Even though she'd put him into a trance—he went under more easily than she'd thought—this wasn't like going into Buffy's mind when she was catatonic. That time, she'd found herself in the midst of the tight little loop playing out over and over in her friend's head, the loop that had to be broken through to get her back to reality.

In Spike's mind was nothing like that.

Even in a hypnotic state, her first entrance was like stepping out a door into a sandstorm, except the sand was sharp-edged pixels, a storm of imagery and sensation that cut at her like flying glass.

Spike ... take it easy. Try to relax. At first there didn't seem to be a Spike in here, not one she could see and address as she had when she went into Buffy's mind.

Am relaxed. Go on an' look.

He was doing everything he could, whether willfully or unconsciously, to drive her out. He, or ... something.

Willow pushed forward. In the midst of this chaos, there had to be something recognizable.

She would look for something familiar, something positive, as a starting point.

Buffy.

A mad relentless delirium of sensation and feeling coalesced out of the jagged havoc, everything superimposed and super-immersed, smells and flavors even more vivid than visuals, feelings and reactions that were also colors and aromas and tastes, gathering, snowballing, a sensory and emotional tsunami. All at the same time, her face was buried in Buffy's wet heaving pussy, her cock too, fucking it, while her mouth was at once flooded with Buffy's hot blood, her twining tongue, her sobbing breaths; there was worship and passion, keen and enveloping, laced with acrid tangs of anger, unease. Buffy's keening voice filling her ears, her body flexing and straining all around her, hands wrapped in her hair, groping and caressing, a wild fluttering galloping intense urgency building and crashing, not just once but over and over, all different, all simultaneous.

The hail of sex spun away suddenly, giving way to Buffy's face, thousands of Buffy's faces kaleidoscoping, every imaginable expression, popping and flashing all around, the cacophany of each face's speech making a crackle of undifferentiated sound, emotion roiling.

Everything Spike was trying not to think about, trying to keep hidden and private, rushed at Willow in full-immersion sensarround.

And anything she'd ever furtively imagined or tried not to imagine about her friend's most intimate attributes ... well, there was very little left to wonder.

She had to take a moment to suppress her embarrassment and set her own mind in order, before proceeding. The waves of him were so strong, ceaseless. Okay, Spike. Onward. Let me see something older than the last few weeks.

Willow pushed on. Trying to find some thread that would lead back to the origin of the problem, to L.A.

And then she was there. In the alley, reeking of death and magical residue. Seen through Spike's mind, it was at once vast and tight, terrifying, mysterous, even as she could see every brick, every piece of detritus, in the dark. There was no one else there. When she tried to nudge him backwards, to find the battle, the open portals whose evidence she'd detected, there was nothing. Her attempts to wrench some clear meaning out of the assault of impressions set up an inner howling that spiraled, louder and louder, the sand-pixels returning to envelope her in burning stinging grit. She could go no further, because there was no further. Only a wall. His mind a kind of box, it's borders fiercely defended.

Turning, she tried another direction. Bullets hit her, passed through her body, each a sear of agony that didn't keep her from rushing forward, tackling the man with the gun. Jumble and flurry of sensation around this, pain like she'd never known, comfort at Buffy's hands; Buffy's sweetness radiating everywhere like the energy off a star. Buffy's kisses a whole universe.

Willow paced off the confines of Spike's mind. The depths were infinite, every minute impression, every layer of consciousness bathed in fiercely-felt emotion, confusion and wonder, love and fear, reliance and frustration.

But all there was, was recent. All she could find of the things of the past were pictures he'd seen in books, and little shards of experience, disconnected from their context, jagging up to pierce her consciousness.

It was a hard harsh place, Spike's mind, everything subjected to aggressive doubt, aggressive judgment. She came upon herself, hood-eyed, scheming, power streaming off her in dark purple sheets.

Pulling out an immense relief. It would be hard to look either Spike or Buffy in the eye for a day or two. Way too much information. She was eager to go off alone and meditate herself back to clarity.

"Okay, uh, that wasn't what I expected." Her voice emerged shaky; she cleared her throat. No point letting the others in on her shock.

Spike was sagging in his chair, white-knuckling the armrests. Buffy bent over him, laying gentle fingers on his temples. "Does it hurt, sweetheart?"

"Not too bad."

Giles: "What did you learn, Willow?"

"That's the thing. Nothing new. There's nothing I can access that goes beyond what Spike's told us. There's nothing there prior to what we know about, when Buffy went to L.A. and they returned to the alley. Or if it is there, it's completely blocked off. This could be an extreme kind of PTSD. Or it could be something else doing it. I don't know."

"That mean you can't hex me back to myself?"

"Not necessarily. It just means that ... well, it means that whatever I try is going to be dangerous, because I'll be flying blind. I can't guarantee the results. You need to think about that before you decide to go ahead."

Willow could see why he was so eager. How the confines of that concentrated place, just a few weeks' worth of experience, churning around and around on itself, tantalizing and withholding ... well, if it was her, she'd want a way out. She'd never really thought about how all those memories she took for granted, going back to earliest childhood days, were a cushion for the present. Without them, everything could be too raw. Too exposed.

Buffy's gaze was like a harsh light in her eyes. "What could happen?"

"Well, that's the thing. I don't know. Any spell I could do that would uncloak what's hidden in Spike's psyche could bring back everything, or only some of it. Or it could ... change him."

"Change him how?" The question a backhanded slap to the face.

"Take it easy, Buffy. I don't want to make this worse. I'm just trying to give an adequate warning, that ... this is really uncharted territory. There's no one with a lot of experience in this, especially not when it comes to vampires. I've been checking around."

"Checkin' around. Bloody great. Keen to be the big test case."

"You can take as much time as you need to decide," Giles said.

Willow watched him, watched the little shades of expression flicker at the corners of his lips, his eyes. How different, how subtle, compared to the tempest of his inner life. If Buffy knew how he experienced her—the stark contradictions, the visceralness—would she still feel the same way about him? Or was it that very intensity, inhuman, superlative, that drew her to him?

Spike got to his feet. "How d'you feel about it, Miss Witch? You confident? Or you privately dreadin' that you'll make me into a worse muddle than I already am?"

"There's no success without risk. I've learned that."

"I really don't like the sound of that," Buffy said.

Spike put a hand on her shoulder. "Though you know it better'n any of us, don't you?"

Buffy went up to Willow. "Tell me if this is something you can't do. There's no shame in it. Just be honest."

"All I can tell you is that I've got spells that could work. I'm confident of my ability to do these spells, and do them right. It's just the ultimate results that are ... open to question."

"Just!"

Spike handed his tumbler to Giles. "Will have another, if you would be so kind." When he took the glass back, Spike said, "An' you? What would you do?"

"Willow has, over the years, proven herself extremely capable."

Buffy stalked up to them, her eyes flashing. "Spike, I think we should talk about this alone."

He drank; took his time. "Nothin' more to talk about, pet. Gonna go through with it. Got no choice."