Buffy stared out the window of the store, a growing look of horror on her face. "I did this, didn't I?" she whispered. "When I said the Nightmare Master could attack us at any time."
Willow laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "I don't think you could have had such an effect if he wasn't already planning this, Buffy."
"We don't know what influence I have here," Buffy insisted. "God, even the most casual comment could kill us all."
"You'll all die screaming, you know," a cold voice said conversationally from behind them.
Buffy whirled around, but the only person there was Spike, looking down casually at his feet. Her temper flared. "That is so not funny, Sp-" He raised his head to look at her, and his eyes were bottomless black liquid.
"Kyuumu are summoned. There is no escaping them," he continued, oblivious to her horror. At once, his face surged into its demonic form and he lunged at Willow, fangs bared.
"No!" Buffy shouted, diving to interpose herself and knock him backwards as Xander pulled Willow to safety. They faced off in the open area between shelves.
"William," she said softly, trying to find again the connection between them. "Come back to me - to us. Don't let him trap you in dreams." His only response was a cold laugh and another attack.
Grim-faced, Buffy countered with a sharp blow to his jaw with the heel of her hand that snapped his head back. She moved in and hooked one leg behind his and pushed him to the floor, where Xander helped her pin him. Whatever had possessed him didn't have his skill in a fight, but sheer strength still made him a danger to them all while it lasted.
"I knew that sending him after you was a bad idea," Xander puffed, breathless as he wrestled to maintain his hold on the struggling vampire. "He's going to get us all killed."
Buffy ignored him and spoke directly to Spike. "William, it's Buffy." She took his contorted face in her hands and looked deeply into his disturbing black eyes for any sign of the man who had fought through so many dreams at her side. "William!"
He only snarled and snapped at her. Regretfully, she let loose with a two-handed blow to the side of his head that knocked him unconscious. She and Xander dragged him up from the floor and into a nearby chair. After some rummaging, Dawn turned up a spool of packing twine, and Buffy and Xander bound Spike firmly.
Is it possible to have a nightmare in a nightmare? Wait . . . Buffy wiped sweat-damp hair out of her face and turned to Tara, who stood comforting Willow. "His amulet! It was broken in one of our dreams," she explained, turning Spike's hand as far as she could in his bonds so the damage could be seen. "Is there anything you can do to fix it?"
Tara nodded her understanding. "That would make him susceptible to the Nightmare Master's control. I'll see if we can find something." She and Willow began to scour the shelves for the necessary materials.
Spike regained consciousness in the chair some time later and began muttering foul imprecations and threats in a low voice.
"Buffy," Dawn pleaded, moving away from where she had been at his side. "Do something."
Not knowing how long it would take Willow and Tara to find supplies to repair the amulet, Buffy had to take a decidedly non-magical approach. She pulled a silk scarf from a display and proceeded to gag Spike securely. "I'm sorry," she murmured after tightening the cloth. "We'll get you back, I promise." She ran her fingers gently over his cheek and into his hair.
"Oh, I don't know," Xander said unkindly from where he had taken a seat on the couch in the middle of the store. "It seems to me that the true Spike's been revealed at last."
Buffy turned an angry glare his way. "Don't you start," she snapped. "Just . . . don't."
Xander threw his hands up in exasperation. "Am I the only one here that can still see 'evil dead guy'?" he asked plaintively. "Even if I have to admit that he's done some good for us, how can you want to be with him? Do you love him?"
"It's . . . it's complicated," Buffy stammered.
"How, exactly?" he demanded. "You love him or you don't, right?"
"He . . . loves me."
"Buffy, he's got no soul. How can he love you? He'll only hurt you in the end."
"Oh, and the people who do love me never hurt me at all," she retorted. "Dawn and I, we hurt each other all the time. Lacking a soul's no prerequisite." She got up from where she knelt at Spike's side and joined Xander on the couch. "Haven't there been times when you and Anya have torn at each other's hearts? As annoying as she can be sometimes, I've heard her voice when she talks about you. There's no one else she'd rather be with. She was a demon for a thousand years, yet you still love her."
Xander fidgeted uncomfortably on the couch. "But she's human now," he insisted. "It's not the same."
"So, it would be better if I were sleeping with someone human, then, like . . . Warren?" she inquired, her expression at odds with the lightness of her tone.
"Yes. No! That's not a fair comparison!" he exclaimed.
"Why not? He fits your criteria. He's human, and alive - so presumably has a soul, right?" She laughed darkly. "He should be just the ticket."
"Buffy, you don't understand," he began.
"No, Xander, it's you that doesn't understand," she interrupted. "All of you. You've been after me to get over it, to just snap out of being sorry that I was dragged out of heaven because you thought it was a good idea at the time. Not one of you has any idea of exactly how hard it is to be here. To wake up every day and face a world that's harsher and colder than where I was. I hurt. I hurt every minute of every day that I'm awake, because of you. Because you loved me."
She turned to look back at Spike, whose dark eyes had never left her as she had moved about the store. "Except that when I'm with Spike, I can forget a little. He can make me enjoy being alive again, for a while, and doesn't resort to cheerleader tactics." A hesitant smile crossed her lips as she looked at him.
"I haven't forgotten what he is or what he's done. Maybe it's just me being selfish, but I've decided to take what I need for a change. I admit that it rates pretty high on the Buffy irony meter that it takes a dead guy to make me feel alive again, yeah - but I never claimed to be normal."
Buffy sighed noisily as she turned back to face Xander, taking his reluctant hands in hers. "I love you guys - I do. I hope you know that - if only because we're all so hard on each other at times."
"We only wanted you to be happy, Buffy," he said softly.
"I know," she replied. "Can you deal with it if I say that right now, what it takes is being with him?"
"If it means you won't go around looking for any more towers to jump from, I guess I can deal." Xander said, drawing her into a warm embrace. "As long as you don't expect me to be crazy about the idea."
"Agreed," she said, returning his hug tightly enough to make his ribs creak.
"Good news, guys," Tara carolled suddenly from the loft. "I think I've found something that will repair Spike's amulet." She made her way quickly down the stairs.
Behind her, Willow began to re-shelve the books they had pulled out in their search. Several of the heavier tomes had fallen over, and she had to reach in with both hands to lift them back into position. Something cold and wet suddenly yielded under her fingers.
Willow's screams and Spike's muffled laughter fought for ascendancy in their ears.