Spike could feel his temper- never long at the best of times- fraying with each dead-end he faced. He could feel time running through his hands like fine sand, and clutching at straws seemed to do nothing but emphasise the futility of it. Close to snapping he stalked over to the mousy little cryptographer who was supposed to be translating the ritual book.

'Read it again. You're missing something.' The control in his voice belied the barely leashed violence in his movements, and Dalton swallowed as he grew more nervous. He could see the other vampire was at the end of his tether. 'We've gone over this Spike, it's not a language I recognise, and it's nothing like your Oxford Latin.'

'Does it look like I give a sodding damn? You said you were good at this rubbish, but I haven't seen it yet!'

'Well. If I try for the stuff that looks like Latin… maybe? Uh. Deprimere... ille... bubula... linter?'

'Debase, the beef, canoe.' The tic in the simmering blond's clenched jaw grew pronounced, and Dalton grinned apologetically. Using the thick Latin-English dictionary he was carrying, Spike clipped the tweedy vampire over the head. 'Why does that strike me as not right? There has to be a way to make this gibberish speak.' This last was said as he ran his hand through his disheveled hair, clutching and pulling at the ends like it would yank the text into some kind of sense.

'Spike, won't you come and sing for Princess? My poet is losing his way among the stars when he needs to find the cold and quiet.'

In irritation he rounded on her. 'I'm trying to work this out Dru, why can't you play with your sodding dollies? I'm busy.'

Her face crumpled as she sank to the floor, whining painfully in her throat. 'Miss Edith sent me out to find you. The Tower is crumbling and the cakes have fallen by the wayside. I shall never eat cake again.'

His heart twisted. Instantly remorseful he walked over to her, 'Oh I'm sorry kitten. We're trying to find a way to make you all better. Big Brain here talked up a good pitch, but we can't make heads or tails of this bloody nonsense.'

Drusilla peered up at him through her hair. With doleful eyes she sighed, 'You'll make it alright. The pixies were chattering with the dollies all the night long. Dreadful gossips, they are.'

She rose slowly to her feet, and drifted off to the other table in the room. Piled haphazardly over it was a faded deck of tarot cards that he'd found tucked away in a corner of the warehouse. She gathered them up and shuffled them, stopping now and then to peer at a particular card. As she wasn't particularly careful, she dropped a few to fall fluttering to the benchtop. Among the cards that fell, three landed face up. A young girl stroking a lion, a lightning-struck tower, and a woman in religious vestments. Nobody noticed.

Spike turned back to the other male in the room, and the frustration that was missing in his interaction with Dru returned full-force. Striding back to the table that was covered in research and notes, he threw his arms out and demanded, 'Well? Come on then, enlighten me.'

The somewhat timid researcher spoke with a slight edge to his voice, clearly reaching a point where even he was upset, 'If it weren't for the fact that I've seen reliable references to the veracity of this document I'd say this trash was utterly without sense to be had. It looks nothing like any Latin I've seen if you do more than skim it, and I don't have the first clue as to what would make it give up the secrets it holds. If I had to make an educated guess I would say it seems to be code of some sort, but without a key it'd take months, perhaps years, to crack it.'

'You have two hours. Then we'll see how much better you work with bribery.'

'Uh, bribery?' Behind the glasses he wore, Dalton's eyes widened at the undercurrents in Spike's voice.

'Yeah. If you want to continue enjoying unlife you'll figure this out quick-like.' With a nasty grin, he looked set to provide an example when Drusilla spoke faintly. 'Don't…'

'What's that, ducks? Even pathetic little nobodies like our good professor here find pain to be an excellent motivator.'

'He has already helped you my poet. He speaks of the key. It lies hidden, sleeping with the worms. Oh but it burns! Bright and sharp and buried. We must invite a devil to my party, before the Sunshine burns you quite to ashes. Can we have a party? Just you, and me? Devils make the best presents, but we mustn't wait for my birthday.'

'We will throw a party just for you, my pet. All the demons you want.'

Drusilla frowned. Oh why wouldn't the fishies burning 'round his head stop swimming for a moment and let him hear her? She had such important things to tell him, he needed to know that the Sunshine was rising again and brought the silver-wise salmon to tread the hellmouth's edge with her. Lions came tamely when the shiny-hatted lady showed the way, but the poet had his ears closed no matter how she told him.

Clapping excitedly, she was distracted when his rough tenor filled the air around her. As he sang, about fairs and weddings and a pretty lady, she danced for him.

He loved the way she moved. His dark princess had such grace to her, it was like watching lines of poetry take to the floor, and he didn't even mind that the song he sang for her he'd learned to spare his ears from Angelus butchering it. Folk music just wasn't his scene. Pastoral references gave him hives. He needed the bustle and pressing humanity of a decent-sized burg.

Bugger this. What he needed was a bloody challenge. Needed something to throw fists and fangs at and just whale on for a while. Cor, what he wouldn't give to have that Slayer to fight again. He should have strung the bint along a bit more, kept her around for when he needed a distraction. Pity that.

The overarching impression she'd use to describe her situation was burning. It felt like acid crawling through her veins, and her voice was frozen in her throat. Nobody had bothered to mention that interdimensional travelling was so agonising. Why anyone would choose to do so voluntarily was beyond her. It felt like forever had passed with no easing of the pain and Buffy realised that something was different. She had no need to breathe- which was helpful, because there seemed no way she'd be able to concentrate on such a mundane task with each new sensation overwhelming her senses.

