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*One of Sunnydale’s alleys, next evening*
He should have seen the punch coming. Roses were red, the Powers were dicks, and Angel was upset at him. The constants of Spike’s unlife carried over in every timeline.
“What did you do?” Angel slammed him against the wall. “You dared? You come to my town, try to keep me from my Slayer, and now you do that?” He was yelling, spittle flying out from between his clenched teeth. It was the most Angelus Spike had seen him in a long time.
Spike vamped out and tried to push Angel off him, but couldn’t. “That’s such a load of shit, you wanker. This isn’t your town, Darla had to die, and Buffy is not your anything.” He used his legs to kick back at the wall he was being held up against and head-butted Angel, breaking his nose in the process. “I told you to get help. I asked you to stay away from her. Instead you’re being an even bigger dick than normal.”
Angel was holding a hand to his face, but he sucker-punched Spike in the gut. “You can’t order me around, Spike. I’m this close to reminding you what the order is in our family.”
Spike burst out laughing, even though it hurt. “Family? We’re as close to being a family as the Carpenter’s parents.”
“Who?”
“The Whelp. Xander.”
“What are you talking about?”
Spike swore and started pacing. “This is what’s wrong with you. You say Buffy’s yours as if she could be possessed by anyone, and you know bugger all about her. Do you even know her favorite color? What band she’s into this month? What’s the name of her sister, even? You know nothing.” The hand gesture he used to accompany his words with made his ribs hurt, but he didn’t care. He got right into his elder’s personal space and spit his next words at him. “Buffy is so much more than you can even begin to understand. You don’t deserve her. Hell, I don’t deserve her, but at least I did my best to try to. I told you what you need to do. I explained it to you. I all but drew you a fucking diagram, but instead you’re still throwing your weight around and acting like you’re God’s gift. You’re not. Go fix your goddamn soul.”
He should have known better. Trying to tell Angel he was wrong about anything was bound to be as big of a success as running headfirst into a wall in hopes of fixing its paintjob.
So he really should have seen the punch coming this time. What was it about Angel and his sucker-punches? Spike spat some blood on the ground. Bloody Neanderthal. Enough was enough. Spike brought out a stake.
Angel took a step back, but brought out his own stake. The two started circling each other.
“What are you planning on doing with that stick, boy?”
“What I promised, you gel-drenched numbskull. I’m going to put you out of her misery.”
“Foolish little Willie. You can’t possibly think you could take me.”
“Oh, I can. Let me show you how.” He lunged forward, but turned around at the last moment and swept Angel’s legs out from under him.
Before anything else could happen, though, five minions from the Order of Aurelius rushed them. “Get the traitor.”
Spike let Angel go and dusted the first vampire to come in range. The fight was short and brutal. The two souled vampires tore through their opponents in no time.
“Don’t dust the last wanker. I wanna know who they were trying to get.”
Angel grunted and incapacitated his opponent almost casually by breaking his spine. “You idiot. They’re coming for you. I haven’t done anything against the Order for at least a couple of weeks, but you. You just had to ruin the Harvest and dust his two favorite childer in the process. Do you really think Nest would let that go?”
Spike couldn’t help but grin at that. If the Master was busy gunning for him, he wasn’t doing anything against Buffy. That way she’d be able to work her way up to taking the old bastard out before he even realized what was happening. She’d also get some quality ‘Buffy’ time.
Angel shook his head and staked the vampire at his feet whose cries of pain had gone unnoticed and ignored in the jaded little town. He then took his opportunity to get lost in the darkness around them.
Spike wanted to go after him, but decided it could wait for the moment. He had a Master to lead on a wild goose chase.
~~~***~~~
*Spike’s apartment, a week later*
Spike was busy hammering away. He’d gotten a place in a demon-friendly building thanks to Clem’s connections.
Jenny was leaning against the back of the living room couch, ready to pass him the painting of a sunrise at the beach while Giles was in the kitchen boiling water for tea. “When you asked me to help you set up your apartment I’m not sure what I imagined, but this wasn’t it.” She accompanied her words with a sweeping gesture to the rest of the place.
