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Cause and Effect	By : elizashaw Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Slash - Male/Male > Spike(William)/Xander > Spike(William)/Xander Views: 6461 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel the Series. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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"I dunno, boss. I don't think the Senior Partners are gonna wanna get involved with this one."

"I don't care what they want or don't want. Spike was attacked here in their territory. If they don't want me to hold them responsible for that, then they better get involved."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one facing the big cat." Gunn scowled. "If it's even still the cat up there and not that howling abyss thing that showed up the last time we asked for their help on behalf of vampires."

"Who, what, and can I just add huh?" Xander's glance darted back and forth between the vampire and lawyer. Fred and Wesley had clearly excused themselves from the discussion as they fiddled with dials on machines on the other side of the room.

Gunn ran a hand over his head and turned to face Xander and Spike as they re-entered the lab.

"He sendin' you to the White Room?" Spike asked tersely before Gunn could speak. Xander glanced at the strong arms that the vampire circled around himself in a gesture that was becoming all too familiar for Xander's liking. It meant that Spike felt threatened. "Not sure I want those wankers sticking their noses in."

"It's just a back-up measure, in case…" Angel trailed off.

"In case I screw this up, you mean." Spike sneered.

"That's not..." Angel stepped forward agressively before pulling himself up short. "I want to make sure all our bases are covered. If they know something about this, I want to know."

"Still needing some back story here," Xander volunteered impatiently.

"The White Room is the conduit to the Senior Partners." Wesley stepped over to join the conversation.

"Those are the big evil guys that ran this place before you guys took over, right? And we're going to ask them for help, why?" Frustration tinged with a bitterness he couldn't fully suppress colored Xander's question.

Angel glared.

"They have been of use to use before," Wesley mused before adding, "when it fits with their own interests."

"No." Spike spoke with a quiet vehemence. "We do this," he gestured at the machines, "dream thing the way Fred planned it. No Senior Partners, no sodding Powers that Be." He stared at Angel until the older vampire nodded and looked away.

"Good then." Spike clapped his hands together. "Where do you want me, doc?"

**************

Xander forced himself to stay still during the twenty minutes it took to get Spike spread out on the hospital bed and hooked up to the machines. He could see Fred and Wesley's unspoken irritation with Angel's hulking presence as he lurked, watching over their movements with a lowered brow. Jealousy pricked along Xander's skin, and he unwillingly conceded that Angel's actions screamed Sire. Despite the animosity between the vampires, Angel hadn't blown off the attacks on Spike. Instead, he had stepped up to look after his Childe. For that, Xander didn't know whether to respect him or hate him all the more for the shit he had put Spike through in the past.

"We're almost ready," Wesley attached the last of the wires to Spike's brow.

"We'll be monitoring your brain activity from over there," Fred pointed to the machine on the far wall. "Wes will help you get sleep using a hypnotic suggestion that will root the trigger for lucid dreaming, then put you to sleep. You should go almost immediately into a REM state for dreaming. We'll be able to tell when the dreams start, and then I'll tap on your hand. That will activate the trigger to give you control over the dream."

"All I gotta do is kick Slayer ass, then. Been there, done that." Xander could hear the tension under the cocky smirk. He clenched his fists, feeling more useless than usual.

Leaving Wes and Fred alone with Spike, the others retreated to the adjoining room to watch through the glass as the procedure began.

Tense silence overtook them as they waited and watched. The ease with which Wesley hypnotized the vampire seemed eerie and reminded Xander of watching Spike's eyes glaze over in a manner far too similar to watching him fall under the influence of the First's trigger. He shuddered as his foreboding grew. This wasn't going to work. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he did.

Xander tried to shake off the feeling of impending doom, telling himself that he couldn't be objective after his own experiences with the First Slayer. He couldn't forget her words to him, however, nor Lorne's admonition. Yet here he was being useless again. What if this was letting her win? What would that mean for Spike?

"What's wrong?" Angel's voice crashed through his thoughts.

Xander shook his head but didn't break his stare at the prone figure that began to thrash on the bed as Fred tapped patiently on the back of the pale hand. He wanted to break in there, pull the wires from Spike's head and tear him away from whatever was happening in the dreams, but for all he knew that would kill Spike just as surely. He hadn't understood all of the intricacies of the machinery that Wes and Fred had explained to them.

