Tara and Spike lay in each other's arms in silence for a long time, soaking in the simple comfort of each other's embrace. In the aftermath of Buffy's brutal physical and emotional attack, the quiet and stillness was a blessed relief.

Spike could not remember the last time he had felt so blissfully *safe*.

Tara cleared her throat, shifting slightly beside him as she murmured reluctantly, "I suppose we'd better go down before long. I'm sure the others are wondering if we're even still alive."

And just like that, Spike's sense of safety vanished.

Here, in the quiet with Tara, he could almost believe that it had never happened -- that this was his reality, and the time spent in Buffy's cruel possession was nothing more than a terrible nightmare. Going downstairs to join the others again would bring the memories painfully back to him. They would surround them, all talking at once, agitated and excited, and likely standing far too close to him -- and the fear, the uncertainty, would come flooding back, just like that.

He must have clutched her closer, without realizing it, because Tara pressed a tender, reassuring kiss to the top of his head, holding him tighter as she whispered soothingly, "It's gonna be all right, Spike. No one down there wants to hurt you, you know that."

"The one with the stake -- Gunn, is it? -- I'd bloody well bet *he'd* like to get the chance!" Spike mumbled against her shoulder, aware that his voice sounded sullen and petulant...not caring that it did.

"Like I'd ever let him get that chance!" Tara scoffed darkly, thinking a moment before drawing back slightly, tilting her head downward in an attempt to catch Spike's downcast gaze. "You missed my neat little trick with his stake, didn't you?"

Spike looked up at her at that, one eyebrow raised speculatively, but before he could make the undoubtedly suggestive remark she knew he was thinking, there was a tentative knock on the door.

Spike started at the sound, the humor and fledgling confidence vanishing from his face as he scrambled to turn over, his eyes wide with instinctive fear. Tara rushed to soothe him, sitting up in the bed beside him and wrapping a steadying arm around his shoulders, pulling him close to her as she called out quietly,

"Who is it?"

"It's me." Dawn's spoke hesitantly from the hall, but she did not open the door. "Are you guys -- are you okay?"

"Come on in, Sweetie," Tara told her, smiling at the girl as she stepped into the room, shutting the door silently behind her. "We're fine...we're just fine."

Spike felt her gentle squeeze on his shoulder, and knew that the words were as much for his benefit as for Dawn's. Unexpectedly, he felt a fresh rush of emotion for Tara, swallowing back the lump that rose in his throat at the tenderness and compassion he heard in her voice.

"Then...our spell worked." Dawn returned Tara's smile, relief in her voice. "We stopped her."

With an effort, Spike focused his attention on Dawn, casting a grateful glance toward Tara as he said, "Well, yeah -- but Tara did her part, too. Do you know what she did?"

Dawn looked between them expectantly, as she shook her head. "What?"

Spike opened his mouth to reply, but Tara's gentle nudge momentarily silenced him, as she answered instead in a firm voice, "I did a spell of my own, managed to make the pain go away until you guys could finish your spells downstairs."

Spike glanced up at her, unsure as to why she would not want him to tell Dawn exactly what she had done for him, but understood the moment he met her eyes. There was no need to trouble the younger girl any further. She already knew that her sister had viciously tortured one of her best friends, many times, once in the past hour.

There was no need for her to know that Tara had become a victim of Buffy's brutality as well, even willingly.

"That's great, Tara!" Dawn's smile widened with relief at the thought that Spike had not had to suffer for the length of time it had taken them to work their magic downstairs. "So the pain's all gone now?" She sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching to take Spike's hand in hers, compassion in her deep blue eyes.

"Yeah, no more pain," Spike affirmed, drawing a smile to his lips with a bit less effort than it would have previously required.

He wondered if those words would ever again be more than a half-truth.

"The others were worried," Dawn confirmed Tara's earlier words. "They thought -- well, they weren't sure we'd finished the spell in time. They wanted to come up here, but I told them not to, that I would." She frowned in irritation as she added, "Angel didn't want to let me. He said he'd come up and check on you guys, but I thought that might not be a good idea."

