She sat straight up in the sarcophagus, like a character in a Hammer Film, but much more slender. Giles bowed before the statue of Horus and thanked the divine family, father, mother and son, before extinguishing the candles. This pitched us all into almost complete darkness, only dim flickers echoing up from the Queen's Chamber.

We all breathed again, even me.

My night-vision still works fine, so I retrieved the torch so we could all see, and lit it. Giles and Anyanka had already taken their masks off, and I followed suit. Horrible confining things, but if it's worked I'll kiss every heavy inch. I looked at Giles, and he looked like he had just run a marathon and followed it up by swimming the Channel, but he nodded. Think we did it. Didn't realise I had so much air in my lungs, but I seemed to sigh in relief forever.



Buffy was breathing hard, but not screaming anymore. I started to free her face from the sticky cloth. Not an easy job, the oily cloth was sticking together very well. Gonna take time to free her from all this. First of all though I lifted her out of the sarcophagus. Hated putting her in it. No way was she staying in there any longer than necessary. Much easier to free her of the bindings out of it too.

The ever practical Anyanka lit some of the candles again so we could all see more easily, but not until she had put the statue of Horus away. Good to see people who know how to do magic properly, without the stink beetle factor coming into play. These two don't seem to have any cookie baking imminent in their futures.

Anyanka put the masks, and the Horus statue into one of the bags. Then she put a hand on Giles shoulder, looked into his eyes and wordlessly checked he was ok. He gave her a rueful half smile and nodded, and she smiled. She took the bag and left the chamber, presumably to put the statue away down in the Queen's Chamber.



I'd freed Buffy's head by now and was working to un-bind her arms from the crossed position across her chest. Giles came over to help. He took off the Heart Scarab and checked it, looked Buffy in the eyes and gave her a pat on the arm and a smile.

"Everything went as planned. The Scarab confirms you are now in a state of Maat, the ba bird affirmed your restoration and I felt the agreement of Osiris. You should be restored Buffy. How do you feel my dear?" Giles said with concern.

"I feel Giles. It's been so long, but I do feel. I feel warm. I've felt so cold for so long. Moments of warmth." At this I'd blush if I could. "But no matter what I did the warmth never lasted, the ice just froze me. Each time worse and worse. I tried, I did try you know?" She started crying. "Dawn, my friends, you Giles, I did try, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't feel anything, nothing warm, nothing real, nothing good. And I did such horrible things! Now it's all coming back. Oh God it's all coming back! All at once!" She was in floods of tears by now. The tears were making tracks through the oil on her cheeks.

I'd freed her arms of the bandages, and she put them around Giles neck and carried on crying. I pushed down the jealousy at that. I really wish it were me, god knows I do, but Giles can give her something uncomplicated, something she needs right now. So I do what I can to help. I start unwinding her foot.

Giles is holding her, patting her back, telling her it's all gonna be ok. That she's gonna be well now, that everyone still loves her, and will understand. It's working and she's calming down. Not stopping crying but slowing down at least, and her heart rate is slowing to a level closer to normal.

Giles pulls back, looks at her and asks if she's feeling better and she nods with a brave attempt at a small smile. He took the small mummy statue with the two birds from her lap. It's all sticky from the perfumed oil. We're all sticky. Anyanka from anointing Buffy, Giles from holding her, me from freeing her from the bindings.

"Buffy, I have to clean the statue and the scarab. I have to take it back tomorrow and the towels are in the other bag. Will you be ok?" Ok now I'm terrified. No barriers, no buffers, and nothing to stop "the talk".

She surprises me, not for the first time. She nodded and made an attempt at a smile. "Go Giles, clean them up. And thanks, for, for everything. You always come through don't you. More props than with Amy's mom this time, though huh? Say thanks to Anya. I've not been good to her, it'll take time, but hopefully…Go clean, I'll be fine, honest."

He left taking the two artefacts. She turned to look at me. Oh hell.

I moved to give her some space. Got one leg up to her knee free now.

Kneeling facing her "Pet, I got your arms free, if you wanna do this yourself, all the space you need, up to you, no pressure whatever." There's tears falling down my cheeks now. She's looking at me with compassion. That makes it worse. I think its dehydration time for both of us by the time this is all over.

"Spike. Spike, Spike." And she reached out with her sticky hand and touched my hair so lightly. Tears continued to leak from her eyes. My own tears got faster.

"I did so many dreadful things to you."

"I did so many bad things to you, pet."

"Your beautiful face!"

"I went nuts."

"I couldn't see anything but my own pain"

"I was blinded by the pain."

"I hurt you so much."

"I never wanted to hurt you."

"I couldn't hear you, couldn't see you, nothing connected in me."

"I couldn't hear you, I was blind, deaf, luv I'm so sorry,"

"I forgot what I said about your feelings being real, about you being real, coz if that was real then what I couldn't feel about anything was real. And Spike it felt so bad!"

"I should have helped more. Got the watcher back to fix things before everything went to hell."

"I never let you. I can feel now. It's different now. I feel and the feelings aren't fading away. It hurts, but it's a good hurt now." She's still lightly stroking my hair, and her tears are blending with mine as they pool on the stone floor of the chamber.

