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Chapter 10 - All's Well. (b. Back to Life?)
Saturday, May 4th, 2002
"Do you want to go check on Sleeping Beauty?" Spike suggested. "I think
she's probably had enough of me for one day." The vampire resumed his
internal countdown just in case the spell hadn't been reversed.
"Sure," Tara offered. "You'll hang around until we know whether it's
worked?"
"Yeah, love," Spike assured her in a resigned tone. Like he could even think of leaving before he knew she was alright... and if the slayer was out for blood then bailing now would only prolong the agony. "I'm not goin' anywhere just yet." He lit another cigarette and moved around to the front
of the house to lean against his 'lurking tree'. He looked up, making out the silhouettes of Dawn, Willow and Tara in Buffy's room, but unable to see any
sign of the slayer.
The three women fussed around the bed for a while
before Dawn left the room.
Spike moved back to the porch steps in case
she was bringing news.
"Hey," Dawn greeted the vampire.
"Hi, Bit," the blond asked in a disspirited tone. "What's the news? Any signs of life?"
"Yes... and no. Tara says her aura's back the way it should
be, but she's not come 'round yet."
"Does that mean I've gone and lost a bit of her?" Concern mingled with self-loathing in his voice.
"Probably not," Dawn answered, trying to sound more certain than she felt. "Tara thinks it just taking everything
a little while to adjust to being back together again."
"But you don't know for sure?" Spike threw away the remains
of his cigarette, running the now free hand through his hair.
"Look, Spike, Tara told me about the spell, about what
you wished for... and, well I think it's really cool. I mean, you could
have wished that she'd fall in love with you... Or that she'd be your sex
slave or that you'd get married, but you didn't. You just tried to get
her to sort out what's going on between the two of you and, well, cool."
"If I'd done anything else, Nibblet, would have been
rape," Spike answered, sounding nearly as disgusted with himself as if that was what he had done. "And besides, I learned my lesson about second best with the 'bot.
If I can't have the real thing I don't want it at all. If she just loved
me because of some spell, I'd get to where I couldn't look at her. I'd
always know that I wasn't man enough for her to love me without magic."
"She said she cares," Dawn offered tentative consolation. "We were talking about you just before
that last wish hit, and she said she cared."
"Said much the same at the wedding, love, but it hasn't
made a difference to what she's said or the things she's done since. I
don't think a happy ending's on the cards for Spikey." His lips twisted into a wicked grin, but the sadness never left his eyes. "If I could tell
that heart of mine what to do I'd have made it wait a few years and fall
for the more open-minded of the Summers women."
Dawn adopted a teasing tone. "If I thought you could
ever feel about me the way you feel about her, I could wait... except for
the whole having slept with my sister, 'cos it would be really gross to
think that you could, like... compare. So if we're lucky I reckon we call
it quits at brother-in-law."
"The day I get to be called your brother-in-law is the
day I become the happiest man in the world."
"Even if it was because I was getting married to one
of Dru's offspring?" Dawn joked.
Spike shuddered. "Don't even mention possibilities like
that when you're on the Hellmouth, pet."
The back door opened behind them. "She's up. She said
for Dawnie to go on up if she wants to see her, but that she needs to
take a shower." Dawn ducked past Tara and through the kitchen. "She said
you should wait down here. She's got a job for you when she's done,
and she said if you want to try the tranquilliser gun, it's in the old
weapons chest in the basement, but that there's only a few darts left.
Does that make sense to you?"
"Reckon it means we're going after Warren and his mates."
Spike held the door open for Tara to go back in, and headed for the basement.
Sunday, May 5th, 2002
"So, are we goin' to talk about what just happened, or
are you going to keep your season ticket for the land of denial?" Spike
asked as the pair made their way down the front steps of Buffy's house.
"We're going to talk. We are so going to talk,
but not now, not till I've had some time to process everything through
- okay? In the meantime, leave your ice box alone."
