Chapter 8 - Reconciliation

"Clem? Is that you?" Dawn answered the phone.

"Hey. Dave said you were looking for me."

"Yeah, two hours ago. I guess he wasn’t real quick passing on the message."

"Guess not. You looking for your sister, ‘cos I kinda get the impression her and Spike aren’t together any more, at least Spike’s back with the moody and when-"

"Clem, Buffy’s here, but, well it’s complicated. We need to get hold of Spike. Anya’s gone missing. The shop was all shut up and none of us know where she’s living now she’s moved out of Xander’s so we don’t know if she’s just ill or whether she’s really missing. Xander’s not answering his phone and there’s only me, Willow and Tara and we can’t leave Buffy alone."

"Well I suppose I could ring Anya, see if she answers, but I don’t know if I should give you her address. I mean she might be okay about it, but most demons would get a bit upset if you told the slayer where they lived. And given what she is, not a good idea to be on bad terms."

"Anya’s back with the vengeance gig?" Dawn’s voice was halfway to a squeak. Willow’s mouth fell open as she listened to Dawn’s side of the conversation.

"Oh-Oh! Guess she didn’t tell you guys then… Hallie said D’Hoffryn offered her her old job back after the wedding… You still want me to ring her?"

"Please. If you can. D’you think you could swing by Spike’s crypt as well, get him to come over to our place or give us a call as soon as possible, unless you don’t get an answer at Anya’s. Then it might be better if he checked there to see if there was any trouble, unless he knows where she is ‘cause none of us can do that… Just tell him to call me ASAP. Tell him it’s urgent. Tell him I need him."

"This is bad. This is very, very bad." Willow paced the room as she spoke.

"Well, I guess it means Xander’s responsible for messing up her life even more than we thought, but I mean she’s still Anya. We just have to be really careful what we say," Dawn replied.

"No Dawn, think about it. Have you spoken to Anya since she came back? It all makes sense now. She was trying to get one of us to wish something awful on Xander. And then she hooks up with Spike who hates Xander and you spoke to Buffy after she saw the pair of them and then Buffy’s like this and Xander’s not answering his phone. She got Spike to make a wish and now she’s skipped town ‘cos she knows we’ll come after her."

"He wouldn’t. Spike would never hurt Buffy…" Dawn tailed off.

"He already did. You saw her face last night. She maybe wasn’t as bad as Xander, but she was hurt and even if Anya and Spike didn’t have some sort of conspiracy Spike still might have said something without realising. Oh God, I can’t believe we didn’t realise what she was trying to do."

"Hind-sight’s always twenty-twenty, sweetie," Tara tried to soothe her former lover. "But we still don’t know what’s happened. I mean it’s possible, but it is just one possibility, and in a way if that is what happened, then it might be a good thing because then Anya would be able to reverse it wouldn’t she? She might be angry at Xander for a while, but she still loves him, she’s just really hurting. When she calms down she’d reverse whatever’s happened. I’m sure she would." Tara’s arms wrapped themselves around the distraught redhead, pulling her close.

"Ehm, I’m just going to take the phone upstairs and sit with Buffy." Dawn practically tiptoed from the room leaving the former lovers alone.

"What if Xander’s dead? Most of the guy’s Anya did stuff to, they died."

"Anya wasn’t in love with any of them. Remember how you nearly cursed Oz when he left you, but you couldn’t do it because you loved him. That’s what it would be like for Anya to do a vengeance spell on Xander."

Tara stroked amber strands away from Willow’s tear-streaked cheeks and Willow trembled beneath her touch.

"I know, but I also remember trying to kill Xander because I didn’t want him to be with anyone else."

"That wasn’t you. That was the spell. It’s nearly impossible to use magic to create true love. The feelings you had because of the spell were more like an obsession than love. That’s why it made you selfish. Without the influence of the spell you would never hurt Xander."

"But I hurt you."

"You underestimated the pull of the magic. You let it envelop you so deep you lost sight of who you were and who I was but I don’t believe you ever did anything with the intent of harming me. It just got to the point where you used magic for everything as an automatic response and you didn’t think about what it was you were really doing."

"Did I say how sorry I was?"

"You said it lots of times, but until now you never sounded like you meant it. You were getting too much of a kick out of having that much power to regret anything enough to give it up." Tara took a deep breath.

"Will, things went so wrong before, and there’s so much work we both have to do to rebuild any sort of relationship. What happened, it’s changed both of us and that’s going to change how we react to each other. It’s going to take time before we trust each other the way we did before, but, baby, when I see you like this, I just want to be able to hold you and kiss away all the pain. Can I? Could we be getting through this together?"

Willow tilted her head back to claim the lips of the woman she loved in a gentle kiss. For the longest time, the two sat on the sofa, Willow cradled in her lovers arms exchanging the sweet kisses and gentle caresses that were the promise of a more passionate night to come. For a time they were able to forget the problems that surrounded them.

