Healing

Los Angeles

May 2004

Gunn narrowed his eyes, but Sally didn't flinch. They went with the moment, getting a feel for each other.

"Bruins, then?" she asked.

Gunn nodded. "Duke?"

"Hell, no." Sally sounded insulted. "North Carolina."

Gunn relaxed back onto the pillows. "All right. That's okay. UNC. I can respect that."

She gave him a grudging look. "Yeah, UCLA's okay, too."

Spike stood abruptly from the chair by the bed. "I'm going to go have a smoke," he announced to no one in particular.

He found Angel in the waiting room after recalling that he was out of cigarettes. "Don't go in there," he warned. "They're onto basketball now." He threw himself into a chair opposite the dark-haired man. "They were talking coaches, and now even I hate Steve Spurrier and Rick Pitino for being arrogant, traitorous ponces, and I don't know who they bloody well are." He sighed. "Why can't they discuss something sensible, like football?" Go with the stereotype, Spike thought dully. He hadn't really cared about footy all that much since Manchester United's George Best days.

Without saying a word, Angel handed him the afternoon edition he had been reading. The headline was 'Senator Bruckner, 56, Dead of Heart Attack.' He saw the words Wolfram and Hart at the bottom of the front page. "Building destroyed… Terrorists… Two Wolfram and Hart employees found murdered," Spike read aloud, unfolding the newspaper to read further. "Yeah, Wesley, but Lindsey didn't work for them," he said in protest, lifting his eyes.

"For purposes of this press release, he did," Angel said grimly. "Read on."

"Winifred Burkle… missing. Legal counsel Charles Gunn and executive Liam Angel," he stopped, giving Angel an incredulous look, "missing and wanted for questioning by the police."

"You and Lorne aren't mentioned." Angel stood up and began pacing.

"What are they playing at?"

"I don't know." He sighed and stopped pacing, turning back to Spike. "I need to call the Burkles, need to call Wesley's family. They have to know. It's almost nine o'clock; I'm counting on the fact that none of my former employees would have had the decency to call them today." He took a long breath. "I've been thinking, planning, which I guess means we're moving out of crisis mode." He looked at Spike in silence until he had the blond man's full attention. "Some of those plans involve Sally, and I just don't know. Do you trust her?"

Spike gave a grim smile and replied, "List of people I trust has a single name on it, Angel. You know that." He stood from the chair, turning away. "Use her in your plans, mate. I've known people for years, even decades before being betrayed; maybe knowing someone less than twenty-four hours is a bonus. Doesn't hurt that way."

A contradictory range of emotions crossed Angel's face as he looked at Spike's back but thought of Dru, all cool flesh and hot eyes beneath him, the sounds of her pain and her pleasure. How she had loved having Daddy back. He closed his eyes and put aside everything else except his responsibilities to the remnants of Angel Investigations. "I'll send you out for supplies. Do you mind taking her along, keeping her occupied?"

Spike shot a look over his shoulder. "I'm not busy."

Angel handed him a list. "Here. This will all come in handy, no matter what." He fished in his jacket and brought out a wad of bills. "This should be enough."

After reading over the list, Spike shook his head. "I'm not skint. Keep your money; you'll probably need it."

This gave Angel pause. "You have money?"

Spike gave him a narrow look. "Yeah, every penny I earned from your evil corporation for minding the blue baby, minus smokes and beer and a few game cartridges."

"You can't get money from the bank, Spike. They'll be tracking our accounts."

"I'm not an idiot, Angel," Spike said patiently. "Don't use the banks, do I?"

"Your 'retainer' for watching Illyria went from my personal bank account into yours every Friday. You had direct deposit!"

"I did. Just took the money right out Friday afternoons, didn't I?"

"Just how much cash do you have on you?" Angel asked warily.

Spike put a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Enough to run out on you." He gave him two rather hearty pats, then swaggered out of the room.

"You didn't crash those cars, did you?" Angel called after his retreating figure. "You sold them!" Spike waved a neutral hand in response. The dark-haired man found that he was glowering and forced himself to stop.

"I'm stealing Sally," Spike informed Gunn from the door of the recovery room. "Need to make a supply run, and you're the wheels, pet."

"Oh," Sally said. "Um, sure." She stood up and gave Gunn a warm smile. "I'm glad you're doing better."

"And I'm glad you came by Angel Investigations when you did," Gunn said, returning her smile.

"See you in a bit," she called, falling in step behind Spike.

Angel took his place in the doorway, a smile lighting his own face. "Hey, man. You're looking good."

Gunn, with a serious expression, nodded. "I feel good, way better than I should." He used his arms to lift himself higher in the bed. "I should be dead."

"I know," Angel said softly. He started to go on, then fell silent. Anything he said would sound facile. Instead, he held the newspaper out for Gunn to take.

He read in silence. "So they want you and me back." He looked up from the paper. "Why not Lorne or Spike? And this in a newspaper? You gotta think," Charles threw the paper to the foot of the bed, "that they're desperate to get us back alive."

Angel shrugged and stared off into middle distance, slowly shaking his head. "What, alive? After the mass of bad guys they sent after us last night?"

"Well, once the heat of the moment faded, they probably started thinking more creatively. C'mon, you know they can think of something worse than cutting your heart daily from your living body."

Angel turned away from Gunn so he wouldn't see the pain on his face and paced a bit in the small room. "Maybe they want us back because they have more invested in us, and they still think they can turn us," he offered, "or maybe because they think we can make the most trouble."

There was a long silence. Gunn bit his lip. "I'm not going to make trouble," he said finally.

"What?"

"I'm out, Angel. I'm sorry." Charles met his confused look squarely. "You know what I've been through to play at this level, how I've changed." He broke their gaze and slumped against the pillows. "I barely remember who I am anymore."

"You're a warrior – " Angel began.

"I'm a human." Gunn raised up a few inches, then fell back, holding a palm across his abdomen. "I've nearly been killed, inside and out." He lifted his hand, checking for blood on the bandages. There was none. He took in a breath, then looked back up. "That was it, Angel. I expected to die last night. I didn't; I don't know why. But now I'm going back home."

"They'll be looking for you."

"Yeah, let 'em come lookin' for me in my neighborhood," Gunn said, a snarl in his voice. He sighed. "Yesterday I went back, saw some people," he smiled, "helped move a couch. Just day-in, day-out kind of living that I haven't been able to do for years. I may not be able to make much difference in your world, but I can make a big difference in mine. If I can just fight again as myself… it's enough. I'm going back. My mind's made up."

Angel turned around, facing the door. He knew that it was the right thing for Charles, but he felt like his own heart was being ripped out. He blinked a few times, then faced Gunn.

"Okay," he said quietly. "But you did make a difference."

Gunn smiled. "Yeah." He looked down at his hands. "Angel, man, I'm not saying that I don't ever want to see you again. In fact, I'm counting on you showing up, on and off, till I'm an old man, older than that guy Jim. And, if you need me, if you don't have anywhere to go, I'm there for you."

Angel nodded, staring at the floor. He stepped forward and held out his hand. Gunn put his warm one in Angel's, and they shook. "Same here, buddy."

Gunn cleared his throat. "You should probably get out of L.A. for a while."

"So should you," Angel shot back.

"Yeah, well, this is my home."

Angel clenched his jaw and turned away again, harnessing his temper. Charles didn't owe him a single, damn thing, but he would be in the human's debt forever. And he was right, of course. But Los Angeles had been his town for a long time, too.

"Too bad Sunnydale is a sinkhole," Gunn mused.

Angel grunted. "Sunnydale was never safe for me."

"No, I guess not," Gunn replied, but there was amusement in his voice.

Angel sighed and turned back around, shrugging. "I'll figure something out. My guess is, we've got breathing room. If they're using the newspapers, the media, they sent all their forces after us last night. I don't think they held a lot of firepower in reserve."

"More than a dragon?" Charles snorted. He added hurriedly, "But you're not gonna get me to say anything and jinx it."

"So," Angel said, thinking that it was a good time to change the subject. He gestured at Gunn's bandages. "What did that guy Jim do to you?"

A queasy expression passed over Charles face. "It had something to do with the healing properties of his saliva."

"Quick," Sally whispered to Spike as they pulled back into the lot behind the clinic. "See Jim sitting out back there?"

"Yeah?" he said warily, his eyes going to where Jim was again perched atop the milk crate on the loading dock.

"Lean on me like you're really hurt." When he gave her a sharp look, she winked and cajoled, "Please please please?" He shrugged and let her half-pull him from the truck.

Jim stood up and took a few uncertain steps toward them.

"Sally? What's wrong?"

She struggled toward the loading dock, pretending to stagger under Spike's weight. "Oh, no!" Sally cried, glancing up at the medic. Then she said in a theatrical voice, "He's dead, Jim."

Jim stood with his hands on his hips, staring down at the hysterically laughing woman. Spike disentangled himself and eyed her with distaste.

"Dead, huh?" he said sourly. Jim shook his head at the pun. "Not as if you've never said that a hundred times before. I'm a doctor, dammit, not a comedy club audience."

"She did have espresso," Spike offered, turning back to get the packages from the truck.

"Your friends are both in the recovery room," Jim told Spike as he walked past with several plastic bags. "I'll stay here with the pointy-eared geek."

"Charles will call you in just a moment from his hospital bed, Mrs. Burkle," Angel said. "Yes, I will." He paused, listening. "Thank you. You, too. Goodbye." He sighed, then dropped the phone into the trash.

"Gunn?" he said, leaning around the doorway. "They'll be expecting you to call."

Charles sighed, too, and picked up the cell phone in his lap. "Thanks." He waited until the sound of Angel's footsteps died away.

Angel went back to the waiting room. He hesitated a moment, looking at the eleven other prepaid cell phones Spike had provided, another one already connected to the battery charger. They were all active, thanks to a stop at an Internet café. He drummed his fingers on his hips, thinking. He wanted to get in touch with Connor more than anything, but he resisted the urge. Giles, he decided. He would have contacts with the remnants of the Watchers' Council and be able to get a number for Wesley's family. Angel slumped in one of the plastic chairs and dialed Giles' cell phone from memory.

The ringing went on so long that Angel was about to hang up. "Rupert Giles speaking."

"Giles, hi. This is Angel."

"Angel?" There was a pause.

"I'm in full possession of my soul," he told Giles patiently.

"Of course you are. Well, how are you, then?"

"In need of your help, as always, but this won't compromise your moral superiority. It's Wesley, Giles. He's dead."

"Oh. Oh, dear." There was another pause. Angel imagined that Giles had removed his glasses. "When did it happen?"

"Last night. I'm at a hospital with Charles Gunn. Spike's here, too." He'd never believed the boy, Andrew, would be able to keep that secret.

"Spike is with you?" Giles asked, his voice sharp. Then he seemed to interrupt himself. "Hospital? Are you all right?"

"We're getting there."

"Were you attacked?"

"We attacked first. I'm not the head of Wolfram and Hart any longer."

"I'm rather glad to hear it," Giles said acerbically.

"You know, I am, too," Angel said, a little surprised by his own words.

"It's very difficult to change an organization from within," Giles allowed. "I know from personal experience."

"Not all of my life decisions have been the greatest," Angel said, heavy on the irony. "Anyway, I hoped that you might know how to get in touch with Wes' family."

"Oh! Of course. Let me think… yes, I know of an acquaintance we have in common. An acquaintance who's still alive, I mean. I'll be glad to get the number for you."

"Thank you, Rupert. I'll call you back tomorrow. Will that be enough time?"

"Yes. Yes, it should be."

"Oh, hold on just a second." Angel took the phone from his ear and listened. He could hear the quiet murmur of Gunn's voice, still talking to the Burkles, water running somewhere, and the rustle and whining of dogs in the kennels, but that was all. His senses drifting out, he found what he was looking for: the two strangers, Sally and Jim, were outside the building. He lifted the phone again.

"There's something new that I think you'd want to know about, even coming from me," he said in a low voice, "two things, actually. I have it on pretty good authority that we're well into an apocalypse, a thousand-year one."

"Good lord. Another one already?"

"Have you ever heard of a… stealth apocalypse before?"

"No. Certain, um, Christian doctrines believe in a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth, but that's very different. I'd have to consult my books."

"You'll probably have to consult the books for the second thing, too. There's another vampire with a soul, other than Spike and me."

"Good lord," Giles said again. "Another one? How?"

"That's the thing," Angel said. "She says she never lost her soul."

"Never lost…" Giles trailed off. This time Angel was sure that Giles was polishing his glasses.

"I don't have to ask if you've ever heard of such a thing."

"No indeed. There are no books to consult. You were the first I'd ever heard of. And then…"

"Spike, yeah." Angel's voice was heavy.

"Angel, listen. If you don't have too much damage control to do in Los Angeles, perhaps you would consider bringing your new discovery to see me? I would quite like the opportunity to interview her."

"Would I be welcome?"

Giles paused for a moment. "I won't lie to you, Angel; I have my reservations. I'll want to talk to you about your association with that firm. Then we'll see."

Something occurred to Angel. "Where are you, exactly?"

He heard Giles smile. "Cleveland. I've taken on the task of establishing a Watchers' outpost on the other Hellmouth."

"You can't stay away, huh, Rupert?" He'd assumed Giles was in the UK.

"Let me give you my direction. Do you have a pencil?"

"Go ahead." Angel transcribed the address, then tucked it in his pocket. "I'll ask her if she'll meet with you, but I can't make any promises. I just met her myself."

"Of course. Very good. I'll expect to hear from you tomorrow, then."

"Take care, Giles." He didn't ask about – he didn't ask about anyone.

"You, also, Angel. Goodbye."

He turned off the cell phone, squeezed it into pieces, and chucked it into the trash. Angel sighed and dumped the remaining cell phones into a plastic bag. A shower, he thought, and clean clothes.

Spike had apparently had the same thought, as he was swearing at the stiffness of new jeans as he tied his bootlaces in the locker room, his hair still damp. "How did the phone calls go?"

"About as you'd expect," Angel replied. "Sometimes I think the Burkles are the only truly decent people I know. Their only child is dead, and they asked how I was taking it."

Spike nodded, then stood, rubbing a towel over his hair. "And Wesley's family?"

Angel shook his head, taking off his shirt. "Giles is tracking down their number for me. I told him about Lindsey's thousand-year apocalypse, and he said he'll check his resources." He thought for a moment. "He invited us to Cleveland and wants to meet Sally, too."

Spike looked up, arrested. "Giles invited–" He changed the subject. "Yeah, he would want to study her, wouldn't he?" He turned away, fear and relief vying for dominance in his expression. The secret of his return was out.

"Would you ask her?" Angel laid his shirt on a bench. "I'm know I'm pushing her off onto you again, but I'm getting twitchy just staying in one place. I feel like we need to move out, but I really want a shower first."

"No problem," Spike shrugged. He tossed the towel in a hamper. "Is Rupes flying back from Bath?"

"No, he's here in the States." Angel shrugged.

"The other Hellmouth. Should have known."

"He already knew you were back, Spike." Angel studiously didn't look at him.

"Figured the spod would tell." His back was to Angel, and an intense gamut of expressions crossed his face this time. If Giles knew, he expected that everyone else did, too. Not one of them had contacted him. "Uh, I'll go ask Sally, then."

"Thanks, Spike."

The blond man waited for the other shoe to drop. When it didn't, he nodded. "You're welcome."

Jim and Sally were standing in front of her truck, the hood raised, talking about the engine, when Spike found them.

"Did you have the windows done?" Jim asked.

"Yes, but I haven't had the chance, or the nerve to–" Sally looked up as Spike approached. "Hey, you might be interested in this. Jim told me about this place out in Simi Valley that does a special process on windows called 'necrotempering.' It keeps out all of those UV rays that we walking dead find so troublesome. I bought my truck out here so I could–"

"Yeah, sorry, I've heard about it," Spike interrupted. "Listen, Angel is beginning to feel uncomfortable staying put, and since Gunn's better, he's probably right. It's time to move on."

Sally looked down. "Of course. Um, I'll be glad to drop you anywhere."

"How about Cleveland?"

This earned him a startled look. "Cleveland?"

"Yeah, there's an old friend there, Rupert Giles, who's a walking library when it comes to vampires, and he's never heard of a case like yours. He used to be the Slayer's Watcher, and he'd like to meet you."

"Slayer?" Sally asked blankly.

"Watch – he's from the Watchers' Council?" asked Jim in an odd tone.

Spike gave his full attention to the medic. "Yeah?"

Jim turned to Sally. "Don't go." She looked between the two, confused.

"What do you have against the Watchers' Council?" Spike asked.

Jim gave him a cold look. "What about you? They kill vampires, don't they? We Jelashii had a long association with the Council. We're very handy to have around, in case you haven't noticed." He turned to Sally. "They kept us as slaves for hundreds of years, healers on a leash."

"You?" Sally asked, horrified.

"No, not me, but any of us they caught. One of my uncles." He gave a mirthless laugh. "You know, if they had just asked, we would have been happy to help."

"Yeah, that lot doesn't go much on asking," Spike agreed.

"Then why do you associate with them?" Jim demanded.

"I don't. This guy in Cleveland, they fired him a few years back. And, you'll be happy to hear, there was a big bad last year that decimated the Council. Assassinations, explosions – there's not much left."

Jim was taken aback. "Even the London headquarters?"

"Matchsticks and ashes, I heard."

He was silent a moment, then a grin crooked the corner of his mouth. "Good."

"What is the Watchers' Council?" Sally asked slowly.

Spike waved away the question. "You're not meeting the Watchers' Council, Sally, just one guy who used to work for them. He's okay. Mostly, I think it gives Angel something to do. Angel Investigations is pretty much out of business."

"Cleveland is sort of on the way home," Sally mused.

"Don't trust a Watcher," Jim said forcefully. He gave Spike a hard look. "How can you trust him, being a vampire?"

Spike raised his eyebrows. "I don't trust him. Wanker tried to kill me, didn't he, and me with a soul and all." He gave Sally a frank look. "Jim's right. You can't trust him – or, at least, I can't. But he knows things, and he fights on the good side, even if he doesn't always get it right."

Sally looked even less convinced. "He tried to kill you?"

He sighed. "It's very complicated. Always is, innit?" He looked up at the empty sky for a moment, the billions of city lights choking out even the brightest stars. What was that lame old joke? Could live out your life in Los Angeles and never see any stars. God, he hated this city. "Angelus kidnapped Giles and tortured him once, and I sort of let it happen, so I guess it evens out. Karma, all that rot."

