Title:  Separation Anxiety

Author:  Miss Murchison

Rating:  "Chiaroscuro" is mostly R and PG.  However, some content may be considered NC-17.

Disclaimer:  All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.  Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.

Thanks:  As always, to DorothyL, the friend who has read each of these chapters, provided so many great suggestions, and caught so many horrendous typos.  Thanks also to Serpentine (AKA Devil Piglet) for the feedback, and to Fran for reminding me about poetry.  And thanks to John Donne for providing the poetry, since anything I wrote myself would have been worse than William the Bloody Bad Poet’s efforts.

Notes:   This is a sequel to “Vacation."

        “He’s going to be late,” said Xander.  “What are they doing?”

        “Spike’s going away for a couple of weeks,” said Dawn.  “What do you think they’re doing?”

“I don’t get it,” said Xander.  “Not what they’re doing—with those two, that’s usually not too hard to guess.  But why does Spike win the fabulous trip to England while all the rest of us, including Buffy, are stuck in the demonic hell of Sunnydale?” 

Dawn dumped a bag on the floor of the hall and gave him a stern look.  “We’ve been over this, Xander.  There’s only enough money to send one of us.  We have the lock, but we can’t close the hellmouth permanently without the mate to the sword Tara found. Giles is convinced the sword is in England.  Spike knows the territory over there, and he knows how to identify the right sword.  Also, the Immigration people, in their infinite weirdness, have decided that they won’t consider Spike to be in the country for real unless he leaves and comes back again.  Apparently just showing up and standing in front of them isn’t sufficient proof that he’s here.  They need an actual stamp on a passport.  So it makes sense to send him.”

        “When you explain it like that, the magical sword part makes sense.  The Immigration part still has me scratching my head.”

        “Don’t bother to try to understand the INS,” said Buffy, coming down the stairs.  “Spike and I have both given up.  Their logic does not resemble either human or demon logic.”

        Spike followed her down and dropped a second bag next to the one Dawn had brought.  “Yeah, when Freud used to worry about what women wanted, it was because he was afraid to tackle the really strange thought processes of La Migra.”  He looked at his bags.  “All ready, I think.”

        Xander was about to help him carry the bags out to the car, but Buffy shook her head.  She looked Spike over.  He was wearing jeans, a red shirt, and a dark jacket.  Overall, he looked more presentable than usual.

        “Give me the jacket,” she said.

        Spike complied without question.  Buffy went through the pockets and tossed a stake and a set of picklocks on the dining room table.  “That’s okay now,” she said, handing the jacket to Dawn to hold.  “Arms out,” she said to Spike.

        “Don’t you want me to assume the position?” he said, but, again, he complied with her order.

        Buffy patted him down carefully, paying particular attention to his pockets.  She confiscated a switchblade and tossed it beside the other objects on the table. 

        “Can we go now?” said Xander.

        Buffy shook her head and pointed at Spike’s ankle.  He put his foot up on a chair, pulled up the leg of his jeans, and unbuckled a sheath.  He added the sheath and the dagger it held to the rest of the contraband.

        “Is that everything?” asked Dawn.

        Buffy looked at Spike.  “They won’t let you on the plane with that kind of stuff.  If you need toys, you can borrow some from Giles.  Now, tell the truth, are there any more?”

        “Want to do a strip search?” he asked.

        Xander groaned.  Dawn grabbed his arm and one of the bags.  “We’re going out to the car,” she said to Buffy and Spike.  “You two have five minutes.  Then I’m coming back in to get you, and I am not knocking first.”

        The door slammed.  Buffy looked at Spike.

        “There’s nothing else,” he said.  “And I would have left all that stuff here.”

        “I know,” she said.  A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.  “You just couldn’t resist the chance to have me feel you up one last time, could you?”

        “No,” he said.  “And it wasn’t the last time.  I’m coming back, remember?”

        She put her arms around him and buried her head in his chest, listening for his heartbeat.  “I know.”  She let him go and reached into her own pocket.  “This is to replace all the toys I made you leave behind.”

        He looked at the braided chain.  “A charm?”

        “Yes,” she said, putting it on his left wrist.  “Tara made it for me—well, for me for you.  Promise me that you’ll wear it?”

        “I promise,” he said, touching it.  “It’s a part of you, isn’t it?  There’s human hair there—yours, Dawn’s and—” he frowned.

        “Yours,” said Buffy.  “I cut it from the back of your head while you were sleeping.”

        “My, my Delilah,” he said.  “But since you gave it back to me, I assume it won’t sap my strength.”

        “The reverse, according to Tara,” Buffy said.  “I know it seems silly to you—”

        “Did I say that?”  He shook his head.  “Not at all.  It wasn’t so long ago that no one at all cared about my continued existence.  I’d treasure this even if I didn’t have confidence in Tara’s magic.”

        She moved to embrace him again, but backed away as an impatient hand rattled the knob of the front door from outside.  “Time to go,” she said reluctantly.

        Several hours later, Buffy reentered her house, trailed by Xander and Dawn.  They stopped, and Xander saw that his surprise and puzzlement was echoed in Dawn and Buffy’s expressions.

        “What’s that smell?” said Xander, sniffing the air cautiously.

        “I’m not sure,” said Dawn slowly. 

        “Me either,” said Buffy.

        “It’s—very different,” said Xander.

“Yeah,” agreed Dawn.  “But it’s also really—appetizing.”

        Tara emerged from the kitchen and smiled at them.  “Hi.  I thought you might not have time to cook after taking Spike to the airport, so I came by and made dinner.  I found a really good recipe for biryani.”

        “What’s biryani?” asked Xander.

        “A kind of African vegetarian stew.  I think you’ll like it.”

        Buffy smiled wryly.  “Thanks, Tara.  I appreciate it.  And I’m sure Spike does too.”

        Tara raised her eyebrows as if in bewilderment for a moment before giving up the pretense.  “All right, he did ask me to make sure you ate healthy foods while he was gone.  But I would have done this anyway.”

        “I know,” said Buffy, giving her a hug. 

        Tara went back into the kitchen, and Buffy turned and looked at Spike’s “toys,” which were still lying on the dining room table.  She reached out and stroked the sheath of the dagger, a nostalgic expression on her face.  Then she picked it up, set one foot on a chair, and buckled the sheath to her own ankle before sliding the dagger into it.  She wandered off to the living room disconsolately.

        “I guess it makes her feel closer to him,” said Dawn uneasily.

        “Okay, deeply weird,” said Xander.  “But I’m dealing.”

        “Hooray for you,” said Dawn. 

Xander had the impression that his mental health wasn’t her main concern at the moment.  He finally noticed the deep sadness in her blue eyes.  “What’s wrong, Dawn?”

“Having Spike gone isn’t exactly fun for me either, Xander,” she said quietly.  “And your attitude isn’t helping.”

        Xander cursed himself quietly under his breath, but couldn’t help expostulating, “What is it with you two girls?  Why are you so hung up on the most annoying guy on the planet?”

        “And just why do you find him so annoying, Xander?  What has he done to you lately that’s so horrible?  Besides saving your life, I mean?”

        Xander opened his mouth to retort and closed it again.  The words, “Spike offered to be my friend not two minutes after I said I despised him,” hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he wisely refrained from uttering them.  They would clearly make him sound insane.  He ran a hand through his unruly hair and tried to sort out his feelings. 

        When Buffy had announced her intention of locking down the hellmouth and forcing its demonic emanations deep into the earth, Xander had signed on for the battle immediately.  For a few minutes, it had seemed like old times.  The Scoobies would fight to save the world, and he would have a role in the battle.  Perhaps it would not be as prominent a role as Spike’s, but Xander knew that he could hold his own in a fight.  Then he had realized how important Dawn’s role as the key would be, and the small knot that had formed in the pit of his stomach turned into a case of permanent indigestion.  To make things worse, almost everyone except Xander seemed to have important work to do in planning for the attack.  It particularly rankled that Spike was on a mission abroad while Xander was left to console the womenfolk.  The fact that Spike would much rather not have gone away from Buffy and Dawn made no difference to Xander’s feelings of resentment.

        Tara came back out of the kitchen.  She was holding an envelope. “Where’s Buffy?” she asked. 

        Dawn pointed to the living room, and Tara went to hand the Slayer the envelope.  Dawn and Xander heard the words, “. . . held up with a refrigerator magnet.”  Buffy smiled and turned the envelope over in her hands thoughtfully.  Slowly, she stood up and went out to sit on the steps of the back porch.  The others watched her from the kitchen.

        “I’m going to stay here and help Tara,” said Dawn to Xander.  “You can help with dinner or go watch TV.  Just don’t try to talk to Buffy just now, okay?”

        “I wouldn’t,” he said.  “Trust me, there’s no way I want to know what kind of sex-crazed message that guy left behind for her.”

        Buffy ran her fingers lightly over the envelope before opening it.  Spike had obviously gone to the extra effort of buying good-quality stationery for this missive; most of his notes were written on the backs of PTA flyers and old traffic tickets.  This paper was heavy, and she could see lines of linen running through it.  There was some kind of watermark; she thought it looked like a lion.

        She didn’t want to go back into the house to retrieve a letter opener, so she used Spike’s dagger to carefully slit the envelope. The cream-colored sheets slipped out into her hands.  She didn’t focus on the words at first; she just admired the swoops and swirls of his handwriting.  This was a part of his humanity so ingrained that over a hundred years as a vampire hadn’t served to alter it.  The careful penmanship that had been drilled into the boy William more than a century before was more natural to him than breathing.

        Love,

A wise man and a good poet once wrote:

Oft a flood

Have we two wept, and so

Drowned the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

To be two chaoses, when we did show

Care to aught else; and often absences

Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

By all rules of justice and logic, I should be no better than a dead thing, a pale shadow drifting in the darkness.  But, somehow, thanks to you

I am re-begot

Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.

Love, if we could survive that trial, the need for this little separation shouldn’t be more than a passing annoyance.

You’re not one for taking orders, but I wish you will listen to me this once. There’s little enough time for happiness in any life worth living.  So don’t squander our time apart on tears, even if this trip should last longer than we have planned.  Instead, “when I am gone, dream me some happiness.”

You are surrounded by love and friendship, and I am on an adventure to serve the needs of the ones I love.  What better reason could we have to rejoice?

I can hear you laughing at that.  All right, I’m a bloody liar.  Being close enough to shag you is the best reason for rejoicing I know.  But if we can’t rejoice, we can at least smile.  It will cheer me in the land of fog and drizzle to know that somewhere in California my sun is still shining.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a letter like this, and my first thought was to prop this on the mantelpiece, as would befit a missive to a proper Victorian lady, but then I remembered you were none of that hellish breed.  I’ll leave it where I know you will find it—on the fridge.  Think of me while you’re looking to fill your belly, and eat well for your own sake and Joy’s.  And, Buffy, be patient until I can come home and feed your other appetites again.  I know I’ll be impatient enough for us both.

