Disclaimer: I don’t own BTVS, I just play

Author’s note: Some Dialogue taken from ‘Dirty Girls’ Beta’d by the wonderful Bloodytearsoflife
_________________________
“Oh great,” Buffy mumbled, standing up and glaring at the Principal as he stood in the doorway.

She would have had a bad feeling about the situation, except for one thing; Robin Wood was just a human. And humans she could deal with.

“And you think you can take us both?” asked Buffy. “’Cause if you do, I’m gonna have to burst your bubble.”

“I don’t need to take you. You might not think that I can hurt you, not like you hurt me, but you’re wrong,” declared the principal.

“Oh?” asked Buffy, putting her hands on her hips.

There was a grunt behind her as Spike rose from the ground, avoiding the cross covered wall. His injuries were already healing but in a fight he’d be toast. Or whatever Robin had planned for Spike and her. At this point she was thinking he was going to summon a demon or cast a spell.

And she was right. On both accounts. Robin’s lips began to move as he called on the dark magicks. Or at least what he thought were dark magicks.

“Blessèd be the name of D'Hoffryn. I come in supplication. I bend as the reed in the flow of the rippling wave of vengeance. I come in the name of vengeance to call upon its master. Blessèd be the name of D’Hoffryn, the name whispered in the name of revenge, vendetta, justice, retribution, vengeance.”

Buffy started to giggle, as Anyanka appeared in their midst and Robin’s plan came to light.

“Vengeance seeker, I am the great and powerful Anyanka,” started Anya, in a bored voice. “Beware my wrath, speak your wish and it might be granted. If I feel like it anyway.”

“Is that what you are using as your speech?” asked Buffy once her friend was done, an amused smile on her face.

“Well, yes!” declared Anya. “It’s hard when you’ve decided that you’re on the side of the good, blah blah blah. It takes the fear out of the work you know. Or you would know if you were granting wishes.”

“Hey!” protested Buffy. “You told me not to grant any wishes, it’d bring the Immortal to Sunnydale.”

“Yep, that I did. Good on you for the whole resisting of temptation. Okay.” Anya clapped her hands together and turned to look at the person who had summoned her. “First of all D’Hoffryn’s dead, I’m the Mistress of Arashamahar now, so you need to change your chant. Now, get on with the wishing, cause you are wasting my time by standing there with a stupid expression on your face.”

“I wish Erixel never existed,” said Robin cooly.

“And a big no to that one. Got another?” asked Anya, who still looked vaguely bored.

“I wish Spike, William the Bloody, would endure the pain of having his loved one taken away,” Robin tried again.

Anya looked at Robin with a sympathetic eye. “But that’s already happened to him. Over and over. You’re too late for that one. You’re going to have to get another type of demon to kill them. I won’t do it. Nor will any other vengeance demon,” she intoned, and Buffy felt a small wave of power flow through her. It was as if was Anya using her power to make it known to all vengeance demons that no one was to do anything towards Buffy or her kin.

“I’ll get my revenge some other way,” said the principal with a scowl.

“You do that,” muttered Anya, puffing away in a cloud of smoke and leaving the two demons alone with the demon hunter once again.

“Right helpful, she was,” noted Spike, sniffing, as if preparing himself for a fight once again, despite broken ribs and open wounds.

Robin stepped towards them, taking out a dagger that was concealed at his waist and brandished it before him menacingly.

Buffy knew that they could run away, portal hop to safety but that would change nothing. She knew that Liz couldn’t afford to give up an ally as important as Principal Wood, not for her and Spike. And Spike couldn’t leave here without knowing her secret. It was long past time to tell him the truth.

“Spike, my love,” Buffy said in an encouraging tone. “It’s fight or flight. It’s up to you. This is your fight.”

“Bloody chip won’t let me fight love,” he growled, with almost disgust on his face. “Hate to run from a fight though.”

“The chip’s gone,” she said turning her attention to his reaction and not the advancing principal. “I had it removed. That’s why it stopped frying your brain.”

Spike looked at his mate shocked. Through their bond she felt his hurt, his feeling of betrayal, his concern, embarrassment, and worry all at once.

