Chapter 1:
Brick by boring brick
The petite blonde slayer was sitting on top of tombstone thinking about how her life had changed over the past few years. She was waiting patiently for the vampire that was about to rise from that very grave at some point before sunrise. She was starting to get bored though. There was only so much Angel brooding and thinking she could do for one night. At least that's what the scoobies had started calling her deep thought sessions. They were her Angel brooding moments. She wasn't brooding this time though, at least not completely.
She was thinking about how when Spike tried to rape her in the bathroom a little over 3 years ago. He had taken off not long after that. She wasn't sure where he had gone, but after the shock and the anger had started to wear off a bit; she had started to miss him. She also missed the smile her little sister saved only for her Spike. Dawnie was Spike's Bit and she knew that Dawn missed him. There were very few men in the Summers girl's lives. There was Xander Harris, the neighborhood carpenter that fell in love with demon woman at every turn. He was also her long time friend. They had been through a lot of vampire slayings together. Then there was Rupert Giles, her watcher, not that she wanted one or needed one anymore. Giles was a constant in her and Dawn's life since she was young. She almost can't even remember how many years he had been with the family, and she almost didn't care to remember either, just as long as he wasn't going anywhere. Then there had been Angel, but he was doing his own thing in L.A. so neither Dawn nor her ever got to see him. Spike had filled the role of vampire in their little group when he had come back to Sunnydale and had gotten a chip implanted in his brain. It kept him from hurting humans and the gang could always use an extra pair of hands to avert the next apocalypse.
He had been there for months for Dawn after she had died after fighting Glory. He took care of Dawn when she couldn't. Then Willow ripped her from Heaven and she became the one that Spike had to take care of. To this day Willow still feels guilty over it. But she had put the past in the past and let by gones be by gones. What she hadn't counted on was falling in love with the bleach blonde vampire. He had become her drug of choice while he was around. The rush she got from being around him was worth the crash that she went through at night by herself in her room. Lately she kept thinking he was back, that she could feel him here in Sunnydale. She'd look out a window and swear that she saw him standing by the tree he used to watch her at. When she would go out and check the yard, there was no one there though. She could feel a vampire around her when there wasn't one anywhere to be found. She could feel the power coming from it, so she knew it was at least 100 years old, maybe older.. She could sense it following her around every night. It was there every night during patrols. It was almost as if whoever it was either waiting for something or watching over her like a guardian angel. She almost laughed at the thought of a vampire being a guardian angel. She didn't though because the more she thought about it, the more sense it made or Spike to be back in town. He had been Dawn's guardian angel while she was in heaven. He had been her guardian angel when she had been ripped away from paradise and back to the Hellmouth. He had been there for Willow anytime she felt guilty about bringing her best friend back to earth. He was their own personal guardian angel; the group just had to share one.
He had told her a hundred times that he loved her. She wasn't so sure of it anymore. If he had loved her, then why wasn't he back yet? And if he was like she thought, then why hadn't he come to see any of them? She had played the what if game hundreds of times over the past few years. What if she hadn't kept telling him he wasn't worthy of her love? What if she had just told him that she loved him when she had the chance? What if she hadn't said one too many times that he was beneath her? Over the years she had managed to think of over a thousand what if questions. She was never able to answer them though, even if she could, it wouldn't change the fact that he was gone and she was alone again. She had loved him. It might not have been the love that he wanted from her, but it was all she had to give at the time. She just didn't know it until he was already gone and she was back to being by herself every night on patrols.
When Willow had first brought her back she was a total wreck. She was the one not good enough for anyone at the time and instead she had kept telling herself that it was Spike that wasn't good enough for her. She kept telling him that and it wasn't until about 6 months after he left that she went and talked to Anya and figured everything thing out. It wasn't Spike that wasn't good enough for her; it was her that wasn't good enough for Spike.