"And he's your friend?" Sally asked, wondering who Angelus was. Jim joined her with an incredulous look of his own.

"Vampires with souls, Slayers, and the demons and humans who fight evil with them," Spike said, ticking each category off on his fingers, "it's a fairly small population, a bit… incestuous." He grinned, liking the description.

"I'll think about it," Sally said quietly, darting a glance at Jim.

"Yeah, well, I think you've got until Angel gets out of the shower," Spike replied. "He'll want to move while there's no light. Jim, you might want to go see about getting Gunn discharged."

Sally turned away from him and slammed the hood. Spike directed a shrug at Jim and turned to go back in. He slowed, spun around, and walked backward a few steps.

"Look, all Angel is asking is that you go meet Giles." He started to say more, then shrugged again and left.

Angel was sitting with Gunn, whose eyes were bloodshot. Spike didn't make any comment, just dropped several sports magazines onto the bed. "Um, Sally thought you'd want these while you recuperate." He turned to Angel. "I'm packed," he said. "Anytime you two are ready to go."

"Will she come with us?"

Spike shrugged. "Dunno yet."

"Gunn's staying in L.A."

Spike met Gunn's eyes and, after a moment, nodded. "Yeah, all right."

Gunn raised his eyebrows, bemused. Angel made an impatient noise. "I'll go pack, too. There's not much."

Spike watched him walk past. He gave Gunn a wry look. "He's going to miss you, mate. He isn't much for goodbyes."

"I know," Charles replied. He pressed his lips together for a second, then met Spike's eyes. "I'll miss him, too."

The blond man nodded again, then eased out of the room. He headed back to the loading dock, figuring that there was time for a quick smoke, brushing past Jim on the way. Sally was on the landing, looking out into the darkness.

"Spike, hey," she said.

"You want to be alone…?" he asked, gesturing back toward the door.

"No, it's okay."

"Mind if I smoke?"

"Go ahead." She watched him light up. "Spike, what exactly do you and Angel and these Watchers and the rest do?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Fight the good fight, make the world safe for puppies and kitties." He gestured at the veterinarian wing behind him.

"Seriously."

"There're a lot of bad things that go bump in the night, and it's getting worse. Someone has to stand against that, and I'm a night thing that goes bump right back. I can't speak for the rest," he said, gesturing toward the building. "Me, I live for the fight. That was all I had before I got my soul back. I'm good at it. Still like it, once more unto the breach and all. What else am I going to do? I fight demons and kill my own kind and sometimes save the day, or the damosel, or whatever. I'm a warrior, pet, and I'm a demon. Can't be the Big Bad anymore," he glanced over at her, "but it isn't like I chose this hero gig. Didn't mean to be here, exactly. Thought I'd go out in a blaze of glory while I saved the world. Ended up… living through the experience."

"You saved the world?" Sally asked, amused.

"Not alone."

She stared at him. There was no shading in his voice, nothing sardonic or mocking.

Spike finished his cigarette and turned to meet her gaze. Her collar was twisted, and she looked deceptively young. "Give it to you straight: you stick with us, or chum around with Giles, there'll be some prophecy or some other big bad that'll suck you into a situation where you never imagined yourself, where you don't know if you can do the right thing, if you're strong enough, whether you'll live through it. But you'll feel alive, and you might make a difference." His mouth twisted with a private smile. "If I got to be a champion, who knows what you might manage?"

"You seriously saved the world?"

"Few times, yeah. Once, when I was still evil – well, that's a long story." He moved close to her, looked down at the space between them, then back into her eyes. Hesitating for a second, he reached out and adjusted the collar of her flannel shirt. "Never alone, though. That's why you can't afford to give up on your friends, just because they try to kill you or something like that. They'll still have your back when it counts." He smoothed her collar and moved away. She didn't seem to have any understanding of vampire hierarchy, but he'd just accepted her presence as a younger, lesser demon but not a minion, his touch a token that he wouldn't destroy her. Probably.

"I've spent my whole life in hiding… you know what I mean," Sally mused. Spike looked over his shoulder at her. She was staring out into the dark again. "I had Henry to depend on, then he was dependent on me for this last little while. I've never done anything… big." She turned to him. "If I go with you to meet–"

"No." She looked over at him, startled by his forceful interruption. "If you decide to go, you'll decide on your own. Have your eyes open, know what you're getting into, know that you'll be tagged as a weapon for the good and someone will use you in battle. But I won't tell you one way or another."

She nodded. "Okay."

Spike grimaced, forced himself to relax. "Sorry."

"No, you're right. I'll have to decide for myself." She walked a couple of steps toward him. "Not an easy life, huh?"

"No, not easy."

She looked up at him, then tentatively touched his eyebrow, her fingers gentle. "Did you get that saving the world? Is that what it takes to scar a vampire?"

"No."

"Another story?"

"Less pleasant, yeah," he nodded, searching her face. No, no understanding of vampire social structure. He could lawfully dust her for presuming to touch him. Lucky for her, he thought chuff-all of vampire hierarchy.

Sally looked down and let her hand fall away, suddenly awkward. She moved back and turned to go inside. "I don't have many stories." Her voice sounded small.

He closed his eyes for a moment, knowing what she had decided, then lit another cigarette.

"Is that cave much farther?" Sally asked, looking through the windshield at the growing daylight. She was riding shotgun, and Angel was asleep in the seat behind them. They hadn't heard a word from him since they dropped Gunn in South Central.

"Angel said to wake him up when we get to Gulch. You can check the map to see how far that is," Spike suggested patiently.

She flipped through the pages of the atlas to Nevada, checked their location, and sighed. Then she scooted another couple of inches toward him, away from the little triangle of sunshine on the bench seat.

"You're welcome to climb into my lap, pet," he said, his voice full of amusement, "but don't do it on account of the sun. These windows do work. I've driven at high noon, and I'm still here to tell about it."

Sally looked down, her cheeks reddening, and scooted back a few inches toward the passenger door. "Just makes me nervous, is all."

"You're blushing," Spike said in an incredulous voice. "Don't think I've ever met a vampire who blushed before. Didn't know it was possible. Come to think of it, I don't meet many humans anymore who blush." At Sally's dirty look, he added, "What? It's sweet." He chuckled. "You're a nice, Southern girl."

Sally snorted indelicately. "Southern, yeah, but not a girl. And nice? A redneck who's been to charm school, maybe." At his quizzical look, she gave a grudging smile. "It's a joke. There are these two women in the waiting room at a dentist's office, right? One is a little redneck woman, the other is dressed in Prada and Gucci and whatnot.

"The rich woman tried to strike up a conversation with the redneck woman. 'See this ring?' she asked. 'My husband got this for me for our anniversary last year.' The redneck looked at the diamond and said, 'Well, ain't that nice.' The rich woman stroked the fur coat she was wearing. 'My husband got this for me for my birthday.' The redneck woman nodded again and said, 'Well, ain't that nice.' Getting a little put out that she couldn't impress the other lady, the wealthy woman said, 'For Christmas this year, he's ordered me a Mercedes-Benz.' The redneck nodded once more and said, 'Well, ain't that nice.' The rich woman said in this silky, got-you-now voice, 'So, what did your husband give you?' The redneck woman looked at her and said, 'Last Christmas, my husband gave me a year's worth of charm school lessons.' The wealthy woman said, 'Charm school? Did you learn anything?' The redneck woman nodded. "Yeah. They taught me to say 'well, ain't that nice' instead of 'who gives a shit?'"

Spike chuckled. "Still doesn't explain the blushing, pet."

Sally looked ahead, a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth. "It isn't an explanation. It's a warning. I'm old, and I'm a woman. I might blush, but don't underestimate me just because you can get my goat."

Forty minutes later, they reached Gulch and woke Angel, who directed them to the entrance of a cave that was tall and wide enough to drive into. Spike turned on the high beams.

"Do you think there's anything living in here?" Sally asked in a whisper.

Spike gave her a look. "We're badder than anything you'll find in there, Tolliver." He turned off the lights and the truck, handing the keys to Sally.

"Oh. I guess we are," she agreed, not having considered this.

"Do you kill your own spiders?" Angel asked.

This earned him a dirty look of his very own, and Spike grinned at him as they got out. Sally had hopped out of the truck and already had the cot lifted from the bed. Spike and Angel stretched, watching her arrange the sheets in the dim light. Yawning hugely, she took a key off the set and walked over to Spike. He took it, surprised, glancing at Angel.

"Don't even think about waking me up till it's dark," Sally said. "I'm dead tired… so to speak." Settling on the cot, she cuffed her ankles to it. She pulled a pair of stretchy terrycloth wristbands from the pillowcase, pulled them on, then closed the manacles over her wrists. With a satisfied sigh, she rolled to her side. The two men traded a look, but neither figured it was a good time to get her to reconsider her nighly habits.

"That's among the least erotic things I've ever seen," Angel mused. "You want the cab or the bed of the truck?"

"Flip you for it," Spike said, taking a quarter from his pocket. "Heads, I get the bed." He flipped. "Bugger. Tails."

Angel took off his jacket and wadded it up for a pillow. He vaulted into the truck bed. "Nighty-night."

Spike woke suddenly, knocking his head a little against the armrest. Rubbing his temple, he sat up and listened, trying to figure out what had brought him out of sleep. He looked out of the rear window. Light still poured through the mouth of the cave. His brow furrowed, he sat up higher to look out of the rear window and saw the outline of Angel's feet and legs in the bed. He twisted around and looked out of the open passenger window at Sally's cot.

Spike jerked back, inhaling sharply as the vampire below snarled at him. The chains rattled and the snarl was a bit closer. He sat up straight and looked out again, calmly meeting the demon's glare, studying it as it strained toward him. Nothing was left of Sally's features, not like you could still tell it was Dru or Angel after they put on their fighting faces. He understood why she referred to it as a he, because the face seemed obscenely wrong atop the feminine curves of her body. The eyebrow arches were high, the eyes empty of anything except malice, and the teeth almost needle-like. Spike tilted his head slowly to the side, his lips parting, and he mouthed a name.

In three swift, silent movements, he was out of the driver's window and crouched in the bed of the truck next to Angel, shaking him awake. Holding a finger across his lips, he directed the other man's attention to the side of the truck. Immediately alert, Angel eased over and peered over the side of the bed. Spike heard another growl, and he sat down to light a cigarette.

After a few moments, Angel sat down heavily beside him. "You ever see anything like that?"

"Yeah."

Angel gave him a sharp look. "That was actually a rhetorical question."

"Sorry." He passed the cigarette to Angel, who took a grateful draw and passed it back.

"Her husband had stones, sleeping next to that every night."

"Uh-huh."

"Do you think that's a vampire?"

"No doubts about it at all." Spike lit a second cigarette from the first.

"After seeing that, I'm not surprised at how strong she was when she tried to stake me."

"I'm surprised she wasn't stronger."

"Okay, spill."

"No, think I'll wait until we get her to Giles." He could feel Angel studying him. "I may not have the clearest thinking when it comes to this." He dropped the two cigarette butts over the side, then leaped out to land on them, grinding them beneath his boot heel. "Good night, mate." Spike got resolutely back into the cab, propping himself against the driver's door this time, listening to the low growls coming from the cot outside the truck. It took him a long time to get back to sleep.

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

Sally opened her eyes, focusing on a shadowy Spike standing over her. "Um," she managed, then took a deep breath for speaking. "Sunset already?"

"And change," he said shortly. They both knew it was ten o'clock. Vampires, after all.

She held up a wrist. "Someone woke up grumpy."

The grim look on his face didn't change as he unlocked the manacle. "Other hand." He dropped the key onto her pillow.

Sally raised her eyebrows, looking at his retreating form in the gloom as she opened the cuffs around her ankles. She sat on the edge of the cot, rubbing her wrists, then carried the cot into the truck bed. Stretching hugely, she joined them at the cooler that Jim had filled with jars of blood and had a quick drink.

"We'll need to get more ice when we stop for gas," she observed. When neither of the men answered, Sally let out an irritated breath and walked away. "Leave the driving to the professional," she called over her shoulder. "I can get us over the mountains and maybe as far as Nebraska by daybreak." She could feel them watching her, so she turned around and stared back, refusing to say anything until one of them did.

Angel broke the silence. "I'm sorry I doubted you when you told me about being a vampire."

They heard her sigh, and she walked back toward them. "Oh. That's it."

Angel shrugged. "Yeah. I don't mind telling you, Sally. I'm a creature of the night, and I find your inner demon really creepy."

"A vampire other vampires fear." Spike's voice was deeper than usual, and he wasn't looking at Sally.

"Really?" she asked, sounding a little pleased. He finally did look at her, and what she saw on his face made her hold up her hands in mollification. "Sorry." She looked down. "I can't change it, you know."

Spike closed his eyes for a long moment. "I know you can't."

Sally looked at Angel, who shrugged and shook his head. She gave her own head a shake. "Fine. Wagons ho, boys. Pile in." Her voice was crisp, but Angel heard the hurt lurking underneath.

Sally was as good as her word. She pulled into the shadow of a hotel overhang in North Platte at 6:30 in the morning, after a long, silent journey. She handed the keys to a valet, and they made a quick beeline to the revolving doors. Angel slumped on a couch in the lobby, listening with half an ear as she turned on the Southern charm and got them connecting rooms. He watched Spike grab Sally's gym bag to carry upstairs, and he wondered if she would take it as the conciliatory gesture it was.

Their room had two beds, laying to rest a worry that had occurred to Angel as they stood outside the door. He didn't want to share a bed with Spike, didn't want to recreate the family bed in any way, shape, or form. That was just asking for pain.

Sally knocked on the connecting door at seven that evening, an hour after Spike unchained her. Angel, who was closest, opened the door. "I'm going down to grab a bite at the bar before we get on the road. Y'all are welcome to join me, if you like." She wasn't smiling, but she did look over to include Spike in the invitation.

The room was empty of customers when they walked in, and the young man keeping bar looked up from polishing glasses. "Hey!" he said, grinning. "A blond, a brunette, and a redhead walk into a bar…!"

Spike and Angel gave him looks that should have sizzled away any chest hair he'd managed to grow in his young life, but Sally chuckled and went straight to him. "The redhead never gets the worst of it in those jokes," she said. "Usually it turns out to be a dumb blond joke, or, as a twist, the brunette is the butt, but the redhead," she slid onto a barstool, "always comes out on top."

"Top, bottom," the bartender grinned even wider and, remembering his sexual harassment training, stopped just short of a come-on, "lady, what can I get for you?"

"Let's see," she mused, looking at the selection of liquor behind him. "Cuervo Especial, Cointreau – how about a margarita on the rocks?"

Angel shared an uneasy glance with Spike, recalling her offhand remark about grabbing a bite. He hadn't seen this side of her, hadn't guessed she could be flirtatious. She was pretty enough, had a sunny smile, and looked to be about the same age as the bartender, so it was no wonder he was responding to her. Spike tilted his head to one side and started toward her. Angel grabbed his arm and gave him a warning look. "Never thought I'd miss Willy," he commented, trying to distract the younger vampire with the mention of the oily barkeep.

Sally had leaned conspiratorially over the counter. "I'm going to be stuck with Mr. Dour and Mr. Grumpy for the next few hours. Tell me the blond, brunette, and redhead joke. Lord knows I could use a laugh."

The young man went red. "Oh, I," he began, then tried again. "I don't actually know a joke about…" He trailed off.

Sally let him off the hook. "Just the margarita, then. And a bowl of Chex mix." With a final apologetic smile, he turned to make the drink.

"Your boy looks like his balloon just floated away." Sally jerked at the sound of Spike's voice near her ear and turned her head to meet his narrowed eyes. "Doesn't know he's not at the circus, does he?" he asked in the same low, dangerous tone, leaning further into her space. "Doesn't know he's prey."

She didn't budge. "It's kind of nice to meet someone who'll talk to me."

"Doesn't have much choice, does he? Or the guy at the registration desk this morning? The mesmer, is it? Or do you have thrall, too?"

"What are you talking about?" Her voice was weary.

Spike opened his mouth to respond, but turned it into a forced smile when the young bartender came back. "Bourbon, neat," he demanded in clipped tones.

"We've got a special on martinis until–" the bartender began.

"Well, ain't that nice," Spike drawled, interrupting the suggestion. He saw Sally's head turn sharply toward him. "Bourbon. Neat," he repeated, and the bartender looked between him and the small woman. He dropped his eyes.

"Black Jack," Angel said from their right. Then, in a quieter voice, he said, "Now's not the time, Spike." He was looking at Sally.

Dropping onto the barstool next to Sally, Spike looked over at her. There was a tiny, round wet splotch on the bar in front of her, and he closed his eyes, his jaw tight. Because you're a gentleman, William, you must treat all females as ladies. He carried his so many of his father's instructions in his head to this day. Spike reached for her hand blindly beneath the bar and squeezed it. "Sorry, pet." A soul apparently didn't keep you from making a complete prat of yourself.

Sally squeezed back, but didn't say anything. She dropped his hand and wrapped both of hers around the margarita the barkeep slid in front of her.

"Let's take our drinks over to a table," Angel suggested, dropping several bills on the bar. His traveling companions nodded, and neither of them looked back at the disappointed bartender. A waitress took their order for appetizers, and the three sat in silence for a moment, nursing their drinks.

"Never took much to tequila," Spike offered.

"Well, it is a man's drink," Angel countered.

"Stop it, the both of you," Sally said, still sounding miserable. "That's what guys always do, insult each other to cover up the real emotions."

"No, I really was just insulting him," Angel said. The corner of Sally's mouth went up.

"You did it, Angel," Spike said, peering at Sally's face. "I saw a definite twitch."

Sally brushed her hand across her eyes and looked away for a moment. "I can't help what I am," she said. "I would never hurt that kid, just… He was friendly. I know I'm different, not like y'all are, exactly, but for a little while there, I… kind of felt like part of something again. I mean," her voice became quiet, almost pleading "we were all bitten, we all have souls." She looked into her glass. "I'm just tired of feeling alone."

Neither of the men could find anything to say in response. Sally drew in a breath. "That's never been said at a hotel bar before, huh? I'm pathetic, I know. Sorry." She swiped at her eyes again and squared her shoulders. She gave the blond man a challenging look. "All right. Tell me what I did to put you off."

"Didn't realize..." He trailed off.

"You strike first," Angel told him. "Something brings up... negative emotions, you lash out to protect yourself." He looked down, remembering how he'd learned all of Spike's buttons, remembering all the times he'd pushed them. All the blood he'd spilled, the bones he'd broken, the sound of his fists on Spike's pale flesh.

