Chapter 1: Let Me Count the Ways


Mooching along the overgrown abandoned rail spur, hands in jeans pockets and head down, Spike halted.

Dawn came trotting up behind, the beam of her flashlight painting the gravel between the rotted-out ties. “Something?”

“Yeah, something….” Spike shut his eyes, trying to localize the tingle in the air. “Should be better at this,” he muttered, unconsciously tilting his shoulders, leaning, trying to align with what he felt.

“I expect it’s like dowsing,” Dawn commented practically. “The head knowledge can’t help until you’ve digested it: made it body knowledge.”

“Yeah,” Spike responded, not really listening, still trying to align. Which actually wasn’t possible, he knew that. It was like sun-knowledge, closest thing--a sense of angle and direction, except that neither was cogged to the geometries of rusting parallel tracks lancing off into the weedy dark or the chilly wind gusting from the sea or stark stars overhead only slightly dimmed by Sunnydale’s haze of lights down in the valley.

It was just off his left shoulder--a tingling seam in the air. At a cross-angle to everything. Facing it didn’t work: made him lose it. He had to stand crosswise to it. No reason why, just how it was.

“We gonna try this one?”

“Me first, Bit. In case there’s no air. Like the last one,” Spike responded absently. “Won’t be but a second, you stay put.”

“I’ve got my taser and my stake,” Dawn asserted, annoyed with the care he took of her…dragging her out of her cosy bed about three on a Saturday night in December, all hush and shivers, prospecting with her flashlight for anything interesting along the rail bed while he dowsed for shimmers and the both of them therefore visible for a good mile, roundabout.

“Turn off the torch.”

“No. It’s creepy. And I found another one!” Juggling flashlight and taser, she dug in a bulging jacket pocket and proudly produced a rusted railroad spike.

Blinking at her, trying not to lose the torque of the dimensional rift, Spike said, “That’s fine. Add it to your collection. Stuff it through your nose. Turn off the torch, Bit. You mind, or I’m not bringing you out any more.”

“Sure, that’s a scary threat. Without me, you can’t budge an inch,” she retorted smugly.

Two vamps sprang out of the ditch, on Dawn before Spike could lunge between. He slammed one away and risked turning his back long enough to stake the one Dawn was flailing at with the flashlight in one hand and the spike in the other. As the dust exploded and Dawn started screeching, Spike didn’t whirl back quite fast enough to keep the other dumb fledge from taking him down, slamming into the cinders. They rolled and struggled, the fledge pounding at Spike with a fist-sized chunk of gravel while Spike tried to double his knees up enough to loft the vamp away with his boots. Dawn should have juggled through her trash and unlimbered the taser long since, but a glance told Spike she’d stayed clear, hopping and wailing like a siren, and another vamp was coming in, drawn by the noise, most like. So best do this one fast.

Twisting, Spike bit the fledge’s rock-holding hand mostly off at the wrist. Enough distraction that Spike could finally pull his knees up under the heavier vamp and then violently uncoil, flinging the fledge off straight at the approaching vamp. The fledge burst into dust that Spike went through in a flying dive, to get between the new vamp and Dawn and what the hell was she doing, just standing like a lump? As he hit, he was deflected aside and tumbled into the ditch, up the next second and back, but Dawn had got in his way, waving and jumping like trying to scare off a cow…and he belatedly recognized the vamp as Mike.

Covered with vamp dust and blood, some of it his, angry at Dawn for being useless and at himself for being distracted and letting them get jumped, angry at the fledges for being too dumb to know him for a vamp and for himself, and angry at his claimed childe for being there and seeing it, Spike sagged a moment where he stood. Having waved off the attack, Dawn relaxed, turning away. Lunging past her, he slammed Mike a good one in the gut. Mike had anticipated and mostly faded back ahead of the blow, but Spike hadn’t actually hit him all that hard anyway and stalked past, stumbling a little on the ends of ties, rubbing at his face with his sleeve.

Trailing a prudent distance behind, Dawn explained anxiously, “I couldn’t. You were tumbling and wrestling around and I couldn’t tell who was who. And if I got you by mistake, we were both toast.”

“Should’a turned off the torch when I told you,” Spike snarled. He suddenly dropped down on the curve of rail bed, fumbled out a cigarette and lit it, hand cupping his temple and waiting for the gash to seal and quit smearing blood into his eyes so that he was nearly as blind as Dawn. She’d finally turned off the flashlight.

The night was again quiet, cold, and still.

Seating herself in a sulky fling about a yard away, perched right on the rail, long overalled legs drawn up almost to her chin, Dawn hurled away a piece of gravel. “Well, excuuuuse me for not being able to see much on bad footing in the middle of the freaking night!”

The blood had finally let up. Spike wearily rubbed at his forehead a final time with his sleeve, then looked favorlessly across at Mike, comfortably crouched on his heels the other side of Dawn, knowing Spike wouldn’t come at him again.

