The First Apocalypse (Book Three of the Reunion Trilogy)

by MCorey1317

The end is coming. Not the end of one world, but of all worlds, forever. And only Buffy Summers has a chance of stopping it.

15. Chapter 15 -- The Hands of Time

She didn't bother with buckling her seatbelt, so Larry leaned over and with hands surprisingly gentle for such a large man, took care of it for her.

"There you go, Buff," he whispered. "Hey, I'm sorry."

She nodded, but couldn't meet his gaze as she was still doing her best to keep from bursting into tears. Larry closed the door for her, and when she glanced at the side-view mirror she saw the back of his letterman jacket disappear around the back of the van.

He'll help put Spike in the cargo compartment … like Spike's body is just so much luggage we're hauling somewhere.

She squeezed her eyes closed and held her breath until the jagged shard piercing her heart allowed her to breathe again.

The van shifted as Larry, and then Giles, Xander, and Oz, climbed inside. Giles laid his hand on her knee while he gazed at her, but she immediately turned her head away and stared out the window. He removed his hand, started the van, and pulled away from the curb. While the two cars transporting the rest of the White Hats followed closely behind, Buffy kept staring out the window and prayed that they would be attacked by a vampire, or a demon, or something she could kill … or be killed by, she wasn't sure which she preferred … but the streets happened to be deserted that night Maybe the other denizens had heard Spike's screams and cleared out.

The others spoke while Giles drove back to the school, maybe to her, but she wasn't listening.

Her mind went to strange places.

She'd find the vampire-Spike, make him understand how much he'd hurt her, put the point of a stake to her own chest … just as Spike had once done to convince her that she could trust him … and then force him to … she wasn't sure what she wanted to force him to do.

She'd chain the vampire-Spike in the deepest room of the school's basement and make him suffer. Or maybe use the Mohra blood on him and turn him human. Of course, even if she gave him back his humanity, he wouldn't be her Spike any more than she'd been Spike's original Buffy, but maybe it would be close enough.

It wouldn't be the same, you know it wouldn't.

"Buffy, what was that?" Giles asked.

She hadn't realized she'd been talking to herself. "Nothing," she replied, and then she turned back to her thoughts.

Spike had told her the story of how he'd recovered his soul from some demon in Africa who'd put him through the battle of his life. Well, she'd fight for Spike … she'd fight harder than she'd ever fought for anything. Maybe the demon could restore the soul of her Spike, assuming she could wrangle the vampire-Spike onto a plane to another continent.

And then what, I'm going to steal the body of this universe's Spike so I can have my boyfriend back? What the hell kind of monster would that make me? I'd basically be Richard Wilkins.

She was rocking in her seat, she realized, and when she caught Giles watching her out of the corner of his eye, she stopped.

"The blood," she forced herself to say. "Could the blood help?"

Xander leaned forward between the seats. "What did she say?"

"I'm not sure," Giles replied. "Buffy, what blood?"

"The Mohra blood."

Giles shook his head. "You know that it has limits … it can't bring anything back to life, or make limbs regrow, or …"

"I know!" she yelled, far louder than she intended. The van went very still. "But you've been experimenting for what, half a year now? Longer? Have you found a way to make it more effective?"

Xander retreated back out of view.

"I'm sorry, Buffy," Giles said. "It doesn't work that way."

She bit her lower lip and nodded. There was, of course, one more option. "Cordelia," she called out.

She ignored the rustling murmurs of concern from the back of the van.

"Cordelia!" she said more loudly.

"Who is Cordelia?" Oz asked. "Who is Buffy talking to?"

"She's a god," she answered, and though she tried not to snap at Oz, she failed. "Cordelia, I know you can hear me. You, the Powers, you owe me. I did what you wanted, I left everything behind and came back to this dimension. It's been hard, it's been so very fucking hard, and I couldn't have done it without Spike. People are always dying and coming back to life in that other world … hell, Spike has done it before … so do me this one solid, alright? You owe me this one."

By the end, she was yelling, and she found that she had gripped the armrest of her seat so hard that it tore free of the bolts securing it to the floor of the van.

"Sorry," she murmured as she tried to bend it back into place.

"Don't worry about it, Buffy," Giles said.

Buffy shook her head and tried to keep her anger in check. "Cordelia, at least let me say goodbye to him," she whispered. "At least give me that. There's something I have to tell him."

Is Spike's body really in the back of this van? Sitting there cold and lifeless?

"Is … is Cordelia responding to your questions?" Giles asked, and though he tried to hide his worry for her, she knew him well enough that she could tell.

"Don't do that," she said. "Don't patronize me. I know Cordelia can hear us. The Powers can always hear us, they just never help. We can suffer and die for them, but asking for their help, that's a no-no." She closed her eyes and willed herself to not cry.

Giles rubbed her knee and she recoiled from his touch.

"I have to do something," she muttered. "There must be a way, there's always a way."

"Whatever you need," Oz assured her.

Xander put a hand on her shoulder and she flinched so hard that she almost broke the other armrest. "We're here for you."

Spike will never be here for me again.

"Oz," Giles called out. "Would you please ring Wesley and ask him to have Kendra come to the school?"

"Sure," Oz replied.

She heard Oz fiddling with his phone and speaking in hushed tones, but she had no energy to listen.

. . . . . . . . .

She wanted to be there when they carried Spike into the school, but Giles, Oz, Xander … everyone … gathered around her and blocked her path. The notion of forcing her way past them, throwing open the van doors, and carrying Spike inside herself almost brought her to her knees with nausea, so instead she climbed the steps and let Giles usher her inside.

The lockers pressed in close, the tubes of caustic fluorescent light gave her no shadows to hide in, and Angel was rushing down the hall towards her. His concerned look, the sight of his affectation of a coat spreading behind him, and his perfectly coiffed hair that he'd obsessed over since he'd found himself able to use mirrors again irritated her to no end.

No, it didn't irritate her, it enraged her.

I bet Angel is happy that Spike is dead.

"I just heard, Buffy," he exclaimed. "I am so sorry."

Liar.

She didn't hold back when she rushed forward, grabbed him by the lapels, and slammed him against the nearest row of lockers. The metal crumpled inwards, the locks clattered, and Angel stared down at her with a stunned expression. The tattoos on his neck were a hypnotic blend of black and red and she could see the marks curling on his wrists as he held his hands wide in a gesture of non-aggression.

"Whoa," he said. "Buffy … what …"

"Where were you?" she asked. "Where have you been?"

"I wasn't scheduled for patrol tonight, Buffy," he reminded her. "You're the one who insisted that when we have a night off, we take it."

Giles put a hand on her shoulder and tried to pull her away. "Buffy, Angel's just trying to help. What happened isn't his fault."

She released Angel's coat and brushed Giles's hand away. Tara and Willow came rushing down the hallway, but she didn't care. "This may not have been his fault, but you wanted this, didn't you, Angel?" Rage felt so much better than grief, and she just let the sensation wash over her as she stared at Angel's dark, sad eyes. "Here's your chance, big boy. I've watched you mentally unpeeling clothes off my body for months now, so why don't you go for it, stud?" She hit Angel in the chest, and he flinched from the force of it. "Spike is dead, which is what you wanted, right?" She hit him again. "Right?"

"Buffy," Willow cried out while Giles held up a hand and motioned for Willow to stay back. "You don't mean that."

"I know Spike and I seemed like we hated each other, and I'll admit it was … complicated between us, but I never wanted this," Angel said in a low voice as he stared down at her. "I promise you, Buffy, I never, ever wished for any of this."

She ignored him and continued. "Go ahead and tell me how awful Spike was!" she screamed at Angel, and her voice echoed down the tile of the hallways. "Tell me how sick it was that I was with someone who had been with a different version of me?" She reached out to hit him and instead found herself holding his upper arms and pulling herself close so that her head sank into his chest. "Ask me to give you a chance. Make me hate you, goddammit. Please. Please, I have to hate someone … I have to hate someone, or I won't be able to hold it together."

Angel wrapped his arms around her, and then Willow and Tara did likewise, and she teetered on the brink of sobbing while Giles wiped at his eyes.

"That was unforgivable," she whispered into Angel's chest. "You didn't deserve any of that, and I am sorry."

"It's okay," he assured while he held her tight.

"Buffy, I can't imagine what you are going through," Tara whispered while Buffy pressed her face harder against Angel's chest.

"Cry if you have to," Willow reassured her. "We won't judge you. Lord knows you've watched me cry often enough."

She pulled away from Angel and shook her head. "I can't, I can't because if I cry, then it will be real, and I … it can't be real, it just can't. I don't accept it. I do not accept any of this."

She extricated herself from their arms and backed away. The four of them walked towards her with careful steps, as though she was a frightened animal, and behind them she could see the large double doors of the school swing open. The White Hats would be carrying in Spike's body, and she had to be somewhere else.

"I have to go," she told them as she turned away.

"Where?" Giles asked.

She ignored him and rushed down the hall, through the basement door, and down the stairwell. When she reached the door to her room, she paused at the threshold. The room would be cold and empty, Spike's clothes would be there, tossed about because he couldn't be bothered to do otherwise. His spare boots would be in the corner, and …

I cannot bear this.

She swung the door open and decided that she would spend only as much time in the room as she needed to pack a bag. Just the essentials and nothing more. No mementoes … she wouldn't need them, only clothes, stakes, and the cash from the secret spot Spike didn't think she knew about. She'd take her bag and slip out of the school through a window so the White Hats wouldn't be able to try to talk her out of it.

