It ended with a bang and a scream. Well a lot of screams - and a stench of burning flesh.

Spike stood over the now open manhole with a manic grin on his blackened face as he whooped with uncontained glee. He grinned feverishly down at his golden girl, his teeth a flash of startling white amongst the soot anointing his sharp features. He lifted Buffy above his head and twirled around in celebration, howling at the moon as he did.

"We bloody well did it!"

Buffy threw her head back and laughed, relief oozing from every pore of her body. They had done it - she was alive.

They'd thumbed their noses at the prophecy and won.

She was alive and Nest was dead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours earlier

"You get it sorted?" Spike ran a hand through his already rumpled hair and blinked tiredly at his visitor. He had been up to his ears in schematics and researching the rabbit warren tunnel system under Sunnydale. He was beginning to suspect that someone had built them with demons in mind. The tangled tunnels appeared to mimic the roads above ground, as well as adding more access points to places that only the demonic underworld were aware of. Spike had decided it was something he would investigate later on, once the crusty old head of his clan was dealt with. "Didn't expect it so fast." Spike nodded in approval as he rolled the last of the wooden barrels into his home.

"Yes, it's all here; I thought time was of the essence? Though I have to say, I am concerned about what you have planned - this Icenthgious water is exceptionally volatile." Giles eyed the two dozen barrels that they had lugged into Spike's apartment a few moments ago with unconcealed trepidation. He had made a command decision; the barrels were not staying in his apartment. They made him nervous and his insurance simply wouldn't cover any more mystical damage claims.

Giles looked over his shoulder with his heart in his throat. He didn't really want to know - but he had to. To his immeasurable relief there was no sign of his charge. The frazzled man relaxed. The Watcher had entertained several long moments of cold sweats and shivers over what he may witness in the vampire's apartment. He had wondered what he would do if he had arrived mid something it was best not to dwell on. But something in the vampire's eyes had fuelled his curiosity and Giles had immediately got onto creating the dangerous liquid as requested as soon as all the children had left for the night, so he could deliver it as soon as he could. He had even gone as far as waking Father Gregory and asking him to bless all of the barrels along with the water he used for a dilutant.

"Can't you put a shirt on or something?" Giles grumbled as he ducked his head and stared down at Spike's pale feet. "And some shoes before you scar me for life?" he muttered under his breath.

Spike arched a brow at him and ran a hand over his chest as he smirked at the obviously exhausted Watcher. "Why don't you get home and get some kip in before tonight?"

Giles ran a hand through his hair and nodded. "I think I will. We need to be as sharp as we can."

"Did you sign the Slayer out of school tomorrow?"

"I will, and I have asked also Principal Flutie to allow Ms Rosenburg to assist me in the library all day tomorrow."

"Eh?"

"Willow. I will need her to see if she can help me find a confinement spell strong enough to cover the entire area. I thought it maybe of twofold assistance, keeping both the targets confined as well as that," he admitted while he pointed at the barrels.

"Good thinking, mate, but get some shut eye first. You've already been heavy with the hocus pocus. Slayer'll need you in top form later on." Spike reached for the door, eager to get back to bed.

"Yes, Buffy – umm—" His unspoken question hung in the air between them, demanding a response.

"She's at home with her mum. Now bugger off, mate." Spike managed not to roll his eyes at the now flustered Watcher and ushered him out of the apartment. "Dirty old man. For shame," he added, unable to resist teasing.

"Yes...well," Giles stammered and shot out of the apartment as if Cerebus himself was slathering and nipping at his heels.

Spike shook his head and headed back to the dining table and the schematics that Red had printed off for him. Reaching for the fountain pen he'd been using before Giles had appeared, he began marking off access points to where he suspected Nest's lair was located. He and Buffy had planned to have a scout around once she'd gotten some beauty sleep. Spike ran his fingers through his curls and wondered if she was all snugly and cute in her bed and then smacked his forehead on the desk and groaned. 'Chivalry was for eunuchs...'

