SPIKE: She was cunning, resourceful... oh, and did I mention? Hot. I could have danced all night with that one.  
    Fool For Love
    

    Buffy’s spirit poured through time like water down a plug hole. She found herself, loose and untethered, before a distinct and strangely familiar tableau. Two figures, in a dark, only semi-lit alleyway, locked in mortal combat, a stake between them. One, she saw only from behind – a black t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, with a spiked blond head, and a bleeding arm. Buffy knew Spike’s build well enough that there was no doubt it was him. The other, Buffy only recognized through photograph. Robin had shown Buffy a picture of his mom once. Hair in a strong round afro, her face clear and determined. Her eyes opened wide in surprise as Buffy’s incorporeal figure swirled into existence behind the deadly vampire. She pulled the stake back from Spike’s arm, kicked him hard in the stomach, and held the weapon afresh, her face suddenly wary at what she could only assume was a new assailant.

    Spike didn’t see Buffy. “Looks like you’ve landed first blood, love,” Spike’s voice said, as he clutched his belly. “We’ll see how potent it is next time, eh? Better part of valor and all that.” He began sidling away. “I’ve all the time in the world to find you again.”

    “You’re not gonna fake me out, vamp!” Nikki snapped back at him, but Spike was already on the move. He leapt up onto a fire escape and all but danced onto the roof of the building next to them. Nikki glanced after him, as if she’d half a mind to follow, but there was a semi-manifest spirit that had appeared, apparently in league with the vampire, and she could deal with only one beastie at a time. She whirled, the blooded stake in her hand. She twisted with a twirl of her coat, and tried to stake Buffy, too.

    Her arm went right through Buffy, though it wasn’t as if Buffy didn’t feel it. Heat and solidity seemed to electrify her, and her incorporeal body felt displaced where Nikki had passed through, as if it were water. It kind of hurt. “Wait! Stop!” Buffy called out.

    “It’s not my job to stop!” Nikki snapped. “I kill demons and nasties and vampires, and I’m not about to let a... a thing like you get away!”

    “I’m not trying to hurt you!”

    “Right. Like you’re not working with that vamp?”

    “No,” Buffy said. “I was just dragged here, I’m not after anything.”

    Nikki crouched, her eyes suspicious, and she frowned at Buffy. “You a ghost?”

    “I wasn’t a minute ago,” Buffy said. “Just give me two minutes. You’re Nikki Wood, right? You’re the slayer.”

    Nikki backed up and looked Buffy over. “And who the hell are you, ghostie?”

    “Um. Well. I’m the slayer,” Buffy said. “Or I will be.”
 

***    

    “So you’re saying,” said a much younger Bernard Crowley than the one Buffy had met, “that you were a murdered slayer, and you’ve manifested yourself to Nikki as some kind of ghost?”

    “No, I wasn’t murdered,” Buffy said, not trusting Crowley at all. This Crowley was not, of course, the older Crowley who might, or might not, have had anything to do with her being dragged back in time, but she was still suspicious of him. “I’m not even dead, as far as I know. And I’m not a slayer from the past. I’m from the future.” She laughed suddenly and looked at Nikki. “And now I’m expecting him to shout Great scott! And tell me it’s time to go back... back to the fu–”

    “So you’re here as... what?” Crowley said, failing to play into her Back To The Future fantasy. Buffy put her soaring hand back down. “A... guide of some sort?”

    “No,” Buffy said. “I’m quite sure this was an accident.”

    “Hang on, Bernie, I got the skinny,” Nikki said. She’d heard this at least three times before she’d finally agreed to take Buffy to her watcher. “She was sucked here through some kind of vortex, after touching a spirit that had been linked through the blood of that vampire I just nicked. Did I get that right?” she asked.

    “Yes,” Buffy said. “Or, my spirit was. My body is probably still back where I left it.”

    “Where’d you leave it?”

