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So You Think You Can Dance by slaymesoftly
 
Two
 
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Chapter Two
 
“What the fuck are you doing here? I thought you were in Europe somewhere.”
 
Buffy blinked at the anger in his voice. “I thought you were dust!” she snapped back. “Which one of us should be more surprised?” She sat up and glared down at his covered face.
 
He heaved a sigh and lifted his arm so as to meet her gaze, visibly flinching at the pain underlying her angry glare. He just stared at her, still wearing his vampire mien and unable or unwilling to respond. Buffy watched as his expression softened, but he didn’t go back to the human face she was more used to. Now that she knew who he was, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized him sooner. Scars or no scars, his game face should have been as familiar to her as her own. And the way he fought....
 
“You’ve been beating up my slayers,” she said, forcing herself not to let her own eyes betray her mixed feelings.  “Did you think somebody wasn’t going to do something about it?”
 
“Come to sort me out then, have you?” The challenging look he gave her held less humor than she would have expected.  It reminded her more of the Spike she’d first met who’d been both a brilliant fighter and a too-confident-for-his-own-good enemy.
 
“Just be grateful you haven’t killed any of them... yet.”
 
“Not planning to kill anyone, Slayer. But those girls needed a wake-up call. They’re too cocky by half. Going out in groups and slaying newly risen vamps before they’re even all the way out of the dirt.” He snorted. “And pretending they don’t see what the demons are up to so they won’t have to take on something that might give them a run for their money. Somebody had to do something.”
 
“So you came here to teach my girls that some vamps fight back?” She scoffed, even as she let her face relax into a less antagonistic glare. She tried to ignore the little ball of hope that was growing in her chest – the one that said he was still on the right side. The ball froze when he shook his head.
 
“I’m here for the Hellmouth,” he said. He gestured at his face. “Need to do some healing after—need some healing. The extra energy is helping.”
 
“You get energy from the Hellmouth?” 
 
“Demon does. Why do you think there are so many of us here?  This one doesn’t have quite the same punch that Sunnydale’s did, but it still gets the job done.”
 
“So, you’re here for yourself, not to—”
 
“Not here for your girls, Buffy,” he said, his voice gentle. “Wouldn’t have paid them any mind if one of them hadn’t jumped me and shown how unprepared she was for something like me.”
 
“There’s no way to prepare them for something like you,” Buffy said, not even aware of the implied compliment.  “But you could have just talked to Vi about it. You didn’t have to keep beating them up.”
 
“It’s not that they’re not trained for it,” he said, ignoring her real question. “These girls... they aren’t as strong as you are.  Not even as strong as you were when I first met you. And not as fast either. They’re slayers, yeah, but they don’t have all the tools they need.  They need a different kind of trainin’. Something that takes into account their strengths and weaknesses.”
 
“You should have told somebody,” she repeated. “If you didn’t want to call me, you could have told Vi.  Hell, you could have sent an anonymous email if you didn’t want anybody to know you weren’t—” She broke off, overwhelmed by the emotions she’d been too angry to let herself feel.  She leapt to her feet, blinking back unwelcome tears. Taking a deep breath, she let it out and tried to calm herself.  When she felt she had her voice under control, she said, “Anyway, why don’t you come back with me so the girls can see who you are and—”
 
“No.”  He rose smoothly to his feet, but remained where he was, a good several feet away from Buffy who had turned to leave.
 
“No?”
 
“No. Not doing show-and-tell tonight. Or any night, most likely. It was a good fight, Buffy.  We should do it again sometime.”  Without another word, he turned and began to walk away, leaving Buffy to stare after him, too bewildered to call his name. When he’d disappeared into the darkness, she shook herself and began the walk back to the slayer group home.  She pulled her hood back up and told herself it was because the night was chilly – not that she was trying to hide her damp eyes.
 
She entered the building quietly and went directly to the room they’d managed to keep open as a guest bedroom, shedding her hood only after she was safely behind a closed door.  She threw herself onto the bed and tried to absorb the fact that Spike was not only alive – again or still, she wasn’t sure – but that he was not interested in spending any time with her unless they were fighting. 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
By the next afternoon, things were almost back to normal. While some of the girls still looked pale and drawn, most of them had bounced back and were full of energy.  Buffy looked at the group with more aware eyes, wondering which ones might be a little stronger than others, which ones might be smarter or have more common sense and street savvy.  It didn’t occur to her to doubt Spike’s word. If he said the girls weren’t as strong and fast as they should be, then they weren’t; and it was her job to figure out how to work around those things and keep them safe while they did their job. She made a mental note to email the main school in England and ask Faith to start testing the girls there.
 
