Chapter Ten

Buffy awoke with a buzz. Not a blaring alarm clock buzz, but a ‘God, my skin craves Spike’, buzz. For five whole minutes she contemplated the events of the previous night and decided sadly that it was all a dream. That was until Willow entered the room from her shower and asked if Buffy was going to come and help her and Tara look for that spell for Spike’s soul.

With eyes wide in astonishment, Buffy leapt from the bed; frantically started looking for her slippers and a towel and grabbed some clothes and took off for the showers. Two seconds after closing the door behind her, she slammed back into the room to grab her cosmetics bag. With a silly grin she informed Willow that she would need to brush her teeth, and she was off again.

In record time she was back, entering just as Tara reached the door.

“Right,” Buffy began, her voice and facial expression betraying the happy plain that she was visiting. “I think we have some research to do.”

Willow cocked a brow in confusion.

“Um Buff, you do know that research means books, and that means actually sitting at a table with one open and actively reading it?”

Buffy looked at Willow as though she were stupid.

“Of course, Will. And while you guys are looking up that magic stuff, I’ll have some toast or something and see if Giles has come up with any more theories.” Buffy nodded her head determinedly. “Do you think Angel and Spike stayed at Giles’s place last night?”

Willow and Tara exchanged a knowing look.

“D-Don’t vampires sleep during the day?” Tara inquired and Buffy’s good mood deflated with a very obvious pop.

“I forgot about that. Maybe I should do some studying or something and meet you guys there later.”

Now Willow was dumbfounded.

“You want to study?”

Buffy turned to her friend realising what she had proposed.

“Oh, sorry Will, don’t know what I was thinking. Um, what could I do then?”

It was perfectly obvious that Buffy was desperate for some contact with Spike but didn’t want to come across as too eager, so Willow thought to cut her a little slack.

“I’m sure that Giles probably has thought of something. You could tell him about our idea for the spell and see what he thinks. Or you could go tell Xander about Spike’s lips.” Willow shared another of those glances with Tara as they saw Buffy zone out and think again of Spike smoochies. Until the thought of actually telling Xander of said smoochies broke through and she turned grey.

“B-Buffy, I had a thought last night about the spell.” That caught her attention and she narrowed in on the task at hand. The spell was important, not only to satisfy her curiosity, but to ensure that the end of the world was not about to come to a crashing end.

“Yes Tara,” Willow encouraged.

“Well, what I saw last night showed a joining of your soul with Spike’s. I am a little concerned that that will mean if we do a spell on Spike’s soul to find out why he has it, it might combine with yours and drag your memories into the spell. We also don’t know how far into the future this apocalypse is that Spike saved the world from, so you could get stuck in years of memories.” Tara stopped at seeing Buffy shake her head.

“I think that’s unlikely. Most slayers have a short shelf life so I don’t think it can be too many years. Besides, it might be fun to see a little of my own future. Make sure I do things right!” Buffy gave an excited laugh, grabbed both girls hands and dragged them out the door to Giles’ place, stopping for donuts on the way.

When they arrived they found Giles with bloodshot eyes and a heavily fragrant mug of coffee. Buffy looked at him and then the mug, shrugged her shoulders and led the way inside. Lying on the sofa, one leg dangling over the edge and head tucked under his arm, was a very uncomfortable looking Angel. The girls just stared at him before turning their eyes back to Giles, seeking an explanation.

“Spike had a rough night,” was all that he would say before heading back to the kitchen.

Willow headed to the bookshelves, seeking texts on magic and carrying all that she could manage to the table. As they sat and started opening the books to relevant areas, Willow and Tara became absorbed and lost sight of Buffy as she decided to corner Giles in the kitchen.

“What happened?” she pointedly blocked his only way out.

“He just got his soul back after a hundred and twenty odd years of killing. He may have dealt with it in the future, but he is having a little trouble grasping the implications of right now. He only just went to sleep a short while ago. I just wish we knew more about why this has happened.” Giles rubbed a tired fist over his forehead, sweeping his fringe back in frustration.

“We think we might be able to do something about that,” Buffy told him quietly, pointing through the window into the living room and the girls occupied with the books. “Tara mentioned last night that it might be possible to do a hitch-hiker spell to Spike’s soul. It could at least tell us how he got it in the first place. See if it was the same curse that Angel has.”

Giles shook his head in the negative.

“I doubt it is the same curse, Buffy. That spell was lost until Jenny deciphered it. Oh.” His voice petered out as he considered something. “I suppose it might be possible that Willow curses him in the future.”

“Whatever,” she swept her hand in a dismissing motion, pretending that the circumstances behind the spell were unimportant. “What we need to know is if getting his soul back now causes an imbalance or something and that we aren’t going to be facing an apocalypse because of it. We have enough on our plates at the moment with those commandos and trying to work out what their deal is.” Giles nodded his head tiredly in agreement.

“I think someone should probably check that Spike is okay,” Buffy stated hopefully.

“Buffy, I think we should talk about what happened between the two of you last night.” Her body went rigid, waiting for the criticisms to come, and Giles decided belatedly to back off a little. “I told Spike that I wouldn’t stand in the way. It is your situation to sort out, so yes, it would be a good idea for someone to go check on Spike. Would you like to?” She let out a put upon sigh and agreed, following Giles’s pointed finger in the direction of Spike.

His body lay on the fold out bed in Giles’ study, as still as death except for the panicked fluttering of his eyelids. As she stood watching his limbs would give a little jerk, and he would moan every so often. It was obvious that the things he was dreaming about were far from happy.

Feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency, she lay down beside him and reached for his hand. Immediately he seemed to calm, and then she saw the tears begin to make tracks down his face. Holding her breath, not wanting to stop his sleep, she reached out to wipe away the moisture but found it impossible, the flow being too rapid.

She rested her head on the pillow beside him and let her eyes skim over his face. There was no denying that the vamp was extremely good looking. No. That wasn’t right. He had the face of an angel, far too beautiful to be called good looking. A seraphim displaced. A vampire blessed with new life, and possibilities. She could see love carved into his beautiful face, and felt pain that she might not be able to have this. This suggestion of him. Looking at him Buffy felt desperate to know that the soul could not be explained by the curse. She knew that if he were to lose his soul, that perfect happiness would be a curse for her and she would be broken.

The Powers wouldn’t return him to her here, at this time, if it meant the risk of losing him to the enemy she had feared for the past two years. Here was an offering so special, so right, and the thought that it could be taken away from her terrified her so much that her insides clenched in a debilitating cramp. She closed her eyes to try and gain control of the pain, and when she opened them it was to drown in the bluest seas of imagining. Spike was awake and the pain he couldn’t hide from her made her shed accompanying tears, before wrapping her arm around his waist, dragging herself closer so she could rest her head on his chest. His own arm anchored her to his chest and he wasn’t letting go.

“I’m so sorry, Buffy.” His throat was croaky, showing his exhaustion from the emotional ordeal that had lasted throughout the night. She said nothing, just stroked soothing lines on his bare chest before resting her palm flat over the spot where his heart didn’t beat.

“There are too many dead, and I can’t apologise to them, but God, I’m so sorry for trying to kill you all those times.” Buffy felt emotion clogging her throat and just knew that if she opened her mouth and attempted to say anything that she would start sobbing. The sadness of his voice was heartbreaking and she could do nothing but offer a little relief in the distraction of a gentle kiss just below her hand. She felt his sudden indrawn breath as his hand urged her to face him, fingers whispering over her cheek to rest under her chin. “I don’t understand what I have done to deserve you being this nice to me,” he whispered, afraid that if he was louder it would bring others to the room and destroy this magical moment of them, and he was dependent just then on the comfort only she could give.

Buffy lifted her finger to his lips, silencing his stream of words.

“Spike, I believe that something incredibly special happened in our future. I don’t know why I feel this connection to you right now. But I don’t think what has happened is just a reward for you. It feels too right to be in your arms…” her quiet tones petered out as she noticed his eyes fixated on her lips, drifting ever closer as she spoke until they were just a breath away. Memories of the magic his lips created the previous night blew her out of her mind and she didn’t even think to raise an objection when his lips found their home on hers again. Her eyes drifted closed and she just gave in to the beauty of the kiss, certain that she had never received a kiss that shook her to the core like this ever before in her life. Just a gentle touch and she pulled a little distance away, her gaze hooded with want and need, as she swept out her tongue to lick leisurely from one lip level to the next. Her heart was thumping madly as his lips slipped apart and her tongue glided back to the opening and entered the cave of his mouth, seeking and locating the tip of his tongue. Barely making contact, her lips again found his and she lost herself again in her overwhelming need to be one with him. While their lips swished and slid against the other their hands came together and they held on tight, too afraid to let go, knowing that a separation would be like falling off a cliff.

Spike was the one to finally pull away, releasing her with a hesitant final suck of her bottom lip. One finger traced the line of the same lip as he locked eyes with her.

“I never imagined,” he told her huskily and they remained, never looking away from each other, their hands never releasing their nervous hold for an uncountable period of time. Not until they heard a loud shout of “Eureka” from the living room, and Buffy explained the search for the spell. Still, it was long minutes before she would surrender the special moments they had shared. But finally she could delay no longer and she pulled him from his reclining position and dragged him out of hiding and back before an audience.
 