Buffy made to walk off down the street, but Spike grabbed
her elbow and pulled her back in the direction of his motorbike. He secured
the rifle on what seemed to be a gun rack mounted on the side of the bike,
which she supposed made sense, considering how he got it.
"No point draggin' this out, love. Just tell me where
we're going." He swung his leg over the bike in a graceful movement, the
duster settling into place behind him. He kicked the engine over and waited
for Buffy to climb on behind him.
"Back to where the Glar Gluck Cash Manic or whatever
you call it came from. I'll give you directions when we get closer. We
think they might have set it on me because I was getting too close."
"Reasonable assumption, I suppose..." Spike conceded.
"We also think they're the ones using the cameras."
Spike merely grunted in reply and Buffy
changed the subject.
"Have you tried using the tranquilliser gun yet?"
"Pointed it at Dawn and the chip didn't go off," Spike answered. "Haven't
actually tried firing it at anyone yet, but we've got a slight advantage
in that the guys seem to have bought into the Big Bad's reputation without
ever hearing about what the chip does. They're a bit scared of me."
"You know them?" Buffy demanded.
"It's not like I have them over for pizza and a movie," Spike pointed out.
"Who did you think built the 'bot? And, when I found out I could hit you,
who was I meant to trust to check if the chip was working?"
"Well, Willow-"
"Willow would have been passing out stakes to Bob the
Builder two seconds after she found out I could hit you. Warren just
did a scan, said he reckoned it was all working like it should do but
I never told him what it did."
"But you knew where they were weeks ago..." Buffy protested, "and you didn't
say."
"Hey, since you decided we weren't talking buddies
the second you finished snogging me for the first time, it's hardly my
fault that I didn't know you were looking for them. If you hadn't stomped off
with a bug up your arse every time I tried to speak to you they might not
have moved on by the time I found out you wanted them. So don't plan on
making it my fault."
Before Buffy could reply he revved up the engine on the
big bike and drove off, effectively ending all conversation until they
reached their destination. If she hadn't had slayer reactions she might
well have been left sitting outside her house instead of clasping her
arms firmly around the vampire's waist. Even she had to admit that huddled
in against Spike on the back of a motorbike, breathing in the scent of
his coat and the lightest hint of cologne, was no bad place to be.
Spike took point as they investigated the basement, his
better nightvision and hearing giving him a slight edge.
"There's no-one here. Only heartbeat's yours," he announced after a few seconds' pause just inside. He
prowled the room, looking for anything suspicious.
Buffy followed on, grabbing
up anything with writing on or any sort of computer media.
When he reached
the far side of the room, Spike caught the glint of something metallic.
He followed it back to the wall at one end and traced the other to the
whiteboard.
"What ya got there?" asked the slayer as she observed
his movements.
"Tripwire. I think we might want to leave the board alone,
and watch your step. There might be more than one." He moved back to where
the wire passed through the wall. "Can't smell any explosives, there's
more of an oil and metal smell, like some sort of machinery but it's probably
best not to take chances."
He scanned the room. Apart from a collection of pizza
boxes the slayer seemed to have grabbed everything with any sort of writing
on. "Got everything you want, pet?"
"I think so."
"Then why don't we go take a look at what we've got?" the vamp suggested.
"Magic Box or your place or mine?"
"Home, no point me being more of an absentee parent than
I have to be."
Spike put the gun back on the rack and took some of the
papers from the slayer's arms, rolling them up and putting them in his
coat pockets until she was left with only a couple of books and a few CD-ROMs
which she tucked inside her jacket.
The journey home took no time at all and Buffy was surprised
to find herself thinking that she could quite happily take off for an
hour or two, now and again. If nothing else at least it kept the vamp
quiet for a while.
By the time they got back to the house the rest of the
occupants had all gone to bed. He followed her through to the dining room
where she dropped the books and disks on the table. Spike started sorting
out the papers into different piles, splitting them between technical
and arcane and by language.
