5: Explanations, Explorations

Spike's first impulse was to walk out. But before he could do more than pull his boots in against the chair and stand, Oz was in front of him, crossing the length of the room to him first and directly, saying softly, "Hi, Spike." Not offering a hand, just waiting for acknowledgement and acceptance by the dominant male of a subordinate.

Pack deference: good manners according to whatever passed for werewolf etiquette.

Didn't matter that the next second the girls had all crowded around wolf-boy. And Harris, too, pulling him into a back-slapping hug. Head turned, Oz kept his eyes on Spike's until Spike committed himself to the extent of a curt nod. Only then did Oz consider himself released to the greetings.

Didn't change anything, really, Spike grumbled inwardly, pacing past the group hug he wanted no part of. Runt was still what he was: willing lapmutt to the Powers, running their errands, unquestioningly doing whatever they told him to--at last notice, through some medium or other in Anaheim. Oz showing up meant one of two things--that the Powers sided with that Acala and wanted them to back off; or that they didn't, and wanted them to take on that Acala, that sparkled on the plane of the real the way Giles or Bit had (for instance) on the astral plane. That therefore wasn't rightly, completely here and could call up swords out of noplace, manifest eighteen feet tall or thirty or a hundred (whatever he thought would look intimidating), and manipulate matter at will.

Spike had never taken to shape-changers. You never properly knew where you stood with them. And fighting them was a nasty, prolonged business: they'd take mortal wounds and just shift to a new, unwounded shape. Greasy, slippery, unreliable sort of buggers.

As bad as trying to fight water.

Not Oz, though, Spike admitted, coming to an indecisive halt in the kitchen. Hadn't but the one shape to shift to and was a shrewd, fearless fighter in it, which Spike supposed was all right. And wolf-boy knew his place, had come to Spike first thing: the dominance had been settled between them on Oz's previous visit, some months ago. Once put down, he stayed down, so it wasn't a constant slap-and-turn battle of engagement and backing off, the way it was with Mike. And Oz didn't carry a grudge about it, neither. Good natured, handy chap in most ways. Knew his showing up wouldn't be welcome but still came to Spike first.

That did a lot to mollify Spike's anger.

Besides, he was curious which flavor of bad news the mutt had come to deliver.

He glanced at the rear door, his intended destination, then made up his mind and wheeled to the refrigerator to grab out a six-pack of the minimally acceptable swill that was American beer. Pacing back to the front room, he twisted a can free of the plastic bands and silently offered it to Oz, who'd taken a place on the floor in front of the TV, by Dawn. Oz calmly nodded thanks and took it. Spike settled back into his chair, pulling out a fresh beer for himself and letting the rest of the pack dangle and drop into the gap between the chair and the weapons chest. If Harris wanted another beer, he could crawl and grope for one, or he could ask. Either would be fine with Spike.

Interrupting Oz's dutiful account of his doings since they'd last seen him, Spike asked bluntly, "So what's Bit's mum want now?" and ignored the winces and disapproving looks that earned him. He didn't care: he didn't dance to the Lady's tune and wasn't shy about saying so.

Oz thought for a minute, likely getting together what he was supposed to say. "That she's aware of the situation--far more than any of you. There's a history to it, and I'm to explain about that. She says it's a matter of complete indifference to her whether you engage or disengage but in either case, there are things you all should know that won't be found in any arcane text, since they're internal to the Powers." Oz nodded apologetically to Giles, at that; Giles nodded to show he'd taken no offense and waved Oz to continue. Reverting to his usual brevity, Oz concluded, "That's all. Except for the history."

Giles started to ask for the history but Buffy intervened: "Let's keep to the order. Willow, it's your turn: exactly why did you go all Sleeping Beauty on us, with no notice, no anything? You said before that it was you, that set off the mystical alarms. Got chased back here by Acala, brought all that fun down on us. Why? Where were you?"

Nervously picking at sweater pills, seeming unaware of Oz's steady, warm gaze turned to her, Willow replied, "I made a portal. To Quor'toth. It was easy. Flick of the fingers stuff. But I didn't go except in astral form. Just hovered, using the portal as a target, still anchored back here. I thought that would be safe enough, and I'd be able to confirm, or not, that Rayne was there. Sorry, Giles: I overheard most of what you two said. No real way not to, it was leaking all over, but it was personal and I didn't mean to."

Looking horrified and constipated, Giles responded tightly, "I understand. Go on: did you confirm his location?"

Willow bobbed her head. "And I also know why he can't get out: Quor'toth's a magic sink. Natural or created, I don't know. There are no rifts--none at all--but anybody can get in with the simplest portal spell. On that side, though, the magic can't recharge. It's sucked up the minute somebody tries any."

"Magic sink," Spike found himself clarifying. "Like what we done to Digger's lair. That, with the silver." Then he was annoyed at himself for contributing, for engaging, and downed the rest of the beer and crushed the can in his hand to make himself feel better.

"Yes, but on a grander scale," Willow confirmed. "That whole dimension is magic-negative. There's no ambient force to draw on, and it sucks in any that's supplied from outside. That's why it's so easy to make an ingoing portal, I imagine. And why it was so hard for me to stay within it--not be pulled through." For a moment, she looked pleased with her achievement. Then her face fell. "Then that thing, that Acala came, and it was so big! It was like a near approach from the Death Star, and it was pushing me in! And I ran, I had to, and automatically homed in on the only connection I had--"

"Our conversation," Giles supplied reservedly. "To me."

"Yeah. And Spike, a little. Wasn't listening in, not a bit! But you're loud, Spike. Even though I don't listen, I really don't, you're just blasting away like a rock station and I can't help hearing even though I can't make out the words."

The comparison made Willow's admission go down a little easier. Spike didn't mind thinking of himself as a rock station, even though it meant he was spewing himself, uncontrolled, to the aether. Hadn't had much chance to practice, had he? And that poet, that git William, was all about the fucking effulgence anyway, and on the astral plane he wasn't to be confined, like a boy's first visit to a brothal.

Spike was still uncomfortable and embarrassed about that side of it and kept still.

Willow went on, "Brought it right down on you. Had to get home, to get some leverage: shut it out. And it followed us back here, too. And then this morning. So it's all my fault. I'm sorry. I thought.... I thought if I went, Spike wouldn't have to. Again. It had hit him so hard--"

"S'all right," Spike felt forced to say, gruffly. "Just wasn't used to it, right at first, is all." Not looking at the witch, he popped the tab on another beer. "Did better, a little, the second time."

"Because I was there to keep you on track," Dawn put in smugly.

"Maybe," Spike conceded. "Maybe so. Teensy little thing, she was," he told Buffy, remembering fondly. Likely it was the beer. "You should'a seen her. No bigger than this, and shining green, all tiny Tinkerbell."

"Not my fault," Dawn responded quickly, "you went all 'bestride the universe' hugeacious!"

"Never said it was, Bit. Guess things there are the size they think they are--right, Red? An' when it comes to size, I've never been one to be modest." For that, he looked at Buffy a certain way, and it was possible he was smirking.

Oz choked on his beer. Spike sociably offered him another.

"I can see the Peter Pan part," Buffy said, trying to cut him back down to size, the way she did, not admitting that she loved it except alone, and without words. "Some people never grow up. Not in a century plus. Always, the juvenile snark!"

"That's all right." Taking no offense, Spike waved grandly. She was being the Slayer, all business, and he always let her have her way about things then. It was when she was being merely Buffy that he'd lately had trouble giving way, wanting to settle the dominance there, demon wanting to enforce its rights on what, however beloved, was essentially a cow, and subordinate, to its perceptions....

Spike lost the next little bit, turning that realization in his mind, uneasily revolving and tugging at it, because that wasn't what he meant to do, how he should feel toward her regardless. What he'd been doing, all the same, he now recognized: especially when the demon was all riled up and determined to settle things properly and to its own liking, brooking no opposition. That tussle in the hallway. And the bed-busting shagfest, after--hardly less aggressive, truth be told, but Buffy would put up with it then, at least sometimes....

William, resurgent, meant that Spike was losing control of his demon. Like he couldn't contain both or control either. That bothered him.

When he'd followed that thought to no conclusion, it was apparently Oz's turn again, and he was delivering the received wisdom of the Powers about that Acala--who was apparently a Power, too. No joy there, then. And not much surprise.

"They're called the Guardians of the Balance," Oz was explaining. "Seems there's two ways of looking at them--that there are actually five of them, or only one with a fivefold nature, and the rest are avatars."

Buffy said, "He called me that: an avatar. What's that mean, Giles?"

"The Godai Myo-o. The Five Great Kings. Excuse me, Buffy, I was thinking. What did you say?"

"Acala. He said he hadn't expected to run into an avatar of the Slayer. He meant me. What's an avatar? What did he mean?"

Giles fussed with his papers, giving himself time to consider. Looking up, he replied, "I would imagine he meant that he considers there is only one Slayer, and each individual Slayer, like yourself, is simply that aboriginal, eternal Slayer in a new form. All basically the same, sharing in the nature of the unchanging Slayer essence. The Platonic Form, if you will."

Spike drank beer, not letting on that he understood.

Giles continued, "For all I know, that may be a correct interpretation. When a Slayer is Called, certain abilities are added to her own and not merely awakened within her. She does, to some extent, partake in the uber-Slayer, with the occasional memories of other Slayers' experience to call upon, the prophetic dreams.... So it's a possible interpretation. And one that a being with indwelling avatars, different selves it could assume or send out independently, would be likely to adopt. An interesting question, but one that changes little, from our perspective."

