Author’s Note: Thanks to Kar for the beta job, as always. Couldn’t do it without her. This one’s going to be a little darker than my stories have been to date. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Also, I always thought it made sense that no one was chosen when Buffy died the second time, but I’m ignoring that in this story. There will be two slayer lines, and someone got called when Buffy died.

In our first installment the slayer experiences an unusual rising, and Tara and Xander are in for a big surprise as well.

Chapter One:

Tashi twirled her stake and fought the urge to hum to herself. Just because she couldn't see a vampire didn't mean there wasn't one around. After all, her teacher was hanging around somewhere, just out of sight. He always did that, hanging back until she needed him or his urge to wallop something overcame him. There were usually plenty of wallopees to go around. She'd been in Sunnydale six months, and the place was still overrun. Tashi was doing what she could, but even with help it was a big job.

If vampires weren't rising, then demons were harassing campus, or a crazy warlock was trying to change physics. A few nights before, there had been a massacre at the bus station because she'd been too busy exterminating freaky aquatic monsters that were attacking ships in port. Her teacher tried to tell her she couldn't be everywhere at once, that it wasn't her fault. Bullshit. She was the slayer. It was her god dammed job description.

She hadn't been there to stop it from happening, but she was sure as hell going to greet the results before they could perpetuate the cycle.

Two rose predictably, crawled out of the dirt and growled at her. They were easy targets that practically impaled themselves on her stake. No challenge, but she wasn't really complaining. The third was a little off though. She burst out of the dirt hacking and coughing, no game face. She took deep gulps of air, like she hadn't figured out she didn't need to breathe yet. Big eyes stared at her as the creature struggled to her feet, brushing thick blond hair out of her eyes.

The new vampire struck her own breastbone a few times and sputtered out puffs of dirt and nonsense syllables. Tashi hefted her stake and tapped her foot impatiently. The fledgling gestured at the stake and hit her chest again. Finally she managed something comprehensible. "Slayer."

Tashi rolled her eyes. "Congratulations. Yes, I'm the slayer. Speaking of which..."

She lunged forward. Too late she heard her teacher shout, "Tashi, no!" Strong arms grabbed at her so that her thrust went too high, lodging in the newly-risen's shoulder instead of her heart. Her gut clenched as blood began to leak from the wound. The woman, because clearly she was not actually a vampire, blinked in shock, her mouth open.

She tried to cling to her teacher for support, feeling light-headed. But he was moving, wrenching the stake out and clamping his hand over the wound. She waited for the woman to freak out when his face suddenly changed. Tashi was getting scared; she'd never seen him react like that and it wasn't like she'd never seen him around bleeding people.

Instead the woman tilted her head at him and said, "Ow," uncertainly, like she wasn't sure it was the right word.

Spike gave a watery laugh and carefully lifted the woman into his arms. "Call Tara. Have her meet us at the store. Hurry!"

She tried to ask him what the hell was going on, but he was already gone. She made the call then raced after him on shaky legs. She'd just stabbed a woman. Was he going to tell her Watcher? Connie was going to kill her. Maybe he'd just punish her somehow, which she totally deserved. What kind of slayer couldn't tell the difference between a human and a vampire?

When she got to the apothecary shop, Spike had the woman lying on the counter, pressing some goop into her shoulder and knocking things over trying to find the bandages.

"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?" she asked.

The woman made a high, loud noise.

"Doesn't like hospitals," Spike agreed, as though he was intimately acquainted with the preferences of the woman she'd stabbed. "Bloody hell!" Spike shouted, kicking one of the cabinets.

The woman made another pained sound and covered her ears.

Spike looked crushed. "Sorry, pet," he whispered urgently. "Can't find the sodding bandages, is all."

"They're in the cabinet just above the one you're kicking, Spike," a quiet voice informed him.

Tashi was immensely relieved to see Tara standing in the doorway, her grey-blond hair hastily pulled back, still in her pajamas. Tara smiled at her, walked to the counter, and then nearly tripped over her own feet backing away. "That can't be..."

"Well it is," Spike insisted. "Help me get her patched up."

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Pull yourself together, McClay, Tara chided herself. She finished mixing the draught and gently held the cup to Buffy's lips. "This will help with the pain," she explained. "Help you sleep."

It was surreal looking down at the living body of a woman she'd said goodbye to thirty years before. So much had happened to her, years and crows feet accumulated. The woman on her store's front counter was untouched by time. At least, her body was. Her haunted eyes gave the lie to that. Where had she been? What had they done to her there?

They'd tried so hard to rescue her, and when they'd failed... Harder for Tara was her own failure to comfort Willow in the aftermath. None of them had been the same after failing to retrieve Buffy from hell, but Willow was lost. She was glad they never told Spike what they were up to. Of course he'd been too deep in his own grief to help them then. Maybe if Mr. Summers hadn't come for Dawn, it wouldn't have taken Spike so long to find a purpose again.

She finished wrapping the wound and gave Buffy a wan smile. The slayer just stared vacantly at her, watching her every move. When Tara took a step back, the slayer used her unhurt arm to lever herself up to a sitting position. Tara followed the other woman's eyes to Spike, who was clearly giving Tashi a bit of a pep talk. Probably assuring her that she wasn't a bad slayer and that no one was mad.

Buffy slid off the counter and lurched around the room a little. Her eyes passed over Tara again with no hint of recognition. Spike stood and moved to stand a few steps from her. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, like she was trying to speak, then she shook her head in defeat. She began to cry, big silent tears. She sank down to the floor and leaned against the wall.

"I know," Spike agreed, joining her on the hardwood and gently petting her hair until she slumped against him in sleep, the medication finally catching up with her.

Spike hugged her limp form against him and rested his head against hers for a moment. When he lifted his head, there was mud on his cheek. "We have to find who did this."

Tara shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe she'll be able to tell us something, once she's adjusted."

Spike made a face. "Call Harris," he instructed, delivering the second-biggest shock of the evening. "Girl's gonna need familiar faces around."

"I thought... I thought he was officially out of the Scooby trade."

"You know perfectly well who made that decision, and the little piker can bloody well suck it up. He'd want to be in on this one, and you know it."

Tara had to agree with that part.


----------------

Xander pulled a chair up next to Jess' old bed and cringed when he heard his back crack with the movement. Buffy just turned a little in her sleep but didn't wake. He sat and leaned forward to pick up one of her hands. Tara had washed her and changed her as well as she could with the slayer being half asleep, but there were still horrible wounds on the backs of her hands.

She was back, and part of him felt like doing the Snoopy dance for joy. But another part of him, the long neglected Scooby part, was wondering what had happened and whether the woman in his son's bed was really the Buffy Summers he had known or not. He gently kissed her palm and leaned back in the chair with a sigh.

"She recognized you?" he asked Spike.

"Seemed to, yeah. Not much for talking just yet."

"Maybe you should stick around for when she wakes up."

"Slayer will know you," Spike insisted gruffly.

It was fairly dismaying to be getting encouragement from Spike. Clearly the vampire was rattled, or he wouldn't be trying to make him feel better. "Just the same, stick around, alright? Jess is out of town, so you're not going to be bothering anyone. Unless you need to get home to Katya," he remembered.

"Not an issue."

"Sorry."

"Might be just as well." There was a hint of amusement in Spike's voice.

"Planning on starting up your obsession again?" Xander teased.

"Might do," Spike replied.

Xander nodded and exhaled loudly. "Well, maybe it will be good for her, considering how many things have changed in thirty years."

"She might find my suit more appealing this time 'round, with the soul and all."

"Yeah, well, that didn't really make her happier about the other guy." A really unpleasant thought occurred. "Speaking of which..."

"Familiar faces and that rot? Let her get herself together. She'll ask for him if she wants him. Doesn't need the shock right now."

About that, Xander mused, the vampire might be right. He settled back in the chair and watched Spike lounge against the old dresser, visibly twitching for a cigarette. Lost in thought, he almost didn't notice when she opened her eyes. She blinked at him, looked over at Spike, and then studied him again for a long moment.

He smiled at her. "Hey, Buffster."

"Xander," she replied, sounding completely confused. "Spike," she offered, pointing at the vampire. "Xander," she repeated, sitting up and crawling toward the edge of the bed. "Please. I want to go home."

Xander felt his stomach drop. "Buff, I'm sorry, we can't take you back to your mom's old place."

He watched as Buffy shook her head and gave Spike a pleading look. The vampire's face was full of sorrow. "That's not the home she means."

"What does that mean?" Xander demanded, feeling a familiar exasperation with the vampire.

"She wants to go back where she was," Spike answered quietly.

When all Willow's spells failed, he'd tried to tell himself that they couldn't pull her out of whatever hell she'd jumped into, it was because she was in heaven. He'd never believed it though, not until this moment. There was some relief in that, in knowing that she hadn't been languishing in torment for three decades.

On the other hand. "God, Buffy, I'm so sorry. So sorry."

The slayer dropped her head to her knees and combed a hand through her hair. Frowning at the grime left on her fingers, she wrinkled her nose. "Bath?"

With a sad smile he nodded. At least there was something he could do for her.

----------------

Feedback, please :)

Author’s Note: I’m working on the third chapter now. I would really appreciate feedback on this one. Like it? Hate it? Want to see more? Any major holes so far?

In our second installment Buffy rises from her stupor.

Chapter Two


On the seventh day she watched the bubbles in the tub pop and decided she might as well start living again.

For a week she'd drifted between a strange bed and strange bath, only half conscious. She'd lost track of how many mugs of sludge she'd poured down her throat trying to block out the bright, loud, harsh world constantly assaulting her senses. She was the slayer. She could take the pain of it. There was work to do.

From overheard conversation she knew that Sunnydale had been without a slayer for years. Maybe she was back because they needed her. Maybe there was some purpose to her being dragged out of paradise. Even if that was just something she needed to believe to get herself out of bed, she was clinging to it.

She hadn't done much talking. She could tell they weren't sure what to say to her, what to ask her. Full sentences were still a little of a challenge too, though her memory was back. The vibrations in her throat tingled, and she didn't know what to say. But they talked to each other, and she heard them. She heard everything; the beating of their hearts, footfalls on the sidewalk, the television in the house next door. When Xander came in to check on her, she could smell the sun that had soaked into his skin all day, the wet plaster from his buildings, the cold cuts from his lunch.

Was this what vampires felt, this sensory overload? Was she a kind of vampire now?

Maybe Spike could help her. He was always around, unless he was out patrolling with the new slayer. Sometimes she called his name, just to check, assure herself that he was nearby. Oddly reassuring, the familiar way he hung around. Plus it was good to have someone who looked the same, who didn't look changed. Tara had aged in a fabulous Meryl Streep way. Xander was still Xander, but he was, like, Giles's age. Only Giles was dead.

No one would tell her about Willow. She knew Willow wasn't dead, because she would have felt her, the way she'd felt Dawn and Giles. But Xander would only say that Willow wasn't 'with us' anymore, like she was dead.

She took a deep breath and kicked one leg up out of the water. Droplets dripped down it and it didn't feel so bad, even with the cool air crashing into the damp skin. Tara had brought her a big bag of girly things, and after days of ignoring pretty much everything but the bubble baths with their aggressive, fruity smells she unearthed the razor and shaving cream.

Xander's towels were big and soft and so was the old robe he'd given her. There was the faintest hint of warm guy scent and sandalwood in the cloth. She needed clothes. And makeup. And money. She didn't have anything of her own anymore. Did she even exist any more?

The mirror didn't think so. Just steam and dots of water on the glass.

"Spike?"

"Slayer?"

She smiled to herself. "Come in?"

He opened the door slowly and poked his head in. The warm air rushed out and she shivered. "No me," she joked, pointing at the mirror. "Maybe I'm a vampire now too."

Spike shook his head and carefully placed a hand on her chest. "Heart's beating away, slayer. Not a vampire."

For a moment she was mesmerized by the feel of his hand on her bare skin. Everyone was so careful about touching her, afraid their hugs would be too much. "Tell me something." She had to rest between phrases, but talking was getting easier. "When you walked in here right now? It's like someone shoved macaroons up your nose, right?"

He threw back his head and laughed. "You are a bit over fond of the coconut, slayer," he admitted.

"How do you stand it?" she asked.

"Always have the option of not breathing," he pointed out.

But he always did breath, she noticed. "Well, I don't," she argued.

Spike shrugged. "You get used to it. Some fledges can't take it, s'why some of them run around like decapitated chickens when they rise. Too much for them."

"So I'm like a really dumb fledge? Thanks."

He gave her one of those soft little smiles. "Not built for it is all. Give it time, love. Concentrate on what feels good."

Like his hand on her skin? That was a really dangerous thought. "So far that's baths and chocolate. And if you keep bringing me chocolate, I'm going to get fat."

He scoffed. "Not likely slayer. You could use some padding, looking a bit skeletal these days."

She frowned. "Give me a break. I was a skeleton a few days ago." His face fell and she felt bad. She knew she hadn't always cared this much about Spike's feelings, but he was one of three people she knew in the whole world. Plus he'd stuck around, kept fighting the fight. Fighting... "I want to patrol again."

As soon as she said it, she realized it was true. She missed it, missed the feel of smooth wood in her hand, the rush of adrenaline, the satisfaction of doing her job.

"You sure you're ready for that?" Spike asked, brow furrowed with skepticism.

"Well, no, but I have a life again. I need to get on with it, you know?"

"Maybe a little training first?" he suggested. "Could come to the shop with Tash and me tonight. See if you've still got it."

"I've still got it!" she insisted.

He smiled and looked her over. "You certainly do."

She rolled her eyes and smiled back. "I thought you said I was too skinny."

"We can work on that too."


------------


When Xander got home, he was pleased to see Buffy sitting at the kitchen table instead of sleeping or soaking. She had one of his old photo albums out, flipping through pictures of his son's soccer matches. "Someone's feeling better."