Answering the implicit question, Mike commented mildly, “I was in the neighborhood,” assembling a different sort of cigarette and lighting it with a kitchen match. Not having to look to know Spike’s recoil of annoyed disbelief, Mike went on, more truthfully, “Heard the bike. Then saw it was Dawn with you, not the Slayer. So I drifted along to see what was up, this hour of the night.”

His tone was matter-of-fact, calm; but the implication was critical of Spike’s taking Dawn on late night patrols. Didn’t need saying: they both knew. They attended to their smokes while Spike made himself settle further, letting game-face flow into his human mask.

Maybe Mike had the right of it: that first vamp had got at Dawn, after all. Spike wasn’t gonna dispute it with him, anyway--not all that sure, himself, he should be letting Dawn accompany him into situations that could turn risky even though it was as much her idea as his.

Dawn spoke up: “We’re hunting natural portals. Mapping them, pretty much. And going through for a quick look around, to see what they’re like. One was all crystalline, like sections of a glacier, and there wasn’t any air. I felt like I had frost on my eyeballs. And another was underwater.”

“Salt or fresh?” Mike inquired, and let out breath and smoke in a slow, controlled hiss.

“I didn’t notice.” Dawn sounded worried she might lose points for that, like not knowing the mean air speed of a laden African swallow.

“Salt,” Spike put in. “Ocean.”

“Why haul the girl along--”

Dawn interrupted quickly, “He has to. He couldn’t get through by himself. That takes a Key.”

Mike didn’t think Spike was careful enough with Dawn. Spike didn’t see what fucking business it was of Mike’s what they did or how or when they did it. Again, didn’t need saying. They marinated in their separate irritated silences awhile.

Mike finally said, “Slayer know about this?” which was an implicit threat to tell her.

“No,” Dawn blurted, “it’s a surprise. Or will be, when we find the right place. It’s there, somewhere. Spike dreamed it.” Twisting around, she set her hands on Mike’s arm. “You won’t blab it, right? Ruin the surprise?”

“I don’t blab ,” Mike responded stiffly, when just the opposite was the case and they all knew it. “Got no call to tell the Slayer nothing. She ain’t nothing to me.”

“You could help us look,” Dawn suggested eagerly, since they now had to keep Mike sweet or he’d blow the whole thing. “We could wait while Spike goes through. Or if we find a good one, you could come with!”

“Don’t like no other dimensions than here,” Mike replied unhelpfully. “Light’s funny and the ground don’t smell right.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared!”

“Got other things to tend to. Fighting. Hunting. Trying to get things organized again after the total hooraw’s nest somebody’s made of things.”

The somebody was Spike, unmaking the Hellmouth and social-planning at least half of Sunnydale’s vampires into oblivion.

Mike didn’t have much regard for Spike as a social planner. Which again was likely fair enough, Spike supposed, and therefore bit back a retort.

A whole lot of things didn’t need saying, among the three of them. Most things just were. Most things, they just knew.

They continued to sit: the actual and titular Master Vampires of Sunnydale, bracketing the Dimensional Key.

“Need somebody to stand lookout,” Mike allowed presently after taking a heavy hit from the roach, “seems like. When you’re…occupied. Like tonight. Could do that sometime, if you give me notice.”

“All right. Maybe.” Pitching the butt end of his fag, Spike rose, and Mike did, too. “There’s one up ahead just a bit. Was about to check on it when those damn fledges crashed in. Not taking Bit through. But she could wait. With you.”

“Wouldn’t mind,” Mike said as Dawn blurted, "Yes!" as though her side (whatever that was at the moment) had scored a goal.

“Since you’re here and all,” Spike added grudgingly, an accustomed dance of offhand approach and retreat that didn’t require actual asking or ordering, or actual agreement or obedience.

All indirect and circuitous, to neither challenge nor lose face, either one.

Things were difficult and touchy with Mike these days, it never having been fully thrashed out between them who was boss now. Safer that way. But touchy.

And the same between Mike and Dawn, Spike supposed. Things were changing, had changed, and none of them knew precisely what that meant or where they stood with it, each in relation to the others.

He was good with the Slayer, though; and past a certain point, that was all that signified. He figured the rest would sort itself however it had to. Wasn’t up to him, after all.

Mike gave Dawn a hand to help her up but she then disengaged, getting out the damn flashlight again and switching it on. Mike traded a look with Spike but neither of them said anything. At an official seventeen, there was nothing much Dawn could be forced to do or prevented from doing.

“Well, come on, then!” Fragile and imperious, Dawn started back in long tip-toe strides, from one tie to the next, toward where Spike had felt the rift, and the two vampires trailed along in the understood helplessness of males before their intractable, oblivious womenfolk.

**********


Blinking sleepily, Buffy stretched, yawning. And then smiled when Spike gathered her close again without waking.