Chapter Eleven

Giles had felt it necessary for everyone to witness the spell. Willow’s triumphant ‘Eureka’ had set the tone for the rest of the day, and the in depth demystification of all elements of the spell meant that it could proceed as soon as possible. A quick trip to the magic shop to purchase elemental ingredients; a wait for the end of the working day and the final arrival of Xander, and the living room was filled once again to capacity with Scoobyness.

Buffy stood apart from all as she darted between excitement at getting a glimpse of her future, and nervousness about the possible negative origins of Spike’s soul. In her self-absorbed daze she missed the preparations of the spell and letting Willow and Tara undertake the necessary preparations, felt a little stage fright as she took note of how many people really were crammed into the little flat. Oz sat back, solemn and quiet, with Xander and Anya, while Angel and Giles were spaced around the edge of the room but in an easy distance for the scenic view. All that Buffy had gotten so far was that she and Spike were to sit holding hands within a circle of sand, magic sand she supposed, she was ignorant of all things mystical, well, some things mystical. As long as it wasn’t slayer mystical. Damn, she didn’t know about the sand.

All the words and incantations were a blur as she took her place on the floor opposite Spike. When Tara joined them in the circle Buffy looked up in surprise, thinking she must have missed an instruction or three somewhere along the way. The room remained quiet except for Spike’s continual grumbling : “I don’t trust magic, always consequences ya know?”, and that just made Buffy’s nerves crash their little party. Tara took a hand in each of hers and Buffy had to commend her for her lack of fear in dealing with the vampire when Xander and Willow still maintained a hesitant distance. Perhaps she was still too new to the concept of the supernatural to take it seriously, or perhaps she trusted in her belief in Buffy and Spike’s connection. She drew all of their hands together to form a circle.

Before she began Tara turned to both her partners within the protected circle to explain her presence.

“Buffy, I explained earlier my concerns about the possibility of you getting caught, so I am going to be your anchor.” She spoke quietly, her tone soothing as well as making sure to not be overheard, and Buffy was grateful. She suddenly saw herself on display as if for a performance, with her closest friends about to be critics. Something heavy dropped in her gut. She gave Tara a brief nod to show her understanding and turned her fearful gaze to Spike. She swallowed hard on recognising his apprehension and wondered what she had gotten herself into. “I will be here if it looks like things are getting out of control, so I can pull both of you back.” Buffy and Spike both indicated their consent, thinking this was it and they were about to begin. Tara gave them one more shyer look and her earlier confidence took a dive as she approached her final message. Her voice fell to a new hush as she reverted to her stammering speech. “I-I-I w-will be able to s-see what you are s-seeing.” Her shyness wouldn’t allow her to look either in the eye, but her final declaration required a belief in her honesty and she mustered the courage to raise her eyes to them both. “I promise I won’t tell anyone anything I see. Whatever you tell everyone is up to you. Especially you Spike, this is going to be the story of your soul, and that will be very personal.” They both gave her an encouraging smile and bade her to continue, and the spell incantation began.

Buffy intentionally didn’t pay attention to the words, lost in what Tara had said. ‘The story of Spike’s soul’, and her earlier elation was returning in leaps and bounds. ‘With a little luck’, she thought, ‘I’ll be able to see what kind of relationship Spike and I have in the future’. With her hopes and expectations all settled in her head she ignorantly sat back and waited for it all to begin.

It was like the first time they clasped hands and they became alight. Her world shifted like an earthquake and she found herself once again inside that cavern that she presumed was the Hellmouth. It looked different to what she remembered, but the one thing to make her recognise it was all the scary, nasty looking demons that threatened to overtake the place. Realising she had no impact here, this time a non-lethal observer, she turned to concentrate on Spike.

She saw him stumble backwards as he seemed to be invisibly restrained against the cave wall, light bearing down on him with a chilling intensity. Even though she knew she could do nothing, Buffy called out in fear and warning and once again witnessed her futile attempts to prise him away from the destruction and run with her. Again she told him of her love and again he withheld belief and sent her packing, walls and debris collapsing all around her. Racing up the stairs she looked back once and saw him combust and felt her heart tear at her chest, desperate to go back to him. She could understand now that something monumental occurred when their hands had ignited in glorious fire; she had departed with a piece of her own soul, shredded and gone. She belonged to him whole; heart, mind and soul, and instead of protecting her balance for her he had turned to dust before her eyes. Running, running, dying, she jumped to the roof of the bus and decayed a little more each metre it pulled away from him. The grief that arose in her chest and throat was going to kill her and though the bus finally stopped and she climbed off, all she could say when asked was that Spike had done it; he had saved them all, his rejection too raw for her to share.

As quickly as that vision had begun, she hurtled into another cave, another time, but just as gruesomely violent. Spike fought, he burned, his skin crawled, but at last he won just before Buffy was about to relieve herself of everything she thought she had ever eaten in her lifetime. Bugs always made her queasy, and scarab beetles? No way was that fun! But then Spike could be heard, thrashed and beaten down, but still determined. His demon requesting something almost unheard of; his desperation to prove his love and forever keep her safe from himself. He asked to be ‘made what I was, so I can give her what she deserves’. And he was, his soul burned into him like a Buffy brand on a cattle rump. He was marked, forever hers to take or discard. He descended into crazy land, his constant memory an attack on a blonde goddess on her bathroom floor.

Another flash and she was getting that it was all out of sequence. ‘Huh! Wonder how that works?’ But still strong, a tower of strength, she could cope even though the images may be harrowing. The time in fast-forward, Scoobies in her house, permanently it seems, and many, many girls, young and potential, training relentless. Strange men with their eyes cut out slashing, and crashing until few were left. The faces of her friends, the harsh and hard words of a general preparing for battle.

She sees some strange black man still in her future lure Spike to an ambush, with Giles’ support, and her held at bay so as not to be able to rescue the one, her only one of support, who had relentless faith. The others had lost it, kicked her out of her own home, his black leather coat not changing who he is but bringing him back, and that speech; ‘I love how you try. You’re a hell of a woman, Buffy. You’re the One.’ And as she curls into his side, the outcast in her own fight, she finally accepts it, that he is her one, and no other. Flash, too late for Xander but Spike saves him from losing both eyes. Flash, Spike rescues her from that other dimension by killing the demon to return. Flash, feels his gut wrenching sense of betrayal because she kisses Angel, but she knows he is her champion, Angel brings her the means to prove it, and she does not allow him to stay.

All of a sudden the world tips and Buffy finally sees why Tara was concerned her joined soul could alter the spell. Without warning she was catapulted further into her own story, no longer Spikes point of view, but his pain is her pain. She feels like screaming, kicking and clawing away from the relentless images, no happiness, all pain. A swan dive; courage or defeat? A home in heaven and she was awash with that tantalising cover of peace wrapped up in an outer layer of spongy cloud. Then ripped, torn…grief and badly broken. Spike by her side, friend and confidante, though she treated him cruelly. Words, he stayed, words, he protected. Dawn. A chestnut haired teenager; her sister, is it true? A key and Glory, a God. Spike’s torture for her, but no betrayal.

She beats him, fucks him into the ground, sees him weeping but turns away in horror. She knows then but can’t give it voice, love, so sorry Spike, too late, too late for love, not real, wrong, came back so wrong. Help me, you make me feel, I need you to hurt me, using you, but God, I love you. Can’t let you see. Screaming, God, ‘stop it, I can’t take anymore, Mom’s gone’. Shooting, Tara gone, Willow black, and then the biggest betrayal of all. Willow rush, no magic Willow, too many images, graveyards, burning corpses, on the hill and thank God for Xander. SCREAMING. TARA. HELP ME. STOP. Please God stop. Sobbing out of control.

Her hands tore apart from Spike and Tara’s and she came to with the most disgusted realisation of herself. No other words for horror as her eyes collide with Spike’s and she saw that he saw all that she did. Confusion and shock grip all three, but Buffy was on the move. Disaster was all she can hold onto, such evil and meanness, and not from those you would expect. One sudden memory nearly causes her to whiplash as she sought confirmation from Tara. The girl’s sad eyes, on the brink of brutal fear, Buffy pulled away even more. She was frantic, unaware of the multitude of eyes alarmed at her inability to absorb. She shook her head violently and gasped for breath as she shifted between looking at the MAN who sacrificed his all for her, whom she abused so relentlessly for her own grubby needs, and the gentle woman who was her friend in the future, but for an unforgivably short time.

Panic bubbled up and over and her body started to shut down its defences, the pace of her heart steadily increasing to accommodate her rising hysteria. Enough! Scream all ready, she shrieked to herself, her inner voice already raw from the effort. Tears poured in a rush down her face.

“We’ll stop it,” she nearly shouted at Tara. “We have to. It can’t go like that. So bad.” She choked and began to cry helplessly.

“I won’t do that,” she pleads with Spike, searching, hoping, and she thought, receiving. “I won’t be like that.” And at last it was too much and she collapsed in his arms in uncontrollable grief, marvelling that he could bear to touch her, let alone console her. Again, her protector, her champion. Out of them all he was her only true support, and she would never let him go. Not in a pink fit. She would kill anyone who tried to make her.

