Willow wrenched herself away from Giles' grasp. "No!" she cried out in denial, flinging herself on the ground by the pieces and grasping at them. "No," she repeated in a smaller voice. "Buffy..."

"Willow," Tara said softly. Willow didn't look up from her desperate clutching at the shards. Something dark stained her fingers, and it took a few blinks for Giles to realize it was blood. Her own, streaming down her wrists from numerous cuts on her fingers and the palms of her hands. "Willow!"

Giles put one hand to his head, then despite the mild nausea it caused, pushed himself backward, so that Tara would have room to kneel beside Willow. A fall of dark blonde hair hid her face from him as she bent over her lover, but he could see the long, slender fingers gently taking Willow's hands, holding them still.

"She's gone," Willow whispered. "We'll never get her back. Just like that. Like... like knocking a cookie jar off the shelf. Boom! Just... gone." She shook her head, tried to pull her hands away from Tara's. "Everything I did -- it was for *nothing*." Then she looked up, despair shifting to rage as her gaze fell on Spike. "Are you happy? Buffy's gone and it's all your fault. You might as well have killed her!" As Willow spoke, Giles could feel the tingling in the air as once again the power began to build around her. "But that's what you've always wanted, right? To kill another Slayer?"

"Spike killed a Slayer?" Anya asked "And we're having him babysit Dawn while we patrol? Xander, honey, I love you, but maybe it's time to rethink the duty-schedule. You're very good with children, and not so very good at killing things, after all."

"No," Spike said quietly. "I killed two Slayers."

He wasn't speaking to Anya, though, or Xander, who trained his flashlight on the grave, reacting to neither of them, just staring at the crumpled and sobbing form of his best friend. It was to her, to Willow, that Spike spoke.

"And if you think I wouldn't rather be under that pile of dirt that Rupert's so carelessly resting his backside on, instead of Buffy, then you're blind and deaf, as well as being an arrogant, blithering fool." Spike twisted his lips in a horrible parody of that grin he'd been wearing a few moments ago. "If I could've died for her, I would've. If letting you kill me now would bring her back as she was, I'd say heave ho, and let loose that lightning bolt you're storin' up. But it *won't*. You know it. You knew it before you led this lot down here and told 'em everything would be okay, just trust Willow, because she always knows best."

The words were surprisingly acid-free. Angry, mocking, but nothing like the ragged, burning epithets he'd stitched her name to last night, over something much more innocent. Spike stood before her. Held out his arms, at his sides. A crucified vampire, posing in the light of a hundred flashbulbs, Giles recalled, bright monochrome of his dream from so long ago flashing before his eyes.

"Go on, then. Do it. Make you feel better, Red? Make you feel like you can do *something*, if you just take care of the bad guy who made it all happen? Then do it."

Willow continued staring at Spike, unmoving save for a tremor that ran through her entire frame. Everyone else seemed to be frozen as well, hardly daring to breathe as they watched. The tension continued to stretch tighter and tighter and Giles braced himself for the inevitable moment when it snapped. He should say something, try to diffuse the situation, but with his head pounding and his spirit still reeling from the earlier confrontation, he couldn't find the words.

Then Xander moved, stepping between Spike and Willow. "Let it go, Will. This isn't going to help."

Willow turned her gaze to his face, freeing her hands slowly from Tara's. Dropping shards of the urn to the grass, one by one. "Don't you get it, Xander? She's gone. She's *gone*." She pointed at Spike, slender finger as shaky as her whole body had been, tension still holding it stiff. "And Spike made sure we'll never get her back. He... She's *gone*, Xander."

Xander nodded, slowly. "Yeah, she is."

He didn't follow her pointing finger back to Spike, but walked over to the grave. Stood next to the strange tableaux: Giles half sitting up against the headstone, Willow crouched on the ground, Tara with her arms wrapped protectively around Willow's slim shoulders, as if she could guard the girl from herself, from the consequences of her own foolishness. Anya followed, leaving only Spike at the foot of the grave, alone, arms at his sides, now. Watching them.

"She's been gone for five months, Will. What we were gonna do... Giles was right. It was wrong. And much as I hate to say anything that might make it look like I don't think Spike is pondscum with legs..." Xander did look back, now. "No offense."

Spike gave a tired snort. "Yeah, I'm deeply wounded."

"Wounded's cool. So long as you're not offended." Xander turned back to Willow. "He may be undead pondscum, but he stopped us from doing something really, really stupid."

Willow met Xander's gaze for a moment then seemed to deflate, slumping against Tara's embrace. "I could've done it," she murmured in a little girl voice. "I could've brought her back." The prickle of power in the air dissipated and Giles felt tense muscles begin to relax as the immediate danger receded.

Tara pulled her gently to her feet. "Let's go home, honey. Let's just go home."

Willow looked over at Spike for a moment, eyes, shaded and lost, then nodded slowly. "Dawn's gotta be bored, if Spike left her with just the Bot for company. Just..." She didn't say 'just the Bot, forever, but they all heard it. No one finished her sentence for her.

"We'll walk you home," Xander offered, extending one arm to Willow, and then, belatedly, the other one to Anya, as if he only now remembered the ashes of an old rivalry. "If there's nobody patrolling, we'd better take a sweep before we head back to our place."

Anya, however, didn't take his proffered arm. Instead, she turned to Spike, steel in her eyes and flint in her voice. "You broke the last known Urn of Osiris."

He looked back at her, and nodded once. "Last one, was it? Good. Solves that problem."

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't care if it was the last one; I thought it was a stupid idea in the first place. If we wanted a zombie Slayer we could have--" Spike's glare was stronger than hers, though not by much. "Anyway. My point was, it cost me two thousand dollars and a full set of copies of Xander's collection of Deep Space Nine episodes. I expect you to make full restitution."

Spike stopped glaring. Then he stopped staring. Then, finally, he laughed. Low and long, with his hand to his forehead, as if his brain might spill out if he didn't hold his skull still.

