Chapter Five:

The big problem with meandering aimlessly around a one-Starbucks town like Sunnydale is that there are only so many places to meander to. Usually, Buffy spent her many pensive moods roaming the nearby cemeteries, a neat way of combining business with brooding. Today, however, that had seemed like a really, really bad idea, and she'd started off headed in the opposite direction from her normal circuit. But she'd soon become too lost in thought to notice where she was going, and when she finally looked up from her brown study sometime later she saw that force of habit had brought her within a hundred yards of Spike's crypt.

At least, she told herself it was habit.

She stood there for a minute staring at the squat grey building, which seemed to hunker down on itself in the syrupy sunlight, as if it were as wary of sudden blazes as its occupant. She'd always found it funny that Spike would insist on a tomb when abandoned houses were plentiful--the vagaries of Sunnydale real estate being what they were--and then fix it up with as many creature comforts as any human habitation. Oh, he kept cobwebs and dust and the odd skull about for atmospheric purposes, but otherwise she knew many college students who didn't live as well as he did. It was so like him to cling stubbornly to the style of something, even when the substance didn't suit him anymore.

Buffy ambled onward another few feet, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He was almost certainly home at this hour. Not sleeping--he hardly ever did that--probably sprawled out in that awful green chair, sipping on blood and berber weed like it was his morning V-8 or something, watching bad daytime TV or reading one of those musty old books he thought no one knew about. The pomade-and-leather Big Bad uniform wouldn't be on yet: his hair would be all tousled in that boyish way, and he'd only be half-wearing one of those trashy goth shirts he liked, his gleaming bare skin the brightest thing in that somber space. This long before sunset he'd still be a little foggy, daytime torpor softening the hollows in his face and the hungers in his eyes, the moonstruck poet taking precedence over the predator for a brief time. Buffy smiled slightly at the image, remembering times when she'd stopped by on some non-crisis daytime errand and found him like this. She took a few more cautious steps forward.

Only. . .there wouldn't be anything soft about Spike right now, she reminded herself, her smile fading. At this moment, the predator would be in control. In control and frustrated, since after their midnight confrontation he'd be too unsure of his invite at Casa Summers to risk a daylight visit. No, he wouldn't be enjoying his gloomy bachelor pad today--he'd be trapped there. She could see him, all jagged points and blazing eyes, pacing the stone floor like a caged lynx as the sun circled and the shadows lengthened, burning for his moment of release. His mind would be racing, racing, pent-up compulsion revving like an engine gunned in neutral, every thought and instinct bent on tracking her come nightfall. Because he would not stop, you see, probably could not stop, even with the ugly brand of her fury still scoring his chest. His obsession, already sharpened to a scalpel's edge before her death, had been further honed by five months of grief and two nights of passion. Now that he'd finally had a taste of her, he was going to keep coming back and coming back until he'd devoured everything. . .

I hear what your heart cries out for, Slayer.

Buffy came back to reality with a start, and saw that she'd let her deathly little reverie lead her another fifty yards closer to his front door. She mentally shook herself, self-disgust skimming over her in a grim current. Mooning around the den of a murderous beast with serious designs on her bloodstream was a real low point, even for today.

I may be dirt. . .but you're the one who likes to roll in it. You never had it so good as me. Never.

With a sigh of mingled anger and frustration over the utter patheticness of her existence, Buffy turned and headed purposefully towards downtown. Obviously too much maundering on her own situation was unsafe right now. What she needed was to focus on someone else for a while, and the someone in question was obvious. Willow had made it clear that she didn't want any assistance, but helping the witch stay clean and sober might just be her lifeboat for this whole Titanic of a day. And she couldn't really imagine her friend turning her down if she came up with something actively useful. Even Willow's martyr complex didn't extend that far.

