her juices as he rubbed her clit, the absolutely sinful vision of his cock disappearing inside her body.

Dimly, Spike registered that her breathing had changed into a familiar pattern and he sped the motions of his fingers on her clit, smiling as her walls began to clench around him. Her hands slapped desperately against the desk, powered by the force of her pleasure, and every muscle in her body tensed as she strained against him in an effort to push back as she gasped and cried out her orgasm. He used his grip on her hair to leverage her upwards until she stood pressed against him and quickly removed his hand from her clit, banding her against him with his arm placed firmly her under her breasts. He tugged her head to the side until his mark was accessible, and he began to tease his tongue and blunt teeth over it, still slamming into her with bruising force.

“Say you’re mine, Buffy,” he rumbled against her ear, and the command was accompanied by the sound of his bones shifting as his demon came forth. Buffy’s knees trembled from the mere promise of his bite. She could hardly think through the haze of lust and want that was clouding her mind—and the combination of his fast deep thrusts and the pressure of the edge of the desk against her clit weren’t helping her to formulate any sort of coherent thought—but she remembered how much pleasure the penetration of his fangs could bring.

“I’m yours, Spike. Fuck, baby… please take me…”

Even had all the other noises gone unnoticed, the scream that ripped from her lungs as his fangs tore into her throat would surely have notified the entire building of what was happening, but neither one of them seemed to care. Each pull of her blood into his mouth made Spike harder, made his balls tighten further until he knew the end was imminent. He quickly retracted his fangs and ran his tongue over the wound before pushing her back down over the desk and slamming into her with a few more jerky thrusts, spending himself into her wildly contracting channel.

Buffy didn’t think the pleasure would ever end; she was certain that she’d spend the rest of her life convulsing in orgasm around Spike’s cock, pleading for his fangs in her throat. She felt him pulse inside her, felt his fluids coat her walls, and gave over to one last dizzying rush of pleasure as she heard him growl, “Mine!” “Yours!” she moaned hoarsely as the contractions of her orgasm finally began to slow, and her legs started to tremble from the strain of trying to keep herself upright.

Spike felt the quaking of her muscles as he laved his tongue over his marks; he was preparing to collapse into the chair, bringing her with him, when the door burst open and Wesley and Gunn rushed through, crossbows in hand. His first instinct was to protect Buffy’s dignity, and he tugged her skirt down as best he could, trying to conceal both Buffy and himself with the fabric.

“Oh…. Oh dear lord.”

Wesley was bright red and obviously mortified, and Gunn was suddenly finding the LA skyline outside of Angel’s office window to be of immense interest; both were trying desperately to look anywhere but at the obviously interrupted couple on Angel’s desk.

“Can I ask what the bloody hell you’re doin’ here—with soddin’ crossbows, yet?” Spike growled, torn between annoyance and amusement but supremely thankful that Buffy didn’t seem to be processing what was happening.

As Spike’s question hung unanswered, Buffy looked up lazily for a moment, flushed a bit and dropped her head back to the desk. Spike saw her back begin to shake and he thought at first that she was crying; soon, however, he heard the telltale snort of her uncontrollable laughter.

“Oh god,” she gasped between guffaws and gulps of air, pushing herself off of the desk until she was standing. Thankfully, she was mostly concealed—her shirt had somehow remained on, and her skirt draped enough to cover her to mid-thigh. “Guys, can you just, um, turn around?” she asked, bursting into fresh giggles as they complied like meek schoolboys. Spike pulled out of her and tugged his pants up, joining her in laughter as he fastened them before helping her to straighten her skirt.

“Ok, guys. We’re… well, decent…I think… now,” Buffy gasped, coming around to the front of the desk and sitting gingerly on the corner. She was more than a little bit sore, but she was damned if she’d acknowledge it right at this particular moment. Spike noticed, however, and smirked knowingly, arching his eyebrow and curling his tongue behind his teeth in a wicked look that disappeared in moments. Her eyes narrowed for an instant, and he knew he’d pay for that little gloat very soon.

“I’m so terribly sorry,” Wesley murmured, falling back on old habits of extreme propriety in the face of his mortal embarrassment.

“We heard the scream… thought maybe Angel…” Gunn added lamely, realizing now that he should’ve recognized the difference between screams of horror and screams of pleasure… he really needed to get out more.

“It’s ok… well, no it’s not… it’s horrifying,” Buffy answered, embarrassment finally catching up with her. “But at least you were trying to protect me… us…”

“’s not a problem, mate,” Spike added, cocky smirk firmly in place.

The obvious male pride shining in Spike’s eyes and the hubris of his statement seemed to break the ice, as Wesley rolled his eyes before chuckling quietly and Gunn started laughing.

“Dude, at least I just pissed in Angel’s chair. But you… man, that’s fifteen different kinds of evil,” he told Spike.

“You peed in Angel’s chair?” asked Buffy, nose wrinkled up in disgust. Spike had been sitting in that chair… she made a mental note that she and Spike would be buying him new jeans on the trip home.

“Lorne made me!” Gunn yelped defensively, and Buffy turned mystified eyes on Wesley and Spike.

“What?”

“’s a long story, luv. Shorten it up: Lorne got a little too tired and started a little inadvertent game of wish fulfillment; had Charlie boy staking his territory, me as a rah-rah girl for the fiesta set, Percy there drunk as a skunk, an’ Peaches shaggin’ the Senior Partners’ rep into the ground behind the couch. Was funny.”

“Oooookay,” Buffy breathed out, obviously still confused but willing to let it go. “Does anything normal ever happen here? Wait a minute—I thought the link to the badness was a man? You said it was a guy… Angel was shagging a man in his office?! Well, that’s… new,” she squeaked as she collapsed into hysterical giggles again for a moment. Getting herself under control, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, “Nevermind, don’t care. Let him shag Harmony for all I care, if he hasn’t already. Apparently there’s WAY more backstory here than I already know.” The four of them continued to look towards and away from each other, eyes darting awkwardly, and finally Buffy cracked under the pressure. “Well, thanks again for the save attempt, guys, but we’re all right… do you, um, need anything, or….”

“We’ll just be going,” answered Wesley, standing and moving towards the door. He wanted scotch.

“Yeah… we’ll be in our offices… you know, if you need us,” Gunn added, joining Wesley in his hasty exit.

“’s right nice of you, but I think we were gettin’ on fine,” Spike replied with a wicked grin and a wink, trying to let them know that there were no hard feelings. Buffy’s hissed, “Spike!” and slap to his chest were followed by an apologetic and embarrassed smile directed by her to the two men.

