See Part One for disclaimer.

***

"She could have ended this minutes ago."

Spike cut his eyes to the man next to him. Eric Olson had been a damned fine choice for Faith. At thirty-two, he was neither too old to be out rightly dismissed by the young woman, nor too young to not know how to handle her. A dutifully Slayer she might now be, but Faith still had that dark side to her. Always would, really. Unlike Giles might have, Olson didn't try to stamp it down into nothingness, but instead subtly guided her so that it was channeled righteously. Not to mention that, being gay, he was rather impervious to some of Faith's more creative manners of getting her way.

He was also damned good at his job. Knew his stuff, could handle himself in a fight, had a decent brain, and could always find the perfect way to get Faith to do what he wanted without her having to actually agree to do it.

Olson was watching Faith and her opponent with narrowed green eyes and a grim twist of his lips. Turning his attention to the fight in front of them, Spike saw what he meant. The Slayer was enjoying herself, toying with the enemy to get her Slaying rocks off.

"She's having fun," he noted.

"It'll get her killed," Olson hissed and Spike shrugged. They'd already had this discussion, which was *why* they were in the training room at the back of the Magic Box.

A pleasure-filled laugh tumbled through the air, followed by an exasperated exhalation of air from beside Spike.

"This is useless," Olson said, turning away from the fight and motioning Spike to his side. "If anything, she's worse with him."

Spike rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "She's *comfortable* with him."

"And that is disturbing in and of itself," Olson said uncomfortably, his eyes flickering quickly to the fighters before skittering back. "Angel is rather brutal in his fighting."

"That's not brutality," Spike countered with smirk and Olson frowned dubiously. "It's the threat of brutality, and Faith knows that it's an idle one where she's concerned."

"I've wasted everyone's time here, then," Olson mused, a bronze hand rifling through his gold hair. "So I take it you're of the opinion that this particular lesson can't be taught?"

It still hurt. Spike had thought that, being soulless and all, the pain would fade suddenly in a blast of disgust, and leave him kicking himself in the arse for being such a pansy. But it hadn't. Instead it lingered, festered, and chose odd moments to reach out with a sharp hand and twist his innards into something that was tight and viscous at the same time.

And with Olson's words, the hand came, ripping through him and turning him into so much meat and blood: images of Buffalo wings, stories only half told, and a lesson he'd managed to teach to another Slayer before she'd looked down her nose at him and delivered a blow that hurt more than her fist ever had. That hand, even though he'd steeled himself against it when this conversation had first come up.

"Spike?"

He started and looked away from Olson's curious eyes. "Not saying that," he said absently. "But Peaches won't be able to do it. She knows she's safe with him. I'm going to do a round."

He was gone before Olson could say anything else, striding out of the store and hitting the pavement outside almost desperately. What would have come next, had he not left, would have been Olson attempting, yet again, to get Spike to spar with Faith. The damn Watcher didn't want to hear anything about the chip. No, he just wanted Spike to exploit the loopholes and give Faith something to think about.

That wasn't going to happen. There'd only ever been one Slayer that he had traded punches with for a reason other than killing, had exploited the loopholes for, and it was going to stay that way. He thought the hand might finally succeed in putting him out of his misery if he broke that rule. So while he might help her patrol, and pass his feedback on to Olson, he was not going to dance with Faith. In any sense of the word. Ever. Even if he did shared Giles' old apartment with her. Fuck, he was pathetic.

He was also a bit off. He knew it, even if no one else did. When Giles, Dawn and Tara had been here, there'd been no time for him to feel anything. Lately, the only thing that got through that haze of numbness he'd erected was pain, and then only rarely. Everything else was...far away. The big- brother spiel with Dawn, the arrogant vamp with Faith and Olson--it was all an act, because he just didn't have access to the real thing yet.

Luckily, Dawn hadn't been affected similarly. Away from Sunnydale, her grief had run its natural course and had finally faded from excruciating to manageable. Nowadays when he visited her, she was Dawn Summers: Ubernormal Girl. No demons ransacking her house, no vampires prowling around every corner, no hellgoddeses trying to get their claws into her. Just the regular horrors of school and father and boys.

The latter was much to Spike's chagrin, as she constantly asked his advice, and he hadn't a clue how to advise a teenaged girl on teenaged boys, except to frown menacingly and snap at her that she was still too bloody young to date. Of course she would remind him that Buffy had been dating Angel at her age, and he'd snarl and remind her of how well *that* had gone before she sighed in frustration and changed the topic. Much to Spike's relief.