She looks me in the eyes. I could drown in those eyes. No already have. "Spike, you scared me. I scared me about what I did to you in that alley and how I just left you there."

"You know I forgave you that luv. Forgive you anything. Don't deserve you, know that." My head dropped. But she surprised me. She raised my head and made me look her in the eyes.

"I told Dawn we had a misunderstanding. But you scared me Spike. I, I never thought you had that in you."

"Neither did I. Never done anything like it before. Not me, killed people sure, never played with my food. Didn't have anything to stop it, but just not me you know, you do know that, don't you pet." She actually nodded. I could die happy.

"It's been hard the last few years. You don't know what its like. Always said "Evil". Was. Not anymore. Can feel the difference now. Before, it was always an itch in every fibre of me to hurt, to rend, to feed. Gotta brain, could fight it, did, most of the time, helped the scoobies over the summer, loved you, loved Nibblet. But always had to fight myself to do it.

Not sure how all this soul, moral compass thing works, not my thing at all. Know I'm different now. Feel calmer, at peace with me, you know. Nothing pushing me to do dumb, "evil" things. Not anymore. Shaman knows his stuff. Had something in me pushing to hurt you despite everything I wanted in my head and heart. That's gone now. Been re-tuned. Won't ever hurt you. Still can't believe I did. Don't have to forgive me. Can't forgive me."

"I can. I have. You were totally out of order but I can forgive you, If you can forgive me for the dreadful things I did to you, and the horrible things I said?"

"Always."

"Then I forgive you. Friends? I miss that."

"Always. I missed it so much."

"So tell me about what the shaman did, and help me with these bandages before I solidify!"

So I did. Everything. The vision, the roots of both of us. The lake. Being prey, being torn apart, taken as a trophy. The mourners and my mum, their grief. My victims and their lost lives. And the ultimate horror, the slayers and their deaths.

Her eyes have grown even larger in the telling. They're warm now, and the tears are in compassion, her hands stroking my hair. Very quietly she said "All of them?"

"All my victims, all their loved ones, all the slayers, all the pain. But the worst was you pet. Both your deaths, felt both of 'em, second one was different to all the rest, maybe the shaman can tell us why. Don't know. But even when you touched death, when the poof drained you, even felt that. Never thought I had so many tears in me as when you died at the tower. By the lake I thought I'd die I shed so many." She held me. I don't deserve it, but she did. Couldn't help it, but the tears just wouldn't stop falling.

We must have sat like that for only a few minutes. Felt like a lifetime.

She wiped the tears from my face and looked at me. "I'm me again now. I wouldn't be if it wasn't for you, Giles and Anyanka. I don't want to dive back into anything. I need time to get back to being me.

"Course luv, anything you want, you get."

She smiled."But we can be friends, and we'll see how we deal with that. OK?"

"More than I deserve pet."

Another half smile. "On balance, no, you do deserve it. We both start from a clean slate, but with no amnesia this time, and definitely no horrible suits. Brown is so not your colour! Come on, help me with these before dawn comes up and we get arrested for breaking into famous monuments." So I did.



We finished and she went down to the Queen's chamber to change.

Giles came up to me to clear up, and put all the sticky cloth into some plastic bags. He brought our ordinary clothes up too and we changed. Though first he got out the towels and baby wipes Anyanka had stashed in the bags. Gotta love a practical demon.

After checking both chambers looked untouched we went to the end of the Grand Gallery. We bent over down the long passage, and retraced our steps out of the pyramid. Carrying the heavy bags, and emotionally drained as I think we all were it seemed to take forever. But we got to the door eventually.

We switched off the torches so as not to be noticed outside and stepped out of the tomb into the night. We all climbed down to the dessert floor and just breathed in the fresh air, even me.



Anyanka and Giles sat down heavily on the first layer of stones. Hand in hand they just leaned into each other and rested, looking up at the bright stars. Just being together and taking strength from that. Not sure whether that was all his magic, or whether they also accessed hers and mine. Think it was just his, certainly looking wiped out at the moment. Watcher certainly is more powerful than he ever gave out.

Buffy looked at me. I looked at Buffy. We both looked at Giles and Anyanka taking a much needed rest. We both looked up at the pyramid. Stripped of its casing stones it resembled nothing more than a great stairway to the heavens. Always loved Stairway to Heaven, top song that.

"Race you, re-tuned guy" from Buffy.

And she started clambering back up the pyramid. Now there's no way I can resist that, is there? I start climbing up the stones. She's slightly further over and having to take a different route to the top than me. She's faster and stronger than me. But I'm taller and some of the stones are taller than she is, so she has to use her hands to climb a lot more than I have to.

Pyramid must be about 40 stories high and even with both of us supernaturally fast and strong this isn't a quick race. More of a 5000 meters race than the 100. Ears are still preternatural too. I can hear Giles shouting "Just what part of "low profile" do you two both not understand?" somewhere down below. Buffy can too, can hear the giggle.

We get to the top at the same time. She's laughing and smiling up at me, if slightly out of breath. I swing her up in my arms and we spin around on top. It's a narrow space but it really does feel on top of the world. She's smiling up at me, and that's what I've wanted to see for so long. I said once to Princess I'd dance with her on the slayers grave. This is just so much better!