Chapter 5: Reunions

"I'm sorry miss, unless you have an appointment, I'm afraid we can't let you in," the annoying young man behind the big desk in the lobby told Buffy.

"Look, if you'll just let me call Angel-" but the receptionist cut her off.

"I'm sorry miss. Mr. Angel is very busy. You can't talk to him without an appointment."

"So how do I make an appointment?" she asked frustrated.

"You'll have to talk to Mr. Angel's assistant."

A tiny bit of the tension left Buffy's body, finally she was getting somewhere. "Okay, so how do I get in touch with his assistant?"

"You'll need an appointment."

At that point any doubts Buffy had had about Wolfram & Hart vanished. Giles was right. The place was absolutely evil. Luckily fighting evil was Buffy's job.

She was just about to launch her assault on the evil smiling receptionist when a familiar voice called her name.

"Ah Buffy. Good to see you."

She turned to see her former Watcher emerge from an elevator. Buffy nearly did a double take. Although both Willow and Faith had mentioned that Wesley was looking really good, and not the clumsy young man she remembered, she wasn't prepared for a Wesley Wyndam-Pryce who was sexy.

"Um, hi. You look . . . great."

Wesley blushed and looked down at his feet. Buffy thought it was kind of cute, and showed some of the old, unsure of himself Wesley she remembered.

"Thank you. You look good as well. Rome has been agreeing with you I take it."

He led her towards the elevator, and Buffy couldn't help but look over her shoulder and smirk at the receptionist who was already busy giving someone else a hard time.

"Your arrival is actually quite fortuitous," Wesley continued.

"Well that's not good." He looked at her puzzled. "I'm guessing I'm not fortuitous because you needed and excuse to have a party. I'm thinking you need a Slayer, and that's generally not of the good."

He chuckled. "Yes, quite right," he agreed. "I'm afraid we do in fact have need of a Slayer. Angel should be back shortly. Having not seen the girl myself it would perhaps be better for him to explain. In the mean time, may I enquire as to what brings you back to L.A.?"

Buffy took a deep breath. She didn't really know how to explain why she was here. She was actually grateful to be able to test out her reasons on Wesley before she saw Angel. Something told her that Angel wasn't going to be too pleased about her reasons for coming.

"It's about what happened in Sunnydale. About that amulet that Angel brought. I need to know more about it."

"I wish there was more we can tell you." The elevator doors opened and they stepped out. "I have it in my office, but I'm not sure what good that will do. I've searched through every text we have, and I assure you our library here is quite extensive. But perhaps if you could be more specific, I could be of more help."

"Well, you see. I'm not entirely sure. I've been having these dreams, Slayer dreams you know?" Wesley nodded. "So anyway-"

"Ah here we are," Wesley interrupted as he opened a door for her.

He led her into a very nice conference room. There were three other people, or rather two people and a demon already there. The demon had green skin, red horns, and the most outrageous purple suit that Buffy had ever seen. The two humans were more normally dressed. The tall black man, who had lawyer written all over him, was very well dressed in an expensive suit. The thin brunette wasn't as officially dressed, but still she didn't look as out of place in an office as the demon did, and not because of his skin or horns.

"This is Buffy, the vampire slayer," Wesley introduced her. "This is Fred, Gunn, and Lorne."

She smiled nervously at the others. She'd been hoping for a chance to talk to Wesley, and although their names sounded vaguely familiar, she really didn't think she wanted to talk in front of them.

"Heard a lot about you. Nice to finally put a face to reputation," Gunn said as he reached forward to shake her hand.

She smiled politely and shook his hand, trying to remember what she may have heard about him.

"Hi," Fred said shyly, moving forward to shake her hand as well. After a momentary pause and a smile, words began to rush out of the other woman's mouth. "Your shorter than I'd thought you'd be, but then maybe that's cause Angel's so tall, so you know, I figured you being his big love and all would be, I don't know, maybe two inches shorter than him? Of course as I understand it, you're Spike's big love too, and he's really not all that tall for a Champion. And usually guys don't like women taller than them, so I should've figure on that. Although Spike's really sweet, and with the dying for you and all, I guess it wouldn't just be some shal-"

"Fred," Wesley politely interrupted her.

