SECTION 3 - MY LAST BREATH

Hold on to me love
You know I can't stay long
All I wanted to say was
I love you and I'm not afraid

(Evanescence - Album - Fallen)

Chapter 3.05
Monday, May 27th, 2002

"Heyy!!" Cordelia's strident tones drew the sleeping pair back to wakefulness. "I'm pretty sure all those people who tell the two of you to get a room didn't mean a hospital room that you're sharing with your sister..."

Spike wiped sleep from his eyes and focused his attention on the one-time brunette turned not so stunning blonde. "Given as at least one of us is fully dressed an' there's blankets an' stuff in between us, I don't see as that remark is called for." He didn't bother to argue for long though, as he climbed ungracefully off Buffy's bed to check on Dawn before his fiancée could even ask.

"Still the same, love," he told her.

"And that would be why I'm here... Other than to let you know we're all hightailing it back to LA."

"Why you're here?" Buffy asked.

As Cordelia explained she tried to push back sleeves that weren't really there. "I didn't actually see what happened... but I think from what Angel told me that maybe there might be something I can do."

She reached out and placed the fingertips of either hand so that they weren't so much resting on Dawn's temples as very slightly in them. As the blonde couple watched it was as if a light came from within the former cheerleader, getting gradually brighter until she was enveloped in an almost rosy glow which spread to encompass the younger Summers sister. Then, the brightest spot at the centre of Cordy's chest seemed to move up her body and split in two before each bright spot streaked along her outstretched arms, giving her hands a deep pink hue for an instant before it left her body and entered Dawn's. Cordelia stepped back as all the monitors around the girl went haywire and the girl's body convulsed as if she had received an electric shock.

"What the blue blazes-." Spike started to give the seer a bawling out, but then he saw Dawn's eyelids flicker open and her lips form into a smile at the sight of Spike and her sister.

"Guess you guys are going to have to buy me a season ticket for this place..." the teenager joked weakly as she recognised her surroundings.

* * * * *

"Do you want to tell me why someone who can't carry anything is supposed to be helping you get coffee?"

"I didn't say we were just getting coffee. I said we were getting beverages. That means you get to be look out while I find dinner. An' besides, it gives Bit and Buffy a few minutes to themselves now that all those nurses you brought rushing in with your little party trick have gone and I want to know what the hell you just did to that girl."

"Willow drained Dawn's energy among others. Most of it was used to get rid of whatever was inside me, but I still caught some of the backwash, so while you and Dawn passed out because you didn't have enough energy, in my case I got a massive overload. I just redistributed the excess back to her. I don't really know exactly how the whole glowy thing works yet... but..."

"But Dawn's back in the land of the living again. So thanks, princess."

"I'll see that thanks and double it, what with the whole rescuing and... everything." She hesitated but then went on. "I don't think I'm going to get a chance to speak to Buffy alone, not the way she was holding onto Dawn like she was her favourite Gucci handbag. Will you tell her I'm really sorry about Willow? I know how it feels to lose a friend under these sort of circumstances and I'll make sure the sacrifice she made isn't forgotten and I'll try to make good use of the life she's given me..." The girl shrugged, her sincerity and her embarrassment both equally obvious. "And, if you think up any more clichés just tell her those as well but I've really gotta go. Skip got loose and he cracked a few of Gunn's ribs and gave him a concussion before he left. They're keeping him in hospital overnight for observation and Fred's gonna be worried sick until she actually sees him for herself. She's waiting in the car with Angel."

"Better get the twiglet back to her man, then." Spike gave her a reassuring smile.

"Ehm... I don't suppose you could escort me back to the parking lot? ...When we're done robbing the bloodbank or whatever it is that you have in mind, that is. People get kinda upset when I go through doors for some reason."

* * * * *

"The younger girl just came around."

"Thank you." Quentin replaced the receiver and resumed his contemplation of the ceremony he had witnessed earlier. It was possible that when he finally received a report from the two renegades that it would explain what had happened but he doubted it. It was more likely that the pair would produce some plausible fabrication.

'Just why, when there was both a slayer and a supernatural creature there, did the witch target a child to draw energy from? Why when the power available from almost the entire body of The Council's spellcasters and a sizeable portion of the power from one of the most respected covens in England failed to make a dent did the power from the girl have such devastating effect? What had the vampire done to cause the visible change in the energy that was drawn from the two? ...And possibly even more intriguingly... Why?'

"It appears the younger Miss Summers is back with us, despite the sort of power drain that would have had an experienced and powerful spell user in a coma for months. What is your opinion on that?" Quentin picked up a crystal tumbler from the side table next to his leather wingback armchair and looked over to where Lydia sat behind her wide mahogany desk with its pristine and obsolete blotter.

"I don't have an opinion, yet. My viewpoint was rather subjective... though I have to admit that unless the girl is more than she appears it does seem difficult to understand why Miss Rosenberg was the only fatality."

"Factor in the military's interest in the girl and I think we're likely to find Rupert and Wesley have been keeping secrets from us." The man seemed to contemplate the aroma from his whisky as he thought before he turned to the woman once more.

"You made some sort of assignation with young Wesley, did you not?"

"Well... em... we didn't make any definite arrangements," the blonde sputtered her embarrassment at being caught going behind her mentor's back.

"Make them," Quentin instructed her in no uncertain terms. "And make them soon. If The First Evil is about to make some sort of power play, we can't afford to have unknowns in the equation."

"What about Faith, then?"

"Rest assured, I know exactly where our little jailbird is."

* * * * *

Even though it was barely dusk, Tara climbed into the bed that she had once shared with Willow and opened the folder of notes for the exam she should take in less than two days time. The gathering at Xander's apartment hadn't lasted long, the man's inability to completely accept the truth of what had happened making it uncomfortable for his visitors to stay. Tara had used the others' incapacity as an excuse to come home and see to Rogue. Wes and Giles had left around the same time, the pair citing the need to get their cover story straight before they wrote their separate reports. Tara was guessing that this was a euphemistic way of saying that Wes wanted an explanation of what had actually happened, since it seemed unlikely he had ever been told the full story of The Key and its significance.

She looked at the words in front of her, trying to force her brain to make some sort of sense of them, rather than dwelling on the day's events. Soon, however, she was unable to see the words through the blur of her tears. The silent tears turned to sobs and as if alerted by the faint sounds there was a tremendous clatter on the stairs, followed by a thud against her door as Rogue stood on her hind legs so that she could use her weight to push it open.

A shaggy form scrambled onto the bed alongside the woman. A damp nose pushed into her face, brown eyes seeming puzzled at the noises she made. Then, a huge pink tongue flicked out to lick the salt from her cheeks. The dog intuitively seemed to understand that one of her people needed her and didn't even squirm away when Tara held her far tighter than could have been comfortable.

Chapter 3.06
Monday, May 27th, 2002

She gave him a small smile as she set a mug of coffee down in front of him. To her surprise he set aside his tumbler and picked up the non-alcoholic drink.

"Thanks, honey," he responded, his words quiet now, his mood no longer one of anger but more of a subdued acceptance. Anya was guessing that though he was by no means stone cold sober he was a long way from being drunk. "Honey?"

"Yes?" Anya waited to see where his helter-skelter mood ride was going to take him next.

"Thanks..."

Anya wasn't sure what exactly he was expressing gratitude for, but her smile widened anyway at his acknowledgement. "It's okay."

"No, it's not. I've been an ass and that's not okay."

"It's not like you can just be someone you're not."

"Ahn, trying to apologise here and I'm not very good at it, so maybe you could just listen?"

Anya clamped her mouth shut and sat down in the seat next to his.

"Anya, I love you. I never want to live a day of the rest of my life without you and if it ever seems like I'm forgetting that fact or if I'm taking you for granted, then tell me... or make me sleep on the sofa or whatever it takes to make me wake up and do the right thing because I never want to lose you.

One of my friends died today and you know what I keep thinking? ...I can't remember the last time I had a real conversation with her. I mean, we kinda talked about the movies we watched the other week but I just have no clue what was really going on in her life... Like I knew about the curse and about splitting up with Tara, but I don't really know how she felt about it all. I didn't make time to go and talk to her and be there for her. I could have, but I thought I'd been through the whole mopey Willow thing twice before and I had better things to do with my time and I don't want to make that sort of mistake with you. Okay?"

Anya wasn't sure whether she was allowed to speak yet so she simply nodded.

"For starters, I want you to get in touch with your friend Evie and I want you to ask her over for dinner next weekend."

"Are you sure, sweetie? I mean I thought with Willow..."

"The curse didn't kill Willow..." Xander pushed his way out of his chair, his hands running nervously through his hair as he paused his pacing at the end of every sentence. "I don't know... I'm trying to do the right thing here and not get in the way of your friends coming round."

"Evie's my friend, but I don't think it would be fair to ask you to deal with her right now and I think she would understand that."

"Okay, how about later we check with the hospital again and we get some flowers or some balloons or something and we go see Buffy and Dawn?"

