Buffy and William left the dining room together behind Spike and their mother, Buffy's gaze fixed with more puzzlement than distrust on the older woman's hand where it rested on Spike's arm. Giles and every book she'd ever read (well, skimmed...or got the Willow's Cliff's Notes for) on the matter stated that vampires were animals driven solely by their appetites, thus implying by inference that no vampire (no vampire without a soul, anyway, she thought with a pang) could ever love. And yet she'd witnessed the affection Spike had for Drusilla--some of it not even that dark and twisted--and now for his mother. Was it an act? She could always suppose an ulterior motive. But she realized that for some odd reason, she didn't want to. She wanted to believe that Spike, who never failed to surprise her, could surprise her again by genuinely caring for his mother after a century of being a vampire.

And some of it, she thought as William gently stopped her with a touch at her elbow, was probably him. William Pratt. Spike's secret past.

She smiled up at him, but the expression William turned to her was grave, concerned. "Miss Buffy," he said in a low voice, "do allow me to apologize for the discomfort my mother's questions caused you. It was ungentlemanly in me to have countenanced them."

Buffy's shoulders lifted briefly. "Hey, don't worry about it. I eat discomfort for breakfast."

"But not before dinner, I daresay," William smiled back a little. His gaze, however, was solemn and direct with that quiet sincerity that she was beginning to recognize was very much a part of him, along with the wry humor that unexpectedly surfaced once you got past the shyness and the obligatory British reserve and formality. "I would have you always at your ease in my home, Miss Buffy."

A hint of mischief entered Buffy's smile even as her eyes softened. "In that case, call me Buffy, 'my lord.'"

He looked a little taken aback. "But--"

"'Miss' makes me think I'm in trouble," she wrinkled her nose. "Trust me, it's totally outdated. Nobody in the 20th century uses it anymore except for principals and cops when you make them mad. Not that...I've made any of them mad. At least not on purpose. Well, maybe once or twice with Snyder, but only for world-saving purposes!"

"I see. In that case," he conceded with good grace, "it shall be as you wish. Buffy."

A tiny thrill raced through her; it felt oddly satisfying to score one for American modernism against old stuffy British customs--hah! take that, Giles!--and Buffy grinned at William as he offered her his arm and escorted her up the stairs. They parted at the top to Spike's fierce scowl and growled, "Off with you then, and here's to hoping that dodgy old shaman whisks me away before I wake up and I never have to see your poncy face again."

"Spike, you have the same face," Buffy pointed out.

"Yeah? Well, his is poncier."

Buffy sighed, rolled her eyes, and said to William, "Good night, and thank you for letting us stay."

"Good night, Miss-- good night, Buffy," he gave her a small smile, bowed, and left them.

"You know, Spike," Buffy commented as they headed in the other direction down the hall, "since you can't eat him anyway, it wouldn't kill you to be nicer to him. Who knows, maybe you'll turn out a kinder, gentler vampire."

"Bite your tongue," Spike snapped.

"I mean, just what is it you have against him? Everybody knows that when the demon takes over, the soul gets kicked out, and you become a completely different...non-person. Is there some sort of weird vamp hang-up about how good you were when you were human or something? Some kind of moral uprightness complex? 'Cause I can see how the being a gentleman thing might've not been taken so well by the other evil bloodthirsty fiends. Were you bullied as a teensy new vampire?"

"Drop it, Slayer," Spike said through clenched teeth. He pointed. "Your room."

"What? That is totally not my room. It took me fifteen minutes to get from there to the stairs!"

Spike gave her a slow leer. "Slayer, Slayer, if you wanted to share mine, you could've just said. No ceremony required between old enemies and all that."

