Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.

Summary: Post AtS and BtVS, Faith and Xander are approached by a secret government agency. Surprises all around.

Rating: PG-13

Chapter 25: Not so evil any more

Spike rose up off the ground slowly, scowling at the too-cheerful vampire facing him. All around him demon corpses were bleeding out on the ugly plastic flooring, but he ignored that, staring at the vampire he hated so much.

Angel edged closer, avoiding the too-bright indirect sunlight from outside. "Is everybody okay?"

Faith stood up shakily. There was blood all over her face, and most of it was her own. "Xander!" she yelled, jumping forward the side of her fallen Watcher.

Xander groaned. "What hit me?" he asked, his voice harsh with pain.

"Drusilla," said Spike, sneering down at them, trying to ignore the pain throughout his body. "Let's get out of here, eh?"

Angel looked back behind him at the skinny girl with the dark hair who'd followed him in, who was holding a blanket, apparently the one he'd been using for cover as he came in. "I think we should stay here a while," he said. "It's getting a bit bright, and, um, do you still have a car with tinted windows?"

Spike scowled. "Not for a while," he said. "After Dru stole mine we took some demons motorbikes. I hate you, you know."

"I hate you too," said Angel absently. "We sort of stole a car…"

Xander was staring at Angel. "What is he doing here?" he croaked.

"Saving us, I think," said Faith, smiling at Angel.

"I'm glad someone's happy to see me," mumbled Angel.

Spike glanced back at Angel's companion, finally taking his eyes off the vampire. He yelped, backing up a few steps.

"What?" said Faith, standing up and assuming a fight position.

"Huh? Oh," said Angel. "This is Dana. She's a Slayer."

"Hi," said Dana, waving.

"She's the one that cut off Spike's hands," said Xander, understanding immediately.

Faith made a face, glancing at Spike to make sure his hands were still there. "I think Xander's concussed," she reported.

Spike held up his arms. "No, really, look. I have scars," he said indignantly.

Faith peered at them. "I'm not having a really weird coma dream, am I? Cuz that seems awfully symbolic of your relationship with Buffy right now."

"Oh, ha bloody ha," said Spike, just a tad bitterly. "I'll have you know… wait, it is, isn't it? How bloody ironic."

While he mused about that Faith helped Xander up. "We can't stay here," she said. "We need to find somewhere to go."

Spike coughed, stepping forward. "I'll go find someplace," he started to say, before pitching forward and collapsing on the floor, landing with a sickening noise not unlike a hammer smashing down on fingers.

Angel moved forward, grabbing the man who'd formerly been his worst enemy. "Take it easy, Spike!" he warned, lifting the bleached blonde to his feet.

Spike scowled at Angel, shaking his hands off. "Don't touch me," he snarled, moving away from Angel. "I'm just a little dizzy." He staggered back.

Dana watched them both carefully. "You're not a vampire," she said suddenly.

He glanced at her in surprise. "How'd you suss me out so quick, love?" he asked, leaning casually against the wall, as if he hadn't just fallen on his face, as if he didn't need the support to stand.

She shrugged. "Too much breathing, too much… I can't feel you, not anymore," she gestured vaguely at her neck. "And, besides that, I think I'd been dreaming it."

"Riiight," drawled Spike. "Still crazy, then?" he asked.

She scowled at him. "Maybe a little, but you're human, aren't you?"

He shrugged, glancing back at Faith, who was holding Xander just a little too tight, her face pressed against the side of his neck. He looked back quickly, but not before noting that Xander actually looked happy about it.

Seeing Xander happy was a physically painful experience, and it took all his newfound maturity not to puncture Xander as painfully as possible.

Spike pushed himself off the wall. "Watch them. I'll go get a motel room or something. Be back soon."

He marched purposefully out into the sunlight.

Angel settled back against the wall, crossing his arms. "How've you been, Faith?" he asked quietly.

Faith turned her head, keeping her cheek pressed against Xander. "Good," she said, and he noticed with surprise that there were tears mixed with the blood on her face.

For a moment he flashed back to the day when he'd saved Xander from Faith, sneaking up behind her as she choked the life from the young man.

It occurred to him that it wasn't the strongest foundation for a relationship.

