Chapter 5


In the end she called Wesley, not Angel, taking the chance that their group would still be up and in the middle of their work cycle, as Gunn had mentioned. To her relief, Wes was available.

“And why are you calling me?” asked Wes, though he didn’t sound surprised.

“Well, I thought if I called you, I wouldn’t be told that the plane was suddenly out of commission for some unknown reason.”

“Um, yes,” said Wes. “Angel does seem to be acting strangely.”

“He’s jealous,” said Buffy flatly. “I want to get Spike to England and I don’t want any unnecessary obstacles being placed in our way.”

“You don’t trust Angel.”

“At this moment, I don’t. Or Giles. I don’t like the way either of them are acting.”

There was a long pause.

“It troubles me as well,” said Wes at last. “But why are you trusting me?”

“Because you and Fred want to do the right thing. Fred because she’s emotional and cares. You out of an innate sense of fairness.”

Wes let his breath out in a little sigh. “I can have the plane ready for you by five. You’ll arrive at Heathrow around midnight their time. I know that gives you only a couple of hours to get ready, but you can sleep on the plane. Leaving at five gets you away fast and it’s safely in the dark for Spike both here and when you get to London. I’ll have a car waiting for you to make the rest of the trip to Hertfordshire.”

“Wes, thank you.”

“No,” said Wes. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Don’t tell Angel about it until after the plane has landed.”

“I won’t,” said Wes, sounding as grimly concerned about Angel as she was.

“Will this get you in trouble?”

“No,” said Wes. “I’ll simply ask him why I should have refused you. I don’t think he’ll have a satisfactory answer.”

Buffy smiled wryly. She didn’t think so either. And she did feel that she would have an ally in Wes, should one be needed.

The papers Bronwen had provided held up. They got through without a hitch both stateside and in England. A man came up to them as they were heading for the exits at the terminal.

“Miss Summers?”

“Yes?”

He had clearly been shown a picture of her; he knew who she was. “I’m from Wolfram and Hart, UK. Mr. Wyndam-Pryce sent me to deliver a car to you. If you would come this way?”

She could feel Spike tense a little beside her, as wary as she was of any Wolfram and Hart representative. But nothing happened on the way to the car park.

“I am to tell you that you have the use of the car for as long as you wish,” the guy said when they got to the car, handing over the keys. “Mr. Wyndam-Pryce also said to say that the windows are...tempered?”

He was also clearly just an errand boy since he didn’t know that meant that the windows were necro-tempered, just like the ones in Angel’s office, the car safe for Spike to drive.

“Thank Mr. Wyndam-Pryce for me.”

“I will do so, miss.”

He left and Buffy turned and gave the keys to Spike. “All yours.”

“Oh, yeah,” purred Spike, looking over the black Viper with immense satisfaction.

“Guys and cars,” she said, amused. “Do you know the way to Hertfordshire?”

“Pet, I know the UK like the back of my hand.”

“Remember anything?”

He shook his head. “Nothing personal. Not so far anyway.”

She sighed. “I was hoping just being here might bring something back.”

“Sorry.”

The only thing even vaguely notable about the village of Caxley in Hertfordshire was Caxley Hall, a huge old house set in the midst of sixty-three acres of grounds and dating back to the seventeenth century. It had fallen into severe dilapidation before the Council discovered it and took it over. Giles had turned it into their new base and all of the SITs lived there, except for a couple like Buffy who had found other lodgings nearby.

“We’ll go to the Hall tomorrow,” Buffy said. “Right now, I just want to go to my place. Vi and I rented this small converted house together. Kind of like a duplex. I’ve got the upstairs flat, Vi’s got the downstairs ’cause she likes gardening.”

“Who’s Vi?”

“She was one of the Potentials you and I trained before the fight with the First Evil. She was really timid in the beginning. You nearly scared her out of her mind. She’s a full Slayer now after Willow’s spell and she’s a wicked fighter. So good that Giles is thinking of having her head up the New York branch once it’s up and running.”

A light came on downstairs when they pulled up in front of Buffy’s house, then a window opened and Vi leaned out.