"Think you're wrong there, Watcher." Spike straightened in the chair, finally willing to commit full attention. "That Acala, he dealt with the Slayer with respect. Left off fighting when she did. Fixed her van, admitted junking it was a mistake he'd made before he knew who she was. May have next to no regard for Buffy, no more than he did for me. But the Slayer, or what he thinks is an avatar of the Slayer, that's got some weight with him."

"Oh, that was just because Frodo was nervous about offending our 'august patron.'" Buffy dismissed the idea, but Giles looked thoughtful.

"I believe Spike may have a point. He was there, as I was not. And when it comes to matters of dominance, he can be an acute observer. Vampires are highly sensitive to matters of rank and hierachy. From the initial effort to suppress, subsume, the demon, one supposes. In point of fact, I've written a small monograph on that subject." Giles paused a second to look modest in a prissy, Watcherish way. When it was plain nobody gave a fuck about his scholarship, he went on, "Don't take it lightly, Buffy--whether it is, in fact, true or not, it could be a basis for negotiation rather than unchecked battle, that Acala may have tentatively classed you as something like an equal. And it seems that he has: having delivered his warning, he disengaged without a fight. And also, unasked, put what you claimed as your property to rights."

"'Frodo?" repeated Oz quizzically.

"Fudo," said Giles, making a weary face at Buffy's habitual mangling of unfamiliar names. "A designation of his principal avatar."

"Oh," said Oz, in a tone of discovery.

"You know of Fudo?" Giles asked.

"Sure. Pretty much the patron saint of the samurai. Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, and all that. 'The Immovable.' It connects."

"Certainly. I'd forgotten that aspect of his legend. Willow, do see if the blasted internet is available yet. I must have my books!"

As Willow scrambled up to comply, Oz's eyes followed her. Only when she was gone did his gaze return to his hands, as though surprised to find himself holding a beer. Then his eyes flicked to Spike--to see if his own interest had been noticed, most like. And Bit was looking too, catching the unspoken byplay. Quick little thing, couldn't mostly get nothing by her. Spike turned a hand, indicating it was none of his concern if the wolf still fancied the witch, and Oz nodded slightly, relaxing.

Spike wondered what Bit made of that: she wasn't as used to reading the wolf, and sex things frequently passed right by her unless they made loud noises or broke beds. The one exception. In that one respect, she'd held herself far short of seventeen. Maybe it was an awareness the monks hadn't thought to build in, not expecting her to last long enough to need it. Maybe it was an effect of her keyness--to keep her ready and charged, like, rather than all hormonal and distracted like most teenagers panting after some git or another.

Not his problem. But hers, maybe; and Mike's. And so out of step with the rest of her keen awareness, it worried him sometimes, not knowing how he should judge it, feel about it....

A break seemed to be commencing, Buffy standing down and asking Oz if he could stay to supper, Harris wanting to know what the Pacific Northwest was like, interlacing murmurs of conversation. Spike could take time out for a smoke.

That, as much as anything, had helped him push away impulses to turn astral just for the odd unoccupied few seconds, get back to the clarity and brilliance the poet and the soul seemingly couldn't get enough of: couldn't smoke there. And every time he gave in, the demon was more insistent on its rights when he got back. Unlike Red's, his jaunts hadn't yet been detected, that he knew of. And Buffy wasn't shy about calling him on anything she felt as a separation; and she was right to. It was a separation. And when it came to abandonment, she had sensitive feelers everyplace, alert every minute for that. He couldn't hope to get by with it, especially with the time not being the same there as here. An entire day could be a minute, or a few seconds could take seven hours in passing, this side.

That awareness didn't make him want it less. It only made him circumspect, sneaky, and careful. But if he didn't quit, eventually she was sure to catch him out, and then the blow-up would make their dance in the hall look like a picnic.

It was true: the Summerlands came at the price of all you had, and there was no peace afterward. Best to shut it away, try to forget. Be in the moment, in the body, and let the rest go. Not think about it...the way he was doing now.

Couldn't smoke there. That was enough reason to stop.

Poking in a pocket for his cigs and lighter, he headed for the front porch and its safe evening darkness.

********

Since the power was still off, supper was a grill-out in the chilly yard with Xander, the self-designated Master Griller from the months when all the SITs were in residence, presiding, wearing two towels pinned at the shoulders into a kind of poncho to keep the burgers and hot-dogs from spitting grease on what he claimed were his "good" clothes. Maybe they were: Dawn had seen lots of his other clothes, and they were worse.

Happy and excited by the unusual circumstances and unusual company, Dawn drifted from one conversation to another, snagging a hot-dog and bun and slathers of mustard when tongs-wielding Xander announced the first batch ready.

It wasn't Terminal Beach, but it was still fun.

Gesturing with her hot-dog, she asked Giles to write down the URL of his study on how dominating the new demon led to vamps' preoccupation with one-upmanship, who got to boss around who, and he promised to do it once he could reach the CoW database again. The paper sounded interesting and might make better sense of the otherwise demented dance Spike and Mike were doing, that anybody sensible would have backed out of or declared a draw or even a victory, just to stop worrying about it, but not them!

She'd heard from Buffy about the bike-moving incident. If the phones were working, she was sure she'd have had a looong conversation of listening to Mike griping about how ill-used he was, that Spike wouldn't go thirty feet outside to push his own motorcycle to safety, until it was her turn to try to explain why staying indoors, within the wards, was one of the more sensible things she'd ever known Spike to do. She wondered how badly Mike had been banged up by the hailstones and how long he'd therefore be in healing. If he could be wheedled into returning to the beach next weekend, say, assuming Spike could come out of his drifty funk long enough to open the rift for them.

Although Spike could eat human food, half-burnt burgers on buns weren't high on his list of favorites. So he'd gone off on his bike, so conspicuously not saying where he was going that he was probably hunting, or scouting for vamps not where he thought they belonged on a Tuesday night, so they could be legitimately dusted per Lex Spikus. Possibly both.

Dawn had wanted to pin him in a corner and quiz him about his new "catch and release" program that left the prey alive but marked in a way only the bravest or stupidest vamp would touch. She wondered if it was working better than the stinky lily perfume Willow had made up at his direction, that Spike had tried (with a notable lack of success) to train vamps to avoid. She thought she still had a couple of squeeze bottles of it someplace....

Obviously Mike had noticed Spike's new street game, because he'd veered off, respecting the mark. She wondered what Mike thought about it--whether he resented the interference or was copying the strategy himself because Mike could stop, not drink the prey dead, if he really wanted to, since that was her condition for his visiting her.

She hadn't seen him since yesterday afternoon, when he'd been summoned for guarding-Spike duty, and he'd been all business then, passing her taser back wordlessly before he left, down the tunnel. She wondered if he was mad at her about something she'd done, or not done, or their conversation on the beach....

She shouldn't be obsessing about Mike. It was dumb. Let him play his kissy-face games with Sue the Skank, it was nothing to Dawn...and nothing to Mike either, or so he said, and that was so gut-twisting frelling confusing...!

Passing by with a droopy paper plate, Buffy locked and burst out, "Dammit! It's Tuesday, right? Dawn, is it Tuesday?"

"The last I noticed. Why?"

"It's class night! I'm supposed to be at the Civic Center in..." (There was sleeve shoving and watch checking.) "...in twelve minutes! And I forgot to remind Spike, he won't show up, I'll be there all alone...!"

"Buffy. Buffy, wait before you totally freak out. It's vacation, remember? As in, no school. Notice me not being in school. My own personal self. I don't think exercising is high on anybody's list right now. You might have two dorks show up, that obviously need a life, but--"

"If there's two, even if there are only two, I have to be there. They paid, and that's like a promise, right? I could have canceled but I never even thought about it, not working has totally screwed up my sense of time, there's still time to cancel for Thursday, I guess, and two, two wouldn't be so bad, maybe I could manage two...."

Dawn found herself the trustee of Buffy's droopy plate as Buffy raced inside to change. As she delivered the collapsing plate to the folding table near the grill, Buffy raced across the far end of the yard, dove into the SUV, and peeled out.

"What," asked Xander, watching the brake lights and then the headlights come on, "the burger was too well done?"

"Her class," Dawn sighed, sliding the plate into place near the monster jar of pickle relish. Anya had wangled them a case wholesale, last summer. At a discount. It was probably several lifetimes worth of pickle relish. Dawn was beginning to hate pickle relish, which would make it last even longer. Like those fruitcakes that were never actually eaten, just passed around from one unwary recipient to the next, getting staler and harder until they were the embodied inedible essence of all fruitcakes....

"Forgot, huh?" From sympathetic, Xander went to a slow, secret smile with a quirk at both corners. "And Spike went...where?"

"He didn't say."

"A-huh," said Xander, rocking on his heels and happily gazing toward the street. "Do you want to make the popcorn for the show when he gets back, or should I?"

"You do it, if you want," Dawn responded listlessly. "I'm all popcorned out."

She scuffed away, only to be accosted again by the back steps.

"Dawn. Hey." It was Oz, his head cocked like a dog's. But that wasn't fair or nice, all the things Spike called him, so Dawn tried not to think of them.

