A Stone’s Throw From Yesterday

[nextpage title=”Chapter 1″]Author’s Notes: Forget about Spike going to AtS for Season 5. For the sake of this story, Spike died in the Hellmouth, saving the world, and never showed up in LA. Try and imagine Season 5 playing out without Spike, add a couple of years to that, and this is where the story begins.

And…do I really need to tell you this will be Spuffy in the end? Just be warned. Three and a half years have elapsed. Buffy has a life. There have been men in her life that aren’t Spike. If you don’t like that, this might make you a little uncomfortable in parts. All I ask is that you trust me to make it right in the end.

And the chapter title comes from Sting’s, “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You.”

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Chapter 1: A Lost Man in a Lost World

The thing about Africa was the sun. It was merciless. Incandescent. Blessedly lethal to his least favorite demon. At Giles’ request, Xander had initially gone to Africa to do a job for the fledgling Council, believing he could have a bit of a safari adventure at the same time. He’d stayed because he fell in love with the way its sunlight made the world sparkle.

Everybody kept trying to talk him into leaving, though those attempts had dwindled as of late. Dawn kept extolling the virtue of Italian food, while Willow made promises of new healing spells she’d mastered. Even Andrew had gotten in on the game when he included a DVD of the last Star Wars movie in the official monthly care package, reminding Xander with his roundabout prose that the African villages Xander was usually sent to didn’t normally have movie theaters.

Buffy was the only one who never said a word. Xander loved her more than ever for that.

He spoke to them as frequently as he could. Communications were spotty in many of the places he was sent, and while there was always a warm rush whenever he’d manage to get one of the girls on the phone, there was also that sense of relief when he got off again. Talking to them was like ripping off a healing scab. It was smaller and hurt less every time it happened, but the nights that followed a conversation with Buffy or Willow were inevitably filled with nightmares of that last day in Sunnydale. Xander had spooked more than one native with his ragged sleeping patterns.

But he didn’t see them. There were invitations for holiday get-togethers and Slayer meetings; Dawn had even invited him to the party she threw when Buffy finally stopped seeing the Immortal, calling it the “Welcome Back to My Bathroom” party. Apocalypse aside, the teenager was ecstatic about not having to share the apartment’s tiny bathroom with Rome’s vainest man any more. Xander didn’t go, however, not to any of them, sometimes using work as a reason, sometimes pretending that reliable correspondence in Africa was even worse than it was. He was never sure why he always turned them down. All he knew was…he just wasn’t ready.

So, when Willow reached him on his cell phone on a shopping expedition in Mogadishu that warm autumn morning, Xander answered her call with a smile and an unspoken question about how she was going to try and get him home this time.

“If it’s an apocalypse, I think I deserve an engraved invitation,” he joked.

“No, no apocalypse.” She sounded so far away, her voice thin and reedy over the line. In the background, he heard the rustling of paper, the squeaking of a chair being pushed back on a wooden floor, and remembered that she was back in London, helping Giles with the reorganization of the Council. Now that they’d finally figured out how to deal with all the extra Slayers in the world, the next task at hand was a new administration for the Watchers. Giles had insisted that it begin with the reconstruction of the master library; Xander was convinced that he just missed the smell of musty old books.

“So…what? Demon uprising? A village needs rebuilding? Buffy’s got a new boyfriend? Help me out, Will. I’m not sure which Harris hat I’m supposed to be wearing here.”

“I need your Council hat,” she said. “You know how we’ve been pulling in all the old Watchers?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I found one in your neck of the woods. He’s just outside of Cairo. We need you to go talk to him, see if he’s interested in coming back to work.”

Xander chuckled. “When did I turn into a giraffe?” he teased. “You know Egypt’s over two thousand miles away from Somalia, right?”

He could practically hear her blushing. “I know,” Willow said. “It’s just…we don’t know why this one left in the first place, or how he’d react if a bunch of suits showed up on his doorstep. And Giles won’t send Andrew any more, not after what happened with that witch in Mexico. Andrew still goes all kooky when anybody brings pork into the house.”

“And thank you yet again for reminding me of how glad I am that I’m not living with you guys any more.”

“So, can you do it? We’re talking two days, tops. Well, maybe three. He doesn’t actually live in Cairo. It might take you a little while to find him.”

Xander gazed around the crowded marketplace, listening to the ebb and flow of the voices that surrounded him. “All I have to do is talk to him?” he asked. “You’re not expecting me to escort him back to the land of the unrising sun?”

“Nope. Just give him the Council spiel. I can e-mail you the latest version. Giles finally let me take out all the references to ‘untold risk’ and ‘imminent death.'”

He smiled at an elderly woman who passed on the walk in front of him, her gaze warm as she returned his smile. “Well, since talking is the one skill I have that I can’t really pretend not to have,” he said, “I suppose I’m your man.”

Her relief came through in waves as she relayed the details of the job. As he stepped out into the flow of pedestrians, Xander only half-listened to her instructions as he wove his way back to his hotel. She was sending all of it to him in an e-mail, anyway. It was enough for him just to listen to the comforting babble of her voice. That was always enough.

Willow had been right when she’d suggested it might take Xander a little while to find the guy. The map she’d provided stopped just beyond the outskirts of Cairo, and all Xander had was some vague address that turned out to be in the middle of nowhere. By the time he maneuvered the rental car down the dirt road that led to the house, the sun was already disappearing over the edge of the horizon, casting the world in orange flame. The hills in the distance turned murky, cloaked in encroaching shadows, and as Xander climbed from behind the steering wheel, he could’ve sworn that he could see movement along their faces.

The house was much bigger than others he’d seen scattered along the countryside, more modern like the ones in better neighborhoods of Cairo. Visible behind it was a large barn-like structure, the absence of any other vehicles than his own suggesting it was used as a garage of some sort. Willow hadn’t mentioned that the guy was loaded. This was going to be harder than she’d said. Watchers got paid crap; there was no way Xander could use that as a reason for him to rejoin.

The front door opened before he’d taken two steps away from his car. An elderly woman stepped across the threshold, coming out onto the sprawling porch to peer at Xander through thick lenses. Her hair was completely white, her dark skin unlined, and her corpulent body moved with an unexpected grace.

“Hi there,” he said with his best smile. He had a feeling this was one of those times where having the eyepatch wasn’t going to do him any good. Sometimes, depending on the age of the woman, the story of the patch served to break the ice, earning him either a measure of respect or a spot of sympathy that made it easier for him to do whatever job he currently had. This one didn’t seem to care one way or another. “Do you speak English?”

Wrinkling her nose, the woman harrumphed, jerking her head for him to follow her as she came down from the porch. Hesitantly, Xander hit the remote on the car’s lock before starting after her, staying silent as they went around the corner of the house and toward the garage.

When they reached the narrow side door, she called out in a dialect he didn’t recognize before pushing the door open. A blast of diesel fumes burned his nostrils, but before Xander could follow the woman inside, a slim man cut off his path, barring the doorway with a lifted chin.

He looked younger in person than in the picture Willow had sent. As slight as the woman was bulky, the man gazed at Xander with piercing black eyes, his bald head belying the youth of his skin. Grease stained his long fingers, and he wiped them absently on a grey rag, not even waiting for Xander to speak.

“You’re early,” he said.

His rich voice combined with his nonchalant tone took Xander by surprise. “You were expecting me?” he asked.

“Watcher’s Council, correct?” At the jerky nod, he added, “I assumed you’d come in the morning, rather than venture out at this hour. But, never mind. I can take you to him tonight. Unless he retires early, you should have an opportunity to meet. Come.”

Xander gaped as the Egyptian pushed past him and headed up to the house. “Wait!” he called out. The man stopped and glanced back at him, his gaze cool and assessing. “Aren’t you Hanif Selim?”

“I am.”

“But…you’re the one the Council sent me to talk to.”

For the first time, Hanif smiled, and an amused gleam softened his eyes. “No, I’m not.”

He hung back while Hanif washed his hands at the kitchen sink. “You are American,” Hanif observed. “Are you an associate of the Slayer’s?”

“Well, I got involved because of Buffy, yeah.” Xander frowned. Something about his choice of terminology didn’t make sense. “You do know it’s not about the Chosen One any more, don’t you? It’s more like the Chosen All now.”

Hanif hesitated before turning off the tap. “So, it is true. My mother said, but I didn’t think it could be possible.” At Xander’s questioning look, he added, “Mother has certain magical powers, though they’re hardly reliable. Still, she has managed to save my life more than once with them, so I suppose I shouldn’t be quite so cynical.”

“Is she the reason you left the Council just a month before it got blown up?”

Thank god for Willow’s research. As off-putting as this entire encounter had already been, seeing the raised brows at his observation helped Xander regain a measure of control over the situation.

“Yes,” Hanif said simply. “She’s also the one who told me you’d be coming. Mother can be quite astute, but her interpretation of the timing involved can leave quite a bit to be desired.” Walking out of the kitchen, he dried his hands on a towel as he moved. “Do you have much petrol?” he asked.

“Gas?” It was an odd question. “At least half a tank. Why?”

No explanation was offered. Hanif merely grabbed a light jacket from by the front door and exited, not even glancing back to see if Xander was following.

They were both silent as they climbed into the rental car, but when Xander brought the engine to sputtering life, Hanif pointed off toward the hills on the horizon.

“That way,” he said.

Xander peered through the windshield. “There’s no road.”

“Then, I suggest you drive carefully.”

Biting back the retort that sprung automatically to his lips, Xander swung the car around and began bouncing over the rough terrain in the direction Hanif had indicated. Dark was already settling over the land, swallowing down every remaining vestige of light, and with the absence of artificial illumination, he could only rely on his headlights to cut a swathe through the murk.

“You know I’m supposed to be trying to talk you back into the fold,” Xander said, his tone casual. “Moonlight jaunts weren’t exactly on my itinerary.”

“The Council doesn’t want me,” Hanif replied.

“Funny, but that’s not how it sounded to me.”

“The Council needs people who believe in what they do. I am not one of those.”

They were jostled by a particularly deep hole, and both remained mute for a few minutes while Xander struggled to keep the car on a straight path. Slowing his speed even further, he frowned when they went over the crest of a hill. There, at the foot of it, was a small house.

“There it is,” Hanif instructed, pointing toward the structure.

“Are you going to tell me one of these days what I’m doing here?”

“You’ve come to retrieve someone for the Council. I’m merely leading you to him.”

Xander slammed on his brakes. Dust swirled around the car as it ground to a halt, and he jerked the keys in the ignition in his haste to kill the engine.

“If I wanted cryptic,” he said, turning to face his passenger, “I would be working with Willow in London on translating for the next apocalypse. I’m not. I’m here. I like my evil straight up, and my answers easy. If you don’t want to play by my rules, then get out right now. I can still make the red eye back to Mogadishu if I do eighty all the way to Cairo.”

Hanif was unruffled by the outburst, but Xander didn’t care. The way he figured it, helping stop eight and a half apocalypses gave him the right to conduct Council business his way. If he didn’t get the result they wanted and they fired him, he was all right with that. He’d made enough friends and contacts along the way to settle down for real. It wouldn’t come to that, though. With Giles in charge, Xander’s future was pretty much set in stone. He’d have to mess up pretty bad to lose their support at this point.

“I came home four years ago because my mother had a vision that something was going to devastate the Watcher’s Council,” Hanif said. “But I was prepared to turn in my notice regardless. The Potential Slayer I’d been assigned was slaughtered by the First’s Bringers, and I returned to London to find the people I’d thought most likely to be ready to fight to avenge her death buried in their books instead. So, the prospect of returning to their fold? Does not fill me with joy, Mr. Harris. You would be wasting your breath in attempting to convince me.”

Xander’s shoulders slumped. “And you couldn’t have told me all that before we took our little joyride?”

“Your trip will not be a wasted one, I can assure you of that.” Hanif opened his door. “Come. There is someone I wish for you to meet.”

He had no choice but to follow the older man through the dark and up to the tiny house. The earnestness with which Hanif spoke was infectious, and Xander felt compelled to believe him, even though he was very much aware that he could be walking into a trap. But the odd events of the past half hour whispered to him to trust in the unknown, just as he had so many years ago. It was unsettling.

Hanif knocked at the front door, but after they stood on the threshold for a full minute, it became clear that nobody was going to answer. He knocked again, frowning. Still, no one came.

“Damn it,” Hanif muttered, and reached into his pocket to extract a thick keyring.

“What’s wrong?” Xander asked.

But his question went unanswered when Hanif unlocked the door and stepped inside. After hesitating for just a moment, Xander followed, surveying the interior with growing confusion.

If there were walls to the main room, they were hidden by rows upon rows of books. Every shape, every size comprised the boundaries, leaking onto the floor in neat stacks. Notebooks interspersed the piles, their edges soft and worn from handling, while on the desk that sat right in the middle of the floor, pens and pencils were spilled, forgotten in someone’s haste. Three empty teacups joined them, as if the drinker had had his fill and then chosen instead to get a new cup instead of using the old. Next to the desk, someone had made a pallet for sleeping, the blankets on which were in disarray. In spite of the clutter and disorder, however, there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen.

He was still gaping at the décor when Hanif disappeared from his side, rushing through the only other door in the room to audibly tramp through the rest of the house. A few seconds later, Hanif returned and marched determinedly for the front door.

“We’re too late,” he said. “He’s already gone out.”

Xander scrambled to follow. “So, we’ll come by in the morning if it’s that important.”

“No.” He was already out on the front step. “He is my responsibility. I have to bring him back. Bring your car. It will save us carrying him.”

“I still don’t know who this so-called ‘him’ is,” Xander said, trotting to keep up.

“My…ward. And right now…” He waved toward the dark hills, looming above them. Xander wondered when they’d grown so tall. “…he is out there.”

Back into the car, back behind the wheel, back bouncing over the rugged landscape. This time, Hanif sat on the edge of the seat, hands gripping the dashboard as he squinted into the unforgiving darkness. There was a tension to him that had been absent before, and Xander couldn’t help but wonder what was so significant about searching for this man now that could create it.

“There!” Hanif said suddenly, pointing off to the right.

Xander turned his head but saw nothing except the shifting shadows along the hills. “Are you half-vampire or something?” he joked. “Or is it the fact that I only have one eye?”

He ignored the gibes. “Follow him,” he instructed. “But not too closely. It will only spook him.”

Doing as he was told, Xander slowed the car even further, angling it off toward whatever it was Hanif could see. After a few minutes, he was convinced that, patch or no, there wasn’t actually anything there, but then…he saw it. A thicker space in the black. Shadows moving against the dark as if the world itself wasn’t sure if it wanted to hide this creature any longer.

He turned just enough to catch the movement in his headlights. It was clearer now, the man’s back visible as he walked along, but it was the long stride, the casual saunter of the man’s pace that made Xander grip the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned bone-white against his tan.

It wasn’t a man who walked in front of him. It was a ghost. He’d only known one person to have that distinctive swagger in his step, even when the world and a newly gained soul conspired to take it away, and that person was dead, had been for over three years. There’d even been a little memorial service, awkward and tense, after which Buffy and Xander had promptly gotten riproaring drunk.

So, it couldn’t be him. He was dead. Gone. Just like…just like everyone else they had lost that day.

His foot grew heavier on the gas pedal, closing the gap between the car and the pedestrian. The beams crawled up the man’s body as they grew nearer, and, just when Xander was going to ask if they should stop and go talk to him, the man glanced back at them over his shoulder, his pace never faltering.

Details were impossible to make out. All Xander saw was his profile.

It was enough.

It was Spike.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 2″]

Chapter 2: Trapped in This Life Like an Innocent Lamb

In shock, Xander loosened his death hold on the steering wheel, and the car jerked to the side when they hit a rut in the dried earth. Quickly, he regained control, but when he began to slow in order to stop, Hanif’s hand shot out to grip his on the wheel.

“It is pointless,” he said. “He will walk for a few more miles at the very least before he collapses. It is best to wait.”

Xander’s eyes were locked on the man in front of the car. “So that is Spike I’m seeing?” he asked, his voice low. “It’s not my eye playing tricks on me?”

There was a long pause. “It is not as it seems,” Hanif finally said.

“So that isn’t dead man walking there.”

“It is not—.”

Xander cut him off with a dismissive brush of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I got it the first time. You guys just can’t stay away from the cryptic, can you? It must be in the blood or something.”

‘Cause it’s always got to be blood.

He hadn’t thought of Spike in years, but the low, modulated voice in his head, repeating the words from the night Buffy had died to defeat Glory, was as clear to Xander as if it was Spike in the passenger seat and not Hanif. It brought with it memories of laughter, and joking with the girls at the Bronze, and the definitive sense that what they were doing was right , that it mattered.

It brought back Anya.

Xander’s eye burned, and he blinked rapidly to clear his vision.

The memories of her could still hurt when he wasn’t expecting them.

“I have to talk to him,” he said. He pushed Hanif’s hand away and steered to a stop, though Spike never broke his stride. “Enough with the games.”

He was out before Hanif could stop him, half-jogging in order to catch up. As he neared Spike, he was able to make more of the details that had eluded him when he was sitting in the car. The hair was no longer bleached, for one. Though he only saw it by the yellow glow of the headlights, it was unmistakable darker, a light brown most likely, and curly, longer than Xander had ever seen it. Instead of the trademark black, Spike wore a white shirt, long sleeves rolled up to the elbows, left untucked from his rumpled khakis. His feet were bare.

“Spike,” Xander called out. There was no reaction. Just the continued determined pace toward the distant hills.

“Spike,” Xander repeated more insistently, and this time, grabbed his shoulder to pull him to a stop.

He didn’t see the blow coming. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought it could happen. This was Spike, after all.

A heavy fist landed on Xander’s jaw, sending him sprawling into the dirt. Stars danced in his vision, but as he shook his head, clearing it of the pain the blow had created, it dawned on him that something was wrong with it. The punch lacked the raw power that had characterized the vampire’s hits of the past. Strong, yes. Well aimed. But if Spike had put his full might behind the swing, Xander should’ve been flat on the hood of his car, twenty feet away. He wouldn’t currently be scrambling back upright, just a few yards away from the retreating vampire.

“I see you still have those pesky socialization issues,” he said. Though his tone was lighthearted, his blood was not, surging with the desire to be assuaged of the burn seeing Spike again created. “Nice to know some things never change.”

“‘I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.'”

It was said without a break in his stride, in a voice that was both familiar and not. While it was unmistakably Spike speaking, the accent was smoother around the edges, the words uttered with a confidence of knowledge. There was no mistaking the tone; Spike meant it as a rebuttal to Xander’s observation. It could elicit only one response, though.

“Huh?”

“‘Change is the nursery of music, joy, life, and eternity,” Spike said, casting an annoyed glower over his shoulder, presumably at not being understood with his first answer.

“Okie-dokie.”

“I told you it was pointless.” Hanif appeared at his side with the stealth of one accustomed to moving swiftly and silently. He watched the man in front of them with what Xander would’ve sworn was sympathy. “He will not stop until he collapses from exhaustion.”

“What’s he trying to run away from?”

“‘I arise from dreams of thee in the first sweet sleep of night, when the winds are breathing low, and the stars are shining bright,'” came the unexpected response from Spike.

“Great,” Xander muttered. “Just what I need. He’s crazy again.”

“No.” Hanif shook his head, his eyes sad. “He is alive.”

In the aftermath of Hanif’s declaration, all three men remained silent, Spike leading the way as he strode with driven step through the obscurity of the night. To Xander, he seemed oblivious to the fact that he was being followed, but that particular observation only worsened the confusion tumbling about in Xander’s head.

Alive. As in…not undead.

It would explain why the punch hadn’t been as damaging as he would expect from a vampire, especially a vampire who’d never really liked Xander all that much.

But that didn’t happen, even when said vampire died saving the world. They didn’t get to come back, not when others, more worthy, had died in the same battle, doing their part to ensure that the evil would be driven back. They didn’t get to look healthy, and well rested, and able to walk miles in the moonlight, while others were rotting in their unmarked graves, buried beneath the rubble in the spot they were slain. It just wasn’t fair.

What was the point of doing any of it if he couldn’t expect at least a little bit of fairness in return?

“How long?” Xander asked, his voice barely a whisper. He wasn’t interested in any more of Spike’s supposed answers. Hanif’s cryptic was just a little more palatable.

“Just over three years,” Hanif replied. Straightforward. Thank god. It was about time. “Mother believes that’s why I was spared from the tragedy in London. I was needed to watch over him.”

“And…what? Spike knocked on your door and said he needed a place to crash for a few years?”

“It wasn’t like that. I received a package in the post. When I opened it, I found an amulet on a heavy chain. Odd, certainly, because I believed nobody knew of my whereabouts. Since I didn’t recognize the jewel, I put it away for studying further at a later date. I forgot about it until the summer solstice, at which time Mother became quite insistent that she needed to see it. The moment I took it from its packaging, there was a flash of magic, and when I regained consciousness…” His gaze drifted back to Spike walking ahead of them. “…there he was.”

“Like a bad penny.”

“It’s not like you think.”

Xander shook his head. “You let Spike, one of the most notorious vampires in history, take refuge with you. I think it’s exactly like I think.”

“He is not Spike. He does not call himself so.”

“It doesn’t matter what he calls himself. It doesn’t change who he is .”

“You would be surprised.”

Ahead of them, unintelligible murmuring began to drift back on the slight breeze, the individual words difficult to make out, but the sorrowful cadences impossible to ignore. Spike’s eyes were trained on the path ahead, and Xander tilted his head, trying to get a better view of his face.

“You can’t ignore me forever, you know,” he called out. “You might fool some people with this crazy act, Spike, but I saw the show when you still had it on the road. I know how this one ends.”

“‘I am but mad north-north-west,'” Spike said without looking back. “‘When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.'”

“He is telling you the truth,” Hanif offered.

“You made sense of that?” Xander gaped at him in disbelief. “It sounded like gobbledygook to me. Heavy on the gook.”

“He uses the only words he can. I’ve had time to learn how to decipher his meaning.”

“Still sounds like he’s just fallen out of the cuckoo’s nest to me.”

Hanif sighed. “When morning comes, perhaps you will better understand. This is not how I would’ve envisioned you learning the truth of William’s existence. It is less than ideal.”

“OK, I gotta ask since you keep bringing it up. What’s so special about the morning?”

The Watcher’s eyes were black pools, inscrutable as they walked along. “He wakes up.”

Every night was the same. Rushing, crushing, blinding, winding, falling and falling until the ground crashed into him from below and the heavens blanketed him from above. His eyes opened, and the first thing he sensed was always the same.

Her .

Her voice.

Calling to him.

It was impossible for him to ignore.

So, he rose from his bed, and he brushed aside the dirt that seemed to cling to his skin no matter what he did to clean himself, and he walked through the door of the tiny house, angling his feet toward the north stars, using her honeyed words to guide his way. Sometimes, the air was cold; sometimes, the ground was aflame. Always, he stayed true to his course, putting one foot in front of the other until they failed him and he stumbled to his knees. There were times when he crawled then, scrabbling along dried earth until his palms bled, but he refused to stop until the last bit of energy was sucked from his muscles. He couldn’t.

Don’t give up.

Keep trying.

I believe in you.

Tonight had started no differently.

He could almost see her, like a ghost dancing on the periphery of his vision. A glimpse of golden hair. A wry twist of a mouth. Small hands that moved with the speed of a hummingbird, the lethal power of a wildcat. But always, when he tried to focus, she skittered beyond his reach, taunting him with the promise of her proximity, all the while whispering what she would do for him when he finally reached her.

But then…then…something new had intruded. Calling…calling someone , though he had this unconscious feeling that it was him. And then had come the touch, the strong grip of one wishing to call a halt to his trek. That couldn’t happen, couldn’t be, and he’d lashed out to loose himself, curled fingers reacting on instinct as they slammed into a stubbled jaw, the pain of the impact shooting up his arm and reminding him of a pain long ago ingrained.