As he peered at the tunnel system layouts and scribbled furiously on the margins of the paper, his mind was filled with images of sparkling hazel eyes, full pouting lips and sensuous golden curves that his hands ached to trace.

Why was he waiting? Oh right, he wasn't a pervy old cradle snatcher. When the time was right and the Slayer was ready, only then.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Wakey wakey, cutie pie."

Spike snorted and rolled over, swatting irritably at the tickling sensation on the edge of his ear. "Geroff...bloke needs his beauty sleep." He ignored the giggles and curled back around the pillow he was clutching and let out a happy little snore. Then he sighed contentedly as a soft mouth brushed over the tip of his nose and kissed his partially open lips before pulling back with a sharp breathy gasp.

"Ohhhh, you liar! You said you don't snore!"

"I don't bloody snore," Spike growled. He lunged for his tormentor and pulled her into the bed and began to kiss her senseless. "I breathe heavily. Come 'ere, I need another kiss."

"Mmmm...Spike," Buffy purred happily as she kissed her sleepy vamp awake. Her tongue curled around his and toyed sensuously with it. Her hands snuck over his torso mapping the hard curves, her fingers toying with his abs happily as she snuck another kiss or two.

"You smell of sweetness and sin," Spike whispered against her throat as he pressed a sucking kiss against the golden skin. He smiled as he felt her pulse flutter under his lips and laved the area lovingly. Buffy giggled again and pulled him closer, her arms and legs wrapping around his drowsy form as she let him ghost his lips over the tops of her full breasts.

"Spike," she sighed against the top of his head as she pressed her cheek against the soft curls. "I brought coffee and food. Mom sent it over. I think she baked!" Buffy frowned. "I think she likes you, which is of the weird cos she never liked anyone else I dated in L.A."

"Grub? And of course she likes me, what's not to like?" Spike rolled off his couch with a cocky smirk and headed over to the food parcels. Buffy sat back and admired the view. His tight backside was outlined by the low riding grey sweats he was wearing. She licked her lips at the sight of the muscles in his back flexing as he sauntered towards the steaming covered cups; he was liquid sin on legs...and all hers.

"Your mum's a saint. St. Delia of Sunnyhell," he moaned as he devoured the first of several still warm muffins.

"Delia? Who?"

Spike watched the cute frown line appear between her eyebrows and shook his head. "Sorry, wrong Continent. She's a cook in the UK."

"Any good?"

"Well, she can boil an egg...and supports the footy. Owns her own team in the Premiership."

"And all I hear is egg, yada yada – blah, blah, blah." Buffy grinned as she stood, ignoring the muffled expletives as she stole a bite from his muffin and danced out of his way.

"Oi, mine."

"Here you go, you big baby." She handed him another and then collapsed down at the table and began scanning the papers. Her sharp eyes missed nothing as she shuffled through the layouts, tapping her finger here and there on the heavy black marks he'd added earlier. "So you think these barriers will contain it?"

Spike scrubbed a hand through his hair and padded over to the dining table and leant against it as he sipped on a cup of coffee. "Yeah, as long as the Watcher can hold up his end we should be able to work it."

Buffy eyed the semi naked vampire, trying hard not to focus on the curls, the abs of steel and the cute barefooted image he was working on and failed miserably. She reached over and trailed her fingers over his side, and watched in amazement as he squirmed away and repressed what sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

"So you up for a bit of sneaking around in the sewers with me?" Spike cleared his throat of the squeak and cocked his head at his girl who was eyeing his sides with a predatory look that made his skin tighten in anticipation of an attack.

"Huh?"

"Sewers, crusty old vamp - reconnaissance? Remember?"

"Yeah, but you need shoes for that." Buffy mentally slapped herself, wondering where the idiot bimbo impersonation came from? God she'd only touched his skin, skin that was sooo soft and the muscles were just so lickable and gahh.

"You alright, pet?" Spike smirked. 'Oh yeah, I've still got it...'

