Author’s Note: Thanks again to Kar for the beta job and more good suggestions for making this story stronger. Thank you to my readers and reviewers for your time and your patience. I have not forgotten this story, but writing is catch as catch can until things settle down on the home front. I hope you’ll bear with me, and feedback is, as always, treasured.

Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her. Buffy and Spike have been spending an increasing amount of time together.

In our tenth installment there is a massive vampire attack.

Chapter Ten

Tashi woke with a gasp, sweating and shaking. She hated slayer dreams. Cursing her stupid shaking hands, she scrawled down the notes and tried to hold the memory in her head without actually feeling it. It was so vivid but vague at the same time. Big splashes of blood and a screaming child, Spike roaring at something, and lots of blurry movements she couldn't make out. And then nothing. Darkness and dust and blowing wind.

Downstairs Connie was making coffee and eggs. Tashi dropped the journal on the counter without a word and just nodded at her Watcher. Six month in, she still hadn’t decided what she thought of Connie. They never really talked much, beyond body counts and fighting technique. Tara did all the mystical, crystal-gazing stuff the academy Watchers had done with her in her Potential days. Probably Connie didn’t want to get to close, didn’t want to be one of those Watchers who lost their shit when their slayers died. Tashi had seen that happen twice.

Or maybe she was being too hard on Connie. Maybe Connie was just as shy as she was. Anyway, they shared their breakfast in polite silence, like they did every morning. Then Tashi got dressed, went to school, tried not to make too much of a fool of herself, and went to Tara's store to work out in the basement.

Sometimes she missed her old life so much she could cry.

Not her parents or anything. That was so long ago she could barely remember being a regular kid who lived in a house with parents instead of just seeing them at holidays and phoning once a week. At least when she was training there were other girls like her. She didn't know what to say to people at school, how to make friends with people she'd either have to lie to or involve in the craziness of her life.

She knew she should talk to Buffy about it, but she didn't know how to bring it up. Plus it was weird being around Buffy. Not just because of the dreams, but because she and Spike were so... They were always touching and making sidelong glances and tearing into demons in this freaky, coordinated way like they'd been fighting together for years. Which, she guessed, they had, decades ago, when Buffy had only been dead once.

If she went down, would she rise again?

Tashi walked behind them, listening not to their words but to the tone. They sounded happy. She had never really heard Spike sound happy before Buffy showed up. Buffy's hand brushed his shoulder and their eyes met, and Tashi felt slightly creepy watching them, like this was something private even if they weren't doing anything that interesting. So she kept following them, shyly watching them, until she felt her hackles rising.

"On the right," she whispered harshly.

Things had been far too quiet the last few days. Now she knew why. They had been organizing. There were at least twenty vampires advancing on them from all directions. She glanced back at the older slayer and something in the woman's face made her calm.

"The only rule," Buffy whispered, "is don't die."

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He woke with a start. There were crashing noises and the sweet, sick smell of slayer blood. "Tashi!"

"Oh, thank God, you're awake." He couldn't quite see her, but it was Buffy's voice. If his vision was blurred, he had lost a lot of blood. So he took the cold jar she shoved into his hands and gulped down the contents. "Tashi is okay. She's scratched up pretty bad, but she made it."

"Good girl." It hurt like fuck to talk and the cold blood choked him. The taste was revolting, made even worse by the aroma in the air. Still, he needed it. "Tashi is a good girl."

"Yeah, she is." Her speech was slurred and he could hear her heart going a bit too slow. She settled down on the edge of the bed next to him. "Are you okay?"

"Will be," he assured her. "You? You're bleeding."

He felt her fingertips on his brow ridges and realized he was in game face. "It's nothing." He listened to her move around the apartment, opening the door. Then there was her voice telling Harris they were okay and thanking him for being there and getting Tashi home to Connie. He could smell smoke and a warm human male.

Right, there had been fire. It was coming back to him, someone yelling at him to get down and then the heat and the shrieking as vampires started bursting into flame. Harris's creased face glowing in the orange of the flamethrower. Long ago he'd stopped asking where the boy got such toys. So long ago that Harris had still been a boy.

He felt old suddenly. He'd been around thrice as long as Xander Harris.

Xander's arms caught him as he lurched out of the bedroom. "Whoa, buddy. You need another gallon of blood or so before you try moving around."

Spike grunted and pushed him away, managing to make it to the couch before he did a face plant in front of both of them. He didn't need their coddling, nor did he know why he was being so prickly about it.

"He's always like this when he gets beaten down," Xander was saying softly to the slayer. "Get enough blood in him and he'll be fine."

"You've done this a lot?" Buffy asked.

He watched Harris shrug. "It's been a while, but we worked together for a long time. It's not the first time I've seen him get outnumbered, no. Felt pretty good getting in the fight again, but I'm getting too old for this stuff."

"Giles used to do it."

There was a long pause. "What about you, Buff? Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look so great either."

"I'll be fine," she insisted. "Slayer healing. I'm better already." He heard the microwave buzz and the smell of warming blood made him salivate. "I think I'll stay here and keep an eye on him."

Spike must have drifted for a moment, because when he looked up Xander was gone and Buffy was holding a hot cup of blood. She sat down heavily beside him and sank into the cushions. "I think I could sleep right here," she sighed.

He grunted and emptied the mug. "You really alright, slayer?"

She hummed and closed her eyes. He pushed back her hair. There was a hell of a scratch on the side of her face, but it was already knitting together. He hated how tempting the sight of that wound was. "You did good tonight," she murmured.

He snorted. "Right."

Her eyes opened and she knitted her brows at him. "We're still here. They're not."

Spike sighed and slumped further into the couch. She shifted next to him, getting closer, her hip against his. "Suppose here's not so bad."

Buffy's battered face got all solemn. "Not, it's really not," she agreed. And then she kissed him.


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No promises on when the next update will be, but I've gotten a few paragraphs going on the next chapter. So hopefully not too long.