The jet descended. Circling the tiny airfield twenty miles from the castle, low enough now that Buffy was easily able to spot the two familiar vehicles she'd really really hoped not to see. The cherry-red convertible. The black SUV with the tinted windows. She glanced at Willow; she'd seen them too.


Spike was in the toilet, washing up.


"Did you tell them all to meet us?" Buffy said.


"Not exactly. But maybe it's better. You can say whatever you want to say to all of them at once. Without the girls crowding around confusing matters."


"What I want to say. I want to say something?"


"I thought you'd have a rousing speech prepared."


"God, is that something I do now? Still? Am I known for my rousing speeches?"


"Just, this occasion ... I figured you had remarks in mind."


Buffy closed her eyes. "Oh I do."


Willow squeezed her hand. "You know I'm totally behind you on this now."


"Yes. Thank you. Frankly—"


"You were surprised. I saw that. But you and Spike aren't the only ones who've changed."


"The changing ... is what has me on tenterhooks." Buffy sighed, and stretched. Spike emerged, his hair and shirt-front damp. Five minutes later, the jet was taxiing into the hanger, out of the sun.






"You know, you guys are just going to get over-ruled. I don't even know why you're bothering with this."


"Dawn."


"Please don't Dawn me, Rupert." She was glad she'd started calling him by his first name. He hadn't invited her to, but apart from doing this funny stuttery eye-of-death thing at her the first dozen times she addressed him that way, Giles hadn't objected. She was practically a grown-up now, and they were practically family; it was long past time she quit calling him Mr Giles. Even if she knew he didn't really like it when anyone called him Rupert.


"Buffy isn't going to over-rule us," Xander said, "because when it comes to the castle, we're a democracy."


"When it comes to Spike though, we are not a democracy."


Both Xander and Giles grimaced, as if on cue. Dawn wanted to laugh. Except none of this was really funny, and she didn't know what was going to get off that plane. The last time Buffy had hauled Spike home, it was ugly. Just about the only thing she was pretty sure of was that Buffy was bound to be in one of her classic bad moods and no matter how they greeted her, she'd be snippy. At best.


Since she'd heard about Spike being alive, amnesiac and crazy, Dawn had been trying to decide what this was going to mean. She'd assumed, right up until the call came from Willow that they were coming in on a Council jet, that she wouldn't actually be seeing him. She hadn't been surprised that Buffy, after initial reluctance, went back to California to help him. Not after how she'd gone into the belly of The First to rescue him back in Sunnydale. Spike was a big fat pain in the neck, but apparently he was her big fat pain; her sister was nothing if not loyal and prone to taking up lost causes. She, Dawn, would be dead if not for that.


But Dawn had assumed Buffy would get him situated out there somehow, and then leave him and come home.


Though really when you thought about it, Buffy was all about bringing psychotic-mixed-up-Spike back into their midst. It was getting to be a pattern.


And she kinda had to do it again, what with him having saved the world. You couldn't take that away from him.


"He saved the world, Xander. You can't take that away from him."


"I should never have exhaled. That was my mistake. As long as I held my breath, that asshole was really dead and gone."


"You know, he's probably thinking the same about you. Except that, oh yeah, he has amnesia. So he doesn't even know you."


"That's right. And it makes an excellent segue into what I'm about to say."


They turned. Buffy was almost on top of them. They'd expected the jet passengers to emerge from the small door off the hanger, but she'd come out the same way the plane went in, and snuck up on them. Behind her, in the shadow cast by the big building, Willow followed, just ahead of Spike.


Dawn didn't want to stare at him, even though she really wanted to stare at him, so she tripped forward and caught her sister in a hug, which allowed her, over Buffy's shoulder, to get a gander.


He looked nearly the same. No older. No less blond. Dressed in a black shirt, blue jeans, boots, just like always. His face was banged up with cuts and bruises, but she'd seen that before too.


The only difference really was that when their eyes met, his held no recognition. Almost no expression.


And that difference was huge.


She'd gotten accustomed, last year, to snubbing Spike. But that he should look right through her, like he'd never seen her before ....


Buffy returned her hug, but only briefly before setting her aside.


"Hey Giles. Xander. I want to introduce you to my friend."


