The Scoobies huddled gloomily in the hospital waiting room, trying to figure out enough of what was happening to make plans for a rescue.

        "Buffy told you something," said Dawn to Giles suddenly.  "We've all guessed that.  About her coming back.  Could that help?"

        "No," the Watcher shook his head.  "I hoped when she told me that she finally understood what had happened to her while she was dead—  But from the little she said, I don't think it's of any use at all in our battle against the First.  It's something entirely between her and Spike."

        "Spike, why didn't you tell me you remembered?" whispered Buffy.  Here, in this basement, trapped in darkness so profound she couldn't even see his face, with the world hanging in the balance yet again, she could think of nothing else but the amazing fact that he remembered.  He knows.  The thing that I was so sure I could never tell him.  He knows.

        "Wasn't sure it was real.  It's not as if I've been the poster boy for sanity lately. And it was too perfect, too like the way I wanted you and me to be, not the way we really were."  He paused.  "How long have you remembered?"

        "Not very long," she whispered.  She sat down on the floor, wearily.  "I should have remembered sooner, but I fought it.  Like I fought you."  She felt him settle himself down beside her, their shoulders touching, not rejecting her, but still too uncertain to embrace her.  "It was hard for me, too, to believe that something as good as you and me in that place could have been real.  Especially because I knew I'd come back wrong.  I didn't know how exactly, but I was sure that I was all wrong and that you'd had something to do with making me that way.  Hence with all the fighting and hurting--and the pretending I didn't care."

        Buffy raised herself on one elbow and regarded the man sleeping beside her.  Cautiously, not wanting to wake him, she reached out to touch his chest, to feel it rise and fall under her fingertips.  She needed to make sure that he was breathing, that he was warm, and that he was real.

        In spite of what she considered an excessive amount of experience with the paranormal, Buffy had never been sure what, if anything, was running the universe.  So she hadn't known what to expect when she sacrificed herself in Dawn’s place to save the world.  Since she remembered nothing at all from her first, brief encounter with deadness, she'd wondered if nothing would be exactly what she'd get this time.  And after the year she'd had, she would have been okay with oblivion.  Peace would have been enough of a reward; she hadn't expected the universe to cough up happiness. 

        And if she'd been told she would be with someone in the afterlife, she'd have expected to find her mother.  It certainly hadn’t crossed her mind that something out there would set her up on a blind date. 

Well, not blind, precisely.  She'd definitely seen that leanly-muscled body and those amazing cheekbones and that beautiful face before.  And she'd recognize those blue eyes when they opened and looked at her.  She had to admit to herself that she'd never been blind to those things.

But this man's long, dark blonde curls weren't like the short, slicked-back platinum hair she remembered.  And that expressive eyebrow of his was unscarred.

        Not Spike.  William.  And what a surprise he'd been.  Nothing like she'd imagined him.

        Spike had claimed to have always been a bad man.  Stupid, lying vampire.  In fact, William was—well, he was a dork, but he was a charming dork!  Earnest and smart.  And that geekiness was kind of cute, because it wasn't about being weak.  It was about his not realizing just how strong he was.

        And he was kind.  And polite!  She remembered how Spike had sometimes wigged her out by acting like a gentleman.  Well, here was the explanation for all those absent-mindedly opened doors and the occasional bizarre offer to carry her weapons for her.

        If the universe had decided to fix her up with someone, she could hardly complain about its choice.  Because, here, where she couldn't feel any shame about it, she finally had to admit that she'd thought Spike was very hot for a very long time.  Probably since the first time she'd seen him.  Certainly since the first time they had fought.  But she'd been a good Slayer and hadn't let that craving distract her from the fact that he was evil, a vampire, and very, very annoying.  At least, not until Willow had cast that silly spell, and Buffy and Spike had become “engaged.” 

        When the spell had broken, she'd tried not to remember how much she'd enjoyed herself.  She'd tried not to think about him that way at all, and had never allowed herself anything more than that one kiss when he'd let Glory torture him to protect Dawn.  In fact, she'd gone so deeply into avoidance-mode that she'd turned around and thrown herself into Riley’s arms.  And then spent night after night wondering how different, how much more exciting, sex might have been with Spike.  No wonder Riley had left her.

        Well, she'd been a good girl, and so she'd never found out just what Spike was like in bed, but today she'd discovered that William’s inexperienced but enthusiastic lovemaking put Riley’s careful, wholesome efforts at passion to shame.

        Shame.  Here, she could enjoy being with William without shame and without guilt.  That was something worth dying for.  Her train of thought derailed there, as she realized it wasn't a figure of speech—had it really been worth dying to find herself with him in this place?  She still felt glowy with happiness and love.  But for the first time since she'd decided to throw herself into the vortex in Dawn’s place, she was worried too.

        Before she could sort out her feelings, the man beside her stirred.  William sat up and stared at her in consternation.  “I’m sorry.”  For a moment, she was afraid he was regretting making love, but then he said, “I seem to have fallen asleep.”  He sounded incredulous.

        Relieved, she lay back and laughed up at him.  “You were tired,” she said.  “So was I.  I slept too, you know, until just a few minutes ago.”  He still looked concerned, and she added.  “It’s traditional.  Falling asleep afterwards.  As long as you engage in a little pillow talk first, it’s perfectly kosher.  I mean, it's okay.”