"But Buffy said-."

"That I shouldn't go back until I was ready to apologise to The-." A cool look from Anya changed his mind and he swiftly corrected himself before he squandered any brownie points he might so far have accumulated. "Spike... and Dawn. Yeah, well, maybe I realised that losing one friend is enough. You like the guy, right? Buffy likes him. Even Dawn likes him so he can't be all bad... Unless he's a really good actor or you're all really gullible... which is possible, but I promise to quit saying I told you so until I've got conclusive proof."

"You know you've never invited him over here before?"

"I know, but he wasn't living with Buffy before and you never used to seem to like him any better than I do."

Anya stood up and blocked the path of his pacing, her arms running gently down his arms when he halted uncertainly. "How about we get our coats and walk over there now? If things go okay we could ask them over for dinner... like a double date," she suggested.

"Later." Xander's gaze fixed on his wife's delicate face. "I have something I want to ask you first." He reached up to gently cup her face, the ball of his thumbs stroking outward along her cheekbone. "Would you mind if we called our first little girl Willow?"

"B-but you said much, much older and much richer..."

"Yeah, but I'm an idiot. What I mean is, if you're ready, if you want to, then I'm okay with that... more than okay. I mean I want to have children with you and yeah, hopefully in time I'll get a promotion and more money and we'll be older but there's nothing stopping us from doing it sooner rather than later, if that's what you want. We could get by, maybe we wouldn't be able to afford a house in this part of town but I already make more than my dad does. You could be the sexiest mom ever." Xander's sentences all seemed to run together and he forced himself to take a deep breath. "I guess maybe I sorta set my whole personal life in a holding pattern as if we have forever but I kinda look at mom and dad and it makes me think maybe we should just wait a few years and make sure we're not going to turn out like them before we have kids and what I should be saying is 'we aren't like them'. We aren't like them because we love each other and that's why whether we have a stack of cash or we barely have two red cents to rub together we're going to make it."

Anya's eyes misted over but she smiled through her tears. "You want to make a baby with me? Now?"

"Right this minute. Okay... not a good choice of words.

I want to make love to my wife. I want to know how it feels to know that when I do there's a possibility that we could be creating something beautiful... or if you're unlucky something that looks like me instead of his mother."

"And you're not just saying this because of what happened with Willow and then you're going to change your mind?"

"I am saying this because of what happened with Willow but I do mean it. I've got to stop living with one foot out the door. You are the best thing that ever happened to me and if... Look, I'm not saying that I don't find the idea of being responsible for a tiny human scary. I do... but the idea of a little girl with your smile calling me daddy, the idea that maybe I'll keep putting off and saying later and then maybe I'll never get to meet her... that's scarier."

"Could Willow be her middle name? I always liked Amy... or Madeline... or-."

"Amy Willow Harris..." Xander ducked his head and pulled Anya in towards him until their lips touched. His tongue flicked out to brush her lips, tempting her to open herself to him and then withdrawing when she did, so that his lingering open-mouthed kisses left her longing for a deeper contact. "That sounds like someone I'd like to meet," he told her.

Anya's hands reached up tugging on the tie that Xander had loosened long ago until the narrow end came free and the knot unravelled itself. Clasping both ends, she wound the material around her palms until Xander had nowhere to go. Their lips met once more, this time their tongues stroking each other, their contact enough to muffle Anya's surprised yelp when Xander picked her up and carried her through to the bedroom.

He laid her down on the bed and crawled his way over her until he was looking down directly into her eyes.

"I know this is kinda sudden and if you want we can keep using the condoms until you've been back on the pill long enough for it to be effective. It's your choice, Ahn."

Anya's gaze never wavered for a second. "Let's make a baby."

* * * * *

"He's not stupid, you know," Wes argued. "Many things, a lot of them unpleasant, but stupid isn't one of them."

Giles rubbed at his forehead and pulled off his glasses, letting them rest on the coffee table in front of him. "Perhaps it would be better if we reconvened in the morning, in any case. Inspiration may strike overnight... and if that fails we'll just have to claim ignorance."

Wes responded with a weary nod. "Are you heading for the hospital?" he asked the older man.

"Well, I should really give Spike his car back, I suppose." His answer was patently just a flimsy excuse.

"Come on, then." Wes picked up his suit jacket from the back of the sofa and put it on. "We've got about half an hour before the end of visiting hours. I'll give you a lift back to Spike's afterwards, assuming that's where you're staying."

"Until further notice... Though Quentin did offer me a room in one of the houses for the school inmates."

Wes smiled at the choice of word which made the girls sound more like prisoners than pupils. "And what did you tell him?"

"I pointed out that Buffy had been troublesome enough on her own at fifteen and I had no incentive to share living quarters with anywhere between three and eight girls that age."

* * * * *

"I have a strong suspicion that you have no intention of leaving?" Giles arched an eyebrow in the direction of the vampire as he passed over the keys for the DeSoto.

"Not until my girls can leave with me," the blond confirmed.

"That sounds like a plan to me," Dawn offered.

"The doctors wanted to keep you in overnight for observation," her sister retorted.

"I'm fine, now. They just want to keep me in because they can't understand why all their machines had a simultaneous meltdown. It's Billy Idol over there who's creaking like he's ready to drop to bits, and if we stay here he'll end up sleeping in a chair and Tara'll be on her own."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay. Giles, Wes, can you see if you can find a nurse or a doctor or something and let them know we want to discharge ourselves? And see if any of them know where our street clothes went."

"Yeah," Dawn added with a grin. "Spike's coat won't cover both our butts at the same time."

* * * * *

Marie eyed Wes's sombre suit with a critical eye. "Bad day?" she asked, already knowing much of the answer.

Wes gave a tired smile as Rosa ran straight from her bedroom into his arms, already in her pyjamas but her hair still wet from her bath. "It just got better."

SECTION 4 - ANGELS AND DEMONS

I always knew that
You wanted to say
You always knew there'd
Be a price to pay
Like freezing nights
In some cold stark lights
When you said everyone must fight

(The Tourists)

Chapter 4.01
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002

Buffy watched helplessly as Spike tossed and muttered in his sleep. She reached instinctively to put her book down on the table by her armchair, but then she pulled her arm back and tried to read once more. There was a reason that she had taken to waiting up every night until Spike was too tired after patrol to do anything other than fall into bed, a reason she didn't go on his patrols with him, a reason she flinched away whenever he reached out to her.

* * * * *

Rosa pushed open the door of Wesley's bedroom. Her mother lifted her head from the pillow and seeing which of the house's other residents had come to join her, she raised an arm and shuffled back to the empty side of the bed.

"More bad dreams, honey?" Marie asked, as the small child climbed into the bed next to her.

The girl nodded, dragging her stuffed Tigger into the bed, too. Marie wrapped her arms around her daughter and tried to soothe her back to sleep. When the dreams had first started she had been worried that Rosa had some reservations about her mother's relationship with Wes, that maybe she wasn't ready for a new father-figure in her life. Then, Marie had found out that the disturbed sleep wasn't limited to Rosa. Lily, Clem, his girlfriend Ha Nath, Bee, Spike, everyone she knew with any demon blood, they were all feeling the stirrings. Now, Marie wasn't just worried.

* * * * *

"Look, love, I don't bloody remember where the hell I put them. I just remember it was somewhere safe." Spike opened the doors of the dining room cabinets, looking through their contents as if hoping he might recognise something.

Tara sighed. "Spike, this is important."

"If they worked, then it would be important. They're bust. I don't exactly see what the big rush is."

"We need to find them. I need to find out if the Nezzla Khan's spirit is still bound to them and if it is we need to return them to his people. It's only decent."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Not exactly my thing, pet."

Tara gave the vampire a gentle push. "Just find them, Spike."

* * * * *

Giles waited until Buffy's blows against the punchbag, which he was bracing, fell far short of her initial forcefulness and frequency before he broached the subject of her private life. "Buffy, what exactly are you doing here?"

Buffy's next kick knocked the bag into his guts with enough force to drive the wind out of him. "I'm training. I made a deal with Quentin that he would help with Cordelia and I would do the training thing again... So I'm training."

Giles sighed. "I'm perfectly sure that Quentin did not intend you to be here from eleven until two every weekday and longer on weekends. You get your driving instructor to drop you off here when you finish your lesson and if you could park a bit further away from my new car, I'd be grateful."

"I touched the fender once. That's what fenders are for."

"All the same I would actually prefer mine to stay attached but that is by the by. You train for three hours and then, if Brandon doesn't have her too preoccupied, you meet Dawn and go to the mall or to bible class or whatever, anywhere but home. When you do go home, from what I've heard, you disappear into the basement with Xander and leave Spike to patrol either alone or occasionally with Anya for company... and from what I've heard of those patrols, Spike's more interested in blowing off steam, than protecting himself-."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Anya says that he's picked up injuries on the last couple of patrols she's been on with him... but then you should know that."

"If he's been endangering Anya-."