“So, what are you thinking?” Vi had walked up behind her while Buffy was surveying the girls sprawled around the big common room and arguing over whether to have pizza or Chinese food for dinner.
 
“I’m thinking we need to do some work,” Buffy said without explanation. She sat down in a chair and put her elbow on the table.  “Try to pin me,” she said. Vi blinked at her, but sat down obediently, “I’m pretty sure you’re stronger than I am, Buffy,” she said.
 
“I know. But I need to check something out.”  Buffy wiggled her fingers and Vi clasped their hands together. “On three.” The other girls looked at them curiously, watching as Vi and Buffy strained against each other until Buffy sighed and forced their house leader’s hand to the table with one swift movement.
 
“See? Told you.”
 
Buffy nodded. “Yeah, I’m stronger. But you almost gave me a fight.” She frowned. “But maybe not as much of a fight as you should have. Bring one of the other girls up here. One you think might beat you.”
 
“So not gonna happen,” Vi said with the confidence of someone who had been a slayer for several years and fought against uber-vamps.  “Suzie, come on up here, please.”
 
A stocky redhead approached them. “Yeah? What, you want to arm wrestle me?” She giggled and looked at the other girls. “I always win those contests.”
 
“With the other girls you do,” Vi said. “Let’s see how you do against me.”
 
“Pfft,” Suzie said, shrugging. “You’re just older and taller, not stronger.” She sat down, smiling confidently and taking Vi’s hand in hers. Her confident smile changed abruptly when, without seeming to try very hard, Vi pinned her hand to the table.  “I wasn’t ready. Let’s do it again – left handed.”
 
Vi shrugged and changed hands, only to pin Suzie even more quickly.  “What the hell?”
 
“Thanks, Suzie,” Buffy said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m sorry we embarrassed you, but I had to know.”
 
“Know what?”  All the attention was now on the two older slayers.
 
“Hit me,” Buffy said, hands hanging at her sides.  Suzie was just embarrassed and angry enough to take the senior slayer up on the invitation, and her hand lashed out almost too fast for the eye to follow. Buffy’s block was too fast for the eye to follow, and the now really embarrassed girl was left holding an arm sore from where Buffy had blocked the punch with a flick of her wrist.
 
There was a lot of babbling as the girls all tried to make sense of what they’d seen and explain it away. Buffy waited for the babble to die down, letting them vent while she and Vi had a quiet conversation.
 
“Okay, are you going to explain? How did you know?”
 
Buffy gave a small, sad smile. “There’s a reason you haven’t seen the new vamp in town. And it’s not just because you’d be able to give him a fight.”
 
“You mean I’d be able to dust him,” Vi said, frowning at Buffy’s choice of words.
 
Buffy shook her head. “No, Vi, you probably wouldn’t. But the reason he was avoiding you is because you know him.” Buffy waited for Vi to process what she was saying.
 
“But I don’t know any vamps. The only one I’ve ever met that wasn’t on the end of my stake was Spike. But he’s....” She stared at Buffy’s face, noticing for the first time the haunted look in her eyes. “Oh. My. God.”
 
“Yeah. Kinda my reaction, only more with the ‘Where the hell have you been? Why didn’t I know you weren’t dead?’ and less with the God stuff.”
 
“Spike is who’s been beating my girls up and telling them they suck?”
 
“Yep. Not on purpose at first, but once the first one tried to fight him, he started looking for them. He told me they aren’t strong enough or fast enough.  But I don’t know why that would be. And I don’t know if they’ve always been like that and we just missed it at the school, or if something’s going on here that’s sapping their slayer powers.”
 
“But I’ve got all mine,” Vi protested. “If it was something here, wouldn’t I be affected too?”
 
Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know if you are or not. Being older and trained for longer, maybe you’re just that much stronger than your girls are.”
 
“Still, it seems if something was weakening them I’d have felt it too. I was away for a while, but I’ve been back for a couple of weeks.”
 
“You’d think so.” Buffy frowned. “But if you’re not affected, then that means we’re sending girls out as slayers who probably can’t do it without getting killed.  I’ll need to talk to Faith and Willow and ask them to run a check on all the girls there. If they’re all okay, then it’s definitely something going on here.”
 
Vi looked over at the girls for whom she was responsible.  “I guess I’m lucky I haven’t gotten anybody killed.  I’m glad Spike was here.” She looked at Buffy. “Is he going to come by tonight? Explain to the girls why he was able to beat them so easily?”
 
