“How much longer, Will?”

“About an hour, probably,” Willow replied to the Slayer’s mildly impatient question, from where she sat at the kitchen counter beside Miss Calendar. “We’re still working on this translation; as soon as we get it figured out, then we should be able to soul ‘em up!”

Spike barely managed to suppress a shudder, and found his eyes drifting longingly toward the door, which was currently blocked by the dark-haired young man, leaning against it and glaring at him suspiciously -- clearly not very happy about something, probably his free and unfettered state.

Or perhaps the fact that the Slayer was being a bit more friendly with Spike than he liked.

“Hey.”

Spike jumped involuntarily, turning sharply to face Buffy, who had just sat down beside him, and was looking at him with a sort of grudging curiosity, perhaps a bit of confusion -- but no malice or threat in her eyes.

“Hello there,” he replied, mostly because he had to say something, returning her look dubiously with a single raised brow.

Buffy took in his tense stance, his darting glances toward the door, and her next words told Spike that she had not missed his flinch at her approach. “A bit jumpy?” she asked mildly.

“A bit,” he acknowledged, aware that denying it would only further arouse her suspicions.

“You shouldn’t be,” she told him simply, leaning back against the couch with her arms crossed over her chest. “We told you -- and we meant it -- we’re not gonna do anything to hurt you, Spike. You have a soul.”

Spike did his best not to roll his eyes at those words -- false, though she did not know it, and so much more meaningless than she realized. She had clearly accepted the Council’s line of propaganda when it came to vampires and souls and such -- but he had no intentions of enlightening her now, not after he was already so deeply entrenched in this monumental lie that was centered on that very propaganda.

“Yeah,” he replied to her words distractedly, glancing again toward the door, “who says it’s you lot I’m worried about?”

Buffy frowned slightly, before understanding smoothed her brow. “Angelus,” she concluded.

Spike’s silence was noncommittal, but she took it as assent.

“Well,” she reminded him quietly, “in less than an hour he won’t be a problem anymore, so…”

“Look, you might wanna tell your mate over there not to stand so close to the bloody door, yeah?” Spike interrupted her, aware that his voice sounded a bit nervous and shaky, and only hoping that she was misinterpret the reasons for that. “I mean -- if Angelus were to show up -- and he’s bloody likely to…”

“We’ve revoked his invitation,” Buffy reassured him with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He can’t come in here anymore.”

“He can’t?” Spike frowned at her, surprised. “You can do that?”

“Mm-hmm,” Buffy nodded. “So he’s a non-issue at the moment.”

Her mood seemed incredibly lighter now that the solution to her boyfriend’s little turning-evil problem seemed to have been found -- and why shouldn’t it be? Spike wondered bitterly. After all, *her* problems would soon be over, once the gypsy and the little witch managed to restore Angel’s soul.

But before that, *his* problems would be over as well, in a really bad way; because the moment they discovered that Angel’s soul was not where he had told them it was -- in him -- Buffy would surely take a time out long enough to dust him, probably painfully, before completing Angel’s restoration.

“Well,” he continued in response to the Slayer’s blithe reassurances, desperately racking his mind for some reason to get the little wanker a bit further from the front door, “doesn’t stop him from kicking the door in. And the way your boy over there’s leanin’ on it, he’d fall right out onto the porch and get his bloody throat ripped out!”

Spike had deliberately spoken loudly enough for the boy to hear his words, and Xander’s eyes widened in alarm as he quickly moved his back away from the door, turning toward it with an almost suspicious look.

It was all Spike could do not to laugh out loud, and betray his soullessness to the Slayer -- because surely she would not believe that a “souled” creature could take such pleasure in another person’s…

The soft, suppressed giggle he heard beside him drew Spike out of his thoughts with surprise, as he turned to give the clearly amused Slayer a curious look at her reaction.

“Oh, come on, it was funny!” she whispered with a little smirk, glancing around to be sure the others had not noticed her reaction. Fortunately, they all seemed fairly distracted with what they were doing. “He’s had that coming, he’s been getting on my last nerve all afternoon,” she finished in a whisper, rolling her eyes.

As Spike recovered from his initial shock at the Slayer’s slightly wicked sense of humor, he smiled back at her, glancing toward Xander, who was now standing on his toes, peering out the tiny diamond shaped windows in the door, searching the darkness outside for any sign of danger.

“Yeah,” Spike muttered. “Mine too.”

Buffy was quiet for a moment, contemplating the blond vampire’s anxious expression, and coming to her own conclusions as to the reason for it. As she took in his wide eyes, uncertain and a bit vulnerable in that moment, she realized for the first time how very blue they were, and how thick and dark were his lashes over them.

*And that is *so* unfair!* she thought with mild resentment. *Boys like him get the pretty lashes naturally that we girls have to work so hard for.*

He was completely unaware of her quiet assessment of him, still looking toward the door, his lips slightly parted in an expression of worry and concern that made him look incredibly -- well -- adorable.

*Okay, Buffy,* she rolled her eyes at her own runaway line of thinking, *you’re about to have your own souled vampire back, so quit mooning over this one…this is *Spike* you’re thinking about here, get a grip!*

Shaking herself out of her musings, she tried to remember what they had been talking about, and somehow formulate a response.

“Don’t worry about Xander,” she said softly, when she succeeded. “He’s -- kind of got a thing about vampires -- like -- a thing where he hates them. Soul or no soul, doesn’t matter to him.”

“Bloody bigot,” Spike muttered under his breath, and was rewarded with another muffled laugh from the Slayer.