She gave him a little smile. "I think I was running the risk of permanent pruning."

He squeezed her shoulder and handed her the envelope that had come. "Don't worry, it's not ticking or anything. I checked."

Buffy studied the thick manila packet warily. "It's from the Council?" She dumped the contents out on the table. Little laminated cards, papers, and another, smaller envelope. New ids, a resume, a diploma.

"They do a better job of taking care of their slayers now," Xander explained.

Buffy scoffed, but when she opened the little envelope her eyes got huge. "Oh my god. This is a lot. I mean, is it a lot? It was a lot thirty years ago, but..."

Xander glanced at the check she was holding. "It's still a lot," he confirmed.

She put it back in the envelope. "I guess they really do take better care of us." Her face brightened. "Now I can go shoe shopping! And also kick in for groceries, or I could find my own place if you want, or--"

"Buffy," Xander stopped her. "You don't have to do any of that. You have no idea what it means for me, having you here again. Having you stay at the house is so beyond not a problem." He kissed her forehead. "Tomorrow's Saturday. I can take you to the bank, and you can set up an account. And maybe I can take you shopping for a pretty new handbag to put your new cards in. Isn't that what you lady types like?" He teased, "Shoes and purses?"

"Became a big expert in my absence?" she razzed back.

"Hey," he insisted, getting up and scouring the fridge for dinner selections, "I managed to run off two wives while you were gone. I learned a lot about what women don't like."

Buffy shook her head. "I'm still getting used to this, that all this time went by. You got married, had a kid, opened your own business... I’m not, like, messing up your work, am I?”

“Nah,” he assured her. “Nice thing about being the boss is I can step out if I need to. And Jess should be back from his ski trip next week, so I’m due for a break.”

“Business is good?”

“You know what Sunnydale’s like. Something’s always getting blown up or knocked down. Especially the last few years. It’s gotten better since Tashi came to town.”

Buffy sighed. “I missed so much. I don't even know what all I missed."

He leaned against the stove. "Well, what do you want to know, Buff? You can ask me anything."

"Where's Willow?"

Of course. Of course she wanted to know about Willow. "She's not around here anymore. The slayer after you... she and Willow got really close, and Willow kinda lost it when she got killed. Turned in her Scooby badge," he hedged.

"Do you ever see her? I mean, what is she doing now? Can I, you know, call her or something?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," he sighed. "Sometimes her work brings her here." Though, thankfully, not very often anymore, he kept to himself. The craving for a beer kicked in. "She travels a lot. She's in high demand."

"Oh." The disappointment in her voice hurt, but the full truth would make it even worse. "Well, that's good. Good for her that she's all sought after and stuff."

Yeah, hooray for Willow. He needed a distraction, pronto. "Come on, Buff, let's get out of here. Get a burger or something."

She nodded. "Sounds good. But nothing too heavy. I'm training tonight."

"Training?"

"I'm still the slayer, right?" She shrugged. "Time to get back to work." She took the jacket he offered and made a face. "I'm going to need you to show me where Tara's store is though."

-------

I'm working on the third part now. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

Author’s Note: I hope there’s not too much back-fill in this chapter. But I didn’t think it was reasonable to have Buffy go much longer without starting to ask some of these questions. Please let me know what you think; feedback is much appreciated. Thanks as always to Kar and my readers.

In our third installment there are at least a few answers.


Chapter Three

She walked and talked. She drank. She studied him over the rim of her glass and smiled. She commented his apartment actually looked less lived in than the crypt. None of it seemed real to Spike. He waited for something else, some other shoe to drop and rip her away. He'd blink, and she would be gone.

Instead she just drained her glass and started wandering around the place, poking the couch and giving the closets curious glances, visibly restraining herself from flinging the doors open.

“So after Oxford, where did Dawn go?”

“Spain. Said she wanted somewhere warm like home, but with fewer horned beasts. Taught English at some little college. Came back to visit a few times, not often enough.”

“Any little nieces or nephews or anything?”

“Liked being independent, Dawn did.”

“It’s really strange, you know. I was so glad to feel her when she came over or whatever, but maybe I should have been sad too. Or I should be sad now, because she’s not here. But where she is… it’s good.” She turned away for a minute. It hurt to watch her longing for where she’d been. “How…”

“Car accident.”

“Oh.”

She'd had fun pummeling him, he could tell. The first night she’d been too careful, too sensitive to every little tap. The training was doing her good, putting color back in her cheeks and proving her body could feel things other than the ache and strain of every day.

That was still on her though, in the bend of her spine and the way she still flinched at the strangest things. She sat down and rubbed her neck petulantly. "Got a crick, pet?" She shrugged, so he moved around behind her and pressed his fingers into her skin.

He had fooled himself into thinking he'd gotten over her. If he had, her return wouldn't be turning him inside out though. He hadn't forgotten her; he'd just boxed her up and avoided thinking of her, which wasn't the same thing. Katya had been right; he'd never gotten past losing his slayer. She was just wrong about which one.

Buffy moaned under his touch and any lingering doubts were put to rest. He'd happily throw himself under a bus just to hear her do that again. He pressed a little harder and she began to shiver.

Her voice was husky when she spoke. "You have to stop," she whispered, licking her lips.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked, not particularly inclined to stop.

"No. Really not. It feels good. But you have to stop."

He backed away and shoved his hands in his pockets. She rested her head in her hands for a moment. "I should go."

"Please don't," he replied.

She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. "There was someone living here with you."

"Till a few months back, yeah," he admitted. Did she think he'd been pining for her for thirty years? Or that he’d merrily thrown some poor girl over the moment she emerged from the grave? "Didn't like my working with Tashi."

"Who was before Tashi?"

"There were a few, I think. Her Watcher Connie could tell you the details. Last one they sent here was Lieuko, ten years gone. Before her there were three the Council sent ‘round the world. Would have been in a fair bind here if Faith hadn't come back.”

“Faith was a big help?” She sounded skeptical, and he let it go. Faith had mentioned a few times that she and Buffy hadn’t exactly been best pals. “Who came after me?”

“Was Kennedy after you, then Amanda, then Lisette. The Council sent the next to Boston, so we’d none until Faith came. I think they sent us Lieuko to keep an eye on Faith more than anything. After what happened with Lieuko, they’ve sent both slayers other places. Tashi is the first they sent here since Faith died. Not entirely clear why the sent her, or why they wanted my help."

“Probably because you’re such a good fighter. I mean, you came really close to kicking my ass a few times,” she told him, but he could tell she was really thinking about all the other slayers. She’d have more questions about Lieuko in time, but that wasn’t his story to tell. Or anyway, he didn’t want to tell it. If he’d been around to witness more of it, it might never have happened.

“Come on, pet, I’ll walk you back to Harris’s place.”

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Buffy watched Spike as they walked back to Xander’s house. When she was with him, things didn’t seem that different. Houses looked pretty much the same as they passed them in the dark. People walking down the sidewalks seemed a little nervous and rushed, but that wasn’t exactly new in Sunnydale either. Something was different about Spike, but he didn’t look different, and he still talked the same, mostly. He was less braggy about tearing people’s spines out. She would have to ask Xander when he’d officially turned into a white hat.

He’d really stuck around all those years. Maybe he really had started to change before she’d died. She had to admit he was probably right about that. Could be he was wrong about loving her though, because if she was what was changing him, why keep doing it after she died?

Unless he was already changed, and maybe that was partly because of her, and she had officially made herself dizzy.

Xander threw open the door and gave them a sad little wave. “Jess is here,” he announced.

“Right then. I’ll be off.” Buffy wanted to ask Spike why, but he just nodded at her and told her he’d see her the following evening. Then he did that swishy coat, fade into the dark of night thing he liked to do. Some things, indeed, didn’t change.

So Jess and Spike, another thing she’d have to ask Xander about. She sighed and followed Xander into the house.

“Hey! Dad! Did I just hear that assho—whoa!”

Buffy had flipped through a few photo albums, but they were all of Jess as a kid. She had been in too much of a daze to ask herself whether he looked more like Anya or Xander, and anyway she’d always found that kind of endless feature matching exhausting when Mom and Aunt Darlene had done it on her.

So seeing grown-up Jess was a bit shocking. Because at the quarter century mark, it was immediately evident who he looked like.

Xander gave her a knowing look over Jesse’s shoulder and nudged him to stop his blatant ogling. “Buffy, this is my son, Jess.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He goggled at her a minute and then shook her hand. “So. You’re a friend of Dad’s?” he asked, giving Xander an outrageously unsubtle ‘way to go, Dad!’ look.

“Yeah. A really old friend of your dad’s,” she replied. But really, in terms of years lived, Jess was actually older than her. The headache was coming back.

A horn honked outside. “I gotta run, so you’ll have to explain that later.”

As soon as they heard the car speeding off down the street, Xander spoke. “Yeah. I know. It wasn’t as obvious when he was a kid, but ever since he hit his teens: Ripper, Jr.”

“How?”

Xander smirked. “The usual way. Understand, I knew, before he was even born. I did the math and I knew. I really didn’t know what I was going to do at first, but Anya had some complications and she was too sick to really take care of him the first few weeks. And it’s not like Giles could come around and help. By the time he was two weeks old, he was mine. Fuck biology.”

Buffy had to sit down. Dear Lord! popped into her head, but she stopped herself from saying it. “Giles? I mean… I don’t even know what to say.”

Xander shrugged. “Anya and I never should have gotten married in the first place, and after Will— the slayer after you, when she died, I started drinking pretty heavily. I was either at work or the bar. I think it started then, because I was so drunk when I got home most of the time, I didn’t even notice if Anya was in the bed with me or not. After I got cleaned up, things just weren’t the same. When Jess came along we tried counseling, because, you know, you’re supposed to keep it together for the kids.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “that always works out well.”

He nodded. “We split when he was three, and I told her I’d let her have the house, my quarter of the store, everything if she let me have primary custody.”

“Xander.” She felt horrible asking him, because he’d already made with the big confessions – like really big – but she’d noticed his earlier slip. “Please tell me what happened with Willow.”

He took a seat across from her. “Kennedy, the slayer after you, she and Willow hooked up. Fell hard and fast, though for the life of me I will never understand what Willow saw in her. Anyway, some really ridiculous normal human guys killed Kennedy. And then Willow killed them. In some really creative ways. Someone noticed and thought she did some super work settling the score.”

Buffy blinked at him a few times. Settling the score. “Willow is a vengeance demon now?”

Xander nodded, then reached out and squeezed her hand. “Any way we could go back to talking about my wife cheating on me with a guy twice my age? Because, let me tell you, way less painful topic.”

---------------------

Okay, please let me have it.

Author’s Note: Big thanks to Kar for the quick turnaround and a really great suggestion. Thank you to everyone who is reading and reviewing.

In our fourth installment Tara and Buffy chat and Buffy patrols.


Chapter Four

The shop was closed, but she still had inventory to do and compounds to make. Buffy stayed after the training session for a long restorative yoga session, and Tara hadn’t minded her hanging around. The basement was quiet, the customers didn’t notice, but when she’d shut her doors the slayer had come upstairs and gotten chatty. Tara rubbed her temples and gave up on trying to get a read on Buffy. It was better just to listen to her instead of trying to sort out her aura.

“…and I have to admit, there’s a part of me that feels sorry for Giles, too. I mean, he had to give up his son. What he did was bad, but still, that’s a big.”

Tara licked her lips and sighed. “I think he saw it as a guilt offering, or some sort of fair trade maybe. Everybody was a mess in those days.” She tried very hard not to remember some of the things she’d done in the year after Willow left. Poor Amanda. Maybe the reason she’d lasted so long was that she’d had to learn to do it nearly all on her own that first year, with just Spike to help her. “We all did things we weren’t proud of.”

“Why didn’t Anya just leave?” Buffy asked. She was scratching her arm. In fact, Tara realized, she’d been scratching her arm for a while. The skin was getting red and raw. “Running around on Xander for years? That’s not some moment of weakness. And Giles?”

“Buffy, do you need something for your arm?” Tara asked, grateful for a chance to change the topic.

“Oh.” Buffy seemed to just notice that she was scraping her skin off. “I guess my sleeve was bothering me.” She stuck out her bottom lip. “I thought it would wear off, but sometimes it still gets pretty overwhelming just feeling stuff.”

“You know, when babies are born their vision is all blurry and they can’t really see colors yet. And over time they like ramp up to full vision so that they don’t get overwhelmed with sensory data before their brains can take it. But you, you went from zero to full sensory input, so it makes sense that you’d be a little rattled.”

“That makes sense, I guess. I just wish it would stop.”

Tara nodded. “I can make you something, like what I gave you before, only without the drowsiness.”

“Yeah. But I need to be able to feel some stuff. A slayer needs her hearing, you know. I’ve just got to learn how to deal with it.”

“Maybe just something for night time then, when you’re trying to sleep,” Tara suggested, getting up to collect ingredients. She could tell from the dark circles that Buffy wasn’t sleeping well.

“Thanks.” She shifted in her seat. “Xander told me about Willow. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I just try not to think about it. She hasn’t been back in Sunnydale for a long time, at least not that I know of.”

“I guess she can just teleport where ever.” Buffy made a face. “Does she have a particular, you know, specialty?”

Tara rolled her eyes. “Just your run of the mill ‘justice’ demon.” The last thing she wanted to do was discuss Willow’s ridiculous environmental terrorism in the name of Mother Earth garbage. She handed Buffy the vial she’d mixed up. “Don’t take this on an empty stomach.”

The slayer patted her still concave belly. She was starting to put on some weight, beginning to look less cadaverous. “If Spike has his way,” Buffy informed her archly, “my stomach will never be empty again.”


----------------


Tashi watched the other slayer devour another rack of ribs and rubbed her sore elbow. Apparently Spike was worried that Buffy wasn't up for patrol, or at least that was the excuse he gave for the daily sparring matches that looked more like some sort of weird, erotic ritual. After a week the older slayer was declared fit for duty and joined them on patrol.

