Author’s Note: Thanks as always to my beta, Kar. And of course to
Liliaeth for the challenge!


Chapter Two:

Buffy pushed a cool fry around her plate and watched Spike sleep. The sun was setting and she knew he was going to wake up. She wanted something to fight, something to strangle, or maybe something to punch her unconscious so that she could stop thinking about what she had to do.

William the Bloody was out there somewhere. She'd walked up and down the sidewalks for two hours trying to somehow make that fact less true. He was out there, soon he would kill Nikki Wood if he hadn't already, and no telling how many others had been sucked dry while she'd been busy making love with his future self.

She could not believe she was going to have to do this again.

He opened his eyes and gave her a sleepy smile. She wanted to take the moment and freeze it, preserve the memory of how he looked at her before he knew she was going to kill him. All that comfortable intimacy faded from his eyes when he really caught sight of her face. "Sussed it out, then, did you?"

She nodded miserably. "Nikki Wood..."

"Not for two days yet," he answered quietly. "Might find some way to stop that." He scratched an arm with studied casualness. He sat up and wrestled his jeans out of the tangled covers.

"But the others," she whispered. It was too hard to say it all out loud. "All the others."

She watched the little shudder that went through him. She knew how heavily those deaths weighed on him. "So this is my chance, is it, to undo some of my mistakes. Course, it'll undo every bit of good I ever did as well."

"I know." She had thought about that too, trying to convince herself there was some way out of it. Who else would help her stop Angelus, or foil the First, or help her in the countless other minor and major catastrophes? She wouldn't know the difference, she supposed; she would never have met him. That thought just choked her up more, and she dropped her gaze to stare at her hands.

"Nothing for it, is there? We just have to hope whoever takes your place has all the help she needs."

"What?"

He smirked. "Can't say you haven't thought about it. This one lives a bit longer, maybe you don't get called. I go the way of all flesh, and you get that normal life you always wanted."

"This is so not about that, Spike!" She couldn't blame him for his desperation, but really. Or maybe he was trying to make it easier on her by pissing her off? The truth was, that had occurred to her, along with the fact that Angel was out there somewhere too. Of course, he could be in Bangladesh or Baltimore for all she knew. She balled her fists and pressed them into her thighs. "What else am I supposed to do, trap him in a box somewhere, tuck him into some handy hell dimension for twenty-five years? Even if I did that, he wouldn't ever be you."

Saying it out loud made her a little dizzy, hearing herself say that in order to become the man she loved he first had to kill another slayer and hundreds more besides.

"Ain't that a kick in the head?"

She shoved her plate away and stood up. "I have to get out of here," she blurted, pulling her hair back.

Spike started putting his boots on. Off her expression he snorted. "Not coming with you," he scoffed, grabbing the stack of bills they'd scavenged from the wrecked rooms the night before. He tossed a twenty on the table in front of her and shoved the rest in his pocket.

"Where are you going?" she asked quietly.

He tipped her chin up. "Know you, slayer. And love you, in case you're wondering at the moment. Know you'll do what needs doing, but I can't help working against it on this one." He kissed her cheek and was out the door before she could think of anything to say to that.


********


The twilight air felt good against his skin, but his hands were still shaking as he lit his cigarette. There was no good solution to this one. His only option, really, was to find some way to get them back home before Buffy had a run-in with the Other. He headed toward the bank he’d noticed the night before. Might as well get Dawn set up, do some bit of good for the Bit if he was never going to be there to keep her out of trouble. He also needed to make a phone call, tell Crowley to keep his girl off the subways for a few days. Assuming he'd take advice.

There was a throbbing in his head. He tried to think of what he'd been doing thirty years ago, besides tracking Wood. Nothing came to him. That kill overshadowed everything else. People walked by and he wondered idly if he was going to kill any of them.

Maybe it wasn't really him. Did he really remember seeing himself walking with the slayer, or was he only imagining that what he would have seen had his past self been there? They'd had enough of back and forth through other dimensions to know there might be other Williams the Bloody; maybe this wasn't the one he'd issued from. But he knew it wasn't true; that wasn't how Time Manglers worked. Willow had explained it to him once, how the continuums were like strings. Some witches and demons could make those strings cross, but Time Manglers just folded the string on itself.

Was there some way to send a message up the string? Plead from the past for Willow to yank them back into the proper time before they'd changed the past enough to obliterate their future? Might be worth a shot. If only he had a clue how to accomplish such a thing.


********


Spike woke with a start and sat straight up as memory slammed into him. He made his way down the stairs just in time to see himself emerge from the lodgings across the way and go east. Moments later the little blond hustled out, going west. Smiling at his luck, he let her get a few blocks away before following in her footsteps. With a signature like that, he could follow her all night.

He caught up with her despite himself. It was too much fun, watching her move in that purposeful way, like she owned the night. Watching her fight was intoxicating. Was this how she'd bewitched him in the future? He couldn't imagine himself so tamed. Or maybe she was his pet, and he obligingly let her hunt his own kind while he was hunting hers.

He caught bits of her ranting as she pummeled unprepared fledglings to grit. Apparently she and his future self were in a bit of tiff about what was to be done about him and his plans for adding another slayer to his list of kills.

"I mean, if I do stop him, maybe I don't get called in, what, twenty years or whatever. Which, do I even want that? And it's not about what I want, is it? I mean, I have a duty. Even if I do love him."

"I'm not gonna be a lot of help here, lady," the battered vamp managed through his fattened lips.

"Shut-up," she rebutted, dispatching him and turning her attentions on his friend. "I mean, I can't imagine not meeting him seven years ago. Or twenty-whatever from now. You know? But I won't even know any better, will I?"

This last seemed to throw her, and after dusting the second demon, she leaned back against the gritty bricks and sighed. He got a good look at her in the glow of the streetlight. She was old for a slayer, but not at all too old for bedding. After all, if Drusilla could have her little flings, why shouldn't he have a pet? She loved him, apparently, which he couldn't quite fathom. Some piece was missing. The unpleasant thought occurred that he'd somehow ended up like Angelus, cursed and driven out by his own kind to skulk among the mortals. If so he ought to thank the universe for sending him such a charming, delicious little warning.

Should he do it here and now, or wait those twenty-whatever years and find her before she got so strong? He wasn't entirely sure he could take this one, strong and fast as she was. And if she'd known him seven years, she might be able to anticipate him. Besides which, slayers never survived half so long as she had, based on her babbling. Might have some magic in her as well. She was indeed a special little thing. He itched to sink himself into every little bit of her.

Her head lifted sharply. "Spike?"

He froze. She was looking in his general direction, and then she began to move slowly toward him.

Contemplating his options was going to have to wait, until he found a safer place to puzzle things out. Besides which, he was hungry. He needed his strength; tomorrow night he had a date with the other slayer and she was no slouch herself.


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