It was nearly dusk. The gang, sans Spike, was gathered near the old school. Giles was sorting various spell elements into piles, while Willow was doing a final skim over the printout of Cordelia's e-mail. Buffy was pacing, though Riley was doing his best to keep her calm, which, of course, wasn't working. Xander and Anya were on perimeter detail.

"Y'know, Buffy," Willow commented. "I know you're wigged about letting Dreska possess you, but if it's any consolation, this invocation spell that Wes had looks much more solid than the translation I made."

Buffy ceased pacing for a moment. Riley mouthed "thank you" to Willow over his girlfriend's shoulder. "How so?" the slayer asked.

"Well, the incantion I did last fall was kind of nebulous; I can admit that." She glanced at Giles and gave him an apologetic smile. "But this one is more your run-of-the-mill exploration deal. Wes says Dreska had some worshippers back at the last turn of the century who were keen on experiencing her firsthand and so they worked out this spell."

Buffy seemed suitably intrigued and came to join Willow. "I like the part where you make it seem like this is no big deal."

"Would that be sarcasm I hear, Miss Summers?" Willow feigned an authoritative tone.

"Alas, no. I really want you to tell me this will work and just for the one night and just to kick kidnapper ass and that I won't be full-on possessed and lose my mind and find myself doing the nas-" Buffy broke off her statement as Willow broke eye contact. She hadn't meant to seem so insulting about Willow having slept with Spike. But, where Spike was concerned, Buffy seemed to be all insults. "I just mean... tell me this will work."

"It has to," was all Willow said.

Spike was restless. He couldn't stop replaying Cyn's voice in his head. Nor could he wipe from his mind the image of Willow's body slumped on the crypt floor. He dropped another cigarette butt to the stone floor, where it met a pile of nearly a dozen like it. The sun seemed to be sinking as slowly as possible. He toyed with the notion of bundling up in a blanket and heading to the school right then, but then he remembered his blanket was still at the watcher's place. And there wouldn't be anything for him to do at the school yet, anyway.

Willow would be there, though. What if she needed comforting? At that thought, he scoffed at himself. Right, mate. Where was this leading him? He knew none of them believed him to be anything more than a monster. And he was a monster. But he still had feelings. He still cared for things.

And he still had the capacity to love.

He loved Cyn; he knew it, felt it. She was a part of him and he loved her. But he was also starting to get the feeling that somewhere between a demon deity seducing him in Willow's body and Willow tending to his burns after Cyn was kidnapped again, that he had started to fall in love with her.

Oh yeah, Spike knew he could be in love with Willow, but what good did that do any of them?

Giles cleared his throat. "Alright. Nearly sunset. Buffy?" He held the newly mixed potion out in his hand. She and Willow had been practicing pronunciation of key words in the incantation.

Xander wandered up, axe slung over one shoulder. "Still clear. Are we all set?"

"All set," Buffy answered dubiously, eyeing the flask Giles had given her.

Giles checked his pocket watch. "Sunset in two minutes," he said.

Willow was nervous. No sign of the Renga yet. No Cyn. Had he fed her? Was she hurt? Was she scared? And where was Spike?

As if on cue, she heard him emerge from some brush behind them. "So when does this party get started?"

"Oh, good," Xander commented. "And here we thought you might not make it."

Spike ignored him. He went to Willow's side. "You holding up all right, love?"

Willow's hands were in a knot. She seemed very distracted. "Yes. No." She acted on impulse and reached over to hug him. "I'm glad you're here," she whispered and pulled back from him. His expression did not change, but he tightened the grip of his hand on her arm.

Buffy kicked back the potion, made a "bleghhh" noise and began intoning the spell to invoke Dreska. When she finished, she looked up from the paper and asked "how do I know if it worked?" Then, before anyone could answer, she gasped and arched her back, closing her eyes and dropping the printout and empty flask from her hands.

Xander's eyes bugged a little. "Oh, I'd say it's doing something alright."

At this time, Anya circled back around the school. She didn't seem to notice Buffy's behavior as odd. "He's here," she stated as she met the group. "The kid's tied up. She doesn't look bloody."

For once, Xander and Spike seemed to react to something the same way, because they both frowned at Anya's frankness. Willow blanched. But Buffy rolled her head down to face Anya, and when she opened her eyes, they were narrowed in an expression that was un-Buffylike.

"Where is he?" The Slayer's tone was deep, even and murderous.

For a moment, everyone seemed a little startled by how frightening Buffy looked. Then Anya spoke up. "He's outside the burnt up remains of the library."

Buffy assessed Anya and Xander quickly. "You two assist her," she looked quickly at Willow, "in securing the safety of the child."

