Thanks to buffyworld.com for their excellent transcripts of episodes, without which this story wouldn't have been possible.
Sacrifices
"Bloody hell!" Spike shouted, as his skin began to smoke in the strong daylight. He dove for the nearest deep shadows against a wall. Looking out from their safety, he swore again, feelingly. "Not the damn school again! What is it with you?"
Buffy joined him in the shade. "Hey, this place was a huge part of my life for three years. It's no wonder we end up here."
"How can you have nightmares about broad daylight? That sounds like it should be my nightmare - look at it, it's bloody dangerous."
In spite of what dangers might loom ahead of them, Buffy laughed. "Let's see if we can get you to the nearest sewer, then," she said. "I'll go find out what's happening, and I'll meet you . . ."
"My crypt," he decided. "Or where it will be, since it isn't mine yet if the school's still standing. Soonest you can get there, pet. I'll let you know if any interesting information turns up on the way."
She nodded, and moved to the street to lift the nearest manhole cover that accessed Sunnydale's extensive sewer system. Covering himself as best he could with his duster, Spike dashed for the street through the murderous sunlight, and dropped through the opening, only slightly scorched.
Replacing the cover, Buffy headed for the school doors for what she hoped would finally be the last time. It seemed in all respects to be a regular school day, so she moved purposefully towards the library as though an urgent research project awaited her. Not all that far from the truth, she thought.
Sure enough, when she reached the library she found Giles, Willow, Xander and Cordelia clustered around the table, which was littered with dozens of open volumes. Giles had just placed one in front of Xander. "Well, you should have better luck with this one. There's a whole section devoted to the Order of Taraka."
Buffy froze in place. A cascade of images threatened to overwhelm her: being attacked at the ice rink; the 'policewoman' using her for target practice; the bug man; Spike in the abandoned church where he would perform the ritual to heal Druscilla at the cost of Angel's life. She knew that in reality, Spike had been defeated and so badly injured that he'd been essentially harmless for months while it was Angel and Druscilla who terrorized everyone she loved. But all she could remember from the uncounted times she'd experienced this nightmare was seeing the lifeless bodies of her friends and her first love scattered about her while Spike and a restored Dru had gloated in their triumph. Buffy tried to narrow the focus of her thoughts to the truth of William - the man he had become - waiting to help her yet again.
It shook her to see Kendra, alive again in this dream, calmly sharpening a knife in Giles' office. She waved absentminded greeting to the others as she passed, and went to speak with the other Slayer, slipping easily into the flow of the dream for a while until she could find a way to communicate what she had learned to William.
"Your life is very different dan mine," Kendra said, seeing Buffy walk in.
"You mean the part where I occasionally have one?" she asked. "Yeah, I guess it is."
"De tings you do and have, I was taught, distract from my calling. Friends, school . . . even family," Kendra explained. "My parents, dey sent me to my Watcher when I was very young."
"I guess it just sounds very lonely," Buffy replied.
"Emotions are weakness, Buffy." Kendra said with a superior tone. "You shouldn't entertain dem."
Buffy could only think of the friendship and love she'd known - though sometimes from the most extraordinary people, she thought with a secret smile - and how much she would be reduced without them. "Kendra, my emotions give me power. They're total assets!" she insisted. Kendra wiped her sharpened blade free of metal fragments carefully. "Maybe for you," she said. "But I prefer to keep an even mind."
"Mmm. I guess that explains it."
"Explains what?" asked Kendra, suddenly curious.
Buffy answered playfully. "Oh, well, when we were fighting, uh, you're amazing! Your technique, it's flawless, it's, hmm, better than mine."
"I know," the other girl replied smugly.
Well, you have ego, at least. "Still, I would have kicked your butt in the end. And you know why? No imagination."
"Really? Ya tink so?" Kendra put down the rag she had been using on her knife and looked at Buffy intently.
"Oh, I know so. You're good, but power alone isn't enough. A good fighter needs to know how to improvise, to go with the flow. Uh-uh, seriously, don't get me wrong - you really do have potential."
