shipperx | Arriving Somewhere Not Here

TITLE: Arriving Somewhere, Not Here
RATING: R
PAIRING: Spike/Buffy
ENSEMBLE: Lindsey, Dawn, Eve, and Others
DISCLAIMER: We all know that they aren't mine. They belong to Joss. Consider me disclaimed.

SUMMARY: In the year 2021, the world has gone to hell. When Spike assists a Watcher on a quest to retrieve a stolen artifact, he crosses paths with Buffy for the first time since "Chosen."

Post-"Not Fade Away"

Previous: Chapter 1

CHAPTER 2

Spike whipped his head around to glare at Berris. “Dawn is the ‘gadget’ you’re missing?”

Berris paled but he must have found his courage because, after a moment, he straightened his shoulders and looked defiant. “It’s all that you needed to know.”

Spike’s brows shot upward then he rolled his head and clenched his jaw. “Of course.”

“You knew we were looking for something.”

“But not someone,” Spike said. “Not Dawn.” His voice thundered with emotion that caused Buffy to glance away and blink until her eyes stopped stinging.

Berris half-shook his head. “I don’t see where a mercenary—“

“Bounty hunter,” Spike said.

The stranger in the corner that Buffy had noticed but hadn’t recognized laughed as he scraped the sole of his cowboy boot against the collapsed stair, removing a clot of blue-green demon goo.

“What?” Spike demanded in an infuriated tone.

“Come on!” the man said. “You’ve gotta recognize the irony of a ‘bounty hunter’ with a price on his head.”

With a blur of speed, Spike slammed the man into the wall. “Where is she, Lindsey?”

Lindsey shrugged.

Spike slipped into game face. “Asking again. Last time.”

“Or what? “ Lindsey asked. “You’ll kill me? Did you forget that the doomed-but-doing-it-anyway hero-squad already did that?”

“You’re in one piece,” Spike said. “Could rip you into bits so small not even Wolfram and Hart could put you together again.”

“Do it. I dare you. ” Lindsey practically spat out the words. “In fact, I beg you. Because, if you think death threats work on someone enslaved to demonic hellmasters, you’re kidding yourself.“

Spike shoved the guy away.

Lindsey glared after him. “That’s what I tho– nnnugh.”

It was Buffy’s turn to slam Lindsey into the wall. “We’re not done,” she said.

Lindsey glanced at Spike. “Violent and not too bright. Just your type.”

Buffy turned on her heel to grab Spike's katana and snapped it up with a whisper-soft whoosh until she held blade to Lindsey’s throat. “I haven’t heard the answer to Spike’s question.”

Lindsey looked amused. “What part of ‘can’t kill me’ don’t you understand?”

Buffy lowered the sword until it hovered over his crotch. “Bet there are parts you don’t want to be caught dead or alive without.”

Lindsey swallowed. “And now I understand what attracted Angel.”

Spike stooped and nudged the corpse of the decapitated Treslegate, releasing a nausea inducing scent that made Berris’s eyes bulge before he turned and vomited. "Dead for good this time," Spike said before he stood and circled Lindsey. “So I’m guessing you’re fresh out of henchmen.” When Spike stopped moving, his stillness became more disturbing than his pacing had been. “What have your bosses done to Bit?”

Lindsey laughed. “Newsflash, Einstein. The Senior Partners don’t need a Key that destroys the world. They own the world. They make a nice profit exploiting it. Hell, they enjoy just fucking it up. They’re in no hurry to end it.”

Buffy felt sick. If Lindsey didn’t have an answer... If Lindsey didn’t know where he sister was…

What if Dawn was dead?

Buffy tried to push the thought away, but it kept creeping back, hollowing a place inside her. She tried to reassure herself with facts that she knew, but the problem was that she didn’t know anything. All she had were fitful voice and text messages left by Dawn’s boyfriend, Berris, and the details were sketchy.

Buffy had been in San Francisco, passing through after months in the Cascade Mountains helping a resistance group fight the Brethren of Kreeyell, when her cell phone had begun buzzing. She’d searched her pockets and then her backpack for the half-forgotten phone but had found it too late. She’d missed the call and had been faced with a flashing screen that said she had messages.

She’d blinked. Buffy hadn’t known that she could receive messages. A Watcher had once given her a solar charger and had created a ‘universal connection’ that hacked into demonic communication networks. And she had used the phone from time to time when there had been opportunities, but shouldn’t a voice mailbox require a calling plan with Evil ‘R’ Us?

