Title: Past Glory
Author:  Sandy <sp23twop@yahoo.com>
Rating:  NC-17
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Spoilers:  S5 up to Tough Love, AU after that although elements of S6
will appear throughout the story.
Disclaimer:  Alas, not mine, I just borrow them occasionally
Feedback:  Gives me the warm fuzzies
A/N:  For the purposes of this story, the Knights of Byzamtium,
although suspecting that the Slayer is protecting the Key are not
aware that Dawn is the Key.


Chapter 21

"What the hell is this, Finn?  A set-up?"

"No set-up, Spike.  Or should I call you Doctor?"

"Why the hell should you call me Doctor?"  Turning to a quiet Buffy
he said, "Love, you've got to believe me, I have nothing to do with
this.  I didn't know these things were here."  When she still just
stood there quietly, not answering him, not looking at him, just
staring at the eggs with a deep frown on her face, he cried out
desperately, "Buffy, please!  Do you think I'd let something like
this come near to you?  Near the Bit?  She comes here too, you know,
after school sometimes.  I'd never let anything hurt her, you know
that."  He grabbed her shoulders and swung her around to face him.
"Buffy, please."

Buffy blinked as if coming out of a trance.  "Huh? What?"  Seeing the
panicked look on Spike's face, she scowled and said, "Oh for god's
sake, Spike, calm down.  I know you aren't involved in this."
Turning to Riley she said, "Tell me everything you know about this
arms dealer."

"Ask Spike about him while I call in my team.  We'll move these eggs
out of here."  He was starting to speak into his communications
device when she pulled it out of his hand and clicked it off.  At his
surprised look, she said, "Don't take this the wrong way, Riley, but
there's no way I'm allowing you or anyone else to take these things
out of here whole."

"What?"

"It's not that I don't trust you, Riley.  I just don't trust the
people you work for.  We destroy these things, then your men can come
in and clean up the mess while we track down your arms dealer."

He stared at her in shock.  "You think we'd use those things?"

"You wouldn't.  Your bosses?  Not so sure.  So I'm not taking any
chances.  We scramble the eggs and then we go hunting."

"I can't do that, Buffy.  My orders are specific.  Retrieve the
Suvolte and its eggs and arrest the Doctor."

"Oh.  Okay."

Just as Riley relaxed a bit, Buffy kicked out and caught him in the
stomach.  As he doubled over, she wrenched his rifle off his shoulder
tossing it to Spike.  A sweeping leg kick, and Riley was down.
"Destroy the eggs, Spike, while I keep an eye on Agent Finn."

Spike smirked at his fallen rival, turned his attention to the eggs
and methodically destroyed each egg in turn.  Buffy covered her ears
to protect them from the sound of the reverberations of the rifle
fire but her eyes never left Riley.  When Spike finally stopped
firing, she looked over at a gross mess consisting of broken
eggshells and dead half-developed embryos liberally coated with
sticky albumen.  "Good job," she said drily.

"My pleasure, love," Spike grinned handing her back the rifle.  Riley
had gotten shakily to his feet and she returned his gun to him.

"I'm sorry, Riley, but you gave me no choice.  I'll never again trust
the people you work for.  Never.  Now call in your men to clean up
this mess for us.  They can take the goop to your superiors.  Then we
can track down and kill the Suvolte."

"This was unnecessary, Buffy," Riley said angrily.  "If we wanted a
Suvolte or its eggs we could get all we wanted in Belize."

"Maybe.  Maybe not.  I'm just making sure that no one gets these eggs
or this Suvolte."

Riley stared at the destroyed eggs and then switched the communicator
back on.  As he was talking to one of his men, Spike pulled Buffy
some distance off.  "Thank you, love."

"What for?"

"For not believing I had anything to do with those eggs being here."

Buffy looked at him with a serious expression.  "Do you love me,
Spike?"

"You know I do."

"Did you make me a promise not so long ago?  About being the man I
deserve?"

"I did."

"That's why I knew you didn't have anything to do with those eggs.
Oh, and there's one more thing."  Caressing his face with one hand
she added, "I believe I said something to you just a little while
ago.  I trust you, Spike."

Spike pulled her into his arms, his face going immediately to the
juncture of her neck and shoulder.  Riley had been watching the
interplay between the two and even though he couldn't hear what they
said, the tender caresses and facial expressions made it pretty
evident that Buffy was reassuring Spike.  Riley's hand fisted at his
side and it was all he could do to keep from grabbing his stake again
and lunging at the vampire.  He couldn't believe his fears about her
had turned out to be justified.  It was clear to him now that a
regular human man stood no chance with her.  And the fact that it was
Spike she'd turned to sickened him.  He'd been wise to leave town
when he had.  Unable to stand looking at the embrace any longer he
stepped forward to interrupt.

