Chapter 17

"What're you doing lurking about out here?"

Spike let go of the doorknob to his small room. He'd patched up Buffy's arm and told her about his adventures without her, keeping up his calm façade. Truth be told, he was still a bit rattled by her advances. As soon as he finished mending her wound, he'd excused himself. He just needed a moment to sort through his whirling thoughts.

And who immediately greeted him?

Demon Spike smirked at him and flicked the cigarette he was sucking on to the ground. Grinding out the tiny scarlet flame with the heel of his boot, he shrugged. "Saw Buffy go in there with you. Smelled the blood on her from across the way. Was curious is all."

"Go somewhere else. There's nothing to see. . . or hear," Spike retorted. He didn't like being on the receiving end of his own peeping-Tom act. He was even more disconcerted to be confronted by himself. . . the way he used to be.

The vampire surveyed Spike's face. "She came onto you, didn't she?"

Spike brushed past his twin, heading toward the group of kranooks gathered around Harmony, Michael, and Roxy. "That is none of your business, mate."

Close behind, demon Spike sounded excited, "Oh ho. Let me guess. You turned her down. She comes back from god knows where covered in blood, needs a little bit of cold comfort, and you turn her down? Am I missing something here or. . .?"

Spike spun to face his counterpart. Nose to nose, jaw tight, he growled, "I don't want to talk about it."

"You're crazy. I can smell how much you want her. That girl. . ." he pointed back toward the quarters, "that girl is throwing herself at you and just walk away?"

Spike was having a hard enough time with once again shifting from being emotionally close to Buffy to having to tuck his feelings away. He had to focus on the mission. She was going to be the death of him before their adventure was over, and demon Spike wasn't helping the matter any by insisting that he should take advantage of her vulnerability.

Spike lifted his arms in surrender and turned back onto his original path. "Fine. You want to know? I'll tell you. Everything happened just exactly as you think. Does that satisfy you?"

Vampire Spike crossed his arms. "No. . . no, it doesn't. Look, I'm just trying to help you. Don't want you to make the same mistakes I did."

Spike wasn't quite placated and was fully aware he was taking his anger out on. . . himself. He lengthened his strides. "Well, stop trying to help me. I'm not the same as you. She's not the same as your Buffy. And she didn't choose you in your dimension."

Demon Spike matched Spike's speed. "Whoa. Wasn't trying to attack you. Like I said, I'm just trying to make things go differently for the two of you."

Spike glared over his shoulder at his doppelganger. "We have a mission here. Let's just keep centered on that. . . . Or maybe you should tell me exactly how your Buffy died."

"What's it take?"

Spike froze at the words. His jaw tightening, he barely managed, "What did you just say?"

"You heard me."

"You better damn well have an explanation for using those exact words, or. . ."

"I just want you to answer that question for yourself. You're acting worse than she ever did. Yeah, she left you for three years. Yeah, she dated someone else. Yeah, she made mistakes. She's human. But so are you now. Nothing's standing in your way. Nothing."

Spike gritted his teeth. "I will say this one more time and one more time only. I didn't tell you all that stuff about Buffy and me so that you could use it to lecture me about what I should and should not do. We have a job to do."

Multiple emotions played across demon Spike's face, but Spike didn't stop to try to figure them out. "Let's just focus on the mission," the vampire conceded.

"Good."

"What are we doing again?"

"Preparing for battle."

Demon Spike sighed, jogging to catch up to Spike. "I know that. I meant right now."

"Roxy knows something. We need to find out what that is."

"Any news about Angel. . . your Angel?"

"He's no longer Angel," Spike grumbled.

Vampire Spike halted dead in his tracks. "Angelus? Angelus is back? How?"

xxxxx

Spike hadn't waited for her like he said he would.

Feeling a bit confused by his actions, Buffy sidled past the younger Slayer she now knew was named Jenn. Michael and demon Spike each held onto one of Roxy's arms, and something was stuffed in the vampiress's mouth to keep her from casting spells. Harmony stood at Michael's elbow.

Planting herself near her Spike, Buffy crossed her arms and tried to listen to what Spike was discussing with the kranook leader, Jon.