Spike pulled the bike over at the side of the road as quickly as he could. He looked down at the surf pounding against the cliff base forty feet below as he finally located what he was looking for in his coat pocket. He checked the caller ID before accepting the incoming call.

"Hey, Clem. How’s it hangin’?"

"Ehm… that’s rhetorical right?"

"If you say so. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"When are you going to tell the slayer and her people that you’ve got a cell-phone?"

Spike gave a snort of derision. "When hell freezes over. She’s already got me by the balls. No need to give her the chance to have them stuffed and mounted over the fireplace."

‘Or I might have found out two minutes ago when you heard it ringing,’ thought Buffy as she eavesdropped on the conversation.

"Well, you might change your mind. Dawn rang the bar looking for you. It took Dave two hours to pass on the message. There’s some sort of trouble I don’t think she wanted to say over the phone, but the slayer’s out of commission…"

‘And I’m shocked and surprised by this since there’s no-one driving…’ the slayer said to herself since there was no-one else to hear her.

"…Anya and her ex have gone missing. She said to get you to ring as soon as possible. She said she needs you."

"Clem, get off the line. I’ve got a call to make."

"Tell her Anya’s not answering her phone then."

"She’s not answering ‘er soddin’ doorbell either, just get off the phone."

Chapter 9 – Finding Out

Spike parked the bike in front of the house, scanning to see if perhaps Anya had left any of her windows unlocked. It was possible that living in a second floor flat, which these benighted colonials would insist on saying was on the third floor, she might have. Spike couldn’t help but think about how Anya had felt in his arms the night before. Vulnerable, warm, welcoming and accepting of affection. He remembered how their bodies had felt against each other; her back against his front, legs tangled together, his cheek resting against her shoulder. He also remembered that it had been incredibly easy to tell when she finally drifted to sleep because she snored fit to wake the dead, except he hadn’t gone to sleep in the first place. He just lay and held her.

Sometime, last night, his relationship with Anya had crossed a line. He would put his life on the line to save any of the Slayer’s friends. In the case of Harris, it was mostly for Buffy’s sake.

Tara was a special case in herself. He had never met anyone so pure. He loved her. He doubted that there was a male outside her immediate family who knew her to any degree who wasn’t at least a little bit in love with her. It was a love that held more than a hint of awe in it. He had no idea how "an evil soulless thing" was drawn to her the way he was, because sometimes he felt her very presence should burn like holy water or a cross, she was so good. To save her he’d do anything within his power, but if he couldn’t do that, he didn’t know what he’d do. Tara would be appalled at the idea of violence in her name, but he didn’t know if he could let someone who harmed her go free.

Other than Buffy she was the one he feared to lose the most. It seemed to him that even God or her goddess would be too jealous of her time to let her live long amongst mortals. She was just too good for this world.

The Summers women, right down to the deepest, most primordial level of his being, were his. He’d give his life to save either one. Or if he failed he’d give his life to see vengeance done. His feelings for the others occupied a grey area between the two extremes and if anything were to happen to them, he’d just do what seemed right at the time, but somehow last night Anya had moved onto the same list as Buffy and Dawn. On its simplest level he’d stayed because she couldn’t get to sleep when she was alone but on another she had opened up to him at her weakest and accepted his protection. She had become his.

He swore if someone had hurt her, human or demon, chip or no chip, they were going to suffer. He wondered about the tranquilliser gun that the Construction King had used on the Glarghk Guhl Kashma’nik the other week. The chip had gone off with that replica gun Xander had given him, but that had been when he still thought it was real. Tranquilliser darts don’t really do any damage in themselves. Interesting theory. Might have to try that one out. Tying people up doesn’t hurt either.

Buffy, for her part, was glad that she was beginning to pick up the subtext, sense memories and emotional memories that went with his thoughts. She was glad his memories included the feel of heavy denim on his legs and Anya’s over-size flannel shirt against his chest. She was happy that his concern for her friend and his feelings for her had over-ridden his physical reaction to Anya’s presence. She knew his resolve had wavered when he remembered her last words to him, that he’d wanted so much to let his and Anya’s pain wash away in a tide of passion even if it brought them both only a brief respite.

She knew that, in his mind, there had been no infidelity, but still she felt betrayed because there had been more tenderness, more mutual solace and a deeper feeling of connection in their platonic sharing of a bed, than there had been in all her and Spike’s shagging sessions. She felt jealous and she felt angry at him but most of all she felt angry and frustrated at herself because Spike would willingly have given her everything she wanted, if she hadn’t been so busy hurting both of them by pushing him away. Finally, she admitted to herself that she wanted Spike just as much as he wanted her.

The outer door of the apartment building had a number keypad instead of a conventional lock although any of the residents could "buzz" visitors through without leaving their own apartments. Spike could remember the numbers Anya had used the night before, but it took him three attempts to put them in the correct order. Soon after that he let himself into her apartment using skills picked up over a century of delinquency. He made straight for the bathroom. Her toothbrush and various toiletries were no longer where they had been when he had had a wash this morning.