The something new disappeared then, or rather, receded, falling into step behind as another came up to join it. He heard them talking, and answered when it seemed appropriate, but their discourse was secondary at this point. Now, they were behind him, they didn’t bar his way, he could continue to follow the specter of her voice, all the while promising her in the only words he could muster that he finally understood. He hoped she could hear him. Somehow, he knew that he’d failed to hear her in the past and it was his fervent vow that that would not be an event to repeat itself.

Perhaps it was because he was so intent on blocking out the others that he heard the second voice, a new one, mingling with the higher tones of her until it drowned her out completely, ripping away his compass so that he was left bleeding.

He faltered. His eyes searched the scope of the horizon, desperate to regain his anchorage. He barely heard the worried, “What’s wrong?” behind him. It didn’t matter; it wasn’t directed at him anyway.

“‘Where were you then?'” he murmured. “‘Who else was there? Saying what?'” This time when the tentative touch came to his shoulder, he didn’t shake it off, his panic rising as the second voice began to scream against his ear drums. “‘Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and you are far away?'”

Clapping his hands over his ears did nothing to dampen the noise. Neither did shouting to try and drown it out. He fell to his knees, his spirit shredding in the face of his failure to reach her again.

“‘Forgive me, that I have not eagle’s wings,'” he rasped. To anyone. To everyone. Most importantly, to her .

The world went black.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 3″]

Chapter 3: Something the Boy Said

Xander spent the night on Hanif’s couch, his too-long form folded awkwardly so that his feet didn’t poke out over the wooden arm. His dreams were roiled with bleached vampires mocking him from a perch atop the “Welcome to Sunnydale” sign, ghosts of both demons and people littering the landscape behind, and more than once, his eyelids shot open, convinced he could smell Anya’s perfume. He finally gave up on sleeping altogether about an hour before dawn, lying in the dark and listening to the quiet rhythms of the house while he tried to process what he’d seen.

When Spike had stopped in mid-step, Hanif had tensed, watching him intently while Xander asked quietly what was going on. There was no time for a reply, not when Spike’s voice started to rise, the babble he’d been spouting all night making an eerie kind of sense as he seemed to call out to someone ahead of him. His words became shouts, and Xander had forgotten about the earlier punch to reach out to him one more time.

The touch made Spike collapse in on himself, crumpling to the ground with his hands covering his ears. When he’d started begging for forgiveness, Xander had been thrust once again to Sunnydale, and those nights when he’d wake up to Spike’s tortured cries echoing through the walls from the next room. He couldn’t not help, not when the specters were so real around him again, and scooped Spike up in his arms, struggling with him for only a moment before Spike lapsed into unconsciousness.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Hanif had said. He followed on Xander’s heels, his gaze intent on Spike as the three went back to the car. “This has never happened before. He seemed like he was in pain tonight. That is not usual.”

“Do I want to know how often he goes out for there to be a ‘usual?'”

“Every night. William falls asleep, and within the hour, he has risen again, walking toward the hills.”

So, not only was Spike alive, but he also seemed to be sleepwalking. Xander’s head ached trying to keep it all sorted.

The heavy lumber of Hanif’s mother coming down the stairs made Xander sit up, alert as she stepped into the room. She didn’t say a word, just jerked her head toward the kitchen for him to follow, and then disappeared down the hall.

Ten minutes later, Xander was leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping at a cup of steaming tea, when Hanif appeared in the entrance.

“William wakes early,” he said. His face was drawn, his bleary eyes divulging his own restless night. “We can go speak with him now, or wait until after you’ve had some breakfast.”

“Now,” Xander said. He wasn’t hungry for food. All he wanted was answers.

“I must warn you,” Hanif said as they walked out to the car. “William is rather…recalcitrant. Though he can speak, as time has passed, he does so less and less. It may take some effort to get him to open up to you.”

“You keep calling him William. Why not Spike?”

“When he first arrived, I addressed him as such, but stopped at his request. The name seemed to…agitate him, and as I was still attempting to decipher why exactly he was human, I felt it best to yield to his demands.”

The car bounced along the dry earth, the rising sun casting orange fingers across the horizon behind them. “Why didn’t you ever ask him how it happened?”

“I did.” Hanif stared out his window, watching the scenery pass. “He doesn’t remember.”

They finished the journey in silence, each lost to his own thoughts. Xander was sure that Hanif wasn’t even aware of Spike’s sacrifice in the battle against the First; if he had been, he would’ve known about Willow’s spell to turn all the Potentials into Slayers. To him, it was probably just a fascinating conundrum to wile away his time, Watcher-style.

To Xander, though, the issue of Spike/William was a door that opened into a whole wealth of pain and trouble. There was no way to keep something like this a secret from the others, even with as little as contact as Xander maintained with them. Giles and Willow would want to know for the same reasons that Hanif most likely found it so interesting. And if Giles and Willow knew, how would it be possible to keep the information from Dawn and Buffy? They didn’t need this kind of disruption in their lives, and Xander most definitely didn’t want to be the one to deliver it.

His mind drifted to Buffy. She had been the only one to truly grieve for Spike’s death, but even then, her mourning had been one of pride. The night after the funeral, she and Xander had ended up at a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar, getting drunk in a corner while listening to classic country on the jukebox. They told stories about Anya and Spike from the past year, stuff that nobody else would’ve known. Buffy almost fell out of the booth from laughter when she heard about how he’d walked in on Anya giving Andrew his own assertiveness training course, complete with whiteboard and a pissed-off Kennedy.

Most of Buffy’s had been of the look-how-far-Spike’s-come variety, each time going back to the issue of Spike seeking out his soul for her. It was obvious it still amazed her, and Xander had to bite his tongue about it being the least Spike should’ve done. He knew he was the last person who would’ve agreed with her on the Spike issue, but he’d seen firsthand just how far the vampire had gone over the course of those months, pulling himself out of the split personality crazy phase and becoming a reliable member of the team again. It didn’t mean Xander necessarily liked him any the more, but by the day of that last fight, there was a certain amount of begrudging respect. Spike could’ve run at any point, and he’d stuck it out. There was something to be said for that.

But, as far as Xander was aware, that was as far as Buffy’s grieving had gone. After she’d moved to Rome that fall with Dawn, she’d started dating again, falling into the relationship with the Immortal before moving on to others after their apocalyptic break-up. Not once had Spike’s name come up in conversation with any of the old gang. Of course, Anya’s didn’t come up, either, and Xander was more than aware of just how much she occupied his thoughts.

How would she react knowing that Spike was back in the world? Would it even make a difference in the grand scheme of things?

When they pulled up in front of the small house, Xander waited for Hanif to lead the way to the front door, staying just behind as he knocked. It was opened almost immediately, but the man who stood on the threshold wasn’t exactly what Xander was expecting.

It was still Spike, and he still wore the white shirt and khakis he’d been walking the night in. His clothing was rumpled, far more than if he’d just been sleeping in it, and there was a weariness to the fabric that was mirrored in Spike’s shoulders. By the light of the day, it was possible to better see his features, the familiar scar in the eyebrow, and tiny lines around his eyes. Now, though, Xander could also make out the tan from being in the sun, the slight flush from a fading burn across the aquiline nose.

This was most definitely a human, not a vampire. Part of him had hoped Hanif had been lying about that.

“I hate to disturb you so early, my friend,” Hanif was saying. “Did we wake you?”

Spike shook his head, running long fingers through his unkempt hair. “I slept rather poorly,” he said softly. “I’ve been up and about for an hour now.”

The voice was different. Gone were the harsher rhythms of Spike’s speech, replaced with a quiet reserve that was more fitting an early Giles than any incarnation of the vampire Xander was familiar with. The accent shift he’d detected in the night was stronger as well. He could almost understand why Hanif would be so adamant about this not being Spike. Almost.

“The dreams?”

Hanif’s tone was gentle, a man used to being so, and Spike’s head bowed as if from unseen weight.

“Worse than normal, I’m afraid,” he replied. “There was…another, and it…he…” Words failed him, and he passed a tired hand over his eyes.

“I know it’s much to ask,” Hanif said, “but there is someone here who would like to speak with you. A friend.”

It was more than Xander would’ve characterized himself as, but he kept his gaze level as Spike looked up. In spite of the change in his appearance and voice, he still expected to see the disdain in Spike’s eyes, or to hear a cutting remark. What he didn’t expect was to see the frightened shadow darken the blue irises before Spike visibly pulled himself together.

“Of course,” he murmured, and stepped aside to allow them to enter. “Please, excuse my disorder. I haven’t…”

But he didn’t finish. Xander got a feeling he didn’t finish a lot of his sentences.

The room looked almost exactly as it had the previous night. The only thing that was different was the open notebook on the desk, and the frantic scribbling that covered its pages. Hastily, Spike crossed to it and snapped it shut, sliding it into a drawer and out of anyone’s line of sight.

“I shall make us a pot of tea,” Hanif announced. “It will allow the two of you time to…get to know one another.”

Xander frowned. Hadn’t he already made it clear that he was perfectly aware of who this was?

Once they were alone, Spike seemed to forget that Xander was in the room, turning to the piles of books on the floor with a newfound interest. It took a few minutes of quiet for Xander to realize that the other man wasn’t going to speak to him, more concerned instead with squaring the corners on his books than actual conversation.

“So,” Xander said jokingly, his voice sounding too loud in the small room, “saving the world wasn’t enough for you, huh? You just hadto find a way to top yourself.”

Spike jumped at the words, as if he hadn’t expected to be spoken to, and straightened from his fussing to gaze at Xander in confusion. “Pardon?” he asked.

“You know. The Jean Grey act. Rising from the ashes? It’s OK. Buffy told me what happened down there with the amulet and all. She—.”

The mention of the Slayer’s name acted like a physical blow, and Spike staggered backwards, knocking over a pile of books and falling to the floor. Like a shot, Xander was at his side, scooping his arm behind his back to help Spike sit up, shocked at feeling the violent trembling reverberating through the other man’s body.

The crash of the books brought Hanif from the other room, and he rushed to help Xander guide Spike to the desk chair. “What happened?” he asked.

The question was directed to Spike, not to Xander. “I don’t…I don’t…” he stammered, fingers knotting in his long curls as he buried his head in his hands.

“What did you say to him?”

This time, Hanif demanded the answer from Xander, surprising him with the vehemence of his tone. “We were just talking,” Xander said.

“He spoke of… her .”

Though Spike’s voice was barely a whisper, the desperation in it cut through Xander’s confusion, driving him away from the other two men to watch them with growing doubt. Hanif had his arm around Spike’s shoulder, protective, sheltering as he tried to soothe what was clearly bothering the Englishman. Spike didn’t say a word, but with each passing second, the calming effect began to manifest in his body, the visible shaking receding, the fingers slowly unknotting from where they’d rooted in his hair.

“Is he OK?” Xander finally asked. Just because he didn’t care for the guy, didn’t mean he couldn’t feel bad about upsetting him so much.

“My…apologies, sir,” Spike stumbled. He took a deep breath and lifted his chin in order to meet his eyes. “I…I’m unaccustomed…to guests. Please. Do continue with…whatever it was you were saying.”

That was the final straw.

“What kind of stunt are you pulling here, Spike?” Xander demanded. “What’s with pretending you don’t know who the hell I am?”

“Because he doesn’t,” Hanif replied. “I told you. He doesn’t remember.”

“You said he didn’t know how he became human.”

“He doesn’t remember anything of his existence as William the Bloody.”

Spike winced at the nickname, causing Xander to roll his eyes.

“That’s bullshit,” he said. “He freaked out when I mentioned Buffy. If he didn’t remember anything, it wouldn’t have made a difference to him.”
Hanif glanced at Spike at that, but it was Spike who answered Xander’s accusation.

“I…dream of a woman,” he said softly. His blue eyes were pleading. “She is not someone I recognize, but…I know her voice before she speaks to me. She…I don’t know how , but…she knows me. She tells me that…that she believes in me. And I can feel her strength. I can…feel her , and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.”
“Well, color me not surprised,” Xander remarked. “You’ve been obsessed with Buffy since you first hit Sunnydale. Why should a heartbeat and a new hair color make a difference to that?”

“It’s not as you think.” Spike’s voice was growing stronger, though it still carried an unmistakable ache in every syllable. “In my dream, this woman…she does things I cannot imagine. She bears a weight that smothers, and when I try to give her my assistance, I feel…hands clawing me down into the earth. I can’t breathe, and…time seems to stop. If I reacted poorly to your comment, it was due to your reference to…” He shuddered slightly, a tremulous hand rubbing at his eyes. “The coincidence of the similarity between your ashes analogy and the…the…suffocation that occurs in my dream was unfortunate. My deepest apologies.”

It was hard not to believe him. There was an artlessness in the way Spike spoke, an innocent belief in the legitimacy of his claim. Considering what a lousy liar Spike had always been, Xander’s first instinct was to accept the story at face value, even if he didn’t know the reasons behind it. Normally, he trusted that instinct; it had always served him well in the past. Now, however, he was torn between what his gut was telling him and what his heart remembered.

“Tell Mr. Harris why it is you stay here, William,” Hanif prompted.

For a moment, he looked terrified. Well, more terrified. And then…

“Because I fear I’ll find her,” Spike whispered.

“And…?”

“And…I don’t wish to die. Again.”[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 4″]

Chapter 4: Take Me Where the Wind Blows

Xander swallowed the tea Spike served in two quick gulps, ignoring the fact that he’d just scalded his tongue and that he really didn’t like tea in the first place, and stammered out a feeble excuse about needing some fresh air. He bolted from the tiny house, stopping on the porch to breathe in the thickening autumn air before moving into the sunshine in desperate hopes that the Egyptian brilliance would burn the confusion in his brain away.

Hanif was swift on Xander’s heels, strides deceptively long as he emerged from the house, but his voice was calm as he approached.

“You are perplexed by what you see,” he observed.

“Perplexed, perturbed, persnickety,” Xander replied. He leaned heavily against his car, the metal already hot beneath the seat of his trousers. “Last night, that was Spike I saw, crazy talk notwithstanding. That…” He gestured toward the house. “…doesn’t even walk like Spike. I don’t know who the hell that is.”

“I told you. It is William.”

“But I saw Spike.”

“Yes, you did. He is both.”

“Nuh uh,” Xander said vehemently. “I know how it works. Spike or William. He can’t be both.”

The wry twist of Hanif’s mouth was accompanied by a sad shake of his head. “I would have hoped that the new Council would not be blinding its operatives in such ways any longer.” He sighed. “It is an old song, Mr. Harris. There is no need to dance to its tune any longer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Search your feelings. Based on what you’ve seen, based on your extensive history with the Slayer and with the vampire William used to be, can you say that you believe the human to be destroyed when the demon takes control? I think if you are honest with yourself, you will find that the two aren’t as discrete as you’ve believed.”

He didn’t wait for a response, satisfied that merely raising the question was enough for Xander. “William came to me an innocent. He had no specific knowledge of his life prior to the magic that released him from the amulet. But when he goes to sleep, it’s my belief that there is a portion of his mind that retains the memories of his time as William the Bloody. Every night, he rises from his pallet and walks toward the hills, as if he’s trying to reach something. When he wakes, he has no recollection of what he’s done. He’s left with only the residual feelings of his dreams. The same dreams which prompt him to walk in the first place.”

“Dreams of Buffy.”

“Considering what I know of his past history with the Slayer, that’s what I believe. That’s what I told him when he asked me about them.”

Some of it was starting to make a little more sense to Xander. “Did you ever find out who sent you the amulet?” he asked.

Hanif shook his head. “I toyed with the notion of contacting some of my old colleagues when I realized I had William the Bloody under my care, but I gave up on the idea once I started to get to know him.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “I know you might think this crazy, but I didn’t want to expose William to the Council’s corruption. His is a romantic soul. I feared being faced with the reality of what and who they are would ultimately destroy him.”

“Yeah, the old Council was pretty scary that way,” Xander agreed. Something that Hanif had said made him frown. “Wait a minute. If you think the Big Bad Council is so dangerous for Spike, why did you tell me that he’s the one I’m here to take back? Leave him here in his little hideaway and you don’t have to worry about anyone blowing his walls in.”

It was a sad gaze that Hanif turned back to the tiny house. “You’ve seen him,” he said quietly. “He is skittish. Terrified of what the day will bring. Every time he ventures out, it grows worse for William. Something needs to be done to stop the progression or he may not survive.”

As if he’d known he was being talked about, the front door opened and Spike stepped into the sunshine. He blinked once, twice, and then turned his head toward the car, spying the two men regarding him.

“My apologies for interrupting,” he said, taking a tentative step toward them.

“No need,” Hanif said. His voice was warm. Xander couldn’t ignore the fondness in his tone any longer.

“I was rather hoping…I could speak to Mr. Harris,” Spike stammered. Though the request was his, he seemed unable to actually meet Xander’s eyes, looking for approval from Hanif.

“Of course.”

“Alone.”

This made both of them start, and Xander and Hanif exchanged frowns before turning back to Spike.

“Maybe that’s not the best idea,” Xander said. “I don’t want to get you upset again.”

“Perhaps later in the day,” Hanif suggested. “After you get some rest.”

He shook his head. When he lifted his chin, there was a brief flash of Spike in his eyes before it vanished again. “I shall rest better knowing I’ve spoken with Mr. Harris.”

He was caught and they both knew it. Nodding to Hanif, Xander lowered his voice and said, “I think your theory needs a lot of work, but for now, I’ll go with it. He’ll be OK with me.”

He didn’t really believe it, but apparently that was enough for the ex-Watcher. Giving Spike a salutatory greeting, Hanif began walking up the hill and back to his own residence.

In the doorway, Spike stood stiffly, waiting for Xander to return to the house. “Would you like another cup of tea?” he asked as Xander approached.

“No, one’s about my limit. Any more, and I might start driving on the wrong side of the road.”

He’d thought Spike wanted him to join him back inside the house, so he was a little surprised when the other man closed the door behind him and joined Xander in the sunshine.

It was Xander’s third visual appraisal of a man he’d never thought he’d see again. The unforgiving daylight revealed the tiny lines around Spike’s eyes, making him seem older. At the same time, however, the blue that had always looked so turbulent before now appeared lighter, more grayish as opposed to any remembered brilliance.

He looked tired . Even at the height of his fight against the madness the soul had brought on and the torture the First put him through, Spike had never looked as tired as he did now.

Xander had an overwhelming urge to prop the guy up on a couch with about a dozen videos and ply him with beer and pizza to get him to relax. It wasn’t so hard to understand how a stranger like Hanif would want to help him even more.

“You knew me,” Spike said without warning. “You keep calling me by that…other name.”

There was no point in denying it. “Yeah,” Xander said, and then grinned. “Be thankful it’s been awhile since you pissed me off. Some of the other names I used to call you aren’t nearly so nice.”

A solemn nod. Not exactly the response Xander was looking for from his small joke, but at least the guy wasn’t cowering in terror any more.

“And you know… her ?”

OK, so the cowering had moved from being physical to being spoken. Still, a step in the right direction.

“I know Buffy,” Xander said quietly. “I haven’t seen her in a while, but…yeah. The three of us go way back.”

Spike began ambling around the patch outside the house, his gaze on the dirt he kicked up with his bare feet. It drew Xander’s attention to the calluses and scrapes that marred Spike’s toes and heels, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the guy ever put a pair of shoes on these days.

“Hanif worries about me,” Spike said. His voice was a hushed whisper, almost swallowed up by the flaming landscape. “My dreams…they are getting worse.”

“He mentioned that.”

“Last night’s was…particularly disturbing.” He kicked at a large stone, ably dislodging it from the hard earth. However, when a bright spot of blood appeared on his big toe from the impact, Spike seemed not to notice. “I…heard someone. In pain. And there was…nothing I did seemed to make a difference.”

“What do you remember?”

“Very little, actually. Images. Impressions. Sounds.” He looked up, staring unblinkingly into the bright sky. “The emotions are the strongest reminder I have of them.”

That didn’t surprise Xander. Spike had always been a vampire led by his feelings. It made sense that he would be the same as a human.

“Were you my friend?”

Now, that did surprise him, and it must’ve showed in Xander’s face when Spike glanced at him because he quickly looked away again.

“I suppose that was presumptuous of me,” he said quickly, as if to cover up his own embarrassment at the unspoken answer. “I’ve never…I don’t…”

Xander couldn’t listen to the way he was stumbling over his tongue. “I guess you could say we were colleagues,” he said. “You lived with me for a while when things were a little…rough for you.”

Spike nodded, though Xander wasn’t sure he really believed him. “I asked because…I’d hoped to make a small request of you.”

“Shoot.”

“Pardon?”

“I meant, go ahead and ask.”

“Oh. Yes.” He cleared his throat. “While Hanif has been… more than kind and generous, he’s not…” A pause. “What I mean to say is, my life here is…rather static. My books have been a godsend in distracting me, but…and then Hanif does try, but he just can’t…”

It was excruciating hearing him fumble so, and, unbidden, Xander’s heart went out to Spike. “You want answers,” he said, helping him.

“Yes,” Spike breathed in relief. His shoulders sagged as if a great weight had been lifted from them. “Hanif has always said answers would come, but in all the time I’ve stayed here, you are the first person, other than his mother, that he has ever brought to see me. I think there must be great import in that.”

“I would’ve called it ironic myself, but then, I guess I have a different perspective on it than you do.”

“Do you think you can…help me?”

For a long moment, Xander regarded the slight man standing in the sunshine. These were words Spike never would’ve uttered, not to him. If ever he wanted proof that it wasn’t Spike before him, that was it.

If Spike had been the one to ask, Xander wasn’t sure he would’ve said yes.

But this wasn’t Spike. Not really.

“My kind of help means you leaving here,” he said carefully. “Do you think you could do that?”

Spike swallowed before replying. “Yes.”

“What happened to being scared of dying again?”

His voice was shaky, but his words were growing in confidence. “I think…I’m more terrified of never knowing the truth. Of the dreams growing worse instead of better. If I’m going to die anyway, I’d rather do so armed with the knowledge of what exactly happened to me.”

Xander nodded. “Being armed is always good. OK. I’ll do it. But boy, are you going to owe me.”

Willow returned the phone to its cradle, eyes thoughtful as she stared into nothing.

“Please tell me that was Andrew,” Giles said from behind the stack of books he was buried behind. “I need that delivery from the coven or I’ll never be able to finish this translation.”

“No, it was Xander.”

“Oh. Has he managed to locate Hanif Selim?”

“Yeah.” She pushed back in her chair, swiveling around to face where he was hidden. “He’s coming to London.”

“Wonderful. If the records are accurate, Hanif was quite proficient in demon lore. He’ll be invaluable—.”

“Not him. Xander.”

From behind the stack, Giles’ head popped up to stare at Willow incredulously. “What was that?”

“Xander. He’s coming back.”

Slowly, Giles from his seat, taking of his glasses to set them aside. “Did he say why?”

“He said he found something he needed our help with.” A slow smile spread across her face. “I can’t believe he’s coming. This calls for some major party planning.”

“Well, did he mention Hanif?”

She was already reaching for the telephone again. “Oh. Yeah. He wasn’t interested.”

“But…Xander’s coming to London anyway.”

“That’s what he said.”

“And he didn’t tell you why.”

“Nothing specific. He just said Hanif had something he’d been holding safe for the Council until they decided to contact him. He said we’d understand when he got here.”

Giles frowned. “And you don’t find this…unusual?”

Her fingers hesitated before punching in the Italian exchange. “Maybe a little. I guess I was just so excited about getting to see him again that I didn’t think about it too much. Does it matter why ? The important thing is, he’s coming back. It’ll be just like old times.”