Giles leaned back against Buffy's tombstone. Cold rock against his back, soft grass beneath him, and six feet below that, the body of a girl -- woman -- he would never see again. The rest of his friends, if such a thing still existed, were limping away, shrinking back to their homes to figure out how ruined they all were by the light of tomorrow's sun -- and Giles was left with a dead man laughing in a graveyard. So Giles laughed too. Not nearly as loudly, and some might have mistaken it for another sound entirely, if they'd heard it from a distance -- but it was laughter.

Anya looked back and forth between the two of them for a moment, perplexed. "I don't know what you think is so funny, Giles. The money came from the Magic Box; the Urn was technically shop stock. You're experiencing a loss here too."

"I'll pay for the Urn, Anya," he managed to say without choking. Almost daring to look Spike in the eye, but not quite.

She frowned at him for a second longer, then her eyes widened. "You're smiling again."

"Am I?" Giles passed a hand over his face, felt the curve of his own mouth. It must have been a residual effect of the laughing jag.

"Yes. It's creepy. You're supposed to be mad at us." She spoke firmly, but she looked up at him through her lashes, the ghost of a thousand year old child vainly searching for a forgiveness Giles wasn't even sure was his to give. He felt the smile fade slowly, and saw her hope dim, as it did. She made a face. "Oh. You are. Then why were you smiling?"

He could imagine the confusion in her eyes turning to calculation, all too easily, having seen it this morning, and he cut it off at the pass. "Anya, I'm very tired, and obviously suffering from what is neither my first concussion, nor likely to be my last. I think you should go home, get some sleep, and stop worrying about the significance of my facial expressions and the sadly depleted coffers of our business. There's time for all that in the morning." Anya opened her mouth to say something else and Giles repeated with a bit more force, "In the morning."

"You going to be able to make it back to your place okay?" Xander asked, a frown flickering over his features as he looked back at Giles.

Giles nodded in response, his jaw tightening as the movement increased pounding in his skull. "I'll be fine, but thank you," he said quietly. "Though I think I will pass on patrolling tonight." Xander nodded his assent, and Giles saw a unsortable multitude of emotions in the young man's dark eyes before he turned to shepherd the three girls away.

With no effort being made at stealth this time, the crunching and shuffling through the leaves was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of Anya's voice, but not quite. "I'm telling you, it was *that* smile. You know that one, Xander, that you get when..." Mercifully, distance and Xander's tripping over something, possibly accidentally, cut Giles off from having to hear the rest. Spike, however, inclined his head in the direction they'd gone, and managed a brief snicker.

"Anya thinks you've got yourself a bird somewhere."

Giles didn't answer, letting his head fall back against the cold stone behind him. His soul ached worse than his bruised body and the last thing he had the energy to worry about was Anya being inquisitive about his sex life. There would be time enough for that tomorrow. Right now all he wanted to do was sit there and....not feel.

"You're supposed to laugh, you know. It's funny." Spike's voice held very little evidence of amusement, however. "You have *heard* of irony, right? It's like goldy and bronzey--"

Giles didn't raise his head. "But made of iron, yes. I believe I may have read about it. " Spike's responding bark of laughter was hollow, more painful than appreciative. Giles sighed. "My skull aches, Spike, and my ribcage isn't far behind. I've run out of lung capacity for ironic laughter. Feel free to say something clever about having a cunning plan, however, and I'll laugh in the morning."

"I did have a cunning plan. Colloquially known as 'winging it.' Worked, didn't it?"

"Took your own bloody time getting around to it." The words came out angry and sharp enough to set his head to throbbing, which did nothing to improve his mood.

Spike frowned. "Had to make it look like I was stabbing you in the back, didn't I? Convince her enough to let me get my hands on the crockery, and I figured I'd only have the one chance." He eyed Giles' hand-cradled head, with the hint of an apology in his stare, though not in his tone. "So you got knocked on the skull; not like you're not used to it, but I'll take you home and play Florence Nightingale, if you like."

"That's not the point."

"No?" Spike stalked over and held out a hand, but Giles couldn't quite bring himself to take it, yet. He told himself it was because there was a good chance he'd revisit his dinner, if he stood up too quickly. Spike extended his arm for a beat longer than Giles would have expected him to, then slowly pulled it back. "Ah. Like that, is it?"

"Like what?" Giles sat up against the headstone, preparing to try standing on his own.

"You really did think I'd gone over to Red's camp. That I meant it when I said she should've killed you."

"I was supposed to, wasn't I?" The bitterness threatened to choke him, the remembered sense of betrayal once again rising up and overwhelming him. He didn't want to do this, not right now. Not when he was feeling so battered and raw, so off-balance. He'd been skittering on the edge of his control for far too long already.

"What, you thought this was one of those cheesy buddy flicks where the fellow has to convince his mate he's seriously changed teams, so the bad guys get a better reaction shot? Bollocks. I told you; I was winging it. Figured you'd play along. Thought maybe-- Ah, fuck it."

"Thought I'd trust you?" The pain was pulsing through his head in raw, red streaks, and Giles began to rise to his feet by himself, one hand on Buffy's headstone. Intent on walking himself home sans vampire nursemaid, out of... what? Certainly not pride, not anymore. Anger, sparking fitfully, but hot. Bone-deep, Giles knew how mis-aimed that anger was, but that only seemed to draw the acid to his tongue all the harder. "Because you've proven such a staunch ally in the past? Because I've forgotten what you are?"

"No. Because... Sod this. Why should I care what you think of me? It's done. I take it you won't be wanting my company tonight, so I'll just hie myself home, shall I?" Spike turned, coat snapping behind him with the force of his step, and started off in the direction of his crypt.

Giles opened his mouth to answer, and was cut off by a roaring, growling sound -- from the other end of the woods, the path that the others had taken. Animal? Machine? Monster?