Be happy.

                                                        Your William

P.S.  I promised myself I wouldn’t say it again, but I can’t stop myself.  Love, if you must fight, be careful.

It was not signed, “Yours, William,” Buffy noted.  Just “Your William,” to reinforce that he belonged to her.  She read the letter through a second and a third time before folding it carefully and putting it back in the envelope, wondering how much it had cost him to put down on paper the kinds of words he was usually only able to utter at the most intimate of moments.  Had she needed any more reassurance that there was nothing he would not do for her, this letter had provided it.  She sat quietly in the growing darkness until Tara called her in to dinner.

        “I can’t believe we’re actually trying to follow these crazy instructions,” said Xander as his eyes skimmed the list he held.

        “They’re not crazy,” said Dawn, dropping a container of yogurt into the grocery cart.  “Spike just wants to make sure we take care of Buffy while he’s gone.”

        “Yeah, because she’s so helpless,” said Xander.  “She’s a Vampire Slayer, Dawn.  Does she really need someone to monitor her calcium intake?  Or make sure she doesn’t forget to buy toothpaste?  I especially like the ranking of that piece of advice—it’s right after, ‘Don’t let Buffy investigate activity around the hellmouth alone,’ and just before, ‘I took her favorite axe out to be sharpened.  Pick it up on Thursday.’”  He shook out the paper in his hand as he followed Dawn down the supermarket aisle.  It was covered on both sides with Spike’s elaborate scrawl.  “Do you see how long this is?”

        “It’s shorter than the email Buffy sent to Giles and—to Giles about how they were supposed to take care of Spike,” said Dawn. 

Xander’s irritation was increased by the way Dawn avoided mentioning Anya’s name.  All the other Scoobies avoided mentioning her around him, as if they expected him to start acting like some kind of idiot if he was reminded that she was apparently now shacked up with Giles.  Which was grossly unfair, because it was clearly Anya and the old Watcher guy who were acting like idiots.

Dawn continued her investigation of the dairy case as she spoke.  “And you should have heard the phone conversation Buffy had with Giles.  You would have thought she was sending a hothouse plant over there, instead of a guy who’d knocked around the world for a century or so.”

         “Just because they’re both crazy doesn’t make it right.  And dealing with this list of his is taking all of the fun out of having Spike gone.”  Xander cursed himself when he saw the dismay in Dawn’s face, but it was too late to take his words back.

        Before she answered him, they were both distracted by an ear-splitting scream.  They turned to see a small child, his face contorted with rage, shrieking at a calm-faced woman. 

        “I hate you, Mommy!  Do you hear me?  I hate you!”

        “I hear you.  But the answer is still ‘no.’”

        “I want it!  It’s the perfect one I need.  Nathan has a red one, and I want a red one too!”

        “No.”  The woman was calmly putting boxes of cereal into her cart.  “But you are about to earn a long time-out when we get home if you don’t stop screaming.”

        “I won’t stop screaming!”  The voice emanating from that tiny body had reached an incredible pitch.

        “You just earned that time-out.  And if we have to leave this store because you don’t stop, I will take all your cars away from you for the rest of this week.”

        This was obviously a dreadful threat, because the shrieking stopped.  “I still hate you,” muttered the boy, his chest still heaving.

        “I’m sorry to hear that, because I love you, but I’m very unhappy with the way you’re acting right now.”  She pushed the cart around the corner, and the child trailed her sulkily.

        “I’m surprised she didn’t just whack the kid on the side of the head and tell him he was a little monster,” said Xander, rubbing behind his ears. 

        Dawn looked appalled.  “But what good would that do?” she said.

        Xander shrugged.  “That’s what my parents would have done.”

He was astonished by the look of compassion on Dawn’s face.  “You mean that’s what they did do.  That’s the way they treated you.”  Her voice became angry.  “Xander, do you know how often I feel like going to your parents’ house and kicking them both where it would really hurt?  And giving them a piece of my mind?”

He shifted uneasily.  “It wasn’t that bad.  I mean, how many people could stay calm when a kid acts like a brat?”

“My mother could.  She would have done just what that woman did.  Besides, just because you don’t stay completely calm all the time doesn’t mean you hit a kid or tell him he’s a monster.”

“And what that lady did was that much better?  Think how annoying it must be for that kid.  He just screamed his heart out at her, and she didn’t even give him the satisfaction of letting him know he got to her.”

“No, but she said she loved him.  When he calms down enough to think about it, that’s got to make him feel better, Xander.  To know that she cares about him, even when he’s at his worst.   That’s what a good parent does.  She reminds her kid that he’s better than the way he’s acting.  I don’t think your parents ever did that for you, and that’s why you never give yourself enough credit.  You’re not your parents, Xander.  You’re the guy who would do anything for his friends, and that’s why I care about you.  You’re better than the people that made you.  But sometimes, when you talk like your father, you really piss me off.”  She pushed the cart around the corner, leaving him standing there.

Xander stood stock still for a full ten minutes.  He suddenly felt about five years old.  It was only fair; he now realized that was just the way he had been acting.

 

Spike slouched along a dark street, his hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans, and his shoulders hunched against the chill.  He looked oblivious to his surroundings, but his senses were alert to any danger, demon or human.  However, this block, like the ones before it, was deserted.  Recent stories of strange attackers and random murders had cleared the streets of this neighborhood after dark.

Since he had come to Bath to stay with Giles, Spike’s restlessness had increased and sleeping had become a chore.  During the day, he could manage more or less appropriate human behavior; well, at least, he could pass muster with Anya and a man who was in love with an ex-vengeance demon.  But at night, he found that keeping a human face was almost impossible.  He felt an almost irresistible impulse to jump into his other skin, so that he could sate his restlessness in hunting and killing.

But even if he found a demon to slay during one of his forays out on the streets, his longing for his family would not let him rest afterwards.  It wasn’t just Buffy’s presence he missed, although the sight and touch of her would have soothed him as nothing else could.  Dawn’s constant chatter, interspersed as always with insults and demands, would have been almost as calming.  Tara’s gentle, sane conversation, leavened by her occasional sly remarks, would have steadied him.  Willow’s irony, or, damn it, even Xander or Jonathan’s idiotic chatter would have been welcome.

When had he started to rely on other humans so much?  And when had he started to think of them as “other humans?”  You’re flattering yourself, my lad.  You’re no more human now than when you were a vampire.  It’s Buffy who clings to that sweet illusion about you—and about herself.  You know better.

This evening, Anya and Giles had tried to make conversation with him, but Spike found himself slipping back into his old sarcastic and uncommunicative habits.  Finally, his hosts had gone to bed, but not to sleep, and Spike had fled the flat.  He couldn’t help knowing what was going on in the next room, and he couldn’t bear lying in bed with his imagination filling in any gaps that his residual vampire senses failed to fill. 

Now, on the prowl for something to kill, he turned the corner on to another street.  He sensed both the creatures present almost simultaneously.  There was the vampire, its hunger almost palpable and horribly comprehensible to Spike.  He had felt that same need thousands of times.  The thing had not fed for days.  It must have been thwarted in its last attacks and would be merciless now.

The woman was middle-aged, healthy, and an obvious target.  Spike stomach turned.  He was sickened with the knowledge that once he would have shared that other creature’s hunger.  I can’t bear it anymore, he thought.  I know what I have to do, but I can’t stand to feel like this right now.  So he did the one thing that he knew would put an end to the guilt and self-hatred.

The woman was hurrying home, nervous and afraid.  She had read about the attacks in this neighborhood and had tried to be home before sunset each night.  But today she had been delayed at work.

She kept to the better-lit routes, eyes flicking from the shadows behind a parked car to the dark places beyond the glow of the street lights.  She didn’t see anything suspicious.  She certainly didn’t see the thing that grabbed her until it had taken hold of her, pulling her into an alley.

She opened her mouth to scream, but all the breath had been forced out of her by the amazing force and speed of that attack.  She was held by the huge hands of a muscular man in dark clothing.  Then she looked up into her attacker’s eyes, and her heart almost stopped beating.  Unkempt black hair surrounded a distorted and inhuman face with glowing yellow eyes.

        She pulled herself together enough to try to shove the creature away, but she knew immediately that the effort was hopeless.  This thing was incredibly strong.  It held her almost carelessly, pushing her face down and to one side, its attention focused on her neck.  She waited in horror for the sensation of its breath against her flesh, but she felt nothing until its teeth began to scrape her skin.

        And as suddenly as the monster had grabbed her, it was gone.  She dropped to her knees in the dirt and stared up in bewilderment and dawning hope.  She didn’t know whether to despair or cheer when she saw that there were now two of the creatures in the alley.  The new arrival was also clad in dark clothing.  But it was smaller than the first, with a mane of light brown hair.

        Although it was the much larger of the two, the first beast seemed terrified by the newcomer.  It was backing away and looking around as if seeking some escape.  But the smaller creature uttered an animal sound that could almost have been a laugh and launched itself forward.

Suddenly, there was a snarl of pain, followed what seemed to be a cloud of dirt that flew in her face.  When she brushed it away, the atmosphere in the alley had changed.  It was now still and quiet, as if the almost palpable evil that had hovered there had fled.

“All right?” The question was almost casual.

She looked up and saw a young man in a dark jacket and jeans standing beside her.  He was reaching a hand down to help her up.  Cautiously, she took it, and let him pull her to her feet.  The two monsters were gone.

“Did you chase them away?” she asked uncertainly, and then realized how ridiculous that sounded.  This man was slightly built and not much taller than she, although he was remarkably good looking in spite of his careless grooming and long, untidy hair.  His expression was ironic, as if he too saw some absurdity in the idea that he had chased away two wild creatures.  For some reason, it crossed her mind that he was dressed very similarly to the smaller of those two animals.

“Where were you going?” he said without answering her question. 

“Home,” she said.  “Just a few streets down.”

“I’ll walk you there.”  He took her arm to guide her out of the alley.  Once her steps steadied, he released her but continued to walk by her side.

She was anxious enough to get to safety that she accompanied him without argument, but she felt compelled to comment, “We should call the police.”

“Yeah.”  He seemed to think this over.  “No problems with that.  You can do that when you get home.  Tell them some nasty bugger in a mask grabbed you—I think there’ve been other reports of that this week.”

She was somewhat reassured that he had no objections to the authorities being called, although he wasn’t treating the prospect with much enthusiasm either.  She watched his profile.  He seemed distracted, but not agitated in any way.  It struck her how strange it was that he had not exclaimed or commented much about her experience, since he had obviously seen those two animals—those two men in masks—fighting.  It was almost as if he regarded the night’s bizarre activity as commonplace. 

She did not speak again until they turned the corner.  “My flat is in that building.”

He nodded and stopped on the sidewalk, watching as she hurried up the steps and unlocked the door.  She turned before going in.  “Thank you.”