Somehow that question hadn’t crossed her mind at that moment. There had been no sense of foreboding as she had redialed the phone. She hadn’t thought to be frightened, hadn’t thought that if someone had gone to the trouble to leave a message, had gone to the trouble to find (to make?) a way to leave a message, that the news could not be good. Instead, she had seen that the number was Dawn’s and had squirmed with guilt, aware that it had been six months since she had spoken to her sister.

Excuses had leapt to mind. She’d been in the mountains. She’d been out of range. There had been trouble, and she’d been busy. All of it had been true, and all of it had fallen to dust when, instead of Dawn’s voice on the other end of the line, she had heard Berris.

He’d said, “She’s gone.” And an invisible hand had clutched Buffy’s heart until a red haze had clouded her vision.

What did he mean ‘gone’?

The recording had given his voice a hollow, haunting quality. “The flat was ransacked. They took her. I’m sorry. I have to find her.” And he’d hung up, leaving a computerized voice to give the time and date of the call.

The message had been two months old.

Buffy had cursed and had hit speed-dial. Pick up the phone, she’d thought. Dawnie, please. Please, pick up the phone.

When she’d heard ringing on the other end of the line, Buffy had half-convinced herself that there was no reason to panic. Her sister would be home by now. She would be safe. But the call had gone unanswered, no ‘leave your message after the tone’, not even a ‘voice mailbox full’, just ringing that had remained impervious to both prayers and curses.

Buffy had stumbled, then had knelt in the tall, damp grass, ignoring the way that the muddy field had squished beneath her, staining her jeans as she had dialed and redialed the phone.

But the results had never varied. No one had ever answered.

A gull had cried overhead as Buffy had stared half-blind at the ruin of the Golden Gate Bridge, its ladder-like towers having become broken sentinels, detached from one another since the “Big One” had destroyed the expanse of the bridge. As the afternoon light had waned, wispy clouds had turned a deep, ominous gray that had thundered before releasing a slow, relentless rain.

As Buffy had sat wet and miserable, she’d been overwhelmed by a sudden, aching need for her sister. With a shaking hand, she had scrolled through the ‘received call’ list and steeled herself to listen to the rest of her messages. She’d held breath at the start of each one, fearing that this would be where Berris told her that her sister was dead.

“I’m going to Glasgow,” he’d said in the first one.

How far was Glasgow from Edinburgh? Buffy hadn’t known. She’d never been there, even though Dawn had lived in Scotland for years.

At Xander’s wedding, Dawn had announced, “I’m going to be a Watcher.” And, when Giles had chosen strategic retreat, relocating the Watcher’s Council to Edinburgh, Dawn had followed. Everything had been on the Slip-N-Slide to hell by then, causing Buffy to convince herself that ‘anywhere but here’ had to be an improvement, so she had encouraged her sister to go. Not long afterwards, Berris’s name had begun popping up in Dawn’s letters and phone calls. The call that stood out in Buffy’s memory was when Dawn had asked, “Do you think I’m in love with him?”

Buffy had rolled her eyes and had wondered how she was supposed to know. Oh yes, several phone calls and a dozen or so letters and she was fully qualified to deconstruct her sister’s love-life despite her own being a disaster.

“Oh God, I think I’m in love with him.” Dawn had sounded panicked. “What if I’m in love with him?”

“He sounds nice,” Buffy had said. It was all that she could offer. “Nerdy but nice.” Realizing that she had insulted her sister’s boyfriend, she’d added, “And in his pictures he looks surprisingly fit.”

“But he’s Mr. Organization, and I’m messy kitchens and ‘Look! I made jalapeno anchovy pizza surprise for dinner’,” Dawn had said. “Don’t laugh. I did that last week just to watch him wig out.” She’d groaned. “Something must be wrong with me.”

But for all of Dawn’s professed romantic misery, happiness had sparkled in her voice like sunlight on a breeze-rippled bay, and that had been good. Happiness was rare these days, and Buffy had been glad that her sister had found some of it.

But Dawn had disappeared.

No, she had been taken.

And in Berris’s second – or was it his third? – message he’d said, “She’s not in Glasgow. They’ve left.” Still the unnamed ‘they’. “I’ve heard that they’re heading to the States, so I’ve booked passage on the New Carpathia. It’s a smugglers ship, but…” What else could he do? For all intents and purposes, public transportation had ceased to exist nearly a decade ago.

