Giles studied the monster. Is this what Travers wanted? He could feel the Ukesolrill’s presence crowding him, trying to force him to back down. But, that was something he would not do. Not when the monster was wearing the face of someone he had a connection with, on so many levels.

When William’s form advanced on him, Rupert Giles felt a chill run down his spine. For a brief moment, he reconsidered the wisdom of his plan. It had been years since he had even attempted something like this. Back then, he was unable to withstand the force of the entity he had tried to commune with. He was young and weak then. Now he was older, and more focused.

Being older, he had more to lose. And now, he had a budding respect for the family he thought he, and his Grandmother Rachel, had lost years ago.

He had mourned his Uncle William like he’d mourned no other, simply because of what had happened to him. As a young Watcher, Giles felt that, becoming the victim of a vampire was one of the worst deaths he could imagine, and that made him grieve for an uncle he never knew. His grief was part of what drove him.

And now, years later, he was staring into the eyes of someone who was dead, yet was not. Spike had proven, over and over again, that he was much more than a mindless killer.

The Ukesolrill however, had not.

The connection he felt with the being that had been hijacked by the force that powered the Slayer, made him strong, but it also made him weak.

He knew the monster could use the emotions that were coursing through him. It could be as perceptive as Spike. It could use those emotions as a weapon against him.

The question was, would it?

With a voice that was eerily calm, Giles spoke to his enemy, “Now, if what is done cannot be changed, then why expend any of your considerable strength trying to kill me?”

Yellow eyes narrowed and regarded him coldly, “You are just as corrupted as she. You were a Watcher, but you have lowered that calling, and yourself,” Spike advanced on him, and despite the fact that he was taller than the vampire that was eyeing him, Rupert Giles found himself consciously resisting the quite physical need to back away from the power he felt coming from the Ukesolrill. He could feel his mouth going dry as it used Spike’s familiar tones to hurl barbs that were very hurtful. Barbs that the old Watcher knew that the vampire would never use, “…so far as to wallow,” it continued, its eyes now black with hate, “in the filth with this thing! You no longer have a purpose in the fight. You have lost. Things corrupted will be taken from the earth. It is only the pure that will remain.”

Giles was saddened by the words the voice he had learned to trust over that long and horrible summer was being forced to utter, “It really is sad,” he mused, “All that strength and power, and there still isn’t much of a survival instinct.”

Giles felt his throat constrict as he watched the vampire’s jaw twitching. He knew that he was pushing the thing inside of Spike to the edge, possibly pushing the limits of his own survival with every passing second.

Suddenly, his mind was transported back to a cave in Africa, to another time when he seemingly stood, looking into the face of the agent of his death, yet he was here. And his heart began to swell with the hope that something still remained of the vampire he knew, because then he might have a chance of surviving this encounter.

The voice shook with rage and the eyes that saw him were as black as tar as they looked at him, “I was here,” Spike’s voice hissed, but the voice was hard and sharp, it carried none of the soft round tones that had become so familiar. There was nothing of what Giles had come to need, in the voice that spoke to him now, “before you were born. I will be here, long after you are dust!” Giles could feel the air of the words against his eyes, and he tried not to blink, afraid to show this creature any weakness.

It was then that the full implications of what Travers had planned hit him. He wanted to start over- from scratch. With a new Slayer…and a new… “You have no idea where you are, do you?”

“The Council has ensconced me, finally, within a vessel worthy of my power. This vessel is pure. It is strong, and can last for eons,” the voice changed suddenly, lowering, as if shaken by a powerful sadness, “I will no longer feel the pain of death.” Giles was shocked when he saw the hardened face of a monster soften, and become, once again, a face he knew well. Deep blue eyes stared into him for a moment, before lowering in sadness, “Or the pain of loss,” William’s soft eyes looked up at him, and then drifted toward the door, following the path that Willow and Dawn had taken when they removed Buffy, “It is too much. Now, I can be without that.”

Giles smiled sadly as he watched William fade, once more overwhelmed by the monster inside. There was torment in the amber eyes that looked at him now. And, that he could use to his advantage, “I see. You want to live. But you don’t want what comes with that. And, along the way, you want to destroy, vampires. That is what you do, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, you’re very fortunate. Because, this ‘vessel?’ I’m afraid that you are mistaken,” the Watcher’s voice hardened, “This purity you feel, comes from a vampire…a vampire that wants to die. So why don’t you help it along. And then, we can get on with the business of living- without you.”