The woman was insane. It was like she got high on slaying or something. She didn't just run up, punch them, and stab them. She was like Spike, treating it like a dance, getting in to it. It was so different than everything the Watchers had taught her. Spike was a vampire, so, whatever. Seeing a slayer be like that though was weird.

"My god, these are good," she moaned, licking sauce off her fingers with embarrassing enthusiasm.

Spike watched Buffy suck on her thumb like it was something way more interesting. He draped his arm over the back of the seat so that his sleeve brushed against Buffy's hair. Tashi was starting to feel a little queasy watching them. "I guess we need some more wet wipes?" she suggested, hoping Spike would get it.

"Be right back," he agreed, sliding out of the booth. "You want another beer, love?"

Buffy shook her head. "I'm good." When the vampire was gone, she turned her bright eyes to Tashi. "Sorry. I'm probably being gross. There's nothing to taste in heaven though." She cleared her throat. "You were Council trained? What do they think of you working with Spike?"

Tashi dropped her eyes. "It was a big deal. I don't know how much they told you, but the last bunch of slayers before me, they didn't send them here. Even with the soul and all, they didn't really trust Spike after what happened with Lieuko, but I really don't think that was his fault. Drusill--"

"Soul? Did you just say that Spike has his soul?" Buffy blinked at her, ribs forgotten, a little smear of sauce on her chin.

Tashi heard her teacher's footsteps and his sigh. "Christ. You told her about the soul."

Buffy turned her astonished gaze to Spike. "When? Why?"

Spike shook his head and mopped the sauce off her face with a napkin. "Lots of things changed since you departed, pet. But to answer your question, about ten years gone. The why is rather personal. Sweet of you to assume it wasn't a curse though."

"Who was she?" Buffy asked knowingly.

Tashi sat back in the booth. She was dying to hear the answer herself. Spike rarely talked about his past, other than his mad, bad, dangerous days. The history of the slayer line had come to her through Connie and Tara, but if Spike had been gaga for any of them, Tashi didn't know about it.

Spike drank half his beer and addressed his answer to the glass. "I named her Anne. Wanted to do right by her, be a man for her."

Tashi watched Buffy's hand slide over Spike's. "You had a daughter?"

”In a manner of speaking.” Spike kept his eyes on the glass. "She took sick when she was three," he added, and that was all he said. Which was enough. If Tashi got really brave later, she might ask Tara more about it.

Buffy obviously got it too, because she sat silently stroking Spike's hand until the waiter brought the check. "Come on," Buffy whispered, "I'll walk you home."

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Feedback, please!

Author’s Note: An extra big thank you to my beta Kar, whose idea for Anne’s maternal unit was much better than my original plan.

In our fifth installment Buffy learns more about Anne and Xander opens another can of worms.


Chapter Five


Spike didn't say anything on the walk to Connie's house to drop off Tashi. He didn't say anything on the walk from Connie's to his apartment. Buffy was starting to get worried, and Spike just clenched his jaw and refused to look her in the eye. At his place he continued to ignore her, but when he pulled a bottle down from the cabinet he also put two glasses on the counter.

She tried to sit down, but the waistband of her jeans cut into her skin, no matter how much she wiggled. Picking up her drink, she wandered around a little while he sulked. "This place has two bedrooms. She lived here with you, didn't she?"

"Yeah." He filled the glasses until the liquid sloshed over the sides.

"You didn't tell me about her," Buffy said slowly, hesitantly taking the glass. He didn't tell her about his daughter, which meant he didn't want to tell her about the mother. How the hell did a vampire even become a father in the first place? "Are you going to tell me how?"

Spike made a mean little noise and tossed back his drink. "Not in the traditional way. Still dead, sweetness, every bit of me. Only exist in the conventional systems thanks to your Watcher's guilty conscience." He refilled the empty glass. "I was only her father on paper." He smirked. "Taking my cues from Harris. Never thought I'd see the day."

She took a careful sip of her drink. It burned her throat and she struggled not to cough. "Just spill it, Spike."

"Dawn's car accident. Bit had the doctors call me. I took the overnight to Barcelona. By the time I got there, she was already gone. No idea what possessed her, but when I got there I found Anne in the NICU and my name on the birth certificate."

Buffy poured the rest of the drink down her throat. She was getting well and truly pissed off. "So you lied to me? I asked you point blank--"

"I didn't lie exactly," he hedged. He poured another drink, emptying the bottle. "Christ. It's bloody painful to talk about, all right, slayer? Didn't exactly relish telling you I failed taking care of another little Summers. You daft bints keep entrusting them to me, and I always bollocks it up!"

The anger drained right out of her. With a sigh, Buffy put down her glass and took his out of his hand. "I'm sure you did your best."

"Never fucking good enough though, is it?"

Buffy didn't think she could take it if he started crying. It was too disconcerting, seeing him this way. She'd never seen him upset like this, except when her mom died. Vampires weren't supposed to behave like this. Was in the soul or just Spike? She rubbed her thumb across his knuckles. "She got sick, Spike. That's not your fault."

"Right." He ripped his hand away and started banging around in the cabinets. He pulled out another bottle and filled their glasses again.

"Spike, I'm not so sure that's a good idea," she demurred.

"Don't want to be talking about this any more or thinking about it either." He pushed her glass toward her. "And you need something to keep from tearing the skin off your arms."

She looked down and realized he was right. She's been scratching again. "Fine. Let's talk about something else." She threw back her drink and caught his fleeting smile when she winced and shivered at the burn of the alcohol.

"Just so you know, the Scoobies didn't know where she'd come from. So no need of going thundering after Dr. Quinn about it."

That took her a minute, which was a bad sign. She hadn't exactly had a high alcohol tolerance before she died, and Spike's glasses weren't small. "I'm not going to yell at Tara. Or you. Let's talk about something else, okay?"

"Like what, slayer?"

She shrugged, struggling to think of another topic. There was so much she wanted to know, about Faith and Dawn, and hadn't Tashi said something about Drusilla? But none of that was what he needed to dredge up right now. She remembered something she'd seen on patrol to ask about. Something nice and benign. "When did they rebuild the school?"


---------------


Xander carried the cup of coffee in to her and watched her struggle to take a sip. "You gonna make it?" he asked quietly. She'd been in bad shape when she'd finally staggered in the door, ranting about Spike and her niece and confusing the hell out of him. "Do you want some water?"

"Stop shouting," she pouted.

He remembered the feeling, so he just smiled and took a seat across from her. He didn't want to think about how she'd walked across town blasted. Slayer or not, that was an extremely unwise thing to do in Sunnydale.

"At least I know Spike must be feeling worse," she groused, finally managing a good swallow of java.

He wouldn't bet on it; vampire constitution and all, so he changed the subject. "I wish he had told us about Anne. But things were pretty crazy then."

"Where did you guys think she came from?"

Xander sighed. "Honestly? We thought maybe it had something to do with Drusilla. She'd pop up occasionally, and she always managed to get away before anyone could get to her. So yeah, I admit, I figured she had some help vamonosing, especially because when it was time to hunt down the immortal nutcase, he was conveniently out of reach."

"But two vampires and a baby?"

"It's happened before," he countered, realizing too late that she would have no idea what he was talking about. And that he would have to explain. Shit.

"It has?"

"Yeah. Um, Angel and Darla. I really don't know the details, and I don't want to know."

Buffy blinked at him for what felt like an hour. "Angel has a kid."

Angel had a couple of kids, actually, but Xander didn't want to have to tell her any of it. But he'd brought it up. He'd spoken the name. He knew she was going to have questions. Frankly he was a little surprised that it hadn't come up before.

"Is Angel still..." Buffy uncrossed and crossed her legs a few times and rubbed vigorously at her ankles. "Is he still around?" She sighed. "This is going to sound... anyway, I guess that I somehow expected him to know I was back, you know." Her voice dropped. "I thought he'd care."

Xander rubbed his forehead. "I'm sure he'll care," he assured her. "But he probably doesn't know. I can call him, if you want to talk to him, or see him, or..."

"Yeah, I guess so. If you think he'd want to see me."

"Of course he will." She seemed a little happier at that thought, which just made him feel crappier. He should have known she'd wake up still thinking Angel was The Guy. It still broke his heart. "But, Buff, you should know..." How much should she know? How much to tell her? "Angel? He's human now."


-----------

Feedback, please. I felt like I had to just get to Angel, not realistic for Buffy not to wonder what’s up with him. Posting on this fic will likely continue to be a little slower than usual. Day-to-day has just gotten busier lately. Thanks for reading!

Author's Note: Big thanks to my beta Kar for making some time for me. Posting may be slow for a little while between business in her life an mine. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing.


In our sixth installment Buffy meets Angel.


Chapter Six


Angel was human. Angel was human!

And she was such an idiot.

It welled up in her, the hope, the stupid hope. Angel was human! They could be together!

And then it sunk in, what Xander was saying. Angel was human. Angel had been human for a while. Like years. Angel wasn't waiting around for her. Angel didn't need the safety of loving her anymore. He could love whoever he wanted whenever he wanted. Angel was free to get as happy as he wanted. Angelus was completely, utterly dead.

So, as far as she could tell, was the Angel she'd known.

He smiled at her and kissed her cheek and ate his French fries and told her about his wife and kids. He had pictures in his wallet, a thick platinum band, and a badge. He was a cop, so he could still help people, he said. Buffy listened to him talk about his life and realized she had absolutely nothing to say to him.

Instead she just politely pretended to listen while he talked about his life. The last time she'd seen him, he'd promised her forever. She knew it wasn't fair, but she felt cheated on. Maybe it was karma. She remembered bragging to him, trying to hurt him, telling him about Riley and how happy and loved she was. And he'd reminded her that he didn't get to do any of that.

Only now he did. Now he was happy and healthy and human, and eventually she would be really happy for him. Outside the restraint the sun dappled over his face, making her feel slightly queasy. He just smiled and kissed her cheek again before disappearing into the parking lot, humming to himself.

She called Tara and sat in the corner café drinking coffee until her ride arrived. The caramel flavor tasted really good after the bland, fatty burger. She watched a couple of teenagers flirt with each over steaming cups and mourned her lost love a little.

The creepy silence of the car on the ride home made her anxious. She couldn't adjust to the new cars. Tara had tried to explain about how the old engines started making people really sick. Buffy knew she was being silly, but the missed the familiar purr of the motor.

"You want anything, Buffy?"

Buffy forced a smile for Tara. "No. I'm good. Thanks for the ride."

"That must have been hard." Off Buffy's look, Tara smiled wryly. "I know what it's like to see someone you love transform and move on. It's okay to be sad about it."

"But he changed for the better," Buffy protested, belatedly realizing how mean that sounded. It wasn't Tara's fault that Willow had gone demon. "It's really petty of me not to be happy for him."

"It's just human," Tara assured her.

Buffy nodded and watched the trees rush by. It was getting close to sunset. Time for work. At least when it came to slaying, she knew what she was doing.


----------



She had been sullen and withdrawn on patrol, tearing at the back of her hand with her nails and scolding Tashi over little nothings. Angel had put her in a fair state. He could only imagine what Peaches was like now. He hadn’t seen him in years, not since Faith’s funeral.

Buffy had eventually declared herself done for the evening and left the two of them to finish out patrol on their own. Likely just as well. Tashi was starting to rely on the other slayer too much, letting her take on the fiercer game. That was no good.

Seeing Buffy sitting at a table in The Bronze gave him a dizzying sense of deja vu. When Spike took a seat next to her, she ignored him but didn't storm off or anything. He ordered a drink and sat silently scanning the crowd with her.

"I don't want to talk about it," she told him eventually.

"Neither do I. So that works out well then."

She rubbed at her wrist and gave him a small smile. "Why is it so easy being with you?"

"I expect because I haven't changed so much as the others."

"You have though," she protested. "You only look the same. The soul--"

"Ah." Of course, the soul would mean everything to her.

"Don't," she said quietly. "You don't know what I was going to say."

He braced himself. "Let's have it then."

She took another sip of her beer and squared her shoulders. "The soul. It didn't change you the way I thought it would. At least, not that I can tell. But you are different."

He thought about the vampire he'd been when she'd left the world. Spike the pathetic outcast, living in a hole in the ground among stolen under things of his lady love, plotting both her seduction and her death. Spike didn't recognize that version of himself either.

"I feel like I have to get to know everyone all over again. You're all different, but I'm just the same." Her wrist was turning red where she rubbed it. "I'm just the same. More or less."

He knew the Scoobies thought he was ignorant of their misguided attempts to wrest her from hell. All those nights spent wondering what he would do with any piece of Buffy they brought back, how he'd never give her up again no matter what. And now she was sitting within arm's reach, looking at him with those big eyes, waiting for him to say something, actually caring what he had to say. "Not entirely the same," he pointed out. "Quite a bit more tolerant of me."

She grinned and tossed back the rest of her beer. "You're a lot more tolerable than I remembered."

He sniffed a laugh at her. "Thanks ever so. Can I buy you another?" he offered.

She held up her hands. "A world of no. I'm two drink maximum Buffy. I do not want to spend another morning feeling like my stomach want to escape my body."

"Can't imagine anyone wanting to escape your body," he voiced without thinking, immediately regretting it.

But then she just nudged his knee with hers. "That's sweet," she informed him, voice dripping with sarcasm.

He watched her rub her wrist again. "Going to worry down to the bone, pet."

She looked down at her hands and immediately folded them in her lap. "I just want something to feel good," she sighed.

Spike had far too many ideas about things he could do to make her feel good. He had changed, but Buffy was exactly the same, still the woman he’d started changing for. Had he changed enough to stop loving her?

Watching her lean against the bar, her eyes scanning the crowd for prey, wearing that fierce, calculating look he remembered so well, he was starting to think not.



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Feedback, please!