Sally's eyebrows rose as Angel became remote. She turned back to Spike. "Tell me what I did, and I won't do it again."

Spike took a generous sip of his bourbon, not looking at either of them. "Year or so ago, a demon who looked quite a bit like you had a go at torturing me until I went mad. It was a while before the Slayer could rescue me, and… it isn't a pleasant memory."

Angel stared at him across the table, obviously taken aback. He started to ask something, but Sally spoke first.

"That's awful." She covered Spike's hand with hers for a moment. "I'm sorry, honey. But it wasn't me."

"I know. It wasn't you."

"That's the second time you've mentioned the Slayer," she went on, her voice crisp again. "This guy we're going to see in Cleveland, he's a Slayer Watcher, right? Is the Slayer some badass demon he keeps as a weapon?"

Spike and Angel shared a long look. Spike broke first, his eyes settling on the empty glass in his hand. "You were the one who first told me about the Slayer. Why don't you do the honors?"

If the previous night's journey had passed in silence, this one was too full of talk for either man's taste. After making a few connections, Sally began to go quiet, too. Her voice sounded slightly choked after a particularly long silence. "And that was the same Slayer that inspired Spike to get his soul back?"

"That cost me mine, yes," Angel replied. "It wasn't her fault. Neither of us knew what could happen."

"That was the time I was telling you about," Spike said helpfully, "when I was evil and helped save the world."

"You helped the Slayer because you wanted to get Drusilla back," Sally said slowly, signaling to change lanes. "The one that Angel–"

"Angelus."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Sorry, that Angelus drove to madness."

"Right."

After another protracted silence, and when she had finished merging back into the slow lane, Sally gave Spike a sidelong look. "And Angel is a friend who has your back, despite everything?"

"I am, oddly enough," said Angel from the back seat. Sally twisted around to smile at him.

"So you've done all of these things with each other and to each other, and there's still a bond," she mused. "You know, most people just call that family."

The word was too mushy for Spike. "Yeah, Angel is my grandsire."

"So y'all are family."

Angel looked annoyed. "You were older than I was when you were turned."

"Yeah, barely, but that doesn't count nearly as much as the hundred-plus years you have on me as a vampire."

"Wait," Sally interrupted. "When did you get bitten, Spike?"

"Eighteen-eighty."

"Crud." Sally put her turn signal on again. "I hate being the youngest. I've been like this for fifty-seven years." She overtook another car and maneuvered to pass it.

"That explains the old lady purse," Spike drawled.

"It isn't an old lady purse," she said, glaring.

"It's luggage, Tolliver."

Once she was back in the slow lane, she set the cruise control. "Anyway, what were those things you were talking about in the bar? Enthrall and mesmerize?"

"'Thrall' is a ability that vampires can develop, where you can hold someone in place against their will, or even draw them to you, and it becomes something different, stronger, once you've taken their blood." Angel answered. "The Master could do that, to vampires as well as people."

"The Master was your… grandsire? Spike's great-great-grandsire?"

"Right. As far as I know, unless Drusilla has sired someone else, Spike's the last in the line of Aurelius, the Master's line."

"But any vampire can do thrall if they take blood from a human?"

"No. Some can only do it if blood's both taken and given, in amounts too small to make a new vampire. Theoretically, all vampires can do it, but most don't have enough self-control to take just a small amount of blood."

"Vampires are loath to donate their blood just for a thrall, anyway," Spike added. "If they're going to open their veins, they'll sire instead."

Sally nodded. "What was that other thing?"

"The 'mesmer,'" Spike answered. "Drusilla has that. She can… hypnotize people."

"Vampires, too?" Sally asked.

"Most." The blond man was quiet for a moment. "I should apologize, Sally. I don't really think you did either to that bartender."

"Thanks. I like to think I at least have a lively personality," she said dryly, "to make up for my lack of anything else lively."

"I don't know," Angel mused. "You may have a touch of mesmer. I do – not as much as Drusilla or Spike." He caught the other man's repulsed look and shrugged. "It runs in our line."

"So, you aren't normal vampires, either?"

"No, it's just we have more of some traits… more recessive genes, like red hair." This earned him another over-the-shoulder grin. "I've thought about this, having met so many other vampires over the years. We're a little less combustible, tend to sire fewer new vampires, find it easier to keep our human features, stay in 'family' groups, tend to live longer, or at least choose to sire those smart enough to stay alive."

"More ambitious, more vicious," Spike added.

"True," Angel agreed in a tired voice.

"How long does the average vampire live, anyway?" Sally asked. "I mean, exist, before the stake or the sunlight or whatever?"

"According to the Watchers' Council, less than four months." Spike shrugged when Sally turned to gape at him.

"I'm glad I don't live anywhere near a Slayer," she said after a moment, her voice darkened by fear.

"Not Slayers. If they don't just burn in their first sunrise out of ignorance, other vampires kill them," Spike corrected. "You see the same thing happen to annoying young in other predator packs." He could feel the weight of Angel's gaze, but refused to turn around. "So, I guess we're all of us right exceptional and first in our year and all that, surviving this long."

They arrived in Cleveland at daybreak. Sally rolled to a stop near Giles' unassuming two-story house in an unassuming neighborhood, and they hurried to ring the doorbell. A short young man with rumpled ginger hair answered.

"Oz!" Angel said, sounding surprised. "Good to see you."

He nodded and wasted no time. "Hey. All of you, come on in."

"Thanks," Angel said, casting a nervous glance outside at the coming morning. "I think you remember Spike," as the blond man gave him a nod and a sardonic smile, "and this is Sally Tolliver."

"Pleased to meet you." Sally tried to give him a sincere smile, but failed. She glanced around nervously. Even this early, the house was full of people moving around.

Oz nodded at her. "Giles said to wake him when you got here. I'll just…" he gestured toward the staircase and left them.

"He's a werewolf," Spike told Sally helpfully.

"Really."

"Spike?" A young woman with dark brown hair came forward. "Oh my God!" She flung herself at him and wrapped him in a crushing embrace. "You're alive!"

"Nice to see you, too," he grunted.

"Oh," she said, loosening her grip but keeping her arms around him. "Sorry. I just got back from patrol. I'm a little keyed up."

"I can tell."

"I knew you were alive; Andrew told us. But it's so good to just touch you – makes it seem real."

"Spike," came a man's voice from the stairway, assured and educated. "Angel. You made good time."

The slayer let go of Spike. "We'll talk later," she whispered and, darting a look up at Giles, left them.

"Who was that?" Angel asked, giving Spike a speculative look.

"Haven't a clue," the blond man replied, shrugging. He shifted his attention to Giles. "Rupert! You look uncharacteristically rumpled."

"Er, yes," Giles said, smoothing at his hair with one hand. "It is a bit early."

"Haven't starched the upper lip yet?"

Giles spared Spike a glance, and it was possible that a corner of his mouth twitched. Then he looked down at Sally. "And this must be your friend."

"Sally Tolliver," she said, offering him her hand.

"Rupert Giles," he replied, taking it. He stared into her eyes for a few moments. "Delighted to meet you."

"You have a lovely home," she said, going after the polite conventions as she slipped her hand away from his.

"Yes, it is, thank you. And it's only two miles from the Hellmouth," Giles enthused, "much closer than we were in Sunnydale."

"Where do you want to talk to Sally?" Angel asked, as a tall woman in a tweed skirt and a crisp blouse buttoned to her neck brushed past them.

"Oh, we'll do that later, this afternoon, if you don't mind. A few more people are coming in to meet you," Giles said, giving his head a shake and taking his eyes from Sally, "and to see you two, of course." He glanced at the two men. "You'll have time to get some sleep and freshen up after your journey." He looked back at the stairway. "Oz, perhaps you'd care to give the tour?" The young man shrugged, and Giles turned back to his company. "Angel, if I might have a word alone…?" His look was stern.

"Is this going to be our talk? About Wolfram and Hart?"

"It is, actually."

Angel sighed. "Let's get it over with." He followed the tall Watcher to the right, and Oz gestured Spike and Sally to the left.

"Living room," Oz said, gesturing. "Television is by appointment, except for Passions. Everyone watches that."

"Brilliant," Spike said, grinning.

"Spike? Omigod, Spike!" Another young woman flung herself into his arms.

"Rona." Spike grimaced again as she squeezed.

She was closed followed by another girl. "Spike!" He spread one arm to include her in the group hug.

Oz raised his eyebrows. When it became obvious that the tour was over for Spike, he turned to Sally. "Kitchen's this way."

"Who does the cooking?" Sally asked, looking at several feet of cereal boxes lining the counters.

"Supper is by roster," he supplied. "Breakfast and lunch, we just fend for ourselves."

"Pancakes," Sally said abruptly. "I think I'd like some pancakes for breakfast."

Oz gave her a sharp look. "You can do that?"

She shrugged. "Sure. Southern woman plus kitchen equals food. How many would I be cooking for?"

"Don't you have kind of a blood thing?"

She flapped a dismissive hand. "Have to. Pancakes, though, are a treat. How many other people?"

He thought for a moment. "Twenty-three, not including you guys."

Sally blinked. "All living here?"

"For the most part."

"I'll need supplies." Sally looked around the kitchen. "Tell you what, honey. There's a black truck just outside. Here are the keys. If you could get the cot out of the back and bring it in, I'll check the cabinets, make a shopping list. You can have my ATM card and PIN and go to the grocery store, and… I'll make us some pancakes."

"Can there be bacon, too?"

"I don't see why not."

"Deal."

"So, Angel," Giles said, leaning against the front of his desk and turning to the dark-haired man, then looking past him. "Won't you shut the door?"

Angel closed the door and chose not to engage in intimidation, to see who could loom more threateningly. He plopped onto the couch and slouched there. "Shoot."

"Why should I trust you around my charges?"

"You probably shouldn't, Rupert. I'm not going to stay long. I have a feeling that Wolfram and Hart will be looking for–"

"No, you, uh, misunderstand. Why should I trust you?"

Angel let out the rest of his breath and looked past Giles to a map of Cleveland hanging on the wall. He started again. "Because I finally managed to hurt them. My employees – mine, I mean, not the law firm's – destroyed the Circle of the Black Thorn, a group that had sold themselves to the Senior Partners to become their surrogates here on earth. We paid for it, too, Giles – Cordelia and Wesley and a good woman that you didn't know, Winifred Burkle, all dead. Charles Gunn, too, just a human like the rest of them, nearly died. And I had to ask so much of my one demon friend that he left in disgust. I'm several soldiers down in a war where the best we can hope for is… to just keep fighting. It never ends." He finally brought his eyes back to the Watcher's face.

"Cordelia?" Giles echoed, his voice softening. He couldn't bring himself to say Wesley's name, a man the Council had failed at every turn.

"Cordelia," Angel affirmed. "I'm not going to be lectured to."

"I don't plan on lecturing," Giles said mildly. "But you will answer my questions to my satisfaction if you expect to stay here."

"I said, shoot," Angel said, after a long moment.

"You were there a year before you made a move. Why so long?"

"Honestly? I got a little lost. It was a very comfortable place, in ways."

Giles surveyed him, then took his glasses off and began to polish them with his handkerchief. "You were having Buffy followed until just weeks ago. Why?"

Angel looked away again. "Do I really have to answer that one, Rupert? That's what I do, watch her from the shadows."

"Why?"

"Because I love her. I always will. I might have left Sunnydale, but I didn't leave my feelings for Buffy there."

"Ah." Giles put his glasses back on and moved to sit beside Angel on the couch. He studied him intently. "And how did Spike, who went through who knows what torment to get his soul for the sake of the woman you say you love, come to, to just miraculously reappear in your offices at Wolfram and Hart?"

Angel stared at him, dumbstruck. "You think I planned… Oh, Rupert, you're one to talk. I've heard that you plotted to kill Spike yourself, after you knew he had a soul."

Giles blinked, but his stern expression didn't waver. "Be that as it may, Spike is far closer to being one of us than you are. We seriously considered an… extraction, though Andrew talked us out of that plan. I'd like an explanation of how he immolated himself as a sacrifice to close a Hellmouth, yet turns up restored and under your influence."

"I didn't have anything to do with it and, for once, neither did Wolfram and Hart. An ex-employee of theirs, Lindsey McDonald, got that pendant into my hands. I think he expected that I would be the one wearing it."

"Of course." Giles gave him a brittle smile. "Because it's always about you, isn't it? How did the pendant move from beneath the wreckage of an entire town and into your possession?"

Angel shrugged. "It showed up in the mail, Rupert. When I opened the envelope and the amulet fell out, Spike materialized in spirit form. He didn't become corporeal for a long time."

"He was a ghost?"

"No. Something more than a ghost. He generated heat, was fully himself."

"And you're saying this should have been your fate?"

Angel shrugged. "I think it would have… appealed to Lindsey to have me on the ropes like that.

"There are no ex-employees of Wolfram and Hart, Angel, not in any of the surviving Council records. People don't just resign."

"I wouldn't be surprised if Lindsey was the first."

"Is Spike free to do what he – Are you controlling the man, holding him captive?"

"No," Angel exclaimed, revulsion in his tone, sitting up straight. "I don't even like Spike; why would I keep him at my side?"

"My thought exactly. One reason does come to mind."

The vampire stood and walked away from the couch, then turned to face Giles. "This isn't about Buffy. When Spike first arrived in spirit form, he was bound to an area around the amulet, which I kept in my apartment–"

"Your penthouse?"

Angel glared. "My penthouse at the firm, yes. But once he got his body back, he left. Good grief, Giles, you know Spike – he's all about free will, if not anarchy. I did everything I could to get rid of him – gave him cars, offered to send him as a roving agent anywhere I wasn't."

"You're saying he stayed with you at that place of his own free will?" Giles sounded a little too smooth.

"Don't even go there, Giles. He doesn't deserve that from you. He still has his soul, and he never was that evil to you, anyway – not compared to me, at least. Spike stayed – in L.A., not at the firm – because I wasn't doing what I had done, patrolling, things like that. He took that over, I figure partly to spite me. Then he stayed because Fred was attacked by an Old One, and she had been really nice to him – hell, Fred was nice to everyone. He cared about her. After that, he stayed because we found out about the thousand-year apocalypse, stayed to fight."

"Yes, he's dead useful, isn't he?"

"You people should know," Angel said, suddenly angry. "He certainly laid down his life in your service. You know why I think he stayed? Because he didn't know what kind of reception he'd get – you certainly didn't come running once you found out he was alive. Spike's a champion now, Giles, and I've seen him hold his own, toe-to-toe, with an Old One, and a lot of innocent people would have died without him, and if you ever tell him I said any of this…" he met the Watcher's eyes, genuine menace in his tone, "well, you know exactly what I'd do."

Giles looked up at him blandly. If the reference to his torture at Angelus' hands shook him, it didn't show. "Very well." He stood, radiating a power of his own. "You are welcome to stay for a while. But if you're afraid you'll be followed, for the sake of the people here, you should make plans to leave in the very near future." Angel nodded at him shortly and turned to go. "Oh, Angel?" The dark-haired man stopped by the door, but did not turn around. "W-would you send Spike in to me, please?"

Rupert watched as the door slammed, staring at it, lost in thought. Angel had always shown a wary respect for Spike's abilities, but he'd never imagined that he would hear the older vampire defend the younger. From Buffy's monosyllabic responses to his questions, he knew that Angel was aware of her affair with and reliance on Spike. That single fact, he would have wagered, would be enough to pit the two men against each other.

Despite this new information, Angel was the oldest in Spike's line, which gave him considerable power over the bleached blond. As a Watcher, Giles had a good idea of the forms that power could take, how Angel might choose to exercise it. Spike could be his creature, bound without a single knot ever being tied.

"You, uh, wanted to see me, Rupert?" Spike asked, opening the door.

"Er, yes," Giles replied, turning away, uncomfortable with sudden memory. Angelus wasn't the only ensouled vampire he'd gladly have seen dead. "Please, come in."

Spike closed the door behind him. "Before you get started," he announced, pointing a finger at the Watcher, "there's one thing I want to get out of the way."

"And what would that be, Spike?" Giles asked, sounding weary already.

The blond man looked down, diffidence never setting as well on him as swagger. "The girl, Dana, the slayer who was… you don't have to tell me where she is or anything. I just wondered… how she's doing."

Giles found himself meeting Spike's gaze after all, taken aback. "She cut off your hands," he said, almost in protest.

"Wasn't her fault," Spike said, shrugging. He waggled his fingers at the Watcher in a faux-creepy way. "Didn't manage to really hurt me, after all. She all right, then?"

Rupert stared at him a moment longer. It wouldn't take long, just two or three more minutes, and Spike would say something just nasty enough to kill the warm feeling engendered by his regard for that sad, lost Slayer. No doubt, however he had been returned, he was his own man. "She's, uh… have a seat, won't you? We'll… talk."

"These are delicious," a tall man with tousled dark hair, an eye patch, and truly hideous pajamas in a tropical fruit print proclaimed later that morning. He swallowed a large mouthful of pancakes and settled himself more comfortably against the counter. "Made from scratch, huh? Where did you learn to cook?"

Sally glanced up from the griddle. "In my grandma's kitchen. If there's one thing we know in the South, it's food."

"Obviously I've been living in the wrong part of America all these years." He licked a bit of syrup from his thumb and wiped it on his pajamas, then stuck out his hand. "Alexander Harris, but everyone just calls me Xander."

Sally switched the spatula to her other hand and shook. "Sally Tolliver."

"So you're the new vampire-with-soul?"

"I guess so," she agreed, bemused, turning back to tend the pancakes. She and her husband had carefully kept the secret for years; here, vampireness was almost too commonplace to comment upon.

"So, how did you hook up with Dead Boy and Captain Peroxide?"

She gave him a cautious look. "You mean Angel and Spike?" He didn't seem too keen on vampires.

"Yeah." He took another large bite from his short stack, chewed, and swallowed before continuing. "I mean, slayers aside, you," he gestured at her with his fork, "seem several steps up from the usual kind of woman they hang out with."

"Because I cooked breakfast?" She slid hotcakes onto a waiting platter.

"No, because you cooked breakfast for dozens of complete strangers." He gave her a lopsided smile.

She looked over at him, her cheeks warming. "Oh. I was just, um, in the right place to help them out."

"I figured it had to be something like that, you taking pity on them." He gave her a smile that let her in on the joke.

"Be nice," she warned. "They're not here to defend themselves."

