Torches & Old Flames

By Miranda

Part 1

The most annoying thing was the idiotic way he blew his cover.

For two years, ever since the day he landed naked and dazed on a Wolfram and Hart conference table, putting a swift end to that particular budget meeting, Spike had taken the concept of ‘low profile’ and made it his own.

Angel had been decent about it all. At the new and redeemed law firm, what the brooding one said went, so when he installed Spike in a small private office, designated him as a consultant, paid him an adequate salary, and declared his mind, body, and soul off limits to biologists, psychiatrists, sorcerers, and Lilah, his orders were followed.

Spike suspected that Angel’s happy compliance with the request to keep Buffy ignorant of his return was motivated by something other than altruism or sentimentality, but he didn’t care. He needed space and time to lick his wounds, to deal with being human or whatever he was these days - Wesley kept muttering something about ‘shanshu’ which made Angel look pouty – to try to remember where he’d come from and figure out why he’d been sent back. He needed to be quiet as he had once before, and despite Angel’s many and varied faults, he understood that need like few others.

However, he wasn’t providing charity. Spike did research and went on missions, just never anything that had the slightest possibility of getting his picture in the paper or his name and description circulated.

Not that his description would mean much anymore. He hadn’t bleached his hair since his return, and it was now a dark brown color he hadn’t seen in over a century. To his extreme disgust, it was also curly. At least, he didn’t need glasses.

All together, Spike was…satisfied. Not happy, certainly, but content. There was something to be said for no nightmares or constant agony in his heart. He worked, he read, he watched telly, he sparred with Angel, refusing to remember and amused voice that had suggested locking them in a room to rassle it out. In fact, he refused to think about the past in any way.

The day his peaceful existence went balls up, he was sitting at Angel’s desk, more because Angel found it annoying than for any real desire to usurp authority, waiting for the other to return to start their meeting. Spike was absorbed in the report on a demon infestation he was supposed to help mop up…bloody hell, can’t these things ever set up housekeeping somewhere other than a sewer…when the phone rang.

Since the call hadn’t been announced by the receptionist, he absently picked up the receiver with the greeting he used on his own interoffice calls. “Angel, Wolfram, and Hart, we help the wankers.”

Dead silence. Spike’s brain snapped to attention, and pointed out, somewhat too late, that he was on Angel’s private line, the one that didn’t go through the switchboard.

“Who is this?”

The voice was small, quavering, and the last thing it had said to him was “I love you”. Spike’s eyes clamped shut, his hand gripping the receiver tightly enough to leave indentations in the plastic.

The next question was no longer quavering but another tone he was familiar with…fury.

“WHO IS THIS?”

He slammed the phone down, kicked back from the desk, and headed for the door, crashing into Angel just as the phone began to ring again. Spike was sure that he wasn’t imagining a new, insistent echo to its tone. “What?” Angel asked.

“Buffy,” Spike managed, pointing backwards.

Dark eyes flicked from him to the phone. “You picked up?”

He nodded numbly.

“Great.”

They both stared at the phone and drew identical sighs of relief when it finally fell silent. Then, a furious buzzing sounded from Angel’s pocket.

“I hate these things,” Angel growled, yanking out his cell. “Angel, Wolfram, and…Buffy! What a surprise.” Without looking, he hooked a hand into Spike’s collar, preventing him from slipping out the door. “Is everything all right?” he asked concernedly while still glaring at the former vampire.

“Who answered my office phone?” he went on in a friendly voice. “I don’t know, probably one of my interns. I was out, and I’m just getting ready to go into a meeting. He must not have realized you called on the private line. What were you calling abo…British? Yeah, one of them’s British. Kind of strange but does ok work.” An edge picked up in his voice. “Did he say something to offend you? No? Because you sound kind of upset.”

Buffy must have backed down, Spike realized, shaking with relief as Angel’s half of the conversation turned to other things. A, W, &H assisted the Slayers with legal matters, such as when Ruthann was arrested for almost killing her father. She’d been Called while enduring one of his regular drunken beatings and had used her new-found strength to express her displeasure. Her lawyer had reduced a jury full of men who thought women should stay in their place to sobs, and bailiffs had to protect the father from being attacked by his former drinking buddies.

Angel finally released Spike and fumbled with the phone until he managed to click it off.

“That was closer than I’d like to get to Buffy finding out your little secret,” he said dryly. “Especially since she’d kill both of us instead of just you.”

Apologizing was against his nature. “Yeah, well, whatever. Try showing up on time for once. She buy it?”

“Sure,” Angel shrugged. “No problem.” He circled his desk and sat down, waving Spike to the other chair. “She bought it. Absolutely.”

“Right then,” Spike agreed and spread the report on the desk. “So there’s no worries.”

“Nope. Not a worry in the world.”

They looked at each other with equally worried expressions.

“Look, you’re sure she bought it, right?”

Angel paused a moment, then gave a decisive nod. “She bought it. There’s no question. Now, about those demons.”

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He’s lying.

It was the only thought her brain could handle. Why Angel was lying and what he was lying about were too big for her to go into just then. Knowing he was lying was enough to rock her world off its axis.

“Buffy?”

She came back to herself enough to focus on Andrew’s worried face.

“What?”

He nodded at her hand. “The phone’s beeping at you. You need to hang up.”

Buffy stared blankly at the receiver she was clutching until she remembered what she was supposed to do with it. Or try to do with it. After three attempts, Andrew took it away from her and hung it up.

“What’s wrong? Did you get bad news?”

Had she? Was hearing the voice of a man she’d thought dead for more than two years bad news?

As the realization of exactly what had happened forced its way to the front of her consciousness, Buffy started to tremble, and Andrew gulped and jigged from side to side in a way he hadn’t for a while.

“Ok...just stay there and I’ll get, um, Xander. Yeah, Xander, he’d be the one to get, and I’ll be…”

She caught his arm in a grip that made him squeak before she eased back. “I’m ok,” Buffy said as shock loosened.

He lied. I know that voice. It was the voice that said I didn’t love him and then sent me away..

The need to cry or scream or hit something really hard was building up, but eight years of practice in suppressing her feelings let Buffy get herself under control. “I have to check on something,” she said carefully. “Willow’s working on meditation with the kids, right?

Andrew nodded soundlessly.

“Ok. Thanks.”

Buffy ran down the hall, past the three bedrooms that housed Dawn and the youngest Slayers, and closed the door of her back bedroom with a gasp of relief. The rambling farmhouse had been an unused vacation property of Kennedy’s family and contained the original spool bed, dresser, and desk, all antiques according to Giles. The dark cherry wood was restful against the white walls and pale blue curtains, but the sense of peace the room usually gave her was nowhere to be found.

She dropped to her knees and reached past her few pieces of underwear to the back of the bottom drawer to find the one thing she’d brought out of Sunnydale besides the clothes on her back. As her fingers closed around the cool metal, she drew a deep breath.

He didn’t wake as she eased from the cot, so Buffy felt free to watch him for a moment. Blond hair, slightly messy, fell across his forehead. Dark lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones. Long fingers curled at rest against the place where she’d lain a moment ago.

Memory of his arm across her waist made her shake, especially when added to the memory of their lovemaking the night before. Slow, gentle, the anger and desperation gone. It was good to know that he would be at her back today, guarding it as he always had these last few years.

But it wasn’t enough. As she crossed to the stairs, her eyes fell on his duster, and for reasons she couldn’t articulate, Buffy searched the pockets until she found Spike’s lighter which she then slid into her own jeans. She would give it back after the fight, she resolved as an opening to the talk she intended to have with him, a talk that had been too long in coming.

It had been even longer now. Buffy sat back on her heels, running her thumb over the lighter, her mind filled with images and feelings she couldn’t sort out. Joy, worry, anger, the last rising fast. How could they have kept this from her? How DARED they?

No, make sure first. Then figure out what to do.

She rose decisively and went in search of Willow.

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They sat on either side of the LA map and stared at the pinpoint of light that danced above the intersection where the firm of Angel, Wolfram, and Hart was located.

“Well,” Willow said carefully. “Looks like he’s alive, all right.”

“Looks like.” Buffy stared at it dumbly, not noticing Willow’s eyes slide past her to Xander who gave a tiny shrug. “Looks like somebody’s trying to hide it too, what with the magic block and everything. You sure they wouldn’t have felt you go through it?”

“Pretty sure,” Willow said. She brightened. “But I could be wrong…about all of it, you know? Maybe the spell didn’t work or it isn’t Spike. These things don’t always go off the way they should.”

Buffy looked at her friend. “How long since you’ve had a spell mis-fire?”

“Oh, um, a couple…three years now. But that just means I’m due for a really big screw-up!”

She picked up the lighter, which had been used as the focus for the spell. “Sure. I’ll bet that’s it.”

“Spike might be in some kind of trouble, Buffy,” Xander offered. “Maybe he has amnesia or he and Angel aren’t free to speak or something. It’s not time to go in, axe a-swinging.”

“No.” She stood. “But it’s time to go in. Giles is still at Bronze East going through those books Faith found at the estate sale, so Willow’s in charge overall with Kennedy on strategy and Xander as main guard on the little ones. I’m going to call the airport.”

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Buffy left the room and Xander and Willow raised eyebrows at each other.

“She’s taking this well,” Willow said as she began sorting the spell components back into their pouches. “Calm, mature. I’m proud of her.”

“Me too,” Xander agreed morosely. “Think we should warn LA that there’s an apocalypse coming in on the red-eye?”

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Buffy nervously opened the heavy glass door and stepped into the marble atrium. She’d considered breaking in and spying but had given it up since the place was bound to have both physical and magical defenses out the wazoo. No, it would be better to confront Angel face-to-face in an honest, upfront conversation. Remind him of their past, of the battles they had shared, of their duty to each other. If that didn’t work, there was Plan B which involved serious ass-kicking.

Swallowing, she walked up to the security desk and said, “I’m Buffy Summers. I’m here to see Angel.”

“ID please.”

At the sight of her mostly unused but still valid driver’s license, the guard straightened and gave her a nod just short of a bow. “Of course, Miss Summers. Let me call someone to show you up.”

She smiled brightly. “Angel doesn’t know I’m here. I was kind of hoping to surprise him.”

“Understood. I still need to provide you with an escort. Walking around alone can lead to…difficulties.”

Buffy sighed, but nodded. The guard was just doing his job, and actually, she was relieved to put off a meeting she had furiously kept from thinking about. Spike alive, here, without letting her know? Angel lying about it? Nausea gripped her stomach.

The elevator door slid open and a well-dressed woman in her thirties emerged with a smile and extended hand. “Miss Summers? I’m Lilah Morgan.”

“Nice to meet you,” Buffy managed. The woman’s hand was cold but so was her own, plus she had a clamminess factor.

Lilah’s face changed to an expression of concern but she only said, “If you’ll come with me, we’ll go straight up.”

“Great.”

Both faced front on the elevator, and Buffy tried to get a better grip on both her nerves and her stomach. Facing down Caleb was a party compared to this.

They lied to me. Why did they lie?

“Are you all right?” Lilah asked gently. “You look a little pale. Do you want some water?”

Anything going down was coming straight back up. “I’m ok, thanks.” Buffy answered, then added in a small voice. “Did you let Angel know I’m here?”

