As soon as Giles was loaded into the ambulance, Buffy sprinted the twenty blocks back to their house. When she turned onto the stone path that led to their front door, she came to a screeching halt. The unmistakable stench of blood assaulted her nostrils. Her stomach quailed and her heart, already pounding hard, lurched and raced faster in her chest as a hundred horrible possibilities raged through her mind.

The front porch light was on and Buffy could see a hopscotch court drawn out in blood on the walk between her and the front door. She swallowed back the bile that threatened the back of her throat as she side-stepped it, her eyes darting up to the house.

“Oh, God!” she exclaimed as she saw Joan sitting on the front porch steps holding a limp and bloodied India.

Joan’s face was down next to India’s, their foreheads touching, as Joan rocked her girlfriend gently in her arms.

Joan looked up when Buffy approached, her eyes and cheeks shimmering with moisture. “She’s … she’s … India … she’s…” Joan stammered, her voice faltering, breaking with the strain.

“India … oh, God,” Buffy repeated, touching a hand to the woman’s neck to check for a pulse. There was none. Her skin felt cool to Buffy’s touch. Buffy’s stomach fell; folding in on itself with grief and sorrow as tears leapt to her eyes. “India … no … God …”

In the next moment, Buffy’s shimmering eyes went wide with renewed terror as she looked up to see the front door standing wide open. “The babies!”

A thousand images – horrible, bloody, ghastly, sickening images – formed in Buffy’s mind in the space of a heartbeat. Images of their babies in the hands of Angelus. Images of their sweet, innocent babies being tortured and mutilated and … and … worse. So much worse.

With tears blurring her vision, the Slayer darted past Joan and India, through the open door of the house, and sprinted up the stairs into the nursery. She couldn’t get the images out of her mind; couldn’t get the knowledge of what Angelus was capable of to stop bombarding her with nauseating terror. She, Joan, and Spike had made a fool of Angel back in Las Vegas; Angelus would not forget that. Angelus would want retribution … more than retribution, vengeance.

Buffy flung herself around the corner and into the open door of the nursery on the verge of hysteria. She careened, out of control, into the rocking chair, sending herself and the chair rolling, ass over teakettle, across the floor.  She scrambled on hands and knees toward the cribs, unable to breathe, unable to think or speak or even scream.

In the next moment, she collapsed onto the floor, little more than a quivering mass of bone and muscle. She broke down into thankful sobs when she saw the twins still sleeping peacefully in their cribs, completely undisturbed. Her heart felt like it might explode at any moment, at once thankful, grief-stricken, and terrified.

“Oh, God … thank God … thank God,” was all she could say as she held her face in her hands, her body convulsing in sobs on the floor of the nursery. She had to fight to keep from hyperventilating as fear-induced adrenaline raced through her body, making her heart skip and leap in her chest as it thudded against her ribs, threatening to break them.

Buffy fought back the bile that had risen in her throat and the queasy feeling in her stomach as she tried to calm her racing heart. But, even as she regained her composure and pushed herself back to her feet, a horrible, empty feeling remained: A beautiful, sweet, loving, gentle person was dead and it was Buffy’s fault.

With tears still raining from her eyes and her breath coming in hiccupping gasps, Buffy double-checked all the rooms upstairs, locking any unlocked windows as she went, then did the same downstairs before returning to the front porch. Not that it would really do any good if Faith wanted in, but it was the only thing she could think to do.

Back downstairs, Joan rocked the lifeless body of her friend, her lover, against her, trying to provide comfort to the dead woman. Buffy blinked her eyes, trying to clear her vision as she knelt down beside the other two women on the front porch steps.

“Oh, God … India,” she repeated again, touching a hand to the gaping wound on the woman’s neck. The vampire who had killed her had not been gentle with her; he’d ripped and torn her flesh savagely before draining her.

“Angelus,” Buffy muttered, certain, shaking her head in horror and regret.

“She is my friend,” Joan whimpered, her face right next to India’s.

