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

Chapter 36: From You Have I Been Absent

He said it with more force than he felt, but if Red cottoned on to just what a wreck he really was about this whole situation, she’d be too busy laughing her ass off to do any kind of mojo for either of them. Spike’s sleep had been split between nonsensical dreams about him and the Slayer playing pick-up-sticks in Victorian gardens he’d long ago forgotten, and nightmares where Dru and Buffy engaged in fights to the death, while he was helplessly tied up at the side to watch. The outcomes had been different every time---sometimes, the Slayer would stake his dark princess; sometimes, Dru would catch Buffy in a lethal grip and drain her dry, and there was that one odd combination where Buffy had dusted Dru with one of the pick-up sticks---but each and every one of them left him in horrific grief that drove him from slumber just a few hours after dawn.

So, he did what he always did when confronted with a situation he found unbearable. He took it by the throat and shook it until it settled into something a spot more manageable. Of course, half the time he ended up a little worse for wear, but the occasions where he came out on top more than made up for it.

“What do you mean…your order?”

He could smell the fear spring to the surface of her skin, and the unexpected delight made Spike’s mouth curl into a smirk. “Thought I was bein’ pretty plainspoken,” he said. “Seems to me, I’ve been letting you call too many of these shots, and that’s just not right. Natural pecking order puts me on top, Red, so I’ve decided to start acting like it for a change.”

“No, no on top. What happened to you and me, and being straightshooting partners, huh? Straightshooters don’t get on top of each other. Side by side. That’s what we agreed to.”

“You didn’t really give me much of a choice, though, now did you?”

She was already recovering from her initial shock, allowing the blanket to fall from those ridiculous pajamas. “You’re the one who came back, Spike,” Willow said sharply. It always amazed him how she could dredge up these unhidden sources of strength when confronted with danger. He’d been right to pick her side in this. “You were gone, and you could’ve stayed gone, but you were the one who showed up at my door asking for help. That sounds like a pretty firm choice to me.”

He growled and resumed his pacing. Thinking always seemed to come easier if he was moving. “Not the point,” Spike snarled. “The point is, I’m not happy with the current arrangement. I’ve done some thinking and I think I need to get paid up front---.”

“Huh? You want money now?”

She was trying his patience, really she was. “The mojo for Dru,” he said through clenched teeth. “You want to use me to get your Slayer back, you have to do my spell first.”

“What? No! We’re not even sure what your spell does. For all I know, it’ll whisk you back to South America and then what am I going to do about Buffy?”

“That’s your problem, then, isn’t it?”

He had to get out of this place. All he could smell was the Slayer---in the air, on his hands, under his skin---and it was clouding what should be a simple thing. Grabbing his wrecked coat from where he’d tossed it over the altar, Spike slipped it on, concentrating on not looking at the small blonde still asleep on the bed.

“Where are you going now?” Willow asked.

“Goin’ to get a bite to eat,” he retorted. “I’ll be back in a couple hours. Make sure you’ve got what you need done ‘cause I’m expecting my payment as soon as I return.” He stopped halfway out the door. “And don’t think about bolting. I’m lettin’ the publican know I’ll be out. If you step one goody goody foot outside this room, I’ll tell him you’re free for eating.”

Spike didn’t wait to see her response. Letting the door slam shut behind him, he marched for the stairs that led down to the tunnels. He just needed some fresh air, that was it. And a pretty young thing for breakfast. That would clear his head of big green eyes and sinewy muscles just made for---.

Fuck.

Whatever he killed to eat, it wasn’t going to be blonde.

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

Buffy’s demon assessment had been correct, with another breaking through the magical barrier even before William could get his sword from its scabbard. That one had had multiple arms, but as soon as she had relieved it of two of the sets, its bloodlust seemed to wane, making it a prompt kill.

What she hadn’t anticipated, however, were the clouds roiling into venomous billows, or the sudden rise in temperature as if the land itself wanted to burn them off of it, or the wind whipping into frenetic convulsions, making it difficult to remain standing, let alone fighting.

“Keep them away from Rose, no matter what the cost!” Richard shouted above the din.

William’s agreement was silent, because a pair of vampires had emerged upon Buffy’s victory, and he was faced with the first mortal combat of his lifetime.

She would’ve taken them both on with no hesitation if he hadn’t stepped up to her side. After a long glance out of the corner of her eye, though, she smiled, and gripped the hilt of her own sword just a little tighter.

“Just don’t start practicing how to be a macho bull-head, OK?” she quipped.

He wasn’t entirely sure what she meant, so William just returned her smile with a, “Never.”

Though he had every intention of charging the fanged demon---how valiant would that appear? he thought gleefully---his feet thought otherwise, rooting him in the brush with a surety as if he’d used paste on his soles. At least he didn’t run, and when the vampire lunged forward, William instinctively lifted his sword in a riposte that had the blade sliding into the monster’s chest.

His brief exhilaration vanished when he realized the vampire was still standing, and William remembered in an annoyed flash that his weapon wasn’t made of wood, and that the creature’s head was still intact on his body. Considering those were the only two ways he knew how to kill a vampire, his job wasn’t done, so he stepped back, pulling out the sword with a sticky squelch, and readied himself for another attack.

It was both different and the same as fighting Buffy had been. Where Buffy had challenged him to push his body to the limits, the vampire was merely interested in killing William, and the separation of such goals sharpened his defense. He was not ready to die; he refused to believe that it would end for him so carelessly. Yet, it wasn’t nearly as simple as Buffy had made it appear. The vampire was willing to do just about anything to win, and when William found himself tripped to go sprawling onto his stomach, the weight of the demon on his back was almost enough for him to call out for help.

Almost.

When his head lifted, William saw her standing near the carriage, eyes intent as she regarded him. The vamp she’d taken on must’ve long been dusted, because she seemed unperturbed in spite of the elements, solemnity personified as she waited to see what he would do. Dangling at her side, her hand was ready on her weapon, but the blaze in her face told him she didn’t think she needed to use it.

The vampire thought it had won. William smelled its fetid breath as its fangs drew nearer, and braced himself against the sickness that rose in his stomach. Letting his body go limp, he melted into the ground, hoping he wasn’t making a serious miscalculation in his risk.

The instant he felt the teeth start to break through his skin, William slammed his elbow back into the vampire’s midsection, taking the demon by surprise and toppling him off. He rolled with the weapon raised, and in a clean slice, brought it down on the vamp’s neck.

The wind brought the dust up to clog his nose, and he was coughing when Buffy appeared at his side. She pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into his hand, all the while grinning like the canary-stuffed cat.

“I knew you could do it,” she said.

Only six little words, and not one of them unique, but their order and their timing were all that it took for William to puff up in pride. He had done it. For likely the first time in his short life, he’d taken charge of a situation and seen it through to its mortal end. The exhilaration was intoxicating.

“Keep your pants on, buster,” Buffy said with a smile. She nodded toward the plot of land that was starting to appear thicker and more real with each passing second. “The game’s not over yet.”

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

When they’d first heard the faraway tumult echoing from above their heads, Giles’ instinctive reaction had been to go investigate. It had only been Anne’s desperate plea not to leave her alone, unprotected, that had stopped him from venturing up the stairs.

He recognized those sounds. Three years with Buffy, and prior to that, countless years in training, and it was impossible for Giles not to recognize the clamor of battle. He didn’t tell Anne, though, not even when she naively asked him if he had any suspicions about what was happening. He’d merely patted her hand and made some vague reply about being safe if they remained together.

He didn’t feel safe. He felt bloody helpless. Frankly, he’d just about kill for a weapon of some sort.

The possibility that it was Buffy arrived to rescue him was perhaps the single thing keeping him from abandoning Anne’s side. In fact, he voiced that opinion for her, only to have her laugh and chide him about the silliness of a young woman besting the magics that surrounded the house. It prompted Giles to sigh. Though the Victorian manners were quaint, he was actually rather grateful for the more progressive thinking of his time. He would never admit so to Buffy, of course; that would only make his training of her even harder.

When the bedlam suddenly disappeared, Giles’ stomach knotted in fear, prompting him to rise from where he’d been sitting next to Anne and cross to the doorway. Pressing his ear to the wood, he strained to hear what might be happening outside.

Nothing.

“Is it over?” Anne whispered from the bed.

“It would appear so,” Giles replied. His hand dropped to the doorknob, and then froze.

Footsteps.

In the hall.

Damn it. He didn’t have a weapon.

Anne sensed his shift in mood. “What is---?” she started to ask, only to clamp her mouth shut when he waved at her to quiet.

Resuming his listening, this time the Watcher heard the soft click of doors opening and closing, the footsteps soft in between each action. When it neared, he took a step back, squaring his shoulders to do hand-to-hand, should the need arise.

Shock kept him motionless when the door finally opened. Not Buffy that would come to his rescue, then, Giles thought. How ironic that it would come to this.

He looked like he’d been through a warzone. The antiquated shirt was pulled from his trousers, random rips and bloodstains proclaiming the extent of the fighting that had been occurring overhead. Sandy-colored curls were plastered to his forehead with sweat, but the eyes were a brilliant blue, jumping around the room with the characteristic edginess that Giles associated with the vampire. This wasn’t Spike, though; his face was too flushed, his skin too pink, for him to be undead.

It could only be William.

“Step away from her!” the young man threatened, lifting the sword Giles only now noticed to aim it at the older man. He winced as he did it, though, causing the Watcher to wonder just how exhausted the new arrival actually was.

“William!” It was the strongest Giles had ever heard Anne speak, and he stepped aside to watch her approach her son. “Where are your manners?”

For a moment, William looked stricken. Like a child caught in not-so-innocent circumstances, he stared back at her for a long moment before letting the tip of the blade droop from where it had been aimed at Giles’ chest.

“Are you all right?” he asked her, apologetic in his propriety.

Another chill rippled through Giles’ body at the sound. Spike’s voice, without the forced London edge he had always suspected had been a put-on. It was simple to see the young man Anne Freston had spent the past few days describing, but at the same time, the eerie overlays of the hated vampire kept him unsettled.

“I’m fine,” Anne replied. “Mr. Giles has been most helpful in keeping me company.”

The change was instantaneous. At the sound of his name, William’s head whipped to stare at the other Englishman. “Rupert Giles?” he asked.

Giles frowned. “Yes,” he answered slowly.

The weapon was dropped, and William bowed in a crisp salute. “It’s my sincerest pleasure, sir,” he said. When he straightened, he offered his free right hand in greeting. “I have to admit, it’s an honor I never imagined I’d be granted.”

Curiouser and curiouser.

He waited perhaps a fraction too long to accept the handshake. Of course it wasn’t the coolness of a demon that met his palm, but the too-sweaty, sweltering grip of a man who’d spent the better part of a day fighting. This is Anne’s bookworm son? A glance in her direction confirmed that she was slightly perplexed by her son’s appearance as well. Obviously, this wasn’t what she expected either.

“Have we met?” Giles asked. Caution was the better part of valor, he reasoned. Though it sounded as if the battle was complete above, it was entirely possible that this was just part of some massive test for them.

“No, not really,” William replied. He smiled, and it transformed his entire face, making him younger, softer. Human. “But Buffy has had only the most exemplary things to say of you. It’s my privilege to meet the man she so admires. You have done an excellent job with your guidance, sir. Buffy is an amazing woman.”

“Buffy.” In the bewildering oddity of the young man’s words, it was that that stuck out. “Is she---?”

“Giles!”

He reacted just in time to have the air forced from his lungs when powerful arms wrapped around his neck. She was laughing, and she smelled like blood and smoke, and he could see bugger all, but it was most definitely Buffy squeezing the life out of him.

He’d never been so glad to see anyone in his entire life.

When she slid back down, Giles noticed the old-fashioned blouse and skirt she wore. His mouth opened to say something, but the words failed him when she stepped back and took William’s hand in hers as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Rose is on her way down,” she was babbling excitedly. “She’s the one who broke through the spell on the house. You should’ve seen it, Giles. Every time it looked like we were getting through, more demons came out. It was like one of those cars at the circus, you know? The ones with all the clowns in them and you can’t for the life of you figure out where they’re all coming from? I haven’t fought that much since graduation, and god, did it feel good.”

“Buffy,” William said quietly, and there was no mistaking the gentle press of her hand as he directed her attention elsewhere. “I’d like for you to meet my mother.”

Her mouth made a little circle as she breathed the “Oh…” Giles was transfixed as he watched Buffy metamorphose into the girl he’d seen her affect in front of teachers and her mother prior to the truth coming out about her calling, all smiles and politeness of the perfect persona. Now, though, it seemed remarkably sincere, and the reasons why that could be dampened his relish in seeing her.

“How do you do?” she said brightly. After a nervous glance at William---one Giles imagined she did not mean to be witnessed---she bobbed an awkward curtsey. “William’s told me a lot about you. I’m glad to see that you’re OK.”

Anne’s returning smile was polite, but there was no missing the curious lift of her brows as she looked over Buffy’s head to her son. “I wasn’t aware that you were acquainted,” she said. “Though, Mr. Giles has spoken quite fondly of you.”

“It’s a…long story,” Buffy stammered. “A really long story,” she added at Giles’ level stare.

She was saved from further explanation by another arrival in the entryway. “The magic is complete,” the older woman who stood there said. Her dark gaze swept over the group. “I’m assuming you’ve found them.”

Giles remained silent during the introductions, shaking the seer’s hand when it was his turn, listening to the astounding tale of temporal displacements and witches traveling through time and houses being hidden from scrutiny with the calm acceptance as befitting his title. All the while, he watched the possessive hand William kept at the small of Buffy’s back, and the way she leaned into the young man as she spoke, and the undeniable emotion that leapt between them with the propensity of youth not yet ravaged by time. Something had very obviously happened between them, and the longer he surveyed them, the more convinced Giles became that Buffy was in over her head.

“What I’ve done doesn’t supplant the magic that ties you to this time, however,” Rose was explaining. “For you, Mr. Giles, it will take leaving the house entirely. I imagine what will happen is that once you cross the threshold, you’ll find yourself back in your own time.”

“And Buffy?” he asked. “Is that how she returns as well?”

The trio exchanged guilty looks before Rose spoke again. “I’m afraid her situation is slightly…different from yours,” she said. “But we believe that her friend Willow is well on the way to rectifying it.”

“I know it’s all kind of wiggy,” Buffy jumped in. “Trust me, when I first realized when I was, I was all about the wig. But things are working out. Before you know it---.”

A loud crash from overhead cut her off, and all five heads jerked up to stare at the ceiling. “Stay here,” Buffy ordered. “That doesn’t sound good.”

William hesitated for but a moment before following after the running Slayer, leaving the three older people in silence. Rose was the one to finally shatter the quiet, with a heavy sigh.

“For as much as she might pretend otherwise,” the seer said, “Buffy is ever the optimist.”

“Are you saying she won’t be able to return home?” Giles asked.

“No, I’m saying she truly believes she can do so without any repercussions.”

“William loves her.” Anne’s voice was low, but boomed in the suddenly too-close walls. “I’ve never seen him so…”

Rose’s concurring nod prompted Giles to add, “And she…feels for him.”

“It’s been…difficult,” the seer commented. “My husband and I have tried to speak with them, but they’re young and stubborn---.”

Giles snorted. “Yes, that they are.”

“I do…have a solution of sorts,” Rose said. “One I’ve not spoken to them about. I don’t believe it would be met with much...support.”

“And that would be?”

She took a deep breath. “I can make it possible to have everyone who’s been in contact with Buffy…to forget she was ever here.”

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

They found Richard crouching at one of the living room windows, staring outside with the gloom of a man facing his most dreaded nightmare. The cacophony was louder here, the sound of destruction emanating from outdoors, but inside, the house was deadly still.

“What is it?” Buffy asked. She leaned over his shoulder to peer out the glass, watching the dark shadows of bodies passing back and forth in growing determination.

“Vampires,” Richard replied. “A rather large coterie.”

“They seem a little put out about something,” she commented.

“Yes. Yes, they are.”

She frowned when she saw the empty street. “Where’s the coach? How are we supposed to get out of here?”

“I sent it away when I saw them approaching. I didn’t believe we could handle such large numbers, so I…I sent him to the Council and ordered an emergency meeting here. We shall have reinforcements soon.”

“And you expect us to just hide out in here until they get bored and walk away?”

“We’ve been fighting all day---.”

“And we’ll fight all night if we have to---.”

“Not all of us are Slayers, Miss Summers. We don’t all have your constitution.”

It was his tone that made her stop from pushing the argument. “What is it you’re not telling me here, Richard?” she asked.

“If I could retract my order to my driver, I would,” he said softly. “The last thing I wish right now is for my colleagues to arrive.”

“Why?”

His eyes never left the glass. “Because April is out there. She’s finally decided to stop waiting and kill me.”

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

Chapter 37: Make War Upon This Bloody Tyrant

Even William didn’t expect Buffy to start marching for the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked, darting forward to stand between her and the exit. “Did you not hear Richard?”

“Uh…yeah.”

He matched her step sideways, continuing to block her way. “And don’t you think it would be wise to exercise just a little caution?” William said. “He has a valid point. They are freshly arrived, while we’ve been---.”

“---in the trenches all day, yeah, I was kinda there, remember?” This time when he mimicked her sidestep, Buffy sighed in exasperation. “Is there a reason we’re going with the Three Stooges routine here? Because last time I checked, there were vampires to kill and I am the Slayer.”