Buffy shot him a glare, opened the door, peered inside, and squealed in delight when she realized the purpose of the huge copper tub sitting next to the fireplace. "There's a bath! I can have a bath! I swear I am never taking them for granted again!" On impulse, she reached over and tousled Spike's blond hair, destroying his desperate efforts at keeping the curls in check, snickered at his flabbergasted look, and went into her room. As Spike stood staring blankly at her door, it opened, and Buffy poked her head out to say, "Thanks for the help with the giant sodding bugs, Spike. No eating anybody while I'm asleep!" The door closed, then opened again. "Oh, and don't even think about kidnapping your mom and locking her away in a tower in the middle of the bog or something, because you'll totally forget to put a door in, and then you'll have to climb up the tower like Rapunzel. Good night!"

Spike stood frozen in front of the door for a long moment, wondering why the thought hadn't even occurred to him to bite the Slayer's hand off until after her door had closed for the second time. That ponce's ponciness is catching, he decided in horror.



Far down the hall in his own room, William dropped heavily onto his bed, staring listlessly at his hands. Freshly washed and scrubbed of the travails of the past few turbulent hours, the return to blessed cleanliness was balm to his body, though it was none to his mind or heart. The night's events and revelations seemed to have gathered weight hour by hour, and now that he had no one and nothing to distract him, he felt as if he were slowly being crushed beneath an inscrutable tangled mass of bewildered surreality, hollow dread, paralyzing fear, and other emotions he could not even put a name to.

He raised his left hand, turned it palm-outward and stared at it, concentrated his entire will upon it. It trembled uncontrollably. He gritted his teeth, clenched his hand into a fist, and glared at it until his jaws ached--and still it would not obey him.

He let it fall and leaned forward, choking the laughter back down before it could bubble out of his throat, for he did not know if he could stop himself once he started. He had thought himself reconciled to his fate. What a very great fool I am. Reconciled? He had not even begun to approach the idea of it.

"Respice post te," he murmured to himself. "Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori." Death walks behind you, for you are naught but a man. Remember that you must die.

He touched the wounds at his neck absently. His not-so-distant ancestors had known the theme of death intimately well, had carried the reminders of their brief allotted time on Earth in the shape of skulls carved onto timepieces and rings; had commissioned their portraits to be drawn with Death as a macabre companion. William now had his own constant reminder of his doom in the form of his doppelgänger, this vampire from another age who had made of his corpse a corrupt, profaned husk.

He stood and began to pace.

One year. He had but one year left of his allotted time. How was he to live with that knowledge? How did anyone?

He was still young, he wanted to protest. A perfectly ordinary man, yes, but a good man who would have been content to live out his life as his father had, in peaceful study, in the striving of his pen for elusive verse, in the care of his land and his family. To travel and see the world, perhaps, but to always come home again. He'd wanted a family himself some day: a wife to adore, sons to teach and mold, daughters to simply love. He'd wanted to care for his mother, to give her the comfortable and dignified twilight years she deserved.

He wanted to live.

He wanted that vile creature who had stolen his future, taken everything he was and could have been from him, to vanish from existence. And he could, he abruptly realized. He had that power over the vampire. For the first time in his life he felt the dark, gloriously unrestrained need for violence blossom in him, filling him with strength and wiping away all doubt, all fear, all heartache.

Wood through the heart. Sunlight. Fire. And who was to say he would be wrong? Vampires preyed upon human-kind; all the stories agreed on that much, and this vampire was no stranger to killing. How many had the demon murdered while in his body, while wearing his face? He could put an end to all of it. He should put an end to it.

He stood with his eyes closed in the middle of the room for long minutes, shuddering. Then he grabbed his grandfather's ivory-handled dagger in its smooth sandalwood sheath from his desk and opened his door.



Spike's eyes popped open as his door swung inward on silent hinges. "Gonna take me up on that offer, are you?" he purred, taking in a deep breath of fresh, clean... "You," he growled, rolling out of bed with a grunt.

William entered the room, set his lamp down on a chest, and closed the door behind him. "We must talk," he said tightly.

Spike circled warily out of the glow of the lamp, his eyes moving to the dagger clutched in a white grip in William's left hand. "Came to talk, did you? All civil-like?"