As she packed, she looked around the room and realized she didn't even have a photo of her and Spike. For that matter, there wasn't one thing she could think to take that would remind her of him. He kept no keepsakes, his jacket was gone, and he never wore jewelry.

Wait a moment.

The thought crystallized in her mind and echoed in her thoughts.

Spike used to never wear jewelry, but that isn't true anymore, is it?

She had lived through the five stages of grief on multiple occasions, and she was well aware of the risks of engaging in willful denial, so she had to be careful … so extremely careful … with her thoughts.

First, she checked the end table next to the bed.

Nothing.

Next, she dropped her half-packed bag on the ground and thought back to Spike's body in the alley. The recollection hurt, the memory tore at her innards, but she forced herself to try to remember.

Where was Spike's watch? He's been wearing it non-stop since he stole it, but I don't remember seeing it on his wrist.

She tamped the hope down as her thoughts whirled through scenarios, possibilities, and in the end she decided that it wasn't her imagination running wild, she had to know, she had to be certain. She opened the door to find Giles waiting in the hallway. He stared at her with concern, and she saw his eyes shift downwards to take in the sight of the half-packed bag right lying on the floor behind her. Others were in the hallway beyond, and their furtive, grief-filled stares were an annoyance she couldn't deal with at the moment.

"Where did you put Spike's body?" she asked.

"Buffy, sit down," Giles said as he gestured towards the bed. "Let's take a deep breath and talk for a moment."

"Where is his body?!" she screamed.

Giles backed away a few feet and held out his hands in a calming gesture. "He's in the kitchen."

The implication of the words dawned on her.

"You put Spike in the cafeteria refrigerator?" she asked with an incredulous, questioning note in her voice. "With the spam and the I-can't-believe-it's-meatloaf and the cartons of milk? Really?"

"We don't have a morgue here," Giles reminded her. "A walk-in refrigerator is a reasonable substitute. We can discuss what to do with Spike's remains tomorrow, but right now, I think that you need to sit down and talk."

"I don't have time for this," she muttered as she brushed by him, raced past the concerned White Hats gathered in the halls of the basement, and rushed up the stairs. In a haze she maneuvered to the cafeteria, let herself into the kitchen, and trod to the large, gleaming steel door of the room-sized high school refrigerator. Her hand hovered at the latch. She had to see, she had to know, but it was a struggle to force her hand to even touch the door that would take her to Spike's corpse.

"I'll do it, Buffy," Giles said. His face was flushed and florid from the exertion of chasing her, but his voice … in between the rapid exhalations … was kind. He opened the door and stepped inside.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I need you to check something."

She watched as Giles made his way to a table in the back of the refrigerator. The blanket from the alley was there, draped over an unmoving form. Twin bursts of steam issued from Giles's nose as he walked through the refrigerator and she shivered as the cold air wafted over her.

"What am I looking for?" he asked. "Is there something of Spike's that you wanted?"

"His watch," she said. "Check for his watch."

Giles nodded, pulled back the sheet, and she flinched and nearly screamed at the sight of Spike's mangled hand. She closed her eyes, heard the rustling of cloth from deep in the fridge, and surmised that Giles was checking the other wrist.

"He's not wearing a watch," Giles informed her.

The dim, flickering hope in her chest roared to life.

"You're sure?" she asked. "Was there one in the alley? Did anyone see a watch?"

Giles shook his head, and Xander and Oz … who at some point had gathered behind her, chimed in as well.

"There was no watch, Buff," Xander said.

Oz voiced his agreement.

"There should have been a watch," she informed them. "Spike's barely taken it off for weeks, probably cause I told him that I was disappointed in him that he stole it."

Giles pulled the blanket over Spike. "It's a watch, Buffy. It could have been broken, or stolen, or …"

"Okay, that's true," she said as she pointed at Spike. "But was there a mark on his wrist from a watch band?"

Giles pulled back the blanket and checked again, and this time it was easier for her to observe Giles's movements around the body.

"I don't see any marks."

She pointed once more, and this time it was quivering in excitement. "If Spike was wearing a watch right before he died, shouldn't there be a mark? Like when you fall asleep on your school books and you wake up with a book-sized impression on your face?"

"Those marks fade," Giles said.

"Even after you're dead?"

Giles considered the question. "Far more slowly, but eventually, yes."

"Has there been enough time?"

Giles shrugged and shook his head. "It would depend on how long after death the watch was taken off, and that's assuming he was even wearing one when he died."

"You're telling me you're not sure," she exclaimed as she turned away. "That's not good enough, I have to be sure."

Xander moved to block her path. "Sure of what?"

She ignored the question and gently but firmly moved Xander out of the way while she continued towards the the library. She could hear the footsteps trailing behind her, so she called out, "I have another question: why use rebar to kill Spike and pin him to the wall of that alley? Why not railroad spikes? That's what Spike, both versions, always used, right?"

Oz called out, "As morbid as this sounds, Buff, maybe the vampire-Spike ran out of railroad spikes?"

"Or maybe it wasn't the vampire-Spike who killed Spike … maybe it was the Master or his goons, making it look like it was a Spike killing, to send a message or to taunt us, or something," Xander suggested.

She whirled around to face them and realized that quite a few people were following her now. Wesley, Tara, Willow … she was trailing half the White Hats.

"Maybe it was the Master and his vamps trying to send a message by killing Spike using his own methods," she said, "but also, maybe it wasn't our Spike they killed, maybe it was the other Spike. Maybe my Spike is still out there."

"Buffy," Giles said, "those were the remains of a living body that we found, not a vampire."

"That's why I'm going to the library."

She rushed down the school hallway, past yet more rows of locker, through the swinging library doors, and towards the office where Giles kept the locked mini-fridge containing all the Mohra blood samples.

"Buffy, I … we … are concerned over some of the things you have said, and are saying," Giles said as he trailed behind her.

"Very concerned," Willow called out. "Downright terrified, even."

Giles continued, "Please, sit down, let's talk this through."

"What things am I saying that you're concerned about?" she asked as she opened the office door and spied the mini-fridge in the corner. A padlocked chain wrapped around the fridge and through the handle would not be much of a deterrent to a desperate slayer, she decided as she walked to that corner of the room.

"I believe that you are having difficulty accepting that Spike is gone, and I am worried that you are about to make decisions that could get you hurt," Giles said as he held out an imploring hand. "I am begging you, come to the couch and speak with me."

"She's going to get herself killed, Giles," Xander said, and the angry edge was back in his voice. "I saw her room, she was packing a bag. Buffy is most definitely going last official manhunt on us and I don't think she cares if she comes back."

"I so don't have time for this," she replied as she knelt and examined the padlock. "Does anyone besides you have the key?" she asked as she turned to stare at Giles.

He gazed at her with a confused look on his face and shook his head.

Spike is clever when it comes to stealing … if he wanted Mohra blood, like he's been pestering me about for months, he'd find a way.

"Open it," she said to Giles.

He reached for his pocket, froze halfway through the motion, then frowned and lowered his hand. "The keys are in my apartment. This might be a blessing in disguise, why don't you have a seat in the library, and I'll go and …"

With the wrenching sound of tearing metal she ripped the padlock free of the chain and swung open the fridge door. Several racks of vials labeled with occult symbols, flasks with numerals and hand-written notes, and maybe a dozen bottles of various sizes were lodged within the fridge. All of them were glowing green from the Mohra blood contained within.

"Would you recognize if anything was missing?" she asked.

Giles walked over, stooped down, and glanced at the rows of fluid containers. "Nothing at a glance seems to be amiss."

She picked up one of the larger bottles and tapped at it. "If someone took, say, a syringe worth of blood from here, would you know?"

"I would not," Giles admitted. "But I don't see what this has to do with Spike's death."

She closed the fridge and stood up. "I don't have time to discuss this in a committee. I think Spike may be out there, and I think he may need my help."

"The vampire-Spike doesn't need your help, Buff," Xander said as she walked out of the office and towards the weapons bucket stored behind the book counter. "If anything, he needs to be dusted."

She ignored the comment and fished two stakes out of the bucket. One she tucked into the pocket of her coat, the second into the back of her jeans. She heard Giles whispering with the others behind her … Larry, Xander, Oz, Tara, Willow, Larry … the gang was all there, apparently, but she just didn't have time to explain.

"We are not a committee, Ms. Summers," Wesley said as he stepped into view.

"You're here, too," she said to Wesley. "Great." She maneuvered around the book counter, zipped up her coat, and stared at the assembled group. "Don't try to follow me."

"Buffy, I am begging you, I am pleading, sit down and talk to me," Giles said with an imploring gaze and an outstretched hand. "Don't make us …"

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Whatever you are going to say, save it."

Tara was the next to try. "Buffy, we know you're hurting, but we're worried about you. We are really, really, really worried about you. We're above Defcon-One, we're at Defcon-Buffy here."

"Are you even hearing us right now?" Willow asked.

Larry rapped his knuckles on the book counter. "I hate to say it, but I don't think Buffy is all there at the moment."

"You may have been the one to say it," Oz said with a nod of his head, "but we're all thinking it."

"Damn right, we are," Xander added.

"Buffy …" Giles tried again.

"Be worried on your own time, I don't have any to spare," she said as she turned to go. Briefly, she considered going back and retrieving a Mohra blood sample for her own use … she might need it tonight.

No … even now, I can't be a hypocrite. I'm not going to have my own green-glowing-get-out-of-jail free card when I've been staking vamps I could have restored to humanity ever since I got back to this universe.

The library doors swung open and Kendra walked in.

