He took comfort in her softness. There was so much he wanted to tell her. It was all in his mind and in his heart, but he couldn’t verbalize the thoughts.

It had been so long since he’d heard anything resembling the language she spoke, that he couldn’t master his tongue well enough to make the sounds form in any kind of order that she would understand. The one sound he did manage to string together had been an amazing surprise, and he didn’t know if he could do it again. But, he did remember it. He just had to reach and find it again. Everything he wanted to say was safely hidden away from the harsh years.

The years he was alone.

He could tell from her soft murmurings and the glistening ache in her eyes that she wanted to reach him; needed to, as much as he needed to tell her.

Her eyes told him everything. And that both awed and saddened him.

No! Oh, Buffy! I missed you so much! Don’t weep for me. Do you know how long it’s been? What I saw in that place? I can hardly believe you’re here. Oh, you’re so soft…like I remember…like I left you…and that sound…your breath…when you left, there was nothing.


Buffy felt him shudder as she held him, “Shh, it’s all right. I’m here. I’m right here,” she knew that there were things he’d seen, that were locked inside of him. Nightmarish things, that he would never be at peace with, never be able to put to rest, until he could tell her about them.

Things that, she wished she knew how to unlock, if only to give him some peace. He’d given her back Jonina. There had to be a way to repay him for that.

The way he held her, the way he protected Jonina and her, spoke of a deep sense of loss. But how could she reach him?

As she looked at the deep ridges of his vampire face, Buffy realized that the contours of his face were even more deeply furrowed than she remembered. She knew that the kinds of changes she was seeing could not have occurred in the six weeks he’d been gone.

She knew that he had to have been gone much longer than that. Joni herself was proof of that. She’d been taken to that place a tiny, premature little baby, and returned as an eight-year-old girl.

Angel had even told her that time flowed differently in that place, but she didn’t want to believe it. But the proof of what he’d said was in his face. It was in the way he held her.

The proof had even been in Willow’s magic. The guide she’d conjured to help find him, and the baby, looked like an old man, but he looked so much like Spike, too.

She closed her eyes and tried to think of what that guide, the kindly old man, who called himself Homer, had told her.

The soft voice that reminded her so much of Spike’s had told her what life had been like for him, in that place. It had been a life filled with sickness and death. A world in which all the Slayers had died, including her. It was a world in which he’d won and lost his humanity, because of her.

As she thought about that, Buffy began to wonder; did he resent her for that?
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Oscar studied his face as it went ashen with fright, and he couldn’t have been more pleased. He knelt and his fangs glinted in the dark as he spoke, “Don’t think I don’t know who you are.”

“W-were,” Liam stuttered.

Oscar chortled and rolled his eyes, delighted at the sheen of perspiration that set his face in an eerie light, “Don’t you try and bamboozle me,” he warned, his tone low and menacing, “You know that the demon circuit in Los Angeles is fast as lightning; especially where the ‘Master Puppet’ is concerned. You used to be one of the most feared vampires around, even when you were playing at being a good guy,” Oscar shook his head, honestly disgusted with the man in front of him, “Spike’s been back,” he shrugged, “maybe a week, and it’s already all over this town. The demons know what went down. Now,” Oscar’s tone was dismissive and the words more biting than his fangs, “you’re not a puppet anymore. Now you’re just Geppetto’s mistake. I’ve waited years for this,” he hissed, “I’ve allowed myself to become a monster,” he saw confusion in the man’s eyes, “Oh, I am sorry. Don’t you recognize me?” Oscar asked as the demon visage shifted, leaving behind a slim, feeble looking man with features that were characteristic of the emerald isle. He had red hair and fierce, ice blue eyes. If it hadn’t been for a slight North London accent, Liam would have sworn the man had just disembarked from a plane out of Dublin.

It was the accent that gave him pause. It sounded too much like…Spike. But the name that passed his lips was, “…Oscar?” he squinted in the low light, struggling to place the familiar, yet nondescript, features.

If he knew him, maybe he could talk his way out of this, “Oscar Lendman…from accounting?”

Oscar nodded, grinning, “Yes, the accounting department of Wolfram and Hart’s Los Angeles office. Poetic, isn’t it? We go back much further than that. Think hard, Liam,” Oscar coaxed, as though talking to a child, “I remember it like it was yesterday. And, I have to say that I am a little wounded that you could be so careless as to not remember. I thought you prided yourself on not being able to take your eyes off of your victims,” he sighed, “All right, I’ll refresh your memory. Christmas eve 1872- and a little girl with red hair, and a green satin ribbon…Remember now?”

The cold of recognition shot to his heart. And her face appeared, out of time, before his eyes, “Oh no…” he whispered.

Oscar nodded, “Yeah, her name was Diana, in case you’ve forgotten,” he shrugged again, “Say, I’m curious…do you think Spike thinks enough of you to rescue you? Or, would he just…let me have you…as a Christmas gift…because you stole his daughter too?” he asked with the glint of murder in his eye.
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