He jerked, and flew—

—and fell.

Pitch blackness. He struggled, felt the sheet rip around his legs.

Bed. He was in a bed.

Loose-spined. Wet where he'd spent onto his own belly.

Lamp on, the room resolved. His little chamber off the kitchen, warm and smelling of bread and whiskey.

Buffy's warmth, her voice, melted through his mind's fingers, ungraspable. Beyond that a dark sense loomed, some grave danger postponed, misplaced, forgotten about. He leapt up—had to find it. Some fire set going somewhere, fire in the rain. Pulling up his trousers, he ran, barefoot, out through the deserted kitchen, out into the hall. There was no one about. A cry clogged his throat, but he held it back—to cry out might unleash the horrible thing that lowered across his mind, the shadow of disaster. He'd find it first. Try to extinguish it and—

Rounding the corner he collided hard, head cracking, bouncing back, down on his bum.

Scrambled up. Buffy was a little slower, hands crossed on her nose.

"What're you doin'? C'mon, help me find it!"

"Help you—what?" He pulled her up by one arm; she shied away along the wall.

"C'mon!"

"Spike—what—where are you going?"

"Got to—it's—something ...." He couldn't feel it anymore. The harsh urgency dissipated, spent like the dried spunk crusted on his belly. "Sorry, I ... maybe I had a nightmare."

She was backing away, like something scared her. He went to her, pulled her hands down to reveal her face. The inner corners of both eyes were black, her nose and lip shadowed in bruises. "Bloody hell—when did that happen, pet?"

He couldn't fathom her expression—she seemed to be caught in a bad dream herself. "You ... you broke my nose."

"I did? When?"

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Spike—what is this?"

"What's—? Dunno. Woke up and ...." Only now did it strike him as odd that he'd been sleeping again in the little room, and not up in the tower with her. "Pet, did we have a quarrel?"

He didn't know why she burst into tears, or why, when he tried to take her in his arms, she resisted. When he reached for her again, she struck him—an open-handed thump on the chest.

"What is this?" Buffy cried. "Where are you now? Where are you?"

"Love—I'm right here."

She let him take hold of her then. Wet eyes open wide, searching his face.

"You want to tell me what's got you so upset?"

"No. No, that might take too long. Come, this one's closer. Hurry!"

She pulled him, yanked him, running, half backwards, not letting go, pushing him down onto the disordered little bed he'd just risen from, swarming over him, pressing kisses on his mouth like a drowner gulping for air. The pressure of each kiss he returned against her bruised flesh made her flinch, but she took each new one on a fresh gulp of air.

He rolled her over, wriggling out of his trousers, pulling up her nightgown. She was moaning, one long continuous moan, pain and desire. The moaning stopped when he entered her. She held her breath for a long stroke, her arms quivering taut around his shoulders.

"Do you love me?"

"Do I—?"

"Say it."

"I'm yours, pet. My little darling. Love."

"Say it!"

"Love you, Buffy. Course I do. Haven't I always?"



She cried again a little when it was over, her face against his neck. He petted her hair, wondering at her.

"Suppose I've lost myself again," he ventured. "Things're fuzzy even now."

"Oh Spike." She sighed, and pressed closer to him, shivering. "What's ... what's the last thing you remember? Before you went to sleep?"

She sounded like she didn't want to know, and he realized he didn't want to know either. Remembering, piecing together, it was too much trouble, when he was warm and sated with her in his arms.

But because it was her, he tried. "There was ... there was all those crocks to wash, with lasagna baked into 'em. Took a couple hours."

"Lasagna?"

"No?" He didn't want to disappoint, now he was making the effort.

"Spike, that was days ago."

"Guess it would be. I'm sorry pet."

"You don't remember deciding that you were ready for Willow to do a memory spell?"

"Did I?" He tried to concentrate, but having come with her three times, he was overwhelmingly drowsy; it didn't feel important. "Maybe I recall that a bit. Yeah. A bit." He slipped off, on a thought of Willow's scent, herbs and the particular tang of redhead sweat, distinctive and acrid.

A sharp tug at his nipple woke him. "Spike—!"

"Didn't work then, did it? The spell?"

"I don't know. No. You ... you keep changing."

"A change's as good as a rest."

"What?"

He breathed her in, burrowing his nose into her hair. The fog was rising up to meet him; he wanted to disappear into it with her. They'd be safe there.

Buffy said, "We shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have. I'm supposed to be strong, but you make me ... you make me so desperate. I'm sorry."

"Wanted it, didn't I? S'all right, pet."

"No, it isn't. You're not stable, and you ...." She pulled away then, exposing his bare moist flesh to the cold air. She was crying again, grabbing up her nightgown from the top of the bookcase, keeping her back to him.

He struggled to stay awake. He didn't like this, but it seemed important.

"Where're you goin'?"

"This is too much—!"

