Haunted Part 2:

The whirlwind of dust and dirt has fallen away. What remains from the twister that erupted from the amulet is a leather clad vampire who is screaming and doubling over with pain. Seemingly frozen in time and space Buffy and Dawn stand in shock not knowing if they can trust what they see before their eyes, what they don't notice however, are soft sleepy footsteps padding down the hall moving in the direction of the Summer's apartment. The soft and sleepy, but also annoyed footsteps of Andrew move at a steady pace. Just as Buffy's eyes lock with Spike's, with his real eyes, not those of a lucid daydream or vivid nightmare, but his real blue, soulful eyes; Andrew steps through the doorway behind her.

"Can we keep the chatter down… some of us sleep normal human hours…" Andrew says as he steps into the flat to see what all the fuss is about. Then he sees what they see, he sees Spike. "Spike… Spike!" Andrew says rushing toward the blonde vampire. "It's you, it's really you, you're… hey!" Andrew's sentence is cut off as he runs straight through Spike instead of throwing his arms around him like he planned.

"What the bugger?" Spike says in confusion.

"Spike," Buffy says in a whisper. It is the only word Buffy manages to form in her astonishment, but it's enough to get his eyes on hers.

In a second Spike has moved to stand in front of Buffy, gazing at her he's absorbing every ounce of her. He looks into her green eyes as they peer up at him through wispy lashes with a look of estranged hope and confusion. Inches from her face now Spike brings his hand up to push the loose fallen strands of golden hair out of her eyes. Buffy closes her eyes wanting to feel his touch, but when she doesn't she opens them again to see disappointment cloud his vision as his hand goes straight through her.

"Dawn, what did you do?" Buffy says bringing all eyes on her sister.

"Me… nothing… I didn't do anything."

--

In Giles's office Buffy, Dawn, and Giles look on as Willow circles Spike with clouded eyes. She's deep in a trance, looking at Spike like a puzzle piece that she can't figure out where to fit it in to the big picture. Andrew annoyingly attempts to poke Spike only to have his hand go through him time and time again. Overall the room is filled with a surreal sense of wonderment as they all look on at the resurrected vampire, as they look on at their friend and fellow fighter, at the man who was on their side in the final fight and lost his life saving them all.

"So Red, any idea of what's happened to me yet?" Spike asks as he stands before the gang with his arms folded tightly.

"I don't mean to point out the obvious, but it would appear that you're a ghost," Giles says.

"No," Willow then corrects.

"No?" Buffy asks with a hopeful tone.

"Ghosts absorb light and heat energy… they go all sucky on basically anything electrical… But Spike's… I can feel the heat coming off of him; I can see it moving in waves."

"Think I'm hot do you?" Spike says causing Willow to roll her eyes which have now returned to their normal shade of green.

"So what does that mean?" Buffy asks. She needs answers and that need is apparent in her voice. She takes a frustrated step forward. She's gone into Slayer-mode, however Andrew's antics of poking through Spike's non-corporal form are distracting her from getting down to business. Buffy slaps Andrew's hand and he stops moving it through Spikes form and looks back at Buffy.

"I don't know… It means he's not a ghost, but I don't know what he is," Willow says

"Whatever he is, clearly he's tied to the amulet. Spike's essence, for lack of a better term, must have been held within it," Giles adds in.

"Do you remember anything… from where you were?" Dawn asks.

"What? Like the sensation of my skin and muscle burning away from the bone… Organs exploding in my chest… Eyeballs melting in their sockets… Sorry bit, last I remember I was being burned to a crisp in the Hellmouth."

"Yes, well obviously this requires further research," Giles says feeling sympathy for what Spike has gone through, "lets all meet back here in the morning and start by finding out more about this amulet, where it came from, anything that would help understand what it is that… you are."

"So I'm just supposed to stay like this then, I don't bloody think so."

"There's not much else we can do at this point."

--

Buffy lies in her bed, her heavy comforter has been kicked and pushed as though it were her mortal enemy until it slid off the bed to where it now resides on the floor in defeat. Her sheet is tangled at her feet twisting with the ends of her sweat pants refusing to loose the fight as the comforter did and Buffy herself turns and twists as her mind is infiltrated by a mix of memories and guilt ridden nightmares.

In her dreams Buffy and Spike are sitting on the plush couch in the Summer's Sunnydale home. The lights are dim and the room is silent. Buffy knows that Spike is sitting next to her with purpose. He speaks but most of what he says blurs in her mind because the only thing she can think about right now is that she doesn't want him to leave.