Another blow-up meant she probably wouldn't get any sleep tonight, either. Maybe, though, lacking a free upstairs bed, they'd have the common courtesy to take their frelling make-up sex to the basement this time. That was a hopeful thought, but she didn't feel hopeful about it. Everybody running away or unavailable had her feeling all depressed.

"Hey," she responded politely to Oz's greeting. Suddenly, her duties as default Summers hostess crackled to life like a charge of static electricity. "Do you have a place to stay?"

Oz nodded toward the street, where something was maybe parked--Dawn couldn't tell without the street lights. "The van. It's fine. As long as we don't get another storm like that. I grew up here, and that's not normal weather for Sunnydale. Fudo?"

"Seems so."

"Yeah," Oz said thoughtfully, then mentioned, "I wasn't done. I didn't tell them about the history. Where have...." He paused delicately, but Dawn knew well enough who he was asking about.

"Buffy's gone to her class, where there'll be maybe two people. Spike's gone to try his new brilliant plan of biting people on the neck to keep them safe from any vamp except him. I imagine he has quite a stable by now. Or a barn, considering they're cows, not horses. I'm sure they'll both be fascinated, though, when they get back. If they don't bring down the downstairs hallway, ceiling and all."

Frowning in puzzled concern, Oz took her arm. She yanked rudely away, screeching, "Leave me alone!" like she thought he was a child molester, and everybody looking at them, at her, and the only possible action was to race upstairs to the bathroom and lock herself in, running the shower so nobody could hear her snuffling into a towel. Spike would have heard her regardless, and cracked the locked door open if he had to, and not put up with her nonsense for a second. But Spike wasn't here. Likely, after a hearty snack or five, he'd zip across to Never-Neverland, didn't need her help to get there, he could do it just fine on his own, give the fucking poet a treat, another night out on the town. He'd been sneaking off: a minute here, five minutes there. Dawn knew from the dazed, blank look in his eyes afterward.

She wanted to run off, too. It wasn't fair everybody could run off but her--even Willow. She'd have settled for being a green twinkle in Neverland, or for stomping and yelling in the soft warm sand of the changeless Terminal Beach. Those being unavailable to unaided Dawns, she took the next best choice: stealthily unlocking the door nobody had noticed was locked, racing to her room, diving under the covers, and turning the electric blanket up to 10 before recalling that the power was out in her room, too.

So she jammed on her headphones and turned the CD player (it ran on batteries) up to 10 instead. The rhythm and wailing of Nine Inch Nails (it was an "oldies" CD, one of Spike's she'd borrowed without quite remembering to ask) almost drowned out the guilty sound of the shower she'd left running. Use up all the hot water: it would serve them right!

Wondering why she was the one who had to get stuck, why everything had turned so dismal and hopeless, Dawn yanked the covers up over her head.

**********

Methodically and rhythmically, Buffy thumped her forehead against the steering wheel. The fact that there were no street lights, no traffic lights, should have given her a clue. Out the windshield, the Civic Center stood dark and locked. Of course: no electricity. No heat. She was the biggest dunce on the planet.

Off down the street, a single light approached. Smooth as a bird, it banked into the turn, jumped the sidewalk, and came purring across the grass to stop about a foot from her door. Crooking a knee across the saddle (or whatever it was called), Spike lit a cigarette, all the while looking appraisingly at the dark building.

"Figured it'd be shut," he commented, sliding his lighter away and breathing smoke with what seemed more relish than usual, "but I figured I better check, just in case they had a generator or something. Looks like they don't, though. Anybody show up?"

Buffy practically fell out the door and onto him. Somehow, he kept the bike balanced and her as well, cupping an unembarrassed hand under her butt and lifting her until she was pretty much perched on his lap, which she considered quite a good place to be.

"Somebody been mean to my little Slayer, then?" Spike crooned into her ear. "So long as it's not more'n twice as big as the Sears tower, you point it out and I'll take it out for you. Just say the word."

Buffy kissed him urgently, overcome that he'd remembered when she hadn't, and moreover hadn't said word one of snark about the depth of her dumbth. "I don't deserve you," she whimpered.

"So you believe it now, do you? About time." Carefully he pushed and slid her forward, back onto her feet at the side of the bike. "Get yourself on proper: I don't hold with that sidesaddle nonsense, not at ninety miles an hour." As she looked in confused distress at the SUV, he directed, "Lock it and leave it. Expect all the would-be carjackers have been eaten--last night, now. Field day for vamps, it is, tonight. More hunting than finding, though, I guess. Didn't see a lot of headlights, coming from home, did you?"

Thinking back, Buffy had to shake her head. The fact was, she didn't remember seeing any.

Spike commented comfortably, "Sensible people keeping to home, what with the dark and the cold. We should, too. Lock it up, ride with me: you know you want to."

Buffy gave the smirk the kiss it expected and asked for, then firmly pressed the thingie that chirped the SUV's doors locked. "That's my girl," Spike commended as she slid on behind him and clasped him tight around the waist.

"Go."

"Where, pet? Straight home, is it?"

Buffy shook her head emphatically. It didn't matter that he couldn't see it--he'd feel it. He knew. He always knew.

He'd found the beach for her.

It would be freezing on the bike at even moderate speed. She didn't care. Among his many talents, Spike made a fine windbreak. "Just go."

"Scenic route it is then," Spike responded cheerfully, letting the bike roll ahead, pushing the gas a little, leaning them into a perfect turn, smooth and rolling decorously across the parking strip and down the driveway, just a walking pace, maybe five miles an hour. Lifting his head, he looked halfway around, asking without words if she was set, ready. Her answer was to press her cheek to his back and hold on harder.

In under a minute, they must have been doing sixty and Spike was laughing, she could feel it, from the sheer glorious speed of it and still accelerating.

The bouncing headlight beam couldn't illuminate the road ahead as fast as they reached it. But with vampire night-sight choosing the way, Buffy had no fear of potholes or downed tree limbs. No fear at all.

**********

Oz's van was kitted out for flood, famine, or flaming doom. It had a generator. It therefore had lights and heat. It had a refrigerator, half filled (by no coincidence) with 20-year-old scotch and Jack Daniels. Bugger must have been told Rupert was likely to be in attendance. Also ice. Spike didn't want his Jack diluted and took it neat, thanks. Didn't want any ice: he'd already had hail. Ice enough, right there.

Spike was drunk and quite contentedly getting drunker. Eventually he'd probably pass out but until that happened, he had a lapful of sleepy, giggly Buffy and that was a bit of all right, and if they decided to do something about it, well, there was the basement and the bed just a short stagger away, since Oz had considerately parked the van right in front of their very own house. Convenient. Not Oz's house of course, but Oz was all right for a werewolf. Most upstanding werewolf Spike had ever met, which actually meant something.

Spike wasn't sure precisely what it meant, but there was definitely meaning in it, it tingled along all his nerves, made him feel completely wide awake and lucid, almost like on the other side, and he'd been right: live in the moment, be simply in the body, and love his lady if by the time they got done talking he wasn't too drunk. Not that by that time she'd know the difference, poor cow. Never had held her liquor at all well, but at least was getting the loose and happy of it, not the suspicious and belligerent, like she mostly did.

The bait had even enticed Rupert from the cooling grill, and Oz had offered the hospitality of a bedroll, if the Watcher chose to accept it. Sitting with the rest of them in the back of the van, Rupert was pretending to savor the Scotch, rather than gulp it right down till the desired effect was achieved and then coast there, the way Spike did, poncy sod.

World must be ending: the git had undone his tie. Not taken his jacket off, though: Oz's little Sterno heater didn't crank out enough joules, or btu's, or however they were measuring that sort of thing now....

Spike had a couple of Oz's blankets wrapped around Buffy and his clasped arms holding them there, and liquor was anti-freeze, innit? So that was all right. She was all toasty again, not shivering at all.

Leaning back awkwardly and craning his neck, Spike looked out to see if there was a light in Bit's window, then rubbed his face and damned himself for an idiot because of course there wasn't. Bit wouldn't have enjoyed this anyway, he thought, vaguely guilty. Couple of old Brits getting sozzled and talking about the old times, that would have bored her to utter tears. And nobody to snuggle up warm against except maybe Oz, whose eyes seemed to be locked on a different star. So maybe just as well to let her sleep. Felt vaguely bad about it though, he did.

Coming over all maudlin and sentimental. Cure for that was another drink. He latched onto the current bottle and poured another round, but barely a dram for Buffy or she'd rue it. Just enough to keep the buzz going.

Oz was telling them the occasionally interesting history of Quor'toth. How it was the nearest-adjacent place of a whole other universe, somewhere so distant even George Lucas couldn't have come up with enough far's. But distance didn't matter so much because space was folded. Rupert nodded solemnly at that, just as if he had the least notion in hell what wolf-boy was talking about. Or maybe he'd only achieved the level of drunk where you nodded solemnly at things.

Anyway, the tale went that sometime in the Middle Ages ("Chivalry times!" put in Buffy wisely, then relapsed to petting and being petted), one Alfonso of Milan had discovered this neat trick. He already knew how to make portals, everybody and his bastard nephew knew how to make portals by then, it was in alchemical scrolls from the Second Dynasty or was that 2nd Century BCE? The fucking Ptolemys, anyway, for God's sake. The commonist of common knowledge among that era's Illuminati, anyway. And Our Alfonso found whatever (like his servants, his pets, his assistants, his colleagues, and his ninth wife) he put through one particularly aligned and spelled portal never came back. Either he was an idiot, a truly advanced scientific thinker, a fair-minded man, or just missed wife 9 too much, but he finished up by going through himself and was not heard from further. However, his notes remained, and with the enthusiasm of first discovery, he'd named the realm Quor'toth. Or maybe Kartath. Or maybe....

