A/N: Thanks so much to my wonderful beta, Eowyn315!!!!



Spike awakened hours later to the piercing pain of a wooden stake being pressed against his chest. He opened his eyes to find himself face to face with the Slayer’s Watcher, narrowed blue eyes blazing into his as Giles crouched over him, the stake in his hand unyielding against Spike’s flesh. He glanced around with a groan to see that he had been lying on the floor beside the sofa where the Slayer still lay.

He didn’t even remember falling asleep.

The last thing he remembered was sitting down beside the sofa after covering her with a blanket, helping himself to what was left of the bottle she had been working on as he tried to wait for the others to return…hopefully with a shaken but physically well Willow in tow.

*Yeah. Right bloody likely.*

The slight increase of pressure on the wooden point drew his thoughts back to the present, and Spike looked up at the clearly incensed Watcher again.

“What’s this about, mate?” he asked quietly, cautiously. “What’ve I done now?”

“That’s precisely what I would like to know,” Giles replied without hesitation in a cold, deadly voice, his eyes narrowed and piercing. “I have two very vital questions for you, Spike, and I do hope that you have satisfactory answers for them. Otherwise, I shall be forced to end your existence…and with it, lose the benefit of your alleged visions.”

“Ask away.”

“First, and most importantly…why is my Slayer unconscious? And only slightly less important…what has become of the contents of my liquor cabinet?”

Spike couldn’t suppress a smirk as he laid his head back against the floor, closing his eyes, his shoulders shaking with quiet laughter at the false conclusions the Watcher had obviously drawn.

“I hardly see anything amusing about this situation,” Giles snapped. “Though I’m quite certain I’ll find it amusing to watch your dead flesh disintegrating into my carpet…” He frowned, thinking for a moment before amending, “Actually, no…even that won’t be amusing. I’d suggest you explain yourself immediately, Spike. Why are you laughing?”

Spike slowly gained control of his laughter, looking up at Giles again.

“Because your two questions have one answer, Watcher.”

Giles frowned, puzzled. “I’m sorry?”

“Think about it,” Spike advised with a sarcastic sneer. “Real bloody hard. It’ll come to you.”

Giles’ initial response to Spike’s snide comment was an irritated, impatient glare -- but when he deigned to actually obey the suggestion, his eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped in horrified understanding as he slowly put the clues together.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, resting his head in one hand as the pressure that his other hand was exerting on the stake eased.

Briefly.

“Ow!” Spike protested as he suddenly found the stake jabbing into his chest harder than ever. “What…?”

“How did you manage to get my underage Slayer drunk?” the Watcher demanded.

“How did *I*…?” the shocked vampire sputtered indignantly, eyes wide and incredulous. “Bloody…the little chit is perfectly capable of getting *herself* properly pissed, thank you! *I* tried to *warn* her!”

“I’m bloody sure you did!” Giles spat the sarcastic words at him. “This must have seemed like a golden opportunity for you, didn’t it, Spike? You got Buffy drunk, and did God knows what to her…look at her! She’s unconscious!” Giles’ expression darkened with enough menace to send an apprehensive shiver down Spike’s spine, as he added softly, “And very soon, you will wish yourself to be so lucky as well.”

“She’s passed out,” Spike corrected wearily, glancing over the Watcher’s shoulder to meet the wide eyes of the teacher standing behind him, apparently stunned to see this unfamiliar side of her normally reserved, self-controlled love interest…and also apparently quite…er, intrigued…by it, judging by the faint scent that Spike could detect in the air.

“I didn’t do a bloody thing to the girl,” Spike reiterated, looking at Jenny rather than Giles, sensing that, of the two, she was the more likely to be sympathetic. “I swear, I didn’t lay a hand on her. *She* tried to stake *me*!”

“So, you’re saying you’d never have hurt her, is that it? It was purely self-defense?” Giles was still furious, and obviously not believing a word Spike said.

Rolling his eyes in frustration, the blond vampire growled, “I *didn’t*…*hurt her*. How many times do I have to bloody tell you?”

As he spoke, Jenny managed to shake herself from her fascinated reverie long enough to make her way to the prone Slayer’s side. She pressed her fingertips lightly against Buffy’s wrist for a few seconds, before looking up with apologetic eyes toward the man whose side she would ordinarily have felt obligated to take.

