"No. No no no no." She rose from her chair and went to the window. Pushed back the curtain so the sun bathed her face. "No."

Willow glanced at Spike then. Help me her look said. Help me convince her.

He couldn't meet her eyes. Fixated on the toe of his boot instead.

"If you'll just let me—let us—help you with this—this situation—we can move past it. It doesn't have to happen, we won't have to go through—"

"You never want to go through anything, do you Willow?" Buffy said quietly. "That still hasn't changed, in all this time."

She wrung her hands, half angry, half frustrated. "I don't want you to suffer."

"Why shouldn't I suffer? Do you think any of us ought to be exempt?"

"You've worked harder and sacrificed more than anybody I could ever imagine! You've suffered enough. I love you and I want to spare you—spare us all—" She glanced at him again. "Spike. C'mon, we talked about this."

Buffy glanced around then, expressionless. "Behind my back—?"

"You talked," Spike growled. "I heard you out. That's all. Made no pact with you."

"I know it was always your greatest fear, Buffy. But I did the research. I can make it so your soul barely leaves your body."

She wrenched herself around then. He thought she might be about to be sick, and lurched up to help her. Grabbing his arm, her hand was moist and cold. She turned her angry eyes on Willow. "Why don't we all become vampires, then? You can fix us all. Might as well. You've got the means!"

Willow swayed, gestured. Her mouth opened.

"Take me home Spike," Buffy muttered. "Before I—just get me out here."

Buffy stared at him over her daughter's shoulder, like he was the source of the shifting colored lights that played across her pale face. Her mouth was slack, eyes weary. A visage glimpsed at the window of a departing train car. It terrified him.

She'd be gone soon. She knew it, and he knew it. And though they'd not said anything explicit to her about it yet, Jemima knew it too.

Unable to sit still beneath that gaze, Spike rose, went to her. "You girlies all right? Need anything?"

He wanted to ask if she was in pain, if sitting up like this wasn't fatiguing her, if Jem's weight wasn't burdensome. There were times, she'd confessed to him recently, when her skin felt tired, it was the strangest thing. Even the weight of her shirt resting on her body felt like too much.

She shook her head, and smiled. Jemima craned around to look at her mother, and when Spike padded off towards the kitchen, she got up and followed. Without saying anything, she pressed her face into the curve of his back.

He shut the refrigerator door and turned. "Hey, Pudding. You hungry?"

"Who will take care of us when Mamma is gone?"

For a second he thought of dissembling, but it was too late for that. She knew what was going on, there was no use denying it. "We'll look after each other. Our friends will help us." Merely saying this made him feel sick. "The whole lot of 'em adore you, you know that." She pressed herself closer to him. He bent to kiss her forehead. "Go back to your Mum, she'll be wonderin' where you went."

"When is it going to happen?"

Sweet weeping Jesus. "Can't tell. No one can." He paused. "I think, soon. Sooner rather than later. S'why you should get in all the time with her you can."

"Don't leave me."

He put an arm around her. That's what her mother had said to him, the day after they'd brought that house down 'round themselves, the beginning of their affair.

He wondered if Jemima was saying it to him now because she knew it was useless to say it to Buffy.

"I'll always be with you." He chuckled. "Long after you wish I'd bugger off and let you be."

She fingered the placket of his shirt. "Because vampires don't die."

"Because I love you an' always want to see you."

"Auntie Anya says you're going to go off on a three-week bender when Mamma's gone. She said that's what you did the other time. What's a three-week bender?"

He fought to keep his urge to kill Anya off his face. "Go see your mum. No one's going off on a three-week anything."

Buffy didn't get out bed anymore. She'd refused another round of chemo—it wasn't going to make any difference, she wasn't going to recover. She didn't want any more hospitals, she said, any more fuss. Palliative care, her oncologist called it. A nurse came to Revello Drive each day. She taught Spike how to handle the IV, the medicines; he showed the others who spent time with her: Xander, Tara, Willow, Giles.

Once, on the way out after a visit, Willow hissed at him, "This is so unnecessary. Why don't you—? I don't understand."

"If you don't understand, I can't bloody explain it to you."

"But—"

"If you don't understand, then you don't understand her."

"Hey! I've known her longer than you have—!"

Spike shrugged. "I daresay."

"Look . . ." Willow softened. "I know what this means. Buffy being a vampire isn't something I just want. If the man in her life was someone else, or there was no man at all, no Jemima . . . I wouldn't have brought it up. But her man is you, and you're a vamp, and if she was too I know you'd be devoted to each other forever. I know—you'd never let each other be lonely. Even after the rest of us are long gone."

"You're worried about me bein' lonely, Red? I'm moved, I am."

"Don't sneer at me, Spike. I know from lonely."

It was true, he was aware, she did. Her love life had never recovered from its early set-backs, and she was no longer in her first youth. And he was moved by her words, more than he'd ever let on to her.

"Just talk to her about it, Spike."

Willow still had that pretty charm when she chose to turn it on; her face, the querulous mouth, the knitted brow, made him want to compromise with her. To agree. He steeled himself. "No. An' don't you go bringing it up again either. She's in no shape to be bullied."

Willow shook her head. Clearly she thought he was off his, but she'd have to think what she liked.

"She's angry at me," Buffy said to him.

"Suppose she is. Sad an' scared. We both are."

"You're angry at me too," she said.

"No. How can you say so?"

She just closed her eyes.

He let the matter drop. She was too ill to argue with.

At two in the morning, when they were both at their most wakeful, they played cards or parcheesi, and talked. Sometimes she'd reach across and put her hand through his hair. Or kiss him with an ethereal expression of nostalgia in her too-large eyes. Her mouth was dry and felt like an old woman's. There were nights when she was too weak to hold her cards, and had to lay them on the coverlet and trust him not to look.

"I wish I could make love to you one more time. The spirit is willing …"

"It doesn't matter, my queen."

"It does. It does matter, it always has. We did it almost every day, and I always wanted you, never got tired of you … my beautiful man . . . I hate thinking of you going without . . . going without any …" She dropped her head.

"I—I take care of myself."

"Do you?" She glanced up then. "Show me."

"Sh—show you?"

She gave him a slow smile. It was the kind of smile that always made his cock stir, before. But now she was so altered, all her expressions were grim parodies of themselves. He'd been trying all along to keep this from her .

"I can't do anything," she murmured, "but I'd still like seeing you come."

The idea of jerking off in front of her—something he'd done too many times to count over the years— felt impossible now. He grasped at what he could about this ghastly proposition. Her interest showed that she was still planted in the world, didn't it? Not dead yet, if she actually wanted him to put on a little show.