"… I should move out. Leave town before it's time for me," Spike says.

"No, you have to stay."

"You've got another demon fighter now."

"That's not why I need you here."

"Is that right… why's that then?" Buffy can hear the hopefulness in his voice and desperately wants to tell him right then and there how she feels, she wants to tell him that she loves him, but she's afraid.

"Because I'm not ready for you to not be here," Buffy says, and it's the truth, but there's also so much more.

Spike looks at her with words on his tong; however they never make it to his lips. Pain covers his face, his muscles tense, his jaw clenches, and he lets out a yell louder then anything Buffy's ever heard. His skin starts to sizzle, starts to burn. He's burning from the inside out and there's nothing Buffy can do to stop it.

"Spike, what's wrong," Buffy asks. His skin is burning away revealing his skeleton beneath; and even as the muscles are destroyed it does nothing to silence his torment. "Spike, no… I'm not ready for this. It's too soon!" But her shouts do nothing to slow Spike's dissipation, and before she can do anything more he is nothing but a pile of dust beside her dirtying her mother's couch, and all she can think about is that she waited too long, she lost her chance.

Buffy's eyes snap open and again she finds herself breathing heavy, dripping in sweat, and sitting upright in the middle of the night. This time however, her eyes open on to something she hasn't been used to waking up to in a long time. They open to see Spike standing at the foot of her bed with an inquisitive look cast across his face. His hands are shoved tightly into the pockets of his leather coat and he looks on at her with concern.

"Spike…" Buffy says as she begins to calm herself.

"Sorry to interfere on your sleep time love, but you were callin' my name."

"I, oh… I was just…"

"Nightmares right?"

"Yeah."

A moment of silence passes, a moment of thought and reflection, then their eyes meet from across the bed and Spike walks over to sit on the end of the blanket-less mattress. He sits facing the wall, leaving only his profile visible to Buffy.

"That summer you were gone, I dreamt of you every night you know… I was bloody haunted by the image of you falling from… from that night… And I know what you're going through is different, but I know how seeing all of that can mess with your brain… I'm sorry for that"

"Spike you have nothing to be sorry for… I should have gotten you out of there." Buffy says causing Spike to turn face her with an odd look.

"And done what… drag me out into the bleedin' sunlight? Buffy I knew I wasn't making it out of there… there's nothing you could have done."

"I know, but it's just… I didn't want… I… I wasn't ready."

"Wasn't ready for what?"

"…For you to be gone… I knew in that fight that I would loose people, loose friends, and I was prepared for it… but I wasn't prepared to loose you, not when… not with things like they were." Spike muses over Buffy's words. They float in his ear and tie a knot in his brain. His eyes flutter down to the wrinkled white sheets of the bed and then back up to Buffy's face. He sees her looking at him with sincerity and longing and finds himself speechless. "I don't know why you're back… or for how long you'll be here, but this time I'm going to do everything I can to keep you here."

Her eyes shine right through Spike. To him it feels like they're seeing straight into his soul. Spike then realizes that they most likely are; because if there ever was anyone who could see through him it was her. It was always her. In that gaze they share a moment of understanding and in a slow fluid movement Spike moves up the bed and he and Buffy lay down facing one another, each on their sides absorbing the sight of the other.

"Don't worry pet… this time I don't plan on going anywhere."

--

Warmth filters into Buffy's senses. Sunlight shines through the thin curtains and across her face, her eyes open to discover that she is alone in her bed. For a moment she feels as though the past night's events had all but been a dream, just another cruel joke created in her guilt ridden subconscious. The memories from the other night drift back into her thoughts, and then Buffy's eyes focus on the one thing that proves that it was something more then just a dream. Sparking in the morning sun a clear stone reflects the light surrounded in a chain of gold, Buffy had grabbed the amulet the other night and set it on her nightstand where it now sits to reminder her that it isn't too late. A small smile crosses Buffy's face.

--

As the day moves on in London a different set of events is unfolding a continent away. A young man in years but matured and aged far beyond those years of life from all that he's seen moves step by step through unbearable heat. His quest is to find the slayer of an African village and to bring her back to London. This man has traveled as far as he can by machine and now as he nears the village moves by foot.

