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



“Spike’s in what with who?”

“In love, Buffy,” Miss Calendar replied patiently to the flabbergasted Slayer who was staring at her, aghast. “With…”

“I heard you,” Buffy rushed to cut her off, her voice rising in agitation as she turned slightly away from the teacher, shaking her head in confusion. “I just…I mean…why would you think that Spike’s in *love* with me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No, I’d rather say it’s not,” Giles replied, sounding quite alarmed himself by Miss Calendar’s conclusion. “What on earth would give you such an idea? Jenny, really!”

“Oh, I don’t know, just the fact that he hasn’t made any attempt to kill you since he started getting the visions…” Miss Calendar directed her response to the Slayer, who was still staring up at her, an expression resembling panic on her face. “…or the fact that he’s been trying so hard to help ever since then…”

“See, that’s the thing…if he’s seen the future, he could just be doing this to keep bad stuff from happening that was going to happen to him in the future,” Buffy countered, a bit too eagerly. “I mean…that doesn’t really mean…”

“…or the fact that he got so angry with Xander just for upsetting you a few minutes ago, even though you‘re supposed to be his mortal enemy and the slayer of his kind,” Miss Calendar concluded, waiting for Buffy to get her objections out before going on as if she had not even spoken.

Buffy’s eyes widened as she took in the teacher’s third point…and realized that she had no argument to counteract it.

Why *had* Spike cared that her feelings were hurt? He had a soul now, and that probably meant increased compassion for others, but she had been very unkind to him thus far, and even with a soul, it seemed unlikely that Spike would become as upset over her hurt feelings as he had gotten with Xander.

“Oh, no,” she moaned. “No, you have to be wrong. He can’t…I mean, he doesn’t…he’s a *vampire*! I’m a vampire *Slayer*! I have seen first hand the dozens of ways in which that can lead to badness!”

Giles’ expression took on a greater element of alarm at her choice of words, as he quickly put in, “Not that you would ever actually consider…”

“Of course not, Giles!” Buffy assured him. “I mean…it’s *Spike*! Even if he’s *not* evil anymore, which we still don’t really know for sure…he’s…he’s all weird and British and annoying and…and there’s no way. Ever. That I would ever, ever do that.”

Oblivious to the worried look her Watcher was giving her, and the knowing expression on Miss Calendar’s face, at her less than convincing words, the Slayer turned away from the two adults, crossing her arms over her stomach in an instinctively defensive gesture as she made her way across the room to the sofa and sat down.

“Honestly, Jenny, are you sure?” Giles asked. “Surely, there are other ways to explain Spike’s…concern…”

“Trust me on this one, Rupert,” the gypsy advised him with a smile. “He’s got it bad. Some things…a woman just knows…”

Lost in her own thoughts, Buffy was unaware as they continued the discussion. Her mind was focused on the last images of Spike in her memory, as he had thoroughly told off Xander for his hurtful comments, getting right in the angry boy’s face and reminding him that Buffy was hurting, too.

*It can’t be true…can it? Surely, he’s not really…?*

And then, when she had voiced her dismay at the idea of having to stake Willow, Spike had immediately stated that she would not have to, not if he could help it, and taken off…

“Oh, my God,” Buffy gasped, her eyes widening as she realized where he had gone. She looked up to meet the questioning gaze of her Watcher. “He was going to find Willow…to stake her!”

Giles looked stunned by the idea, taking a moment to replay in his head the conversation that had taken place right before Spike left. “Buffy, are you quite sure? I must say, that seems rather…out of character for Spike, doesn’t it?”

“I’m starting to think we don’t have the faintest clue what ‘in character’ for Spike really is,” the Slayer replied, rising to her feet and crossing the room to Giles’ weapons chest.

“Buffy, what are you doing?” Giles demanded, following her as she threw the chest open and started going through it, briefly testing various items in her hand as she tried to choose which one she wanted to take with her. “As unlikely as it seems, if Spike is going to find Willow and stake her…I’d say the best thing would be to let him.”

Buffy glared up at him, the look speaking volumes more than words, making it clear that to persist in that argument would be dangerous.

The Watcher persisted anyway.

“Buffy, what are you going to do exactly? Stop him from staking Willow, just so that you end up with the dubious responsibility of doing so yourself? I know it’s a painful thing to consider, but you must understand…at this point, there is no other way…”

“I know that.” Buffy turned and headed toward the door, after selecting two smooth stakes and a battle dagger that appeared perfectly capable of beheading a vampire.

“Then…why are you bothering to attempt to stop Spike from staking her?”

“I’m not stopping Spike from staking her. I’m stopping him from getting himself killed.”

That unexpected response halted Giles in his tracks as Buffy made her way out the door, slamming it behind her. Jenny slowly came to stand at his side, slipping her hand into his as they both stared at the closed door where the Slayer had just been.

“I suppose it doesn’t even occur to her to wonder why she suddenly cares,” the teacher remarked mildly.

Giles slowly turned his head to stare at her with rising horror as he realized what she was saying. Then, he slowly turned back to face the door, his heart sinking with a knowledge that he would rather not have understood.