“No.” She reached out and pressed a button, bringing the elevator to a smooth halt, and faced Buffy. “Is there anything you want to ask me?”

She remembered that Angel had said Lilah was evil and not to be trusted, but Angel’s own trustworthiness was in question. “Does another vampire, or ex-vampire with a soul work here?”

“Are you talking about Spike?”

Buffy thought she could literally feel her heart break in two. She bit down hard on her lip. “Yeah. I’m talking about Spike.”

“I’m sorry,” Lilah said. “I don’t know why they didn’t tell you. I asked once and got growled at.” She laughed a little in a way that sounded sympathetic. “Men, right? Who can figure them?”

Coldness settled over her like a blanket of snow. She hadn’t felt like that in a long time, but she welcomed it now and even managed a grim smile. “Not me that’s for sure. We can go on now.”

Without a word, Lilah pushed the button again, and the elevator continued its smooth upward rise until it reached an outer lobby that contained a receptionist’s desk and two large wooden doors. The receptionist reached for the phone, but sat back when Lilah shook her head and put a finger to her lips.

“They’re inside,” Lilah said. “Good luck. And Buffy, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell Angel I brought you up. Kind of a favor, one woman to the other? Sisterhood and all that jazz?”

Buffy nodded although it was hard to process the request over the pounding of her heart. She crossed the floor on legs that felt wooden and put her hand on the door.

Locked. Which really wasn’t a problem.

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“Angel, Wolfram, and Hart offer complete confidenti…”

Spike looked up sharply as Angel froze in the middle of reassuring a middle-aged man whose daughter wanted to marry a demon. Since the blue skin and pustules weren’t bothering her, he was pinning his hopes on a credit check.

Then, a scent he would know anywhere filled his nostrils, consciousness, and being, and his mind skittered between Oh, my God, and Oh, Bollocks.

His eyes met Angel’s just as the conference room’s doorknob turned, splintering the surrounding wood.

And there she was, making his heart leap and quail all at once, absorbing all the light in the room and reflecting it back, looking as angry as he’d ever seen her look including the day she dropped a church organ on him.

Her gaze raked the room, and Spike had a craven hope that the new hair and different shirt were going to be enough, and she did pass over him for an instant before locking on like a homing beacon.

“Mr. Clayton,” Angel said smoothly, keeping his attention on Buffy. “We’re going to have to reconvene.” In what had to be the understatement of the year, he concluded lamely, “Something’s come up.”

Mr. Clayton opened his mouth to fuss, looked at Buffy, and decided to escape while he could, sidling past her with excruciating care to not touch and closing the door silently. Spike didn’t blame him.

All the while she didn’t speak, just watched Spike with those hot, dark eyes, and he saw her bottom lip start to tremble and wished he could die all over again.

Thick silence fell over the conference room. Angel twisted a pen in his hands, then finally rose to take charge.

Before he could open his mouth, however, Buffy asked quietly, “Spike, are you all right?”

He stood as well, remembering all the reasons he hadn’t wanted her to know he was back, feeling the pain of seeing her while knowing her heart wasn’t his, but remembering too her kindness and strength.

“I’m fine,” he answered inadequately.

“When did you come back?”

Aye, there was the rub, wasn’t there? Tempting as it was to say “Just before you called yesterday and was planning to surprise you,” there was no way to make it stick. He squared his shoulders. “Six months after I left.”

“Two years.” Something moved behind her eyes but her face didn’t change as she looked at Angel. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

His face was equally unreadable. “Because Spike asked me not to, and I honored his request. Before you ask, I won’t apologize for it.”

“I wasn’t going to ask. I knew better.”

At the lost sound in her voice, Angel started forward, but Buffy held up a hand and turned back to Spike. He could see the shine of tears and wanted to go to her himself, but Angel’s presence held him still.

“Why didn’t you want me to know?”

He tried to make it gentle. “I needed space and time alone. I don’t know why I came back, Buffy, much less what I came back as. I’m not a vampire anymore but I’ve got powers, so I’m not a human either. I needed to figure things out.”

“You didn’t think I’d give that to you?” Her voice had lost its colorlessness. “My God, Spike, I’ve come back from the dead myself. You didn’t think I’d understand? What did you expect me to do?”

“What you’re doing!” he said sharply, turning away. He couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. “Coming here, dragging everything up again. I needed to learn to do without you, Buffy. I needed to manage on my own.”

“With Angel,” she said flatly, and he supposed it did sound a bit silly.

“It’s a job. I’m paid a salary,” he answered. “I earn my keep.”

“Yay for you,” she snapped. “Anya would be really impressed.”

“Buffy…” Angel started and she changed focus.

“You lied to me.”

“I know, and I told you why.” He sighed. “Even though I said I wouldn’t apologize, I am really sorry, but I had to do it. Listen, Spike dropped onto my conference table just the way I showed up at the mansion a long time ago. The Powers must have a plan for him, and it must involve him being here with me.”

“So, we could have had joint custody!” she shouted. “That would have been better than me believing he was still dead!”

“Wasn’t about you, was it?” Spike shouted back, spinning to face her. “It was about me for a change, about what I needed! And what I needed during this time was to be away from you!”

She rocked back as if he’d struck her, face dead white except for red patches high on her cheeks. “I’m not the one who made it all about me! Everybody else did, especially when they wanted me to clean up their mess!”

“Yeah, right,” Spike laughed. “You enjoyed it, Pet. Who wouldn’t?”

“I know you’re hurt,” Angel said urgently, putting a hand on her arm. “But you just weren’t in this particular loop, Buffy, like I haven’t been in a lot of yours.”

Buffy shook him off. “That’s it isn’t it?” she said in an almost friendly voice. “Honoring Spike’s request sounds great. But the real reason you didn’t tell me is that you’re punishing me.”

His brows drew together. “Punish you for what?”

“For not choosing you to be with me at the battle with the First. For not definitely choosing you that night in the graveyard.”

Angel snorted, “You really do think it’s all about you, don’t you? Strange as it may seem, I do occasionally decide what’s right and wrong without figuring you into the mix.”

She fell silent then, and Spike tried to see what she was thinking, tried desperately to shove away memories of their hands joined and blazing.

Her head came up and something deep inside him wailed in agony, for she was as distant and cold as a star, farther than she’d been from him the day she broke off their relationship after blowing up his crypt.

“Ok,” Buffy said very quietly and headed for the door, pausing on the threshold. “Don’t worry,” she added over her shoulder. “I won’t bother you again.” She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Have great lives that aren’t about me.”

And she was gone.

Both Spike and Angel stared at the door for a while, then at each other. Angel slowly sank into one of the chairs, scrubbing at his hair while Spike went on standing, trying to make some sort of sense out of what had just happened.

Whatever the bloody hell that was.

“I didn’t keep quiet about you to punish Buffy,” Angel said at last.

Spike moved to the chair opposite him. “Doesn’t much matter.”

“So, she was wrong,” Angel continued. “She was hurt and angry and lashed out, but she was wrong. Sometimes, you have to work out things on your own, no matter how you feel about somebody, and you have to let people do that if that’s what they want. Because it’s the right thing to do.” He looked rather desperately at Spike. “Right?”

Both of us are lying through our teeth right now, but what the hell?

“Right,” Spike agreed. “This is best all around. Move forward instead of clinging to the past.”

“Getting on with our lives,” Angel finished. “That aren’t about her. While she gets on with hers…”

“That isn’t about either one of us.”

They looked at each other again.

“Balls,” Spike said definitively.

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Lilah smiled with satisfaction as her in-office monitoring system followed the Slayer’s stiff back out through the front door of Wolfram and Hart.

“Very nice,” she purred. “It saves me so much work when people screw up their own lives.”

It had taken a little longer than she’d counted on when she resurrected Spike two years ago, but all things came to those who waited. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have the time.

Part 2

She hadn’t felt this way in a long time. There had been bad feelings, of course, over the last couple of years. Grief, not just for Spike, although there had been a lot of that, but for Anya and the others who had died; frustration over dealing with the parents of the young Slayers and with the girls themselves; annoyance with Faith until she cleared out to set up Bronze East with Robin; irritation over a thousand little things.

But completely worthless? She hadn’t felt that way for a while.

Buffy sat down on the hard, hotel room bed and absently kicked at her overnight bag. Her chest hurt in the way that meant tears were coming soon.

He didn’t even want me to know he was alive? I thought we were past all the bad stuff especially after what happened at the end.

The feeling as she took his burning hand had been almost a good one, not pain so much as cleansing, blazing away the layers that had hidden him from her, getting rid of the doubt and indecision, finally letting her clearly see the love she’d hidden from herself for so long.

Spike had denied it, but she had thought it was just Spike being Spike. In that one moment, he must have seen her the way she’d finally seen him and known that she meant what she said with all of her heart.

Maybe that was the problem. After all those years of thinking he knew her, he finally saw what she really was and didn't like it.

Buffy swiped a hand across her cheek. It didn’t matter why it happened, she supposed. Whatever Spike had felt before, he didn’t love her now, and she was just going to have to live with that. Live without him.

And without Angel, since he and Spike were buddies now, like in those cop movies. They probably compared notes on what a rotten person she was. No, wait. They probably didn’t. It wasn’t about her.

At the memory, she sniffled angrily and kicked the overnight bag across the room. “I never wanted it to be about me. I would have left him alone if he wanted me to.”

Wouldn’t she? Was he afraid she’d have forced him to come back with her? Was he right?

Speaking of right, what right did she have to be upset about Angel? She made decisions without consulting Angel. She had other boyfriends without consulting Angel. All the while expecting him to wait around until she finished baking and made up her mind. To be convenient.

Buffy whimpered, the word ‘convenient’ bringing back memories she'd really rather not have.

They’re right, I am a bad person. No wonder Spike didn’t want to be around me. It’s amazing that anyone wants to be around me.

The tears were at the back of her throat, and Buffy reached for the phone before they overwhelmed her entirely. Agreeing to set check-in times had been the only way they’d let her come alone, and even then, Dawn had slammed a few cabinets.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Will. It’s me.”

She thought she sounded normal, but Willow’s “Spike’s alive, isn’t he?” was soft and sad.

Her eyes brimmed over. “Yeah, he’s alive.”

In the background, she could hear Andrew insisting, “Tell her to give the code phrase so we’ll know it’s really Buffy and she’s really ok!”

“Give me the code phrase before Andrew explodes,” Willow sighed.

Buffy obediently said “Klatuu, barata nickto” with an eye-roll that was actually sort of comforting. She hoped she’d remembered the right phrase. One signaled ‘I’m ok’ and the other (she thought it was ‘There is no spoon’ whatever the hell that was) ‘Get down here with all the Slayers you can find and the axe’ phrase.

Words were exchanged in the background then Willow came back on. “I got rid of everybody. What happened?”

Buffy drew a shaky breath. “Oh, God.”

“Tell me.”

She recounted the meeting as calmly as she could, and tried her best not to cry audibly, but Willow exploded anyway.

“Those…those guys! I can’t believe they…oooh! And after all you…OOOH!” They’re…MEN…that’s what they are! Both of them!”

Buffy had to smile. “That bad, huh?”

“I know! I’ll turn them into toads and keep them in a terrarium so they won’t get kissed. No. One big toad with a head at each end! Nobody would ever kiss that!”

