Chapter 34


The Hellmouth swirled in the center of town, a sullen Charybdis of mystical energies. Lesser scars and dimples in the fabric of reality orbited about it: there was the rift through which she and Anya had pulled her vampire doppelganger, over there the multiple ragged tears opened when Dawn's blood had seared the air last spring, there the fault line in which the Master had been trapped, and there the still-throbbing wound where the portal had escaped her control during Buffy's Raising. There were older rips and flaws in plenty, torn by not-so-subtle knives. Some were raw- edged and fraying, others knit up more or less well by time or their makers, ghosts of old summonings and failed rituals. The reality beneath reality was a fragile and much-mended thing--a quilt patched once too often, till the fabric itself was beginning to disintegrate.
Willow?
Far, far away, a tiny voice was calling to her, an ant-sized Tara squeaking hypersonic pleas. Inspiration struck, and she descended, swooping down towards earth once more. Tara?
Willow? Oh, Willow--
I'm here, baby. Just keep talking. You can bring me home. Willow soared on phantom winds, circling like a hunting hawk, drawing the focus of her search closer and closer to its goal.
Tara sounded bewildered. Willow? Where are you?
Right here. Just keep...talking... Hah! There it was, the magical signature of the spellcloak, dark and gleaming as heart's blood. No wonder she hadn't been able to spot it earlier; the pearly glow of Tara's magic was distorted by Giles's puzzle-box subtlety and Spike's demonic ferocity. Two centuries of black cunning for Tara to draw on, there. It was unlike any spell cast by any of the three alone, and they'd managed to conceal it from her for what, forty-eight hours?
Pathetic, aren't they? her constant companion murmured. Really, they're fortunate you're on their side. A dark chuckle. More or less.
Willow ignored the comments from the peanut gallery as she picked the weave of the spell apart, analyzing it thread by thread. She had to admit Tara had done fantastically well on short notice and shorter resources. And was beginning to grow suspicious at her silence.
Willow? What are you doing?
Just dropping by to say hi, baby. Love you.
Willow!
And she was back, plummeting back into her body with the shock of a plunge off the high dive. Willow sat up and massaged the beginnings of a cramp out of one calf, then lit the nearest bank of candles with the wave of a hand and a whispered "Ignite." Goblin-shadows danced across the irregular walls of the cavern as she slipped into her shoes. Now that she knew what they were up against, there were options. Breaking the spellcloak by force was possible, but would leave her drained and vulnerable; it drew on the energies of at least half a dozen people, forming a moebius of power as strong and as fragile as the braided loop of hair the spell was founded on. The crazies were human, and unaffected by the spellcloak. She could just send one of them to dig up the empty Mrs. Fields cookie tin buried under the edge of the front porch, and burn the loop of hair inside. There was more than one way to skin a Muppet.
And once that was done... Willow ran a comb through her hair, mulling over the possibilities. Opening another portal here, so soon, would be dangerous beyond belief, something that might make Sunnydale go poof, and possibly the entire world. But if she didn't, Sunnydale was most definitely going to go argh, urk, splat. She could go ahead with her plan, taking what steps she could to reinforce the walls of the world around her portal. Or she could try spiriting Buffy and Spike off to Encino and doing the big switch in someplace less prone to sudden aetheric collapse. Or she could chuck the whole thing and--no. Taking them on a road trip was probably safer, but that meant wasted time and more opportunities for them to escape or be rescued. Going ahead...
"Exalted Vessel?" The Harbinger appeared in her doorway, its gruesomely scarred head bowed. "There is a problem with one of the humans."
It lead her down the winding passage to another cave--smaller than the main cavern, but larger than her private quarters, guarded by another matched set of Harbingers. Crude beds were spaced along the rocky walls, along with a few filthy backpacks and duffle bags crammed with items scavenged from their campsite in the dump--clothes, food, plastic milk jugs of water, a motley assortment of medical supplies. Thirteen pairs of eyes focused on her entrance, bitter, bewildered, or dull with resignation.
The old man lay in a fetal curl on a pallet against the rear wall of the cavern where the crazies were housed. "He's not eating," the man in the yellow windbreaker said, getting up from his crouch to meet her. Jim, Willow reminded herself; it was important that she remember their names, because people, not faceless pawns. "We can take care of them as long as they eat on their own, but if they can't eat..." He raised his thin shoulders and let them fall in a helpless shrug.
Willow dropped to her haunches to inspect the patient. He was a dried-up, cicada-shell husk of a man, his slack toothless mouth and rheumy eyes framed by lank grey hair and grimy stubble. The kind of guy who'd lurch past you on the street, talking to thin air and stinking of stale urine. They called him Bench, because that was where Tanner had found him on the night Xander and Spike had gotten away from them; his real name was anyone's guess. "Hey," she said. "Can you hear me?"
For a second the faded eyes caught fire, full of pain and confusion and urgency, and knobbly fingers closed around her wrist. "Important," he whispered. Willow bent closer. "Blisters. You don't wear socks, you get blisters." He slumped back to the cavern floor, mumbling and twitching in his own world.
"What's wrong with him?" Willow asked, jerking her hand from his loose grasp. "Besides the brain-sucky thing, I mean."
Jim shrugged again. He was one of the ones from the alley, coherent now, but he used as few words as possible, as if he had a limited supply and feared to run short. "Dunno. DTs. Alzheimer's. Schizophrenia. Stroke."
One from Column A, two from Column B. Running into Tanner had probably been the best thing that had happened to Bench in months, maybe years; in exchange for the last useless scraps of sanity he'd gained a society of protectors and providers. That was a moderately sickening thought. Willow sighed, brushed hair from her eyes and got to her feet, looking around at the cavern and the dozen-plus men and women encamped there. Most of them, deprived of Tanner's restorative spell for days now, were deteriorating, but they took care of each other as best they could. She'd wanted to help, but were they really any better off now, crammed into an underground bunker?
They gave her the heebies and the big-time guilt. She couldn't help being reminded of Tara's brush with madness every time she passed their little slumber party. But she needed them, and the ones she'd bespelled in the alley were as sane as could be expected under the circumstances; that was something, wasn't it?
"So what do you do when that happens, the not-eating?" she asked Jim.
"They die," he said flatly. "After three-four days with no water."
"We could take him to the county hospital."
Jim shrugged again. "Could." He'd do as instructed. Even the nominally sane ones were passive, half-convinced this was just another degree of madness. They might be right about that.
Young Buffy wiggled up, sucking on a lollipop. "No insurance, no family, no desperate measures. He'll be dead inside a week."
Willow gritted her teeth and ignored it. The First was seriously starting to get on what was left of her nerves. She stalked off to the main cavern, where a work gang of Harbingers was busily lugging fallen rock away and reconstructing the altar which the cave-in had destroyed. In another day or two it would be finished and re-consecrated, and the Bringers could resume the unending chant which channeled the spirit manifestations of the First--which couldn't happen any too soon as far as Willow was concerned; being the only one capable of communicating with it was kind of like having a satellite dish that brought in two hundred channels worth of the Manson Family Network.
A second group of the robed priests was bustling around at the opposite end of the cavern, drawing mystic symbols on the sandy floor and laying out the components for her planned spells. The scene was weirdly like one of Xander's job sites, except with chicken bones.
