Buffy stared at the deadly piece of paper in her hand – the virtual death sentence of the man who was like a father to her – signed by her own husband’s hand. Giles had made Riley’s list of people he considered too great a threat to his progress to be allowed to live. And by the date the program had gone into effect, listed at the top of the page, she knew that he had been plotting Giles’ death, knowing what he meant to her, while they were still together – still sleeping in the same bed.

“How could he – oh my God, *Giles*!” she whispered, shaking her head slowly, feeling confused and betrayed and terrified all at once. She looked up at Spike through wide, tearful eyes. “This means – one of his vamps – at the house right now!” Her words were disjointed, barely coherent as she tried to process it all – and then it suddenly hit her all at once. “Spike – we have to get home! We have to help him, we have to…”

“Buffy.” Spike’s voice was soft, soothing, as he moved forward to take her arms in his hands in a steadying embrace. “Buffy, love – calm down. It’s gonna be all right. We’ve got to find Anya first. Can’t leave her down here, pet, not with Riley on his way here. No telling what he might do to her. And if there’s an assassin among Giles’ vamps – they’ve been with him for months now. What are the chances that the moment they’d choose to strike would be *right* *now*?”

Buffy stared into his calm, steady blue eyes, forcing herself to focus on his comforting words. He *did* have a point. Whatever threat was in place against Giles, it had been in place for some time now – and he was still unharmed. Chances were that he would remain that way until they could get Anya and get home.

Anya, on the other hand, was in immediate and terrible danger.

“You’re right,” she agreed reluctantly, struggling to keep her emotions under control. Buffy was not usually terribly expressive, emotionally. But the trauma and pain of this night just kept building and building, and she was not sure how much more she could take before she broke under the strain.

“Okay,” she nodded, thinking hard, trying to focus. “We find Anya, get her out of here, and get home as fast as we can – and then I start slaying.”

Spike frowned in concern at her emphatic declaration, and the trembling of rage he heard in her voice. She was on the verge of attack mode – and only one of her three intended victims actually deserved it, if that!

“Buffy,” he began cautiously, hesitantly. “Love…” He paused, searching for the right words.

She looked up at him expectantly, her eyes too bright, the impatient question they held not in any way concealing her desperate fear and pain at the revelation she had just received. He knew that she was not thinking clearly, her tumultuous emotions vying for control of her actions, and that was very dangerous, not only for the two relatively innocent vampires whose lives she was threatening along with that of the assassin – but for them as well.

The Slayer had to be in control of her emotions if they were going to make it out of here alive.

“What?” she snapped, not meaning to – not aware that she had. “What is it?”

“Buffy,” he tried again, meeting her eyes openly, allowing his concern for her to show. “They’re not *all* traitors, love. You can’t just go in and dust them all.”

She was silent for a long moment, looking away from his deep, penetrating gaze, demanding the fairness and compassion he had become used to seeing in her – which she was not sure she could offer in this case. If Giles’ life was in danger – the truth was, his vampires meant nothing to her.

“We have no way of knowing which one it is,” she argued quietly. “It could be any of them. Just lying in wait, pretending to actually care about him, and all the time just *waiting* for the perfect chance to stab him in the back!”

“Not – not necessarily,” Spike cautiously objected, seeking her eyes again.

She looked up at him with a puzzled frown. “What do you mean?”

He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully as he replied, “If – Riley’s put these – these assassins – through training – they’re gonna be inclined to obey him, out of fear. You said he can control their chips manually, right? I’m sure if they – failed to accomplish their – their mission, he could hurt them. Bad.”

He paused, searching her eyes as he added softly, “But that doesn’t mean that they *want* to do it. Anymore than *I* wanted to…” His voice broke off suddenly, and he swallowed hard, closing his eyes for a moment as he struggled to maintain his composure. Finally he finished softly, repeating, “That doesn’t mean they want to.”

Her thoughtful frown deepened as she took in what he was saying, but she did not speak, and he went on.

“Those three have been with Giles for so long – he’s done them a lot of good, Buffy. Julian – Julian bloody worships him, pet. Even if Riley placed one of them there to kill him – after all his kindness, after all they’d been through with Riley – and all this time with someone like your Watcher – there’s a good chance they’d refuse to do it. Chip or no chip.”

