"Spike, have you seen my other shoe?" Buffy tossed the hairbrush back onto the counter before bending down to continue her search.

"Shoe? Just one shoe? How do you lose one shoe? They come in pairs, you know," he called from the living room. Buffy assumed he was looking out there.

She rolled her eyes. Under the bed were some shoeboxes filled with photos (She had to come up with a better system. Maybe scan them all in like Holly kept telling her to), dust bunnies (must vacuum), a stray slipper (just the one), and an empty bottle of flavored lube (well, that was embarrassing). The other half of her super-cute pair of strappy, dressy sandals was not there.

Buffy was standing up as Spike entered, dangling said sandal from his finger. Buffy grabbed it.

"Where was it?"

"Between the couch and the wall."

She tried to refrain from smiling as she began to put the shoe on while standing on one foot. She bounced slightly as she worked the strap. "Ah, yeah. Last time I wore these, we kinda..."

"On the couch."

"Yep."

Buffy successfully finished putting on the shoe and straightened up, smoothing out her Little Black Dress as she did so.

"Next time," Spike said. "Whenever it may be, you'll just have to do a nice little striptease for me so you can put your clothes away properly."

"Whatever," Buffy said. She grabbed Spike's arm to turn him back to the door. "If you want a striptease, all you have to do is ask. Now come on. We don't wanna be late to our own party."

* * * * *

Willow's nervous nailbiting had worn the nail ragged on her pointer finger. Her bottom teeth teased at the flaking layers as she paced back and forth in front of Buffy's comatose body. Buffy had been under for far longer than Willow had anticipated. This didn't bode well.

Willow jumped when the door behind her opened. She sighed in relief when Xander entered with a bag of fast food.

"No progress?" Xander asked, nodding towards Buffy.

Willow shook her head. "And nothing from Dawn, either."

Xander set the bag down on the night table and started sorting out food. One packaged burger for him. One box of processed pseudo-chicken meat for Willow. Fries for each.

"How long has it been?" Xander asked.

"Uh...fifteen hours. I'm gonna have to get Dr. Parkes to set Buffy up on an IV if this goes on much longer." Despite her grumbly stomach, Willow wasn't hungry. However, Xander had gone to the trouble of getting food, which was not a trivial task considering their location. She might as well eat.

Willow pulled over one of the hijacked dining room chairs. Xander's phone rang. He rolled his one eye as he answered it.

"Yeah?" After a few seconds, Xander straightened up, looking surprised. "Uh huh. Really?" He paused. His eye fell on Willow. "Okay, right. Be right there."

"What is it?" Willow asked.

Xander tossed his burger back on the table. "That was Giles. Angel's here, and he brought his lawyers."

Willow started to stand, but Xander waved at her. "You stay here and watch Buffy. Giles is sending Kennedy with a contingent of Slayers to help protect her."

"If Angel's here, where's Spike?" Willow asked.

"Don't know, but we'd have heard from Dawn if anything was happening over there. Wonder why she didn't give us a warning."

* * * * *

Taking charge of the situation, Dawn had divided the slayers into two teams. She had assigned Vi's team to find a way out of the building. With the elevators down and the doors to the stairwells locked, they were stuck on this floor.

Rona's team had been charged with figuring out a way to break into the secured area to get to Spike.

Angel appeared to have cleared Wolfram & Hart of its employees, so at least they didn't have to contend with any enemy combatants. However, they were thoroughly trapped, and Dawn needed to contact home base so as to warn them that Angel was on his way.

With a sigh, Dawn watched as two slayers applied brute force to the door to the secured area. Rona was scavenging for something that could be used as a crowbar.

Vi walked over to Dawn. "Windows aren't breakable," she said. "And I'd thought we might get out through the air vents cause you see it all the time in movies, but they're actually really small, so that option's out. We're seeing if we can get to the elevator shaft somehow."

Dawn nodded. "Good. Phones still down, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah. Angel was thorough."

Overhearing their conversation, Rona looked over. "Is he going after Buffy?"

