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Morpheus' Child by icemink
 
Chapters 1-4
 
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Chapter 1: Spike

Spike walked across the desert, feeling uneasy. He didn't belong here, he knew that, but he didn't know how to get out. The desert stretched as far as he could see in every direction.

Only one thing marred the flat landscape. A figure in black. He moved quickly towards it since it was the only landmark to guide him. As he got nearer he saw that it was a woman dressed all in black sitting at a small round table. A long black lace veil covered her hair and face.

As he got nearer he could see that she was laying cards out on the table. Before he even heard her voice or saw her face he knew it was Drusilla.

He stood behind her and saw her turn over a card. It was labeled death and it showed a young girl with long brown hair. Her face was streaked with blood, and she held a knife in her hand.

She stopped, looked at the card, then lifted her veil. Brown eyes met blue and she said, "Run William."

He did. He ran without direction. She was behind him. Not Drusilla, but the hunter. He had no doubt that if she caught up to him she would kill him. So he ran as fast as he could.

There was nowhere to go. The desert stretched out in every direction. He glanced over his shoulder and saw his pursuer. It was a young girl no more than sixteen years old he guessed. Long stringy brown hair covered her face, obscuring her features. But he could see the most important thing. In her hand she carried a stake. He had no doubt that she was a slayer.

He turned his eyes back front as he ran down the streets of a city. But he didn't recognize where he was. There was no safety for him here, just row upon row of houses that he could not enter.

Behind him he could hear the Slayer, she was repeating the same phrase over and over, "Head and heart."

There was a crash of thunder and it began to rain. Then up ahead he saw Revello Drive. If he could only get there he would be safe. That was one house to which he had an invitation.

Off to his left he heard a young girl scream in terror. He didn't stop to think. He just turned and ran toward the girls crying, even though he knew doing so would allow the slayer chasing him to catch up.

He burst through the door of the house and ran up the stairs. On the top of the stairs was a grandfather clock that read 1:50. The air was heavy with blood and fear. He looked over his shoulder once again. There was a flash of lightning and he could see the Slayer framed in the door. But she didn't enter, as if there were a barrier keeping her out.

He hurried up the stairs, not willing to temp fate. He barely glanced as he passed a bedroom where a couple had been brutally stabbed.

He followed the sound of crying to a child's room. There stood a heavy set man covered in blood. In his arms he held a small girl with long brown hair.

"Don't cry," he told her. "They can't hear you."

Spike roared, and rushed to the man, snapping his neck before the blood-covered man could register what had happened. Spike caught the girl as the man's limp arms let go of her.

"It's all right, moppet," he told her. "But we have to get out of here. I know someplace safe."

She looked at him with wide eyes and said, "I thought it was you."

Behind him he heard a bestial snarl. He put the girl down and stood between her and the shadow figure that had entered the room.

Before he could tell the girl to run she said, "Big sister's angry, I have to go now."

Spike shifted to a fighter's stance, but he could feel his limbs trembling. He knew he couldn't beat the hunter that moved through the shadows. He only hoped that he could delay her long enough for the girl to escape.

She was on him. Lightning flashed momentarily illuminating her dark features that were coved with white clay and her wild tangled hair. She raised her stake and plunged to toward his heart.

He felt the wood begin to pierce his skin. It seemed to take forever as the wood pressed deeper and deeper into his chest. Then she was flung back, and a much paler but tanned hand pulled the stake from his chest.

He was lost in the beautiful green eyes that looked down on him.

"Are you okay?" his angel asked.

"Buffy?" it was the only thing he could say.

He needed to tell her something, something very important, only he didn't know what it was. Then he saw the shadow figure stand up behind Buffy, a bone knife in her raised hand. He wanted to scream a warning, but he couldn't say anything.

Just as the knife was about to be plunged into Buffy's back, Spike woke up.

It took him a minute or two to get his bearings. He still wasn't used to the small apartment Doyle had arranged for him.

He got up and went to the fridge to get a beer to calm his nerves. The dreams always unnerved him. He thought that he should be used to nightmares by now. He'd been having them ever since he got his soul back. Nightmares in which he relived all the horrible things he had done as William the Bloody.

Of course he'd had a brief reprieve while he was a ghost. Ghosts don't sleep so they don't dream either. But since he became corporeal again his dreams returned, although they were different now. They were more vivid than before. Sometimes they were filled with the gory details of his past, but most of the time they were just strange.

Often he was in the desert, desperate to get out of it. It was a little odd that it wasn't the sun that bothered him, but the desert itself. Of course, the sun in a dream couldn't hurt him, but he thought it was rather odd for a vampire to dream of the desert of all places.