A pensive expression on her face, Buffy looked away for a moment as she considered his words. Suddenly she looked back up at him, something sharp and demanding in her eyes. “Did you?” she asked him. “Refuse?” There was a challenge in her tone.

He stared at her, comprehending, but stunned and hurt by her question. He flinched slightly as a wave of shame washed over him at the memories evoked by her words.

“I know you didn’t want to do the things they made you do, Spike. I know you didn’t. Did *you* refuse?” Buffy’s voice was soft, but her eyes were piercing, relentless.

He knew she did not mean to hurt him. She just needed to know if there was any chance at all that the benefit of the doubt he was asking her to extend to the others might actually be deserved.

If the punishment of the training center and the chip had prevented him from fighting back against rape, abuse, countless degradations – if he had submitted to all that without fighting, for fear of the punishment he would face if he refused – how could she know for sure that Giles’ vamps would prove to be any stronger than he had been?

She was quite certain that they were not.

He closed his eyes against the tears that threatened, lowering his head. He could not give her the answer she was hoping for. In the training center, yes, he had fought desperately against the shameful abuses forced upon him – at first. But by the time he left that hellish place, the resistance had been brutally driven from him. He had been broken to the point that his dignity, his self-respect, were so badly damaged as to no longer seem worth the pain of struggle.

He had nothing left to fight for.

Finding the answer to her question in his silence, Buffy started toward the door. “I thought so,” she said quietly. She did not mean to be cruel. At the moment she was simply terrified for Giles’ safety, and all she wanted to do was to get out of here and back to the house to eliminate the threat to his life.

Spike’s heart sank under the weight of the shame, and the disappointment he heard in her words. His frustration rose up in him as well, with the feeling that he had once again let her down. He loved her so much! He wanted so badly to please her, to be what she needed! He had been broken, devastated by his horrific experiences, but he was trying, struggling to become what she deserved, what she needed. If he no longer saw *himself* as worth the effort – she was.

In the midst of his defeat – he had been given back something worth fighting for.

Buffy.

“I would,” he said, his voice quiet but strong in the stillness.

She stopped, turning slowly to face him with a question in her eyes. His back was to her; he had not moved from where he stood. She came slowly around to face him, and piercing blue eyes rose from the floor to meet hers again, blazing with powerful emotion.

“Refuse,” he clarified softly. “If – if he tried to make me hurt you. I *would* refuse.”

Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes welling with tears at the power of his honest admission. She knew his words were true beyond all doubt. He had proven them upstairs in the crypt – deliberately accepting the brutal punishment of the chip in order to save her life. He would die before he would harm her. Her heart ached to hear the mingled pain of his memories with the devotion in his voice as he went on, quietly.;

“Couldn’t stand up to the torture – to keep them from – from…” He paused, swallowing back a sob that rose in his throat against his will. “for *me*,” he concluded finally. “Wasn’t worth the pain. But – but it wouldn’t matter – what they did to me. They couldn’t make me hurt you. Because – because I love you, Buffy. I owe you – *everything*. You’ve made me free. And there’s *nothing* they could do to me – that could make me forget that for a bloody moment.”

Buffy did not even realize that her face was streaked with tears as she stared at him, awed and overwhelmed by the strength of his love. She was suddenly ashamed of her own thoughtless words, spoken in her own pain and fear. She had dragged up his painful past and forced him to relive it again, made him feel ashamed that he had not held out against unspeakable torture, the likes of which she was certain that she could not have withstood herself.

And yet, she knew that he would -- *had* -- withstood it. For her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words escaping her lips, her heart spoken before she knew it. “God, Spike, I’m so sorry!”

He shook his head, unable to see her wrong in the situation, the wrong that was so obvious to her -- *now*.