“Buffy, is that you? I didn’t think you’d be back so fast.” Then the moonlight caught Spike’s platinum hair as he got out of the car. Vi yelped. “Spike?”

Vi vanished from the window. There was a clatter of racing footsteps, then the front door opened and Vi fell through it, yanking a robe on over her pyjamas.

“Oh, my God, it is you!”

She let out a squeal that probably had the ears of every dog in the neighborhood ringing and flung herself on Spike. Buffy leaned on the roof of the car and laughed. The expression on Spike’s face was priceless—shock, disbelief, embarrassment and finally gratification at being hugged nearly to death by a pretty, darkhaired female totally unknown to him.

“Um, Vi,” she said at last. “He doesn’t remember you.”

“Oh! Sorry, sorry.” Vi pulled back, flushing. “Willow did say...But, you know, we didn’t really believe her. I mean, it’s so weird Spike coming back like that. Everyone thought it was a mistake. But it really is you!”

She kept patting at Spike. Buffy had felt the same way, needing to touch to know that he was real. Spike was grinning. Vi’s joy and delight were so obvious.

“And you really don’t remember anything?”

“Not a thing. Wish I did.” Spike’s gaze moved up and down her appreciatively. Vi’s eyes widened and she blushed.

“Now that’s different.” She glanced at Buffy who gave her back a faint, wry lift of the eyebrows. “Ohh-kay. But we’ll get your memory back for you, Spike! All of us. We’ll all help. You’re special to us, Spike.”

She hugged Spike again, then stepped back hurriedly.

“But you must be tired after that long flight. Why don’t both of you get some rest and we’ll talk in the morning...Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “That’s why Willow was here this afternoon. She brought stuff. I wondered why because you hadn’t been gone long enough for things to go bad in your fridge, Buffy. But she must have brought blood.”

Willow had indeed stocked the fridge with blood. She must have come over right away once Buffy had called to say she was on her way home with Spike. The guest room was also made up, with every little amenity provided, and all the things Buffy had left lying about had been neatly tidied away.

“Will’s trying to say she’s glad you’re here,” said Buffy. “Even if Giles is agin us, it looks like Willow might be on our side. Don’t know about Xander. He might go with Giles. Still, if Vi is anything to go by, all the Potentials will be with us. They know what you did in the Hellmouth. They’ll tell the SITs.”

“Sounds like there might be a rift forming.” Spike was frowning at her. “Maybe I shouldn’t stay here, pet. Don’ wanna cause trouble for you.”

“You’re no trouble. They are, anyone who doesn’t want you around. After what you did for us and for all the world in the Hellmouth! Didn’t you hear Vi? You’re ours, Spike!”

“What, the Slayers’ pet mascot?” he mocked. “The tame vamp?”

“Our friend,” she said fiercely. “The man we all owe our lives to.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shrugged that away. Without his memory, it was meaningless to him, just something he was told. He could remember the fire, remember burning up, but it didn’t have any significance to him, was just something that had happened to him, the reason for it lost in the black hole that was his past. “We’ll see how things go.”

She didn’t like the sound of that.

“You don’t walk out of me, Spike! Not without discussing it first. I don’t want to wake up one morning and find you’ve taken off because you’ve convinced yourself or someone’s talked you into thinking that it’s for my own good. I fucking get enough of that from Angel!”

“You swearing?” He grinned at her. “You really must be mad. I promised, din’ I, pet? Don’t you remember? Cards on the table, we said. We’ll talk about it first.”

The treated windows of the Viper let Spike drive them to Caxley Hall in full daylight. In his capacity as head of the Council, Giles kept business hours. Nine-thirty seemed a reasonable time to turn up.

“Go around the side there,” Buffy pointed. “There’s a back entrance that’s always shaded. Nobody uses it, so you can park right in front of the door where the sunlight won’t hit you.”

