Summary: Desperate times call for desperate measures where the First is involved. In order to prevent the end of the world, Buffy asks Willow to do a spell that's supposed to fix everything, and Spike goes along for the ride.
Rating: PG-13
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Willow wandered down the sunlit street hand in hand with Oz, just soaking in the weather and her boyfriend’s presence. She’d loved the rains and mists of England, but she was a California girl, and she’d missed the sun.
“How is it being back?” Oz asked softly.
“Good.” Willow smiled. “There are things I miss about England, but I missed home a lot more.”
“I wondered if you’d want to come back,” he confessed. “The coven sounded pretty cool from your letters.”
“It was amazing, but I didn’t fit there.” She frowned. “Tara did a lot better than me.”
“She’s been at this a lot longer,” Oz reminded her gently.
Willow nodded. “I know. I guess it just hit home that you don’t need a lot of power to practice magic. In some ways, being more powerful makes it harder.”
“With great power comes great responsibility?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” There was a moment’s pause. “You don’t mind sharing the house with Tara and Mairead, do you? You said you didn’t, but—”
“It’s fine,” Oz replied. “I’m used to sharing closer quarters with Devon and the other guys. I like Tara, and Mairead seems nice.”
“She is.” Changing the subject, Willow asked, “What else did I miss this summer?”
Oz shrugged. “Not much. Spike and Buffy pretty much took care of patrolling. We ended up getting a few more gigs than we’d planned, so we were traveling most of the time. Xander was working, and Anya was with him whenever I saw her. You know how exciting Sunnydale in the summer tends to be.”
“I’m glad we didn’t miss anything,” Willow joked.
He gave her a sideways glance. “Except me.”
“I can’t speak for Tara,” she teased. At his raised eyebrow, “If the daily emails didn’t tell you that I missed you, I don’t know what I would have to do to get that point across.”
“I can think of a few things.”
Willow grinned. “What are we waiting for?”
~~~~~
“You know, I’m perfectly capable of taking a patrol by myself,” Buffy said, a little exasperated. Spike had been glued to her side the last few days as they waited for Dracula to show up.
He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “How long has it been since you’ve gone on patrol by yourself?”
Buffy had to acknowledge his point. They’d gone out together almost every night since coming back. It was more than just the need to have someone to watch her back, or vice versa, but more than that it was the desire to spend time together.
“Okay, fine, but I’m perfectly capable of taking on Dracula by myself.” Buffy gave him a hard look. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been trying to do this past week.”
“What?” He gave her an innocent look. “Told you, the wanker owes me money, an’ lots of it, when you calculate interest.”
Buffy snorted, but she decided that there was no point to arguing with him. “Why didn’t you try to collect from him last time?”
“Wasn’t involved,” Spike replied. “Cap’n Cardboard came by an’ asked me what I knew, but that was the extent of it. You lot weren’t talkin’ to me much at that point.”
“You’d made a pain in the ass out of yourself at that point,” Buffy replied.
“I wasn’t in love with you then, so there wasn’t much reason to do otherwise.”
His words gave her pause. “When did you fall in love with me?”
“Dunno.” His look was measuring. “You gonna tell me when you fell for me?”
Buffy hesitated. “I don’t know.”
Spike snorted. “Right.”
“No, really, I don’t know,” Buffy insisted. “I—it probably started after Glory tortured you, but I can’t tell you the moment I was definitely in love with you.”
“Took you long enough to admit it.”
“I told you as soon as I knew for sure,” Buffy responded. “The only other man I’ve ever been in love with was Angel, and you and he are so different—” She sighed. “When was it for you?”
Spike smiled ruefully. “Right after I tried to get the chip out of my head. I had a dream about it. Didn’t want to, though.”
“I take it that you’ve resigned yourself to it now, though,” Buffy said, trying to lighten the mood.
Spike shrugged and affected a high-class accent. “I do my poor best.”
She giggled, then froze, the mood broken as she sensed the presence of a vampire. An old vampire, if she didn’t miss her guess. “Alright, Dracula, come on out. I know you’re there.”
“Ah, the Slayer. You are even more magnificent that I had heard.” The voice was cultured, if heavily accented. Buffy had been too star struck the first time to note the arrogant undertone, or to be annoyed by it.
She turned slowly, raising an eyebrow. “Dracula. You’re shorter than I thought you’d be.”
He blinked, clearly unused to having people—especially women—respond to him that way. ‘Well, tough,’ Buffy thought. She had her own vampire, and she was quite happy with him.