Now 5 years after being ripped from her personal paradise she was almost a whole person again. Almost. There was still this hole in her heart that she knew only that one certain vampire could fill, but knowing what she had put him through, she knew that he might not ever want to fill that hole. She knew that he might never want to be a part of her life again. It was really her own fault. She had pushed Spike to his limits and expected him not to break. When he did finally cross that line and break she had blamed him. But it was her fault not his. She had made up stories in her mind of where he was. For the first few months he was gone, she didn't care where he had gone. Then she started to imagine him over in New Orleans working as a bartender. A couple months in New Orleans and he traveled to New York to go sight-seeing. Couple months later and he was in Africa. Then over in England visiting his home town. Then over in Ireland for a few months. Every new fantasy only had one thing in common; he would write post cards, just never send them back home. Each one ended the same too. He would come home with a box full of post cards and she would fly into his arms and apologize for everything and beg him to give them another chance. First it had been she would be home for Dawn's graduation from the newly built high school. Then it had been her graduation from college. Then it had been that he would be there to congratulate her on getting the job with social services helping kids that needed help. Then it had been that he would come home to help her train the potentials. All things had come and gone and she was loosening hope that he would ever come home.
"Finally," she said as the newly risen vampires hand started to push up through the dirt of the grave below her. She jumped down from the tombstone and grabbed his hand to help him up.
"You're late. I've been sitting here waiting on you for an hour now," She told the man whose name on the tombstone was Larry McKnight.
"You're going to die." He told her.
"Very unoriginal buddy." She told him before she landed a punch squarely in his jaw that knocked him back up against the tombstone. With a rather stunned look on his face he turned to dust.
Her slayer senses were still tingling. She could feel that there was another vampire around. This was the only strange death in the papers though. She could also sense the power coming from this vampire so she figured he wasn't a newly made one. She took a quick look around the cemetery, but didn't see anyone. The only thing she saw was a cigarette flying in an arc about 10 feet away. When she walked over towards it there was no one there, but she could still sense the vampire and his power.
Sunrise was only an hour away so she decided to call it a night and head back home. As she was walking home she could sense the power following her. It wasn't threatening, it was just a power that was there coming from a vampire that was following her. Every couple of feet she would check behind her, but there was never anyone there for her to see.
Instead of heading home she decided to make a detour and head to the edge of Sunnydale where there was a mansion at. Spike had stayed there before with Drusilla and Angel. He might be staying there now if he was back in town. At least she would know then. She would have answers to a few of her questions. If he was back in town, it meant that he didn't want to see her. If he wasn't then she was losing her mind and she needed to call Faith and have her come take over the Hellmouth. She couldn't take care of a whole town if she was going crazy. Calling Faith to come down might not be a bad idea anyways. Even if she wasn't going crazy, if Spike didn't want to see her then she would need some time away from the Hellmouth to adjust to that little fact. It would hurt her more than anyone would know, but she would only take a week or two away and learn how to just deal with it. Maybe find a witch that could lock all of her memories with Spike away in a little box somewhere in her brain where she couldn't even access them. She decided to call Faith as soon as she got back to her house. She was about a block away when she started to sense another vampire coming from the mansion ahead of her. It was older than the one following her. As she took another step closer to the house the power behind started to change. She could sense their feelings and their power almost as easily as a vampire could smell emotions.
She stopped to try and figure out what was going on with their feelings and to try and separate the two vampire's powers. She tried to concentrate on the one in front of her first; very old, strong, powerful, and hungry. She then changed her attention to the one behind her still; old, powerful, comforting, fearful, hungry, threatening. The threatening emotion hadn't been there until she had gotten closer to the mansion. She wasn't sure if the threat was to her or to the older vampire inside the mansion.
As she went to take another step towards the mansion a vampire stepped outside, a very old, but gorgeous and powerful vampire. She was dressed in an old Victorian style dress, but it was more modern. It wasn't just made of cloth; it was made of leather as well. The corset on the dress was black leather. It was low cut to show off the cleavage of the woman who wore it. The dress flowed out starting at the waist line. There was white silk on the bottom with black velvet cloth over top and the middle of the skirt where everything connected together was black leather. The vampire was able to make the dress look like it was made for a queen. Her long dark hair was pulled back by clips and curled down her back and sides.
She hid behind a row of trees and tried to move a little bit closer to the house so that she could get a better look at the vampire to see who she was. She needed to know what she was going to be up against if it came down to a fight. As she got a better look at the woman she almost ran in the opposite direction.