“In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.” - Edmund Burke

Edo, Japan: Genroku Year 4

Kaede had known. She had known when she had drunk from the marriage cup. She had known when Takeshi had informed Ichiro that they would be wed if he had to have the watcher arrested and held in jail during the ceremony. She had known that first night he had snuck into the dojo, and they had spent hours walking in the nearby grove and simply talking.

Takeshi would ask to join her fight.

He fought evil in his own way every day. He was a yoriki, serving in one of the lesser prefectures of Edo. It had been a hereditary post, but Takeshi loved the position. Amongst the corruption that festered among many of Edo’s law enforcement officers, he prided himself in striving towards real justice. He was young and idealistic, and Kaede knew that his sense of duty and honor would eventually lead him to join her war.

She could only hope that she could protect him when the time came.

Kaede knew that she could not refuse him should he ask. He would be wounded, offended and rightfully so. Takeshi was an impressive swordsman. His skills were renown throughout Edo, and many commented that his amazing inherent skills partnered with his unwavering dedication to his job would catapult him into higher positions within the ranks of police officers. Takeshi was honorable in his pursuits, but he had a fair amount of ambition as well. He had confided in her that he dreamt of earning a higher post, perhaps a position as magistrate, where he could affect real changes for the common good. He knew that his chances were slim, but he was still young enough to dream.

In many ways, Kaede felt so much older than her husband. While he was three years her senior, Kaede had fought in more battles than Takeshi had ever seen and killed more demons than he could imagine. Her calling bore down on her, dogging her steps and grinding away at her soul until she feared that soon nothing would be left but ashes and the dust of all the vampires she had slain. Takeshi had brought light and life back into her, but she could not regain all of her lost innocence. She had looked into the shadows of Japan’s greatest city and had seen monsters staring back at her.

She had felt herself slipping. After four years of slaying, she had grown tired of the bloodshed. With no rest, no accolades, and no one to share her burden, Kaede had felt the insidious roots of apathy take hold in her mind. She had been called a week after her fourteenth birthday, barely old enough to wear her first furisode, and the years following had not been kind.

Her first gown had actually come with her when she was taken from her father’s house and placed into Ichiro’s care. She had used to pull it out and run her hands over the bright colors and intricate embroidery. It had been a gift from her mother and Kaede had secretly wished that she could pass it on to her own daughter, but she now knew that to be impossible. She would die long before she ever bore a child. That was simply the lot that slayers were cast.

The gown had seen its last use a scant few weeks before. The furisode had not been the most appropriate garment to wear at her wedding, but no one had been there to see her exchange her vows or care what outfit she chose to wear. Her family had been forced to cut ties with their daughter, and Takeshi’s family had died in one of the many fires that had plagued the capital city in recent years. And so she had worn the dress, her only piece of finery, and he had worn his uniform, and both had basked in the other’s presence.

There had been no miai between their families, since neither really had one to be concerned with the propriety of a formal meeting, no ritualistic exchange of gifts, and the pair had been hard pressed to find a priest willing to perform such an unorthodox ceremony, but in the end they had managed it, somehow.

After the ceremony, held in the small Shinto shrine where they had met, the pair had returned to the dojo to be met at the door by a scowling Ichiro. He told them in clipped terms that while he had not approved of their union, he had been honor bound to tell her father. Her watcher told them that her family’s present was waiting for them in their room before turning and stalking away to his private study. Too happy to let even Ichiro’s censure affect their good spirits, Kaede and Takeshi had rushed to her room like small children. There they had found two swords, one tan and slender, the other black and heavy, wrapped in silk. Attached to each was a short letter.

Takeshi’s note had been a welcome into the Maruyama clan, as warm as their untraditional association would allow. Kaede’s had been slightly longer. Her father had told her that he was proud of her and wished her well in her new life. The swords, he indicated, had been forged by his own private smiths. He had spared no expense in their creation and the end results were truly breathtaking. Folded in the note itself was an ornate turtle shell comb. Between the letter, the sword, which appealed to her warrior’s side, and the comb, which she could remember holding up her mother’s long, dark hair, Kaede had started to weep.

