The title for this story comes from a scene in season two, the episode "I Only Have Eyes For You". As Xander observes, "Yeesh, the quality of mercy is not Buffy."

What if someone in the Scooby inner circle had given Spike a chance after he came to them for asylum? How might that have changed the course of events in the Buffyverse? This story was initially just going to be a season 4 AU, but it may turn into AU season 5 as well, depending on RL issues and how cooperative my muses are.

This story starts immediately after 4x08 'Pangs' ends, and then goes AU.


"The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

~ William Shakespeare


1 - ...Is Not Buffy


"We all worked together," Willow smiled, looking around the table. "It was like old times."

Xander nodded, briefly looking up before digging back into his pie. "Yeah, especially with Angel being here and everything." He froze, realizing his mistake, and stared intently down at the table cloth, hoping that Buffy wouldn't be too angry with him. "Oops."

There was an audible clatter when Buffy let her fork fall. "Angel… was here ?" She looked around the table, registering the various degrees of shock on her friends' – and Spike's – faces.

The Scooby core, Willow, Giles and Xander all looked appropriately guilty, Spike was clearly loving the drama he was about to witness, judging by the grin on his face, and Anya couldn't seem to care less. She was intent on finishing her pie.

Buffy's voice was an odd cross between a shout and a growl. "What do you mean, he was here?"

Since Thanksgiving dinner was pretty much over – people were really just picking at their desserts at that point – Giles and Willow started to clear the table. It was a good excuse to get away from the dining area where Buffy was angrily grilling Xander, and they quickly made themselves scarce.

"Xander, spill. What was he doing here?"

He fidgeted in his seat, unwilling to look at her, but after a while he couldn't find an excuse to keep staring at the table. Besides, he could feel Buffy's angry gaze boring into his skull and he just couldn't take the tension anymore. He looked up, flinched at the barely controlled rage in Buffy's green eyes, and his courage hopped a bus to Sacramento.

"G man, Angel told you why he was here when he first hit town, right?"

Giles had just reached the sink. He handed off his plate to Willow, glared at Xander over one shoulder and then sighed, shooting an apologetic look at Buffy as he turned around. "He came to me three days ago. One of the people he works with in Los Angeles had a vision of you in danger-"

Buffy was livid. She got up from the table and stalked over to the kitchen where Giles had started to pile the dirty dishes. "So he comes here and follows me around? What gives him the right to-"

Giles cut her off with an upraised hand. "I wanted to tell you, but he felt that his presence here would only distract you, put you in more danger."

Willow tried to smile at her. "It's true. I thought he should tell you, but things got so crazed and it was just one more thing to deal with."

"You knew too?" Buffy blinked, turning back to face Willow with an expression of hurt in her eyes. "Did- w- was everyone in on this except me?" She glanced around the room, and a quick look was all she needed to confirm that all of her friends had known about Angel's presence.

Spike had perked up as soon as Xander put his foot in his mouth, and now he eagerly watched the Slayer giving her friends a hard time.

"Don't see what the problem is," Anya muttered to her pie. "He saved her life. If a large, glowery guy swooped in at the last minute and stopped me from getting knifed, I wouldn't be complaining."

"Humans, love." Spike shrugged as well as he could, seeing as how he was still tied to a chair. "Get all emotional over things, lose sight of the big picture an' all."

"Shut up, nobody asked you." Xander glared at him, then got up from the table and put a hand on Buffy's arm, hoping to placate her. "I get that you're upset, and hey, I'm not Angel's biggest fan, but he helped us and protected you without getting in the way. What do you say we don't look a gift horse in the mouth, huh, Buff?"

Buffy let out a measured breath and nodded. "I'm not really mad at you guys, its just… when is he going to stop making these descisions for me? Either he's in my life or he's not. Theres no middle ground for us."

"Maybe he'll stop when he gets over that whole messianic complex that seemed to be a package deal with his soul. Bloody Angelus always had to do things his way. Even Darla couldn't always tell him what to do. Don't see why the lapdog version should be any different."

Buffy walked over to Spike's chair, rolling her eyes at the captive vampire. "I knew we should have gagged you." She glanced at one of Giles' big cloth napkins, as though considering whether it could be used as a gag, but then she moved around behind the chair and out of his range of vision.

His retort turned into a surprised noise when she tipped his chair back so that only the rear legs were resting on the floor. "What the bloody hell d'you think you're doing?"

From Spike's new vantage point, all he could see was the ceiling, and shortly, that started to move. The utter helplessness of his situation – tied hand and foot to a chair which was being dragged by someone who could kill him any time she wanted to – didn't do a thing to help stem his quickly rising panic. "Where are we going? Slayer? Oi, where the hell are you taking me?"

The sound of the chair legs scraping over the floor made Giles cringe as he scrubbed at the dishes.

"Xander, get the crossbow."

