Quick A/N: To anyone who has reviewed or favorited this story, it's been awhile since I've expressed how grateful I am for you. On days where I don't want to write or need a push, it is always a review or a notification that will remind me to keep going. Thank you!

Chapter Nine: Puppet Master

Faith and Dawn returned to the house just at sunset, both hoping Spike would be at the house. He wasn't—and the two exhausted girls were out of ideas.

"Buffy is going to kill us," Faith groaned. Seeing Dawn's worried grimace, she added, "I'm sure he's fine."

"We don't know that! With everything out there….and Finley is missing too! She could have—"

"Finley wouldn't do that."

"We don't know her. If you're right, and she didn't do anything—then where is she?"

Faith didn't have an answer. "If she needs to be handled, I'll take care of it. In the meantime, you need sleep."

Dawn reluctantly nodded and headed up the stairs. When the phone rang, she started to change direction. "It's probably Xander checking in."

Faith figured Dawn didn't want to deal with Willow right now so she volunteered to take the call. Buffy was on the line and Faith immediately panicked. "Hello?" Buffy asked after Faith hadn't said anything for a while.

Faith shook off her nerves and tried to be as calm as possible. "My bad, B. How's England?"

"We have Willow. Taking an earlier flight out…I'm just ready to come home. Any Turok Hans sightings?"

"Nope. All clear."

"Did Spike come home yet?"

"Yes," Faith answered truthfully. She heard Buffy sigh in relief.

"How did he seem?"

"Drunk, mostly."

Faith heard the front door open, footsteps descending the stairs, then a loud thud. Buffy, with her enhanced hearing, asked what was happening. Before Faith could lie, Dawn shouted, "What did you do to Spike?"

Faith heard a distinct growl, then another thud. "Did Dawn just punch Finley? What happened to Spike?"

Faith dropped the phone and ran to the foyer to find Finley on the ground by the door. Dawn was hissing in pain, nursing her bruised knuckles. Faith put herself between the two teenagers. "Go fill Buffy in. She's on the phone. Let me talk to Finley."

Dawn gave Finley a scathing glare before heading over to the kitchen. Faith's stomach sunk when she saw that Finley wasn't angry. She looked guilty and wouldn't make eye contact with Faith. "Why did you lie about Spike attacking you?" she asked her in a soothing voice.

"I didn't!" Finley said vehemently and rose to her feet. She rubbed her right cheek as a bruise began to form, then moved her hair to reveal two small puncture wounds on her neck. "He tried to bite me."

Faith froze at the bite marks. "He has a chip in his head. He can't hurt humans without his head exploding. And he has a soul. I want to believe you but there's no way Spike could do that to you."

"So I just fell on a fork-with my neck?" Finley challenged.

"It's Spike," Faith said, as if that would explain everything.

"He's William the Bloody. If killing Slayers was an Olympic sport, he'd literally have a gold medal. He killed Robin's mom and—"

At Finley's slip, it clicked for Faith. Her eyes narrowed and she advanced on Finley, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. "You don't know him. You've read about him and what he's done. You think you shouldn't trust him. You think you should be afraid of him. Then you should be afraid of me too, right? So I'm going to ask you this one time. Did you tell Robin about Spike?"

Finley had enough sense to back up against the door and look intimidated. "No, I didn't. He already knew the name but the First told him who Spike was. That he was here."

"When?"

Finley tried to look away and Faith grabbed her arm roughly. "At the high school! Robin was there when you and Buffy were in the basement."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

It came out softer than Faith expected. Instead of anger, it was disappointment in Finley's betrayal.

"Why didn't you?" Finley argued, pushing Faith away from her. "I didn't even know Spike was a vampire!"

"You were here for a whole minute! When was I supposed to give you a presentation about the biographies of all of my friends? You came here for protection, right? You lied to us and now we can't trust you! The First almost killed you and you thought it would just help Robin out of its warm heart place? It used you again and you let it. What did you do with Spike, Finley?"

Finley swallowed the lump in her throat. "Nothing. I just went to Robin's apartment and told him Spike admitted it to me. Then Robin left and told me to come back here."

Faith could see that it was sinking in how much of a mistake Finley had made. Dawn came back and was behind Faith. "Robin has Spike," Faith said. "You need to take us to Robin's apartment so we can try to re-trace his steps. He must have Spike somewhere."

Finley's gaze was focused on Dawn and Faith had a feeling Finley was more afraid of her. "You aren't one of us, " Dawn said in a cold voice. "This is my family. If anything happens to Spike, I won't let Buffy take care of you. I'll ask to do it myself."


Spike's memory was blurry. It had been quite a while since he had gotten this drunk. Romantic woes seemed to always do him in as his most epic blackouts tended to coincide with Drusilla.

He remembered leaving the porch after arguing with Buffy. Unfortunately, that was the last vivid thing he remembered. His next memory was of dirt smeared on his hands. He knew immediately his blood lust was gone.

Then, he remembered Faith finding him and somehow getting back to the house. The young Slayer had angered him. The dirt was gone from his hands now.

His mother was there. Wasn't she?

When he came to again, he knew with a certainty that he wasn't drunk. Spike knew drunk, he knew hungover—this was a different high. One he remembered often with shame, if not the smallest sliver of pride. It felt like Slayer's blood but weaker.

This time his hands were brown with dirt again, but the lingering blood thirst was gone.