Spike turned to look back, scowling, then shook his head, as if washing his hands of the lot of them. Giles pushed himself free of the stone and took his own step, towards the woods. Towards whatever his friends -- he still hoped -- had gotten themselves into, even if he'd be bugger-all help in his current condition. If Spike wanted to take off in a huff, so be it. It wasn't as if...they could depend on him.

The next sound Giles heard, though, froze him mid-step. A scream, shrill, feminine, piercing. Spike was at his side in an instant, hand gripping his upper arm, dragging him into the trees almost faster than he could walk. He managed not to trip over any roots as Spike tugged him along, but it was a moment before he had enough wind in his lungs to gasp, "What?"

"That was Dawn."

Much needed adrenaline flowed through Giles' system at that, temporarily banishing the many aches from his abused body. "Bloody hell! How?" Another scream sounded and they broke into a ragged run, Spike still half dragging him.

*****
Part 8:

They stumbled out onto the road and into the chaos of a pitched battle.

A veritable horde of demons, decked out rejects from the Hell's Angels, had Dawn and the Buffybot backed up against a small stand of trees on the other side of the road. The Bot was holding them away from her 'sister' with an energy so desperate, it made her look more human than Giles had ever imagined she could.

Spike didn't even slow down to assess the situation -- he let go of Giles and dived forward into the midst of the enemy, sheer momentum carrying him past the first few. Giles saw his face flicker from human to monster, fangs flashing brightly before he was swallowed by the fight.

The Scoobies, at the edge of the commotion, were barely managing to defend themselves, much less try to rescue Dawn. Tara still supported a completely dazed Willow with one arm, while holding out the other before her and moving her lips in what Giles hoped was the prelude to some helpful spell. Xander stood in front of Anya, wielding something that looked for all the world like a front fender.

Giles spotted a crashed motorcycle near the huddled young people, a large unmoving figure pinned beneath it. That *was* a fender in Xander's hand, then. It wouldn't last long as a weapon, not against the bat-faced demon that was menacing them, nor the two that rode in threatening circles around the entire group.

As Giles started edging towards them, hoping there was *something* he could do to help, he became aware of a loud humming in the air, and was pleased to see that Xander wasn't fighting alone after all. A bright blue ball of light appeared in Tara's empty hand, glowing more brilliantly as it spread wider, up and out until it surrounded both the witches, then Xander and Anya. A claw-shaped battleaxe bounced harmlessly off the shimmering half-dome of energy.

"Willow, I can't hold this for long -- you have to *help* me!" Giles heard Tara shout. He saw the blonde girl shake Willow's shoulders. "You have to snap out of it."

With most of the demons taken up with pushing at the shimmering blue barrier of magic, or fighting in the central melee against Spike and the Buffybot, there might be a chance for him to get across to the others, if he did it quickly. Pretending there weren't still spots and sparks in front of his eyes every time he did *anything* quickly, Giles made a run for it.

He made it as far as the fallen motorbike, and had to crouch breathless beside it, fighting dizziness. Blinking down at the leatherclad body beneath the machine, it occurred to him that the thing might still be holding onto some sort of axe or knife that he could appropriate -- if he could shift it. He was just reaching out to push the motorcycle away, when he heard the incessant buzz-roar of its circling brethren get far too loud, far too fast.

He looked up to see a large creature with three serrated rings through the place where its nose should have been, grinning down at him. "This is what's left to guard the Hellmouth? A wind-up Slayer, a bunch of kids, a crippled blood-rat, and a geezer who couldn't beat my *mother* at arm-wrestling? If I hadn't eaten her when I was born, that is. Pathetic. I don't even know if you're worth fighting."

Giles spread his hands. "If that's the case, I'm perfectly willing to forgo any fisti-" The rest of his admittedly feeble quip was cut off as the demon roared and lashed out. For the second time that evening Giles' world spun around and he found himself flat on his back staring up at the stars.

He heard Xander yell, "Giles!" and watched with a certain fatalistic distance as the demon above him raise a wicked looking axe. It moved with the speed of a guillotine, falling towards his head so quickly that he shouldn't even be able to see it, and then --

Then there was nothing, except a booming female voice cutting across the sounds of fighting with the immediate authority of a mother over a playground of schoolchildren. "Incendium!"

A hot wind blew across the road, ruffling Giles' hair, which was somehow still attached to his head, which was somehow still attached to his neck. The flare of heat passed him by in a second, leaving silence and a flaming demon in its wake. The axe was tossed to the side as the unnatural fire surrounded first its head, then the rest of its body, consuming it. Giles scuttled backwards when the thing rolled near him on the ground, but after a moment, even the groans and movement stopped. The fire flared a strange shadowy black, then disappeared, leaving only an ashy outline on the asphalt.

Giles looked up, across the road, and saw Willow staring back at him, eyes sharp, no longer dazed. He nodded at her in acknowledgement and watched as she turned to attack another demon. Then he scrambled to his feet, grabbing the axe that had almost been used on him.

Willow's bolts of baelfire could get out through the protective wall-- could he get in, without it coming down? Probably not, and not worth attempting. Instead, trying not to feel like a very old and very foolish retired berserker reliving his glory days, he raised the axe and waded into the edge of the fight that swirled around Spike.

The demons scarcely noticed his arrival, it seemed, as he brought the blade of his axe down on the back of a leather jacket with the word "Hellions" scrawled across it in blood-red letters. They were too busy trying to fight a vampire who stood a good foot shorter than most of them, yet was kicking and punching with enough force to have knocked out three already. There were still several between Giles and the center of conflict, while Spike had made his way past them, to where the Buffybot stood in front of Dawn, holding off all comers.

There weren't as many as Giles had thought, at first. Not an army, just seven in the fight, and three on the bikes. Which was now one on a bike, and Willow was taking care of it. Six in the fight, as Giles pulled his axe from the demon's back, and watched it slump to the ground.