“Get inside,” he said.  “And don’t invite any strangers in.”

It seemed a strange thing to say.  Did he think she was planning to invite him in?  Somehow, he didn’t seem to be referring to himself.  “Thank you,” she said again, and went inside.  She went to the window next to the door and drew the curtain.  He was standing there, as if waiting for something.  She threw the bolt to secure the door and saw him nod and move off.  He had been listening for that sound; his hesitation had merely been to assure himself that she was safe.  She watched as he wandered down the street, his hands thrust into his pockets.  It was not the walk of a man who fears an assault by masked assailants.  He moved as if he were assured of his own safety—almost as if he believed that he were the most dangerous thing on the street and that nothing else would dare to attack him.

Slowly, she went to call the police.  She would tell them about the masked men who had fought and run off, she decided.  But she wouldn’t mention the young man who had walked her home.  She couldn’t say why, but she was sure that keeping him out of it was the right thing to do.

Spike slouched along again, unsatisfied by his kill.  He wished he had found the creature before it had snatched its prey.  Then he wouldn’t have experienced that flood of memories when he sensed the vampire’s thrill at the smell of human blood.

It had cost Spike an effort to return to human form after dusting the vamp.  Everything had been so simple when he was in the grip of the Otherness.  He didn’t care about that poor creature huddled in fear on the ground.  He didn’t feel any guilt for what he had once done to her kind, either.  She was simply a food source that no longer appealed to him.  He had traded up on the food chain one more time, and that was all there was to it.

But the human part of him never really slept even when the Other was awake.  Not anymore.  And it had intervened.  It whispered that he couldn’t leave the woman to find her own way home after that experience.  She had been shaken and horrified; she needed the immediate reassurance of a human presence.  So he had forced himself into the guise of a bystander; he let her feel the touch of his hand and hear the sound of his voice.  It had done some good.  He could tell that it had, even though he had been unable to say or do the things that he knew most humans would have under the circumstances. 

        Buffy climbed into bed and looked at the clock.  It was too early to call England.  It was still about an hour before dawn there.  She thought of Spike’s letter, but she knew it by heart, and reading it again would only make her feel more alone. 

        She had started patrol at dusk and come home planning an early bedtime.  Either her pregnancy or the flood of trivia that had made her day hellish had left her tired and drained.  But when she entered the house, she found two brief messages from Spike on the answering machine, and she cursed herself for missing his calls.

She pushed thoughts of bills for household repairs, petty annoyances at work, and phone calls from Dawn’s counselor out of her mind.  Unfortunately, this left her plenty of mental energy to contemplate the empty space beside her on the bed.  The thought was not conducive to sleep.

Before she could brood too much, the phone rang.  She snatched it up eagerly.  “Hello?”

        “Hello, love.”

        “William.  I’m so glad.”

        “Why?”  His voice sounded worried.  “What’s happened?”

        “Nothing, except that I’m missing you.”

        “Oh.  You frightened me, love.  I’ve been lying here imagining nasty things and wondering when I should try to call again.”

        “It’s late for you to be still up over there,” she asked.  “Is it a rough night?”

        He was silent for half a minute before responding reluctantly, “Yeah.”

        It was as eloquent an explanation as she was likely to get.  “What are you doing now?”

        “Nothing much.  Your Watcher and I need to see a man about a sword, but we can’t meet with him until afternoon.  I was going to go out and wait for dawn, but it’s still too early, so I thought I’d try to catch you again.”

        “I’m glad you decided to call,” she said.  “I needed to hear your voice.”

        “Oh?”

        “It’s been a rough day for me too,” she admitted.  She didn’t want to burden him, but they didn’t keep secrets like that from each other any more.

        “How so, love?”

        “Long, and bright, and full of little things that don’t seem worth the attention.”

        “Your day and my night.  They won’t last forever, love, these nights and days.”

        “No.  We need to fill them with better things.”

        “Yeah.”  He sounded at a loss. 

        She shivered.  Usually he had the energy to look to the positive.  If he were beside her, she would know what to do to change his mood.  Suddenly, she said, “What are you wearing?”

        “What—uh, jeans.”

        “No shirt?”

        “No.  I started to get ready for bed, but there didn’t seem much point in getting undressed all the way when I was going out again at dawn.”

        Buffy didn’t need to ask why he was still dressed.  He had been prowling the streets.  No matter.   He was back safe, and there was no point in indulging in retroactive fears for his safety.  “Where are you?”

        “Lying on the bed in a tiny spare room in Giles’ flat.”

        “Alone?”

        “Of course.”

“Unzip your pants.”

        She listened and heard him comply.  “Touch your cock.  Are you hard?”

        “Yeah.”  His voice was pitched lower now.  “What are you wearing?”

        “Sweatpants and a shirt.  I had just crawled into bed when you called.”

        “Which shirt?”

        “The red one with the thin straps.”

        “Pull it off over your head.  Use both hands and do it slowly.”

        “I have to put the phone down.  Wait.”  She removed the shirt as he asked and picked up the phone again.  “It’s off.”

        “Are you under the covers?”

        “I was.  Now I’m feeling warm, and I’ve kicked them off.”

        “Are your nipples hard?”

        “Yes, but not from cold.  They’re darker than they used to be, you know.  From the pregnancy hormones.”

        “I know,” he said.  “Slip your hand inside your pants.”

        “I’m touching myself.  What is your hand doing?”

        “What do you think?”  He laughed.

        “I’m thinking about taking as much of your cock as will fit into my mouth and wrapping my tongue around it.”

        “Not so fast, love.  You’ll have me so excited I won’t be able to wait for you.  I’m still thinking about your breasts.  I want to touch them first with my hands, then to tease them with my tongue.  Sometimes, when I touch the skin underneath them, you shiver with pleasure, you know.  And other times, you start to giggle like a little girl.”

        “I’m ticklish there.  And I know where you’re ticklish too.”

        “Don’t be naughty, love.”

“I thought we were both being naughty.”

“I thought we were both being very nice indeed. You know, when I slide my hand between your legs, sometimes I can feel you come just from the anticipation.”

        “And from the memory of your previous performances.  Besides, we women have all the advantages.  You have me nicely spoiled, and I expect you’ll make me come more than once.  So I don’t have to feel guilty if I don’t wait for you.”

“I can hear from your voice that you’re way ahead of me.  Do you know how exciting that is, when I see how much pleasure you’re taking just from the stroke of my hands?”  His voice continued, lowering almost to a growl, as he described exactly how he would pleasure her.

        Her voice too grew huskier as they continued their conversation.  Finally, neither could wait any longer, and Spike’s words broke off in a long gasp.

Buffy lay listening to his panting breath, smiling gently as her own body relaxed after the intense orgasm she had just felt.  “Are you sleepy now?” she asked after a time.

        “Yeah.  The sun’s up here.  I can see it outside my window.  I don’t need to go out and look now.”

        “Your voice is fading.  You need to hang up the phone.”

        “Hanging on your every word, love.”

        “Never mind my words.  If we don’t hang up the phones, we’ll fall asleep like this, and Giles or Dawn will come in to find out why the lines are tied up.”

        “Bloody hell.  You’re right, love.  Good night.’”  His voice was slurred.

        She waited a few seconds. “William.  You’re still on the line.”

        “Yeah.”

        She sighed.  She was going to have to use her Slayer voice. “Spike, hang up the phone,” she said in a severe, authoritative tone.  She heard the click on his end and reluctantly put down her own receiver.  She smiled gently.  He had been genuinely sleepy and relaxed, at the end.  Buffy snuggled down into the bedclothes.  She was very drowsy too now, and it seemed to her that she was not entirely alone in the big bed as she faded into sleep.

        “You look rested,” said Dawn the next day.

        “Yes, I am,” said Buffy as she set a plate down on the kitchen counter.  “I slept surprisingly well.  No tossing and turning, and no nasty prophetic dreams.”  She looked up and realized that Dawn was still regarding her keenly.

        “I heard the phone ring again last night.”

        “It was Spike.  He tried calling one last time, and we—talked for a while.”

        “Everything okay over there?”

        “I think so.  He and Giles were going to try to find the sword again today.  He didn’t actually tell me any more details.”

        “And you didn’t ask?”

        “We talked about—other things.  And he was pretty tired.  The time difference, and jet lag, you know.”

        “Uh huh.”  Dawn’s tone and expression were knowing.

        Buffy blushed and let her hair fall across her face as she bent over, intent on preparing her toast.

        “You’ll get jelly in your hair if you keep doing that,” said Dawn.  “And the fact that sex has entered your relationship with Spike is hardly news to me.  If I hadn’t figured it out when I found you two in bed together, the news that he’d knocked you up would have done it.”

        “You don’t call it being knocked up when you’re married,” said Buffy.  “And, yes, we did get—get romantic on the phone last night.”

        “Good.  As long as you weren’t glooming and dooming.  That was obscene, back when the two of you used to stare at each other or at nothing at all as if your world was about to come to an end.  Things really improved after you two started, uh, getting romantic.”  She rolled her eyes at the euphemism.

        “No, Dawn, they didn’t.”

Buffy’s tone, as much as her comment, caught her sister’s attention.  “Excuse me?  I seem to recall that after he saved me from that dragon and you two went all starry-eyed, things got a whole lot better around here.”

        “That wasn’t when we started, uh, getting romantic.  That was just the first time you caught us.”  Buffy wondered why she felt the need to admit to this now.  Perhaps it was because her recent experiences had shown her how damaging secrets could be.

        “No shit!”  Dawn put her hand over her mouth guiltily.  “Sorry.  I mean, wow!  I wondered sometimes.  You were always gone, and even Sunnydale doesn’t have that many demons to hunt or hamburgers to flip.  But you acted like you hated him.  I couldn’t figure it out.   I mean, Willow gets into an accident and breaks my arm, and you get mad at Spike instead of her.”

        “I couldn’t figure it out either.  It happened way too fast, and way too soon, and it almost killed us both.  We were trying to figure out something huge, and it wasn’t easy.  I think we were doing okay until Xander used that stupid talisman to call up that dancing demon.”

Dawn grimaced.  “Yeah, Xander’s attempt at a quick romantic fix caused a lot of trouble all around, and it didn’t help him and Anya much.  But I didn’t realize that you and Spike—” 

“That spell made us both admit—or croon—feelings that we weren’t ready to handle.  Especially me.  I wasn’t ready to admit what I really was.  I couldn’t face the fact that I was sleeping with a vampire—again.”    

        “But he loved you so much.  It couldn’t have been that bad.”

        “As far as just the sex went, it was fantastic.  But starting an affair with someone who’s even more messed up than you are doesn’t get you un-messed up.  No matter how much he loves you.  Nothing else went right between Spike and me until after I got a grip on my own problems.  And after I realized how far he’d come in resolving his own—‘issues’ is kind of an inadequate word for what he went through, but you know what I mean.”