There was one thing that all these dreams held in common. In them he was hunted. Sometimes by Nikki, sometimes by the Chinese slayer he'd killed. And often the wild girl with the white clay on her face whom he thought of as the hunter.

But they were only dreams, Spike told himself, no matter how vivid they might seem. He had never seen Buffy in his dreams before. Somehow she frightened him more than anything else.

She had seemed more real than anything else. He couldn't have said what she was wearing, or how she was doing her hair these days, but he could remember ever fleck in her green eyes.

Seeing Buffy tore him up. She had seemed so real in the dream that he longed for her, craved her. He wanted nothing more than to hold her again. But he couldn't go to her.

At first it had been fear that kept him away. Fear that she wouldn't really want him back. Not that they'd been exactly together, but it would be hard for Spike to be near her, and be forced to put a distance between them again.

He could not have asked for a better 'last night' than the one they shared in the basement of her house, even if she did have Angel breath.

He hadn't kissed her, he didn't dare. He understood that sex, that sort of intimacy in general was strictly off limits. He'd forever lost the right to that when he'd tried to rape her. But to just hold her, to be close to her was wonderful.

The closeness had amazed and frightened him that night in a stranger's house when he had comforted her. It had been twice as wonderful and twice as terrifying, when she had come to him again, this time strong and whole. It was one thing for her to take comfort from him when she was alone and scared. It was another when she was back in her own house, among her own friends.

If she had moved on however, if she didn't want him to hold her anymore, Spike didn't know what he would do. So fear had kept him from finding Buffy at first.

And then Doyle had come along, and that had changed everything. Sooner or later Spike would have given in and run to Buffy, even if it meant she tore out his heart and stomped all over it. But Doyle had given him a choice. Offered him something Spike had never had. His own destiny.

He didn't know what that meant, wasn't sure whether he really wanted it, but it was a chance for Spike to figure out where his place was now that he had a soul.

There were still a few hours before the sun went down, so Spike decided to head into the sewers, find out if any trouble was brewing, and maybe save an innocent or two.

Chapter 2: Buffy

Buffy lifted the couch and turned it over onto its back. Nope it's not here either, she thought. Where was it? She had to find it. If she didn't . . .

Dawn! she thought. Dawn's always taking my things. She got up and moved into her younger sister's room. She looked through Dawn's jewelry box first; it was the most logical place that it would be. But it wasn't there. Then she looked through the drawers of Dawn's desk, and even under her bed. It wasn't anywhere.

She opened the closet door and parted the clothes hanging there. She pushed them aside and walked through the closet up the stone steps. The sun blazed above her as she emerged into the center of the coliseum.

The stands of the colosseum were filled. Thousands of girls all young, but seeming to share nothing else in common were sitting there watching her. They were of all colors, all nationalities, and all times.

"I don't think it's here," she said to herself. "Xander?" she asked as her friend approached. "I've lost something."

"You should stop looking, Buff. An eye for an eye," he told her holding out one hand on which his missing eye sat.

"I don't think that's right," she told him. She knew she had to find it. If she didn't . . .

"It's the only way," Amanda told her.

Buffy was sitting next to the young Sunnydale girl who'd died on the Hellmouth, looking down from the stands as her other self talked to Xander.

"No, there's always another way," Buffy insisted.

"We're being punished," Amanda explained. "But don't worry; leave him alone she'll take care of everything."

Realizing that Amanda was only trying to stall her, Buffy turned back to Xander.

"Please, Xander. Will you help me look?"

"Sorry," he apologized as he buckled on his tool belt. "We're way behind schedule on this job. A carpenter's work is never done."

He began to hammer the stone walls of the arena. Buffy looked up and noticed all the scaffolding on the Coliseum.

There was nothing for her here. As she looked at all the other slayers in the stands, she realized that all this was nothing but a distraction. They were trying to keep her from finding it.

She turned to go back the way she came, she walked back into the dark opening she'd come through, slowly feeling her way down the ladder.

She seemed to climb for a very long time. Finally, her foot found the floor. She neatly folded the attic ladder back up, watching as it slid into place leaving only a string hanging down to mark the entrance to the attic.

For a moment she hesitated. Maybe it was in the attic? But then she heard a growl come from down the hallway. She ran in that direction past a grandfather clock that read 1:50.

She ran into a little girl's room just in time to see the First Slayer lift a stake to plunge it into Spike's chest. Buffy ran forward and grabbed the First Slayer, pulling her away from Spike and throwing her across the room.

Panicked she yanked out the stake that was protruding from Spike's chest. She'd been looking for him everywhere, now that she'd found him she wasn't going to let anything happen to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Buffy?" he asked.

