Author: Meltha
Rating: R
Feedback: Yes, thank you. Meltha
Spoilers: Through all of AtS and BtVS.
Distribution: Fanfiction.net and the Bunny Warren. If you're interested, please let me know.
Summary: After the events of “Not Fade Away,” Spike is sent to England to take care of Dawn, but not in the way he once did.
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.
Author's Note: Written for the holiday_btvs Valentine Ficathon for athenewolfe who requested Spike/Angel or Spike/Dawn, dark, biting, comment about blood, and no fluff. I don’t think I’ve ever written these two as a pairing before, so hopefully it works. Also, this thing got completely away from me on length.

The Enemy Within

Part 9

No matter how many times Spike blinked, there were two Willows standing there. Unless Willow—-that would be the red-headed one—-had dosed the blood with something particularly interesting, something deeply bizarre had happened. In the blink of an eye, the black-haired witch had rushed the other version of herself, talon-like fingernails sprouting too fast to see, aiming directly for her throat. The normal Willow simply crossed her wrists in front of her and uttered a word in a language Spike didn’t recognize, and a blinding flash of scarlet erupted, sending the evil witch skittering across the floor.

“Look at you,” the Willow in black spat out as she dabbed at a cut on her her lip. “You’re pathetic.”

“Actually, of the two of us in here, I’m the one who isn’t laying on the ground mopping blood off her face, so you might want to rethink that,” Willow said, moving her hands again as though she were creating an imaginary snowball, forming a globe of light between her palms. “Extundo!”

As soon as the words left her lips, the globe rocketed from her hands towards the darker version of herself. However, she rolled quickly out of the way, leaving the globe to break across the floor in a pool of liquid fire that evaporated at once. The glare that came from her black eyes made Spike shudder involuntarily. Then she rolled her eyes back in her head and shouted, “Adstringo!”

Serpentine streamers of black shot from her fingertips, and he was reminded of a time he had seen a cobra strike in India. The red-haired Willow rolled to one side just in time to avoid them, but not before one had grabbed her around the ankle and knocked her to the floor, dragging her towards her counterpart. She quickly directed a finger at it and said, “Deputo!” The tendril abuptly separated in the middle as though cut by an invisible sword. She scrambled to her feet quickly.

“Look, this is kind of ridiculous,” the red-haired girl said to her near-twin, her expression annoyed. “You’re me, I’m you, so this is basically a tie. Besides, if you kill me, you die, and vice versa.”

“It does sort of remind me of that whole Ben/Glory thing,” the darker version responded. “But I’m not so sure we’re evenly matched.”

With a single movement of one finger, a flicker of darkness disconnected itself from the shadows and abruptly attached itself to Willow’s throat, making her eyes widen as she gasped for breath.

“I could always keep you as my special pet,” the evil Willow said, walking directly up to the incapacitated witch and drawing a finger down her cheek. “Could be fun. Well, for me, not you, obviously. Anyway, the way I figure it…”

She was suddenly cut off as she was hit over the head from behind with the thermos the other Willow had brought. It didn’t do any damage, but it startled her enough to break her concentration, and in that moment her control over the spell slipped. The Willow who had been held paralyzed was able to lift a hand to her neck and fling the shadow back towards her alter ego, where it clung.

“Thanks, Spike,” she said.

“Any time, Red,” he replied.

“Okay, this time I get to talk,” Willow said firmly, turning to her evil self. “You’re going back exactly where you came from, and that’s it.”

Spike had needed to put Dawn on the floor in order to smack Willow over the head with the thermos, which seemed like the most logical (and only) weapon present. He gathered her back into his arms now and considered trying to get her out of the cell and preferably out of the house before the two witches could begin battling again, but before he could get to the door, there was a massive glow of white light behind him. He spun quickly and was met with a very strange sight.

As he watched, the two Willows floated a few inches off the ground, then at a flick of the good Willow’s wrist, came closer to each other. Despite the dark Willow’s helpless flailing, the spell held. The light became increasingly brighter until he couldn’t bear to look at it, then slowly dimmed, leaving only one Willow standing in the room. He was extremely happy to see this particular version of Willow had red hair.

“Um, hey?” Willow said apologetically.

“Hey yourself,” Spike said, not loosening his grip on Dawn. “Where’d you send the emo version of you?”

“Nowhere,” she said, sighing. “I just put her back inside of me. See, after Kennedy left me, I started feeling rage: not Tara-level, I-want-to-flay-thing rage, but still not a good thing. I’d heard there was a temple in the Amazon that attracted dark energy, so I tried to go there to use it as a magnet to sort of draw out the evil side of me and get rid of the bad stuff for good.”

“But instead it split you in two,” Spike said, filling in the blanks.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Willow said. “The next thing I knew, I was hanging upside-down from a tree, completely covered in vines, and she just zoomed off. I was stuck there until Buffy and Xander showed up and cut me loose.”