Within minutes, she was standing in front of the Magic Box. She wasn't really in the mood for Anya's particular brand of Stepford Wife perkiness, but there was the off-chance that conversation with her could actually prove fruitful. After twelve hundred years of consorting with the dark forces, the ex-demon had picked up a surprising amount of useful information. It was possible she had a recipe for Aunt Anyanka's Magick Hangover Curative stashed somewhere in the recesses of her overly-literal brain.

Before Buffy could enter the store, however, she was stopped by the sight of Tara coming around from the alleyway exit. Spotting Buffy, her face lit up with her usual beatific smile, and she waved. Buffy waved back. It was nice to see one person in her life looking relatively well-adjusted.

"I'm glad I caught you," Tara said. "I wouldn't go in there if I were you."

"Why?"

"Apparently, Xander and Anya were watching the Disney Channel last night--something about needing wholesome entertainment to take their minds off this new pre-wedding abstinence rule Anya's come up with."

"I've already heard about that one."

"Well, Disney was showing The Little Mermaid. Anya had never seen it, and she flipped out over it. She's calling it one of the great romantic films of our time, says it's inspired her in a whole new aesthetic direction. She's all set on some sort of under-the-sea theme now, so she's redoing the decorations, the invitations, even the bridesmaids' dresses. She actually kept a customer standing at the cash register for three whole minutes while she made me look at fabric swatches--I hope you like Nile green, by the way. It's madness, I tell you."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You know, this whole wedding thing was kinda cute when they first brought it up, but now it's just getting lame, don't you think?"

"Scary's more like it. She's got poor Xander in there drawing up wedding day flowcharts and reception hall diagrams. I only escaped because she got distracted by her new issue of Martha Stewart Weddings. You don't want to get sucked in, trust me."

Buffy smiled weakly and glanced around the busy downtown center, wondering what to do next. Anya's latest conjugal quirk had left her rather at loose ends. When she glanced back at Tara, she noticed she was watching her closely.

"Hey, Buffy, are you okay? You look sort of pale."

Out of sheer habit, Buffy was about to flash coping smile #3 and declare everything just peachy, thank you very much. But something in Tara's calm grey eyes made her stop and consider. Even after everything they'd experienced together, she'd never really gotten to know Tara as well as she would have liked. Like Oz before her, she'd fallen into the nebulous category of best friend's significant other, which limited their interaction in certain key ways. But talking to someone who wasn't quite so closely related to her screwed-up life might be the best thing, anyway.

"No," she said frankly. "Not really."

Tara nodded, seemingly unsurprised by Buffy's admission. "Do you want to talk about it? The Espresso Pump's just down there--you look like you could use something to drink, anyway. My treat." She gave her a wistful smile. Buffy saw lines in the witch's face that hadn't been there a few weeks ago, and wondered if underneath Tara's earth mother serenity she was dealing with her own inner turmoils. After the implosion with Willow, it was likely. Well, at this point she was more than ready to trade secrets. Some secrets, anyway.

Ten minutes later, they were comfortably settled at one of the coffee shop's outdoor tables, sipping grande lattes with extra foam. As she watched harried mothers pushing strollers and the giggling teenage girls who would one day be harried mothers go past, she could feel Tara looking at her expectantly. Still she hesitated, not sure which painful topic to start first.

"So. Everything okay at home?" Tara said carefully.

Buffy stirred her drink meditatively, not sure what to say. She knew what Tara was really asking, but she didn't know how much she could say without incurring the wrath of Willow. Finally, after a moment or two of tense silence, she decided to just spill it. She needed someone's advice on this situation, and if Will wanted to take her consulting Tara personally and turn her into a rat, so be it. At this point, a couple of years chewing cedar chips and running around on an exercise wheel sounded like a paid vacation.

"Um, not exactly," she said finally. "Willow's. . .Willow's sick."

"Sick?" Tara asked, her eyebrows knitting together. "Sick how?"

Buffy paused again, trying to find a way to tone down the Rack story but still get the whole truth in. After a moment she realized that there really wasn't any way to softball it, and simply told the whole sad thing straight out, watching Tara's placid countenance steadily darken as she spoke. When she got to the part about Willow's crazy midnight run with Dawn, Buffy could swear she saw sparks flashing in the witch's stormy eyes.