Giles also seemed to have recovered well. The bottle and the battle had been left in Sunnydale in favor of consulting on an as-needed basis with the Council's researching department. He crossed the channel once a month to advise, annoy and aggravate Faith and Olson, and glower at Spike.

Tara...hadn't changed. At least, as far as Spike knew. She didn't accept any visitors, a fact that had stunted Dawn's recovery time quite a bit.

An hour later he had worked his way through two cemeteries and was heading to the third when familiar footfalls sounded from behind him. He ignored them and tossed his cigarette into the street. He heard the air whistle next to his ear and stepped to the side just in time to avoid Faith's roundhouse kick.

"You didn't even try sneaking up," Spike said with disgust.

She shrugged, unconcerned. "Mind if I stick with you for a bit before I do my side of town?"

"Don't really care. Peaches on his way back to LA?"

"Yeah," Faith replied as they turned a corner. "Is it just me, or was he broodier than he has been in a while?"

Spike lowered his brows and curled his lip. "I don't pay that much attention to the Magnificent Poufster," he sneered. "Probably just the Prom Queen rubbing him the wrong way."

"Or not at all," Faith zinged, elbowing him in the side. He reluctantly smiled but it didn't stick around for long. Faith ran ahead of him, turning to face him and walking backwards. "We could have it worse," she reminded him, holding her arms out to the side and grinning at him. "As strange and weird as this set up is, at least we're not them--saddled with a shitload of unresolved sexual tension."

Spike laughed at the brazen up-thrust of her breasts, her swaying hips, the salacious rumblings that meandered along her skin. "Unresolved sexual tension?" he repeated with a smirk. "I don't think that's something you'll ever suffer from."

Her head tilted to the side, sending a wave of brown locks over her shoulder. "Pot and kettle, babe," she retorted with a husky laugh. "Last time I was getting info from Willie, I heard your name come up more than once." She set her tongue between her teeth and quirked a brow. "Got quite the fan club, hot stuff."

"Yeah, well it's good to know not every demon in this shithole town wants to tear me limb from limb," Spike drawled. "And you just passed the entrance."

The sexuality was reigned in as she readied herself for business and backtracked to the gates of Sunshine cemetery and waited for him to reach her. They strolled inside and began the familiar routine of patrol.

Faith was generally chatty when they were skulking around graveyards, but tonight she was conspicuously silent. It was because of Angel of course. Or, rather, because Olson had called Angel in.

Despite the fact that Giles had persuaded the Council to allow Faith to be stationed in Sunnydale, there was always a barely hidden look of disapproval and disappointment in his eyes whenever he visited.

It hit her hard, being made to feel that she wasn't the *real* Slayer even though she was now the one and only. Granted, Spike was the first to admit that she was no Buffy. That was to be expected, though. Give her some more time in the field, a little more of a support system, and she'd be as much a force to be reckoned with as Buffy had been. Only...differently. Because if there was one thing the two women had in common besides being Slayers, Spike had yet to see it and, bloody fucking hell, but he was grateful for it.

Generally Faith didn't feel inadequate unless Giles was around, because Olson didn't have any personal experience with Buffy: Vampire Slayer Extraordinaire and he treated her like her own person. Spike figured that she had taken it as a slap in the face that Olson had asked Angel to try to knock some of the cockiness--which made her underestimate her opponents and *would* be her undoing if she didn't get control of it--out of her.

Spike could relate to Faith's second-best syndrome. Tended to crop up in *him* whenever Angel: The Tragically Magnificent Souled Vampire swept into town with his coat billowing in the night.

He watched her carefully during their circuit. Even though she'd refused to listen to Angel's directives at the Magic Box, Spike saw her putting them to use now. Typical. She always had to keep up the appearance of having no fear. Wouldn't let Angel or Olson know she took them seriously. In the field, though, Spike got to see the results in action.

As for how long this particular lesson would stick...Spike figured that, unless some seriously bad bugger came along soon, it would be maybe a month at the most before her guard lazily dropped again. She had a tendency to discard lessons that she didn't think were all that necessary.

They parted ways at the back entrance of the cemetery. Faith wandered off with an obscene wagging of her tongue and an insolent, "Go *get* some, babe."

He planned on it.

Willie's was packed, since Wednesday was Two-Fer-One-Drink night. He saw Clem coming out of the back room, a lidded basket being held with difficulty in both hands, and a wide smile on his wrinkled face. Obviously someone had gotten lucky already. Clem saw him, smiled goofily, and started towards him. He changed direction before Spike could even nod a hello. Clem was not as dense as he appeared to be, sometimes.