"No, he hasn't, but Anya has noticed that he's becoming more reckless regarding his own safety and when I mentioned to Dawn that I was going to look at an apartment, she told me I couldn't move out of Spike's yet because if I did Spike would have his bags packed in five minutes flat the way you were treating him. So, Buffy, what is going on?"

"It's personal."

"There was a time you would have felt able to talk to me about it."

"There was a time when you didn't disappear when I needed you most."

Giles gave a tired sigh. "I left because I thought it was necessary and I suppose I deserve your disdain... but as your watcher I have to ask if there is something going on between you and Spike that is having an affect on your slaying or perhaps is the reason for the total lack of it... And as your friend I have to ask what happened to the almost unbelievably happy girl I met when I came back from England and ask why you're putting hours into planning a wedding and creating a home to share with a man you no longer seem to want to be in the same room with."

"It's not-. I mean-. Giles, just butt out. You don't understand. You can't understand, not without going through it."

"Buffy, I tried to warn you, before you rushed so rashly into it, that performing a bond between you both was not something to be taken lightly. If you did not wish him to be part of your life in every sense, if you weren't sure, then you should never have gone ahead with it, but wisely or unwisely you did and you have to either live with that fact and embrace what you have done or end it. To push him away entirely because you find yourself unable to cope with the intimacy the claim forces on you is too cruel."

"That's not it. There-."

"No? Dawn says you flinch if he even touches you. She said he doesn't even try any more. If that isn't because you're afraid to share your feelings with him, then the only other explanation is such that..." Giles fixed his slayer with a long, hard look.

"Spike wouldn't hurt me."

"Then, perhaps you should extend him the same courtesy..." the watcher suggested, turning away to find a towel to wipe his face. "Or just admit it was a mistake, stake him, free yourself and end his pain. I've no doubt he's probably done plenty to deserve it, but it seems rather late in the day to decide it's your job to punish him for past sins... at least, if you want your relationship to work."

Giles bluntly stated the two choices that were open to her and then left her to vent her ire on the equipment. His hope that Spike wouldn't find himself on the wrong end of a stake was rather unexpected, unlike the crash that intimated he would have to rehang the punchbag before tomorrow's training session.

* * * * *

"Where did you find them?" Tara asked before her mouth dropped open, surprised by the unexpected flash of violet lightning that illuminated Spike's eyes as he passed the orbs to her.

"Buffy's knicker drawer an' yeah, yeah, they're working again, which kinda makes checking for your demon prince redundant."

"We have to give them back, you know."

"With The First up to goodness only knows what?"

"That's not the point. We'll deal with The First, and it's not like physical strength is going to help out there, anyway, but when we've done that, there'll be something else or someone else. There will always be some excuse why we need to keep them just a bit longer, but it wouldn't be right. He sacrificed his life to protect his people and he misses them."

Spike's face twisted into an embarrassed scowl. "That wasn't the only reason I wanted to hold onto them a bit longer."

"Spike, I know it's hard for you shut away all day, but if The Council find out that you can walk in sunshine with impunity let alone the unstoppable strength and the invulnerability, some of them are bound to see it as their duty to destroy the orbs before they fall into the hands of someone who would abuse their power. We already thought they were broken once. We need to return them before they are broken for real."

"I know that. I just-. I wanted to take Buffy somewhere special for her honeymoon. She deserves better than all night drives and days on her own, but then..."

"Don't you dare say she deserves better than you," Tara warned.

"Why not?"

"Because I can see it in your auras. I can see how good you are together when things are right and I can see how hurt you've been because she's keeping you at arm's length. She just isn't ready to share how she feels about... things, yet."

"But-."

"Grief makes people irrational. It'll be fine. She wouldn't be running around organising things for the wedding or labouring for Xander if she wasn't expecting there-."

The doorbell cut off whatever Tara had been planning to say and she bustled to the door, leaving Spike in the shady dining room, at least until he caught sight of the look on Tara's face when she saw who was there. His sensitive senses caught an unmistakable musk in the air and Rogue's frantic and hostile barking could be heard from one end of the neighbourhood to the other.

Chapter 4.02
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002

"Tara, pet, why don't you go and stick the kettle on? I'll look after our guest once I get this mangy mutt to shut up," Spike suggested. His voice hardened as he tried to discipline the dog. "Rogue! Here!" He pointed at a spot beside his legs. The mongrel was far too obsessed with protecting her owners to actually pay attention to any of them, however, and Spike was forced to sidle along the edge of the parallelogram of sunlight that shone through the open doorway until he could reach out to snatch Rogue's collar and pull her into the shade, his hand smoking slightly in the process.

Finally, he had the dog's attention. "Shut up, ya dozy bitch!" he told her, the command far more softly spoken than the words might suggest. As he spoke he reached around from behind her and pulled her chin slowly upwards until she was forced not only to be silent but to look at him. "Shhh. Doesn't matter how big you grow you ain't gonna be top dog when there's a werewolf around."

Oz had waited patiently on the doorstep while Spike had ushered Tara away and calmed the canine. Now, he took his chance to move into the doorway where he could actually see the vampire.

"Spike," he greeted him with a totally neutral equanimity and the slightest nod of his head.

The blond returned the nod and gestured toward the living room. "You're probably gonna want to grab yourself a seat."

Oz hesitated. "Buffy?" The redhead's eyes wandered as if to see if the slayer were about to emerge from one of the other rooms. "She sent me an email about Willow..."

Spike's suspicions hardened that bit nearer to being fact.

"She's out, but I dare say if I give her a bell she'll head back. How long ago was it that you got this email?"

"About a week ago..." Spike breathed a sigh of relief until the younger man continued. "I mean she sent it maybe three weeks ago, give or take, but I didn't get it until last week. I wrote back and told her I'd head down as soon as I could get someone to cover for me."

"She probably hasn't been near the computer in a fortnight. So I'm guessing she told you Red was in a mess..."

"Look, am I missing something here? The look that girl gave me was more than just running into your ex's ex and this is starting to feel like twenty questions, so why don't you tell me what's going on?"

"Okay, if that's how you want it." Spike made his way into the living room with Rogue following at his heels and lifted a folded newspaper clipping from underneath one of the ornaments on the mantelpiece, passing it to the younger man. He watched Oz's face as his eyes scanned the article, Oz's knees suddenly weak enough to make him finally take the seat he had been offered minutes before.

"Of course, the gas leak wasn't really a gas leak. The simple version is that she made herself go boom, tryin' to exorcise some Big Bad out of Cordelia, but it's really a mite more complicated." Spike partially eschewed his normal penchant for nicknames for the sake of clarity.

"She's dead? No one told me."

"Reckon Buffy was the only one as knew how to get a hold of you. She never mentioned that she'd got in touch an' she hasn't exactly been herself since it happened.

I'll ring her. She'll want to see you." Spike headed through to the kitchen to get the handset for the cordless, keeping an eye on Oz from a distance while he made the call so that the other man had a few minutes to let the news sink in.

"The Magic Box, Anya speaking. How may we help you?"

"You can tell Buffy that Red's wolf boy just showed up an' he might appreciate havin' someone around as he has actually been formally introduced to an' as isn't the love of his ex's life."

"Oz is there? As in at Buffy's house?"

"Turns out Buff called in the reinforcements to help with Crone Willow, but forgot to let him know about Dead Willow. Just ask her to get that pretty arse of hers back here pronto. I'm not sure how long we've got before he rabbits and however calm he looks, he shouldn't be driving when he's just had that sort of news 'bout someone he cares enough to pack up his life for."

Tara brushed past Spike, a cup in either hand, giving him a quiet smile as she passed. She set one of the mugs down on the coffee table in front of the sofa where Oz was sitting, and took the other with her as she sat in one of the armchairs. "Camomile tea," she informed the lycanthrope when she saw him sniffing the air. "It's supposed to be good for shock."

* * * * *

Spike melted away into the background, slipping out into the dubious shade of the back porch as soon as Buffy arrived. As he had pointed out to Anya, somehow he and Oz had crossed paths only once, when the vampire had helped to rescue the lycanthrope from the Initiative. The fact that it had been part of Adam's scheme to get the Scoobies to trust him so that he could then lure them into the middle of a massacre did sort of mitigate any claim to heroism on his part, though. To all intents and purposes the two men were strangers and Spike was diplomatic enough to butt out as soon as those closer to Oz arrived. Buffy didn't need to be trying to cope with her problems with him on top of the situation with the werewolf.

He hadn't been there for long when Tara joined him, taking a seat on the step while he was forced to sit slightly further back.

"There's a definite old school vibe in there."

"To be expected, love."

"Did you know that she had asked him to come?"

Spike shrugged. "Buffy's pretty much a power unto herself, when she isn't beating said self to crap about stuff beyond her control. I'm guessing she didn't want to say anything until she heard he was coming."

"Do you think he would have been able to help?" Tara half turned when she felt Spike's eyes on her.