A sob escaped Buffy’s throat and her tears began falling harder. “I know she is … oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

“She loves me,” Joan continued. “She … loves that I am not normal.”

“I know, honey … God,” Buffy cried, wrapping her arms around Joan’s shoulders.

“I love her. I … we … she … she said she had been looking for me all of her life,” Joan continued forlornly. “We were to make a long and satisfying existence together. We had … plans. And now … her life has concluded before we could fulfill those expectations. I … I do not understand this outcome. This is iniquitous.”

“Oh, Joan … I’m so, so sorry …”

“I am not accustomed to this splintered, empty feeling in my chest,” Joan continued through her tears. “What is it? It is discomfiting. It is fragmenting my hard drive and corrupting my directories. Make it stop,” she begged, looking up at Buffy. “Please, Buffy, make it stop.”

“Oh, Joan, I’m so sorry,” Buffy moaned, her chin quivering with emotion as her own tears streamed down her cheeks. “I wish I could. I wish I could…”

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” Joan quoted flatly, as if Buffy’s words triggered some auto-response. She dropped her eyes glistening back down to India. Joan hugged her dead friend, her dead lover, to her more tightly, still rocking her gently, her eyes locked on India’s fine, blood-soaked features.

“I do not understand,” Joan continued, still rocking India in her arms, her clothes now soaked with blood. “I cannot determine how to process this situation. She was perfect two hours and twenty-seven minutes ago. She … smiled. She laughed. She kissed me. She … she … she was warm and … a-a-alive. And now … she is gone. She was here and now she is gone. She will not smile. She will not laugh. She will not kiss me ... ever again. Never. Never again. I do not understand why she just can't get back into her body and not be gone anymore. It is irrational … unreasonable for her to simply be ... gone now.

Joan looked up at Buffy with shimmering, grief-stricken eyes. “Why? Buffy, why? Please … I … cannot … comprehend … why. Is it … because I loved her? Is it my fault?”

“No … no … Joan,” Buffy assured her instantly, her own tears coming as hard as Joan’s as she shook her head adamantly. “It’s not your fault … it’s not. It’s … just … it’s …” Buffy’s voice trailed off, unable to say the words, ‘It’s my fault,’ aloud.

“What … what do we do now?” Joan wondered, looking back down at her lover’s lax and ashen face.

“I need … we need to call … someone,” Buffy said softly.

Joan nodded forlornly. “Dead people have certain needs,” she told Buffy, repeating what she’d been told back in Las Vegas when they had taken Spike away. “There is a special place with large drawers and black bags called a ‘morgue’. And you can’t touch the bodies, but it’s acceptable to talk to them. They take care of the needs of dead people.”

Buffy nodded and pulled out her cell phone to call 9-1-1.

**~**

Spike screamed as Angelus popped another of his toes out of their socket. Each toe on Spike’s right foot was bent down at a ninety degree angle, while the ones on his left foot were bent up.

“C’mon, Willie-boy,” Angelus purred dangerously. “All I need is an invite. A buttered scone and a cuppa for your old friend. Is that too much to ask?

“It would put an end all this screaming … Oh – wait! Bad idea! I like the screaming,” Angelus laughed as he used his hands to rearrange the toes on each of Spike’s feet all at once so they were bending opposite of the way they had been a moment ago.

Spike screamed again – his whole body tensing with the agony of it. The shackles tore deeper into the flesh of his wrists and ankles, cutting him to the bone, as his body convulsed in a fit of excruciating pain. His lungs ached with the effort of drawing in unneeded breath to try and remain conscious. Although unconsciousness would be welcome, waking up from it never was. Each time he’d lapsed into darkness, he’d been awoken with a new torture, a new agony.

“Had enough yet, Willie?” Angelus asked, looking down on Spike’s agonized face.

Spike nodded, letting his eyes fall closed and whispered something even Angelus couldn’t hear.

“What was that?” the dark vamp asked, leaning nearer.