The expression on Xander's face—Giles' too—well, Dawn wished she'd brought a camera. Buffy's expression was familiar—she had on her Look of Grim Determination. She glanced around at Spike, who had come to a stop some fifteen feet away, well short of the border between shade and sun, his hands jammed in his pockets. When she reached a hand towards him, he gave one shake of the head. Buffy, apparently determined to work with that, turned back to the others. "This is William Pratt. He's a bit leery of meeting you because he's getting that you're not that anxious to meet him. But that's gonna change now. Will, meet Xander Harris, Rupert Giles, and Dawn Summers."


Giles cleared his throat. "Buffy, it's the determination of the Council that—"


Xander interrupted. "He doesn't come into the castle."


If Buffy's eyes could shoot laser beams, Giles and Xander would've been smoking piles of carved-up meat. She stalked closer, grabbing them each by an arm, pulling them away, beyond Spike's earshot. Dawn followed. Willow, glancing anxiously at Spike, gesturing to him, left him in the shadow and joined their circle, out in the late afternoon light.


Buffy was pale, Dawn noticed, like she hadn't slept in days, like she'd been fighting hard. Now she was closer to her, really looking, Dawn saw that she had bruises of her own, on her face, on her fists. That turtleneck was probably meant to hide more, though if she thought she was fooling anybody with it, she was kidding herself.


Buffy pitched her voice low and emphatic. "I hope I only need to say this once. Whatever residual hatred, dislike, mistrust, anger, whatever, you have for Spike, you need to put it aside now. For one thing, without his memory, he's a stranger to all of you—a stranger who deserves your hospitality, kindness and respect. All the bad things Spike ever did weren't done by this man. He doesn't remember anything that happened before a few days ago. What he's gleaned about his back-story repulses him. He merits the same open-minded welcome as any boyfriend I might bring back for you guys to meet." Buffy paused, giving each of them a hard look. "If he doesn't get it, I walk."


Xander blinked his one eye. "Boyfriend? Please tell me you didn't just say boyfriend."


"I said boyfriend. We're involved. You'd better deal."


Dawn wished she had a pause button for this scene, or better still one of those 7-second replay buttons like on the DVR, so she could blip back and hear it again. Hear her sister say ....


"So now you're in love with Spike?" She hadn't meant to blurt. But she had to hear it. It felt so Through the Looking Glass.


Buffy tucked her chin down, that sort of defensive stance she took when answering threats from towering demons, or asserting her right to the last donut in the box. "In fact, I am."


"No," Xander said. "No. This is not happening. Buff—"


"You know what's not happening, Xander? You delivering a tirade of your objections. I know what they are. They've expired. Get over it."


"Anya—"


Giles silenced Xander's riposte with a cut of his hand.


Xander crossed his arms. "He doesn't come into the castle. This isn't just me talking. It's the consensus of the slayers."


"I'm bringing him home," Buffy said. "Are you telling me the castle isn't my home?"


"You guys. Don't you think you're being kinda rigid?" Willow laid a hand on Xander's arm. "This is Buffy. We know what happens when we try to second-guess her, right? That never works out."


Xander's lip curled. "Willow. Et tu?"


"C'mon, Xander. You're always saying you hope Buffy will find someone and be happier. She has."


"Spike isn't someone Spike is a festering sore that keeps breaking out no matter what you do to it."

Buffy said, "I can't believe this," in the low reasonable tone that indicated she was in a fury. "Giles, you could say something adult and sensible any time now."


"Buffy. While I respect your ... loyalty, and good-heartedness, even towards an old enemy ... and while I don't deny Spike was of vital assistance in the final battle of Sunnydale, all the intelligence since indicates that he'd joined Angel's rogue organization in L.A. A branch of Wolfram & Hart. I've explained to you what Wolfram & Hart represents."


"I think you're wrong about that. I don't believe for a second that Angel or Spike lost the mission."


"What you believe is simply not commensurate with the facts."


"Like the weapons of mass destruction? That was supposed to be the best intelligence too. Giles, there is absolutely no reason to be suspicious of Spike, he's--"


"Amnesiac, yes. At the moment. Also unstable and recently psychotic. I had quite a detailed report from the L.A. slayers. And what happens when he recovers his memory? You don't really know which side he's on. Think of the Trojan horse."


