11. In Space, Nobody Wants to Hear You Scream

Spike didn't go back to their quarters after their meeting with Picard and his lot. Instead, he went to an available holodeck and started beating up whatever he could get the ship to generate for him. For a long time, he pounded the daylights out of a Tellarite, saying, "Fucking Watcher. Had to show up. Bloody Slayer's probably clearin' out my stuff and makin' the captain give me a new place to sleep. Oh wait. We're talkin' about Buffy, here. Bitch probably threw my shit out into the hall for anyone to steal."

He went on in that vein for several hours before he decided that he exhausted himself enough to not attack Buffy the moment he saw her. When he entered their (her) quarters, the chip on his shoulder was large enough to exert its own gravitational force. Engrossed in the reading Giles had given her, Buffy failed to appreciate the bleached blonde bundle of attitude quivering before her. She gave him an absent-minded greeting as she tried to make sense of the role she was apparently to play.

"Oh, right! Watcher's here, so Spike doesn't count, is that it?" He was pacing back and forth, wondering how he could have ever thought he would be too tired to want to throttle her.

"Huh?" She looked up, confused.

"What? You can't even be bothered to pay me any mind, now? That's the thanks I get for keepin' you together these last two months," he said, twirling suddenly to leave. His duster just barely avoided the sliding door as it closed.

Buffy sat there for a moment, thought about what he'd just said, then wrote his babbling off to him having spent too many years with Drusilla. She shrugged and went back to her reading. Sooner or later, he'd be coherent enough to tell her what his problem was.

Spike's next stop was Giles' quarters. They were two decks up and on the other side of the ship. He wanted to burst in, but the ship wouldn't allow that. By the time Giles responded to the door chime, Spike's rage had been blunted.

"Spike? What do you want?" He didn't answer, other than to storm into Giles' cabin. That answers that question, Giles thought. Temporary housing doesn't count as a home.

He stopped at the table, head down, shoulders bowed. "I love her. Why the hell won't anyone believe me?" Giles didn't think he'd ever heard the vampire sound quite so defeated. Even after Buffy's death, he'd maintained his bravado, disdaining sympathy and condolences.

Giles sighed, wondering just when it was that Spike had managed to find a small, unkempt, poorly lit corner of his heart. In a quiet voice, he answered, "I believe you."

Spike turned to face him and said, "What?"

Hands tucked as far as they could go into the front pockets of his tight jeans, Giles repeated, "I believe you. I believe you love Buffy."

A wild hope sprung up in Spike, and it showed in his eyes. "You have to tell her that. She trusts you — she'll believe it comin' from you."

Giles was shaking his head and backing up even as Spike made his demand. "No. Absolutely not. In the first place, it's not up to me to convince her. That's your job. In the second place," he said, his voice rising slightly, "why would I want to? For god's sake, Spike. You're a vampire. Is it really so difficult for you to remember that? I should think the liquid diet and lack of a heartbeat would be enough to remind you, even here."

"You don't know, Rupert," he said, determined not to cry in front of the man. "You don't know what it's been like these last two months. These last two weeks especially, I feel like I've been handed the world on a platter, and it's all because of her." Frustrated, Spike ran his hand through his hair, leaving a turbulent mess in its wake.

"I know —"

"You don't! You can't. They recycle the air here. There's not a place I can go on this ship where I can't catch her scent. Sometimes, I'll be walkin' along, mindin' my own business, and I'll walk under an air duct. And there she is, large as life, surroundin' me, gettin' into my nose, my lungs — and there I'll stand like a right prat 'til the ventilation system sends her all over the place again."

Giles paused. He hadn't really understood just how lost Spike was to his Slayer. It was one thing to hear the words, "I love her," but it was quite another to see just how affected he really was. He looked down, finally, unable to continue watching Spike in his agony, and said, "What's brought all this on?"

"You. You came here, and now I won't be with her ever again," Spike said.

Giles frowned slightly, and not just because of the vampire's melodramatic delivery. He looked up and said, "What are you talking about?"

"Buffy. Now you're here, I can't sleep with her anymore."

