Author's Chapter Notes:
The fabulous banner is by the awesomely talented Ben Rostock.
Chapter 2

“What the hell was that?” Xander demanded, appalled. Everybody else’s jaws had dropped too.

“Just what I was gonna say,” Buffy mumbled, unable to meet their eyes. She felt as if her whole body was one burning blush.

What the hell had just happened? She’d been turned on. By Spike! She hated his guts and she’d been turned on! Angry, scornful and punishing, that kiss had still gone through her like lightning, setting her whole body on fire. She’d never felt anything like that before, not with Riley or Parker or even with Angel who’d never been anything but gentle and tender. This had been all passion and provocation, and she was horrified at how violently she had responded to it.

“That was just Spike causing trouble as usual,” said Tara briskly and everybody relaxed because that made sense.

But Buffy knew Tara had sidetracked everyone on purpose. She met Tara’s gaze and saw the awareness and the understanding there. Thank God for Tara! Buffy suddenly understood why Willow was in love with her. Tara might be desperately shy and insecure, but she was loyal and caring and, like now, quietly protective. Buffy didn’t know what would have happened if Tara hadn’t deliberately defused the situation, only that things would have been hopelessly awkward.

While Willow and Tara put their heads together over Tara’s notebook, and Anya helped Xander wring out his soaked clothes, Buffy paced back and forth, trying to get her head together. Spike had totally fazed her.

What was going on with him? Maybe he was just trying to cause trouble, like Tara said. But she couldn’t really fool herself into thinking that, though the others had bought it. Tara, for one, knew better and so did she, if she faced up to it.

That time in the alley behind the Bronze after their evening discussing his past...He had meant to kiss her then, had tried to. ‘You know you want to dance.’ She had rejected that in horror, leading him on for a moment to make it more devastating when she cut the ground from under his feet. But the heat had been there between them.

The heat had always been there. He was hot. She had always thought so, since that first moment he had come out of the shadows, clapping his hands at her dusting that vamp, then saying that he was going to kill her. She had known that he was aware of her too. But she had Angel and he had Dru, and that male-female awareness had been irrelevant. Neither of them had paid any attention to it. So when had things changed?

They had both tried to kill each other frequently, with absolute determination and dedication. He had nearly succeeded several times, Parent-Teacher night at Sunnydale High for instance when only Joyce and her fire axe had stopped him, or that time he had the Gem of Amara. He was a ferocious fighter. She had forgotten about that this last year and a half, since the Initiative put that chip in his head. The chip had made her discount him, had made her lose respect for him when he didn’t fight back.

Because he couldn’t.

She found herself thinking of what Tara had said. ‘You do keep beating up on him for nothing, Buffy.’ Not for nothing! For being the irritant that he was!

But she wouldn’t have done that to a human. And what did that have to do with anything? Demons didn’t feel! Only...that wasn’t true and she knew it. Demons did feel. At least Spike did. She had known she was hurting him and she had enjoyed it. So what did that make her? she thought and saw Tara’s troubled, honest gaze in her mind’s eye. She blushed.

That kiss and the way it had turned her on! It had struck some chord inside her, some violence she hadn’t even known she was capable of—some Slayer thing? Even Angel had never turned her on like that. The intensity of it! Angel had never been so intense, so hungry. Things had always been sweet and gentle with Angel. Riley? She had been bored with Riley, that was the honest truth; he had never really stirred her. And Parker wasn’t even worth the mention.

But Spike? They had kissed during that will-be-done spell of Willow’s, the one that had them both thinking they were going to get married. But that hadn’t been like this kiss. That had been all easy and happy and teasing. Still there had been fire there, fire that had shot Riley down before he had even really gotten off the ground. Because those easy, playful kisses had somehow had more heat and passion in them than Riley’s most determined efforts. She had blocked the memory of that spell out afterwards, horrified by her reactions, not wanting to admit how those kisses had made her feel. But the memory of them had always been there, somewhere in the back of her mind, fueling her rage at him.

She had successfully blocked Spike out entirely until now. And she was going to continue to block him out. He was a demon, a vamp, without a soul, evil. To be turned on by him was just sick. And she hated him for having been the one to tell her about Riley and those vamp hos!

