Chapter Text
Up until the younger versions of her best friends walked in on her canoodling with William the Bloody, Buffy honestly hadn’t realized the gravity of her situation. It was as though she was playing a video game or lucid dreaming, and living out the fantasy scenario of falling into Spike’s lap only added to the surrealism of it all. Sure, she had planned for this, but it was exceedingly difficult to accept that she’d lost a huge chunk of her life in the blink of an eye, and she alone had the knowledge and power to change the course of history.
Making out with Spike was much easier than facing all of that, but being confronted with a baby-faced Willow and a two-eyed Xander brought her crashing back down to Earth.
“Oh boy,” she said weakly.
“You okay, Buff?” Xander asked warily. “What happened to the explaining?”
“Well, you see,” Buffy began nervously, “the thing about it is…”
“Is what?” Willow prompted, eager to clear her name.
“Uh, hello, did no one hear me? Slayer’s got business to attend to at the high school. Think we should get our priorities in order,” Spike said very reasonably, even though his top priority was clearly keeping Buffy on his lap.
She stood up, ignoring his low growl of protest, to give herself some breathing room so she could regroup and focus. His presence had always been distracting, but after years of absence, it was hard to even form a logical thought around him.
I need some way to rationally explain my behavior. He might be happy letting it go, but Xander and Willow never will.
Evil flu again? Spike does make me hot all over, so I could say it’s a fever… that makes me hump random vampires? Yeah, right…
Increasingly far-fetched ideas bounced around her head because under no circumstances could she tell the truth. Nor did she want to lie, exactly. Just get them off her case so she could smooch Spike some more, save the world, and see Mom again, please.
But it was important that she abided by the Information Diet part of the plan. Her first objective was to save the world and stop the First from rising. Her second objective was to make sure the Scoobies didn’t find out at any point in the near future that she wasn’t quite their Buffy, and that girl had gone on to live five years without them and couldn’t bring them back for the ride. No matter what, they must not know.
Xander had actually been the strongest supporter of the secrecy strategy, pointing out with no small amount of shame that at the moment, her friends were predisposed to question her decisions and might even kick her out of her own house if they strongly disagreed. Which, ouch, that one still stung. But he was right—they wouldn’t let her make the hard choices all on her own yet. Wouldn’t respect her role as a leader, when it came down to it.
Willow had agreed contritely, adding on a warning that at this point in her magical immaturity, there was a serious risk of her trying to suck the details of the future out of Buffy’s head and take the mission over, convinced she knew better. Helping Willow learn to manage her abilities was on Buffy’s itinerary, but provoking her into a power trip was decidedly not.
Confiding in Rupert Let’s-Sacrifice-Your-Little-Sister Giles wasn’t in the cards, either. Though she should do her part to make sure he wouldn’t be turned into a Fyarl pretty soon here—
With that thought, a solution hit. “Ethan Rayne is in Sunnydale,” Buffy said truthfully. Mostly. If he wasn’t now, he would be in a matter of days anyway.
Willow and Xander’s eyes widened in realization as, with just those five words, their minds began to paint the picture Buffy needed them to believe. Hook, line, and sinker.
“What a jackass,” Xander said angrily. “Turning all the oldies into teeny-boppers was one thing. That, I could almost respect. But picking on you like this?”
“Of course,” Willow said, shaking her head in dismay. “He must have done a spell to make you fall for your arch-nemesis. Or maybe it was candy bars again. Oh Buffy, you didn’t eat any candy bars recently, did you?”
“Um. Maybe?”
“Screw the apocalypse,” Xander said grimly, cracking his knuckles. “That guy needs to fix you and get the hell out of our town.”
“You still have your military knowledge from the time he cursed our Halloween costumes, right?” Willow asked hopefully. “Do you know any grody army torture techniques we can use on him?”
Xander tilted his head in consideration. “Well, there’s always waterboarding. Or blindfolding him with no sound but a dripping faucet in the corner. Or maybe—”
“Chaining him in the bathtub with no food source in sight?” Spike interjected, looking back and forth between all of them. “You lot have gone barbaric. The Order of Aurelius could stand to learn a thing or two from you.”
Buffy whacked him on the shoulder. “I didn’t say anything!”
He rubbed his arm and glared at her mutinously. “You tied the ropes on Thanksgiving Day, princess.”
“What, you don’t like bondage all of a sudden?”
His eyes gleamed dangerously. “Let’s not get hasty.”
“That’s what I thought,” Buffy said triumphantly, turning back to see fresh horror on Willow’s face and nausea on Xander’s. “Oh come on. We’re not going to do it in front of you.” Invisi-Sex and Balcony-Banging aside…
“Do what?” Xander asked with evident dread.
“Knit booties for the kittens at the animal shelter,” Spike deadpanned.
What did Spike know about the shelter? Buffy whipped her head around to stare, memories of kitten poker overtaking her. “Oh my god. You didn’t.”
He crossed his arms defensively. “Never said I did.”
“Then say you didn’t.”