"You mean, do I think she loved him enough to change for him when she couldn't do it for you? No, no an' a thousand times no, but maybe seein' through his eyes how different she'd become from the girl he used to know might have helped. I guess we'll never find out now."

* * * * *

"I'm so sorry, Oz. I just wasn't thinking at all." Buffy took the seat next to Oz, but somehow even she didn't feel comfortable enough to hug the self-possessed young man. For all his sociability, Oz had always seemed a very private individual and any public displays of affection had always been solely for the girl they now mourned.

Oz's lip curled down at the corners marginally less than before. "Buffy, don't worry about it. It's hardly email material. 'I'm getting married to Spike and we'd like you to come,' that's the sort of thing you put in an email, not 'Willow's dead'."

"I should have... When I died she took the bus to LA to tell Angel. I should have..."

Giles interrupted Buffy's recriminations. "I don't think you can take all the responsibility solely upon yourself. We were all equally remiss. Even if we didn't realise that you had managed to track Oz down more directly, we should have tried contacting his parents to make sure they were aware of the news and would be able to pass it on."

"Not to rain on the parade of blame, but mom and dad moved to New York not long after I started at Sunnydale U, so I doubt you would have had much luck. It doesn't matter anyway. Things happened the way they did. It's of the past." The redhead looked around the room, obviously uncomfortable with so much personal attention.

He sat his empty mug back down on the coffee table and as he spoke he rose to his feet. "Look, I should head across to Devon's place and check if he'll let me crash there. I guess I need to think this through and work some stuff out."

"You've had a bit of a shock. Perhaps it might be better if you left your van here and I drove you over," Giles offered and only about an eighth of the reason for his graciousness was so that he could show off his shiny new 4 x 4.

For a fraction of a second, Oz looked as if he might refuse, but of all the early Scoobies he had always been the most level-headed. "Sure. I'll go sort out what I need from the van. Anya, tell Xander I said hi, just in case I don't get around to seeing him."

Buffy struggled to find words to say goodbye. "Ehm, if you don't end up making plans with Devon you're welcome to come over for dinner tonight. Xander and Anya will be coming anyway and there's always a sofa to crash on if things don't work out with Devon."

"Thanks, Buffy, but I guess I need some alone time. I'll probably just dump my things and then go for a walk or something."

There was a feeling that the slayer understood. "Sure, but if you happen to find yourself in the area and you're hungry, feel free to drop in."

Oz simply gave an almost imperceptible nod and headed for the door, Giles following behind him.

"Anya, I'll take you back to the shop once I drop off Oz. Buffy, might I suggest that you consider your training completed for the day and concentrate on other matters?" Giles' look made it plain that his question to the slayer was of the purely rhetorical variety.

Chapter 4.03
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002

Giles pushed open the door to Spike's apartment and then handed Oz the keys. "I'm afraid there's only one bedroom, but you should have more privacy here than you would have at Buffy's house. I'll get her set of keys when I go back to pick up Anya. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. I probably won't be back before ninish.

If you do go out for a walk after dark, be careful. The Watchers' Council and their potential slayers are out in force at the moment. They might not be as well equipped as the Initiative was, but they're probably every bit as dangerous. Of course, under normal circumstances they wouldn't be aware of your condition but it has been established that an emotional response can bring on the change and now must be an emotional time."

Oz neither confirmed nor denied Giles' assumption. Instead, his eyes scanned the room, taking in the framed posters on the wall and the sealed packing crates stacked by the side of the counter. "Kind of a new direction?"

"The posters and some of the furnishings belong to Spike. The rest come with the flat. He was renting the place, but when I came back from England, he moved in with Buffy... or perhaps it would be more precise to say that the fact he had moved in with Buffy became official. I suspect this place was never much more than a smokescreen for the benefit of Social Services."

Giles scanned the room, pointing out which doors led to the bathroom and the bedroom and where he kept his whisky before his gaze became more serious. "One last word of warning... You may remember, back when you were in your final year at high school, there was a demon called The First Evil, who tormented Angel, almost to the point of committing suicide, by masquerading as his victims. It's back, it's stronger and it seems to be working on a more strategic level this time around. So far, other than causing general disquiet in the demon community as a whole by using dreams as some sort of call to arms, it seems to be taking some time to regroup after trying unsuccessfully to turn Spike to its purposes. Nevertheless, it can take the form of any dead person or anyone who has died, so if you see anything which you know you shouldn't be seeing, be very careful. It won't think twice about taking advantage of the situation, if it suits its purposes. If in any doubt about anyone, and that includes Buffy and Spike both of whom are vulnerable to impersonation, remember that it is unable to take corporeal form."

Giles sighed. "All very melodramatic, I know, but at a time like this, even under normal circumstances, it's easy to imagine that you might have caught sight of a loved one in a crowd, or imagine that you can feel their presence somehow and those perceptions are just the tool The First needs to gain a foothold in your psyche."

Giles made another visual sweep of the apartment as if to try to reassure himself that he had covered everything. "Is there anything else I can tell you?"

Oz shook his head. Later, he might get the watcher to fill in the blanks on what had happened to Willow, but first he just needed some time to process the fact that she was gone.

"Well, I'll be going then. If you do manage to get in touch with Devon later and you decide to relocate, just leave me a note."

The watcher finally closed the door behind him, leaving the werewolf alone to contemplate his eventful return to Sunnydale.

Oz let his kitbag fall to the floor and dropped onto the black leather settee. "Home Sweet Home," he told himself in a voice thick with irony.

* * * * *

"I'm sorry, Tara," Buffy gave the Wiccan a half-smile. "It must have been really hard just seeing Oz like that with no warning. With everything that happened I just completely forgot that I'd written to him."

"It-. I'll be fine. It was just... unexpected." Tara looked over to Giles, who had just arrived back. "There is something else that we all need to discuss, though. I was thinking maybe we could do the whole Scooby meeting thing tonight when Xander's here? If you can make it."

"That shouldn't be a problem. I was planning on trying to give Oz some space in any case."

Anya tapped her foot impatiently from where she stood in the open front door. "Come on, Giles. You know a lot of people like to come to the shop in their lunch hour and we've been closed for nearly an hour now."

Giles' eyes narrowed even as he made his way to the door. "Perhaps you would like me to sit or beg while you're at it?" Buffy heard him question as he and Anya made their way back to the car.

The slayer closed the door behind them, turning to Tara. "Anything I can be doing for this meeting?"

Tara gently shook her head. "I'm still working on some research type stuff. I'll be heading over to Wes's in a few minutes to pick Bee's brains. We've got something we want to try."

Buffy looked disappointed. "O-okay. Well, if you need me you know where I am."

Tara didn't say anything but her eyes drifted in the direction of the porch where Spike was still sitting as if to point out that others might be in more need of Buffy's time.

* * * * *

Buffy heard the door close behind the Wiccan as she left the house and she knew she was alone with Spike. Dawn, Brandon, Janice and a few of the other kids from their class had headed out for the beach for the day and Buffy wasn't expecting them back until around sundown. Giles had all but forbidden her to return to The Magic Box and she was left alone with all the thoughts she had been trying to keep too busy to examine for the last fortnight.

She tried to work out how she could get out of this massive hole she had managed to dig for herself. She wished they had never gone ahead with the claim. Giles was right. She hadn't realised what they were getting into. It was Spike's fault. She'd told him she was only about ninety-five percent certain. He should have made her wait until she didn't have any doubts at all. She sighed. 'Yeah, right,' a sarcastic little voice inside her said. 'It's all his fault and I'm just an innocent bystander!' However, even if she knew he wasn't to blame, part of her still felt that he was, and with just one touch he would know it.

The same touch would also have told him that she found his relief at Willow's death repellent. She could understand it, sort of. Dawn and she were the centre of his world and somehow, every time Willow got out of control Dawn seemed to be the one who suffered. With Willow dead, Spike felt more secure. She could see all too well where he was coming from. The truth was that she hated herself no less for the part of her that felt the same way, but her feelings, however much she was ashamed of them and wanted to keep them hidden, were just a small part of a massive cocktail of regret, inadequacy and longing for the redhead to somehow be returned to them. In many ways it was a reversal of the situation they had been in when Drusilla had been killed. Nevertheless, even though she knew it was unfair of her she couldn't help but feel that where Drusilla was a monster, making her own lack of concern understandable, Willow's life as a human being had an innate sanctity and yet she barely registered on Spike's radar except as a potential threat. Spike could love. He did love, but a dead body was still just leftovers to him. If he hurt, it was because she did and she envied him that detachment at the same time she resented him for it.

She hated her vulnerability. She hated that with him she couldn't ignore those feelings within her that she despised. She hated that in the confusion of her grief, it was as if he knew what she was feeling before she did, as if he could separate out all the different emotions she was feeling, take them apart and analyse them in his intuitive way almost before she was even aware of their existence. She hated him being inside her head, for knowing her better than anyone should, and all she could do to protect herself was to push him away. It wasn't planned and this was probably as much as she had dared to think it through. It was instinctive.