She clung to him and in front of them all she claimed his lips desperately, seeking forgiveness from the only one who could grant it. And through her tears, she really believed he gave it.
 

Chapter twelve

“Mr. G-Giles, I th-think it might be a g-good idea if Buffy, Spike and I could b-be alone to talk a-a-about what we saw.” Tara was the only one of the three able to take control at that point; Buffy curled up in Spike’s arms, sobbing like a child into his shoulder. The complete surrender of her body was enough to show all in the room that their strong warrior had seen something so hideous that she was having trouble reconciling it with the present. Her choked weeping garnered sympathy from all her supporters and they gathered in a huddle together, conversing about any trivial thing they could think of to take a little pressure off the small group. It did not go unnoticed by Angel and Willow that the other two occupants looked as devastated and shell-shocked as the crumpled blonde, but hadn’t yet let go to their grief.

“Of course, Tara. I think it might be best if we all head to the Espresso Pump for a coffee or something. We will meet you back here in an hour or so.”

By silent consent they all rose to their feet and quietly made steady exit until all was quiet bar Buffy’s hiccuping attempts for control. She reached over and gave Tara a hug, one of thanks but also from a need to express before it was too late. Tears again pooled in her eyes and she raised herself from the floor to walk around the room, hoping for some form of distraction to pull her out of her spiralling depression. Nobody said anything for a while, could say anything, and Buffy felt guilt begin to well inside. Here she was sobbing with abandon when Tara was to soon lose her life, and she was to destroy emotionally the one man who had ever cared enough for her to show true courage and heroism.

“I s’pose there’s no need to worry about unguarded moments of happiness then.” He meant it as a joke, an attempt to lighten the doom suffocating the human occupants of the room: girls, and ones he was to come to have real, and honourable respect for. Tara just looked at him confused, having not heard the story of Angel and his here one minute, gone the next soul problem. He knew things were dire when Buffy didn’t even crack a smile. She dropped to her knees before him, arms wrapped protectively about herself and face glistening wet with sorrow.

“Nothing I ever did for you in the future could explain your devotion to me. I don’t deserve you. Now that you know what happens in the future you have choices. You did all those things out of love, showing devotion to me when I treated you like garbage. You could choose right now to leave us all behind and never come back. It wasn’t getting your soul that caused the apocalypse. You don’t have to hang around and wait for that to happen.” He reached out and took her hand as her voice broke, revealing her great pain, for once inspiring her to resort to words instead of misleading actions. “But if there is any part of you,” she halted, trying to regain control over her voice as she brought the palm of his hand to rest gently against her cheek. “Just a little part of you that might think we could change that, and make it better between us,” the tears now heavy in her voice, “then please stay with me.” And she started crying anew. As a newcomer Tara was unaware of all the little histories bouncing about, but Spike knew what it cost her to make the plea, to ask him to be different to Peaches.

“Can you let him go, Slayer? Ever?” Spike cocked a brow almost in disbelief. There was only a beginning here, but even the violence, her apathetic response to his continued pain, her rejections over and over again, weren’t enough to make him want to forget her and get out of town. Already he couldn’t part from her, and the idea that he and she were joined in some elemental way seemed reinforced in his mind.

“I don’t know, but please let me try? Please Spike, give me the chance?” She would plead as much as she dared, knowing in her heart that there could never be anyone but him for her, but not yet ready to tell him that he was wrong to disbelieve her in the Hellmouth, that she spoke the truth. And this time she would fight for him. With his answering nod and smirk she realised that she had been holding her breath and she gasped in lungfuls of air in her joy and relief. Their eyes clashed with an intensity of feeling, and a little splash of burgeoning desire, but first came realisation and concern for Tara. As one they turned and gathered her close, recognising the glassiness of her eyes and the shock that was seeping into her posture still tethered to the floor.

“Tara,” Buffy whispered, not wanting to startle her. “We know so much, we can change it. We will change it.” The girl slowly returned to her senses and nodded to them with a barely perceptible smile.

“I think, after all this, I-I might get W-Willow to do a f-f-forgetting spell on me. I don’t want to know that I die. I don’t want Willow to know.”

Buffy snorted, a little of her usual banter reaching to reclaim her spirit.

“Really behind you on the keeping Willow in the dark. Well, except for the dark magic, which we so want to steer her away from. Bad witchy Willow. Better remember to keep her away from resurrection spells too, huh! Who’d a thought? Me, heaven!” She gave a little laugh before seeing the bewildered glances of the other two.

“Where’d ya think a Child of Light would end up, pet, if not in heaven?”

“Huh! Never thought about it, I guess.” And her smile was radiant as she beamed at her vampire. “So.” The huskiness in her voice called forth every goose pimple his skin could summons. “Like you said, no need to be on the look out for too much happiness.” She crawled forward and gently pulled his bottom lip between her own, sucking gently on it before releasing it to a very turned on Vampire.

“You’re a tease pet, that’s what you are!” She winked before making sure she had the attention of the third member or their trio.

“It won’t be the same, just remember that.” She had to impress it again, needed to remain on the lookout. She had back-up, she had warning, no one would be lost on her watch, and with Spike and the Scoobies behind her, she wouldn’t even lose herself “Just remember that returning Spike’s soul to him now, in the past, is a reward. Not just for him, but for all of us. We have a chance to change the future, and I think we can agree that what we saw was definitely a future needing a big save. Are we down for that?” At the two agreeable nods she clapped her hands together in relief, then mischief entered her gaze and she turned once again to Tara.

“So, you and Willow are like, gay?”
 

Chapter Thirteen

The Scoobies arrived back at Giles's flat with such an alarming respect for punctuality that it made Buffy's head spin. She knew they would. The hour or so that Giles had mentioned would never have surpassed that hour when there was apocalyptic news to be had. Nothing would have delayed the inevitable, not even the appearance of an unhinged Slayer. So it was with increasing dread that she took her place in the informal circle, ready to face the inquisition. With unspoken consent, the three memory travellers stuck like glue to each other, now having formed a bond so close that it caused confusion and jealousy to germinate and spread within the two original Scoobies. Angel merely growled low in his chest when he saw Buffy and Spike’s loosely linked hands, but backed off when he received a pointed glare from Giles. Oz, stoic as ever, merely mentioned that he was playing at the Bronze tonight and he really needed to motor. That left Anya on an invisible outer edge, seemingly alongside Angel who had been unable to work out if he still fit into this motley group.

There was silence; no one coughed, no one cleared their throat, no one started sentences with useless "well's", or "Right then's". No, all just looked with unwavering curiosity bordering on voyeuristic glee to Buffy to start them all off and she felt like she had swallowed her tongue. She had no doubt what some of their reactions would be and was also confused about how much she should let on about what was to happen to their little group in the future.

"Well, on the up side, I think I have a short cut to the info on those rascally commando's." She started off trying to be upbeat, but was fully aware that almost all of her future was so unwaveringly bad and screwed up- not so far from the realities of her friends- that she was fearful to even begin to recount their many dysfunctions.

Still, no one spoke; thus Buffy stayed stubbornly silent.

Giles released a pent up sigh, revealing his frustration, but his eagerness was betrayed by his watcher-like enthusiasm over his first question. ‘Unlike in the future, he seems very taken with learning about the anomaly that is Spike,’ Buffy thought almost waspishly. She knew it was unfair to judge, that many things had led to their collective disintegration; many nights filled with jealousy, feelings of incompetence, self-righteousness, inadequacy, and yet, love. Funny. Love is supposed to make all things better, not warp all their minds with possessiveness. Buffy, feeling the thoughts flying through her head nevertheless winced when the voice finally broke through the quiet, and the one question she resented having to answer was asked. In the end, Giles and Angel asked it together, betraying how alike they really were in their concern.

"How did Spike get his soul?"

Buffy cringed at the combined tones of Giles’s academic interest, and Angel’s almost jealous anguish. They clashed in a way that was emotionally unpleasant, and though their expected answer was far from the truth, she felt almost shame that she was the cause of such an event. She almost felt like it was her punishment, forever a reminder that her own evil actions caused a demon to prove his goodness. What had she ever done to prove the same? She had never fought for her soul, it was always just there. That she could take it so much for granted was confronting.

Angel jumped to his feet, wild and angry thoughts flying through his head like a buzzing swarm of bees trying to warn him of danger, but panic had him bypassing reason.

“Who’d he kill to make Willow curse him?”

She turned to look at the vamp beside her. Only a week ago, she wanted to spread his dust in her mother’s garden. Well, at least she had thought about it, maybe even threatened it. Now, all she could see was the pain he went through at the end of her fists, the whippings from her verbal and physical assaults, and one image was burned into memory just like a giant cross was burned across his chest. His rambling incoherence because he thought to get her the most wondrous, beautiful gift of all.

Tears pooled in her eyes as she looked at her first love, the one she had been positive was her soul mate, and shuddered. Angel never fought for her; he never loved her so deeply and truly that he sought ways to anchor his soul forever to be with her. Spike could have easily opted for the curse, but never the easy way for him, he had something to prove, he had to earn it like he believed he had to re-earn her trust. Then when he finally did that last, he sacrificed himself for her, for the Scoobies, and for the world, so that there was a world and that they all could be happy and secure. In doing so he had taken a great chunk of her own soul with him. Her future self could never be happy without him; would be forever torn and fragmented. Now she understood why his soul was sent back in time, not only to save him and reward him with the possibility of her love, but to save her from a dark and shattered existence as well.