“I see you know me,” he said, struggling for some sense of equilibrium.
Buffy smirked. “I know you. I also know that you and your little vamp ‘hos aren’t going to be staying in Sunnydale very long. Take my advice and leave before I kill you.”
“You won’t kill me,” he said evenly, his self-assurance evident. “Nor will your friend. How are you, William?”
“Me? Hell of a lot better than you’re goin’ to be shortly,” Spike replied pleasantly. “And you owe me eleven pounds plus interest, Drac. Don’t be thinkin’ you’re goin’ to stiff me on it.”
Dracula smiled thinly. “I don’t recall owing you any money. What you gave me was a gift.”
Spike snorted. “I give gifts to people I like. Buffy, what do you want to do with this wanker?”
“Well, we could kill him now, or we could storm his castle,” Buffy replied, pretending to think about their options. “Spike? What do you say?”
“Hell, I’m in the mood for a tussle.” He was moving before the words were even out of his mouth when Dracula appeared to disappear in a puff of black smoke. “Bugger me,” Spike muttered.
Buffy sighed. “We should have known, and now we’ve lost the element of surprise. Do we storm the castle anyway?”
Spike frowned, thinking about it. “Not tonight. Think he’d be expectin’ that. ‘Sides, Drac is traditional. He’ll sleep durin’ the day, an’ he doesn’t know about—” He stopped.
“Spike?”
He shook his head. “Let’s go.”
Buffy didn’t question him as he led her out of the cemetery and in the direction of her house. “Why?”
Spike leaned in close, his mouth mere millimeters from her ear. “You saw him. You know him. Don’t want to risk leadin’ him back.”
“Won’t your place be safer?” Buffy whispered.
He shook his head. “No. He doesn’t need an invitation.” His eyes narrowed. “Think I’ll be stayin’ tonight, though.”
She decided that it would be better not to argue. Buffy had learned that there were times when it was better to let Spike have his own way; letting him win once in a while made it easier on her when the argument was over something really important. Besides, it wasn’t like she minded sleeping in her old bed, as long as Spike was right there with her.
~~~~~
Tara stepped inside the gallery hesitantly. She had no idea why Buffy’s mom would want to see her; they had spoken perhaps a dozen words to one another since meeting, although Joyce had always been very kind. She certainly appreciated the fact that she’d been included in the holidays and meals everyone else had been invited to, and the woman had been similarly welcoming to Mairead.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hello, Tara,” Joyce said warmly, poking her head out of the back room. “Come in and flip the sign, would you?”
She did as she was asked, turning the sign so that “Closed” would appear from the outside. “Buffy said that you wanted to talk to me.”
Joyce smiled. “When I mentioned needing to find a new assistant for the gallery this morning at breakfast, Buffy said that you might be looking for work.”
Tara had no idea how Buffy had found out that she was looking for a job, unless Willow had told her. Of course, as close-knit as the group was, it was probably no surprise that word had gotten out. “I am. S-something p-part time, but I don’t know anything about art.”
Joyce smiled. “If you’re willing to learn, that’s not a problem. Most of the time, I hire college students, and they don’t usually know all that much about the pieces that I have in here. Mostly it’s helping me keep track of shipments and invoices, and really just being here.”
She thought about it for a moment. It seemed almost too good to be true. Jobs were hard to find even at the best of times, and with the emergencies that seemed to come out of the blue, Tara knew that finding an understanding employer would be very important.
“We could have a trial period,” Joyce coaxed. “My least favorite thing to do is interview new hires.”
When Joyce put it that way, Tara didn’t feel as though she was taking charity. “Okay. We can give it a try.”
Joyce nodded, satisfied. “Thank you. When can you begin?”
“Whenever you’d like,” Tara replied. “I can give you my class schedule, and we could figure it out.”
“That sounds good,” Joyce replied. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll talk.”
Tara agreed, then wandered back outside. She had no idea how she’d managed to get so lucky. Never had she had a job just fall into her lap like that, and she already knew that her boss would be nice.
She would just have to see how things worked out.
~~~~~
Xander felt just a little bit guilty for being out after dark. Buffy had made it clear that he was supposed to have company at the very least, but he’d had to work later than usual, and then the guys had invited him out for a beer. It had seemed impolite to refuse, and Xander was beginning to feel as though he had a real future with the company. A certain amount of socializing was necessary.
He approached his house warily, keys in hand, alert for anything out of the ordinary.
“Xander!”
He jumped about six inches, dropping his keys. “What?”
