Chapter One
“It was so embarrassin’. I think my face must have turned so red, and h-he didn’t even shut the door before he ran away. I couldn’t find him when I came back out.”
Doc Martens propped atop his desk at Wolfram and Hart, Spike laughed, a laugh that wasn’t tinged with sarcasm or sadness. After three years, he still got a kick out of the scientist’s witty stories and keen observations. She reminded him a bit of himself. . . if he were a young girl from Texas who’d spent a good chunk of years in a hell dimension.
Her cheeks pink even now, Fred leaned back in the chair across from Spike. “So now, whenever I go to that bar, I have to think about how Wesley opened the door on me while I was peein’. And he’s been avoidin’ me all week.”
“What I wouldn’t give to see the look on his face.”
“Now, you can’t go usin’ that as an excuse to poke fun at him.” Their romance hadn’t exactly worked out, but that didn’t stop Fred from being protective of the ex-Watcher; they’d only recently started to develop a tentative friendship again. Well, until the bathroom incident.
Staring up at the ceiling, Spike tried his best to look like he was legitimately considering the young scientist’s plan. “Maybe I should hold onto it until the next staff meeting. You know, to get the full effect when everyone’s there.” He could already picture Angel’s annoyed face.
Fred, who had started braiding her long dark hair, leaned forward. “You better not or I-I’ll. . .”
“Or you’ll what, pet?” He arched an eyebrow at her.
Fred narrowed her eyes at him. “Or I’ll. . . you know what? That could liven the meeting up a bit. If we have to listen to the history of the Torkagon clan one more time. . .”
Spike rolled his eyes in solidarity. “We should stage a walk out. They can’t make us listen to that drivel.”
“Really. They need to fire whoever’s in charge of the weekly trainings.”
“Agreed. Let’s start a petition.” Not that petitions went anywhere in the corporate quagmire that was Wolfram and Hart. Spike watched Fred pull her boots on over her skinny blue jeans.
“What’re we starting a petition about?” Gunn poked his head into Spike’s office.
“Abolishin’ the weekly trainings,” Fred explained, hopping to her feet.
“Oh god. Yes, please.” Gunn tossed Spike a sheathed sword and handed Fred a crossbow. “Ready for patrol?”
Spike was more than ready for Thursday night patrol with Fred and Gunn. Over a year ago, Spike had asked them to join him, and patrol night had become a weekly routine. He enjoyed patrolling the streets of L.A. with Fred and Gunn who also didn’t have extra supernatural physical strength. It gave him a chance to really stretch himself, keep himself physically sharp without having to worry about Angel and Wesley stepping in and saving everyone with vampire strength or magic respectively. On other nights, he preferred the company of Angel for very different reasons, one being that they knew each other’s strategies so well that they could hunt without communicating very much. It was like slipping on an old coat, familiar and somehow comforting – like something that molded to his body and moved with him as he fought.
“You know, you don’t have to go to those meetings, Spike. Only people who have to attend are the employees that signed contracts,” Gunn was saying.
Spike shook his head. Apparently, he’d been stuck in his head and missed bits of the conversation as they headed down the hallway. “Right. Well, I attend out of solidarity.”
“You just like to gripe about it,” Gunn noted, glancing back over his shoulder at the shorter man.
Fred hefted her crossbow to test its weight as she walked. “And find reasons to bug Angel.”
Spike made a face like he was going to deny their words, but then he admitted, “You’re probably right. Plus, I like to be in the know about what’s going on around here. Gotta stay sharp and up on my game.”
Fred dropped back a bit to bump her slender shoulder into his. “You just want to make sure all of us aren’t falling into something we shouldn’t be falling into with this place.” She looked all around them like the empty lobby had its own unseen eyes and/or ears.
“I reckon that’s true,” Spike said with friendly affection in his voice.
Gunn turned and pushed the exit door open. He patted his pointed wooden bat in one palm. “Let’s go.”