"Oh, great," Buffy exclaimed. "Now she decides she wants to be part of the team."

"Is it true?" Kendra asked. "Are you about to rush off and get yo'self killed because your boyfriend is dead?"

She fliched at the harsh cruelty of Kendra's phrasing.

"There was a nicer way to ask that," Wesley admonished Kendra.

"It's true, though, isn't it?" Kendra asked as she walked around Buffy to stand near Wesley.

"Why did you even bring Kendra here?" Buffy asked Wesley with a plaintive edge to her voice. "She never wants to listen, she never wants to help."

"I want to help," Kendra replied, "In fact, I'm here at da moment to help."

"Buffy," Giles said, "Spike would not want you to throw your life away."

"You're right," she replied with a nod as she turned to go. "I have to go."

"Go where?" Wesley asked.

"To bring back Spike," she said as she walked towards the door. "One Spike or the other."

"It won't be your Spike that you find," Giles called out. "And even if you do locate him without being killed yourself, what will you do when you find him?"

She reached out for the library doors and paused to reply, "If it's our Spike, save him. If it isn't, drag the other one back here."

"William the Bloody is one of the strongest vampires in recorded history," Giles said, as though he was teaching a class. "He's killed in single combat two slayers that we know of and he won't be alone … not to mention that the Master is still out there somewhere. I know he's killed Spike and you want revenge, but you can't go out and wander through Sunnydale looking for him."

I'm not convinced he has killed Spike! My Spike, at least.

Kendra added, "Listen to him, Buffy. Mr. Giles is talkin' sense and you are talkin' crazy."

"Again, so nice of you to show up for once," she said in a voice she hoped conveyed just how frustrated she was with the Jamaican slayer. "Look, it's my call, and I'm going."

Someone, she wasn't sure who, called out that they couldn't let her do this. It might even have been several people in unison. The doors were opening, she didn't care to listen any further, and as she began to stride forward something hit her in the back.

Something hit her in the back hard.

Kendra's arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her off her feet and back into the library. Buffy tried to twist in the air, the arms locked around her mid-section maintained their grip, and the two slayers crashed into the tile and sprawled in the middle of the library floor. She didn't bother with trying to reason with Kendra, she just pushed the other slayer away and staggered to one knee.

Something else hit her from the side and knocked her back to the floor. From the weight of the tackler and the red color of the jacket, Buffy concluded that it had to be Larry.

"What the hell!" she howled as she pushed herself off the tile with her hands while Larry grabbed onto one of her legs.

The bodies, hands, and knees came from all directions. It took her a moment to recognize why the tactic felt familiar, and then she realized it was the strategy for subdoing vampires she'd forced everyone to practice each and every sparring session so that they'd be ready to use Mohra blood on vamps. Over and over again they would drill on teamwork techniques for pinning someone to the padded floor of the school gymnasium, but she'd never thought that one day she'd be the person being subdued.

She was fast, and she was strong, but Kendra's knee was in the middle of her back and the other slayer's hands were pressing her head and neck against the cold, hard floor of the library. Someone, she couldn't tell from the way her head was pinned, had a knee on her left elbow and his hands on her left wrist, and Xander was using an identical technique on her right arm. Larry was heavy enough that sitting on her left leg immobilized it, and she imagined that it was Oz who was stretching her right leg away from her body. One grasping hand pulled the stake from the back of her belt and flung it away while another plucked the second stake from her coat and similarly discarded it.

Every trick she knew she used to try to fight free of the bodies pinning her against the tile. A torrent of epithets poured from her mouth, and she fought as hard as she had ever fought in her life to wriggle out of the grip of the people she thought were her friends.

It wasn't enough.

Kendra was sufficiently strong that she couldn't twist her off her back or shake her head free, and each of her arms and legs were being pulled and stretched in such a manner that she couldn't find any leverage to wrench herself loose. So efficiently did she find herself trapped against the floor that, as they inexorably tightened their grips and further splayed her limbs, she eventually couldn't move much of anything besides her fingers and her eyes.

So she tried to claw at the tile. Her fingernails bent and threatened to tear as she scrabbled for purchase, but the floor was too slick and she couldn't maintain a grip.

"Buffy, stop," Giles said with soft words as he knelt next to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She didn't want him to touch her and she tried to twist away, but Kendra's palm forced the side of her face against the floor and the slayer's grip on her neck was like an iron band.

Buffy closed her eyes a moment and forced herself to relax. When she opened them, she asked, "Giles, what are you doing?"

"You know what we are doing, Buffy," he said as he removed his glasses and set them on the floor. "I can only hope, when you are thinking clearly, that you will understand."

"I'm thinking pretty clearly," she assured him, "and you don't want to know what I am thinking right now."

"Mr. Giles is doing dey right thing, Buffy," Kendra said.

The sound of the slayer's voice enraged her and she could not help but twitch against the hands pinioning her in place. As soon as she started to struggle the fingers tightened again, and since continued effort seemed pointless, she once more went still.

"Don't do this," she begged. She had only a sideways angle to look at Giles, but she stared up at him as best she could. "Please, Spike is out there, and he needs my help."

"Buffy, every person in this room has lost people they love, and each and every one of them cares about you," Giles replied. "We aren't going to let you throw your life away out of heartache … I hope you can understand that."

"I understand that you need to get off of me!"

Willow walked into view and knelt next to Giles. "Buff, I've been where you are …"

"Attacked by people you thought were your friends?"

"No," Willow replied with a shake of her head. "Insane with grief. Ready to die."

I should have taken a few minutes to explain … they think I've gone crazy.

She tried to remain calm and remove the frantic edge from her voice. "That isn't what's happening here. I can explain. Let me up and I'll explain."

Tara walked into view and sat down, cross-legged, next to Willow. She laid a hand on Buffy's cheek and smiled with sad eyes. "Buffy, sweetheart, and I want you to know that I'm saying this entirely out of a place of love … I think maybe you've lost it a little bit. We only want to help you."

"Help me by letting me go!"

Giles patted Willow on the arm and she turned to look at him. "Willow, after what happened with you and Xander, I purchased medical restraints so that in the future we need not resort to chaining vampires to pipes. They're in a desk in my office. Would you be so kind as to bring them here?"

Medical restraints?

She kicked and flailed and tried to keep from breaking down into tears. If she began sobbing, they really wouldn't listen to anything she had to say.

Willow stood and headed back to the library offices. Buffy extended her fingers, as much as she could with Xander's arms on her wrist and forearm, towards Giles, and he moved forward and clasped palms with her.

"Giles," she said as she held his hand. "You've convinced me that it was a mistake to cut short our conversation. I promise you, I swear to you, that if you let me up, I'll sit at that table right over there and we'll rationally, calmly talk this through."

That might have been more convincing if he hadn't watched me act like a raving lunatic for the last hour.

Giles wiped at his eyes with his other hand. "I wish I could believe you, Buffy."

There were murmurs of agreement from everyone else in the room.

"Goddammit, Giles, don't do this," she pled as she looked at him from her awkward position on the floor.

"All of us are in agreement, Buffy," he replied in a sad, quiet voice. "All the people in your life that care about you feel that this is for best … that should tell you something."

Xander's long black hair hung down as he stared at her. "You saved my life, Buff … heck, you've saved the lives of everyone here many times over. I know you don't want us to save your life, but we're going to save it anyway."

It was perhaps the kindest, gentlest side of Xander she'd seen since he'd been turned into a human.

Maybe there's some of the old Xander left after all … I just wish I was hearing it under different circumstances.

"You'd do this for any of us," Oz said. "In fact, you have."

Willow nodded in agreement.

She couldn't help but thrash for a few seconds against the weight holding her still. "This would be heartwarming if it wasn't so fucking wrong!"

"Wesley, did you retrieve what I asked?" Giles asked the younger man.

Wesley nodded, reached into his coat, and pulled out a small black case. He laid it on the tiles and slid it towards Giles, who released his grip on her hand and reached out to stop it in place. Frozen in horror, Buffy watched while Giles unzipped the case and extracted first a small, neatly labeled vial filled with an amber colored liquid and then a glass syringe that featured a gleaming, stainless steel thumb rest and plunger.

"What is that?" she asked as she squirmed against the hands holding her and tried to ignore the tendrils of fear squeezing her heart.

"A sedative," Giles explained as he inserted the needle of the syringe through the top of the small bottle and retracted the plunger. When the syringe was full with the yellow-brown liquid, he inserted the vial back into the case.

Oh, god …

"You're going to drug me?" she asked. "Are you seriously going to knock me out?"

"The sedative won't do anything besides calm you," Giles said in a tone likely intended to sound reassuring, but which reassured her not in the slightest. "I promise."

"Calm me?" she retorted. "Make me easier to control is what you mean."

Giles did not reply as he inverted the syringe and tapped the glass to ensure there were no air bubbles in the needle.

Screaming would not do her any good and struggling was not getting her anywhere, so she decided to try reason. "Giles," she said in as calm a tone as she could manage, "at least have the decency to look me in the eye while I'm talking to you."

With guilty eyes he met her gaze.

"Before I left that other universe, you … the older, wiser you … asked me to warn you not to make the same mistakes in this world," she reminded him. "What you're doing right now, this is exactly the kind of mistake that cost you a lot of trust with the other me. Exactly the same kind of mistake."

He looked at her with eyes wet with unshed tears and spoke with a voice hoarse with emotion. "I don't think I realized how important you have become to me until today, Buffy. I know that I'm not your Watcher, or your keeper, or your father, but I … I cannot bear to allow you to go off on some mad, sorrow-fueled quest for vengeance and die needlessly. I just can't. I would rather have someone cut off my leg than let you throw your life away."

