Betaed by Maria and Flight Of Fancy.


After dusting the two vampire guards at the front door, Buffy poked her head out to make sure there were no more guards outside the factory. She’d been gone no more than a few minutes, but by the time she returned to Spike, he was unconscious again. The badly injured vampire had collapsed against the wall, leaving a gory portrait of his back to remain once Buffy got him to his feet again.

Buffy swayed under Spike’s dead weight for a moment, before deciding that the simplest way to get her vampire out of the factory was to throw him over her shoulder. Certainly, the technique lacked a bit of finesse, but it had the added benefit of preventing anything from touching Spike’s badly damaged back. Hoisting him to her shoulders, Buffy sent a silent thank you to the Powers That Be, for allowing her to keep her super-strength when she became the Eternal Light.

Buffy hurried out of the factory as quickly as she could with her precious burden. It was a long walk to the warehouse and she wasn’t able to sprint the whole way. At least twice, she stopped to catch her breath, leaning against a building and listening intently for sounds of pursuit. Buffy didn’t dare put Spike down, thinking that it would hurt him to be jostled around, and it might also reopen the wounds on his back that were trying to close. Buffy really hoped that Merrick was at the warehouse. She’d asked him to meet her there, but that was over an hour ago, and not the twenty minutes she’d told him to expect.

Hoisting Spike a little higher on her shoulders, Buffy turned the last corner and approached the warehouse. She drew in a deep sigh of relief when she saw the lights burning in the windows on the lower floor.

Once she made it to the warehouse doors, Buffy used her foot to kick the door a few times, and then stepped to the side, to lean against the building while she waited for Merrick to answer her knock. Spike wasn’t the biggest guy around, and Buffy certainly had a lot of extra strength, but carrying her vampire across town had depleted the Light’s energy reserves, and she found her knees were starting to tremble.

Merrick answered the door, but was confused when he didn’t see anyone right away. At first he thought he was the victim of a practical joke, but then he heard Buffy groan as she hitched Spike higher on her shoulders, before pushing herself away from the wall and moving into the doorway. Merrick rushed to help the tiny blonde, but quickly backed away again when she growled at his approach.

Rather than react with fear or anger, Merrick deliberately took a calming breath, and took an extra step away from the new arrivals, palms out and arms extended, as if to show he meant no harm. It was clear to him that Buffy was acting on instinct now. “Hey, Buffy, glad to see you made it home. What happened to Spike?”

“Angelus happened,” Buffy answered, as her tears began to flow. She stood in the middle of the entryway, looking lost and overwhelmed, Spike still on her shoulders.

“It’s good that you’ve brought him here then, where you can care for him and keep him safe. What can I do to help him, Buffy?” Merrick had seen the feral protectiveness that Buffy displayed when she first came in the warehouse door, and was being very careful now to ensure he wasn’t acting in a way that could be perceived as threatening or aggressive. He spoke with a soothing tone, and tried to get Buffy to focus on helping Spike. Merrick was relieved that his tactics were working, when Buffy finally looked at him, and sent a grateful smile his way.

She knew she could count on Merrick to help her. “Blood. He needs human blood, Merrick. Steal it from the hospital, or from the blood bank...I don’t care. Just get him some blood so he can start to heal.”

“You want me to steal blood?” Merrick clarified.

“Well, no...but he needs human blood, and lots of it. Can you buy blood? I don’t care how you get it, Merrick. Just get him some blood quickly.” Buffy headed for the stairs that lead to her personal quarters. “Take my car. The keys are in my purse, on the box in the entryway. I’ve got cash too, to pay for the blood. Take whatever you think you’ll need.” Buffy paused on the stairs, and turned back to Merrick. “Hurry, please.”

Merrick could see she was scared, but she seemed rational again. “I’ll do my best,” he promised, before grabbing her purse. Deciding that time was the most pressing factor, he upended her bag on the floor, and grabbed her keys and wallet, before running to the car. He had to take out a few bags and boxes, so he could slide the seat back far enough to be able to drive, and then he jumped in the car and took off.