She watched from a location that seemed just slightly removed from her body as it/she sped toward a portal-shaped light of blue-silver. The tether anchoring her awareness to the physical shell that had housed it stretched, and almost disappeared as the body disintegrated into the brightness. Terror washed over her as she started to fight the inexorable pull. Suddenly convinced that what lay beyond the portal was not of the good, the Slayer tried to dig her heels in- without much luck, given her incorporeal state. Approaching the light, it slowly bled a deep crimson colour, like fresh blood tainted the purity of the silvery-white. As it turned out, the attraction that dragged her forward only got stronger the closer she came, and an icy sensation flooded through her as her consciousness was washed with the cold light.

The pain started again. It was like dissolving in reverse. The vitriolic burn swept from her insides to her skin as her shell reformed on this side of the gate. The cool breeze was like salt in an open wound as it brushed her newly sensitive surfaces.

The first thing she did with her new lungs was scream. She screamed until her ribs would compress no further, and she had to drag a wheezing, throat-drying amount of air back into her chest to alleviate the pressure. Being born hurt.

'Daughter-mine, be careful where you set your toes. Second chances don't come twice. What was given mustn't be squandered or taken away again.' Body twitching, the mad dancer moves like a marionette with half the strings severed. Swaying in a tangled two-step, her all but graceless movements echo in parody a far more eloquent scene.

Spike watched with hooded eyes as Dru re-enacted with perfect accuracy a clumsy rendition of his last fight. He grimaced at the mockery- and satire it was, for she was all that was flowing and had never moved so like a creature newborn. Losing patience with her nonsensical mutterings and callous disregard of his presence, he stomped from the room and left the building altogether.

The woman left behind snickered in approval, her body righting itself as she pirouetted with languid ease. 'All is well my dear. No Moonlight could stand where stricken by day, and the Sunshine comes to burn me away. Stay my poet's hand to keep regard of Light and he may weep. For me, I go to seek my pleasures where I may. Keep well his heart and you'll never want for love, my brilliant counter-part.'

The fire was lit. Something nasty and reeking of pungent herbs was bubbling gently on a rock beside it. Giles checked the rest of the equipment and shuddered in memory as he withdrew the small silver blade from his pocket. The last time he could bring himself to look at it, the bloody thing had been stuck through the hands of his poor dead slayer.

He looked to his companions, and his face stiffened lines of determination. It was nearly time. Joyce was shivering in the cool evening, but the short sleeves would be convenient when the ritual began. Morgan was poring over the notes they'd taken in last minute preparation. He looked up and smiled at the tired Watcher, before turning to the woman beside him.

'Ready to get your girl back?'

Joyce glared at his flippant tone. 'I'm glad someone is confident this is the right thing to do. Are you absolutely certain that allowing Giles to stand in isn't going to mess something up?'

'The prophecy as much as demands it be him. Though he be not blood, the kinship clear. We established this earlier. Besides, were you able to get ahold of your erstwhile husband?'

'Well,' here she made a face of disgust. 'I'm not sure he'd even show his face even if one of us were truly dead. He seemed pretty adamant that he was starting a new life without us. It was a magnanimous concession on his part to see his own daughter once a year on her birthday.'

'Ah. My apologies for bringing up distasteful memories.'

'Disappointing, more than distasteful, though that too, I suppose. I thought that he'd care more for Buffy , at least. But he signed her away, sent a monthly check in the mail. Hank doesn't even have the damned courage to call unless it's Christmas and he's drunk. Too busy with his man-stealing whore.'

The bitterness of the last statement surprised Joyce almost as much as it disconcerted Morgan. She blushed and mumbled in mortification, 'I didn't just say that. It's my nerves talking. I shouldn't say such things,' she said, then added- almost defiantly, 'Even if they are true.'

# # # # #

'I need you to focus, clear your mind. You need to call your daughter home.' The fitful wind strengthens, as if to drown out his voice, yet it pierces the gloom and inserts itself in her ear without regard to the distance they stand separated by.

Her soul seems to reach toward the flame-wreathed void before her, refusing the loss of her child. She feels a pull from the centre of her chest, like a rope has anchored itself in her heart and now latches to a weight at the other end. Stumbling toward the impossibly tall fire she is steadied by the hand of the Watcher beside her.

# # # # #

'Hold fast, the worst is nearly over. Seal the bond. Do you stand in for her before the Powers?'

His wrists flow cleanly, the crimson lines reaching both inner-elbows, the blood pouring unnaturally fast from the symbolic wounding. He staggers at the loss, before his resolve stiffens his knees. The sacrifice never touches the ground, sucked into the growing vortex, tinting the silver brightness a deep red. He falls to one knee as dizziness overwhelms him, and the light flashes brighter still. In a blinding instant everything disappears.

# # # # #

He woke to the scream. It was torn from the throat of the young woman slumped in the cold ashes of the now-dead fire. *How long have I been unconscious?* The fire spoke of hours, the sky of mere minutes. In the grey pre-dawn chill Joyce strode forward jerkily, as if pulled to the girl. He looked away from her pale, bare limbs, a vague sense of unease at the realisation *Dear God-* that she was without a stitch of clothing. Her mother covered her with the pale robes that Morgan had provided, the un-dyed cotton settling over her skin to shield her from the now-quiet breeze.

Buffy tried not to scream again as the fabric abraded her overly sensitive skin. She drank in the scent and warmth of her mother as the woman knelt unheedingly in the ashes beside her, sobbing with joy into Buffy's hair.

Peering around, Buffy took in the sight of her Watcher, uncomfortable as always at the display of strong emotion before him- how British! Looking past him she started at the sight of the man who'd gotten her mother and Giles to Oxford and hosted their stay in Wales. The way he stood was familiar, the set of his shoulders as if he were about to burst into song, or recite old poetry. Without a direct source of light, the grey-scale of her surroundings prevented her from seeing what colour his hair was. The man's face was shadowed by a prominent brow line, leaving his eyes to gleam eerily beneath it. It couldn't be. It didn't make any sense. But it sure seemed like...

'T-Taliesin?' she whispered.