(5/11/2017) That last chapter needs so much rewriting. Oh well. By the way, if you didn't get a notice about Chapter 33, jump backwards quick!

Thank you RHatch89, jkmp28, demon19027, and thedarkpokemaster for the reviews! And all of you favoriters and followers get BEES!

Sam heard sounds through a fog. There were sirens, the crackling of flames, the rush of water, sobbing. A man's voice saying… something. He had no idea what. There was a warm body in his arms, small fingers gripping his shirt. Moisture was soaking down to his skin. Buffy. It had to be Buffy.

That other voice was getting insistent, but the words were incomprehensible. Dully, Sam turned his head towards the bearded, grizzled face and narrowed his eyes in concentration. "Need… it… leg… on…" was all he could figure out. Never mind. It couldn't be important. Nothing could possibly be as important as the gaping hole in his chest where his brother had been. Best thing to do right now was to curl up with his sister and let the world pass them by.

Bobby gave up on Sam and turned his attention to Buffy. "Come on now, girl," he said, gentle but insistent. "Get on up and help me get your brother to those doctors there before he bleeds out."

"I can't," she sobbed. "I can't, I can't, I can't."

"Yes, you can." Bobby abandoned soft compassion for hard love. He grabbed the Slayer's arm, yanked her from Sam's embrace, and pulled her to her feet. "Look at me," he said, gripping her upper arms. When she refused, he shook the girl and barked, "Look at me!"

Angrily, Buffy jerked away. Before she could object to her mistreatment, Bobby continued speaking. "Hold this," he said, placing Ruby's knife in her hand. "Listen, Buffy, we don't got time. Sam's bleeding pretty good here. Might not be as bad as it looks, but better safe than sorry." The older hunter choked back his own grief. "We… We got plenty of time to mourn later."

Buffy managed a nod as she dashed away the remnants of her tears. She shoved the blade carelessly into a jacket pocket, knelt down, and, in a show of strength discordant to her size, hoisted her big brother to his feet. Bobby slid under Sam's other armpit and the three of them hobbled towards the fire and medical crew that had arrived.

A crowd of gawkers had gathered around, but the presence of emergency personnel kept them back. The exception was a terrified Joyce Summers who spotted her daughter and pushed her way towards them. "Oh my God," she gasped as the responders began cutting away the bottom of Sam's jeans. "What in the world happened?"

"Electrical short," Bobby supplied. "Ruby wasn't as careful maintaining the place as she should've."

"Thank goodness the three of you made it out alive. Where's Dean? Is he okay?"

"Dean… um," stammered Buffy.

"He was out," Bobby inserted. "At a bar."

Joyce sighed. "Well for once I'm happy that he was out getting drunk." She put a hand on her daughter's face and asked, concerned, "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." Buffy managed to dredge up a smile. "Go ahead and go home. I'll stay with Sam and make sure everything's all right."

Buffy's mother gave her a gentle smile in return. "You and the boys come sleep at my place, okay?" she told Bobby. "I'll make room."

"We'd be grateful, ma'am," he said.

"And let me know what they say about Sam as soon as possible," Joyce said to her daughter.

"I will," she replied. Joyce gave her a hug and another affirmation of her relief before walking away. Buffy watched the woman leave and wished she had the same comfortable blanket of ignorance regarding the night's events.

"I'm gonna go check on the others," Bobby said. He nodded towards the second ambulance.

"Okay." The elder hunter squeezed the girl's shoulder before heading off.

Buffy walked in the other direction to join her brother. When the EMT glanced up from his ministrations she explained her relationship to his patient and wondered about his status.

"He'll be fine," said the responder. "It looks worse than it is. Mostly just skin tears and such. I've got him stitched up but he'll need some medications for pain and to ward off infection. Was it some kind of dog?"

Buffy clamped down on a bout of maniacal laughter. "Some kind of dog, yes."

"Buffy?" Sam wondered groggily.

"I'm here," she said as she moved closer to his side.

"'M not goin' ambulance," he mumbled.

The EMT frowned. "You should really go to the hospital and get that checked out more thoroughly. There's a lot of nasty bacteria that hide in dog's mouths."

Sam lurched upwards, his tear-reddened eyes wide with misery and fury. He grabbed the other man's shirtfront. "I said: I'm not going."

Uncowed, the responder lifted his hands and shook his head. "Easy, man." He looked at Buffy after Sam had let go. "If he's not going to the hospital you need to watch him carefully. Any signs of fever you get him in a car and to the doctor."

"I will," she said.