“Thanks, guys,” she added as they closed the door. She immediately collapsed against Spike’s chest in hysterical giggles. “That was just mortifying,” she gasped, and gave him another gentle slap to the back of the head when she noticed the complete lack of shame in his demeanor.

“What?” he asked defensively. “’s not like I’m goin’ to apologize for makin’ my woman scream, is it? Got nothin’ to be ashamed of… but you, you bloody banshee, gave us away to everyone in the buildin’. Little trollop,” he teased, bending down and kissing her breathless.

“Nuh-uh. No way. This is not fault o’ Buffy. This is ALL you… If you weren’t so damn hot…”

“So you admit it, then. You have it bad for my tight lil body,” he needled, and she grinned and nodded in response.

“I really do. Have you seen you naked? But, uh… you wanna tell me what all that was about, Spike? Not that I’m complaining, because… well, just not gonna happen. But it would be nice to know…”

“C’mere, kitten,” he sighed, leading her to the couch and sitting down. He was a bit surprised when she settled on his lap, but decided that he had no complaints with that arrangement. He fumbled for the words to explain the tidal wave of emotion coursing through him, trying to figure out how to tell her what he’d seen and why it had made him go mad with jealousy.

“Have you ever met a bloke named the Immortal, pet?” he asked, voice deceptively calm.

“Ewww. Creepy sleazy guy… made Willy look like Don Johnson?” she asked, face scrunched up into a fair approximation of her whiskey face.

Spike couldn’t help but laugh. “Think you mean Don Juan, luv… but yeah, that’d be him. So I take it you’ve seen him around once or twice?”

“He kept trying to hit on me… and I was worlds of not interested, let me tell you. He was sleazy… and a pig… but in the bad way… not like you. He just… wasn’t you,” she answered, watching him carefully and trying to figure out what the Immortal had to do with anything.

“So you would never have…”

“A universe of no. He never had a chance… no bleedin’ way,” she answered, the last bit in a horrible rendition of his accent. Her tone may have been teasing, but her honesty more than apparent in her eyes.

“In what we saw, pet… Angel an’ I were goin’ to Rome for somethin’ or other business-wise, an’ I saw him on the phone with the Immortal payin’ him off for keepin’ you busy while we were there… so you wouldn’t see me. Peaches an’ I have history with him; he’s shackled us up, put us in jail, shagged our women… he’s not to be trusted. But he can be dangerous, too, ‘sides just bein’ annoying… he’s got a helluva thrall, an’ it sounded like Peaches was givin’ him the go-ahead to use it on you an’ the Bit an’ Andrew if he had to in order to keep you away from me. Git said you’d mooned over me more’n enough an’ it wouldn’t do for you an’ I to see each other… he said you were his.”

The last word was barely a whisper, but Buffy heard him loud and clear. She smiled and gazed at him steadily, wanting him to see the truth in her eyes when she told him how she felt. “I’m not his, Spike. I haven’t been for years. Maybe… maybe if he’d been braver, stuck it out… loved me enough to find a way to anchor his soul. But that’s too many maybes, too many might have beens, to try to build a life on. I know better now, Spike… I know the difference between courtly love and real, life in the trenches kind of love.” At his raised eyebrow, she snarked playfully, “I did occasionally pay attention in English class, Spike. I know fancy phrases like courtly love and wilt and henceforth.”

“Now, listen to me. I have the man I want. The one who stuck with me even when I ordered him to go, the one who faced down a hellgod for my sister and was prepared to do it for my mother too, the one who sought a soul for me. The one who doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘cut and run.’ The one who’s seen the best and the worst of me and decided that I’m the one. I don’t know how I did it… but I guess somewhere along the way I must’ve earned you. I’m just glad I got the chance to collect my prize,” she finished, looking at him almost shyly through her eyelashes.

He leaned forward and kissed her tenderly. “You lost heaven, love. That’s enough to earn you a world of happiness and joy.”

She grinned at him, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Then take me back over to that desk, and we’ll call it an even exchange.”

Chapter 12

Frozen, shell-shocked faces, punctuated only by widened eyes, filled the large conference room of the Watcher’s Council building that currently housed the silent audience to Illyria, Spike, and Lorne’s tale. All included had listened in rapt attention as Spike and Lorne had told the tale, Illyria inserting only occasional asides; the waves of emotion that had crested throughout the room had been almost tangible, with rage, sadness, bitterness, confusion, and finally simple shock taking over each of them in turn. Motion had ceased after about thirty minutes of conversation, the stillness broken only by the wringing of hands or the clenching of fists, the only sounds in the room besides the voices of the storytellers being the occasional gasps and quiet mutterings. It seemed that everyone had attempted to come prepared, had made some effort to steel themselves psychologically for what was certain to be a devastating blow, but somehow what had been uncovered had been worse than even the darkest scenarios imagined. The faces of Angel’s former colleagues, for they surely couldn’t believe themselves colleagues any longer, were perhaps more anguished than those of the Scoobies, but the narration had clearly devastated each and every listener.

Giles had always, in his true heart of hearts, feared that something along these lines would happen. He had not always been as ignorant of events in Los Angeles as he had let on, and he had never really trusted the vampire. In fact, in the months that had apparently led up to Connor’s conception, he had been prepared to travel to LA to stake the bastard himself. He had heard of Darla’s resurrection and subsequent turning—such things weren’t easily hidden in supernatural circles—and upon Drusilla’s return to Sunnydale had queried a little more closely into the vampire’s dealings. He had learned that Angel had separated himself from his friends and his agency, giving over more and more to a darkness that seemed very much as though the soul had fallen into disuse; he had kept the information from his slayer and her friends because of the upheaval that had characterized those days in Sunnydale, but he himself had begun to make preparations. Only the escalation of the Glory threat had kept him from taking that final step, and he had to wonder now what effect such a preemptive strike would have had. Would the innocents saved in the years since Angel’s reunion with his colleagues have been acceptable losses to avoid all of this chaos now? He found that, once again, nothing involving Angel allowed for an easy answer—except, of course, for the situation with which they now found themselves confronted.