His eyes searched hers, his exhaustion forgotten as he tried to find reason to her actions. “It’s not safe,” he argued. No longer could he resist reaching and brushing back the loose tendril that had escaped just before the magic had fallen to reveal the house. It had eaten him not to feel free to do so in the cellars, but the sheer fact that he’d held Buffy’s hand had been as bold a maneuver as he dared in either his mother’s or her Watcher’s presence. Until they were formally told of William’s relationship with Buffy, it wouldn’t do to make them uncomfortable with improper displays. He’d had to settle for discreetly leaving his hand at the small of her back, all the while aching to take her in his arms and pronounce to the people he cared for the most how much he loved her.

“As long as we remain inside,” William continued, “they can’t hurt you.”

“As long as we remain inside,” Buffy countered, “we’re prisoners of our own fear. That’s not the way I work. You know that.”

He didn’t know if it was the silent plea in her gaze, or the affirmation of how well they understood each other that made him automatically step aside. He only knew that she was right, and if he stopped her from doing this, she would resent him.

“You’re a foolish little girl,” Richard said harshly when she opened the door. “April’s a killer.”

“Guess what?” Buffy said calmly. “So am I.”

When the door closed shut behind her, William heard the effects of her emergence long before he reached the window. Footsteps pounded up the stone steps, snarls and bellows filtering through the thick walls as they charged, and when he could finally see outside, he noted that five of them had rushed the porch in their vicious attack.

“Foolish little girl,” Richard repeated under his breath.

It was an instinctive reaction. With the rapidity of a man incensed, William’s fist shot out and slammed into Richard’s jaw, taking both of them by pained surprise. The Watcher fell backwards and stared up at his attacker.

“Coward,” William spat. The venom shocked him, but it was a long time coming, and flowed from his tongue with a vitriol that made his veins burn. “And to think that I actually felt sorry for you, and what you’ve gone through over the past twenty years.”

“You have no idea---.”

“No, I think it is you who fails to understand, Richard.” A sharp finger jabbed toward the pane. “That woman is the bravest person I have ever known, and she is out there at this very minute, doing what you should have done all those years ago. She does so, without any thought of recompense, with no regard for whether she will survive or not, while you hide within the cover of these walls, cowering and complaining because your precious Council just might learn of your deception. Tell me how that makes her the foolish one here.”

Slowly, Richard rose to his feet, wary now of another attack. “Your love blinds you, William,” he said.

“You’re wrong. If anything, it’s opened my eyes.”

“To what? A lifetime of danger? A love that will only end in heartache?” He began circling the younger man, frustration fuelling his steps. “Prior to Buffy, you were safe, with your cozy little books, and your too-precious verses. You had the luxury of not having to walk in the paths I’ve traveled, and not having to witness people you love perish because of vile monsters with no concern but their own amusement. Do you honestly believe that, given the opportunity, Buffy would want you to face such danger every day for the remainder of your life? If you do, you’re a bigger fool than she is.”

The muscles in William’s jaw ached from clenching them so tightly. “I would do it,” he forced. “For her.”

Neither spoke for a long moment. It was only when the door was yanked open and Buffy came hurtling in, that either of them moved.

“Are you all right?” William asked, rushing to her side.

Her blouse was slashed across the forearm, a new cut creating crimson rivulets along her skin before adding fresh stains to the white cotton. “Better than the four vamps I just dusted,” she replied as he pressed his handkerchief to her wound. She frowned when she saw the stiff posture of the Watcher near the window, her eyes darting between the pair of men. “I didn’t interrupt a lover’s quarrel or something, did I?”

“No.” William glanced up sharply when Richard answered her first. “William and I were discussing what our best method of attack should be,” the older man went on.

“Oh.” She looked pleased with that response, smiling a little as she handed back the handkerchief. “What did you come up with?”

“The only thing we could agree upon was that you shouldn’t have to be out there alone,” Richard said. Resolutely, he reached for the sword he’d set aside when they’d first entered. “Is April still out there?”

“I think so. She’s acting like General Patton directing her troops. I think she’s waiting for you, if you really want to know.”

He didn’t know why the Watcher had changed his mind, but there was no time for William to dwell on the question. “You said you dusted four vamps,” he said. Using a clean edge of his handkerchief, he wiped down his blade as he spoke. “I counted five on the porch with you.”

“That little piggy when wee wee wee all the way back out to the road,” Buffy replied. “I figure there’s about eight or nine left, including April and her boytoy.”

“Enough to go around, then,” William said with a smile. It faded when he looked at Richard. “Ready?”

A grim nod from the older man. “Ready.”

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

It wasn’t a solution Rose thought she’d voice aloud. When the idea had first come to her, she’d believed it would have to be done covertly, for even Richard would be qualmish having his memory tampered with. But she saw no other way to avoid the pain that was inevitable with Buffy’s departure. And what of her effect on the past? All their intentions and well-spoken ideals about not tampering with the timeline meant little in the face of her direct involvement with April. How could Rose be certain that the restoration of each into their proper lives wouldn’t have catastrophic repercussions?

She knew at a glance that both strangers now regarding her were torn on the decision. The Watcher’s countenance, especially, was growing darker with each passing second, and she wasn’t surprised that he was the first to break the silence that followed her announcement.

“Those types of spells require serious magics,” he commented. “I’m not comfortable with my Slayer being subjected to such, regardless of the circumstances.”

“It wouldn’t be for Buffy,” Rose began to explain.

“You wish to alter William’s memories alone?” Anne interjected. “That hardly seems just.”

“It wouldn’t be only William. It would be everyone she’s interacted with. Your household staff, William, yourself. Even my husband. It’s the past we need to be careful in preserving, Mrs. Freston. I very much doubt that William was ever intended to meet with Buffy in the first place. It’s only Esme’s intervention that has clouded everything so, and I think it’s our duty to rectify the damage she has done if we can.”

“Yes,” Giles murmured. “Quite.”

“But…” Anne seemed perplexed by the argument, her eyes jumping to the door for a long moment before returning to gaze at the seer. “It will change him. I don’t know if you knew my son prior to his…involvement with Miss Summers, but…”

Giles stepped in when it became obvious she couldn’t complete the thought. “He’s not exactly the same boy you described to me, is he, Anne?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He’s…stronger, somehow. And I’ve never seen him disregard his appearance so completely. It’s as if…”

“…something else was more important to him,” Rose finished softly. “That would be Buffy.” She took a deep breath. “I did see your son before she arrived, Mrs. Freston. So I know the changes you speak of. I can’t say that this option fills me with joy, because it doesn’t. As much as I feel it’s a necessity, I also regret taking away such a gift as his relationship with her has been.”

“Does he have to forget…everything?” Anne asked, her voice almost a whisper.

Rose frowned. “He would have to,” she said simply. “Or else, the spell is meaningless.”

“And his life would proceed as normal,” Giles said. “Along the path originally dictated before Buffy’s arrival.”

“Yes.” He was hiding something, and for a moment, Rose regarded the Watcher with curiosity. It was very much like Buffy’s own elusion when the issue of the timeline had been addressed; if she had to wager a guess, she’d say that one or the both of them knew more than they wanted to admit about William’s future. It would be interesting to discover just what that was.

“I’m not certain why you’re telling us this,” Anne said. “I get the distinct impression that you’ve already made your decision.”

Rose held her tongue. Anything she said now would exacerbate an already egregious situation, and she had a sinking feeling that Rupert Giles was far more discerning than Buffy may have let on. For a moment as those piercing eyes contemplated her, she had the absolute confidence that he even knew what she was, that he could see the vestiges of her previous life etched in her face. Did the Watchers in his time know of her kind’s existence? Were the ramifications of Richard’s lifetime felt even with her intervention? Of what value was her obtrusion into the past if the deeds she’d coaxed from her husband were not enough to alter the future?

Just as quickly, though, the feeling was gone, and Giles was patting Anne’s shoulder, assuring her that everything would work out for the best. Rose took a step away from the pair, her gaze slipping behind to see the empty hallway, distancing herself from any further arguments.

“I’m going to see how things are faring upstairs,” she said. “The others…may need my help.”

“Wait. I wish to come with you.” Giles turned to Anne and offered her a courtly bow. “In the event I don’t see you again…it has been my pleasure, Anne. I sincerely hope that life treats you kindly.” When he straightened, his eyes were deadly as they slid back to Rose. “Now, we may go.”

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

She’d hoped the vamps on the porch would finish off the Slayer, leaving Richard and his beloved whore of a second wife as easy prey. But when the fourth had exploded in a cloud of dust and the last had come scuttling back to safety while the Slayer resumed refuge in the house, April knew she would have to take matters into her own hands if she was going to get the retribution she sought.

“Mind the carriage,” she commanded as she began marching for the porch.

Nathan’s grip yanked her to a halt. “You are not leaving me behind,” he growled.

“No, I’m leaving you as my rear guard.” She pulled her arm away and gestured toward the remaining vampires milling about the plot. “I’m surrounded by incompetents! You are the only one I trust to ensure none of the humans escape. If you want this to be truly over between me and Richard, you’ll do it. No more questions.”

She knew he was reaching the end of his patience for her vendettas. Though he was younger than her---in vamp years---he sported no such ties to the human race. His turning had marked his liberation, he always said; Nathan felt no need to have any contact with the people who’d populated his other existence. She almost envied him the freedom.

“One hint of losing and I’m going to be at your side,” he warned.

April smiled and pulled him down for a quick and bloody kiss. “I don’t lose, remember?” she whispered in his ear.

She had switched to her demon mask before she reached the bottom stair. “Don’t tell me you’re frightened!” she called out as she climbed. “Or are you tired? Does the itty bitty Slayer need a nap?”

April smiled when the door opened and Buffy stepped out, stake at the ready. “Why does everyone have such an issue with my height?” she said lightly. She began strolling down the length of the porch, away from the door she’d left slightly ajar behind her. “I’m not that short. OK, not exactly runway material, but still, I can reach my own drinking glass most of the time.”

As she watched, Buffy leapt onto the railing, balancing for a moment before vaulting onto the ground. “Acrobatics won’t save you,” April warned, joining her back on the lawn.

“No, I’m pretty much relying on this to.” Her expert lunge forward drove the vampire back and out of her range, the point of the wood snagging on April’s bodice but otherwise missing its target. “You know, this would go a lot quicker if you’d just stop moving around.”

“This fight isn’t yours.”

“And you’d just let a tasty little morsel like me walk away?” Buffy shook her head. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“My interest lies in Richard.”

“And William. He told me all about your job offer. And just so that we have it straight? He’s way too smart to be a messenger boy.”

She didn’t understand why the Slayer was talking so much. Other than her first thrust---and April wasn’t so vain not to know that it had been a mere feint---she seemed more interested in conversation than fighting. It was infuriating. It was distracting. It was---.

She heard the snap and reacted instinctively, twisting and diving out of the way as the blade whistled through the air. It still managed to slice through her collar, though, leaving a deep gouge along the back of her neck that surely would’ve succeeded in severing her head if she hadn’t moved in time. Golden eyes sought the weapon’s owner and met the burning blue of a brazen William.

“Looks like the little Watcher finally grew up,” April said, regaining her composure. Over his shoulder, she could see Richard fighting with two of her minions, while the others seemed torn between which battle to join. “I have to say, blood becomes you.”

“You know what?” Buffy said lightly. “I think I’m done talking now. I’m feeling more like kicking your melanin-deprived ass.”

Both of the humans charged at once, but April was ready, jerking her head toward the free vampires and shouting for them to join her. The call to arms drew enough of William’s attention for her to swat him aside with the back of her hand, leaving the Slayer as her only worthwhile opponent. “It would be my pleasure,” she snarled, and leapt toward the blonde.

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

She was waiting for him when he came stumbling back into the room. The glance she shot him was icy, but Spike caught the catch of Willow’s lip between her teeth when she saw the blood dripping from his hand. Still, to her credit, she remained silent, just watching as he grabbed the still-damp towel from his shower he’d left wadded up in the corner and wrapping it around the gash to stop the flow.

“You look like hell,” Spike commented, sprawling into the chair.

“That would be hunger,” she said. “I wasn’t the one who got out to eat today, remember?”

He grunted in response, returning his attention to his slight injury. It was just a flesh wound, but it had served its purpose, distracting Spike with his day of wandering and brawling, doing everything he could to not think about what was waiting for him back at the pub. The diversion had been superficial, though, for wherever he turned, a glimmer of blonde hair or a particular scent would drive his thoughts back to the Slayer, and Spike would have to bury himself deeper into the next fight to try and forget for just a few more minutes.

It didn’t take her long to crack. “Are you all right?” Willow asked, rising from where she had everything arranged on the floor and slowly approaching, as if he was a wounded wild dog.

“’S’nothin’,” he replied, but let her take his hand and look over the cut. He jerked his chin toward the display. “You got everything set up for my half of our dicker?”

“I still don’t like it, but you’re not giving me a choice, are you?” She sighed at his raised brow. “I want to get this over with. I’ve got the spell for Buffy ready, too, because if your butt is still in that chair when I’m done with the first one, I’m nailing you with the second, you got it, mister?”

“That was the bargain.” Spike closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the chair. “Lay it on me, Red.”

His body was a conflict of physical exhaustion from ten hours of roughhousing and a wire-strung coil of fretfulness over what exactly was going on inside his head. All he wanted was peace---or in its absence, a drunken haze would do---and he did everything he could to block out the sensations of the room around him. Every pulse of the Slayer’s breath underlaid the witch’s murmured words, themselves barely audible in the suddenly thick air, and Spike’s limbs seemed to merge with the worn fabric of the chair, rooting him immobile as the magic began to swirl around him.

He couldn’t have opened his eyes if he wanted. Somewhere, at the base of his skull, tiny fingers began to inch around his scalp, encircling with a staunch tenacity that made blood-red spots dance behind his closed lids, each exhalation around him whispering in growing volume until his body was vibrating in porous rhythm with the melody. Flashes of Dru on her supplicating knees, blood pouring from penitent wounds as she offered herself to Spike, made him growl in satisfaction.

He deserved this. After the nightmares of the past few weeks, he was due this reward. He half-hoped the magic really would transport him back to South America. It would serve the Slayer bitch right to get stuck in her neverwhen after everything she’d done to him.

The fingers were probing his eye sockets now, finding purchase along the bone before slithering inside. It burned, and for an instant, the room became a vacuum, the only thing alive in it Willow’s voice.

“Deduxerit mortuus…”

Slow…

Sinuous…

Infestive…

The words themselves began to stretch and breathe with their own spirit. As he listened, a tickle of alarm began to fester somewhere in the recesses of his brain, but Spike wasn’t ready just yet to disrupt the proceedings.

“…capiebat furtim…”

That banished the fantasies of Dru, replacing them with a maelstrom of sound and color that refused to bend to Spike’s will. His fear mushroomed, and he fought to regain control of his muscles, forcing his eyes open to see the witch glowing on the floor before him. The magic cloaked her in its luminescence, but she seemed oblivious to its power as she continued to read.

“…meminisse…”

No.

He knew that word.

He’d boasted that his Latin was better than hers, and yet, in his rush to get it over with, he hadn’t bothered to check over the bloody spell. And there it was, like the sword of Damocles ready to slice his throat.

That single word.

“Nooooo…”

His voice was a mere croak as he struggled against the magic to reach toward her.

“Red…stop…”

But she heard nothing.

And as Spike summoned the strength to lunge at Willow and break the incantation through sheer force, her head shot back, the paper in her hand flitting to the floor. The magic released to slam into the vampire, dragging him back into the chair with its undertow.

No more visions of Dru.

No more daydreams of bloody reconciliations with his dark princess.

Now, the pictures and voices in his head belonged to only one person.

Spike’s eyes fluttered shut. “Buffy…”

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

Chapter 38: Heavenly Alchemy

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

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

There was no time to think, no time to react. The images were coming with infinite speed, playing out inside his head as the veil was lifted from Spike’s memory.

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

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

“You’re a good man, William Freston,” she murmured. Before the pleasure had registered in his eyes, she was on her tiptoes, her lips brushing across his jaw. Buffy’s eyes fluttered closed as she settled her cheek against his, her mouth hovering just below his ear. “And I am honored to be in any relationship with you.”

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

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

And then a flood of pleasure as the recollections of those dreams---those magnificent, torturous, orgasmic dreams---hit Spike all at once, hardening his body, sizzling his skin, almost making him come in his jeans just from remembering…

All the while…Buffy begging for more.

The euphoria that skated along his nerves was rudely elided when the memories of that first morning in his room---Buffy? In his room? In his bed? No no no, it couldn’t be possible---and their arguments about her presence in the past made Spike stiffen in a fear that shouldn’t be. Even the sound of his voice---

If I have any words worth sharing, I have them because of you. You’re the one who made it possible for me to capture the words that always proved so elusive, and you’re the one who heard them without contempt. You’re the one who helped me find my voice, Buffy---

---didn’t lessen the strain of reliving that wonderful, terrible day. It wasn’t until the flashback of that night, and the sight of Buffy in her cotton nightdress that became transparent when she stood in front of the candlelight, did ease begin to return…

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

And he could still taste her, his mouth flooded with the jolt of her juices, his body warm from the memory of pressing her into the mattress with his weight, but it wasn’t that that was slowly filling Spike with scorched serenity.

