Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Los Angeles, the evening of the apocalypse

"Angel, it's me."

He gripped the receiver, sagging in his chair, beyond relief. "Buffy. Tell me."

"It's over. We're done. The Hellmouth is closed again." A laugh, on the edge of grim. "By the rubble that was once Sunnydale."

"The town is–"

"Gone. Into the sinkhole. They're saying it was an earthquake. Odd how everyone in town got out before this mysterious earthquake struck."

Angel let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Everyone got out?" It sounded so unlikely. Miraculous. But Buffy was miraculous. "All of your crew too?"

"Not all. Several of the potentials died."

The little girls. Not so little, of course, but still, they were only teenagers. "That's hard, Buffy. I'm sorry."

"And Anya. Xander is – just broken."

"I'm sorry," he said again. Inadequate. "Still, it's great that you–"

"Spike."

"Spike is there with you?" he said. Of course. Spike Triumphant. The lion rampant. The champion. Crown him with laurels and kisses. "Well, tell him, you know. Good show. All that. No hard feelings about the amulet. I'm sure he wore it well."

"He's gone."

"Gone?" Angel echoed stupidly. "You mean he left with the amulet?"

"No. He was–" another laugh, this one inutterably weary. "He was the mysterious earthquake. He took them all. Like Samson. Pulled the city down on top of them. Burned them all up and buried them."

"And he–"

"Didn't get out."

He couldn't speak. He'd told her that the amulet was volatile. But Spike– Spike was a survivor. Charming, unscrupulous, ruthless, and goddamn lucky. Darla used to joke that after the end of the world, two species would survive, the cockroaches and Spike, and the cockroaches' days would be numbered. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Her breathing was a bit ragged. "You should have seen him. He was so full of joy. I'd forgotten that– how joyous he could be, when he was fighting. When he was in danger. When he was living."

Unbidden, Angel remembered it too– when Spike laughed, when he sang, joy radiated from him like the forbidden sun. Sometimes it was after a great kill, sometimes just after a great fight, sometimes just because he was in the world still and he loved it always. It was what Angel envied most in Spike, and what Angelus loved best, even as he tried to stomp it out. Love of life, even in unlife. Only Spike, of all the vampires he had known, knew joy.

"Did you see him die?"

"No. He made me leave. And then the world collapsed on him."

"He might–"

She didn't even let him formulate the thought, much less the phrase. "Angel, don't. There were fires everywhere. They were coming from him. They consumed him. He's gone."

Gone. Angel tried to corral his scrambled thoughts. "Where are you? Do you need a place to stay? We have plenty of room."

"Thanks. That's– that's a good idea. We've got a busful. We'll drive up tomorrow."

Angel seldom drank anymore. But he was Irish, or had been long ago, and he owed Spike an Irish wake. He found a bottle in the cupboard, and pawed through his old LPs till he found the CD Spike had proffered during a moment of amity in Sunnydale during that time he was Angelus– just a single moment, vanquished as soon as he said, "Here. Give this a listen and maybe you'll grow some musical taste along with all that hair." After that intro, Angel refused to listen to the music, and now had to use a thumbnail to slice open the cellophane before he could put it on the CD player. But then it was as if Spike was there with him, belting out the stupid song, all angry joy, all merry mayhem. "I don't want to be buried, in a pet sematery... I don't want to live my life again..."

An hour later the song was playing again, and he was drunk, and he thought of Drusilla and wondered if she were dead too– she must be, poor mad Dru, without Spike to take care of her. Or she would be, if she heard of this, if she heard that her bright dark knight, her passionate darling boy, was lost to her forever.

He punched at the stop button, and in the sudden silence, he thought, my boy is gone.

He meant Connor. And he meant Spike. And he whispered it aloud. "My boy is gone."

He heard someone behind him, coming in through the open office door. It was Fred, and her hand was gentle on his shoulder.

"My boy is gone," he said again, looking up into her face. And then, in bemusement, "And Spike is gone." In a low voice, he added, "Wicked little Will."

He knew she didn't understand, but her hand was sweet, brushing at his face, and he leaned into it, breathing in the faint perfume at her wrist, sensing the pulse just behind it.

He closed his eyes, letting Fred's warm hand cup his cheek. In the darkness, he could imagine Spike, the fire everywhere around him, that sharp beautiful face aglow, the eyes blazing, the mouth curving in an exultant smile. From somewhere in the depths of his memory came the words of an old hymn: Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven– and for just a moment, he let himself hope that it was true.

It took him a week to find the courage to drive out to the crater. The journey through the night was cool, quiet, the highway rushing by in the darkness, his headlights showing only more roadway ahead. The devastation that Spike wrought came up so suddenly that he had to jam on the brakes, and his car skidded to a stop twenty yards from the ring of boulders.

He left the lights on and walked down the road. The closer he got, the more he smelled smoke, dust, ashes. And something else–

She was sitting on a rock, staring down into the abyss. Without turning, she said, "I knew you'd come tonight."

"Dru," he breathed. "How did you know?"

"The little stars told me."

She turned her face, up to the night sky, and he looked up too, at the sharp points of light above. Dru had a connection to the cosmos– part of her madness, of course, but it was always there, and she reached up now, and he could almost feel her fingers scraping against a star. "That one there. That's my darling, darkling boy. Do you see him?"

"I see. Dru, how did you get here? Where did you come from?"

"A long way," she said vaguely. She shrugged, and the red velvet shawl fell away, revealing shoulders bare in a black satin evening gown.
A white orchid was pinned to her bodice. She would dress up in her best for an occasion like this.

"And you knew to come here?"

She glanced over at him, as if he'd asked something foolish. "I know where my boy is. I always know that."

She rose to her feet, teetering in her high heels on the rock, her hand still stretched out above her.

"Dru, be careful." He approached her hesitantly. "Don't like having to climb down into that crater and carry you back up."

"Oh, I won't fall. I just want to say goodbye to Spike." She plucked the orchid from her dress, and tugged off a petal. It gleamed cream and white in the headlights. She opened her fingers and let it drift down into the crater.

Angel held his breath. Dru understood what he did not– how to celebrate. How to commemorate. She dropped petal after petal, humming to herself, staring down into the darkness below.

"I'm glad you're here," he said as the last petal floated away. It was crazy. But it was true. Everything between them had fallen away– Spike, Darla, evil, vengeance. Just for the moment, they were just– Spike's family.

"I'm glad you're here," she echoed, reaching into her bag. "So I can say goodbye to you too."

And she jumped from the rock onto the ground in front of him, light as a petal. There was a wooden stake in her hand.

Instinctively Angel stepped back, vampface sliding into place. "Dru–" He put up his hand to deflect the blow– but it never came. Instead she extended the stake, blunt end towards him.

"Go ahead, Daddy. It's time to say goodbye."

He dropped his hand. Shook his head.

She said, annoyed, "You have to do it. You sired me."

He couldn't.

It made no sense. Dru was a killer, and a nastily efficient one. If he let her go, she would kill more. But he just couldn't take the stake from her, just couldn't dust the childe Angelus once loved, not like this, not so soon after Spike.

Dru sighed with exasperation. "Spike wouldn't do it either, I know. Even though he always loved me better than you did."

And then, in a sudden motion, she cupped the end of the stake in her palm and jammed the point into her chest. For an instant, he saw her pretty face alight, and then it dissolved.

The breeze picked up a bit of the dust and diffused it over the crater.

Angel stumbled back to his car, choking on her taste. He sat there for a half hour, his door open, his lights illuminating the grave of the last of his line. I am all alone now, he thought. No one left in the world remembers me.

Los Angeles, 5 months later--

It was late. Time to head home. No reason to head home, though. So the security guard's knock on his office door was a welcome distraction.

"Sir, there's someone downstairs. I don't know him. So I didn't let him in."

The guards were all trained not to invite anyone in, even to the wide marble lobby. Never knew which invitation might open the building to an infestation of vampires.

"So what's his name?"

"Wouldn't tell me his name. But he asked me to give you this. Said he'd wait."

Automatically Angel reached out. The guard opened his fist and poured a chain into Angel's hand, then left the room. With a sense of dread, Angel dangled it from one finger, gazing at the amulet hanging below. The setting was as pristine as it had been the evening he'd given it to Buffy. But the jewel no longer winked seductively. All the power was gone.

Someone must have found it in the rubble that was Sunnydale, and used some sort of spell to track the owner – Angel-- down. He dropped the chain and amulet into his coat pocket and opened his desk drawer to withdraw an envelope full of bills. A thousand should do it.

What he was going to do with the stupid thing, he didn't know. Give it back to Buffy? Stick it in his safe, and take it out once a year on the anniversary of Spike's death?

But he couldn't let it go.

He reached into his pocket and curled his fingers around it, imagining that he could feel its final heat. Spike's heat. But it was cold and slick and unresponsive.

Then he sighed and took the elevator down to the lobby to pay the scavenger off.

Dusk was deepening into night, and in the shadows under the awning, the figure leaning against the pillar outside was dark and formless. For just a moment, Angel hesitated at the glass doorway, not from fear, but a typical urban distaste. The man was sick, or drunk– no help for it, though. The money would go a long way towards curing him– or getting him drunker.

He motioned to the guard to take up a post near the door. Then he turned the lock and went out to the flagstoned entrance. "Here you go," he said, holding the bills out.

The man pushed away from the pillar. Turned towards Angel. Hesitated, then stumbled forward. Instinctively, Angel raised his fists, letting the bills flutter to the ground. He heard a quiet snap as the guard behind him drew his gun.

Then he heard the whisper. "Angelus." And the man fell against him, and Angel shoved him back, raised his fist to punch– and suddenly remembered that night six years ago, at the Sunnydale school, when after decades apart, Spike had seen him, and said his name in that wondering way– said Angelus and grabbed him in an embrace. The last moment of honest affection between them, and it hadn't even been honest on Angel's part.

The guard was shouting something, moving fast. "No!" Angel cried. His arm was all that kept the man from slumping to the floor. "It's all right! I know him. He's– Just back off."

He eased the body gently down, angling the back to rest against the plate glass window. Then he stepped back, gazing down at him "Jesus. Jesus." It was something between an curse and a prayer. The man's head was bent, but there was no mistaking the battered leather coat, or the lethally lean form, or the blaze of golden white hair under the harsh floodlights.

He knelt down, and forced the head up. The face was filthy and blistered, the cheeks more hollowed than before. "Will," he whispered. "Open your eyes."

Slowly the eyelids fluttered, and then Will was looking back at him– the wounded boy he'd known so long ago. Angel took a deep breath and hoisted him up in his arms. "Come on in. We'll fix you up."

He'd been through this a time or two himself– clawed his way out of a grave of one sort or another– and he knew what Spike needed most. Warmth and blood. And after that– "Take that money." Holding the dead weight of his grandchilde in his arms, Angel gestured with his head towards the bills lying out in the still night. "Find a store. Bandages. Antiseptics. And–" He looked down at the t-shirt and jeans that had absorbed much of Sunnydale's dust. "Get him some clothes."

The guard stooped to collect the bills. "But– I don't know what size."

"Spike!" Angel said sharply.

Spike's eyes opened. "What?"

"What size jeans do you wear?"

It was a stupid thing to be asking a man just resurrected, but Spike didn't protest. He just whispered, "Thirty-two inseam. Thirty-two waist."

For that alone, Angel thought, I should drop him. "Shoe size?"

"I don't know." Spike groaned. But with an obedience generally foreign to his nature, he guessed, "Ten?"

The guard shook his head, but headed out the door to look for a store still open this late.

Angel bypassed his office and carried Spike into the guest apartment on the 7th floor. In the bathroom, he set him gently on the floor, and turned the bath faucets on. "You're all banged up, aren't you, lad?" he said soothingly as he pulled off the leather coat and tossed it into the bedroom. "Don't mean to hurt you, but you're shivering– need to get you warmed up." He didn't pull the t-shirt over Spike's battered head, just yanked on a hole in the front and ripped it down the middle, then slid the sleeves off. He was reminded, painfully, of undressing a sleeping Connor, just like this, carefully, lovingly. Boots, jeans– Spike groaned once as the belt buckle dragged past a scrape on his knee, but he didn't make another sound until Angel set him naked down into the warm bathwater.

Then he sighed, and slid under the surface, seeking, no doubt, the ease and the heat on his face too. Angel turned to gather up the discarded clothes– vampires couldn't drown, after all, as they didn't breathe. But then he heard the choking, and whirled around. Spike was sitting up, water streaming from his hair, his chest convulsing. "Bloody hell," he muttered between coughs.

"You're... breathing." Shanshu.

"Shit."

But at least he was revived now, dashing the water from his eyes and gazing around him with confusion. "Angelus," he said again, focusing on Angel.

Angel slid to the tiled floor, sitting Indian style in front of the tub. "Tell me what happened, Spike."

"You called me Will before."

"Sorry. You just looked like– you used to."

"Everything hurts."

"Yeah. Looks like it." Mesmerized, Angel watched the pale hard chest rise and fall, automatically counting the bruises there– fresh bruises. Either someone had been kicking the shit out of him, or he'd been under a city recently. "Stay with me here, Spike. Tell when– when did you ... wake up?"

"Yesterday? Day before?"

"Where were you?"

Spike closed his eyes. "I don't know. I just ... walked. The amulet led me here. I don't know why. Home, I guess."

Home. That word made Angel's chest hurt. "It's been–" he counted in his head. "Almost five months since you–" What? Died? "Since you were buried. Were you there in the same place all that time?"

"Yeah. I don't know. Look, I don't remember anything. I just want to– rest."

Angel got to his feet. "Okay. Let me get you some blood."

He took his time retrieving the frozen A-pos and warming it in the microwave. Took his time puzzling this out. The goddamned Powers that Be, no doubt, playing games with mortality again. No one ever seemed to stay dead anymore. But the breathing– new twist. And the blisters. Spike must have been walking in the daylight. Instead of bursting into flames, he just burned, like any pale Englishman caught out in the Southern California sun.

By the time Angel returned with the mug, Spike had gotten out of the tub, wrapped a towel around his waist, and managed to get into the bedroom and the edge of the bed. Vampire healing still in effect? Or just once last great effort?

Angel glanced down into the mug of blood. Would Spike even need it?

But Spike took without comment, downed it, and then held out the mug. "Can I have some water?"

"Sure." Angel returned with the water, only to find Spike sitting there, eyes half-closed, shoulders sagging. "Why don't you lie down, lad?"

Spike drank down the water, handed it back, and obediently curled up on the coverlet. In a moment, he was asleep– as silent as ever, but with his chest moving slightly every now and again. Angel pulled the other side of the cover over him, turned out the light, and went back down to the lobby to wait for the guard– and for midnight, when it would be 8 am in England.

"Does Buffy know?" Giles asked.

"No one does. He came to me first." Something twisted in him as he said that. Pride? Tenderness? He was tired of loving. Tired of being tied to those few renegades left in his line, the troubled remnants of a past he rejected. But... Will had woken up, and come to him first. "I'm not sure where he was, or how much he remembers. He's pretty battered, but – but not like he's been somewhere exposed and starving for five months. He drank some blood, but didn't ask for more. He's not much gaunter than usual. And... he's breathing."

"Breathing." Giles inhaled. "Did you feel for a pulse?"

"Didn't think of it." Angel glanced back through the bedroom door, but decided not to bother him.

"Do you think they made him human? As a reward?"

Angel closed his eyes. "Spike wouldn't think of that as a reward. I don't know. He's already mending up. Just like always. But I don't know what he is now– I didn't sense him, the way I would usually. He just felt like some homeless drunk outside the door. Maybe it's because I thought he was dead, so I wasn't tuned in. But I – I didn't know it was him till he spoke my name."

"His mind is functioning then."

"He knows me at least." As Angelus... but best not to mention that. "And he knew about the amulet. But not where he'd been, or how he got here." He paused and then added, "He knew his size."

"What?"

"I sent someone out to get him fresh clothes. He told us what size to get."

"Well, that's the sort of memory that one doesn't lose. What happened that day at the Hellmouth– and what's happened since– that's what we need to know. And that, I suspect, is not going to come back to him so automatically. Post-trauma...."

They didn't like each other, for good reasons, and Giles was the last person he wanted to ask for advice. But Giles had known Spike for years– the latest Spike version, not the one Angel knew so well– and, more important, he knew Buffy. "What do you think I should do with him?"

"Debrief him."

The research wonk speaks.

"Okay. And after that?"

Giles said reluctantly, "I suppose we shall have to tell Buffy."

So Giles didn't want Buffy to know either. "Fortunately, she's gone off on that vision quest to Tibet. She won't be near a phone for weeks."

"Perhaps, by that time, Spike will be– recovered. And he will go off on his own, and do... whatever it was he did before he came into her life."