With the presence of demon Spike, Buffy thought of human Spike as hers. She wasn't quite sure what to make of what she had just instigated with Spike. They'd both tucked their feelings away so quickly. Buffy was used to doing the stuffing-her-feelings-into-an-internal-box routine. As a Slayer, she'd had to do it for years to focus on the impending apocalypse-of-the-week.

On occasion, her feelings had fueled and centered her resolve. But so many other times, her feelings had made a fight. . . a mission. . . harder for her. Despite her bravado with Kendra so many years ago, she was still working on honing her use of emotion as a precision weapon.

Buffy peeked at Spike out of the corner of her eye, hoping for a signal from him that what had happened between them had not resulted in another break in their relationship. As she feared and half-expected, he ignored her in favor of his argument with Jon. Once again, she pushed aside her emotions.

"We really need to confront her now. . . before things get so chaotic that we don't have a chance," Spike insisted, thumbs and forefingers hooked in the belt-less loops of his jeans. Buffy mused that he must have gotten the jeans from his alternate dimension self.

Jon was obviously angry. His snake-like pupils were narrow slits, his tail swished wildly, and his response to Spike had a hiss-like quality to it that made Buffy shiver, "We don't have time. Stephanie's forces have completely taken over Vampire Villa, and she'll be coming here next. Once she invades every corner of this place, she'll bring the Villa to fruition in your dimension."

"And Roxy may have the key to stopping Stephanie," Spike retorted. "We can't just ignore what Buffy discovered in Stephanie's stronghold."

Buffy marveled at Spike's desire to plan and at how much he'd changed in three years. . . well, since he'd been re-ensouled. Deciding that her last comment left her free to jump into the verbal fray, she stepped slightly in front of Spike. "I know I'm coming in kinda late here, but I wanted to point out that I think we all have different agendas here."

Caught off guard, Jon was visibly calmed by the change of her voice, and he regarded her seriously. "Yes, we do."

"But we can work together to achieve our goals. It's the only way to defeat Stephanie," Roxy offered despite her uncomfortable situation.

Everyone stared at her, some with more malice than others.

"She's right," Spike acknowledged.

"But first, we lay our cards on the table," Jon insisted. "Trust will be of utmost important in the upcoming battle, and there are things you should know about us."

"Us?" Buffy asked. Was he including all of them in his statement?

"The kranooks," Roxy guessed as she spat out the rag in her mouth. "And no, I'm not going to cast any spells."

"You have no right to know anything about us," Jon hissed anew, almost lunging at Roxy. "Until we know about you."

"Okay," Spike said, placing an arm between the kranook leader and the vampiress. "We are not going to argue about who goes first with their 'cards.' There's no time."

Everyone focused on Roxy again.

"Spill," Jenn demanded, hand on one hip.

Roxy blinked and within the span of a few seconds, she seemed more resigned. "The truth."

"All of it," Harmony piped up, surprising Buffy, Spike, and even Michael. "Who do you work for?"

Almost excited that she was ahead of the game, Buffy burst out, "Wolfram and Hart! She works for Wolfram and Hart."

Demon Spike snorted in disgust. "Figures."

"It's not like I'm happy about it," Roxy said wearily.

Spike glared at his counterpart and focused on Roxy with a gentler tone, "What do you mean?"

"Would you want to work for Wolfram and Hart?" Harmony asked her ex in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

No one listened to Harmony, and she huffed and rolled her eyes when Roxy continued, "It's not something I wanted to do. It's a long story. The short version is that I'm a witch. . . I'm not really a vampire. Wolfram and Hart wanted me to work for them. I refused. They sent demons after my family. In exchange for sparing my family, they forced me to work for them."

Michael emitted a low whistle and looked her up and down. "Damn. I knew there was something off about you."

Roxy nodded. "Same technology that made them appear to be vampires."

"You got a chip in your noggin'?" Spike asked.

"Yes."

"What were you sent here to do?"

Roxy hesitated, surveying her captors. "Guess I don't have much of a choice."

"About what?" Harmony asked, clearly mystified by the witch's indecision.

"About telling us, you half-wit," vampire Spike muttered.

Michael lunged at him across Roxy, but Harmony held up a hand in demon Spike's face. "He's not worth it," she sniffed.

