A/N: Thanks to my wonderful beta, Eowyn315!!!! :)




“Just one bleedin’ second, love. That’s gonna take a minute to process. I must not have been listening closely enough, because it almost sounded like you bloody well *apologized*!”

Buffy blinked in silence, taken aback, and her lower lip slowly jutted out in a petulant pout as her eyes flashed an irritated warning. “I hit you. I shouldn’t have. Ergo, apology. What’s the question?”

“No question.” Spike shrugged, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender at the edge he heard in her voice. “’S just that you’re not exactly one to say you’re sorry, not if you can help it -- not from what I saw in those visions, anyway.”

Buffy’s brow creased in a frown of annoyance. “Okay, and now we’re back to me wanting to hit you again.”

Spike sighed as he relented. “Who bloody knows, love? Maybe you’re turning out totally different this time around, not going through things quite the same way as you did in the visions.” As he spoke, he turned toward Giles’ apartment and started walking again, getting the feeling that the topic of the Slayer’s various personality flaws was one best left alone at the moment.

Buffy was quiet for a long moment, thinking, as they walked along the sidewalk. Then, she observed quietly, “You talk about it as if you’d lived it already. As if it’s already happened.”

“Feels like it has.”

Buffy’s frown deepened, and she grew silent and pensive as they approached Giles’ door. Spike debated knocking, but then decided that it was best just to go in, and bypass all the confusion and suspicion of the technicalities of invitations and such.

“Was it bad? For you?” Buffy asked, abruptly turning to face him just as he pushed the door open. “Your future?”

Spike took the opportunity to avoid the question, stepping past her into the apartment. A look of irritation crossed the Slayer’s face as she followed him, and she opened her mouth to pursue the subject, but a bit of conversation she heard already taking place stopped her before she could speak.

“…course it’s her fault! If she’d just *listened* when Willow *told* her…” Xander’s angry voice insisted, but was cut off as Giles protested.

“In her defense, Xander, it’s not as if Buffy left her alone with him. By all accounts, Willow had gone home and arrived there safely. If she later chose to leave the house again, without the benefit of the Slayer’s protection, that’s hardly Buffy’s fault…”

“Buffy should have backed her up!” Xander nearly snarled the words. “She wouldn’t have left if Buffy had just sent Angel away when Willow asked her to, like she *knew* she needed to! If Buffy had acted like she believed her for one *second*, then maybe Willow wouldn’t have felt like she had to…”

All at once his words broke off, as he noticed the expression on the Watcher’s face as he stared over the boy’s shoulder. Xander turned to see the stricken face of the Slayer in the doorway. For just a moment, his anger seemed to falter in the face of her hurt; then, he visibly closed off to her again, his eyes blazing into hers as he made his emphatic conclusion, defiantly glaring into Buffy’s eyes as he spoke.

“She killed her. She killed Willow.”

The Slayer flinched as Xander turned and stalked past her, his shoulder deliberately shoving her out of his way as he passed. Buffy took the blow, her head lowered, her eyes welling with tears.

“Now, wait just a soddin’ minute!” Spike objected, grasping the boy’s shoulder and spinning him back around to face him, an outraged expression on his face. “That’s hardly fair, is it? How could she have known what would happen?”

“You *told* her!” Xander nearly shouted in his face, shaking Spike’s hand from his shoulder angrily as he added, “And don’t touch me! This has nothing to do with you, anyway, Fangboy!”

“Yes, it bloody well does!” Spike snapped, meeting Xander’s aggressive posturing, stepping into the boy’s space and speaking right in his face as he went on. “All right, she buggered it all up…nobody’s disputing that, mate,” he conceded, his voice low and confidential, trying to spare Buffy’s already wounded feelings as much as possible. “But it’s not all stuff she could have changed. She didn’t set out for it to happen. Bloody hell, boy, she loved the little bint, too, didn’t she?”

“I thought she did,” Xander spat, once again deliberately directing the words toward Buffy. “But apparently not as much as she loved the guy who killed her!”

“Xander,” Miss Calendar spoke up, dismay in her voice as she moved forward to place a supportive arm around Buffy’s waist, shaking her head in disapproval as she met the young man’s eyes.

“Xander, we understand your hurt,” Giles put in, stepping protectively between Buffy and her belligerent friend. “We all feel it as well…if perhaps not as deeply, though that point *is* arguable,” he pointed out, softness and compassion in his voice for the young man who had just lost his life-long best friend. For his part, however, Giles had come to view the little redhead as something of a surrogate daughter.

“*Including* Buffy,” Miss Calendar took up the argument, as Giles’ emotions seemed to momentarily get the better of him. “This is a time in which we should be banding together…supporting one another, rather than attacking each other.” She was quiet as she pulled the shaking, quietly weeping Slayer into her arms in a motherly embrace.

After a moment, Giles regained control enough to make a quiet observation.

“We’ve quite enough enemies at the moment, Xander, without becoming enemies to each other.”

Xander took that in, his dark, troubled eyes focused on the floor, before meeting the Watcher’s gaze boldly. “Yeah. And now, Willow is one of them.”

Without waiting for a response, he stalked across the room, disappearing into another room and slamming the door behind him. All was silent for a few moments, except for the quiet sounds of Buffy’s muffled sobs against Miss Calendar’s shoulder.

Giles glared toward the closed door for a moment before saying caustically,

“Yes, Xander, please do make use of my bedroom as your personal sulking chamber. No, don’t bother asking; I couldn’t possibly have anything of a personal nature there that I would prefer not to share with you.”

“Stupid wanker,” Spike muttered in agreement, his eyes focused with concern on the tearful Slayer, as he edged cautiously nearer to her and placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. “Buffy? You all right, love?”