Buffy bit her lip. “I don’t think so.”
 
Vi opened her mouth to ask why, then shut it when she saw the expression on Buffy’s face.
 
~~~~~~~~~
 
The conference call with Faith and Willow didn’t go as well as Buffy might have liked. She made a snap decision not to tell them about Spike until she’d spoken with him again. The thought that he might not want to talk to her was unacceptable, so she refused to think it. She stammered out a half-baked explanation of having “accidentally” wrestled with one of the girls and found her to be weaker than she should be.   She could hear the suspicion in Faith’s voice. Fortunately, her drawled, “You wouldn’t be lying to us now, would you, B?” was enough to get Buffy’s back up, and she easily summoned the righteous indignation needed to defend herself.
 
“What would I be lying about? I’m giving you important information here. These girls are all slower and weaker than they should be. You need to find out if that’s what we’re sending out to fight evil, or if I need to be looking for something locally that could be sapping their strength. Just get on it.” 
 
She stared at the phone after she’d hung up, guilt washing over her.  She tried to tell herself that she was keeping the news about Spike from them because she needed to know more about how he’d survived when Angel and everyone else connected with him hadn’t, but a little voice kept insisting she just didn’t want to admit to them that Spike was once again undead, and once again hadn’t bothered to tell her he wasn’t dust.  She told the little voice to shut up and went downstairs to meet Vi and the small group of girls she’d chosen to take out that night.
 
“Okay,” Buffy said, looking over Vi’s choices, “here’s the deal. We’re going to patrol as usual, but only in pairs. If you spot any demons or the vamp we’re looking for, you call for back up. You got that?”  She held up her radio, making sure each girl had one.  “Stakes and swords. Stakes don’t do much against demons unless you can stab them in the eye or something. But that’s a last resort. Use all your weapons.”
 
“So, we can’t fight the vamp if we find him?  I owe him,” Rita said, her arm now healed enough that she could go out with just an ace bandage protecting it.
 
“You very literally can’t fight him. I mean, you can, obviously, but you’re going to lose again.  I don’t think he broke your arm on purpose, he was just defending himself and didn’t know—” Buffy stopped, horrified. “Oh my God. I wonder if you’re weaker in other ways? Maybe you can’t take a punch or a kick?”  She exchanged looks with Vi. “Okay, new plan. You don’t engage with anything unless Vi and I are there to step in if we need to. All right? Everybody’s got that?”
 
~~~~~~~~~~~
 
The grumbling from behind was beginning to get on Buffy’s nerves by the time they came upon a Fyarl demon holding onto a leashed dog and roaring at the tearful owner tugging on the other end of the leash.  So far, she and Vi had been the only ones to stake anything – in spite of it being obvious that the few vamps they’d encountered were so newly risen they hadn’t engaged their brains much past “must have blood”, and the other girls were not happy at being treated as if they couldn’t handle themselves.
 
“Give that dumb woman credit,” Vi said, “she’s willing to fight for her dog.”
 
“Yeah. Balls but no brains.  Okay, ladies, let’s see what you can do...” Buffy gestured at the demon, now dividing his attention between the dog and the group of eager girls surrounding him.  With a roar, he threw the dog back at its owner and spun around looking for a way out of the circle of sword wielding slayers.
 
Buffy left Vi to watch the proceedings while she checked to make sure the dog and owner were okay. Assured that the woman and her dog were shaken but not harmed, Buffy escorted them to edge of the cemetery and waved away her thanks.  As she returned to the girls, she felt a tingle on her neck, but a quick scan of the area didn’t show her any vamps and she turned her attention to the Fyarl.  His clawed hands were raised defensively, but he looked like he would much rather leave than take on slayers with swords.
 
However, when one of the girls tried to stab him and he was able to block it and wrest her sword away with no trouble, his attitude changed. He grabbed the disarmed girl and held her over his head, ready to smash her to the ground.  The other slayers looked at Vi and Buffy; their fear for their friend obvious. 
 
“He’s going to kill her!”
 
“No he isn’t,” Buffy said calmly. “Because if he does, I will chop him into tiny little pieces... slowly.”  She approached the glaring demon and cocked her head at him. “And I’m pretty sure he knows it, don’t you, big guy?”  She held the easily confused demon’s gaze, letting her relaxed and unafraid posture speak for itself. Her sword dangled from her hand in a way only someone very confident of her ability to put it into play quickly would be likely to hold it. With an unintelligible snarled curse, he threw the hapless slayer at Buffy and snorted mucus in their direction. 
 