He was almost always here now, either through the night or at least before sunrise. He had a fresh, abraded bruise at his temple: challenge fight up at Willy’s, probably, or the result of one of the lone, manic sweeps of the downtown streets he persisted in doing though with vamp numbers so reduced, it hardly seemed worthwhile. She didn’t patrol on weekends anymore and only a few nights a week--breaking up new forming lairs, mostly. Keeping the fledges confused and thinned out.

Frowning as she rose and reached for her robe, she wondered if, with things relatively placid, Spike was getting bored. Though that’s what they’d been trying to achieve, and Buffy was past ecstatic not to be facing one of the seemingly inevitable periodic apocalypses, a bored Spike swinging off on destructive tangents could be a problem. Spike didn’t do peace all that well.

When she returned from the shower, rubbing her hair dry, Spike was up, looking out a window he’d opened a crack at the bottom because he’d lit a cigarette. As carelessly nude as he was deliberate and particular in costuming himself, he was gorgeous in the cool winter light through the special glass that protected him, though Buffy figured he could mostly handle that himself now, without a blanket, even. She still wasn’t used to seeing him in full daylight; maybe she never would be.

He’d been growing toward the light for a long time, she thought.

Settling at her dresser whose mirror turned him invisible behind her, Buffy commented, “You have pensive face,” as she plugged in a dryer and started running a wide-toothed comb through her hair.

Spike’s hand took the dryer, and his thumb clicked off its noise. Setting the dryer aside, he removed the comb, too, and commenced drawing a brush through her hair with slow, cherishing strokes. She knew he liked doing that, and she didn’t mind a bit of being fussed over. But she hugged herself and shivered: the window was still open.

Making an amused noise, Spike went and shut it, carefully stubbing out the cigarette before he returned.

“Tender little hothouse posy, you are,” he teased, resuming the strokes. “California winters aren’t worth the name. Not even freezing, out there. Practically balmy. Hate to see you face an actual winter--snow, ice, an’ all that.”

“Just because some of us aren’t year-round room temperature doesn’t mean it’s not cold!” Still shivering, Buffy frowned into the mirror, trying to work out if that had come out right. “I hate having to put on fifteen layers, so I look like a barrel!”

“But such a stylish barrel. Trim, kicky boots that’d wilt at the least touch of a puddle--”

“Oh, shut up.” She batted at him. He was always mocking her footwear. As though scuffed steel-toed boots were the height of fashion. In the heat of summer, he wore the stifling duster; in winter, seldom more than a button-down over a T-shirt, usually with the sleeves rolled up and his forearms bare. Conspicuous contrariness--that was his thing. A one-vamp fashion statement…about twenty years out of date.

He had great forearms, that was true. All round and muscle-y. Severely toned, if not tanned. Very nice biceps, too. Not to mention triceps and lats, all corded and slithery under the skin. Wrists solid as cross-sections of I-beams. He could lift a truck if he felt like it. Or uproot a tree.

He was stroking fingers through her hair now, making her scalp tingle, while she leaned against his chest, rubbing her hands up and down his arms. “Mmmmm,” she commented.

Bending close, he licked the mark, his mark, that bracketed her collarbone, which sent the tingles diving as he purred into her ear, “Could maybe warm you up the old-fashioned way. All pink and glowing.”

“Mmmmm,” she agreed, dropping her arms to let the thin, silky robe slide away.

Warmed up very nicely about half an hour later, sweating a little, even, Buffy flopped her head on Spike’s torso in luxurious, conscious ease. No job. No requirement to show herself until noon unless she wanted, even if it hadn’t been Sunday. Long, entwined mornings in bed with suitable diversions. Life was good.

At seventeen, Dawn was surely able to concoct her own breakfast and lunch, too, though the thought of a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich or similar Dawnish combination was fairly ooksome. “How’s the translation coming?” she asked idly.

“Got a bit behind,” Spike admitted, rolling to draw up the duvet and tuck it solicitously close around her, gathering her in like a wrapped bundle. Then he changed his mind and slid underneath, too, nuzzling close. He liked warmth well enough, and certain kinds of hot could send him into ecstasies. Just didn’t need it, the way she did, and sometimes was a little self-conscious and apologetic about having no warmth of his own to give her except in the one way. Or two ways, if you counted sparring and fighting….

“Nagging, are you?” he inquired, licking up behind her ear. “Got to keep the tame vamp chained up to the desk, wearing the poncy glasses, trying to--”

“No! Of course not. You know that, don’t you? If the Watchers’ Council fired you tomorrow, no big. We’d manage now, some way. It’s not just you, holding everything together. You know that, right?” She took his ears prisoner, forcing him to meet her eyes, searching his face to make sure he was joking, or mostly joking.

Sometimes she worried about that, too. Because he wasn’t a tame, gutless nerd. He was a fighter, and an awesome one. Not quite as awesome as the Slayer, though they tested that out, various ways, every now and again. Unfortunately, there were no wages in being a Champion of the People, as Buffy had good reason to know. She was a little afraid, though, he’d doggedly chain himself to the responsibility, as he’d been doing the past months, until he either exploded in all directions…or didn’t. Lost the fire that burned in them both. Made them such excellent partners.

