*~*~*~*

“She what?!” Giles had called Buffy’s house from LAX. The little puddle jumper from Sunnydale had taken less than thirty minutes to land in Los Angeles and he had immediately tried to contact Buffy.

Xander took a deep, calming breath on the other line and explained one more time what had happened at the airport. “And then they left.”

“Damn,” Giles pulled his glasses off and leaned against the phone booth, massaging his pulsing temple. “And you’ve not seen her since?”

“Not so much as a glimpse.”

“I’ll call you from the plane.” Giles said goodbye and hung up, then dug through his wallet for another phone card. He punched in what felt like a hundred numbers and the call was finally connected. “Quentin Travers, please?”

“Password?”

“Buffy Anne Summers.”

“Your name?”

“Rupert Giles.”

“Granted.”

Glancing down at his watch, he began to tap his fingers impatiently. After five minutes had past, Travers answered the phone. “Good day, Mr. Giles. What is the occasion?”

“Good day to you as well, Travers.” Glancing around to make sure no one could hear his conversation, Giles added. “Buffy has been brought back from the dead.”

“Yes, I know.”

“How do you know that?”

“We had activated a new Slayer in her stead and the new girl has lost her strength.” Travers coughed a little. “Forgive me, I’m fighting the remaining vestiges of a horrible head cold.”

“She’s not the same.”

“I can certainly understand why that would be.”

“Can you? Because one would think that being brought back from an unimaginable hell dimension would-”

“You’re certain she was in hell?”

Giles was taken aback. “Where else could she have been?”

“Rupert, she died to save the world. Surely that would earn her a greater reward.”

Giles suddenly flashed back to the wounded look in her eyes, to the night tremors Dawn had mentioned, to the fact that Buffy refused to *live*. It shook him to contemplate what may have happened. “My god. I never even considered-”

“That, I fear, is not the biggest concern we have at the moment.”

“What else is there?”

“You’ve heard of the Alliance?”

Giles frowned, trying to recall where he had heard the term. “Oh, yes, yes. Rogue demon hunters or the like? Always trying to compete with the council. The year I graduated from Oxford they attempted to woo me away from my path as a watcher and into their world. It was a fascinating world if I recall. With much better compensation packages.”

“Yes. For centuries they have approached up and coming watchers and then Slayers.”

“I do remember that, yes.”

“They finally seduced a Slayer to their side, Giles. *Your* Slayer.”

Giles dropped the phone and quickly retrieved it. “What? How?”

“We were notified this morning. She made her first kill for them and was compensated for it. If she makes a third kill we can not get her back.”

“Dear lord.” Giles was aghast. “I’ll stop this immediately.”

“The Alliance will not tolerate your interference, Rupert. If you get too close they will ask her to kill you. She is bound. She can refuse, but I doubt that she would survive the punishment for that refusal.”

“I’ll think of something.”

“I trust you will, old man.” Travers voice was gravely from the sickness. “I’ll send you everything I have about the Alliance. The most important thing to remember is that she is only truly bound after the third kill. If we can revoke the contract before that occurs, she will be freed.”

“A blood contract. They’re almost impossible to break.”

“Blood seals it and blood appeals it. Her blood.” Travers coughed again. “God speed, Rupert.”

Giles hung up and made another phone call. This time to Olivia to let her know that he would be delayed.

Then he returned to the ticket counter and bought a trip to Sunnydale.

What had his Slayer done?

And was it hell that had changed her or heaven?

He was terrified of the answer.

*~*~*~*~

They were in a decent hotel a few miles outside of San Francisco. Buffy had insisted on paying and Spike had caved, allowing her to rent the room. He suspected that she didn’t want to leave a credit card trail. Her friends, much as he was loathe to admit it, deserved to know that she was okay and he called her house the second that she had closed herself behind the bathroom door to take a shower.

“Buffy?” Dawn answered on the third ring.

“No, ‘bit. It’s me. Big sis is fine.”

“Bring her home.”

“She wants a bit of vacation.”

“Giles is coming back.”

“What happened?” Spike glanced at the bathroom and could see the steam coming from under the door.

“I don’t know. He called and said that we had to get Buffy back here.”

The shower turned off and he said, “I’ll try to bring her back tomorrow night. I’ll call again soon.”

“Spike-”

He hung up quickly and shoved the phone card back into his wallet, then sat down on the edge of the bed and quickly turned on the television. He was flipping channels when she emerged in a white robe. Her hair had been secured under a towel and her face was a deep pink from the shower. She glanced at him, then pulled her hair free and combed through it with her fingers.

“Hotel shampoo is evil.” She sat down in a nearby chair and continued to work through her hair. Then she sniffed the back of her hand. “And hotel soap leaves a lot to be desired as well.”

“We should have picked up something.”

“Like fresh clothes.”

“You think you’ll feel up to going home tomorrow?”

She stopped trying to untangle her hair and looked at him. “You want to?”

“Dawn will be worried.”

“I hope they all are.”

“Really?”

She shrugged a little. “Maybe they’ll lay off a little if I vanish for a few days.”

“Really don’t think that’s the answer, pet.”

“Well, what is the answer, Spike?”