Author’s Note: Thanks as always to Kar for the beta work. Feedback very much appreciated. Big thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing.

In our seventh installment there is much backstory.


Chapter Seven

Buffy awoke feeling good for once. She'd had a good time the night before, just sitting there with Spike watching people dance. Spike, apparently, didn't dance, but she finally talked him into it. It seemed to upset him somehow, and yeah, maybe both of them were better movers on a killing field than on a dance floor, but it hadn't been that bad. She had felt really good for the first time in a long time, even knowing full well that she looked like a giant dork. Moving her body and having fun, she was starting to feel like her body was a living, breathing, natural thing instead of a corpse she was trapped in.

In the shower she realized other parts of her body were starting to wake too. Nothing even remotely sexy had occurred to her since she'd crawled out of the dirt, not even in that brief moment of startling stupidity when she'd thought all her dreams of Angel were about to come true. But dancing had made her feel a little sexy. With the water running over her she was suddenly aware of herself as not just a living being, but a living female who probably shouldn't be thinking about non-living males in the shower. She turned down the temperature.

When she got to the shop, it was quiet. She caught Tara staring at the picture of Lara behind the counter. She was still adjusting to the idea that Tara was a widow and that Xander had married and divorced a second time. That her friends had met and lost other people over the years still threw her sometimes. And no matter how many questions she asked, she would never really know what she had missed all those years.

Spike didn't show at training, so she put Tashi through her paces herself before the girl went patrolling with her Watcher. Buffy decided she'd do a solo patrol later. It has been too long since she'd done an independent sweep, and she was starting to remember the thrill in that.

The younger slayer assured her that Spike had called and begged off. Buffy was a little put out that he hadn't mentioned his little trip to LA at some point the evening before, but Tashi explained that he took a regular monthly trip to Los Angeles, where Faith and Lieuko were both buried, Lieuko to be near her family. She didn't know why Faith was there.

"He and Faith were close?" Buffy asked carefully.

Tashi shrugged. "He doesn't talk about it much."

Upstairs in the shop, Tara told her the same thing. "What about Lieuko? What's the story there?"

Tara sighed and spent a minute carefully placing vials on a shelf. "Drusilla." Tara pulled down the collar of her shirt to display four ragged scars. "I tried to stop her. So did Xander. And Jess. And Lara. It was ugly. Jess and Lieuko? I'll grant you that I wasn't around with you and Xander first met, but Xander made a lot of comments about history repeating."

Buffy studied her shoes. Another Harris in deep with a slayer. "Where was Spike?"

Tara sighed. "With Anne." Buffy took the cup of tea Tara offered. It made her stomach feel more settled, and she wondered what was in it. "You have to understand, Spike was always there for Lieuko, always. She got used to him being there, and I think after what happened to Faith he never wanted to let her be in real danger. But he couldn't leave Anne. She was sick, Buffy, really sick, and he was afraid that Drusilla..."

Buffy knew what he was afraid of. "He was afraid Drusilla might want to help him keep her."

Tara nodded. "He wasn't wrong. She burst into the hospital, covered in Lieuko's blood. But Anne had already slipped away."

Slipped away. Such a sweet-sounding concept. Buffy knew it hadn't been that easy, not for Anne or Spike.

"Spike thinks it's his fault," Tara continued. "If he'd been less protective of Lieuko, she might have been stronger, quicker, more ready for Drusilla. Something like that."

Buffy shook her head to banish the memory of Kendra's dead eyes. "No one is ever ready for Drusilla."

Tara nodded. "Jess lost it for a while. It was bad. Anya even tried to come take him back to England with her."

She had figured out from other things that had been said and by Tashi's near total ignorance of all things Xander that he hadn't been an active White Hat for a while. She had avoided asking him about it, and she was a little relieved that now she wouldn't have to. But there was another question that needed to be asked.

"Tara, what happened to Faith?"

Tara stared at her cup for a long time. "I don't know all the details. I know when she got out of prison she went to work for Angel. I know that after he fulfilled his prophecy and became human, he dismissed her, and she came here instead."

Buffy felt a corkscrew in her heart. "Dismissed her?"

Tara wouldn't meet her eyes. "Something happened with her Watcher, Wesley. You knew Wesley, right? He died in a fight right after Angel got his heartbeat and a few weeks later, Faith was in Sunnydale talking about how she wanted to help and how Angel was getting out of the supernatural business."

There was more there, she could tell. Dismissed seemed like such a deliberate word choice. "But she's buried in Los Angeles," Buffy pointed out. It still amazed her how Faith had beaten the odds. A slayer making it into her thirties was practically unheard of, and Faith had almost made it over the hill. "Did she die here or there?"

"There." Tara still wouldn't meet her eyes. "Drusilla had a busy decade. Apparently she wanted her family whole again, and she was raving about there being too many slayers. She said the same thing when she killed Lieuko." Tara cleared her throat. "Angel said at the funeral that Faith sacrificed herself for him."

But he let Drusilla get away, Buffy mused. Although maybe that wasn't fair. A human up against an insane, hypnotic, old vampire only had so much chance.

"When Drusilla showed up at the hospital..." Buffy prompted, though she already knew the answer.

Tara nodded. "No more Drusilla."

Buffy sighed, rather too aware of the effects of Tara's tea. She'd have to tell her not to make it so strong the next time. Then again, she was sleepy but she hadn't felt an itch on her skin the entire time. No more Drusilla. When Spike got back, she'd have to buy him a drink.


---------


Xander watched Jess and Buffy chatting over dinner and felt every muscle in his body tense up. It wasn't Buffy's fault, not really. She was just being Buffy. Which was the problem. Because no matter which father his son had gotten from, the slayer obsession had definitely been passed on. She'd break his son's heart without even knowing it, and certainly without meaning it, and he'd rather head the crush off at the pass if at all possible.

"Dad faked out a bunch of army guys to get you a bazooka? No way. That's so... Hollywood action movie. How come you never told me about this?"

Buffy laughed and Xander smiled at his kid. "Those were my specialty, back in the day." He'd never talked about the bazooka, because there was no way he could think about that night without thinking about Willow. Over the years, he had trained his memory not to go there. "Remember when we broke into the Initiative and pretended to be scientists?"

The slayer's eyebrow quirked. "And you decided the way to look nonchalant when the soldiers walked by was to make out. Yes, I remember that."

The two of them laughed, and Xander felt a little better at the ugh look on his son's face. Until Jess asked, "But you two never went out?"

Buffy shook her head. "Xander's like a big brother to me. So I guess you're like a nephew?"

Xander watched his son's face fall completely and felt better again.

"Are you going to be at the Bronze tonight?" Jess asked, and Xander sighed. Apparently it wasn't going to be that easy.

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Next time on Among the Living: Buffy and Spike spend some quality time together and a someone familiar checks in. Thanks again for reading and reviewing!

Author’s Note: Thanks again to Kar for a great, fast beta job. Things will be slower for a while, I think. I have a good idea of where I want this story to go, but I’m worried that I’m writing myself into a corner. Feedback very much appreciated.

In our eighth installment Buffy does some dancing and thinking, and then a familiar face makes an appearance.


Chapter Eight

It had become something of a routine in her new life, so she was surprised when Spike didn't show up at the Bronze. After patrol they just both seemed to end up there. Maybe he had something better to do. Whereas she had nothing to do. During the day Tara and Xander worked, Spike slept, Tashi went to school, Connie did ... whatever it was Watchers did. Xander and Tara didn't exactly hit the dance clubs much anymore, but after patrol she still had energy to burn. Since he'd come back from LA, Spike had been there too, every night.

It was weird to be missing him, but there it was. For one thing, she was totally alone. She didn't know anyone, and she couldn't imagine what she would say to any of the guys who looked her over. She was three decades out of date, besides which she didn’t especially want to talk to any of them.

And when she was alone, she was a lot more aware of the general suck quotient of life. Her detachment from the world at large was more obvious when she had no conversation to distract her from the unfamiliar music or overheard discussions of foreign pop culture minutia. Without something else to concentrate on, she realized how hot it was, how the stale recirculated air made her skin feel gritty, how the sweat of dancing bodies smelled.

"Buffy? Hey! You alone tonight?"

She felt a little relieved to see Jess and his regular cadre of pals. She had seen them all there before, but they usually kept their distance. Given the whole Lieuko/Anne/Drusilla debacle, she could understand why Jess and Spike weren't exactly best buds.

"Looks like," she replied in a friendly tone. She wanted to be nice because he was Xander's son, but the goo-goo eyes he gave her made her feel a little icky. He was way too young... or actually, he was older based on years lived on the earth, but again, he was Xander's son.

She couldn't imagine what harm it would do to join them for a drink. And then one drink turned into a few, and then they ordered some nachos, and she smiled and nodded as they talked about some politicians she knew nothing about. That actually made her feel less out of date than if they'd talked about TV shows. She'd never exactly kept up with that sort of stuff her first time around either. She was actually a little relieved when Jess asked her to dance. More moving, less talking.

His hand on her back reminded her that dancing wasn't the only thing that made her feel a little sexy since coming back. There had been that backrub at Spike's, which she had managed to repress until she felt Jess's sweatier palm on her skin where the shirt had pulled loose from her jeans. She knew she shouldn't be remembering Spike's hands with such a tingle. And she needed to can it if the look in Jess's eyes was any indication. If he read the wrong thing in her expression, it would be major badness.

She begged off another dance and emptied a pitcher into her cup.

Buffy knew she should be enjoying herself. They were friendly and fun and her age, or actually a little older. The way the guys were looking at her was flattering. The nachos were making her stomach cramp a little, but they tasted good. The cheap beer didn't taste all that great, but she was buzzing pretty nicely.

And yet, she still wasn't having any fun.

It wasn't until she raised her fist to knock on his door that she realized Spike might have had a good reason for not being at the Bronze. Like plans, or a date even. He might have company right that minute. He might not want to be disturbed. Oddly enough it didn't once occur to her to just kick his door in like she used to. Was it because he wasn't in a crypt anymore, or was it the soul, or was it just simple respect for all the years he'd put in on the good side?

She was still trying to work that one out when he opened the door.


---------


“Planning on standing out there all night, slayer?”

She dropped her eyes, and her hand. “I was… I thought you might have company or something. You weren’t at the Bronze tonight.”

“Just me, pet.” Spike took a step back to let her into the apartment. “I did drop by, actually. You looked busy.” She had, in fact, looked like she was having a good time. On the dance floor, in little Harris’s arms, she had seemed so like he remembered her from years ago.

“I guess. I was waiting for you.”

“Were you now?”

She sat down heavily on his couch. “Do you ever get used to it, to being so much older than you look? I mean, you’re like permanently 30.”

“Twenty-eight, thank you.”

“Whatever.” But she smiled at him. “You know what I mean. Like, have you seen Angel since he got all human? His hair is going grey.”

“I did notice that, yes.”

Buffy shook her head. “It was so strange to see him eat. He never used to eat.” She rolled her head against the back of the couch.

“Upset you, didn’t it?”

“Well, yeah!” She huffed. “Do you have some Tums or something? Do vampires ever get indigestion?”

He joined her on the couch and threw his arm across the back. He might have been imagining it, but it seemed like she was rubbing her scalp against his sleeve. “Eat someone too old, and heartburn’s a guarantee.”

She shook her head at him and sighed. He picked up her palm and ran his thumb across it. “Reflexology,” he claimed. "Feel any better?"

"Yeah, maybe." Buffy licked her lips and sighed. "You don't have to stop though."

He felt a real smile coming on. "Right then. We'll just keep going to you feel all better then."

She made a little humming noise. "I won't hold you to that. I'd just settle for feeling not crappy." She flexed her hand in his grip. "Food tastes good, but it makes me all blechy. Too much to drink, and, well, more blech. It's nice to just have something that feels good that won't make me sick afterward."

"Know lots of ways to make a girl feel good, slayer," he told her before thinking better of it.

"I bet you do," she replied lightly. She dropped her eyes suddenly. "Look, I shouldn't have just assumed you'd be there tonight, and I wasn't trying to, like, hunt you down or anything. I just... missed you, I guess."

He tried not to read too much into that. After all she only knew about six other people in the world any longer. Still, it was difficult to ignore how she'd become so comfortable with him or the warmth of her skin, or the way her knee brushed against his.

"Your company is not unwelcome, pet, not ever," he assured her.

"Neither is yours, you know. You should have said hi. Or was it Jess you were avoiding? I know you guys aren't real friendly."

Spike sighed. "Can't say that I blame him. Poor sod was ass over teakettle for Lulu, and if I'd done my duty years before, it never would have happened."

She cleared her throat. "Xander mentioned that Drusilla came to town a few times before that."

For the most part, he'd learned to deal with the guilt, to compartmentalize it. No use dwelling on all those he'd killed and let be killed by others. But this one he wasn't getting over. "I couldn't bring myself to do it, not before the soul, and even then..."

"I know what you mean," she whispered, wrapping her hand around his.

"Word on the street was she was after my girl. I thought certain sure she meant Anne, but turns out we were just an afterthought. She was nattering on about the plague of slayers. Even I couldn't make any sense of her." Or maybe he'd just been out of practice. He'd only been half-listening anyway, looking for his chance, standing between her and Anne’s corpse, knowing this time he was going to do it.

Buffy squeezed his hand again. Her skin was warm and real. Spike thought he'd adjusted to it, her unexpected return. Other times it snuck up on him that his slayer was alive again. His free hand brushed against her cheek. "Still can't get over it, you being back." Her eyes closed; her heart rate soared. Spike had the feeling suddenly that he was dreaming the whole thing.

She opened her eyes and gave him a shy smile. "I should go. But this was... nice." She let go of his hand. "If you don't want to go to the Bronze, we could get a late dinner or something after patrol tomorrow, after we drop off Tashi," she informed him as she walked backward toward his door. "If you wanted to."