Takeshi, who had never seen her shed a tear even when one of Sano’s gang had nearly gutted her with the ragged end of a broken flagpole, had simply taken her in his arms and stroked her hair while she cried. It had felt good, almost liberating, to be able to cry again after so long.

The first few weeks of their marriage passed in a happy blur. The clearest memory of those earliest days had been a quiet evening when the two of them had decided to clean and oil their new swords together in the dojo’s training room. Takeshi had taken his blade apart first, but the inscription on the tang had been so surprising that Kaede had disassembled her own sword quickly in order to compare.

They both held the same inscription, an abbreviated, altered version of a formal wedding announcement:

The bearers of these swords are now united for all of eternity, that they might fulfill their duties in never-ending trust and affection.

When they had finally slipped their handles back over the exposed tangs, Kaede could have sworn she had seen the carved kanji glimmer with their own light. Every time she touched the hilt of her katana, she remembered those words. She had often caught Takeshi holding his own sword and looking at her with so much love in his eyes that she knew he did the same.

It was the memory of those written vows that had guided Kaede when Takeshi had laid his request before her.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to ask.”

*****

Sunnydale, California: 1999

Giles had been surprisingly open to Buffy’s plan, especially after he had gotten over the shock of both she and Spike returning voluntarily and uninjured. With only a few, minor suggestions, the watcher gave the scheme his blessing. Willow’s inclusion was a given, and Giles thankfully only responded to her request to keep Xander out of the picture with a raised eyebrow. Buffy loved the boy dearly, he was one of her best friends, but she had no interest in hearing his opinions on her alliance with Spike just yet. That could wait until after the battle.

The next afternoon, Buffy found herself sitting on Giles’ couch, playing with the vials of potion the watcher had brewed for her while Spike slept the death-like repose of his kind. As she watched the greenish liquid swirl around inside the tiny bottles, the slayer thought about the events of the last day.

Had it only been one day? It felt like a lifetime. In all fairness, it kind of had been. Every thought, every fight, every pleasure and pain Kaede had experienced from the moment she met Takeshi until she handed her five year old daughter over to her sister on her death bed and gone, at long last, to join her beloved husband had been downloaded into Buffy’s mind. The memories were crisp and clear, but still separate from Buffy’s own experiences.

It was no exaggeration to say that she had aged six years in the blink of an eye. She had experienced love like she had never known before, love that made what she had felt for Angel seem immature and shallow. She had felt the agony of losing her family to her duty and her husband to her training and a horrible misunderstanding. She had known the pain of childbirth and the joys of motherhood.

Instead of feeling like a violation, the memories were comforting and almost familiar, as if they had always been there waiting to be remembered. Maybe that had something to do with her prophetic dreams and the pieces of other slayers’ lives she sometimes saw while she slept. Buffy promised herself that she would ask Giles about that when everything had calmed down again.

Willow had jumped on Buffy’s requests with her usual zeal. At the rate she was working, the slayer wouldn’t have been surprised to be facing off against Orochi that very night. The thought was both frightening and relieving. Frightening because she was about to walk into the lions’ den with only three hundred year old memories to guide her, and relieving because she knew in her bones that Orochi’s fate would come full circle when she and Spike faced him.

The crash of disturbed pots and pans in the kitchen drew Buffy’s attention to the vampire in question. He had apparently woken up and ambled into the kitchen during her reflections. His hair was rumpled, eyes still blurry from sleep, and he was clad in nothing but a baggy pair of grey sweat pants. They had stopped by his old crypt to retrieve whatever clothes and personal items Harmony hadn’t destroyed in her violent fit of anger following his capture. Buffy thought it had been her best idea all day.

Yum.

