"The forces of darkness are always around us. Just beyond the edges of our vision, waiting for an opening... an opportunity to insinuate themselves into this world. Those who stand against the dark must band together, trust one another, and share what few simple weapons we have. The alternative... the disaster that would result if what lurks beyond should ever return- well, it's simply... unimaginable."

-Rupert Giles

Chapter 6

The silence was making her twitch. Made her skin itch. Sighing she turned away from them. Worrying at her lower lip she considered her options. She was sure they would believe her, with time, but right now they were more upset of how she had the knowledge she had. In all honestly she should be as clueless as they were, she was suppose to be. She had slipped up but she was beginning to believe that the longer she kept them in the dark the worse things would get. She remembered what it was like when she was keeping secrets from her friends, or when they kept secrets for themselves. It never helped, in the end the secrets had destroyed them.

Giles in Europe, broken and brutal. He was simultaneously the best and worst Head Watcher in the history of the council. Xander lacking an eye and with a heart that had been crushed just one too many times, unable to see anything past duty. Willow, twisted and lonely held together by guilt and a woman who was too harsh, too brutal, to take the place of the one she'd lost. Angel so wrapped in regret and duty that he'd made his own life infinitely worse, forced to lose everything he loves in hopes that salvation lay in sacrifice. Spike hurting, abused, unloved until that last moment. Spike who had fought for a soul, with no one to appreciate how beautiful and horrible and unimaginably terrible such a sacrifice must be. Jesse dead. Her mother dead. Spike dead. Hundreds tainted by their mistakes, thousands suffering because of their secrets, the world almost lost because of their selfishness.

Awareness flashed over her. Pulled from her thoughts she found herself striding towards one of the windows, eyes rolling in exasperation. Once she'd successfully managed to open the window, because, damn it, those freaking little thingamajigs never lock, she popped her head out of the opening.

"Angel get in here. Please." The last was added as an afterthought. Having revealed her awareness to him, when the first time around she hadn't been here in the library because she'd been to busy crushing on the depressing vamp, she figured she had an even fifty-fifty chance he'd come in. By now she was sure he was as equally exasperated with her as he was intrigued. One thing that Spike and Angel had always shared was their inability to walk away from curiosity. Spike stayed until he was fully sated (unless Drusilla needed him because, as he had so often said, he was Love's Bitch) while Angel satisfied himself with a few glances, a few touches, and then ran away leaving behind a trail of destruction and pain.

She was unsurprised, after she'd backed away from the window, to see him gracefully crawling through. That a man of his height could make such a comidic action graceful and disturbingly, to her, sexy boggled the mind. When he finally straightened before her she took a moment to look at him. After seeing Spike, kissing him, touching cold silk skin she could bring herself to appreciate how utterly handsome Angel was. Tall, dark, brooding, tragic his image suited his name, his was a face that almost brought a tear to her eye. But that was all it was, appreciation. Her mind accepted that he was handsome, beautiful even, but there was no more to it than that. Though her heart had countless memories of him, countless memories of them together, there was nothing more than a pull of careless affection. He had been important for her once, in the dreams, and he would be important to her now too but only as a friend. A distant friend, at his preference.

It had taken a lifetime of mistakes crammed into a younger head but she'd finally gotten over Angel. There was affection, friendship and a lack of anger over things not yet done. Her smile was brilliant.

"Thanks." Her voice was happy, the first time he'd heard it like that. He offered her a small smile. Turning away from him she glanced at her friends. Putting hands on hips she shook her head and glanced up at the ceiling, silently hoping this wouldn't blow up in her face somehow.

"Ok let's try this again."

"Buffy-" Giles tried to interrupt but a raised hand stopped him. She studied him, considered her words.

"A few months ago I woke up from a nightmare. I thought it was just a bad dream but then things started happening. I killed my first vampire, I met my first Watcher, I even got my first kiss. Then the questions started and I had another dream. It was..." She paused, her eyes moving to search through the crowd of friends. They'd drawn closer to her, even Angel at her back, their entire beings focused on her every word. The blue eyes, sharp and warm, weren't there. In her mind's eye she saw him turn to her. She saw him burn.

Voice catching, laced in pain, she continued, "horrible. The things I saw..." She looked at them again, just for a moment, before closing her eyes, "I'll never forget it. The visions I was given that night changed everything."

"What'd ya see Buffy?" Xander questioned, his voice quite.

