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I Would Still Have Loved You by slaymesoftly
 
Chapter Five
 
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CHAPTER FIVE
 
“Oops?” Willow said. “I think you made him really mad.”
 
“Wasn’t one of my finest moments, was it?” Buffy sighed. “I’ll let him cool down for a while and then I’ll go get him.  I can’t leave him running around out there while the Initiative is still active. He’s too cocky for his own good, and they might catch him again.”
 
“If I understand correctly the sorts of things they’ve been doing in there, which I’ve been given to understand Spike is more than familiar with?” He glanced at Buffy and she made a face and nodded. “Then I can understand his anger at being dismissed. Torture of any sentient being is still torture, no matter if the creature is evil or not.”
 
“Thanks, Giles, that made me feel a whole lot better.” Buffy glared at him but he just continued to stare at her in disappointment.  “Fine. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it. And I know that some of the demons they cut up weren’t even evil or dangerous. But as long as Spike’s known me, you’d think he’d know better than to say something that’s going to make me say something I don’t really mean.”
 
“Clearly it is all his fault,” Giles said dryly.  “Unfortunately, his temper tantrum may deprive us of important information about what goes on in there, as well as the location of this creature.”
 
No sooner had he spoken than Spike burst back into the room, coat over his head and smoke coming from his hands.
 
“Fucking sunlight….” He glared at Buffy, but she smothered her smile in time to walk over and stroke his face.
 
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was… that was old Buffy and I don’t want to be her anymore.”
 
He tried to pout, but the earnest expression on her face and the way she kissed one of his charred hands won out and he relaxed.
 
“So ‘m I,” he mumbled. “Need to keep a better grip on my temper.”
 
“So, we’re okay?”  At his nod and whispered suggestion of how she could make it up to him, she giggled and walked back over to Giles and Willow. Her red cheeks and small smile had Willow smirking while Giles groaned under his breath.
 
“So where were we? Oh yeah, we were wondering if we needed Spike. I think I know most of it. Adam is in Room 314, which nobody’s allowed in without Maggie’s permission, according to Riley. Then Riley, not this Riley who doesn’t really know much about me yet and probably isn’t going to want to take me in to see the labs—”
 
“So, if Adam is not yet functional, and his creator is still human, we need for him to what? Disappear? Malfunction? What do you suggest, and how do we prevent your Professor Walsh from starting over?”
 
“If Willow can just say that he never wakes up, and you and the Council work on shutting the place down, maybe that’s all we need to do. I mean, Maggie Walsh is a bitch, and according to Spike she’s really nasty to the vamps and demons she has the soldiers capture for her, but she’s human and I can’t….”
 
Willow raised her hand timidly. “What if I just wish that Adam never wakes up, or becomes functional, and that Professor Walsh gets fired?”
 
“That sounds pretty good. It won’t stop the Initiative from running around capturing and killing vamps and demons, but at least Adam won’t wake up and try to take over the world and send a bunch of—”
 
She looked panicked for a few seconds and Giles and Willow tried to soothe her.
 
“Breathe, Buffy, Breathe.”
 
“Yes, please do. And tell us what caused that sudden concern.”
 
“I’m just thinking about how much will change if we stop Adam sooner and he doesn’t start killing people, and Spike doesn’t… What is changing something that big going to do to us? We have to stay us until after we take care of Glory. Maybe we shouldn’t—” She gave Spike a quick glance, but he just smiled his reassurance and nodded.
 
“I understand your fear, but you and Spike are both already here, so I’m not sure that particular change to your future would cause you any difficulties. This Spike is the one who escaped from those labs in your time, is he not? Which has not happened to him this time. So that’s already changed things as far as their organization goes.”
 
“You’re right. We’re either totally screwing up our future, or we’re not. I mean, the Spike and Buffy who got sent back here are who we are, right?  So nothing can change that because we’re here and we’ve already changed stuff. That’s why we’re here. To change things. Or one important thing.” Buffy tried to feel as optimistic as she hoped her words were.
 
“And the important thing is that you survive next year’s apocalyptic, potentially world-ending event so you do not have to be brought back from the dead, thus releasing the First Evil on an unsuspecting world.” Giles caught them all by surprise.
 
Buffy gasped and frowned at him, wondering what brought forth that terse declaration in front of Willow. Who was staring between Giles and Buffy, with growing horror on her face.
 
“You… you died?  And came back from the dead? Holy cow! And even my non-religious Jewish parents say Jesus could never have happened….”
 
