“He’s up there,” said Vi.  “She left him alone up there.”

      “So?” said Rona, dropping onto the couch and looking around the living room at the other Potential Slayers.  “He’s up there, we’re down here.”

      Vi shivered.  “He scares me.  I don’t care what Buffy says.  He’s a vampire, and he killed people even after he got a soul.  The others don’t trust him either.  You can see it in their faces.  Mr. Giles, Xander, even Willow, they’re all afraid of him.”  She huddled in her chair, hugging her knees to her chest.  “I’m scared too,” she announced unnecessarily.

      Kennedy stared at Vi in exasperation.  “Look around you,” she said.  “What do you see?”

      Vi looked as if she expected that whatever Kennedy was referring to would jump up and bite her.  “Uh—”

      “Sunlight,” said Kennedy loudly.  “He comes down here, he fries.  So relax.”  She added, with an edge to her voice.  “Until sundown, at least.”

      “Even then.”  It was Dawn’s voice.  They looked up and saw that the Slayer’s sister was watching them from the hallway.  She raised the stake she held in her hand.  “He comes out in vamp face, I get him.  No worries.”  She turned and walked away.

      “Gee,” said Rona.  “All the Summers women are scary, aren’t they?”

      I should be free of this.  Spike was supposed to be resting here in Buffy’s bed, preparing for nightfall when they would patrol together.  Downright gratifying it had been, the way she fussed over him and insisted that he sleep and regain his strength for tonight.  Tonight--when he would be able to hunt beside his darling as her acknowledged lover, helping her plan her next attack on their mutual enemy.  That comes under the heading of having almost everything you ever wanted, mate.  So why are you feeling like your guts have been drawn and dressed for a nice dish of haggis?  He shouldn’t be having these thoughts.  Spike’s head tossed back and forth on the pillow as he lay in the shade-darkened room, fighting the images that forced themselves into his mind.

      When he had resisted the First’s torture, he had been sure he had broken free of the claims that evil thing had upon him.  He knew that the last of his unwilling collusion had been bled from him in the vile ceremony that had created the Turok-Han.  So why was he lying here, tormented by these hallucinations?  And how could these dreams further the cause of the First Evil?  Unless they weren’t visions sent by the First after all.  Unless they were really memories.

      He dropped into an uneasy sleep, haunted by images of a place in which he was something other than himself, and yet simultaneously more himself than he had been for over a century.

      “Where is he?” asked Xander, setting two cups of coffee down on the kitchen counter.

      “Upstairs sleeping,” said Willow.  She picked up one of the cups and sipped its contents absently.  She was scanning images on her laptop.

      Xander began flicking over the pages of the book in front of him.  “How come he gets to take a nap while we work?”

      “Because he was tortured for weeks by the First and has spent every night since he was rescued patrolling and boinking Buffy,” said Anya.   She was leaning over the refrigerator door and inspecting its contents.  “He’s got to be exhausted.”  She pulled out a packet of cheese.  “This is half gone!”

      “Those girls will eat anything,” said Willow.  “I’m surprised they haven’t gone after Spike’s blood yet.”

      “Can we stop discussing Spike’s various activities?” said Xander.  “Because I’m not getting any pleasure contemplating any of them.”

      “You’re the one who brought it up,” said Anya.  “And, speaking from experience, I’d have to say that the thought of Spike boinking—”

      “Don’t go there, Anya!” said Willow quickly.  She leant toward the ex-vengeance demon and added in an undertone, “You can’t pretend that even you didn’t realize that would hurt Xander.”

      “No,” said Anya, not bothering to lower her own voice.  “But the question is, is Xander upset because Spike had sex with me or because Spike is having sex with Buffy?”  She slammed the refrigerator door.  “Not that I care.”

      “Can we really not do this?” pleaded Xander again.

      “Yes, please let’s stop,” said Willow.  “We have a job to do here, and it’s not dredging up old traumas.”