Spike was halfway out the door when he heard Angel’s voice calling his name. He turned to view the serious expression on the vampire’s face and knew something important was brewing. The emotion in his eyes told Spike that whatever it was had something to do with Buffy.
The heat rose in Spike’s face as his own battened down emotions came surging forward. He glanced back to Fred who gave him a little nod of understanding and let the door swing shut as she and Gunn headed into the night.
Spike approached Angel with an uncertainty he hadn’t felt around his grandsire in a long time. The first two years after Sunnydale weren’t easy for Spike, and there had been much grandstanding and sorting out of decades worth of unresolved feelings between the two. They’d gotten into more than one physical tussle with Spike ending up on the short end of the stick due to being human and all again. Angel wasn’t completely to blame; Spike had purposely fired Angel up enough and thrown himself into the fray without a thought to how it might go. There was once or twice in there that Spike had had his own death wish, but he’d quickly rebounded, and – if he was completely honest with himself – Angel had had a lot to do with him finding his way to a certain comfort with being human again.
Even though he knew Angel could hear his heart racing, Spike tried to sound calm and casual, “So, what’s going on that she’s coming here?”
“You know, the usual thing that we can help with: death, destruction, and imminent danger,” Angel joked, leading Spike to his office.
Propping the sword on his shoulder, Spike plunked down in a chair across from Angel as the vampire rounded the end of his desk. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Actually no, but Wesley talked with her. He left me some notes somewhere.” Angel’s desk was piled with stacks of unorganized papers.
Spike dragged his chair closer, so he could prop his feet up. “You might want to check your email. Ole Wes usually sends an email copy of the notes, too.”
“Right.” Angel stopped searching through the stacks with a helpless look on his face. “You’re right.” He pulled his laptop out from under a couple of piles and shoved Spike’s feet off the furniture. Opening the machine, he clicked a few buttons and began reading.
Spike ignored Angel’s push and sat forward, reminding himself to breathe and to not sound too eager, “What’s it say?”
“Not a whole heck of a lot. Something about vampires and. . .” Angel’s eyes seemed to skim over a bunch of details, “Buffy’s going to be here tomorrow morning.”
Spike’s brain couldn’t process this news or his feelings surrounding said news, so he fell back on old habits. “Coming to slum it with her old boyfriends.”
Angel sighed. “She’s not coming to ‘slum it,’ Spike. It’s something serious, or she wouldn’t be coming.”
“Something serious, huh? You aren’t the least bit annoyed that she’s showing up now. . . when she needs help with something ‘vampire’ related?” Spike stood and waved one very sarcastic jazz hand.
Angel of the past would have snapped back at Spike, but instead, he said, “I’m used to it by now. I thought you’d be, too.”
Spike wasn’t “used to” anything regarding Buffy, not with so much left unresolved. Sadness washed over him about what they’d had. . . what she’d said before he burned up in the hellmouth. His shoulders slumped and even the sword slid off his shoulder. “Right.”
Angel joined Spike and put his arm around his very human shoulders. “Let’s go find Fred and Gunn. We’ll kill some stuff. Make you feel better.”
Spike sighed. “Okay.”
* * *
Killing stuff in good company allayed Spike’s inner turmoil for a little while, but his feelings had come back full force when he was finally alone in his apartment. He’d spent the whole night mulling them over, and while they’d been an incoherent blur, they were now much clearer. With the clarity came sharp pain that he had forgotten he could feel.
Three years had passed.
Three bloody years had passed without a word from Buffy outside of the occasional postcard, Christmas card, or phone call about Dawn’s life landmarks.
Why hadn’t she been in touch?
Soon after they’d returned to L.A. from Sunnydale, she’d fed him some line about baking cookies, and he’d given her his trademark eyebrow lift, which shut her up real fast. She knew that he saw through her and that there was more to her running away than half-cooked dough. Something more than a simple analogy could explain.
Hell, he was scared, too. He’d even told her as much.
She left him even though she knew he was struggling. . . that he was trying to adjust to being human again.
