Probably most road trips were louder than this one, what with the giggling and the car full of co-eds and all; Buffy and Xander were doing sort of the quiet version instead. A little conversation, a lot of staring out the window at the passing countryside. But it turned out not to be so bad, she thought, as long as you were into navel-gazing and cataloging your list of worries into a convenient, easy-to-freak-out-about format.

Buffy wasn't.

And the day had started out so well, too… Slept till noon, woke up with that special kind of contentment that you only get after a really good night's sleep. Sun shining, birds singing, no obvious weird dreams she could recall. It looked like Xander was right about getting her batteries recharged… to face the bad guys… damn.

She sighed. Just like that her good-sleep afterglow vanished and she was wound tight as a harp string again. Rolling out of bed, she'd had to will the muscles in her back to loosen back up. There hadn't been anything she could do, though, about the sudden ache in her stomach as reality kicked back in.

Buffy looked out the window and watched the fields roll by, somewhere in the northwest corner of Ohio. And what did reality look like, kids? Well, to recap:

Spike was alive. Giles had tried to keep them apart. Had succeeded, the bastard, letting her believe that the undead was actually dead-dead for an entire year until the ruse was up and another apocalypse struck Los Angeles. Buffy had walked away from Giles – or maybe she'd run away – and then found herself pulled toward Spike, whom she'd mourned for the past year, discovered was alive that whole time, grieved as dead again starting only two weeks ago, and then found out, nope, still kicking, surprise, Buffy! Only now something was kicking him, and he needed Buffy to come save him, wherever he was.

All wrapped up in the middle of the Giles thing was her fear that some or all of her friends might have been in on the secret he'd managed to keep from her, which was all kinds of fun to contemplate and the main cause of the ongoing painful knot in her stomach. In the middle of the whole Spike thing was her attempt to create a new life away from the whole Giles thing, so you could include jet-lag, moving into a new home clear across the ocean, settling into a new job in a city she'd never even visited before, and trying to remember how much groceries were supposed to cost here in the States on top of the rest.

In other words, she had grief and sadness, betrayal, anger, hurt and broken trust, more grief, exhaustion, new-kid-nerves, bombshells, more hurt, hope, fear, love, worry, a dash of paranoia, and a partridge in a pear tree. Vampire in a pear tree. Something like that.

And there were people who paid good money to go on roller coasters with nowhere near as many loops as that.

"Buffy?"

"Whu – yeah?" She pulled her gaze away from the cornfields. So much green, so different from the edge-of-the-desert landscape where she'd grown up.

"It's been twenty minutes," reminded Xander.

"Oh. Right." She pulled the chain out from her jacket pocket and concentrated. Spike, where are you? The ring swung away from her about three inches and hovered there. "Still kinda north, mostly west," she said. "The pull feels a little stronger, though."

"'Kay." Xander nodded. "That's good. We'll find him, Buff."

"I know," she said. But then what, she didn't say aloud.

Once she got to Spike, Buffy was petrified of what she might find. Could a vampire be wrecked beyond repair? Could he recover from what the magic was doing to him? Or would she be too late to save him from whatever trouble had found him? Buffy rolled the knots out of her neck again, the way she'd been doing all afternoon. She just didn't know.

Worse, scarier even, she didn't know if Spike would even want her to come riding to the rescue. He'd pretty much hidden from her for the past year, after all. Need her? Yes, according to all the oracular oracle-ness and mystical messages. Be at all happy to see her once he was out of danger? Not a clue. And she wasn't sure if she could blame him for trying to get away from the angst-fest that was A Relationship With Buffy Summers.

But she had never let what-ifs and worry freeze her before, and she wasn't going to start today.

The "Welcome to Indiana" sign was pretty. Cheerful yellow star in the middle. The pavement changed under their tires. The fields stayed exactly the same.

Dealing with the Spike thing, coming face-to-face with him again after all this time, wasn't the hardest part. That involved her doing something, preferably something that involved a little ass-kicking, a spot of violence as Spike would have put it. Buffy could do that. The emotional part of facing him – she'd jump off that bridge when she came to it. But the physical? Not a problem.

No, it was the Giles thing, the rest of the emotional rollercoaster, that was really making her stomach hurt. It wasn't just Giles – even though just thinking his name made her grit her teeth and rub harder at the pain in her belly – nor was it only Willow and not wanting to tap her for the magics. It was all of them, Dawn, Andrew, Faith, even the other Slayers she'd become friends with in the past year.

Had Giles included them in his deception? Were they victims too, or were they accomplices? Would they understand why she wasn't speaking to anyone, or did they already know? What were they saying behind her back? 'Cause Buffy hadn't turned her cell on, hadn't set up her laptop, nor checked email even once since she'd gotten back to the States. She was ready to not talk to any of them for the next few months at least… but the way she was counting on them to react to that was enough to make her cringe and reach for the Tums.

Trust – that was what it came down to. Right now, reeling from fresh betrayal and old grief made new, staggering under worry and hope and love she was still afraid to admit, Buffy – the Buffy, Slayer Extraordinaire – just didn't have the strength to hold herself up under the pressure of their questions, their criticism, their opinions, their stupid well-meaning for-your-own-good mistrust of her motives. Couldn't quite extend the trust, on her side, that they wouldn't try to bring that kind of pressure to bear on her.

If it weren't for Xander being with the understanding and the no-questions-asked helpfulness, she'd be avoiding him too and trying to find Spike on her own, to heck with the risk.