Willow stopped to survey their progress, giving the stones and bones and smudge sticks of bundled herbs a cursory inspection. She'd performed the Ritual of Restoration twice now, and had no doubts she'd be able to do it a third time, blindfolded and standing on her head if necessary. The spell to cure the remaining crazies was likewise a lock; all she needed for that was Dawn. The rest wouldn't be quite so easy. She wouldn't be playing 'Where's William' through seven zillion dimensions; Spike's soul had been a direct exchange for Buffy's life, so in theory, putting Buffy into the portal should make his soul pop right out. The tricky part would be opening and closing the portal.
"You know how you can make it less tricky," Young Buffy said with a lascivious lick of her lolly. Her eyes went big and liquid and her lip trembled. "Willow, I'm depending on you."
"No! We're just opening a portal and doing an even exchange. I have enough power to just do it now. It doesn't require a life."
"Ritual has purpose, Willow," Jenny Calendar said, reasonable. "Ritual channels the magic, shapes it, controls it. It's not just about power; you know that. Magic has a price, and you can't always name one that suits you." She began pacing the cavern floor, her feet leaving no trace on the sand. "The solstice is next Friday." Her concern seemed absolutely genuine for a second. "If you fail to right the Balance before then, Sunnydale will go up in flames, but if you bungle the opening of this portal, it'll be destroyed just as surely." She leaned close, her immaterial lips only inches from Willow's ear. "Blood opens the gates. Blood can seal them. What's the population of Sunnydale these days? Thirty thousand? Fifty thousand? Against one old man--one old man whose existence is nothing but pain and dementia anyway."
The sense memory of the last portal spiraling out of her control, of pouring her magic and her life into that bottomless sucking hole in an attempt to fill it, close it, control it, warred in her brain with the vision of Sunnydale as a slaughterhouse for vast shining shapes. Why was it that the powers for good in the universe never deigned to step down to Earth and give the occasional pep talk or commemorative T-shirt or something? No, the only time they'd make an appearance was for wrath-of-God type events, like those annoying people who'd only come to your party if they knew ahead of time you were serving really good hors d'oeuvres and never helped do dishes afterwards. It really ticked her off sometimes.
Lower beings. That's us. The Vorlons were just as dangerous as the Shadows in the end. Willow clenched her fists, concentrating on the bite of her nails into the soft flesh of her palms. "You can't measure lives like that."
Jenny smiled. "Not a bargain Buffy would make, hm? That's right, the sister who wasn't even real, didn't even exist before last year, was more important to her than you, or your parents, your friends, or the entire rest of the world. If you could ask that old man, do you think he'd rather waste away hooked to a battery of tubes in some hospital? Or go out as a hero, saving the lives of thousands with his death?"
Willow swallowed. She wasn't like Buffy, existing in her own righteous little Slayer cocoon. She'd been born in Sunnydale, grown up here. She had friends and teachers and family here, and she couldn't just write them off for principle. But she couldn't--
"You don't have to,"Jenny murmured. "You're my vessel. Remember how it was with the vampire, in the alley? I'm always with you. Always in you. Be with me. Be me. Relax, and let me make the hard decisions."
"And then it won't be my fault?" Willow replied bitterly.
Buffy was back, tossing her shiny cheerleader hair. "You know what's your problem, Wills? You're still looking for the right answer. There aren't any. All the answers are wrong. They all suck. Some just suck harder than others. Some prices--"Joyce Summers looked at her, pale and wan, with thin, radiation-ravaged hair. "Are higher than you're willing to pay." Her understanding smile was like a knife. "It's all right, dear. We all get frightened, and Buffy will never know what you could have done for me...or for the world."
"SHUT UP!" Willow screamed. Half the Harbingers shrank away; the other half stared as if she were the madwoman. She closed her eyes. It was nice inside her head. Dark. Quiet. "Jeeves," she said, "Go get Bench, and bring him out here."


But well you can't refuse
And you just can't choose
What she's gonna do
I said you can't refuse
And you just can't choose
What she's gonna do

Spike would have put the top down, but a steady rat-tat-tat of raindrops beat on the windshield. "This is not the way back to the house!" Buffy yelled over the raucous blare of the stereo. In deference to the change in the weather she was wearing an extremely distracting V-necked claret sweater which showcased the hints of actual cleavage she'd started to display in the last week or so. The bulk of the Torino's spacious front seat remained unused; her warm lithe body tucked neatly under his arm, warding off the December chill.
"World's round, Slayer, we'll get there," Spike yelled back, kicking the volume up another notch. Whatever its flaws as a conveyance for the UV-allergic, the Angelmobile had a bloody marvelous sound system. "The Grand Poof's running up my mileage, and turnabout's only fair play, innit?" The Torino soared over the crest of a rise and swooped into the next curve, tires spraying a ragged silver crescent of water across the shoulder. The road switchbacked higher and higher, up the sloping backside of Kingman's Bluff. Spike canted his head out the window and howled into the wind, "Top of the world, ma!"
Buffy groaned, butting her head against his shoulder. "I knew you were being way too reasonable about the car!" She tugged at his sleeve. "Come on, left turn at Albuquerque."
Spike let go the wheel with a tongue-wagging grin. "Ah, ah, ah, love, don't want me to lose control and dent Grandad's Penis Machine, do we? Loosen up a bit and enjoy the ride!"
Oops. Bit too far, there. The small warm hand on his elbow vanished, and reappeared with frightening swiftness on his crotch. "Turn around, Spike," Buffy cooed, giving him a squeeze. "Or I'll stop torturing you."
Her fingers kneaded playfully, like a kitten pretending it didn't realize it had claws. Spike nearly ripped the steering column free of the dashboard, instantly iron-hard in her grip. "Fuck that for a game of soldiers," he gasped, slewing to a stop in the parking lot for the scenic overlook at the top of the bluff. "Better yet, fuck me."
"I don't know," Buffy murmured, the tip of her tongue protruding in concentration as she maneuvered around the gear shift. Through the windshield behind her the tile roofs of Sunnydale fell away below, the dull red-brown of dried blood in the storm's half-light. A fairy-web of streetlights glimmered wetly against walls and buildings leached of color by the rain. On the horizon the leaden-grey Pacific stretched out to meet the bank of fresh storm clouds sweeping in from the west, dragging wedding-trains of vapor across the waves. "You've been a very naughty vampire."
Her right hand did wonderful, agonizing things while her left worked the tab of his zipper down with equally agonizing slowness. "If I have, it's your job to--ah!--punish me, innit?"
Buffy freed him from the confines of his jeans, cradling his balls, fondling him as his cock rose up, swaying towards her like a charmed cobra. Her fingernails traced shivery patterns up and down its length. She pinched the foreskin, hard, and his hips jerked spasmodically. "I've given this a lot of thought," she said, "And your punishment is to be the guinea pig in a terrible scientific experiment."
"Ah? Got a history of slipping my cage in those, love--oh, God, bite me, you magnificent bitch--aaaahhh!" Hands, lips, teeth, tongue, hot wet heavenly suction and he was coming so hard and fast he scarcely had time to breathe, not that he needed to breathe but fuck almighty he wanted to. Release went on forever, wave after glorious wave, until he went blissfully limp in her mouth.
Buffy drew back, panting, all flushed cheeks and tousled hair. Her little pink tongue made the rounds of her glossy lips, licking pearly spunk from the corners of her sweet wicked mouth. Stretched belly-down on the front seat, her hard little nipples were twin points of fire against his thigh, perilously close to poking right through her skin-tight fuck-me sweater. Her golden head descended again and she was devouring him, making little yummy purry noises deep in her throat. In minutes, hell, seconds, she had him achingly hard once more, thrusting deep into her willing mouth, no finesse, no control, no attempt to make it last, justcoming coming coming again again again!