A glance in the bedroom showed the bed had been made and various outfits now lay on top of the quilt still on their hangers, the wardrobe door standing open. There were no signs of a struggle anywhere. Back in the lounge the note he had written before departing at first light still lay on the coffee table but not quite where he’d left it, as if she’d read it and then put it back.

Spike was willing to bet that wherever Anya was, she might have left in a hurry, but she’d left of her own free will and she was intending to come back.

He rang Dawn and brought her up to date. "Any chance you can get a phone number for any of the rest of Sunnydale’s answer to Village People? I bet you Droopy Boy either put in some holiday or phoned in sick this morning. Looks to me like he’s finally grew a pair and done the decent thing."

"Tito."

Spike sighed. "Niblet, for one thing Tito was one of the Jacksons not Village People and for another I wasn’t really talking about bands I was talking about the guys that Mr Staypuft works with."

"Tito is one of the guys he works with- and he did our plumbing when the basement flooded. I just need to find the bill in Buffy’s file. Couldn’t you check on Xander’s place as well to be on the safe side?"

"No. Couldn’t. Never been invited… and even if I had, getting the stuff from The Magic Box so Glinda can find out what’s wrong with Buffy’s more important. I only checked Demon Girl’s first ‘cos if she’d come home she could have let me in properly and it was on the way. Otherwise I’d have picked up the stuff you want and then gone for a nose around while Tinkerbell did her job. So just run over that list again."

Buffy picked up that the "No Spike" zone around Xander’s apartment bothered him more than he would ever admit that it was an indication of the lack of acceptance for him within the group.

"Are you going to tell me why I’m climbing in a fifteen-year old girl’s bedroom window like a sad impersonation of the paedophile Poofter instead of coming in through the front door, Niblet?" Spike skipped the usual formalities.

"Because I don’t want to disturb Will and Tara until we have to. It looked like they might be settling their differences before, so I cleared out."

"Fancy takin’ me to see your sis then?"

Dawn led the way through into Buffy’s room, where Buffy’s body lay motionless on the bed.

As soon as he saw her there, Buffy felt the anxious lump Spike had been carrying round in his stomach since Clem’s phone call turn into a physical pain. He moved to the bedside and held her nearest hand in both of his.

"I shut her eyes before," she said, "but I don’t know which is worse. This way she looks dead. With them open…"

Spike’s attention seemed to be fully taken up by the figure on the bed but Buffy could tell that what was going on inside was roughly three parts love and concern to one part thirst for vengeance.

‘He already is incredibly sorry, you pillock,’ she thought. ‘No! Using Spikisms! Must get out of Spike’s head now’

Finally Spike regained enough composure to return his attention to Dawn.

"How are you coping, pet?"

"Holding together… just."

"So what do the witches think is going on?"

"Tara says her essence is missing. She’s going to try to do a location spell to see where it is and then we might find out who did it. Willow thinks you and Anya formed some sort of pact to liquefy Xander’s entrails and do whatever this is to Buffy. I think she’s been channelling Xander’s paranoia… oh, and Xander put in a week’s holiday, so I think you’re right."

"Have you told Willow that? …And why does she think it’s me and Anya?"

"‘Cos she knows there was something going on with you and Buffy, ‘cos of Buffy’s face when she saw you and Anya at the Bronze …and she saw you too. Well, we all did but I don’t think Willow knows that you and Buffy were bonking. I didn’t get it until I saw the way she was looking at the screen and then it all made sense."

"Glad it did for you, pet. How about we go down, get that bag of eyeballs and everything off the porch and let Glinda do her spell. Then you can explain in English from the beginning."

He waited till Dawn had turned away to go downstairs before he placed a chaste kiss on Buffy’s forehead.

"Whatever it takes, love. We’ll do whatever it takes to get you back," he whispered to her.

‘…And when you do, you’re going to get another smack on the nose for perving on my body when I’m not in it… and it’s not my fault that I smell of hamburger. If it wasn’t for you I’d have had a shower hours ago. Pig.’

"No, Red. I did not know Demon Girl was a demon again. I always call her that. No, I couldn’t tell you if I made any wishes in front of her because, A, I had a bit to drink before I went to the shop and, B, I wouldn’t really pay any attention to whether I did or not seeing as Anya, formerly known as Anyanka, patron saint of scorned women, wouldn’t pay any attention to me if I did what with me being in possession of a Y chromosome and therefore ineligible for her professional attention. I can tell you that I sure as hell didn’t say anything remotely resembling a wish in front of Cecily or whatever she’s calling herself these days.

And, C, I don’t happen to believe it’s any of your business what I have or haven’t been doing with either Buffy or the demon bint. If either of them want to say anything that’s up to them, but you’re not going to hear it from me, Miss Stay Away From Her She’s Our Friend And We Can Take Care Of Her. You were keen enough to assume I was as popular as the Hellmouth equivalent of Typhoid Mary last week so why don’t you just stick to that.

