Chapter 11

"What's started?" Buffy prodded testily and stared at Dinah.

The dark woman didn't pay her any notice as she turned around and left the room as quietly as she had come in, only this time with Vin at her heels.

"Don't ask me," Spike said with a shrug to Buffy's silent question. "We'll just have to wait and see."

"I don't trust her," she said in a hushed voice. "Just seeing her gives me the shivers, and my mind goes all blurry."

Spike nodded in agreement and followed the two vampires at a distance. Beside him Buffy walked with a worried frown on her face and eyes darting around at the gathered vampires, demons and the human servants. He couldn't help but look at her; the way her blue dress clung to her and how parts of her hair had started to fall loose from the braid. In his eyes she'd never looked more beautiful, with the frown and all.

In front of where the Master sat a large number of vampires had gathered to grovel before him, and the Master himself seemed to be very delighted by this. Dinah had already reached him and returned to the spot beside his chair that she had possessed earlier; Vin stood among the seemingly loyal followers waiting for their Mayor to speak.

"It's time," the pale old vampire said and smiled wickedly. "For over a hundred years I've been longing for this day to come, when I could tell you that this-" he paused and pointed towards the cowered windows, "- this ruined dimension can't imprison us any longer. Before this week has reached its end I will have torn down the walls between the worlds and become the master of it all." He stood up and raised his voice so much that it echoed in the huge room. "You that are loyal to me will be rewarded for it, and soon we vampires who are looked upon as powerless half-breeds by the demons will show just how strong and dangerous we are."

A shocked and tense silence filled the room, and some of the demons there exchanged glances, which were mixtures between disbelief and fear.

Angry, both at Vin for keeping this a secret from them and at himself for not realizing there was something more going one then just Vin and Dinah wanting to take the Masters position, Spike took a step in the bulky vampires direction. But before he could go any further a strong hand gripping his wrist stopped him.

"Later," she hissed trough gritted teeth, and he knew she shared his anger. Without stopping to consider what anyone would think of it, the two blondes turned around and left.

As soon as the door closed behind them, they broke their silence. Not exactly hurrying, but walking very determinedly the two of them had maid their way up the stairs and to their rooms.

"That bastard," was the first words spoken.

"I can't believe this!" Buffy exclaimed in response. "We're here for -- I don't know, three days? And already we're in the middle of another plot to take over the world. Only this time it's not one the world, it's all of them. Who knows how any alternative dimensions there are, and who know what they're like. Maybe some of them even turned out right."

"What do you mean?" Spike asked in confusion, trying to follow her trail of thought.

She sighed and sat down on one of the comfortable chairs and looked up at him.

"I meant that, I don't know, maybe there is some perfect dimension somewhere out there were everything's great, all evil has been destroyed and everyone's happy."

Spike tilted his head to the side and watched her, still with an expression of confusion.

"I don't really see what your getting at, luv. If there are such a place, we'd never know anyway, so why bother to think about it?"

To his surprise she reached out and grabbed his hand and made him sit down beside her so she could look him straight in the eyes. And not just to look, to truly see. She really wanted him to understand what she wanted to say.

"When he started talking about braking all the walls, I - I felt like I just didn't care. Or, I mean, I did care, but not enough for me to fight. It was just for a second, but it scared me. This dimension is ruined; the Master was right about that, but what about the others? Our dimension might not be perfect, but it's not all bad either. There's Dawn, and the Scoobies, and -- and lots of things. Good things, worth fighting for. But for a second I felt like it wasn't worth it, like I didn't have the strength or the will to do it. But--" she started saying something more, but to Spikes astonishment she blushed and looked down at her hands.

Unsure whether he should ask her what it was, or to wait and let her tell him whatever it was in her own time, he stared at her. Soon she felt his gaze on her and looked up once more.

"You," was all she said.

"Me what?" he asked gently, not daring to think of what she could've meant by it.

She swallowed before smiling weakly at him.

"You made me realize what I had been thinking. You have no reason for wanting to save our dimension, or maybe a few, small things, but I'd think you'd have more to gain by the Master's plan. Still you seemed more enraged and angry by Vin's secrets then me. That made me see that no matter what I've been trough, and no matter what happens in the future, it's still my duty-- no my calling -- to fight. If I don't, everything will be lost. Dawn would most likely die a painful death, and everyone I love would meet the same end. I have to fight. I don't care what Vin's reasons are to oppose the Master's plan, but I know now that I don't care. This place is lost already; there's nothing we can do to help it. But that doesn't mean everyone else has to suffer the same. We will help Vin and Dinah with their plan, we'll kill the Master and we'll let Dinah take his place. That way I hope we'll save the other dimensions."

All trough her long tirade Spike had had his eyes fixed at her as if hypnotized, and when she finally stopped, waiting for some sort of reaction from him, he couldn't make a sound. All the while she'd been talking, her eyes had lit up and she had looked more alive then she'd been in months.

After swallowing and taking deep breath he came to his senses and decided to keep their conversation strictly business.

"You think us being here is just a coincidence then?" he asked, his eyes not leaving hers.

Buffy narrowed her eyes and frowned.

"Yeah, sure. What else could it be? It was our own fault that we came here, that demon--"

"That demon didn't have any business in Sunnydale," Spike interrupted her. "They're very rare and they almost never go up among humans. And before this I haven't heard of them fighting unless it's in self-defense. They're really just gates, used by stronger demons to travel between dimensions. But this one attacked you for no reason at all. Doesn't that seem strange to you?"

When she didn't reply he shook his head in regret of his own foolishness. He had been the one two know all of this, but still he hadn't put the pieces together. When they were actually fighting the demon that had been what his mind was set on, and then when they'd gone trough the portal the fact that he was alone with Buffy and the questioned of how they were going to get back had filled his thoughts. Not once had he stopped to think of the strangeness of it.

"You say they're used by strong demons?" Buffy asked apprehensively. "Who is that strong and would benefit from us coming here?"

Spike leaned back in his chair, noting silently to himself that she still held his hand in hers.

"Vin," he said calmly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. But whatever his reason was to see it so clearly, Buffy didn't share it.

"Vin?" she asked. "How could he do that? Sure he's strong for a vampire, but it sounded from what you said that there should be something more then just a vampire."

"There's a lot of things that he's been keeping from us, and I don't think that it was a coincident that he was the one to find us in that house. Now when I think about it I can't believe I didn't see it before. How unlikely isn't it that one of the ones closest to the Master would be out hiding in a deserted house in the outskirts of town? I think rather he knew where we'd end up when we came trough the portal, and followed us from there."

Buffy nodded with a thoughtful look on her face.

"So what do you think we should do?" she asked, seeing the shocked expression on Spikes face brought on by her asking him to decide of something like that.

"It seems to me live you've already decided what to do," he said slowly, weighing every word to make sure her sudden respect and trust in him wasn't shattered. "We'll help Vin out with his plan, and then hope he and Dinah wont do the same thing as the Master is trying to do now later when they're in charge. We don't have much choice."

"We don't have much choice;" Buffy repeated as she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes in exhaustion.

A/N: Yes! Another chapter done and posted. I hope I wont disappoint anyone who's following this with how I'm writing now, because I don't have that much time to spell-check and re-read to look for mistakes. I have the whole story in my head, but it takes some time to write it down and I'm currently lacking just that. I hope these last few chapters haven't been too bad. Thanks for the reviews; it's what keeps me going.