"I hate this. Gimme a demon to pound on any day," Gunn muttered. "Or even a bit of fancy legal maneuvering over this waiting shit."

Xander ignored the muttering and watched with intense concentration as Spike's struggling increased. Suddenly the vampire lay still. Fred and Wesley poured over the readings flashing across the computer screens. Angel stormed into the room, hissing demands for explanations.

Helpless fear paralyzed Xander until he caught sight of tears leaking from Spike's closed eyes. That vision of Spike's pain galvanized him, and he turned to Gunn urgently.

"This White Room – can you take me there?"

"I dunno, man. Blondie there was pretty adamant about not wanting them involved."

"Something's wrong." Both men glanced at the increasingly frantic activity in the makeshift hospital room. "Right now I don't care who these guys are, but if they can help, then I want to meet them. Now."

Gunn stared at him for a moment, then nodded. Without a word to the others, they hurried to the elevators.

**************

The drawing room walls closed in on him, narrowing his vision to the figures rocking against the wall. His mother, the only childe he ever made, rubbed obscenely against his young vampire self as the First Slayer hissed in disgust. He watched his own hand come up to press the stake through the bosom that had comforted him as a child, and through the dust filling the air, the First Slayer sneered, "Killer." From his place in the corner of the room, Spike howled, overpowered by the guilt of having murdered his beloved mother not once but twice in the same day.

**************

Xander fidgeted with equal parts impatience and anxiety. Impatience won out slightly over the fear of what he might find waiting for him in the heart of the evil empire that the Council had adamantly cut all ties with. I can't let her win, can't let her have Spike. He watched Gunn punch in a sequence of floors, and his eyes widened as a single large button appeared on the panel.

"Ready to go down the rabbit hole?" Gunn pressed the glowing button with determination.

"If Keanu Reeves shows up, I'm so outa here," Xander muttered. They waited for the elevator to deliver them to the White Room.

The elevator doors didn't so much open as they did dissolve. Xander turned to comment on the weirdness, only to find himself alone in a very white, very empty room.

"This cannot be good." He glanced around frantically for Gunn or the elevator, but found neither.

"Hello?" His voice echoed. "Hello? Uh, here kitty kitty?"

"Hi Xander." The soft voice sent chills down his spine and broke open his heart. He turned slowly.

"I've died, haven't I? Useless Xander goes off to play the knight in shining armor and in the meantime the world ends, or did the building just blow up? I mean, I know there's supposed to be the whole white light thing, and, well, I guess this is white. Not exactly what I was expecting what with the walls and ceiling and floor and all." He trailed off as the kind eyes watched him.

"You're not dead, and the world hasn't ended. And," Tara put up her hand to forestall the next question, "I'm not the First either."

"Then, how?" His voice broke.

She frowned. "We don't have much time. The Senior Partners lent us the conduit, but they won't give us long."

"Us and huh?"

She smiled. "I've missed you, Xander. Missed all of you."

He blinked back tears, but forced himself to focus. "This is about Spike. Please tell me this is about Spike, that you can help him?"

"Yes, this is about Spike. The Powers That Be and the Senior Partners have both staked a claim on him, but the Powers can intervene in this, while the Senior Partners can't. The Slayer belongs to the Powers."

"I don't know how to stop her," Xander admitted painfully. "Lorne says that I'm letting her win, but I don't know how to stop her." As he spoke, the world around them shifted dramatically. The white room became a dusty, smoke-filled chapel lit only by the fires that burned in corners of the room.

"Sorry, luv. I don't speak Chinese."

Xander gasped at the vision before him. Spike held a young girl in his arms, breaking her, drinking her down. He glanced around at his surroundings and knew he was witnessing Spike's first Slayer kill.

"Tara?" He automatically whispered, not sure if the occupants of the chapel would be able to hear him, and he was fairly certain that he did not want to attract the attention of this Spike.

"They can't hear us or see us. But she can," Tara pointed. The First Slayer spit invectives at the duster-clad vampire huddled against a wall.

"What's going on? Where the hell are we?"

"She opened the door to Spike's dreams, and we've followed her."

"Um, okay, good, I guess. How do we stop it?"

"I can't do anything, Xander," Tara looked at him intently, "that's not why I'm here."