"Sh-she told you this?" Giles was confused. There had been no promises that Buffy would end the relationship. In fact, he'd been left with the impression that she intended to continue it for the near future. If she had changed her mind —

Giles' question stopped Spike cold. He thought back to the conversation — rant — he'd had with her just before he went to see Giles. He realized that he hadn't seen any luggage out for him. Nor, for that matter, had Buffy asked him what he was doing there. "Bloody hell," he muttered.

"I take it she didn't a-actually kick you out?" Disappointment colored his voice, and it was enough to make Spike look at him and grin.

"Nope. Too bad for you." He walked by Giles to head back to Buffy and was startled when the Watcher grabbed his arm and swung him around.

"I meant what I said earlier, Spike. I don't like you and Buffy being together. I'll tolerate it for her sake, but if I ever once think you're leading her deeper into darkness rather than back to her family and friends, I'll stake you and take my chances with her. Are we clear?"

Ice green eyes stared down into bright blue eyes for a very long moment before Spike finally blinked and nodded. "Right. Got it."

Giles released his hold on Spike. As he turned away, he said, "Be back here at eight tomorrow morning. We need to go over the prophecy and determine what role you are to play."

Spike didn't bother to answer as he left.

~*~*~

Morning — didn't dawn. Nor was it bright, and there was no way to tell if it was even early. Giles sipped his tea as he tried to reconcile the ship's time, nearly eight hundred hours, with the sight of deep space outside his window. Or would it be port? Either way, it was a peaceful view. The stars burned hard and bright without an atmosphere to make them twinkle, and he rather liked them that way. It seemed more honest, somehow. His years on the Hellmouth had taught him that looking down was far wiser than keeping an eye on the heavens, so he'd forgotten how lovely the stars in the night sky could be. Danger didn't come from the sky.

Well.

There was that once, but it was an exception to the rule. The lower beings were called "lower" for a reason, and it was the same reason the Initiative had come up with that absurd name for them. Hostile sub-terrestrials indeed. He allowed himself a very small smirk, then immediately felt guilty. No matter how much he loathed Maggie Walsh and her misguided efforts — and make no mistake, he still did — she hadn't deserved to die the way she did or be zombified the way she was.

He shook off his gloomy thoughts when he heard the door chime. "Come in," he called, triggering the door to open.

Spike walked in, last night's upset apparently forgotten. "Buffy's on her way. Got a new outfit from the bleedin' replicator, but couldn't stand it. Now she's got to get somethin' else."

With a wry expression, Giles asked, "Are you certain you wish to stand by your assertion that she's on her way?"

Spike opened his mouth to answer, then shut it again to consider the question before him. He took a deeper than strictly necessary breath and said, "You're right. We'll be lucky if we see her before the end of the day. Whenever the hell that might be."

"Agreed. Have a seat," Giles said, gesturing to a chair at the table. Books and papers were spread across the top. Before he left Sunnydale for this odd universe, he chose most of them for potential usefulness rather than a certainty that they were actually needed. He held up a book and said, "This is the first volume of a two-volume set. Buffy has the other book."

"Yeah. She was readin' it when I got back last night," he answered, reaching out to take the book from Giles. He opened the cover to look for a publication date and saw that it was either first or second edition. Whichever it was, "Gotta be a headache for you, readin' this. How many spellin' changes are there in the same paragraph?"

His eyebrows went up slightly in surprise, and Giles answered, "Not as many as I would have expected. Both volumes are remarkably easy to read."

"So what's in here, anyway? New and excitin' ways for the world to end?"

Giles shook his head and answered, "No. That's m-more or less what I expected, but no. Instead, there's a promise of fealty to the Slayer if she defeats the great evil that terrorizes the Kamalfitin."

"You're jokin'," he said, a look of disbelief on his face as he examined the Watcher for signs of humor. When he didn't find them, he said, "What makes you think Picard'll take us to see them?"

"You know what true prophecy is like. Try to evade it, and you end up with Fate rubbing your nose in it. If this," he said, tapping on the volume Spike still held, "is true, and I think it is, we will be on our way to the Molvedane world in fairly short order."

