CHAPTER FOUR
 
“This may be a case of the Council actually being of use. They don’t need to know exactly how we know what’s going on in those labs. Simply saying that Spike had first-hand experience and that you have become… friendly… with one of their employees may be enough to—”
 
“Their boss lady is also my Psychology professor. She’s the one who created Adam. Riley and his men didn’t know about what was going on in that room.”
 
“When does all this occur?”
 
“Hmmm Not for a little while. Whenever Olivia gets here, that’s when the Gentlemen come to town and Riley finds out what I am. Then he takes me to meet Professor Walsh as the Slayer – she’s really condescending about it too…. I should have kicked her butt then….” Buffy glared around as if Giles and Spike were somehow responsible for the lack of respect.  Finding nothing but supportive frowns on their faces, she continued. “I dunno. It’s at least a couple of weeks from now before I was able to get into the labs, maybe more. I think Willow’s probably a bigger problem right now. And the Gentlemen, I guess, but I know where they put their box of hearts, and what they and their weirdo minions look like, so Spike and I can probably take care of them as soon as they get here.”
 
“The Gentlemen?”
 
“Yeah. They’re in your books. Look ‘em up and see if you have any better ideas than just smashing the box as soon as we know they’re here.”
 
“Meanwhile, the witch. Are we just going to let her stew herself into a real tantrum?” Spike brought them back to the current problem.
 
Giles sighed. “I understand that Willow’s reach sometimes exceeds her grasp of the nuances of spell-casting, but I have a hard time believing she would do anything to hurt anyone.”
 
Spike and Buffy exchanged another one of their looks that made Giles rub his forehead.  While they did silent communication with their eyes, he groaned and said, “You’re wearing your we-know-something-you-don’t expressions again. Shall we just agree that whatever changes my knowing who you are may have caused, they cannot be any worse than the mistakes I might make by not knowing what you know?”
 
“It’s just hard to know what to tell you, Giles. I don’t want you to blame anybody in this timeline for something I tell you happened in a future that we hope isn’t going to exist anymore. It would be like me driving to LA and punching Angel out for not telling me that Spike was alive or a ghost or whatever, when that hasn’t happened until three or four years from now… and probably won’t if we can keep me from coming back from the dead.  It’s all connected, but it all might not happen if we can fix it.”
 
“Never the less, if Willow is as easily seduced by power as Spike has implied, it is important that I find a way to get training for her.  Perhaps I will have to bring in someone from the coven in England rather than try to do it myself if she continues to be angry at me.”
 
“Well, she should be meeting Tara pretty soon. That helps for the rest of this year.”
 
“Tara?”
 
“Tara is Willow’s… girlfriend. In the girlfriend sense of the word, not just a friend who’s a girl.  She’s a witch too. Not as powerful as Willow, but much more with the good magic. Earth magic. She’s a good influence on Willow. And if I don’t die, Willow—oops—”
 
“So it was Willow who resurrected you. I was beginning to suspect so, but that requires so much power, and a great deal of very dark magic—”
 
“Another really good reason not to let it happen,” Spike growled. “The First Evil wasn’t the only thing that resurrection spell brought out. Willow tried to end the world well before the First raised his ugly head.”
 
“Dear Lord…”
 
Buffy looked at Giles’s face, glared at Spike, and back to Giles.
 
“Now see? That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. This Willow hasn’t done any of those things. She hasn’t hurt anybody yet. And she won’t, because we know what to do about the nerd trio.  But if you’re going to start treating her like she’s some… some….”
 
“Some out of control witch on a power trip?” Spike contributed, exchanging a look with Giles.
 
“Not helping, Spike,” Buffy growled.
 
“You can get brassed off at me if you want to, love, but your little friend… and mine too after all these years… liked the taste of power when she got it and was way too cocky about how much she has to listen to anyone’s advice. Rupert needs to know that the potential is there so he can try to steer her in another direction. She’ll be just as powerful when you need her to be without dipping into the dark magic, and a lot safer to be around.”
 