        “Yeah, you’re in Cliché Land.  You have to be good for yourself before you can be good for someone else, sex is evil—”

        “Sex isn’t evil, Dawn.  It isn’t good either.  Well, it’s good in the sense that—never mind.  What I mean is, it’s the reasons you have sex and who you do it with that says whether it’s right or wrong.”

        “But Spike was the right guy.”

        “But it wasn’t the right time.  Or I wasn’t the right girl.  At least not then.  Not yet.”  Buffy sighed.  “This is too complicated, and I probably shouldn’t be saying it to you anyway.”

        “Yes, by all means, keep protecting poor baby Dawn from the truth.”

        “I know you’re not a baby.  But you’re not all grown up, either.”

“Keeping me in the dark about this stuff isn’t going to help me grow up, Buffy.  I don’t need to know everything about you and Spike, but we are family, and you can’t protect me from everything any more.  And it helps me to understand just why things were so miserable around here last year.”

“I wish—”  Buffy stopped herself.  That was a dangerous phrase in Sunnydale.  “Let’s just say that things might have gone better for Spike and me if Xander had learned his lesson about using magic to fix his romantic problems the first time a spell went wrong.”

        “Yeah, but you know Xander. He has issues,” said Dawn slowly. 

        “Yes, he’s certainly on the list of people who have a lot of growing up to do,” said Buffy.  “Lately, Xander seems about ready for enrollment in kindergarten.  I used to think he was finally ready for marriage and a grown-up future, but after the melt-down of his relationship with Anya, I can’t see that happening for a very long time.”

“No.”  Dawn stood up and kissed Buffy on the top of her head.  “I’m going to the magic shop after school.  Tara’s going out of town again today, so I’ll be there until closing.  Wanna stop by so I can help you patrol after I lock up?”

        “That would be nice,” said Buffy.

        “You could stop by earlier and drop off some dinner,” said Dawn hopefully.

        “Count on it.  And I’ll stick around to help you eat it.”

        “Even better.  If you’re eating with me, I know it won’t come from the Doublemeat.”

        Buffy watched Dawn walk out the back door.  When had her little sister become so mature?  Was she too mature?  She hadn’t seemed shocked or overwhelmed by Buffy’s revelations. Buffy wondered uneasily just what Dawn was thinking about boys on her own behalf.  Her sister hadn’t been dating anyone seriously, as far as Buffy could tell.  So why did her attitude seem to reflect the wisdom of someone whose own heart was being tested?

        “I guess it’s true about pregnant women,” said Willow.

        “What is?”  Buffy turned away from the delicatessen counter to look at her friend. It struck her that Willow looked healthier and more self-assured than she had in a long time.

        “Eating weird food.  Since when do you like tuna fish with mustard?”

        “I don’t.  It’s disgusting.  That’s for Dawn.”

        “Oh.  I should have guessed.”  Willow laughed and helped Buffy collect their purchases.  As they walked towards the magic shop with the bags of food, Buffy felt compelled to broach a subject that she had only touched on briefly with her friend over the past few weeks.  “How are you, Willow?  We haven’t talked alone very much since the day that Watcher came after Spike.”

        “I’m good.  Like I told you, I’ve been talking to Saffron, my magic tutor.  And, just lately, to Xander.  I meant it when I said that I’m not bottling up my feelings anymore, Buffy.”

        “I’m glad.”

“Yeah, it was time to talk.  Spike was right, I had to get past the guilt and back into my life at first.  But now I need to think about what I did some more, so that I can figure out how not to repeat my mistakes.  I mean, it’s not like the first time I ever had to say I was sorry for letting my magic get out of control.  It was just the worst time.  But the good news is that even I can start to get the message once I’ve managed to almost ruin my friends’ lives, nearly kill someone, and chase away the love of my life in the process.” 

        Buffy heard an extra edge of bitterness on that last statement.  “You still miss Tara.”

        Willow’s voice was rough. “It’s harsh.  Especially when I hear the other witches talk about her and realize how much they admire her.”

        “It must be hard, being around someone you still have feelings for.”

        “It’s worse than that, Buffy.  I’m finding out things about Tara that I never realized when we were together.  Back then, I was so wrapped up in exploring my own powers that I wasn’t seeing anyone else clearly.  Now that I can’t do magic by myself, I’ve been compelled to really examine what other people are capable of.  Do you know how hard it is to find out that the person you alienated is even more amazing than you thought she was when you were crazy in love with her?”

        “Willow, I’m sorry.”

        “I’m sorry too, but there’s nothing I can do about it.  She’s dating someone else now.”

        “I don’t know how serious that is.  I could try to find out—”

        “No.  I’ve lost the right to barge into that part of her life, Buffy.  And if she’s happy with this person, I don’t have the right to jeopardize that relationship by playing silly games.  I’ve caused her enough trouble without that.”

        “I suppose so,” said Buffy.  “But there’s no harm in trying to find out what people are feeling.  Or, at least, there’s more harm caused when feelings are hidden.  It’s time to give up on secrets.”  She pushed open the door to the magic shop.  “Speaking of which, Willow, there’s something I have to tell you.  About Spike and me.  Dawn already knows, and Tara’s magic clued her in a long time ago.”

        “This is kind of fun,” said Willow.  “Like old times.”

        “Yeah,” said Xander.  “Patrolling in dark, creepy cemeteries with the threat of death all around us.  This definitely reminds me of the good old days.”  However, in spite of his sarcastic tone, he really was enjoying himself.  He smiled at Dawn and turned to watch Buffy.  She was far enough ahead of them that they would have lost sight of the figure in black if it hadn’t been for her mane of blonde hair gleaming in the moonlight.  “She seems to have cheered up a little, too.”

        “She’s kind of in a hurry, though,” said Willow.

        “She wants to get home early in case Spike calls,” explained Dawn.  “But I hope she gets to dust a vamp first.  I think killing something is just what she needs to settle her nerves.”

        “Well, then, bring on the monsters,” said Xander.

        Ahead of them, Buffy froze.  “Get back!” she called to the others.

        They moved towards the shelter of a large mausoleum.  “You’d think I’d have learned not to say things like that by now,” said Xander, just as he tripped over a dark form huddled against the wall.  “Yow!” 

        The demon would have looked like a small bear if it hadn’t been for the weird feathers.  It wasn’t very large, but it had four rows of very sharp teeth, most of which were latched onto Xander’s sturdy work boot.  He tried to pull away, but wound up dragging the creature along with him.

        Dawn jumped forward, bringing the axe she held down on what she hoped was the thing’s neck.  A moment later, it lay still, and Xander was able to kick his foot free of its jaws.

        “Are you okay?” asked Willow.

        “I think so,” said Xander, bending over and trying to recover his breath.

        “What is it?” said Dawn, dropping the bloody axe.  “Besides dead?”

        “Norwegian blue,” said Xander.  “Beautiful plumage.”

        Willow ignored this.  “I’m not sure, but---whoa!  I think that’s its mommy,” she said, turning to see a much larger version of the demon heading for them. 

Xander grabbed Dawn and pushed her behind him, looking for a weapon.  Dawn raised her axe and stepped out in front of him again.  Just before the enormous creature reached them, a small, agile figure tackled the demon.  The monster fell to the ground, snarling, and started to struggle back up onto all fours.

        “And here comes the Slayer, just in the nick—”  Xander stopped, staring at their rescuer.  For a moment, he thought he beheld a vampire.  But there was something different about this creature, in spite of its bared fangs and yellow eyes.  This thing was wilder than any vamp he had ever seen, and weirdly beautiful.  Then his gut churned as he recognized its bright hair and dark clothing.

        The newcomer did not spare him a glance.  With single-minded intensity, she attacked the demon.  She did not hold a weapon, and she fell upon her prey viciously, as one animal attacks another.  The demon’s snarls changed to whimpers as it tried to retreat into the woods. The thing that wore Buffy’s clothes charged after it, and more cries of pain were followed by a howl of triumph.

        Dawn grasped her flashlight and led the way into the woods.  She raced a few yards down a path and stopped, staring at the body of the demon.   Xander heard Willow’s footsteps behind him as he ran to Dawn.  He reached her just as the beam of her flashlight caught a dark figure with golden hair retreating into the darkness.

        The Slayer growled in hungry anticipation as she stalked through the woods.  That first kill had been amazingly good fun, but her instincts told her that there was still more prey available.  She sniffed the air.  There was excellent hunting in this place.  She would enjoy this evening.

        “What was that?” said Xander.

        “The Slayer’s true face,” said Dawn.  She saw his expression and stamped her foot.  “You know that a vampire has a human face and a game face, Xander.  Well, the same is true for the Slayer.  When Buffy’s like that, she’s stronger and faster, but she’s still Buffy.  That is still my sister out there.”

        Willow was staring out into the darkness.  “Where did she go?”

        “I don’t know,” said Dawn uncertainly.  “We should try to find her.  She may have been hurt.”

        Xander was shaking and his voice was hoarse.  “Dawn, when you said Buffy had changed, I had no idea you meant—”

        “Pull yourself together, Xander,” said Willow.  She also looked shocked, but she had been better prepared than Xander for this moment, and her face was determined.  “Let’s go find Buffy.”

        They followed the path that the Slayer had taken through the woods and came out on a dark Sunnydale street.  There was a cemetery nearby, and, since that seemed to be the obvious place to look, they entered its gates.  The first thing they noticed was that the cast iron grate in front of one of the mausoleums had been twisted and wrenched off its hinges.

        “Gee, I wonder who could have done that?” said Xander.  His words were flippant, but his voice was grim.

        They crept up to the mausoleum cautiously, but there proved to be no need for stealth.  The place had been occupied recently, apparently by creatures without much concern for housekeeping, but it was almost empty now.  There was a young man huddled in one corner, clutching his bleeding neck.

        Dawn dropped down on her knees beside him and pulled his hand away to check the bite marks.  “Vamps,” she said unnecessarily.  “More than one.  But he’s still breathing.”

        “Vamps?”  The boy’s eyes were glazed.  “They grabbed me and dragged me here.  They started biting me, but then another one came—”  He shuddered.  “She was wilder than the others.  They tried to go after her, but they just—exploded.  When she was done, I thought she’d tear me apart, but she just stared at me for a second with these weird yellow eyes and left.”

        “That’s not like Buffy,” said Willow.  “Even if she thought there were more vamps around, she’d try to take care of a wounded human.”

        “Buffy’s not in charge right now,” said Dawn.  “The Slayer is, and her priority is hunting.  Xander, take this guy to the hospital.  Willow and I have to find Buffy.  It’s even more important that we look for her now.”

        “Why?” said Xander.  “We know now she wasn’t hurt badly.  Not if she could take out a whole nest of vamps that fast.”

        “I’m not worried that she’s hurt,” said Dawn.  “I’m worried that she doesn’t know how to change back.”