"Oops!" Fred said embarrassed. "I was rambling, wasn't I?"

"Um, yeah. That's okay," Buffy told her.

There was something very sweet and endearing about Fred. Also kind of disturbing the way she was talking about Buffy's love life like it was part of the public record, not to mention talking about Spike as if he were still around and she knew him. Which didn't make sense. If Angel had mentioned Spike at all to his friends, and more specifically Buffy and Spike, she couldn't imagine him saying anything about Spike being in love with her. Unhealthy obsession maybe, but not love.

"Um, how do you know about Spike?" Buffy asked.

"Well 'cause he's here of course," Fred answered, before he rambling began again. "I mean not here in this room obviously, 'cause you can't see him. Although a couple of months ago he could have been and you wouldn't have noticed. But that's all fixed now." Seeing the stunned and confused look on Buffy's face Fred asked, "You mean he didn't call you and tell you he was back?"

"Uh, no. How long–"

"Oh, he was re-coporealized about a month ago," Fred broke in. "Of course he'd been a spectral entity of indeterminate nature for a lot longer than that."

"A whatsit?"

"A ghost," Gunn supplied helpfully.

"Well not a ghost–" Fred tried to correct Gunn.

"In layman's terms a ghost," Wesley compromised. "I assumed you knew all this. After all you were asking about the amulet."

"Huh?" was all Buffy could say at this point. She felt like time had sped up for everyone around her, as if the world was moving five times faster than her brain. She was tempted to check for evil lint.

"We're not sure how, but Spike's essence was bound to the amulet," Fred explained. "He really didn't tell you? I mean he was so gung-ho about going to see you when he got his body back. I mean we all knew he didn't leave, but I guess I assumed that was 'cause he called you and you didn't want him to come or something."

"Oh," Buffy said. "So um-"

Before she could complete the non-thought that was forming in her brain, the double doors to conference room sprung open dramatically as two arguing vampires entered the room.

"I would have had her if . . . you'd . . . only . . ." Spike's voice which had started out loud and boisterous, trailed off into nothing as he saw Buffy.

"Buffy, um, hi," Angel said shoving his hands in the pockets of his coat. "I didn't know you were coming to town. What brings you to L.A." He shifted over a little, in front of Spike, almost as if he thought he could hide the other vampire, and pretend like she hadn't seen him.

"Spike?" she asked. Even though the conversation she'd just been having was starting to make sense, now that she'd actually seen Spike, she still felt like she was missing vital information. That one piece that would make her world make sense again.

"Hey," was all he said. Since seeing her he'd been very studiously examining the toe of his left boot.

Buffy was mad, mad that that was all he had to say to her. Mad that no one had told her he was back. She wanted to scream and yell at him. But then he looked up at her with a kicked puppy dog look. Or rather the look of a puppy dog who was so used to being kicked, that as much as it hoped it's master would pet it and say, "Good doggie," it knew the kick was coming.

That was the final piece that made everything make sense, and made Buffy only angrier. All the last year had meant nothing to Spike, and left no impression. She'd cared for him and done the best she knew how to help him, but none of it registered for him. She had learned to accept and welcome the changes in him, but he hadn't noticed the changes in her. He still saw her as the broken Buffy who liked to use him as a punching bag when she wasn't using him for sex. For the first time she understood why his last words to her had been a denial of her feelings towards him.

But Buffy shoved down the anger, forcing it back. If she was mad at him now, he'd just take it as further proof that she hadn't changed. Instead she ran over to him and hugged him tightly telling him, "I missed you."

Cautiously he put his arms around her, and slowly he relaxed into her hug. The comfort of his arms and the familiar feel of his body dissipated some of her anger as did his words when he mumbled, "I missed you too."

Chapter 6: Explanations

"I missed you too," Spike mumbled. It was the easy thing to say, not only was it true, but it was the obvious response. Spike needed obvious because he had no idea what to do now that Buffy knew he was alive.

His body on the other hand knew exactly what to do, and his arms wrapped themselves around her and held her tightly, responding to her hug. He was just glad she pulled away before his body began to respond to her in other ways.