Wesley, for one, found that he didn’t feel nearly as shocked as he should be. The despair was there, the grief at the betrayal of a friend still stung, but those were feelings that he had already prepared for and accepted, in so many ways. Any feelings for himself, however, were far surpassed by the numbing horror of the realization of just how deeply Connor and Fred had been betrayed. The father had—despite everything, despite even the sacrifice that Wesley truly believed that Angel had attempted to make—destroyed the son. The vampire who had stood by her bedside and sworn his devotion and assistance, the vampire she had trusted to save her, the vampire who had given them all a rousing speech designed to inspire them to greater efforts of salvation; this was the being responsible for her death. But there had been times, flashes of instants, in which thoughts along this vein had already appeared. In his darker moments during his “leave of absence” after Fred’s death, when the memory of vengeance upon Gunn proved insufficient to quell the howling of rage and loss inside him, he had entertained the possibility of something much like the truth with which he was now faced. After all, Charles had merely signed the form that released the sarcophagus from Customs; someone with a substantially greater amount of power in both the supernatural and mortal realms would have been required to remove Illyria from her tomb and bring her as far as Customs in Los Angeles. Who better in a position of power that straddled both worlds than Angel, a legendary vampire, nominal head of a powerful clan and leader of the home office of the world’s largest and most influential supernatural law firm? Suspecting and knowing, however, were far different things, and the crippling grief for Fred returned; he found himself looking towards Illyria just for the comfort of the familiar profile, though he knew it to be a foolish comfort. Sometimes one simply took what one could.

Willow was horrified; there was simply no other word for it. She herself knew the pull of evil, knew what it felt to have power beyond your wildest imaginings and to wield it like a lethal blade, but she still found herself disappointed in Angel in ways she could hardly quantify. She had trusted him, even after he had violated the safety of her home and her school, after he had murdered Ms. Calendar—she had put aside her own concerns and supported Buffy in her decision to bring the vampire back into their lives. She had held Buffy while her best friend sobbed out the ache in her broken heart over her lost love and comforted her with the knowledge that Angel might have been gone but he was still fighting for good, was still noble and brave and may one day earn enough redemption that he and Buffy could reunite. She had taken the long, dismal bus trip to Los Angeles to break the news of Buffy’s death to him in person, even though she was buried under her own anguish, because she cared too much for his feelings to let him hear such news over the phone. She had put his soul back into his body not just once but twice, once well before she understood the power that coursed through her with the conjuration of the spell. It was this last fact that terrified her, that made her heart and mind race and forced her to wring her hands nearly raw with anxiety. So many things she had done had gone so wrong—what if her soul spells had been faulty? Apparently both times she had put it back, the demon was still somehow able to subvert the soul and push it out of dominance—could this be her fault? Could all of this nightmare be put down to a child playing with magicks beyond her control, or to a confident young witch enjoying the opportunity to exercise her powers again for the side of good? Had any of it ever been preventable, or was this just the way things were supposed to be?

Gunn wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel; he was fairly certain that once this all hit home he wouldn’t be able to feel at all. He had spent so much time blaming himself, believing that all of Fred’s fate lay squarely on his shoulders; that feeling wasn’t gone now—far from it—but it was somewhat tempered by the knowledge that Angel had been involved from the very beginning. Gunn hadn’t known what he was signing, but he had known that someone was going to die; there was no way out from under that guilt, and he shouldered the mantle of the role of executioner of the woman he had loved with a heavy heart. But Angel had known that it would be Fred, had planned for it to be Fred; the knowledge made him feel somehow better, and then guilty for feeling relieved by the sharing of responsibility. He was having a hard time remembering why he had stayed to work with Angel, why he had set his tragically-learned beliefs regarding vampires on their ear for the benefit of the one who claimed to be different. Why had he, Cordy, and Wes taken him back after the first time he had abandoned them? Sure, life and work had been harder without the muscle Angel had provided, and the lack of an immortal business partner caused some moments of mortal fear, but somehow they had done all right. What would have happened if he and Fred had stopped looking for Angel the summer that Connor had sent him to the bottom of the ocean? What if Wesley hadn’t found him, had instead left him there—would he have eventually wasted away to ash, or would he have found a way to resurface and seek revenge? Would any of this have happened if they hadn’t agreed to take over Evil, Inc.? Life on the streets had been hard, but simple in its way, and that knowledge led him to the one question to which he could find no answer. Why had he decided to exchange the hardscrabble simplicity he had known for a life in which no question ever had an answer?

Faith sat quietly in a corner, trying to absorb everything she had heard. God, she had just staggered out of the car, numb from the ridiculously long drive from Cleveland, only to be greeted by this. Angel had been the one to save her, to pull her back from the blackness that was consuming her with every breath. He was the one who took her on, unafraid, even when she terrified herself; he was the one who believed in her when everyone else had stopped even trying. In a life full of betrayal, of loss and devastation and an inability to trust, the first person who really climbed out on that limb with you had a special significance. She had thought that it had hurt to see him as Angelus a year before, to watch a pure demon prance around in the skin of the vampire who had carved his way into her reluctant heart, who had made her love him as the guardian she had never really had. The words Angelus had spouted to her, the venom in his tone when he told her that he was much more a part of Angel than the soul, that the blackness within was Angel’s true self… those had burned, had ached, had struck deep in the core of her own desire for atonement. She had been consumed with his words for the entirety of her trip to Sunnydale at Willow’s side; if Angel really believed those things, if the darkness was all they’d ever really have, then why was she even trying to fight the good fight? But the battle with the First, and then the year after that battle, during which she had been deemed a valued member of the group that had once written her off as a hopeless case—those things had taught her just how worthy this fight for which she had been destined truly was. The knowledge of and belief in her purpose just made the memory of Angelus that much more acute and painful; if she had staked him, if she had injected herself with a poison strong enough to kill him—she might have ended up dead, but others would have lived. She shook her head and rose to stand at the window, gazing down onto the street below. For so long she had been the disappointment, the one to whom all expectations came to die; to feel so let down, so utterly forsaken and deceived, was a new and wrenching experience. For the first time, she truly understood what she had done to Buffy, to Giles, to Wesley… it was an ugly mirror to look into.

Illyria stood, hands tracing the faint swirling patterns in the paint on the walls, attempting to create some semblance of order, of reason, out of the sickening depths of feeling echoing off of these walls. The room stank of humanity, of heart and faith; long ago, the wisest of the Old Ones had learned that such things were far more detrimental than beneficial. Vampires had been, in her time, the ooze that fed upon itself; the taint of humanity that infected them led them to ensnare and destroy each other in complicated bonds of fealty and affection that served as forces of both unity and division. They were easily diverted, and much more easily dominated or destroyed than purer demons such as herself. If vampires were lesser beings, then humans were most certainly below the muck and the mire, mewling creatures driven by petty concerns and fleshly desires, but with curious and troublesome souls that somewhat bound their actions. They were pitiful and less than worthy of her concern, of the expenditure of her energies. Why, then, did she feel the need, perhaps even the desire—though the word and its connotations sickened her—to help these in their quest? She cared little for any of them, supposing her bewildering affections for Wesley, Spike, Gunn, and even Lorne to be remnants of a shell somehow not completely purged clean. The half-breed Angel had proven himself to be a ruthlessly corrupt leader, and she was in turns intrigued and disturbed by the facility he showed for treachery. She had concerns for her own fate; limited as she was by this new shell, she was uncertain that a defeat of the half-breed would be possible should he launch a full-scale assault upon her. Although she hated the vestiges of humanity left behind in her new prison of flesh and bone, she hated more the idea of resting in the Deeper Well, lost to the ages and the world and wallowing in anonymity. She was a great warrior, a god of an age that presaged the written word; she deserved more than ignominy and decay. She would fight alongside these creatures for her own sake, for the newfound ‘life’ that she both loathed and relied upon. Turning away from the wall and focusing her intentions on the rich table in the corner, she ignored the strange sensation that her concern lay also with the fates of others, those who had featured in the life of her shell and now in her own fleshly tenure. Losing herself in the swirls of woodgrain, she wrestled with motives that were not entirely selfish for the first time in her long and storied existence.

