Figg hummed to himself contentedly, moving among the rows in the vegetable greenhouse.  He had his clippers in hand, his basket under one arm, and a contented heart, and really, what more could anybody ask for?  The tomatoes were coming along nicely this year – it was looking like he’d probably end up with a bigger crop this time around than he did last season – and the early beans were almost ready to harvest, he thought; likely do well at the farmer’s market in another month or so.  He dropped another handful of clippings into his basket, picked a few bugs off the leaves.  It didn’t do to spray the vegetables the way some growers did, he thought. If you couldn’t grow veggies without help like that, why, you could hardly call yourself a gardener at all, now could you?

It was a beautiful day, not too windy outside the greenhouse and not too hot inside under the glass.  He could see birds outside picking through the brush pile; here indoors, there were a handful of butterflies making the rounds in the flower greenhouse.  A day like today, a demon couldn’t help but feel optimistic; it was a good day for gardening and a good day for travel.  A perfect day for family to come visit.  They’d come today.  He was sure of it.

And speaking of visitors, he had his company to thank for helping him wait.  That nice young man he’d met at the Quik-E-Mart was so strong for him, such a help with the long task of waiting for his family to come; Figg was more grateful to that fellow than he could even put into words.  Mind you, it hadn’t been nice of him to say some of those things he’d said, there at the beginning when Figg was still making the chalk marks and getting the silk cord ready.  The idea that Figg’s family would be… that they were… well, it just wasn’t true, that was all, and unkind of the young man to say such things.  But he’d settled down soon enough, the way Figg knew he would, and now, Figg figured he could willingly forgive him for whatever he might have said, there at the start of things.

Figg could feel him now, after all, now that the circle was done and nearly a week had passed – could feel the young man’s strength and the heart that it came from, and well… Figg understood, that was all.   Poor thing; Figg couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, a little.  He was so young to have a heart so full of pain; too young, for sure, to feel the kind of loneliness he had creeping around in there, so deep and bitter you could almost taste it.  Figg knew the type – some people could do all right on their own, but there were others who just plain needed to be with those who loved them.

That right there, Figg could tell, that right there was a young man who needed his people around him, and the sad thing was, it looked like he didn’t have them; maybe hadn’t for a long time.  Maybe didn’t know where they were anymore.

Figg understood about that.

The old demon could go on, tell you stories till the sun went down, but the long and the short of it was, Figg could feel the pain the young man carried, and with a heart like that, well, it only made sense he’d say things that weren’t very nice, from time to time.  A decent man was willing to forgive a little, when that happened.

Figg liked to think of himself as a decent man.  Well, a decent demon, anyway.

Besides, he thought, he was pretty darn lucky that he didn’t have the kind of problems that the young man obviously did.  Figg’s family was coming for him, after all.  Any day now, they’d be here, and Figg would be ready for them, and it was all thanks to his young visitor.

He’d have to remember to stop by the butcher shop again, next time he went into town, see if the young man wouldn’t mind another bit of blood as a thank-you present.  He remembered his visitor was a vampire, and vampires liked blood.  He remembered that.  Last time he brought blood, a few days back, the young man had seemed grateful, although he hadn’t said anything; Figg thought for sure he could even feel a bit of extra strength flow into him after he’d shared his surprise with him.

His basket of clippings was full, he noticed.  He had to dump those into the cistern anyway; now might be a good time to go ahead and check on the young man, too, see how he was doing.  Maybe let him know that Figg’s family would be here any day now, and he wouldn’t have to help him wait much longer.

Why, then the young man could maybe go and look for his people too; Figg would be sure to suggest it, he thought the fellow might like that.
 
 

---

In Spike’s dream, he was alone.

There was nothing and no one around him, no pain, no dream monsters or hellish beasts, nothing attacking him.  Nothing to fear.  The world was without form, and void.  Nothing existed except for him.

Spike was pretty sure he was having a nightmare.

He might never tell anyone else – ever – but here in the depths of his own mind, where he had only his thoughts for company, Spike could admit it: He hated being alone.  Hated it, and in the past hundred-odd years, had never, ever done well with it.  He’d tried before, God help him he’d tried, but if he were lucky, he might, might, get a few good months on his own, maybe a year or two – and after that, it would all go to hell for him, every time.

For some people, solitude might be a way of life; for Spike it was only ever a temporary thing.

Last time he’d tried to make a go of things on his own, Spike had ended up in Sunnydale, toy of the Initiative and pathetic buggering hanger-on round the edges of the Sodding Scooby Gang; so desperate to have a family again – to belong to a pack even as the omega, just to bloody belong – that he’d submitted himself willingly to their humiliations and their mockery and their sodding hatred and hadn’t even realized he was doing it the whole bloody time.   And that was only the most recent example; the less said about the time he’d spent under the Third Reich, the better.

That’s right, kiddies; the Big Bad, Slayer of Slayers, William the Bloody – however much he might deny it or fight it or rail against it – one of the most badass vampires ever to catch the bloody Council’s attention needed not to be alone.

William the Bloody Ponce, that’s what he was.

And just look what it had gotten him this time round, yeah?  Fleeing a mini-apocalypse, here he was trying to find Buffy because of some magical mystical messages that might not even be real, might be only his own imagination trying to find him someone to be with again.  Bloody pathetic.

And what happened after that?  He’d gone and gotten himself clubbed over the head with a sodding shovel, hadn’t he?  Caught and bound into a ritual that would likely kill him, and all that by a cheerful bloody old fart of a demon who was sodding insane and wanted Spike to help him wait for a bunch of sodding dead people who were never sodding coming.  Bloody typical, wasn’t it?