"Well, he can't do that again, considering it mostly involved murder and mayhem." Angel rubbed at his forehead. "Tell you what. I'll patch him up. Get him back on his feet. And give him some money. He's always been a wanderer. Easily bored. I'll suggest he might want to go back to Europe."

Giles didn't answer right away. Angel wondered if he was thinking the same thing– that Spike at loose ends, even now, might be a dangerous thing. Finally Giles said, "We can assume that he has been transformed. Once cannot experience what he has experienced without elemental change. He made a great sacrifice, and has been rewarded with a new life."

"Either that or he irritated the Powers so much, they sent him back."

"That is indeed a possibility," Giles said. "I could, perhaps, make some use of him, if his mental faculties are intact."

"Were they ever?"

"He had a good mind, you know. A classical education, a retentive memory, and many languages, human and demon. I could assign him to some research. Provide a stipend. And a supervisor."

Spike the researcher might last an hour. His supervisor half as long. But at least– "At least it will get him out of this area. Out of–"

"Out of Buffy's life."

Angel closed his eyes. "I have to tell her."

"Of course. She does need to know. But there's no need to have him become her responsibility. She should be coming back from her vision quest ready to start a new life. And Spike– grateful as I am that he spared her another death– could only prove a distraction for her, just when she most needs to focus on her own future."

"I agree." It was disorienting, agreeing with Buffy's watcher. Allying with him. Then he realized this agreement indicated that Giles did not see Angel as another potential distraction to Buffy's future. Buffy must not have told him their plans-- "Maybe it will be best if we can get him squared away there in England before she gets back. That gives us a couple months."

As he was ringing off, Spike came, blinking drowsily, to the bedroom door, reknotting the towel around his waist. The bruises on his chest were already beginning to fade. His blond hair had dried into curls. He looked absurdly young.

"I had a dream."

Angel rose and went to him, taking his arm and leading him back to the bed. "That's good. You lie back down and tell me all about it. Get under the covers this time."

Spike slid under the sheet and pulled the coverlet up to his shoulders. "You going to sit down?"

"Sure." Angel dropped down into the easy chair next to the bed. "Now was this a dream, or a memory?"

"A memory, I guess." Spike's voice was tranquil, childlike. "I was climbing. Stones. Boulders. And I came out into the sunlight. I thought I was going to burn up, but I didn't. And I kept walking along the road. I had the amulet in my hand, and it just led me." He smiled. "I didn't know where I was going. I was glad to see it was you."

Now that, Angel thought, was perhaps the first time Spike had ever expressed such a sentiment. He wondered how much of the man's memories were gone. Most of those concerning their recent relationship, apparently. "I'm glad you found me."

Spike murmured, "What about Dru?"

"She's – not here." He had to start keeping track. What Spike remembered, what he didn't. Remembered Angel– or Angelus, anyway. Remembered Dru. "You remember you two broke up, right?"

Pain flickered across Spike's face, then faded. "I guess. But I still – you know." After a moment, he added, "She's gone, isn't she? I can feel it."

"Yes– she... She went to where you... died, and – staked herself."

Spike whispered, "I knew she was gone. It feels like... a chain breaking." He turned his head away. "She knew. And went there. And did that. After so long. She still loved me, then."

"I think... she never meant to go on without you. Not forever. And she sensed your leaving." Spike and Dru– they were creatures of such passion, hard and sharp and glowing. So many feelings stabbing them all the time. He never knew how they bore it. Maybe it was like the guilt that always pierced him, only in many different colors, not just dull gray. "I didn't know it when you were gone."

"Maybe I wasn't ever really gone." Spike rubbed at his face, then reached out the wet fingers and touched Angel's wrist, a childlike bit of affection that almost undid Angel. Spike had always been emotional, cursed with a nature that resisted moderation and a face that revealed every feeling. Drusilla must have put something wrong in the recipe when she turned him, because from the first Spike had been more human than vampire.
Angel turned Spike's hand over and, in the faint light from the living room lamp, saw the healing tears on the knuckles, the ripped and bloody nails. "You do know, don't you, that Sunnydale is no more?"

"Sunnydale?"

"The city. It's nothing but a crater and rubble."

Spike frowned, as if he was supposed to understand the significance of this but didn't. Sunnydale went into the not-remembered category.

Good.

"You pulled it all down."

Wonder dawned in Spike's eyes. "You mean– I destroyed a whole city?"

Angel couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, you finally accomplished it. I hope it doesn't ruin your pleasure to hear you did it all for the greater good. Stamping out evil."

"Right. I remember now. I mean, that's what they told me. I'd done good. So I could go back home."

Angel squeezed his hand once more and released it. Rising, he said, "You need to sleep. In the morning, we can talk more."

"You're not– leaving?"

Angel thought of his empty flat, a few floors above. It seemed lonely and unappealing a couple hours ago. Now it would be a refuge from this new responsibility. But he couldn't leave Spike alone. He'd been alone himself, after a resurrection, and knew how disorienting it could be.

At least Spike returned fully clothed.

"Just going to bunk on the couch. Yell if you need anything."

Spike's voice drifted, unanchored, into uncharted territory. "Thanks, Angelus. For everything."

Gratitude. From Spike. Yeah, he was transformed, all right. And Angel wished he'd just transform right back.

Chapter Text

Spike was feeling okay, for someone who had been through an apocalypse, a death-sort-of, and a resurrection in what seemed like fifteen minutes. He found himself ravenously hungry, but not for blood. He still wanted blood in the morning, but just a half-pint or so, then Egg McMuffins and cinnamon rolls. Blueberries and strawberries and broiled tomatoes for vitamins. He'd always liked food, but now he needed it, and that was a bit frightening. The last thing he needed was a new addiction, just when he was realizing his immunity to nicotine poisoning might be a thing of the past.

His wounds healed up quickly, his sunburn flared into blisters and then popped– okay, so maybe he popped them himself; it was weirdly compelling, the sticky clear fluid that seeped out tasted a bit like blood– and Angelus kept him hidden away from curious bystanders and old comrades while he adjusted to his renewed life.

After two days, the memory problem started abating. Angelus had typed out a brief overview of Spike's long and checkered life, as much as he knew, but there were gaps– both world wars, and the time in between, were dismissed with, "I was in a monastery then. I don't know where you were. Killing people with Dru probably. Like you did the decades before and the decades after."

But someday soon it would all come back to him. He trusted that, and didn't panic when he cast his mind back and found virtually nothing. He remembered himself, at least, what he'd been like at any given stage of his existence, what he valued and what he despised, how he'd respond to what when. He told himself old jokes and knew beforehand which ones would make him laugh. He wrote out the four great Keats odes from memory and admired his handwriting, pretty damned elegant for a lefty. He ran little mental tests: Best ale– Guinness. Best song of ever all time– Pet Sematery. Best city– Lisbon. Best book– The Odyssey. No. The Iliad. No. The whole blinking Narnia series, and yeah, that made him a wuss. But he liked the lion. Best TV show, daytime– Passions. Best TV show, nighttime– MacNeil-Lehrer Report. (Joke. Really, it was Dawson Creek.) Best day– England winning the 1966 World Cup at home in Wembley Stadium. Best night– the last one with Buffy.

Angelus managed to sketch Spike's last few years without ever mentioning Buffy. It was an adroit balancing trick. He mentioned Sunnydale, the chip, the First, the soul. Vaguely alluded to some humans who also inhabited the town and fought evil. Never used the word Slayer. Never said Buffy's name.

Spike found this intriguing. Rewriting History in Twelve Easy Steps, Angelus edition. So... was he cutting Buffy out of Spike's life, or Spike out of Buffy's?

He didn't ask Angelus about her. Didn't try to trap him, or to trick him. Didn't try to track her down. He knew where she was, had overheard Angelus on the phone that first night, whispering about some vision quest, some Tibetan trek, some life-changing journey. He liked to imagine her there in the mountains, listening to monks chant and grumbling what was their point and couldn't they learn a new tune. Encountering Bigfoot or the Chinese army and tearing them limb from limb. Eating rice and longing for french fries. Searching the sky for answers that were actually trapped inside her.

Every day she stayed away was a day without goodbye.

As long as she was gone, he still had her. Still had that night, and everything it meant.

He realized this sounded like what she and Angel had been saying for years.

It wasn't that Spike remembered much of their time together, just that last night in any specifics. But he knew enough from that night to know it all– a long tangled relationship resolved in one sweet 420-minute tangle of bodies. He knew they were too different, and too much alike, that he was what she feared most about herself, and she was what he missed most about what he could have been. He knew they had hurt too much, and laughed too little. He knew that they'd gone beyond lying, and gone beyond truth, that they'd passed by hope, passed through despair. He knew they were all about passion, a fierce joining, a sweet release. As long as they could touch, they could be. And as long as he could hear her voice, he could survive.

He knew all this though he couldn't remember her age or her last name or when they had first met.

He knew all this and he knew that he loved her more than everything in the world, and that loving her had destroyed him and transformed
him.

And he knew that night meant she mightn't ever love him back.

He got restless. As usual. He was supposed to have been transformed, and yet here he was, still plagued by his greatest fault– okay, one of his many greatest faults– that crawling need to be moving, to be getting on, to be something other than still. Eternity should have taught him serenity, right? But he came back manic as ever, with a junk-food jones to boot.

Okay, maybe he didn't deserve any better. He'd been a monster, everyone agreed. But– but he'd changed. And he'd ended up only saving the whole bloody world. Not without help, as Angelus made sure to reiterate. But not for hope of gain (except for the light in Buffy's eyes, and her life). And yeah, at the last he was exultant, waiting for the great afterlife adventure (which never happened, by the way– no light piercing the tunnel of darkness, no God, no judgment day, no trials and tribulations, no challenges and triumphs, no epiphanies; just paperwork and personality quizzes like out of the Sunday supplement– if you could be a fucking flower, what fucking flower would you be– and another set of powers-that-be shaking their head and wondering what the hell to do with him). But did that make it less heroic? Because he was proud of himself? Because he thought he probably looked pretty damned radiant in that last moment, even if no one was left to see him? Because he liked to imagine a memorial service with someone (someone tiny and blonde and choking back tears) calling him her champion and a single red rose on an empty grave? (And a riderless white horse. That would have been brilliant.)

It wasn't fair. He didn't ask to be brought back, but if he had to come back, why didn't they go ahead and fix some of the things he wanted fixed? Like make him a natural blonde, so he could forgo the bleach routine. And straighten out the crooked little toe that got blistered so often. They didn't have to erase the scar on his eyebrow– that was got in honorable combat, slaying a Slayer, and he'd keep that. But they could have added a few inches to his height, so he could tower over Buffy and make her feel safe, and so he could look Angelus right in the eye.

Instead they gave him a bleeding beating useless heart, and lungs with an expiration date, and a memory with more holes than fabric, and not a jot of extra wisdom or patience or virtue. Still waking up with a hard-on and wanking off in the shower– what sort of behavior was that for a man transformed? Still dreaming of dead people, the ones he made dead, and jerking between pride and anguish. Still overwhelmed with the urge to annoy Angelus, and still way too good at it.

Angelus wasn't happy to have him back. Oh, sure, there was that moment the first night, when he called Spike Will, and lad, and said he was glad. But that didn't last. Pretty soon Angelus was narrowing his eyes and frowning and imitating Spike's accent in poncey tones. "Yes, if you want a new identity, you have to fill out the whole bleeding passport form, you bloody wanker." And he kept a close watch for any signs of weakness. He almost groaned the first time he saw Spike's image in a mirror, but pointed out how ghostly it seemed, not like a true reflection at all. He punched himself in the arm to make a bruise, compared their relative healing times, and pretended to regret his own two-hour advantage. (So Spike paid him back by ostentatiously taking his own pulse after his workout on the punching bag. And sitting shirtless on the balcony every afternoon, slathering sunblock all over. And secretly spraying himself with his water bottle so he could look like a cold beer bottle sweating on a hot day.)

"Can you hear that?" Angelus would demand, like the goddamned commercial, and Spike would dutifully squint and open up his audial channel and report on the copy machine making nineteen, no, twenty copies down on the 5th floor. "So," Angelus might say, regretfully, "you missed the baby crying in the car down in the parking garage?"

And the strength tests. "Enough," Spike finally said, yanking his hand away, as his whole left side cramped up thirteen matches into the world championship of vamp arm-wrestling. "You win. I concede. Christ, you've got fifty pounds on me." See how transformed he was? It was sixty if it was an ounce. "You've always been stronger'n me." Or I'd've staked you long since, he didn't add aloud. And he refrained from challenging Angelus to a hundred-yard-dash. Transformed. Really. Too bloody good for this world.

"But you're weaker than you used to be." Head-shaking. "Poor Spike. No longer a true vamp, but not fully human either. Neither one thing nor the other."

That hurt. It hurt familiar, like it must have hurt a hundred times before. Like he was supposed to be ashamed of being whatever he was, just because he wasn't – hadn't ever been– standard issue. So he shot back, "That's me. Neither one nor t'other. Prefer it to being either one or the other."

Below the belt, Spikey. Ice-picking right to the core of Angelus's existential dilemma. (But... but... he could have been meaner. Really. He didn't even mention the gypsy curse and the self-imposed chastity belt and wonder aloud why Angelus never mentioned the Slayer, you know, the one who had eleven separate orgasms that last night with poor neither-one-nor-t'other Spike– see, he really could have dug that ice-pick in, and twisted it up, and gouged out some entrails, and he didn't. Transformed, no doubt about it.)

He couldn't help himself. Had to torment his grandsire with the whole dual personality thing. He was so stupid. So forgetful. Kept messing up and saying Hey, Angelus, so Angel had to explain over and over again, with decreasing levels of patience, that he wasn't Angelus, no matter how much he looked like him and sounded like him and acted like him. That yes, these were the same hands that slayed hundreds, that terrified a continent, that tortured a boy named Will. But these hands were no longer covered in blood, because they belonged to Angel now. And Angel had washed them off.

In fact, though Spike couldn't quite remember, he sensed a fairly recent appearance by the Scourge of Iberia and Parts East, and Parts West For That Matter. But that last slaughter wasn't Angel's fault. It was Angelus's fault, and Angelus was Angelus, not Angel. And Angelus was gone. Not really dead. But he wasn't inhabiting The Body right now. Angel was in residence, and Angel did not like to be called Angelus, especially by someone who knew Angelus way too well, and Angel hardly at all.

"Now let me get this straight," Spike said the Thursday after he arrived. It was late and the moon was out. They were sitting on the balcony, and the wind was right, and he could smell the sea, and Angelus or Angel, either one or t'other, surely did have good taste in a burgundy. He poured another glass and breathed in the rich earthy tang. "Could be just that I'm drunk. Or stupid."

"Or both," Angelus muttered.

"But I don't quite grasp it. Not having much memory of the last century, and knowing you mostly as, you know, my lord and master Angelus. And benevolent patriarch and head of the house of Aurelius, to whom all deference is due." Oops. Went too far into the sarcasm. Sound the retreat. "Family, I mean. And here you are. Still taking care of me, right? But then you say you're not him. So I'm reckoning, Angelus became Angel. Like, hey, William became Spike."

"You're guilty of gross oversimplication."

Yeah! Spike was guilty of over-simplifying something extremely complex and deep and existential as all get-out. It wasn't a transition, Angelus to Angel. Wasn't even a transformation. Nothing so easy as that. It was... a bleeding paradox. And poor simple Spike, who really wasn't ever anything but poor simple Spike no matter how many chips and souls and transformations he got, couldn't possibly understand the great conundrum that was Angelus/Angel/John/ Paul/George/Ringo. (Or, wait a minute. Angelus. And then, most of the time, Angel/John/ Paul/George/Ringo. No A/A slash allowed.)

"Yeah. It's like a real enigma. Is it a particle or a wave?" Spike upended the bottle, letting the last of the wine drip right down his throat, then set it down with a sigh. "All I can say is, I'm impressed. You think I could get away with this? Maybe I should try it. See, there was Spikelus, and he committed lots of mayhem. And there was Spike, who saved the world. And whenever I get the hankering for mayhem, I just hand the reins over to Spikelus–"

He was just teasing. Okay, taunting. He wouldn't be human-- or former-human, or half-human, or whatever the hell he was– if he didn't resent all that goddamned arm-wrestling, losing eight matches out of thirteen, and ending up with a dislocated shoulder that kept popping out of joint now. And anyway, it was true. He didn't know much about the recent past, but he knew this much– he'd never have gotten away with claiming someone else inside his body committed that century of slaughter.

But he got what he deserved. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and the light struck Angel's face, and Spike saw the hatred there. He looked down quickly, to hide his flinch, and saw his hand shaking, and felt his breath shaking too. Hurt. Stupid hurt.