“I hate it when you make sense,” Buffy grumbled, but she didn’t try to contradict him.  “So, what are we going to do? We won’t know if the spell is in effect until we see it.”
 
“As much as I hate to say it, and as nervous as it makes me, I’m afraid the only safe way to deal with it is to tell Willow about you and Spike. Once she understands that you’ve come from our future and have seen the consequences, she may be amenable to being more careful.”
 
“And she might be willing to break the spell before she wishes anything bad on anybody….”
 
“Exactly.”
 
“I guess I should go back to the dorm and talk to her. If nothing else, being around when she needs me should help her feel better.”
 
 
XXXXXX
 
 
“Hey,” Buffy said as she entered the room. Once again, Willow was lying on her bed and staring at nothing.
 
“Oh, hi. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be pumping Spike for information or something?”
 
Buffy choked for a second at the thought of pumping Spike, then smiled as she realized it was the perfect segue.
 
“Spike can wait for his pumping,” she said with a grin that grew as Willow sat up, her eyes wide.
 
“I know you didn’t just make a joke about…. with Spike….”
 
“Well, actually, I kinda did.  If you’ve got some time, I have a really interesting story to tell you….”
 
“I’ve got nothing but time,” Willow said as she flopped back on the bed. “Whoa! What happened?”  She stared around as all her possessions, including the bedspread upon which she was lying, disappeared. Her entire side of the room was barren. “Where’s my stuff?”
 
“Quick! Say my stuff is all right here again!”
 
“What?”
 
“Just do it. I’ll explain after.”
 
“My stuff is all right here again,” Willow intoned slowly, putting her hand over her mouth when everything reappeared.  “Oh Goddess…” She whirled to look at Buffy. “What happened?”
 
“Okay, here’s the thing – you know that spell you did last night? The ‘My Will Be Done’ one? Well, it worked. So you need to be really careful what you say until you break the spell, cause everything you say will come true.”
 
Willow stared at her, curiosity at war with her excitement at finding out her spell worked. 
 
“Then why isn’t Oz here? And how do you know about the spell?”
 
“Okay now we get to the really interesting story… Do you want to break the spell before you hear it?”
 
“Why would I want to break the spell?” Willow’s genuine shock at that suggestion didn’t bode well for Buffy’s plan.
 
“Okay. Story first then. Just be careful what you say about anybody, ‘k?”
 
“Like what?”
 
“Oh, like Giles can’t see anything, or like Xander’s a demon magnet…. or like if I’m so worried about what Spike is doing, I should just marry him.  Stuff like that.”
 
Willow’s eyes narrowed. “Those are pretty specific don’ts…”
 
Buffy sighed. “Yes. They are specific. And there’s a reason for it. Can I tell you about it?”
 
Willow nodded and mimed zipping her mouth shut. She settled into a comfortable position as Buffy began….
 
 
XXXXXX
 
“So. That’s the sitch. I’m still me, but I’m me from the future. And so is Spike. We were both sent back — separately, from different places — to keep something really bad from happening next year… or something even worse a few months later if we can’t stop it. But somehow we both ended up here – in this time. We’re assuming accident, but who knows?”
 
“So when you gave me all those examples of things I didn’t say… in your time, I said them and they happened?”
 
“Yep. Giles went blind, Xander had demons chasing him all night, and Spike asked be to marry him and we were engaged for most of the night.”
 
“And then I broke my spell, and everybody was all right again?”
 
Buffy nodded. “You were really upset when D’Hoffren showed you what was happening to us, and you turned down his offer to become a vengeance demon and you wished the spell away.”
 
Buffy waited, then when Willow didn’t speak, she said, “There’s more stuff of course. We’re trying not to change things too much, but I really want to head off this year’s apocalypse if we can. And that’s going to be trickier because I probably won’t have the way in I had last time.”
 