"But I think this whole Lost Weekend experience really got through to her," Buffy concluded quickly, wanting to reassure her somehow. "She swore that was it for her and magic--total cold turkey time. But now it's like she has this really terrible case of the mystic D.T.'s or something. She's hardly left her room for two days and this morning I found her puking her guts out. She looks so bad, Tara."

Tara nodded grimly. "I've seen this before. My mother. . .she got in too deep, sometimes. Then she'd try to pull back, go off the magic completely. Doing that's really hard on the system."

Well, Buffy thought. That explains a lot. Tara had never said much about her mother's life or untimely death, but it seemed like she had more reason than just the accidental mindwipe to be upset about Willow's magic abuse. "Is she in over her head with this?"

"No, I don't think so," Tara replied. "She was only at Rack's a couple of times, right? After that short an exposure she'll probably be all right in a day or two. There are some elixirs that would help with the symptoms, but if she really wants to quit completely it's better she just suffer through it. It's not a pretty sight, I know, but she'll be okay--physically, anyway."

"What about non-physically? Do you know anything about this Rack guy? Is he dangerous?"

"Yeah, I've heard of him," Tara said, her voice hard. "He's dangerous, but not the way you're thinking. Rack's spells are an abomination of everything magic should be. He perverts the divine energies for his own twisted little power trips, bringing chaos and dissonance to something that should be about balance and harmony. And it's his customers who give him the ability to do this, letting him suck off their very life forces just for the buzz it gives them. But like most pushers he's his own best customer. He's so burned himself out playing around with forces he doesn't understand that the only power he has now is what he siphons off other witches."

"So he couldn't hurt Willow?" Buffy said, nervously folding her napkin into a tiny square.

"Oh, he could, if she let him. It can be so easy to get addicted to the rush, to let him keep tapping in and tapping till there's nothing left. I just can't believe Willow risked that for a few cheap thrills. It was stupid, and unbelievably dangerous, and--" Tara broke off, biting her lip like she was physically keeping the harsh words back.

"I think it's been really hard for her, having you gone," Buffy said gently, understanding Willow's plight better than she wanted to. "Maybe she was just trying to make herself feel better."

Tara's face softened, but her voice remained firm. "I understand. But that's what broke us up in the first place, you know that. Willow has to learn that you can't use magic to fix everything that's hard about life. Sometimes you just have to deal, even if it seems painful or pointless or unfair, or you risk throwing everything out of balance."

"I know," Buffy said quietly, gathering her courage. If there was ever going to be a time to say anything, now was it. She swallowed hard. "Sometimes, I don't think she should have fixed me."

"Oh, Buffy, I didn't mean you," Tara said, looking stricken. "That's different."

"Is it?" Buffy returned. "Things haven't been right with me since I came back. I feel so strange, like I don't quite fit in my skin, you know?" She stopped and looked into the depths of her chai latte as if it might contain the words she needed. "It's like I'm looking at everything from behind glass, but at the same time everything cuts into me all at once, all the time. I don't eat right, I sleep funny, I have these strange dreams--stranger than usual, even--and the only thing I. . ." she hesitated, then took a deep breath. "Something's really out of balance with me."

Tara began shaking her head sorrowfully. "Buffy, no--"

"There's something else," Buffy said, cutting her off, needing to get as much of it out as she could now that she had begun. "Spike. . .we got into an argument the other night and it turned. . . physical. He can hit me now, without going all Clockwork Orange-y. It's not the chip, it's me--just me, in fact."

"Oh, God, did he hurt you?"

"No," Buffy said hastily. "It wasn't serious. Actually. . ." She trailed off. For a second, she considered telling Tara about everything, from that first furtive kiss in the alley to the near-fatal collision last night. But she found she just couldn't do it--the emotions involved were still too raw, too elemental, somehow, to be shared with anyone yet. And the whole sex with Spike issue was just one more symptom of the basic problem, anyway.