"Ya Buffy, you can tell us." Willow, supporting and loving.

"I saw us. All of us. Jesse you were suppose to be taken tonight, turned, you were gonna kill us. Xander you would've killed him and for the rest of your life you'd never stop hating them for that. For making you kill your best friend. Willow one day, soon, you're going to be more powerful than you could ever dream of but you never learn that with power comes consequence. You get so addicted to the power that you lose sight of everything else and you hurt just as often as you help." By now Jesse looked decidedly pale, his eyes trained on Xander as if trying to imagine what it would be like to try to kill his best friend, or how it would feel to know that his best friend had killed him.

Xander was looking at Jesse in much the same way and she was happy to note that his horror held not the smallest tint of anger. Willow, on the other hand, looked ready to faint. Her body sheet white, suddenly smaller, frailer. She the look she directed at Buffy spoke of vulnerability and disgust, with herself. There was shame there, because hadn't Willow already done things like this before? A computer virus here and there? A need to gloat, even if it was quietly? Not often, no, but she had and Willow could suddenly see what could happen if she were given power, true power. She would be a monster. The look in her eyes was pure, unadulterated terror. Buffy found herself moving to the girl, wrapping her arms around her tight until, little by little, Willow returned the embrace.

"Hey, calm down Will." Buffy pulled away from her friend, eyes locking with the red head's, "You'll get a teacher this time around, we'll help you. We won't leave you to handle this by yourself ok?"

The shy girl in her arms nodded, hesitantly. Buffy knew she wanted to question her. Buffy also knew that Willow didn't want to know anything else. Staying close to Willow Buffy turned to Giles.

"I dreamed that I loved you like a father. I dreamed that you'd always be there for me but only if I thought like you. I dreamed that black and white don't exist Giles. I dreamed of Ripper." The name made Giles take a wary step back, a hand instantly raised in front of him as if warding of an attack. Guilt made his eyes dark, shame made his head bow. Last she faced Angel. She took a single, tentative step towards him.

"I dreamed I loved you Angel." She watched him take a step towards her, watched as his eyes flickered with something dangerously close to hope.

"It went bad Angel. It went real bad." He stopped, she could almost hear his heart breaking. She'd been the hope he needed to fight the pain, even after he'd abandoned her he had held onto that. It wasn't true though. Buffy holding onto Angel had nearly destroyed her. Angel holding on to Buffy had nearly destroyed the world. Sighing she took another step towards him and then another until she could grasp his hand in hers.

"There's a sting to your curse Angel." She whispered, so low that only he could hear her. "You have your soul because they want you to suffer, they want you never to be happy right?" His head bobbed in confirmation, his hands reaching to pull her close and she allowed it. Maybe not the way he wanted, when he tried to mold her to him she shifted. Wrapped her arms loosely around him and offered a single squeeze before pulling away from him.

"If you're ever happy Angel, truly happy, for even a second the soul leaves. Do you understand? The only way to save yourself from the pain is to lose the thing you've been trying to redeem." His eyes held hers, his hand reaching blindly for hers and nearly crushing it. She squeezed back, just as fiercely. She hadn't wanted to tell him, he should have done all he could to find the details himself, but he needed to know. Now before he could destroy himself further.

His mouth opened, closed, and then he pulled away from her. She watched him walk to the window, watched him look at her with such longing she ached for him and then she watched him disappear into the night. He'd come back to her, eventually, she knew. He still thought she was his salvation, so he'd leave and brood and take his time thinking it over. Then he'd return. She had no doubt that within the week he'd be shadowing her again.

"I don't understand." Jesse finally called out to her, brought out of his reverie by Angel's departure. Giles answered before Buffy had the time to turn to her friend.

"Slayers have special skills. Strength, speed. They heal quickly, every instinct geared for battle. These uh skills can, sometimes, include prophetic dreams. Warnings of what is to come, bestowed upon them by the Powers That Be. How much?" He turned to her, uncertainty making him seem somehow more human than she'd ever seen him.

"How much do I know?" She finished the question for him, waited for his nod. "Enough. We can talk about that later, right now we gotta save the world."

Xander recovered first. Standing he took a moment to look around the room, took the time to consider what he was doing. Sure the girl was hot, crazy but hot, and sure this meant danger and possibly death but it was the world. It wasn't just one person or one town or city. Buffy was talking about the world.

"Tell us what to do."

The car hadn't moved.