Meanwhile, Buffy had carried Spike into the bathroom, and had now eased him off her shoulders and down onto the floor, careful to place him on his side. She left him there briefly, while she went to look for some first-aid supplies.

Buffy spent too many minutes looking for a first-aid kit without success. Deciding that she was going to have to make do for now, she found her linen closet and pulled out a new white sheet. In the kitchen, she found a pair of scissors, and rushed to the bathroom with her limited supplies.

Once back at Spike’s side, she started the bath running, filling the tub with almost-hot water. Then she pulled off his boots and used the scissors to cut off his pants and the shirt she had used to bandage his chest with. Seeing Spike lying there, naked on her floor, the shredded flesh of his back so very red against the white tiles, Buffy almost broke down. I don’t have time to fall apart now. Later, when he’s been taken care of. That’s when I’ll cry.

As carefully as she could, Buffy raised the wounded vampire and placed him in the warm water. The tub wasn’t quite half-full yet, so she reached up and grabbed the hand-held shower head, using it to carefully rinse the blood and sweat from his body. It was bad enough when his body was covered in blood and grime, but now that the water was rinsing the filth away, she was able to really see the damage that had been done. Buffy couldn’t help but cry, as each cut, burn, welt, and wound was revealed. At least the stake wound had almost stopped bleeding, though, given the severity of the injury, it was going to take a long time to heal.

Determined to finish the job and do what she could to help Spike recover, Buffy placed an arm under his head, and slowly rolled him to his side, facing away from her. At the sight of his back, she started crying again, thinking about how much pain he must have experienced. She quickly stopped her tears though, when she realized that they were falling onto Spike’s back, and that the salt water would cause him even more pain.

Buffy did her best to thoroughly clean Spike’s wounds, without doing any more damage. It was hard, because the whip had made deep gashes and removed chunks of flesh from the vampire’s back. Buffy was so upset by the time she was finished bathing Spike, that all she wanted to do was run back to the factory and stake Angelus good and proper. For that matter, she’d be willing to stake Drusilla too, if the loony vampiress had anything to do with the pain Spike had endured. Just fix his soul, and then you’ll never have to see him again. You know the PTBs have some grand plan for him, and they’d never let you stake him anyway, Buffy thought to herself.

Deeply immersed in her work with Spike, Buffy was startled when she heard Merrick’s voice calling from the upper level kitchen. “Buffy, are you still in the bathroom?”

Even knowing that the voice belonged to Merrick, and that he presented no risk to her vampire, Buffy’s first instinct was to cover Spike and defend him while he was helpless. Unfortunately, she moved too quickly, and ended up hurting Spike in the process. The unconscious vamp had cried out, and was now whimpering. Leaning down and trying to soothe him with her voice, Buffy told him he was safe, and that everything would be okay. Whatever she said must have worked, because Spike immediately seemed to settle back into the warm water, and drifted deeper into unconsciousness again.

Buffy sighed, and rolled Spike to his back, so he could float gently in the water. Then, when she was certain he’d be okay for a few minutes, she headed for the kitchen. “Merrick, I’m here. Did you manage to find some human blood?”

Merrick smiled triumphantly at the Light. “Here. Nothing but the best for Spike.” The Watcher indicated a paper grocery sack on the table behind him.

Buffy was surprised and pleased to see at least half a dozen bags of human blood in the grocery bag. She took two pints out, and carefully stored the rest of the blood in one of the crisper drawers in her new fridge. “Will you please stick these in the microwave and warm them up when I call?”

“No problem, Buffy. Do you think two bags will be enough? It looks like Spike’s in pretty rough shape.”

“He is. I don’t want to give him so much blood that he gets sick though. Who knows how he’s going to be feeling when he comes to.” Then, with a nod towards Merrick, she headed back into the bathroom. Once there, she laid two thick towels on the floor, and then pulled Spike out of the tub and put him gently on the towels. Using a third towel, she started to carefully pat him dry. With its coating of blood now washed away, Buffy was happy to see that his lower body was relatively unharmed. It looked like Angelus wanted all the damage to be visible while Spike was chained to the wall.

