Title: If I should die before we wake

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or situations, or concepts, or anything, really.

Summary: After the events described in Deconstructing Hell Spike, Andrew and Dana are menaced by a shadowy threat to Spike's life. You should read DH first.

Rating: T, because Spike is violent, rude, crude, and the bad guys are worse. Well, that's a lie. The bad guys are never worse than Spike.

Chapter 8: Unraveling

--

"It was too convenient," Spike explained, gulping at a diet coke while trying to work his way through the menu in front of him. Dana supposed this was what a date would feel like, if you had to go on every date with several super-powered chaperones.

Of course, the chaperones wouldn't be much good if they weren't superpowered, considering that both she and Spike were superpowered.

"And so you figured out there was a conspiracy just from the convenience of your death?"

"Naw, but Connor smelled a rat. We didn't know whose conspiracy it was—W and H, any one of a million people we've ticked off—so we didn't know how deep it was. We didn't communicate visibly because they can pick up on that. There's no surer way to tell your enemies what you're up to than to tell your friends."

Connor was going through a folder full of papers. He sighed heavily. "You know some guy named Boris Krisnoff?"

Spike scowled. "I've heard the name. He's a player, isn't he?"

"I think he must be. He blew some serious non-cash settlement on our boy Daegstrom."

Spike sighed, turning back to Dana. "See? There were loose threads, things that didn't quite add up. So Connor did his usual work of picking at it."

"The thing with the tip-off from the Seer was that Daegstrom keeps those girls under lock and key. They don't have access to a phone unless he gives it to them. He doesn't like us; he wouldn't want to tip us off." Connor continued to sort papers as he explained. "Hey, Mikey has been around recently."

Dana was a little bit happy that they'd left Daegstrom tied up and had taken all the girls out put them all on a bus to go see Angel's friend in LA. She'd never met the LA friend Spike had mentioned, but was pretty sure that she must be a step up from Daegstrom. She could be a horrible ogre and she would be a step up.

She didn't want to dwell too long on the punishments Connor and Spike had doled out. They had their own ideas of justice, and if they didn't mesh too well with the Slayer ideals, they meshed very well with Dana's own half-crazed ideas.

--

Barclay covered his eyes with one hand, trying to hide the laughter. Lucy's mouth was hanging open just a tad.

Dawn glowered at them, and Andrew, by her side, was carefully picking at the buttons on his shirt, his eyes down.

"You lost him," said the tall demon incredulously.

"Kri," said Barclay, in a fairly strangled voice.

The tall demon sighed, turning away. Lucy shook her head. "Okay, to repeat that question in a slightly better way. Where is he now?"

"We have suspicions," said Dawn. It was almost a grousing tone of voice. "No solid leads yet."

"He travels fast, the dark avenger," murmured Andrew. Dawn sent him a murderous glare. "Um, and he's sneaky."

Barclay couldn't stop laughing. He was trying very hard, but he couldn't. "What's so funny?" asked Lucy finally, turning and snapping at him. He still couldn't stop laughing. He tried, managing to choke the words out.

"We're here following leads that indicate he might be plotting against you. You're here because of Seers and dreams that indicate he's going to kill you. And still he managed to have a better plan than you, to be more prepared!"

Dawn shook her head, but didn't say anything.

Andrew knew what was going through her head. He'd helped put together the eventuality plans they'd gone over carefully. He knew just what was happening as they spoke, and which field agents had already been called in.

But they weren't going to tell a rogue demon hunter with spotty allegiances about that.

Or a demon. They had rules.

Andrew was silent for now, but that was mostly because he had some serious worries settled on his shoulders. Beyond the ones that were obvious.

The obvious were bad enough. His Slayer had run off with Spike. Spike had run off. Spike knew about his romance with Dawn. His romance with Dawn was on the rocks. There was a conspiracy to kill the Slayers. Spike might or might not be in on that conspiracy.

And beyond that was where his real troubles started.

He was somewhat glad that Lucy had brought the rogue demon hunter and his pet demon back here. But right now they were just in the way, especially since Andrew was pretty sure that absolute secrecy was required for what he knew was coming next.

And he hated keeping secrets from Dawn. It was making his stomach turn to hold this back from her. He wanted to tell her, very badly, just how enmeshed he was in Spike's organization, and just what he knew.