She whipped quickly to Spike and Riley. "You will assist me against Jharel. We will show him no mercy."

She faltered when she turned to Giles. "You," was all she said at first. Her head tilted to the side. "We never got to finish."

Giles' eyebrows raised at once. And was he blushing? Willow intervened quickly. "Hey! Task at hand, task at hand!"

Before nodding curtly to Willow, Buffy gave one very smoldering smile at Giles that made him quickly look away. "Fine, fine," the Slayer said. "Here is what you will do..."

Something very primal occurred inside Willow when she saw Cyn bound and gagged. The little girl's eyes were unsettling. They'd gone golden in her anger, but the tears coming out of them were in fear.

Xander sensed Willow's anger boiling. "Stay calm, Wills," he whispered. "You've got to keep focused. Don't look at her; just face me and think about what to do to save her."

Willow was conscious of Dreska-Buffy moving towards Jharel. Riley and Spike moved as a team behind her. In any other situation, she might have marveled at their cooperation. Instead, she turned back to Xander and Anya. "I have a plan. Give me your hands." And then Willow began whispering.

Jharel laughed as the slayer approached. "Dreska," he boomed. "You save me the effort of summoning you, but you come in a slayer vessel."

"I come for what's mine." She showed no signs of stopping her approach.

Jharel held up his hands and two orbs of energy rose to hover above them. He aimed his right arm at Cyn. "It'll be a thousand years before you can conceive another of these." He aimed his left arm at Dreska-Buffy. "Stand down."

"You steal my daughter and think to tell me what to do?" Dreska's tone was haughty, but she had halted her advance.

Jharel said the girl was his passport back home. Dreska shook her head, but she let him rant about how his expulsion wasn't fair, that he didn't mean to slaughter an entire tribe of Dreska's people. She was biding her time, waiting for everyone to be in place. Jharel was in the midst of saying just let him come home and he'd be a good boy when Spike spoke softly behind her. "They're in place."

Jharel had no chance.

Dreska-Buffy, Spike and Riley made a simultaneous advance. Started, Jharel let fly the blast of energy aimed at Cyn. Spike roared when he saw her disappear from atop the gravestone she had been perched on, and flew at Jharel, knocking the other blast toward the night sky. Riley helped take Jharel down, where Dreska-Buffy began pummeling him. She fought to keep him sufficiently disoriented by physical blows, yet she had to let him focus enough for more energy discharge.

Willow, Xander, and Anya were busy covering Cyn from sight. Willow had cast a spell over the three of them, making them temporarily invisible. They had been crouched behind Cyn, ready to pull her out of harm's way. As it was, the blast had still caught part of Xander's left arm.

When they decided everything was ready, Spike and Riley let Jharel land the appropriate blows to get them out of the way and Dreska-Buffy retreated from the fight. She paused twenty feet away from him. Jharel sensed a win. He readied two more blasts and aimed them at Dreska-Buffy.

"I'll give your people my regards. After I kill your daughter, of course," he sneered. Then he let the beams rush from his hands toward her.

Dreska used Buffy's slayer speed and agility to twist and leap over the headstone behind her, where Giles was waiting. Together, they raised a three-feet section of mirror that Giles had ripped from the wall of the nearest gas station's rest room.

Jharel, lacking slayer speed and agility, couldn't dodge the white hot beams of light that shot back at him.

"Ow, ow, ow," was all Xander said as Willow spoke the spell to make them visible again. "I've been holding that in," he explained. Anya was already holding up his arm to inspect it.

"Burns. I know," Willow said. "It gets better."

They had worked off Cyn's bonds while Dreska-Buffy and the guys fought Jharel. Now she was sucking her thumb and clutching Willow tightly.

Spike appeared beside them. "She alright?"

Willow struggled to stand up with the little girl still firmly attached to her. "She's still shaking." Spike moved closer to them. He reached out to rest his hands on Willow's shoulders, effectively enveloping Cyn between their bodies. Then he growled. It was definately a vampire thing, but it wasn't to frighten either of them. It was territorial. Cyn seemed to take comfort in it. Then Spike pulled back and stared at them.

"Spike?" Willow tilted her head at him. "What are you doing?"

"Preserving a memory." He smiled, but it wasn't the Spike smirk-smile that Willow was used to. This one was new. He stepped back to them and put his arms around both of them again. "There was a moment in the fight when I looked around and I couldn't see either of you. I thought I had lost you both." He gripped them harder and tears stung at Willow's eyes, but she didn't trust herself to say anything.

Dreska had been watching them for several moments. She approached them and Spike and Willow parted, allowing Dreska-Buffy to lean forward and place a kiss on Cyn's forehead. She patted the girl's head lovingly, and then she looked to the redhead holding her.