The look on Giles’ face as she dialed the number told Willow that he wasn’t entirely convinced she was right.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 5″]

Chapter 5: Headlights in a Rainy Street

An hour outside of Heathrow, Xander started to have serious doubts about his decision. Storms pummeled the plane almost as soon as they left Cairo, making the aircraft drop and rock for most of the duration of the flight, and in the seat beside him, Spike clung to his armrest as if his life depended on it, his face decidedly green. Both Xander and Hanif had warned him of the possibilities while flying, but he had been adamant about continuing. Now, though, he seemed to regret his choice.

Xander, on the other hand, had long ago grown accustomed to turbulent flights, and sat through the tumult with the cast-iron stomach that had served him well during his high school years. The chaos to which he was succumbing was inside his head, caused first and foremost by the confusion of his traveling companion’s true identity. To his face, Xander had finally capitulated in calling him William, but he was still Spike in Xander’s thoughts, in spite of the obvious differences in manner and speech. And because it was Spike, Xander had lived much of the past two days in memories of Sunnydale.

He had no illusions that all had been mended between him and Anya by those last few days and nights. Too much had happened, too many words said, too many things done, for it all to be erased by a few warm smiles and one amazing night on the Summers’ kitchen floor. He didn’t know what Anya had expected to happen after the big fight in the Hellmouth, but Xander had been looking forward to trying to figure out what exactly was in store for them. Friends at the very least. Hopefully more. They had both learned a lot over that last year.

Except Anya hadn’t come out of the Hellmouth.

Neither did a part of Xander’s heart.

He’d dealt with it as best he could, throwing himself over-enthusiastically into everything that was asked of him. One-eyed carpenters weren’t in high demand in the job market, and it had seemed like an excellent opportunity to see some of the world. Life had grown easier with each passing country. Simpler.

He liked simple.

Then Spike had come along, and it had all come rushing back to Xander. For the first time in three years, he had to face the fact that Anya would forever be his one failure. There would be no more chances of redemption with her, no more opportunities for apology. He would have to live with the consequences of her death for the rest of his life.

He hated Spike a little bit for making him see that now.

What concerned him at the moment, however, was not his own reaction to seeing the presumed-dead vampire. It was how it was going to impact on those who’d actually cared about Spike. Dawn. Buffy. The only thing that was alleviating his worry was the fact that it wasn’t going to happen right away. Xander would have time to figure out with Willow and Giles how best to break the news to the Summers women. Hopefully, they could stall it for a few weeks while Spike regained a little bit of confidence about being in the real world again. They didn’t need him freaking out when he saw Buffy for the first time. The poor guy was convinced she was going to kill him again.

He left him at the Thistle Hotel around the corner from the new Council Headquarters. It was the preferred accommodation for Council employees due to its proximity from the offices, but Xander had been reluctant to use it when Willow first made the suggestion.

“Why can’t I just stay at the airport?” he said. Taking a room in the city implied a longer stay than he really wanted to commit to. All he wanted to do was drop Spike off on Willow and Giles’ doorstep and get his ass back to Africa. Let London have the ghosts for awhile.

“It’s too far,” she explained. “We haven’t seen you in three years and I have major catching up I want to do. This will put you practically on our doorstep. Plus, we get a discount, which always makes Giles happy, you know.”

So he caved, even when he didn’t want to. When Spike’s face lit up at the sight of the park across the street from the hotel, the first positive reaction he’d had since leaving Cairo, Xander decided that maybe it was better this way after all. The unexpected familiarity of the locale would have a soothing effect on his companion’s unsettled nerves, even if the constant drizzle and darkening gray of the sky was dragging down Xander’s at the same time.

“I’m only going to be gone for an hour,” he said as they got to their room. It was small but clean, two twin beds nearly filling the space. A small TV was on the desk and he turned it on, clipped BBC accents filling the air. “I need to lay the groundwork for Willow and Giles seeing you for the first time. I’ll be back before you can get too comfortable.”

Spike nodded, suddenly absorbed in the six o’clock news that was now playing. Xander left him like that, standing in front of the television, eyes intent on the flickering images. It seemed that some things never changed.

He wasn’t entirely certain how he was going to tell them about Spike. He’d chickened out from doing it on the phone, especially when Willow had sounded so glad that he was coming to London for the first time. It was bad enough he’d had to accompany Spike, but there was no way the Englishman was up to doing the trip on his own, and Hanif had adamantly refused to come along. In the end, he decided he’d just play it by ear. He’d been doing that for over three years now; it hadn’t failed him yet.

Willow’s arms were around his neck before he’d even lowered his hand from knocking, the door thrown open as if she’d been lying in wait on its other side. Automatically, Xander hugged her back, and as he bent his head to accommodate her shorter stature, he got a strong whiff of good ol’ eau de Willow, that unique mixture of strawberry scented shampoo, sage, and soap that was all her.

He squeezed his eye shut against the sudden rush of tears. God, he didn’t think anything had ever smelled this good before in his life.

There were jokes and smiles and more hugs as she pulled him across the threshold, leaving the wet London evening behind to embrace a rush of heat and smoke that could only be caused by a real fire. Xander’s smile was genuine by the time he entered the study, and when he saw Giles rise from the large desk in its corner, it grew only wider.

“I have this overwhelming urge to call you the prodigal son,” Giles remarked as he stepped from behind the desk.

“Well, I’ve been called worse,” Xander joked. “And that was just today.”

They didn’t bother with handshakes, opting instead for hugs that had been more commonplace the longer they’d lived on the Hellmouth. When they pulled apart, Xander noted the added gray at Giles’ temples, the deeper lines around his mouth. Of course, time would have taken its toll on the Watcher; a lot had transpired since they’d all left Sunnydale behind. It was oddly reassuring to see that Xander wasn’t the only one who’d changed.

Willow, on the other hand, looked mostly the same. She’d cut her hair short again, and her eyes were still bright and chirpy beneath the jagged fringe of her bangs. That was a relief. Though it had been two years since Kennedy had been killed in Bolivia, Xander had half-expected to see the same haunting in Willow’s eyes that had dulled them after Tara’s death. He knew she still wasn’t involved with anyone so it seemed as good a conclusion as any. It was good to see he’d been wrong.

“Tea or whisky?” Giles asked, crossing to the sideboard.

“In this weather? I’ll take the whisky.”

“I guess it’s a little wetter here than you’re used to,” Willow said with a hint of apology.

“It’s not the wet, it’s the gray,” Xander replied. He took the tumbler of amber reprieve from Giles and downed it one gulp. A rush of fire spread down his gullet, burning away some of his worries, and he opened his eye again to see the room bathed in richer tones. “You know I’ve always been more of a pastel kind of guy.”

They all chuckled, and scattered to sit, Willow curling up in the corner of the divan, Giles perching on the edge of the desk. Xander chose the chair by the fireplace. The heat it radiated gave him a slight sense of being back home.

He didn’t even get a chance to breathe. She started in with questions about Africa, about what he’d seen, what he’d done, all of the details that had been so spare in their other conversations. The words came fast and flibbertegibbety as if no time at all had passed since he’d last seen her, but Xander settled into the old familiar rhythm with an ease that should’ve been frightening if he’d bothered to think about it. Giles stayed on the periphery, offering the occasional anecdote to supplement Willow’s excitement, and refilled Xander’s tumbler without waiting for the request to do so.

Minutes passed. Everyone smiled, everyone talked. It all went by with a dreamlike blur until Giles finally asked the question.

“What I find curious,” he said, “is what could prove so important that you felt you had to bring it to us personally.”

Xander stiffened, and glanced at his watch. Those few minutes of chitchat had somehow already stretched into an hour. He hadn’t even brought up the issue of Spike yet. Damn it.

“Xander?” Willow prompted. Her smile had faded, and a tiny line appeared between her brows. “It’s not about Hanif, is it?”

“No.” He took a deep breath. There was only one way to do this. “It’s about Spike.”

It started out the same. But then…

It wasn’t.

He opened his eyes, her voice still echoing in his ears, all whispery and suggestive and willing him to rise from the awkward seated position in which he’d awoken. But instead of the books, instead of the known order of a paper world that existed only in people’s heads, there was the imposed sterility of another home, one that wasn’t his.

Didn’t matter.

It wasn’t hers either, so there were still steps to be taken.

Up. Out. Down the hall.

Beneath the golden tones of her voice, he could hear the faraway patter of rain. The bare window at the end of the corridor blinked back at him in ebony. Nighttime. Fitting. He belonged in the dark, like the creatures he could hear scuttling about his feet. The light had banished him long ago, though he would walk to its farthest corners if it meant he could find her again.

The stairs made him hesitate. Tilting his head, he listened, straining to determine from which direction she called to him. It wasn’t just his location that was different now; it was the triangulation of her words, coming at him louder and clearer than it ever had before. That could only mean one thing, but that was something he couldn’t afford, not any more, not until he found her again.

He ignored the second voice he heard. That one gave him a headache. He just pushed the door of the stairwell open and began the descent to the street below.

Rain slicked the road ahead of the taxi, but it wasn’t enough to slow the weaving of the vehicle through the London traffic. Buffy stared out her window, watching the puddles splatter onto the sidewalk as the cab cut through them, but not even the darkening damp was enough to quell her good mood.

Xander was here. In just a few short hours, maybe even sooner, she’d get to see him. Until now, she hadn’t realized just how badly she wanted to see him again. Thank god Willow had called to let her know.

The comforting squeeze of her hand yanked her attention away from the window and back to the car’s other occupants. In the lone seat directly behind the driver, Dawn bounced like a little girl, eyes gleaming in excitement, while next to Buffy sat Judd, the latest of what Dawn called the Buffy Boyfriend Brigade. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, he was long and lean with limbs that always seemed to need more space than he was allowed. They didn’t make him clumsy, but one of the things Buffy liked most about Judd was that he wasn’t as into being the most physically commanding guy in the room, unlike most of the others she’d dated in the past.

He was smiling at her now, giving her assurance when she didn’t really need it. “Don’t be homesick,” he said, completely misreading the purpose of her absorption in the passing scenery.

“How could she be homesick?” Dawn exclaimed, saving Buffy from having to reply. “We get to see Xander . Do you have any idea how huge this is?”

“It doesn’t mean she can’t miss home, even a little bit,” Judd countered. It was impossible for him not to have the last word. Buffy usually let it slide, but it always managed to set Dawn on edge.

“It’s just hard for this California girl to get used to all the rain,” Buffy interjected before it could get ugly. “I don’t know how Willow and Giles can put up with it.”

“Cute galoshes,” Dawn said. “That’s what it takes. I bet Willow’s have ducks on them.”

“Funny, but I don’t see Giles wearing pink rubber boots,” Buffy said.

“That’s because you weren’t here last year for Willow’s birthday. She completely dared him to dress up like Frankenfurter from Rocky Horror. I don’t think Giles was expecting her to have a camera when he walked out in the corset and high heels, though.”

Buffy’s eyes widened as Judd snickered. “Remind me to ask Willow to keep that particular photo album packed away this time,” she said. “There are certain things I’m still in denial about.”

“Let’s just hope that your old friend Xander doesn’t show up in fishnets, then,” Judd kidded.

The cab fell into silence after that, his attempt at humor failing miserably. To tell the truth, Buffy would’ve preferred this reunion to happen with just the old gang, but Judd had been at the apartment when Willow had called, and he’d bought his own plane ticket and everything. She couldn’t very well tell him no, sorry, I know you want to be a bigger part of my life and this sure merits as one of the biggies for now, but I’d really rather you stayed behind because I’m not sure how much longer you’re going to be around anyway. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him. She just wasn’t sure she liked him enough .

At least she wouldn’t have to share a room with him at the hotel. Willow had only booked the one room for Buffy and Dawn at the Thistle around the corner from the Council offices; Judd hadn’t been able to get anything switched around in time for his arrival as well. He joked that they would have to sneak out and hide in housekeeping’s closet in order to get some quality make-out time, but secretly, Buffy was relieved. This trip was about Xander, not clandestine kisses with her boyfriend.

She saw the hotel in the distance, and had the door open almost before the taxi had coasted to a stop across the street. The rain pelted from overhead, already starting to soak her hair, and Buffy ducked her head, trying to cover it with her purse, as she crossed in front of the car and through the headlights toward the lobby doors.

Her eyes were on the slick cement of the street, so she never even saw the man before he bumped into her. The force of the jolt made her heel slip, but strong hands shot out and gripped her at the elbows, steadying her before she could fall over.

That’s when she saw his feet. Sandals. What idiot wore sandals this time of year, especially in London? There was a thick bandaid over one of the toes, soaked through from the puddle in which he stood. A clumsy idiot, apparently.

Buffy’s gaze swept upward, the irritated retort ready on her tongue.

Khakis over slim hips.

A white shirt, once crisp, now stained with raindrops.

The bowed head as he looked down at their feet, his dark blond hair drooping and curling from the wet.

His head lifted before she could speak, and the rejoinder died before she could utter it. Blue eyes bored into her, blue eyes she hadn’t seen beyond the realm of her dreams for the past three years. Rain clung to those impossibly long lashes, glistening as she stared at him in disbelief.

“Spike?” Buffy whispered.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 6″]

Chapter 6: The Sacred Geometry of Chance

It had to be a joke. A very unfunny, twisted, cosmic joke. That had to be the only explanation why Buffy was staring into the eyes of a vampire who’d been dead for over three years.

But as that moment stretched into infinity, she started to notice the other details. Things like the obvious sunburn on his nose, the flare of his nostrils. She glanced down and saw the rise and fall of his chest. He was breathing.

Spike didn’t breathe. Hadn’t breathed.

This couldn’t be Spike.

It was just a sick coincidence of fate.

Then, he spoke.

“‘She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies,'” he murmured.

The words were poetry—she recognized that much, at least—and the accent was smoother than she remembered, but the voice raised goosebumps along her arms, made her forget about the rain that was starting to drizzle beneath the collar of her shirt.

She’d listened to Spike for too many hours not to recognize his voice when she heard it.

A car honked at them, startling her from her reverie, and Buffy’s head snapped to the side to see the traffic behind held up by them in the road. Before she could react, strong hands wrapped around her wrists and pulled her the rest of the way across, straight through the middle of a puddle that soaked over the top of her shoe and onto the pavement in front of the hotel. He didn’t let go, and she let herself be led beneath the awning, now openly gaping at him as her certainty about his identity firmed.

“Spike?” she repeated, this time louder and with what she hoped was more conviction. “How…is it really you?”

The corner of his mouth lifted, wrinkles appearing around his eyes. Though those had been there the last time she’d seen him, they hadn’t been as deeply furrowed as they were now. Some time in the past three and a half years, life had started to take its toll on Spike’s face. It made her chest tight to think that she meant that literally.

“‘Sometimes,'” he said, and his voice was a little bit stronger now, “‘I get up early and even my soul is wet.'”

Buffy had the oddest feeling of déjà vu, as if she’d been in this place, hearing these words, before. It took a moment of staring at him in confusion before she could place it, though, and when she did, her breath caught in her throat.

His soul. He’d talked of it then, too, only she hadn’t caught on to his crazy ramblings until he’d practically burned all his flesh off his body on that damn cross. Was it all part of how he could be human now? Had he undergone some sort of trial for this as well? But…how did he survive the collapse of the Hellmouth?

Most importantly, why hadn’t he bothered to tell her that he was now alive?

Anger was starting to filter through the shock of seeing him, starting from a simmer at the bottom of her feet to surge rapidly upward through her veins. As her mouth opened to speak, however, she heard the running of footsteps from behind her, and Dawn’s breathless query drifted through the rain.

“Are you OK?” she asked. “Judd and I saw you almost slip and fall and—.” The rest of it was swallowed in a squeak, and Buffy glanced back to see Dawn’s wide eyes fixed on the man who still held Buffy’s wrists in his unyielding grasp, a sea of blue that had just been buffeted by a storm. “Oh, my god,” she whispered.

“I’m fine,” Buffy said, more calmly than she felt. She turned back to Spike, shoring up the crumbling nerves first spying him had smashed, and deliberately pulled her arms away from him. It surprised her that she could break his hold so easily, but then, that would come from his being human now, wouldn’t it? “Although a certain someone isn’t going to be if he doesn’t tell us what the hell is going on here.”

He tilted his head, a gesture so achingly familiar that Buffy was swept up in the déjà vu again, and his eyes took on a contemplative look, as he seemed to be considering his words before answering. He’d done that a lot that last year before the final battle with the First. Became quieter, even after he’d found his so-called demon again to fight for her. It was as if he’d finally understood how his words could be weapons, too, and took greater care in using them around her, for fear of hurting Buffy yet again.

“‘In that book which is my memory…'” he began, “‘on the first page that is the chapter when I first met you, appear the words…here begins a new life.'”

In spite of the quiet lull his voice created in the rain, the riddle of his words agitated her further, making her close the gap between them as she searched his face for duplicity. She didn’t want him to be crazy again. It had been so hard to deal with the first time—there wasn’t even supposed to be a second time. He was supposed to be dead. She’d mourned him. She’d taken the gift he’d given her and moved on with her life. Why was he back here now? Why did he always have to disrupt things when everything finally looked to be on track?

Before she could speak, she felt Dawn step closer, hovering just behind Buffy’s shoulder.

“I know that,” she said. “That’s Dante Alighieri. La Vita Nuova .”

Spike’s eyes lit up, and he nodded.

“It’s really you, isn’t it?”

The delight in Dawn’s voice was unexpected, and Buffy glanced across at her sister in shock. Neither one of them had spoken of Spike over the past few years, but she had always suspected Dawn had grieved for the vampire’s death almost as much as Buffy had. It was tempered by guilt, though, beaten down by the miscommunications and betrayals of everything that had happened after Buffy had been brought back. Even after the soul, Dawn had been leery of Spike because of the attempted rape, but at the same time, she’d missed her ex-best friend. Her head was just as messed up about Spike as Buffy’s had always been.

Somewhere from behind, Buffy became aware that Judd had joined them, and was probably watching the whole exchange in confusion. He didn’t know about Spike. After the debacle with the Immortal, Buffy had never revealed that part of her history to any of her boyfriends, carefully editing out those years of her life with the precision of a practiced surgeon. The memories of him and their time together, both good and bad, had been carefully stored away, locked up to be evaluated at a later date. It looked like later had finally arrived.

Spike’s grip reappeared around Buffy’s wrist. “‘Come, come, leave off play, and let us away, ’til the morning appears in the skies,'” he said. His voice had grown more insistent, and there was no denying the definite tug in his arm as he turned to walk away.

“No,” Buffy said firmly, and broke free from him yet again. “We’re not going anywhere with you until you tell us what’s going on.”

“What’s happening here, Buffy?” Judd asked. Stepping forward, he tried to place himself between her and Spike, but was met with the crash of Spike’s fist in his face.

He crumpled to the wet cement, blood gushing from his nose.

“Judd!” Buffy called out, crouching down to look him over. He wasn’t exactly the physical type. When it came time for her slaying responsibilities, he was more than happy to step aside and let her have at it, content with his books and research that had brought them together in the first place. Buffy didn’t think she’d ever seen him take a punch before, and now, he’d been walloped by one of the best.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, straightening to face off with Spike. Vibrating with anger, the crisp energy radiating from Buffy seemed to burn away the rain around her, making her an unexpected oasis amidst the gray chaos. She didn’t feel a thing, though. All she could see were those inquisitive blue eyes looking down at her. He always made her feel like she was drowning.

“‘All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream,'” he said, but when his mouth opened to say more, she shook her head.

“No,” she interrupted. “No more gibberish. I know you’re in there, Spike. Just talk to me. Tell me what’s—.”

“It’s not gibberish,” Dawn said.

“Huh?”

When she glanced back, both Judd and her sister were regarding Spike, the first with fear, the second with fascination. “She’s right,” Judd said. His voice was broken from the blow to his nose. “It’s poetry. Poe, to be exact. But…who is this?”

“His name’s Spike.” Buffy turned to see him still watching her, still so intent on her every movement. “He’s an old…friend.”

“Well, your friend has a lot to learn about introductions.” Judd’s complaint was accompanied by his scramble to his feet. With his head tilted back, he kept his nose pinched to keep the blood from running any more down his shirt, but he glared at Spike at the same time that he moved into position behind Buffy. “What’s his problem?”
“I don’t know,” Buffy murmured. “Other than the fact that he’s not supposed to be alive.”

“Or walking,” Dawn said.

“Or breathing.” A flurry of motion behind Spike’s shoulder caught Buffy’s attention, and she glanced past him to see the reason she’d come to London in the first place.

“You just had to fall asleep, didn’t you, William?” Xander huffed as he ran up. “You couldn’t just watch the tel—.” He skidded to a halt when he rounded Spike and spotted Buffy, the eye not covered by the patch he still wore going wide. “Oh, fuck.”

Not the response she was expecting. For that matter, seeing Xander suddenly seeming so proprietorial of someone he’d always despised certainly merited just as much jaw dropping as anything else.

“Xander,” Buffy said carefully. “You haven’t been messing around with magic again, have you?”

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said.

“It looks like Spike.”

“OK, so it is what it looks like,” he amended, and then hastened to step to her side, leaning in to talk to her in hushed tones. “This isn’t how I wanted you to find out, Buffy. There’s things going on that I don’t understand. I was hoping to get some answers from Willow and Giles before you got dragged into the whole mess.”

“You mean why he’s talking in riddles? Or you know, talking at all? Because last time I checked, dust didn’t have a mouth.”

“It’s a long story, and…” He jerked his head back to where Spike still stood, lowering his voice even further. “… he’s not really the one who can tell you about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s not awake. He’s sleepwalking.” Xander sighed. “I know what it looks like, Buffy, but if you ever trusted me, now’s the time to prove it. Do…whatever it is you’re going to do, and as soon as he stops walking, I’ll bring him back to the hotel and we’ll talk.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, steel in both her spine and tone. “Not until—.”

“‘We’ll go no more a-roving so late into the night,'” Spike said, and glanced up at ruefully at the cloud-covered sky. “‘Though the heart be still as loving, and the moon be still as bright.'”

The words took even Xander by surprise, and he whirled to face the shorter man.

“What?” he asked, incredulous. “Why?”

Buffy was rooted to the spot as Spike stepped forward, and lifted a hand to softly brush his knuckles across her cheek.

“‘Why should I leave you, to wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?'” he murmured.

Silence permeated the street. The only sounds came from the evening traffic whisking across the wet cement.

“OK, that hasn’t happened before,” Xander commented. Tentatively, he reached forward and curled his hand around Spike’s elbow. To Buffy, it looked like he feared being lashed out against, much like had happened with Judd, but when there came no reaction, Xander’s grip tightened.

“Let’s let Buffy and Dawn get out of the rain, OK, Sp—William?” he said, steering Spike toward the front doors of the hotel. Before they went inside, he turned back to the trio who still remained on the walk, his tanned face weary from some unknown weight. “Are you staying here?” he asked Buffy.

“Yes.”

“As soon as I’ve got him settled again, I’ll call you. I’ll get Giles and Willow over, too. I’ll explain everything then.”

With that, the two men disappeared inside the building, leaving a very bewildered Slayer aching in the rain.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 7″]

Chapter 7: How Fragile We Are

She unpacked only because she didn’t want Xander or Giles or anyone to have an excuse to stall on telling her what was going on. Fingers flying, drawers slamming, and ten minutes after she had checked in, Buffy was pacing the length of the tiny room, bumping into Dawn on every other pass while the other girl took her time getting her belongings put away.

Time.

Seconds that stretched and filled the minutes with a growing dread, each one that flew by gone, never to be retrieved, never to be changed.

Minutes that stretched into days, weeks, years. Time that made the past easier to forget, allowing her to get lost in the present without having to worry about being bogged in details that couldn’t be changed anyway.

Time was a gypsy curse, offering both salvation and damnation with a single breath.

Life had been satisfying, if not exactly what Buffy had envisioned. She’d had the chance to travel; slaying, while still a major part of her life, only had to be a burden when she wanted it to be. Plus, the fact that only one boyfriend post-Sunnydale had been responsible for a wannabe apocalypse was always a bright spot in Buffy’s book. If she’d deliberately chosen a safer option afterward to currently share her bed, where was the bad in that? There was nothing wrong with safe. Safe meant a longer life, more chances at happiness. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that those chances still seemed to just elude her. It just meant that she had to be patient.