Spike's eyes went wider and he craned his neck, trying to see where he was being taken. It was no use. He could only see the ceiling and various pieces of furniture as they passed on either side of him. He kept looking around worriedly, and as Buffy hauled him past the kitchen, he locked eyes with Willow. Spike tried to put on a bold front, but he was pretty sure that the witch had seen just how freaked he was. Bloody perfect.

They took a turn off of the hallway into a smallish room with a white ceiling which was ringed with tiles. The chair legs made much less noise on the floor in this room, but he didn't have much time to wonder what that meant, because Buffy set the chair upright again, and he saw that they were in Giles' bathroom.

Buffy flounced out of the room without a word, leaving him there to wonder what the crossbow was going to be used for. Spike listened as her footsteps trailed down the hall and back towards the living room.

She was walking quickly, purposefully towards the coat rack, and once there she removed a shiny, squiggly-looking stake made of yew wood from her jacket pocket and tucked it into the waistband of her pants. That done, she headed for the weapons chest. Xander was standing off to one side, loading an arrow into one of Giles' nicer crossbows. He watched her reach into the chest and take out two sets of heavy iron manacles.

"Giles, you have a key for these?"

The ex-Watcher slung a dish towel over his shoulder and nodded, heading out of the kitchen and towards a wooden latched box which he kept on a low shelf. "Yes. It's here, with the locks."

He lifted up the box and opened it, revealing all manner of mystical do-dads. Amulets, bits of bone covered in carved runes, gems, and other talisman-type things were all jumbled together. There was even something which looked like a cross between a tulip and a shield, made of pewter and some reddish translucent sort of material.

"Here." He handed over a pair of locks and a ring with two keys dangling from it. Buffy took them with a curt nod, grabbed a knife from the open weapons chest, and gestured for Xander to follow her.

Buffy marched back into the bathroom with Xander trailing not too far behind, holding the crossbow at his hip.

Spike twisted around as much as he could, glaring at Buffy as she stood in the doorway. His eyes flicked to the thick iron bands she was holding, an expression of concern passing over his face for the briefest of miliseconds before his swaggering attitude took over. "What now, Slayer? You gonna truss me up good an' proper? Never took you for the bondage type."

Buffy rolled her eyes and glanced at Xander, pointedly ignoring Spike's jibe as she put the dagger and the pair of leg irons down on the lid of Giles' wicker trashcan. "Keep him covered, Xand."

Xander nodded, raising the crossbow until it was leveled at the vampire's chest and adjusting his hold on the trigger.

Spike raised one eyebrow, clearly not impressed. "Ooo, what're ya gonna do, whelp? Shoot me? Been shot plenty of times tonight." He scoffed. "Ruddy vamp pincushion, I am."

Meanwhile, Buffy knelt down behind the vampire/chair package and untied the ropes which she had used to bind Spike's hands together behind his back. As the rope fell away, Spike started flexing his hands and balling them into fists. Not wanting to waste any time or give him an opportunity to try anything, she moved around to his side and grabbed Spike's left arm, roughly jerked it forward and started clamping the first set of chains around Spike's wrists.

Because Spike's arms were tightly bound to his sides by the rope which Buffy had used that afternoon, she had to use her Slayer strength to yank first one arm and then the other around to the front. Naturally, Spike was less than pleased by her level of gentleness. "Ow! Dammit, Slayer. I'm tied up 'ere. D'you have to be so bloody rough?" The vamp gritted his teeth and briefly wondered if it was actually possible to have a dislocated elbow.

She lifted her head and smiled sweetly at him. "That depends. Do you have to be so annoying?"

Xander chuckled, earning a smouldering glare from the vampire. After a few seconds Spike shook his head and looked away. "I never did get that brandy..." he grumbled to himself.

Buffy undid the ropes which she had tied around Spike's ankles, binding his feet both to each other and to the chair legs, and she stood up again. He stretched his ankles, trying to work out the kinks from being stuck in the same position for so many hours. Buffy caught his movement out of the corner of her eye and had a flash of memory from when Xander and Oz had tried to tie her up at the beginning of the year, back when her demony room mate Kathy was borrowing her soul and the gang thought that Buffy had lost her marbles. With his legs free, Spike could stand up, kick out at them or do any one of a number of unhelpful things. She briefly debated putting the leg irons on him right away, but the idea of him kicking out with one shackled foot while the attached cuff swung free, acting like a mace decided the issue for her. After all, they still didn't know if he was telling the truth about being harmless. She stepped towards Xander, taking the crossbow from him and indicating the dagger with a jerk of her chin.

"Undo the rest of the ropes. Cut 'em if you have to. And Spike, if you try to leave this room, I'll shoot you in the throat."

Bravado firmly in place, he smirked up at her as Xander worked on the ropes. "You do know that won't kill me, luv. Thought you were supposed to be well up on this stuff."

She bent down, taking hold of one of the Chumash arrows which was still sticking out of him and shrugging matter-of-fact-ly. "No, but it should shut you up for a while."