Buffy flapped her hands at him and blushed beet red. "Go dress and then we can do the icky stuff. Have you got a gas mask around here?" she added hopefully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Can you see anything?"

"Shhh, I'm trying to listen," Spike hissed over his shoulder at Buffy.

"What can you see? Is it them? Can you see your Great-Great-Great Grandpappy? How many greats away is he anyway? Is he ugly or cute?" she whispered. "Ohhh, hey. You never told me how old you really are. Are you like ancient?"

"Seriously, love, I appreciate that you're nervous, the Dadaesque babbling is cute and all, but we are in enemy territory and you might witter on long enough for them to find us, eat you and dust me. So, shhhh love." Spike reached behind him and blindly ran his hand over her pouting mouth in a tender gesture that put stars in her eyes.

"Kay," she whispered and then went quiet. Contenting herself on keeping watch over their backs and trying to ignore the last time she'd been down here. Buffy gulped back the throb of regret in her throat. Jesse. Her first failure here in Sunnydale, the tall goofy guy had been a possible friend until he was vamped and Xander had dusted him. It still ached a bit when she thought about him, or when she saw that devastated faraway look in Xander's eyes.

"Come on, we need to move closer." Spike took her hand and pulled her forward to the next junction and then stalled. He heard a scrabbling noise, the sound of leather on cement; cocking his head he waited for another sign that they weren't alone. Nothing came echoing down the dank tunnels, so he relaxed a fraction and shifted his weight to peer around the corner.

"Any of this look familiar?" he whispered.

Buffy tore her eyes away from the door that had been peeled away from its frame. The same door Jesse had torn his way into, the same door that she and Xander had slammed shut. 'God, nothing's changed.'

"Slayer? You okay?"

"Yeah, sorry, kinda phased there. This is it. That's the place Xander and I climbed out of to get away from the Master's minions." She pointed to the utility room with a shudder. "Did you hear something just then?"

He peeked around the corner, trying to spot the direction the faint sound of conversation was coming from. They were close to the lair and he wanted to make sure that the vamps hadn't created any boltholes that weren't on the schematics he'd spent most of the night poring over.

"Can you see anything? Spike, how much longer? Cos kinda erring on the side of ewww here."

He growled under his breath and whipped around to face Buffy. She stood with her index finger extended - the same finger that had been poking him insistently in the small of his back all the time she had been nagging. She whipped her hand behind her back and stared innocently back at him. "What?" she whispered.

"Put it away, Miss Proddy, or I'll bite it off!" Spike frowned down at the picture of slayerly innocence she was portraying—well trying to portray and failing badly at it. His lips curled up in a soft smile; she really was adorable and all his if he had any say in it.

"Hey!" Buffy's eyes widened in shock. "Don't!" she exclaimed angrily and pulled out a stake from her waistband and waved it menacingly at Spike. He reeled back in surprised shock and held his hands out defensively. Buffy rolled her eyes at him. "No not you, hi..."

"Wot? I was bloody joking, ow -" Spike staggered sideways, seeing stars and not the ones he'd seen in her eyes earlier. Spike fell to his knees with a groan as pain radiated down his spine from his skull. He tried to balance himself on one hand as he lashed out defensively backwards with one leg and kicked his attacker hard in the balls.

"Rude much," Buffy snarled and leapt forward and staked the vampire who had bashed Spike over the head with a club. She then whirled into action and started to fight off the three other vamps that had appeared out of the side tunnel. "Spike, get up. You need to get up now!" she shrieked as she pulled the skinny, spotty faced fledgling off Spike's back and threw him over her shoulder. He went down with a howl and took the other two down as well, who then kicked him repeatedly before they left him for dead, intent on the small blonde fighter behind them.

"Right." Spike shook his head and staggered to his feet, eyeing the three sets of vampire twins who his slayer was fighting off with varying degrees of success. "Christ on a pogo stick!" He reached out and steadied himself on the pipes that ran the length of one wall and tried to anchor himself as the world shifted and spun out of control. Raising his other hand, he managed to stake one of the spotty teenaged twins and then blinked when their opponents narrowed down to four. "Bloody head."

