I do not own the Buffy characters

I do not own the Buffy characters.  (Short but sweet, yes?)

Takes place sometime after the gift.

Spike had been in the Bronze for about and hour and was already drunk.  He had been here nearly every night since Buffy's death.  He came here to remember, or forget, he couldn't decide which it was.  He looked over to the dance floor.  His mind drifted back in time to the first night he'd seen her.  He loved her from that very moment, even though it would take years for him to figure it out.

Spike's reverie was abruptly cut short when a young man got face to face with him and started talking.

"Hey, pal…You OK?" he said.  He was almost yelling to make sure Spike heard him through the music and the obvious alcohol overdose.

"I'm fine, you poof…Bugger off!" he spat back.

The young man didn't leave, he seemed to get even pushier with the staring and questioning.

"What's wrong?  Is it a woman?  It's a woman…isn't it?" he would not shut up.

Spike glared at the young man.  This guy had long straight black hair and wore a flannel shirt under his brown leather duster.  Spike wondered if he was a vampire, he sure smelled funny.

"What the hell are you?" Spike asked.

The corner of the young man's mouth turned up.  He seemed only slightly surprised and a little amused that the vampire could pick up on him while thoroughly sloshed.

"My name is Arashikage (Ah'rah'shi'ka'ge)…And I am your best friend." He was grinning widely, like he knew the punch line to a joke Spike hadn't heard yet.

Spike turned his stool back to the bar, as did his companion, and looked down at the book of matches lying there.  He studied them intently as he spoke.

"How do you figure that, mate?"

The young man looked down at the ring on his right hand.  It was a carved jade ring that was made to look like a circle of bamboo.

"Tell me, what happened to her…this woman you are grieving for?"

Spike's head shot up to meet the stranger's eyes.

"How do you…"

"Tell me about her." The young man did not let him finish.

Spike reached for his beer again.  He slid it, almost spilling it, toward himself.  He was too drunk to pick it up.

"She was my soul…" Spike's voice drifted off as he raised the mug to his lips.

Spike did not notice that the ring that had been on this man's finger was now on his.

The stranger looked him in the eyes and asked,

"What would you wish for, if you knew you would get it?"

Spike pondered for a moment...Thinking back to his failure to protect Dawn which had caused Buffy to make that horrible choice in the first place.

"I would wish I could have stopped it when I had a chance…"

Spike's attention was drawn to his finger, where he noticed the ring and looked up at his drinking buddy questioningly.  His eyes bulged and his jaw dropped at the sight of the young man, who was now a scaly-blue demon with cat-eyes.

"Done."

Spike found himself staring at Doc, who was facing him with a knife.

"Why do you even care?  I don't smell a soul on you anywhere."

Not taking his eyes off the demon, he reached back with his right hand and nearly fainted when he touched Dawn, still tied to the scaffolding.  Spike could feel the pain in his back from the stabbing Doc had delivered, and noticed the knife laying across his foot.

Doc's tongue flashed out at him and he dodged it as he had before, but this time he flipped his foot up at the same time and caught the knife on the way up.  He slashed upward, severing Doc's tongue.  The demon screamed in pain and Spike threw the knife at him, burying it up the hilt in his chest.

"And just to be sure…" Spike spun and kicked Doc off the tower.  He turned to Dawn as he heard the wet thud of the impact.

Spike untied Dawn and looked down to see Buffy clobbering Glory a few times with the hammer.  He turned back to Dawn, excited as a child in a toy store.

"She's alive!" he yelled, wrapping Dawn in his arms and picking her up and spinning her around in celebration.