TUNNEL VISION

(Fifth in a series of strange little stories)

Part 1

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Giles paused in his reading, snatched off his glasses and listened intently toward the rear of the store. He could have sworn he’d heard something back there, in the training room.

Buffy and Spike had been there earlier working out, which they did on a regular basis every evening before patrol, ever since they had become a couple.

Buffy’s timing and strength had improved overall, and Giles was beginning to see a distinct advantage to having the blonde vampire around the place. Even if it meant that the harassed Watcher had to put up with an abundance of jibes and humor from Spike, which was mostly at his own expense.

He’d been worried at first, of course, that having the vampire around in his unchipped state would sooner or later result in a tragedy, probably the loss of Xander, at the very least, but he’d begun to relax on that score. Spike truly was changing, and the Watcher was keeping careful notes on it in his diaries.

But Buffy and Spike had gone home an hour ago, so no one was back there, that he knew of. No one who had a right to be, that is.

He listened intently, and heard it again. A distinct thumping sound, which reminded him of what he usually heard when someone was dismounting from the vaulting horse. And what sounded like giggling.

He got up, wincing as his chair legs made a scraping sound, and walked slowly and silently to the back door.

Giles flung the door open, ready for anything. What he saw, was Buffy, clutching a pair of black jeans to her chest, looking a little wide eyed and guilty, an expression he’d come to know very well.

He walked into the room, or rather, strolled in, nonchalantly, and approached his Slayer.

"Good evening, Buffy. Forget something?"

Buffy smiled, still pressing the jeans to her, possessively.

"Um, Yes. I did, as a matter of fact. These pants! I…er… changed into sweats earlier, and forgot to take these with me when I left."

Too late, Buffy noticed the cig package hanging from the back pocket of the jeans, and knew that she should have just said they were Spikes’ in the first place, but a hurried (and worried) liar makes mistakes.

Giles smiled and decided to let her off the hook. He didn’t know where Spike had gotten to, but he needed to get out of here before he found out and saw something that would give him nightmares.

He noticed that Buffy had glanced upwards, gone a bit pale, and now was staring at him, smiling a little too effusively.

Good Lord.... she reminded him of the Buffy Bot. Ever since Willow had repaired the thing and they had allowed Spike to store it under his crypt, he’d been afraid it would pop out at him at any moment.

At least, from all the activities he witnessed between his Slayer and the vampire, Spike hadn’t touched the thing again himself, and was hopefully using it as an umbrella stand.

"Before I go along home for the evening, would you just say my name?"

Buffy frowned. "Huh? Giles, what...."

"Very well, Buffy. Have a nice evening. Or the remainder of it, at least. Please do lock up the place before you leave. I’ll just be going now."

Satisfied in her pronunciation of his name, silly as it had been for him to ask since he was fairly certain she wasn't the bot, Giles turned and walked out the door, closing it behind him, smiling at the muffled voices that were now coming from behind it.

He proceeded on to the front door and outside, locking that one, as he was concerned that Buffy might be a bit preoccupied and forget all about it.

He sighed, in exasperation. Ever since Anya had made the comment about herself and Xander in the training room, it had become a very popular place for several couples.

This included Willow and Tara, and as Giles put his key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb, he decided that his thoughts weren’t going there.

It was enough to narrowly miss seeing a half naked vampire suspended from the ceiling.

Still, he ran the next two stop signs when he realized that Buffy hadn't been wearing a shirt.

Buffy closed her eyes, and sighed in relief. She knew Giles well enough to know that he knew something was up, but hadn’t made an issue of it. She craned her neck and looked up into the rafters.

"Spike! I said the coast is clear, you can come down now."

The blonde vampire dropped down from where he’d been hanging from the ceiling and landed directly in front of a giggling Buffy.

"Something funny, luv?"

"Yeah, you in a t-shirt and no pants is pretty funny."

Spike stepped into her arms, as she dropped the pants which had been concealing the fact that she too, was partially naked. She was glad that Giles was used to her skimpy tops, and hadn’t noticed.

"Didn’t hear you laughing a few moments ago." He fastened a particularly hot gaze upon her, pulled her closer to his body and kissed her softly, then deepened it, as one of her tanned legs went round him and pulled them more firmly together.

She murmured against his lips. "I didn’t feel like laughing a few moments ago."

She looked down between their bodies to where his 'happy' was pressed against her stomach in all it’s naked glory, the tip just below her own exposed flesh.

"But what kind of a guy gets turned on from nearly getting caught hanging from a ceiling?"

"My secret is out." He said, in a low voice that was rough from intense passion.

After thanking the gods of baggy sweat shorts, Spike made good use of her elevated leg, lifted her slightly, and inserted tab ‘S’ into slot ‘B’.

He sighed, and began to move within her, kissing her gently as he did so. He took his time, loving her slowly, knowing that their alone time was precious to both of them.

Buffy, still very satisfied from previous activities, just hung on and enjoyed the ride, which was well worth the price of admission…Her admission to loving Spike was paying off in spades.

After a fairly short interval compared to usual, Buffy sighed as she came, softly and sweetly, while Spike made the usual assorted happy noises which included soft growls, and purring .

They dressed quickly, neither taking their eyes off the other, both of them grinning like a pair of raccoons after a successful trashcan raid.

Spike made a mental note to thank Xander profusely for the vaulting horse idea, which they had put to such good use earlier.

Of course, it wouldn’t do to let the boy think him soft, and he’d probably have to slap him upside the head afterward. Certain things were expected of him, after all.

Buffy realized that it was growing quite late, and they still had some patrolling to do. That quickie sweep before coming back to the shop wasn’t enough to satisfy her inner Slayer.

Especially since they hadn’t gotten past the first convenient crypt before they’d, as Spike would no doubt say, ‘shagged like bunnies’ and then come straight back here.

Buffy hoped that the noises that had floated out of the crypt had driven off a few vamps, what with Spike yelling SLAYER at the top of his lungs, but she felt a stab of guilt at the shortened patrol and there was still plenty of time.

She knew it wouldn’t bother her partner, as he seemed to love a bit of violence before he slept, as well as after good sex. She’d worry about that last thought later, unwilling to admit that it fit her own profile to a ’T’.

After all, there were some things about the Big Bad that were better off left unchanged.

Like, for instance, his love of doing risky things while hanging from a ceiling…she still could hardly believe that he’d grabbed his penis and waved it at her, while Giles had been standing right there and could have looked up at any time.

Not to mention it left him with only one hand to hang on to the rafter!

Spike waved his fingers in front of her face, breaking her day dreaming.

"OY,… Buffy, luv. Are we calling it a night, or d'ya want to go stir up some trouble?"

Buffy reached up and kissed him, nipping his lower lip playfully as she pulled away. He was, as usual, on the same page.

"Lets go do another sweep, and this time I think we'd better finish it, ok?"

Spike faked a hurt look. "Surely you don't blame me for that? I was bloody well seduced, and you know it."

"Really."

"Seduced by the power of your love, which burns brighter than the fire." He smirked.

"Spike, please, that sounded weird enough when the first Slayer said it."

"S'true, though. And I love it when that fire singes my ass."

Spike's eyes had that look again, and as he stepped closer to her, Buffy put out both hands, palms flat, and tried to make her voice sound commanding.

"Spike. The patrol, remember?"

"Right. We wait until we get out in the bushes."

Spike envisioned Buffy waiting in said bushes while he dusted any near by vamps and got back just as she finished undressing. It was a good plan.

"Wrong. We give it a break, and do some housecleaning in the cemetery."

Spike pouted, using his lower lip as invitingly as possible. "But Buffy, luv, I bloody 'hate' dusting." Which was a lie, as long as it wasn’t his own dust…..

"You love it, and that worries me at times. Come on, fang boy, let's get going before it's so late that I never get any sleep tonight."

Spike scowled. That probably meant that the gymnastics were over for today, because Buffy would want to go home, and she didn't like it when they risked waking her mother and Dawn with their love play.

Of course, he thought, as he followed her out the back door and watched her fanny appreciatively as she bent to lock it, he could always suggest that they patrol near his crypt, and mention the lateness of the hour at just the right moment....

"Oh, and Spike. I need to be home in good time tonight. I worry about leaving Mom and Dawn alone so long these days. You don't mind, do you?"

Spike sighed. Another plan foiled.

"Yeah. S'ok." His voice was like a small boy's, after being told he couldn't have any dessert.

Buffy smiled, understandingly, and went up on her toes to kiss his forehead, and then his lips, softly.

"Of course, Spike, if you can behave yourself and promise to let us both sleep, you can stay the night. After all, more protection can't hurt, can it?"

Spike grinned happily. Sucker.

He bent and returned her kiss, looking forward to a quick patrol, and a long 'sleep'.

As Spike and Buffy moved off down the street, across the alley at the back of the shop, a woman stepped out of the shadow of a building and smiled.

She was dressed to the 'nines' in a slinky, short, red silk dress, and her hair fell in kinky reddish blonde waves around her face and shoulders.

Glory smiled. This was just perfect. The only creatures she had to worry about slowing her down in her search for the Key, were a sickeningly happy couple, apparently oblivious to her for the moment.

And what a lying little slut that Slayer was. She’d hotly denied that the Vampire was her boyfriend, and yet there they were, big as life and unlife.

She clasped her hands together, in mock joy.

"Just enough time for me to pay a visit to Mommie, and baby Sis'. I just 'adore' getting to know my enemy’s family members a bit better, especially when they’re so RUDE as to not invite me over.

Glory stopped smiling, and narrowed her eyes, pursing her red lips together in an unattractive pucker.

"It really hurts my delicate feelings, God Damn it!"

Of course there was always the loved ones, who might know where the key was concealed, and if not, then snatching one of them until the Slayer coughed up the info would work just as well, wouldn't it?

She waited until she was sure that Buffy and the vampire had gone, and then headed off in the other direction.

End Part 1

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Part 2

Glory paused at the front door of the Summers' home, and repressed the urge to giggle. It always gave her an electric zap, to walk into someone's private life and leave it in tatters.

Especially when it had anything to do with getting her Key, and using it before her time was up, the thought of which made her frown, and she bit her full lower lip.

She grabbed the doorknob. It was time for a little mayhem. She licked her lips in anticipation, and shoved the door open, walking into the house like she lived there, and slamming the it shut behind her.

"Oh Mommie....I'm hooooome." She said, in a sing song voice.

Her face fell, almost comically as Buffy stepped out in front of her from where she'd been standing behind the door.

"Sorry, Hell Bitch. But I never received your RSVP."

Smiling grimly, she reached into a bag which hung from her shoulder and brought out a glowing, crystal like globe.

"But just so you don't make the trip for nothing, here's a little door prize!"

Buffy shoved the Dagon Sphere right under the Hell God's nose, and Glory staggered backwards into the door with a loud thump.

Her 'bad home perm' seemed to go limp, as if the humidity had shot up to two hundred percent, and frizzy as well. Then she felt the lights dim as the tiny blonde Slayer punched her in the nose so hard that the door frame shook.

Disoriented, and dizzy from the globe's power, she slid down the door, dropped to her knees, and crawled around Buffy, who was stashing the Dagon Sphere in her bag.

Just when she thought it was too easy to get by the Slayer, she found out why, about a second after she smelled Vampire, and two 'Doc clad feet appeared under her nose.

Spike reached down and turned the confused Hell God around so that she was facing the door again, still on her knees, the hair hanging in her eyes making it hard to see who it was who had the audacity to manhandle her in such a fashion. If it weren’t for that friggin' sphere...

"Hello, Un Cutie."

Glory tensed. Shit. She knew that voice. And if that damned Vampire was there, the rest of those pesky Scoobies couldn't be far behind.

They'd become as thick as thieves lately. The one thing she couldn't figure out, was why they let a vampire hang with the white hats in the first place. Of course, it couldn’t hurt that he was fucking the Slayer.

She reminded herself for the umpteenth time, to kill herself a minion, for letting this particular vamp get out of their clutches when they'd had him. Yep. As soon as Jinxy healed up, she was going to hurt him again.

Sure enough, she heard the voice of Willow, chanting a spell of some kind and saw the witch’s feet come into view as well. She was still too woozy to rise up and do anything about it and cursed herself for not sending a minion to do a God's work.

Willow sang a little tune, and the words "Get your Kicks, on Route Sixty-Six!"

There was a brief feeling of energy in the air, not unlike before, when Willow and Tara had sent her high up over Sunnydale, and the dizzy reddish blonde knew that something similar was in store for her now, and she rolled her eyes and repeated just what she’d said then.

"Oh.... Fuck!"

"Sorry", said Spike, "You're not my type."

He leaned down and whispered into her ear. "And your hair looks like shit, but it will cover the damage when your face looks just like your lopsided ass, after we’re done with you."

Then, Spike drew back and kicked her right in the backside with such force that she flew out the door, which Buffy had reached and opened just in the nick of time.

Spike was disappointed . He’d hoped to see if Willow’s spell had made his kick powerful enough to send her through the door itself.

Buffy, Spike, and Willow watched from the doorway, grinning, as the mighty Hell God ate asphalt all the way down the street, sliding along at a blinding speed, the rough surface scraping off hunks of skin, proving that she wasn't as hard to nick as previously thought.

Willow had planned her spell well, and the route changed now and then, and would include the thorny bushes at the side of the road.

The red head snickered, as she turned away, the bitch no longer in sight.

"Check it out, people. We snagged some hair....Cool."

With good luck, and barring unexpected uncovered man holes, the lady was in for quite a trip.

Buffy was still grinning ear to ear, but made a face, and looked questioningly at her best friend.

"What's up with the words to the spell, Wil?"

Willow grinned, proudly.

"It could have been anything, any road or trail type thingy. "

She basked in the good feeling she was getting from a spell well done.

"The hard part, aside from making sure that she was low enough to get peeled good and proper, was getting her speed up so high that she won't be stopping for about six hundred miles."

Willows grin was ear to ear, and extremely evil.

Spike put one arm out and hugged her to his side, surprising the witch, who turned bright red but allowed his embrace. She really liked Spike, but he still gave her a wiggins.

Spike gave her a big loud kiss on top of her head, and grinned fiendishly at her.

"And what about my part of the spell?"

Willow frowned. "You mean, where you got the power to kick that hard?"

Spike rolled his eyes upward.

"NO, the part where she mows down the bleedin' Sunnydale sign with her soddin' face on the way out of town."

Willow gasped, still happy faced. "Oh no...I forgot that part."

Spike increased his hug enough to cut off some air.

"Ooof! Hey! Non super strength here, buddy! And I was just kidding! By now Glory's probably got a great big old gap, right between her front teeth."

Spike was enjoying himself immensely, and only loosened his hold on Willow slightly.

The witch glared at him. "Let go, now, or you could find yourself impotent."

Buffy squealed in mock fear as Spike dropped Willow and stepped back hastily. He hated it when the witch threatened his parts.

"Good grief Wil, don't ever use that word after one of your spells, especially when you're standing right next to my boyfriend.. you never know what might happen!!"

Spike was clutching his crotch in a worried way and sidling away from Willow, as well.

But he'd been pleased at Buffy's use of the word 'boyfriend'. He could never hear that often enough.

Willow shook her head in exasperation. Goof up a spell or two around these people and they never let you forget it. Well, she had something planned for Glory that would get her out of the way forever if she could figure out how to get it to work. That should shut up her detractors for good.

Buffy grinned after Willow's retreating form, as the witch headed to the kitchen for something to drink.

"Geez Wil, you did a great job, I was just giving you a hard time." Buffy called out to her friend.

Willow continued on around the corner, waving a hand at her, "Yeah, yeah."

Buffy frowned as she heard a glass being slammed down on the counter, heard it shatter, and Willow's muffled cursing as she cleaned up the mess and got another.

Spike started to go and help, but Buffy grabbed his arm.

"Let it go, Blondie. Willow is just frustrated that she can't do anything more permanent right now. I need to talk to you about some things, before I tell Xander to bring Mom and Dawn home."

They had sent her mother and sister to Xander and Anya's apartment until the coast was clear, unsure at the time if Spike had been correct in sensing Glory's presence in the alley behind the shop.

Still looking in the direction of the kitchen, Spike turned and started to smile down at his girl and noticed that she was looking at him as if she were saving some up for a rainy day.

"What is it, Pet? Thought you'd be happy to see that there's more than one way to skin a Hell God."

She smiled, still drinking him in. "That 'was' pretty cool. The way you finally got to kick her ass like you always wanted to."

"Damn straight. Maybe you and I should go and celebrate the victory in private, before the others come home. I'm sure that Red will make herself scarce, and go work on a spell or something, and we can...."