She loved him. Somehow, she doubted that fact would ever change. It just hurt to be with him, to have to look so closely in the dark mirror that he presented her with.

...And yet, Giles was right. There was no going back. She couldn't unmake the claim and she knew that once... if they could make it through this quagmire of pain, then it could be good again. She had been happy. They were both happy. A tear slid down her cheek as she thought of Spike's laughing face as he spun her round, or the way he would look into her eyes as they made love, his gaze more intimate than the physical joining of their bodies. God, she wanted so much to see him smile at her again... but how could she explain? How could she tell him how ugly she felt inside? If only they could somehow move past all that without having to examine it to death. The wounds were less fresh now, there still, but maybe she could banish those thoughts to the back of her mind.

An idea began to form and Buffy moved to the wardrobe, searching for the packages she had brought back after her first LA shopping trip. The satin and lace had been intended for their honeymoon, but her current need was more immediate.

* * * * *

Spike looked at the few remaining cigarettes in his packet as he pulled out another and used the butt of the previous one to light it. Chain-smoking really hammered the supplies. He'd have to buy another carton later when it was dark. Rogue bounded up to him and dropped her spit-covered tennis ball by his side for him to throw it out into the back yard once more.

In the shade, the breeze could make it seem quite chilly, but Spike doubted that going back inside would be a very good idea. Buffy needed space and he was trying to give her it, but it was getting harder every passing day and he was beginning to think it would be better for him to leave the house altogether before his frustration drove him to do something he would regret later. It was ridiculous, considering he was paying nine hundred bucks a month in rent that he was actually contemplating going back to the crypt. He just didn't know how much longer he could watch her in so much pain and feel so helpless to do anything. At least somewhere else he wouldn't have to watch her try to avoid his eyes, or dig holes in his palms with his nails to stop himself from grabbing her and pinning her against the wall until she told him, one way or another, what was going on in that head of hers.

They had come so far. He had been sure that she loved him and then suddenly she made him feel like an outsider again. He knew she was confused, that somehow it was all tied in with her grief, but surely she knew that he wanted to help her. She had to know that for him hell was simply being separated from her in any way, but still the situation dragged on.

His head tilted slightly to one side as he heard the window of their bedroom being opened. Soft romantic music drifted down to him, music they had once made love to. Spike lay back and screwed his eyes tightly shut, trying to resist the siren call, sure that Buffy was probably busy doing something and had just turned the tape in the machine over without checking what it was and that the window was only open because the room could get stuffy. As he lay there trying to get his feelings and his body under some sort of control again, the scent of his favourite perfume informed him that this was no accident. Buffy hadn't been wearing any scent that morning other than her deodorant, and if she was picking something for herself she would have chosen something lighter for a daytime perfume. The sensuous musky odour could only have been chosen to add to his torment.

Rogue bounded over once more, and this time instead of tossing her ball for her again he grasped her collar and pulled her back into the house, slamming the back door behind them. Once he was sure the dog couldn't wander off, he bounded up the stairs, pain and anger almost lending him wings. When he pushed open the bedroom door the sight before him made his blood boil. Buffy was curled on their bed, pale pink satin and lace encasing the lines of her body, pushing her pert breasts even higher and drawing in her waist so tight he was sure he could span it with his two hands.

Her eyes clouded over with lust as she eyed him standing in the doorway. Spike was sickened. He felt cheap and violated, that of all they had shared, the thing that would make her break down the walls she had been hiding behind wasn't him. It was just his body.

* * * * *

Buffy knew she had miscalculated as she saw his lip curl in disdain. Even as he turned on his heel she raced after him.

"Spike, stop! Wait! Please?"

While her commands didn't work, her plea at least made him pause but by then he was halfway down the stairs.

"Please what?" he asked. "Please fuck you like some whore? You spend weeks trying to distance yourself from me and then this?"

"Please, Spike, I just didn't know how to explain. I thought if we made love, then after or during it would come through bit by bit, without my having to put it in to words."

"If all you wanted was for me to understand, princess, then all you had to do was join me on that porch and take my hand. You didn't have to play games or turn it into some sort of circus."

"Okay, so I screwed up. What do you want me to say?"

"Sorry might be a welcome change... for a start."

Buffy's hand reached out and down from where she stood two steps higher on the staircase than Spike. Her fingertips brushed his cheek and as clearly as if she had said the words he felt it in his heart. There was a whole host of conflicting emotions but most of all he could feel her love and her regret at having offended him and for hurting him by keeping him at a distance. "I'm sorry."

Part of Spike wanted to draw out this moment, to make her pay for the forgiveness she sought, but this was Buffy. He loved her and he would do anything for her... especially when she was wearing a corset that propped her breasts up at eye level and barely covered her nipples.

"I know I should argue some more," Spike protested, "but since the blood is all leaving my brain, somehow I just can't think what about."

Buffy leaned in towards him, gasping when the tip of his tongue brushed the upper curve of her breast and one hand stroked her butt where her pastel pink thong left it bare, each caress surprisingly redolent of reverence as well as desire.

"I thought you were upset at me for wearing this?"

"I was upset at you for wearing it when we had stuff we needed to sort out. You're sorry. I forgive you... 'cause when it comes to you I'm a great soft tart. Don't do it again, if you can help it. It's sorted out. Now, you can seduce me all you want."

"I wasn't trying to manipulate you," Buffy tried to explain as she wrapped first one leg and then the other around his waist. "I just wanted to make it obvious that I wanted you to touch me again."

As Spike carried her back to their bedroom, the bulge in his trousers brushing against her satin-swathed centre, he made her a promise. "I'm going to touch you like you've never been touched before."

Chapter 4.04
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002

"There are ways to touch me that you haven't already tried?" Buffy asked with a gently teasing lilt as Spike carried her into their room, kicking the door shut behind them.

"There are a few subtle variations on a recurring theme." Spike's honeyed drawl was enough to make the muscles in the pit of Buffy's stomach tighten. His hands spanned her waist picking her up and lifting her away from his body, causing her to pout when she had to lower her legs to stand on her own two feet. The vampire smirked at her obvious impatience. "Best shut those windows, poodle, unless of course you want a stray breeze to blow the curtains open at an inopportune moment."

"Poodle? Aren't you confusing me with one of your other women?" Buffy's gaze alighted on the armchair that Rogue had somehow teleported into at some point during their arguing and making up. The sleepy look the puppy gave her seemed to imply that she had been there for hours and wanted to know what the big deal was. Buffy grudgingly decided they had a far better chance of not being disturbed if they left her where she was, as opposed to having her whining and scratching on the opposite side of one of the doors.

"Not sure what she is, but it's beginning to look more like she's part pony than part poodle. Windows?" Spike reminded her, sending her off with a pat on the butt.

The blonde looked back over her shoulder and almost managed a glower. "If I didn't owe you big time, I might take this discussion further." As she moved to make sure the room would remain free from direct sunlight, she could hear Spike pulling open drawers behind her. When she turned around the vampire's hands were full of soft, white silk.

"Oh, no!" she muttered, shaking her head.

"Oh, yes, honey," the vampire countered, a core of steel in the velvet softness of his voice. "You might not have realised it at the time, but you chose the game when you picked that costume." His eyes wandered over her baby-pink satin corset and matching panties and her pale, sheer hold ups with a rose lace pattern on her thighs. He nodded at the champagne stilettos on the floor next to the bed, where she had slipped them off to better chase after him. "I think those are meant to be part of the outfit. Put them on." For a second, Buffy looked to be about to protest at his high-handed manner, but Spike was having none of it. "You owe me, baby. Besides you know I won't tease you for more than an hour or two. You've kept me waiting for sixteen days and..." His eyes shifted to the lime green LED of Buffy's alarm clock. "...Nine hours, give or take."

Instead Buffy switched to begging. "Spike, please? Can't we just make love the normal way?"

Spike's hand reached out to cup her cheek as, having already slipped the shoes on, she swayed elegantly towards him. His touch was reassuring, love and lust far outweighing any residual resentment at her treatment of him. "This isn't a punishment. Trust me," he whispered in her ear.

Spike pushed all but one of the long slim scarves into the pocket of his tight black jeans so that they looked like a white water cascade, shifting irresistibly as he moved. He lifted her left wrist. "Hold it out, baby."

Still slightly nervous, Buffy did so and Spike placed the centre of the scarf over her wrist, wrapping it around three times to provide some cushioning before tying the ends in a tight knot that left the ends of the scarf trailing from her pulse point. He pulled another of the scarves from his pocket, having to use one hand to stop the others from following along with it. "Other arm, baby." Buffy was helpless to resist the husky whisper, even though she had little idea what the vampire had in mind.

When the second scarf had been attached to her right wrist in a similar manner, he led her to the foot of their bed. Placing her hands on top of the metal framework, shoulder width apart, he picked up the trailing ends of each scarf and tied them in a loose loop around one of the long vertical bars that made up the foot of the bed.