Not an army, just nine road warrior demons against -- what had the one said? A handful of children, a wind-up toy, and a crippled vampire. Giles lifted his axe, and met the next demon who turned to him with a laugh that brought back the pain in his head with a vengeance. Giles ducked a blow that would have caved in his skull if it had landed, then swung his axe again. The demon made a gurgling noise as the blade stuck in his throat and Giles stumbled back as it slowly collapsed in front of him.

He heard Dawn scream again and spun to see one of the demons reaching for her, having got past the Bot's defenses. Before it could touch her however, Spike was there, snarling, yanking it back by the collar of its jacket. "You don't touch her. Maybe somebody forgot to send you the memo -- *nobody* touches her." He reached down and grabbed the hand that had reached for Dawn, bending clawed fingers back, back...

A sickening snap, then another...three...four... Then Spike pushed it away and faced the remaining group, the Buffybot beside him, Dawn behind, Giles making his way towards them.

"Don't worry, Dawn." The Bot turned her head to give a cheery smile to a terrified Dawn, and lashed out with a sidekick at one of the demons, at the same time. "Spike's here. Everything will be fine, now."

"Everything'll be *fine*?" Spike punched out at a demon that swung a chain in one hand and had another, almost as thick, running from its earlobe to its leather collar. "Your diodes are fried! You were supposed to protect the Bit, not drag her out on patrol with you."

"I wasn't patrolling. The demons attacked the house. It was unsafe there, and I couldn't fight them all and protect Dawn at the same time." One of the Hellions tried to head-butt her, and the Bot grabbed it by its ears, brought her knee up to its chest, and twisted. Another sickening crunch, this one louder, loud enough to make Giles laugh again when he realized he wasn't about to lose his dinner, after all. "I was bringing her to you, because I know you can do both. You're good at things like that."

Before Spike could make any response, the largest of the demons, furthest away from Giles, roared -- and stepped forward to attack them both. The other demons suddenly ceased fighting, and turned to watch as Spike and the Bot, working in perfect concert, battled what Giles realized was their leader.

Surrounded by leatherclad demons, Giles stood still, axe resting on his shoulder, watching as raptly as they. Spike and the Bot moved... as if she'd been made to work with him. As, of course, she had. She was Spike's vision of Buffy. Relayed to the boy who'd designed her, tinkered with by Willow, ripped apart and put back together, but the fundamental things Spike had seen in Buffy -- the grace, the fire, the willingness to throw herself into the flames to protect what she cared about, that couldn't be erased, somehow.

The Bot moved as if her body had been made to move with his in this way, too, not just in bed. Where he parried a blow from the demon, she cut in with a low kick. Where he punched, she spun and ducked and followed his fist with hers. In a matter of moments, the monster was reeling, dizzy, yet hauling back for a final cut at Spike -- but it never got there.

A flying kick from the Buffybot sent him thudding to the ground. Spike's boot pinned him down while the Bot did something to his throat that ended in a loud, wet gurgle. The demon struggled for a moment, then was still.

"See how you like them kumquats," the Bot said brightly to the unmoving form, even as she and Spike both dropped back into fighting stance, facing off against the rest. The other demons stared at them for an endless moment, then began backing away. After a few steps the backing away became a full fledged running for their lives. Moments later, even the echo of their bikes had faded away.

Which left the rest of them standing amongst the dead demons and debris. The wall of witch-energy dropped, falling like a rainshower of blue droplets that disappeared before they hit the ground. And there they all were. It was over.

Spike turned to Dawn and grabbed her shoulders, perhaps a little too roughly, because Giles saw them both wince. "You all right? Any of those bast-- buggers hurt you?"

She shook her head. "No. Buffy...the Bot, kept them away. I was just scared -- they were outside the house, tearing things up all down the street, and I thought we should hide in the basement, but she said it wasn't safe."

"She was right." He looked pained to have to admit it. "It wasn't. That lot don't really care about locked doors, luv. If they can't break it down, they'll burn it down."

"But what were they doing here? Nobody's ever been stupid enough to attack the whole *town* before..." Xander didn't finish his sentence, but they could all fill in the rest of it. Before, when there was a Slayer there to frighten most of the menaces away, and make sure that only the really *large* apocalypses managed to occur on her turf.

Giles looked down the road in the direction that the surviving demons had ridden off. "One of them called the Buffybot a wind-up toy. They must have known."

"Last night, when she was patrolling by herself," Willow said quietly. "She was fighting a vampire and her face covering got ripped. There were wires.... He must have told people. This is my fault. If we'd been there, the vamp wouldn't have gotten away."

"You can't--" Giles found himself automatically replying. He stopped himself with a sigh, wondering how right she was. "It doesn't matter. What's done is done."

Willow nodded, briefly meeting his gaze before glancing away again. The events of this night weren't going to be forgotten by either of them any time soon, but Giles was beginning to have some small hope that they could get beyond it.

"Yeah." Spike's voice dissolved the silence like undiluted acid. He pointed to the Buffybot, who was standing with one arm around Dawn, looking...proud to have protected her sister, Giles realized. "And what's done is, now those wankers that got away know about the Small Wonder, here."

"Spike, the only thing that frightens me more than the fact that I recognize that reference is the fact that *you* recognize that reference," Xander said. "Or that you might be picturing the Buffybot in that red and white polka-dotted dress with the pinafore and the poofy skirt."

The silent chorus of stares in Xander's direction made Giles feel absurdly comfortable. Normal.

Xander raised his hand. "Hi. I'm Xander. I use inappropriately timed humor to disguise general unease and the occasional moment of complete and utter mindblanking terror. Have we met?"

The Buffybot smiled at him. "You're my friend, Xander. But I don't think I'd look very good in a red and white polka-dotted dress with a pinafore and poofy skirt."

"Oh, no, you would," he assured her. "You did. I mean Buffy did, the Halloween before last." Anya was glaring at him now. He blinked at her for a second, then grimaced. "And now, I'm going to stop speaking. Thank you for tuning in to the Xander Harris Hour, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled worrying about whether all the evil things in the world are going to start looking for cheap real estate in Sunnydale now."