“We should go somewhere,” she decided suddenly. “Get away. Holiday break is coming up, no school for Dawn, and we could miss a few patrols, no big. Someplace warm--Mexico, maybe. I know you’ve been there, you’ve been everywhere--” She waved her arms around to indicate the utterness of the everywhere . To hear him tell it, at least.

“Working on that, pet,” Spike said, hitching his head away from her grasp with a very small smile, as though he knew something she didn’t.

“What?” she demanded.

“Nothing, yet.”

“What?” She got her fingers into his ribs and started tickling, and he tried to stop her by wrapping her tighter in the duvet, and they rolled off the bed (it really was too narrow) and wrestled, and that turned into the usual--lazy and playful this time instead of fierce and urgent. With their open, flexible schedules, they came together four or five times a day now, which Buffy considered entirely satisfactory. She wanted as much of that as she could get, things always on the simmer between them, and Spike seemed to feel the same if frequency was anything to go by. At least he never disappointed her and had made no complaints. Seemed to need it as much as she did, after their long while apart and then his period of highly dubious enthrallment by that bastard, Ethan Rayne….

Which reminded her. Rolling over comfortably, her hip pillowed by the folds of duvet, Buffy remarked, “Giles called last night, after you left.”

“What’s Rupert want?” Spike responded in a blurred voice, barely blinking, almost asleep. He was a vampire, after all, and most comfortable with nocturnal habits. He’d probably sleep the day away, then be all bouncy and Tigger and ready to go at sunset. When she was winding down. Still enough overlap, though, to make it good.

“You’ll laugh. It was you he wanted to talk to, actually. He wants to know where you disposed of Rayne. With all the trouble we had to go to, to get rid of that bastard, now Giles wants him back. Isn’t that hilarious?”

Spike cast an arm up across his eyes. “An’ what did you say, pet?”

“Basically, that he could get stuffed,” Buffy replied, giggling guiltily. “Although I didn’t put it quite that way…. Where did you toss him, Spike?”

Buffy had been too busy fighting, and then ducking random portals flaring open and clapping shut, to notice details of Rayne’s enforced exit about a month ago, ending his attempt to reopen the Hellmouth. One second the chaos mage had been there, waving and shouting, and Spike up on the factory beam, blazing and exultant in the final seconds before he began to burn. And the next second, Rayne just wasn’t there anymore and Spike was falling like some character out of mythology, helplessly blazing.

The memory made her shudder.

When Spike didn’t respond, Buffy prompted worriedly, “He didn’t get away, did he? Teleport or something? Like before? Spike?”

Arm still shielding his face, Spike exhaled--a soft, buzzing noise. Snoring.

Buffy’s stomach replied with a reproachful rumble. Time to get decent and finish off that cup of yogurt. Maybe even some super-nonfat crackers.

Bent on tiptoe, pulling on sweats against the chill she again felt, Buffy reflected that Spike swore up and down he didn’t snore. But he did. She should get Willow in as a witness, since Dawn already knew and Spike pooh-poohed her, too. He’d have a harder time refuting Willow, an unbiased witness. But she should cover him up first. And Willow would probably turn beet-red anyway and dive back into the hall with her eyes squinched shut, like she’d never seen Oz naked though not lately, of course, and it would become a big thing and likely not worth the trouble, just to get Spike to admit that he snored.

And the business about Rayne, she could ask him about that later, in case Giles called back, which she had a feeling he would. Not as if it was anything urgent, after all. The important part was that the wily old mage was gone, and good riddance, and so say all of us, Buffy thought rancorously, wrestling into the sweat top with the tasteful green embroidery.

At least, with the sunlight blazing in, the kitchen would probably be warm!

***********


Late that afternoon, Spike was sitting in the den, staring at the computer screen, contemplating adjacent dimensions and making a list of what they’d need, when Dawn leaned in from the hall to report, “Giles on the phone.”

Sliding off the glasses, Spike stuck an earpiece thoughtfully in his mouth without looking around. He’d heard the phone ringing, on the weapons chest in the front room. Ignored it. He figured now that he knew what that was about and didn’t want any part in it whatever.

“You talk to him, Bit.”

“He’s asking for you,” Dawn corrected.

“Don’t care who he’s asking for. You talk to him. Say I’m busy. Doing his fucking translation, aren’t I? No time for idle chit-chat. You tell him.”

Hardly idle chit-chat, transatlantic calls. But Spike didn’t care. Might owe the Watcher for bailing him out of that business with Rayne but that was done, Giles toddled off home to muck about rebuilding the goddamned Council of Wankers, and that was nothing to do with Spike, not anymore. No joy to be had there.

“Spike?” Dawn was back, leaning in the doorway. “He still wants to talk to you.” When no action was forthcoming, Dawn added bluntly, “He knows you’re here.”