“I think he’s telling the truth, Rupert,” she admitted with a grimace. “Her pulse is strong and steady, and her breathing sounds normal. She’s not unconscious. I think she’s actually just…”

As if confirming the word that Jenny had not yet spoken, the Slayer suddenly let out a loud, very unladylike snore, followed by a sullen groan of protest, pulling her wrist out of the teacher’s grasp and rolling over on the couch so that her back was to them…all without waking.

Spike gave Giles a silent look of exasperated vindication.

Giles did not relent.

“Rupert,” Jenny went on, almost apologetically. “If he *was* trying to get her drunk so that he could hurt her -- then why didn’t he hurt her?”

“Well…perhaps that *wasn’t* his intent,” Giles blustered, reluctant to admit his mistake. “Perhaps he simply planned to -- to escape while she was incapacitated and therefore incapable of stopping him.”

“Yeah…bit of a problem with that little theory, too, Rupes,” Spike drawled, staring up at the man with an expression of exaggerated patience as he waited for Giles to figure it out.

After a moment, the Watcher sighed, shaking his head, as he realized what the vampire was getting at.

If he had gotten Buffy drunk in order to escape --- then why was he still there at all?

Defeated in his suspicions, Giles finally rose to his feet, backing off enough to allow the only mildly shaken vampire to rise as well.

“Bloody hell,” Spike muttered resentfully, making a point of brushing himself off while glaring at the Watcher, who was still looking at him with suspicion. “No wonder you lot all get…”

When the vampire stopped abruptly, Giles looked up at him again, his eyes narrowed. “All get what?” he pressed, a warning edge to his voice.

Spike dismissed the question with a wave of his hand as he took a seat in the chair across from the sofa. “Never mind. Nothing you need to know, because the Slayer and I bloody well aren’t going to let it happen this time around…”

“I rather think I *should* know, Spike,” Giles stated calmly. “As Buffy’s Watcher, I think it is best that I know what dangers she -- and the rest of us, for that matter -- will be facing…”

“I think it’s best that you don’t,” Spike replied bluntly, leveling his steady gaze with the Watcher’s. “And Buffy’ll likely think so, too, when she’s awake.”

“Speaking of Buffy,” Jenny said, as she started toward the kitchen and away from the developing confrontation. “I think I should make some coffee. She’s going to be waking up soon, and I *really* am not looking forward to dealing with a Slayer with a hangover.”

Neither man responded, each focused on the other.

“You will tell me, Spike.” Giles moved in closer in an intimidating manner, and he spoke in that same voice that had been so unsettling before. “You will tell me, or you will find yourself desperately wishing that you had.”

Of course, before, there had been a stake against Spike’s chest to emphasize the Watcher’s point.

Spike glanced over Giles’ shoulder, noting that the teacher had disappeared into the kitchen, before rising to his feet and shoving the Watcher back a few paces in one single, fluid motion.

“I’ll talk to Buffy,” Spike declared, a challenge in his glittering blue eyes as he glared at Giles. “And only Buffy. If she chooses to tell you what I’ve told her, well, that’s her bloody choice, but you’re not going to hear it from me!”

Giles’ eyes widened at the unexpected force of the shove, and he stared back at the vampire with rising understanding in his eyes, as he remembered that Spike no longer had anything to prevent him from doing him serious harm if he wanted to do so. The chip he had reported having was gone now, at any rate, and the injuries that had been inflicted on him by the scientists had all but completely healed.

“Yeah.” Spike nodded, triumph in his voice. “That’s right. This vamp’s not so bloody toothless anymore. I don’t want to hurt you, old man,” he went on, his voice softer, with a faint note of derision as he nodded toward the kitchen door. “’Specially not in front of your lady…but I will if you go to soddin’ pushin’ me around again.”

Giles was quiet for a moment, obviously undecided, a part of him rising up in challenge to Spike’s words.

The wiser part led him to take a seat with a weary sigh.

Spike studied him carefully for a moment, until he was sure the threat had passed, before sitting down again as well.

“Why don’t you?” the Watcher asked quietly after a moment.

Spike raised a single brow in his direction, surprised. “You *want* me to hurt you? ‘Cause, you know, if you really do, I s’pose I could…”

“No, no.” Giles waved his hand and shook his head in irritated dismissal before meeting Spike’s eyes again, his gaze coolly appraising. “Why don’t you want to?”

Spike looked away, feeling self-conscious under the Watcher’s scrutiny, and did not reply.