The man retreated from his recalcitrant patient just as Sam's reserves petered out. He lay back onto the grass, his wrapped leg sticking out into the street, and stared blankly up at the sky. Exhausted by sorrow and physical pain, the hunter closed his eyes.

"Sam?" Buffy asked as she sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I need your help."

"With what?"

"We still need to stop Angel."

Sam gave a deep, quivering sigh. "You don't need me. You've got your friends and Bobby and your Watcher. I'm… I'm useless."

"That's not true."

"Yeah?" Sam pushed himself up and scowled at her. "Tell me one thing I can do that they can't. Bobby can shoot a gun. Giles can do research. Your friends can support you."

In a small voice, the Slayer said piteously, "You could be my brother."

The siblings both fought against another wave of grief. They hugged each other desperately, drawing strength from one another in order to wall away their despair until it was safe to let it go.

Abruptly, Bobby came hurrying back, his form backlit by the flames that were still being fought. "Guys, we got a problem."

Buffy and Sam separated and looked up at the elder hunter. "Another one?" Buffy said in a poor attempt at levity. "Is something wrong with one of my friends?"

"They're all right. Little banged up, but mostly nothin' a couple of bandages won't fix." Bobby adjusted his cap, his confusion evident. "It's your Watcher, girl. Rupert's missing."

Cordelia had snapped her leg after being pushed off the roof by a vampire (who was shortly thereafter dusted by Bobby) and hers was the most serious injury. Xander accompanied her in the ambulance to the hospital and contacted her parents. Willow called Oz (whose van had finally been resuscitated) who said that he'd be home in the next hour or so. Transportation was solved and injuries were managed. The problem now was to find Giles.

Buffy did a stealthy sweep around the area while her friends made casual inquiries to the emergency personnel. None of them had seen the man, nor did Buffy find signs of trouble. The lack of discovery brought a semblance of relief, but Giles' absence was becoming more and more worrisome.

Oz pulled up to the smoldering home just as they were gathering back together. He hopped out of his van and gave Willow a relieved hug. Pointedly, the laconic teenager made no mention of Dean's absence, though he glanced sideways at the man's tear-streaked siblings.

"Let's be thorough before we panic," Buffy said. "Oz, can you take Bobby and Willow to the school? See if he's at the library. Sam, we'll go to his house. You have the Impala's keys?"

Sam's breath caught, but he recovered quickly. He cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. I've got a copy."

"Good. Let's go."

Sam looked up at the blackened wreckage and then at Bobby. "What about…?"

"Son," the grizzled hunter said quietly.

Buffy grit her teeth and smacked her brother on the arm. "Hey! Focus!"

Sam gave his significantly shorter sister a lofty glower and limped his way towards the Impala. He jerked open the driver's side door and honked the horn. "Buttwipe," Buffy muttered as she went to join him.

Oz finally broached the subject he'd been avoiding. "Something happened to Dean, didn't it?"

Willow blinked back tears as Bobby nodded slowly. "We got other things to worry about now," the hunter replied. "We'll get to Dean… later. I actually need to be dealing with the police here, give 'em some misdirecting information before they find the… the bodies inside. You two'll be good headin' off by yourselves?"

"Yes, sir," Oz said calmly. After the man had gone a fair distance away, the boy turned towards his girlfriend and lifted his eyebrows.

Willow drew in a shaky sigh. "I'll tell you on the way."

Giles' place was, surprisingly, not empty.

The door was ajar, in itself already a signal of trouble, but over her brother's objections Buffy rushed inside crying her Watcher's name.

A short figure descended the staircase. "I don't think he's here," he said with a distinct Brooklyn accent.

Sam drew his handgun and pointed it up at the stranger. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Hands up, the intruder came into the scant light provided by the nearby street lamp. Both siblings stared, appalled, at the stranger's absurdly outdated clothing and his overall unprepossessing demeanor. "The name's Whistler," he said as he arrived on the landing.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy growled.

"Waiting for you."

"Why?"

Whistler shrugged and affected embarrassment. "'Cause I needed a date for the prom."

Beyond angry and frustrated with the night's events, Buffy surged forward and snatched the man's lapels. She shoved him up against the wall and declared, "I have had a really bad day, okay? If you have information worth hearing, then I am grateful for it. If you're going to crack jokes, then I'm going to pull out your ribcage and wear it as a hat."

"Hello to the imagery!" an alarmed Whistler exclaimed. "Nice."

"Buffy," Sam chastised. His sister released the man.