The tears slowly slid down her cheeks as she finally released her ties with Angel. She smiled sadly as she turned to the group.

"He got his soul for me."

The awed hush lasted but seconds.

"Yes, Buffy, but was it a curse?" Giles was taking notes; eager for this unique story like he never had been before.

"No curse, he went to Africa," she quirked a brow to Spike in question and he nodded his head to her reassuringly; she was on the right track. "He saw a Demon there who granted wishes after proving their worthiness by undergoing trials. Horrible, dangerous trials." And she gave a revolted shudder, recalling once again the multitude of horrible beetles crawling under his battle-marred skin.

"What was the impetus behind the search, Spike? What happened to make you go and do that?" Giles's curiosity took no prisoners. He ignored the flinch of the peroxided vampire, but Buffy felt it pierce her heart.

"You don't need to know the actual event, Giles."

"Why, Buff? Did he try to kill you in the future? Or rape you? Eat your mother? Snack on the Scoobies? Which one, Buffster? Cause that’s what demons do. Evil things." Xander's jealous venom set Buffy's insides to boil and she felt her anger build toward one cracking big eruption. Beside her Spike had stiffened, waiting for her to expose his crime and thus receive the pointed wooden implement of destruction from any one of those surrounding him. Instead she held his hand tighter; she would never again side with them over him. The simple act of his love should always have been enough, but God she was selfish. She had something so miraculous handed to her on a silver platter and she had abused it every chance that she had. She had accepted his support, his help like he owed it to her. Which of course he didn’t. He was evil, like she reminded him daily, he didn’t have to do anything for her. What closed her so irrevocably that she was blinded to the truth? Did Angel leaving destroy her so totally that she couldn’t risk again, or was it just the fear of trusting another vampire with not only her heart, but also the lives of all her friends? Yes, that was probably it, but Spike had proven himself over and over again far longer than Angel had. He was unencumbered of a soul like Angelus, yet so far from the bloodthirsty psychopath of his Sire that it withstood reason or understanding. Spike was his own vampire, as she should have known all along.

With something near to pity in her eyes she turned to Xander. "What happened is between Spike and me, and is none of your business. But I will tell you this. Spike changed, not to get points or money well not all the time. " She shared an indulgent smile with Spike and Tara before turning flinty, determined eyes back on Xander. "We never acknowledged it. We gave Anya carte blanche with the soulless thing, allowed her past to go unremarked, allowed her to date you with no protest; but we had double standards. Spike tried so hard, he helped us, he saved our lives many times, and we, I, never thanked him, or gave him the encouragement and support we would have given anyone else trying to make themselves better. And trust me Xander, your future isn't of the rosiness either, so back the hell off."

The room was back to that eerie quietness that tilted her equilibrium off centre. Buffy still hadn't righted herself from the spell but the attack from Xander had her feeling like her sanity was swinging in the breeze. Her eyes found Willow and she searched for Tara's hand, the other girl giving her an encouraging squeeze.

Willow had noticed that Buffy's attention had switched to her and suddenly she felt anxiousness curl in her gut, regretting that Oz had to leave her to face whatever was coming alone.

Buffy seemed to hesitate, collecting her thoughts, then in an upbeat voice, began.

"Hey Will, if you ever feel a need to look at resurrection spells? Don't." Willow turned cold inside at the haunted look she saw in her friend’s eyes, and shuddered. Why would I ever do dark magic like that? she wondered, and within seconds her eyes widened like pancake batter in the pan.

"Oh my God. Buffy, do you die?" She asked in such a strained, little voice. Buffy smiled at her sadly.

"Seems to be a little habit I've picked up that I so have to break," she told them, her voice weary and tired. Xander and Willow reached for each other’s hand, horror at the thought of their friend, their mighty warrior succumbing to the fall of battle too awful to contemplate.

"You die and I bring you back? And that's a bad thing?" Willow was crying into her hands now, Xander beside her with a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"I'll say it's a bad thing when you rip the girl from heaven and kill her again on the inside." Spike huffed, deciding to wade into the revelations now that his own story had been bypassed. "Not just you either Red, the other three are with you. But it's you that gets a taste of the dark power and can't control it."

All eyes had settled on Spike and he wondered if perhaps he should have kept his yap shut.

“Huh, Like Darth Vader!” Xander said, cringing on the inside for his inappropriate rush to speak into the void.

"Spike is right. Mr. Giles, I think Willow should undergo some proper training to learn control. She will become extremely powerful, and invaluable to her friends and the world, it wouldn't be fair to let her discover it on her own. Power is too tempting without learning control." Everyone sat dazed at Tara's unstuttered speech, having become used to her shyness and willingness to stay in the background.

"Another thing, Watcher." Spike figured he might as well be in for the pound if the penny was already tossed to the floor. "Don' leave her. You may think she needs to grow up and learn to be independent. You're her bloody Watcher and she'll always need watchin'. She's 'ad enough of people leavin'." Giles sat stunned, abstractly aware of the dig at Angel, but wondering what on earth would possess him to leave his Slayer to cope with the Hellmouth by herself, or rather with this unruly bunch of children.

"And the apocalypse that Spike perished in? Was it brought about by his altering the balance by getting his soul?" Giles had resorted to polishing his glasses in his agitation.

"No," Buffy all but whispered.

"It was Buffy, wasn't it?" Anya spoke up for the first time that night, her thousand years of knowledge coming into play.

All eyes swivelled to stare at her but she didn't know how to be intimidated by their hostility.

"How dare you!" Giles fumed. "Buffy doesn't start apocalypses, she ends them." His lip was curled in fury, eyes flashing hard iciness as Ripper tried to tear himself to the surface.

"Not what I meant," she clarified. "It was us, bringing her back from the dead. Were you really in heaven, Buffy?" And Buffy looked at the girl with a new respect, seeing instead an intelligent woman instead of the ditzy one they had all assumed she was. She had brought the fact into the open that everyone had seemingly ignored when Spike spoke it, too eager to imagine it to be an untruth on the part of the vampire. Buffy was sick of it already.

"Yes," Buffy answered in her tiny voice, and Willow gasped and began to cry, much like Buffy had seen her do in the future when she finally found out the truth.

"Look," Buffy gained courage, wanting to prevent having everyone in tears or resentful. "There is lots of bad just around our corner, but at least now we have a hope of turning it all around. I know why I die, and we can stop it. I know we can. Just like I know how to stop the Initiative."

"The Initiative?" Willow questioned through her sniffles.

"Yeah." Buffy brightened. “That’s why Spike first started hanging around us. The Initiative are those commando guys that kidnapped him. They put a chip in his head to stop him hurting humans."

"Got the soul for that now, 'aven't I. Could ‘av bloody done without the added 'ardware in my noggin."

"Geez, do you speak ze Inglesse?" Xander still couldn't see how he was supposed to just start liking the vamp on Buffy’s say so.

"Sure I bloody do whelp, but I'm stumped with what language you just foisted upon us."

Giles chuckled to himself, distracted at last from his inner musings.

"Right then Buffy, I suppose you should tell us as much about the battles that you can. And anything else you think is important. If we are going to change things then we should hear it all." Buffy nodded her consent, but before she began she thought it was only right to tell Xander something else.

"Xan, don't ever think that you will be like your father. Your insecurity about that could make you lose something precious and make you the most miserable man on earth." Xander looked at her in alarm, not expecting the further chewing out after his first, highly unexpected bitch-slap. Looking into her eyes he saw nothing but sincerity and smiled.

"Forewarned is forearmed, hey Buff?" His skin crinkled at his eyes.

"Hey Giles,” Buffy swung her head to the older man but had her finger outstretched and pointing at Xander. "Xander knows stuff. How come he knows stuff?" And it was just the relief needed to dry up tears, settle nerves and get onto the business of battle plans and saving lives.

 

Chapter 14:

It was late when the group finally dispersed. Mostly stunned expressions coloured each face, while others, like Anya and Angel, merely looked interested in and perplexed at the events that had unravelled.

Spike had kept the desolation he felt from the images conjured in the spell to himself. He felt torn in two, not sure anymore which Spike he was or could be. He couldn’t help harking back on the fact that it had only been a week ago that he stood in the sun, wondering if he would freckle, and focused entirely on killing the Slayer. He wondered now if there were signs even then that he hadn’t paid attention to, reasons he ignored any attraction, because he couldn’t deny that Dru had warned and rejected him for none other than the Slayer. He knew that after over one hundred and twenty years with his Princess he would not have been thrown away just for his obsession to kill the girl. She had seen more. He nearly choked on his cigarette when her words came back to him, haunting in their truth, making him feel hollow with dread.

‘You taste like ashes,’ she had warned him. Could she really have been predicting his death? Did she cut him off to save herself the pain of losing him, or had he really lost her to Angelus and she no longer cared about who he held in his heart?