Buffy caught the girl with one arm and sidestepped the toxic snot. She allowed the slayer whose fall had now been broken, to drop to the ground while she buried her sword in the Fyarl’s chest.  He roared and tried to pull it out, but Vi had circled behind him. She swung her weapon at his neck, severing his head.
 
“Is he dead?”  The girls gathered around the headless body, avoiding the rapidly hardening pile of mucus.
 
Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know. Unless one of you has something pointy made out of silver, we can’t make sure.  I don’t know how he’ll do without his head, but....” She yanked her sword from his chest and wiped it on the grass. “I don’t think he’s going to be stealing pet dogs anytime soon.”  Just to be sure, she kicked the head as hard as she could, blinking in surprise when a few seconds after it had disappeared into the darkness, it came sailing back.
 
“What the hell?” They all looked from the still-headless and very dead-appearing demon to the head, now rolling to a halt.
 
“Let me,” Rita said. “I could send a soccer ball the length of the field even before I was called.”
 
The other girls scoffed, but stood back when Buffy stepped away and pointed to the very abused-looking head.  “Go for it.”
 
Rita took a couple of running steps and met the head squarely, sending it arching into a small pond some distance on the other side of the road.   “Let’s see somebody kick it back from there,” she said, smiling as she accepted the congratulations of her friends.
 
“Thought about it,” came a new voice. “But didn’t fancy getting my clothes wet, and you bints aren’t old enough to see me naked.”
 
The girls whirled around, hands going to their stakes.
 
“It’s him!  Get him!”
 
“No!”  Buffy’s command slowed them down enough for her to get between the slayers and Spike, now strolling up with a complete lack of concern. When Vi quickly joined Buffy, clearly protecting the vampire and slayers from each other, the girls stopped and milled around in confusion.  “We can take him,” they argued. “There are eight of us.”
 
Buffy shook her head, giving Spike a warning glance over her shoulder.  He stopped and bared his teeth at the unhappy slayers. “You sure about that, luv?” he said to the girl who’d spoken.
 
“You can’t beat eight slayers!” Rita protested. “Even if some of us aren’t as strong as we’re supposed to be.” She pointed at Buffy. “There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s awesome.”
 
“Always has been,” he agreed softly, giving Buffy a small smile that she returned before she could help herself.
 
“There wouldn’t be eight of you,” Vi said. “Buffy and I aren’t going to help you stake Spike, so forget it.”
 
Rita flinched. “You know him?”
 
Vi didn’t respond to Rita, just turned to look at Spike.  “You’ve been hurting my girls,” she said, hands on hips. “Maybe I should stake you.”
 
He grinned at her, his scarred face and fangs making it more scary than friendly.
 
“Look at you, all grown up and acting liking a real slayer.”
 
“They’re real slayers, too.” Vi defended her girls who were still muttering threats.
 
“That they are, luv,” he said. “Never said they weren’t, just needed to let them know that their tools weren’t all there before they got themselves killed.  Didn’t mean to hurt anyone too badly – I expect that’s something else you should look into.” He gestured at Rita’s arm.  “That arm shouldn’t have broken just cause I blocked her. Yours wouldn’t have... or Buffy’s.”
 
“We’re looking into it,” Buffy interrupted. “I’ve told Willow and Faith to check out all the girls at the school and see if it’s everybody, or just these girls.”
 
“So you told them about me?” He raised a heavily-scarred eyebrow.
 
“Uh... actually, I didn’t.... I may have kept that part to myself for right now.” Buffy’s gaze challenged him to make something of it, but he just nodded.
 
“Prob’ly for the best,” he said without explanation.  As Vi shepherded the girls down the road toward the gate out of the cemetery, Spike walked up to Buffy and cocked his head. “So, Slayer. Now what?”
 
Buffy shrugged. “Now what, what?  I’m going to go back to the house. You’re welcome to come with. If you want to...”
 
“Don’t think that’s a very good idea, luv,” he said after a short pause. “Not till we’ve talked more.” He brushed his hand against her shoulder and turned back the way he’d come.
 
“It’s pretty hard to talk to somebody who keeps walking away!” Buffy yelled at his rapidly-disappearing back. He just raised a hand in acknowledgement and kept going, leaving her glaring after him.  She pulled her radio from her pocket and called Vi.
 
“I’ll be home later,” she said. “I have vampire butt to kick first.”  Without waiting for a reply, she shut the radio off, put it back in her pocket, and sprinted after Spike.

 
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