"What…?" Buffy asked.

He looked the same as he ever did, white hair, black trench coat, leather. In the darkness of her room she could almost pretend they were back to the time when they'd groped each other furtively, desperately hoping that no one would see.

"Haven't changed, have you Slayer?" he said. "Still stirring up trouble."

Although he flicked the lighter several more times, Buffy noticed that he didn't light a cigarette. His scent was all wrong too; in the past he'd always smelled of leather and cigarettes. Now he didn't smell like anything at all.

"Computer," she said. "End program."

The now familiar grid of the holodeck appeared around her, Sunnydale fading into the void. He remained however, although he was no longer in his leather coat, and his hair was no longer white. He wasn't even carrying his lighter.

He was wearing a red and black Starfleet uniform, with several pips decorating his collar. His hair was jet black and there was a look of infinite weariness in his eyes.

"Thought it'd be easier," he said. "You seeing me like I was."

"Spike," Buffy said. She couldn't believe how happy she was to see him.

"You look good," he said. His lips quirked a little into a hint of his old smile. "Guess a little beauty sleep can do wonders for a girl."

She took a halting step toward him, and then another. A moment later she was standing in front of him.

"You're really here," she said. She reached out to touch his chest and was startled when he grabbed her hand.

He stared at her for a long moment and then hugged her tightly.

Spike had never really been the hugging type, and Buffy was shocked into immobility for a moment before returning the hug. He sniffed her hair and then released her shortly afterward.

"Had to make sure you weren't some kind of clone, or the First come back or something."

"You look, pretty much the same," she said when he finally released her. "Except for the dye job and the poor fashion sense."

"Guess I've got you to thank for that," Spike said. "Killing the magic and all. Otherwise I'd be running around with hooves or horns or something weird."

Older vampires like the Master and Kakistos sometimes became increasingly inhuman as they grew older and stronger. Buffy suspected the same was true of Slayers, only they had never lived long enough for it to matter.

"You'd have stayed pretty another couple of hundred years at least," Buffy said.

"I'm five hundred years old," he said quietly. "The Master was already ugly at this age."

"The Master was always ugly," Buffy said.

Spike stepped back and looked around at the bare holodeck. "You want to find someplace to sit down? We've got a lot to catch up on."

"Getting old, Spike?" Buffy asked teasingly. She wished she hadn't when she saw the look in his eye.

"You have no idea."

"Are you sure you haven't seen him before," Commander Riker asked. "He looked familiar."

"There are large portions of his career that have been classified by Starfleet intelligence," Data said. "There does not seem to have been any time in his public career where he in the same stellar system as anyone in the senior staff."

"Perhaps you'll have more luck when you meet him yourself," Riker said.

"Are we certain that he's all right in there?" Captain Picard asked.

Leaving the new inquisitor in a room alone with Buffy without supervision had seemed foolhardy and unethical. She had a great deal of control, but the other Captain had been rude enough to test Captain Picard's patience. He'd tried to protest, but had been summarily shut down.

Captain Picard tapped the communicator on his chest and said, "Captain Pratt, are you all right?"

The reply came instantly; the tone was curt. "I'm fine. Inform the Aurora that we are heading back to Earth."

Buffy had chosen the French café at night. Deserted, the city reminded her of the dream she'd had, but she didn't say anything about that. Instead, she stared at Spike.

He'd been different when he'd answered the hail from Captain Picard. His accent had changed from his familiar North London accent to more clipped and precise tones. He'd stood straighter and his entire demeanor had somehow changed. Gone was the swaggering street brawler she'd remembered, and in his place was a disciplined Starfleet captain.

"You aren't just faking," she said, amazed as she sat down on a chair on an outside patio. "You really did join Starfleet."

There were sounds of distant music and laughter, part of the general ambience that was far different from the France she remembered during the wars.

Spike sprawled out on the chair across from her, body language that looked out of place with the uniform, especially after Buffy had seen his temporary change just moments before.

"I've been in it more than once," he admitted. "Drop out after a few decades than start again. I've got friends in high places."

"What happened to Dawn?" Buffy asked. This was the one question that had been burning since the moment she'd realized he was real. Had Dawn been another victim of the war, her sister's blood part of the ocean that threatened to drown her sometimes when she slept?

"She died," he said, watching her closely.

Her throat closed up and she felt tears welling up.

"She died a real girl, surrounded by her kids and grandkids, and great-grandkids," Spike said. He sipped his drink. He'd had the computer replicate a cup of blood. Although Buffy doubted that was part of the usual replicator programming, Spike informed her otherwise. There were other species in the Federation with specialized feeding requirements.

"I was afraid," Buffy admitted. "Afraid she'd died in the war."

He looked at her for a long moment. "I made a promise to you…I'd protect her till the end of the world. I kept it."

