Giles spied his new Slayer-in-waiting pedaling like a madwoman on the opposite side of the street. He would have missed her entirely, if not for the dog running before her. What was Cerberus doing with her? Willow and the others had told him that Spike was innocent of feeding on the girl—well, not exactly, but he wasn’t evil, like they feared. But the dog had inexplicably disappeared; maybe he’d found his master.

Or maybe the girl knew he was a vampire, and was trying to catch him.

In any case, he needed to talk to both of them. He did a quick u-turn on the quiet road, and sped after them. In a few moments, he was neck in neck with them. He shouted out the window to them and got them to stop. It turned out they were working in tandem, looking for Spike. Giles offered to give them a lift, which they gladly accepted, both panting. Shelly quickly filled her potential Watcher in, while Cerberus navigated.

Before long, they reached the posh side of town. The dog told them to slow down, feeling the bond he had with Spike grow stronger. After a bit, he told the Brit to turn around, and head down the drive of a house they had passed.

The drive was blocked by a gate. They got out, and Shelly and Giles climbed over it, while Cerberus just used his vampiric agility to leap it. Cerberus tried reaching out to Spike as they made their way to the house. He should have been close enough to hear the vampman, but got no answer.

***

Please, Cerberus, don’t get any closer, Spike pleaded without actually mindspeaking to the dog. The dog loved him too much; he couldn’t trust the animal to let him get done what needed to be.

“I see you brought your friends, Slayer.” Spike said, his voice void of emotion. He wished his heart could be the same.

She stopped in the yard, ten feet from where he stood on the porch. “You didn’t say not to. But this is between you and me. Let the girl go with them.”

Spike laughed, fighting to not let it sound hysterical. “You don’t get it, do you, Slayer? Did you think I would just give her to you? You have to earn this rescue. We fight. I win, Devonshire here gets to keep the girl. You win, you get to take her home.”

“Hey, that wasn’t a part of the deal!” Devonshire protested. “She’s mine! I’m giving her as a present to my daughter Shelly, when I turn her!”

Buffy’s eyes lit in recognition at the name, her jaw dropping. Shelly’s father was a vampire? Spike didn’t hide his smile of pride at her powers of deduction—it could only add to his look of evil anyway.

“Then you can fight her for the girl if I lose,” Spike told him in a told that said he thought the man was a moron. Which he did.

He wanted to just let her take the girl, but that would undermine the image he was trying to maintain, for the Scoobies and for Wolfram and Hart, but mostly for Buffy. She had to believe he was evil. She had to hate him. To reinforce it, he attacked her without warning.

He was fast, but she was faster. He leapt at her, but she was already out of the way, and he landed on the ground beside her. Before he could get his feet under him, she kicked him in the head, flipping him over. Then she just stood there.

Come on! Fight, you stupid bint! he cried in internal frustration. I’ma an evil vampire; do what you do best and slay me! He got to his feet and came at her.

Xander growled in frustration. He should have shot the vampire with a stake when he had a chance, but he had been too stunned. He insisted that he had always thought Spike was evil, but he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Now Buffy was too close to the vamp; they were moving to fast for him to get a clear shot. He didn’t get another chance.

Willow tried to think of a spell to help, but her mind was blank. She chastised herself for not planning ahead while they were in the car, but she had been too worried about Buffy. She didn’t get a chance to think of one, either.

A pack of thugs, some vamps and some human, poured out from the house. Xander and Anya aimed their bolts at the vamps in the crowd. Willow tried to use her magic, and found it to be inactive.

“This place has a magic-dampening field!” she cried in despair.

“So do things the old-fashioned way!” Xander told her as he tried to fend off a human assailant.

Willow reached into the front seat of the car and pulled out a sword. Her assailant looked at her weapon and laughed. She swung, taking off his head, and he turned to dust. “Highlander ain’t got nothin on me!” she told the wind.