Yeah, so the powers took away his sun allergy, but they never even thought to delete his real weakness, the one that was going to destroy him surer than any stake, the goddamned genetic mistake that made him the wimpiest man in London and survived the turning to make him the world's only vulnerable vampire. Could stand up to a Mack truck, but be slain by a single glance.

He had to leave. Couldn't stay. Angel didn't want him. The kindness this last week wasn't due to Angelus's lingering love for his lost boy, but Angel's need for penance.

He didn't say it right away. Didn't want Angel to know how deep that ice-pick dug. So he dredged up some undergraduate puzzler about Plato's ideal forms, and acted like he really needed an answer from O Wise One, and watched Angel's face fade into neutrality as he pompously explicated what Spike had spent a Trinity term translating a century or more ago (and doing a better job, but then, Angelus never went to Oxford, did he, the ill-lettered lout).

It wasn't till the next afternoon that Spike said, "Hey, mate, you've been great, but time for me to move on. Start over now that you've got me the passport and driver's license and all."

This time he wasn't fool enough to feel warm when Angel's brow furrowed with concern and a dozen objections and caveats. He just accepted the loan of $200 and the gift of a few t-shirts and socks and a leather backpack to carry them, shrugged on his old duster, promised to call whenever he got where he was going (somewhere real far from here, he could hear Angel transmitting helpfully through that furrowed brow), and left the poshest digs he'd ever hoped to find for a life on the streets, or wherever he could get a room and have some money left over for food.

But it was sort of sweet, how Angel took the elevator with him (even if it probably was to make sure he didn't sneak off and take up residence in an empty office), fretting the whole way down about the need for sunblock and abstinence from tobacco and the whole STD problem that had never been a problem for Spike before but could be now. By the time they reached the lobby, Spike was so touched by all this concern, he went ahead and hugged his grandsire goodbye, thanking him in a broken voice that he couldn't quite regret, because hell, he was grateful, and Angel had been the best of men that first night, and in some strange way they were sort of family again.

Chapter Text

He hadn't lost his survival instincts. A thousand times, he'd done this, even if he couldn't remember most of them– wandered out into a new city, made a place for himself. He sat in a coffeeshop till dark, and then found his way to a demon bar off Sunset. He vamped out– glad he could still do it on command– and took a seat at the bar. It felt like home, if home was the sort of place where you had to worry about getting knifed by the guy on the stool next to you.

He ordered a B&B and kept his ears open. Nothing much happening in the big town, turned out. Everyone was still buzzing about the closing of the Hellmouth last spring. Some discussed migrating to Cleveland, where another had opened. "But Cleveland, man. Really," said one chaos demon. "I mean, even for a Hellmouth. I'm getting too old for that kind of winter. Hard on the joints."

"No more Hellmouths for me. Nearly got caught when the last one collapsed."

It was an easy, light voice, and hearing it, Spike sat up straighter. Stood to reason that much of Sunnydale's demon population would relocate here. And that he might be recognized by demons he didn't recognize himself. But that voice–

He turned his head. Located the voice's owner at the very moment when the owner's head turned towards him. The floppy ears jerked. The eyes bugged.

There was no animosity there. He raised a finger, and the demon's mouth slammed shut. Spike jerked his head towards the exit, put a bill down on the bar, and made his way through the crowd, his vamp face fading as he went out the door.

The demon was no dummy. Though he was quivering with excitement, he didn't say a word until they'd walked the length of the block. Then, in the shadows of an alley, he suddenly threw his arms around Spike's neck and locked on. "Spikey. Spikey. They told me you were dead."

Spike closed his eyes. Suffered the embrace. Told himself, Christ, just don't cry. Just. Don't. Cry.

He couldn't remember who this was. But he suddenly remembered what this was. Affection. Uncomplicated. Generous. And for him.

In a voice so soft he didn't recognize it, he said, "Hey. Mate." And then, since the demon apparently hadn't heard his silent admonition and was blubbering, he patted him on the back and said, "There, there. I'm still here. Takes more than an apocalypse to take Spike down."

The demon pulled away, and scrubbed at the tears while he stared. "It is you. I never thought– hey, buddy, where you staying?"

"Nowhere. Just got into town." He didn't want this demon, this... buddy... to know he couldn't recall his name, or where they'd met, or how they came to be friends. Didn't want to hurt his feelings, or explain the whole stupid amnesia thing. He just wanted to prolong this moment.

"Come stay with us then! You'll love Maisie. She's a Ford demon– got that management thing going, but hey, I guess I always needed a manager. ‛M disorganized, you know? She keeps me in hand. C'mon. My car's over here."

Spike was no Martha Stewart, but he could tell the little orange VW clashed with the demon's pink skin. Then again, colorsense had never been a requirement for friendship. Generosity of spirit, far rarer, and that he appreciated.

"So what do you hear from dear old Sunnydale?" the demon demanded as he pulled away from the curb, then answered his own question. "Heard the Slayer's gone off somewhere. Not sure what happened to her little sis, though. You know?"

Her little sis. There was nothing about a little sis in Angel's sketch of Spike's previous life. Something stirred inside Spike. Worry. It felt like a familiar emotion. "Like I said, I just got into town. I'll ring her up, maybe, if I can find her."

"Well, Dawnie always was your favorite. Mine too. Still think about those after-school video parties we had at your crypt. She made some nice lemonade. Popcorn too. We could do it again, what do you say? Unless she's too grownup for cartoons now."

"Yeah, we might need to upgrade to PG videos now." Spike took a deep breath and said casually, carefully, "Hell, she must be at least, well– how old you think?"

"Sixteen, seventeen? Sweet little thing. Always nice to me. Not so nice to you!" For some reason, this made the demon cackle as they pulled into an unpaved cemetery road. "Here we are. Now, Spike, do me a favor. I told the little lady I was just going out to mail a letter. So maybe you can say I ran into you at the all-night post office?"

"Sure thing, mate."

The cemetery was derelict. Spike could tell at a glance that no one had been buried here for decades. They got out in front of a pretty stone crypt that looked oddly familiar. "You're the one," the demon said happily, "who introduced me to the pleasures of crypt living! And gave me most of your furniture too. It'll seem just like home to you."

The crypt did seem remarkably cozy, and the old easy chair fit him like it was made for him, and Maisie the managerial greeted him like she was just dying for a new project. "New in town! Well, that's fun! You stay with us until you get a place. And let me help you look. I'm working on my real estate license, you know, and Clem here just loves to ride around with me and look at houses...."

Spike tried, not too hard, to demur. But after Angel's stingy hospitality, it just felt too good to be here, where he was welcomed, where the VCR was always playing re-runs of Passions and Clem– for that was his old buddy's name– hid bags of Cheetos and Bugles under the coffee table and Maisie called him "sweetie" and in the morning set him up with a checking account and a post office box and the first legal credit card he'd ever had. (And it worried him– what did it say about the future of the economy that the likes of him could get a credit card?) And she introduced him to a friend who owned an apartment house around a courtyard with a pool and avocado trees– just like on Melrose Place– and was willing to trade a free first-floor flat for Spike's skill at discouraging the local drug trade from hanging around in front.

So the night before he moved, he blew half of his funds on some prime steaks and two bottles of good cabernet, and they had a little barbecue in the waning warmth of an October evening. Sam Cooke was on the CD player, plaintively echoing off the tombstones, and Clem brought out– oh, amazing– Spike's old Gretsch bass guitar. "You left this behind, but I knew you would miss it, so I kept it for you," Clem said, and Spike found that the neck fit into his hand just right, and though he couldn't recall where he'd gotten it or when he'd played it last, his fingers knew just what to do, and without any help from him, played Paint It Black and I Can See For Miles and Anarchy in the UK. And he sounded good for a brain-damaged vamp whose only formal musical education took place back when Franz Liszt was the world's leading groupie magnet.

The next day he got a job mixing drinks– one of those not-very-lucrative skills he'd picked up along the way, which fortunately survived the brain-wiping. Maisie, who was rapidly taking over his life as well as Clem's, vetoed the rancid punk bar he favored – "they can't even pay for their drinks, much less leave a tip!"– for an after-hours club a few blocks from his new flat. The club was favored by waitresses and bartenders and bouncers and bandmembers too wired to go home after their own bars closed. Maisie was right; he fit right in with the late-late-night crowd, and no one tipped better than those dependent on tips, and the waitresses started staying late just to flirt with the new guy. Simple pleasures– draft beer on the house, girls who cooed when he quirked his scarred eyebrow, a jukebox they let him program with his favorite songs. (Kazaa and mp-3 format– two new reasons to avert the next apocalypse.) A house band with a bass player in rehab. The last forty years, he must have used up most of his spare braincells memorizing rock and roll numbers, because when he sat in with the band, he could field almost any request, from aging Deadheads and under-aged neo-punks alike.

And before he went off to work, he patrolled. Like bartending, it was a skill so deeply embedded that he didn't need to remember it. He just put his body into a cemetery– whether Clem's sad old graveyard or the famous Forest Lawn– and nasties appeared, and his instincts kicked in, and the old joy filled him. He still loved killing things. So much for transformation.

Simple pleasures. Friends. Music. Killing. Sunshine. Life without a project. Existence without a mission. Living entirely in the moment. No need to remember the painful past, or contemplate an uncertain future.

It took four days before he surrendered and called Angel and demanded to see Dawn.

Chapter Text

Giles had gotten Dawn early entrance to a private college in West LA, and that's where Angel headed the evening after he'd gotten Spike's ultimatum. It wasn't the sort of news he wanted to give Dawn over the phone. He didn't know her well enough to know how she would react, but Spike seemed to think that she would be eager to see him.

Spike never mentioned Buffy. Maybe he didn't remember her. Maybe he recalled Dawn's name and nothing more. Angel sighed as he pulled into the parking lot. If Spike didn't remember, Dawn would soon remind him. And then he'd have to tell Spike about Buffy– and Buffy about Spike.

Dawn was walking fast down the path towards the dormitory, her books clutched against her chest. Angel caught up with her, calling out her name. When she turned, he saw the flicker of emotion across her face. It wasn't that she didn't like him, Buffy told him before she left on her vision quest. Just that she loved Spike. And he guessed they'd always be opposed in everyone's mind, the last of the line, the soul twins.

"Oh. Hi. Angel."

He ignored her lack of enthusiasm. "I've got some news. It's pretty– " no word came to mind. "Pretty surprising."

Her eyes widened. Fear. "Buffy's not–"

"She's fine, as far as I know. I haven't heard from her since she went into the mountains. Everyone's fine. I just need– look. Will you come for a ride with me?"

She hesitated. "I have study group at 8. But I guess I've got time before then."

As he led her to his car, he didn't tell her that he doubted she'd make it to her evening appointment.

He was going to have to write a script for this, he told himself as they pulled out of the parking lot. He'd be making this announcement again. Searching for an opening, he said, "What do you remember about – about Spike's end?"

She stopped punching through the radio stations and looked at him. "Why? Did they find his – remains?"

"No, honey. Just remember back. Just for a minute. Then we can talk."

He didn't think she would obey. She was always so defiant. And she'd never accepted him as anyone with influence over her. But she surprised him. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. "Okay. I guess– I guess you have a right to know. Being his grandsire." She drew a shaky breath. "I don't remember much. We were all fighting. It wasn't going well. I looked over and he'd stopped, and I got mad, and then I thought something had to be wrong. Spike loved to fight. You know."

"Yeah."

"So I thought he was hurt. He had this look on his face, like he was in pain. Like he used to look when the chip would fire. And I wanted to go over to him." She drew in a ragged breath. "We'd been– you know. Not real close lately. I wasn't mad at him anymore, but we weren't – being friends much anymore. It was all too much chaos that last month. So many people in the house. And he kept to himself. He was ... ashamed, I guess. So I saw him, and he was hurt, and I wanted to go to him. But I couldn't quit fighting. He– he wouldn't want me to anyway."

"I know."

"So next I looked, he was backed up against the wall, and this light was coming from his chest. From that amulet. It was blazing. And – and so were his eyes. They were so bright. He was laughing. Like he used to, when we were first friends. Like life was a party." With a fist, she scrubbed at her wet cheeks. "And Buffy managed to get over to him. He was yelling to get everyone out, so I started, you know, trying to get all the girls assembled and up the stairs. And I heard him say that he felt his soul. He said it stung. I thought that was... funny."

"It sounds like him."

"Yeah. I mean, Spike wouldn't get a nice soothing aloe-vera soul, right? He'd get one with – with lime juice."

Angel hid a smile. "Shot of Glenfiddich in there too, maybe, for extra bite."

Dawn giggled. "Good pun, Angel."

"Go on," he prompted gently.

"That's all. I got the girls up the steps. I looked back and he and– and Buffy were touching hands. There was... fire. Flames coming where their hands met. And that bright light. The glow. And he looked so good. Happy. I keep reminding myself of that now. He wasn't scared, and he wasn't sad. It was how he wanted to die. For Buffy. Helping her save the world. Giving her back the fire."

She was crying in earnest now, but silently, the tears bunching up on her eyelashes and cascading over and down her cheeks. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Angel reached past her and opened the glove compartment to pull out a box of Kleenex.

"Thanks," she muttered, rubbing at her face with a tissue. "I wish I'd gotten a chance to say, you know. That we were still... buds. That I wasn't mad anymore. That I still wanted to hang out."

His opening. He fumbled it. "Well, maybe–" Tried again. "You still can, Dawn. Something about the amulet. Or the Hellmouth. Or whatever."

"Whatever what?" She was gazing at him as if he'd started talking in a foreign language.

"He's ... found his way back to us. I'll take you to his place. If you want."

She shrieked and grabbed his arm, and as he swerved into the right lane, he swore. Correcting their direction, he yanked his arm back. "But first we have to survive the drive, okay?"

Dawn entered the dark room cautiously. Angel had warned her. It was Spike, but he was different. He had a pulse. And a sunburn. He didn't remember everything yet. Didn't remember much, in fact. She had to be careful not to upset him or confuse him, because he was still pretty fragile emotionally.

Okay, she thought, so what do I say?

Then she saw his bright hair in the flicker of the television. He always liked to watch TV in the dark. Spookier that way, he told her. He liked being scared.

"Spike?" she whispered, and moved tentatively forward. "It's me."

He turned and gazed at her over the back of the couch.

"It's Dawn, I mean. Buffy's sister."

"Yeah. I know. Angelus– Angel-- told me you were coming."

He rose. Like a gentleman. She almost smiled. Then she just stood there, looking at him, at the same old face, the same old eyes. The same old Spike.

He dropped back into his seat. "Wanna watch TV?"

She walked around the couch and sank down on the other cushion. "Yeah, I guess so."

"What do you wanna watch?"

"You've changed," she said, almost giddy with relief, reaching for the remote in his hand. "The old Spike wouldn't care what I wanted."

He snatched it out of her reach. "I'm just asking so I can be sure to choose something else."

And she laughed and grabbed at the remote, and then her arms were around him, and she was hugging him tight. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I forgot I loved you. I'm sorry."

Pulling away, he turned so that she couldn't see his face, and dropped the remote into her lap. "Okay. You choose."

And she sniffled, and smiled, and said, "You'll be sorry. VH-1's doing a special called ‛Behind the Boy Bands.' All about N-Sync and the Backstreet Boys."

He groaned. "And you say you love me. Yeah. Right." But he let her keep the remote, and when she took his hand, he didn't pull away.

The next afternoon, Dawn felt both apprehension and anticipation as she kicked at Spike's door. Her hands were full– a wooden box in one hand, a bag of donuts in the other. Spike used to love donuts. He'd dip them into his mug of blood.

He was so cool.

When he opened the door, his hair was a muss of unruly curls on his forehead.

"You just wake up, lazybones?"

"Hello, creature of the night here, remember?" He took the box from her hand and stepped back to let her in. "I worked until 4 am. Couldn't sleep after that. Until maybe a half hour ago."

"Poor Spike," she cooed. "Lucky for you I brought breakfast."

He was more interested in the donuts than in the box, and she knew a moment's disappointment as she took her place on the couch. "Don't you recognize that?"

"Sure I do." Spike had set the box down on the coffee table and had his hand deep into the bag. "Krispy Kreme. Glazed. Simple yet elegant. The platonic ideal of donuts."

"I mean the box."

Mouth full of donut, he turned to gaze at the box. "Nah."

"Sit down." She tugged at his arm, and he dropped bonelessly to the couch next to her. She always admired the insolent way he sprawled. Not that she could get away with it. If she tried, she'd hear her mother in her head, admonishing her, Dawn, sit up straight! Keep your knees together!

They were back. The two of them the same as before, like the last year– the anger, the alienation, the end– had never happened. Big bro and little sis, bound by affection if not by blood. It all just came back, just like that, the caring, the sarcasm, the camaraderie. She reached and
touched his knee, just to remind herself that he was solid, he was real, and so was she.

