He was back in the dream, back in Buffy’s yard, just before everything had gone wrong beyond the telling of it.
It was the gun that had thrown him. The knowledge Xander had gained from his trip to soldier-land that Halloween four years ago had let him automatically identify the model and number of shots it contained. He could have taken it apart, cleaned it, and put it back together again with no real problem, but the gun’s mere existence in that time and place had frozen his mind in confusion.
Warren’s got a gun? Huh?!
Guns just weren’t much of an issue in Sunnydale. Fangs, claws, spells, swords, axes, mucous, been there and fought those. But guns? It went along with fighting humans which also seemed very bizarre. There’d been the Mayor, but he’d been mostly snake by the time they started fighting him. Faith had been a Slayer. The Initiative and the Knights of Byzantium had been demon hunters, involved with the occult world. Warren, on the other hand, was so...ordinary. He shouldn't have been a threat at all, but there he was, and there was the gun.
Before Xander could shake off his surprise, Buffy was shoving him down, taking the shot in her chest. He stood over her still body, knowing Tara was dead upstairs and that Willow was going to go evil, all because he’d screwed up.
“Ooo, that’s a big surprise. You screwed up. Who’d of believed it?”
In the way of dreams, it seemed normal for Xander to see father there, martini glass in hand, looking over the scene.
“I tried to stop it,” he said quietly.
“Didn’t do much of a job, did you? The little girl had to save your useless ass, just like she had to for all those years. And for what?”
“We’re friends…”
“Oh. Right. Sure you are. Boy, if you don’t recognize a pity fuck when you see one…”
“He sounds like my Dad.”
The soft voice was a jarring note, and Xander blinked. Tara stood next to him, looking as she always had in her too-big clothes, long brown hair shining in the sun.
She smiled at him. “I mean he’s not calling you a devil-worshipping whore, but it’s still the same old song and dance.”
No, she did look different, Xander realized. Tara’s head was up, and her eyes met his instead of always flickering down or away. She looked…relaxed, maybe the way only Willow had seen her before.
“Hey!” he said, overjoyed. It had been a dream after all, a stupid dream, and she and Willow were all right. “You can’t believe how glad I am to see you!”
“I’m sorry, Xander,” Tara said gently. “It wasn’t a dream. That stuff really happened.”
“Oh.” He saw that his Dad had vanished along with the Summers’ backyard. Instead, he and Tara stood in the middle of a huge field of grass that stretched all around him as far as he could see. “Ok.” Xander turned to face her, glad he’d have a chance to say what he wanted to since it happened. “I’m really sorry I didn’t stop him, Tara.”
She laid a hand against his cheek. “It wasn’t your fault. Not the teeny-tiniest bit. I never, ever blamed you, and neither did anyone else.”
“Thanks,” he said hoarsely, then sniffed and tried to get himself back together. “I guess I’m dead too? Because, wow, that hurt a lot less than I thought it would.”
“You’re not dead. Not yet.”
At her gesture, what looked like a little window opened in the air. Looking through, he could see Amy strapping his unconscious body to a stone slab. A large knife lay on the floor nearby.
He let out a harsh bark of laughter. “God, Snyder would love this. ‘A whipping boy, raised by mongrels and set on a sacrificial stone.’ I’ve got to hand it to the little weasel. He knew his students.”
Tara raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of attention to pay to somebody who was eaten by a snake.” She sighed. “But I know what you mean. I believed I had a demon inside me for years because that’s what my Dad said. Willow still hears the girls in high school telling her she’s worthless. Buffy still hears Angelus laughing at her. We all have voices that we can’t ignore.”
The view through the window changed. Xander was looking into a room hung with velvet and filled with people in old-fashioned clothes. He squinted at the man and woman sitting on the couch. The man was obviously in love with the woman, and she was obviously not interested, as she stood and walked away. The man blinked back tears, tightening his mouth in a familiar way…
“Spike!” Xander gasped.
“William,” Tara corrected. “Spike’s human self. Still there underneath the leather and the cigarettes, although he’d stake himself before he’d admit it.”
“Can’t blame him,” Xander said. “Look at his hair.”
She laughed. “Be nice. You’ve had a few hair issues, yourself.” Her voice sobered. “The point is that there are better people to listen to.”