Dawn nodded. "Probably. And with her being in that trance, she can't defend herself."

Vi smiled. "Well, there's always Willow."

* * * * *

Xander arrived on the scene with a cordial smile on his face. "So," he said loudly to interrupt the ongoing argument. "What's going on, guys?"

Xander's role in the new slayer organization required him to be something of a rennaissance man. He helped with training, with recruiting, with complaints, and he also had studied up on a lot of the legal issues. They hadn't yet found a lawyer willing to represent them, so in the face of a legal attack such as this, Xander was the front man.

Angel and Giles stood squared off in the middle of the entryway. A band of suited lawyers flanked Angel, each of them armed with a brown briefcase. Giles was reinforced with his own passel of slayers.

"Angel," Xander stood next to Giles. "Didn't expect to see you here. Thought you were busy torturing Buffy's newest boyfriend."

"Are you the big guns?" Angel replied. "Guess Giles is showing his age."

"Look who's talking," Giles mumbled.

"Fill me in," Xander said. "What's with the invasion of the notary publics?"

Angel held out a hand behind him. One of his lawyers obediently provided him with a manilla folder. He passed it on to Xander.

"If you'd take a look at these, your organization is occupying this castle without the proper ownership rights. A claim exists from one Liam V. Gardener, from 1734. His kin are asserting their rights to the estate. What's more, you're in clear violation of several building codes. Finally, we need to get a surveyor out here. Depending on which burrough you fall into, this large amount of young girls could qualify you as a brothel, and you are not up to code for that."

Xander glanced through the very official-looking paperwork. "Uh huh. Right. And we know that you're really using all this to get to Buffy, so why not cut to the chase?"

Angel smiled. "Produce Ms. Summers or Wolfram & Hart's London division will make life very difficult for you."

"She's busy," Xander said smoothly. "Now what I can't figure, is what your end game is in this. You know Buffy's not gonna forgive you. Bringing out the legalese and trying a spot of coercion really isn't gonna persuade her more than your insipid sweet talk would."

Angel sighed. He backed up a step. "Ladies, due to this organization's violation of the Building Regulations Approved Document Part B1, we have no choice but to clear this establishment. If everybody would please exit the castle, we'll have additional personnel arriving shortly to complete our inspection!"

The slayers looked confused. The younger ones began to move for the front door, only to stay put when the more veteran slayers held firm. Xander whispered to Giles: "This isn't looking good. They've got enough pull to put us through the legal wringer."

Giles turned away from Angel. "Have the girls clear out, but keep the guard on Buffy. His focus is on her, but I doubt even Angel would try to mess with Willow."

* * * * *

"They're starting an evacuation?" Willow frowned as she brushed the last of the salt off the table. The fast food bag had been dumped on the floor for later disposal. Just because there was a crisis didn't mean she could mess up Buffy's room.

Kennedy nodded. She'd come armed with her favorite crossbow. Willow seemed to recall she'd named it Thor. "At Angel's orders. Giles and Xander are complying. Apparently, they've got enough dirt on us to pull it off."

"But we're staying here?"

"Absolutely. I mean, Buffy's not going anywhere, and we're protecting Buffy."

Willow looked over at her trance-ridden friend. This had been going on far too long for Willow's liking. Buffy's nutritional needs - especially if she were exerting herself - required attention. Unfortunately, calling in Dr. Parkes was not an option now.

"Who else is staying?" Willow asked.

"Just you, me, Brittany, and Sundus. They're experienced, though."

They were. Brittany had been recruited almost immediately after their defeat of The First. The girl had been eager to leave her small town high school and join up with the slayers, and she picked up on the job with a passion. Sundus had arrived from Syria. She'd actually been in the care of a watcher for most of her life. She'd gone into hiding when The First had began its reign of terror. As soon as she realized she had slayer powers, she had sought out the new slayer organization. They were two of the best slayers on the base.

"Okay," Willow exhaled. "But I'm the big gun."

"As always." Kennedy put a hand on her shoulder and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "But remember: We can't kill the guy until Buffy gets rid of his claim on Spike."

