--- Part Nine ---

---

She could see only that she should run.

Drusilla was frightened. So she ran, ankle deep in water, through the sewer tunnel. In her arm she cradled a glass bottle, in which she held the trembling butterfly, newly hatched. It fluttered and thrashed in its glass prison.

Her second sight was failing-- she couldn't see what was to come, not clearly. It was as if the future were converging, falling into itself-- collapsing into one focused point. She could see nothing beyond that moment.

But she could still run. The water splashed around her ankles in delicate sprays in her flight. The sound followed her, echoing off the stones.

She'd have to leave the girl. She didn't want to... but things were falling apart, that much she could feel in her bones. The girl was perfect... and would be able to help her... she could see the bright green energy that fell from her. She had eternal wisdom in her blood. But she would have to leave her all the same. She could find someone else that would love her.

"Where is she?" he said quietly, standing still behind her. She had been so caught up in her thoughts, in her desperation, she had not heard him approach. A wave of peace fell over her, and her angry mind quieted as she felt his presence at her back.

Drusilla paused. She opened the lid of her glass jar, and watched the fluttering creature escape up through the sewer grate and into the night air, its small form receding into the ghostly distance. She reached one hand out after it, and smiled softly.

It was allright.

Then she turned to look at him, standing gravely before her. She dropped the glass jar. It shattered, and the current carried the pieces swiftly away.

---

Willow walked up to Buffy's house quietly. She needed someone to talk to.

Sometimes, when she was alone, the silent hours pressed on her like a suffocating weight. Everything felt heavy, prolonged. Time compressed around her, choked her, and she could not struggle out of the despair. The only time she was at peace was in that room...

She had to make Buffy understand. She had to get in there.

She froze on the asphalt. The vines covered the house like a fairy-tale castle.

She walked up to the house, holding her breath. A freezing cold draft flowed from it, playing about her ankles as she walked across the porch.

It was all darkness inside, and silence. And as she looked around, her fingers going numb in the extreme cold, she grew certain of a bitter truth.

Tara was gone. Forever.

These flowers were the remenant of her passing.

And she had nothing here. The dull certainty went through her, and she was numb.

She picked up one of the now wilting roses from the ground as she walked away.

---

With the long strain of hours, Dawn felt disconnected from the pain in her shoulders. She didn't know how long she had been hanging there, bound at the wrists, suspended high in the stale air. The empty, negative space around her pressed close with shadows, and the solitude was overwhelming. She felt as if everything normal, warm, and safe in her life was a distant, far away dream.

The effort of pulling herself up on her restraints, so that she could take breath, was beginning to feel useless, futile.

She was keenly aware of the water dripping from a pipe on the other side of the burned out warehouse. Drip, drip, drip... she counted them, timed them until they stretched into infinity. It was the only sound.

She opened her eyes. Through the haze in front of them, she could see the blue gloom falling over indiscriminate shapes in the darkness. Windows, high near the ceiling, let pale moonlight through the soot encrusted panes. It was like she was looking through layers of gauze. In fact... she remembered that she was... she vaguely remembered being wound in them, being talked to and petted all the while... as she wriggled in place, shots of pain ran through her joints, and she felt the constricting silk bind her in like some strange mockery of a cocoon.

She was strung up high, high from a pipe running the length of the building. The chain and pulley hung from it, and the dull reality of them-- their strong construction, their clearly defined shapes seemed strangely out of place as she began to slide into another world. The simple sight inspired her, with its blunt reality, to pull up on her ropes, force her arms forward and up so she could take another breath.

But she was losing any sense of hope. Of course it would always be this way in the end. The heroes would always save you, in the nick of time-- except for the last time.

But still... because she couldn't quite let go, she breathed in again. Her shoulders burned agony with it.

And then, a noise. A desperate, loud noise from below. The boarded up doors quivered on the far wall, below her. She swallowed, hard.

She had come back, and it was time. The moments between the sounds of splintering wood stretched out in Dawn's mind, and her mind cast about, trying to focus on the details of the large, sparse room. As if that focus could hold her in the moment and protect her. The tense silence, the echoing attack on the door. The floor far below her, schorched and dirty. It seemed like the moment stretched into an eternity.

The noise tore through the empty space, overwhelming the silence. Its pace was fast and raging. And then the boards broke.

Dawn closed her eyes, sliding into reverie as she sank on her restraints.

The visions that filled her mind were of mountains and light, and birds calling in the wind.

---

Spike rushed through the shattered boards. The space smelled of ash and soot, petrol and death. Even now it stood like a hulk in the night. A rat ran across his shoe as he walked forward, with trepidation, looking for the lost girl.

He found her. She hung about twenty feet in the air, tied to a chain. She was surrounded in Drusilla's silk bed curtains, like a shroud. They wound tightly around her, and, in their creamy white volume, hung like an angel's train down into the dark air. They moved slightly in the cool drafts from the broken windows above. The motion swam and trailed in the shadows.

"Oh God..." he whispered, and ran to stand below her.

He threw himself to his knees on the soiled earth below her.

He worked the mechanism, lowered the chain on the pulley, bringing her slowly to the concrete floor. The fabric swirled and floated around her.

She sank silently onto the floor before him. Immediately his hands flew to her skull, catching her swiftly at the base of the neck, before her head could fall to the hard concrete.

"Dawn... Come on, Dawn..." he whispered, fervently unwinding the fabric from her limp body. Panic was beginning to seize him, and he tried to stay it, to keep from tearing wildly at the shroud. He peeled it away, the whole time holding her upright in his arm.

"Dawn... please... Dawnie..." he said, without realizing he'd never called her it before. His voice cracked as the his fear swelled beyond his ability to control the tone.

The soft veils fell from her face. She was pale. Her lips were washed of their color. For a moment, the dread certainty of her passing filled him... or worse. If she rose again, he swore he would not be alive to see it.

Her lower lip twitched in the darkness. In his panic, he had ignored the faint signs of life in her... she took a shallow breath, and stirred in his arms.

She opened her eyes halfway, as if it took all of her effort. She started a moment, and seemed to revive slightly as she saw who held her.

"Spike...?" she whispered, her voice hoarse and tired. Her eyes welled with tears as she began to come to herself. He could only nod.

"Spike..." she said again, tears running freely down her cheeks. She tried to put her weight on her arm, but winced as the pain coursed through her nerves. Her arm gave out beneath her, and he deftly caught her again.

And somehow, that one failed motion, that one little cry of pain, broke him. Everything poured out from him, the horror, the despair... all he had ever known and caused and endured.

He clutched her close, and she pressed against him, tears of relief and pain falling swiftly down her cheeks. He pressed his forehead against hers, his own tears uncontrollably passing through him in heavy sobs.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, looking at her and through her in the same moment.

"I'm sorry..." he said again, combinations of abstract images, memories, feelings filling his mind, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

He clutched her in his arms, as he desperately beseeched her with a sobbing voice.

"I'm sorry..." he repeated, losing all of himself in the words.

---