2003

Spike was ready. He had cleaned the basement from floor to ceiling, left to right, and now there was nothing to keep him from opening that box. No more excuses. it was time to just...get it over with.

"So, Dru..." He whispered, slowly lifting the lid of the velvet box, "What have you got for me this time?"

Inside the box was a tiny scrap of parchment paper, brown around the edges, crackled and aged to a thinness that made it feel like the paper would turn to dust in his hands. He turned it over and found emerald ink that looked as if it had been written mere hours ago. He closed his eyes a moment and said a silent prayer? Wish? He wasn't sure. But when he opened his eyes, he didn't feel any safer.

Fæddur til nótt  af dimma taka þú fangi. This refsing á þú a veita.

Spike read the words in a soft whisper. He waited for a few seconds before white-hot pain shot through his chest.

2002

Los Angeles

"I just got an interesting phone call."

Cordelia looked up from the bassinette, tearing her attention away from Connor, "About a case? One that pays money?"

"No," Angel said, "Sorry. Actually, Faith's in Sunnydale. It was Buffy on the phone."

Cordelia dropped the stuffed lamb she'd been holding, "Faith's out of jail?"

"She's out on parole." Angel clarified, "It's safe."

The former May Queen stood angrily, "Safe? Angel, she is NOT a safe kind of gal. This is FAITH we're talking about."

"People change, Cordy." He said, a little irritated.

"In only two years?"

Angel sighed, "Anyway, Buffy's invited us to Sunnydale. She says something important is going on."

"In Sunnydale?" Wesley asked, coming in from his office.

"Yeah." Cordelia answered, "Faith's there. I doubt Buffy'll be alive by the end of the week."

"That's enough, Cordelia." Angel snapped, "Faith wanted to change and I feel that she had true intentions of getting help."

"From what? Serial Killers Anonymous? I'm sorry, Angel, but I'm not so trusting of her."

"We should go to Sunnydale." Wesley interupted, "If Buffy says there is something of importance happening."

The vampire and the seer looked at him.

"You want to see Faith?" Cordelia asked incredulously.

"Actually...I'd rather spend a month without water in the Sahara..."

"You don't have to go, Wes." Angel told him, "If it makes you uncomfortable."

"I'll go." He said, "But don't expect me to trust Faith. Ever."

2002

Sunnydale

Faith was asleep on the couch when Spike got home. It was after 3 am, and he wasn't surprised to find the house silent and dark. He tossed a blanket over the brunette Slayer before heading upstairs. He found Dawn's room quiet, then went quietly to the room he shared with Buffy.

"You're home." She whispered, and he smiled.

"Yeah. What're you doing awake?"

She yawned and lifted the covers, gesturing for him to join her, "Waiting for you. Faith took the news about the baby well."

Spike undressed and slid into bed next to her. "Did she?"

"Yeah. She's still in shock, I think."

"Hmm." He murmured, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling the scent of her shampoo. If someone had told him three years ago that he would eventually be engaged to the Slayer and curling up with her in bed, he's have laughed in their face. For over two years, it had been all he thought about, and now he had it in his grasp.

"Hey, Spike?"

"What is it, luv?"

"Angel's coming to Sunnydale at the end of the week."

Spike's eyes flew open, "WHAT?"

2003

Sunnydale

"Yes, but are they about me?"

Spike looked around the room. He knew this place. It was so far away, though. So far in his memories that the images were blurred around him. No...I'm not here. This isn't real. He looked to the small couch where a former version of himself sat beside a dark-haired beauty.

"Every syllable." William breathed.

"Oh, God!"

What was I thinking? She was...vapid, useless. She was nothing compared ot Buffy.

"Oh, I know... it's sudden and... please, if they're no good, they're only words but... the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily."

"Please stop!"

"I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man and all I ask is that... that you try to see me--"

"I do see you. That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me."

Why has Drusilla sent me here? WHAT'S THE FRIGGIN POINT, DRUSILLA? Spike screamed, but the aristocrats in the house didn't hear him. It was as if he wasn't even there.

Spike writhed on the basement floor, gasping for air. Another shot of pain zapped through him as more memories flashed behind his eyes.

"Oh, I see you. A man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength, his vision, his glory...That and burning baby fish swimming all around your head."

...

She started up the stairs, and Spike watched her as she climbed them slowly, as if she knew this was the last time she'd ever climb that staircase.

"I know you'll never love me." He blurted, suddenly.

Buffy paused halfway up the stairs, and turned back to look at Spike.

"I know that I'm a monster." He said sincerely, "But you treat me like a man. And that's..."

Buffy gazed at him, her eyes full of emotion he couldn't even read. Spike cleared his throat and shifted his weight.

"Get your stuff. I'll be here."

Memories. The most painful, heart-wrenching, terrible memories of Spike's long life and un-life. It was Dru's payback. Her punishment for Spike's betrayal to her and the vampire race by loving a Slayer.

Just before Spike passed out from the first round of memories and electrical shots of pain, he lifted his head from the concrete floor and whispered a name into the empty air.

"Buffy..."

Author's Noteà Rough translation of the curse:

Children born of darkness call to you from my hands. This punishment I bestow upon you. So it shall be.