Where had she gone?
Buffy had followed Giles around the world, gathering up the new Slayers and setting up training facilities and programs for them. She’d settled in one spot after about a year and tried to provide a stable home life for Dawn.
Spike understood all that. But why did she have to stay so separated from him after what they’d shared in Sunnydale?
And just when Spike was learning to live without her presence, just when he had created a new makeshift family with Angel and his crew, she returned.
She returned as if she’d never left.
He’d glimpsed her in Angel’s waiting area (since Angel’s waiting room was right across from the coffee station where he got coffee every morning).
She embraced Angel with an energy he’d seen before in their greetings. Thankfully, this time, she didn’t kiss the poof. Spike didn’t know if his heart could take it.
Wait. His heart could take it because he was long over her. . . with her thick blonde hair and glowing green eyes. He shivered but donned a mask of indifference, straightened his suit jacket, and marched into the waiting room, unflinchingly confronting Angel and Buffy’s sign of affection.
Buffy’s face lit up when she saw him. Angel frowned, and Spike felt his heart leap in his chest, but he pushed his feelings aside, keeping his face neutral.
“Spike,” she whispered in his ear as she hugged him tightly. When she drew back, she ran her tiny hands over his chest with joy and surprise. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a suit before.” Her voice was a little hoarse as if she’d been laughing a lot. He vaguely wondered with whom she’d been having such a good time.
He dropped his eyes from hers. “Yeah, well, you haven’t seen me in a while. And I only wear it to work on Friday. . . part of the dress code here. Actually, I don’t wear it unless I have someone I have to impress.” He paused to keep himself from babbling further and studied her again. “You look. . . happy.”
Buffy beamed. “I am. I am.”
“That’s wonderful. How’s Dawn?” He could still show concern for the Bit without seeming too obvious.
“She’s good. She started college this year.” Buffy seemed proud of her little sister.
“So she finally decided that she needed an education?”
“Yeah. Your little speech about schools producing mindless automatons didn’t help motivate her, by the way. She used that as an excuse for quite a while.” She was more amused than annoyed.
Buffy was bringing up things Spike had said years ago – things he hardly recalled saying. Did that mean she still thought of him sometimes? He mentally shook himself. “Well, she always did look up to me.”
“True.”
A familiar throat clearing filled the air. Buffy turned from Spike, whom she had continued touching, and smiled at the source of the noise.
Angel was expertly scowling with crossed arms. So much for being “used to” Buffy’s unplanned returns. “Shall we?” He waved her toward his open office door, implying they should leave Spike behind.
Even though Angel and Spike had developed a trusting relationship in many ways, when it came to Buffy, old rivalries died hard.
Intent on following Angel, Buffy broke away from Spike, allowing the air conditioner to sweep cold air between them.
Swept up in thoughts of Dru and Angelus from days of Sunnydale past, Spike shook off the feeling of déjà vu, swallowed the lump in his throat, and straightened his shoulders. She wanted to be with Angel. She always had. If that’s what she wanted, that’s what she’d get.
But Buffy turned back and grabbed him by the elbow. “Come on, Mr. Stoic. You’re involved in this, too.”
“I am?” He half-smirked at Angel without a lot of enthusiasm. “Good. I think.”
* * *
“Vampire Villa, I’ve heard of that before, I believe.” Wesley placed his fingers to his lips with a contemplative expression on his face.
Angel, Buffy, and Spike had been interrupted by the ex-Watcher before they settled down enough to discuss Buffy’s reason for being in L.A. As the only remaining person on Angel’s team who knew Buffy from the beginning or near the beginning, Wesley gave her a warm hug. Now, he was deep in the discussion. All Spike could think about was the story that Fred told him the previous night, and since it provided a nice distraction from Buffy, he was grateful.
“I have,” Angel noted. “And so has Spike, but neither of us has ever been there.”
“It’s a vampire city wedged between this dimension and the next,” Wesley said thoughtfully. “The Council never was able to uncover it. In fact, they believed it to be a myth, if I remember right.”