Not having come up with a way of stonewalling the Watcher without backlash that would involve Buffy, Spike said finally, “Yeah. All right,” slapped down the glasses and pushed away from the table.

Bending to the weapons chest, Spike scooped up the receiver. “Yeah.”

“Hello, Spike,” came the Watcher’s voice, dry and plummy…and cautious, a bit. “How are you? Enjoying leisure at last?”

“What d’you want?”

“Well, at least your phone manners are intact. Such as they are. I’m fine, incidentally. If a bit vexed at the impossibility of moving even the tatters of this organization at anything beyond a glacial pace…. It’s Ethan, Spike: what did you do with him?”

“Been bothering you, has he?”

A crackling intercontinental silence. Then: “Yes, actually. I suppose one could say that. I find the notion of his being relegated to some abominable hell dimension troubling. And I discover I could actually use him here. His offer to assist with the restructuring of the council was not entirely without merit, I realize, away from the heat of the moment. So? To what exile did you send him?”

“Didn’t miss him before, when the Initiative had him. Forgot him altogether, seems like. Why miss him now?”

“Spike, answer the bloody question,” Giles responded, just as icily.

Spike scratched an eyebrow, thinking. Seemed some of Rayne’s bitterness about what he considered Giles’ betrayal and abandonment had set hooks, could still tug at him with unwanted sympathy. Not that he had any affection, or anything like affection, for the bugger. Just thinking about Rayne made him uneasy.

“Well, I don’t know, do I?” he retorted eventually.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Lady chose, not me. Whatever portal she opened around him, I just booted him through, didn’t I, and got on with the rest. A bit busy at the time, Rupert--doing my Icarus impression an’ all.”

“Yes, quite,” Giles responded in a gentler tone. “So you truly don’t know?”

“Not clue one, here. ‘S why I put you onto Dawn, though she’s got no more clue than I do. Could maybe ask Lady Gates for you, since it’s her mum, more or less. Dunno if she’s allowed. Got nothing to do with me, regardless. I got no special entrée there. Just the Lady’s fucking ‘instrument,’ by her lights. Goddam Powers. Tips me a hint the size of Canada whenever she wants something busted up, slaughtered, destroyed. Pays me no mind, otherwise. Queen Victoria. S’pose she had a headsman--had to, didn’t she? Comes with the job. Bet she didn’t invite him to tea.”

“I…see.”

“So you talk to Bit some more, if you want. I’m done.” Dropping the receiver on the chest, Spike crossed back to the den, commenting to Dawn in passing, “Talk to him, if you want. It’s on his dime.”

After awhile Dawn returned from the front room and settled on the carpet beside Spike’s chair, folding an arm on his thigh and leaning her head on top. Familiar and comfortable. Nobody could get after him as harsh as Dawn could; and nobody he felt easier with.

As she started to speak, Spike said abruptly, “Don’t want to know. Nothing about it. Nothing to do with me. You do whatever you please about it, Bit. Between you and the Lady, innit? Something, or nothing. Don’t care, don’t want to know. Not gonna run messages between ‘em, come to their whistle, run their errands, like that Oz. Not gonna get mixed up in their fucking business again.”

She waited a minute to be sure he was done. “Then I guess you don’t want to know what I said.”

“No interest whatever. No good coming from that direction. Not for us.” Spike ran spread, vexed fingers through his hair. Then, frowning/squinting at the screen, he collected the glasses with one hand and let the other drop to the crown of her shining dark head, slowly petting there.

“You’re scared,” Dawn observed after a peaceful while.

“Yeah. So?”

“So what are you scared of?”

“That they’ll set some damn thing going and try to tangle us up in it. Me. Your sis, she doesn’t need that. Just got it all pretty well settled. Has her class, enough dosh to get by on anyway if I keep the translation up. Her place. Her time. Her choices. You. Her chums. Don’t want that interfered with. Don’t want that…complicated with trash has nothing to do with us unless we’re stupid enough to let ourselves get sucked in. Ain’t been stupid, have you, Bit? More than usual, anyways?”

She thumped a fist on his knee. He tugged her hair.

She asked quietly, “And is that enough for you?”

“Well, has to be, doesn’t it?” Spike responded curtly. “’Cause that’s all there is, or will be. Can slow myself down to everyday. Did, with the chip, didn’t I? Know I was lucky to have blood provided, even that terrible pig swill. A safe place to lair up, even if more often than not I was tied or chained down to it. Not being staked another day.” He shrugged. “Just living. Unliving. Whatever.” He tilted a hand. “Do what you can. The time passes.”

That was all inchoate in his mind. But it was all right, with Bit, not to have it all parceled out tight and logical. All right to think out loud, even if it didn’t make much sense. She didn’t judge him, though she’d bully and nag him quick enough, which was only to be expected. She was outside his choices, not waiting or depending on him for anything. One of the things he loved her for.