    “New York, after the turn of the century,” Buffy said. She didn’t want to get too precise. “It happened after we got hold of that stake.”

    “So why’d you have my stake?”

    “It’s complicated,” Buffy said, glaring at Crowley. “But I think the spirit sucking may have been some sort of spell.”

    “That is possible,” Crowley said. He went to some books on his shelves and pulled out an older looking volume. “The blood of a vampire does have certain qualities which enable for strong summoning spells, and some of those can pierce across time. But they’re all extremely dangerous. Summoning a demon is, of course, relatively easy, but vampires are partly human, and thus corporeal. To summon a corporeal demon, a link to that demon is required, and the blood carries that link. Here.” He set the book down and pointed at a section.

    Buffy read the page through, not really understanding all of it.

    “Yeah, well, I’m not a demon, or a vampire. I’m a slayer,” Buffy said.

    “Then I don’t understand how your spirit could have been captured by the summoning spell.”

    “It was a mistake,” Buffy said. “I was trying to save–” she cut herself off, glancing up at Nikki. “Someone else,” she said then. Crowley’s face darkened, and Buffy was sure he suspected something like the truth. “Anyway, now that I’m here, time for you to save me. How do we get me back?”

    “I’m fairly certain we don’t,” Crowley said with a much lighter expression than Buffy would have had if she’d had to pronounce that kind of sentence.

    “Excuse me?”

    “Well, I’m sorry to say that if what you say is true... there is little we can be expected to do for you.”

    Buffy hadn’t anticipated this. “What do you mean? You’re the slayer. You’re her watcher. This is your job.” She didn’t say it was probably Crowley’s damn fault she was here in the first place, but her blood was up.

    “No,” Crowley said. “Our job is to rid the world of demons, specifically vampires. If a life is saved in the process, that is all to the good, but that is not, in fact, our mission.”

    Buffy blinked. She’d always put the lives of innocents at a premium, and made the slaying a means toward that end, not the goal in and of itself. That was why she hadn’t killed Spike or Anya when they had been rendered relatively harmless. Crowley’s vision of a slayer’s duty was much darker than Giles’s had ever been. Crowley continued, oblivious to her disgust. “Since your spirit was captured and dragged back through time, you are in a bit of trouble. You are not meant to exist within this time.”

    “So?”

    “So,” Crowley went on. “Only one slayer can exist in the world at once.”

    “There are ways around that,” Buffy said.“Besides, I’m not a slayer now, am I? Just a spirit of a slayer.”

    “Yes, but you haven’t been born yet, and your spirit pattern cannot hold within this time,” the watcher said. “Your existence within this time period might even put Nikki herself in danger.”

    Buffy scoffed. She was losing her patience with this jerk. “That’s bull, and you know it.”

    “Time paradoxes are perfectly real,” Crowley said. “You should know that if you are, in fact, a slayer as you claim.”

    “Wait, wait, claim?” Buffy snapped.

    “I’m afraid this must be the end of your period as slayer,” Crowley continued blithely. “Within about twenty-four hours, your spirit will begin to disintegrate. I am sorry.” He didn’t sound it. He looked Buffy over. “Still, you seem quite old for a slayer. You’ve had a strong several years as protector of the world. You should be proud to go out saving another,” he said. “Would you like us to write you any letters to family or friends? Your watcher, perhaps? We can have said missives kept in the watcher archives, and delivered to your loved ones at the proper time, after your demise.”

    Buffy glared at Crowley. “No,” she said bluntly. “No, because by the time of my demise just about every single active watcher has been cut to pieces or blown to smithereens by the kind of evil you cannot even imagine!” Crowley and Nikki both looked surprised. “One I managed to defeat, without forgetting about saving innocent lives, but hell, you just follow your ‘mission’. I wasn’t going to risk ‘ruining the timeline’ or any crap like that, but if these are really my last hours, let me tell you, you and your wretched rules and counsels don’t matter a whit. If I really have to leave any messages for my sister or anyone else, then you’d better leave them with Robin.” She pointed at the little boy in the corner. “Not with any god damned watcher.”

