DISCLAIMER: Joss owns them, along with a lot of other folks at FOX, various production companies and a network or two. Joss has publicly stated that BtVS was always intended as a show which would inspire fanfiction. Fanfiction he wanted, fanfiction he’s got. No infringement intended.

RATING: R

SPOILERS: Everything through the end of seasons 5/2.

DEDICATION: Parts 10 and 11 are dedicated to SpikeNip, who works in a hospital in New York City, and who wanted to give desperate relatives whatever information she had, but was told to send them to the Armory. They are dedicated to her because all she wanted to do when she got home Tuesday night was curl up with some fanfic. {{{FIERCE, LOVING, PROTECTIVE HUGS}}}

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Storming Heaven  part 11

When Giles came down for breakfast, Dawn was staring at the roses he’d left on the table the night before. They should have been dead, of course, so long out of water as they’d been.

"Sorry," Giles said reaching for the roses, so that he could throw them away. His hand recoiled from them when he realized that he’d been wrong.

The roses weren’t dead. They were fresh and blooming as if they were still rooted in soil, rather than cut and left without water. He realized sickly that it was the vampiric blood tainting them, allowing them an unnatural life. Grimly resolved, he reached for them again.

"I’ll just burn these, shall I?" he said. Dawn’s hand snaked out and caught his wrist, stopping him.

"No, please," she said. "He brought them for her. Let me take them back to her tonight." It would have to be at night: sunlight would turn the blood staining them to ash. Something twisted inside Giles guts at her words. Part of him was sickened by the image; these demon-tainted flowers polluting the grave of his poor lost girl. And yet, a demon’s tears watered her grave nightly, and these flowers bore the blood of the demon she had loved. He realized it was not a gift she would reject. And somehow, her love for this particular demon might purify the roses. Who knew? Perhaps the sun would not consume them after all.

"All right," he said. "I’ll take you there this evening."

But, as it happened, he was otherwise occupied.

Willow called him that afternoon, while he was at the shop. She sounded, not tired precisely, but weary. In a few clipped sentences, she said she’d found the key to what they were supposed to do. He and the others were to meet her at Buffy’s grave as soon as it was dark. She was calling LA, so that Wes, Gunn and Cordy could join them.

"Don’t bring Dawn," she said firmly. "Tell her that she can come by tomorrow, if she wants, but don’t let her anywhere near the cemetery tonight. It’s too dangerous."

"Dangerous? More so than usual?" Giles asked. It wasn’t so much her words that aroused a vague sense of disquiet within him, so much as something indefinable in her voice.

"Oh, yeah," Willow said grimly. "Much. We’ll have Anya and Fred stay with Dawn. And Giles? Bring weapons. Lots of weapons."

"Willow," Giles began uneasily. "What is it you’re not telling me?" A hollow laugh answered him.

"A lot Giles. But, I promise, when you see, you’ll understand. And you’ll forgive me." Before he could question her odd choice of words--what could she possibly be doing that was going to require forgiveness?-- she’d hung up the phone.

Her phone call to Cordy was even more direct.

"You know that thing we were supposed to be preparing for?"

"Hello, Willow, nice to hear from you."

"Would you rather get this message in one of your visions?" Willow asked bluntly.

Cordy shuddered. "No, thanks. So, what’s the what?"

"I want the four of you to meet us at Giles’ place before sunset. Tell Wes to bring that Orb of Thesullah he’s been using for a paperweight. And come armed."

In the event, when the group from L.A. arrived, everyone had gathered at Giles with the notable exception of Willow.

"I don’t understand," Cordy said. "What the hell is going on?"

"That seems to be the question of the hour," Giles said.

"When I saw her this morning, she was different," Tara said, her voice hushed. "Her aura was . . .I don’t know if I can explain it."

"Power," Spike said. "She came to my crypt this afternoon, told me to clear out, take the sewer tunnels to the Magic Box, get a lift back here. Said I’d understand when I saw her. Damned if I didn’t believe her."

"What do you mean ‘power’?" Wesley asked, concerned.

"I mean she was lousy with it, more so than when we went up against that hellbitch, Glory."