The same couldn't be said about Willie, who babbled non-stop while getting Spike a glass and a bottle of tequila. Spike walked away while he was in mid-sentence, dropping a few bills on the bar in the process.

At the back of the bar was a table that gave a view of the entire bar-- including the restroom doors on the left. It was generally where Spike preferred to sit, due to some latent paranoia that had set in the previous year when more than one demon had wanted to beat the ever loving shit out of him.

Spike made his way there, standing over the sole occupant. The Qpozl demon glanced up at him nervously.

"That's my table," Spike said lowly.

Unlidded eyes shifted anxiously around the bar. "But--"

And Clem was there. Inviting the feathered bird-like demon to his table, and ushering him away with nary a look at Spike. Wonderful. Lovely. Fucking, not fighting, was on his agenda tonight. He sprawled in one chair, then hooked his ankle around the other and dragged it closer. Propping his feet on the seat of it, he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. Smoke curled around him as he poured the tequila and studied the other occupants of the bar.

In the center of the bar was a table of females of varying species, casting subtle and not-so-subtle eyes in his direction. Spike squinted and considered them. Must've been the ones Faith had been talking about, because Spike was damn sure he'd done the lot of them.

To their dismay, he turned his attention away. None of them were what he needed tonight. What it was he *did* need remained a mystery until he saw the figure at the bar who wasn't reflected in the wall-length mirror behind the bottles of booze. The hair was right. Build was perfect. Height and face were wrong, but that could be worked around. He made eye contact, and received one quick nod.

The cigarette was crushed out. Two more glasses of tequila were knocked back in quick succession. Then Spike was on his feet, the bottle in his hand. He moved through the crowd to the door, certain he'd be followed to the alley next to Willie's.

***

When he got to the door of the apartment later, Faith was there, fumbling with her keys. Her eyes lifted when he approached. He knew that she'd gone out and found herself a sweet little blond girl tonight. She knew that he'd found himself a broody brunette vampire of the male variety. And they both knew that that neither felt less like a half-assed second-string replacement despite the effort to the contrary, so they smiled bitterly at one another.

Once she got the door open, they scrambled for the bathroom. She beat him there and he kicked at the closed door before heading to his room to strip his clothes off and wrap a towel around his waist. She was in and out of the shower in ten minutes, and she knocked on his door on the way to her room to let him know the bathroom was his. His shower only took seven minutes. Less hair to worry about, after all.

Half an hour after he'd locked himself in his room to smoke and stare at the ceiling, she pounded on his door. "Rocky Horror's on."

So they watched it, sneering and laughing, almost manic in their constant talking that filled every silence but said nothing, just like they preferred, and waited until their lids were too heavy to keep open even with their best efforts, and then they slept.

***

A persistent chiming noise woke Spike. He blinked his eyes open and frowned. That wasn't the ceiling of his room above him, and the lumpy thing under him was definitely not his bed. He turned his head and realized he was on the couch in the living room. Oh. Right. Which meant that the annoying noise was the doorbell.

He started to sit up, but then saw that the door was already open. Olson was on this side of the doorway, one arm curled around the doorjamb to press the bell. He was too smart to try waking either one of them any other way.

"Go the fuck away," Faith growled from the loveseat, the words muffled by the cushion over her face.

Satisfied that the occupants of the apartment were awake, Olson stepped inside and the bell finally stopped ringing. Rubbing his face, Spike sat up and blearily asked, "What bloody time is it?"

"Half past five," Olson informed him, skirting the living room furniture in favor of the table near the kitchen.

"Couldn't just wait till a decent hour to visit?" Spike drawled. "Like when the sun's been down a few hours."

A noise of agreement from beneath the cushion. Faith had gone nocturnal upon her return to Sunnydale, since she raked in half the profits from her share of the Magic Box and didn't have to worry about money. Or working, since Olson had discovered just how horrendous she was with customer service, inventory, ringing up sales and just about everything else to do with running the shop.

Olson settled on one of the kitchen chairs and straightened his khaki pants at the knees. "Giles called," he said without looking up.

"I fucking hate icing," Faith grumbled, and the cushion went flying across the room. "On the cake," she clarified for a confused Olson. He didn't get it. Spike did, and he seconded it. Giles icing on top of an Angel cake was not in the least appetizing.

She rolled onto her side and tilted her head so that she could see Olson. "So what did I do wrong now?"

He shook his head and looked at Spike. "News from Wildwind."

Spike stilled. "Something happen to Tara?"

"In a manner of speaking." He hesitated, then carefully said, "She checked herself out earlier today."

