Thanks to buffyworld.com for their excellent transcripts of episodes, without which this story wouldn't have been possible.
School Harder
She ran through what seemed to be endless empty hallways, desperate to find and destroy the attackers, and abruptly came up behind Spike who had just sent his minions chasing Angel and Xander out one exit.
He paused and tilted his head slightly, in a gesture that seemed strangely familiar. "Fee, fi, fo, fum," he intoned. "I smell the blood of a nice . . . ripe . . . girl." Spike turned and confronted her, his face demonic and cold.
"Do we really need weapons for this?" she asked, challenging him.
"I just like them," he replied, running a hand suggestively down his chest to hook one thumb in his belt, cupping himself. "They make me feel all manly." He threw down the pole he was holding, and she did the same with her axe. Spike began to walk slowly towards her, taunting her. "The last Slayer I killed . . . she begged for her life."
She moved forward as well, never letting her eyes leave him, readying for an attack.
"You don't strike me as the begging kind," he said, as though this compliment could somehow take her off guard.
"You shouldn't have come here," she threatened, still moving towards him.
"No. I've messed up your doilies and stuff. But I just got so bored," he smirked. "I'll tell you what. As a personal favour, from me to you, I'll make it quick. It won't hurt a bit."
"No, Spike," she contradicted. "It's gonna hurt a lot," she said as she swung at his face.
He shook it off and countered with his own swing, but missed. She continued attacking, first with another successful blow to his face, then a sweeping low kick that he easily jumped over. She withdrew a few steps and tried a high kick, but he evaded this one as well. They moved in close again and exchanged a number of blows and parries. Her breath began to be more laboured.
Spike grabbed her by the waist and flung her to the floor. She rolled with it and quickly regained her feet, advancing on him again and going once more for his face. He swung wildly and she ducked under his arm. Her next sequence of blows landed four in succession: backhand left, roundhouse right, uppercut left and a body blow that would have broken ribs and knocked the wind out of a human opponent. Too bad she wasn't so lucky this time.
He grabbed her by one arm and spun her around face-first into the wall. She slid down it, not so much with a plan in mind as instinctively, and his next blow punched through the wall up to his elbow. While he was trapped, she followed up quickly with a spinning kick to his back.
"Now that hurt!" he yelled. Spike pulled his arm back out of the wall forcefully, bringing a section of wall stud with it. He swung it around into her face, sending her flying back onto the floor, stunned. He stood over her, poised to impale her. "But not as much as this will," he mocked, lifting the beam.
A sudden blow to the side of his head knocked him sprawling to the ground. She was shocked to see her mother standing over them, holding her discarded axe in her hands and preparing to swing at him again. "You get the hell away from my daughter!" she yelled.
Spike threw the beam aside and surged to his feet with a roar. With one hand, he seized the axe and flung it spinning and skidding down the hallway. The other hand clutched her mother by the hair, cruelly pulling back her head. Before she could even regain her feet, Spike's teeth had torn into her mother's throat. Blood sprayed out, splattering bright gore over all of them and pooling on the tiles.
"You're next, bitch," he growled, flinging her mother's limp form down at his feet.
"Mom!" she screamed, clutching desperately at her mother's body until Spike's rough hands jerked her away. "Mommy!" she choked in despair, feeling his fingers circling her neck.
"Mom--!" Buffy shouted, sitting up suddenly in bed. Her bedclothes and pyjamas were soaked, and she brought her hands to her face in sudden panic. The movement caused a glass to go tumbling to the floor, and she realized with immense relief that she must have knocked her water glass down onto herself from her bedside table. She could never tell her mom about this dream . . .
Buffy's breath hitched in her throat. Her mom couldn't hear about this dream. Her mom would never hear anything from her ever again. She was surprised at how fresh and sharp the pain was, almost a year later.
She climbed out of bed and retrieved the glass, setting it back on the table. Then she set to work stripping the soaked sheets from the bed and stuffing them into the laundry hamper to deal with later in the week. Even the mattress was damp, she noticed. Buffy went to the linen closet in the hallway and rummaged until she found herself a quilt to replace her wet blankets.
Back in her room, she tucked her feet up in the armchair and wrapped the quilt around herself, trying to get comfortable. "Oh mom," she whispered, tears squeezing from under her closed lids, "I miss you so much."
Morning seemed a hundred years away.