Then Dawn gathered the box onto her lap. "You gave me this to keep for you last year, after Riley burned your crypt. I didn't want – well, Buffy– to find it, so I shipped it to my dad's place. So it survived."

"All my CDs are gone. Classic vinyl too," Spike said mournfully. "But Clem saved my bass."

"And I saved your memory box."

"Thanks, Bit." He held up his sticky hands. "You open it."

"I tried. It's got password protection. You bought it from Anya."

Momentary flicker in the slate-blue eyes at the name. Dawn wondered if he knew Anya was dead. If he remembered that they'd slept together. Or at least tabled together. She hoped not.

He studied the woven wood strips at the top of the box. "What, you just say the word out loud?"

"Yeah. Voice-activated. It's not magic– just a memory chip. I tried the passwords I thought you'd use."

"What?"

"Oh, you know." She felt a blush rise in her cheeks. They hadn't actually talked about Buffy yet. But he couldn't have forgotten her. Dawn would never believe that. He'd forget his name, but he'd remember his love. "Buffy. Slayer. Pet. They didn't work."

Spike frowned for a long moment's thought, then aimed a sugary finger at the brass clasp. "Umad."

The clasp clicked and opened. "What was that?" she said.

"Dawn. Upside down." He grinned at her. "You are the Key, Niblet."

Warmth spread through her. Sometimes, oh, sometimes she thought that Spike saw her as a responsibility, not a friend, not a sister. That's maybe why she pulled away this last year, beyond all the Buffy stuff, pushed him away, because she thought she loved him lots more, that he was more central to her than she was to him. He'd never said anything like that, of course. Never gave any indication of it– but she knew herself, and how the people who loved her loved her, and she knew how obnoxious a fuss she made just so they'd notice her.

But Spike used her name to secure his memories. Like she was one of his special memories, like if he could he'd keep her safe inside too. Not because he had to, but because he never wanted to lose her. "You remembered that dumb name, but not the box itself."

"It's stupid, isn't it? I just remembered you looking upside down at that name-necklace of yours, and saying your name was Umad. I think that must have been stored in the mind-sector that isn't damaged."

"You have a mind-sector that's not damaged? When'd that happen?" Dawn's insult was automatic. She was eager to see what he'd saved from his past, what mementoes he valued most. "Aren't you going to look in?"

"Too sticky." He grabbed another donut. "You do it."

She needed no more encouragement. Flinging up the top, she plunged her hand in.

"You know, babe, that's dangerous. What if I'd enhanced the password protection with a bit of razor-blade protection, huh? Your hand would be a bloody mess now. Hmm. Maybe not such a bad idea."

"You're gross." She closed her hand on some perfectly harmless photographs and pulled them out. On the top was a photo– of course– of Buffy. She was posing with an axe. Her action-figure card, Dawn always called it. "How'd you get this?"

He looked over her shoulder at it. "Don't know. You know, Bit, you keep asking me questions about what I know, you're going to be disappointed. Lately, I don't know much."

"And that's a change?" Dawn grinned cheekily at him. "You do know who this is, don't you?"

"Your sister. The Slayer."

"Your bedwarmer." She gave him a sidelong glance. "That's not news to you, is it?"

"No. But I don't know that you ought to know it."

"I'm not stupid, Spike. Geez. You guys got it on for months last year."

This gave him pause. "How many months, would you say?"

"Two. Three. I don't know. Seemed like a long while."

"But then–"

Dawn dropped the Buffy photo on the table. "It got ugly. Okay? Both of you got nasty. End of story."

"Not the end. I remember–"

"Okay. I don't know. Maybe you were doing it in those last days, before the battle. Probably you were."

Spike studied her. "You do know I loved her, don't you?"

"Yeah. Past tense?"

He didn't answer for a moment. "No."

"Can we go on? Because this one is much cooler." She held up the portrait she'd had done at Sensational Snapshots, after a complete cosmetic, hair, and accessories makeover. She had on a sequinned satin jacket, rhinestone choker, and come-hither look.

"Who's that trollop?" Spike asked.

She jammed an elbow into his ribs. "I look abfab. You wouldn't have kept it if you didn't think I looked great."

He took it from her and turned it over, and read the inscription on the back. "Reason #1 why Dawn should be confined to a convent."

"Speaking of trollops," Dawn said, handing him the next photo. "It's your evil ex."

Spike hesitated. His hand, holding the photo, was shaking slightly. "Dru." He shoved it back into the box. "She's gone, you know. Angel said– said she staked herself. There by the crater. Thought I was gone forever."

Dawn drew in her breath. "I'm –" she stopped. She couldn't say she was sorry. The world was better off without Drusilla the insane vampiress. So was Spike. "I shouldn't have said that."

"‛S all right." After a moment, he added, "I just, you know. Have more memories of her than anyone else."

More photos, mostly of people she didn't know, several in vamp-face. A very old, posed portrait– Spike, looking so different with dark curly hair, his eyebrow intact, and Angel looking exactly as always, both of them in old-fashioned suits. They were standing behind Drusilla and some creepy too-sweetfaced blonde girl.

"Well, I hope this is bringing back lots of reminiscences for you, Spike. It's sort of grossing me out." She dropped the rest of the photos into his lap. "Let's see what else." She plunged her hand in and came up with a red cotton bandanna. It gave off a faint scent of marijuana. Not that she had firsthand experience with that particular scent. "Where's this from?"

"Woodstock, probably." Spike took it, gave it a couple twists, and tied it around his forehead. "Whaddaya think?"

He looked piratical. Evil. In a very cool way. "I think it's good there's no mirror around, now that you can sort of see your reflection. You're already conceited enough."

He made a face– but she noticed he didn't take the bandanna off. "What else?"

A blue gingham hair bow. She recognized this. She'd never wear anything so Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm again, that's for sure. "You stole this from me."

He took it away and held it up to his ear. "Looks better on me anyway."

Next was a postcard, the front a photo of a glittering bronze mask. On the back was an invitation to a 2000 exhibition at her mother's gallery, and underneath, handwritten, The open house is after sunset, Spike. Come and visit. Be good. Joyce. "My mother always liked you. Isn't that crazy?"

"Not at all. Summers women have excellent taste."

She looked back down into the box, so he wouldn't see her eyes. "This is pretty," she said, pulling out a fine gold chain with a delicately engraved locket. "Can I open it?"

She felt Spike tense beside her, but all he said was, "Sure."

She fumbled with the tiny clasp, but needed to insert her thumbnail to pop it open. The images inside were no larger than a nickel– but squinting, she could see a middle-aged man with sidewhiskers on one side, and a girl on the other side, her hair pulled back by a ribbon. She held it out to Spike. "Do you know them?"

He glanced once, and then away. "No. Probably stole it from some victim."

Fat chance. Dawn took his hand, put the locket on his palm, and closed his fingers over it. He shoved it into his pocket and then gazed down into the box, as if some revelation hid there. "What's that in the baggie?"

She pulled out a plastic ziploc filled with dried rose petals. "Groan, Spike. Could you be any more sentimental. What's that, your prom date's corsage?"

He shrugged. Took the baggie and pressed on one of the petals. It crumbled to red powder. "Everything dies."

"That's pretty funny, coming from Mr. Resurrecto." She pulled out a purple theater program, a silk tassel looped around the fold. "This is cool, Spike. First performance of My Fair Lady ever. Were you there?"

"I played Henry Higgins."

Dawn frowned and opened the program, scanning the cast. "It says Rex Harrison played that part."

"That's my stage name."

She hit him on the forehead with the program, then dropped it onto the table. "We don't come across a stash of cash soon, Spike, we're not going anywhere fancy for dinner."

"Who says I'm taking you out for dinner?"

"Whoa, what's this?" She pulled out a scroll, yellowed with age and tied with a blue satin ribbon. "Looks important. The contract with the devil for your soul?"

"Devils might sign contracts when they take souls, pet, but vampires don't bother. So what is it?"

He sounded bored, but she knew him too well. When he was really bored, he sounded irritated. When he sounded bored, it meant he was scared. She slid the ribbon off and let the scroll uncurl. She had just enough Latin from high school to translate. "Having satisfied the examiners of Christ Church College, Oxford University, in the final examinations in Classics–" she had to squint to read the Gothic letters. "William Trent Nelson is awarded a first-class degree and the Bachelor's of Arts. Is that you?"

"Me? First-class classics degree? Not bloody likely."

"William is your name, however. And I don't know why you'd've kept this if it weren't yours."

"To pretend it was mine, and impress the girls?"

"Your sort of girl wouldn't know what Oxford is. Or a first-class degree. I only know because Giles made me watch Brideshead Revisited once." She handed it to him, watched him smooth it out on his blue-jeaned leg, study it.

"Nelson's a famous name in England, you know," he said.

"Duh. Some admiral."

Spike smiled. "Duh. Like Washington is some general."

"So you related to him?"

"I told you. I doubt this has aught to do with me."

"William Trent Nelson," she repeated musingly. "Sound familiar? Trent must be a family name too. We could track it down. On the Internet."

"No, thanks. Ancient history. I got enough trouble trying to remember last spring."

"I know your last name," she sang. "And no one else does. I could start calling you admiral even! It would be, like, an in-joke."

"Real funny." But his mouth was curved a little. He was trying not to smile.

She bumped him with her shoulder. "Admiral Spike. And no one else would understand. Because I wouldn't tell them your real name."

"You're assuming it is my real name."

"Don't you remember?"

He shook his head, but she knew he was lying. "Okay, Admiral, let's see what other treasures we've got here." She plunged her hand back in and came up with a small gray velvet jewelry box. "Uh-oh," she said, and flipped it open. Diamond earrings. Real diamonds. She didn't know how she knew that, but she knew that. "Let me guess– for Buffy."

"Maybe they're for you."

She shook her head. With her thumb and index finger, she carefully slid a folded slip of paper from the side of the box. "You wouldn't have to prove to me you actually paid for it."

Spike took the receipt from her hand. His eyes widened at the total. "Yeah. You would appreciate it more if I told you I stole them."

"Well, at least we know you probably stole the money to pay for them," Dawn said consolingly. They exchanged grins, and Dawn gave in and let the happiness creep around the edges of her fear. He really was back. And he wasn't transformed, as Angel had said so ominously. She didn't want Spike transformed, or redeemed, or changed. She'd always thought he was cool the way he was. Maybe everyone else wanted him to be good, but all she wanted these long months was for him to be back. "Can I have them?"

"Not a chance. I'm going to pawn them." He made a big show of gathering everything up, straightening the photos, rolling the diploma back up, stuffing it all back into the box. But Dawn saw him slip the Buffy photo under the couch cushion before he rose. "Let's go get Clem and Maisie and hit a movie, Bit. You'll like Maisie. A ballbreaker, just like you. She's got Clem alphabetizing the spice rack."

Chapter Text

His memory was coming back in tatters and shreds, and sometimes whole great swatches. Angel, the organized bugger, had made him a binder with a page for every year since he'd been born, a century and a half ago. After two weeks of jottings, he had it half-filled, and he thought maybe Angel was right for once... memory was just a muscle that needed exercise.

The deep past returned first. He went to Venice Beach one night after work and stood there in the lingering heat recalling a colder ocean, a rockier shore– the night he stood on the dock at Plymouth, portmanteau in hand, waiting to board the ship to Lisbon for the first leg of his Grand Tour after he'd taken his degree at Oxford. And he remembered a few days out, getting a sick feeling that had nothing to do with the motion of the sea, and in a panic transferring to the next northbound ship they passed. He never made it to Italy. For a few hours, he couldn't remember why, what William-like cowardice had made him turn back before his great adventure.

Then he woke up the next morning and found his mother's locket on his dresser, and saw the face of his father, and of his little sister, and remembered how they died, and it was like experiencing it the first time, the sharp slide into terror. A gentle, scholarly man, his father concealed the gravity of his illness until the end. But with Marianne, he'd just known, from hundreds of miles out to sea, that she'd started to sicken, and when he returned on that northbound ship, he noticed it all– the little cough at the end of each line she spoke. The bright pink on her cheeks that he, stupidly, initially thought a sign of health. The weariness, the fever, and the fret– Keats knew, he'd seen it too, in the ones he loved, and in himself– she grew pale, and specter-thin... and died.

Dawn came in later that day after school was out, her cheeks flushed, her arms full of books. He was sitting on his bed, cross-legged, a new guitar on his thighs. He'd been picking out a song he'd learned almost a century and a half ago for the keyboard, and he didn't look up as she dropped her books on the floor and flopped down in the chair.

"That's pretty nice," she said. "What is it, the Ramones?"

"Not even close, birdbrain. It's Bach. Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring."

She sat up. "You're kidding. Bach, huh? So– why's it make you cry?"

Christ. Stupid heart. He rubbed his face on his shoulder and muttered, "I taught my sister that song."

"You had a sister?"

"Yeah. Marianne. She died when she was fourteen."

"The girl in the locket." Dawn was blessedly silent while he played the next verse. Then she asked, "Did they have guitars back then?"

"Yeah. Not electric ones. But I was teaching her on the piano."

"You play the piano?"

"I did." After a moment, he added, "It was, like, a much more manly instrument back then."

"I'm sure," she said. And then, quietly, "I'm sorry about your sister."

"It was a long time ago. I'm over it. It just– came back to me. This hymn."

She cocked her head to one side. "That's why you could love me, wasn't it?" she said. "I was fourteen when we met. And I reminded you of her."

He shook his head. "You're nothing like her. Nothing. She was good."

"Oh, yeah? And I'm not?"

"Not hardly. She was obedient. And quiet. And... modest."

"Okay," Dawn said sulkily. "Maybe I'm not like her. But I can still remind you of her. At least of having a sister."

He considered this as he worked his way through the last few bars. "Maybe. I mean, there had to be some reason I loved you so quick. Couldn't be because you were, like, loveable. Or even likeable."

She jumped up out of the chair and came over to rain light little punches on his head. "I am so likeable! Say so, or I'll beat you up!"

"Okay, okay!" He propped the guitar against the wall and grabbed hold of her fists, yanking her down beside him. "You're tolerable. Barely."

She sighed and leaned against his shoulder. "I'm glad you remembered Marianne. And played her song."

"Me too."

He listened to her breathing then, and finally said, "What's the matter, Bit?"

She wriggled against him. "I have to ask you something. It's... not easy."

He made a face. "You're, what? Seventeen? Surely we've had ... that discussion already?"

She pushed away from him. "Not about that. Jeez. Like I'd ever ask you again anyway. Can we spell totally useless? Even Giles never stammered that bad."

"What do you want to know then?"

She took a deep breath. "This soul thing. You know. You said, that last night, that you could feel yours. That it stung."

He shrugged. "Don't remember."

"Does it still? Sting? Can you feel it?"

Her little face was so serious, he actually closed his eyes and tried. Then he shook his head. "Sorry. Maybe it's supposed to be unobtrusive most of the time. Background. Maybe stings only when I do something bad or good."

"Oh."

He nudged her with his shoulder. "Why?"

"I was just wondering. You know."

"If I knew, I wouldn't have to ask you. Why do you want to know?"

"I was thinking. About- " and in a rush, she added, "whether I have one. A soul. Because, well, I didn't get born like most humans do. I came from Buffy. And I didn't get her soul, ‛cause she still has hers. So.... maybe I don't have one."

This was not a subject he wanted to pursue. They'd all been very careful never to think about Dawn and what her origin might foretell. Best to downplay it. He was enough of an anomaly of un-nature for one era. He shook his head. "Come on. You were created by monks, right? And monks, they're into all that soul crap. Chanting. Incense. Crosses. They probably had plenty of spare souls lying around."

She gave a watery giggle, and encouraged, he added, "Probably gave you a really grotty one. From a garage sale. Tattered at the edges. Kind of dingy and gray, laundered too many times."

She punched him on the arm. "I do not have a grotty soul. Take that back!"

"Okay, okay, it's as clean as the newfallen snow. Or it was, before you got it. Now it's got inkstains all over it, like Giles's old books."

She smiled again, but it was perfunctory this time. "But what if– what if you're wrong? What if I don't have a soul?"

He knew it was a possibility. A probability, if his understanding of metaphysics was sound– not that anyone should rely on the soundness of his metaphysics. That was more Anya's area. "A soul is oversold, love. They act like it's some sort of shield against being bad. But Hitler had a soul. And Jeffrey Dahmer. I didn't notice that much of a difference myself, when I finally got one. Made me hate me, which might have been an improvement from the usual vanity, but I don't think it made me better."

"You sacrificed yourself to save the world!"

"Hell, bit, if you or your sister had asked me to before the bleeding soul, I would have done it. Wasn't much I wouldn't have done for you two, was there?"

"But you didn't do it for Buffy. She told me that. She told me that you did it for the good of all."