"Actually, we may not have to," Giles said, earning the group's stares for himself. "Think about it. We beat them back." He gestured at the bodies surrounding them. "We killed their leader. If anything, they're going to let it be known how dear the real estate here would be for them to obtain."

Anya looked thoughtful. "I don't think they'll say anything at all. I knew guys like these when I was a demon - they're too manly to admit they got their asses kicked."

"I didn't kick any of their asses. That's not a very effective fighting move." The Buffybot looked at Spike. "Did you kick asses?"

"It's just a saying," Dawn told her, laying a hand on the Bot's arm. "She just means that you slayed them."

"Oh." Frowning, the Buffybot turned to Anya. "Why didn't you just say so?"

Anya blinked, mouth open. After a second, Xander reached out and gently moved her chin to shut it. She opened it again. "But--" Then she shook her head. "I'm going to consider myself vindicated for every time you ever told me I take things too literally, I hope you know."

"I know." Xander gave her a smile that was somewhere between fond and long-suffering.

"I don't think we need worry unduly," Giles said, trying to bring the conversation back to the point. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off and his body was reminding him that it had been a very rough night. He wanted to go home and collapse while he could still move under his own power. "There's nothing we can do about it right now anyway. We'll have to deal with any repercussions if and when they arise."

His headache, mercifully dormant for the last few moments, chose to remind him of its presence with a sharp spike of pain across the back of his skull. Giles winced, and the night got a bit more blurry.

"Giles, are you okay?" Dawn's voice from behind him, still shaky with nerves from having been at the center of yet another battle.

He blinked away the blurriness, and nodded slowly, putting a hand to his head. "Yes, I'll be fine."

"If you don't stop getting hit on the head, we're gonna make you wear a helmet."

Across the road from them, Willow looked up. Looked at Giles, a question in her eyes. Would he tell Dawn what she had done? What she'd been going to do? Saddened that she even wondered, he shook his head, and the pain flared again.

"You sure you're okay?" Xander asked and Giles could hear the frown in his voice. "Maybe we should take you to the emergency room..."

"No," he replied quickly. The last thing he wanted was to end up spending the rest of the night being poked and prodded by doctors. "I'll be fine. Really. It's hardly the first time I've been hit on the head. All I need is some rest."

"You need an escort home, then?"

"No, thank you," he was about to answer, when Spike coughed quietly.

"I'll take him. You lot had best get Dawn home. Make sure the house is still safe."

"Giles?" Xander asked, not responding directly to Spike at all. "An' and I can walk you home while the others take care of Dawn and the house."

"It's all right really." He managed a smile that he hoped was reassuring. "I can manage on my own. Though if Spike wants to tag along, I won't object."

"Oh, good. Cos' the last thing I need after a night spent fighting off biker demons is to throw down against a middle-aged librarian with a concussion," Spike snorted. "Come on, then. Let's get you home. I'll never hear the end of it from the snack-sized one if I let you wander into a ditch somewhere."

"I'm overwhelmed by your concern." Giles turned to Dawn, who despite her still-shaken appearance, was grinning at Spike's comment. "If he happens to change his mind and I'm found in a ditch tomorrow, feel free to beat him soundly, will you?"

She laughed, and a bit more colour returned to her face. "Sure. I'll pound him into mush."

Dawn's laughter was a welcome sound, made more so by its rarity lately. "I feel much safer, knowing that," Giles told her.

She smiled again and stepped forward to hug him. "Feel better, Giles." She smelled of fruit-flavoured lipgloss and an innocence it should have been impossible for her to still possess, and it took him a moment to be able to let go.

"Thank you."

The Buffybot stepped forward as well. "Should I hug you too? I want you to feel better."

"Better not." Dawn pulled her back.

"Do I give bad hugs?" The Bot looked genuinely hurt.

"No, you give...great hugs," Dawn answered in that over-cheerful tone that meant she was lying politely through her teeth. "Giles is just kinda...fragile, right now. I don't think he's up to a Slayer-strength hug just yet."

"Oh." The Bot frowned in concentration, then smiled brightly at Giles. "I will hug you when you're feeling better then." She looked proud of herself of having come to that conclusion on her own.

"I..er...look forward to it." He recalled how unfamiliar she still was with the concept of breathing, and hoped he'd manage to survive the experience.

*****
Part 9:

The leavetaking was different, this time. Willow was silent, her hand in Tara's, shepherding a Dawn who -- now that the terror was over for the night -- began to give them a play-by-play of the Buffybot's performance as it had tried to get her past the demons and find Spike. The Bot herself was dispatched to take the quick patrol that Xander had been intent on doing, while he and Anya headed home.

Which once again left Giles alone with Spike. He looked over at the vampire, but after their last conversation, couldn't think of anything to say other than, "Let's go." So he said that and turned to start the long walk home.

Spike fell in beside him. "You might be needing these," he said quietly, holding out something to Giles.

His glasses. Giles had resigned himself to doing without until he could get home and find his backup pair. If those weren't his backup pair. He'd rather lost track. He hadn't expected to see this pair again, at least.

Spike laughed shortly. "Was gonna stomp off to the crypt with 'em, just to piss you off, before."

Reaching out, Giles took them from him and slipped them on, some of the blurriness he'd been attributing to his probable concussion disappearing. "Thank you," he answered, both amused and strangely touched by the gesture.

The walk back to his place was slow. Awkward, and not only because of the silence between them. His shoulder ached. His head ached. More than once, Giles was tempted to slip his glasses off again, in the hope that it would at least dull the throbbing in his skull. He didn't, and he knew quite well why not - the thought of being willfully blind, even if only in the literal, physical sense, didn't appeal.

He didn't want to think about it, but his mind kept straying back to the events of earlier that evening. Things done. Things said. He couldn't stop worrying at it like a sore tooth, and it wasn't helping his headache at all. By the time they reached his front door, he wanted nothing more than to go inside, take some aspirin and some scotch and go to sleep for the next week. But he knew that wasn't going to happen. Not unless he found a way to turn his brain off.