And, D, if you’d stayed quiet long enough for Dawn to tell you what we’ve found out so far then you might have realised how ridiculous your bloody trumped up accusations are. There’s her scarf so Glinda can do your location spell on her too and if she isn’t somewhere where there’s no waiting for a marriage licence and Harris isn’t there with her I’ll be very surprised."

Spike stormed off in the direction of the back door, pulling cigarettes and lighter from his pockets as he went.

Buffy knew that if she’d been sitting in the room during his little outburst instead of sitting in his head then she would have been furious with him, but from in here she could tell just how scared, helpless and isolated he felt. She knew he was reliving what it had been like for him and Dawn when she died. She knew that only his responsibility to her sister would stop him from watching the sunrise if she didn’t come back. ‘…And knowing our luck, when you turned to dust I’d end up back in my body, either in a loony bin or a coffin.’

Fifteen minutes later Dawn came and joined him on the back step. There were already four butts at his feet and he was close to finishing his fifth.

"I would have come out sooner but I wanted to see what happened with the spells and I thought you might want a bit of time to calm down."

"Was never mad at you, Bit. So do we know what’s happening yet?"

"Surprise, surprise, Anya and Xander are in Vegas."

"Wonder if he knows she got her powers back? And Sis…"

"Well, either the spell didn’t work or she’s here. Tara was wondering if she could check out your aura."

Comprehension finally began to dawn on the unfortunate vampire.

"Dawn, this thing with Buffy. It wasn’t say, about an hour, hour and a half after sundown, was it?"

"Yeah, she was on her way home after work. It was still light but the sun had set."

Spike hadn’t quite worked out exactly how, but this had to be his fault.

"Bollocks!"

"So, can Mrs Harris ever forgive me for being such an idiot that I almost let her get away?"

"She can and she will once we have the blessing and reception back home, but this time we just have close family and that’s it."

"How close are we talking Ahn?"

"Willow, Giles, Buffy, Dawn, Tara and Spike."

"You don’t want to invite my parents but you want to ask Spike."

"Xander Harris, I think if you’re prepared to marry a demon, you should be prepared to make friends with one. Spike isn’t the monster you like to think he is."

"Spike is a demon. You’re an ex-demon. There’s a big difference."

"Actually, sweetie-pie, I’m a former ex-demon and you couldn’t tell the difference." Anya did a rapid change into demon face and back.

Xander took a large gulp from the champagne glass he was holding. "Ahn, honey, I love you to bits but don’t you think you should have mentioned this before now. When were you planning to tell me?"

"Now-ish, when we were ready to exchange gifts."

"Ahn, I don’t think I can live with it if you’re going to be giving guys boils, or turning them into perpetual patio torches for their ex-girlfriends."

"That’s why this is my wedding gift to you… as long as you promise not to smash it." She removed the antique locket that acted as her power centre and passed it to Xander.

"As long as you’re not wearing it, you’re human, right?"

"Either that or I’m a demon in human form with no powers. Either way I’ll be the girl you fell in love with."

Xander looked about to protest and then shut his mouth. He didn’t really want to try to work out whether that meant his wife did or didn’t have a soul. She was right. Either way she was the girl he fell in love with.

"So why does it make a difference whether I smash it or not?"

"If you do Spike’s wish will be reversed and I wouldn’t like that."

"Back with the Spike again. And what exactly did Deadboy Jnr wish that’s so important?"

"Nothing much, just that you and someone else would be brave enough to follow their hearts."

"So you’re saying that we’re married because of Captain Peroxide?"

"No, we’re married because we love each other. Spike just inadvertently gave you a hand making up your mind."

Anya pulled the now empty champagne glass from Xander’s hand and placed it alongside hers on the bedside table.

"And since we’re married now it’s time you gave me lots and lots of orgasms. We haven’t had sex in over a month now so it should be really good."

Xander couldn’t help but give a gentle laugh. "I love you, Anya."

"I love you too, sweetie."

Chapter 10 – All’s Well… (a. Talking to Tinkerbell)

Spike slumped, dropping his head into his hands before he ran his fingers through his hair loosening the hold of his hair-gel and allowing a few stray curls to find their way loose. He straightened up with a visible effort.

"‘Bit, d’you think you could get Glinda to come out here and have a chat? I think I’ve really cocked things up this time and I’m goin’ to be eatin’ a whole lot of humble pie and I’d rather not have Red puttin’ in her twopenny worth. It’s goin’ to be bad enough anyway. Not that she’s got any room to talk."

"So you know what’s happening, then?"