"Tara, I think I came back wrong."

"N-no, t-that's not possible, it can't be. . . " Tara half-started up, more upset than Buffy had ever seen her. Her sudden, frantic movement knocked over her half-empty latte glass, which had been perched precariously close to the edge of the table. Instinctively, they both jumped forward and reached out to steady it, their fingertips just brushing in the process. At the touch of Buffy's hand, Tara flinched back as sharply as if she'd been burned, her face flushing and her eyes going wide with shock. Buffy saw her reaction and pulled back too, staring at her in dawning horror. The cup fell to the ground, shattering into a puddle of milky foam and sparkling glass, unheeded by both of them.

For a moment, everything went very silent.

"You could feel it just then, couldn't you?" Buffy said faintly, sitting down again because she didn't trust her legs to hold her up. "The wrongness." It felt like a cold, iron hand was squeezing her heart, making it impossible to breathe.

Came back a little less human than you were.

It's a trick. You're wrong.

Then how come you're so spooked, love?

Tara said nothing, just wilted into her chair, her face gone as ashen as Willow's. Buffy pressed on, stepping down hard on the frenzied panic clawing at her vitals. "When Faith hijacked my body, you could sense that something was wrong. That my energies were all mixed up, not what they should be. That's what you felt just now, wasn't it?"

"No," Tara whispered, refusing to meet her eyes. "It's not like it was with Faith. Not at all."

"What is it like, then?" Buffy asked insistently.

"It's like there's too much of you, somehow," Tara said slowly. "You still feel like you--but times a hundred. That's the best I've been able to explain it, even to myself."

Sudden realization smashed through Buffy's already fractured consciousness with the force of a wrecking ball. "Jesus, how long have you felt this? And when were you going to tell me?"

Tara hung her head in that sheepdog way Buffy hadn't seen in over a year. "You have to understand," she said. "The resurrection process is very intense, very traumatic. There were b-bound to be a f-few aftereffects. I thought your energies were temporarily overcharged by the force of the spell, and it would sort itself out in time." Then she raised her chin and finally met Buffy's gaze. "It could still be that. Physical contact might just have made the effect more obvious to me. It may be nothing, Buffy."

"And it may be everything, Tara!" Buffy cried. "I can't deal with maybes anymore." She looked down and realized she was gripping the edge of the table so tightly the formica was cracking, her knuckles turning white with the effort. She let go and clasped her hands in her lap, searching for the last foothold of control in the avalanche of her thoughts. After a minute she continued, her voice very quiet. "For better or for worse, I have to know what's happened. I need you to research the spell. Will you do that for me?"

"Yes, of course I will," Tara said, all the sorrow and regret she hadn't voiced shining out of her smoky eyes.

"How long will it take?"

"Not long," she said, standing up. Her voice was calm, but Buffy could see that her lips were trembling as she gathered her jacket and bag. "There are some books in the restricted section of the Magic Box I need to consult, and I have some notes Willow and I made this summer that I should probably check. A few hours, maybe."

Buffy stood up as well. "I'll walk with you."

"I don't think--"

"I'm not going to research, I'm going to train," Buffy replied shortly. The need to pummel something larger than herself into submission was suddenly overwhelming, but since it wouldn't be dark for several more hours her punching bag would have to do.

********

Buffy executed a series of perfect backflips, ending in a spin kick that sent the punching bag flying, creaking dangerously on its reinforced chain. Uh-oh. Another couple like that and Xander was going to have to rehang the darn thing again. If it was still worth re-hanging after she got through, that is. She caught the rapidly swinging bag with one hand and inspected the scuffed plastic canvas critically. It had several deep gouges and many smaller marks that hadn't been there when she'd begun three hours ago, but that was okay. Training supplies were some of the few things the Council reimbursed her for--she could afford to be brutal. And right now, brutality was the only coping mechanism she had left.