"Not sure I'm exactly in the mood at the moment."

"Oh." She pouted. "I thought you were always in the mood." She paused. Then, "You—you don't have to look at me while you do it, Spike. I . . . I get that I'm maybe not so pretty anymore."

Christ on the bloody fucking cross. He'd give her a bleeding lap dance in a pink feather boa if it would erase that look in her eye.

Leaning in close, he held her face, kissed her, careful not to put any pressure on her anywhere. "You're my treasure, my beauty, my mistress. 'Course I'll look at you. Every hard-on I get, it's for you."

He knelt up then, started to undo the drawstring on his pajama trousers. But she stopped him with a gesture. "Spike. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it ought to be done. Does it?"

"What?" He was still on the task at hand; getting himself up and off in a pretty way when what he really wanted to do was get drunk and smash things.

"Willow said it wasn't unnatural, what she could do. She said magic isn't, vampirism isn't, even. But I don't understand how that can be so, because . . . if death isn't natural, I don't know what is. So circumventing death . . . that's got to be a defiance of the natural order. I mean, isn't that why we fight vampires and demons? Because they exist outside of the natural order?"

"She talked to you about this idea again? I told her to leave you be—"

"Don't be angry, Spike. She hasn't said anything, I've just been thinking about it. Trying to puzzle it out, because the way Willow sees it . . . I mean, she thinks its simple. You do a spell, and you can bend reality to your will. She did that to me once. Brought me back. But what's simple, as far as I can see, is—you're born, you live, your body gives out somehow and you die."

"I'm not sorry she resurrected you."

Buffy stroked his arm with her fingertips. Her skin felt so thin, dry. "No no. The thought that I might've missed this—falling in love with you, having Jem—no. And Spike, I didn't mean, when I said that about what's natural …"

"Didn't take offense. 'Course you're right. Vampires are unclean creatures."

"Spike, you haven't said anything to me about this. I'd have thought you'd be all opinion-having."

"I knew, soon as Red brought it up to me, the idea would repulse you. Didn't want her troubling you with it. You're only thinking of it because you're worried about leavin' me an' Jem, but that's no reason why you should go against all your instincts an' principles—"

"Spike, it's not just you and Jem. I don't want to die again so soon. Not now, not like this." The tears dotted her sunken cheeks as if they'd arisen through the skin, rather than dropping from her eyes. He couldn't look at them without his own welling up. She began to sob. He was frantic to stop her, to quiet her, because these outbursts cost her too much—made her sicker in her sickness, weaker in her weakness.

"Even if—even if I still had my soul, I'd crave blood, wouldn't I? Angel told me once he thought of it every day, drinking human blood, hunting and killing for it, wanting it so strongly. And you …"

"Think of it, yeah. But it's very far away. Something I used to take for granted, but know I'll never do anymore. Like wearin' a top hat."

She smiled a little at that.

"If you never do it even once," he ventured, "if you start off with your soul in place . . . I think . . . might be easier. Demon never gets the chance to be on top. 'Course, I don't know."

"But I'd still be a demon."

He stroked her hair. She already was a sort of demon—they'd learned that for certain when Giles' witch friend Edwina was with them. The others had forgotten what they'd seen, but for some reason he hadn't. Angels were a species of demon, and what they'd been shown was the quasi-angelic power that streamed all through her.

He'd thought since that it might mean she was an immortal after her resurrection, although Edwina had claimed that wasn't the case. That hope was gone anyway, trampled by the cancer in her ovary that was consuming all her insides.

"Buffy, I don't want you to fret over this. Bad enough tryin' to accept what's happening without—"

"But what will happen to you when I'm gone?"

"Noth—nothing. I mean, I'll stay here, take care of our Jem, go on with what I do at the academy …" The words passed, slippery, from his lips, and seemed not to mean anything. He knew what she was asking, what she feared. He feared it too. He had no soul; he shared hers. Her love kept his monstrousness in check. Who would take him on when she was gone? None of the Scoobies or the potential slayers or even Dawn meant half so much to him as Buffy did. He adored Jemima, was devoted to her, but she would need him less and less. Her childhood was half over; it would be completed in an eyeblink. And a daughter, precious and singular as she was, couldn't anchor him—to keep him from sliding back into chaos, he needed the purpose and concentration he found only in loving her.

They both knew it.

"Maybe . . . maybe you'll like one of the other slayers, and she'll like you …" The thought of him falling for someone else was too much for her, and she began to weep again. "I can't choose this, I'm not free to . . . I'm the slayer. It's not a choice for me, it's not, it's not . . . not for me or anybody. Who is Willow to think death can be cheated?"

"Sssh, sssh. Try to sleep now, Buffy. No use goin' round and round on this."

She lay back, exhausted, her eyes large with pain. Although she could infuse more morphine at the touch of a button, she often seemed to forget, or refuse to. Spike did it for her. In a few minutes she seemed to ease, but her eyes remained open.

"Call her."

"What?"

"Call her. Willow."

He convinced her, that night, to wait. They'd discuss it some more a little later. She mustn't make an impetuous decision. There was still a little time.

"Talk to someone else about it, Buffy. Talk to Giles—he'll be here to see you in the morning."

Her watcher—watching nothing now but her sad decline—stopped by every morning on his way to the academy, and spent fifteen minutes at her bedside. Often he was the only one who could persuade her to swallow a little food.

But she didn't speak to Giles, and Spike knew why. She had no energy left for a furor, even the very calm sort Giles would generate if he got wind of this scheme.

He couldn't help remembering that kid, one of Buffy's school pals, who'd made a pact with him shortly after he came to Sunnydale. Boy wanted to be turned and was ready to give up a whole hoard of little idiots to him and his minions in exchange. Found out years later that he'd had a brain tumor, was terrified to die at sixteen without having lived. When Buffy eventually told him the story during one of their long note-comparing sessions, he'd thought privately that it was a shame then that she'd staked the guy as soon as he rose.

"Of course, what he wanted . . . even if his reasons were, my God, so understandable . . . what he wanted was wrong," she'd said.

He didn't remind her of that now. It wasn't the same at all, really. The kid had no chance to retain his soul.

She asked for Willow again the next night. "I've made up my mind. And I'm so tired . . . Spike, please don't argue with me."

"Don't want to argue, sweetheart, just . . . just want to be sure of what you're asking for. It's . . . not just the magic, the juggling your precious soul around like an Indian club . . . it's . . . It's, well, you're asking me to ki—"

She put a hand, quite forcefully, against his lips. Shook her head.