Buffy was getting off on getting him off, hips undulating in wanton rhythm with her tongue, practically humping the edge of the seat. Spike gathered enough of his scattered volition to slip a hand down under her belly. Hard cold fingers probed the warm crevice between her thighs, seeking out the damp spot on the seam of her jeans and working it till it was sopping. Buffy moaned and squirmed against his hand, coming with him as she sucked him off for the third time in fifteen minutes. Spike growled protest when her mouth left him, but it quickly muted to a lustful rumble as she sat up, fumbling with the buttons of her own jeans and trying to wriggle them down over her hips in the cramped confines of the car. All higher brain functions shut down; Little Spike smelled home and was chafing at the bit to get back to the stable.
The cooling metal of the engine pinged and ticked in the rain. They wrestled together for space and leverage, choking on giggles from the awkwardness of it. The gearshift was jabbing him in the thigh; thank God both of them were short. Buffy flopped over backwards, hair cascading over the door handle, her slim chest heaving with exertion as she won the battle with her painted-on jeans, baring her pretty quim--Paradise by the bloody dashboard lights indeed. Spike buried his nose in her curls, tongue lapping out for a quick teasing caress that made her whimper and twitch under him. "So wet you are, love," he rasped, "all dripping with milk and honey--fuck the Promised Land, I'll take your cunny, wrapped round me like a velvet glove. You're like warm cream, not too hot, not too cold--tonight my li'l Goldilocks is getting it just right."
He didn't need poetry to sing her body's praises, no, buried between her trembling thighs he could speak in tongues, or with them. Didn't take long to bring her to a thrashing frenzy beneath him, fingers wound tight in his hair, moss-agate eyes luminous with ecstasy. The back of her head thumped against the window glass. Delirious with the taste of her, Spike elbowed his way across the seat, licking and nibbling every tender crease of sweat-luscious skin. The clever juncture of hip and thigh, the gentle dip and swell of belly and breasts, the elegant curve of her collarbone--his lips traversed the intimate geography of her body meridian by meridian until at last he could sink himself into her welcoming depths. Buffy arched cat-lithe beneath him and hooked both calves over his shoulders, granting him deeper access. Her shiver of response as he began to move sent lighting jolts of pleasure radiating out from his cock.
Buffy cried out as they rocked together, a wordless paean of physical joy, nails digging into his shoulders, hips bucking up to meet him. She came like the storm breaking against the cliff-face, torrents and forked lightning, and began building to a second climax almost immediately. The car really was shaking as he pounded into her, and the gleeful realization that he was going to be sending Angel's car back reeking of Slayer musk and his own jiz brought Spike home with a triumphant roar. Buffy wasn't quite there yet; she snarled against his chest, biting his nipples through the fabric of his shirt and clenching around him till he was filling her to bursting once more.
Outside the car a lone ray of blood-red sunlight pierced the clouds. Sunset glazed the car windows just long enough to raise a warning tingle on his bare backside and winked out as Buffy keened her release. They lay there panting as the cold wind whistled around the car, Spike lodged soft and sated within her, luxuriating in her warmth. Buffy's hands wandered idly over his torso as they often did in the quiet moments after, as if she were memorizing him against future privation. He nuzzled her ear and heaved a long contented sigh. "Right, guess this makes up for falling asleep on the couch the minute we got home. What's my value to science, then?"
"Mmm. Trying to determine if men can achieve multiple orgasms. Was the experiment a success?"
Spike traced the convolutions of her ear with the tip of his tongue. "I think more clinical trials are in order."
Buffy placed a palm in the center of his chest and gave him a playful shove. With considerable reluctance Spike pulled himself free and sat up. She retrieved her purse from beneath the front seat, where it had gotten kicked at some point in the proceedings, and began making repairs in the rear-view mirror. Spike rolled down his window and lit himself a cigarette. He took a lazy puff and settled back to watch Buffy put herself back together, a far more intensive operation than his own tuck and zip. What she had to go through to pour herself back into those jeans was almost as arousing as the blow job. "That'sit," she grumbled, "I can barely get these pants zipped, tomorrow I go on a--" She took a took a deep breath and did up the last button. "You and Tara are in this vile plot against my waistline together, aren't you? She keeps cooking things and you keep making me hungry."
"Ah, you've sussed out the evil plan," Spike said with a cheerful leer. It was lovely to watch day to day as her body slowly regained the curves he remembered from that long-ago night at the Bronze, like a river finding its way back to its proper bed. "She keeps you fat and I keep you happy and you won't stand a chance next time I take a fancy to destroy the world."
"Which you do so often, and with such stunning success."
"What, destroy the world? Over-rated."
She smiled, the secretive, tender little smile he treasured above all others, the one that was meant for him and no one else in the world. "No, make me happy."
A blaze of light washed over the bluff, rescuing him from going all soppy over that one, and Spike scooted down under the steering wheel, out of reach of the... "What the hell?" He levered himself up again and peered over the top of the dash. "I know it's been a long time since I had much personal acquaintance, but I don't remember sunlight going all blue as a usual thing."
Buffy was leaning forward, gripping the dash and staring down at the darkening town below. "Not as a usual thing, no."
Out of the darkness below a coruscating fountain of light erupted, illumining the sky with an arcane aurora borealis. Radiant spears of crimson and gold, violet and viridian, soared upwards, arcing across the cloudy sky and falling back to earth at various spots across town--the ruins of the old factory, the construction site where Glory's tower had been, an apparently random apartment complex. At each impact a burst of light flared up and then vanished, swallowed into nothingness.
"I'm going out on a limb and predicting this isn't good." Spike turned the keys in the ignition and hauled on the steering wheel; gravel crunched as the car wheeled round on its own length.
"Well, of course not," Buffy muttered, tugging her sweater back into place. "I had sex, naturally something evil's going to come along immediately afterwards."
Spike chucked his cigarette butt out the window as they slalomed back down the bluff. "Well, then, love, it 'n me'll be having words. I'm the only evil thing that gets to come when you have sex."


"...and the skin had healed right over some of the splinters, so I totally had to cut him open with a razor blade. I mean, it wasn't deep, they were right under the skin, and he doesn't really bleed much because no circulation, but still, no shaky hands or anything." Dawn held out the hand in question to demonstrate non-shakiness.
"And all this without him screaming like a girly-vamp and waking me up? Golf claps all around." Buffy slurped up a strand of spaghetti. In light of the earlier life-or-death struggle with the forces of Gloria Vanderbilt, she'd firmly intended to restrict herself to a small salad, but Tara had made enough spaghetti to put the Olive Garden out of business. Willow baked in the aftermath of disaster; Tara, apparently, cooked in the forlorn attempt to keep disaster at bay. Which meant, she consoled herself, that eating two helpings with garlic bread and tossed salad was a virtuous action designed to make Tara feel better, not just post-slay, post-Spike indulgence.
"What can I say, Bit's got a way with a knife." Spike stole a piece of Buffy's garlic bread and dunked it into his blood. "Healed up right nice once they were out, too, and a good thing, considering the way you had me... exerting myself." Buffy kicked him under the table and Spike smirked at her over the vinegar cruet. "What? It's like bleeding Mardi Gras out there tonight. We must have dusted half a dozen of my nearest and dearest between Main and Wilkins alone."
