A/N: I always thought Human Spike [William] was a really sweet guy. I also always thought Joyce shouldn't have died. As such, I am writing this new story to rewrite Season 5. Oh, and yes I did steal some dialogue from later episodes and will continue to do so. I don't plan to make Glory disappear, for example.
Timeline: Post Crush, the day after Spike's romantic plan to kill either Buffy or Drusilla to prove his love to the other.
Disclaimer: Sadly, they are not mine. Not even poor little William, bless his little British heart. Nothing was hurt during the writing of this fic except my pet goldfish, but that was a non-fic related incident involving a hairdryer...
.:CRUSHED:.
Spells shouldn't be interrupted...
Rupert Giles, ex-Watcher, ex-man-of-leisure, current shop-owner, looked at the two witches in confusion. Willow and Tara had come to the Magic Box earlier, both flushed with excitement. All he could gather so far was that they had found what could be a clue about Glory or the Key.
Cleaning the lens of his glasses, mostly to buy a moment in which to think, and looked at the two girls again. Willow Rosenberg, who he'd known for almost five years, had changed a great deal since he first knew her. She had grown, in more ways than one. She was more confident now, more comfortable in her own skin and it made her comfortable to share her warm and inquisitive nature with the world. She still wore different clothes than most girls- women, he corrected himself- her age, but her bright red hair and eclectic taste in clothes seemed to fit her.
Tara Maclay, Willow's lover, was a voluptuous girl, not that Giles had noticed this in any way, with bright blue eyes, dirty blonde hair and lips maybe just a tad too big for her face. A very shy girl, especially when she first met Giles and Willow's other friends, she had a serenity that fit well with Willow's excited energy.
"I'm very sorry, Willow, but could you repeat what you just told me? A little more slowly?" Giles asked, his English accent accentuated by the exuberant American girls excited babbling.
"I'm sorry Giles, it's just this is so exciting! I mean, we've been looking for something on Glory or the Key since the first time Buffy first fought her, and then we find out she's actually a Hellgod after Dawnie, and not even Buffy can beat her, and the only thing we can do when she shows up is run and-"
"Willow!" Giles snapped, exasperated. He loved the young woman dearly, but the more excited she got the harder it seemingly became for her to actually make her point. Giles considered himself a patient man, when all's said and done, -and with a Slayer like Buffy, he'd had to be- but sometimes Willow was too... excited to bear.
"It's like this, Giles." Tara cut in, Willow obviously too excited to make much sense at this point. "We think we found a reference to a book that might have relevant information about Glory and the Key." This perked Giles up immeasurably. So far today had consisted of Anya complaining about Giles' business sense.
"This is excellent news! What book had the possible information?" Giles asked, genuinely curious. He, and the Council of Watchers, had been looking for anything that could help them get information on Glory, or the Key, and they had come up with nothing.
"We-ell..." Willow began, looking slightly deflated for the first time since she had arrived fifteen minutes ago, "The information was supposed to be in the Chronicles of Nemtorin-"
"The Chronicles of Nemtorin?" Giles asked in an incredulous tone. "Not only are the Chronicles lost to us, the last information anyone had on them indicated that they had been altered irreparably by a demon cult!"
"We know that Giles, but we were planning to use a spell that would bring it to us in the same condition it was in a week before it got changed." Willow beamed, looking happy that she had possibly solved Buffy's problem, not knowing enough about Glory to be able to protect Dawn and stop her.
"Willow, spells which remove things from the past or future can damage the time stream irreparably, and can cause untold havoc on millions of lives. To remove something as prominent as the Chronicles, however, could make all of us unborn. And that is one of the better scenarios!" Giles began.
Willow tried her best, and it was often helpful, but she had no sense of restraint when it came to magic. Giles had hoped that Tara, having been raised around magic, would have been more wary as to the repercussions. Perhaps Willow had convinced her it would be perfectly safe. Rather than look chastened, as Giles had expected, Willow looked frustrated instead, but instead of saying anything it was Tara who spoke.
"We know that Giles. We could make things much, much worse if we did a spell like that. It is dark magic that changes time like that. That's not what our spell does. It creates a replica of the thing named, from the time named, but it doesn't affect the thing at all. It's really a very difficult spell, but I think Willow and I can handle it. We need any advantage we can get against Glory, and it's worth the risk if it helps Buffy. With her mom still sick and all, too..." Tara trailed off, unused to voicing her opinion so strongly.