"He's all right," Spike spoke quietly, surprising himself by taking up for his sire. "Means well, even if he's got a funny way of showing it sometimes."

"Well, I didn't really think he'd like, hurt you guys or anything. I just thought you might like some privacy," Dawn explained with a shrug. "Just in case...I mean...I just thought maybe..."

As her words seemed to become more difficult for her, and her face colored with embarrassment, both Tara and Spike gradually realized what it was that she had suspected. Both laughed in surprise, though one laugh was soft and gently amused, while the other seemed a bit forced.

"*Please*, Bit," Spike scoffed, a bit too emphatically. "Tara's not exactly my type, now is she?" He was facing Dawn as he spoke, and dared not look at Tara, afraid that she might see too much in his all-too-expressive eyes -- so he missed the slight flinch of hurt surprise the blonde gave at his words.

Dawn did not.

"What, you mean she's sane and not prone to violence?" she quipped, glaring at Spike.

Confused by her abrupt shift in mood, Spike slowly and cautiously corrected her, "Noooo...I mean she's not into men. Personally, I prefer a woman who prefers *me*, Niblet."

Dawn's expression softened as she understood what he had meant by his words, and Tara felt her momentary hurt assuaged by the explanation. Still, she felt a troubled sensation in the pit of her stomach, a feeling of unease to which she could not quite put a name.

Until the meaning of his words had been clarified, she had been stung by Spike's remark -- but why?

And, why did it bother her to hear him state so plainly the reason why Dawn's childish hopes for them could never come to pass?

It was true, wasn't it?

All she felt for Spike was friendship, nothing more.

If she found herself putting his feelings, his needs, before her own and everyone else's, it was only because that was what he needed right now, someone to put him first for the first time in over a century. If she thought about him first thing upon waking every morning, that was only because of the danger she knew he was in; and her temporary fixation on Spike would surely cease once she knew that he was safe at last.

If she found herself missing him every moment that he was not with her, it was only because she had become so accustomed to having him at her side, and was afraid of what might happen to him if she was not there to do all she could to protect him.

There was nothing more to it than that.

Was there?

Tara cleared her throat, breaking the slightly uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the room while she had been lost in her thoughts.

"Well," she said aloud, bringing a smile to her lips as she looked at Spike and Dawn in turn. "I guess we should go ahead and get downstairs. We've stopped Buffy for the moment, but we know better than to think she won't try again. Now that whatever magic she's been trying to do has failed, she's going to pull Willow into this. I'm sure of it."

"We can't compete with Red's magic, can we?" Spike guessed, his voice low and solemn, his eyes touched with fear again as they met Tara's, pleading for reassurance that he knew would be false if she offered it.

She could not lie to him.

"I -- I'm not sure, Spike. Willow's really powerful," Tara admitted, holding his gaze unflinchingly, before looking at Dawn and drawing her into the conversation. "We need to get busy, figure out a way to permanently break the hold she has on you, what exactly is wrong with her, and...and how to reveal her for who she really is, to the others."

Dawn's eyes widened at those words, and she looked down for a moment, considering, before raising her eyes to Tara's again, nodding slowly and resolutely. "We have to. Who knows who she'll hurt next?"

Tara's voice was grim as she answered the rhetorical question.

"Anyone who gets in her way."

**********************************

"Buffy...Buffy, you have to calm down; I can't understand a word you're saying! *Buffy*!"

Anya rose up on one elbow in the bed where she lay beside Xander, frowning with concern at the anxious sound of his voice, and his troubling words. She had rarely seen the Slayer out of control, but now, she could hear Buffy's loud, frantic voice clearly, although the telephone receiver was a couple of feet from her ears.

"Buffy...slow down...what about...*what* happened to Dawn?"

Whatever Buffy said next, Xander finally caught the general idea, because his eyes went wide with horror, and his face paled before Anya's eyes, his hand clenching tightly around the telephone receiver.