"Wouldn't do 'em any good if they were," Xander said, shrugging. "Lesser men must bow before my snark."

After cleaning the kitchen, Sally went straight to where Oz had set up her cot in the basement. She didn't wake until Spike came to unlock her at dusk. She wandered up the stairs a few minutes later, carrying her cot. The house was still full of people: a lot of girls who were fledgling slayers, a good many of whom were gathered around Spike; Oz, who was talking with Angel; and several British-sounding people in tweed and sensible shoes. Sally, keeping in mind Jim's warning, steered well clear of the last.

After a few minutes of the hubbub, she heard Spike laugh from close inside and was afraid that he was looking for her. It was too soon. Sally hoisted her cot again, found the back door, and slipped outside, heading for her truck. It had been a long time since she had been around so many people. Most had been nice; the worst had only been curious. She finished at the truck, then looked between Mr. Giles' house and the street. She chose the sidewalk, determined to walk off some of her nervousness and not embarrass her new friends in front of their old ones. Rupert Giles seemed like a nice enough man, but he had a piercing gaze, and she found she was dreading their interview. Glancing at the house once more, she decided to check into a hotel after that talk.

Sally intended to make a two-block series of right turns so that she could find her way back. As a plan, it was a good one, but it didn't take into account the feeling of unease that started to prickle at her nape. She dropped her hand into her purse and found the weathered gray stake that she always carried.

Unconsciously, she lengthened her stride. Ahead, she saw a young woman also out for a walk, strolling along rather aimlessly. As Sally approached, she saw a shadow fall in at the young woman's feet, trailing her from behind a hedge in someone's yard. Pushing her senses toward the lurking presence, she found another undead being.

Sally sprinted toward the shadow quickly, silent in her sneakers and using no breath. At the last moment, the vampire sensed her and turned, giving her a perfect shot at his chest. As the dust fell to the sidewalk, the woman in front of her spun around.

Sally quickly hid the stake against her arm. "Hi!" she said brightly. "Do you mind if I walk with you? It's kind of creepy out here."

"Nah, it's not too bad," the woman said, half smiling. "But, sure, I wouldn't mind company."

"Thanks," Sally said, still marveling that there had been a vampire lurking in someone's front yard. Welcome to the Hellmouth, she thought. I guess this is normal around here.

"Where are you headed?"

"Rosemont," Sally replied, then gave herself a mental kick. How was she supposed to see this young lady home if that lay in the opposite direction?

At that moment, another vampire leapt from the shadows. The woman in front of her brought up her own stake and dispatched the hapless demon with a telling economy of motion. "Okay," she said, still in a conversational tone. "If you quit pretending that you didn't stake that vampire back there, I won't have to pretend that I didn't stake this one."

Sally smiled. "Slayer?"

The woman also smiled and nodded. She slid the knit cap she was wearing off her head. "I don't think it'll do much good being sneaky now," she said. "Besides, it's hot." She shook out her blond hair.

"Are we both going back to Rosemont, then?"

"Might as well. That was my third slay tonight. Even on a Hellmouth, four vamps are close to the bag limit for one patrol."

"Four vampires, just running around in the open," Sally said, shaking her head. "That's hard for me to believe."

"How many have you taken out?" the Slayer asked curiously.

"Nineteen," she replied, "well, that one made twenty in my whole life."

"You'll rack up those notches in your stake pretty fast here in Cleveland." They made another right turn. "I don't remember seeing you at Giles' before."

"I just got in a little while ago." Sally gestured in the direction of the house. "It's sort of overwhelming. There are so many people. Y'all have a houseful."

The Slayer nodded. "Oh, yeah. You're from the South?"

Sally nodded. "North Carolina. Where are you from?"

"California, originally. I've been living overseas for a while."

"Whereabouts?"

"Mostly Rome. Paris, Bonn, Budapest, too, seeing the great cities of Europe. Not quite an 'if-it's-Tuesday-it-must-be-Madrid' kind of thing, but close." They made another right turn and began walking up Rosemont.

"I've never been, but my husband really liked Paris," Sally mused.

"Your husband?" The Slayer sounded surprised.

"Yes. He's gone now."

"Oh, I'm sorry." The Slayer gave her another look. "Vampires?"

"What? Oh, no, nothing like that," Sally said, amused by the assumption.

"Here we are," said the Slayer. "Do you have a room, or a couch, or a piece of floor yet?"

"Sort of," Sally said slowly, trying to think of a nice way to say that she'd rather not stay in the Watcher's house.

"Don't worry," said the Slayer. "We'll find a place for you." She started to open the door, then stopped. "Giles hates this," she said mischievously, flinging the door wide. "Honey, I'm home!"

Angel was standing there. "Buffy."

Sally watched them both, the look of longing and hunger on Angel's face, the quick joy on Buffy's as she launched herself into his arms, laughing and breathing his name. Angel closed his eyes, and Sally realized that she had never seen him smile before. Buffy gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, dropped her arms from his neck, and stood looking up at him with a wide grin on her face.

Then Buffy saw the man standing just behind Angel. "Spike," she whispered, her smile fading, and the two of them looked at each other for several seconds. Then they moved into a full-body hug, their arms wrapped tightly around each other as if any distance was too much. "Oh, Spike."

Spike lowered his face and breathed in the scent of her hair. "Buffy," he breathed out. Just as abruptly, they let go of each other.

"How," Buffy bit her lip, took a nervous step back, and looked at the floor between the two men, her eyes too bright, "have you been?"

"All right," said Angel.

"Same old," Spike said at the same time.

There weren't going to be any quips, Sally realized, not in this situation. She stepped forward. "Nice to meet you, Buffy. I've heard just a little bit about you."

Buffy's eyes widened as she took Sally's extended hand. "Oh! You're, uh… Sally. Right." She gave a nervous smile. "I should have known. I mean, I really should have known. Slayer." She rolled her eyes, kept babbling. "I got in late this afternoon, while you guys were sleeping, didn't want to wake you or anything." She gave the two male vampires a fleeting look.

Spike gestured between them. "You two…?"

"Killed a couple of vampires together," Buffy finished the sentence.

"Yeah, they're just walking around everywhere in Cleveland," Sally added dryly.

"Why don't I go find Giles?" Buffy offered quickly, stepping past Angel. "Rona, have you seen Giles?" she called, making her escape.

"I'll look in the kitchen," Angel mumbled.

"And I'll look upstairs," Spike said.

"And I'll follow my nose and stand right here while Mr. Giles comes out of the room behind me," Sally said in an undertone, turning to him.

"Rather a painful situation, isn't it?" he asked, giving Sally a grim smile.

She nodded. "Does that make you Merlin?"

"Merl–? What?"

Sally gestured at the empty space that still seemed to echo with emotion. "Angel is Arthur, Spike is loyal Lancelot, and Buffy is Guinevere. The original triangle." She looked up at him. "That would put you in the Merlin role, I guess."

Giles seemed to be weighing this. "Well, the analogy is… apt, I suppose, but, no, I don't think of it as a triangle. And I-I definitely do not wish to be Merlin. I've always thought of Buffy as their Beatrice, myself."

Sally's eyes widened. "Ooh, Dante." She nodded as she assimilated the idea. "I bow before your literary-analogy superiority."

He looked down at her with sudden sharpness. "You seem quite educated."

Sally sighed. "All right, I'll say this just once: we wear shoes, we don't marry our first cousins, and we have world-class universities in the South."

"Oh, no, no. You misunderstand me," Giles said quickly. "I meant vampires, not Southerners." When her mulish expression didn't change, he went on. "I mean, it would be quite difficult for a vampire to attend university. You endured the change when you were, what, twenty, so I assume you're mostly self-educated?"

She nodded grudgingly and admitted, "I've read my share of books over the years."

Giles nodded encouragingly. "Come on to my study. The, uh, others will find us there, as soon as they pull themselves together. You like literature, then? The classics?"

Sally fell into step beside him. "I just reread Defoe. He always makes me want to read Mark Twain, which leads to a whole shelf-full of coming-of-age novels, so I tend to skip around a lot. Mostly I read non-fiction or science, though. It's more useful on a day-to-day basis."

Giles nodded in agreement. "Yes, unfortunately, I find myself poring over musty old tomes that describe demons for much the same reason. Have you read anything by Jared Diamond?"

She had, and they were sitting on either side of his desk, deep in a discussion of longitude-as-destiny when the others began to trickle into Giles' office. Angel came in accompanied by Oz, Buffy followed with Xander in tow, and Spike stalked in looking surly, closely followed by a tall young woman with long brown hair and folded arms. Buffy introduced Sally to her sister Dawn, and a silence fell in the room.

Giles cleared his throat. "Um, now that we're all here," he said, moving to close the door, "and we've been introduced, I guess we'll get started. There are just two things on the, uh, agenda, getting to know our new ensouled acquaintance and some information that Angel, er, uncovered while at Wolfram and Hart. Angel, if you don't mind…?"

"First, I ought to say that any information from anyone connected with that place is suspect –"

"Including from you?" Xander asked pointedly.

Angel's jaw flexed. "I'm not connected any longer. This feels right, though. According to these sources, we're in the middle of an apocalypse that lasts a thousand years, losing the war because we don't even know one's been declared."

"Giles?" Buffy asked, simply.

He shrugged. "Nothing so far. All the prophecies I've found speak of abrupt, dramatic occurrences. I'll keep looking, of course, as will the rest of the Council, in our various resources." He made a rueful face. "So much for the first item of business. Now, I'm, um, going to ask Sally to tell us what I'm sure is her rather remarkable story."

Sally looked uncomfortable, her eyes darting around at the circle of people who seemed bored by the threat of an apocalypse. "I don't know about remarkable," she mumbled.

"It is," Giles said fervently. "Angel and Spike are unique now," he said, nodding toward them, "but they lost their souls when they were sired by vampires. That is how all accounts agree that it happens, from the earliest texts through today." He sat down, examined Sally closely for a moment, then took off his glasses. "No one on record has ever kept their soul, and anything you remember, anything you can tell us will be most helpful."

Sally didn't reply. Behind her, Spike made as if to speak, then stilled. "How will it be helpful?" she asked finally.

"I'm not quite sure," Giles admitted. "It may never be helpful to us, but I'll record it, and somewhere in the future it may be useful in saving someone from being preyed upon by a demon. Or… or not."

"Okay," she said with a faint smile. "I appreciate your honesty." She turned in the chair to face Giles, deciding to tell him her story and ignore the audience. Belatedly, Angel realized that she was surrounded by strangers, but before he could move closer, Spike slipped between Xander and Dawn and sat on the floor near Sally, propping his back against Giles' desk.

Grateful, she met his gaze for a moment, then turned to Rupert. "Well, I like to say that I blame it all on the Nazis." She gave him a twisted smile and shrugged. "I got married when I was sixteen to Henry Tolliver. It was 1942, and he was itching to go fight the war. His mother wouldn't sign the papers for him to enlist until he finished high school. He graduated on a Thursday, we were married on Saturday, and he went off to boot camp on Sunday. I was hoping to catch pregnant, you know, just in case, but I didn't.

"Henry was shipped out to Africa, went on to Europe, and after Germany fell, was scheduled to go to the Pacific before Truman unveiled the atom bomb. He was injured twice, but never badly enough to be sent home to North Carolina. Months after the war was over, he was finally discharged. I expected him home on June the twelfth, 1946.

"While he was off fighting, his mother died. I moved into their family home to take care of it, finished high school, and then buried my own mother. Her appendix burst, and the doctor from our town was overseas, too. We couldn't get her to the hospital in Asheville in time. My only brother, Roger, died at Normandy. My father was working in a factory in Pittsburgh, making armor for tanks, and he was killed in an accident at the steel plant in 1945." Sally's voice faltered for a moment, then she firmed her mouth and shrugged. "All of which is to say that I was rather isolated on my farm in the summer of 1946.

"Rationing was over, but a lot of things were still scarce, including meat. So, the night before Henry was due to get home, I went down to the river to catch some fish. I was too excited to sleep, anyway."

Sally looked away from Giles, and Spike noticed her voice had slipped into the cadences of a natural storyteller. "I wasn't the only thing moving around. It was about ten o'clock and I had two fish in my bucket, debating about whether to try for one more when I… felt someone behind me. I turned around and saw a man in an army uniform standing a hundred or so feet away, so I dropped my line and ran to him.

"I guess I don't have to tell you that it wasn't Henry. I even knew it wasn't Henry in my heart, but I wanted it to be, and I hadn't seen him in so long that I thought maybe I'd forgotten what he looked like. So, although my good sense told me to run away, I ran right to him. Even in the dark, I could tell his face was… wrong." She looked fleetingly back at Giles, giving him another mirthless smile.

"He bit me, nearly drained me, I guess, because I was so weak when he let go that I dropped to the ground. He had just fed, was full of blood, and I suppose seeing me on my knees in front of him… gave him an idea." Sally heard Spike make a hissing sound and his hand fumbled for hers. She gripped it gratefully. She glanced around at the people in the room, and her cheeks began to turn red.

"I was crying, knowing I was going to die, my nose all clogged, big, painful sobs. I couldn't breathe through my nose, and… then… I couldn't breathe through my mouth, so I… bit down," Sally felt the people in the room go even more still and heard a masculine wince from near the door, "thereby completing the blood exchange. I wasn't gonna let go till it thundered." She caught Giles' puzzled look. "Snapping turtles… never mind. Southern thing.

"I remember that he hit me across the face, and I guess he went on to beat the living daylights out of me, judging from the bruises I woke up with, but I was unconscious by that time. He did hide my body under a tree root and cover it with leaves. I don't really know why he bothered. Maybe it was instinct.

"When I woke up, everything looked and smelled and sounded different. I didn't know that I was dead yet, just that the sunlight hurt. I could hear Henry calling my name, but I couldn't move from beneath the leaves to go to him, couldn't call to him. He was with some of our neighbors, and they found my fishing pole. They thought I had drowned.

"The sun finally set, and I went back to my house. I could see Henry though the screen door, sitting at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, but I couldn't go inside." Spike gave her hand another squeeze. "It was my husband who pointed out to me that I was dead, that my heart wasn't beating. Hell of a homecoming for him." She slipped her hand free of Spike's and wiped at her eyes. "Henry and I tracked the vampire down that night and killed him. We went with the full van Hesling – garlic cloves for the mouth, a cross, swing blade, stakes. You should have seen Henry jump when it just turned to dust. And the next night, in my sleep, I became a monster and nearly killed that good man." Sally stopped and cleared her throat, as if to remove the bitterness that had crept into her voice.

"Keeping my soul seemed to make things different for me than for Angel or Spike, other vampires, I guess. I mean, I never knew before. They can talk and remember things when they change. I don't. While I'm awake, I can put on its face, but I don't really change at all on the inside. When I sleep… the demon inside wakes up. Before we got the restraints down to a fine art, he killed five people. Over those first few weeks, we tried ropes, then chains to restrain it; I discovered that only blood really took away my hunger; Henry began to tell our family and friends that I had almost drowned and was now too scared to go outside my own house, at least during the day.

"His army buddies came home and started families, turned America into – you've never seen a decade like the fifties. We mostly stayed in North Carolina, living on the family farm or in basement apartments around Winston-Salem. Obviously, I hid who, um, what I was – sort of like that 60s sitcom Bewitched, except with no nosy neighbors, because I, well, ate them. And a better husband than Darren." She looked down at her lap, where the fingers of her right hand were touching her bare left ring finger, feeling the absence of the wedding band she had worn for so long. "Henry stayed with me, never once gave up on me or let me give up on myself. I would have taken a noontime stroll, if it hadn't been for him. We had to move around over the years, as he aged and I didn't. He lost touch with friends, changed careers. He gave up a lot for me. As far as he was concerned, it wasn't until death do us part."

"What happened to him?" Xander asked, his voice kind.

Sally looked over at him. "Death, his own, this past January. It was a heart attack, but he'd been living with Alzheimer's for several years. We were married sixty-one years." Her voice became quiet. "I miss him every single day."

Xander nodded, a commiserating look on his face, and he reached over to put his arm around Dawn's shoulders. She dashed her hand across her eyes.

"Anyway, a couple of years ago, someone in Los Angeles gave me a business card for Angel Investigations. I kept it because I knew I would need help with the unlocking part of my nightly lock-up. After Henry passed on, I kept going by Angel Investigations until I found them, well, not open, but… staffed. And here I am."

Buffy broke the silence. "For most vampires, waking up is… an empowering experience." Her eyes flicked to Spike, still sitting on the floor. "It wasn't like that for you?"

Sally shook her head. "No. What I mostly remember is pain, hurting all over, like I had a really bad flu bug. Some of it was the beating I took, but not all of it."

"You didn't wake up hungry, knowing that you needed to feed? Or find your sire?" Angel asked quietly. He had looked grim during her recounting of the way she had been turned. She shook her head again. Next to her, Spike stood up.

"Giles, Buffy, come here," he directed. "I think I know the answer to some of this, but I want to see if you see it, too." Watcher and Slayer exchanged a puzzled glance, but did as Spike asked.

"Sally," he said, kneeling beside her again, "what did the vampire that bit you look like? I mean, did he look like me or Angel, where you could still see some human features?"

She frowned, looking at the floor. "I barely saw what his demon face looked like. Remember, at the time, I didn't have our kind of night vision. When Henry and I tracked him down, he never got a chance to change. He spoke with a down South accent, Louisiana, we thought, 'cause he called Henry a coon-ass when he missed the heart the first time."

Spike nodded, his expression serious. "Sally, could you show us your demon face and hold it for a few seconds? I know you don't like to, but just this once." He felt Angel staring at him intently and looked up to meet the other man's gaze. Angel shrugged, almost angrily, not used to seeing Spike in a leadership role.

"Okay," Sally agreed softly, and Spike left her side to turn on the lamp on Giles' desk. She took a breath and the face of a demon rose from underneath hers to blot out her features.

Giles drew back with a gasp, but Buffy peered at the vampire's face, leaning closer. "Let me see your teeth," she commanded, and the demon drew its lips back from the fangs with a low growl. Then it was gone.

"Thank you, Sally. Sorry I had to ask you." Spike switched off the lamp. "Turok-Han, then?"

"Yes," Giles breathed. "Yes, I believe you're right, Spike."

Buffy nodded, looking over at him, sorrow in her eyes. Giles moved between them, breaking the connection, polishing his glasses furiously. "Giles, that's a full-on demon, not a hybrid," Buffy said. "How could a human keep it in check?"