Which, of course, she sucked at. Hence, the current pacing.

Absently, Buffy scratched at her left palm as she walked. It was a nervous habit anyway, developed not too long after the Hellmouth had collapsed, but the imaginary itch in it seemed to have been more pronounced over the past several days. The scars had long since faded, leaving only a faint raised section at the base of her fingers, but the memory of how she’d gotten them had not, brought back in gilded flame with Spike’s sudden appearance.

Seeing him glow as the amulet released its force.

The earth pitching beneath her feet. It was nothing compared to the tilt and whirl happening in her gut.

Lacing her fingers through his, feeling the power of his soul as it fought with the amulet, wishing fervently that she could help shore him up while the walls crumbled around them.

I love you.

Her memories stopped there. By choice. It was much more pleasant to remember the first part, rather than think about the consequences of what had happened after.

If she didn’t dwell on it, Spike could somehow live on. She didn’t have to consider his body crumbling into ash, or being crushed by tons of dirt caving down onto his head, or—.

Her eyes suddenly stung. Buffy’s hands lifted to pretend to push back her hair, surreptitiously rubbing at her eyes at the same time.

“He looks shorter,” Dawn said, out of the blue.

Stopping in mid-pace, Buffy looked up, but the younger girl was bent over an open drawer, carefully arranging piles of underwear and socks inside it. “That’s because you’re a tall freak of nature,” she said.

“Where do you think he’s been this whole time?”

“Considering where Xander just flew in from, I’d say the safe money’s on Africa.”

“Huh. OK.”

Dawn resumed her unpacking, leaving Buffy wondering just what was going through her sister’s head. Her comments were calm, her voice even. It made Buffy want to take Dawn by the shoulders and shake her until she was looking as rattled as Buffy felt.

“You don’t think he’s been with Xander this whole time, do you?” Apparently, Dawn wasn’t done with her questions. “I mean, it would explain why Xander never wanted to come see us in Rome.”

It was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to Buffy, but after just a moment’s consideration, she shook her head. “There’s no way he could’ve kept it a secret for that long,” she said. “I think—.”

The ringing of the phone cut her off, and Buffy flew across the room to answer it before the first ring could die away. “Hello?”

“Hey, Buffy.” Xander sounded even more tired than she felt. “Get checked in OK?”

“Yeah, all unpacked and everything. Just waiting to hear from you.”

“Well, Spike’s finally asleep so—.”

“What? Why? Wake him up, Xander. I want an explanation about what’s going on.”

“And you’re going to get it. Just…not from him.” He sighed. “Look, meet me downstairs in the lobby. Willow and Giles are on their way over. I don’t want to have to tell this story again more than once.”

“The lobby? Wouldn’t the Council offices be a little more private?”

“Probably, but I can’t risk leaving the building again. I didn’t expect him to fall asleep the first time, and if he changes his mind about walking again…” His voice took on a distinct pleading tone. “Just do this for me, Buffy. Between losing sleep because I’m too busy watching over Spike’s ass and trying to sort out what exactly is going on, I just need you to trust me a little bit longer, OK? I know you want to talk to Spike, and so help me, I wish you could because then it would mean he wasn’t my problem any more. But it’s not happening tonight. Maybe in the morning.” He paused. “If you still want to after hearing what I have to say.”

She couldn’t imagine what Xander could explain that would change her desire to get the story straight from the ex-vampire’s mouth, but Buffy set that aside for the moment, murmuring her acquiescence to his plan. When she hung up the phone, she turned to see a white-faced Dawn staring at her.

“Well?” Dawn asked.

“We’re meeting downstairs,” Buffy explained. “Giles and Willow are coming, too.”

“What about Judd?”

Buffy realized then that she hadn’t really given her boyfriend any thought since they’d parted at her door. She knew one thing, though. She didn’t want him around until she had some answers. It would be too distracting.

“Leave Judd to me,” she said, turning back to the phone. “Just go on down. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Xander got pretty much the reactions he expected.

All but Buffy stayed quiet during his explanation of what Hanif had shared with him about Spike, but after raising her sixth question he couldn’t answer, she’d finally grown just as silent as the other three, waiting until Xander finished before rising to her feet to begin pacing aimlessly.

Giles asked a few probing questions, forcing Xander to detail more specifically what he’d discovered in Cairo.

Willow smiled and joked about the forces of magic, though there was a sadness in her tone that belied the curve of her lips.

And Dawn just stared at him with those huge blue eyes. That was one of the few things that hadn’t changed about her since Sunnydale. Somewhere along the way, she had grown up.

“Maybe it’s not really him,” Buffy said suddenly. “Maybe it’s just someone who looks a lot like him.”

He’d known someone would peal the bells of doubt. Silently, Xander reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the rolled fabric, placing it on the table between all of them and opening it up.

The jewel at its center was cracked, and dust clung to the heavy link chain, but there was no mistaking what it was.

Buffy blanched at the sight of the amulet, and for the first time, Xander thought she was going to crumble before him. “But…how can he not remember?” she asked. “He acted like he knew who I was out there. He seemed…”

Her voice broke, and she turned her head away from all of their gazes. Xander hadn’t seen her this lost since the funeral service. “I don’t know,” he said gently. “Hanif thinks…” He stopped and decided to take a different tack.

“Remember those first few days after Spike moved in with me?” he asked. He waited for her hesitant nod, though she still kept her eyes averted. “There were times when he was his usual annoying self, and then there were times when he’d start in with the babbling and the cutting, and you just wanted to stake him to put him out of our misery.”

“And his,” Buffy said quietly.

“Maybe it’s just his brain’s way of processing what’s happened,” Xander continued. “Getting a soul was pretty big, but let’s face it, he wasn’t the first vamp on the block with one. Turning human, on the other hand…well…” He looked to Giles and Willow for confirmation. “…that rates on the apocalyptic meter, doesn’t it?”

Giles nodded, his eyes thoughtful. “I can’t think of anything in the Council records detailing such a thing,” he said. “There is a prophecy that was believed at one time to tell of a vampire who would be rewarded with humanity for his contributions to an apocalypse, but the Council deemed the translation faulty. They believed it wasn’t humanity after all that would be the vampire’s gift, but rather, absolution of his sins. A release from hell upon his final death.”

“Well, that’s good news,” Dawn said. She flushed when all eyes turned to her. “I mean, aren’t prophecies all about the doom and gloom? I’d hate to think Spike was caught in the middle of one. He’d get all pissed off that somebody was playing him like that.”

The truth of her observation made the group chuckle as memories of the stubborn vampire arose like specters among them. Only Buffy remained silent, her mouth downturned as her hands remained occupied with each other.

“It has to be more than that,” she murmured. “You said, he sleepwalks every night. Same direction. Same dreams. That has to mean something. It just has to.”

Giles was the one to rise to his feet, and it was Giles who took Buffy by the shoulders and forced her to look up at him. “It means he was traumatized by what happened,” he said. “He’s re-enacting the battle with the First, and his sleepwalking is just his attempt to escape this time. It’s a perfectly natural reaction.”

But she’d started shaking her head before he’d finished speaking.

“No,” Buffy insisted, and life had returned to blaze in her eyes. “I don’t believe that for a second. Spike wasn’t trying to run away from the Hellmouth. He knew what he was doing. He knew he wasn’t going to get out of there alive. He wasn’t a coward, Giles, regardless of what you might think about him. Spike never ran away from a fight.”

“Except to go to Africa,” Dawn mumbled.

Xander flinched when Buffy whirled to confront her sister, a slim finger jabbing toward the younger girl’s face.

“Stop it!” she warned. “I am not fighting with you about this again! He didn’t run away. He did what he felt he had to do. He came back.” There was more life in her when she turned back to them than Xander had seen since her arrival. “Don’t you get it? He. Came. Back . That’s what he does. That’s what he always does. I don’t know why we’re all so surprised that he’s turned up again. I mean, between that and the fact that we go through resurrections like Kleenex, why in hell should any of this be such a shock?”

“Buffy—.”

In spite of the quiet tone to his voice, she faced Xander with a vehemence that made him shrink back into the overstuffed chair in which he sat. “Don’t,” she said. Though the single word was meant as a warning, her eyes begged for him to…do what? Remember? Empathize? Certainly not take on the role she expected.

“Just because you’ve been around him for the past week, don’t think that that means you know him, Xander.” The tremor in her finger became noticeable even to her, and Buffy quickly folded her arms across her chest, hiding her hands from everyone’s view. “I know why you’re doing this, how you feel, but you shouldn’t. It’s not his fault.”

“I never said it—“

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I was there, remember?”

Xander swallowed. In the back of his head, he could hear the faint strains of country music, almost taste the fiery burn of the alcohol sliding down his throat. He should’ve known Buffy would know exactly how he was feeling. She was the only one who’d ever really understood.

“I think Hanif is right,” he said, switching the subject back to the topic of the sleepwalking. “Spike was a lot of things, but he was never scared to face a fight. He’s not running away from something. He’s running to something. Buffy.”

“You can’t know that,” Giles said.

“Yes, I can,” Xander assured. “I’ve been listening to him while he’s been sleepwalking. Sure, a lot of it doesn’t make sense, but some of it…” He shook his head. “I’m sure, Giles.”

“But why hasn’t he tried while he’s awake?” Willow asked.

“Because he was afraid. He said…he thought if he found the woman in his dreams, he’d die again.”

Buffy went even paler beneath her tan. Her mouth opened to say something, but immediately snapped shut, and she pivoted on her heel to head for the elevators.

“Buffy…” Giles called out.

“I need to think,” she said without turning around. “I just…I can’t do this right now.”

She was gone. It never occurred to Xander to stop her.

The rain was a comforting lull outside the glass doors of the hotel, and the small group sat in silence for long minutes after Buffy’s exit. Xander wasn’t even thinking about his friend’s turmoil; her words had brought back more of his guilt about Anya, the shadows that followed him every time he looked at Spike. When he felt the fluttery touch on his shoulder, he jumped, and looked up guiltily when Willow pulled her hand away.

“Giles and I are going to head back to the offices and start with the research on Spike’s sitch,” she said. “Wanna come with?”

He shook his head. “I think I need to get a drink. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

“Can I get one, too?” Dawn bristled when everyone turned raised brows to her. “What? Eighteen’s the legal age in England, remember?”

Xander smiled as he stood up. “I’m telling Buffy you twisted my arm,” he said.

“She’ll believe it. You should’ve seen what I did to the guy she was dating before Judd.”

It was remarkably easy to have Dawn at his side as they walked out into the rain. Easier than a certain ex-vampire, that was for sure. Dawn might be smarter than Xander, but at least she used real words when she talked to him. Xander still couldn’t get over the fact that Spike/William had a bigger vocabulary than Giles.

He just hoped that Buffy was getting the space to think that she needed. He’d always known her reaction would be the toughest.

When he woke up, the first thing he felt was his clammy shirt sticking to his back. It was wet, but what had caused it, William had no idea. The room wasn’t hot, so it couldn’t be sweat, and besides, he’d grown accustomed to the notion of great heat while under Hanif’s accommodation. Blinking against the dark of the room, he lifted his hand to his head and realized his hair was damp as well.

What did I do this time?

He dreaded falling asleep. He never woke up rested, and there were times when mysterious scrapes and scratches on his flesh made his waking hours painful. Hanif had explained about his nocturnal explorations, but William had no memory of them. Just the dreams.

Those were enough.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. He’d been watching the strange thing called television, and he remembered sitting down to get more comfortable.

And now…he was awake. And his clothing was in dire need of changing.

Why had he awoken?

The light rap at the door answered his question.

Frowning, William swung his legs over the side of the bed, tilting his head as he looked in the direction of the sound. Had Xander forgotten his key? Well, not a key, but that odd piece of plastic that took the place of a key. William couldn’t even pretend to understand how it worked.

Quietly, he stepped to the door, studying the knob closely to ensure there wasn’t a trick to opening it. But as he turned it, and pulled it open, the urge to slam it shut again made his fingers twitch around the cold metal, caused his heart to start pounding inside his chest.

Run, run, fly away home.

If only he knew where home really was.

Her eyes were greener in reality than they’d been in his dreams, and her hair was lighter, kissed by sunlight with silvery blonde streaks. It had been damp, but was now drying, curling in tendrils around her pale face, and in spite of his trepidation, he felt the sudden urge to brush it off her cheek.

“Hello, William,” she said softly. Her eyes flickered over his shoulder. “Can I come in?”[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 8″]

Chapter 8: You Still Haunt Me

With the benefit of Xander’s explanations, Buffy saw Spike in a brand new light. Some of that was literal, of course. The soft incandescence of the hall illuminated the planes of his face more clearly than the harsher streetlamps, making him seem younger than he’d been out in the rain. More innocent, which wasn’t anything she would’ve ever considered about his vampire persona.

There was something else, too. Without any hesitation, Buffy realized she would’ve known this wasn’t completely Spike even without Xander’s explanation. It surprised Buffy that it wasn’t as obvious to everyone who wasn’t her.

When he gave no answer to her request for entry, standing in the doorway with his knuckles white around the knob, she rushed to fill the void, uncomfortable with his quiet scrutiny from beneath the furrowed brows.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her top. “Xander filled me in, and it makes sense, really. Kind of. I mean, it does if you’re you, and I’m me, and you’re not one hundred percent clear on what happened in the Hellmouth like I am. But I don’t want you to think that I’m here to hurt you, because I’m not. I couldn’t. Not after everything, not after what you did, what you were. I couldn’t before, even, though it probably didn’t look like that to you.” She paused, flustered. “If you could actually remember what had happened to you before, that is.”

His lips parted, but though he took a breath to speak, it was a long moment before he did so. “You…are not entirely…what I expected,” he managed to stammer out.

“That’s good, right? Because Xander said you expected me to kill you.”

He flinched at the stark wording. “Xander…does not always hear what is actually said.” His tongue darted out to lick his dry lips. “He’s been most kind, but…I bring him pain.”

“No,” Buffy said softly, shaking her head. “You just remind him of the pain that he already has. It’s not your fault.”

They lapsed into silence again, but Spike made no move to let her enter. She was beginning to regret coming to his room instead of going to her own or even Judd’s.

“Why did you…” he started, and then stopped, his eyes ducking as he chose not to finish the question.

“Why did I what?” she prompted.

His voice was hushed. “You called me…William.”

“That’s your name.” She would’ve called him that even if Xander hadn’t made the distinction clear to them downstairs.

“Yes, but…” Absently, he began playing with the doorknob, turning it and then letting it spring back to a neutral position, over and over again. “You did not know me as such.”

“No,” Buffy admitted. “But that’s just a name. It’s not who you are.”

His gaze lifted at that, and for the first time, she saw a flicker of something light in the blue-grey of his eyes. “Does the rose still smell as sweet, though?” he murmured. Her confusion must have shown in her face, because he smiled ruefully, shaking his head. “My apologies. I’m just…taken aback that you’re even here.”

She couldn’t help but smile at him. “That makes two of us, then.”

Down the hallway, a door opened and an elderly woman emerged, not giving the two any notice until she passed behind Buffy and nodded to them in greeting. Spike colored at the curious glance she passed between them, but held his tongue until the other guest had disappeared around the corner.

“Why are you here?” he blurted. “Xander gave me no indication that you…you would be…I’d thought I’d made my fears perfectly clear to him.”

Inwardly, Buffy winced at being lumped as one of his fears, but did her best to keep composed. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” she lied, and gestured toward his damp clothing. “It doesn’t look like he gave you the chance to change.”

Looking down at his shirt, Spike plucked at the wrinkled fabric as if he wasn’t aware that he’d been so disheveled. “You were there,” he whispered, but she got the distinct feeling that he didn’t really mean for her to hear it. “I should’ve…”

“It was an accident.” For whatever reason, she felt the need to clarify. “Willow called to let me know that Xander was coming to town, and I couldn’t not come because hey, it’s Xander, but we had no idea he was bringing you, too.”

Blue eyes peered at her through sooty lashes. “Would you have stayed away had you known?”

The color slithered up her neck, into her cheeks. “Well, no, but—.”

“Why?”

Suddenly, the air was too thick. It was a question she only half knew the answer to, and the half she did have at her fingertips, Buffy was convinced wouldn’t satisfy Spike’s need to know.

“Do you remember me at all?” she asked instead.

The fear she’d seen in his eyes returned, but it was fainter this time, more quickly hidden from her close inspection. Wordlessly, he shook his head, and the small bastion of hope Buffy had been closeting away, in spite of Xander’s explanations to the contrary, disappeared.

“If you did,” she continued, refusing the desire to fall apart in front of him, “you’d know that I don’t give up on my friends. Especially when they’re in trouble.”

“We’re… friends ?”

“We were.” She dared to take a small step forward. “I don’t see any reason why we still can’t be.”

“Xander was…not.”

“Your relationship with him was complicated.”

“As it is now.”

“Not exactly the same, but hopefully the fact that the last time we saw you, you were saving the world, means we might all be able to move on. Let go of the past.”

His head tilted in question. “I…what?”

“Didn’t anybody tell you?” Giving him her brightest smile, Buffy took yet another step, closing the distance between them so much that she could feel the heat coming off his slim frame. “You got the big heroic death. Saved the world and everything.” Carefully, she reached out and touched his arm. “I never got the chance to say thank you for that.”

His muscles twitched beneath her touch, but instead of pulling away, Spike hesitantly lifted his hand to glide his fingers over the back of hers. “They’re smaller than in my dreams,” he observed.

“I get that a lot.”

He glanced up at her, the corner of his mouth lifting in amusement. “You get many men confessing to dreaming of you?” he said.

The fact that he was teasing her took Buffy by surprise. He surprised her even further when he took her hand in his, turning it over to see the palm.

His sharp intake of breath made her look down in time to witness the ghosting of his fingertips over her scar. It was weird feeling the heat of his skin against hers, but what was even more unsettling was watching him hold her hand still while he placed his other alongside it.

She knew those hands, had felt them on every inch of her body, both lovingly and in battle. She could’ve described them to anybody who might’ve asked. The callus he had on his left hand from all the writing he’d thought he’d hidden from her. The small circular scar near his wrist from a childhood bout of chicken pox.

The scars she saw now were new.

The inner lines of his fingers were leathered in dead white skin, smooth along the middle while puckered around the edges. They continued down to ring his palm, as if whatever had burned him had been shielded from the most vulnerable part of his hand, leaving the center pink and untouched.

This was the result of the flames that had ignited when they’d clasped hands in the Hellmouth. She realized that which was unscarred, was the part her palm had protected.

“Does it hurt?” Buffy asked, concerned, but when she reached automatically to take his hand in hers in order to more closely examine it, Spike yanked away from her.

“How is it you have the same?” he asked. His voice was hoarse with disbelief, and he was already backing into the room, gaining an increasing measure of space between them with every step.

“Because I was there,” she said gently.

“And yet…you lived.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Because of you. You…you gave me my life.”

“At the expense of my own?”

“Yes.”

He was still retreating, and her words seemed to be having little effect in calming him. “Why did you not try to save me?” Spike asked.

“What?” The question shocked her to the core. “You don’t think—.”

“I don’t know ,” he said, suddenly vehement, his eyes blazing just as they had during any one of their numerous fights when he’d been alive. “I’ve spent the past three years of my life wondering how I could come to be. Questioning, every day, how I could even exist. Hanif was very clear about the creature I had been, how… evil …” The word stumbled from his tongue, making him grimace in distaste. “…I was, what atrocities I’d committed. And yet, here you are, telling me that I was a hero? That I saved both you and the world? How can that be, when apparently I wasn’t even worthy enough to be saved?”

“There wasn’t time,” she tried to argue.

“No, because the world was crashing down around our ears, wasn’t it?” His lips pressed together into a thin line. “Those are not dreams I am having, are they? They’re memories of some fashion. Memories of…my death.”

She could only nod. Xander had detailed what little he knew of the nightmares; it had been abundantly clear just what they were really about.

Spike had gone pale, his breathing heavy, his movements agitated. He was looking everywhere but at her, long hands running through his unruly hair and mussing it even further. “These were not the answers I wanted to find,” he kept saying. “I merely wished to understand…you weren’t supposed…you shouldn’t even be . I shouldn’t be. I’m but a ghost, a shadow of this monster who—.”

“No!” The single word was a sharp crack whipped through the air. “You’re not a monster! Would I be here if you were?”

He finally looked at her at that. “I don’t understand why you’re here at all,” he said bleakly.

It was the last straw. Buffy’s heart wept for the broken shell of a man standing before her, but it screamed for the frustration in his failure to see just how deeply she needed him. What was the point in his coming back if he was only half there?

For the second time that night, Buffy turned on her heel and ran.

Without even bothering to pretend to watch the guys by the dartboard this time, Dawn watched Xander down his third pint of Guinness, studying the lines of his face as he drank, memorizing the new shadows in case she didn’t get this opportunity again. They’d said very little to each other since showing up at the teeming pub, partially because of the deafening crowd, partially because she was sure neither of them really knew what to say. It didn’t, however, keep her from noticing all the things that had and hadn’t changed about Xander since he’d gone to Africa.

“Why do you still have the eyepatch?” she asked suddenly.

“Because I still don’t have an eye,” he answered back with a grin.

“I thought Willow said she could fix that.”

His smile faded, and Xander turned away from her to point out his empty glass to the bartender. “Did I hear that you were the one who stopped the last apocalypse?” he said casually. “Something about screaming the demon’s ears off?”

“It was Buffy’s idea,” she said, “and you’re being all evasive.”

He waited until there was a fresh pint in front of him. “I’m not evasive,” Xander said, taking a sip. “I’m downright ignoring that particular topic of conversation.”

“Why? I’d think it would be great to get your eyesight back.”

He shifted his gaze just enough to regard her heavily. “You would, wouldn’t you?” he said, his attention reverting to his drink. “It’s not that simple, Dawn.”

It seemed that simple to her, but as she watched him drink his beer, more slowly this time, as if he needed to savor it, Dawn realized that a little bit of sexy stubble and a few tightly corded muscles didn’t change who Xander was on the inside. Buried beneath the smooth veneer beat the nervous heart of a teenaged boy accustomed to having the rug yanked out from beneath his feet. He was still falling, though perhaps now in slow motion, from the reeling blow of Anya’s death.

Shifting her weight to face forward, she asked, “Why’d you bring him back?”

“Who? Spike? Why wouldn’t I bring him back?”

“Because you hate him.”

“I don’t hate him. I don’t like him very much, but I can say that about a lot of Buffy’s ex-boyfriends.”

“You can try using that explanation on the others,” she said, “but this is me , Xander. Remember me? It wasn’t that long ago you thought it was pretty darn important to shatter every last illusion I had about Spike.”

Xander laughed, a harsh, dry bark that sounded like it came straight from the Egyptian desert. “Fat lot of good that did,” he muttered. “He’s only back in our lives a couple days, and already the world is revolving around him again.”

There was more he wasn’t saying, more beneath every word, and Dawn asked the question before her nerve failed her.

“You’re going to go back to Africa, aren’t you? You were never going to stick around. You’re just going to drop the Spike and run?”

He sipped at his beer before replying. “That was the plan.”

“Why?”

“Because Africa’s home now.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said, her hair swinging from how vehemently she shook her head. “It can’t be that great, unless you’ve…what? Got a girl in every safari?”

“Sometimes two,” he joked, though the lack of mirth in his voice told her that it was likely more often zero.

Reaching out, Dawn curled her hand around the one that was starting to lift the pint glass to his lips again. ” We’re not in Africa,” she said.

He visibly flinched, and carefully pulled away from her grasp. She didn’t know why she was so surprised by his behavior; this was exactly how many of their phone conversations went, just with visual cues now. A little bit of casual chitchat and joking laughter, but as soon as something serious came up, or any mention of the gang or the past, Xander rushed to get off the line.

