Save the Last Dance for Me

By: Passion4Spike

Chapter 48: Oh, Dear Lord


Chapter Summary:

Buffy explains what's going on to Giles and the Scoobies, and asks for their help 'fixing' Spike. Some facts start clicking into place for Buffy. There is news regarding Warren.


"I need to know how to fix this!" Buffy demanded of her gathered friends and family the next day back in her living room in Sunnydale. Spike was safely chained up down in the basement where he couldn't hurt anyone if he suddenly went all 'grr-argh' again. She'd tried to get him to stay in her room, but he refused, insisting the basement would be safer.

"Why is he seeing and talking to people who aren't there, and how are they controlling him? I need to know what this thing in his brain is. Is it related or something fun and new waiting to jump out at me like a Jack-in-the-box from hell?" she continued, waving the printout she'd gotten from Sam.

"Maybe someone put a functioning brain in Spike's brain? That could only be an improvement," Xander suggested.

Buffy glared at him. "I don't know, Xan, why don't we give it a try with you?" she snarled vehemently.

Willow stood up from her seat on the couch, laughing nervously, always the peacemaker. "Whoa, okay … let's just take it one thing at a time," she suggested. "Buffy, you said Spike got his soul, but … you said he already had one, so … which is it?"

"He did," Buffy insisted, grinding the words like glass between her teeth. "He … he felt like he'd lost it, that it had died when I did, so he went and had some demon mojo it back to life. And now it's too bright, it's … too much."

"So, he had a tiny soul and now he has a big one?" Anya asked. "I'm not sure it works that way."

"Well, it does for Spike," Buffy insisted. "Or maybe … I don't know, maybe it wasn't a soul? I mean, what is a 'soul', really? I've never actually seen mine, but everyone assumes it's there, like everyone assumes Warren had one just cos he's human-ish – which I'm not so sure of – on either count," she argued. "Spike had light inside, it was fighting the demon, there was … humanity, a conscience – there was more than just the demon. I thought it was, like, part of his soul. I don't know," she sighed, rubbing at her eyes tiredly.

"Well, I say size definitely matters," Xander interjected, drawing raised brows from the ladies. "When it comes to souls," Xander added quickly, clearing his throat and shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Wouldn't a bigger soul be of the good?" he continued. "I mean, I say the bigger the soul the better when it comes to evil vampires. Maybe he won't misplace it so easily that way."

"Oh, you mean like if I die again and you decide to send him off to rip someone's guts out for you?" Buffy replied, seething. "Do it yourself next time, Xander. See how your soul likes it."

Buffy felt a pang of guilt as the words spilled from her mouth. Isn't that what she'd done? Used Spike to get information from Warren for her, so she wouldn't have to dirty her hands? Yes, he'd volunteered to do it – it had been his idea, his plan – but that didn't make her any less guilty of exactly what she was angry at Xander for. And she couldn't say that Warren didn't deserve what he got and more, either. Still, the way it all played out had her angry and lashing out at any target available, and Xander was a big, juicy bullseye.

Xander began to protest, but Giles stood up, taking over the peacemaker role from Willow. "Clearly, you feel what this demon has provided Spike is … inferior to what he had previously," he stated, looking at Buffy.

"I don't know … it's just … hurting him."

"I realize that, Buffy, but I'm relatively certain that is what souls do, particularly when inserted, full force, into William the Bloody," the Watcher pointed out. "I'm sure you've heard the term 'tortured soul'. I don't believe you'll find many 'jolly, happy souls' in poetry or literature."

"Except Frosty the Snowman," Dawn provided helpfully.

Giles looked at her in confusion. "I beg your pardon?"

Dawn sang the old, familiar tune from one of her favorite Christmas specials, "'Frosty the Snowman was a jolly, happy soul. With a corn-cob pipe and a button nose, and two eyes made out of coal.'"

"Indeed, well, be that as it may," Giles conceded, looking back at Buffy. "I don't believe vampires have the same catchy jingle."

"Yeah, well, you aren't the one who has to hold him and try to comfort him when he's sobbing, are you?" Buffy retorted, frowning.

"Thank heavens for small favors, no," Giles agreed. "But I'm not certain that there is any way to 'fix it', as you say."

"B-Buffy, how did you know about Spike's soul … or the light you say he had – b-before I mean?" Tara asked.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking at her friends, letting her eyes settle on Giles. 'You could never disappoint me,' he'd said. Well, she was about to test that theory.

"I … let him feed from me. When Riley shot him," she began.