But that would be a betrayal, wouldn't it? Turning Spike's secrets over to people who would run roughshod over them.

Andrew kept his eyes on the floor, trying to sort out his loyalties.

--

"Now, what's the problem?" asked Spike, carefully lifting Illyria up over his head so that she could reach the fire escape.

Connor, standing beside him, scowled. "Do we have to get into this now?"

"Yes, I think so," said Spike. Illyria got a grip and pulled herself up. He watched her go, a scowl on his face. "It's been bugging you for a while, and I would have called you on it before, but we were busy."

Connor sighed, turning to the door and kicking it down. As the alarm blared he drew the sword off his back and marched into the office. Office workers scattered as he approached. "It's Dana. You know it's Dana. Why ask?"

"What about Dana?" persisted Spike, following him. Dana trailed behind him.

She really wished they wouldn't talk about her as if she wasn't there. It was rude.

Connor kicked a security guard who came running, sending him crashing through a wall. "First of all, isn't crazy a step back for you?" he asked nastily. Dana didn't like that at all. She'd forgotten about Spike and his relationship with the crazy vampire; that had been a long time before she'd gotten out of the looney bin.

Spike pushed a file clerk who was looking heroic out of his way, bouncing the unfortunate worker off a filing cabinet, which toppled over to crash down on the floor.

"Not fair," he muttered. "That's a far different thing."

"Is it?"

Another guard, this one a tall demon, lumbered forward, lowering his head to point bullish horns at Connor. As he charged Spike stepped forward, grabbing his horns and flipping him into the wall.

"Cripes!" growled Spike. "You know what? You're as bad as the others!"

"Well, they aren't exactly wrong," said Connor, pointing his sword at a man in a suit who'd been about to run. "You! Where's the main office?"

He pointed with a trembling hand. Dana was having trouble hearing Connor and Spike argue over the loud screams and the louder sounds of destruction as they stalked through the hallways.

"So you agree with them?" asked Spike.

"Well, that's harsh. Let's say I agree with their concerns. I think they're valid concerns. Shall we talk about those concerns?"

"That I'm in love with a crazy person who can't fully return nor understand my affections?" snarked Spike.

"That was Dru, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, let's look at this. Dana has been crazy. I know she's getting better, but how well does she understand it? Next point. What exactly about her attracts you? And don't say the Slayer part."

"Nah. Well, there is a part of it… it's part of her. Part of her character. But more than that, just the way she is. Her character. Altogether. That makes no sense. I'm bloody rambling."

"Well, yeah," said Connor. "In a way, that's a good sign. Hey, Dana."

Dana hurried to match their pace. "What?"

"Let me ask you this; do you think you know Spike very well?"

That was an entirely unfair question. She had to think about it a little bit first. "Maybe not as well as you," she said hesitantly.

Connor waved it off. "Maybe I don't know him that well," he said breezily, punching a demon that leapt out at them.

Spike attacked it, and Connor stepped back. "This part, I know," said Connor. "This is all I know, really. We fight together. That's what family does. We have each other's back. That's all we do. I don't really know anything about the whole poetry and romance crap he totes around on his sleeve."

"His sleeve?"

"Figure of speech. I mean I can see it's there, but I don't know anything about it. And that's the part that's important right now—well, almost as important as the violence right now. You see my point?"

"Um, a little." Dana didn't want to admit how intimidated she was by the very brash, very free-talking teenager. She was pretty sure he was younger than her.

He was a cheerful killer, an outgoing person among people brutalized and scarred. She had no idea how he managed to be so well-adjusted and yet to lethal at the same time.

"So, how well do you know Spike? What do you know about the flowery and poetic side of him?"

"I know he doesn't like it when people call him flowery and poetic. Even –no, especially when he is."

Spike turned to her, scowling. "I am not flowery and poetic."

"I see what you mean," said Connor sagely, rubbing his chin and then backhanding a security guard trying to sneak up on him. "Of course, there remains the question; is he good enough for you?"

"What?" said Dana, surprised.

"He's a surly, ugly nasty person, and is often not nice at all. Is that the kind of person you deserve?"

Spike sighed, the heat draining out of his face. "No, it's not. Blast it!"

Connor smiled, kicking in a door. The woman behind it glared at him.