She was overwhelming him. The scent of her shampoo, the sound of heartbeat, the brush of her hair against his hand, and the way she smiled at him, even if her eyes seemed angry, all served to disconnect his brain from coherent thought. She looked good, happy. More tan than she had been in Sunnydale, and she looked comparatively worry free.

So he didn't really notice when the conversation around him picked up again and the others began discussing the crazy slayer. At least until Buffy spoke.

"Are you sure she's a slayer?" she asked.

"Defiantly," Angel told her. "We thought it was possession at first, because she seemed to be speaking in tongues, and was inhumanly strong," Buffy flinched slightly at that, but Angel didn't seem to notice. Which was pretty typical Spike thought. "But there were drawings in her room, all of girls fighting demons. Also there were video tapes the doctor made of her. She was speaking in several different languages, talking about slaying. Not to mention she was comatose until a few months ago."

"The same time as Sunnydale's last apocalypse," Buffy concluded.

"Okay, I'm confused," Gunn broke in. "I thought there was only one Slayer, well, other than Faith. Faith's okay right?"

"Yeah, she's fine," Buffy reassured him. "She's in China. Look, several months ago we were up against the very first evil, the source of all evil, which intended to wipe out the Slayer line forever, and take over the world with an army of ubbervamps."

"There's ubbervamps now?" Gunn asked.

"Not anymore," Spike pipped up. After all seeing as how he was the one who'd vaporized them, he felt he deserved in on the conversation.

"Right," Buffy confirmed. "But before we knew that Spike was going to zap them all into dust with that mystic amulet," she smiled at him, and Spike couldn't help but feel sort of warm and fuzzy that she'd been the one to point out that he'd saved the world. "We thought we were going to have to fight them the old fashioned way. So Willow, you all met Willow right?" They nodded. "Anyway, she cast this spell that turned all the potential slayers in the world into actual slayers."

"An army of slayers," Wesley said, a little awestruck. "Brilliant, although I'd hardly call it old fashioned."

"I meant with the stakes, and the punching, and the kicking," Buffy explained.

Gunn threw a file folder on the table. "Too bad one of these potentials, Dana, isn't all there. Turns out some son-of-a-bitch murdered her parents when she was a kid, then he tortured her for weeks. She escaped somehow, but she's been in a mental institution ever since."

Spike began to reach for the folder. He figured there might be something in there to give him a hint as to where to find her, since after Angel had gotten in his way the scent had most likely gone cold. Suddenly something Angel had said hit him.

"You said she was talking on those video tapes?" Spike asked.

"Yeah, she was talking about killing vampires, almost hysterically. All of the tapes were like that. Why? Isn't that how you figured out she was a slayer."

"No," Spike said without thinking. "She was silent when I fought her. Not a word. A growl or two, but other than that, it was like she was mute, and I threw some pretty good quips at her."

Angel rolled his eyes. "She probably couldn't get a word in with you yapping at her constantly."

Before Spike could get in a retort Fred interrupted them, "So if she wasn't talking, how'd you know she was a slayer?"

"Well. . ." Spike lied. "I know slayers. Lived with a whole pasel of them just before the Hellmouth ate itself up."

They all seemed to more or less buy the white lie, except for Buffy, who looked at him funny. But he wasn't going to tell them about his dreams, at least not until he had a better idea as to what they might mean. Besides Angel would just accuse him of making it up, and Fred, bless her heart, would want to run every test in the lab on him.

"Yeah," Angel said, sarcastically. "You know them so well you decided that fighting her was the smart thing to do."

"I was winning," Spike insisted with frustration. "At least until you and your Hot Wheels got in the way."

"Why do you not get that vampires shouldn't fight vampire slayers?" Angel shook his head. "Look, you're not helping Spike. We'll get a tactical team out there and-"

"Wow, hold on." Buffy broke in. "Why does a law-firm have a tactical team? And isn't that a little over kill?"

She and Angel started arguing about whether or not they should call in tactical. Everyone was wrapped up in the argument and as much as Spike liked watching Buffy take Angel down a peg, he realized this was his best chance to get out of there, back on the streets, find this Dana before she did any more harm, and maybe figure out why he had dreamt about her.