"Potential? I could wipe de floor wit you right now!" she replied hotly.
Buffy looked her directly in the eye. "That would be anger you're feeling."
"What?" she asked, confused.
"You feel it, right? How the anger gives you fire? A Slayer needs that." You especially will need that if we're all going to survive the next few hours.
Xander interrupted her pep talk as he came into the office to retrieve a book. "Excuse me, ladies," he said. Kendra looked uncomfortably down at the floor, and Buffy remembered being told how little the other Slayer had been permitted to interact with others, particularly boys. "Nice knife," Xander added, and then left again.
"I'm not permitted to speak with boys," Kendra offered by way of explanation, not even needing to be asked.
"Unless you're pummelling them," Buffy replied. She suddenly realized how she could turn this sequence to her advantage and get away on her own. "Wait a minute."
"What?"
"That guy!" she said. "The sleazoid you nearly decked in the bar."
"You tink he might help us?"
"I tink we might make him!" Buffy said, cheerily mimicking the other girl's accent for a moment.
"Giles," Buffy leaned through the door to address the others. "I think I know where we can get some information about what Spike's planning and where he is right now."
"Take Kendra with you then," he said, "for safety's sake."
"I think Kendra should stay here, since she knows so much about the Order of Taraka," Buffy said, playing shamelessly on the other Slayer's sense of duty. "I can handle this bit of grunt work." Since I already know what's going to happen and am not going anywhere near Willy. Without giving anyone time to argue, she was quickly out the door and on her way to rendezvous with William to try and derail this nightmare before it went any further.
**********
Buffy found him investigating the crypt that he had made his home - would make his home in the future history of this memory? This dream syntax was impossible, she decided. At this point it was only bare stone, lacking all the comfortable touches he had added.
"You know," he said, sensing her entrance but not turning around, "I think I'll be glad to have the chance to redecorate when we get back. I was getting bored with the old look anyway."
When she didn't reply, he raised his eyes and took in her worried expression. "What is it this time, love?" he asked.
"It's you again," she said shortly. "Or rather, it's Spike," she amended, falling back into the nomenclature they'd worked out when faced with his dream double before. "Angel's been captured-"
"For the ritual of Du Lac," he completed for her. "So I could heal Dru." His face lost all expression and he leaned back against one of the frosted windows, hands clutching the stone sill by his sides. "I seem to have made quite the impression on you, to be featured in so many of your nightmares."
Buffy wasn't sure if he was regretful or bragging. "I told the others I was off to beat some information on your whereabouts out of Willy, but I have to get back quickly. You have to stop Spike from completing the ritual and killing Angel, and Kendra and I have to protect everyone from the Order of Taraka, or this time they all die."
Spike didn't move. "You're aware in this dream," he said slowly. "You know that it's not real. Why not just wait here until it's over?"
"It's real to me!" Buffy insisted. "I can't let it happen again."
"So what you're asking," he said, "is that I go attack myself, deceive and probably kill the woman I loved for a century - who made me everything I am - all to save the bastard who would try to steal her away from me in a few weeks. Who, incidentally, is nothing but a figment of your imagination and will vanish like the morning dew in only a few hours."
Put that way, Buffy found it difficult to argue. "It's Druscilla, isn't it?" she asked, thinking she understood. "You don't want to have to see her again."
"I didn't say I wouldn't," he replied, ignoring her question. "I know that letting the nightmare run unchanged will only make you weaker and it will be harder to get us out of here. I only want you to realize what you're asking me to do. For you.
"You know I'd kill for you. I'd die for you. But I'm damned if I know what it will take to get you to feel anything for me. Oh wait, that's right. I'm already damned," he said sarcastically.
She moved closer to him, bringing one hand hesitantly up to his cheek, while the other spread warmly on his chest. "William, please," she said, "I need your help. I know what I'm asking."
He pulled her hand back from his face and turned his head to the side. "You don't have to bribe me," he said harshly, "I'd have done it for you anyway." Spike let his gaze wander shamelessly over her. "But then, I'm not your precious Angel, either, all noble and self-sacrificing. If you're offering . . ." his voice trailed away as he pulled her fractionally closer.