Dawn executed Eye Roll #37, I Am Way More Mature Than You. "I've seen you guys on 'patrol', remember?" She surrounded 'patrol' with air quotes. "Stake, smooch, stake, smooch, pointless argument, smooch, and then one of you throws the other against a wall and next thing you know you're running up the premiums on some poor guy's earthquake insurance." She grinned with sisterly malice and Buffy seriously considered dunking her in the salad bowl. "Oh, and also, Anya called and said if you guys can get that demon slug skin over to the shop tomorrow, she's got a meeting with the buyer lined up."
Spike nodded and took a healthy swig of garlic-butter-flavored pig's blood. "Sorted. Good bet the tunnels will have cleared out by then after Red's latest showstopper."
"Remember the good old days when everyone just pretended the weird stuff wasn't happening?" Buffy stabbed an innocent meatball in a fit of Slayerly pique. "I swear, the whole town came out to stand on their lawns and gawk up at the pretty colors. Vampires included." She sopped up the last of her spaghetti sauce with a frown. "But if the Wonderful World of Disney teaser was Willow trying to break through Tara's spell, or find Dawn, her aim's off. She hit everywhere but here."
Tara nodded. In the wake of Willow's astral fly-by she looked red-eyed and sniffly, and hadn't eaten more than a bite or two, though she'd pushed her food through enough laps around her plate to qualify it for the Indy 500. "I don't think--it had to be something else. It felt... big. Way bigger than getting through one little cloaking spell."
"Angel checked in yet?"
Dawn nodded. "He called around eight and said he was just getting onto the 101." Hostility tinged her voice. "Elvira, Mistress of the Skank's with him."
Buffy frowned; playing nice with Faith again wasn't high on her Make A Wish list, but fifteen awkward minutes while Angel switched cars was hardly a slumber party complete with hair-braiding and giggly boy talk. She'd deal. Dawn misinterpreted her silence. "You're not still going to have Angel take me to Dad, are you?" she protested. "That's the first place Willow would look!"
"You're right." Dawn, about to burst forth with more argument, shut her mouth with a blink of surprise. Buffy glanced at Tara. "Even Supercharged Willow's got limits, right? Angel can take Dawn some not-Dad's place out of range of any locator spell Willow can cast. Bonus: None of us will know where she'll be, so if Willow gets hold of any of us even a truth spell won't help."
Tara nodded. "That could buy us some time."
"No!" Dawn leaped to her feet, sending her chair scooting across the dining room. "I have school, and I can't believe I'm using school as an excuse! I'm sick of spending my life as the ball in a game of magical keepaway! Besides, you can't send me away. You need me."
Buffy grit her teeth and very carefully arranged her silverware on her empty plate. "I do, Dawn. But so does Willow, and--"
"You don't get it." Dawn squared her shoulders, her still-girlish features taking on an adult determination. "You need me because Willow needs me. To lure her into the Hellmouth." She spread both arms wide and pirouetted. "Voila. Dawn 'They call me Schmuckbait' Summers."
For a second Buffy was certain someone had heaved a brick at her stomach, leaving her breathless as any new-risen fledgling. "No," she got out at last. Her voice sounded surprisingly normal.
"No, why?" Framed defiantly in front of the painted-tile mural over the sideboard, Dawn played up her superior height for all it was worth. "No because I'm too young? I'm the same age you were when you started fighting vampires. No because it's too dangerous? You said yourself Willow doesn't want to hurt us. Or is it just no because I'm your sister? Everyone else puts themselves on the line! God, Buffy, let me do something for once!"
Some small cool rational part of her sat in the back of Buffy's skull, nodding at everything Dawn said, just as it had nodded last spring when Giles had pressed another argument concerning her sister. As then, another, atavistic portion of her brain rose up with a snarl and strangled it. "Just no! I promised Mom I'd keep you safe! In what universe does using you as the cheese in our better mousetrap qualify as keeping you safe?"
Tara ducked her head and fiddled with the crumpled napkin in her lap. "That reminds me, I need to feed Amy." She disappeared swiftly and completely enough that Buffy strongly suspected magic was involved, but she couldn't divert her attention from the Dawn stare-down to be certain.
Dawn threw up her hands with a strangled rrrgh! of frustration. "There is no safe!" She aimed a lethally accurate hair-flip at her sister, snatched up a random armload of dishes and stomped off to the kitchen to clatter them around in the sink as loudly as possible. "Send me away, see if I care! Maybe I'll just stay in L.A. and let Dad ignore me in person. It'll be better than being pwecious baby Dawnie forever here!"
"Oh, you're about a million miles from precious!" Buffy yelled after the back of her sister's departing head. She stood glaring at the kitchen door for a second, then whirled and stomped off in the opposite direction. She grabbed her coat from the rack in the foyer, shrugged into it and stormed out onto the front porch, where her drive abandoned her. With a discouraged sigh she leaned against the railing and stared out into the darkened street. Christmas lights twinkled, reflecting in wet asphalt; the rain had slacked off and the world was wet and still and cold beneath a ragged ceiling of clouds. Her breath smoked on the air. It was the dark of the moon, nearing the longest night of the year, and she had a week to figure out how to lure Willow into the Hellmouth and keep her there long enough for... what? And no ideas. Zero, zilch, nada. Except for the unthinkable.
She felt Spike's presence before the front door opened. He sauntered out onto the porch and lazed against one of the supporting pillars, thumbs tucked into his jeans pockets. "The Bit... Dawn... she's a brave girl. Like her sis. She just wants to be part of it," he said softly. "Mix it up a bit. Gets so you've got to do something, sometimes."
Buffy tilted her head back and looked up; a patch of starless matte-black sky showed through a rent in the clouds. "I used to think Mom was so unreasonable about me and slaying. I just...I wanted... Dawn was going to have everything I couldn't. College, and parties, and boyfriend troubles that don't involve mass murder, and a real job. And now she's getting sucked into all this. Again. She wants to get sucked in and I just don't understand how she can throw everything away like that!"
Spike was quiet for a moment. "Sometimes it's worth it, giving things up." He cocked his head in wordless invitation, shifting position to accommodate her in the circle of his arms, and Buffy allowed her body melt against his.
He felt so good to melt against. Lately the hollows beneath those breathtaking cheekbones weren't quite so deep, and the austere planes and angles of his body were muting into sleek muscular curves. She approved--he must have dropped a good twenty pounds living on whiskey and grief after her death, until her sister'd bullied him into laying off the Jack Daniels and feeding regularly again. Some of the photos of him and Dawn over the summer were positively scary. And there was another example of grown-up responsible Dawn she didn't want to think about right now, taking care of Spike as much as Spike had taken care of her... She burrowed into his chest, blotting out worry in his scent. "Mmm. Comfy."
The corners of his eyes crinkled with laughter. "Yeh, good thing the Slayer's blood special's only a few days a month or I'd be as tubby as Peaches."
"Dork. Play nice." Buffy stroked the firm bulge of his biceps. "I'll just have to make sure you get lots of exercise, won't I?"