Medieval Italian was so fucking hard to read. And the spelling of the same word could vary three times in the same fucking sentence. Bless the advent of movable type!

Giles nodded solemn agreement to that, too. Raising glasses, they toasted Herr Gutenberg and movable type.

All chums together, telling tales, each chipping in about whatever piece he had some knowledge of. Or nodding, if that did the job.

So it had naturally got a certain reputation, Quor'toth had (or Kartath, or Cartoth, or...) for being this super place to dispose of things. People. Whatever. According to Oz, some law firm had drawn up a contract for Chicago to dump its toxic waste there, back in the Daley era, and Spike was inclined to believe it. But not New York: New York didn't play ball, went all haughty, and their people never did lunch with the L.A. people, so the deal never got done.

Then there was this baby....

"Shut up," Spike said flatly, and was obeyed. Suddenly something approaching sober, or a lot less drunk, Spike checked: breathing, heart rate, smell. It was all right: Buffy was well and truly out, or asleep, or not about to pay any connected attention, anyway. Good enough.

Spike leaned back and shut his eyes for a moment. "Rupert, you breathe a word of any of this, I'll do for you. Don't care where you are, how many walls you got between--"

"I do take the general idea, Spike. I'll be cut into collops and fed to the cat you don't own. Now do us all the kindness of shutting your pie hole."

"Just sayin'. Buffy don't need to know what her true fucking Soul Mate's got up to--"

Very quietly, Oz asked, "What's it got to do with Buffy?"

"Nothing, then. Nothing at all." It was safe to open his eyes and blink then.

Oz waited, puzzled. But if Oz didn't know, Spike wasn't about to enlighten him. Didn't like the way the Watcher was looking at him though--like a bug on a pin. He'd already said too much. Wheels were turning there. Wheels were turning. But at need, he could handle the Watcher, if he had to. Handle Oz, too, if it came to that.

"Spike, I find your game-face distracting and unpleasant. Drop it, please."

"I look how I want," Spike responded sullenly, only then realizing he'd changed aspect.

"I'm sure you do. But in the interests of harmony...?"

It took Spike a couple of minutes to calm his demon down, send it back to drowsing. Wasn't focusing all that well himself, truth be told. Demon, it was specially alert to anything felt as a threat at such times. Not even counting it'd got too fucking independent by half, the last few days. Have to do something about that, some way....

"Anyway," Oz resumed softly, carefully, "there was this baby. Prophesied as 'The Destroyer.' Taken by its guardian into Quor'toth something like a year ago, I forget, to protect him from his enemies. He--"

"It's a boy, then," Spike cut in flatly.

"I guess. It seems the Powers are divided over him. Some want him kept until he's full-grown, can defend himself. Some want him returned, maybe to give the enemies a fair shot. Derail the crisis, whatever future apocalypse he's supposed to be involved in. Of course, getting him out at all would have to involve the Lady, and there's been talk a deal has been struck, but the Lady says no, she's made no binding promises."

"'Binding,'" Spike repeated, and this time did feel his eyes turning, could see the small corner lights, that illuminated the rear of the van, seem suddenly brighter. "Minces words real fine, she does. Which side is our Fudo on?"

"The Destroyer will upset the Balance. Fudo likes the Balance the way it is. It's kind of his job to preserve it. So my best guess is, Fudo wants to keep The Destroyer right where he is, where he can't affect anything, till he has a long white beard and is fed his supper through a straw. I'm not really sure about that, though," Oz added apologetically. "The Lady didn't say anything about Fudo being part of the equation."

"She wouldn't. The very skies would fall if she actually did anything," Spike conjectured bitterly. "Hasn't even sent me any dreams to get my head screwed around, point me in the right direction. Kept her hands completely clean, she has. Except...she shoved Ethan Rayne into Quor'toth. She must be so fucking pleased with herself!"

"Spike," said Giles somberly. "You know, or guess, things you aren't saying, about this. Don't you."

"Yes."

"Will you tell me what they are?"

"No." Spike let the word hang there, undecorated.

"Will you help...distract, occupy, Fudo whilst I attempt to recover Ethan?"

"It's the Slayer calls things like that. From where I stand, it's still none of our concern. Not our apocalypse, here. Maybe never. For me, I'd love to take that thing on. Chop it to mincemeat until all the avatars are used up and there's nothing more to turn into. Always wanted to take on a samurai.... But it's the Slayer calls those things. For the both of us. Oz, you tell her your tale. Then, Rupert, you can ask her. An' then abide her answer. Which is what I'll do."

As Spike stirred, beginning to gather Buffy up, Oz said, "One more thing. If you decide to go after Rayne, and if, while you're there, you come across this baby, The Destroyer, and if you can set up something like a portal, then an arrangement will be made so you can use it. So you can get out. With the baby. And that's the last of it."

Spike laughed harshly, trying to figure and manage the logistics of getting Buffy out of the van and home, as drunk as he was. "That's one thing, is it? Then I'd hate to hear what two would be. You delivered your message, pup. You can run along home now."

"Well, actually, no. I stay until it's decided. And if you go, I go with you. The Lady knows what a value you set on your independence. So she won't do a thing to influence you. Not a single thing. She's promised."

"Yeah, fine." Except start the whole thing going in the first place, Spike thought. And then do her best to tangle us all up in it. Sure, she's a fucking model of non-interference.

He was too drunk to think about it any more.

Wolf-boy could tell to Buffy in the morning--as much of it as he knew. Then the Slayer would decide.

**********

Buffy had a headache. Not a force 10, maybe a force 4 (diminishing to 3 after the ibuprofen kicked in). She'd awakened in the big new bed, which didn't have the same worn-in comfortable hollows as her former bed (now an ex-bed, thanks to Spike) and produced stiff, achy places in her shoulders, back, and neck. At least that was what she blamed them on rather than an awkward sleeping position tucked pillowless under and around Spike, who was leadenly asleep, snoring, and just about immovable when she had to get up to go to the bathroom: up two flights instead of just down the hall.

The shower had apparently been running all night, so there was zero hot water. She turned it off, not even wanting to know what bizarre scenario had resulted in its being left on. She just didn't want to deal with it.

Despite toothpaste and mouthwash, her mouth tasted as though something small and repulsive had crawled in and died. Her first cup of coffee (instant, in cold water: blech!) got her eyes marginally open, enough to search for yogurt in the dark, powerless, and ominous smelling refrigerator. While she was trying to determine if the yogurt had gone off, Dawn grouched in, complaining how yucky PopTarts tasted unheated and trying to make a case for suing the city for non-delivery of services--at least under Mayor Wilkins' regime, the power had never gone off.

"You weren't here then," Buffy pointed out incautiously.

"But I remember!" Dawn hated to be reminded Buffy had survived all those years without a younger sister to torture her.

Buffy shut her eyes. "Whatever. I don't want to argue about His Honor, the Giant Snakeness."

"You started it!"

Without warning, the power snapped on. Everything lit up, popped, hummed, trying to make up for lost time. Buffy and Dawn both jumped. Downstairs, there was a bang, and cursing: Spike had fallen out of bed. Buffy had finished the dubious yogurt before he showed up, stalking through the kitchen to the back porch for his first cigarette of the day, protected by an overcast sky that didn't show any sign of clearing soon.

Slowly remembering and resuming the rightful order of things, Buffy dumped her horrible cold scummy coffee and set up the coffee maker to brew fresh while Dawn gleefully played with the toaster, making sure it clacked and jumped properly before entrusting fresh pastries to it.

The milk had not survived the hiatus. By the time Buffy had poured all three cartons down the sink, the coffee was ready. Pouring two cups, she slid on the down vest hanging handy behind the outside door and carried the cups outside.

"Ta," Spike said absently, accepting a cup.

Sipping coffee, Buffy put her back against the rail Spike was leaning on, facing the opposite direction. "It's a judgment," she said presently.

"What is, pet."

"All this." Gesturing vaguely with her cup, Buffy had the sense she was indicating all the weary, headache-producing, contrary things. "Cosmic payback. Because we had fun."

That got her a quick, pleased look. "Did, didn't we?"

"Ahuh." She nodded heavily. "Universe pays you back for that, though. Not allowed."

Spike put an arm around her. "Don't you believe it. Doesn't work like that."

"Yes, it does." Gratefully, she leaned. After awhile, she semi-asked, "Giles is still waiting for an answer."

"Yeah. An' dog-boy, he has a little history lesson you sort of slept through. He'll want to repeat it, I expect."

"You don't want to get involved."

"We're already involved: I figure Fudo, he served notice. Don't want to go haring off to Quor'toth, no. Don't like the odds. Getting back seems real iffish. But you call it, pet. Whatever you decide, I'll abide."

"That rhymes," Buffy noticed.

"Fuck. So it does."

"Quor'toth, it's a real place, right? My mystical aura mange not a factor."

"Seems so. Portal entry, no rifts. But no way back without a major boost. Lady, she says she'll do that on condition."

"What condition?"

