Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't pretend to.

Author's Notes: AU. Pre-Season 6.

The Only Reply

Even as I aid Willow and Tara's search for answers, my heart refuses to believe that any of this is true. Logically, I know that it is, it's just so hard to understand. Why did this happen to him? Xander is like my son. I love him in the same way that I love all of these children. As such, I am supposed to protect him, them, from dangers. How the Hell was I supposed to know the danger would come from his best friend?

Willow knew better. I should have known better than to let her read that book. I did, I simply wasn't thinking. This is all my fault. It is my fault that one of the most important persons in my life could be an inadvertent danger to the other loved ones in my life, in his life.

In some strange way, Spike has also wormed his way into our lives. I no longer worry that he will cause us harm, but that he will become harmed himself. Most horribly, I worry that in a fit of anger or passion, Xander will harm Spike. Not only would that scare all of us, but Xander may never forgive himself.

I can feel the fresh pain of the first night. I couldn't stand to watch Xander drink from that damnable mug, drink the blood that would sustain his body and mind. I walked away, up the stairs to my room, over to my bed. I wept for an hour. No one noticed, or no one brought it up.

Angel came up later, three hours after I had fallen onto my bed, to tell me what was going on. He informed me that Tara had been forced to take Willow home. He gave me the only information that did not make me want to kill myself, Xander was still Xander.

Of course, this message came with the warning that we should monitor the boy's behavior, but I paid little heed to that at the time. Xander hadn't changed. We still had him. Only after he was able to snap me out of my concentration on that thought was he able to ask the question of, "What happened, Giles?"

Angel left the next night, after spending the day with Spike and Xander. He had to explain everything to Xander. Spike couldn't hold himself together when he tried to discuss it. Angel has been back three times since.

I walk into my living room to see them all. Xander in Spike's favorite chair with the blond in his lap, looking at Buffy. Tara on the couch with Willow sitting in front of her on the floor. I can see her hands working Willow's shoulders, trying to relax them. Buffy is sitting in the other chair. She has her eyes focused on something. She has them on Spike. For a second I think I see her lips moving, but it must have just been my eyes playing tricks.

"Everyone knows why we're here, let's get on with it," I say. All of their eyes come rest on me, like I'm out of my mind. Some times I wonder if I'm not mad.

Buffy gives me a worried look. "What's going on?" She asks the question with such an air of innocence, I am forced to remember that she is not really an adult. She is not even twenty.

"I believe Tara may have found the solution to this situation." I make the statement, hoping that Tara will uncharacteristically take the initiative and tell everyone what she thinks. I send her a brief smile of encouragement.

"I- I- I think," she stutters out, "that we mi-might be able to write a spell." She hugs herself. Saying that must have taken much out of her. Willow is now rubbing her legs comfortingly.

Xander's eyes narrow onto Tara. "Spell? Isn't that how we got into this in the first place?" He has a right not to trust the idea. I don't pretend to even imagine how this situation might feel.

"Yeah, but this is a spell that we will be writing ourselves. It wouldn't be from a book and I'll understand this one completely. There's no way to mess this up." Willow says with nervous excitement. She knows the reason for this predicament is the spell she cast, that she didn't know how to translate completely. She was able to read and speak it, just not understand that 'unateem omreanme' meant 'from one to another of the correct proximity'.

The tension in Spike's body is probably something is not perceptible to most. I can see it by relying on my darker, more predatory side. Xander is the other person in the room that would know about it because it is impossible for someone with a person that rigid sitting in his lap to be comfortable.

Spike raises his head from Xander's shoulder and glances at the couple at the couch. Then he looks at me, his face expressionless. "What do you think. Is it possible?"

I take my glasses off. While cleaning them with my shirt, I direct my gaze to Buffy. She is trembling slightly. The strain of all this getting to her. I wish she hadn't just walked into all this, literally.

She had come back from a semi-vacation to the beach. A day to herself. On a split second decision, she stopped by my home before going to her own. She found Xander and Spike on the floor together, Xander with a 'gameface'. Angel had to restrain her for close to an hour. Not only had her shock frightened her, but she had frightened Xander so badly that his tears hadn't stopped flowing for quite a while afterward. I look around the room once more.

And Buffy enters my sight again. I don't try to fight it. She has been like a daughter to me, as much as Xander has been a son. She is still quivering. I just want to take her into my arms and comfort her, crush her close to me and promise nothing bad will ever happen again. I send the only reply to Xander's question that I can say without lying to everyone, but mainly my little girl, "I don't know."