"How can I ever trust you again after this?" she asked, and the question was not at all rhetorical.

"Even if you hate me from this day forward, at least that will mean you're alive. I can only hope that someday you will understand." He reached down, moved her ponytail away from her neck, and raised the hypodermic.

She tried … oh, how she tried … to flex out of Kendra's grip and shift away from the syringe. The slayer's hands pressed her face and neck mercilessly against the floor and with her arms and legs spread wide she had no way to meaningfully wriggle in any direction. She grunted from the exertion, but there were too many people holding her down. Giles's movements were slow and his fingers gentle on her hair and skin, but somehow that only made the moment more terrifying as she eyed the needle steadily lowering towards her neck.

She heard the library doors open and swiveled her eyes in an attempt to see who had entered.

Black boots and black slacks beneath a long black overcoat.

"Angel!" she cried out. "Help me!"

"What the hell is going on in here?" Angel asked in a half-puzzled, half angry tone.

She gasped in relief when the needle moved away from her neck.

"Buffy's trying to get herself killed," Xander explained.

"So you tackle her?" Angel asked.

"You've sparred with Buffy," Larry pointed out, "it was either this or we find an elephant-sized tranquilizer dart."

"Spike may be out there," she pleaded at Angel. She wished she could meet his eyes, but Kendra's grip on her head prevented it. "And if he's alive, I don't know how much time I have to find him before …" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. "They want to drug me and lock me up," she continued. "You can't let this happen."

Angel moved to the side so that she could see him. He seemed uncertain, but at least he was listening, which was a start. "You saw Spike's body, Buffy," he pointed out. "The body of a living person, not a vampire. I'm sorry, but Spike is gone." He rubbed at the back of his neck and glanced away. "Despite what you said earlier, I never wanted this to happen."

"She really isn't doing well, Angel," Tara said.

"That doesn't mean that this," Angel gestured towards Buffy's spread limbs and pinned body. "Is justified."

"It is if she intends to get herself killed," Wesley replied.

She couldn't take her eyes off the syringe in Giles's hand as she cried out, "We don't know which Spike is dead. I think Spike, our Spike, stole some Mohra blood. I think he may have used it on the vampire-Spike, and that maybe we found the other Spike's body."

"Why would Spike turn the Spike from this world into a human?" Angel asked. "If anything, I'd think he'd want to kill him."

"I don't know why he would do that," Buffy admitted, "maybe because he has a soft spot for himself, I don't know … but Angel, Spike's watch, where is his watch?"

"What watch? What is she talking about?" Angel asked the group with a perplexed expression.

"Buffy cannot accept what has happened and has developed a fixation on the fact that Spike's body apparently lacks a wristwatch that he often wore," Giles explained. "It is not uncommon for people in the throes of despair to seize upon and blow out of proportion small details as a coping mechanism for a loss they're not emotionally prepared to deal with."

"That's not what's happening here!" she screamed.

Angel pointed down at her. "If Buffy needs our help, we talk to her. Even if she's wrong, we discuss our views and convince her that she's wrong, we don't wrestle her to the ground and shoot her up with happy juice."

"Yes!" she sobbed. "Listen to him!"

They're still not letting me go, Angel!

"Angel, she isn't well," Wesley added in his irritating, limp-wristed manner. "Surely you can see that."

"She's in pain," Angel replied. "That's what happens when someone you care about dies. Buffy may be wrong about Spike being alive, but I don't think she's crazy."

Tara shook her head. "Wesley is right, Angel. It's more than just grief, Buffy isn't thinking clearly."

"I am! I am thinking clearly!" she cried out. "Angel, do something!"

Xander raised one of his hands, she immediately tried to move her arm, and Xander's hand lowered to pin her wrist back to the floor. "You haven't seen her," he said to Angel. "She's talking to imaginary gods, going on about Spike being alive, saying she can bring people back to life … I know what it's like to be in a bad place and I can't let her hurt herself."

"Talkin' to gods?" Kendra asked as she pressed her knee harder against Buffy's back.

"Trust me, please," she implored Angel while she stared at him.

"Nobody wants this," Giles said, "but the alternative is that she rushes off to her death."

"I'm begging you, Angel," she said. "This is me, begging for your help."

She couldn't think of anything else to say. In truth, there probably wasn't anything left for her to argue. If Angel didn't help her, in short order she'd find herself drugged and tucked away somewhere quiet until there was no chance of saving Spike, assuming her hunch was right and he was still alive. Angel stared at her with dark, sympathetic eyes, and a terrible realization occurred to her.

Angel has every reason to want Spike dead.

As soon as the thought occurred to her, she banished it. Angel, any version of him, wouldn't let Spike die knowing what he meant to her. She knew it, and she was embarrassed to have even thought it.

Willow emerged from the back offices to stand next to Giles, and from her hands dangled padded cuffs and thick straps.

The sight of the bindings seemed to galvanize Angel into action. He moved closer and said, "All of you should be ashamed." Her heart soared at his words. "None of us had much in the way of hope until Buffy got here. She saved us. She saved me. We came to her broken, yet she put her faith in us anyway and helped us when we were at our lowest. And now, when she most needs you to believe in her, when she's at her lowest, you do this?" He gestured towards her. "You may have good intentions, but last time I checked, that's what they paved the road to hell with."

That was a good speech, but I'm still stuck here on the floor of the library.

Angel's eyes moved down to her. "Buffy, honestly, do you think Spike might be alive?"

"I do. I really do," she promised him. "I'm not crazy, and this isn't denial, or bargaining, or any stage of grief. Angel, Spike may be running out of time."

"If you believe it, then that's good enough for me." Slowly, deliberately, he took off his coat and hung it by a coat rack perched near the door. The tattoos curling from beneath the collar and cuffs of his shirts glittered red and heat as he tightened his hands into fists. "She deserves the benefit of the doubt in every way possible and I intend to give that to her. We're all friends, and I don't want things to get any uglier than they already have, but I'm going to need you to let go of Buffy. Now."

"Now that is a man," Kendra whispered in an appreciative tone.

Giles raised a hand, "Angel, we …"

"NOW!" Angel barked. He continued in a hoarse growl, "Like I said, I don't want this to get any uglier."

"This is a mistake," Oz replied. Buffy could only see a few of the gathered heads nod in agreement, but she imagined they were all of one mind on the point.

Xander raised his hands off her right arm. "Congratulations. You're going to get Buffy killed." Xander moved his knee away from her as well, and Buffy reveled in regaining the ability to move at least one of her limbs.

"Maybe," Angel admitted. "But it's her life, and I choose to trust Buffy instead of making the decision for her. "

The relief she felt when Giles tucked the needle away and everyone moved away from her was beyond description. The pressure eased, the hands and knees pressing her to the tile vanished, and she tried not to look frantic and panicked as she pushed herself into a crouch. When Angel and Giles helped her to her feet, she had to fight from screaming at Giles not to touch her. Once she was standing, she shook off their hands and moved away so that she could place her back against a row of books and keep all of them in front of her.

She was angry, she was so angry. She wanted to scream, to turn her back on them and let the moment fester, and then later find them one by one and make them feel as helpless and betrayed as they had made her feel. It would be so easy to give in to that impulse. Just leave the library, let her emotions stew, and later on, unleash a torrent of accusations that they would never forget.

But if she did that, if she let this moment pass with no resolution until her feelings had crystallized into something sharp and ugly, none of them would ever move past it. Ever. Everything that they tried to do together from this day forward would be poisoned by the memory.

It was difficult, it was so, so very difficult, but she accepted that they had reasons for what they had done, legitimate reasons even if they were in the wrong, and she decided to let it go.

Other than choosing to follow Spike into another world, it was the most difficult decision she had ever made.

"It's okay," she said as she raised her hands. "I get it. I wasn't at my best and I get it." The tension eased, everyone stood in a more relaxed fashion, and the wary, cautious expressions vanished from their faces.

Letting go unburdened her a bit as well, though she was still pissed.

"We can hash out whatever you guys think needs to be hashed out later," she informed them, "I have to go. I've got a job to do."

Xander raised a hand towards her. "Fine. How about we all go with you? We'd all like a piece of whoever killed Spike."

She shook her head and was greeted by frowns from everyone except Angel. "I'm not looking for a fight, I'm looking for clues. I need to move fast so they can't see me coming, and if I have to get out of somewhere in a hurry, I'll need to move even faster. You'll slow me down."

The corners of Oz's mouth twisted into a frown, and it was about the most upset she could ever remember him looking. "All these months you've beaten into our heads that we don't go out alone, that we work together with lookouts, and now that it's your boyfriend's killer you're searching for, all that goes out the window?" Oz asked. "Is that what you're saying, Buff?"

"Oz, that's unfair," Tara scolded him.

"Is it?" Wesley asked. "It sounds very much like Ms. Summers is intent on doing exactly what she has repeatedly warned Kendra is unacceptable behavior from a slayer."

"They do have a point," Giles added while Kendra and Willow nodded in agreement.

Larry raised a hand and asked, "Can I say something?"

A chorus of no rang out.

"Take Kendra, at least," Wesley said while he grabbed the notably unenthused looking young woman by the shoulders and urged her forward. "You cannot possibly think that a second slayer would slow you down."

"Dis is madness," Kendra said while she folded her arms.

Buffy shook her head. "No offense, but I'm not taking someone who I'm not sure will play nice with me." She edged away from the group in an effort to give herself a clear path to the exit. "I'm going to start moving towards the door again … you guys are are done with that tying up and drugging Buffy nonsense, right?"