"She did something last night," Tara agreed. "Performed a ritual. She cleaned up afterwards, but I could feel the residual magic, hanging in the air. Spike is right: there was a lot of power."

"Are we sure it’s wise to just go along with whatever she has in mind?" Wes began uneasily.

"You have a better plan?" Xander demanded. "Because, from where I’m sitting, it looks like we’ve been told the world is going to end if we don’t do something, and it looks like Willow has finally figured out what to do."

"Willow may believe she’s found out--" Wes began.

"No," Cordy said suddenly. "She’s found out. She used the book, didn’t she?" She directed the question at Willow’s partner, Tara, who nodded in confirmation.

"The Gate of Darkness was open on the table, this morning."

"That the book you saw in your vision?" Gunn asked.

"Yeah," Cordy said.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Gunn said, hefting the double headed Byzantine ax he’d found in Angel’s collection.

Dawn didn’t want to stay behind, but the others were firm.

"Watch her," Cordy instructed Fred and Anya. "She’s pretty clever. She’ll try to sneak away if you aren’t careful."

"Don’t worry," Anya reassured her. "We’ll play lots of videos of attractive young men singing loud, obnoxious music to profess their undying love."

"Maybe I can help her with some homework?" Fred offered.

"It’s summer, Fred," Cordy said gently. "Dawn doesn’t have homework."

As soon as the sun had set, the two groups headed over to Buffy’s grave. It was full dark by the time they go there, and with no moon in the sky, they should have needed flashlights to see their way.

But the coruscating lights visible the length and breadth of the cemetery--and utterly invisible beyond its boundaries-- made that unnecessary.

"Lousy with power, huh?" Gunn asked Spike, hefting his ax again.

"Yep," Spike agreed, checking the balance of his morning star.

They went swiftly toward the pulsing light, and the only thing that could have shocked them more than the light greeting them when they entered the cemetery was the sight that greeted them on Buffy’s grave.

Willow stood, wearing a loose white robe, an amulet blazing on her breast. It was the amulet that was the source of light, and Giles would bet it was the amulet allowing Willow to do what she was doing, because nothing he had ever seen, not even her sudden strengths in the battle against Glory, had indicated that Willow possessed a fraction of the power she now wielded.

The young witch had summoned what looked to be every demon in Sunnydale, and was holding them at bay. They were reduced to slavering, mindless beasts, and were hurling themselves at the barrier with which she had surrounded herself, trying to get to her. Arms extended, light blazing from her hands, she looked like she was maintaining the barrier and her thrall over the demons with almost no effort.

Seeing her reinforcements arrive at last, Willow looked at them.

"It has to have the blood," she explained calmly, looking at Spike. Then she turned and fixed Giles and Wesley with her gaze.

"Kill them!" she commanded, and every one of her friends felt the imperative in that command, found themselves driven to obey it. "Kill them all!"

What followed was slaughter, though it was not all one sided. Willow did not release the demons from her thrall--as Buffy had told her, some sacrifices didn’t have to be willing--but many of them were strong enough to fight to defend themselves. Back and forth they raged across Buffy’s grave, the nexus of power, until the earth was soaked with blood. Even that wasn’t enough, Willow realized, and called forth more demons. Six feet under was a long way to go. . .

They fought for hours, with weapons while they could, barehanded when they had to. But the time they were done, it was more than demon blood sinking into the greedy earth: every one of them bore wounds.

When red ichor was pooling at her bare feet, because the ground had finally become so saturated, there was no place left for it to go Willow knew it was enough. She watched as her friends dispatched the last demon, and collapsed, one by one, on the ground around her.

"What," Spike gasped, "the hell . . .was. . . that?" He was the only one with energy enough to voice the question on all their minds. Willow laughed bitterly.

"That" she told them, "was the easy part."

As they stared at her in dawning horror and dismay, Willow threw back her head, shouting a word so ancient that even the oldest demons had forgotten the tongue in which it had been written, millennia before. Ereshkigal had not forgotten, and she had taught the word of power to Willow, who spoke it aloud, now.