"We need to meet," Xander finally stated, his voice low and trembling. "Buffy...*no*. Don't -- don't try and go anywhere by yourself right now, you're too -- you're too freaked out. Just wait for us, we'll pick you up at your house. I'll call Will and have her meet us. Don't do anything, just -- just try to calm down. We'll be there in just a few minutes, okay? Okay...bye."

"What is it?" Anya asked him as he hung up the phone, his hand lingering over the receiver for a few moments, his dark eyes wide and shocked and staring into space. "Xander, what's happened?"

"Spike," Xander finally replied, his eyes narrowing with hatred and anger. "He broke the lock on Buffy's basement door, and got out in the middle of the night...and...and he took Dawn."

"But, Spike wouldn't hurt Dawn," Anya objected, frowning, shaking her head in confusion. "They're friends. He wouldn't..."

"He's a monster, Anya. He doesn't *have* friends. Only naïve girls who haven't figured out yet what he really is."

The scathing tone of Xander's voice as he threw back the blankets and jumped to his feet, hurriedly beginning to get dressed, made Anya flinch, though she was almost certain that the venom in it was not directed at her. She couldn't quite tell if he was including her under the label of those "naïve girls" or not. But, as she reluctantly rose from the bed and got dressed herself, Anya could not help but think about the parallel between Xander's opinion of such "naïve girls", and the naïve boy who had not yet figured out what *she* truly was.

******************************

When Xander and Anya arrived at Buffy's house, they found the door unlocked, and did not bother to knock. Buffy was sitting in the living room on the sofa, staring blankly at the floor, her expression flat and lifeless. Anya was uncomfortably reminded of the time when Glory had taken Dawn, when it had taken all of Willow's magical power to draw Buffy out of the refuge she had made for herself, in her own mind.

"Buffy," Xander spoke with concern as he made his way to her side, kneeling beside where she sat, taking her hand and looking up into her staring eyes. "Buffy, look at me."

As Buffy turned stunned, bewildered eyes on her friend at last, Anya left them, wandering into the kitchen, toward the empty basement. She frowned when she saw the door, leaned neatly against the wall beside the doorway...the hinges and screws lying on the floor next to the screwdriver that had loosened them.

Buffy's hoarse, tearful voice from the kitchen doorway startled her, and she looked up at her with a silent question in her eyes.

"I think...I think he tricked Dawn...somehow. Got her to...to unlock the door." 

"Was he chained up?" Xander asked fretfully. "I thought you'd been keeping him chained up."

"He was. But...but, she must have let him loose," Buffy guessed, her face crumpling and her hands rising to cover it as fresh sobs overwhelmed her. "Oh, God, Xander...what if he hurts my baby sister? What if he..." Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head in despair.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, Anya could not imagine Spike doing anything to harm Dawn. She looked to her fiancée, trying to gauge his reaction to the scene, and the dark, troubled look he gave her told her that they were definitely not in agreement on the most likely outcome. Xander's worried expression told her that he had no doubt that Dawn had already met some terrible fate at Spike's hands, and was only not saying so for Buffy's sake.

"Come on," Xander said gently, putting an arm around Buffy's shoulders and leading her out of the kitchen and toward the front door. "Let's go. Willow's meeting us at the Magic Box."

As the Slayer and her friend slowly made their way back into the living room, Anya stood where she was a moment longer, frowning, trying to put her finger on just what was bothering her so badly. She stared at the carefully removed pieces of the door, before her eyes were drawn toward the stairs themselves, and the darkness beyond them.

She took a slow step toward the basement, without even realizing that she had moved...

"Anya!"

She jumped, although Xander's voice was low and gentle, turning to face him.

"Come on, Honey, we've gotta go," he urged her, nodding toward the front door.

Taking a deep breath, Anya turned away from the basement doorway and whatever lay beyond it, following her fiancee out into the living room. Within minutes, the three of them were in the car, headed toward the Magic Box.