It was the inescapable knowledge that he had loved her.

Just as she’d loved him.

Trusted him.

Believed in him.

Wanted him.

The aftermath of having been in both places---watching the cut appearing on her thumb in a Victorian drawing room superimposing over the corresponding cut in that stale hotel room with the witch and the Watcher---would’ve been confusing had he paid minute attention.

The duel in Richard’s back garden, where Spike’s first skills had been honed and the liberating rush of the fight had first been introduced to him---and how ironic that she would teach him exactly how she fought, making it impossible for either of them to kill the other when they met a century later---would’ve been distracting if he bothered to focus his attention on the kaleidoscope of sensation that flew past him.

Even their lovemaking---and he could call it what it was, he could still hear her rasped declaration as he claimed her soul for his own---wasn’t quite enough to divert him from the conflagration consuming his heart.

It was the proposal.

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

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

Hearing their final promises---for her not to forget him, for him not to forget his worth---made him want to scream and shout in frustrated anger. She had known. Of course, she had known, known all along about what path he would take. She’d practically admitted to it when she’d come to him that first night. Had she been laughing at his simplicity in making such an absurd request? But even as Spike wondered, watching the events of their final day on the outskirts of London play out in all its Technicolor gore and glory, he knew it was a ridiculous question.

Buffy loved William. She’d seen him, not as the weak-kneed Spike had always believed him to be, but as a font of strength and goodness. She would never have found mirth at his expense.

And in her own way, she’d tried to save him. She knew she couldn’t directly affect the future; she knew about Dru and a century of demonhood. She’d told him over and over and over again just how valuable he really was. The truth of the matter was that he’d believed her.

Until that night.

When they’d broken the spell on his mother’s prison.

When he’d met Giles for the very first time.

When his golden goddess had taken on that bitch April…

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

Buffy could see that William was only dazed from the blow, not unconscious, but as far as the fight was concerned, he was done. He was struggling just to rise to his hands and knees, his head hanging so low that his sweat-damp hair dragged along the earth, and his breathing was labored. Breathing meant still alive, though, and that was one state she had every intention of lasting as long as possible.

When April leapt toward her, Buffy dove out of her path, distancing the demon from the house and the others. “Richard!” she shouted. She didn’t wait to see if he heard her, too busy lashing out with her foot to sweep April off-balance. “Help get William back up to the house!”

“I’m…fine…” she heard William rasp.

“Your boyfriend is the stubborn sort, isn’t he?” April’s lips curled into a snarl when Buffy swung her sword at her midsection, missing contact by mere centimeters. “Stop that!”

“In case you haven’t noticed…” Buffy dodged left, avoiding another fist in the face. “…I’m trying to kill you.”

“And in case you haven’t noticed…” April smiled when a well-placed kick to Buffy’s wrist made the Slayer cry out in pain as her weapon went flying. “…you are outnumbered.”

Actually, she had noticed, and she was starting to worry that maybe it had been a mistake to let Richard and William join her in the fight. Not that more on her side wasn’t a good thing, but one of them was currently down for the count, and the other…

She allowed herself to steal a glance toward the Watcher. He’d managed to dust one of his attackers, edging closer to where William was still struggling to get to his feet, but several more of the vampires were starting to join in, finally obeying April’s command. They needed to get back to the house before it was too late. They needed---.

“Giles!” The sight of him standing in the doorway of the house made Buffy’s heart leap with hope. A makeshift stake was in his hand, and his eyes were darting around the yard, trying to determine where best he would be of help. Behind him, she saw Rose’s pale face, and sent silent prayers to anyone who would listen for sending back-up.

“How many Watchers do you have?” April complained. Her attention was diverted for a moment to the porch, a frown making her furrowed brow even more ridged---if that was possible---and Buffy took the opportunity to dart past her toward the group of vampires who were descending on a still-fallen William. She was stopped by a hand grabbing her skirt, and went sprawling to the grass, her outstretched hands just feet away from reaching his.

“Not so fast,” April growled.

Kicking back at the vamp, Buffy twisted to wrench free of her grasp, her heel connecting with April’s chin. She rolled onto her back, the blanket of stars suddenly blinking down at her, and kipped back up, cursing the skirts that tangled between her legs. One thing about getting back to her own time. She was so looking forward to fighting in pants again.

“Buffy…”

Even if his voice hadn’t been so hoarse, he would’ve had her complete attention, and she scuttled back to help William get to his feet. Slipping her arm around his back, she took his weight against her, kicking out at the vamp who tried taking them down. It stumbled away, only to be replaced by another.

“This was a mistake,” she murmured, and felt William stiffen against her.

“Go,” he whispered. “Don’t mind me.”

Her arms tightened. “Right. Like I could just leave you here.”

“I’m an albatross.”

“Isn’t that a bird?” April was already on her feet, and Buffy crept away, green eyes jumping from demon to demon as she kept herself at the ready for another attack. “Why do you think you’re a bird?”

A blur rushed past them and the Slayer gaped as Richard charged the remaining throng, weapon drawn. He ignored the minions who clawed at him, and instead lunged for April.

“Finally,” April hissed. She grabbed the sword and yanked it vertically toward her chest, ignoring the deep slices the blade made into her palms.

The action pulled Richard tight against the vampire, but he didn’t struggle within her hold. Instead, he said, in a voice so low that Buffy almost missed it, “Let the others go, Masia. This is between you and me.”

Maybe it was hearing her birth name that made the demon freeze. The ridges in April’s forehead seemed to soften, and Buffy was convinced she was going to morph back into her human face. Even William was holding his breath, waiting to see what would happen.

“Dearest Richard,” April murmured. One hand released its hold on the sword, rising to cup the Watcher’s cheek. Even when her fingers left wet, red trails along his skin, he didn’t flinch, merely stared at her with the exhaustion of a man long-traveled. “Always the idealist.”

William’s snort of derision wasn’t enough to distract from the passion play before them, though Buffy did use the changed focus as opportunity to discreetly further themselves even more from its epicenter.

“This has been a long time coming,” Richard said. “We need to end this.”

“Yes,” April agreed. She was absorbed in the streaks of blood that stained his cheek. “Yes, we should.”

Her hand moved before anyone could stop it, sliding to the back of Richard’s head and yanking him forward. In a clean snap, her fangs sank into the flesh of his neck.

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

She was grateful she was tall enough to see over Giles’ shoulder, but it was still not enough for Rose as she watched the fight commence on the garden below. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Buffy standing off with April, but it was Richard who held the greater part of her attention, the tired slice of his weapon through the air as he decapitated one of his attackers in a shower of dust. He was weakening, fatigue from the long day of battles taking its toll on his no longer young body, and she knew him well enough to know that it was sheer will that was driving him at this point.

Buffy’s call to her Watcher helped Richard by diverting his opponents’ attention, and he made short order of their confusion to barrel past them to an unsuspecting April. When the vampire used his sword to pull her against him, though, Rose’s breath caught in her throat, and she pressed forward against Giles’ back in order to better see.

“What is he doing?” he said quietly, just as riveted to the scene as she was. He was reluctant to venture from the house, her warning about leaving its boundaries hindering his motivation, and was instead hovering on the chance one of the demons came close enough for him to fight.

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted. She could see their lips moving, and when April reached up to touch his cheek---a motion so intimate and so child-like all at the same time---she felt a flicker of hope that maybe it would work out right in the end after all.

She screamed when April bit him.

With the cry not even dead yet in her throat, Rose thrust Giles forward and out of her way, not cognizant of his vanishing the moment his foot crossed the threshold, her only concern to save her husband and the man she’d been so desperately trying to redeem for the past twenty years. Her scream galvanized the group, Buffy tugging William desperately closer to the house while the vampires bestirred from their sluggish daze at their leader’s actions.

But the only thing she saw was Richard slowly slumping against April.

The blood coloring April’s lips where they stretched against his skin.

And her fury erupted with the release of the binding spell she kept in reserve, her last and best weapon in an attack, the one Richard teased Rose about never using for fear of how it would impinge on those surrounding the target.

She no longer cared.

She was only interested in saving Richard.

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

He found himself in the middle of the street in front of the market, almost the exact same spot he’d been in when he’d first been magicked out of his time. With a half-stumble, the feel of Rose’s furtive hands still imprinted on his back where she’d shoved him out of her way, Giles tripped to the curb, slight disorientation from the time traveling he’d just done making the world careen around him. He fell to his knees on the walk, grasping the lamppost to remain steady while he sucked in huge gulps of air, and waited for the vertigo to right itself.

The seer had been correct, then. All he had to do was leave the house and he’d be returned to his London. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t attempted to help Buffy in her fight more directly.

The thought of his Slayer drove Giles’ eyes open.

Buffy. He had to help her.

She was still in the past---the explanation of times running concurrently, just at the space of the century-plus separating them, had been more than clear---which meant Willow was here trying to bring her back. He had to help her. As he pushed himself up to walk clumsily around the corner, Giles thought that it was a very good thing he was so near the flat.

Or not.

He certainly didn’t expect to find it empty.

Or appearing as if it had been ransacked.

The musty smell of the apartment announced its longtime vacancy, sending Giles’ hopes plummeting as he slumped against the wall. Rubbing at his eyes, he tried to remember more of what Buffy had explained to him and Anne. Had she mentioned where they were in London? There’d certainly been no mention of why they might leave the flat, only that Quentin had not been entirely frank in telling her what exactly was going on. He only knew that Willow was in the midst of doing what it was going to take to bring Buffy back to the present.

But Giles had no idea where Willow was. It would take forever to try and find her without some sort of aid.

Quentin would know. It was inconceivable that he would let the whereabouts of the Slayer go unchecked. If he wasn’t a part of trying to coerce Buffy’s return, than he would at least be privy to where they were staying.

And at this hour of the night, Giles knew exactly where to find him.

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

She felt like a giant someone had picked her up and wrung her out like an oversoaked sponge, twisting and squeezing her body until all her bones were mush and every rational thought was jelly. Somewhere---a very distant somewhere that could’ve been a vacuum for as real as it felt---she could hear a deep voice speaking to her, but it took several solid minutes before any of it began to remotely resemble words to her ears.

“C’mon, Red,” it was saying. “There’ll be time for sleep after you’re dead. Time to wake up now.”

Willow’s eyes blinked open, the room dazzlingly white around her, and for a split second, she wondered if she was dead.

“Not dead,” came the response with a chuckle. “Though the way you look, you might wish you were.”

She blinked again---OK, a lot---and slowly, the room began to darken, taking shape into recognizable forms as awareness returned. The only thing that stayed white was Spike’s head leaning over her, and she grimaced as she tried to sit up.

“What happened?” she asked. “Did the spell go kaplooie?”

He pulled away from her, returning to his chair at the side of the bed, and Willow squinted as he began gathering what looked like first aid supplies off the seat. “Knocked you out,” Spike said. “Threw me for a good wallop, too, but I don’t have nearly as delicate a constitution as you do, it would appear.”

There was something about the set of his shoulders, a tenseness as he folded what she definitely recognized as bandages, that made her inexplicably want to go up to the vampire and give him a huge hug. “Didn’t it work?” Her voice was small. If his spell failed, there was no guarantee that Spike would stick around long enough for her to do the one for Buffy. What would she do then?

He shrugged. “Think that’s a matter for time to decide,” he replied rather cryptically, and then laughed as if he’d just said the funniest thing in the world.

Eyeing him warily, Willow struggled to her feet, grabbing the altar for balance as she stepped past the candles on the floor. Only then did she notice that Buffy had been repositioned on the bed, stretched out on her back with the blanket folded down to her waist. A fresh bandage was wound around her forearm, and the unmistakable scent of blood hung in the air.

“Not to sound like a broken record,” she said, “but what happened?”

“Smelled Buffy’s blood. Patched her up before it got too bad on this end.”

She stared at him. “What? Why? It wasn’t so that you could, you know…lick her or something while you did it, was it?”

The eyes that met hers were black, all humor drained from their haunted depths. “Woke you up for a reason,” Spike said, ignoring her questions. “I suggest you get movin’ on whatever it is we have to do to wake Buffy up.”

“Oh. Right.” Willow was on autopilot as she walked back to the wardrobe for the incantation she was going to need. It was only when her hand was on the door that it registered she’d not heard Spike use his usual terminology in talking about Buffy. Just her name. He never used people’s names.

She stole a glance over her shoulder to see him sitting at the side of the bed, his inscrutable face half in shadow as he watched Buffy sleep, long fingers ghosting over the length of her injured arm as if he wanted to touch her but was afraid of the consequences. Willow’s mouth suddenly went dry.

What in heck did that spell do to him?

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

Chapter 39: Time Will Come and Take My Love Away

He could tell that the witch was more than a little unsettled about his behavior, but short of telling her to fuck off, Spike didn’t give a bloody rat’s ass what she thought about how he was acting. See how she liked having her noodle scrambled around with the double-edged equivalent of a magical blender and then maybe they’d talk. Until then, he was planning on just doing whatever the hell he wanted until the chaos that was his brain calmed down.

Something wasn’t quite right and it was more than having a shitload of memories about being with Buffy that he’d never had before. Those were the easy part. Those made a warped kind of sense. A delicious, halcyon, ruthless kind of sense.

What didn’t make sense was the conflict his demon was in. Oh, it was still there, all right, and pissed as hell at being played around with like he had been. He didn’t know for sure who it was who’d stripped him of his memories, but he had a clue, and if he didn’t know she had to be years gone dead, Spike would put her in a grave again for all her messing about with things that were none of her concern. He didn’t care for her lectures the first time around, and he didn’t care for her so-called solution the second time. What was worse, was William’s whisper at the base of consciousness, who told her to do it?, because the first name that popped into Spike’s skull was Buffy’s and somehow, the thought that she’d want to steal the memory of their time together from him after all her so-called declarations made him sick to his stomach.

No.

Couldn’t have been Buffy.

Buffy loved him.

And then the whispered correction from the Victorian voice that was suddenly in much more prominence…

…Buffy loved me.

Like he’d been scalded, Spike’s hand jerked back from where he had been outlining her shape in the air. That was the trouble. William was lurking about like a bad seed, so long ago absent that his demon had forgotten what it was like to have him about, and now…now it didn’t know what to do with him. It was different than those first few months after he’d been turned. Then, he’d been so green, plucked before he was ready to ripen under Dru’s and Angelus’ tutelage. William had been eager for the attention, desperate for the mentor he thought Angelus to be, because the attention they lavished on him had been exhilarating, so really, not that different than he’d been as human. It was just his hunger that had changed.

But time had driven the softness of William away, forced him to erect the façade that would make the days and nights palatable, easier to pretend so it was harder to get hurt until the pretending was all the time and he forgot that it was all just a game, all just a fakery, designed to protect that small cowering poet within who just wanted to be wanted.

It had to have been the magic that brought him back, Spike decided. Shucking the cloak that had hidden the truth for over a century, it had released William in such a way that he wasn’t entirely certain who it was wearing his skin anymore. He still felt like Spike. He still thought like Spike. He still had Spike’s drives and desires. Damn it all, he was Spike.

But Spike was also William.

Because with the memories back, and seeing the man he had been before---well, it had to be Rose, now didn’t it? Nobody else in that damn scenario had the power or inclination to do it---they had been taken away, he recognized a core that he’d never seen before. He saw the beginning of a man who had the power to be strong on his own. Because the love of an amazing woman had shown him how.

“I’m ready.”

Even uttered so softly, the two words could’ve been a salvo for as much of an effect they had on Spike. He lurched awkwardly back into the chair, driving even more distance between him and Buffy though each inch further from the skin he ached to touch---Is she warmer than I remember? Is she as soft?---made him tighten and sting.

“Sorry,” he muttered when Willow jumped just as sharply, and then kicked the William part of him for the automatic apology.

“Are…are you sure you’re up to this? You’re not looking so spiffy either, you know.”

He wanted to throttle the worry out of her throat. “Just don’t bollocks it up ‘cause you’re off the beam from the other,” Spike said. “Don’t be fussed about me. I can mind my own.”

Willow looked very much like she still wanted to argue with him, but the glare he leveled at her made her drop her eyes to the paper in her hand. “This one’s a li-little different than the other spell,” she said. “More…touchy-feely.”

“Does that mean you get to do the touchy, or I get to do the feely?” He accompanied it with his best leer, though truly, his heart wasn’t in it. All he wanted was to get Buffy back. The pair of them needed to have a talk before he combusted from confusion.

She pressed her lips thin and placed her hand flat on his chest. When the words came, Spike almost ripped it off for the shock of déjà vu that overcame him---

---She wasn’t opening it. Instead, she was muttering under her breath---Latin, from the few words he could catch, or a derivative thereof---and her fingers never stopped their exploration of the soft leather. By the time he’d regained his wits enough to clear his throat, the old woman was already looking up at him, her hand extended as she proffered the book---

---and then it was done, and Willow was looking up at him with those cow eyes that had almost been his undoing when he’d taken her for that love spell for Dru the previous year, and the spot on his chest where she’d been touching was now enflamed from the heat of the magic.

“That it?” he croaked. “That the best you can throw at me?”

“That’s it,” she confirmed.

“So…now what?” The magic had done nothing to provoke Buffy to move, and Spike rose to hover again at her side. “I’m here and she’s not awake. Why isn’t she awake, Red?”

“She has to drink the tea in the time period she’s in. Hopefully, she’s figured that part out.”

