Summary: (AU, continues from Blood Rites) At Giles' instigation, Spike, Buffy, and the Scoobies get drawn into an increasingly complex and harrowing attempt to recover Ethan Rayne from Quor'toth, called The Doorless Dimension...and for good reason. Many have been exiled there but no one has ever gotten out.
 
 Disclaimer: All is Joss's. None is mine. No profit. Just more Spikejoy for everyone.
 
Blood Price
by Nan Dibble


7: Convergences


If it'd been daylight, Dawn thought, she could have kept him from it. He would at least have hesitated, and she could have got in front and shoved, and given him what-for (that was something he said, "what-for": vague and dire), anyway done freaking something!

But it was full winter dark, and there was no hesitation at all. No gap in which she could have inserted herself.

As Fudo appeared on the walk and blared his challenge, Mike attacked: over the rail and at him, vamp fast, vamp heedless. For a second, he and Fudo were almost in proportion--the top of Mike's head about level with Fudo's chest. Then Mike leaped for a throat that was no longer in reach, and was trying to bite a kneecap, then an ankle. Stance widening, Fudo extended upward beyond water tower height. He would have been a hazard to low-flying planes. Down from that height sprang a sword of blue lightnings, crackling as it came. Effortlessly it clove Mike at an angle--from the join of neck to shoulder at the left, straight through and down to the point of the right hip. His body slid wetly apart.

Dawn didn't know how she came to be standing on the grass or what she meant to do as the sword started down a second time. She just flung her head back and yelled as loud as she could, "Stop! He's mine!"

At once, a Fudo-shaped adult stood before her, empty handed: much broader but only a little taller than she, frowning at her perplexedly. His eyes shone like moonstones in his indigo countenance. His mismatched tusks, one up, one down, were also bright as he asked, "You claim this one?"

"I claim them all!" Dawn declared, with no idea what claiming entailed but grabbing what felt like an opportunity. "They're all mine, all in this household."

"Then you should have warned me," said Fudo gravely. "You said you wouldn't interfere."

"I interfere. Because they're mine. Fix him!"

"I was attempting to do that when you interrupted."

"No: fix him! Make him like he was!"

"I cannot restore untruth. The blow falls where the fault lies. Each must fix himself. Or herself," Fudo added, all PC, with a nod of a bow to her.

That was when Spike, Buffy, and Angel piled out onto the porch--all armed with swords snatched from the weapons chest--and Giles after, with a loaded crossbow. And Oz's van bumped over the curb and came careening across the lawn into a Fudo...who was simply not there anymore, and Dawn had to leap clear as the van went past and crunched into the steps, rebounding and rocking.

As Dawn picked herself up, they all spilled down from the porch to stand around Mike. Dawn pushed through as Mike reported in a whisper, "I can't feel my legs."

"They're over there." Spike turned as Willow came around the rear of the van. "Red, what's to be done?"

Willow did a bit of a take, finding Mike in two distinct and separate parts. Then she waved at the porch. "Get him up there. Inside the wards."

Normally, only the house was warded. But in the last round of setting wards, when Willow had included the escape tunnel, everything attached to the house had been put under protection, too. Besides the tunnel, both the front and back porches were now defined as part-of-the-house and therefore under ward.

Forehead creasing, Buffy asked, "Should we move him? Won't we...hurt him?"

"As compared to what?" Willow retorted bluntly, leading the way.

After a second's hesitation, Spike scooped the upper part; with a grimace, Angel took the lower part. They regathered on the porch, Spike and Angel trying to ease the parts they held into alignment. Willow went inside to turn on the porch light. Shakily exiting the van, Oz came up the steps, standing clear, with Dawn, commenting with quiet puzzlement, "Well, at least he hasn't dusted yet."

"Munich?" Spike was asking Angel.

"Maybe. But that was only an arm...." Angel pulled at his blood-soaked sleeves distastefully. "I have to get clean."

As Angel moved to go inside, Spike grabbed and stopped him, saying, "You're his sire!"

"Oh. That one. You feed him if you want, Spike. You're elder. That should do as well. He's gonna bleed out no matter what we do."

When Angel moved, Spike was there in front of him, blocking the door. "You're his fucking sire! Nothing else signifies. 'F you want help with Quor'toth, you see to him!"

"Spike, back off!" It wasn't a shout, but Spike moved aside as if shoved. So Angel still had it: the power of absolute command gained from the Supplice. When Angel gave a direct command in a certain tone of voice, Spike had to obey; he went yellow-eyed and fangy in reaction.

Why wasn't anybody DOING anything? Dawn thought despairingly. If it'd been Spike lying on the porch in two pieces, Buffy wouldn't be just standing there, she'd--

Dawn saw it then, and did it, ducking between the squabbling vampires to drop onto her knees by Mike's head. She was afraid to touch him, afraid that the alignment was important and she'd mess it up. His pale eyes had gone vague and didn't move to notice her. But he moved, taking a breath, whispering in all the voice he had, "Dawn." His attached arm lifted, fingers stroking her hair where it lay on her shoulder, then fell as the effort exhausted him.

She'd thought all she'd need to do was get close, and vamp instinct would take care of the rest. But the choice was left with her.

Just behind her, Oz's voice commented, "Damn, vamps are tough."

"Sometimes they need a little help," Dawn said without turning. "D'you have a knife?"

"Of course." Oz offered a red-cased knife with the corkscrew gadget extended. Rattled, he pulled it back and worked out the blade, instead, offering it again.

As Dawn grimly cut a line across her forearm, the thick part just below the elbow, Buffy cried out, "Dawn, don't!"