"Why should —" Spike was interrupted by the door chime.

Expecting Buffy, Giles called out, "Come in!" Both he and Spike were surprised to see Picard stalk in, anger radiating from him in waves.

"You!" Picard pointed at Giles. "What have you done?"

"I-I'm not sure wh-what you mean, Captain," Giles said in a placating voice. It was the same voice he used to use whenever Joyce needed to vent and laid into him over Buffy's calling.

"I've just received a transmission from Admiral Hemberson. Do you know who Admiral Hemberson is?" He would have answered in the negative, but stopped himself in time. Five years with the Scooby Gang eroded his mental capacity sufficiently to make it somewhat difficult for him to recognize a rhetorical question when he heard one. Instead, he waited for the other man to get to the point.

"Admiral Hemberson is Starfleet's liaison to the Federation in matters of developing trade relations with non-allied worlds," Picard said. "Would you like to know why he contacted Enterprise?"

When it was clear that Picard was waiting for a response, Giles offered a tentative, "Well, yes. If you'd like to tell me, that is."

"He ordered me to go to Kamembry, homeworld of the Molvedane —"

"Called that one, Watcher. Remind me not to make any bets with you, right?" Spike leaned back, amused by the look on Picard's face and by the way his heart raced and his blood pressure rose.

"What are you talking about, Spike?"

His voice was a low menace, but Picard just didn't have it in him to be as threatening as Giles. For one thing, Spike knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the captain would sooner talk him to death than raise a hand against him. Still, it was a valid question, and he wanted very much to remain on everyone's good side for the time being. He answered, "Just before you came in, we was talkin'. Rupes said if the prophecy was true, we'd be on our way to see the Molvedane, whether you liked it or not."

Picard turned to glare at Giles, who raised his hands, palms out, in apology. "I-I did try to warn you yesterday, Captain."

"I hope you're happy, then," he bit out. No one liked to hear, "I told you so." He turned to leave when Giles stopped him cold.

"Um, Captain. N-now that the proof is in the pudding, I wonder if I might have the services of Mr. Data, given that I found reference to him in v-volume one." Giles didn't look at Picard when he spoke. It was all he could do not to cringe when he felt the other man's eyes boring into his back. Instead, he focused on Spike, whose face could be quite animated when his interest was engaged.

"What do you mean?" Picard's voice, low and silky, still couldn't match the menace of Ripper on the prowl. Spike felt a bit sorry for him.

"Erm — Mr. Data. He's mentioned as a golden-eyed warrior," Giles said.

"Oi! I'm a golden-eyed warrior, ain't I?" Spike felt offended that Giles was overlooking him.

"There are two mentioned. You're one of them," he answered, even as he waited for an explosion behind him.

"Show me."

"Spike, it's page 42," Giles said as he indicated that he should hold the book up for the captain. He added, "Second stanza, line five, if I recall correctly."

Giles risked a glance at Picard's face. It was red, and he looked as if he were about to spit fire, but he didn't look homicidal. Yet. In for a penny, in for a pound, Giles thought to himself before saying, "A-and I wonder, is there any chance one of your people might be able to serve as a sparring partner for Buffy? She needs to practice with a sword, but Dr. Crusher has forbidden me from training until she's certain my — injuries — are healed."

Spike gave him a sharp look, but Giles ignored it, waiting for Picard's response. Five minutes passed before it came.

"I will release Commander Data to work with you, but on the understanding that he reports your findings to me on a daily basis. As for the other, she can use the holodeck programs," Picard said.

"No, she can't," Spike answered. Giles shot a questioning look at him, and Spike continued, "They aren't real. They're too predictable and she gets sloppy with them. She needs a live partner."

"Then you work with her," Picard said.

"I'm dead, remember?" He grinned at Picard and added, "Anyway, I never learned how to use a sword. And if Watcher's off the clock due to medical reasons which he will explain, her skills will go to hell in a handbasket," he said.