“I didn’t so much ‘come back from the dead’ as I was dragged out of my grave and… Heaven…. Real place, by the way. Just FYI. It was nice there even if I don’t remember it.”  Buffy shook herself and exhaled sharply. “But anyway, I was resurrected without getting a vote about it, and….” She hesitated, not sure she wanted to tell Willow that dark magic was even a thing.
 
“And it was deeply dark magic that was used, which had terrible consequences far beyond simply returning a reluctant Buffy to a life she’d willingly given up to save the world one last time.”
 
I guess Giles isn’t worried about it.  “Uh, yeah. That. It turns out resurrecting somebody who’s supposed to be dead really rattles some cages we’d rather it didn’t.  And I guess whatever it took to do it —and I don’t know anything about that, on account of being dead and all— was pretty dark stuff and…. And that’s probably all we should say about it,” she finished, giving Giles a hard look. “It was not a good thing, and I’m not going to die this time so we don’t have to worry about it.”
 
“If you were dead… I can see why you don’t know anything about it, but why doesn’t Spike? He’s a vampire. He’s probably all about the dark magic. For all you know, he did it.”
 
“He didn’t.”  Buffy’s response was curt, and Willow flinched at Buffy’s tone. “Spike doesn’t like magic,” Buffy continued in a friendlier manner.  “But he does know some important things about it.”
 
“Know enough to stay away from it. That kind of magic has consequences… it always has consequences.  Something trained witches learn all about, isn’t that right, Rupert?”
 
“Spike!” Buffy hissed at him and grabbed his arm, dragging him into the hall. “What the hell?”
 
He exhaled. “Sorry, pet. I’m getting flashbacks to some of things she’s done and when she looked like she was about to accuse me of…. I’m sorry,” he said again. “I know she hasn’t done anything like that yet.  But I can see she’d be willing to think about it.”
 
 
 
In the other room, a confused Willow was glaring at Giles. “What the hell is he talking about? He acts like he’s on your side with all the ‘you need training’ stuff. I’m not using dark magics!”
 
“No one said you were,” he soothed, sending a worried frown toward Buffy and Spike where they were arguing in the hall. 
 
“Well what’s he being such a jerk about then? I think he probably knows a lot about it and just lied to Buffy so she wouldn’t think he did it.”  She glared down the hall, then back at Giles.
 
“No,” Giles said slowly. “I’m quite certain he was not the one who pulled Buffy from her grave. And I suspect it’s just as well that we never learn who did. They are to see that it does not happen again.”
 
A subdued Spike and Buffy returned to the room.  “Sorry, Red,” he said. “Didn’t mean to sound like you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s just that dark magic is pretty ugly stuff and I was remembering some of the consequences we—I—Buffy had to deal with. Got a little spooked.  I apologize.”
 
“Would you still be apologizing to me if you didn’t know I could will your chip to start firing and not stop?” she asked with an offended sniff.
 
She was busy watching Spike and didn’t see Buffy and Giles exchange frightened glances, or the grim expression on Giles’s face. With a start, Buffy realized she hadn’t mentioned Spike’s lack of restraining chip to Willow, and she decided not to. Another exchange of glances with Giles told her he was in complete agreement.
 
Spike looked at Buffy for direction, and she gave a subtle shake of her head. He shrugged and cocked his head at Willow. “Is that something you think you might do?”
 
“Oh. No. No, of course not. I didn’t mean… I just thought maybe….” She gave him a weak smile. “Can we just start over?”
 
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll just be over here away from the windows while you three white hats figure out what you need to say to make it all better.”
 
He walked to the couch and flopped down on it, disappearing from sight.
 
Giles, Buffy and Willow sat down at the table with cups of tea that Giles had fixed for them. 
 
“Perhaps the best thing for… Adam… would be for him to self-destruct. But I’m not sure how that would work.”
 
Buffy thought a minute, then said, “He’s powered by a small atomic ‘heart’ in his chest. I beat him by getting close enough to rip that out. Maybe we can just make it malfunction?”
 
Willow spoke up, eager to help. “Like an atomic clock?  I could just will it to stop. Or better yet, blow up. If it explodes, he won’t be able to wake up, and it would probably destroy his body too.”
 
“You’re the science genius,” Buffy said. “That sounds good to me. Especially the destroying his body part. Because she might have another power pack she could put in if that one quits.”
 
“Well, that sounds very promising,” Giles said, smiling at the two girls. “Now what to do with his creator?”
 