"She *what*?" Spike croaked.

"Very calmly requested to see the hospital administrator and announced to him that she was leaving," Olson recited quietly. "Immediately."

His mouth opened, to ask why they would let an insane young woman go free, then closed it with a snap when he realized he knew the answer.

Standing, Spike crossed into the kitchen and got a bag of blood out of the fridge. "So Giles passed that on, but didn't bother sharing that she was getting well again," he commented idly, pouring the blood in a mug and shoving it into the microwave. "You'll notice that I don't sound the least bit surprised."

Olson regarded him intently. "He says that he was unaware that her condition had changed."

Eyes on the descending numbers of the timer, Spike grunted. "You believe that?" he asked.

"Not sure," Olson replied, sitting back. "And as Tara refused to see anyone, and we don't know who at the hospital was on the Watchers' payroll..."

"Doesn't matter." The timer reached zero and Spike popped the door open and curled his hand around the mug.

"Wait," Faith interjected. She was sitting up now, elbows braced on her knees, hair smashed against her head at odd angles, her dark eyes incredulous. "So they just let her walk out without letting anyone know?"

Spike shrugged. "She checked herself in. They didn't have to tell anyone anything."

Faith shook her head. "Seems kinda shady to me."

The phone rang and she dug around under the loveseat for the cordless. Spike sipped his blood and met Olson's curious green gaze with bland eyes.

"Hello. Hey, what's--oh. Yeah, we heard." Faith looked at him. "Sure, just a sec." She held out the phone and mouthed, "Angel."

"Bloody fuck," Spike hissed, striding to her and snatching the phone. "What?"

"Giles called about Tara," Angel said immediately. "He wants me to search around for her in Los Angeles. Do you have any suggestions about where I should start?"

Spike took another sip of blood. "Don't bother."

Angel didn't say anything for a few moments. "You sure?" he asked finally.

"She's not there," Spike informed him. "No need to take time away from the huddled dirty masses that need saving."

"Okay," Angel said, not bothering to respond to the jab, which pissed Spike off royally. Damn Pouf had gotten all noble about their verbal sparring after he'd driven Spike and Tara to Wildwind. "If you change your mind--"

Spike hung up and tossed the phone back to Faith when it rang again almost immediately. With a clean movement she sent it in Olson's direction, and only his experience with her random acts of reflexes kept the phone from bashing him in the head.

"Hello?" He grimaced almost imperceptibly. "Yes, Giles, I did indeed let them know."

Faith and Spike looked at one another, then casually abandoned their positions and wandered to the staircase. Olson noticed their movements too late, and they bolted up the steps before he could pass the phone to either of them.

"You all right?" Faith asked him at the door to her bedroom. Spike didn't answer, just moved past her to his own door. "Not talky. That's cool. But, hey--" Spike paused and tossed her a look over his shoulder. She lifted her hands and shrugged, eyebrows raised. "You need it, you got it," she told him with a shake of her head. "That's all I'm saying."

"I'll keep that in mind," Spike retorted drolly and entered his room. He walked to the double bed in the corner and sat down, staring at the ugly brown carpet.

Was he all right? Spike had no bleedin' idea, actually. On the one hand, Tara was obviously well enough to be released--good news. On the other hand, Tara was obviously well enough to be released but had decided not to contact anyone--troubling news.

He'd understood why she had refused to see any of the other survivors when she got to Wildwind. Reminded her too much of that night to see them, and she'd needed to get some distance, get some time. But to stroll out of the place and not tell anybody? Made him think there was something else going on.

Sighing, he got up and rummaged through the pile of clothes next to the bed and found a clean black t-shirt. A little more searching got him a reasonably clean royal blue button down that had escaped getting wrinkled beyond wearing by hiding under the bed.

He pulled the t-shirt over his head and then scrounged up a pair of socks and put on his boots. The overshirt was buttoned on the way downstairs. Olson was looking none-too-pleased. Giles: Ultimate and Supreme Watcher was a tough act to follow.

"And where are *you* going?" he snapped.

"Out," Spike said brusquely, crossing the room and walking out the front door, grabbing his coat along the way.

***

Spike had been chain smoking for about forty-five minutes when he felt it: Dread. Fear. Panic. Crawling under his skin and screaming in his head.

Swallowing thickly and clenching his fists, he forced himself to remain still until he'd acclimated to the sensation. Even though he was out of practice, he still managed to calm himself down in less than a minute. Not too bad, really.