She recoiled from the thought with her usual hasty mental backtracking before she caught herself. Hadn’t Takeshi died, and nearly Kaede with him, because the Japanese slayer had not allowed herself to see past a label? Hadn’t Kaede herself told Buffy that the swords would have rejected them had there not been some connection on both their parts? She had almost called him a friend, You sure that was what you were gonna say? Nope, not listening, last night, much to her chagrin. That had to count for something. Buffy looked at Spike again, but this time with new eyes.

All physical attributes, and there were many, aside, Spike was certainly a breed apart from your typical vampire. Yes, he had tried to kill her, but she had tried to kill him too. It was the natural order of things, but he had also fought by her side and come to her for help when he was in need. He spoke of love and sacrifice, not with derision like most of his kin, but with faith and longing. She had seen the depths of his emotions in his dealings with Drusilla, even if she had denied it at the time. He also had a strong sense of honor, twisted and warped as it was, and he always kept his word. Ironically enough, Spike was the most honest person Buffy had ever known. He was a cunning fighter, and something told the slayer that more than a little intelligence lurked behind his blue eyes.

And yeah, if she was honest with herself, he was really hot too.

Did she love him? Could she love him? It seemed impossible, but Kaede had said that the swords did not lie. Buffy decided, as she sat watching the vampire go through his surprisingly domestic waking patterns in her watcher’s kitchen, that one way or the other, she would try to start looking at Spike with eyes unclouded by preconceptions.

She would learn from the past.

*****

“I’ve got them!” Willow burst into Giles’ apartment, waving two pouches of smelly herbs and a CD above her head. “One whopping computer virus and two klingon cloaking devices, as ordered.” When Buffy snickered at her friend’s turn of phrase, the girl blushed a little and shrugged. “I’ve been hanging out with Xander too much,” she said by way of explanation. The redhead hurried over and sat next to Buffy on the couch. “Look, it’s easy as pie.”

“And yet you say that, having experienced my cooking,” quipped Buffy.

Giles looked at the young witch with a great deal of interest. “Willow, please continue.”

Willow rolled her eyes at the slayer, but her impish grin never wavered. She waved one of the smelly pouches in front of Buffy. “All you have to do is wear these around your necks, and no one will be able to see you. Uh, except for the two of you of course. You’ll be able to see each other. Anyway, even security devices like cameras or heat sensors won’t pick up you guys.”

The witch started when Spike appeared behind her. Buffy had felt rather than heard him enter. The vampire had been strangely subdued most of the day, prone to ghosting in and out of rooms without so much as a by-your-leave. It was pretty disconcerting, and Buffy couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in his mind.

Willow regained her composure and continued. “As for the disc, all you need to do is find the nearest computer and stick it in. It’s a real doozy.” She grinned with slightly malicious pride. “I’ve been working on it ever since you escaped, Spike. Your description makes it sound like the whole place is hooked up to a main computer system, even the doors and lights. And I was kinda bored in my computing class, but um, anyway, this puppy’ll eat through anything and everything on their network. They’ll be too busy trying to figure out what’s going on with their systems to notice you guys slip in and out.”

“Slick, Red.” Spike commented. “Well, slayer?”

“Ready when you are.” When Giles cleared his throat and started to speak, Buffy cut him off. “If we run into trouble, I promise we’ll run like mad. You said yourself that Orochi can’t be fully restored or else we would have known, what with all the screaming and death. This’ll just be a quickie.”

As expected, that earned a leer from Spike and a wry smile from Giles. “I trust you to do the sensible thing, Buffy. I just tend to worry, as you well know.” Then the watcher’s expression turned forbidding. “I’m putting a lot of faith in you, Spike. Don’t make me regret it.”

Buffy turned and searched Spike’s face, finding it uncharacteristically blank. She could have been knocked over with a feather when the vampire jerked his head in a brief affirmative, eyes dark and unfathomable.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Buffy could only nod.