Buffy was jogging up to meet him. “What are you doing? I thought I told you not to be out by yourself after dark.”
“I was just having a drink with the guys from work,” he replied defensively. “It was no big deal.”
She frowned. “You should have called me. I would have walked you home.”
“What are you doing here anyway?” Xander asked.
Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Knowledge of the future, remember? We saw Dracula last night, and there was a Scooby meeting earlier. We tried to call, but we couldn’t reach you. I figured I’d better make sure you’d made it safely home.”
“Oh.” Feeling slightly ashamed of his bad manners, Xander waved at the house. “Do you want to come in?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m meeting Spike pretty soon. We’re gonna look for Dracula’s fake castle.”
“He has a castle?”
“He did last time.” She gave him a look that was both fond and exasperated. “Just be careful, okay? Trust me, you do not want him to get his hooks into you.”
“Maybe I should make a hat made of tinfoil?” he suggested in an attempt to make light of the situation.
Buffy’s lips twitched. “If I thought it would help, I’d tell you to go for it.”
She turned to go, now that he was safely to the door, with the deadbolt unlocked. “Buffy?” he called.
The Slayer half-turned. “Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
“Always.”
Xander watched her disappear into the shadows, feeling a pang. She was still his ideal, the girl who would always be out of his reach. The sharp pain of rejection had dulled with time, and he had come to accept that his role in her life was limited to that of a friend.
There were still moments, though, when regret snuck up on him. Moments when Xander wondered what it was about him that Buffy didn’t think was good enough for her, when she would accept the attentions of a vampire.
He heard the crack of a branch, and he turned. “Hello?” The voice in his head that tended to speak up any time he was being stupid immediately began to howl. “Who’s there?”
“Someone who can give you your heart’s desire.”
Xander knew that he should go inside. Now. In fact, his hand was on the door knob. He could just turn it, and step inside—
Instead, he stepped away from the front door, taking a step into the darkness. “Who are you?”
“Do you not recognize me?”
That little voice was now gibbering madly, but Xander ignored it. “Can’t say that I do,” he replied, striving for a light-hearted tone. The thought came to him that if he was the one to kill Dracula, Buffy would have to take him seriously. No, more than that. She’d have to respect him.
“I am Dracula, and you will be my emissary.” Dracula’s smile was cold, but rather than being repulsed, Xander found him strangely appealing.
“Yes, master.” The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. “No, that’s not right,” Xander said, trying to take a step backwards.
“Stop. Be quiet.”
Xander found himself doing just that, and his fear was swallowed up in a fog of adoration.
“You will be my eyes and ears. In return, you will be rewarded with immortality. It is what you want, is it not?”
It wasn’t, not really, that little voice whispered, but it was no more than a dying protest. “Yes. Yes, your excellent spookiness. Whatever you want.” Dracula frowned, and Xander amended his response. “Maybe I’ll just stick to master. Of course, master.”
Dracula flicked his fingers. “Go. You tire me.”
Xander turned to go back inside, then paused. “Wait. How will I find you?” Dracula was already gone, however, and Xander giggled. “Brilliant! What a great exit! He’s a genius.”
The little voice in the back of his head was completely silent.
~~~~~
“Well, this is where it was last time,” Buffy said. “I think.”
Spike shook his head. “No offense, luv, but you can’t know for sure that we’re in the right spot. He’d probably muddled your head pretty good.”
She grimaced. “Tell me about it. He had me tasting his blood. Which, by the way, ewww.”
His lips twitched, but he didn’t seem terribly happy. “We’ll just keep lookin’. It’s easier to cast the illusion over a place of comparable size.”
“Do you think we should get help?” Buffy asked. “Finding it, I mean?”
Spike thought it over for a minute. “Might be a good idea. Could be that the witches would sense it, though I don’t think they did the first time.”
She shook her head. “No, but then again, Willow and Tara hadn’t spent the entire summer in England training with the coven last time.”
He nodded. “Let’s go rouse them, then. Sooner we get this taken care of, the happier I’ll be.”
“Is everything okay?” Buffy kept her voice light, not wanting to put him on the defensive.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you’d tell me.” When he remained silent, she added, “I thought we were talking about things like this.”
“Maybe not about this.”
“Try me?”
Spike sighed. “Dracula bit you.”
“That depends on how you look at it,” Buffy pointed out. “He didn’t bite this particular body.”
He shrugged and stayed silent, clearly not wanting to get into it.
“Come on, Spike. We’ve been doing a pretty good job being honest with each other, haven’t we?” He still didn’t reply, and Buffy suddenly realized what it was he didn’t want to tell her. “It’s the biting thing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, come on. You’re the one who said that it’s always about the blood.”