"Don't leave me. Buffy. Don't leave me alone."

She turned then. She'd gone pallid beneath the bruises, eyes glassy and unfocused. "Spike, I know now—you wouldn't want this. I knew it and still I—"

"Who wouldn't? I do. Buffy." He was too logy to lift his head, but he reached for her, a hand stretching out.

"The real Spike. I'm seen him. He was here."

"Dunno him. Don't go an' leave me. My head aches."

She came then, to perch on the edge of the bed; let him twine his fingers in with hers. She touched his forehead, as if to test for fever, or maybe to soothe the ache; through the mounting pain, he couldn't tell. He couldn't really see her very well anyway, she seemed to be getting very distant, her voice blurring out into a wordless hum.

The fog was all around him now, and she was gone.



He'd dreamt of her, so vividly that he believed he could smell her intimate aromas on his hands, on the pillow. Another trick of the mind, or of the devil that was playing with him. Was Angel also tucked up in a narrow bed up some out-of-the-way wormhole, smelling his bygone love on his fingers?

It smacked of Wolfram & Hart; it was the kind of thing they'd do. Fond they were of sticking a fellow up the junction, making things just pleasant enough that every fresh disembowling would spell real agony, and not merely the physical kind.

But if that was the game, he was going to disappoint them. Because the girl was nothing special to him anymore, she was old news, and if Wolfram & Hart were that out of touch as to think he was nothing more than the same old love's bitch who'd been out for nothing higher than the pretty wench's approving smile, then maybe the Old Man really had rocked their foundations before he died.

And if he, Spike, was the only one remaining, well he'd strike at them again himself before he joined Angel in hell. No matter what it took.

He lay still for a few moments, breathing in the illusionary fug of sex. He hadn't meant to sleep so long—it felt like a long time. But they'd robbed him of his sense of time, his orientation sent spinning wildly, so he might be upside down and backwards for all he could tell. The backs of his eyeballs ached, and he was fiercely hungry.

Physical need made him impatient now.

He'd already had his last day, downed his last feed. The redundancy of this offended him.

But ... it was good to see the niblet. Good to see she'd grown up sweet and smart and happy, even if she was just a projection they'd scooped out of his mind.

What was the key to this castle, what would smash the illusion and set him free?

On the other side of the door, girls' voices, clang of pots and cutlery. He rose, had a good wash, dressed again in the sedate clothes. He'd better avoid Dawn. She was part of the entanglement. The catch to spring would be somewhere else.



"He's getting more and more unstable, Will."

Willow sat up, switched on the lamp. She wasn't sure how long Buffy had been sitting at the foot of her bed, her legs curled under her. It was getting light outside.

"And I did something really stupid. Not just stupid. Wrong."

"What did you do?" She sat forward, took Buffy's hand. Which was dry, the skin feeling stretched and shrunken like she'd gone without water for days.

Buffy told her, how, unable to sleep, to sit still, and despite knowing it was a bad idea, she'd gone down to check on Spike. And ran into him, collided, literally, in a corridor. "And he was different again—he was the one who ...."

Willow nodded.

"And he was disoriented, but did I let that stop me? No. I seized the moment. And afterwards he was even more out of it, and he fell into this sort of trance ... I couldn't wake him. He was like a rag doll." She plucked at the bedclothes. "I'm afraid we're losing him. He's fragmenting."

"We have to take him back to the alley. Whatever this is, it began there, and I don't think I can fix it anywhere else."

"You still think there's anything you can do?"

Buffy was distant, aloof, her face half-turned away, but as she seemed to float on the edge of indifference, her fingers tore at the blanket, working a big hole in the weave. Willow caught her hands.

"Buffy, stop. It's all right, you ... yeah, you probably shouldn't have slept with him."

"There's no excuse. I wasn't supposed to be doing awful things like this anymore. I was suppose to have grown up past that."

"I know how he makes you feel, I know how hard this is for you."

"It isn't hard for me, it's hard for him. He's the one who's suffering, and I just make it worse."

"We're doing everything we can to help him. We'll go to L.A. today—in a little while."

"He was agitated and out of it but when he took me in his arms, he was happy too. But he was so out of it, he was like ... like a little kid. Just trusting me. I knew I should leave him be, but I thought this might be the last time I'd have him. The one who's mine. Because when he's back in control of himself ... he made it clear. I'm nowhere."



Author's Note: Posting fic as I write it is a kind of high-wire act. When it's going well, it's a wonderful high to keep the story spinning day by day. But when I find that I've taken the story off the rails, I have to redact material I've already posted. that's the case with this fic. Because of the nature of the posting interface here, rather than redact the sections I've rethought, I've taken down the material that was posted here originally as chapters 48 to 64; I'll be replacing it with revised chapters.

For future reference, the redacted chapters are still available for viewing at my insanejournal fic site, here.