Willow looked thoughtful. “Tell me again the part about this “Adam” guy, and Riley’s boss… he works for Professor Walsh? In a non-TA kind of way?”
 
“Yes. He’s one of those ninja guys I’ve seen around at night. And she’s building this Frankenstein monster in the labs under Lowell House, and we have to join together in a spell so that I can beat him and pull out his power pack before he takes over Sunnydale with his army of demons and cyborgs.”
 
“There’s a spell? Do I do it?”  Willow didn’t try to hide her eagerness.
 
“You and Giles do it. You, Giles, Xander and me – we join our essences somehow and I get wisdom, strength, heart and other stuff.”
 
“So, if we could do all that to get rid of this thing, what if, right now while I’m still all spelly, I just say something like he doesn’t exist? Or that he’ll never work. Or something like that?”
 
Buffy gawked at her.  “Oh my God, Willow. You are a genius! I wonder if that would work?  Why wouldn’t it? Of course it would work! You can just shut the whole thing down!  I love you!”  Buffy dove across the space between them and hugged Willow who gasped and said, “You’re very strong, Buffy.”
 
“Oh. Yes. Yes I am. Sorry. But that idea is brilliant! Let’s go talk to Giles. He can help us decide exactly what you should say.”
 
“Why do I need him? I can figure out what to say all by myself!” Willow looked offended and Buffy reminded herself that the spell was still in place and she needed to be careful.
 
“Well, um, because he… he thinks of things we don’t sometimes, and we don’t want to take a chance on messing up or making it worse somehow…. and I don’t mean that you’d mess it up, just that—”
 
To Buffy’s relief, after a moment of obvious anger, Willow sighed. “It’s okay, Buffy. I understand that you’ve seen me mess up some spells in your future and you’re afraid of what I’ll do. I get it. I don’t think I would ever do anything to hurt anybody but—”
 
Willow caught the look on Buffy’s face before she could hide it, and she went pale. “Oh my God. I did, didn’t I?”
 
“Don’t worry! It’s not going to happen this time! I promise you. Spike and I are going to change things so other… things… don’t happen.”
 
“What did… do… will… I do?”
 
“I’ll tell you about it next year if it looks like there’s any chance things might go wrong. OK? If we can get through this year without messing up too much, we’ll be able to fix next year… Probably.”
 
“Probably?”
 
“Well, there’s one time travel theory that says you can change little events – like Giles knew not to make you mad at him, so he’s not blind – but that the really big events are going to happen anyway. So you did the spell. If that’s true, the best we can hope for is to change things as much as possible and hope they don’t go as wrong as they did in our time.”
 
“So this Adam thing might come to life anyway?”
 
“If he’s important for some reason… I don’t know why he would be, though. There’s got to be another way to shut the Initiative down without letting him wake up and start turning everybody into cyborgs.”
 
“All right. Let’s go talk to Giles. If he thinks it will work, I’ll just try to will Adam out of existence or something.”
 
Buffy smiled and walked to the door.
 
“Did I really make you get engaged to Spike?  Should I apologize about that?” Willow asked as she followed Buffy out.
 
“Well… nah. As the spells went, that one didn’t really hurt anybody and Spike and I were pretty happy while we were engaged. I guess it rattled Riley’s cage a little bit when he saw me looking at wedding dresses, but I finessed that the next day—“ She glanced at Willow. “And it won’t matter this time around, because I’m probably not going to be dating him…”
 
“You’re not? Didn’t it end well?”
 
“You might say that,” Buffy said with a grimace. “But that’s not the only reason.”
 
“Are you going to tell me the other reason?”
 
“You’ll figure it out pretty soon. I promise.”
 
 
XXXXXX
 
 
They entered the apartment to find Giles and Spike sitting on either side of his desk. Giles had a book in front of him and Spike was laughing heartily. 
 
“Seriously, Watcher? Where do these stories come from?”
 
“From people who probably gave their lives to record them,” Giles said through tightly clenched teeth. “Possibly to you.”
 