He put the remote down on the bed and kneeled down in front of her, taking her hand in his. Buoyed by the fact she didn’t pull away from his touch, he reached up and pushed her hair back, tilting her face so he could look into her eyes. “Honestly? I think maybe it’s time you tell them where you were. The lot of you can have a group hug, cry your little eyeballs out, and then hopefully heal. You can’t keep trying to do it alone.”

“I’m not alone.” She put her hand over his. “Am I?”

“I’m with you every step. No matter what you choose.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you,” He stated matter of factly and looked at her as if she had grown an extra head. “I love you and I care what happens to you. What you said at the airport scared me.”

“Which part?”

“About not wanting to be here.”

She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I don’t. But you don’t have to worry about it. It’s not like I can go back.”

“What do you mean?”

The impulse to tell him about Bob was great. She wanted to lay the burden at his feet and beg him to make it better. She wanted to lay everything bare and let him see for himself how far she had sunk. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t possible to share. “I can’t tell you.”

“What?”

She had a classic lightbulb over the head moment. She couldn’t *tell* him what had happened with the Alliance because Bob had said it would get her killed. But she could SHOW him. She leaned past him, grabbing up her bag. She rummaged through it then gasped with glee when she found a comb. She pulled it through her hair, smoothing away the tangles, and then applied chapstick to her lips.

“Are you going to tell me or not?” Spike finally asked, clearly exasperated. He had known that she was keeping something from him.

“No. I’m going to show you.” Reaching into her bag again, she withdrew the snake knife and held it up.

“What the hell is that thing?”

“Watch and learn.”

She slid her arm into the reptile part and it sprang to life, the head moving toward hers as it looked at her, then the eyes grew red and it became a small, pointed dagger. Buffy pricked her finger and moved to the white wall. Using her blood she sketched the letter ‘I’. Forcing more blood into her fingertip, she wrote ‘AM’. Spike watched in horror, then shook his head.

“Buffy?”

“Hmm?”

“Pencil.”

She turned to find him holding up a hotel pencil that was freshly sharpened. “Well hell. That kind of kills the dramatic effect.” She turned back to the wall and wrote ‘Immortal’ in pencil. Then as an afterthought added, ‘I don’t want to be.’

Spike stared at what she had written. “How?”

She loosened the snake knife and dropped it back into the bag, then pulled the scroll out and tore the ribbon off. She began to read the terms of the contract out loud. She wasn’t actually telling him. He was just eavesdropping. Spike was watching over her shoulder, but she knew he couldn’t see the words. They were for her eyes alone.

And she had never felt more alone in her life.

The more she read the further she sank into desperation.

Her life was pretty much over. The Alliance owned her.

And it had only begun.

*~*~*~*~*~

Spike leaned against the wall of the hotel, then slid down it and sat in the floor, his hands buried in his hair. “And you’re telling me that you did it accidentally? You bled on it without meaning to?”

“Yes.”

“Buffy, why would you keep a scroll like that in your house?”

“I was going to burn it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know! Okay?”

“We have to get you back to Sunnydale. Giles is there.”

“How do you know that?”

“I called ‘bit to tell her that you were okay.” He stood up and went to the window. The sun had only been up a few hours. They were stuck. “And you say this guy can teleport you any time? And he said he’d kill you if you told about the Alliance?”

“Yes. I was hoping if I got far enough away from him he’d lose the ability or something.”

“The only way to stop from being teleported all over the place is by being rooted.”

“What does that mean?”

“We have to bind you.”

“Like foot binding? That looks painful.”

“This isn’t a joke, Buffy. I’ve heard of this group. They’re deadly.” He sat down on the end of the bed again. “I could bind you to me.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“I drink some of your blood. You drink some of mine.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I did that with Dracula. No thanks.”

Spike raised his scarred eyebrow. “Were you shagging him when you did it?”

“NO!” Then she realized what he was saying and her eyes widened. He would bite her during sex and she would bite him? Her stomach fluttered a little.

“Right then.” He rubbed a palm over his face. “Our other option would be to call Willow and see if she can do a rooting spell. Bind you to your house or something.”

She watched him pace the length of the room. Her stomach fluttered again and she frowned a little. It didn’t feel like sexual fluttering. It was something else entirely. “If I did get ... binded to you ...what would that mean?”

He turned to look at her and his eyes found hers and held. “You would belong to me. I would belong to you. The bond is stronger than teleportation powers or anything else for that matter.”

Swallowing hard, she stood. “Would I be a vampire?”

“No. You know that your heart has to stop for that.”

“But what happens if we stop the Alliance and I’m freed from them? What then? What happens with our bond?”

“It can be broken if we agree to it. But both of us have to agree.”

She felt a faint, familiar tugging behind her ribcage then and her eyes widened. The same feeling from before, when she was yanked off the sidewalk in front of her house. “I think he’s trying to do it right now. Oh god. I think maybe he knows I told.”

Spike watched her for a split second and sure enough, she seemed to fade a little before his eyes. Their decision was made for them. He grabbed her and pulled her against him. “You fight him, love.”

“I- I will.”

Keeping a firm hand on her, he untied her robe, staring down at her soft, toned body. “We’re going to have to go fast, Slayer. None of the buildup.”

“Okay.”