Disclaimer: The characters belong to Joss Whedon. Just borrowing.
Thanks again, reviewers!
 
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Buffy reached Spike’s crypt just as he was leaving to go on patrol. “Spike!” she called. To her surprise, he turned toward her.
 
“So you’re back, I see,” he said dryly.
 
“You can see me again?” she asked, hoping against hope.
 
“Yeah, I see you, for all the good it does you,” Spike sighed. “Did some research in the Magic Box earlier. Haven’t gotten all that far.”
 
“Are you going to patrol?” she asked.
 
“Yeah. Told the Scoobies I would,” he answered. “Coming?”
 
They walked together through the cemeteries, but it seemed a quiet night. “So what were you up to all day, Slayer?” Spike asked after a while.
 
“Watching my sister skip school,” Buffy responded in an exasperated tone. “She pulled a fast one on Tara this morning, lied about doing her homework this afternoon, and erased a message that said she had four absences this term already. Four! The term is barely a few weeks old! She’s going to end up expelled!”
 
“Or worse, getting stuck in some foster home,” he mused. “She still doesn’t hear you?”
 
“No,” said Buffy sadly. “None of them do. I feel so helpless. Dawn spent most of the day hanging out at the cemetery crying. And there was nothing I could do to help her or comfort her.” Buffy sounded on the verge of tears herself. “Willow and Tara are nice enough, but they seem oblivious. They’re all concentrating on their schoolwork and magic, and not even noticing how sad Dawn is.”
 
“I know, pet,” Spike sighed. “I’ve tried my best to be there for Dawn. But the others get wrapped up in their own stuff sometimes and she just seems to fall through the cracks, you know?”
 
“At least you’re there for her,” Buffy said. “Could you talk to her soon about this skipping school nonsense?”
 
“Course I will,” Spike said. He was momentarily distracted by coming across a trio of fledges chasing some hapless pedestrian. Buffy watched as Spike whirled, kicked and staked the three vampires almost without effort. Never noticed what an amazing fighter he is. I mean, I knew he was a tough opponent, but he’s got some moves. Spike brushed the last of the vampire dust from his coat and turned to Buffy. “Where were we?”
 
Buffy stared intently at him. “Spike, why did you stay?” she asked finally.
 
“Made a promise to a lady,” he answered quietly. Then embarrassed, he started off again on the rest of the patrol. Buffy could see she wasn’t going to get any more out of him on that subject at present, so she followed him in silence for a while.
 
After a while the silence got to her and she said, “Did the research turn up anything about how something like this could have come about?”
 
“Hard to say,” Spike began. “If it’s magic of some kind, it’s got to be powerful stuff.”
 
“Willow, maybe?” Buffy wondered.
 
Spike considered, then shook his head. “She’s become powerful, I grant you. But a spell strong enough to pull someone out of heaven? That would have taken a lot of preparation and planning. I haven’t noticed that level of activity. But then, they have all day to do things while I’m not around much, so who knows?”
 
“Could I have done something wrong?” Buffy asked in a small voice.
 
Spike stopped and turned to her. He instinctively reached up to touch her face, but forgot about the ghost problem and his hand passed through. Dropping his hand dejectedly he said, “Slayer, you sacrificed yourself to save the whole world, after years of dedicating yourself to fighting the forces of darkness. Far as I can tell you’ve always done the right thing. Whatever happened can’t possibly be your fault.”
 
Buffy felt reassured by his gentle tone, and his concerned eyes. “Thanks,” she said softly.
 
“We’ll sort this, Buffy,” Spike said. “In fact, I have an idea on where to look for more information.”
 
“Where?”
 
“I figure that I need to find out more about heavenly dimensions and dealing with benign spirits. Rupert’s collection seems to be more concerned with evil, given your unreasonable need to slay us evil types.” Buffy smiled a bit at his attempt at humor. “So I need to get into some sort of church or seminary and look at their library. They might have info on misplaced angels.”
 
“I’m no angel, Spike,” Buffy said, slightly embarrassed.
 
“You are to me,” he responded tenderly. They stared at each other for a long minute, until Buffy looked away, overcome by the intensity in his eyes.
 
“What are you going to do now?” she asked. “I think you’ve pretty much patrolled the whole place.”
 
“I was pondering a little breaking and entering into the public library. Could use their computer to try to get somewhere on narrowing down the search.”
 
“Why not just use Willow’s computer at my house? You could check up on Dawn at the same time.” Buffy suggested.
 