He almost laughed. "Yeah. Saint Spike. Come on, Niblet. You know me better than that. I don't do this universal thing. I love a few people real bad. The rest, well, I'll let them live, I reckon. Don't have much choice now. But I didn't sacrifice for the faceless masses. I did it to keep Buffy from doing it. If I hadn't worn that amulet, Buffy would have."

"Or Angel."

"Or Angel." He grinned at her. "And he wouldn't have looked half so sharp as me, would he?"

She sighed again. "I just wish I knew. I mean, Buffy kept going on about you being evil because you were soulless–"

"That wasn't true, was it? I was evil because... I wanted to be. I could still be evil if I wanted."

Dawn ostentatiously bit her lips.

"I could. Damnit. If I chose to be. But I don't. ‛Cause..." He was trying to remember the reason, considering Buffy wasn't here to watch and approve and fall hopelessly in love with him. Not that it had ever worked before. "Got to be a good example. For you."

She slumped again. "But if I don't have a soul–"

"Give it a rest, why don't you? It's not like you're going to be able to find–" He paused.

"What?"

He frowned. "You really want to know?"

"Yeah."

"And if it turns out not to be the answer you want, what are you going to do?"

"Take evil lessons from you?"

"No. You're going to just go on like before. You're not evil, no matter what, and you're not going to start doing evil just because you find out you didn't get issued some useless scrap of nonsense. Promise me."

"Okay. I promise. I'll be good."

"Hey, Bit, I just said you weren't allowed to be evil. Never said anything about being good. Now let me make a few inquiries. Come back here tomorrow after school."

When she arrived the next day, he scooped up his keys and the paper scrap with the address and led her out to the Jeep Maisie had helped him lease. "Now you just shut up and let me do the talking."

"Hey, it's my soul we're searching for."

"Yeah, and it's my money that's paying for the search. So behave."

The acute vampire sense of direction, it turned out, had been a casualty of the goddamn Shanshu. Finally Dawn insisted they pull over and ask at a gas station, and even then it took them twenty minutes to track down the little storefront shop hidden away in a sidestreet near Loyola-Marymount. The faded letters on the window said Antiques. "Told you your soul would be old and dusty."

"Shut up, Spike."

The old lady within had that white oracular look in her eyes. Cataracts, he thought, and wondered what she'd lose if she had them fixed. Outer sight, inner vision, usually inversely proportionate. Tiresias, case in point. "Lorne sent us," he said, and she dusted her hands off with an ancient scrap of linen. Then she sat them both down at a wooden trestle table, Spike facing the street, and Dawn looking over at a Queen Anne-era sideboard. As she took his hand, the old lady glanced sharply at him. "I don't know your–"

"It's not about me," he said coldly. "It's about her."

The shopkeeper gazed at him narrowly for a moment, then took Dawn's hand. "Such a pretty girl, you are," she said, smiling.

She knows, Spike thought, with a sinking heart.

"I want to know," Dawn announced bravely, "if I have a soul."

"Oh, I can tell you that, dear. And what color it is too. Now just hold still for a moment, and let me concentrate."

As the old lady closed her eyes, Spike made a face at Dawn, and she almost smiled. He reached across the table and took her free hand and squeezed it, trying to tell her no matter what, it was okay. She was okay.

Finally the shopkeeper opened her eyes and turned to Dawn. "Yes."

Dawn blinked at her. "Yes? That's it? You don't need a spell or anything?"

"A spell? My dear, I'm not a witch. I'm just a reader. And I just need to touch you to read all that you are. And you have a very pretty little soul. A delicate spring green."

"So there, Spike," Dawn said, her face alight. "It's not dingy gray at all."

"My mistake."

"What about Spike's? What color is his soul?"

The old lady turned slowly to him, and he could read too– the knowledge in her foggy eyes, the quickening of interest, the hesitation. "Cobalt blue. Electric. An exhausting sort of soul– how do you manage?"

"Not well." He broke away from her gaze and rose. "Hey, Bit, all this soul-reading has made me thirsty." He handed her a dollar bill. "Get me a Mountain Dew from the store next door. I'll settle up here."

All glee now, Dawn danced out into the sunlight, and Spike took his time digging in his wallet for a twenty.

"You know, don't you?" the old lady said quietly.

"I guessed. But I don't want her to know."

"No reason she needs to. We humans think there's only our sort of soul, but that's our own limited vision. And it's no curse to have a demon soul. It's just another variety. A useful variety, in fact. It's got more energy than the human type. She will benefit from its power."

"I know. But she won't see it that way. Thank you for – for making it easy for her."

"No, my boy. Thank you for coming to me. I've lived eighty years, and I've never seen the likes of you before. One man with two souls." She shook her head slowly. "A miracle."

"Yeah. Like the calf with two heads." He tucked his wallet back into his pocket and started for the door.

"It's crimson, you know. Your demon soul."

He looked back at her. "Like blood."

"Like passion. Use it wisely, dear. It's a special gift."

When Dawn came up the sidewalk with his soda, he grabbed her up and spun her around, laughing. "Soul of the age! The applause, the delight, the wonder of our stage!" he proclaimed, finally letting her stumble back to her feet.

She shoved the soda bottle at him. "Is that another poem?"

"Yeah. Ben Jonson said it about Shakespeare."

"Hey, wow. Maybe when I'm a great actress on Broadway, you can use that in a rave review." She slipped her hand in his. "I wish my soul were electric blue. Like yours. That's a cool color. Much cooler than spring green."

"With a body as hot as mine, I need a cool soul. What do you think?"

"I think you are so conceito. I mean, if it's so hot, how come you're with your little sis, and not with some Hollywood starlet? Huh?"

He stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. "You're right. Let me call you a cab. I'm headed for Spago's, get me some starlet action."

"Yeah, as if. As if you'd do that when Buffy's probably already on her way home."

At this, somewhere within him, the demon soul uncurled, and stretched, and fastened on.

It kind of stung.

Chapter Text

Though others walked into the Riever Club unaccosted, the bouncer stopped Giles and made him pay a cover charge of $3. Because he was new? Because he was English? Because he looked affluent? He didn't know, and didn't ask, just took a seat in a booth off in a dark corner, where he could see the stage and the band.

Sematery read the hand-painted sign leaned up against an amplifier. The band name, Giles presumed. No doubt Spike had a hand in selecting it. The Ramones' song had always been one of his favorites, Giles knew from a long road-trip a while back. Spike had thoughtfully provided a mix tape for the journey– three Ramones songs, endlessly repeating. Giles loved punk music, but even he was ready to rip the tape to shreds by the time they reached LA.

The band was just starting up, the lead guitarist adjusting the microphone, the drummer tapping out a ragged fill. Giles's gaze was drawn immediately to Spike, standing off to the side, tuning a beautiful old Gretsch bass. He looked just the same as the last time Giles had seen him, on that fateful day in May. The only difference – he was wearing a red t-shirt instead of the usual black. Same precise features, same dark slash of brows, same marble skin, same almost-gaunt-but-not-quite form. Apparently even an apocalypse, immolation, burial under rubble, and resurrection couldn't mar his pale punk perfection.

Most of the female patrons were sitting over on his side.

Giles envied him the bass more than the feminine adulation. Wondered how old it was. There was experience and wisdom there, in the fine maple body, the ebony fretwork, the lovely cello-like tone. Perhaps Spike would let him play it– no, it was left-handed, backwards, like Spike himself.

Giles had expected a punk band. But it wasn't that sort of club. After a few songs, he put the band squarely in the alt category. They covered Seether and Nirvana, and played a few original intense adolescent misery songs– Giles could see from the forebearant look on Spike's face that he had no hand in writing them. He was the best musician by far, but stayed in the background, singing lead only on an unnervingly apt Nine-inch Nails song. I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real.

Finally the lead guitarist called for requests. Three women immediately yelled, "Pet Sematery," almost in unison. Giles called out, "Behind Blue Eyes."

Busy lighting an illicit cigarette, Spike ignored the women, but looked up at this. Giles knew most wouldn't have been able to see into the darkness of his corner, but Spike was still a vampire. Of sorts. At least Angel had said most of the powers were intact. So Giles knew the gaze turned towards him had found him.

Spike moved up to the front and said to the guitarist, "You know that, right?"

"Nah," the young dolt said.

"Who's Next."

The guitarist looked at Spike uncomprehendingly. "You are, I guess, if you know the song."

Spike looked over towards Giles's corner with a what can I say expression. "The Who. The album. Who's Next. Never mind. It's mostly just the guitar. Hey, Luke, give me the Strat.." He switched to a lead guitar– another lefty, one of the vintage Fender Stratocasters, ice blue and white, and the part of Giles's brain that cared about such things figured that Spike now owned several thousand dollars worth of rock and roll history. Probably stole them, soul or no soul.

Quickly Spike tuned up, then looked back at the corner. "This goes out to my fellow Brit over there. Who actually knows sodding something about rock and roll. Christ."

Then slowly, as if from a buried memory, he started picking the pretty, baroque opening. No one knows what it's like, to be the bad man, to be the sad one, behind blue eyes....

The other guitarist picked up the melody and played it softly, but didn't attempt to sing the harmony. The drummer tapped almost inaudibly, and the keyboard player sat with his face expectant, his hands poised but unmoving. So it was mostly just Spike, playing quiet and singing low– but my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be; I have hours, only lonely; my love is vengeance, it's never free.

He finished, handed the guitar over to the abashed roadie, said to the other guitarist, "I'm off then," and vaulted from the stage. He came over towards Giles, four girls behind him, calling out "Spike!" in sweet voices.

"Sorry, lambs," he said, turning back for just a moment. "He owes me money. Got to collect. Catch you tomorrow night?"

The women seeped away, glancing back disappointedly. They were all expertly made-up, with sharp pretty faces, and Giles wondered what they'd say if they knew the truth about Spike. Then again, the brunette at least looked like a girl who lived dangerously –

Giles rose and accepted Spike's hand, and they sat down across from each other, like old friends, or old enemies long after the war was done. "Remarkable," Giles said.

"Don't I know it. Jesus. Musical illiterates. The guitarist isn't bad, when he's not trying to channel Cobain, but the–"

"I meant your reappearance in the world."

"Oh, that," Spike said dismissively. "Old news. I've been trying to educate them, you know, got through Chuck Berry and Little Richard all right, but then hit Elvis. Bad scene."

"They didn't like Elvis?"

"The drummer loved him. Not this drummer. This one's a tosser. Always a day late and a 16th short. The other one wasn't bad. But heard Heartbreak Hotel, and that was it– ran off to Vegas to be an Elvis impersonator. Scared me. Thought probably shouldn't keep going, considering the whole folkie movement was coming up next, and I could just see Mr. Misery there turning into a Tim Hardin clone. If I were a carpenter–" he crooned sardonically.

"Spike."

"Right then. Rupert. Good to see you."

"You too." And Giles found that he meant it. Spike had always been one of the more annoying creatures in the world– not to mention the whole evil undead thing, as Xander would term it– but over the years of discord, Spike had shown three qualities that made him occasionally good company: He was English, so he could brew a good cup of tea. He had excellent taste in music and an encyclopedic knowledge of rock-and-roll history, having witnessed much of it. And while he was capable of drinking the vilest rotgut, he appreciated a fine whisky.

As he proved again this night. "You're a single malt man, aren't you? I've got a bottle of Glenmorangie hidden behind the bar. Kickback from a distributor. Interested?"

"If it's all right–"

"Sure it's all right. I came in last night short-notice, worked the bar till 3 am. Party of stuntmen from Fox decided they were going to break up the place. I had to break a few of them. Manager owes me."

He returned with the bottle and two glasses and another couple girls. He pointed the bottle towards the door and gave them a hard stare, which made them giggle, but finally they trailed away. "Once upon a time, I'd give a look like that, and girls would run screaming away."

"Might need to pull down the vamp-visage to have the same effect."

"And straightaway lose me job. Who knows, though. These LA bints. They get off on the oddest things. Give it a taste, mate, tell me what you think."

Giles picked up the proffered glass and took a short sip. "Not bad. Light. Hint of smoke."

"Yeah, not a bad little sample. Got some Glenlivet if we finish this. Good liquor selection, you know. After-hours club like this, we get a lot of bartenders and waitresses in, so we have to stock for those who know what they're pouring. So you in town for some reason, or just come to see the circus freak here?"

Giles wasn't ready to answer that, not with so many people milling around yet. The rest of the band was dissembling their equipment, and the roadie came up all abashed, a battered guitar case in each hand. "Here you go, Spike. Thanks for, you know, letting me help."

"Any time, mate." Spike set one case on the booth beside him and handed the other across to Giles. "Store that beside you, will you? 'S going to get knocked over otherwise."

Instead of setting it down on the bench, Giles pushed his glass and the bottle out of the way and put the case on the table. He flipped the clasp open and took out the bass. "Pretty," he said, running his fingers over the finely polished wood. "Too bad it's strung backwards."

"Yeah, lefthandedness is curse, let me tell you. Have to buy my own instruments– can't just borrow them."

"Or steal them, eh?"

"The Strat– I bought that last week with my credit card." Spike smiled and repeated that last couple words, as if he was proud of them. "Credit card. But probably stole the Gretsch. Can't remember. Woke up hungover one morning in '68 with my arms wrapped around it like a new girlfriend."

Giles regarded Spike with new respect. "You've managed to hang onto this for thirty-five years? And keep it in tune?"

"Was in storage for a long time. I had it in Sunnydale, didn't play it much– Clem saved it when I left last year. Not ashamed to say I almost wept when he brought it out for me." He reached over and touched one ebony fret. "Kind of lost music for awhile there. When Dru left. It was all tied up with her somehow. But I'm getting it back, playing with the idiot band here."

"Surely they wonder how you know so much when you don't look much older than they are."

"Yeah, and telling them all about the real Woodstock kind of confused them. Not used to dealing so much with people who don't... know. Anyway," he said, "you were going to explain what brings you back to the land of avocados and eternal summer."

"Well, I suppose you're what brings me back." Reluctantly Giles reseated the bass in its case and buckled it back up. Obliquely, mindful of the few remaining customers, he said, "Curious, of course. I didn't want to bother you until you had your bearings, but you certainly seem as if you've adjusted."

"Guess so. Got the job, the flat. Friends. Movie night every week with Dawn and Clem and his girl. Play in the band. Good times."

Only a month, and the vampire had built a new life. Giles glanced round at the club. It was shutting down, and every now and again someone would call out, "Night, Spike," and "Tomorrow, pal," and "Good set, Spike." Finally the bartender came by and clapped Spike on the shoulder. "I'm heading out."

"Yeah, Boyd, we might be awhile. I'll lock up."

Then they were alone, and Spike said, "So I expect you're going to bring out a tape recorder now, are you? Interview me for your chronicles?"

Giles reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the mini-recorder. "You don't mind?"

Spike shrugged. "Don't know I know anything worth recording."

This sort of humility wasn't Spike's style. It was the first sign, in fact, of A New Spike, and Giles noted this mentally as he checked the tape and pushed record.

Spike picked up the recorder and spoke directly into the little mike. "Then again, not too many have brought a city down and been reborn to tell about it, not to mention looking this good whilst doing so."

So much for The New Spike. Giles grabbed the recorder and set it on the table between them. "Yes. As you say. So. To start. Perhaps you could summarize what it was like. That day at the Hellmouth."

"Just another day at work for the Champion. Started out feeling humble and yet confident, surrounded by adoring females, dressed tastefully and yet simply, with the accessory to end all accessories winking and flashing on my manly chest."

Giles sighed. "I assume you're going to settle down and just converse once the posturing is done?"

"Prob not." He flexed his hands, started tapping his fingers on the old wood table, moving his shoulders back and forth to some invisible soundtrack. Same old Spike. Buffy called it "the vampire vibration." But this sort of manic energy never radiated from Angel. It was just Spike, hyperactive as a springer spaniel on speed, who gave off the unnerving vibration. It made him a dervish in a fight– Giles would have to say Spike at his best was the greatest fighter he'd ever seen, besides the Slayer, a thing of savage grace when he was facing a dozen demons. But when he was confined indoors, without an adversary, he was the least calming of companions.

"Tell me about the amulet. Where is it now?"

Spike's hand went to his chest, as if he might find the amulet there. "Don't have it anymore. I gave it to Angel." He frowned. "I was supposed to give it to him. Led me to him, see."

"That day. What did it feel like, the amulet?"

"Oh, the usual. Hot. Radioactive. Lots of power. Went outward from me, and backwards into me. Pulsing. Sexual. You know. Elemental life force mixed with advanced technological power."

"Did it hurt?"

"Yeah. In an electrical way. Jolts. Volts. Wasn't bad."

"And what did it do?"

He shrugged and finished off what was in his glass. "Power. Light. Fire. Pouring out of me." The bored look receded from his face, and his eyes lit up. "It was awesome. The First's army was burning up. Don't know where you were, what you saw. That's mostly what I saw. They started pouring back into the hole, trying to avoid the fire. The walls were collapsing."