"You can help next," Dawn said coolly. "Don't let him take too much." Presenting her bleeding arm to Mike's face, letting the blood fall into his open mouth, Dawn thought what an idiot he was: if he'd just stayed on the porch, within the wards, none of this had to happen. But he was her idiot, and if there was any benefit to Slayer blood, she wanted him to have it.

When Mike's face changed and the fangs bit deep, she barely winced at all.

**********

Enough bandages to tend an elephant at Casa Summers, so that was no problem. Cold wasn't a problem either, though warm would have been better....

Sitting back on his heels and dipping his sticky hands in the bowl of cooling water, Spike said to Buffy, "Fetch out the 'lectric blanket, will you, pet? Can run it off the cord Red's got in the den there, the one she uses to charge up the computer...."

"It...will get all bloody," Buffy said from her place by the door--sort of half in, half out. Not wanting to desert in a crisis but not wanting to hover, either.

She'd been plainly relieved when Spike had curtly forbidden her to imitate Dawn, share out her blood. Such things were personal and Spike didn't share.

He'd let Mike feed off him presently, though. Let him get the good of Dawn's donation first.

"Then we'll get another," he responded patiently. "But it's not for Michael: s'for Bit."

"Oh. All right."

After a few minutes, Buffy opened the den window to feed the cord out. Then she came back onto the porch with her arms full of the blue electric blanket from the broken upstairs bed. While she plugged it in, Spike wrapped it around Dawn's shivering back, where she sat on the porch by Mike, who was sleeping or something. There was enough left to lay over Mike's torso, wrapped up in gauze and then yards and yards of ripped bedsheet on top. The sheeting was covered in daisies: looked odd, but helped soak up the mess. The blanket might not get messed up too bad: the blood was no longer coming out faster than it could go in. Surface healing, that always came first. Seal up the skin. Contain the damage.

If nobody got at you in the meantime, while you were down and defenseless....

Sitting, Spike pulled Dawn against his chest and wrapped his arms around, holding the blanket close against her. He could feel it beginning to heat.

"I was hurt as bad, or worse," he told Dawn quietly, combing fingers through her hair, "after we took on that taskin beastie. All busted up inside. Doubt there was a whole bone left. And wasn't but a few days, I was up and about again. Mostly thanks to your sis. Slayer blood, that's a powerful thing. An' yours as good as hers."

Still shivering, Dawn stiffly resisted his attempt at reassurance for awhile. Then she said in a wavering voice, "He was cut right in two, Spike!"

"Not worse, only different. Worse to look at, though, I expect. But the demon's strong, too. And its business is to keep him whole and unchanged from the minute he was taken and turned. Give it enough time, and fuel, and it'll do its job well enough. He'll be back to what he was."

After a few minutes, Dawn leaned back, accepting the comfort. She turned her face in against his shoulder. "He doesn't even breathe. He's so dumb, Spike! If he'd just stayed on the porch--"

"Couldn't do that. Time you think it all out, it's likely too late. Just throw yourself into it headlong, hope you come out on the other side. I'd likely have done the same."

"I know. Are you mad...that I let him mark me again?"

"Don't much like it," Spike admitted, very conscious of the bandaged mark on her forearm, that signified she'd been taken by another but not devoured, was being saved for later and no interference tolerated. "But s'not up to me anymore, is it? Yours to say, yours to choose. Tisn't like I'm gonna give him any taste of my Slayer, now am I?"

Dawn chuckled weepily.

Spike continued, "I'll give him a feed later. When he can take it. And then Angel will--"

"He won't."

"He will. I'll shame him into it. That mostly works. Sometimes.... In a way, it's family, Bit. And Michael is of his making as surely...as that other." Spike changed what he'd been going to say: Buffy had come onto the porch.

Bending, Buffy presented a tall glass of orange juice to her sister, who didn't want to take it. So Spike took and held it.

"My kidneys are afloat!" Dawn protested.

"Drink it," Buffy directed, still bent, hands on her knees. "You need it. That was more than a pint, and you don't have that to spare."

"She's right, Bit."

Struggling free of the blanket, Dawn lurched to her feet, swimmy-headed and uncertain as a drunk. Declaring, "I have to pee!" she wavered to the door. Buffy followed along to be sure she made it up the stairs all right. Spike meditatively drank the juice. It tasted slightly off--from the refrigerator being down, most likely.

Since the blanket wasn't being used, Spike arranged it to let Mike get the good of it. Then, in Dawn's absence, he lit the cigarette he'd been wanting the past hour.

Presently Buffy returned, silhouetted in the bright doorway. "Can we bring him inside?"

"Wait till morning. When we'll have to. Set him on a door or something, so as not to bust it all open again. Might clear off the table in the den, lay him out there...."

As Spike tried to think through the logistics, Buffy came and settled behind him, wrapped him around in her arms as he'd wrapped Dawn. "So it's not a wake, then?" When Spike just shook his head, she went on, "I'm surprised you haven't gone all astral."

"Wanted to," Spike admitted. "No use here. An' I don't want that Fudo to get the notion we're scared of him. Even if I got no answer to him yet, no blade that will cut him...."

"But you didn't. Sometimes, you're not entirely stupid."

"Thought maybe Bit...might need something."

"That, too. She was out on her feet. I put her to bed."

"Good. Be a week, anyway, before she can stand to give any more."

After a little while, Buffy mentioned hesitantly, "I could draw some. In a cup?"

"No. We'll do for him. Me and Angel. No need of that."

Buffy shrugged. "You don't have to get like that. It's not as if I offered to sleep with him!"

"Fancy him, do you?"