Thunder split the air, and a mist rose in the cemetery.

"Dear lord," Giles said, guessing what word it was that had been spoken. The others watched helplessly as the blanket of mist swiftly built around them, cutting each of them off from the other’s view.

Cordy, Xander, Gunn, Wes, Tara and Spike found themselves overwhelmed by exhaustion, and they fell to the ground, overcome by a deep, ensorcelled slumber. Giles got warily to his feet, not knowing what had happened to the others.

See what you desire . . . A whisper on the air, and then, magic.

She came to Giles wearing one of her long white skirts, and a full-sleeved blouse. She looked beautify and graceful, just as he remembered.

"Jenny!" he wept. "God. I’ve missed you," he told her. He cared for Olivia, but he loved Jenny, and though he’d come to terms with her loss long ago, there was still a small part of him that ached for her, and always would.

She smiled sadly, but said nothing, merely pressing a soft kiss to his mouth. It was a fleeting, almost tentative kiss, as if she weren’t sure how he would respond to her. Had she forgotten, so soon? he wondered sadly, pulling her into his embrace, deepening the kiss.

Giles lay with the woman he loved on what seemed to him not the cold ground of a graveyard, but the soft grass of a sunlit meadow. He made love to her as he had dreamed of doing; softly, gently, yet with all the hunger of his loss. She responded with tenderness, holding him close, soothing away the tears he could not help but weep, and when it was over, she kissed him lightly on the brow, and bade him sleep.

See what you desire . . .

The words jolted Spike out of what had been a deep, restful slumber. He was still surrounded by the white mist, but someone seemed to be coming toward him. Had his heart been beating, it would have stood still when he realized who it was.

His black goddess, his ripe, wicked plum.

She didn’t seem angry that he had tried to kill her for Buffy, but smiled at him, perhaps a little sadly.

"Do you forgive me, then?" he asked, not sure he dared hope for so much. But, Dru put a finger to his lips, and silenced him. He nipped gently at her finger, and her smile widened. She took his face between her hands and brought her lips to his.

She felt unaccustomedly warm in his embrace, but he had been so cold, so long, that it didn’t matter. He desperately needed whatever warmth she would bless him with. Spike kissed her, fiercely, hungrily, and pushed her down to the floor of his crypt. He lifted the skirts of her white silk dress, revealing her slender white thighs, then fumbled his buckle open, and drew down his zipper. As soon as his manhood sprang free, he impaled her in one sure, swift thrust. She gasped, arching against him, but made no other sound.

He made love to her with desperate fury, forgoing some of the harsher games she so enjoyed, sensing she did not require them of him. He was grateful. He needed comfort, not pain, and if she offered it, he would gladly take it. For once, comfort indeed seemed her aim, and he almost wept for it. In the end, she rocked him gently, soothing him back into sleep.

Willow rose from Spike’s side, and allowed the mist to dissipate. There was no longer any need to hide. She took her place back on the center of Buffy’s blood-soaked grave, and spoke the words that would revive the others.

In a few moments they stirred, looking around. Of course, it was Spike who understood what had happened.

"What the hell did you do, girl?" he growled, his face a mask of pain.

"What I had to," she told him.

"Willow. . ." Giles began, as a horrified certainly came over him.

"I’m sorry!" she wept. "Giles, I’m so sorry. But we have no time. Wesley did you bring the Orb?"

"I--yes. Willow, what’s happening?" he gestured toward her. She looked down at her swelling stomach.

"Nothing that isn’t supposed to happen," she assured Wes. "Just get the Orb ready."

A moment later, a distant church in Sunnydale began to toll midnight, and with a shout, Willow went into labor.

Cordy and Tara exchanged one look and ran to Willow’s side, helping the stricken girl into a sitting position, one on either side of her. Cordy tried to block out the fact that she was kneeling in pools of demon and human blood. When Willow screamed as the next contraction shook her, that was fairly easy to do.

"Have to stay--vigilant" Willow gasped between contractions. "Predators," she said. Grimly, Giles nodded, and with the other men, formed a loose circle around the grave and the woman who labored upon it.