"Oh, dear lord," Giles muttered, taking his glasses off and cleaning them vigorously. Her other friends were muttering too, but she pushed forward with her explanation.

"I needed him healed to fight the Suvolte with me!" she defended. "When he … when I … during that… connection, I somehow could see inside him. I could see his soul … well, what I think is part of his soul. I felt it, I … I felt the demon, too, but his soul was there, and I could touch it, heal it. It was a small flame, and I helped him build it up into a roaring fire."

"That's what got you high!" Dawn deduced, not overly concerned about the biting, just pleased with herself for putting that together.

Buffy shrugged. "Yeah, nothing works the same since I came back."

"Do you know how dangerous that is, Buffy!?" Xander questioned, wide-eyed. "Do you not remember the Dark Mast— I mean, Dracula?!"

"Not as well as you do, I bet, butt-monkey," Buffy scoffed at him. "I'm not under a thrall. It's nothing like that. Can we please concentrate on fixing Spike's soul and not on how I know about it?"

"N-no, wait a minute," Tara objected. "You said you could t-touch it? How do you touch a soul?"

"It manifested as … well, it …" Buffy hesitated. She didn't need Spike mocked for having a lark representing his soul, so she skipped that part and went directly to after it had Phoenixed itself into William. "It was him, only … more with the sweet and less with the Sichuan. It was William, before he was turned. He was in a cavern surrounded by darkness – the demon," she clarified, if it was unclear. "And he had a fire going, it started off really small, but it got larger over time. It was growing, slowly. It was pushing the darkness back and it wasn't hurting him like this one is."

"'Over time'?" Anya asked. "As in, you've seen it more than once – you've been bitten more than once."

"Oh, dear lord," Giles moaned again, sitting back down heavily in his chair.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Yes, as in, over time."

"So, it sounds like the demon that Spike made a deal with poured gas on the fire and now it's burning him?" Willow suggested. "So, maybe you could go in and … I don't know, douse it with Kool-Aid?"

Buffy sighed and took the one remaining empty seat in the living room. "Two things: I don't know how to douse it, I've only ever built it up. And, even if I figured that out and he agreed to bite me right now, which I'm not sure he would, Dawn's right – it messes me up.

"So far, it's been all happy-drunk, but even happy I've been known to sort of destroy things. Spike's the only one strong enough to stop me, and if I've been in there mucking around, I don't know if he'll be in any shape to do that. In fact, you could have two supernatural wacky-moles on your hands."

"That's 'Whack-a-Mole'," Xander corrected. "Only, in this case, I think we would be the moles and you would be the 'whack'."

"What if we could get you in without him biting you?" Willow suggested, looking at Tara. "I'm thinking the Goddess Hathor's Sacred Joining spell in the name of healing and tranquility."

Tara nodded thoughtfully. "W-With a blood oath, b-because of the vampire angle," she added, still nodding. "That s-should work, Buffy."

"If you could add a reveal element," Giles suggested. "Buffy may also be able to determine the nature of that anomaly in his brain and perhaps who or what is controlling him."

"Oh!" Willow exclaimed. "I know just the thing! Aparec—!"

Willow was interrupted by Tara clapping her hand over her lover's mouth. "D-Don't say that out loud," she advised, giving Willow a loving, but warning look.

"Right … sorry," Willow agreed when Tara removed her hand. "We've got it covered," she assured the group.

"Any suggestions on how to counteract what the demon did to him once I'm in there?" Buffy asked the room at large.

Everyone shook their heads, no ideas forthcoming.

"Sorry, Buffy," Willow said. "But I do have something else to share with the class," she admitted. "It might be related to Spike's seeing people who aren't there."

All eyes turned to her, interested.

"The other night, I … well, I might've seen Miss Calendar."

"Might've?" Buffy prodded.

"Well, it wasn't Miss Calendar, obviously, since: dead. But I was studying in the library and she just walked up out of the stacks and started talking to me. It was her, but not her," Willow continued. "I mean, she knew things that Miss Calendar knew, even things since she … died," Willow said tactfully, casting an apologetic gaze at Giles for opening old wounds. "But she said things that I knew she never would."

"Like what?" Buffy asked.

Willow huffed out a hesitant sigh, but Tara laid a supportive hand on the red witch's shoulder and Willow continued. "She told me that I should never do magic again, ever. That I'll end up killing … everyone," Willow admitted, looking down.

"When I said I wasn't sure I could do that, she suggested…" Willow cleared her throat and looked up at Buffy. "She said I should kill myself to keep that from happening, that is was the only way to keep you all safe."

"What?!" Buffy exclaimed, alarmed. "That's ridiculous, Will! You aren't even considering that, are you?"