Spike mumbled again and Angelus dropped his ear nearer Spike’s lips in order to hear the blond vamp.

“I said,” Spike began, just as softly. Spike took a deep, shuddering breath and screamed, “Get bent!” against his grandsire’s ear, causing Angelus to flinch back and growl in anger.

The larger vamp’s fist flashed down and bloodied Spike’s already broken nose. The blow sent a fresh flood of crimson flowing down Spike’s face and over his lips, and a wave of pain-induced nausea roiled in his stomach.

Faith rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “I don’t need an invite. I don’t see why you don’t just let me take care of it,” she droned from somewhere out of Spike’s line of vision.

For not the first time since this began, Spike prayed. He prayed to anyone that would listen to a reformed creature of the night, admonishing them to not let Angelus listen to the Slayer. As long as Angelus’ sociopathic pride remained intact, the bits were safe. They could torture Spike until the cows came home – and then they could torture the cows – but there would be no invite coming from his lips.

“And I told you,” Angelus snarled at her, moving away from Spike. “That it has to be me. I owe these two – I intend to pay them back with interest. No one makes a fool of me without living just long enough to regret it!”

Faith sighed heavily and shrugged dramatically. “Whatever, big guy. Just sayin’ … we could have the little ankle biters right now and have this over with.  This town sucks – I’m ready to move on.”

“We’ll move on when I say we move on,” Angelus retorted angrily.

Spike heard shuffling and a fist connecting with flesh somewhere behind him. He allowed himself to relax a bit when he heard zippers being slid down and the unmistakable sound of wet, frantic kisses. A shag would allow him a small respite from Angelus … very short and very small, but a respite nonetheless.

“Hello, my Spike,” Dru purred, her cool breath singeing the skin of his neck. “Shall we have a dance? You know I love to dance.”

Bugger.

**~**

Hours later…

Buffy sat at the kitchen table staring at the Polaroids of the ‘crime scene’ that she’d somehow thought to take before the police arrived. She was so exhausted that she barely even saw them any longer, and the doodles she’d been drawing, trying to sort it all out, were starting to look like one of Will and Jade’s ‘art’ projects.

She rubbed at her tired, gritty eyes, wishing she could figure out the blood puzzle that Angelus had left her, but nothing was making sense.

The police had come and gone long ago. India’s body was at the morgue now, and at Buffy’s insistence, Joan was upstairs resting … errr charging. Buffy drank down the last of the now-cold coffee from her mug and then dropped her head down onto her arms on the table. Somewhere in the clues that Angelus had left her was the key to finding him … and Spike; she knew it. She simply couldn’t figure it out.

Even with her eyes closed and her brain fried, she could see the clues dancing in front of her, taunting and mocking her. First there was the hopscotch court, drawn out in blood. The numbers had to mean something; they weren’t sequential like in a normal hopscotch game. She figured it was a house number or house and street number – it was too short to be a phone number – but there were seemingly endless combinations of what it could actually mean.  

Then there were the giant springs, like might go on a big truck. They’d been literally dripping in blood on the lawn next to the hopscotch game. The last clue was the letter ‘B’ written over and over again on the walk all the way from the hopscotch court to the porch steps.

She’d tried writing out the words: ‘hopscotch’, ‘springs’, ‘BBBBB’ and shuffling the letters around like an anagram to make something. She made a lot of words, but none of them meant anything to her. She tried taking the numbers and adding them up, multiplying them, assigning them to letters and adding them to the word puzzle, but again – nothing clicked.

Every minute that passed seemed like a lifetime. Angelus, Dru, and Faith had Spike. Buffy didn’t want to imagine what that meant, but her uncooperative imagination kept conjuring images for her – horrible, painful, heart-wrenching images –  so she kept pressing on, fighting the fatigue and trying to see the answer in the jumbled blood puzzle.

“You require recharging,” Joan said from behind Buffy, making her jump and knock her empty mug onto the floor, shattering it.

