Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 1 - HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

((Jim Steinman wrote it, I think, even though the site where I found the lyrics says it's Bonnie Tyler) - Bonnie Tyler




Chapter 1.08
Saturday, May 25th, 2002


"Angel?" Fred looked expectantly at the vampire.

"That's fine," Angel bluffed, not wanting to admit that he had been too distracted by his efforts to keep track of how often he had heard Buffy reach orgasm to pay proper attention to Fred and Wesley's plan for that night. His recollection of being with Buffy was that her pleasure had been indicated by quiet sighs and breathless gasps. Her unrestrained cries that seemed, to his vampire hearing, to be impossible to ignore, even from the reception area three floors below, had him wondering if Spike was somehow fulfilling her more deeply than he had been able to achieve. Certainly, according to his count, even in the past hour, he seemed to be doing it more often.

"Which? Fred's original plan or Spike's suggestion?" Wes asked. "Both have their merits."

"Huh?"

Fred sighed and began to explain all over again.

---

"Are you calm enough to tell me what's really wrong, yet? I know you don't get that worked up over material stuff and it's not your normal sort of mad..." Buffy tried to keep her knees from shaking as the vampire carefully sponged her body with soothing strokes, beneath the water's spray.

Spike stopped what he was doing and took a step backward, but not before Buffy could briefly pick up on his feelings. "I wanted to hit her, Buffy. I wanted it so bad and I knew with the orbs if I did, all it would take was just one punch. So easy."

Buffy wouldn't let him shy away from her, though. She took his hands in hers and wrapped them around her waist, stepping in toward him and sliding her arms around him until she could hook her fingertips over his shoulders. "You didn't, Spike. You don't have to worry. You were strong enough not to do it this time. You will be strong enough if it happens again. I believe in you, Will."

"I wasn't afraid I would do it, love. Well, I was... but not right now. I was afraid you would kick me out for even thinking about it, and I think you would be right if you did."

"Spike, do you really think that I haven't thought about hitting her? I even wanted to hit her today. I love her - I do - but it doesn't mean that she can't be brat enough to try my patience."

"Yeah, but you have a soul to help you resist the impulse. I don't."

"Yes, and you still did it. Now, are you going to tell me why you were so angry?"

Spike shook his head and for a second she thought he was going to refuse, but he was just clearing his thoughts, while he worked out what to say. "It's like she took away my memories. I didn't buy that tape. I made it. Granted, I don't get to many record fairs what with the whole sunlight issue, but I haven't come across any other bootlegs of that particular gig. S'far as I can tell it was a one-off. For twenty odd years that tape has been around an' somehow it never stretched or got chewed up or had beer spilled on it or anythin'.

It managed to make it all over the bloody world. That tape isn't just a collection of songs. It's hundreds of nights on the road, memories of places and times that Niblet couldn't even imagine and a good chunk of them she wasn't even born for. The good times... It's like where you would put on 'Walkin' on Sunshine', I'd listen to the Ramones. An'... well... Don't take this the wrong way, an' don't think that was why I was listening to it, but it's like... It's like there was a little bit of Dru there an' she destroyed it. She's just a bit more dead, a bit further away, less real and I'm not ready for that, at least not yet. It seems like we haven't had five minutes to stop and think since before she died. We've just lurched from crisis to crisis..."

"And you've never had a chance to grieve properly or to even think through what happened and then Dawn pulls her little stunt."

Spike didn't say anything. He didn't need to. With their arms around each other and his forehead resting against her hair she could sense the pain that had fuelled his anger.

"It won't fix things, I know, but it's not that she doesn't respect you. If she had even considered that your feelings might be hurt, I know she wouldn't have done it, but she's was just being your average self-absorbed fifteen-year-old kid. She just heard something on the radio and wanted to tape it before it was too late and she just grabbed the first tape she found. She probably thought you would have the same thing on vinyl or CD and you could make another copy."

"Hardly ties in with what she said."

"Spike, she doesn't get it, and unless you want to share all this with her, she won't get it. She knows that she was in the wrong, but she thinks you're making something out of nothing, so instead of saying sorry she has her own little hissy fit, but it's just those teenage hormones talking. The other week, when she was off school, she was listening to some punk compilation that Brandon had taped for her, so I would take the stuff she said with a pinch of salt."

"The kid's into punk?"

"Well, more Green Day and Offspring than the Sex Pistols, but..."

"Well, I guess he's got a few good points."

"And so do you... along with some great ones." Buffy tilted her head back slightly and drew the vampire's lower lip into her mouth in a teasing kiss before she became serious once more.

"Look, if you want to stick with what you said about not buying her a dress and her not having dinner with us tonight as punishment, I'll go along with that, but you need to talk to each other before this gets too... weird. I can have a word with her first, if you want, maybe try to calm her down a little so that the pair of you don't just start another fight."

"Maybe." Spike tightened his hold on the tiny woman in his arms and lowered his head to lick away the water that ran down the side of her neck.

Buffy's entire body began to tremble but she pushed him gently away before he could switch sides and get to the spot where the hot water mingled with her blood, the legacy of their renewed bond, consummated once more at the height of their first frantic coupling. "Later, baby... We've only just got everything cleaned up from before and I think we've kept everyone waiting for long enough. We've got a robbery to plan, Wes is going to need time to work on those pictogram thingies and I need a new dress... if dinner tonight is still on."

"Dinner tonight has got to still be on. It's our cover story if anyone starts asking questions about why we're all here."

"Well, isn't that going to make it kinda inconvenient if Dawn doesn't come?"

Spike frowned. "Okay. She wins for now, but there has to be some sort of consequences... unless you want her turning out like Red."

Buffy tried to console the vampire. "We'll nail her windows shut and make her stay in her room with no air-conditioning until she writes a ten thousand word essay on why she shouldn't touch other people's stuff."