"Great."

* * * * *

Dawn sat at Harmony's desk, sifting through the mountain of papers and folders. The computer may be off, but that didn't mean Dawn couldn't snoop around for information. Unfortunately, most of it was mundane and unhelpful, accounting Wolfram & Hart's various cases. Nothing that might help her with their current situation.

"We got the elevator doors open." Vi ran over to Dawn, skidding to a stop in front of the desk. "No actual, you know, elevators, but we can get down the shaft and, hopefully, get out of this no-call zone they've put on the place."

Dawn shoved the latest dead-end folder to the side. "Send two girls. I want the rest working on getting to Spike."

"Have you even managed to budge the door?" Vi asked Dawn as she watched Rona pry at the door with a piece of metal railing.

"Nope."

"You wanna lend a hand, feel free," Rona said while breathing heavy.

* * * * *

This certainly hadn't been Buffy's plan. She and Spike had been banking on a quiet, introspective fiftieth anniversary party along together. However, Holly, Jamie, and the others had insisted on a slayer-style celebration. After some resistance, Buffy had decided to let them do it so long as she didn't have to do any of the planning.

The girls had decorated one of the training rooms, stringing up cheesy banners and streamers. The twenty year old stereo sat in the corner, blasting the current hits. A row of fold-out tables had been brought in, covered with a paper tablecloth, and then topped with a variety of foods: some homemade, others store-bought. It looked like they had relied on the potluck system.

It was almost unbearably lame, and Buffy couldn't help but love it all.

"I made the red velvet cake," Holly grabbed Buffy by the hand as soon as she entered. It never escaped Buffy's notice how much Holly looked like her mother. Dawn Summers lived on.

Dawn had had Holly later in life without any entangling marriage. Buffy had initially disapproved, of course. Dawn was persuasive in her reasoning, though, and she'd succeeded in pointing out that Holly would never lack for family with the slayer organization around her. Buffy had grudgingly accepted Dawn's choice, and then had grown to adore Holly, as was to be expected. When Dawn became ill, Buffy had taken over most of the parenting duties for Holly, who was then a teenager. Buffy knew what it was like to lose a mother at a young age. She was determined that Holly would get as much support as possible. Both Buffy and Spike had focused their energies on helping Holly through those first painful years without Dawn Summers.

That's why Buffy hadn't minded stepping back and letting Holly organize this shindig. She knew Holly liked to be able to give back to them from time to time.

Buffy and Spike were quickly separated, each being pulled to different crowds that continually shifted and merged. Buffy spent some time with the newest slayers, all of whom looked at her with an unnerving wonderment. Buffy knew that tall tales had sprung up revolving around both her and Spike. She tried to tamp down on them. Reality was sufficiently impressive, after all. It was hard to stop the gossip mill, however, and so Buffy found herself being a object of awe for the new girls.

After the hero-worship reached new heights of uncomfortableness, Buffy gravitated to Xander's son, Alex, and his new wife. Xander had long been taken from them, killed in combat. Buffy consoled herself that Xander would have been inspired by his own heroic death. Alex carried on the family name well.

It wasn't long before Buffy was finally reunited with Spike when they reached the watchers' corner. Excusing themselves from any more mingling, Buffy and Spike separated out from the others.

Spike wore his suit well, and Buffy felt herself flush when he smiled at her. The bleached look of old had been phased out. Spike always teased that she had domesticated him. She knew it wasn't true. Spike was far from domesticated, and she preferred it that way.

"Enjoying our anniversary, love?" Spike handed her another drink. It was regular punch. So many of the girls were underage, after all.

"Actually, I am." Her hand quickly found his and squeezed. "Best one yet."

"Dunno. Hard to top that one with the Yagal demon."

Buffy snorted. "Not so hard when I'm the one who ended up covered in the orange slime." That had been their sixteenth anniversary. She remembered it well. The romantic dinner. The demon interruption. The restaurant attempting to bill them for the damages afterward. Oh yes, and the dry-cleaning bills.