        The Slayer was confused.  Something inside her told her that she should have done more at that last place.  But she had killed all the vampires, hadn’t she?  There had been the familiar, thrilling shock as she had staked each one and absorbed its energy.  And then she had gone away, because there was nothing left to kill.  But she kept remembering a pair of wide brown eyes staring into hers.  There was something she should have done about that boy.  But he wasn’t prey.  And he wasn’t her mate.  What should she have done, then?  What was there besides killing, feeding, and copulating?  Her feral mind struggled to envision another option for interfacing with the world.

        A small voice in her head was whispering something about friends and warmth and laughter.  As she struggled to understand these strange words, a huge form appeared in her path.  The Slayer smiled as the soft voice faded away.  This creature presented no dilemmas whatsoever, but it did demand her full attention.

        “You and Buffy told me this has happened before,” said Willow.  “Buffy had to change back then, didn’t she?  Why can’t she do it now?”  They had decided to methodically investigate each and every cemetery in Sunnydale, and they were marching down the street.  Dawn was setting a very rapid pace, and Willow had to struggle to keep up.

        “I’m not sure, but I think she’s always had Spike with her when she changed.  Maybe he knows the way back, or they can figure out how to get back together but not separately.”

        “She never explained to you how it works?”

        “Not that part.  She got all weird and blushy, now that I think about it, just the way she does when—  Damn it, Willow, do you think it’s like a sex thing with them?”

        Willow looked horrified.  “Dawn, I refuse to think about that at all.  It’s bad enough thinking about your normal friends’ sex lives without—  But, if you’re right, then what on earth can we do?”

        “I don’t know.  Maybe the outstretched hands of friendship and sisterly love will compensate for the lack of –bloody hell!”

        The sound of Spike’s curse out of Dawn’s mouth brought Willow up short.  Then she saw that the other girl had almost tripped over the body of a demon.  It was about seven feet tall and very, very dead.  Dawn sighed and whipped out her cell phone.  “We can’t get sidetracked by her leavings,” she said as she jabbed at the buttons.  “Jonathan, this is Dawn.  I’m on Mistral Avenue.  I need you to find someone you can trust and get down here to clean something up for me.”

        The Slayer stared at the clear, shiny surface that barred her from the thing she needed.  She was about to thrust out her hand when the voice at the back of her mind began whispering again.  This time, its message was not abstract or complex, and the Slayer understood.  Instead of breaking the glass with her bare hand, she found a brick lying nearby and threw it through the window.  She thrust her hand through the resulting hole without paying attention to the voice’s additional warning, and she whimpered a little as the shards of glass drew blood along her wrist.  She silenced the voice, which had allowed her the weakness of noticing her pain.  Her wound would heal; she had business to attend to.

        “I feel like we should have kept looking,” said Dawn as she and Willow dropped onto the living room couch.

        “She was moving too fast,” said Willow.  “I need to get some things together here and then go to the magic shop.  With your help, I can do a locator spell.  But first, we need to eat something and rest a little.  We can’t help Buffy if we’re completely exhausted.”  She paused.  “I wish Tara were here.”

        “Me too,” said Dawn.  “But she won’t be back until this afternoon, and she’s not answering her cell.”

        “Oh,” said Willow.  “Is she with—”  She read the answer in Dawn’s face and threw up her hand.  “Never mind.”

Dawn was relieved when the sound of the doorbell interrupted this conversation.  She went to open the door, and Xander staggered in. 

        “Are you okay?” she asked worriedly.  She had never seen him look this tired.

Xander went into the living room, nodded a greeting to Willow, and dropped down on the couch.  “I’m worn out, that’s all.  I dropped Jonathan and the others off so that they could get some rest.  We had to borrow a back hoe from one of the construction sites to finish this clean-up mission.”

“Lots of dead demons, huh?” asked Willow.

“Give the lady the massive understatement award.  I kept count of what we hauled off and buried.  There were two of those big things with the serrated blades on their arms like the Nietzschean guys on Andromeda, a couple of lizards that looked like they were bulking up to audition for the next remake of Godzilla, one Fyarl, one of those sword-carrying biker things with the tattoos, and three tall, skinny, scaly creatures that I’ve never seen before.  Also, remember that thing that attacks harmless demons in the sewers?  You know, the one Spike calls Ernie the Elusive?  Well, he’s eluded slayage for the last time.  We don’t know how many vamps she got, because they would have been dusted.  But, aside from the littering, the only damage to the non-demon world seems to have been a broken shop window.  She stole a silver candlestick.”

        “I guess Buffy needed something silver to kill the Fyarl,” said Dawn.  She noticed that Xander seemed unable to call the Slayer by her name, referring to her only as “she.”

        “No guesswork needed.  We found the candlestick buried in the Fyarl’s eye socket.  She shoved it right down into his brain.  I guess that as long as the weapon is made of silver, you don’t have to get those things in the heart to kill them.”

        “Well, that’s good information for the next time we have to fight one,” said Dawn in a determinedly cheerful tone.

        Xander stared at her incredulously.  “Dawn, what are we going to do?  I want Sunnydale cleared of evil demons as much as the next guy, but there’s moderation needed in all things.  This rampage is going to create havoc.  Some normal person may catch sight of her and she could get into a confrontation with the cops or something.”

        “Do you think I don’t know that?” demanded Dawn fiercely.  “Why do you think I’ve spent all night chasing her?  And even if she manages to stay out of the way of the authorities, there’s no way even she can keep up this pace.  I’m afraid she’ll exhaust herself to the point of vulnerability and then she really will get hurt.”

        The Slayer strode down the street, feeling frustrated and alone.  She was well fed, but unsatisfied.  The hunting had been good, but she had been unable to mate. 

        A lumpish figure meandered down the street towards her.  The Slayer snarled and sniffed the air.  More prey?  She relaxed.  No, this thing wasn’t human, but it wasn’t evil either.  No matter.  It wasn’t as if she were hungry.  She stalked on, ignoring the silly noises coming out of the harmless thing’s throat.

        After a few more steps, the Slayer stopped for a moment and stared to the east.  Daylight was coming.  It was time to rest.

        There was a tentative knock at the back door.  Dawn left her bowl of cereal on the counter and went to open the door.  She was so tired and distraught that even Frosted Mini Chex had lost its appeal, and it was almost with relief that she abandoned the chore of eating breakfast.

        “Clem!”  She stepped back to let the demon in. 

He looked uneasy.  “Hi, Dawn.  Is Spike back yet?”

        “No, he’s still out of town.”

        “Oh.  Well, I was going to ask him about something, but never mind.”

        Willow had come into the kitchen during this exchange.  “Is something wrong, Clem?” she asked hesitantly.  It was hard for humans to read expressions on that furrowed and droopy countenance.

        Clem bit a fingernail anxiously before proceeding.  “Look, I don’t want you girls to take this the wrong way.  I mean, I like Buffy’s new look.  It’s a big improvement, really.  It’s just that her attitude seemed a little—odd.”

        “Buffy.”  Dawn shoved Clem against the wall.  “You’ve seen Buffy?”

        “See, I knew you’d take it the wrong way.”  Clem’s ears drooped gloomily.

        “Clem, I asked you if you’d seen Buffy!”

        “Well, yeah.  And that’s about all.  I mean, I said ‘hi,’ but she cut me cold, you know.  Just stared at me and kept going.  I was just wondering if there was anything I’d done to make her mad, because you know I don’t like to be on the bad side of the Slayer.  And with her being married to one of my best friends—”

        “Where was she going, Clem?”

        Alone in the crypt, the Slayer crept along the wall, sniffing the cool, damp air.  An aching disappointment filled her.  Her mate had not been here for a long time.  She frowned, as a vision of a different place touched the edges of her consciousness.  That building was bright and open, the walls were not made of harsh stone, and the rooms did not smell of death.  The voice began to whisper again. There was food there, and laughter, and a soft resting place that she shared with her mate.  Part of her wanted to rush there, but then she remembered the other faces and voices that went with that vision.  She cringed away from the prospect of facing those alien creatures and their strange noises. 

        Sadly, the Slayer hushed that tiny voice.  She climbed atop one of the sarcophagi and curled up to sleep. 

        Dawn looked into the living room.  Xander was sound asleep on the couch.   Willow wanted to wake, him, but Dawn shook her head.  “He can’t cope with what Buffy is now.  He’d just be in the way.  I’d like your help, though.  We may need magic.”

        Willow was hesitant.  “Tara will be back soon.  She could—”

        “We can’t wait.  And I’m one of your controls.  As long as I’m there, you can do a spell.”

        “But, Dawn, I don’t have any idea what spell to use to get her back.”

        “I won’t need your magic to get her back, Willow.  But I may need it to get the Slayer to sit still while I go find my sister.”

        Dawn and Willow were standing in the sunlight outside Spike’s crypt.  “Everything seems quiet,” Dawn said.

        It struck Willow that it probably wasn’t safe to make comments like that in Sunnydale cemeteries.  As if confirmation of the witch’s thought, the door of the crypt slammed open.  In the entrance stood a wild figure in black, her golden hair in disarray.  Yellow eyes stared at them with suspicion.  Slowly, the Slayer stepped out into the graveyard, watching carefully, but not attacking.

        Willow stared in astonishment at Buffy.  She had barely caught a glimpse of the Slayer the previous night, and she had steeled herself to face her friend in vampire face.  But whatever this beautiful, dangerous creature was, it was not a vampire.

        Beside her, Dawn gulped.  “Any ideas occur to you, Willow?”

        “The phrase ‘Behold an Angel of Death’ comes to mind.”

        “A pretty good description, but not what I was looking for.  I wanted a practical suggestion.”

        “How does ‘Run for your life!’ sound?”

        “I don’t think that will be necessary.  I don’t think she cares about us much, but I don’t think she’d hurt us on purpose either.  I wouldn’t want to get in her way, though.  She might cause some accidental damage.”

        At that moment, the Slayer began to stalk toward them.  She halted a few steps away, giving a low growl and looking confused.  Then she turned and headed away from the crypt, towards the woods.

        “Stop her, Willow,” said Dawn urgently.  She grabbed her friend’s hand.

        Willow waved her other hand in the air. “Requiesat!” she cried.

        The Slayer staggered slightly and turned back toward them.  She seemed to have trouble keeping her balance at first, but then she gave a howl of anger and began to approach.

        “Requiescat!” cried Willow again in a more panicky tone.

        The Slayer dropped to her knees at this, and shook her mane of wild hair angrily.  Her growling became more intense as she tried to struggle to her feet.

        “Willow, you’re making her mad at us,” said Dawn.  “That wasn’t what we wanted to do.”  She gulped as the Slayer raised her head and regarded them with malevolent yellow eyes.  “It’s pretty high on the list of things we don’t want to do.”

        Willow’s hand grasped Dawn’s harder.  “Requiescat!  Requiescat!” she shouted.