He’d called again when he had reached San Francisco, but Buffy had still been in the mountains. He’d said, “Andrew gave me the name of a bounty hunter in Vegas.” Out of options and at his wits end, Berris had headed south hoping that the mercenary would help.

In his final message, Berris had said that the bounty hunter had a contact who might have information. With frustration sharpening his tone, Berris had finished by saying that if Buffy ‘gave a rotter’s damn’ about her sister, she would meet him at the Armargosa Opera House.

Frantic after hearing the messages, Buffy had been willing to do anything to reach the rendezvous point on time.

So here she stood, sleep-deprived and covered in dust and demon blood in the dilapidated hull of a building in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Her mouth felt dry from dehydration and her big toe stung from a ridiculously large blister that had popped. Her face was sunburned and her hair was damp with sweat. She had a headache and a heartache and generally felt like hell. At her feet lay the headless body of a Treslagate Demonios and in front of her stood a ghost.

Spike.

How?

Dear God, how?

It was like being roped and hauled backwards through a dark tunnel before being thrust into the blinding white light of the past. She felt chafed, bruised, and disoriented. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. Spike was dead and he had been for a very long time. And, even if by some miracle or deeply wrong magic spell, he had been brought back, she was totally not capable of dealing with him right now, not on top of what had happened to Dawn. Her sister could be dead, so how could Buffy face her… whatever Spike had been.

Taking a page out of Scarlet O’Hara’s book -- I can’t think about this right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy -- Buffy turned her head towards Berris. “Do you know anything else?” she asked. “Anything more? We aren’t just depending on this guy, are we?” She poked the katana at Lindsey.

Berris couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from the sword at Lindsey’s crotch, and his wince made Buffy roll her eyes and ease off a little. “Focus,” she said.

“Right.” He nodded and looked at Buffy. There was pain in his eyes. “I don’t know how to find Dawn,” Berris said. “I wish I did. I’d give anything if I did.“ His breathing grew ragged after his voice trailed off. “I don’t know.”

Lindsey said, “Cheer up. You have at least a week before they split her open for a ritual sacrifice.”

Both Buffy’s and Spike’s gazes snapped to Lindsey.

Spike said, “Thought you didn’t know anything.”

Lindsey looked surprised, mockingly so. “Did I say that?”

Spike glowered. “Piss off. You said—“

“I said that the Partners haven’t done anything to her, and they haven’t. That doesn’t mean that they don’t know who’s planning to.” Lindsey lowered his hand to push Buffy’s sword away as he gingerly slid to the side. “The reason I’m here is the bosses want to offer a limited partnership.”

“With who?” Spike asked.

Lindsey looked at Spike significantly.

“You have got to be kidding,” Spike said. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“You want me to answer that in front of the Slayer?”

Spike was on a roll. “A partnership worked just peachy for Angel, Wes, and Charlie, didn’t it? You too, I might add.”

“The partners have no hold on you,” Lindsey said. “You never signed a contract.”

“Damn right.”

“They’re willing to go that route again. No contract. Just an enemy of my enemy is my friend. A collaboration.”

Spike leaned back on his heels. “For what?”

Lindsey gave his answer some thought. “I could say ‘to save the world.’ That sounds good. But the truth is, the Partners want to maintain the status quo, and I don’t know if that actually qualifies as ‘saving’.” When Buffy and Spike opened their mouths to respond, Lindsey held up his hand. “And before you get your panties in a twist, let me point out the advantages as they pertain to you. One, maintaining the status quo means that, however hellish, the world is still here. And, two, it means preventing the Slayer’s sister from being gutted like a fish.” He smiled. “See? It’s a win/win.”

Spike sneered. “Like I’d trust you.”

“Who double-crossed who last?” Lindsey asked before he turned his attention to Buffy. “And just so you know, this isn’t a Spike specific offer. We just need your garden variety champion. You’re qualified.”

“Who has Dawn?” she asked.

“A whacked out apocalyptic Key cult.” He fell just short of saying ‘duh.’ Or maybe Lindsey didn’t say things like ‘duh.’ Buffy didn’t know him, but in her head, there was a definite ‘duh’ at the end of the sentence. Lindsey said, “And before we backtrack to the questioning and threatening stage, let me emphasize that I don’t know where they’re holding her. The Senior Partners do. Any deal you make is with them. I’m just here to extend the offer.”