"We have a bead on the Suvolte.  It's heading towards the Sunnydale
Hydroelectric Dam.  I've ordered my men here to clean up the mess and
retrieve the egg fragments while we go after the demon."

"I hope you told your men I prefer a lemony fresh scent instead of
pine."

Riley just glared at Spike and moved off.  Buffy rolled her eyes,
shook her head and followed.  Spike smirked and brought up the rear.
They followed Riley's tracking scanner to the bottom of the dam where
it indicated the demon was located.  They were just getting ready to
begin a search of the darkened recesses when another Kevlar-clad body
rappelled down to the dam floor.  Buffy watched the soldier with
suspicion and glanced to the top of the dam half expecting to see
Riley's entire unit.  If he had double-crossed her, she'd be hard put
to fight off the entire unit and Spike would be unable to help.  But
it appeared the soldier was alone.  And then she spoke.  "Everything
all right here, Riley?"

"The tracker indicates the Suvolte's here.  We were just getting
ready to do a sweep.  Did you bring the containment van?"

"Just as you ordered."

"A containment van?  There won't be anything to contain," Buffy
remarked.

"So Riley said, but it's the only thing we have that'll be big enough
to haul the body away."

Buffy was looking at the female soldier curiously.  This was a
surprise.  She hadn't expected any women to be on Riley's special ops
squad.  She well remembered feeling unwelcome while playing on The
Initiative's all boys' team.  And she was surprised with the easy
familiarity with which the soldier spoke to Riley.  The woman turned
to her and smiled.

"Hi, you must be Buffy.  My husband's told me some very interesting
things about you."

"Your husband?"

The woman turned to Riley with a mock glare.  "You didn't tell her
you were married?"

Buffy's mouth dropped open.  "You two are married?"

The woman turned back to her with a friendly smile.  "Yes, almost
four months now.  You'd think it was still recent enough that he'd be
able to remember it, wouldn't you?" she teased.  "My name's Sam by
the way, " she added holding out her hand to Buffy.  Buffy shook it
weakly.

"Well, well, well," Spike drawled.  "That's interestin' news.  I take
it you two haven't known each other very long?"

She looked curiously at Spike.  "Since I joined his outfit in Belize
a little over seven months ago."  She smiled warmly at her husband.
"I guess you could say he swept me off my feet."

Spike arched his scarred eyebrow at Riley.  "Good goin', mate.  Get
her locked in before she really gets to know you.  Smart move."

"Spike, shut up," Buffy said a little irritably.

"Sorry, Sam," Riley said, ignoring Spike altogether.  "I hadn't had
the time yet to mention it."  Walking over to his wife, he relieved
her of the equipment she'd hauled down with her and laid in on the
ground.  "Okay everyone let's fan out and flush out our demon.  We
still have a bad guy to find.  Or at least identify."  The last was
said with a sharp look to Spike.

"Ponce," Spike muttered, but he began to search.  As Riley reached a
doorway, the demon attacked, knocking Riley to the ground and leaping
on him.  Spike, who was nearest, hesitated only a second and then ran
to throw the demon away from Riley.  Buffy arrived and kicked out at
it as it rose to its feet knocking it several feet away.
Unfortunately Sam had been running towards the fray and Buffy
inadvertently kicked the demon into her.  They slammed into the wall
of the dam and the demon was able to grab hold of Sam and pull her
towards it.  It growled and opened its jaws wide displaying a
mouthful of long, sharp teeth.

"Sam!" Riley called out in fear and scrambled to retrieve the rifle
that had been lost in his own scuffle but Buffy and Spike were
already there.  Buffy grabbed hold of its head while Spike grasped an
arm, twisting its grip loose from Sam.  The sound of a neck snapping
was followed by a squeal of pain from the demon. When Buffy let go it
tumbled to the ground, dead.

Riley checked that his wife was unharmed and then gathered up the
equipment she'd brought with her. Hooking it up to the demon he said
to her, "We'll get this thing topside and safely stowed away and then
you can drive it to the rendezvous point.  Buffy and I are going to
try to track down the arms dealer."

The four climbed back out of the dam and hauled the demon up.  Buffy
and Spike carried it to the containment van and dumped it in.

"It was nice to finally meet you, Buffy," Sam told her.  "And thanks,
both of you," she added nodding to Spike, "for saving my life."

"Yeah, you're welcome," Spike answered nonchalantly, lighting up a
smoke.  Seemed Mrs. Captain Cardboard had better manners than the
Captain did at least.