"Hot chocolate?"
Spike blinked in surprise. "You making some?"
"Wouldn't have offered otherwise," Buffy replied.
"Sure." Spike couldn't work out what was going on. Buffy
hadn't been this friendly to him in... ever. He found himself humming under
his breath as he sorted through the pages. Once he had put the pages into
piles, he pulled the books towards him. Resting the first on its spine
he opened the covers slightly to see if it fell open at any particular
section. When this failed he tried skimming through. Then, he came across
a passage that was highlighted in fluorescent pink.
He pulled the pile of English documents over and started
looking through them. When he failed to find the translation he was looking
for, he got up and went through to the kitchen.
Buffy was just pouring the hot chocolate into a pair
of mugs and he paused in the doorway till she'd finished before picking
one up.
"Have you got a pad and a pen or a pencil handy?"
"I should be able to manage that. Is this so
you can write down the number of that cell-phone of yours, or did you
have something else in mind?" Buffy asked with an honest to goodness smile
on her face.
"Both, I suppose," Spike replied, Buffy's openness coaxing an answering smile from him. "There's a passage in one of those books
that someone has conveniently highlighted. Something about some race of
demons, living in some sort of sanctuary in the caves deep under Sunnyhell,
but it's in Latin so it might take me a while to work it out."
Buffy led the way into the dining room and pulled a pad
and a pen from one of the dresser drawers, putting them on the table in
front of Spike. "I didn't know you spoke Latin," she remarked curiously.
"No reason to tell you, pet, as long as the watcher was
around." Spike smirked at her.
"What did you do before you were turned? I wouldn't be
surprised to find out you were a librarian, or some sort of academic type."
Spike let out a groan. "You were there, in my dream,
weren't you?"
Buffy nodded, watching him over the rim of her mug.
"I guess you're not going to let me live this down?"
asked the shame-faced vampire.
"There's nothing to live down. What you said was beautiful
and if she couldn't see that, then that was her problem not yours, but
now's not the time to go into this." Buffy looked at her watch. It was
after four in the morning.
"Why don't we finish our drinks and call it quits for
the night?" she asked. "You can take that book away with you and I could
give you a call tomorrow and see how you're getting on with the translation.
Let you know if we come up with anything here."
Spike wrote a phone number on the top sheet of the pad
before ripping the page out and passing it over to her. "And the other thing?" he prompted.
"Let's say I'm going to need a little patience, but the
sooner we get things sorted out with Warren, Jonathon and... the other one,
the sooner I'll be able to start making any decisions about my personal
life. I know waiting isn't your strong suit, and I'm not making any promises
about what my decision is going to be, but I think we might be
able to work something out."
"Do I get to give you a reminder of what it is that you're
considering?" Spike put down his cup and took a step towards her, a wicked
grin illuminating his face.
"No, you don't. You get to behave yourself like the gentleman
you once were." Buffy held her arms straight out, trying to keep him at
a distance. "Otherwise neither of us is going to get any sleep tonight
without a cold shower, so back."
"In that case..." Spike took the fingers of Buffy's right
hand in his own and pulled it towards him as he bent over, kissing her
gently on her knuckles, "I shall take my leave and wish you sweet dreams."
"Aren't we supposed to be engaged before you get to take
liberties like that."
"Well, if you insist..." He started to pull one of
the rings he was wearing from his finger.
Buffy laughed and bundled him toward the front door,
pushing the book and the pad into his arms. "Shoo! Get out! I'll speak
to you later today."
As she took the mugs back through to the kitchen to rinse
them out she noticed the neatly folded guest sheets still sitting on the
coffee table. She felt so happy for her friends, but at the same time
jealousy was nibbling gently at her insides and she wondered if she could
ever trust Spike enough to let herself fall in love with him, the way
Willow and Tara loved each other. She felt that she knew him so much better
than she had known him that morning but she still didn't know the answer
to that question. | 