Spike bent down and kissed her cheek in response. Then he brushed his lips against the claim mark on her neck.

A loud crackle of static sounded through the room. Everybody quieted as the whine of electric feedback punctured the party. Buffy grimaced.

"Sorry!" Holly spoke into a microphone at the front. She moved away from the stereo to reduce the feedback. "Sorry. That was loud. Oh! So's this. Well, I guess it's working."

Some of the younger girls giggled. Buffy leaned against Spike's side as his arm wrapped around her waist.

"Uh...you all know why we're here. Buffy and Spike are kinda like our figureheads, and we need to celebrate when they reach a milestone like the big five oh."

The girls cheered.

"Now, Spike said he wanted a chance at the mike, so let me pass it on to him."

Buffy turned to Spike with a quizzical look, but he just smiled. He moved away from her side to take the microphone from Holly.

"Thanks," he said. "To all of you. And to Buffy." He turned to address her. The rest of the room faded away. "For giving me a home. Without you, I would be so lost. And that's - "

Spike faltered as Buffy felt herself drop out of place. With a lurch, her mind snapped back to itself, and she looked around in astonishment. This - the party, the last fifty years - this wasn't real.

When her eyes met Spike's she saw that he'd come to the same realization. Around her, the party-goers remained attentive, oblivious to Spike's panicked pause.

Spike looked down at the mike in his hand. "This is..."

"...what things could be like for us," Buffy finished, echoing the words that had prompted this illusion of their future life.

* * * * *

While Kennedy hadn't relaxed her grip on her crossbow, she had allowed herself to rest against the door. Standing at alert for who knows how long wouldn't do anything except tire her out. She didn't know if trouble was coming, but she wanted to be prepared if it did. Last time, she'd made a serious error and had allowed Angel in to see Spike. Not this time.

She heard him before she saw him. Angel walked around the corner, flanked by men in suits. Despite the lack of weaponry, it seemed as if a small army were approaching down the corridor.

"Hello again," Angel said.

Kennedy didn't reply, but she smiled. She had been hoping for a rematch.

"You must've missed it, but we've been ordered to evacuate the building. Building violations. You understand," Angel continued, speaking casually. He stopped barely a foot away from her, waiting for her to leave. That wasn't likely to happen.

"Yeah, well I've got different orders. This room is off-limits." She jerked her head to the side. "Move along."

Angel glanced back at his lawyers. "You really want to start something with me?"

"Why not? I've heard you got your ass kicked by a slayer before."

"Let me guess: There's two more of you on the other side of the door, waiting in Buffy's living room should you fall. Then Willow - big bad witch - is the last line of defense until Buffy. How close am I?"

"Seems to me that you're still two doors away."

Angel nodded. "Right."

He turned his back to her, then, as if to leave. With that feint, he whirled back around, throwing a punch at her jaw. With his vampire speed, he succeeded in catching her by surprise, and she slammed against the door. She managed to remain standing, though, and she brandished her crossbow in response.

Angel smiled, arms extended in a gesture of enjoyment. "I'm tired of all this bureaucracy, aren't you?"

* * * * *

Willow knew the moment Angel entered Buffy's living room. She balled her fists tightly. That meant he had gotten past Kennedy. Somehow.

It was the lingering "somehow" that energized the worry inside her. She tried to ignore it. She had to protect Buffy, after all. However, the looming question of whether her girlfriend was dead or alive wouldn't dissipate.

She received quick confirmation of Angel's presence in the living room, though, as the sounds of the fight carried through the heavy wooden door. Brittany and Sundus were taking him on now. Willow knew they were capable of taking him out. Not only were they both veteran slayers, they'd specifically trained together and had developed a working partnership. They weren't gonna make this easy for Angel.

Willow looked back at Buffy's body, still in her trance. They were at a disadvantage, of course: they couldn't kill Angel. At best, they could disable him. As long as Angel and Spike were still linked by the claim, killing Angel would kill Spike, and that was the last thing they wanted. Fighting an opponent was doubly difficult when the end goal was stalling.