Spike was silent a long minute. Buffy studied his face--deliberately unrevealing, which itself told her he was trying to keep things locked inside. "Seems there's a prophecy boy there. Called 'The Destroyer.' Seems the Lady wants him fetched back. More'n likely, why she stuffed Rayne there to begin with--to get us into it. On account of Rupert. Sneakier, even, than I'd guessed."

"The Lady," Buffy clarified.

"Yeah," Spike confirmed glumly, finishing his coffee and setting the cup on the rail.

"I haven't had any signs, dreams, anything like that. You?"

"Nothing. 'F I had, I'd have said."

"Would you?"

Another long silence. Finally Spike said, "I got other reasons for wanting no part of this. Sometime, if I have to, I'll tell you."

"OK...if the reasons are yours, nothing to do with me. Do they? Have to do with me?"

Spike quirked an uneasy smile, caught. "Maybe. Still my reasons, though. Leave a chap a little privacy."

"This, from the guy who sleeps naked."

"Well, yeah. Want a morning shag, less to get all tangled up with. Haven't heard any complaints, 'less this is one."

"No complaints. Except you snore."

"Do not!"

"Do too! I have witnesses!"

"What witnesses?"

"Well, Dawn. She knows you snore!"

"Hell, Bit will say anything to get a rise. Says you're an ill-tempered dwarf: does that make it so?"

"She says what?"

Spike cut off further discussion with a sudden but lingering kiss, a time-tested way of stopping words altogether. At least an 8 on the hotitude scale. Buffy leaned into it, commenting intelligently, "Mmmmm."

"Guys?" It was Willow, in fluffy chenille robe and slippers, holding a steaming coffee cup, leaning out the door. Buffy disentangled enough to look around inquiringly. "Phones are working again. Because it rang. It was Angel." As Buffy moved, Willow said hastily, "He didn't wait. He said don't decide anything, don't do anything. He's coming. Then he hung up."

"Shit!" said Spike concisely.


 

6: Dire Scenarios

As though the brrring! of the weapons chest phone were a starting gun, Dawn whirled on the stairs. Racing back up to her room, she dove onto her bed, grabbed her cellphone from the bedside table, and hit the #2 speed dial. It rang! The phone was working!

After only twenty rings, she got Mike's voice slurring, "Ya."

"Hi! Phones are working again! Severely tremendous!"

If it'd been Spike, she'd have been chewed out for waking him up to pass along such cataclysmic news. But it was Mike. She heard him stirring around for a moment, maybe yawning, changing hands on his phone. She couldn't imagine it perfectly, she'd never been to his new lair, but she heard the smile in his voice and that was all she really needed. "Dawn. Everything there all right?"

"Now that the power's back, yeah." Happily, she settled into chat mode. "You do a sweep last night?"

"Something like."

"Tell me!"

"Well, nothing much stirring. Saw Spike pass by, 'bout ninety miles an hour, Slayer at pillion, dunno what that was about, if anything. Everything else all dark. There's been a lair forming up in Shady Grove, couple of vamps turning everything they could find, about half a dozen fledges. We busted them up, killed most, scattered the rest."

"Ahuh." Dawn knew, on a mental map, that particular cemetery was within Mike's claimed territory. Naturally he was going to roust anything but a lone vamp or two settling in there without paying their respects, acknowledging his rights over them, getting his permission to hunt on his ground. "Any losses?"

"Nobody you'd know. Hunted Mercy General afterward. Hospitals, they have generators."

And would therefore have people out and abroad in something like normal numbers. Dawn understood that too.

Mike didn't make any big detailed thing out of his hunts, but he didn't avoid mentioning them, either. Hunting and killing were part of what he was, and although he kept to Dawn's limits on nights when he came to visit, the rest of the time he attended to vamp priorities and made casually sure she knew it. So she'd appreciate properly what an exception she was, she thought: what allowances he was prepared to make for her. Kind of a compliment, if she wanted to look at it that way.

Some parts of vamp thinking, she could puzzle out pretty well. Some parts, she couldn't.

She found herself saying, "So how's Sue?"

"Still here. Not dusted, if that's what you mean. Sue, she looks out for herself pretty good. May last out a year yet. Didn't know you had a particular interest in her--"

"I don't!"

"--to ask after her." A silence then as he absorbed her protest. "Dawn, why'd you call?"

Dawn shrugged uncomfortably. "I figured it was my turn. Since the phones had been out...."

"No: really."

Dawn curled up tighter around the phone. "Are you mad at me?"

"What for?" Mike didn't sound surprised or even puzzled. Only curious.

"I dunno. For anything."

"For not being Sue, you mean."

"Maybe. No!"

"You're like Spike," Mike commented thoughtfully. "What you don't want, you still want the ordering of."

"No! That's nothing to me, I don't care about that!"

"And you're near as terrible a liar," Mike responded, chuckling.

"I am not lying!" Dawn screeched. It was insupportable that Mike could be so untroubled by what tied her into knots.

"Now, Dawn, don't you get mad about it when I'm not. You set the limits, not me. And there's got to be limits. On account of what you are. And I am. No use to complain about that. Just how it is. Always been limits and always will be. Just a matter of where we draw the line. Just 'cause you ain't got all of me don't mean there's anyone I set higher or think more of. Nobody's got all of anybody, Dawn...except you take the life that's theirs and make it all your own. I got no problem with that. Not what I thought you wanted, though...."

"I don't know what I want!" Dawn wailed.

"Well, I knew that, too. Not impatient about it, though. I got time. How about I swing by this evening, we take a ride. Phone's all fine, call you anytime I please, and that's good. But can't see you. Can't smell you. Can't know for certain if your eyes are all sparky or crunched up tight, or if your blood moves calm or fast. Don't really like the phone all that much, sometimes," Mike finished, moody and a little wistful.

At least he'd quit being reasonable. She couldn't stand his being reasonable. Dawn thought she'd feel so much better if he was as confused and miserable as she was.

"Come over," she agreed, then suddenly realized she had news to impart and sprang upright. "Oz is here! Do you know Oz?'

"Heard Spike speak of him," Mike responded neutrally. "Werewolf?"

"Ahuh, yes. And Giles, he's practically camped on the doorstep. He wants us all to go to Quor'toth!"

"What's that, when it's at home? Some dimensional thing?" Mike's tone was way short of pleased.

"Something like that. To rescue Ethan Rayne, of all people! And there's this thing called Fudo, about eighteen feet high, a kind of Ninja-samurai-demigod thing with a disappearing sword, that doesn't want us to, and--"

Dawn was amazed to realize the scope and detail of recent developments Mike was ignorant of, that she hadn't told him about. All kinds of excitement!

As she started to explain about Fudo, and how she'd actually been allowed to sit in on a full-scale Scooby meeting, she noticed Spike standing in her doorway. Breaking off, she tilted her head inquiringly, explaining into the phone, "It's just Spike."

Noticed, Spike stalked forward. Batting the phone out of her hand, he seized her wrist and pulled...her out of herself.

Suspended in the pearlescent occluded daylight of a Sunnydale winter morning, Spike was like a fiery cloud. The sparkling motes of his astral body whirled so wildly that he seemed to be flying apart, nearly transparent. Dawn could see through him but not into him. He was exploding like a swarm of hornets.

You told, he accused.

Told what? To who?

Angel. About Quor'toth. Second the phone was working, somebody got on to Angel. He's coming.

Dawn was accustomed to the fury of Spike's demon. But the demon had been left behind. This implacable rage made Spike seem a stranger to her. It was of the spirit. Of the soul.

He was staring at her ferociously: as though to sift every molecule of her being--here, where the truth of things could not be concealed or evaded. Know you wanted to. Tried to get me to say you could.

It wasn't me! I didn't do it! Anyway, you're the one who told me, Spike. If it's this gigantic dire secret, why did you tell me about it in the first place?

Spike's attention left her, turning inward. The seething energy lurched and swayed, no longer locked on target. Dawn could no longer see his eyes. Hadn't thought it through, then. What it would mean....

Well, I didn't! Dawn was talking to herself: Spike's presence had winked out.

In that instant, she was certain that she and Spike were thinking exactly the same thing: If she hadn't told, who had?

He'd taken his explosion elsewhere.

**********

Descending the stairs an abstracted amble, Spike was thinking, If not Bit, then who?

Oz and Giles were in the hall, talking with Buffy and Willow. Noticing him first, Buffy glanced around and Giles looked up too, with a smug, sly something in his eyes and about his pursed mouth. Spike went for him in a flying dive.

The next thing he knew, he was on his back with Buffy kneeling grimly astraddle his chest and Oz weighing down his ankles. Buffy smelled scared and furious; wolf-boy smelled anxious and determined: like he might tear Spike's throat out but he wouldn't like it. From behind, Willow's voice commented, "You got to stop doing this, Spike. It's rotten for morale, and it's hard on me. I have better things to do with my spells than slap you down, every few days."

Giles' face came hazily into Spike's view. From the floor, Giles looked as tall as Fudo. With a haughty chin lift, Giles said, "I remained within the letter of your prohibition. I recall nothing said about not communicating with Angel."

The Watcher's hairsplitting didn't touch Spike's sense of betrayal. Spike was ready to go for him again as soon as Buffy let him up. Must have showed: Giles backed off, past where Spike could see, and Buffy whapped Spike and made him look at her. "You don't do that! Not to our friends!" Then she lifted her aggrieved face to Giles. "Not that I'm real pleased, either, Giles. Why bring Angel into it?"