Once Spike was dry, Buffy draped the third towel across his groin and legs to preserve his modesty, and then called for Merrick’s help. When her Watcher arrived in the bathroom, Buffy was ripping the new sheet that she had fetched earlier into strips. “Give me a hand, please.”

“Of course.” Merrick took off his coat and laid it on a chair in the bedroom, before entering the bathroom again. “What would you like me to do?”

“I need your help getting him bandaged. I’m going to hold him upright, and I’d like you to wrap the sheeting around his chest.” Buffy pointed the torn sheets out to Merrick, and then moved in front of Spike, carefully pulling him up, until she was able to rest his head on her shoulder. Then she had Merrick help her lift his arms up, until they were wrapped around her shoulders too, so they would be out of the way of the bandages.

Merrick took the linen that Buffy had prepared earlier and started wrapping the vampire’s exposed torso.

“We need to get a first aid kit. A big one,” Buffy said, without looking up.

“Don’t worry, Buffy. I’ll get one when the stores open,” Merrick offered.

With the bandaging done, Buffy asked Merrick to pull down the sheets and blankets so she could get Spike into her bed, and then go warm up the two bags of blood she had picked out earlier. “Don’t forget, ninety-eight point six, Merrick.”

Buffy took her time, and carefully placed Spike in her bed so that he was lying on his side. She didn’t want to make the pain in his back worse when he finally woke up. Once he was all tucked in under the blankets, she sat down on the edge of the bed, carefully holding one of his hands, needing that connection with him to reassure her that he was undead and would be okay.

Merrick came into the bedroom, carrying two mugs filled with warm blood. Buffy was so focused on Spike, that she didn’t even hear the Watcher until he cleared his throat behind her. She jumped a bit, startled that he was so close and she’d missed his approach, but then shrugged it off, aware that Merrick was one of only a very few people in the world that she trusted completely.

Buffy smiled, apologizing for her jumpiness, and then accepted the mugs and placed them on the bedside table. “Do we have any straws?”

“Sorry, Buffy, but the place is still pretty empty. If you haven’t bought it yourself, it’s not here. Is there anything else I can do to help?” Merrick asked.

“Would you give my mom a call, and let her know that I’m okay? I kind of ran out of there without a whole lot of explanation. Oh, and let her know that I’m going to stay here tonight. Ask her to please stay inside until one of us has called to say it’s safe to go out. Angelus is still out there, and when he sees that Spike is gone, he’s going to be furious.” Having given Merrick her instructions, Buffy got up from the bed for a moment, and gave the Watcher a hug.

This time, when she sat down, she placed herself upright, with her back against the headboard. “Let me feed Spike, and then I’ll need you to sit with him while I’m busy with the spell for Angelus. Fortunately, I’ve got all the supplies I need now. I just happened to bring them back in the car, instead of shipping them back from LA with my other purchases.” Buffy pulled Spike’s unresisting body up, until he was seated between her legs, with his back against her chest and his head resting on her shoulder.

“Are you able to resoul Angelus on your own?” Merrick asked, concerned about the amount of power required for the spell.

“I can and I will. There’s no way I’m going to let Willow have anything to do with this spell. In my other life, I think it was this spell that started her downward spiral into dark magic and her lust for power.” Buffy reached for a mug of blood.

“I’d be happy to help you,” Merrick said eagerly.

“Thanks, Merrick.” Buffy smiled. “Okay, let me try to feed Spike now. Why don’t you go give my mom that call?”

Merrick nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. He had a feeling that whatever was going to happen in that bedroom, it was going to be something that required privacy.

Buffy moved the mug of warm blood to Spike’s mouth, hoping that the smell under his nose would wake him up. While there was no sign of consciousness, Spike’s demon did emerge. Buffy thought that was progress, and moved the mug until it was touching the demon’s lips. When she tilted it, Spike’s lips automatically parted, and she was able to pour the warm blood into his mouth. He swallowed greedily, eyes still closed. The first mug was drained very quickly, and Buffy exchanged it for the second mug, continuing to feed her starving vampire until that mug was empty as well.

