NOVEMBER 7, 2005

The string of curses issuing from Buffy’s lips, she was sure would make even Spike blush. She should have known better than to get caught in L.A. gridlock. After nine in the morning nothing moved in Los Angeles. “Rush Hour” was anything but. But the Hell that came pouring out from Angel’s mouth held her in its grip.

She hadn’t meant to stay as long as she did, especially after what Angel had revealed about Connor. But, the horror of what he described was irresistible. It drew her in. The look of shame he carried in his eyes took it from the realm of what-if to hard, cold reality.

Angel had a way of doing that. Tender delusions had no place where he was. They could not exist. He obliterated all of them. But then he’d always done that. For as long as she’d known him, Angel had taken her carefully constructed dreams and twisted then into nightmares.

She now understood the fear that had stalked Spike for months. Now she understood his nightmare, because now it was hers too. Even before Angel’s revelation, the dreams often had her waking up in a cold sweat, but until now that’s all she thought they were. Dreams. But they were more than that, she knew now that they were real.

At times she would wake up sobbing, reaching out for him and hoping he was there. The ache was so tangible. Sometimes she would hold him so tight that she’d leave crimson marks on his skin, just to prove to herself that he was real and he hadn’t left her. He never said a word. He just held her and comforted her, as if he understood.

She knew now that he had indeed understood because it was real for him too.

As Buffy sat staring at the taillights of the car in front of her she pounded her fists on the steering wheel again, “Damn, what’s the holdup here?” she gritted her teeth and put her palm down heavily in the center of the big DeSoto’s steering wheel, blaring the horn, “I don’t suppose it would help to tell you guys that I’m trying to avoid an apocalypse, would it?” she shook her head in answer to her own question, “No, of course not! Why should this time be any different than all the others? After all, it’s just my heart we’re talking about here!” she yelled until her throat was raw, “That’s all! Not important, or anything,” the red in front of her wavered as her voice gave out and her head rested against the cool leather of the wheel, “He’s only my…heart.”

She closed her eyes. She knew she was wasting precious time. Time was something she wasn’t sure they had anymore. Angel told her that twenty-five years had passed where he was, while out here, just two days.

Spike left six days ago, if what Angel said was true, seventy-five years have already gone by, with still more flying as she sat in this traffic jam. Would he know her? Could she find him?

Yes. She would find him. That was a promise. No matter how long it took, she would find him. Buffy just hoped that he could hold on until she did.
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Spike moaned as consciousness came back to him. The edges of his sight were still fuzzy and his head still stung like it did after Buffy’d dropped that church organ on him, but he was still in one piece. And the rest of his world was no longer a grey blob. Now maybe he could get a fix on where he was and get out of here.

He groped around him to try and discern where he was. He remembered being on a cold concrete slab, but that was about all he remembered. Now he felt something soft, and reasonably pliant, beneath his fingers. There was something disquieting about this. He was certain he’d been on the floor of a crypt of some kind, and he was fairly sure he didn’t yet have the strength to move. So, how did he end up here, on what felt, to his expert sense of touch, like a bed?

The voice that had been his only comfort provided his answer for him, “That would be because of me.”

Pain and sluggishness swiftly left him as his body went into autonomic response in order to put as much distance as possible between him and the threat. He felt himself scurrying like a spider in the light, mindlessly, to the furthest corner of the bed. His chest ached, as he took in ragged, unneeded breaths in his sudden exertions.

His eyes flew up, instantly sharp and focused, to assess his situation, and the purported threat to his safety.

For an instant, he thought that his instincts had been dulled somewhat, because what faced him now looked nothing like the kind of threat his body and demon were reacting to.

The face that looked back at him was deeply furrowed with age. It was made up of angles that were blunted a bit by the slight pull of small jowls around his cheeks. The man looked to be about sixty. But Spike knew that looks could be deceiving. His hair was thin and grey and he wore wire-rimmed spectacles that stood in front of eyes that would have been a piercing blue had the grey of cataracts not been encroaching upon them.

The man was sitting three feet from him on a straight-backed chair. Spike thought that, if the man stood up, he would be just under six feet tall, discounting the roll of his shoulders due to age. The man’s eye held a dim glint. A glint that, as Spike watched a small smirk form on his face, he found at once comforting and unnerving.

The old man must have noticed the juxtaposition of emotions, because he nodded slightly and almost giggled, “Can I just tell you that, right now, I’d love to be looking through your eyes.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed, “Why is that?”

His head tilted as if he were looking at an old friend, “Vanity, I suppose. I’m old and I’ve forgotten what I look like. It would be nice to know.”

Spike took a slow, scrutinizing inventory of his surroundings. He saw a table, a bookcase with an assortment of classic volumes displayed, an icebox and a small stove with cupboards above it. There was also a bed, and a window for light. Somehow though, the light in this space seemed to be coming from a source other than the window. The amount of light was disproportionate to the size of the opening.

As he took it all in, Spike noticed one glaring omission, “No mirrors,” he said slowly as his eyes drifted back to his companion, “Vampire?”

There was a slight look of shock in the old man’s eyes, “What? No,” he shook his head, “I’m not a vampire,” his chin jutted out slightly, “But I have seen my share of them,” his eyes twinkled again as he leaned forward in his chair, resting his knotted hands on his knees, “I know who you are.”