Buffy had her hands full with Spike, but that didn’t stop her from using him to clobber a few humans that tried to sneak past her to get at her friends. She puled out her stake, but used it on a stray vamp. While she was distracted, Spike twisted free. And gave her a solid punch to the jaw that sent her sprawling.

Another time, this might have been fun, he thought.

Dawn heard all the noise outside and decided the fight had already started. She had wanted to wait till she was sure the others were out of visual range before getting out, but if she did, Spike might get staked because she hesitated. She lifted the lid of the trunk and got her legs under her. A vampire passed by her, attacking Anya. Dawn grabbed an axe from the trunk, tore off it’s cover, stood, and beheaded the vamp with a smooth stroke.

“BOO-YEAH! I killed my first vamp!” she cried in glee.

Buffy and Spike looked towards the teen’s voice in simultaneous horror.

“You brought the Nibblet with you?!?” Spike asked her incredulously, forgetting himself.

Buffy eyed him warily. He truly sounded angry—why? She tossed the question aside and ran for her sister.

Surprisingly, the girl was doing well on her own, holding off human and vampire assailants alike. Still, Spike didn’t feel he could stop Big Sis from helping her. He wouldn’t do anything that would endanger Dawn. So what could he do? If he just stood there, Wolfram and Hart would doubt his sincerity, and maybe the Scoobies would, too. It seemed, for that fleeting moment, that Buffy already did, because of his outburst.

***

Giles struggled to keep up with the young woman. The dog was already hundreds of yards ahead of them, and getting farther with every second. He wished he knew what they were running into.

Cerberus wished Spike would tell him what was happening. He sensed the vamp was under a lot of stress, with an undercurrent of sorrow and determination. But what had him so determined?

Shelly neither knew nor cared what was happening. All she cared about was saving her friend and staking her father. She hoped he finally had the strength to do it.

***

“EVERYONE, STOP WHERE YOU ARE!” Spike shouted above the din of battle. To his astonishment, everyone, friend and foe alike, obeyed. Of course, who was friend and who was foe at that moment was debatable. “I can’t exactly prove my intentions if the Slayer gets offed fighting you lot, now can I?” He made a show of glaring at Lilah’s minions. “Slayer, tell your people to get in the car and wait. The rest of you, get in the house.”

“And what happens to them if I loose?” the Slayer called to him.

“You have my word that they will go from here safely.” The words came from another figure on the porch.

“And why should I trust you?” Buffy eyed the newcomer suspiciously. She recognized him now; it was the vamp the crystal had shown with Spike in the morgue.

“You don’t really have a choice, do you?” Lawrence asked, sauntering over to Kira. “I am this one’s master; for all his protests, I could kill her now.” He spread his hands. “We really don’t care a whit about your friends—it’s you we want dead.”

Buffy was silent a moment. She turned to Spike. “What intentions are you trying to prove to them?”

“That he’ll be our assassin for us,” Lawrence answered for him. “If he kills you, his supposed ladylove, we’ll believe he is as evil as he claims, and that he can be bought.” He stepped down the steps. “The chip is still in his head. Just because it has stopped working doesn’t mean it will stay that way. He kills you, we remove it and take him on the payroll. Then we have him kill his grandsire, as well Angel’s friends.”

Buffy licked her lips, but seemed otherwise void of emotion. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Wolfram and Hart.” Spike told her.

She nodded, and got a faraway look in her eyes. After a moment, she looked up at him. “You want this?”

He steeled himself and nodded.

She tossed her stake aside. “Then kill me.”

The collective gasps of the crowd rivaled the howling wind.

Spike backed up a step. “What?!” Damn her, what was she doing?

“You kill me, you get what you want. My friends go free, regardless. I doubt you can kill Angel, and he sure as hell won’t let you kill his friends, so I’m not really worried about them. You want them to remove that chip, you have to earn it, Spike. If you really are evil—kill me.”

He laughed nervously. NOW what was he to do? She’d just ruined everything!