He wasn't to say that word. Wasn't, perhaps, to even think it?

Still he hesitated, feeling trapped by the expression on her wan face, until she began to cry. "I'm asking you to release me. So I can come back to you. So I can come back to Jem. Spike, I love you both so much, I don't want to leave you yet."

Then he was sure. Not that this was the right thing to do, but that she wanted it with her whole heart. And that he couldn't bear to refuse her.

He held the handmirror for her; she was too weak. She stared and stared. He'd not realized how long it had been since she'd seen her reflection; but he understood now that even when he carried her into the bathroom, she'd avoided the mirrors. The sight of her wasted face, and her collarbones nearly poking out of the skin, shocked her.

She turned away from it. "I'll never do this again, will I? See myself in the glass." She frowned, looking lost. He thought she was going to change her mind, and he was relieved.

He didn't want to feel that, it seemed like a betrayal of her. So he hastened to say, "All your beauty'll come back, just like before, as soon as . . . as soon as you rise. Can take polaroids an' show you."

At the desk in the corner, Willow was quietly preparing her spell.

"They're going to be angry," she whispered then. "Xander and Tara. Giles and Dawn."

Willow glanced up then. "They won't. When they see you, they'll be so glad."

Her calm certainty made Spike's throat tighten. He'd not been in on the plan when they resurrected Buffy the first time, but Xander had described it to him; how Willow had treated it like something that had to be done, something that couldn't possibly go wrong or be wrong.

And here they were again, interfering with the course of Buffy's life. At her request this time, but he couldn't help but feel her ambivalence, her fear. It was his too.

Willow came to the bedside then. He saw her trying to conceal her annoyance, and failing, even as she pressed Buffy's hand.

"Shall we call them, pet? Would you like them to be here?"

He was sure she was right: they would be aghast. Angry. Accepting what was already done would be easier for them though, than bringing them to witness it. Still, he'd do what she asked.

He always did what she asked.

But Buffy shook her head. "I want to do it now. I . . . I'm in pain."

"There's no reason you should be—why haven't you—" He started to check her morphine drip, but Willow touched his arm.

"I'm ready."

He fumbled with the drip for another moment before the message sank in. No need to bother with this anymore.

Spike sat beside her. Buffy was so thin now she seemed nearly two dimensional. Her neck was like a child's.

"I'll try not to hurt you."

"You won't hurt me." Her smile, which he knew she meant to be soft, was a rictus. "How long will I be…?"

"A day. You'll rise in the evening, when the sun goes down. You'll stay right here, wake up in bed. I'll be waiting, and I'll feed you."

"Feed me? From . . . from your body?"

"Uh . . . yeah. Best way, first thing, for you to grow strong."

"I'll have to bite you? Won't that . . . won't that make me want to …"

"I don't know. But if you're afraid, needn't bite. Just let me manage it. It'll be all right."

"I trust you."

A film seemed to pass over his senses, his mind, when she said this. He wondered if this wasn't a dream. He'd loved the Slayer now for years, and never fantasized about doing this. He'd never wanted her to be like him. He still didn't. Since she'd fallen ill he'd tried to assure himself that he had the strength to see her through it, to let her go again into death. When Willow first proposed this option to him, she had no idea how close he'd come to springing at her and snapping her neck.

He'd been sure Buffy wouldn't choose this. She knew there was a heaven, that she could return there.

He knew, as Willow did, that becoming one of the monsters she was chosen to fight was her great terror.

But a greater terror, apparently, was to give up her existence this third time. He wanted to tell her to forget him; yes, he'd lose everything when he lost her, but what was she about to lose, by giving herself up to being turned?

Nothing, Willow would say. Not her soul. Not her life. All she'd lose was the experience of more pain and a terrible death.

But like Buffy had said, it wasn't so simple.

He looked into her eyes, searching for certainty. Now that she'd made up her mind, he wouldn't ask her to choose again; would serve her in this as in all else. But a hope flared in his breast that she'd stop him. He bent over her. His mouth close to hers, he could feel the faint stirring of her shallow breath.

"Buffy."

Her eyes were full of tears. "I'll see you tomorrow night, lover. And we'll be lovers again."

He felt like choking. All the things she'd never do again piled up in his head—take Jem out to the beach on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Pluck her eyebrows at the magnifying mirror propped on the window sash in the bright light. The fact that she couldn't do these things anymore anyway, because she was too ill to leave the bed, seemed of less importance than the prospect of an existence forever cut off from them.

Back at her orb and burning herbs, Willow said, "Anytime, Spike."

"Close your eyes, sweetness."

He'd kissed her mouth and cheeks and forehead; now he kissed her two eyes shut. He didn't want her last living glimpse of him to be of the demon.

Her blood, full of drugs and disease, had none of the flavor of ecstasy he remembered. Her body gave a little jerk when he bit, but the animation was nearly all gone already; he was afraid he'd misjudge her, that she'd slip away altogether before he could drip his own blood between her parched lips. And for a second he wanted her to. What if he just let her go? She'd never know, and whatever rage Willow unleashed on him when she realized what he'd done, well, he'd stand up to it.

But then Buffy's hand moved; her fingers curled around his arm, made one squeeze with the last of her strength. A tiny sigh escaped her. With the knife he had ready, he cut a gash in his thumb, put it to her mouth.

She swallowed the drops, breathed in, gave a little jerk, and was gone.

Gone. He could already feel her growing cool. The tears sprang up in his eyes even as the game face slid away.

"Got it."

He looked up. Willow's orb, that had been clear and solid before, was filled now with a milky moving glow. She gave him a look of conspiratorial triumph.

The solemnity of this, the awfulness and finality, seemed to have escaped her.

"Get out. Let me mourn her in peace a little while."

Jemima didn't look up from her dolls when she asked him this. She hadn't played seriously with her Barbies for at least a year before Buffy got sick, but now she was regressing like mad. Funny thing, Spike thought. She was young for her age in some ways to begin with: most of the girls in her class were getting their figures, their periods, but not Jemmie. Nearly twelve and still small, child-shaped.

He squatted beside her. "I think she's mendin', Biscuit."

She shot him a discouraging look. "Mending."

"Could be."

"Oh yeah." Her tone was quelling.

"She's having a rest for a bit, but you'll see her tomorrow. How's things here?"

She shrugged. "Boring." Then, like tossing him a bone, "Auntie Anya made a cake."

"Did she now? What sort?"

"Spice."

"Have you had any?"