Yes.  Absolutely.  Because a Spike alone meant a Spike just waiting to get himself buggered by someone, sooner or later.  Sodding matter of time is what it was.

Spike not-alone may have meant he was still someone’s bitch, but at least then he was putting himself through the wringer of his own free will, rather than having someone else do it for him.  At least then it had something to do with Spike as a person, instead of him being just the most convenient body, nothing more than another undead bloody rat in the maze.

So now here he was, in the middle of all that, and the scariest dream his mind could throw at him had him standing in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing, with no one around, and he was doing his best not to be bloody terrified, because he was bloody alone.
Yes, thank you, subconscious,he thought, pretty sure we get the message, you can sod off now.

As if that ever worked.

“My poor William,” he heard someone say, “you’ve gotten yourself lost again, haven’t you?”

Out of the shapeless gray fog he saw someone approaching.  Well, that was new.

“Here you are,” she said.  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.  My poor, sweet William.”

Spike frowned, peering into the fog.  Squinted.  Tipped his head in confusion.

“Drusilla?”
 
 

---

“What do I have to do?”  Buffy set her mug down on the coffee table and curled her legs up under her.  She was a little nervous, more resigned and sad, but most of all she just felt tired, in body and spirit.  Holding it together for too many hours without a break, when all she wanted was to go cry into her pillow some more.

The little demon looked at her for a moment, orange eyes glinting in the lamplight.  “You are afraid of what the reading may show you?”

Buffy shook her head with a sigh.  “No,” she said.  “I’m mostly just tired of feeling like – like I’m only here to be messed with by other people, or whatever… the universe, the Powers That Be.  Manipulated.” She rubbed her eyes, annoyed.  “I mean, I came back here, to the US, to start over, to get away from all of that, you know?  And pretty much as soon as I get off the plane I start getting these stupid messages.  It’s like, oh no, Buffy, you don’t get to rest, you don’t get to start over, we’re not done pulling on your chain.” She threw her hands into the air.  “You don’t even get to, to grieve and be done with it – no, not you, Buffy.  We have more hoops for you to jump through, Buffy.  Sit up, Buffy, roll over, Buffy!”

She stopped with a huff, reached for the box of tissues.  “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.  “I don’t mean to take it out on you.  But this kind of thing is just… it seems like it goes on with me all the time, and honestly?  I’m really over it.”

“There is no need to apologize,” said Moduz.  “The duties of a Slayer can be heavy to bear.  And also you are sad for the loss of someone you loved, is that not so?”  She tipped her head thoughtfully as Buffy looked away.  “If it is helpful, I do not think that the messages being sent to us are a part of your work as the Slayer.”

“I suppose that’s kind of a relief,” Buffy sighed.  “Either way, I may as well get this over with – so what do I have to do? ‘Cause there’s always something.”  She smiled wryly.

“I have many tools,” Moduz said, reaching for her bag.  “The most simple reading only requires you to ask the question, and the rest of the work is for me to do.  But there are other readings I can give.  If you do not know what to ask, or if you want clearer answers, the best is to use the stones.  They are like human runes, a little.  For that, though, I need a drop of your blood on the question stone, here.”  In her palm, she held out a pebble, polished smooth, the color of sand.

“A drop of blood, huh?” asked Buffy.  Looked at the stone for a second.  Got up, went into the kitchen, started rummaging in the knife drawer.

“A drop only,” said Moduz.  “Then we throw the stones together, you will… the closest word is decorate – you will decorate them, and then I will read what the stones say.”

“Decorate them?”  Buffy came back out and picked up the question stone, knife in hand.

“Let us begin,” said the little demon, “and you will see.”  She reached into her bag and pulled out a handful of pebbles, cupped in one hand.  “Do you have a question to ask?”

“I dunno,” said Buffy.  “Ow.”  Squeezed her finger, let a drop fall onto the question stone.  “I mean, I want to know who these messages are talking about, but I’ve done this kind of thing before… and in the past, anytime I’ve ever asked a straightforward, simple question, the answers were anything but.”

Moduz crinkled her eyes again.  “That will not happen here,” she promised.

Following her direction, Buffy laid her stone down in the middle of a velvet cloth the demon spread across the coffee table.  Between them, they tossed the pebbles randomly across the cloth; then Moduz handed Buffy another pouch and had her pull out a fistful of whatever was inside.

In her hand she found an odd little collection of trinkets and scraps – pieces of string, a clump of grass, a bit of charred wood, what looked like a couple of bracelet charms, tiny crystals. Buffy placed them one by one around the cloth, next to different stones or not, wherever the whim struck her.  Decorating.  When she was done, she sat back and curled her legs up under her again.

The demon lit a candle and closed her eyes.  Suddenly she shivered, the long scales on her head rustling like dried leaves in an autumn wind.  She opened her eyes partway and stared at the table, breath hissing out in a soft sigh.

“Ahh,” she murmured.  “The one you love and thought was lost… the dark warrior who earned his own light… his hair bright like moonlight on water, his armor black as the starless sky… you were correct, Slayer.  Your messages are about him.” Her eyes opened and she touched the railroad spike Buffy had left on the table.  “This was his weapon and this is his name,” she said.

“Spike?” whispered Buffy.

“He lives,” said the demon.  “He lives, but there is danger for him, danger and sorrow and pain.  You need him… and he needs you, to go to him.” 

Buffy’s hands began to shake.