“Christ, Joan! Don’t sneak up on people like that!”

“I was not in stealth mode,” Joan defended as she reached for the broom and dust pan to sweep up the broken mug.

Buffy sighed and dropped her head into her hands again. “Sorry … I’m just cranky-Buffy.”

“It is reasonable,” Joan agreed, her voice flat, void of emotion, as she dropped the broken bits of mug into the garbage. “You have not recharged in twenty-seven hours and forty-three minutes. Sleep deprivation in humans can adversely affect the brain’s cognitive function and mood. Lack of sleep for extended periods can cause seizure and death.”

“Oh, swell … as if I didn’t have enough things trying to kill me,” Buffy moaned.

“You should sleep now,” Joan insisted.

Buffy sighed and pushed up from the table. “I can’t. Now that you’re up, I … need to get down to the morgue.”

Joan tilted her head in confusion. “Are you going to speak with India?”

Buffy fingered the stake stuck in the waistband of her jeans at her back. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“May I accompany you?” Joan asked, growing excited. “I would like to speak with her as well. There are many things that I did not say previously that I would like to now relate to her. I will not touch; only talk. I am cognizant of the rules.”

“No … I don’t think that would be a good idea. You don’t have to actually see her to talk to her spirit, honey,” Buffy replied gently. “You can just … talk and … and she’ll hear you. She knows you love her; she’ll hear you if you talk to her.”

“Are you certain? I do not detect the presence of a spirit in this location. The runes and sigils we have painted on the house would likely keep a spirit from entering,” Joan pointed out.

Buffy gave her twin a sad smile. “That only keeps out malevolent spirits; she can hear you, trust me.”

Joan seemed unconvinced, but nodded anyway.

“While I’m gone, could you get the babies their breakfast when they wake up? Make sure to stay in the house. Don’t invite anyone in. Keep the curtains drawn and everything locked up. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Joan nodded. “Tell her … I perceive her absence keenly. It is causing a physical reaction deep in my core processors that I have been unable to control or contain. I regret that I was unable to reanimate her. I regret … I regret that we did not have the opportunity to execute our plans and create a lengthy, fulfilling, and satisfying existence. Tell her … I miss her acutely and … and I love her ... and ... and ... I am ... empty.”

Buffy blinked back her tears, swiping at her eyes with shaking fingers. “You can tell her, honey ... just talk, she can hear you," she assured Joan.

"Please ..." the Bot begged. "She might not hear me. Will you please tell her as well?"

Buffy nodded. "Okay, yeah ... I will.”

**~**

Spike was beyond screaming. All he could do was laugh. It sounded maniacal even to his ears. Dru’s talons dug into the flesh of his chest, her fingers curling around one rib after another, and pulling each one free of the cartilage mooring them to his sternum. He could hear each bone breaking as it was yanked out and bent away from its brothers. It started to sound like a song in his head, playing over and over again.

♫Knick-knack paddywack, give a dog a bone…

Spike laughed.

**~**

Buffy sat on one of the stainless steel autopsy tables in the underground morgue and waited for what she knew would happen to India. There was no way Angelus would just kill her outright. That wouldn’t have been nearly cruel enough. Buffy’s eyelids kept creeping closed as she waited, her head dipping, before snapping back awake.

She was utterly exhausted, a walking zombie, and yet there was no time for sleep. She had to find out if India knew anything about where they’d taken Spike and then she had to dust the woman that had been their very first friend in Austin. The woman that had effectively renamed their daughter to ‘Jade’ with the colorful, artistic collage of her initials. The woman who had died without uttering an invitation to Angelus, despite the pain she must’ve endured. The woman that had accepted Joan’s Abby-Normal-ness and loved her anyway.

As Buffy waited and tried to remain alert, she thought back over the months they’d known India.  It had at first surprised Buffy that the artist had bonded so closely with Joan. They were really complete opposites, but the two women seemed to take great pleasure in trying to show each other the world from a different perspective. The abstract dreamer and the logical realist had had one common love from the very start: art.

