A/N: Thanks to all who have reviewed, you guys are the best! So happy you're still liking it and yes, I'm posting two more chapters because I feel bad that I haven't gotten them up sooner. Full story should be up tomorrow.

Much Love - Annie.



Rolling Stone



Spike was fighting to get loose, kicking one of the vamps in the chest as he punched another in the jaw, ducking for a blow before sweeping a third vampire’s legs out from under it. He saw the dagger in Sykes’ hand begin to be surrounded by a white glow and his un-beating heart jumped into his throat.

Buffy.

“No!” he exclaimed, running forward just as she fell backwards, hitting the dirty stone floor, unconscious.

Sykes merely smiled, his eyes gleaming with the success of his venture and Spike moved to grab him, but was held back by a pair of strong arms, bringing his own arms behind him and pulling him away from the crippled demon. Sykes began to wrap the dagger in black cloth; his movements eager. Once done, the wheelchair holding him began to roll toward the back of the room, though his arms had nothing to do with it keeping it in motion.

Spike spotted a door, positioned behind the chairs containing the prisoners, and he struggled even harder with the vampire restraining him as the cause for Buffy’s lifelessness was getting away.

“Buffy,” he then said, looking at her where she was lying. “You need to wake up!” he screamed.

“Alright, I’m awake, I’m awake,” Xander’s voice was heard as he came to life, pausing as he couldn’t move much more than his head; slowly adding: “And I’m tied up. Why am I tied up?”

His gaze landed in Spike’s.

“A-ha!” he exclaimed. “What did I tell you?” he added to Giles, who was in the chair beside him.

Then he seemed to notice the Watcher being in the same predicament as him and did a double take, which allowed him to spot Willow. His eyes flashed with fury as he turned them on the vampire again.

“You let us go right now; or... or you know what’s gonna happen!”

“I’m sorry,” Sykes said, Xander turning his head to him and making a horrified face at the sight of him. It didn’t seem to become Sykes in the least as he motioned to the floor behind him. “If you’re expecting a forceful rescue, I’m afraid the Slayer doesn’t live here anymore.”

At that he laughed a dry laugh, the wheelchair wheeling in behind Xander’s chair and out the door.
Xander stared at Buffy, his heart beginning to ache with pure anxiety for her. Was she dead? She didn’t look dead. Tears blurred his sight and he turned it on Spike again. The murdering beast, he’d kill him with his bare hands if he could just get loose and hopefully have that other vampire still hold him.

Spike leaned forward, bracing himself before straightening up with a jerk, breaking the nose of the vampire restraining him with the back of his head and making him free him with a scream of agony. Spike was beside Buffy the next instant.

“Get away from her!” Xander yelled.

Spike ignored him; carefully lifting her a little, to get to what he knew was at the small of her back. The following second he had dusted his first adversary, the Slayer’s stake in a firm grip as he went to meet the attack of the remaining eleven.

“What... what’s happening?” Willow murmured, coming to as well.

“Will!” Xander said. “We’re in trouble.”

“Aching-limbs-pounding-head trouble?”

“Or fangs-to-neck trouble.”

“Oh. I hate that kind of trouble. Giles!” Willow’s eyes widened when she saw him in the chair between her and Xander. “Is he hurt?”

“We’re all a little hurt. Look at that,” Xander replied with a nod to the still fighting Spike. “See, you can’t even trust him if you’re working with him.”

Willow frowned.

Spike received a blow to the chin and spun through the air, hitting a wall before falling onto the floor. He got up without a flinch of pain, blood running down the side of his face, his right hand’s knuckles bloodied from the punches they kept delivering. He got his labors worth when he dusted his fourth vampire.

He turned around and saw three of the eight remaining slowly approach Buffy. One of them grabbed her arm, pulling her up, its eyes glinting with ownership. The fury which welled up inside the older vampire was apt to burn its way through his skin. He was on the other in a breath, the stake splintering its ribcage on its way to its heart. It was a cloud of dust a second later and Spike caught Buffy before she fell to the ground, carefully placing her at his feet and then moving to deal with the two vamps closest to him.

“I don’t think...” Willow said with a glance at Xander.

Xander was beginning to not think, too.

“What is he doing?” he mumbled.

Then he started yanking at his leather bonds, moving his whole body to loosen them.

“Come on,” he pleaded.

Willow saw what he was doing and looked down at what was tying her to the chair. It was very thick leather. Jiggling and wiggling probably wouldn’t be enough to...

