Twenty-Three

Love and Lies

Tara felt her energy begin to return as she thought of Spike, helpless in Buffy's cruel hands. She ran the last block to her apartment, and let herself in, fumbling with the key. She wondered briefly where Dawn and Anya were, but her attention was focused on one thing: saving Spike.

Frantically she dug through her kitchen drawers. Where was it? Yanking things out and tossing them down, heedless of the mess, she continued to ransack her own kitchen until she found what she sought. A tiny white slip of paer.

Clutching it in her hand she ran to the phone and dialed a number with shaking fingers.

A calm woman's voice with a slight accent answered the phone.

"Rupert Giles, please. Yes, this is an emergency!"

Anya had expected that Dawn would be a wreck when they left. She had waited in the car for Dawn to get there, feeling anxious and uncomfortable, knowing that any comfort she might offer the girl would be inadequate.

She was stunned by Dawn's demeanor when she reached the car. Her eyes were blazing with a fury and determination that was almost awe-inspiring. She got in the car and shut the door hard, not quite a slam, but close.

"Back to the apartment," she said, and she had such an air of surety and authority about her that Anya never questioned the fact that a fifteen-year-old was telling her what to do. Dawn's eyes flashed fire as she stared straight ahead of her. "Let's get this thing done. This demon's going down!"

They rode in silence until they had parked in front of Tara's apartment. "I need to call Xander," Anya said quietly. "Buffy and Willow are his best friends. If he even tries to talk to them right now he could get hurt." She paused, then said softly, "And he has a right to know."

Dawn knew why Anya was trying to convince her. This whole thing was going to be quite a shock to Xander; he was going to hate absolutely everything about the situation, and he was the king of denial. Getting him to accept the situation to the point of being any help would be next to impossible, if they could even get him to believe that both of his best friends had become evil.

But Dawn could see the worry in Anya's eyes, and knew that she was right. Regardless, Xander did have the right to know. She nodded, and they went upstairs.

The apartment was empty. Anya headed for the phone.

"You never should have left me, Baby."

Spike barely heard the words through the haze of pain that surrounded him, blurring his vision and beckoning him to the oblivion of unconsciousness. The only thing that made him struggle to stay awake was the subconscious realization that he had to stay as alert as possible if he was going to survive this.

Buffy had been at it for an hour now.

"No one's ever gonna want you like I do," Buffy continued, smiling down at the weak, devastated form of her ex-lover with a sick perversion of affection.

"You never loved me," he whispered, trying to focus on the people he knew did love him…on getting back to them…Dawn…Tara…

"Of course not, stupid," Buffy's voice was momentarily cold, then returned to that same soft, mockingly gentle tone as she came close to him, looking him in the eye, and said, "I said I wanted you. No one could ever love a thing like you, Spike." She paused, as if reading the mixture of emotions in his eyes, and then added in a very soft voice, as she knelt in front of him again, "You are a worthless little nothing that shouldn't even exist. Do you really think that someone as special as her could love you?"

Spike turned his head away, trying to hide the pain in his eyes caused by the words, and his deep-down feeling that maybe, maybe, they could be true.

She jerked his head back by the hair, forcing him to face her, as she demanded, "Where is she, then? Why are you still here?" She smirked, looking down for a moment as she said, "Well, don't bother with that last one. Even if she had come for you…you'd still be here. I'd have just killed her. So if you really love her you should be glad she was smart enough to leave you."

He flinched at the cruel words. But Buffy wasn't finished.

Her voice almost a whisper now, her lips so close to his that he could hear each breath she took, she went on, "And she has left you, Baby. She won't come. Why do you think Dawn came? Because it wasn't worth the risk to Tara."

But Buffy had made a mistake. She shouldn't have mentioned Dawn. Spike closed his eyes, focusing on Dawn, on her comforting words and embrace hours before. He thought of when she had first come to see him at Tara's apartment…his hand in Tara's that night, with Dawn's head resting in his lap…that night…Tara…

"She loves me," he whispered, opening his eyes to give her a defiant look.