He found it difficult to accept that he had prior warning of what he would come to feel for the Slayer. Buffy. Her name felt weird in his mind, let alone on his tongue, but he was oddly elated at the honour of calling her now by name. Hope of love had always sustained him throughout his life and unlife, but in his elongated past, he had never experienced a requited love. Not one that could fulfill every romantic bone in his body. But at last it seemed obtainable, and he was simply mesmerised by the possibility of holding such a beautiful flame of gold in his arms, and hearing words that would bolster his heart into beating. Beating for her. His soul, sought and set to glow for her.

He knew that the Watcher saw him as a puzzle yet to crack, and he had the horrifying thought that he would become not only a footnote and a few pages of historical significance to future Watchers, but a redemptive bedside story for all future slayers. Well, if they didn’t all come to at the same time thanks to Red’s spell and the Watcher’s Council being bombed cinders blowing on the perpetual London wind.

He hadn’t let on to anyone in the room that he felt again the wash of ruin and anguish, even the insanity, that he had experienced the first time round with regaining his soul. He had hoped that it would be easier on him this time, having paid his penance and dealt with the issues of death, murder and destruction that his demon and lack of soul had inflicted on the world for those one hundred and twenty years. The rising tide of gurgling red and the subtle shaking of his body proved to him that it was not going to be an easy merge this time round, either.

So far, he was relieved that Buffy was overcome with guilt for her own future actions, and had thrown herself wholeheartedly into relaying the battle information that could help them in the future. Her preoccupation saved him from central attention, and now that the majority of them had left he felt panic start to bubble again and his body succumbed to bone-jolting shakes. Closing the door behind him, he bypassed the bed he had slept in earlier to crumble into a corner of the room and covered his head with his hands. His mental acuity dimmed as he unwittingly surrendered to the ghosts of his past and his body began to rock back and forth in an attempted soothing gesture. Not successful. Images slammed into him in a violently driven slide show and he clenched his jaw in an effort to control the onslaught and the screaming guilt and pain he wanted to let go of. The rumble in his chest built and built until he could hold it no longer and the tones of his growls bounced around the room, summoning more to arrive and bay his repentive sorrow.

He opened his eyes and saw them: the victims, the enemies. The fun he had had, the torture he had witnessed and revelled in, if only for show to his elders, trying to gain parental approval. The bodies he had fed from appeared in the study, throats torn and gushing with blood pouring freely to the carpet and he jumped forward to try and stop the flow to remove the stains before they became as embedded in Rupert’s flooring as they were in his own soul. He grabbed sheets from the makeshift bed and started rubbing frantically, sobbing hysterically and shouting for them to stop, to get out.

He was unaware when the door slammed open and the three remaining from their momentous night looked at his agitation in horror. Buffy was the first to move, collapsing beside him and trying to embrace his violently arcing body into the security of her arms. At first he pushed her away, his mind fractured and lost, until something far back reminded him that this smell, this softness, was his home. He could be quiet there, safe; she could hold the ghosts away for a short time, enough time for him to rest before they came to visit once more. His body went limp in her arms, not attempting to hold her back but accepting the charity that she offered, his wet face rubbing on her neck like a fearful and repentant puppy.

Buffy raised guilt glistened eyes to Angel and Giles, who remained shocked in the doorway.

“What’s wrong with him? He seemed so, Spike, before. What’s happened to him?”

Her voice broke with her confusion and emotion. She looked to them for answers, but inside she knew, and hated herself for not expecting it. So buried in her own memories of the future and the tremendous pain she inflicted on the ones that loved her, she had intentionally distanced herself from Spike, stupidly thinking that the Powers intended on giving him an easier ride this time out. Perhaps that had been the intention but their own trip into his soul’s past released memories and reactions that should have remained covered. Too late now the damage was done. She should have expected some reaction to his receiving the soul. This was a different Spike to the one she was yet to fall for, not yet tempered or controlled by the love he felt for her, but the events and memories of present and future Spike had become jumbled and she had trouble working out who and what was which.

She held him tighter to her as she felt his arm hesitantly snake around her waist and she kissed his platinum hair as she vainly sought for solutions. Her mind clicked back on something Giles had said about Angel’s appearance. Wasn’t Cordelia’s message something about how he was to help with Spike? Buffy had never felt so stupid in all her life. She had two souled vampires in the same room and she was wondering how she alone planned on making it better. Why did she always think that she was the answer to everything? The guilt sunk a little further into her psyche.

As if he could suddenly read minds, Giles tapped into her and rushed to reassure.

“Cordelia said that Angel was to help you with Spike. Buffy, he needs both of you.” She nodded in sudden understanding and turned wet, pleading eyes to her first love.

He was already at her side and looking at Spike with his own anguish mirrored in his features. Buffy looked on first in fascination then jealousy as Angel tilted his head to Spike’s neck and started a series of growls and licks that calmed his troubled Childe even more. His understanding of Spike’s torment was paramount and Buffy acknowledged that he was probably the one who could offer the most help in Spike’s adjustment, but it did little to lower her rising jealousy of seeing him touch and taste what she so much wanted to herself.

Between the two, Spike had become so relaxed that he barely sniffled before falling asleep against Buffy’s shoulder. They managed to relocate him onto the bed and were about to move out of the room when his whimpers renewed. He thrashed around as if searching for someone and mumbled ‘home, home, Buffy is home. Where is she, where is she?’ he called in such a desperate voice with tears falling down his face, cracking her heart as he called for her. Gently she glided back onto the bed beside him, tucking her smaller frame firm against his chest, her arm holding him tight, her legs tangling possessively with his, and at last he settled.

Not even turning to see if Giles and Angel remained, she asked them to take care of patrol. She sighed on hearing the quiet click of the door closing behind them as they left. They were alone, and she began to cry for all the pain that was felt in the room right then, as well as the pain she feared they could not stop in the future. Useless tears, they needed action, but she was too emotionally exhausted to worry more about it now; just concerned about the vampire her arms lovingly embraced. And on they fell into troubled slumber.

 

Chapter Fifteen

For a Slayer, passage into sleep is risky business. Not only do they lay prisoner to the Powers That Be for prophetic dreams, but also their lives of violence and fury can come back for replay over and over again. There were several events that Buffy had experienced as recurring nightmares, but they were things she kept to herself. No one knew that she still dreamt of being bitten by the Master, or spearing an ensouled Angel through with a mystical sword. A giant snake had even received airplay, along with the renegade Slayer that she had once called friend; her sister in arms. These, however, were destined to take a back seat once she had opened Pandora’s Box and let the future come out to play.

Lying in the arms of a vampire would normally have felt too wrong for her to remain. Being in Spike’s arms, however, allowed her a euphoric indifference to sleep and she gave no thought to closing her eyes and wrapping herself around him and succumbing to the bliss of rest. Her confidence had steadily built as she held his trembling form within the circle of her arms, whispering fond, or perhaps loving reassurances in his ear, as he continued to sleep soundly. Without fear, she drifted off alongside him. Her focus on him allowed her to forget, but in the land of nod, she no longer could.

Smothered by relentless and dank darkness, she came to with a gasp, desperate to draw breath into her lungs, and quickly realised that there was limited oxygen to sustain her. She felt around and touched soft fabric all around her, above and to the sides of what felt like a long narrow box, and came to the startling conclusion that she was to relive her resurrection. She wasn’t immediately frightened- knowing on some level that this was a dream, but as she began to gasp for much needed air, desperation kicked in. Frantically clawing and tearing to reach wood she used her fists to smash and punch the lid of the box and sobbed in relief as it splintered and gave way. Like reliving a horror movie over again she pulled herself above ground and collapsed on the shredded grass in front of her tombstone.

Her sobbing had stopped but her blood ran cold when she saw the engraved epitaph, She Saved The World A lot! With a little jolt she fell back and hit another tombstone. At first her eyes were too blurred to comprehend what she read, and as they cleared and she understood her body shook with an unwillingness to accept. A fist came forcefully through the grass and she fell back and screamed, but immediately again reached forward to take the hand to help pull out her fellow traveller. They looked at each other, taking in the bleeding knuckles, the dirty matted hair, and the dirty, mud streaked burial clothes.

Spike perched beside her, himself gasping for breath, and with realisation she raised startled eyes to his as she placed a shaking hand to his breast.

“Your heart is beating,” she told him in a broken, distant voice.

“We need to die to live, Slayer.”

“Slayer?” Her voice shook on the single word. She looked back to the tombstone marking the desecrated grave he had left and covered her mouth with shock. William Summers, loving husband and father, He helped her save the world a lot.

And then she laughed.

“Did I kill you? Do you hate me? Is that why you call me Slayer?”

“No sweetheart, you saved me. You will always be Slayer to me, just like I will always be Spike to you. I love you.” And he pulled her into his arms and rained beautiful sweet kisses onto her face. Her lips collided with his forcefully, desperate in her need to reassure herself that he was there, that he was hers, and as her grip tightened he became less firm. She pulled away, her eyes widening in disbelief as he began to shatter into dust.

“No!” she screamed at him. “Don’t leave me! I love you.”

He smiled sadly at her and shook his head.

“No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” And he was gone, a billowing cloud of dust lifted in the breeze and spread to all ends of the world. Left behind a weeping, hysterical girl trying to cling to particles of air as they drifted away.

“I do mean it,” her raspy voice declared what felt like hours later. “I do mean it. I love you so much. Come back, come back, don’t leave me here alone.” Her broken sobbing continued until light began to filter through the trees and she dragged herself off the ground to her knees, and then to her ridiculously clad feet.