     The watcher and the slayer both turned to the little boy, who was playing with some of Crowley’s rune stones. Robin glanced up and smiled at his mom before turning back to his stones.

    “You know Robin?” Nikki asked.

    “That is enough,” Crowley said. “Spelling out the future could be catastrophic. Clearly you do not understand the significance of the things you say. Nikki. I forbid you to listen to any more of this spirit’s ravings. We still have no idea of it is even telling the truth.”

    “You mean Robin’s still alive in your time?” Nikki asked.

    “Nikki!”

    “You know what?” Buffy said. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t help me even if you could, Mr. Crowley. So allow me to tell you in advance: Go to hell.”

    Crowley looked startled.

    Buffy strode out through the wall of the apartment. “Buffy, wait!” Nikki called out through the door.

    “No!”

    Nikki stepped through the door, a desperate look on her face. She gestured Buffy to her quickly, silently. “Go to my apartment,” she whispered when Buffy came up to her, and she whispered her an address, saying it was only a few blocks away. “Well fine!” she shouted then, though Buffy hadn’t said anything else. “Be like that!”

    Buffy nodded her understanding as Nikki headed back in to her watcher. The door slammed. Buffy drifted down the stairs and back out into the night.

***

    Nikki opened the door of her apartment and smiled when she saw Buffy haunting the kitchen. Robin was at Nikki’s side, looking exhausted, but still used to the late nights. “Oh, thank god. I wanted to chat without Bernie spreading his crumpets and tea over everything.”

    Buffy chuckled.

    “Let me just get Robin in to bed, and we can talk.”

    “I’d like that,” Buffy said.

    She looked around Nikki’s apartment while she waited. Nikki did keep a lot of trophies, most of them weapons. Unlike in Crowley’s apartment, however, there were no demon heads in places of prominence. When Nikki came out from her son’s room she went up to Buffy, who was examining a troll hammer. “Got that from a troll who had decided to take over Brooklyn Bridge,” she said. “Broke my arm, that one.”

    “Really bruised me, the troll I fought,” Buffy said. “And took out my watcher’s magic shop.” Nikki laughed. “Do you, ah... keep... other kinds of trophies?”

    “Trophies?” Nikki said. “Oh, you mean the weapons. Well, yeah, I keep everything. Sometimes they’re useful later.”

    “I mean like... demon heads or anything.”

    “No, not me. Bernie does. He mummifies and catalogs the demons I slay, for the watcher’s council. The ones that don’t dust or melt or fade into the ether,” Nikki said.

    Things made more sense. Crowley was the one with the macabre sense of honor.

    “So what was the bad vibe you and Bernie were dancing around back there?” Nikki asked. “Something about someone else’s spirit?”

    Buffy opened her mouth, wondering how much she should tell Nikki. She knew not to tell her who killed her. That would be cruel, and painful to both of them.

    “Something about the blood on this stake,” Nikki said, pulling it out of her pocket. The blood had dried now, and stained the wood more than halfway along its length with dull red. “This vampire... this is a vampire you know, isn’t it.”

    Buffy opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

    “It’s cool,” Nikki said. “I know some vamps myself. Some even to talk to, from a distance. There’s a couple of suck houses around here, vampires who only take willing victims. Blood-junkies, who get off on the rush of being bitten, or druggies who need a new thrill. The suckers aren’t really respected by the other vamps, but they’re safe enough if you treat them with care. They can keep you abreast of the demon underground.”

    “You’re friends with vamps?”

    “Not friends. But I can usually pick out a reliable adversary, and informants are important. This one...” She looked at the blooded stake. “This vampire and I have been dancing around each other for a while. The suckers are all terrified of him.”

    “You know him?”