She frowned at the gracious, three-storey, grey stone building. Giles hadn’t changed anything on the outside, but the inside was completely different, even though this was only a temporary base. Giles was planning a more permanent and much larger base in a citadel up in Scotland. That would have all the bells and whistles, and be far more technologically advanced. Even this one had a lot of the toys that he wanted: the three above-ground storeys held the dormitories and dining rooms and reference rooms, but hidden underground were the Slayers’ training rooms, the computer rooms and the security section with its screens and monitors.

Gone were the days of the vague Watcher with his beloved books and musty old library around him. Buffy missed that Giles. This place suddenly reminded her of the Initiative, with its dorms above ground and the hidden labs and holding cells and security beneath.

“What is it?” asked Spike and she realized that he had been patiently waiting for her to come out of her abstraction.

“I never really looked at this place before.” She shook her head at his lifted eyebrow. “Bronwen got me thinking. Still working things out here.”

“Okay.” He was looking at the Hall as dubiously as she had. “Big place.”

“It won’t be big enough once all the SITs are here. Giles is going to buy this castle up in Scotland and fix it up with everything we need.”

“He’s got that kind of money?”

“We’re gonna hit a couple of banks and get it.”

He looked around in surprise. “You’re gonna rob a bank?”

He was frowning, she saw uneasily.

“We’re not going to take ordinary people’s money. We’re going to hit those offshore or Swiss numbered accounts where the Mafia and drug dealers hide their stash.”

“Like Robin Hood? Stealing from the rich to give to the poor. But you’re not giving to the poor. You’re giving to yourself, aren’t you, Slayer? Dunno. Doesn’t sound quite right to me.”

It hadn’t sounded quite ethical to her either when Giles had suggested it. But she hadn’t said anything, had shoved her disquiet away because surely Giles knew what morality was better than she did who had never really considered it. But here was a supposedly evil vampire looking at her disapprovingly. But Spike had always seen things far more clearly than any of them. He might not have a memory now, but he had a soul, and that soul was telling him that this was wrong.

“A Slayer shouldn’t steal,” he was saying now.

When Joyce had died and Buffy had to find a way to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, she could have taken the money from drug lords and their like. But instead she had left college and found a job flipping burgers to earn it. That was what had felt right.

“Just like a Slayer shouldn’t kill even bad humans,” said Spike.

The crease between his brows was deeply indented. She could see him working his way through concepts he hadn’t had time to think about after he came back, though he had probably worked them out back when he had his memory and had dismissed them when he was evil, accepted them when he was trying to be good.

“Even in the comics,” he said slowly, thinking it out, “Superman or Batman turn the human criminals and murderers they catch over to the cops. They don’t kill them. You Slayers have to stay within the rules even more than ordinary people. You’re too powerful. Break the rules and the next step is you’re thinking you’re God and can do anything you like. And then you become the bad guy, don’t you?”

Whoa. The man was right. How could Giles miss something that Spike could work out so easily in almost childlike terms and that sounded so simple and obvious?

“I have to think about this,” she said worriedly.

“Kind of important, what you stand for, innit, Slayer?”

So many issues and she couldn’t keep ignoring them the way she always had, couldn’t keep going with the flow and accepting other people’s value judgments just so she wouldn’t have to think. If she had sat down and really thought things out years ago, she would have saved both Spike and herself so much pain.

The hallways were busy with SITs coming and going. They all glanced sideways at Spike, staring while trying not to show it. They knew who he was. Vi must have set the grapevine going.

Giles’ office was on the top floor. They took the elevator there and announced themselves to Giles’ secretary. There was a fifteen minute wait before they were formally ushered into Giles’ office which was all dark wood paneling and bookshelves and a huge desk behind which Giles was sitting. The curtains over the leaded windows had been drawn closed in consideration of Spike’s vamp status. Buffy hoped that was a good sign.

Willow and Xander were both there. Willow came running forward at once, beaming, and Xander followed more slowly.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” exclaimed Willow, hugging Spike. Then she let him go hurriedly and stepped back. “But you won’t remember me. I’m Willow. I’ll start work on that memory loss problem right away. We’ll have it fixed for you in no time! Oh, and this is Xander.”