“Not if they want to get invited to the best parties.”

Buffy couldn’t help being slightly interested in the idea, but she’d spent too much time lecturing on ethics (Using Slayer powers on your teacher even if she did give you a bad grade was Not Cool). In the end, she persuaded Willow against spell-casting, carefully not wondering about vengeance demons and wishing, and hung up, feeling slightly better from Willow’s best girlfriend reaction.

But only slightly. After careful consideration, Buffy fell across the pillow and proceeded to cry her eyes out.

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One pillow was thoroughly soaked and she was starting on the next when there was a quiet knock at her door.

Buffy opened her mouth to send them away when she suddenly realized it must be Spike or Angel, feeling guilty and there to apologize…which one do I wish it was? No, don’t go there...and threw herself off the bed and in front the mirror instead.

“Noooo,” she moaned under her breath at the sight of her snarled hair, swollen eyes, and bright red nose. It would take at least an hour to fix, and no matter how apologetic her guest was feeling, he wasn’t going to stand around in the hall while she primped. Well fine. Whoever it was could see how unhappy he’d made her and feel even worse. She drew herself up in wounded dignity and opened the door.

Her jaw dropped to her chest. “RILEY?!”

He filled the doorway, looking like a particularly chiseled rock formation in a well cut grey suit. His fair hair was stylishly arranged, a Rolex glinted at his wrist, and an expensive-looking briefcase dangled from one hand.

While I look worse than I did in the cow hat.

He looked at her gravely. “Buffy,” Then he looked more closely. “You’re hurt.” He pressed a button on the watch. “I need medical up here, stat.”

Her wits flew back into her head. “No, Riley, I’m not hurt. Uh, come in.”

“Cancel the call,” he said to his watch. “Thanks,” he added and entered the room.

“That’s it?” she asked. “How do they know you weren’t just taken prisoner?”

He turned his wrist and showed her two tiny buttons on the watch. “The one on the right means ‘all clear’ on the left means ‘come running’. Gets embarrassing if I mix them up.”

“Much niftier than having to remember the right dorky phrase.”

“Hey, whatever works,” he shrugged.

He was still standing, and Buffy realized that he would keep doing it until she sat, so she did, perching on the edge of the bed and waving him to the chair. Once seated, they both looked around the room awkwardly.

“Nice suit,” she said at last.

Riley grinned. “I’m under cover. Do I look like I’m brokering my next big movie deal?”

More like he was working toward an Eagle Scout badge, but why be mean? “I bet you can’t walk down the street without people trying to audition.”

“Sam said I looked like a church deacon.”

At least there’s one happy couple. Not that I really want to talk to one of those right now.

“Is she here?” Buffy asked politely. They could all go to dinner. Or she could drive a stake through her foot for an equally fun evenng.

“Not this time.” A smile tugged at his lips, then he sobered again. “Buffy, I have to ask. Why are you here? I know you went to Wolfram and Hart.”

She frowned. “How do you know? Are you keeping tabs on me?”

“Not in general, but when you bought a ticket for LA, it alerted the computer.” He looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I know it sounds like spying…mostly because it is. But we track all the major players we can. You never know when movement or sudden expenditures mean something big’s going down.”

“It seems weird to think of myself as a major player,” Buffy said. “Trust me, I feel like Little League or PeeWee Football most days.”

“Even if you feel that way, the Slayer is considered a pretty key figure occult-wise. Even if she is A Slayer and not The Slayer anymore.”

Buffy felt her eyebrows lift. “You know about that too? Do I need to sweep the house for bugs?”

“Are you kidding?” Riley laughed. “There was no way to miss that. When you Called every potential Slayer, and by the way, I’d love to get a look at the ax sometime, it threw everybody that had any psychic power at all for a loop. Visions, telekinetic events, poltergeists, three-legged calves, double-yolked eggs. You name it, it happened. So, yeah, we looked into it. Good setup by the way. Splitting the girls up was smart.”

“Thanks,” she said, warmed by the professional approval in his voice. “I thought if we had everybody in one place, it was like painting a big target on the roof, besides most of the first Potentials wanted to go home anyway. Then Faith said she needed to be someplace with more pollution and less cows, so she and Robin moved into the brownstone he inherited from his Mom’s Watcher with 5 of the junior high girls. He’s principal of their school, so that works out. We’ve got the four youngest ones.”

“I’ll bet you’re great with them,” Riley said.

“I don’t know about that,” Buffy laughed. “They follow Xander around mostly and do farm chores. It gets some of the energy out and they love it. Everyone’s got her own little tool belt.” Her laugh faded. “Some were in pretty bad situations before they got Chosen and needed more help than we knew how to give.” She shook away the memory of the scars on Ruthann’s back and the cigarette burns on the inside of Andrea’s thighs. “They’re with a coven Giles knows. The ax will keep Calling them, and as we find more, we’ll set up other placements.”

She didn’t share the fact that she thought Violet and Xander would be setting up their own place and possibly adding to the population. She’d wondered at the time why Violet wanted to stay at the farmhouse, but it had become clear to everyone but Xander fairly soon. He’d finally caught on, and was now switching between interest and being freaked out over the age difference even though Violet kept yelling that she was “19, DAMNIT!”.

“It sounds like an excellent setup,” Riley said again, but Buffy could tell he wasn’t paying attention.

“I have a feeling you didn’t come here to show off your suit or talk about my housing situation,” she said mildly. “What’s up? Why were you asking about Wol…about Angel, Wolfram and Hart?”

“Right, Angel, Wolfram, and Hart.” Riley stood and began pacing. “I know about you and Angel, naturally.” He began another circuit, “And I know they’ve done some work for you…newspapers this time,” he added. “Google is a great help in tab-keeping. But are you…close?”

Cold trickled down her spine. “Not so much, especially after today. Why, Riley? What’s wrong? Angel’s running it, and I know you don’t like him, but he’s good and the firm is too now.”

“I don’t know about Angel,” he said carefully. “But Wolfram and Hart is still evil, Buffy. I’m here with my team to take them down once and for all.”

She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “No. It’s not true. Angel wouldn’t do anything evil. Neither would Wesley or any of the other people that worked for him.”

“I’m not saying he is. He may not know. Listen.” He dragged the chair in front of her and sat down, looking at her earnestly. “I told you about your Call hitting the psychics. Well, one of them was on my team. We didn’t know what was going on at the time, but Fields started spouting off in a language we’d never heard. We recorded it, but it took forever to translate, mostly because everyone we thought could do it ended up having died mysteriously within the previous month. Finally, I got in touch with a band of Romney, and one of their elders figured it out. She said it was some kind of Rom/demon mix with a little Sumerian thrown in.” He opened the briefcase and handed her a piece of paper. “Anyway, this is what it said.”

In pride and despair,
The Champion will harken to temptation.
His eyes shall be blinded
His heart misled,
He will join the darkness.
And the Three-Headed Beast will roam hidden but unchecked through many worlds.
Yet the Beast will sow the seeds of its own ending.
For it will bring forth the Shanshu who will wake the Sleeper.
She will reach across the worlds, and the Beast will know destruction.

“I hate prophecies,” Buffy said, returning the paper. “I mean if they’re so…prophetic…why can’t they name names? Don’t they know what they’re talking about? And if they don’t, then how prophetic are they? What the heck is a 'shanshu' anyway?”

“It’s a little vague and title-heavy,” Riley agreed. “The elder said 'shanshu' and that's all she said. We couldn't run it down. I know it's not enough to base an operation on, but we’re hearing rumors from other dimensions. Activity has stepped up there, beings disappearing, governments or kingdoms being overthrown, and there’s lots of talk about Wolves, Rams, and Harts and combinations thereof.”

“I don’t know about that. This world is hard enough for me to keep up with.” She thought a moment. “If it’s all about Angel and his firm, then the Sleeper has to be Cordelia. She’s a friend of mine who worked for Angel, but you probably know that.” She missed the slightly odd look that crossed Riley’s face and said. “Something put her in a coma about three years ago. Willow was afraid to try anything because magic gets wonky if you use it on, you know, natural things. But if it’s Cordelia, why wouldn’t they just kill her?”

Riley shrugged. “They may not know about this prophecy, especially the ‘seeds of their own destruction’. It’s not written down anywhere. Or, they may be waiting until Angel’s looking the other way.”

“That could be. He put her in their care. He’d get suspicious if she died right after that. Either way,” she decided. “We need to get her out of there. They could figure this out at any time.”

“That’s our thinking.” Riley looked away. “Did you want to bring Angel in on this? You know him better. If you don’t think he’s been compromised, that’s good enough for me.”

While it would be easier if they didn’t want to talk to her because Angel was evil and Spike had come back wrong, she didn’t really believe it. Buffy knew what the evil versions of both men were like.

“No, I’m sure he hasn’t been compromised, but I don’t think he’s in the mood to listen to me. We didn’t exactly part well.” She forced back the tears that wanted to well up again. “I think it was one of those final partings.”

“I’m sorry,” Riley said politely.

“You are not,” she smiled.

“Ok, no I’m not sorry that you finally split up with your vampiric boyfriend. After all, only losers would take up with vampires. Of course, real losers let them chew on their arms.”

Buffy’s head whipped up and she was ready to be furious, when his last words penetrated and she relaxed. “Arm-sucking would need an extra big loser.”

“Absolutely.”

Speaking of vampiric boyfriends… “You probably know that Spike died in the attack. Did you know he was back?”

Riley jerked back, startled. “No, I didn’t know! How?”

“That would be the question before the court. He says he doesn’t know either and he’s had two years to figure it out. I found out yesterday, which see above, re final parting.”

“I am sorry that you’re unhappy,” Riley said gently. “That seems to happen to you a lot, and I seem to remember doing it once. I’m sorry about that too.”

Something warmed inside a little. “Thanks. So, enough with the past. How do we get Cordie out? Does your team have sneaky stuff we can use?”

Riley shook his head. “Not sneaky enough. The place is sewn up tight. We could blast in, but it’s very high risk. People, including Cordelia, could easily get killed which would defeat the purpose. We’d need to take down both the electrical system and the magical defenses, then get in and out as fast as possible.”

Buffy started grinning. Having something concrete to do was much better than sitting around being miserable. It had absolutely nothing to do with getting back at Angel and Spike. Nothing. At all. “Magic and electricity huh?” she said. “Could the electrical defenses be taken out by, say…computer?”

“Sure, if you could hack the system. We poked around a little but it’s tight too. Then there’s the magic. That’ll be tricky. We don’t really have anyone that handles that.”

“It’s so not a problem.” She grabbed the phone and dialed. “Willow?” she said when her friend picked up. “Get down here. Bring your laptop and the ax.”

Part 3

...three nights later...

“Everybody loves the ax,” Willow observed, watching Riley’s team surround it respectfully. No one touched it except by permission, and no one had drooled on it…yet. They just stared at it.

“Yep,” Buffy agreed with a wriggle. “Violet’s pretty mad that I took her turn on the duty roster. I had to promise that she could carry it in the next apocalypse.” She wriggled again, flexing her shoulders, neck, and hands.

“Doesn’t it fit?” Willow asked. “I tried to work in ‘comfort’, but I mostly focused on stuff like ‘don’t get noticed’ and ‘hide your scent’.”

