A/N: So sorry for the delay. I have had to attent two funerals in the last 3 weeks, so I have been a bit distracted. It's been hard, especially the last one. It's horrible when people are taken from us far to early. Anyway, here is chapter 3. Chapter 4 should be up within a week. No promises though. Again, sorry for the delay.

In this chapter, introducing the story's "Big Bad". If you're confused right now, don't worry. It will get even more confusing, just you wait!

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She had always been referred to as a woman, but technically that was the wrong pronoun. The correct word would have been "it", but that sounded like she was a thing, a non thinking, non feeling being, no more than a rock or a tree. Therefore she detested the word, and had always seen to that she was viewed as a person.

In reality, she had no gender. She was sexless. Her exquisite beauty and frail appearance had given her the feminine name centuries ago, but if she so wished she could easily appear as a male. She had inspired novels, poetry and great works of art, yet none knew her real name, or even what she really was. There had never been anything remotely like her, none knew from whence she came or where she was going. The word enigma was not even close enough to describe her.

She had toured all the royal courts in the known world at one point. She had wandered amongst emperors and kings, princes and counts, rulers of all kinds. She had always been in the background, adopting the role best suited for her purposes. She'd been the mistress, the priest, the servant or the counsellor. Always pulling the strings behind the main stage, shaping the world after her own whims and wishes. Forming alliances and shaping treaties, starting wars and achieving political chaos. Bloodshed had never been an obstacle when it came to reaching her goals. She would have had billions of deaths on her conscience, if she'd had one. She lived for one thing, and one thing only;

Power.

She had started revolutions and ended dynasties. She had built and erased empires! And now she was stuck here.

The room lay in almost total darkness. The only source of light came from a single, thick white candle placed on a simple ceramic platter on the floor in the south corner. The décor was Spartan, to say the least. The only furniture was a simple chair and a small wooden table, and the only thing that hinted of former days of grandeur and luxury was the now faded, but beautiful and in its days clearly expensive tapestries on the walls, and the thick, deep red velvet curtains that covered the windows and went all the way from ceiling to floor. They saw to that none of the light from the afternoon sun found its way into the room.

The light hurt her eyes.

She was sitting on the chair by the table, staring into space with unfocused eyes and with a small smile playing at her lips. She could feel it. Almost a century of isolation and captivity had come to an end. Three more months, and then she would be free again. She would reclaim what was rightfully hers, and regain the power that had been lost to her. That had been stolen from her.

The men that had put her in this place were long since dead, but no matter. She would have revenge. Individual payback was not enough anyway. Their descendants would pay for her imprisonment. They would pay, along with the rest of the world.

She just needed the child.

***

"Home, sweet home."

It didn't really register exactly what he'd said at first. It seemed like the thing to say after stepping onto British soil for the first time in nearly half a century. It didn't occur to him that the last time he'd said that he'd been mowing down the "welcome to Sunnydale" sign- not until after a few seconds. The sinking feeling in his gut suddenly reminded him of things he'd tried his hardest to put behind him and forget about for the last few months.

Tried to forget since Rome.

Since he'd emerged from the amulet and appeared as a ghost in Angels office at Wolfram and Hart's headquarters in LA, he'd held on to a flickering flame of hope deep in his chest that he somehow would find his way back to Buffy. That she'd really meant what she'd said the seconds before he combusted in the hell mouth. That she really loved him, even if it was only a fraction of how much he loved her. And he had tried to find his way back to her almost instantly after he had regained a corporeal body, but his doubt had won over the hope.

He had told himself that it would "diminish his sacrifice" if he was to show up on her doorstep after dying to save the world. He couldn't have faced her disappointment. And that was part of his reasons not to go after her, sure, but for the most part he'd been scared. Afraid that she didn't mean it. What if he had been right when he said; "No you don't, but thanks for saying it"? That she just said it to placate a dying man and grant him his final wish? Or worst still, if she really had meant it, but in the same way that he loved all her friends. If she had put him in the same category as the whelp. That would have really destroyed him.

But then there was the night before the battle. Thinking about that left him more confused, and he had no idea what to believe anymore. He would torture himself with the bitter-sweet memory of her in his arms, when they'd been together in a way that they hadn't been since she had ended things with him the year before. He would ponder what her motives had been. Had she only come for cold comfort the night before the battle that she knew could cost her her life for the third time? Had she used him to forget? Deep inside he still felt like he'd felt back then, like he had missed something monumental about that night, that somehow there had been a deeper meaning behind her actions. Perhaps she had not come simply for comfort or confirmation, but really just to be with him? To spend what could very well have been her final night on earth with him, because she cared for him, wanted to be with him?

