“What are they doing up there?” Dawn demanded, standing up from where she sat on the couch, waiting for Buffy and Willow to come back downstairs. Her arms crossed over her chest, and she paced impatiently as she looked up at Giles in frustrated expectation. “We don’t have any time to waste right now! We have to find him!”

“Your sister needs a few minutes, Dawn,” Giles informed her in a soft, calm voice. “She is the Slayer, and our best hope of accomplishing anything – and she needs to be at her best if we are going to do anything to help Spike.”

“Then why doesn’t she get her selfish, stupid rear down here and *do something*?”

Dawn snapped the words out bitterly, casting a vicious glare up the stairs before stalking back to the couch and flouncing back down onto it beside Angel, who was sitting on the very edge of the sofa, his fingers tapping anxiously on the end table beside it as he also stared up the stairs with a solemn expression on his face, waiting for Buffy to emerge again.

“Why did she even come here if all she’s gonna do is sit up there and baby Buffy all night?” Dawn muttered, staring sullenly down at her lap.

“I’ve gotta say,” Angel said quietly, directing his words to the Watcher. “I think Willow’s talents could be put to a lot better use than…”

His words broke off suddenly, before any of the others were even aware of the soft opening of the upstairs bedroom door that he had just heard. Dawn was staring at him incredulously, her eyebrows raised in surprised appraisal, at the fact that the vampire she had never really been on good terms with was actually agreeing with her for once.

She had just opened her mouth to comment on that fact – probably sarcastically – when two soft sets of footsteps on the stairs drew her attention, as her sister and the redheaded witch finally descended the stairs, Willow in the lead.

“Okay,” she said in a quiet, firm voice, her eyes meeting each of theirs in turn before finally coming to rest on the face of the Watcher. “How are we doing as of right now?”

“Anya’s doing well, sleeping upstairs,” Giles began with the point that was of the most interest to him. “She should be fine when she awakens; the poultice I used should speed her healing process – which is already quite rapid, as it is…”

“No – I meant – do we have any idea where Xander might have gone?”

When Willow’s gentle question was met with only blank stares, her expression became slightly exasperated as she added, “I’m – assuming you guys have been sitting down here brainstorming – right? Trying to come up with ideas?”

Giles broke the momentary silence as he explained truthfully, “Really, Willow – we were rather waiting on the two of you to come down. I was thinking – perhaps a location spell?”

“Okay – so we find Xander,” Willow began slowly, anxiously studying the faces of those around her as she drew in a deep breath and continued, “Then what?”

The silence that followed her question was deafening, as each thought of their own personal answers to that pivotal question – and how the others might react to their ideas of what should be done to – or for – the clearly very troubled young man they had once considered to be among the best of their friends.

Dawn knew exactly what she thought should be done – and had no problems with sharing her opinion.

“He hurt Spike,” she reminded them all in a voice of stone. “He tortured him – and he would have killed Anya if Spike hadn’t stopped him.” She paused, before adding coldly, “We have to save Spike – without anybody else getting hurt. And if the only way to do that, is to stop Xander for good – before he can shoot Spike, or anybody else – well, then – I think he deserves whatever he gets.”

“You’re saying you think we should – kill Xander.” Willow’s voice was full of stunned understanding.

“Why not? He tried to kill Anya! He did *worse* than kill Spike!” Dawn snapped back defiantly, her voice trembling with anger.

“But there may be another way,” Giles reminded her softly, his eyes dark and troubled. “It may not be necessary to…”

“I don’t really care if it’s *necessary,” Angel interrupted, a dangerous edge to his voice. “That boy destroyed and tortured my childe. He broke him to a point that’s almost beyond repair.” He was quiet a moment, before stating in a tone of intent challenge, “He needs to pay for what he’s done.”

“There are other ways,” Buffy finally spoke up, her voice soft and hesitant, her face a mask of confusion and uncertainty. “I mean – for him to pay for it. He doesn’t necessarily have to – to die – does he?”

“You don’t *want* him to?” Dawn demanded, standing up again, her eyes blazing with outraged fury. “After what he did?”

“Dawn – how could I want him to?” Buffy’s voice broke with anguish, as fresh tears streaked down her face. “It’s *Xander*, Dawnie!”

“He’s sick, Buffy! He’s a sick, perverted monster, and you’re *defending* him? How can you…”

“You don’t just kill somebody because they’re ‘sick’, Dawnie! He needs help! He needs…”

“He needs to die!” Dawn snarled, stalking to the foot of the stairs to get right in her shorter but older sister’s face. “He needs to die for what he did to Spike!” She paused, shaking her head in disgust as she glared at her sister, and added, “You’re as sick as he is! He hurt Spike the first time – but it’s *your* fault Xander’s got him now!”