He nodded his agreement, but as she closed the door he realized he wasn't entirely sure if the slayer had just asked him for a date.



-------------


Xander woke with a start with the door banged closed. Buffy winced and gave him an apologetic little grimace. "Sorry."

He waved her off. "Not your fault I fell asleep in front of the television instead of my comfy bed." His back cracked as he sat up.

"Were you waiting up for me?" she asked.

He smiled. In part he had been. Even since her return he had an uneasy feeling each time he let her out of his sight. "Maybe. Jess called and said he saw you at the Bronze."

Buffy frowned. "He checks in with you?"

"In this town? We both sleep better knowing the other one made it home okay." He shook his head. "Seven years without a slayer in Sunnydale. We learned to be careful."

With a sigh she joined him on the couch. "I hadn't thought about that. I mean, you grew up here. Was it super dangerous before I came here?"

"Nah. Oddly enough, I think we can thank Mayor Wilkins for that. In addition to keeping the sewers clean, he made sure most of the activity stayed on the edges of town. Sacrifice a few babies and the demons keep in line."

Buffy made a face. "I had noticed patrols were... busy."

Xander rolled his shoulders and straightened out his legs. He had to be up in a few hours. Which reminded him... "Did you go for another pass after you left the club? Jess said you took off early." He had his own ideas about where she'd gone, but he wasn't about to tell Jesse what he thought.

"No, I went by Spike's place," she answered. He rubbed his temples to cover his smirk and watched her scuff her toe against the coffee table. "He's a lot more... human than I remember." She took a deep breath. "We're going to get dinner after patrol tomorrow, so don't worry about fixing anything."

He felt his eyebrows rise up. "Dinner? Like a date?"

"I don't know. That's crazy, isn't it?"

He knew he had to tread carefully. "Not crazy, but maybe not w-- Aw, crap!"

Buffy jumped up too when she heard the chimes sound. "What was that?"

"Charm alarm. Tara set it up" He swept the odds and ends off the trunk he used as a coffee table and offered her an axe. Hefting his own weapon, he took a calming breath. "Something's within 10 feet of the perimeter."

"Closer than that, actually."

And there she was, with the brown and green veins twisting her skin to make her face almost unrecognizable. She pushed a stray red curl off her forehead and smiled at them both, giving that little wave that was so Willow that he could barely restrain himself from running her through. He wanted so very, very much to kill the thing that had taken over his best friend. But, nothing had taken her over. It was just Willow. Which made is so much worse, but also stayed his hand.

He couldn't kill Willow.

Eventually his son would forgive him for standing next to Spike at Lieuko's funeral. He knew all too well what it was like to see the face of someone you loved on something you were meant to eradicate. The weapon became so heavy in your hand...

She spoke and her face slipped back into its human disguise. "Wow, look at you, Buffy!"

"Willow?"

Buffy looked like someone had just smacked her. And then she hefted the axe just slightly.

"Oh, that won't be necessary," Willow assured her. "I'm not going to hurt anyone."

Xander gripped the dagger tighter. "Will, swell of you to drop by, but why don't you leave now?"

Willow rolled her eyes. "He's become such a party pooper in his old age." She pressed her hands together. "Sorry, Buffy, we'll have to catch up some other time. Great to see you again though. And now there are three!"

There was a flash of light as she temporarily took the form of a tree before fading into the nimbus of light. "She's coming back," Buffy said quietly. "What did she mean about the three?"

Xander shook his head. "Trying to make sense of anything she says anymore is a losing proposition." His eyes felt raw. "Just try to forget it, and just... be careful."

"That... that was Willow." Buffy rubbed her temples. "I feel a little sick."

He knew that feeling. "You'll feel better in the morning," he lied.


-----------

I really would appreciate some comments. I need to make sure my Buffy and Spike are behaving realistically as things slowly heat up between them. There are obvious issues, I think. Is Buffy just crushing on the only available male she knows? How much is the soul factoring in? Etc. Comments, complaints, let me have ‘em!

Author's Note: Thanks to Kar for the beta job and some good suggestions. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. It has been a while so...


Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her.

In our ninth installment Buffy spends some time with the new Watcher and Spike takes her out for dinner.


Chapter Nine


Buffy woke from a disjointed dream of cool arms, blood, screams of terror, and Willow's face. Her first impulse was to call Giles. She hoisted herself out of bed and brushed away a few tears. She was going to have to get used to the new world, which did not contain Giles any longer.

Buffy felt strange about the whole thing, but she just didn't know where else to take a question about cryptic demon messages except to a Watcher. Connie didn't seem upset though, more curious than anything actually. She let Buffy in, offered her some iced tea, and ushered her into a living room stuffed floor to ceiling with books.

"So 'then there were three'? That's all you got?" she asked with a wry smile.

Buffy smiled back. Connie didn’t seem like a Watcher. No tweed. Jeans and a sloppy ponytail and a mangled accent. "Yeah, I hear you," Buffy apologized. "Vague much. But she's a vengeance demon, if that helps."

Connie shook her head. “I know the story. That sucks. I'm not really an expert, but I can make some calls. There's folks on the Council that specialize."

Buffy sipped the sweet tea and stared at the shelves. The book collection, she realized, didn't really contain that many demony-sounding titles. Some classics, a bunch of titles she didn’t recognized that seemed political, a small section of paperback science fiction.

"If you see anything you'd like to borrow, go for it," the young Watcher offered.

Buffy scanned the titles some more. Maybe she would join a book club. She desperately needed to meet some people. Not that she didn't love Xander and Tara, but they were at such a different place in their lives. And getting to chummy with Jess and his pals just seemed like a bad idea. Which left Spike, who was himself something of a Watcher now.

She looked at Connie, really looked at her. “How did you become a Watcher, if you don’t mind me asking. You don’t seem… you’re really different from the Watchers I knew before.”

Connie nodded and rattled her ice cubes. “I was a potential,” she replied as though that explained something. She must have noticed the slayer’s confusion, because she pulled a slim volume down from the shelf. “Potentials are girls they think might get called. They found me when I was ten and took me from my parents, which was a blessing. They put me in a school over ‘cross the pond.”

Buffy couldn’t really imagine what that was like. It still seemed like she should be able to waltz in the front door of the place on Revello and ask Mom to make her some enchiladas. She fingered the little book. Education of Potential Slayers. On the plate inside was a pair of photos, her junior year yearbook shot and Faith’s mug shot.

Connie huffed a little laugh. “Yeah, they figured out dragging gals out of school wasn’t the brightest idea for, um, long range success.”

“Faith did live a lot longer than me,” Buffy pointed out archly.

“Well, there is that,” Connie drawled. “Just the same I’m glad they kept up my education. When I hit seventeen without getting called I decided it was time to start spending less time whacking punching bags and more time with the books.”

"Can I ask you something?” Buffy started quietly. “Were you upset that you didn't get Chosen?"

The other woman turned away and sighed at her knees. "Yes and no. I spent all those years training and studying and watching other girls get woken and die. I think it actually prepared me better for being a Watcher than a slayer. But sometimes when I watch you or Tashi move, yeah, I'm jealous."

She turned to look at Buffy. "You know, there are three slayers now, with you back. You and Tashi and the young one over in London."

"Ugh. I really don't want this to be about me." There was little she hated so much as being prophecy girl.

“She did come looking for you though. Could be coincidence, or she could have meant some other trio, but we better look into it.” Connie shook her head. "You know, one nice thing about not being the special one? Sometimes it's really not so bad getting overlooked."


--------------


She sat there quietly eating her salad, and Spike still had no idea what was going through her head. Buffy had been distant the entire night and lazy in her fighting. Either she was drinking too much of Tara's tea or she was too much inside her own head. Why was she even sitting there with him in the first place? He wished he knew what had inspired her little invitation.

Buffy took another dainty bite and gave him a shy little smile. She was eating the salad morsel by morsel. A bit of lettuce, a bit of tomato, a sliver of chicken. Finally she pushed it away in disgust.

"I used to be so good at this," she muttered.

Spike knitted his brows. "At what, pet, eating?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, I mean... never mind." Her lower lip jutted out and she stared at her plate dejectedly.

"Think you're doing just fine," he assured her.

"I haven't said two words to you this whole time," she countered.

He looked at her sad little entree. "You still hungry, love?"

She nodded miserably. He punched a few codes in the Waitronic and smiled at her. "Well, that's easily fixed."

"Did you just order me another meal?"

"Too presumptuous?" he asked archly. "Dinner's on me, so if you don't like it, order up someone more to your fancy."

"You don't have to pay for dinner. I have money now, you know."

"Hardly the point."

"Uh huh." She licked her lips. "I guess this time we're not just working together, we're actually, technically coworkers, since the Council is paying us both. How did that happen anyway? I can't really picture the hiring process there."

It was oddly nice, hearing that old sardonic tone in her voice, hearing her sound like the girl he remembered. "After the mess with Kennedy, a local girl got called, old friend of Bit's actually. She was off the Council radar." He itched for a smoke, just thinking about it. "Came to me because of the dreams."

"Dreams?"

He wished futility for the food to arrive, for some sort of distraction. "They dream you now, you know, the slayers. Anyway, Amanda dreamed about me." He took a long sip of his beer. "She dreamed about you trusting me to take care of your sister."

"I remember," she said softly.

Poor little twig of a thing had needed help, and with Harris crawled into a bottle and Tara wisely fled to pharmacy school, there was none else to give it. "They sent a Watcher, but he was dead before he stepped off the bus. First vamp she dusted. After that, Travers called and made the offer."

Her food blessedly arrived, momentarily stopping any questions she might have. The waiter spent a bit too long asking the slayer if she needed anything else. Buffy studied the food carefully. "There are avocados on this burger, Spike. That's, like, four thousand grams of fat."

"Every last one of which you need," he pointed out.

She glared at him, but she took a bite and made a delicious satisfied noise that would be replaying in a constant loop in his head for many, many nights, he was sure. "It's good." She swallowed another bite. "So they dream me, huh?"

He swirled the dregs of his beer in the glass. "Was especially hard on Faith, the dreaming you."

She visibly struggled with whether to voice what she was thinking. "You and Faith were close?"

He shrugged. "Not in the way you're implying. Too hung up on Himself in LA, even after he sent her away."

"Were they... were Faith and Angel..."

"No." He decided to spare her, it was so obvious the mere idea was rattling her. Of course, Angel's actual romantic history might shock her more than anything she had imagined. "Was involved with someone else when she got out of the clink, and when death parted them, he told Faith she'd be better off away from him."

"How-- never mind." Buffy shook her head and slurped her milkshake ravenously. "Poor Faith." Her face suddenly went ten kinds of gob-smacked. "Wait a minute, Tara said Angel sent Faith away after Wesley got killed."

He desperately wanted a cigarette. "Right."

"Oh." Her mouth screwed up. “Oh.” She blinked rapidly and sucked up the last of her shake, then stared at her plate for a few minutes. "Can we go for a walk or something?"

He paid the tab and led her out into the night air, immensely relieved that she wasn’t keen to discuss Angel’s love life. She patted her stomach. "I feel huge. That was pretty good, thanks."

"My pleasure," he told her honestly. To his surprise, she took his arm when he offered it. They didn't say much on the stroll back to the Harris house. She seemed deep in her own thoughts, but she'd occasionally give him a little smile or squeeze his arm.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I hope you know I had a good time. I usually do, you know, with you."

"Same here, love."

She bumped her hip against his. "I wasn't really expecting that, but it's nice."

They ambled along together in silence, and he watched her looking up at the stars. Spike still wasn't entirely sure why she was spending so much time around him, and he was finding it harder and harder to care. Maybe he was just her new souled vampire pet, or just the only man-shaped person she knew that wasn't Xander. Was that so bad, really? In time she'd get to know him, see him for himself, for better or worse. Buffy gave him another little grin and he didn't quite recognize the suddenly shy creature next to him. Maybe he could stand to know her a little better too.


-------

Feedback, please. No promises on when the next update will come, but I promise I have not forgotten this story.

Author’s Note: Thanks again to Kar for the beta job and more good suggestions for making this story stronger. Thank you to my readers and reviewers for your time and your patience. I have not forgotten this story, but writing is catch as catch can until things settle down on the home front. I hope you’ll bear with me, and feedback is, as always, treasured.

Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her. Buffy and Spike have been spending an increasing amount of time together.

In our tenth installment there is a massive vampire attack.

Chapter Ten

Tashi woke with a gasp, sweating and shaking. She hated slayer dreams. Cursing her stupid shaking hands, she scrawled down the notes and tried to hold the memory in her head without actually feeling it. It was so vivid but vague at the same time. Big splashes of blood and a screaming child, Spike roaring at something, and lots of blurry movements she couldn't make out. And then nothing. Darkness and dust and blowing wind.

Downstairs Connie was making coffee and eggs. Tashi dropped the journal on the counter without a word and just nodded at her Watcher. Six month in, she still hadn’t decided what she thought of Connie. They never really talked much, beyond body counts and fighting technique. Tara did all the mystical, crystal-gazing stuff the academy Watchers had done with her in her Potential days. Probably Connie didn’t want to get to close, didn’t want to be one of those Watchers who lost their shit when their slayers died. Tashi had seen that happen twice.

Or maybe she was being too hard on Connie. Maybe Connie was just as shy as she was. Anyway, they shared their breakfast in polite silence, like they did every morning. Then Tashi got dressed, went to school, tried not to make too much of a fool of herself, and went to Tara's store to work out in the basement.

Sometimes she missed her old life so much she could cry.

Not her parents or anything. That was so long ago she could barely remember being a regular kid who lived in a house with parents instead of just seeing them at holidays and phoning once a week. At least when she was training there were other girls like her. She didn't know what to say to people at school, how to make friends with people she'd either have to lie to or involve in the craziness of her life.