There were, as Willow had warned, predators. Not demons, as such, but hellbeasts escaped from the constraints that bound them, come sniffing around the stench of magic, power and blood. Gunn’s ax, Spike’s mace, the swords wielded by Wes and Giles and Xander were kept busy, and Buffy’s grave was in no danger of losing the stream of red nourishing the magic at work there

But, finally, there seemed to be nothing left, no new threats prowling, and the men sank wearily down, to rest. They watched the girls, but kept alert for anything that might yet prove a danger.

"Why aren’t we sinking?" Cordy muttered. "This is muddy as a swamp."

"Magic," Tara replied succinctly, moping Willow’s brow. Both girls dropped the subject as Willow screamed through another pain.

Four hours after it started, Willow’s labor bore fruit. It was not the fruit any of them, save perhaps Willow herself, was expecting. What ultimately slipped from between her straining, blood-daubed thighs was no child, not even a child of spirit. It was, simply, an umbilicus.

One of pure, white light.

The light poured from Willow’s womb, and thrust itself into the bloody ground beneath her, burning its way ever downward. And as it did so, it absorbed the blood surrounding them until it shone crimson, and the earth on which they knelt grew firm once more.

"Oh, God," Cordy said. Willow screamed, as more contractions claimed her. Light continued to pour from her, and with all the blood absorbed and drained away, the light returned, briefly, to purest white. Then, oddly, it took on another hue, as of the grass growing green and rich on the new grave.

"Magic," Tara said again. Cordy nodded. With a final scream, Willow pushed the last of the light from her body, and it disappeared into the cold ground.

For a few moments, everything was silent, as if the world had returned to normal, and this was no more than an ordinary night. Dazedly, Spike realized that he could smell the approaching dawn, perhaps one hour off.

"Help. . .me up," Willow gasped. Cordy and Tara exchanged glances, but decided not to argue the matter. Willow took a few stumbling steps away from Buffy’s grave, and sank down, her back resting against a nearby oak.

Around them, only the sound of crickets and a few night birds disturbed the silence.

"What have you done?" Tara whispered. Willow smiled sadly. "You know," she said. "I’m sorry."

"Don’t be," Tara said. "I understand." But she was weeping, when she said it.

Abruptly, a rumble sounded, deep in the earth. Spike was all too familiar with that sound, as were Wes and Giles, who had trained as Watchers. Even Gunn, who had hunted vampires, and Xander, who had often accompanied Buffy on patrol recognized the rustling of something clawing its way out of its grave. The men slowly rose to their feet, their weapons at the ready.

But Willow had heard the sound, as well, and she understood a different kind of danger. Once more, she threw her head back, and shouted the word of ancient power. Lightening split the air, and struck Buffy’s grave, cleaving the earth asunder, and enabling what struggled there to emerge before her newly reacquired need of air suffocated her ere she could be safely reborn.

Giles fist thought was, it wasn’t Buffy. The girl crawling naked out of the ground was too pale, her hair too dark. Where was his golden girl, her skin tanned by the long days of summer, her hair a soft sun-colored cloud? Then she looked up at them, tossing back hair the color of the earth she had lain in, and he saw her storm-gray eyes, and the glint of the tarnished silver cross about her neck, and he knew: It was his Buffy. And she was sane, and whole, not some zombie, and he wanted to weep at the pure, painful joy of it.

Save that murder looked out of her eyes.

What had lain in the grave was Buffy’s body only, not her soul; that was still waiting in the antechamber of heaven to be returned to the earthly vehicle which had just been restored to a condition suitable to house the soul once more. The biology of memory is a matter of chemical imprints and electrical patterns in the brain. The body that had once held the soul of Buffy Summers retained all her memories, recalled all her desires. It was dimly aware that the flesh housing it was too tight, and too small, that it had recently known greater freedom. It was more urgently aware of other losses. It had been happy with its mate, content to remain with him. Rage rose within her at the monstrous unfairness of it, of what was being asked of her. How dare they? Why had they disturbed her rest? Why couldn’t they leave her well enough alone, leave her at peace, leave her where she wanted to be?