She would have to be more circumspect with him now though, since the chip didn’t work in this dimension; she couldn’t strike him aside the way she had back in Sunnydale. He’d retaliate now, he’d made that plain, and she’d have a full scale battle on her hands. But if he gave her any real hassle, she wouldn’t hesitate to dust him.

She would enjoy doing that too much. There was so much anger in her these days, ever since she had found out about Riley, that she was terrified it would break loose and run wild. No, not just since then. The anger came from the frustration that had been growing in her ever since Angel had become Angelus and her life had gone the way it had. She had been able to turn that anger on the demons she fought, on Spike, had been able to keep it away from the Scoobies and other humans. But it burned in her all the time, just beneath the surface, barely controlled.

She watched Willow and Tara going through the notes in Tara’s fat notebook, mumbling and fussing over slips of paper and madly scribbling down things. From what she could hear, Tara had never had cause to make a note of a portal-opening spell and the two of them were trying to create one out of bits and pieces of other spells that Tara had jotted down.

“Can that be done?” Buffy asked dubiously and Tara gave her a despairing look that said she for one didn’t think so.

“Yes!” said Willow, grimly determined.

Willow clearly would accept nothing else and she really was a powerful witch, so maybe it would work.

The sun set before Willow came up with something that Tara agreed might be successful, but there was still plenty of light in the sky for their attempt.

“I might need to borrow energy from all of you,” Willow said hesitantly. “I’m sorry, but this does need a lot of power.”

“Will it hurt?”Xander asked, shivering a little in his boxers. He had spread his clothes out on the sand to dry, but they were still damp since the overcast sky hadn’t let much sunlight through.

Willow shook her head. “But it will drain you if I have to tap into you.”

“What do you want us to do?” Buffy asked.

“Just sit down in a circle and all hold hands. It’s difficult to describe, but you’ll feel a kind of pull if we do have to draw on you.”

“Will we just poof back if you’re successful?”

“Nuh-uh. It won’t be like how we got here. I don’t know how this Doc guy did that. That poof thing, I mean, one minute in Sunnydale, the next here. You’ll see the portal. Just jump through when it opens.”

“Okay.”

“What about Spike?” Tara said suddenly. “He’s not here.”

“The hell with him,” growled Xander.

“We can’t leave him.”

“Well, if he doesn’t want to be left, he should be here helping out.”

“Xander’s got a point,” muttered Buffy and Xander grinned at her.

Tara was shouting Spike’s name as loudly as she could. Buffy and Xander sighed and Willow shrugged. Anya looked amused.

“He’ll be watching,” she said. “Count on it. That vampire speed of his will get him here soon enough if you do open the portal.”

“Anya’s right,” Buffy said suddenly, seeing a flicker of movement in the cliffs a long way down the beach. He was way beyond the range of her senses, so far in the distance that his figure was only thumbnail high. But that cocky swagger was unmistakable. She had no doubt that the portal would draw him if it really did open.

He seemed to be busy with something though and wasn’t even looking in their direction, his obvious lack of interest making it clear that he thought it highly unlikely that they would succeed. Jerk.

Trouble was, he was right. It wasn’t that Willow and Tara didn’t try. They tried their hardest for almost an hour.

“Enough!” exclaimed Anya at last. “You’ll kill yourselves if you keep on like that and you’ll probably take us with you!”

They were all exhausted because Willow and Tara had been forced to draw on everyone else’s energies to bolster their own. All of them lay limply on the sand, hardly able to get up. But Tara and Willow looked utterly drained, their faces white as paper. Either the spell was flawed or there wasn’t a portal there to begin with.

“What do we do now?” asked Xander.

Willow was nearly weeping with frustration. Tara pushed herself up into a sitting position and patted her shoulder weakly.

“The spell’s right, sweetie. Really it is. It’s not your fault. It’s something else. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Ingredients,” Willow mumbled. “There’s ingredients we can use to make it stronger. But how will we find them?”

“It’s an Earth-type world.” Tara laid her head on her bent knees and breathed deeply. “We’ll look for them. It might take some time, but we’ll find them.”

“In the meantime, we’ll be cold and hungry,” Anya said abruptly. “Spike was right. We should have looked for food and shelter first.”

“Anya!” Xander glared at her. “Spike is never right!”

Anya gave him a look. “And it’s starting to rain. He said it would.”

Buffy looked up and a fat drop of water did hit her forehead. Precursor to more; she was sure of that. The sky was completely overcast now and the clouds looked heavy and pregnant with rain. The light was almost gone and night was close upon them.

