Giles was drinking his first cup of tea and wishing Spike hadn’t ruined Weetabix for him. They were out of bread for toast, and the only other cereal in the cupboard was some god-awful sugary concoction with marshmallows in.
 
I really must get back home. He stared into his tea. Where is home now?
 
He’d built a life for himself, back in Bath. It wasn’t perfect, but it was his. For the first time in five years, he had control over his own life, his own priorities.
 
He had created a job that suited him, combining the purely academic follow-up to his experiences he’d always wanted to do, but had never had time for; the odd bit of teaching for trainee Watchers; and acting as liaison between the Council and a powerful coven in Devon.
 
More importantly, he had friends – adult friends – with whom he shared things that had nothing to do with slaying. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen, let alone eaten, junk food.
 
His five years in Sunnydale had been so intense – soul-soaring joys and heartbreaking sorrows. The break had been blissful.
 
The break. But Buffy being back changed everything. Didn’t it?
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
It turned out that although Spike had no painkillers, he had a lot of stuff for burns. Like, a drug store’s worth. And there was nothing that hadn’t been opened.
 
Until now, Dawn had never really thought about the fact that Spike nonchalantly ran around in daylight with just a blanket for protection all the freaking time.
 
Stupid vampire.
 
And everyone says Drusilla is the batshit crazy one.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Willow woke up early feeling cold and lost. When she opened her eyes, she saw Tara huddled way over on the other side of the bed, as far away as she could get.
 
“Baby?” Willow whimpered. “Please stop punishing me. I love you.”
 
Tara rolled over and looked at the only person in the whole world who was hers. Willow’s eyes were all puffy from crying and her nose was blotchy. Tara still thought she looked beautiful. And her heart ached because she knew Willow was hurting and it was in her power to comfort her.
 
“I’m not punishing you, Willow,” Tara said blearily, for what felt like the thousandth time. “You did something that scared me, and I needed a little space.”
 
“I-I’m sorry!” Willow wailed miserably. “I just wanted to make things better.” Then she started crying again.
 
“Oh, Sweetie.” Tara finally caved, moving across the bed, and wrapping herself around Willow, who was gratefully burrowing into her arms. “I know. I know you did,” Tara soothed. “But you have to let people make their own choices. Even if they’re bad or you don’t like them. Especially then.”
 
Willow cried herself out relatively quickly and went back to dozing, finally able to relax now that Tara was allowing physical contact again.
 
Tara lay in their bed, wide awake, stroking Willow’s hair, while she considered their situation. Ever since she’d gone along with Willow’s idea to put Dawn into trance, Tara had felt uncomfortable staying in the house – hypocritical and guilty. How could they continue to act as Dawn’s guardians after putting her in so much danger? Her conversation with Dawn yesterday had made her feel a bit better about that, but she suspected Willow still only felt guilt about Dawn finding out, not about what they’d done.
 
It didn’t help that Willow was feeling everything as a personal rejection right now – and becoming so defensive as a result, that it was impossible to talk to her about anything.
 
Tara worried that Willow’s unhappiness was becoming toxic.
 
So far, all she had done was make a phone call. But Tara knew her Willow: unhappy-Willow got easily consumed with fixing things, taking control of herself and her environment. For someone with Willow’s power and increasingly casual use of magic….
 
Tara was becoming convinced that she and Willow needed to leave Revello Drive – as soon as possible.
 
The problem with leaving now, though, was Buffy. There’s no way Buffy can handle bills and laundry and – oh goddess, Buffy’s cooking! Dawn might starve to death if it was just her and Buffy in the house. Either that, or turn into a sumo wrestler from all the take-out.
 
Tara found herself wishing Spike was still there. It would make everything so much easier. And there was a majorly wigsome thought. When did Spike become so indispensible?
 
Then there’s the money. Buffy would be losing eighteen hundred a month in rent with all three of them gone. That was a lot.
 
Tara desperately wanted to talk through all of this with someone else – share the burden a little – but the only person she opened up to like that was Willow.
 
It all was such a mess.
 