Spike smirked and leaned against the wall. He’d gone minimalistic and modern. A few good games of poker, some bets on some long-shots he’d remembered had won, and he’d found himself with enough funds to not have to rely on the city dump for his furniture.
His biggest investments were the TV and the fridge, for obvious reasons. The crypt and more high-priced items would have to wait until after the Master was taken care of. That’s when he was going to go after the Gem.
Giles walked in with a tray of tea and that signalled the time for a break. Jenny all but skipped her way to the couch to drink from her cup. She was more than interested in the company as well, as far as Spike could tell.
“I have given some thought and I believe the bookcase should be against the back wall here.” Giles pointed to the exact place Spike had considered as well.
“You realize what he really needs there is a desk with a computer on it. All the books will be scanned and available on the internet at some point, so why not get a head-start on that?”
Giles almost did a sacrilege and spit out his tea. “Good God. Where did that preposterous idea come from?”
“Spike said his funds are tight. Why spend money on useless shelves, when he could be ahead of the curve and get a ticket to the future.”
She’d all but begged for him to tell her what computers and the internet would be like in the future, but Spike was far from a fountain of knowledge on the subject. The Fred from the other reality would have been a much better person to ask. Or Andrew. Regardless, his every new revelation had only made Jenny’s eyes grow bigger, until she was all but squealing like a schoolgirl. She’d been butting heads on the subject with Giles ever since.
“You’re an insufferable woman.”
“And you’re a relic of a time gone by. You’re about as contemporary as the dinosaurs.”
Spike smiled at the exchange. Even without his knowledge of their future relationship and the importance the teacher would have for the watcher, it was obvious there was a well of passion in every exchange. He wondered for a moment if anyone had seen any of the arguments between Buffy and himself before her second death and thought of passion. Actually, Dawn had. Tara had possibly sensed something too. It didn’t really matter now. He was pulled out of his memories by Giles’s voice.
“Well?”
Crap. He’d tuned their discussion out and they’d been asking him something. “What’s that?”
“I wanted you to tell her that precious tomes and scrolls couldn’t possibly be of use on the internet, for every conspiracy theorist to find.”
That gave Spike pause. “Actually that’s not quite true. When the First’s minions torched the Council of Wankers most of their library was lost. If they would have been less anal about knowledge we could have managed to salvage something. Not that most of their go-to books aren’t useless drivel filled with garbage written by narrow-minded bigots on the Council’s payroll.”
Giles’s face had lost most of its color. “Bloody hell.”
“See? He agrees with me.” Jenny’s grin was a mile wide.
“Yes and no. There are a lot of people and organizations out there that should never see the names of some of the more important books, let alone have access to them. The things they could do with that would be… apocalyptic.” He pointed at Giles. “Just imagine That Rayne fellow with an arcane book of magic.” He nodded at the gloating Jenny next. “Or the Master with Angelus’s curse.”
Jenny had paled almost as much as Giles.
“So scanning them, sure. Putting them on the internet for everyone to see? No, not in a million years.”
“There has to be a middle.”
“There is.” He frowned. “Or will be. I’m not sure the tech was invented yet.” The idea was worth a thought.
Spike let the discussion flow around him while he sipped his tea. His earlier thoughts had reminded him of Fred. She was in Pylea as a slave now. He really hoped he could do something about that. The Master would have to die first. That way Buffy wouldn’t die.
His cup almost fell from his grasp when his mind made another leap. No death for Buffy meant no Kendra as the Slayer. No Kendra and no Dru meant no Faith. If she didn’t get out of her former life… He shuddered. She’d be lucky to end up someone’s dinner if that was the case. He wanted to curse himself. Everything he did ended up collapsing more dominoes and hurting the people he cared about.
Well, cared was a bit too strong a word to use for Faith. He understood her, though.
Consequences sucked. Thinking about them sucked even more. What sucked the most was that he felt compelled to do something about it.
At least Faith was only a continent away. Fred was in another dimension.
~~~***~~~
*Almost a month later*
Jesse McNally was alive because of Spike. He was also quickly becoming the front-runner for ‘first person to die by Spike’s hand’ post First Evil.