"Not anymore," Buffy said, so Spike figured they were no longer talking about Mike. Rising, she tugged at him. "Come on. The wake can spare you for five minutes. I have two words for you: hot water. With extras."

"That's four words. And...he wants watching."

"The wards--"

Spike shook his head, uneasy at the thought of leaving Mike laid out on the porch alone, wards or not. Extras or not. Though that was a pull too: stronger than the constant temptation of astral freedom and clarity.

Making a vexed noise, Buffy abandoned him and went inside. Spike sighed and settled, lighting another cigarette.

He was surprised when Angel came out and walked slowly to the glider. "I'll take a shift." They traded looks as Angel dropped onto the glider and pushed it to swinging. "I know what to do," Angel said, irritated, as though Spike had openly doubted his ability or his intentions. "It isn't like it's the first time I've kept vigil. And...I'll give him a feed, if he wants it. No big deal. And you're a bloody mess, Spike: you stink. Go on: have your goddam shower."

Spike got to his feet, carefully balanced, prepared for this to go wrong in any of a hundred ways. He felt as light-headed and strange as if he'd fed Mike already. He couldn't imagine what Buffy'd said, to bring Angel out here.

"All right," Angel burst out, "I get it: it's family, all right? He's yours more than mine, just like you were more mine than Dru's, whether you liked it or not. Turning some total stranger, that's nothing, means nothing. It's the connection--" The big hands worked, trying to force understanding without Angel's having to say the words. Then they dropped to his knees, and he gave the glider another push. "Just go on. Get clean." A weird little chuckle Spike couldn't interpret.

Still waiting for it to go wrong, Spike tossed the cigarette over the rail into the yard and edged off to the door. Buffy was waiting just inside. With a quick left/right glance, locating Giles on the couch and the witch scowling at the laptop in the den, they fled up the stairs.

**********

In the shower she'd cranked up just short of blistering, Buffy could tell how weary he was: by the way his shoulders slumped, the exhausted way he lifted his face to the stinging spray. When she started soaping his back with the shower gel, pushing her thumbs in hard, he tilted his head, not quite looking at her, saying, "Don't have to do that, love. Not like we been on patrol."

Restraint, holding back, knotted him up, too. But she didn't say that. She wasn't in the mood for an argument or even a discussion. She was too busy being glad it hadn't been him out on the porch with Dawn when Fudo manifested. He would have done exactly what Mike had and suffered the same result. She'd wanted to get her hands on him for hours, to stroke and knead all that splendid unbroken skin.

And he'd been so good with Mike, and Dawn, and even Angel. He deserved a reward. And Buffy figured she did, too.

"Turn around," she directed, and hugged him close as he turned. Warm now with the shower's heat, he blinked at her, sleepy-eyed and quiet. Waiting, she figured, for her to make the first move. Sometimes, unsure, he needed courting, which didn't bother her at all. She liked having the initiative.

Most of the blood that had soaked through his shirt had washed off. She took care of the rest with the shower gel and the heels of her hands, gradually pushing him back against the tiles, making room. When she took firm hold of his cock, it jumped, and he thumped his head back with his eyes shut. As she bent, meaning to kneel and apply her mouth where she knew he wanted it, she was suddenly whirled and lifted clear of the spray, high enough to drape her legs over his shoulders, gasping and bucking as he mouthed her coarse curls and the soon-swollen, responsive folds of flesh underneath.

When she was solidly braced, his hands lifted to her breasts--pressing, pinching, pulling--as he continued to nuzzle, tongue, and nip her below, muttering, "That's right, come for me, sweet, all beautiful for me, could climb inside an' die there and be happy forever, if I dust that's what you do, stick me up your sweet quim and it'll all be fine--"

Something in that bizarre request set her off. She convulsed, wailing, gripping wet handfuls of hair. Held through her climax, she felt herself lifted and dismounted, sliding down the tiles until they were face to face, looking into each other's eyes.

Locking hands behind his head, she yanked them into a kissing war: seeing who could press hardest, delve deepest, gnaw at swollen lips the most excruciatingly, both breathing hard. When she clasped her legs around his waist he pushed into her, all in one go, and began the frantic rocking that meant he wasn't gonna last. So she tipped her head aside, offering the mark that was another level of completion for them both.

Immediately he mouthed her there but didn't bite, muttering the usual litany of hot, good, tight and assorted graphic obscenities into her ear until he went rigid and incoherent in his release and she clutched with internal muscles to hold him there as long as possible. She had the sense that she was protecting him somehow, holding him safe, as he leaned heavily against her, spent.

They both jumped as the water turned icy.

Spike was out of the shower first, complaining, "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Have to get a bigger boiler, always cuts out just at the wrong time--" Grabbing a big towel off the towel bar, he turned holding it for her, caping her within it and then just holding: not ready yet to be apart.

"I saw stars," she confessed, almost shyly.

"Bang your head on the tile, that'll do it." Taking up a corner of the towel, he began rubbing her hair. "Wanted to get you off first. Make up for me ducking out more than I should."

"You were there when it mattered. And I guess...it's new and different, right? On the astral side?" He made an affirmative noise. "What's it like?"

He paused in his rubbing, and she turned enough to see his eyes, where everything showed. His eyes were unfocused, faraway: blinking; thinking; remembering. "Haven't yet found the words. Maybe there are none, like the Watcher said.... Best I can say, it's like the stars on a clear night. And like what the sun would be, perfect, in summer, everything warm and plain, roundabout, and so wonderful you don't think you can stand it. It's all the same, and it's all changed, and you can see it all becoming...." Something like a self-conscious laugh and a bent head, deflecting the intensity. "Said I didn't have the words, and then I try to tell you."