Of course, those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Angel just nodded, wondering why seeing her wrapped around Xander reminded him of seeing a python constricting its prey.

Dana moved closer, scowling. "Hi, I'm a Slayer," she said to Faith. "You are too, huh?"

"Yeah," sighed Faith, tightening her grip on Xander just a little. She turned her face back into his neck.

"Take it easy there, a fella might feel you cared about him," said Xander, who was still a little dizzy.

"I thought I'd failed," whispered Faith, even though she knew no matter how low her voice was Angel and Dana would probably hear her. She could feel a trembling building in the pit of her belly. "I thought you were going to die because I wasn't fast enough, wasn't strong enough."

Xander put a hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair. "I think we're freaking Angel out," he noted.

Angel made a face. "I don't mind," he lied, a bald-faced lie. He wondered how long it would take Spike to get back.

Dana frowned. "Aren't you her Watcher? That's a bit squicky."

line break-

Dawn glanced at the Immortal, who was staring out at the chaos unfolding in front of them. As the assault on the Wolfram and Hart building continued he sighed, shielding his eyes like a blushing child might look away from a passionate kiss.

"I've been meaning to ask you, why exactly do you hate Angel and Spike?" asked Dawn. She was keeping an eye on Buffy, trying to make sure her sister didn't get hurt, but she could multi-task.

"Liam and William? It's a long story," replied the Immortal. "It starts when two yokel vampires began terrorizing Italy, and then thought they could swindle me. I had to teach them a lesson, of course, so I had them kidnapped and seduced their women."

"You mean Darla and Drusilla?" asked Dawn, an eyebrow arching.

"Naturally. And the boys… they take themselves so seriously! Then they had to make a war with me, and come after me, and naturally I must defend myself, and so on and so forth. And then, when William came back, he insisted on killing my minions and bankrupting me! I finally got rid of him only by throwing him in jail for income tax evasion."

"Income tax evasion?" asked Dawn, amused.

"Have you ever seen a vampire pay taxes? It was quite amusing…but then, of course, there was the incident in Prague, and I felt very badly for them both. Drusilla was always quite charming to me, and although young William has always been a thorn in my side, I would not have wished on him what came next."

"Right," snorted Dawn. "Because it was so terrible, wasn't it? He got a soul and it just crushed him."

L'Eterno glanced at her, surprised. "I meant losing Drusilla, of course," he said smoothly.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "You guys are all the same, you know? So, what do you think?"

"They did not see us coming," sniffed the Immortal. Dawn glared at him. He resembled a weasel, she gleefully decided, ignoring all his handsomeness and suave manners. She knew what was under them, and she'd learned long ago not to judge by appearance.

He was a weasel, and all the good looks in the world couldn't fix that.

line break-

Spike settled down onto the bed, rubbing his face. "I'm going to bruise," he said, as if were a monumentous decision rather than an observation that everyone else had already made.

Faith was lying on the other bed beside Xander, cuddled into his side, and she snorted. "You're lucky, I think they busted three of my ribs," she retorted.

Xander glanced at her in surprise. "Really?" he asked.

"Yeah. Maybe you can bandage them up later," she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

Xander coughed.

Spike glanced at them. "Don't think I've forgiven you, either," he growled. Xander looked at him in surprise.

"What? For being too weak to fight off Drusilla?"

"For making me stake her," muttered Spike. "I didn't want to do that. It wasn't how it was supposed to happen!"

Angel, who was lurking in the entryway, shook his head. "If you hadn't, I would have had to," he said simply. "She was too powerful, too dangerous. And if you gave her a soul, too insane. It would never have worked."

Spike growled under his breath, going back to staring at the ceiling.

Dana wandered closer to the ex-vampire, frowning. "So, are you trying to tell me you're automatically good just because you're human? Because I don't buy that, either."

Spike snorted, a half-smile coming to his face. "No, you're too smart for one of those lies, aren't you? No, of course it doesn't."

"I knew it!" said Dana triumphantly, balling her hands into fists.

Angel cleared his throat. "Did Giles say you could kill him?" he asked.

Her face fell, and she backed up.