"Not 'til after lunch."

Jemima continued to dress her doll, and didn't look at him.

"I know you want to be at home," Spike said. "You'll be back home tomorrow, an' you won't have to go visiting anymore unless you want to."

"I like visiting Uncles Giles and Auntie Anya."

"I know you do." He smoothed her hair. Why wouldn't she look at him?

"Any chance of a kiss, Pudding?"

"I'm busy."

"Too busy to kiss Papa? Couldn't happen."

She gave him an off-center peck, and still didn't take her eyes from the doll. Spike rose slowly and went into the kitchen.

"I hope you're putting aside plenty of money from your salary for Jemima's therapy bills," Anya said. She was icing the cake.

"Therapy bills, college, yeah. Got an account. Mind keepin' her another night?"

"Another night? Spike . . . drop the pretence. We'll keep her until after the funeral. There's going to be a funeral soon, isn't there? In fact, Rupert and I have been talking . . . about keeping her for good."

He flared. "Hello? Child's not yours."

"We know you spoke about this to Xander once. Well, Xander's not in a position, but we are. Of course no one's going to take your place. But it'll be easier on her, won't it, to live with us."

"An' I'm to live alone, is that it? Perhaps you'd like me to move back into my old crypt too?"

Anya sighed. "We're just thinking about what's best for Jem."

"What's best for Jem is to live at home with her Papa. Anyway . . . dunno how soon the funeral's going to be."

Anya glanced up sharply. "Why? Has something changed?"

For a moment he was going to tell her. But he'd agreed with Willow that they'd keep schtum today; wait until Buffy had risen, until they were sure everything had gone correctly.

Everything would. There was no chance, Willow assured him, that they'd have to stake her.

But they'd agreed to wait.

Spike shrugged. "Just . . . just not thinking funerals today." He rose. "Any message to Rupes? Goin' to the academy now."

"Ask him to buy a bottle of wine on his way home."

"Will do."

On the way out he knelt by Jemima again. She was still dressing and undressing the panoply of dolls, like someone working a joyless assembly line.

"See you soon, Treasure."

"Goodbye, Papa."

The words came out with a grim intensity, like a dismissal.

Removed the bottles of tablets, the IV, and all the other trappings of illness from the room.

Changed the bed linen, rolling her still body carefully from side to side as he did it.

Brought out the candles again, and arrayed them in their old places, ready to light at dusk.

Sent Willow out to buy blood—clean human blood, the best obtainable. He knew where to send her, how much money to stuff into her hand. Some of the blood he'd drink himself, so as to be ready to assuage Buffy's first hunger; the rest he would serve to her through the night.

Dressed her now limp corpse in the white satin nightgown she'd chosen, which was sadly too large for her wasted body. It would fit her again in a few hours, when next she opened her eyes.

On the same principle, he retrieved her "wedding band" from the jewelry box. This ring he'd given her when Jemima was a year old, with their names engraved inside, and the initials FMN, for Forsake Me Not, had grown far too loose to wear. After Xander had had to fish it twice out of the plumbing, Buffy had put it away.

He started to slip it onto her hand, then pocketed it instead. He'd put it on her later, when he could look into her eyes. When he could press her palm against his mouth and kiss it over and over as her little fingers wrapped around his cheek.

That would be soon now.

Alone with her, handling her body, Spike let himself weep without restraint. She was dead, his queen, his darling. The cancer had made her pretty form into a sort of hollow husk. No matter what happened this evening, the Buffy he'd fallen in love with, changed himself and fought for, was no more. Over thirteen years of living with her, raising a child with her, battling evil at her side, came down to this devastating and utterly prosaic illness that none of her powers as slayer could battle. Had he not drained her, she'd have been dead in a month anyway.

On the desk in the corner, her soul twinkled in its artificial casing. He pictured himself smashing it, then carrying her down to the cellar, there to separate her head from her body.

He only had a little while longer. Once she opened her eyes, even if there was something terribly wrong with her, he'd not be able to stake her. It was now or never.

But she'd not wavered, at the end. Once she'd decided . . . she'd decided.

He'd have her in his arms again in just a couple of hours. She'd be kissing him, talking to him, her hands strong and vibrant and not warm, never again warm squeezing his. Everything could start again. No more sickness, no more death. Her soul restored, she'd still be his Buffy.

Could it beat, he knew, his heart would be hammering. Yet he couldn't say the anticipation was joyful. He couldn't say what it was at all.

Last of all, he moved slowly around the room, lighting the multitudes of little candles. Since she'd brought him into her house, since they'd made this room the scene of their intimacy, Spike had always made sure it was bathed in that flickering glow, that soft waxy scent. Tending to the candles became part of his routine; looking at Buffy, nude and golden, in their light, part of his worship of her.

When she'd become too sick to make love anymore, when the scent of the wax disturbed her, he put them away.

As he lit the last handful, the door opened softly and Willow looked in.

"All's well?"

"Quiet, yeah."

To his surprise, she embraced him.

They'd been on pretty good terms the last few years, but not that good. She'd worked hard, after her exile, to get back into Buffy's good graces, and everyone else's. By time she reappeared in Sunnydale, Buffy's anger at her for the spell she'd done against them had cooled, and long since turned to a yearning to have things back the way they'd been. Willow had a tremendous capacity for charm, and he was as susceptible to it as anyone. It had taken him a year, but he'd finally allowed himself to relax around her.

Still, he didn't love her. And if she thought that he was going to be fawningly grateful to her for what they were doing here right now, she could think again.

He moved gently back. "Keep your eye on the ball there, Red."

"It's okay. All that has to happen is that I do the reversal spell when Buffy starts to come to."

They both looked at her then. In the candleglow, she seemed ethereal rather than emaciated. Her hair, that had grown back in so thin and lusterless after the one round of futile chemo, shimmered.

Candle light was, Spike thought, so forgiving.

"She's dead," he said. "I bit her, and drank until her heart fluttered and stopped, and now she's dead."

Willow gave him a strange look.

"No one and nothing has ever meant more to me in my existence than that woman. Not even Jemima is quite so precious, God forgive me. I first came upon her to kill her, and now I have."

"Spike, we're saving her. Saving her all that pain and saving her from going away from us. She asked us to."

"She was so afraid of what was happening to her. She was afraid of what would happen to me an' Jem without her." He turned to her then. "But she'd never have thought of it if you didn't tempt her. When will you understand that magic is not just a series of keen tricks you can play to smooth your way?"