Studiously not glancing at Buffy or Wesley, Spike sat forward on the leather seat, touching the tips of his fingers together. “The city has no sunlight. Blood and death twenty-four seven. A vampire paradise.”
“Yeah,” Buffy acceded, “that’s what Giles said, too. But recently, something’s come up as a new inter-dimensional hotspot, and he believes that it has to do with this city.”
“And what does he want us to do about it?” Angel asked.
“Well, with all the Slayers in the world, the vampire populace has been thinned quite a bit. Additionally, we think. . . Giles thinks that the city has grown a lot and that there may be some sort of mystical push for it to spill over into our dimension. It needs to be investigated. Willow senses these changes in our dimension, in the Earth, and she said it’s pretty urgent.”
“Hmmm. We could check with the evil bunch here. See if they have anything on the place,” Spike suggested.
“Good idea.” Wesley stood. “That’s my area.” He didn’t appear proud about saying that. “I’ll check into it.” He nodded to Buffy. “Good to see you.”
“Very good.” Buffy smiled and reached for another brief hug.
Wesley exited, shutting the door with a soft click.
“Thanks,” Angel said belatedly after Wesley, who probably didn’t hear. “So, Buffy, what exactly does Giles want us to do about it?”
Buffy wandered to the open window. Sunlight poured over the furniture, spilling onto Angel. “I still can’t get over this. . . seeing you in the sunlight.”
Angel returned her affectionate look, and Spike wanted to roll his eyes but somehow managed to refrain. He could stand in the sunshine anywhere, anytime he wanted. And hell, she’d been there at his first sunrise in over a hundred years. This thought made him feel vulnerable all over again, so he deliberately tried to conjure an image of Wesley walking in on Fred in the bathroom.
“Yeah. Even Fred hasn’t been able to duplicate it,” Angel mentioned.
“Too bad,” Buffy sounded a bit sad, and Spike thought that perhaps she was pondering what might have been with Angel.
“So,” Spike interjected, disrupting the reverie, “why do you need us?”
“We’re going into Vampire Villa. The three of us to stop them from overtaking the world,” Buffy replied simply. “At least, I think that’s the idea. We really don’t know what their motives are.”
“What?!” Angel exclaimed.
Spike used Angel’s flurry to remain calm. “Now how would that work, love?”
Angel glared at his use of endearments with Buffy, but Buffy merely smiled. Damn her.
“Well, there’s a prophecy,” Buffy explained. “And it sa. . .”
“There’s always a prophecy, and prophecies aren’t always right,” Angel interrupted, thinking of multiple instances where they’d proved greatly inaccurate.
Spike snorted in agreement.
Buffy kept speaking as if the two hadn’t made a sound. “And the prophecy says that the Slayer who is a vampire and her two companions will stop the vampires from overtaking the world.”
“I hate to say it, but there’re two problems with that,” Spike said. “One, you’re not a vampire and never have been. Two, don’t we already stop the vampires? And aren’t there tons of Slayers now, helping to do just that?”
“Well, technically, . . .” Buffy started.
“The time when that boy’s nightmare made other nightmares come to life doesn’t count,” Angel finished.
Buffy gave him a pouty look. “Think about it. We three are probably the strongest warriors in this dimension. Who would be better to stop the city from crossing over?”
Spike didn’t feel like the strongest warrior anymore, despite being fairly adept at fighting the bad guys as a human. Hiding his insecurity, he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk as he had last night. “But you’re not thinking of having me re-vamped or getting vamped yourself, so how’s it going to work for us to go into a city of thousands, if not millions, of vampires?”
“It’s awfully risky, Buffy,” Angel agreed. “You and Spike wouldn’t fare. . .”
Spike interjected, “We’d be dead in short order.”
Buffy held her hands up, so she could regain the floor. “Well, that’s the thing. . .”