Spike stood on the step, watching him fumble with his key. The hesitation was more because Giles wasn't concentrating on getting the door unlocked, than any sudden attack of wooziness, but after a second, Spike took the key from his hand. "Bloody hell. You *would* be dead in a ditch somewhere if I hadn't come along, wouldn't you."

"Yes, quite probably." He was shocked by how much he meant the words, as he watched Spike turn the key in the lock and open the door. If Spike hadn't come along, not now, but earlier. If he hadn't come along to the grave, or if he'd gone back to check on Dawn, and the urn hadn't been destroyed...

If, if, if. That one word seemed to bracket his reality, both highlighting and barring the paths that weren't taken, the events that didn't happen. Giles could get heartily sick of 'if.' There were some paths he really did not want to dwell on tonight. Or ever.

He realized that Spike was staring at him. "You can go in, you know. Your place, and all."

He'd been standing in front of an open door for...how long? Giles stepped past Spike into the living room. Turned to hang up his coat, then stopped, when he saw that Spike was still standing on the doorstep. Watching him.

"What? It's not as if you need an invitation." He wasn't sure where the sudden flare of crossness came from; perhaps it was just the need to cover...the need. That he was asking Spike in, after all, despite whatever had been settled and unsettled between them. For a brief moment he thought Spike was going to leave after all, and he made an abortive gesture, resisting the urge to reach out to the vampire.

He watched as Spike cocked his head to the side, considering. "Suppose I don't," the vampire finally said and stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind him.

They stood there, looking at each other.

Spike suddenly chuckled. "This is where we drag out the scotch, right?"

"Yes, that would be--" Giles nodded, then felt the streak of pain behind his eyes. "Or perhaps not, this time." He finished hanging up his coat, and made his way to the sofa, sinking down with fewer creaks than he'd feared, more than he wished.

Spike took his time with following suit. When he did appear from the alcove by the door, he moved not towards the sofa, but to the chair across from it. Giles supposed he couldn't blame him, after the words they had exchanged earlier. Briefly, he let his head fall back against the couch, gathering his strength. He really was too tired to deal with this, but it looked like he didn't have much choice.

"What is it exactly that you're angry with me about, again?" Giles didn't lift his head as he spoke, or open his eyes, just let the darkness and the cushion under his head soothe the ache for a moment.

"You sound like Harris, talking to Anya."

Ex-vengeance demon, current vampire. Giles supposed there were certain similarities but he wasn't about to get into a discussion about it just then. "Humor me," he said instead. "I'm injured."

"You're brain-damaged. You'll forget it all in the morning anyway."

"Possibly. In which case, there's very little reason for you to sit over there stonewalling me, is there?" Giles lifted his head, opened his eyes. "What precisely is it that I did to offend you, back at the grave? You can hardly blame me for assuming you'd suddenly rediscovered your much-vaunted evil ways."

"I *am* evil." Spike, for once, didn't sound as if he was trying to convince anyone. It was just a statement.

"So you keep asserting. I don't recall ever disagreeing with you. But are you going to tell me what you're angry about?"

Spike sighed, that frustrated, impatient sigh that he usually reserved for letting the forces of good know that he'd much rather be killing something than hanging about with them. "Fine. You want to know? You believed me."

"When you advised Willow she'd have been better off killing me? You were right. If she wanted to succeed."

"Try not to be a jackass," Spike snapped. "If I'd wanted you killed, there were easier ways to go about it than trying to get one of your friends to do it. I'm sure one of those Hellions would've obliged me, if I'd asked nicely."

"Don't treat me like a jackass, then," Giles snapped back. "You'd have no reason to want me out of the way during the fight; I was on your side. Before, it was a different story." Before, when they might have been on opposite sides of the world, with Buffy's life between them.

"I was trying to freak Red out, and it worked. You honestly believe I thought she was so far gone as to trade you for Buffy?"

"No." Not now, though at the time, Giles had certainly had his own fear of just that. "But I'm under no illusions that given the choice, *you* wouldn't do so."

Spike stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowed, then, slowly, nodded. "In a heartbeat."

"So why wouldn't I believe you'd changed sides? Or rather, that you'd never agreed with me in the first place?"

"You mean, why am I pissed at you for thinking I'm a selfish bastard?"

It was slowly sinking in to Giles' aching head that Spike was angry because Spike was hurt. That despite being evil, there were still some things, some insults about his integrity that would actually cut him. It made him reassess his own assumptions and his own reactions, made him face something that he had been trying hard not to look at. "It wasn't about being selfish."

Spike shook his head. "I *am* a selfish bastard. I said I'd trade you for her in a heartbeat, and I meant it. Trade all of you for her." He pointed a finger at Giles. "But fuck you, if you think I'd trade having her back, for what it might've done to her. I *loved* her."

"I know." He did, by now. If he'd still had any doubts, the raw feeling in Spike's voice now would have dissolved them. "So did I. And yet..."

"You *know* ? You know sod all, *Rupert*." Spike stood abruptly, and stabbed that pointing finger in his direction. "Sod all! I *loved* her. Why the *hell* would I let them do something like that to her?"

"Because you loved her?"

"So I could have her back, you mean? You think I'd let her wake up in a coffin? You think I'd let her see that pretty white satin lining you people picked out, when she opens her eyes? Let her think maybe she's just had a nightmare and pulled the covers up over her head?" Spike's whole face twitched, and he looked away. "Except she's not a vamp; she couldn't see it, not really. She'd just see black, and it'd take her a second to realize her eyes are open. Another to figure out there's no air."

Giles wondered if Spike realized he was pacing. Wondered, too, if he realized he was breathing. Hard. "Was that what happened to you?" he asked quietly. Did vampires have post-traumatic flashbacks? Did they have panic attacks?