"You bitch," she howled, and hurled herself at Willow before the others could react. Willow accepted the blow that knocked her to the earth. She had known what to expect.

Spike and Gunn lost their paralysis with the attack on Willow. Running forward, they grabbed the shrieking fury that had descended upon the weakened woman, hauling her off. Buffy screamed invective at them, words they would have sworn the Slayer had never heard before. She was weak from the ordeal of her rebirth, but only compared to her former strength. They still had to call Xander and Giles to help restrain her.

Meanwhile, Tara and Cordy were trying to check Willow for damage. Impatient, she shook them off. "Wes!" she shouted. "Bring me the Orb!"

Wes hurried to her side, and Willow grabbed the Orb from him. "Te implore Doamne, nu ignora accasta rugaminte!" Giles head snapped up, as he recognized the beginning of the curse the Rom had used to restore Angel’s soul. But, he knew the writhing creature in his grasp was no vampire. She was struggling for breath, and he could see the pulse beating madly at her throat as she raged against them.

"Let me go!" she howled. But they weren’t about to.

*********************

In the antechamber of heaven, Buffy Summers stood naked once more, the fire burning close around her, offering her his strength.

I am sorry we must require this of you, he told her. She shook her head and smiled wryly.

"No, you’re not. You might be sorry for my pain, but it doesn’t matter in the big picture, does it?"

No, it doesn’t, he admitted. She nodded.

"Then don’t tell me you’re sorry. Just keep your promise to me. Make it worth my pain."

We will keep our promise, the fire assured her. Neither mentioned that the forces of Hell wold do all in their power to prevent that promise from being fulfilled.

Buffy gasped, feeling the pull of the Orb and Willow’s spell. "Guess it’s time, then," she said. "Bye."

Fare well, child, the fire bade her, as the bright soul before him disappeared from heaven, recalled to the mortal plane. And may your return to this place be long delayed.

***********************

It was over in moments. The Orb glowed, and a light shot from it straight to Buffy’s chest. She arched back with a final scream of rage, then went limp. The Orb itself had disappeared.

"It’s all right," Willow said dully. "You can let her go."

"You sure about that?" Gunn said warily. But the others had already released her. Spike stood up, stripping off his coat. Before Buffy’s eyelids fluttered open once more, he had wrapped it around her. His arms were holding her, securing her in his coat, and he would be damned if he moved them. He leaned his head against her dark hair and wept.

Buffy opened her eyes slowly. It was easier, this time. Her soul had been reunited with her reanimated flesh, and while it took some getting used to, after the freedom of having been pure spirit, it felt . . .right. She realized that Spike was weeping over her, that Xander was staring at her as if he might join him, and that Giles was standing, looking down at her, with the most idiotic, non-Giles like grin she had ever seen him wear. She couldn’t help but smile back.

"Hi," she whispered. At which Giles broke down and wept right along with Spike and Xander, just as the first light of dawn broke over the horizon.

Buffy sighed, looking over at Willow. The few memories her body had stored up in the moments between the time it had come awake in her grave and the time her soul had been reunited with it were returning to her, and she knew what she’d done in her rage at being reborn. "I’m sorry," she called, lacking the strength to pull out of the death grip Spike and now Xander had her in.

"I know," Willow smiled back, just as weary.

Buffy nudged Spike. "We have to get you inside," she told him gently.

"I’m not leaving you," he retorted, his voice hoarse with emotion. That called forth another tired smile.

"Just get me to the car," she suggested. "We have a few minutes before you have to worry." She looked over at her doting watcher. "Giles, could you help Willow?"

In short order, they sorted themselves out into their various cars. Wesley had suggested Willow might be more comfortable in the back of their car--the one that had belonged to Angel-- with Tara. Gunn and Cordy rode with Xander. In the back seat of Giles’ car, Spike held onto Buffy tightly, as if afraid she’d disappear.

When they arrived back at Giles’ home, she told him that he should be the one who prepared Dawn.

"You need to get inside anyway," she pointed out. "And you’re good at this. You know people. You’ll know what to say." He smiled at the compliment, and grabbed the blanket Giles offered, dashing quickly toward the promised shelter, leaving Giles to help the still weak Buffy.