“Point taken,” Spike said, sobering immediately. He glanced up as Willow and Buffy came in. “We can talk about them later and I’ll give you the real stories.”
 
He rose to his feet and approached the two girls. “Are we all free to brass off Red now? Did she break the spell?”
 
“No, I didn’t break the spell yet, Spike, so if I were you, I’d be pretty nice to me.” Willow fixed him with a serious glare, causing him to back up.
 
“Whoa!”  He looked to Buffy. “Couldn’t talk her out of it, huh?”
 
Buffy sighed. “Just be quiet for a minute, Spike. Willow had a really good idea and we want to talk to Giles about it.”
 
“All right, pet. Quiet it is.”  As Willow stared at him in astonishment, he walked to the easy chair and sat down.
 
“Why isn’t he tied up anymore?”
 
“Remember what I told you, Willow? This Spike is from the same future I am. We don’t have to tie him up because he isn’t going to hurt anybody.”
 
“Jury’s still out on Harris,” Spike muttered, earning another glare from Willow. “I’d almost forgotten what a git he was.”
 
Buffy sighed and punched him on the arm. “Could you try to behave?”
 
“But being bad is so much more fun, love,” he said, grinning at her and pulling her down on his lap. As Willow sputtered and gasped, Buffy shook her head and laughed with him.
 
“Buffy…? I didn’t say you should marry him. What’s going on?”
 
Buffy sighed and got to her feet, giving Spike’s face a gentle caress as she did.
 
“You don’t need to say it, Willow. Spike and I have been… friends… and more than friends…  for the past three years. In our timeline. By this time next year, he’s helping me with… with what we came here to fix. And we… we’re together now.  Or we will be, as soon as we can get some time to talk and catch up without having to worry about putting out fires.”
 
She held up her hand with the clunky ring on it. “Not quite the same ring he gave me when you spelled us into being engaged, but it works.”
 
“And I’ll replace it as soon as I have a chance,” Spike said, resting his hands on her shoulders.
 
Willow shook her head. “Xander’s head is—”
 
“No!”
 
“Bloody hell!”
 
Both Spike and Buffy moved faster than humanly possible to stop Willow before she could finish that sentence.  With wide, terrified eyes, she nodded to them that she understood not to finish her comment. They slowly moved their hands from her mouth and stepped away.
 
“Oh Goddess,” she moaned. “I see why you want me to break the spell…. I almost…. Oh Goddess….”
 
“It’s okay. You didn’t do it. Let’s tell Giles your idea and see if he thinks it will work. Then you can do it and relax. And break the spell…”
 
Giles frowned as he approached them. “Shall I assume that Willow’s idea has something to do with defeating Adam?”
 
“Not just defeating him. She can say he never wakes up, or doesn’t work if he does, or explodes or something. Something that means he can’t start killing people and turning them into his own version of Mini Me.”
 
Giles looked at Willow with renewed respect. “That is an excellent idea, Willow.”
 
“So, let’s figure out exactly what she should say and do it.”
 
“Quite. However, we need to examine all the possible or likely consequences of it so as to word her wish in such a way that we don’t create new or different problems.” He smiled at Willow, obviously hoping to reassure her that he wasn’t trying to step on her toes. “Now what do we know about this creature and the woman who is creating him?”
 
“He’s made up of parts from demons, robots, and … OMG… people! She’s cutting up people! How did I miss that?” She turned to stare at Spike who was looking back at her like she had two heads.
 
“Where the bloody hell do you think all those other half-human, half-machine creatures came from? And what do you call what she did to me? That wasn’t cutting up people?”
 
Buffy flushed and covered her embarrassment by snapping back, “She was only cutting up demons and vampires, Adam was the one that started making the others…. I think….” Her voice trailed off as Spike’s snarl got louder.
 
“Oh right. It was only demons and vamps she practiced her creative carving on. Nobody important!”
 
He was at the door and out before anyone else had moved. It vibrated in place from his violent slam as he left.