"I just want to point out that I voted for flame-throwers," Xander said, shivering in the warm night air. Shivering because it was cold- for a hot August night- not because he was afraid of millions of swarming stinging mystical bees. Nope. Not him.

Buffy wrinkled her forehead and stared at the warehouse. It was coated in insects, their bodies black in the night. The hum of their millions of wings vibrated the hot air.

"It looks like Willow's plan worked. Most of them seem to have come home to mamma." Which meant Spike was right about the whole collective conscious thing. Damn smug vampire.

"Yay plan," Xander said unenthusiastically. "I want to go in with you. And how do we even know if the bugs will hatch at midnight?"

"Because everything supernatural happens at midnight," Anya shrugged. "It's tradition."

"Let's get this over with," Buffy said, hefting her duffel bag. The bug bombs inside rattled together. She turned to look at Xander, "The countdown is five minutes starting now. Remember to keep all your skin covered. Just do your thing-"

"And run away. I got it." He watched Buffy and Anya move hand and hand towards the warehouse, afraid of losing one another in the undulating mass.

Willow was at home, with her lone bug in its Mason jar, pretending to raise a Namiag demon. She had assured them she couldn't even levitate a pencil let alone call forth some sort of demon warrior from a hell dimension. "This bug will tell all the other little flying nasties about the threat, and they should swarm to protect their Queen," Willow had reasoned.

Looks like Will was right, Buffy thought. She hadn't worn the fencing mask, but now she wished she had. Every time she inhaled the wasps tried to crawl in her mouth or up her nose. The little bodies crushed up against her made her want to scream. No screaming, she ordered herself. She ripped a long piece of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and tied it around her face like a bandit.

Inside the main warehouse space Buffy and Anya split up, each following the wall in the opposite direction. Buffy pulled a bug bomb out of her bag, activated it and dropped it against the wall. Why didn't I think to bring a gasmask, she wondered. Something about slaying, what with the stakes and crossbows, made her forget that helpful technology had been invented after 1059 AD.

Outside Xander began to rub his head and arms with a thick white paste. No cool scarf and gauntlets for him this time, he had the privilege to wear only the finest in medieval baby food. For the first time the idea entered his head that maybe Willow had been lying to them. Maybe she wasn't better at all but had only been faking it until she had a chance to lure them into some horrible situation where she could leave them to die. That, Xander admitted as he rubbed the stinking substance into his neck, was not a happy thought.

Inside, Buffy wondered how she was going to get out of the warehouse. In her head she counted (one Mississippi; two Mississippi) as she set off the smoking bombs. Insecticide began her burn her eyes and lungs. Three minutes and Anya would do her thing. Hopefully she would meet up with the demon before then. Momma bug was out there somewhere in the swarm, invisible in the shifting throng. As she set off the bombs Buffy couldn't believe the wasps were not attacking her. Spike had said since she couldn't hurt the Queen the collective would not perceive her as a threat. He was right, and what was worse, she had believed him. She had trusted him with all their lives, which was in itself a betrayal. It didn't matter if it worked this time. As soon as Buffy trusted him Spike would lie at the most improbable moment and she would be dead. And now Willow really couldn't bring her back.

She and Anya met half way around the parameter of the warehouse. For a brief moment Buffy was so happy to feel the soft denim of Anya's jacket, happy to feel anything that wasn't hard and winged pressing against her body, that she almost forgot the searing pain of the poison burning her lungs and making her eyes water so hard she could barely see.

"Are we ready?" Anya shouted above the thrum of wings as though they were friends at an exceptionally loud dance club. The noise was worse than the hottest, most crowded night at the Bronze.

"Yes!" Buffy screamed back, hoping the demon could hear her. This was the part they had not thought through very well. Buffy wasn't sure she could get out in time. One minute thirty seconds remaining. Anya's arm disappeared from under her hand. It was time to go. Buffy stifled a coughing fit; her lungs were rebelling against the abuse. She could not even tell if the venomous gas was having any effect on the bugs. It sure as hell was having one on her. With one hand on the wall she tried to push her way through the blinding, moving throng, towards the door. Under her hand she felt the rough, uneven paneling of the warehouse and, occasionally, the sticky mass of something that used to be human.

I'm sorry, Buffy thought. I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to do.

Outside Xander was completely coated in the putrid substance Willow had mixed up for him. He had to wipe the stuff off the face of his watch to see the seconds tick by. As they closed in on the five-minute mark his stomach clenched. Where was Buffy? He looked up in time to see the warehouse explode in a rolling orange ball of fire and smoke. The building writhed with flames, cruel amber tongues licking the night sky, consuming the black dots vying for escape. Anya had done it then.

"No!" he screamed. "Wait!"

Where was Buffy? He couldn't see her in the sudden light. But there was something he was forgetting. He had a job. There was something he had to do. Where was Buffy? Had Anya gotten out in time? Was fire any danger to her now?

Bending down Xander opened the rough wooden box at his feet.

"Nepo Emases" he said, which seemed like too small a thing to do any good. Magic was big and complex, right? Then he felt the wind, hotter than the fire behind him, sucking all the escaping insects into the box, pulling at the small patches of skin his fingers had left exposed. Emanating from the box was a feeling, the smell of home. He wanted to climb in.