"Hey, mister, I didn't see you saying any of this to Buffy. We're doing this for love. Because we love her and she loves us and we don't want to be separated. If we didn't do it, in a couple of weeks she would really be dead."

"She is dead. Most sincerely dead. I'm starting to think you don't understand what it is we've done."

"And I'm starting to think you're sounding a little too much like Giles at his worst. Can it, Spike. You were about to be a grieving widower—now you'll have your lady love at your side for eternity. I don't see the problem."

He couldn't face her anymore. What was the use, anyway, of this conversation? She was right about that much: he'd done nothing but what Buffy had asked for.

Never mind that she'd never have asked in the first place had Willow not come between them with the idea. It was the kind of thing that, once proposed, could not be dismissed. And it subverted everything. Turned the progress of Buffy's death on its ear, so that mourning and rejoicing both seemed futile and inappropriate.

Turning his back on Willow, he went to sit by Buffy's side, laid a protective hand on her hip.

"At least she won't have to claw her way out of the ground this time."

"I heard that," Willow muttered. "Not really doing this for you, Spike. It's for her—and for Jemima."

"Just be ready." Even as he said the words, Buffy's flesh seemed to swell beneath his palm.

Her body was filling out; the skin, while growing no warmer, took on animation and tone. She gave a sudden twitch, and he saw the demon rising up in her face.

Then the eyes fluttered; he caught glimpses of bright gold beneath the shifting lids. For a moment, the demon faded back, and it was just Buffy, lovely again, her head stirring on the pillow as it did every time she woke from a long sleep.

Then the change came all at once, with that tearing sound so terrifying to the prey, and she bolted upright.

"Willow—now."

Spike heard chanting start at once, but couldn't tear his attention away from Buffy to watch what Willow was doing. Catching her shoulders, that shuddered beneath his hands, he kept her from lurching to her feet.

"Here I am, my queen—here."

She focused on him then, and the demon face split into a wide ugly grin. "Spike. SpikeSpikeSpike. Finally bagged your third slayer, didn't you? Took you long enough. Can't say I approve your technique—spending years to lull her into complacency, waiting for her to get the fatal wasting illness, so she'd let you kill her. Hey, it's novel. But then you always did really like all that lovey-dovey romantic crap. Rather dip your wick and whisper sweet nothings while you do it, than dominate and kill and feed, right? Tsk tsk tsk. That's not natural. As a vampire, you're just a big desperate needy freak."

"Buffy—"

She shrugged. "Still, you're my sire. And I'm—wow, I'm fucking ravenous."

She lunged at the softest part of his throat, digging in with her brand new fangs, her hands clamping his arms in a vise grip.

He'd thought she'd be weak for the first few minutes, he'd thought she'd need to feed to get to her full strength. But she still had the power of the slayer coursing through her. Glancing wildly in Willow's direction, Spike growled, "Red? Get on with it!"

He was shoved sharp backwards then, head over heels off the bed. Buffy's white satin gown flashed a hundred colors in the flickering candleglow as she threw herself across the room.

"No fucking way, you cunt! Shut your mouth! You're not doing that to me—!"

Spike sprang up in time to see the glowing orb fly up into the air as Buffy pinned Willow, who was still chanting, against the desk. Heard the horrible crunch, and Willow's cry.

Time seemed to pause; he could observe, seemingly with leisure, the soul-filled orb arcing towards the ceiling, while the new vampire claimed her first victim, sucking ecstatically at her neck, her whole body undulating with the ecstasy of it.

He started to move towards them when there was a whoosh of something black and red, dense, terrible, that singed his skin, filling the space, filling him with terror; it tossed Buffy back as if she was no more than the swathe of satin that flowed around her form. The orb descended and landed unbroken on the bed. Willow's voice rent the air in a cry loud as a valkyrie's, the orb flashed, and Buffy screamed.

He rushed to her. She lay on the floor, shuddering and sobbing. The demon had left her face, and she looked like the teenage girl she'd been when he first knew her, wide-eyed and wobble-mouthed when he'd had her for a moment in his power.

She clutched at him. "What is this—oh God, what's happened to me—oh God oh God!" She began weeping wildly.

"It's all right. It's all right, you're fine. Let me—" He tried to disentangle her arms from his neck. "Let me see to Willow now. You're all right, precious."

After her great power burst, Willow was slumped against the desk, bleeding hard.

"Christ," Spike muttered, gathering her up.

"Should've . . . we should've tied her down."

"Don't try to talk." He carried her into Tara's old room. "Look, I can stop you bleeding but I have to put my mouth on you. Will you let me?"

She made a sound he construed as agreement.

It was years since he'd lusted for Willow's blood; she was firmly ensconced in the handful of people he'd rather starve than taste. Crouching over her, he tried to lick the wound closed without actually swallowing any, or noting its flavor, but this was nearly impossible. Her blood was smoky, rich with darkness and power. It stirred him, his old desire for her, his more recent rage, resentment, respect. She snuffled.

"I called Tara."

Spike glanced around. Buffy stood in the doorway.

The sight of her was startling, astounding. Lustrous hair flowed around her neck and shoulders, her body, leaning against the jamb, was sinuous in the clinging satin gown, skin and eyes aglow. He wanted to fly to her, snatch her into his arms and devour her with kisses.

He rose. "Tara? She's coming here?"

"Willow needs help. Tara can take her to the hospital. Or . . .or home, if she's all right." Buffy stared. "Is she all right?"

"I expect so. Could fetch a couple of large bandaids though, would be a help."

She was back with them in a moment. "Let me." Her voice was low and soft as her hair and expression. She bent over Willow. "I'm so sorry. Will—I'm—"

"It's okay. Wasn't the first time," Willow said, trying to smile.

Buffy grimaced as she fixed the bandaids over the wound. "I can't believe I did this . . . my God."

"How'd I taste?"

"Hush, you," Spike said. "Talking's gonna open up that gash." Which wasn't really true, but he couldn't bear to hear Buffy answer that question.

They heard the front door open. Spike went to the head of the stairs. "We're up here."

Tara was a sight for sore eyes; bewildered, but calm as she gazed up at him. "What's happened? When I heard Buffy's voice on the phone, I didn't know what to think."

She'd never, Spike knew, expected to talk to Buffy on the phone again.

"Willow needs your help." He clasped her hand for a moment when she reached him. Tara looked at him, questioning. He led her into the room where the women were.

He watched Tara take it in. Willow was still lying flat, her face very pale on the pillow. The bandaids covered half her neck. Buffy, looking as robust as she ever had, sat by her, holding her hand, eyes averted.