Buffy thought about it for a moment then said, “Spike, outside. You—“ She pointed to Lindsey “—stay here. Berris, watch him.”

She headed towards the door. If Spike had been wearing the coat, she would have tugged his sleeve, but since he was in a skin-tight black tee, she hooked a finger through a belt loop on his jeans and pulled him with her.

Outside, she took a deep breath and wished that the air had been cool because the furnace-like heat radiating off the asphalt caused her sunburned skin to itch and burn. Fishing a rubber band out of her pocket, she pulled her hair up, allowing what little breeze there was to dry the sweat off her nape.

“I need information,” she said.

Spike said, “Shouldn’t have left those two inside then. They have the information. No one even bothered to tell me that it was Dawn we were looking for.”

Buffy wondered if Spike’s disgust was with Berris or with himself. Either way, what he said was true. Berris knew how Dawn had disappeared and Lindsey had a way to find her. So why had she dragged Spike outside?

Because maybe that wasn’t the only information that she wanted?

“Trusting this Lindsey guy isn’t an option, is it?” she asked.

“No,” Spike said. “I did once. It was a mistake.”

“What happened?”

Spike shrugged. “Long story.”

Oh, she bet that was true. “Seventeen years long?” There was a bitter note in her voice.

Spike sighed. “Go ahead. Do it. I deserve it.”

“Do what?”

“Punch me.”

A fiery flood flushed through her. “And who is that supposed to make feel better? You or me?”

“Dunno. Just don’t make deals with Lindsey.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” she said. “Don’t tell me how I feel or don’t feel. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Like I know? Watcher didn’t tell me shit.”

“God!” she said, feeling like she was screaming inside, feeling like she could pull her hair out. And, without volition, what she really wanted to know came flying out. “Where have you been? How are you here? Why aren’t you dead?”

Spike ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that… Don’t know what you want me to say.”

“What I want you to say?”

“Alright,” Spike said. “Don’t know what to say. Full stop. Ask me about Lindsey, and I’ll say he’s a right bastard who can’t be trusted. He lies as easily as he breathes. He can convince you that you’re saving the world when he’s really just fucking with your head. And don’t rule out that he could be out for revenge. But if you’re asking me why I never called you--” Spike stopped and glanced away. “Don’t know what to say to that.”

Buffy said dryly, “You don’t have a speech planned?”

Spike faced her with an expression that she couldn’t name. It freaked her out a little because even if she’d never been very good at reading people, Spike had never been difficult to read.

“Thought of a lot of speeches,” he said. “Even picked up the phone to make a few.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Spike looked her straight in the eye. “They were never particularly convincing.”

What was she supposed to do with that?

She opened her mouth but she had no words, which left the two of them staring silently at each other over five feet of pavement. The moon had come out, a glowing, pock-marked disk that hung low over the outline of the mountains, but, while its blue-white light made it possible to see, it rendered everything as either ghost or shadow.

Spike began searching his pockets. “Bugger,” he said. “Should’ve brought extra.” He turned and walked into the desert.

“Where are you going?” she yelled.

“Extra fags in the car.”

Buffy jogged to catch up with him. “Are you running away?” she asked. “You don’t run away.” He was the thing that did not leave. The first time she had learned Spike’s name, Angel had said, ”Once he starts, he doesn’t stop.” And, as descriptions went, that one had always proved true. Or at least she had believed it had before the ‘not really dead’ and ‘not bothering to call’ part.

Spike muttered something under his breath, and she thought she heard…

“What did you say?” she asked.

Spike kicked a rock, sending it flying out of the sand. “Said I might’ve picked up a thing or two from Angel.”

Buffy stopped in her tracks and stood with her hands on her hips. “Dawn’s missing. You’re not dead. I don’t know who the hell these partner people are that Lindsey’s talking about, and you’re ragging on Angel?”

“Not ragging,” Spike said. “Not exactly. Git’s not always wrong.”

And he began to fill in the gaps between when the Hellmouth had collapsed and now. He told her about finding himself in Angel’s office. He told her about being a ghost, then not being a ghost, and then something about a girl named Fred. He gave a Cliffsnotes history of the world, but he never gave a reason for why.