Giving up on getting any more sleep that morning, Tara left the still-sleeping Willow in their bed, and padded downstairs in search of coffee.
 
Someone had opened the blackout blinds in the kitchen, and it felt weird seeing it bathed in morning sunshine again. She had almost forgotten what it looked like.
 
Giles was still there, drinking tea, and staring off into space.
 
“Morning,” Tara said, beginning to fuss with the coffeemaker.
 
Giles smiled vaguely, still lost in his own thoughts. Not wanting to appear rude, he forced himself to speak, asking, “How did you sleep?” before he caught himself. Bloody stupid question. He really had no idea what to say to Tara. He didn’t think he’d ever even seen her without Willow before.
 
“Uh … not great,” Tara said, shrugging. “Kinda disrupted.”
 
Giles made a noise suspiciously like a harrumph, mostly from embarrassment. “Er, yes. Of course.” He took a deep breath and sighed into his tea.
 
“So are you gonna, um, stay now?” Tara asked, hesitantly. She had never really spoken to Mr Giles before, except in passing. “Sunnydale, I mean, not, you know, this house.” Although … maybe if he lived here….
 
“I … I haven’t really had a chance to think about it yet….”
 
Tara was surprised, and she showed it. “Oh. I thought with Buffy back you would just….”
 
“I dropped everything to come here as soon as I could,” Giles said coldly.
 
“Of course!” Tara said, flushing with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean….”
 
Giles took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No, I’m sorry. This is … it’s all a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?”
 
Tara nodded vigorously, her eyes open wide.
 
Giles looked over at her. “And almost impossible for you, I imagine.” His voice grew gentler. “How are you, really?”
 
“I’m coping,” Tara said. She squirmed a little, uncomfortable being the centre of attention. “It was hard, after you left. Y-you really hurt them – Willow and Xander. They weren’t ready to lose you, too.”
 
Giles sighed softly. “I expect I did hurt them, and I’m sorry for that.”  
 
He had a sudden moment of clarity. I needed taking care of then, desperately, and there has never been anyone in Sunnydale to do that for me. There still isn’t.
 
“I was in no fit state to take care of anyone else, then.” He smiled, ruefully. “I’m not sure that I am now. But I will do whatever I can.”
 
“Buffy’s … yours, isn’t she?” Tara said hesitantly. “Like family, I mean.” She had a flash of intuition about how devastated Giles must have been – Buffy had been his world, like Willow was hers.
 
 “Yes,” Giles said, surprised to hear Tara articulate it like that. “She is.”
 
Tara let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She’d found someone she could talk to. “Mr Giles? I think Willow and I need to move out.”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Spike started talking again shortly after Dawn finally managed to get the second bag of blood into him.
 
“’Lo, Bite Sized,” he said softly.
 
“Spike!” she shrieked, throwing herself at him.
 
“Ow! Fuck!” he howled, before he could stop himself. Dawn scrambled back abruptly.
 
“Ribs?” she said.
 
“Yeah,” he grunted.
 
“Why is it they always seem to go for your ribs?”
 
Spike tried to laugh, but it quickly turned into an agonising coughing fit that left blood on his lips.
 
Dawn winced.
 
Spike could feel bone poking through one lung, and his head was not happy with the motion from coughing. He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling the pillow in an effort to stop the spinning. “Dunno, pet. Reckon I’m jus’ lucky that way.”
 
“Does it hurt? Your face?” Dawn edged back towards him, tentatively.
 
“Nerves’re mostly dead there, so no.” He grimaced. “Pain’ll come as it heals.”
 
“What happened?”
 
“I was bloody stupid, ‘s what happened.” Spike sighed. Then winced. Breathing hurt.
 
“What’s new there?” Dawn quipped.
 
Spike opened his eyes to glare at her. “Oi!”
 
Dawn’s face went serious. “How bad is it? Really?”
 
Spike shut his eyes again, gingerly prodding his torso and abdomen. He felt squelching. “Bad.”
 
Dawn clutched at his free hand.
 
“It’ll all heal, Bit. Promise. Just needs time.”
 
“And blood.”
 