"Xander! Run!" Anya shouted.

He was so stupid, this man. Dragging Buffy away from the incinerated building she wondered why she had ever admired him. Well, he did have nice lips, but shouldn't there be more to it than that?

Obediently Xander did run away from the box, and down towards the flames. Buffy was leaning heavily against Anya, her clothes sooty and charred.

"Thank god you're both alright!" Xander said, propping up the Slayer's other side, smudging her with the pungent mixture.

"She didn't get out of the building in time," Anya said. "She had to break through the wall. It's lucky she's so strong."

Buffy was pretty sure being the Slayer could not be construed as luck.

"My hair was on fire. I think I'm going to have to get it cut," she complained.

Hard blue bodies rushed past them, wings crumpled in the mystical hurricane emanating from the box, fast at first and then slowly. When the breeze died the three friends moved towards the wooden container but the lid closed on its own as if sated. There was nothing left to hear but the crackling roar of the fire. All around them crisp, hot bodies fell through the air like rain.

________________________________________________________________



"Let's go for a ride," Buffy said in a hard voice that made the suggestion sound more like a demand. It was four o'clock in the morning the same night of the mass extermination. After three showers her hair still smelled like smoke and insecticide.

Spike looked up from the piles of yellow paper he was arranging on the surface of a tomb. Buffy was probably here to stake him for keeping the Bit out all night, or for having seen Dawn at all.

"Someone has to teach the kid to fight," he said defensively, even though he had promised himself he was not going to argue with her. Mass murderers and attempted rapists don't get visitation rights, Spike reminded himself.

Buffy fixed him with one of her patented looks of disdain.

"The Desoto. Now," she said.

Buffy didn't want to take the motorcycle, which would require her to hold onto him for balance, press her knees against the outside of his cold thighs. Way too much personal contact, no thank you. Spike looked momentarily uncertain, then he shrugged and snagged his keys off the television.

"Anyplace in particular?" Spike asked, pulling out of the cemetery. The windows of the old car were rolled down and the hot wind blew Buffy's hair in her face. She raked it back with her fingers. All she wanted was to go someplace safe, preferably far far away.

"Someplace without headstones," she called above the rushing air. "Someplace pretty." No more corrugated warehouses or crypts or ugly suburban homes. Spike nodded, reached to light a cigarette and then didn't.

Giving up on her hair Buffy let her head fall back on the seat and trailed her fingers out the window. As the Desoto sped recklessly through empty back roads Buffy realized where they were going. That would do just fine. She wanted to close her eyes and fall asleep to the steady, soothing rhythm of the car. This isn't a pleasure drive, Buffy reminded herself. You're here to talk shop.

"You can tell the Council the first portent has been taken care of."

Spike nodded, watching the headlights of the Desoto bounce erratically as he raced down the sharp, winding road. He was determinedly not looking at Buffy, not examining her long neck stretched against car's headrest, her eyes dim and tired. No, he was going to be a good little Watcher, buy himself a bloody tweed jacket with corduroy on the elbows, drink lots of weak tea and never think of passionate sex again. Right. That was the plan. And his plans always worked out so very well.

"I called the Council to let them know. It was quite a light show," he explained off her questioning look.

Which was true. That was how he had known the Host was destroyed. That and Tara had shown up in his crypt clapping her hands and giggling. Giggling, Spike shuttered at the memory. He had wanted to tell her to bugger off and leave him alone. Instead he watched the 1:00 am broadcast of The Maltese Falcon with her, two cold creatures together on the couch. He suspected she was lonely.

And what does William the Bloody care about a sad little ghost, Spike demanded of himself. He drove the Desoto right into the beach and slammed on the breaks, sending the car skidding and sand flying up around them. Buffy braced herself against the cracked dashboard, suddenly awake.

"Is this pretty enough for you, Slayer?" Spike asked getting out of the car.

It was, Buffy admitted to herself. Slamming the car door behind her she moved towards the wide, welcoming ocean. Spike followed her down towards the water, hands in his pockets.

Buffy stood on the edge of the ocean, breathing in its vast beauty, the steady sound of waves breaking and hissing against the sand, the taste of salt in the air. She wondered if Spike, with his night vision could see colors in the water and rocks. They walked aimlessly down the beach until they found a silvery log washed up on the shore. Sitting down on it Buffy immediately wished she hadn't as the dew soaked through her jeans. Spike dug the toe of his beat up boot into the sand and watched the moonlight skim and reflect off the water's moving surface.

Buffy was thinking about the men who had died in the fire, of all the people who she had not been able to save. Giles had told her once that she could not berate herself for doing her best. But now that she was not thinking so much of her own death Buffy found herself thinking of the deaths of others. Of Tara. What kind of hero couldn't even save her own friends? Buffy shook her head, banning the thought from her mind. That way lays madness, she told herself. Think of something else.

"Tell me about the soul," Buffy demanded. In a way she felt she had some proprietary right to it. He had gotten the soul for her, hadn't he? That entitled her to know.

