Chapter 22
 
Xander swallowed a mouthful of his ham and Swiss sandwich and shook his head. “Who knew it would be that simple once we got there?”
 
“I know,” Buffy said, yelling over the noise of the jackhammer. “Just flip a switch, and presto! All the lights come on. Then you boot up a computer, press a few keys and ta-da! There’s a handy diagram which shows us where the closest power thingy is.” She took a giant bite of the fat tuna salad sandwich which Xander had thoughtfully brought for her.
 
Spraying crumbs, Xander shouted, “I think it was the same schematic Willow was looking at when she found out where Adam was hiding.”
 
Buffy gulped her mouthful and shook her head. “I never knew you were so good with computers, Xander. In High School…”
 
Xander shrugged. “Yeah, well… It turns out that Miss Calendar was right when she said we’d need to know about them. I was having trouble with the laptop they gave me at work. So much stuff is on the computer now, I had to figure it out or I wouldn’t have a chance of being promoted, so Willow gave me Diablo Two for Christmas.”
 
“That’s a game, right?”
 
“Yeah.” Xander’s voice fell to normal speaking volume when the jackhammer abruptly went quiet. “Believe me, when your Barbarian gets killed for the twentieth time and you have to start over yet again, you’re very motivated to get to know all the keyboard short cuts! Then you get bored and go exploring to see what else you can do…”
 
On the platform at the top of the scaffolding, Spike rolled onto his side and noisily dislodged a mound of rocky debris which had accumulated on his stomach. “And then you find the location of the handy power outlet right behind the bloody door where we came in!”
 
“Hey! It’s not my fault I didn’t see it at first,” Xander called back. “Dark, remember? Besides, we’d have still had to get to the control room to turn the power on.”
 
“Yeah, right. I’ll give you that,” Spike said. He went on grumpily, “Could do with a little help up here, when you’ve finished stuffing your faces.”
 
Buffy playfully batted her eyelashes and said, “But it’s so much more fun watching you work! Plus, only room for one person to dig, and only one jackhammer.” She brushed the sandwich crumbs from her lap and reached for a chocolate cream doughnut from the open box on the ground between her and Xander.
 
Now smirking, she added helpfully, “I’ll just wait here out of the way, all ready to help when it’s time to gather up all that heavy treasure.”
 
 
~*~*~*~
 
 
When the jackhammer dislodged a large lump of rock from the cavity Spike had excavated in the roof of the cavern, the machine abruptly shot upwards. Spike grunted with the sudden jerk, and killed the motor.
 
He roughly shoved off the boulder which had landed heavily on his chest amid a shower of smaller particles, then rolled his head to the side to spit out the grit which had fallen into his mouth. After brushing the dust off his safety goggles, he peered up into the highest point of the hole.
 
In the centre of the area of crumbling brown rock, a small black hole had appeared.
 
“Oh, yeah!” he yelled in triumph. “Hey, kiddies! Looks like I’m nearly through! Up off your arses!”
 
Buffy and Xander jumped up and began clearing away the worst of the rubble which had accumulated around the base of the scaffolding.
  
Now that there was enough room, Spike got up onto his knees. The new angle made it possible to put more pressure behind the machine so when he pressed the power button, his extra effort was rewarded very quickly.
 
Small chunks of rock rained down to be deflected off his hard hat and shoulders on their way to the ground, and he smiled in satisfaction at his accelerated rate of progress.
 
This continued for a few minutes until a noise like a gunshot sounded above him. He stopped the jackhammer and peered upwards. By the light of his helmet lamp, he could make out a two foot long, narrow crack in the rock, showing black against the brown.
 
Spike was getting into position to place the chisel of the jackhammer into this crack to widen it, when another gunshot sounded. The crack suddenly expanded into an inch-wide rupture in the rock and stretched another foot.
 
The next second, the whole mass of rock above the break shifted slightly and a trickle of dust and pebbles began falling on him.
 
“Uh-oh…” Spike muttered, his eyes widening in alarm.
 
With another loud crack the rock shifted again. The cleft spread further and lengthened until it extended beyond the width of the hole he’d excavated.
 
“Spike, what’s that noise?” Buffy called.
 
Spike dropped the jackhammer and sank to his hands and knees. He scrabbled through the debris on the scaffolding platform in an attempt to avoid being crushed, mentally thanking Xander for insisting that he should wear the hard hat.
 
“Look out below!” he belatedly yelled. “It’s gonna go!”
 
“What’s going to…?”
 
Buffy’s voice was drowned out by the thunder of falling rock.
 
Spike grunted in pain when a huge chunk glanced off his hip and crashed over the safety rail at his side. This was followed by a veritable avalanche of smaller pieces, some of which settled heavily on his back and legs.
 
He held his breath anxiously until he felt no more bruising impacts and the scaffolding stopped shuddering and swaying.
 
All was once more quiet and only the finest of dust still trickled down.
 
“Spike! Spike, are you okay?”
 
Buffy’s voice sounded unusually panicked so Spike coughed the dust out of his throat and croaked, “Yeah, love. I’m fine. Just a bit battered and bruised.”
 