As he came close to her, Buffy put her forehead on his chest, and just leaned there a moment, trying to get up the nerve to tell him what she had decided, and dreading the reaction she knew it was going to cause.

This evening's close shave had brought it home to her, just how much she had let things get out of hand, with possible serious repercussions.

The Vampire knew his Slayer almost better than she knew herself. He knew she was about to really piss him off, and he stepped back, and waited for the blow to fall.

She looked up at him, putting her feelings for him into her gaze, and hoped that he wasn't going to take this the wrong way.

"Spike..... We have to cool it for awhile."

Trying desperately not to sound like William, long dead, he said with a touch of cockiness, "Right you are. Silly of me.... should have known you'd be tired, and needing sleep and all."

He reached out a hand, and brushed the hair from Buffy's forehead, lightly running his fingers down her cheek as he withdrew it.

He stepped back, a fake smile plastered on his face, and moved toward the door. "So, I'll just pop along home, then, and you can call the whelp and tell him he can bring home the womenfolk."

Before he could escape, although she nearly let him go, nearly choked back the words, she said them.

"I can't see you any more." Buffy clapped her hands over her mouth in horror, but the damage had been done. She had meant to ease into it…

If Spike's heart had been beating, it would have stopped.

He had turned toward the door, so his face was hidden from her, and she didn’t see the shock, and the betrayal written on it. This was ten times worse than what he’d felt when she’d uninvited him from her house.

She could feel the tension coming off of him in waves, and longed to go and wrap her arms around him, take back her words, and think of another way out.

"Spike, I..."

The vampire whirled toward her, and it was quickly brought home to her just how hard a blow she'd struck him.

Spike was trying to keep his demon under control, and his eyes, flashing from blue to gold and back again, told her that his efforts were going to fail if she didn't choose her next words carefully.

But she didn't get the words out before he grabbed her by both arms and growled, low in his throat, kissing her so hard that she felt the skin split on her lower lip.

He broke the kiss and held her against him, in so tight an embrace that she didn't even try to move away.

"You're mine, Buffy. And I'm keepin' you. And sod all else!!"

He murmured that and other things, in words that ran together in a confusing jumble of love talk, his lips against her neck, his nostrils drinking in her scent, and then the scent of her blood flowing hot just under the skin his lips were caressing, blood from her lip so enticingly near his own.

Willow picked that moment to come back into the room, and stopped, shocked, as she saw Spike vamp, saw his fangs so near Buffy's neck, and panicked. She let out a squeak, and dropped her glass of Coke which shattered on the floor.

Spike looked up, his eyes a deep gold, still holding Buffy who didn't seem to be fighting him.

"Back off Red. This is extremely private!"

Willow went into full protector mode, her eyes became dark as India ink, and she waved one arm toward the couch.

Spike found himself flying through the air, and landing on it, minus Buffy.

End Part 2

**********

Part 3

The witch ran to her friend in concern, but Buffy shook off the haze in her brain, and patted Willow on the arm.

"It's ok, Wil, it's no big."

" SCREW that! He was just about to have a midnight snack in full view of the neighborhood, which has got to think that this house is strange enough already!!"

Which had to be true, what with Hell God’s shooting out the doors and screeching down the street at all hours…

Spike tried to get up off the couch, but found that Willow had somehow rendered that impossible, so after he found out that he could stand up on it at least, he began pacing back and forth like a caged tiger.

His demon had subsided, but he wasn't sure how long he could keep it down. He loved Buffy, and would never hurt her, but he was damned if he'd take this sitting down. No pun intended, he thought.

As Willow soothed Buffy, she looked at her, with a stern, substitute teacher expression.

"You told him, didn't you? You just blurted it out, all Buffy like, without explaining it?"

"I'm sorry, Wil, it just needed to be said, and it seemed like a good time, he was so happy about the spell and all..."

Willow sometimes felt that Buffy was incredibly immature.

They had discussed this whole problem in length, days before this, and the tiny blonde had promised to break it to Spike gently, explain it first, and then ease the rest onto his love crazed brain, not just toss it at him like a tub of holy water!!

She knew that her friend cared for the vampire, and that it was hurting her, as well, to stop seeing him, but there were limits to her patience.

Willow shook her head sadly.

"Buffy, excuse me if I'm stretching the whole best friend clause all out of proportion, but....you're a DOOFUS."

Buffy didn't reply, but her eyes widened.

Willow grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her to the couch.

"There! Now you just stand here and tell him WHY, and hurry, before the spell gets weak enough to let him down, and he eats you. And I may not stop him!"

Willow stomped off to clean up the second glass that she'd broken that day, not counting the beer bottle that Glory had landed on just east of the driveway.

Buffy stood, her eyes downcast, afraid to look up at Spike. He'd stopped his pacing but was silent, standing at one end of the couch, his back to her.

As she opened her mouth to speak, his leather duster landed smack on top of her head, and covered her up.

Well, at least he hadn't lost his sense of humor completely.

She gathered the coat around her and drank in the scent of her vampire, for she had come to think of him as hers. She loved the odor of tobacco and, there was just no other way to put it, sex.

He oozed it out of his pores, if they did that anymore. She was lost in thought, wondering about that, when she felt his stare.

"What?"

"Bloody hell, woman! If you're gonna dump me, just do it, and be bloody quick about it. Maybe that stupid bint Harmony is still around somewhere, if I care to look her up."

Spike was dying inside, but refused to go down like a Poof.

Buffy ignored most of it, although the Harmony part raised the hair on the back of her neck. He didn't mean a word of it.

She took his hands and turned him around to face her, and looked up at him, pleading with her wide, tear filled eyes, for his understanding.

He tried to grab her, but found out he was powerless to do so, while she was able to stroke his arm, and pat his hand, HE was unable to even pull away!

Spike had been angry before, but now he was totally pissed.

He glared at Willow, who was smiling now, as she finished wiping up the coke and shattered glass. She'd left Buffy able to knock him on his ass if she wanted to, while HE was powerless to stop her.

"WITCH!" He yelled at her, unable to come up with anything more fitting, and still respectful of her power.

She giggled as she carried the dustpan past the pair. "I know I am, but what are you?"

She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and said, "Now behave, both of you, and hash this out!" Then she left them alone again.

Spike finally met Buffy's gaze and melted, as he always did, at her tears.

"Buffy, luv, how the fuck did you think I'd feel, you sayin' what you said?"

She laid her cheek against the back of one of his hands, and closed her eyes. It would be so easy to just do as her desire was bidding her at this moment.

His position on the couch was so that she was very near his midsection, and as she dropped his hand and laid her cheek against his lower abdomen her eyes opened, and she beheld the fly of his jeans.

Her favorite, faded, black, button fly jeans, that had the middle button missing and, with very little effort on her part, would allow her tongue to slip inside, and....

Willow's face suddenly bumped noses with Buffy's, scaring her to death, and disappointing Spike beyond the telling.

Except that two seconds later he was getting some other images that almost made up for it, even though he knew a threesome would never happen.

Willow glared up at him for a moment, as if she knew just what he was thinking, and he walked to the other end of the couch and sat down, clearly in a huff.

The witch turned to Buffy, who had pasted an innocent expression on her face.

"Buffy! What happened to 'talking'?"

"But Wil, it's hard!" She blushed.

"I mean, that's not what I meant, but, you know what I mean, right?"

Her voice was high and squeaky.

"Huh?"

Willow was unused to being the one with the ready answers.

She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.

"Buffy, TELL him WHY."

At her friend's pleading look, Willow sighed, and went into the dining room and came back dragging a chair from the dinner table. She sat it beside Spike, and plopped down in it.

He turned his face away, into the cushions on the couch. She wiggled her index finger in front of his nose.

"See this digit, Spike?"

"I see it, and I'd like to bite it off, right about now."

"That's good. It's good that you feel free enough to tell me your feelings like this. So in return, I'm gonna tell you about mine, before I explain what Buffy can't seem to, and you're gonna listen to me, or this little finger will send you somewhere much more unpleasant than this couch....are you following me?"

"Sod off!"

"Again, I'm proud of you for expressing yourself, and here's how it is. The next time I see you showing any fang , it had better be because the biggest, scariest, most evil of all demons on the planet is about to attack someone, or the world is about to end, or, or....."

"Don't forget the sex." He smirked, eyeing her now.

"Scuse me?" Willow squeaked.

"When Buffy and I have sex, there's going to be a bit of fang. Didn't she tell you? Figured she did, what with you ladies gossiping all the time."

Willow and her hair were matching accessories.

"Spike, I don't need to know everything about you and Buffy's private lives..."

"Especially since there isn't any from now on." Spike practically spit the words in Buffy's direction.

Buffy's head snapped up and she looked at him, still hurting, but she said nothing, and remained where she was.

This infuriated Spike and he continued.

"Yeah. You mean you don't need to hear how she gets all excited, like, and then at just the right moment, right before she comes, she tells me she'll never leave me, and then she makes this sound, and then I go game face and I...."

"Too. Much. Information!!!"

Willow fled the room, and the sound of a coke bottle being opened floated out of the kitchen again.

Buffy sighed. She would have to tell him. After all, she owed him that much.

She didn't approach him, and instead, stayed a good distance away, where she could think more clearly.

"When I said I couldn't see you any more, I didn't mean forever."

Spike felt a faint hope stir, but was afraid to have it dashed. He kept silent.

Buffy couldn't stand it, finally, and went to him. She looked down at him where he sat on the couch, his knees drawn up to his chin, and saw the hurt he was trying to hide behind harsh words.

Without taking her eyes off him, she yelled toward the kitchen.

"Willow! Lose this spell. Now."

It was her commanding, Slayer mode, and it had banished the tiny blonde sex maniac to the rear of her brain.

Willow's pinky finger peeped around the doorway, flicked just a little, and Spike's feet shot off the couch nearly knocking Buffy down.

"Sorry." Willow mumbled from the kitchen.

Spike pulled his feet back up where they'd been, and wrapped his arms around them, still unwilling to touch Buffy, and she didn't blame him a bit.

She smiled at him, and then sobered. Getting down on her knees in front of him, she continued.

"Do you know what 'tunnel vision' is, Spike?" She said, in a soft voice, which brought his eyes immediately to hers.

And he knew, just with that look, what she meant. He'd had it himself, for much longer than she. Sometimes he thought he'd invented it.

"I get it. I see what you're trying to say, but..."

"No, Spike, it has to be this way. Until Willow, or Giles, or even me or you.....SOMEONE.... comes up with a way to stop Glory, permanently, you and I are too big a danger to each other, let alone Dawn and the rest."

She paused and reached out to run her finger down his chest, caressing the soft material of his t-shirt as if it were the finest silk.

"When I think of what could have happened to Dawn, or to Mom, while we were too busy making out somewhere, it's more than I can bear, and I'm not blaming you, not altogether anyway."

She leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek, and waited for her words to sink in.

She was right, and he knew it. He was also tremendously relieved that she wasn't just casting him aside for some other reason.

He knew that the pull between them was so strong right now, it was blinding them to anything else around them, be that the ringing of a telephone, or the sound of a Hell God, sneaking off down an alley.

If he hadn't caught it...that faint sound, and turned his head, that and the stench of the bitch's perfume, they might have come home to a disaster that night. As it was, they had barely gotten Dawn and Joyce out of the house in time.

He thought back to all of the times lately that they had been completely distracted by each other to the point that nothing else registered.

Some of it was amusing.

He remembered Buffy, gazing at him with adoration and not a little bit of lust, and setting the tea tray in mid air instead of on the table, thus wetting down Giles and causing the entire room to laugh so hard that the whole Scooby meeting was pointless from there on. Giles had just sat there with a long suffering look, all proper and British, reaching out a hand for a towel.

And then there was the night that he was babysitting Dawn, and Buffy came home early to find them playing poker.

The naughty kind.

Of course, he'd have never let Nibblet take off any clothing, and he was rigging the game so that she won most of the time, but he figured it was the fact that 'his' clothing was down to his jeans, that Buffy objected to. Loudly.

As they had argued about it, then were laughing and kissing only a few seconds later, Dawn had slipped out the door and gone to a friend's house, a fact that they didn't discover until two hours later when they were about to fall asleep in Buffy's room.

He was utterly disgusted with himself, and with both of them, really, for playing in a fool's paradise with no thought to the consequences.

He looked at her, his heart in his blue eyes, and said, "What do we do?"

End Part 3

***********

Part 4

Buffy got up on the couch and took Spike in her arms. She had known this would be hard, but not that it might be impossible. The Spike of old would never have put others ahead of himself and his feelings in this way. If only there was another solution....

Spike clutched her to him and nuzzled her neck, his heart so heavy that for once, there were no thoughts of sex. He felt her pain, and was sorry, but glad that he wasn't alone in his anguish.

Whatever she decided, he would stand by it. Of course, if she felt that they had to part permanently, he wasn't sure he'd be so gracious about it.

He felt Buffy tense up, and pulled away for a moment.

"What is it, Pet?"

"Spike....when Glory's minions came to the crypt, and dragged you off that time..."

Spike became twice as tense as Buffy. He had managed, through great artistry, to keep the Buffy Bot out of all their conversations up until this point.

Buffy had never mentioned the bot, after his encounter with Glory, and it was an unwritten law, that the robot was a dead issue.

After all, it was just after he had come into possession of the thing, that Buffy had begun to accept him. He'd never forget that kiss....

It had been a kiss of gratitude, and granted, although she seemed to ignore it after that, and continue her whole bursting into his crypt at all hours routine....he felt that there had been, even then, a spark of her true feelings in it, and that she had known it too.

As if knowing his thoughts, Buffy smiled at him. "Relax. This isn't about 'skirt girl'."

Spike grinned at her.

"What, then."

He kissed her forehead, his lips moving down to the tip of her nose, which he nipped lightly, pulling away to look into her eyes, surprised to find them sparkling with mirth.

"When those crusty Hobbits grabbed you and hauled you off...you and Xander were nowhere near the entrance to the cave, right?"

"Nope. Kept Xander away from it too. Didn't want him finding the....er, new toy that was hiding down there. Where I kept her. All the time. And never took her out except on Holidays. To combat the lonely hours."

"Spike, shut up and stop making excuses. Don't you see? Glory has no idea about your underground hideout. It's perfect! I don't see why I didn't think of it before! I've known about it since the shrine!"

Spike groaned. There she went again, bringing up past uglies to toss into his face.

But Buffy went on, warming to her idea and becoming more enthusiastic as she planned it out.

Spike listened to her with interest, as soon as he realized she wasn't going to linger on anything he was embarrassed about. He nodded, beginning to smile now, as she told him that the perfect place to hide her mother and Dawn, was at his crypt, only this time, under the main floor.

He was still smiling as she went to the phone and called Xander's house. He listened to her telling Xander to get Joyce and Dawn, and meet them at Spike's place, his grin getting wider as he heard the sputtering at the other end of the line. Xander wasn't taking this too well.

It would be good for the whelp, to get another taste of Buffy's devotion to him, Spike thought, as he regained some of his swagger.

Then he heard something else she told him, and dropped the pack of cigs he'd pulled out of his pocket, in alarm.

He hadn't heard that. He hadn't just heard Buffy telling Xander that the boy was going to be staying there too. In his crypt. And Anya. And Tara. And Willow. Not to mention Dawn and Joyce, but that was a given. Bloody Hell!

"Buffy, luv, I don't think I want Xander and the others snooping about the place, y'know?"

He bent and scooped up the cigs, replacing them into his back pocket, not catching the last of her conversation with Xander.

Buffy hung up the phone, and turned to him, her eyes gleaming with mischief . If he was upset now, just think how happy he'd be when he found out that Giles would be a part of the gathering.

"You'll be there. So stop worrying about things, and grab your coat. We're going. Now."

Spike was doing his motor boat impression again, sputtering and trying not to look like a complete idiot.

"Wh...what d'ya mean, I'll BE there? You can't mean that......"

The whole picture became very clear. They were all going to hide below his crypt, and although he was happy that he wasn't losing the love of his life, he 'really' didn't want Xander seeing his private things.

And there would be no time to get there first and stow away any of his possessions. Oh, he could just SEE the disapproving stares already.

Buffy danced over to him, grinning like a demented monkey. She kissed him on the lips, her tongue running over his teeth, and as he

opened his mouth and joined her, he began to smile into the kiss.

It might just be a temporary solution, at that.

He and Buffy could always disappear upstairs, and get away from the others periodically.

And the caves led all over, so the lover Wiccas could get out to get any needed supplies for their spells, food, whatever, until they came up with something that would finally get rid of Glory for good.