"I didn't mean . . . it wasn't a bribe," she insisted. "I really don't know if we can change this nightmare; there are so many people in danger and so many ways it can still go wrong. I know that if I were on my own in this dream, unaware, I'd be terrified. I want to be with you," she said resolutely. "Now. Here. I do understand what I'm asking, and what I'm offering," she repeated. Part of her - a part that was getting smaller by the moment - cried out that giving herself to a demon was utterly wrong. But a much larger part now allowed the possibility of joy with this man who knew her so intimately in so many ways, all her hopes and fears. No one else had ever so easily slipped through her defences to find the person behind the myth of the Slayer.
"If you love me, William," she said softly, pressing into his embrace and pulling his arms around her. "Then love me." Her greedy mouth captured his, biting at his full lower lip.
He pulled back for a moment to look into her eyes, seeking confirmation of his hopes. "When we get back," he said. "We do this properly; with candles and wine and music and all. But for right here, right now . . . turn around," he whispered roughly in her ear.
She obeyed, and he turned both of them to face the window. His left hand deftly opened her pants and slipped under the taut elastic of her panties. His fingers plunged into her deeply, once, twice - burning with need at finding her already wet for him. Buffy moaned and pressed her hips back into his growing hardness.
Spike withdrew his fingers, tugged her pants down over her hips to her thighs and then reached back for his own zipper. One hand in the middle of her back pushed her to lean forward until her hands splayed against the translucent windowpanes. He nudged her legs further apart with one foot. Bringing his other arm around her waist, he thrust into her suddenly and powerfully. Their heated cries echoed together from the cold stone walls. For a while at least, their thoughts turned only about each other.
He moved slowly at first, but as his control frayed, he began to shudder and gasp for the breath he didn't need. Her hands streaked the glass as her body began to tremble with her impending climax. Approaching his own, he tightened his arms and drew her back against him, whispering hotly in her ear words meant for her alone - no other woman had wrung such admissions from him before. There was nothing of tenderness in what brought them together; it only served to satisfy a wild, driving need they both shared. But when her pounding heart and ragged breathing began to slow again, he drew her hair back from her temple and kissed her gently there.
Not a word passed between them as they drew their clothing back into order. Everything that needed to be said their faces and bodies spoke for them as they clung together, desperate for small solace in this nightmare, until they could no longer put off the inevitable. "Be careful," Buffy whispered, before kissing him goodbye.
"Where were you with that advice before I fell in love with the Slayer?" he asked wryly, and slipped out the door into the relative safety of twilight before she could reply.
Buffy made her way quickly back to the school, to lead the others to the abandoned church, but this time, she hoped, not to their deaths.
**********
Spike approached the factory warily, careful to keep from being seen by any of his minions on patrol. It was less difficult than he expected, and he sighed inwardly at the low quality of their service before slipping quietly inside.
He could hear Dru's mesmerizing tones and Angel's screams as she tortured him with holy water by their bed. Retrieving some handcuffs and other restraints, he lay in wait for his dream self to return. He didn't have to wait for long. Striking from behind, and with exact knowledge of his opponent's weaknesses, he overpowered his doppelganger and left him securely bound and hidden in such a way that he would neither escape nor be found for several hours at least. I hope I'm not being stupid by not killing him, but that's just a little too much like suicide. He took a deep, unnecessary, but steadying breath and entered the bedroom.
"That's it, then," he said, drawing Druscilla's attention away from the captive Angel tied at the foot of their bed. "Off to church." Even though this wasn't his nightmare, the words seemed to burn brightly in his memory, pulling him back into the past.
Druscilla stood as he entered. "It makes pretty colours," she said, indicating the livid burns on Angel's chest.
He replied with an annoyed puff of air. "I'll see him die soon enough. I've never been much for the pre-show," he said, reaching up to untie one of Angel's wrists. Druscilla put away the pitcher of holy water and retrieved Miss Edith from where she had been placed to watch the bloody show.
