Author's Note: Due to some lovely feedback from reviewers we feel compelled to let you know that Xander will appear in his own story (well shared story) much like Faith and Kate have. The flow of the story works much better that way, plus we have plans for him *mwww haaaa haaaa***

Chapter Fourteen

Name: Shamrock Meadow
Report: #8693
Subject: XF 002
Date: 28 March 1995

The origin of this disease seems more natural than supernatural. Culturing and microanalysis indicate that this condition is caused by a previously unknown type of virus. Not surprisingly, it is unaffected by antibiotics, but antivirals are also wholly ineffective. Blood tests indicate that the disease affects humans, including the Slayer, and living demons which carry human genetic markers. The tissues of more distantly related demons are destroyed on a cellular level and are basically unaffected by the disease's progress through stages one and two, but these demons do not reanimate. Thankfully, the virus is not yet able to be spread through the air. A variety of chemical treatments do not kill the virus. Extreme heat does destroy the vector, and standard disposal protocols for level five biohazardous materials have proven to be effective.

However, there is a magical component to this disease that is, if possible, harder to explain. Conjured energies seem to envelope each individual virus, and these packets can be said to exhibit a rudimentary form of self-ordering, perhaps even behaviour. Viral units travelled throughout the subject's body, congregating in higher densities in the brain tissue. Under experimental conditions, the units also move to avoid potentially damaging chemicals and open flame. Cultures yield unusual growth patterns consistent with geometric designs or fractals.

The presence of magic, as well as the unusual behaviour of the vector and undeniable effectiveness of the disease, has led some of the researchers to speculate that this virus is engineered. Along this line of reasoning, this virus' utility as a bioweapon against demonic forces is limited, unless there is some as yet unidentified treatment or inoculation that can limit the disease's spread within the human population. Additionally, while the disease seems to be as fatal to many demon species, it does not affect those with less DNA in common with humans, which also tend to be the most dangerous.

It is my recommendation that our efforts should be focused on finding a cure for this virus before any attempts are made to weaponize it. Without some method to counter, or at least check, its spread, intentional infection runs the potential of causing wide scale outbreaks, especially if infected individuals show the same level of resilience and aggression as subject XF 002.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Wednesday, January 29th, 2004 (Part Four)

"Your nose is definitely broken," Anders commented dryly. "And your cheek doesn't look very promising either. At least there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage to your shoulder."

"Magnificent," Phillips replied, scowling to himself when the word came out with less sarcasm and more abject awe than he had intended.

If Anders noticed, he hid it well behind a carefully stony façade. He just kept looking at Phillips' face with a calculating curiosity and critical appraisal. Phillips did not know if Anders had cornered him during their shift change out of fraternal concern or to get a better idea of what, exactly, he and his team were walking into. Probably both. Or neither.

Their friendship, if you could even call it that, was complicated. They were lions. Two-legged lions sharing one watering hole. All of their dealings were tainted with the flavor of cold-blooded competition, but when the chips were down… well, better the devil you know.

"You said she did this with one punch?" Anders asked, gaze sliding across the room to the gaggle of women who were watching them both.

Tactical concerns outweighed his instinctive need to deny any kind of potential weakness in front of the man. Phillips just nodded briefly, a rather injudicious move, considering the condition of his battered face, but he didn't really trust himself to speak just then.

One punch.

He'd slid a single hit of his own under her defenses, a solid blow to the solar plexus, not that it had accomplished much. She had blocked all of his other attempts, shrugging off his punch and casually ripping his arm out of socket when he had tried to grapple with her. He managed to turn aside more than a few of her own attacks, but she had finally got one past him, knocking him to the floor. Her fist had felt like a sledge hammer. His head had cracked loudly against the tiles and he’d skidded into a group of his own men, not that he had been in any condition to register what had been happening. He hadn't been good for much of anything other than staring dazedly at the ceiling for some time after that.

That hadn't happened to him in… come to think of it, he didn't think that had ever happened to him. Much less at the hands of a woman who looked like that.