They couldn’t go searching in the dark for shelter. They’d only get into trouble.

“Can we eat seaweed, I wonder?” Anya was saying. “If we cook it?”

A fire. That’s what they needed. They were all shivering in the nasty, moisture-laden wind that was rising. Xander was pulling on his clothes even though they were damp. They could do without food till morning, but they needed warmth. Maybe they could huddle against the cliff for shelter. With a fire in front of them, it wouldn’t be too bad and Tara’s long, ankle-length skirt could make a kind of roof, though that wouldn’t do much good if it really rained.

“Driftwood,” Buffy said. “There must be some on the beach.”

“Yeah!” Xander looked around, his teeth chattering. “We’ll find some.”

“How will we light it?” asked Anya, ever practical. “Anybody got a lighter?”

No one had. Why would they? No one smoked.

“I m-might have one of those freebie books of matches restaurants hand out,” said Tara, digging around in her huge purse, and everyone looked at her hopefully. But she didn’t.

“Spike has a lighter,” growled Xander. “But of course he isn’t around.”

“Willow, you or Tara can do that Firestarter thing, can’t you?” Buffy said desperately and both witches looked as if they were going to cry.

“Usually. But...” Willow wrapped her head in her arms and rocked back and forth miserably.

“I’m so s-sorry, Buffy,” whispered Tara. “We’re all p-powered out.”

“Not a spark. See?” Willow held out a finger to demonstrate how nothing happened. “We have to wait to get our strength back.”

No one said anything. It was just too awful. Another drop of rain fell. Buffy looked up. There was a tiny bit of light left in the sky, just enough to make a difference between the sky and the land. Otherwise, everything was utterly black. She had never seen such complete darkness. Back in Sunnydale, there had always been street and house lights.

“You can get a spark when you hit rocks together, right?” said Xander.

“Good luck with that,” muttered Buffy.

“Or we could rub two sticks together,” Xander persisted. “I’ve seen that on the Discovery Channel.”

“You watch the Discovery Channel?” Willow asked disbelievingly.

“Well, you know how it is when you channel-surf...”

“Wait!” Anya said sharply. “Look! There’s a light!”

“Where?” everyone gasped, jerking around.

“Down the beach there.”

There was a light. It was tiny and it wavered and flickered, but it was a light.

“Come on,” said Buffy and they all staggered down the beach.

“We don’t speak the language,” Xander muttered.

“I don’t think whoever it is will have trouble seeing that we need food and shelter,” Willow retorted. “Or at least warmth.”

“Yeah, we’ll catch pneumonia out here without a fire, especially if it rains.”

“W-what if it’s a robber or a bandit?” Tara whispered. “A respectable person wouldn’t be out here all alone.”

“Slayer here,” said Buffy shortly. “I won’t let anyone hurt us.”

“It could be a fisherman in his hut,” said Anya. “Or a gypsy camping out. We could trade for shelter.”

“With what?” Xander patted his back pocket. “I’ve got a few bucks in my wallet, but I don’t think good ol’ US of A paper money is gonna be any good here.”

“Maybe he’d like the wallet itself,” suggested Willow. “That might be a novelty in this dimension. Or Tara’s got things like scissors and a sewing kit and stuff like that in her purse. All tradable items.”

“There’s always sex,” said Anya perkily.

“Ahn!” exclaimed Xander, but all the girls couldn’t help giggling.

Anya gave him a surprised look. “I’d think that would be a viable commodity in any dimension.”

“Let’s, uh, wait and see,” Buffy said hurriedly. Xander looked as if he were going to explode.

A light drizzle started as they neared the light and was threatening to turn into more.

“That’s kind of high up, isn’t it?” Xander remarked in bewilderment as they ran towards it. “It looks like it’s halfway up the cliff.”

“It’s a cave!” Buffy stopped beneath the flickering fissure a third of the way up the cliff face. “At least we’ll be out of the rain.”

A tumble of boulders led up to it. They scrambled up them.

“Oh, God!” Xander sighed as they neared the opening. “Can you smell that? That’s meat roasting!”

“Shelter, warmth and food,” muttered Anya. It was starting to rain really hard now and they were all soaked. “Don’t care what he looks like. I’ll trade.”

“Ahn!”