"Too bad," said Angel mockingly. "That's what Druscilla likes best, as I recall."
Spike could remember just how easily Angel had gotten under his skin by taunting him with his own former relationship with Dru. This time, however, he only played along, waiting. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked as he remembered asking before, moving to untie Angel's other wrist.
"Ask her. She knows what I mean," he replied.
Druscilla came up to stand behind him, and he turned his head to see her more clearly. He could still feel the lure that his dark goddess held for him, and struggled to remember the treachery and the betrayals that had torn them apart. "Well?" he asked, more harshly than he had intended.
Druscilla spoke to Angel from over his shoulder. "Shhh! Grrrruff! Bad dog," she teased.
Still looking to make him lose control, Angel answered her. "You should have let me talk to him, Dru. Sounds like your boy could use some pointers." He directed his next words back to Spike. "She likes to be teased."
Spike finished untying the other rope and threw it to the floor. Any moment now, he thought. I'll show you what I know about teasing. "Keep your hole shut!" he shouted, standing over his intended victim. Angel's superior attitude vanished suddenly. Spike could see in his face the exact moment that he detected Buffy's scent on his captor, and looked up in fear.
"What have you done with Buffy?" Angel cried, agony wringing out his words.
"You should really ask what haven't we done," Spike replied smugly, knowing that it wasn't the scent of Buffy's fear that Angel was detecting on him, but rather that of her desire - which would torment him even more. "There are such depths of dark need in her that you'd never have been able to satisfy her for long."
He grabbed Angel by the throat, lifted him to his feet and held him against the bedpost. "You two would never have had the fire we have," he said, delighted to be turning his memories of Angel's words against him. He would have continued his taunting, but Druscilla interrupted him.
"Spike, the moon is rising," she said. "It's time - unasareru." Her eyes darkened and her voice became low and rough. "Come walk with me in álmok világa."
Spike turned to her, puzzled. Her dark eyes were dizzying him with the intensity of her stare. Something - there was something he was supposed to be doing . . . We have to get to the church before the moon rises - for the ritual, of course. Beloved, you'll soon be strong again.
He could hardly contain his glee at finally having his enemy and rival at his mercy. "Too bad, Angelus. Looks like you go the hard way - along with the rest of this miserable town." He kept Angel held firmly against the bedpost as he and Druscilla engaged in a passionate kiss.
**********
Spike walked the main aisle of the church, swinging a burning incense censer. "Eligor. I name thee. Bringer of war, poisoners, pariahs, grand obscenity." He turned back to the altar, where he had strapped Angel and Druscilla together to a chain hanging from the ceiling. Angel's right hand had been tied to the chain above his head. He continued the chant.
"Eligor, wretched master of decay, bring your black medicine."
"Black medicine," Druscilla echoed from where she hung.
He set the censer down on the altar and picked up the Du Lac Cross with his gloved hand, holding it upside down. "Come. Restore your most impious, murderous child."
"Murderous child," Dru murmured.
He grasped the downward-pointing tip of the cross with his other hand and yanked down, pulling out a dagger. Spike then laid the rest of the cross back on the altar. "From the blood of the sire she is risen."
He raised Druscilla's left hand to Angel's and she clasped it tightly. "From the blood of the sire, she shall rise again," he intoned, and drew back his arm to strike.
"No!" Buffy screamed from the door of the church. Kendra took more direct action, firing a crossbow bolt that pierced his wrist, making him drop the cross and clutch his arm in agony. The rest of the Scooby gang spilled into the church behind them, spreading out to take on their foes.
"Patrice!" Spike yelled, calling for one of the Taraka assassins. She emerged from the shadows at the side of the church, drawing her gun. Kendra suddenly went into a series of flips ending in a kick that knocked Patrice down and sent the gun flying from her hands. She then ran immediately over to challenge Spike, who had just pulled the crossbow bolt through his wrist. Buffy met her there. "Who the hell is this?" Spike cried.
Kendra grabbed him by the shirt.