"Hello, soul? Sought out and fought for? Amends made? Supreme world-saving sacrifice done entirely of his own free will? Returning to the mission with Angel after the supreme sacrifice? Getting his poor mind torn apart in another apocalyptic battle? How many times does he have to prove himself to you before you really start to look awfully mingy, Giles?"


Dawn didn't want to listen to anymore. It made her dislike them too much, and that hurt, especially since lately she'd been liking Xander again a lot. And wasn't it mean to stand here arguing in a clump with Spike waiting nearby like the ostracized kid on the playground?


When she approached him, he lifted his head, chin jutting out in that nervy way she remembered. Dawn smiled. "Hey. Hi."


"You're the sister. Buffy's sister."


"Dawn. My name's Dawn." Awkward, she thrust a hand out. He stared at it, catching up, then took and shook it. His hand was white and bloodless even for Scotland, where most of the people in the village near the castle shared the pallor of the undead. And his flesh was cold, even though it was summer here, the end of a rather warmish day in fact. Cold as if in response to the cold reception. "I'm so glad to see you again, Spike."

Her face flooded with heat as she said it. It was like a stupid ice-breaking game, or an improv exercise, talking to him as if they didn't know each other, as if they hadn't watched night after night of TV Land reruns together, painting each other's fingernails black, scarfing pizza, arguing, playing hearts for a penny a point. For a whole long summer, you were my sitter. You were my friend. You took care of me.


"How d'ye do."


"Good, I'm good. Uh ... okay flight?" She wanted to tell him that she was sorry she'd never talked to him, at the end, never made a point of clearing the air. I hated you because you hurt my sister, you hurt Xander, you hurt me, you messed everything up and then you abandoned us. And I should have forgiven you later but I was sixteen and selfish and angry. Please tell me it's all right. She couldn't spill all that, not here on the tarmac of the little airport, with her sister arguing with the others just out of earshot.


"Was all right. Never flown before." He frowned. "That I know about. You feature her. Your sister."


"Um. Thank you."


"Yeah." He scraped a boot toe back and forth on the ground. "She's lovely, is Buffy."


Yes. Thank you." Her sister had said she was in love with this bizarro-Spike, who didn't remember her, and this was incredibly weird and improbable, as if she'd turned up saying she was in love with the old man at the village post office, who made a snotty sound in the back of his throat while he counted out your stamps.


Anyway, how could you be in love with someone who didn't remember anything before last week? It was like a philosophy problem. Interesting to think about, but hard to actually do.


Though it was like Buffy, who was nothing if not perverse and kooky, to finally fall for Spike when he was too brain-damaged to know that was what he'd wanted all that time.


Another thought came to her. Presumably, being in love with Spike, she'd been doing it with him over the last few days. This intruded on her consciousness twinned with what Xander had told her last year, that Spike was gone because he'd tried to rape Buffy, would have raped her if Buffy wasn't the slayer, and anyway the intent was the same as the deed, in a case like that.


She'd never thought Buffy would want anything to do with Spike, in that way. For a while after Buffy's resurrection, she'd fantasized that Spike would win Buffy, they would get together and he'd move in. She wanted it not so Buffy could have a boyfriend, but so they'd be a sort of family, taking care of her, two almost grown-ups she could pretend were her parents, the way at school sometimes a gang of girls got together and pretended to be each others aunts and cousins and sisters. But that was a long time ago.


Dawn glanced around. How long was this haggling going to go on, before Buffy made a Plan B?


And if Buffy wasn't going to go back to the castle, should that mean that she, Dawn, should stay with her?


They'd have to spend the night at the Travelodge out by the A road. Dawn wrinkled up her nose at the thought. Spike looked miserable, still digging at the ground with his toe, just like someone at the wrong party who wanted to die.


Dawn opened her mouth, hoping she could come up with the right thing to say, when the Scoobie scrum broke. Xander tossed the keys of the SUV to Willow, and stalked off towards the red car. Giles said a few more words to Buffy, before doing the same; when he reached it, he turned to peer back at Spike, his face tight and expressionless. The men drove away.


Willow and Buffy came back to them. Buffy slipped a hand through Spike's arm.


"Where we goin', then?" Spike said.


"To the castle. Home. Willow, can you pull the car up into the shade so we can get in?"