Buffy blinked and looked away for a moment. He'd had three hundred years or so to deal with her death. For Buffy it had only been three.

"She had great grandkids?" Buffy asked.

"Seventeen generations," Spike said. "When people first started colonizing, they bred like rabbits. I've lost count, but I know there are at least a million people out there with Summers' blood."

"How?" she asked.

"The usual way," Spike replied. "She cried over Xander for a while, but she met someone while we were working in the Underground Railroad."

"After the wars I managed to keep her out of the poor camps, and she got a job with the UN as a translator. He had a good job too as a diplomat. I protected the family as long as I could, and I got them out before everything went to hell in the third world war."

He sipped his drink again.

"I protected her family on the way to Alpha Centauri, and I protected them again for as long as I could until there got to be too many of them."

"You didn't have to do that," Buffy said.

He glanced up at her, his expression unreadable. "Didn't do it for you, Slayer. These people were the closest thing I was ever going to have to family."

"What about the Key?" Buffy asked.

"It left when Dawn did," Spike said. "Floated out the window and into the sky. Last I saw of it, it was heading for the second star to the right."

Buffy stared at him for a long moment. "So she could still be out there somewhere."

"I keep an eye for any sightings in the Federation database," Spike admitted. "Haven't found anything yet. There's no way to know how much it would remember of being Dawn anyway."

"It was my sister once," Buffy said. "That's enough for me."

"It's strange that they'd send an Oberth class ship to rendezvous with us," Captain Picard said.

The ship was flying parallel to them. Tiny compared to the Enterprise, it was stubby as well, its nacelles almost parallel with the saucer section.

One hundred and twenty meters long with twelve decks, it was a class of ship that had been designed more than one hundred years earlier, even if the last of the ships had rolled off the line less than twenty years ago.

"They don't have much in the way of offensive or defensive weaponry," Commander Riker said. "And they only have a crew of eighty. There can't be a lot of room in there for prisoners."

"Is it not true that many of these ships have been retrofitted to civilian use?" Data asked.

"The older models, sure," Riker said.

"Then perhaps this is the sort of ship that could pose as a civilian vessel when necessary," Data said. "Which might allow Captain Pratt and his crew to pose as simple merchants or other guises."

"Their transponder clearly identifies them as Starfleet," Riker said.

Data shook his head. "If he works for Starfleet intelligence, that would be easily changed, along with the registry painted on the hull."

"There isn't a planet in the Federation that doesn't have at least some of her descendants on them," Spike said. His cup was empty now and he rubbed his thumb along its edge. "A hundred and fifty worlds and a thousand colonies."

"I'd imagine that would be a big job, watching over all of them."

"I decided a long time ago that the only way I'd be able to protect them was to protect the entire Federation," he said. He looked at her as though he was asking forgiveness.

"That's why you're a Captain,' Buffy said.

He hesitated. "Not exactly. Not like Picard anyway."

"What are you into?" Buffy asked. She'd sensed that something was wrong early in the conversation. "Why are you really here?"

"You think everything is really this pretty?" he asked, suddenly and inexplicably angry. "People just up and decided to give up war; lie down with the lambs and all that sodding rubbish?"

"I've been waiting to hear the down side," Buffy admitted. "These people seem too good to be true."

"They aren't," Spike said. For once he seemed sincere.

Buffy was silent for a moment. "That wasn't what I was expecting you to say."

"These people believe in the whole utopia bit down to their very bones," Spike said. "They aren't playing."

"But…?"

"Somebody's got to play the Morlocks to their Eloi," Spike said.

"Nobody is going to be eating them!" Buffy said, suddenly alarmed. "No eating!"

In the HG Well novel, the time travel had discovered a peaceful utopian world in the world above and cannibalistic beasts that did the work and ran the machinery in caverns below the surface. She'd been amazed at how close the description of Morlocks conformed to certain species of demons and she'd wondered if HG Wells had actually encountered some of them.

"Bloody pratt Archer is the only one could ever get you to crack a book," Spike muttered. "No. I mean somebody has to do all the dirty work so the people topside can go about their happy lives."

"I'm guessing that would be you," Buffy said.

"Yeah," he said. He stared at his cup for an uncomfortably long time.

"When you say you get your hands dirty..." Buffy said.

"I kill people," he said. He looked up at her and his lip twitched. "Usually they need killing. Sometimes I do other things. It's all for the greater good."

"Isn't that what people always say?"

"I get to make the decision," he said. "End of the day, it's all on me. They point me in the direction they want me to go, but I pull the trigger."

Buffy didn't like what she saw in his expression.

"So why are you here?"

He stared at the floor, and again he didn't speak. As the silence grew, the knot in Buffy's stomach grew.

"Spike?"

"They sent me here to kill you," he said, still unable to look her in the eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or Buffy. I don't even own the Morlocks or the Eloi, although I suspect those might be public domain by this time.