      “No,” said Xander.  “It’s an exciting new trauma.  We have to figure out what the First is doing right now.”

      “Or, more exactly, who the First has taken over,” said Willow.  “The Seer from the English coven says that the Evil is using someone new, someone close to the Slayer.  She doesn’t think it’s Spike this time, so we have to figure out who it is.”

      The three of them looked around the table at each other uneasily.

      Willow shifted in her chair.  “We know the First can only take the shape of dead people.”

      “But it can get inside living ones,” said Anya, sitting down at the table.  She stared at Willow.  “It got inside you.”

      “That’s enough, Anya,” said Xander.  “Willow isn’t being controlled by the First.”

      “Hmm,” said Anya, picking up a book and paging through it with an intense air of disbelief.

      “She’s right to worry about me, Xander,” said Willow.  “I worry about me.  But the First isn’t using me right now.  I’m sure of that much.  Whether it can take control of me at another time—not so much with the certainty, I’m afraid.”

      “It could be any one of us,” said Xander.

      “Yup,” said Anya, “Besides, it’s not as if we didn’t cause all the trouble in the first place.  If Willow hadn’t done that spell, and if you and I hadn’t helped her, none of this would be happening.  So it’s all our fault for sure.”

      The other two stared at her in frustration and guilt.  Anya continued remorselessly.  “And Giles is telling Buffy that right now.  Explaining how her coming back to life is going to destroy the Slayer line.  So I hope you had some nice bonding moments with her before she went downstairs.  Because she may not be feeling so friendly towards us when she comes back up.   By then, she’ll know for sure where the blame lies.”

      “So,” said Buffy, “it’s all my fault.”

      Giles reached out to cover her hand with his.  “Buffy,” he said softly, “no one blames you.”

      She looked up at him, smiling gently through her tears.  “Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been so distant lately, I thought—”

      “Things have been—somewhat overwhelming,” he said.  “And I have to admit that I had my suspicions even before Anya and I spoke with Beljoxa's eye.”

      Buffy sighed and rested her head on his shoulder for a moment.  Then she looked around at the training room she and Xander had thrown together in the basement of her poor, battered house.  “Everything is falling apart, Giles. I want to hold it together, but I’m the center of the chaos.  I’m its cause.  I shouldn’t be here.”

      “If Willow hadn’t done that spell—”  He shook his head.  “I still don’t understand how it worked.  Even with all Willow’s power and with the dark magic she was willing to call upon, I don’t see how they managed to get you back, intact.”  He gazed at her intently.  “You are intact, Buffy.  If you weren’t, the forces surrounding the Slayer power would not be disturbed as they are.”

      “I know,” said Buffy.  “Anything that’s strange about me is just about me.  I’ve come to accept that, even though I’m not crazy about the implications.”

      “This is not your fault.”  Her Watcher choked out the words.  “Willow and Xander and–they should never have done it.”

      “No, Giles,” said Buffy.  “It was wrong of them, but I can’t put all the blame on Willow and the others.  The spell wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t let it.  If I hadn’t needed to come back.”

      “But—”  He pulled away, staring at her in astonishment.

      “When you came back from England to help stop Willow, I told you I didn’t know why I was here, and that was true.  It was true for the longest time.  But over these past few weeks, fighting this new Evil and some other things have triggered a lot of memories.  Forced me to look at what I didn’t want to see.  I know why I let the spell call me back, even though I was so happy there.  There was something I had to do, Giles.  Something so important that I was willing to be pulled out of heaven for it. ” 

      “To take care of Dawn?” 

      She shook her head.  “No.  I knew that the rest of you would be able to do that.” She looked away from him.  “When I did come back—it was something so awful, I didn’t want to remember.  Wouldn’t let myself remember.   I hid it from myself.  And now that I’ve finally had the courage to see the truth, it may be too late.”

      “Too late for what?  Why did you come back, Buffy?”

      “To kill Spike.”

Chapter Four