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Chapter 2
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The Scoobies had been watching the figures on the tower since the demon Xander thought he had already killed landed at his feet. They had seen Spike lead Dawn to Buffy and then the trio had appeared to be arguing about something.

Giles had begun to go into what qualified as panic mode for the Watcher as the walls began to fall between dimensions. "Blast! She was too late!" Giles hoped the vampire would do what had to be done to save the world, even if Buffy would not be able to do the deed. Dawn had to die. There was no hope for it now.

"That bastard!" Xander had not taken his eyes off of the drama going on so high above them all. "The traitor! I knew we couldn’t trust him!"

Willow hadn’t been looking at much other than her recovering lover and was puzzled by her best friend’s exclamations. "What … who are you talking about, Xan?"

"Spike," he spat. "Smell a little blood and he goes all fang face. Buffy must be too tired to stop him, or stake him."

"Good Lord, he bit her!" Giles echoed Xander’s dismay. "Whatever is Buffy thinking to allow that? She must have allowed it for his chip not to have fired."

As the small group watched, Spike made his run for the edge of the tower and flung himself into the night sky. The fall was too fast for anyone to do more than
watch in amazement. Spike hit the pavement and actually bounced with the impact. The cement cracked under his broken body and bricks from the lunatic construction crew’s stash fell atop the unconscious vampire.

Willow let out a yelp as dust billowed around the still body of their undead comrade. Relief flooding her as she realized it wasn’t Spike who was dust. "Wait here, sweetie," she said to Tara and helped her newly sane lover to sit. Willow was the first to reach Spike’s body. "I don’t think he’s dead. I mean no more than usual," she said to the group.

Tara rose to follow instead of staying where Willow had left her. "He’s still with us, but he’s hurt really bad," the sweet witch said. "I can still see his aura. He’s in a lot of pain and isn’t conscious, but I think he’ll make it."

Giles looked up and saw that the portal had closed and his Slayer and her sister were safely descending the tower. "Whatever he did, it worked. The rift is healed."

"You just can’t trust a vampire. I’ve told Buffy he’s dangerous, but did she listen? No!" Xander had the image of Spike feeding from Buffy burned into his brain, blocking anything but the horror of another friend being drained by a vampire. He grabbed the pointed baseball bat from his injured fiancé’s hand and
stormed toward the downed vamp.

"Xander, stop! Spike just saved us all!" Anya desperately tried to get through the rage her lover was feeling to stop him from making a huge mistake. "I don’t know what we thought we saw, but you can’t just stake him!"

At that point, Buffy and a shaken Dawn came up to the group. "Xander!" Buffy grabbed her friend’s arm and pulled the makeshift stake from his hand, flinging it
away. "Enough! Spike closed the portal. It had to be blood, remember! I was going to jump and he offered to try this. It worked. It’s over." Buffy
looked at all her friends and then at the broken and bloodied body of the vampire who had just saved her sister’s life, and the world itself for that matter.
"Come on. Let’s get Spike somewhere safe to heal before the sun comes up and makes it pointless."

Tara had found a discarded tarp and brought it to the side of the downed hero. "Here, Buffy. We could use this to move Spike, I think."

Buffy smiled at Tara in gratitude. Clearly Willow’s plan had worked to restore Tara to herself. Maybe they would all be all right after all. "Thank you, Tara. This will help a lot."

Giles helped Buffy roll Spike onto the tarp so the vampire could be carried with minimal jostling. "Where do you want to take him, Buffy? He might not regain
consciousness for a while and he isn’t too popular with the demons of Sunnydale. I’m not altogether certain he’d be safe at his crypt in this condition."

"True. He’s been a demon-killing machine since that chip implant. I guess we could let him stay in my basement until he’s able to defend himself again." Buffy saw Dawn’s face light up in relief that Spike would be so close at hand. They both owed the vampire a lot for all his actions since Glory had swept into their lives. ‘Poor Spike won’t get much rest if I don’t keep Dawn away from the basement,’ Buffy
thought.

"Xander, make yourself useful, will you? Buffy has sustained blood loss and shouldn’t assist in moving Spike. Take the end at his feet like a good lad."
Giles had noticed Buffy’s pallor and clear signs that his Slayer was at the end of her physical rope.

Xander did as asked, taking the bottom end of the makeshift stretcher as they moved his least favorite member of the group to shelter.

Buffy leaned on her grateful sister as her energy began to fail. "Are you gonna be okay, Buffy?" asked a concerned Dawn.

"I’ll be fine. Some O.J. of the non-deranged stalker/killer kind, a couple of powdered sugar donuts and I’m good to go!" Buffy put a tired, forced smile on her face and reassured her sister.

Willow looked from the fallen vampire to her best girlfriend with worry etched on her face. "It’ll be okay, Dawnie. We’ll be there to make sure Buffy is a
good little Slayer and pump her full of anti-anemic goodness. We can also whip up some witchy healing magic and both our patients will be good as new in no
time, right, Tara?"

"Sure, honey. That’s what magic is best used for: helping. We can’t undo the natural order, but there’s nothing wrong with Buffy or Spike that we can’t put
together a potion or two," Tara agreed with her love.

"I don’t want you to overdo it either, missy!" ordered a concerned Willow. "You haven’t had an easy few days yourself."

"Yes, sweetheart. I’ll be careful. It won’t take any energy to put together some herbs though," Tara insisted.

"Perhaps a trip to the Emergency ward might be in order," Giles suggested.

"I think they’d take one look at Spikey, toe-tag him and ship him to the morgue," said Xander. "Of course it might be funny, seeing their faces when he wakes up."

"Not Spike, you pillock, the rest of the injured. Perhaps not Buffy either. The blood loss isn’t severe enough to require a transfusion, I think, and it might
be difficult to explain the loss properly. As it is, we can come up with some plausible story to explain the injuries to Dawn and Tara," Giles said sternly.
"The moronic police in this town must have noted the escape of all these mental patients and the raising of this monstrosity. I think it should be an easy task
to come up with a story they would readily believe."

"So, Buff, does this mean Spikey’s forgiven for the whole sexbot thing?" Xander had to try to stir up old issues to make sure Buffy wasn’t going to start to feel too grateful to the vamp.

"Well, it did help me beat Glory, so I guess it wasn’t such a bad thing he had it built after all." Buffy nearly laughed at the stunned look on Xander’s face at the
thought that she was wiping the slate clean where Spike was concerned. "It might be harder to forgive if it looked more like me, I have to admit."

Xander proceeded to do his best landed fish imitation as the rest of the group began to laugh quietly.