Examining her bonds Buffy doubted that Spike was planning on face to face contact for their union. The obvious position was for her to be bent over with him behind her, but the way he had attached the scarves also left the possibility of her kneeling or even with a little strain on her arms lying face down on the floor.

Spike ducked under one of her arms to stand between her and the end of the bed. His cool lips brushed against hers with an unbelievable tenderness and the last of Buffy's apprehensions melted away. A low moan rose in her throat and she would have arched against him, only the corset was like a satin prison remaining ramrod straight from her tailbone to just under her shoulder blades as her body moved within it.

She didn't have to bear that particular frustration for long, however. Spike stepped back and pulling two of the remaining scarves from his pocket, he ducked beneath her arm once more, the sound of his footfalls telling her that he was behind her. He folded the two scarves in half lengthways and layered them one on top of the other before placing them over Buffy's eyes and tying them tight enough that there was no chance of them accidentally slipping off.

Buffy's gasp of surprise showed that whatever she had been expecting that wasn't it. "Spike?" she asked, her voice hesitant.

Her only answer was the press of a very male body against her back. Even the corset, which she was now beginning to hate with a passion because its armour-like rigidity denied her so many sensations, couldn't totally disguise the feel of his erection pressing against her, heavy denim brushing her thighs. Strong hands slid around her waist and then down until his fingertips teased the vulnerable flesh of her inner thighs. Gentle lips nuzzled against her neck and then sharp but careful teeth nibbled at her earlobe but the vampire avoided her claim mark, knowing that that would bring the situation to an end far more quickly than he had intended.

A questing fingertip moved back upwards gliding along the edge of her panties until the corset got in his way. "How many pairs of knickers did you buy to match this thing?" The slightest sibilance in his voice when he whispered in her ear told her that he had not bothered to maintain his human form and that knowledge made Buffy squirm even more against him in anticipation.

Letting her head drop back against his shoulder, she answered, "three," in a breathy whisper.

"Good," Spike answered with barely a pause in his assault on her neck.

Unable to see what he was doing, Buffy was intensely attuned to both his touch and the sounds he made as he hooked the fragile panties from under the bottom of the corset and made first one side and then the other fall away with a tearing sound that made her feel damp just thinking of its contained power. Then, he was gone.

She had to use all her concentration to catch the sound of him taking a deep breath over Rogue's gentle snoring. "Already wet for me, baby? Can't wait for me to fill that succulent pussy, can you?"

Buffy heard the familiar thuds of two heavy boots being pulled off and discarded. "Talk to me, Buffy. Your body says you want me, but I want to hear you say it."

Buffy hesitated, still not quite as loquacious during sex as her vampiric partner. There was a rustle of material from behind and off to one side, and then something soft hit her arm, slithering over it with a waft of Spike's cologne before dropping to the floor. Behind closed eyelids Buffy conjured images of an alabaster chest and rippling abdominal muscles, no longer hidden by his black silk shirt. She was unable to deny him any longer. "I want you. God, do I want you!"

A fingertip ran down the centre of her back, plucking ever so slightly at every point where the ribbon fastening the corset crossed over until, halfway down, it came to the bow that was securing it. Buffy tried to reverse toward him but, short of pulling the bed with her, she had reached the edge of her bounds. The vampire was obviously working at arms length, only the very occasional brush of a fingertip telling its message of anticipation, love and desire, though even the brush of the ribbon as he unfastened it made her skin tingle.

Buffy sighed. Soon the self-inflicted implement of torture would be gone and they would make love, skin on skin, muscle against muscle.

Her hopes were dashed as something cool and firm pressed into the small of her back and she felt the corset cinch in even tighter around her. Somewhat belatedly she worked out that it was Spike's knee that was pressing against her.

"Spike, I can't breathe..."

Buffy jumped as he answered her, realising from the feel of soft skin against her butt that his shirt was not the only clothing he had removed. "You can breathe just enough to make it fun, love. Trust me. Take shallower breaths. Don't try to fill your lungs." The rasp of ribbon let her know that he had refastened the bow that bound her.

"Spike, I realise you probably have way more experience with corsets than I have... but that was on dead people."

Cool flesh brushed against her inner arms and Spike's voice came from in front of her once more. "Would I ever take a chance on hurting you, my sweet thing?" A tender finger traced the curve of her breast where it nestled on the superstructure of stays and satin before she was fairly certain that he turned his back to her.

"Buffy, I'm going to untie your wrists, but first I want you to promise me that you won't take off the blindfold."

The slayer nodded her assent but she still couldn't help reiterating her complaints about her attire. "My insides feel like they're all squished together and these shoes are killing me."

"That's sort of the point, beautiful. The other, not the shoes, they just help with the height difference."

"Wh-." Buffy's mouth dropped open as she realised what he meant. "Oh god." Spike was such a tight fit in any case and if she understood him correctly, he'd just laced her up so she could hardly breathe so that things would be even tighter. Adrenaline surged through her veins and she didn't know whether it was in anticipation or fear.

Spike's lips closed over hers, dry, firm and full, his touch offering reassurance. His hands curved over her shoulder, one long slim finger drawn to the mark that branded her as being his, brushing over it so lightly that if her mouth had been free Buffy would have gasped for breath. As always a flush ran through her body bringing with it a trembling weakness in her limbs. She clutched at him for support, savouring the feel of his tapering back, deceptively muscular shoulders narrowing to that almost impossibly slim waist. Her legs were already slightly spread, just to provide her with more stability on her stilettos and with a shimmy of his hips Spike pushed his dick between her thighs. Slowly his head moved back and forth, almost stroking her wet swollen lips until he too was slick with her fluids. Unconsciously, she opened her mouth to him, their tongues caressing to the same rhythm as their lower bodies, matching the music on the tape that Buffy had put on what seemed like hours earlier. Before long, any worries she had had were forgotten.

She finally threw her head back gasping for air, taking longer than normal to recover because she could only manage shallow breaths.

A husky whisper sounded in her ear, close enough that she could feel his breath. "Tell me what you want, Buffy." It wasn't so much a command as a plea. Under the guise of his normal dirty talk, the vampire was asking for confirmation that the last couple of weeks were just an aberration.

Buffy struggled to answer as she tried to regulate her breathing once more, her words coming out between gasps. "I want you, Spike. I want you any way you'll have me, but most of all I want to look into your eyes as we make love."

Strong arms suddenly lifted her off her feet, tossing her onto the bed, far more solicitous of her wellbeing when she couldn't see. She knew that under normal circumstances he would most likely have swept her feet from under her and screwed her into the carpet. She parted her legs wide as she felt Spike settle over her, propping himself up on his elbows. "Take me, Spike. Please. Make me feel whole."

Spike slid the blindfold from her eyes and even in the dim light of the room with all the curtains drawn she could see a mottled pattern on his chest, but his words made her dismiss it until later. "Guide me in, baby."

Reaching down, she used both hands to stroke and fondle him, one hand pumping him slowly whilst with the other she gripped the end of his shaft, using her thumb in a circling motion to spread the fluid that leaked from the tip. When she lifted her hips and pushed the first couple of inches inside she was relieved to find the sensations no different from normal. Suddenly, Spike drove into her with one massive push and she screamed his name but not from any pain. Spike had made sure that she was ready for him, but her walls pressed so tightly that his movement couldn't help but hit every sensitive nerve ending inside her.

Blue eyes locked unblinkingly with hazel as he slowly withdrew, watching every flicker that intimated her pleasure as he pulled slowly out of her. This time as he rammed deep inside her, she pushed her feet flat to the mattress and lifted her hips. Time after time, he plunged into her as far as he could go and then pulled out incredibly slowly, her nerve endings responding like fireworks on the fourth of July.

Buffy's eyes never left his the whole time. "Spike, baby, gonna come soon. Come with me... please, Spike."

In response, his thrusts gradually became more frequent until Buffy could hold off no longer. Her whole body shuddered as her orgasm swept through her, her knees giving way so that she couldn't lift herself to match Spike's actions any more. Still he moved faster and faster inside her and every piston stroke sent out tremors that seemed to prolong her shuddering climax until with one last thrust he arched his back and spilled his semen deep inside her.

* * * * *

Buffy reopened her eyes, surprised to find Spike lying next to her as opposed to on top of her. He gently stroked her hair, in a way that even if they hadn't shared an empathic bond would have said over and over again that he loved her. Buffy nuzzled into his hand, realising when she moved that the lingerie of the Spanish Inquisition (which she admitted, to herself at least, had turned out to be not quite as tortuous as she had anticipated) had been discarded.

She fixed him with a teasing glance. "This one doesn't count," she told him.

Spike looked puzzled and slightly concerned. "What do you mean it doesn't count?"

"In your running total for how many times you've 'shagged me senseless'... Due to assistance from partial asphyxiation, it doesn't count."

"Oh?" Spike smirked. "I guess in that case it's a one all draw."

Buffy mock scowled at his tacit admission. "You couldn't have passed out some time when I was awake to gloat about it?" she teased.