"It's your lucky day, Spike," Buffy said, but her voice seemed strangely choked with emotion.
"Two Slayers!" Kendra shouted, as her fist connected hard with his jaw.
"No waiting!" Buffy added, jabbing even harder to his stomach. He collapsed at her feet.
Buffy angrily brushed the tears from her eyes. Mourn for William later, she told herself sternly. First kill the bastards who killed him. Sudden movement caught her attention, and she whirled to face Patrice, who had armed herself again with blades from her wrist sheaths. She clutched at the assassin's arms and brought one knee up sharply into her stomach, then followed with a kick to the face that sent her stumbling back into the wall.
The various battles deteriorated into general chaos all around them, with her friends bravely challenging assassins and vampires at the risk of their lives. Behind Buffy, Spike got to his feet again to face Kendra's assault. He managed to duck her roundhouse kick, and punched her hard, knocking her down. Kendra scrambled to recover and defend herself, but Spike suddenly fell to his knees, clutching at his head and screaming in agony.
"Kendra! Switch!" Buffy called, moving swiftly to exchange places with the other Slayer.
She bent over and Kendra rolled over her back to face Patrice, immediately landing a punch and knocking her into the wall again. Buffy knelt in front of Spike. Spike wouldn't have the chip yet, so this has to be- "William," she breathed, nearly melting with relief that he hadn't been killed after all. Sure enough, there was the dream travel amulet on his hand, now pulsing raggedly with feeble light beneath a slick coating of blood from his wound. What happened here?
"Questions later," she muttered to herself, on seeing that he would recover. "First put an end to this." Buffy rolled across the floor in front of the altar and seized the dagger of the Du Lac Cross from where it had been dropped. Trapping the blade under one foot, she pulled up sharply on the hilt, snapping it in two. It flared with a sudden purple light, and then vanished from her hands. Around her everything became still. One by one both friend and foe vanished from the church, shimmering into indistinct blurs, all except for the bound pair at the altar.
Spike staggered up behind her, still holding one hand to his head. He reached for the chain where it was anchored, and let Angel and Druscilla down carefully to the floor. Unbinding them, he sat and drew Druscilla gently into his lap. "That was so very exciting," she whispered faintly. "Will I be better soon?" Her body suddenly shivered into dust in his arms, and he bent over with a low moan of pain. Angel vanished in the same instant, before Buffy could even get near him.
Buffy swallowed her own sorrow and came up behind him, laying a hand on one shoulder. "William," she said softly, "I know what you're feeling, but it's only a dream. She's not really dead."
He shook her hand from his shoulder angrily. "Leave off, Slayer," he said harshly, tears squeezing from behind his closed lids. "I've already turned my back on everything I am, for you. Dru . . . was the centre of my world for more than a hundred years. Dream or not, I'll always know I killed her." He rocked despondently over his empty hands. But he finally got back to his feet, brushing the dust of his past away.
"I only looked at her," he said, "and I was swallowed up in the dream. The Nightmare Master reached me through her, and I almost killed you. Some rescuer I turned out to be," he said cynically.
"I wouldn't have made it this far without your help," she insisted. "When you found me I was ready to die - I would have killed myself in one of my dreams if it had gone on much longer." She moved close to him and slipped one arm around his waist. He accepted her comfort this time, bringing his own arm around her and resting his cheek against her hair.
A hot gust of air suddenly swept through the church, stirring the debris into frenzied little dust devils. They both stared as one twisted column of dust grew thicker and darker in front of them, spinning into a vaguely man-like form with dark fires where the eyes should be. "König des Terrors," it said in a sibilant whisper, and "Seigneur des Rêves. Fear me."
Spike released Buffy and stepped forward with clenched fists. "I've had enough of you jerking my chain," he roared.
"Spike, no!" Buffy cautioned, her instincts telling her that this was exactly the wrong thing to do. But she was too late. Spike waded into the maelstrom of dust and was immediately seized and flung across the church, striking the wall hard and sliding down it to lie limply on the floor.
The room hazed as though seen through heat waves above a desert highway and everything faded to black.