When she didn't appear right away, he thought about it and then nodded to himself. Right. This would be her last stop, wouldn't it? Another three cigarettes later, he heard rustling leaves and gentle footfalls.

She came from the right, along a neatly paved trail that curved into and veered out of sight not far from where Spike was standing. She stepped off the path and approached the grave slowly. At the foot of it, she stopped, and stared down at the marker.

The clothes were familiar. Same ones she'd been wearing when he and Angel had walked her into Wildwinds eight months before: a soft sage-green v- necked sweater and a pair of plain khakis of army green. After Glory, no one had ever been able to convince her to actually don one of the many long, flowing skirts she owned. In fact, she'd gone and shredded them to pieces with a pair of safety scissors--an impressive feat--after Dawn had tried to manhandle her into one. From then on it had been jeans and khakis.

Spike remembered that the clothes had hung loosely on her then, because getting her to eat had been a Herculean task that only Giles had been able to manage, and then only sometimes. Now they fitted perfectly, clinging to reborn curves and roundness.

The shoes were different. She was actually wearing a pair, which she definitely hadn't been when Spike had loaded her into the car to go to Los Angeles. Hospital had probably dug up the old tennis shoes for her from somewhere or other. Wouldn't be good policy to let patients be released barefoot.

Her face was mostly hidden from his view, as she was standing at an angle and her hair obscured her profile. Still, the hair was combed, and it was a great deal longer than it had been as well.

"You know," she said softly, "you'd be much more effective at skulking in the shadows if you didn't smoke."

At first he'd thought she was talking to the headstone, and when she got to the skulking part, he started, because she hadn't even been looking in his direction.

Spike discarded his butt and crossed the small distance between them to stand next to her, facing her profile. "Got bored," he said diffidently. "Should've known you'd save her for last."

"Yes, you should have. For more than one reason," she said on a sigh.

"So." Her head tilted to the side, revealing part of her eye and some of her cheek through the fall of her hair. "You're right in the head again?"

Slowly, she pivoted on her heel to face him and Spike studied her features. Her face had filled out again as well, no longer gaunt and haggard looking. The shadowed haunting was still there, though. Always would be, most likely. Surprising thing was that it wasn't even diminished. Just sitting there, all brazen and comfortable-like, as though it was a hated houseguest who had been invited to stay because the company was better than none at all.

She took in his words, and he watched her carefully, wondering how she would react. Would she be wounded and quivering about the chin like the Tara that Willow had first brought around? Or would she just skitter out of the light and grace him with that maddened gaze of the Tara that Glory had warped? The movement of her small, careless shrug shifted her position, and he saw her face and eyes clearly. Her visage was neither of the ones he'd considered, but something new that was confident and shy all at the same time. "As right as I can be, yeah," she replied tiredly. "Good."

"Good," Tara repeated, narrowing her eyes and rolling the word off her tongue as though she was tasting something new that she wasn't quite sure she liked. "I suppose you could say that."

Spike lifted a brow and folded his arms across his chest. "What else could you say?"

Her eyes flickered and she looked away. "Nothing," she breathed. "Nothing at all. How...how are the...others?"

Not sure of how much she remembered, he told her, "Giles went to England, and Dawn's in LA with her Dad."

Tara frowned. "Yes, and you and Faith stayed here, with a new Watcher. But...how is everyone?"

"As good as they can be," he responded blandly. "Getting away from that pit of evil helped." She looked at him expectantly and he pursed his lips. "If you want to know more, you can call them." After a moment, he harshly added, "Maybe reciprocate with a few details of your own."

She flinched and stepped closer to Willow's grave. "I would have come during the day if I'd known you were going to be like this," she murmured.

"How the bloody else did you expect me to be?" Spike asked incredulously.

And she turned back to him and put her hand on his chest, looking up at him with raw eyes and anguished skin. Her full lips slid up into a small smile that was challenging and accepting all at once. "Like someone who sent us away for our own good," she said evenly, "but did it more for himself than us."

It was Spike's turn to flinch. If Giles had said that to him, Spike would have shrugged and ignored him, because he had never given a damn about the Watcher's opinion and had only done what he'd done for him because of Buffy.

If Dawn had said it, he would have said and done whatever he had to in order to convince her otherwise, because she was still so fragile that he hadn't yet stopped worrying that she would break.

But it would have been lies, really, because Tara was right. He'd gone out while he was still on top--hadn't fucked anything up in his usual fashion-- but he'd still acted with his own self-interest in mind. It had been too damn hard taking care of the Hellmouth and the three of them.

"Like someone," Tara continued gently, "who understands that I don't want to have to deal with anyone else until I've gotten to know myself again."