They were both losing their sharp corners, the edges honed by desperation and loneliness. She didn't know if that was a bad thing--if she were still measuring out her life in low-fat yogurt cups and lonely, unsatisfied nights, would she have come up with a solution by now? No thinking. Kissing instead. This was good. Right here and now. The crisp post-storm air. The quilted warmth of her jacket. The satisfying aches of a good fight or three. The liquid interplay of tongues, the sinuous twining of warm flesh with cool. Spike's hard-muscled black denim thigh, thrust between her legs at just the right angle. Her hands slipping up beneath his shirt, kneading the broad plateau of his shoulders. Spike's eyes, half-lidded, near-indigo in the shadows, as she laminated her mouth to his...
Was it a demon thing, this willingness to submerge herself in the moment? Fight, fuck, and feed--they'd certainly been doing enough of all three. Was that her, really, a veneer of humanity as thin as Spike's, stretched over some inner core of dark hedonistic power? Or was it just that after six years living on the edge of the Hellmouth she'd finally learned that any fleeting pleasure was to be snatched and savored?
The familiar growl of the DeSoto pulling into the driveway merged with the familiar growl of its owner, and Buffy pulled back, blinking away spots as the headlights washed over the porch and died away with the engine.


Faith woke face-down in jolting darkness, surrounded by a sickening miasma of stale tobacco, old leather and grease. Flung out an arm to steady herself, bit back a gasp as torn muscle and bruised bone shrieked in protest. Looked up, squinting through the dark blotches smeared across her vision...
No, wait. The dark blotches were smeared across the windows. She was lying in the back seat of some unfamiliar monster of a car, swaddled uncomfortably in county hospital blankets, as it sped along a potholed access road. On the floor an empty whiskey bottle nestled in a litter of fast-food wrappers and old blood bags, clinking against the door with each jounce and bump. Highway lights flashed past overhead, and the whoosh of nearby traffic vied with the roar of the engine. Where the fuck was she?
The last thing she remembered was the digital panic of the machines that went ping, and running feet from the nurses' station down the hall. Faith rubbed her chest; there was a deep throbbing ache radiating out from her breastbone, as if someone had none-too-gently rammed a six-inch needle between her ribs. It was a newer pain than the already-healing gash in her side. The attack had been a joke, the home-made blade barely creasing the muscle--just an excuse to get her transferred into the hospital, where the injection of supposed painkillers sent her into spasming darkness. She still felt like shit, stomach roiling with post-anesthesia nausea.
"...no. An hour ago."
Deep, slightly impatient--she knew that voice.
"...not sure. Two minutes, maybe. Not as long as you were gone the first time, but it did stop before Wesley got the adrenaline into her, so..." Angel paused, cell phone pressed awkwardly to one ear. She couldn't see his expression in the rearview mirror, but she knew it was irritated--weird, how he'd adopt one modern convenience without blinking and whine and bitch about another as if it meant the end of the world. "I'm getting off the Ventura now," the vampire said. "We're almost to the city limits."
Angel flipped the phone closed and stuffed it back into a jacket pocket, taking a fresh grip on the steering wheel and sinking back against the seat--he looked morose yet determined, like someone heading for a root canal. Major issue, with the fangs and all. "Hey," Faith said, levering herself up on one elbow and squinting into the endless tunnel of red taillights ahead. "What day is it?"
He looked over the back of the seat with one of the rare genuine smiles that reached his eyes. "Friday. For another few hours. How you feeling?"
Damn. She'd been out for half the day. "I think I'm gonna puke."
"Spike's car. Be my guest."
She would have laughed, but it hurt. Whatever the creeps at the hospital had shot into her, it had locked her up like a full-body charley horse. Even her toes were sore. Adrenaline. Wesley. Her ex-Watcher had saved her life. The Irony Fairy was working overtime. Sucks to be you, Wes.
A hand reached over the back of the front seat and groped in mid-air for a moment before finding the curve of her forehead in the dark, and cool fingers brushed the sweat-soaked waves of hair aside. "You want me to pull over?"
"Nah." Barfing would hurt as much as laughing. "I wouldn't complain if you rolled down a window or something."
"Sure."
The hand disappeared, and seconds later a river of cold exhaust-flavored air poured into the car. Signs flashed by outside, peppered with corporate hieroglyphs advertising the delights to be found at the next exit--when had they stopped using words, she wondered, and started expecting you to recognize everything by logo? Faith huddled down into her cocoon of blankets. "This is gonna look bad at my next parole hearing."
Angel's reply came from very far away. "On the bright side, you'll be alive to go to it." In only minutes, it seemed, his hands were on her shoulders, shaking gently. "Faith. We're here."
Sit up slowly, carefully... yeah, baby, Faith is locked in the upright position. They were parked in the driveway of the Summers place, and up on the porch two figures were briefly illumined by the glare of the headlights. A couple of hours must have passed, enough to give Slayer healing something to work with; underneath the hospital dressing her ribs itched ferociously and the nausea was gone, leaving lightheaded hunger in its wake. The glimpse of her own face in the rear-view mirror showed eyes sunk deep in the bruised hollows of a too-pale face, but overall she felt remarkably not dead. "We're not staying here, are we?" she asked, trying to keep the apprehension out of her voice.
"Not long," Angel said. "I've got to move the things in the trunk over to my car and I'd like to make sure Spike hasn't put sugar in the gas tank by way of a parting gift." His look towards the porch said volumes, none of it flattering. He extended a hand and Faith climbed stiffly out of the car and stood on the lawn, swaying a little, staring up at the house and rubbing her arms in the cold. The wet was seeping through her thin shoes. When Angel put a supportive arm around her shoulders, she didn't shrug it off.
Buffy was standing backlit on the top step, arms folded. Guardian of the fuckin' threshold, with William the Drop-Dead-Wait-He-Already-Is-Gorgeous at her shoulder, radiating power and confidence and all that shit. Faith stopped at the bottom of the steps, tossed her head and planted her fists on her hips. Bright side, at least she had pants. She could be running around with her ass hanging out of a hospital gown. "Hey. B. Can I use your can before we take off again? Some people don't know the meaning of the words potty break."
Buffy tilted her head to one side, perfect bows arcing over wide eyes. "I notice you make with the walking and talking. This normally means you're not dead, but in present company..."
Faith grinned, betting it was a pretty ghastly expression in her current condition, and rubbed her breastbone. "Present and accounted for, cap'n. Dying wasn't that bad, but coming back hurts like a sonofabitch."
"Luckily Wesley realized what was happening in time," Angel said, rather sourly--annoyed, perhaps, that he hadn't. Sweet, in a broody way. She'd have to let him know it didn't matter--he'd come through for her again, the way he always had; Wesley wouldn't have been there if he hadn't rallied the troops. "The 'nurse' got away and it was too crowded for me to track her--I lost the scent before getting out of the hospital. We've got to assume that she, and possibly a few confederates, are still out there and potentially dangerous."
Buffy gnawed on her lower lip. "Pretty certain that heart stoppage calls the next Slayer in line, but..."
Angel's massive shoulders hunched beneath his coat. "According to Wesley it's not clear how long a Slayer has to be... incapacitated for a new one to be called--"
"So," Spike drawled. "To sum up, Angel knows bugger all. Lovely to have met you all. Can I have my car back now?"
Angel was up the steps with a swift menacing lunge and Spike danced back grinning, with a loose-limbed roll of his shoulders that made you momentarily forget he was only five-eight with his boots on. "Oi, Ref, penalty for unnecessary looming!"
A dead guy, apparently, was still a guy. "You two gonna start pissing on fire hydrants next?" Faith inquired.