Anya and Fred had given up trying to persuade Dawn to get some sleep. The two young women watched the teenager pace restlessly, waiting for the others too return. And when Spike burst through the door, grinning wildly despite the smoke beginning to rise from the blanket covering him, Dawn took one look at him, and she knew.

She answered his grin with a radiant smile of her own.

"I was right, wasn’t I?" she said.

"Yeah, pet, you were."

Nothing could stop Dawn from pelting out the door and running toward her sister.

"Buffy!" she cried, hurling herself into the older girl’s embrace, and breaking down in sobs. She had literally knocked her older sister off her feet, and they were kneeling on the ground. They clung to each other, weeping, the way they had clung together after Dawn had broken the spell to bring back their mother. Giles felt like joining them, but, there were practical matters to consider.

"Dawn," Giles said gently, kneeling beside the girl. "This has been quite an ordeal. We need to get Buffy inside, so she can rest." Dawn wiped her streaming eyes and nodded. Together, they helped Buffy into the house.

"Buffy," Anya said happily. "You’ve been successfully resurrected from the dead. And you’re not a zombie. Yay, you!"

"Thank you, Anya," Buffy said wryly, collapsing onto the couch. Dawn sank down right next to her, and Buffy pulled her little sister into a tight hug. Dawn burst into tears again, and Buffy gently stroked her hair. Then something nearby caught her attention. She looked over toward the coffee table.

She recognized them at once.

"Spike," she said, "Would you please hand me Angel’s roses?" The vampire nodded, not even questioning how she knew what they were. He could still smell the magic coming off of her, much as Willow had earlier reeked of power. And, looking at her pale skin and dark hair, he understood that the grave had left its mark on Buffy Summers. A chill gripped him as he realized that while she was no longer in heaven, all was still not right with the world. Whatever her death had set in motion, he knew in his gut that her resurrection had not stopped it.

But, at least they now had a fighting chance.

"Here you go, love," he said, handing her the flowers. She smiled her thanks.

The others arrived a few minutes afterward, and while they all felt in a celebratory mood, they were all too exhausted to celebrate. In the end, Buffy was put to bed in the room Dawn had used, the roses clutched firmly to her breast, while Willow was given Giles room. Dawn refused to leave her sister, and put her sleeping bag on the floor beside the bed. For her part, Tara wasn’t about to leave Willow, and Giles found quilts to make her a bed similar to Dawn’s.

Buffy had suggested that the LA group be given the keys to the Summer's residence, which had been locked up since her death, a few months before.

"There should be fresh sheets and things in the linen closets," she said.

"Buffy, my dear, I think we can manage," Wes said with a small, tired smile. "Don’t worry about us. Get some rest."

"Spike and I will be downstairs if you need anything," Giles said, ushering the others out of her room. No one wanted to leave. Having Buffy back was too big a miracle for them to have absorbed all at once, and they were still getting used to it.

"She needs her sleep," Xander said, grinning widely. "She has to get some rest. Oh, God," he broke down, as the enormity of what he’d said overwhelmed him--that there was a living, breathing Buffy who needed rest and food and could sleep in a normal bed--and began crying again. Anya rubbed his back soothingly, and suggested she be the one to drive home.

The L.A. group followed him out the door, leaving Giles and Spike alone in the darkened living room.

"I think," Giles said, as he walked over to the sideboard and reached for a decanter, "that I could use a brandy. Care to join me?"

"Hell, yeah," Spike said. The two men sat in the living room, as exhaustion and the events of the night caught up with them. Spike sighed, and told Giles what he’d earlier realized.

"You know, this is a long way from over," he said. "We still don’t know what’s threatening the world, and we still don’t know how to stop it."

"Very true. But I doubt that The Powers That Be have led us this far only to leave us in the lurch. I’m sure, with Buffy back in the game, we’ll learn what we need to, quickly. And with Willow’s new powers . . ." Spike shook his head.

"Don’t count on it," Spike said. "Did you get a good look at the amulet she was wearing? I think it probably went back to its owner, by now."