Giles cleaned his glasses again, his mind racing to see if this plan could work. A spell like that would take an incredible amount of power, but power was something Willow and Tara had in abundance. If this actually worked...
"You are sure you could work this spell?" Giles asked after a time, glasses back in place. At Willow's furiously excited nod, Giles let out a small sigh, although he was unsure whether it was relief or disappointment. "What will you need to do this spell?" he asked resignedly.
Willow stretched her arms out to her sides and looked over at Tara for reassurance. Despite what she had told Giles, she was a little worried about this spell. It was far beyond anything she had tried before, but this spell had a long ritual so less power would be used even though there would be more room for error.
Getting the spell components from the Magic Box should have been easy. Giles owned the shop, so there should have been no problem. There wouldn't have been a problem if Giles hadn't hired Anya. The blonde ex-vengeance demon nearly had a fit when Willow had suggested that she needed a Yi'lem talisman, and that she wasn't going to pay for it.
After nearly an hour of wrangling, which was finally ended when Giles said he would pay the difference from his share of the profits, Anya stopped arguing every time they tried to get an ingredient. It was worse than when Willow had tried to do the Ball of Sunshine spell that she'd made, and Anya had managed to turn it into a summoning spell that called Olaf, a troll who wrecked The Bronze. Willow honestly had no idea what Xander saw in her.
When Tara gently squeezed her hand, Willow's mind whipped back to the present, to the highly difficult spell she was about to cast. Throwing Tara a wan smile, she tried to focus on the steps of the spell.
First she and Tara would light the candles and incense, the sage and rosemary and thyme. Then Willow and Tara would link powers, with Tara providing the anchor to this plane of existence. Then Willow would begin to chant an elaborate prayer in Ancient Zemitch, before entreating the God of Mimicry, Jhealdan, to give them the item they were after.
Looking at the clock nervously again, Willow thought about the trial ahead of her. And it was in front of her. Even though Willow loved Tara dearly, and a lot of the power involved would be from Tara, it was not Tara who risked having her brains sucked out of her ears if she mispronounced a word in the hour-long chant.
Giving a slight nod to Giles, standing in the doorway, -still unable to give up Watching, it seemed- Willow sat down on one half of the circle drawn among the elaborate patterns on the floor. Giles quietly left the training room at the back of the Magic Box, locking the door as Tara took her place opposite the redhead.
Closing her eyes, Willow began the process of meditation that would begin the ritual.
The Magic Box had been quiet since they heard Willow and Tara chanting, Anya and Giles going about business so as to not disturb the spell in any way. The slightest noise had the possibility of pulling at the witch's mind and unravelling the spell, or causing it to misfire.
Giles was off in the corner reading a musty old book, as Giles was always doing. Anya didn't understand why. It seemed that every time a new demon appeared and threatened Buffy, Sunnydale, the world or even Xander, that Giles had to go off and find a book anyway, so why bother reading them when he didn't know what he was looking for?
Anya was doing something practical. She was counting the money. The money was important. By making it, she could then exchange it for goods and/or services. That was patriotism, and that is a sign of being a good person. Anya wanted to be a good person. It had been a very long time since she had even had to try, being a Justice Demon for over 1100 years.
But now she was a useful member of society. She had a boyfriend, her lovely Xander who was so nicely formed, she had a job and she contributed to the economy of her country. Her life was good.
Oh sure, there were the almost weekly demon attacks and the bi-monthly apocalypse attempts and all the other threats associated with living on a Hellmouth, but that's what Buffy was for. She was the Slayer, and it was her job to protect them all from those things. Anya didn't exactly understand why Xander insisted they stay here, on the Hellmouth, where it was so dangerous, but Anya loved him and all the magazines say that you have to make compromises for the ones you love.
Anya looked up from the money briefly when she heard the bell above the door -after all, it could have been a paying customer- but she went back to counting her money when she say it was only Spike. The vampire was never a paying customer, and Anya suspected he stole things. He was a leech on society, like a communist.
"Hello, all. What's going on then?" Spike asked as he sauntered into the Magic Box. He seemed drastically out of place in the quaint magic shop, with his black jeans, black t-shirt, black leather duster and his bleached hair. Out of the corner of her eye, Anya watched as Giles tensed.
"You're not welcome here, Spike. Leave" Giles said, a little more forcefully than Anya thought was necessary, but she hadn't been living as a human for as long as Giles so maybe he knew what was best.