"Connor. How nice to see you again," she said. Her teeth were gritted.

Connor smiled, and it was a chilly smile. "Lilah Morgan. Formerly a lawyer, still held in contract to the great muckity-mucks. Hey, Lilah, someone's trying to kill Spike! Know anything about it?"

Spike stormed into her office and sat down in a chair, hurling himself into it. "Feel free to lie, love," he said. "We don't care one way or the other. We're just here to roust out your little lawyers."

"I don't suppose the legality of your little adventure will dissuade you," she said. "Nor the men with guns."

Spike held up a gun he'd snagged somewhere when Dana wasn't looking. "These things? Yeah, right."

She sighed, sitting down behind the desk. "Perhaps I should just bill you for my time."

"You're dead," said Spike. "You have all the time in the world. And then a little more."

She sighed. "Why do people think that between the two of us, I'm the one who's still evil?"

"Because I employ my snark and torture—often one and the same—to save the future of this world and these people. Now, love, I have to ask; did you think I wouldn't figure it out?"

"How'd you find us out?" she asked. "We didn't take the payment we were owed from Boris."

"Ah, you see, that's the thing; I didn't," he said smugly. "I just came over on a hunch."

She stared at him icily. "You mean you had no idea that I knew about his diabolical schemes."

"Lilah, your office has been in on the last hundred and twelve attempts on my life and sanity. The odds were simply against you," said Spike. And his voice was full of contempt.

"She just said it was the Boris dude, right? You owe me dinner," said Connor, absently, as he continued to rifle through Lilah's things.

Lilah scowled at them. "You know, this is humiliating, and not in a small way. Client confidentiality is supposed to mean something."

"Now, I'm curious," said Spike, leaning forward. "You're not zombiefied or really corporeal in the traditional sense, so that means you're a ghost. The desouled variety, and since the soul is usually the actual ghost part of the ghost, that means you're something special."

"A cocktail of several different concepts, actually," said Lilah. "All bound together by the traditional 'sold my soul to the devil' clause."

"See, it bugs me," said Spike. "When I've killed a baddie, I like them to stay killed."

Lilah understood Spike a little less than she understood Angel, but at least she knew when they were treading on dangerous ground. She choose not to say anything, knowing that if she set him off things might get worse.

And Spike might not be able to hurt her, but the people she'd sold her soul to could make her suffer a lot. Especially if she made Spike angry and he did even more damage than usual.

She could hear the sounds of more fighting elsewhere, and knew that the blue-skinned hell goddess (who had actually been a rather clever idea at first, Lilah thought; bring Armageddon in the skin of Angel's friend, break his heart and the world at the same time! If only Spike and Angel didn't have a seemingly unending supply of ability to turn her greatest tools against her) was now taking out the backup that was supposed to descend upon Spike and Connor and make them leave.

She wasn't too surprised by that.

Spike smiled, a twitchy little smile. "An exorcism might not help you, but I was thinking that maybe a blessing might."

"Bless me? You?" She stifled a laugh. Sometimes she really didn't understand his non-linear trains of thought.

He grinned in that unsettling way of his. "An official blessing, you see. A 'get out of hell free' card. I can't guarantee it'll wipe your soul clean and all that—still working the bugs out on that—but I can guarantee that it'll give you a second chance."

She watched him, entirely afraid now. The look on his face was beyond smug, and into psychotic. She knew that grin. "I've gone too far for second chances, Spike."

"I know." He began to bless her quietly, obviously a little embarrassed to be caught knowing the words. His hand performed the sign of the cross as he spoke, and she watched the fingers, captivated.

"I don't think it counts unless performed by an official priest," she said finally.

"About a billion Protestants out there disagree with you, love. But I went and got my collar, just in case." He peeled back the high collar of the leather armor he wore, revealing a stiff white collar. "Ordained, you might say."

"You're ordained." She was stymied.

"Nothing vampires and baddies hate worse than religion, right?" He chuckled. "I always talked to God, anyway. Getting religion just gave him a chance to shout back at me."

Lilah was all too aware that she was dead. The next realm—whatever afterlife there was—was a scary place. She knew that there, the Senior Partners didn't have the power to protect her. That was why they kept their employees here.

And she wasn't foolish enough to think that his blessing would wipe her slate clean.