Without bothering to wrap her hands, Buffy began a run of lightning-fast hits to the much-abused bag. It hurt a little, the tough plastic biting into her already-bleeding knuckles, but that was okay, too. Physical pain focused her, kept her sharp, kept her from thinking of deeper hurts that couldn't be pummeled away. It's what had kept her going throughout this endless afternoon, kicking and punching and striking until her muscles screamed in agony. Which was fine--she'd rather hurt than think.

But the thoughts crept in, no matter how much she overtaxed herself. She could beat the stuffing out of the heavy punching bag, smash her wooden training dummy into smithereens, gouge holes in the cinderblock walls, ripping herself to shreds in the process, and still see it, see it all.

Punch! Xander's distracted face, buried in seating charts and sample menus and looking so very, very old.

Punch! Willow, turning away into her own cravings and silences.

Punch! Giles, throwing money at her and running headlong into his mid-life crisis as fast as his loafers could carry him.

Punch! Dawn, big blue eyes so full of sorrow and rage and disappointment, trying to make her Mom and furious over failing.

Punch! Everyone, everyday looking at her like Buffy Version 3.0 was a defective copy of the original, something full of bugs and errors that they'd return if they could somehow find the cosmic receipt.

Now it looked like they'd been right to see her that way, all along.

Oh, poor little lost girl. She doesn't fit in anywhere. She's got no one to love.

Buffy felt her manic energy suddenly fail her, and she staggered over to the worn green sofa, wiping the sweat from her neck and pulling the soaking wet tank top away from her skin. Even in the loose workout clothes she'd changed into, she was burning up, though whether from anger or overexertion she wasn't sure. She leaned back and put one arm over her eyes.

She'd told Giles months ago, on this very sofa, that she couldn't live in a world where everything was stripped away, where the things she cared for most were taken from her one by one. When she'd sacrificed herself, she thought she'd found the final solution to the loss and the loneliness, those twin crosses that every slayer had to bear. Wherever she had gone, even though her loved ones hadn't been with her, she'd known they were okay, and she would never have to lose them again.

And now she was back, among those she cared about most, but she could feel them all drifting away from her, leaving her alone in the dark.

Alone, except for one other.

Because as surely as the others fell away, Spike remained, hovering around her like an impatient shadow, as certain and inevitable as death.

Why did he stay?

Every night I save you.

Why couldn't she make him leave?

Every slayer. . . has a death wish. Even you.

At that moment, she heard the door open. She felt her heart begin to speed up with that feeling of sinking anticipation she remembered from when Joyce first sat her down and told her the truth about her illness. She uncovered her eyes, and one look at Tara's face told her everything she needed to know.

"It's everything, isn't it?" She felt oddly calm, like a bell jar had descended over her, cutting out the worst of the pain and confusion and leaving a breathless hush.

"This would probably be easier if I just explained the whole thing, from the beginning," Tara said, sitting down beside her. Up close, Buffy could see her eyes were reddened with crying, but her voice was steady.

"Okay," Buffy said dully.

"At first I thought I was right, that it was just a temporary effect," Tara said, clasping her hands over her knees as if to anchor them. "I looked through all our notes, and most of the cogent books in the restricted section, and as far as they were concerned everything in the ritual went smoothly. Then I came across a footnote in the last book I found, the Brekenkrieg Grimoire." She paused and took a deep breath.

"Apparently, there's a variation on the resurrection spell involving the urn of Osiris," she continued. "In the original spell, the urn's purpose is to act as a conduit for the reanimation energies being brought forth by the spell-caster, helping her properly focus them towards the body being reanimated. Once the resurrection takes place, the urn then anchors these extremely powerful forces, holding them in check until the witch can direct them back into the ether. But in the variation, the urn is shattered at a critical moment in the spell. That's why there were no urns left, Buffy--this alternate spell, people have been trying it for centuries, usually with disastrous results."

"Which are?" Buffy said impatiently.