They could both look at a flower or a sunset or a blade of grass and see completely different things. India saw the poetry in them, the spirit, the aura, the connection to the world; Joan saw the specific physical detail of each element of the subject. Joan could paint the blade of grass precisely, showing each imperfection, using the exact shades of green or brown or yellow to accurately reproduce it on canvas. India’s blade of grass would be done in bright oranges, pinks, and purples. It would represent a journey from the center of the earth, drawing on all the life-energy of the world and concentrating it into making that single blade of grass.

Despite appearing to be polar opposites, Joan and India could spend hours discussing that blade of grass, trying to understand the other’s point of view and make the other woman understand theirs. The dreamer never could seem to fully grasp the realist, nor could the realist grasp the fuzzy and elusive ideas of the romantic hippie, but they continued to be fascinated by each other, nonetheless, and, over time, that fascination had grown and transformed into affection, and then love.

And now India was dead – or, more likely, undead. Neither Buffy nor Joan had warned India about vampires or revealed their ‘Slayer-ness’ to her. Revealing Joan’s bot-ness had been quite a shock all on its own, and anyway, there just weren’t that many vampires in Austin. It had been different in Sunnydale; people knew there were lots of weird things that went bump in the night, and some could even accept the idea of demons and vampires, but this was Austin. It wasn’t a Hellmouth; there weren’t demon attacks on the citizenry every night. They’d get a passing vampire or demon now and then, but nothing like Sunnydale.

And when Buffy had called India to watch the babies – was it only a few hours ago? – there had been no time. And, anyway, Buffy honestly thought Dru had what she wanted (Spike) and wouldn’t return. If she’d known about Angelus being on the loose, she would’ve never, ever left the babies or India alone. Never. If. If. If.

If ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’ were pots and pans, there’d be no work for the tinker’s hands.

And now India was dead. Joan was devastated. Their plans for a long, happy life were shattered. And, to top everything off, Dru and Angelus still had Spike.

No matter how far Buffy ran, it seemed like her past just kept following her. Maybe they should’ve gone to Croatia like Spike suggested. If she couldn’t talk to anyone, she couldn’t make friends and couldn’t put them in danger.

Buffy pulled herself out of her morose reflection when the dead body on the table opposite her began to stir. Time to go to work.

Buffy jumped down off the table she’d been sitting on and moved up beside the table where India’s body laid. She pressed her stake against the dead woman’s chest and tried to remember that this was no longer their friend. She was a demon. She wasn’t the same woman that loved Joan; she wasn’t the same woman that babysat for them; she wasn’t the artist, she wasn’t human.

India’s eyes blinked open and her lovely, fine-features morphed into those of the demon Angelus had impregnated her with. Her eyes, which had been such an amazing shade of violet-grey in life, were now the angry amber of the monster.

“Don’t move,” Buffy warned, pressing the stake harder against the woman’s chest.

India growled and tried to reach for Buffy, but her arms were trapped within the body-bag. Only her face, neck, and a small part of her chest were freed from the confines of the coroner’s standard garb for the deceased.

“Tell me where Angelus is and I’ll let you go,” Buffy offered.

“Let me go and I’ll take you to him,” the fledge vamp slurred past her fangs.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, India,” Buffy retorted. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I’ve been doing this a while. Tell me where he is – it’s your only chance.”

“How do I know you’ll keep the deal?” India wondered, struggling to try and wriggle her arms out of the bag.

“‘Cos I’m the Slayer – I’m the good guy, the white hat. We always keep our word.”  

India stopped struggling, realizing it was futile. She studied the Slayer with her preternatural senses, salivating at the sound of fresh blood rushing in Buffy’s veins, at the aroma wafting from her skin, at the warmth radiating off her.  India had never felt more ravenous than at that moment. She needed blood. She needed that warmth running down her throat like she’d never needed anything before.