“I guess,” Spike agreed reluctantly. “Don’t always feel like my presence is welcome there. I think they suspect I’m a bad influence or something.”
 
“But they trust you enough to patrol and watch Dawn, so what’s the problem?”
 
Spike shrugged. “I’m still a vampire, Buffy. Guess they’ll never quite forget that.” But he turned his feet toward Revello Drive anyhow. He’d do anything for this girl – even face her friends.
 
It was about ten o’clock when he got to the house. He knocked on the kitchen door and poked his head in. “Red? Glinda?”
 
Tara stuck her head in from the dining room. “Spike? What are you doing here?”
 
“Just finished patrol, wanted to see how the Nibblet was doing,” Spike replied. “I also wanted to borrow your computer for a bit. Need to look something up on the internet.”
 
“Dawn went to bed,” Tara replied. “Come on in. I think Willow’s computer is free for the moment.”
 
Spike followed her into the dining room with Buffy trailing invisibly behind. “Spike? Aren’t you going to tell them I’m here?” she asked.
 
Spike turned automatically and was about to answer when Willow saw him and said, “Spike? What are you looking at?” Her tone was instantly suspicious.
 
“I… “ He swallowed and took the plunge. “I keep seeing Buffy. Hearing her voice. She says she’s trapped in this in between state, a ghost. She can’t touch anything or feel anything, and it’s hell for her.”
 
“Buffy?” came Dawn’s voice from the stairs. She had not been asleep and had come to eavesdrop when she heard Spike enter. “You heard Buffy? Saw her? Where?”
 
“She’s right beside me, Nibblet. I can hear her, see her. I don’t know why you can’t. She’s been trying to get your attention for days.”
 
“What is she saying now?” Dawn demanded.
 
“Tell her she better stop skipping school or I’ll haunt her!” Buffy said sternly.
 
Spike turned to Dawn. “She says she’ll haunt you if you keep skipping school.” Dawn started a little guiltily. How could he know that? He must have some demon spying on me or something.
 
“Dawn hasn’t been skipping school!” Willow said indignantly. “We’ve been making sure she gets off to school and all that.” She hasn’t, has she? Willow had a little twinge of guilt as well. During the run up to the big spell she had been researching and gathering obscure materials night and day. After the letdown of the spell’s failure, she had been more focused on finding out why it hadn’t worked than a lot of the details of Dawn’s day. “Besides, we would have heard from school by now if she was skipping,” she added.
 
Dawn didn’t exactly meet Spike’s eyes when she said angrily, “Why are you doing this? Pretending to see her? She’s gone. She left me just like everyone else leaves me. Why don’t you just go leave me too and be done with it already!” She turned and stomped back up the stairs, slamming her door.
 
“That was low,” said Tara. “Encouraging her to go to school is one thing, but telling her that Buffy is back? But only talking to you? That’s just cruel.” Tara was shocked that Spike would do something like this to Dawn. She was sure that if there had been a spirit there she would sense it or something. She saw auras and was pretty sensitive to the supernatural.
 
“Dammit!” cried Spike. “Why do none of you believe me? Like I have nothing better to do than to sit around making up shit like this?” Maybe now Buffy’ll see why I didn’t want to bring these idiots into this. Nothing I do is good enough.
 
“Spike, you’ve been acting weird for days now,” said Willow. “Maybe you just need to take a break for a while.”
 
“A break from what?” yelled Spike. “Doing all your dirty work so you Scoobies can study and go out to dinner? Watching Dawn when you can’t be bothered? You seem more than willing to order me around, but if I say something you don’t feel like hearing, I’m back to ‘crazed evil vampire’ status in a heartbeat!”
 
“You need to leave,” Willow said sternly. Her eyes grew darker as the magic started to swirl inside her.
 
Spike could see that this was going nowhere. He would be no help to Buffy if Willow decided to turn him into a slug or something. “Fine. Just… keep an eye on Dawn, alright? Make sure she’s doing what she’s supposed to.” He turned and left, slamming the door harder than strictly necessary as he did.
 
Buffy was furious. She yelled to the unhearing witches, “How dare you? Are you that stupid? Dawn’s slipping! Spike’s just trying to help. What does he have to do to get you to listen?” She desperately wanted to punch something. Clenching her fists in frustration, she passed through the door and went after Spike.
 
“Spike!” she yelled. Please let him still see me please please please. She breathed a sigh of relief when Spike turned at her call.
 
“Now you know why I wanted to break into the library,” he said bitterly. “Can’t win with that bunch.”
 