Tara hesitated for a moment. Then she said, "Yes. Yes, I see. I see how it is." She sailed forward then, went to Willow's side. Glanced around at them. "I'll take care of her. I'll bring her home."

Buffy rose slowly. "Are you sure—"

Tara looked at her then, a little awe and misgiving mixed with her overall calm. "Yes. Just give us a few minutes, we'll . . . you're all right, aren't you Willow?"

Willow nodded. Her fingers were curled around the sleeve of Tara's sweater; it was as if she'd forgotten Buffy and Spike altogether, forgotten what they'd just done.

Spike laid Willow as gently as he could on the back seat of Tara's car, and closed the door. Tara was already in the driver's seat, starting the ignition. He bent to speak to her at the window.

"Sorry you had to find out like this."

Her mouth was a thin line. "I know what she's like, Spike. It's why I'll always love her, but I can't be with her."

"I meant . . . I meant about Buffy."

The engine roared; she looked up at him, compassion in her eyes. "If it was her choice . . . how can I blame you? How can I blame a woman who doesn't want to leave her child, her lover, her life?"

"Stay with her a bit, will you?" he said. "Don't just drop her off at home."

"I know what to do with Willow. You go back inside. We'll . . . we'll talk later, right?"

"Ah, don't do that," he murmured, coming up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist. "That's what you just don't want to do, Buffy. Look at me instead." He turned her. "See here—here's all the mirror you'll ever need." He indicated his eyes. She looked into them, searching, her own wet and reddened.

"Spike—what I said when—"

"Ssh, ssh. Wasn't you."

"But it was. You know it was. The demon is me, all my rotten thoughts I never want to think." She shuddered. "How can you be so . . . so kind to us, so good . . . with this monster inside you? And nothing to keep it in check but your own will—oh God—I feel it, here—here—" She touched her breast, her face. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "What have we done? I'm never going to be like I was …"

"No, not like you were. But how do you feel, Buffy?"

She shook her head, and let her forehead fall against his chest. He swung her up and carried her back to the bedroom, sank down on the bed with her in his lap. She was a rich armful now, silk and satin.

"How do you feel? Not ill anymore, I'll wager. Not weak unto death."

"I . . . I am dead."

"An' it's not so bad, is it?" Even as he said the words, he fought a roiling in his belly. It was bad, it was dreadful, obscene, wrong, and oh she was right here hugged up against him, his armful of warm girl, and she was warm for the moment, because she was full of the witch's blood. He tipped her chin up and kissed her. Her lips, plump again, were still slicked with tears. Buffy made a low sound in her throat, and hugged him harder, giving herself to the kiss completely.

She pulled away, panting. He put a hand on her breast, but the busy heartbeat that went with her gasping was stilled.

He knew it would be, but still it startled him.

"I'm like you now. Oh Spike . . . I'm like you. I feel so strange."

"I know. It's the strangest thing in the world, bein' undead. But then . . . you get used to it. This time week . . . seem like just the way it is." As he said it, the sick swooping feeling in his belly said he'd never be able to just accept it, for her. "Sweetheart, I'm so glad to see you."

Her face cleared. "Are you, Spike? You're not sorry?" Even as the words passed her lips, he saw her hear them, regret them.

Sorry? Yeah, he was sorry. All kinds of sorry. But they'd done it, and here they were.

He laid his forehead against hers. "Night's still young. Gonna feed you up, gonna make love to you every way I know how. An' then we'll see where we are."

Her fingers were already prodding at the ragged bite mark she'd left on his throat. She licked her lips, sniffing at it, and the game face came on. She jerked and gave a low cry.

"Startles you, does it? Learn to control it. Not difficult. Watch me." He put her back so she could see him, and let his ridges rise. "Barely have to think of it at all—sort of like flarin' your nostrils. Show me. You're gettin' it . . . That's good."

That's good. The phrase struck them both at once. She looked queasy, turned her face away.

"It's all right, Buffy. You're not going to hurt anybody else. They're just fangs. Every kind of puppy dog's got 'em. Not evil of themselves."

He wondered if he really believed that. Wondered if this wasn't in fact the most monstrous thing he'd done in all his nights as a monster. Maybe for once he should've been stronger than she was, should've said no and meant it and stuck by it.

It wasn't like he didn't know about her old horror of being turned. And it wasn't like there was anybody else she could've gotten to turn her this way. Angel would've refused with the greatest vehemence.

Angel, come to think of it, might come here and kill him when he found out about this.

"When . . . when it comes on, everything gets so sharp. Sight, smell. Hearing."

"Yeah." He was still preoccupied.

"I'm hungry, Spike. I want . . . I want to feed."

"I know, pet."

"I want to feed on . . . on a person."

"That's not on the menu, love."

He clasped her tighter to hold her there, and slipped a hand up under the satin gown. He worked her with his fingers; she threw her head back and growled.

Nestling her face into the crook of his neck, her fangs descended. But he shifted her off, rose, and shucked his clothes. Kneeling beside her, he lifted her again across his lap. Once more she tried to bite, but he stopped her.

"You'll have your feed, but you'll bring me off the while."

She gave him a challenging look. "Oh yeah? What if I—"

"I say how it is."

"You—do?" She looked at him then, the golden eyes glowing, her whole body stiff with suspicion, rebellion. "Is this some kind of dominance thing now? Because …"

"Because I'm your sire. Yeah, it is."

He'd never done this with her before, it was a bit dizzying. The whole course of their relationship he'd spent in happy subservience to her. He had no intention of treating her the way Angelus had treated him, but his understanding of what was appropriate between a sire and a fledgling was unwavering. If she decided to put up a fight, she'd see there were other sides to him than those she was most used to.

She smiled then. Pulling up the satin gown, she straddled him, letting the fabric fall in cool swathes over his thighs, and impaled herself on his cock with a satisfied grunt.

Before he could offer reassurance or encouragement, she bit. Needing neither, apparently, she sucked wildly, working herself on him, squeezing his biceps hard enough in her hands to raise bruises. He tried not to think of how often in a hundred years he'd done this exact thing with Drusilla. Well, he'd not arranged her thus for nothing—this position was a favorite. He'd not been fed on in a long long time, the crazy thrill of it was heightened by knowing this was Buffy who pulled on him with such force.

Buffy, whom he'd not fucked for months, whom he'd believed lost to him in that way forever.