Buffy grimaced. The black material didn’t limit her motion…it gave and moved with her like skin, even down to the built in gloves. Fit like it too

She sighed, “Which all more important than ‘make Buffy not feel like an idiot’. I’m sure this is a great suit, but I feel like the girl from Alias or the one on the stupid show that got cancelled – the one that was part cat or something.”

“Dark Angel was excellent!” Andrew huffed. “It had a lot to say about alienation and…and loneliness.” He frowned. “They messed it up when Logan got out of the wheelchair, but still….”

He trailed off and stood with mouth hanging open as Riley entered the briefing room. Willow nudged him, and his jaw closed with a snap as Buffy hid a smile. Riley’s black suit certainly did a nice job of outlining all those military-trained muscles. Even Willow had blinked before snapping Andrew out of his trance.

Not so long ago, Buffy would have been pretty impressed with the sight herself, but to her surprise, that time had apparently passed. While she could appreciate the scenery, she had no desire to explore it.

Wow. I actually got over a boyfriend. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

The thought brought painful memories of two other men, who, in one way or another, she hadn’t gotten over, but Buffy pushed them back the way she’d been doing the past couple of days, focusing on the action and the plan that she and Riley…and for the past 48 hours, Willow and Andrew…had been working on.

“Ok, listen up,” Riley said calmly. “We’re ready to go in. You know the drill. This is a straight rescue op. Get in, retrieve the target, get out. Quick and quiet, without engaging if we can manage it. The target is comatose and may require medical attention.” He nodded at a strong-looking dark-haired woman, “Ericks is field medic, but have the van medical equipment set up and ready to go, stat. As for the rest, Buffy’s on point, I’m her immediate backup. Tompkins and White are our fighters. The rest of you are here to guard these two.”

He jerked his head at Willow and Andrew and, Buffy spoke up, “Wolfram and Hart will have both magic and non-magic defenses in place. I’m not sure what you’ll see, but it’s probably fancier than what you deal with on a normal demon-killing day. Try not to worry about the magic. Willow’s taking care of that.”

“Both magic and electronics,” the red-head added with a fond pat to her laptop that was now hooked in to the van's equipment. Despite not having slept since the plane landed, she looked alert and excited, the eager high school student from a long time ago peeking out of her eyes.

“We can’t just sneak in,” Riley said. “So, we’re setting up a dummy attack. Draw their attention to one part of the building and then we go in through the door at the loading dock.”

“That’s where I come in,” Andrew chirped. He brandished his flute. “I will summon demons to appear in different parts of the building. Evil, powerful demons that will fill the minions of Wolfram and Hart with terror.”

Willow closed her eyes as Andrew gave a sinister laugh, but Riley smiled at him kindly. “We’re counting on you to keep them on their toes. Questions?”

There were none, so Buffy grimly pulled up the hood of her suit, covering her hair and her face up to the eyes. She could breathe; she could move; she probably didn’t look nearly as stupid as she felt. After all, Riley and the rest of the team looked pretty spiffy instead of like a Charlie’s Angel reject.

She gave Willow a quick hug, then gave Andrew one too, which made him look pleased. “I wish you’d carry the ax,” Willow fretted. “That’s why I brought it.”

“We talked about that,” Buffy said firmly. “You need it to jack up your power if you have to.”

“That’s ‘jill’ up, but ok,” Willow said. “Be careful.”

“Right.” She took a deep breath. “Showtime.”

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Lilah leaned back in her chair, twirling her Mont Blanc pen in her fingers and smiling. Showtime. She checked her watch. Or it would be in about 15 minutes. Then this little house of cards that had been constructed over the past few years under her expert guidance would all come tumbling down in an equally orchestrated collapse.

The past few days were enough to make her believe Sirk’s theory that the Slayer acted as a catalyst for events. A couple of hours after Buffy Summers left Wolfram and Hart, Knox had come to her in a daze with the news that they’d at last found the proper mixture of magic and physics to puncture the barrier that Cordelia Chase’s comatose body somehow generated any time it was approached by violence.

It had taken time to smuggle the necessary ingredients to Cordelia’s room and decide on which mage was strong enough to perform the ritual. This sort of spell was best done in the dark of the moon anyway, according to Sirk. But now, everything was in place, all on Angel’s watch and under Winnifred Burkel’s snub little nose.

The pen snapped in Lilah’s fingers, and she gently set it back down on her desk. She really had to deal with those pesky personal issues. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t moved beyond Wesley, who had reverted to type, anyway, and spent almost all his time burrowed among his oh-so-carefully edited books. Also, Sirk was more fun once she’d gotten him going. What was it about Watchers after you finally lured them out of their suits? It must be training all those flexible young girls without being allowed to touch them in any way other than fatherly.

In any case, she was after bigger game tonight. Another woman might worry that Cordelia’s death would send Angel over the edge, no matter how much it looked like an accident. However, Lilah was comfortably sure that within the next half hour, Angel was going to be far too busy explaining a certain mind-wipe spell, not to mention dealing with the subject of said mind-wipe to have time to look for her.

“Poor Connor,” she murmured. “And you were doing so well.”

The soft chime of the office alarm, one of Gunn’s new policies, interrupted her thoughts.

“An incident has occurred and is being investigated. Non-essential personnel please remain in your offices.”

She lifted an eyebrow, but wasn’t particularly worried. Things happened at a place like Angel, Wolfram, and Hart at all times of the day or night, particularly the night. In a few moments, the all-clear sounded, and Lilah nodded to herself and stood. Time to go upstairs. She didn’t intend to miss this. Interesting that all the key players were on site tonight, even Lorne, who was going over the final plans for the office Halloween party, an odd concept if she’d ever heard one, although Angel had forbidden him to make a try for Elvis. It was fitting, however. She’d get to see all the actions and reactions up close and personal.

The chime sounded again.

“An incident has occurred and is being investigated. Non-essential personnel please remain in your offices.”

Lilah stalked toward the door. Whatever was happening, she planned to put a stop to it. Nothing was going to interfere with her plans tonight.

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“Good, Andrew,” Willow said encouragingly. “That was a big one.”

“Thanks.” He was sweating profusely and slightly pale, but he put the flute to his lips again and began to play.

Willow tapped a sequence on her keyboard, frowned a little, then closed her eyes and tapped again, light outlining her fingers. “Got it!” she smiled as the monitors in the van switched to the internal cameras that monitored the corridors of Wolfram and Hart. Her fingers moved again, and she nodded to the communications officer, who wasn’t a Black woman to Andrew’s eternal disappointment. “Tell them to go. The cameras won’t track their images.”

He nodded and spoke softly into his built-in headset. “Team one. Go.”

Riley laid a flashing cylinder against the loading dock doors, and after a moment, they opened.

Buffy swallowed hard and moved to the front. This suddenly didn’t seem like the greatest idea she’d ever had. What the hell would she say if Angel or Spike caught them?

Riley said you’re working for evil and I believed him. Why? Because you hurt my feelings. Nyah, nyah, nyah - Giles is going to kill me. and then he’s going to yell at me.

But there was nothing to do but go ahead. Besides, although she could admit to herself that ‘nyah’ had played a part in her decision, it still felt right. It was one of those hunches that never made sense, that always sounded crazy, and that she’d learned to listen to. Bottom line, they needed to get Cordie out of there. Fast.

Calmer now, she extended her palm, holding the small talisman and whispering the spell Willow had taught, “Arradia. Heed my words…” A tiny light flickered above her hand. “Find Cordelia.” The light danced about a foot ahead of her, and they moved down the corridor.

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“What the bloody hell is going on?” Spike demanded, slamming into the main security office. “I had to fight off two Fyarl demons and something I didn’t sodding recognize just to get here!”

“That’s what I want to know,” Angel said tightly. He looked at his head of security. “Gunn? Talk to me.”

“Working on it,” Gunn said. He shifted his shoulders and almost seemed to sniff the air as he watched the bank of cameras that panned the halls. “Can’t lock down a source. They’re not coming through a portal.”

Spike stared into the monitors, lips drawing back as a Fungus demon wandered into view, hands raised reassuringly as a junior clerk fled. It had been a long time, but still…

“That type isn’t even dangerous,” Angel said with a frown. “And he looked more confused than anything else.”

Something flickered on the monitor, and Spike squinted. Had he seen a shape for just an instant? Whatever it was, it was gone.

There was a loud CRACK and Lilah stepped through the door, smoothing her hair with one hand and tucking her pistol away with the other. “Busy tonight,” she said laconically.

“If they aren’t coming through not a portal, then how are they getting in?” Angel demanded. “The building’s sealed.”

“Someone’s summoning them,” Spike said absently, then stopped. Summoning. He knew a demon summoner. Oh, no. Oh, surely not. She hadn’t been that angry had she?

He’d barely let himself think of Buffy since she’d walked out of the conference room. It wasn’t terribly hard…he’d had quite a bit of practice not thinking of Buffy since he returned. Not her hair or her smile or her touch. Not the way she’d said “I love you” and taken his hand.

Now, however, he saw her clearly in his mind, with her eyes big with sadness they way they’d been the night her friends kicked her out of her house and her expression shutting down like a vault door as she turned away. She’d been angry, but she wouldn’t do this. Would she?

“Angel,” a tiny voice sounded over the intercom, and Angel stiffened.

“Fred? You ok?”

“Yes. But I think…I think somebody’s gotten into the computers. They’re doing something to the cameras. I’ve almost got control back…oh, damn.”

“Impossible,” Lilah said flatly. “NO one can hack the Wolfram and Hart computers. They’re protected by more spells than you can count, and maintained daily.”

“She’s right,” Gunn added.

That tore it. Spike looked at Angel, whose brow was darkening in a way that let him know the vampire had made the same leap he had.

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

“Oh, Fred,” the witch crooned, her fingers nothing but a blur on the keyboard. “You’re good, sweetie, but you’re not quite good enough.”

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

“Willow,” Spike said in disbelief.

“And that means Buffy.” Angel’s fists clenched. “She’s really done it. She’s gone to war. Gunn,” he said sharply. Round your teams round up. Do NOT engage.” His hand raised as the other began a protest. “I’ll handle this.”

With a glare, Gunn left.

“Gosh,” Lilah said mildly. “And I thought I took rejection badly.” She glanced at her watch. “I should get back to my office. I’ll just be in the way here.”

“No,” Angel shook his head. “Stay here.” He gave a mirthless smile. “Just in case I’m wrong and Buffy’s not the one behind it.”

But he wasn’t wrong, Spike knew with a sick feeling. Buffy was doing this. “I won’t fight her,” he said clearly. “I won’t let you fight her either.”

Angel sighed. “I don’t want to fight her. I want to know what the hell she thinks she’s doing. Buffy’s pissed at both of us, but her style’s more of a direct kick to the ass than an assault on a building.” He frowned into the air. “Where are Wesley and Lorne?”

“Tucked away in their offices,” Lilah said with a shrug. “They can’t get into any trouble there.”

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It was such a small thing to collapse his world.

He wasn’t really aware of the alarms and shouting outside in the hallway. Instead, Wesley stood in his office, clutching his old notebook as his mind spun.

Watchers wrote things down. Always. It was the first thing you learned in training. Write it down so the knowledge won’t be lost.