Spike held out a hand and Xander shook it awkwardly. Spike cast an interested glance at Xander’s eyepatch, but didn’t remark on it. The two of them just nodded brusquely to each other, then Xander backed to take a seat to one side of the room, remarkably silent for once. His silence went unnoticed in Willow’s happy chattering.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you, Spike! Where’s that amulet? I really want to take a look at it and see what...”

“It’s gone,” said Buffy. “Spike destroyed it.”

“What? Why? But...”

Spike shrugged. “That Angel ponce said it was his, wouldn’t let it go. Said I was tied to it and had to stay too. So I bust it.”

“A reckless thing to do,” said Giles. “Why am I not surprised?”

Spike gave him a cool, amused look. “Seems you know me.”

“All too well. Do sit down,” said Giles. He hadn’t risen or extended his hand, was still behind his desk. Wanting to be in control, thought Buffy, just like Angel. “What do you intend to do now? Have you any plans at all?”

His tone implied that he didn’t think so.

“Well, he has to get his memory back first,” said Willow quickly. “I’ll work with him on that.”

“I was thinking that you could put him on the payroll, Giles,” said Buffy. “I can’t think of anyone who could train the SITs better. Most of them have never even seen a vamp and they have no idea of what one is capable of. Some of them have been on training runs in London and have staked the odd vamp or demon, but they still don’t really know too much about it. Slaying in a group is not like slaying alone.”

“And Spike was good at training the Potentials before they became Slayers,” Willow nodded. “It’ll be a big job though. We’ve got over three hundred SITs now, nothing like just that handful of Potentials we had before. Vi and Andrew are planning a television commercial that will alert the recently activated Slayers to what they are and what the Council is. That means there’ll be more arriving. You may end up run off your feet, Spike.”

Spike shrugged, not showing even by the tilt of an eyebrow that this was the first he had heard of his working for the Council. Buffy slanted him an apologetic glance and he smiled crookedly.

“Always willing to try anything once. Should be fun. Can always call off the deal if it doesn’t work out.”

“I can’t put these children at risk,” said Giles sternly. “He’s a vamp.”

“He won’t hurt them, Giles.” Buffy looked him straight in the eye. “He’s got a soul, remember?”

Giles’ brows lifted in pointed disbelief. “Does he?”

“Oh, yes. The leader of one of the covens in L.A. looked into that for us. The soul is still there. You can have Willow do a spell to check if you don’t believe me.”

A momentary flash of disappointment went through Giles’ eyes and Buffy was glad she had Bronwen do that check. She had a feeling Giles really would have used that excuse to dust Spike.

“Spike’s more at risk than the girls are,” said Willow, grinning. “I mean, think of it! One poor vamp in the middle of three hundred plus Slayers. Spike, you should be screaming and running!”

Spike laughed. Giles was frowning, his hands clasped in front of his mouth.

“Well, why not?” he said at last. “We’ll try it for a while. Never let it be said that I’m not open-minded.”

Buffy and Spike glanced involuntarily at each other, but managed not to laugh.

“Why don’t you take Spike down and introduce him to the girls, Buffy?” Willow suggested. “The speed the grapevine works around here, there’s probably all sorts of gossip and speculation about Spike flying around. Much of it dangerously wrong.”

“Dangerously?”

“What if some of them think he’s an evil vamp without a soul? Better lay it all out so no one has an excuse to take matters into their own hands.” Willow got a faraway look in her eye. “Vi says they’re all collected down in the main gym.”

“We’ll do that then,” Buffy agreed, getting to her feet. Then she saw that Spike was frowning a little as he looked at Willow. “Um, if that’s okay with you, Spike?”

“What? Oh, sure.” He got hastily to his feet. It was obvious that he had been thinking about something else.

“I’d like to be there too,” said Willow. “But give me about ten minutes, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll take Spike onto the mezzanine.”

Willow was watching Xander slide quietly out of the room. As Buffy and Spike went out the main door, Willow followed Xander through the side door.

She found him sitting in an empty office, his elbows on his knees and his head down.

“Xand, what’s wrong?”

He looked up and Willow saw that there were tears in his one eye.