Shared context made some things easier with Giles. Could do shorthand--like that about Queen Victoria--and no need for labored explanations. With Bit, though, it was themselves they had in common. After all, she was anchored to this dimension with a piece of his soul: only natural that they mostly understood each other. So a lot of things didn’t need to be said at all.

As he continued working on the list, she got up and leaned on back of his chair, arms folded across his shoulders, reading, because she pointed at the screen, commenting, “Bathing suits.”

“You think?”

“Trust me: bathing suits. And sunscreen. You would forget sunscreen.”

“Well, don’t need it, do I?”

“How do you know?” she countered, eyes bright and wide. “It could be just like, well, sun. Or it could be like anything. Don’t theorize in advance of your data. And so far, we have no data. Just a set of specifications that we’re still adding to.”

“Right you are. Thanks, Ms. Holmes.” Spike dutifully added the items to his list.

“You’re welcome, Watson. Somebody has to be the brains of this operation…. Hey: how about the mall? Climate-controlled and everything. Stores close early, but we could do supper there, wander around. You know. Bet Buffy would like that!”

“Bet she would, at that. You ask her, Princess.”

“No, you should--”

“Busy here, aren’t I? List gets longer, all this trash, gonna need the van to carry it all. You ask her.” Deftly, Spike tucked the list down at the bottom of the screen, disclosing the current translation waiting behind. “Got to get this piece done or we won’t get paid for it by the time the mortgage’s due.” Frowning through the glasses, that he didn’t much mind Dawn seeing him in, he was sure he presented the very picture of intent, scholarly absorption. Enough, anyway, that she flounced off down the hall toward the basement, where Buffy was doing laundry or something or other.

Himself, he didn’t want to offer Buffy any pressure, anything she might feel obliged to accept, reluctant to refuse. Wanted to leave her free in all her ways and her choices. She’d earned that. Wanted to hang back, wait for her cue and her lead and then follow it.

Importunate begging, that was what little sisters were for, wasn’t it?

And as to the surprise he was working on so hard, preparing so carefully, that was different because he already knew she wanted that, and he was gonna give it to her: warm .

He smiled at the screen.

**********


Dawn was the first one out of the SUV after Spike backed it carefully (for Spike) down the length of the alley, leaving just enough space to get the back hatch open. Mike uncovered and started handing things out to her. About twenty bags, foam chests, and miscellaneous stuffed into oddly bulging garbage bags for convenience in handling. Not all that much, considering they’d ferried most of the stuff up last night and she’d managed to guilt Mike into going across to help her and Spike set up. Nervous as a cat with vacuuming in progress, Mike had eventually pronounced the totality “nice.” So he couldn’t very well back out now, right?

That it was a secret meant there was no obligation to invite Willow, Xander, or (heaven forfend!) Anya. And Dawn had no intention of being lone man out while Spike and Buffy had smoochies and probably more than smoochies. Might get some smoochies of her own in, if Mike would cooperate, which he generally did if it was her asking, Dawn thought smugly, setting one of the blood coolers by the wall and swinging back to receive the other. In front of the SUV, as the light faded, Spike could discard the blanket and continue deflecting Buffy from investigating what was being unloaded from the back, which was a good thing to keep him occupied since he’d been maniacally useless all day except for driving, of course.

Buffy was stomping back and forth across the alley in tight dark green fleece pants, a fuzzy beret like a lime halo, and a jade (celadon?) down jacket, hugging herself against the chill. Dressed for the opposite season, Dawn was shivering herself, what with her bare legs and flip-flops showing her freshly-painted toenails (another occupation to keep Spike from coming totally unglued).

Under her knee-length hoodie Dawn was wearing the most skimpy, thong-y bikini (yellow with deep pink hibiscus there was barely enough material to show, with their elongated and highly symbolic pistils, but the matching sheer, floaty overshirt took care of any display problem) she’d been able to wheedle Spike into agreeing to on their swimsuit-buying detour at the mall. They’d had to go: naturally, Spike didn’t own a swimsuit. And he’d gone totally overboard on what he’d bought for Buffy. At least it was 99% spandex, so it should fit despite Spike’s wildly fanciful notions of Buffy’s proportions.

Strange: you’d think he’d know.

While he’d still been dazed with crimson spandex, Dawn had managed to smuggle in something suitable for Mike, just on hopeful spec, and Spike had signed for everything without seeming to notice, so that stratagem had worked out perfectly.

When everything was piled and handy, it was time: nearly sundown on the first day of vacation. They could have come anytime, really, except for vampires’ problems with daylight since although the house had been all fitted up with necro-tempered glass, the SUV still hadn’t and Dawn didn’t want to contend with any more reasons for Mike to opt out than he already had. And there was also the contrast factor.

“OK, Spike,” Dawn called. “We’re ready!”