“And I’m s’posed to…what? Stand here and look all manly?”

“I think it’s a…proximity thing. She used to sleep with your journal under her pillow.” Willow blushed when he glanced back at her, his only response a single raised eyebrow. “Not that you’ll fit under her pillow, of course.”

He just shook his head, turning back to look down at Buffy. A tentative hand reached out to touch her shoulder, but when she failed to react, it slid up to the sweaty crook of her neck.

The charge was immediate, cementing each memory into a golden mosaic that made him want to take her into his arms and never let her go. Before he could think otherwise, his grip slid beneath her neck, his other arm sliding under her legs, and he was repositioning her on the other side of the mattress, sliding into the balmy indentation she’d left behind.

“What’re you…? I don’t think Buffy’s going to like this when she wakes up,” Willow said.

“But she’ll be up, won’t she?” Spike retorted. Inhaling, his eyes fluttered closed at the ambrosia that assaulted his senses, curling his arm around her waist to pull her gently against him. The trembling started as soon as she nestled into the bend of his body, poised as perfectly as she’d been so many years before in the bed he’d always believed to be only his. It was too much, the reality of Buffy too close to the figments that had heretofore been but sublime specters tormenting him with their hints of something more, and he buried her face in the cloud of hair as he fought to regain control of his muscles.

“Spike---,” Willow tried again.

“Sod off, Red,” he growled. The moisture that threatened to leak from between his shut eyelids burned, and he swallowed as if that would steady his racing skin. “Get used to the chair,” he added. “Until Buffy wakes up, I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

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

The blinding flash made William stumble to his knees, his bowed head almost colliding with the earth as the strength seemed to be sapped from his very bones. He hadn’t seen where it might’ve come from, but the burn that made his skin sizzle didn’t feel natural, instead a phantom crawl that dulled his remaining senses. Beyond the realm of his touch, nothing else felt…real.

“Buffy…” he murmured. Where had she gone? One moment, she’d been helping him get back to the house, supporting his weight against her slight frame, and the next…

A flash of white glimmered at the corner of his eye, and slowly, William turned his head to see what it might be. He had to blink more than once to rid himself of the blurriness in his vision, and then gasped when the white took on the shape of Buffy’s unconscious body.

She was coiled into the grass, fallen from whatever shock had hit him, and there was a fresh cut across her forehead where she’d struck her head in her collapse. Blood dripped to mat her hair, and he couldn’t help but wonder how it was that none of the vampires that had been surrounding them had yet to take advantage of the situation.

“Buffy,” he said again, and crawled to her side. Sharp stones in the grass cut into his palms and knees, but he was oblivious to them as he pulled her onto his lap. “Don’t do this to me, love. I need you. Please, wake up.”

Daubing at her cut with his handkerchief, William glanced up when he heard the rushing of fabric and saw Rose hurry past to crouch over Richard’s body just feet away. He wasn’t unconscious, but the blood that dripped from his neck was in stark contrast to the deathly paleness of his cheeks, and William was certain with more than a touch of queasiness that the Watcher was not long for this world.

“April…” Richard whispered, and scrabbled along his wife’s skirts to try and sit up. “Where’s…April…?”

“Ssshhh…” Rose murmured. Pulling him close, she cradled his head, brushing back the hair that fell limply across his brow. “She’s gone. It’s over.”

“Over?” Both men looked to the spot where the vampire had last been, and saw instead dancing glints as the cold moonlight captured the pile of crystal that rested in her place.

“I used my binding spell,” Rose explained. “It’s contained her. For now.”

“So she’s not actually dead?”

William could hear the disappointment in her voice when she confirmed April’s status for Richard. “It’s over,” she repeated. “We can rest now.”

April wasn’t the only one missing, William noticed. Now that he was looking, he could see the scattering of dust throughout the lawn, one or two additional crystal figures nearer where she had been, with the only vampires remaining scrambling for the road and the carriage that awaited there. April’s lover stood in shock at the door, but with a single glance from the humans, he too was running in fear, disappearing like shadows into the night.

“Not…yet…” Richard managed. Pulling from her hold, he struggled to his knees, meeting William’s eyes before letting his gaze fall to Buffy. “You must…get them out of here,” he said to his wife. “The Council…they’ll be arriving soon. And Buffy…she will need medical attention, I think.”

“What of you?” she demanded. “You’re hurt. You need---.”

“My job is not done here. You must do this. William and his…family deserve some peace.” He looked again to the younger man. “I am honoring our original agreement, William. My colleagues will never know of your involvement in this…this.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m not leaving you here on your own, Richard. I didn’t do this so---.” Her voice was growing strident, and William noted that he’d never seen her approaching such hysteria. It was as if she saw something coming that she was desperately trying to avoid.

“Someone has to see them home safely, my dear,” Richard interrupted. “I need you to do this. I have to ensure that nothing happens to…her.”

Her face fell, and for a moment, William felt a profound sense of sorrow for the seer. As much as they loved each other, April would always come between the Rhodes-Fanshaws. There was something about loving a Slayer---whether as a mentor, a father, a friend, or a lover---that rendered it difficult for those on the outside to break through. He wondered if Rose was even aware of it.

“I will go fetch William’s mother,” she said softly, rising to her feet. She was carefully avoiding looking at where the crystal-bound April was lying on the ground, focusing instead on the wan visage of her husband. “Because that is your wish, not because I’m pleased that you’ve asked.”

He stayed silent, watching her turn and walk stiffly back into the house. “You may not like me very much right now,” he said when the two men were alone, “but I would like to make a request of you, William.”

“Yes?”

“Protect them. Both of them. I may not…approve of your relationship with Buffy, but I can’t deny it, either. She and my Rose are cut from the same cloth, and I fear it shall be their undoing.”

He nodded. “They are both a little…headstrong, aren’t they?”

Richard’s chuckle started a series of coughs, death rattles that echoed in the brisk night air. “That, they are,” he agreed when breath returned. He gestured toward the carriage. “Get your family home. You’ve had a long and wearying day. You deserve the opportunity to rest.”

From somewhere deep within, William gathered his last remaining reserves of strength and rose to his feet, Buffy still unconscious as he gathered her into his arms. He’d gone several yards toward the coach when he stopped, looking back at the Watcher gravely. “And you?” he asked. “Do you not deserve to rest as well?”

“When my job is done.” Richard sighed, his gaze on the crystal. “When my job is done.”

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

The moment his mother fell asleep in the swaying carriage, William bundled Buffy back into his arms, smoothing back the golden hair so that he could better see the delicate line of her cheek in the moonlight that streamed in through the window. More blood marred her skin, but when he tried to locate his handkerchief to better clean it off, he realized he’d left it back in the grass.

“She will be fine,” Rose assured him. “She’s strong, and they’re just superficial wounds.”

He nodded, but his eyes never left Buffy’s face. He stayed silent even when the coach reached the Freston home, carrying the young woman into the house and leaving Rose to guide Anne.

“Go rest,” the seer instructed gently once they’d crossed the threshold. “I will see to the staff and your son.” There was so much she had yet to do this evening, and not one part of it filled her with joy. Leaving Richard behind had been the hardest thing she had ever done, for she knew, without having the vision to confirm it, that if she did so, it would be the last time she would see him alive. That meant she had little time to accomplish what needed to be done. Richard was her tie to the past; once he was dead, the magic that bound her to him would be broken, and she would be hurtled back into a future she wouldn’t recognize. Such was the price she knew she would pay for trying to mend events of the past.

“Have a pot of Mr. Freston’s special tea sent up to Miss Summers’ room,” she instructed the young maid who was hovering in the background.

“Yes, ma’am. And the Master, too?”

Rose hesitated on the bottom step. “No,” she finally said. “He won’t be needing any.”

Her tread was heavy as she climbed the stairs. Anne’s door was already closed, but William stood in Buffy’s open one, a lean hand on the jamb keeping him steady as he gazed inside.

“She’s waking,” he said softly as Rose approached. “You were right. She’ll be fine.”

She set a gentle hand on his arm. “You need to rest, William. You have injuries of your own and Buffy would not want you to tax yourself unnecessarily.”

“I wish…” he started, and then broke off, an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck. He didn’t have to say it; she knew what it was he wanted. “Will you tell her I’ll see her in the morning?” he asked instead.

“Of course,” Rose lied, and smiled for as long as he remained in the hall, only letting it slip away when she was alone again. If Buffy’s assessment of her friend had been correct, the Slayer would not be around in the morning. It was just as well. Rose was gambling that the forget spell she would need to set in place would not be made awkward by a young woman’s unexplained presence in the Freston home. Buffy would not be pleased if she discovered the truth about what Rose was going to do.

The Slayer was mumbling when Rose entered the room, tossing on the bed as if she was in the throes of a dream. Quickly, the seer hurried to her side, perching on the edge of the mattress to press the young woman back down into the pillow. “Ssshhhh…” she soothed. It seemed that soothing was all she was doing this evening.

Buffy’s eyes fluttered open, but they were dark with an unexpected fervor. “Where’s William?” she asked. “Is he all right? Tell me he’s all right. I didn’t do all this for him not to be all right.”

“He’s fine. He’s resting. Relax.”

She exhaled heavily. “Good. He’s got enough bad stuff coming up. He doesn’t need this on top of it.”

Her words made Rose stiffen. “What’s that?”

Immediately, Buffy knew she’d said too much. “Nothing,” she replied, letting her eyes fall closed again. “It’s nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing, and Rose knew it. There were terrible things in store for William’s future, things both Buffy and her Watcher knew about, and she was desperately trying to make his young life better while she could. For a long moment, she contemplated trying to prise the truth from the Slayer, but in the end, decided better of it. She did not have time for unnecessary dalliances.

Even those that might make this easier for them.

When the maid came in with the tea, Buffy was almost asleep again, only half-aware when Rose held the cup up to her lips. As the young woman fell back against the pillow, already lost in the slumber of the magic, a weight lifted from the seer’s shoulders. That was one thing done. Now, she just had the other.

The spell was nearly complete when she finally hesitated. Around her, the Freston household was slipping into what remained of the night, to wake in the morning knowing nothing of a certain Slayer’s arrival. Buffy would hopefully be gone, and life would continue as before for everyone else.

But William…

Anne’s words from earlier came back to haunt Rose.

Everything was so…definitive. It wasn’t feasible that he be left to remember anything that might affect the future, but…

Not everything had to be remembered to be appreciated.

He had found Buffy in his dreams. Perhaps Rose could let him keep memories of her there. Allow his subconscious a peace even when his waking world may be chaotic. Dreams did not have to be remembered; they were often not. So, really, Rose would be doing no harm by allowing him this one gift.

In the wake of how she was losing Richard, and everything that she held dear, it was the least that she could do.

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

Waking surprised her.

After such a long and tiring battle, Buffy expected to wake up sore and stiff, with muscles dying for a long massage from someone named Sven. Instead, she was stiff, but except for the faint sting of the cut on her arm and some spot on her forehead, she felt remarkably OK, like she was just getting up from a really, really, really long nap.

That didn’t mean she wanted to get up, though, and she kept her eyes closed as she tugged the arm around her midsection closer. “Mmmmm,” she murmured, burrowing deeper against the familiar shape behind her. “Why are you so cold? Pull the blanket up or something.”

She didn’t remember getting back to the Freston house. Well, to be honest, she didn’t really remember very much once the flash thingy went off in the yard with the vampires, but they must’ve done all right because here she was, safe in bed, and William was right there with---.

Maybe it was the scent that pulled her from the remainder of her sleep. The fresh linen scent of William’s bed was gone, replaced with a musty smokiness that smelled too much like the worst of London. Had they spent the night at the house that imprisoned Giles and Anne instead of returning home?

Her eyes blinked open.

A plain, dark wall stared back at her.

Not the Freston house, then.

At least she knew William was all right.

She glanced down at the arm that held her so tightly, in the bend of his body that she fit so well.

And froze when she saw the chipped black nail polish.

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

Chapter 40: The Fools of Time

He hadn’t expected to fall asleep.

How could he? His brain was a miasma of memories and feelings that should’ve been reserved for Dru, not for the woman he’d tried to destroy for so many years.

But his body knew. His body remembered.

It trusted this place, with her in his arms, even if the bed wasn’t the one they’d shared, and even if the time wasn’t exactly right.

It betrayed him in favor of sleep.

…And dreamt.

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

“May we not spar tonight?” She was watching him, a small inquisitive smile on her lips that erased a portion of the worry from her eyes, prompting William to take her hand and start leading her down the path. “I find myself more in the mood for a…gentler game this evening.”

Her fingers tightened around his. “Parcheesi or checkers?” she teased. “Although, you know, Giles taught me a killer king me move once. You don’t want to mess with my jumping.”

“I believe I’ve been privy to that jumping---.” Laughing, he ducked away from her playful slap to his shoulder, his step quickening to pull her closer to the pond’s shores. “Come. There’s something I wish to show you.”

He didn’t look behind as she followed him along, but even if he had, William knew what he would see. The gentle curve of her leg exposed by her white skirts. The bright sparkle in her eyes as she took in anything and everything with that capacious gaze. The smattering of freckles across her nose that made him want to kiss each and every single one. Buffy often complained---good-naturedly, of course---that she wasn’t going to have any skin left if he kept kissing and licking her the way he frequently did, but he didn’t care. There would never be a dream when he didn’t delight in her taste, of her mouth, of her fingertips, of that delicious hollow at the base of her neck. Odd, really, how he’d never considered himself so orally fixated before meeting Buffy. She seemed to bring out the animal in him.

Releasing his hold on her when they reached the edge of the water, William kicked off his shoes, tugged impatiently at his socks, and then pulled her down to sit at his side. Without saying a word, he took her small foot in hand, slipping off first one sandal and tossing it to the grass behind them before doing the same with the other, all the while ignoring Buffy’s curious gaze.

“What’s this all about?” she finally asked.

“It’s about getting your feet wet,” he replied with a half-smile. “Come here.” Spreading his legs, he helped her settle between them, and then nudged hers down into the water so that both sets of feet trailed beneath its crystalline surface.

“I thought you said you had something to show me.”

“I do.” He pointed across the pond, at the low-hanging sun leaving glistening kaleidoscopes in the gentle ripples. “Look.”

After several seconds of silence, where the only thing that breathed or moved in the park’s harborage was the pair of solitary lovers, Buffy said, “OK, I must be really blind tonight or something because I’ve got nothing here. What exactly am I supposed to be seeing?”

“The sun. Have you not seen how closely it clings to the horizon? I think it’s going to set.”

“And?”

His arm curled around her waist to hold her closer. It pronounced the scent of her hair even more firmly, and William inhaled its aroma before continuing with his explanation. “The sun never sets here, Buffy,” he said gently. “How long have we been meeting like this? Granted, these are only dreams, and you’re only a figment---.”

“I’ve told you to stop saying things like that. Real, remember? As real as we can get.”

“Real, yes.” Though he knew it wasn’t. Within the framework of his nocturnal encounters with her, William was more than aware that this wasn’t the same as their first meetings. In the beginning, it had seemed so, their sporadic rendezvous infrequent enough for him not to notice the similarities. But when one encounter was repeated, almost verbatim, he’d realized it was just a construct of his imagination. A glorious and wonderful construct, but a construct nonetheless.

But tonight had been different from the start. He’d arrived at an empty park, where for every previous time, Buffy had been waiting for him. Not always in the same place, but invariably, always there.

Tonight, he’d had to wait for her, and while he waited, he tooled with the inks that he’d found near their bench, dashing off a quick verse in hopes of sharing it with her when she arrived. He’d been trying to come up with a word that rhymed with Elysium when he’d glanced up and noticed the sun, glowing with a soft twilight gleam rather than its usual noonday brilliance. What it meant, he had no idea, but the change had overwhelmed him into quiescence until Buffy had arrived, and now, he was hoping that perhaps she might have some insight as to its propitiousness.

“Maybe it has something to do with what’s going on when we’re awake,” she mused. Her weight against his chest was like the warmest of blankets, and he sighed in satisfaction when she let one of her hands drop to his thigh. “Maybe we’re sleeping during the day so it’s nighttime here.”

“Maybe,” William said. The explanation was too simple to assuage his slight debate, but he was failing to come up with his own answers and was willing to settle for hers.

“Everything’s OK, right? Things aren’t too stressy for you?”

She asked this quite a bit when they met, and always, William gave her the same positive response. Tonight, though, it felt somehow…wrong to fob off his usual assurances, and instead, he hugged her just a bit tighter to his body.

“Things are…changing,” he said softly. “I am…not sure how they are going to affect me.”

Buffy twisted in his embrace to look at him. “Changing good, or changing bad? Because you know, if it’s changing bad in a physical way, I can always come around and beat it up until it’s good again.”

He smiled at her small joke, and bent to brush a kiss over her lips. “Changing different,” he said. “Whether it’s good or bad remains to be seen.”

Her steady gaze drank him in, sucking him down with an effortlessness that still managed to astonish William. “You’ll be fine,” she finally said. “I’m sticking with the good will always triumph over evil motif on this one. You’ll come through this with flying colors.”

And if I’m the one who’s evil this time?”

Buffy shook her head. “Not possible.”

“Ah, but anything is possible, my love.” His hand cradled her cheek. “Aren’t we proof enough of that?”