Seeing Jesse and Xander reminded Spike of the day Toth used his wand to make two Xanders. In this case, though, Jesse was the jerk version.
For one, he was drooling all over Cordelia every time she was within a block of him. The real issue though was how he was with Dawn.
It wasn’t that he insulted her, it was that he ignored her. Although he was a card-carrying Scooby, and although all the Scooby meetings were taking place at the Summers house, he seemed completely ignorant of Dawn’s existence.
Dawn was all too aware of his existence, though. The girl had a serious crush on him.
Which is why Spike was tempted to rip his throat out and beat some sense into him with it. Not that he wanted Dawn dating Jesse. Or anyone for that matter. But if she decided to fancy someone, that someone had better count his lucky stars for the privilege.
His Bit deserved to be cherished.
“Could we, you know, speed this up?” Buffy was tapping her stake on her thigh.
“The problem is that we can’t treat this lightly. A violent and disturbing prophecy is about to be fulfilled.”
“The Order of Aurelius.” Buffy pinned Spike with a venomous gaze. “Your family is really cramping my style.”
He shrugged. “It’s what they do.”
Giles flipped some pages in one of the tomes he’d stashed in the basement. “I've looked at the writings of Aurelius himself, and he, prophesied that the brethren of his order would come to the Master and bring him the Anointed.”
Willow fidgeted. “Who’s that?”
“An annoying little prick not even wet around the fangs. I dusted him and took over almost as soon as I first came into town. Well, back when I was evil. If I remember correctly, he’s the one who leads Buffy to the Master to die.”
“Crap.” Buffy had heard all the stories before, more than once, so she wasn’t fazed by the mention of her death. “So when does he get here?”
Giles had an expression on his face that had Spike sitting up. “From what is written here, he will rise from the ashes of the Five on the evening of the thousandth day after the Advent of Septus”
Buffy flipped a hand. “Well, we’ll be ready whenever it is.”
“Which is tonight.”
“Tonight, okay… Not okay. It can’t be tonight.”
“And why’s that, love?”
Willow coughed lightly. “She has a date.”
“Oh, is it that Owen dude?” Jesse jumped from his seat and snatched a bag of chips.
Spike felt a nasty jolt in his chest.
Buffy blushed. “Well, what do you want from me? Cute guy. Teenager. Post-pubescent fantasies.”
The others kept talking about the Anointed. Spike put in his two cents from time to time, telling them all he could remember of the child-vampire. His mind was a hundred miles away though.
As soon as the rest went to do their things for the night, he thanked Joyce for the hospitality, and went out to clear his head.
As usual for him, that meant bashing a few heads in at the Alibi Room followed by patrolling a few of the most frequented cemeteries.
*
The cemeteries had been a bust. The Aurelians must have been holed up somewhere trying hard to find a way to turn a ten-year old. Useless bunch of wankers. They couldn’t even turn up so he could get his self-prescribed dose of violence?
A scream pierced the air. Spike grinned.
There was a fledge trying to rip a woman’s throat out. He would have drained her already, but he was too busy trying to feel her up at the same time. Spike wanted to take his time and enjoy the kill, but the woman was going to bleed to death soon.
He body-slammed the fledge, smashed him head-first into a wall a couple of times, then ripped his head off. That would have to do.
He picked the unconscious woman up and rushed to the hospital.
He’d started to memorize the sign-in questionnaire. For some reason he didn’t remember taking as many half-dead people to be handled by professionals in the other Sunnydale.
He was trying to remember what they used to do with the victims when Glory was breathing down their necks when someone cleared their throat right above him.
“Wot?” He made sure his voice sounded extra threatening.
“That’s the fourth one you brought in a month.” The voice was a bit rough and tired. “Lemme guess: animal attack, neck wound, and heavy blood loss, right?”
Spike squinted under the fluorescent lighting. A nurse was talking to him. He didn’t really care to find out more than that, so all he noticed were her scrubs. They were teal and barely showed the fact that a woman was talking to him. The bonnet and the mask were not helping. Spike decided to ignore her and get back to the questionnaire. ‘Describe your relationship with the patient.’