“Dawn,” Giles warned her quietly, stepping toward the developing stand off between the two sisters. Before he could say anything else, Buffy had let out an outburst of her own, in a tone of desperate, despairing anguish.

“*Don’t you think I know that*?”

The room fell silent in the wake of her trembling, sobbing question – each of them stunned to silence by her words, and the power of the tumultuous emotions behind them.

Dawn seemed a bit taken aback by that – and did in fact take a step backward, her expression softening just slightly on her sister’s face, though the underlying anger was still present. Giles swallowed hard, looking at the floor, unsure how to help the girls deal with what they were going through. Angel sat still on the sofa, his eyes averted from Buffy’s face; it was clear that he disagreed with her, but he could understand why she felt the way she did.

Willow was the first to break the weighted silence.

“You guys don’t actually think this is *helping* anything – do you?”

When no one answered, she let out a soft, sad laugh, shaking her head. “I mean – come on, guys, we can’t be doing this, if we’re going to help either of them…”

“I *don’t* want to help Xander!” Dawn declared.

“What if that’s the only way to help Spike?” Willow countered, her eyes narrowed slightly in irritation at the interruption.

Dawn shook her head slightly, obviously not following.

“He’s obviously losing it, Dawnie – which means he’s very dangerous and unpredictable. We may need to try to get through to Xander, in order to get Spike away from him at all. I mean, if he has a weapon…”

“Buffy has weapons,” Dawn pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest and giving the witch a challenging look, before glaring at her sister resentfully, “She just doesn’t want to use them. Because Xander is so much more important than Spike. After all, he’s *human*. The only people he’s hurt aren’t really people anyway, so what does the *Slayer* care?”

“Dawnie, that’s not fair!” Buffy cried out, coming down the last few stairs toward her sister. “You *know* I care – I didn’t mean for this to happen…”

“Yeah, well, it did…” Dawn spat out scathingly. “And if you really cared…”

“Hey, Dawnie,” Willow interrupted her sharply, her tone calm but pointed. “I wonder, while you’re standing here, going off on Buffy – what Xander’s doing to Spike right now.”

Dawn stared at her, startled, and just a little bit horrified.

Willow shrugged, feigning carelessness. “I mean – he’s probably hurting him, right? Apparently he’s been doing a lot of that lately – and I bet he’s really upset over what happened upstairs tonight. I wonder if he’s planning on staking him.” She paused for impact, looking around the room at all of their stunned expressions – all focused on her. “I wonder if he’s staked him already.”

Giving them all a moment to take in her point, she went on softly, “All this fighting – all these accusations – aren’t solving anything. Xander and Spike are still out there somewhere – *right now*. If we wait much longer – they could *both* end up dead. But hey!” she smiled, but it did not reach her serious, worried eyes, as she added with unmistakable irony, “At least we’ll have figured out whose *fault* it is, so I guess it’ll all be worth it!”

“Willow’s right.” Angel spoke up as he rose to his feet. “This isn’t helping Spike. We need to find them, first of all – get him away from that creep…” There was an obvious hesitation in his voice, before he forced himself to say the last words, “…then we can decide what to do with Xander.”

As far as Angel was concerned – the matter was already decided.

“All right, then,” Willow said, nodding with the air of someone who had not quite forgotten what it was like to be “the boss of” a group. “Let’s get to the locatin’.”

Giles nodded, a small, pleased smile coming over his face, in spite of the circumstances, at the way his protégé had handled the awkward conversation, as he turned and went to the kitchen to gather supplies for the location spell.

“And Dawnie,” Willow said softly, pulling the girl aside as Buffy and Angel tried to see how quickly they could rearrange the living room furniture for the spell without actually speaking to each other.

“What?” Dawn was still sulking, not at all trusting Willow – or her sister, for that matter – to put Spike’s interests first in the situation.

“Spike’s your best friend – right?”

“Yes,” Dawn answered without hesitation, defiance in her eyes – daring Willow, or anyone else, to challenge the validity of her feelings for the blonde vampire.

Willow nodded her acceptance quietly, waiting a moment before she stated calmly, “Xander’s mine. And Buffy’s. Or – he was, anyway. I’m not sure what’s going to happen now, actually. But what I’m trying to say in my own spazzed-out, rambling way, is this – if someone told *you* that *Spike* had done to Xander, what Xander did to Spike – and you hadn’t seen it for yourself, with your own eyes – don’t try to tell me you wouldn’t defend him.”

Dawn opened her mouth to protest, frowning – and found suddenly that she had no idea how to counter that sort of logic.

“Buffy’s trying,” Willow went on firmly, holding the younger girl’s gaze with sympathy, but also a gentle reprimand. “She’s doing the best she can – and she didn’t mean for this to happen. You have no idea how sorry she is.”