"The fact that she was able to get it from its owner in the first place is a good indication of what she’s capable of," Giles countered. Spike snorted.

"Yeah. What she’s capable of," he said, taking another sip of his brandy. Giles nodded, understanding what he meant.

"It’s damned unsettling," he agreed. "I’ve known her since she was sixteen, and I think of her as a child. Not quite the way I think of Buffy, not as my daughter, but a child, still."

"Not someone you’re comfortable shagging," Spike said with brutal candor. "Can’t say I have the same problem, but it’s still unnerving." He shook his head. "She made me think I was with Dru. I mean, it was all wrong: Dru isn’t warm, and she’s not usually tender, but I thought I was with my black goddess."

"I understand," Giles said, remembering the tenderness with which Jenny had held him, aching when he remembered it hadn’t been Jenny at all. Spike looked up at him sharply.

"You get why it had to be us, though, right?"

"I’m not sure I do," Giles admitted, tossing off the rest of his glass.

"Rupert, you’ve just said it: you’ve always felt like Buffy was your daughter. Well, now, in a sense, she really is. With that little ritual she performed, Willow made you, symbolically, Buffy’s father."

Giles nodded. "I imagine that’s why she chose me rather than one of the younger men. She wouldn’t have picked Xander, if for no other reason than out of respect for Anya, of course. But the others are romantically unattached, and, well, younger. It might have been easier for Willow--"

"The others aren’t attached to Buffy, though, are they?" Spike pointed out. "Not the way you and I are. That’s why it had to be us."

"Perhaps," Giles said thoughtfully. The whole matter still disturbed him. There was no question but that Willow had called upon appallingly deadly magic, and while Giles could not but be grateful for the immediate results of that--Buffy restored to them, alive and whole--he dreaded the repercussions that had yet to unfold. If there was one thing he had learned at bitter cost, it was that magic never came without a price, and it was never used without consequences. Never.

One of those consequences was going to be how his part in her resurrection affected Giles relationship with Buffy. He had always understood Hank Summer’s place in Buffy’s life, and while he didn’t think much of the way Hank had chosen to increasingly absent himself from her life, he hadn’t attempted to take Hank’s place. He had, rather, carved his own niche in Buffy’s life, claimed his own piece of her heart. The two were not mutually exclusive.

Or, they hadn’t been. Now, Giles found himself susceptible to an unreasoning jealousy when it came to Hank. It rankled that the man would dare call himself Buffy’s father, when that was a title Giles now felt, instinctively, in his blood and bone, belonged to himself alone.

Or, not quite alone. And that was another matter for concern.

"You say that the ritual made me, symbolically, Buffy’s father," he said to the vampire sipping brandy across from him. "But Willow used both of us. Can’t you say the same?" Spike looked at him, the grin with which he favored him almost savage in its delight.

"No, I can’t," he said. "She’s no vampire, but she was raised from the dead. That was why Willow needed to include me in her ritual. But, Rupert, that doesn’t make me her father." The vampire met the watcher’s eyes levelly, wanting to make sure there was no misunderstanding between them. "That makes me her sire."

Giles said nothing for a moment, but nor did he flinch away from the vampire’s gaze. He knew enough about vampire kin groups and vampiric sexuality to understand what Spike was implying. Whatever love Spike had felt before was now reinforced by a blood bond that would tie him to Buffy as long as one of them remained on this earth. And, however disinterested in Spike Buffy had claimed to be before, that same bond would affect her feelings, altering them, changing them, making her more amenable to Spike’s attentions.

Or, at least that’s what would have happened if Spike had indeed turned Buffy, and raised her from the dead as a vampire.

"The grave left its mark on her," Giles said carefully. "Her hair is dark as earth, her skin is as pale as if she’d never seen the sun. But she’s no vampire, Spike."

"She’s no vampire," Spike agreed. "Thank God." The two men decided to say no more that night. There were enough problems before them not to borrow trouble.

Trouble, after all, was most likely headed right their way.

________________________________________________________________________

Still not the end.

FEMFIC     PART 10     PART 12    FEEDBACK

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