Though Willow maintained a steady hope for Buffy to open her eyes and declare her mission a success, she knew she couldn't rely on that. She had to work under the assumption that Buffy was out for the long-haul.

With so many worries tangled up in her head, Willow's shoulders had tensed up thanks to knotted muscles. That wasn't productive. She needed some relief.

Willow closed her eyes and willed her shoulders to relax. With a calming breath, she reached out with her mind, searching for Kennedy. She circumvented the participants of the battle next door and moved outward. There. Kennedy's mind shone with a brilliance. She was alive, though unconscious.

Before she could even enjoy the comfort of knowing Kennedy was alive, her mind snapped over to the battle in the next room, summoned there by dire events. Brittany was gone, her presence extinguished from Willow's magic-enhanced perception. In the dimness that followed the palpable loss of one of their own, Sundus' mind expanded with a rage at the loss.

That was Angel's final Rubicon. Blood spilled now - slayer blood. Stalling wasn't sufficient anymore, and Buffy couldn't blame Willow for pulling out all the stops.

Willow opened her eyes, coming back to herself. She wasn't waiting anymore.

A deliberate glance sent the wooden door flying open with a slam that echoed through the stone walls. Willow emerged from Buffy's bedroom.

Brittany's body lay sprawled on the couch, her neck snapped, her eyes open and lifeless. Sundus was nursing a broken arm, but she was still standing. While tears stained her cheeks, her expression was set in a calm resolve. Angel stood on the far side of the room, barely a scratch on him.

Willow tore her eyes away from Brittany's body to glare at Angel.

"You're just trying to piss me off, aren't you?" Willow asked.

Her magic stirred inside her.

* * * * *

Caught in a tempest of perceptions and confusion, Buffy stayed frozen for several beats, attempting to regain her mental footing.

The last fifty years? Hadn't happened. Already, the memories were receding as if on the wave of a dream. Their former concrete reality seemed tenuous and ludicrous. This wasn't real. It was all in Spike's head, and she was trying to save him from Angel.

Buffy started to move towards Spike, but stopped short when another scene appeared in the middle of the training room. It manifested like a piece of a film overlaid on reality. She closed her eyes against the onslaught of perceptual incongruities, but the scene remained before her, regardless of her attempt to shut it out. This was something Spike's mind wanted to show her.

The image presented a view of the past. Victorian, if Buffy had to guess. Two young people sat on a couch. The woman Buffy recognized as being the strange person from Angel's office. She'd never seen the man before, though. No. A closer inspection revealed the man to be Spike. Well, William. Spike before he was Spike.

Buffy frowned. This was a scene from Spike's past.

Buffy looked to Spike, unsure of what was going on. He stared at the scene with a resigned horror but offered no explanation.

"They're vulgarians. They're not like you and I," William of the past said, smiling at the woman next to him. His head tilted to the side fondly in a manner Buffy was well-familiar with.

"You and I?" the woman echoed, seemingly aghast.

"Spike, what is this?" Buffy asked. She closed the distance between them, but Spike still didn't respond. His attention was fixed on his past.

"I'm going to ask you a very personal question, and I demand an honest answer. Do you understand?"

William nodded in earnest.

"Your poetry, it's...they're...not written about me, are they?"

"They're about how I feel."

"Yes, but are they about me?"

It took a few seconds of steeling himself up for William to reply: "Every syllable."

"Oh, God!"

Buffy's stomach dropped. This felt like an encroachment of the worst kind. She wanted to look away, out of respect for Spike, but something compelled her to watch. As the woman - Cecily - began to franticly look for a way to leave, Buffy wished she could do the same.

"Spike," Buffy tried to get his attention again. She grabbed his hand. "Spike, what is this?"

William broke into a stuttered declaration of love, which met with a similarly demoralizing response.

"I know I'm a bad poet, but I'm a good man. All I ask is that...that you try to see me - "

"I do see you. That's the problem." Cecily stood. "You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me."

She walked away, outside the confines of the scene and into the recesses of Spike's mind. Only a devastated William remained.

"Spike."