Xander couldn’t stand the silence; he’d never done well with stillness or quiet. It was probably the reason he talked so much, made so many lame jokes to break up the tension. He’d simply learned at an early age that a lack of noise was never, ever good; screams and turmoil, objects flying around the room—these things meant that the fury behind them would exhaust itself quickly, like a sudden summer storm. But silence and stillness meant caged fury, rage that built slowly and simmered until it exploded in violence. Not every silence was about anger, Xander knew, but still—old habits died hard, especially those learned under fists and the stinging bite of leather. Except now he didn’t think that he had it in him to be the funny guy, the guy who broke the silence with jokes that fell flat, who prompted nervous giggles and looks both scolding and grudgingly appreciative. It didn’t seem appropriate somehow, not with everyone looking so stricken and devastated—it didn’t seem as though humor had any place here among the heartbreak and tangible despair. He felt betrayed, too, though it wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on; he had never liked Angel, had hated him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, but had still somehow always felt better knowing that the vampire was doing what he could on the side of right. To find out that that had become a sham—well, it stung. Desperate for a break from the anguish, he looked at Buffy seated next to Spike’s standing figure, gripping his hand as though she’d fall through to the other side of the world if he let her go, and marveled at how much they complemented each other, how even reeling as they were they somehow managed to exude an air of calm and quiet strength. He never would have predicted that one day he’d be thankful for the hope presented by a relationship between Spike and Buffy; he supposed he really had grown up in more ways than one. Maybe it was the fact that before him was a vampire with a soul who had fought for and earned it; who knew the stakes of the battles they waged, and fought with all he had; who had been doing it for years, even before the soul—he shook his head for an instant, wondering to himself when he’d become Spike’s hallelujah chorus. Apparently growing up had some unexpected side effects. A small smile shaped his lips, but disappeared quickly as he looked at the broken former Watcher seated next to him, and his heart clenched for the man staring at Illyria with pleading, desperate eyes. What could he say? Xander and Wesley had never been close, and history at this point seemed an insurmountable barrier; even so, he’d still felt this man’s grief, was still feeling it, and couldn’t in good conscience just leave him to his torments. He clapped a gentle but firm hand on the man’s shoulder in a silent show of support, a half-smile forming on his face when Wesley met his gaze and gave him the ghost of a tentative smile in return. Baby steps, thought Xander… one day at a time, and maybe we’ll both get there.

Lorne stood quietly, steeling himself for the blow that he was about to deal to a crowd already on the ropes. Gods, how he hated this; the worst part of owning Caritas had been sharing the dark fates and feeling the anguish and the pain that came as a result of his visions, but doing this to people that he cared for on a deeply personal level, because of a vampire that he had foolishly believed he had known so well… it was killing him. He was going to completely obliterate an entire room of people, kick them while they were down, and all because only he could truly know what was going on inside Angel’s head. He had never been clear on the entire soul issue, not with Angel and not even with himself; he of course knew that he was a demon, though he was fairly unsure as to whether or not he had a soul—but he was entirely certain that it simply didn’t matter. He had an internal compass by which to guide his actions, a sort of Hippocratic oath of the heart and the psyche that he adhered to tightly; a vow that required him to be honest with those who sought his insight and guidance, to tell them what he knew in all of its joyous or gory detail. For the first time he truly wished that he didn’t have to, that whatever soul or value system or moral compass he possessed would disappear or malfunction and leave him in peace from this task. Painful truths were always unpleasant, but this… what could possibly be said about what he had to do, the things he had to relate? If anyone could face what was coming, it was the group in front of him, of that much he was certain; it was the overwhelming sense of injustice, the feeling that they shouldn’t have to, that made him want to weep.

Dawn didn’t really feel anything other than the anger that she’d pretty much always felt towards Angel growing into burning rage. The memories may have been manufactured, but the feelings they evoked were both real and intense. She remembered him climbing in her sister’s bedroom window, giving her exaggerated shushing gestures and patronizing smiles that had her rolling her eyes as he told her what a good little sister she was to Buffy; she had been eleven, not four, and even if she had been a toddler that routine would’ve been old. It was hard to think kindly of a guy who snuck into your house after he went all crazy/evil, left creepy drawings of your sister on her pillow, and gutted all your childhood keepsake stuffed animals before decking your room in fluffy innards. And then when he came back just to crank up the angst and break your sister’s heart by leaving her… how many nights were you supposed to listen to someone you loved sob her heart out and still believe that the person who’d made her feel that way was a hero? Buffy had never really been able to be happy with him, not before Angelus because she didn’t want Joyce to know and not after because she knew that her happy could cause his happy, and his happies ended the world. It had just been so much drama. Well, the whole thing with Spike hadn’t been completely drama-free, but a lot of that—most of that—had been Buffy’s fault; all she’d had to do was own up to the fact that she and Spike were a couple and stand up to her friends for once, and life could’ve gone much more smoothly. It wasn’t that Dawn and Spike didn’t still have a conversation to have—they did—but even with that still looming, she could look at the vampire who’d been her big brother and father figure rolled into one and the sister who’d raised her through the most difficult years of her life and watch them glow. They were happy together, calm in the center of a raging storm. She wanted Angel off the face of the earth for trying to destroy that alone; the rest was tragic, but incidental.

