A/N: Thanks so much to Eowyn315 for her help in betaing this chapter :)



“Can’t this thing go any faster?”

“I’m sorry,” Giles replied tersely, his eyes never leaving the road. “This blasted thing only seems to have two speeds…painfully slow, and a bit less painfully slow.”

“You know, with the kind of high risk jobs you and Buffy have, you really should invest in something newer,” Jenny advised, her own eyes fastened uneasily on the road ahead of them. “You never know when you might need to get somewhere in a hurry…like, you know…*now*.”

“With any luck, the spell was successful,” Giles reminded her, though he seemed to be reassuring himself as much as her. “Without her magical abilities, Willow is just like any other fledgling vampire, and should pose no threat to Buffy. Buffy should be able to…to…”

“To what?” Jenny’s piercing, dark gaze turned toward the Watcher at his hesitation.

Giles grimaced slightly as he searched for words that were less painful than the ones echoing through his mind, again and again. “To…to neutralize the…the situation…”

“Just say what you mean,” Jenny pressed, though her voice was soft, gentle. “To kill Willow.”

“Actually, that’s rather what I was trying to *avoid* saying…but thank you so much for blurting it out.”

Jenny was quiet for a moment, but she reached out a tender hand to cover his on the gear shift. Giles glanced at her, his expression softening, as he accepted her silent offer of combined compassion and apology. After a moment, however, the gypsy teacher spoke up again, her voice full of quiet concern.

“Rupert…if you can’t even say it…how in the world do you expect Buffy to be able to *do* it?”

The Watcher let out a heavy sigh, and the battered old car’s engine let out a roar as he impatiently pressed the gas pedal harder, though it seemed to have little effect on their speed.

“I suppose the greater part of me doesn’t,” he confessed. “I’m not in the least worried about Buffy’s physical ability to overcome Willow. I’m much more concerned with her emotional ability to face this challenge. She has slain many monsters in the past, and I’ve never doubted that she was capable of victory…but the monster has never before worn the face of her dearest friend.”

Jenny considered the question for a moment in grim silence, before shaking her head and admitting, “I’d like to say yes…but I’m not sure I can. Willow may be just a fledgling, but this is probably the toughest challenge Buffy has ever faced.”

Giles gave the gas pedal another vicious jab with his foot, and the car lurched forward a bit, but did not pick up much speed. “Which is precisely the reason that I wish this confounded vehicle would go a bit *faster*!”

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

“Oh, Xander.” Buffy’s voice was soft and trembling as she shook her head, unable to take her tear-filled eyes off the transformed face of her best friend. “No…please, no…”

“Yes,” Willow sneered, no compassion for the Slayer’s grief in her cold expression as she sauntered closer to the bedroom door where Buffy stood. “He’s mine now…forever.”

“And you will be, too,” Xander put in, a smile of anticipation on his face. Suddenly, he turned hopeful eyes toward his sire, his entire face lit up with inspiration. “Unless she can be *mine*. Can I do it? Please?”

“Shut up,” Willow hissed, her irritation clear in her voice.

“Wouldn’t *that* be cozy.” Spike laughed bitterly, though his voice was hoarse and barely audible from across the room. “One big bloody happy family.”

Buffy’s eyes widened as her gaze was drawn away from Xander, and she drew in a sharp breath at the sight of Spike. He had been brutally tortured, his naked form covered in various burns and bruises, and he was chained to the bed against the far wall.

Torn, Buffy was not sure who she wanted to help first…the vampire she was growing to care for, or her best friend.

*But there’s only one of them you can still help.*

The troubling echo of painful truth in her mind was almost more than she could bear.

Xander…was *dead*.

Worse than dead...he had been turned into an enemy, a demon she would have to slay, if only to prevent him from harming anyone else. It was her worst nightmare come to life before her eyes, and Buffy’s world was spinning around her, overwhelming her with yet another wave in the onslaught of loss and grief that had filled the last few days of her young life.

Her eyes drifted from Spike, staring sightlessly past him as she blinked away tears, swallowing back a sob.

“Buffy!” Spike rasped out urgently. “Buffy, love, get out!”

The note of dreadful desperation in his voice drew her attention, and Buffy looked up at Willow and Xander again, shaking herself from her horrified reverie. She considered for the first time the terrible reality that Xander had become a threat to her…and perhaps a greater threat than she would have thought, judging by Spike’s ominous tone.

“No, Buffy.” Xander’s voice was soft, affectionate, and she was startled to see that he was giving her a warm, genuine smile not at all unlike the one he had so often worn in life. “Please…stay.”

