Disclaimer: Not my characters, Joss Whedon's characters. I didn't get around to harrassing my beta yet, so the mistakes in this chapter are all mine (although hopefully few). Reviews are most welcome. 


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Chapter 1 – What is seen cannot be unseen
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They had been here before too many times. Grouped around the table in Buffy’s dining room, Willow tapping madly at her computer while the rest of them paced around, turning over a problem in their minds. But this time it was personal. Someone was watching them, following their movements. This wasn’t a mindless demon on a rampage or a bloodthirsty pack of vampires. This was cold, calculated, creepy, and the work of humans, which made it a whole new level of challenge.
 
“How’s it coming? Do you know where the signal’s going yet?” It had been a very, very long day, and Buffy’s patience was wearing thin. The sooner she figured out where these little cretins were who were spying on them, the sooner she could pound them appropriately. Clearly this trio of pains in her ass had been going to great lengths to keep tabs on her and it needed to stop. I could definitely stand to pound someone. She looked over at Xander who was hovering over Willow and once more grumbling about how it was probably Spike. Give it a rest already. Buffy thought back to her discussion with Spike earlier in the day. She knew that Spike wasn’t behind this. It is true, he doesn’t hurt me. Images of Spike’s hurt look popped into her mind but she quickly refocused on the here and now. “I want to find these guys,” she said, pulling her attention back to the conversation at hand.
 
After a few minutes more of typing, Willow spoke up. “Their technology is pretty sophisticated, lots of booby traps and firewall stuff…”
 
“But can you get us a location?”
 
“Well, sure. Just a… hang on.” Willow frowned at the screen.
 
“What?” Buffy was practically jumping out of her skin waiting for the answer.
 
“There’s more than one camera.” Willow tapped a few more keys. “My God they’ve got the Doublemeat Palace, the Bronze, UC Sunnydale, Xander’s construction site…”
 
Buffy was floored. “They’ve been spying on all these places?” Her determination to put these geeks in traction increased exponentially.
 
“I can tell there are more feeds, hang on a minute…” The others hovered in anticipation over her shoulder. “I’ve almost got a picture... Whoa.”
 
The scene at the Magic Box shocked them all into momentary silence. “Oh, god,” Xander breathed. His eyes were wide, disbelieving. There on the screen was Anya and Spike. Buffy’s mouth dropped open as she saw Spike kissing Anya, his hips moving, both of them gasping. Her hands tightened on the back of a chair as her brain tried to comprehend what she was seeing.
 
“Hey guys, what’s up?” Dawn piped as she came into the room and looked over their shoulders. “Ohmygod,” she gasped as she saw what was going on. Willow jumped up and covered Dawn’s eyes, pulling the shocked teen away from the computer.
 
Xander was still in shock. “I… what is she…” He looked green, as if he didn’t know whether to be sick, or furious, or hurt.
 
Willow was about to say something to Xander when she noticed Buffy’s expression. Buffy looked somehow worse than Xander. She had gone pale, her brow deeply creased, chewing her lip like she was trying not to cry. “Buffy?”
 
“That’s enough,” Buffy snapped. She stormed out of the house to the back porch, trying to get control of herself. She turned when she heard the door open, and sighed when she saw her sister there. Her brain was a complete whirl of anger and confusion, and she didn’t really want to explain things to Dawn right now.
 
It didn’t seem, however, that Buffy was going to be left alone. “This is what you’ve been protecting me from? You and Spike?”
 
“It doesn’t matter,” Buffy muttered. “It’s over now.”
 
Surprisingly, Dawn didn’t seem angry. “I know it must have hurt. To feel like you had to hide, keep secrets from everybody.” Her sympathy stunned Buffy, and she stared back at her sister, trying to think of what to say next.
 
A sudden cry from Willow brought Buffy running in from the back porch. “Buffy! Xander’s gone! He took your axe!” Buffy’s eyes widened. Without another word she bolted out the door.
 
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It was fortunate that the path to the Magic Box was permanently ingrained in Xander’s mind, because his vision was clouded with anger. He saw nothing of what he passed as he stalked down the streets of Sunnydale, intent on a singular purpose. The scene in the Magic Box kept playing in his head over and over. She was fucking him. She let that thing put his hands on her. He fought against rising nausea at the thought. He rounded the last corner and set his jaw, wrapping both hands around the handle of the axe so tightly that it was almost painful.
 
Just as he reached the store the door opened and there was Spike, hands in his pockets, clearly in deep thought. With a snarl of rage Xander swung the axe, burying it in the wall beside Spike’s head. Spike’s eyes registered alarm as Xander struggled with the axe before giving up and snagging Spike by the lapels. In his fury Xander tossed the vampire to the ground, then grabbed him again and slammed him into the wall, burying his fist in Spike’s midsection. “Get up!” he shouted. An angry glare from Spike was the only response he got. “You’re just gonna sit there? Do nothing?” He furiously pulled Spike up again, slamming his head against the wall. “Is that the kind of man you are?”
 
“I’m not going to fight you. Chip.” It was clear from his tone that the chip was the only thing preventing Spike from beating Xander to a pulp.
 
“Too bad.” Xander kneed Spike in the gut again before pulling a stake out of his pocket.
 
Buffy was running full tilt toward the Magic Box, trying to process what she had seen while flying through the darkened streets. Bastard. I should have known. He tells me it’s real and all that crap and then turns around and screws the next person he comes across. Despite these thoughts she still found herself compelled to run faster and faster, needing to stop Xander from hurting Spike, for reasons she couldn’t explain.
 