"I wish I could see it with you."

"Wish you could too, sweet. S'all that's lacking, you there. But...can't touch proper, there. No surfaces, no outsides. Your outsides are so fine, and your insides, too...." A more emphatic rub, playful, and a hug, before he went on, "An' I don't think it'd be, for you, what it is to me. Have to live in the dark a century for it to take hold like it does.... To Bit and the witch, an' the Watcher too, I suppose, seems like it's just another kind of place. Not that for me, though."

"I figured." Sliding out of the towel, Buffy reached for the hooks on the back of the door...and realized only one robe hung there. Pink chenille: Willow's.

They looked at each other, then at the pile of dirty and/or bloodied clothes on the floor. Resigned, Spike started to reach down, but Buffy stopped his hand, saying, "Wait."

Pulling on the robe, she checked the hall, then dashed to her bedroom. Dithering only a moment, she pulled on a nice, filmy, totally impractical black top hung with ribbon bows ready for untying with teeth--she anticipated further extras; possibly several hours' worth--and the matching high-cut bottoms: like underpants, except sexy. She drew around her one of her ugly, droopy, warm terry robes--white, with blue forget-me-nots along the collar. Collecting the damp chenille robe, she hustled back to the bathroom. Tapping twice, she whispered, "It's me!" and slid inside.

Spike had the used towel around his hips. When Buffy started to shrug out of the larger robe, to give it to him, he took the damp one instead although it was small on him and barely covered the essentials.

"Smells like you," he explained, fastening the belt. "And s'not all covered in girly flowers an' such."

She'd long since given up being squicked by instances of vampires' acute sense of smell. Shrugging, she pulled the oversized (to her) terry robe together and they made a reasonably decorous exit to the basement, not counting one small pause at the foot of the stairs when Spike wanted to check on Mike (and display his post-shower-with-extras satisfaction to Angel) and Buffy thought it a bit much and wouldn't let him.

"He's accepted it. Us," she said, herding him downstairs with judicious pushes. "We don't have to rub his nose in it."

"He'd like that. He'd like to watch, even. Get him a pencil and a pad, he's all set. Used to like to draw me an' Dru--"

"Spike, you're a pig. And any conversation about you and Drusilla better not contain the word 'bed.'"

"Wasn't always a bed," Spike rejoined, looking around with one of his cocky tongue-to-teeth grins. Then he suddenly sobered, gazing at her as they came to the bottom of the basement stairs. "Sorry. Having him around...makes me remember. Expect it does him, too. One reason we don't get on. You're another, of course.... D'you still love me, treasure?" he asked, gone absurdly, sweetly humble. "Bad, rude thing that I am?"

By way of answer, Buffy dropped the robe. By the way Spike's eyes went wide and dark, it was the right answer.

**********

Still a little dizzy and shaky after her nap, holding the rail and then sliding her hand along the wall where the rail was broken, Dawn crept down the stairs, fully cold-attired in sweats-with-hoodie and a snap-front lilac down vest (Buffy's: snuck from her closet).

Though the light was still on, the den was vacant; and Giles was camping out with Oz, in the van. So she slipped out the door unobserved.

The porch light was still on, too. She found Mike covered with the electric blanket. Laid over the blanket was what she at first took for Spike's duster, covering him from neck to knees. Crouching beside him, she located his right hand, cold and heavy: she figured the slight motion of lifting it, clasping it, wouldn't hurt anything. He was out, didn't know she was there. That was OK because she knew.

"You shouldn't do that. He could come up at you."

She'd subliminally absorbed the squeak-creak of the glider chains and assumed it was Spike. Of course she'd heard the sexual gymnastics in the bathroom--blessedly short, now that they had the bed in the soundproofed basement to retreat to. But she knew Spike wouldn't leave Mike unattended for long.

Not Spike. Angel: big, dark, idly rocking. In dark slacks and rolled-up shirt-sleeves (fresh shirt) open at the collar.

As quietly, she said, "I know. But he won't."

"He could."

"Not until his spine's healed. No leverage."

"He's got one good hand. That's all he'd need. Grab you, haul you down, and that would be that."

"I'm holding that hand. If he moved, I'd know."

"Not soon enough. It's not worth the risk."

Dawn knew Angel was right. Starved and not completely conscious of what he was doing, Spike had gone for her once; and before that, he'd gone for her on Angel's irresistible command as Angel tested the depth of his control. She figured Angel regarded her as something like a crash dummy, important only because Buffy would be mad at him if Dawn got hurt on his watch. Dawn wasn't too fond of Angel even if he was right.

Sitting back on her heels, she mentioned, "I know about the child. That he's yours."

The creaking stopped. "Damn. Spike."

"He told me, yes. We consulted about it," Dawn replied with dignity. "He wanted to help, but there was no way then."

"You haven't told."

Dawn shook her head. "I promised Spike." Feeling she'd spelled out her allegiance sufficiently, she patted Mike's cheek once--sunken, dry, corpse-cold, the flesh receding from the bone--then stood up because, after all, Angel was right. A blood-starved vamp tended to take what he needed. Strictly instinctual. She didn't want to put either herself or Mike at risk for that.

Stuffing her hands into the vest's pockets, she perched herself primly on the middle of the glider, leaving Angel his personal space. She couldn't remember the last time she'd sat on the glider. The past summer had been a bit fraught and frantic. She found she was tall enough now to sit with her feet flat on the porch. Neat!

As she settled into the shared vigil, she found Angel's company undemanding and peaceful. He wasn't always jittering around, fiddling with cigarettes, talking just to be talking, the way Spike did. He didn't mind silence. He was just there.