Dawn hated it when he did that. It hurt even more to see it in person.

“So, did Buffy start having some kind of height requirement for boyfriends that I don’t know about?” Xander said suddenly, his tone loud and gregarious again. “Because I think this one’s got Riley beat by a good six inches.”

“It’s the chicken legs. They’re deceptive.” She poked him in the side. “Why do you keep changing the subject?”

He shrugged. “Because you keep bringing up things I don’t want to talk about,” he admitted nonchalantly.

Well, at least he was being honest about it. “So, what can we talk about?”

“You know, since talking is what got me to London in the first place, what say we pass on that and go straight to the drinking, OK?” He grinned, feigning new awareness of the glass in his hand. “Oh, wait. We’re already doing that.”

This was going nowhere fast. Somewhere in the background, music began to play, a slow rock ballad she didn’t recognize, and Dawn glanced back to see the group of young women clustered around the jukebox, doing their best not to appear as if they were watching the guys at the dartboard nearby.

“C’mon,” she said, hopping off her stool.

Xander stumbled slightly, trying to return his glass to the bar as she pulled at his arm. “What’re we doing?” he asked.

“You don’t want to talk, and I don’t want to see you drink any more. So, we’re going to dance instead.”

“Dawn—,” he started, trying unsuccessfully to break free from her hold.

“Nope,” she said firmly. She didn’t look back. She didn’t want to see the reluctance she heard in his voice mirrored on his face. “This one, you’re not getting out of.”

She took pleasure that he didn’t resist her any further when they reached a spot near the jukebox, allowing her to step into his personal space, press her body to his, loop her long arms around his neck. His body was harder than she remembered, more angular, and, where in the past she hadn’t quite reached his shoulder, now she could comfortably set her chin on it if she wanted, breathe in his warm scent. His hands were stiff where they rested on her hips, but as the music pulsed around and between them, Xander began to relax, the space he’d been keeping from her gradually closing. It was as if he was finally giving himself permission to let someone else in.

Dawn couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been for him to do so.

“I’m glad you came to London,” she murmured, nestling her cheek against his shoulder.

For a moment, he stiffened again, though this time, he didn’t move away. “You’re just glad to see Spike,” Xander said warily.

“No.” She tightened her arms around his neck and felt a pounding against her chest. Was it his heart or hers? “Not just Spike.”

She didn’t bother to knock. Maybe, in the old days, when Travers had been in charge, Buffy would’ve been intimidated enough to play the proper Slayer role when she was on his turf, but those days were long gone, as was that particular girl. Now, she was too riled to take note of niceties, and stormed with a rain-slicked ferocity into the study she knew Willow and Giles favored.

“What’s wrong?” Willow asked instantly, setting aside the thick book that had been resting on her lap.

“Have you found anything yet?” Buffy demanded.

Giles and Willow exchanged a quick look, saying more with the single gesture than if they’d shared a ten minute conversation. For a moment, Buffy felt a pang of jealousy at the closeness that had developed between the two of them, an intimacy that had once been hers back in the day. It was to be expected, she figured. Ever since Willow’s post-apocalyptic recovery, the relationship between her and Giles had been ever-shifting, closer and closer, until now…

She shoved the jealous feelings away. This wasn’t the time or place for that. Now it was about Spike.

“It’s still early,” Giles said gently. “Without knowing more of the particulars, we’re flying in the dark here.”

“We do have a particular,” she said. “The amulet. We start there.”

“But we don’t know—.”

“You’re right. We don’t.” Perching on the arm of the couch, Buffy gazed at them with what she hoped was unfazed determination. She’d thought about this during the entire walk to the offices—which, granted, was just around the corner, but it was the thought that counted—and she was convinced this was their only course of action if they wanted to find out what had really happened to Spike. She had to give him the answers he so desperately wanted. She had to.

“Someone else does, though,” she said, and braced herself for the reaction she knew would come. “We have to talk to Angel.”[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 9″]

Chapter 9: The Blood Runs So Red to My Face

Xander insisted on leaving the pub when he realized his body temperature was spiraling out of control and that it wasn’t completely the fault of all the Guinness he drank. After the dance with Dawn, she’d completely dropped any mention of Spike, or Buffy, or the past and future, and coaxed him to play pool with her, distracting him with stories of Rome and the stupid guys she kept meeting at university there. Xander laughed, and played along, and for over an hour, he was lost in a cloud of their own creation, one where ghosts were barred from entering, one where responsibility was lifted from his shoulders. For seventy glorious minutes, Xander was free.

He hated that it had to end. Then again, the good things always did in his world.

What broke him was when Dawn asked him to dance again. He couldn’t say no. She wouldn’t take it as an answer anyway.

But then she’d rested her cheek on his shoulder. And sighed.

Xander felt like such a fraud.

“We better get back,” he said, peeling away from her tall form and turning toward the door.

“What? Why?”

He didn’t look back. He knew what he would see. Xander didn’t have the strength in him right then to meet Dawn’s disappointment, too.

“Because I left Spike all alone when I knew I shouldn’t,” he said. Holding the door open for her, he waited until she’d joined him on the sidewalk before moving again. Thank god the rain had finally stopped. “He’s never done the sleepwalking twice in one night, but there’s always a first time for everything.”

“You know Buffy went to see him, right?”

Even through their clothes, Xander could feel the heat of Dawn’s shoulder brushing up against his as they walked. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he murmured.

He kept his manner brusque the short trip back to the hotel, only nodding when she said good night to him in the elevator. His head was already starting to pound from the alcohol; it had been a long time since he’d imbibed so freely. All he wanted was to get back to his room and become intimately acquainted with his pillow. Thank god his roommate was the mostly silent type.

He walked in on a flurry.

Coming to a halt just inside the doorway, Xander watched as Spike shoved his few clothes into the duffel Hanif had provided, heedless of the wrinkles he was causing with every thrust. Incoherent mumbling accompanied the packing, much like the mutterings Xander had witnessed during Spike’s nocturnal sojourns, and he wondered for a moment if the guy was sleepwalking again.

“Do not stare at me,” Spike said suddenly. Though the request was specifically targeted at Xander, he didn’t break from what he was doing, pivoting and turning between the dresser and the bed as he finished stowing his belongings.

Nope, that was still William. Spike would’ve probably made it rhyme from the poetry or something.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“I wish to quit this place. I’ve seen enough.”

Xander’s strong grip wrapped around Spike’s wrist, stopping him from closing the duffel. “You’ve seen squat,” he said. “And you’re not going any place until we get some answers.”

Dark eyes turned up to Xander’s face. “I’ve decided…I don’t care for the questions any longer. Thus…answers are irrelevant.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. Something’s happened. Tell me what’s going on.”

Seconds ticked by. Almost every emotion imaginable flitted across Spike’s face. Then, he said in a voice that could barely be heard, “Coming was a mistake. I do not wish to be the cause of any more discomfort. To…anyone.”

Understanding made Xander ease his hold. “You saw Buffy,” he said. When Spike didn’t respond, he shook his head. “You can’t do this to her. I don’t care what she might’ve said, but Buffy still cares about you, William. Running away without giving her the benefit of some answers is going to rip her heart out. Again.”

“She doesn’t need me in order to find those.”

“No, she needs you for—.” Exasperated, Xander exhaled loudly and pulled away, grabbing the duffel bag before Spike could stop him. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Why are you doing this?” Spike asked, hovering behind him as Xander threw the clothes back into the dresser. “I’m not blind. I can see that you don’t wish to be here any more than I do. Why would you insist that we stay?”

It was so tempting to yield to the other man’s pleas. Forget tight Willow hugs that reminded him of more halcyon days. Forget big blue eyes that didn’t understand why he just wanted to go back to a sunlit world that didn’t ask him to be anything more than the man he presented. Forget it all.

But Xander already knew he would never be able to forget the look on Buffy’s face when he’d seen her in the street. Seen the anger floating on the surface as she gazed at Spike, unsuccessfully masking the other emotions that seeing someone she’d long since buried now standing before her created.

The betrayal.

The relief.

The ache.

The joy.

He could go back to Africa, and he could let Spike go back to hiding from the mystery of why he’d been resurrected, but none of that would erase those seconds of sheer pleasure Xander had felt when he realized that he’d been the one to give this to Buffy. He was the only one to know the depth of what Buffy had lost that day the Hellmouth collapsed. He knew that if there was any way she could give him back Anya, even for a day, she would do it without hesitation.

“Did Buffy talk to you about what your life was like before?” Xander asked.

Spike flinched. “We…discussed the events of…my death,” he said carefully. “She told me how she left me to die—.”

“No, she didn’t.” It came out even more harshly than he’d intended. “Buffy cared about you. If it would’ve been possible to save you, she would’ve.”

But Spike was shaking his head in denial. “I don’t…that’s not how I…my dreams…”

“I don’t care about what you think you know. For someone whose memory is so Swiss cheese, you sure as hell are making a lot of assumptions about what is and what isn’t true. But I’ll give you one truth. You loved Buffy. It took me a long time to accept that, but…you did. You loved her so much that, for whatever reason, you spend your nights trying to find her again. I don’t doubt for a second that you told her to get out of the Hellmouth before it collapsed in on her, too, because that’s just the kind of over-the-top gesture you used to make. You never did anything by halves, Spike—.”

“William,” he corrected automatically.

“You know what? You’re right. William . Because Spike would never have given up this easy.” He jabbed a warning finger into the other man’s chest. “But I’m still not letting you tuck your tail and run. Buffy deserves better than that.”

Taking a step away, William reached up to rub at the spot Xander had poked, his eyes dark with confusion. “What did you say I do?” he asked.

“Nuh uh. I know you know about the sleepwalking. Don’t try pulling that shit with me.”

“But…you said I… look for her? Why would I seek out the woman who haunts my nightmares?”

Xander sighed. “Because you loved her, you nitwit. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

A knock at the door stopped either of them from continuing the conversation, and with an annoyed glance at Spike, Xander stalked over to answer it. He straightened when he saw the man on the other side, biting back the smile when his gaze flickered to Judd’s legs and confirmed Dawn’s earlier observation.

“Xander, right?” he quizzed.

“Right. And you’d be Judd.”

Judd looked like hell. Xander had seen the way he’d been holding his nose out on the sidewalk, and known that Spike must’ve punched him. Probably for trying to interfere. Xander had experienced that reaction firsthand. Now, Judd’s nose was swollen and bruised, marring his intelligent good looks.

The petty side of Xander took a small measure of satisfaction that the present leader in the Buffy Boyfriend Brigade looked less than perfect.

“Buffy said she was meeting with you,” Judd said. His dark eyes flickered over Xander’s shoulder, widening slightly as they must’ve noticed Spike, and he took a slight step back, straightening to his full height at the same time. “But I haven’t heard from her since she told me. Dawn said she might be with you. But if you’re here and she’s not—.”

“She was here.”

Spike’s interjection took Xander by surprise, and he shifted enough to see him warily approach the door.

“She…wished to get some fresh air,” Spike continued. “She left some time ago.”

“What did you do to her?” Judd demanded.

The question threw Spike for a loop, and he faltered, his eyes darting between the other men and the mirror above the dresser at his side. “I…I…we merely talked,” he managed.

Judd’s jaw hardened. “If I find out you’ve hurt her,” he said, ” you’ll be the one on your back next time.”

“I wouldn’t—.”

“I’m sure Buffy’s fine,” Xander interrupted. “She’s a big Slayer. She can take care of herself.”

Judd seemed reluctant to break off from whatever imagined pissing contest he had going with Spike, making Xander wonder just what had been said before he’d shown up on the group out on the sidewalk. “I just worry about her going out on her own,” Judd said. “She’s got a lousy sense of direction. She’s always getting turned around when she’s out on patrol. Sometimes, she doesn’t get back to her apartment for hours.”

Xander bit his tongue. He had a sneaking suspicion that Buffy’s missing hours were more to do about losing the boyfriend than getting lost herself. He was starting to get why Dawn’s comments about this one had been so caustic.

“If you see her, can you let her know I’m looking for her?” Judd directed the question to Xander, pointedly ignoring Spike now.

“Will do.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t like him,” Spike said once Xander had closed the door.

“Well, blow me over with a feather,” Xander replied with mock seriousness. ” You don’t like Buffy’s boyfriend? I don’t think that’s everhappened before.”

Spike’s frown deepened, his head tilted as he regarded Xander. “But…you don’t like him either.”

“Well, no, but then, I’ve always been of the opinion that nobody’s quite good enough for Buffy. One of my few foibles.”

“Is that why you didn’t like me?”

Xander’s lips pressed thin. He really didn’t have the energy for this right now.

“If you’re done with trying to run away,” he said instead, “I think we should both get some sleep. It’s been a bitch of a long day, and I just want to be dead to the world for the next twenty-four hours.”

He waited just long enough to confirm that Spike wasn’t going to make a run for it. “Good. Don’t snore. I’ll have to beat you with my pillow.”

Giles and Willow spent over an hour trying to talk Buffy out of her suggestion.

“He won’t do it,” Giles said.

“And even if he did, what’s he going to be able to tell you?” Willow asked. “He didn’t know anything about the amulet when he gave it to you, you said.”

None of it was enough to sway Buffy. Not even when Giles resorted to the last tactic she would’ve thought he’d use.

“Do you honestly believe he’ll speak with you after what happened with The Immortal?” he said, his voice even but his tone gentle. “Our scars from that particular battle aren’t nearly as…permanent as his.”

“I have to try,” Buffy said. She shoved aside the memory of Angel’s twisted body when she’d found him. If she dwelled on it, she’d never have the strength to do this. “For Spike’s sake. Angel is our best chance to get the information we need.”

They’d let her be at that. If bringing up the fact that Angel had suffered for months at the hands of her ex wasn’t enough to sway her, they were astute enough to know that nothing would.

She insisted on making the call in private, and followed Willow to the tiny office down the hall. “If you need anything,” Willow said, “just give us a shout.” Her eyes were luminous in the brief seconds Buffy met them. “Anything.”

Alone, Buffy ignored the racing of her nerves to march determinedly to the phone on the desk. Though she’d never used it, she had the number memorized. The rift between her and Angel had always been one of those things she thought she’d get around to fixing. Some day.

Why was it that all the things she’d hoped to deal with later were showing up now in her life marked payment due ?

It was answered on the third ring. The woman’s voice was unfamiliar, but Buffy wasn’t surprised. She’d only met her the one time, when she’d arrived to take Angel away after The Immortal had been defeated.

“Nina?” she queried. “It’s Buffy Summers.”

Silence. At least it wasn’t a dial tone. If Nina had automatically hung up on her, Buffy wasn’t sure she’d have had the will to try the call again.

“What do you want?” finally came the reply.

“I need to speak to Angel. Is he there?”

A short, derisive laugh echoed down the line. “Where else would he be?”

“So, can I talk to him?”
“No.”

“Why not?”

“The fact that you even have the nerve to ask that question is exactly why I’m not putting you through.”

Buffy rubbed at her tired eyes. She’d known it would be difficult to get past Nina, and to be honest, if she was in the other woman’s shoes, Buffy was fairly sure she’d be doing close to the same thing. Angel had been through a lot because of his association with Buffy, and the fact that the last round between him and The Immortal had been started because of Buffy’s instigation only made it sting even more. It didn’t matter that she’d thought she was helping him. She should’ve known about the history the two men shared. She should’ve known that every supposed rescue came with a price.

She should’ve known about a lot of things.

“If you won’t put me through,” she said, “will you at least pass along a message? It’s important.”

“Let me guess. Another end of the world crisis? Is there anything that isn’t the end of the world with you, Buffy?”

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from lashing out at Nina. “It’s not…” She exhaled loudly. It wasn’t worth it to get into this now. “Tell him Spike’s alive. Will you just do that for me?”

A pause, and then, “What was that?”

“You heard me. Spike’s alive. If Angel wants anything more, he’s going to have to call me.” Quickly, she rattled off the Council’s phone number, wondering if Nina was even bothering to write it down. “Did you get that?”

It was a reluctant affirmation that followed, and the two women soon ended the call, leaving Buffy shaking and cold as she leaned against the desk.

All she could do now was wait.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 10″]

Chapter 10: The Wounds of the Past

Unwilling to miss Angel in case he called back, Buffy spent the night at the Council offices, curled up on the couch in Giles’ study while he and Willow continued to research the possibilities regarding Spike’s rebirth. That was how she was viewing it now. After all, he was alive when he hadn’t been before. It seemed as appropriate an analogy as any.

Her sleep was fitful, dark dreams that twisted her memories into horrific amalgams of Spike at the mercy of The Immortal’s torture, Angel burning up in the Hellmouth, and beneath it all, a voice she couldn’t make out, calling to her in whispers that split the tapestry of her unconsciousness, compelled her to break free from the fetters of her sleep and join it, driving her mad until her eyes flew open, wide and unfocused, to see Willow jerk back from where she’d been shaking Buffy awake.

“Sorry,” Willow said quickly. “I didn’t mean…are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” Buffy replied without thought. She was far from fine. She was coated in a fine sheen of sweat from the fervor of her sleep, and her head was still reeling from the sudden shock of being pulled from it. “What’s wrong? Is it Angel? Did he call?”

Silently, Willow shook her head. “I thought you might want to join us for breakfast. Everybody’s here.”

She bolted upward. “Everybody? Spike, too?”

“Yeah. And Judd.”

Judd. She’d completely forgotten about him. She’d promised him explanations after her meeting with Xander and instead, she’d fallen asleep waiting for a phone call from another ex-boyfriend she hadn’t ever really talked about. Some girlfriend she was.

“Is there someplace I can clean up first?” Buffy asked, rising to her feet.

“My room,” Willow offered. “You can change your clothes, too. It’ll make you feel a thousand percent better.”

Buffy let herself be led from the room, only half-listening to Willow’s jabbering about what they’d learned through the night. She didn’t need to pay attention. When the first words out of her friend’s mouth were, “You’d think people obsessed with vampires would’ve been more interested in the possibility of them becoming human again, you know?”, Buffy knew they didn’t have any more answers.

Those could only come from Angel. If he ever decided to call her back.

The silence was deafening. Nobody seemed willing to be the first to speak beyond the pleasantries that had first been exchanged when they’d shown up at the Council front doors. Judd was busy glowering at Spike, who was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible in the largest group he’d been a part of since leaving Cairo—the airplane notwithstanding—while Dawn kept eyeing all of them, taking a seat by Xander before Willow could usurp it for herself.

For Xander, he just didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t set one of them off. So he watched, and took measure of how Dawn’s long slim fingers toyed with her silverware, and how Spike had managed to sneak along a notebook without Xander seeing and was now scribbling away at it, and how both Giles and Willow were trying not to stare at the ex-vampire as they finished preparing breakfast.

Buffy’s arrival was a breath of fresh air, her smile as bright as it was phony. She hesitated for a moment when she saw the two empty chairs, one at Judd’s side, the other at Spike’s, but covered it with light banter as she slid into the seat next to her boyfriend. It wasn’t until Xander realized it put her directly opposite Spike, forcing him to look at her if he lifted his eyes, that he understood why she chose it.

“So, who wants pancakes?” Willow said brightly, setting the platter in the middle of the table. “No funny shapes, but I’ve got blueberry and chocolate chip to make up for it.”

“Ooo, chocolate for me,” Xander said, and held out his plate. “You’d be surprised how many African tribes have never heard of a chocolate chip.”

“And I’m sure you make it your sacred duty to rectify that particular deficiency,” Giles said with a smile.

“Darn straight I do. Nothing vanquishes evil like a healthy dose of sugar.”

For whatever reason, that was enough to break the ice, and the group slipped into the same kind of banter that Buffy had started when she’d walked into the room.

The exception was Spike. Though the coincidental arrival of Buffy and food had made him thrust his notebook out of sight, he stayed silent amidst the camaraderie, sneaking glances across the table at Buffy, watching the others out of the corner of his eye. Nobody was bothering to include him in the conversation, not even Buffy, and Xander started to feel guilty about the exclusion. He understood why, of course. What could you say to a guy when he didn’t really know who you were, when he didn’t really want to be there in the first place? But, it didn’t mean Xander liked it.

“So, William,” Xander said, putting down his fork and leaning back in his chair to ease the strain on his now tight waistband, “is this your first pancake breakfast, or did Hanif’s mom already treat you with this special gift?”

“Of course, it isn’t,” Dawn said before Spike could reply. “We had pancakes all the time the summer Buffy was—.”

She stopped. Everyone around the table held their breath. Xander felt like kicking her in the shin under the table for slipping like that.

Wiping almost delicately at his mouth, Spike returned his napkin to his lap before leaning just far enough forward to address Dawn. “Pardon?” he said. “The summer Buffy was…what?”

“Dead.” All eyes shot to Buffy, but she could only look at Spike. “You promised me you’d take care of Dawn if something happened to me while we were fighting Glory.” The corner of her mouth lifted. “You’re not the only one who can come back from the dead, you know. In fact, I got you beat by five years.”

“Well, technically, he’s already been back for three,” Xander said.

“Still means I win by two,” Buffy said.

“Wait,” Judd said, shifting in his seat to face her. “You were dead?”

“Twice now.” She nodded toward Xander. “Numero uno resurrection was courtesy of Xan and some fancy-schmancy CPR.”

“And the second?”

Now, Xander felt like kicking Judd, only it wasn’t his ankle he was interested in aiming for.

Her smile faded. “That was more of a…group effort.”

Some of the tension had eased from Spike’s body, and he leaned forward, his gaze now riveted on Buffy. “You never said,” he murmured.

“I didn’t really get a chance to,” she replied, just as quietly.

“But…I would’ve…if you’d said…it might’ve…”

“I know.”

For those few seconds, nobody else existed in the room for them but each other. The look on Spike’s face was unlike anything Xander had seen since discovering him in Egypt, reminiscent of some of those stolen moments Spike had gathered that last year in the Summers’ house. The moments when he thought nobody was watching him, when he’d turn reverent eyes to the Slayer who led them, unaware that there were others watching him at the same time. William might not have the memories of what exactly had occurred in his previous incarnation, but buried in the rubble of his current existence were shards of the feelings that had been so rampant in Spike’s psyche the first time around, slivers of joy, splinters of hate, snippets of devotion. Tiny pieces that lay scattered around his feet, waiting for him to pick them up and put them back into place in the puzzle that was his life.

Xander wondered if Buffy even realized she was looking at Spike in exactly the same way. A quick glance at Judd was enough to know that Xander wasn’t the only one who saw it.

The shrill ring of the telephone made everybody jump, and Willow leapt from the table to scurry from the room and answer it. Spike cleared his throat, reaching for his cup of tea to gulp at it desperately, while Buffy sank back into her chair, the invisible tether that had been binding her to the man across the table now gone.

Willow came back before anybody could speak. Her face was pinched as her eyes settled on Buffy.

“It’s Angel,” she said.

Buffy’s heart was still pounding in her chest when she sat down at the desk. She knew she had to pull herself together in order to best deal with Angel, but she was still trapped in that moment when William had shifted into the Spike she’d known those last few days on the Hellmouth, the one who’d been willing to be the silent shoulder for her to lean on when she couldn’t afford to show weakness to anybody else, the one who’d understood the power of not talking but instead had just held her close, telling her later that it had been the greatest night of his life. It hadn’t been what he’d said but the look on his face, and it left her with a swelter of feelings that she’d long thought she’d buried.

But now was not the time for trying to fathom those out.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy picked up the phone and pushed the hold button that was flashing on the receiver. “Angel?” She was shocked at how even her voice was.

“Hello, Buffy.”

Her heart wrenched. He sounded exactly the same.

“Thank you for calling me back,” she said. Best to start with the buttering up. Besides, she really was grateful.