He said to Giles, "Didn't you say she'd have to fight to win their fealty?" At Giles' nod of agreement, Spike looked at Picard again and said, "She needs a real person to work with, if she's to have any hope in hell of survivin' this."

~*~*~

Some 270 years earlier, a group of would-be colonists with a shared Scottish ancestry and a love for Highland athletics asked for and received permission to claim a new world for themselves. Almost ten thousand people made the journey over a period of six years, and then suddenly, the migration stopped. The colonists were cut off from Earth and her resources abruptly and without explanation. To make matters worse, the planet itself seemed to conspire with the universe against them surviving, let alone thriving.

Famine and plague decimated the population, leaving the survivors — the strongest-willed among all the original colonists — to make certain creative decisions regarding their world's social order. The few biologists remaining pointed out in no uncertain terms that they didn't have enough fertile women left to support a policy of monogamy and to rebuild a genetically diverse pool of humanity. Polygamy was adopted with a vengeance. Each woman took from four to six men as husbands, and each was obliged to produce at least one child from each of her husbands.

The system worked well, and within a span of a single century, the colony was on its way to becoming the success its founders imagined. Monogamy never did come back into style, though. The plural marriages that had developed out of necessity turned out to provide the best chance for children to survive to adulthood on a hostile planet.

When the Federation rediscovered the colony some thirty years before Spike and Buffy's unannounced arrival, they found a society whose interrelationships were, at best, tangled, murky and confusing to outsiders. Social scientists also found that the people of Glenmorangie (named for founder Alex Campbell's favorite distillery on Earth) were loud, friendly, boisterous and unfailingly crude. Taken as a whole or individually, Glenmorangians were a shock to Federation sensibilities.

Still, the colony had much to offer, should it be so inclined. It took seventeen years and several bribes of access to education and new technology to convince the Glenmorangie colony to join the Federation. Within three years, the world sent its first child to join Starfleet. If she did well, they would consider sending others. By anyone's standard, Lieutenant Meg Burns had done well. She graduated in the top ten percent of her class and served rotations on two other vessels before earning her current assignment to the pride of the fleet, Enterprise.

Meg specialized in programming with an emphasis on communication systems. The day after Giles sent Picard's worldview into a tailspin, two things happened to Meg. The first was quite exciting. Commander Riker asked if she would like to test as a sparring partner for the woman who had come through the interdimensional portal. Meg was one of only a handful of people on board who had experience with anything other than an epee, and she was a top-level champion in her weight and weapon class. She was looking forward to crossing blades with the woman who'd made mincemeat of Lieutenant Worf's hand-to-hand fighting skills.

The second was an argument she had with DB — Data's Bastard — over a series of errors in the universal translator. DB was a diagnostic routine with delusions of sentience, though for all Meg or anyone else knew, the software truly was sentient. Commander Data wrote it using code he learned when he was working to disengage Captain Picard from the Borg Collective. Combined with lines of code from his own programming, the result was a piece of software with Federation ethics and Borg tactics. DB kept trying to assimilate lines of code from systems throughout the ship, piously insisting that it was only to help protect the lifeforms aboard her. Data had to periodically and forcefully restrain and retrain the code. If it hadn't been so thoroughly useful (and right all the time), Picard would have ordered it wiped from Enterprise's systems long ago.

"Lieutenant Burns, your insistence on further proof is as pointless as it is time-consuming," DB said.

She rolled her eyes for the fifth time and answered, "Selek is shift commander, you daft bastard. You know full good and well he won't accept just your word for it." Exasperated, she added, "For god's sake, we've been through this enough times for you to know you have to show the sodding math."

DB attempted to sniff in disdain. It failed yet again to get the sound just right, so it said, "Fine. You can see the 'sodding math' on viewscreen three. And when you show Commander Selek the 'sodding math,' be sure to get permission for me to check the communication system. There are corresponding oddities."

She was too busy looking at the viewscreen to pay much attention to DB's use of the word "me" or to wonder when it managed to learn sarcasm. She was also irritated over the fact that Data's Bastard was right once again — there was something very wrong with the translator.