“Hah!” Xander said and when she turned her eyes on him again he had managed to free his right hand.

“Whoa,” she smiled and he nodded his agreement, his face astonished. Willow looked to see how Spike was doing, her eyes growing. “Whoa!” she exclaimed at the vampire which was approaching her.

There was a whizzing noise and the demon stopped, eyes surprised as it looked down at the tip of the stake sticking out through his chest. It burst into dust as well, dispersing before her gaze, which landed in Spike’s.

“Thanks,” she mimed and he gave a nod before ducking at the three charging foes he still had to deal with.

Xander fought to get the knots of his left wrist untied, and finally they came apart, the strap falling to the floor as he leaned forward and got to work on the bonds holding his feet. They weren’t as carefully constructed and in another ten seconds he was free. He ran over to Willow, helping her untie hers as well.

“Hurry,” she urged as they could hear something hard hit flesh and bone behind them, Spike groaning silently.

Xander’s fingers were trembling, both from stress and fear. He had no idea what exactly was going on, but Buffy had been down for count longer than he had seen her for a very, very long time, and for some reason Spike was defending her.

What is he doing? he thought for the fiftieth time, just as the restraints holding Willow finally gave way and she got to her feet, the two of them turning to face the fight just as Spike got kicked in the chest, flying with his back toward them and landing on it a few feet from them. He struggled to get up, but the effort seemed to be working against him this time, and he huffed with pain.

Willow and Xander exchanged a look, then stared at the two vampires still standing. With a battle scream they then ran forward, arms swinging. The vampires tensed, but in the following second they were running to meet the mortals for the clash. Only the humans slowed to a stop in the middle of the room. The vampires, in wonderment, stopped before them.

Willow and Xander reached in to retrieve what they each had in their pant pocket, concealing it in one hand as they brought it out before them, their free hand grabbing the top of the item and pulling it off. They proceeded to choose the direction of their secret weapon and then they squirted the contents of the small bottles they were holding in the faces of the stunned vamps, whose hands went to the spot of impact as the holy water began to sear their flesh and peel it away.

Willow made a face in slight disgust as the two demons caught fire and then went poof.

“I swear I’ll never get used to that,” she said.

Xander was smiling.

“I’m so glad we took half an hour to practice that routine. I told you it’d come in handy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed.

They both remembered their fallen comrades – and vampire – and threw the bottles and tops over their shoulders as they ran up to Buffy, kneeling beside her.

“She’s alive,” Willow said and Xander let out a breath of relief.

“Thank God.”

“Or thank Spike, depending on how you wanna look at it,” Willow commented, glancing over at the vampire, who was still on the floor.

“Yeah, yeah,” Xander muttered, then got to his feet and walked over to him. “Hey,” he said.

“Give me a second,” Spike murmured, eyes on the ceiling. “I’ll be fine. Is she okay?”

Xander clenched his jaws together, then nodded a little. Spike rested his head back against the floor, beginning to relax, but something dark came into his gaze and he mumbled:

“We’ll see.”

“Oh, aunt Millie, I don’t want to wear a tutu!” Giles said loudly, opening his eyes and blinking. His brow knitted at the sight which met him. “What the bloody hell happened here?”

¤

An hour later Spike stepped through the door of Giles’ apartment. The Scoobies were already there. They had brought Buffy with them and he was restless to see what state she was in. He had been on a small mission, and he had gotten the answers he had sought, and though they had been the last on the list of possibilities he didn’t want, they had been what he had gotten, and so he had had to take them. Time was of the essence now, and they had to move quickly. He walked into the room, filled with purpose. He just hoped they’d listen to him.

“You’re not listening to me!” Buffy exclaimed. He felt every fiber he consisted of jolt at the sound of her voice. She was on the couch, surrounded by her closest friends; all of them wearing concerned expressions. “I don’t remember!” she added, her head turning and her eyes catching sight of him as he came to a tentative halt in the hall. “Spike!” she said. “Please, explain to them, I don’t understand what they want from me!” She looked back at the others. “I’ve known you all for all these years, and all of a sudden you’re acting like this? I don’t get it.”

“No, we’re not ‘acting like this’,” Xander disagreed. “We just need you to tell us what you can remember.”

“We saw each other yesterday, Xand, and you need me to tell you?”