“Nina gave me your message. Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“That’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you.” Haltingly, she told the tale of Spike’s return, stumbling over the details Xander had shared and then speeding up as she reached the part of running into the sleepwalking version of Spike out on the street. Angel never said a word during any of it. In fact, Buffy couldn’t hear anything through the line. She hated that his lack of breathing made him practically invisible on the phone.

“He Shanshu’d,” she heard Angel murmur when she paused to take a breath.

“What?” she asked, confused. “Is that some kind of special thing he needs for walking around in the desert?”

“No.” Irritation was creeping into his tone. “It’s a prophecy. About a vampire with a soul becoming human after helping with the apocalypse. I always thought…” He grunted. “So. Spike got it. Figures.”

“But Giles said that wasn’t it,” Buffy argued. “He said the original translation was wrong. Who gave you yours?”

“Wesley.” Pause. “What did Giles thought it meant?”

“That the vampire would be absolved from his sins. Get to go to Heaven instead of Hell, I guess. Anyway, he and Willow are pretty sure that’s not what this is about. Which means it has to be about the amulet.” She chewed at her lip. “The one you brought to Sunnydale. Where did you get it, Angel? You never told me.”

“Wolfram and Hart.”

Her brows shot up. “You took something from the same enormously evil guys who sent an army worth of demons after you? Not to mention the fire-breathing dragon that nearly turned you into a pile of ash. What were you thinking?”

She could hear him grinding his teeth, and wondered if her flash of angry surprise was going to cost her the phone call. “I had my reasons,” Angel said. “They don’t matter now. The Immortal saw to that, remember?”

It was a punch to her gut, one she’d known would come at some point in their conversation. Buffy had just wished it would be later rather than sooner. If wishes were horses…

When she’d learned of The Immortal’s intervention with Wolfram and Hart to help Angel, Buffy had been relieved at first that something constructive had been done. Anything was better than nothing, she thought, and she’d found out too late about Angel’s personal High Noon to step in with help herself. And when the reports of the LA crew going missing came filtering back afterward, she hadn’t given it too much thought. She just figured Angel was laying low until some of the heat was off.

It wasn’t until Wesley and that blue girl had showed up in Rome asking for her aid in locating Angel that she began to suspect that maybe the rescue hadn’t gone exactly as she’d been told.

Nobody had told her about Connor, either.

She found out about his death at about the same time she learned where The Immortal had been torturing Angel, ever since Wolfram and Hart had handed the vampire over to him.

The battles that had followed had been some of the most grueling Buffy and the gang had ever faced. They didn’t call the guy “The Immortal” for nothing, and he’d spent more than a few centuries garnering allies on both sides of the fence. Even with an army of Slayers at her disposal, Buffy quickly found herself on the losing side of the fight, clinging to each victory with nails that had long since grown bloody and ragged. It took an offhand comment from Andrew of all people to lead them to the source of The Immortal’s power, and Buffy had had the pleasure of smashing it in the smug bastard’s face, right before she used her trusted scythe to cut off his pretentious head. She thought it was fitting, considering his personal vanity.

None of it had been enough to temper Angel’s anger, however. And Buffy had spent the last two years feeling guilty that she couldn’t do anything more to make up for the scars he still bore from The Immortal’s torture, or the loss of the only son he’d ever have.

“Why are you getting involved in this?” Angel asked, tearing her away from her memories. “Did Spike ask for your help?”

“Well, no, not exactly—.”

“Did you think for a second that maybe this isn’t any of your business?”

“What?”

“It sounds to me Spike was doing just fine in Egypt. My advice? Send him back. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Forget he even exists. And while you’re at it, forget this number, too.”

She heard the motions of him starting to hang up and panicked. “Angel, wait!”

The noises stopped. “What now, Buffy?”

She was at a loss for what to say, and settled for the first thing that came to mind.

“I can’t lose him again,” she whispered. “And something’s wrong. I know it. When he sleepwalks…he’s walking to me, Angel. He’s trying to find me . He has these nightmares for a reason, and I can’t…if you saw him, you’d see how lost he is. And it doesn’t seem to make a difference that he’s found me. There’s still something out there that he needs, and I don’t know what it is. Please, Angel. I know you hate me for what happened to Connor, and if there was any way I could fix it, you have to know I would. But I’m not asking for me. I wouldn’t do that to you, not now. I’m asking for Spike. He might not have been your choice to do it, but he did die to save all of us. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

She held her breath. She didn’t want anything stopping her from hearing the tiniest of hints that he was going to try hanging up on her again.

“Do you love him?” Angel finally asked abruptly.

What was the point in denying it? “Yes.”

Some unintelligible curses came over the line, followed by a heavy sigh. “I can’t give you what you’re looking for,” he said. “All my bridges got burned over two years ago.”

“Maybe—.”

“But Wesley might be able to,” he continued, ignoring her interruption. “He still has…connections with Wolfram and Hart. He might be able to find something out about the amulet that you don’t already know.”

Buffy breathed a sigh of relief, some of the tension starting to unwind from around her heart. “Well, considering we know nothing, anything he can give us will be of the good.”

“I’ll talk to him. Explain the situation. He’ll be the one to let you know if he can help Spike.”

“Thank you.”

The soft drum of his fingers on a hard surface echoed through the phone. “Buffy…do me a favor, OK?”

“Anything.”

“Don’t call me again. It’s hard enough…”

“No, I get it. It’s all right. But…Angel?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I’m sorry about how everything worked out, don’t you? You know I hate that I—.”

“I know,” he interrupted.

Then, the line went dead.

The tears were falling before she returned the phone to its cradle. Setting her head down on her arms, Buffy cried.

For Angel.

For Spike.

For a yesterday that rendered her helpless.

It was the first time she’d cried since the Hellmouth collapsed.

She had a lot of catching up to do.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 11″]

Chapter 11: Blind Faith is the Mast

When Spike excused himself to use the bathroom immediately after Judd left to go look for Buffy, Xander knew what was up. The others might be willing to accept the bumbling fear at face value, but he sure as hell wasn’t.

He caught up to him in the hallway. The opposite direction from where Spike had been told the bathroom was located.

“Don’t do it,” Xander warned, grabbing the other man’s arm and forcing him to a halt.

“Do what?” Spike said. He was suddenly the voice of innocence again.

Xander wagged a finger in Spike’s face. “Judd’s her boyfriend. He’s got every right to be worried about her.”

“But you heard the others. Buffy needs privacy. He shouldn’t be intruding on her at a time such as this.”

“Which is why you’re descending on her like your own little locust swarm, right?” Xander shook his head. “I know you don’t like Judd, but you can’t interfere with this. It’s not your place.”

Spike’s face fell, the temporary bravado he’d displayed while he stood up to Xander fading. “He will press,” he said quietly. “And on this, I fear…she is not as strong as she appears. I do not wish to be the cause of more grief. For anyone.”

“I know.” What compelled him to put a comforting hand on Spike’s shoulder, Xander had no idea, but he did. Oddly enough, it didn’t feel that wrong. “But trust me. You go in there now, and you’ll just make it worse. Buffy’s the Lone Ranger when it comes to relationships. And unless you’re Tonto, smart money is to just back off. Take it from someone who learned that lesson the hard way.”

Slowly, Spike swiveled his gaze over his shoulder and stared down the empty corridor. “Why did you not tell me?” he asked.

“Tell you what?”

“That she died as well.” His eyes returned to meet Xander’s. “Why did you not tell me all of it?”

There was no good answer to this. He was relieved when Spike didn’t wait for a reply.

“Is it because of your own pain? Are your memories just as upsetting that you chose not to address them with me?”

His relief fled.

“I’m not talking about this with you,” Xander said tightly. He turned to walk away, and then thought better of it, whirling back to face Spike with barely restrained anger. “Just for the record, though, Buffy’s death was two years before yours, and had nothing to do with you or what happened with the First, so if I didn’t walk around the desert spouting off about how you two had that in common now, I think I can be excused. In case you didn’t notice, I had other things on my mind, like getting some answers for your skinny ass. But you’ve been too wrapped up in all your woe-is-me to even see that, haven’t you? You think you’re the only one who lost something that day, Spike? Well, think again.”

He was gone at that, marching down the hall with a heavier tread than when he’d arrived. He couldn’t stand to look at Spike now, not with so many other specters hovering between them. If Spike wanted to piss Buffy off by interrupting her and Judd, then so be it. It wasn’t going to be on Xander’s conscience.

He almost knocked Dawn over in his determination to get to the front door. Automatically, his hands shot out to grab her elbows, pulling her straight again as he eased his way past her in the hall, but she easily blocked his path, lifting her chin to gaze at him in concern.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Where’s Spike?”

“Hopefully digging his new grave,” Xander retorted. “If you hurry, I’m sure you can get a ringside seat.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing a muzzle wouldn’t fix. Isn’t it nice to know that some things never change?”

The last was said with more than a tinge of bitterness, and Xander almost regretted it when he saw something dark pass behind Dawn’s eyes. He changed that almost to a definite as soon as she spoke again.

“This is about what I said at the table, isn’t it?” she said. “I didn’t mean it. I just wasn’t thinking—.”

“Stop it. This doesn’t have anything at all to do with you.”

“Then…what?”

He was suddenly weary, and slumped back against the wall, bowing his head as he stared down at his scuffed shoes. “Why does everybody keep trying to get me to talk?” Xander complained. “I’m fine . At least, I was fine until I had to deal with the Walking Wonder coming back from the dead and completely disrupting what was a perfectly satisfying life I had going. I should’ve just left him in the desert. Coming to London was a mistake.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“It’s not. Because you’re not fine, Xander. You can lie to yourself as much as you want, but it still doesn’t make any of it real. Do you think Anya would think your life is just hunky-dory now? Wandering around from place to place, not making friends, not finding roots, ignoring the people who love you?”

It was the first time anyone had uttered Anya’s name in his presence in years. When Xander glanced up, he saw a furious Dawn standing in front of him, her arms folded across her chest as she glared at him. There wasn’t an ounce of contrition in her demeanor to suggest that she regretted bringing up the past like she had, but he just couldn’t find the strength to get angry with her, too. After all, she had a point.

Spike appeared from around a corner before Xander could respond, causing both of them to stiffen. The effect wasn’t lost on him, and he seemed to fold in on himself as he slowly approached.

“I wished to…apologize for my…inappropriate questions,” Spike said. “I did not mean to upset you. I…I…should have realized…”

Xander waved a hand to cut him off. “Apology accepted,” he said. “Now, just drop it.”

“Of course, I just thought—.”

“Dropping means stopping, Sp—William. Drop. Stop. If you can’t do that, maybe you and Dawn should scamper off and spend some quality time together. I’m sure she’s just dying to hear about how many different colors of sand you saw over the past three years.”

Both Dawn and Spike flushed, though the way she seemed to shrink behind Xander took him by surprise. Without another word, Spike brushed past both of them and disappeared back toward the kitchen.

The soft touch of Dawn’s hand on his arm made Xander sigh. “You should head on back to breakfast, too,” he said. “I’m sure Spike’s a lot better company than I am right about now.”

“Spike’s company wasn’t what I was looking for when I left.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I thought you were glad to see him.”

“I am. For Buffy’s sake. He…we never really got the chance to fix what went wrong between us.”

“So, now’s your chance.”

Dawn shook her head. “I can’t do it if he doesn’t remember me, or what happened. Why he…did some of the things he did. I’ll just…wait. It’ll be better that way.” She let her hand slide down his arm to meet his warm fingers, tugging at them until he was forced to straighten from where he leaned against the wall. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “You need a break from everything, and I’m just in the way as usual anyway. Let’s go be tourists.”

“Dawn, I really don’t—.”

“I’ll buy you one of those big annoying British flag hats,” she cajoled. “Then we can go to the movies and you can piss off everybody sitting behind you.”

His grin was unbidden. “You’re just bound and determined I’m going to have fun on this trip, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Will you help me find one of those red phone booths so I can pretend to be Dr. Who?”

“Of course, but you know that’s not hard, don’t you? They’re like, on every corner.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” he teased. They took a few steps before he added his last condition. “No mentioning of Anya, either. I don’t want to encourage her overhearing from the other side about how much money we’re going to blow on pointless souvenirs.”

Though he kept his tone light, he felt the slight hitch in her hold as she pulled him along. “If that’s what it takes,” Dawn said. “This time.”

He tried not to stare when she returned to the kitchen alone, but the puffiness around Buffy’s eyes was impossible to ignore. She didn’t even look at William, though, just settled back into her seat and began playing with her cold pancakes.

“Where’s Judd?” Willow asked.

“He left,” Buffy replied. She kept sticking the tines of her fork in the congealing syrup remaining on her plate. “We had a fight.”

“And…Angel?” Giles prompted.

“…is going to help. Well, he’s getting Wesley to help. Angel’s just…helping through proxy.”

None of these names meant anything to William, except for that of her boyfriend. But the resigned sadness that hung around Buffy like a cloud told him all that he needed to know. This was all his fault.

“I regret I’ve been such a nuisance for you,” he said softly.

She just shook her head blindly, still not looking up to meet his eyes. “It’s not anything that hasn’t been a long time coming. If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been something else, though, admittedly, I much prefer having you come back from the dead then, say, Adam, or Glory.”

More names that he was certain should resonate, but William was left with only the feelings that Buffy had gone to great pains to secure information for his sake. Xander had asserted that William—or Spike, rather—had loved this woman, and that she, in turn, had cared for him. How deeply had she done so? he wondered. How could it be she would abandon him to a certain death, but still be willing to go to such lengths upon his return? What was the part of the puzzle he was missing?

Tentatively, William reached across the table and settled his hand over hers. “I seem to be doing this quite a bit today, but…I wanted to apologize for my behavior last night. If I’d known…still, it was inexcusable, and I’m sorry.”

She finally looked up. Though her eyes were still slightly bloodshot from the tears she’d shed, the burden behind them seemed lighter than when she’d first returned. “Thanks,” Buffy said, and then frowned, as if noticing for the first time that the table was short more than just her boyfriend. “Where’d Xander and Dawn go?”

“Out,” Giles said. “Dawn was rather insistent that she take Xander sightseeing.”

“I think she’s just trying to get out of research,” Willow joked. “She made a joke about seeing enough dusty old books back at school.”

William’s ears pricked up. “Research?” he said. “I thought you were waiting for answers from this…Angel.”

“We are,” Willow explained. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t crack a few books on our end, too. We’ve got the amulet as a cross-reference now. There’s no reason we shouldn’t keep trying in case Wesley can’t come through for us.”

“Perhaps…” His eyes stole a peek at the woman whose hand he still held, noting her reluctance to pull away either. He cleared his throat. “Perhaps I could help with that,” he continued. “My only recourse for recreation since my…return has been that of books. And, since this concerns finding answers for me, it seems only proper that I contribute any way I can.”

For whatever reason, the suggestion seemed to take them by surprise, but it took only seconds for all three to begin vehemently voicing their approval of it. He tensed amongst the sudden warmth that surrounded him as they shepherded him from the kitchen to the main library, unsure of what they truly expected. It was just a bit of reading. He’d been perusing books for three years looking for any semblance of an answer, and while he agreed that they should continue their search, he didn’t for a moment believe that they would find what they were looking for.

But he would trust them.

He had little other choice.

If he gave up on these people, he would be forced to return to his half-existence back in Cairo, a prospect that filled him with even more dread than what they might find. True, he’d been willing to run just the night previous, but that was before Xander had revealed those precious details.

That William had loved the woman he now feared.

That the object of William’s sleepwalking was that same woman.

That his last nocturnal flight had been cut short upon finding her out on the street.

He glanced at Buffy as he settled with the first of the books Willow provided. He did not understand her, and even more bewildering, he did not understand his mixed reactions in her presence. His concern when Judd had left to check on her had been genuine; yet, it still made him nervous thinking of her role in his dreams.

Memories , he corrected.

Buffy was not a memory. Buffy was real. Flesh and blood.

Am I flesh to you?

The answer was no longer relevant. He could cut and bleed and burn, just like she could. The world was filled with sharp edges that could catch on fragile, unsuspecting skin, and if he wasn’t heedful of where he stepped, William was convinced it would swallow him whole again.

He did not wish to die. Neither, it would seem, did Buffy and her friends wish for that to happen.

So…he would have faith.

In a life that had offered him little else but fear and dread, it made a welcome change.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 12″]

Chapter 12: Dance with the Invisible Ones

Time had not made research any easier for Buffy. She still fidgeted, she still doodled, she still found the entire process excruciatingly brain and butt numbing. Even with as serious a subject as the issue of Spike’s resurrection at hand, she had problems concentrating. She just wanted to get the answers and get on with what she had to do. Even if she wasn’t entirely sure what that had to do actually was.

Answers came sooner, rather than later, with an electronic whimper and not a bang. Somehow, Buffy thought someone who died saving the world deserved something with a little more flash.

“Wesley just e-mailed me,” Willow announced from the desk in the corner.

All heads turned, but it was Buffy who rose to her feet.

“What does he say?” she asked.

“Not a whole lot. He’s attached a few documents, stuff he says were internal memos at Wolfram and Hart back when Angel first got the amulet. He says it’s the best he can give us.”

“Does he say who his contact is for this information?” Giles asked, concerned.

Willow was busy clicking away at her laptop. “Just an old friend. Someone who owed him a few favors, I guess. The e-mail he forwarded it from says ‘L. Morgan.'” Silence filled the room while she worked at the computer, her gaze jumping across the screen as she scanned the documents. Her mouth made a tiny o, and her eyes widened, but she stayed silent as she continued to read.

“Sharing with the rest of the class would be highly appreciated right about now,” Buffy said impatiently.

“Oh. Right.” Turning to face the group, Willow’s eyes glittered with the delight of having new information. “Apparently, the amulet was all a ploy to get rid of Angel, once and for all. They gave it to him, assuming he’d be the one to use it in the battle with the First.”

“What was it supposed to do?” Giles asked.

“Exactly what they told him it would. It was created to act as a purifier. The ultimate mystical cleanser. Not only was it going to kill the First’s army, but basically, what they really wanted it to do was soft scrub the demon right out of the champion who wore it.”

Silence again, only this time it wasn’t the heavy anticipatory quiet of waiting for bad news. Now, each of the group digested the small tidbit of information, turning it over and over to try and fit it into his or her world picture.

“And since vampires are hybrids, without his demon, Angel would’ve been rendered human,” Giles mused. “Or Spike, as the case may be.”

“I’m sorry,” Spike said, speaking up for the first time since settling in with the research. “Did you say… champion ?”

Buffy twisted to look at him. His brow was wrinkled, his eyes confused. “Were you not listening to me when I mentioned the saving the world bit?” she teased.

He colored at her gentle gibe. “You said…but I didn’t presume…”

“I chose you to wear the amulet for a reason,” she said. “You deserve being called a champion.”

Giles cleared his throat. “I imagine Wolfram and Hart thought they would be able to dispose of Angel far easier if he were human,” he said. “But why send the amulet to Hanif?”

“They thought the Watcher’s Council would be the ones most likely to enact some sort of punishment, because of everything he did as Angelus,” Willow replied. “And Hanif was one of the few they could find.”

“But…nothing happened,” Spike said.

A guilty flush stained Willow’s cheeks, and her eyes darted nervously back to her laptop. “Yeah, well, that’s because Angel didn’t wear it,” she said. “When he showed up back in LA and he was still all fangy, they cancelled their plans to follow up on what happened with the amulet.”

“…Oh.”

The pained disappointment in Spike’s voice drew Buffy to his side. “But that’s a good thing,” she argued. “Because that meant you’ve been safe for the past three years. That means…you’re safe now.”

“I…suppose.”

But he didn’t believe her. She could tell that even if she didn’t already know how to read him.

With a heavy sigh, Giles leaned back in his chair, closing the book on his lap with a loud thump. “Well, that was rather…anti-climactic,” he said. “Though, truthfully, I’m grateful there’s not another apocalypse attached to this one. We have enough to worry about with Inland Revenue at the moment.”

“Not to mention Andrew’s due back from Wales any day,” Willow said. “We’ll be able to get back to that translation now—.”

“Wait a minute.” Buffy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “That’s it? An e-mail from Wesley and you’re ready to call it a day?”

She wanted to scream when she saw Willow and Giles exchange a look. It was the one which said, Do you want to deal with the stupid Slayer, or should I? She hated that look.

“There’s nothing left for us to,” Giles said gently. “The point was to discover why exactly Spike is human now. We’ve done that.”

“But…” There had to be a but. Something was still wrong about this whole situation; she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

“I think you’re mistaken, sir.” Nobody was more surprised than Buffy when Spike spoke up, though, for once, he didn’t quail beneath their gazes when they turned to him. “There is still the issue of my nightmares. If this amulet was to cleanse me of the demon, why would my memories of those days still be haunting me in my dreams?”

She pointed excitedly at Spike. “There! That’s my but!”

Everyone except Buffy frowned, but her enthusiasm was impossible to ignore. “Perhaps it’s some sort of kinesthetic memory recall,” Giles said.

“That doesn’t explain why he’s trying to find me ,” Buffy argued.

“Or why he only communicates in poetry while he’s sleepwalking,” Willow conceded. “Nothing Wesley sent even hints that those might be other effects to the amulet. As far as Wolfram and Hart was concerned, it was just a people maker. No sleepwalking on the side.”

“I have no idea, then,” he conceded. “Unless Spike utilized the amulet’s power incorrectly.”

OK, that was just annoying. “It didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual, Giles,” Buffy said. “It didn’t even start working right away. We were in the middle of the fight when it started doing its glowy thing, and then the walls were coming down around us, and Spike was pretty much pinned there by the power in it.”

“Wait.” Setting aside his book, Spike rose from his seat and walked over to where Buffy stood, keeping his eyes locked on hers while he reached carefully for her left hand. His fingertips brushed over her scar as he turned it palm-up, and then held his right hand in the same position so that his scars could be visible as well. “How is it we came to get these, then?”

Her throat grew tight. “I took your hand,” Buffy whispered. All she could see was the deep blue of his eyes. It had been all she could see down in the Hellmouth, too.

“When?”

Giles seemed to understand where Spike was going with this, and slowly rose to his feet. “Buffy…did you do something to…interrupt what the amulet was trying to accomplish?”

She thought for a moment that she could feel the flames licking at her skin again, but then realized it was just the sensation of Spike’s fingers unconsciously caressing the back of her hand.

“What happened?” he murmured. “Please…tell me.”

I love you.

No, you don’t, but thanks for saying it.

“The ground started to shake when the light shot out of the amulet.” How could she sound so calm when her heart was skittering beyond her control? “Faith was trying to get everybody out, and when it was just me left, Spike started in on it, too.”

“But you wouldn’t go,” Spike said.

Her eyes widened. “How’d you know that?”

He smiled, softly, gently, his head tilting as he spoke. “Because you don’t leave those you care about behind if you can help it.”

I love you.

No, you don’t, but thanks for saying it.

“What then?” Giles prompted when neither of them continued.

“Faith left,” Buffy said. “And Spike…” She took his hand and positioned it as she remembered from that day in the Hellmouth. “…did this to stop me when he thought I might be getting too close to him. The light was really intense by that point, and he was…well, he was glowing.”

“And…?”

“And…I did this.” Taking a deep breath, Buffy laced her fingers through Spike’s, feeling the cooler skin of the scar tissue against her own.

“While the amulet was still emitting all its power.”

“Yes.”

“Flames.” Spike’s voice was hoarse. “I remember…fire.”

“Yeah,” Buffy breathed. “Our hands kind of combusted for a few seconds there.”

“And then?”

I love you.

No, you don’t, but thanks for saying it.

Her tears were returning, but she swallowed against the urge to let them fall. “There was another quake, a bigger one, and I lost my hold. You yelled at me to get out while I still could.” Carefully, she extricated her fingers from his and reached to cup his cheek. “You were a champion, William. You saved all of us.”

