This one goes out to RKF22, Quindecim, RAGAnne, Caskett93, madcloisfan, tomieharley, Cloongarvin, and the guest reviewer.

I'm excited to be sharing this on my birthday, because it's one of the chapters I've had the most fun playing with and writing. Again, there's still tension coming. But just for a minute. Then some fluffy goodness. I promise!

Chapter 36

It took a week for Giles to find the spell he'd been talking about. Buffy had expected Spike to back out of it by the time that happened. He'd been twitchy all week, refused to even talk about it when Buffy brought it up. Now they were in Giles' magic shop. Willow had found this huge, pretty emerald in the inventory room, and Anya had gotten some kind of tea thing from an organic shop down the street.

"This can only end badly," Anya muttered, putting the tea bag in the mug of hot water next to the register.

"That's my girl," Xander said, smiling over at Buffy. "Always big with the morale boost."

"I'm serious," she insisted. "Memory spells are tricky, and Willow isn't a very good witch."

"I'm sure she'll do fine," Buffy said, playing with one of her hoop earrings. "At any rate, could you try not freaking Spike out when he gets here? We need some kind of advantage over Adam."

"Yeah. We haven't seen or heard from the shiny mastermind in a while. It's starting to wig me out," Xand said.

Willow and Tara walked in from the back room, Wills carrying the emerald with her and Tara the spell book.

"How're you feeling, Buffy?" Tara asked.

"Oh, you know. About to enter the mind of my previously mass murdering boyfriend. Peachy with a side of keen."

Tara squeezed Buffy's shoulder for a second. The front door of The Magic Box opened. Spike strolled inside, followed by Giles, who closed and locked the door behind him.

"Is everything prepared?" Giles asked. He held a huge bowl that looked like it was meant for salads, except it was filled with twigs and this brown paper bag. He set the bowl on the counter, picking up the bag and pulling a plastic container of blood out of it.

"How're you doin', Summers?" Spike whispered. He moved up to her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder and his arms around her waist.

"I'm fine. This'll work. I know it will." Buffy hoped he didn't catch how hard it was for her to breathe. She was pretty sure that this was the Screw it up and be vegetables for the rest of forever kind of deal. "How're you?"

"Happy this'll be over with in a minute."

Spike kissed her cheek, then moved toward the space Anya and Giles had cleared on the floor for them. Anya was currently putting out white candles in a circle. Giles added some stuff to the blood container, and Tara added something to the tea Anya had brewed.

Xander held his hand out. "Spike, you got a light?"

"Didn't know you'd picked up the habit, Harris."

Spike pulled the lighter from his coat pocket and tossed it to Xand. Then Spike shrugged off his coat and pitched it onto the table halfway across the room. Xander started lighting the candles as Giles and Tara whispered over the spell book. Willow approached Buffy, grabbing her hands. The pair of them locked eyes.

"This is going to help us beat him," Wills whispered. "We'll be chugging victory mocha lattes at the Espresso Pump before Adam even knows what hit him."

"Do you think..." Buffy glanced at Spike, pulling on her garnet necklace. He could hear her from this distance, but he was bickering with Xand about something. "I just don't want to ruin things, you know? If anything goes wrong." Buffy sighed. "And that makes me sound like a selfish fifteen-year-old."

"No it doesn't," Willow whispered back, glancing at Tara. "I get it. Tara didn't want to let me know she might be a demon. She was afraid she'd lose me, that she'd lose everything. But you know what Spike is." Willow smiled, wrinkling her nose just a little. "And when you love someone, it doesn't matter, does it? What they used to be?"

Buffy pulled Willow into a tight hug. "Thank you."

"Air. Need air," Wills gasped.

Buffy detached herself, cringing. "Sorry. Slayer hugs."

"Are you ready?" Giles called.

"Let's get this over with," Buffy said, moving toward Spike. The two of them stood, face-to-face, in the middle of the candle circle. Spike smiled at her and Buffy returned the favor.

"You'll want to lay down for this," Tara said, taking the emerald from the counter. "After you drink."

"Kinky," Spike said, raising his scarred eyebrow. Buffy giggled.

"Oh, ew. Every level of ew." Xander grimaced, pulling the blood from next to the register.

"I thought you said this wasn't an orgy spell," Anya protested, sitting over at the table.

"It's not," Giles grumbled, standing with the book just outside of the circle. Tara lit the branches in the bowl with Spike's lighter. "De réir an bhfianaise chuimhne," Giles chanted, "is féidir a fheiceáil sí. As a bhronntanas muid ag iarraidh treoir. Cumhachtaí Go Bí, cabhrú lenár chúis."

Tara held the emerald to fire in the bowl, the entire crystal turning from green to white slowly. "Lig di a fheiceáil," she chanted, "lig di a fheiceáil, lig di a fheiceáil." She placed the crystal next to one of the candles. Xander handed Spike the blood, and Wills handed Buffy the tea. Buffy grimaced, eyeing her drink suspiciously. "It's gingko," Tara said. "Same as is in Spike's blood. Only... I added peppermint to yours, for the taste. And um, burba weed to yours, Spike. To, um... make it warm."

"Thanks ever so." Spike shrugged. "Well, Slayer, cheers." They touched containers, then choked down their drinks all in one go.

"Whoa."