Spike blinked, taken aback. “You remember that?”
“I remember pretty much everything you’ve ever said to me,” she replied. “So? Am I right?”
“Aren’t you always?” he asked, snorting.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“I’m not sayin’ I want to bite you,” Spike hastened to assure her. “It’s just that—”
“Everyone else has gotten a taste of me, and you haven’t?” Buffy asked wryly. “Well, except for that time when the First had you in its grip.”
Spike’s expression clouded. “Yeah.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Buffy said quickly. “What is it about biting, Spike?”
“It’s—well, it’s intimate, isn’t it? Vampires live on blood, an’ so to share it is like sharin’ life itself.” His gaze turned inward. “But it’s different between vampires. I know that.”
Buffy thought she understood. “If you wanted to, I would let you. I trust you.”
He stared at her, startled. “What?”
“I trust you,” she repeated patiently. “I’m not stupid, Spike. I know that you could have bitten me after you found out about the chip not working. You didn’t.”
“Didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Then you won’t.” Buffy sighed. “Look, we’ve got other things to deal with tonight, but we can talk about this later. Let’s just say that I’m not completely opposed to the idea and leave it at that. If you need it—”
“I don’t.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her, and she could see the real happiness on his face. “Just knowin’ you’d do it—it’s enough, luv.”
She nodded. “Good.” Buffy looked up at the house Willow and the others had rented. “Let’s get Dracula taken care of.”
“As you wish, Slayer.”
~~~~~
Mairead hadn’t been sure what to expect in coming to Sunnydale. She’d never been to America before, or any farther than France on holiday. Her family had never had much money, and once she’d settled down to work with the coven, the work had bound her there.
Not that witches couldn’t travel, but there had always seemed to be something more important to do. It was one of the main reasons she’d jumped at the chance to go to Sunnydale.
Tara had doled out a few tidbits about her background, although she generally changed the subject swiftly when her family was brought up. She’d been a lot more forthcoming about Spike and Buffy. Neither was quite what Mairead had expected.
Then again, she’d never met a Slayer, or a vampire with a soul.
“Come in,” she said. “I thought you might be coming by tonight.”
They exchanged a look and followed her inside the house. “Are Willow and Tara here?”
“Willow is at the library getting a head start on her reading,” Mairead replied. “Tara is in our room. I’ll get her.”
Oz wandered out into the living room. “Hey, guys.”
“Hey, Oz,” Buffy replied. “How’s it going?”
He shrugged. “Good. What about you two?”
“The search for Dracula continues,” Buffy replied, her voice fading as Mairead headed down the hallway to their bedroom.
“Tara? Spike and Buffy are here. I believe they want our help locating Dracula.”
Tara frowned. “Do you think we can help them?”
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to try if you are.”
Tara smiled, her face lighting up. “I don’t mind trying.”
Mairead’s heart leapt with the beauty of her. For her, it had been something close to love at first sight. Perhaps love was too strong a term, but she had definitely felt a strong attraction. She watched as Tara pulled her shoes on, then tangled her hand with Tara’s as they went back to the living room.
“I hope you guys don’t mind us bothering you,” Buffy said apologetically, as they got ready to leave.
“Not at all,” Mairead said firmly. “This is part of the job, yes?”
“All too frequently,” Spike muttered, although he winked at Tara. “Much better things to do at night than chase after poncy vampires, isn’t there, ducks?”
Tara blushed, but she smiled in agreement. “Much better things to do,” she said.
They stood out on the front walk, and Mairead gripped Tara’s hand again. “Ready?”
Tara nodded and shut her eyes. They stood there, and Mairead could feel her girlfriend’s quiet strength, as well as Buffy and Spike’s showier talents. Working in tandem, and using the skills they’d both learned under Gertrude Harkness’ tutelage, they focused on locating any flares of power in the area.
Creating the illusion of an entire castle was not easy, and it would leave traces.
Mairead felt a thrill of satisfaction as they located the spot at the same time. “Got it,” she said, opening her eyes.
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. “Great.” She looked over at Spike. “Ready?”
“As ever,” he replied, looking at the two witches. “You two up for this, or do you want to give directions?”
Mairead glanced at Tara, wordlessly telling her that the decision was hers. “Let’s go,” Tara said boldly. “I think I’d like to meet Dracula.”
Spike and Buffy smiled. “Let’s go then,” the Slayer said. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can all go to bed.”
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