"It's why I'm here, isn't it?" He wished the fearful quaver hadn't been quite so prominent, but one look at Spike's suffering bolstered his determination to stand up to his nightmare. She nodded. "And you're here because…"

"Someone has to speak for her."

"So what does she have to say for trying to kill Spike?" Anger bled into the question. As his voice rose, the First Slayer swung around. She bared her teeth.

"The demon must be destroyed." Tara's voice, but Xander knew the sentiment belonged to the Slayer.

"Spike isn't that demon," he gestured to Spike wrapped in Druscilla's arms, "not anymore."

"This demon kills. The Slayer exists to destroy the demons, and he kills us." The First Slayer stalked between the huddled Spike and Xander as Tara spoke. As she finished, the scene shifted once more, leaving Xander struggling for his balance as they suddenly stood in a moving subway car.

This time Xander expected the scene, so he was unsurprised to see seventies punk Spike crouched over a black girl, breaking her neck. The wail that went up from the huddled Spike who was pulled along with them, however, stabbed him to the core.Enough. The bitch has tortured Spike enough.

"Yes, he did this, and yes, Slayers are supposed to kill demons. But you're missing the point here. He," he pointed to punk Spike who methodically stripped the leather duster from his kill, "is not the same demon as him." He swung his finger to point at the distraught figure who wept and clawed at his own face.

"Demon," the Slayer hissed before Tara could speak.

"No." Xander spoke vehemently. "He is more than the demon." Without turning from the Slayer, he spoke to Tara. "She's not the only one who gets to pick where we are, right?"

"Nope," Tara answered quickly.

"Good." He concentrated on visualizing as he spoke. "The Slayer doesn't fight demons. She fights evil. Evil like Hell Gods." This time the Slayer gasped as they stood on the makeshift tower hundreds of yards above Sunnydale. "Here's your demon. See that innocent little girl? The Hell God wants her dead. That's evil, and that," he pointed once more, "is the one you dismiss as a demon trying to save her. Saving innocent little girls is good. Slayers don't kill what's good." He focused on the First Slayer, trying not to see the tormented vampire who had shifted with them.

"He fails. The demon is not strong enough to do what the Slayer must." Before them, Buffy leapt to her death. "Death is her gift. Only the Slayer is strong enough to bear it."

"But the slayer couldn't have done this alone, and it wasn't just Buffy being the slayer that made it possible. That's what you're still not getting," Xander insisted, feeling his advantage slip away. "She loved Dawn, and she loved the rest of us. That gave her the strength to do what she did, but she could never have gotten up here without Spike. He loved her enough to try to do what she wanted, what she needed. And he suffered for it." Below them Spike collapsed in tears as the Scoobies moved toward the Buffy's broken body. Suddenly the differences between the Spike below and the Spike at the top of the tower seemed to disappear as both grieved.

"Only the Slayer can keep the world safe." Xander was grateful that the arrogant comment was delivered in Tara's soft voice, otherwise he might have taken his chances trying to beat some sense into the volatile Slayer before him.

"You know, the only times I've hated Buffy, the only times that I've really not trusted her to do what was right was when she believed that crap. You think only the Slayer can keep the world safe? Well, newsflash—she's not the one who saved the world the last time around."

The tower transformed into the Hellmouth. Around them slayers fought against the vicious Turok-Han. The First Slayer roared impotently at the chaos.

"The Slayer isn't alone anymore. They're all slayers. But you know what, even though there's a whole world full of slayers just like you, none of them could stop this." He spoke furiously. He had to make her understand that this narrow-minded ‘demon-bad, human-good' dichotomy just didn't work. Hell, he knew it wasn't the easiest concept to grasp, but he had managed it and so would she.

Slayers fled as vampires began burning into dust around them. "Buffy couldn't save the world this time." The observers turned to watch the flames dancing between the two figures at the foot of the stairs. "But Spike could." Xander's heart broke at the looks between vampire and slayer and the words of love spoken and denied.

Buffy fled as commanded, and Xander felt as though he was moving through molasses to reach the burning figure's side. "Spike did save the world." He clasped the burning hand and felt the flames leap to him, crawling up his arm and over his chest. In the brief moment before the flames claimed them both, he felt the vampire's hand squeeze his in grateful recognition, saw Tara's compassionate smile, and recognized that the First Slayer acknowledged his point with a quick nod. Then he knew only burning pain and darkness.
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Cause and Effect