She knew she should talk to Buffy about it, but she didn't know how to bring it up. Plus it was weird being around Buffy. Not just because of the dreams, but because she and Spike were so... They were always touching and making sidelong glances and tearing into demons in this freaky, coordinated way like they'd been fighting together for years. Which, she guessed, they had, decades ago, when Buffy had only been dead once.

If she went down, would she rise again?

Tashi walked behind them, listening not to their words but to the tone. They sounded happy. She had never really heard Spike sound happy before Buffy showed up. Buffy's hand brushed his shoulder and their eyes met, and Tashi felt slightly creepy watching them, like this was something private even if they weren't doing anything that interesting. So she kept following them, shyly watching them, until she felt her hackles rising.

"On the right," she whispered harshly.

Things had been far too quiet the last few days. Now she knew why. They had been organizing. There were at least twenty vampires advancing on them from all directions. She glanced back at the older slayer and something in the woman's face made her calm.

"The only rule," Buffy whispered, "is don't die."

----------

He woke with a start. There were crashing noises and the sweet, sick smell of slayer blood. "Tashi!"

"Oh, thank God, you're awake." He couldn't quite see her, but it was Buffy's voice. If his vision was blurred, he had lost a lot of blood. So he took the cold jar she shoved into his hands and gulped down the contents. "Tashi is okay. She's scratched up pretty bad, but she made it."

"Good girl." It hurt like fuck to talk and the cold blood choked him. The taste was revolting, made even worse by the aroma in the air. Still, he needed it. "Tashi is a good girl."

"Yeah, she is." Her speech was slurred and he could hear her heart going a bit too slow. She settled down on the edge of the bed next to him. "Are you okay?"

"Will be," he assured her. "You? You're bleeding."

He felt her fingertips on his brow ridges and realized he was in game face. "It's nothing." He listened to her move around the apartment, opening the door. Then there was her voice telling Harris they were okay and thanking him for being there and getting Tashi home to Connie. He could smell smoke and a warm human male.

Right, there had been fire. It was coming back to him, someone yelling at him to get down and then the heat and the shrieking as vampires started bursting into flame. Harris's creased face glowing in the orange of the flamethrower. Long ago he'd stopped asking where the boy got such toys. So long ago that Harris had still been a boy.

He felt old suddenly. He'd been around thrice as long as Xander Harris.

Xander's arms caught him as he lurched out of the bedroom. "Whoa, buddy. You need another gallon of blood or so before you try moving around."

Spike grunted and pushed him away, managing to make it to the couch before he did a face plant in front of both of them. He didn't need their coddling, nor did he know why he was being so prickly about it.

"He's always like this when he gets beaten down," Xander was saying softly to the slayer. "Get enough blood in him and he'll be fine."

"You've done this a lot?" Buffy asked.

He watched Harris shrug. "It's been a while, but we worked together for a long time. It's not the first time I've seen him get outnumbered, no. Felt pretty good getting in the fight again, but I'm getting too old for this stuff."

"Giles used to do it."

There was a long pause. "What about you, Buff? Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look so great either."

"I'll be fine," she insisted. "Slayer healing. I'm better already." He heard the microwave buzz and the smell of warming blood made him salivate. "I think I'll stay here and keep an eye on him."

Spike must have drifted for a moment, because when he looked up Xander was gone and Buffy was holding a hot cup of blood. She sat down heavily beside him and sank into the cushions. "I think I could sleep right here," she sighed.

He grunted and emptied the mug. "You really alright, slayer?"

She hummed and closed her eyes. He pushed back her hair. There was a hell of a scratch on the side of her face, but it was already knitting together. He hated how tempting the sight of that wound was. "You did good tonight," she murmured.

He snorted. "Right."

Her eyes opened and she knitted her brows at him. "We're still here. They're not."

Spike sighed and slumped further into the couch. She shifted next to him, getting closer, her hip against his. "Suppose here's not so bad."

Buffy's battered face got all solemn. "Not, it's really not," she agreed. And then she kissed him.


--------------

No promises on when the next update will be, but I've gotten a few paragraphs going on the next chapter. So hopefully not too long.

In our eleventh installment, the aftermath of the battle and the kissing. Warning: If you thought the curtain was going to rise on a make-out session… not exactly. This chapter contains some unpleasant imagery.

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Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her. Recently, Tashi, Buffy, and Spike were ambushed by an unusually large and organized crew of vampires and were moderately injured. After patching Spike up, Buffy kissed him.

--------------
Chapter Eleven



She was running, racing, trying to find her way in the dark toward the continuous moaning. A light bulb flickered in the bottom of the stairwell. She flailed, grabbing the railing as she slipped in something slick on the last few steps. The hanging bulb swung and she saw the seven pieces of what used to be Wesley Wyndam-Price.

Her hands pulled the chains around Angel's wrists right out of the wall. She could feel his hot breath against her neck, his heart thudding against her chest. He finally went silent when she tore the tape off his eyes and they could close at last.

Buffy woke with a start and thrashed out of Spike's arms. She splashed water on her face in the bathroom, fighting the rising bile in her belly.

She couldn't see him in the mirror, but she could feel him there behind her. When she turned around he gave her a bleary-eyed smile. "You alright, pet?"

"Slayer dream. Faith. She found Wesley... what was left of Wesley."

Spike frowned. "Never told me the story."

Buffy swallowed a few times. "If you really want to know..." She offered the least detailed description she could manage.

Spike eyes went dark and a little shudder went through him.. "Christ, love. Hell of a thing to see."

Slumping against the counter she realized how ridiculous all her inner turmoil over laying one on Spike was. So she hadn't meant for it to turn into a make-out session that ended with her breathless and sleepy against his shoulder. So he was a vampire. She knew there was a time when Spike would have found the idea of Angel's eviscerated lover amusing. However and whenever it had happened, that Spike was gone. Replaced by some sort of new, improved Spike she was still getting to know.

"I think I need to sit down," she suggested.

He nodded and took her elbow, guiding her back to the couch. "Good idea, by the way, calling in Harris."

She gave him a little smile, grateful for the change in subject. "I'm just glad he got there in time. And that you didn't get burned." Buffy tried for a bigger smile, but the visual of Wesley's corpse was a little too fresh in her mind.

"Fancy some breakfast, love? Might have something edible in the cupboard."

She licked her lips. The truth was she was starving, but she also needed a shower, a toothbrush, and to look at, like, pictures of puppies frolicking or something for a while. "I'll pass, but thank you." She finally managed that real smile. "For... for a lot of things."

Spike gave her the patented Spike smirk and unearthed her jacket from under the couch. "Careful walking back to Harris's, slayer. Lost a bit of blood last night, and you're on an empty stomach."

It was still hard to understand sometimes. How had he become this guy? She tossed the jacket back over the sofa back and threw her arms around his neck. Kissing Spike was better than eating, and it gave her something else to blame the lightheadedness on.

-------------

Tashi sat straight up, gasping. Dreaming was the worst part of slaying. Just as the relief of waking started to sink in, she realized there was something nasty nearby. Her eyes struggled to focus in the low light. Something stirred in the room and approached her, moving fast. She scrambled up against the headboard, hunting with her fingers for something sharp or heavy.

"Relax, pet."

She sighed and slumped against the pillows. "Spike. Don't surprise a slayer, okay?"

"Should know that by now, I suppose," he agreed. There was a far-away, dreamy look to him. "Just wanted to check on you is all."

How many hours since the fight? She couldn't really gauge how much time had passed. Connie had patched her up and sent her off to bed to sleep it off and heal. Tashi poked away a swatch of gauze on her shoulder. Nothing underneath but smooth skin. "How's Buffy?"

A freaky big grin crossed his face for a minute before he caught hold of himself. "Summers is fine. Sent her home to Harris. Was him that got us out of that mess."

"I remember." She examined her broken nails. "Are you and Buffy dating?"

He gave her a look like she'd just asked him where babies came from. "Might be."

She nodded. Good for them. She still felt a little guilty about running off his old girlfriend. But considering that she'd only been in town two weeks before Katya packed up, quit her job and Tara's store, and disappeared from Sunnydale, Tashi figured she wasn't the whole problem. Buffy probably wasn't going to get all crabby about Spike working with her; she figured it was more likely that she was going to get crabby if they started making out on patrol or something.
In her mind’s eye she could see him again, face spattered with blood, mouth open in a silent scream. She couldn’t see who or what he was looking at, but she knew it wasn’t good.

“You up for patrol tonight?” he asked, breaking her out of the memory.

“What?” It took a moment for her to parse the question. She stretched and flexed her muscles a little. “Yeah, patrol is a good idea.” She took a deep breath. “Spike?”

“Yes, bit?”

Tashi took a deep breath. “I don’t know what, but something really bad is coming.”

Spike’s face went solemn and still for a moment, and then he petted her on the shoulder. “Good thing we’ve got two capable slayers then,” he said brightly.

Tashi frowned. Buffy had survived a lot of bad, but she had also died twice. The girl could fight, but still, she wasn’t entirely reassured.

Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her. Recently, Tashi, Buffy, and Spike were ambushed by an unusually large and organized crew of vampires and were moderately injured. After patching Spike up, Buffy kissed him, and both slayers had unsettling dreams.

In our twelfth installment Buffy and Spike spend more time together and Jess reflects on recent and past events.

Chapter 12

Patrols were getting brutal.

They were ranging all over Sunnydale on their patrols, often fighting until dawn. Gangs and groups in numbers she had never seen before, but no reports of massive deaths anywhere in town. That was something, at least. Still, someone was organizing, and probably bringing in out-of-town talent. Buffy just wished she knew who. And unfortunately she had a theory. A really unpleasant theory but probably an accurate one.

Only she didn't understand why Willow was trying to kill them. And the whole 'three' thing had her really freaked out. Connie said the council was working on it. Unfortunately their expert seemed to agree that it might have something to do with there being three living slayers.

Buffy didn’t know why she was back or who or what had brought her back. Knowing that someone might have pulled her out of heaven to end the world wasn’t exactly warming her heart.

Tashi held up her hand and Buffy stopped short. In the distance she could just make out something large and spiny moving their way. As it moved closer she started to say something to Spike when she realized that Tashi was chanting quietly. Suddenly, there was demon flambé. The thing screamed and then dissolved into ashy goo.

"I didn't know you could do that," she whispered to the younger slayer.

Tashi shrugged. "The watchers, you know, they all do magic. I'm not super adept or anything, but I know a few spells. Besides, you really don't want to touch one of those things. There's not just pokey. There's some sort of goop all over their spines that makes your skin burn."

"Good job, pet." Buffy watched his face, the obvious pleasure he took in Tashi's success. It was really cute.

Was that how Angel used to look at her? She didn't think so. But maybe Giles had.

"It's near sunrise. Won't be anything else tonight," Spike pointed out, his hand coming to rest gently against the small of her back.

Tashi nodded and started leading the way back to Connie's place. A few minutes later, she and Spike were falling through the door of his apartment. Since the night of the first massive attack, this was the routine. Patrol, drop off Tashi, vigorous makeout session on Spike's couch until she finally thought of an excuse and left before anything below the waistline got unfastened.

Tonight, she didn't think she'd be making such an early exit.


When she made it back to Xander's it was sometime in the mid afternoon so he would be out. Except that it was Saturday and he was watching baseball on the couch with a stone-faced Jess. Buffy just took a deep breath and silently escaped into the shower. Over the sound of the water she could hear them arguing, and when she came out Jess was gone.

"Are you hungry?"

Xander's question caught her off guard. She was expecting a lecture or anger or something. Not a snack.

But she was hungry. "Kinda, yeah." She followed him into the kitchen and helped him raid the fridge. After taking a few bites she lifted her eyes to his. "It's not just the soul, you know. He's really different now."

Xander studied her over the top of his glass. "Are you trying to convince yourself, Buff, or me? Because I already knew that. I was there, remember?"

She huffed. "Both, I guess. I mean, he's not Angel." She poked at her food. "He's nothing like Angel."

"Oh, obviously," Xander agreed with a smirk. "Except, you know, for being a vampire with a soul who helps a young teenage girl fight evil."

She managed a watery laugh. "Yeah, other than that, I mean."

Xander reached over and squeezed her hand. "When you're with him, are you thinking about Angel? Comparing them?"

Buffy looked at his warm, rough hand on hers. "Honestly? No. I mean, sometimes when I see him with Tashi, I guess, because you do have a point there. But not when we're... you know."

"I think you'll be okay then," Xander told her. "Get some rest," he advised. "We've need to meet at the store in an hour or so. The Council is sending someone to tell us all about vengeance demons and prophecies with 'three' in them."

The thought perked her up a little. "Oh, well, good. I mean, I'm trying to give this new council the benefit of the doubt. Think their expert will actually know anything useful."

Xander shook his head a little. "She should. She was a vengeance demon for a thousand years or so."

--------------


Mom was coming to town. Because he hadn't had enough bad news for one day.

Jess bounced a ball of the bedroom wall and grimaced as he caught it. That wasn't fair. He loved his mother. Could you love someone and resent her at the same time? His mom was smart and funny and warm in a weird, overly enthusiastic way. She had also run around on his dad and moved away from him to another country and started a happy new family with the man she insisted on calling his real father.

Giles was a perfectly nice guy and all, but Spike had been more of a dad to him than Rupert Giles. At least Spike was there. God, it was weird to think how much he'd loved Spike when he was a kid. Spike was all cool and mysterious and occasionally let him have a sip of his beer.

He couldn't really remember Amanda or the brief years of Lisette. Of course his parents had still been caught up in their own drama then. But later, during the years when there was no slayer, he could remember waiting for Aunt Tara, and later Mama Carrie, and then Aunt Tara again, to fall asleep so he could sit by the window, waiting to see Spike and his dad come up the walk after they finished their Important Work. Most nights he fell asleep against the glass, but other times he would hear their footsteps and crack the window to listen to their mysterious grown-up talk. Sometimes they were happy, and sometimes they were hurt, sometimes they were fighting, and rarely the dark woman watched from the shadows. And once he saw Spike look at the dark woman across the yard and he knew Spike saw her too.