"This is - " Spike finally responded. Before them, the scene started up again with the two sitting together. It was on a loop. "This is who I am."

Buffy got it. The blood bond, Angel's claim, Spike's despair. It wasn't all vampire stuff like Angel had said. It was very human. Spike was alone.

She'd spent the last fifty years with him. Okay, so none of it was real, but she felt it. She had experienced - in some way - being with him like nobody else ever had. Like nobody else had ever been willing to try. Even after that lifetime-that-wasn't, though, Spike's fears kept emerging - his fear of rejection.

That was the fear that had sent him to Angel, hadn't it? Angel had been willing to claim him when Buffy hadn't. Buffy hadn't wanted him.

No, that wasn't right. She had wanted him. She'd just been unsure about the claim, about the eternity clause in the supernatural contract and how that might affect things between them. She knew it would be doing him a disservice to enter into that bond without an understanding or recognition of the full gravity of it.

Now she did, though, didn't she? She'd spent fifty years bonded with him. While it was a fantasy, yes, it was a fantasy they had created together. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, either. They'd fought. Buffy vividly remembered a huge falling out involving a year-long separation between them. It had been after Dawn's death, and emotions were running high. After a year and a lot of angry letter-writing, they'd reconciled.

Maybe it hadn't actually happened. Maybe it would never happen. But they'd experienced it, and they'd made it through and that meant something to Buffy. It meant that they could do it. They could live together with a claim and make it work.

It meant there was another way out of this Angel mess they were in. Maybe she'd been chasing shadows all along, and it wasn't actually possible to get rid of Angel's claim from inside Spike's mind. But it had to be possible to assert her own claim from here.

One of his hands in hers, she touched his arm with her other hand. He finally looked at her, pain and fear palpable in his expression.

"Not anymore," she said.

She leaned forward and bit Spike's neck. Hard. She put all of her slayer strength behind it, not even stopping when she broke the skin. Instead, she began sucking his blood into her mouth, swallowing as she went. In Spike's mind, his blood flowed hot down her throat. Spike's body tensed, and his hands gripped her elbows, almost pushing her away. He didn't stop her, though. He groaned, and Buffy noticed him harden along her body.

Buffy knew the ritual. She lifted her head and whispered in his ear. "Mine."

"You don't know what you're doing..."

"It's our fiftieth anniversary, love. You're mine."

The pause seemed to take forever before he nodded. "So very much yours."

Buffy licked the blood from her lips and tilted her head to the side. She presented her neck for him. "Do it, Spike."

There was almost no hesitation this time. Spike's demon came to the fore, and he latched onto her neck, fangs penetrating her vein. He held her body close to his and took a couple mouthfuls, pulling away to harshly whisper, "Mine," in her ear.

"Yours." She touched her forehead to his and stroked a hand down his face. "Yours, Spike."

* * * * *

After a whole lot of nothing, everything seemed to be happening at once. Rona announced her team's success in opening the restricted area just as Vi came running up to Dawn.

"Dawn! Got through to England. Angel's at home base. He's bringing down the legal hammer on us to try to get to Buffy."

Dawn nodded. Already, Rona had the slayers entering the corridor to see if there were any traps. "We need to get to Spike now and get him out of here."

Vi had to gallop to catch up as Dawn turned and rushed into the restricted area. The hallway was long and empty, no doors on either side. Only at the very end stood one door with a keypad to the side. Fortunately, the door was open. Dawn skipped ahead of the slayers and jogged to get to the doorway.

Inside, the room was coated in a thin layer of blood. Spike lay, naked and unconscious, at the far end of the room. Judging by the lack of blood trails, he'd been out for a while.

Though she felt the bile rising in her throat, Dawn tamped down on the panic and kept her cool. She'd anticipated how bad this would be. Angel had given her the polaroids, after all.

She turned to Rona. "We have the jet here?"

Rona nodded.

"Okay. Get it ready. We're taking him home."

* * * * *

Buffy was in screaming pain when she woke up. It felt as if her insides were being eaten away by acid, slowly disintegrating. The intensity of the sensation caused her to cry out and curl up, holding onto her stomach. She needed...