"Okay, now, I was afraid of this." Spike began in a long-suffering tone. "Misrepresentations, misunderstandings, slurs and allegations. I don't know what Buffy told you, but the thing is, the Slayer and I worked together, side by side, to get rid of Dru. Who was up to no good. And I don't mind telling you- "
"Spike ... listen to me" Giles began quietly and forcefully. Anya tried to focus on the interesting occurrence in front of her rather than the really annoying droning that Willow was doing in the other room. That magic chanting was so damned irritating.
"It's just ... I'm trying to explain. She might have said some things that sounded like I expressed some kind of feeling- " Spike said, not quite sounding convincing. Anya should know, she was an expert at covering up her faux pas after her two years adjustment phase from human to demon. Not one person who did not already know she was a demon suspected her any more.
Anya gave a small start when Giles grabbed the Vampire by the lapels of his leather jacket and slammed the attractive vampire against the shelves.
"We are not your friends." Giles began in a lethally cold voice. "We are not your way to Buffy. There is no way to Buffy. Clear out of here." He let go of the vampire. "And Spike, this thing ... get over it."
That's when Anya realised what all this was about. Giles' attitude, Buffy and Dawn's absence from the shop, Spike trying to talk his way out of something. It was all because Spike had tied Buffy up and said that if she did not say she loved him he would let his ex-lover kill her.
Anya didn't see what the big deal was. Seriously though, Spike didn't torture Buffy, although with that government chip in his head that might have been hard to do, and it's not like he'd demanded her undying love. And besides, bondage could be fun.
"I don't know what you mean." Spike said in a softly insolent tone, a small smile playing at his lips.
"Yes, you do." Giles asserted. "Move the hell on."
Giving the older-looking Englishman a dirty look, Spike straightened his duster and attempted to stalk out of the Magic Box again. Anya thought the effect was ruined somewhat by the fact he tripped over his shoelace and stumbled into a shelf, his hands coming to land on an ornamental crucifix there. After a loud scream, Spike staggered backwards.
Unfortunately for the vampire and his dignity, this dropped him off the step into the lower level. Not ready for change in height, he fell back on his ass, arms pinwheeling. Which was a bad idea, because his flailing arm managed to knock the table on which all the little bottles of holy water were being kept. One fell and burst, spraying his thigh.
"Arrrrggghhh! Bloody, sodding, everlasting HELL!" The vampire cursed loudly, and it started to go downhill. Anya shot him a look of irritation. Didn't he understand that, if he made so much noise that other people called the police, there may be an investigation and large numbers of customers could be scared away?
The Ritual was nearing completion. It had taken almost two hours already and the seductive pull of the powerful magic was doing strange things to Willow's head. It was almost as if she were imagining the ritual and the magic, and her thoughts were reality.
Willow was thankful that there was silence from outside the door because she had no idea what the slightest distraction would do to her concentration now. It was time to begin the request. Willow could feel a fraction of the divine mind she was attempting to contact focus on her. Added to the strain of the repeated actions and the stress of the magic raging through her, Willow was glad she was not trying this spell again any time soon. She felt stretched tight like a rubber band almost at breaking point.
At Tara's gentle squeeze, Willow knew it was time to begin the request. Tara had made herself an anchor to keep Willow grounded, and now Willow was to request for the Chronicles of Nemtorin.
Most Holy Jhealdan,
God of Imitation,
Hear our plea.
Willow felt her attention scrabble as the feeling of divinity increased. Her ears, straining for some sign of acknowledgement from the deity, heard a faint jingle, but it was unimportant.
We wish to make a request.
We make our entreaty to you.
The thing we seek is from a time long past,
Voices in the background, from beyond the door. Male, English, mature. He is also unimportant.
We wish for you to bring
A replica, a copy, an imitation
Of the thing we seek.
Another voice, male, English, angry. That is also unimportant.
That which we seek
We wish to be brought
From a certain time.
No. That voice has some importance. That voice did something. Willow felt her mind wrenching between the spell, the deity, and the elusive knowledge of the harshly uncommon accent from beyond the locked door, beyond the spell.
The time we ask for
Is that time a week before
The demonic corruption
Of what is asked.
The voice. It did something to someone important to her. Not Tara, she is here. Buffy. The owner of that voice did something to Buffy.
That which is asked
The owner of that voice chained Buffy to a wall. The owner of that voice has done nothing but villainy.
Was at one time called
Who was it? Willow felt her mind bend to name this voice, this foul offender.
"Spike" Willow hissed, before the magic finished, and unbent, became undone. She felt a wave of exhaustion and nausea before the world went black.