"And?" Jon prodded Roxy, tail swishing again.

"And I was sent here by the senior partners to infiltrate Stephan and Stephanie's operation and prevent them from attempting to bring the vampire city into the dimension you belong to."

"Whose dimension?" Jenn asked in confusion.

"Ours," Buffy nodded to Spike. "It's ours."

"Right," Roxy confirmed.

"That doesn't make any sense, pet," Spike said. "Why would they want to prevent it?"

"It involves us, doesn't it?" Jenn added to Spike's question. "Our dimension."

"Right," Roxy repeated.

"This story is going on longer than she said it would," Harmony whined, studying her fingernails.

"She's right," Jon growled. "Get on with the point."

Roxy did not show signs of losing her temper. "Bottom line? Wolfram and Hart screwed up in your dimension, Jenn. That's your name, right?"

Jenn dipped her head once.

"Two vampires with souls was the perfect set up for a power differential. Then, there were all the Slayers in the world. . . and a newly human champion. When the vampires fled the Earthly plane for the space between dimensions, the balance of good and evil shifted toward good, creating a tension. . . an imbalance across dimensional lines. Although the imbalance toward good was not so helpful for the senior partners in the short term, it was ideal in the long term. The longer the force of evil. . . the force of vampires clustered in the space between. . ."

"The more the tension built," Buffy interrupted. "And continues to build."

"Which is why they didn't want the vampire city to cross dimension lines," Spike finished for Buffy. They exchanged a smile, and Buffy wondered if it meant things were okay between them.

Jenn frowned. "But I still don't understand how they screwed up in my dimension."

"Good thinking," Roxy said. "They messed up because they put a human in charge of the law firm. Angel was chosen as champion. . . not Spike. Angel was in charge of Wolfram and Hart in your dimension as well. Human Angel was more corruptible than vampire Angel."

Demon Spike was thoughtful, "And because the Slayer. . . Buffy. . . passed in my dimension. . ."

"The tension was disrupted, and the vampire city had little potential power to destroy if brought into your portion of the plane," Roxy explained.

"And power is everything," vampire Spike said bitterly.

"Power is everything to the senior partners," she amended.

"So what does this power differential mean now that Angel's lost his soul?" Buffy asked.

"It means that the senior partners lost ground. It means that they will want more than ever to prevent Stephanie from moving Vamp Villa. . . until tension is restored."

"They want us to destroy Stephanie," Spike said, starting to put the pieces in place. "That's why Lilah said I needed to watch out for Angel. She didn't want him to lose his soul. She said he'd find something out. . . something that would make him not care if he lost his soul."

Roxy shrugged. "I don't know what that could be."

"I do," demon Spike uttered. All eyes swiveled to his grim face. "He would find out that Buffy chose me. . . well, him. . .in the other dimension." He inclined his head at his twin. "The senior partners thought that would make him not care anymore. . . would make him vulnerable to evil."

Buffy raised a tentative hand. "Excuse me, but I don't think my 'choice' could cause him that much distress. . . not now. Years have passed; he'd deal."

"He didn't deal real well in my dimension," the vampire muttered in return.

"He's right," Jenn agreed. "Angel. . . human Angel didn't deal real well with Buffy's decisions in our timeline."

Buffy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I don't see how this has any relevance for our upcoming fight with Stephanie," the kranook leader interrupted, forked tongue sliding over his lips as he spoke.

"It has a lot to do with it," vampire Spike countered.

"It has to do with how Buffy. . . your Buffy died," Roxy guessed.

Now Buffy was intrigued. She crossed her arms and stood before demon Spike. "Explain."

"The bint's right. Suffice it to say that. . ." Tears filled his eyes, and for the first time, Buffy felt sorry for Spike's alter.

"Tell us," she urged gently.

Vampire Spike looked to Jenn for help.

Jenn touched his shoulder in understanding. "Our Buffy died. She died because she chose to sacrifice herself so that he might remain."

"Who might remain?" Michael breathed, more caught up in the story than he wanted to be.

"Me," Spike's counterpart admitted, lifting his head. His cheeks were damp with tears. "She died saving me."

xxxxx

TBC. . . The next part is continued exposition before the battle. . . :o) Hope you're enjoying!