A.N: This is season … I would like this to follow alongside canon, but the twists and turns the comics are taking make that difficult, so you can imagine this taking place whenever works for you, but it definitely takes place after 'Buffy' and 'Angel' finales. I 'm doing this in a season format, and all 'episodes' will be broken down over chapters.

Please enjoy, and since this is my first fanfic, please leave a review if the fancy takes you, and if you'd like more. I'd like to give a shout-out to my fab sister, Amberssister, for being my Beta.

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Angel, or anything therein. The toy box is mine, but the toys are not. All rights and praise goes to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the Buffy/Angel writing staff, and various other entities. I make no profit; I'm just having fun.

Episode 1: All These Things That I've Done

Then…

Spike stood banging on the television.

"Damn thing. Just when something good's gonna be on telly. I ought to smash it to bits and pieces!"

He was in his crypt. A snake wrapped its way around the candles he'd lit, but never even caused one to drip. It went and coiled itself in the corner.

The telly was flipping like the vertical hold was off, showing different images. Spike recognised some; others made no sense, but it felt like they went together like puzzle pieces. He'd gone through this before; seen it before. He'd seen this programme many times, and it still didn't always make sense. Time for something new.

Time to change his clothes; he'd been out fighting, looking for a spot of violence. The others, the Scoobies, didn't understand. He fought as much to kill demons as to kill the rage inside of him. Right now, he couldn't remember why he was so angry. He felt that understanding, that knowledge, surfacing, and fought it back.

The telly – right. He looked a mess. Been tossed about more than he'd thought. It'd been no more than a tussle, but his black shirt was ripped to hell and back. Black? Or was it blue? Sometimes he couldn't tell. Sometimes his shirt was ripped, and he hadn't been fighting. Best not to think on it. The telly was shot.

Buffy's face flipped up, then Buffy fighting demons. Sunnydale had so many. Dru flipped past, then again, laughing. It was a knowing laugh. He'd seen this before. Wasn't it time for something new? Faces flipped past. Some recent, at least to a vampire, some much, much older, but he knew almost every name. He'd killed most of them, after all. Angelus had killed the others, to show him how, like a wolf teaching a pup how to hunt, how to kill. But, no wolf ever taught how to terrorize, how to enjoy it. He saw all of this and stood transfixed, staring at the screen. There was a slight scraping sound. Likely, anyone else would have missed it, but Spike had vampiric hearing, and turned before the crypt door was completely open.

Buffy stood there. She didn't look tired as she had when he'd last seen her. There was something about that last meeting that Spike knew was important, but as he tried to pull at that memory, it faded like a sunset. Buffy came towards Spike, a smile half-playing on her lips.

Buffy tilted her head up to look at him, her warm eyes taking in his and said, "I told you Remember? Said I'd always come for you. We'll, now I've come."

She pulled a stake from behind her back. The snake uncoiled and hissed as if it were ready to strike. Spike backed into his cement coffin, hands in front of him. He couldn't help but notice that the television had straightened out, now showing images of Buffy fighting and staking vampires.

"Buffy, love, I'm very happy to see you, but pet, I'd be ecstatic if you'd decided to do the meet and greet without the deadly weapon. Think you could put it back where you got it from? I'm so glad you're alright, but I'm doubting you've come here to get kinky so -"

Buffy held up the stake and started walking towards him, and, unless he started throwing blows, he had nowhere to go. He looked in her eyes, and they look frightfully determined. He asked, "Buffy, are you okay?" She answered: "I'm fine. I've never felt more clear. I have been chosen. It is my duty to kill dead things. You are a dead thing. I have to do this. It's clear to me now."

Spike looked for an exit. There were two: the door to his crypt and the entrance to the tunnels. The snake was coiled around it. He tried to move, and couldn't. He tried to reason with her.

"Buffy, I did things to make myself better. We had something special. It might not be what you and angel had, but it was special. I have a soul; I'm a person. By now, right? Please, Buffy; I can't hurt you. Please."

Buffy never even blinked. Her face did soften after a minute. "Angel didn't understand, either," she said. "He fought harder. I don't know what that means. We had something, but that was before everything became clear. You're dead. I kill dead things. It's obvious. I wanted to explain, but it's time."

She raised the stake to put it through his heart, to turn him to dust.

"You bloody killed Angel?" he exclaimed. Buffy looked at him as though he was thick.

"I told you. I kill dead things."

Spike punched her with his right hand, and tried to grab the stake with his left. Buffy, her expression never changing, anticipated his grab for the stake, bringing it down and around. "Angel fought harder," she said again. "I think he would have killed me." She looked down, as if in shame. "I never should have let the two of you near me. That was very bad. I'm sorry. But, the outcome has to be the same. Clearly."

She stopped and looked at him. Her expression turned to pain.

"You went through so much. I mean you hurt muchly. You saved the world." She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "Thank you. I meant it when I said I loved you." She shoved the stake through him. He felt the pain of the wood, the pain of the dusting. Somehow, he hadn't thought she'd really do it. He didn't have last thoughts. He had pain, and last sights: Buffy before him, watching him turn to nothing; the snake hissing; Angel, smiling with his arm around Dru, laughing and laughing on the television

Then, nothingness took him.

Now…

The door banged open with no to-do. Ashley poked her head in.

"Spike, it's night. Our turn to take watch; come on!"

Ashley disappeared down the hall. She had an abrupt way about her that Spike could respect. They didn't always get along, but they had a mutual respect for each other. Spike sat up and shook off the nightmare, not the first and probably not the last. He was still working things out, but right now, he could take his turn on watch.

He pulled on his pants and his shirt, his blue shirt, by chance. As he finished, Ashley poked her head back in the room, looked satisfied Spike was dressed, and stalked away. She carried a battle-axe. Spike hoped she wouldn't have to use it. She got…wild in battle, and he could respect that too, but it'd gotten her into trouble more than once. The other members of their group were not so enthusiastic.

He passed Julie and Marcus on his way to the 'fridge. Julie was small, with blonde hair, timid in conversation, good with a stake or small edged weapon. Marcus was a poncey bastard Spike would like to have five minutes alone in a room with, and then throw out of the house, but he was god with a sword and they were all refugees.

The missing member of their cosy little family, probably eating in the living room, as he was wont to do, was Tim. Tim almost never spoke, unless it was to Julie. He dressed in all black, was thin as a whippet, wore eyeliner and fingerless gloves. Marcus never gave him any peace.

Spike grabbed his mug, filled it with blood from the 'fridge, and put it in the microwave. Pig's blood; could be worse. The microwave dinged, and he took his breakfast out to greet the night, and whatever awaited him there.

"You get any sleep last night?" Ashley asked as he settled next to here on the cliff that overlooked the caves below.

"Some. What'd make you ask?"

"You moan in your sleep, and there's no woman in there with you." She half laughed this, all the while looking out over the cliff's edge. If there were to be trouble, it would come from the things in the caves. On some nights they did what they'd started referring to as 'cave diving'. They went in and cleared out whatever was dwelling in the caverns. But, despite Ashley's enthusiasm, and Spike's experience, they didn't have a strong enough force for a real battle. Spike mostly kept them from what would ultimately be suicide.

He wasn't used to being a General, at least not in a situation where he cared weather the people he sent into battle lived or died. All of that was different now. Spike chuckled and set his mug down. He looked at Ashley, ever vigilant, and remembered meeting her for the first time.

He didn't like that memory, but those are the ones that flood your conscience, and your conscious thought. He had a lot of those memories. As he looked out over the cliff's edge, he started thinking about the last few months…

To Be Continued

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