Spike.

He was an ocean away. So far away, she couldn't sense him. Couldn't feel him. But she needed to. She knew that his presence would stop the pain. Until he got here - until he was with her...

Buffy curled up tighter and closed her eyes. She felt like she was dying.

It was only the sound of shattering glass that managed to jolt Buffy out of her pain-wracked panic. She looked up. Her bedroom door was open. In the living room beyond, Angel and Willow were facing off. Willow had an aura of dangerous fury about her.

How long had she been in Spike's mind?

It didn't matter. Angel's claim on Spike was gone, replaced with her own. Angel could be killed now. Angel should be killed now. Perhaps this should have been a revelatory and tortured moment of decision for Buffy, but the conclusion came as naturally as breathing. There was no hesitancy in her resolve.

Across the two rooms, Angel's eyes met hers. He grinned. Despite the pain, anger fired inside of her. He'd done so much to Spike, to her, to hurt her. So vile.

"Good morning, Buffy," he said.

That was enough to distract Willow. When she turned to look at Buffy, Angel threw a right hook at her temple, knocking her out. Willow's body crumpled on the spot like an accordian deflating. Down for the count.

Buffy scrambled to open the drawer to her bedside table. She grabbed one of her stakes. Her grip wasn't firm, her hands were shaking. The separation from her claimed mate still tore at her body and soul, making each movement an excrutiating effort.

Her legs swung around to get off the bed. Angel was already approaching her, moving fast.

"Not sure what you were trying to do," Angel said. "But I guess it doesn't matter now. I get the ultimate prize."

Before Buffy could react, Angel backhanded her onto the bed again. The stake fell from her hand. The violent impact shuddered through her body, and she felt as if she might vomit. Panic set in again, despite the urgency of the current situation. Every thought kept turning back to Spike. She needed Spike. Needed him here. Now.

Angel grabbed her by the hair, hauling her up and slamming her against the stone wall. He pinned her with a deadly grip on her throat. Buffy's body was too exhausted by the claim to resist.

"This is the end, Buffy," he said. "I've done so much for you, and you know what? I'm tired of your ingratitude. You're a selfish, spoiled brat of a girl, and I'm much better without you in my life."

He was going to kill her.

Killing her would kill Spike.

Dammit, she hadn't gone through all that trouble rescuing Spike just to have him get killed like this.

Even though she was at the end of her rope, she gathered together her remaining strength, dredged up through the physical and mental anguish. She lashed out with a clumsy kick. It wasn't precise, wasn't pretty. But it got the job done. Angel's grip on her was broken and he stumbled backwards a few steps.

Her mind could only focus on one thing at a time, but she would make it work. First order of business: find her stake.

It lay on the foot of the bed. With an effort, she grabbed it up, focusing on her next task, then: standing.

That task was partially interrupted, partially assisted by Angel, himself. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her towards him so her body was flush against his. One hand cupped her cheek.

She winced at the sudden movement and held her stake at his chest. Her hands shook. He laughed.

"Not an option, remember? You don't want to lose your precious Spike."

His eyes held an affection that sickened her. She shook her head. "I won't." Her muscles protested, but she pushed them anyway. She jammed the wood into Angel's chest. The look of absolutely surprise from Angel would satisfy her for a long time.

She stepped back. "You lose, Angel."

Her body was exhausted. As Angel's body vanished into dust, Buffy collapsed onto the floor.

* * * * *

The hospital was busy again. Willow had refused any treatment. Except for the bruise developing on her temple, most of her wounds were metaphysical of the, "Whoops! Did too much magic!" type. Kennedy was in for a CAT scan to check on her concussion. Sundus' arm was getting a cast and sling. Brittany's body was being prepared for transport back to her family in the states. And then Buffy...

Giles entered the small lobby. "What happened?" he asked.

