Trick For Your Treats: A Maypole Dance Around Spike

October 31st, 1997

Part 13: Another Time, Another Place

May 19th 2004

Illyria:The half breed is beneath these carcasses.

Romeo:Really? How can you tell?

Illyria: He emits distinctive sub harmonic vibrations, which resonate with profound sadness, pain, and self-obsession.

Xander: Well, that could be either one of them, but my money's on Angel. Do the emissions feel like he used a lot of mousse?

Illyria:What is mousse?

Xander: You're what? Older than time, and you don't know mousse?

Illyria:I should smash you for your insolence. And yet…I find you curiously attractive.

Xander: Here we go again… You find me attractive. That's great. You're hot; you're blue, but there are certain ground rules we should go over…

Faith: Got him!

Buffy Summers stood amidst a battlefield in downtown LA, one slender hand wrapped around the red handle of Axecaliber, the other posed upon her out thrust hip. The slayer wore a scowl, watching as yet another body came off the pile

The slayers had arrived late on the scene of massive carnage, piles and piles of bodies, including a dead dragon, to find one loan survivor of Team Angel. The blue-carapace, bad-attitude bitch goddess claims to be an Old One. (Whatever that might be.) Illyria wove a crazy tale of insane gambits and heroic last stands. According to the blue chick, most of Angel's team died, except - and most importantly, to Buffy anyway – Angel and Spike both survived.

One hitch: they are lost.

Queen Smurf has misplaced them.

Working together, Faith and Illyria heaved aside a demon corpse to reveal Angel's battered figure. The vampire wore more cuts and bruises than clothing, and his entire left shoulder and arm had been severely scorched. The burned flesh was red and black, alternatively raw and charcoaled. Thankfully, he is unconscious.

Buffy exhaled slowly. Angel. Her relief is vast and infinite, but half of what it could be, because her other former vampire paramour is still missing. The slayer's emotions are raw, excruciating, and her only means of coping has been her standard method of crisis management: act now, analyze later.

"He's gonna need blood," Faith said, bending to inspect Angel. "B, you wanna do the honors?" The dark slayer is schmoozing hard, trying not to step on Buffy's toes. It's kinda funny, and darkly twisted. Which of them wants dibs on Angel getting bitey? Buffy has to give Faith credit even though she is distinctly bitter.

"No, you go ahead," Buffy muttered, turning away. Her one true love has been found; the other is still missing. Faith will be more than happy to bleed for Angel as a grand gesture of contrition and penitence. Buffy isn't going to stop until she's found Spike.

And okay – totally honest aside - Buffy is way more freaked over Faith playing Nurse Nightingale to Angel than she's letting on. However, her own boyfriend is standing right there, watching, and Spike is still MIA.

Romeo peers down at Angel with obvious curiosity, taking the vampire's measure. "So, this is the infamous Angelus," he drawls in that so-sexy Italian accent of his.

Buffy winced. "He goes by Angel, Romeo." They were on their way to a UN meeting in New York with when word had reached her that all hell had broken loose in LA. Buffy had dropped everything and jumped on the first Wiccan teleport out. The Immortal had insisted upon tagging along, and she was in too much of a hurry to argue. Not that he was rude or overbearing about accompanying her, because everything that Romeo does is perfect.

Too perfect.

Her hot, sexy, wealthy, perfectly obnoxious boyfriend.

If Buffy is cookie dough, then Romeo is cotton candy. (Or maybe that's caviar.) Either way, he's delicious in small quantities, but overdosing has made her nauseous.

"Ahhh, of course," Romeo agrees, distant and yet condescending.

Right now they are so damn lucky that Angel is unconscious.

Buffy is dressed to kill, figuratively instead of literally. She has on a pale yellow ostrich leather sandal shoes by Forzieri, and an off-shoulder Valentino cocktail dress of pale gold silk. The dress has a train of gauze, and a baby doll short skirt. Her jewelry is a matching set of yellow diamonds: teardrop earrings and pendant. Her hair is longer than it was in Sunnydale, and she'd allowed herself the put on a few pounds. She is sleek ad healthy, perfectly composed and manicured, and until a few hours ago she'd been content if not happy.

There was no time to change, and no opportunity to deal with the crippling emotional shock of discovering that not only Angel, but Spike… Spike. Spike who she'd believed to be dead of the final fireball variety of death was actually alive.

And then Andrew had told her that that the pair of them were had taken on some mega nasty demons, and might very well already be dust.

Spike, alive and then dead again, returned to her and taken away in one breath… And lower than that is the weirdness of Spike n' Angel battling evil together. Team-like. Batman and Robin, which is totally wrong and unfair, because Spike is her sidekick, not Angel's.

Buffy has dibs.