She thought he was going to say something else, but then his eyes went wide at something behind her. Without thoughts she spun around catching the First Slayer's wrist before she could plunge a bone knife into Buffy's back.

She twisted the First Slayer's arm, forcing her to drop the knife and then kicked her. The First Slayer crashed through a window. Buffy looked for Spike but he was gone.

Yelling in frustration she leapt through the window after the First Slayer. "Where is he? What have you done with him?"

Her feet hit the desert sands and she faced off against the First Slayer.

"Give him back," Buffy demanded.

The First Slayer was silent as she attacked. Buffy traded blows with her, wondering how she could make the other slayer tell her what had happened to Spike. Because if Buffy didn't find him . . .

The First Slayer landed a solid blow to Buffy's jaw and she staggered back.

"The demon does not belong," the First Slayer said.

Buffy woke up.

It took her a moment to get her bearings. Slayer dreams were like that. They were so real that returning to reality was like getting hit in the water with a bucket full of ice water.

They were never pleasant, but this one felt like someone had ripped open a hole in her chest. A Spike shaped hole. She had dreamt of him before, regular dreams in which he was a phantom, fully dream like. But in this dream he had seemed so real, the look in his eyes, the tremble in his voice. It was as if he'd been alive for just a moment, and then killed all over again in front of her.

She rolled over her bed, burying her face in her pillow to keep from crying. It didn't work. She'd tried so hard to be happy, tried so hard to live the life she knew he want for her, and the only way she could do that was to shut all her memories of him away.

Now they all came back, and she felt so alone. She would have given anything to feel his arms around her just one more time. Just to be near him.

Giving up she sat up and hugged her knees. The tears were going to come no matter what, and there was something more important to consider, what did the dream mean?

She went over it in her head. Slayer dreams were always so vivid that she could easily recall every detail. The clearest detail of the dream was the need to find him. Even when she didn't know what she was looking for, she knew she had to find him. Something bad would happen if she didn't.

But Spike was dead. Burned to a cinder and buried under the California desert. Maybe she was supposed to find the amulet that killed him? But how? She could hardly dig up the Sunnydale crater herself. Or maybe the dream meant something completely different.

And why had the First Slayer been in the dream? A cameo by the First Slayer was not to be taken lightly.

Buffy couldn't answer any of those questions, but she knew where to start looking for the answers, in L.A. with Angel. After all he was the one who had brought the amulet to Sunnydale.

She looked at her clock and tried to figure out what time it was in L.A. If it was evening in Rome didn't it have to be daytime in the United States? She wasn't sure; she still hadn't gotten a hang of time zones.

But calling Angel didn't seem to be enough. The dream clearly dictated more direct action. She had ignored slayer dreams and her instincts about them before, and always regretted it. Her instincts were telling her to go to L.A. She would be able to better question Angel in person than over the phone, not to mention if she did have to go to Sunnydale she'd be only a short drive away.

Her mind made up she got out of bed and got on the computer to book tickets for the first flight to L.A.

Chapter 3: Dana

Dana walked through the desert. She loved the desert it was her home, where she belonged. There was always sun in the desert, and never any shadows for anyone to hide in. She was safe in the desert, no one could hurt her here.

Big Sister came across the sands to meet her. At first Dana had thought Big Sister was kind of scary looking. Her hair was wild and tangled. She was dressed in white rags kind of like a mummy, and her face was covered with white clay except for her eyes, which gave the impression she was wearing a dark mask.

But Dana knew Big Sister would never hurt her. Big Sister was a mighty warrior and a hunter. Big Sister killed monsters. According to Big Sister, Dana was a warrior too. Dana was strong now, and nothing could hurt her.

Big Sister motioned for Dana to follow. Big Sister rarely talked, but it didn't matter, Dana always knew what she meant. Today was special. Today Dana would be the hunter. Today Dana would have revenge.

He was here, the man who hurt her. Except he wasn't a man. He was a demon, and Dana knew how to kill him. Head and heart. Cut till you see dust.

Big Sister led her across the desert to where she could see him. He stood leaning over a woman dressed in black. Dana ignored the woman, she wasn't real, only the desert sand made flesh.

Big Sister handed her a wooden stake. The feel of the wood in her hand felt right, as if she had always done this. Dana took off across the sand, as the demon began to run. His black coat billowed behind him and his platinum hair shone in the sunlight.

He looked back over his shoulder at her, and Dana knew he was scared. She wasn't little anymore. She wasn't a child. The desert was her home and he didn't belong here. He couldn't hurt her now.