“I knew that if you knew, you’d refuse to see Dawn again. You don’t need the chip anymore Spike. It did what it was supposed to do. You’re all behaviour modified.”

Suddenly all the concern and worry left the vampire as he raised his eyebrow at his mate and gave her peck on the cheek before vamping and stepping towards Robin.

“Rules have changed,” Spike noted.

With a smile, Buffy watched her lover jump into a fight with the principal. Yes, he wasn’t completely up to snuff, but it appeared he had a renewed interest in the scuffle. Buffy leaned against the wall and examined her nails trying to act as if the whole thing didn’t mean that much to her. In reality she was ready to stop it, if Spike lost the upper hand.

Within a few minutes Robin Wood was lying bloodied, but alive, on the ground. Spike wiped the blood from his lips and licked it off his hand then extended that same hand to his mate.

Buffy smiled up at Spike and took his hand only to have Liz run into the room, out of breath.

“Spike? Buffy? What happened?” asked the Slayer, only then looking at the barely conscious person the floor. “Oh, my God.”

“I gave him a pass. Let him live. On account of the fact I killed his mother. But that's all he gets,” answered the vampire, pulling his mate along with him on his way out of the shed. “He even so much as looks at me funny again, I'll kill him.”

Liz closed her eyes and sighed.

“Sort him out Liz,” ordered Buffy as Spike led her from the room. “He’s alive for one reason. We’ve changed.”
_________________________
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It might have spared you all these cuts and bruises,” lamented Buffy as she dressed his wounds down in the basement of Liz’s house.

“You should have told me. You should have left it alone,” he hissed as she pressed a cloth to a cut.

“Quit being a baby,” she chastised before her expression turned serious again. “It was either take it out Spike, or I’d wake up next to a pile of dust one sunset. I couldn’t... I won’t...I waited too long for you. I won’t have our eternity cut short by something that we could easily fix.”

Spike nodded, his actions careful and deliberate. “How...I didn’t wish it out. You can’t just take it out, you aren’t allowed to grant your own wishes.”

“It’s good to be the best friend of the Mistress of Arashamahar,” she answered.

“In more ways than one, love.”
_________________________
Robin didn’t give them any more trouble after that. Buffy understood, from Dawn, that Liz had given Robin a tongue lashing after Buffy and Spike had left his little vampire love shack.

It was very clear that the idea that Robin and Liz were going to be involved romantically was over and done with.

Buffy was elated.

Robin’s vendetta squelched, it was back to training as normal for the little army. Which found Buffy, Spike, and Liz taking a breather from the ever whining potentials to take out a few random vamps. It was nauseatingly routine night. For some reason, Liz didn’t like to patrol without the two of them, as if something was going to happen to one of them if they weren’t together.

Funny how that worked.

As it was, Spike decided to go after the one that got away, a blond, in desperate need of an oral hygiene check up, in Buffy’s opinion. Buffy waved him off, perfectly content to follow at a brisk pace instead of getting all out of breath and sweaty for no reason. Liz walked beside her.

“It’s the berba weed he puts in his blood...right?” asked Liz, pointing in Spike’s direction. “That’s where he gets the energy?”

Liz had been steadily loosing energy, patience, and positive attitude as the days wore down. The Robin issue, the whining of the girls, it was all taking its toll on the Slayer.

“I think, it’s may be that that particular vamp looked a little like Darla. Darla and he, never really got on,” explained Buffy.

“I didn’t much like her either,” noted Liz.

“Please. You think I'm stupid?” came a girl’s voice, not the vampire that Spike had been chasing.

The pair of very similar looking blonds approached Spike and this other girl stealthily.

“Well, yeah,” noted Buffy‘s mate, grinning.

“You were attacking that girl,” noted the girl, landing a punch on Spike‘s nose.

So, Buffy punched the girl back, knocking her down.

“Sorry, Faith,” piped up Liz. “I didn't realize it was you,” she added, but her tone was anything but sincere.

“It's all right, Z. Luckily, you still punch like you used to. Or maybe you’ve gotten better. I’m seeing double.”

Faith looked from Buffy to Liz and back again, trying to sort out her double vision. “How come I can only see one vampire but two of you Z? I didn’t think I’d been away that long, when did you go all doublemint on me?”