“What if he wants Xander?” Willow murmured wickedly.

Xander stumbled and nearly fell. “Hey!”

Willow smirked. “The good of the many...”

“Shut up.”

They all crowded into the opening of the cave. Warmth hit them like a benediction. A brisk fire was burning in the middle of a large open space and what looked like a piglet was roasting on a spit over it. Pine boughs were piled into a bed on the other side of the fire and a makeshift bucket made out of a closed piece of hollow log held water.

“Gypsy or that kind of wanderer,” nodded Anya.

“But where is he?” whispered Willow.

“Well, well, well,” said Spike, coming from a blind spot at the side of the entrance. “Look at the bunch of drowned rats the storm blew in.”

“There is no god,” moaned Xander.

“The perfect end to the perfect day,” muttered Buffy.

“Guess the witchy stuff didn’t work, huh? Didn’t think it would. That Doc, he’s good.” Spike hooked his thumbs into his belt and rocked back and forth on his heels, grinning. “Told you, didn’t I? Food and shelter first.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you?” Xander growled, stepping forward. Then he gasped as the heel of Spike’s hand struck his shoulder, knocking him backwards. He reeled against the stone of the entrance.

“And where do you think you’re going, asshole?” Spike asked softly.

“What...?”

“This is my place. Go find your own.”

“You bastard!”

“Ah, ah, ah. Want something? Try asking politely. Know you were brought up in a barn, Harris, but give it a go.”

“Like we’d ask you for anything!”

Spike shrugged. “Enjoy it out on the beach, wanker.”

“Damn it! Buffy, throw him out!” Xander yelled.

“Yeah, do that, Slayer.” Spike gave Buffy a grim smile that showed his teeth. “Force? Might is right? Want, take, have? That’s demon morality, innit? You white-hats are supposed to operate differently. I do all the work and you seize the goodies? That’s called theft, Slayer. A no-no under any standard of values.”

Buffy gritted her teeth. If it was up to her, she would have walked right back out. But none of the others had Slayer endurance and would very likely end up sick after being wet and chilled all night in the rain.

Spike’s eyes were cold and dangerous, flatly hostile. “I may be a vamp, but I have rights. Or doesn’t a demon have rights? Now there’s a question. But it’s a moot point. By your own standard of values, you have no right either to force me out of here or force yourselves in. Or are you the same kind of sanctimonious hypocrite he is?” He cast an utterly despising glance at Xander. “Choose, Slayer. Either way I win.”

“What do you want, Spike?”

“Like I said. Try asking. Know it’s painful, but once in your life say please to a demon.”

“Please, Spike,” Tara said softly. “May we come in?”

He smiled at her. “Always knew you were a lady, Glinda. How about the rest of you?”

Willow and Anya murmured the same quickly and he grinned at them, then tilted a brow at Buffy. She glared back in silence.

“All or none, Slayer,” he said sweetly. “Unanimity rule. One veto and it’s all off. Come on. It’s not hard. Pretty please. Try it.”

“Pretty please,” snarled Buffy through clenched teeth.

Very good. Step on up to the fire and dry off, pets.”

Willow, Tara and Anya did so, but Buffy stayed where she was, watching Spike turn towards Xander.

“Never!” spat Xander.

Spike laughed. “Think I’ll make an exception to the unanimity rule in your case. The girls can stay. You get out. Gonna enjoy watching you freeze your arse off out in the rain.”

“Spike, no.” Anya ran back and caught his arm. “He’ll get sick.”

“I should care?”

“I could make it worth your while. We were talking about that before when we thought the light belonged to a gypsy or a fisherman. A trade.”

“Anya, no!” Xander yelled and Spike’s brows rose.

“Anything that makes that wanker turn purple sounds interesting. What kind of trade, pet?”

Willow couldn’t resist. “Sex,” she murmured and Spike burst out laughing.

“You serious?” he asked Anya and she nodded. He grinned widely and looked her up and down appreciatively. “Oh, that’s tempting. It really is. Bet you’re a right good lay, demongirl.”

Anya preened. “Oh, I am.”

“And you’d get something out of it too.” He smirked at her. “Guaranteed.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that. Vamp stamina and refractory period?” Anya sighed nostalgically. “I remember how it used to be back in the day. All those orgasms!”

“You touch her and I’ll kill you!” snarled Xander, staggering forward.