Noisily dislodging some of his burden, he twisted to one side and squinted upwards to see a wide black hole above him, easily big enough for even Xander Harris to climb through. He grinned. “And feeling a whole lot better now that we’re well and truly through!”
 
“That’s good, Spike, but the treasure can wait. Quick, get down here and help me. I think Xander’s hurt!”
 
 
~*~*~*~
 
 
While Spike clambered down the scaffolding, Buffy knelt beside Xander and brushed the dirt off his back. When he stirred, groaned and tried to roll over, she firmly pressed her hand on his right shoulder to keep him prone on the ground.
 
“Keep still, I think there’s something wrong with your arm.” She carefully felt around Xander’s left arm, trying to figure out why it looked wrong.
 
While she worked, Xander muttered, “God, I hurt all over. And you know what? The roof caves in and who gets hurt? One of the guys with super-fast healing? Of course not! It has to be Normal Guy here who… Ow! Hey!”
 
“Ooh! Sorry. Looks like I was right. There’s a couple of big lumps here I don’t like the look of. I think something might be broken.”
 
Xander sighed. “Dammit. A big rock landed on my shoulder. I guess that would do it.”
 
“Shame it didn’t land on your thick skull.” Spike put in, shedding his hard hat and safety goggles. “It would’ve bounced right off, no problem.”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes at Spike’s attempt at humour. “Come on, Xan. We’ve got to get you to the hospital. Do you think you can walk? If not, we could carry you.”
 
Xander cautiously rose to his knees and with his left arm dangling uselessly, pushed himself up with his right. With Buffy’s help, he came to a hunched standing position and tucked his injured arm into the front of his jacket to support it.
 
Buffy fastened a button over it to keep it in place.
 
“I think I’m okay to walk, Buff. Damn, I wonder how long this’ll take to heal? I can’t work like this!”
 
Buffy tucked herself under his uninjured shoulder and supported him. “Come on, Spike. You’ll have to drive. Oh, rats. It’s daytime!”
 
“No problem, love. That’s why the DeSoto’s windows are blacked out.”
 
They’d all only gone a few steps before Xander suddenly stopped. “Ah. We do have a problem. My truck is blocking Fangface’s car. To get it out of the cave, he’d have to drive the truck out into the open.”
 
Buffy looked at Spike anxiously. “We do have the heavy blanket…”
 
Spike shook his head. “Can’t drive from under a blanket, love.” He turned to look up at the new opening in the cavern roof. “Of course, if I were to have…”
 
Buffy nodded. “Go. Find it and catch up with us.” She eased Xander forward into a slow shuffle. “Let’s go, Xan. It’s okay, everything’s going to be fine.”
 
 
~*~*~*~
 
 
Spike watched their halting progress until they disappeared from sight around a bend in the tunnel, then grabbed one of the powerful flashlights and headed for the scaffolding. As an afterthought, he turned back and selected one of the boxes they’d brought for carrying the treasure.
 
A few seconds later, he pulled himself up into the musty space above the cavern, dropped the box beside the hole, and shone the flashlight around the tomb to get his bearings.
 
It was like a cliché creepy crypt from the corniest of the B movie horror genre. There were a couple of altars covered with dusty artefacts, several stone sarcophagi, ghoulish carvings, and many cobweb-covered skeletons, some laid out on top of stone biers and others slumped randomly around the walls.
 
Spike shuddered. The casually positioned skeletons would likely have been the builders of the tomb, sacrificed to keep its location secret.
 
Then he smirked. The ruthless stratagem had worked just long enough to allow him to be the one to find it.
 
Remembering the urgency, Spike directed his flashlight towards the skeleton lying in state on the bier in the centre of the floor. By his logic, this would be the most important individual and therefore the one most likely to be buried with a magical jewel.
 
Immediately, the powerful beam struck something on the hollow ribcage which gleamed a rich green.
 
Spike cautiously reached out to touch the large oval cabochon-cut gem which was mounted in a gaudy golden pendant, the long chain of which encircled the skeletal neck. He had thought that the fabled gem would feel special, but it remained disappointingly inert, simply cool under his fingertips.
 
He wrenched the chain through the crumbling vertebrae and reverently dropped it over his neck to rest the pendant on his chest. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, revelling in his new-found invulnerability.
 
He had naively expected to feel different. He didn’t.
 
Suddenly flooded with uncertainty, he looked around for something with which to test his supposition. On one of the altars lay a jewelled golden cross. He strode over and grasped it, only to drop it again with a pained yelp when his palm immediately began to sizzle.
 
Growling in frustration, Spike yanked the pendant from around his neck and tossed it into the box.
 
Now he began searching methodically, tossing all valuable-looking items into the box while putting on any item containing a gem and tentatively touching the jewelled cross. Each time he was disappointed when it burned, and added another bauble to his accumulating hoard.
 
“Bloody scroll,” he muttered after yet another failure. “Couldn’t give a description of the sodding gem, could it? Even its colour, or what kind of setting it was in, would’ve helped!”
 
