Xander slowly, painfully struggled to his feet in the dimly lit alley behind the police station, a part of him unable to believe the brutality he had just witnessed -- *received* -- at the hands of his best friend. But another part of him, the Spike-part of him, was accepting of it, berating himself for his stupidity in speaking to her with such familiarity, such affection, when he knew how she hated it.

He had brought it on himself, through his unwanted love for her. He simply cared too much for his own good.

He had only been trying to help her, only wanted to keep her from throwing her life away over something that was at the very worst a tragic accident. The way time had been shifting and spinning around them during the whole incident, could they really even be sure *what* had happened? That it was even Buffy’s fault at all?

So when he had seen her heading toward the police station, knew what she was planning to do, he had been determined to stop her. The entire time, he had used no more physical force than was absolutely necessary to keep her from getting past him to the police station entrance.

That was why it caught him off guard, a painful shock, when she unleashed her fury upon him, knocking him to the ground and beating him viciously with her fists until he was dizzy and fighting for consciousness and barely able to move. Then, she had stepped over him like so much garbage in her way, going on into the police station without a second glance.

He had seen her leave a few minutes later, knew that she had not turned herself in, and the part of him that was conscious that none of this was really real was stunned at the relief born of Spike’s genuine love for Buffy, the relief that she had not, in fact, thrown her life away.

Xander knew that as much as he loved Buffy, his affection for her would probably not have survived such savage abuse. He would have said, “Forget it, do what you like. I’m done,” and left her to her own devices.

Actually, if he was truly honest with himself, he would have done that long before the alley.

Nearly an hour later, when he could find the strength to rise, he stood there, overwhelmed with sorrow and pain at her cruelty. He loved her so much, he tried his best to help her, but she had proven clearly that his very life meant nothing to her. Even when she had left the police station, she had made no move to check the damage she had caused, to see how he was at all.

She really, truly didn’t care.

And that hurt a thousand times more than the beating.

“How’re you holding up?” Anya asked him, reaching out an arm to steady him as he lurched forward, still dizzy from too many blows to the head.

“Anya,” he gasped, barely able to see her through the spots of color that danced before his eyes. “I had no idea…*Buffy* did *this*?”

Anya nodded slowly, sympathetically. “There was a lot you didn’t see, Xander. A lot that went before that night in the bathroom.”

“Buffy told me there was,” he admitted, swallowing hard, choking back the tears that rose in his throat at the emotional, rather than the physical, agony of the incident. “But I didn’t think she could possibly have done anything like…like *this*.”

“Neither did Spike. Until she did,” Anya pointed out.

“But…I….*he*…still loved her. Even now…I just want to go to her and make sure she’s all right…I’m worrying about whether or not she’s going to change her mind and go back in there…whether or not she’s going to be okay.” Xander wondered at Spike’s continued love for Buffy, in spite of the incident, in spite of every lesser one that had preceded it, as Anya had shown him.

“There was only one moment when Spike didn’t put Buffy first,” Anya said softly. “And he regrets it to this day.”

For once, Xander didn’t have a snide or derogatory comment to make. Oh, he still found Spike’s behavior in the bathroom that night completely wrong and without excuse. But…in light of so many things he had seen tonight…perhaps not unforgiveable.

“And that’s where we’re headed next,” Anya continued quietly, reaching out to touch him again.


Buffy sat once again by Spike’s bedside, frowning with concern at his still-sleeping form, the cordless telephone in her hand. They had gone to sleep early that morning, and she had woken up in the early afternoon. All the rest of that day, Spike had not awakened for more than a few minutes at a time, always sinking back into sleep within a very short time of waking. Thinking that perhaps he just needed more rest, she had gone to bed that night without too much concern.

But when the following morning came and went, and most of the afternoon, and still he went on in the same manner, she began to grow concerned. Tara had said that he would be drained, but this seemed a little extreme. That was when she decided to call her. If anyone would know what was happening, it was Tara.

She anxiously waited for an answer. One ring. Two. Thr…

“Hello?”

“Tara,” she said without introduction. “I think something’s wrong. Can you come over here?”

“Um, sure, Buffy,” Tara sounded a little worried. “What’s going on?”

