Disclaimer~ Ok, If I owned Buffy, I wouldn't of made last season so friggin depressing, but this season is good so yay!



Spike was pacing back and forth in the darkness, being a messenger for the many voices in his head. His shirt was off to reveal the many burn marks of the cross that were still healing. He didn't know if it was night or day but he really didn't care. The darkness of the school's basement was providing him all he needed and the blood he drank was the small amount he could recieve from the rats or what Buffy had started to bring him.

"Gotta be good, gotta be good for daddy, daddy loves the good boy! Never loved the poet, never never... rhyming was a crime... Remember to always hide your poems, in the little shoe box under then bed, kept all your good ones there! The one about the mongoose...and the one about the Girl! Remember the one you wrote for her? Never let anyone read it... How did it go? Fair and lovely skin? Golden tresses that fall to your shoulders like the sun and stars? Bloody horrible pap compared to your earlier work. God? Did you know daddy hated you? Told him he was going to hell, meet him there for a spot of tea later, can't get the spot of blood out though..." He was mumbling.

"Spike?" Called a familair voice.

"Little red riding hood! Back from grandaddy's so soon? Course you are, of course, you were a good girl and visited me awhile back. I did some travelling myself. As you probably know... Im the big bad wolf, you should stay away, what lovely little teethies I have..." Spike stopped, he could smell her drying healing blood. But more then that he could smell her pain. It was something he was smelling alot of these days, a pungent smell that resembled the same as fear but was a bit more distinct. Slowly he stopped speaking out what the voices were saying in his shattered mind and slowed his pace. He managed to piece together a sentence.

"Are you Hurt?" He asked in the direction of Willow, as slowly she emerged from the shadows and walked a bit closer.

"Just a touch, I'm healing now, Everything's going to be ok." She said trying to convince herself more then the demon infront of her.

"Not at all! Not at all little princess. She is in danger, danger awaits us all! The lovely goddess that walks this plain knows everything and yet nothing. Could never know, not like you and I, we know all about death and destruction. Just you wait, the slug was nothing, like a pet he was, evil is chaos, chaos is confusion..." He rambled on, talking slow steps towards her.

Willow was not afraid, he wasn't trying to make her so, infact they had a common bond, one that need not be voiced.

They knew that the evil was on its way, the destruction of not only this earth, but of the planets and galaxies, and other dimensions forever.

"I know Spike, I know she's in danger, And I know that you want to help. Can you help me Spike? Can you help me help her?" Willow asked as he finally found his way over to her and put his hand on her arm.

"Spike has been a naughty lad, a naughty lad he has been. Kinda a poet like Dr. Suess Spike is, he always did kinda like his work. Sorry, told too much I'm afraid, he doesn't want to come out and play even if you gave him candy. Look at the witch worry, witchie witch witch. Beautiful girl she is, you would be sad if you knew about who made higher power, higher power my left heel! Or maybe my right. Got lucky she did. Damn cheerleading squad, like Harmony, never could stand that girl..."

Willow tried to make sense of something, anything he said, this was going to be hard and she knew it, but it needed to be done. The coven had told her that something was going to happen, that she needed to be there to help stop it. They trusted her with the lives of her friends and she was going to do everything in her power to help stop it

"Spike, I want you to try and concentrate," Willow said placing her arms on Spike and he closed his eyes.

"Will it hurt?" He asked in a hush like whisper.

"What?" Willow asked wondering if he knew what she was planning on doing.

"Will it hurt when you save them, the pain I feel it is big, like the evil, I think the evil is feeding off it... needs it."

"No, don't say anything I just want you to concentrate... what is the evil?" She said. He looked at her with eyes full of tears and tried his best to listen. Both beings took a sharp intake of breath as she plunged into the depths of his mind, or what was left of it.

She knew it was risky but she needed to know what he saw, what he felt, what he knew without decoding riddles all night.

She was terrified as Spike's hand pulled her through the blackness, until they reached a room.

Willow wanted to cry out in pain at the sight of Spike's mind, but she couldn't, she knew that anything she did could disrupt what was already left.

The room was mostly a large deep pool of crimson black blood with steps and a platform on eachside. The blood was of every person Spike had killed, and the bodies of the deseased still floated above and back and forth. The voices were a harsh and disturbing whisper, all chanting a different story...

"I had six children..."

"You made me believe..."

"I trusted you..."

"You tortured my daughter infront of me..."

"Demon..."

"Animal..."

"Savage..."

Those were just a few things Willow could hear them proclaiming. She had the urge to place her hands over her ears and block out the voices. However, she was in a mind, and voices in your or someone elses head do not vanish when you try to block them out, infact, they become more powerful.

Taking a deep breath she walked through the blood to the other platform on the other side of the room, it was there she saw Spike curled up in a ball, huddling in the corner.

She tried not to think about the dead bodies touching her as she reached the otherside.

"Spike?" She asked calling.

"Why lookie lookie, little red..." The familair sarcastic voice airily said.

"Spike, I need your help." Willow said leaning over him.

Spike lifted his head from his knees and Willow saw the tear stains streaked on his cheeks.

"Bloody ask to give her what she deserves and look what I get?" He said laughing bitterly.

"I GET THEM!" He screamed at the bodies who now where laughing at him raspily.

"Spike, who are they?" Willow said looking back at the distance she had covered.

"I invited them over, they wanted to catch up on old times," he said lifting his body and standing up.

"I'm sorry, I should have known..." Willow said looking away, she had been trying to make small talk, trying to not think about what she just had to do to get to him.

"Willow..." Spike said touching her face, so that she looked back at him.

"You have the power, you are amazing, the light from you..." He said in awe.

"I know, the coven told me, big ole protection powers, not very helpful if you don't know what to do..." She said to him in a sad, defeated voice.

"You already know, the earth is connected to everything, you are one with the earth, you are an angel among us all... You will save her where others will perish."

"Other's will Perish?" Willow asked looking at Spike.

He dropped his hand and cleared his throat, looking away. She knew that he had said to much.

"You must go, stay here too long you might end up like me... trapped." He said looking back at her with genuinely soulful eyes.

"Come back with me..." She said, she didn't want to leave him in this disturbing state.

"I can't, everytime I try to cross the bloody bastards pull me down, one day though, I will remember I don't need to swim to live and keep going..." He said again with that same bitter laugh.

Willow sighed and hugged him before she began to leave. She didn't know what possessed her to do so, but she felt it was the best way to thank him for the very little he could do. As she waded her way through the pool of blood she heard the voices roar in her ears, faintly one came in and out of play that distrubed her the most.

"Little tree, little tree Willow don't you cry, you will be the one to save us, where others will surely die..."

TBC