Andrew was at a loss, once again at a crossroads between fantasy and real, messy adulthood that he didn’t want to navigate. He hadn’t really felt this way since Buffy had held him over the hellmouth’s seal, forcing him to grow up and to face the loss and the devastation he had wrought. That was the first time he’d truly grasped it, the difference between children’s play and cold reality, the world outside the videogame screen or the movie theatre where actions had lasting consequences. And now, here he was, still at Buffy’s side, and learning another part of that painful lifelong lesson. He realized in a rush that it's one thing to play, to pontificate about vampyres and the dangers they could pose, one thing to read their histories and to think you understood how dangerous they were. But to realize that you were going to have to face down a storied vampire, still evil despite his soul—that was hell. Andrew didn't think he'd ever been this frightened, not even on the hellmouth; there, too, it had been all of them against a common foe, but Andrew hadn't exactly taken on the Turok-Han and challenged their authority. He had taped the First, but he thought somehow that it understood that for the pitiful children's attempt that it was, an attempt to simply do something that had no lasting effect. But he had stared Angel in the face, delivered Buffy's message that they weren't on the same side anymore—how much had what he said that night affected the monster that Angel had apparently become? Somewhere between Angel and Angelus lay something worse that Warren, something maybe worse than the First. The First could smile and simper and lie, but it couldn't actually be someone you trusted, loved... Angel had been, for a lot of the people in this room. Could they really do this? He had somehow never really doubted these people, even when they were all that stood between he and Jonathan and Darth Rosenberg… but could they face this enemy now? And then he realized: Buffy had sent Angel to hell once, and had been prepared to kill Willow—and apparently Anya, he realized with a start, recalling something the ex-demon had once mentioned in passing—if she’d had to; Xander had faced down black Willow and brought her back from the edge, and Giles had faced her head on as well. All of the others had had to witness the First take the faces of their loved ones and had made it through sane. Even he had done it, he thought proudly. He really didn’t know Angel’s group all that well, except of course for Spike, but he had a feeling that they would show themselves much like the Scoobies. Of course they could do this—they could take on Angel; fantasy or reality, this was what heroes did.

Spike watched them all struggle with the news; there was, unfortunately, little he could do to help, to ease the ache. He himself was still struggling with the truth of what would have been their future, and he’d been there to witness all of it in bloody, horrifying Technicolor. He looked around and saw faces in varying stages of pain, reflection, acceptance, betrayal, confusion, and loss, and knew that his own must be a mirror of at least all of those emotions, if not a few more that he couldn’t quite quantify just yet. Of course, he also knew that there was more to be told, more that he himself didn’t yet know, and that whatever it was had kept Lorne locked in his office half-inside a vodka bottle for the remainder of the day. He watched the empath’s jaw tense and hands clench and unclench as he processed his own emotions, and knew that if the wave of feelings in the room were this palpable for him, they must have been overwhelming for Lorne, even without anyone singing or doing much more than breathing. His gaze drifted to Wesley, and to that man’s pained stare towards Illyria; he recognized that look all too well, had worn it often enough during the summer that Buffy was dead and he had to look at the Bot. God, that toy had never seemed so obscene until it was there when she wasn’t, so blatantly not her and yet still so comforting in its presence, and he had been torn between the desire to hold it tightly and weep bitter tears and the equal, fervent need to rip it asunder for daring to try to be her. He knew how the boy Watcher felt because he’d been there, and if he was any judge of character at all he knew that Wesley was blaming himself for Fred’s loss as much as Spike had blamed himself for Buffy’s. God, what a mess they all were. His eyes continued to flicker over faces rapidly, hesitant to land on others for fear of becoming overwhelmed again; the calculating fury that hardened Giles’ features, the nervous self-doubt that made Willow look more like the teenager in the fuzzy purple sweater than the sometimes over-confident witch he’d come to know, the mixture of relief and reproach on Gunn’s face, and the crushed reflection and recognition on Faith’s. He forced his thoughts and his eyes to stop wandering, forced them to narrow to only the pain in his hand where Buffy gripped it tightly, and he looked down into big, lost green eyes. What the hell was Angel thinking? He hadn’t done enough to this girl? Stolen her innocence, broken her heart, shattered her ability to trust, created deep stress fractures in her relationships with her friends and her mother, wounded her belief in herself to a point that she could hardly believe herself worthy of respect or love. He managed to barely quash the subvocal growl that threatened and instead bent and kissed her hand and her head before straightening to stand again. This was her time to process, to need support, to quest for answers in her head; he would be her stalwart for that. That’s what he did best.

Buffy knew that she might be hurting Spike, that she was squeezing tightly enough to crack bone, and still she couldn’t tear her hand away. He was real, he was her anchor here in this world, where one of her few certainties had been torn from her. It hurt to have the ridiculous self-imposed blinders ripped off of your eyes, especially when, upon reflection, you always should’ve known better. Angel wasn’t evil if he had a soul. That’s what a soul did. That was what Angel said, and Giles had agreed. How ironic that it would be the vampire who had proven that a soul wasn’t necessary for love who would be the one to comfort her when she was finally, brutally forced by another to face the cold fact that the presence of a soul wasn’t enough to save one from the dark. But then, she should’ve known that herself; she had returned from the grave, soul intact, and proceeded to tear Spike apart touch by touch, word by word, and a part of her had gloried in the metaphorical bloodshed. Hell, she’d watched Willow, soul intact, strip a man’s skin off of his body and then set him aflame. And of course there had been that kid in high school who tried to beat his girlfriend to death, Amy’s mom, Marcy the invisible girl, the guys who tried to build FrankenCordy, Andrew’s brother Tucker, Dr. Walsh, Andrew, Warren, Jonathan, the frat boys who tried to feed her to the creepy penis snake demon… the list went on and on. They had all had souls. And yet somehow she’d always been so stupid, had just kept buying into the idea that a soul makes all the difference, makes you better, more capable of love, more trustworthy… and she’d wasted so much time. She’d hurt Spike so much that she didn’t think she’d ever make it up to him and all because she couldn’t let it go, couldn’t make Angel’s ghost shut the hell up and let her live her life. Spike had been showing her, slowly, day after day that he’d changed, that he didn’t need the soul or, after a while, the chip to be a good man; all he’d needed was love for her. It broke her heart now… how worthy he’d been of her love, and how cruelly she had denied it. She closed her eyes silently and wished that it had been Angel she had pounded to near-putty in that alley, that it had been Angel whose home she had bombed and whose heart she’d destroyed, that it had been Angel who had never been sure of her feelings, that it had been Angel who’d used the damned amulet and she’d had the sense to destroy it once he’d burned. He was certainly not deserving of ever having known or experienced her love—or anyone’s, for that matter. That Angel would do this to anyone when he wasn’t Angelus shocked her to her core, although she knew that it shouldn’t. Her heart broke for his friends, for her friends, for herself, and she turned her face into Spike’s thigh and felt the tears come as the last of her naivete left her.