Buffy grasped the arm wrapped around her throat, dug her nails in hard and gouged downwards as best she could. At the same time she threw her head back in a reverse Geordie and nailed her attacker on the nose. He howled as the bone shattered and blood gushed down his face and soaked his shirt. Taking advantage of his disorientation, Buffy let her body go limp and slithered out from under her captor's arm. She twisted on the balls of her feet and reached up with her stake, unerringly finding his heart. Coughing and spluttering she stood and faced the last of the vamps; he was standing over Spike's supine body shouting, anger cloaking his words and actions with a darkness she had never experienced before. Buffy let out a small sound of distress at the sight of Spike's vulnerable body slumped against the wall and reached for her last stake.

"Filthy villainous traitor! If you weren't already damned, you are now! Fighting with the slayer and not against it. That's disgusting, and what's worse, you have Slayer breath. I can smell it from here. Just wait till I..." He burst into dust to reveal a very determined Buffy who reached through the glimmering motes and yanked Spike to his feet. "God, rude much? You okay, sweetie?"

"Where did they all go?" Spike tried to uncross his eyes and failed miserably. "Watch out love," he bent over and vomited blood up all over her sneakers with a pathetic moan and an all over body shiver.

"Ick! You gonna be okay?" She ran her fingers through his blood-soaked hair, searching for the lump.

"Yeaowwww!" Spike slapped her hand away and curled his own protectively over his much abused scalp.

"Poor baby, come here." She reached out and pulled him against her stomach and gently stroked his shoulders. Spike snuggled against her soft belly and let himself be cosseted for a sinfully delicious moment. Sighing happily, he waited for the metaphorical stars spinning around his head to disappear, along with the throbbing.

"Wanker hit me on the noggin," he whined and wrapped his arms around her, giving her backside a nice squeeze with both hands.

"That he did, Spike, but bonus points for Buffy; I dusted him for you." She petted the nape of his neck, her eyes scanning the sewers for intruders. But the only thing interrupting them was the steady sound of water dripping down the walls and her breathing.

He sighed again. Slowly everything focused back to normal and the double vision vanished along with the nausea. "You get 'em all?"

"Dusted. Come on, let's have a snoop around and get out of here before anything else finds us." Buffy helped him up and tucked his arm through hers as they ghosted off into the shadows.

Both hunters on high alert after their ambush.

"Damn, I ruined my manicure."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why the hell do I get paired with him?" Cordelia jerked a thumb in Xander's direction and frowned at Giles. She wrinkled her nose at Xander when he grumbled a bad tempered 'hey' at her and carried on whittling stakes, muttering under his breath about how he didn't want her around beating the crap outta him anyway. "All he does is whine and then gets knocked over and trampled by demons."

"Because he is the only one left," Giles answered mildly as he leant over Willow's shoulder and corrected the spelling of one of the words of the spell. He rather doubted that the end result of the incantation was pink ferrets wearing kaftans. "Willow, you need to crosscheck your Sumerian translations here and here." He tapped the sheet of paper in the appropriate places. "Otherwise the spell will go drastically wrong. When we get back from this you and I will have to have some lessons on working through spells to ensure there are no consequences of an extremely unfortunate kind."

Willow gulped and turned pink. Ducking her head she focused on the sheets of paper and began to re-write the spell, making sure there were no errors. "Sorry, Giles." She was so embarrassed about getting something wrong, it was just not done. Mentally promising herself to recheck everything over and over before handing it to Mr Giles, she didn't want anything to go kerbluey. Not when she could fix it before it happened.

"Where are they?" Giles sank down in a chair and wondered if he could get away with a nice cuppa laced heavily with brandy without the children noticing. He rubbed a hand over the worn cover of the Arbus Incanthusi and wondered if he were doing the right thing encouraging them. They should cling to their innocence for as long as possible, although admittedly Cordelia's horrendous situation precluded her from that.