Like Mike in that way, she realized. Mike had that quiet in him, too, underneath the vamp suddenness. Patient was seldom a word she'd associate with Spike; but Mike was patient as stone. Not indifferent, though, or inattentive: he noticed everything. Just didn't feel compelled to chatter on about it...except with her, of course. Like on the phone.... To her, Mike would open up, let the raw emotions spill out unconsidered and only lightly censored, for decency.

She wondered what it meant, that she'd claimed him. Well, everybody, really, but Mike was the reason. Clearly Fudo had recognized the Lady in her but he'd taken her for an avatar, not an individual, the same as he had Buffy. She wondered how long it would take Fudo to realize the truth--if he'd still defer to her then. Likely not. All she'd bought them was a little time. Time enough, maybe, for Mike to heal....

Though the coat covering Mike was leather and black, she could see now it was the wrong cut and shape to be Spike's duster. Carefully casual and offhand, she asked, "Your coat?"

"Yeah."

Dawn gave him a sidewise look. "Won't it get blood on it?"

"Nah. He's bled out about as much as he's going to. Hasn't even shorted out the blanket. And it would only be the lining. Linings are easy to replace. It keeps the heat in better." That was about one too many excuses, but Dawn let it pass without remark. Angel gave her a look in turn--just the corner of his eye, minimal head movement. "You like him." It was a prompt rather than a question.

Dawn shrugged and lied, "He's all right. For a vamp. He's six years old."

Silence. She thought Angel was working out the timeline. Eventually he said, "I don't remember turning him. It's not generally a thing I'd do."

"It was Angelus."

"Oh. Right." Angel made a frowning, reflective hmmm sort of face. "Not so much forgot as didn't bother noticing, I guess. Didn't care.... Spike's apparently adopted him. Why?"

Almost, she responded Because Spike loves him. But that would be Spike's to say, not hers. So she replied with another shrug, that was itself a lie.

"Family," said Angel sourly, answering himself. "What's he like?"

"Apart from vamp normal? He and Spike fight a lot, to settle who's boss. It's not settled yet. I imagine you can understand that."

"I imagine I can. What else?"

"He...likes how I smell. So he hangs around a lot. I guess...we're friends. But it's Sue he fucks," Dawn spat out with sudden bitterness. "Maybe you remember Sue: she's a vamp now, but she was one of the SITs. Got herself turned, on purpose, in Chicago, last summer. Stupid bint," she added rancorously, quoting Spike, figuring Angel would get that too.

"It doesn't mean anything, Dawn. A vamp will take anything that moves, or that doesn't move fast enough. We're not...particular."

"Mike's particular. Like a Victorian gentleman with his piece on the side."

"Don't talk about what you don't know," Angel said curtly. "He's keeping that away from you. To protect you--"

"I'm not Buffy. And he's not you!"

"No. Of course. I think I'm right, though."

"When do you not think you're right?" Dawn challenged, and got a chuckle.

"There have been times, honestly. I always figured not dusting Spike, that was a mistake. But you like the little bastard too."

"I love him," Dawn replied, finding that admission less charged and wanting Angel to be in no doubt about it. "And he loves me. And Buffy. Differently."

"I sort of figured that. Wouldn't think he'd be able to keep his obsessions all neat and compartmentalized that way."

"We work at it. Besides, I don't smell like Buffy--I smell like me. Smell is a big thing to vamps, I'm told. Also, I'm not a Slayer, and it's Slayers he has the thing about."

"Yeah. He does."

"So no problemo. He marked me once, I made him do it, really, didn't know any better then...and he was sooo upset! He wouldn't come within a city block of me until it was taken care of."

She expected him to say something about that, or about Mike's fresh mark on her arm. But he didn't.

"He's a good fighter," Angel allowed, and Dawn recollected Angel would have had several chances to observe, even before he knew who Mike was.

"He's an awesome fighter! The best, next to Spike. He was a mercenary, before."

"He was just outclassed. Rocket launcher might take that thing out...or maybe not even that. Something that size, that can change so fast...." Angel shook his head. Looping back to a previous topic, he went on, "I was with Darla over a century. I worshipped her, did whatever she said or nearly, because she'd given me this life, this power, this freedom...as it was then, before I knew.... I shared her bed, when she let me. And in all that time, never loved her. Not an ounce. Until she came to me, human and resigned to it, and I tried to keep Dru from turning her. Failed at that.... And afterward, pregnant, dusting herself in that alley so the baby could be born.... I loved her then. When it didn't matter. When it was too late."

"It always matters. What's he like--the baby?"

"Connor. His name is Connor. I named him that. He's wonderful! So soft, and the little fingers and toes, smelling like milk and shit. I hate diapers, but I didn't mind, because it was him. The little starfish hands and how he'd sleep, butt in the air, sleep so deep I had to lean down and listen to make sure he was still breathing. And he'd cry, scream his head off, but he'd quiet right down when I held him, he knew it was me." Angel's face was animated, the dark eyes alight, the hands sketching the shape of his happiness in the air. He added shyly, "And...he liked it when I changed, showed him the bumpies. Like it was some sort of neat trick, that his daddy could do and nobody else could. He...was wonderful. I miss him. Every day."

The animation was gone, replaced almost by the usual somber mask. But not quite: Dawn saw it now as clenched, not calm. Braced against pain. Keeping it all inside for Connor, to whom it belonged.

Dawn didn't recollect ever knowing a doting father. She guessed she now had a benchmark for future comparison. Mindful of Spike's concerns, she asked, "Not to be heartless, but if we can't get him back, could you...have another?"