Xander twitched nervously, finding it impossible to keep still and silent any longer. He’d tried, he really had, but… it looked like it was time for him to do his thing. The more things changed… He started by shuffling his feet and fiddling with the edges of his eyepatch, both actions earning him annoyed, if understanding, looks from Willow, Buffy, Dawn, and Giles. Finally he couldn’t withstand the silence anymore and piped up, “Can I just say that at least I finally got proved right about one of the Dead Boys? Is it too late for the dance of the ‘I Told You So?’”

“Xander!” Willow chided, secretly relieved. Leave it to Xander to know just the wrong thing to say, and to say it so well. Buffy and Dawn’s nervous giggles joined hers, and she met her friends eyes and saw that they too understood now, as they always had on some level, his need to find humor in the face of horror.

Spike’s gravelly chuckle surprised them more than a little, and he looked down to meet Buffy’s widened eyes with a wink. “What? ‘s funny, for once. An’ he was right. Gotta give the boy some credit, luv—once in eight years isn’t great odds, but still…”

“Yeah, yeah, Bleached Wonder… don’t need your pity laughs,” grumbled Xander, but there was suspicious merriment in his visible eye and Buffy, Willow, and Dawn looked at each other, completely mystified. Even Giles and the others were exhibiting the early signs of shock.

“Don’ look so surprised, pet; hatred of Peaches is a strong unifyin’ factor.”

At that, giddy laughter took over the room; it wasn’t that the jokes were particularly funny, and they certainly weren’t appropriate, but somehow it was still okay. It demonstrated that they weren’t willing to lose themselves in this battle; they weren’t going to sink in on themselves and cease to be what they had become. That alone was a part of the war won, and cause enough for celebration, awkward though it may be.

Lorne watched quietly, having moved to the back wall next to the bar. He stood, glass in hand, and waited until the stillness in the room was well and truly broken, until uneasy mingling and the pouring of drinks had begun. He was amazed at these people; oh, the LA crew he knew well enough, and while he was still impressed by their skills, he was no longer surprised. He knew what they could do, had seen them face hell and worse over and over again, and he was a little in awe of them. But the others, Buffy and her friends… most of them weren’t much out of their teenage years, and yet they were so accomplished, so dedicated, and so unwaveringly confident that they could do this, just as they’d faced and defeated everything else. Every win had cost them something, and still they all pulled back together… there was something to be said for bonds like that. It was the thought of that bond—and the feeling that it was expanding to include he, Wesley, Gunn, and even Illyria—that gave Lorne peace as he prepared to unload the rest of his bad news on them. It was horrid, but they could face it, and they were all together now. He watched as they grouped off, sitting down again much less stiffly and in formations more conducive to conversation; gulping down the rest of his drink, he took a deep breath and walked back to the front of the room.

Spike spotted Lorne’s approach and knew that it was showtime for the empath—and thank God for that. The suspense was killing him. He knew he wasn’t going to like what he heard, was fairly certain that it made Acathla look like a gentle spring rain of evil. But they needed to know everything about what they were up against, and Lorne was the one who’d seen. He raised an eyebrow in question at the demon, and when he received a slight nod in reply he cleared his throat. “Right, then… ‘f we can all pull it together an’ get a little bit of quiet, I believe we’ve got a bit more news comin’ our way… that ‘bout the size of it, Piano Man?” he asked, nodding at Lorne.

“You’ve hit it right on the nose, cupcake,” Lorne responded, taking the standing position vacated by Spike as the latter took a seat by Buffy. “I don’t know how much you all know about what I do—what I am—so I’ll just give you the quick story and we can get on to what we all want to hear. I’m an anagogic demon…”

“An empath?” Giles asked, genuinely intrigued. Tara’s ability to ready auras had been quite useful, but her powers had been fairly limited. In time, they may have developed, but… He shook his head to clear it, and refocused on the brightly-clothed demon in front of him. To have an anagogic demon this closely involved… what a powerful ally an empath could prove to be.

“That would be it, crumpet. I can read destinies when people sing—actually, whenever there’s some sort of music from them—humming, whistling, sometimes drumming fingers, if the emotions are powerful enough... I’ve read Angel a few times since I’ve known him, and I’ve seen enough of the paths he was on and the ones he was supposed to be on to have a pretty good grasp of what the Powers want from their Champion. He ain’t holding up his end of the bargain anymore, not by a long shot—but that much you all have figured out. But it’s worse than just that… he’s not just ignoring the Powers. He’s actively betraying them.”

There were a few shocked gasps throughout the room, but he was oddly heartened by the fact that there weren’t more. It showed once more that they were all going into this with their eyes wide open and fully prepared. He took a deep breath, wishing heartily for another drink, before continuing. “We told you that Angel told us during his rousing fight speech that Cordelia had passed him the vision about the Black Thorn before she died. In that much of it, he was telling the truth—but she showed him much more than that; she wanted him to know that in order to really bring down the Senior Partners by joining the Black Thorn, he’d have to sign away his Shanshu. She didn’t want it to be a nasty surprise… she did love him, and she knew how much it meant to him… not surprising that she let it slip. I don’t think the Powers realized that that was one of the only things that kept him fighting, the other thing being you, there, my little eclair.” He paused for a moment, nodding at Buffy. “Well, Connor and Cordelia also, but now Connor is… gone, and Cordy’s dying took her out of the picture pretty soon after he found out he’d lose his reward. And he knows that you’re in love with Spike… even back in Sunnydale he knew, apparently, no matter what he might have said. So the problem that he’s facing now is…”

“Losing everything that kept him fighting,” Buffy answered, posture rigid until Spike’s arm tightened around her shoulders. She leaned into him slightly, curving herself against his silently supportive figure, and allowed the focus of her world to narrow to the comforting little patterns his index and middle fingers were tracing on her shoulder. Breathing deeply, bringing her gaze back up to that of the vividly-colored demon, she offered a weak smile before saying, “Surprise! Looks like Buffy brings out the bad again.”

Spike’s angry “Bollocks!” was surprisingly echoed by a similar, though more genteelly spoken, exclamation from Wesley.

“Nonsense, Buffy. I won’t have you thinking that. Angel has doubted the validity of the Shanshu for years now, more keenly than ever after he lost the battle for the Cup of Perpetual Torment to Spike.”

“Wait… Cup of What? You fought Angel—and beat him?” Buffy turned to her mate, and he was a little disconcerted and more than a little turned on by the feral quality her eyes held. “Was there blood? Please tell me there was blood—rivers and fountains of blood. Oooh—and pain?! There was pain, right?” she asked, her eyes still deathly serious though her tone held a hint of teasing.

“Might’ve been,” he remarked, smirk in place and eyebrow raised questioningly. He didn’t know where she was going with this… but god, was it hot for right now. The feeling was staggeringly inappropriate given the circumstances, he knew that, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never seen her so bloodthirsty.