Spike answered Dawn’s inquiry. "Haven’t exactly thought it all through, ‘Bit, but it looks like it’s something to do with a spell I tried earlier. Should be able to figure out what went wrong between me and Glinda and come up with a way to fix it." ‘… or at least put Buffy back together again. Nothing’s goin’ t’put things right between me and her now. Should just have wished I didn’t love her. That would have been easier. Saved yourself a boatload of hurt that way… but, then you’d end up dancin’ the old dance with her and maybe without feelin’s getting’ in the way you’d end it. Would that-"

"Spike? What’s happened? Dawnie said you wanted to talk to me. Do you know what’s wrong with Buffy?" Tara’s voice was gentle and soothing as she prodded for the information she needed.

"Yeah, me… I’m what’s wrong with her. Doesn’t matter what I do, I just end up hurtin’ her one way or another."

Spike sighed, and Tara couldn’t help but think that the only time that she had seen him look so broken was the night that Buffy died.

"I haven’t worked out exactly what I did but I cast a spell and I reckon that’s when "she" went walkies, so I guess it is all my fault."

"It’s okay, I’m sure we can fix this, Spike. Just tell me exactly what the spell was and what happened when you cast it."

"Well, would be before your time, but you must have heard about the spell that Red did where the Watcher went blind, and me and Buffy got engaged…" Spike’s mind drifted off into wistful memories of that day. He should have known then he was on his way to falling in love with her. The sexual tension between the pair of them when she was feeding him had had the Watcher running for cover before the spell had even hit and when the spell ended he had felt like someone had stolen his life and given him some sort of inferior replacement.

"Spike? You mean you did a spell to have your will done… is that right?"

"Yeah, but I didn’t mean to hurt her. I don’t… something’s wrong. I mean I knew what happened with Red, and I thought I worked out all the stuff I wished real careful and then I thought I’d ended it so that I couldn’t accidentally do anything like she did, but maybe it didn’t end or …I don’t know…"

"It’s okay. We’ll work it out. Let’s start with the wishes you made deliberately. Just tell me what they were and then if we eliminate those we can look at the possibility that the spell’s still active."

Spike looked over at Tara as if he were ashamed of himself. "You’re going to hate me when I tell you. It’s just I got to the end of my rope. I got to where I just couldn’t bear for things to be like they are, but I guess what I did wasn’t too far removed from what Red did to you. I just wasn’t thinking straight enough to see it like that."

Ever gentle Tara prompted the vampire once more. "Spike, right here at this minute no-one is bothered about laying blame. All that’s important right now is getting Buffy back. I know you love her. I saw what it did to you when she died. Just tell me so we can work out what to do to put it right. What was your first wish?"

"I wished that an empty bourbon bottle would fill up again, but that was sort of a practice run and I didn’t really think it would work, ‘cos I reckoned the way the spell was worded that there had to be some sort of passion involved. That you had to be angry or… well… you know… for anything to happen."

"So that didn’t work?"

Spike shook his head. "Next thing I wished was that Buffy would make up her mind exactly what it was that she really wanted."

"Well, sweetie, I can’t see any harm that that could do. I don’t think that caused the problem. What else did you wish?"

"I wished that she would be honest about her feelings. I could read her like a book when it was her an’ Angel, but when it comes to her and me, either I’ve lost the knack completely or she’s lying to me or she’s lying to herself. So, I wished that she’d be honest about her feelings, to herself as well as to others."

Spike looked across at Tara expecting to see disapproval but instead all he saw was compassion. "I know. If she wants to lie to me I should just let her. I’m interfering with her brain, but, the stuff she’s been saying lately, well, it hurts… and if I thought she really meant it, then I’d leave." ‘…or dust m’self, one of the two.’ Spike added silently. "But that’s what every guy in her life from her father on down’s done, so I need to be sure that she really wants me gone, because if she’s puttin’ up some sort of front… If she’s tryin’ to push me away, because she thinks I’ll eventually leave her so she’d rather make the break now and I take her at her word and go…

Honestly, I was hoping… well, you can probably guess what I was hoping, but trying to second guess everything she says, it’s killing me and I just wanted to know where I stand."

"Spike, honey, I don’t know what exactly the situation is between you and Buffy at the moment and I know since Buffy came back we haven’t seen each other very often but if things have been that bad you know I’d be there if you needed someone to talk to. You know I’d miss you if you left and Dawn probably wouldn’t take it too well either."

"S’nice of you to say that, but well, it’s not like I really get to see ‘Bit any more. Buffy doesn’t approve of the two of us together. The last time I can think of seein’ you was the birthday party that wouldn’t end and I had to get an invite from Red for that. Buffy didn’t even ask. Red’s already shown tonight what she thinks I’m capable of and what’s worse it looks like she’s right. And since it looks like Anya’s back with Harris I doubt I’ll be visiting her again any time soon. Never been invited to his place in all the time he’s had it, so I don’t see why that would change now. There’s Clem, but everybody likes Clem. He doesn’t need me. Leave him the crypt and the telly. He’ll be fine.

It all comes down to her in the end."