Chapter 4.05
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002

Buffy sighed and snuggled fractionally closer to her man, revelling in the feather-light caresses his dextrous hands bestowed. It wasn't as if, simply by being together, everything was right with the world. It didn't make the pain go away or let her escape the guilt she carried for her less charitable feelings, even if for half an hour or so she had forgotten them. It did make everything bearable though... and it wasn't just the sex, not even mostly the sex. It was him, and the strength his love gave her.

Tears welled up below her lowered lashes and her whispered words came out with a catch in them. "I'm sorry."

Instantly, she felt Spike's body shift from languor to attentiveness, his thumb brushing away her tears as his husky whispers tried to anchor her. "Hey, now, what's to be sorry for?"

Buffy gave a deep sniff and rolled to bury her face into his neck. "I'm an idiot."

"No, you're not, love." Spike's hands switched to stroking her hair. "A mite stubborn now and then, never an idiot."

"I am. I've been awful to you and I didn't really want to be but I just... It hurts worse when I try to hide from you than... I just didn't want you to see those bits of me..."

Her tears seemed to burn into him almost like holy water as they ran down his collar bone and onto the pillow, but he didn't try to shush her or make her stop. "Let it out, sweet pea. What did you ever think I might see in you that could make me love you any less?"

"But if you see it, it's real... and- and..."

Spike's hands gently framed either side of her face, pulling it away slightly from his neck and tilting it back. "Look at me, kitten." Buffy's eyelids flicked up, her lashes clumped together with tears, but when she met his gaze she was transfixed by his solemnity. "You are a champion. You are a hero. You are 'The Chosen One', but that doesn't give anyone the right to expect you to be some sort of personification of messianic virtue. You're a human being and human beings are not, despite what the council might say, inherently virtuous. Having dark thoughts doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you human. The fact that you feel guilty about having them, that you try not to act on them... that means... that means that you're trying to be a better person. That means you're the woman your mother brought you up to be... beautiful, strong, proud and loving."

The tears ran unchecked over his fingers as he held her but Buffy still couldn't look away from those indigo eyes that swam in front of her, not even to blink.

"I-I-I hurt you. I-I wish you'd just tied me up and forced me to see..."

"Never tie you up, least not without you wanting it. Had to let you work it out for yourself. You're a wild thing, beautiful, and when a wild thing wants its freedom, there ain't nothing you can do but stand back and let it go. You try an' keep it somewhere it doesn't want to be an' it'll break both your hearts." Spike placed gentle kisses on her forehead, the tip of her nose and then her lips. "You let them go, and you just hope that they might want to come back."

The vulnerability in his eyes showed that this had been a lesson he'd learned the hard way, his efforts to keep Dru driving her farther from him, but she knew it had cost him dearly to stand by that belief and Buffy gave him a watery smile.

"I had to come back, Spike. You're my home. More than any building, maybe even more than Dawn. Sometimes I even think that's why I came back from heaven, so that I could have this... So that I could be with you... and if it is why, I don't regret it. I mean, trying to adjust at first, I just couldn't do it... but this doesn't seem like hell any more. I think, maybe, this is my reward."

Spike couldn't help the dry chuckle that escaped him as he rolled them both so that Buffy lay on top of him. "Much as I appreciate the thought, love, I think if I were you, I'd be askin' for a refund. Things haven't exactly been paradise, either for the pair of us, or for anybody else 'round here."

"No, but I do have the one thing I never had before. A man who loves me for everything I am, rather than in spite of what I am, someone who'll never leave me, someone who's my equal. Coming back gave me a second chance to find you. Heaven's still there. When my time comes again, it'll be waiting, but I'm hoping that this time I'll be able to share it with you."

"I promised you, didn't I?" He lifted his head to press his lips against hers. "Can't guarantee that I'll manage it, but you know if it means bein' with you that I won't stop tryin'."

"I know." Again, Buffy graced him with a smile. "And that's why I think this is a gift."

It was as she laid her head down on his chest that she once more noticed the bruising on his ribcage, yellow and green, obviously fading, but covering a large portion of his torso.

Her hand reached out to stroke it as if she could soothe it better. "What's this?"

"That, pet, is a boot print."

"Well, I hope the owner of that boot is dust."

"Not hardly," Spike volunteered. "You'd think after all these years I'd know that surprisin' a slayer's liable to get me a bruise or two for me troubles."

"Faith? Faith did this?" Buffy's eyes glowed with a possessive fury. "She's still in town? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Yes, yes, yes and I figured it'd keep until you were back in the swing of things again."

Buffy's expression told him she wasn't entirely happy with his explanation.

"It's not like we've had much of a chance to chat, pet. She's campin' out at The Poof's old place. Turns out our old friend Quentin more or less told her if she didn't play ball then he'd arrange for Social Services to pay a visit, so she's been roughin' it out there ever since, livin' on cold baked beans. Picked up her scent a couple of nights ago an' decided to see where it took me."

"So she moved out because if she stayed it was going to get us into trouble?"

"Looks that way, not that she'd really want word gettin' back to the cops about where she was either, but..."

"I don't buy it. She goes and talks to Quentin, disappears for two weeks and then all of a sudden you just happen to run into her. She's up to her old tricks again. She's just found a new sugar daddy."

Spike sighed. "Don't think so. That place smelled like she'd been living there for a fortnight, but I guess you'll have to make up your own mind. Just leave it till after midnight if you do go to visit, otherwise you're bound to run into one of Quentin's school outings. Why they haven't realised that all the demons are just stayin' in until they all get home for their curfew and goin' out later, I have no idea..."

"Are Clem and his family okay?" Buffy asked, suddenly realising that, with all the new players in town, her couple of weeks off were enough to put her out of touch with the whole dynamic.

"Lily was fine, last I heard. She mostly sticks close to home an' Wes has pretty much made it clear what'll happen if anybody touches Rosa, not that most of that lot would even notice that she isn't entirely human. Some snotty East Coast princess got overly big for her britches and gave Clem a black eye last week. Then, Ha Nath came out the ladies an' wiped the floor with the silly, little cow." Spike shrugged. "Marie bought him a 42 inch plasma telly an' a DVD player and hooked him up for all the film channels on the condition he doesn't go back to the cinema again and orders his junk food in. My guess is he'll cope."

"He was at the movies?"

"You know Clem. Took his new bird to see some chick flick, film finished, she went to the loo an' while he was waiting in the foyer one of QT's little starlets saw through his not so cunning disguise an' decided that gave her the right to kick his head in."

"How badly did she get hurt?"

"Bad enough to end up at the hospital, not bad enough for them to keep her in... Broken nose, two black eyes, couple of cracked ribs an' I don't think she'll be leading with her right again any time soon. Nothin' compared with what she had in mind for Clem. It's not that bitch I'm worried about."

"I know..." Buffy tried to soothe the vamp with her voice. "If Clem had been alone..."

"Clem's okay, for now, physically, at any rate. The problem from our point of view is that he's not the only one. All these wet behind the ears school girls are takin' away any neutral ground that there used to be in this town. However it might seem, most of the demons 'round these parts spend their time mindin' their own business, an' for all they'll run their mouths a bit all you've ever had to do is pick off the exceptions. Now, we've got The First puttin' out some recruitment call an' folks as would probably have ignored it an' done their own thing, are findin' that they can't do that any more. Travers is forcin' them into pickin' sides in this and they aren't goin' to be pickin' ours."

"Has Wes talked to Travers about this?"

"He's tried, but it suits Travers better to think that Wes has been corrupted from their wonderful moral stance than to see the truth in what he says."

"This has got to stop." Spike was fairly certain that, had she not been horizontal, her little foot would have been stamping in annoyance. "I've had enough of those bimbos. First, trying to shoot you, then, beating up Clem, stirring up all sorts of trouble-."

As Buffy spoke, Spike's lips slowly curved into a lopsided smile, his eyes acquiring an appreciative gleam as Buffy's animation fired his passion. "An' don't forget the three-hour moans from Bitlet about how they can't go to The Bronze without at least half a dozen of the slappers hittin' on 'er bloke. S'not just the demons as hate them. It's every local female 'tween fourteen an' twenty."

"Between twelve and twelve hundred. One of them made a move on Xander the other night when they were out. Anya was not amused, especially since he was wearing his wedding band."

"S'that so? But then if they'll try it on with a guy they know is a vampire I suppose a ring isn't really gonna stop them."

Buffy's indignant gasp and possessive glare had Spike's narrow hips writhing under her as he tried to find a more comfortable position for his increasingly hard dick. Buffy obliged by pushing herself up so that she straddled him rather than lying on top of him and then lifting her hips so that she was positioned directly over him.

"I hope..." she whispered with an edge of warning in her voice, lowering herself just an inch. "...That you..." she continued, drawing out her words as she eased fractionally lower and then paused momentarily as she felt the muscles at the entrance to her vagina glide over his glans, before sliding down him with measured slowness "...Told... them... you... were... spoken... for." As she finished speaking her hips finally rested on his and she ground against him.