"I didn't say I was evil!" protested Spike, trying to sit up. After failing he settled back casually as if he hadn't tried in the first place. "I just said I'm not automatically good. It's taken a lot of hard work for me to be as good as I have been!" He scowled at her, a bit of anger in his face. "You really are nuts," he decided, closing his eyes.

Angel chuckled. "Don't mind Spike, Dana. He's never handled criticism very well."

Spike grunted. "How'd you find me?" he asked Angel.

"I, um, had a vision," said Angel sheepishly.

Spike's eyes bugged out. "No way!" he shouted, then coughed, gripping his chest. "No! No!" he moaned, his eyes sliding shut.

"What?" said Faith, worried.

"Um, I'm Spike's Seer," said Angel, looking away.

"I don't believe it!" snapped Spike. "This is hell! Not only do I have to watch monkey-boy get it on with the Slayer, I'm saddled with you as my sidekick!"

Dana frowned, not understanding more than two words out of Spike's outburst. Faith started laughing, then coughed and stopped, although a wide grin stayed on her face. Xander smiled, a smile that was much too happy.

"It is hell," grumbled Angel. "And I should know. I've been there a few times."

"Hey, don't you guilt-trip me!" snapped Spike. "I went to hell to save your sorry butt!"

Angel sighed, leaning against the wall. "Well, we staked Drusilla. Now all we have to do is take down the remaining branches of Wolfram and Hart, and we'll be ready for the next apocalypse."

Xander cleared his throat, checking his watch. "And the Italian branch should be down already… what? Give Dawn an army of Slayers, what did you think would happen?"

Angel covered his face. "Well, it's a good start," he conceded.

"Yeah," muttered Spike. "Real good start."

Dana frowned. "Isn't this a good thing?" she asked suspiciously.

Spike groaned, rolling onto his side so he could see her. "Now your Slayers are going to be a target too. We have to find out who's running this, and cut them down before they can attack your girls."

"I'm not letting them kill a single girl!" said Angel fiercely. "Not one!"

Spike nodded, a scowl reappearing on his face. "That girl, Eve, she may have something to do with this," he said.

"Uh, no," said Angel, looking away. "I…killed her."

"Angelus went after her? I thought he would have liked her," said Spike, to the confusion of the others.

"Well, yeah, but she annoyed him," admitted Angel. "So, we can't start there. What do we do?"

"D-boy had a few ideas," muttered Spike. "Something to do with his fancy law classes and tracing the money accounts back. I couldn't follow it more than two sentences. I told him to work on it, when he had time."

"Great," muttered Angel. "Connor's good at research?" he added after a moment.

"Very good," Spike assured him. "Taught me a thing or two, and you know how hard that is."

"Because you're such a know it all?" asked Faith.

"Because his skull's so thick," growled Xander.

Angel laughed. "Because his attention span's so short," he told them. "You have Connor's number, or should we swing by?"

Spike groaned. "Swing by? I don't think so… might blow his cover. I'll just call him. Anyone got a cell phone?"

"I've got mine," said Xander. "Back pocket."

A second later Faith handed Spike the cell phone, a broad grin on her face. He took it with a snort of disgust, eyeing the phone as if it were contaminated. He snapped it open and dialed. "With our luck he's in class," growled the blonde.

Angel smiled proudly. "Of course he is," he muttered. "He's a good student, right?" This earned him eye-rolls from everyone but Dana, who frowned, not understanding.

Spike began touching his eyes, poking at them. "Argh," he grumbled, finally managing to peel his contact lenses out. He carefully deposited them on the tiny table between the beds. He blinked a few times.

"You're wearing contacts?" asked Angel, surprised.

"The glasses would fly off in the middle of a fight," said Spike. "And I'm vain. Quite like my reflection, now that I can see it." Then the phone stopped dialing, and Spike fumbled with it. "Connor? Sorry. Yeah, things are peachy. How's that project? Oh, really? Where? Great. Call me back. Yeah, it's Xander's phone. Call him back, then. Yeah, I'll be waiting. Maybe. No. As a matter of fact, he's here with me. No. Really? Tell her to come to Boston and wait with you. I have a feeling… yeah, okay. Say hi to your sister for me."

Angel sighed. "Can you tell him to call a number in England? Old contact of mine?"