"Does it matter?" Spike stopped next to a bookcase and turned blue eyes upon him that seemed as deep and full of storms as ever Buffy's green ones had. Giles saw the muddy echo there, of a hundred angry questions she'd thrown at him over the time he'd known her. "Does it matter if you're dead or not, when you wake up in a coffin? You still get dirt under your nails. You still rip them off, whether the blood flows or not. You still choke, like somebody had their hands round your throat, even if you don't really have to breathe. You still think, 'I'm going to die here. It's not a nightmare after all, and I'm going to die here, and nobody's going to ever know I ever woke up.' Doesn't matter if you're dead or alive, you still scream."

Spike paused and swallowed hard, raising a hand to his own throat. As if recollecting himself, where he was, or perhaps just what he was showing, he blinked twice, then shook his head. In his eyes, the shutters fell, and Giles could no longer see the ghost of an age-old fear staring out at him.

"You think I'd want that for her, just to have her back? If it was even Buffy they ended up bringing back. And if it wasn't, if she wasn't right--"

The horror that Spike's words painted was not one that Giles would wish on anyone, much less someone he loved. And if it hadn't been Buffy at all. That was the consequence he'd never wanted to voice, the one that Willow had refused to believe was possible.

"No. I don't think that," he said, opening his eyes. "I'm sorry," he added quietly. Giles wasn't sure if he was apologizing for doubting Spike's motives, or for a young man named William who had woken up in the dark, and screamed.

Something that thought it was still William, at least. A creature that existed to feed, that thrived on the misery of others. Giles had always been taught so, certainly. 'You have to remember,' he'd said once to Xander, and never again. 'That isn't your friend; it's the thing that killed him.'

But Spike was that thing as well, and Spike had been afraid once, with dirt under his nails. A hundred years afterwards, that monstrous thing had claimed -- despite everything it was being told by its nature, by its wrinkle-faced, roaring demonic spirit -- that it was in love with the Slayer. No, not with the Slayer -- with Buffy. And she'd treated that claim like an obscenity; they all had.

Giles had thought, when he pulled the thing with the face of a man to his bed, that he'd known what he was touching. The reflection of the red-splashed darkness in his own head, made flesh. Gifted with a human mouth, to snark at him, and drink his best whiskey, and let him pretend for a moment that he wasn't alone, but a monster, all the same. Now... Now what stood in front of him was something he wasn't certain of at all.

That...might not be a bad thing in the long run, no matter how unsettling it was. It left him feeling more adrift, like the foundations of his beliefs were being threatened. But still... Assumptions could be challenged. Beliefs could be rebuilt.

"I didn't know," he said softly, admitting to himself that he wanted to. Wanted to learn until he could look at Spike and knew who -- and what -- he was really seeing.

"No, you bloody well didn't know," Spike agreed. His growl wasn't a whit less harsh, but as he looked back at Giles, something softened in his stare. Finally, he added quietly, "It's all bollocks, though."

"What is?"

"This. Me and my high horse. Because when it came right down to it, right then, when I was holding that thing in my hands, what I wouldn't have given..."

"Yes." Giles remembered that tiny voice in the back of his mind that had kept whispering -- maybe Willow could do it, maybe they could get Buffy back, alive and whole. The voice weakening his resolve, sapping his will. "Honestly? If I'd had the thing in my hands, I.I don't know. If I could have destroyed it."

"Yeah. You would." Spike sounded ... sure. More sure than Giles had been. More sure than he was now.

"You can't be certain."

"No." Spike nodded as he said it, the conflict of gesture and word making Giles blink as he tried to put together what Spike meant.

"No? Yes?" Giles shook his own head, wincing a little against the headache. "I didn't realize it was a multiple choice question."

"Yeah, you're right, you can't know for sure. And no, you wouldn't have let them do it. *I *knew -- that's how come I could trust myself to make the play -- 'cos you wouldn't let *me*, either." Spike was so matter of fact that it took a second for Giles to realize what he was saying. That whatever Giles had been willing to do to stop Willow -- Spike had been expecting for himself, if he'd given in and joined her. "And yeah," he added with small snort. "They're all multiple choice questions. God's a twisted bastard - you think he'd let us get away with just plain yes or no?"

Laughing made his ribs ache as well as his head, but Giles couldn't help himself. "I believe that's what Buffy would call logic that is not of this earth. I can't know for sure what I would've done, but you can?"

"Wisdom of the ancients, innit. Live as long as I have, you pick up a thing or two." Spike's lip twitched, just slightly. Just enough to make Giles think he was aware of how all-knowing and superior he didn't remotely sound.

Still, the vampire's certainty, however it was founded, did help alleviate the self-doubts that had been lingering in the back of his mind. Maybe even enough that the what-ifs wouldn't haunt his dreams tonight. Giles watched Spike for a moment. "Yes? What else do you know?"

He was right about the twitching of the lip, for now he earned the lifting of a scarred brow. An honest gesture of surprise, of appreciation. "I know," Spike said slowly, pursing his lips, then letting the sneer that was really a grin take them, "that Anya thinks you've got a new playmate."

"Yes, I was aware of that. Apparently it's my fault, for smiling."

Spike nodded, this time with no contradictory negation on his lips, then crossed his arms. Leaned his hip against the bookcase. "Have to make sure you don't do that again, I suppose."

"No, I don't think so," Giles said after a moment's thought. He'd be damned if he started being paranoid about every facial expression he had. "Perhaps I should attempt to smile more, so it's not such an occasion when I do."

"Also an option." Spike stared thoughtfully at his fingers, twitching them, Giles realized, as if they cradled an invisible cigarette. "Or we could just tell them we're sleeping together," he added suddenly. In the silence that was Giles attempting to determine if he was serious, and exactly how much terror that idea filled him with, there followed, "If we are, I mean."

"I was rather under the impression we were." The events of the evening could have changed that, but Giles didn't think they had, when all was said and done. Did Spike?