Oh he'd turned it on, then off, then on again. Now he was just standing there, back pressed against the hard metal, cigarette clamped between his lips, smoke drifting lazily upwards. He would've appeared perfectly normal if he hadn't been in full game face. He had to get back to Dru, bring her back here to Angelus. Make the wanker pay for a hundred years of abandonment. He had to kill the Slayer. So why hadn't he? She had been young, true, but she had fought well. Not good enough, maybe, to take him at full strength but the dance...Ah the dance had been nice. Heat made his yellow eyes blaze like the sun at the memories of how the dance had ended. The dance had changed he could feel it, a twinge somewhere inside him. He wanted her to be better. He wanted this Slayer to be at her peak before he took her down. The other two, they slipped, they had wanted to die just as much as he'd wanted to kill them. Not this one. This one was full of life, she'd be a trophy.

Dru wouldn't understand but once she knew of Angelus she'd come running. She'd decimate everything in her path to get back to her beloved 'Daddy', even sick as she was she'd do it. The thought was a bitter one. The knowledge that she'd leave him in a moment for Angelus had been something he'd learned to ignore. Choosing, instead, to believe that if the time ever came she'd pick him. Stay with him, his dark princess. A flash of blond in his mind made him straighten. Hazel eyes blazing with emeralds made him snarl. Spike hurled himself at the nearest statue, still close enough to the cemetery to make the task a simple thing. His fists pummeled stone, feeling only a slight resistance, his legs kicked out as if imagining the young Slayer cowering on the ground before him. His body burned, his demon wanted, William ached. Sudden blue eyes widened, horror etched into every speck. Oh no, Oh God no. He had thought the last remnants of William gone years ago. The shy, cowardly poet buried behind innumerable gallons of blood, pinned beneath a mountain of corpses. Oh he'd seen hint of him, over the long years. Not enough to concern him, more than enough to keep him chained to Drusilla's side. Growling in frustration Spike threw out a last, feeble, punch. It didn't satisfy him, few battles satisfied him anymore if he was honest with himself. Too easy, his opponents too weak. Nothing like the Slayer.

He felt his body recoil at the thought of her, his demon fighting him for control in an attempt to find the young woman. Normally he and his demon acted as a single unit. Even in the beginning the two had seen eye to eye on everything. Now his demon was straining against him, aching for something but whether that was the Slayers life or something else he didn't know. Didn't want to know because those thoughts were pure William. The idea that his demon and William could agree on anything was absurd, issuing forth a maddening kind of chuckle but hey he'd bite. Bollocks the word reverberated in his mind, bringing another chuckle with it. Shaking with the laughter he leaned against the remains of the decimated statue, lighting another ciggy as he took in his surroundings.

"All right then, suppose I should stick around a bit. Dru'll keep for a week, enough time to make sure Angelus stays right here."

And the Slayer? He wasn't sure which part of him asked the question. Didn't much care to be quite honest. He'd been off his game, hadn't expected a Slayer like her. Not his fault, she was a rare breed. So he'd watch and he'd wait, he'd make her want. Make her hate. When she was ready they'd have it out, they'd dance their dance and at the end of it she'd lay lifeless and bleeding at his feet. A memory to warm his nights when the battles were too mundane. In the meantime he'd need to find a place to stay.

Satisfied he reached for another ciggy, lighting it with an expert hand. Inhaling, he allowed the acrid taste to slide down his throat. The feeling reminding him that he was hungry. Grinning in anticipation he made his way back to his car and if, somewhere in the deepest corners of his heart, William saw hope Spike thought nothing of it. The man had always been a bleedin' fool.