Spike grinned. They both winced when his skin audibly crackled at the movement. “Really not lookin’ forward to regrowin’ those nerves,” Spike muttered. “Now give us that burn ointment. Gotta save my handsome face.”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Giles got up to make another cup of tea, reeling slightly from his conversation with Tara about Willow. Part of him felt desperately sorry for her, and another part just wanted to throttle her.
 
“Um, there’s something else I think you should know,” Tara continued, hesitantly. “It’s about B-Buffy’s nightmares….” Tara really hoped she was doing the right thing. Whatever Spike had been doing, it was helping. We couldn’t even get close enough to wake her up until after it was over.
 
Giles put down his cup, frowning. “What about them? Did something else happen last night?”
 
“N-not that I heard…. But I think she gets them every time she sleeps.”
 
“But that’s not … we’d have heard something—”
 
“Spike’s b-been with her. Until last night, when he wasn’t. I think that’s why it was so b-bad.”
 
Giles sat before his knees collapsed under him. “They – they’re sleeping together?” He tried to keep the horror out of his voice.
 
“No!” Tara said quickly. “I-I’m pretty sure they’re not, you know, sexy sleeping together.” Tara paused, trying desperately to ignore the fact he’d just said “sexy” to Mr Giles. “I think Spike’s just b-been sitting in a chair while she sleeps….”
 
She remembered watching Spike scoop Buffy into his arms, how she’d clung to him. Maybe not always in the chair….
 
“B-but I kinda sorta maybe think he should move b-back in,” Tara sped through the words, wincing in preparation for an explosion. As far as she knew, Giles hated Spike.
 
To her surprise, he just stared at her, mouth slightly open.
 
This is it, Giles was thinking frantically. This is when I must decide whether or not to trust him.
 
Tara left Giles to his deliberations. It was getting late and she needed to get showered and dressed. Not running away. Nope.
 
She passed Willow on her way up the stairs. It was weird – she was fully dressed and coiffed, but Tara couldn’t remember hearing the shower. Or the hair dryer.
 
She put it down to the intensity of her conversation with Mr Giles, and, kissing Willow lightly, just continued upstairs to get ready for the day.
 
Willow continued on to the kitchen. “Hey,” she said carefully to Giles from the doorway.
 
Giles jerked out of his second reverie of the morning. He avoided eye contact, taking off his glasses and focussing entirely on polishing them while Willow got out a mug and filled it with coffee.
 
“You and I need to talk,” Giles said, finally looking up from his glasses.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Bohdan watched Dawn feeding Spike more blood – now laced with the liquid morphine he’d brought back – and wondered how it was that no one had ever noticed how very alike they were. To him, it was so obvious.
 
When Spike had finished the medicated blood, Dawn placed the empty mug on the floor and scooted back to sit against the headboard, her knee resting lightly on his shoulder, and his nearest hand grasped between both of hers.
 
“Dawn,” Bohdan said. It still felt odd to think of the Key as a person, with a name.
 
She looked up, startled. She’d almost forgotten he was there.
 
“Is your sister likely to be home this evening?”
 
“I guess so.” Dawn shrugged. “You know Buffy too?”
 
“By reputation only.” Bohdan paused. “There are some things I need to tell her.”
 
“’Bout bloody time,” Spike grumbled.
 
“The Watcher is still staying with you?”
 
Dawn nodded yes, feeling slightly creeped out now. This guy seemed to know a lot, for someone she’d never even heard of before today.
 
“Need Anya there, too,” Spike said.
 
“Why?” Bohdan asked, genuinely confused. “She’s human. Useless, no?”
 
Dawn sniggered.
 
Spike would have laughed, if he hadn’t known how much it would hurt. “Our Anyanka was a vengeance demon for more’n a millennium, but tha’s not the point. She needs to be there ‘cause she’s the one that speaks to the clients.”
 
“Ah,” Bohdan said. He frowned down at Spike. “Will you be mobile by nightfall?”
 
Spike growled at him.
 
Bohdan twitched his lips. Dawn thought he might be holding back a laugh. “You can’t raise your head or sit up without help.”
 