Buffy slowly withdrew from Miss Calendar, sniffling back tears as she raised her head, without turning to look at the blond vampire. Finally, she replied in a low, painfully controlled voice.

“One of my best friends is dead. *Both* of my best friends now want to kill me -- and I’ll probably end up having to kill one of them…”

“I vote for the boy,” Spike growled.

Ignoring him, Buffy continued, “My boyfriend is evil -- *again*. And it’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s not!” Spike objected. “Angelus was *always* evil, love, soul or no soul. Wasn’t your fault he just decided to show it again.”

A moment of stillness fell on the room as they all considered his words, and a slow frown formed on Buffy’s face as she realized his unintentional implications. By only addressing her last comment, he had unwittingly insinuated that the other things she had mentioned *had* been her fault.

“You know, if you’re trying to comfort me, you’re not doing a very good job.”

“Sorry, love.”

Buffy’s frown deepened. “Why?”

Spike blinked, caught off guard by the vaguely suspicious question. “I…well…*what*?”

“Why are you sorry? Why are you trying to comfort me at all?” Buffy clarified, shaking her head in confusion. “I mean, just because you have a soul now doesn’t mean you’d want to help me, especially not when I was apparently so awful to you in those visions of yours. Though, actually, I’m starting to think the soul thing means a lot less than I thought it did.”

“That *is* becoming apparent,” Giles agreed, his piercing gaze now focused curiously on Spike. “You raise a valid point, Buffy. Why *do* you seem so very concerned as to the Slayer’s…grief, Spike? Why do you feel the need to ease her suffering?”

“Well…I…she just shouldn’t have to suffer anymore, ‘s all. Been through enough, she has, without having her best friends turn on her,” Spike explained, his tone suddenly defensive. “Can’t a bloke feel a bit of sympathy for a hurting girl without everyone getting their soddin’ knickers in a twist?” He was quiet for a moment before adding, “Based on the visions, ‘s not like she’s not gonna have enough to deal with, if Red’s still planning the things I saw.”

“Oh, my God,” Buffy moaned, her attention drawn back to her grim thoughts by his words. “I’m really gonna have to do this! I’m gonna have to stake Willow!”

The startlingly painful statement of fact silenced them all briefly.

Then, Spike declared in a low, dark voice of determination, “Not if I can help it, you won’t!”

And with that, he turned and walked toward the door.

“Spike…wait!” Buffy started toward him in alarm…but he was already gone. “What do you suppose he’s going to do?” she asked softly, not really directing the question to anyone in particular, a pensive frown focused on the door where she had last seen him.

Behind her, her Watcher bore a thoughtful expression to match hers, as he rephrased her question slightly.

“Why do you suppose he’s going to do it?”

Jenny glanced between the two of them with bewildered incredulity, before shaking her head and asking, “Isn’t it obvious?”

Both Slayer and Watcher turned their attention to her, curiosity aroused by the certainty in her voice.

“Um…no?” Buffy gave her an expectant look. “Not really.”

“He may have a soul, but Spike and Buffy have always been enemies,” Giles pointed out. “I’m sorry, but I can see no logical reason why he would be so concerned with her well-being now.”

“What are you talking about?” Buffy pressed her teacher, turning fully to face her.

“Buffy,” Miss Calendar began, shaking her head slowly again as she glanced toward the door with an expression resembling awe on her face. “Spike’s in love with you.”

The Watcher let out a strangled sound that was halfway between a gasp and a cough, and the Slayer’s eyes went wide with shock as she stared at the older woman incredulously.

“*Huh*?”

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

“Awww,” Willow crooned as she walked into the bedroom, and her eyes fell on her weakened sire, chained helplessly to the bed where she had left him. “Poor puppy. Mama left you all alone for so long and didn’t even leave you anyone to drink. You must be *so thirsty*!”

As she spoke with false sympathy, she set down the bag she was carrying in her arms and began to slowly, tauntingly, take out various items and arrange them on the desk beside the bed. There were several whips, chains that appeared to be more for purposes of torture than of bondage, as well as other toys that made the older vampire’s eyes widen with dismay.

Willow had also gathered some clothing that seemed more suited to her now than the girlish things she had worn before. It was difficult for Angel to make them out well from his position on the bed, but he saw lots of black and blood red, and most of it looked to be leather.

Angel let out a weak, piteous sound that could have been in response to her remark about the much-needed blood of which he was being deprived, or could have been due to the provocative nature of the garments and other items that she was systematically laying out on the dresser.

Either way, it was a sound of unhappy, longing desperation.

Willow chose to misinterpret it.

“Yeah, I know.“ She shrugged casually. “The ‘mama’ thing’s a little backwards, isn’t it? But don’t expect me to go for the ‘daddy’ games like your nut-job childe you just killed. And then…”

She stalked slowly toward the bed, her predatory eyes narrowing to slits as she climbed onto the bed and hovered over him on her hands and knees, trailing the fingertips of one hand along the line of his hip and around behind him, smiling as he gasped and jerked in a useless attempt to avoid her very personal touch.

“…there’s a lot of things about this relationship that are kind of…backwards…don’t you think?”

Angel’s body tensed as her hand began to explore alarmingly private territory, and the young vampiress giggled with dark glee.

“Relax, Sire…” she murmured, leaning down to nip lightly at the torn, sore spot on his throat where she had bitten him earlier, draining him of his blood and his strength. Her eyes held a wicked sparkle as she raised her head to meet his and added in a low, husky whisper, “I’m just getting started.”

A low, deadly voice spoke from the doorway, and Willow looked up in surprise at the determination in the intruder’s words.

“No, love…you’re already finished.”