Soon, the box was over half full of precious items including a diamond tiara and a fistful of gold coins. There was also a pair of daggers with jewelled handles and a golden chalice.
 
Then he came across a business-like looking short sword which had a large, blood-red gem set into the pommel.
 
He swished it through the air and smirked. Now, this was something he could wear without looking like a right poof, unlike some of the more poncy pieces. He slid it through his belt and yet again reached for the cross.
 
Accompanied by a stream of curses, the sword rapidly joined the other things in the box.
 
In his frustration, Spike swept his arm across the closest altar, brushing everything remaining on it onto the floor. As the dust settled, there was a light metallic tinkle as one item rolled across the floor. He shone the light on it and was rewarded by a golden glint.
 
He picked up the ring which held a shiny green gem in a cage-like mount, and thrust it onto his finger. With little hope remaining that the gem of Amara even existed, let alone was in this room, he resignedly reached out for the cross.
 
Just before he would have made contact, he noticed something curious, paused, and turned his hand over. The palm which had been burnt by first contact with the cross was no longer red and sore. The fingertips which had been singed by later attempts were also healed. He pressed a hand to his hip which had been bruised by falling rock, and felt no pain.
 
A hopeful grin spread across his features and he eagerly grasped the cross.
 
He held his breath in anticipation.
 
There was no smoke, no agonising sizzle. The religious symbol was now simply a piece of ornamental metal in his hand.
 
Still grinning, Spike tossed the cross into the box then jumped down through the hole in the floor.
 
As soon as he hit the ground, he set off through the tunnels at a flat-out run.
 
 
~*~*~*~
 
 
It started getting lighter as they approached the cave’s entrance and Buffy anxiously glanced up at Xander. They had started off at a steady pace but they’d gradually got slower and slower and Xander had become paler and paler. She could see the tension in his jaw as he fought the pain in his shoulder.
 
“Almost there, Xan.”
 
“Yeah. God, this hurts.”
 
“I know. I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t persuaded you to…”
 
“Not your fault, Buffy.”
 
“But if…”
 
“Stop it. You know I was happy to help.”
 
Buffy stopped protesting her guilt and led him to the DeSoto. She opened the rear passenger door. “Let’s get you comfy in here then as soon as Spike gets here, we’ll be ready to go.”
 
Xander eased himself into the dim interior of the car, shifting awkwardly as he one-handedly tried to find the least painful position. “I still don’t get how fang face is going to move the truck out without turning into a big pile of dust in the driver’s seat.”
 
Buffy eyed him warily and pointed back down the tunnel. “Well, you see, we found a scroll. There’s supposed to be a magical gem...”
 
Xander squinted up at her. “A gem? What does it do?”
 
Buffy accepted that Xander would never stop asking until she’d explained, and besides, he’d earned the right to the truth. “It’s called the Gem of Amara. If a vampire wears it, it’s supposed to make it so that sunlight and crosses and holy water and stuff won’t hurt them.”
 
“What about stakes?”
 
“Those too, I guess.”
 
Xander just looked at her for a long moment then said, “And you think we can trust him with that?”
 
“I know we can. I believe in him, Xander.”
 
“And if it turns out you’re wrong?”
 
Buffy sighed. “If you can’t trust him, trust me. I know what I’d have to do, I’ve faced that possibility every day since we got together in L.A, but I also know I won’t have to.”
 
Xander subsided into the seat and closed his eyes, murmuring wearily, “For your sake, I hope you’re right, Buffy. I really do.”
 
She turned and gazed out at the sunlit desert slope, once more contemplating the possibility that she might be making a colossal mistake, and yet again resolving to give Spike the benefit of the doubt. She would trust him until he gave her cause not to.
 
Buffy was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear Spike coming. When he sped straight past her, she started.
 
He skidded to an abrupt halt inches from the boundary line between sunshine and shade.
 
She unconsciously reached out to him and opened her mouth to speak, then forgot what she was going to say when he slowly reached out a hand until it was in full sunlight. She gasped and her hand went up to cover her gaping mouth.
 
When she tapped on the car window to draw his attention, Xander leaned out just in time to see Spike stride out onto the rocky slope and stop, arms spread wide and face turned to the sun.
 
His hair was always a pale beacon which helped Buffy to identify him in a crowd, but under the brilliant Californian sun, it was blindingly bright.
 
“Oh my god,” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks.
 
Spike spun on his heel and beamed at her. Without making a conscious decision, she ran toward him. She flung herself into his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck.
 
She hadn’t realised that she was laughing until her breath caught in her throat when he caught her around the waist and whirled her around and around.
 
As soon as her feet returned to solid ground, his mouth descended upon hers. It was a short kiss as their kisses went; they were both grinning too widely to make it last.
 
Buffy cupped his cheek and whispered, “You found it. You really found it.”
 
“Innit a fantastic day? I can't wait to see if I freckle.”
 
She giggled then guiltily remembered Xander, waiting in the car. As Spike’s lips returned to hers, she managed to gasp between kisses, “Xander… car... hospital…”
 
With one final peck to her lips, Spike released her and turned to the truck. “Right. Let’s get the poor wounded builder seen to, then.”