She tried not to think about that. About him coming for her, about him killing her parents and taking her down into the dark.

The desert shifted under her feet. She was running down the streets of a city. The streets looked vaguely familiar, as if they were from someone else's life.

It was night. Dana didn't like the night. The man came for her during the night and took her down into the place where there was no sun.

She tried not to think about it, tried to remember that she was strong now, that he couldn't hurt her. But it was hard. It was raining and the thunder and lightning scared her. It was just like the night when he had come for her.

Then up ahead she saw her house. The house she had lived in before the man came.

Dana screamed.

The man changed direction and ran toward her house. Dana tried to catch him, stop him before he could get to her parents. But suddenly she was no longer gaining on him.

He ran into the house before she could stop him. She froze in the doorway, too scared to follow him in. Lightning flashed behind her.

Then she was there, under her bed, hoping the man wouldn't see her, wouldn't find her. Her parents had stopped screaming. They had screamed for what seemed like forever. But it was quiet now, the only sound was the man's boots as he walked across her room to her bed.

She tried to hold very still, to be quieter than a mouse. But it was no good. He found her anyway. A bloody hand reached under the bed and dragged her out by the foot.

She struggled, but it was no good, he held her tightly and lifted her into the air.

She was sobbing now, and the man told her, "Don't cry. They can't hear you."

That's when Dana noticed it. It was a different man. He wasn't the demon with the white hair and the black coat. It was a different man, one with brown hair.

There was no time to wonder about it. The demon rushed into the room, roaring. He closed his hands around the neck of the brown haired man and there was a loud snapping sound.

The arms that held her went limp, and she fell for just a second before the demon caught her. He smiled at her, although she could see that he was scared.

He spoke, and he had a funny accent. "It's all right, moppet. But we have to get out of here. I know someplace safe."

"I thought it was you," Dana apologized.

Dana felt sorry for him. Big Sister was coming and she was mad. Dana had failed to kill the demon. She wasn't strong after all. She wasn't a warrior or a hunter.

Big Sister was there, behind him. She snarled in anger.

He put Dana down and she told him, "Big Sister's angry, I have to go now."

Dana didn't want to watch. She was confused. The demon had tried to save her, but he was a demon, she could sense that. And she had seen him before. She knew that.

She could remember him killing her on a train, and in a strange building with a big golden statue. And she could remember fighting him. In a school, and in a church. And once out in the sunshine. He was always trying to kill her. She remembered that, but it didn't seem to fit with everything else. So Dana retreated into the desert, where she was safe and strong.

Big Sister found her there, and Big Sister was angry. Once again Big Sister gestured for Dana to follow and Dana obeyed. She led Dana to a cave. Dana didn't want to go on, but Big Sister waited impatiently until Dana went in.

The cave was very large and there was a black spiral painted on the floor. Three men with dark skin and dressed in colorful robes stood around the cave. Dana didn't like them. They scared her, but Big Sister was pushing her forward deeper into the cave.

Then two of the men reached down and before Dana understood what was happening they had chained her wrists to the earth.

Dana began to struggle against the chains.

"I'll do better," Dana promised. "Head and heart. Cut till you see dust."

But they didn't listen. The three men moved to the edges of the spiral and began to beat the ground with their sticks. Big Sister moved to the center of the spiral.

The men spoke in a strange language but Dana understood every word they said.

"The dream has been corrupted," said the first.

"The demon walks through the sacred places," continued the second.

"The dream must be purged," finished the third.

The spiral began to glow. There was a bright flash. Dana screamed.

The First Slayer woke up.

She began with her fingers. Testing them, remembering what it was to be flesh. Her body did not respond as she thought it should. There was a heaviness about her limbs. She was drugged.

It didn't matter. The First Slayer was used to the fogginess of the dream, which she had guarded since her death. It would take some time, but she was the Slayer, and the drugs could not hold her for long. Then her sisters would be avenged, and the dream would be free of the vampire that had been drawn into it once and for all.

Chapter 4: The Girl of my Dreams

Spike sniffed the air in the alleyway, double checking the trail he was following and frowned. He'd been trying to track down a young girl who'd escaped from a mental ward, or rather the demon that had possessed her, before she hurt anyone else.

By some miracle the demon hadn't killed anyone yet, although it had imbued the girl with enough strength to snap the guard's bones like twigs. She'd also severely injured a clerk and a rent-a-cop at a store where she'd stolen some food and clothes.

Although Spike was glad there hadn't been any fatalities yet, he was puzzled by it. The fact that everyone who'd gotten in her way had been incapacitated, but not killed spoke of some amount of control. The sort of demons that possessed people were not known for control. They were known for tearing up everything in their way, at least once they got to the point where they made their presence known. And this one was certainly not hiding.