And that's what he couldn't forgive either of them for, Spike or himself. One of them should have told his dad about the dark woman, and then everything would be different.

Jess thought she was imaginary, of course, like his Aunt Willow. Even after he'd found out about Willow, he didn't make the connection that the other woman might be real too. That her warped face was something that existed outside of nightmares. Faith's arrival, and her total lack of discretion, had put an end to his childhood ignorance. The ball hit the wall at the wrong angle and bounced into the bookshelf. Faith had put an end to a lot of things, like Dad and Carrie, although he knew nothing happened there. At least he was pretty sure.

Mom used to be like Aunt Willow, he mused as he rearranged the books that had fallen. He really couldn't imagine that. Aunt Tara, who wasn't really his aunt either -- most of his family wasn't really his family, said they weren't exactly the same, but she also didn't think that specializing made much difference. And of course, Aunt Willow had killed Aunt Lara. Not directly, but the whole carcinogen cars thing had killed a lot of people. He could never decide if it was a coincidence or not.

It was Aunt Willow who told him his mother was coming to town. She'd do that, just pop in when he was in the middle of something. The counselor at school had called her imaginary. Another thing he should have told his father about a lot sooner than he had. Before what happened to those other kids when he was in third grade. She wanted to know all about Spike and Buffy once he made the mistake of mentioning it. Usually he was really careful with what he said around Willow. It wasn't like he cared that much about Buffy; it was just that it wasn't fair. His slayer died because Spike couldn't dust his ex until she went after Anne, but Spike's slayer came back from the dead.

And something was going on, something big, if Mom was tearing herself away from Watching the fourth slayer.

------

dun dun dun ;)

Author’s Note: Big thanks as always to Kar for her quick turnaround. To all of you who are reading, thank you for your patience and I hope you’re still interested. I’ve moved into the homestretch on this story now; hopefully I can finish it off in another five chapters or less. And if I can find some time to sit down and write, I’ve got some scenes in my head that I’ll get typed out. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her. Recently, Buffy and Spike spent the night together and Jess did a lot of thinking about why he’s so angry with Spike.

In our thirteen installment the vengeance demon expert comes to town.

Chapter 13


When Spike awoke, she was still there, curled in on herself and leaving a few inches between them. She shifted slightly when he brushed her hair back from her face. He lounged back on his pillow, just watching her breathe. Buffy alive and warm and in his bed. It was, he now knew for certain, too good to be true. Some trick of Willow's, some bastardized wish granting, creative interpretation of who knew what innocently blurted whim.

Daft cow needed three slayers to raise Atlach-Nath, whatever that was. Anya had made it clear the Council was terrified that somehow she'd rip the third from their careful watch. Normally he gave anything Anya said as much notice as the wind, but in this case she might be right. If he killed Buffy now, sank his teeth into her throat or snapped her lovely neck, it would all be over.

His stomach rolled over and he pushed himself up out of the bed. A cup of tea did nothing to wash the bad taste out of his mouth and it was too early for anything stronger.

'That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange aeons even death may die.' There was no way to know, of course, what would happen if the great horrid thing woke from its eternal nap. Willow and her nutty followers likely hoped that it would fulfill the Ashram-ha Scroll prophecy, wiping humanity off the earth and making it 'pure' once more, whatever the bloody fuck that meant. A planet overrun by demons seemed like possibly the least pure thing he could reckon.

Buffy stumbled into the kitchen looking bleary and wearing his robe. He'd picked up the habit of wearing things to bed when he'd brought Anne home.

"Is there more of that?" she asked quietly, eyeing his tea cup.

"Give us a minute." He still wasn't sure what to make of their easiness. They weren't meant for it. When he'd been spending his evenings lurching under her bedroom window he'd imagined a mad, passionate affair full of hidden assignations in alleyways and violent arguments followed by even more violent mating. Not that it wasn't pleasant having her tottering about the morning after in his clothes, drinking tea with him. It was just that he didn't trust it. It didn't seem like her.

Or maybe it was him had changed. Was it just the soul? Was that why she was in his bed, in his apartment, looking relaxed and at home? Did it matter?

"Are you okay, Spike?"

"Lot on my mind," he muttered in reply, handing her a cup.

"Yeah, that's going around," she agreed. She blew across the rim. "This is weird isn't it? You and me and..." She waved her hand around. "It's not what I expected."

"Disappointing you, am I?"

She frowned at him. "I don't remember you being this moody. But no, you're not disappointing me. I like you, in case that isn't, you know, obvious by now." The slightest tinge of pink appeared in her face. She pushed her cup away and rose up to kiss him. Her warm hand sneaked in under the band of his pajama pant. Perhaps it wasn't such a passionless little setup after all.


---------

Tashi turned her test paper over and sighed. All around her the other students were busily writing away. In the council's school she had been a mediocre student at best; at Sunnydale Memorial High she was at the top of her class. Shutting out thoughts of enormous, rampaging demons and imminent apocalypses, she laid her pencil on the desk and took a deep breath.

No one was watching her, she assured herself as she slowly rolled the pencil up and down the desk. Her fingers itched to grab the pencil, to stop doing something as dangerous as a spell in public. Tashi clamped her hands to the desk and rolled the pencil back up.

She got a rhythm going, a steady movement. If she scanned the room quick enough she could even keep it going while she briefly looked around to be sure no one was watching. But then it started spinning. Tashi blinked at it a few times, then out of the corner of her eye she saw another girl's hand moving in a quick circle against the top of her desk.

The bell rang and the pencil went skittering to the floor. She hastily passed her paper up along with the others. Her classmates started packing their bags and she tried not to stare at the girl with her black and blue hair and winking smile. Finally Tashi started gathering her own things. A folded chunk of yellow paper smacked into her bag. Huddled in the back of her trig class, she opened it. Meet me in the library after school. I'm Bianca.

Tashi felt her heart pounding, her palms sweating. Someone had found her out! Well, not the whole thing, but still. She couldn't concentrate the rest of the day, but no one seemed to notice. No one really ever noticed her. The librarian didn't seem to notice her either as she slipped through the double doors and into the stacks.

"I know who you are." Tashi spun around to see the girl smiling at her. "Don't freak out or anything. My birth mom grew up here too, and she tells some wild stories." The smile faltered for a minute. "I was a little wigged when they turned out to be true."

"I'm Tashi. I don't really know what you think I--"

"Bianca Chase. And I do know what you are. You're a slayer."



--------------

Jess felt tired the minute he saw her, sitting primly in the restaurant booth. She looked cool and polished and impatient, tapping her nails against the table. When she saw him her whole face lit up like a neon sign.

"Sweetie! There you are!" She sprang up out of the booth and threw her arms around him. Under her tweed suit she felt uncustomarily plush. One thing she and his dad had in common, finding comfort in comfort food. It looked good on her, but there were bags under her eyes and her hand shook a little when she lifted her glass of water. She was tired, working too hard probably.

"Good to see you, Mom," he sighed.

"Oh, don't be like that!" she chided, ruffling his hair. "I'm sorry to have to be here on business, but at least I get to see you too. I've missed you so much since... since last time."

Last time. The funeral. All that mess with the twins sobbing round the clock and his mother trying to be strong and brave for them. His shock when the reverend said that Rupert Giles was survived by his wife, his son, and his two daughters. That's what he wanted it to say, sweetie. He always thought of you as his son, no matter what. Giles had never said that to him; probably he hadn’t wanted to be improper. Or maybe he was just avoiding rejection. Jess did not want to think about that, about any of it. And he certainly didn't want to talk about it, so he changed the subject.

"Oh, right. Aunt Willow wants to destroy the world, but at least we can have coffee."

His mother's face tightened. "That woman is not your aunt!" The waiter approached the table, then quickly backed off as his mother's face turned colors. "She is a menace, and if your father could locate his testicles for ten seconds, she wouldn't be here anymore to cause all this trouble in the first place."

Jess wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream. She called him my father. "Let's just eat, Mom," he suggested, deciding to let it go. They put in their orders and he pretended to listen as she yammered on about his two sisters and how she was having a hard time keeping up the roses on her own and how fulfilling it was working with Keiko.

He had never met his mother's slayer, but he had heard about her constantly. It was like having a third little sister. "Mom? Who is the other one?"

"The other who, sweetie?"

He shook his head. "The fourth slayer, Mom. I know there's a fourth."

She gave him a concerned look. "Honey, there is no fourth slayer."

Jess felt a squirmy feeling in his guts. He had assumed that the Council knew everything there was to know about slayers, that there was some trick they were keeping up their sleeves. If they really didn't know about the fourth, but Willow did? That couldn't be good.

It suddenly hit him. If there were four slayers, Willow didn't even need Keiko. They were all worrying about the wrong girl. Willow wasn't going to try to steal away his mother's slayer. She was expecting someone else entirely to come to Sunnydale. Someone they might not even know was a slayer. Which meant the creepy, world-ending monster could rise tomorrow for all they knew.

He swallowed. "I know someone who says otherwise."

Author's Note: Thanks to Kar and to all my readers. Moving into the home stretch here. I might even get this done by the end of the month. No promises though. Please keep the feedback coming!

Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her. Recently, Tashi made a friend in Bianca Chase and Jess spilled one of Willow’s secrets to his mother.

In our fourteenth installment, Tara has a moment of inspiration and there is an unpleasant development.

Warning: This chapter contains a character death.


Chapter 14


Buffy watched Spike sleep and knew she was wearing a dopey, satisfied grin. She had worn him out. It had been bothering her, itching in her brain, the weird gentleness he was using with her. It had taken her a while to realize he must have learned that in his years with the seldom-mentioned Katya and whoever else might have passed through his life while she was dead. Tonight she had made it perfectly clear that she wasn't fragile, that he wasn't going to break her. If anything, he might turn out to be the delicate one.

He'd seemed a little frightened, actually, by her fierceness. It had never seemed to bother him when she fought. Maybe it was too much of a reminder of what they were, that they were built to destroy each other. It still threw her sometimes, how solemn and still he had become. When had that happened?

She had missed so much. Buffy tried to imagine what it would have been like if Willow had managed to bring her back all those years ago. She would have come back to a world just like the one she left, where Dawn needed looking after and there was no one to pay the mortgage and there was no clever young slayer to share patrol with but there was Spike following her around with wet puppy eyes, hounding her for time and attention she didn't have to spare.

On the other hand, if Willow had succeeded then, her old friend probably wouldn't be trying to eradicate humanity now. Buffy sighed and shrugged into Spike's ratty old robe. Her body was exhausted, but her mind could not wind down. They knew what was going on; they would find a way to stop it.

And if she had to die again to save the world this time, she just hoped she could stay that way.


---------------


So, the cheerleader's daughter was amongst them. Angel might have mentioned that she was near, as he might have mentioned a number of things over the years. Spike watched her pore over books in Connie's living room and wondered if he should try calling the asylum. Sounded like Cordelia was still having moments of lucidity now and then, but she had told him and Xander both several times to leave her be, leave her locked in her room, trapped in her visions. Sometimes they'd get a message, relayed by credulous nurses who did their best to convey her ramblings. They were always right, and so they had kept up their end of the agreement and left her alone.

Seems she'd been seeing her girl though, and he was glad of that. And seeing Tashi whispering and giggling with someone her own age, he was glad of that too. It wasn't healthy the way she kept apart from others. A slayer without friends and family was vulnerable.

Spike scanned her face, trying to gather some clue to her paternity. Had his suspicions, of course, and Faith's accusations. Didn't see how it could be though, as Peaches and everything of him was still dead at the time. Plus he couldn't imagine the cheerleader could make him give over one of his own, but maybe he didn't know the old man as well as he thought.

Whatever and whoever she was, she was brimming over with magic. Using it in that casual, easy way Willow once had. It scared him a bit, especially given her mother's own peculiar gifts. Had she known her girl would be needed in Sunnydale someday?

Young Chase wasn't the fourth slayer, he knew that the minute he laid eyes on her. No one seemed to know who or where their mystery girl was. Except Willow. That fact wasn't exactly giving him confidence in their success.

Tara closed her book loudly, seeming to startle herself. "I think I have an idea," she explained. "I need some of my own books."

"Care to share?" Connie drawled.

Tara shook her head. "It's just an idea about an idea, really, you know? I wouldn't want to get our hopes up."

Buffy traipsed in a few minutes after Tara left. She gave him a warm, secret smile. Spike was still a little surprised by her improved attitude. Perhaps, he mused grimly, it was the prospect of dying again that was brightening her outlook.

"Time to patrol?" she suggested.

He didn't say much, preferring to listen to Bianca and Buffy trade stories about her mother or Bianca and Tashi nattering on about girly things. There was something strange in the air, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, like there was family near. Or maybe he was just sensing the coming of the Big Bad; demons often did.

Xander met up with them in the second cemetery. He didn't look like he'd slept much; Anya's presence always had that effect. Would be doing a number on Jess as well, he imagined.

"You okay?"

He met Xander's eyes. "Not so much. Something in the air."

"Yeah. I hate this part, the waiting for the other shoe to drop." Xander sighed and moved to answer his beeping phone. Suddenly he went white as a sheet.

"What? Harris, what is it?"

The answer came out as such a whisper that Spike could barely hear it. "Tara."


------------

Tara felt a slow smile creeping over her face. It would work; they would be able to put the giant back to sleep. There was a slight catch in the whole plan, and she might not have enough power to pull it off. Bianca might be able to help though; the girl was a natural. She hadn't seen raw talent like that in years.

"Tara? Is it open?"

She tucked a marker into her book and absently set it on a shelf. Her stomach growled in anticipation. "Sure, Curtis, you can come in."

A sudden chill jolted up her spine as the door opened. Curtis, or what had once been the familiar delivery boy from Thai Palace, grinned at her with a deadly mouth. Behind him was Willow, looking placid and pleased with herself.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Oh, sweetie, you know why I'm here."