More notably, his hands were bound in shackles to a wall. Instinctively, he tugged at the bonds, causing his right hand to graze a cross next to him. He hissed as his skin began to sizzle. The fog in his mind began to lift and the room seemed to snap into perfect clarity.

There were crosses everywhere on the wooden walls. It appeared to be a shed of some kind, littered with weapons that were catered to vampires. He was alone in the room though, until he spotted her in the corner. His undead breath almost caught in this throat at the sight of her. But there was an absence of a scent or a heartbeat.

"This is kinky," The First cooed at him, in the guise of Buffy. "I mean, I know you and Dru had a thing for chains but—"

"How did you get me here? Thought you were all bark and no corporeal bite," Spike managed to ask snarkily.

"Oh, that isn't me. We played our game earlier. Do you want to know what games we played, Spikey?"

Spike closed his eyes tightly and jerked against the chains again. The weight hit him hard as he accepted the heartbreaking truth. "Who was it?"

It shrugged. "Some Potential. Who knows? You seemed to be enjoying it. I think we both did each other a favor here. I made you bury her. You won't know her face or her name. I want you to look for her in every girl you see. To carry this with you. And most importantly, the cherry on this sundae, is how you're going to lie to Buffy. If you survive tonight that is."

Its' question was met with silence. The First's eyes gleamed with amusement as it approached him.

"Because you think that she's…..a goddess and that you're a monster. You are my monster and so is she. Every time she died, I took something from her and left something in the holes it left in her. Then you let that thing crawl inside of her. You honestly have no idea what you've done to her, do you?"

Spike continued to thrash against his restraints, his eyes closed tightly in pain. He wanted to ignore the First's words but they were hitting him hard. The noise he was creating caused his captor to enter the shed.

Robin regarded with him a cold steely gaze. "Do you know who I am?"

Spike couldn't bring himself to answer. The First had left them alone. Robin didn't ask him again. Instead he grabbed a small sharp knife from the utility table closest to him

"Hurting me—killing me, won't bring your mum back. I was a different man then."

"You are not a man!" Robin snarled at him.

The last time Spike had seen Robin, he had seemed calm, if not a little guarded. But now, his eyes were dark and clouded with pain.

"The First wants you to kill me. You don't—"

Spike's explanation was cut off by a fist colliding with his left cheek. He spat the blood from his bloodied lip onto the ground. "It's using you!" he continued dispute the pain. A part of him knew he couldn't reason with the man.

"Do you think I care about the First? She told me who you were. At least I get to be the one who ends you. You destroyed my world when you took her from me!"

Robin grasped Spike by his collar and the close proximity allowed Spike to catch his scent. He realized it was familiar and he had caught it a couple nights on patrol with Buffy. "You've been following me," he choked out. Robin struck him again but Spike's mind was racing. Robin hadn't shown any signs of recognizing him at the house. "No," Spike amended. "You've been following her."

Robin took a step back, a brief flash of guilt cutting through the anger. "I didn't mean to! I thought she was dead. And she was, wasn't she? But you got her back!" Robin shouted in frustration, the jealousy apparent in his voice.

"And I can't give you your mum back," Spike said regretfully. "The First used me, like it is using you right now. It wants me dead because I think...I think I save the world. Become a hero. I die anyway, mate, and if you kill me now then...you take everyone with me."

He had never really said the words aloud until that moment. He felt the weight of them in the same way that he now imagined that Buffy had been feeling them ever since seeing her vision. He had always assumed that they'd find another way. For some reason, right now, while being held prisoner by someone was wanted to kill him more than the First-he fully understood why Buffy was fighting the claim. His somber moment was ended when a mocking laugh erupted from Robin.

"A hero? You murdered my mother! I found you digging a grave and you attacked me like a wild dog."

Spike welcomed the onslaught of punches coming at him. He felt numb, despite the searing pain. Robin only stopped when he realized Spike was trying to speak. He was wheezing and spat blood out of his mouth. Spike knew a couple ribs had to be broken and his one eye was swollen shut.

"Tell me again to spare your life," Robin taunted him.

"She could have stayed home. She should have taken one look at her baby boy, tucked you in, kissed you on your forehead. But she didn't. She left you behind. Just like she did many nights before that. But that night, I killed her. Because I am what I am and she was what she was. Didn't think about the hole I'd leave in you. Didn't care until I had a soul, really. Before...Buffy really."

Robin raised his fist to strike the vampire again, his rage hearing Spike's words as taunting. Instead, he saw Spike's glossy far away gaze.

"She could have stayed," Spike continued. "If you had been enough. If she had really loved you...but she left, then she died. And I never...really got her back. There's a hole left in her too. And I'm still not enough. Don't you see who they are? What they do? Choose to be something, anything, but with us. We love them and it doesn't touch them."

Robin watched in confusion as Spike seemed to be looking at someone behind him and realized that he wasn't speaking about his mother anymore.

"You can beat me bloody all you want, but it won't bring her back. Or fix the hole."

Suddenly the air grew chilled and Robin fell to his knees when what felt like a strong gust of wind whipped inside the small shed. Spike's chains shook loudly. Then, it was over and Robin almost choked in fear to see Buffy standing in front of them. Her gleaming eyes were neon green, taking in her surroundings, before landing on the kneeling man before her.

"Buffy?" Robin stuttered.

Her gaze narrowed and a low growl came from deep within her chest. A predatory smile crossed her lips.

"That's not Buffy," Spike said from behind him.