"Turok-Han… that would explain so much," Rupert thought aloud, excitement in his voice. "It must have tried to, um, slip into our world through a sort of back door, but couldn't do it successfully… No connection between your, your sophisticated cerebral system and its much more primitive – no verbal ability, your mastery over it except during sleep… REM sleep, do you know?"

Sally nodded. "Stage three and four sleep. I'm safe around people if I just nod off, but not during deep sleep. I can be woken, like any sleepwalker. And I don't remember what it does while I'm zonked out; I have to retrace my steps by scent. But I don't understand how any of this is 'explained.'"

"I think the demon that inhabits your body is a Turok-Han," Giles began, "the vampire that vampires fear, a sort of primal vampire that we thought was legend until we came up against them last year–"

"They were like Neanderthal vampires," Xander added helpfully.

"They had no language that they ever displayed – did they, Spike?" Giles continued, ignoring the interruption.

He shook his head, looking down. "The First gave it orders, but I, uh, never heard it speak."

Sally, meanwhile, was looking dismayed. "I got Tonda the cave-vampire?" she cried, her lip curling. Of all the people in the room, only Oz caught the reference, his mouth quirking.

Giles was taken aback. "Well, it, it's a good thing," he said hurriedly. "It couldn't displace your soul; it was too primitive, I would judge, to… complete the usual vampire possession. Or, or it simply wasn't allowed by magical law – it was too ambitious, became trapped, perhaps."

Sally was glowering. "Meet my inner demon, Thag, the knuckle-dragger." Oz and Xander, both Far Side fans, exchanged a furtive grin.

Buffy put her hand on the redhead's shoulder. "You're always going to be able to outsmart it, Sally." She nodded toward Angel. "Angelus is cunning and devious; you don't have to deal with anything like that. And you should be very strong."

"She is," Spike agreed.

Sally took Buffy's hand from her shoulder, squeezed it, and stood up. "Thanks, you're very sweet, but –" She moved toward the door. Angel stepped into her path. He held his arms open, and she went into them, hiding her face against his large frame for a moment. She took a breath and looked up at him, nodding once.

"You okay?" he asked.

"You got my back," she said gratefully.

"Well, technically your front, but yeah, I do."

"I was thinking Wonder Woman and got a Hulk costume instead."

"The Hulk's pretty cool."

She rolled her eyes and stepped away from him, but Angel took her under his arm, much the way Xander had his arm slung around Dawn.

"Sally, is there anything else unusual about your, er, demon?" Giles asked.

"There's one thing," she replied, not looking at him. "I didn't know it was unusual until listening to Angel and Spike talk over the past few days. He always sires, never just feeds."

"That is unusual," Giles agreed slowly. "Are the ones you sire… are they like you?"

"No. I've hunted down every one of them, and they all looked… recognizable, like Spike or Angel when they change, they all could talk." Giles continued to look troubled. "Don't worry," she said dryly, "I don't plan on staying here. I'll get a hotel room."

"You're welcome to stay here," said Buffy, shooting Giles a warning look. "I mean, she's already napped in the basement."

Sally shook her head. "No, really. I'm feeling a little like a circus sideshow. You can ask Angel and Spike, I'm sort of… disconcerting when I sleep."

"I'll go with you," Spike volunteered, moving around Giles and Buffy. "It's late; we should go find someplace to stay."

"Spike?" Buffy asked, sounding lost.

He gave her a look that banished everyone else from the room. They gazed at each other for a few seconds, then Spike lowered his eyes and Buffy nodded. He walked over to Sally and removed her from Angel's loose embrace.

They shared a look of their own over her head. "Someone has to mind the key," Spike said by way of public explanation.

"What?" Dawn said sharply.

"I have to be unlocked every morning," Sally said, "Spike's been keeping the key for me."

"Oh, right," said Dawn. She shook her head, meeting Spike's eyes for a bare instant. Spike nodded at Dawn, who folded her arms and pointedly looked away. Jaw clenching, he pulled Sally from the room.

"Every night," mused Oz. "That blows."

"Giles," Buffy said, turning away from Dawn, whom she had been frowning at, "how can a human keep a true demon in check?"

"I doubt that it's anything about her or anything she's doing," Giles replied, shrugging. "I imagine that the process of siring… misfired, somehow, leaving the demon in its, uh, arrested circumstance."

"But she can call it up and put it away at will."

He shrugged again. "But she has no control over it outside of her waking hours. I would say that's evidence that she has no other kind of power or, or abilities."

Buffy nodded, then turned to Angel. "Do you trust her?"

He shook his head. "No, but I don't trust."

She frowned again at this bald statement, folding her arms across her chest. "Does she plan on staying? Because if she does, you're the logical one to watch her. You or Spike."

Angel looked uncomfortable. "Spike's been keeping an eye on her. I told her I'd help her find a way to reliably unlock her chains after she wakes up. That's why she sought me out, after all."

"If she proves trustworthy," Giles interjected, "another ensouled vampire will be a powerful ally."

Buffy shrugged and smoothed her hands down the sides of her trousers. "If she wants to stay in Cleveland."

Out in the truck, Spike took the driver's seat. "We've slept most of the day," he pointed out. "I'm not sleepy."

"Tequila?" Sally asked hopefully.

"Wonder where the demon bars are in Cleveland," he mused, starting the truck and completely skipping over first gear.

"Don't peel out; they'll hear," Sally warned, laughing shakily.

"Bugger the bleedin' lot of 'em," Spike said cheerfully. "Let 'em hear this," he added, his nimble fingers running through radio stations until he found something fast with guitars.

"Are they always that intense?" she asked, shaking her head.

"That little gathering?" Spike said, giving her a sidelong glance. "Light-hearted." He rolled a stop sign and made a sharp right. "Rainbows and lollipops."

"Thanks for saving me," she said, her voice serious. "I couldn't have stayed in that room another minute."

"See if you're still thanking me after the headache you're going to wake up with tomorrow," he warned. "I'm in the mood to get completely smashed."

"Let's find a motel first," Sally said. "I don't like that word, 'smashed.' This is my new truck."

"Maybe the motel will be enough," Spike said, an insinuating twist to his voice. He gave her a sidelong look. "No ensuing headache."

"You're in a reckless mood," Sally said pointedly.

"If it lasts longer than a century, it isn't a 'mood.'"

"I can't… sleep with you, Spike."

"Who said anything about sleep?"

"There's only ever been Henry," Sally said haltingly. "I wouldn't even begin to know how to do that casually."

Spike's lips parted as he looked over at her. God, and he thought he was from a different era.

"The road, Spike. Watch the road."

"What? Oh, the road. Sorry." He moved the truck back over the double line.

"You can drop me off and come by tomorrow night with the key," she offered. "If you go back to the house on Rosemont, there seem to be several slayers who would willingly–"

"No," Spike said sharply. "I don't want – let's just be me and you tonight, drinking buddies."

"That I can do."

"Right, then."

Buffy walked into the back yard, cupping her elbows against the cool breeze on her bare arms. She could feel him, even though she couldn't see him in the shadows. With a small smile on her face, she waited him out.

Angel moved away from the trees to her left. "You're getting more stubborn," he complained.

"I'm getting more patient," she corrected. "Or maybe I'm just used to being watched."

"Oh." He shifted uncomfortably. "About that…."

"Don't ever do that again." Buffy's tone was final.

"I was afraid that Wolfram and Hart would spy on you behind my back, or make sure that I didn't hear until too late if anything–"

"Never again. No excuses."

"All right! I'll never get anyone else to watch you."

She noticed he excluded himself from the promise, but she let it go. "How are you feeling?"

He made a see-sawing motion with his hand. "Not very special."

"Just another vampire with a soul?"

He nodded, stepping in front of her. "And I'm the one who didn't even want it." He rolled his head, trying to stretch away some of his tension. "So how does it feel to not be the senior of only two Slayers?"

"I'm dealing." Buffy couldn't quite keep a smile off her face. "Despite everything, it's good to see you, Angel. I'm glad Giles made the call for this."

He nodded. "Done any baking lately?"

She grinned. Even with the stress of keeping the Potentials safe, she should have done better than cookie dough. "No, I'm sort of… waiting for the oven to preheat." Buffy traced the toe of her boot in an arc across the grass. "I heard you were actually in Europe a few weeks ago."

He looked up at the night sky. "Well, I wasn't the only one."

She waited until he met her eyes. "I had fun while it lasted," she admitted.

"It's over?"

Buffy nodded. "No responsibilities, no ties, just… fun. It sort of faded. The goodbye was painless."

"Andrew said you were in love."

She looked down, something shadowing her face. "Andrew is a bit of a romantic," she said, choosing her words. "He sees grand passion where there's just… fun."

"I'm glad," Angel said eventually. "You deserve fun."

"Liar."

"No, you do deserve fun."

"So do you." When he made a negating motion, she plowed on. "Stop being noble. You can't atone forever, Angel. And you've had losses."

"I have to say, this has been one of the worst months I can ever remember." He gave her a smile. "At least it ended well."

"Don't," Buffy said, closing her eyes. "Angel, I've been struggling for a long time now with being too hard. I don't want to see you do that, just shrug off Wesley dying, the others, losing the life you'd worked so hard to make in L.A."

"And Cordelia," he blurted.

"Cordelia… died?" she asked. After a moment, she put her hands in his.

"She slipped away without waking up, but she… visited me one last time. She gave me a good spanking about the Wolfram and Hart deal." He laughed harshly. "I needed one."

Buffy searched for the right words. "The Cordy I knew and the one she became after leaving Sunnydale… I know she was different, and I don't want to say the wrong thing. So I'll just say… I'm sorry, Angel. I know you loved her."

He looked down at their entwined hands. "And you love Spike."

She sighed. "I think I will always love you, Angel. Spike… I don't know."

He squeezed her fingers. "He loves you, Buffy. If you two… I won't–"

Buffy pulled her hands away and stalked off. "Did I say I wanted him? Or anybody?"

"He can give you what I can't."

"I said stop with the noble!"

"It's true!"

She marched back to him. "So is this," she said, and pulled his face to hers. When she released him from the kiss, they both staggered. "I'm not giving up on you," she whispered fiercely.

Angel stared at her, his eyes hot. "Don't do that to me."

"What the hell do you think I'm feeling?" She folded her arms across her chest defensively. "If you aren't willing to fight for us, Angel, aren't you even willing to wait?"

He threw his hands up. "My whole world just – everything's changed, Buffy, it's all been swept away, and I don't have anything to stand on." He met her eyes with a look that was half-accusing and half-lost. "Even you didn't stand by me."

She gave him an uncompromising look. "You put yourself in a position where I couldn't. You're a champion, Angel. Stand on your own two feet. Or better yet, walk. Go somewhere and get your head together. I didn't sit and pout over not being special when Kendra showed up; I didn't give up when the whole town of Sunnydale, including my mother's grave, sank into the earth. You know, our way of life? Not that complicated. You know which side is right and which side is evil."

He shook his head. "Not really, not anymore." Angel turned on his heel, went back into the shadows, and was gone.

Buffy dropped her head back onto her shoulders and blew out a long stream of air. Then she went to sit on a bench near the back door, waiting. It took longer than she expected before Spike came to sit beside her. It wasn't a slump, he carried himself too well for that, but he did that thing where he curved his body around her space, an automatic motion that made her feel less tiny. It was one of the many thoughtful things that no one else did for her, and she could never notice except by its absence.

"Hmm, all alone," he murmured. "Miserable, then?"

She smiled, looking at the ground. He could always make her smile, once she began to let him. "No. I thought you might come by."

"You were right."

"How are you?"

"Slightly drunk. Don't tell Sally I drove her truck."

"Wouldn't dream of it. She's a little scary."

"Sally isn't scary, but I have to say seeing her asleep threw me for a curve. Uh, we all hid from the sun in a cave one day on our way here," he added, seeing her eyebrows go up. He put his hand on the bench between them, and Buffy slipped her fingers in his. He shook his head. "Turok-Han. Hoped never to see another one of those blighters."

"Bad memories, I know." She sighed. "I'm so sorry I couldn't come for you sooner."

She felt him shrug. "Got worse memories."

Buffy exhaled. "Don't, Spike. I'm really, really tired of good men beating themselves up for things that can't be changed."

"Which explains the Angel breath."

She gave him a warning look. "You have some 'splaining to do, too," she said. "I remember you giving me this line about how vicious you were to girls Dawn's age last year, but I saw your face in Giles' study when Sally told her story."

"Buffy, I did do things just as… Well, I was trying to get you to stake me, wasn't I?"

"Never," Buffy said, her voice a whisper.

Spike sighed. "Why?"

She laughed softly. "I can give you a hundred easy answers."

"But there's only one that I–"

Buffy squeezed his hand. "Whatever I've needed, good or bad, you've given to me. What have I ever given you, William, other than pain?"

Spike's expression was stunned. "How can you believe that?"

She shook her head. "You were the only person in my life I could depend on, and I got you killed. I knew," she whispered, meeting his eyes. "I dreamed it; you know I did. You held me those last nights when I dreamed, and I still asked you to go. I sent you to your death, because I saw you die in my dreams." She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Andrew told me you were alive. You didn't tell me or come to me, and I figured I deserved that. And, now you're here. This… whatever is between us, is so intense. We can barely touch each other."

His voice was dark. "We can barely not."

Buffy drew in a shaky breath. She knew what his senses were capable of, knew that he would know what those words had done to her. With anyone else, she would have fled into the safety of the house. She trusted him, though.

After a moment, Spike lifted her hand to his lips. He pressed a kiss onto each of her fingertips. Her lips parted and her eyes closed. He waited until she opened them again. "Know why you didn't call after… once Andrew spilled the beans."

"Do you?" Her laugh was short and bitter. "I don't even know why I couldn't."

He looked at their hands, then let go of hers as if letting go of a lifeline. "But thanks for sayin' it."

"Spike, I–"

"I'd better…" he gestured over his shoulder. "It'll take me till daybreak to find the bloody hotel again." He stood and began to walk away.

"Spike." He tensed at the sound of her voice and turned back.

"Take care of Angel for me. He… he's lost right now."

Spike looked at her in disbelief, then dropped his head. "All right." He raised his face, his eyes closed, the muscles in his jaw flexing.

"I'll owe you one."

His eyes opened, blazing. "Never." He strode away.

Buffy bit her lip. She held her hands out in front of her, watched them shake. Angel might be lost, but she found that Spike's unnatural restraint was on her mind even more. There was nothing she could do for one of them without hurting the other. She wiped away a tear, resisted the urge to go out and find something, anything to kill, and went upstairs to the bed she was sharing with Dawn.

It probably took too long for her to realize that Dawn was crying. "Shh, sweetie," Buffy said, turning in bed to rub her sister's arm. Then, contradictorily, "Tell me what's wrong." When Dawn didn't reply, she asked, "Seeing Spike?" Nodding miserably, the younger girl turned and buried her head against Buffy's abdomen, her sobs strengthening. The blond woman stroked her hair, letting her get it all out. It was almost five minutes later before Dawn sat up, rubbing her palm over her cheeks.

"He never loved me, Buffy."

"Never lov– Of course he did!"

"He didn't even care that I thought he was dead all these months, that I'd never get a chance to tell…" Dawn sniffed loudly. "Buffy, he barely spoke to me tonight."

"He thinks you hate him, Dawn." She watched her sister shake her head so vigorously that her hair swung. Buffy clamped down on her irritation. She had led Spike to the slaughter; Dawn had, what? Given him the silent treatment, and now she wanted comfort? Life was so not fair. "What else is he supposed to think? The last time you really said anything to him was before I rescued him from the Turok-Han. What was it, a threat? An insult?" Fresh tears began to track over Dawn's cheeks, and Buffy gave herself a mental kick. "I'm sorry, Dawn, but it's true. You leave things like that for too long, and it's like they get set in concrete. Once, he would have come back at you until you admitted you forgave him, but he has a soul now. That soul reminds him every moment of all the unforgivable things he's done, things he can't forgive himself for. Why should you be any different? He thinks you're far better off with him out of your life. Out of your heart."

For a moment, she wasn't sure if she meant herself or Dawn. Buffy's memories of heaven had faded as her one access to bliss on earth had turned ugly, had become violent. And even when Spike had atoned, had gotten his soul, there was no return to that bliss. When she was honest with herself, which admittedly wasn't that often, she had been so relieved by the Slayer dreams, so relieved that the Spike chapter of her life would be over.

But it hurt that he didn't come to her after his resurrection. She wasn't sure that she could love anymore, and she didn't think Spike was sure, either.

"He isn't," Dawn said miserably. "He's still in my heart, no matter how much I wish he wasn't."

"Dawnie," Buffy said wearily, "I'm telling you that it's up to you. Spike has loved two humans ever, you and Mom. Once he starts loving, he doesn't stop. You take one step toward him, and he'll be at your feet in an instant. But you have to take the first step."

"Three. You're human, too, Buffy," Dawn said gently.

Buffy blinked. "I'm the Slayer." The weariness in her voice was even more pronounced. Dawn squeezed her hand, then slowly lay back on the mattress. After a few seconds, her sister followed her lead. Neither slept for a long time.

[Author's Note: The lyrics Spike sings are from The Clash song 'Should I Stay or Should I Go.' I don't think it would be one of his favorites – too popular – but maybe he heard it on the radio or something while he was drinking.]

Spike fumbled with the keycard a few times, singing snatches of a Clash song under his breath. He slumped against the doorframe and concentrated hard on getting the card to slide into the middle of the three locks he saw swimming on the door. "Hah!" he cried in triumph, then shushed himself as he opened the door. He went inside, kicking it shut behind him.

"Spike?" Sally's voice was small in the dark room.

"Make you bigger, pet," Spike mumbled, turning on the lights.

Sally sat up on her elbows on her cot, squinting against the brightness. "Are you all right?"

"Getting there," came the reply.

"Is my truck all right?" she asked acerbically.

"'S'fine," he slurred. "I been drinking in it for a while." He walked over to the bed next to her in more or less a straight line and sat down. "'If I go there will be trouble,'" he sang, then took another drink from the open bottle. He focused on her, his eyes narrowing slightly as he scanned the loose t-shirt and sweatpants she was wearing as pajamas. "You have on far too many clothes to be alone in a motel room with me, drunk and all. I'm offended." He gestured at her with the liquor clutched in his left hand. "How's your head? Hurts, dunnit?"

She sighed. "What's in the bottle?"

"Tequila."

"Oh boy," Sally said. "Gimme the key, honey."