"No. No, I don't think so. No. He's all and everything. A miracle. Prophesied as 'the Destroyer,' whatever that means. I hate prophecies! And as often as not, a miraculous birth is part of the usual prophecy package. It was him, not me or Darla, that let him come to be. We...we were only the instruments. Not anything special about us, except for that. But we were granted a grace. I don't know why. Except that it was for him. He was fated to be mine. And he's still fated. I'll get him back. I have to. Otherwise, it makes no sense. There are things working in this beyond what we know, or can know. I believe that. Spike, he's got hold of something, God knows how, and that's progress. I never even got as far as Fudo."

"Getting past him," Spike said, easing onto the porch while lighting the inevitable cigarette, "is what's gonna be the problem. 'Lo, Bit, what are you doing up? Be sunrise in an hour, about."

"I just wanted to see...he was all right. Which he isn't, but well, you know," Dawn replied awkwardly.

"Yeah. Guess I do." Looking to Angel, Spike asked, "You feed him?"

"I'm going to," Angel replied, glowery and defensive. "Before he's moved will be best. He'll get the most good from it then."

"You see to that, then, while I get the cellar door off its hinges. Move him on that, I figured."

When Spike went back inside, Angel still didn't stir. His hands were clasped together, the fingers working uncomfortably over and around each other. He stared straight ahead--past the porch, into the night.

It came to Dawn that she was the hold-up here: Angel didn't want to feed Mike with her watching. She got the impression he found the prospect embarrassing, though that was ginormously dumb: there wasn't much about vampires' personal functions she didn't know about, hadn't seen. It wasn't as if they had to go to the bathroom or anything, except occasionally to throw up, as Spike did, discreetly yakking up in one tidy episode whatever "people food" he'd consumed for the flavor or the sociability. Not as if vamps had a working digestive system, after all; and the imagined alternative would have been supremely ooksome. She shivered.

"I would," she said, "but I can't. Slayer healing isn't part of the package. I have to wait a week, Buffy says. So I consider it a personal favor to me, that you offered. You did offer, right?"

"Yeah," Angel confirmed without enthusiasm.

"Then that's good. Later, I'll call Rona, have her pick up some of the bagged at the hospital, although she'll have to put it on the card, can't invoice it anymore. But that's later. Now would be good," she hinted, nodding encouragingly.

"Maybe," Angel suggested, heavily thoughtful, "you could get some coffee started. Or tea, whatever's around."

"All right." Poised and obedient, Dawn got up and went inside. She could take a hint when it was the size of a 2x4, ruthlessly applied. She'd let Angel have his privacy if it helped get the job done. Besides, she was willing to grant him bonus points because of the coat.

By the basement door, thumbing out the hinge pins Xander had set with a hammer, Spike asked, "He doing it?"

Continuing into the kitchen, Dawn peered into the refrigerator for the coffee can. The power going out shouldn't affect coffee...should it? Have to chance it. "He will, now that there's no audience. And Spike? About that other, you were worried about? That there could be an encore...of the recent 'miracle'?" She made quote marks in the air with her fingers, trying to choose words delicately and obliquely, in case Buffy suddenly popped up from the basement. "No chance. It was a one-shot, almost literally."

When there was no immediate response, she paused in filling the (unplugged) coffee maker in the sink to lean and look into the hall. Spike had stopped too, regarding the floor. "He say that? Angel?"

"Yeah. And for whatever it's worth, I believe him. Believe he believes it, anyway."

"He told you? Just like that?"

"Not 'just like that.' I have my ways," Dawn announced loftily, resuming her task.

"So you do. Winkle anything out of anybody. Got the makings of a fine spy in you, Bit."

"I think I'd prefer to be viewed as an interpreter. Or a confidante."

"Whatever you say. Wasn't him, then. Or Herself. Just happened, like."

"Seems so: the word used was 'instrument.' I'd think that would ring familiar bells for you.... I judge you're safe on the spunk front," Dawn replied, making him cough a startled laugh as he turned back to unhinging the door.

**********

Blood came in all sorts of flavors and textures, spiced with all sorts of emotions. Mike knew that what stayed with him, though fading, that was Dawn. It was energetic--all sparkly and fizzy like champagne, with a rich undertone of fear, concern, and the love she wouldn't admit but he knew, all the same. Concentrated, somehow: working in him like the first feed after abstinence when you sucked out the last of the life, immediate satisfaction. But every mouthful he'd drawn was like that, like a full feed.

And this time, for nobody else but him. This time, he wasn't just a convenient carrier, to transfer Dawn's concern to Spike in a way they'd both accept since Spike wouldn't feed from her direct, only from the Slayer. Hard to have the taste of it, the gift of it, and know it was only for a little while and not for him. This time, it was his, freely granted--benediction and prize and affirmation that he'd done right, come between her and harm, and this, her ultimate gift, the life of her sweet body, honorably earned.

And he'd marked her: felt it take and hum with achieved possession. She'd consented to it. And she'd first claimed him as hers, to that Fudo-thing.

Things would be different between them now.

He didn't much mind not being able to move. Didn't really want to move, all warm somehow and drifting in and out of consciousness, hearing her voice sometimes and happy to know her there, though sometimes he got confused and thought he was being medevaced out of some freefire zone and was worried, not knowing yet how bad he'd been hit, whether he was still all there. Which was foolish, memories from the before. He didn't have to fear such things anymore. Either he was dusted, gone, or he'd be all right.

There was no pain. That probably should have bothered him, but it didn't. The lack of sensation freed him to contemplate the wonder of achieved desire.