"Now that it's certain the Powers are involved, at least consulting him is an obvious course of action since he's dealt with them far longer than any of us," Giles replied, not fazed by Buffy's displeasure either. "There is also...the problem of how to deal with Fudo. Angel may have some useful insights about that."

"We don't need him, pet," Spike told Buffy urgently. "He'll only take over the doings, you know he will, want everything his way--"

"Unlike you," Giles mentioned with reserved sarcasm, and Buffy alternated her glare between them. Then she glanced at Willow and calmed, as though that had settled something for her, and waved wolf-boy off.

She said, "Unless Angel's willing to put himself through the blanket-in-the-trunk routine, he can't start before nightfall. So maybe he's still at the Hyperion and there's time to head him off." Buffy warily let him get to his feet. Hands on her hips, she demanded, "Can I trust you out of my sight for two minutes without your going all Taz on somebody? Do I have to have Willow disinvite you, too, until you can quit behaving...well, like some insane-o fledge?"

Spike jerked a glance at the bright panels flanking the front door. "It's daylight out, love."

"And we have a handy dandy tunnel that'll take you right into the nice, dark sewers," Buffy retorted, unimpressed. "Where you can stay until you've convinced me you can behave. I'm not putting up with this, Spike--you blowing up in a vamp tantrum every time something doesn't suit you, doesn't go your way. You know better! If this is what playing on the astral side does to you, I don't think you should go there anymore. Well?"

Presented with an excuse, Spike took it. Bending to put a quick, contrite (he hoped) kiss on Buffy's forehead, Spike said, "Sorry, love. Maybe you're right. 'F the Watcher lets me alone, I'll let him alone."

"That would sound a lot better," Buffy said tartly, "if your eyes weren't yellow."

"Oh." Spike concentrated, shut the demon deeper within him. That took some effort. Seemed it was always simmering close to the surface now, taking any opportunity to flash out at somebody. Good thing he'd thought to take Bit across, accuse her there. Otherwise, he might have flashed out at her, and even he found that unacceptable. Had to get a better grip on himself, some way, to have any chance of steering the rolling disaster he felt already in motion, carrying him along toward several dire outcomes. They all couldn't happen; but deflect it from one, another worse one opened.

Things were getting past him, and he didn't know what to do about it, and the combination was driving him frantic.

Which didn't stop him putting on a smooth, non-twitchy mask for Buffy. Wasn't hard: she seldom looked past the surface. "There. That better?"

"No fighting," Buffy decreed flatly, poking a finger into his breastbone for emphasis. "Especially, no escalation. If Giles goes all toplofty on you, that's not your cue to try to rip out his ribs. We're out of your jurisdiction, Spike: we're not your crew, that you can pound on anytime you feel like it. And that goes for you and Angel, too...if I can't stop him." Worriedly, Buffy headed into the front room and sat on the weapons chest, picking up the phone there.

Spike and Giles exchanged a bland look--smug on Giles' side, evaluating on Spike's. No news to him, that nobody paid much heed to his word here. Which didn't mean he'd allow outright betrayal without payback. But that would have to wait. Buffy was right on the edge of tossing him out and Spike couldn't let that happen. Had to be here to keep things contained...including himself.

None of his usual ways of settling himself down--brawling, drinking, fucking--seemed on the current menu, unless Buffy would be willing to combine the first and last. Not likely, he thought, watching her talk into the phone. No joy there, evidently: Angel was en route, couldn't be recalled. Depending on when he'd set out, another hour, maybe, given that Angel hadn't yet been introduced to the benefits of the necro-tempered glass Oz's van was fitted out with and Spike had added afterward to the house repairs, rendering Casa Summers vamp-safe, too. That meant Spike had to keep good watch and be quick off the mark when Angel showed up. So no drinking either, not that there were enough drinkables in the house to produce more than a mild buzz....

He considered Oz a moment, then waved him nearer, into a close conversational huddle near the front door, throwing a congenial, coercive arm over wolf-boy's shoulders. "Well stocked up with liquor, are you?"

Oz regarded him quizzically. "Some," he allowed.

"Fetch it in. Gonna need it, I think."

That set going, Spike trailed after wolf-boy as far as the front porch and lit a cigarette there, blinking against the brightness. Still clouded over, though: should be all right. Too bright for his demon's comfort, not bright enough for the rest of him, that yearned after the clarity and brilliance of astral sight, wanted to kick free and soar into it, leave all the itchy muddle of halfway things behind. But he wasn't gonna do that. Not while he was smoking.

Buffy was right: he shouldn't be doing so much of that. All disrupted, dim, and edgy when he returned, even if he hadn't been gone but a minute or two. Took him an hour or more to get himself cogged back into the everyday. Couldn't afford that now. Had to keep good track of things.

Watching Oz trek to his van and return after a few minutes, toting a plastic milk crate clinking with bottles, Spike made his own fidgety circuit of the porch, lighting a fresh cig from the stub of the last and concentrating on that to hold himself in place.

Coming out of the house, Oz commented helpfully, "You should try meditating." Spike snarled. Turning, descending the steps backward, Oz said, "No, really," all earnest but with a glint in his eye. As Spike feinted at him, he skipped briskly into the diffuse sunlight, showing a tight, tucked grin, eyes downcast, as he wheeled around to return to the van.

Cheeky bastard.

Willow and Buffy came out, talking, Buffy predictably hugging herself against the outdoors chill and looking glum. She looked around to tell Spike what he already knew: Angel was in transit.

Spike drew hard on the cigarette. "Figured. However, house is all fresh-spelled, and he wasn't included in the new invite: don't have to let him in, you know."

"I know," Buffy responded unhappily. "I've been thinking about it. But I don't know...if I could look him in the face and tell him he can't come in."

"Never bothered you none with me," Spike responded, indignant.

"That's different."

"Different how?"

Coming a step nearer, Buffy wrapped arms around his neck, pulling his head down into a consoling kiss. Easing away, looking into his eyes, she said, "He was less persistent. He'd just go off and sulk. You'd look all astonished and hurt and then try to yell the house down."

"Did, a time or two." Recalling, smiling a little, Spike leaned and kissed her fast before she could get away. "Always caved and let me in eventually, though."

Smiling in reply, but her eyes shadowed and sober, Buffy said, "Spike, you can always come in. Sort of a permanent invitation. When you're not going all demento on people we really, really don't want to hurt, anyway."

"He ain't seen the half of what he's got coming," Spike grumbled.

Buffy didn't seem quite so pissed-off at him as he'd expected. He wondered about the logistics of sneaking in a quick shag while they waited. Settle him down right nice, that would. And her, too, she was all on edge....

But no. Get lost in it, they always did, and miss the one moment before things went totally to hell.

Affecting casualness, he asked Willow, "Red, anybody ever just leave and set up shop there for good an' all, there on the astral side?"

"Sure," Willow replied cheerfully. "We call them 'ghosts.'"

"Ta, ever so," Spike said sourly. As bad as wolf-boy, he thought: sick of people glinting at him, like he was the straight man to their comedy act.

As he swung into another restless circuit of the porch, his back to them, Willow called, "No, really! We're grounded in the physical, Spike. Even you. Though that seems real, this is what is real. Cut off from it, we'd wither and die."

A laugh and a half, that the witch thought she needed to instruct a vamp on relating to the tangible, living in the goddam moment.

As he reached the far end of the porch and turned, there was Buffy right in front of him. "What's got you so wound up about this?" she wanted to know.

Spike flung his arms in frustration. "Always disrupts things, doesn't he? Everything's got to be his way, his agenda. And you can't even make up your mind to leave him shut out on the porch thirty seconds."

Buffy's face heated. "This time, I'll back you up," she promised.

"Fine--you do that. A little less eagerness would be nice. Go inside, dither there, why don't you?"

Buffy folded her arms. "Because I'm not real keen on a brawl on my front porch!"

"Not gonna hit him, pet, 'less he hits me first. And I expect he'll be on his best manners: he wants something from us. And he might have the teaspoon of brains required to know starting something in a confined space, in daylight, would be stupid with a side of suicidal. Not that I haven't known him to do stupider." Spike rocked on his heels, happily contemplating for a moment the fact that these days, if the both of them toppled into the yard, Angel would singe a whole lot faster than Spike would.

"I don't trust that look. We'll all go inside," Buffy decided.

When Spike guilelessly displayed the cigarette, his justification for being on the porch, Buffy started back toward the door, declaring over her shoulder, "There better not be fighting! I'm holding you responsible!"

"Don't you always? I'm to blame for winter, and taxes, and global warming. Price of fish?" he called after her as she and Willow vacated the porch and slammed the door behind them.

So that was sorted. Nothing more to do except wait, smoke, and try not to go off his head.

About four cigarettes later, a big black Mercury sedan pulled up nose to nose with wolf-boy's van. For a mercy, not the convertible, considering Angel himself was driving. Must really be desperate, risking that the overcast would hold.

The Merc's purring engine cut off. Then Angel was barreling up the walk, a loud checkered blanket over his head and clutched together in front, already fuming as he took the steps in one hop and hit the porch. Angel dumped the blanket with a scowl, then checked at finding Spike before him, blocking his way.

"All she knows," Spike said urgently, "is that he's called 'The Destroyer.'"

The Immense Forehead creased, taking that in. Then it smoothed in what Spike hoped was relief.