        The Slayer had barely pulled herself erect, and at these words she fell to the ground again.  This time, she did not get up.

Dawn and Willow cautiously approached the recumbent form.  “I kept increasing the dosage,” Willow explained.  “The final strength was the mystical equivalent of a tranquilizer dart that you’d use on an elephant.”

“At least you got her to sleep before she got to us,” said Dawn.  “But I’m worried that you had to make it so strong.  Your spell won’t hurt the baby, will it?”

“No,” said Willow.  “Magic has the advantage over medicine in that respect.  I could make the spell specific to Buffy and not affect the baby inside her.”

        Gently, they picked up the sleeping Slayer and carried her into the crypt.  They laid her atop one of the sarcophagi.  Buffy’s clothes were ragged and torn, but she seemed uninjured except for a cut on her wrist that had reopened and was bleeding sluggishly. 

Dawn ran an anxious hand along her sister’s furrowed forehead.  “I hoped this would go away once she fell asleep,” she said.  “But I suppose not.”

        “I don’t know what to do about this, Dawn,” said Willow desperately.  “And I’m afraid to create more havoc by guessing.  But Tara might, or one of the members of the coven.  Please let me try to contact them.”

        Dawn shook her head.  “This is family business, Willow.  Buffy’s, Spike’s, and mine.  I know what to do.  At least,” and she took a deep breath, “I think I have a pretty good idea.  And I know that it’s my job.”  She reached into her pocket and took out a scarf.  She unwrapped it carefully and looked at the talisman that lay in its folds.

        “Spike destroyed that,” said Willow, her face going pale.  It was the same charm that Dawn had used to help Buffy restore Spike’s humanity.  The same charm that had briefly turned Willow into a vengeance demon.

        “And I restored it.  It couldn’t be broken that easily, Willow.  It has too much work to do.  It’s a smaller version of the lock we need to use to close hellmouth, and Tara and Sage have been helping me practice with it.  I’ve gotten pretty good at getting in and out of other dimensions.  Of course, Tara’s always been my anchor before, but Sage told me the other day I was ready for a solo flight.  I guess this is it.” 

Dawn set the scarf and the talisman down on the sarcophagus and tugged at the leg of Buffy’s jeans.  “Good, she hasn’t lost it.  Probably didn’t even need it in this form.”  Dawn pulled Spike’s dagger out of the ankle sheath and held it against her palm.  Before Willow could object, a thin line of blood welled up on Dawn’s hand.  “Remember when I cut myself and you were all afraid I had gone crazy?” she said.  “I think I knew even then where my power was.  I was just trying to get strong again.”  She dropped the talisman into Buffy’s wounded hand.  “Touch my shoulder, Willow.  I may need you with me.”  With the assurance of Willow’s support, Dawn laid her bloody palm against the Slayer’s.  The talisman was clasped between the sisters’ hands.

        Dawn and Willow were standing in the sunlight outside Spike’s crypt.  Dawn looked around curiously.  She seemed unconcerned by the change of scenery, and Willow gulped and tried to get a grip.  You used to be a badass witch, she reminded herself.  A little change of dimensions shouldn’t wig you out.  She followed Dawn to the entrance to the crypt.  It sounded like a demolition team was at work full force inside. 

“What do you think is going on in there?” whispered Willow.

“I don’t know.  Not even Buffy and Spike having sex is that noisy.  This sounds like there’s a war on.” 

Dawn swallowed hard and walked towards the crypt. They pushed the door open gingerly, their eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the darkness within.  Inside, a corner of the room had been piled high with wooden tables.  A small, lithe figure in black was methodically smashing each one to bits by slamming them one at a time against the wall.

        “Buffy?” called Dawn hesitantly.

        The figure turned and stared at them.  Involuntarily, both Willow and Dawn stepped back.  In their reality, the Slayer was a fearful figure, but the thing that stood in front of them now was monstrous.  She was more vampire than angel, with a deadly light shining in her golden eyes. 

The Slayer growled. “Where is he?”  The voice entered their minds without first passing the creature’s lips.

Dawn and Willow shook their heads, more in shock than out of any desire to deny a response to this wild animal.  The Slayer lunged at them, but her path took her into the shaft of light slanting through the open door of the crypt.  She flinched away, screaming in pain and rage.  Willow and Dawn inched along the wall of the crypt, being careful to keep that ray of light between them and the creature that was snarling at them.

        The Slayer reached for the pile of battered furniture.  A table went flying across the room and smashed into the wall next to Willow.   It had been thrown with such force that when the pieces fell to the floor, they were small enough to use as kindling.

        Willow backed up quickly towards the rear of the crypt.  “I thought you said she wouldn’t hurt us intentionally.”

        Dawn tugged Willow even further away from the menacing figure.  “I said that the one in our world wouldn’t.  That was Buffy and the Slayer, the same hybrid we know and love.  In our world, the Slayer had gotten herself behind the wheel, but Buffy was still doing some backseat driving.  But this—this thing is just the demon part of the Slayer.  No Buffy at all.  That’s why the daylight hurt it.  It probably doesn’t want to eat us, because we’re not one of the kinds of demon it feeds on.  But I don’t think it will worry too much about our health and well-being, either.”

        As she spoke, Dawn was leading Willow to the lower level of the crypt.  The angry Slayer made no attempt to follow them.  But the steps seemed much longer and steeper than they did in the dimension Willow considered reality.  If the human Buffy were hiding down here, she was very far removed from the demonic part of her nature.

        “What’s that noise?” asked Willow.

        The Slayer was still raging far above them, but now they could hear another sound from below.  It was a slow clacking, as if two pieces of wood were being rapped together.  The raps would sound in a smooth rhythm for about five beats, stop, and start again. 

        “I don’t know,” said Dawn.  “But I think we should find out.”

        They finally reached the bottom of the steps.  Willow looked around her.  “I don’t remember Spike’s crypt ever looking quite like this.”

        “He fixed it up when Buffy died, and put in the bed and some other stuff.  He was trying to be more human, I think.  You didn’t visit him much then, but I used to.  We talked a lot before she came back.  But this is different from what I remember.  It’s like, he added more candles and stuff, to make—”  Dawn looked around at the room.  “This is a love nest, Willow.  This is where Buffy would come to find him now, because this is where they used to—”  She stopped, staring.

Willow followed Dawn’s gaze and saw the figures on the bed.  She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t noticed them before.  The human Buffy was wearing the same black jeans and shirt as the creature upstairs, but these clothes looked clean and fresh.  She was curled up in a ball, sound asleep, with a peaceful expression on her face.

        Next to Buffy was a blonde child wearing jeans and a blue shirt.  She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her head bent over the object she held.  Judging by her size, she was about five years old.

        “That’s little Buffy,” said Willow.  “I saw her when I entered Buffy’s mind once.”

        The child raised her head.  Her eyes blazed as intensely blue as her shirt.  Willow stepped back, startled.

        “That’s not Buffy,” said Dawn.  She moved forward, smiling.  “Hello, Joy.”

        The little girl, whose face was like and not like Buffy’s, smiled back.  “Hi, Aunt Dawn.  Hi, Aunt Willow.”  She seemed happy to see them, but not surprised or excited.  She acted as if the adults had merely been out of the room for a short time.

        Dawn sat down on the bed.  “What do you have?” she asked.

        “A Jacob’s Ladder,” said Joy.  She held it up.  It consisted of six narrow blocks of wood held together by ribbons of fabric.  Joy held onto the end of one block and lifted it into the air.  The clacking noise resumed as one block of wood seemed to cascade down past the others and slide to the bottom of the row.  Joy flipped her hand over, and another block moved from one side of the toy to another as it slid down, seeming to defy the laws of physics. 

        “Wow,” said Dawn admiringly.

        “I couldn’t figure out how it worked,” confessed Joy.  “I thought it was a computer chip.  But Daddy says that not every toy in the whole bloody universe has to have a sodding computer chip in it.”

        Willow bit her lip to keep from laughing.  From the sly expression on Joy’s face, she guessed that the little girl knew very well she shouldn’t be using language like that, but was quoting her father as a means of getting away with it.

        “Daddy showed me how it works.  It’s ’cause of the way these ribbons are glued on.  They look like they’re stuck on all the way across, see, but they’re not.  So the blocks can move that way and then that way.  And they go so fast, it looks like they’re all the same one, but it’s just a—a series, one after the other.”

        “Why is it called a Jacob’s Ladder?” asked Willow.

        “Daddy says it’s because of a story about a guy named Jacob who saw angels climbing up and down a magic ladder to heaven.  He told me some more of the story, about a promise or something, but the ladder was the only interesting part.”  The blocks clacked against each other as Joy played with her toy.

        Dawn looked at Buffy.  “I think we should wake her up,” she said.  She shook Buffy’s shoulder gently.  The figure on the bed didn’t move.

        “That won’t work,” said Joy.  “Yelling doesn’t help, either.  Mommy doesn’t know how to hear us yet like she does now.”  The little girl frowned.  “That doesn’t sound right, but you know what I mean.  When I’m all big like I am now, Mommy will know how to wake up.  But she hasn’t learned in this place yet.”  She seemed to muse over this concept.  “It’s funny that grownups have to learn things too.  Especially stuff that I already know.” 

Suddenly, Joy’s face altered, and she wore the inhuman visage of a Slayer for a terrifying moment.  Then her features relaxed back to those of an impish child, and her eyes changed from cold amber to mischievous blue.  “Don’t tell on me, okay?  I know I’m not supposed to do that.  I wanted to on Halloween.  I was going to tell the kids I was a kind of Mighty Morphing Power Ranger.  But Mommy wouldn’t let me, even when the school said I couldn’t wear my Xena costume because it was about violent stuff.  So Aunt Tara made me a Glinda costume instead.  That was kind of dorky until you fixed the wand with that spell, Aunt Willow.  Then it was cool.”

        Willow tried not to feel guilty for whatever mischief she was to help this precocious child commit several years into the future.  They were here to figure out how to reach Buffy.  She sat down on the bed.  “You know how to change and to change back, Joy.  That’s really great.  Can you tell us how you do it?”

        Joy wrinkled her nose in thought.  “Not really.  Daddy says that to me it’s as natural as breathing, and that to him it got to be natural while he wasn’t breathing.  Does that help?”  She obviously didn’t understand the implications of these words, but gazed back and forth at the adults as if she were hoping that they would figure it out.

        But Willow and Dawn only stared at each other helplessly.  Joy sighed and turned to Buffy.  “I guess I better try again.”  She bent over and smoothed Buffy’s hair back in a gesture that reminded Willow of Spike.  The little girl put her mouth by Buffy’s ear and yelled, “Mommy, wake up.  I want to show you the new toy Daddy got me.”  She put the Jacob’s ladder on her mother’s palm and tried to curl Buffy’s fingers around it. 