“Why him, Will? Why’s he the one to come back? Why not Anya?”

“Because he was the one wearing the amulet,” she said gently.

“It just doesn’t seem fair. I mean, she sacrificed her life too.”

Willow pulled up a chair in front of him, sat down and took his hands in hers. “No one knows how these things work, Xand.”

“It’s not that I think anything would happen between Anya and me if she came back. I knew everything was over when I left her at the altar, that she’d never forgive me for that. But it’s not right that she should be dead. She should never have been near the Hellmouth. She was a justice demon. The Hellmouth had nothing to do with her. If we hadn’t been her friends, she wouldn’t have fought the Turok-Han. She got dragged into that whole mess because she cared for us. She didn’t deserve to die. Why didn’t they bring her back too?”

“I don’t know, Xand.”

He turned away, wiping the heel of his hand over his eye. “I’m being stupid. I know that. No one deserves to die. It’s just the breaks. But seeing Spike alive again, it just hit me. You know?”

“I can understand, but...” Willow looked at him worriedly. “Are you going to hold it against Spike that he’s the one who came back?”

Xander shook his head. “No. No. I know it’s not his fault. It’s just that...”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, damn. I should have thought. I’m probably opening some old wounds for you too. Tara...”

“That wound is always open,” Willow said under her breath. “Tara didn’t deserve to die either. But that was my fault.”

Xander jerked around to stare at her. “How is it your fault? It was an accident! Warren Mears just shot blindly into the air and the bullet happened to hit Tara. That’s not your fault!”

“I keep feeling that it’s payback. That resurrection spell that I did on Buffy called for a life. Life for a life, do you see? But I cheated. I took a fawn’s life. I thought I’d gotten away with it, but karma...demands full payment. Maybe Tara died because of me.”

“That not so, Will! That’s your guilt talking! It’s gonna drive you insane if you keep thinking that way!”

“I know. So I try not to think. Try to accept. And not make the same mistake the next time.”

Xander’s head went down again.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he said very softly. “Never really learned from them. Until Anya died. I’ve learned now. I’m not gonna hold Spike’s coming back against him. I swear, Will. I just...It’s just...Why him, Will, and not the others?”

“He saved the whole world by his sacrifice. Maybe that’s the reason. Or maybe it’s not him at all, Xand. Maybe it’s Buffy. Maybe he’s the PTB’s gift for everything Buffy’s done all these years as a Slayer.”

Xander’s mouth fell open. “Spike?”

“Didn’t you know she’s been grieving all these months? Didn’t you ever look at her?”

“I didn’t,” whispered Xander. “I was so caught up in my own...”

“Yeah. We all keep doing that. We never look. We never see.”

“But I thought Angel...”

“What did Angel ever do but hurt her? If she wanted him, she could have gone to him right after the Hellmouth collapsed. Asked me to find a way to stabilize his soul so it wouldn’t disappear if they slept together. With these new abilities, maybe I could have found a way. But she didn’t. She doesn’t want Angel. She wants Spike. She loves him.”

Xander was trying to take it in and clearly didn’t know whether he could accept it or whether he should be upset.

“And now he doesn’t love her because of that memory loss,” said Willow sadly.

“We screwed it up for her. Especially me.” Xander rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m so ashamed. I’d be completely blind right now if he hadn’t stopped Caleb from taking out both my eyes. And that was even after the things I did to him. Like trying to kill him after he slept with Anya. Or telling Dawn about him trying to rape Buffy and putting it in the worst possible light.”

“Yeah, you wanted to cause trouble that time. And you did hurt Spike when you told Dawn that. But you hurt Dawn worse.”

“Does she know he’s back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me tell her.”

“Uh...”

“I need to, Will.” Xander looked at her intensely. “Trust me. I’ll make things right.”

“Okay. You do that.” Willow stood up. “I’ll go and see what Buffy and Spike are doing.”

Spike was looking around warily as Buffy led him down the hall from the elevator towards the main gym.

“Dorms up top and gym down here. Why?”

“Giles didn’t want any outsider wandering in and seeing us training.”