“I can’t believe they would treat you like that,” Buffy said. And I can’t believe you’ve hung around all this time if that’s the way they treat you.
 
“Used to it, pet,” he sighed. He turned toward town. “I need some smokes. Coming?”
 
Buffy hesitated. “I think I’m going to hang around here a little more. I want to keep an eye on Dawn.”
 
“I understand,” Spike said. “You know you can find me at my crypt after sunrise, yeah?”
 
“I’ll find you,” Buffy agreed. Then they parted.
 
Spike made his way downtown, finding a convenience store to replenish his supply of cigarettes and whiskey. He paused when he passed the public library on his way home. Stashing his groceries behind a shrub, he circled the building until he came to a service door. The lock was old, and easily forced. He entered quietly, listening for any alarm system or night watchman. Hearing nothing, he went inside and found a computer on the main floor. He was by no means proficient with these things, having been turned prior to reliable typewriters. But he knew enough to turn it on and open a browser.
 
He searched for quite a while, looking for anything he could about heavenly dimensions, benign ghosts, anything he could think to search on. He came up with lots of information, some of it useful, but most of it just a repeat of what he knew already. Then he came across a reference to a particular ancient Christian ritual. It was essentially a series of prayers and a blessing. It was a variation on the prayers for the dead, meant to ease the passage of the soul of a saint from this world to the Christian heaven. Hmm. Buffy’s not a Christian, not exactly a saint either. Still, maybe it could help her… The website lacked sufficient detail, and the described ritual seemed to be from a poor translation. He needed to find the original ritual – make sure he didn’t send her somewhere else by mistake.
 
He made a few notes and turned off the computer. Slipping back outside, he retrieved his bag and headed back to the crypt. He made his way down to the lower level, kicked off his boots, and cracked open a bottle of whiskey. He welcomed the burn down his throat as he contemplated his next move.
 
**************
 
Buffy watched Spike until he passed out of sight. Then she sighed and went back into her house. She found Tara and Willow in hushed conversation in the kitchen, clearly trying to make sure Dawn wouldn’t overhear.
 
“You don’t think Spike really sees Buffy, do you?” Willow was asking.
 
“I don’t know,” Tara replied. “I didn’t sense any presence other than us, and him. But he thinks he’s telling the truth. I could see it in his aura – he wasn’t lying, to his mind.”
 
“Could he be going crazy like Drusilla?”
 
Tara shook her head. “She was driven insane by mental torture. No one’s been torturing Spike.” A thought came to Tara’s mind. “Could it be that spell?”
 
What spell? Buffy thought. Enough with the cryptic already!
 
“No,” said Willow. “I checked. It seems to either work, or not. I didn’t find anything to indicate that it could have any particular side effects.” Willow was not speaking the exact truth. She had found that failed resurrection spells often meant the death of the witch involved, but Tara didn’t really need to know that.
 
“Then what is he seeing?” Tara wondered.
 
“I can’t imagine… “ Willow paused, her eyes widening. “The First Evil.”
 
Buffy slapped herself on the head and groaned. Dear God, what a freaking mess. “Earth to Willow! Not evil here! Just want to get back to that whole eternal reward thingy!” she yelled.
 
“First Evil? What’s that?” asked Tara.
 
“A few years ago, when Buffy and Angel were still together, Angel started seeing all these spirits of people he had killed.” Willow explained. “Turned out it was this big primeval badness messing with him, trying to get him to kill Buffy.”
 
“Oh my,” said Tara. “How… how did she defeat it?”
 
“Not entirely sure. There were these creepy minions called Bringers. Buffy killed a few of them. But not really sure how it all stopped. I guess Angel nearly killed himself over it. Buffy was too freaked out to really talk about it much.”
 
“If he’s under the influence of this evil thing, could he be a danger?” Tara asked, worried.
 
“I’m not sure. But maybe we should try to find out a little more about this First Evil, just in case that’s it,” said Willow. “And maybe we shouldn’t let him stay alone with Dawn until its safe.”
 
Buffy wanted to pound her head against the wall. “Great. Now I’m the First. I guess it’s better than being a drunken hallucination,” she muttered aloud. She went upstairs to check on Dawn. Dawn had fallen asleep, but her face was still stained with tears. I’m so sorry, Dawnie. I’m sorry Mom’s gone. I’m sorry our dad is a loser, and my friends are clueless. Buffy lay down on the bed next to her sister and watched her sleep, a solitary tear drifting down her face.
 
TBC