"'If I stay it will be double,'" he continued in a slurred voice.

"You'll be seeing double," Sally muttered. "The key, Spike."

"Triple." He shook a finger at her. "Can't have the key. You'll get loose. Be all bad, like me."

"I'll lock myself back up in just a minute. Gimme the key."

Spike struggled to get his hand into his jeans pocket, but had lost the ability to do that delicate of a task. He fell back onto the bed and tried again. "There it is!" He tossed the key toward her. "'Yo me enfrio o lo soplo,'" he continued singing.

Sally averted her face, and the key hit her in the ear. "Thanks," she said dryly, unlocking the manacles. "How was Buffy?"

"Ah, Buffy. She has great hair. Always has, you know. 'Should I cool it or should I blow?'"

"Mmm-hmm," Sally said, going to the door and getting Spike's keycard from the lock where he had left it.

"She kissed Angel. She always does."

"Did she?" Sally sounded tired as she came back toward him.

"Well, she lurves him," Spike mocked, rolling his eyes. "Said she loves me, too, but I told her she didn't." He took another swig. "I only said it so she could get on with her life, what with me dying." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment. "She wants me to take care of him. Says he's lost."

"Angel's lost?" asked Sally, a little unsure of his train of thought.

"Well, he's all out of Los Angeles, isn't he? Fuck, I hate Hell-A."

Sally took the tequila bottle from Spike's hand, and he sat up abruptly, causing her to take a step back. He had slipped into his demon face. "I'm a prettier demon than you are," he said, giggling, his face going back to normal.

"You're a prettier human than I am," Sally said, bearing the bottle toward the bathroom.

"No," he said, right behind her, following her into the little room. He watched in the mirror as the tequila bottle appeared in it and settled by the sink, its contents sloshing. "You just can't see, is all," he said wisely, "'cause you don't have a reflection. But you're pretty."

"Thank you," she said, turning to face him, positioning herself between him and the bottle. "Compliments from drunken men mean so much."

"That's your schoolmarm voice," he said.

Sally closed her eyes. "And, once again, thank you." She reached past him and turned off the bathroom light. Taking his elbow, she led him back into the bedroom. "Come on, let's get you to bed."

Spike scooped her up. "You're coming, too," he said, waltzing them in a circle. The backs of his knees hit the mattress, he overcorrected, and they fell. The landed on the other double bed in the room, and Sally quickly disentangled herself, rolling off on the far side.

Spike tried to get up twice, then gave up. "Scared of me?"

Sally looked at him from the foot of the bed. "Honey, you scare the hell out of me."

"I do?" he asked, confused. "No, good. Good!" he bellowed. "Why?"

Sally reached across to the wall and flipped the lights off. He heard her exasperated voice float back to him from the darkness. "Sleep on it. See what you figure out, and let me know." He heard the rattle of chains from her cot, then a clink as she tossed the key at him and it bounced against the wall.

Several hours later, Spike opened his eyes, groaning. He slowly sat up, looking down at his bootclad feet. Gingerly touching his temples, he muttered, "Sod it all. How'd I get sober?" After a moment, he remembered his assignment. He stood up, gripping the wall, and began fishing in his pocket for the key to Sally's chains. He patted his other pockets, then looked over at her.

She was awake, curled on her side, watching him with a mix of wariness and amusement. "Try the floor," she suggested.

"Right," he said, nodding. After finding the key, he walked over and dropped down beside the cot. She held out her wrists, and he unlocked both before meeting her eyes. "Sorry about last night. I hope was I wasn't too much of an idiot." He handed her the key.

"You have a fine singing voice," she said gravely, unlocking her chains before pausing to gaze into his eyes. "And if we had been in Vegas, darlin', the answer would have been yes. I would have married you in a heartbeat... so to speak."

He froze, then gave her a narrow look before the corner of his mouth lifted. "You had me, for a second there."

"Do you remember anything?"

"Probably more than I want to."

"You said Buffy asked you to look after Angel."

"Oh, that." He scooted back to lean against the bed and give her room to swing her legs over the side of the cot. "Yeah, she's worried about him."

"So are you."

He met Sally's shrewd gaze. "You're not supposed to notice that."

"Spike, do you want to stay here in Cleveland?"

He let his head fall back against the foot of the mattress. "I don't know," he began.

"Gut reaction."

"God, no."

Sally smiled. "I don't, either. I'm going home tonight, and I'm inviting you to come with me. Angel, too."

"Where is home?"

"Mountains of North Carolina, just below Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Ever been there?"

He shook his head. "Closest I've ever been would be… Atlanta, D.C., maybe." He gave her an appraising look. "'S'not all Deliverance there, is it?"

Sally blew out an annoyed sigh. "Yeah, I know my tarpaper shack's jacked up level when tobacco juice dribbles out both sides of my mouth equally. Jeez, the South needs a new publicist."

"Sorry."

She shrugged. "I think it's nice there, but, hey, it's where I grew up. I live on the Tolliver family farm, so there's privacy. The house has exactly three bedrooms, so we wouldn't be crowded on top of each other." She stopped herself, shaking her head, then gave him a sincere look. "All I'm asking is that you come for a visit."

He heard the echo of his own words and nodded in acknowledgement. "Okay. I can't speak for Angel."

"Well, let's ask him," she said, rising from the cot. "He's checked in a couple of rooms down."

"When?"

"Last night when you were sitting in the truck. He called from his room. That's why I was awake when you came in."

"Right, then." Spike stood from the floor and picked up the phone. "What room is it?"

After a few short words, he put the phone down. "He's on board."

Sally turned away from him, hiding her delight. "Good."

In his own room, Angel punched Giles' number into a cell phone.

"Rupert Giles speaking."

"Hi, it's Angel."

"Good morning, Angel. I was surprised to find you weren't in residence."

"You've got a full house."

"Yes, but you were welcome to stay, er, somewhere."

"Thank you, Giles. That means a lot."

"Will we see you this evening?"

"Yes, but we won't be staying. Spike and I are going to take Sally home. She's invited us to stay with her in North Carolina for a while."

"I know it's awkward, but we could definitely use your help here in Cleveland, yours and Spike's." His lowered his voice. "Buffy and Dawn will be leaving on Tuesday, and Xander only came to see them. He's leaving on Sunday. Even if you don't feel it best to stay here, there are other places in the city where–"

"To tell the truth, Giles, I worry about what might be on my heels. When I left L.A., I had reason to believe that I was being hunted. It's safer if I don't stay here. North Carolina is certainly off the beaten path."

"Oh." Giles paused, thinking. "Will you leave a number where I can contact you?"

"Sure." Angel lowered his voice in turn. "In fact, if you don't hear from me on a regular basis, I'd like you to send a rescue party. We've only known Sally for a week, and she showed up and was helpful at a very convenient time."

"Oh?" Giles asked. "Not just a trust issue, then? Has she given you any reason to...?"

"No," Angel said heavily. "But how often are people in our world exactly what they seem to be?"

"Good point. Very well, then. We'll see you at, um, sundown?"

"See you then."

"Goodbye."

Angel squeezed the cell phone in his hand until it shattered, then tossed it in the trashcan. He looked at the bright sun slanting against the window, finding its way around the edges of the curtain. It would be nice to have connecting rooms, but this place catered to more solitary travelers. Sighing, he picked up the motel phone again and dialed Sally's room to tell them the plan.

"Mmm," Sally said, sniffing appreciatively. "Someone's barbequing." She had napped all afternoon, planning to handle driving duties later that night, and was a good deal perkier than either of the men.

Angel parked the truck a few houses down from Giles', scanning the growing shadows. It was just past sunset. Spike, riding shotgun, picked up on Angel's unease. The blond man turned to look past Sally in the back seat at the cars parked behind them.

As they got out of the truck, Sally gave them a puzzled look. "Y'all aren't expecting to get jumped, are you?"

"One can only hope," Spike replied.

Buffy was talking on a portable phone as she opened the door for them. She smiled and waved, then held up one finger.

"Uh-huh, they're here now." She listened a moment. "Thanks for the favor, Wil. I appreciate it, especially since you've had to stay up so late. I'll keep the phone with me. Okay. Bye." She turned off the phone.

"How's Red?" Spike asked.

"She's good," Buffy smiled. "She's in England."

"With the coven?"

"No, in Oxford. She's thinking about enrolling there. She was accepted right out of high school, you know."

"She still with Kennedy?"

Buffy's smile faded. "No."

Spike's expression sharpened. "She's not…?"

"No, no. She broke up with Willow, that's all."

"Oh. Always thought it'd be the other way around. New bird's no Tara." Spike's face cleared, and he grinned, remembering something. "Red heartbroken… she up to casting any more accidental spells, you think?"

Buffy gave him a smirk, then turned to Angel. "She is casting a spell, actually, a variation of a locator spell." She gestured to include all three of them. "We're all curious to see if anyone else is out there like you guys. Come on to the kitchen," she said, beckoning them further inside.

She glanced back as she walked. "Since you're all here, she can isolate your essences and look for others that are like yours, see if there are other vampires with souls anywhere in the world."

She saw Sally tug on Angel's sleeve. "She's talking about Willow, the one who restored your soul?" At his nod, she asked even more softly, "This essence thing… it won't hurt or anything, will it?"

"She's basically just looking at us. We won't feel a thing."

"Oh." Sally frowned. "That's kind of creepy."

Angel shook his head ruefully. "Oh, no. It's creepy when you're being watched magically, and you don't know it."

"Spike!" The slayer named Rona came over and claimed him, steering him back out of the kitchen.

"Excuse me, Buffy, Sally," Angel said. He had spotted Xander outside, presiding over a grill and surrounded by several hungry slayers. "I need to talk to Xander."

A look of comprehension crossed Buffy's face. Cordelia. "Of course." She turned to Sally. "And how are you?"

"A little out of my depth," Sally admitted, gesturing around. "Spells, slayers… I may have been a vampire for almost sixty years, but I never suspected magic like this really existed."

Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Seems normal to me, but I've been living with it since I was fifteen."

"Wow," Sally said. "That's young. It doesn't seem fair to saddle a fifteen–"

"Tell me about it. All's fair in love and slayage, I guess." She turned to walk away, but Sally put her hand on Buffy's arm.

"Buffy, could I talk to you?" She glanced outside to where Angel and Xander were talking quietly. "I mean, somewhere away from the vampire range of hearing?"

Buffy gave her an assessing look. "Sure. You want to take another walk? There's something I need to ask you about, anyway." They were silent for the first block as they walked past houses, tripping security lights every so often.

"What did you want to ask?" Sally asked, her eyes scanning the shadows on the other side of the street.

"Willow was wondering about something, actually. In North Carolina, you'll be on family land?"

"Mm-hmm."

"How long has your family lived there?"

"Oh… " Sally looked up at the sky, thinking. "Well, I live in the Tolliver farmhouse, and the land's been in his family since before the Revolutionary War… About two-hundred-and-fifty-years." She looked over at Buffy. "Not that I can't rattle on about it – Southerners and family history – but why on earth would your friend want to know?"

"Um, something magical about ancestral homes and thresholds and warding spells. If the bad guys are looking for Angel, Willow says it'll be harder for them to find him somewhere that's been a home for a long time. It has a sort of natural protection."

"Oh," Sally said, looking thoughtful. "Well, that's good. I don't mind telling you, in Los Angeles, the three of them were pretty beat up. I didn't think Gunn was even going to make it to the clinic."

"They had been in a fight?"

Sally shook her head. "I've seen bar fights before. It looked like they'd been in a battle."

"So, you wanted to talk to me about something? What's up?" Buffy asked, changing the subject. Angel hadn't called her for the battle. Of course, she had turned him away from the final battle in Sunnydale. She gave her head a little shake, forcing herself to focus on what the other woman was saying.

"Well, I'm going to poke my nose into where it doesn't belong. I'll admit up front that I've been lonesome for a while. Finding Angel and Spike, who understand what it's like to be both decent and demon… The past few days have been some of the happiest for me in years, with people who know I'm a vampire and still accept me. They haven't been the happiest for Spike and Angel, though." Sally gave her a sidelong look. "Spike told me that you'd asked him to watch out for Angel. I think you're right to be concerned about him. I haven't known Angel very long, but he's been hard-used lately." She paused a moment, choosing her words.

"I saw your face yesterday when you opened the door and found Angel there," Sally said, and Buffy's current expression became unreadable. "I know exactly what you were feeling, because that's how I loved Henry, my husband."

Buffy looked down, then her mouth went firm. "Yeah, well."

Sally sighed. "I saw Angel's face, too. It was the first time I'd seen him smile. I've heard enough to know why you two stay away from each other." She gave Buffy a piercing look. "You can't love two men with that same quality of love."

Buffy looked ahead, a cynical smile on her face. "So this is about Spike."

Sally's voice softened. "It's about all three of you, isn't it? I told Giles that it's like Guinevere with King Arthur and Lancelot, a good woman in love with two worthy men."

Buffy stopped walking and turned to Sally, looking a little stunned. "Oh, my God." She smiled and shook her head. "You think?" Then the smile faded, and she began to walk again. "That didn't end well, huh?"

"Buffy, I lost my husband this past spring, but I lost him a little bit every day over the past decade to the Alzheimer's. I wouldn't have given up a minute of the time we had before then. I regret every moment we didn't spend together." She grimaced. "This is so not my business."

"No, but since that obviously isn't going to stop you, go on." Buffy's voice was cold. She knew where this was going now and couldn't believe how much she had felt sorry for this woman just yesterday.

"I recognized the love you have for Angel, and I've heard enough to know why you're not making each other happy. But I don't have a clue about what's between you and Spike. He saw you last night and then got dog-drunk, Buffy. You both are hurting, anyone can see that, including Angel. Don't you think it would be better to just end whatever this is with Spike, for your sake, and his, and Angel's?"

Buffy stopped again, facing Sally with an unfriendly look. "What I feel for Spike is real. I don't have to explain myself, especially not to complete strangers."

Sally didn't back away. "You love Angel, flat-out, above-board love. What you and Spike feel… love or not, there isn't a lot of light there."

"The only two people who know what we went through together are Spike and me," Buffy said fiercely. "Believe me, you couldn't begin to understand what we have."

"Probably not. Will you answer two questions for me, at least?"

"I doubt it."

"Do you feel responsible for Angel?"

"No. He can take care of himself."

"Do you feel responsible for Spike?"

Buffy didn't answer that question. She glared at Sally, then stalked away.

Sally shook her head, but kept pace. "I've seen them together every day for a week," she said. "They care about each other, they're… family. But they walk on eggshells all the time."

"Because of me," Buffy sneered. "It's all my fault."

"No, it isn't," Sally said, her voice heavy.

Buffy slowed, casting a surprised glance at the redhead. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to elaborate.

Sally shrugged. "Oddly enough, you're one of the few things they agree on. They both understand perfectly why the other would be in love with you. Neither of them will say a bad word about you; neither of them would let the other say a bad word about you. But they're very competitive, like brothers, and you're… I've never been in an epic romance situation, Buffy," she said, "and I wouldn't want to be. I've loved one man, ever. I've barely ever even… desired anyone else."

Buffy let her head fall back, looking up at the sky. "I have. I have two total hotties in love with me, and one of them can't – well, he can, but we really can't – and the other one won't. He touches me like… like I'm made of glass."

It was more than Sally wanted to know. "I just like to see folks happy, Buffy."

"So do I. I like happy. That's why I'm not going to break anyone's heart." She looked around, finding they had circled nearly back to Rosemont. Thank God.

"Oh, honey. Hearts can break fast, or they can break slow. My heart broke every time Henry looked at me without any… recognition in his eyes. I just think that you're wasting time that y'all are gonna regret later."

"Me… and Angel."

"That kind of love kept me happy for over sixty years."

"It's not that easy. And, anyway, it's not about them, either of them. It's about me. I'm not ready to… settle down."

Sally nodded slowly, then stopped walking. "And maybe by the time you are, you won't have to decide. One of them will settle for someone else, someone who will never be you. Or, one of you will die. You seem to live dangerous lives." There was a thin thread of contempt in her voice.

Buffy stopped, too, looking at her with something close to hatred. She half-raised the stake in her hand. She swallowed and lowered her weapon. "Yes, I have thought of that. Yes, it would make things easier." She looked away, sweeping her hair back from her face. "And if I chose one, do you think the other would put it behind him and get on with his life? Really? Until I get killed, and Slayers always do, I'll have to call on each of them to help me fight, because they're champions in a world where there are damn few. I'll have to see them both until death do us part, and it hurts each and every time. God knows, I've tried to move on. I've tried to fall in love with someone else. But who can compare to–" She made an angry gesture, then stilled. "Thanks. Thanks a lot for ripping the scab off."

Sally didn't apologize. "Buffy, they're just men. It's always up to us women to make the hard choices. I'm just saying that the sooner you do, the happier you all will be."

Buffy gave her a sharp look. "You like Spike, don't you." It wasn't a question.

Sally looked away. "I've been widowed for four months, Buffy. It's going to be a long time before I even think about… if ever. My demon takes over on a nightly basis. I'm a bad proposition." She met the blond woman's eyes. "Yes, I like Spike. I like Angel, too. But I wouldn't give it a go with either of them. They're worst propositions than I am."

Buffy turned away from her, and they began walking again. They were bad propositions, and so was she.

"I'm sorry. I'll be out of your hair soon; we're leaving tonight."

"So this was a hit-and-run?" Buffy hated the sneer she heard in her voice, couldn't stop it.

"Yes, I guess it was." Sally stared at the sidewalk. "All my girlfriends are dead, Buffy, but I had to say my goodbyes to them years ago, when they started to get older and I didn't. Henry and I were – we were all we needed. I'm kind of rusty when it comes to talking to people." She glanced at Buffy. "But yesterday I met a young woman who seemed… strong, fearless… nice, kind. I liked you. I liked you just from hearing how Angel and Spike spoke of you. I wouldn't have said any of this if I didn't." She lifted her shoulders. "Also, I guess I'm being a little selfish. They're going to be my houseguests for a while, and I'd like to see them happy. It would be nice to see Angel smile occasionally, and it would be really nice not to have to separate Spike from his tequila bottle again."

"He drinks tequila?" Surprise made her blurt the question. It had always been bourbon in Sunnydale.

"I think Angel needled him into it."