After which, Spike planned an extended session of shagging that would smash all of his former records into tiny little pieces.

But before that......there was now, this moment, and he wished that Willow wasn't still hiding in the kitchen.

Buffy broke the kiss, biting him on the lower lip that her sister so greatly admired and yelled into the kitchen.

"Willow! Get your ass in gear! We have a plan!"

The grinning witch popped around the doorway so suddenly that Buffy wondered if she'd been observing the whole time.

She bounced up to the couple.

"Good! You see, Buffy, he understood. I told you that if you just didn't blurt it out, he'd....."

The witch looked at them and really saw them this time.

"Hey....what's the what? There should be big huffin' and much sulkin' right about now, unless you two managed to make out again....and if that's what happened then I give up! It's like being a chaperone for Xander!

Buffy and Spike were listening, but only at about half speed.

Willow eyed the two as their looks toward each other were becoming more and more heated, and just as they went in for the lip, she intervened.

Hopping up and down like a mad, well, witch, she waved her arms at the pair, wildly .

"HEY! Concerned best friend, worried innocent bystander, and pissed off witch over here! ENOUGH! "

Buffy and Spike froze, and Buffy had the good grace to look a little sorry, while Spike just smirked a bit nastily at Willow and put one hand on the Slayer's ass.

Willow rolled her eyes upward. This was even worse than when it had been a spell....she was beginning to think she'd have to do another one to undo the reality.

"Guys, a little explanation here? Buffy, when you mentioned a 'plan', I,

along with the rest of our audience, if any by now, assumed that you meant that Spike had agreed to back off at least until we get Glory taken care of for good. If not 'permanently', because frankly, this makes me a little nauseous...."

Willow had uttered the last sentence under her breath, and Spike heard her very well, had his feelings hurt a bit, and tightened his hold on Buffy's rear.

"How bout' YOU just sod off 'permanently' because this is making 'me'

feel bloody good right about now?"

Buffy frowned up at him, and started to remind him that this was just what she had been telling him. That they were a little too caught up in each other and the rest of the world was having trouble keeping up.

As Spike's hand began massaging her bottom in delightful ways, however, she considered telling Willow to sod off, too.

Willow didn't wait for help from the smitten Slayer, and waved her hand

at Buffy's butt.

Spike let go with a yelp, and the expression on Buffy's face was priceless....a mixture of shock and discomfort, and then a glare at her best friend.

"Willow!! What the hell did you just do?"

Spike was shaking his hand in pain, and put his fingers to his lips, sucking on them, eyeing the witch warily.

Willow clapped a hand over her mouth, and then tried to assume a more dignified posture.

"I just heated things up a little, that's all." She said, in a sulky voice.

"It didn't hurt anything."

Spike glared at her, clearly disagreeing.

"Heated things up? You bloody well shocked the shit out of me!"

Willow, surprised, said nothing. Her intent had been to make Buffy's posterior so hot that Spike couldn't hang on to it. 'Note to self', she thought, 'work on that one some more'.

Buffy grabbed Spike's hand and checked it for damage, noting the redness there, and kissed his palm.

Spike made a little whimpering noise, just for good measure, and stuck his tongue out at the witch while Buffy was preoccupied with his hand.

The tiny blonde dropped the vampire's hand.

"I saw that, Spike." She said, without looking at him and walked up to Willow, a disapproving frown on her face.

"Save the weird stuff for Glory, remember, Wil? You remember her, right? The one that 'deserves' a flaming ass, OKAY?"

Willow gulped, but stood up to her friend. "I'm sorry, Buffy, but it just looked like you were ignoring the problem.....and playing with it, too."

Willow said the last, giving Spike a dirty look to which he only smirked back at her and looked overconfident, as usual.

"I didn't mean to hurt YOU, Buffy."

Spike just grinned at her. "Come on, Red, you know you like me, so stop being such a bitch about it and listen to Buffy for a minute. You might learn something, if you'd stop flappin' yer gums for a bleedin' second."

"Besides," he continued, "Buffy's always had a hot little bod, so, unless you want a person to think that 'you' may be getting interested, if not a bit jealous, you'd better lay off the hysterics."

Willow looked pleadingly at Buffy.

"Can I 'please' turn him into something?"

"NO."

Buffy was having a hard time being stern, because the whole thing was about to make her burst into giggles, and if she started she'd never stop.

"Ok, look. This is what we're gonna do, and just listen to me, and don't interrupt, and DON'T turn Spike into anything, or shrivel any of his parts, 'kay?"

Spike reflexively covered his crotch, caught himself, and pulled out a cig, instead, keeping one eye on the witch as he lit it. He wondered if she'd been spanked lately....gave it some thought, and decided that Tara wasn't the spanking type.

‘Might have to intervene on Willow's behalf one day‘, he further decided, and his face lit up with such a happy, evil expression, that Willow took a step back.

Buffy turned her head swiftly back to look at Spike but he was just standing there, taking an innocent puff from his cig.

Smoking… In the house.

"Spike! Get that weed out on the porch, 'now' please!"

"S'not weed. I left the Mexican agriculture at the crypt, remember? After you tried it with me when we killed that big...."

He stopped talking as Buffy's eyes got big as saucers, and she shook her head frantically at him.

He hastily took the cig and left for the safety of the porch.

Willow was aghast. It was worse than she had previously thought!

Spike was turning her best friend into a pot head!

Unbidden, scenes from all the campy films she'd ever seen came flooding into her head, with 'Reefer Madness' right out in front.

Buffy glared after him, and closed her eyes, trying for some patience.

She turned and faced Willow with a bright smile.

"OKAY. Here's the sitch. We are all going to Spike's place to hide out until we come up with a way to finish off the Hell Bitch, once and for all, not that I'm not proud of the way you painted a new center line on the streets of Sunnydale!"

Willow pushed the other to the back of her head for later. Buffy was right, and besides....she and Tara had a little stash of their own, if the truth be known.

"Oh, alright. Wipe that Buffy-Bot smile off your face, and lets get on with whatever you and Mister Clarol have planned. I guess I should know by now, when I'm licked."

Willow reddened, as she heard Spike make a nasty comment from the porch, at which, Buffy's wide smile got even more strained, until she dropped it altogether.

The tiny blonde knew that this was not going to be easy. She was about to get all of her friends into somewhat cramped quarters together, with a smart assed vampire that most of them hadn’t learned to live with as yet.

Hell, ‘she’ was still learning Spike 101, never mind the rest.

"Um... Let's just go, now, ok?"

Willow nodded, smiling at Spike as she and Buffy walked past him on the porch. She waved a finger, surreptitiously , in the vampire's direction, and kept walking.

Spike yelped in pain as the half smoked cigarette suddenly burned up to his fingers. And of course, it had to be the same hand which still smarted from the previous stunt.

Reminding himself that Buffy wouldn't always be around to pull his parts out of the fire, he resolved to try a bit harder not to annoy the witch.

Besides, he was very fond of Willow, and didn’t really want to hurt her feelings. He grinned as he thought about how cute it was, her giving him the finger and tossing a spell his way at the same time.

If the whole world had that power, there’d be no one in it!

He hopped over the railing, his duster billowing around him, and dropped to the grass, joining them as they walked, keeping Buffy between himself and Willow, whom he noticed, was ignoring him completely.

Better add ‘Try ‘harder’ not to hurt the witch’s feelings’ to his new resolution…

End part 4

********

Part 5

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

Spike knew that something was horribly wrong as soon as they got near enough for him to see the front of his crypt.

"What the bleedin'........."

He took off at vampire speed, leaving Buffy and Willow as if they'd been standing still.

Willow shook her head. She liked Spike, she really did. But sometimes he could be such a pain. Like now, she mused, as she saw that there was a bustle of activity around his crypt and there he was, in the thick of it, waving his arms around like a big baby.

She grinned. He 'was' awfully cute.

Then, as they got closer, she saw Tara, loaded down with something in a box and standing petrified as the blonde vampire seemed to be yelling at her.

She took off at a run, pulling her arm from Buffy's grasp as the tiny blonde tried to hold her back.

Buffy looked beseechingly up at the sky. "Why me?" Then she sprinted after her friend.

Willow got there first, and just as she was about five feet away, Spike vamped and snarled into Tara's face, causing the shy girl to let out a little yelp of fear and shrink away from the vampire, who grabbed the box out of her arms.

With no thought to her anger and how it might affect her action, Willow waved her arm in a wide arch from where Spike was still standing toward a stand of trees some distance away, sending him flying backwards at high speed.

She didn't even pause to see where he landed, as she hurried to Tara's side.

Buffy had just caught up to the rest as Spike went sailing past her so fast that she almost didn't catch the dirty look on his face, which was still vamped, meaning that he was extremely pissed off.

"What the hell happened?"

She slid to a stop and helped Willow sit Tara down on a tombstone.

The girl was visibly upset and trying not to cry. She'd never had Spike leap at her like that, with his eyes flashing gold and his fangs showing, and she hoped she never did again.

"I’m s..sorry!! It’s was just a box of junk that Xander said was trash. I didn’t mean anything wrong!"

Willow hugged Tara, and stood back up, whirling to face Buffy.

"If this is how it's gonna be, I think Tara and me had better beg off this camping trip! It's not much of an idea, anyway!"

Buffy stared at her best friend in amazement, blinking. Willow had never talked to her in that fashion, at least not over a simple misunderstanding.

And for Spike's sake, that's what this had better have been.

She looked down and saw that the box contained some photos of herself, and bits and pieces of her clothing, including some underwear.

She thought he’d gotten rid of all his ‘shrine artifacts’ but she could see why Xander, who deep down was still a bit jealous, had tried to toss the box out while ‘crypt keeping’.

She opened her mouth to retort and shut it again, whirling in the direction that Spike had gone. She'd heard a sound, like a wounded animal, or worse, a wounded Spike.

Sure enough, the blonde vampire came out of the little stand of trees a few feet away, clutching his right arm to his side, and walking in an unsteady fashion.

As soon as he saw that Buffy had spotted him, he groaned, and dramatically grabbed a small tree for support, his head hanging downward as if unable to go any further.

As Buffy ran to his aide, Willow and Tara saw Spike peep out at them from under his eyelashes, before groaning again.

The two witches exchanged knowing glances.

"Oh brother." Said Tara.

"Yeah, ham it up much?" Said Willow.

For a moment, Buffy was scared to death because she saw blood, and then as she realized that the vampire was still standing there in one piece instead of a pile of dust, she relaxed.

"Spike? Are you ok?"

She moved his duster aside and pressed her hand to his shirtfront, to assess the damage.

Her hand came away sticky, with a piece of a tree branch clutched in it that had been lodged shallowly in his chest.

"Oh my God!"

She glanced back Willow's way, and frowned. Some ground rules were going to have to be set about magick in general, before something awful happened to someone. If it did, Buffy knew that Willow would never be able to live with it.

Spike felt bad about what he was doing, but Willow was becoming way to powerful, and he needed an edge. He'd only jammed the tree limb under his skin a bit, where he'd suffered a whack landing on a sharp rock back there.

It would be a dirty trick, but he felt she deserved it, after his last unscheduled flight.

As he and Buffy arrived at the crypt, Xander and Anya came out the door, both of them loaded with odds and ends of dust covered, broken furniture, some of which probably hadn't seen the light of day since the original owners had moved into the crypt.

Spike hobbled stiffly up to the first laboring figure and snarled into a space between a lamp and a broken chair.

"Drop it!"

Xander did. The junk landed at his and Spike's feet and the two eyed each other, Xander clearly bluffing, while Spike was deadly serious.

Buffy ran up to ward off further trouble. She'd had enough excitement for one day, and she still had a witch to lecture about the fine line between chastising and killing one's friends.

Spike remembered to wince in pain, for extra points. He continued to glare at the boy.

Xander had been taking it easier on Spike of late, mainly because he didn't want to chance being a snack, but also because he had a grudging respect for the vampire and even liked him at times.

He fully realized what it meant to have the vampire around them all, without a chip in his brain to prevent his feeding on them. He knew what restraint that must take, and had come to admire Spike for the changes he'd made in his unlife.

But he'd let Spike suck him dry through his big toe, before he'd ever tell him that.

"Junior! Hope you don't mind. We were just clearing out a few of your more useless, dirty, less than expensive articles of.......crap."

Spike smiled coldly.

Xander swallowed, and stepped back a bit.

Anya dropped the wooden box she'd been carrying and it landed with a thud at their feet, a rusty railroad spike landing on her toe.

"OUCH!" She sat down and rubbed at her foot, glaring up at the vampire.

"Who the heck keeps something like that, anyway?"

Spike never broke his stare at the boy.

"Careful there, Pet. Thing's got memories attached to it...."

Xander glanced down at the rusty piece of iron, and back at Spike.

"I'll just bet it does. Careful, An, honey, that thing is probably covered with some poor sucker's DNA."

Anya looked at it and shrugged. She seen a bit of that in her day, so big deal.

Buffy pulled Spike away from Xander and looked at her friend in dismay.

"Would someone mind telling me just what you all are doing? You can’t just clear out all Spike’s stuff without even asking!"

At that moment, Dawn shot out of the crypt squealing in fear and everyone turned to the new attraction.

"Help!" She squeaked, and ran behind Buffy and Spike.

As they all stood and watched, Buffy's exact double, wearing nothing but a pair of silk boxers and a smile, ran up to them, her grin growing wider as she saw Spike, who tried in vain to hide but found that Xander had moved aside leaving him completely exposed.

After that, Xander stood frozen to the spot, gazing at the Buffy Bot's naked chest with rapt attention.

Anya stepped forward and smacked him upside the head.

"Xander! Get in there and dust something!" She pointed to the crypt.

As he complied, and walked toward the crypt, he cast one more wistful look at the bot's perky breasts. It just wasn't fair. First Spike gets a toy with all the accessories, and now he has the real thing.

The one thing he really wanted to dust right now, was not in the crypt.

Buffy had a sense of passing time.

"OK, this is all very interesting. But we need to get ourselves situated underground without drawing 'quite' so much attention to ourselves, got it?"

She looked the ‘bot right in the eye, and pointed to the crypt.

"Get in there, ‘skirt girl’, and I won’t even ask why you are wearing Spike’s underwear!"

Her replica ignored her, until Spike looked sternly at it. "Get along with you, then. There’s a good girl."

"Oh, Spike. I’m SO glad you are home!"

The bot gave him an embarrassingly loud kiss on the lips, turned, and trotted back to the crypt as told by her master.

The Master Vampire. The highly embarrassed Master Vampire.

Spike looked guiltily down at his Slayer, wondering if his ass was about to be kicked, or if she'd just put it off, and save it for when she needed something to yell at him for.

If he was extremely lucky, she’d forget all about him, and go straight to wondering why Willow had reactivated the thing in the first place…

Willow, keeping an eye on the proceedings, was hoping just the opposite. She’d done it for fun, and because she could. Period.

Buffy, however, was lost in the thought that she’d just, in a way, flashed her breasts to all of her friends.

She made a mental note to talk to Willow about one more little thing, but was more interested in Spike's injuries from his tree trimming incident.

She drew him closer to her and hugged him.

Spike felt doubly guilty now, but was used to handling quite a load of that, and smiled down at her.

"Don't worry, Pet. It's just a scratch."

"And an inch to the left and deeper, and we wouldn't be talking about it right now, would we?"

Buffy patted his cheek, turned, and called Willow, beckoning her over to where they stood.

Dawn, sensing a private conversation, stayed put, but Buffy waved her after Xander, and she joined Tara and Anya at the door of the crypt.

Willow knew she'd overdone it, but she'd reacted out of fear.

She would never intentionally hurt Spike since he had convinced her he posed no threat, but she had felt that Tara was being bullied.

And the shy girl had been through more than enough of that kind of thing from her own kin.

As she walked up and stood in front of Buffy and the vampire, she saw there was blood on Buffy's hands and spied the rip in his shirt.

"Oh golly! Did I.......I mean, I must have caused that, but I never meant to hurt you, really, Spike, you believe me, don't you?"

Spike had her, now. If Buffy believed that Willow had nearly staked him, it would be a lot easier to control her, and in the long run, he could really milk the guilt for all it was worth.

Buffy put out her fist and turned it palm up, opening her fingers to reveal the piece of bloody wood that she'd been holding. She held it right under Willow's nose.

Spike smirked. All that was left was to reel her in…

And then it happened. The witch began to cry.

Big tears rolled down her face and it screwed up unattractively, and then to his complete horror, she put her face in her hands and sobbed aloud!

Spike's face was a comical study of dismay and disgust.

Then, his own eyes began to itch suspiciously, and he stepped up to Willow, putting one arm around her shoulder.