    “I know of him,” Nikki said. “Only really met him tonight. William the Bloody, currently going by Spike. Used to torture his victims with railroad spikes. He’s a nasty one, nearly a hundred years old, and he’s already killed one slayer. And he’s useful, or I’d have tried to slay him months ago.”

    “What?”

    Nikki went over to a map on the wall, which Buffy had noticed but not been able to interpret. It was covered in marks and circles, strings tied to thumbtacks, push pins, scribbles, and shorthand notes. “This is my territory,” Nikki said. It was the whole of New York, all five Burroughs, and the surrounding area. Buffy was stunned. Sunnydale was tiny, and she’d had difficulty patrolling all of it. The vampire activity in L.A. had mostly been centered around her highschool. Nikki had a hundred times more territory to cover than Buffy had ever done. And from the marks on the map, it was busy.

    “These marks are known vampire activity, and these are suspected nesting areas. These pins are clear vampire victims,” Nikki said. The map had so many push pins and notes and circles and grave sites that Buffy gulped. She was so glad she hadn’t been called to be a slayer in New York. “And this area here in the Bowery,” she pointed between Canal and Broadway-Lafayette streets to a somewhat clear spot with a broad circle around it, “is around the CBGB club.”

    “Why’s it so clear?”

    “Because of that guy,” she said, pointing to the blooded stake on her desk. “We know that’s his hunting ground. He’s either careful about how he kills, or he takes those who no one notices. In the Bowery, that’s not that hard to do. Bit of a skid row. But more importantly, you notice the lack of other vampire nests?”

    Buffy had noticed the lack of black thumbtacks in the area.

    “He’s doing my job for me,” Nikki said. “He keeps other vampires out of the area, dusting any of the ones who don’t play by his rules. His rules seem to be pretty strict, too, and every once in a while he seems to get bored and takes out another vamp nest outside his territory just for the fun of it.”

    “Yeah, that sounds like Spike,” Buffy muttered. Spike had always gotten bored with battles he knew he could win.

    “Yeah, well, he showed up about a year and a half ago, and frankly, I love ‘im. Don’t tell Bernie, but I’ve been leaving him there. Yeah, he’s a full-on nasty, and I’ll probably have to slay him one day. But until I do, he’s making my job so much easier. I worked out percentages, just after I realized what he was doing, and tried to figure out the lesser of the evils. His nest takes out maybe five to ten victims a week, at most.”

    “That sounds like a lot.”

    “In New York? They don’t all show up as murders, hon. Drug O.D.s, animal attacks, accidents. A lot just go missing. It’s not much, believe me. And the nests he’s taken out? They were hunting hundreds. By going all dust happy on other vamps, he’s saved more people than I can count. He’s taken out as many vamps as I have in the last year, from what I can judge. Probably saved my life. I was overwhelmed before he showed up. I barely slept. Now I have time to breathe. It’s so...” she shook her head and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “You have no idea how nice it is to have someone else exterminating some of the rats.”

    “Actually, yes I do,” Buffy said.

    “It’s him, isn’t it,” Nikki said. “You were working with him.”

    “You know I can’t tell you that,” Buffy said.

    Nikki laughed. “If the answer was no, you’d just say it.”

    Buffy looked down.

    “No, really, I get it. The clever ones. They draw you sometimes. I met Dracula once – that guy was fine.”

    Buffy looked back up. “You too?”

    Nikki laughed. “He bite you?”

    “I thought I was dreaming.”

    “‘Nough to make you go blood-junkie.”

    “Almost.”

    “Hard to kill, though. He kept going all misty, then he took off. Anyway, I’ve studied this Spike guy,” Nikki said. “He’s worked with humans before, and he interacts with other demons, not just vampires. He’s impulsive, but he’s social, and he’s clever. It wouldn’t blow my mind if he hacked out a deal with a slayer if he thought could get something he wanted out of it. He thinks outside the box, that one.”