Thinking that she was going to need another bag of blood, Buffy started to move Spike back down to the bed. “Slayer,” he said, in a raspy voice that betrayed his confusion.

“Shhh. It’s okay. You’re safe here, Spike.” Buffy gently let her hand rest on his unburned cheek.

“Where am I?” he asked, as he tried to sit up. Though he had just fed, Spike didn’t have any energy, and his demon face disappeared.

“Easy...just relax. You’re in my house. Angelus doesn’t have an invite. You’re safe here.” Buffy encouraged Spike to rest his head on her pillow. “Sleep now. I’ll bring you some more blood in a little while.”

Unable to resist the exhaustion he was feeling, Spike was sound asleep before Buffy made it out the bedroom door.

Gathering her supplies, Buffy met Merrick in the downstairs kitchen. She knew that Spike was very leery of magic, and wanted to do her spell casting far away from him, so that she didn’t disturb his rest. This time, when Buffy restored Angel’s soul, she made sure there was no happiness clause, in fact, there was no clause of any kind. This time, his soul was permanent.

Later, after the spell components had been cleaned up, and Buffy had phoned to reassure her mother that she was safe, and that Angelus was no longer a threat, Merrick cornered the Light in her own kitchen. The Watcher could tell that his charge was running on empty, and he insisted that she eat a sandwich and have a bowl of soup and a glass of milk, before he sent her back to her room to check on Spike and get a bit of sleep. Before leaving the kitchen, Buffy groggily offered Merrick the only other bed in the warehouse, in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

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In the factory, Angel awoke in a strange bed, beside Drusilla. He moved away from her quickly, as if burned, and ended up in a heap on the floor. He was confused, and couldn’t remember how he ended up with his Childe.

“Daddy, what are you doing on the floor?” Drusilla peeked over the side of the bed. “No, not Daddy anymore.” She pushed herself back on the bed, and took Miss Edith from the nightstand. Then she sat in the middle of the bed, rocking and singing to her doll, treating it as if Miss Edith were her baby. “I’m all alone now, all alone. My prince has met the sunshine, and Daddy is gone, gone, gone. Now there will be tea for two, just me and you, Miss Edith.”

Angel untangled himself from the bed linen as quickly as he could, searching for his clothes and dressing as fast as possible. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew he didn’t belong where he was. He was just fastening his leather pants around his hips when the memories of the past three days returned to him. A scream escaped his throat, and he sank down on his knees, curling into a ball with his arms around his head, as if to protect himself from the knowledge of what he had done.

No, no, no. Why didn’t they tell me? Why didn’t they make me believe that my soul was in danger? Now I’ll have to start my path to redemption all over again from the beginning. Angel swayed back and forth, distressed by how much damage the foolish humans had done. Years of his hard work were down the drain. He needed to get out of the factory and away from Dru, before she tempted him and made things even worse.

While Angel had his little break-down, Dru sat quietly on the bed, just watching. She felt so sad for him, this vampire that wasn’t her Daddy any longer. He just didn’t understand. There was no chance that Angel would be forgiven for all the murders, raping, and torture that he had committed since he was turned so many years ago. For one thing, as long as Angel let Drusilla live, he was in no small way responsible for the death she continued to inflict without prejudice on the human population. Also, by insisting that Angel and Angelus were completely separate entities, Angel was unable to atone for the crimes committed by Angelus. Finally, how could he claim that he wanted to be redeemed, when it was so very clear that, without that pesky soul, her Daddy was quite happy to return to his old ways? No, Drusilla sighed, the creature before her was never going to be her Daddy again. At that thought, Drusilla gave in to her misery, and let her eyes fill with tears of sorrow.

As dressed as it was possible to be, given that he had no idea where his left sock had gone, Angel took one last look at the quietly weeping Drusilla, and then left the bedroom. On his way out of the factory, he noticed that Spike was no longer in his chains, and the guards were missing from the front hall. The already brooding vampire kicked a pile of dust by the door.

