Spike and Willow attended Liam's funeral and wake. Willow was expected to look after the small children and Spike stuck close to Willow as she got overrun with more and more children as more people came to the wake. Spike of course wanted to eat the children, but was of course forbidden. He was also forbidden from telling them scary stories and in the end ruining all his fun. He helped herd all the brats into the house where Willow did her best to keep them all entertained and in line. Rachael, the oldest of the Walker daughters who was married and living across town now decided to help out after a while. It was the middle of the night when they got to leave the Walker house. And Spike had a hard time getting Willow out of there.

"I should warn them," she protested. "Someone's going to let him in and he's going to kill them all."

"If I can't kill because it would alter history, then you can't save people for the same reason." He purposely left out the part where according to everything he had heard, Angelus slaughtered the whole town. Somehow he doubted that she could let that happen even with her determination to not change history. "Remember the butterfly effect."

Tears were threatening to fall from her big green eyes, but she sniffed, nodded, and sucked the tears back. "Right, the butterfly effect. We can't change anything. You should probably tell them that I'm sick or something so they won't expect me in tomorrow."

Spike squeezed her shoulder and went to talk to Richard Walker.

The man was standing next to the fire with a drink in his hand. Spike hoped that he wasn't so drunk that he wasn't going to remember this conversation in the morning. "Mr. Walker."

Richard looked over at Spike, and even if Spike hadn't known that the man's oldest son just died, he would have picked up on the fact that this man was easy prey right now. But he shoved that thought to the side, like he had to with all his predatory thoughts these days. It was just a little harder at the moment because he was hungry. He hadn't fed yet this evening.

"Yes, William?"

"I wanted to say again how sorry I am for your loss."

"Thank you."

Spike gestured toward the door. "Willow isn't feeling well and I fear she may not be able to come in tomorrow. I know she didn't have a thing to drink, so it isn't that. I'm not sure what's wrong with her exactly."

"It would be better if she came in tomorrow my wife's grief stricken, but if she's too ill we'll not think less of her for not working. She's really quite something, your Willow. I tried teaching Alice to read before and thought that there was no use in trying because progress was so slow. But your Willow came in and now Alice reads almost as well as my wife." Mr. Walker grasped his lapel. "When we first met and you were telling me your wife's skills, I thought you were spinning a tale. But she's everything you said she was. I don't remember the last time I had to discipline my kids."

"Thank you for saying so, sir. She'll be thrilled to hear such high praise coming from you." Spike had no intention of telling Willow any of this. It would only make it all harder on her and the harder it was on her the less fun she was going to be, which would affect him. "Good night."

"Good evening, William."

When Spike returned to Willow he could tell she had been crying. He supposed that he could expect nothing less of her. He put an arm around her shoulders and guided her back to the Bell barn, where they still lived. Predicting that a newly turned Liam wouldn't just go after his family, but after the conquest he had never won as well, Spike planned to move them from the barn's loft to the loft in the stables. It smelled worse, but Angelus wouldn't be able to find them as easily.

"Why are we moving?" Willow asked as they climbed into the barn's loft to get their things.

"The smell of the animals will help mask our presence. Darla and Angelus will have a hard time finding us." Spike made sure that all their belongings were safely tucked away in the satchel he was able to purchase last month. He had been preparing for this for a while now. He had been hiding away all the money he and Willow earned and was filching extra money from the Bells when he could manage it without them noticing, mostly farthings and halfpennies here and there, but they were adding up. It was splitting hairs, but he figured so long as he wasn't robbing people by force he was doing what Willow wanted. To be on the safe side though, he wasn't going to mention his way of getting extra cash.

"Makes sense." Willow was double checking to make sure they didn't leave anything behind. "How long does it normally take a vampire to rise?"

"It depends," he started down the ladder again. "And I don't know on what. Sometimes it takes a day, sometimes it takes a week. It's hard to say how long he'll be. Darla never mentioned it, and I never asked. It wasn't something I thought I'd ever need to know about Angelus."

"I understand that. I never asked either. It wasn't like I ever foresaw any of this happening. And I was never into Angel. I wonder if Buffy ever asked." Willow was following him down the ladder. "Probably not. I don't think she looked too hard at his vampireness."

"Probably not," Spike agreed, "And that relationship was just unnatural. A vampire and a Slayer... doomed before it even started. No wonder it turned out badly."

"He's back you know. Buffy insists that they are only friends now, but..." she let her thought go unfinished.

Spike however had no trouble picking it up. "But those two could never just be friends, yeah?"

"Yeah." They were in the stable now and Willow wrinkled her nose. "I'm not going to like sleeping in here."

"It's warmer. You were complaining about being cold just last night." Spike motioned for her to go up the ladder of the stable's loft first.

"I'm not sure I like the trade off." She still managed to get up the ladder without him being able to see up her dress. He had no idea how she managed that.

"The person you should be feeling bad for is me. I have a heightened sense of smell. Think about my poor nose in all this." He got up the ladder in the blink of an eye hoping that it would make her gasp like it normally did and he wasn't disappointed. He made sure not to do it too often or she'd get used to it and stop reacting to him.

She slapped him on the shoulder. "Can't you act normal?"

He leered at her. "That was normal for me."

Willow sighed and started patting the hay in the far corner of the loft, making a place to bed down. "We can't even get undressed tonight can we?"