“Yeah, yeah.” Spike shoved him back with a casual flick of his hand. “Much as I would like showing you up to the pretty bird as the wimp you are, git, I wouldn’t ask such a...sacrifice.” He grinned at Anya’s fleeting look of disappointment. “He can come in. Just keep him out of my hair. And that reminds me. Let’s discuss house rules, Slayer.”

Buffy scowled. “What the hell are you talking about, Spike?”

“My house, my rules.” He gave her a hard stare. “Main one is: you don’t dust me under my own roof.”

“We wouldn’t do that!” Tara exclaimed, horrified.

“Oh, yeah?” He jerked his chin at Xander. “That tosser doesn’t have any concept of honor. Wouldn’t trust him further than I can throw him. Worked pretty hard getting all of this set up and wanna get some sleep tonight. Really don’t fancy him sneaking around with a stake in the wee hours. So I want your word, Slayer. No one tries to dust me.”

“You have my word.” She gave Xander a focused glare and he ducked his head shamefacedly in reluctant agreement. Buffy looked back at Spike. “But the way you’re throwing insults around, maybe you don’t think my word’s any good either.”

“His isn’t, but yours is. We may be enemies, but I trust you, Slayer. The point of this whole exercise is self-defense. He comes after me any time, I’ll kill him. No ifs, ands or buts about it. I’ll rip his heart out. But I won’t do it unless he comes after me. My word on that. Happen you find him with a gaping hole in his chest in the morning, you figure it to be self-defense and don’t come after me. Deal?”

Buffy sighed ostentatiously. “Deal.”

Spike looked at Xander. “Hope you heard that, asshole, because I mean it.”

Xander glowered, but was silent.

“‘Nother thing.”

Buffy groaned. “God! Now what?”

“Little thing called courtesy. Taken a lot of nasty cracks from the lot of you since I was chipped. Couldn’t do anything about it on account of that chip. Can now. Giving you all fair warning. Any one of you gives me lip gets bitchslapped upside the head. And that includes you, Slayer. Can fight you now and I’m really gonna enjoy doing it.”

“Actually very reasonable requests so far,” murmured Anya under her breath to Tara, but Buffy overheard with her Slayer hearing and flushed hotly.

“Fine!” she snarled, then sarcastically, “Anything else?”

“Since I’m on a roll here, yeah.”

“Oh, for...!” Buffy flung her arms up and stomped away towards the fire.

“Not gonna take your orders, Slayer.”

“When did you ever?”

“Mean it. You can queen it all you want over this bunch of losers, but me? I’m a free agent. I’m gonna have to travel with you ‘cause I gotta stay near the witches until they open that portal...”

“If,” muttered Willow gloomily.

“Oh, you’ll do it, Red. Once you’ve worked on that bitty spell of yours some more and got yourself the right ingredients. You might not be as good as Doc yet, but you’ve got potential. Both you and Glinda there. You’ll do it in the end.”

“Thank you!” said Willow, much heartened, and Tara smiled shyly at Spike. He smiled back at her before turning back to Buffy.

“Point is, you’re not my boss, Slayer. Told you that you people needed me. You do. None of you seem to have a clue what to do outside of city streets. Well, I’m perfectly willing to help out since I’ll be around anyway. But you want me to do something, we discuss it and I say yes or no. You don’t fucking tell me what to do.”

“And you don’t go snacking on people!”

“Haven’t made a move on the bunch of you yet, have I?”

“On anybody! I don’t want some poor jerk from this dimension coming wandering into your vicinity tomorrow and finding himself drained dry!”

“What? Aw, come on, Slayer! I gotta feed! That piglet’s blood will do me tonight, but you can’t expect me to settle for pig swill when I’ve finally got my fangs back! Isn’t one dimension enough for you? You gotta protect the whole sodding universe?”

“Yes, I do! It’s my job!”

“Fine! You’re on your own then, and I’ll go and cut a swath through whatever place this is. Scourge of Europe? Scourge of this dimension I’ll be, and they won’t even have seen a vampire to know what they’re up against. I’ll bloody rule!”

“Damn it! I won’t let you!” Buffy jerked towards him involuntarily.

“Try and stop me!”

“Compromise!” Willow shouted. “There’s a compromise possible!”

“What?” they both yelled at her.

“You won’t like it.”

“So what else is new?” muttered Buffy.