"Right," Angel said, pushing past to the door. Almost, he knocked. Then his hand moved aside to touch the bell: not wanting to test his welcome. Not wanting to know.

Before the door opened, Spike heard Buffy's voice, inside, saying, "Angel. Come in."

Pitching the cigarette, Spike stalked in grimly behind. He'd done his bit. Now it would all have to go how it went.

*********

There were sides, Dawn noticed. And the sides were weird: Angel and Spike against everybody.

Angel, sitting in Spike's corner chair with no objection from Spike, had his head bent most of the time, uncharacteristically subdued, working his hands together like he didn't know what else to do with them or he'd really like to have them around somebody's windpipe but couldn't because that would spoil all the brittle Yay team togetherness. Except when Oz, or Giles, mentioned anything about the kid, "The Destroyer." Then he'd shoot a quick look at Spike; and Spike, all bland and blank, sitting nearly opposite on the floor by the couch, next to Buffy's knees, wouldn't let on he'd noticed but there'd be a hint of an encouraging nod not visibly aimed at anyone in particular, and Angel would settle back to his anxious glower.

They were back-stopping each other, which was uber-weird.

And then the penny dropped: they were both doing whatever gyrations were necessary to not admit the baby was Angel's.

After Oz and Giles recapped the difficulties of getting out of Quor'toth, once you'd got in, Angel nodded heavily, volunteering somberly, "That's what I was told. That the Powers wouldn't help because the Balance was at issue, and I'd be disrupting it. I thought about it, but then you called," (he shot one of those quick, guarded looks at Buffy) "and that seemed to take priority." He turned a hand in explanation. "So I came."

That would have been about six months back: early summer, when all the SITs had still been here and the opposition had been Bringers, Turok-han, and the First; when Angel had been called in to organize things with his typical iron hand. When Spike had submitted to that brutal vamp ritual, the Supplice d'Allégance, to settle old scores once and for all; when he'd first told Dawn about the baby.

Leaning forward, probably not noticing her hand had landed on Spike's shoulder (but Spike noticed, pulling a tight, private smile not visibly aimed at anybody, either), Buffy asked Angel, "Why didn't you say anything about it?"

It was almost funny, watching both vampires go tense and cautious, and Dawn the only one watching them hard enough to notice. "It was a case," Angel said, checking every few seconds to see if Buffy was buying it, checking with his coach if he was getting it right. "A...ah, kidnapping. There's a prophecy. A couple, actually. A lot of different sides involved. I was, we were, acting on behalf...of the family. It was a case, Buffy," Angel said, strangling one hand with the other even harder. "And already dead-ended. You had your own apocalypse you were dealing with. And since I went to L.A., it's not as if we've been exactly communicating. I didn't think...you'd be interested."

"The Balance," Giles commented aridly, from the far end of the couch. "That's what has got us Fudo's attention, apparently. Is it possible to separate these two issues? The child, and Ethan?"

Leaning against the door arch, Oz replied, "Seems not. Per the Lady, no ticket out without him. She won't help, though. Except for that."

"Won't get her hands dirty," Spike observed bitterly. "That's what she has her damn 'instruments' for. I say, leave the whole thing where it is and the hell with the bunch of 'em."

"I can't do that, Spike," said Giles, folding his hands. "It's on my account, or at least because of my negligence, that things came to the pass that they did. It never for a moment occurred to me that those Initiative louts could hold Ethan for a score of hours, let alone three years. If I had known.... If I'd been less certain.... Well, it was my fault, you see."

"Come off it, Watcher: you didn't make him cut Bit. Or treat me to a non-stop porn show in my head. Or suck up to Digger, take his shilling to open the goddam Hellmouth. He made his own choices. Let him take the consequences."

"Nevertheless," said Giles. "Then, I did what was necessary. Now, knowing, I cannot consign him to-- Excuse me." Abruptly, Giles got up and left the room.

"Sweet on the bugger," Spike muttered, and Buffy whapped him. He twisted around to look at her indignantly. "Well, he is! Doesn't make them less a pair of old ponces to hit me for saying so!"

Willow noisily cleared her throat. "Back to the matter at hand," she suggested, brandishing a notebook. "I've made a decision tree here. There's no point wrangling over the details if we're rejecting the thing as a whole. What are the pros, and what are the cons? What do we need, and need to know, to come to a decision about this?" She looked around the room alertly, awaiting an answer she could write down.

Dawn figured it was gonna be about like a conference of mice over who was gonna bell the cat. Unfolding, she went after Giles but was distracted by the ringtone of her cellphone, upstairs. Sprinting to her bedroom, she found the little ruby phone languishing in an open drawer: at least Spike hadn't broken it.

Flipping it open to the accompaniment of its built-in Star Trek communicator chirp, Dawn said, "Yes?"

"Me," said Mike's voice, pitched to a growl. "Downstairs. Best open the door if you don't want it down."

Oops. Another constituency wanting to weigh in on the issue.

Folding the phone and sticking it in a pocket as she hustled down the stairs, Dawn debated which she should tell--Buffy or Spike.

**********

Mike knew there'd be no point pissing off the Slayer: she'd dust him as soon as look at him, except for deferring to Spike and generally Dawn. That was all right: he had no particular use for her neither. Standing in the upper doorway, that Dawn had nervously escorted him to along the tunnel, Mike told the Slayer, "Got no dispute with you: you look after her fairly well, mostly. It's Spike hauls her into things, puts her at risk. Guess it's Spike I have to talk to, then, about this damn Quor'toth nonsense."

At his shoulder, not having decided between standing by him and ducking behind the Slayer, Dawn piped up, "But it's Spike who's against going. And it's Buffy who's at least halfway inclined to say we'll go."

Mike frowned, puzzling out that unexpected alignment. Then he looked around at Dawn. "And you: what are you inclined to?"

She fluttered her hands, pleased. "You're asking me? Nobody asks me what I want!"

"Do you want to get into this thing, or not?" Mike asked patiently. Sometime, she was gonna have to come down on something, the one side or the other, and have no excuses afterward how things turned out.

"It would depend," Dawn formulated slowly, "on who's going. If it's everybody, I wouldn't want to be left here all alone."

It was as good as a backhand slap, that she considered his company as being alone. But he let it pass, waiting for her to have her say.

"But if it's just Buffy and a few others.... No, Spike would never stay behind, not when there's a chance we couldn't get back. And I have the feeling Angel's going, regardless. And Giles.... So I guess it depends on what Buffy decides."

We couldn't get back. That phrase, said so casually, struck Mike with an unaccustomed chill. Or maybe it was finding that his true sire, that bastard Angel, was apparently mixed up in it.

"That's not up for discussion," Buffy put in abruptly. "No matter who goes, or doesn't, you're staying. This isn't gonna be some picnic on a beach, Dawn. Nobody knows what's there, so we'd have to be prepared for just about anything. A seventeen-year-old girl is not basic combat equipment."

"Oh," said Dawn, deflated, relieved, and worried. "But then who...who would take care of me?"

"Willow, probably. Since there's no magic there, we'd be in no pressing need of a witch."

"I'm not staying with Willow! I don't even like Willow that much, most days, except when she makes the funny shapes pancakes, like Tara used to. I won't, and you can't make me!"

This wasn't going anyplace. Rearing back a little, Mike shouted, "Spike!" The basement walls and ceiling were covered now with those soundproofing waffle squares, but the upstairs door was open and Mike was confident any vamp would hear him regardless.

Spike came quick to the doorway, found no mayhem in progress, and ambled halfway down the stairs, taking a seat there. "Need rescuing, do you?"

Mike was reevaluating, too. Maybe it hadn't been more than a mishap with the phone, that had cut his conversation with Dawn off so suddenly. Certainly Dawn seemed none the worse for it. And Spike seemed easy and casual--not as though he'd done something Mike could rightly call him on. "This notion of dimension-hopping," he said to Spike, across the Slayer. "However it goes, it's gonna affect me. If you just take off for any long while, vamps roundabout will figure the lid's off and anything is fair game."

Spike plowed both hands through his hair, then told the Slayer, "He's right. Hadn't thought about that end of it."

The Slayer looked vexed. "And we just got it settled down, too. Why do there have to be all these complications!"

"On account of the Balance, I expect," Spike remarked thoughtfully, watching her. "If we get into this, the Balance goes to hell. Starting here, seems like. Another reason--"

"Don't say it!" Buffy warned.

Spike sighed and shut his eyes. "I don't even know what the fucking Balance is, pet, except that Fudo doesn't like it messed with. And we don't yet have any counter to Fudo, now do we?"

"We'll improvise!" Buffy declared, chin stubbornly lifted.

"Yeah, because that always works so well. Love, if you want, I'll go, do what I can, and you stay here with Bit and--"

"No! Not if-- Not if there's a chance...you couldn't get back."

"Love, there's always that chance. One way or the other. But you haven't got rid of me yet--"

"Hello!" Dawn interjected loudly. "Nobody's listening to me! I'm not staying with Willow, and you're both being severely dumb here! Spike, who thinks the whole thing is a mistake, is volunteering, and Buffy, who's all about the team, is figuring how to desert her sister. What's wrong with this picture?"

The witch, Willow, came down a few steps. "Are you guys gonna come back so we can work on the decision tree?"

Arms rigid and hands fisted at her sides, Dawn took no notice, glaring first at Buffy, then at Spike. "Spike, if you go, I better be with you, you better make sure that I am. Otherwise, I'll tell!"