Buffy ignored the comment and turned to her mate. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Terrific,” Spike responded, sniffing.

“Are you protecting vampires?” asked Faith shocked. “Are you the bad slayer now? Am I the good slayer now? Why are there two of you?”

“He's with me,” noted Buffy. “You don’t touch him again.”

“Banging the undead again are we? Like Angel?” continued the brunette.

“None of your bloody business,” interjected Spike.

“Sort of,” answered Buffy with a smile.

“No!” declared Liz.

“I am nothing like Angel,” Spike continued to protest.

“He fights on my side,” continued Liz, shrugging. “Which is more than I can say for some of us.”

“Okay, setting aside the fact that you still haven’t explained why there are two of you. And I’m really thinking you didn’t hit me hard enough for the doublemint gum commercial to be still playing...If he's so good, what's he doing chasing down defenceless...” At that moment Faith was cut off by the Darla look a like vamp that Spike had been chasing. With one motion the vamp had Faith on the ground.

Liz pointed at the vamp that was all over Faith. “That's one of the bad guys.”

“You should make 'em wear a sign,” commented Faith, who swooped around and made to take one of Liz’s stakes. “May I? Thanks,” she said taking a stake and staking the vamp.

“Angel's dull as a table lamp. And we have very different colouring,” observed Spike to Buffy as Faith dusted herself off.

“Okay, catching up. Anything else I gotta know? Like why there are two Liz’s?” asked Faith again.

“Nice to have you back,” said Liz ignoring Faith‘s question.

“Come on!” Faith complained following after the trio.
_________________________
Truthfully? Buffy thought it was horribly funny that Liz wasn’t answering the question that Faith asked. As they approached the house, Faith tried every tactic she could think of, even telling Liz just what was up at the hospital.

Liz opened the front door and walked in, silently inviting the other slayer into the house.

“Whoa. Memory Lane. Same old house,” noted Faith as she walked in.

“Yeah, well, every piece of furniture's been destroyed and replaced since you left, so, actually, new house,” explained Liz.

From the dining room Dawn appeared, briefly glancing at her great great great grandparents before looking questioningly at her sister.

“Liz?” asked Dawn as if daring her sister to explain why Faith was back in their house.

Buffy didn’t know the whole history, but she did know that Faith was the result of Liz’s one time death. She expected to get the whole story soon from Dawn or Anya.

“We have a new house guest,” explained Liz.

“Hey, got a spare bed for a wanted fugitive?” asked Faith trying to lighten the mood.

Attention directed in Dawn’s direction, Buffy could see Rupert in the dining room as well. He stood and greeted the other slayer coldly.

“Well, I guess ‘wanted‘ wasn't really accurate,” continued Faith in joke.

“Does she have to stay here? Because there's some nice hotels that welcome tried-to-kill-your-sister types,” said Dawn bitterly.

With a smile, Faith tried to ignore the comment. “Check it out. Brat's all woman-sized.”

“Look, I need to get to the hospital,” started Liz. “Some girl was attacked on her way into town. We think she might be a...”

“We know. Willow's been calling,” interrupted Dawn.

“She's still there. She's going to call if the girl wakes up,” added Giles.

“Fine,” noted Liz walking out of the room, without giving her watcher another glance.

Buffy watched Liz go, disappointed. It had come to light that Giles had known about Robin’s attempt to kill Spike, he simply hadn’t done anything to stop it. It was one of those ‘I’m your watcher and I know better’ moments that the Giles family was noted for. Buffy could understand Liz’s bitterness.

“Well, Faith, we better, um, see if we can find some place to squeeze you in for the night,” said Rupert before walking away with Dawn.

“Not all that tension was about you. Giles knew about this plan to kill me...for Liz’s and Buffy's own good,” explained Spike.

Buffy sighed softly. Her own good? Just how was killing my mate for my own good?

“Well, that makes me feel better about me, worse about Giles...kinda shaky about you,” commented Faith. “So I guess that makes you Buffy then?” asked Faith as she turned to Buffy.

The vengeance demon nodded.

“And you are what? A long lost cousin? Another sister?” asked Faith.

“Her great great great grandmother, actually,” explained Buffy.
_________________________
tbc...