Buffy grabbed Spike's elbow with a hiss of annoyance and propelled him forward. "You, him, out." At Spike's disbelieving look, she added, "Go forth. Slobber over your respective cars. Whatever. Do guy-vampire-type things, none of which are to involve staking, burning, beheading, property damage, or excessive drunkenness."
"That cuts out talking football, then." Spike gave Angel the suspicious glare accorded to potential Arsenal supporters. "And while we're re-enactingThe Quiet Manwithout any of the entertaining bits...?"
"Faith and I have girl stuff to talk about. You know. Hair care and evisceration tips. Scoot." Buffy made a little shooing motion with both hands and motioned Faith to follow her inside. She shut the front door on two startled vampire faces and collapsed against it. "I love Spike truly, madly, deeply, but sometimes he really needs a severe killing." She eyed Faith up and down. "You look like crap."
Faith rubbed the back of her head, surreptitiously trying to work a few of the tangles out of her hair. "Goes with the feeling like crap." B. looked fabulous, of course, always did, and here she was in a funky, slept-in mixture of prison blues and hospital scrubs, looking like something the cat hacked up and there's that green-eyed monster licking its chops again. Down, boy.
Buffy essayed a strained smile. "Bathroom's upstairs. Uh, well, I guess you remember that. There's spaghetti, if you're hungry. There's also furniture. I'm told some people sit on it." Faith nodded, uncertain; there wasn't any glass between them now, but their eyes kept sliding away from each other anyhow. They stood in the foyer without for a long awkward minute before Faith turned and took the stairs as fast as she dared.
The last time she'd been in this house she'd been wearing Buffy's body like a shoplifted Versace. The prints with the doors were still hanging in the stairwell, but the end table at the bottom was different--smashed by something spiny and replaced, probably. It was the same, and it was different. Maybe that was all she needed to know. Buffy didn't follow her up the stairs to guard her while she peed, which was something.
When she got downstairs again Buffy was facing off against Dawn in the kitchen, the two of them arguing in low strained whispers. "...no discussion, Dawn! Just get packed!"
Dawn's mouth set in a grim line. She gave Faith the laser eyeball of death as she hesitated in the doorway, slammed past her and out of the kitchen in a full-blown teenaged huff. Buffy grimaced and began to ladle leftover spaghetti into a bowl, looking, just maybe, a little apologetic. Yeah, fun for the whole family. Faith cleared her throat uneasily. "So. How's your mom?"
All the nascent warmth in Buffy's face evaporated. "Dead. Last year. It seems to run in the family lately."
"Oh." Fuck. So much for glorious sisterhood. Had Angel ever mentioned that? Had she just blown it off? "I'm sor--I didn't know. Where's that spaghetti? If my mouth's full I can't put my foot in it."
Even reheated, the spaghetti tasted better than anything she'd eaten in years, and Faith tore into the meal with single-minded intensity--Slayer metabolism had been working overtime today, and Angel tended to forget about the whole needing to eat thing. Buffy drifted around the kitchen with arms tight-folded beneath her breasts, picking up salt shakers and potholders and putting them down again without looking at them. She finally ran aground staring out the window over the sink. Faith prompted at last, "I don't wanna look gift pasta in the mouth, but is there a reason for the fatted calf treatment?"
Buffy looked away from the window, twirling a strand of hair around her forefinger with that big-eyed angstful look she got, the one that said she was bearing up bravely under a terrible fate. About half-way between the stone face of Summers denial and the trembly lip. "Giles found out what causes it," she said. "The potential wonkiness that has the Council spitting tweed bricks. Apparently whoever whipped up the first Slayer was much into the fighting of fire with fire. Whatever power it is we've got that makes us all Chosen? Demon. We're part demon."
"Oh." Faith rested her chin on her hands. "Well, shit. Makes sense, I guess."
Buffy spun on her heel to face her, somewhat miffed that her bombshell had proven to be a dud. "'Oh?' By the way, you're not entirely human, and all I get is an 'oh?' Anticlimax much?"
"Well, what else am I supposed to say?" Truth to tell she felt more stunned than anything else, but damned if she was going to roll over and wallow; she'd had enough of that to last a lifetime. "Fuck, B., we've seen the enemy and she is us--yeah, it's scary. But slapping a label that says 'demon' on my forehead doesn't change anything. I already got labels saying 'jailbird' and 'murderer.'" Faith shrugged. "What's one more? So I got part of a demon squirreled away somewhere, maybe wantin' to mess with my head--it can just take a fucking number and get in line behind my asshole dad and my drunk mom and the undead prick who killed my Watcher and every other piece of coal-black shit that's been thrown at me in the last twenty years. Scared? I feel sorry for the damn thing." She scowled. "I just can't believe that's it. This is the big secret? This is why the Council wants me to join the choir infuckinvisible? 'Cause we're part demon? What the hell are they so scared of?"
Buffy snorted. "That we'd go march in the Demon Pride Parade the minute we found out, I guess."
"Huh." Faith rested her chin on clasped hands. "Maybe I would have, once. It's a hell of a lot more fun being a demon than being a Slayer. Letting go. At least..."
"...until the human part of you catches up." Buffy leaned against the kitchen island, looking somber. "But then, it's more fun to be a human than to be a Slayer, too. Ihatethis."
"Being a Slayer? You don't have to. My gig now. Once I'm a contributing member of society again and all. Hey, is there any more garlic bread? Did you know Angel's got a whole freaking restaurant kitchen in that hotel of his, and they all live on take-out burritos?"
"There's more in the oven. No, not being a Slayer. I'm kind of...semi-annual apocalypse aside, lately it doesn't entirely suck, being a Slayer. Probably because lately it doesn't entirely suck being a Buffy." A frown sketched a small precise line between Buffy's brows. "It's just... if I didn't know anything else, I always thought I knew who I was. What I was. The work I had to do. And now I find out it's all been a lie."
"No, it's not." Faith dropped her fork with a clatter, surprised at her own vehemence. "I don't give a shit if we're human or demon or the Great Gazoo. What we do--that's real."
Buffy regarded her for a moment with something like...respect? then gave her a brief nod, acknowledging the point. "If Giles is right, this demon thing's always been part of us. Our ticket in the Chosen One sweepstakes. Becoming the Slayer just wakes it up." She fell silent for a moment. "It explains a lot. And it doesn't explain anything--how did it get into the Slayer line to begin with? How's it passed on? Do the Powers That Be reach down and zap unsuspecting baby girls with demon juice, or is it some X-Files thing with aliens injecting the First Slayer with demon DNA? Was Mom one of us? Is Dawn? Giles says there's dozens, maybe hundreds of potential Slayers--why does one get picked and another not? The Council's known this stuff all along, and they've kept it from us. That whole aspect of the demon thing in high school? Wiggy enough waiting to grow horns or a tail, but ha ha, joke's on me, I already had one!" Anger began edging out the bitterness in her voice. "And let's not go into the years of obsessing over whether I'm a whack job for getting off on the slaying."
Faith ran a finger around the rim of her bowl and licked off the spaghetti sauce. Would things have been different, with one less voice whisperingbad sick wrongin her ear? Probably not, but you couldn't help wondering. Unnerving to hear Buffy Summers admitting to the same kinds of fear. "You were always in control."
"Oh, yeah, I was Control Girl." Buffy picked viciously at a worn spot on the Formica. "Lying awake nights, trying to make the sweaty Angel thoughts disappear by going out and dusting one more vamp--I envied you so much."