"Could you have escaped then?"

"Dunno. I thought I'd better stay. Figured wherever I was, the destruction would be, so best remain where I would do least damage, most good. It was ... brilliant. Noise. The pounding. The light. All the heat. Like a really great rave, you know?"

"And what happened to you?"

"Started to burn." His fingers went to the hollow under his strikingly sharp cheekbone. "Right here. I could feel it start eating into me. Wasn't hot. More like acid. Dissolving me. Worried that I'd be gone too soon, that the Hellmouth wouldn't close. The hole was all fire then, though, so I knew they were dead. Thought maybe I'd be the closer– the seal on the Hellmouth. And then." He rubbed at his cheek. "I was laughing. It was so wild. Like the world's best joke. The heat. The fire. I knew I was going to dissolve, and there'd be more heat and fire, more forever. Just laughed and laughed till I wasn't anymore."

He was silent then, for so long that Giles shut off the recorder to save tape. Spike's head was bent now, his eyes closed. Finally Giles turned the recorder back on. "That's what you remember then. You... stopped being? You weren't anymore?"

"For awhile." Spike looked up and moved his shoulders impatiently. "Vampires do that, you know. The cat thing. If nothing's going on, if there's no stimulus, we just go into stasis. Suspension. Can do it for hours. Days. Not me. I can't do it for more than an hour. But still. That's what it felt like after it was over. But when it was happening, it wasn't like that. It was... nothing. Profound... nothingness. Existential void. I didn't exist, and yet I knew I didn't exist. All I was was the consciousness of not existing."

"That must have been terrifying."

"I don't know. I thought it was the judgment. You know. As much as I could think, which wasn't much. It wasn't real thought. I wasn't there to think. But ... but still. I figured I was being judged. And I couldn't be then, because the judgment might be corrupted if I changed. If I was. So I just ... didn't be."

"And... somehow you could feel this happening?"

"Yeah. Scared me. Whatever I was. I wasn't ready for that. I was ready for... more pain." Suddenly his face grew bleak. "I thought I was going to hell. When I took the amulet, I could feel the power, and I knew I wasn't going to make it out. And I knew what was waiting. Final stop eternal torment. I'd kind of blocked that thought until then– immortality keeps you from worrying much about it. But I knew it was meant to be that way, so I decided I'd enjoy the ride. Ready for the worst. Torture, torment, guilt, fire, pain– you know the drill. The whole Dantean Inferno. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Nine circles of hell. Each one for me.”

Giles felt the chill, and took a gulp of his scotch to warm himself. He'd been raised in the modern Church of England, and hell, while not entirely obsolete, was not emphasized – hell is merely the absence of love, the liberal vicars said piously, and hell is other people, the cynical existentialists declared. Neither sounded dire to Giles. But Spike was of an earlier era, a harsher doctrine, and hell to him would be fire and brimstone and the smell of sulphur and screams of pain and all the rest of the traditional torture. He'd certainly committed enough mayhem to make the destination more than just theoretical.

"So as you... were consumed, that is what you anticipated."

"Yeah. I was ready. Deserved it. Bound for it. Due to the soul."

"The soul?"

"Well, I suspected, no human soul, no hell. No afterlife. Not sure. There are ... other souls, you know. Demon souls. Animal souls. And they're not sharing the afterlife with you lot, I figured that much. Doesn't work, the metaphysics. The theology. So, poetic justice, right? No human soul, could have done all right, just cease upon the midnight with no pain– you know," he broke off, "I can't get that poem out of my head. Lines show up at the oddest moments. Someone should have turned Keats, poor bugger. What a vamp he would have made, and all his unheard music could have been heard–"

"Spike."

"Oh, right. So I thought if I hadn't gotten the stupid soul, I would have ceased upon the midnight with no pain, would have just... ceased. But I did that idiot thing, went and got the soul. And so this didn't feel like ceasing. It felt like a black hole. The shaman warned me. He said this would happen. It would make me eligible for the big judgment. But did I listen? Bloody hell not. Not me. Not then. I thought I'd live forever. Or long enough that hell would seem an appealing alternative. Or– well, I didn't think at all. Just went on impulse, took the damned soul and went mad and had my own little taste of hell...."

"You regret the soul?"

Spike pondered this. He was calm again, or as calm as he ever got. "Well, it didn't get me what I wanted. Wanted to make Buffy ... approve. And she didn't."

"I thought she came around."

"She would have anyway." Spike shrugged. "Sorry, but it's true. Wasn't ever the soul she wanted from me, n'matter what she said. Opposite, in fact. I had that notion, tell you the truth. Thought getting the damned thing might be counter-productive. But... but I thought it'd make me good. Make me good to her. And everyone else. And... it didn't. Made me worse."

"How's that?"

"The First wouldn't have gotten hold of me, had I only the demon soul."

Giles opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. Finally he said, mildly, "You can't know that."

"Sure I can. You think in 120 years, no other entity tried to take me over? Tried to dominate me, subvert my will? Hell, mate, I was Angelus's whipping boy for a decade, and he beat me three times from Sunday, and worse, he'd beat Dru in front of me, and he could never take me over. Tried. Used my affection for Dru– and for him– shamefully. But I never gave over, not entirely. I was just a whelp, but even then had the power to fight off the domination. Say what you like about demons– not going to defend here– but there's a force there, a defiance, that... resists. Human soul– " He shook his head. "I mean, consider the theology. All about surrender to a higher power. None of that in demonology. Acknowledgment of power, yes, submission to force, but not this surrender of will. Only see that in human religions."

This Giles would not accept. Could not accept. "You can't blame the First on your soul."

"Don't blame anything on anyone. My doing entirely. No one cursed me with this soul. I went and got it. I knew it meant trouble, and that's what I got. Just saying. No soul– well, I might still kill by my own choice. But wouldn't have turned robot." He tilted his head to the side and regarded Giles. "You needn't believe me, Watcher. No offense taken. But you did ask."

"And you answered. All right. Let's move on. After the immolation. After the void. You must not, in fact, have ended up in hell. And you were... what? Relieved?"

Spike made a face. "Don't know. Disappointed? I'd gotten myself all worked up for nothing. At first I thought it was hell. Bureaucracy. Filling out forms. Taking psychological quizzes. I kept filling out this one over and over and over, on some computer somewhere, and you know how you hit send, and it hangs up, and all the information vanishes, and you have to do it over again? That kept happening. And I thought– I'm in hell! Except it turned out it was just Windows."

Giles had to laugh. "I gather Microsoft has a monopoly in the afterlife too?"

"Yeah. A vertical one. Everywhere." He paused. "It wasn't a real computer, I don't think. That was just the ... metaphor they used, I guess. If I were from the 14th century, I'm sure I would have been working on an illuminated manuscript. Probably getting inkstains all over it, and be told to start again."

"So was it, well, heaven?"

"Hope not, mate. Or there's going to be a lot of very disappointed saints. Some antechamber. Tedious. I was glad to leave and come back."

"Did they... give you a choice?"

"You mean, stay or go?" He paused to light a cigarette– and to give himself time, perhaps to prepare an answer. "Look, it's all– metaphor, you know? There weren't bureaucrats and clerks there, not really, and no real forms to fill out. I just... read them that way. No judge either. I just felt judged. My limited understanding, and so forth. So when you ask if I had a choice, I'd say no, and yet I ended up with what I wanted, didn't I? I wanted back in this world. Myself. Not reincarnated. Just me, back again. Same body, same mind, same memories. Same me. Could do without the pulse and such. Wouldn't have paid too much for the sunshine either– find I still prefer the dark. But this is what I wanted. My life back, or my unlife. Still Spike. Not what you would choose, no doubt, nor anyone else, but what I wanted more or less. And so I must have chosen. They wouldn't have given me what I wanted by accident. They must have sorted through me and found this and gave it to me. Don't know what the alternative might be, but this is what I wanted. Above all else." He grinned. "Limited imagination, have I. Did think, once I got back, that they could have fixed a few flaws. But... the same."

"Yes. I see that. You are... unchanged. Quite remarkable. I had thought– well, it makes no difference."

"What?"

"That you would be... transformed. By such an experience. That you would be changed."

"How?"

"I don't know, precisely. I think... I thought perhaps they would send you back... forgive me. Silly word. Holy."

"Holy. Me?" Spike looked honestly puzzled. "But... but I wouldn't be me. Holy. Wouldn't be much use to send me back so changed I wasn't myself anymore– might as well send someone else back. Mother Theresa. Milton Berle."

"Milton Berle?" Giles repeated blankly.

"Why not? Makes more sense than me... holy. Why bother to send me back if I'm so different?"

"Why bother to send you back if you're not?"

"Well, I suspect we have a bit of an existential question here. You seem to think there's supposed to be some point to my return."

"Yes, of course, there must be a point. Why muck with the fabric of the cosmos, interfere with nature, fold up the time-space continuum, if not to– well, illuminate? Illustrate? Educate?"

Spike frowned. "I don't want to do any of those things."

"What you want would matter little to the powers-that-be."

"You weren't listening to me. What I wanted was what I got. Therefore, we can assume what I wanted mattered above all. And what I wanted wasn't to serve some point. It was just to come back, and live again. Not be holy. Not even be good. Just be alive."

Giles shook his head. "But... why? Why would they bother?"

Spike regarded him oddly. "Rupert, it's just a reward. That's all. Nothing more. Like a company giving out bonuses to the best salesmen. Helped that they didn't know what to do with me. No real place for me, up or down. So they just postponed the decision for another generation or four. And sent me back because, why not? Easiest thing to do. It's what I wanted, and I was the hero of the moment."

Giles didn't like that. Oh, he supposed Spike deserved some sort of reward, but so did many. Of course, perhaps they were given the same option, and chose heaven instead, or some other state of bliss unavailable or unappealing to Spike. "A reward. That's all?"

"Certain sure. And so I come back. And I feel no obligation, none at all, to be holy or saintly or serve as a good example. Did my one good deed, and now I'm retiring. Won't be evil– wouldn't be right, would be like dirtying the gift they gave me. But I'm not taking that gift and putting it behind display glass and bringing it out just to dust it every week. Just going to live. Enjoy whatever decades or centuries I got ahead. Do as I please."

Giles told himself the conversation had gone off in the wrong direction, that Spike's conclusion was not the one he wanted Spike to reach. "Yes. Well. You might find, I hope, that you get some gratification from further work in the Slaying area."

"Sure, I kill the odd demon or two of an evening. Good sport, that."

"I mean, help in a more substantial way."

"What's more substantial than killing? Isn't it what it's all about?"

"Perhaps. In the end. But there's other tasks also. The Watchers' Council is... gone. The whole infrastructure. The grand library. The chronicles–"

"No great loss, those. Any words of truth in them, strictly accidental."

"I'm aware of your opinion. Nonetheless, as a historical record– now much has been stored on the Web, yes, and I have access still. But much work must be done to restore the knowledgebase. And you could help."

"You don't want my help, Watcher. Trust me. I'd specialize in telling you what you don't want to hear."

"What's that?"

Spike toyed with the bottle, tugging at a corner of the label, finally pouring them both another drink. "That your council's books have it wrong. Who we are. What we are. I know it, because I lived it. Not because of a book. Because I know myself, and hundreds of other vamps, and demons too. And what I know, your books ignore, or contradict."

"I am aware that you claim some discrepancies."

"No. I claim it's bogus. Propaganda. Deliberate. And I can't think you want me claiming that in your library, and in your chaste halls, and in your chambers. Because my experience – my existence– tosses all your expectations and predictions into a cocked hat. Nothing new. I've always told you, haven't I, that much of the vamp lore is bogus. And I know Anya was always finding fault with their portrayal of her brand of demons."

"You can't claim that your experience– or Anya's– is remotely average."

"I'm an anomaly, first to admit it. But it's because I'm on the edge of the spectrum. Still in a spectrum, howsoever, and just as many on my side of the average as on the opposite. Just as many vamps who have some emotion and listen to music and get a kick out of something beyond blood, as those who are as savage and unknowing as your Watcher books say."

"You can't tell me that vampires aren't savage, most of them, and that even the civilized ones, if we might call them that, even you, committed savage acts."

"And you can't claim there aren't many human savages either. Even among the most civilized. The culture that gave us Bach and Goethe gave us Buchenwald and Auschwitz. The nation that produced the Bill of Rights built an economy on slavery and the genocide of the natives." He smiled slowly. "But you don't want to hear that either. I'm saying, Watcher, you don't want to hear what I know, so no use talking to me about helping you in your restoration project. I'm not a restorer. I'm a destroyer. Would be happiest bringing down your edifice, as I brought down Sunnydale. That's my art. Destruction."

"I hardly think the edifice is as fragile as you make out. And if we revise a bit, correct a few myths, accept that some vampires are not mere savages, what harm?"

"What harm? C'mon, Rupert. How long you know me? Five years? And how many chances you had to stake me? I was chained up in your bathtub, remember? Not the most pleasant of houseguests. And you never did me– well, not till you enlisted the principal, and that was– never mind. Before that you knew killing me– someone who seemed so human, evil or no– would bother your overactive conscience. Least as long as I was harmless. Wouldn't have been sporting."

"Yes, I accept that. But we agree– you were – are– an anomaly."

"Well, think it through. Let's say you started thinking that it would be unusual to find only one of anything in a large population. Not scientific. Mutants are beyond rare in nature. If there's me, there are others like me. Hell, my whole clan, straggly as it is these days, gives the lie to the unknowing savage model– Angel. Savage often enough, but the knowing variety. Darla– don't know the whole story, but she gave up her life for her child." Hastily he added, "Don't ask Angel about it. Forget I mentioned it. Not supposed to know."

"I – all right. It shan't be hard, as I haven't the slightest notion what you're talking about."

"Good. Keep it that way. Angel'd stake me if he thought I was talking out of turn. Or rather, he'd talk me to death– more painful that way."

"You were talking about your clan. The Order of Aurelius."

"Right. Strange birds, all the way back as far as anyone can remember. Everyone knew it. Stuff of legend, and not just among the Watchers. Dracula sought me out particular, you know, wanting to meet me, youngest of the line. Was going to take me under his wing, he said, teach me all, just to spite Darla. He despised Darla, some reason. I mean, everyone despised her, except Angel, but Dracula took great joy in it. I would've gone off with him too, 'cept for Dru. Couldn't leave Dru, and Angelus wouldn't release her then." In another of those mercurial transitions, Spike added, "Speaking of strange birds, you won't find a more effete fellow than Drac. You'd enjoy him. Don't mean you're effete. Only he's been around 400 years, and he's been to every salon worth visiting in all that time. Traded recipes with Talleyrand, that sort of thing. Montaigne's special friend for a few years there. Knows his philosophy."

"Thank you, but I'll give him a miss."

"Your loss. Not that he's any friend of mine. Borrowed eleven pounds from me, back in '91. 1891, I mean. Would be worth a fortune now, what with interest. And here he came to Sunnydale, rich as Croesus, few years back, and spent the whole week avoiding me. Making sure I couldn't collect the debt. And I was still a lad back then, when I lent him. Eleven pounds was all I had. Had me in his thrall, though."

"You told me thrall was a myth."

"Is. Mostly. But Dru had it a bit. Drac's got it in spades. Drac survives staking too, you know. Oh, right, you know that. Buffy staked him."

"Twice."

"And last I heard, he was back in Romania. Power behind the throne, or the democracy, whatever they got now. Re-materialized." Spike smiled to himself. "Mayhap in another couple centuries, I'll have learned that too. If I live so long, with this idiot heart. Lungs. But maybe they regenerate, just like my bones. Just like my spine did." He sighed, putting a hand on his wayward heart, and went back to his penultimate subject. "Drac is a cousin of sorts. Angel would know. He used to be the keeper of the genealogy."

"The Order of Aurelius," Giles prompted. Spike's digressions were always entertaining, sometimes illuminating, but there was a point here, and Giles intended to find it before they drank enough to pass out.

"Right. My clan. All special. Aristocrats."

"Really? I know you were– I mean, that's what I understand, that you came from a noble family."

Spike said suspiciously, "Where'd you hear that? Anyway, what diff would that make, as that was William, the one your lore says died when some demon from nowhere took over his body."

"And you don't agree."

"No, but no doubt your books know far more about my nature than I do."

Giles sighed. "All right. Tell me where William is."

Spike tapped his fist against his temple, then against his chest. "Right here. Still here. Always. William died and lost his soul, but was reborn as a vampire. Changed, yes. In the way that anyone changes after a profound experience. But still William. All is not changed, changed utterly."

"Your habit of sliding into poetry this way does hearken to that poor boy. But all that means is the demon stole his memories along with his body."

