Note: Thanks to my betas MadRog and t_geyer for their unending patience, perseverance and support.


SECTION 5 - WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE

Welcome to my nightmare
I think you're gonna like it
I think you're gonna feel that you belong
We sweat laugh and scream here
'cuz life is just a dream here
You know inside you feel right at home here
Welcome to my nightmare
Welcome to my breakdown
Yeah

(Alice Cooper, Album - Welcome to my Nightmare)




Chapter 5.04
Wednesday, May 15th, 2002

Willow slid her book bag under the table and gave Tara's hand a gentle squeeze. The blonde looked up from the text she had been immersed in and gave the newcomer one of those smiles that made her heart skip a beat. She stood up and welcomed the redhead with a hug. In an area like the public library, that was as much of a display of affection as either girl was comfortable with.

"How're we doing?" Willow whispered as they took their seats side by side at the table.

Tara picked up the muted cell phone in front of her and checked for messages. "Still no word from Buffy and not too much headway with the research, but I did get all the notes I missed photocopied and I've read through them. I found one spell that'll disable any bugs or cameras, or I think it will. It was originally used to prevent magical scrying, but I think it'll work. Unfortunately, it might disable all the phones in the area as well, since I don't see how it would tell the difference between the microphone in the phone and any other listening device. And it would be a bit of a give-away that we knew we were being watched or whatever so I think we'd have to discuss it with the others before we try it."

Willow looked slightly uncomfortable and seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second before she decided not to say anything. Tara, however, was busy extracting the relevant book from a small stack on her right and opening it up at the page she had book-marked. By the time she passed the volume over to the redhead Willow had schooled her features back to normal.

"You think it would be bad if they knew that we knew?"

Tara shrugged. "It might provoke a confrontation. I mean Spike seems to favour that approach anyway, so maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing, but we need to be ready for whatever they might throw at us before we do anything like that. And that means Buffy has to find a way to convince Spike not to unleash the dogs of war on some guys that're just doing what they think is right."

"But if he didn't have any warning he wouldn't have any dogs to release."

"But then we'd potentially be sitting ducks. They could just pick us off one by one. You know what they did with Oz. Anyone who's different is fair game, anyone who doesn't conform to their definition of human. When all's said and done the only person out of us all with no magical ability, nothing that makes him out of the ordinary, is Xander. Everybody else, there's some sort of supernatural justification for them to just do whatever they want."

"But Riley's our friend. sort of. He wouldn't-. He tried to help Oz escape."

"He's not Spike's friend or Clem's or little Rosa's. How much sympathy would they get? And besides, there's no way to know that Riley would be in charge. If somebody more senior tells them to jump, it's not really going to make a difference whether Riley jumps with them if there's forty other guys."

"You don't think we could warn them off or something."

Tara shook her head. "If we were enough of a threat to scare them away, we'd be too much of a threat for them to leave alone."

Willow's face crumpled slightly, "You think?"

Tara shrugged. "Kinda moot, anyway."

"Well. maybe. maybe not." the redhead twisted awkwardly in her seat and made what Tara had christened her cookie face, because generally it meant that at some point in the near future the redhead would be doing some baking. "Maybe they might already know."

"Will?"

"Well. I might have sent Sam an email last night."

"You might have? Or you did?"

Willow's vaguely apologetic grin widened and her eyes dipped to the floor. "Did," she mumbled in the direction of her shoes. Then she seemed to rush to her own defence the words tumbling over each other. "But it was only to save there from being trouble. I thought if we told Riley that we knew about the surveillance and that we wanted it stopped, and that we knew that he'd messed with Buffy and Spike, that he would think twice about coming back and that way Spike wouldn't kill him or at least get him killed and Buffy wouldn't have to kill Spike 'cause she's all happy with him but if he helped kill people then she would still have to... you know, and I didn't want that so. email."

"Oh, Will." Only two words, but they conveyed a wealth of disappointment. "We'd best head over to Clem's and see if we can talk to Buffy or that Wes guy or someone about this away from all the bugs and stuff." The blonde started packing away the bulky tomes that she'd only fairly recently hauled from the house on Revello to the library, in hopes of several hours uninterrupted research.