He opened his mouth, no doubt to defend her at his own expense, yet again. But before he could object, could say a word, her arms were around him, and she was kissing him, deeply, intensely, trying to put into words a love and a gratitude that were far beyond them. When they finally parted, both breathless, she met his wide, startled eyes, her own urgent, almost pleading.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered again. “I was so stupid to say those things, Spike. You are *so* *strong* -- so much braver through all of this than I could ever have been. You’ve been through so much already – and just to know that you would do it all again if you had to – for *me*…”

She shook her head, a look of awe and tenderness in her eyes as she gazed into his, the rest of the world lost to them in this moment. Her eyes were wide with grateful disbelief as she whispered, “That means more to me than you could ever know, Spike.” She paused, before going on slowly, emphatically.

“Every single right move I have made in this whole thing – I would not have made without you,” she told him. “You are so – so *amazing* to me. I love you so much.”

Her praise was healing balm to his broken spirit, his old wounds of shame that felt so raw and vulnerable in this place, so close to the very source of his pain. Still, it felt a bit uncomfortable to him to accept that praise, and he looked away with a self-conscious shrug.

“ ‘S not so bloody amazing,” he said quietly. “I love you.”

The simple words – his obvious explanation for every sacrifice, every gift he had given her, nearly took her breath away. To him, that was enough. He loved her. Therefore, he would give everything he had for her, little as it was, if that was what she needed.

His wide, anxious eyes came to focus on hers again, changing the subject before she could even begin to fathom the power of what he had said. He steered the conversation gently back onto its course as he went on, “But you see, Buffy – Riley and his men – they can make the choice bloody difficult for a slave – but they can’t take the choice away completely. Giles’ vamps still have a choice, love. And I can’t see any of them choosing to kill him. Not after all he’s done for them.”

“I hope you’re right,” she conceded, looking down for a moment, as the reality of their situation came flooding back to her, as the moment faded away. “If they’re as devoted to Giles as they appear to be – then they deserve a chance.” She paused, meeting his eyes firmly with a warning look.

“But I don’t trust them like I trust you. I want to believe that they wouldn’t hurt him. But I’m not sure. We need to get back as quickly as we can, and figure out which one of them it is – and what needs to be done about it. And if I see *anything* suspicious – any sign that Giles is in real danger – he’s my top priority in this case. Not any of the others.”

“I understand,” he said quietly.

Truthfully, Giles’ safety was more important to him than that of the other vampires as well. And they had no way of knowing for sure the exact level of willingness or unwillingness that Riley’s assassin had for their mission. But he knew what it was like to be forced into actions beyond his control, and only wanted to be sure that Buffy didn’t stake first, then find out later that it was unnecessary – or worse, that she had staked the wrong vampire entirely.

They made their way quietly and carefully back into the empty hallway, Riley’s incriminating documents tucked safely into Buffy’s shirt. As they passed one particular door, Spike suddenly caught her arm, stopping her and pulling her back a bit.

“They took her this way,” he whispered. “In here, I think.”

Buffy stopped, turning back to look at the door. “You’re sure?” she whispered, her eyes wide with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

He nodded. “Positive, love. Her trail focuses and then stops, right here. Gotta be through this door.”

Buffy studied the door carefully for a moment. Metal, like all the others down this hallway, with an electronic keypad lock. No light was visible from under it, but that meant nothing in this brightly lit hallway, where no light would have shown anyway. Slowly, not wanting the action to be noticed from inside the room, she turned the handle.

Locked.

She hesitated to go with her natural inclination to kick it down, not wanting to start any actual combat with the soldiers until she had no other choice. Once their presence was known, they would have a very limited time to find Anya and get out. It was best to remain inconspicuous as long as possible.

Of course – if the girl was being held just beyond this door…

Her deliberations came to an abrupt halt, the choice taken from her hands, when the door suddenly opened inward under her hand – and they found themselves face to face with a very startled but very heavily armed soldier who had just been about to step out into the hall.

The startled expression on the man’s face gave way to indignant menace, as he raised his weapon and aimed it at Buffy’s head, ordering quietly, “Don’t move.”

Buffy found herself surprisingly more irritated than afraid. After the night she had had, and the things she had faced in it, this seemed a minor annoyance. She heaved a weary sigh as she prepared herself to completely disregard the soldier’s order.

*So much for inconspicuous,* was the last thought that went through the Slayer’s mind, just before she sprang into action.