“Her or me?” Spike asked, frowning.

“Both of you. He feeds, but he doesn’t kill.”

“What?” said Spike.

“No!” yelled Buffy.

“It’s the only way. He drinks, but he doesn’t kill and they don’t remember him drinking from them. Dracula could do that. You can too, can’t you, Spike? Leave them alive except for a tiny memory loss?”

“Give ‘em a happy if you like,” growled Spike irritably. He and Buffy glared at each other. “Yeah, okay,” he said reluctantly at last and Buffy flounced away furiously.

“This just keeps getting worse and worse!”

“Like I’m so happy with it either, Slayer!”

“I think the pork’s done,” Tara said hurriedly from the fireside. “Do you have anything to cut it with, Spike?”

“Yeah. Here.” He handed her his switchblade. “There’s some leaves over there you can use for plates.”

“Leaves?” Willow picked up a leaf twice the size of a dinner plate and stared at it. “Holy...What kind of tree was it, Spike?”

“Dunno. Never seen it before. Had fruit the size of your head. Woulda got you some, but they looked so weird I didn’t think you’d want to snack on those until you run out of other things to eat.”

“God, no! Does it grow beside the beach? I didn’t see any trees, only the cliffs.”

“Top of the cliffs.”

“You climbed up to the top?”

“Yeah, sure. Wanted to get a look at the area. That’s where I got the water from too. There’s a stream a bit along up there. And a road.”

“Road?” Everyone’s attention focused on him.

“Dirt road. Saw wagon tracks and hoofprints. Means civilization at some point if you follow the road either way. Everything to the west is ocean. Couldn’t see the end of it. Woods in all other directions. But if we follow the road, we’ll run into a town sooner or later.”

“Don’t we have anything to cut this with?” Xander asked plaintively, looking down at the slab of roast pork on the leaf Tara handed him.

Spike shrugged. “Share the knife. Or use your teeth. Unless Glinda has plastic knives and forks in that bottomless bag of hers, all ready for a picnic.” He grinned at Tara.

Tara smiled back. “Sorry.”

“Wouldn’t have been surprised. With the Slayer and all her apocalypses around, you gotta be prepared for anything.” He tilted a scornful eyebrow at the others. “Fingers were the original cutlery. And can be washed in the rain. Use ‘em.”

“You wouldn’t have soap in that bag, would you, Tara?” asked Anya hopefully. “My hands are all sandy and grimy.”

“No, but I’ve got a couple of those little bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizer. You could rinse your hands off in the rain and then use that.”

“Some roughing it,” muttered Spike, lighting a cigarette. “City bred wimps.”

Buffy glared at him. “Like you’re such a nature-boy with the Man U and the Sex Pistols music and the Billy Idol wannabe hair!”

“Billy Idol stole my look, Slayer. And I know my way around agrarian societies a lot better than you do.”

Willow looked up, interested. “So you think this is an agrarian society?”

“That’s the theory until we learn different. Lots of hoofprints, no tire marks. Hope so. Might make things easier.”

“Might be only this area.”

“Find out tomorrow.”

“Should we?” muttered Anya. “We’re safe here. But if we go wandering around...”

“Your decision,” shrugged Spike. “I go where the witches go.”

“We need to know more,” said Willow.

“We need to get home,” growled Xander.

“But we need certain herbs and ingredients for that. A town might have them.”

“We’d stick out like sore thumbs. It’s dangerous!”

“We could sneak in. Do a recon, like Riley would say,” suggested Willow, then blushed as Buffy turned her face away abruptly. “I-I mean, Spike could go in and take a look around. He’s a vamp and they’re good at keeping a low profile.”

“And Spike is also expendable,” said Spike, blowing a long plume of smoke at the ceiling. “And the easiest to blame if things go wrong.”

“Don’t have a cow,” said Buffy contemptuously. “I’ll go in.”

“We’ll go in together then.” Spike took a last drag at his cigarette, then pitched the stub into the fire. “Just don’t want to end up carrying the can for whatever happens. Easier when you have a partner.”

“I’ll never be partners with you, Spike!” Buffy said violently and jerked to her feet, heading for the entrance of the cave to rinse off her hands.

Everybody carefully kept their heads down, avoiding each other’s eyes. Spike got up with a lazy, dangerous, feline movement and sauntered after her.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist, Slayer?”