‘Stay or go. Live or die. Can’t be a vampire, can’t be a man. Only place I fit in this world is by her side. Together everything’s in perfect balance. Without her… away from the Hellmouth… without the purpose that helping her gives… leave the Hellmouth and you’ll be hard pushed to find a spot of non-human violence before bedtime…what reason’s left to go on?

And maybe I would have talked to you before, pet, but vampires aren’t allowed to spill their guts when things get to them. They’re just meant to sit in their crypt like an anatomically correct Action Man in a toy box and wait till the slayer wants to play with them again.’ The guilty feeling that Buffy had felt when she saw the downstairs room in his crypt was back and a hundred times worse.

"If that’s really how you feel, then couldn’t you talk things through without all the magic."

Spike sighed. "For one thing, she only ever hears what she wants to. For another she refuses to accept that I’ve changed. She accused me of a whole list of things the other day and, unless you include killing demons or cheatin’ at kitten poker which isn’t really cheatin’ ‘cos it’s part of the game then the only one out of the lot of them I can remember doin’ in the last year is nickin’ a bit of burba weed and maybe a blood-bag or two from the hospital… Oops, nearly forgot, of course the nasty vampire nicked the bloody camper… And technically, I suppose the bike, but I prefer to call it the spoils of war.

Any time you try to get her to talk about her feelings she’s off quicker than Concorde. Any time you try to tell her about your own feelings she either does something to stop you or she runs or she calls you a liar, and believe me, you don’t ever want to ask her to explain something to you. …Any way I don’t see that any of this is solving the zombie problem…

The last thing I wished was that she would understand how I feel about her. She keeps saying that I don’t have a soul so I don’t have real feelings or they’re real for me whatever the hell that means, so, I wished that she would really understand."

"And that was the last wish you made?"

"Yeah, after that, did a little rhyme, invoked the elements, basically saying "That’s all folks" I’ve got what I want, so ignore everything else I say from now on."

"And after that there’s nothing you can think of that might have set anything off, if ending the spell didn’t work."

"Well, no. From what I understand you have to say the thing out loud. Didn’t speak to anyone from then till Clem rang, except for a few off the cuff remarks to the odd demon on patrol, but that was after dark, so…"

"So, it looks like the spell decided the only way she’d really understand how you feel was if she was in there with you."

"In there with me? …you mean, she’s here?" Spike held his hand up to his head, using the butt of his cigarette to point at his temple.

‘Hey, look Slayer, what I was thinking before, well, that’s just big thoughts. Might leave, if that’s what you want, but, well, I thought about the other when Dru left and I’m still here, right, so don’t you go feelin’ sorry for the Big Bad. Don’t want your pity. It hurts, but I’ll get over it.’ Spike frantically tried to cover his undead ass.

"In there and in there…" Tara touched her fingertips to his forehead and then to his heart. "And possibly even checking you out for muscle cramps."

‘Good job I wasn’t exactly in the mood for my normal early morning wank when I got up tonight then. Bugger. Why do I keep thinking of all the stuff I don't want her to know about?’ Spike started counting from one thousand down to zero in his head in an effort to prevent any more secrets coming out.

'Because that’s the way it goes as soon as you know Buffy’s in here. At least I’m not going to find out you slept with Giles on the hood of a police car, or I hope not. You haven’t right?’ Buffy cringed mentally at the image she had conjured up.

Spike maintained his countdown as he spoke to the witch. "So what do we do to reverse it? Ehm… I was … ehm, well preoccupied with other things when Willow did it." His mind filled with the memory of tender passionate kisses and Buffy’s body on top of his.

"I think she just did the same sort of thing you did, but she reversed it at the same time as she ended it."

"So if I make up some bit of doggerel then that’ll put her back in her body."

"It’s worth giving it a try, don’t you think?" Tara gave him an encouraging smile.

"Right then, here goes, pet…

The time for wishes now has passed

Undo the spell which I have cast."

Spike raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.

"So mote it be?" He gave Tara a rueful smile.

Chapter 10 – All’s Well… (b. Back to Life?)

"Do you want to go check on sleeping beauty? I think she’s probably had enough of me for one day?" The vampire resumed his mental countdown just in case the spell hadn’t been reversed.

"Sure. You’ll hang around until we know whether it’s worked?"

"Yeah, luv, I’m not goin’ anywhere, just yet."

Spike lit another cigarette and moved round to the front of the house to lean against his "lurking tree". He looked up, able to make out Dawn, Willow and Tara in Buffy’s room, but unable to see any sign of the slayer. The three women fussed around the bed for a while before Dawn left the room. Spike moved back to the porch steps in case she was bringing news.

"Hey." Dawn greeted the vampire.

"Hi, Bit. What’s the news? Any signs of life?"

"Yes… and no. Tara says her aura’s back the way it should be, but she’s not come round yet."

"Does that mean I’ve gone and lost a bit of her?"