When he turned his head to press his lips to her palm, Buffy felt the dam inside her break, and she stepped further into the circle of space that surrounded Spike to slide her arms around his neck. He initially stiffened at the embrace, but then, slowly, his arms coiled around her waist, so achingly familiar in the weight along her hips that she couldn’t help but mold herself to him.

“I can’t believe you came back,” she said into his neck. Repeating it over and over again did nothing to diminish the power of the awe that overwhelmed her, and Buffy squeezed her eyes shut to try and stop her sudden trembling.

No more running away. No more trying not to think about the hole that had been left in her life when he’d been gone. He was back, and this time, she wasn’t going to screw it up. She’d made too many mistakes over the past few years, lost too many people. She wasn’t going to lose him again. She’d do whatever she had to, to make sure that didn’t happen.

This time, she’d yank the amulet off his neck to get him out if she had to. Figuratively speaking, of course.

The comfort that Dawn had spent the entire day cultivating for Xander vanished the instant they saw the Council offices from the taxi. She felt him stiffen at her side, his easy smile sliding from his face until the hard shell was back in its place, and her hopes crumbled that she’d actually done him some good with the sightseeing jaunt. She’d just wanted to help him forget all the ghosts, the ones that he still allowed to haunt him, and while it had seemed to be working at various points in the day, now she could see that it had been only temporary.

“Maybe I’ll just head back to the hotel,” he said when the taxi coasted to a stop.

She shoved some money at the driver, unwilling to let Xander escape even for a second. “Let’s just check on Buffy first,” she suggested. “We don’t even know how her phone call with Angel turned out.”

It was dirty pool, and she knew it, but appealing to his love for Buffy was the only way Dawn knew to keep Xander in the game. Reluctantly, he followed her up the front walk, reaching to hold the door open before slipping inside after her. They stopped short when Willow came rushing down the hallway.

“Don’t go in the study,” she warned, holding up her hands as if that would stop them.

“Why not?” Xander asked.

“Spike and Buffy are in there. They’re…talking.”

Behind her, Xander edged away, and Dawn glanced back to see the resignation in his eye. “It’s about time,” he commented. “Does this mean my work here is done? Please tell me I can go back to Somalia now.”

To both of their surprise, Willow shook her head. “Giles and I have been discussing what we found out today. We think—.”

“Wait. What did you find out?”

“Let’s go into the kitchen,” she said, turning to start leading them there without waiting for their agreement. “I’ll explain everything there.”

“So, you think Buffy messed up Spike becoming human somehow?” Dawn asked the question. Xander hadn’t said much of anything since they’d sat down.

Willow nodded. “According to what Wesley sent, the amulet was supposed to wipe the slate completely clean.”

“And Spike’s not.”

Xander snorted at her side, but beyond shaking his head, said nothing.

“Not if the sleepwalking is anything to go by,” Willow said, though her eyes kept straying to Xander. “And don’t forget the dreams. Those shouldn’t be there, either.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means, this isn’t over by a longshot,” Xander finally said. “It means, Willow and Giles want to figure out what went wrong.”

“Actually,” Willow said, “Buffy and Spike want that. We were ready to call it quits until they said something.”

“And I’m stuck here because you need my help.”

Dawn turned confused eyes to Xander. “How do you get that?”

“Spike’s sleepwalking. Out of all of us, I’m the one who’s seen the most of it.” He stared at Willow, who colored slightly beneath his intense gaze. “You want me to try talking to him when he tries it again, don’t you?”

“You and Buffy both. Maybe, between the two of you, we can find the part that’s missing from the puzzle. Why Spike can’t seem to settle. It all comes back to that.”

“It always does,” Xander muttered.

He looked defeated. Boldly, Dawn reached across and took his hand in hers, offering him what she hoped was a comforting smile. “Just so you know,” she said when he looked at her, “this was so not what I had in mind when I said we should check in.”

“I know.” He didn’t remove his hand from her grasp, but stood up, pulling her with him. “We’re going to go back to the hotel, Will. Get a bite to eat. When you’re ready for me to start with the Newhart, just call. I’ll do what I can.”

Dawn followed Xander as he headed back outside, staying quiet until they had rounded the corner of the block. “You didn’t even argue with her,” she finally said.

“What would’ve been the point?” he countered. “Willow would’ve kept bugging me about it until I said yes. Plus this way, I don’t have to see the look of disappointment on Buffy’s face, either.”

“Is that what you think?” She dragged him to a halt. “That we’re all disappointed in you?”

“I think…” he started, and then stopped, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Let’s just go eat, OK?”

She didn’t move when he started to walk again. “You’re wrong. About all of it. None of us feel like that. If anything, the one who’s disappointed in you…is you , Xander.”

“Well, somebody’s got to do it. Might as well be me.”

“Oh, that’s real mature. It’s a good thing Anya isn’t alive to hear you talking like this. She’d kick you around the block for being so stupid.”

His shoulders hitched, and he halted where he stood, slowly turning around to glare at her. “You said you wouldn’t mention Anya today,” he accused, his voice low

Dawn folded her arms across her chest. “That was before you started being such a dumbass.”

The surprise name-calling seemed to jolt him from the funk he’d settled in again. “Did you just call me a dumbass ?”

“Do you need me to repeat it? Because I can. Dumb—“

“No, thank you, I heard it fine the first time.” He shook his head in annoyed disbelief. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

She took a step closer. These were important words, and she’d been dying to say them all day. She didn’t want to run the risk of him missing a single one.

“I’m tired of seeing you shove us all away,” she said. “I’m tired of pretending that I think it’s fine that you keep punishing yourself. Anya’s dead , Xander. Nothing’s going to change that. She wasn’t wearing a mystical amulet to save her, and she doesn’t have nine demon lives to cash in to come back. She’s gone. Why do you want to be so gone, too?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then that’s going to make two of us. Except…you see everybody else, Xander. You look around, and you can tell what’s right and what’s wrong, and you see what we really are. Why is it you can’t see yourself?”

“You think I don’t?” He was going pale beneath his tan. “Do you really think I don’t know what a wash-up I am? Spike’s not the only one who can regale you with all the colors of Africa. Except I can do with it with one eye closed.”

She ignored his joke. “You’re not a wash-up. You just miss Anya. And there’s nothing wrong with that if you don’t let it stop you from going on. But you haven’t. You’re still beating yourself up about it. I don’t get it.”

A woman walking by shot them a curious look, making Xander turn away from the street to lean heavily against the iron fence that lined the walk. “Because I never…” His voice was so low, Dawn had to step closer in order to hear him. “I never got to tell Anya how sorry I was,” he finished. “For all the shit. Things were just starting to get good again, and then…”

He stopped, unable to go on. She knew he’d had to rip the words out of his heart in order to say them.

Carefully, tenderly, Dawn leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek, tasting the salt there for the briefest of moments. “Don’t you think she already knows that?” she whispered. ” We saw it. There’s no way Anya didn’t, too.”

When he started to crumble, she wrapped her long arms around him and held him tight.

This time, he didn’t fight her embrace.

This time, Xander hugged her back.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 13″]

Chapter 13: Whenever Your Memory Feeds My Soul

There was one part of Willow and Giles’ plan that Buffy hated.

“That’s ridiculous,” she argued. “What difference is it going to make?”

“Potentially, a very dangerous one,” Giles said. “Think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will. If we tell Spike what our intentions are, in his current state, it’s very conceivable his subconscious will do everything it can to make it come true. His desire for answers is almost as great as yours.”

“It wouldn’t be real,” Willow added. “He’d likely make up the answers we wanted to hear, and we could end up chasing down dead ends while the truth manages to slip out of our grasp. You don’t want that, do you?”

Buffy begrudgingly conceded that point. It would be stupid to do all this and not get what they were looking for.

“But I still don’t like keeping him in the dark,” she groused. “He deserves better than that now.”

“I know.” Willow’s smile was soft, her eyes understanding. “But it’s just temporary. Hopefully, when this is all over, Spike will be able to take what we find out and go on to lead a happy, normal life.”

It was all Buffy could do not to scream out loud at that word. Normal . She hated it. Somehow or other, it always managed to come back to haunt her.

So, she waited.

When the phone rang, Buffy was the one who leapt from her seat to answer it before the first ring could die out.

“He’s moving,” Xander said evenly.

She exhaled. Showtime. “You have your cell phone in case he doesn’t come straight to the Council offices?” she asked.

“Always. But…he’s coming. Trust me.”

They’d freed every impediment they could think of to clear Spike’s path. The front door was unlocked, and Buffy waited in the front study, saving the need for him to wander throughout the house. She wasn’t alone in waiting for him to arrive, but Giles, Willow and Dawn hovered along the far wall, obscured from easy sight in order to make the confrontation as easy as possible for Spike. If his Buffy beacon worked correctly, it would take very little time to get to the Council offices and find her. Then, they could start trying to get some real answers from Spike, with everybody who wasn’t her in the background ready to translate.

Xander was right.

He came. It only took Spike five minutes from the moment he stepped out of the hotel to the moment he opened the study door.

They kept the room dimly lit, the overhead lights off, the primary source of illumination the glow from the fireplace. Even without being able to see him as clearly as she could during the day, Buffy recognized that she would’ve noticed the differences between waking Spike and sleeping Spike regardless. William was gone. This was the vampire who’d swaggered with his false bravado around the edges of her life, barely restrained power in every move, eyes almost feral as they ate her up.

This was the man who looked at her now as if she was his last lifeline in a sinking world.

“‘There be none of Beauty’s daughters with a magic like Thee,'” he murmured, crossing the threshold of the study door to saunter to a standstill in front of her. His gaze swept over her, seemingly not noticing the nervous twisting of her hands behind her back, before returning to her face, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a soft smile. “‘And like music on the waters is thy sweet voice to me.'”

Her heart pounded inside her chest. She could get used to this poetry thing.

“But I haven’t said anything to you,” Buffy said. Beyond Spike’s shoulder, she saw Xander slip into the room and take a place near the couch, separate from the others but ready should translation be necessary. “What is it you think I’ve said?”

“‘What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my highest name as I approach?'”

He looked at her with such expectation that Buffy cringed at the thought of telling him she had no idea what he’d just said. Part of her wanted to tell him to go back to the other words, the ones that likened her to magic and all things beautiful. It probably made her a little shallow, but at least she understood him then.

Her confusion must’ve shown in her face. “I believe he thinks you’re calling to him,” Giles said softly, his disembodied voice somehow soothing as it echoed from the shadows.

“That’s how Spike always said the dreams were,” Xander chimed in.

“But, what’s this highest name stuff?” she asked, though she didn’t tear her eyes away from the man who stood before her.

“It could be something on a metaphysical level,” Willow offered. “Your soul calling out to his, maybe? Actually, that’s kind of romantic.”

With the discussion of his meaning occurring around him, Spike became aware of the others in the room, and slowly, turned his head to sweep his gaze over the darkness. He settled on Xander, and Spike’s eyes bored into him. “‘Who among you would not cross the seas, traverse deserts, go over mountains and valleys to reach the woman whom his spirit has chosen?'” he said.

Even in the murk, Buffy could see Xander blanch.

“Yeah, I think soul to soul is probably a good guess,” Dawn commented wryly.

“Spike…” Buffy said, reaching out to touch his arm.

His head swiveled back, his skin glowing from the reflection of the fire. “‘I found you and I lost you, all on a golden day. But when I dream of you, dear, it is always brimming May.'”

Her eyes burned when he reached to run a single finger along the line of her jaw. “Sometimes I dream about you, too,” she murmured.

For some reason, that made him recoil, surprise widening his eyes. “‘Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?'” he asked, desperation leaking into his tone.

“Voices?” Buffy shook her head. “No. I just meant—.”

“Wait,” Willow interrupted. There was a soft rustle of fabric, and, out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw her friend lean toward the others. “Do you think he might mean that one literally?” she asked them, quieter, as if she didn’t want to disturb the scene playing out in front of the fireplace. “He deliberately chose a quote that said ‘voices.’ Plural. Maybe it’s not just Buffy he’s hearing.”

“He mentioned something like that back in Cairo,” Xander said. “And that first night I saw him, he got all worked up and was shouting at someone before he passed out. I don’t think it was Buffy.”

“Is that it?” Buffy’s eyes searched Spike’s, wanting to find something—anything—that would help her understand. “Is someone else trying to talk to you, too?”

He paused, tilting his head as he pondered his next words, his gaze shifting to focus on something beyond her. “‘There is a…knocking in the skull,'” he murmured. “‘An endless shout of something…beating on a wall and crying, ‘Let me out!'” His eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out something only he could hear. “‘No heart can share the terror that haunts his monstrous dark.'” Blindly, Spike reached up, wove his fingers into his unruly curls as if to try and hold in some escaping thought. “‘When flesh is linked with eager flesh, and words run warm and full, I think that he is loneliest then, the captive in the skull.'”

She might not understand completely the words he chose to utter, but Buffy could understand pain and terror when she heard it. Stepping forward, she stretched to loosen the grip he had on his head, meeting his eyes when they shot open to stare at her in stark disquiet.

“You don’t have to be lonely any more,” she said firmly. “I’m here now. That’s why you were looking for me, right?”

Slowly, Spike shook his head.

Buffy was about to ask him to try and explain it for her, why he was looking for her then, when she heard…

“He’s trapped.” Dawn’s voice was barely a whisper, but even that muted hush made Spike twitch. “Wherever it is, he can’t get out. What he’s hearing…it’s someone screaming for help.”

This time, he nodded. “‘I see myself forgotten like those old anchors,'” Spike whispered.

Then…she knew. She saw the naked fear in his eyes, and Buffy knew.

“It’s you,” she breathed. “Oh, my god. All of this…what did I do to you?”

“Sshhhh,” Spike said, and it was just like it had been that last year in Sunnydale, when her distress and her pain had been more important to him than his own. For the first time since arriving at the Council offices, he instigated an embrace, taking her into his arms, holding her warm and tight as her cheek pressed into his chest.

“‘Here is the deepest secret nobody knows,'” he said, his lips brushing against the top of her head. “‘Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life—.'”

“Spike read e.e. cummings?” Buffy heard Giles whisper.

“Spike loved e.e. cummings,” Dawn whispered back.

“‘—and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart…'”

She’d missed some of what he’d said in the middle, but Buffy had a feeling that wasn’t the important part anyway. She swallowed down the lump in her throat as his mouth pressed a kiss against her temple.

“‘I carry your heart,'” he murmured. “‘I carry it in my heart.'”

I love you.

No, you don’t, but thanks for saying it.

That couldn’t be what he was referring to, could it?

“You didn’t believe me,” she managed to say. She didn’t pull back. She didn’t want to see his face when he answered her next question. “I told you, and…why didn’t you believe me?”

“‘When I feel, fair creature of an hour, that I shall never look upon thee more, never have relish in the faery power of unreflecting love,'” Spike said quietly, “‘then on the shore of the wide world I stand alone, and think ’til love and fame to nothingness do sink.'”

But the meaning of it was beyond her grasp, and she was shaking her head before he’d even finished.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no. See, the way it works is—.”

“Buffy.”

Though Xander’s voice was low and calm, it pricked her rising feelings effectively enough to divert her attention long enough to pull away from Spike and look at her friend in the shadows.

“I think I get it now,” he said. “It’s not that he didn’t believe you. It’s that he couldn’t believe you.”

“What?” Buffy shook her head. In spite of the fact that she knew Xander was the only one in the room other than her who knew exactly what had happened in the Hellmouth before its collapse, she didn’t know how he could say what he did. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“He was dying, Buffy. And he knew it. He couldn’t believe you because then…” For a moment, Xander’s voice grew rough with unspoken emotion, and she saw him turn away from her unrelenting stare. “…because then it would mean knowing what he could’ve had and never would.”

“‘Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul,'” Spike said, drawing her attention back to him.

Hope. She’d offered him hope, fragile and tender and so ephemeral for him in that last year, and she’d offered it to him at the last possible moment, when it was too late for…for anything, really.

And hadn’t she been the one to teach him that it was pointless to hope when it came to her? Wasn’t that what she’d spent that entire year after she came back proving?

“I’m sorry,” Buffy said. “I didn’t mean—.”

His fingers on her lips silenced her. “‘Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds,'” he said.

A log fell in the hearth behind her, the heat licking up the back of Buffy’s legs as the fire crackled and sparked. She couldn’t move.

“Not that I’m not loving the reunion here,” Xander said, breaking the spell that had wrapped around her, “but can we get back to the voices, please? Big ol’ jail o’Spike ringing any bells?”

“‘Thus, am I mine own prison,'” Spike said.

“That’s what I said. Big ol’ jail o’—.”

“No,” Giles interrupted. “I think he might mean that literally.”

“What?” Buffy’s eyes jumped from the Watcher, to Xander, and back to Spike. Only then did the last of the pieces fall into place for her.

“Last night,” she said to him. “You were trying to get me to go with you before Xander showed up. But…you stopped when I said I didn’t want to. And you’re still sleepwalking because…you haven’t gotten to where you need to be yet. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re trapped, and you just want to be…free again. And you need me to take you there.”

“Take him?” Xander asked. His temporary joviality was gone. The adult Xander who had taken care of the lost Spike for the past week was back. “Take him where ?”

Spike sighed and combed his fingers through her hair, coiling the ends around the tips as he fought to meet her gaze. “‘The living come with grassy tread to read the gravestones on the hill.'” Finally, his lashes lifted enough so that she could see the dark blue, and understanding passed between them as he fell silent.

“OK, that one, I didn’t understand,” Willow said. “Where is he trying to go again?”

Buffy’s mouth was dry. “His grave,” she murmured. “We have to go back to the Hellmouth.”[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 14″]

Chapter 14: Inside the Folding of the Land

Nobody said it out loud, but nobody really wanted to go. Reasons varied. None of them mattered. When the decision came to book the tickets for California, not one person voiced a dissent.

Dawn didn’t say anything directly, but Xander knew that she was glad he was going. Ever since her outburst about Anya, she had been increasingly demanding of his attention, forcing him to interact when he might not normally, encouraging the return to Sunnydale as his own grief therapy. Xander didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was only doing this for Buffy, and there was sure as hell no way he would admit to any of them that he was going for Spike as well. Better to just follow the crowd. Do what had to be done. He wasn’t the leader anyway. Never had been. Even after all these years, Xander knew exactly what his job was.

Spike had taken the news of what they’d learned with surprising grace. There had been a brief cloud of disappointment at being kept in the dark about their plan, but a quick intervention from Buffy seemed to blow it over. Of course, Xander thought that the small kiss on the cheek she’d given Spike had probably had a lot to do with his easy acceptance. He was swiftly getting past his fear of her. Xander wasn’t sure yet whether that was a smart move or not.

The only moment of discomfort came when Judd showed up at the Council offices to speak with Buffy. Nothing had been said again about their fight, but it was pretty clear to everyone who wasn’t Judd that it was over for Buffy. This time, Xander and Spike were there to witness firsthand when she broke it off, giving him the It’s not you, it’s me speech with practiced ease. Judd attempted to turn it around on her, using her confusion about her old boyfriend as a basis for Buffy to reconsider, but she held firm to her decision. The only part about it that Xander regretted was that nobody got to hit Judd again.

A solidly booked flight and their late purchases made their seating arrangements less than ideal. Willow and Giles took the two near the bulkhead, leaving a single seat in the middle of the plane, and a group of three in the rear. Grumbling, Dawn agreed to the loner, though the looks she kept shooting everyone told them she was less than happy about it. Xander, Buffy, and Spike settled in the back.

“I probably won’t sleep,” Xander said to Spike. “So there’s no worry if you need to get out and use the bathroom. Just poke me.” He held up a warning finger. “Not too hard.”

“What if I—?”

“It won’t matter,” Buffy interrupted. She took her hand in his and laced their fingers together. “Because I’m right here and we’re on the way to the Hellmouth. There’s no reason that you might start sleepwalking again.”

That seemed to appease Spike, and Xander turned away from the shy smile he shot to the Slayer. Yeah, he was definitely the third wheel here. Maybe he could get Dawn to hang out with him in the back and annoy the flight attendants. Anything had to be better than watching the googly eyes between Buffy and Spike.

Two hours into the flight, Buffy was sound asleep on Spike’s shoulder.

“May I ask you something, Xander?” Spike said quietly. He didn’t move, most likely from fear of waking Buffy. He just waited for the permission to give voice to his question.

“Shoot.”

“You said…I loved Buffy in my…previous life. Did she…love me?”

Xander sighed. Spike just couldn’t ask the easy questions, now could he?

“Your relationship was complicated,” he replied. “You had that whole mortal enemy thing going for you for awhile there, which personally, I thought worked out great. But then you fell in love with Buffy, and she died, and then Willow was all about the bad magic, and then Tara died, and…shouldn’t this be something you should be asking Buffy about?”

“I…tried. After we learned about the amulet’s powers. But…I couldn’t. I…kept hoping she would say something without my interference.”

“Buff’s not too big with the impromptu down on one knee confessions.”

“Yes. I think I’m learning that.”

They lapsed into silence, and Xander was glad Spike wasn’t pressing the fact that he hadn’t really answered the question on the table. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say. He knew about Buffy’s blurted profession while the Hellmouth was collapsing, but if she hadn’t brought it up with Spike already, maybe there was a reason for it.

Whatever it was, though, it sure as hell wasn’t that she didn’t still love him. Xander might’ve only had one eye, but there was no way he couldn’t see that.

“I want to say thank you.”

Xander sighed. It didn’t look like Spike was done talking yet.

“What’re you thanking me for this time?”

“For…everything, I suppose. You promised me answers, and it appears that I’m going to get them. I owe you tremendously for that.”

“Well, you can buy me a drink when we get back to London. That’ll call it even.” His small joke was met with silence, and when Xander glanced over at Spike, he saw a quiet resignation that left him unsettled. “Stop it,” he chastised. “I know what you’re thinking, and…just stop it.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” Spike said, though there was a lot to be desired for his attempts at innocence.

“Do you have any idea how much power you’ve got watching your back?” Xander said. He began to tick them off on his fingers. “You’ve got all of Willow’s mojo from the great beyond. You’ve got the best of the Slayers. There’s Giles and Dawn, who aren’t too shabby around a spellbook themselves, and then you’ve got me to make sure you don’t get too bored. There’s no way in hell anything’s going to happen to you in the Hellmouth. Buffy would never let it.”

Spike turned to look at him, his eyes dark and solemn. “I will not be returning from this trip,” he said. “I’m as certain of that as I am that…that…”

But he couldn’t finish the sentence. Xander couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t a whole lot that Spike was sure of these days.

“Those are just your nightmares talking to you,” Xander said, dismissively. “Buffy is not going to kill you. There’s no way she could go through that again.”

As if she realized she was being talked about, Buffy stirred in her seat, nuzzling deeper into Spike’s sleeve. Both men turned their heads to look at her. Both men relaxed without realizing it.

“I hope you’re right, Xander,” Spike murmured. Carefully, he reached up and disentangled a lock of Buffy’s hair that had gotten lodged in the corner of her mouth, hesitating before letting his fingers trail over her cheek.

So do I, Xander thought. For both of your sakes.

Landing at LAX was surreal, but the drive to Sunnydale was worse. The landscape that whizzed by on the other side of her window ached in familiarity, and while Buffy did her best to ignore it, chattering away with the others as if nothing was amiss, a flash of golden sand or a glint of sunlight off a passing car was all it took to make her stomach burn.

They were in two rented mini-vans, with a handful of local Slayers that Giles and Willow trusted to be discreet. Giles drove the lead car, with Xander following close behind. Buffy had specifically chosen to ride with Xander. She knew this trip was going to be just as hard for him as it was for her, and since he was the reason she’d gotten this second chance with Spike at all, she was going to do everything in her power to be there for him. It surprised her when Dawn insisted on sitting in front with Xander, though; apparently, they’d been spending a lot of time together since he arrived from Africa. Buffy made a mental note to talk to Dawn about it once this business with Spike was over.

Spike.