“He’s in an abandoned house near the Church of Good Tidings,” India revealed after several long moments of contemplation. “Let me out of here and I’ll take you there,” she offered again hopefully.

Buffy sighed heavily. That was the house where they’d found Giles. Angelus wasn’t there anymore. Shit!

“Was he gonna meet you there? Did he say when?” the Slayer questioned.

“He just said that’s where he’d be waiting for me – you know, right before he ripped my throat out,” India retorted sarcastically.

Buffy winced as if physically slapped. “I’m sorry … I should’ve told you.”

“Ya think?” India snarked back, rolling her amber eyes.

“I didn’t think you were in danger; and, anyway, I didn’t think you’d believe me,” Buffy defended. “I didn’t think … it would ever come to this … not here, not so far from a Hellmouth.”

“So, mostly, you just didn’t think,” India shot back.

Buffy cringed again, her guilt weighing on her heavily. “I guess … not,” she admitted miserably.

India shrugged, looking around the room. “It’s really kinda awesome,” the demon replied almost dreamily. “I can see everything so much more clearly … hear everything, smell everything.”

She looked back at Buffy and licked her lips. “And you smell divine; really, really … scrumptious … like … food, like life.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Buffy quipped. “I’m a Happy Meal on legs. Go me!”

Buffy turned serious again as she looked down at the demon that used to be their friend … more than a friend, practically one of their family. “Thank you for … for what you did, for protecting the babies, not inviting Angel in.

“Joan wanted me to tell you that she misses you, and … she’s sorry she was too late to save you. She really … really loves you and … and she wanted to make all your dreams of a happy life come true.”

“Well, she still can! Why don’t you get me outta this bag and we can go see her?” India suggested, her words getting less lispy the more she talked. “We can still have that life we dreamed of … just with more blood and violence. It’ll be even better!”

Buffy drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I ... I can't take the chance ... can't take any more chances...

“G-g-goodbye, I-India,” Buffy breathed, her voice breaking at the end as she pressed harder on the stake.

India’s amber, demon eyes widened in shock. “But, I told you what you wanted! You promised!”

Tears filled Buffy’s eyes again and spilled down her cheeks as she looked down on their friend. “I … I’m … s-s-sorry…” she stammered, pressing down even harder on the stake.

In the next moment, Buffy was yanked backwards and flung across the room. She slid across the slick linoleum floor and crashed into the wall on the opposite side of the room. Her head hit the wall with a painful, deafening ‘thud’ and her world began to spin out of control. She struggled to open her eyes, but her lids were too heavy. She struggled to move, to get up, to get out, to find her stake, to do anything but she couldn’t get her limbs to function. She could only slump against the cold wall as darkness closed in on her exhausted, and now concussed, mind.

**~**

Spike woke up screaming.

“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none, and this little piggy went ‘Wee, wee, wee’ all the way home!” a child’s gleeful voice recited in a sing-song voice.

As each ‘little piggy’ was enumerated, Spike’s already dislocated and broken toes were wrenched sideways and twisted full circle in their sockets. Hana laughed and giggled as she exclaimed ‘wee, wee, wee!’ nearly pulling Spike’s little toe completely off.

Spike’s body was beyond being able to even tense or convulse with the agony. He couldn’t even pull against the shackles, which were now embedded into the bones of his wrists and ankles, any longer. He could only scream and even that was only a shadow of its former self.

“Such a pretty rainbow you’ve made, little Hana! All in my favorite hues: reds and blacks and blues and purples. What game is next?” Dru asked her small companion giddily, bouncing on her toes expectantly.

Hana’s teal-blue eyes danced as she thought a moment, then a bright smile christened her angelic features. She picked up a claw-hammer from the floor and skipped gaily up from Spike’s feet to his head. The child raised the hammer above Spike’s forehead and began to sing, “Little bunny Foo-Foo, hopping through the forest, picking up the field mice and ‘bonking’ them on the head!”

Spike screamed.

**~**