But the other two...

Willow and Xander, both of them so innocent and unworldly, and yet they were here determined to make a difference despite the odds. He wished he could protect them from everything that went bump in the night, but it was already a done deal. They were both involved and he hoped that they would survive the coming years intact and unaffected by everything they would see and experience.

Wishful thinking he knew, but he could only hope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Is that where he's stuck?" Buffy whispered and tucked herself against Spike's side, drawing strength from him.

Spike nodded and then pulled her back. "Come on, I've seen enough."

"Thank god, cos you know Buffy served up on a platter for crinkly old vamp guy is sooo not how I wanted to spend my afternoon." Buffy retreated quickly, letting Spike take the rear guard as she scrambled over some debris and out into the main sewer.

"Me either. Come on, lets get back to the others." Spike closed his mouth and tried not to inhale too much of the familial scent that filled the area. Both Angelus and Darla's scents were stale, but the other was stronger and ever present. He'd not had the misfortune of meeting the bat faced head of the clan, but he'd heard enough from Darla about him. Though Spike doubted knowing about the size of his cock and the old man's stamina would be of much help today. He shook his head and laughed at the imagined expression on Rupes face if he brought that up. Spike moaned and clutched his head; the action had started the throbbing again. He still couldn't believe an acne faced fledge had gotten the drop on him. One of the Master's own get as well, which brought him right back to the wanker and Darla's reminiscing. He shuddered at the memory of Darla holding a marrow up and waxing lyrical about her Daddy's being bigger and better than any of her old customers or Angelus's. 'Then again, it'd have to be if she felt anything, horrid old slapper that she was.'

Buffy frowned as she heard a pathetic sound erupt from Spike's lips. "What's with the whimpering?" Buffy hissed as she started to climb a ladder and head for the manhole.

"My head."

"We'll get some blood in you and it'll feel better, don't worry." She scrambled out into the basement of the local YMCA and then reached down and pulled Spike out. "Come on, lets have a look in the light. Oh my god!"

"What?" Spike spun around, looking behind him.

"God, the blood, it's everywhere and you have like a huoooge gash in your head." Buffy reached for his shoulder and pushed him over in the direction of the bathrooms. "Does vamp hair grow back?" She suppressed the grin that threatened to erupt across her face. Unable to resist teasing him a teeny tiny bit, she clamped her hand over her mouth and widened her eyes in mock horror.

"What!" Spike nearly wept at the sound of his girlish exclamation as his fingers prodded gingerly around the cut.

Buffy suppressed a giggle at his reaction. "Maybe a beret? Ohhh I know! A toupee, do you think they make them in that 'I just got hit by a bucket of bleach' look?" Buffy giggled as he ran to the mirror and then slithered to a halt, remembering he was a vamp and ergo, no reflection.

"I need a camera now!" he whined.

"Chill. Jeez, you're such a baby. I was kidding -- it's fixable. But seriously, will your hair grow back? Cos the Friar Tuck look? Kinda not sexy—eep..." Buffy squeaked as she was grabbed by a worried vampire and shaken then kissed hard and fast. She made a mental note that teasing Spike was good, but the kissage was even better—the perfect yum.

'Rotten minx, attacking a bloke's weak spot.' He chuckled against her lips. But he let it pass, knowing all too well she was worried about the prophecy and the events planned for the evening. He could shoulder her teases if it meant the haunted look of worry was absent from her gorgeous eyes for even the briefest of moments. Spike pulled his fingers away and stared down at the crimson stickiness that clotted on his digits. He managed to refrain from licking them clean, knowing all too well if he did then he could kiss goodbye to her lips for a long time. Instead, he wiped them on the front of his already saturated t-shirt and then held out his hand for her. "Come on, we need to get back. We've only another hour until dusk and we need to be in position."

Buffy's face darkened and determination settled on her smiling lips. With a brief nod she took his proffered hand.

"We better get back, I don't want to leave Cordy alone too long with Xander. She might kick him in the balls – again."