“KIRA!”

“Shelly!” Devonshire waved to her, happily.

Spike almost breathed a sigh of relief at the interruption. The other girl from the trailer park was running up to them.

Oh no. So was Cerberus. And … was that Giles, waaaaaay back there?

“What about the girl, Slayer?” Devonshire reminded them. “Remember your agreement? Spike kills you, the girl dies! You kill Spike, you have to fight me still to get her!”

Fast as a Slayer, Shelly pulled out a crossbow, aimed, and fired.

Spike ducked, needlessy. The bolt hit Devonshire chest, dusting him. Kira fell to the floor. Spike went over to the girl and slung her over his shoulder. He carried her over to Shelly, and dropped her on the ground. He hoped no one noticed him wince when he heard the girl’s cry of pain as she struck the ground.

“Take the girl and go!” Spike told her. “That goes for the rest of you, too—everyone but the Slayer!”

“No way—“

“Xander!” Buffy didn’t face her friends; she spoke to them, but her eyes were on Spike. “Do as he says.”

Willow spoke up. “I did NOT go through the trouble of resurrecting you just to let you throw your life away!”

Dawn crossed her arms. “Yeah, you only get to play the ‘noble suicide’ card once!”

Lawrence walked back up the stairs, chuckling. He faced them. “You realise, of course, that Wolfram and Hart has about twenty sharpshooters in the windows above us? If I give the signal, none of these humans will leave here alive. So all of this is a moot point, really. Spike kills you, or we kill you; in the end, no one is leaving alive.”

“You said you would let them go!” Buffy protested.

Lawrence rolled his eyes. “Puhlease. I’m a vampire, I’m evil. I only told you that to get the show moving. But you still seem to be at a standstill. So we’re going to try a new approach. In order to save your worthless hides, you must all run. If you wait to save the Slayer, you will die. I’ll even give you a 30-second head start.” He held up a walkie-talkie, with his finger poise over the “talk” button. “I suggest you all run fast—the sharpshooters have a range of 300 feet.” He began to sing the Jeapordy song.

**Cerberus—kill!**

In that one sending, all the misunderstanding became clear. Cerberus understood what Spike had been up to, and why. Giles had run up beside him just a few moments before. He sent to the man, **Shoot the one on the porch, now!**

Not sure what was going on, Giles had been a watcher long enough to know you sometimes needed to move without question. He pulled out his crossbow and fired at the vampire, who had no idea he even had a weapon. It turned out that Giles was quite a good shot. A pile of dust muffled the walkie-talkie’s fall.

In another sending, Spike pained a quick and clear mental image of what he needed them all to do next, and Cerberus broadcast it to the Scoobies. Trusting what their minds’ eyes showed them, they obeyed the dog, just as he obeyed Spike.

***

Lilah watched everything form a second-story window. What was going on? Why were the Slayer’s friends leaving her behind? Why wasn’t Lawrence giving the order to fire on the retreating car?

She pressed the “talk” button on her walkie-talkie. “Lawrence? What’s going on?”

There was no answer. She was about to try again, when she saw the vampire and the Slayer go at it. Forgetting about the car, she watched with glee as it looked like the vampire was getting the upper hand. Her superiors would be so pleased!

But what was this? She thought the vampire had killed the Slayer; he was holding her limp form in his arms. But now he was running—away from the house!

She pressed the talk button again. “FIRE!”

***

Xander’s car was out of the range of the bullets, Spike ran after it. He made it a bit more than halfway before the bullets came down like rain. They slowed, but did not stop him. He shielded his precious Slayer with his body, carrying her, but a few bullets grazed her. His biggest fear was that one would go through him into her, but their luck held out, and he made it to the car, where it waited for them. Giles got out and helped them into the vehicle. It was a tight fit, but no one complained. Xander floored it.

“Will, the security gate!”

“No good, no magic, remember?”

Xander sighed. “Hold on tight, everyone!” He floored it, and busted through.