That earned her a stare. "You envied me?" Faith finally looked up, tucked her hair back, and met her fellow Slayer's eyes. Weird to think back--was it only three years ago?--and remember that year, she herself spiraling out of control as Buffy wound tighter and tighter. "That's a kick and a half."
"You made handling the Slayerness look so easy, with your unstoppable force thing--well, until the whole murderous psychotic break." She gave a fierce little shake of her head. "If I'd known from the beginning... at least I'd've known why I felt things that...God, poor Riley." She tucked one hand under her chin, toying with the skull ring on its chain. "He had no clue. I had no clue. We lived in a clue-free zone."
"He was..." Faith stopped, wondering just how much scab she could afford to pull off this particular wound. "He was a really nice guy."
Buffy pulled out a nostalgic smile, as for a favorite childhood toy. "Yeah. Yeah, he was."
"Nice can be nice."
"Relaxing."
Couldn't help bringing a bit of sly in here, could she? "But not to be compared to the pony ride the bleached bombshell can give you?"
Buffy actually grinned back. Caught off-guard, maybe. "Comparisons are tacky," she said with a prim little toss of her head.
"Y'know...B..." Was there any way to say this without sounding pathetic? Probably not. "That last time in L.A.--I was never trying to...to steal him, y'know? Angel, I mean. It's just--he believes in me." God, how much lamer could she sound? "Nobody ever did that before. And--"
"You couldn't," Buffy interrupted. "Steal him. I never had him to be stolen. Not really. I know that now." She twirled the ring with a small rueful smile. "I loved him. I loved him so much I can't even describe it, but sometimes I think that from the minute we met we were walking away from each other." Her eyes strayed to the window again, though Faith could barely feel the vampiric presence out in the yard at this distance. "It's funny. I know Spike's favorite band and his favorite books and favorite soccer team and the street he was born on and the name of the cousin who dunked him in a rain barrel when he was eight and why he talked Drusilla out of eating Billy Idol and that he leaves the cap off the toothpaste no matter how often I yell at him--I never knew Angel like that. We never... we never really talked about ordinary stuff."
"Angel's not much with the talk, small or otherwise," Faith agreed. After a minute she plunged forward with, "I'm with you on the talking thing, 'cause I was thinking--we're the only Slayers in history that have the chance to. Talk. To each other." We were almost friends once. Almost sisters. Cain and Abel in drag.
Buffy's expression went guarded. "So you're saying maybe we ought to exploit the historic opportunity and talk sometimes?"
Faith made her shrug as nonchalant as possible. "Just sayin'. I'd like to find out for sure if the Council's still got a bullseye painted on my ass, see if I'm gonna be doing a Richard Kimble or virtuously turning myself in to the LAPD again."
"Yeah, about that." Buffy's eyes narrowed. "I don't know about you, but taking time out to paper-train the Reservoir Dogs is putting a crimp in my social life. We're the only Slayers, but--see above--we're not the only possible Slayers in this best of all possible worlds. I think Giles even has a list. With e-mail addresses. So how far would Quentin Travers's head spin around on his shoulders if we started giving the next generation the benefit of our wisdom and experience? If all of a sudden every potential Slayer in the world found out exactly what she was?"
"Blackmail?" Faith leaned back with a big lazy tiger-grin. "Hey, I prefer violence, but with an ocean in the way and plane tickets through the roof..."
"Blackmail is such a sleazy word. I prefer to think of it as a threat. If they don't back off and let us kick vampire ass in peace and quiet--" Buffy smiled back, and it wasn't a pleasant expression. "Then the truth will be out there. All over the place. And then--"
Upstairs, something went smash, and Buffy's face went white.


Dawn pulled another sweater out of the drawer and scrunched it up with vicious disregard for whether or not it matched any of the half-dozen pairs of pants laid out on the bed. That's Buffy. She stuffed it into her suitcase and reached for another one. Fold, spindle, skip the mutilation--couldn't afford to poke holes in anything. That's Willow. But she wasn't going to be a little kid about it, no--she wouldn't give Buffy the satisfaction. She'd be all packed and ready the minute her sister decided to kick her out. Stupid end of the world.
Angel and Spike down in the front yard, jealously inspecting their cars for damage and snarking at each other. No love lost there. She could catch a word here and there when they got loud enough. Stupid Buffy-whipped vampire. He could have stuck up for her, but no, Buffy says frog, Spike asks how high he should jump. Buffy'd better be really good at the sex thing because--
Something scraped against the shingles, barely audible over the renewed patter of rain. Was Miss Kitty still out? Dawn walked over to the window and pressed her nose to the cold glass, but all she could see was rain-filled darkness and the tangled branches of the oak tree off to one side. Farther away street lights glowed in the darkness, glittering with a million fugitive gems as raindrops passed through the aura of light around each one. Her breath was starting to fog up the windowpane, and she undid the latch and heaved the window up. "Miss Kitty? Here girl! Come on in, meaning the cat and not any random vampires in hearing distance!"
If the cat was out there, she wasn't risking a dash to the window from wherever she was hiding. Behind her, the suitcase she'd left balancing precariously on the edge of her bed slid off and hit the floor with a thump, spilling socks out onto the floor. "Crap," Dawn muttered, turning away from the window and bending down to pick it up. She really ought to fold all this stuff properly if--
An arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back against a thin ragged torso and pinning her arms. A hand clamped over her mouth from behind. Dammit, this wasn't fair, she specifically hadn't invited anyone in! Dawn screamed, the noise muffled by the pressure of cold wet fingers, and thrashed violently in her captor's grasp. She could tell immediately that this wasn't a vampire; she could actually make some headway against his grip. A frantic voice hissed in her ear, "Quiet! Be quiet! I'm not going to hurt you, little girl! Please just shut up!"
Dawn ignored him and kept struggling, wishing desperately that Spike had had time to teach her that neck-snapping thing. "Let me go!" she screeched, or more accurately, "Lm muh gmh!" The whole thing was a horrible replay of Ben dragging her off to the tower, but she was half a year older and several inches taller now--yay, growth spurts!--and at least she could make things hard on whoever this was. She flailed back backwards with one foot, trying to find a vulnerable toe, and sank her teeth into the flesh of the man's palm. Her captor yelled louder than she had, overbalanced and planted one foot in her suitcase, which snapped shut on his ankle. He staggered into the dresser, pulling her with him. The open drawer slid out and hit the floor with a crash.
There was a immediate thunder of feet in the stairwell, and a lean, pale blur shot up over the edge of the porch roof and dove through the open window in a flurry of wet leaves and rain--Spike in full game face, fangs bared, roaring mad. The man screamed and let Dawn drop as her bedroom door burst off its hinges and her sister appeared in the gap, eyes blazing. A heartbeat later Buffy'd grabbed a handful of wet, grimy t-shirt and hoisted the intruder a foot off the floor, slamming him up against the wall and ripping Dawn's Justin Timberlake poster off its thumbtacks. "What do you want with my sister?" Buffy snarled, quite as fearsome as Spike, if slightly less flamboyant about it.
"She sent me to get the girl, please don't kill me, oh, God, I just want to go home, please let me go home..." The man--it was one of the guys from the alley, Dawn could see now, the one in the blue baseball cap--writhed against the wall like a pinned butterfly awaiting the camphor, blubbering pitiably. Buffy's gaze and the pressure of her fingers against his throat remained merciless, wringing torrents of words from him along with the tears. "She's in my head now all the time, I gotta do it, they took Bench away and we haven't seen him since and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't, I didn't wanna hurt her, I don't wanna die!"