“Regardless of who’s responsible…whether you for encouraging her to drink, or Buffy for taking it upon herself to help herself to my liquor cabinet, or…or me for leaving the bloody thing unlocked…” Giles admitted with a faint, self-deprecating smile. “…the fact remains that for a good while today, my Slayer was…well, quite vulnerable…and the question remains with it…of why you did not take advantage of that.”

Spike was quiet for a long moment, before he replied with a shrug, “I’ve got a soul now, Watcher…might account for it…”

“A day ago, I might have agreed with that conclusion.” Giles frowned. “But Angel has a soul as well. And…and he’s…”

Spike did not respond, and Giles realized that the vampire was not so completely convinced of the intrinsic value of the soul, either. He had simply been answering with the words that he believed the Watcher was expecting to hear. Suddenly, Giles found himself wondering whether Spike would have taken advantage of this opportunity to have the Slayer at his mercy, even if he had not had his soul returned at all.

“So, why?” he mused, almost as much to himself as to Spike. “If not the soul…then why? You’ve been telling us of your visions…attempting to help us to prevent their coming to pass…sparing my Slayer when she was utterly helpless…What else, besides a soul, might cause an evil, undead creature to actually care about the well-being of his mortal enemy?”

“If you figure that out, Watcher,” Spike replied grimly, “Let me know.”

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

It was a quiet stirring, not so much in the room around him, as deep within him, that alerted Angel to the awakening of his youngest childe, and drew him from his sleep. His eyes shot open, and he was instantly alert as he sat up in the bed where he had laid Willow’s still form and then lain down beside her.

It had been easier than he would have expected to find a decent place to hide.

At first, he had simply been panicked, desperate to escape before Buffy could find him with the evidence of what he had done. He had fled, carrying Willow in his arms, through the dismal part of town in which he had caught her, and into a wealthier, upper class neighborhood. Without really thinking through his plan, or even knowing exactly why he was doing it, Angel had knocked frantically on the first door he had come to, until someone finally opened it.

The little old man who answered the door had first peered at them suspiciously, as if assuming that anyone who rang his doorbell had to have some ulterior motive. His eyes had gone wide when he saw the condition of the frail form in Angel’s arms, and he had ushered them quickly inside, urging them to come in and use his telephone to call for help.

As Angel had glanced around the interior of the house, he had gotten the distinct impression that this was a man who did not often have visitors…or friends, for that matter. Random stuff cluttering every surface told him that this was a man with much in the way of material possessions, and little else in his life.

A man who would not be missed.

The man had pressed Angel to call help for the girl, but the vampire had refused, finally admitting to the man that she was too far gone to be helped. When the old man had looked up at him in astonishment…he had found himself face to face with a monster.

*I had to do it,* Angel told himself many times over the next few hours. *I had no choice. We have to have a place, and the mansion would be the first place Buffy would check. She won’t find us here until we’re ready to be found.*

*Besides, it’s not like I killed him…just…changed him.*

That was how he was thinking of it, what he had done to the old man…what he had done to Willow. He had taken their old lives, but had given them new ones in return. Perhaps a bit more…limited than their former existences had been.

But they were not dead…not really.

With the fledgling vampire he had made of the old man as his minion, Angel knew that he and Willow could stay at the house for as long as they needed to. Whatever activities the old man had been engaged in, they had not been particularly social. As long as his bills remained paid and the house did not go into a state of disrepair, it was unlikely that anyone would find anything to be suspicious about.

It wasn’t as if the man was all that conspicuous, anyway.

Angel still had not thought to even ask his name.

Now, Angel sat up in the bed, turning toward Willow’s pale, still body, unmoving in the bed beside him…waiting. He knew that it would only be moments before she *did* move -- awakening to embrace the new existence he had given her.

Bright emerald eyes opened suddenly, locking onto his. She stared at him for a long moment, before glancing around the room, her eyes narrowing in thought…in memory.

Angel felt his mouth go dry at that thought and wondered how much she remembered of what he had done…and how she would think of it, now that she was no longer the girl she had once been. When Willow’s eyes returned to his, now lit by a knowledge they had not held before, Angel went very still, waiting for her reaction.

Gradually, a slow smile spread across her lips, as she leaned in closer to him, her eyes gliding down from his to linger at his throat for a moment, then shifting down to his bare chest and lower, before trailing slowly, sensually back up to meet his gaze again, as she whispered a single word in a throaty, seductive purr.

“*Sire*.”