---

"So? You had fun last night at your "family" thing?"

"Not too bad. Spike was right about the cushion thing though."

"And the whole deal about the bike?"

"It's cool. Buffy's going to try to meet me from school so we can go shopping for leathers and boots and stuff. unless she can't leave Spike." Her gait as they made their way through the cafeteria bore an uncanny resemblance to that of one John Wayne, but Brandon was way too polite to comment.

"And why wouldn't she be able to leave Spike? He seemed plenty old enough to look after himself to me." Brandon asked.

"Actual years or mental years?" Dawn stuck to the story that had been in the note which Wes had given her this morning, allowing any watchers to think it was a message from Buffy. "He cracked his head on the corner of the bath last night. They said to keep waking him up and stuff through the night in case he had a concussion, but I don't know whether he had or not, so she might be able to come and she might not. She'll text as soon as she knows one way or the other if she can leave him."

"So have you got anything planned if she can't make it."

"I thought I might try to score a night at the Bronze either way, seeing as how I got an A on my Shakespeare essay. There's a band on tonight, a couple of the guys that used to be in Dingoes with Willow's ex. So, maybe she'd go if we asked."

"Well, we could go, like together, on a date, without your sixteen chaperones, if you wanted."

Dawn grimaced slightly. "No bike gear, no ride. No ride, no date. Buffy's kind of paranoid about the crime rate. She won't even let me walk back from Janice's without her or Spike or Willow meeting me if it's after dark."

"No offence to your sister, but I think I might be more of a deterrent than her or Willow. I can leave the bike at your house, walk you there, walk you home and then pick up the bike again to go back home."

Dawn considered. "She just might go for that."

---

"So you think you stay in Sunnydale, Wesley?" Lily asked as they whiled away the time until the re-emergence of Spike and Buffy.

"I'm really not sure, right now. It's good to feel part of something again, to be fighting the good fight. I just don't know about the move into retail. And to be even more precise to be moving into retail where I would be spending all day every day with someone only three years out of high school."

"But Anyanka is old soul."

"I just don't know. It's still a case of spending an awful lot of time alone with one other person. I mean Cordelia and I eventually became friends, but that was because our whole lives ended up revolving around the work we did. It gave us common ground that we wouldn't otherwise have and I think it would be safe to say that Cordelia is mature beyond her years. And the fact that there were always at least three of us and we weren't in one room together all the time helped a great deal.

On the other hand, her friend came to visit. She was in the office one day . She spent the entire time whining about her ex and how much she had loved him and how badly he had treated her, moping around asking inane questions, spilling her coffee in the computer. Harmony. Never has a girl been so inaptly named -."

"That's our Harmony," Buffy cut in from the doorway. "Or should I say Spike's Harmony."

A voice echoed through from the bedroom. "I heard that. And that was a long time ago. And-and there were mitigating circumstances."

Buffy mouthed the words, "Rebound. A hundred years worth of rebound."

"Spike was the wicked ex we heard so much about?" Wes asked incredulously.

"Touchy subject, but occasionally fun if you want to watch him squirm," Buffy admitted. "Em, we were kind of wondering what happened to our other clothes?"

"I know you sleep for while and they all dusty, so I wash and mend." Lily indicated two neatly folded piles of laundry and the hanger that hung from a hook on the back of the door into the living room over which Spike's duster had been draped, sponged down and crossbow holes neatly stitched.

"So, how is Harm these days?"

"Oh this was some time back, probably a year and a half to two years ago, but she didn't really part with the Angel Investigations team on the best of terms. Something about how she tried to use us to buy into some food-bank scheme that some ex-pyramid salesman had organised. Cordelia let her go, but I think if she ever came back to LA she would be doing her best to avoid us all."

Once again, the voice sounded from the bedroom. "Are you going to fetch me some trousers or should I come out there and get them so you can continue your little snigger session unabated?"

"Don't you dare!" Buffy shouted and grabbed the pile of Spike's clothes. "Someone stripped off before they realised they didn't have anything else to put on." She strode to the bedroom doorway, tossed the bundle in and returned to her spot at the entrance to the family room.