Things had run much smoother than she thought they would. After outlining her plan Willow and Giles had buried themselves in books, searching for anything that could help or hinder their plan. Jesse and Xander had braved the night and made their way to Giles home, instructed on what to grab and where to find them. They returned not an hour later with two sacks filled with supplies: Stakes, crosses, a smattering of holy water, a few gallons of gasoline, matches, and even a couple of crossbows, complete with bolts. Buffy and the boys had begun preparing themselves, the boys following her instructions with almost reverent intensity. The plan was simple, she had found through the other Buffy's memories that simple often times worked best. They would wait until noon, when the sun was highest and most of the vampires were sure to be asleep. Buffy had no doubt that the Master still harbored the idea that she would go to them, gung ho and ready to fight only for him to kill her at last. He was probably sore about losing his preferred vessel, not that it would stop him from making another. The distraction, the frustration, would play into their hands. He had to be aware that the entrance in the crypt would not remain hidden form her long but he had no idea she knew where he was and of the other entrance she knew of. Buffy, Xander, and Jesse would go down into the darkness of the tunnels leaving a trail of gasoline behind them. The boys would be covered in crosses, she'd super glue the damn things on if they complained. Once they reached the center, the Master, it was only a matter of dusting the Master and the vessel and any other bloodsucker that got in their way even as the boys continued to splash gasoline everywhere. They'd leave opposite the way they came, light the gasoline while the vamps fluttered around, hopefully too stunned by their Masters death to pay them too much attention, and then they'd go home and have a BBQ. Well maybe not that last part but the rest of it would be simple enough to pull off, if nothing horribly wrong happened. The school wouldn't blow up, Willow had considered that problem but from Buffys description of the Masters lair it was deep enough down that the worst that would happen is a few broken windows.

Buffy watched the group. The boys gearing themselves for battle, Willow wrapping crosses around their arms, Giles offering a splattering of advice and half-hardheartedly insisting that there was something fundamentally wrong about even considered allowing the two to join Buffy in the fight. She could see how Jesse fit with them, how he would have fit if he hadn't been captured the first time around. Tall, gangly, eyes almost vacant she had assumed him to be an idiot the first time around, likeable enough but an idiot all the same. Now she could see the ease of his smile, how he flirted good-naturedly with Willow as she wrapped a cross around his free hand. She saw Xander smiling, eyes bright, as the two men exchanged friendly barbs. Even if she couldn't change fate, even if Jesse somehow died tonight, she could already see how the future was changing. How this one night, with all its surprises and victories, could alter the course she'd been destined to follow. Even Giles was beginning to loosen up, his soft chuckle something that had taken her months to pull out of him the first time. She felt the tattoo thrumming in her wrists even as she finished 'gearing up.' When Jesse offered an appreciative wolf-whistle Buffy rolled her eyes, laughter making her body shake. Laughing along side her, she saw Xander take a moment to look at them all.

"We're like...the Scooby Gang." He chuckled out, a grin stretching across his features that was met by more grins all around. Buffy couldn't stop herself from placing a hand on his shoulder, the name both new and foreign. A tie between what would be and what had been.

"We ready?" She asked them, her voice deep with some emotion the others could never hope to understand. Their suddenly solemn gazes turned on her, their bodies straight, their hands grasping tight their chosen weapons. Nodding she turned away from them, took a few steps towards the door before tilting her head back at them.

"Time to go save the world."

She imagined, in her heart of hearts, what someone would see when they looked at them. She wondered at the picture they must make, a young blond girl armed to the teeth with stakes and holy water, two equally young men trailing after her covered in crosses, crossbows strapped to their backs, gasoline jugs jostling in their hands. The young red head and the old librarian standing in the background, watching them with a mixture of yearning and fear. Angel wouldn't approve, Riley would demand to be included, Spike would chuckle as he moved out of the darkness to fight at her side. First the Master Buffy she scolded herself, that flash of blue in her memories making her knees temporarily weak Focus on the Master, and keeping Angel from turning back to the dark side, then you can fantasize about Spike all you want. Harder said than done, she knew, but Spike had never liked it when she got hurt in battle. Her blood was his and his alone, she'd be damned if the Master got so much as a sip this time around.

lee- I can honestly say it's been a challenge trying to keep Buffy balanced between who she is and who she was/will be. Unfortunately this means tons of OOC but I hope I can keep it true to the series. Thanks so much for coming back and seeing if I had continued with the story. I truly appreciate it.

. - I haven't had the chance to read that fic yet but I made sure to bookmark it so that when I have a few spare hours I can take a look. Of all the Spuffy story types there are I have to save I like the time travel/redo ones the most (obviously lol) but they just seemed to fit with the feel of the show more than the others.

ginar369- I think it's more of a guy thing than a vamp thing but I hope you didn't think I'd be so much of a tease that i'd have him come early just to leave. ^_^

Attention I am currently looking for a beta reader for this story. I would like someone who is very familiar with the show (not just with the Spike/Buffy aspects of it), can help with grammar, spelling, etc... (because gods knows I kinda suck at all that when I'm too busy/tired and desperate to write another chapter) and I'd like someone who can stick through this. I don't enjoy betas who help in the beginning and then just disappear without a word for weeks on end.

If you're interested please PM me.