As he spoke, he suddenly shot out a hand in her direction, and blue-white sparks of magical energy flew from his fingertips. The jolt of power struck her with violent force, stealing her breath away as she was suddenly slammed into the wall. Buffy struggled to pull away from the wall, to recover enough to fight back, but found that she was unable to break the invisible bonds that held her there.

She shook her head, dazed, struggling to make sense of what had just happened. The magic had come from *Xander*…but how was that possible? It was Willow that was the threat, Willow whose magic had nearly destroyed them all, and Giles and Jenny had taken her magic from her…hadn’t they? Why did the fledgling Xander have any magical power at all?

“Xa-xander?” she mumbled, her voice slurred from the impact to the back of her head. She sensed the young vampire in front of her and blinked a few times, struggling to see him through the bright spots of color that danced before her eyes. “Wha-what…?”

She flinched backward slightly as her former friend moved in unsettlingly close to her, his body less than an inch from hers, his hands braced on the wall on either side of her head. She twisted uselessly against restraints she could not see, unable to meet Xander’s eyes as he watched her struggles with an appreciative smile, looking her slowly up and down. He shifted closer, tilting his head with hers as she turned it away from him. His lips hovered a bare inch from her throat, his human features receding as his fangs dropped, glistening and eager.

“Relax, Buff,” he murmured, his voice low and enticing, and infinitely disturbing to her. “It’ll only hurt for a second…”

“Don’t!” Willow snarled, abruptly jerking her childe away from their captive before his fangs could touch her skin, sending him stumbling backward a few yards. She moved to stand between Xander and Buffy, a warning glint of gold in her eyes, though she was still in her human face for the moment. “She dies when *I* say she dies and not before!”

Xander’s lower lip extended in a sullen pout as he slunk back a few more steps, glaring petulantly at his sire. “You’ve already got me,” he reminded Willow unhappily. “Why should you get her, too?”

“Nobody’s going to ‘get’ her,” Willow informed him in a scathing voice of irritation and disgust. “She’s a Slayer, Xander. Turning her is probably a very bad idea. I’m sorry, but the only way to take care of this situation is to *kill* her…” Her voice and eyes both softened with sympathy as she concluded, “…and I wouldn’t ask you to do that. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

Xander’s eyes widened in stunned dismay, but he did not move as Willow turned back toward the struggling, helpless Slayer, a cold smirk on her lips as she met Buffy’s eyes. Buffy stared at her in horror, her struggles stilling as the redheaded vampire advanced on her with a slow, predatory ease.

She was in no hurry. It was not as if Buffy was going anywhere.

“Willow…you don’t want to do this…”

She knew this was no longer her friend standing in front of her. She knew that Willow no longer harbored any feelings for her, no longer had any decency or affection to appeal to…but a part of her had no choice but to try. Buffy’s voice was barely over a whisper, hoarse and trembling with her own affection for Willow, despite what she had become.

“Will…please…”

“Oh, goodie!” Willow sneered, closing the distance between them and caressing the backs of her fingers down Buffy’s cheek. She did not seem bothered when Buffy jerked away from her, just leaned in closer to whisper, “I love it when they beg!”

Buffy’s lips had parted to continue her ill-fated attempt to reason with her friend, but at those words, her jaw locked, and she closed her mouth again. She steeled herself for the inevitable, aware that nothing she could say was going to change Willow’s mind now, and unwilling to give the vampire any further satisfaction in the form of her pleading words.

Willow caught a fistful of Buffy’s hair, jerking her head back to expose the golden column of her throat. She met Buffy’s eyes, her own sparkling with malicious mirth, before leaning in to delicately scent the Slayer’s skin.

“Oh, *this* is going to be *good*,” she murmured in pleasure, pulling back to meet Buffy’s eyes again and give her a teasing wink. “Don’t worry. I’ll even do you a favor and end it quick.”

As her face shifted to its natural form and she leaned in toward Buffy’s throat, the Slayer tensed against her bonds, straining to pull free…but there was no escape. Across the room, Spike pulled frantically against his own chains, desperate to help her, but to no avail. Buffy’s heart sank as Willow’s fangs descended, and she knew that Giles and Jenny were going to be too late. Spike could not help her, and there was no hope left to her of any kind.

In that moment, a bolt of magical flame hit the wall directly between Buffy’s head and that of her attacker.

Willow stumbled back with a pained snarl, shaking her singed arm, which had been extended between them, still holding onto Buffy’s hair. She turned furious, incredulous eyes on her childe, who was standing a few feet away, a stubborn set to his shoulders as he boldly stared her down.

“Sorry, Will,” he told her simply, shaking his head. “I can’t let you do that.”