"No! No, not at all!" Willow assured her hurriedly. "That's when I realized it wasn't her ghost, it was something else pretending to be her. I called her on it, and she said that this last year was gonna seem like a cakewalk after what she, or it, will put us through, and that it's not a fan of easy death. Then it turned inside out and just, 'POOF!' disappeared."

"Oh, that sounds about right," Buffy groaned, dropping her head into her hands. "Why do big-bads always have to tell us all the ways they're gonna torture us instead of just getting on with the torturing part of the program?"

"Uhh, I, for one, am all for the telling and less about the actual torturing," Xander interjected.

"Unless someone else is doing the torturing for you, apparently," Buffy muttered under her breath, her head still bowed, resting in her palm.

"It's because they feed on fear," Anya explained matter-of-factly, making Buffy look back up. "It makes them all tingly and deliriously happy. It's like one long, rapturous orgasm that makes the world fall away and drowns you in a dark chocolate river of complete and utter ecstasy soaked in marshmallow fluff," she explained dreamily.

Everyone looked at her, brows raised.

"Or … so I've heard," Anya added with a shrug.

Buffy cleared her throat. "Okay, anyone else have any unworldly visitors?"

Dawn raised her hand tentatively.

"Dawnie?" Buffy asked in alarm.

"I saw Mom," the girl explained hesitantly.

"Mom?" Buffy breathed softly, her heart constricting.

Dawn nodded, looking down. "She told me …" Dawn stopped, steeling her nerve before continuing. "She said that something big is here, and when things were really bad, that … you wouldn't choose me, that you wouldn't be with me, that you'd turn against me," the girl revealed, looking back up at her sister, tears shimmering in her eyes.

Buffy shook her head and moved swiftly to Dawn, kneeling in front of her and taking both of the younger girl's hands in hers. "Dawn, I love you more than life. Nothing would make me turn against you. You know that, don't you?"

"Spike did," Dawn whispered, barely audible, her eyes cast down into her lap.

"That was not Spike," Buffy assured her. "Spike would never turn against you or hurt you. Ever! That was not Mom. It was a demon trying to turn us against each other, don't you see? We can't let that happen!"

Dawn nodded slowly, a tear trickling down her cheek, still not looking at Buffy. "It looked and sounded just like Mom, only … glow-ier," she whispered.

"I know, honey, but it wasn't. I promise you," Buffy asserted, squeezing the younger girl's hands tightly. "Do you believe me?"

Dawn raised her gaze up to meet Buffy's and nodded again, sniffing back her tears.

Buffy stood up and addressed the room at large, facts clicking together in her head. "This is all sounding very déjà vu-y," she told the group. "Do you guys remember that Christmas when it snowed? When I was getting sucked into Angel's dreams?"

Giles, Xander, Willow, and Dawn nodded.

"I don't!" Anya piped up, raising her hand. "What kind of dreams were they? Orgasm dreams? Was there bondage involved?"

Xander grabbed her hand and put it down. "I'll tell you about it later," he promised.

"Wait a minute!" Anya continued, ignoring her husband, looking back at Buffy. "Can Angel lose his soul from a wet dream about you? Does pumping out nocturnal emissions all over his boxers make him 'perfectly happy'?"

Giles removed his glasses again and rubbed his eyes. "Oh, dear lord."

"H-he … doesn't wear boxers," Buffy informed her. "So, I'm gonna go with 'no' on that. But thank you for that visual."

"What does 'nocturnal emissions' mean? Like … farts?" Dawn asked.

Everyone turned incredulous looks on her, but no one spoke.

"Oh, that kind of… never mind," she said after a beat, her face flushing red.

"Can we get back to the point? The man from snowy Sunnydale? You guys remember it?" Buffy redirected the conversation.

"Yes, unfortunately, I recall it all too well," Giles admitted. "Angel came to me for help. After killing Jenny and torturing me, like we were old school chums or some such nonsense, he thought I would help him. It was all quite ludicrous, as I recall," the ex-Watcher provided, finally looking up at her. "What does that have to do with this?"

"He was being haunted. The ghosts were trying to get him to kill me. One of the people … or ghosts haunting him was Miss Calendar. She talked to me, too – I saw her. She said she was The First Evil. But it wasn't her, it was just the form it was taking. I saw its true form before it vanished. It was big and grr-argh scary."

She turned to Giles. "Do you think it's the same thing haunting Spike? Cos he's not seeing dead people, he's seeing Angel and me…" her voice trailed off, realization coming to her. "… and Angel is technically dead, and I was dead."