Willow bit her lip. After Angel's dusting, the lawyers had swiftly disbanded, unwilling to pursue such a frivolous legal attack without their leader's insistence. She hadn't been able to discuss what had happened with Buffy - given the whole "Buffy being unconscious" thing - but a quick magical perusal had revealed to Willow what Buffy had done.

How to explain it to Giles, though? "She's...uh..."

"She claimed him, didn't she?" Xander leaned against the doorframe, resigned.

Willow looked up in surprise at Xander's entrance. She nodded. "Looks like."

Giles removed his glasses. "So you're telling me that while she was in Spike's head, eradicating Angel's claim, she established one of her own."

Willow sighed. "Uh huh. New claims are very intense. Physical separation can be painful for the first week or so. Until we can get Buffy and Spike together again, she'll probably stay passed out."

"Well, I have good news on that front." Xander said while walking into the room. "Dawn has rescued Spike. They're flying him back on the jet now. He's apparently in bad shape, but...vampire. He'll heal."

Willow shifted her weight from foot to foot. She looked to Giles. "What now?"

The older man looked very tired. "That's up to them."

"She's gonna live forever, right?" Xander asked, arms out with palms up in question. "Like, immortal, right?"

"I think," Willow said. "I mean, unless something - or someone - kills her. She's...forever."

"Anybody else think this was a tragically bad move on Buffy's part?"

Giles said, "None of us know what went on while Buffy was in Spike's mind. Buffy's not stupid. I trust she knew what she was getting into, and that she had good reasons for it."

Xander frowned at the chastisement. He sat down on the lobby sofa, contenting himself with watching the traffic of nurses, doctors, and receptionists milling quietly about.

Willow hugged herself, worried for her friend, worried for Kennedy, worried for the organization. Buffy certainly wasn't the sole leader, but she was influential enough that her being off-kilter would have a trickle-down effect on everyone. Plus, how to explain to the new girls that their figurehead was mystically bonded with a vampire?

She looked to Giles. "You think everything will be alright?"

He smiled gently, the soothing hospital lighting softening his face. "I think things will be no worse than they usually are for us."

That was reassuring.

* * * * *

Buffy blinked, waiting as the blurred ceiling gradually became sharper. Turning her head took some effort. It felt like somebody had bunched her muscles together with a twisty-tie.

She was in the hospital. That was different. She'd been in her bedroom, right?

Her memory began to piece things back together. The journey through Spike's mind, the claim, the fight with Angel. She'd killed Angel.

She'd killed Angel.

That statement seemed like it should make a larger impact on her. Her stomach should sink. Her eyes should water. She should be devastated.

But she wasn't.

It felt right. What she'd done, she'd done because Angel had left her little choice. Because Spike had needed her. Because Angel had proven his true nature.

He was a monster, and she killed monsters.

She didn't regret it.

Buffy turned her head to the other side of the room. Spike lay on the bed next to her. Though she was hooked up to a steadily-beeping machine, Spike wasn't wired to anything. However, he had been bandaged up, and an IV of blood stood beside his bed.

The grueling pain that had accompanied their initial separation was gone. Buffy felt complete, content...though with a bit of reserve. The claim had been done under duress. Would that be a problem? Shouldn't that have been a thing they'd talked out more? Worked out together? What was going to happen now?

Spike's eyes opened as she watched him. He met her gaze. Maybe the uncertainty she had was contagious, because she couldn't read his expression as anything but.

She'd seen the most intimate parts of him, been completely immersed in him. This should make her feel closer to him than ever, but it instead made her feel as if a pane of bullet-proof glass had been erected between them. She could see him. She could smile at him. She couldn't touch him, though. Couldn't be with him.

Maybe this hadn't been the best idea she'd ever had.

They'd been staring at each other for too long, now. It was becoming awkward. Buffy attempted a smile, hoping they could overcome both of their doubts. They'd done it before in the imaginary life together that had played out in Spike's mind. Reality couldn't be that much harder, right?

"Hey," Buffy said.

Endnote: This ends the second part of the story. The third part is still being polished up, and I plan to start posting it no later than 1/30. Thanks for keeping up with it, and I hope you will read the conclusion when it's posted.