She tried not to think too much about him. The guilt that weighed her down for her role in this—whatever it turned out to be—was driving her to withdraw from everything but the most banal of conversation. She just couldn’t do deep right now. She wasn’t even sure what she was going to find at the site of the old Hellmouth; being so unprepared was something she was way out of practice with. It was taking all her energies just to stay positive about this whole endeavor.

When Giles pulled to a stop in the middle of nowhere, Xander frowned as he slowed behind him.

“What’s he doing?” he asked. “We’re still a good couple of miles away.”

“I’ll go check,” Buffy said, and hopped out of the van, glad to be free of Spike’s heavy gaze. He knew something was wrong, but he wasn’t saying anything. It was the first time since he’d come back that she was glad this version wasn’t so big with the talking.

Giles and Willow were squinting into the horizon when Buffy approached.

“What’s the what?” she chirped.

“The reports said that the area has been stable for over two years now,” Willow said, turning away from the blinding sunset.

“I’m sensing there’s a but coming.”

“Look.”

When Willow stepped aside, Buffy took her place, lifting her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the dying sun.

The horizon was flat and sandy, dry brush and the occasional greenery jagging the straight lines of the ground. The road that led to where Sunnydale used to be still stretched into the distance, but Buffy knew that it would dead end at the pit of her old hometown. The state had never gotten around to fixing the road that led to nowhere, just like they’d never really done anything about rebuilding the small town that just disappeared off the face of the map. They didn’t deem it “important” enough.

Buffy had always thought someone should bury the governor’s hometown and see how “important” he’d find it then.

Beyond the normal landscape, though, was something new. Clouds were darkening the sky, not the usual cover that came at night but huge, roiling cumulus that looked like someone had put a movie on fast forward. The wind had started to pick up as well, and Buffy’s hair began to whip around her cheeks.

“This can’t be good,” she muttered.

“It would appear that we’re expected,” Giles remarked.

“They couldn’t have just put out tea and cookies?”

“This close to the Hellmouth, they’d probably be like the cookies in Alice in Wonderland ,” Willow joked. “Wanna be a hundred feet tall? Have a biscuit. Feel like playing with the ants? Here’s a sip of Earl Gray.”

The sound of dirt crunching behind her warned of another’s approach, and Buffy glanced over her shoulder to see Spike and Xander watching the clouds dance on the horizon.

“Am I the only one feeling Twister here?” Xander said. “I don’t suppose we thought to get insurance against cows dropping out of the sky, did we?”

Spike looked up at Xander’s remark, shoulders hunching as if he fully expected the prediction to come true.

“I’m reluctant to drive any further,” Giles said. “Who knows what we might find.”

“You’re giving up?” The look Buffy shot him was incredulous. “Are you kidding me? We just got here.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what I heard.”

“I think what Giles means is that maybe we should wait a little bit,” Willow interjected. “See if this blows over, or if there’s some other danger we need to be aware of.”

“No.”

All heads turned to Spike, who was staring off into the horizon.

“I do not wish to wait,” he continued. “If we are not driving the remaining distance, I will walk.”

“Are you certain?” Giles asked. “You don’t know what’s waiting for you.”

“And how exactly is that different from before?” Spike asked.

Score one for Spike , Buffy thought.

“I guess it’s a good thing my boots were made for walkin’,” Xander said with a grin. He tossed the keys he held in his hand to Giles. “I hope your Slayers still have to do such mundane things as pass drivers’ training.”

Willow’s eyes were wide. “Xander, you can’t be serious. What if there’s some demon in there, waiting to eat your insides?”

“Then it’ll be just like the old days,” he replied.

“We’ll weapon up before we head out,” Buffy said. “And can somebody please remember to grab a flashlight? None of us have vampire eyes these days.”

“Buffy…”

Giles’ voice trailed off when he saw the determination of her stance.

“Nobody else has to go if they don’t want to,” she said. “But we’re here now. And we’re going to do this.”

She warmed when she caught Spike’s smile, but quickly turned her attention back to the vans. The Hellmouth was still a few miles away. They couldn’t afford to waste the little time they already had.

With the rising winds and occasional tremor beneath their feet, it took them over two hours to travel the distance to the edge of the crater. Giles stayed behind with the car rentals and the Slayers unwilling to make the trek, while Buffy led the rest through the rising storm. More than once, Spike stumbled, and if Buffy wasn’t there to help him back to his feet, Xander took her place, offering a broad shoulder for him to lean on when one particular fall left Spike limping.

Though night blanketed the crater with heavy black velvet, their flashlights were strong enough to reveal the fissures that split its bottom, leading down into even blacker hollows. At her side, Buffy heard Spike’s sharp intake of breath, and when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, she saw the unmistakable sheen of sweat on his brow.

“Do you remember any of this?” she asked.

The wind tried to swallow her words, but Spike heard her anyway, shaking his head slowly in response.

“What now?” Xander asked.

“We go in,” Spike said.

“In?” Dawn squeaked. “In where?”

Buffy knew. Without a word, she began the rough climb down to the nearest of the fissures. The others had no choice but to follow.[/nextpage]

[nextpage title=”Chapter 15″]

Chapter 15: Holding Infinites in the Palm of Your Hand

All his travels in Africa had prepared Xander for the arduous descent into the chasm in the dried earth, knowledgeable in where to put his feet, versed in how sand could shift without notice below his next step. In a way, it was almost comforting, climbing down into darkness with only the power of his hands and the memory of his muscles to guide his way. So much was still unanswered inside his mind, but this gave no latitude for hesitation. Keep moving or be crushed beneath the weight of the storm above. Even if he didn’t know the final destination, the relief having decision taken from his hands was sublime.

Not everyone had it as easy as he did. Spike was unused to such physical labor and fell more than once, drawing blood with every tumble. Buffy was there when Xander couldn’t get to him in time, giving him strength to keep going, while Xander guided both Spike and the group around and past the fissure’s dangers. The irony didn’t escape him; the one-eyed man seemed to be the only one not blind in this particular milieu.

The others had mixed skills, the Slayers having the easiest time of it and Dawn and Willow the worst. Willow, at least, had her mojo on her side, and when things got rough, there’d be a little flash and his old friend would be back on her feet, smiling in rueful apology for having to resort to those kind of tricks.

Dawn’s coltish grace, however, had her limbs flying every time she slipped, askew and akimbo in ways that would’ve been funny if the circumstances had been anything other than what they were. Xander watched her pick herself up the first time, but at the second, he made sure he was there by her side, his hands firm on her waist as he helped her get steady again.

“Figures I’d have to get you on the Hellmouth before you’d touch me again,” she said, so softly that he knew it was only for his ears.

Xander colored. “All you had to do was ask,” he joked, but when she smiled and his body grew hard, he choked back the rest of it, unable to give it voice. All innuendo and nobody to care for makes Xander a lonely boy.

From that point on, he made sure to keep as close an eye on Dawn as he did on Spike.

They reached what appeared to be the bottom of the crevasse and stopped, regaining their bearings. Overhead, the windstorm still raged, louder and more vicious than when they’d started, but the close dirt walls protected the group from the blustery gales, allowing them the luxury of forgetting it was out there at all.

It didn’t allow them to forget what surrounded them, though. Pieces of Sunnydale protruded from the rubble. A car half-buried, its headlights jutting into their path. A telephone pole snapped in half and lying across the dirt. When Xander saw a clawed hand reaching through the wall to grasp at nothing, he had to swallow down the bile that rose in his throat.

The only one who didn’t falter at the ghosts made real was Spike.

“This way,” he said, limping deeper into the fissure.

“How do you know?” Buffy asked, hurrying to match his stride.

Spike’s voice was stronger than Xander had ever heard it awake. “I know.”

On and on they walked.

Past mailboxes that were frozen in yesterday. When Xander saw one with its red flag sticking up, he had to bite back the joke about that particular mailman being really late.

Past bodies, both human and demon. The reports had been wrong, of course. Not everybody had gotten out in time.

Past landmarks that grew more familiar the deeper they went. A gnarled tree that looked remarkably like the one in which he and Willow had carved “We hate Cordy” when they’d formed their little club. A dusty fence that could’ve been an exact duplicate of the one Jesse had broken his ankle on trying to vault over. The stone wall of the cemetery in which Miss Calendar and Mrs. Summers were both buried.

Past the miles and miles of dead. Xander knew with his head that it wasn’t that far, but his heart wasn’t privy to those sort of details.

At some point along their path, Dawn’s hand slipped into his. Nobody said anything, and he didn’t let go.

They came to a stop before a huge hole in the earthen wall. “This is it,” Spike said. It wasn’t more than a whisper, but in the eerie silence of the fissure, it boomed.

Buffy had gone pale, and her knuckles were white from how tightly she clenched the stake in her hand. Xander thought it was funny how nobody had bothered to say anything about her choice. Odds were that they weren’t going to find any vampires anyway, but it just seemed right that Buffy would return to the Hellmouth with the first weapon to prove its loyalty to her.

“Let’s do it,” she said. She turned to Willow. “I don’t think our flashlights are going to be as good in there. Can you do something about the light sitch?”

Willow nodded and a second later, a soft golden ball bobbed ahead of them, leading the way into the bowels of the hole.

Everybody followed. Spike was the first in line.

It didn’t take long for Xander to realize where exactly they were. The light revealed the cold walls he’d built with his own hands, the hinges he’d put into place with a pride that seemed out of place now. His eye burned when he realized that if he turned around, he could conduct the search for Anya’s body that he’d been denied that last day in Sunnydale High School.

He didn’t, though. The weight of Dawn’s hand in his stopped him.

What changed the direction of his feet was Spike. He was the one who led them deeper into the high school, into the basement and below the seal that still stood open. The floor was a jigsaw, broken in the middle from the force of the amulet’s power that had broken free upon its use, and they had to be careful to avoid falling to more certain injuries than those they already sported. They descended single-file, but Xander was forced to a halt when the front of the line stopped moving.

“Oh, my god,” he heard Buffy whisper.

“‘To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower,'” Spike murmured, just as awe-struck, “‘hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.'”

Dawn leaned toward Xander. “Did Spike fall asleep again?” she asked. “Because that’s Blake he’s quoting.”

“I don’t think so.” He loosened his hold on her hand and edged around the Slayer in front of him, climbing down step by step to join Buffy at the bottom.

When he got there, he almost wished he hadn’t moved from his nice comfy spot in front of Dawn. He stared at the sight before him, both disbelieving and not at what he saw. After all, it made sense in a sick, Hellmouthy kind of way. But if it played out anything like the last time, it was going to kill Buffy to have to live through.

His heart broke for his friend.

A flicker of motion drew Xander’s attention away from the tableau and down to Buffy. He watched as Spike curled his hand into hers.

Correction.

It broke for both of them.

<>
She hadn’t expected this. Truth be told, she hadn’t known what she expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t this.

In spite of the damage done above, the cavern where the battle with the Turok-Han had occurred was mostly intact, the edge of the precipice still dusted with the ash of all those dead vampires. She saw Amanda’s body exactly where it had fallen, saw the body of the French girl who Buffy had caught peeping at Spike more than once, saw all the girls who hadn’t made it out with the rest of them.

And she saw Spike.

Not the Spike whose warm hand was sweating against hers. That one was at her side, breathing heavily, whispering poetry like a mantra designed specifically to soothe his fluttering nerves.

No.

She saw the other Spike. The trapped one. The one who’d apparently been calling out across thousands of miles, through tons of dirt, calling for someone to finally set him free.

He stood exactly where she’d left him.

Bathed in that same golden light that had erupted from his chest, he stood frozen in time, hands splayed against the power of the amulet. His mouth was pulled back into a wicked grin, and his eyes glittered with some unknown glee. Flames, caught in mid-dance, licked up and around his limbs.

Her chest was tight. He’d been so ready to take it on, jumping into the fray as only Spike could. If she’d known that this was how he had died, it might’ve been easier to remember the whole of that particular day instead of just the parts that didn’t cause her direct pain.

“I don’t get it,” she heard Xander say behind her. “They should all be bones now.” She realized he was referring to all of them, all the bodies that should’ve spent the past three years decomposing. “What happened?”

“Buffy happened,” Spike said quietly.

Her head jerked around to stare at him, but he was already gazing down at her, his eyes soft with something she realized she hadn’t seen in them since his return. “What’re you talking about?” she said.

His head tilted toward the scene before them. “This. I understand now. I know what happened.” The corner of his mouth lifted, just as his other hand reached up to cup her cheek. “I remember.”

“Tell me then. Because this…this isn’t…”

“Sshh…” He silenced her by leaning in for a kiss, and though it was the first time she’d felt his lips on hers in this incarnation, the unfamiliar warmth of his mouth was overshadowed by the delicate memory of his touch.

“It was your strength,” he said when they parted. “Your strength joined with that of the amulet, and it…” He turned his gaze back to the tableau. “…gave it the power to make a snapshot, so to speak.”

“So this…isn’t real?”

“No, it’s very much real. Somewhere in there, part of me is still alive.”

Slowly, he extricated his fingers from hers, but when he took a step toward the frozen-in-time version of himself, Buffy grabbed his arm.

“What’re you doing?” she asked in sudden terror.

“What we came here to do.”

Though he pulled at her grip, she refused to let him go. Somehow, she knew that if she did, everything would change again.

“Don’t do this,” she begged. She hated that she was pleading, but after everything, pride was not something Buffy thought she could afford. “Please. What good can possibly come of it?”

He looked at her. Smiled softly. Said the one thing that could shatter her resolve.

“I get peace, Buffy.”

Blinking against the sudden onslaught of tears, Buffy looked away to hide them from Spike as he continued to speak.

“‘I think and speak of other things to keep my mind at rest,'” he murmured, “‘but still to thee my memory clings like love in woman’s breast.'”

“More poetry,” she muttered. “Just great.”

“It was the only means I had in my sleep to communicate with you,” Spike explained. “I wasn’t…the first time I was alive, I didn’t always express myself very well.”

“I’ve always thought you expressed yourself just fine.”

He smiled. “No, you didn’t, but th—.”

Her hand shot up to cover his mouth. “Don’t you dare say that again,” she warned. “Do you have any idea what I went through the first time you did?”

Spike nodded and reached up to peel her fingers away from his face. “If it means anything, I believe you now.”

“And you’re going to go through with this anyway?”

“I have to.” He glanced back at his other self. “And you have to do it with me.”

Shock weakened her hold. “What?”

“It’s the amulet. It houses the power it stole from you when we…” Spike took her hand and gently tugged her toward the scene. “We must put an end to this together. The power is yours to take. I can’t do it alone.”

He was going to do it. In spite of everything, in spite of knowing how she felt about him, knowing that she feared the worst, Spike wanted to do this, to find the peace that had been denied him for the past three years because of her interference. There was nothing she could to do to stop him, but as she stumbled those few feet to stand in the middle of that stolen moment of time, Buffy realized that if she did the worst and physically prevented him from completing what he’d come to do, she’d lose him even more surely than if she plunged her stake into his chest.

“I always knew I wouldn’t be leaving,” he murmured as they stood before the unmoving Spike, but there was no sadness in his eyes when he turned to look at Buffy. “But I have you to thank for allowing me this one last dignity.”

Mute, Buffy nodded, though her heart was screaming inside her chest for him to stop. She let him guide her hand to the amulet that hung around the other Spike’s chest, and together their fingers curled around the ice-cold stone.

“I love you,” he said, and his head bowed to brush another kiss across her lips. “‘Yet if you should forget me for a while and afterwards remember, do not grieve…'” His warm breath tickled against her neck where he whispered the verse into her ear. “‘For if the darkness and corruption leave a vestige of the thoughts that once I had, better by far that you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.'”

And before she could do anything, his fingers tightened around hers to yank the amulet free.

One minute he was watching Buffy and Spike pull the amulet from the frozen Spike’s neck.

The next, he was spitting out sand as the earth pressed into his cheek.

“Xander?”

Dawn’s voice. Dawn’s worried voice. What happened? Did he black out and miss the big finale?

“Is he awake?”

Giles? What was he doing in the Hellmouth?

“I think so,” Dawn replied.

Warm fingers fluttered around his shoulder, and Xander rolled onto his back, blinking blearily at the sky above. He frowned when he saw the clear expanse of black, the stars twinkling in solitary grace. “What happened?” he croaked. Wearily, he tried to prop himself up onto his elbows, only to have his head suddenly spin as the world swam around him.

“Lie down,” Dawn said, pushing him back onto the ground. “The magic takes a little while to wear off. If you get up, you’re going to puke all over my shoes.”

“Magic? What did Willow do?”

“Gee, thanks, Xander,” Willow said from the darkness. She appeared at the periphery of his vision, looking dusty and tired. “Sometimes when magic goes kaplooie, it’s not necessarily my fault, you know.”

“It was the amulet,” Dawn explained. “When Buffy and Spike broke it free, there was this really bright flash.”

“Next thing we knew, we were back at the cars,” Willow said. “You’re next to the last to wake up.”

He noticed then that the winds were gone, that the clouds from the storm that had raged prior to their descent had vanished. Whatever had caused it, it was over. A weight seemed to disappear from his chest.

“So, how are Buffy and Spike taking it?” he said. “Please don’t tell me he’s still talking in rhymed couplets. I’d hate for that to be a permanent thing.”

Dawn’s eyes ducked, and Willow sighed. Neither was a good sign.

“Buffy’s fine,” Willow said. “But—.”

“Spike didn’t come back,” Dawn blurted.

The weight returned to bear him down even harder into the earth.

“Damn it,” Xander muttered, closing his eye. Spike had warned him about this. He’d known all along. It was just…nobody wanted to believe him.

“Where’s Buffy?” he said, suddenly shoving himself upward. He ignored the sense of nausea and stumbled to his feet, turning his gaze around and around as he searched for his friend.

“I don’t think this is a good time—.”

“It’s never going to be a good time, Will.” Then, he spotted her, a small, hunched figure in the distance. He always managed to forget just how tiny Buffy really was.

“She’s been like that since we realized Spike wasn’t here,” Dawn said quietly.

Of course she had. She’d been the one of all of them to believe that everything would be OK this time.

Shrugging off their worried hands, Xander began the walk to Buffy’s side, strength returning with every stride. By the time he reached her, he was feeling more like his old self. And…it felt good.

“I hate this place,” she said before he could open his mouth.

“Yeah,” Xander agreed, dropping to sit at her side. “Gotta admit it’s not that high on my list of must-sees, either.”

They stared into the horizon, and though it was impossible to see the crater of Sunnydale from this far away, the shadows it cast seemed to creep along the earth to touch their toes. Xander stretched his legs to reach them better.

“I’m doomed, aren’t I?” Buffy said, breaking the silence. “I find the man I want and then I have to kill him. It’s my penance for breaking Andy Thompson’s heart in first grade, I just know it.”

“OK, first off, you didn’t kill Spike—.”

“Do you see him with the rest of us?”

“That’s not the point. He wanted this. We both know that.”

“Still not feeling better here, Xander.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not right. This was what everything was working toward, Buffy. If he hadn’t found you, I’m pretty sure he would’ve sleepwalked all the way across the ocean if he had to just to make it happen. Do you know how many pairs of sandals he would’ve ruined doing that?”

The corner of her mouth quirked, but she fought against his attempts to lighten the mood. “I’m going to miss the poetry.”

“Well, I’m going to miss not being the only guy in the group again.”

“Judd was a guy.”

“Buffy boyfriends don’t count.”

“Then how does Spike count?”

“Because…” Xander sighed, turning away from her inquisitive eyes to stare again at the horizon. “…Spike’s pretty much always been the exception, hasn’t he?”

He felt her nestle into his side, and put his arm around her shoulders to hold her closer to his chest.

“I’m glad you came,” she said quietly. “I know…I know it was tough for you.”

“It would’ve been tougher if I’d stayed behind,” he replied. “I’m beginning to see that now.”

“Do you still miss her?”

It didn’t escape his notice that she wouldn’t say the name. “Yeah,” Xander said. “I still miss Anya.”

They lapsed into a comfortable quiet then, her breath warm against him. This was a better mourning than their first, he decided. Neither one of them was at risk of a hangover in the morning.

Then, he saw it. A shifting against the shadows. Something about it niggled at the edge of Xander’s memory, but he didn’t say anything, not when the shifting began to take form, nor when it started to solidify into a familiar swagger. It was only when it came ever closer that he relaxed his hold on Buffy, letting her slip away as he rose to his feet.

“I’m going to go make sure one of the mini-Slayers didn’t do anything to my rental while we were gone,” he said. “Why don’t you just sit here for a few more minutes until it’s time to go?”

She nodded in agreement, and he pivoted on his heel to head back as she turned again to face the yawning landscape. He’d only walked a few feet when he heard Buffy stand up, and he couldn’t help but smile at the sound of her starting to run.

Risking a glance over his shoulder, Xander saw Buffy making a beeline for Spike as he approached, wincing slightly when she tackled the other man to the ground. He heard Spike’s low throaty chuckle, a sound that had been curiously absent over the past week, but it wasn’t until Buffy called out to him that he stopped in his tracks.

“Yeah?” Xander replied, turning to face her.

Buffy and Spike were holding hands as they returned to their feet, and her smile was beaming as she led him to join Xander. “Look who I found,” she said.

Xander swept his gaze over Spike’s rumpled form. “Took you long enough,” he remarked.

“Yeah, well, had a few miles to walk, now, didn’t I? Not all of us could get magicked back, you know. Some of us were a little busy getting our different sides assimilated.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “I knew you watched my Star Trek videos when I wasn’t around.”

“So that Borg bird was a looker. Sue me.”

“So, are you still human? Or are we back having to put up with the sucking undead?”

“Still human,” Spike said. “Got the sweat to prove it.”

“And William?”

Spike’s face softened. “He’s still around in his own way. Well, he’s always been a part of me, but let’s just say I’m a little more willing to let him come out and play these days.”

Xander simply nodded. As the trio began the walk back to join the others, he listened to the soft sounds of contentment that Buffy seemed unable to contain. He didn’t need to look at her to know she would be glowing with happiness; if Anya had been around, she would very likely have made some comment about the benefits of orgasms for a woman’s complexion. It would’ve been awkward and inappropriate, but she would’ve made it anyway, because, well, that’s what she did.

For the first time in over three years, thinking of Anya made him smile.

---

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thank you so much to Sadbhyl for two reasons, for hosting the Sting Soul Cages Ficathon at LJ that prompted this fic in the first place and for beta-ing it for me, reminding me that I wasn’t screwing up when I worried about it being too angsty. If it wasn’t for her, I probably would’ve given up on this a long time ago.

I was assigned “Mad About You” for the ficathon. For those people unfamiliar with the lyrics, here they are:

A stones’s throw from jerusalem
I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
And though a million stars were shining
My heart was lost on a distant planet
That whirls around the April moon
Whirling in an arc of sadness
I’m lost without you I’m lost without you
Though all the kingdoms turn to sand
And fall into the sea
I’m mad about you I’m mad about you

And from the dark secluded valleys
I heard the ancient songs of sadness
But every step I thought of you
Every footstep only you
And every star a grain of sand
The leavings of a dried up ocean
Tell me, how much longer? How much longer?

They say a city in the desert lies
The vanity of an ancient king
But the city lies in broken pieces
Where the wind howls and the vultures sing
These are the works of man
This is the sun of our ambition
It would make a prison of my life
If you become another’s wife
With every prison blown to dust
My enemies walk free
I’m mad about you I’m mad about you

And I have never in my life
Felt more alone than I do now
Although I claim dominations over all I see
It means nothing to me
There are no victories
In all our histories, without love

A stone’s throw from jerusalem
I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
And though a million stars were shining
My heart was lost on a distant planet
That whirls around the April moon
Whirling in an arc of sadness
I’m lost without you I’m lost without you
And though you hold the keys to ruin
Of everything I see
With every prison blown to dust,
My enemies walk free
Though all the kingdoms turn to sand
And fall into the sea
I’m mad about you I’m mad about you

The End.[/nextpage]