In the meantime, Lily had her own question for Wes. "You have PI licence?"

"Well, yes. When we set up on our own after Angel fired us all I applied for my licence. In fact, no one currently working there has one now."

"You want to stay in Sunnydale, Marie get you work. She take work where maybe demons do bad things and human take blame. Sometimes the DA office, they hire detectives to find witnesses or find out what really happen. If detective no know demons, he no use in this town. He no know what possible, what not possible, who lie, who tell truth."

"But surely, most of this wouldn't be admissible as evidence."

"Marie say, 'always know the answers to all the questions, if you can. Then, even if you can't actually prove the truth, you can often prove where something is a lie.'"

"That makes sense," Buffy admitted. "What d'ya think, Wes? Beats the pants off retail in my book."

"I must admit being my own boss has a certain appeal. I'll certainly bear it in mind. It does sound rather more interesting than being a purveyor of slug-scented candles."

"Tell me about it." Buffy expressed her sympathy.

"Perhaps I should speak to Marie about what sort of opportunities there might be. Maybe I should make an appointment to see her at her office?" Wes asked.

"I speak to her when she home tonight. Get her to phone you," Lily assured him.

"Wes, I've got one more huge favour to ask." Buffy did her best puppy dog look. "Me and Spike need some alone time to sort things through, but I was supposed to take Dawn to buy bike gear after school. Is it possible you could pick her up from school and take her to the store, grab something to eat, and then drop her at home? We can give you Spike's Visa card."

"Spike has Visa?"

"Actually, he's very recently become an additional cardholder on my account, what with his stunning lack of credit history, but it works and since I forgot to include my purse in the list of things for Dawn to give to you this morning it's all we've got. The only thing he can't do with it is make cash withdrawals."

"Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess."

"Huh?"

At this point Spike appeared behind her in the doorway, his arms wrapping around her waist. "That was a yes, pet. So I suggest you put some proper clothes on before he changes his mind and we'll take him to pick up his bike."

"Isn't it rather hypocritical to send me to pick her up on a motorbike when you've expressly told her she can't go on Brandon's until after she has all the gear?"

"Probably," the vampire conceded. "But, then, we trust you. We don't trust Evel Knievel junior. That and it's just about spitting distance."

"Ew, your English is gross," his fiancée complained.

"I thought you were going to get changed?" he countered.

"That'd be difficult with you attached at the waist."

Spike released his grip, and went over to settle matters with Wesley whilst Buffy donned some more appropriate clothing.

Spike shoved the piece of plastic into Wes's hand along with enough cash to cover meals for two. "Get her the best stuff she'll actually wear. What I mean is if she goes for the leather trousers that have the lacing up the side rather than the ones with all the padding on the knees and stuff, that's fine if it means she'll wear them more of the time. And if she doesn't want actual biker's boots then I don't mind so long as the ones she gets are sturdy enough for the job. Just imagine it was your daughter you're kitting out.

An' feel free to get something for yourself as a thank you for today. I mean, if you don't see anything, fine, we'll probably pick you up a bottle of something decent, but since you're going there anyway, if you see something that takes your fancy, some panniers, maybe a spare helmet that isn't bright pink. As long as it's not a whole new bike. I think Buff might get upset if her wedding fund went down by the cost of a Fireblade."

"I suspect she would, but, really, it's not necessary. It's the least I can do considering the free board and lodging and the fact you made a point of asking me to come."

"That wasn't a favour to you, watcher. That was us taking advantage of His High and Mighty Angelicness acting like a total git. If you stay, it's goin' to be bloody useful for us to have you around."

"You have to admit there were grounds for his behaviour."

"For the instantaneous gut reaction, maybe. For the stubborn, aggrieved martyr act the wanker's been holdin' onto ever since, bugger that." Spike might have made some effort to improve relations between himself and his grandsire, but that didn't mean he was afraid to speak up when he thought he was at fault.

"Yes, well, still, the welcome's appreciated."

"Yeah... well, anyone as can help keep her safe and well 'll always get a welcome from me."

---

Willow and Tara made the turn onto the block where Lily lived just in time to see the DeSoto's taillights disappearing in the distance.