Again the scene changed, and he saw Anya, radiant in her wedding gown. “I, Anya, want to marry you, Xander, because I love you and I always will. Before I met you, I was, like, a different person. Not even a person, really…and I had seen what love did to people. It was hurt. And sadness. Alone was better. And then suddenly there was you, and you knew me, you saw me, and it was this...thing. You make me feel warm, and safe. So I get it now, I finally get love, Xander. I really do.”
He lifted a hand, trying to touch her. “Yeah, Anya got love and then she got pain. I screwed that up too. That’s it. Game over.”
“Are you sure?” Tara’s voice was faint, and he felt himself falling, tumbling from the field. “Because I think there’s a few innings left.”
“Hi there, Xander,” Amy said cheerily as he forced his eyes open. “Woke up, huh?”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t want to miss this…OW!” he yelped as the knife drew along his inner arms.
“Quit being a baby. They’re shallow. I don’t want you to die too fast. This needs timing.”
“I’ll try to make that work for you,” Xander muttered, straining against the bonds that held him to no effect.
“You do that.” She thought a moment. “Meantime, I’d better take care of your friends. It’s not that I don’t want them to know I’m killing you, but I don’t want them to have time to come up with some wacky plan that just happens to work out. Back in a flash.”
In a snap of her fingers, Amy was gone.
“Very posh,” Spike said as he examined another apartment flyer. “I like the pool situation. Give me a chance to work on my tan.”
“I’m glad you approve,” Travers said.
The Council head sounded as if he were forcing the words out between his teeth and from the corner of his eye, Spike saw Buffy smile.
Looks as if I’ve lost fair-haired boy status.
It wouldn’t have surprised him after the previous day’s revelations, but Travers didn’t appear as concerned about those as he did about the fact that Spike and Buffy were on speaking terms again. That was rather alarming as it pointed out Travers’ dislike for Buffy and Giles and caused Spike to realize that Buffy had been right that the older man had been using him.
Not that me being used is anything new.
He cast his fellow Slayer another sideways look. She was leaning back against the counter of the almost-restored Magic Box, sorting through the pamphlets Travers had collected the previous day while Spike fled his inner demons on his bike. He found himself enjoying the sight as she leaned easily against the counter, light catching on the newly-curling ends of her hair.
The wave of warmth he felt halted abruptly as Giles crossed his line of sight, the Watcher’s presence serving as a reminder that his probation had yet to be served.
After Spike had returned with Buffy, the extremely awkward silence had been broken by the suggestion that Spike take over Giles’ old apartment. It had been fine with him – his talk with Buffy had made him so happy that anything would have been fine with him – however, Giles had put paid to that suggestion by saying he intended to stay around.
“Apparently, you lot fall apart without a minder,” he’d said dryly. “And this will allow me to oversee any training Spike might need.”
Buffy had been almost painfully overjoyed, but at those final words, Spike met the Watcher’s cool gaze.
Put a foot wrong with Buffy again, those eyes had said. And it won’t matter how Chosen you are.
Message sent, received, and unnecessary. Spike had no intention of putting a foot wrong with Buffy with or without the presence of fierce Papa-figures. At the moment, they seemed to have regained the tenuous comradeship they’d shared during the fight with Glory. She treated him as she treated the others with a bit of extra snarkiness thrown in, and he responded in kind. It was enough for now, more than he’d ever hoped possible the night he’d fled Sunnydale, and he wasn’t interested in doing anything to upset the truce.
“I’ll have to take a look around them all,” he said, in a hasty bid to recapture the flow of conversation. “See what suits me, how well it would stand up to grenades, that sort of thing.”
“Make sure you pick one with a good refrigerator,” Buffy snorted. “Hey, Will, Dawn? Are you guys finished?”
“Yeah,” Dawn shoved her collection back into the central pile, with a brief smile before retreating to stand by Giles. The Niblet was still twitchy around him, but Spike thought she was warming gradually. If he were careful enough, she should come to trust him again.
“Willow?”
“Huh?” The former witch didn’t look back from where she’d drifted to the far end of the shop, her hand moving slowly over the new plaster. “I don’t have anything.” She flinched, although Spike couldn’t see from what.
Before anything else could be said, the front door crashed open and Anya staggered in, going straight to Buffy and grabbing her by the arms. “Help me,” she panted. “Xander…you’ve got to…”
“What’s wrong?” Buffy said. “I’ll help, ok? Just tell me.”
“Are you all right?” Spike asked sharply, taking in the rips in her clothing, the wildly tousled hair, and the cut over one eye. “Did Xander hurt you?”
Like I tried to hurt Buffy. Is that how she looked that night?