She opened the door to the mezzanine halfway up the two-storey gym wall. The gym took up that entire floor from end to end, more than enough space for the three hundred odd SITs collected there, lounging around and talking. The full-Slayers were also there, all the surviving Potentials, grouped against the wall, close to the mezzanine.

“Our small army,” said Buffy proudly. “And by the time we’re through with them, they’ll be ready to take on any force in the world.”

“Army, huh? Is that why the uniforms?”

“What uniforms?” Then Buffy realized all the girls were wearing the close-fitting jumpsuit that everyone used for training. It was made of a breathable material, but had a shiny surface that gave it a catsuit look that most of the girls liked. Only the colors were different, so she could see what made Spike think it was a uniform.

“Superhero time,” said Spike dryly. “All you need is a big red S in a yellow triangle on the front. At least it’s not Spandex. Otherwise they might get mistaken for Spiderman or the Fantastic Four or something. Do they go outside in those togs?”

“Well, yeah. It’s just like any tracksuit, Spike.” But she remembered Giles encouraging the girls to wear these because he said it would give them a sense of community. Maybe there was some justice to Spike’s crack about uniforms.

Spike was looking amused. “Must stick out like sore thumbs. Do they wear it when they go out slaying?”

It was comfortable, so a lot of the girls did. “I guess.”

“Vamps take one look at that and they’ll haul ass. Word gets around, you know. You might as well be wearing a sign that says, ‘Slayer here, come and get staked.’”

Which might be the explanation for the low dusting rate of the SITs when they were taken out hunting in London.

Buffy sighed. “The next time a bunch of them goes out hunting, they’ll wear regular clothes.”

“Then you’d better train in regular clothes. Trackpants and tanks. Jeans and a tee. Don’t want some dissimilarity that would throw you off. What did you train in, Slayer?”

Trackpants and tanks. Jeans and a tee.

“Why did I never think of that?” she muttered.

“Indoctrination?” he suggested and grinned at the sharp glance she threw him.

The mutter of sound from the gym floor suddenly got louder. Willow had arrived and was looking up at them. The SITs had seen them now and were all staring and whispering and elbowing each other. The full-Slayers smiled.

“Another damn speech,” she muttered. “And I suck at them. Well, here goes.”

She caught Spike’s arm and drew him to stand beside her in full view of the SITs. They all stared at him in silence, their eyes wide and their faces wary and nervous.

“Okay, I’m here to introduce you to someone who’s going to be working with us for a while,” she called, projecting her voice so that they could all hear her. “This is Spike. He’s a vamp. You probably all know that already and you’ve probably all heard conflicting things about him. I don’t know what you’ve heard or what the rumors are. What I’m going to tell you is the truth. If you don’t believe me, talk to the full-Slayers or Willow. They all know him and they were with him in the battle at the Hellmouth.”

She had their full attention now.

“He’s a vamp. And he’s deadly and he’s dangerous. Make no mistake about that. But he has a soul and he’s on our side. He fought for us in the Hellmouth and he died for us there. Without his sacrifice, none of us would have survived. And neither would any other person on the whole planet.”

She saw them glance at the group of full-Slayers for confirmation. Almost all the surviving Potentials were there, except for the few that were away on duty, and they all nodded.

“He doesn’t remember any of that,” she went on. “The amulet which resurrected him took away his memory...”

“We remember!” called someone from the middle of the Potentials.

“Yeah!” others in the group called out.

“Tell them what he did, Buffy!”

She laid it all out for the SITs, what he had done, what he was, and what had happened, the Potentials calling out confirmation every step of the way.

She could feel Spike’s discomfort. He had no trouble meeting challenges head on, but praise embarrassed him. He started to back away unthinkingly and she had to grab him to keep him where he was. The Potentials noticed and laughed a little, their laughter warm and affectionate.

“So no one harms him and no one tries to stake him.” Her gaze went past them to Giles who had now arrived and was standing in the open main doorway of the gym. “Anyone who tries is gonna be very, very sorry.”

“Guaranteed,” called Rona and there was laughter, but also murmurs of agreement from the other Potentials.