"Oh, here now! We'll have none of that.....stop, please stop,......if you don't stop your bloody crying........Red, please, it was just a scratch, I scarcely felt it, really......Oh, BLOODY HELL!!!"

He knew he'd hate himself in the morning, mainly because he was a vampire and would be stuck under ground with a bunch of humans, but he couldn't stand Willow's tears a second longer and knew he cared too much for her friendship to pull a fast one on her.

He set her away from him as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and looked at Buffy, to gauge her reaction as he spoke the words that would probably damn him to Xander Hell.

"It never touched me, Red."

Willow sniffled once, and heard his words. "Huh?"

"Just trying to um.....teach you a lesson, that's all. I stuck that stick into a hole a rock made....you didn't nearly dust me. Now stop the waterworks, please!"

Spike took her shoulders in his hands and leaned down, closer to her face.

"Turn me into a toad, and I'll bloody hop away."

Buffy's mouth was hanging open. She hadn't had time to go from concerned girlfriend to mad Slayer yet, but Spike knew that it wouldn't be long.

Willow, to Spike's surprise, smiled shakily at him and reached out to pat him on the shoulder.

"It's ok, Spike. I'm just relieved that you're not hurt, and that I didn't nearly 'kill' you...."

Spike felt a stab of unease at that last, but breathed a sigh of relief as the witch turned away and walked back toward the crypt.

He turned to face Buffy with what he hoped was a repentant expression, and staggered backward as her fist hit him in the nose!

"Back to the old drawing board." He said, lying where she’d knocked him on the ground. He watched as Buffy stalked off to join the others.

Willow met Tara at the door. The shy witch smiled at her lover's expression.

"So how'd it go?"

"Piece of cake. You were right, he was faking it."

They slapped hands in the air and entered the crypt.

Buffy, right behind them, was considering reorganizing her plan to include a de-invite spell that would prevent Spike from entering his own home.

She slammed the door on the stone crypt so loudly, that Spike felt the vibrations on the ground where he still lay, several feet away.

He winced, and took his fingers from his nose, checking them for blood, which as usual, was flowing copiously.

"It's been awhile now, you stupid git, since you riled her up this much."

He decided that it was really quite peaceful, there in the grass.

Which was fortunate, because he might end up sleeping the rest of the night there, and he speculated as to whether or not the shadow of a grave stone would keep the sun’s rays from burning him to a cinder in the morning.

End part 5

*********

Part 6

*********

Spike stuck his fingers in his mouth and cleaned them of the blood from his ill fated nose.

Suddenly, two neat, shiny shoes appeared in his peripheral vision, and he turned his head to see that they were on feet, his eyes then traveling upward until they rested on a face, which was glaring down at him with great disapproval.

The perfect end to a perfect night.

"Sod off, Watcher." Spike just lay there, hoping that he would.

"I most certainly will not. I'm not happy about being asked to come here, but I shall not shirk in my duty to Buffy when she is in need."

Spike pointed at the crypt.

"Party's that way. But you don't need to stay too long....no one's feelins' will be hurt if you leave early, like. I know how you old people are about gettin' plenty of sleep."

Giles started to retort, and then peered curiously down at the vampire.

"I say, Spike....why are you lying here on the ground like this? And as for sleeping, I hope that your bloody crypt isn't too drafty. I just got over a cold and should be drinking a hot cup of tea even as we speak."

Spike felt a chill that didn't come from the earth on which he rested.

He closed his eyes, and sighed, saying tiredly. "Watcher......are you planning to stay in my crypt with the rest of the bloody herd?"

"That is the plan as I understand it, yes. Now 'why' are you lying there? Why don't you get up, man, this is extremely unseemly of you."

Spike just stared up at the stars, which were beginning to thin out as the dawn approached.

"Because, Watcher, if I get up, I just may have to EAT someone."

Giles took a step back. Perhaps he had incorrectly assessed the vampire’s current state of mind.

"Oh, well, I .....um....Just do as you like, then, Spike. We'll all be inside, when you feel better about.....whatever it is."

The ex-librarian beat a hasty retreat to the crypt, grabbing the end of a heavy crate with his name on it and dragging it behind him with an agility and speed that belied his age.

Spike lay there on the ground, contemplating whether or not to catch his first sunrise in well over a hundred years.

And then he started to giggle. The giggle became a full blown roar of laughter and he rolled on the ground clutching his sides for several minutes, until the crypt door opened and Buffy stuck her head out.

"Spike! Get your ass in here right now!"

Spike only laughed harder.

The Slayer approached him warily. His laughter bordered on nutso, and it was giving her the wiggins.

As she came to stand over Spike, the vampire reached up and dragged her down on top of him, and began kissing her so hard that she forgot all about the impending sunrise and ground herself against him, happily.

From the door of the crypt, Xander and Giles stood, watching.

Xander shook his head in disgust, and then eyed the paling sky.

"Hey, 'G Man', five bucks says he goes up in flames in about ten minutes."

Giles looked wearily at Xander.

"I will 'not' ask you again, to 'stop' calling me that. And you're 'on' ."

The pair had indeed burst into flames, but of the passionate variety, and as the 'fire' began to spread, they became quite still on the grass,

kissing each other deeply one moment, and then looking into each other's eyes the next.

Spike broke a particularly juicy kiss to speak into the shell of her ear, running his tongue inside it as he did so.

"I'm sorry, Luv. I’m sorry that I was evil."

His apology would have had more impact if he hadn’t worn the ever present smirk.

Buffy kissed an imaginary dotted line down his chest until she reached his stomach, then the waistband of his jeans, before replying to him.

"It's ok, baby. You just couldn't help yourself."

She kissed back up to his lips again, which disappointed him horribly and he smiled into her mouth.

"Really?" That’s my sweet, gullible girl.

Buffy reached down and caressed his balls through the fabric of his jeans, and he sucked un-needed air in a hiss that was heard all the way to the crypt.

Giles closed his eyes and sighed, turning his head away from the sight of his Slayer groping her former worst enemy. Far be it from him, to ever question the methods of his charge, but at times he wondered about her sanity.

Xander was just trying not to look at all, but was clearly both fascinated and disgusted, and besides, he had money riding on this deal.

Then, both men winced in sympathy, as Buffy gripped Spike’s favorite parts in a less than loving manner, and the vampire froze, not moving a muscle.

"Luv? Is everything alright then?" He winced, in spite of himself.

"For now. But if you ‘ever’ try to pull a stunt like that on any of us again, it will be a long time before you see these ."

Buffy let go of his crotch, and raised her shirt up to her chin, exposing her breasts to him, knowing that Giles and Xander were behind her, and would only see her back.

When he reached up to fondle her, she slapped his hands away.

"Do you get the picture? Are we good?"

Spike sighed. He was definitely Slayer whipped.

"I get it. We're good. Good together, as well, and if you'll come down here, I'll show you just how good I can be."

He leered up at her, the tip of his tongue between his teeth, his blue eyes dancing with mischief.

Buffy grinned down at him, as she straddled his wiry, muscular frame.

""You'll be good and roasted, if we don't get inside."

She pulled him up by one hand, laying one last kiss on him which made him wish they didn’t have a crypt full of company waiting for them.

Meanwhile, Giles and Xander looked on in dismay. The arguing had dwindled down to nothing, and now, even the sight of fried Spike would be denied to them.

"He didn't burn. Pay up." Giles stuck his hand out for the fiver.

"OKAY, here. Take it. How long would I have kept it anyway, with Spike around?" He handed the Watcher his money.

His eyes lit up, and he looked at Giles, grinning.

"I can’t remember, but did I tell you that the Sex Bot is here, too?"

He knew full well that the Watcher was unaware of that fact.

The older man whipped off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Oh dear Lord." He mumbled.

They both stepped back and watched as Buffy and Spike went into the crypt, staring at each other like they'd been separated for months.

Neither spared a glance for Xander or Giles.

Xander made a face. "Eww. That's just so.....icky."

"Quite." Giles sighed, as he and Xander entered the crypt and shut the door behind them.

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

Willow stood and stared, in awe of her surroundings. There was a whole world under the crypt.

The cavern stretched off into the distance until a bend in it's tunnel like shape obscured her seeing any further.

"Wow! This is better than the Bat Cave."

Tara came to stand beside her. "Yeah, but I think the caped crusader kept his place a little cleaner than this one."

Willow snickered. "Well, sure, but he had Robin, his faithful sidekick to do all the work."

"Actually", said a voice which caused them both to jump, "Robin didn't do the cleaning, that was Alfred, his butler."

Spike stood there in the gloom, smiling at the two witches, who both tried to look as if they'd known he was there all along.

"And while I'm feeding you vital info, I might as well tell you that you need to stay closer to the group. This is far enough back that it's not properly lit."

Willow grinned at the vampire. "Oooh......Spike's afraid of the dark."

"No, but the torches don't light it well enough to keep the bats away, and I never did like ’those’ little buggers much."

Before he had finished speaking the two girls had hurried back toward the main 'room' and the rest of the group.

Spike grinned. He might not like being invaded, but it had it's good moments. Then he noticed that Willow was carrying a cage with a rat in it, and walked briskly after them.

"OY! Wait up Red!"

Willow turned to look at him as he caught up to them.

"Sure you aren't afraid of the dark?" She quipped.

"What the hell is that bleedin' vermin doin' here?"

Willow lifted the cage, and she and Tara looked in at the rat, smiling fondly at it as the creature stood up on it's legs and squealed at them.

Willow shot Spike a dirty look. "She isn't vermin, she's a friend."

Spike snorted. "Each to his own, Red, but I'm not eatin' that thing."

Tara gasped and Willow looked shocked.

"What gave you such a horrible idea, Spike, this is AMY.....when I said she's a friend, I meant that she really IS a friend, ok? I used to go to school with her and so did Buffy!

Spike squinted in at the rodent, which didn't care for his scrutiny and fled to the rear of it's cage in fear. It knew a predator when it saw one.

"So these little mistakes of yours go further back than I thought, then?"

He smirked.

Willow muttered under her breath that if Spike wasn't careful he might be involved with another mistake, and walked away, talking in soothing tones to the rat.

Tara watched until her friend had rejoined the group in the main chamber, and turned back on Spike with a hint of fire in her eye.

"Spike, this has got to stop. Willow cares about you, and you hurt her feelings again."

The vampire looked down at the shy witch, and as he gazed into her eyes, he saw the love and pride shining there for her lover, and sighed, as he fished around in his duster pocket for a pack of cigs.

"I'm sorry, Tara. I don't suppose the 'I'm evil' speech will work in this case?"

He patted his pockets again, and then checked his jeans.

"No, it won't. Willow is under a lot of stress right now, and your comments just pile up on top of everyone else’s until it's too much for her, sometimes."

Tara glanced back to make sure that Willow was out of earshot.

"I'm worried about her. She's getting too powerful, too fast. And I'm not sure it's of the good."

Spike was only half listening, because he'd realized that he was out of cigarettes.

"Sod it all!!"

At Tara's testy look, he smiled.

"I heard you, and I don't think you need to worry about Red. She has both oars in the bloody lake."

As they began to walk toward the group, which Spike was doing at a snail's pace to put off the inevitable, Tara's face wore a guarded expression.

"I hope you're right. I hope she doesn't get in over her head."

Spike put an arm around the girl, causing her to blush and look nervous, as they joined the others.

"Don't give it any more thought. She'll be fine."

Buffy, her nose in one of Gile's books, looked up from where she was seated on a crate, and frowned.

"Who'll be whatzit?"

She had put the book aside, and pulled from the crate next to her a large envelope which seemed to be full of 8x10 glossy photos of a scantily clad woman.

HUH?

She darted a look at the name on the packing crate, which clearly said, GILES, and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head.

Spike left Tara to a questioning Willow and came to sit beside the tiny blonde, bumping her over with his hip.

Buffy swiftly stuck the photo she’d been ogling at back into the envelope, and smiled innocently at Spike, while shooting a thoughtful look in the Watcher’s direction.

Spike pretended he hadn't noticed, and then swiftly grabbed the envelope before the Slayer could stuff it back into the crate.

"What I said, was, I wouldn't be eating Willow’s stupid, bloody rat."

He held the package out of her reach, and snatched out a photo, perusing it in surprise, and not a little admiration, expressing the later in a low whistle.

The face was purposely in shadow, as if the subject didn’t wish her identity to be known. Spike could certainly understand that, as some of the pictures were very naughty.

He looked closer. "Very nice, although her tits are a bit small, but you only need a handful, right Buffy?"

Buffy’s glare had changed to something slightly deadly, but even though she quivered with anger and embarrassment, she stopped grabbing at the package, hoping that no one had been listening.

But he would pay for that last, later, in private. Oh boy, would he be paying up.

Spike looked at her, his face quivering with suppressed laughter.

"Slayer! I'd have never thought it of you. Looking at dirty pictures, you nasty little thing."

End part 6

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

Part 7

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

"Give me that, before I knock a knot on your pointed head, blood breath!"

Buffy grabbed at the photos, but Spike was too quick for her.

He backed away, holding the package high, and taking out some photos, began showing them around.

"Come and catch me, if you want them, or can’t you keep up on those little Slayer legs?"

Buffy, having had her fill of references to her small parts, leaped after Spike who was revealing the envelope’s contents to the rapt audience which included the Scoobies, Tara, Dawn, Joyce, and a rat.

And even the rat was more than mildly interested.

Giles stepped up as Spike neared him, showing off a particularly naughty picture, giggling like a kid.

He quickly grabbed the package and the glossy from the vampire's hands before he could take it further, the diversion allowing Buffy to catch up to the prankster.

There was a resounding slap as Buffy dealt Spike his just deserts, and then a cry of disappointment from Xander who had just missed getting to see the picture.

Spike grinned at the flustered Watcher, rubbing his stinging cheek, keeping one eye on the tiny blonde who stood beside him.

"Ah.....then. We know who's bit of naughty pleasure this is , don't we?"

He ignored Buffy who was still glaring at him. The slap had hurt her hand more than it had hurt Spike because he had been having such a good time.

Giles held the envelope to his chest and then, blushing slightly, returned it to the crate that it belonged in.

He arose to the stares of most of the group, and Xander's expression as the frustrated carpenter zeroed in on the packet’s current location.

"I think you all quite rude, to just stare at me like this. I have a perfectly good explanation for being in possession of that … those…

Er… artistic renderings." He finished, lamely.

He tried to stare them down, but silence was his only reply.

"I don't feel that I owe anyone an explanation for my private belongings, which none of you should have seen in the first place."

Buffy had the good grace to look guilty, but Xander, still smarting from being excluded from the show, chimed in his two cents.

"Well, 'I' think that if you don't want to move your private belongings to the far side of the cave, you'd better explain what you're doing with a crate full of porn. And why am I the only one who doesn’t get to see it?"

A voice yelled from behind.

"I didn’t get to see it either!" Dawn sounded more than a little annoyed.

She and her mother were at the rear of the group, where Joyce had dragged the teen as soon as mention of naked pictures was heard.

Dawn was doing her best to stand on her tiptoes and see what all the excitement was about.

Giles pressed his lips together tightly, smothering a really foul reply, and taking off his glasses, pinched his nose and sighed.

He put the glasses back on and faced the inquisition.

"If you must know, it is NOT ‘porn‘ , it is research."

Xander snorted.

"From the looks on everybody's face but mine and Dawnster‘s, it aint' no National Geographic. But nice try, 'G-Man'."

He grinned, actually having fun now, even though Spike was smirking back at him which ruined it just a little. But he could live with that, if it took Giles down a peg or two.

Now if only the Bot would wake up from it’s Willow imposed slumber, and torment Giles further, it would be a perfect end to a really weird day.

Buffy smiled, and said gently, "Giles.....that thing is full of naked women in all sorts of.....poses."

The Watcher closed his eyes and tried for a semblance of peace.

He opened them and looked directly at Xander, who was about to say something else, even though Anya, who had been silent up to this point, was poking him in the ribs with her finger.

"It is something that I had hoped to study while down here, to pass the time, and to gain further knowledge of our current foe."

"Oh My God!"

The entire assemblage turned their heads as one, toward the Slayer.

Buffy's eyes widened in shock, and she dived for the packet again, which Giles allowed, having given up on ever being taken seriously by this group again, in his lifetime.

She scanned some of the pictures again, and motioned for Spike to come and see, but found him already looking over her shoulder, his eyes as wide as hers, as he recognized the woman in the pictures.

"Bloody Hell! It's the Bitch! And she's naked! And so are all her naughty bits!"

Xander was there in record speed, leaving Anya to fight her way through the group.