Whistler straightened his clothes then moved straight for the crystal decanter of whiskey Giles kept on his desk. "I didn't know it was going to go down like this. I figured this for Angel's big day. But I thought he was here to stop Acathla, not activate its big bad mojo. Then you two made with the smoochies, and he's a creep again. Now, what are you gonna do?" He poured himself a shot and lifted the glass. "What are you prepared to do?"

"Whatever I have to," Buffy said grimly.

Whistler downed the drink. "Maybe I should ask: what are you prepared to give up?"

"Are you kidding me?" The Slayer smacked the glass out of Whistler's hand. "I might have just lost my Watcher. I just lost my brother. Are you telling me I've got even more to lose? What are you, some immortal thingamajig sent down here to be a pain?"

"No, not really. Immortal, yes. I'm here to help."

"Help? Are you going to pick up a sword and help me fight?" When silence answered, Buffy proclaimed, "I thought so. Maybe you should be getting off your immortal ass once in a while and do more than make with the cryptic talk."

"Sorry. I… I got my orders, you know?"

Sam finally lowered his gun. "Are you going to help or not?"

Whistler sighed. "The ritual's keyed specifically to Angel. Those monks didn't think it'd be possible for someone like him to come along. Someone twice cursed, twice blessed, with the will to actually make it happen."

Buffy looked at Sam for a translation. "Twice cursed," her brother pondered. "You mean he's been turned into a killer twice." Whistler nodded. "Twice blessed. I suppose the first time was at some kind of baptism. The second…" The hunter thought for a moment. "We keep calling it a curse, but I suppose getting your soul cleansed is sort of a blessing. Like a purification."

"Bingo!" Whistler said and pointed two triumphant index fingers.

"So we get Angel away," Buffy surmised, "and Acathla stays closed."

"Yup."

"And if it opens?"

"Then we're all screwed."

"Great." With that, Buffy stomped out of Giles' home, her brother on her heels.

Sam limped gamely after his sister. "Slow down, Buffy," he urged. "We don't even know where Angel is."

"Then we better start looking," she snapped.

"I know where he is."

Sam immediately fired in the direction of the new voice, bark flying away as the bullet imbedded into a Japanese maple in front of Giles' home. The platinum blonde figure that peeked out from one side had a faint scar ripping up one cheek from where Dean had shot him in the face, but was otherwise noticeably, astonishingly, uninjured. It was a far cry from the pile of ashes they'd all assumed he'd turned into after being buried at St. Avellino's.

Spike smirked at Buffy. "Hello, cutie."

Whistler listened to the beginnings of the altercation and shook his head. He walked over to the carpet where his glass had landed and poured himself another drink.

He really, really, really wanted to say more, wanted to tell Buffy and Sam all that was said to be coming. They were children when all was said and done, undeserving of the nightmares that lay ahead. But the penalty of disobedience was harsh, and he had no intention of going through with that. The ones that had been reconditioned, some of them multiple times, were just never the same. And no one, not a single one, had ever broken themselves free.

Therefore Whistler would wait. And drink. And try not to think how being an obedient soldier was going to ruin a little girl's life.

Buffy yanked the vampire out into the open and threw him into her brother. Sam greeted him with a fist to the gut. Spike treated the hunter to a punch in the nose just as Buffy kicked him in the back. The vampire whirled around and got smacked in the face.

"Hey!" Spike shouted, throwing his hands up. He backed up away from the two siblings. "Bloody hell, white flag! I quit!"

"Let me clear this up for you," Buffy snarled. "We're mortal enemies? We don't get a 'time out'."

Spike's smirk returned. "You want to go a round, pet, I'll have a gay old time of it. You want to stop Angel we're gonna have to play this a bit differently."

"What are you talking about?" asked Sam.

"I'm talking about her ex. I'm talking about putting him in the bloody ground."

Sam snickered in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

Spike pulled a cigarette from his coat pocket and lit up. He leaned against the tree and said, "He's got her Watcher. Right now, he's probably torturing him."

"How do we know you're telling the truth?"

The vampire pulled out an iPhone and pressed the home button. Most of the screen was taken up by a selfie of Spike and Drusilla. However, off in the distance between them, as if coincidentally, was a chair-bound Giles. Angelus was leaning over him, one hand fisted into the Watcher's hair, the sadistic grin on the vampire's face a stark contrast to the furious defiance set on his victim.

"Longer we wait," Spike said as he pocketed his phone, "longer Angel has to play with the bloke."

Buffy was unconvinced. "What do you want exactly?"

"I told you. I want to save the world." The vampire then expounded on his attachment to the living, claiming that monsters who said they were going to destroy the world were just making with the "tough guy talk" and referred to people as "Happy Meals on legs."