“Consider that a warning from all of us,” Vi added. “We’re all Slayers here and we heal fast, but a broken arm’s still a broken arm and very painful for that week you’re in a cast.”

“Or traction,” someone else muttered.

Even the SITs had to laugh at that. Buffy was grinning now, happy with the way things were going.

“He’s going to be training you,” she went on. “Many of you SITs have never even seen a vamp, let alone know what they’re capable of. Spike’s the best fighter I know. If you can keep up with him, you can keep up with any vamp or demon on the planet. You’ll never get better training.”

“So use the opportunity,” said Willow, nodding approvingly at Buffy.

Buffy let out a little breath of relief. At least Willow thought she had gotten everything across. Glancing at the SITs, she thought she had. They all looked more relaxed than they had before, their nervousness now changed to curiosity.

“Let’s go down,” she said to Spike and turned towards the mezzanine’s stairs.

Spike gave her a sudden grin, put one hand on the balcony railing and simply vaulted over to land lightly on the gym floor. It was a challenge. She couldn’t go tamely down the stairs when he had made a demonstration like that. Drama-king. She sighed and vaulted over as well.

The SITs had drawn back, still wary. But the Potentials were all coming forward. They didn’t crowd Spike, just came up to say their names and a few words about their previous acquaintance with him. Every single one of them touched him lightly on sleeve or shoulder, as if, like Buffy and Vi, they all needed to touch to assure themselves that he was real.

“A demonstration might be useful,” Giles said suddenly. “So everyone can see how the two of you measure up against each other.”

Buffy wondered whether he was trying to frighten the SITs by showing what Spike was and could do, or whether he was trying to reassure them that Buffy, the best and most experienced fighter of all of them, could take Spike. She didn’t think he realized how evenly they were matched.

“I don’t know...” she began, frowning.

“Why not?” said Spike. His eyes were vivid with laughter and defiance. Trust Spike never to back away from a challenge. “Let’s do this all out, Slayer. Got your weapon? I’ve always got mine.”

He went into full gameface—yellow eyes, ridges, fangs, the whole deal. Buffy could hear gasps among the SITs, most of whom had never seen the reality of a vamp. She saw the little tight smile of satisfaction on Giles’ face. He wanted them to be afraid of Spike.

“Here, Buffy,” called Willow and tossed her a stake.

Buffy frowned, but the moment the stake touched her hand, her frown vanished and she smiled. Spike glanced at it and Buffy held it out on the flat of her hand so that he could see it clearly. It was the rubber one that the SITs used for training.

“Not going to risk using a wooden one,” she said simply and he smiled.

“Appreciate that, Slayer.”

The SITs backed against the walls of the gym, leaving the center clear for them. She swung the stake with blurring speed at his heart and he blocked it equally fast. Even if his mind didn’t remember, his body did. They were off, throwing punches and kicks at each other, full power and with blinding speed. It had been a long time since they had fought and always before he had held back a little with her, at first subconsciously when he wasn’t aware of his attraction to her, then later consciously when he was. But she had seen him in action fighting demons and she knew what a superb fighter he was. He loved fighting and for a hundred and twenty years he had made an art of it.

It was a real pleasure not to have to hold back, to use her abilities to the fullest. It was exhilarating, this deadly, dangerous dance of theirs. She could see the laughter and enjoyment in his eyes, the rising heat. Fighting always turned both of them on, that necessarily intent focus on each other, the give and take of their movements. Action and reaction. Like making love.

They were moving too fast now to actually see anything coming and block. They blocked by instinct, by the sense of movement and momentum. She wasn’t striking at him now, but at where he would be by the time her fist or her foot arrived. It was a perfection of motion and balance and power, a purity of skill and strength.

She had no idea how the SITs were reacting to this. She could hear gasps and cries, but paid no heed. All her attention was locked on Spike. He was too deadly an adversary to allow her focus to wander even for a millisecond.