She was an avenging angel. A Valkerie. A goddess.

"The doctors here will get you patched up, but I think they're rationing the pain killers pretty tightly now that we're in lockdown," Anders commented with the vaguest hint of apology. For him, that was an emotional outpouring.

Phillips would have winced, but the throbbing in his face counseled restraint. He settled for another grave, careful nod. That really was bad news.

And he didn't even know her name.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dawn snuggled into the blankets and sighed. She had volunteered to stay with Christie and Vi for the night while Buffy and Spike had a "talk". From the stories she had heard from some of the older Slayers when they thought she wasn't listening, she wasn't going to take the chance of going back to the room tonight. There were just some things you weren’t meant to know about your sister.

It was all kinds of sad. Buffy had taken to confiding in some of the older Slayers, but still hadn't felt comfortable talking about Spike with her own 'family.' She couldn't blame her, per se. Willow and Xander were awfully judgmental on the dating decisions, and Buffy still thought she had to protect Dawn, even though in a few months she would be 18 years old.

That is, if she was still alive.

Technically she was sharing the room with four Slayers, but they were sleeping in shifts. Not all of them felt comfortable letting their guard down at Evil Incorporated. She didn't blame them, she had known Angel her entire life—not counting her fake memories—and she didn't really trust the guy either. She knew the party line; he had a soul, he was a good guy, Angel was a champion, blah blah blah. Still, she couldn't help wondering what the whole soul thing meant. Spike without a soul was a great babysitter, in love with her sister, and determined to reform without being all broody and obvious about it. Yeah, she knew the difference between Angel and Angelus and its significance… but didn't Hitler have a soul? And Dahmer?

She sighed. Angel might be acting like an insecure jerk, but he was probably trustworthy.

Probably.

He just needed to get over his Buffy issues. And his Spike issues.

Dawn sighed again. Perhaps she had been listening to too many Xander rants lately. She knew logically that Angel was a good guy and he would move heaven and hell to keep them safe.

Of course that didn't mean she had to like him. Between the influence of both Spike and Xander, it wasn't surprising he’d never had a chance with her.

Dawn's thoughts wandered back to his reaction to Buffy and Spike. Angel had acted like his favorite toy was being taken away when Buffy and Spike had wandered off to talk. It really didn't make sense, though. Anyone with eyes had to notice the looks he kept shooting at Cordelia when he thought no one was looking. Like he had lost something precious and just found it again. So why was he being so stubborn?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Spike was sitting on the couch in his cozy little lawyer's apartment, watching the senior slayer pace back and forth across the plush carpet. Buffy was clearly a mess. Physically… Emotionally… Grammatically... And damn Lorne anyway for making him sit through that movie, but it was also a good description of the moment. She hadn't managed to form a complete, coherent sentence since they had walked into the room.

As much as her distress bothered him on a fundamental level, Spike supposed that she had the right to it. He was a mess. L.A. was a mess. Hell, it was looking like the entire world was a mess.

It was just that in his experience, when Buffy was a mess, his nose tended to be in a particularly vulnerable position. That wasn't entirely fair, things had been… different that last year. Because of the soul, he guessed. But even so, when the First had turned up the heat, Buffy had started lashing out, with words if not fists.

The fact that he remained basically unscathed, except for her teasing banter about laying into the Grand Poof, was surprising. Dawn's upended backpack on the end of the couch hadn't even rated a raised eyebrow. As much as this unusual behavior was making him bubble like the love struck idiot he knew himself to be, it was also new territory, and he wasn't entirely certain of how he should act.

And so he sat and waited, watching the slayer stride back and forth across his posh zombie bunker with trepidation, twirling a drinks coaster between his fingers in a display of nervous energy.

Buffy finally stopped in her tracks and turned to glare at him.

Here it comes.

"You're not dead," she said flatly.