Sliding between the SUV and the side of the alley, Spike started collecting baggage. Dawn firmly disentangled him from loops and handles and herded him to the alley’s back wall, reminding him, “We’ll collect it later.”

“But somebody could--”

“It’s a blind alley, Spike. Blocked by a locked, parked vehicle only slightly smaller than a bus. Or it will be: Buffy, you can lock up now.”

“Spike has the keys and the thingie,” Buffy pointed out as Spike dragged her by both wrists into the remaining clear space between the rear of the vehicle and the wall, as wild-eyed and frantic as though he thought she was gonna attempt an escape.

It seemed Spike had tossed the keys on the front seat when he’d rid himself of the blanket. As Spike edged off to retrieve them, Mike swung out of the hatch and shut it, offering, “I could take the van back to your place. Come back and fetch you, any time you say.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Dawn grabbed Mike’s wrist and though he could have swatted her like a bug, that was shackle enough to hold him. “Who’s gonna lay the bonfire right, so it doesn’t catch the cabana?” Leaning close, she imparted the dire whisper, “Who’s gonna dig the latrine?”

“Spike, he knows,” Mike began feebly, falling silent as Spike backed into view, hitting the squeaker that made the SUV chirp a report of being locked, except he hit it again and then had to test the nearest door to determine if two chirps meant it was unlocked again or only locked twice until Dawn took the squeaker away from him and steered him back in front of the baggage.

“Spike, focus, for heaven’s sake! Lock onto the rift: can you feel it?”

Jittering around in place, he shut his eyes, breathing nervously. “It’s gone, Bit. Shut itself off and--”

“It’s done nothing of the kind: these rifts have been in place for centuries. You know that! Deep breath,” she commanded, not sure if he was capable of working himself into hyperventilation, considering he didn’t need the air at all, but not wanting to find out. “Hold. Three Mississippi, two Mississippi, one Mississippi. Release. Now try again. Focus, dammit!”

Slowly he rotated, turning side-on to the wall, left shoulder a little hunched and head tilted, frowning with his eyes tight shut. He lifted a hand for her to take, but Dawn snatched Buffy’s hand instead and set it in Spike’s clasp, taking Buffy’s free hand and determinedly linking to Mike, behind. It didn’t matter where she was in the linkage. Might not even matter that they all be linked, since they weren’t being inserted individually: once the way was open, it was open until released. Spike wouldn’t let it close until they had all the baggage and supplies transferred.

Dawn couldn’t see or feel anything different. Couldn’t sense the rift on her own. But somewhere inside her she felt the slight tug on what she’d learned was the thin skein of soul-stuff that was her connection to Spike: Spike aligned and locked tight to the rift, wanting in . And in some way completely beyond words, she knew how to give him what he wanted. Consent, it was. Permission. Even benediction of a sort. Power, certainly--fine-tuned as a laser beam. Just the right pressure in just the right place. It didn’t come from her but through her, somehow. Not hers, but hers to give and grant.

And his to use.

It required both of them.

The wall was still solidly there, but it had ceased to matter. Hand in hand in hand in hand, they went across .

Buffy was gonna be sooo flabbergasted!

**********


Buffy hated surprises. Hated and loathed them with a fierce passion. Surprises made you look dumb, everybody waiting on your reaction. Not knowing what was expected, what to do.

When she was tugged forward when there shouldn’t have been any forward, when the cold, constricted twilight suddenly became distance, and dim red sunlight glinting off slowly undulating waves, and her boots were sinking into the warm sand of a pristine beach stretching off as far as she could see to either side, she knew exactly where to look, what to do.

She flung herself at Spike, and tried to explore his tonsils with her tongue, and was as thoroughly all over him as she knew how to be and remain more or less vertical, Spike staggering a bit because Buffy’s legs were wrapped around his waist. When she had to leave off a second to breathe, she used the breath to tell him, “It’s wonderful, it’s--”

“--hoped you might like it, nobody around to trouble you, stays just like this--”

“--perfect, however did you find it? You--”

Then they forgot about talking again until Dawn interrupted with rude gakking noises, saying, “Spike. Yoo hoo, Spike! You can let it shut, now, we have everything inside. Or here. Or however you’re supposed to say it. Spike!”

While Spike stepped back to do whatever he did, Buffy flung her fluffy beret in one direction, her jacket in another, and plunked her rear on the sand to haul off her boots.

Warm! Gloriously, stultifyingly warm. Hot, even! A tang of salt in the air but that air unstirring, not so much as a breeze.

As Buffy started to haul up the hem of her sweat top, Spike’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. She looked up at him inquiringly, then followed his gesture, endearingly abrupt and almost shy, to a purple-and-white striped cabana like a miniature circus tent. Or maybe the stripes were blue: the red light made everybody, even Spike, look like bruised plums.

Although Mike looked uneasy, the illumination didn’t seem to be doing the vamps any harm, Spike would have checked on that, of course, so nothing to worry about on that front and she could forget about it. Anyway, the cabana was perfect and it was plain she got first crack at it. She ran for it, bare feet pounding in the sand.