She said nothing, but instead kissed him again, a ticklish delight that only spurred him to want more, before settling back again in his arms. As the silence returned to join them in their contemplations of the horizon, William decided that she was right this time in choosing not to continue the conversation. There would be time enough for debate in future encounters.

For now…he merely wished to enjoy the view.

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

Spike wasn’t sure what woke him up, but the sense of pervasive peace that had suffused his limbs during his rest evaporated the moment he felt the tension in Buffy’s body.

She hadn’t moved from the position they’d obviously slept in for the course of the night, but she was completely rigid against him, her every muscle screaming with raucous conflict. It almost sounded as if she was even holding her breath, and Spike slowly eased his grip on her abdomen as if that might somehow let the air back into her lungs.

“Spike?” he heard her whisper. The single word was almost drowned out by the drumming of her heartbeat in his ears. It wasn’t excitement that tinged his name with red when she uttered it; there were no other signs in her body that she was aroused in any way.

No, he was entirely too familiar with the emotion now wracking her into unexpected submission, though it was one he had never before associated with Buffy, and, oddly enough, not one that gave him any pleasure now.

It was fear.

“Home sweet home,” he said quietly.

The words had the opposite effect than he’d wanted. With Slayer speed, Buffy bolted from the bed, stumbling just a mite as her legs grew accustomed to usage again, and whirled to see him lying on the bed, her eyes flickering from the indentations her body had left in the pillow and mattress before jumping back up to his face.

Neither said a word.

What did she see? he wondered. Did she see the fanciful William from when they’d first met? Or did she see the predator who’d stalked her around the dance floor that first night at the Bronze?

He knew what he saw. And though a part of him hated the weakness, and the sense of betrayal about Drusilla, Spike couldn’t help but revel in the satisfaction in seeing Buffy so strong. Alive.

Here.

His mouth opened to speak, but he was pre-empted by a rustle from behind him, and he shifted to see Willow sitting up in the chair she’d been sleeping in. The look of delight on her face clamped his lips shut, and he retreated to a comfortable distance when the redhead jumped and ran around the edge of the bed to snatch her best friend up in a hug.

“You’re back, you’re back,” she was babbling. “You have no idea how good it is to see you not sleeping.” Willow held the Slayer at arms’ length and waggled a disapproving finger in her face. “No more tea for you, young lady.”

Spike caught the glance Buffy shot him before putting on a bright smile for her friend. “No more tea,” she agreed. She looked around, noticing the room’s contents for the first time, and the smile was immediately replaced by a frown. “Where are we?”

“Such a long story---.”

“And my cue to bugger off,” Spike cut in.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he was halfway up when she spoke.

“What? You’re just…leaving?”

Hope lanced through him as he turned to see Buffy waiting for his answer. “Done my job, haven’t I?” he said carefully. “Brought you back all safe and sound to the bosom of your loved ones.”

He had no idea how she was going to respond. All he knew was that Red’s show and tell had sounded like too much for him, driving him to try and escape. He didn’t want her party to what he and Buffy needed to discuss. It was going to be hard enough trying to sort it out with just the two of them, let alone tossing in a meddlesome best friend he’d spent the better part of his acquaintance terrorizing. He couldn’t afford to have that boat rocked any more than it already would be.

When Willow leaned in to whisper in Buffy’s ear, though, Spike couldn’t stop from rolling his eyes. Still a vampire here, he wanted to scold her. Still can hear every word you’re bloody saying.

But as he stood there waiting, he saw the change come over the Slayer’s face as Willow’s he doesn’t remember anything sank in. There was no denying the disappointment that flickered in those green depths, but at the same time, her relief could’ve been a two-by-four upside his head with as obvious as it was.

And it hurt a helluva lot more than if it had gone straight through his heart.

“I thought you might be interested in a deal,” Buffy finally said to Spike, chin lifted high.

Willow’s wrinkled brow confusion was nothing compared to his own, but he’d had a century of practicing disinterest to cover himself up better. “Already had my deal,” Spike said leisurely. “I’m sure Red’ll will fill you in once you’ve seen the back of me.” He reached for his coat, and sure enough, Buffy’s voice was a better tether than any thrall Drusilla could’ve done on a best day.

“Guess you’re finally strong enough to just walk away whenever it makes you happy,” she said. “And here I thought being afraid didn’t hold you back.”

The room felt like it was spinning around him as he slowly turned his head to stare at her, and when he met her gaze, Spike realized he’d just failed her little test of him.

“Because I’m not lost anymore,” he’d said. “No matter what happens, no matter where the next bend in our paths takes us, you’ve shown me that fear doesn’t have to hold me back. That I have it in me to forge onward, even if hindrances may try to prevent me from doing so. This is your true gift, Buffy. You make those who love you stronger.”

She’d wanted to find out for herself if he didn’t remember, or maybe, just how much he did. And in a clumsy drop of his cards, Spike had given her at least a peek at his hand.

Willow had grabbed onto Buffy’s arm, pulling her away from the bed. “What’re you doing?” she whispered into the Slayer’s ear. “Let him go. We don’t need him anymore.”

But Buffy wasn’t paying Willow any heed, her eyes still level with Spike’s, daring him with that golden petulance that just last year had driven him to distraction. Now, it had an entirely different effect, and his mouth set in a grim line as he squared his shoulders.

“You think you’ve got an offer I might be interested in, Slayer?” he drawled, hooking his thumb through his belt loop so that his fingers splayed across his crotch. He secretly pleasured in the flush that rose to her cheeks, and watched her retreat behind an icy exterior he was all too-familiar with.

“Never mind,” she snapped. “Just go. Willow and I can take care of Esme on our own.”

He waited until she’d turned to her friend before speaking again. “You think you can handle April all on your lonesome, too?” he asked.

It was Buffy’s turn to look like a deer in headlights, and the way her head swiveled back and forth between Spike and Willow almost made the vampire laugh out loud.

“That’s part of the long story,” Willow confirmed. “She’s out there, somewhere, and dangerous. You should’ve seen what she did to Spike.”

He squirmed under Buffy’s scrutiny. “Wouldn’t’ve happened if it wasn’t for that fuckin’ boytoy of hers---.”

“Nathan? Nathan’s here, too?”

Even as she said it, Spike realized that he’d known the name, too, a flimsy mote that had been buried in the avalanche of the other memories. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “The pair of ‘em have decided to finish off Esme, for some reason. Guess they didn’t like the terms of the deal she made to break the bitch out of her crystal palace.”

“Same fight, different day,” Buffy muttered. With one last look at the vampire, she turned away, scanning the room. “Where are my clothes? We need to go find Giles. We’re going to need all the help we can get with this one.”

“Ummm…OK.” Willow rushed through a hurried explanation about the set-up, how they’d fled from Esme and left most everything behind, all the while avoiding looking at a pacing Spike near the door. “And as for Giles, well, I’ve been so focused on getting you back that, well---.”

“Giles is here,” Buffy interrupted. She went to the wardrobe and began rifling through its contents, pulling out a pair of Willow’s pants as she spoke. “I found him when I was…when I was sleeping. There was this powerful spell holding him in some kind of time prison, but Rose broke that. He should be back here by now.”

“Powerful, huh? Do you think it was one of Esme’s?”

Buffy shrugged. “Don’t know anybody else with that kind of power just lying around, do you? It doesn’t matter anyway. Rose said all he had to do was leave the house to get back to his own time. I didn’t see it, but---.”

“He’s here.” The surprise in Willow’s quick glance was but a pinprick compared to the angry resentment in Buffy’s, and Spike shrugged as he tried to backtrack. “Watcher’s not completely daft. If all he had to do to get outta the place was go outside, something tells me he’s egghead enough to put one foot in front of the other. Not even Rupert is that pathetic not to suss that.”

Willow seemed to accept his rationalization, but the Slayer wasn’t nearly as forgiving, yanking the borrowed pants up before slipping on a pair of extra shoes. “He probably went back to the apartment to look for us,” Buffy said as she strode determinedly for the door. “I say we start our search for him there.”

Spike hung back, even after Willow had grabbed her backpack and stepped into the hall. Blue eyes never left the small blonde in the doorway, staying firm when she hesitated and looked back at him.

“Are you coming?” Buffy asked quietly. “I know it’s not your fight, and I don’t really have anything to give you this---.”

“I’m in.” He glanced out the window before sauntering forward. “Still some time before the sun comes up, and I got a score to settle with that April bitch.” Every step into the hallway was buoyed by her unfaltering gaze, but he couldn’t fight the urge to stop in front of Buffy and lean to whisper directly into her ear.

“Can’t rightly stay inside, anyway. Do that, and I’m just a prisoner of my own fear. Not really the way we work, now is it?”

Her sudden gasp was the best reward he could’ve asked for as he pulled back and continued down the hall.

Well…

…Second best.

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

The sound of a key slipping into the lock was enough to draw Giles from his slumber, and he shot up from where he’d crashed on the couch to see the knob on the front door already turning. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the fruitless trek to Quentin’s house combined with the events of the past several days had been enough to make him collapse when he’d returned to the flat, and even now, the desire to just shoot whoever it was coming in so that he could get a few more hours of rest was overwhelming.

Her slim hand on the jamb was all he needed to shed the last vestiges of his disorientation, and Giles was at the door, pulling it away from Buffy’s grip, before she could say a word. Silently, he gathered her into his arms, grunting slightly when her squeeze began to border on the uncomfortable, and then reached out to include the waiting Willow in the hug.

It was only when he saw Spike lounging against the wall in the hall that he stiffened.

The vampire looked very much like he had the last time Giles had seen him over a year previously---though the coat certainly appeared a bit worse for wear---but when the two men met gazes, the Watcher’s stomach plummeted.

Haunted was the best word he could use to describe Spike.

But he mustn’t, Giles argued silently. He would never have attempted to kill Buffy last year if he still retained any feelings for her.

“I think this is my new favorite day of the year,” Willow was babbling. “Buffy’s back, Giles is back, I’m no longer the only one trying to fix everything…”

“I take it, Rose was right?” Buffy asked, pulling away from the hug.

Giles nodded. “And a bit overzealous in getting me out of her way, it would seem. She literally shoved me out the door when she saw that man being attacked.”

“That was Richard,” the Slayer explained. “Her husband.”

“Does that mean---?”

“That the bitefest was courtesy of April? Yeah, that’s what it means.” She started to follow Willow into the flat, and then hesitated when she remembered the vampire still in the hallway.

“Would it be remiss to inquire why exactly Spike is here?” Giles asked before she could say anything.

Buffy sighed. “There are so many different answers to that question, I don’t even know where to start. But for now…I---we need him. You have no idea how much has happened here since we’ve been gone.”

“So…he’s here at your request?”

“Yes. Is there a problem with that?”

He ignored the sharpness of her tone, concentrating instead on Spike. There were no overt reactions to Buffy’s choice of words, his body still a casual study of indolence, but it was the precise measuredness of his pose, combined with the lack of his usual caustic retorts, that set the Watcher’s mind awhirl.

“Come in, Spike,” he finally said, stepping aside to allow him entrance.

No reaction.

Then, a single nod before shuffling past Giles. He stopped at the opening to the living room, surveying the ransacked interior, before choosing the farthest chair from the center of the room as his seat. After tossing a leg over the arm, he merely waited for Buffy to enter the room, and then watched her every move as she settled on the couch with Willow.

Something was going on between the pair, but what it could be, Giles was unsure. For now, he would bide his time and watch, hopeful that answers would be forthcoming. What they might be, whether Spike was now a threat along the same lines as Angelus---and oh, dear lord, did he hope that they didn’t have to worry about killing another vampire obsessed with Buffy---or whether there were other circumstances dictating Spike’s odd presence, he would have to wait and see.

For now, there were more pressing issues at hand.

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

Explanations made the world go ‘round.

They didn’t do a thing for Buffy’s head, though.

Well, it wasn’t the explanations as much, because those were relatively effortless. If she took into consideration that she and Giles were sketchy on the time-past details in light of Spike’s professed ignorance of what had happened. And hearing just how Willow had teamed up with Esme hadn’t exactly been cheerworthy, either, but what was done, was done. They just had to move onward from there.

No, the head-spinning was courtesy of Spike. As usual.

When Angel had lost his soul, he’d looked mostly the same to her. So, Buffy’d figured that seeing the physical differences between Spike and William would make the separation of the two easier to manage. After all, there was so much changed---the bleached hair, the higher definition to his muscles, the added scars.

But when he’d spoken, and she’d leapt from the bed to meet his gaze, something inside her had come undone.

Because…he had William’s eyes.

The eyes were exactly the same.

It hadn’t been that way with Angelus. After the initial shock of learning he’d lost his soul, Buffy had picked up on the coldness and maniacal glee in his aspect every time she saw him, making it easier and easier for her to separate the man from the demon so that by the time it came to killing him for Acathla, she was ready. Of course, the getting his soul back at the last minute hadn’t been uber-fun, but by that point, it was too late. She knew what she had to do.

So she’d been preparing herself for the same thing with Spike. She could separate the two, no matter what the physical differences.

Except…

…He had William’s eyes.

And every time he looked at her---which was all the time, damn it, and just who in hell did he think he was fooling by saying he didn’t remember anything?---she had to fight the urge to go and curl into his lap, touch his face and tell him everything was going to be all right.

She didn’t know what all right was anymore.

“Buffy.”

Giles’ voice was gentle, nudging her from her reverie and snapping her head away from where she’d zoned into staring at Spike again. “What?” she asked, too chirpy, and then flushed at the kind reproof in his gaze. “Sorry. Just…I’ve spent too much time thinking lately. Not enough time killing things. My brain is going mushy.”

“I was just saying that I believe our best course of action at this point would be to contact the Council. With the information we can provide them now, it should be much easier for them to track April.”

“The Council? Giles, are you forgetting that they’re half to blame for this entire mess? And you said yourself that Mr. Travers wouldn’t even answer the door when you went to his house. That doesn’t scream ‘we want to help you’ to me.”

“That was before. Now, we have what they treasure most. Information. And as for Quentin, well, it is the middle of the night, Buffy. He was well within his rights to be in bed instead of waiting for my potential arrival.”

Her lips tightened. “All right, say we do spill to them about April. That doesn’t solve the Esme problem. I know Willow said she doesn’t have her magic right now, but how do we know that’s a permanent thing? She could get it back and then we wouldn’t be able touch her again, and neither could the Council. And we can’t just not deal with her. She’s got a big ol’ jones for Slayers, and hey, leader of the pack here.”

“I agree with Buffy,” Willow chimed in. “Especially since Spike and I, you know, kinda double-crossed her with sneaking out and everything.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Giles asked. “She’s still human. You can’t kill her---.”

“I can,” Spike offered. “Be my pleasure.”

The Watcher shot him a withering glance. “Like I said,” he continued, as if the vampire had never spoken up, “you can’t kill her. As far as we know, nothing we’ve ever done has harmed Esme. If she gets her powers back, we have no idea how to even approach disarming her again. We need allies, Buffy. We can’t do this alone.”

The voice from the front hall took them all by surprise, and every head turned to see Rose hovering in the living room’s entrance.

“I suppose this is the perfect opening for me to finally stop eavesdropping and start contributing, isn’t it?” she said.

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

Chapter 41: The Wreckful Siege of Battering Days

She had been watching for much longer than they knew. Her arrival outside Giles' flat had coincided with Buffy's, and she'd held back, keeping her presence cloaked during their reunion and throughout their explanations of everything that had transpired. It was just as well. Rose had been at first too aghast at seeing William, and then melancholy at the changes that had been wrought in him, to do anything more than stare, and it had taken much of her determination to break free from watching the ex-lovers. Hearing their debate regarding the witch who'd placed Giles and Anne Freston in the prison was all she needed to reveal her presence to them.

Buffy was on her feet first, crossing half the distance before drawing to a halt and openly gaping. "You should be dead," she announced.

Rose smiled. "It's nice to see you, too, Buffy," she said evenly. Her eyes flickered to the Watcher who had stopped in his pacing. "Does it feel good to be returned to your home, Mr. Giles?"

He was put off by her politeness, and frowned as he said, "We're just letting, but, yes." He cleared his throat. "Not to be incredibly rude, but…Buffy has a point. It's impossible for you to be here."

"From your perspective, I would imagine it would seem to be." She stepped forward, brushing past Buffy to stand before the other young woman in the room, and held out her hand in greeting. "You must be Willow Rosenberg. I'm Rose Rhodes-Fanshaw."

"How do you…oh!" Excitement quickened her handshake, her eyes bright. "You're the Watcher's wife who went missing! Except, you're not missing, are you, because you're here, just not in your own time. Why aren't you in your own time?"

"Believe it or not, I actually am," Rose replied. Releasing her grip, she turned and faced the countenance that tore at her heart. "Hello, William," she said softly.

He didn't say a word, didn't extend a greeting when she offered one, his knuckles bone-white where they clutched at the arms of the chair. Rose had heard enough of the conversation to know that Buffy and Giles were being circumspect in the details they shared, and that they did so on the understanding that "Spike," as they called him now, wasn't privy to the events of the past. But as she regarded him, the dark blue eyes swallowing her down like a man starving for the truth, she knew. She could still feel the soft cloud of the spell she'd woven over a century earlier---or mere hours, if she chose to look at it that way---but the primary block had been removed. He remembered, and her appearance at the flat had merely been another confirmation of the memories that must have been fierce for him.