William snorted. "And what civility have you shown me, vampire?"

"Haven't drained you dry and tossed you in a ditch for the dogs to find, have I?"

"Only because it would end your existence with as much finality as mine--and, if I understand correctly, without even a body for the dogs to find," William observed coldly.

Spike's eyes narrowed. "And you think that gives you an advantage over me? That hollow piece of wood's not pointy enough to stake black pudding, let alone end me. And even if it were, you don't have the balls."

An odd little smile, humorless and too calm, touched William's lips. "Don't I?" And before Spike could react, he had pulled the dagger out of its sheath and brought its gleaming edge down across his right wrist.

"You prat!" Spike screamed, leaping forward even as the sharp pain echoed up his own right arm. He wrenched the dagger out of William's bloodless grip, threw it into a corner of the room, and closed his hand over the hotly gushing wound so tightly that William yelped.

"Shut up," he growled. "You bloody blithering idiot! What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

"You know perfectly well what I am thinking," William murmured, still in that unnaturally calm voice, though now it was laced with pain. He leaned his head back against the door and closed his eyes. "I have no power over you, demon, except in this. And I intend to use it. To its very limits--and beyond, if need be." He opened his eyes again to see Spike staring at him with murder in his eyes. He met that burning gaze, his own icy. "My terms are these. First, you will harm no-one while you are here. This includes all those who live in this house and in my viscountcy, as well as anyone you might encounter outside it. Second, you will behave with all the consideration, respect, and kindness towards Mother that is due her from her son. Third, you will aid the Slayer--no, do not interrupt me," he said as Spike opened his mouth to protest, "--you will aid the Slayer in whatever capacity she may require, whether it be fighting at her side or anything else within your power. In return, I will offer no resistance when your Drusilla comes for me a year from now. My terms are absolute. If you violate them, I swear upon my word and honor that you will not live to see the next sunrise."

"I will not be the Slayer's lapdog," Spike snarled, shoving William back against the door, hard.

William huffed a dry laugh. "I said 'aid,' did I not? Not 'obey her every command.' And in any case, the more quickly you can discover the reason for your both being here, the more quickly you can return to your own time. You already believe that someone or something with a purpose called you here, and you would be far more likely to satisfy that purpose working with each other than against each other."

Spike took a step back, though he did not release his grip on William's wrist. "You know that the moment we get back, I'm going to snap some pretty young thing's neck and drink from her spine."

William smiled faintly. "I know perfectly well the futility of my grand gesture in the broader sense. But it is all that I can do, and I will trust to Miss-- to Buffy to protect the innocent from you in her own time."

Spike stared at his past self for several long minutes. What in bloody hell was going on? This spineless git, who had not even had the stones to stand up for himself in front of the woman he'd loved, was challenging him, the Slayer of Slayers? Had this always been in him? Or had his and the Slayer's arrival here changed him in some way? What would happen when they left? Would he really throw himself into his Black Goddess' arms, knowing full well the consequences of his actions?

The wound had slowed to an ooze; his had already closed over. The hot scent of fresh blood abruptly made him dizzy with hunger, and he saw William's involuntary jerk through his much clearer demon's vision. He released William, backing away until the opposite wall stopped him from going any further. "Blood," he snapped, "Get me some blood. Pig, if you've got any. Cow--chicken in a pinch, but I'm not eating that swill every day. And put a bandage on that wrist."

William considered him for a minute, then nodded. He opened the door and picked up the lamp carefully with his left hand, holding his right up before him. He closed the door behind himself, and Spike slid down the wall to the floor, holding his tortured stomach. When they found that shaman, he was going to feed him his own testicles, following by his toenails and large intestine--terms or no terms.



In her own room the blissfully clean Slayer slept, happily unaware of the clash between the pacing, snarling vampire and his shaking, slightly exsanguinated human counterpart.