“Bloody hell.”

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

Spike kept moving as quickly as possible with his sire’s dead weight slung over his shoulder, until he was a good mile or two from the mansion where he had left the recovering fledgling vampire witch.He knew that it would take Willow at least a few minutes to recover completely, and hopefully by the time she did, he would be far enough away that she would not be able to easily follow.

Unless she tried to track them by magic.

*And I thought this was going to be an easy kill…bugger.*

Spike found his way into an empty warehouse in the middle of one of Sunnydale’s worst areas -- not that a town like Sunnydale was in any way lacking for such areas -- and carelessly tossed Angel’s limp form to the floor.

The impact seemed to rouse him, as the older vampire let out a groan of pained protest, his head lolling slightly, but he stayed where he was, apparently too weak from pain and blood loss to move. Willow had drained him nearly completely, not to mention the torture that she had obviously inflicted upon him, leaving him barely conscious and not the least bit coherent.

Unfortunately, in order to accomplish what he had brought Angel here for, Spike was going to have to fix that.

*Just hope there’s enough left in him to make it work…*

Shifting into his game face, Spike yanked Angel’s head up none too gently by the hair, plunging his fangs into the puncture wounds recently left there by Willow’s mouth. He shivered to think how close Willow had already come to accomplishing what she had done in the visions he had seen, and how narrowly he had managed to avoid it in the present.

Angel let out a strangled cry of panicked pain, as he felt what little blood he had left being drained from his body, and his back arched as he weakly, uselessly, attempted to pull away from the younger vampire. Hurriedly, aware that with as much blood as he had lost, Angel was probably very near to losing consciousness again -- an occurrence that would delay Spike’s plans, and quite likely make them impossible to complete -- Spike pulled away from him and tore his bloody fangs across his own wrist, thrusting the torn, bleeding flesh against his sire’s gasping, trembling lips.

“The blood that has birthed me,” Spike muttered words he remembered from his vision -- though he remembered them being spoken by someone else. “I return to thee…to bring you back from the edge of death…to new life again.”

Angel actually turned his mouth away at first, as if some part of him instinctively recognized what was taking place in that moment and refused it, chose continued suffering and starvation over it, in fact. But then, the desperate, consuming hunger that filled his body, the will to survive that he retained despite his best efforts to hold onto his pride, took over, and he gripped Spike’s wrist in a trembling hand, drinking deeply of the offered blood that would revive him, strengthen him…and change him forever.

Spike watched impassively, his jaw set with determination, unflinching at the pain as, in his desperate state of starvation, Angel bit hard into the torn flesh of his wrist, drinking deeply, drawing great draughts of Spike’s blood in his body’s intense effort to save itself from the destruction that the little witch had wrought in him, to pull himself back from the abyss of mindless pain and need.

After a few moments, however, Spike began to feel a faint tremor beginning deep within him, the first beginnings of weakness, and knew that he had to stop Angel before he took too much blood. He tried to pull his wrist away, but found, not surprisingly, that Angel held on tightly, refusing to let go.

“Stop,” Spike growled in warning as he tried again to pull away.

Angel growled back at him in answer, seizing his wrist tighter and jerking him back toward him with the increasing strength that flowed through him now, as Spike’s blood renewed him…even as the younger vampire grew weaker with the loss of it.

“I said stop!” Spike snarled, trying again, though even as he spoke he sank to his knees on the concrete, dark spots of color dancing before his eyes as he struggled against a sense of distant lightheadedness that tried to steal his focus.

Still, Angel ignored him.

Mustering up every last ounce of strength he had, focusing his will on one goal alone -- Spike called on a power that was new to him, but no less intense for its newness. He drew in a deep breath, steadying himself as best he could in preparation to do what he knew was his last chance at success -- at *survival*, even.

*Here goes everything…let’s hope this works…*

“*Stop*,” he commanded, his voice low and carrying an authority that he had just claimed by the sharing of their blood. “Stop now, and release me…*childe*…”

Angel jerked back away from him, his eyes wide and shocked, his lips, still stained red with Spike’s blood, parted in a startled expression as he stared at the blond vampire for whose existence he was responsible. Realization dawned on him, as he looked down at the wound from which he had been suckling, and thought back on how little blood he had had in his system when Spike had first taken some of his blood, and then offered him his own.

He looked up at Spike again uncertainly, and felt a sensation he had only felt with one person before.

And suddenly, it all became terribly clear.

“If you can’t bloody well control yourself, mate,” Spike told him, his voice low and breathless as he struggled to recover from the close call he had just survived, “then somebody else’ll have to. It was going to be Red…and…well, that’d be no bloody good for anybody. Now…I s’pose it’d be me.”

Angel just stared at him blankly, his mind racing with the attempt to come to terms with what had just happened to him. His world, his existence, had been turned on its head. He had given Spike his existence, and now, he was the childe; and the childe he had created over a century ago, was now something else to him entirely.

He was now…

“*Sire*?”