Now, Dawn *did* have words, and she opened her mouth to say them – but Willow was already speaking again.

“If it was Spike – you’d have wanted to give him every benefit of the doubt – wouldn’t you?”

Dawn shut her mouth, her jaw setting in the beginnings of stubborn denial.

“*Wouldn’t you*?” Willow repeated the question emphatically.

Dawn let out a deep breath, her eyes averted, as she nodded reluctantly. “Yeah,” she admitted. “Yeah, I guess I would.”

“Okay,” Willow nodded, satisfied that she had made her point. “So getting mad at her right now doesn’t do anyone any good. We all need to be together on this if we’re gonna help *anyone* -- okay?”

“Okay,” Dawn finally, quietly relented.

“Okay,” Willow repeated, her face breaking into a cheery smile that would have been completely inappropriate for the situation, had it been on any face but hers. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

**********************************

Spike warily watched the rapidly pacing young man, glancing anxiously toward the locked door at the top of the stairs – painfully aware of the fact that within minutes, someone would be coming down those stairs…

…and though he really had no way of knowing for sure – Spike had a sinking feeling that that would not be a good thing, for him or anyone else.

Apparently – Xander thought otherwise.

“Perfect!” he muttered, his eyes wide and shining with mad excitement. “This is perfect! It couldn’t be any better! It’s practically – practically genius, really! I mean – it’s poetry – pure poetry…”

Spike began to tune him out as he rambled on, not really sure if the boy was talking to him or to himself – not sure if Xander even knew the answer to that question. His mind raced as he tried to come up with some way to use the situation to his advantage – some way to escape when the door was opened.

His thoughts were cut off with a sudden rush of panic, when Xander was suddenly crouched in front of him, inches from his face, his hand snared viciously in Spike’s tangled blonde hair, tearing at his mercilessly abused scalp. Before the vampire could let out the yelp of pain that rose in his throat, Xander was already snarling a warning in his face, his dark eyes narrowed in menace.

“Don’t you dare make a *sound*, Spike – do you understand me? You keep your stupid mouth *shut*!”

Spike nodded as best he could, wincing at the boy’s painful grip, but biting back the sob of pain that rose in his throat.

“Now I’m gonna go upstairs for a few minutes,” Xander began to explain with exaggerated patience tinged with soft menace, his dark eyes suddenly wide and shining with a frightening light of manic glee. He shook his head slowly as he added, “There’s no way out – no way but up those stairs – and that door’s locking behind me the minute they let me in. So you are *not* getting away from me!”

He shook him as he spoke, his voice becoming irrationally angry, as the unstable boy seemed to shift moods every few seconds. “Don’t even try it! You think you’re smarter than me, Spike, is that it? You think you can get away from *me*?”

Spike swallowed convulsively, trying to shake his head, his eyes shut tight against the terror of Xander’s threatening tone. He bit back the instinctive plea that rose to his lips, the assurance that he would not try to escape – knowing that any speech at all was only likely to further anger the boy.

“You’re gonna stay right here, on your freakin’ *knees* where you belong, until I come back down here to get you – aren’t you, Spike?” Xander snarled, his voice trembling with a dangerous edge of rage as he moved in even closer.

Spike nodded desperately, doing his best to keep perfectly still and silent under the intense pressure of Xander’s suspicious glare, as the boy searched the face of his captive for any sign of deception.

At the moment – there was none to find.

Spike would do anything the boy said, if only to avoid further suffering at his hands.

But that did not mean that Xander, clinging to his sanity by a thread now, would not find something worthy of punishment there anyway – even if it didn’t actually exist.

Spike’s body shook with relief when the boy finally released him, standing up straight and moving toward the foot of the stairs. He cast a mischievous grin back at Spike, his mood instantly cheerful as he made his way to the door at the top.

“Be right back.”

Spike stayed where he had been instructed to stay, as Xander knocked loudly on the door. “Mom – hey, Mom – open the door!”

There was a moment’s near-silence, as quiet footsteps approached the door upstairs. “Xander?” a woman’s voice said uncertainly. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, Mom, let me in!”

“What are you doing in the basement?” the voice asked, and behind it, Spike could hear the metallic sound of the deadbolt upstairs being unlatched.

His blood ran cold as he saw the boy take the pistol from his pocket, smiling a soft, chilling, lost sort of smile as he replied, “I just – came to get something I left behind – and you locked me down here!”

The door opened, flooding the staircase with light, and yielding a maniacal gleam to Xander’s suddenly soft dark eyes, as he smiled with what appeared to be genuine affection at the woman who had given him breath and life – and little else, during his twenty-three years of life.

His voice was chillingly gentle as he softly greeted her.

“Hi, Mom…”