    Buffy shook her head. “What’s it even matter?” she asked. “I’ll never get back to my own time. I’ll be a dissipated spirit before the sun sets tomorrow.”

    Nikki shook her head. “Not necessarily,” she said. “Bernie let slip some stuff after you left. If you were brought to the past by this vampire’s blood, than this vampire’s blood can probably send you back.”

    Buffy stared at her. “Really?”

    Nikki nodded with a bit of a wicked grin.

    “How?”

    “Well, that’s a bit more complex,” Nikki said, “‘cause the blood would have to be separate from his mortal flesh, and would have to surround your spirit, at least in a circle. So, you couldn’t just try to possess him as a spirit, or hope he’d grab you and that that would do it. You’d need me to catch him, bleed him–”

    “No!” Buffy said vehemently.

    “What, no. I thought you wanted my help.”

    “I do. But if anyone is going to confront Spike, it’s going to be me.”

    “I’m not afraid.” Nikki held her head a little higher. “The mission is what matters.”

    “And this is my mission. Not yours.”

    “Buffy, you were right. Bernie’s kind of a hard ass about this, but I save lives. That may not be what he does, but that’s what I do. And you’re a fellow slayer. This is my job.”

    “And we need you to keep doing it,” Buffy said. “Look at this city. All of these push pins and circles and thumb tacks. That’s all you. I’m one spirit, and I shouldn’t even be here. I’m not letting anyone risk their lives for this, least of all you.” If and when Spike killed Nikki, Buffy didn’t want it to be anything to do with her. She sighed. Boy, she was going to have to spin him a tale... for his blood.

    Blood was life to Spike. Without knowing her, caring about her, still addicted to eating humans, without a soul feeding his altruism, he wasn’t going to give it up easily. Particularly not to a ghost. He might even think the whole thing funny. And she had less than twenty-four hours to persuade him.... “I guess I’ll head down to the CBGB now,” she said. “I don’t have much time.”

    “We can buy you more time,” Nikki said.

    “What? How?”

    Nikki sat down and looked at her. “You said you knew Robin.”

    “Yeah,” Buffy said. “Yeah, I know him.”

    “Tell me about him.”

    Buffy shook her head. “You know I shouldn’t, Nikki. You know I shouldn’t tell you your future.”

    “Okay. Let me tell you my future,” Nikki said. “I’m dead. Robin’s alone. I never saw him grow up. Tell me how much of that’s on point.” Buffy didn’t have to. They both knew. “Slayers don’t live long, I’m wise. And I’m gonna bet, when it comes to me, that you know that full well. Possibly with more detail than I’d like. Now, I’m not going to ask when that is...”

    Buffy shook her head. “I was told the day and time of my death once,” Buffy said. “And when I found out, I realized I didn’t really want to know. Also, it wasn’t strictly speaking true, so...” She shrugged. “But in your case, I can honestly say, I don’t know. I never asked the date, or how old you were, or anything. When... when is as much a mystery to me, as it is to you.” How...  Well, how Nikki was going to die was another matter.

    “But not long enough to meet my grandchildren, I’ll bet,” Nikki said.

    Buffy shook her head, no.

    “So tell me about Robin,” she said, her voice very soft. Pleading.

    “Nikki...”

    “If you tell me about Robin,” Nikki said, “I’ll help you get enough time to catch this vampire before you fade away completely.”

    Buffy frowned. “Is there a way?”

    “Yes,” Nikki said. “Bernie was telling me about it. He told me not to tell you.”

    “Why?”

    “Because Bernie wants you gone. He’s terrified you’re going to muck with the timeline, go saving lives or killing people, when you’re not supposed to exist. You’re a slayer – it’s your instinct to slay monsters and save the innocent. But if you kill or even save the wrong person, you could destroy the whole planet.”

    Buffy blinked. “Oh.”

    “Also, he’s afraid you’re going sell us out to this Spike.”