Not involving the rest of them in Spike's rescue, or telling them he was alive after all? Maybe that was just the first aspect of Buffy's new attempt to live her life on her own instead of by committee. Maybe she was trying to make her choices and deal with the consequences without their input, without asking their opinions, and hopefully without having to deal with their freakin' judgment afterward. That'd be nice.

Or, you know, maybe she was just exercising a little petty revenge for their keeping her in the dark all those times in the past. Take your pick.

"Twenty minutes, Buffy," said Xander.

"Ugh. Thank you," she replied.

"Howzat?"

"Too much thinking," she said. Pulled out the chain. Concentrated – "Ooh! Ooh, Xander, look, it's sideways!" The ring was pointing toward the passenger-side window now instead of out the windshield, hovering at a noticeable angle. "We have to go that way, Xander, quick!"

"I'll take the next exit we come to," he said, "I think there's one a few miles up. Freedmont… look that up in the atlas, would you?"

Buffy pulled out the map and flipped through the pages. "I can't… oh, wait – small town. Really small. Really really, village size, easy-to-find-Spike sized town." Butterflies all of a sudden, there in her stomach next to the ache. Weird combination.

"Anything else it might be?" asked Xander.

"Not on this map," said Buffy. "Farmhouses, somewhere in the woods, maybe?" She pulled out the chain again and wound one end through her fingers. Focused. Checked the map. "If he's not in Freedmont he's just outside it," she said. "And the pull definitely is stronger now."

"Sounds good," he said.

Buffy thought of what the little demon girl had said, took a moment to try and guess what Spike might be going through. "For us," was all she said.

---

Figg wasn't humming today.

He moved among the rows in the flower greenhouse, garden hose in hand, methodically watering each bed and tray, each of the container gardens and hanging baskets, but for the first time in quite a long spell, his heart wasn't really in his work. It was just a touch too hot for his taste, too muggy, and with the cloud cover he knew the humidity wouldn't be letting up any time soon. And it looked like rain, probably another thunderstorm like they'd gotten last week. Or whenever it was. Time was hard to keep track of.

It wasn't a good day for family to travel. He thought he might almost doubt that they would come today… no. No. Of course they'd come. The weather would just delay them a bit, that's all. They'd come. Crazy talk, to say otherwise – to even think that they wouldn't was just… nonsense. But Figg's joints ached with the change in the weather, and he felt old, and the young man's harsh words at the start of his visit kept coming back to him, and… well, they were untrue, of course. But they still bothered Figg.

He wasn't the only one bothered, either. He could feel the young man inside him, and something was eating at him too. Figg had no idea what, the young man wouldn't say a thing to him about it, and boy I tell you what, that wasn't nice of him after staying as a visitor under Figg's roof for so long. Didn't even take the bit of blood Figg had offered him again as a thank-you present, just like he promised he would yesterday. Him being so helpful and all, and then when Figg tried to thank him he just brushed it off. Maybe he was just being modest, but still. Almost rude, it was.

Figg didn't like it.

He wasn't angry, though. It was a waste of time to get angry and Figg didn't hold with wasting time. Might not be ready for his family when they came, couldn't have that, no sir. No, he was just… disappointed. Company had come, the nice young man had stayed with him longer than almost anyone in… in… well, in a while anyway… time was hard to keep track of. But now he had a hunch company was getting ready to leave, just like that, probably wouldn't even say goodbye. They didn't, most times. Figg just woke up one morning and they were gone, nobody to keep him company in the potting shed while he worked, no one to help out around the place. Just up and gone. And then he had to wait alone again, until some other nice folk came along and agreed to help him.

He could almost hear the young man saying he didn't want to help, wanted Figg to let him leave, talk it out over a beer or some balderdash. Saying his family was… saying…

Figg shoved his lower lip out, scrubbed his knuckles under his chin, and kept watering the flowers. Hmph. Letting some young upstart get to him like that, like he was a young ram again letting just anybody rile him up. Foolishness.

It was a relief, you can just imagine, when he saw the construction company van pull into his drive. Customers always made him feel better. Took his mind off things for a bit while he waited for his family to come. Be here any day now, he knew it… but they were taking their sweet time getting back, he had to admit – no. Nonsense. He could feel the young man's bitter loneliness and it was getting to him, that was all. He should know better than to let someone else's trouble upset him so.

And never mind that now, anyway. He had customers to see to, and construction! Folks in construction usually ordered a lot for landscaping and such. That was always nice.

He hung up the garden hose, checked his glamour was in place, and started working his way through the rows to greet his guests. He was humming again by the time they got out of the van and made it inside.

Little muggy, but all in all, still a nice day.

---

Drusilla wanted him to remember something. Something that would help him get through it, something… there was… Drusilla said someone was coming. Drusilla was insane, just like that old… Figg, he thought his family was coming and Dru said… there was someone…

The spell was carving him out, hollow like those lanterns the little kiddies carved at Hallowe'en and the big kiddies would smash on a lark… cliché of a holiday, was what it was… hollow. He was getting hollow, too weak to keep himself to himself, and the hunger was starting to distract him even here, under the layers and layers… and layers… all wrapped up like a mummy, he was…

Mummy… dummy… Duffy, that singer, yeah? Duffy. Buffy.

Buffy. He needed to hang on… she needed him, he had to… had to go to her… had to…

Dru said she was coming to him.

Dru was dead.