"Willow." The voice sounded unusual saying it, like it was for the first time, and Willow knew it was Dreska talking.

"You and your vampire did a great service for me," Dreska began.

Willow blushed and darted a nervous glance at Spike. "He's not my vampire..."

"I wish to thank you. I would like to offer you something. May I see your necklace?"

Willow found this an odd request but she nevertheless complied. Overall, she was a compliant person. She reached up and undid the clasp on her neck. It was a string of multicolored beads, with a larger amber colored stone dangling from the center. Dreska smiled when she took it from her.

"These are not precious stones, but I believe they will do." She held the necklace in her borrowed slayer hands and closed her eyes, whispering something. Willow watched with interest. After a moment, Dreska looked out at Willow through Buffy's eyes and smiled. She took the necklace and fastened it back around Willow's neck.

"You helped me conceive something I could not on my own. You and your vampire gave me a portion of your essence. And when this gift was stolen from me, you took care of it, attempted to protect it with your very life, and insured that I had a way to fight for it as well. I am truly in your debt. Please accept this as a token of my thanks."

Willow flushed at Dreska's show of gratitude. "You're very welcome." It completely didn't occur to her to ask what the deal was with the necklace.

Dreska-Buffy stood there for a moment and none of them said anything. Giles, Riley, Anya and Xander made their way over.

"It's time to take her back, isn't it?" Willow asked. Tears were welling up in her eyes. Dreska nodded.

"I'm glad I got to meet her," Willow said. Spike nodded his head once.

Cyn lifted her head from where it had been resting on Willow's shoulder. "Don't cry, mommy. You're so pretty." Willow let out a laugh that was a half-sob. Cyn kissed her on the cheek.

"Take care of yourself, little bit," Spike told her. Cyn smiled very big at him to show off her pointed teeth. And then she reached out her arms to Dreska-Buffy, who took her in.

Dreska stepped back from the group. "You all have been very worthy comrades. I offer you my deepest thanks." She looked at Riley. "Could you come stand behind me?"

Riley raised his eyebrows, but did so. Dreska-Buffy closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Cyn started waving her hand and blew a kiss. Then there was a lot of bright light and when it vanished, Buffy was slumped in Riley's arms.

Since Buffy seemed to be merely sleeping, Riley carried her back to Giles' place, where the watcher made tea and Xander's burns were doctored. Spike seemed to have tagged along for moral support for Willow.

"What was it like?" was the first thing everyone wanted to know when Buffy came to. She said she didn't remember everything, but she had felt Dreska's desire to protect Cyn and her admiration of Willow and Spike. And she'd known all about Jharel. "Death might have been a little good for him," was all she said on the matter.

It was getting late, and Xander and Anya had already left. Spike was outside smoking a cigarette. Riley was in the kitchen talking with Giles. Willow came to sit on the couch next to Buffy.

"Hey, Buff, you may not remember, but what was the deal with Dreska wanting to see my necklace?"

Unexpectedly, Buffy blushed. "She didn't tell you?"

Willow shook her head.

"Oh, uh, well... I guess she thought you and Spike were, y'know, like a couple or something." Buffy shifted, sort of uncomfortable.

"And?"

Buffy sighed. "And she was grateful, right? So she worked some funky mojo on the necklace and now it's like a reverse contraceptive."

Willow sat up straighter. "You don't mean - "

Buffy nodded slowly. "Yep. You wear that necklace and have sex with the Billy Idol out there and you two crazy kids can have your very own little wiccan-vamp baby."

Willow stared at her, speechless.

"I guess Dreska didn't know that was never gonna happen."

Willow still stared. Buffy added "Right?"

"What? Oh! Oh, yeah, that? Pfft. No. I mean, well, no. Probably no."

Buffy opened her mouth, but was cut off by Riley asking her if she was ready to go home or did she want to patrol first. Buffy agreed to a quick patrol. The three of them ambled out of Giles' apartment together, but Willow lingered by Spike outside while Riley and Buffy made their way off.

Willow felt a lot of emotions bubbling under the surface. Spike could tell. He let his cigarette butt drop to the ground. "So," he said.

"Yeah," Willow answered.

He looked at Willow quietly for a long time. Then he cocked his head to the side and held out his hand. "Walk you home?"

As Willow regarded him evenly, some of the swirling inside seemed to gain focus. She looked at him and she saw him as Dreska had the first time. Passion. Poetry. Desire. Unconsciously, her hand went up to the necklace.

"Yes, I think yes, you can."

She unfastened the necklace and dropped it in her pocket. Then she smiled and took his hand.