Gradually, indignantly, he felt himself slipping into blood debt. Shouldn't need any more than what he had. The least taste should have been enough. Instead he felt odd twinges as though connections were sparking and then shorting out--as though his body was an unseen landscape under an artillery barrage. He felt as though he was somehow collapsing into himself, cracks opening as they did in parched ground waiting for rain.

The blood that came to him then was a revelation. Nothing like Dawn's--with a completely different power. Vampire blood: that, he knew at once. Not sweet, like human. It was dark, and bitter, and slow--he had to pull hard to get enough to swallow. It was ancient and more powerful than anything he'd ever tasted or even imagined. And yet familiar. He felt his demon leap within him in savage recognition.

This was the blood that had made him.

He knew nothing else until the blood was withdrawn and a voice told him, "That's enough. Greedy pup, aren't you? Keep still, don't move." The hand that belonged to that voice, to that blood, pushed him flat although he had no consciousness of having stirred.

Faintly, he could feel his whole body like a diagram laid out in electrons, filmy and insubstantial. He wasn't quite connected to it yet but he knew it was there.

"You think that's something," the voice said, "you should have had a taste of the Master, the eldest of our line. Not that he'd have let you. That was only a special treat for those who'd pleased him. He favored Darla, and she was drunk for a month on it. I never pleased him, so I never got any. Never had a taste of the bloodline before, boy?"

He'd had Spike's blood and thought it fine. But the power he'd tasted there he now knew for an echo. This was the source, the thing itself. He was too dazed and astonished to feel it as disloyalty. It was merely a fact. The sense of connection was beyond argument. Whatever Spike claimed and Mike pretended, this was his Sire.

"Michael." That was Spike's voice, close and quiet. "We're gonna move you now. Inside. The light's coming--can you feel it?"

Mike knew nothing except the blood, the voices, and, faintly, his body. He tried to say so but couldn't remember how that worked.

Spike said, "You stay perfectly quiet. Don't want to get anything out of line. Got a door here, gonna slide it under, put you on it. We'll be as easy with you as we can."

Mike thought it was the sunrise. It felt like burning, like every cell in his body had ignited and gone incandescent.

When he next was aware, though, his body felt more solid, more definite. He could feel he had weight, and substance. So he guessed it hadn't been the sun after all.

He felt a touch, and knew the beloved ambience. "Dawn."

"I'm right here. In an hour or so, Spike will give you a feed, and that will help. And there's bagged on order. I'm not allowed."

She was close, smelling all sweetly like herself, with his mark upon her. So that was all right. He slept.

**********

In Buffy's opinion, three vampires in the house were several too many. But there was nothing to be done and no place, anymore, to spare since although the basement was pretty much spoken for, she hadn't yet vacated her bedroom (clothes, makeup, a mirror, etc.) and she was damned if she was gonna have Angel sleep in her room anyway, even on a mattress on the floor. But Angel pretty much had to stay because he was helping to feed Mike (who couldn't move or be moved) in the den.

Spike, arguing with Willow about access to the laptop, was in the bright kitchen where Buffy despaired of making breakfast--and Dawn was somnambulating here and there like a lost pup in the intervals she wasn't hovering over the invalid.

Standing in the hall, Buffy told Angel uncertainly, "You could sleep on the couch."

"I'll be all right."

"There's a mattress upstairs, I could drag it down...."

"Really. Don't bother. I can--"

The doorbell rang, and it was Rona with a cool box full of packaged blood. Buffy waved her toward the kitchen, where there were mugs and where used mugs could be set in the sink to soak to a less loathsome condition. Spike immediately exited to take his turn at feeding Mike and to avoid being in the same room as Angel. Spike made a point of giving Buffy a quick kiss in passing. Since punching him in the nose would only have made things worse and possibly given Angel the wrong impression, Buffy grimly just kept going.

Opening a packet and pouring its repulsive contents into a mug held at arm's length, Buffy commented over her shoulder, "Spike doesn't like it heated, says the microwave kills the flavor or something. Should I--"

Angel had his head lifted, sniffing. He frowned, or frowned more--it was hard to tell. "That's human."

"Yeah, from the blood bank." Sensing criticism, Buffy set down the mug to fold her arms. "We buy it, Angel. With money Spike earns, translating for the Council. Are you gonna make a thing about it?"

"Not a thing...." Angel looked uncomfortable. "It's just...I don't do human anymore."

"Fine." Buffy chased Rona back up the hall and caught her by the door. "One more stop. A couple gallons of pig, from the butcher. They take plastic, right?"

"I passed there on the way to the hospital," Rona responded, annoyed. "I could have picked it up then, if you'd told me."

"OK, so I lose efficiency points. Just do it, all right?"

"Is it for Mike? Because since when is he a second-class citizen around here? How come--?"

Buffy shut her eyes. "It's for Angel, all right? He doesn't do human."

"Yeah, I saw: the Generalissimo vamp's here. How come?"

Buffy sighed. "It's complicated."

"Is there an apocalypse, and nobody told us?"

Spike came out of the den, rolling down his sleeve. He noted the empty cool box dangling from Rona's hand, then looked inquiringly at Buffy. She said, "In the kitchen."

"Right."

Rona caught his arm, and he wheeled about and waited while the SIT inspected him. "Spike, you're more than a quart low. What's going on here?"

"Nothing you lot will have to mess with. Go on: do like the Slayer said."

"All right, but I'm telling Ken: we're part of the team, too!"

Spike's eyes went yellow under a heavier brow. "You or Ken show up here without you're called, you'll get pitched right out again."

Rona swung toward the door, responding, "We'll see about that!" She thumped the door behind her.

Everybody was making points.