Dawn stumbled over to the bed. There were muddy sneaker prints all over her clothes where Blue Cap had stepped in her suitcase, and for some reason this was way more disasterous than the attack. Faith and Angel were right behind Buffy now, crowding the door of her room, with Tara wide-eyed in the hall behind them. Spike crouched at her side, his golden eyes brimming with wordless concern. His nostrils flared--snuffing the air for blood, she realized, to see if she were injured. "I'm fine," she said. Why was she shivering? She'd been kidnaped by hellgods; this was nothing. "I'm--"
Spike put an arm around her shoulders and all of a sudden she was sobbing stupidly into his chest, like the little kid she absolutely wasn't, while he pressed his hideously beautiful demon-face into the top of her head and made comforting growly noises. "'S all right, love, we've got him."
"I hate this! I hate it!" Dawn pounded an ineffectual fist against his shoulder. "I just sit here while people c-come and--"
"Hush, you didn't sit. Drew first blood, you did--look at his hand, there; couldn't have taken a better chunk out of him myself. Come on." He rose to his feet, drawing her up with him. "Let's us give your sis room to work."
She followed Spike downstairs and sat on the couch, hugging her knees and staring at the now completely fake Christmas tree. There was some kind of weird kinship there--she was fake too, just made to seem real for awhile. Spike disappeared into the kitchen and re-emerged a few minutes later carrying a mug. A cloud of fragrant steam hit her nose as he pressed it into her hands, and Dawn wrapped her fingers around the slick ceramic and let the warmth seep into her bones--hot chocolate vampire style, made with a flotilla of mini-marshmallows and enough cocoa powder to leave a thick sweet sludge in the bottom. She took a sip and felt the inner numbness start to thaw.
Angel padded downstairs as Spike picked up the phone. "What are you doing?"
"What's it look like?" Spike punched out 911 and flopped down on the couch beside Dawn.
"Since when do you call the police?"
"Since my girls'd object to my draining the bastard and leaving his corpse on the lawn for the mailman to trip over," Spike replied. "Assuming Buffy leaves him in pieces large enough for me to get a fang in. Yeh. Got a break-in. 1630 Revello Drive. No, he's cornered. No gun."
The heavy line of Angel's brow dipped lower over his dark eyes. "Did it occur to you that I've got a fugitive in tow?"
Spike hung up and blinked, mouth falling open in mock horror. "You mean--you'd have to leave early? Bloody hell. Never entered my mind."
Angel and Faith made themselves scarce before the squad car arrived; there'd been no mention of Faith's disappearance on the news, but no one wanted to take chances. Buffy turned on the charm for the officers, smiling, batting her eyelashes--it was so lucky that Spike had been here, and that she'd taken that self-defense class. Dawn answered questions--no, she didn't know the suspect, she might have seen him panhandling once or twice downtown, she'd never spoken to him before and didn't know of any motive for the attack. Spike, absolutely lapping up the opportunity to be the Supportive Boyfriend in public, hovered over both of them to the point that Buffy almost thwapped him a couple of times.
"...don't think there's any point in pressing charges, he's obviously a little..." Buffy twirled a finger beside her temple. "I mean, claiming a vampire chased him through the window? Right."
"Yeh, ridiculous," Spike chimed in. "Stray vamp couldn't get in without an invite."
Buffy elbowed him in the ribs. The officers exchanged looks and the larger of the two handed her a sheaf of papers. "If you change your mind, ma'am, call this number."
Tara managed to slip out to the back yard to be sure the talisman powering the spellcloak was still intact wile Buffy ushered the policemen out. Dawn stayed where she was, too tired to move; it was almost two in the morning. Buffy shut the front door and the company smile fell away in an instant; she looked small and fragile and tired, and Dawn was immediately sorry about the sweater voodoo. Her sister tucked her feet up on the couch and laid her head on Spike's shoulder with a yawn. "We've got to get you some fake ID," she said. "I don't think 'I left my wallet in England' is all that convincing."
"Had a perfectly good set last week, and Harris made me toss it back," Spike grumbled, slouching down and wrapping an arm around Buffy. "And speaking of people I can't eat, what're we going to do with that lot from the Council? I'd like my crypt back at some point, and Clem'll only watch 'em as long as the Cheezy Poofs hold out."
"'M working on that." Buffy stifled another yawn. "Got an idea. Talk to Giles about it tomorrow."
"Is Angel coming back?" Dawn asked. "I can get packed if..."
"No," Spike said, at the same instant Buffy said "Maybe." They glared at each other, ruffled, and then Buffy laughed and kissed him on the nose, one of those sudden just-because gestures that always made Spike's eyes go all melty and adoring--some Big Bad. "You don't need to pack."
"It's OK," Dawn said. She still felt strangely listless. "Look, I get it now. I'm the McGuffin. Again. As long as I'm around someone's always going to be storming the castle. FedEx me off to Alaska or wherever."
Buffy sat up a little straighter, pressing her lips together, and studied Dawn's face for a moment, "No. I'm going to need you here."
Hope and dread did a Matrix in Dawn's stomach. This couldn't be right. "You're letting me--?"
"Leap headlong into terrible danger? More like a bunny hop. With all of us right behind you. I've been in the Hellmouth. Partway, anyhow--not as far as the actual Hell part, and it was... vertical, but survivable. We'll have to break out the rappelling gear."
"That was a sight for sore eyes." Spike looked misty. "You climbing out over that rubble with that scabby-looking bloke under one arm..."
Buffy looked puzzled. "I left the dead demon by the Hellmouth."
"I meant Finn."
Buffy gave him a dirty look and turned back to Dawn. "You're going to be with Tara at all times if one of us isn't around--I'll think of something to tell the school. It's table-turning time. We're going to make Willow scramble for a change. She may have the tunnels all funhouse mirror-y, but that just means we need to kick a little glass. The Harbingers have this whole brown thumb thing going. Tomorrow we start scouring town for crop circles of the dead grass variety, and dig our way in if we have to. Then we start picking off minions. Once we whittle down Willow's stable of hit-creatures, she'll have to come after you up close and personal."
She took a deep breath and reached across Spike's chest to smooth Dawn's hair away from her cheek. "I love you, Dawnie, and I'll do anything I can to keep you safe, but I never want you to feel like--I want you to feel protected, not helpless. Because you're not. You're brave, and I--" Buffy hesitated. "I need to let you be brave. The monks made you out of me, and sometimes it feels like--but you're not. I'm proud of you, Dawn. Mom would be proud of you. Tara'll have to come up with some kind of protection spell for you--the Hellmouth's murder on your T-zone. The red-hot minute we get Willow where we want her, you will run like the fiends of Hell are on your tail, which they might just be. No heroics."
"I--" Dawn swallowed. Never tell a vampire they can come over any time, never say 'I wish' in front of a vengeance demon, and never tell the Slayer you only want to help. "I won't let you down. I promise." She sat there for a minute, the enormity of what she'd agreed--heck, what she'd begged--to do starting to sink in. She'd wanted to be something more than wasn't Buffy's stupid little sister, but the position looked a lot more attractive when she wasn't in it. Still, as long as Buffy was in the mood-- "So... about that learner's permit?"

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