She rounded a corner and saw the Magic Box in the distance. Anya’s voice pierced the night as she screamed, “Xander, no! Stop it!” Buffy watched the next series of events unfolding as if in slow motion. Xander shoving Anya to the side. Anya’s feet tangling as she fell to the sidewalk. Xander’s arm arcing downward. A set of bright blue eyes, full of pain and regret locking on to hers as she came up behind Xander just a second too late. Then she was thudding into Xander, who staggered sideways, panting, still clutching the stake, leaving Buffy staring at a pile of gray dust.
 
Buffy stopped dead, mouth open, trying to take in what had just happened. Spike was gone. She had been talking to him earlier that day. He had just been screwing Anya and now he was just… gone. She found she had no words to describe what was happening. She wrinkled her brow and shook her head slowly, trying to absorb the whole thing.
 
As she stared at the pile of dust that couldn’t possibly be Spike she became aware of the argument happening beside her. Anya had picked herself up off the ground and was confronting Xander head on. “Why did you do that?” she was saying in horrified voice.
 
“Don’t even try to deny it! I saw it all. The whole beautiful show.” Xander was panting with fury and exertion.
 
“How…?” Anya looked on the verge of tears. “It was nothing, I felt bad and he was just… there.”
 
“Oh, okay, so you had to do it,” Xander yelled. “Because he was there, like Mt. Everest. Like I used to be.” Buffy flinched a bit at the harshness of his tone but still couldn’t take her gaze off the dust.
 
Anya pulled herself up to her full height and yelled right back, “You left me Xander. At the altar. I don’t owe you anything.”
 
“So you go out and bang the first body you can find? Dead or alive?”
 
Anya was incredulous. “Where do you get off judging me?”
 
“When this is your solution to our problems. I hurt you, and you hit me back? Very mature.”
 
“No, the mature solution is for you to spend your whole life telling stupid, pointless jokes, so no one will notice that you are just a scared, insecure little boy!” Anya retorted.
 
Xander’s fury became tinged with disgust. “I’m not joking now. You let that evil, soulless thing touch you. I look at you and I feel sick because you had sex with that thing.”
 
“So wait a minute,” Anya cut in. “It’s okay for your perfect idol Buffy to have sex with Spike, but I can’t? Even after you dumped me?”
 
“You leave Buffy out of this,” Xander started, but then he turned to look at Buffy. She was blushing furiously and avoiding his eyes. “Tell me it isn’t true,” he said in a choked voice.
 
Buffy turned her face to him at last, still looking like she was trying to solve a difficult problem. “Why?” she asked in a voice that was quiet and cracking slightly.
 
Xander’s eyes widened as he realized that no denial would be forthcoming. “I don’t want to know this.” He shook his head, backing away slowly from the two women. “I don’t want to know any of this.” He turned and stalked off, fighting back the tears of rage that threatened to spill down his face.
 
Anya stared after him, her face pale and sad. She turned to Buffy, who had wrapped her arms around herself and gone back to staring at the dust of her former lover. “Buffy, I’m sorry. Spike didn’t really tell me, I just figured it out and it just sort of came out…” Buffy showed no sign of having heard. Anya reached out to touch her shoulder. “Buffy?”
 
“I have to…” Buffy’s voice trailed off and she turned to go. She walked off without another word, leaving Anya behind to shake her head in confusion and head back into the Magic Box.
 
Buffy walked home without really focusing on anything in particular, stumbling occasionally over curbs but not taking much notice of her surroundings. Her mind kept repeating over and over: Spike’s gone. Like forever gone. Gone. She felt completely unable to name what she was feeling. It was like she had gone numb again, like when she had crawled out of her grave. Nothing made sense, and she didn’t know why nothing made sense. She was mad at him, wasn’t she? She didn’t know what she was. She just kept walking mechanically toward her house, putting one foot in front of the other, looking straight ahead.
 
When she finally got to her house she opened the door and winced at the sudden barrage of sound. “Buffy? What happened?” It was Dawn, coming up to her frantically.
 
Buffy closed the door, still with a puzzled expression on her face. “Xander… Xander dusted Spike.” Her voice was flat and dry, like the life had been squeezed out of it.
 
“What?” Willow and Tara said together.
 
“No!” screamed Dawn. “How? How could you let him do that?” Tears sprang to the teen’s eyes as she thought about Spike, her protector, gone for good.
 
“I didn’t… let him,” Buffy said in that same detached voice. “I just didn’t… didn’t make it in time.”
 
Tara found herself alarmed by Buffy’s emotionless recital. “Buffy? Are you okay?” She gently reached out to touch Buffy’s arm. No response – just the same staring into nothing in particular. “Buffy?”
 
“No, I’m not…” Buffy began. Realizing at some level that she was being confusing she said, “I’m not… okay. I don’t know what I am.”
 
“Why would Xander do that?” Dawn wailed.
 
“Shh, Dawnie.” Willow put her arm around the distraught teen when it became clear that her sister was in no shape to offer comfort. “We don’t know exactly what happened. We’ll find out. We need to talk this all out.”
 
“I need some time alone,” Buffy said suddenly. She pushed past them to the basket in the kitchen where the keys to Joyce’s car were kept. Without another word she grabbed them and was out the back door before anyone could speak. “Buffy, wait!” Dawn called, running after her. But Buffy was already backing out of the driveway, and by the time Dawn got to the street Buffy was disappearing in the distance. “Buffy! Stop!” Dawn wailed before turning to bury her face in Tara’s chest. The two witches looked at each other over Dawn’s head, both wondering what to do next. 

TBC