"We should go, Spike. Daylight won't be far off."

"I know luv, just a bit longer, hey?"

"Five more minutes, then we have to go. Otherwise you'll be stuck hiding out in a crypt all day."

Alex watched a star shoot across the night sky and smiled. A long time ago, before he knew about vengeance demons and bad wishing, he would have made a wish on that star. He had always wished for the same thing, someone who would love him forever. He looked over at his vampire and smiled. It seemed that someone had granted that wish.

Spike looked up from the now clear headstone and watched as Alex smiled faintly at the sky. His princess used to wish on the stars, he figured that his lover did too once upon a time. Spike never went in for that sort of thing, he always thought that he made his own destiny. That was until he made one little wish. A wish that changed his life.

"Alex, I'm ready."

Alex and Spike held hands as they walked out of the cemetery and back toward their hotel room. Today was the day they would get what they had waited for. Today, Willow would finally pay.

It had taken a considerable amount of time, effort, and money to buy the ingredients and learn the spell they needed to cast, but to a couple of immortal beings it wasn't a hardship.

Wil had been gone for just over ten years now. They had never found a way to immortalize him, and then he said he didn't want it anyways. He figured he had a second chance to live, and that was what he was going to do. So for the next twenty six years, that’s what he did. Alex and Spike loved him every second of every day they were together. When Wil passed, it was quiet. He died in his sleep with his lovers on either side of him.

After the funeral, Spike and Alex left Sunnydale. They traveled for a while but eventually settled in New York for a while. That was where they first heard of the spell they were going to perform tonight. The spell - if cast properly - would summon any demon you wished and hold them prisoner in a protective circle. Alex would be performing that spell.

A second spell, cast by Spike once the demon was contained would revisit every wrongdoing it had ever done upon itself. Willow would be stripped of her powers but not her immortality. She would suffer everything she had done to her friends, and every other person she had cursed. It was the most fitting thing they could come up with. Willows own viciousness would be her punishment.

The first spell was cast and Alex and Spike waited until the smoke cleared to see that they had indeed summoned and contained Willow. She immediately attempted to free herself from the circle.

"You won't get away, Wills. It's time to pay for your actions."

Spike started to chant his spell and looked at the man who had been so wronged by this ... thing that used to be his best friend. He felt no sympathy for her. She deserved worse than this in his opinion. But Alex was still a good man, and wouldn't do any more to her than what he felt she deserved. It was poetic justice, really. Just not brutal enough for his tastes.

Willow screamed as she felt her powers being torn from her, it was like someone had reached into her chest and pulled out her vital organs all at once. She dropped to the floor and writhed in pain before passing out cold.

Spike finished chanting and stepped closer to his lover. He smoothed his - now long again - hair back from his face and rolled his brow across Alex’s'.

"It's done. Do you want to leave her, or stay until she wakes?"

"Stay. I want to make sure it worked. I have to know that they will be avenged, that she'll know how hurt and betrayed we all felt. She has to pay for what she did, Spike."

Alex couldn't stop the tears that slid down his face. Spike gently kissed them away and held his love closely.

"She will, luv. I promise. Every hurt, every betrayal. She'll feel their deaths, their pain, your anguish. She will never know peace again, luv. I swear to you, if this doesn't work, we'll find something else. I won't give up. I won't let Dawn be forgotten, she forgave me ya know?"

"She did?"

"Yeah, finished reading her diaries one night. She said she overheard Buffy and Tara talking, that she understood how things were with the slayer an' me. She knew how horrible I felt, how sorry I was. She said she could forgive me, since I stopped myself, and that if I ever came home she would tell me that. She never got the chance."

Now it was Spike who had tears in his eyes and Alex who held and comforted his lover. He kissed Spike, softly gliding his lips over the silky ones beneath his. He wrapped his arms tightly around him and they just held each other, both lost in the memories they had for their fallen friends.

When Willow came to, she was disoriented at first. She looked around the dingy hotel room and then slowly made it to her feet. She saw Alex and Spike sitting together in a chair in the far corner watching her. Spike got up and approached her.

"So, Red. How you feeling?"

Willow just looked at him and blinked. She was still confused, the last thing she remembered was being in Venice, she was about to turn this guy into a donkey for stealing his best friends girlfriend. Suddenly it all came back to her. The summoning, the spell, the pain.

Willow grabbed her head and screamed as she began to be assaulted by the memories of her one time friends. The fear Buffy felt at losing her power, not being able to protect her Sister and her friends. The confusion Giles felt, not knowing who anyone was or how to function in the world. The utter horror Dawn felt as she realized what was happening to her, her screams of fear and anger that just ceased in an instant.

Willow crumpled to the ground as she relived the attack that had killed Buffy, the attack that had killed Xander for the first time. She felt Giles' confusion as he finally realized that vampires were indeed real, and that he should have known that.

Willow curled up in a ball and sobbed brokenly as she felt every pain she had ever caused Xander to flood her system at once. She was overwhelmed by the depths of despair her one time friend had lived in. How each death he revived from took him that much further away from the man he once was.

Alex watched all of this from the chair with a neutral expression on his face. He wasn't happy about this, but this was justice, not revenge. She would never curse another person. Never cause anyone the pain she had caused him and his friends. He stood up and wrapped his arms around Spike from behind and rested his chin on his lovers shoulder.

"We should go. The noise will draw attention soon."

"Yeah, think they'll lock 'er up?"

"Probably. We'll have to let Angel know where she is, let him deal with her. He's all about redeeming people isn't he? See if can redeem her."

"If nothing else, with her around he'll never achieve a moment of true happiness again."

Alex and Spike left the room, hand in hand and didn't look back. They would call Angel from the road somewhere and tell him about Willow.

After that it was his problem, Alex got what he needed. Some might call it vengeance, but he preferred the term justice.


The End