"It would be best if we left town tonight, pet. We could steal one of the Hughes' horses and be gone before anyone knew to chase us. The last thing we want to do is be where Darla and Angelus are right now." He turned her face to look at him. "Especially when you've been turning him down for three months straight. He's going to be looking for you early on, if not first."

"I get what you're saying and it makes sense, but what if we get caught? It could ruin so much."

"And that excuse is going to get old, quickly little girl. You need to learn that doing everything the perfectly white, goody good way is going to muck things up just as much as if we did things my way all the time. I'm right about this, believe me. I've thought it through. Our best chance to get away clean is if we leave tonight."

"You can't go without me," Willow said with her jaw jutted out in defiance. "I'm how you eat."

Spike stood toe to toe with her looking down at her. "You care a whole hell of a lot more about this history thing than I do. You need me more than I need you. Women belong to their husbands in these times. You wouldn't be able to do anything on your own."

"I'd find a way," she insisted.

That's when he heard it: the faint but familiar giggle of Darla. They were still fairly far away if he was any judge, not expecting to be heard because they assumed their prey was human. He put a finger to his lips and Willow silently asked him what was wrong. He mouthed the words 'Darla and Angelus' to her and her eyes went wide.

Apparently good ole Liam decided to come after Willow first. That wasn't good. They needed to get out of there and they needed to get out of there yesterday. Picking the satchel back up and slinging it over his shoulder, he motioned for Willow to follow him... quietly.

When they made it down the ladder without her making so much as a squeak he was really proud of the girl. He supposed she had gotten some practice at being quiet living on top of a Hellmouth, but still with her stiff 18th century hard soled shoes it was impressive. She was almost as good as a vampire with her stealth. However, he thought they were done when the horses started to act up with them walking past their stalls, but they were in luck it seemed that Darla and Angelus were just getting to the barn now. He could hear them talking. Angelus was looking forward to taking Willow in every way he could once he got rid of 'William'.

Sorry for your luck Angelus ole chum... but I'm taking the girl and getting the hell out of here before you can do anything. Spike thought as he picked the better of the horses. It was young and freshly broken in. It would be able to carry the both of them for the rest of the night and into the next day if needs be. Hopefully nobody would be chasing them, though. He was counting a lot on Angelus' desire to kill his family and not wanting to pursue them. As for the Bells, Spike didn't plan on riding past the house, but through the field. They wouldn't know anything was wrong until morning.

He was undoing the pen the horse was kept in when Willow grabbed his arm and gave him a questioning look.

"Emergency," he whispered in her ear and it looked like she finally conceded to agree to something he had chosen to do. It was about damn time. They had been doing things her way for months and from where he was sitting, nothing good had come from it yet.

As fast as his vampire speed could do it, he put reigns on the horse but even with his speed there was no time for a saddle. He lifted Willow onto the horse and then jumped on himself behind Willow. No sooner had he done that then Angelus and Darla were entering the other end of the stable. Spike spurred the horse into motion and they were off across the field.

There had only been one other horse in the stable, along with some oxen, but the other horse was now not far behind him and Willow. Spike dared a glimpse and saw that Angelus hadn't even bothered with reigns. The good news was that the horse Angelus was riding was older and while it was doing a fair job at keeping up with them now, it wouldn't for long even if they did have two people on their horse.

He hoped.

"Willow," Angelus called. "Oh, Willow."

They were almost all the way across the field when Spike thought to remind Angelus of something really important. "You might want to turn back, chap. The sun will be rising soon."

Spike heard the sound of the extra hoof beats fade and he knew he had won. He glanced back and saw Angelus riding off in the opposite direction. They continued forward through to the next field, heading to parts unknown. Spike wasn't going to stop until they were far enough away that he thought there was no chance of Angelus catching up to them. Even if that meant going hungry for a couple of nights. He wasn't sure if they were even going to have time to stop and feed Willow. He planned on trading horses in the next town and continuing on without stopping.

Willow's body was pressed against him and she was shaking. He didn't think it was in fear. She knew that Angelus couldn't kill her. Was she cold? He had been so stringent on conserving money he hadn't thought to buy her anything warm to wear. But then when he heard a bit of a strangled sob he realized she was crying. She was probably thinking about all the people that Angelus was going to kill now that he wasn't chasing them. Those were the people that had taken them in. Those were the people that had been kind to them. Spike didn't care about them, but Willow was human and this wasn't the first time she cried over people in her life. He had witnessed her sobbing fits over missing her family and friends from Sunnydale. He just did what he always did in these instances. He related it back to Dru.

What if it was Drusilla who was about to be killed? He would feel bad then. So he started whispering soothing nothings into her ear. Things like, 'there there' and 'it's all for the best.'

The sun was up and high in the sky before he could say for sure that she had stopped crying. The horse was walking now and he could hold the reigns with one hand. He put the other arm around her, sensing that even though she wasn't crying, she was still mourning. If nothing else, he had never known her to go this long without talking before. He assumed that must mean she was really hurting.

He understood hurt because it still hurt like crazy that he wasn't with Drusilla. He wasn't sure how he was going to get through the next hundred and seven years. She was so much of who he was he didn't really know how to be without her. These past few months he had been feeling her absence keenly. A couple of the reasons he hadn't argued with Willow too much were because he wanted to make sure Dru still came to be just like she had before, and because it was easier to just listen to Willow then to do anything else.