        In spite of the quite incredible volume the child achieved, here was no reaction from Buffy.   Joy turned to the other adults.  “I guess she’s still sleepy,” she said with a shrug.  Then something caught her eye, and she added, “Hey, Aunt Dawn, that’s pretty.  Can I see?”

        Dawn looked down at the talisman in her hand.  She hesitated a moment before passing it to Joy.  The child laid it on her palm and smiled as the gem began to glow bright red.  “It looks like fire, or blood,” she said.  “This is just neat.”  She turned to Buffy.  “Mommy, look at this.”

        Joy dropped the talisman onto Buffy’s palm next to the Jacob’s ladder.  The crystal glowed an even brighter red.  Buffy’s eyelids began to flutter.

        Willow and Dawn gasped as they found themselves standing just inside the door of the abandoned crypt again.  They looked around fearfully, but the demonic Slayer was nowhere to be seen.  There was only Buffy lying on the sarcophagus, her human features assuming a bewildered expression as she woke and sat up, staring at her friends.

        Tara knocked on the back door and entered the kitchen of Buffy’s house without waiting for a response.  She stopped a few steps inside when she saw Willow standing by the sink.

        Willow put down the pot she had been washing and stared at Tara in pleasure and relief.  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”

        Tara dropped her purse on the table.  She looked anxious, but not panicked.  “I came as quickly as I could.  But from what Dawn told me on the phone, you’ve already taken care of things.”

        “I didn’t do anything, really.  I just made the Slayer sleepy.  I didn’t know what to do anyway, and I was afraid to try any crazy experiments.  It was Dawn who knew how to get Buffy back.”

        Tara blinked, as if trying to bring this vision of a cautious, modest Willow into focus.  But all she said was, “Yes, Dawn’s been working hard to control her power.  I’m not surprised she was able to handle this emergency.”

        “Dawn got her back, Tara, but I’m still worried.  Buffy’s just sitting out there in the living room.  I’m not sure she’s all right.”

        Tara frowned.  “Is she upset?”

        “I’m not sure.  She hasn’t cried.  I thought she would be overwhelmed by it, but it’s as if she refused to give way to tears.  She’s not acting the way she was when she came back from the dead either.  She’s just—quiet.  And Spike hasn’t called.  Not for a whole day.”

        Buffy sat on the couch with the cat on her lap, gently scratching the animal’s ears and stroking it until it purred happily, kneading its sheathed claws into her leg.  She looked up and saw that Dawn was watching her.  “I’m okay,” she said gently.

        “Yeah,” said Dawn.  “Sure.”

        Buffy’s smile was ironic.  “I mean it this time.  I’m worried about Spike, yes, but about the other—I’m okay.”

        Dawn was clearly skeptical.  “Are you sure?  I mean—do you even remember it all?”

        “About being the Slayer, yes.  And about you and Willow trying to put me to sleep.  I didn’t want to hurt you, but I didn’t understand what was happening.  I don’t remember you coming to get me.  I just woke up.”  Buffy concentrated on petting the cat for a few moments before asking, “What happened?  When you went into the other dimension, I mean.”

        “There were three of you.  The Slayer, you, and Joy.”

        At this, Buffy looked up eagerly, her face truly animated for the first time.  “You saw Joy?”

        “Yes, she was there.  Not as a baby, though.  I think she was about five, but maybe she was older.  She’s really little, like you.  She’s beautiful, Buffy.  And smart.”

        “I know,” said Buffy, smiling.  She saw Dawn’s expression and added, “But—?”

        “Nothing bad, Buffy.  It’s just—she’s kind of a handful.”

Buffy’s smile turned rueful.  “I’m not too surprised.”

“And I think she may be a Daddy’s girl.”

        “Yeah, I’ve been getting that impression myself,” said Buffy.  “Not that it should surprise me, since I’ve seen the way Spike spoils you.  Besides, there are worse things, Dawn.  Like not having a daddy at all.”

        “I am not spoiled.  It’s just that you’re meaner than you need to be, so you always say Spike lets me get away with stuff.  And he’s coming back, Buffy.  I’m sure that everything’s all right.”

        Buffy looked away from her sister’s anxious face.  “I know Anya was going out of town to do something for Giles.  So, she isn’t in Bath, and I don’t have a number for her.  And Spike and Giles may have gone to London to look for the sword, but that still doesn’t explain why they haven’t called.”  She clenched her fist.  “They should call.  If they’re all right.”

        “I’m sure they’re fine.”  Tara’s voice was firm and steady.

        Buffy and Dawn looked up to see the witches standing by the door.  Suddenly, as if she had remembered something pleasant, Buffy smiled.  “I’m glad you’re back, Tara.”  She stood up.  “We’re going to the Bronze tonight.  Want to come?”

        “What?” said Dawn. “When did we decide—?”

        “The day before yesterday,” said Buffy calmly.  “Remember?  It was Xander’s idea.  Why don’t you call him and remind him?  I’m going to go upstairs and get ready so we can head out.”

        The others watched her climb the stairs. 

        “Is this a good thing?” asked Willow when they heard the bedroom door close.  “I mean, I’m all for Buffy being happy and partying, but I thought she’d spend the night sitting next to the phone.”  

        “I’m not sure,” said Dawn.  “She’s says she’s all right, but—”

        “It’s a good thing,” said Tara firmly.  The others stared at her, and she added, “I’m pretty sure I understand.  She’s doing this for Spike.”  She turned back towards the kitchen.  “I’m going to go to the magic shop for a while.  I’ll meet you at the Bronze.”

        Willow and Dawn looked at each other.  “She’s going dancing for Spike when he’s not here,” said Willow slowly, as if trying to make sense of the words.

        “If Tara says so, she’s probably right,” said Dawn.  “I suppose we had better call Xander.”

Buffy sat down on the bed and opened the jewelry box that sat on her bedside table.  Carefully, she pulled out Spike’s letter and unfolded the heavy sheets of paper.  Her eyes had scanned it so many times that she found the line she sought immediately. “I beg you not to squander our time apart on tears, even if this trip should last longer than we have planned.”  He had been careful to phrase that so as not to spark any fears for his safety, but to still leave a message to console her if something should happen to him.  Her gaze strayed to another line.  “Dream me some happiness.”

        “The Bronze seems to be going kind of downhill,” commented Willow.

        “Was it ever uphill?” asked Buffy.  She looked around.  “It could stand to be redecorated,” she admitted, adding as the lights overhead flickered, “and they really need to get an electrician to fix that.”

        Dawn looked up at the lights.  Their glow steadied.  “Maybe they’re trying for some kind of special effect,” she said.

        “Yeah, the effect of a fire hazard,” said Xander.

        “The lights seem to be working now,” said Buffy mildly.  Suddenly, she felt oddly serene.

“We’ve got a lot of history here,” remarked Willow.

        “Yeah.  A lot happened here.  And when nothing was happening, this is where we hung out,” said Xander.  “Remember how when we were a bunch of dateless losers we all used to dance together?”  He frowned, obviously thinking that he was once again a dateless loser.

        Buffy was in no mood to put up with his brooding.  “I remember,” she said, grabbing his hand.  “Come on.  Once more, for old time’s sake.”

        She pulled Willow along with them, and a few moments later the three of them were on the dance floor together.  Buffy felt herself moving into the rhythm of the dance, and everything felt right.  She seemed to be sliding though time, although she couldn’t tell whether she was moving into the future or back to the past.  She danced with Willow and Xander as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, and she caught sight of Dawn laughing at them from the table where they had been sitting.  Buffy laughed back.

        Then she sensed him.  There was no need to turn around to be sure.  She knew exactly where he stood, and she could even have predicted the expression on his face.  She turned, not out of any need to verify her instincts, but simply because of her overwhelming desire to see him.

        He was watching her.  He was standing in the precise spot where he had watched her that first evening, so many years ago.  The lights flickered again, and, in that moment of total darkness, she thought she saw a punk vampire with bleached blond hair wearing a long black leather duster.  He looked stunned, as if he had caught sight of something unimaginable.

Then the lights came back on, and she saw him as he was now.  Then, he had been a harsh contrast of black and white, the only color provided by the flash of his eyes and the blood-red slash of his crimson shirt.  Tonight, he was dressed in brown and beige shades that set off the tawny highlights in his hair.  His skin was lightly tanned instead of starkly pale, and the coat he wore moved with the whisper of cloth instead of the slickness of leather.  But she had no delusion that the change in palette had reduced him to ordinariness and respectability.  That reckless monster was only hiding; he moved with the grace of a hunting beast that had learned the art of camouflage.

And those knife-sharp blue eyes had not changed at all.  Their expression was identical to the one that predatory vampire had worn all those years ago.  He still looked like a dangerous creature enthralled by some unexpected vision. 

        Buffy ran across the room and threw herself into his arms.  A moment later, she was holding him and kissing him.  She could feel his arms around her and his arousal pressing against her belly.  His breath was warm on her cheek, reassuring her of his vitality.  Yes, everything is all right now, she thought happily.  Immediately, she lifted her head and began haranguing him.

        “You idiot, why didn’t you call?  Didn’t you know how worried we were?”

        Spike responded as best he could between the kisses she resumed showering on him.  “Left in a hurry—rush to the airport—bloody credit card maxed out—took forever to get through customs—almost missed connection—landed in Sunnydale—got the sodding machine at the house—called Magic Box—Tara said, at the Bronze—besides,” he gasped at last as she finally came up for air, “this makes your present a surprise.”

        “Present?” She linked her hands behind his neck and smiled impishly.  “What did you bring me?”

        He turned to one side so that she could see the man standing behind him.  Buffy stared past Spike’s shoulder for a long moment before releasing him and throwing herself into Giles’s arms.

        She hugged her Watcher tightly, as she always did after one of his absences, but this time she tried to remember not to squeeze the breath out of him.  She wanted so much to hear his voice.

        “Hello, Buffy,” he said, returning her hug.  “I’ve missed you.”

        She buried her head in his shoulder for a moment.  “And I missed you so much.”  She lifted her head and stared into his eyes.  “I’m so glad you’re here.”  She turned and looked over her shoulder, anxious to share her “present” with her friends.  She saw that Dawn was hugging Spike and that Willow and Xander were smiling at the reunion scene.  She stepped back so that Giles could hug Willow and shake Xander’s hand. 

        Dawn let go of Spike to hug Giles fiercely for a moment, but then she turned and took Spike’s arm, dragging him over to the sofa near the table where their drinks stood.  She pulled him down on the seat, and Buffy settled on his other side.  Giles perched on a chair across from them, looking lost for a moment.  Buffy felt a pang of guilt, but Willow pulled her chair close to Giles and clung to his arm.  The Watcher seemed to cheer up.  Only Xander stood back a pace, almost as if he were an onlooker instead of a part of the family.  Finally, he stepped up and said hesitantly to Spike, “It’s good to have you back, man.”

        Spike responded only with an amused quirk of his eyebrow.