    Buffy was insulted. “I’m a slayer.”

    “He’s no proof of that. And you’re working with a vamp.”

    “So why aren’t you scared of that?”

    “Because I’m never afraid,” Nikki said. “You already told me Robin’s going to be all right, just by the fact that you know him. He’s the only thing I’ve ever been afraid for. My own death... I don’t care. I accepted it when I was sixteen and woke up one day with the power I’d been trained for. But Robin... Robin’s my heart. I’m the slayer, I’ll always be the slayer, but... the only reason I’m still around is because of Robin. I’d have died years ago, if I didn’t have him to live for.”

    Buffy smiled. “I know the feeling.”

    “I know how you can live long enough to find this vampire,” Nikki said. “I can’t promise you’ll get what you want. I think he’ll kill you, but... it’s a chance, right?” She looked at Buffy with a pleading expression. “Do me this solid, I’ll pay it in kind. Please. Tell me about my son.”

    Buffy nodded, all right. “I met Robin Wood when he was acting as the principal of my town’s highschool. It was centered over a hellmouth. And Nikki... he’s amazing,” she began.
 

***

    “Are you sure this will work?” Buffy asked.

    “This glass is supposed to show soul activity,” Nikki said. “I got it off a tzar demon I killed. It’s worked so far on everyone I’ve looked at. For example,” she held the stemmed crystal goblet up and peered through the square glass panes at Buffy. “All I can see when I look through this is you. Just the spirit, or soul, or whatever it is.”

    “I think I’m both soul and consciousness,” Buffy said. “I... I know you can have consciousness without the soul. Vampires do.”

    “Yeah. Well. You got soul, sister. If we look around here long enough, we might be able to find someone who doesn’t.”

    Crowley had told Nikki that the only way Buffy’s spirit could be kept from dissipating pretty much overnight was to have it bound to a living human body. And any human body that Buffy possessed in this way would be diminished, if not basically killed, their own spirit subsumed in the more powerful energies of the slayer. Crowley had insisted that Buffy hadn’t the right to kill another to buy herself a week or two of life. If he’d bothered to tell Buffy this, she would have agreed with him. Nikki, however, had other ideas.

    “There are people out there, bodies, whose souls have already fled,” she said. “The brain damaged, the dying. I know. I’ve seen them. If I can locate one of these, you can possess their body without killing anyone who’s still here. I mean, it’s a little morally iffy, but not any weirder than organ donation.” And they were both slayers. Morally iffy was something they had to do on a regular basis.

    “But if I possess a body that’s brain damaged or dying,” Buffy said, “won’t I just lie there in a coma like they are?”

    Nikki shrugged. “I didn’t say it wasn’t a risk,” she said. “But I slew a ghost once who had possessed a vacant body like that, and they were able to move around. I think Crowley said the metaphysical mandates over the physical, in cases of possession. I mean... vampires are dead. They should be still as stone, and they move around.”

    “I’m a spirit, not a demon.”

    “Still. Figure it’s worth a try, yeah?”

    They’d gone around the hospital for hours. They’d found a few bodies whose souls had already fled, but for the most part they were too elderly or frail to be of any use, and one of them actually finished dying while they’d watched. Buffy was beginning to fade by this time. As far as she was concerned, everything looked misty and vague, and Nikki’s voice was hard to hear. “I don’t think I’m going to make it!” Buffy shouted, to get her voice through the fog surrounding her.

    “Don’t give up yet, girl!” Nikki said to her. Buffy couldn’t hear her distinctly, but she thought that was what she said. “I should have thought. We’ll check the drug ward.”

    And that was where they found her. Her name was Sarah MacArthur. She’d been dropped off in the emergency room antechamber by someone – probably her ‘friends’ – having overdosed on heroin. She was eighteen, and her parents were being contacted, but there didn’t seem to be anyone available at the number they had on record. She’d been listed as a runaway two and a half years before. And she was officially diagnosed as brain dead.