Spike turned sharply and looked at her as though Buffy had just asked what gravity was.

"Didn't you already get a handle on this issue with Angel?" he asked darkly. Buffy winced.

"I want to know what it's like for you. Are you all good now? Does it hurt?" He could tell from her tone he wouldn't be disillusioning her much with the truth.

"No, I'm not all good. Souls don't have as much to do with goodness as you'd like to think. Look at Willow. Some power issues, sure, but good. Good people are still capable of doing terrible things," Spike drifted off, looking at the water.

He could feel the sunrise coming on. Was it that late already? What was the question of the hour? Right. The sodding soul. Should have skipped Africa and gone straight on to Russia. He could have spent the better part of a decade drunk off his ass in St. Petersburg, living off cheap vodka and drinking from the newly dead in hundreds of little hospitals. But here he was with Buffy, and she was talking to him instead of killing him like he deserved so maybe the soul was the right call after all.

"With the demon there's pretty much only one thought pattern: see, want, take. And this is what vampires do. We want blood or a fancy car we take it. It's not a bad way to live. Bad for those who got in our way, but we had a ripping time."

"I know this part," Buffy said. And she did know it, but listening to him talk about it disgusted her all the same. Recently she had been one of the things Spike tried to take.

"With the soul.I don't think I'm going to describe it very well. The demon doesn't do a good job at seeing consequences. Or if it does see them, it doesn't care. Kill a person and what happens? Her friends grieve? I mean, who gives a flying fuck if some humans you've never met are sad? Well the soul cares, at least with the soul I care."

"What if it's someone you love?" But Buffy knew the answer to that, right? He loved her, as much as someone like him could love, and he was perfectly capable of hurting her.

Spike looked towards the east. If she killed him it wouldn't be a bad way to go.

"I cared about Dawn, Buffy. I wanted to protect her, but without the chip she would have been dinner by now. No matter how much I loved her she still smelled like food. He life had no weight." He ignored her violent look and went on. "Willow now, I never gave a rat's ass if the witch lived or died. Yet here I am, dragging her to the hospital, cooking her pancakes."

"You made breakfast?"

"It was for dinner. The point is her life has value to me now. The soul doesn't make me good it simply makes me aware of her value. I can still choose to ignore it. And no, it doesn't hurt."

"Too bad," Buffy growled. At least there was that question answered. But why did she care? Was it a know thy enemy kind of curiosity? Or more of an Angel was good with a soul maybe Spike is too kind of thought.

"You're hair's darker," Buffy blurted out. Way to make with the stupid comments. What's with that soul? Hey! You're hair changed color! They weren't really on the same scale of importance.

Spike winced and ran his fingers uncertainly through his curling hair. It was still blond, just darker, more natural.

"Willow's idea. She said I was living in the eighties." Spike lit a cigarette and exhaled away from Buffy.

"You must really like her if you let her mess with your image." Buffy was still tense over what he said about Dawn. In her own ears she sounded bitter, although she had been going for disinterested.

"I guess I must," he agreed, smiling widely. For an instant Spike looked so young and, shit, Buffy thought, so alive it took her breath away. She hadn't been prepared for that.

Then the smile was gone and he was just Spike again, distant and foreign and ageless. Buffy wanted to make him smile again, just so she could see that flash of humanity. The last time she had seen him look so vulnerable was.it was when he came into the bathroom that night. His face had been so open and naked before he lost control. Buffy turned her face away from the water because she couldn't stand to look at him. Disgusting monster. How could she have brought him back here?

Spike didn't notice Buffy's shifting mood. He was distracted by the pull of the sun.

"Buffy, look." He pointed over her shoulder and she turned. The sun was beginning to peak over the horizon. She could make out hints of color in the grass beyond the sand.

"It's been over a hundred years since I've seen a sunrise," Spike said, craning his neck as though to get a better view.

"Spike! Get inside!" Inside where? Buffy wondered. It was sickening, but she realized she didn't want him to die. How annoying and like him to commit suicide after she had so calmly not killed him. Buffy lurched to her feet determined to drag him up the beach to the Desoto. He stepped back from her and held out a warning hand.

"Wait," Spike said.

Buffy glared and tried to decide if she could manhandle him to the car in time. Probably not. Fine then, incinerate yourself. Tucking her hands under her arms for warmth, Buffy turned towards the east. The sun slid slowly into the sky, pushing the soft shadows back until she and Spike stood washed in the hard, early morning sunlight.

Well fuck me, Spike thought. It worked.

"Why aren't you in flames?" Buffy demanded angrily. She felt like she had been tricked into betraying something she wanted to keep secret.

"It's a present," Spike said, lightly touching his chest where his heart was not beating. "Something a friend gave me."

______________________________________________________________________

The End



Well maybe the end.





In theory, this is the first installment in my little apocalyptic series. (Careful readers will correctly assume that the next story will deal with the prophesized massacre and so on and so forth until the world ends, or Buffy prevents the world from ending.) So for those who are interested, the story will continue once I am finished with the annoying process of editing Part II. Until that point I hope this works as a stand-alone.