Giles winced, rubbed at the top of his head, and opened his mouth to speak.

"I'll go," Angel announced before Giles could articulate his next thought. "Makes sense that it would be me. I won't slow Buffy down."

She nodded in gratitude at him. "Thank you Angel." She looked at Kendra, pointed at Angel, and said, "Him, I can trust."

Kendra frowned at her.

The goodbyes were terse, she retrieved her two stakes and tried not to show how nervous she was at the prospect that they might try a second time to stop her, and then she and Angel slipped out of library and through the front doors of the school.

. . . . . . . . .

"Really, stop a second," she said as she grabbed the sleeve of Angel's coat and tugged him to a halt. "Even after I was a rampaging, collosal asshole to you tonight, you were there for me when it counted. It would have been a hell of a lot easier for you to say nothing and just let them strap me to some bed. Thank you. I mean it."

"Hey, you care about Spike and I care about you." He gestured towards the street. "If you really think he's out there, we might be running out of time."

She held Angel's arm for a moment, whispered thank you again, and then she broke out in a run for the alley. They moved fast and low while sticking to the shadows, and as much as Buffy preached a team concept for slaying in Sunnydale, it was refreshing to be able to move at slayer speed and not have to worry about watching everyone else's backs.

They reached the last block of building near the alley where Spike had been found and ducked into a shadowed, recessed set of steps leading to a below-ground building entryway. She retrieved a stake from her coat while Angel did likewise.

"If there's a trap waiting for us, it'll be at the alley," she said. "Although we didn't see anybody before."

"What you said about me choosing to help you," Angel replied with a far-off look in his eyes, "it was about more than just you … maybe I also felt I owed Spike."

She blinked in surprise at the abruptness of the change in topic. "What?"

"Spike gave me some good advice," Angel continued as he stared into space. "He was right … Angelus was too dangerous, and I should have recognized that. Buffy, you should have just injected me right from the beginning regardless of what I wanted. Next time, don't take that chance."

"I'll keep that in mind," she muttered as she peered down the street. "It's amazing how much more motivated and clear-headed you are now that you have magical superpower tattoos."

Angel winced and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well … my ego took a bit of a hit for a while, and that threw me off."

"I noticed," she said in a dry voice.

They moved to the alley and as they entered, Angel slowed, rotated in a circle, and held up a hand. "I know this spot."

"Why?" Buffy asked. "Been here before?"

"This is where you found Spike's body?"

"Yeah," she replied as the pain of the memory pulsed in her chest. "Though he could have been grabbed anywhere."

Angel moved towards the end of the alley while she searched the ground, the nearby dumpster, and twenty feet in every direction for signs of Spike's watch. Every second that went by without her finding it, the thread of hope that she was desperately clinging to grew a little bit thicker.

"There's no watch here," she called out to Angel.

He turned and gazed at her. "I wasn't quite following you at the library … is it a good thing or a bad thing that you can't find Spike's watch?"

"It's a very good thing," as she hurried over to join Angel. "Now we just have to figure out where he was taken, where the original fight was." A sense of horror descended over her. "And I'm only now just realizing how hard that's going to be."

I'll just start searching. Every building in every direction, I'll keep widening the search until I find signs of a fight.

Angel shook his head. "I think we should go in there," he pointed down at a large gap between the curb and the asphalt of the alley where the blackness of a storm drain could be seen.

"We looking for red balloons?" she asked.

Angel stared upwards while he tried to place her reference.

"Never mind," she said with a wave of her hand. "Why do you want to crawl down there?"

"I know this alley because Spike uses this storm drain to reach a tunnel that leads out of downtown Sunnydale," Angel explained. "He probably thought it was safer than using the streets. I'd wager that whatever went down, it happened down there."

"How did you know that Spike used this tunnel?" she asked him.

Judging by the evasive and nervous look that appeared on Angel's face in response to her question, she guessed that he was hoping she wouldn't inquire on this particular topic.

"Out with it," she ordered him.

"I followed Spike one night," he admitted. "He came here, he climbed down into that storm drain, and the next day I came back with a flashlight and figured out where he'd gone. Looked like he had a car stashed on the other side."

"You should have known that I'd want to be told about something like this," she scolded him, "why didn't you ever mention it before now?"

Angel did not answer her question for a few seconds, and when he did, he couldn't meet her eyes. "Because I thought you would interpret my tattling on Spike's extracurricular activities as being an effort to drive a wedge between the two of you. I didn't want to give off that impression, so I kept my mouth shut."

She pointed at angry finger at him. "That …" she hesitated, considered her words carefully, then continued, "that is fair. Let's go." She walked over to a manhole cover set above the storm drain and tried to pry it open. "We need one of those metal hook things to get the manhole open." She looked up at Angel and tilted her head in thought. "Can you lift it with your wizard powers? I've seen you practicing and you're getting better."

Angel shook his head. "Sorry, Buffy, nothing heavier than a pound or two." He glanced around. "I might be able to pry one of those light brackets off the wall and …"

By the time he glanced back at her she was already on her belly and sliding into the storm drain.

"Buffy!" he yelled out. After he didn't hear a response for a few seconds, he folded his jacket on the ground, carefully scraped himself through the opening, then grabbed the jacket and slid off the edge.

Buffy watched as Angel nimbly jacknifed his feet beneath him and landed in a sprawling crouch. She rolled her eyes when the first thing he did was put his overcoat back on.

"There might have been a better way to do that," Angel complained as he stared down at the mud and asphalt stains covering the front of his clothes.

"We don't have time for you to fashion a rudimentary lathe," she explained as she began to move forward. A gleam of light caught her eye and she glanced down at the dirty water sludging along beneath her boots. She bent down, grabbed a small, metal, rectangular object, and held it up to the light streaming in from the storm drain entrance.

"What's that?" Angel asked as he pulled closer.

She flicked open the device, spun the flywheel, and sparks sputtered from the lighter.

"Lighter," she explained. "Out of juice though."

"Could it be Spike's?" Angel asked.

Buffy shook her head. "He knows better than to smoke around me."

"Still," Angel said, "this might mean something."

"Let's go," Buffy said as she tucked the lighter into the pocket of her jeans and moved forward, stake in hand, down the tunnel. There was only dim light that peered in through the small manhole cover access holes and the periodic sluice tunnels, but she could see well enough to make out the outline of the pipe and the water coursing beneath her feet.

"Uhh … Buffy," Angel said.

"What?" she asked as she kept going.

"I can't see anything," he said. "Like, nothing at all. It's pitch black down here."

She turned around and stared at him in confusion. "You and Spike have even better vision than slayers. What's the problem?"

She realized her mistake just as Angel began to speak.

"Yeah," he replied, "you're thinking of the other Angel, the one healed by the Shard of something or other. I'm the Angel with the tattoos, and I'm afraid that super-senses weren't part of the Enochian upgrade package. Eyes, ears, nose … mine don't work any better than anyone else's."

She walked back over to him. "Don't tell …" She'd been about to warn Angel not to tell Spike about this, but then she remembered why they were down there, and the words died on her lips.

She grabbed Angel's hand and began to guide him, a tactic he clearly hadn't expected, as his movements were stiff and awkard at first. Eventually, as he realized that she was quite adept at maneuvering him through the bends in the tunnel, he began to pick up the pace.

"Do I want to know what I'm stepping in?" he asked.

"No," she replied.

The tunnel went on for a long time, and Buffy strained her eyes to pierce the darkness as she searched for signs of Spike's passage. After what seemed an eternity, but probably was only a distance of a few miles, she saw patches of light and dark that solidified into the sight of an iron grate blocking their path. Beyond the grate, she saws rows of darkened houses and an apartment building in the distant. There was enough moon and starlight that she could see the tunnel quite well, and she let go of Angel's hand and moved forward to check for signs of someone having torn an opening in the grate.

"Buffy," Angel called out, "Spike went that way." He pointed up.

She splashed through the wastewater in a mad scramble to reach Angel. As soon as she reached him, she stared up at where he was pointing and saw an open manhole cover.

"This must have been the way he came!" she cried out. Upon spying a set of rungs embedded in the concrete of the wall, she leapt up, grabbed a set of rungs, and climbed through the hole. She hurried to her feet and spun in a circle, staring in all directions, while Angel joined her.

This is the spot.

"This is where the two Spikes battled," she exclaimed. "I know it."

"Yeah, that's a fair guess," Angel replied.

The fight must have been absolutely colossal. A nearby tree whose trunk had to be a foot and a half thick had been cracked in half like a garden stake, and the entire doorframe, front door, and front siding windows of the adjacent house were smashed inwards as if a car had hit it, but there was no car in sight. Buffy walked over for a bettter view and discovered that every wall in the downstairs of the home was torn, or burst open, or been subjected to blows of tremendous force. In the kitchen, someone had been thrust out the back door hard enough to rip the frame free of the drywall.

From there, the fight had proceeded to a neighboring house, which featured similar signs of destruction that continued upstairs and, eventually, through the sloped ceiling of a child's room that had been burst asunder as if a grenade had hit it.

"How the hell did anyone survive this?" Angel asked as he climbed next to her on the roof. "Even if you did, you wouldn't be going far after."

She stumbled on the roof in reaction to what Angel had just said, and he reached out to steady her.

Angel is right … Spike might be here, he might be right out here!