Gripping the slippery expanse of her back, he thrust up into her gyrations. "Your sweet cunt—God, Buffy—"

Her mouth slid away from his neck, and her face hove into view. She licked his blood from the corners of her lips, then dove in to kiss him, making no effort to protect his lips or tongue from her fangs. Blood made their mouths even more slippery. He tumbled her over then so he could fuck her harder, deep crazy bouncing strokes that made her dig her nails into his back and snarl. He vamped out then too, snarling back.

Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought, I've made her into an animal. We're nothing now but two animals, rutting like them.

She came with a roar, and sank her fangs deep into his arm.

She was definitely not the same.

Her aromas, that had so enflamed, obsessed and delighted him from their first encounter, were nearly gone. Like him, she did not sweat. The cask of perfume that was her quim was shut up and put away; only a phantom of her rich scent remained, but as he licked her there he understood that a whole aspect of his pleasure in making love to her was lost forever. There were offsetting changes—she was wetter than ever, could nip him harder with her inner muscles—but they didn't quite compensate.

The heat of her was gone too. Spooning her after their third fuck, both naked and limp, legs entwined, there was none of the glowing warmth he'd loved to cuddle against, to absorb into his own old bones. Tepid as he was, and still. No pulse to rock her against him, to lull him into sleep as he pressed his ear to her chest.

There was another change, more subtle than the physical, but one he was just as aware of. All this time he'd been the Slayer's: her lover, her servant, her right hand. What he'd wanted to be, because he'd always known he was far beneath her. But now he'd sired her, she belonged to him. Was his property in the same way he'd once been Drusilla's, and Angelus's. And could be again, if circumstances were different, because those blood connections might stretch quite thin, but they'd never sever.

This shift in the power between them both dismayed and excited him. He wasn't sure she was fully aware of it yet, but she would learn.

There was a lot she'd have to learn.

"I can smell the sunrise."

"So you can, pet." He twirled a bit of her silky hair between his fingers. Beside him, she inhaled; he could feel her reaching out her new senses.

"I want to go out."

"Not enough time. Tonight."

"What's going to happen? We have to bring Jemima home. We have to . . . oh God, we have to tell her something."

"Got to tell the whole lot of 'em."

"Tara—"

"She won't do that job for us."

"What did she say? When you went out to the car."

"Was angry at Willow. At me too, I suppose."

She shifted, rolling around to look into his face. "Spike . . . don't blame Willow. I wouldn't have dared ask you to do this, but . . . I can't pretend I didn't think about it. After I got my diagnosis, I thought about it a lot. Even before . . . ever since I fell in love with you, I've worried about how we'd have to part. You know that. Worried about what would become of you, immortal, without me." Then she dropped her gaze. "But I didn't just want it for you. I wanted . . . I really really really wanted not to die again so soon."

"Buffy, don't feel bad about wanting to live. Jem's too young to lose you."

"And we've been so happy, haven't we Spike? My lover . . . " She pressed a kiss on his forehead. "They're all going to blame you. They'll be angry at Willow, but you're the one they'll really blame. But I want you to know—I'm responsible for my choice. I'll make sure they know that."

He was moved by this assertion, but he couldn't look at her. "Who's gonna go to all Jem's peewee soccer games now?"

"Oh shit . . . I don't know. I . . . I didn't really think about . . . Who's been going to them lately? Since I've been sick?"

"Tara, mostly."

"Oh, yes. She's always been so good to Jem."

"She's a saint. Never pays to be that—saints end up stuck with all the crap jobs."

"Cheering Jem is not a crap job," Buffy said.

"Nah, just because that whole scene used to bore you rigid …"

"I don't know what we're going to tell her. How are we going to tell any of them? Oh God, what if this was a mistake? But …" She skimmed her hands over his arms and chest, touched his face. ". . . this is so good. I missed touching you, I missed making love . . . " She sighed. "I think I'm oversexed. I mean, what happened tonight is so huge, and what's the first thing we do afterwards? We're both—"

"No such thing. Don't fret, Buffy. This is better'n you being gone from us. We'll stick together, manage. Anya an' Rupes were for taking Jem away from me. But that won't have to happen now. We'll work it out. Can sleep while she's at school, an' have plenty of time with her, look after her proper."

"The sun is up." She broke out of his arms suddenly, sprang up and went to the window. "I want to see it."

They'd replaced the panes in this room, years ago, with stained glass in dark jewel colors. Buffy threw the catch and started to push the window up. Spike decided this was one of those things where an experience was better than a warning, and kept silent. The slanting rays touched her belly as she raised the sash higher.

With a cry she sent the window crashing back down; the sudden smell of burnt skin overcame that of candle wax, and she threw herself back onto the bed.

She was stunned. He touched her hand. "It's real to you now, I guess."

" . . . getting there." She trembled. "Spike . . . this is scaring me. Oh God—I can't go back now, can I? I was going to die . . . that would've been worse. Right? Tell me again."

He gathered her into his arms. "Never wanted to bring you all the way into my darkness. But . . . nothing's ever really dark where you are, Buffy."

She'd been hungry all night. He'd drunk up all the blood he'd laid in, most of which was meant directly for her, so she could feed off him.

She fed quietly this time, half-lying on him, her thigh pressed between his, snugged up against his groin.

He'd have to tell her she mustn't expect to get all her sustenance this way; she wasn't a kitten at her mother's teat.

But he'd tell her later, because the languorous pleasure of this was too intense to interrupt. The small sounds she made swallowing, the movement of her wet tongue against his flesh, the moist seal her open mouth made on him, imparted wave upon wave of sensation. His cock was half erect, but the center of his arousal wasn't there; it was where her head rested lazily on his shoulder as she sucked on his neck.

This was a new sort of happiness; he'd never sired anyone before whom he'd hung around to foster. As a young one he'd enjoyed this privilege he was bestowing on Buffy sometimes with Angelus, when, after he'd fucked him ten ways to Sunday, the old man was sated and indulgent. And not that Angelus ever said so or even showed it, but he'd always suspected he liked it a great deal. Now he knew why. There was something sublime, when you loved your sireling dearly, in feeding her from your own flesh.

He lifted a hand to stroke her hair; she hummed appreciatively, but didn't stop.

Twenty-four hours ago she'd been bedridden, gaunt and colorless and drugged up with painkillers. Nearly gone.

Now she was wrapped around him, rippling with ripeness and power.

Still drowsy, concentrated on her and his burgeoning hard-on, he wasn't listening for anything else. The voice, so sudden, so close—just on the other side of the half-open bedroom door—made them both start.

"Buffy my dear, you'll see I didn't come empty handed today—"

The sheaf of flowers and the bag of clementines dropped from Giles' hands, the oranges rolling away in every direction. Spike's view of him was upside down for the first moment, until Buffy sprang up and freed him to roll over.