Spike hadn't been kidding about the whole pincushion thing. The first arrow had hit his chest just to the right of center, actually going through one of the button holes of his red shirt. If he had been alive, it would have collapsed his lung. Another had pierced his left shoulder from back to front, only missing his heart by a few inches. The third had buried itself a hands-breadth below the first, and the final shot hit him in the left thigh. Being undead, blood loss wasn't a concern for him, but being used as a pincushion by angry native spirits didn't rank high on his list of favorite pastimes. After the battle was over and before dinner started, Willow had taken most of the arrows out of him. Her gentleness at the task surprised him, as did her offer to get him bandages for the wounds, but he surmised that she was only being kind to him because she felt badly about fighting against the Chumash and not because she actually cared about him. One arrow was still sticking out of his thigh. When Willow had tried to remove it, the arrow wouldn't budge. Spike was pretty sure that part of the arrowhead had caught against his femur, and after Willow had tried jiggling it around to no avail while he cursed at the pain, he told her to just leave it be.

Buffy tightened her grip on the arrow, and Spike winced inwardly. This would not be pleasant. The slayer tugged and Spike tried not to let the pain show on his face. After a few tries, Buffy started pulling in earnest, and one good yank later the shaft was resting in her hand. Spike yowled in pain as the arrow came out; he had felt the arrowhead scraping off a fragment of bone from his femur on its way out. He threw his head back in pain, and the motion was violent enough to make the chair rock backwards slightly.

"All set here, Buff." The ropes fell loosely onto Spike's lap as Xander finished untying them, and he set the dagger aside on the tiled floor.

She aimed the crossbow at Spike's chest and ordered him to stand. He glared at her, still reeling slightly from the pain in his leg and hating that she of all people was there to see him show weakness. He rose slowly, gritting his teeth and stubbornly refusing to let her see how much the movement hurt.

Buffy casually kicked the empty chair out of the way and stepped forward, forcing Spike towards Giles' large claw-foot tub. "Get in."

Spike looked at the tub, then back at her and scoffed, "not bloody likely."

She tensed her finger on the crossbow's trigger and aimed the bolt at his heart. "Now." Her voice was hard and she narrowed her eyes at him, using her free hand to slide the highly polished stake out from where it had been resting at the small of her back. "Unless you want me to introduce you to Mr. Pointy."

Spike glared at her, seething with impotent rage, and he took a shuffling step towards the tub. He balled his hands into fists as he went. The gesture looked like he was trying to keep a hold of his temper, and he was perfectly happy to let the Scoobies think that was the case, but really he was willing himself not to favor his hurt leg. He wasn't about to let Buffy see him limping because of something she had done. He flat out refused to give her that satisfaction. His empty stomach growled, the arrow wounds throbbed dully, and it was all he could do not to snark at Buffy as he awkwardly climbed into the tub. He was in no shape to take on a Slayer, even if he could hit her without his head damn near exploding, and baiting her any further, while fun, wouldn't do him a hell of a lot of good either.

"Buff, you all set in here?"

She could tell that Xander was impatient, probably because he was anxious to get back to Anya. Buffy nodded at Xander, handing him the crossbow as she got the leg irons. "Almost. Keep him covered while I chain him up."

"So," Spike drawled, trying for nonchalance as the first shackle clicked shut, "what's the plan, then? Chain up the vamp and shampoo 'im to death?"

She ignored him, instead focusing on fastening the second cuff around his other ankle.

"This room doesn't get direct sunlight, so you'll be safe in here during the day and we won't have to deal with you." She stood up, finished, and one corner of her mouth quirked up. "Double bonus. Now, you're gonna stay here until you tell us everything we want to know about the commandos."

Buffy nodded to Xander that they were done, and he wished her a good night before heading back to the living room. She gathered up the coiled rope and the dagger in one hand, grabbed the chair with the other and dragged it back out to the main room, leaving Spike chained up in the tub.

He spent a few fruitless minutes fighting against the restraints. It should have been easy for him to get up, but because of the way he was sitting - legs stretched out in front of him and chained together - he couldn't manage to lever himself out of the tub. The chains were too thick for him to break with his bare hands, and because of the tub's width and how tightly Buffy had secured the leg irons, he didn't have enough room to bend his knees and get into a standing position. A quick tug on the hanging shower curtain convinced him that the flimsy metal tube supporting it wouldn't bear his weight if he tried to get to his feet by yanking on the plastic curtain. He supposed it would be possible to haul himself out of the tub by his arms, using his elbows to grip the edge of the tub, but he didn't relish the thought of tumbling over the side and being found sprawled on the floor by any one of the Scoobies.

Spike sighed, letting his head drop back against the tub and closing his eyes. It was going to be a long night.

From the bits of conversation that he overheard, Spike gathered that the next day Buffy would be on her way to L.A., ostensibly to visit her father, but everyone understood that a big part of the reason for her going there was because she wanted to confront Angel about his Invisible Man routine. Because of the holiday break, she would probably be gone until classes resumed the following Monday. That meant Spike would have three days of quality time alone with a former Watcher. Oh goody.