Before he had a chance to blink, the Ukesolrill had him pinned against the wall, holding his arms immobile at his side using the closeness of Spike’s body to fasten him in place. The fact that the Ukesolrill could have used the fangs, as it had before with Buffy, and did not was very encouraging. Perhaps it meant that Spike was indeed still able to exercise some bit of influence with the creature; “You lie,” it hissed, “I have served the Council well in the battle. They have been my masters. I have done their bidding. I have pleased them…for generations!” it cried, as it shook with rage, “I am their best warrior! I have done…what they made me to do,” the voice descended from blazing fury to frigid, barren dejection in seconds. The eyes of the Slayer looked at the Watcher as they tilted in contemplation of his words, “Why would my masters banish me?”

Giles swallowed the empathy he was beginning to feel for this entity, and said coldly, “Perhaps it is because you are no longer of any use to them. Perhaps you are too corrupted, and the Council wishes to start afresh.”

Confusion flittered in the gaze that stared at him, and the monster backed off a bit, allowing Giles to step away from the wall he’d been pinned against, “But I am pure. I am what they made me to be. I cannot be corrupted.”

Suddenly an idea came, “You are a slave, are you not?” Giles asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes,” the Ukesolrill answered simply.

“And you are what has powered all of the Slayers- from the beginning…until this day?”

The vampire nodded.

“Do you wish to be free of your chains? Free to rest, as is a warrior’s right, after a battle?”

“Yes,” it whispered.

Giles took a deep breath, “You know that…I am part of the Council once again. I am…one of your masters. I have the power to rescue you from the exile of this form,” his eyes roamed quickly over the vampire and returned to the face of the warrior the Council had created, “ and to let you rest, until the next Slayer is called. Is that what you wish?”

The voice that answered him quivered with years of repressed emotion, “I wish to be. If I stay…here, the Slayers I have served with my power will cease. As will I, because of that power. If what you say is true, it cannot be otherwise. I know nothing else,” once again Giles was shocked by the emotions in the amber orbs that looked upon him, “Would my masters murder me? Have I so displeased them?”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” Giles said, his own voice soft and quiet, “But, you may yet live, through all the Slayers that have been, and may yet be. I am offering you that choice. Your old masters are gone. I bring with me a new day, and a new understanding. All I ask is that you yield this form. And, rest for a time. Do you consent?”

“But, if I leave here, where will I go?”

“There is a place. You know it. You were there, and then you were not. Fools who did not understand that that was your right, tore you from that place. I am offering to set you free, to allow you to go back to that place, if you wish. The Slayers will not die, but will draw on the wealth of your strength from within themselves, until you are needed again.”

Spike’s voice was tired and shaken with loss, as it said, “Yes, I am weary. And I remember that place, and long to return,” the eyes were moist with what Giles could only describe as gratitude, “I will go, until I am called once again. I shall not forget the kindness you have bestowed upon me,” the body turned around and sat, once again on the bed. As the Ukesolrill lain its head against the pillow, and its feet upon the mattress, “And on my return, I shall serve you well. Release me,” the Ukesolrill said, as it closed its eyes.

The calm and submissive nature that the Ukesolrill suddenly took on, surprised Giles greatly, and a lump came to his throat as he watched the essence of the Slayer wait, passively, like a lowly lamb, to be acted upon by its masters; waiting for permission to rest.

The feelings that the sight evoked in him, made his voice weak, but the words he spoke were strong, “In the name of the Council of Watchers, I release thee, Ukesolrill, from thy fealty, until such time as thou art needed once again. I beseech thee to leave this body, as thou didst find it, and rest. Gain the strength that is needed to serve in the battle, Warrior. Go in peace, and know that thou dost serve thy purpose well and true.”

The room suddenly became enveloped in a blue light. Giles looked on in wonder as a black mist seemed to be drawn out of Spike’s skin and into the air. It hovered over the vampire’s prone form, as it lie on the small bed, and then gradually floated up through the ceiling, seemingly pushed by the gentle blue light, until the black had disappeared and all that was left was the soft blue glow.

The glow lingered above the body, and Giles sensed it hesitate, and, if not physically, turn toward him. He knew the sight of this light should have frightened him as it hovered in the space between him, and the lifeless body he knew, without being told, that it belonged to, but he was not.

Instead, he was filled with a familiar warmth, “Go on, old man,” he smiled, “Buffy will be fine. Go. We have so much to talk about when you awake,” the blue glow still hung in the air, as if unsure of what to do, “Go to sleep. You need it. We will all be here when you open your eyes,” Giles whispered, “I promise.”

With that, the blue mist floated over to the space above the bed Spike was lying on, and slowly drifted down until it poured itself into his skin and became absorbed by it. The vampire began to shiver as if a cold wind had blown against its skin, and gave an audible sigh, but other than those miniscule outward signs, nothing else told of the battle that had been fought in this room.

When Giles was certain that the body on the bed was sleeping, and not, in fact, in any other danger, he quietly left the room to see to the rest of his family.

There would be time to talk things out, soon enough.