The door banged open, and Fred burst into the room with Wesley on her heels. “Buffy, hi!” she said breathlessly and with a little too much exuberance. Buffy gave her a wave in return.
Fred edged closer to Spike and widened her eyes a bit at him. He smirked a little at her, and she blushed, swallowing her nervous giggle.
Wesley held a book in his hand and read aloud, “There’s a prophecy. In the time of the. . .”
“We know,” Buffy, Angel, and Spike said at the same time.
“You got the part about the Slayer and the two vampires will prevent the vampires from crossing dimensions. . . ?”
“Wait,” Spike cut the ex-Watcher off, “that’s completely different.”
Angel uncrossed one of his arms and waved a hand in Spike’s direction, “Prophecies.”
“Highly inaccurate,” Spike noted, feeling some of the easy camaraderie with Angel creeping back into their interaction.
“Oh.” Wesley wilted a little.
“But still worth investigating. Disturbances in the force, remember?” Buffy chimed in.
“Right,” Angel agreed.
Wesley’s posture reinvigorated. “Fred here has a solution to getting you three to blend into the vampire society.”
Spike was bemused to notice that Fred was discretely trying to avoid looking at him and at Wesley. Instead, she focused on Buffy and Angel as she tucked her hands into her white lab coat. “Yes. Buffy, if you haven’t heard, our lab has found a way to blend magic and technology. We can create a spell slash miniature computer chip to insert into your brain to give you and Spike the appearance, strength, and feel of a vampire form without actually turning you into demons. You’d blend seamlessly.” She hesitated briefly. “That is, if you trust our lab. . . and the staff here. . . in this inherently evil establishment. We wouldn’t want you to do anything you felt uncomfortable with.”
“I trust you guys.” Buffy sounded more confident than Spike felt. Then again, he’d been “working” here longer.
“And what did our token evil representatives say?” Angel directed at Wesley.
Wesley clapped the book shut. “They said that what Giles and Willow suggested or found is quite true. In fact, they gave us the coordinates to an entrance from this dimension into theirs.”
“Really,” Spike said without removing the irony from his tone. “How convenient.”
“Willow gave us some, too.” Buffy crossed her arms. “We’ll use those, and be sure to check out the others. . . for clues or something.”
“Sounds good.” Angel rose and picked up the phone, knocking Spike’s feet away as he did. “Let me make some calls, and we’ll be all set.”
* * *
The doorbell rang just as everything in the skillet was sizzling out of control. Cursing to himself, Spike slung the towel on his shoulder to the cabinet top, placed the skillet on a cool burner, and hurried to the door just as the bell rang again.
He jerked open the door in a huff and was surprised to view Buffy standing in front of him. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and her hair was pulled up on the sides, giving her an aura of youth. She blinked up at him with a small smile.
“Buffy.”
She sniffed the air. “Somethin’s burnin’,” she teased.
“Yeah. My dinner.” Unsure if he wanted her to invade his personal space, he calmly blocked the entrance with his arm propped up on the wooden frame. Truth be told, his heart was hammering.
“And you look much better in jeans and a T-shirt. That suit didn’t suit ya.” She giggled at her own humor. “I wanted to see your place,” she said brightly, trying to peer around his body into his home. “Angel said you moved into your own apartment.”
“Yeah, and you’ve seen it. Now go away. I’m cooking dinner.” His words came out harsher than he meant them to, but he didn’t care.
Hurt drifted across her face. “Really? I can’t come in?”
He felt like she was requesting entrance into his heart. “Um, no. Not right now.”
“Why not?” Stubborn Buffy was emerging.
He was quite familiar with stubborn Buffy. Was he willing to fight her? He reminded himself that he should pick his battles, and he sighed. “Okay. You can come in.” Backing away, he held the door for her as she entered, taking everything in with wide eyes. “Not that I really understand why you want to come in,” he included under his breath.
Buffy stopped in her tracks and rounded on him, sending tingles of desire he’d thought long dead rippling over his skin. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
She advanced on him with her finger pointed. “No, mister. You said something. Something about not understanding why I wanted to come in.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Explain yourself.”