There was a wavering note in her voice that Spike had never heard before. Without better inspiration, he turned to an old standby: sarcasm. "Well, technically…"

"You know what I mean," she snapped, but her face immediately fell into tragic lines. Her next words were softer. "I thought you were dust. Not even just dust. Dust under a couple hundred feet of high school and strip mall and, oh, I don't know, pretty much all of Sunnydale."

Since the humor route wasn't working, there wasn't much he could say to that. Spike shrugged and stared at his scarred hands, spinning the coaster back and forth, back and forth. She'd say her piece and he'd say his, and they'd fight, like they always did, and there goes her shining last memory of him, and…oh, yeah, now he remembered why he had stayed in L.A…

She laughed, but the sound was brittle. "You know, I had this all planned out. I was going to rant about your inability to pick up a phone, and then I was going to keep ranting about you not believing me, Mr. No- but-thanks-for-saying-it, and then I was seriously considering doing whatever it took to convince you that no, I really did mean it."

He looked up at her, startled, and truth be told, more than a little fixated on her concept of the night's grand finale, but what he saw shook him out of that line of thought. If it wasn't completely insane, Spike would have sworn that she was about to cry. But that couldn't be right. Buffy didn't cry, at least not in front of him. Oh, he had caught her in a few unguarded moments, but she had always thrown on a mask of anger or stoicism when she realized he was near.

Except that wasn't fair either. She had broken down once in front of him, in an abandoned house when Sunnydale had still been standing. But even then, she hadn't cried. She had just asked him to hold her, showing with actions, if not words, that she trusted him, that he made her feel safe.

He hadn't lied, either. It had been the best night of his life. It still was.

"I spent the whole flight over thinking about it, but now I'm here, and you're here, and… you're here." She breathed the last two words brokenly. She sat down abruptly and all of the energy seemed to drain out of here. "You're here."

For a long time, the only sound in the room was the ticking of the wall clock. Spike didn't know what to think. On one hand, there was this undefined 'convincing' she had mentioned, which he would definitely file under the heading of an enthusiastic greeting. On the other, she didn't exactly seem to be jumping with joy at the moment. There was a sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

Was she happy to see him at all? Had she changed her mind on the plane? When she had seen his grandsire? Now that they were alone? Should he leave? That was a laugh, where would he go? He thought it was safe to say that the neighborhood had gone to pot, what with the zombies and all…

Buffy was looking at him imploringly, as if begging him to understand, but understand what? All he understood that there was a gnawing feeling of self-doubt eating at his gut, and she looked ready to burst into tears, and he didn't know why.

"Giles is dead," she said abruptly.

Spike blinked in surprised shock. His brain was in no way prepared to process that bit of information, but Buffy wasn't done.

A single tear was starting to track its way down her cheek, all the more shocking since the rest of her face was so very, very blank. "So is Rona. And Giselle, and Samantha, and Kieko, and Michelle, and…God, I was only just starting to have most of their names figured out." Her face finally cracked and the tears started to flow in earnest.

Spike didn't think; he didn't have to. Before he had time to stop himself, he was across the room and pulling her into his arms. When his brain kicked back into action, he found himself in the floor, one hand around Buffy's waist and the other tangled up in her hair, rocking them both while Buffy sobbed name after name against his chest.

He’d known that there’d been an outbreak in London, but he hadn't had time to stop and think about what that meant. So many dead. So many people he had known, had fought beside, had threatened to strangle when they had hijacked the Summers' bathrooms for hours on end during those last, desperate weeks. So many. So many now that he would never know. So many names that she wasn't mentioning either. Willow. Xander. So much death. So much uncertainty.

He understood now, perhaps better than he wanted to. She had focused on him to avoid thinking about all the rest. It was a flimsy shield, easily shattered, but that didn't mean he couldn't use it too, while he could. He rocked her gently, stroking her hair and whispering comforting words in her ear.

Everything will be fine. We'll find everyone who is still missing. They'll be fine, too. You'll see.

Everything will be fine.

A flimsy shield, but, for a time, they could block out the rest of the world with each other.

TBC…