“Good. Tell me later?”

“’f course.”

“Right,” she finished, turning back to Wesley. “So, Angel doesn’t have me, let Connor die, lost Cordy, and will have to give up the Shanshu, so he’s decided it’s not worth it… is that it?”

“He’s been under the impression for years that the Shanshu was unreachable, or that he was undeserving; at the same time he’s always clung to it as a promise of the gold at the end of the rainbow, as it were. Faced with its absolute revocation, however, it would be quite likely that he would give up any pretensions to continuing towards a redemption he now sees as useless, especially given the total loss of any sort of external incentive as well.”

“Our little librarian is right, ladies and gents. He sees it as useless, and while he can ignore it, what he’s doing is hurting his soul—pain he feels is pointless—so he’s going to be making a deal.”

“Who would deal with that nit?” Spike ground out, wanting whatever it was to just be out in the open.

“The Senior Partners.” Though the answer came from Wesley, all eyes remained focused on Lorne, waiting to hear the details.

“That would be it. None of us would survive that final battle, the one after all the Black Thorns except Angel are gone. We’d all go down heroes, and I’d take a bit longer to die than the rest of you, but the madness would be enough to keep me out of Angel’s way.” Seeing Wesley’s concerned expression, Lorne smiled self-deprecatingly before answering him as best he could. “I told you he asks me to kill Lindsey, and that I go through with it. I’m an empath, Wesley—there’s no way I could keep my sanity, not with the psychic repercussions of cold-blooded murder. I’d be in the world a bit longer, but not really here.”

“So with all of us out of the way, then…?” Spike prodded, leg starting to bounce as the nervous energy began to take him over.

“Once all of us are gone, the Senior Partners will take his soul and make it impossible for it to be returned. You see, as long as there’s a soul, there’s still the off-chance that it could regain dominance, and that’s a chance Angel can’t afford. So that’s the deal—completely soulless with no worries of regaining a conscience, which will be important for what comes next.”

Xander didn’t like the way that Liberace there was looking at Buffy; the mournful, frightened look sent chills through him. “So once BroodBoy gets himself all soul-Tefloned, then what? He comes after Buffy?”

“He comes after all of you,” Lorne answered with a sigh, hating this last bit and hating Angel for putting these people, and Lorne himself, through this ordeal. “He’ll go after Lemondrop there first,” he nodded briefly at Buffy, “since she’ll be vulnerable when he’s carrying news of Spike’s demise and his own undying love for her. She’s also the power center for the Slayer line. I’m sorry about this, but… you won’t die pretty,” he added, looking apologetically at Buffy before turning to Giles. “The rest of the Watcher’s Council will be next—you and all of Buffy’s friends will be the last ones standing, but not for long. And then, with all of the extra beasts piped in by the Senior Partners for the alley and the Watcher’s Council destroyed, the baby slayers aren’t going to last long, and they’re the last of the line. Once they’re gone…”

“The Senior Partners have the world in their control,” Giles finished, whipping off his glasses and seating himself stiffly on one of the library stools, staring blindly forward.

“The Senior Partners aren’t part of this dimension—they can’t come here, so it doesn’t do them any good to have a world they can’t enter in their control, unless…” answered Lorne, pressing his lips tightly together. “This little maneuver leaves Angel as the only force for good or evil operating here… he has it all, and as long as he agrees to keep on the evil side of the equation, he keeps it.”

Of all the sounds that might have been expected in the room, Spike’s angry, barking laughter was the least predictable. “He’s finally decided opening big rocks isn’t the way to go, then. So he gets the world—dog racing, Manchester footie, an’ all—on his terms. Happy Meals on Legs all his for the taking, no chance for a bloody soul or any kind of consequence, an’ he MURDERS MY GIRL an’ all the rest of us for it?! Bloody fucking HELL!” he raged, slamming his fist into the wall. Buffy didn’t even wince, just reached up and brushed the plaster from her hair as she stood and wrapped her hand around his fist.

“It’s not going to happen,” she murmured quietly, looking up with eyes that positively glowed with strength and fire and fury. She turned to the others and repeated her statement, more forcefully this time. She was surprised how easily General Buffy came back out to play. “This is NOT going to happen. None of it. So from now on, we’re in battle plan mode. Willow, get on the tracking spell—I want to know how much of what we know he’s actually set in motion, and how much he’s got left to do. I want to know how many of these balls he’s got in the air right now. Everybody else, research. How we stop him, and the Senior Partners, and anyone else involved in this bullshit. Illyria, what you know about rulers and corruption could come in handy—can you talk to Giles? Any ideas—ANY ideas—are hereby deemed acceptable. None of you are dying, and I’ve died enough for one decade. Got me?”

If anyone was surprised by the ease with which Buffy slipped from young woman to commander, they didn’t show it; rather, they simply paired off. Wesley followed Willow to assist with her tracking spell, Giles moved to the desk he’d managed to cover with his personal research to tie up loose ends before he approached Illyria for assistance, and the others converged on bookshelves and the stacks of mystically-linked volumes that Wesley had brought from Wolfram & Hart. Only Lorne, Buffy, and Spike hung on the fringes, the couple engaged in a silent but obviously emotional staring contest and the demon clearly hesitant to interrupt. Finally, however, Lorne’s own desire to fully clear the air won out and he approached the couple, offering another apologetic smile when their intense gazes turned to him.

“’s not your fault, mate,” Spike told him, answering the apology before it could be made. There was no need for Lorne to take responsibility for this—God knew there was an ample enough set of shoulders for all of this to rest on.

“And I appreciate that, Snowcap, really I do… it’s just that… well, there’s something else.”

“How could there be any-soddin’-thing else? After all that…”

“Spike,” Buffy interrupted, sliding her hand up to his bicep and curling her fingers around the taut muscles. He relaxed, almost imperceptibly, but enough for her to be certain that his fist wouldn’t careen into another wall. She turned to Lorne and asked quietly, “Is it worse than what we know?”

“It’s nothing to do with this whole mess, sweetpea. This is something that happened a few years ago—at least, I saw it a few years ago—but you never knew about it, and you deserve to.”

“What?” Buffy asked, obviously both confused and frightened, and Spike again became her comforter, hand sliding around her waist as a silent reminder that she wasn’t alone.

“Angel was… well, human… for a day. There was a fight, and demon blood… The two of you had one day together, with both of you human, before there was another fight. He couldn’t protect you, and so he asked the Oracles to take back the day. You wouldn’t remember, but he would.”