"Probably not, Tara thinks it just taking everything a little while to adjust to being back together again."

"But you don’t know for sure…" Spike threw away the remains of the cigarette in his hand, running the now free hand through his hair.

"Look, Spike, Tara told me about the spell, about what you wished for… and, well I think it’s really cool. I mean, you could have wished that she’d fall in love with you. Or that she’d be your sex slave or that you’d get married, but you didn’t. You just tried to get her to sort out what’s going on between the two of you and, well, cool."

"If I’d done anything else, Nibblet, would have been rape. And besides I learned my lesson about second best with the ‘bot. If I can’t have the real thing I don’t want it at all. If she just loved me because of some spell, I’d get to where I couldn’t look at her. I’d always know that I wasn’t man enough for her to love me without magic."

"She said she cares. We were talking about you just before that last wish hit, and she said she cared."

" Said much the same at the wedding, love, but it hasn’t made a difference to what she’s said or the things she’s done since. I don’t think a happy ending’s on the cards for Spikey. If I could tell that heart of mine what to do I’d have made it wait a few years and fall for the more open-minded of the Summers women."

Dawn adopted a teasing tone. "If I thought you could ever feel about me the way you feel about her, I could wait… except for the whole having slept with my sister, ‘cos it would be really gross to think that you could, like… compare. So if we’re lucky I reckon we call it quits at brother-in-law."

"The day I get to be called your brother-in-law is the day I become the happiest man in the world."

"Even if it was because I was getting married to one of Dru’s offspring?" Dawn joked.

Spike shuddered. "Don’t even mention possibilities like that when you’re on the Hellmouth, pet."

The back door opened behind them. "She’s up. She said for Dawnie to go on up if she wants to see her, but that she needs to take a shower." Dawn ducked past Tara and through the kitchen. "She said you should wait down here. She’s got a job for you when she’s done, and she said if you want to try the tranquilliser gun it’s in the old weapons chest in the basement, but that there’s only a few darts left. Does that make sense to you?"

"Reckon it means we’re going after Warren and his mates." Spike held the door open for Tara to go back in, and headed for the basement.

"So, are we goin’ to talk about what just happened, or are you going to keep your season ticket for the land of denial?" Spike asked as the pair made their way down the front steps of Buffy’s house.

"We’re going to talk. We are so going to talk, but not now, not till I’ve had some time to process everything through – okay? In the mean time leave your ice box alone."

Buffy made to walk off down the street, but Spike grabbed her elbow and pulled her back in the direction of his motorbike. He secured the rifle on what seemed to be a gun rack mounted on the side of the bike, which she supposed made sense considering how he got it.

"No point draggin’ this out, luv. Just tell me where we’re going." He swung his leg over the bike in a graceful movement, the duster settling into place behind him. He kicked the engine over and waited for Buffy to climb on behind him.

"Back to where the Glar Gluck Cash Manic or whatever you call it came from. I’ll give you directions when we get closer. We think they might have set it on me because I was getting too close."

"Reasonable assumption, I suppose." Spike conceded.

"We also think they’re the ones using the cameras."

Spike merely grunted in reply.

"Have you tried using the tranquilliser gun yet?" Buffy changed the subject.

"Pointed it at Dawn and the chip didn’t go off. Haven’t actually tried firing it at anyone yet, but we’ve got a slight advantage in that the guys seem to have bought into the Big Bad’s reputation without ever hearing about what the chip does. They’re a bit scared of me."

"You know them?"

"It’s not like I have them over for pizza and a movie. Who do you think built the ‘bot. And when I found out I could hit you who was I meant to trust to check if the chip was working?"

"Well. Willow-"

"Willow would have been passing out stakes to Bob the Builder, two seconds after she found out I could hit you. Warren just did a scan, said he reckoned it was all working like it should do but I never told him what it did."

"But you knew where they were weeks ago… and you didn’t say."

"Hey, since you decided we weren’t talking buddies the second you finished snogging me for the first time, it’s hardly my fault I didn’t know you were looking for them. If you hadn’t stomped off with a bug up your ass every time I tried to speak to you they might not have moved on by the time I found out you wanted them. So don’t plan on making it my fault."

Before Buffy could reply he revved up the engine on the big bike and drove off, effectively ending all conversation until they reached their destination. If she hadn’t had slayer reactions she might well have been left sitting outside her house instead of clasping her arms firmly around the vampire’s waist. Even she had to admit that huddled in against Spike on the back of a motorbike breathing in the scent of his coat and the lightest hint of cologne, was no bad place to be.

Spike took point as they investigated the basement, his better nightvision and hearing giving him a slight edge.

"There’s no-one here. Only heartbeat’s yours." Spike prowled the room looking for anything suspicious. Buffy followed on grabbing up anything with writing on or any sort of computer media. When he reached the far side of the room Spike caught the glint of something metallic he followed it back to the wall at one end and traced the other to the whiteboard.