"I think they already knew that, pet, but they seemed to think you weren't taking proper care of me, seein' as how I was out on my own."

Buffy clenched her internal muscles, squeezing him tight from root to tip. "So what did you tell them?" she asked, waiting for Spike's eyes to re-open and for him to once more gather breath to speak.

"Well, I told the first one to bugger off and let me have a drink in peace." Buffy slid upwards without relaxing her hold on him until he was half in half out of her warmth. "And the second?"

"The second one, Bitlet overheard when she was getting served at the bar an' told her to get her skanky Russian arse away from her sister's future husband."

Buffy froze in position, her eye narrowing as she asked, "How many more were there?"

"A few," Spike conceded, "but I think they all got the message when I told the pushy one of the bunch that if she wanted something cool an' firm between her legs..." Buffy's breath hitched and her muscles relaxed as she lost her concentration, watching the tip of Spike's tongue run along the edge of his upper teeth. "...Then, she should fuck off home an' try out the stake she had in her handbag."

As Spike's hands came to rest on her hips, gently pushing her back down, she moved with him. Now that her curiosity had been satisfied, she was more than ready to work on a different type of satisfaction.

Chapter 4.06
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002

As always, it took Xander a few minutes to work up to full eating speed. He knew that the food was a vast improvement on anything Buffy had ever served up and better even than most of the take-out places she used to order from, but just knowing it was prepared by dead hands gave him the willies. He knew it was irrational, but instead of Spike's hands as they actually were, he kept imagining puffy bits of zombie flesh sloughing off into whatever he was serving. It really did gross him out, at least until he ate enough of whatever the vampire served up to make him forget. Three weeks ago, he wouldn't have touched anything if he knew Spike had prepared it. Now, as part of the 'new' Xander campaign he forced the tender meat down and almost managed a convincing show of appreciation as he did it.

Anya gave him an encouraging smile, knowing exactly what he was thinking. He still had a long way to go but for the first time ever she felt like Xander was actually trying to change, to see things from her perspective, instead of simply trying to make her conform to his very human womanly ideal.

"Well, if everyone's finished now..." Giles began as Xander finally pushed his plate to one side. "Perhaps we could be enlightened as to why we're all here... while we're waiting on dessert." He looked around the table, where not only the usual Scoobies, but Wes, Bee and even Brandon were seated, until his gaze connected with Tara's.

"I-it's the orbs," the blonde witch stammered ever so slightly at being the centre of attention. "E-ever since we did that trance when Spike was poisoned, we've known that the orbs actually work by harnessing the spirit of a Nezzla demon. I don't know how, but when I did the trance it was like I intuitively knew things about him, like I knew that, however he was transformed, it was a sacrifice on his part that he undertook so that his people could live in peace. I knew he was disorientated at being taken away from them but that he didn't blame us for the fact that he was here.

Since then... well, since I finished my exams really, I've been doing some research. There's not a lot that I can find out about them, though. The book where Spike originally found the orbs mentioned gave details of how to find them, but you needed some artefact that seems to have gone missing. It wasn't in the stuff that Buffy found at the nerds' old place and by now that whole building will have been picked clean by the police, so, for some time, the whole question of whether we should return them to their rightful keepers was kinda moot. I mean those caves go on for miles. Without some sort of idea where we're headed we could wander around down there until we starved to death.

Then, well, Bee came in... She managed to find a few more references in some of the demonic texts, enough to hint that even though their communication seems to be largely telepathic, they do have a ceremonial language that has similar roots to one of the languages she speaks. After what happened at The Magic Box, when they stopped working, I didn't know whether the demon's spirit would still be trapped or whether when they were drained it was either freed or consumed. As it turns out, the spirit is held within the orbs, but the energy it uses is drawn from all around it and then stored until it's needed. Willow drained the orbs until there were no reserves and it took them some time to recharge, but when Spike found them this afternoon, they were working again.

I did the trance again today. With Bee to act as a translator, we, well, it's not like we could really hold a proper conversation... It's sort of like a modern day Italian trying to speak medieval Latin, but we managed to communicate enough to know that he wants to go home and he can show us the way."

"I see..." Giles' response fell slightly on the cool side of neutral. "I'm sure your intentions are all very good but I'm not sure that now is a time when we can afford to give up any sort of advantage we might happen to have."

Bee's eyes narrowed as she stood up on platform heels that still left her well short of the watcher's height when he rose to meet her challenge. "So, if it would help you, you would be prepared to keep a human being imprisoned against her will? Or is it just okay because it's the spirit of a demon?"

"I swore a vow when I joined the council, as did Wesley, to do whatever was necessary to protect mankind from the forces of evil. Yes, unpleasant as such a duty might be, if for some reason they were a threat I would keep a human prisoner."

"If they posed a threat?" the demi-demon urged him to clarify his position.

"Well, yes... that's what I said."

Turning to Wesley her voice softened only slightly. "What about you? You would hold a human prisoner if they posed some sort of threat?"

"If they posed a threat... or if I had some sort of pressing need that only they could help with and they were unable or unlikely to co-operate of their own free will, then, yes, I would hold them under duress. I suppose it comes down to how to serve the greater good."

Bee sighed. "You can't serve the greater good, you can't serve any good by perpetrating evil... And, you," she rounded on Giles. "Unless you're prepared to admit to having a double standard I don't see how you can use the argument of the orbs being a threat to justify keeping them. Spike?"

The vampire sighed. "Havin' them around is kinda handy an', personally, I've never had much of a problem holdin' anyone prisoner as happened to suit, so I can't say as that exactly bothers me, but Glinda's not happy about the idea. Under ideal circumstances, I'd rather keep hold of them for at least another couple of months, but I'd as soon not have her stakin' me in me sleep so she can set her demon guy free." The wink only the witch saw showed he didn't really think she was a threat, but then he wasn't about to own up to wanting to make her happy in front of such a large and potentially disbelieving audience.

"Buffy?"

The slayer shook her head. "I'll sit this one out. I can see both sides of the argument and I know morally I should agree with Tara, but then there's the selfish part of me that loves spending time with Spike in the sun. We still don't know what The First is up to or what could be lurking just around the corner for that matter. I'm sure whatever we decide, we'll regret it, so I'll leave it up to you guys to sort it out."

"Well, I won't," Dawn interrupted indignantly. "Spike needs those orbs. I mean what happens if Social Services turn up for a surprise visit and we can't open the curtains. You all talk about how wrong it is to keep this demon a prisoner, but what about Spike? Without them, he's the prisoner."

The sadness in Tara's eyes didn't match her conciliatory smile. "Dawn, Spike can't use those orbs any more, at least not to walk around in daylight. If he did, then the council would feel duty bound to destroy them. If Giles' suspicions are correct Quentin Travers has already tried once to have Spike killed. The orbs on their own just by their very existence would constitute a threat they would be unable to ignore. Even if we could somehow get them to accept that Spike wasn't a threat to them, which I suspect would be all but impossible, they couldn't risk the possibility that they might fall into the hands of another vampire."

"Okay, well, when you work out a spell that lets him walk in sunlight, then you can give the orbs back to whoever they came from-."

"Like hell she will, Bitlet!" Dawn was stunned by the vehemence of Spike's reaction. "If anyone ever came up with a spell to let vampires walk in sunlight, then, you might as well all walk out and shoot yourselves now. Best case scenario, your council would obliterate anyone that even knew about it. Worst case, your whole damn planet would be overrun in a couple of months at the outside."

Xander cleared his throat loudly. "I kinda believe that all this arguing is forgetting to take into account one thing..."

Everyone turned around to look at the man as if Rogue had suddenly stood up on her hind legs and spoke. "As I recall, Blondie actually gave those orbs to me for a wedding present. That would make this my decision."

"Xan-." Giles tried to interrupt but the brunette cut him off.

"I know I'm not meant to be the brains of the operation, but I think this is more about heart than head, in any case. The way I see it, with the council here, there and everywhere Spike can't afford to be using the orbs to go wandering around in the sun all day, anyway, but the real deciding factor is this... What if it was Buffy? What if at some point down the line, the only way that she could protect the people... and I use that word in its loosest possible sense, I hasten to add, but, say, the only way she could protect the people she loved was to allow her soul to be captured in some sort of amulet. That's fine so long as the people she cares about are there to take care of this amulet, but what happens if it ends up in the hands of total strangers? What if these demons had that amulet with Buffy inside?

I don't think we have a choice. We have to give them back."

Spike's eyes searched the boy's face and found not a hint of duplicity. He wasn't making excuses to justify taking the orbs from the vampire out of pettiness. He really meant the words he spoke and put like that, there was no way the vampire could argue with him. The boy was growing up. When Xander's gaze met his, the vampire gave the slightest nod. It could have meant almost anything but when the younger man returned it Spike knew it had been interpreted as he meant it, a subtle show of respect, not of course, that he probably wouldn't be calling the boy worse than muck again by the end of the night, but just this once, the boy had managed to do something right without someone else pointing him in the right direction first.

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