He skidded to a halt and looked over Buffy's shoulder, knocking Giles to one side in his haste.

After a quick look, all he saw were pictures of a reddish blonde woman, who was indeed naked, but covered in strategic areas by drapes of silk and furniture.

He turned to see Spike, wagging a finger in his face, and grinning like a monkey.

"Gotcha. And aren't you the pervert, then?"

Anya came up, looking interested. "That's right. He's a pervert, and I'm the other pervert. Now, when do we eat?

They all looked puzzled. A package full of sexy pictures, and Anya, who usually talked non-stop about sex, was hungry.

Not to mention the fact that Xander was so curious about that fact, that he’d forgotten to fling a return jibe at Spike.

Buffy just looked at her Watcher with the question hanging between them. Where had the pictures come from?

Giles had never stammered so much in his life, and that was saying something.

As he explained himself to the somewhat amused crowd, with the exception of Joyce, who seemed to be alternating between curious, annoyed, and protective over Dawn, he realized that he should have divulged this information much sooner, but he’d only put it together himself a few days before, and thought he should take the time to understand it before he mentioned it.

He’d only recognized the woman in the pictures after thinking back to the day she came into his store, thanks to his good memory for faces, and Spike’s and Buffy’s run in’s and descriptions of the Hell God, he carried a fairly accurate picture of her in his mind.

And now, he had a whole package full of her images, in case he should suffer a memory lapse. He just wished with all his being that the others hadn’t found them before he could bring the subject up on his own.

Indeed, he wasn’t quite sure WHY he’d received these photos, but he did have a theory.

The Hell Goddess was madly in love with him.

But he’d come up with that theory after several glasses of the good stuff.

Now reality was sinking in, and he knew what the reason was for his finding those photos on the counter after that creature had purchased the ingredients which had created the snakelike abomination which had nearly revealed Dawn’s identity as the Key.

As he finished his explanation to the group, he noticed that Spike was giving him a rather ‘I’m proud of my father-in-law’ look, but he avoided the thoughts which accompanied that, and continued.

"So, in conclusion, it is my belief, due to the fact that other, similar packages of photos have been found near the bodies of poor wretched souls who must have received them much as I did, and also the finding of one or more crumpled nude photos of this woman in the possession of most of the males in the psycho ward of the hospital…"

"Bloody get on wi’ it, Pops, I’m goin’ t’ sleep over here."

Spike was in complete ageement with the Watcher, but bored out of his mind.

Shooting a glare the vampire’s way, Giles cleared his throat and finished.

"It is obvious to me, that this Glory woman, is, in spite of her status as a Hell god, addicted to sex, and goes about picking the more appealing of us for her devious, and often fatal, private gatherings, and then dumps the bodies, or the shattered shells of those not strong enough to stand her perversions, and continues to crave even more…"

Spike laughed aloud, and then sunk to his knees, the laughter ending in snorts as he wiped the tears from his eyes. He ignored Buffy’s booted toe, which poked him in the ass, in warning to lighten up.

"Let me get this straight, Watcher."

Spike got to his feet and dusted his knees of what might have once been someone he knew.

"You think… that Glory is a Nymphomaniac? And that she just goes around supplying poor gullible chaps with naked snappies, and then she somehow supplies them with her address and they go and have it off with her?"

Giles was bright red, but bravely added, "Something like that. I ‘did’ find her address written on the back of the best…er…the most ‘bawdy’ of the photos."

Spike rolled his eyes and shook his head.

And here he thought that the Watcher was going to have it all figured out.

To be truthful, he hadn’t thought of the answer himself until a minute ago, but it still made him puff up with pride to have outguessed Giles.

He settled back down on the same crate, pulled Buffy into his lap, and gave her a big, wet, kiss, which caused Giles to remove his glasses for a cleaning , Joyce to grab at Dawn who scooted away grinning, and Xander to make a gagging noise.

Anya, who had finally sated her hunger with a sandwich from the food stores they’d brought with them, looked at the embrace with another kind of hunger, and grabbed Xander’s ass.

Spike broke off the kiss, smiled at Buffy’s glazed expression, and looked at the group of clearly disgusted, waiting people.

Even the rat was silent.

"This is what I have figured, from the bits of info that we have. You all remember that ‘Queller’ beastie? The one that I got rid of when it nearly killed my best girl, here?"

Xander mumbled at the ‘my girl’, and Anya squeezed his butt harder, glancing at the darker portions of the cave with a speculative eye.

Buffy put a finger on Spike’s lips before he could continue.

"WHO got rid of the Queller?"

"I did. I distinctly recall it, as well as the not getting much thanks afterwards, bit."

Buffy smiled. So. She had smallish breasts, did she?

"What ‘I’ recall, is you screaming like the Oz Scarecrow when he caught fire, and ‘me’ stabbing the thing with a knife that you threw back to me after you helped knock it out of my hand in the first place."

Spike looked her in the eye. ‘Touche’…

"Ok, then, luv, and everyone else, this is what I think is going on."

He winked at Buffy with a lusty expression, and then turned to the others.

When that bitch had me in her clutches, and I suffered horrible pain at her hands, which by the way, could have been avoided if the ‘cavalry’ hadn’t arrived so late, she mentioned that I was no good to her, not just because I’m impure…"

He shot a smug look at Xander who rolled his eyes, and noticed that Buffy only smiled.

"Not just because I’m a vampire, was I useless to her, but because she couldn’t ‘suck my brain’, for whatever reason. So there you have it."

Xander removed Anya’s hand which had grown increasingly bolder because no one was looking their way.

"What we have, is what we already know, Junior. That your brain is worthless."

Giles held up a hand, silencing further chatter, and looked thoughtful.

"I see, Spike. And I think I understand what it is that you are saying."

"Bout’ fucking time."

Giles sighed, and continued.

"Apparently, Glory drains the energy, or the essence of humans, from their brains in some way, probably by some kind of physical contact. And she gets a ready supply of willing victims by planting these photos here and there, and probably doesn’t care whether or not they appeal to her on a baser level."

He looked a little disappointed at the last revelation.

Spike was glad that at last, they had another clue to the Hell God mystery, and that now, finally, they could call it a day, and take a rest, and that maybe he and Buffy could do their resting up above in the crypt proper, in private.

Gile dashed those hopes with his next words.

"This is all very compelling information, and probably the source of her power, or at the least, what keeps her alive in our universe, but there is one thing which bothers me."

Spike was almost afraid to ask.

Buffy saved him the trouble.

"Spill it, Giles. What could be more weird than what we’ve just heard?"

"Yes," Quipped Xander.

"What could be weirder than a Slayer shagging a vampire…or even two, the first time ,I might add, which nearly resulted in the end of the world, and this one being the end of the world as *I* know it…and a Watcher who thinks a Hell god has the hots for him?"

End part 7

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

Part 8

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

Giles whipped out a photo from the packet which had gone unnoticed by the group.

He held it up for all to see, and this time, Dawn wasn’t quick enough to get away from Joyce’s hands and found her eyes covered again.

It was a picture of a young man, with longish dark hair, and good looks, though nothing to write home about, but it was his clothing that really took the cake.

He was dressed in the same, slinky red dress, that Glory had been in the previous shot. Except for a slightly surprised look, he had retained the pose he had been in when the photo was taken.

The exact same pose as Glory’s in the previous photo.

Spike was surprised at this.

"What the bloody hell is a picture of a cross dresser doing in there? This bitch is kinkier than I thought."

He gave the Hell God a point in her favor, on the Spike scale.

Buffy looked closer at the picture.

"That looks like that young doctor, at the hospital, the one who was there when we took Mom in after she passed out from the tumor."

Spike’s eyes widened.

"Oh YEAH. I remember that stupid git. He’s the one you used to make me jealous at that party."

He grinned, evilly, and continued, ignoring her warning glare.

"So, Buffy likes the kinkier men. Never woulda’ thought it…course’, mine’s the good kind of kink, but a cross dresser, now…"

Buffy socked him in the stomach, and he bent over in pain, and even though there was no air to rush out of him, it definitely hurt like hell.

She might worship the ground he walked upon, and want to ravage his body endlessly, but she still enjoyed knocking him down a peg or two when his ego became too overbearing.

She turned back to the group.

"This is all very interesting, Giles, but I doubt it has anything to do with Glory and ‘our’ problems. So she’s a pervert. I say we all give this some thought, and get some sleep. We can start fresh tonight, when Spike here isn’t so TIRED."

She jabbed him in the stomach again, for good measure.

"OH, yeah, I’m bushed. Need sleep. Gotta shut the peepers for awhile, it’s daylight now, y’know. And you all are on my time since you got here so late and didn’t sleep yet, so a nap is in order for the lot."

He grinned at Buffy. "Great idea, Pet."

Buffy grinned back. "Just thinking of you, honey. So go and curl up in the corner somewhere, so that I can help everyone lay out the sleeping bags and catch a nap myself."

She fully intended to join him, later, but didn’t want to be obvious about it, and knew he’d get mad at her suggestion and stomp off upstairs, thus relieving them of the need to resort to subtrifuge to get away from the group.

She knew her vampire well.

Spike’s smile froze on his face, and he shot a look at the whelp, who was, of course, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle his giggles.

Xander grabbed Anya by the hand, and said, loudly, "Come on, An, let’s go and check out that rock outcropping wayyyy over there."

Anya knew he was teasing Spike, but he’d played right into her hands and she fairly dragged him away from the group, as he watched the vampire’s reaction over his shoulder.

He frowned, when Spike flipped him off. But it was still worth it to know that there was trouble in paradise.

He didn’t agree with Buffy’s plan, and hoped that it didn’t result in trouble for everyone, as well, but it was nice to know that ‘he’ would be getting some today, while it looked doubtful that the vampire would be back in Buffy’s good graces in the near future.

Buffy watched, as Spike finally quit grumbling under his non-breath and stalked off to the ladder that led up above.

After shooting her another wounded look, he considered flipping ‘her’ off, as well, but as one eyebrow disappeared into her hair, he decided to retain some dignity, and was up the ladder in seconds, slamming the trap door behind him.

After helping the others roll out sleeping bags and set up a cot or two, one of which she laid down on for all of five minutes, she managed to slip away unnoticed, and get to the ladder.

But when she got to the top and pushed, the door was stuck. Glancing back down at the now quiet, lower chamber, she pushed again, to no avail.

Hoping that the noise wouldn’t awaken anyone, she banged once on it, hoping that Spike would hear her, and open it from his side.

Giles opened one eye, and sighed, tiredly.

First, he had been dragged out of bed by a ringing phone and enlightened to this wonderful plan of which he was reluctantly a part, and then he had been subjected to the sight of his Slayer, nearly shagging Spike in the cemetery, not to mention the countless other times he’d had to turn a blind eye to their shenanigans.

Then he‘d been completely humiliated and denounced as a pervert…and now, he only wished Buffy would quit trying to be stealthy and just bash the door in once and for all, so he could get some sleep.

If, that is, the couple didn’t make so much noise up above , that no one could.

Giles rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head, noticing that several of the others had done the same, and ignored Dawn who grinned at him from the cot beside her mother.

The teen was amused because she had seen when Buffy had dragged the ‘sleeping’ Bot into her bed and covered it, to fool absolutely no one as it turned out.

Meanwhile, Buffy was nearly out of patience. She knew that Spike had to have heard her knocking on the door, and was just sulking up there.

She hit it again, with more force this time, causing it to come up just a bit and give her a glimpse of a booted foot beside it.

Then came a teasing voice, in which the smirk could be clearly heard.

"Who goes there?"

Buffy closed her eyes and counted to ten. She could hear Dawn laughing and thought she heard other snickers as well, from below.

She definitely heard one from above.

"Spike!" She said it in a loud whisper that wasn’t missed by the entire cavern.

"If you don’t open this thing and let me up there.."

"What’s the password?" Spike said loudly.

Giles shot up on his cot with a livid expression and roared.

"For the love of all that is Holy, Spike, OPEN the God forsaken door and be done with it!!"

Giles looked at the stunned faces of the others in the candlelight and just shook his head as he fluffed his pillow and glared at the group.

"You bloody well know that you were all thinking the same thing."

He rolled over, and feeling much better, went right to sleep.

Spike, feeling a little silly now, opened the door and taking her hand, helped Buffy up the ladder and into the crypt.

She suppressed a shiver of déjà vu as she remembered another time he’d helped her up this ladder, under different circumstances. Only this time, she knew that Drucilla wasn’t waiting for her.

Just a vampire. Her vampire. One who had come to mean more to her than any other man in her life so far.

It was funny, how she considered him to be a man, and not a monster.

As she’d grown to know him, that part of Spike seemed almost surreal.

She helped him close the door, and then, without warning, swept his feet out from under him and straddled him where he fell on the dusty crypt floor.

Spike flinched, thinking he’d misjudged her ability to take a joke and squeezed his eyes shut in case this was going to hurt.

Instead, she came down to lie on him, her body stretched out now, on top of his, her soft golden hair falling in waves across his face.

He opened one eye and squinted up at her, then both blue orbs flew open in surprise and pleasure as he realized that his nose was safe from harm, and another part of his body began to answer the pressure from hers.

After all. It had been several hours, at least, since they’d last made love. A bloke’s got needs.

He smiled softly, and started to raise his hand to her face, but she stopped him with hers, and just lay there a moment, looking at his face in the candlelight.

She smiled. He must have fairly raced around, lighting those candles up here, because when they had all trooped in earlier, there had been none, and now they were blazing in all the nooks and crannies of the place.

Her smile faded and her expression became so soft, and loving, that Spike was nearly embarrassed.

In spite of waiting an unlifetime for the love of a woman like her, he was unsure of what to do, now that he had it.

He felt he was unworthy of her, and that nagging thought was what kept him from bashing Xander’s head in when the whelp kept reminding him of the fact.

So he did all that he ‘could’ do. He gave her his undying devotion, his love, his fidelity, and his protection, and included her circle of family and friends in his life as well.

And sod it all, he knew he cared for some of them more than just a little, such as Joyce and the Nibblet.

He was damned fond of a few of the others, such as Red, and even Zander was beginning to grow on him.

Of course, he’d drink a vat of pig’s blood and bathe in a tub of Holy water, before he’d ever divulge that fact to anyone.

And this woman who lay with him here, in this unlikely place, was the reason for this miraculous change in him.

Not a piece of government plastic, even if it was still functioning, though gladly that was a thing of the past.

Buffy watched him looking up at her, not resisting her as she prevented him from initiating contact, and felt a flood of emotion so deep that it nearly brought her to tears.

She glanced down at his mouth, his soft pink lips open slightly, as he ran the tip of his tongue out and over his full lower lip.

She tossed back her hair and swiftly homed in on that lip, before it could escape, not that it was going anywhere.

Spike met her half way and their bodies connected with some force, as they began kissing each other senseless, rolling about until they were on top of the offending door to the chamber below.

The door was old, and as pieces of it began falling into the cavern below, Giles, not bothering to stick his head out from under his blanket, sighed loudly.

"Xander? I say, are you awake?"

A muffled reply came from a corner where he and Anya had just become very relaxed and were desperately trying to fall asleep.

"You’ve ‘got’ to be kidding me."

"You’ll tend to that door later, of course?"

Xander yawned. "Sure. Why not? What’s a little hammering in a crypt in the middle of a cemetery where all the carpenters are supposed to be dead? I can’t possibly make any more noise than ‘those’ two."

"Quite." Giles resumed his slumber, noticing that it had gotten quiet again, up above.

Dawn raised up on one elbow, and peered at her mother in the half light. Joyce was sleeping away, which was evident due to the soft snores, but the teen wanted to make sure, so that she could finally get away for a moment to herself.

She got up quietly, plumping her pillow and covering it with the blanket, before she crept to the far side of the cave where Willow and Tara had arranged their sleeping bags.

She grinned, as she noticed they had zipped them together.

Dawn hovered over Willow’s face in the gloom until the witch opened one eye and squinted up at her.

"Dawny?"

Tara sighed, and rolled over, clearly asleep. One thing she’d learned from hanging with the Scoobies. You took your sleep where you could get it.

Dawn glanced over her shoulder at the others, but no one seemed to be stirring.

"Get up and come with me, to where we can talk."

Willow was tired, but knew what Dawn was up to, and was excited herself at the thought of getting back to working on her spell.

But she wasn’t so sure that Buffy would be too happy to have Dawn helping her with it, and wished she hadn’t agreed so quickly when the eager girl had asked.

But she could hardly argue with her logic.

Dawn was a Key, and Glory was looking for one. Glory needed to be put out of commission before she found out what or who that key was, and where it was hidden.