“We’re not trying to upset you, Buffy; but the thing is you have amnesia. Your memories were taken,” Willow said.

“Yes, I heard you the first eleven times, and talking slower isn’t gonna make it realer, Will,” Buffy remarked.

“More real,” Giles corrected. “And you must comprehend the reason we have for asking you what you can and cannot remember.”

“But I can’t remember forgetting anything!” she exclaimed. “My name’s Buffy Summers, my parents are divorced, I lived in Los Angeles and now I live in Sunnydale with my mother, Joyce. I’m a student at UCS. Need me to continue?”

“Why did you leave Los Angeles?” Giles asked and Buffy raised her eyebrows.

“See why they’re annoying me?” she asked with a glance at Spike. “You already know why.” When all she got was expectant looks from her friends she sighed with discontent, but relented. “The city wasn’t safe anymore, according to mother dearest. She got it into her head I’d turn into a gangbanger or something and moved us out here. Which I’m not sad she did, by the way.”

“Was there a reason she ‘got it into her head’, you think?” Giles probed carefully.

Buffy pondered it for a moment, then raised one shoulder in a shrug as she replied:

“The divorce. I think it broke off a lot more of her heart than she lead on and she had to get away. Again with the I’m not sad she did.”

Giles listened to her and then turned his eyes on the opened page of the thin book he was holding, reading the first few lines and frowning. He was beginning to understand, and it was a worrying situation indeed. He stood, turning his gaze in Spike’s and saying:

“Well?”

Spike came further into the room, looking from one to the other before he fastened his gaze in Buffy’s.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

She smiled tiredly.

“Apparently I’m fine, apart from the whole memory loss,” she shrugged. “But you look...”

She trailed off, eyeing the dried blood all over him.

He smiled it away, signing to Giles to follow him into the study beyond the kitchen. Giles gave a nod and they disappeared from sight.

Buffy got off the couch, walking into the bathroom and filling a bowl with water, getting a fresh cloth from the kitchen and sinking it into the hot liquid. She walked back into the bathroom, getting the first aid kit Giles kept there. Then she sat down again, waiting.

“Was I right?” Spike asked, facing Giles in the guestroom.

“It’s very early to try to determine any sort of...”

“I was right,” Spike stopped him. “What Sykes did... He stole her, didn’t he? The slayer. There’s nothing left of her in Buffy. Is there?”

Giles shook his head in brief confirmation and Spike suddenly noticed how worn the Watcher looked.

“Sykes has been asking around about Glory,” he therefore informed, feeling the faster they got to the root of the problem, the quicker they would be able to pull it out and chuck it away.

Giles looked taken aback.

“Did you...?”

“No!” Spike interrupted with an annoyed look at the other. “I haven’t been a source like that since I bloody started killing off demons.” At the expression on Giles’ face he smirked slightly. “Alright, maybe a little after that.” Giles raised his eyebrows, but judgment could come later. “Willy told me there’s been something of an arrangement between Sykes and Glory for a while now,” Spike stated.

“What sort of arrangement?”

“Willy didn’t know. But I’m willing to bet it has something to do with Sykes’ state of frame, and Glory’s non-ending almightiness.”

“She’ll make him well, you mean? In exchange for Buffy?” Giles checked himself. “Buffy’s memories,” he corrected.

Spike waited for him to continue with his view on this, but he merely took his glasses off, polishing them as the wheels of his head seemed to whirr cautiously.

“If this is so, there’s no way to prevent it, is there? We can’t get near Glory, especially not without the Slayer.”

“Sykes is so bloody paranoid he’d probably have his own mother strip searched. If he had one. He won’t make the exchange in the midst of Glory’s minions. They’ll be somewhere neutral.”

“Neutral?”

Spike thought about it for a moment.

“The mansion,” he then said and Giles furrowed his brow.

“The mansion?”

“The mansion,” Spike nodded his affirmation. “That’s where it’ll happen.”

They headed back to the living room, Willow being in the kitchen as the tea was just ready. She was pouring the water into cups, but paused to give them both a questioning look when they walked past. Giles joined her and Spike knew he’d tell her what he had just been told by him. Buffy turned herself around on the couch, one arm over the back, looking at him as he entered the living room.

“Come here,” she said and he couldn’t hold back a quizzical crinkle between his eyebrows as he came up to her. “Here,” she elaborated, pointing to the place beside her.