"We have to find where the fight ended." She glanced around, spotted a row of snapped hedges where someone appeared to have been thrown off the roof, and jumped down to investigate. Buffy blinked in surprise when she rounded a corner and found an overturned car in the street. She imagined one Spike had tried to crush the other Spike with the vehicle and it hadn't worked out quite as intended. Angel pointed at a community pool whose thick metal gate had been torn open, and they rushed inside to find shattered tiles, a smashed entryway fountain, and at least a dozen folded and crumpled lawn chairs that apparently had been used as makeshift weapons.

She and Angel began searching, and it didn't take her long to find what she was looking for.

"Here," she said as she pointed out two, roughly man-shaped puddles lying next to a bubbling jacuzzi that had a bent and crumpled metal handrail sticking out of it. "The fight ended here." She crouched down and pointed at the larger puddle. "One Spike was lying right on this spot, and the other was sitting there, against that wall." She pointed at a nearby stuccoed wall for the building that housed the pool and spa equipment. "I think one Spike knocked the other out, then laid him down right there," she pointed again at the larger puddle. "Then the first Spike sat down," she swiveled again towards the smaller puddle. When she finished, she stared at Angel expectanctly.

"Then what?" Angel asked.

She pointed at a streak of water that led from the concrete of the pool deck onto a divider of grass that separated a swinging, one-way gate from the neatly mowed lawn of a neighboring park. "Someone dragged one of the Spikes through that gate." She glanced down again at the concrete and spied a set of faint, barely discernible footprints that had almost completely evaporated. "There!" she cried out in excitement. "One Spike walked away, one was dragged away."

"Nice job, detective," Angel said with an impressed look on his face. "Very impressive." He stood up and frowned. "That doesn't help us figure out which Spike was which … or what happened to the other Spike."

"We need to search," she said. "Look for anything small that could contain liquid … it might be empty."

I hope it's empty, because that means that Spike used it to transform his vampire-self into a human.

"You got it," Angel replied.

The lights of the poolhouse made it easy to check the ground as she worked in a slow circle around the jacuzzi. The jacuzzi itself would have to be searched, she knew, but that could wait. She'd spiraled around the spa in an ever-widening circle three times when Angel held something aloft and called out, "I think I found something."

"Oh, god," she said as she hunched over. A mixture of fear and relief washed over her. "What is it?"

He stared at her and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Of course not!" she snarled. She took a deep breath, modulated her tone, and added, "I'm trying to keep it together, but I'm struggling here, Angel. I can't bring myself to look. What is it?"

"It's a plastic vial, empty, and I bet if we looked around we'd find a rubber stopper somewhere."

Oh please, oh please, oh please let it be Mohra blood.

"Anything glowing green?" she asked as she closed her eyes and pushed herself against the wall of the poolhouse.

"I don't know," Angel admitted. "Like we were discussing thirty or forty minutes ago, you see a hell of a lot better than I do."

She opened her eyes, rushed over to Angel, and with hurried but precise movements plucked the small, hard plastic vial from his hands and tucked it beneath her coat so that the interior would be shadowed. She ducked her head down, prayed harder than she had ever prayed in her life, and let her eyes adjust.

Faintly, with the barest of flickers, a bead of luminescent green winked at her.

She fell to her knees and clutched the vial to her chest.

"It's Mohra blood," she gasped. "Spike, that bastard, he stole some, like I should have realized he would." She held up the vial towards Angel. "This proves I was right. Spike turned the vampire Spike human, and …well … one of them may still be alive."

"You're right," Angel said with approval dripping from his voice. "You were right, Buffy. Everyone should have trusted you."

Please make sure you remind them of that when we see them again.

"Now what?" Angel asked.

She hadn't thought that far ahead.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I kind of hoped we might find Spike passed out somewhere."

Angel pointed at the trail of water leading towards the park gate. "Follow that?"

She nodded and moved forward. "Let's go."

They worked the latch of the gate, exited the pooldeck, and immediately were stymied by their inability to detect any signs of passage in the grass. They took in their surroundings and Buffy realized that a number of paths, all of which seemed equally viable, led in every direction.

"We might have a problem, Buffy," Angel said.

"I know," she said as tears of frustration threatened to boil over. "Spike could be anywhere."

Angel sniffed at the air, and then at her.

"What?" she asked. "We just walked through a few miles of sewer water and you don't smell good either. Can we try to stay focused?"

"No, not that," Angel said as he walked towards a nearby light pole and sniffed at. The sniffing went on long enough that Buffy began to grow uncomfortable.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Angel pointed at the pole. "Could you smell this and tell me what it smells like to you?"

"Why?" she asked.

"Your turn to trust me," Angel replied.

She walked over and sniffed the pole. "It's smells like a flower perfume of some sort." She glanced down at the ground and noticed a small crushed glass bottle. After kneeling next to the glass, she poked at it with her finger and the same smell ushered forth. "Here's the bottle. Want me to try to read the label? Could this help find Spike?"

"The flower is oleander," Angel explained, "and I'd bet every dollar I still have to my name that whichever Spike was dragged out that gate, he's with Drusilla."

"Drusilla?" Buffy gasped as she recalled both the stories surrounding the name and Spike's still mysterious run-in with her in Moonridge. "Are you sure?"

"She loves the smell of oleander," Angel explained. "The plant is a deadly poison, so in retrospect, it makes sense for Dru." He began to sniff at the air. "I don't suppose your slayer nose could literally follow the scent?"

"I don't need to," she replied. "I think I know where Drusilla is taking Spike. If we run, and I mean run as if Spike's life depended on it, we can be there in ten minutes."

"How do you know?" Angel asked.

"I'll explain when we get there," she said as she broke into a dead sprint.

. . . . . . . . .

"And you're sure it's this particular graveyard?" Angel asked as he leaned over, placed his hands on his knees, and wheezed. "There are a heck of a lot of gothic cemetries in Sunnydale."

"I'm sure," she said with a nod as she gasped in huge lungfuls of cold air in an attempt to catch her breath. "Spike and I did some sight-seeing in Sunnydale and he showed me the crypt that he used to live in. It's in some family mausoleum … Hawley, I think it was."

"Why would Spike take you to a crypt?" Angel asked with a puzzled look on his face.

She stared at the cemetery and focused on the specific path that she remembered trodding with Spike. "He thought it would be romantic," she informed Angel. "It was not romantic."

Angel shuddered. "You have no idea how sorry I am that I asked."

She pointed in the direction of the mausoleum. "I'm gambling that the Spike in this dimension would have picked the same crypt as the Spike from the other dimension."

"That's thin, Buffy," Angel said as he followed her beneath the wrought iron arch of the cemetery entrance. "I mean, vampire-Spike could have chosen any crypt."

"Barely holding it together here," she reminded Angel through gritted teeth.

"Sorry," he immediately mumbled.

"It's more than just that," she said. "Giles has a theory, one that sounds pretty convincing if I've been drinking, that our world, this world, will try to follow the same general patterns as the original. He thinks there is a pull on time and space, or something like that, that will attempt to bend events in our universe so that they are in harmony with the other timeline."

"Giles is spending too much time in the library," Angel informed her as he tried to mask a skeptical expression. "Tell him to take Jenny out more often."

"I'll do that," she promised, though in truth she was barely paying attention to what Angel was saying.

The red flecks on the edges of Angel's wrist tattoo glittered in the moonlight as he grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Spike may not be in there," Angel replied as he released her arm. "And this is our only lead, Buffy. If he isn't here, I think we should head back to the school."

"I am going to keep looking until I find Spike."

Angel frowned. "Then we get everyone and we look together."

"Fine," she said with a nod. "I'm okay with people helping me look, so long as they don't try to stop me."

Angel nodded and they made their way across the graveyard. When at least half a dozen vamps stumbled out of various crypts and shadowed pockets along the cemetery walls to confront them, Buffy considered it a very good sign.

Where there are henchvamps, there's also a big bad vampire leader. We're in the right place.

Angel had barely finished dusting his second vamp … a heavyset woman dressed in a gray suit and black hat, by the time she had slammed her fifth vampire to the ground and jammed a wooden stake through its heart.

She stood and turned to find Angel staring at her with wide eyes and an expression of awe.

"Wow," he muttered. "Remind me never to kidnap your boyfriend."

She shook her head, hurried past him, and admonishingly said, "Not a good time for jokes."

"You're right, sorry," he called out as he hurried to catch up.

. . . . . . . . .

They'd pushed open the metal door set in the front of the mausoleum, made short work of the vampire guarding the entrace to the crypt, and maneuvered past the patio furniture, statues, and funeral urns to the wrought iron enclosure of the stairwell. She descended the steps two at a time, stake outstretched, while Angel whispered at her to slow down. She ignored him, leapt down the last few steps, and rushed forward through an arched entryway of dirt-covered stone.

The crypt contained a collection of furniture that included a rather elebarorate bar complete with barstools and a set of mirrored shelves bracketed to the dark gray stone, stereo equipment, stacks of garbage, and various odds and ends piled atop the tombs. Extension cords strung along the walls of the crypt powered a medley of lamps, some yellow, some red, and all shrouded with soft-hued lampshades. A partially drawn red and black curtain covered an entryway to another section of the crypt, and through an open space between the curtain and the wall she could hear a woman's voice.

Drusilla?

She turned to Angel.

He whispered, "Dru," and took a step forward.

With the stake held tightly in her hands she rushed forward, her heart beating out of control and her breath catching in her chest, to pull the curtain aside and stare at the makeshift bedchamber that occupied one corner of the subterranean space.

. . . . . . . . .