But he was right. It gave her a second chance. That meant that the Senior Partners lost their fingerhold on her, lost their grasp. For just a second, she was beyond them. At least until she could re-pledge herself to their cause.

But she wasn't thinking straight, because, of course, a dead person can't re-pledge themselves.

She was dead, and without the partners' protection, it was sticking.

She slumped to the floor.

--

Grace wasn't stupid. The other Slayers and the Watcher had all said that the situation was under control, and that the former vampire named Spike was under control. They told her to be calm.

When the back of her neck tingled and a bleached-blonde vampire in a leather coat strolled into the dorm as if he didn't need an invitation, she didn't bother asking questions. She hit the alarm and she went for the weapons.

Slayer dreams were not intended to make you quiver, shake and quake, contrary to the views of some of the girls. They were not merely to entertain the powers that be. They were not some sort of power trip.

They were a warning. Grace understood warnings. A warning like this meant that you would only have one chance, and then you might die even after having been warned.

The vampire pounced before she could get to the wall with the weapons, knocking her aside. He didn't speak, just throwing blows at her with solid precision.

She couldn't block them all, and the blows were harder than any a vampire ever threw. She was knocked across the floor, spinning down the hall. She tried to roll to her feet but he was there again, kicking her.

She could hear the others preparing a strike, gathering their weapons . But Grace's mind was in motion again, and she knew what was necessary.

If he was truly as dangerous as the dreams had indicated, he might be able to wipe them all out.

She dove for a window, smashing through it. The impact left a million bright flares of pain on her skin, and she could feel sticky warmth flowing from a thousand cuts.

She hit the ground running, determined to lure him away from the others.

But the dream hadn't mentioned his army of vampires waiting in a ring around the dorm. They didn't have permission. They couldn't enter. (and how had he, anyway? Save it for later, Grace, save it for later)

She managed to knock one down and dust another before they descended on her, howling.

--

Spike was nursing a glass of water, huddled deep in the diner's booth, the coat around him forming a protective shell of antipathy. Illyria and Connor had taken another booth and were going through the papers Connor had stolen, trying to find Boris.

Dana sat opposite Spike, working on a dish of ice cream.

"It's just typical that it's a bad guy I've never met or even punched in the face that wants me so bad he might get me," muttered Spike.

Dana tried to swallow so she could reply, then decided that she didn't really have anything to say to a comment like that, so she went on half-chewing the mouthful of ice cream.

Spike's eyes had a dead look that she didn't like. It was sometimes like that after a mission, but especially right now.

He glanced at Connor and Illyria, who weren't watching them, and took the gun out of his pocket.

Dana stared at it for a minute. Seeing him with a gun made her heart flip-flop, and she was sure that wasn't trust. But it was a gut feeling she couldn't ignore, that Spike with a gun was dangerous.

"I need a very big favor from you, pet," said Spike, sliding the gun across the table to let it lie beside her ice cream. He pulled his hand back as if it was burned.

"A shavorh?" she whispered through a mouthful of ice cream.

"The way they're talking, this Boris guy is onto something. He's got something on me. The last person to do that was the First Evil, and she got in my mind. Turned me against the ones who needed me the most. Put a trigger in my head. If that were to happen now… I've place myself in the position of being the last defense for a lot of people. If I turn on them, I'm behind all the other defenses. I could do a lot of damage. Angel, Faith, Buffy, Dawn, Illyria, Connor… and you. I don't want that."

"I won't shoot you," said Dana, after swallowing.

Spike glowered at her. "The thing is, nobody else will do it," he said. "Not many else are physically capable. You are. And you're close enough I trust you to tell the difference between me and someone wearing my body like a glove. And the gun… I'm not bulletproof. Not like Illyria. We've seen that before, eh? That cop in the Andes?"

"I won't shoot you." Now she couldn't hear the quaver in her voice, so it sounded a lot better.

"Naturally, love. Naturally. Only you're more likely to do it than anybody else." He gave her one of his brooding looks that, oddly, made her very, very uncomfortable. In a good kind of way. That was always weird.

Connor came over to their booth, setting his knuckles on the table and leaning in. "The bastard has an army of vampires and bought faked Slayer dreams. And he's not after you; he's definitely after the Slayers."

"It's never about me," sighed Spike. "And if it's not Angel, it's the Slayers for sure."