Buffy was super dizzy all of a sudden. Everything had light around it, each thing a different color. Buffy held a hand over her eyes like she was blocking out the sun, looked to Spike. She could only see his outline, his form filled in with shadow. The pair of them moved slowly, laying down on the floor side-by-side. Buffy, whose vision was almost gone entirely now, reached out next to her. Spike's hand found hers and they clasped to one another as darkness took hold.

And then Buffy suddenly heard Spike's voice: "You were a Boy Scout?"

"Parts of me."

Buffy felt like she was spinning on ice, and just when she was about to topple over she saw Spike, sitting on a dingy old couch and smoking, Adam standing across from him.

"There's your—whatcha call it—variable. The Slayer's got pals. You want her evenin' the odds in a fight, you don't want her Slayerettes muckin' about."

"Take them away from her."

"There's a plan. She's workin' solo she won't have a chance to come after us when the wild rumpus begins. Plus it'll make her miserable, and I never get tired of that."

Buffy scoffed as they kept talking. She tried to remember Spike didn't have a soul then, but still. This was no good anyway. They needed something to defeat Adam, not the way he'd tried to beat the Scoobies. The room swirled into browns and greens and black. Buffy was watching Spike burst through a metal door after an oversized, hairy Bigfoot-looking demon.

When he snapped its neck, she turned to the other side of the room. Giles, Willow, and Xander were sitting in a circle on the floor, with lit candles and some kind of squash thing in the middle of them. They had out four cards. Buffy squinted, concentrating as hard as she could. She felt like her nose was about to bleed, but she could read the cards: Manus; Sophus; Animus; Spiritus.

She missed the conversation going on, felt like she was hearing it through water. Suddenly a door opposite of Spike burst open, and Buffy and Riley walked through. The memory Buffy walked up to Willow. As memory Buffy threw her arms around Willow and Willow started to speak, the world around Buffy started to swirl again. Buffy heard ringing in her ears, saw flashes that went too quick to process:

A grave.

A tower.

A huge cross, smoking.

A pair of hands on fire.

Lightning.

Sunlight in a cave.

An amulet.

A grave.

Spike's bloodied knuckles.

Buffy gasped as she looked at the ceiling of The Magic Box. She felt like she couldn't breathe, like she'd had one of her nightmares about being buried and waking up as a vampire. Spike clutched harder to her hand, sitting straight up next to her. She could hear others calling her name, but she was hyperventilating, and nothing could calm her. Her vision was consumed by Spike as he leaned over her. He reached down, placed his other hand on her cheek. She couldn't hear him, not really, but she could read his lips:

Breathe with me, love. That's it. He exaggerated pulling air in and out of his lungs through pursed lips. Buffy followed his lead until her hearing began to work again, and she could hear Giles somewhere nearby:

"Damn it. Tell me—is she alright?"

Buffy nodded once, then used the hand Spike still held in hers to pull herself into a sitting position.

"I'll get some water," Tara said, skittering off.

"You both alive over there?" Xander asked. "Well, as alive as when we kicked off the fun?"

Buffy faced Xand, mouth hanging open at the idea that he'd check up on Spike, too.

"We're fine, Harris."

"Did I wake up in bizarro world?" Buffy croaked. Tara handed her a glass.

"Buffy, what did you see?" Giles asked, coming around the circle to look at her.

"Um, cards and squash."

"That's... um..." Wills stood next to the register with a pen and paper.

Buffy held her eyes tightly shut, pressing her fingers to her forehead. "Manus. Sophus. Animus. Spiritus."

"Got it," Willow said as she scribbled them down.

"Hand, mind, heart, spirit. Anything else?" Giles pressed.

Buffy gulped down some water, then shook her head. "Nothing useful, no. Wait." Her eyes got wide. "That's why he keeps fighting us, but not killing us."

"What's that, Slayer?"

"He's looking for a weakness. He wants me in on the final battle stuff, but not overpowered. Last time, you gave him the idea of how to beat us. But now..."

"He hasn't quite caught up that the Scoobies keep you stronger." Spike chewed on his lip.

"And there was... You mentioned a wild rumpus? That you had to keep me busy or something?"

"Buggerin' hell, yeah." Spike shut his eyes tight, muttering something to himself. "The Initiative. He released the caged demons to have them n' the army boys duke it out. You keep the score more even, get more demon bits for the assembly line."

"So like he did when you guys broke me out of there?" Tara asked.

"Guess he tried to kick-start the rumpus early, yeah. But from what you all said there weren't many demons in there."

"I don't know about all that," Wills muttered.

"Trust me, last time there were more."

"Body parts again."

Buffy and Spike looked to Xand.

"Body parts. Remember our theory about why he made the whole town sick? He's still trying to make himself a factory. He's going to keep trying, any way he can. Doesn't matter if he has Spike or Warren or anyone else helping him."

"Well there's your Morbid Thought of the Day," Willow whispered.

"Technically, he's making himself a farm to bring product back to his factory."

Everyone looked to Anya, but she didn't seem to particularly notice.

"Willow, Tara," Giles said, "we should start consulting some of the texts in the shop and see what those cards are used for. We currently have the electricity spell and the paralyzing potion as well. Xander and Anya, see if you can find any entrances from the decoding Willow has already done. Or if Riley will talk to you at all. Buffy, Spike, use this time to rest, and then use the practice room as much as possible. I imagine you'll need as much training as you can manage before we face him."