“Xander wouldn't hurt anybody that way,” Willow said, suddenly there in a way she hadn’t been. “Anya, what happened?”
“Amy,” Anya said through desperate gasps for air. “She was going to kill me but Xander threw a rock then the temple started glowing and I couldn’t get in and I tried and tried and I couldn’t teleport so I ran, and YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!”
“Amy took Xander?” Willow said in a mild voice that made all the hair on Spike’s neck stand up.
“Oh, I’ll do something,” Buffy growled, one eye on Willow. “I’ll do something right now. Giles, ideas? Fast ones?”
“If the temple’s glowing, then she’s at least partially activated it,” Giles said hastily. “She probably wants Xander for a sacrifice to finish powering it up. We’ll have to stop her.”
“You can’t get in!” Anya wailed. “It’s sealed!”
“Then I’ll just have to knock harder,” Buffy said grimly.
“Five,” Amy’s disembodied voice sounded as a ball of something like black light appeared in the middle of the store. “Four…”
Spike didn’t think. He just moved, slamming into Buffy with all his strength and driving her to the floor against the wall, his body covering hers. He would have gone for Dawn, but she'd been too far away for him to reach in time, and he was aware that Giles had her, picking her up and throwing her over the counter. Anya and Travers were diving back there too, and Willow was still towards the rear of the store.
“One.”
There was fire and pain everywhere. And then there was nothing.
It had all happened so fast. One second, Buffy was diving for Amy’s weapon, the next, she was on the floor, Spike’s weight pinning her and bringing back memories both good and bad.
“Get the hell off me!”
Her words were furious, if muffled, but he ignored her, one hand forcing her head down under his shoulder with a grip she couldn’t break immediately. Then there was a lot of noise, and his body was limp instead of pressed against hers, and his hand dropped away.
“Spike?”
Somehow, Buffy went from pushing him away to hugging him to her, but it didn’t make any difference. Instead of responding as he always did to any touch from her, Spike remained still and sort of...heavy deadweightdeadweightdeadweightNO! Finally, she rolled him carefully to the side, so she could sit up and see what had happened.
The walls were black with soot and streaks of fire, charred pieces of stock falling everywhere. Giles was slumped unconscious against the counter.
“Dawn!” Buffy shouted, even as her hands began to frantically run over Spike, hunting for a pulse.
At least he should have one. Damn you, Spike, don’t you dare be dead! No one gets to kill you but me!
She found the fluttering in his neck and closed her eyes in relief. He wasn’t out of the woods, though, burned all along his back from neck to ankles. Buffy’s lips trembled, but there wasn’t time now. She eased him back onto his stomach and climbed to her feet with a last touch to his hair.
“Dawn!” she shouted again.
“I’m here. Oh, my God, GILES!”
Dawn scrambled over the counter, bruised and with pieces of wood and plaster in her hair, but still ing one piece. Anya stood shakily and Travers climbed to his feet as well as Buffy knelt by her Watcher.
He didn’t look much better than Spike, badly burned and with what looked like a broken arm. But like Spike, he was alive, and that was all that mattered.
“Willow!” Buffy called. “Willow, where are you?”
“I’m here.” She walked forward, and Buffy turned cold inside, seeing that Willow was untouched and with an all-too-familiar fury in her eyes. “I’m here and that bitch is going back in the rat cage.”
“NO!” Buffy was on her feet and glaring back. In a cold, hard voice she said, “That’s how we got here in the first place.”
It worked. There was a gasp, and then tears quenched fury, and she faced Willow again.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just…. We have to get Xander back before Amy draws on Proserpexa and gets too strong.”
“We have to help Spike and Giles!” Dawn protested. “They’re really, really hurt!”
“Yeah.” Buffy forced down the rising panic, the sense that everything was getting away from her. “Ok, you guys get Spike and Giles to a hospital and stay there with them. I’ll go after Amy.”
“How?” Anya demanded. “You can’t get inside the temple.”
“She has a point,” Travers agreed. “You have no magic, Miss Summers, no way to defend yourself.”
“I’ll figure it out,” she snapped. “Amy hates me. She’ll want to fight. That should be enough to get me to her.”
“And you can get your ass kicked again while Xander dies!”
“Look, you came to me to do something. I’m doing it. Unless you’ve got a better idea…”
“I've got one.”