Obedient and industrious boy that he’d been, he had written everything down that he came across, including a Romanian folktale an old woman had translated for him. He hadn’t thought much of her…just an elderly gypsy with sharp black eyes, but he’d jotted the story down in his notebook and later written a report on that had received a ‘well done’ from Travers.

He’d run across the notebook again, and for no particular reason, he’d decided to look up the story, but when he’d called up the book, the story had been different, a childish rhyme missing. Not such a horrible thing. He’d even been amused that he’d caught Sirk in a mistake, and if he remembered correctly, the rhyme had nothing to do with the story itself, although she'd insisted it was the most important part. But then he’d reread the poem he'd recorded.

While the champions are all asleep
Then shall play wolf, stag, and sheep.
When heros’ eyes are proudly blind
Comes the day of wolf, ram, and hind.
Should light submit its will to dark
All will kneel to wolf, ram, and hart.

His immediate impulse was to call Angel, and indeed, his hand was on the intercom when instincts that had been dulled by two years spent interpreting tainted prophecies screamed at him that communications were undoubtedly being monitored.

Mouth set and tight, he found the weapons he’d once carried and buckled them on, his hands remembering the fastenings despite the long disuse. Armed at last, Wesley flung open the door and almost crashed into something large and purple. He leaped back to the side, flattening to the wall as some of the security people raced past him.

Then, he turned and ran the other way.

Fortunately, Lorne’s office was nearby, and the green demon was in residence, comfortably going over some menus.

“Hell’s a poppin out there, isn’t it?” he said jovially as Wesley slipped inside. “You know, I’m SO glad I don’t have to deal with all the nasty stuff anymore. Remember when we’d be in the thick…what’s wrong?”

Wesley just looked at him, then very softly he began to hum.

Two bars into ‘Hotel California’, Lorne’s face crumpled. “Oh, no. No, Wes, I LOOKED. I didn’t just swallow it.”

“Yes you did,” Wesley said quietly. “We all did. Because it tasted so very sweet. But it was poison, Lorne. It was a lie. We’ve got to get Fred and getout of here.”

“If we can,” Lorne said grimly. At Wesley’s inquiring look, he said, “You can check in any time you want, but you can never leave.”

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The light danced and fluttered around an innocent-looking door and Buffy sighed in relief. It had actually worked. The spells had held together…not that she really worried about that anymore…and no one had noticed them as they moved through the halls.

She checked her synchronized watch: 11:55.

“This should be it,” she breathed to Riley as she reached for the handle.

Then she frowned. Locked? Why would Cordelia’s room be locked? She was comatose, not imprisoned. What if something went wrong and people couldn’t get to her?

You know you’ve been looking after kids too long when you notice stuff like fire hazards.

Still, locked shouldn’t be a problem, and she put her back into it, only to stop after a moment, panting and scowling.

“I’m picking up magic readings,” muttered one of the anonymous Initiative team, aiming some sort of gizmo at the door.

“Let me try,” Riley said and pressed something between the hinges. “Stand back.”

Fifteen seconds later, the door blew apart with a bang, which was fortunate because it brought everyone inside the room to a surprised halt, including the black-robed man whose knife was poised over Cordelia’s heart.

“Buffy.” Angel’s voice on the intercom had that ‘angry but reasonable’ tone that never failed to piss her off. “I know you’re doing this, and I know you’re upset. We need to…”.

Willow, get the cameras back on line NOW!

Her friend’s agreement sounded in her mind as Buffy leaped, covering the distance between herself and Cordie in one jump, her foot lashing out to catch the dark-robed man in the arm and knock the knife away. As she landed, she ripped off the hood of her outfit. The time for hiding was past.

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“Bloody hell!”

Spike’s voice overrode Angel’s as the security cameras suddenly showed the interior of Cordelia’s room, which also happened to be the site of a raging battle.

The room was full of people pounding away on each other, but everything centered, as everything always seemed to do, on Buffy, standing on Cordelia’s bed, a foot to each side of the woman’s unconscious body, whaling away on all comers.

Her black attire molded to her body in a way that sent Spike's body into a state of arousal even under the current circumstances. It only increased when she flung a robed man across the room and glared up at the cameras and straight into his soul.

“You’ve been lied to!” she shouted. “They’re still evil! They were trying to kill her!”

Angel spun away, heading for the door.

Spike turned as well, but both men were brought up short by Lilah who was standing in the entrance, her pistol trained unerringly on Spike, her other hand holding a shining purple globe.

“Curses,” she said with a sigh. “Foiled again. Darn you meddlesome kids.”

“Get out of my way, Lilah,” Angel snarled. “And I just might make it quick.”

“After burning up from the inside, your little gun doesn’t scare me,” Spike said coldly.

“I know you’re not worried about the gun,” she said and held up the globe. “But you'd better be worried about this because if it breaks, it’s bye-bye to the mind-wipe spell.”

Spike was starting to rush her, when Angel caught his arm and held him place with an iron grip.

“Very smart,” Lilah smiled. She touched a finger to the ornate brooch she wore on her suit. “Attention, everyone. Don’t let members of the Angel Investigations Team leave.”

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Riley threw the last of Cordelia's attackers through the door and slammed it shut just as Lilah’s announcement came through the air.

“Fight our way out?” a team member asked.

He looked over at Ericks, who was checking Cordelia’s vital signs. “Not with a comatose passenger. Blow the wall.”

“Right.”

He turned his attention to his headset. “Bring the van around to the northwest corner. Full armaments and be ready to catch a descent. Where are you going?” Riley added as Buffy headed for the door.

“To get Spike, Angel, and Angel’s team.” She shook her head as he opened his mouth. “We’ve talked about this before. I’m not under your orders Agent Finn.”

He scowled but said stiffly. “I’ll come with you.”

“No. I need you to protect Cordie and the rest. Riley,” she forestalled. “I went into a hellmouth and fought an army of vampires. Lawyers aren’t quite so terrifying.”

Outside in the empty hallway, she closed her eyes and focused, calling to Willow who sent an Arradia light in response.

“Find Spike. Make it fast.”

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“Charles, how can you do this!” Fred protested. “You know they’re evil!”

“I know you say they’re evil,” Gunn shrugged, his security team’s weapons remaining trained on Wesley, Fred, and Lorne.

“Gunn, we were all fooled, but I assure you…”

“Here’s the thing, Wes. I don’t care.” He folded his arms and stood impassively in his well-cut suit. “Evil or not, this is the best gig I’ve got going. I’m somebody here. I was nothing on the outside.”

“Yeah, nothing but our friend,” Lorne said.

Gunn bared his teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile. “We were never friends, green-skin.”

“Charles!”

“Oh, baby.” He roughly stroked her cheek and Wes moved forward, only to stop as the weapons were brought to bear. “Don’t start pretending like you care now.”

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“Lilah,” Angel gritted. “You break it, and you’ve got nothing to keep me from killing you. Slowly.”

“And wouldn’t you enjoy that?” she said. “But not enough to deal with the rest of it.”

“Rest of WHAT?” Spike shouted, finally breaking free of Angel’s grip. “What is so damned important that you’d let this bitch lead you around by the balls because of it?”

Lilah pouted at him. “You’re hurting my feelings. Is that any way to treat the woman who brought you back from the dead, William?”

All the breath went out of him. “You...?” he got out before his voice dried up.

“Resurrected you,” she finished helpfully. “Don't thank me. It wasn’t all that hard.”

Something deep inside began to keen. “Why?” he forced out.

“No real reason,” Lilah said with a shrug. “Just to keep Angel a little more off-balance. You haven’t done a great job at that, but being a failure’s about par for the course with you, isn’t it?”

“Don’t listen,” Angel said, his eyes never leaving Lilah. “It doesn’t matter how you came back. All that matters is what happens now.”

The words sailed past Spike as he grappled with the knowledge that he was without direction or purpose once again.

She smiled sympathetically. “All that time you were hiding, did you think you were preparing for something? Awaiting your destiny?Afraid not. You were just kind of my whim. A fling.” Her head cocked. “Like you were for Drusilla and Bu…AH, Ah! Angel keep him under control.”

Her arm drew back to throw the globe as Angel caught Spike in mid-leap, bearing him to the floor and holding him down despite his struggles. “Stop,” Angel said desperately. “Spike, I’m begging you. Please stop.”

“What is that thing?” he demanded, the misery in Angel’s voice getting through the clouds of rage and grief that roiled in him.

“Tell him,” Lilah ordered. “Tell him or it goes smash and takes a lot of lives along with it.”

His voice was weary. “It’s a mind wipe spell. It took away everyone’s memories of my son, including his. It gave Connor a new life where he could be happy.”

“He’s made dean’s list both years in college,” she said dreamily. “Pitcher for the baseball team, tutoring underprivileged kids, thinking about medical school. A young man any Dad would be proud to call Son, and all based on a lie. How do you think he’d feel once he remembered how it really was?”

“You won’t be around to find out,” Angel said, and Spike felt his muscles coiled to spring.

“Right,” Lilah laughed. “If decapitation didn’t work….”

“I’ll bet I can find something that would,” a new voice sniped, as a hand closed around Lilah’s wrist.

Angel cried out as the globe fell, but it only hovered gently in mid-air until it dropped into Willow’s outstretched hand.

“I just love gloat-y villains,” Buffy said, casually holding onto Lilah. “I had time to get down here, have Willow teleport in, everything. I was going to have a pizza delivered but we couldn't agree on toppings.”

“Hi, guys,” Willow said as Spike and Angel stumbled to their feet. “Just so you know? I think you’re total poopheads, but we can talk about that later.”

“Give the call to let us and the rest of Angel’s team go,” Buffy said, giving Lilah a light shake.

“And?”

“And I won’t give you to Angel.”

“Oh, right,” Lilah laughed. “I'm supposed to believe you'll just let me go.”

“Don’t judge everybody by you,” Buffy said coolly. “Give the call and we’ll all walk out of here. Or don’t, and be the first really bloody casualty.”

Lilah looked over at Angel, who was already in game face, and tapped her brooch. “Release them. I repeat, release them by the authority of the CEO.”

“Good call,” Buffy stepped back. “Angel? Cordelia’s safe. Let’s go.”

He was still vamped, still growling, but he nodded briefly, and Spike didn’t have the heart to begin protest. His return meant nothing. He meant nothing. Tossed on the whim of fate and a woman like always. His eyes locked on Lilah’s pistol.

“Spike,” Buffy said impatiently. “I don’t know how long the offer's good for. Come on.”

Numbly, he followed her as he always had, knowing nothing else to do.

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

“You heard her,” Gunn said. “Let them go.”

Weapons lowered and pointed away.

Wesley stepped forward, Lorne and Fred close behind. Gunn’s face was unreadable as they passed him, but Fred paused.

“Why didn’t they take you prisoner too?” she asked.

He snorted softly. “Order was for the Angel Investigation Team. I’m not one of you anymore. Haven’t been for awhile.” A flash of something that might have been pain crossed his face. “Go on, get out of here.”

They went.

Part 4

Giles was still yelling.

Buffy tuned in long enough to hear, “…childish and irresponsible…” then tuned him out again. She’d heard those words before. Several times. ‘Thoughtless’ and ‘Petty’ were going to show up any minute now.