He sat down and she placed a hand against his chest, making him lean back as her other hand reached for the wet cloth. She wrenched it out and then brought it to his forehead, meticulously beginning to clean the blood off.

“You don’t have to...” he began, but she hushed him softly, continuing her work under silence.

The water in the bowl was turning red as his skin was becoming more and more spotless. She made him lift his chin and proceeded with his throat and neck, lifting the hem of his T and realizing how many cuts he’d actually gotten.

“Why did they do this to you?” she murmured, but he could tell she wasn’t expecting an answer.

She didn’t know that he was a vampire, she didn’t remember the times she had looked just as he did now. She was human, straight through, and anything related to a Slayer’s world had been removed from her mind. A new light of innocence was behind the green of her irises, and in a way he regretted having to take it away. But in a larger one he missed her. This wasn’t the woman he had come to know, if so only from a far; at least far from all of her.

She put the cloth in the bowl, taking it from her lap and placing it on the table before she sunk back next to him. He noticed Giles had cleaned a lot of the mess up, and most of the furniture was back where it was supposed to be. But there was still work that had to be done as books were littering the floor and a window was smashed, its splinters still shimmering on its sill.

“You need a shower,” Buffy now said. “To get all of it off.”

He smiled.

“I’ll take one,” he promised.

When the opportunity presents itself.

“What?” he heard Willow’s voice come loudly from the kitchen, Giles shushing her. “We can’t fight Glory and Sykes without the Slayer, there’s no way.”

Spike got to his feet with a smile to Buffy. She returned it easily. He walked into the kitchen, where Xander had joined Willow and Giles a little earlier. All eyes turned on him.

“Dawn’s in danger,” he said.

“When isn’t she?”

“Glory wants to know where the Key is. The answer’s in those memories.”

Willow’s eyes grew round.

“But...”

She couldn’t get anything else out.

“So what do we do?” Xander asked.

“You three act as diversions. I get the dagger back.”

“You’re not strong enough yet. You could barely stand an hour ago!” Willow protested.

“I won’t let her down,” he said. “Or the Bit... We have no bloody choice, Red. We don’t get that dagger and all hell ‘ll break loose.”

Xander stared at him for a long moment, then finally said:

“What happened to you in there?”

Willow looked over at Buffy.

“Let’s do it,” Giles said.

“What kind of diversions?” Willow asked as they filed out into the living room again.

“You’ll think of something. ‘S what you do,” Spike smirked, turning to Buffy, who had risen from the couch with a wondering expression.

“What’s going on?”

“We have to leave for a while,” Giles said, walking up to a desk and grabbing a shoulder bag, opening a drawer and starting to fill the bag with various magic supplies, after he had tossed in the book from which he had been extracting information ever since they returned to his apartment.

“Alright. Where are we going?” she asked.

“You have to stay here,” he replied.

“What?” she said. “Why wouldn’t you want me to come? I know I suck at bowling, but if that’s where you’re going I’ll just sit and watch. I promise! I can do the sideline thing. Used to be a cheerleader, you know.”

“Buffy!” Giles said, reproachful for a reason she couldn’t understand, but before she could discern it he looked away again.

Willow took a step forward.

“You can’t come this time,” she said and Buffy had a small pout appear on her mouth.

“Why not?”

“Because we have to fight a demon and a freakishly strong supernatural being of some sort and there’s no telling how it’ll end, and the last thing we need is someone tagging along with no inclination to believe either even exists,” Spike replied in Willow’s stead, Buffy staring at him, then smiling widely. He merely cocked an eyebrow. “See?”

He walked past Giles toward the front door, being handed a crossbow by Xander, who had grabbed a sword for himself.

“But, wait a minute,” Buffy stopped them all. “You’re just gonna leave me here? I mean, if this is part of what I’ve ‘forgotten’... I could try handling one of these,” she added, walking up to the chest containing Giles’ weapons. She hesitated, then grabbed a crossbow as well. “Wow,” she said, staggering a little. “Heavy.”

But Spike was soon at her side, taking it gently out of her hands and replacing it where it belonged.

“Stay here,” he said. “We’ll be back before you know it. Try and get some sleep.”

She looked at him.

“I don’t want you to go,” she mumbled. “I’ve got a funny feeling down my back.”

He smiled.

“Can’t get rid of those spider senses, can you, love?”

She smiled, not following, but it didn’t matter.

“See you soon,” he promised, turning and walking up to the door.

The others followed and she stood alone, watching them leave.