The voice was so soft that for a moment, it didn’t register on the others. Then, they looked at Willow’s calm, resolute face. “Amy wants me to team up with her. If she thinks I am, she’ll let me in.”
Buffy swallowed. “How are you going to convince her you’re on her side?”
Willow met her eyes squarely for the first time since she’d returned from England. “Buffy, do you trust me?”
Well, there it was, the big question. Did she, could she, trust Willow? The image of the black-haired, crazed enemy was strong, but so was the memory of the red-haired girl in the cute sweaters who’d gone with her unquestioningly to the gates of hell and back again, never blaming her when things went wrong, even if they went wrong through her own bone-headedness.
Love. Give. Forgive.
“Yeah, Will,” she said hoarsely. “I trust you.”
“Wait just one moment!” Travers shouted. “As the Head of the Council, I serve as your Watcher in Giles’ absence. I won’t have you putting yourself in the hands of this unstable woman.”
“Shut up,” Buffy said without even looking at him.
“Buffy,” Dawn whispered. “What if he’s right?”
Buffy shook her head. “He’s not.” She hugged Dawn tightly, feeling the trembling in her sister’s body. “I’m counting on you to look after Spike and Giles until I get back.”
“And if you don’t?” Dawn said shakily.
“If I don’t, then I’m still counting on you to keep Spike in line. No smoking, drinking, kitten poker, or anything too amazingly stupid.”
Dawn stood away with a set expression. “You got it.”
Buffy turned back to Willow. “Let’s do this.”
Willow spread her arms as the air crackled. Her hair lifted, blown by a wind no one else could feel, and blackness flowed into her eyes.
Magic filled her like water flowing into a pitcher. It felt so good, better than anything she’d ever known. She was strong again, powerful, whole.
And she couldn’t even care.
Amy had Xander.
So many squabbles and games and jokes over the years. Almost since she could remember, Xander had been there, causing and drying her tears, making her laugh or roll her eyes.
Cordelia had called her some name or other, she couldn’t remember now, but at the time it had made her want to cry. Only she wouldn’t, too proud even at 12 to give the other girl the ammunition.
The note had passed up from behind, wrapped around a quarter. “Announcing the ‘We Hate Cordelia’ club. You get to be secretary. I get to be treasurer.”
She’d found herself smiling as she penciled, “Why can’t I be treasurer? I’m better at math.”
The answer had been swift. “Because it’s my idea, because I’m the guy, and because it’s my quarter.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” Rack whispered. “She’s going to save her friend.”
Warren laughed, “By doing magic again. Some hardship. Be careful, baby,” he added. “If you die, your ass belongs to me and magic won’t save you.”
“Shut up,” she snarled, fear at the thought of ‘belonging’ to Warren piercing the worry over Xander and the euphoria caused by the magic.
Tara, please help me be brave. And I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do magic, but I can’t let Xander be hurt.
“Huh?” Buffy asked warily. “Are you ok, Willow?”
“Yeah.” She shook off fear, the ghosts, the feeling of the magic dancing in her. “Buffy…it’s got to look like we fought to make Amy believe this.”
Her friend nodded sharply. “I know. Do it.”
She took a deep breath.
Careful. I have to be so careful.
Dawn cried out as black fire arced from Willow’s hands and struck Buffy in her chest. Buffy didn’t try to dodge or defend herself, and the attack threw her to the floor. Painfully, she climbed back to her feet, and Willow set her jaw and struck twice more, fighting the need to let the magic take its course and pour out of her with all its strength.
“Don’t have too much fun with this, Will,” Buffy wheezed. Bruises and cuts scored the Slayer’s face and arms and she was shaky on her feet.
“Stop it!” Dawn shouted, jumping between them. “You’ll hurt her too much to fight!”
“I’ve stopped, Dawnie,” Willow said quietly. “It should be enough.”
“We’d better go,” Buffy said quickly with a worried glance at the two wounded men that Anya was hovering over. “Can you use magic to heal them?”
Willow shook her head. “I don’t know how much I’ll need for Amy, but I think it’ll be a lot. They’re not in huge danger.”
Buffy looked at her sister. “Dawn, remember what I said, and remember that I love you, ok? I’m not trying to get away from you. I’m not trying to die. I just want to get Xander back.”
“I know,” Dawn gulped. “Be careful, huh?” Her eyes slid to Willow. “Both of you.”
A band loosened around Willow’s heart. Of them all, Dawn’s anger had hurt the most. When she had played chess or helped with homework, it had sometimes seemed like Dawn was her little sister instead of Buffy’s.