He looked down into her large eyes and there wasn't a recrimination to be found. "Yeah, I get that," he said gruffly and cleared his throat. "You got a plan in mind then? For the meantime?"

"Just some, um, traveling," she said, ending on a high note like she was asking, in the manner of Willow's Tara. It made him laugh lowly, and the hand on his chest tapped him reproachfully. "You know...be elsewhere. For a while."

Spike reached up and took hold of her hand. He wondered if everything still hurt her the same inside, if she'd invited it to stay too. He wondered why she'd come at night, why she'd chosen to see him and not the others. But then he pulled her closer without realizing it, and she was leaning against him, and he forgot to ask, because with Tara there'd always been silence. So much silence that had run so deep that it had been a relief. Still did and was, he found out, and circled her waist with his arms.

Maybe he moved first, but he decided later that it had to have been Tara that lead them to the headstone and brought them to the ground to familiar positions. She laid her hand on top of the grass and sighed, and Spike watched the stars twinkling, remembering something Dru had said about them being the eyes of millions of friends who blinked their secrets only to her. Against his chest, Tara's heart was beating a rhythm that spoke its own secrets.

Time passed, but Spike wasn't cognizant of how much. All he knew was that he was pulled out of his reverie by a noise that came from the small grouping of trees just behind Willow's grave. He narrowed his eyes and listened, detecting more than three sets of footsteps and heartbeats. His nose was telling him they were anything but human.

"Got company," Spike whispered, tensing. "Coming from behind us."

Tara shifted on top of him while he tried to sit up, and when they'd sorted out the tangle of limbs she was lying on his chest, one hand braced on the ground. Her other hand came into view, fingers uncurling from a fist to reveal a small amount of powder. Spike frowned and attempting yet again to sit up. He never made it as the powder fell across his face and he suddenly couldn't do anything other than fall backwards again.

"Tara," he mumbled sleepily, one fumbling arm trying to grab at her.

Her lips brushed against his cheek. "I'm sorry."

***

Nothing in particular woke Spike. He just eased into consciousness feeling invigorated and refreshed without any hint of grogginess. Lazily he reached up and scratched at the spot where his chest met his neck, and smiled for no damned reason that he could think of. When he remembered what had occurred just before his little nap, however, all thoughts of his good sleep fled and he bolted into a sitting position. He scanned the area for Tara and found no sign of her.

"Bloody hell," he snapped, then cursed again when he a glance at his watch told him that it had been three hours since he'd arrived at the cemetery. He had no damn clue how much of a head start she had on him.

He got to his feet and headed in the direction of the trees, where he'd heard the sounds of others approaching before Tara had pulled her little Tinkerbell/Mr. Sandman stunt. The trees opened into a secluded bench-lined area. Strewn across a bench on the far side was a body. Definitely male. Species unknown, though he definitely wasn't human despite his appearance and dress.

Though there was no outward indication that he'd been injured, his breathing was a resounding death rattle. Spike ran to his side and saw the tattoo. Two of them, actually. Some kind of swirling black design on either of his temples.

Almost casually, Spike grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him upright. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

The demon focused on Spike with great difficulty, then his body exhaled one deep breath and his eyes went sightless. Spike growled, but it ended abruptly as the body shifted eerily and then suddenly became sand, keeping the form of the demon before falling to the ground in a messy pile.

"Well, haven't seen *that* one before," he said aloud, staring around the clearing and scratching at his neck again.

Shaking his head, he backed away and then set about searching the rest of the cemetery. Except for a pair of teenagers snogging by one of the mausoleums, it was empty.

"Goddamn it," Spike growled, running his hands through his hair in agitation. It had been too much to hope that Tara had simply wanted to get reacquainted with being sane again. His eyes widened when he processed the fact that she had flat out lied to him. Tara. Right to his face. And she hadn't even blinked.

With quick steps, he started on his way to the Magic Box. He needed to get an I.D. on those demons and figure out what the bloody fuck was going on. Because he was damn sure something was, and that it was big, and that Tara-- damn her lying hide--was dead center of it.

On the streets, people scooted out of his way, but one woman didn't watch closely enough and her shoulder slammed into Spike's chest as he was barreling down the street. Spike paused long enough to snarl at her, and was about to start walking again when he realized that he was scratching again. His hand stilled suddenly and then slipped under the neck of his t- shirt and felt along his collarbone. There. Just below it. His skin was...raised, kind of like a burn but so very clean and neat. Some kind of pattern, he realized, that started at each side of the bone and met in the center.