He guessed that the factory had been visited by a Slayer sometime in the past night, and that the Slayer either didn’t want to, or just couldn’t kill him. It looked like sleeping with Cordelia was a good move, even if he had lost his soul for a short while. If nothing else, it would appear that his brief sojourn on the dark side was going to successfully bring Buffy to heel. He smiled, satisfied once again.

Angel didn’t believe that it was Kendra who had visited his home in the dark of night. The Slayer would have made some noise, and would have been captured by his minions. The only one strong enough and skilled enough to get in and out through the front door was Buffy. She was the only one experienced enough to kill the minions and Spike without alerting the other occupants of the factory.

Back in his apartment, Angel took a long shower in an effort to get the stench of the factory off his skin. He could smell the lingering odour of the building itself, as well as Spike’s blood and the scent of sex with Drusilla. He found that, even with his soul restored, the last two scents were making him hard. Knowing he wouldn’t find any release, other than his own right hand, Angel finished his shower and then grabbed a pint of blood from his fridge. The first sip had his lip curling in distaste. Pig. He hated it even more, now that he’d recently had the good stuff again.

Angel turned on a table lamp and sat in his big armchair. Tired, he slouched down and rested his head on the back of the chair. He knew that it was going to be difficult, trying to reconnect with the Scoobies the next day. It was their own damn fault for not explaining the curse properly, but Angel just knew they were going to blame everything on him. That group was just completely biased against vampires, regardless of how good he tried to be. It wasn’t long before Angel fell asleep in his chair, his thoughts once again drifting to Buffy and how pretty she’d look when she begged for his forgiveness.

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Hours before the sun came out to play, Drusilla was out wandering the street of Sunnydale. First she fed, and then she made her way to Buffy’s new home, where she stood outside, quietly waiting.

The Light could feel the vampire, just outside her home. She got out of bed, pausing for a moment to feel Spike’s forehead and make sure he was still sleeping. Buffy laughed at herself, and at how she automatically felt Spike’s forehead, as if he were human. She shook her head at her own silliness, and then wrapped herself in her robe.

With Spike sleeping so soundly, Buffy knew it would be okay to leave him for a little while. Closing the door to her bedroom behind her, she went down the stairs and out the front door to meet Drusilla on the street.

The first thing Buffy noticed was the suitcase by Drusilla’s feet. As her eyes rose, she noted that Miss Edith was dressed for travelling, and was held securely in the insane vampiress’ arms. Buffy made sure that her eyes went no higher than Drusilla’s chin. This Dru wasn’t the one that Buffy knew so well, and she didn’t want to risk Dru’s thrall.

With everything Buffy wanted so close now, she didn’t want to gamble everything in a fight with Drusilla. She wasn’t going to attack the vampiress first, but she also wasn’t going to let down her guard.

“Sunshine,” Drusilla spoke, her voice betraying her sadness.

“Drusilla,” Buffy acknowledged.

Drusilla sighed deeply. “Daddy is gone.”

“I know, Dru. I had to do it.” Buffy wanted to show Dru the sincerity in her eyes, but was wary of eye contact. In the end, she just settled for simply saying, “I’m sorry.”

“I know...but a girl can’t help but hope, right? It doesn’t matter now. I’m all alone. I’ve decided that I’m leaving. Taking the train tonight.”

“That’s probably for the best. The Slayer is here and she’d hunt you down if you were killing in Sunnydale. Where are you going?” Buffy had to ask.

“I feel that South would be a good choice. The stars and Miss Edith have all agreed, and so South we shall go.”

Buffy nodded. There wasn’t much else to be said.

“Will you take good care of him, Sunshine? Give him this, when he’s strong enough to read it. Tell him his Mummy will always love him, just not the way he wanted her to.” Dru held out an envelope.

Buffy accepted the letter and smiled. “I will. Thank you for coming to say goodbye.”

Dru picked up her suitcase and turned away. “Goodbye, Sunshine.”

“Goodbye, Drusilla.”