Bloody women always wanted explanations for everything. Still, the truth came flowing out of him like he’d been a huge water balloon, and she was a needle who pricked his skin. “What happened? I mean, between us. I know you don’t like to talk about. . . *us*, but I need to. If I’m going to work with you, I need to. You came and found me in Sunnydale on a *feeling*, and you never bothered to explain that to me. You just brought me back to L.A., stayed a few weeks, and left with your Watcher. Nothing was explained, and I-I was trying to be human again, you know?”
He couldn’t look at her anymore, so he stared off to the left. “You can’t just come in here after three years and act like you never left. . . touching me, coming inside. It’s not fair, especially after you told me. . . what you said in Sunnydale.” He inhaled deeply and tried to distract her from what he’d almost just admitted by being harsher, “So are your cookies bloody cooked yet? Oh yeah, Angel told me that you told him the same thing you told me. Only you told him first.”
Buffy stared at him.
He waved a hand at her. “Don’t worry, Angel didn’t tell me that sober. He was right drunk when he told me that one. So there, his precious reputation stays intact.”
Looking deflated, Buffy plunked down on the edge of his leather sofa, folding her hands on her lap. “I’m sorry. I-I thought I was doing what you wanted.”
Now she was turning on her tears, and Spike was falling for it. He wanted to fall for it. He sat beside her and spoke softly, fighting the desire to take her into his arms. Not for the first time, he wondered how human Buffy would feel in his human arms. One time was hardly enough to go on. “I don’t understand. What the hell did you think I wanted?”
“You wanted me to go. . . to be myself. . . to be strong. . . to be ‘the One.'”
Even though what she was saying didn’t make a whit of sense in any sane person’s mind, he found himself trying to catch her eye. “But Buffy, you don’t have to be ‘the One’ anymore. There’s more than enough ‘the One’s’ available.” He chuckled. “That didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
She sniffed. “Yeah, it did.” Wiping her eyes, she said softly, “I didn’t mean to cry.”
“You’re allowed. You got to hear my outburst. It didn’t come out exactly right, but it’s there nonetheless.” He was almost relieved that she didn’t pick up on his allusion to her profession of love before he died. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to pick the scab on that wound in his heart right now. Still, her fingers brushed his as he handed her a tissue, and he didn’t pull away.
“Yeah. I needed to go. I was twenty-two-years-old, and I had no clue who I was if I wasn’t special. . . if I wasn’t the Slayer, aside from Faith, and I-I felt overwhelmed. There were too many pressures from my friends, from the new Slayers, from you. Something had to give.”
“And that was me.” He kept his tone even and low.
“I couldn’t exactly give up my identity completely. It would be too scary to go from. . .”
“From being a Slayer who was responsible for so many lives to being one person helping just one other person?”
She nodded. “Uh huh.” She took his hand in hers, and he allowed the touch. “Your hand is so warm.” She smiled through fresh tears. “I almost forgot that it would be.”
“Did you figure it out? Did you figure out who you want to be?”
“Almost, yeah, I think so.” Her lips lifted a bit as she peered up at him. “What about you?”
Squeezing her hand and then letting it go, Spike sighed and moved back against the sofa. “I’m still figuring. Took me a bit to get my human legs, get used to not having extra physical strength.” He wasn’t ready to admit to her how much being around Angel and his crew really helped. “But it’s coming. I’m a work-in-progress.”
Buffy imitated his movement. “Me, too. You think we ever stop being works-in-progress?”
“Only if we’re dead, pet, only if we’re dead.”
“That’s good. ‘Cause I think I may need all the time I can get. A-and I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.” Spike saw the tears brimming in her eyes again. “Truly. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I? Think we can work together?” Spike asked, playing with the tips of her long hair that were grazing his bicep.
She smiled. “We’ll muddle through. Now. . . what’s for dinner? All that emotional release made me hungry.”