“Yes, I will sodding well be able to move by then,” Spike snapped.
 
“I believe you,” Bohdan said, raising his hands placatingly.
 
“Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?” Dawn asked, alternating glares between Spike and Bohdan.
 
“Mr Mysterious here has some big secret to reveal, an’ doesn’t want to tell it twice,” Spike said. Then he moaned a breathy “Oh, fuck,” arching his back slightly off the bed, and letting his eyes flutter shut.
 
“What’s wrong?” Dawn asked, voice high and panicky.
 
A goofy grin spread over Spike’s face as he sank back into the bed, eyes still closed. “Shhh, pet,” he murmured. “‘S just the morphine.”
 
Dawn relaxed.
 
Bohdan twitched his lips again, and went upstairs to wait.
 
“Gon’ sleep now,” Spike said, his words thick and slurred, as he let the drug suck him into unconsciousness.
 
“’Kay,” Dawn said, shifting lower in the bed, and curling herself around his arm. She wasn’t really tired, but she didn’t want to leave him. There was still a part of her that was terrified he might turn to dust if she blinked or looked away.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
“But my spell wouldn’t have worked if she’d died by natural causes,” Willow said, fighting back the urge to stamp her foot.
 
“What?” Giles asked, incredulously.
 
“Osiris doesn’t intervene in mortal deaths. I can’t believe you didn’t know that!” Willow sneered.
 
Giles slumped in his chair. “If Buffy’s death wasn’t natural….”
 
“She must have been in some kind of hell dimension. You see? I had to rescue her.”
 
Giles felt his heart skip a beat. Almost five months of hell. And he’d done nothing.
 
Only….
 
“Glory’s portal opened every dimension,” Giles said softly. “Just because Buffy didn’t die a natural death, doesn’t mean she went to a hell dimension. She could just as easily have been in – in the dimension without shrimp.”
 
“It was Glory,” Willow scoffed. “It had to have been a hell dimension.” But for all her projected certainty, a tiny seed of doubt started to sprout routs.
 
“You didn’t check. How hard would it have been, Willow? There are whole books of spells on how to find out where someone’s soul has gone after death. At least one of them is on a shelf in the Magic Box!”
 
“So maybe I should’ve checked!” Willow said. “But she’s back – it all worked! What can it matter now?”
 
Giles took a deep breath and stopped himself – again – from grabbing Willow by the shoulders and shaking her. “Because if we are to help Buffy recover, we have to know what the problem is!”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Buffy lay on her bed, listening to Giles and Willow fighting on the floor below. She couldn’t make out enough of the words to truly follow the argument, but she knew it was about her.
 
Her stomach ached from hunger, but the thought of going downstairs made her feel sick and anxious.
 
The weight of pretending to be fine just kept getting heavier.
 
They’re all so worried about me.
 
And I’m all wrong.
 
She wanted to cry, but she didn’t have the energy for it anymore. So she just lay there, staring at the wall, waiting for time to pass and things to get better.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Anya was having a magnificent day.
 
She’d achieved four orgasms that morning, a personal best for a Saturday.
 
Then, as she was opening the Magic Box, the bank had called to tell her that thirty thousand dollars in cash had been deposited in the store account.
 
Just imagining the new balance made her seriously consider closing the store to run home for a quickie. But it was October, and the thought of losing pre-Halloween sales made her stay.
 
She wondered, very briefly, what had happened to change Spike’s mind last night. He had sounded a bit odd on the phone. Oh well. Not important compared to all that beautiful money!
 
And as if all that wasn’t enough, the Halloween rush seemed to have started a week early, pushing her usual Saturday takings up by ten per cent. Before lunch!
 
When Dawn called to invite her and Xander over for dinner and a Scooby meeting, it just seemed fated. She and Xander could announce their engagement! A perfect ending to a perfect day.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Giles didn’t think he’d ever felt so drained just from a conversation. But at least he now knew everything Willow did about the resurrection spell.
 
He started going over his notes again. Fawn blood for Vino de Madre.
 