Not that she blamed him for the repeatedness. Giles had started yelling as soon as they got Cordelia upstairs and into the most defensible guest room. That had been over an hour ago, and even he ran out of new words eventually.

She felt a little sorry for him. This was setting up to be one of the great Giles rants of all time, and it really deserved the appreciative audience a glance around the room revealed that it didn’t have.

Willow had gone up to help settle Cordelia and was now on the phone making arrangements to ship the young Slayers out in case Wolfram and Hart came after them. Xander, Violet, and Kennedy were watching the kids and handling questions like, “Why is Mr.Giles mad this time? Did Buffy do something bad? Why won’t that lady wake up?”

Riley was paying attention, standing up straight in some sort of military position that Xander called ‘parade rest’ - although Buffy didn’t think it looked all that restful – but Giles wasn’t particularly mad at Riley.

Andrew was coming down off the high of being in a real mission that didn’t involve him almost getting killed while sneaking admiring glances at Riley.

Wesley, Fred and Lorne sat on the couch, sunk in misery so deep that Giles couldn’t make them feel any worse. Wesley stared blankly into space. Fred watched her hands twist together in her lap. Lorne loudly blew his nose in a silk hanky. However, those three looked like they were about to burst into non-demon-inspired song compared to Angel and Spike. Buffy groaned inwardly. She was still furious with both of them…it isn’t about me, yeah, right!...but worry was taking over.

All the way back from LA, Angel had turned inward, sitting as far as he could get from both her and Cordelia, not looking at either one or speaking, just staring expressionlessly at the wall of the van and setting a new personal best in the brooding category.

Paler than he’d ever been as a vampire, Spike had been silent too, which was worse than Angel being quiet. On his best days, Angel wasn’t exactly chatty, but normally, the only way you could shut Spike up was by knocking him unconscious. And she should know. He hadn’t even been sarcastic at Riley.

Buffy had brushed past him once, on the way to speak to Willow, and had felt him trembling slightly. Before she could ask, he’d drawn back and said “I’m fine,” in a soft, broken voice that reminded her all too strongly of the way he’d sounded back in the Sunnydale High basement. She’d thought of pushing, but the back of the Initiative van wasn’t exactly private, and she could still remember how it had felt to have to reassure others when you felt like serious crap yourself.

Neither of them were present at Lecture Central. Angel had followed Willow and Cordelia upstairs, and Spike had wandered off somewhere…

“BUFFY!”

She jumped. Everyone was staring at her, particularly Giles.

“I realize,” her Watcher said stiffly, “That you aren’t in particular need of my advice or guidance any longer. I also realize that you did, in fact, save Cordelia’s life. However, your motivations are what I’m questioning, and…”

“What Riley said sounded right,” she shrugged. “One of those Slayer hunches. But I should have tried to talk to Angel or Spike before the raid. I was mad, so I didn’t. It was wrong, and we took a bigger risk than we probably had to.”

“Well,” Giles said with a bemused frown. “Yes. That was the gist of my argument.”

“And I’m right there with you. I screwed up. I’ve done it before. I’ll probably do it again. Moving on, now. Wolfram and Hart will be after us, especially if they figure out that prophecy about Cordelia destroying them. So, we need to get organized. Willow!” she shouted.

The witch peeked through the door, saw that Giles had calmed, and came all the way into the room. “What?”

“Are the girls taken care of?”

“Yup. Vi’s taking them to New York tonight.” Willow smiled down at Natalie’s very curly head which had poked in next to her hip. “You’re going to stay with your Auntie Faith.”

The youngest Slayer pouted. “She doesn’t have any chickens.”

“No, but if you’re good, she’ll take you to a demon bar,” Willow teased.

Nat scowled. “We did that last time.”

Before Buffy could react to that announcement, Nat trotted off, leaving slightly startled adults in her wake.

“Get Vi to check out recreational activities, ok?” Buffy said weakly. “Now, the prophecy says that a side show or soft shoe or something is supposed to wake up Cordelia. We need to figure out what that is, and…”

Wesley snapped out of his trance with a sort of full-body twitch. “Would the word you’re hunting for be ‘shanshu’?”

Riley nodded. “That’s it.”

The former Watcher’s nose actually quivered. “I’d like to see that prophecy.”

He read it a few times, muttering ‘Oh, my’ every so often. Finally, he lowered the paper with a frown. “The ‘shanshu’ is a vampire that becomes human as part of his redemption. I’ve always thought it referred to Angel until Spike re-appeared as a human. But this says Wolfram and Hart called the shanshu unknowingly.”

Buffy remembered Spike’s crushed expression and Lilah’s gloating and grinned unpleasantly. The need to get Cordelia and themselves away, had kept her from giving the situation its due amount of consideration and head-punching. That would teach that bitch…wait, she was mad at Spike, she shouldn’t be happy for him. “Lilah was the one who resurrected Spike. She said it was to keep Angel off-balance.”

“The best laid plans, I guess,” Lorne muttered, seeming a little more cheerful.

She bounced to her feet. “I’ll get Angel and Spike.”

Bouncing lasted all the way upstairs. Things were going her way. Wake Cordelia and take down Wolfram and Hart. Nice and simple. This was stuff she knew how to do as opposed to stuff like dealing with people that she was both angry with and worried about.

She turned the corner into the short, windowless hallway that contained the spare room and stopped. Angel was standing at the door to Cordelia’s room with a look on his face that was all too familiar.

It was a very…private…look, made up in equal parts of sadness, anger and yearning, and it was a look he used to direct at her.

Angel and Cordelia?

Buffy’s insides twisted and churned. She knew it wasn’t fair to feel betrayed. After all, she’d had other relationships, but she couldn’t really get interested in what was fair right now. Besides, if he was looking like that at Cordelia just now, what was all that talk about ‘not getting any older’ a couple of years ago?

He turned to face her, and her words dried up the way they always did under the weight of strong emotions. Not that she knew what those emotions were. There was betrayal, definitely, the way there had been betrayal over him not telling her about Spike. Buffy was surprised to realize that she was more upset over Angel not telling her something was going on between him and Cordie than she was over the fact that there was a something to tell about.

Having no idea what to do, she walked down the hallway to join him in looking at the woman who lay quietly in the bed. Ericks, the field medic, was in there as well, adjusting a bag of fluid, her delicate movements a contrast to the weapons at her waist. “Cordie’s’s ok,” Buffy offered at last. “They didn’t have a chance to hurt her.”

She dared a look up at him, tense and silent in the door.

Did you love her? Do you love her? Why didn’t you tell me?

“Thanks to you,” Angel said, and it took her a minute to realize he was answering her remark that Cordelia would be ok. “You were the one who rescued her while I left her to get murdered by Wolfram and Hart. You saved the day.” His smile was bitter. “Guess I was wrong, Buffy. It is all about you after all.”

Suddenly, Buffy was furious about absolutely everything. Angel had kept things from her, was making moon eyes at another woman while she stood right there, and was apparently upset that she’d rescued Cordelia. While Buffy could blame herself for almost anything that happened in the known universe, it wasn’t exactly her fault that Angel had fallen down on the job. Was she supposed to have let Cordelia die so his ego wouldn’t get bruised?

“Riley’s who you should thank,” she said sweetly, and refrained from hugging herself in an evil glee that would have made Drusilla proud as Angel snapped his head around to scowl at her. “He’s really the one that saved her, with that prophecy and all. Plus, the Initiative is looking after her now, so it’s like he’s still taking care of her.” She nodded at Ericks who was now watching them curiously.

“I’ll be sure to tell him how grateful I am,” Angel said through his teeth.

I’m having way more fun than I should be. I wonder if this is how Anyanka felt.

The feeling that she was approaching Vengeance Demonhood didn’t stop her from adding in her chirpiest voice, “Cordelia can thank him after she wakes up…or after Spike wakes her up. Wesley and Giles are pretty sure he’s the one in the prophecy. The shanshu.”

He made an effort at a smile, but it didn’t go over terribly well. “Really? That’s great. That’s…fantastic. I couldn’t be happier.”

“I’m going to go get him.”

“Yeah. You should do that.”

He whirled and stalked back down the hallway in a billow of coat.

Buffy started to leave and then caught Ericks’ eye. The woman hadn’t changed expression since she was first introduced back in LA, and her face still didn’t move except for one eyelid that dropped in a quick wink before she smoothly turned back to her charge.

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

He’d faced his demons and fears, conquered them, and now, Spike was feeling much better.

Angel was right, which was something he’d never thought to admit, even to himself. It didn’t matter how he’d come back. After all, Buffy had been resurrected because Willow wanted to flex her magical muscles and because the Scoobies had been too pathetic to manage without her.

No, all that mattered was what he did next. He’d made a bad start, with huddling in the van and shivering and such, but that could be put down to shock, and he was over it now.

Spike had no intention of reprising his former role of ‘weeping and being whaled on’. Nor did he intend to return to whipping boy status, particularly since Riley Finn was back on the scene in prancing, cat-suited glory.

He carefully relaxed his grip on the top rail of the fence and decided not to worry about the slight crack. Finn wasn’t a problem. So what if Buffy had joined forces with him? That was all in the past, and it was time to look forward and focus on the positive aspects of his life. Such as the fact that he no longer had a chip in his head.

The grin that spread across his face felt truly evil, and his soul had no objection to it whatsoever. In fact, an internal query informed him that his soul greeted the notion of beating Finn into the ground with enthusiastic applause.

That wasn’t the most important item he had to attend to, however, even if it was high on the list. The most important thing was to make it clear to Buffy that he wasn’t going to be subordinate to her in any way. He’d lived his life for two years without her. He could manage. She wasn’t his obsession any more…

Although he could still feel her presence as she neared him, and her scent could still make him hard and aching, but that was all the more reason to make his position clear. He didn’t intend to give her power over him again.

She looked extremely cheerful as she leaned on the fence next to him. “So, did you have more fun as a blond? Because I think it's time the question was laid to rest.”

His intentions flew out of his head as Spike snorted a laugh for the first time in a very long time. In his furious refusal to think of her, he’d forgotten some of the little things, like how damned funny she could be. He had noticed it when she was with her friends, and during the few, precious moments of their relationship when she’d relaxed enough to actually talk to him, he’d found that he enjoyed her company as much as the sex.

“I had more fun as a member of the bloodsucking undead,” he retorted. “Hair-color's nothing, but having a soul’s like a built-in wet blanket.”

Buffy grinned in response, one of those beautiful real smiles, and he tried desperately to quell the leap of his heart.

Don’t start this again. Remember what happened. Remember the lie.

Instantly, he sobered again and turned away, unable to bear her sparkling eyes.

“Spike,” Buffy said gently, “I heard what Lilah told you, and…”

“Don’t,” he said roughly, her concerned voice like nails down a blackboard.

“Don’t what?” she asked in surprise. “Spike, you need to list…”

“No, YOU need to listen!” Angrily, he turned on her. “And understand that I don’t want your bloody sympathy! I’m fine. I don’t need comforting!”

Her chin went up and out in a way that spelled danger in big red letters. “You got it. No sympathy or comfort here.”

He tried to soften his voice, not wanting to hurt her feelings. “I know you mean it kindly, Pet. I didn't want you to worry about things.”