    Just what they were looking for. A derelict from a tortured life, who had checked out early.

    Her skin wasn’t perfect, and she was rather small for her age, but her hair was a rich dark brown, full and lustrous on the hospital pillow, even though unwashed and uncombed. Given her age, the hospital didn’t have permission to take her off the IVs and such and let her die until her parents gave the okay, so until they found them, or until she died on her own, her body was stuck in that bed, slowly deteriorating. “She’s perfect,” Buffy said, unwilling to look any further. She wasn’t sure she had time to find anyone else.

    Spike had once told her how he’d managed to possess someone when he was stuck as a ghost. That had involved a wizard who was actively drawing him in, but he described it as being the water in a sponge. Buffy looked at Nikki, and told her goodbye, though she wasn’t sure she could hear her anymore. She was a cell-phone with terrible reception by then. “Good luck, sister,” Nikki told her, and Buffy lay down on the bed along with Sarah.

    The water in a sponge, she told herself. Become the water in a sponge.

    It was much easier than she’d thought it would be. Sarah’s body was a hollow wasteland, desperate for a spirit to inhabit it. It was actively trying to die, all alone like that, and when Buffy’s spirit touched it, it caught onto her like static electricity. It drew her spirit limbs into Sarah’s empty ones, pulled her along into Sarah’s body, and finally enveloped her head, holding her spirit fast as a lover. For a moment, Buffy was frozen, afraid that she had been correct, and she would simply lie there in a brain dead, drug damaged coma, from which her spirit would never return. But then she found what seemed to be the on switch, and the body was hers.

    She opened her eyes, looked around, and saw Nikki grinning at her, her full cheeks round as a chipmunk. “Right on, sister! Now we’re cookin’ with gas.”
    

***

    “Are you sure this won’t stand out?” Buffy asked, looking down at Sarah’s newly clad form. Sarah had cleaned up much nicer than Buffy had thought she would. With a little moisturizer and make up to hide the heroin damaged skin, her hair washed and styled, little Sarah no longer looked like a wastrel from the slums. In fact, she looked like a lost, scared little girl. Buffy wondered how much of that was Sarah’s natural face, and how much was Buffy’s own expression, trapped in the wrong body, in the wrong time, about to do a very, very wrong thing.  

    “If you’re going to CBGB, you’ll blend in right quick in these threads. Lot of punks down there.”

    “If you say so,” Buffy said. She’d known Spike for years, and really knew very little about the punk scene. She felt she was over the top. Ripped fishnets, for one, were something she’d only ever seen people wear at Rocky Horror, or strip clubs. The tight black skirt with the chains on it felt too obvious, and the t-shirt with the rude word scrawled in white crayon far too casual. It was the army boots that really did it, though. “Army boots with fishnets?” she asked.

    “Trust me,” Nikki said. “Now, let’s do something with your hair... if I was really going to have you blend in, I’d shave some of it off.”

    “No. Keep the hair,” Buffy said. “He likes hair.”

    Nikki brushed it out anyway, and teased it up as much as she could. “You do know he’s probably gonna kill you.” she said.

    “I’m a slayer,” Buffy said. “Or I was.”

    “Or you’re gonna be,” Nikki said with a bit of a smile.

    “I always knew a vampire might get me. I’d rather die like that than fade away as a ghost.”

    “I hear that. You realize this is only a temporary fix, right?” Nikki said. “You won’t be able to hold on to Sarah’s body for more than about ten or twelve days before you fade away anyway.”

    “I know that, too. But if I can get to Spike.... If I can get to Spike....” She covered her eyes with her hand for a moment, and then shrugged. What the hell was she doing? “What the hell,” she said, mostly to herself. “If he breaks my neck in the first ten minutes, I’ve lost nothing.”

    Nikki stood back and looked Buffy over. “Well, you’ll do for CB’s. I have no idea if you’ll do for this vamp.”