"OK, so we've got the intros out of the way," Buffy said, stepping back into the group. "Why don't we try some explanations now."

"Yes, the obligatory explanations." She sighed. "Richard died in front of that house, but then, you knew that would happen, didn't you?" The guilty looks exchanged between the girls brought a sad smile to Rose's face. "There's no shame in death. He died so that you could live. So that others could be safe. He wouldn't have wanted it any other way."

"But you…what happened to your lectures on time requiring a balance? Why would you follow me to the now?"

"It wasn't a deliberate choice, Buffy. I'm here because my tie to the past was gone. I was only there because of Richard." She gestured toward the seats. "Sit down. This will take some…trust in me. By all rights, I shouldn't tell you at all but I've been granted leave to say what I must in order to help you. Certain wrongs must be righted, and it appears that I'm your best hope in doing so."

Rose waited until everyone was settled before continuing. "As you've seen, I have…powers that I used to help Richard in his duties. They aren't wholly mine, but rather, powers I share with others like me."

"You're a witch," Buffy said.

"Not exactly. I belong to a line of women whose purpose throughout the centuries has been to…watch over the Watchers. Our responsibility is to see that the Slayer line is kept as pure as possible. That the Slayer's design is untainted by bureaucracy or corruption."

Giles' harrumph was accompanied by a shake of his head. "I would think you've failed then," he commented. "The Council has so many rules and regulations, it's lost sight of the true mission."

"Not entirely," Rose said. "Rules are necessary for order, and without order, the Slayers would perish much sooner than they already do. Each generation has molded the Council as it's seen fit. We have no qualms with the general propriety of its structure at this point. Our dominion tends to be more…personalized."

"Richard."

"Yes. Richard." She began to pace as she spoke, the movement keeping her distracted enough from the grief that still threatened to overwhelm her at the most inopportune times. "I'm not originally of this time. This era, yes, but your reality is altered from the one I knew. My reality was…darker than this one, primarily due to the corruptive influence of a very powerful group of vampires. They were systematically destroying large sections of the populace and it was decided amongst my line that we needed to step in and stop it."
"But you deal with Watchers," Willow argued. "What did…" Her question trailed off, understanding slowly dawning.

"In my reality, April caught up to Richard a year after she'd killed Sofani in Batavia. Instead of killing him, though, she turned him, and together, they left quite a bloody swath across the world. When April was slain at the turn of the century, it drove Richard mad, and hence, his very careful annihilation of the other world he'd known."

"So you went back in time to change that," Buffy said. "And all your talk about not messing with the timeline was just a crock."

"We did what we thought was necessary. I risked returning to an unknown world when Richard died."

"So what're you doing here now? Your job's done---."

"My job is never done, Buffy. You need my help with Esme. As you told me before, I'm the only one who has ever had an effect on her."

"You also said you wouldn't hurt her," the Slayer argued.

"My sisters believe there is another way," Rose said. "And I'm rather embarrassed to admit that my personal opinions on the matter were negated by your present need."

"But, in essence, it's been only a few hours since we last saw you," Giles interjected. "How did you know we needed your aid? Or even, how to find us?"

"Because of you." Her smile was kind. "It doesn't matter who your employer is, Rupert. In your heart, you will always be Buffy's Watcher."

"Does this mean you have a plan?" asked Willow. "Because so far, we've come up with bupkiss. Less than that. We don't even have bup."

"I'm interested in seeing the spell you used to detect Esme's magic," she explained. "And did I hear you left her with Lydia? Do you think you might be able to convince Lydia to help us?"

"I believe I could do that," Giles offered.

"And I'll get the stuff about the spell," Willow said, popping up to head for the bedroom.

The awkward silence left in the wake of the pair's departure had Buffy visibly squirming in her seat, but it was shattered when Spike stood and grabbed Rose's arm.

"Like a word," he growled, dragging her toward the kitchen.

She let herself be pulled into the adjoining room, ignoring the Slayer's worried frown as they disappeared. When he shoved her against the counter, she caught the edge in order not to stumble.

"You remember, don't you?" Rose asked as she turned to face him.

His nostrils were flaring in his agitation, and she couldn't help but marvel at such a curiously human thing for a vampire to do. In spite of the physical differences, this close to him, all she could see was William, and the guilt she'd had at her most recent lie to him returned with a vengeance.

"It was you." Not a question, because he already seemed certain of the answer, his voice so low, it was impossible to be heard from the other room.

"It had to be done---," she started, only to stop in sudden fear when his fist slammed onto the counter.

"You had no right," he hissed. "You and all your do-gooder Council talk. Between you and that bastard husband of yours---."

"Stop." Though she didn't raise her voice, the command in her tone was chilling, and she lifted a warning finger to his chest. "You will not besmirch his name like that. Richard died so that you could get Buffy to safety. She wouldn't be sitting out there right now were it not for his sacrifice."

Silence. Only the storm of his gaze as he stared at her. And then…

"Why?" A whisper now, and it softened part of the shell she'd thrown up in response to his attack on Richard.

"For your own good," she said quietly.

He snorted. "In case you hadn't noticed, not exactly playin' for that team anymore, Rose."

"Really? And you're here to help because…?" She let the leading question go unanswered, watching the doubt and confusion play across his face. "You know it was for the best, William. Would you have been able to bear a century of knowing she wasn't even born yet? Would you even be here today if you'd gone on with Buffy's memory? I had no choice. It was the only way to ensure that you would be able to continue and to preserve what I could of the timeline."

"You let her remember." It was the petulant retort of a child, eliciting a smile from Rose.

"And do you think that makes it easy for her? If I'd known she was coming back to seeing you…like this, I would likely have chosen to block her remembrances, as well."

"Because now I'm not good enough for her, is that it?"

"You're a vampire, William. What do you think is the answer to that question?"

The air crackled between them, but he didn't reply. Rose hated being the one so state it so bluntly, but she'd seen too many vampires in the time she spent with Richard to be able to believe anything good could come from a relationship between the Slayer and the demon.

"You think you got me figured out, do you?" Spike had backed off from encroaching her space, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. "You were always underestimating me. You thought you could just talk me out of my feelings, like it was all just a big game. Let me tell you, you didn't know what I was like then, and you haven't a notion what kind of vamp I am now."

"What are you planning to do?"

A small cough from the entrance stopped Spike from replying. "Giles is off the phone," Buffy said quietly. "He's got news."

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

As plans went, she liked it. It was relatively simple---so bonus points for fewer things to go wrong---and strongly featured Buffy getting to beat the tar out of April. Even Spike had seemingly approved of the arrangements, describing his fight with the vamp in enough detail for Buffy to know the ex-Slayer's weaknesses and then boasting to one and all that his added muscle would most likely sway the battle in their favor. She would've made some comment about being too big for his own fists, but the fact was, he was probably right. She wasn't completely herself yet, and having an experienced fighter like Spike on her side could only help.

It also helped that they were going to be able to take on Esme and April at the same time. Lydia's information that the vampire was likely holding Quentin hostage in his home had sparked the initial thought of combining the battles, with the female Watcher eagerly consenting to get Esme to the house for them. She'd been fending off the witch ever since Willow and Spike's disappearance, and she admitted to Giles that she feared Esme's powers were returning. If that was the case, the time to strike was now, before she got back up to full strength.

So, it was pretty easy. Rest up through the day, go to Travers' house as soon as the sun set, kill herself a couple of vamps while Rose and Willow worked their mojo with Esme.

Easy, except for the fact that she couldn't sleep.

The flat was silent, curtains drawn against the London day, the air oppressive with a surprising summer heat. After setting some protective wards around the building, Rose had settled to bunk with Willow, while Giles retired to his room for the first good night's rest he'd had in days.

That left Buffy in her old bed, and Spike on the couch, and her head somewhere stuck between a hundred years earlier and a grungy pub room on the other side of the city.

She had no doubts that he remembered. In spite of Willow's assurances to the contrary, Buffy knew those words that Spike had uttered. She saw the way he looked at her. She'd witnessed how Rose's appearance had infuriated him. Though she hadn't heard what he'd said to the seer in the kitchen, the mere fact that he'd been driven enough to speak with her was damning enough in Buffy's eyes.

But he continued to stay silent, playing up to Giles' evasive intimations of the past and Willow's stammering roundabouts with what she knew.

It was driving her crazy.

Pushing back the sheet, Buffy padded silently to the door, cocking her head to listen for any stray noises. The living room was still. Is he actually sleeping?

She had to know.

As quietly as she could, Buffy turned the knob, slipping into the hall and slinking along the wall until she stood in the opening to the lounge. There were no lights on, the only ambience that which filtered harmlessly through the curtains, but rather than a blanketed vampire on the sofa, she was met by a sitting Spike in the same chair he'd occupied earlier, bent at the waist, forearms resting on his knees as he stared at the floor.

He looked up when she hesitated, and she felt her stomach tighten at the solemnity in his eyes. "You should be sleeping," he said softly.

"I think I've done enough sleeping lately, don't you?" she replied, just as softly.

Spike shrugged, as if his disinterest was more important than her answer. "Your funeral."

Buffy took a step closer. "You don't think we're going to win?"

"Don't know what to think anymore."

She couldn't help it. He sounded so much like William in that moment, so lost and so broken, that she was across the room before she could talk herself out of it, kneeling before him and resting a tremulous hand on his arm. "Just tell me," she whispered. "Tell me and stop pretending."

Though he didn't pull away from her touch, he didn't acknowledge it, either, dropping his eyes to the floor. "Don't know what you're talkin' about, Slayer," Spike said roughly. "Just tired, is all."

Not as tired as she was of the games, but Buffy moved back off anyway. "Sleep's more comfortable lying down," she said, trying a different tactic. "Is there something wrong with the couch? I didn't know vamps could be so fussy."

"And I didn't know Slayers could be so nosy. What's a bloke got to do to get a little peace around here?"

"I was just---."

"Just stickin' your nose in where it's not wanted, that's what you're doin'. Take a page from Red's book, Buffy. If I say shove off, you'd best do it."

His antagonism had quickly triggered her from sympathy to annoyance. "I guess playing make believe is more tiring than it looks," she snapped, rising to her feet. "You think you're so clever, and it might be working on Willow and Giles, but you can't fool me, Spike. I know you're not nearly as blind as you're letting on. I've seen you go into denial, remember?" Her eyes glittered in anger. "Oh, wait. You don't remember. My bad."

"What is it you want from me, huh?" Leaping from his seat, Spike started stalking her, driving her back toward her bedroom, step by step. "I'm here, right? I'm givin' you my fists and fangs for the fight without askin' for anything in return. You think bein' a turncoat has me dancing in the aisles? I hate the thought that I need to do this. I hate that I look at you, and I'm prepared to just chuck it all 'cause I can't shake you out of my skull. There's something just not right about that. So, tell me, Buffy." He stopped, though Buffy continued backward until she was pressed against the corridor's wall. "What. Do you. Want?"

Her eyes burned from the tears that suddenly sprang there. "I want William," she said hoarsely, and whirled to flee back to the sanctuary of her room.

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

It was a subdued group that left the flat at sunset. Sleep had done wonders for Giles, recharging him to a saber-sharpness that had him barking immutable orders at both Buffy and Spike. Willow was bowing to Rose's lead, jokingly asking when she slung the pack of magical supplies over her shoulder if there was a proper name for a witch's caddy. Even Spike seemed to have gained a stay in his temper, his mussed curls telling Buffy that he'd finally managed to sneak at least a couple hours of sleep.

She wasn't dwelling on what had transpired between them. Though she'd eventually succumbed to exhaustion, her rest had been fitful, leaving her fidgety and anxious for the fight to be done. Over and over, she repeated Spike's instructions---can't see a left-comin' punch or kick if her life depends on it, you can use that, you can beat her and she's quick, but you're quicker, stay on top of that and you'll best her no problem---while she did her stretches in the living room. For a brief moment, she'd considered asking the vampire if he wanted to spar to get her properly warmed up, but he was taking extra care not to be around, slipping outside for a cigarette as he waited for them to finish preparing.

"You think it's the first time anyone ever had to take a taxi to stop an impending demonic disaster?" Buffy joked as they squeezed into the back of the vehicle they'd ordered. The women were on one side, the men on the other, and she had to tuck her legs tight against her seat when Spike's sprawl placed his feet dangerously close to hers.

"It's not quite as charming as Richard's carriage," Rose mused. When the cabbie laid on the horn when another car cut him off on a roundabout, she grimaced. "Or as quiet."

"What time did Lydia say she was going to get Esme there?" Willow asked.

"As close to sunset as she could manage," Giles replied. "According to her, Esme has grown increasingly bold in their search for Spike and Buffy. She doubted she would have many problems getting her out after dark."

"Only natural," Spike said. "All amounts of evil crawl from under their rocks without the sun lurking about."

Giles' mouth opened as if to comment, but then snapped shut, leaving the car in an uneasy silence for the duration of the trip. It was a grateful reprieve for Buffy; she was having difficulty enough focusing on the upcoming fight and not the way Spike's hands kept flexing and tapping, tapered fingers she knew intimately, knew how he twisted his wrist to accommodate writing with his left hand and not his right, knew how they would fidget without something to do or something to hold. It was a characteristically William thing to do, and she had to avert her eyes to the road passing by her window in order not to dwell on it.

She was the first one out when the taxi pulled to a stop down the street, hopping in readiness as she worked out the kinks in her neck. Behind her, she felt Spike approach and then stop, the audible sound of his knuckles cracking as he did the same as she. The distant voices of the others merged into the noise of the street as Buffy became all too aware of the prickling at the base of her neck Spike's presence was causing, her pulse accelerating as a natural response to the threat.

"Save it for your real enemy," Spike said, his low words intended only for her ears.

Risking a glance at him, Buffy jerked her head toward the Travers' house. "I'm going to go scout ahead," she said. "Let Giles---."

"He'll suss it out on his own," came the reply as the vampire moved to her side. "Let's go."

He wasn't waiting for her to start, instead striding with bold steps along the walk, his coat billowing around his legs. Determination made his boots echo in the dark, and she had to sprint to catch up to him.

"Scouting usually goes hand in hand with stealthy," she said dryly as she matched his pace. "This is most definitely not sneaky."

"So I like a bold entrance," Spike said. "Sue me."

"Have you forgotten this is my fight?"

"Last I checked, April had taken a chunk out of my hide, too," he shot back, and then growled deep in his chest, exhaling in a long absolution of the tension still wound in his muscles. "But we'll play it your way. I've got your back as long as you want me there."

"Thanks."

"Well, well, well. Looks like little Willie came back for seconds."

The pair stopped at the male drawl behind them, turning in unison to see Nathan lounging against the streetlamp they'd just passed under.

"You even brought dessert," Nathan continued. "How thoughtful."

"Geez, you talk as much as your ho girlfriend does," Buffy said. Her fingers tightened around the stake she carried loosely at her side, while her gaze scanned their surroundings. As far as she could tell, he and Spike were the only vamps in the vicinity. Where did that put April? Was she in the house?

"You plan on doin' a runner this time round, too?" Spike taunted. "Without your little minions scrabbling under foot, Buffy should be able to take care of your honey this time with her eyes shut and her stake tied behind her back."

"How pathetic. Recruiting a little girl to help you defend your honor. I think you're almost as sad a vampire as you were a human."

"Hey!" Buffy exclaimed, a bright faux smile on her face. "He doesn't remember me either. Looks like you two have something in common, Spike. You know, other than the fangs."

Both vamps looked at her with drawn brows, scrutinizing---though for different reasons---the meaning behind her words. This was better, she decided. This was Buffy back in control, keeping the demons off-balance as she did what she had to do. And without knowing April's exact whereabouts, she knew what that was.

Spike must've seen the decision in her eyes. A second before she grabbed the iron fence next to her, he dove at Nathan's street side, splitting the vampire's attention and giving them the advantage. Buffy used her momentum to swing around Nathan, grabbing him when Spike knocked him off-balance, and shoving him face-first onto the walk.

"Where's April?" she demanded, pressing the tip of her stake into his back.

He didn't answer, bucking up against her slight weight. Her bottom shifted backwards but as she fought to regain her equilibrium, Spike's heavy boot came down on Nathan's neck, pinning him down with an audible crunch.

"You heard the lady," Spike growled. "Suggest you answer her. She's not nearly as nice as me when she gets pissed."

Nathan's cheek was smashed against the concrete, his lips flexing in his best fish imitation as he tried to speak, and Buffy had to bite back the giggle that rose to her throat. "Not to discourage such enthusiastic interrogation methods," she said, "but I think he might be more apt to talk if he can actually, you know, talk."

Looking down at his foot, Spike nodded as he stepped back. "Looks like it's your lucky day, mate. Slayer's feelin' generous."

"Slayer?" Nathan croaked. He was trying to twist to look at the young woman still sitting on his back, but his neck was refusing to cooperate. His groan of pain was accompanied by the dead weight of his head hitting the sidewalk, and his eyes fluttered shut.

"Damn it," Buffy muttered. "I think you broke him, Spike. He's not going to be any use to us now."

"Well, then…" Crouching down, Spike curled his hand around hers on the stake, and gave it a violent shove downward, slamming through Nathan's chest and sending an explosion of dust upward around Buffy's legs. "One down, one to go."