“Worry about what things?” she asked, the roll of her eyes visible in the moonlight. “Spike, you are such a…”

“About what happened between us. At the end.”

Her jaw dropped open and she gaped at him for long seconds before closing it with a snap. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do I have to spell it out?” he asked with a headshake. “Can’t we just let it go?”

Buffy folded her arms and regarded him. “No, I don’t think we can. I’m feeling really stupid tonight, Spike, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me exactly what you mean.”

Naturally. Let’s do it as painfully as possible, shall we? Why should this be any different?

“I’m talking about you saying you loved me,” he said plainly. “Like I said then, I knew you didn’t mean it, and I want you to know that I’m not planning to hold you to it or follow you about or some such.”

“You knew I didn’t mean it,” she repeated flatly.

“Not saying it wasn’t a nice thing to do,” he said. “It meant a lot. And maybe you did mean it in a friendship sort of way, the way you love Xander or Willow. I just didn’t want you to think I was coming back to claim you. It’s why I stayed away.” He smiled encouragingly. “No big Spikey problem for you to deal with.”

He paused, trying to determine the source of a grinding sound he’d been hearing for a few moments, then realized it was coming from Buffy’s teeth. Well, he’d known it wouldn’t go well. All he had to do was wait for the storm to be over. Calm and mature, that was the ticket.

“Gee, Spike,” she gritted. “I can see where you wouldn’t believe me the way I throw those ‘I love yous’ around all the time. Giles gets really embarrassed when I say it to strangers on the street but I can’t seem to stop. I’m starting therapy next Tuesday.”

Irritation riffled his calm. “As I said, it meant a great deal, but Buffy, we both know you never loved me, so quit acting surprised that I didn’t accept it as anything more than as a way to say goodbye. A bone you threw to your dying dog.”

Bloody hell, where did that last come from? Apparently, some anger had still been kicking around inside somewhere.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re back,” Buffy snarled. “There hasn’t been anybody around to tell me how I really feel for years. They all have this crazy idea that I can figure that out for myself!”

“Oh, come off it!” Spike shouted, calm forgotten. “You were snogging Angel two nights before the big revelation! Don’t tell me that if I had shown up at your door, you wouldn’t have gotten that big-eyed look you always get when you might have to deal with something you can’t stake! ‘Oooh, I’ll have to make a choice between Spike and Angel! What’ll I do? How will I decide?’ You’d have been bloody terrified!”

Her face was white except for a hot flush on each cheek, her eyes were glittering, and Spike suddenly remembered that mentioning Angel was the way he’d gotten his ass kicked during the fight over the Gem of Amarra.

And speaking of the good/bad old days, shouldn’t having a soul and not being a vampire any more mean that he no longer became extremely aroused by fighting Buffy? Under the anger and hurt, one very specific part of him was wondering what would happen if he tumbled them both to the ground. However, her next words shocked the arousal out of him.

“Damn right I’d have been terrified,” Buffy said in a dangerous voice. “This kind of thing is big and scary. But I’m not the only terrified one around here.” She stepped up to him, her nose only inches from his. “Because what if you’d shown up and I’d been happy to see you? It wouldn't have been some big doomed thing anymore, would it? Instead of getting drunk and writing bad poetry, you would have had to think about living arrangements and finances and talking to people whose daughters are Slayers. Stomach viruses, and bad dreams, and helping Dawn with college applications. Just life instead of some big, blazing fire, and me all the time, without an apocalypse to hide behind.”

He stared at her as she moved away.

Had she meant it? Had he stayed away because he thought she meant it? Because she was right, that was terrifying.

“Buffy…”

She shook her head sharply. “I came out to tell you that Lilah was wrong even though she didn’t know it. You do have a purpose. You’re the shanshu, the one Wolfram and Heart called without knowing. You’re the one who can wake Cordelia. And then you can do whatever the hell you want.”

Spinning on her heel, she headed back for the house.

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

“Tell me they didn’t,” Dawn pleaded, hands clamped over her eyes.

Willow lowered the binoculars. “They didn’t. It was looking iffy there for a minute, but no sex.”

Dawn flopped on the bed. “Good. Because I was going to throw a bucket of water over them. We so don’t need this now.”

Part 5

Buffy's anger hit full boil as she stalked back to the house. She was furiously aware of Spike behind her, but he didn’t try to catch up and she would rather jump off a thousand towers than turn around.

He can just walk behind me to death, and ok, I’m not going to think about what happened the time I said that out loud.

Briefly, she yearned for those good old days when anything Spike did or said was covered under the heading of ‘soulless evil thing’, although she was starting to decide that ‘man’ meant the same thing.

He hadn’t believed her. After their last night together, her taking his hand, everything, he still hadn’t believed she loved him, or at least not loved him enough or in the ‘right’ way, whatever that was.

“Moron,” she hissed and kicked aside a rock that dared to lie in her path. He was like the others, Angel and Riley, thinking he knew what was best for her, all of them making their big man decisions in their big man ways without talking to the little woman, and exactly who was the Chosen One (of a lot) around here, anyway?

Unfortunately, Buffy knew she would be able to be a lot madder (or maybe, to be honest, less mad) if she didn’t know that Spike was at least a little bit right. She would have been overjoyed to see him alive, but as Willow had once said, there would have been some “uh oh” to go along with the “whoo-hoo”, and it was true that she would have panicked over the idea of having to choose between Spike and Angel.

Of course, getting into a great big fight with both of them would keep her from having to do that, and she was well on her way. It was undoubtedly pathetic to prefer the idea of being alone to having to deal with this, so she decided not to think about it.

Banging through the front door, Buffy’s spirits were not lifted to see Riley sitting on the couch cleaning a gun. How much more male could you get than that, anyway?

“You ok?” he asked mildly.

“I’m fine,” she bit out.

He kept his gaze on the pistol. “You know, my offer to kill Spike wasn’t a one time deal.” Before she could explode completely, he went on, “Or if you wanted to do it, and wanted someone to stand around in a little cheer-leading outfit, maybe wave some pom-poms, I could do that too.”

Her mouth worked, as her brain tried to decide which way to go, and then she laughed despite herself. Somewhere along the way, Riley had picked up a wickedly deadpan sense of humor.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she snickered just as Spike entered. His eyes flicked from her to Riley and narrowed.

That was fairly enjoyable, or it was until he looked at her blandly and said, “Bit of an old home week for you, isn’t it, with your ex-shagging partners in one spot like this? Planning to fly Parker in to join the fun? Not to mention all the ones I don’t know about.”

Pure fury shot through her, but before she could react, Riley snapped his gun back together, and stood.

“Everyone else is upstairs, Buffy,” he said pleasantly, ignoring Spike’s existence and not bothering to holster his gun. “You ready?”

She took a deep breath and forced herself to focus on the task at hand, mental walls she hadn’t needed for a while forming up around her. This would be over soon, and she could go back to her old life. She could manage until then.

“Let’s go,” she said calmly and turned toward the stairs.

Riley fell in behind her. Spike brought up the rear.

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It came to pass that despite many lessons and chances,
The shanshu was unable to keep his bloody mouth shut,
So he ended up alone while the Slayer went off with some other bloke.
And everyone else had a big laugh.

After all, if there were going to be prophecies about him, they might as well be accurate.

Spike scowled at Buffy’s back as she climbed the stairs ahead of him, or at least at the small part of Buffy’s back that wasn’t hidden by Finn’s burly fame.

While he wasn’t sorry for what he’d said…One minute as good as telling me she would have been willing to commit and the next giggling at me while my back was turned…, he had to admit the immediate result of his words had been to give Finn the chance to be solicitous and sympathetic in a manly fashion.

The icing on the cake and what really made Spike gnash his teeth, was the knowledge that Buffy wouldn’t have gotten involved with Soldier Boy’s attempt to overthrow Wolfram and Hart in the first place if Spike hadn’t hidden there after his return. It was all his own fault. Wasn’t that smashing? Still, it really didn’t give Finn the excuse for being all concerned and hovering. It had been almost four years since he’d seen Buffy. And where the hell was his wife, anyway?

Chill touched him. Had they split up? Was he here to pick up where he’d left off with claims of having grown as a person and having the ability to truly appreciate Buffy now? She’d fall for it, women always did, damn them.

“How’s the missus?” he asked as Finn reached the top of the stairs. Buffy glanced over her shoulder with a frown.

Yeah, he’s got a wife, remember? Cheating bastard. Nothing you want to get involved with.

Finn gave him a smile that was almost a smirk. “Nice of you to be concerned about my personal life, Hostile 17.” He leaned slightly over Spike, the smile definitely moving into smirkhood. “Or should I say…Doctor?”

…he was back in his crypt, naked with Finn sneering down at him and Buffy drawing back in disgust. Then, she was walking away into the sunlight while he stood among the ruins of his possessions…

“STOP IT!”

Spike came back to himself and found that he was struggling furiously in Angel’s grip, as the vampire hauled him in one direction while Buffy dragged Finn in the other.

“You done?” Angel said sharply. Blood was streaming from his nose, but Finn was sporting what promised to be one hell of a shiner, so he’d call it good, especially since Buffy was glaring impartially at them both.

“For the moment.”

Angel let go, not that his grip had been all that restraining to begin with. In fact, as memory of the fight came back, Spike was fairly Angel had let him get in one last punch while Buffy restrained her charge.

“Are they evil? Are you going to fight them, Buffy? Can we help?”

The demanding high-pitched voice made Spike aware that a sizable audience had gathered, including four small girls, ranging from seven to 12 or so who were peering eagerly around Violet and Kennedy.

Buffy smoothed her scowl away as she turned to them and Spike could almost see her turn into the Responsible Adult Who Is Setting A Good Example.

“No, I’m not going to fight them,” she said firmly. “Because we have a job to do.”

“And the mission is what’s important!” the oldest girl of the group chimed in brightly.

Buffy nodded. “That’s right.”

The youngest frowned. “They were fighting,” she said, pointing an accusing finger at Spike. “They didn’t care about the mission. Are you sure they aren’t evil?”

“Trust me, they aren’t evil,” Buffy snorted. “Just really irritating and kind of stupid.”

The oldest girl shook her head disapprovingly with a look that made Spike wonder if Cecily had reincarnated, then explained kindly to the others. “Boys are like that. It’s why they can’t be Slayers.”

Every adult female in the hallway broke into simultaneous evil grins while all the men looked slightly hurt.

Ruffling the girl’s hair, Buffy said, “Margaret gets a cookie before bed, ok, Vi?”

“Hey!” the youngest protested. “I think boys are stupid and irritating and can’t be Slayers too!”

The other girls nodded furiously as Willow clamped both hands over her mouth and leaned against the wall, shaking with laughter.

“Cookies all around,” Buffy said grandly. “And now, it’s bedtime. For you too, Natalie,” she added with a raised brow at the little one. “You got to watch them set up for the spell, and that’s enough.”

Herded by Violet, they trooped by, grumbling, except for Margaret who swept past with a toss of her head.

“Take the ax, Vi,” Buffy said quietly. “I don’t know what this spell will do.”

“Got it,” the red-headed Slayer muttered back. “I’ll keep them all in one room and call it a sleepover. Come on, ladies,” she said aloud. “Last one down has to help Giles with the books.”