“He’s still sleeping. He’s only been awake for like ten minutes since we did the spell. That can’t be normal…can it?” she asked, her rising fear evident in her voice.

There was a short pause, before Tara spoke again, sounding more worried than before. “No, I don’t think it is, Buffy. I’m gonna look through our books over here, check for any potential side effects I might have missed, and head on over there, okay?”

“Okay. Please hurry. Just bring your books, we can look here,” Buffy suggested, her voice trembling a little. She had really hoped that Tara would tell her that it was what she had expected, nothing to worry about. The fact that the gentle, soft-spoken witch seemed scared just sent Buffy closer to the edge of panic.

A part of her couldn’t believe that she was actually offering to help with a research task. But she knew that she would rather be actively looking for an answer than sitting here in the bedroom doing nothing, waiting for Tara to find one.

Tara seemed to understand that, because she was at Buffy’s house in less than fifteen minutes, and the two girls sat on the floor in the bedroom, going through Tara’s spell books, looking for anything that might help.

After a little while, Tara sighed and looked up at Buffy with sad, apologetic eyes. “I think I might have made a mistake, Buffy,” she said softly.

“You did the spell *wrong*?” Buffy said in a low voice of angry disbelief.

“No, no!” Tara was quick to correct her misunderstanding, the defensive anger in Buffy’s eyes making her even more nervous than usual. “I did the spell right. The thing is…the spell’s written to be used on someone who’s…well…a lot healthier than Spike is right now.”

“It’s a *healing* spell,” Buffy pointed out, each word slow and pronounced “How can it be written to be used only on *healthy* people?”

“Not healthy, Buffy.” Tara’s voice was quiet, gentle. “Healthier than *Spike*.” She paused, allowing that to sink in. “I guess he’s just a lot worse off than we’d thought. His…his *emotional* health is more important than his physical health for something like this. The kind off pain he’s been through…and then suddenly being pulled out of it…dramatic changes like that, even for the good, can sap your psyche of its energy,” she explained. “So…while someone else might recover quickly and be up to normal strength in a couple of days…it took a lot more than that out of Spike.”

“So how long is it gonna take?” Buffy asked, more impatiently than she meant to.

It really wasn’t Tara’s fault, though her instinct reaction was to blame her. She knew deep down that Tara could not have known just how terribly Spike’s ordeal had weakened him. With seething fury rising slowly inside her, she reminded herself that the one truly to blame was not Tara, but Warren.

“I don’t know,” Tara admitted timidly. “The thing is…it took a lot of energy out of him to perform the spell. In a normal person, it would have taken most of their energy. If this is working the way I think it is…it must have taken…well, just about *all* of Spike’s…to heal his legs completely.”

“What are you saying?” Buffy asked, her voice trembling with an anger born of fear. “Are you saying he might not have enough left to get better at all?”

Tara did not answer for a moment, then nodded reluctantly.

Buffy drew in a deep, painful breath, burying her face in her hands.

“Unless,” Tara began hesitantly, then stopped.

“Unless what?”

“Well…did you talk to Spike? About what we talked about? Slayer’s blood?” Tara asked her, sounding a bit uncomfortable, as if she felt that the question was really too personal to be asking.

Buffy sighed. “I did. And he said he didn’t want to take my blood.”

“Well…if he knows it’s his only chance,” Tara shrugged uncertainly, her voice small and sad. She obviously was blaming herself for this.

Buffy wasn’t quite ready to let her off the hook for it yet, herself.

“Maybe,” she said slowly, though she really didn’t think Spike would want to do it, even now. A part of her rebelled against the difficult decision she had made before, to leave the matter in Spike’s hands, regardless of what was best for him. At the moment, she didn’t care what he wanted; she just wanted him to get well.

But she remembered his heartfelt plea the night she had first suggested it, and knew in her heart that she couldn’t go against his wishes. All he had asked her for since he’d been back was the power to make this one decision for himself; she couldn’t possibly bring herself to take that back from him, even now.

“Maybe if I talk to him…next time he wakes up,” she said quietly. “I can get him to see that it’s the only way.”

“It might be, Buffy,” Tara pointed out, her voice soft and cautious. “The only way.”