Face falling back into human contours, Spike gave Buffy a Well, I tried look and continued slowly toward the kitchen. About halfway, he stopped and sagged against the staircase wall.

Half suspecting it was a ploy, Buffy went all the same. Instead of a mug, she filled a plastic pitcher and carried it back to Spike. Passing it over, she inquired tartly, "You need help holding it?" She was a little annoyed at his refusal to feed from her, considering she was there, and willing, and reportedly tasty, and it would have perked him right up again.

Spike just took the pitcher and began gulping, not even complaining about the lack of Froot-Loops or something crunchy to add the extra tang of the uber-disgusting.

Drifting by, Dawn asked him, "When's the last time you ran a downtown sweep?"

Looking puzzled and dim, Spike lowered the pitcher. He had a slight blood mustache, which Buffy considered too ick to mention. "Dunno, Bit. Few days, anyway. Why?"

"Not since we set out for Terminal Beach, right?"

"Maybe. Don't recall."

"Ahuh," Dawn replied in a knowing tone, twirling around the newel post, and went dancing up the stairs with both of them watching her go.

"What was that about?" Buffy asked.

"No clue, love." Spike raised the pitcher, then stopped, throwing a sharp glance upward. Some penny had dropped, but Buffy was distracted by the doorbell announcing Oz and a rumpled, unshaven, frazzled-looking Giles, who inquired plaintively, "Tea?"

"OK," Buffy called, loud enough to carry, "everybody out of the kitchen--now! I'm making breakfast!"

"Oh," said Giles, face falling, "must you?"

"Perkins," said Oz, turning and leading the way back down the steps.

Buffy gave a passing thought to all the fresh groceries (that did not include yummy maple syrup), then grabbed a jacket off the hall peg. "Dawn, Will! Perkins!"

**********

Left in sole custody of the laptop, Spike was compiling the components of a spell, squinting because he didn't want to try to locate his glasses in the disordered (as in everything shoved everyplace it didn't belong) den and he'd sooner be roasted on a spit than wear them where Angel could see anyway.

Angel was behind him, waiting for Rona's delivery of fucking pigs' blood, which Spike figured would be a nicely awkward thing to comment on while having another round of the good stuff, himself. Not that bagged blood compared to taking it hot from a live...well, he supposed the word had to be victim...much less to Slayer blood, which he wouldn't be pointing out until Mike was up and about and had no more need to tap the bloodline--better for healing than human because it strengthened the demon in making the body conform to the unchanging template. Wouldn't allow himself a taste of Buffy until then--not and pass it along. That was his.

So was Mike, but feeding an injured junior of the bloodline took precedence. Spike had limits: until half an hour ago, it'd probably been a week since he'd fed. (And how the hell had Bit twigged to his taking just a little, here and there, on his sweeps?) Although Spike grudged sharing that duty, he felt he had no option but to make Angel accept his responsibility as sire. Mike needed more than Spike had...and his true sire was available: eldest of the bloodline. Had to be realistic about such things.

The fact that he and Angel were uneasily allied over the seemingly unavoidable matter of Quor'toth didn't mean Spike wanted the brooding bastard to feel anything like at home here. Wouldn't provoke him to a fight, or laying down one of his damn geases again...but there were little, subtle things Spike could do to make plain that only the circumstances (and Buffy) made Angel welcome here. Spike didn't.

Shoulder propped against a cabinet, Angel was keeping carefully clear of the light spilling in through the kitchen window. It hadn't reached the kitchen island where Spike was sitting yet, but it would; Spike was looking forward to that moment.

"You ever used an athame?" he asked idly.

"Seen a few," Angel allowed. "Not worth much as a dagger. All fancy-schmancy decorations."

"Oh, that's the New Age Earth Mother crap, like they stock at the Magic Box. Not what I mean."

"Then what?"

Ignoring the question, keying a few notes in a drop-down comment box, Spike asked, "Ever make one?"

"Hell, no. What are you playing with crap like that for?"

"Not playing: researching. It's what I do now." Spike tried to keep his tone neutral, but some of the sour probably still came through. After all, it was Angel. They knew each other's nuances, ears tuned to every shading, every silence.

"Yeah. I heard. Took the Council's shilling."

"Something like. Far's it goes.... They get translations of stupid spells that don't work and some few that do, accounts of idiots that got in over their heads, called what they couldn't control, and like that. I get...access to the whole of the Watcher archive, or nearly. Got caught at it, but they can't limit what I can look at without buggering the whole deal, so I still have the best of it. For awhile, anyway....." Spike shut the drop-down box, carefully saved his notes, and pulled up another source he'd bookmarked--Mesopotamian, this time. Nasty alphabet. Cuneiform, like something algebraic. And the tenses were a bitch.

Never could tell when his access might be cut off. Had to collect everything he'd need right away--despite his head being all swimmy from letting Mike feed and a headache coming on besides from the eyestrain--in case that happened. Between the witch and Anya, and maybe the Watcher, he could probably fill in any gaps. Not as though any pre-made spell existed for what he meant to do anyway. Had to be intuition: what could be cobbled together with what, or what could be substituted for what, and not blow up in his face.

"So," Angel said disparagingly. "You're playing with magic now."

Spike granted himself a short glance. "Healed Dru, didn't I? Some other bits and bobs, over the years. Mostly can tell what works from the trash."

"An athame, that's what: associated with fire and air, right? Not a good combination for a vamp." By his voice, Angel had moved off, nearer the hall: retreating as the light advanced.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you," Spike responded agreeably. Turning, he slid off the chair, full into the blaze of harmless sunlight through the kitchen window of necro-tempered glass. And smiled.