"What ya got there?" asked the slayer as she observed his movements.

"Tripwire. I think we might want to leave the board alone, and watch your step; there might be more than one." He moved back to where the wire passed through the wall. "Can’t smell any explosives, there’s more of an oil and metal smell, like some sort of machinery but it’s probably best not to take chances."

He scanned the room. Apart from a collection of pizza boxes the slayer seemed to have grabbed everything with any sort of writing on. "Got everything you want, pet."

"I think so."

"Then why don’t we go take a look at what we’ve got. Magic Box or your place or mine?"

"Home, no point me being more of an absentee parent than I have to be."

Spike put the gun back on the rack and took some of the papers from the slayer’s arms, rolling them up and putting them in his coat pockets until she was left with a couple of books and a few CD-ROMs which she tucked inside her jacket.

The journey home took no time at all and Buffy was surprised to find herself thinking that she could quite happily take off for an hour or two, now and again. If nothing else at least it kept the vamp quiet for a while.

By the time they got back to the house the rest of the occupants had all gone to bed. He followed her through to the dining room where she dropped the books and discs on the table. Spike started sorting out the papers into different piles, splitting them between technical and arcane and by language.

"Hot chocolate?"

Spike blinked in surprise. "You making some?"

"Wouldn’t have offered otherwise," Buffy replied.

"Sure." Spike couldn’t work out what was going on. Buffy hadn’t been this friendly to him in… ever. He found himself humming under his breath as he sorted through the pages. Once he had put the pages into piles he pulled the books towards him. Resting the first on its spine he opened the covers slightly to see if it fell open at any particular section. When this failed he tried skimming through. Then he came across a passage that was highlighted in fluorescent pink.

He pulled the pile of English documents over and started looking through them. When he failed to find the translation he was looking for he got up and went through to the kitchen.

Buffy was just pouring the hot chocolate into a pair of mugs and he paused in the doorway till she’d finished before picking one up.

"Have you got a pad and a pen or a pencil handy?"

"I should be able to manage that for you. Is this so you can write down the number of that cell-phone of yours, or did you have something else in mind?" Buffy asked with an honest to goodness smile on her face.

"Both, I suppose… There’s a passage in one of those books that someone has conveniently highlighted. Something about some race of demons living in some sort of sanctuary in the caves deep under Sunnyhell, but it’s in Latin so it might take me a while to work it out."

Buffy led the way into the dining room and pulled a pad and a pen from one of the dresser drawers, putting them on the table in front of Spike.

"I didn’t know you spoke Latin?"

"No reason to tell you, pet, as long as the watcher was around." Spike smirked at her.

"What did you do before you were turned? I wouldn’t be surprised to find out you were a librarian, or some sort of academic type."

Spike let out a groan. "You were there, in my dream, weren’t you?"

Buffy nodded, watching him over the rim of her mug.

"I guess you’re not going to let me live this down?" asked the shame-faced vampire.

"There’s nothing to live down. What you said was beautiful and if she couldn’t see that, then that was her problem not yours, but now’s not the time to go into this." Buffy looked at her watch. It was after four in the morning.

"Why don’t we finish our drinks and call it quits for the night?" she asked. "You can take that book away with you and I could give you a ring tomorrow and see how you’re getting on with the translation. Let you know if we come up with anything here."

Spike wrote a phone number on the top sheet of the pad before ripping the page out and passing it over to her.

"And the other thing?" he prompted.

"Let’s say I’m going to need a little patience, but the sooner we get things sorted out with Warren, Jonathon and… the other one, the sooner I’ll be able to start making any decisions about my personal life. I know waiting isn’t your strong suit, and I’m not making any promises about what my decision is going to be, but I think we might be able to work something out."

"Do I get to give you a reminder of what it is that you’re considering?" Spike put down his cup and took a step towards her, a wicked grin illuminating his face.

"No, you don’t. You get to behave yourself like the gentleman you once were." Buffy held her arms straight out, trying to keep him at a distance. "Otherwise neither of us is going to get any sleep tonight without a cold shower, so back."

"In that case…" Spike took the fingers of Buffy’s right hand in his own and pulled it towards him as he bent over, kissing her gently on her knuckles, "I shall take my leave and wish you sweet dreams."

"Aren’t we supposed to be engaged before you get to take liberties like that."

"Well, if you insist." He started to pull off one of the rings he was wearing from his fingers.

Buffy laughed and bundled him toward the front door, pushing the book and the pad into his arms. "Shoo! Get out! I’ll speak to you later today."

As she took the mugs back through to the kitchen to rinse them out she noticed the neatly folded guest sheets still sitting on the coffee table. She felt so happy for her friends, but at the same time jealousy was nibbling gently at her insides and she wondered if she could ever trust Spike enough to let herself fall in love with him, the way Willow and Tara loved each other. She felt that she knew him so much better than she had known him that morning but she still didn’t know the answer to that question.

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