"Too late, he hung up," said Spike, tossing the phone at Xander. "He'll call back tonight. Ugh. Wake me when he calls."

His eyes slid shut, and for a minute Angel stared at his former Childe, the vampire he'd never wanted.

He hated him so much just then that he considered throwing something at him as he tried to sleep.

line break-

Dawn scowled. "So, Connor and Spike had already gutted these bad boys once," she said, tapping her fingers on the side of the file folder l'Eterno had given her.

Buffy nodded, playing with the handle of her axe. "But they'd been hard at work rebuilding," she replied. "Why is that?"

Dawn continued tapping her fingers as they walked up the steps of the tiny apartment they'd been working out of. "I need to call Connor. Did we get a contact number?"

"No," said Buffy.

"Well, if he's not hiding he should be pretty easy to find," said Dawn. "And he can answer some of this. Clearly there's still some centralized authority directing them, despite Spike's… what'd he call those demons? The Senior Partners?"

"And he and Connor were both pretty sure some of them, or most of them, were here, with their armies," said Buffy.

"Well, at least their armies," said Dawn. "However, even if Spike did destroy their dimension… where's Willow? I need something."

"Brazil," said Buffy.

Dawn took her cell phone out, dialing. "Hi? Kennedy? Yeah, can I speak to Willow? Thanks. Hi! Willow! I need to know if you can find out about recent interdimensional portals. Yeah. A whole list. There was? The same time Spike came back? That's all I needed. Yeah."

Dawn turned the phone off, turning to Buffy. "There were about a dozen portals, almost at the same time as Spike returned. They ran here like rats out of a sinking ship."

Buffy frowned. "So, where are they?"

"Good question," replied Dawn. The look on her face said all that needed saying.

line break-

When Angel woke up Spike was gone. He sniffed the air quickly, checking for intruders. The only scents there were familiar ones.

He moved to the door, hesitating. It was after sunset, but his instinct told him better safe than sorry.

He darted out the door, braving the potential deadly rays of heaven.

Spike was leaning against the wall, staring off to the west. "I never get tired of that," he muttered.

Angel stayed in the darkest shadows, trying to ignore the tingling all over his skin, the feel of worms come to feast. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Spike shrugged. "I'm watching the sun set, git," he said shortly. "What're you doing?"

"I was… looking for you," said Angel.

Spike snorted. "Thanks, Gramps. Did D-boy call back yet?"

"No," said Angel.

"Too bad," said Spike. "So, I hear Brazil is nice this time of year."

"What?" said Angel, surprised. "How'd you know where I sent Nina!"

"D-Boy found out, of course," said Spike. "He's the brains of our little operation. Hard to believe, him being your son and all. Want to go visit her?"

"What happened to hunting them down like dogs?" asked Angel.

Spike shook his head. "They know we're back, now," he said contemptuously. "They saw me stake Dru, saw you save me. Now it's the old routine. You get the visions, we go after them. We don't get any useful visions, do we?"

Angel thought about it. "Not often."

"Well, we're going to have to find some way to find them. But that's long term. You need to let your lady know you're alive and kicking."

Angel sighed. "And you?"

Spike glanced at him. "Give my cookie dough a chance to bake," he said smirking. "Besides, wouldn't shagging me lose you your soul?" His eyes danced with joy; baiting Angel made him feel alive in a way that fighting never could.

Angel glowered at him. "You know what I mean, Spike."

"I do," said Spike, sighing. He nodded his head back at the motel room. "Those two, they've got something real, you know. And I want something like that."

Angel thought about it. "And you never got that from Buffy?"

Spike snorted. "Buffy never loved me, not really, and we both know it. Cheap shot."

Angel shrugged. "That's what I do."

Xander opened the door behind Angel, limping slightly. "Um, Connor's on the phone," he said.

Spike came back, taking the phone from him. "Connor? Yeah. What? No, I don't think so. I mean, where's the irony in that? Yeah. You mean…? Cripes. I knew that one would come back to haunt me. Find Sarah, and get her to your parents. Yeah, I don't want to leave her in Boston without you. Well, then leave her! But get your butt to LA."

Spike closed the phone. "We have some problems."