Why hadn’t he called? At the very least, he could have penned a note saying, “Not dead. Thought you should know. Okay. Thanks. Bye.” But he hadn’t.

Buffy looked up at the star-studded sky and wondered whether somewhere out there was a place where things made sense, because most of the time they didn’t here.

When the two of them reached the highway, Spike headed towards a shiny black Hummer parked on the side of the road. He produced a set of keys, and she heard the beep and saw the flash of headlights as he unlocked the doors.

“2012 hybrid,” he said. That only made it nine years out of date, but the way Spike said the words told Buffy that he was as attached to the SUV as he had once been to his Desoto, which, now that she thought about it, probably sat as a lump of crushed metal at the bottom of a crater than had once been Sunnydale. And it astounded her all over again that Spike had survived that. Well, not survive exactly, but he was here.

“Retrofitted for flex fuel,” he said. “Could run on bathtub gin. Also added solar panels a few years back.” Which she took to mean that the thing could practically run on air.

Spike ducked inside the vehicle, noisily searched around, and produced a pack of cigarettes. “Finally,” he said.

Buffy stood with arms crossed. “And?”

With a confused look, he offered the pack. “Want one?”

”No,” she said, then waited.

“Right.” He stooped and struck a match off the pavement. “Want the rest of the story, then.” He lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew out the smoke in a slow, curling stream before he continued. “Don’t know what the Watchers told you, but Angel didn’t turn to the Dark Side.”

Angel again.

Spike rolled the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “Not saying he wasn’t a prat. And signing a contract with Wolfram and Hart was never going to end well. But, just for the record, indications of evil were for the sake of appearances.”

“What happened?” she asked, suddenly finding herself worried about something other than Dawn. If Spike was defending Angel, something must have happened, and odds favored that ‘something’ being bad.

Spike turned away and looked out toward the horizon. “Big battle with Wolfram and Hart. A horde of demons, a dragon, and a lot of blood. The Watcher died,” he said.

Buffy nodded. “Wesley. I heard.”

A thin red line divided white paper from nearly an inch of ash as Spike allowed his cigarette to burn unnoticed. “Ruckus like that, figured you’d catch wind of it.” He looked back at her over his shoulder and there was an intensity in his expression that made her shift uncomfortably and glance away.

“Charlie died, too,” he said.

Buffy didn’t know who Charlie was, but the sadness in Spike’s voice gave gravity to the person’s death.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Spike flicked the ash from his cigarette onto the sand. “Me too. Blue made it out though. And Angel. Stuck together for a bit after Wolfram and Hart put prices on our heads.” He fell quiet and seemed lost in thought for several moments before he dropped his cigarette and rubbed it out with the toe of his boot. “Then the whole world went south, which must’ve felt like home for Illyria, ‘cause she wandered off. Then Angel…”

Buffy stopped him. “You don’t have to tell me about Angel.”

“Don’t, huh?” The way Spike looked at her made Buffy wonder whether he saw straight through her. He’d always had that talent, looking at her and picking out the pieces of herself that she wanted to hide.

Buffy leaned against the car and looked up, searching for the Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt, looking anywhere but at Spike.

“And you?” she asked. “What happened to you?”

“World split in two, didn’t it?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and joined her in gazing at the black velvet sky. “Toffs in cities cut deals with the devil to keep things as they were, or at least looking that way. Half of humanity sold their souls for electric lights and air conditioning while the other half wasn’t quite so lucky. ”

She knew that story. People in towns or cities that didn’t rank in the demon consortium’s top one hundred had been left to fend for themselves, if they had been left at all. Washington and Jerusalem had been blown off the map entirely.

The world had fallen, not all at once but by painful degrees. There had been no single 9/11 moment that had left people stunned in shock and horror. There had been hundreds of them, one piling on top of the other in a soul-killing progression. It had been too much, too hard, too fast…

And too easy to become numb.

Sometimes it felt like they were all zombies walking around in a world that was dead but which didn’t have the sense to stop living.

Buffy looked back in the direction from which they had come, thinking of the opera house that stood in a desert. What kind of fool had thought that a dream like that could thrive in a place like this? And it had been the dreamers, the idealists, the helpless, the hapless, and the hopeless that had become the people that civilization had left behind. Because Spike was right: the world had split in two.

“Didn’t belong in the penthouses,” Spike said. “Not even to fight the bad guys there. That world has its champion.” He stooped and picked up a handful of sand, letting it slide through his fingers. “But figured there were things in the wastelands worth fighting for as well.”