        “Oh,” he said.

        “You see, I’m getting just how important proper etiquette is to you,” she said in a teasing tone.

        “Ah,” he said, and reluctantly began to laugh at himself.  “Of course.  Quite ridiculous of me to worry about proper decorum under the circumstances.”

        “Quite charming of you to worry about offending me,” she said, mocking his tone flirtatiously. 

        “I want you to be completely content,” he said earnestly. 

        No, he didn't get flirtation.  He was too unaware of how hot he was.   No wonder she'd practically had to assault him earlier.  No problem.  She'd do that again, if necessary.  “The contentness is complete,” she assured him.  At that moment, her stomach growled.  “Except for a bit of hungriness, that is.”

        At her words, an apple dropped from the tree and landed next to her.  She sat up, staring at it.  “You have to be kidding,” she said.

        It was his turn to laugh at her reaction.  “No, that’s the way it is here.  Manna from heaven, except what we’re served always seems rather tastier than I imagine manna to have been. Please, eat it.”

        Buffy frowned at the perfect, rosy surface of the fruit.  “Are you sure it’s not forbidden?  I mean, apple, garden—  I'm not usually good at picking up the literary refs, but—”

        “Nothing is forbidden here,” he said, running a lazy hand along her back and smoothing her hair off to one side.  “Not even this.”  He kissed her shoulder, and his lips moved to the nape of her neck.

Mmmmmm.   He might not get flirtation yet, but he was coming along really well with the seduction skills.  Buffy bit into the apple and chewed it thoughtfully.  “Mmmmmm," she said aloud, leaning back to show her purring was for his touch as well as the taste of the fruit.  "This is good.  No, sex isn’t forbidden.  But you never did it.  I find it kind of hard to believe none of the women I saw in that mansion wanted to teach you what I just did.”

        “Perhaps I was saving myself for you.”  His lips moved against her throat, and his arms slid around her waist from behind.

        She leaned closer.  “Or maybe it was just because this was forbidden where you came from.  That must have made it hard for you when you were alive.”

        “I gather it was not forbidden where you come from.  Was that so much easier for you?”

        “No.  No, it wasn’t easy.  This is the only time it’s ever been easy.  The only time it ever seemed completely right.”  She turned in his arms and held out the remains of the apple.  It had been surprisingly filling.  “Want some?”

        He shook his head.  “I’m not hungry now.”  His eyes grew darker.  “Not for that.”

        The apple core dropped from her hand and rolled off to rest against a tree root.

        "Do you think it was a good idea to leave Andrew in charge of things back there?" asked Dawn, as the bedraggled group of Scoobies emerged from the hospital and set off for the high school.

        "It gets him out of our hair, and there's no way those doctors and nurses will let him near the patients," said Anya. 

        "But what if he goes rogue?" asked Xander.

        "Like Rona?" said Giles. "I doubt it.  Besides, the First has its vessel.  It's unlikely to want a reluctant Andrew when it has the body of a willing Slayer."

        "We should have figured out a long time ago that it was trying to become corporeal so it could get the Power," muttered Anya.  "I mean, what how else could it have been planning to achieve evil world domination?  By making more and more of those Ubervamp things until they overran Sunnydale like a bunch of cockroaches?  How did we ever get distracted by that stupid idea?"

        "What I want to know is how Rona could do it?" asked Dawn.  "Set that bomb, and let the First take over her body?"  She shivered.  "Which do you think happened first?"

        "Fear happened first," said Giles. "Buffy and Spike were trying to frighten her just enough to make her a fighter, but instead they terrified her into becoming a traitor."  He thrust his hands in his pockets, staring at the sidewalk as he walked along the darkened street.  "I blame myself.  It's a common phenomenon in the battle-weary, and I should have been prepared for the possibility." 

        "So," said Xander after an awkward silence, "Now that Rona's let herself become the First's hand puppet, how do we fight her?"

        "Fight her?" asked Willow. "Can't we get her back somehow?  I mean—"  Her eyes pleaded with him.  You got me back.

        Xander looked away.  "You didn't see, Will.  She—Rona—whatever is left of her is buried pretty deep.  And didn't look like it was ready to listen to any arguments.  Even if I knew what to say to her."  He brightened.  "Hey, maybe you can use magic to separate her from the First."

        It was Willow's turn to look away.  "I might figure out a way.  If I had access to the Council libraries.  But the originals all blew up in London, and the copies all went kaboom with Buffy's house.  Besides, we're only a few blocks away from the high school and whatever's happening there.  There's no time to solve this with research."  She skipped a few steps forward to catch up with the Watcher.  "Unless you found something last night, Giles.  You and Anya seem to have figured out a lot of this."

        "A good deal of it, I think," said Giles.  "For instance, we know that if the ritual has been completed in the presence of two Slayers and a vampire with a soul, then at dawn tomorrow the Power will begin to channel into the blood of the Slayer."

        Dawn, who had fallen to the rear of their small procession, spoke up.  "But there are two Slayers."

        "Well, we hope there are still two," said Anya with her usual brutal frankness.   

        Giles rubbed his eyes wearily.  "There must be some way to avert this disaster.  I just wish we knew what Buffy was doing and thinking right now."

Chapter Thirteen