Because she loved him?

He stopped his thoughts right there. That was dangerous territory, a virtual no man's land in his mind, riddled with mines, barbed wire and booby-traps. One wrong step and he could end up crippled, be it from grief or false hope. Hope was a dangerous thing, he knew that. Nine times out of ten it led to bitter disappointment, at least in his experience. That was why he, after buying a boat ticket and was set to go to Europe to find her, had stopped himself. He couldn't risk it. Couldn't risk looking into her eyes and not find what he wanted most in the entire world. Couldn't risk finding out that he had been right.

He had told himself that if she really meant what she had said, and if she found out that he was alive, (or at least undead again), she would find him. Let her run after him for a change. Would make a nice change of pace. It never even crossed his mind that she wouldn't find out, especially not after Andrews visit. Sure, he'd sworn not to tell a soul, but the day when he truly trusted the wonder boy would never, ever come, he was sure of that.

Then he had gone to Rome. Wasn't that the biggest bloody mistake of the century? The last of his already very weak hope had died in Italy. She had clearly moved on. Forgotten all about him probably. Perhaps that was just as well. He just wanted her to be happy, after all.

And yet, he'd had to physically restrain himself from tearing the sodding wankers head off, cut his body into little pieces and set them on fire, just to see exactly how bloody immortal he really was. "Cuddling on the couch" indeed! That he had managed not to sock Andrew a good one straight in the face was a small miracle in itself. He had returned to LA bitter and hurt, and desperately determined to do as she had done; forget and put it all behind him.

Piece of cake.

Right...

He really, really hoped that a change of scenery would make it easier on him. He had no memory of her that connected her to Great Britain. He would create new memories here. The first small step into the London night was the proverbial first step to the rest of his life. He would turn over a new leaf, write a new chapter and a dozen other stupid clichés. He had made himself a promise, and he intended to keep it. Never again would his thoughts be consumed by a blonde firecracker with a Californian accent and a nasty habit of braking both his nose and his heart. There were no reminders here.

That was what he told himself while he was making his way out of the labyrinth that was London Heathrow. He pushed through the masses of people, not caring about the angry remarks shouted after him. Until he collided with a body that refused to move out of the way. He looked down, and found himself staring into a set of brown eyes that looked disturbingly familiar.

***

Rona just stood there and stared. On the other side of the crowded room she could clearly see something impossible. A person she knew without a trace of a doubt not to exist any more shoved his way through the masses of people with a distracted look on his face. His buzz cut hair was clearly light brown and not platinum blonde, and the long leather duster she had come to associate with him was replaced with a shorter black jacket. Still leather, but there ended the similarities.

Her first thought had been that the First Evil was back. She was already thinking about the panicked phone call she would have to make to mister Giles when her mind registered that the apparition didn't go straight through any of the people he came in contact with, but instead pushed them rather roughly aside. His progress through the room was accompanied with irritated shouts and scowling faces. He was clearly not incorporeal.

Her second thought was that this was someone's idea of a vicious joke. The powers though that they hadn't messed with the slayers lives enough already? To make it seemed like the person they all owed their lives to was back was nothing but cruel when she knew that he was nothing more than dust in the Californian desert.

Then he suddenly was right in front of her, and before her muddled mind made her react, they collided. She woke up from her stupor and firmly planted her feet to the ground, determined to thoroughly examine this impostor! She looked up in his face and stared into his crystal blue orbs. Eyes she had seen before. A face that she knew was gone forever stared back at her, identical to the one she knew to be gone, right down to the scar over one eyebrow. Her eyes went impossibly wide and she just stared at him. Then suddenly she found her voice, and she squealed high enough to shatter glass.

"Oh my God! Spike??!"

***

Brown eyes that he recognised. Black dreadlocks he'd defiantly seen before. A slayer. And not any slayer either, a slayer from the last stand. A slayer he recognised from Sunnydale.

Yeah, right. No reminders. Writing a new chapter, starting over and forgetting.

He could see all his goals fly out the proverbial window, and all he could do was utter a string of colourful curses that ended with;

"Oh no! Please no!"