Willow had to admit to a certain amount of curiosity, as to how the Key was used, and for what, but the main thing was to keep Dawn safe and rid the world of a Hell God.

She got out of the sleeping bag and followed Dawn over to the crate that the cage containing Amy the rat, sat upon.

Willow fed part of a sandwich through the wire to the rat, and looked Dawn in the eye, speaking in a low voice.

"I’ve been working on this spell non stop for days now, Dawny, and I keep coming up with one little glitch."

"What is it now? First you made a rabbit appear on Anya’s dinner plate the other night, which was really cool, by the way, but my ears are still ringing from the screams, and now you have ‘another’ glitch?"

Dawn sighed and looked disappointed. "Sheesh…beginner much?"

"Relax, and listen to me, OK? We need a special ingredient to add to the other stuff, to pull this off. I’ve wanted to try this for years, but didn’t know what to use, and now I think I know."

"What the bloody…UH…I meant to say, like, what the heck is it?"

Willow frowned at Dawn’s Spike speak, and continued.

"We need the blood of a Slayer."

End part 8

********

Part 9

********

Dawn looked shocked. "But how can we…I mean, Faith is in jail. And there’s no way that Buffy would ever help us with this. If it involves blood, she’ll think it’s too dangerous."

The teen left out the part where Buffy would say that Willow’s spell might not work, and change them all into toads instead.

"That’s where Spike comes in. He can get it for us."

Dawn’s eyes widened. She had wondered if what she’d heard Willow and Tara whispering about one day could possibly be true. That Spike was snacking on her sister!

"But Willow, before I tell you how gross I think it is that Spike and Buffy have weird, kinky sex, I don’t think that Spike will just grab Buffy, suck some blood out for us, and hand it over, just like that."

She remembered the vampire’s unwillingness to let go of some furniture that was broken and moldy, and figured he’d be even more possessive over blood…especially Buffy’s.

"He will if he thinks it will get rid of Glory. Because if the Hell God is out of commission, then he gets rid of all of us too."

Willow smiled, happily.

Dawn put a kink, or more kink as it were, in the plan.

"But don’t they have to be boinking for him to get any blood? I kinda think Buffy would notice if he just walked up and chomped on her while she was reading a book or something."

Willow now knew for sure that Dawn was more informed on the sexual side of Buffy and Spike’s relationship than she had previously thought.

"Um…yeah. I see what you mean. And that could be a problem."

Dawn glanced over at Buffy’s bed and the ‘sleeping’ figure of the robot in it.

She grabbed the witch’s hand. "I know! I know how to get the message to him now, while they’re doing it!"

When she heard Dawn’s plan, Willow thought it had merit, but the very mechanics of it might knock Buffy out of her current amorous mood and leave them to think of another way.

Not to mention reminding the Slayer that Willow was the reason for the Bot’s state of well being in the first place.

But what did they have to lose?

She grinned. It might be pretty funny, too. And it would definitely annoy the hell out of Spike.

Together, they snuck quietly over to Buffy’s cot.

********

Spike leaned over Buffy, and fanned her blonde hair out on either side of her head with loving fingers, as he gazed down upon her.

He was still amazed at times, that she was willingly his, in spite of the bumps in the road that was taking them toward a life together.

They had moved to the comfort of a quilt that was spread out over the top of a large stone sarcophagus, and just as Spike saw that look in her eye, went down and was poised, his lips inches from hers, he was

stopped cold as the Bot appeared right beside him.

"Spike! What are you doing with your lips? Your lips are mine!"

The vampire froze, in horror. His eyes left the Bot and went to Buffy to assess the damage and was unsurprised to meet her icy glare.

Buffy shoved Spike off of her and rolled off the top of the sarcophagus in a series of precise motions.

She stalked to the door of the crypt and yanked it open, turning back toward the impossibly cheerful robot.

"Could you please go, and buy a quart of milk or something? In Africa, maybe?"

The Bot blinked.

"I do not understand this. You wish me to go on a trip? I will need money for a trip."

It turned to Spike who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but in the same crypt with Buffy and her double.

"Do you also wish me to go on this trip?"

"Uh…"

He shot a look at the blonde, holding the door open and tapping her toe in growing anger.

"Yes! Yes, luv, I want you to go. Take all the time you need. Get us some milk…get us the whole bloody cow, for all I care!"

The Bot smiled on.

"Okay. Shall I go and roll Xander for the money again?"

Spike grabbed her, putting a hand over her mouth before she could say more, but knowing that it was far too late.

Buffy, still holding the door open, noticed that the morning sun was beginning to creep across the floor toward the vampire.

She slammed it shut, and stood there with her back to them, muttering to herself a moment, and then spit the words over her shoulder.

"Spike! Tell that…thing…that if it wants to stay in one piece and not end up on the scrap heap, that it had better get back downstairs where it can find someone else to annoy the hell out of."

She remained standing, with her back to the pair, refusing to look at the robot again, because every time she did, she got a mental image of Spike and that hunk of wiring in an intimate embrace, and she thought she might explode, or at the very least, punch the vampire in the nose again.

Spike whispered, so his words didn’t carry. "Be a good luv, for daddy, and go along downstairs, alright? Why did you come up here in the first place? Who turned you back on?"

The Bot grinned, sexily at him.

"Oh, Spike. You know that you always turn me on!"

She grabbed him before he could duck and covered his lips with her own.

He pushed her off, still trying not to make any more noise than he had to.

"Did someone send you up here?"

"Yes, Willow did. Although she is recently gay, she is concerned for you, and said that you would be lonely. She said to give you a big kiss."

The Bot beamed, so brightly, that it hurt the vampire’s eyes.

He was going to have to get Willow, for that one, even though he had it coming for the trick he’d tried to pull on the witch himself.

"Well, that’s very sweet of her, innit’?" An evil smirk appeared on his face.

He turned the Bot back toward the trap door.

"Run on back down now, and give Willow an even bigger kiss, right on the lips, and then you be sure to tell her that it’s from me."

He leaned in close to the robot’s ear, not that it mattered, because she probably didn’t hear with it anyway, but he wanted to be certain that Buffy didn’t hear it at all.

"And after you do that, you tell her that I’ll be giving her one myself, when I can spare the time."

That should keep that wise witch off balance for awhile.

The Bot nodded, and then handed him a small plastic cup, which she’d been holding in her hand the whole time but it had gone unnoticed.

"What the bleedin’ hell is this for?"

She then handed him a note, which she had in the opposite hand.

Spike’s patience was running thin.

"And what’s all this, now?"

"Willow would not tell me. She will tell you in the note. Willow said that I might say the wrong thing in front of…"

She pointed to Buffy, who by now, had steam coming from her ears.

"HER. Willow says that she is very sensitive, and that I talk too much. Do you think that I talk too much? I don’t think that I talk too much, and she also says I’m a robot, like that other Buffy does, but I don’t think that I am. Do you think that I am?…Why are you staring at me?"

Spike decided that he’d spent far too much time with Harmony, and that the Bot’s chatter must be a result of that, having ended up in her programming.

He shook his head in disgust and gave the Bot a shove, which caught it off guard, and sent it tumbling through the trap door.

He slammed the door down behind it, ignoring the noise the Bot made as it landed down below, and opened the note which was written, to his surprise, in Dawn’s handwriting.

After rereading it twice, he wondered if vampires were supposed to have headaches all the time, and couldn’t remember ever having one before knowing Buffy and her family and friends.

Buffy’s blood? How the hell was he going to get her in the mood for sex after this?

And the only other way was to just punch her in the nose, because he certainly wasn’t going to tell her the truth, that Dawn was in on some crazy scheme to get rid of Glory.

He paled further, at the thought. He’d be dust for sure if he participated in this, but how could he not?

Willow said in the note, that she was fairly certain this time that with the Slayer’s blood, she had a spell to stop the Hell God once and for all.

And, he was sure of his power over Buffy.

Of course, he was sure of his power over most women, but that was beside the point.

He turned , stuffing the note in his pocket, and put the cup on top of the sarcophagus.

Buffy had grown tired of standing there, fuming, and stalked back to him.

"Well? Did you get rid of Skirt Girl for good, or does she desire a threesome?"

Spike saw that it was going to take all of his considerable skills to get her warmed up this time, indeed, he could feel a chill emanating from her which rivaled that of the crypt.

So he decided to go with a partially true feeling, and wing it.

He allowed his posture to slump, a bit, and tried to convey some remorse, as well as dejection, into his stance. It wasn’t hard to slump…he bloody needed sleep.

Buffy was tired as well, or she might have fired off some questions.

As it was, she just sighed, and looked at him fondly.

"What’s the matter now, fang boy? Did you break your best toy?"

Spike kept his triumphant grin to himself.

"S’ok. Just tired I guess. And you know I don’t care anything about that robot, so let’s just forget about her, shall we? She bloody embarrasses me."

He encircled Buffy in his arms and hugged her to him, thinking, that one of these days he would ‘really’ be embarrassed if Buffy ever caught him having a quickie with the Bot while she was PMS impaired.

It was too tempting, and he would have to see about getting rid of his toy, even though he was fond of it.

He did have the real thing now, loved her more than unlife itself, and nothing was more important to him than Buffy, and her feelings.

Buffy pulled away far enough to look up at him through her eyelashes and smile coyly.

"How about ‘I’ embarrass you a little, right now?"

Spike gazed down at her, his own eyes smoldering with desire, nearly forgetting what he was supposed to be doing at the moment.

"Suppose you just go on and do that, Luv?"

Buffy smiled, and leaned around him to yell down the doorway to the caves below.

"Hey! Anya! Spike and I are going to have sex now!"

Spike just threw his head back and rolled his eyes.

He should have seen that one coming.

"Oh for the love of God!" Giles’ voice floated up from below, and they could hear Anya giggling.

"OK!" The ex-demon yelled back.

"Xander and I will go for round two!"

Xander’s mumbling was barely audible over Anya’s normal tones.

Spike stopped and smiled, his lips inches from Buffy’s moist ones, watching her as she ran the tip of her tongue around them in invitation.

It seemed that they were behind on points in the shagging category, and that would never do. Getting the blood was just a sideline to the vampire, now, and he leaned closer, as he began chasing her tongue with his own.

As they went down on the quilt again, he had the presence of mind, however, to grab the little cup and put it within his reach.

Buffy, lost in a sea of sensation from the way his tongue was exploring her mouth, didn’t notice anything, and when she felt him pressing his erection into her she lost all desire to do anything but divest them both of all remaining clothing and get their bare flesh together before the flames that were licking at her brain from her lower regions, fried her mind completely.

They had learned each other’s bodies well, since that first encounter, which seemed like forever to them both, even as it felt like the first time, and soon he had her to the brink of a release that she knew would be among the strongest she had ever experienced.

He was right there, with her, but before he let it happen for her, as well as himself, he reached out and grabbed the cup, knowing that she was closer than he to going over the edge, and that he had a few precious moments to do the deed and not get caught red handed.

Literally.

With no warning, he vamped, and went in for the goods.

It was harder than he’d thought it would be, to take only a sip or two, and he swallowed the first one due to the intensity of the moment.

The second sip made it to the cup with only the tiniest little splat.

Buffy, lost in the sensation of his tongue lapping at the punctures in her neck, and his cock inside her body, might never have noticed a thing but for that little noise.

Spike froze, and then sat the cup behind a lamp on the table beside the tomb.

Shit. That had been a bit noticeable, hadn’t it? As a vampire, his hearing was acute, but as a Slayer, Buffy’s was equal to or better than his own.

Buffy, about to come one moment, and frustrated the next by his sudden pause mid stroke, had time to dwell on the sound she’d heard with her Slayer enhanced ears.

He knew he’d never be able to explain it.

‘Oh, Buffy, that’s just a little snack for later.’ Or, ‘I want to make a clone, to remember you by when you grow old and gray, and I live forever.’

Fuck…definitely not that last.

So he attacked her lips with a passion that caused her to forget all about anything but responding, and getting enough air to breathe.

And since ‘he’ didn’t have to worry about air, he could concentrate on what he did without any distraction whatsoever.

Which he did.

He slammed into her with enough force to shift the quilt beneath them, began a series of circular motions against her body, and as he felt her start to quiver around his hard, silky flesh, he came, slightly ahead of her, but knowing that she was seconds away herself.

The delicious pressure she was putting on him as her inner muscles clamped around him, was just too good.

Seeing her elbow knock the table beside them, he reached out and steadied it with one hand, and collapsed on top of her, more exhausted than he’d been all the previous night.

But very satisfied.

He resisted the urge to knock it over himself, spill the blood, and start all over again.

He rolled so that he was blocking the table from her view, as she sighed and cuddled into his chest, draping one leg over his body.

Not that he couldn’t do it again. He was just too bloody tired and they both needed sleep.

As his eyes began to drift shut, he heard a scratching sound, coming from the general direction of the trap door.

He glanced down at Buffy’s blonde head, and found that she was still cuddled close to his body, but her eyes were wide open, and studying him with a speculative gaze.

Spike smiled at her, to hide his nervousness.

She shifted a bit, put one arm behind her head, and let the fingers of her free hand circle his bare chest, the nails grazing a nipple softly as they passed over it.

"Happy Luv?" He ventured, but knowing he was toast.

"OH yeah. I’m in the land of the thoroughly satisfied and extremely sleepy."

He relaxed. Maybe he had read her body language incorrectly. He leaned down and moved to kiss her.

No…he’d been right to assume she was suspicious, he knew, as her teeth grabbed on to his lower lip and bit down, trapping his face an inch from her own.

End Part 9

**********

Part 10

***********

He froze. "Mmmff??"

She released him. She watched his eyes dart around the crypt and come back to her, but not before they paused on the bedside table.

She didn’t spare it a glance, because she had put together the series of sounds, playing them in her mind, and had come up with a conclusion.

She put one arm behind his head and fisted a handful of hair, bringing his face down to hers again.

He knew the jig was up, but didn’t want to give up just yet. Maybe if he kissed her, and then…

But her expression stopped him cold…which he was accustomed to, and he sighed.

"What." He winced as her grip on his hair tightened.

She gave him a quick kiss, to his surprise, and then a stern look.

"Why did you spit my blood into a cup earlier, why is that cup sitting there on that table, and WHO is trying to get your attention over there at the trapdoor?"

Spike swallowed, and said the first idiotic thing that came to his mind.

"I just brushed my teeth…didn’t have time to dispose of the blood while we were in the throes of passion…I have NO idea what that scratching sound is, and…and…you don’t believe a bloody word of anything I just said, do you?"

Small wonder, he thought.

The tooth brushing thing was just sodding pitiful.

At Buffy’s glare, he slumped onto her body, hoping he could throw himself on the mercy of the court by reminding her how wonderful their naked bodies felt together.

Or maybe he’d just seem to pitiful to beat to a pulp. He’d take that.

Before Buffy could grill him further, the trap door popped open with a loud noise that caused them both to jump and clutch at the edges of the quilt, bringing it up around and over them to hide their nudity.

Buffy’s grinning double stuck her head up through the opening and said, cheerfully.

"I am not harmed in any way by my fall."

The Slayer was just about to untangle herself and harm the bot permanently, when Willow’s voice could be heard, telling it something.

The Bot looked all around her, searching for something, and finally smiled at Spike again.

"Where is the blood? I must get the cup with the blood in it."

Buffy took hold of Spike’s ear and pinched it, hard, and wouldn’t let go.

By this time Willow had stuck her head up to see what was going on, and decided to let discretion be the better part of valor.

"Oh, shit!" She said, and dragged the Bot back down the ladder.

Spike thought his ear was going to be ripped right off his head.

"OW! Bloody Hell, Slayer, let go of my ear!"

Now that the audience had departed, the tiny blonde got up and straddled the vampire, pinning his arms to his sides.

"Talk. Now. Or I’ll slap you so hard it will reactivate that damned chip of yours!"

Spike wriggled, but she had him in a secure hold. Next he tried a more suggestive wriggle, and turned on his sexiest expression.

She drew back her arm and he totally wimped out.

"Alright! I’ll tell you! It’s not even that big a deal."

"If it’s not of the bad, then why are you trying so hard to keep me out of the loop about it?"

Good point. And now that he thought about it, she needed to know.

And he wasn’t so sure himself that Dawn should be involved in this scheme. If anything happened to her…he didn’t even know if the Nibblet was physically involved, or just a helper.

"I took the blood for Willow. She’s gonna do a spell of some kind, to nix Glory."

Buffy peered suspiciously at him, and he sighed, and continued.

"Don’t get your knickers in a twist, I don’t plan on letting Dawn get involved any more than she is already."