"Fuck!" Spike came down in a blur of fast. Suddenly still, he held out a hand. Looking mulish, Dawn slapped hers into it...and her smell changed, and they collapsed, linked, to the floor.

When Mike pulled in a startled breath and started to kneel, Buffy pushed him back upright, saying wearily, "It's all right: they're just off again. Their new stupid trick, very boring for onlookers." Walking obliviously around the two bodies toward the stairs, she added, "You might as well come up--everybody else has. Get the vamp quotient right. I guess that's important, to have a minimum of two vampires snarking and posturing at each other. Otherwise, how could anything be decided?"

Slowly kneeling, determining that Dawn was still breathing and pumping her blood around but her smell strange, like sleeping, Mike responded absently, "I'll wait."

Buffy turned at the bottom of the stairs. "Mike, I don't want to make a thing about this, but I want you where I can see you. Or else gone. Your pick."

Thoroughly unnerved and bewildered, Mike obeyed the Slayer's summons. With several backward glances at the sprawled pair on the basement floor, he followed her up the stairs.

**********

Materializing in the occluded privacy of the middle air, Dawn immediately rounded on Spike, demanding, Why shouldn't I? Why should I give up what gives me some leverage here? I won't be left behind, Spike. I won't! Anyway, who the hell cares if Angel's got a kid?

Buffy would. Bit, turn one minute from what you think, what you want, and consider. The child we're s'posed to fetch, the child in Quor'toth, is Angel's son. Out of Herself, Queen Darla: his Sire. Which shouldn't even be possible, but I guess it's something was granted him. As the Champion. And how will that seem to Buffy? That what turned him to Angelus, with her, was blessed with a child with someone else. I can't even imagine how bad that will hurt her. Like it's some wrong in her, that prevented it, that made it go bad.

In this place, it was impossible to see or hear the truth and doubt it. And it wasn't some hypothetical Buffy with her, hurting and frantic to convince her, but an actual (if shimmering and insubstantial) Spike. They were both about the same size this time, and the last time, too, Dawn noted with satisfaction.

That's stupid! Why should she care what Angel does?

Maybe she shouldn't. But she does. Angel knows it, too, how it would hit her. Why he's kept all mum about it. She'd take it personally, Bit; and take it to heart. Make her feel lower than dirt. Maybe can't keep it from her forever, but right now, if she knew, it would force her decision. She'd throw herself into this like she throws herself into everything: full tilt, straight ahead, blind to all else. To make it up to Angel that she couldn't be the one to kindle with a child for him. And instead produced a right monster, Angelus, loose in the world again, so she had to slam a sword through him, send him to hell. She's not forgot, Bit. She'd be hell-bent to present Angel with a goddam child, even if it wasn't hers.

All maybes and supposes, Dawn challenged.

Bit, you don't understand. Just don't understand.... He was quiet a moment, thinking. Then he said, You might think a vamp wouldn't care, neither. But I've seen Dru with her dolls. How she fed on children when we could find them. Liked the notion of a child inside of her--it took her like that. An' then get all wound up to realize they were all dead. Cry sometimes for days.... Then there'd be a round of punishing her dolls. And me, like as not. And like that, for awhile. And then it would all begin again....

Neither "Eew! Ick!" nor "That's insane!" seemed an adequate response. And she didn't think that Spike would understand "TMI," even yet.

In this place, censors were off. Though it pained him, too, he was saying what he knew and what he believed. And it wasn't as if she hadn't asked....

Although it was ugly, and twisted her up inside to hear and partly imagine Drusilla's warped and deadly child hunger, even more intolerable was for Spike to think Dawn a child, unable to understand grown-up things.

She'd never felt blood-thirst or the compulsion to hunt and hurt, but she could imagine and assign them their fair weight, for a vamp. She knew about the seething intensities of sex by the battered walls and broken furniture left in their wake. She could so know things!

OK, that's Dru, crazy enough to think women get pregnant by eating babies. That's not Buffy!

Buffy's given up, Spike responded simply. Slayers don't last. Don't get to have families of their own, children. In that way, if no other, vamps are safe. She had human lovers, a few, and dumped them when she saw there wasn't no future in it. For her or them, neither one. Part of why she turned to me, I expect. Like Dru, punishing her dolls for what she couldn't have. S'not like that now...but we had bad spells, too, there for awhile.... Part of why she don't necessarily treat you all that well but still holds onto you like grim death. 'Cause you're as near to a child as she'll ever have. But what if she found that wasn't so? That what she'd given up on was possible, after all. Wouldn't she go for it like she goes for everything? And is it likely, now, Angel would turn her away or refuse her? Once she knows, won't be long before she kicks me to the curb. 'Cause I got none of that miracle spunk in me. Can't do that, give her that. 'Cause I ain't yet suffered enough, or done right by the soul once I had it, or some other damn thing. Dunno, just how it is. Won't make me give her up, though. Not till she tells me...I'm not fit for her no more. Not enough for her.... Not without a fight!

It was good they were something like their actual sizes because it let Dawn hug him close, or try to, anyway. It was like trying to hug smoke. The surfaces never quite connected. But it was the thought that counted, right? You're just being all insane-o insecure. If it was a miracle, it was probably a one-off, never to be repeated. A prophecy child, after all--not anything normal. And anyway, Buffy doesn't care about that! She's said so, over and over.

Yeah: over and over. 'F she didn't say it so much, I might believe her better. Wish she'd leave off about it, actually.

Sometimes, Buffy isn't too bright about some things. I think she was worried you were worried about it, which makes you worry about it even if you didn't before, so she tells you again, and around and around. Spike, I think you're making this whole thing up in your head. Because it's Angel, who has this nasty habit of taking what's yours. Or trying to. But on the chance you're not, and because it's something you've managed to tie yourself up in knots about, when Buffy finds out, it won't be from me. I promise. Dawn could feel the relief pouring off him, like the sweat of a fever breaking. However, in return, I want you to promise that if you go into Quor'toth, I go, too. You have to: we're connected.

All right, Bit. The way things are piling on, don't think there's much chance to dodge it now, for all my trying. May have to smuggle you across in the baggage, but I'll manage, some way. I'd miss you something terrible, that's true, though you're a bitch brat more'n half the time and I don't know why I put up with you.

Because you love me, Dawn responded smugly, reflecting that one way or the other, her lever had worked, and that was all she cared about. Come on: let's get back. We're probably all gross, laying on the basement floor. Mike probably freaked. He doesn't know about any of this!

As she bounced to her feet and brushed herself off briskly, watching Spike stir and start looking dimly around the basement, it occurred to Dawn that extorting a promise that she could go meant leaving Mike behind--maybe forever. She stifled the pang that gave her by reflecting he'd have Sue to console him. The way vamps focused on the present moment, without much by the way of regrets or expectations, likely he wouldn't even miss her all that much. She'd been here; now she wasn't, not even a smell to remember her by; too bad, big deal.

"Bit? What's wrong?"

"Nothing! Absolutely fricking nothing!" Suddenly in a foul mood, she charged up the stairs.

**********

Well, it'd all gone straight to hell, just as Spike had expected. Climbing the stairs to the first floor hall, Spike found it dark outside. In only a few subjective minutes, hours had passed, and apparently the decision tree was no longer an issue. All the signs said the decision had been made: everybody scattered to different tasks, research mode. The Watcher slumped unconscious on the couch, glasses laid aside, so not likely napping. Most likely, gone astral to natter with his fuck pal Rayne, learn about the doings over there: what passed for reconnaissance. Buffy and Angel head to head in the front room, seemingly discussing weaponry. Bit and Mike passing by, Bit going on twenty to the dozen about Fudo, Mike with head bent, listening but giving nothing away, as they went out onto the front porch. Didn't see wolf-boy, maybe gone out to the van for something.

"Spike! You put porn on my computer!"

In the den, Willow was half rising from a chair to berate him, eyes wide and face flushed.

"Yeah. So?"

"So my e-mail in-box is now all full of offers how I can enhance my 'male equipment!'"

Spike shrugged, trying to overcome the sense of being overwhelmed, scattered, everything coming at him at once. "Wasn't but a few bookmarks, favorites. Didn't actually keep anything."

"You've polluted my laptop! Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean out the cookies those sites set? Cookies: yech! And once you get on some pervert's list, you can never get off! I'm gonna have to change my e-mail and everything! Maybe wipe the whole hard drive!"

Only the last part of that registered. And the witch's furious indignation, of course, that didn't concern him--not over a little porn. Besides, done was done. Sliding between the table and the wall, Spike took Willow's place before the laptop and started hitting keys with two fingers. "Don't wipe nothing, I have all sorts of notes here that I need." Reaching for his glasses, he further displaced her, oblivious to her indignant squawks.

Her remark about ghosts, on the porch, had set him thinking about something he'd read in the Watchers' archives he'd been browsing through for months, lately with special attention to all matters dimensional. Hadn't much noted it at the time, didn't seem much use to it; but it'd been about some bloke who claimed to have ended a haunting by unconventional means--with a weapon. A sword, or something like, that could cleave the immaterial.

He was still searching when he heard Dawn squeal outside, and a big, unpleasantly familiar voice bellow, "So you haven't chosen the path of wisdom. Who opposes me? Who is your champion, Slayer? Or will you face me yourself?"

Fudo. Damn.
 

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