There was nothing to be done – no words of apology or remorse to make this right. There was no absolution, no forgiveness to be found, ever, for the terrible thing he had done. Panicked, Xander fled the bathroom, simply unable to face her stricken, tear-soaked face, both the accusation and the evidence of his crime.

Up until the very last moment, the moment she had found the strength to kick him away from her into the wall, he had been firmly convinced in a part of his mind that deep down, she really did want him. Many times before, times Anya had shown him, she had said no to begin with, and then changed her mind, given in to her true feelings, in the end. He had been certain that this time would prove to be no different.

But it *was* different. She had told him to stop. Asked him, *begged* him to stop – and he had been deaf to her cries. And she *had* meant it. She had said no and truly meant it, and he had ignored her until she forced him to hear.

And now *everything* was different.

*Oh, God! Oh, God, what have I done?* he thought, consumed with a mind-numbing, paralyzing sense of panic. He had really only meant to talk to her, to apologize, when he had gone to her house. Then, he had tried to make her get past her determination to shut him out, to bury her true feelings and turn him away.

But he had been so wrong about her “true feelings”. And he had made the worst mistake of his life.

He ran back to the crypt, distraught, desperate, nearly out of his mind with guilt and fear. This no longer felt like a recreation at all. This felt horribly, painfully real.

“Xander.” Anya spoke softly, urgently from the place where she stood, just inside the crypt, waiting for him as he entered. She was looking at him in concern, obviously troubled by his emotional state.

“Oh, God, Anya,” he sobbed. “I didn’t want it to happen like that! I didn’t mean to do it!” He held out his hands to her, pleading for her understanding, for forgiveness that was not hers to offer.

“I know,” she whispered. In spite of herself, in spite of the fact that Xander was *supposed* to be suffering, she went to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. She just couldn’t bear to see him in so much pain, and the fact that she was responsible for it smote her heart.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he sobbed, falling to his knees in front of her on the concrete floor. “I never wanted to hurt her! I love her so much!”

“I know.”

Suddenly he looked up at her, his eyes wide, and full of a clarity that told her that at least the pain he was going through was worth something. At least it was accomplishing its purpose. “He really loved her – even then – didn’t he?” he gasped through the tears.

She nodded slowly, blinking back her own tears. It was just such a painful, complicated situation. This was quite possibly the only way that Xander would ever have been able to understand Spike’s perspective – to actually feel it for himself.

“It – it all just got to be – so much – he just sort of – broke,” he whispered, the realization slowly coming to him though the pain he felt as his own, though he knew it really wasn’t.

“He never…*intended* to hurt her,” he went on in genuine surprise. It was the opposite of what he had always assumed to be true. He had always believed that Spike didn’t really care about Buffy beyond wanting her physically, and had only intended to use her and hurt her all along.

He had been so very wrong.

“Anya,” he sobbed, as she knelt in front of him, putting her arms around him though she knew it was sort of bending the vengeance rules. After all, Spike had had no one to hold him in the midst of his pain. “I get it now, Anya. I understand! Oh, God, I was so wrong!”

Anya said nothing, afraid if she tried she would break down in tears herself. His words were only making what she knew she had to do next that much harder. Because although she had chosen to carry out Dawn’s wish in a way that would teach Xander a lesson, help him to possibly find some redemption for his cruelty, while avoiding causing him any permanent harm; the point was not the lesson he would learn. Anya was bound to carry out the vengeance – the true purpose of the wish.

And Xander *didn’t* really understand, though he truly believed that he did. Not completely. Not yet.

But he would. Soon.

“You still have one more place to go, Xander,” she told him softly, sorrowfully. “And it’s the worst yet.”

He didn’t say anything, just sobbed in her arms, clinging to her desperately. The idea that she was the only thing making this even remotely bearable for him, giving him the strength to manage it, made things that much more difficult for her.

“And,” she went on, reluctant to tell him. “I can’t go with you.”

He looked up at her with an expression of startled fear. “But…Anya…”

“You can’t truly understand what Spike went through if I go with you, Xander,” she explained quietly, her green eyes almost mournful as they met his. “Spike had no one there for him when he was suffering. He was completely alone. And so you must be.”

Xander just stared up at her, in a sort of state of shock, as she reached one of her hands from around him and touched it to his temple.

And then everything went swirling away into darkness.