Spike didn’t know why, but that assertion comforted him, and made him feel less threatened. He relaxed a little, loosening his taught limbs, “That right?”

He nodded.

“Homer?” Spike questioned again.

“Yes.”

Spike averted his eyes in trepidation, “Are you a victim of mine? Is that how you know me? I don’t remember…but then I never did stop to look at the victims. Not until I met…”

“Buffy,” Homer finished.

“Buffy,” Spike whispered. His eyes settled again on the old man, “Well, are you?”

“A victim?” Homer shook his head and tilted it upward in thought, “No. Not of yours. Angelus though…”

“Oh,” Spike nodded, solemnly.

“…By way of Drusilla.”

“We do have something in common, then.”

“More than you know.”

Spike’s heart ached at the mention of her name. Hearing Drusilla’s name spoken again made him remember what he’d given up. It made him remember that Buffy was alone now. She was alone and probably grieving. He remembered that the boy had told him that time flowed differently in other dimensions, “How long have I been here?”

“Well, that really depends on your point of view,” Homer said.
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After four hours in gridlock, Buffy was finally standing again in the old karaoke club. Willow was looking at her anxiously, “I can do it. But honestly Buffy, I wouldn’t know where to start looking. Or even…”

“He’s not dead, Willow,” Buffy said sternly, “You don’t understand. I would know.”

Willow nodded, “Because you love him.”

“Yes, I do. But there’s more to it. And you know that. Ever since Sunnydale.”

“Something to do with what happened with the amulet, you think?”

Buffy’s eyes widened in realization, “I don’t know,” she gasped, “I’ll alert Giles. Stephen Riley is on his way to Rome, and Wolfram and Hart has an office there. It was their property. I’m sure that they wouldn’t let something that valuable, or that deadly, just lay at the bottom of a pile of debris in Los Angeles. They must have gotten it back somehow. If it still exists, maybe there could be tests done on it?”

Willow nodded as she took her friend’s hands and helped her into the sacred circle, “Until then, let’s do what we can here. Try and focus on him, and Joni. Then I can maybe pinpoint where they are, and try to pull them back.”

“Okay,” Buffy sighed as she closed her eyes.
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Spike’s eyes went to the window. He could hear the wind howling outside, “The weather changes quickly here, does it?”

Homer carefully got up from his chair and went to the window, “It sometimes does that.”

From his place on the bed, Spike squinted out the window, “Is that…snow? Now I’ve seen everything,” he shook his head in disbelief, “Snow in Hell.”

“She likes snow,” Homer said, “and this isn’t Hell. I told Angelus that too,” he sighed, “Apparently, he didn’t believe me because that’s where he told Buffy you were.”

“Angelus told her…that’s where she thinks I am?” Spike was off of the bed and pacing before he knew he was doing it, “ And if I’m not in Hell, then where am I? Who’s in charge here? You said that, ‘she likes snow.’ Who is she?”

Homer looked strangely happy watching the vampire pace, as if he were expecting this from him, “Okay, in order of importance, she is Joni. And no, this isn’t Hell. Joni would never put her ‘Daddy’ there. Not if she wanted to be with him,” Homer’s eyes fell to the floor, “Jonina is an innocent. She doesn’t belong in Hell, ever,” Spike stopped his pacing and Homer raised his eyes to meet his, “Somewhere inside of you, you know that. She’s going to need you to take care of her now,” old eyes appraised Spike, “You’re well enough now. I’ve told you what you need to know. The key is in the vampire genome. You’re the only one here now. You have to protect her. Nurse her. Until she can fly on her own, and take care of her Mum,” Homer looked toward the door, “She’s out there. And she’s waiting for her Daddy,” Homer smiled and nodded slightly, “That’s you,” Homer walked slowly to the middle of the cabin, “As for me, I’m going home, to my Elisabeth,” he winked at Spike, “Take care of her. I know you will. Teach her to fly, and she’ll take care of you. Love her and Buffy will find you, and bring you home. Remember that.”

Spike looked at the old man taken aback by what he was saying, “You’re leaving? Joni’s out there, in that storm, and you’re leaving!”

“Jonina isn’t far. She wouldn’t leave her Daddy alone. You’ll find her. And, yes I am leaving. This isn’t my place now. It’s yours,” Homer looked down absently at the silver on his finger and slipped it off, holding it toward Spike, “Oh, and before I go, this belongs to you now, too.”

Their fingers met and Spike held the metal in his hand, “Remember what I told you. Always remember Buffy. She’ll bring you both home.”

With that, the old man who called himself Homer disappeared.

Spike took a look at the ring in his hand and recognized the faded inscription, “W.E. are one,” it read. Before he was able to process that shock, he heard a tiny mewling from the threshold outside the cabin. Spike sprang to the door and opened it. He looked down, and to his astonishment, he saw a small Moses basket with a baby inside it.

He gasped and knelt down. The baby was snuggly wrapped in tiny blankets and wriggled a bit, annoyed at the tiny snowflakes that hit the baby’s cheeks and eyelashes. Spike quickly brought the basket inside, away from the elements. That was when he noticed the small purple stain on the child’s cheek. It was shaped like a bird.

“Oh my God,” Spike gasped, “Joni. My God. It’s you!” he swooped her up, and cradled her in his arms, “Don’t you worry. Daddy’s got you now,” he murmured in her ear, “Daddy’s got you. And I won’t let anything hurt you. I promise.”
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