He grumbled something unintelligible before finally admitting, “I tried. Fresh is better than bagged, alright? When I poked at a rat my head didn’t smart, so I figured maybe—but they’ve got security after hours, if you can believe it. All for some ruddy tabby cats—”
“You tried to eat cats?” Willow asked in revulsion.
He threw his hands up in the air. “There’s too bloody many of them out on the streets! Be saving your taxpayer dollars if I do!”
“Spike,” Buffy hissed. “We don’t kill cats!”
“Maybe you don’t,” he retorted. “Told you we’re incompatible.”
“You didn’t seem to care too much about that when your tongue was in my ear.”
He scratched the back of his head abashedly. “May have been caught up in the moment.”
Buffy batted her eyelashes at him. “You think we had a moment?”
His face softened. “Was nice for a bit—” he abruptly caught himself and cleared his throat, speaking gruffly, “—I, uh, I suppose. In the vaguest sense. But I’m spoken for, and not interested besides.” They all looked at him dubiously. “Oh, balls.”
“Did I die in my sleep last night and wake up in a Hell dimension?” Xander asked weakly.
“Based on the distinct lack of lady demons trying to hook up with you, I have to say no,” Buffy responded, before asking brightly, “Hey, how’s Anya?”
“She’s… good?” Xander answered in confusion. “Ethan didn’t get her too, did he?”
“I don’t think so,” Buffy said cheerfully. “I was just thinking about her.”
“In what way?” Spike leered, soullessness on full display. She didn’t mind, aside from the fact that he had better shut the hell up about Anya.
She whacked his shoulder again, even though by the smirk on his face she knew he was taking it as foreplay. “Bad Spike. No former vengeance demons for you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
“I think if anyone’s got the right to be jealous, it’s Anya’s boyfriend,” Xander said loudly. “Who is literally standing right here.”
Spike made a shoo-ing gesture with his hand like Xander was a gnat he could wave away, not even sparing him a glance. “Gotta wonder why you’re still so aggressive, love spell or not, Slayer. Even a warlock couldn’t make you more docile.”
“If I was docile, you’d get bored.”
He frowned. “Yeah, I think I would.”
“Goddess help us,” Willow said faintly. “At least they’re not betrothed this time.”
Spike raised his hand in the air indignantly. “Can’t be, can I? She never gave my ring back! Probably pawned it off!”
Buffy glared. “Like a shop would pay real money for that tacky thing.”
“If it’s so tacky, why’d you keep it?”
She looked away from him, unable to lie and say she threw it away. “Sentimental value, I guess. Can’t be sure I’ll live to see my next engagement.”
An awkward silence fell until Willow said wisely, “I think you can be a little surer if we stop the world from ending today.”
Crap. That’s a thing. “Right! So, Giles did some research—” in the near future and also my past, but you don’t need to know that, “—and found out that these demons will be doing a ritual to try and open up the Hellmouth. We need to go to the school and stop them.”
“Who’s included in that we, Buffy?” Xander asked warily. Buffy gave him a duh look and he groaned. “Maybe if we stake him, the spell will break.”
Spike stood up abruptly and rounded on Xander. Buffy was relieved to see him offended at the notion of dying rather than actively seeking it, and Xander probably deserved whatever he had to say, so she just watched serenely as Spike snarled, “I’ve bloody well had enough of you, Harris. Think you’re calling any of the shots here? Wouldn’t be anybody worth a damn if you didn’t get lucky enough to hang off Buffy’s coattails. Just you wait. She’s gonna help me get my own place, and until I’ve got my bite back I won’t have to see your pasty arse again.”
“Before or after we track Ethan down and get him to reverse whatever he cast on her?” Xander asked challengingly as Buffy tried not to think about the odds of Spike’s last words being literal.
Spike scoffed. “Oh, please! That’s what you’re focused on? I reckon we should bide our time, wait the thing out. It'll have to expire on its own eventually.”
“You want Buffy to stay in magical love with you as long as possible,” Willow said disbelievingly.
Buffy’s lips twitched as she fought not to laugh, hardly able to believe she’d salvaged the situation so well. “It’s not magical.”
They all acted as though she hadn’t spoken. “Just think we should conserve resources,” Spike said stubbornly. “Bloke isn’t hurting anyone, is he?”
“My eyeballs might fall out if I have to see you two macking on each other again,” Xander said. “I think that’s reason enough to bring the Wrath of Scoob down upon him.”
“Xan?” Willow started. “Do me a favor and never say that again.”
“I’m going to go save the world,” Buffy called from over her shoulder, heading for the stairs. Spike had already started after her without a word. As the others followed, she hoped they wouldn’t have to cross paths with Riley this time.
“Why did you just knock on wood?” Xander asked, puzzled.
“For luck,” she said briskly.
Standing in the ruins of her old high school and staring Riley Finn in the eyes thirty minutes later, Buffy wished she had knocked on a lot more basement walls. “Oh no.”
“Buffy?” he asked, surprised.
“No…”
“You’re not Buffy?”
“I am… but nooooo…”
Freaking time travel.