"Yeah, like you'd want to read a diatribe about evil sisters and cruel step brothers who imprison poor Cinderella types and how they should be reported to the social services."

Buffy untangled one arm from their embrace in order to stroke the planes of his face. "Okay, point taken but we'll work it out."

Spike sighed. "Come on, love, your fingers are gettin' wrinkly. I'll go see what the watcher can come up with on our drawings. You see what you can do with Bitty... unless you need some help with other things." He quirked his eyebrow and his mouth formed a wicked one-sided grin.

Buffy gave him a playful push. "Shoo! I've been using tampons for long enough now that I think I can manage to put one in on my own... preferably in private... and much as you might like to convince me that your tongue is a viable substitute, you don't need any more slayer blood in your system. Go put some clothes on."

The vampire gave a mock pout. "Give me a chance later and I might get you to change your mind on that one."

"And maybe, later , you will."

"As you wish, sweet thing." Spike brushed fleeting kisses against her lips, nose and forehead. "I guess I better go see if I can help plan a robbery."

"You do that and I'll join you as soon as I talk to Dawn... 'cause the sooner that's sorted out the sooner I can hit Rodeo."

---

"What have I missed?" Spike rejoined the group who pored over the plans. Angel, Lorne, Connor, Wes and Fred were there, along with Rogue who couldn't seem to understand that the fashion conscious Pylean did not want either canine hairs over his clothes or drool on his lap. Gunn was still conspicuous by his absence.

Spike rolled his eyes as the dog came bounding over to him, planting her front paws on his chest and panting in his face, as if he had been gone a month rather than just over an hour. "Huh, think you can come back to me after you've been makin' eyes at the big green guy, you great hussy?" he asked as he scratched the dog behind the ears.

"It's beginning to look like a plan. We think we've got our way in, we can deal with the security cameras. We probably need to practice getting through the lasers a couple of times, especially carrying the thing, and Fred is going to sort out the tools we need and talk us through how to cut the alarm when we take it off its pressure pad."

"That's great, Ang. Just one more little problem."

"Which is?"

Spike picked up the auction brochure and pointed at the picture of the axis resting on a pedestal which was draped in a brocade cloth. "The fact that when you lift the thing all these nice little Egyptian-style piccies that you can't see because of the cloth there are going to turn that whole vault into a fireball, which might be just a touch inconvenient."

"And you know this how?" Angel asked.

"Call it Buffy's feminine intuition."

"Another shared vision?" Wes asked.

"Gettin' to be quite the norm." Spike handed Wes a piece of paper. "That sort of describes what they seemed to look like and it's in the order that they started glowing which was sort of top to bottom and right to left. If you can find something with examples of the symbols I might be able to tell you whether they're right or not, but gramps is the artist in the family."

Wes shook his head. "It seems to be some form of hieroglyphics, but they aren't Egyptian, or any of the variants of which I'm aware. Given our time frame, I think perhaps I should get some help."

---

Wes called Spike and Buffy over to look at the screen of Cordelia's computer. "Is that what you saw?"

"Close enough to put it down to differences in handwriting, except the jewel thingy was a horseshoe," Spike answered.

"That's it, Bee. Now, how do we diffuse it?"

"You don't. If a Derelian mage lays down that sort of hex, it stays there until he either dies or removes it himself."

"But there has to be a way to break it."

"Sure, you can set it off. Anyone within anything from twenty feet to a couple of miles radius, depending how powerful your spell caster is, will end up in the hell of everlasting flames, but after it goes off, then, someone else could theoretically take your axis-thingy, if they were outside the original blast. Or you take the easy option..."

---

"So, how formal is this restaurant?" Buffy quizzed Lorne for details before she and Dawn took Fred along for their shopping trip.

"Just pick something you'd want to be wearing if you got invited to The Oscars. That'll cover it."

"And Spike?"

"Honey bun, with those cheekbones and that tuchas the maitre d' would let him in wearing sack cloth and ashes, though a good suit is more the norm."

"I'm guessing that means Connor is going to need some new clothes, as well?" Fred asked.

"I would say so, pumpkin." He gave a frown. "Gunn and Angel might get away with the suits they had for the ballet, I suppose."

"And Wes didn't know about the meal, so he won't have brought anything," Dawn reminded her sister.

"Spike?" Buffy called across the foyer. "Leave Rogue with Angel. You, Wes and Connor are coming with us."

Wes looked askance at the vampire. "What does she mean we're coming with her?"

"My guess? Denim doesn't feature as part of the dress code for the restaurant this evening."

"And you're going to wear a suit?"

Spike shrugged. "If it makes her happy." He gave a salacious smile, making it obvious that he expected to be more than amply rewarded for his efforts. "I'm sure as hell not goin' to get in an argument about it while her ex is hangin' around. An' besides, I clean up better than the old man does anyway." Spike held the door open for Buffy and the others to go through, Fred taking Connor by the arm to forestall any arguments.

"I am not old." Angel called after them, but they had already gone. "Well, not that old. The Master ? He was old... And what do you mean you look better? It takes height to carry off a good suit... And all that shouting before... just because he bit her. I could have made her scream like that if I'd claimed her. That's all it was."

---

"Will you get over it already?" Cordy asked. "Who cares what age you are so long as you look hot? ...which, newsflash, you do, despite the 'I have no mirror' hair. Forget about the sartorial elegance, and the fact that your ex is getting it from someone else... and by the way that little fixation is so unattractive... and go find those aerosols and ropes and stuff instead of trying to convince the dog that you're not pathetic. Then, maybe... eventually... you'll get around to remembering me... You know? The one you're supposed to be in love with now. As if all the Buffy crap wasn't bad enough when I was dating Xander Harris."