Giles sighed in turn, still out of breath from his wild run. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Buffy didn’t answer; she just held tight to her vampire, sighing herself, in relief.

***

Shelly sat as unmoving as her friend, who was fast asleep on the Summers girls’ couch. Only, Shelly was wide awake.

The Slayers friends, the Scoobies, had been very nice to them both, but Shelly wasn’t feeling too conversational. She knew they were confused as to why she was nearly catatonic; she had her friend back, didn’t she? They made it out alive, thanks to Spike’s diversionary tactics. They probably didn’t know that she had killed her father that night.

She didn’t think it would be so hard.

After all, that wasn’t really her father. He father had died a goodly while ago—that had only been a monster masquerading as the man she had once dearly loved.

She felt a shadow cross her face, and instinctually looked up. It was the younger Summers girl, Dawn, who was just about her own age. Dawn smiled at her and handed her a cup of hot liquid—cocoa, by the smell.

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

Shelly almost spilled the drink.

“My mom died recently. I tried to bring her back, but…” Dawn’s eyes grew haunted a moment. She smiled weakly. “She didn’t come back quite the same. Or, she might not of. I’m not really even sure. I stopped the spell before I could find out if it worked or not. I couldn’t deal with her not being … her, y’know?” Dawn covered her mouth with a hand, her eyes filling with tears. “I sometimes feel like I killed her, that second time…” she whispered. She looked up at Shelly in horror. “I’m s-sorry, I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have said—I’ve never said that to anyone, I—“ She started to stand, but Shelly reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

“I … I could use some company, right now … if you’re up to it?” she asked shyly but hopefully.

***

The first thing Spike noticed was how much he hurt. The second was that he was still alive, or at least what passed for it for him. The third was that Buffy’s scent was thick in his nose.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking into hers. She grinned.

“Wakey-wakey, Mr. Swiss-cheese.”

“Buffy?!” He tried to sit up, and fell back on his elbows. Then he discovered some of the bullets had apparently hit his arms, and he fell all the way back. He hit even more wounds on his back in the process. He lay there a moment, paralyzed with pain.

“Hurts?”

He could barley nod.

“Serves you right! Suicide is my department, remember?”

He managed a weak grin. “Well, how else did you expect us to get out of there?” he rapsed. “If we’d left with the others, they would have known something was up and started firing right away. And If I didn’t carry you, you would be dead again. I’m dead already, remember?”

She hit his arm, then immediately apologised when he grimaced in pain. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she told him softly, after a moment. “Cerberus told me about what you were trying to do. How you were trying to convince me you were evil so I would stake you and not feel guilty about it. As if!” She brushed his cheek tenderly. “You don’t think it killed me to kill Angel?”

He looked away, ashamed. “Angel was good, the moment you killed him,” he protested weakly.

“And he had been evil for weeks on end before that, killed Jenny and threatened the people I loved. But don’t think for a moment I would have felt the pain any less if he had been evil even as I ran him through. I loved him. I won’t lie to you—part of me always will.” She made him look at her. “And now I love you.”

She kissed him, then, softly, but he could feel the love in it, and electricity that danced in his lips and into the rest of him, invigorating him, making him forget his pain a moment. Until she pulled away and slapped him.

“And you were going to put me through that again, you jerk! Why the hell did you wanna die anyway?! Is being with me that bad?!?”

“I …”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you thought I would be better off without you, were afraid of going evil again and hurting me, yadda-yadda! Y’know, you and Angel are more alike than you realise! Both of you do what you think is right for me without bothering to ask me what I think!” She pouted. “I mean, give me a little credit. You go evil on me, I can take you!” She tried to keep a straight face, and failed.

“Oh really?” he asked her. Ignoring his injuries, he sat up and gathered his Slayer into his arms.

“See?” she purred. “I have you right where I want you!”

The one-time mortal enemies shared another kiss, and each treasured every minute.