        “Giles, how did Spike convince you to come?” asked Buffy, too excited to give more than passing attention to Xander’s behavior.  She was holding Spike’s hand tightly as she smiled at Giles.

        “He didn’t need to.  As soon as you told me what you were planning, I tried to wrap up the various projects I had pending in Britain.  I didn’t want to promise anything until I was sure I could get away.”

        “I’m glad you didn’t,” said Dawn.  “If we thought maybe you could come and then you couldn’t it would have been soooo disappointing.  And this was the best surprise.  How’s Anya?”

        “She’s fine.  And she graciously agreed to take over a few of those projects I mentioned so that I could get away.”

        “Graciously?” said Spike.  “What’s the matter, Ripper?  Weren’t you paying attention when she said, ‘and if you get yourself killed out there, you stupid man, I’ll turn back into a vengeance demon and go after your ghost?’”

        Giles winced.  “Yes, thank you, Spike, for reporting that conversation.  Perhaps ‘graciously’ was not the right word.  But the fact remains that I wouldn’t have been able to leave if she hadn’t taken over some of my duties.”

        Dawn turned to Spike and looked at what he was wearing. “So, what are you all dressed up for?  I thought you hated wearing your ‘posh clothes.’”

        “Necessity is a mother, you know,” said Spike.  “We had to talk Customs into letting us bring that sword into the country.  Bad enough the thing had to make the trip in the luggage compartment, after all we went through to find it.  Ripper and I were shaking in our boots that they’d take it away because we didn’t get the paperwork right or they didn’t like our looks.”

        “So you improved your looks,” said Dawn.

        “Yes, I was quite surprised by how well he cleaned up,” said Giles.  “And he did manage to be remarkably polite to the woman in Customs.”

        “It was a woman?” asked Buffy.  She looked at Giles.  He was tousled, tweedy, and middle-aged, but he was still good-looking and had retained that attractive smile that seemed to come from somewhere behind his eyes.  Then she looked at Spike.  He was strikingly handsome in that ridiculous suit, and, of course, he had searing blue eyes that could at least pretend to innocence sometimes.  The Customs official hadn’t stood a chance against the combined charms of these two men, but Buffy wasn’t about to gratify their egos by saying so.

 Besides, she was distracted by the expression of extreme tiredness that she saw behind Spike’s eyes now that the excitement of welcome had faded slightly.  He’s exhausted, and it’s more than just jet lag.   Something happened to him while he was gone.

        The others were talking rapidly.  The Scoobies were asking questions, which Giles answered and Spike ignored.  Spike was watching Buffy intently, as if he could feed off the very sight of her.  Clearly, what he saw reassured him.  His hand’s grip on hers became less the viselike clutch of a drowning man and more the caressing touch of a lover.  Tension seemed to be draining slowly from him, and his normally cool eyes began to glow with warmth and happiness.  She smiled back at him lazily, not forgetting the air of emotional exhaustion that he had borne a few moments ago, but content to let explanations and questions wait for the moment.

Then both Buffy and Spike blinked as if waking from a pleasant dream.  Their eyes swiveled simultaneously to stare at two figures by the door.

        “We have work to do,” said Buffy.  She stood up.  “Excuse us.”

        “What?” said Xander looking around.

        “Vampire,” said Dawn in an exasperated tone.  “You should know the drill by now, Xander.  They have to go slay something.” 

        Spike and Buffy were already out the door.  Giles blinked in their wake.  “Should Buffy be slaying in her condition?” he asked.  “I mean, it hasn’t slowed her down, has it?”

        The others exchanged significant looks.  “No, considering the body count she racked up last night, I think it’s pretty safe to say she’s still the Speedy Gonzalez of Slayers,” said Xander.

        “What do you mean?” asked Giles.

        “Nothing,” said Dawn quickly.  “Just that there were a few nasties that she got rid of yesterday.  You don’t have to worry about her handling that vamp now, especially since she has Spike with her.”

        How many vampires have I slain in this alley? Buffy wondered.  The Bronze, as a gathering place for the young and horny, had always attracted more than its fair share of vamps.  The scene before her was almost boringly familiar.  A young woman had just turned around to discover that she had left the club with something far more frightening than she had ever imagined.  A vampire was holding the girl against the wall of the nearby warehouse and was about to feed.

        Spike reached out a hand to spin the vampire around and away from its victim.  The creature staggered towards Buffy, who kicked it in the face.  It retreated a few steps down the alley.  Spike turned to the girl, who was cowering against the wall.  “Run,” he said.  “Go home.”

        By the time he turned back to the fight, Buffy had the vamp cornered.  Her stake was out, and the monster was a cloud of dust even before the sound of its would-be victim’s footsteps had faded away in the darkness.

        The Slayer looked up from her kill and saw Spike emerge from the shadows into the light of the street lamp.  He clapped his hands together in admiration.  “Record speed at dispatching that one, love,” he said.

        Buffy felt a thud in her gut.  “This isn’t the first time you stood in this alley and admired the way I killed a vamp,” she said, her voice echoing the hollow sound of his hands clapping.

        His expression was stunned, and she cursed herself for reminding him of their first encounter.  But it was too late to take the words back.  He stood very still, and began to mutter in a stricken voice, “By our first strange and fatal interview, by all desires which thereof did ensue, by our long starving hopes, by that remorse—”

        But Buffy was in no mood for one of his forays into poetry.  She interrupted him ruthlessly.  “To hell with remorse,” she said, covering the few feet that separated them at Slayer speed.  Her body struck his with all the force of her pent-up desire, and they both reeled back into the warehouse.

        Tara came towards the Scoobies’ table, smiling broadly.  Giles stood up to embrace her. “I’m so glad you could come,” she said.

        “You knew he was here?” said Willow.

        “Spike told me when he called the magic shop to find out where Buffy was,” said Tara, sitting down next to Giles.  “So I packed up the ingredients for that locator spell I no longer needed and came over here.”  She looked around.  “Where are Buffy and Spike?”

        “Killing a vampire,” said Giles uneasily.  “But they’ve been gone a long time.  Perhaps we should go check on them.”

        The others looked appalled at that idea.  “Oh, no,” said Willow hesitantly.  “Not really a good idea.”

        “Yeah,” said Dawn.  “Some things you just don’t want to interrupt. There’s an embarrassment factor.”

        Giles looked around the table.  “You don’t honestly mean—?  They wouldn’t—not out there?  For heaven’s sake, it’s not as if they don’t have a room.  They’re married!”

        “You’d never know it from the way they act,” said Xander.

        Dawn slapped him on the arm.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

        “You know.  Acting like they’re in love.  Still wanting the sex.”

        Willow shook her head.  “Xander, you do have your own special brand of naiveté, don’t you?” 

        Buffy leaned back against the wall, glorying in the feel of Spike’s body pressed against hers, skin warm against skin where they had disarranged their clothing in their haste to consummate their desire.  The intense emotions of that mating were fading, but she was still exquisitely conscious of the touch of his lips against her neck and of his strong hands along her back.  She sighed and laid her head against his chest, listening to the thud of his heartbeat as it slowed and steadied to a normal rate.

        “Welcome home, William,” she murmured.

        His answering snort of laughter stirred her hair.  “Yeah, I did have the impression you were glad to see me.”  He lifted his head and peered down into her green eyes.  She could just barely make out his features in the dim light filtering in through the dirty windows.  His gaze was keen and evaluating.  “It wasn’t all fun and games for you while I was gone, was it?”

        “No,” she admitted.  “But I did try to dream you some happiness, like you asked.”

        “So I saw.”  His voice was warm with approval.  “But something happened to you while I was gone, love.  Something big.”

        “Yes.”  She paused for a long moment before admitting, “I needed to be—the Slayer.  And I couldn’t get back afterwards.  Not alone.  Dawn had to play the Key, and she and Willow had to come get me—and Joy.”

        He nodded, concerned, but not astonished.  “I’d hoped you’d learned—but don’t worry, love.  Next time, you’ll know the way back.  You won’t need me or Dawn to show you.”  The confidence he always showed in her abilities warmed his voice.

        “I hope so,” she said doubtfully.  “I think I might, except—”

        “Except?”

        “I don’t think I came all the way back this time, William.”

        His hand caressed her hair gently.  “Yes, you did, love.  You just brought something with you.”

        “You know.”

        “Yeah, I could tell.  In there just now, you sensed me as soon as I did you.  And you didn’t need me to tell you there was a vampire in the room.”

        “No.  I—I don’t understand why I have this ability now, when I never did before.”

        “You always had it, love.  But you suppressed it.  You had to.”

        There was no point in continuing this line of conversation.  He was right, and she did know why she had repressed that ability.  She had always been the only Slayer who couldn’t sense vamps, the one who was unable to distinguish between the dead and the undead.  A curious lack which had allowed her to experience vampires as something other than prey.  If she had used that Slayer sense from the first, she would never have been able to fall in love with a vampire.

Now, she no longer needed to hide that ability from herself, because the creature she loved was something other than either vampire or human.  Because he was like her, she could sense him with no diminution of desire.  Quite the reverse, in fact.  She closed her eyes and let the feelings she had previously experienced only as the Slayer overwhelm her human half.  She hadn’t thought that she could find Spike any more enticing than she had before he left, but tonight she felt those new senses drinking him in, and he was more exciting than ever. 

She knew that she had changed irrevocably; however she tried, she could no longer fit into the skin of the woman he had left just a few days ago.  A phrase she had heard somewhere ran through her mind.  Will I ever come to the end of myself?

 Or will I spend the rest of my life continuing to discover new and amazing things about me, about us? No wonder it took me so long to learn how to live again after I crawled out of my grave.  When I was dead, I felt complete, finished.   But living is about recreating yourself every day.

She had never felt so far from the teenaged girl she had once been.  That poor child had fought so hard to be ordinary and normal.  That silly young Buffy had had no idea of the wonders that would await her as she explored her own nature.  So this is growing up.  I used to think it meant that you found out exactly what you were, but it just means that you learn not to be afraid of growing up some more.

        Then she sensed something new in his attitude, and she remembered the look she had seen on his face in the Bronze.  Echoing his earlier gesture, she reached up and ran a hand through his hair.  “What about you, William?  What happened to you while you were gone?”

        He ducked his head.  “Killed a few monsters.  Found a sword.  Discovered just what a bloody customer service disaster the air transportation industry is.”

        “And—”  She tried to make out his expression in the dim light.  “Something else.  You’ve done something else.  I can see it.  I can feel it.  It’s exhausted you.  What happened?”

        He dropped his head on her shoulder, and she felt him collapse against her, as if he were releasing some intolerable burden.  “Yeah,” he admitted.  “I’ve done something else.”

        “What is it?” Her voice was full of concern and fear.

        He released his breath in a long sigh before responding.  “I’ve started dreaming,” he said.

Chapter 21: One Good Day

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