An enormous, red velvet blanketed, four poster bed covered much of the area behind the curtain. Flanking the bed were two ornate, non-matching end tables, and along the far wall sat a row of dressers from which clothing protruded. The near wall, incongruently for the macabre surroundings, featured a television, stereo set, and refrigerator.

She'd seen drawings of Drusilla, and the real thing matched the sketches rather well. Lively dark eyes set wide in a pale, delicately vulpine face stared at her while thin, white hands sporting red-painted nails caressed a figure so swaddled in blankets as to be nearly entirely covered. The white muslin of Drusilla's gown was soaked in blood, and when she opened her mouth to howl in surprise, a gush of crimson fluid spattered from her lips.

Buffy only had eyes for the figure lying in Drusilla's arms.

"Get out!" Drusilla screamed as she pointed at her and Angel, and given the look on her face, she clearly expected the command to be obeyed.

"How are you doing, Dru?" Angel asked. "It's been a long night … how about you put Spike down and we talk this out?"

Spike?!

Buffy sidled over nearer to Angel, stood on her tiptoes, and could just make out a nest of blond, spiked hair nestled in the blankets. Blood soaked the already-red fabric and Buffy realized that Drusilla had been feeding on Spike.

"Get away from him!" she screamed. She wanted to rush at Drusilla and end her, but Dru had vampire reflexes and her teeth and nails were only inches from Spike's throat.

Dru stared sadly at Angel. "Another of my beloveds, turned into an ugly thing of heat, and blood, and life. Do not worry, sweetling, after I have finished with Spike, I can give you the gift of the grave as well."

She smiled, and her blood stained teeth and gore covered chin was a horror.

Spike mumbled something while he stirred, and the blankets shifted enough for Buffy to see that Spike's face was a mottled mass of bruises and that blood leaked from puncture marks on his neck.

"Darla is very upset with you," Dru whispered to Angel.

"Move away from Spike!" Buffy screamed as tears of rage threatened to begin pouring from her eyes.

"He's mine!" Dru said as she pulled Spike closer. Spike's head shifted again, and every square inch of visible skin was purple with bruises or red with blood. "Poor thing has been afflicted with humanity, hasn't said a single word since me and the boys brought him home."

Buffy howled in anger and rushed forward. Drusilla's eyes narrowed for a moment, then she spun from the bed, pulled back another curtain, and vanished. Buffy had absolutely no desire to follow Dru anywhere. Instead, she tossed away the stake, scrambled onto the bed, and ripped back the blankets.

I can't tell which Spike it is!

Spike's leather coat was so soiled, bloody, and torn that she couldn't recognize it, and his clothes weren't unique in any way. The cigarette smoke clinging to him wasn't a good sign, but Spike did still light up on occasion despite knowing that she loathed the smell.

"I'm going to go after Dru," Angel said as he stepped through the curtain.

Buffy didn't bother looking at him or responding.

"Spike," she whispered as cradled his jaw in her hands. "Spike, is that you?"

Spike mumbled something.

Check for his watch!

She pulled back the blankets and her heart shattered in her chest when she didn't see a watch on his wrist.

The other arm, you idiot!

She grabbed the blankets covering Spike's left arm, and fear froze her in place for a moment before she wrenched back the cloth.

The crystal of Spike's watch on his wrist had splintered away and gone missing, and the metal of the dial was bent and gouged, but the watch was there. She put her hands on the side of Spike's face, pressed her forehead against his, and closed her eyes. Her heart resumed beating for the first time since Xander had come to the library with the news of Spike's death, and her soul broke free of the tethers that had locked it in some dark, terrible place.

"Oh, Spike," she whispered.

Spike opened the one eye that wasn't completely swollen and moved his jaw as little as possible as he spoke, "Am I dead?"

"No, no you're not," she said as she plucked at his arms. "Oh, god, you're alive. You're really alive."

He looked around. "Are you sure that I'm not dead? You perched atop my lap while we lounge in my crypt definitely feels like eternal reward type stuff." He grinned at her with his bloody and swollen lips. "I told you that this place could be romantic."

"You're not dead, Spike, though I might kill you later," she assured him as she kissed his forehead. "Why did you have to go looking for your vampire-self? Did you want to die?"

She thought she'd be angry when she brought up this subject, but her relief was so profound she found herself unable to muster even a sense of irritation.

"That's not what happened," Spike replied as his eye fluttered open. "I didn't go look for him."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Really?"

Blood gushed from the bite wound on Spike's neck as he tried to sit up. She forced him back down and he stared at her with a baleful eye and replied, "He came looking for me. Honest."

"And then instead of killing him, you turned him human with the Mohra blood you stole?" She ran a hand down his chest.

"Yup."

She tilted her head and stared at him with a puzzled expression. "Why not just kill him?"

"You know why," Spike said as he laid back down and closed his eye once more. "Cause I knew that wouldn't have been what you wanted. After he turned back into a real boy, he ran off raving mad saying he had to find you, which maybe I should have expected. I then proceeded to pass out, and now here I am."

"You stole the Mohra blood … when I specifically and repeatedly asked you not to," she said after she leaned forward to kiss Spike on the forehead.

There was no hint of apology in his voice when he replied, "You're in a dangerous line of work and I'll be damned before I let you die on my watch. You may have a martyr complex, but I don't. Well, I do actually, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with you having one."

"Oh, Spike …" she said, and then she discovered that words failed her.

She began to cry, and the torrent of emotions and grief and anguish she'd been bottling up for the past hours issued from her with a series of hoarse, wracking sobs accompanied by streams of tears that drenched Spike and washed away same of the blood coating his face and neck.

"What is going on with you?" Spike asked. "We've been in tough spots before, slayer."

She shook her head. "You don't understand. When we found the other Spike's body, he wasn't a vampire, so I thought … I thought …" She put her head against his chest and just let herself weep as hard as her body needed.

"He's dead?" Spike asked after a moment.

"Tortured to death," she replied in between sniffles. "Must have been the Master's goons trying to send a message … the vampire-Spike has killed enough of them that it makes sense they'd use the same methods on him."

"That's a shame," Spike said as he reached up and stroked her hair. "Still, it makes things simpler."

He winced when she smacked him on the chest. "That could have been a Spike just like you, and now he's dead. Hell, it could have been you … I believed it was you." She sobbed and cried for a while longer while clutching at his blood soaked shirt.

"Sorry you took a fright," Spike said as he kissed her cheek. "Didn't mean for that to happen."

Her tears froze in place and she sat up to stare at him with a furious expression. Spike flinched and tried to pull away from the ferocity of her gaze. "A fright?" she hissed. "Oh, Spike, we are so not done talking about this." She wanted to shake him, but he was too injured for that. "We are getting back to the school, and then we are going to have a long chat. Actually, we're going to have a long scream. I'm going to scream at you about wandering off by yourself, and you're going to sit there and listen and at the end you are going to make some promises to me, Spike."

Spike held up his hands in a mollifying gesture and nodded.

Angel pulled back the curtain and stepped back into the room. She couldn't tell if he had been waiting until she had finished crying or if he happened to return at that moment, but she wiped at her face with a corner of the blanket and glanced over expectantly.

"Dru got away," he reported.

She blinked in surprise. "How?" she asked. "It's an underground crypt."

Angel replied, "There's always a few air vents in places like this. Keeps poisonous gases from building up. She climbed through and my shoulders couldn't fit." He glanced down at Spike and frowned. "Can I assume this is the right Spike?"

"Up yours, you mincing poof," Spike replied while he extended his arm and pointed up with his index and middle finger while coiling the rest of his fingers and his thumb inward.

Angel turned his gaze to her. "That doesn't clear things up for me, but it looks like you're satisfied."

She nodded and lifted Spike's arms around her shoulders. "This is my Spike, so let's get out of here and get home."

"You were right," Angel said as he put Spike's other arm around his shoulder and helped lift him off the bed. "Spike was alive. Buffy, I'm really happy for you."

"Sod off," Spike interjected. "If you thought you could manage the trick, you'd off me yourself."

"That's not true, Spike," she admonished him. "Angel helped me when no one else would. You owe him everything."

Spike turned his gaze towards Angel. "You had her back when Jeeves and the rest said nay?"

Angel nodded.

"If Angel hadn't helped me," she added, "I'd be wrapped in a straitjacket somewhere in Sunnydale High School.

Spike let himself be carried towards the stairwell. "Angel, maybe you aren't a complete asshole." When the rest of Buffy's words registered with him, he blinked a few times, stared at her, and asked, "A straitjacket? What the hell has been going on?"

. . . . . . . . .

"Buffy!" Giles exclaimed as he rushed own the main corridor of Sunnydale High School with what looked everyone who had been in the library that evening … except for Wesley and Kendra. "Is this … is it your Spike?"

Giles pulled up short in front of her and stared at Spike. Tara had her hand clasped to her mouth, Willow was holding Tara tightly, and Xander, Oz, and Larry appeared to be holding their breath.

"Piss off, Jeeves," Spike replied. He puffed his cheeks and blew the raspberry at Giles.

Giles removed his glasses and tears appeared in his eyes while he stared at her. "You were right," he said in a reverential tone that bordered on awe. "Buffy, you were right."

"I was right," she said. "The Spike in the cafeteria …

Spike turned his battered head towards her. "Cafeteria?"

Buffy ignored the comment and continued, "The other Spike was turned human by Mohra blood that Spike stole … and don't worry Giles, he and I are going to discuss that topic at length … and it was the other Spike's body that we found."

"The Master's goons?" Oz asked.

Buffy nodded.

Willow and Tara scurried forward and Spike, clearly expecting a hug, smiled, but instead the two of them embraced Buffy.