    “I’ve got to try.”

    “Are you sure ‘bout this plan? Sounds a bit out to lunch, in my opinion.”

    “You’re the one who said I knew him.”

    “Yeah, but it’s kind of creepy. If you weren’t a slayer, I’d say you were flat nuts. And really... I mean... torture much.”

    “I’ll be fine.”

    “Why are you so sure of that?”

    Buffy couldn’t answer. She couldn’t say he had a soul, because he didn’t. She couldn’t say he loved her, because he didn’t. She couldn’t even say she trusted him, because she didn’t, not in the least. But this was the plan she was drawn to. Nikki was right. She was nuts. But the only other options might kill him... or Nikki. And she didn’t really want either to happen. “What choice have I got?” she asked.

    “Plenty,” Nikki said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to just trap him?”

    Buffy shook her head. “Please, Nikki.”

    “You really want me to stay out of this, don’t you.”

    Buffy sighed and looked away.

    “I’ve already sussed it out,” Nikki said. “I’m no fool. If you know him in the future, I don’t kill him in the now.”

    She was getting dangerously close to guessing her fate. “If you ever meet him, you do your damnedest to try!” Buffy said.

    Nikki looked at her seriously. “What happens if somehow I do?” she asked. “Will it muck up the timeline?” She swallowed. “Could it put Robin at risk?”

    “No,” Buffy said. “Listen to me, Nikki. If you do kill Spike, it’s nothing to do with me. I’m not important here. Not here, not now. I’m just a phantom. You remember what I said about being told the time of my death once?”

    “Yeah.”

    “It wasn’t true. I was brought back. Destiny isn’t written. Now I’m going to try like hell to stay out of the way of history, because I’m really not supposed to be here. But you are. Don’t second guess anything. Just be you.”

    Nikki stared at her. “Were you scared?”

    “Terrified. The first time. The second time, not so much.”

    “The second time?”

    “Complicated. Are you scared?”

    Nikki thought about it. “No,” she said slowly. Then she laughed. “Weird. I thought I would be....”

    “Death is our gift,” Buffy whispered. “The first slayer said that to me, in a vision once. Death is your gift.”

    “Dealing death?”

    “Or receiving it,” Buffy said. “We slayers, we deal with the hordes of hell every day. But there’s more to death than that. It’s our calling to destroy evil. Do you think karma forgets that?” She hesitated. “I went to heaven, once,” she confessed. “I didn’t want to come back.”

    Nikki regarded her. “Was it worth it?”

    “It was heaven,” Buffy said, her voice quiet. She still felt grief when she thought of it, though she was willing to wait to find it again. “There’s nothing else to say.”

    “Robin....” Nikki trailed off.

    “He really will be all right, Nikki. I swear to you. Crowley takes care of him.”

    Nikki laughed. “Yeah, he would. Poor kid. He’s gonna grow up serious, isn’t he.”

    “He finds a woman who knows how to have fun,” Buffy told her.

    “Really?”

    Buffy grinned. “Oh yeah. She’s... well, a bit like you, in a lot of ways.”

    Nikki came up to Buffy. “And you’re not going to give me up, right?”

    “I swear,” Buffy said. “I don’t know you, I’ve never heard of you, and I’ll die before I say anything about you. Again,” she added.

    Nikki searched her eyes, and then nodded. “Right on, sister.” She hugged her. “You know, I never thought I’d ever get to meet another slayer.” She looked into Buffy’s eyes. “There’s something kindred in it. Like... not even family. But like we’re the same.”

    “We are,” Buffy said. “In a way.”

    Nikki smiled. “She alone will have the power. It’s nice not to be alone, even if it’s only for bit. And thank you,” she touched Buffy’s arm and held it seriously, “thank you for telling me about Robin. I owe you.”

    “You’ve already paid off,” Buffy said, gesturing down at her new form. “Now we just get to see how likely any of this is to work.”