"S-So, it can be anyone who is dead or was dead at one t-time?" Tara asked.

Buffy sighed. "That seems to be the pattern so far. Giles? Does that sound right? Is that what's coming? The First Evil?"

Giles replaced his glasses and shook his head. "At that time, when Angel was haunted, we could find very little about The First Evil, as I recall. It is ancient, predates man and demons, and very powerful. It's not a physical being, it's not something you can fight, Buffy."

"No, but it had those crazy, eyeless monk guys. They bled well enough," she recalled.

"Indeed, well … perhaps," Giles agreed. "But if it is The First that is coming, I'm not certain that fighting its minions will be sufficient."

"Then find out how I fight it directly," Buffy suggested helpfully.

Giles shook his head, but said, "I'll see what further information I can acquire."

Buffy nodded, then addressed the group again. "Clearly, this demon, whether it is The First, or something else, has a fear of our allegiance, fear of Willow's magic, fear of me and Dawn, and our bond. It's trying to drive us apart. We can't let that happen!" she insisted.

"If anyone else gets any dead visitors, we all need to know. There are clues here based on who it's targeting and what it's saying that we need to follow," Buffy surmised, drawing nods from the group. "It tried to get Angel to kill me, and when that failed, it tried to get him to kill himself. I don't know if it'll do the same to Spike if he keeps missing the mark. It's manipulative and seems to know our weaknesses and how to exploit them."

Turning to Willow and Tara, she asked, "Can you work on that spell for Spike, and let me know when it's ready to go? I want to do that sooner rather than later, see if I can confirm or deny evil déjà vu mojo."

The two witches nodded and the group slowly disbursed, leaving Giles and Buffy alone.

"One other thing, Giles," she began. "I've had dreams of girls being attacked, killed. I think they must be … Slayers-in-waiting? 'From beneath you it devours,' is what the last one said in the dream. Spike said that to me, too. Do you know anything about the girls, or what that means? Or can you check on it with the Council?"

Giles' brows raised. "I have no knowledge of Potentials being targeted or what that may mean," he began. "But I will check into it immediately."

Buffy nodded. "This is going to be bad," she told him. "I can feel it getting closer."

Giles' expression turned even more grave. "Indeed."

Before they could discuss more, Willow returned to the room and flipped on the TV, changing the channel to the news. "You need to see this, Buffy," she told them, turning the volume up.

"We've received more details about the inmate who was discovered dead in the infirmary at Hilltop State Prison last week," the television anchorman reported as a mugshot of a dark-haired man was displayed on the screen. "He has been identified as Warren Mears. The Sunnydale native attended one semester at Sunnydale High before attending the prestigious Technical and Engineering Institute in Dutton. Mr. Mears was awaiting trial on attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and grand theft among other, lesser, charges. Investigators have not released further details regarding cause of death, but have confirmed that foul play is suspected …"

Buffy seemed to turn to stone, all expression draining from her features as she crossed her arms over her chest protectively. "Can't say I'm broken up about that," she droned flatly, staring with unseeing eyes at the TV screen.

Willow shook her head. "I thought maybe relieved? I mean, what if he got off on a technicality, o-or got parole later … or just escaped? At least now you don't have to ever worry about him again."

Buffy nodded stoically. "About time we had some good news for a change," she agreed, her voice dripping with icy vengeance.

"Buffy, surely you don't mean that," Giles rebuked. "I understand how you feel, but…"

"Have you ever been shot to death, Giles?" Buffy asked sharply, turning her steely gaze on him.

Giles removed his glasses and began to clean them as he spoke. "Well, errr, no, not that I recall."

"Then don't tell me you understand how I feel. You're gonna tell me that guy is a human and I should have some kind of compassion for him. Well, I call 'bullshit'. He was a monster! In fact, he was more of a monster than some of the monsters I've slain. No way I'm feeling bad about him being eradicated from the face of the Earth."

Giles replaced his glasses, looking abashed. "I see. Yes, well, then … I'm certain you are correct."

Buffy rolled her eyes and grabbed the paper and pen that sat next to the phone. "Could you just write that out for me, and sign and date it?"

Giles gave his Slayer a feeble smile. "I seem to have forgotten what it was I said," he said in mock sincerity. "I'm sure you know that happens frequently in the aged and infirm."


**END NOTES**

Next: In an unusual turn of events, Buffy and Giles separately give Spike advice on love, each in quite different ways. Buffy fulfills her destiny as her sister's guardian by ruining Dawn's life.

Song Referenced : Frosty the Snowman

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.

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