“Well,” she finally amended with a sort of softening of her tone, “he has his reasons. But -- but he’s not going to try anything, not as long as he knows I don’t want him to. And in just a little while, it won’t matter anymore.”

Those words were anything but reassuring to Spike, who drew in a deep, shaky breath, and let it out as he rested his head in his hands. It was all just so bloody overwhelming. The boy was still standing too close to the door for his own comfort; there was no way that he could get past him before he could block the exit -- if the Slayer beside him even allowed him to get that far at all.

He realized too late that he had allowed his true feelings to show, when he felt a firm, warm hand on his shoulder, and tensed under it in preparation for a fight that he already knew could only end one way -- before suddenly realizing with a startled sensation that the soft, small hand was intended as a comfort, rather than any sort of threat.

“I -- I can‘t begin to understand what it must be like,” the Slayer began in a soft, calm voice, though Spike could tell that it was barely concealing a tumult of emotions. “The -- the soul. After so long without one, after -- the things you‘ve done. It has to be -- to be horrible, to have to deal with it all at once -- and there‘s no way I can pretend to understand that.”

Spike tried to ignore the faint fluttering sensation he felt in his chest, the thickness in his throat at the sound of her compassion and sympathy -- but it just kept growing stronger and stronger with every word she spoke.

*She wouldn‘t feel sorry for you a bit if she knew the truth,* he reminded himself, trying to harden himself to the softness of her feelings. *If she knew the truth, she‘d stake you in a bloody heartbeat…she‘s the enemy, and nothing can change that…”

“The rest, though,” the Slayer continued, her voice trembling slightly now. “The rest -- I sort of get. With -- with Drusilla…and Angelus.” She was quiet for a long moment, long enough that he began to wonder if she was going to say any more. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” Buffy finally said softly, and he looked up to see her staring at the floor, her own eyes welling with tears.

“Knowing -- what they’re doing. After -- after all -- all we’ve done for them. I know. But -- but when we’re done here -- Angel won’t even want her anymore…” Her voice became a trembling whisper by the end, and Spike knew without looking that the tears in her eyes had fallen now. “…and -- and everything can go back to normal.” She smiled through the tears, as she added with a little shrug and a tremulous little laugh, “Maybe we can even -- find Drusilla’s soul, you know? And -- and everything will be all right. As it should be.”

She was silent for a long moment, and Spike could find no response for her words -- so much mingled truth and lies of his own making, some emotions that he understood, even felt for himself, and others she assumed for him that he had never dreamed of feeling. With a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he realized that these were feelings the Slayer hadn’t shared with her friends yet, and was only sharing with him because she felt that she had finally found someone who could understand, relate to her pain.

In some ways -- he could.

But in a very short time, that would not matter to her anymore.

After a long, tense moment, the Slayer whispered, in a voice that sounded terribly young and vulnerable and uncertain, “Right?”

Something in her voice sounded so needy, so desperate, that Spike found that it tore at his unbeating heart, imploring him to reach out to her -- though he knew that in a matter of minutes now, she would not even begin to want his comfort. In a few short minutes, she was going to hate him -- kill him, even.

He had the chip in his head; he couldn’t hurt humans, whether he had a soul or not.

He had not wanted to let them know how truly vulnerable he was -- but perhaps…perhaps it would simply be better to just…

“Um…Slayer,” he began, clearing his throat nervously as he turned toward her, not quite able to meet her eyes. “Buffy…”

She frowned when he said nothing else, though there was still no suspicion in her gaze as she pressed him, “What?”

“Er…there’s something I…I need to…”

“Buffy!”

The Slayer immediately turned her attention to the little redhead, who was walking toward the couch, an open notebook in her hands and a glimmer of excitement in her eyes -- and Spike’s heart sank as he realized what had happened, before she spoke.

“We’ve got it. It’s ready,” Willow announced, a note of glee in her voice.

“Oh, good!” Buffy sighed out the words in a shaky sound of relief, standing up from the sofa. She met Spike’s eyes in a happy smile as she said, “Well, if we’re gonna get that soul back in Angel, guess we’d better get you chained up and ready for the ritual…”

Spike glanced anxiously toward the door before forcing himself to return her smile, noticing with despair that the boy was standing directly in front of the door again, staring at him with hard suspicion in his eyes.

The exit was blocked.

The ritual was ready.

As he watched the Slayer picked up the chains in her hands and smiled expectantly up at him.

*Bugger,* he thought, swallowing hard. *That’s it. I’m dust.*

*************************************

Across town in the mansion, Drusilla had gathered all of the ingredients the stars had told her to gather, and was preparing for a ritual of her own. Everything was arranged and ready, and she knew that her Daddy would not be back to stop her, not for hours yet.

And by the time he returned -- all would be right again.

As she lit the small pile of herbs in the center of the circle on the floor, carefully avoiding the small flame herself, Dru sat down and began to speak the Latin words of the spell she had discovered -- the spell that would return her Spike to her, return all to the way it was supposed to be.

“Restituo ut quis est absentis -- aufero ut quod prodigious adaugeo -- ut vires revusto ut suus fatum -- quod suus etenus carus…”

The flame in front of her shot up for a moment, and she jumped back with a startled squeal that became an exultant laugh, throwing her head back in triumph. All had gone as it was supposed to, and she knew, in the same way that she knew how to do the ritual at all, that it had worked. She had felt the magic surrounding her, knew that something was changing this night.

She returned her dark eyes to the flame, slowly consuming the herbs in its center.

When the flame finally died of its own accord -- all would be well again.