They watched as Sam drove away and then Buffy asked Riley, "Okay, any
idea where we can find this Doctor of yours?"

"Spike?  You have any thoughts on it?" Riley challenged Spike.

"Oh for the love of... Look, I don't know any Doctor.  Never heard of
the blo..."

"Spike?"

"Well," Spike said, suddenly uncomfortable.  "I don't know of any
Doctor, but there is a guy, or demon, not sure which he is really.
Smells funny, I do know that, Course that could be cause he's so old
he just has old person smell.  Still..."

"Spike!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry.  Okay, there's this guy, goes by the name of Doc,
but I'm pretty sure he's not who you're lookin' for, Finn, 'cause I
think he's only interested in magic and such.  Knows a lot about a
lot, if you know what I mean.  No, now that I think about it, he's
not your guy.  So sorry, no, don't know anyone."

"Where's this Doc at, Spike," Buffy asked.

"Look, I really don't think..."

"Nobody cares what you think, Spike.  Just take us to him and I'll
determine if he's the guy we're looking for," Riley said officiously.

Riley and Buffy started heading for the SUV.  Spike hesitated but had
no choice other than to follow.  Bugger!  He had a bad feeling about
this.

Spike gave them directions to Doc's place and they drove there
immediately.  He hung back as Riley pounded on the old man's door.
When it opened, Doc looked at his visitors with surprise.

"My, what unexpected callers.  A former Initiative soldier, the
Slayer and, don't I know you?"

"No, wasn't me, some other guy," Spike answered quickly.

"No, no, it was you, I remember now.  You brought that pretty little
girl here.  How is she?  Did that spell work out for her?"

Buffy looked at Spike with narrowed eyes.  "What pretty little girl?"

"Why I believe she was your sister," Doc answered, an innocent
expression on his face.  "Didn't she tell you?  Our vampire friend
brought her here oh nine months or so back, wanted help with a
resurrection spell.  So tell me, did it work?  Did you get your
mother back?"

Buffy rounded on Spike furiously.  "You brought my little sister here
to help her raise my mother from the dead?!"

"Buffy, look I can explain."

"There is no explanation, Spike!  God, I just cannot believe you'd do
something so incredibility stupid!  And cruel."  Tears welled in
Buffy's eyes.

"Buffy, love, please.  Let me explain."

"Shut up, Spike!  Not another word out of you."  Turning her back on
him she leveled icy eyes on Doc.  "And you.  You helped her?  Told
her what to do to perform that spell?"

Doc shrugged, not intimidated by the Slayer's fury.  "People come to
me for help.  I give it.  I warned her of the perils, but she
insisted."

"Buffy," Riley said softly.  "I don't know what this is about, but we
need to question him about why we came here, okay?"

"You can do whatever you need to, Riley," Buffy answered flatly.

Nodding, Riley turned to the old man.  "We're looking for a man that
goes by the name The Doctor.  That you?"

"No, I go by the name Doc.  Just Doc."

"Uh huh.  You know anything about a Suvolte being lured here to
Sunnydale?"

Doc looked at him with large round eyes peering out from behind his
thick glasses.  "A Suvolte?  Oh, no.  Those creatures are extremely
dangerous, you know."

"I know," Riley said.  "You know anything about someone wanting to
buy Suvolte eggs?"

"No.  Now the Ghora demon's eggs, you remember the Ghora, don't you,
young man?" he added as an aside to the dejected looking Spike, "they
have a practical use in resurrection spells.  I don't know of any
spell that would require a Suvolte demon's egg."

"Not for spells, to hatch and use as a weapon."

"Oh no, surely not.  They're too unpredictable, as likely to turn and
devour you as your enemy.  No, sorry, I know nothing of that."

"Then you won't mind if we search your apartment."

"Well yes I do, but as you are the ones armed, I doubt my protests
will stop you."

"And you'd be correct," Riley stated firmly.  "Buffy, let's toss the
place and see if we come up with anything regarding the demon, its
eggs or a contract for sale."  He completely ignored Spike who just
stood by the door, neither moving nor talking.

Spike had been afraid something like with would happen as soon as
he'd slipped up and let Buffy see he knew something.  He only hoped
that once Buffy calmed down, she'd give him the opportunity to...
what?  Explain how he'd brought her little sister to a creepy wizard
for help in bringing her mum back from the dead and then ended up
nearly getting her killed by taking her into the nest of the Ghora
demon?  As he watched Buffy and Riley search the apartment, he was
afraid that act, thoughtlessly done but with the best intentions so
long ago, may have cost him Buffy's affections.

tbc...