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

Willow watched the fight from the distance, held back both by Giles' warning to leave the pair of blonds alone and by her own trepidation about getting caught in the sparks that were shooting between Buffy and Spike. Though she'd been pretending otherwise, she had a funny feeling that Spike was more than aware of what had happened to Buffy in the past, about his role in the battle that had freed Giles, and about the intimacy that had occurred between him and the Slayer. He'd looked like his head was going to explode when Rose had arrived, and though he'd been his usual snipey self during their planning session, there was a…diffidence in his contributions, as though he was unsure of what exactly his role was.

She was glad she didn't have to be in his head. Hers was wonky enough trying to come to grips with Buffy being in love with William.

"They did it," Rose murmured beside her. She'd been transfixed by the fight ever since it had started, watching them move in an innate synchronicity that almost sang in the night air. "They actually killed him."

"That's only one," Giles said. "And not April. They're not done yet."

Willow bit her lip to keep from talking. Giles had been referring to Buffy and Spike as a team all night; it was weird to the power of infinity hearing it, especially when half the time she caught him watching Spike with the same cautious scrutiny the vampire was bestowing on Buffy. Like there was a puzzle there he was still trying to fathom.

Yuck. More wonkiness. She needed to seriously reconsider trying to be the brainy one. Thinking so much about stuff like this was grounds for a serious headache.

At her side, Rose suddenly stiffened, turning to look at the deserted street behind them. Her hand closed around Willow's wrist, forcing a surprised cry of pain from the young girl.

"She's coming," Rose said.

"We should get ready then," Willow argued, trying to free herself from her grasp.

"There's no time."

The next thing Willow saw, was blackness.

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

From his chair by the fireplace, Quentin watched April flit from window to window, peering out into the darkness. "He's taking too long," she grumbled. "Why is he taking so long?"

"Most likely, he's dead," Quentin replied. "Perhaps you should've done your own hunting this evening instead of insisting on standing guard." He winced when she flew to his side, grabbing his bandaged hand and squeezing until another bone popped somewhere inside. He really must start learning not to answer all her questions. Most of them were rhetorical.

"I'm going to take such pleasure in killing you when this is over," she said. "Watchers make the best meals."

Shattering glass cleaved the air, sending shards flying into the room as a stone came hurtling through the window. April's attention snapped in time to see a familiar bleached head poke into view.

"Personally, I always thought Slayers made the nummiest treats," Spike said from his vantage outside.

"You!" she hissed.

"Little ol' me. So, you goin' to hide in there all night, or are you goin' to come out and play? In the mood for a little rough and tumble, myself. Thought for a bit there I'd get it from your boytoy, but well, he just decided to go blowin' in the wind instead."

She took a step forward. "What've you done to Nathan?"

"Just gave back as good as I got. With the added bonus of bein' a better shot than him. I didn't miss the heart."

With a gurgled cry, April flew through the air, breaking through the rest of the pane to go tumbling to the ground outside. Immediately, Quentin jumped to his feet, but before he could venture forward to see what was happening, the study door slammed open, revealing an armed Buffy.

"Get out of here," she ordered, heading toward the broken window. "Giles is outside, about four houses down. He'll help you get to the Council offices in one piece instead of on a vampire platter."

"Miss Summers," he stammered. She was, quite honestly, the last person he'd expected to see. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass, in case it wasn't obvious." Her eyes were glued to the fighting he could hear outside, and when he didn't respond right away, she turned to glare at him. "Did she suck out brain cells, too? Go on!"

He felt foolish for obeying such an impudent young woman, but Quentin's feet did as they were told, taking him from the study and down the corridor toward the back exit. He had no desire to go out the front door, not with April and the vampire she'd fought the other day brawling in the garden. One thing was for certain, though. When this mess was over, he intended on having a long discussion with Miss Summers about her penchant for recruiting demons to aid her in her slaying.

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

The Watcher Lydia's assessment had been conservative, Rose realized as she teleported to within feet of where the two women stood. The air sizzled with the buzz of magic, leaving the same distinctive tang to the senses as had surrounded the house that had imprisoned Rupert and Anne. Esme was hiding it, however, only allowing the slimmest of fingers to go searching along the ether as she probed for demonic activity in the neighborhood. Why that could be, Rose didn't know, but she refused to waste precious time questioning her untold advantage, splicing together the threads of the spell she needed to incapacitate the elderly witch.

Willow was unconscious on the grass behind her. She regretted having to dupe the young woman in such a way, and was dreading Buffy and William discovering just what she had in mind, but Esme's power was too great to leave unchecked.

"She's here," Rose heard Esme say.

"I told you my sources said Buffy was---."

"Not her. April." Smug satisfaction coated her words. "She is---. Wait."

Licks of fear crept up Rose's spine as the witch suddenly turned and stared in the direction Rose had cloaked herself. Already, the magic she was tethering was augmenting under her control, preparing to be unleashed in ways unknown at the threat she could detect but not identify. Time was no longer a luxury Rose could cater to, and she muttered an apology to Willow for what she was about to do.

It was Willow and Giles' credit that she could do this at all. They were the ones who'd divined the original spell to gather Esme's magic. When Willow had told the story of the rod, how she'd used it to find the journal and then how they'd broken it to disarm the magic surrounding the Council building, Rose had known right away just what had been accomplished. She hadn't gone into details with them about what she planned to do---there simply wasn't any time for it---but it was the best solution she could discern that would cripple Esme without killing her.

Dropping the glamour that hid both her and Willow from their view, Rose knelt to place one hand on the young girl's chest, while at the same time, lifting the other to aim at Esme. Before the elderly witch could react, the words hung in the air between them, electrifying the air as an invisible conduit formed, linking the three women in a daisy chain of magic that made Rose feel drunk.

It surged through her with a power that crested on voltaic waves, a life all of its own made temporarily incarnate as it drained from Esme, fought the tidal pull from Rose, and settled into the unconscious Willow on the grass. It was nothing like she'd ever felt before, magic combining years of specified training with an inordinate natural gift, and for the briefest of moments, Rose was tempted to channel a small portion of it away. What harm could it bring, she thought, but quickly shook it off, refocusing her energies on completing the spell.

When it was over, all three women were on the ground, spent and riven from the stress of the magic. Air was suddenly a precious commodity for Rose, and she swallowed huge gulps as she listened to the female Watcher shout at her from somewhere far, far away.

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

Buffy didn't know whether she should be annoyed or amused. From the middle of the yard---well, what constituted a yard in a city like London, at least---Spike was dancing around in circles, taunting and tormenting April with jeers on everything from her hair and her fighting technique to her lousy taste in boyfriends. It wasn't anything Buffy hadn't seen before---or, for that matter, not been on the other side of---but for the first time, she had a birds' eye view of what a psychological advantage it gave him when it came to the fight.

It wasn't that he wasn't an accomplished fighter. In fact, now that she could see him as an outside party, Buffy recognized a lot of her own moves in his style. But the fervor he threw into his words, choosing and selecting the most keenly honed barbs in order to do the most damage, that was an art all to itself.

It was working, too. Maybe being out of it for the last century had dulled April's sense of play, but Spike's gibes were hitting just as often as his punches were. He wasn't going for the kill, though; they had agreed before setting on with their plan to get Quentin safely out of the house that this one belonged to Buffy.

Taking care not to cut herself on the jagged shards of glass that still clung to the window pane, the Slayer dove out the window and rolled safely onto the grass, pulling the stake from her pants as she did so. Her presence was immediately noticed, and April swept her leg out to knock Spike from his feet as she whirled to face off with Buffy.

And froze.

"Miss me?" Buffy quipped with a bright smile. Her fist shot into April's jaw, sending the demon flying back.

She tangled with the edge of Spike's coat, and snarled when his foot connected with her midsection to free her. "Did you get caught in that damn spell, too?" April rasped as she staggered back up. "Is that how you can be here?"

"Nope," Buffy replied. She saw the faint list in the vampire's left side and struck again, this time driving a kick into her opponent's knee. "Got a cab. Lot cheaper and way easier on the time traveling sickness. I highly recommend it."

Cartilage cracked and bone splintered. April cried out as her leg collapsed beneath her, but she rolled out of Buffy's way when the stake came plunging toward her. "Are your other Watchers vampires, too? Except they can't be, can they? I killed Richard myself."

Buffy's sudden fury blinded her to the ankle that hooked around hers, and she fell against a bush when April forced her from her feet. Her hand jammed against the wall behind the shrub, knocking the stake from her grip, and she bit back the shout of pain that threatened to erupt when she felt her wrist snap. When she heard the vampire move behind her, she tucked her hand into her stomach and pitched sideways, only narrowly avoiding a direct tussle.

"Buffy!"

His call was almost a surprise, and she looked just in time to see the stake he was tossing her sluicing through the air. Buffy's eyes caught Spike's, and the slight flicker of his gaze over her shoulder was all she needed to grab the piece of wood and twist around, driving it through the ribcage of a pouncing April.

The dust scattered, blinding her for a moment. Then, strong hands were pulling were away, hooking beneath her arms to set her gently down on the front step, and she looked up to see the platinum head bowed over her injured wrist.

"Now who's the stubborn sort," he commented wryly. His choice of words made her breath hitch. He was gently massaging powerful fingertips along the muscles in her arm, testing the strength in her wrist, but she was oblivious to anything but him. "You couldn't just stake her when you had her caught in your headlights. No, you had to go and---."

He was silenced by the slam of her lips to his.

She wasn't sure what she expected. There was no denying he tasted different; no longer the innocent honey of first kisses, Spike was smoke and ice and carnivorous hunger, hesitating only a fraction of a millisecond before responding to her caress. But where instinct tried to force Buffy to deepen the kiss, he held her back, releasing his hold on her hands to bring his own up to cup her face. He held her still, taking the time to make the kiss linger in zealous indulgence, tongue sweeping expertly with hers until she had to break away to breathe.

"I knew you remembered," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "I knew it. I knew you couldn't forget---."

"Buffy, don't do this."

She frowned as she met his eyes. They were dark with desire, but she could see him fighting to tear himself away. "Do what?" she demanded. "You kissed me, too. Don't deny it."

"How can I? But…you want William. You said so. And I'm not completely him, now am I? Not just the demon bit," he rushed to say. "It's the time, love. I've had a century to change from the man you met."

"But he's there," Buffy argued. "I've seen him."

"You're just all wound up from the fight." His thumb brushed over her swollen bottom lip before his hands withdrew and he rocked back on his heels, forcing the distance between them again. "You're not thinkin' straight."

"Don't tell me how I'm thinking," she started, but the sudden sight of Giles running up onto the grass captured her attention.

"Come," the Watcher said, his breathing ragged. "It's Willow."

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

She broke into a sprint when she saw her best friend lying stretched out on the grass, dropping to her knees as soon as she reached her side. Willow's face was flushed, her skin sweaty, and every breath that escaped her lungs sounded like it was being pulled out with a broken net, rough and jagged in every exhalation. Nearby, Rose was sitting huddled on the curb, while Lydia was jabbering away on her cell phone over the prostrate form of Esme.

"She'll be fine," Rose said when Buffy finally acknowledged her presence. "She's strong. She just needs to rest."

"What did you do?"

The seer's eyes fell to the street. "What had to be done."

"What…? No! You were supposed to use the spell to tap Esme's magic into a tree, or a rock, or a squirrel or something. Not my best friend!"

"It was never going to work that way. Her magic is too powerful to be held by something less than fully sentient---."

"So you were always going to double-cross us?" Buffy was ready for another fight. First the kiss with Spike---well, not the kiss itself, though she still wasn't sure what had been going through her head when she'd done that---and now Rose. What happened to teamwork? What happened to understanding what those people who promised to support you were actually thinking?

"I did what had to be done," Rose repeated, this time a little stronger. "Esme is no longer a threat, and yet she lives. That is the honorable way."

"So honorable you lie to us in order to turn Willow into a vegetable. Great. Just great."

"She's merely sleeping. When she wakes up, everything will be all right."

"When she wakes up? And when exactly is that going to be?"

Rose had no answer to that, leaving the night to its distant music of traffic and horns. With a shake of her head, Buffy stepped back to allow Giles to tend to Willow, making the redhead more comfortable on the grass while they waited for the vans Lydia had called for to arrive.

It was too much. Even with April's death under her belt, and even with knowing the threat of Esme was now gone, she felt like screaming and ranting in frustrated anger because how worth it could it be if she lost Willow at the same time? And then there was the whole issue of Spike, and the kiss, and the fact that differentiating between him and William had turned into something more nightmarish than finals she never studied for.

Automatically, Buffy's gaze swept around, looking for the bleached head as if it would give her the reassurance she needed. Her throat locked as she slowly turned, and she felt sick to her stomach as the awareness sank in.

Spike was nowhere to be seen.

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

Chapter 42: I Could Not Love You Dearer

If someone had asked her on her first day in London if she'd miss it when she left, Buffy would have laughed in their face before reminding them that there were parts of the world that actually saw the sun during daylight hours and didn't put butter on all their sandwiches. If she was asked now, though, she knew she would just smile, nod, and mention something about how getting to see the non-touristy parts of the city could really change a girl's opinion of it.

The sky was uncharacteristically clear, the glow from miles of motorway lamps and streetlights softening the ebony into a midnight blue, and a warm breeze from the water whispered across Buffy's skin as she strolled along the bank. She'd walked this path every night since they'd killed April, excusing herself from the flat on the pretense of patrolling, and each journey had been uneventful, returning her to the bosom of her friends with more than a touch of melancholy. She shouldn't even be out now---their flight back to Sunnydale was scheduled very early the next morning, and Giles had been cautionary about staying out too late---but she didn't care. Something inside told her that if she stood any chance in finding Spike, it would be here.

There had been no sign of him since the fight. Eight days of nothing drove Buffy through the spectrum of emotion---anger at his running off, relief that she wouldn't have to face the decision that seeing him would force, even a shred of fear that he'd disappeared for good this time. It was the last that Giles had called her on, mentioning without ever saying William or Spike's name, that the people who truly cared for her would not wish to see her pining so. She'd laughed at that, which had only irritated him, but it was so similar to his words when they'd first left home for England, she couldn't help it. She'd gone on sabbatical to get over Angel's leaving, and was going back hung up on Spike's desertion. How ironic was that.

The one thing that was bolstering her through it was knowing William wouldn't like to see her this way. How many times had she listened to the lectures of how strong she was? That, yes, she was flawed, but that those flaws gave her a fortitude---his word, not hers, she thought it made her sound like the Alamo or something---that allowed her to walk boldly through her days? He was so proud of her independence; she needed to honor that by keeping her chin up.

"You're dropping your shoulder," a voice said behind her. "You could've been dinner ten times over by now if it weren't for me."

She halted in her tracks, taking a deep breath to quell the sudden rise in her heart rate, before slowly pivoting to see him standing there. His tone had been joking, but Spike's face was solemn, capturing the scattered moonlight from the water so that his skin almost glowed. She couldn't see his eyes, though. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"I thought you'd cut out of town," she said calmly. Inwardly, Buffy was proud of her composure. Look at me, she wanted to shout at him. See me be the adult one for a change? "You don't have any more obligations holding you here, right?" OK, so maybe that was a little on the petty side.

He answered her accusation anyway. "Tried," Spike said. "Actually stowed away on a boat headed across the Channel that first night. Made it about two miles downriver before I jumped out and swam back to the city."

"You swim? I didn't know that."

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Had to learn in the forties. Courtesy of a certain souled ex of yours who thought his sub wasn't big enough for the both of us."

"Oh." It was another reminder of the time that had elapsed for him, when everything for her was still so fresh, and it drove her to silence as she regarded him. He looked rested, more so than he had the night of the battle, and instead of his black tee, he sported what looked like a dark blue button-down with his regular black jeans. It made him look…softer, even with the coat, and that familiar pang of recognition stabbed Buffy's gut.

"How's Red doin'?" he asked quietly. "Is she really up to flyin' back already?"

"That's what the doctors say. That's what Willow says, for that matter. She's kind of tired of being poked and prodded and treated like a science experiment." She frowned as what he'd asked actually sunk in. "How'd you know about all that?" she said. "You didn't even stick around long enough to see me yell at Rose."

A grimace twisted his features. "Got a hold of that Lydia bird," Spike finally admitted. "She's the one who told me Red was up and out, and that you were hopping the pond for Sunnyhell tomorrow morning."

Lydia. Figured. But…

"I thought you'd left." It was a whisper this time, pain replacing the flare of jealousy she'd felt at his query about Willow. "I turned around, and you were just gone. I thought we were in the middle of something, and you…you didn't even stick around long enough for us to find out if we were or not."

"That's not---." He cut himself off with a growl, long fingers running through his hair and mussing the curls he'd let go soft the past week. "I'm here now, right? Can we…you can't begin to fathom what a wreck my head was, Buffy. I'm s'posed to hate you, remember? All that jazz with Dru, and Angelus, and the whole plan of tryin' to add you to my Slayer belt? Any of that ringing a bell to you?"

"And you think it was a bed of roses for me?" Anger was back. Anger was good. She knew how to deal with anger. "God, Spike, you listened to me talk for how long about what going through Angel and Angelus did to me, and you have the nerve to believe you've got exclusive rights to being confused? How arrogant is that?"

"But you knew. She didn't steal it all away from you." A step closer, Spike jabbed a finger at the air. "And you knew all about who I was goin' to be back in the day. You fucked me knowing---."