And immediately she did know. Willow wanted to wipe humanity off the earth, leaving only demons. "It won't be me," Tara insisted. "It won't be me, Willow."

Willow shook her head. "Oh, it will be close enough. And I've missed you so much." She shrugged. “It will do.”

Tara made a futile move toward the door, but she knew it was over before she began. She felt the sharp agony in her neck, her body thrashing to get free, gasping for breath. She felt herself slipping away, slipping into stillness. A sharp smell filled her nostrils and she realized what was about to happen. She opened her mouth and uttered one quiet word.

The spark flew up from her lips to the ceiling, and the sprinklers exploded. Curtis dropped her, shrieking and howling. She heard his body explode into dust and Willow's screams of protest. And then, mercifully, she heard nothing anymore.


-----------------

I'm working on the next chapter now. Only a few more to go. Thanks for sticking with me on this one.

Author’s Note: Big thanks to my lovely beta Kar and all my readers and reviewers. This has been a rough one, and I appreciate you all sticking with me during real estated-related hiatuses.

Previously: The gang investigated ways to stop Willow’s demon from rising, and Xander got an ominous message about Tara.

In our fifteenth installment the Big Bad makes his presence felt, and our story comes to an end.

Chapter 15

There was a sick, sizzling sound when Spike's boots touched the carpet. Tashi blinked a few times and watched Xander Harris solemnly turn off the still-dripping sprinklers, finally silencing his clanging phone. Buffy stood mute in the doorway, holding on to the knob like she might fall. Bianca wandered the room, running her fingers over Tara's books.

Tara's throat was open, her eyes wide and empty. It didn't seem real; Tara couldn't be dead. "You all need to get out of here," Xander said quietly. "I'll call it in. But if there's a crowd like this, there will be questions."

"Should have bloody well known better!" Spike shouted suddenly.

Buffy put a hand on his shoulder. "You should wait in the hallway," she whispered. "There's holy water all over the place."

Spike shoved her off and stalked away. Tashi closed her eyes, frightened at the soft, shattered sound of him crying. She had never seen Spike like that. It was scary. He was cool and solemn and heroic, like a statue. He wasn't supposed to sob in hallways. And Tara wasn't supposed to open doors for demons.

"Why did she do it?" Buffy asked, like she was asking the question for her.

But Xander answered a different question. "Willow's big demon is going to wipe humanity off the earth, right? If Tara's a demon, she gets to keep her."

"Will she... is she--"

"No." Xander gently closed Tara's eyes. "She's just dead."

"How, I just... it's Willow, Xander. How did this happen?"

"I'm sorry, I know this is bad timing, like really bad," Bianca's quiet voice broke in, startling Xander and Buffy. "But I think you might want to look at this." She handed the open book to Tashi. "This is what she was reading, before..."

"What is it?" Buffy asked, coming around to look over her shoulder. Spike was suddenly behind her as well; she could feel his approach even though she hadn't heard him come back in. It was difficult to remember sometimes that he was a vampire.

Tashi read the text aloud, turning the damp pages with care. A sleeping spell, one powerful enough to knock out a whole town for hours.

Bianca frowned. "That's great as a stalling tactic, but there will still be three slayers when the spell wears off, right?"

"Not necessarily," Buffy said quietly.

Tashi could practically hear Spike's brain spinning up to argue about what they all knew Buffy was proposing, but Xander beat him to it. "I cannot have this conversation right now," he said quietly. Tashi realized he still hadn't moved from his place by the body. "All of you need to get out of here, and I will meet you back at Connie's when she has been... taken care of."

The younger slayer turned to look at Spike, but his face had closed off and he just nodded. "Right. Girls, let's go."

Bianca took the book from her and tucked it under her arm. Tashi let them all file out before her and stole a last glance back at Tara. Xander had brushed the hair from her face. She looked peaceful. Tashi hoped that was true.


---------------

Buffy could feel Spike's fury radiating at her, but what was she supposed to do? Just let Willow destroy the world? Then they would all be dead. Her own life was no where near worth the whole of humanity. Did he think she wanted to die?

Well maybe he did, and maybe she did. A little. She frowned and kicked a rock. It wasn't fair. She had just decided that maybe it wasn't so bad being alive again. And now she was back on that tower again. Being the slayer was definitely not about fair.

"Can you do the spell?" she asked Bianca bluntly, knowing she was coming off as emotionless and cold. She couldn't help it. Thinking about Tara and Willow and all of it, it just rendered her sad and helpless.

Bianca shrugged. "I can try anyway."

"We should go to the school," she told them. "That's where the hellmouth opens. We need to be close, don't you think?"

There was a loud popping sound. Willow stood in front of them, crossed arms and pleasant smile. Buffy felt a little sick. "Gee, Will. Such a shame we never got to have that chat," she spat.

"Too bad, really," Willow agreed. "But soon the earth will be free of the curse of humanity, and the world will be returned to its rightful rulers."

"You are really reaching, you know that," Spike laughed. "This shit about demons as the indigenous life of earth making you feel better about bringing about the extinction of humanity?"

Willow shrugged. "Just looking forward to retirement," she quipped. "No more humans, no more wishes to grant."

"Right," Spike replied wearily. Buffy nodded as well, and then ran Willow through with her sword.

She was going to make some sort of retirement-related pun, but Willow was still just standing there. She tapped experimentally at the blade protruding from her chest. "Hmm. Ouchie." She lifted her head to grin at Buffy as she slowly pulled out the sword. "You know, you really should have paid more attention to Giles. Then you might actually know how to kill me." Willow took a few steps back and smiled at them all. "And besides, it doesn't matter what you do to me. The third is here, and it has already begun. Stopping us is impossible."

"The impossible child," Bianca muttered.

Buffy was going to ask her what that meant when the ground started to shake. "Impossible or not, we're going to try, okay?" she asked Bianca as calmly as she could manage.

"What are you going to do?" asked Tashi.

She could feel Spike's eyes boring into her as she answered. "When Bianca starts the spell, I'll do... what I need to do. When the spell wears off, there won't be three slayers there."

"Sorry, B. You can't go back for thirds until I've had seconds."

Buffy took in the shocked look on Spike's face before turning to face the speaker. She was rail thin, curves whittled away. Her dark hair was cropped close around her too-white face. If the sheath on her right boot was any indication, she still favored really big knives.

"Faith?"

"Sun will be up in a few hours. Baby Cordy here does her mojo, and when you wake up, I'm gone. Everyone's a winner."

Buffy just blinked at her. "Faith... you're alive?"

The wraith laughed. "No. I'm not alive."

Spike took a few steps toward her. "How..."

"Drusilla wanted her family back together. When I tried to stop her, she decided to get her revenge in a creative way." She turned to look at Buffy. "You see, the thing inside us, the demon or animus or whatever the fuck that makes us slayers, it doesn't like intruders." She turned her eyes up to the sky. "I've been wanting to do this for a long, long time. But Angel... Cordelia told him I had a fucking purpose, you know. And this, this will do."

"Angel knew?" Spike was seething, Buffy could hear it in his voice.

"I don't," Buffy stammered. "I don't even know what to say, Faith."

Faith grinned. "Then don't say anything, B. Just tell the girl to start the spell."

"You're not doing this," Spike whispered dangerously.

"I am, Billy. Deal with it. It's either me or one of them. So get your undead ass under an awning or something and let me fulfill my damn destiny."

Buffy put a restraining hand on Spike's shoulder. "Take Bianca somewhere... shady and watch over her." She turned to Tashi and Faith. "Are you ready for this?"

Whether they were or not, they were going to have to face it anyway because the ground was shaking and cracking and little grey forms were starting to worm their way up out of the ground. Faith turned to smile at them briefly. "Remember kids, don't die."

-----------------


Xander picked up Tara's keys and followed the police in her quiet little car. Like an automaton he watched them maneuver the body. He answered the questions, filled out the forms, and then sat under the silent stars outside the coroner's office trying to get past the numbness. He had been through all this so many times. Lieuko, Anne, Lara. He had held Tara's shaking hand while she waited for the doctors to turn off the machines that were keeping her wife technically alive. He hadn't stopped holding her hand for hours.

It wasn’t real to him yet. Even when he’d turned in his white hat, Tara had been part of his life. They met every May at Buffy’s grave. She was there every Christmas, even the years when Jess was with his mother and Giles overseas. Tara had been part of his life for longer than anyone.

Anyone real at least. Doesn't it ever bother you? It looks like their names should rhyme, but they don't. He felt sick at the memory of laughing at that with Willow at the reception, back when she used to pop in and out and none of them could bring themselves to end her. She was their friend.

And now she was going to kill them all, wipe them all off the face of the earth. Except, apparently, the ones she was still fond of.

Xander jumped to his feet and dashed to Tara's car. He tried Jess's phone, but got no answer. He left a desperate, rushed message for Anya and forced the gas to the floor. He parked the car on the curb of Jess's building. The ground began to rumble and something roared in the distance. He couldn't stop. He took the steps three at a time.

"This was your idea," he could hear her familiar voice lecturing. "You wanted them to know what it felt like to lose everything they ever cared about. I'm pretty sure this will cover it."

Xander felt his heart sink. How many times had he told Jess to keep his mouth shut around Willow. He remembered all too well his own mistakes in that regard. Of all the things he'd ever done, those slips of the tongue were his more regretted mistakes.

"I didn't mean this, Aunt Willow; and I was drunk. This is... this is insane."

Xander struggled with the door, but it held fast.

"Now, just let the nice man bite you and you'll wake up tomorrow feeling much better."

The door finally gave against his throbbing shoulder and he tumbled through the opening. Willow pounced on him, knocking him aside. He thrashed, trying to throw her off, trying to see his son. He could hear the nauseating sound of tearing flesh and his son's scream. Xander managed to twist himself around just in time to see Jess thrust a broken chair leg through his assailant's chest. His son then whipped around to club Willow with the same shattered piece of wood.

"Ow!" she protested, landing hard against the broken door. The entire building seemed to buck and shift as a horrible noise burst from somewhere far away. Jess clapped a hand to his throat and slumped against the wall. He looked from one to the other then limped toward his son.

Willow's hands on his shoulders stopped him. "No, let him go. It will be easier."

"Easier than what?" he demanded.

She gave him a sad little look. "Than the way the rest of you are going to go." She leaned forward to kiss his forehead and he wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed.

Willow struggled, kicking at him and clawing at his hands. He tried tightening his grip, but then her knee in his stomach sent him flying again.

She stood scowling in the door frame. "Oh, that was not cool, Xander. And really ineffective. I mean, you'd think just one of you could have looked up how to kill us before--"

Her lecture ended rather abruptly as her head separated from her body in a bloody rush. Xander's eyes widened as a spattered Anya looked over the corpse at him. She dropped the sword and brushed past the body just before it flared into flame and then nothing. He dragged himself to Jess's side and helped her tape gauze to his son's neck. Then her head crashed into his chest and his eyes closed despite himself and he fell deep into dark.

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A brief epilogue to follow. Feedback very much appreciated. I know I haven't responded to the last set of reviews. I hope to get to them later tonight. I've just been swamped lately.

ETA: Big typo uncovered thanks to reviews. It should be Keiko (Anya's slayer) not Lieuko (Jess's dead slayer) in the last scene. Oops!

Epilogue


Buffy woke up in a peaceful silence. When she turned her head she saw Xander hovering over her. He smiled wide at her and squeezed her hand. There was what looked something like a halo around his head.

"Did it work?" she asked quietly.

He nodded, and she realized it was just the morning sun behind him. "We're still here among the living," he reassured her.

Buffy turned her head to the singed patch of grass to her right. A little pile of dust and a false grave in Los Angeles were all that was left of Faith. But the world would go on. Sirens sounded as Xander helped her to her feet and guided her to the little alley where Spike and Bianca were starting to stir.

She ran her fingers through Spike's hair and watched as Xander gently nudged Tashi awake.

"Did we win?"

Buffy looked down at the sardonic smile on Spike's face and leaned in to kiss it away. "We're still here anyway," she assured him. "And it's a beautiful day."

Xander steered Tashi over to the group and clapped his hands together. "Alrighty. Another apocalypse foiled. So, who wants donuts?"

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"So she did it?"

Anya made an impatient sound into the phone. He really could be so slow sometimes. "Yes, Angel, Bianca and Faith were successful. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"

He just sighed heavily. "Well, good then."

"Now that the mother's vision has come to pass, will you be moving her out of Sunnydale?" she asked tersely.

"No. She seems happy there. They'll take good care of her."

Anya tapped her nails against the desk and watched the girls play in her living room. They were supposed to be training, but she hadn't been able to keep as tight a rein on them since her exhausting trip to California. "You didn't seem to think they were taking adequate care of the other impossible child. As you might recall we went to a great deal of trouble and expense to fake her death and extract her from what you considered inadequate protection."

"At the time, yes."

Buffy, she realized suddenly. Willow's hare-brained scheme had brought Buffy back into the equation and that still meant something to him. "Fine. But no more favors, Angel." She knew better than to ask him about his own impossible child. As far as Angel knew, the Council was ignorant of Collin and she wasn't about to disabuse him of that notion.

She rang off and turned to face the girls. They were supposed to be doing their exercises, but instead Anne was just pretending to be a vampire while Keiko chased her around the living room, screaming and giggling. Anya smoothed her tweed skirt and stood, clapping her hands together. "Now then girls, there is a lot of work yet to do."

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Fin


Thanks to everyone who stuck with me on this one. I feel it rather limped to its end, but I’ve got some new projects in the works. In fact I already have a chapter drafted for one of my challenge stories and the first scene written for the other. At least one of them should be a shorter story as well. I think I need a bit of a break from the sagas. Hope you’ll be back for more!

(For more about the challenges, see msclawdia.livejournal.com)