Buffy looked up. They were just two lawns away from Giles' house, so she stopped. "I'm the senior Slayer, the chosen One, the original One. I've died, given my life to save all this," she gestured around vaguely, "and I've given orders that have gotten people killed. The other slayers… defer to me. I made them, created them. I'm their general, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

"I know all about making hard decisions. I'm getting better at listening to other opinions, so I'm not going to stake you for what you've said or anything. But I can't make a decision based on love. I did once, and it took a long time to recover, and then I did again, and the price…" She took a breath, pushed away the pain of where she was not. "My responsibility is to keep the two men I love as weapons, as warriors who fight against evil. I can't risk alienating them from that mission." She stared hard at Sally, as if daring her to contradict this. "I've sacrificed them both before. I never want to have to do that again. But I would. If I had to, I would."

Looking a little shocked, the red-haired woman swallowed, then nodded. She reached out and took Buffy's hand in her own cold one. "I had no idea. This is way more than…" She looked away, dropped Buffy's hand and turned toward the house.

"I'm not finished," Buffy said, and Sally stopped, looking back at her. "I also can't risk either of them in any other way. I liked you, too, the way you helped out with the vampires yesterday, from hearing your story. So I'll tell you straight up, I don't make threats, only promises. If you lead either of them into harm, I will find you and I will kill you." Buffy gave a hard, bright smile. "I can do that, because you're a demon."

After a long moment, Sally replied, "I wouldn't hurt either of them any more than you would." She walked away.

Buffy started after her, alarmed, but before she could open her mouth, the phone she had jammed in her pocket rang. "Hello?"

"Buffy, sorry that took so long."

"Oh, no, Wil, I'm just glad that you could do it. So, what's the verdict?"

"You've got the world's only three ensouled vampires right there. I wouldn't have found the new one, if I wasn't looking. Her essence is a little different."

"I'm not surprised. Giles and Spike figured out why." Buffy took a breath and changed the subject. "I'll tell you about it later. You sound perky, for someone who's up late."

"Well, that was a pretty cool spell. It mellowed me right out."

"Send some of that mellow my way, okay?"

"Let's see. Angel: major angst. Spike: major angst. Buffy, I don't know if I've got that much mellow."

"Thanks, anyway, Wil. Oh, the North Carolina place? Two-hundred-and-fifty years. How does that work?"

"That should work great. I'll keep them on my radar and try to throw a subtle protection spell over their location, too, once they get there."

"Do they need to know about it for it to work?"

"No," Willow said, sounding puzzled.

"Good. I won't tell them, then. Thank you, Wil. I love you."

"I love you, too, Buffy. Ooh, give love to Xander and Oz, too." She paused, and Buffy smiled at her mental image of Willow's oops face. "You know what I mean."

"Good night, Willow."

"Night, Buffy."

Buffy thumbed the phone off and slowly walked toward the house, thinking. As she went up the steps, it took her a moment to realize that someone was trying to get her attention.

"B.?" Faith was standing in the door, looking amused. "You're off in your own little world."

Buffy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gave Faith a slightly forced smile. "Faith! When did you get in?" The two Slayers exchanged a hug.

"Just a few minutes ago. We would have been here sooner, but Robin was driving. He wouldn't stop to ask directions."

"How's Miami treating you guys?"

"It's awesome, Buffy." Faith ducked her head to the side. "Except for the hurricanes."

"Any trouble with the law?"

"No, I've been Miss Low Profile."

"Good. And how are things with Robin?" she asked, a teasing tone in her voice.

"I thought we had it settled about who's best in the sack, but he keeps surprising me."

"And now I'm officially jealous," Buffy said, going past Faith into the house.

"Why? I saw Spike just a minute ago. Angel's supposed to be around somewhere, too, only I can't find him."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Ergo the problem… as people keep telling me." Buffy put the phone down. "Angel was in the back yard with Xander, last time I saw him."

Faith led the way through the kitchen and out the door. The barbeque had turned into a bit of a party. Someone had brought out a stereo, and Xander was dancing with Dawn. Rona had roped Spike into an impromptu training session, and he was repeatedly and tolerantly grabbing her from behind as she tried – or at least pretended to try – to throw him. Angel was talking to Giles. Both vampires looked toward the door as Buffy stepped out.

Then Angel noticed Faith. A wide smile broke across his face, and Buffy felt her own falter a little. Faith flung herself against Angel, exhilarated to see him, nearly toppling both of them over. "Hey, there's my guru!"

"How are you, Grasshopper?" he replied, giving her another hug.

"Good, good. Where's Robin? I've got to introduce him to the other man in my life."

"How's my guru?" a deep voice asked by Buffy's ear. She jumped a little and turned to find Spike looking at her with concern.

"Am I your guru?" she countered, taken aback.

"'Course." He smiled at her, lifted her fingers, and pressed them to his chest. "Among other things."

"Spike! You're not getting off that easy," Rona called.

A sneer settled on his lips, and he backed away from Buffy. "Got to go be a chew toy for your young pups," he said sardonically.

Rona turned her back, and he dove for her. She ducked, and as he sailed past, she lunged. Rona timed it right this time, and she wound up astride him, a stake pressed against his breast. She grinned exultantly and leaned over him so her face was inches away from his.

"Baby, I've been dreaming about this day ever since I found out you were still alive. Now, isn't this the part where we make out?"

In a twisting flurry of movement, Spike rolled them both over, trading positions with her. "No," he replied, pressing her stake against her throat, "this is the part where I remind you that a slayer must always hold on to her own tool," he leaned so he was close to her face, "and not worry about mine." He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, then stood in one fluid motion. Rona lay supine, looking a little stunned as she stared up at him. Spike tucked the stake into his back pocket, then held his hand out for her.

She took it, letting him haul her to her feet, putting her hands against his chest to steady herself. "I'm gonna… go take a cold shower or something," she said, sounding almost as dazed as she looked.

"You do that," Spike advised. He looked around, surprised that, of the crowd of people around them, only Buffy had watched the performance. Angel was smiling down at an animated Faith as he talked to her and Wood; otherwise he would surely have had a smart remark. He watched Rona go into the house, then went to where Buffy was leaning against the grill.

"When did they stop thinking of me as a chew toy," he asked her, patting his pockets futilely for cigarettes, "and start thinking of me as a sex–"

"Boy toy?" Buffy quickly substituted. He nodded, raising an eyebrow. She shrugged. "My guess? Andrew."

"That would explain it. Honestly, he thinks more of me than I do."

"Come inside with me?" He gave her a curious look, but nodded.

It was quiet in the house, as most everyone who wasn't in the backyard was out on patrol. He could hear the murmur of Oz's voice from somewhere, then Sally's indistinct reply. Spike followed in Buffy's wake as she led him upstairs and into a bedroom. She reached past and closed the door behind him, then slowly pressed her body against his. Spike's arms went around her, but he stood rigid, searching her face in the dim light.

"I want you," Buffy whispered.

"You… do?" She was so close, she would know what her words had done to him. "And what about the Immortal?"

She looked down. It hadn't taken her long to figure that one out for herself. "He couldn't lose, so he never had to risk anything," she said simply. "That wasn't ever going to be enough for me." She met his eyes. "I saved him from a couple of Percontolaus demons, and it wasn't the same after that. I just sort of asked myself, why am I with this guy? It wasn't love."

"And it was nice to be around someone you couldn't get killed."

Buffy blinked. Spike had always been able to see the things she overlooked, or didn't admit to herself. It used to frighten her. "Yes. It was."

"And Willow hasn't cast any spells?" Despite his words, his face was still serious.

She grinned, grateful for a lighter mood, her hands running along his shoulders. God, his body was unreal. "Feel compelled to ask for my hand in marriage?"

"You're sure?" She nodded, and it was, finally, enough. He leaned back against the door and lifted her against him, raising his face to meet hers.

Oz had led Sally through a window onto the overhang above the back door. The porch light was beneath them, and as far as Oz could tell, no one in the back yard had noticed that they were there.

He finished examining Sally's wrist. "So, you look like early John McEnroe, but the payoff is there."

"Exactly. I highly recommend the wristbands if you ever have to go with manacles."

"Mostly, I did cages."

"We tried that, but my demon isn't above hurting my body if he can't hurt anyone else's."

"Ouch." Oz looked out across the yard. He pointed to the east. "There's a Catholic church in that direction, which makes me think," he paused, giving her a sideways look, "have you considered exorcism?"

Sally nodded. "I figured that, if they got the demon out, there I'd be, all dead since 1946."

"That's true," he agreed, "but what if you had a defibrillator on hand? Maybe you'd get a Jesuit who's a doctor and a priest, and he could reanimate you. I mean, you do have a soul."

"It's alive," Sally cried in her best Boris Karloff voice.

Oz's smile faded as he squinted into the darkness of the big back yard. He lifted his face, nostrils flaring, but there was no wind. "Who are those guys?"

Spike lost himself in the sound of Buffy's breathing, her scent, the feel of her hands beneath his shirt. She wriggled from his grasp and pulled him toward the bed. They tumbled onto it, side by side. Buffy found his mouth again and wound her arms around his neck. Spike rolled over and pulled her astride him, breaking their kiss. "This," he murmured, "is the part where we make out."

She smiled down at him. One of her knees slid off the edge of the bed, and she eased over so that they were side-by-side again. She ran her hand over his stomach, feeling his muscles tense. "How are those ribs?" she whispered.

His eyes were dark as he watched her. "Rock solid."

"Mmm," Buffy managed, lifting her face to his, capturing his full lower lip. Part of her did it to keep him quiet; people were downstairs. Angel was downstairs.

Angel was downstairs with Faith.

Buffy pulled Spike over top of her, running her hands along his thighs and up to his back. She didn't want to think about guilt or jealousy, just this. His scent surrounded her, and he settled his body onto hers. She heard him say her name fervently.

In that instant, she felt smothered, pinned by his weight. She couldn't see his face, but she had an overwhelming memory of him looking completely unlike himself, unlike even his demon. Buffy froze, trying to rid herself of the onrushing panic. There were other memories where his face was above hers, memories involving mutual passion, a certain affection. This was William, not the soulless thing he had once been, but it didn't matter to her fraying emotions. That particular memory was seared into her. This was wrong; she'd always known it was wrong; every time they'd been together was wrong. Angel would hear. Her hands went from his back to his chest, her fingers pressed flat between them. "Spike, no. Stop."

Spike froze, too, lifting his head so he could see her eyes. In a flash, he was gone, facing the door, his head bowed. Cool air washed over Buffy where his body had been, and she sat up on the edge of the bed, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"Spike, I am so–"

"No." He turned his head but didn't lift it. "Never apologize."

"This isn't fair! You didn't have a soul, y-you couldn't understand the difference… I never meant it any of the other times I told you not to. And you were there for me when no one else was –" certainly not Angel "– I should – I'm the Slayer," Buffy said miserably. "I should be stronger than this."

"You're only human, love."

"I thought… it was so long ago." Her voice was shaky. "Is that why, before, you wouldn't…?"

"After you rescued me from the First, you mean?" He lifted a hand and braced himself against the door. "I never felt worthy, Buffy." Spike sighed. "I'll never be worthy; I'll always be beneath you."

Buffy stood and reached toward him, tears standing on her cheeks at those words. All of her was messed up; she didn't want him to think… "No!" But she didn't touch him.

He gave her a grim smile over his shoulder. "Never happen, pet." He reached for the doorknob.

"William," she whispered, but he didn't pause. Buffy watched the door shut behind him, her hand pressed to her mouth.

"They're vampires," Sally said softly, lifting her head. "They smell like jet fuel and," she turned her head slightly, "Los Angeles."

Oz eased up onto his haunches, joining her, his own nostrils flaring. "Eight of them?"

"Yes," she said, but her tone was doubtful. "At least." Sally looked over at him. "Do any of them have weapons?" She gestured at the people in the back yard.

"Probably half."

They watched the shadowy figures spread out. "Angel thought someone might be after him," Sally said. "Vampires won't stop just with Angel."

"I'll get stakes from the weapons safe downstairs and bring them out the kitchen door." Oz moved stealthily back through the window and was gone.

Sally watched the flanking movement, feeling helpless. Angel was roughly fifteen feet ahead of and below her, slightly to her left, facing the house and still talking with a tall black man and a pretty, dark-haired girl. She saw the vampires hunker down, saw several heads turn toward one point. They were waiting for a signal.

"C'mon, Oz," she muttered, pressing herself low to the rough shingles. Sally scanned the area near the door, looking for anything that could be used against the attackers. The knife Xander had been using to share up the steaks was the only thing she could spot.

Her stomach lurched as she saw two of the vampires leave the protection of the trees and start toward Angel. Beneath her, she heard hurried footfalls in the kitchen. She relaxed; this would be okay. She could handle two of them until the other people on the lawn were armed.

As the door beneath her opened, Sally launched herself from the overhang. Spike, coming out of the kitchen, watched her fly overhead, thinking for the barest moment that it was Rona again. She landed on her shoulder and rolled, coming to a crouch next to the grill. Spike recognized the brightness of Sally's hair, saw her snatch up something, then saw the two demons running toward Angel.

Sally hurtled into Angel, knocking him away from the vampires and into Faith and Robin. Bouncing off him, she twisted until her back was to the closest oncoming vampire. She brought her arm up, holding the carving knife so that the blade lay along her forearm. Spinning, she aimed for the demon's throat, and put as much muscle as she could behind the blow.

Once Spike realized that Sally was taking point, he only had time to register again that she was very strong before he felt his game face slip into place. The violence called to him, sang in his blood, blotting everything else out. He charged forward, watching as the beheaded vampire went to dust. Sally had feinted and gone around the second demon, grabbing it underneath either shoulder, pulling its arms back and exposing the chest. Spike heard something crack; it might have been a shoulder blade, but the killer in him rather thought it was the sternum.

Sally held the vampire from behind, looking toward the kitchen, expecting to see Oz with a handful of stakes. Instead, she saw another vampire charging toward her. She had been mistaken about who was coming out the door, but it was okay. She recognized Spike, and he was pulling a stake from his coat.

He met her eyes with his yellow gaze. Sally had lifted her upper lip in an unconscious snarl, but her human features remained. She yanked the struggling vampire's arms back further, and Spike drove the stake into its breast. He pulled back sharply so the wood wouldn't continue into Sally, but his momentum pushed them back a few steps. She clasped his forearm for balance, then let go. "More of 'em. I've got the left," she growled, her voice at least two octaves deeper than normal.

Spike gave her the beginnings of a truly horrifying smile, his fangs catching the light, and he sped to the right. "Yes!" he roared, catching sight of another three vampires in the shadows.

Angel, meanwhile, freed himself from Faith and Robin's grasp. He watched Spike go one way, Sally another, and then saw two more demons advancing straight toward him. "What took you so long?" he asked, striding to meet them. Angel tilted his head to the side. He felt his vampire face slide into place and his emotions smooth right out.

"Angel!" The dark-haired vampire heard Oz's voice from behind him, felt movement in the air. He brought his hand up and snatched the stake as it hurtled by his left ear. Not bothering with the vampire in the vanguard, he dusted it with a swift, efficient movement as he walked past. It was the next one in line that interested him. It faltered, then came in a rush, swinging a sword at him.

Spike had already dispatched the three demons hidden in the shadows of the right side of the back yard. He ran the perimeter so he could join Sally on the left, and got a good view of her belting a brown-haired vampire twice with one movement, slamming first her fist, then her elbow into its jaw. He grinned at the street-fighting move. Sally brought the same elbow back into the other side of its face, dropping it to the ground. She went down on top of it, the blade of the butcher knife flashing.

Angel twisted out of the way of the sword twice, then decided that he didn't want to play. He aimed a short, brutal blow at the vampire's wrist, and the weapon fell to the ground. He kicked it aside. Two unfamiliar slayers were suddenly there, grabbing it by either arm, and Angel brought the stake down towards its chest. He stopped with less than a centimeter to spare. He smiled as the vampire flinched, and made his own face go back to human.

"How many?" Sally asked Spike, her voice still unnaturally deep.

"The two over by the grill. I got three. Angel is getting his second."

"I miscounted," she said, her voice suddenly much higher. He heard the receding footfalls, turned on his heel, and pelted after the fleeing demon. Sally pushed off from the ground and was close behind.

Angel gave the vampire a nasty smile as it twisted in the Slayers' grasp. "You know," he said, lowering the stake, "I'm wondering why you came here."

"It is known that you are friends," the demon spat the word, "with the humans who dwell here."

"That's not what I'm wondering. You come here all the way from L.A., bringing only a handful of minions, walk into Slayer Central, and pick a fight. With me." He looked at the ground. "What could Wolfram and Hart possibly have paid you to do something so monumentally stupid?" he mused, looking back up at the captive.

"The Gem of Amara," the vampire replied. "All I have to do to be a god is kill you."

Angel gave a snort of laughter. "The Gem of Amara," he repeated. He gave the vampire an even nastier grin. "Did you see that blond vampire who just ran through half of your gang? He did his homework, worked his ass off, ate his Wheaties, and actually found the Gem of Amara." Angel twirled the stake in his hand. "You see that fine-looking Slayer behind me with her arms crossed?"

Buffy, who had charged out of the kitchen door on Oz's heels, had to smile. He knew her so well. She had taken a stake from the slayer who was helping Oz arm everyone, then crossed her arms again to watch.

"She took it away from him. Then, she sent it to me. She gave me the Gem of Amara, and do you know what I did with it?" He leaned very close to the vampire. "I took it to the beach for the afternoon. It was nice – sun on my face, all the girls in their cute little bathing suits." Angel put the point of the stake on the vampire's breastbone. "And you know what I did then? I destroyed it. Smashed the Gem of Amara into little pieces. All gone."

He turned away, lifting the stake from the demon's chest. It sagged a little in the slayers' tight grip. "If Wolfram and Hart had the Gem of Amara, you moron, don't you think they would have given it to you first, as you were coming to try to kill," Angel whirled, driving the stake through its heart, "me?"

"I'll give you one thing," Spike said, punching the vampire he had finally caught, "you can run." He took one himself on the chin. "But it won't bloody do" –uppercut – "you any" – left cross – "good." Spike readied a jab to the body, but the vampire was jerked backwards. Sally had looped them and once again held a demon for him to kill at his leisure. He did so with no showmanship, suddenly tired of it all.

Sally teetered slightly as she found herself holding nothing, then brushed at her arms. She looked at the blond man, then leaned forward and rested her arms on her thighs, breathing hard.

"I know you're not out of breath," Spike said, uncertainly. He looked around; they were on the sidewalk, and he felt exposed.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Sally mumbled, and promptly was.