Face set grimly, he continued on.

The young man behind the register at the Magic Box looked up curiously when the door slammed open. He was just twenty years old, with soft, pretty features that were just this side of feminine, and lips that were perpetually quirked. The carefully gym-maintained tautness of his body was shown off advantageously in a tight long sleeved green shirt, and equally snug black jeans. He brushed the artful fall of light brown hair from his forehead and blinked pale brown eyes.

"Spike," Josh greeted.

"Where's your sugar daddy?" Spike asked, voice clipped.

Olson's lover pointed towards the back room. "Staffs, tonight," he said with a grin, eyes twinkling. "I think they were both feeling...inadequate."

Ignoring the comment, Spike strode across the store and threw open the door to the training room. Faith and Olson paused, staffs locked in Faith's favor.

"That offer still stand?" Spike asked Faith obliquely

The Slayer nodded and stepped away from Olson. "Yeah, sure," she assured him casually.

Spike nodded and closed the door again, noticing that Josh was at the entrance, turning the Open sign to Closed. "Books or fists?" he asked practically.

"Books."

Josh nodded and began cleaning some brick-a-brack from the large table towards the back. Olson and Faith came into the room, him a lot more stiffly than her. Spike remained standing by the counter as the others sat at the table and looked up at him expectantly.

He told them what had gone on at the cemetery in a flat voice, described the demon in as much detail as he could, and then pulled the collar of his shirt down to show them whatever the fuck was on his neck. Olson frowned deeply and muttered something to Josh, who dutifully jotted it down alongside the rest of the notes he'd made while Spike had been talking. Faith was listening attentively, her searching gaze raking over Spike far more than he was comfortable with.

"Well, getting a picture of that is out of the question," Josh commented thoughtfully, eyes on the mark. "But, it's raised, so we might..." His face lit up and he jumped to his feet and went behind the counter, rummaging behind it briefly. He emerged triumphantly with a large white sketch pad and a pencil. "I can get an imprint," he said slyly.

Faith snickered. "Who do you think you're fooling? You just want to see Blondie there all bare-chested, you little slut," she teased.

"Oh, and I suppose you're soooo very against it," Josh said cagily, eyes flickering to Olson. "Both of you."

Spike just clenched his jaw and yanked the duster off, then almost shredded his t-shirt while pulling it over his head. Faith's amusement faded away, and Josh frowned in confusion. "Make it quick," Spike snapped at the boy.

"It'll be more accurate than anything I could draw," Josh explained seriously as he approached.

"Make it quick," Spike repeated.

To his credit, Josh did indeed make short work of rubbing the edge of the pencil along the paper as Spike held it to his chest.

There were a few things Spike liked about this new incarnation of the Sunnydale crew. Best thing, hands down, was that there was none of that touchy feely "talk about your feelings and share with others" bollocks to be found. Lots of things got heard without being said, communicated without being shared, and responded to without a big bloody "look I'm supporting you" show.

When he was done, Josh took the page from Spike and sat it on the table next to his notes. Spike busied himself with putting his t-shirt back on.

"I'll search the usual databases for the demon," Olson offered. "Josh--"

"I'm on the mark," he said with a nod, and was behind the counter again, this time to retrieve a long narrow wooden box of indexed cards.

Faith caught his eye as he was tucking the shirt in. "Any ideas what the deal is?"

He shook his head, then incongruously said, "I need to go to LA and check on Dawn."

She just nodded. "Take this with," she said, arching her back and unclipping her cell phone from the waistband of her jeans. She tossed it at him and he snatched it easily from the air. "Anything else we can do?"

Spike started to say no, but changed his mind. "The name of the Watcher contact at Wildwind," he said, shrugging his coat back on.

He left the three of them arguing about who was going to call England for that bit of information and went to the apartment to collect the Jeep he and Faith shared.

***

Over the next two weeks, the details came, and when the pieces fell into place, Spike had to get away from the others. At the park, he smoked a cigarette and stared at the swings.

* It doesn't hurt here. *

* No, no it doesn't. *

At Dawn's home just outside of LA, Spike had found out that she bore a mark just below her collarbone that resembled his exactly. On a hunch he'd called Giles, who also had it. But they weren't the only ones. Faith had discovered that everyone who'd been present the night of the fight with Glory had a mark, and Olson's research had determined that it was a protective mark of white magic origin. Tara, of course. Who else?