Again silence fell, more comfortable and less strained this time. And, for a moment, Buffy thought she saw the quicksilver line of a shooting star.

“Are we through discussing things yet?” Spike asked.

“I’m going to make that deal with Lindsey,” Buffy said. “You knew that all along, didn't you?”

Spike nodded.

She said, “It’s not that I don’t believe you about Lindsey being bad news, but we don’t have a choice.” She closed her eyes and wished she could call back that ‘we.’ She didn’t have the right. She couldn’t speak for Spike, but she hoped...

“It’s Dawn.” And the way he said the words, said it all. They both loved her sister.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s Dawn.” But the ache inside her grew. “Unless we’re already too late.”

“No,” Spike said sharply, pulling her to face him. “Not too late.”

“Because we don’t want to think it or because it’s true?”

His hold on her shoulders gentled as his cool hands slid down her arms, causing goosebumps before he laced his fingers with her own. He said, “Dawn can’t be dead.” And a ghost of a smile visited his face. “World’s still here.”

“So what’s this Key cult waiting for?” Buffy asked.

“Who knows. Jupiter to align with Neptune? Some long-forgotten wanker-written prophecy?” Spike squeezed her hands. “Lindsey said we had a week.”

She almost smiled. “I thought we weren’t trusting Lindsey.”

“Keep an eye out for him to stab us in the back, but he does have more information than we do.”

“Wait.” She frowned. “You mentioned he could be out for revenge. What did you do to him?”

“Me? Nothing. It was A—“ Spike cleared his throat “ –misunderstanding.”

“Riiiiight.”

Headlights in the distance caused a jolt of adrenaline to surge through Buffy. All kinds of demons, werewolves, and vampires preyed on people after dark, but as a beat-up truck that had perhaps once been red but which was now mostly the color of rust, drew along side them, Buffy felt Spike relax. Berris threw open the door and jumped from the pick-up to stand silhouetted by its headlights.

“I have the right to vote on this,” Berris said. “In fact, there is no vote. I can do whatever I want. This is my mission.” He glared at Spike. “And I hired you. You’re a mercenary. I pay you—“

“Not a mercenary,” Spike said. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

This wasn’t the first time that Spike had said that, which made Buffy wonder. “What’s the difference?” she asked.

He turned his head, and his body language made it clear that he spoke only to her. “A mercenary is up for hire by anyone. I chose which side I’m on a long time ago.”

Berris sniffed and looked unimpressed. “You’re a vampire.”

“With a soul,” Buffy said.

Berris stepped back, his brows lifting in an expression of surprise. “You didn’t say your name was Angel.”

Lindsey snickered as Spike cursed a blue streak.

Spike glared at the Watcher. “I’m the other one, you git.”

Berris shook his head. “Isn’t the other one dead?”

Suddenly feeling lighter than she had since she’d first heard about Dawn, Buffy almost laughed. “Turns out, not so much.”

Lindsey, looking confident to the point of smug, leaned out of the truck window. “All talked out? Everyone up to speed? Can we go?”

The man’s demeanor silently screamed that he had always known what their answers would be.

“Where are we going?” Buffy asked.

“Beverly Hills,” Lindsey said. “I’m the liaison. I broker the deals. I don’t make them. We need the Conduit, and that’s accessed at the offices of Wolfram and Hart.“

Spike looked like he was about to protest when Lindsey grinned and said, “Oh, and Champ, I found something of yours at the Opera House.” He tossed a glittering something out of the truck that Spike caught in mid air.

When Spike opened his hand, Buffy saw that he held a gold cup that looked like a prop from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” It looked like the Grail – if you didn’t ‘choose wisely.’ She frowned as it struck her that for all she knew it could be the Grail. But, when Spike dropped it, allowing it clatter against the asphalt, she knew that it couldn’t possibly be.

Spike reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. Berris paled as Spike walked past him, striding purposefully towards Lindsey. Berris shot Buffy a panicked look that Buffy could only answer with a baffled shrug as Spike plunged his blade into the front left tire of Lindsey’s truck.

When he was done, Spike headed towards the Hummer, saying nonchalantly over his shoulder, “We’ll meet you and the Conduit at the old offices in L.A.” When Spike looked back at Lindsey there was a nasty, satisfied expression on his face. “Have a nice drive.”

chapter three