I should have done more for her after Buffy came back. I should have done so many things. Instead, I almost got her killed by Rack’s demon. Plus I almost killed her.
It was too late for regret. She could only do the best she could to fix what she’d begun.
She gripped Buffy’s wrist. You weren’t supposed to be able to teleport with other people, but she decided not to worry about that as she closed her eyes and envisioned the cliff and temple and her desire to go there. Blackness swirled down and around them, and they were gone.
She’s not running away. She’ll come back. Willow will come back. Xander will come back. They won’t leave me.
The sight of Willow gripped in magic made Dawn shudder with a mixture of fear and hurt. For years, except not really because she hadn’t actually been there, when Buffy ignored her or treated her as a nuisance, Dawn had consoled herself with the idea that Willow was her real sister and been swapped with Buffy in the hospital. Even after she realized that Buffy would protect her to the end of the world, Willow had still seemed to like her more than Buffy did. So, being called a whiner and threatened with re-Keying by the person she’d thought a friend, who wasn’t poisoned by a demon, had been extra bad. Like being threatened by her Mom.
Dawn bit her lip, fighting back tears. Buffy was counting on her. She concentrated on Giles and Spike, who even if they weren’t about to die still looked pretty bad. The smell of burned flesh wafted from both men. She looked around. Anya was sniffling over Xander, and Travers was muttering to himself about the irregularity of it all.
We have to do something.
“Call 911,” she croaked, wishing one of the so-called grownups would take charge. “They need to go to a hospital.”
Anya obediently reached for the phone, then stopped and they all stared at the lump of plastic, melted by Amy’s magic bomb.
“There should be a cell-phone in Giles’ car,” Travers said, finally moving. “I’ll go call.”
“Too bad Willow couldn’t spare any magic,” Anya muttered.
Dawn frowned. “Wait a minute. You can do magic. You re-arranged reality that time.”
“That was vengeance magic,” Anya said impatiently. “Based on a wish. We’ve had this conversation, Dawn. There are very specific circumstances…”
“Look!” Dawn shouted. “I don’t care about circumstances. And you can too grant non-vengeance wishes! I didn’t want to get even with anybody when I wished they wouldn’t leave. I sure didn’t want to imprison us all with a demon and have Richard almost die. Do you think I’d ever wish something that hurt Tara? Halfrek just twisted it because she wanted to.”
“You made that wish in anger,” Anya huffed, although she looked thoughtful.
“Trust me, I’m still angry.” She made herself calm down and said reasonably enough, “Besides if Spike and Giles were ok, they could help get vengeance on Amy, right?”
“Right,” Anya agreed doubtfully.
“Ok. I wish – and don’t get all weird on me with this because you know what I want – that Spike and Giles were healed from what Amy did to them.”
There was a long pause while Anya sorted things out in her mind with a frown, then her face cleared and she waved her hand. “Granted.”
“Look out!”
“Watch it!”
Both men sprang upright, staring frantically around the shop for the bomb, Giles grabbing for Dawn again and Spike searching for Buffy.
“It’s all right,” Dawn began as Travers re-entered.
“I’ve called for an ambulance,” he said, then stopped, frowning at the obviously uninjured men. “Although it would appear to be unnecessary.”
“Sorry,” Anya said. “I healed them with a wish.”
“It was my idea,” Dawn grumbled unnoticed.
“Are you hurt?,” Giles asked, looking over her critically.
She managed a smile. “I'm ok. You’re the one who got hurt saving me. Like Spike did with Buffy.”
He looked over at Spike who was healed back up as well, including his clothes. “You were hurt saving Buffy?”
The former vampire looked defensive. “Yeah.”
“Damn,” Giles sighed. “I don’t want to be forced to think well of you.”
“If you’d like, when we’re finished with the current problem, I’ll shove her in front of a bus. Where is she anyhow?”
“She and Willow are at Proserpexa’s temple fighting Amy,” Anya said. “Which is where we should be going right now.”
“Buffy and Willow went after Amy?” Giles asked carefully. “Exactly what is Willow doing there?”
“And how could they be there already?” Spike demanded. “How long have we been out?”
“Willow’s doing magic again,” Dawn said in a small voice. “She’s going to tell Amy she wants to work with her, and she beat Buffy up some to make it look realistic. Then, they went…poof.”
“Bloody hell!” Spike and Giles said simultaneously in equally loud and heartfelt tones.