"Were, yeah. But." Spike shrugged, a gesture that brought to Giles attention how painfully thin his shoulders really were.

It made him think of stocking his refrigerator with something more nutritious for a vampire than pig's blood, and doing the research to find out if there actually was such a thing, without it having come out of a human. And when had he crossed the line from using him to pretend there was a good enough reason to stay, into caring about Spike's health and well-being? "But?"

"But it's not like you need me to tell you a story every night for the next thousand and one, anymore. Not with the shambles those kids have made of it all. They need you, and you know it."

"I suppose I do," Giles replied, though he hadn't really thought about it. In a way that proved the point -- he was so sure of being needed now that it hadn't occurred to him to doubt it. But that didn't change wanting Spike here. In his bed, yes, but also, he realized, in his life. Except maybe it did change things. Not the fact that he wanted Spike here, but why. "But -- them needing me--" he said slowly, shaking his head, just figuring it out for himself. "It's not enough. Hell, it may be too much. It's certainly not what I thought it would be. It's not--"

"What *you* need?" Spike's question was flat, as if he had nothing invested in the answer but curiosity. "What would that be, then? You even know?"

"Not to be alone. Not just company, but a companion. Someone who.understands those things that the others refuse to." Giles frowned, remembering the moment when he had looked at Spike and realized all of his presumptions had been just that -- presumptions. "Someone who can challenge *my* complacency. Point out when I'm talking utter..."

"Pig shit on a stick? Like now?"

"How very...colourful. But not entirely inaccurate."

"Seems to me your business partner's not half bad at that job, when she's not distracted by trying to bring back the dead. Or convince the monkey boy to let her tell everyone they're engaged."

"Possibly, but Anya isn't -- they're what?"

"My hearing's better than yours. While they were stomping off home, she was saying they should make the big announcement now, so at least they'll all have *something* to be happy about. And so she can make up the lost profits from the urn in wedding presents."

Giles blinked. That did sound like Anya. But he pushed that revelation aside before he got distracted. "Be that as it may, Anya isn't you. She has a...ah...rather unique perspective on things, but she doesn't have your talent at cutting through all the...pig shit."

"You mean she's not likely to shag you, being engaged, and all."

Speaking of cutting through... "Yes, there is that. And you're not. Engaged."

"Well, I was, briefly, but then somebody broke the spell and she spent the rest of the evening complaining that she'd been kissed by a vampire. Like it was beagle slobber, or something." Spike's irritated tone couldn't hide the tiny grin, or the faraway place his eyes went, for a moment. Then he was back, and nodding at Giles. "You mean, since you're staying, anyway, I don't have to whore myself out to you unless I *want* to. No excuses for either of us, anymore."

"No. No excuses." Ignoring his pounding head and every other ache his body could throw at him, Giles stood up, and took a step toward Spike. "Stay?"

Spike's mouth was a thin line, wavering between a smile and something else. "Well, you do have the best free booze around."

Giles shook his head. "I think that qualifies as an excuse."

"It's warmer than my crypt?" He offered it as shamefacedly as it deserved, glancing down at the carpet as if he, Spike, who'd dared to say in the middle of the night that he *needed* Giles -- were suddenly too shy to accept that Giles, after all, needed him.

Spike? Shy? Giles laughed loudly, and Spike looked up. Tried to wipe the grin off his face, and didn't succeed.

"Pig shit?" he said, holding out his cupped palm as if he were offering an invisible handful of it.

"On a stick," Giles replied. Then, "Stay?"

Spike stood up straight, and walked away from the chair. To him. To Giles. A hand on his temple, cool where it still ached. "Yeah."

Giles closed his eyes, the pain in his head easing a little under that cool touch. "Good," he breathed.

Muscles that had been tense for hours were beginning to ease and it was only then that he realized just how much he had been waiting for that answer. How much he'd been afraid of the other, from the moment that Spike had stepped out of the shadows, and walked to Willow's side. It hadn't been just the horror of facing down his friends, or of what they'd been planning to do, though those had been -- *had* to be -- foremost in his thoughts, in his actions, at the time. It had been the fear, beneath the feeling of betrayal, that he had lost something he'd only just discovered. That perhaps he'd never had it at all.

Giles turned his face to let Spike's hand cup the side of it, almost leaning on the soothing skin of his palm. He breathed a laugh. "Usually I just resort to a bottle of aspirin and an icepack," he murmured as Spike's fingers seemed to seek out every bump and bruise on his skull.

"Yeah? I could stop, and fetch you some," Spike didn't really offer, and didn't stop.

"No, that's perfectly all right. You can just keep doing what you're doing."

"You sure? We can't have you falling dead on us, you know. Who'd I have left to do this to, if you go and die of internal injuries without permission?" Spike pressed just hard enough to pull Giles' head down, not hard enough to hurt, and stifled any answer, with his lips.

Giles opened his mouth under Spike's, bringing one hand up to cup Spike's head. It was a different type of kiss than those that they had shared before; though it had just as much need behind it, the desperation was missing. Instead it was quieter, deeper. More real, somehow.

When it ended, with Spike biting gently at his bottom lip for a moment, then pulling away almost regretfully, it took a second for Giles to get his breath back. "I don't think I'll be dying just yet." Perhaps the shaky manner in which he said it belied his apparent certainty, but at least it drew a laugh from Spike.

"I'll have to try harder." The promise implicit in those words jolted down Giles' spine. "In that case, perhaps we should adjourn upstairs. If you try much harder, I cannot guarantee the stability of my legs -- and I've hit my head enough tonight."

Spike had the good grace not to look amused at him. Or perhaps he was as unsteady on his feet as Giles, and just hiding it better. He seemed sure enough of his footing, though, as he pulled back and led Giles towards the stairs, one hand on his arm. Giles wondered idly if Spike thought he was going to try to get away, but didn't say anything. If he did, Spike might let go, and he found he rather liked the continued contact as they made their way up the stairs.

*****