“Just don’t like breathing the same air as you.”

“You’ve made that perfectly clear over the last couple of years. Wouldn’t even spit on me to put out the fire if I were in the sun and burning, would you? Well, you’re stuck with me until we get back to Sunnydale, so we might as well be polite. You’re making the rest of ‘em uncomfortable.”

“That’s their problem.”

“Buffy...” He reached out to her as she turned away.

“Don’t you touch me!”

His hand froze. She heard a mutter of sound around the fire and looked past him to see everyone staring at her, totally shocked, and Xander starting to climb to his feet.

She waved an angry hand at them. “I’ll deal with this.”

Xander subsided and they all carefully turned their backs to give her as much privacy as they could.

“Stay away from me, Spike,” she said, keeping her voice down so that the others wouldn’t hear. “You make my skin crawl. Stay far away from me and maybe I’ll be able to force myself to be polite for their sakes. But lay a finger on me and I swear to God I won’t be able to keep from dusting you!”

“It’s because of Finn, isn’t it? Because I was the one to tell you about Finn. That’s what’s ratcheted up the venom to this extent.”

She gave him a glance that could have killed and turned away.

“I was trying to do you a favor!” He was keeping his voice low as well, but the intensity behind his words gave it the force of a shout.

“Yeah, right,” she said with furious contempt.

“All right, I wanted to do Finn dirt as well. But think, Buffy! What if some vamp trull had been careless and turned him? It could have happened so easily! Think he’d have gone after you? The git’s a moron, but he isn’t that stupid. He’d have gone after your Mum and Dawn first. And they’d have let him get to them, because they wouldn’t have been expecting it. How’d you have liked that? Seeing them dead or turned.”

Her face was white as she looked at him. “He wouldn’t have...”

“He bloody would have! He’d have been a vamp!”

“You didn’t. You could have turned my Mom, but you didn’t.”

“Finally admit that, do you? God knows why I’m different, but I tell you flat out I’m not the norm. Dru wanted to be a nun before she was turned and my Mum was the sweetest person on God’s green earth before her turning. But the demon takes over. Finn wouldn’t have held out. And after your family, he’d have gone for your friends. Xander first, because that retard thinks the sun shines out of Finn’s ass, because he wants to be Finn but doesn’t have even that small amount of balls. Then Xander would have done Anya and then Willow who trusts him, while Finn would have taken Tara who trusts everyone.”

“Spike...”

“Then there you’d have been with your Mum and your Sis and the Scoobs all vamps. Think you had a hard time sending Angel to Hell? What would it have done to you to have to dust every one of your family and friends?”

Buffy turned hurriedly away from him, not wanting him to see her face. The thought was appalling. That would have finished her. She wouldn’t have wanted to live if she had had to do that.

“You had to be told what kind of risks he was taking,” he said behind her. “You had to know the absolute, blindingly stupid moron that he was. And even now you forgive him, don’t you? That sodding idiot, Harris, talked you into that. Made you think it was all your fault. Finn wasn’t man enough for you and it’s your fault? Couldn’t get you off, so there’s something wrong with you, not him?”

“Wait a minute!” She whirled on him, her jaw dropping. “How did you know that?”

There was a little silence. He made a wiping out gesture of his hand. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, God! You were out there! Under the tree! Listening while...” She couldn’t even get a breath. “You...you Peeping Tom!”

“That’s not important. Listen to me, Slayer...”

“Get away from me, Spike!”

“It’s not your fault, Slayer,” he called after her as she stamped away. “It never was. You’re strong and he’s weak. That’s not your fault. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

She closed her ears to his words. She was not listening to him. She was never going to listen to anything he said. He was her enemy. Oh, it was tempting to believe him. Believing him would be the easy way out. But she knew the truth. She had loved Angel and so she had kept Riley at a distance, never allowing him to reach her, move her. And that had eaten Riley up. It was her fault, not his. Xander had known that and Xander was her true friend. Xander had known her for years, understood her, was on her side. She could believe him. She trusted him. She didn’t trust Spike. Anything coming out of Spike’s mouth was suspect.

The Scoobies looked up at her nervously as she dropped down to sit beside them.

“Buffy...” said Willow cautiously.

“I want you to run interference,” Buffy said fiercely. “You keep him away from me. You stay between us. Because if he comes anywhere near me, I’m going to dust him!”


TBC





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