Her slap across his cheek was a clarion call through the night, shattering the peace of the water and leaving her eyes glittering. "We did not fuck. Don't you dare call it that, or next time, I don't care what's happened between us, you're going to get staked, do you understand?"

His head stayed bowed to her left, but she didn't know if it was from the power of her blow, or because he couldn't bear to look at her. "What does it matter what we call it?" he asked, his voice low and rough.

"It matters," she simply said.

For a long moment, all she could hear was the broken sound of her breathing. Though she'd spent so many of her nights the previous week searching for Spike, Buffy'd never actually dared to contemplate what would happen if she found him. It had somehow seemed more important just to make sure he was still out there than to act out potential scenarios on what would transpire. And now…now that she'd found him, or rather, now that he'd found her---.

"Were you following me?" she asked.

Spike shook his head, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets. "Lydia said you'd been patrolling. I thought…" His lashes lifted then, dark eyes darting to the distance behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the bench---their bench---only a few yards away. "There a reason you picked this spot?"

"You know the answer to that." She began walking again, heading for the seat as had been her original intent, and heard the soft swish of his coat as he fell into step beside her. "This is way harder than I thought it was going to be."

"What?"

"Talking. We were so good at it when…"

She heard him sigh. "When I was William, you mean."

"I wasn't going to say that."

"Right. And I'm not dead and good-looking."

"But…am I wrong?" She dared to sneak a peek at him, only to meet the same stealing glance he was shooting her. "Is this only hard for me?"

They stopped at the bench, both of them looking down at it as if they'd sink if they dared to sit on it. "It's not just you, luv," Spike said quietly. "I've been tryin' to do this since you bloody well woke up."

"What's so different now? Why can't you do it?"

His head tilted as he cocked a brow. "You mean, other than the fact that last time we had a deep and meaningful, I was on the breathing half of the team?"

This was getting them nowhere. Maybe they weren't ready yet for the deep, emotion-filled stuff. Maybe they should start with the simple questions first, Buffy thought.

"What was it like for you?" she asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bench. "Could you really not remember, or did it come in bits and pieces as it was happening to me?"

"Didn't Rose tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Spike sighed, his shoulders slumping as he joined her on the stone. "That night with Giles and…my mum, I got you back to my house to rest up. Next morning, I get up…and it's like none of it ever happened. You were never there, I never met Esme, Cook never knew any recipe for any soddin' magical tea. Even my journal was gone. My life was exactly like it was before we met and I was none the wiser that I'd had those weeks of bli--." He coughed to cover up the word that had almost slipped out, a harsh jangle in his chest. "'Cept for the fact that that git Howard was dead. Could consider that better, at least."

She'd suspected something like this. Rose had hinted as much when she'd spoken to them on the way to the hospital with Willow. But the seer had been gone when Buffy had gone back to the flat the next morning, and hadn't been heard from since. She'd had no way to definitively find out the truth.

"So, the first spell Willow did…?"

"Got rid of the block," Spike confirmed. "The old witch knew, of course. I was up and down claiming my ignorance 'bout whatever it was she was scheming, so she sussed the truth right away. And suckered me into it with talk about my 'true love.' Thought she meant Dru, which was why I went into it like I did."

It was wrong to feel jealous of the crazy vampire, but Buffy did, and she had to knot her hands together in her lap to stop the itchiness that suddenly sprouted in her palms. "Makes sense," she said, staring out at the water. "Since she's the love of your life, and all."

She could feel his eyes boring into her. "That what you think?" he said quietly.

"You were with her for over a hundred years. And I seem to recall someone kidnapping my two best friends and conning my mom out of her best hot chocolate because he was so torn up about his girlfriend leaving him. Sounds pretty love of your life to me."

"That was before I knew about us."

Haltingly, his fingers stretched and slid, inching with a visible solicitude toward her, and then hovered for an infinite second before a single digit traced a feather line along the top of her bare knee. Goosebumps erupted along her skin at the faint touch, and her mouth was suddenly dry, but Buffy did nothing to stop the gentle caress.

"I don't get it," she said.

"Get what?" Because she hadn't rebuffed him in either word or deed, Spike grew bolder, dropping the other fingers that had been curled into his palm to stroke the soft skin of her inner thigh.

"Why you seem so much the same," Buffy replied. "When Angel…after, he was so different, and it got easier for me to separate my feelings from my duty. But you…you don't even have a soul, Spike, and I know I shouldn't be sitting here, talking to you like it's not possible for you to kill me, but…" She faltered when his hand withdrew, finally looking up to see the closed planes of his face.

"I'm not goin' to kill you," he said. "Couldn't. Thought you knew that."

"But you're supposed to. You're supposed to want to."

"I'm s'posed to not feel this way, too, but that doesn't seem to be of any concern to whatever cosmic joker orchestrated this little chain of events, now does it?"

"Is that what everything is to you? Just…some bad joke?"

Buffy couldn't keep the ache out of her voice, and watched Spike drop his head into his hands, pulling at his hair before bolting upward to begin pacing the length of the bench. "Why is it you always manage to pull out the one word from what I say and twist it 'round to make it sound so much worse?" he demanded.

"You're the one who took off for lands unknown," she shot back. "I'm the one who's been sitting on this damn bench every night, wondering if I was going to get to see you again before we went back."

"Only 'cause I thought…I'm not what you really want, Buffy." He stopped in mid-pace, head cocking as he looked at her, and there was no hiding the gleam of hope that reflected in his eyes. "You were here every night?"

"Well…yeah." Squirming under his direct stare, she fell back onto the tried and trusted response when it came to Spike. "Don't get so keyed up about it. I needed to know what kind of threat you were going to be. Willow's not exactly up to snuff. Giles is all kinds of distracted worrying about me and her and keeping Travers' off our backs. And as far as I knew, you were off plotting some new half-baked scheme that makes the villains on Scooby Doo look like geniuses. I was just…taking care of my own."

"Once upon a time, I would've been on that list," Spike said. "Not the one you were needing to protect everyone from."

"Once upon a time, you weren't a vampire."

"Is it really that bad?" Dropping to a crouch before her, he placed his hands on either side of her hips, caging her from running without having to fight through him first. "If I wasn't a vampire, I wouldn't be here right now. And you and me? Wouldn't've had any shot because I'd be rotting away in my grave somewhere."

"What makes you think we have any shot at all?"

"The fact that you're sitting here. The fact that you could've just let it all go and said to hell with ol' Spike and got on your silver bird tomorrow without ever once looking back." When she rolled her eyes and tilted her head back to avoid looking at him, Spike's hand shot out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to return her gaze to his face. "The fact that you love me."

"I love William."

"And he's still here, and he remembers every word you ever said, and every promise he ever made, and every kiss we ever shared. I want that back. Took me all week to get it straight in my head, but that's why I'm here."

"Then you wasted your time, Spike. Because you and me? Can't ever happen."

"Why?"

"Have you forgotten that you're evil? I haven't."

"Evil's relative."

"And it's exactly that kind of statement that proves why we won't work."

With a frustrated snarl, Spike stood and whirled away, marching down to the edge of the water and screaming at the top of his lungs. His spine arched backward as he bayed at the stars, venting in that one cry all his anger and all his pain and all his vexation with the situation, and when it was over, he fell to his knees, staring out over the darkened horizon.

More than anything, Buffy was fighting the instinct to rise and go to him, to soothe the tension away from the brow she knew so well, to feel him relax against her as she held him tight. But she had acquiesced to that instinct that day at the apartment, when she'd approached him in the living room about whether or not he remembered, and he'd refused to accept her consolation with a ferocity that had sparked her to unexpected tears. This wasn't William, she had to remind herself. This wasn't a man who needed her to show him how strong he really was. This was a demon who'd killed thousands of people, including two other Slayers, who was proud to denounce needing anything except the woman he loved.

He hadn't said so, though he'd hinted around the topic in more way than one. But the better question was…

Did it make a difference if he did?

"Doesn't change anything, you know."

Spike hadn't moved, and with his words tossed out onto the water so casually, his voice sounded oddly hollow, like he was talking to her from the bottom of a well. Buffy rose and took a few steps closer to him---not to do anything reassuring, she hastened to say to herself. Just to hear him better.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Not quite as patient as I was back in the day---."

Buffy couldn't help but giggle, earning a sideways scowl when she said, "You were patient?"

"But it still doesn't change anything. Probably find myself on the wrong end of your stake for it, but…"

"What is it you're planning, Spike?" When he didn't answer, Buffy dropped to the grass beside him, grabbing his arm and jerking him back to force him to look at her. "Stop with the cryptic. It doesn't suit you."

When he reached over, she thought he was going to pry her fingers from his arm. Instead, Spike set his hand over hers, stroking the side with his thumb, while he slowly tugged his arm to his chest, his eyes never leaving hers. It forced her to lose her balance, falling against him and across his knees. His other arm curved around her back to hold her steady, and she felt the breath hitch in her throat at the impending, not entirely unwelcome thought that he was going to kiss her.

"All I've done this week is think," Spike said quietly. "Hasn't been my pastime of choice for a bit now, but seems you've got a way of bringing out the poet in me. But…" He glanced down when she set her hand against his chest to stable herself, and through his thick lashes, Buffy saw a willful determination reminiscent of a younger, less jaded man.

"Remembering everything that had happened," he continued, "living it all as fresh as if it was just yesterday…both glorious and a nightmare, all at the same time, you know? Sure, you do," he answered for Buffy before she could say otherwise. "Saw your face when you first woke up. All self-righteous terror that it had really happened, and that you were shackled with your mortal enemy. But then that fades, doesn't it? And you end up kissing when you get caught up in the heat of the fight, and you start to think that maybe that enemy business is a load of rubbish."

"You've tried to kill me, Spike. Just like I've tried to kill you. Being enemies is what we are."

Spike shook his head. "That's Watcher-speak you're spouting, pet. Because this April affair has changed all that. I've already told you I can't kill you. You think you can look me in the eye and tell me something different?"

Even before she met his challenge, Buffy knew the response she was going to give him. She'd known it, deep down, from the second she'd felt his arm holding her so protectively in that demon pub in which she'd woken from her time travels.

"So we agree that we can't kill each other," she said. "That doesn't prove anything. You're still a vampire, and I'm still the Slayer."

"We're also William and Buffy," he replied. "That was something else I spent this week considerin'. Before I got those memories back, I hated the prat I was when I was alive. Hated that I was so weak. So I spent a lot of time tryin' to change that, which is how I got to today."

"But…you said you weren't William. You made that very clear to me."

His hand came up to brush back the hair the slight breeze was tickling across her cheek. "I know. And that's still true, as far as I already said. A lot's happened to me since those days, luv, so, no, I'm not exactly the bloke you met the first time 'round. But what remembering did for me…what you did for me, was show that maybe William the Bloody Awful Poet wasn't such a milksop after all. You showed me how to be strong. I told you that, remember?"

How could she forget? It had been that same night he'd given her the almost proposal she'd almost accepted on the bench they'd just vacated. But she stayed silent, drinking down the solemnity of Spike's countenance as he continued with his explanations. Buffy knew she should probably get up off his lap, to force the distance back between them, but it seemed like too much effort, especially since she was convinced he had no intentions to harm her.

She didn't really want to, either.

"I told you a lot of things," Spike said. "But what sticks, and what kept comin' back to me every time I'd try to ditch this town and everything about it that reminded me of you, was what I promised. So, you can get sore at me as much as you want, and you can be a stubborn bitch about me bein' evil and the like, but it's not goin' to change a thing. I'm not goin' to let it."

Promises. He was speaking of promises made by a heart more innocent, to a girl desperately in need of their anchorage. Vampires didn't honor promises; they held to blood oaths and death threats with more tenacity than any desire to clemency, and yet, here he was, belying her notions about what constituted demon behavior, and speaking of pledges she'd acquitted him from the moment she realized who he was going to be.

"I'm not holding you to anything you said." Carefully, Buffy tried to pull back, but the iron bar of his arm at her waist kept her still. She would have to exert more than damaging physical force to escape the circle of his embrace, and so decided against it, because hurting him now was the last thing she wanted to do. "I know they were extenuating circumstances. I'm OK with that."

"I'm not. Told you once, I think Angel was a bloody fool to just walk out of your life like he did. He never could handle things in the long-term, always making decisions 'bout the right and wrong for everyone else like he was their fuckin' lord and master."

The path he was leading her down made her heart start to hammer in her chest, because the implications were chilling and wondrous and the last thing she'd ever allowed herself to think of. "Don't do this," Buffy whispered. "You don't want to do this."

"But that's the thing of it," Spike replied. He pulled her flat against him, so that the breath from his words was a soft echo as he spoke them out loud. "I do want to. I made a promise that I wouldn't ever leave you, luv, and whether you like it or not, I'm stickin' to it."

"Why?"

His lips swallowed the single word down, taking her mouth in a gentle kiss before sliding up her jaw to her ear. When Buffy heard the whispered confession, like a child's prayer sent out into the darkness, she squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden burning that blinded her. It would forever be William's words that undid her, she realized, shattering all resolve to hold true to what she'd been taught, driving her to chuck away the decisions she hadn't fully committed to when it came to how she would face her future. And maybe, part of it was that she wanted to believe him. Angel had ravaged an innocence Buffy knew she could never retrieve, and then he'd forced the stake even deeper into her heart by walking away as if he'd never cared.

William had helped the healing of that to begin. He'd shown her that she was worthy of love, that she was strong and better than how she'd imagined, and he'd done it with little to no regard as to what she would give him in return. And now here was Spike, who by all rights should've run from her even faster than Angel did because at least Angel had a soul that was supposed to help guide him along a moral path, helping with a battle that wasn't his, proving with his actions if not always his words that he still believed in those adages he'd vowed to her a century before.

Would it be so bad to let him do it?

He was watching her intently, a strong hand cupping her face as she played the arguments over and over inside her head. "Gone awful quiet there, luv," Spike murmured.

"I'm just thinking."

"Oh, I forgot." His lips twisted into a smile that was more teasing than mocking. "Your brain and your mouth can't work together at the same time."

Buffy slapped at his chest. "I'm serious," she complained. "This isn't…making a decision like this doesn't make the problems just go away. I still have a duty, Spike. And as far as everyone else is concerned, you're still William the Bloody, which means big-time bad news as far as the Council cares."

"You don't work for the Council any more."

"And we both know that means diddly when it comes to what they decide to stick their noses into. And…and…" She took a deep breath, though it did little to calm the sickening lurch of her stomach as she thought about it. "I have to do what I have to do, Spike. I may not actively want to kill you, but we both know that if there's an apocalypse in the balance, I may not have a choice."

"I know."

"And you're willing to take that risk?"

"Already said I would, didn't I? Why do you think it took me a week to come 'round to this? I'm not stupid, and I don't exactly have a deathwish, but in the long run, what's more important is that I'm there for you. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not half-bad in a bit of rough and tumble. If nothin' else, consider me some extra muscle when you need it. But I'm not changing my mind, Buffy. If you're in Sunnydale, I'm in Sunnydale. I promised you that."

"You're more than just muscle."

The hope that blazed in the blue, even in the shadows cast by the moon and water, made his face light up. "That right?" he said slowly. "What exactly am I, then?"

She didn't have an answer for him. But as she leaned in to press her lips to his, Buffy felt one of the knots inside her loosen. It might be a mistake to be putting her trust in Spike so readily, but she wouldn't know if he was genuine if she didn't give him a chance. And she owed that to William, for everything he had given her and for everything he'd done. He deserved the opportunity to be loved, in a manner that befit the man he had been.

Loved, as he still loved her.

Throughout the kiss, and into the long embrace that followed as the pair sat on the bank and watched the moon travel across the sky, Buffy continued to hear the words Spike had whispered in her ear at her query on why he was honoring his promise.

"Because I'm not lost anymore," he'd said. "And my love for you…still legion."

The End

AUTHOR'S NOTE: You have no idea how hard it is for me to write those fatal two words. The end. I started this story just wanting to give William a bit of happiness, albeit brief, and I'm ending it knowing that the tale is far from over for Buffy and Spike. There is a sequel already in the works, and my hope is that it will start getting posted in October. I'm waiting until "Promise of Frost" is complete before tackling it, though I've been doing the plotting and planning for it for quite a few weeks now. This is the first of my stories that I've felt the need to do so before the story was over. From the moment it started, I knew that Buffy wouldn't ultimately end up with William in the past, mainly because I couldn't resolve the non-canonness of it---yeah, yeah, all my stories are considered non-canon because Buffy and Spike end up together and happy in them, but I like to stay within the framework of canon as much as possible. While I could've been satisfied with the ending as it is, knowing Buffy and Spike have reached an understanding and peace about their pasts, I'm much happier going on to deal with the ramifications of everything. And it's not just them. Poor Willow got loaded up with all Esme's magic. What kind of effect is that going to have on her? And then there's the issue of what Esme was after in the first place.

So, yeah, there's going to be a sequel. I hope that makes people as happy as it makes me.

I have so many thank yous to extend. To Tracy and Josephine, for their faithful reviews and constant support starting all the way back at chapter one. I think you guys were as much in love with William as I was. To Elsa Frohman, who wrote the wonderful "A Cricket in California" and had me fall in love with William in the first place. To all the wonderful people at LJ, who were patient with my move that slowed down the story's progress. And to all the wonderful readers who gave this story a shot, even if William wasn't exactly their thing. I'm so grateful that you trusted me enough to try the story.