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Chapter 3
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The next few weeks were a blur of activity as Buffy and the gang came up with a way to channel their powers together and defeat the Frankenstein monster from hell that defied being destroyed in a conventional way. Spike had sold them all out, the jerk! He had sided with Adam after all they had done for him after the Initiative had chipped him!

Still they had prevailed. Adam was now a pile of tissue and junk metal on the floor of the now defunct government lab. Spike slithered back to the crypt he had moved into after Giles had finally gotten rid of him and it was time for a Scooby celebration.

Buffy’s mom had gone to bed, not having the adrenaline high that the others had. In fact, the details of the ordeal her baby had just been through had been skimmed over out of concern for her natural motherly worry instincts. Even Giles was planning to join in the movie and popcorn fiesta of successful demony slayage.

The first dream had come to Willow. The others noticed her nod off and weren’t too worried as she began to mutter and twitch. After all they had just gone through, Willow more than earned any nightmare she might be having.

Xander crashed next and his sleep pattern seemed much like Willow’s. He muttered something crazy about being a comfortadore, whatever that might be. Maybe Xan was dreaming of being a bullfighter?

The film they had been watching, Apocalypse Now, was enough to cause more than one nightmare on its own. Buffy had to laugh at the apt choice it had been. Once more they had averted doom of the apocalyptic kind and lived to joke about it.

Giles was the next to be embraced by Morpheus. Buffy began to get a bit wigged as her normally stoic Watcher writhed in the obvious throes of a nightmare of his own. When Giles began to sing unintelligible words to a power ballad, Buffy began to genuinely worry about the whole group, only to find herself sinking into the sleep of the exhausted.

Eventually, Buffy awoke, having put the First Slayer firmly in her place. They all nervously discussed the odd dreams they had experienced, not daring to reveal everything they remembered.

When everyone left, Buffy remembered the words of dream Tara, "You think you know what’s to come…what you are. You haven’t even begun." Buffy felt chills as those words rang in her mind. "What’s to come." That crazy old lady had told her about defeating Adam, Spike’s betrayal, the dreams, and then hinted that she knew what was to come in Buffy’s life…that it wasn’t what Buffy thought would happen at all. "Maybe," Buffy thought, "I should hear the rest of her story after all."

~~~

The next morning heralded a bright, sunny day almost devoid of clouds of any kind. The kind of day to keep most of the demon population, even those with sun tolerance, at bay. Mischief and evil were things for the dark. Speaking of evil things, Buffy decided to drop by Spike’s crypt and have a nice game of wack-the-vamp for his helping Adam the way he had. They had been damned good to the evil bloodsucker and he had nearly destroyed them.

She kicked in the door of the crypt, managing to allow a stray sunbeam to hit the prone vampire before he yelped and slid off the sarcophagus to shelter from the daylight. "Bloody hell, Slayer. This is the middle of the night for us vamps! You nearly turned me into a soddin’ torch. Have a care when you decide to come for an unannounced visit with the undead."

"I don’t much care if you fry, bake or grill, Spike. You nearly got us killed by that freak. You want the chip out so bad, fine. I’ll pull it out of your skull for you. Of course, then I’ll have to stake your ass too, but I’m thinking that won’t be any big loss either." Buffy was furious, far more than she understood why. If she thought about it, there was no reason to be feeling the betrayal she was feeling from Spike’s actions. After all, they weren’t friends.

Spike barely hid the hurt look that flashed across his face at her obvious desire to see the end of him. He was puzzled by the emotions her clear loathing brought up within him. This was the Slayer. He hated her and she hated him. He would have killed her if they hadn’t shoved that bleedin’ chip in his head. So why did it hurt so much that she still hated him? Why did he secretly wish she had come by for a friendly chat or to ask his help in some demon fight?

"Don’t see why you’ve got your knickers in a twist, luv. Helped fight off the bad guys in the end, didn’t I? Did a right good job of keepin’ the whole Scooby crew safe as houses while they did that mojo you used to beat tall, pieced together and ugly." Spike could see her anger had not abated one bit. "I can see you’re not here to thank me for my timely help, so I’ll ask you to leave my home and come back at a civilized hour and in a civilized way."

"Like you’d know civilized," Buffy spat. "I want to know why I should leave here without dusting your worthless hide? We helped you, took you in, fed you and protected you. The first thing you do when you move out on your own is to turn on us. Why, Spike? Are you really just that worthless?"

Spike felt stung at her words. He liked to feel he had some sense of honor, in a vampiry kind of way at least. "Yeah, helped me," he snarked. "Tied me up, chained me up, teased me, insulted me. Right great examples of do-gooders you lot are! Not a kind word from any of you for the starvin’, confused vamp. I coulda just grabbed a minion to kill all the nice, warm walking blood bags for me, but nooooo, I head to you, figurin’ you’d help a poor chipped vamp out. Show me what to do. Stop the bad guys. At least just stake me. Instead I got to be the personal vamp-shaped verbal punching bag for the lot of you. Try out all those snappy little quips of yours, hone that razor tongue. Whelp finally had a way to lord it over a big bad. Not like I could expect to learn civilized from you lot."

Spike was half-sure Buffy was going to dust him anyway and he wanted to go down making sure he put a dent in her smug, self-satisfied opinion of herself. "I’m a soulless, evil vampire. What’s your excuse?"

Suddenly Buffy’s eyes grew large and shone with fear. She heard the old woman’s voice speaking of a man and a struggle to become something good. She couldn’t mean Spike, could she? Buffy was more determined to find the old lady again than ever. "I have to go. Just… just…don’t go against us again, Spike. That’s not how you win friends." She turned and walked briskly out of the crypt, leaving behind a bewildered vampire.

"What the hell just happened here?" Spike had a feeling that it was something monumental but completely mysterious.

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