He shuddered, remembering Willow’s very reluctant description of how she’d got it. Infinitely preferable to sacrificing human virgins, but … she was tainted now. Susceptible to dark magic in a way she hadn’t been before. In conjunction with Tara’s concerns, that was very worrying indeed.
 
Arabian for Scimitar Oryx horn. Pinecones – possibly wrong species? Feather – used goose in absence of clarification. No other significant substitutions.
 
Green light – during the spell and after, when the dark magic manifested for balance. Why green? Osiris’ colours are green and black. Key is a green ball of energy. Coincidence?
 
Dark magic definitely gone now? Can we be sure of that?
 
Spell interrupted. Broken circle. Urn smashed. Mind and body not treated separately in spell – so that much of it was all or nothing, at least. Girl and Slayer? Could be schism there? Or just reaction to trauma.
 
Not mortal death? But might be other reasons for Osiris to intervene. Powers That Be? Slayer? Key?
 
It wasn’t enough. He needed a resurrection expert. And an Osiris expert. And someone who really understood how spells were affected by outside factors like Slayers and Keys and hellions.
 
He needed the Council and the Coven. He sighed. He was going to have to go back to England.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
On the way to Revello Drive, Bohdan promised himself he would never again doubt the recuperative abilities of vampires.
 
Spike had indeed been mobile by sunset. He looked truly awful, couldn’t bend without a great deal of pain, and his balance was shaky. But his injured knee was miraculously still taking his weight and his head had recovered enough for him to be able to make slow, smooth movements relatively pain-free.
 
He was also completely lucid. It seemed vampire metabolisms went through morphine rather faster than human ones.
 
Bohdan missed driving with an unconscious Spike – he was quieter and made fewer threats.
 
When they arrived, everyone was waiting for them in the living room. The two couples were squeezed onto the couch, with Giles in the single remaining armchair, and Buffy on a chair pulled in from the dining room.
 
Dawn had called the meeting, so no one had known what to expect. But they definitely hadn’t expected Spike with a layer of his face burnt off and some guy who’d bought an expensive necklace at the Magic Box a couple days ago.
 
Once the inevitable shocked-Scooby ruckus had died down a bit, Spike and Dawn moved further into the room, leaving Bohdan alone in the doorway.
 
“My name is Bohdan Kosík,” he started.
 
“But tha’s not important,” Spike mocked. “Or so he keeps sayin’.”
 
Dawn sniggered. Bohdan glared at them. “What I have to tell you relates to the Key.”
 
Total silence fell in the room. Buffy stood, gently moving Dawn into her vacated chair and repositioning herself between her and Bohdan. At the same time, Spike was sidling into position to block Bohdan from moving further into the room in their direction.
 
Bohdan saw them doing it, and smiled. “She has nothing to fear from me. I swear it.”
 
Neither one moved or relaxed.
 
“I will give you the simplest version that I can,” Bohdan continued. “Until seven years ago, I was a Knight of Byzantium. After I left, I was still connected to that world through friends among the monks in the Order of Dagon. Their Abbot, Michal, and Brother Radan – the man whose death you witnessed, Slayer – were my closest boyhood friends. Before the Beast had Michal killed, we got drunk one night, and he told me about how they made the Key human. The story he told me was a little bit different to the one he told Radan, and that Radan told you.”
 
“Different how?” Buffy asked.
 
Everyone was suddenly focussed on Buffy. She was poised to attack; her voice was clear and firm. It was the most normal they’d seen her since her return.
 
“Michal thought the Slayer would probably defeat the Beast, but he has never been one to put all his eggs in one basket. So when they made the human host for the Key—”
 
“In the room!” Dawn said, incensed.
 
“My apologies, Dawn,” Bohdan said seriously. “I have spent so long thinking of you as non-sentient, simply energy, it is … difficult … to change such patterns after so many years.”
 
“Try harder.”
 
Bohdan inclined his head toward her. “So when … Dawn … was given life, she was made from the two strongest warriors Michal could find.”
 
“Two!” Giles interjected.
 
“Yes,” Bohdan continued. “Two. The Slayer, and the Slayer of Slayers. Her parents.”