Xander Harris wipes the sweat from his forehead and takes a long drink from his canteen. Villagers are in sight and soon he will find her. Then he can begin his trek back, for which he looks forward too. Over the past three months Xander has done some extensive soul searching as well as going through very demanding physical feats. Now he finds himself in the best shape of his life and more grown up and mature then he thought he would ever allow himself to be. Xander has enjoyed the solitude of the desert which has allowed him to think and work through the images that have plagued him; but now after having little contact with anyone he's looking forward to being reunited with his friends as soon as this mission is over. He's looking forward to going back to where he can create a life that's a little closer to the one he used to know.

A tall black man in tribal attire steps in front of Xander preventing him from entering the village. Xander stops in his tracks.

"We ave prophesized of your arrival white man… you come to take away from us a girl of great strength."

"That I have," Xander replies.

"We kan not ave dis. I kan not allow it. If you plan to take her wit you den you muss go thru me first."

Xander nods then turns as if to leave, but that's not what he's going to do. Xander has come a long way and leaving now is the very last thing on his mind. Once Xander believes the man's guard is down he spins back around quickly and punches the man square in the nose before he even has a chance to realize what's happening. The man falls to the ground and Xander walks past him.

"Then I guess I'll go through you."

--

The chairs of the cherry table in Giles's office are nearly full as the scoobies dig their noses into books in search of an answer for Spike's ghostly-ness. Even Spike himself has his head in a book searching for some magical cure. Buffy sits across from him at the table while Dawn is on his right side and Andrew is, not surprisingly, on his left; Willow is busy typing away on her laptop and Giles sits at the head of the table squinting his gaze through his glasses. Spike's eyes scan over the last text of the page he's reading and out of habit he reaches to turn it only to be reminded that he can't.

"Uh… someone mind giving me a hand here?" Spike asks.

"Here, I've got it," Dawn says turning the page.

"Spike… you're like... you're like Gandalf the White, resurrected from the pit of the Balrog… more beautiful than ever… and we're like…" Andrew begins to say.

"Andrew, please do shut up," Giles says cutting Andrew off.

"Okay, but I'm just saying its like Spike is a phoenix, risen from his ashes to fight once again on the side of good…"

"Andrew… that's enough… less talking, more reading," Buffy interjects.

"Right, cause the more we find out about this amulet the easier it'll be to reunite Spike with the rest of the solid world."

"That is the idea… so why don't you…" Spike begins to say.

"Guys, I think I've found something," Willow says.

"What is it Will?" Buffy asks and all heads look up from their book incased states to face Willow who has an inquisitive expression as she reads through the text before her.

"Well, I came across this archive in Wolfram and Hart's database, which is really odd because from what it looks like they're a law firm… and there's all this demon-y stuff, and…"

"No offence Red, but we don't need to be bored with the details," Spike says cutting Willow off.

"Right, sorry…well, basically what I think this says is that we can make you solid again… it talks about the powers of the amulet and how they hold the essence of he who wears it inside to protect him, but in order to do so it… it has to change your form."

"Make him non-corporeal," Giles clarifies.

"Yeah."

"So what do we do… how do we make him solid again?" Buffy asks.

"It doesn't say exactly… it's really unclear… Somehow we need to get a currant to run into him, or fill him, but that doesn't make any sense because he's not solid so everything will just go through him."

"A currant of what exactly?" Spike asks.

"It doesn't say."

"Well, that's something right?" Dawn adds in trying to stay positive.

"Yeah," Buffy says, and while she's happy to have some answers she was hoping for more.

Spike sighs and runs his fingers through his hair then drops them to his sides. One hand smoothly and easily falls through the table and lands in his lap. But the other doesn't make it to his side, it stops, the other is resting on Dawn's hand. Spike looks down at his hand as does Dawn. His brow wrinkles as he realizes that he can feel Dawn's soft and warm skin, feel the blood pumping through her veins. His fingers coil around Dawn's hand and he picks it up from the table to examine it. All other eyes at the table go wide as the watch on.

"Well now… that's interesting," Spike says.

--

Xander sits quietly wishing the slight nausea he feels out of his consciousness. A young tribal girl sits next to him glancing out the window of the small plane. She watches as she flies away from the home she's known her entire life and moves toward a new existence, towards her destiny. Xander's thoughts drift to his friends, to Buffy and Willow, and to the excitement of seeing them again. It's been over a week now with no contact with any of them and Xander misses them more then he ever thought he could. Not seeing them was like being without the sun for a week, but now he is headed in their direction and ready to get back to life. He knows that he needed time apart from them. He needed time to grieve, but now he's found a place for Anya in his heart and mind and he's ready to be around his loved ones again.