Buffy smirked as she lifted the bottle in her hand again and tilted it, spilling a thin stream of the searing liquid from his throat down his bare chest. Pulling him close to her as he bit back a scream of agony, trembling with pain, she looked him in the eyes as she spoke again.

"Let's see her prove it."

"I'm just not getting this," Xander sighed, putting his head in his hands. He sat on Tara's couch, Anya beside him with a supportive hand on his shoulder. Dawn perched on the coffee table facing them.

"What's not to get?" Anya shrugged. "Buffy and Willow are possessed and therefore evil and Spike is their prisoner and Tara is missing and we have to do the ritual to make them un-possessed and not evil."

"But – this ritual could hurt them -- kill them…" Xander objected, frowning. "Can't we do some research, find another way? If we just take a little time…"

"We don't have time," Dawn said, her voice hard, her eyes filled with tears. "Buffy is going to kill Spike…"

"I'm sorry, Dawnie," Xander said softly, not meeting her eyes. "But Buffy and Will are a little higher on my list of priorities than the Evil Undead."

Dawn stood up suddenly, glaring down at Xander with a fury that actually made him lean back away from her. She looked like she wanted to slap him. She seemed to be fighting for control for a few moments before she finally spoke, her voice low and intense. "It's not really Buffy, Xander. It's this thing…it's the only reason she's even here." She paused, as if trying to keep quiet, then spat out, "You should never have brought her back! If the only way that you could bring her back was by putting that thing in her, you should have left her where she was…in heaven."

"Dawnie…" Xander's face was pale, his face anxious and guilty. "we didn't know…we thought…"

"Willow did." Dawn's voice was bitter and full of anger. There was a moment of silence before she went on, "Willow knew exactly what she was doing and she did it anyway."

Before Dawn could say anything else, Anya touched Xander's arm to get his attention and said, "This ritual won't kill Willow…it may hurt her in some ways…but if we don't do the ritual…this thing will just keep destroying and destroying, person by person…"

"An apocalypse, a little at a time," Dawn almost whispered, calmer now, not looking at either of them.

"And Xander," Anya said sadly, "she's right. It's not really Buffy in there. We shouldn't have done the resurrection spell. We made a really. Big. Mistake."

Silence reigned in the room for a few moments.

Dawn gestured toward her bruised face, which had not yet been explained to Xander. "You see this, Xander?" she demanded angrily. "Buffy did this! Buffy! Only not Buffy, because my sister wouldn't do this to me! It's that thing that's controlling her body."

Xander's eyes were wide with shock. He couldn't say a word; he couldn't imagine Buffy doing anything to hurt Dawn.

Dawn went on, "When she was freaking out and hit me, and wouldn't let me leave and I was so scared," she was sobbing by now. "…and I thought I was never gonna get out of there, you know who came and rescued me? Even though Buffy was looking for him and wanted to kill him? Spike, Xander. Spike came to save me when Buffy was going to kill me. And I will die before I will let her kill him."

There was no arguing with the absolute certainty in her voice.

Xander let out a heavy sigh. "Well…if this is what we have to do," he said softly. "Let's get this thing done."

Dawn nodded slowly, with deliberate certainty as she stood up and moved to stand in the center of the circle they had made earlier in the center of the living room floor, from the powdered herbs Tara had specified that she should use. Anya and Xander rose to follow her.

At that moment, the door to the apartment flew open with a loud explosion of power, and the three of them looked up to see Willow standing in the doorway, an unearthly wind blowing her jet-black hair around her face, her eyes fathomless black pools as she smiled at them.

It was not a pleasant smile.

She took in the scene before her and her smile turned to a mocking frown. "Aw, guys," she pouted. "I thought you were my friends."

Xander's eyes were wide with shock at the sight of his friend in a condition he had never seen before. Cautiously he stepped toward her. "Willow…"

"Xander!" Anya caught his arm and pulled him back. "Don't!"

Xander stopped where he was, but held out a supplicating hand toward his friend, "Will," he said softly. "we are your friends. We want to help you."

She laughed, a hard, cruel, sickening sound. "Sorry, guys," she smiled. "I can't let you do that." And she released a powerful blast of power from her outstretched arms that seemed to rock the room. "I'm not finished yet."