"I am so happy for you," Willow whispered as she held Buffy close.

Tara added, "We should have believed in you, I am so sorry."

"You know, I'm the one who almost died," Spike muttered as he watched Buffy fight back tears while she embraced Tara and Willow.

Buffy glanced at those assembled. "Everybody, we will talk. I promise that I will fill you in on what happened and hear whatever pleas for forgiveness you want to offer, but for now … can everyone help Spike get changed, cleaned up, and into our room?" As the group nodded in her direction, she pointed at Giles. "Except for you. You and I need to have a chat." She leaned over and kissed Spike on the cheek. "Stay alive until I get back to bed."

"With a promise like that …" Spike said with a smile.

Angel tried not to visibly frown, but she noticed anyway.

"Nice job, Buff," Xander said as he came forward and gave her a quick hug. He stared at Angel and nodded. "Glad you were here."

Angel nodded to Xander and the two of them seemed to exchange one of those infinitesmally short guy moments where a wealth of emotions and thoughts were exchanged in an instant without much in the way of words.

A few more well-wishes were offered and then Spike, with the help of a dozen or so hands, was assisted downstairs.

Giles remained behind. As he stared at her, he took off his glasses, folded them, and placed them in the interior pocket of his coat.

"I'm not going to hit you," Buffy assured him while she folded her arms over chest. "There are just some things I need to say." She pointed at the stairwell that all the White Hats had used to descend to the basement. "They follow your lead. What happened in the library, that is on you."

"It is," he agreed with a nod.

She stepped closer, and Giles neither stiffened nor retreated. If anything, he only looked sadder.

Giles's gasped in shock when she embraced him.

"I get it," she told him. "I really do."

Giles wrapped his arms around her and held her close. "I do not know what to say. We … I … was terribly, terribly wrong, and if not for Angel …"

"Spike would be dead," she said by way of finishing his sentence. "She stepped forward, stared up at him, and grasped his hands. "I get it."

He slowly shook his head. "How can you forgive me?"

She squeezed his hands and shook them slightly. "I understand why you thought I had lost it, I understand why you thought I had to be stopped, and as much as I wish you hadn't made this particular mistake, you're not perfect."

"You are being gentler on me than I am," Giles said as he shook his head.

"Well, I choose to forgive you," she informed him, though he still looked ashamed. "But Giles, I needed to tell you now, while this experience was still fresh in that over-stuffed English noggin' of yours, that I don't know if I could forgive anything like this a second time." She squeezed his hands again. "Do you hear what I am saying?"

Giles nodded with a crestfallen look on his face.

"Listen," she explained, "there were times, in the other world, when you didn't trust the younger, other version of me. And I think that maybe you're right, that maybe space, or time, or something tries to bend this reality into some sort of match with its big brother." She tightened her grip on his hands and pulled him close. "But you and I, we can't repeat the same mistakes. Giles, when your instincts are telling you to not listen to me or to trust me, then you need to ignore your instincts. Do you get me?"

"Never again," he assured her. "I promise."

They continued in that vein for a time, and eventually Buffy's desire to hear Giles continue to apologize was outweighed by her desire to find Spike. She gave him a hug, he hugged her back, and as she headed for the stairs leading to the basement she turned and gave him a final reminder that this was his one and only do-over.

Giles assured her that he understood, and she rushed down the steps.

. . . . . . . .

Larry had loaned Spike a set of red flannel pajamas that were far too large, the shower had managed to at least clean the blood off him, but Spike was still a mess. He healed fast, and the bite wound on his neck had already scabbed over and begun to mend, but his face was still a cluster of purple and blue bruises and his hands and wrists were bloody and swollen.

"You're not looking too good," she informed him immediately after slipping into their room, closing the door, and locking it.

"I'll survive," he grumbled in response.

"Oh, you might not survive the conversation you and I are about to have," she warned him as she discarded her clothes, tossed on a t-shirt and clean panties, and curled beneath the blankets next to him. "We have a lot to talk about, but first, tell me everything that happened after you snuck away this night."

"Can't this wait?" Spike asked. "Bit of a headache at the moment."

She stared at him with narrowed eyes while she rapped her fingers on his chest.

"Fine," Spike said. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

She did cry a few times while Spike spoke, not from his words, specifically, but from the joy that he was actually home, alive, when she'd thought she'd never see him again. Spike understood that she needed those moments, and he just pulled her close and finished with his story.

"You could have been killed," she told him when he had finished. "I feel like the biggest idiot in the entire world for having to actually say these words aloud to you, but you could have been killed, you … you …" She clenched her hands on the front of his pajamas as words failed her.

"Hey, he came looking for me," Spike said. "Tough bastard, too."

"And now he's dead," she reminded Spike. "He could have had his own life, maybe even been an ally, and because you let him run off, he's dead."

"Let him run off?" Spike opened his swollen eyes as best he could to stare at her. "The Mohra blood healed him when it turned him human, while I meanwhile spent the next few hours concussed and passed out, thank you very much."

"I wonder what he would have said if he had found me," she mused aloud while she snuggled against the curve of Spike's body.

Spike shrugged. "I'm sure he would have liked you."

She closed her eyes, shook her head, and frowned. "The other Spike is dead, a Mohra sample that you stole has been wasted, and why should I ever trust you again, Spike? You snuck off alone, you could have gotten some of us killed trying to help you, what the hell were you even doing out there anyway? An errand? What errand?"

"The kind where an Urskine demon owed me money."

She gasped, tightened in anger, and tried very hard to keep from throttling Spike. "Money? Again? What the hell, Spike? I almost broke today. I almost broke into teensy tiny pieces that all the White Hats' horses and all the White Hats' men could never have put back together again, and you almost died because of money?"

"I need it for something important," he said matter-of-factly, and she wanted to scream at him that he wasn't allowed to be so calm.

"What?" she asked through a clenched jaw. "What could possibly be so important."

"That would spoil the surprise," Spike replied.

She did break then, well and truly. The tears flowed for a long time while she sobbed against Spike's shoulder and neck. By the time she was done, the pillow beneath her was so drenched that she had to swap it out for another one.

"You were in a bad way, weren't you?" Spike asked when she was finished.

She kept her eyes closed and nodded. "All I knew was that you were dead and I was alone again. Oh, Spike, you have no idea what it was like to think you were gone, to see your body lying there and realize, this is it, he's gone and he's not coming back."

Spike's voice was very quiet, and very serious when he replied, "Actually, love, I do know what that's like. I know exactly what that's like."

I guess he does.

Spike stroked her hair with his wrenched and gouged fingers and continued, "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"It shattered me," she admitted to him. "I wasn't okay, and I wasn't going to be okay. Spike, I wasn't going to make it, do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Don't say that," he said as he winced in pain and tried to sit up. "Loss is part of the life you've chosen, love."

She shook her head. "I need you, Spike. I love you."

There it was.

It had been so easy to say, so right, so true, that it was beyond comprehension to her that she hadn't simply told him before. She had come so close to never having a chance to admit to him how she felt, and she resolved to never let it happen again.

"I know you do," he said with a wolfish smile, "but it's nice of you to say it."

She ran a hand down the line of his jaw and kissed him for a long time, and though she was still very angry at him, the kiss helped a great deal.

"You need to be more careful," she told him when she finally broken the kiss off.

He began to make the usual vague promises, and she waved him off.

"I mean it," she told him. "My mind went to very bad places, Spike, and I think I'm not nearly as recovered from the way I was when you found me as I had hoped." She grabbed his hand and rubbed his fingers along the scar that bisected her mouth. "My first two watchers and a lot of my school friends died to vampires in Cleveland. I lost my parents before I turned eighteen years old." She pressed his fingers harder against her scar, the constant reminder of her greatest failure. "My first boyfriend, the one I told you about …"

"The one who deflowered you?" Spike asked.

She rolled her eyes at his primordial choice of phrase and continued, "I thought he could be part of my life. We did some training, and the very first time I took him with me on patrol, he died and I was left with this permanent reminder that I hadn't been fast enough."

Spike flinched and his fingers pressed against the slash bisecting her lip. "You never talked about this before."

"I became so broken," she whispered. "I see that now. I was careless, I wanted to die, and if not for you, I'd be dead." She put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him. "I know you cultivate this nihilistic, devil-may-care attitude, but I'm not the other Buffy, I'm not strong enough to go on alone."

"You are plenty strong enough," Spike admonished her. "C'mon, love."

"I'm not strong in the same ways she is," she repeated, "I lost too much, too early. I am telling you this because Spike, when I warn you that I need you to be more careful, I know you won't do it for yourself … I'm warning you so that you'll be more careful for my sake."

"I will," he promised her, and he sounded sincere enough that she felt slightly better. "Good," she said as she kissed his cheek. "I want both of us home safe and sound every night. I don't want to die, I don't want you to die, and we're going to do things differently in Sunnydale this time around."

Being home safe and sound with you sounds very nice," Spike said as he curled his arm around her. His fingers lay only a few inches from the the waistband of her panties, and despite the horrors of the day, and despite the fact that she was still furious at Spike, she felt her body respond to his nearness.

He seemed to notice, as he turned his head to stare at her in surprise.

"From the looks of things, you'll be in bed for a week or two," she whispered, "but are you well enough to … you know …" She plucked at the buttons on his pajamas.

He nodded, then winced. "Just go easy on me."

She sat up, reached down and grabbed the hem of her shirt, and pulled it over her head. "Absolutely not," she warned him as she tossed her shirt aside.

"Well, then, I guess make it hurt so good," Spike said with a smile.