"If the urn is broken at that critical moment, the reanimation forces are completely unbound, flowing out of the witch's control and into the body of the subject of the spell without any tempering control. That's what happened to you when the hellions smashed the urn the night we brought you back. They came in at just the wrong moment."

"Oops," Buffy whispered.

Tara shot her another pained, pitying glance, then continued. "Most bodies aren't strong enough to withstand that kind of unsubdued elemental power and are destroyed immediately, which is why this variation almost never works."

"But if the body is strong enough, say because of slayer abilities. . ." Buffy said slowly.

"Then the reanimation forces inhabit the body of the subject permanently, rendering her immune to aging or decay."

She turned sorrowful grey eyes on her. "It's an immortality spell, Buffy."

Buffy just looked at her for a moment. The room was very quiet, except for a distant roaring in her ears, like the sound when you held your ear to a conch shell. Her first impulse was to protest, to say this was impossible, but it all made sense. The feeling of everything being slightly different, like her cells didn't fit the same. The strange eating and sleeping patterns, the vivid dreams, the odd bursts of activity followed by crushing bouts fatigue. Her body overcompensating at points and underachieving at others, as it learned to handle a new form, a new state of being.

It explained everything.

You're the one that's changed.

She nodded at Tara, still glassily composed. Then she got up, opened the weapons cabinet, and began sorting out stakes.

"What are you doing?" Tara's voice was very soft, the kind of tone you used with lunatics and hysterical children.

"Going patrolling," Buffy said briefly. She reached for her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist, then tucked a ten-inch oak stake into it.

"I don't think that's a very good idea, do you? Not after, n-not when you've just--"

"Why not? What could possibly happen to me?" Buffy said, giving her a reassuring smile. But something in it must not have been quite right, because Tara got up and began approaching her cautiously.

"Buffy, it's not an invulnerability spell."

"What, all this reanimation energy pumping through me and I have to worry about some little old demon?"

"Between the reanimation energies and your slayer abilities you have some added protection, yes, but enough serious trauma and even they might not be able to do anything."

"Oh-h-h. So, say something cuts my head off or puts a stake through my heart. . ."

"Buffy," Tara said. "Stop it. You're not a monster."

"You don't know what I am!" Buffy snapped back, a shard of pain as bright and sharp as a blade piercing through her calm. Then, just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by the familiar echoing emptiness. When she continued, her voice was very tired. "None of you have ever known. If you had, this wouldn't have happened."

She opened the door and strode out into the gathering darkness.

********

She was close enough to feel him this time.

Buffy stood in the shadows outside the battered wooden door, watching the last dying rays of the sun stabbing the clouds through with crimson, like the sky itself was bleeding. The first faint chips of stars were just becoming visible over the horizon, the warm Indian summer air beginning to fade into nighttime chill. It was her favorite time of day--the twilight transition when her two worlds seem to balance together for one brief luminous instant before light succumbed to dark.

She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the kinetic itch in the center of her chest that was Spike's special signature, as surely as a bittersweet twinge there was Angel's. She couldn't remember just when her body had first given William the Bloody his own secret knock--probably around the fourth or fifth time he'd tried to kill her, and she'd let him live.

Come on, I can feel it, Slayer. You know you want to dance.

You think we're dancing?

That's all we've ever done.

Then she opened her eyes and he was there, silhouetted in the doorway. Perhaps it was the flickering candles inside which painted those cruel shadows on his cheeks, and ignited those strange-colored fires in his eyes. Perhaps it was something more. But Buffy had never seen his human face look so demonic--or so unearthly beautiful.

"Slayer," he drawled. "Fancy meeting you here." His kaleidoscope gaze looked her over, taking in her rumpled clothes, her disheveled hair, the slight trembling in her battered hands. It lingered for a moment on the stake at her waist, then came back to her eyes. Something he saw there made him go very, very still.

"Come to finish what you've started, then?" There were nasty biting things under the cool, smooth surface of his voice.

And part of you wants it. . .not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you're just a little bit in love with it.

"Something like that," Buffy said, pushing past him into the crypt.

********

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