Spike leapt back a foot or so. "Hey, watch the boots!"

Sally took a couple of breaths, then spat. "Sorry." She stood back up, took in another deep gulp of air, then bent over and retched again.

Spike turned away, letting his human features reemerge. He waited until Sally had finished and cleared her mouth again. "What's with the…" he asked, gesturing at the wet mess on the sidewalk.

She stood up, her arms cradling her stomach, and gave him an incredulous look. "I have never beheaded anything in my life!" she cried. She closed her eyes, flexing her jaw as she had a brief, internal debate. "Well, I have. Chickens, and I had to help slaughter hogs one year, but never anything… human-shaped." Sally gave him a look full of disgust and started to walk back the way they had come. "I've been with you in Cleveland for two days, and I've equaled practically half my lifetime total of vampire kills. Y'all are just… dangerous."

Spike fell in beside her, chuckling. "And you're not?"

She gave him a dirty look and didn't answer.

"You're strong, pet, and you're deadly," he said, "plus you've got good instincts. I'll fight alongside you any day."

"Well, ain't that nice," she said flatly.

"That wasn't the schoolmarm tone," he said, "that one's new. What is it?"

"A defense." She turned away from him, leaving the sidewalk. Spike saw that she was headed for her truck.

"Defense against what?" Sally ignored him and opened the passenger door. She rummaged on the floor and found what she was looking for. Spike came closer, puzzled at what she had in her hand. "I bought two bottles of tequila?"

"Apparently."

"Oh, wait. That one was for you." His tone became accusing. "You didn't drink at all last night, did you?"

She broke the seal and opened the bottle, lifting it to her lips so she could take a swig. Sally swished the liquor around in her mouth, then spat it onto the road with a grimace. She handed the bottle over to him.

Spike shrugged and raised it to his own lips. Sally's hand flashed out and she knocked the bottle just enough so that tequila spilled across his chin and onto his shirt.

"Hey!" He wiped the liquid from his face. "What'd you do that for? Now I smell all like tequila."

"Better than what you smelled like before," she said waspishly.

Spike gave her a narrow look, then glanced past her. Angel was coming toward them.

"Oh, yes, let's protect Angel at all costs," he sneered.

Sally's eyes were cold. "I believe that's exactly what we just did."

"You both all right?" Angel asked.

"Sally threw up," Spike said maliciously. "Nerves."

"Yeah," Angel agreed, wrinkling his nose a little at the lingering smell. He took the bottle of tequila from Spike and helped himself to a large swig. "Are we ready to go?"

Sally looked up at Spike, then at Angel, confused. "Shouldn't we… say our goodbyes?"

"Only if we want to continue to put them in danger by our very presence," Angel said in a tight voice.

"Fine," Sally said. She headed around the bed to the driver's side. "Get in."

"Sally," Angel said. He met her eyes across the back of the truck. "That was some impressive fighting."

She didn't reply, just turned away. But both men heard her clearly as she muttered in an undertone, "Y'all are impressed by the wrong damn things."

Xander turned off the portable stereo. Buffy stepped forward into the silence. "Ute and Tamika, that was well done," she said, praising the two slayers who had held the vampire captive. "Oz and Bethany, quick work. The rest of you? The only slaying that was done here tonight was by vampires. Vampires, at least nine; slayers, zero. Remember, you are not safe out here in the yard. You are never safe from vampires at night outside of the house where you live. What does that mean? Listen to your surroundings." She nodded at the slayers she had praised. "Ute and Bethany, each of you pick two more slayers and go look for the teams on patrol. Make sure they're all right."

"Do you think there will be stragglers?" Ute asked in a light German accent.

"Did you see Sally and," Buffy's voice tightened, "Spike? There won't be anything left of that raiding party."

The party broke up. Only Oz and the Sunnydale survivors were brave enough to walk over to Buffy. "Giles," she asked, her voice suddenly weary, "can we have a brief meeting in your study?" At his nod of agreement, she turned and walked back in.

"Buf, you all right?" Xander asked, holding the kitchen door for her.

She shook her head. "Later, okay?" When he kept looking at her in concern, she managed a smile. "It's nothing new; something old is just hurting all over again." Xander squeezed her shoulder.

When everyone was in the study and the door closed, Buffy looked around. "First, I wanted to tell you that I talked to Willow. There are only three vampires with souls in the entire world, so we don't have to worry about asking first and staking later."

"I wish Angel could have stayed to hear this," Faith said.

"He was just trying to keep everyone here safe," Robin said, putting his hand on her knee. Faith gave him a wan smile and covered his hand with her own. She was having trouble adjusting to the news that Wesley was dead.

"I'll pass the information along," Giles said, nodding at Faith.

Buffy closed her eyes for a long second. "That's all. Willow sends her love," she added, looking over at Xander and Oz.

Dawn sat down. "Does having three vampires with souls mean anything?"

Everyone looked at Giles, who was sitting behind his desk. "No, nothing that I'm aware of," he said, shrugging. "I've been trying to think of any pattern, but there isn't one." He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "Each was sired in a different century... their, er, ensouling is roughly fifty years apart. That's all I have. There is no lore for this."

"The way I see it," Faith mused, "three warriors for our side. Good on us."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, Sally was scary good."

"No, she's okay," Oz said, unexpectedly. At the looks that settled on him, he shrugged. "Bondage solidarity."

"We'll wait and see about Sally," Giles said, sitting back up in his chair. "Angel and Spike we've known for a long time, and both are committed soldiers."

Robin grinned. "I know I'm on a Hellmouth when you're using words like 'soldiers' without sounding overly dramatic."

Giles sighed. "Yes, it always seems like there's something going on."

Buffy sat up a little straighter. "Is there something…?"

"No, no, not at the present, other than Angel's slow-acting apocalypse," Giles replied quickly. "The slayers who live here… they dream a lot, but they haven't the gift of, um, separating prophesy from the jumble of their subconscious." He took off his glasses and added with a hint of asperity, "One of the young ladies is quite convinced that Toby Maguire always delivers his lines in a monotone as part of a diabolical plot to hypnotize the world through cinema." They all smiled, and Xander laughed out loud.

"Well, if Toby Maguire is the worst we have to worry about," Faith said, standing up, "then I think I'm ready to go to bed." Despite her cheerful words, she looked pale.

Dawn stood up, too. "I negotiated with Tamika and Maria," she said, "and got a room for you two. Just follow me."

Buffy rose from the couch she was sitting on. "Good night, Giles."

Xander pushed his shoulders away from the wall. "Oz, I'll be up in a few minutes."

"You're sharing a room with Oz?" Buffy asked, as they made their way to the front door. Xander nodded, again holding it open for her. By unspoken mutual consent, neither wanted to have their talk in the back yard.

"So!" Xander said with great heartiness as they settled themselves on the front steps, the Slayer to his right.

"So," Buffy said in agreement. Her eyes scanned the shadows, but without the expectation of seeing anyone.

"Why don't you go first?" Xander invited after a few moments of silence.

Buffy shook her head. "Where to begin?" She looked up at the tops of the trees that lined Rosemont. "Okay, how about with the part where you hate my unnatural attraction to vampires?"

"Good place to start," Xander agreed. "No, wait. The proper answer is, none of my business. Bad, bossy Xander, I know. Who is it, though, Angel or Spike?"

"Both," she said in a sad voice. "Angel is… hurting, and there's nothing I can do for him."

Xander looked down at his hands. "Yeah. That was a shocker, learning about Cordelia."

Buffy slid her arm around his waist. "I'm sorry, Xander."

"I'm all right." He shrugged. "Learning your high school sweetheart is dead… it's just another one of those things that makes you take stock of your life. You know, like death, apocalypse, demon attack – we don't get enough of those."

She gave him a squeeze. "Wesley is dead, too, and the other people Angel worked with are either dead or have left. He went to Los Angeles to make a life for himself, and now it's all gone."

"He should never have tried to run the evil law firm," Xander said, "or is it redundant to add the adjective?"

Buffy drew her arm back and cradled her knees. "No, that was a mistake."

"Well, it took us all a little bit of drifting after Sunnydale sank before we got our equilibrium." Xander looked over at her. "Give Angel time. He'll land on his feet."

"I hope so," Buffy said, and she looked at him. "I hope you're right."

"That takes care of Captain Forehead. What about Captain Peroxide?" Xander asked.

She looked away, silent. "I know what you think of him, Xander," she said eventually.

"Buffy, I don't even know what I think of Spike," he replied, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "He's saved my life more than once, and since he got his soul, he's almost never been less than polite to me." Xander sighed. "Yet every single time I see him, I think of him and Anya and that surveillance camera." He turned to face her. "And then I think of you on the bathroom floor at your mom's house."

"I've forgiven him for that." Buffy said.

"I know you have," Xander said, "but I still have a 'Xander smash' subroutine running."

She continued as if she hadn't heard him. "But I can't forget it. I… I thought I could. Why shouldn't I try to have a whole relationship with William?" she asked. "I can't with Angel, but Spike earned his soul."

"For you," Xander said, speaking aloud what Buffy had left unsaid.

"For me," she whispered. "He loves me, and I have to admit that I miss him… physically. But I just can't. I trust him, Xander, completely. But when I'm… with him, I can't stop thinking about that single, horrible…" Her voice trailed away.

"Buffy, he tried to rape you when you were hurt and weak," Xander said. Buffy flashed him an irritated look at his choice of words, thinking of the actions of a much younger, hyena-demon Xander. He plowed on. "It's aversion learning, like never eating White Castles again after that first, special night of vomiting. Has nothing to do with being a Slayer. It's just a human response. "

She nodded, impatient to have her say. "I hurt him tonight. His feelings, I mean." She sighed. "I can't be with Angel that way, and I can't be with William that way, either."

"Buf, you know I think it's for the best."

"Do you know why I kept him with me those last days in Sunnydale, before we knew what the trigger was?"

"No." He gave her a curious look. She'd never brought it up before. "I figured you had your reasons. I mean, you talked me into letting him stay with me while he was siring new vampires… but he never touched me. Figured you might think he was trustworthy around us, at least."

"Most people in the house thought we were sleeping together, but we weren't. Not since before–" She took a breath. "The reason I wanted him with me was because I knew he had a vital role to play in the war. I dreamed it. I knew that I'd have to sacrifice him." Buffy's voice was hard. "And the whole time, he was so tender and supportive and caring and… And I kept him close so I could be sure he would be there, in the right place to…."

"Buffy," Xander interrupted, alarmed by the self-loathing in her voice, "Spike wanted to fight, he understood the odds. He's not the only one who died that day."

She looked down. "I-I never dreamed anything about Anya, Xan. Just about Spike." She sighed. "He wanted to stay. But I feel responsible for him," Buffy said. "What if I drive him…" she trailed off again, not continuing.

"He's a grownup," Xander began. "Well, he's old, anyway, Buffy. He's not your responsibility. No matter why he got his soul, it's up to him what he does with it."

"Do you think I should feel responsible for Angel?"

"What?" Xander gave her a puzzled look. "No. Why would you?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. There's a lot of stuff floating around in here tonight." She rapped her knuckles on her forehead.

"Buffy, after Spike left, while Willow was in England with Giles," Xander began.

Buffy interrupted. "I'm not angling for more sympathy sex, Xander." She looked down. She'd slept with Xander without ever once thinking of the hyena incident. That was the difference, she supposed. The impulse to force her had come from within Spike, not from a spell. Plus, she didn't have to feel guilty about sex with Xander; he was human. Also, plenty of beer had been involved.

"I'm not offering."

Buffy gave him a mock-miffed look. "Kick me while I'm down, why don't you?"

"Just listen, okay? That summer, while my crew was finishing up the high school, you only had yourself and Dawn to worry about. No addicted friends, no friends distracted by wedding plans, no one trying to kill you or drive you crazy. That was when you finally crawled all the way out of the grave.

"You did that on your own, Buffy. I was proud of you. If you hadn't been back to your Buffy self, I would never have slept with you that night."

She smiled, not looking at him. "I know, Xan." She had confronted him about how much he was drinking, and he had confronted her about not grieving for Tara and Willow. They had cried in each other's arms, then they had kissed. And then things had gotten better. Buffy did look over at him then. "That was the most wholesome night I've ever spent with anyone, and I mean that in the best possible way."

"It was wholesome," he agreed, "healing, for you and me both. It was my fault, but I missed Anya so much…" He shook his head slightly. "I digress. The reason I mentioned that summer is because you're worried about being responsible for those guys. You aren't; they are, responsible for themselves, I mean. Time will pass, and they'll have their own healing."

"Xander, it's not just my rather pathetic love life," Buffy said. "They are both soldiers in my army. Angel will figure it out; he did it on his own before. But what if I drive Spike away?"

"Buffy," Xander said, sounding exasperated. He stopped himself. "Okay, Angel, right? Do you think he stays up at night worrying about whether his special project, Faith, will stay on the straight and narrow?"

"Angel?" Buffy asked, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah," she replied slowly.

"Okay, but do you think he stays up every night?"

"No. Or, if he does, I'm sure he's brooding about other things, too."

"Exactly. He did as much as he could for Faith, showed her the way. Where she goes from there is up to her. Now, Spike's off to a good start. He did sacrifice himself to save life as we know it here on planet earth. It isn't his fault that he didn't stay dead," Xander said, smiling down at her, "or so I keep telling myself. What he does from now on is up to him."

"So you think I'm Spike's… guru?"

"Guru, mentor… sponsor may be a better word, like in Bloodsuckers Anonymous."

Buffy grinned at that and leaned over to bump his shoulder. "When did you get so wise?"

"I'm just like Odin," Xander assured her. "Gave up the eye, got the wisdom." He looked down at her. "Hey! Oh, hey, Buffy, don't."

She covered her face for a moment, hiding her tears from him. "Xander, you know what really scares me?" Buffy put her forehead on her knees, not looking at him. "I've caused so much pain, been mean and hurtful, gotten people killed." She sniffled and managed to finish in a choked voice. "How could they ever let me back into heaven?" Buffy raised her face to look at him, her cheeks wet. "And after what I cost you…?"

Xander put his arms around her, sheltered her against his broad chest. "Shh, Buf. When you die, a long, long time from now, they'll give you a parade and escort you right back. Remember what the First Slayer said? Death is your gift. All Slayers go to heaven. That's my belief, and I'm sticking with it. God knows you deserve it."

"I don't think I deserve it," she whispered.

"You're the finest person I know," Xander said. "And if you keep worrying about it, I'm sending you back into the desert with Giles for another round of the hokey-pokey."

Buffy gave a shaky laugh. "What would I do without you, Xander? You and Wil?"

"I've seen what you do without us, and it ain't pretty." She laughed again, wiping the tears from her face. "I have wondered about that, you know. You have your destiny as a Slayer, but the fact that of all the people you could have hooked up with at good old Sunnydale High School, you found me and Willow… I have to wonder." He felt her nod against his chest.

"I would've died that first year in Sunnydale if it hadn't been for you." She looked up at him, simple love so open in her eyes that Xander shied away.

"Again I say to you," he said, shaking a finger in her face, "no sympathy sex."

Buffy pulled away from him, running her fingertips beneath her eyes. "It's because I look like a raccoon, isn't it?"

"No," he said slowly, "actually, it's because I'm seeing someone."

"Good for you, Xander," Buffy said. Then she added, because she had to, "She isn't…?"

"No, she isn't a demon," Xander answered patiently. "Her name is Michelle, she has a little girl named Whitney, and I think, no, I pray that it will turn into something serious. It's beginning to look that way." His mouth firmed into a sad line. "She's nothing like Anya. Very selfless."

Buffy was smiling now. "That's great, Xander. It really is."

He tilted his head and exhaled. "I'm glad you think so. The thing is, Buf, if Michelle and I get married…"

"You want out of the army," Buffy said in a quiet voice.

Xander nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I came here to talk to you about. It wouldn't be fair to Michelle and Whitney for me to risk my life as a family man in the same way I did as an eligible bachelor. I think reserve status would be a good place for me." When Buffy didn't say anything, he went on. "There's a bond between the three of us, me, you, and Wil, that nothing can break and no one else can ever understand."

"The four of us," Buffy said.

Xander nodded. "That's right. Giles, too. I just wanted to say that nothing, not marriages, not time, not crazy vampire boyfriends, nothing, will ever change that." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. "I know that there will be times when it would be nice to have me around and that there will be times when you need me, and I know that you'll be able to tell the difference between those. When you need me, Buf, I'll be there for you, because I know I'll be fighting the good fight for everyone, including my family." He held his hand out and waited until Buffy put hers in it. Then he covered her hand, clasping it between both of his. "I'm so glad to know you, Buffy. I know the shelf life of a Slayer, and it breaks my heart to think that me, you, and Wil won't end up in the same retirement community, playing shuffleboard together. Every moment I spend with you is a privilege." He brought her hand to his mouth, didn't kiss it. "I don't have demon strength or fancy kung fu moves, but I believe that I have something to offer."

"You've proven that," Buffy said fiercely.

"Yes," he agreed, "so don't hesitate to call on me."

"When I need you," Buffy said. When he nodded, she gave him a serious look. "Xander, when the Slayer needs you?"

He nodded again. "When there's need, I'll be there."

She took her hand from his and put it behind his neck. She pulled his face to hers, and they shared an uncomplicated kiss.

"Well, I guess that's my cue to go to bed and wrestle with Oz," Xander said. He stopped and put his hands on his knees. "Will I ever outgrow the ability to say just the wrong thing?" he asked the universe in general. "It's a big, queen-sized bed, with plenty of room for two heterosexual dudes, but he is a serious covers hog."

Buffy patted his knee. "You gotta watch those wiry little guys."

"You okay, Buf?"

She nodded. "Thanks, Xander. I feel better. You're right. I can't save everyone."

Xander smiled wryly. "No, actually, you can save everyone, and you have, just not all the time. Sometimes they have to save themselves."

"Now all I have to do is figure out when it's up to me and when it's up to them."

"Well, you gotta figure anything between the Order of Taraka and an apocalypse falls into your territory," Xander said, finally standing up. "Bad fashion choices, pedestrian crosswalks, and figuring out that not everyone ends up with Buffy ever after… I kind of figure that's up to the individual in question."

She looked up and met his eye, seeing the self-awareness in it. Buffy took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. She tucked her arm in his, and they went back into the house, closing the door behind them.

Next Chapter: Sally invites Spike and Angel into the safety of her home. Angel gives it a week.

[Author's Note: It takes a Turok-Han to change a disguised avenging angel into a vampire.]