As for why she'd marked them all, that had taken a bit more time to discover. Only after they'd identified the tattooed demons as Arcepts--a group that more than willingly accepted humans into its trippy cult--had the picture begun to emerge. Their goal was to bring their long dead guru- cult-leader back from the dead, and they'd come to Sunnydale because of rumors they'd heard of a witch who supposedly had the massive amount of power they needed to do it. Trouble was, they'd come eight months too late.

Then had come the pithy comment made by an Arcept Spike had attacked at Willow's grave: Power like hers doesn't die. "What the fuck?" Faith had muttered. "So then what happens to it?"

As they'd found out, it stayed within the body that had housed it. Generally. Rarely, so damn rarely that documentation hardly existed, the power could be transferred to the one responsible for the death, who could feasibly have no idea that the transfer had even happened.

Tara had covered every imaginable base to keep the Arcepts from obtaining the power they needed: the graves of everyone who'd died that night were damn near magically impregnable, as were the survivors who'd been there.

The Watcher contact at Wildwind had provided the answer to the question of how Tara had known about the Arcepts. An altercation had taken place between Tara and a new orderly the night before she'd checked out. When the woman had mentioned the orderly's strange tattoos, Spike realized that the Arcepts had gone after Tara first, thinking the institutionalized woman would be the easiest place to start, and that their emissary had probably said more than he should have.

Spike snickered, and lazily shoved at one of the swings. The orderly's body had been discovered in a utility closet hours after Tara checked out of Wildwind. Preliminary examinations, the nurse had said, indicated a heart attack had killed him, but he hadn't been a day over twenty-eight.

With Willow's power inaccessible to them, the Arcepts should have given up and gone in search of another source. But they hadn't. Since the Arcepts were blasting away at the spells around the graves every time Spike's back was turned, and magically attacking everyone with a mark that they saw, Olson thought it was logical to assume that they were hoping to break through the magic.

Spike had felt his stomach drop. The marks and spells were a temporary measure, which meant that Tara was out there, somewhere, working on a more permanent measure. By herself.

All of that information had come to light in only four days. Finding out just what exactly the permanent measure was, on the other hand, had taken eleven days of constant research by the Sunnydale group and Giles, who had been assisted by a coven of witches.

There was only one bloody way to make Willow's power inaccessible to everyone forever: a ritual whose components were scattered around the globe and which was thought to be impossible to actually perform. Josh had found the grim footnote. Very few humans or demons had actually succeeded in gathering the components. Of those that had, only a handful had lived past speaking the first line of the ritual. None had survived long enough to finish it. Ever.

A roomful of confused and shocked faces had turned to Spike, but it had been Giles--who'd called a few minutes later--who'd come out and said it. "What on earth possessed her to go about this on her own?" he'd shouted rhetorically, going off into a rant about how stupid and foolish, not to mention deadly, it was.

Spike had listened quietly for a moment, then handed the phone to Josh and walked out of the apartment.

Olson had compiled a list of the ritual components and their locations, and Spike had shoved his copy into his pocket on his way out.

* "Ready for a last midnight romp?" *

No doubt Giles had been put on speakerphone, and the lot of them were now trying to decide what to do next.

* "Goodbye," she begged on a sob, desperate and fraught. *

Spike pulled out the list and fingered the paper. From another pocket he withdrew the Zippo. The flame from the lighter licked at the paper, and Spike dropped it to the ground, watching it burn and knowing that if he got too close the fire would consume him as well, but he'd always been reckless with his choices, so he stomped on the paper until even the embers were gone, and then put the charred scrap back in his pocket.

***

The following sunset, Olson took Spike to the airport and stopped him when he would have exited the car. A thick manila envelope landed in Spike's lap. Inside were papers and bits of plastic that identified him as one William Strathmore. Whoever's picture had been used resembled Spike a great deal. Something clanked around on the bottom of the envelope, and Spike pulled it out. A Medic-Alert bracelet taped to a small stack of photocopied medical records for Strathmore. Frowning in confusion, Spike scanned the cover letter on top and grinned.

"Good luck," Olson said with a small smile of his own.

***

There's an NC17 chunk missing from this with all the details of what happens when Spike leaves Willie's. It's not snuggly-wuggly-acts-like-he- has-a-soul-even-though-he-doesn't Spike. It's the-only-reason-I'm-not- torturing-old-ladies-and-dismembering-puppies-is-because-of-this-soddin'- chip Spike, with a dash of I-have-serious-resentment Spike, and a pinch of I-must-do-something-to-feel-like-less-of-a-pansy Spike. Don't blame me, it was his idea.

If you're over the required age in your area, and you're interested in getting the details you can read the unedited part 2 at my site.