Spike had sensed the weakness in Buffy’s knees before Lorne was half-finished, and he braced her fall as he steered her gently into a chair. She looked up at him with wide, grateful eyes before looking at Lorne. “I had this dream… for a while. After… after Thanksgiving,” she said, meeting Spike’s gaze to indicate exactly the Thanksgiving she meant. He gave her a slight nod, remembering the broody one’s stalker games and abrupt departure, and also how funny he had thought the whole situation while he was lashed to a chair, half out of his mind with hunger. “I came to LA to ask him why he’d hidden from me, and we fought and I went back home—which is what happened, or at least what I remember… but in my dream, he was human and we were together and it was so good, and then… there was nothing else. I was just walking away and nothing had changed… he was a vamp and I was still me and we still couldn’t be together.”

“I’m guessing the Powers didn’t exactly agree with what he’d done, chiclet, and that’s why you had the dream.”

“Oh. Thank you…for telling me,” Buffy replied simply, quietly, and turned to look at Spike. It was obvious he didn’t know what to say, and so she just rested her head against his hip and sighed when his hand came up to her hair, stroking it gently. Lorne detached himself with a small sympathetic smile to Spike and headed for the bookshelves, wanting to give the two a moment together.

“It wasn’t good like this, you know,” Buffy murmured, just loud enough for only him to hear.

Spike looked down and met her gaze. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was a fairy tale, Spike… a happily never after. It never would have worked, even if he’d stayed human. Because he wants to protect me, to shield me, to keep me as the fragile little girl he thinks I am. That’s not who I am anymore—I don’t even know if it’s really who I was—and I doubt I would’ve lived to see Glory if we’d stayed in that pattern. I had to make all those decisions… they were mine, but they wouldn’t have been with him there. That’s not you, and that’s not us. This—us—is the happily ever after. You see me as the woman I am, the fighter, the girl—all of it. That’s what I need… recognition, respect, and the love that comes from both of those things. That’s how I love you, Spike… and that’s how you love me. That’s why we work.”

Spike didn’t know what to say, so he simply lifted her up to him and wrapped her in his arms. “’Til the end of the world, kitten,” he whispered into her hair, pressing a kiss against the top of her head.

“Spike, can we get out of here?” she mumbled against his chest.

“If you want,” he answered, looking down and grinning at the bloodlust in her eyes.

“Good. I need to go kill something.”

“After you, luv.”

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

Angel trudged through the dimly lit lobby of Wolfram & Hart at close to midnight, exhausted from the last week of playing ‘run and catch’ with a few select members of the Black Thorn. It had taken so much work to put the week together, but slowly the rewards seemed to be coming together. Sebassis was still distrustful, and Angel himself hated Vail for the whole Connor fiasco, but he thought he’d been able to cover reasonably well. A certain amount of anger towards the man who’d arranged the murder of your son was apparently forgivable, or at the very least not something any of the Thorn members he’d just met were willing to hold against him. At least Izzy had seemed receptive to his overture—receptive enough to set up the covert little get-togethers and to keep Hamilton occupied elsewhere, at least; it seemed that racquetball and drinks were good for more than just getting office gossip and all the dirty details of under-the-table dealings out in the open. And having Izzy on his side should work out much better than having Hamilton as a support, though he supposed he’d still have to play that little game through just to keep the idiot from feeling snubbed; Izzy was closer to the Senior Partners and was better positioned to propose him to the Black Thorn, was a member of the Circle himself though he wouldn’t discuss specifics. All of this was good, because Angel knew that nothing was going to happen in terms of the Partners intervening with the Black Thorn on his behalf as long as he relied upon Hamilton. He knew the bastard could have gotten him inducted into the Circle by now, or at the very least could have gone through the Partners to get Angel talking to who he needed to see—and he knew it just as clearly as he knew that Hamilton hadn’t done anything for him because he didn’t like him, didn’t think him worthy. So Angel had gone above his head, and would see it severed soon if all went well. Honestly. The nerve of that prick, thinking that Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, wasn’t evil enough for that little demon cabal.

That was the problem with demons, he’d come to realize in his two centuries stalking the earth; immortality gave them attitude, made them think they were somehow superior. He laughed bitterly; they were all damned, even him. He’d always thought the soul would save him, that the curse had somehow backfired on those thrice-damned gypsies and would exalt him rather than leave him a broken shell, but Cordy had shown him the truth. He’d have to sign away the Shanshu. His Cordy was dead. He’d watched his own son die, too overwhelmed by his own cowardice to make the right decision when he’d been caught between a vengeful mage and the betrayal he’d engineered. And his Buffy… well, his Buffy was in love with Spike. God, it was sickening. He had lost, or would lose, everything he had fought for, and for what? A noble battle he couldn’t win? He scoffed as he slammed his hand against his office door, forcing it open. The fucking Powers had gone too far this time; he wasn’t signing away his Shanshu just so he could turn to dust in an unwinnable battle. One brief, shining moment his ass. He was going to have years, centuries of carnage ahead of him… all he had to do was bide his time with the Circle.

He came to a stop as he shook himself from his mental wanderings enough to notice the utter disrepair of his desk. Everything atop it had been wrecked—papers crushed and wrinkled, whole files ripped apart, the finish marred with deep scratches, and the outside edge crushed? How the hell had that happened? He walked closer and stooped to inspect the damage—two splintered, raw dents about four inches wide each, approximately hip-width apart from each other—what in the world possessed someone to come in and desecrate his office?

He rounded his desk to phone both security and maintenance when he caught a scent that tugged on the edges of his memory… something about it seemed so familiar, but then again it seemed muddled somehow, mixed with the scent of another and of something else… He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing his senses.

Sex.

Someone had had sex on his desk.

Well, that would get them fired, if not killed. When he found out who it was, he’d…

And then the scent memory clicked, and he knew exactly who had been here. Buffy. And Spike. But her scent was stronger, almost intoxicatingly so, almost as though a part of her was still here…

He grabbed the edge of the desk and tipped it in his rage, sending the heavy wood crashing to the floor. He grabbed the phone, smashing it against the wall before moving to the drawers, yanking them out one by one. Something of Buffy was here, he knew it, could almost taste it…

The tiny scrap of lace and satin that had landed on his shoe drew his vision like a homing beacon, and he just stared for long moments, brain scrambling to process what he was seeing. Finally stooping to pick up the fabric, he brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply before growling and ripping the material to shreds. His bastard grandchilde’s scent was all over her panties, and must’ve been all over her. They had fucked on his desk. He felt himself shake with rage as he stood to leave, stomping towards the elevators. He needed to be out on the streets. Something—or maybe even someone—would die painfully this night.

~Fin~