“Rip her head off her shoulders,” Spike’s voice drifted over from the couch. He sat up and met their shocked gazes. “Oops. Did I say that out loud? My bad.”
He dropped back down where they couldn’t see him.
 
Giles exhaled loudly. “As sympathetic as I am to Spike’s opinion of the woman, I’m afraid I don’t find that an acceptable solution. We shall have to come up with something else. I will alert the Council to the fact that we have soldiers running all over Sunnydale scooping up vampires and demons, but until we can think of a way of exposing the operation without involving Spike and Buffy….”
 
“Let’s just go with exploding cyborg for now,” Buffy said. “If it looks like Professor Walsh is going to be a problem, we’ll worry about that later.”
 
“I could make her leave town,” Willow said. “Before I break the spell. I could say she gets fired and leaves town.”
 
“That just gives her an opportunity to set up shop somewhere else,” Giles said, rubbing his forehead.
 
“We’ll come up with something, Will. Don’t worry about it. I think just losing Adam will change a lot about what’s going on in that place.  Giles is right. We don’t want to send her away to start over again somewhere else. If our government is letting her do this, can you imagine what she’d get away with in some countries? We need for her to not want or be able to set up shop somewhere else. Just have to figure out how to do it.”
 
Spike’s head came up again, and he started to speak, but stopped when Buffy glared at him.  “What?  Was just going to suggest we let the watcher get all spelled and sic him on her like he did before.”
 
“Yeah, right. You weren’t going to offer to make sure she couldn’t do it again,” Buffy scoffed.
 
“Not saying I wouldn’t be willing if that was the decision, but I know better.”
 
Giles was frowning. “That’s the second time you’ve referenced my chasing her when I was under a spell. How and why would I do that?”
 
“Um… I think you went to meet her… in her office. You thought she’d be interested in what my watcher could tell her about vamps and demons. But… remember how I told you she blew off my slaying with my ‘pointy sticks’?  She was even less charming to you, I guess. You didn’t like her at all, so when you were a Fyral demon and spotted her on the street—”
 
“You told me to stop the car, and you jumped out and chased her down the street. Too bad you weren’t enough of a demon to catch her and kill her,” Spike said. “You let her get away.”
 
“An obvious failure on my part,” Giles muttered. “However, I’m not really interested in repeating what was undoubtedly a fascinating experience, so let’s try to come up with something else, shall we?”
 
Willow raised her hand, somewhat timidly. “Maybe I can just make her forget about it? If she doesn’t know what she’s been doing there, maybe she won’t try it again.”
 
“Hmmmm. If you could mess her up just enough that the people who work for her don’t trust her anymore… and that the university starts to worry about her sanity… “
 
“Then they probably would fire her, and the publicity would discourage other governments from pursuing her.”
 
“First things first, let’s take care of Adam.”
 
“Yes, quite. I suggest something along the lines of ‘Adam’s power pack is going to explode in his chest.’ “ He paused. “Feel free to add ‘There may be collateral damage.”
 
It took Buffy and Willow a few seconds to understand what he meant and was hoping for as collateral damage. Spike however, sent Giles a grin and a thumbs up before ducking back down where Buffy couldn’t see him.  As she realized what he was suggesting, she glanced at Willow. “Are you okay with that, Willow? You won’t know if you hurt anybody else or not.”
 
“I’m not stupid. I know who he hopes is standing close enough to get hurt. But I think I’m okay with it.  It won’t be like I actually tried to kill her.”
 
Buffy sighed heavily, but nodded. “I guess I’m okay with that. She’s going to die soon anyway if we don’t do anything.”
 
Willow reached for the pad and pen Giles had in front of him. “I’m just going to write it down exactly how I want to say it so I don’t mess it up.”
 
“Perfect,” Giles said. “That is exactly what a careful spell caster would do.  You have excellent instincts, Willow.”
 
She preened a little and smiled at him. She quickly wrote down the words, frowned, crossed one out, wrote again, then silently slid it to Buffy. Buffy read it, nodded and gave it to Giles, who read it carefully, then smiled at Willow and slid it back to her. “I believe that will do nicely,” he said.
 
Willow nodded, read it silently to herself again, then took a deep breath. As she exhaled, she said, “Adam’s atomic power pack is going to explode in his chest tomorrow at noon. It’s going to destroy his body, and may injure or kill anyone standing too close to him at the time.”  She paused, then added, “The explosion is going to be confined to the lab, but the fire alarms are going to go off everywhere, so we should know when it’s happened.”
 
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