Inside were an enormous pile of towels on one of several canvas chairs, a jerry-rigged shower (a big plastic container with a hose) suspended where two corner poles met, and on a hanger, a wisp of gorgeous crimson nearly nothing that hardly qualified as clothing. Sweet but unnecessary: she would have obliviously stripped, out there on the sand. Nothing either Spike nor Dawn hadn’t seen before, and she was as indifferent to Mike’s gaze as to that of a fish, or a squirrel. But because it was there, she put the bikini on, wishing for a mirror as she tugged out wrinkles in awkward places until the spandex clung smooth as a second skin. Maybe a good soaking would help.

Bursting out of the cabana, she charged straight at the water. Having removed only his boots, Spike was sitting in the sand having a cigarette. Dawn and Mike were conversing between two big shoulder-high piles of wood. Buffy stumbled and almost fell when she saw the nearly transparent float Dawn’s removal of her hoodie left revealed. Catching her balance with an overhead wave, Buffy turned it into a summoning gesture, calling to Spike, “Come on! Last one in’s a rotten egg!”

He bounced to his feet and was running, long floating strides in the red twilight, and hit the water in an arrowing dive just an instant before she did, so she knew she didn’t need to worry about rocks or sucking undertow or any hazards like that.

The water was blood warm--more like a hot tub than an ocean. She stroked out, through and over the placid, undulant waves, to proper swimming depth. That was a surprisingly long way out: the beach must shelve very gradually.

Turning in place and buoyant as a volleyball, throwing her hair back, she started looking around for Spike, both above and below the water. The dim light didn’t penetrate: she couldn’t see anything. And her eyes stung, afterward.

She was sure he was going to grab her leg or porpoise up underneath her. Instead, what must have been a deliberate splash drew her attention farther out. Spike was swimming there. As she watched, he jackknifed, diving. Bare shoulders, bare back, bare…. Oh.

About a minute later, he surfaced near her, balanced upright in the water like a seal. “You’re naked,” Buffy announced blankly, pushing water away from her.

“Don’t have to work so hard, love. Water will pretty much keep you up. More salt in it than you’re used to. You’ll want to sluice off, after. Brought fresh water for that. It’s--”

“I saw it. If I swallow some, is that gonna be a problem?” Buffy looked around her, suddenly registering the alien landscape absent of trees or grass, just dunes rolling down to a sea placid, almost, as a lake. A different motion. A different texture. Stranger than she’d initially noticed.

Like Spike, who was watching her take it in. Not visibly nervous anymore, but still watching. “As to that other, Bit said I should so I did, to shut her up about it. Doesn’t mean I got to wear it, though. Got a couple of changes in the cabana. Have you fetch me a towel when it’s time. Or just tell Bit to squinch her eyes shut, not look if she don’t want to see…. Ain’t got everything. Nothing for you to kill, of an evening, ‘cause there’s nothing alive. At least anyplace I could find, a few miles roundabout…. Nor in the water, neither,” he added, in response to her nervous downward glance. “No fish to nibble your toes, nor seaweed to tangle your legs nor jellyfish to wash up on the shore to poke at with a stick. No shells to collect. All powder, long since. Air’s a bit thinner than what you’re used to, but didn’t leave Bit in serious lack while we were moving things in, setting up, a few hours there, so it should be all right…. No evening, come to that. Always just like this. Old sun, can’t force out enough light to read by proper, much less fry a vamp. Always just there, hand’s breadth from the horizon. Doesn’t rise or set--”

Buffy whispered, “Where are we?”

“No clue. Not the slightest. But we can get back, and that’s all that should signify. If…if you like it, I mean. Enough to stay awhile.”

She knew he was gonna dive, and he did, and she had no trouble staying with him since he wasn’t trying to get away. She latched tight to a handful of hair--enough to bring them face to face, mouth to mouth. The bikini proved to have enough slack to accommodate the needed adjustments and holding on hard, clutching close, was a decent substitute for gravity. The water kept floating them to the surface but they were far enough offshore, Buffy figured it didn’t matter.

When they finally leaned back in the water, separate again except for an arm outflung by each and clasped at the wrists, not even needing to stroke, and Spike took up his self-deprecating recital of ways the place didn’t quite meet his rigorous specifications for Buffy pleasing, wasn’t totally a fantasy beach out of some movie, she dunked him, then hauled him close when he bobbed up again.

Nuzzling under his chin, licking up the outside of the shell of his ear, Buffy stated fervently, “It’s perfect. 100% deep-dyed, no preservatives, no fat perfect. It’s warm!”

Spike allowed himself to be reassured.

Far away, onshore, a bonfire was leaping and small, distant music played. Without asking, Buffy knew the wood wasn’t local and batteries were included. Every likely need provided for. There was therefore food!

After a final (for now) rocking kiss, she and Spike turned and stroked for the shore.