Men. What were they thinking? Doing this without her? Buffy is The Slayer. It's her calling to battle the Big Bads, and here she's got Faith and a hundred little helpers, Gung Ho Mini Slayers, all of them just rarin' to go. So what do Spike n' Angel do? Go it alone…

It's her lack of connectedness. It's gotta be. Buffy bonds with men, and then first chance they get…they're gone. She heaves a sigh, once again acknowledging her uncanny talent for picking the impossible ones. She has deadly accuracy.

With Spike she thought it was different, at least for about thirty seconds before he combusted into a great fiery maelstrom. Here was a guy willing to win a soul and sacrifice himself to save the world, and all to impress a girl. To impress her.

She'd thought: maybe we have something here, maybe there's something to us after all. They'd worked hard to get there, right? They'd overcome so many obstacles from his attempted rape to her post-resurrection abusiveness.

They'd connected; they'd bonded. They were friends. So there at the end Buffy had taken a chance, and said the words, finally accepting him into her heart. Right before he uttered those infamous last words, No, you don't. But thanks for saying it.

She has many regrets but one of the most profound is that there wasn't time to hit the big bleached idiot for daring to throw that back in her face. She'd never lied to him. Never misled him. Not in the entire time they were together. The words were real as were her feelings.

Faith and Illyria have lifted Angel free, and are carrying him toward the base camp the slayers have established. Xander brushed past Buffy, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. He whispered into her ear. "Don't worry, Buffy. We're gonna find Bleach Boy."

A smile lifted Buffy's lips, and heart as well. "Thanks, Xan." She shared a quick hug with her Piratey-shaped friend, grateful that he is there, and then they separated. Xander followed along after Faith, Angel, and Illyria: taking a keen interest in the Blue One's behind.

The Immortal's mouth is open, and his lips are moving again. Before he could speak, Buffy interrupted. "Romeo, would you be a dear and check in with London for me? Find out how much longer Giles is going to be?"

Romeo's eyes narrow and his lips compress. The Immortal does not like being assigned busy work or errands. However, his real reaction lasts only a split second. Then he smiled graciously and kisses her cheek. "Of course, amore, I would be delighted to do that for you."

Then he too is gone, and Buffy heaves a sigh of relief.

"Hey Buffy, look what I caught!" Willow called out, causing the slayer to glance over her shoulder toward her friend's voice.

Willow marches a plump woman who has gray hair piled in a beehive and apple red cheeks before her. The captive looks like someone's matronly auntie, and Buffy looks askance at her friend.

"Vengeance demon," Willow explained succinctly, holding an amulet, which must be the woman's power source. "Caught her lurking over there. I took this from her."

"I'm a Wish Fairy, thank you very much," the woman responded primly. "And I was not lurking, I was observing. My name is Glindagelbryht. I am agent for the Powers That Be, sent on a mission of mercy to dispense a final wish to a dying champion."

"Spike is to smart to fall for your trickery," Buffy said, staring at the Vengeance Demon with cold, hard eyes. An opportunistic evil by any other name… (Truthfully, she is worried in spite of her declaration of confidence in Spike. In some matters, he is uncannily astute and as smart as a whip. But in others, he is an idiot.)

Glinda-what'sherface laughed, her features drawing into a pinched expression of glee. True colors: revealed.

"Oh but you're wrong! His legs were severed – he was bleeding out – moments from final death. It's pathetic how easily fooled a man is when he thinks it's all over! I fed him a line of bullshit about champions and just rewards, and he just ate it up!"

Willow's kind expression has changed, matching Buffy's for coldness. White-Wiccan-Goddess she might be, but the red head is also one of the scariest women alive or dead in the world. And Buffy is the other.

"What did he wish for?" Buffy demanded. It hurts to ask, because she has a strong suspicion, which is immediately confirmed.

"You," Glinda sneered, and then laughs so that her entire plump body jiggles. "He wished for you: for a second chance. Isn't that sweet?"

Buffy's thin lips drew together, and her hand tightened on the handle of her axe. "Problem easily solved," she said, reaching for the amulet, which Willow is extending toward her.

"Smashing my amulet will not undo what's been done! I've sent him to another time, another place, and GOOD LUCK trying to find him!" Glinda screeched.

The words aren't even out of the Vengeance Demon's mouth before the deadly swift blade of Axecaliber slices her head clean off her neck.

Scowling, Buffy stared at Willow who gazed back with eyes round with compassion and pity. "We'll find him, Buffy. That's a promise," Willow says softly.

More easily said than done.

A great power solidifies within Buffy, her will manifesting in the form of determination. Buffy has accomplished impossible feats, overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds. What's one little MIA Spike?

"Right, let's get cracking!" Buffy agreed, adopting an upbeat mode, chipper and dogged, smiling past clenched teeth. She is resolved, and they have work to do.

There are infinite realities to sort.

This might take some time.

End Part 13.