Giles stood frozen, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

Cripes. Ordinarily Spike would've been getting Jemima ready for the school bus, or in her absence, doing things that needed doing in the kitchen, or with the laundry, prior to settling down for his sleep. Giles always showed up around eight, letting himself into the house and going right up, to spend a few minutes with Buffy on his way to the academy.

Buffy, who, sprawled across him in her white satin nightgown and game face, lips blood-smeared, had petrified Giles into silence.

Then Buffy flew at him.

Giles cried out, and Spike lunged after.

But she only threw her arms around him, burying her face against his tweedy chest. "Giles! It's so good to see you!" When she raised her head to look at him, her human face was restored. But Giles spared her barely a glance. It was on Spike he turned the full force of his now towering attention.

"Tell me . . . " He put his hands on Buffy's arms and pushed her gently but firmly off. "Tell me that what I'm seeing isn't . . . isn't . . . oh Lord." His gaze had fallen on the open bite on Spike's neck. His face went stony, but tears sprang from his eyes. "What have you done to her? What. Have. You. Done."

"He did what I asked." Buffy curled her hands around Giles's arm.

But Giles wasn't listening. He'd crumpled to the floor, weeping, a hand over his eyes.

Spike snatched up his jeans and got them on. Buffy knelt beside her watcher, was murmuring to him, but Giles seemed incapable of giving her his attention.

Downstairs the front door opened and closed, and another male voice sounded through the house.

"Hey Buff! How you feeling today?"

Harris's feet pounded on the stairs. Was he so noisy every time he visited? That must've been torture on Buffy's nerves when she was ill, why hadn't he noticed it before? Spike stepped out onto the landing.

"Xander. Hold up a bit."

He stopped instantly, and gazed up at Spike with an expression full of pleading. "What?"

Clearly he expected to be dealt the ultimate blow. Told that Buffy had died in the night.

The sound of Giles' weeping reached him then. Spike watched Xander's face cave in.

He was about to speak when Buffy's voice sounded behind him. "Giles. Please, please don't cry. It's okay, it really is."

Xander flung himself forward, shoving Spike out of the way.

Goddamn fucking broken record.

Giles, dry-eyed and sere, stared into space. Spike let off a large yawn.

"You. You're bored? I ought to stake you right here—!" Xander said.

"Not bored. Sleepy. It'll pass." Why'd he file out with the other two when Buffy said she needed to get dressed? She could probably use his help, anyway. Make sure her kit was on straight, do up her face for her. He'd always enjoyed that kind of thing with Dru—was a dab hand at eyeliner after all these decades. He glanced at Giles. "Watcher. Fancy a cup of tea?"

Giles looked at him with loathing. As if all the changes he'd made since his first forays into Sunnydale were nothing, and he was still the villain of the piece.

"Well, I could do with a cuppa, anyway."

He went to the stove, filled the kettle. "Looking forward to getting our girl back. Buffy's got a lot of missed time she wants to make up to her."

"Don't!" Xander shouted. "Don't talk to us like this is nothing, you fangface shit!"

Giles started. "Jemima . . . I think Jemima will be better off remaining where she is. At least for now."

Spike stared at the blue flames licking the bottom of the tea kettle. So it begins.

"You're not gonna keep Jemmie from her Mamma. An' need I remind both you gits that Buffy was in constant pain, and close to death. She asked for—"

"That's right. I asked for it." Buffy stepped into the kitchen. She'd not been dressed or downstairs in over a month. It was that Spike marveled at, and how beautiful, if pale, she looked, even without any make-up.

Giles grabbed her. His quickness, the vehemence with which he jerked her, startled them all. "How could you succumb to this, how could you— Do you realize that it is my obligation as your Watcher to stake you now?"

"But I told you. I still have my soul."

"Buffy, you are a vampire."

Xander groaned. "Look at her—look! She's smiling! This is a joke to her!"

The kettle whistled then. Spike made the tea. Xander had turned his back.

Giles, moving as if he was blind, sat down. "I blame myself. I should've foreseen this. From the very beginning . . . when you fell under Angel's sway . . . I should never have permitted that. It could lead only to this. This disaster."

When Spike passed him a steaming mug, he took it eagerly and cradled it in his hands.

"Wasn't done lightly," Spike said. "Nothing frivolous about it, far as I'm concerned. You ask Willow how unwilling I was."

"Oh yeah," Xander burst. "You're always unwilling to kill slayers!"

"I'm not killed!" Buffy shouted. Then in a quieter voice, "I'm . . . dead, yeah. Undead. But Spike didn't kill me. I wanted this so I wouldn't have to leave you all so soon." She paused, went to curl her arms around Spike. "Anyway, it's true. It was Willow's plan, and neither of us wanted to hear of it at first—"

"Willow," Giles muttered, "shall deal with me."

"—but Spike did nothing to persuade me. Nothing. I had to persuade him."

"If that's the happy little myth you're gonna tell yourself, Buff, then—"

"Hey! If I'm such an abomination—" She yanked open a drawer and pulled out a stake. Shoved it at Xander. "Here. Finish me off."

He stared at her. "Buff—"

She danced in front of him. "Go on! I'm not Buffy anymore, not your friend, she's all gone! I'm just a vampire now! So dust me!"

Xander set the stake on the counter. "You know I'm not going to do that."

"Why not? Your friend is gone! I'm just a monster!"

"Oh Buffy. Not you. Never you." Xander took her in his arms then.

Spike watched him embrace her, watched the way he grimaced over her shoulder, and knew that Xander wouldn't stake Buffy even if she was soulless and at his throat. He just didn't have it in him.

From Xander she turned to Giles. All trace of a smile, or any sort of self-satisfaction, was gone from her face. She eyed him with a quiet intensity. "What was this I heard about Jemima staying on with you?"

Giles sat back, surprised.

"I can hear everything that goes on in this house now," she said quietly. "You're not seriously going to interfere between us and our daughter, are you?"

He took a deep intake of breath, raised a hand, then stopped. The air went out of him. "No. No . . . how could I? But Buffy . . . you haven't thought this through, have you?"

She shrugged. "Yes and no. There wasn't a lot of time."

"You should have consulted me."

"Please. Like you'd have listened to any reasoning."

Giles rose then. "I must be getting to the academy."

She shot out a hand to touch him. "What are you going to do?"

"Do? My day's work."

"Are you going to contact the council?"

"I don't know." He sounded weary. "Not today, at any rate."