More puzzling, and more troubling was the fact that she seemed to have doubled back on him, and unless Spike was very much mistaken, she was actually behind him.

He spun around and caught the foot that would have kicked him in the back of the head. He twisted her foot trying to force her to the ground but instead of resisting him, she moved with him, pushed herself off the ground with her hands, and kicked him with her free foot.

He let go of her, and she was on her feet instantly. They faced off, and she shook her long brown hair away from her face. Her lips pulled back and she snarled at him.

Spike stepped back startled, and next thing he knew he was flying down the alley and crashed into a dumpster.

It wasn't her snarl that had thrown him off balance, it was her face. He knew her, even though they had never met. She was the Slayer that had chased him in his dreams.

He didn't have time to wonder about it, he suddenly found himself fighting for his life. He kept telling himself that this wasn't a dream, that there was no reason he shouldn't win. After all he'd killed two Slayers, and although he'd never killed Buffy, she'd never killed him either and she was the best Slayer there was.

He began to regain his footing then. Blocking her blows, and getting in a few of his own. He was Spike after all, and she was just another Slayer, dreams or no dreams.

Still she was a creepy bird. She never said a word, despite his best attempts in engage her in the traditional fight banter, only growled at him. There was something savage, and primitive about her. Something familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.

Just when he was really getting into the fight, he heard the screeching of tires and both he and the Slayer were forced to jump backwards as the black sports car nearly ran them both over.

The passenger door opened, and a familiar hand grabbed Spike and pulled him in. Spike was sticking half in half out of the car by the time Angel bothered to bark at him, "GET IN!"

Spike struggled against the older vampire's grip. "I was doing just fine," he protested.

Just then the Slayer smashed her fist into Angel's window. The glass cracked but held. Necroplast was strong stuff. After all it wouldn't do for a stray pebble or bird to crack it and for the boss to go up in flames. Even so it wouldn't take many more blows from the Slayer to smash it completely.

Angel let go of Spike just long enough to throw the car in reverse, and then he was speeding out of the alley. Spike had no choice but to finish pulling his body into the car, at least if he didn't want to roll about that pavement at high speeds.

"Don't worry, tactical is on its way," Angel told him as if he'd come to Spike's rescue.

"What's the bloody idea?" Spike whined. "I was winning. And by the time tactical gets here she'll be long gone."

"Look, Spike," Angel explained patiently. "You don't know what you're dealing with here. She's not possessed. She's-"

"A Slayer. I know," Spike told his grand-sire smugly. "Took you long enough to figure it out. Now turn this car around so we can go find the crazy bint."

"You're crazier than she is. She's a Slayer remember, as in vampire. We're the last two people who should be trying to capture her."

"Not all of us deal with Slayer's by running away," Spike said, hoping Angel would pick up on his double meaning. But then knowing how dense Angel was, Spike figured his subtlety would be lost. "I killed two of them, remember?"

"You mean murdered," Angel corrected.

"Well, yeah. I didn't have a soul then, now did I? The point is, this is my job now, and you should let me do it."

"This is not-" Angel was interrupted by the ringing of the car phone. "Angel?" he answered. "Right. Thanks. Make sure everyone's in the conference room. Bye." Angel hung up. "Tactical couldn't find her."

"Imagine that!" Spike said sarcastically.

Angel ignored him. "Wesley's calling Rupert Giles." Spike rolled his eyes. As if he didn't know who Rupert was. Not like he hadn't lived with the bloke and been chained in his bathtub. "To send someone to help us deal with this."

Spike gave up. He figured once they got to Wolfram & Hart he could lose Angel in the cubicles. To bad the trail would be cold by the time Spike was able to hit the streets again.

So he ignored Angel and got lost in his thoughts. Like why he dreamed about this Slayer before he'd ever seen her. That unnerved him. He'd disliked his dreams enough when they'd been simple nightmares. Now the seemed to be full of omens and portents. But why? Maybe he could ask the ex-Watcher, after all, Spike was willing to bet that neither Wesley nor Gunn had ever told Angel about their attempt to recruit him. Wesley might be willing to keep this from Angel too. At least until they knew what it meant.

Maybe it had something to do with all that Shanshu bugaboo. Maybe the Powers were going to cut out Doyle as a middle man, and send the visions straight to Spike. He didn't really like that idea. The dreams weren't pleasant, and Doyle's visions seemed to be accompanied by headaches which reminded Spike of when he'd had the chip. He'd be much happier if people would just stop trying to stick things in his head, even if they were just dreams.
 
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