“I just checked in on the latest rescue. Her blouse was ripped open. Dinner and a show?”
The comment was strange enough to warrant a second look. Still no luck. Vampire vision wasn’t Superman’s. Damn Andrew for putting that idea in his head.
“I know you didn’t almost drain them, so that rules out your conscience acting up. Although why a vampire would listen to his conscience would be weird in the first place.”
Spike sat up and looked around. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to their discussion. “What did you say?”
“Ah, he speaks.” She tilted her head to the side. “I was just wondering why you do what you do.”
Spike felt even more uncomfortable under her scrutiny.
She sat down next to him and took off her mask. She wasn’t what he expected. She must have been around Joyce’s age, with darker skin, and green eyes.
“I’m pretty sure you’re a vampire. So why save people?”
Spike was thrown by her question, so he answered on auto-pilot. “Why do you?”
She grinned. “It’s my job.”
“So then why’d you chose a job that involves saving people?”
She wasn’t grinning anymore. “I liked the challenge.” Her body language had become almost hostile. There was a story there. One she didn’t want to share.
“For me it was a girl.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore. Instead he focused on the half-filled sheet of paper he was still holding. “Loved her more than unlife. Still do.”
Her hand on his arm was unexpected. “Is she…”
How could he answer that? “She’s happy somewhere else. There’s nothing I can, or want to do about it.”
She didn’t say anything for a time. “What about the girl you were here with a couple of times?”
Spike’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “She’s busy tonight. Big date. Some guy she goes to school with.” It hurt, even though she wasn’t the Buffy he was in love with. Even though it was exactly what he’d told her to do. Whomever came up with the ‘if you love it, let it go’ philosophy should be drawn and quartered.
When she squeezed his arm he was startled out of his dark thoughts. “You need a coffee. Come on.”
He let her drag him to the hospital cafeteria, where she bought him a decent cup of Joe. He talked, she listened. It was therapeutic to talk to her. A complete stranger, unconnected to anyone or anything from his previous life.
Even though he’d introduced himself over and over, this time he felt free.
~~~***~~~
*Restfield cemetery, the next night*
A little boy darted from tombstone to tombstone. He looked around him every couple of steps as if he expected the shadows to take shape and swallow him whole.
Spike’s smile turned into a shark’s grin. His prey had found him. Buffy, the Scoobies, and her date were running all around the town trying to track down some turned criminal, convinced he was the Anointed One. Despite his protest, Spike had been largely ignored in planning tonight’s activities. He’d had enough of the hospital the previous night, so he decided to patrol his favorite old haunt. The Fates were smiling down on him as he spotted the walking child.
“Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of a nice, ripe, young bum.”
Collin took a couple of steps back, visibly startled by Spike’s sudden appearance in his path. “Who are you?”
“Your end-game.”
Collin frowned and gave him an appraising look. “You’re not the Master.”
Spike chuckled darkly. “O-ho. I am a Master, and soon I’ll be the only Master in this hell-hole. But you’re right. I’m not the one you’re looking for.” He took a menacing step forward. “Doesn’t much matter, though. All your worries are about to end.”
“I demand you take me to the Master.”
Spike dropped to a knee, making sure the move brought him even closer to Collin. “As far as I know you’re supposed to be some sort of trail-blazing vamp, here to show the Slayer the way to her death. Why don’t you show the Master the way to his, instead?” He moved so fast that Collin’s face didn’t even manage to show his shock before he was dust.
Spike rose from his fake submissive position. He didn’t put much stock in prophecy, but taking out a piece of one sure felt good. Almost good enough to make him forget about Buffy’s date.
Almost, but not enough. What if he’d changed things enough that she actually made it work with the pup? What if she went through her ‘normal must be enough’ period a few years sooner than Riley?
What if he got so blindingly drunk he stopped caring for the night? He nodded to himself. “Capital idea, old chap.” He gave his crypt an ironic salute and headed for his apartment and its fully stocked bar.





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