He saw the slap coming, and took it like a vampire. It hurt him, but not as much as the look of betrayal that he saw in Buffy’s eyes.

He gathered the quilt around him and followed her around the crypt as she grabbed her clothing from several interesting places and began to put it on.

Seeing that she was seriously intent on going below and perhaps putting a stop to things, he dropped the quilt and quickly grabbed his pants, pulling them on, still hopping after her, trying to think of something he could say to ward off her growing anger.

When he saw her miss the scrap of silky underwear, he snatched it himself, and out of habit, put it in his pocket, and grabbed her by one arm.

"Buffy! Don’t go down there all pissed off. It’s my fault. All my idea, and Willow and Dawn just got caught up in it, is all."

She had noticed it, when he stuck her underwear in his jean pocket, and that gesture, so Spike like, and his willingness to take the blame onto his own shoulders alone, weakened her resolve a little.

Placing a hand on his high cheekbone, and smiling as he closed his eyes and fairly purred into her hand, she sighed.

"Ok."

He looked up, surprised.

"Ok? Ok what?"

"I’ll listen to Willow’s plan, and then we’ll see. But there’s one thing that I want you to promise me."

UH oh.

"Anything."

"After all this is over… I prefer sooner but we might have a use for it… that damned sex toy is ‘gone’. Are we clear?"

Well. That had been easy. He’d already decided to do that, anyway.

"Of course, Luv, anything you say."

He hugged her to him, and turned her so that she was unaware of Willow, who sneaked over to the tomb and snatched the cup of blood.

The red head grinned at him, gave him the thumbs up sign, and disappeared back down the rabbit hole.

He shook his head.

This thing was starting to seem like a fairy tale to him, and he was eager to have it over with so he could get back to shagging the Slayer on a daily basis with no thought of Hell Gods, cross dressers, or perverted Watchers.

It was about then, that Buffy noticed that the cup was missing, and she glared at Spike with renewed ire.

**********

Down below, the deed had been done.

Willow proudly put the cap on the old wine bottle that contained the potion that she and Dawn had concocted together.

Tara stood to one side, refreshed from her nap, but a little disappointed at being left out of the actual spell.

The others were stirring, with the exception of Xander and Anya, who had wracked up more points over Buffy and Spikes score, and were sleeping the sleep of the truly satiated.

Giles came to stand beside Willow, and his disapproving thoughts were etched clearly into his face.

Or maybe that was just lack of sleep, because they all looked just as haggard.

Joyce passed cups of coffee around, except for one cup, which she handed to Spike as he and Buffy hurried up to the yawning group.

He nodded his thanks, and sipping it, noticed that the blood was warm, and glanced at her in question over the rim of the cup.

She smiled warmly at the vampire of whom she had begun to think of as family.

"I put the bag in my pocket while I napped, so that it wouldn’t be so chilled right out of the cooler."

He stopped drinking and stared at her, stunned.

He was about to stammer his thanks, nearly overcome all of a sudden at her kindness to him, but she stopped him, patting his shoulder with a light touch, as she moved off to make up some of the beds.

Buffy hadn’t missed the exchange, nor the fact that Spike’s eyes were suspiciously bright, but the vampire turned away slightly, at her perusal.

Time to get down to business.

"Willow? Care to explain why you found it necessary to leap into this little plan of yours, without mentioning it to me?"

The witch sat the bottle down inside the cooler, where it was safe in case the fur started to fly.

She straightened back up and faced her best friend, looking her in the eye.

"Because I knew you didn’t have any faith in my witchcraft."

Buffy blinked at her. "Huh?"

"You don’t! Admit it! You’re always right there with a joke, or a jibe, at my expense, and if it isn’t you,…well…then it’s your new BOY friend, who by the way…isn’t even a real boy…or a man…and isn’t even alive, at least not really, and…and…"

"I’m sorry, Wil." Buffy said softly.

Willow was still trying to find the words to explain her hurt, and looked at Buffy.

"What?"

"I said I’m sorry. And I’m ready to listen to whatever you have planned. That thing you did earlier, to Glory? It worked, right? And we were all very proud of that, weren’t we?"

Willow glanced around the group and saw that all were nodding in agreement, except for Xander and Anya, who were still no shows, and the rat, Amy, which was squealing for some breakfast.

Buffy smiled at her chum and then gave her a stern look.

"There’s only one thing that I ask of you."

"What is it?" The red head said warily.

"Disable that fucking, robot bitch, before I strangle it."

Willow grinned in relief. "Deal!"

She felt light as a cloud, basking in all the praise shining from the group’s eyes. But she knew that the hard part was still ahead.

She turned to Spike, and stopped smiling, her face becoming serious and contemplative.

The vampire reflexively covered his nether regions, stopped himself, and then mouthed a ‘sorry’ at her.

He didn’t like that look on her face, and was afraid that she was going to involve him in something that he already knew he was going to hate.

Willow relaxed her features, realizing that Spike was an important part of the plan that she had worked out, and it wouldn’t do to make him

skittish before she’d even explained it to him.

And besides, she had said some things that might have hurt his feelings a moment ago…and she hadn’t meant any of it.

She grinned at him, suddenly.

"Hey…so where’s my kiss?"

Buffy was shocked when Spike grinned back at the witch in relief, and stalking forward, grabbed Willow in a passionate embrace and kissed her full on the mouth.

The red head’s arms had been around Spike’s neck after only a few seconds, but now they just fell away, and hung there, as if she’d passed out, as Spike gave her his best ‘reserved for women I really like’ kiss.

The kiss continued for an embarrassingly long while, until Buffy had enough and cleared her throat loudly.

Spike, knowing he was pressing his luck, brought them both up from where he’d had her nearly bent backwards to the floor, and set Willow upright once more, stepping back to Buffy’s side with an unrepentant smirk.

"I always keep my promises, Luv." He said to Buffy, who was clueless, but shrugged.

She didn’t have the time to delve into Spike and Willow’s mock feud right now.

"As I was saying, before I was interrupted by that rude display of tonsil hockey, Willow and SPIKE…I need to hear what the plan is, just in case I’m like, a part of it maybe?"

Giles had been cleaning his glasses for the longest time, but felt it safe to put them back on and made the mistake of looking in the vampire’s direction.

Spike stuck his tongue out and waggled it at him, lewdly.

The Watcher sighed, wondering how he managed to do that and still hold onto the smirk.

"Yes, Willow." Giles was eager to get things back on track.

"Do tell us what you’ve been up to, and please don’t let it have anything to do with Spike."

Xander and Anya walked up, holding their newly acquired coffee cups.

"I’ll second that demotion." Yawned the sleepy Xander, and Anya nodded.

"Yes. I agree with that. If it hadn’t been for the sex, that nap was totally useless, what with all the lip locking and the banging around going on up above. But at least Xander and I were ahead with our number of orgasms being so much more…"

Xander, totally awake now, cut in before she could finish and completely embarrass him beyond repair.

"OK. I think that we can all agree that Spike has had enough to do lately in the war against Glory. So Willow, if you and Tara would please explain what happens next which will have nothing to do with Dead Boy Junior, I would be ‘eternally’ grateful."

Tara had been quiet up to now, but glanced at Willow, who didn’t quite meet her eyes.

"I think that Willow can best explain it."

Then she turned and went back to sit on her cot in the shadows.

Willow sighed. She knew that later, when there was time, she would have to make it up to her friend and lover, but right now, they needed to get moving, before Glory rallied from her road trip and returned, looking for the lot of them.

She turned to Spike again, and fixed him in place with her thoughtful gaze once more.

The blonde vampire tensed again, but managed to project an outward façade of calm. He lit a cigarette, knowing that his hands shook slightly, but unable to prevent it.

He just knew, that Willow’s plan was going to involve his standing toe to toe with the queen of bad home perms, and after his little session with her the first time, the thought of going back for more was not appealing.

He put his lighter back in his pocket, and gave the witch a cocky glance.

"So, Red, what’s the job?"

Willow spared him the time for an admiring glance, that carried with it an apology, for she knew where his thoughts had been.

Buffy fidgeted, beside Spike, and finally grabbed the cigarette from his hand and ground it out under the heel of her little black boot.

"Oy! That’s from my last pack, and I had a job finding it after your friends’ little bit of housecleaning!"

Anya elbowed Joyce, who pretended not to notice.

"Told you we missed one!"

Buffy ignored them, and stared at Willow, who was looking at her, clearly upset about something, but not sharing.

Dawn stepped forward.

"First of all, it was my idea to do this with Willow, and, like, ‘please’ don’t be mad at her, ok?"

She ignored the look that her mother was giving her, altogether.

Buffy turned back to the witch, who was gathering her ‘resolve face’.

"Wil…you involved Dawn in this? How could you? It’s dangerous enough that she’s the very thing that Glory is looking for, and you want to wave her right under the bitch’s nose?"

After a glance in Tara’s direction and receiving a look which clearly told her that she was on her own, Willow stepped up to Buffy with a pleading look on her face.

"Buffy, please, try to think how Dawny must feel. She’s some kind of a key, and not only does she have all those feelings of being different from all of us to overcome, she’s scared to death of what it is that Glory needs her for. Let’s face it…it won’t be to unlock a giant liquor cabinet somewhere!"

Giles spoke up, before the girls could waste any more of their limited time. He couldn’t speak for the others, but as for himself, he wanted this over, and to find himself back at his flat, sipping a cup of tea.

"There will undoubtedly be ample time for assigning blame at a later date."

He turned to Willow, giving Buffy a stern eye before focusing his attention on the Witch.

"Please do relieve the tension of everyone in this room, and tell us what this undoubtedly ‘brilliant’ plan, is."

Anya smiled, widely.

"I’m not tense at all. Not any more."

When the entire assemblage glared collectively at her, she wiped off the smile and examined her nails.

Willow gave Buffy a small smile, and approached Spike, who had been observing her, warily.

To his surprise, the witch embraced him, hugging him to her for a moment, and then stepping back.

"I’m sorry about earlier, and I’m sorry for what you’re gonna have to do…that is…I mean…I can’t force you, of course, but there really isn’t anyone else who can go."

Spike was about to ask her to just cut to the chase, when she stared at him, intensely, and he heard his answer between his ears.

Heard it in his head, and Willow’s lips weren’t moving.

He listened for a moment, in awe of her power once again, as she outlined the whole thing to him, before he spoke.

"Cor…that was just…neat."

"Will you do it?" She asked.

Spike looked around at the questioning faces, and finally his blue eyes rested on Buffy. He gazed down at her upturned, questioning, face, and saw the beginning of understanding, and not a little fear, in it.

She meant the world to him.

She, her sister, her mother, and even these others gathered here in his home, waiting to hear what he would do. There was really no choice.

He couldn’t lose his new ‘family’, and he’d die before he let Buffy risk her life alone again, fighting Glory, whom he knew from personal experience, was the strongest, and on top of that, fought dirty.

He turned to Willow again.

"I will. It’ll be a bloody piece of cake."

He didn’t risk another look Buffy’s way.

End part 10

**********

Part 11

**********

The scabby minion hurried to the large double doors and swung them open, stopping to bow in obeisance, before he continued into the room and dropped to his knees before reclining figure of his God.

Wincing as his long skinny nose, the one that Glory had twisted painfully only the day before, scraped the carpeted floor, he spoke,

keeping his head down.

"Oh most beauteous Glorificus, she who graces us with her divine presence, with her most wondrously arousing odors…"

Glory’s little foot shot out, the heel of her sandal catching Jinx in the forehead, causing him to tumble backwards and lie on his back where he wisely remained.

"Enough with the friggin’ ‘brownnosing’! What is it already?"

One of the female minions came forward timidly.

"Oh most high, I beg of you to pardon this intrusion, but there is a…vampire to see you."

Glory wrinkled up her nose in displeasure. Vampire?

After her last encounter with a vampire she’d eaten hundreds of miles of asphalt, and all the mouthwash her minions could buy up still hadn’t gotten it’s taste out of her mouth.

Upon her return, courtesy of a randy truck driver, whose brain she drained as soon as they reached the city limits of Sunnydale, the first thing she did was to go to the nearest cemetery to look for the bleached blonde vamp who had been involved in her unplanned vacation.

After stomping about in rage with no results, she waited until nightfall, and personally staked every vamp that stirred in the place.

Including some dumb blonde bimbo who had told her that she had bitchin’ hair, and had asked her if she liked unicorns.

What an airhead ‘that’ one had been. And her name…well maybe Sunnydale would actually ’have’ some ‘harmony’ with that chatterbox idiot gone, not that she cared one way or the other.

She tossed her hair back, trying to ignore the fact that it was shorter on one side than the other, due to a particularly thorny, brushy section of a desert road.

"Speak up you worthless ninny! What vampire?"

I believe he said his name is Spike. And, most exalted one, may I just say, that he’s wearing a coat."

She said the last with a dreamy expression, and clasped her hands to her breasts in obvious ecstasy.

At the name, Glory rose from her couch, and stared in the direction of the open double doors, unable to believe that her enemy would willingly walk into her clutches again, and was immediately suspicious.

"Jinxy! Get your ass up, and drag that vampire in here, and this had better not be another one of your attempts to curry my favor! If it’s not him, if you’ve found another one and you’re trying to trick…"

She stopped, mid sentence, as Spike walked through the doors like he owned the place and everyone in it.

He strode up to where she stood, dumbfounded, and speechless, her red painted mouth hanging wide open.

Spike reached out and closed her lips with a finger, and she resisted the urge to bite it off.

"What are ‘you’ doing here, you little shit?"

He cocked his head to one side, and gave her his sexiest, smoldering look.

"Now, is that any way to greet your most avid admirer, Pet?"

About to issue the orders to dust the vampire who had been so foolish as to make her fondest wish come true, she frowned.

"My ‘what’?"

Spike increased his nearness to the woman, who was vibrating in her eagerness to off him and be done with it, but intrigued, he could tell, by his presence.

Never underestimate the charms of William the Bloody.

He was ashamed he hadn’t tried it the first time, and he might have spared himself a painful thrashing.

He was so close to her, now, that her breath was tickling him as she stared up into his face.

She shook her head and stepped back. Why was she feeling so fuzzy, all of a sudden?

Spike reached into his duster and produced the Dagon Sphere.

"This bothering you?" He smiled.

"I knew it! You can’t think that you can do anything to me, you puny little…"

Spike tossed the sphere to Jinx, who had only just arisen from the floor, and the minion caught it, it’s momentum causing him to go over backwards once again.

"Tell your little buddy to dispose of that however he likes."

Alright. Now she was really confused. The effects of the sphere were causing her to lose some of her ability to reason, but why the hell had her enemy tossed away his one ace in the hole?

As if in answer, Spike crossed the short distance between them, and pulled her into his arms.

She ignored the little sigh from her maid, and just looked up into his eyes in total befuddlement.

She didn’t know what his game was, but she was too woozy to do anything until that damned ‘thing’ was out of there and away from her.

She turned slightly in the vampire’s embrace, and spat at her minions.

"Jinx! You and this other idiot take the others and get rid of the Sphere. Then do a patrol of the grounds. I don’t think this vampire is here by himself, he doesn’t look that stupid."

She turned her gaze back to Spike’s and found him an inch from her lips, with his own.

"You wouldn’t dare…"

"Oh, Pet. That’s the three words no one should ever say to me."

He dived in for a kiss that took the Hell God completely unawares, and as she began to push him away like the flea he was, she felt an unfamiliar warmth stealing over her entire body.

She could have just hung there in his embrace awhile longer, but she felt something hard nudging her thigh, and broke the kiss, stepping back, looking at him with an awed expression.

Then she shook her head again, trying to clear it of it’s haze.

"That couldn’t be what I thought it was, Vampire, NO one is that big, and believe me, I know."

He chuckled, throwing her even further off balance, and reaching into his duster again, he pulled out a large, old looking wine bottle, which dripped with moisture, indicating that it had been recently chilled.

He held it up for her inspection.

"It’s a gift. A little ice breaker, if you will. Something to christen what I hope will be a long and hot relationship between you and I".

He paused, and saw she was having trouble believing a word he said. and he could hardly blame her.

I’m here to apologize for my recent treatment of you, and to explain that it was all a witch’s bloody spell…she made me kick you in your oh so lovely ass, and I’m here to tell you I’m sorry."

Glory wasn’t born yesterday.

"What, do you think I was born yesterday? You were enjoying every moment of it."

"A spell. A dastardly evil spell, because she knew that I was becoming infatuated with you, and the Slayer, my lover, is the witch’s best friend."

He saw that she was wavering, and plunged ahead.

"You turned me on, that time when you tortured me, I can’t get it out of my head…I bloody loved it."