"Notice, however, that I slid into Yeats, who'd barely been born when I died. Couldn't be quoting from William's stolen memories. You think this demon of yours just happened, coincidentally, to like poetry too?"

"It's not my demon."

"Is. Figment of your imagination, all yours."

Giles glared at him. "You've said yourself you are a demon."

"Well, right. I am a demon. But not possessed by a demon. Vampires are of the demon class, aren't they. And William became a vampire. Didn't stop being William, worse luck, but got to be a demon too." This time it was Spike who exhaled with exasperation. "You know, Watcher, there were times when I'd've given anything not to be William. Christ. Who'd want to be him, had the choice? Weak, ineffectual, poetry-loving aesthete, and not even good at it. What a geek. Loved mum and sis and papa and won the prize at school for memorizing the most psalms."

"You did?"

"See. You did, you said. You sense my inner-Williamness. Ponce that he is."

Giles regarded him narrowly. "Recite me a psalm. Not the 23rd. Too easy."

"You know, it's been 140 years since my great victory. Let me think."

He thought so hard Giles could see the smooth forehead start to ridge with the vamp face, and wondered, briefly, if Spike would burst into flames if he recited a psalm in that condition. But then the game face receded back, and Spike's familiar seraph-like face returned. Giles always found that transformation unsettling.

"Right. Here's one for you, my very own persecutor." And in a singsong voice, he recited,

"O lord my God, in thee have I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me;

Lest he devour my soul, like a lion, and tear it in pieces, while there is none to help.
O Lord my God, if I have done any such thing, or if there be any wickedness in my hands;
If I have rewarded evil unto him that dealt friendly with me, yea, I have delivered him that without any cause is mine enemy,
Then let mine enemy persecute my soul, and take me: yea, let him tread my life down upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust."

He broke off, and said in a normal tone, "Did I get that right?"

"How would I know?" Giles retorted. "I never won any prizes for Scripture." Grudgingly he added, "It was apt. Soul. Dust. Evil. You chose it specially."

Spike shrugged. "Beneath the piety, I was a bloodthirsty child. Liked the lion tearing the soul to pieces. Point is- I was that child. The one that memorized that verse. Didn't steal the memory. Made it myself."

"But the demon–"

"Rupert. Let me say this in words of one syllable. There is no demon. Other than me. No demon came and took over William's body. William just graduated from human to demon when he became a vampire."

"But the evil–"

"Evil is as evil does."

"What does that mean?"

Spike was exasperated again. "You sure you were raised a good Anglican? Or did they stop teaching about grace and good works and penance and all that sometime in the last century?"

Giles wasn't used to being behind in a conversation. "Explain. And you may use words of however many syllables you like. I'm sure I shall understand most of them."

Spike grinned. "All right. See what I can do. Look. I've been evil. And I know. It's not something innate. You can't just be evil, anymore than you can just be good. You do evil, or you do good, or you do something in between. Somedays you do both, one right after another. Maybe not you."

"I expect I've done evil in my time."

"Don't doubt it for a moment, mate, just didn't want to offend. Anyroad, this notion that there's some free-floating evil out there, just waiting to grab the hapless and make them evil too. Rubbish. It's all in the action. You do evil enough, I'll call you evil. You do good enough, I'll call you good. And I did enough evil you're welcome to call me evil."

"But–"

"But I'm evil only because I did the evil actions. I wouldn't have been evil, would I, if I'd somehow managed to refrain from doing evil actions, and you know, I've mostly done refraining lately, some exceptions, mostly regarding tormenting Angel, and let's just say the verdict is still out on that one. Am I still evil? And if you tell me no, but only because I now have a soul, etc, because I have two words for you then. Adolf. Hitler."

"Grace. Penance. Back to that."

"Sure. Now doctrine was tougher when I was a boy. Even baptized, given the saving grace, you weren't assured yet of heaven. Could muck things up by going out and committing those mortal sins. Still that way when you were trooping off to Matins of a Sunday?"

"Yes. You could still sin your way to damnation."

"Glad to hear it. Not wanting to pull the old back in my day, though it drives the Niblet up a wall, and that's always a pleasure– but some things shouldn't change. And one is that by your actions we shall know ye. And another thing– you can do penance. Good works. And be redeemed. Even the most evil, right? St. Paul ring a bell? Persecuted the early Christians, struck by lightning–"

"And continued persecuting Christians with his teachings, only now with divine blessing," Giles said drily.

"Precisely. Terrible bad rude man, he was and remained, and yet became a saint, so we can assume got forgiven. Not that–" Spike added, looking embarrassed, "not that I believe most of this. Metaphor. Analogy. That's what it is. The way we understand things, not necessarily objective reality here."

"Accepted."

"So in this theology anyway, no such thing as evil essence. Do evil, you're evil. Don't do evil, you're not evil. Humans, demons, both can do evil. Both can refrain from doing evil. Accepted?"

Giles hesitated. "You see no qualitative difference between human and demon in the capacity to be evil. Or do evil, whichever you choose."

"You don't want to know what I see, mate. Keep telling you that."

"I am not going to lose my ethical bearings because of anything you say, Spike. Talk."

"Okay. Qualitative difference. No. Humans might have the edge either side, good, evil. Greater scope. But also– your measure."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're the one with the measuring tape. Protagorus. Man is the measure of all things. It's your world, so your measuring tape. You see killing humans as evil, but killing demons as not evil. Demons accept that. So, presumably, do all the animals you slaughter for food, rather like vampires slaughter you, only your fashion is typically much more organized, corporate, and efficient. Vampires never get past the old hand-to-hand, one-on-one sort of slaughter. Never catch a vampire inventing the atom bomb."

Giles sighed. "Somehow I knew you'd bring that up. So one word for you. Apocalypse."

"Good word." Spike flashed a grin. "One of my favorites. Yes. Demons go for the apocalypse. Repeatedly. Tried it myself, till I realized all my favorite telly shows would be cancelled. Got to give it to you humans. Do sitcoms and soaps very well. Let you live just for that reason. So apocalypse, yes, demon dream. Never happens, though, does it?"

"Sunnydale RIP, remember?"

"Remember well enough that was my doing, and I did it at the behest of your Slayer. But give me odds here, Watcher. My type, demons I mean, and that North Korean nutcase with a nuclear warhead or dozen. Which more likely to succeed at the apocalypse-bringing business?"

"We're getting off topic here."

"Sure we are, Rupert. Okay. Demons do evil, yes. Random chaos R Us. In your worldview, random chaos equals evil, unless it's on a Sex Pistols CD, right?"

Giles had to smile. "Right."

"Well, random chaos has its charms, but the universe is built on order. Demons aren't going to get real far. Especially vamps, who have such a limited diet. Some are even smart enough to realize we can't decimate the food supply, which puts them way ahead of your salmon fishermen, but that's neither here nor there. Sorry. No more human-bashing. Despite my words, I quite like humans."

"Especially as dessert. Yes. I know. Where were we?"

"One drink short of full collapse, I believe." Spike distributed what was left in the bottle quite fairly over both glasses. "I was attempting to prove to you that there was no evil demon took over poor William's body. But rather that poor William found bad doing was a more pleasant pastime than bad poem-writing."

"Prove it to me."

Spike raised his hand in surrender. "If the psalm didn't do it.... Come on, Rupert, think it through. What did the First use to make me obey? Something out of my demon past? No. Something from my human past. A song my beloved mum used to sing to me. My beloved mum. Wouldn't work, would it, were it someone else's beloved mum?"

"But if you have his memories–"

"Good Christ. You are a difficult man, Rupert." He jammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a little dark blue velvet bag. "Here."

Giles loosened the drawstring and withdrew a chain with a small locket.

"My mother's. Open it."

Giles obeyed. Two miniatures, mid-Victorian era, stared back at him– a man and a young girl.

"You were impressed that I kept that bass for thirty-odd years. I've saved that locket for more than a century. Tell me why some anonymous demon from nowhere would want to remember what William's father and sister looked like."

Giles nodded reluctantly, gazing down at the tiny paintings. "All right. I concede. There is William in you."

"No. I am William. Never been anything but. Changed the name. Changed the look. Grew some balls. Started murdering. But same man. Everything I loved then, I love now. Still. A fine whisky and a good Punch and Judy show. Spring and autumn and why I ended up in southern California, I don't know. Darjeeling with a bit of milk and plenty of sugar. A pretty maid's ankles. All the monsters in The Odyssey and Caliban in The Tempest. Those little lemon biscuits Cook used to make– wish I'd turned her, I do, so she could still be making them for me. My mum and my papa and my little sister, and my nanny too, and the chestnut mare I got for my 20th birthday. Bach and Keats and how ribbons slip from a girl's hair when it's freshly washed."

This litany ran down, and Giles was silent. Finally he said, "And everything that came after. That was William too?"

"Sure. William became Spike. Spike liked all the above, and also liked to kill." He shrugged. "Maybe the human would have liked to kill too. But he didn't get the chance. Didn't have the motivation. A vamp needs to eat, you know, and killing's the easiest way." Softly, Spike said, "You're not the same you were at 20. But you're the same man. I changed radically, no mistake about it, when I was 26. Same man. Changed radically when I was– what the hell am I now? 149? Same man. You don't have to believe it. But I know it."

"What's your birthday?" Giles demanded suddenly.

"March 21. Why?"

The vernal equinox. Fitting. "Just seeing if you remember. What year?"

"1854. Seventeenth year of Victoria's reign. Wait a minute." Spike regarded him suspiciously. "You're trying to figure out who I am, aren't you? Want some actual facts to add to your mistake-ridden William the Bloody monograph."

"I didn't write that monograph. Trust me. It would not be so cloyingly turmoiled with scarce-hidden sexual desire if I did." When Spike looked puzzled, Giles added, "Lydia Markham. The woman who wrote the thesis about you. The whispers were that she had quite a passion for her topic."

"Oh. I met her once, did I? When all those Watchers arrived to test the Slayer. Yeah, she came on to me. Said she had some theories to test about vampire sexuality."

"Did you– No. Spare me."

"No. Too entranced with Buffy. Stared into her eyes for a minute or more, told her she was now in my thrall, and silly bint believed me and started disrobing, even though I hadn't asked her too." Spike sighed. "Missed out on a lot, loving Buffy. No regrets, but still."

Chapter Text

Giles said, grimly, "Now. Back to the topic. Not good and evil. I trust we're done with that?"

"Yes, and we'll be taken up and burned as heretics any moment now."

"You said the Order of Aurelius was the aristocracy. I know you were of a noble family–"

"And again, how do you know that?"

"You said once your father was a scholar. Independent income."

"Doesn't mean we were of the nobility. Victorian times. Plenty of the old upper-middle class lived well."

"In Berkeley Square?"

Spike regarded him narrowly. "Why did you say Berkeley Square?"

"Am I right?"

Spike shrugged. "Close enough. Where'd you hear that?"

"I didn't hear it. Did a bit of research into Oxford's records. Not that many Williams granted classics degrees in that time period."

"See, you are trying to update the biography. Don't know why you're so sure I earned the degree. And Oxford, not Cambridge?"

"I've read your translations from Greek, remember? That monograph on Locus? I do recognize the difference in translations styles, even from a previous century."

"Rupert, I think you have way too much time on your hands."

"William Trent Nelson. First-class degree. 1878."

Spike refused to comment.

"Related to the admiral?"

Finally Spike admitted, "His grandfather. My father's great grandfather. Same man. But the money came from a grandmother. And it wasn't that much. Enough to support us well. That's all. And not a title in the tree, 'cept for the admiral. His father, you'll recall, was just a vicar."

"Nonetheless, an excellent family."

"I'm a democrat, Watcher. Hold no truck with hereditary privilege. Anyway, that's not what I meant by Aurelius being aristocrat. Dru wasn't one at all. Father owned a print shop in Fleet Street, I believe. Angelus, good enough family, some money, but Irish Catholic, so literally beyond the pale. Darla was a whore, of course. But well-educated– think she must have been cast off by her family. Got them back. Killed every last one."

Giles didn't react. He knew Spike would enjoy seeing him flinch. "Then what did you mean by aristocrat?"

"Among vamps. The House of Aurelius was among the best, back when such things counted. They don't anymore, haven't really since the Great War. No one tracks vamp lineage much, except for a few old ladies who also read Majesty Magazine and worry about Prince Edward's orientation. But everyone knew, back then, that Aurelius was the strongest. Best blood. Smartest. Live long enough, and a reputation grows. As many of us lived past a century, well, we got studied."

"How many are there?"

"Not many left. It was Darla's generation that set the mark. Eight or nine in that, and all master vamps. Most gone now, 'sfar as I know. Angel would know better."

"Darla was your..."

"Great-grandsire. Angelus's sire. She was turned back in 1670 or so, by the Master himself. Now, really, there's just me and Angelus, and a few he might have turned I don't know about. And Dru sometimes did the trick, even after me. They tended not to last, though, Dru's get. She couldn't do it, do the training."

"But you were Dru's get, and you survived. Angel taught you. You were a family, you said."

"Well, a dysfunctional one." His restless hands stilled for a moment, gripping his glass. "I wanted Dru, you know. Wanted to take care of her. And so Angelus kept me about. Trained me. I think, with two madwomen about him, he liked having another man around, boy that I was– and Darla hated me, kept occupied harassing me, so she didn't bother Dru so much after I arrived. Or Angelus. She'd fight with me, rather than him. Worked all round. Used to be that way, back when I was turned. Sires stayed, kept the family together. Nothing like that anymore, not that I've seen." He looked up with a grin. "Terrible thing, how the family values have deteriorated."

"Ahem. Yes. Did you– did you turn people?"

He didn't answer for a moment, and Giles wondered how large a lie he meant to tell. "No. Never saw the point. Why create more competition, that's what I thought. That's another reason I think that soul and the First– bad combination. I didn't make vampires, not before the First took me. Fortunately, I think Buffy got them all, the ones the First made me make last year. Wouldn't want any of mine out there, fighting me. Give 'em a year or two, and they'd be really dangerous."

Giles felt a moment's relief, imagining how it might have been. Then back to business. "You were targetting some point, with all this, I think? Something about why I didn't stake you, and what that meant."

"Right. I was saying, you can't look at us, at our crew, and believe those Watcher chronicles about the unfeeling feeding machines, the demon-possessed nonentitities. Because we weren't. None of us. Yes, we're unusual. But most long-lived vamps have ... greater dimensions than you'd know. Dru was a seer, sensitive as all get-out. Never had a vision that didn't come true. Brilliant visionary. Ruthless killer, I'll give you that– scared me sometimes. But sweet and loving withall, when she wasn't trying to murder me. Sometimes even when she was." He got up and reached across the bar, grabbing another bottle. Then he sat down, opened the bottle, and brooded over it for a moment. "You know how she died? Angel tell you?"

Giles shook his head. "I didn't know she was no longer... with us."

"Gone. When she learned I'd been caught in the apocalypse, she went out there. To the crater. Angel saw her there. She wanted him to stake her. When he wouldn't, she did it to herself." With a shaking hand, he lit a cigarette. "Jammed that stake right into her heart, and her dust filtered over my grave, such as it was."

Giles couldn't breathe for a moment. It was horrifying. Weirdly romantic. Dismaying. "How very... final."

"For her. Not for me, as it turned out. Now I'm not saying that was the right thing to do. Suttee isn't our way– I mean the British way," he added with a grin. "But I would have done it too, after Buffy died, if I hadn't made that promise about Dawn. Wanted to do it a thousand times, even carved a special stake for the purpose. Couldn't, as it turned out. Dawn had enough to deal with without that. But goes to show."

"What does it go to show?"

"Who commits suicide when a lover dies? Not saying it's good. But it's not the sort of thing a – a thing would do."

"No. I expect not."

"So there you have it. Four feeling vamps, just in our clan. Add in Dracula and some of his get. Educated. Erudite. Yes, all related, and all long-lived, so not your run-of-the-mill sort of demon. And all evil, of course, the usual. Nonetheless, can't dismiss it. And can't dismiss that two of us... evolved. Or devolved, as the case might be, into the soulful category. Do you know– I'm sure you do– in England, these days, many vampires live without killing at all? Half or more, that's what I hear. The National Health supplies the blood to them, the stuff tainted with Hep C and HIV, won't hurt a vamp. All very quiet, of course. But that's a choice they're making, innit? The vampires? So sod all that unchanging always evil rubbish. Also a generalization without sufficient evidence."

"And you're going ... where with this?"

"Think of it. You're sitting here with me now. Discussing metaphysics, vampire genealogy. You have trusted me in the past, and will again no doubt, not only with your own life but with the lives of those you love. And you don't stake me, vampire though I am."

"Of a sort. Souled."

"But souled only recently, and staked never. Now were you to think too hard on this, contemplate too long on it, you might walk out of here, encounter a vamp, and think, this could be another Spike someday, if I let him live."