She flung herself at him, feet first, her body parallel to the ground. Her feet smashed into his chest, knocking him down, but he only used his position on the ground to try to sweep her legs from under her as she landed. It was a distraction that would allow him to kip back onto his feet while she was avoiding that. She jumped over his legs and came down in a fighting position, expecting to find him on his feet in front of her. But he was still on the ground and his legs came swinging back. One foot hooked around her ankle, the other around the back of her knee. He yanked and she was falling onto the ground herself.

Then she was flat on her back and he was over her, his hands pinning her wrists to the ground.

“Game over, Slayer,” he laughed and bent, his fangs flashing towards her neck.

She heard exclamations of horror and several of the SITs surged forward. The Potentials moved smoothly in between, holding them off.

“He’ll never hurt her,” she heard Vi say.

“You sure about that, luv?” Spike murmured to Buffy. But his gameface was already gone and his fangs had retracted. She just laughed at him.

“I’m sure about that,” she said and raised her head and kissed him.

He made a sound of pleasure in his throat and kissed her back.

“Okay, that’s even hotter than the last time they did that,” Rona remarked and the Potentials all laughed.

Buffy suddenly flipped them both over. The next moment Spike was flat on his back, Buffy was sitting on top of him, and the point of her stake was over his heart.

“Now the game is over, vampire,” she said, then looked up, grinning, at their cheering audience. “Okay, just so you all know. Making out only works with Spike. This vamp’s easily distracted.”

Everyone was laughing now, even Spike. She slid off him, got to her feet and held out a hand. He took it and pulled himself to his feet.

“I’m easily distracted, huh?” he said and yanked at her, taking her by surprise.

She fell against him and his arms swept about her, holding her tilted backwards at such an angle that it was either grab at him for balance or fall on her ass. Her hands caught his shoulders; his arms tightened. Then his mouth was on hers.

There was clapping and laughter. But that was far off and distant. All she was aware of was him.

The kiss meant nothing to Spike, was simply an expression of pleasure and excitement. She knew that. It didn’t matter. Just the taste of him was enough, the feel of him solid in her arms after having thought he was gone forever. She kissed him back helplessly, her mind blanking out to nothing but sensation.

He had always been a wickedly knowledgeable lover, knowing just how to set every nerve in her body on fire. Hating him, resenting him, she had still responded to him. Even when her mind and her body were numb from having been brought back into the world, he had made her feel. She had used him for that, for the feelings, the sensations that she needed to tie her to the world once again. And she had given him nothing back in return, not even a crumb. Only scorn and hatred.

Now his mouth on hers, the thrust and slide of his tongue against hers, his body in her arms, was everything she wanted. She strained against him, up on her toes, her body one rising flame of agonized joy, so sensitized to him that it was both ecstasy and pain at once.

Her eyelids shuddered open and she saw his eyes vivid with amusement and enjoyment above her, the laughter in them underlaid now with a heavy sensuality. She was bent back over the iron bar of his arm at a deliberately theatrical angle that had everyone laughing because it mocked all those movie kisses. But the full length of his body was hard against the full length of hers from breast to knee. She caught her breath with delight.

“You’re something else, Slayer,” he muttered, an intimate purr that only she could hear. “Don’t need that damn amulet. You could burn me into ash all by yourself.”

She saw the pleasure and the heat in his eyes. What she didn’t see was that look—that look that had always been there for her before, the look that said she was the center of his universe. She had always shut that out, rejected it, telling herself that he couldn’t love because he was a vamp, because he had no soul. Now she saw the difference, now when the love wasn’t there, only the desire.

She didn’t care. She meant nothing to him now, but he meant everything to her. She understood finally what he had gone through with her before, loving her and unable to stay away even under the worst of insults, the most complete rejection. She felt that now. And one thing was better for her than it had been for him. At least he didn’t hate her, wouldn’t abuse her as she had hated and abused him. She was spared that.

“Well, now you all know why he’s willing to work with us,” Willow was saying teasingly behind them.

“This has potential, Slayer,” said Spike softly, laughing down at her.

“If you want it,” she said, smiling painfully.

“Oh, I think I want it.”

She’d learned. She wasn’t going to throw away her opportunities this time. She would take whatever she could get.



TBC