Glory thought about this for a moment, but she was still dizzy, and she couldn’t understand why, with the Sphere gone.

But Spike didn’t give her any time to reason it out. He came swiftly to her and kissed her again, and this time, she participated.

He’d been afraid of that…the one thing he knew could happen that was sure to distress him almost as much as getting dusted, was that the Hell God might be horny.

He tried to think of himself as a soldier with a mission, but that caused him to think of Riley, which nauseated him, so he finally pulled away, breaking her iron lip lock with great difficulty.

On with the show…I should get at least an emmy for this performance, he thought, grimly.

Of course, Vampires never win those things.

"You turn me on, darlin’ so bloody much, do you know that?"

He whispered into her ear, in a husky, sexy tone, which he punctuated by sticking his tongue in her ear.

"And that packet of photos that you left for the Watcher…they made me so bloody hot for you, that I just had to come back, and see if there’s a chance that you could feel the same way about me."

He paused, for dramatic effect.

"I may be a monster, but you treat me like a man, and that’s a real compliment, considering how much you ‘like’ monsters."

He reached down and patted yet another duster pocket which hid the real Dagon Sphere, with his free hand, as the other one grabbed a handful of Glory’s ass.

When she responded by grinding her pelvis against him he decided he had one of two options…go down on the floor and let her have her way with him, or put the rest of his cards on the table, and play his hand as it was.

He wasn’t surprised when his lower half voted for the former option.

"Traitor", he said, without thinking.

Glory pulled away a few inches and smiled up at Spike.

She fully intended to kill this upstart, but she’d never had a vampire, and even in her dizzy state, it seemed a good idea to do it before he was dust.

"What did you say?"

"Oh…I said, I’m a traitor, to my kind, cause I’m always killing them, and all."

She nodded in agreement. She could understand that. She’d killed nearly everything at least once.

"And now, you’re a traitor to your little bitch of a girlfriend, aren’t you, my poor little vampire?"

She moved even closer again, and ran one hand down his t-shirt covered abdomen, and lower, until she cupped his balls through the material of his jeans.

"Oh…how nice. Someone doesn’t wear underwear."

Before he could reply, or catch his unbreath from her fondling, she pushed him backwards with enough strength to send him flying onto the bed.

"Bloody Hell!!…Not again!"

Before he could jump up, however, she was on him.

"Don’t worry, precious. I won’t hurt you. Yet. I’m beginning to see just why that little Slayer chickie keeps you around the place."

To his horror, she reached for the waistband of his jeans, and it took all of his willpower to keep from screaming like a girl, or Xander, whichever applied.

If she got him undressed and that meant the coat would have to come off, he’d loose his edge, because the Sphere would be too far away to work effectively.

Time to spring the last trap…

He stopped her with his hand over hers, and she eyed him, woozily.

"What gives, you stupid vampire? Would you rather skip the foreplay and go right to the dieing?"

He brought her captured hand to his lips, and kissed it, licking the palm with the tip of his tongue.

"I have another surprise for you."

"What is it?"

Spike got out from under her, and off the bed, easier than he’d thought, and headed for the doors.

"You get back here, you bleached moron!"

She wasn’t too angry to notice what a nice ass he had, and smiled, as he trotted away.

He couldn’t get far, with her minions all around the place.

He hurried. He needed to keep her disoriented, or she’d be too suspicious of anything he offered her.

He reached around the corner, glad to see that the minions hadn’t moved it, and grabbed his other gift.

End Part 11

***********

Part 12

***********

He turned and carried the cage containing Amy the rat into the room, and placed it on the floor beside Glory’s feet, at the foot of the bed.

While she eyed it with obvious distaste, he snatched up the wine bottle and brought it to the bed, producing two glasses from his endless supply of pockets.

"A toast!"

He felt silly as hell saying it, but looked at her like he was a randy shepherd and she was a whole flock of sheep.

She looked at the rat in the cage, and back up at the vampire.

"Well, if that thing is a present for me, it’s a damned good thing that you brought the friggin’ wine! Where the Hell did you get the idea that I’d want a rat?"

"Oh…one of your minions told me that you loved the things. I killed him, after he told me what I wanted to know, that is."

"Good. You saved me the trouble."

She shook her head, wondering again why the dizziness was unabated.

Spike wasted no more time. Willow’s spell might not last much longer, and the potion could be useless.

He popped the cork, and poured her a glass first, handing it to her, and then one for himself, purposely overfilling it so that he had to pretend to take a sip from it so it wouldn’t spill, thus calming any qualms she might have about a trick of some kind.

"To your luscious lips and sexy ass…and Hell, while we’re at it, to ‘my’ sexy ass as well."

He faked another sip, just to make sure, and was rewarded when he saw Glory raise the glass to her lips.

"You know…I just may keep you around, after all."

She took a large sip from the glass.

Glory held the empty glass out for him to refill it, looking him up and down, her gaze stopping on his crotch.

"And after we finish this great big bottle, I want to see your great big…"

Spike didn’t wait any longer, as much for fear of having to give up his goodies, as for running out of time. It was the first time that he’d been scared to death to have sex since Drusilla had popped his cherry!

He spoke the words that Willow had told him would trigger the spell, and immediately felt like an ass again.

"What’s With You, Scooby Doo?"

He made himself a promise, to tell Willow to work on her catch phrases for spells, and if this one didn’t work and he was left feeling silly and then a pile of dust, he’d be really pissed.

With a ‘poof’ even bigger than Angel at his whiniest, Glory disappeared.

Through a lot of purple smoke, Spike got his first real look at Amy, as she appeared in human form for the second time since she’d been a rat, in the very spot that Glory had vacated.

Spike cocked his head sideways, and studied her, grinning.

"Well…‘Ello there, Ducks."

Amy’s eyes were tightly shut, and she was afraid that if she opened them she’d be back in that damned cage, like the last time.

She squeezed one eye open and saw Spike, smirking at her.

"Don’t worry, Pet. I’ve seen lots of naked women." He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

Amy squealed and grabbed at the comforter on the bed, pulling it around her, as Spike turned his attention to the cage and it’s new occupant.

As he peered in at her, he was sure that he saw the rage glimmering in her eyes, and as he opened the cage door and tossed the Dagon Sphere inside it, watching her feebly try to push it away, he grinned.

"Just think of it as a special toy, Luv. Most rodents in your position only have little wheels to play with."

He heard a scuffle going on somewhere in the house, which could only mean that the rest of the crew had arrived and were bashing minions right and left without him, but he decided that he had done enough.

He sat down on the bed beside Amy, who drew the covers more tightly around her naked body.

He smiled at her, doing his best choirboy imitation, but she clearly wasn’t fooled.

Buffy and Giles burst through the doorway ready for action, only to find Spike just sitting there, with a naked Amy, about half a blanket in his fist, and a big evil grin on his face.

"Leave her alone, Spike."

Giles frowned at the vampire sternly, and went to retrieve the cage with it’s deadly contents.

The rat hissed malevolently at him as he raised the cage and studied her through the wire.

As long as the Sphere was in there, he had no worries that she could get out of the rat’s body, and he didn’t intend to wait for someone to mistakenly take it out.

He had a car parked, it’s engine running, in a closed garage under the condo, with a special hose hooked up so that all the fumes were inside it.

It was to be Glory’s tomb.

Buffy went straight to Spike and he leaped off the bed, meeting her half way, as they embraced each other fiercely and then began to kiss as if the world had nearly ended.

Giles rolled his eyes.

"Oh dear. This is where I came in."

The embarrassed Watcher grabbed up the cage and it’s unholy burden, and departed with haste.

He only made it as far as the doors to the room, however, as the rest of the Scoobies came pouring in, and Willow brushed him aside without a glance at the cage in his hands, as she saw Amy.

"Amy!" She squealed, and grabbed her friend in a ‘long time no see as a human’ hug.

Amy hugged her back, and then, remembering her unclothed state, sat back down on the bed and grinned, sheepishly.

Willow plopped down beside her, grinning from ear to ear.

"Good to see you, girlfriend! And hey, look, no rat hair!"

Amy smiled back, and glanced uncertainly at the vampire and the slayer, who were still lost in each other’s embrace.

Willow patted her hand.

"A lot has happened, and really quickly lately. And most of it is pretty strange, even for a Hellmouth. But I’ll catch you up, later."

About then, and just as Giles was about to finally get out of the room with Glory Rat, a completely unexpected person came running into the room, his eyes wide, and a silly grin plastered to his face.

"I’m FREE!" Ben yelled, as he hopped up and down in excitement.

"I can’t feel her anymore! She’s gone! I don’t know how you did it, but somehow you did, and from this day forward, free medical treatment for everyone in this room!"

They were all looking at him as if he were nuts.

He turned to Buffy and Spike, and paused, his elation fading a bit as he realized that he’d lost his chance for a promising relationship with Buffy, then shrugged, knowing that what was most important, his life, had been returned to him, releasing him from the prison he had been in since his birth.

Then he sobered again as he remembered that he was fired.

Too happy to care, he shrugged.

"OK, strike that medical thing…maybe I’ll just work at McDonalds, who the fuck cares?"

He turned to Giles, who was staring at him like he’d lost his mind.

"That’s her, isn’t it? That thing in the cage…it’s Glory?"

He was pretty sure it was, by the little red rat lips.

Giles eyed him uncertainly, wondering if he could be trusted.

"Yes it is. I was just going to see to it that she never returns, that is, if people will stop bursting into the room so that I can make my exit."

Ben sneered derisively at the rat, which seemed to have a worried, yet hopeful look on it’s evil little face.

"Mr. Giles, I know you don’t know me very well, but, may I accompany you? I have a vested interest in seeing that she never comes back."

Ben noticed that the rat gave him a tiny, one finger salute, and smiled.

The Watcher studied the young man for a moment.

"Yes. Of course. I think it would be very fitting that you see the end of the woman who has so obviously victimized you in such a deplorable fashion."

"Huh?"

"I’m referring to the photos of you in drag, you silly boy. What else could you possibly be alluding to?"

Ben put one arm around the Watcher as they left the room. Obviously, he had some explaining to do.

The gang waved ‘bye bye’ to the Hell God as she exited the room and turned to look at one another in triumph. They could hardly believe that it was finally over.

Willow was silent, as she waited, uncertain as to whether or not she should say anything, and then spoke, tentatively.

"Um…Yay on me?"

Five pairs of eyes fastened on the red headed Witch.

Spike sat Buffy back down on the floor and pretended to check himself for missing body parts, patting at his crotch and mouthing a mock ‘Oh Thank You’ at the ceiling.

"Everything’s still here. Good job, Red." His blue eyes twinkled with mirth.

Buffy grinned. "Hey, Spike, you can do better than that, can’t you?"

He stepped across the room in one fluid motion and laid a kiss on the witch that made the other one seem tame by comparison, released her, and was back at Buffy’s side in an instant.

"That’s my thanks, and now, if you all don’t mind, I want to get the hell outa here. This place gives me the creeps. Bad memories and all that."

He saw a small china ashtray on a table, and liking it, scooped it up and stuck it in the pocket of his Duster.

Buffy rolled her eyes, and frowned at him.

Some things never change.

She turned to Xander, Anya, Willow, and Amy.

"Giles will be staying here to conduct a little research after he…deals with Glory. I think it’s time for all of us to go, and if we skip grabbing our stuff at the crypt, we should all be home about at normal bedtime."

She paused and looked up into Spike’s smirking face.

"That is, if we ‘had’ a normal bedtime, not to mention a normal life, what with all the demons, and the vacationing in crypts, and the casting of spells, and the undead running around screwing it all up…"

He silenced her with another kiss, and everything else fell away, and she barely registered the others trooping out, as his lips plundered hers hungrily.

Then she pulled away, suddenly, and glared up at him with fake ire.

"Is that Hell Bitch I taste on your tongue?"

Xander paused, as he and Anya were passing the couple.

To Spike’s surprise the brown eyed man reached out and patted him on the back.

"Good one, Spike."

"Thanks, I think."

"So, how was she?" Xander asked, his eyes twinkling as Anya pulled him out the door before he could say any more.

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

But Buffy’s mind was on other things, and she was silent all the way home until they were actually back in the Summer’s living room.

It had been an interesting ride, in Spike’s old Desoto, which he’d driven there tonight for his ‘date’ with a Hell God.

Even Spike’s usual two tire turns, as he went too fast around the curves, failed to bring Buffy out of her musings, and the others kept quiet as well, each lost in their own thoughts.

Except for one comment from Xander referring to his having to ride in a vampire’s piece of junk instead of a real car.

They had made a stop to drop off Xander and Anya, and to pick up Tara Joyce, and Dawn, who had waited at the crypt.

Willow had left her car at Buffy’s, and she and Tara and Amy would be leaving from there.

Giles had stayed behind, at Glory’s condo, to do his research, and would be taking Ben wherever he wanted to go when that was done.

Spike wondered what Buffy was thinking about, but left her to her thoughts, as he went up and helped Tara and Joyce convince Dawn to go to bed, and then sent the shy girl back outside where Willow waited, Amy in the car, to drive them home.

Amy would be staying with them, until she got her bearings, and Willow was hoping that it wouldn’t get in the way of she and Tara having a heart to heart about the last few days.

Buffy was sitting on the couch, alone, when Spike trotted back down the stairs and plopped down on the couch beside her.

He put one arm over the back of the couch and placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a lascivious look.

"Penny for your thoughts…dollar if their dirty…" He said wickedly.

She smiled at him.

"Actually, you can have them for free. It’s you that always expects payment for info."

Spike pouted. "Did we have to bring ‘that’ up, then?"

She put one hand on his thigh, her fingers near his crotch.

"Plenty of things I’ll bring up, later. Right now, I have something that’s bugging the hell out of me, and I wonder why no one else has mentioned it yet?"

Spike tore his attention from the little white hand that was on another one of it’s famous expeditions.

"What’s that, luv?" He hoped it wasn’t a question that involved his make out session with the hell bitch.

"Well, Dawn."

"Dawn is upstairs, and so is your mum, all tucked into their beddy byes. Now, why don’t you and I do the same?"

But Buffy removed her hand, causing Spike to make an audible sound of disappointment.

She frowned, and folded her arms across her chest, and seemed deep in thought.

Spike made a disgusted sound, and knew that nothing was going to happen in the romance department until the Slayer got rid of whatever was bothering her.

"Oy!" He waved his hand in front of her face.

"Days been saved. Danger’s been averted. Hell God’s a dead rat."

"What else is more important than you and I getting in a little sack time and a quality snog?"

Buffy shot him a determined look, and he rolled his eyes and let his head fall back on the cushion, except that he missed, hitting the wall instead.

"Ow!" He closed his eyes and counted to three, not having the patience for more numbers.

"What is it?" He said, tiredly. "Dawn is perfectly safe now, so what has she got to do with anything?"

Buffy looked at Spike, who was still lying with his head back and his eyes shut.

"I think you need to stop dying your hair."

"Look who’s talkin’," He replied, without moving.

"The bleach has corroded your brain. Dawn. Dawn. Is. The. Key."

Spike’s eyes shot open, and he sat up straight, glancing toward the stairway, thoughtfully.

"Oh, that."

"HUH?" Buffy could hardly believe that he was tossing her worries aside as if they were nothing.

"Spike…my little sister, who didn’t even exist until a few months ago, is a Key, and we don’t know to what."

Spike leaned down and kissed her softly, putting one arm around her and giving her a reassuring hug.

"I guess we’ll just have to wait and see about that. Could be that the power of the key died with the hell bitch."

"Oh."

Buffy hadn’t considered that, but she knew that Giles would be researching that and a lot of other things in the coming weeks. He’d be one happy Watcher.

Spike squeezed her arm and said teasingly, "OR, she could end up being more powerful than Willow, and be the next big bad, and we’ll all have to fight her…"

His reward was a stricken look from a wide eyed Buffy, and he was sorry he had said it.

So he grabbed her and kissed her until she went limp in his arms, and then scooped her up, and carried her toward the stairs.

At the foot of the staircase, Buffy smiled up at him.

"But Spike, I’m hungry."

"So am I. That’s why we’re going upstairs."

She gave him a dirty look.

"I’ll come back down and get us a snack after, ok?"

"After what?" Buffy was beginning to giggle.

He kissed her again, and took the stairs two at a time.

His tunnel vision had kicked in again.

Hopefully, Joyce and Dawn had gone without sleep enough lately to sleep right through a bit of noise.

He couldn’t speak for Buffy, but ’he’ intended to make a ‘lot‘ of it.

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

The end…well maybe…I keep saying that… ;)