She wandered aimlessly, not caring where she stumbled, having forever lost her light and knowing she would never find her way out of the darkness. Cloistered forever in her own existence.

“I don’t know what I need to survive this,” she whispered to the lightening sky. “I don’t think I can. I don’t think I want to.” Stumbling she hit the steps of a building in a rush to her hands and knees. Looking up she discovered a chapel and looked again at the sky in confusion.

“Um, thanks?” she offered in her daze, and then found her way inside.

Stained glass and a gothic looking crucifix took up all her remaining attention. Realisation hit her like a blow and she frantically searched the shadows for him.

“Spike?” Her voice was raw with continually shed tears and her eyes had trouble seeking him in the dark as the sky that had been reaching dawn now hit night with a daunting perceptibility. He could only exist in the night. His heart did not beat.

He came forward slowly, hesitating on the brink of discovery. His chest bare and glowing in the moonlight and she cringed, knowing that every blight on that skin, every scar and torn piece of flesh, was her reward. This time he needn’t tell her, she was with it that he had a soul burning bright for her, dragging him kicking blindly at the ghosts of the past, clinging to hold him in the dark.

“I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. Now all it does is burn.” And for the second time she saw him burn from the inside, ashy edges creeping out until he was dust at her feet.

“No.” She could muster no more screams though the tears continued to flow in great rivers down her cheeks.

“No Spike, I don’t deserve this. I loved you without a soul, I will always love you. You are mine, and I am yours. I’m sorry, so sorry I made you do this, made you prove to me what I already knew, believed. I lacked courage, Spike. Courage to love you. To acknowledge you. To be with you. God, please bring him back. I need him so much. He is my soul, my light, but I was too stupid to know.”

She crawled forward to the cross that she knew in reality he would burn on his chest for relief. For rest. Touching it softly with her fingertips, she was jolted with a charge so strong that her fingers reflexively curled around the wooden surface of the crucifix, unable to let go. His memories flooded her, the blood, the death, the horror and the screams, his fear, his hate, his sex, his glee, and his love. Too much, again too much, and as she relived his past, and felt his pain from regaining his soul, she encompassed the insanity that was him and understood the man behind the monster with a finality of passage. She took it all into herself, sharing the load, and wailing all the way.

Suddenly she was dragged back from the cross and engulfed in the warmth of acceptance and love.

“She shall look on him in forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved.” Spike smoothed her sodden hair away from her glistening cheeks and pressed a light kiss to the corner of her mouth.

Opening her eyes, she beamed her intentions to him. “I will forgive and love,” she whispered and they kissed slowly, the barest brush of lip to lip.

And in the doorway stood, with one heart racing in shock, a stunned Watcher and a furious vampire.
 

Chapter Sixteen

In all the years that Rupert Giles had been a Watcher, in all the years he had sat in the front row of paranormal, he had never expected to have two vampires taking up residence in his home. His experience had always been that they were vicious, murdering vermin that had to be killed, or in turn be killed. He had experienced much however, so on his first encounter with Angel he felt wary but accepting. Especially when faced with the offer of help in protecting his young charge.

Knowing and accepting the inevitable early death of a Slayer, he had still been devastated on uncovering the prophecy warning of the Slayer’s loss in a battle with the Master. But in all his years, he had never been prepared for a Slayer like Buffy Summers. In his continual astonishment at her attitude towards slaying, and the inclusion of her friends in the mission, he had found himself in the centre of a band of merry mini slayers that had all gone beyond the call of friendship to protect the world. Their motivation was of course survival, but also the value they placed on the life of Buffy. They wanted to protect her, and he knew they would never give up on her.

But when it came to her relationship with Angel, they had been split. Of course, they had remained beside her, but post-Acathla certain members of the group would never be accepting of the words ‘soul’ and ‘vampire’ in the one entity. Oddly enough, he was finding that he might not be one of that side. The more he was seeing of Spike’s remarkable transformation, the more he accepted this incredible joining of spirit between his Slayer and the former Master. In fact, he was hard pressed through the night to not stick out his tongue at Angel and go ‘nerny nerny ner ner!” Of course he stopped himself, not having the emotional wherewithal to put up with any more scowling tonight.

When they had found Spike on the floor of the study, scrubbing frantically at non-existent blood stains, his Watcher hat had been firmly in place. He couldn’t deny that he had been studying the vampire all night, noticing his flinches and starts when certain events of his future were brought up. He also noticed the familiarity between Buffy and the vampire, a familiarity that should have been impossible based on the combative relationship the two had shared up till now. He could only explain it by what Tara had claimed, was it only yesterday? They did indeed appear to belong together.

The Watcher in him could not ignore the mystical evidence they had so far witnessed, the non-igniting flame when their hands touched, the crimson mist that had surrounded them when they kissed, even the spell that seemed to bring them back more united than before they had begun. He could see Buffy’s emotions change and her acceptance grow before his eyes, and with a certainty that the man in Giles wanted to deny, he knew that Tara was right. The love he saw blossom in front of his eyes held maturity and a sense of right that was lacking from the melodrama that was Angel and Buffy.

He could sense the depth, and to top it all off, the deed itself of fighting for his soul, was enough for Giles to decide to be supportive. A demon seeking a conscience to protect his mortal enemy… why it was almost amusing if it wasn’t so romantic, and Giles wasn’t so long in the tooth that he couldn’t appreciate romance. Xander would stand alone in his ‘vampire equals bad’ club.

Giles would give the blonde a chance, just as he’d given Angel. His easy sanctifiction may have had a little to do with the fact that needn’t be on guard about Spike losing his soul; for whatever reason. Buffy deserved this; she had earned it with her tireless devotion to her calling.

So, it might have started out as Watcher enthusiasm for study, but once Buffy had placed her arms around the vampire’s shaking form and murmuring madness, it was his father’s role that he felt teared up at seeing the pain of his daughter’s love. Spike had had a rough time of it the previous night, his acclimatisation to the soul in itself was difficult and he knew even frightening to the vampire but he had been served a double whammy with this chip inhibiting his natural tendencies. Though it was an added safeguard that could enable Xander to be more accepting at least, he knew that if Spike were to be a proper member of their little entourage, and be useful in the fight, he would need the chip removed.

Some of the events that Buffy had relayed about their future made his skin crawl, and he wondered how things could have gotten so out of control. The Ripper in him wanted to blame the chipped vampire, for with his arrival he brought bad luck and the destruction of their unity, but he knew it wasn’t fair and that he attributed too much to Spike. Still, he shuddered at the trials ahead, and knew that they would need an unimpaired Spike behind them.

His mind had been reeling from all the information Buffy had recounted. They had learned a lot from the spell, probably a lot that the three participants had even kept to themselves. He knew though that it was wrong to delve into the future, though, and he feared the possible consequence. One thing stuck though, and he vowed first thing to set in motion instruction for Willow. One thing they did not need was for her to lose control and turn to darkness. He could never forgive himself if he allowed that to happen. No, they would do whatever it took to prevent some of those awful events from coming to fruition. That had to be the meaning behind the journey. Behind the pain.


It was evident by Spike’s hidden fall into insanity that the Vampire was experiencing as much anguish with the return of his soul than he had previously. He couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps their sojourn into the future perhaps mucked up the vampire’s reward. Then again, contrary to Cordelia’s warning from the PTB, up to this point they could have handled the Spike situation swimmingly. So, it appeared that it was expected that they would seek answers, and indeed it would have been imprudent for them to not try and understand the nature of his soul. Thus, Angel had come in handy at trying to soothe the lost vampire, even though they both could see Buffy’s anger that he could offer something she couldn’t; acceptance and care from a Sire.

‘Angel will be important for Spike’s adjustment, as well as instruction for Buffy,’ he had thought, when they had both heard the screams come from the sleeping pair. They had rushed to the room to find Spike lucid and soothing the sobbing girl, and he had his first inkling of why Angel would be elemental in the recovery of the pair. Without hearing of the Slayer’s dream, he suspected he already knew of its meaning. She had taken on some of the vampire’s pain from his crimes, and though Giles clenched his teeth angrily that she would have had to see such carnage and vileness, he knew it was necessary. When they kissed, Angel standing fuming beside him, Giles knew that it would be their love that would help them get though it. She needed to see what his demon really was, see how remarkable his act of sacrifice for her was in searching to replace his soul for her. And Giles felt furious hatred toward himself for the tosser he was to become in trying to guilt his Slayer away from this all empowering acceptance and love. With a guilty start, he realised that as much as the self-proclaimed Scoobies loved and wanted her, none of them could come close to this acceptance, this faith. Not even Angel, which was why he had never deserved her.

Aware that they were witnessing a very private and emotionally traumatic moment for the pair, Giles dragged Angel from the room and quietly shut the door.
 

Chapter Seventeen

Strolling across the front lawns of campus, Buffy revelled in the sunny rays warming her face. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and smiled. It didn’t feel like a day of missed classes- more like a week- but here she was, after her whole life had turned around, walking to her last day of classes before Thanksgiving break. Just one class this morning before she had to head home and talk to her mom about some things, mainly things dressed head to toe in black, with almost glowing white hair and an open invitation to their house. The grin wouldn’t leave her face whenever she thought of him and she marvelled at how different things were today. Just several days ago she had hoped he finally had decided to stay out of town.