Buffy listened with half an ear. Spike's claims were somewhat interesting, but the more intriguing development was the slow change her brother's face made from furious to confused. "Okay, fine," Sam said when Spike had finished. "But that's not the whole story."

The siblings looked expectantly at the vampire. Cursing under his breath, Spike tossed down the remnants of his cigarette and ground it under his boot. "I want Dru back. I want it like it was before he came back. The way she acts around him…"

"You're pathetic," Buffy spat.

Spike punched her. Buffy punched him back. Sam put the barrel of his gun in Spike's face.

Buffy continued berating the vampire. "Our brother is dead —"

"I wasn't told about that," Spike inserted.

"—And who knows who's next? The whole Earth may be sucked into Hell, and you want my help 'cause your girlfriend's a big ho?"

"She led those Hellhounds right to Dean," Sam added angrily, his voice rising. "If she hadn't—"

"Way I hear, mate, your dear big brother was slated for Hell no matter what." Spike turned his attention to the Slayer. "You don't know where Angelus is. I do. Either you agree or you spend the few hours left of your sodding lives on Earth searching the city block by block."

"Fine," Buffy acquiesced.

"But—" Sam objected.

"We don't have time," Buffy told her brother. "For all we know Giles could be dying."

Sam glowered at the smug vampire. "One sign you're messing with us and I'll dust you myself."

"Fair enough, mate."

"Let's head back towards your house," the hunter told his sister. "If anything we can jump inside and Bowie here can't follow."

"Leave the car," Buffy said. "If mom thinks that… that Dean's out then…" The girl closed her eyes for a moment and drew in a shuddering breath. "Can you walk all right?"

"I'll be fine."

Buffy looked from her brother to Spike. "Let's go."

Sam wasn't quite as fine as he claimed; they'd had to stop a few times so he could rest his leg. Each time Spike gazed about nervously, his hackles up. When Buffy demanded to know why, he refused to answer.

They walked up to Buffy's home just as her mother was pulling into the driveway. Joyce bounded out of her SUV and immediately cried, "Thank goodness you're all right! None of you came here after the firemen left and I got so worried." She checked herself when she noticed Spike. "Who is this man?"

Amused, the vampire asked, "What, your mum doesn't know?"

"Spike," Sam warned.

"Know what?" Joyce demanded.

Buffy was momentarily stymied. "That I'm in a band," she blurted out. "A-A-A rock band with Spike here."

"Right," Spike said in an attempt to facilitate the lie. "She plays the triangle—"

"Drums," Sam inserted.

"Drums, yeah. She's hell on the ol' skins you know."

There was no doubt Buffy's mother was unconvinced. She set her eyes on Sam. "Did you know about this?" Then, before he could answer, swiveled over to Spike. "And what do you do?"

"Well, I sing," he stated immediately.

Joyce frowned at her daughter. "Buffy, do you really expect me to believe—"

She cut off with a shriek as a vampire, face distorted, leapt for Spike. He stepped neatly out of the way, directly into the path of a woman with black eyes. She punched him hard enough to send him flying into Joyce's car. Glass shattered at the impact.

As Spike stumbled back to his feet, Sam smacked the other vampire in the eyes several times with his fist. Buffy drew a stake from her jacket and, after her brother had flipped the creature around, plunged it into the thing's heart. It crumbled to dust onto the driveway.

The demon looked warily at the three opponents now standing against her: a hunter, a vampire (as Spike was recovered and prepared to join the fray), and the Slayer. Buffy remembered the extra weight in her pocket and withdrew Ruby's knife.

"You wouldn't dare," the demon hissed.

"Try me," Buffy snarled.

After a moment's hesitation, the demon wrenched its host's mouth open and billowed out. The woman then collapsed onto the Summers' lawn. Spike walked over and placed two fingers on her neck. "Alive." He looked at Buffy. "Angel's bully-boys."

"Spying on you," she inferred.

"Demon's still out there," Sam cautioned.

Buffy, frustrated, started to head towards her front door… and belatedly remembered that her mother had stood there and witnessed the entire skirmish. Swallowing apprehensively, the Slayer turned towards her thunderstruck parent. "Buffy," said the woman, "what in the world is going on?"

Deeply apprehensive, Buffy approached her mother. She glanced at Sam for reassurance. He nodded encouragingly. Then, the thing she'd been wanting to tell her mother ever since that fateful day in Los Angeles dropped from her lips.

"Mom… I'm a Vampire Slayer."

Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episode "Becoming, Part II" (BtVS 2.22).