They fled in a flurry of pounding feet and squeals that diminished until the hallway was left in silence.

“Now that we’ve established the general inferiority of men and the horror of assisting me,” Giles said in a long-suffering voice, “Perhaps we could attempt to awaken Cordelia?”

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

There was quite a crowd ganged around Cordelia’s bed, and they were all staring at him, except for Buffy and Angel, who were both watching the comatose woman.

“Go ahead, Prophecy Guy,” Xander said helpfully. “Do your stuff.”

Spike looked at Wesley. “Yeah. That prophecy. It say anything about *how* I’m supposed to wake her up?”

Wesley shook his head apologetically. “Sorry, no.”

“A kiss is traditional,” Fred offered.

Well, he had Buffy and Angel’s attention now, right enough. Spike returned their cold gazes with a sardonic smile. “I think that might best be left as a last resort, Pet.”

When in doubt, try the obvious.

With a shrug, he reached for her shoulder. “Here, Cordelia. Wake…”

He wasn’t really expecting anything to happen, but as his hand touched her skin, it felt like his brain was pulled out through his forehead, and then everything went black.

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

Buffy’s anger vanished as Spike’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed across Cordelia. He couldn’t die on her again.

She tried to go to him, but was halted by Giles and Dawn who each caught one of her arms and held on stubbornly.

“Let go of me!” she snapped, trying to shake them off.

“No,” Dawn said grimly. “The only way you’re getting rid of me is if you hurt me.”

“You cannot touch him, Buffy,” Giles panted, digging in his feet. “Not until we know what’s happening. You might be affected by this as well.”

Before she could argue or get herself free…she wouldn’t have to hurt Dawn a lot to make her let go…Angel rolled Spike off Cordelia and onto his back beside her without adding the pile of unconscious bodies.

“You’re the one who found this prophecy,” he growled at Riley. “What’s going on? And if this is some kind of trick to deal with me and Spike…”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Riley said coolly. “And if I wanted to ‘deal with’ the two of you, I’d do it without involving a civilian.”

“If you don’t stop it, you can go downstairs with Violet and the other children,” Buffy snapped. “Wesley, Giles, help me out. What’s happening?”

Both Watchers had pushed their way to the sides of the bed and were now crouched over studying the two forms intensely.

“Not sure,” Wesley muttered. “If it didn’t affect Angel, then it must have to do with the Spike’s prophecy status.”

That was a big bunch of not help.

“Willow?”

It was somewhere between a question and a plea, and the witch closed her eyes and extended her hands over Cordelia and Spike. “Both life energies are strong,” she muttered. “There’s no physical or mental damage. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were both asleep.” She opened her eyes. “Maybe it does take a kiss.”

Buffy brushed away Dawn who'd grabbed her again. “I’m not going to kiss anyone, Dawnie.” She looked around at the baffled faces, trying to force down her panic. “Any ideas?”

“Here’s another question,” Xander said. “Why is Spike glowing?”

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“Where the hell…”

Spike turned in a circle, taking in his surroundings, which were pretty much described with the words ‘dark’ and ‘featureless’. Except, of course, for Cordelia who was standing next to him.

He jumped a foot, and was startled as he landed by the folds of his duster sweeping into place around him. Lifting a hand, he found that his hair was once more slicked back to his head.

“You are how you see yourself here,” she said tiredly. “And you were right. This is hell.”

She turned away from him, draperies trailing and he caught her arm. “Wait. I’m here to get you out.” Distracted, he looked at her attire and truly bad hairstyle. “This is how you see yourself? I was thinking more form-fitting…”

Cordie shook her head. “I don’t see myself any way anymore, but this is how I wanted to be. Good and noble, non-fashion obsessed. It’s what I made myself into. And you need to go, Spike. You can’t get me out.”

“I can so,” he said instantly.

There was a spark of the old Cordelia. “Really? How? You carry along a door or something? You know how to open portals?”

He looked around, but there weren’t any obvious exits. “Give me a minute. There’s a prophecy that says I’m the one who does this. I should be able to work it out.” Something moved against his chest, and he looked down to see the champion’s amulet dangling from his neck. “Hopefully, working it out won’t require me to burst into flame.”

“Work it out fast,” she said grimly as a roar echoed across the plain. “Or leave if you can.” Light sprang up around her, enclosing her in a pale glow. “He can’t touch me, but you need to get out of here.”

Too bloody right.

The demon was huge, at least 10 feet tall, and that wasn’t counting the three long, snaky necks, each of which supported a huge head. The Wolf bared dripping fangs at him; the Ram and Hart lowered their horns.

“Cute,” Spike said. “Hope they’re paying you royalties, mate.” He gave the amulet a shake. “Wake up down there, would you? I need a bit of help.”

When the amulet was not forthcoming, he shook his head, feeling vampiric features slide into place with eerie familiarity, and leaped to attack. As he did so, he realized that he’d started to glow.

The demon reared back, and Spike swung furiously, his glowing fist making more of an impact than he’d anticipated. Then he dropped, rolling as fast as he could to avoid the pointed antlers of the Hart and the teeth of the Wolf, and came to his feet just in time to get butted by the Ram.

He sailed through the air, horribly aware that he’d barely missed having his spine broken, but managed to twist and land upright, mind busily processing a piece of new information. When he’d been on the ground, he’d seen a glowing red jewel set in the top of the Wolf’s open mouth. In his experience, glowing jewels were things you needed to get.

“Hang on, Pet,” Spike said to Cordelia, battle-lust surging through him. “I think we’re almost home.”

With a howl, he charged, this time skipping aside just enough to avoid the other two heads but keeping in range of the Wolf. It roared and lunged, and he caught the rank fur in his hands, swinging up to straddle the neck.

It was a bit like riding a cracking whip, but he managed to hold on, despite the tinds of the Hart’s antlers that raked his back.

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“Do something,” Buffy said tensely as blood pooled under Spike . “Willow, send me wherever he went!”

“No!” shouted everyone else in the room.

“Dammit!” she grabbed him by the shoulders. “Spike wake up!”

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Damn, that hurt.

Letting the pain fuel his fury, Spike sank his fist as far as he could into the Wolf’s gleaming eye. It opened its mouth in a howl of rage and pain, and he leaned in and seized the jewel. Fortunately, it popped out immediately, letting him get his arm out before it got bitten off.

All three heads began to shriek, and he hastily let go and jumped as far as he could. The fight had gone out of the thing, however, and it shambled off wailing.

“You did it,” Cordelia breathed, looking insultingly surprised. The light had collapsed around her, and she came to stand by him. “That was…that was really pretty cool, Spike.”

“Thanks,” he wheezed. “Glad to oblige. Hope it was what we needed.”

He opened his hand, and they both regarded the jewel. It was still glowing, which was probably a good sign. Cordelia cautiously touched it with her fingertip.

There was that turning inside out feeling, and then Spike’s eyes snapped open to Buffy shaking him and yelling. As soon as she saw his eyes open, she dropped him, and he grimaced as his torn back hit the bed. He was also covered in gore.

“Cordelia!” Angel cried, face more alight than Spike had seen it in years. Buffy’s face set in response.

Spike looked to the side to see that Cordelia’s eyes were indeed open. She struggled to rise and the medic hurried over to help her.

“Angel,” she whispered. “Wesley…you’re all here.” Her face hardened. “Get out.”

“Cordie,” Fred said faintly.

Her eyes were blazing. “You left me there with Wolfram and Hart. Lorne was the only one who even visited. Get. Out.”

When everyone remained frozen in position, she shot upright on the pillows and shouted, “Get out. Get Out. GET OUT!”

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Dawn looked around at the others in the hallway. “Ok, did it sound that bad when I said it?”

“Worse,” several people said absently as they looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do. Angel just stared straight ahead, expressionlessly. Lorne's cautious hand was shaken off.

Dawn sighed. “No wonder nobody wanted to spend time with me.”

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It was very late, but Buffy couldn’t fall asleep. She didn’t want to toss and turn too much because of Dawn’s quiet form beside her. They had all doubled up to make room for the new people, even though the Initiative members were camped in the yard. The little girls were having their sleepover in one of their bedrooms, while Fred took the other. Wesley was in Dawn’s room and Lorne was asleep and snoring on the living room couch.

Giles had put his foot down very firmly, without ever looking directly at her, and Angel and Spike were now camped on his floor. Buffy had an idea that he was behind Dawn sleeping in her room as well, which was both funny and annoying.

It’s not like I can’t control myself. I don’t even WANT to have sex right now. Besides, with Angel and Cordie…

She frowned and got quietly out of bed, threw on random jeans and tank top and padded barefoot into the hall.

Ericks looked up from her position in the recliner just outside Cordelia’s door. She hadn’t let anyone else in the rest of the evening, but at the sight of Buffy, she smiled a little and closed her eyes again.

Cordelia was sitting stiffly on the edge of the bed, staring into the darkness. “I thought I said get out.”

“You did,” Buffy said, crossing to sit next to her. “Really loud although Dawn’s got you beat on the screech factor.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting like you care,” Cordelia said angrily. “It’s not like you came to see me either.”

Buffy let that one sit there, and after a moment, the other woman’s lips twisted. “Especially after I’ve always been such a source of strength and support to you all these years.”

“I don’t know how I would have managed without you,” she said straight-faced. “Look, Cordie, I’m not the best one for sympathy and understanding, but if you want to talk…”

“I thought about you,” Cordelia interrupted. “When Skip came to me and said I’d been Chosen as a higher being, I didn’t want to go. I was starting to think I could be really happy, and when he said it was my responsibility, I didn’t care much. Then I remembered that you didn’t want to be the Slayer, but you went ahead and did it, and you were lots younger. I thought I should too. And it turned out to be a lie. I’m not blaming you,” she said quickly as Buffy started to speak. “I just wanted to say, maybe I understand a little more about what you went through.” She gave a short bitter laugh, then looked at Buffy very directly. “In more than one way. Do you love Angel?”

The cookie answer was not going to cut it this time. Buffy looked back and answered honestly. “Yes. But I’m not sure that matters.”

Cordelia’s eyes were bright with tears. “How can it NOT matter? If you love Angel, he’ll go to you.”

“Yeah, because he’s really been by my side all these years.” Buffy stood up and began to pace. “Look, I love Angel, but I loved Riley too, although nobody believed it, and I loved Spike although he doesn’t believe it. Who knows what it means anyway? There’s boyfriend love and friend love and all kinds of love..or maybe they're the same. I don’t know. Does it mean you want to have sex with a person? Because hey, Jude Law. Does it mean you could have kids with them and make a happy life? I could do that with Xander and probably be pretty happy except now, I’d have to fight Violet.” She sat back down on the bed. “I love Angel and that’s real, but if you love Angel, that’s real too.”

After a moment, Cordelia snickered. “You got deep over the years. You have another epiphany or something.”

“I’ve had a few. They wear off, but then I get another one.”

Cordelia restlessly traced the coverlet. “Why didn’t Angel come to see me, Buffy? He didn’t, not once. I could see the real world from where I was if I looked, and he never came.”

“I don’t know,” Buffy said gently. “You’ll have to ask him.” She put an arm around the trembling shoulders. “Let’s talk about something happier. How are you going to destroy Wolfram and Hart?”

“I have no frigging idea.”

~Fin~