God, she couldn’t forget his mouth. Boy, could he kiss… and then some. She was counting down the hours till she could get back to Giles’s, wait for sundown to either go with Spike, or send Angel out on patrol, and have some quality time alone with those lips. Mmm, Spike lips, lips of Spike. She wondered if he had awoken yet, and if he was thinking about her. It was a sunny day, and she was totally going to block any unpleasant thoughts of prophetic dreams and anguish connected to soul having, just for the occasion. It could work.

Still in her happy daze she spied Willow in the distance, seemingly on edge, talking with that guy Riley. Buffy furrowed her brow in confusion, and that strange feeling of melting between her present and future self occurred right there on the grass. She was amazed at the amount of information she had picked up about what her life was to be like from the spell, and now she recognised that Riley had played a rather large and significant part in it. She hadn’t thought of it before; so many other events seemed tremendously more important than another relationship gone wrong-particularly one that she hadn’t really invested that much emotional energy into. She couldn’t fool herself; she had sought normal, and despite his connection to the Initiative and all the icky stuff sprouting from that experience, he was super normal wrapped up in boring brown paper even lacking the decorative bow.

It was kind of reassuring to have the guessing gone, as she was being forced to see what was good for her. She had obviously been blind to have missed the potential in Spike. Then again, she couldn’t help thinking that her stubbornness probably would have forced her to overlook him even now with the soul, if the Powers hadn’t forced their hand and they hadn’t learnt so much about their future. Already knowing that she would love him in the time to come made it so much easier to decide to take the risk now, but she still needed to take it slow.

Her intensive thinking had taken her all the way to Willow’s side, and the two girls both gave a startled gasp at realising they had met up.

Willow smiled a little at Buffy’s wide grin, always pleased when her friend was happy. The events of the past two days had been intense and emotionally exhausting; Willow couldn’t deny that her confusion hadn’t lessened. She knew what Tara had told her about the connection between Buffy and Spike, and boy, she could see it every time she looked at the two of them together. But it was still kind of hard to trust the vamp who had held a broken bottle in her face and threatened to kill her and Xander. She could understand Xander’s strong reluctance to take anything the vamp claimed to heart. Buffy’s happiness was important, though. As important as Xander’s feelings-and hey, he had Anya, the unrepentant, orgasm-bragging, she-devil herself. If they could be happy, then well, so could Buffy. And like a flare in the dark, the light flashed on and she understood. And she could accept. They had taken Angel back, hadn’t they? And Spike hadn’t actually killed anyone she knew. So it should be easier. Besides, Giles had already started the process. After all, Spike did save the world, or was going to save the world, or, well, he did something about saving the world at some point in time.

Willow shook her head, having gotten her internal monologue into a bit of a muddle, and came back with a start at being addressed.

“Hey, Will. Looked like you zoned out there for a second.”

Willow looked at Buffy in gratitude, and indicated Riley beside her.

“Riley was just saying that he was going home for break.”

“Oh, that would be so great. At least you get to leave Sunnydale for a little while. Where are you from?” Buffy wasn’t really thinking about her questions, nor was she listening to the answers, but she was observing the man that spoke nonetheless. She was confused. How had she ended up dating him in the first place? There were too many similarities to her first vampire love, and that was kind of creepy when she looked at it objectively. She looked at him…could she pick a body type and stubbornly stick to it, or what? They both were irrationally consumed with dislike for Spike, and well, for most demon interaction they acted first, thought later. It was a startling revelation that the both of them may have had more impact on her own thinking and actions towards demons than perhaps Giles, or her own free thought.

“Iowa. So you’re staying here for the holidays?” She could hear the hopefulness in his voice and cringed a little, knowing that it couldn’t go anywhere.

“Absolutely. My mom is going out of town so I’m cooking at Giles’s.”

Willow looked at her in shock.

“Um, Buff, have you ever cooked anything before?”

“Well, toast, that one time. Um, not really anything big, but how hard can it be? It just needs planning, and recipes, and hey, I’m really good with the planning.” She pouted, but stopped abruptly when she caught Riley’s focused look at her lips.

Willow just raised an eyebrow and started to wonder how she could get out of the big dinner Buffy had planned. First things first, if they didn’t get going they would be late for class. Saying goodbye to Riley and ignoring his look of disappointment, they made their way inside the building to find their lecture room.

Suddenly realising that this was the first time she had the chance to talk to Willow since the spell, Buffy’s mind was flooded with a hundred questions it suddenly seemed urgent to ask her. She settled for what she thought was the most important.

“How’s Tara?”

Willow looked at her suspiciously but decided to probe more into the missing information gleaned, but not relayed, from the spell.

“Are you sure there wasn’t some things you missed out last night that you still need to share?”

“Ah, that would be a big no.” Buffy looked anywhere but at Willow, but heard the redhead’s sigh and released her own breath in relief. No inquisition today. No having to relate the morbid news, or tell too much of the Big Bad Willow. Avoidance was the name of her game. Avoidance, thy name is Buffy. Man, she was good.

And Willow was back to answering about Tara.

“She’s fine, though she wanted me to perform a forgetting spell. Did she see something bad happen to her in the future?” Willow was worried now, not having thought much about the request earlier when the high of knowing she was going to be a powerful witch took over.

“What? No! Well, kind of. But see, we’re changing everything, remember? I don’t die, Tara won’t die, Spike won’t die. It’s all good.” Fear had made her blurt out the truthful litany: the one that Tara had specifically wanted to be kept quiet and Buffy felt like giving herself a Slayer kick in the ass for being so stupid and self-obsessed. Her rambling self-blame stopped abruptly as Willow grabbed her arm hard.

“What happens then?” she asked, her voice fearful and wobbly.

“Ah, this is where the ‘going to the dark side’ has a whole new meaning for Willow Rosenburg.”

Willow’s eyes shot open as large and round as dollar coins.

“Oh my God, what do I do?”

Buffy smiled reassuringly at her friend.

“You don’t need to worry about any of that, Wills. Giles is looking into places you can go to get trained up properly, okay? So, no need to worry. Nothing will happen to Tara, or any of us. Everything will be fine.” As she said it a cold shiver ran down her spine and she crossed her fingers that indeed they could change it. The Slayer was determined; they would not lose Tara. And if Spike were to perish again, she would stay in that damn Hellmouth and go with him. She was not giving him up.

At the end of the lecture, or at least after Willow had given her a not so subtle elbow to the ribs to wake her, she made her way out and through Sunnydale to her house. She arrived to find her mother packing a case for her trip, and she plonked down on the bed and watched Joyce collect her toiletries. The look she received from the older woman was indulgent and they both just smiled for a moment, happy to be in each other’s company.

With a sigh, she knew that she had to tell her mother what had been going on over the past few days- the telling at first getting caught in her throat as she tried to decide whether to tell the truth about her mother’s illness. The many deaths rose up to smother her and she panicked. Jumping from the bed, she started to pace a little in front of the door, ready to take off if she needed to. In the end, she forced herself to calm down and sat back on the side of the bed again, noticing that Joyce had already taken a seat at the other end but still faced her, waiting patiently for Buffy to tell what was wrong. Buffy had never been this nervous before so she suspected it must be something big.

“Spike is back in town.”

Joyce smiled indulgently at remembering the hot chocolate-loving vampire.

“Did he get that dreadful girl back that he was heartbroken over?”

“Dru? Of course not.” Joyce sat back calmly at the foot of her bed intrigued that Buffy wasn’t yelling and pacing like she normally would have been at the news that Spike was back in town.

“Is he trying to kill you again?” she asked, a low level of concern evident in her voice. But Buffy thought she sounded a bit like she wouldn’t believe it, even if she was presented with a bleeding Buffy with Spike’s fangs still protruding from her neck.

“You are worried about that, aren’t you?” Buffy asked a little resentfully. “You do remember he is a vampire, don’t you?”

“Why of course, Buffy. But he isn’t your average vampire, is he? I mean, how many vampires do you know who pour their hearts out to the mother of their greatest enemy while sipping on hot chocolate with marshmallows? I think he’s a pussycat if you just get under all the, um, leather.” Joyce looked sideways at Buffy’s shocked look and was smug with the inspiration to tease her daughter. Sometimes she worried that Buffy took life a little too seriously.

“He has a soul now,” Buffy blurted, appalled at her mother’s admiring remarks. Knowing of her escapades with Giles was way enough reality about her mothers sex life. Only Buffy could think of getting under Spike’s leather. It was just a matter of time.

“Oh?’” Joyce asked inquisitively. “How did that happen? Did he get cursed by Gypsies like that horrible Angel?”

Buffy watched her mother very closely.

“No, he got it for me. To give me what I deserve.”

Oh,” Joyce said again. She seemed genuinely speechless. She blinked. “Is he in love with you?”

“Not now, but he is in the future.” Joyce was falling into a cloud of confusion.

“What do you mean?”

Buffy sighed but sat down and over the next hour told her mother everything leading up to the spell, and even beyond. The more she told, the more her anguish grew, spraying out information like a shaken bottle of coke, and by the time she stopped, her mother had a horrified look on her face.