“How did she know to come here?” Spike asked.

“She didn’t… or I guess I should say I didn’t. She just wanted to get her hands on Buffy and Giles for beating the crap out of her last time, but when she showed up, when of the Slayerettes blabbed everything that had happened the second she saw her, and I guess she thought she’d have a some fun,” Willow said.

“What about Giles, Andrew, the rest of the girls?” Spike said, afraid of the answer.

“Most of them were actually gone already,” Willow said. “Giles installed some sort of early dark magic detection system, and he was able to get most of them somewhere else before she showed up. I don’t know exactly what he did, and I don’t want to, but I think there’s someplace around here that’s cloaked. But there were a few who didn’t get the warning.”

She looked down, then away. Carefully, she helped the girl who had been brought in to tempt Dawn to feed stand up.

“How many?” Spike asked again, refusing to blink.

“It looks like she killed at least half a dozen girls,” she said quietly, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I guess I mean I killed them. We’re still the same person.”

Spike remained silent. He supposed there wasn’t really anything he could say. It couldn’t be all that different from what had happened to him when he had regained his soul and realized the enormity of what he’d done wrong. There wasn’t a balm for that.

“Spike?” Dawn said from his arms. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Awake again, eh?” Spike said, trying to sound slightly less depressed than he felt. “It’s over.”

“Who won?” she asked, unsure.

“Willow,” Spike said. “Course, she was also the one who lost, too. Anyway, it’s over now.”

Dawn’s eyes swiveled from Spike to Willow to the girl and back to Spike again. He saw her trying to process what had happened, but then shrugging it off.

“I’m hungry,” she finally said, choosing to go with something she understood.

“So bite me, baby,” he purred at her.

She giggled, then fastened her teeth onto his neck and began to drink. Willow’s eyebrows went up until they disappeared almost completely.

“Okay,” she said. “I suppose I should have been expecting that, but I really, really wasn’t.”

“We’ve had to reach an unconventional understanding. She needs to feed now or she’s going to try jumping either you or the girl again,” Spike said, still cradling Dawn in his arms, though he was getting a little weak in the knees. “The soul. What about it?”

“Oh, um, right,” Willow said, trying not to look incredibly interested, and not necessarily in a scientific sense, at the picture in front of her. “I can do the Orb of Thessula spell at sunset. That’s the most potent time for it. She hasn’t, you know, killed anybody, right?”

“No,” Spike assured her. “She tried a couple times, but she’s still clear.”

“And, uh,” Willow said, averting her eyes, “the whole, you know, purity thing…”

“Not exactly as the driven snow, but she’s still a virgin, yeah,” he said.

“Right, well, that’s good,” Willow said, noticing for the first time that the other girl was gawking. “Um, maybe we should come back a little later, you know, after you’ve finished eating.”

“Excellent idea,” he responded, and Willow got up to leave, taking the girl on the floor with her as she was leaving. Suddenly, a thought hit him. “Wait, Willow!” he called out.

She turned around immediately.

“Her soul? Did she ever even have one?” he asked, trying not to let the panic he felt slip into his voice.

“Oh, that,” Willow said, smiling in relief. “I did a test on Dawn back in Sunnydale back when we thought she might be a Slayer. It wasn’t exactly the most normal soul I’ve ever seen, but it definitely exists.”

“Thanks,” he said. “We’ll see you upstairs in a few.”

“Right,” Willow said. As soon as she thought she was out of earshot, he heard her say, “I really need a cold shower after that one.”

“You hear that?” he said, allowing himself to sink to the floor with her. “One soul, ready ordered and set to go in a few hours.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured, finally taking her mouth off Spike’s neck. “Whatever. Will you finally screw me then?”

“Maybe,” he said, looking down at her. “But then again, you did disobey me. I explicitly told you not to eat that girl, but you lost control.”

“I was hungry,” she said with a shrug.

“Not a good enough answer,” he said, his eyes turning gold. “I do believe I may have to teach you a lesson first. A good paddling should do the trick.”

Moving faster than she would have expected, she suddenly found herself draped over his lap, her jeans opened and yanked down to her knees, her thong doing next to nothing to cover her ass.

“Beautiful,” he breathed softly, then raised his hand and brought it down with a crashing smack against her skin. “One...”

“Two...”

“Three...”

“Four...”

“Five...”

They made it upstairs to the resoulment ceremony without incident, but only barely.

The next day, when Giles, Andrew, and the rest of the Slayerettes returned to the estate, the wards Giles had set up having told them that all was now well, Dawn and Spike were gone. There was a note left, stating they would return in about ten years’ time after Dawn had learned the basics of controlling her new nature, though they would remain in touch. Giles frowned slightly, but realized it was probably for the best, all things concerned.

He did not, however, choose to wonder ponder overmuch why, when the bills came in at the end of the month, there was a purchase made on the Council’s credit card at the local pet shop for a collar and leash.

Fin