“Buffy, I don’t know anything about aneurisms, but we can be on our guard about this and make sure I get treatment as soon as possible.” As far as she could tell, there was no scepticism in her mother’s voice, nothing but belief and Buffy gulped down one heavy throatful of relief that she was able to now put on hold. Her mother was going to take responsibility for this one load, lightening her burden by degrees. “And you, young lady, really need to work on your intuition. I told you Spike was different. And to think he did all that for you. You are so blessed to have that kind of devotion from a man. Do you know where he is going to be living? We have the spare room, or there’s the basement if he thinks it might be safer.” Buffy looked at her mother in compounding nervousness.

“Um, not that those aren’t really great ideas, but I don’t think it would be such a hot idea for Spike and me to live so close to each other.” Joyce gave her daughter a disappointed look.

“I thought you said that you care for him. That you’re friends with him now. Don’t you think shutting him out is a little selfish considering all he will do for you in the future?”

“It’s not like that. There is major sparkage between us. I just think that it might be difficult for us to take things slowly if he lived here.”

“But Buffy, you live on campus, remember. It would just be me here.” Buffy’s eyes widened in realisation; her mother envisioning what was under Spike’s leather. Even though she suspected that Joyce had been teasing her…she couldn’t help but feel her mother might be developing a predilection for British accents. Nope, definitely not of the good.

“I think Angel has offered his old place near the Bronze,” she threw in desperately, trying to derail her mother from getting too interested in having Spike under her roof.

“So,” Buffy interjected, striving hard to change the subject. “Thanksgiving. At Giles’s place. Whole gang. Got any recipes?” And they wandered into the kitchen, Joyce spouting all the hard and fast rules of serving up the perfect turkey and traditional accompaniments.
 

Chapter Eighteen

Spike sat on the sofa watching an old television set, trying to not turn every five minutes to look at the door. Buffy would be by, he knew, but the waiting was becoming intolerable. His easy acceptance of her in his life, and his need to see her felt almost too much to bear- especially after what had happened between them the previous night. He needed someone to relieve him from the Watcher’s endless questioning: how was he feeling? What differences could he identify from his previous lifestyle to now? What did his soul feel like? If not for the Watcher, though, he would have uninterrupted Angel time, and that was truly getting on his last nerve. As it stood, he was getting bloody desperate for Buffy to come barreling to his rescue.

“So, Buffy has taken on some of your guilt, then?” Giles queried.

“That’s what it felt like, an’ I don’ feel quite so overwhelmed now. Feel a bit sorry for ‘er, though.” Spike’s voice was gruff, trying without being too rude to get the Watcher’s questions to cease.

“That is just utterly fascinating.” Giles sucked on the end earpiece of his glasses thoughtfully. “I wonder if the Powers had this all marked out in the first place. I don’t believe that you were meant to suffer as you undoubtedly did the first time you received it.”

“Doesn’t feel right, though, does it?” Spike decided to just give in, recognising the perfect opportunity to try and solve some of his own riddles.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, few days ago I would ‘ave eaten you, no questions asked. Shouldn’t I be paying with pain and torment to make sure I’ve learned the bloody lesson and not go after human food now?”

Giles sat perplexed. “I think that this connection you have with Buffy, and even the reward of your soul, seems to have accelerated your progress. Do you want to eat me now? Or Buffy?”

Spike felt himself turn green, nauseated by the idea. But then the image of eating Buffy made him harden in his pants and he grinned wickedly at the Watcher.

“I m-mean kill. Not eat, kill. Yes, that is what I meant.” Giles cleared his throat and looked around the room on a sudden wave of embarrassment.

“The thought of killin’ anyone right now, Rupert, makes me feel like stakin’ myself. But this meld thing, it makes me feel a bit wonky. I mean, I know who I was before, but now I ‘ave all these images of myself in love with the Slayer…risking my unlife for you lot, time and again. Somewhere in ‘ere I know that with the natural progression of things we would have gotten to this point, but I have these feelings like I ‘ave already experienced that life, and it scares the crap out of me ‘cause some of it was really ‘orrible. For all of us. I sorta don’ know which Spike I am anymore. Why couldn’t the Powers have let me know that?”

Spike had been sitting still too long and he jumped to his heavy boots and started pacing around the small room. Angel had remained quiet, casting gloomy looks toward his Childe, angry that Spike seemed to be having it so easy, and getting the girl to boot. Truthfully, he was silently more steamed that Spike got Buffy. He didn’t give her up for this. What could he do, though, if the PTB willed it? It seemed pretty obvious that Buffy wasn’t meant to be his final reward.

“What about Buffy? It isn’t fair that she has to know about all of your murdering frenzies from over the years.” Angel sat in the armchair; arms crossed over his chest, and glowered. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet.

“You know Giles, I think the crisis has been averted. Time for me to head on back to LA.”

Giles and Spike looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Ah Peaches, it’s still a bit sunny out there…” Spike let the suggestion hang in the air, and grinned in amusement when the pin finally dropped and Angel slumped back into his seat.

“I think I might go brew us some tea.” Giles clambered to his feet and thus made good his inspired escape to the kitchen.

Spike narrowed his eyes and turned a hard, bitter look on his Sire.

“You just gonna walk out and not even tell ‘er goodbye?”

Angel flinched.

“I’m not good with goodbyes,” was his only answer as he looked anywhere in the room but at Spike.

They both jumped as the door slammed and Buffy came bouncing through.

“Angel, can Spike live at your old apartment near the Bronze?” Buffy turned a radiant smile to Angel as she took a seat on the sofa beside Spike.

“Ah, yeah. Sure. I guess so.” Angel stumbled, not really wanting Spike to have his place but not being able to think up a reasonable excuse to refuse off the top of his head.

“Oi, what’s wrong with the crypt?” Spike didn’t really want to live in Angel’s old place, either.

“No way, no crypt. If you don’t stay at Angel’s, then my mother wants you to stay at our house.”

“An’ what’s wrong with that? I like your mum.”

Buffy turned to him, determination stiffening every limb of her body.

“There is no way you will be staying alone in a house with my mom.”

“Right then.” Spike got slowly to his feet, his eyes revealing his hurt belief that she didn’t trust him. “Angel’s it is.” And with that he headed to the study and his makeshift bed.

Buffy looked at Angel apologetically, shrugged her shoulders, and grinned.

“Hey,” she said as she suddenly thought of something. “Aren’t you usually asleep now? It isn’t even lunch time.”

“Spike wanted to watch television. Who could sleep through that?” He offered a conciliatory smile, glad that Spike hadn’t told her that he was about to leave again without saying goodbye.

“Shouldn’t he be sleeping too?”

Angel raised an eyebrow and offered her his own little smirk. “You don’t know Spike too well yet, do you?”

“No. Not yet.” She gave an excited little giggle and headed after Spike.

She found him sitting in the middle of the pull out bed, eyes trained on the bare wall like he was studying the Mona Lisa. She crawled along the bed and kneeled beside his legs.

“You took it the wrong way, you know.” She reached over to take his hand and let out a breath of relief that he didn't pull away. He didn’t turn to look at her, but his thumb began to stroke the skin over her knuckles and a flame of pure heat shot through her.

“An’ what way did you mean?”

“She was interested in seeing what was underneath the leather,” Buffy told him, amusement making it difficult for her to not laugh. She squealed as he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her into his lap, his eyes single-mindedly focused on her lips.

“Is that right?”

Buffy was having her own trouble looking anywhere but at his full lips, licking her own in anticipation, suddenly knowing that she had never wanted anyone’s kiss quite as much as she did his. Never craved contact with anyone else’s mouth quite like this. Her heart was pounding as she felt herself drawn to him, magnetically attracted to his lips, no negative charge in sight.

“Yup,” she answered, and she was lost as her lips collided with his, her palms resting flat on his chest. With a subtle shift closer she opened her mouth and invited him to explore her heat further. His tongue stroked her bottom lip, causing shivers to erupt from every skin cell, and then dived into her mouth. Their tongues didn’t fight, knowing that this was a slow and steady kind of race, but her hands slid up to and around his neck in a similar motion as her tongue sought to entwine with his. She curled her fingers in his hair, mystified at its softness, and moaned loudly into his mouth at feeling the barest brush of fingertips stroke the skin under the hem of her top as goosebumps raced across her surface. She was undone, but glad that he took it slow, knowing she would go further if enticed, but not entirely sure if she was ready. After the Parker debacle, she felt a need to take things slowly.

Somewhere in the background they could hear the telephone ring, but it wasn’t until an embarrassed cough at the door had them pulling reluctantly apart. Giles stood in the doorway, frantically polishing his glass lenses, as he looked at the floor. And just like that, she was torn away form bliss again.

“What’s the what, Giles?” She turned to him, slowly extricating herself from Spike’s arms, and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Er, that was Willow. It would seem that she has had an unpleasant confrontation with Oz and the girl from that band, Veronica was it?”

“Veruca,” Buffy supplied, her heart sinking in sudden apprehension.

“Yes, quite. She asked you to go and meet her, Buffy. She sounded quite upset.”

Buffy gave a longing look to Spike, before leaning over to kiss him softly.

“I’ll be back soon,” she whispered against his lips. And then she was gone, Spike looking wistfully after her.
 

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