"You think that would make me hesitate? If I had reason to strike?"

"Ah, Rupert, I have more faith in you than that. I think you would strike. And brush the dust of the would-be Spike off your hands and walk on, thinking good riddance. You are ruthless, and you and I know it. You'd stake me now, if you saw some reason, and without regret."

Giles nodded once. "Go on."

"But that is you. That's not Buffy. Not those poor little girls your Council has exploited all these centuries. Sent to their deaths. Forced into servitude, using those texts, telling those little girls that nothing stood between humanity and the end of the world but their little bodies and their sharp stakes. Those girls– they might hesitate. And if they did... if they started to worry, and anguish about those they killed.... well, that would be the beginning of the end, wouldn't it?"

"You think Buffy worries about this?"

"I think she has made a conscious choice not to worry about it. Not to hesitate. But think about her darkness. What drew her to me. What drew her to Angel. What made her long for death that year when her friends forced life upon her. Death is her art. And you can't tell me if she thinks she's slaying only things, like an exterminator going after rats, she would lose sleep and lose her appetite and lose her love of life, as she has."

Giles drew in his breath sharply. "Have you– have you ever said that to her?"

"No. How could you think it? I protect her. Always have. Kill them with her. Never a moment's hesitation, not me, even killing my own kind, even killing ones I know. Even killing ones I know are harmless. Because I can't. Can't let her think about it. Or it will kill her. Already has, I think. I'm not here to be her conscience, but her right arm, and she'll never hear reproach from me. Not that I have any right to – but still. I wouldn't. She needs to be strong. But all those other girls– most of them don't have her strength. Her focus. Faith does– or Faith doesn't care, hard to know. Who knows about Faith. She's tough. She'd stake me, had she reason. Not a second thought. Like you."

"Buffy wouldn't."

"No. Not now. And not before. There was once– she had Dru. Wanted me to, I don't recall. Call off a killing party. In the factory. Remember?"

"Vaguely."

"She had Dru. Knew I'd let everyone go to save Dru. And I did."

"So?"

"So then she let Dru go. Could have staked her then. I couldn't have stopped her. I'd released all the hostages. She should have staked her then. You would have."

"I am not the Slayer."

"Right. The Slayer was a teenaged girl. Hated me, make no doubt. Hated all I was. And she looked at me and saw I loved Dru, and it would kill me to lose her. And she let her go."

Giles looked away, out the window, where sunrise was edging up to the horizon, just a blur in the darkness now. "She was... sentimental. That was before she killed Angel."

"And never killed me. Then nor later. Not that I meant anything to her then. Hated me. But she couldn't do it. Had a dozen chances. Couldn't do it. Just as she couldn't kill humans, even the ones that deserved it as much as I did."

"You could have killed her too. And you didn't."

"Certain sure. I was falling for her. Early. From the first time I saw her. Told myself I wanted to kill her. But I didn't really. Wanted to–"

"Yes."

"I didn't know it. Didn't think it. But let her go, time and again." He paused. "She thinks, you know, that she always beat me. That I couldn't kill her because I wasn't good enough. But I could have gotten her a dozen times. Frightening. If I'd been of a mind– Neither here nor there. Point is, those poor girls. Either you let them go, or you give them the weapons they need to fight. And hatred is the best weapon of all. And if you fix those chronicles, you revise the histories, you tell the truth– maybe they won't be able to hate, not that cold hard hate they need to survive. And they'll be picked off, one by one, when they hesitate. Or they'll let themselves be killed."

He took hold of Giles's wrist, his grip tight– not vampire tight, but tight enough to hurt. "I've killed two, Rupert. And could have killed Buffy. Could have killed Faith. And could have killed her successor, she had one. Not saying always. They could have killed me too– fair fight, don't know who'd rise at the end. But I'd have a chance against any of them. Don't know why, but I'm the best at this in the whole world." He released Giles's hand, picked up his cigarette hard pack, flipped it open and closed again. "Don't let Angelus fool you. He never liked an even fight, and I never liked anything but. He'd never go after a slayer. Not even Buffy, really. Kept talking about it, but until that time in the mansion– and she sought that fight. Maybe it was Angel in him, held him back. Or maybe he was just scared. Obviously, had reason to be, as she killed him. But anyway, he never was one to go after the powerful. He liked to cull the weak ones from the herd. Most vamps do. Only makes sense. But I always liked to fight. Couldn't track down the Slayer every generation, worse luck, but I did the twice, and did the deed. Both great battles. Both mine. No regrets. Was my job. And their job too. You can call them Slayers, but their job ultimately is to die. I won't kill another– you know that. Not just Buffy. The other girls too. Safe from me. I'll pledge that if nothing else. But it's their job to die. And that's enough against them right there. Don't need to lose the hatred. The certainty."

"So you're saying..." Giles said slowly. "That you agree with the decision of the Watchers to portray vampires as... subhuman?"

"Saying that I disagree with sending girls out to their deaths. Talk about evil. But if it's being done, and apparently you're planning on doing it still, best give them all the weapons they need."

Giles wasn't too drunk to hear the rebuke, and to resent it– moral objections from a vampire, he didn't need to hear. "There's more involved than the girls' own lives."

"Yeah. Well, like I said. Arm them with all the weapons you can. Including the lies." Spike shoved the bottle aside and leaned his elbows on the table, both fists clenched. "But I don't need the lies. And neither do you. So let's not have them tonight. Enough conflict between us as is."

"Come back to England with me," Giles said suddenly.

Spike stared at him. Finally– "Why, Rupert. This is so sudden. But without a marriage proposal– "

"I'll give you a job. Demonology. Come up with a killing manual. You're an expert. Also transcribe some of the languages you know. Fyarl, and Lubos, and–"

"Not much to kill in England. Peaceable populace, human and demon."

"France isn't far."

"Not much there either. Paris demons just want to shoot up and listen to jazz. I know. I wasted much of the twenties there. I'm not leaving here, Watcher."

Giles hardened his voice. "There's no protection for you here. From your fellow demons. From my group. I don't trust you. I never have. Sometimes, God help me, I like you. But I never trust you. And, as you remarked, I'm ruthless. If I perceive you as a threat, if I have no use for you, I'll strike you down." He paused, and added, almost with regret, "I don't think the same is true for you."

"No, probably not. I've refrained from killing you this long. I suspect I'll continue down that foolish path. Even if you threaten me, as you seem to be doing."

"It's not just I that pose the threat. Angel would be more than glad to have you gone from his territory, and he's more able than I to accomplish it permanently."

Spike smiled. "You forget Angel wants redemption. I'm currently blessed by the celestial powers. He won't lay a hand on me." He added, head tilted to the side, "Leastways when he's being his Angel self. Angelus– oh, you know, he won't stake me either. He'd be all alone then, and he couldn't take that. 'Sides, cretin as he is, he has a fondness for me."

Once again, Giles found himself diverted. "Why?"

"Not drunk enough to tell you that, Watcher."

Reluctantly, Giles let it go. "There are other forces here in the States that you don't know about, that have reason to want you dead."

"It was ever thus, my friend. Never been Mr. Popularity with ... forces. Dark or light. Look, Rupert, I'm good at two things in this world. The one is fighting. And since there's not much to fight back in the Old Sod, my talents would be wasted.. The other, well, I'm real choosy with whom I do it. And since England is, and likely to remain, a Buffy-free zone, even worse waste." He let just a moment pass, and then, very softly, he said, "But that's what you're aiming for, innit, Watcher? Me five thousand miles away from being Slayer temptation. You work this out for yourself, or did my grandsire have a hand in it?"

Giles started to answer, but Spike cut him off. "No lies between us. Remember? You think I'm a danger to the Slayer. Take a look at him, why don't you? You know who I am, what I can do. No secrets. Never claimed to be anything than what I am. Change, but don't change back. And I've already done the worst to her, and made up as well as I could. If she comes back to me, that's what it'll mean. She knows me, and she comes back, she knows what she'll get."

"And what is that?"

"She knows. You don't have to." After a moment, he said, grudgingly, "She knows, and I know, I'll never break her heart. Never break her down. Never break her. Crazy as it sounds to you, I'm as safe as houses for her. Been all sorts of things to her, but never the one who could break her heart. And I'm glad of that, but hate what it means."

It felt like Spike was pressing his fist into Giles's chest. He even glanced down to see, but Spike's hands were uncurled now, lying harmless, palms down, on the table. "What does it mean?"

"Can't say. Hurts. Listen. You want to protect her. I understand. Feel the same way. Not exactly the same way, no. But I don't want to hurt her. I'll stake myself before I hurt her again. But ... I did hurt her. Learned from that. Won't happen again." He leaned back, head against the top of the bench. "He never learned. And she's vulnerable to him. Not to me. Trust me. I know. I've made... a study of it." He closed his eyes, a smile playing at his mouth. "Send Angel away, if you want to keep her heart-safe. And if you want to keep her safe from other harm, you should be begging me to be by her side. I have always guarded her back. Will always do so, long as she lets me." He opened his eyes and looked straight at Giles. "Don't know why you persist in undervaluing that."

Giles looked away from that intense gaze. "I – I don't. You have been helpful. But the world has changed. She's got a chance here, to be free. I don't know if that's what she wants, if that's what she'll find on this visionquest. But I do know, as long as you are about, she'll be drawn back to the darkness."

"You put her in that darkness, you remember? I just joined her there."

"She needs the chance to start over. Start a normal life, if that's possible. And you can't be part of that."

Spike nodded slowly. "I know. I have... I have made my peace with that. But that's not the choice she's likely to make if I'm gone. Don't you know that? She'll go to him. Angel– he loves the girl, the one who used to be. Not the Slayer. And when she sees him, she sees that girl reflected in his eyes. And somewhere inside her she thinks she can go back, be that again. Innocent. Untainted. And that's more dangerous than anything I offer."

"Maybe she needs to return to what she was before."

"No. She needs to be what she is, and be glad of it. Angel has spent a century denying what he is. Denying who he is. I've seen it. He is ... disunity. I love him– always will. My grandsire. Whatever name he calls himself, I can't give up loving him. Hating him either, as it's always been. But I'll never forgive what he does to Buffy. He tempts her to break. To split. To live as half herself. As he has always done. You know what I mean, Rupert. He will say Angelus killed your Jenny. Sorry," he added. "Shouldn't have brought that up. But you know what I mean. I'm not saying Angel understands that. I know he believes some demon takes over him and makes him do those things. And, yes, after the First, I should understand that. But– but it was me, with the First. It was. The First couldn't have made you do what I did, or Buffy. Only me, the one who longed to kill again, to feed again. And I who chose the soul that submits. And you won't ever hear me say different. There is no William over here being good, and Spike over there being bad. I won't have that. I am one, and whatever I do, I do it myself."

Giles started to speak, but then only shook his head. It was true. Spike might go to great lengths to justify his actions, but he never denied they were his alone. That was a dangerous road of inquiry for Giles– thinking of an earlier persona, the one called Ripper. He did accept the actions of that young man as his own. But he had spent the last decade trying to be anything but Ripper... yet he never seemed to get free. Spike was telling him– had been telling him all along, perhaps, with all his talk of still being William– that getting free was breaking apart.

"Angel splits things. Himself. The world. Buffy. It's comforting and clear and clean. But it's wrong. He will tell Buffy that she's that girl again, that she can stop being the Slayer, that she can be what she once was. That she can be what he first loved, if she just loves him again. But to do that, she has to give up all she is– all that she's become. And that way lies madness. Look at Angel. He's a madman. Functional, but mad. Every now and again, the control shifts, and he becomes the Other. And then shifts back. And that will happen forever, because he will never let himself be one. And that's what he wants for Buffy too. And that, mate, is the darkness he draws her to, only he calls it the light."

"You think," Giles said harshly, "that you'll keep her from that. That you have the power to do so."

"No. I doubt I do. How long have I been trying? But I've done it for myself, not her. Always. I admit it. Always thought it would be bad for her to go with him, yes, but more important, bad for me to lose her to him. Now–"

Giles waited. He was almost trembling with exhaustion– jet lag, the late night, the fine scotch.

"Now I don't know. I think I am right, that he is not only wrong for her, but a danger. It's just, I'm not so arrogant now, after all this. After I gave into temptation again. After I gave my life. After he took good care of me when I returned, made me safe when I had nothing. Hard to see him as so bad, when I know he is, at least, sincere in his feelings. And she– she has never lied to me. Always, from the first, told me he comes first in her estimation. Incomprehensible to me, but I can't deny it."

He fell silent. Finally looked up and shrugged one shoulder.

"So you won't leave here." Giles's voice was hoarse. Good as the whisky had been, it still left burned traces on his throat.

"No. Can't, anyway. Got Dawn to think of. She's a kid yet, and I won't leave her alone."

"But she's not alone. Buffy has been gone for a couple months, but I made sure Dawn was safely ensconced– dormitory, roommate, housemother. She emails me weekly, and says she is doing well."

"Yeah, well enough. But I'm sticking by till she's grown. At least this year. Will be of age next year. She gets lonely. She thinks she doesn't much count. It's hard for her, because she knows her origins, thinks she isn't meant to be here. That's why, you know, she's so ... apparent. Always makes her presence felt. Is loud and troublesome. Because she thinks she'll disappear if she doesn't make sure she's noticed." Spike capped the bottle, gathered their glasses to him. "She knows now. She comes first for me, if for no one else. For now. Until she can be first with herself, or someone else, I shan't leave her alone here."

"What if Buffy–"

"This is for Buffy too. It means she can leave, if that's what she wants. She knows I'll take care of her sister. She's free. Too young to be a mum. So now I'm back, and she won't have to worry so."

"You mean, if Buffy leaves. If she decides to go to the new Hellmouth, or to give up slaying entirely and move to the mountains– you'll stay here? With Dawn?"

"I don't know. If that's what Buffy wants. If that's what it takes. Yes. Not such a hardship, mate. She's my sister too, in all but blood."

"What if Buffy asks you to go with her?"

Spike rose, grabbed the bottle in one hand and the two glasses in the other. "Don't think that's going to happen. If it does, I'll figure out it out. Who needs me more."

He went behind the bar to replace the bottle and wash out the glasses, and Giles got up, taking a guitar case in each hand. "Saint Spike after all," he said sardonically.

Spike looked up from drying the glasses. "No. But I know what I am. And this is what I've always done. Take care of someone. Selfish way. But it gives me a place in the world, long after I should be dust to dust." He gave the bar a last swipe with his towel and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. "Where you staying?"

"I have a reservation for tonight at the Omni."

"Hours before you can get into the room, man. Come to my place. You can sleep it off on the couch. It's only a few blocks."

So each carrying a guitar, they made their way through the night-empty streets to Spike's little apartment court. It was charming, Giles thought blearily, as Spike pushed the leaded glass door open to reveal a small front hall tiled in dark blue. But he almost ran into the back of Spike, who had stopped to set his bass against the wall and stood poised, his head tilted to the side.

"Niblet?" He walked to the left, neglecting to turn on the light. Then again, he could see in the dark. It was Giles who had to stretch out his hand to keep from banging his hip into a marble table.

Giles heard someone stirring in the next room, and a murmured exchange. Then, a warm body hurled into his arms. "Giles! You're here!" Dawn cried, almost tumbling him over.

"Sorry, Rupert. She's got a key."

"My roommate has the squickiest guy spending the night," Dawn explained, finally releasing him and stepping back.

"You should have called me, Bit. Don't like you here all alone." Spike had lit a candle– why the man would play electric guitars, but disdain electric lights, Giles didn't know– and the light flickered over Dawn's sleep-tousled face.

"I did call. But funny thing about cellphones. You have to leave them on."

Spike picked a small silver phone off the marble table, gazing at it as if he'd never seen it before. "And carrying them along helps too, I wager."

"That's okay," Dawn said. "I knew you were at the club. And the neighborhood is perfectly safe. Giles, you should see, it's so fun. Spike and I just walk around, and he sees a drug dealer or someone skanky or skeevy, and he pulls down the vampface, and scares them away. Sometimes Clem comes too. Not that Clem would hurt a fly, but people who don't know him get scared. Anyway, since Spike moved in, crime's dropped like a rock." She tugged at Spike's arm. "You said I should come anytime I felt lonely. And I did. I mean, even skanky Amy has a boyfriend now. I just couldn't sleep with them, you know, across the room."

"Did the right thing. Only– Rupert, means couch is currently occupied. Don't have a bathtub– just a shower, so that's out. Might be able to rustle up some chains, however."

Giles gave a tired nod to acknowledge this reference to their past antagonism. "The floor–"

"You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

No protest worked. Spike pointed out that he'd often slept on a concrete slab– by choice– and so a nice hooked rug was the height of luxury in contrast. He disappeared into the bedroom to make up the bed, and Dawn grabbed Giles's hand and pulled him to sit on the couch. She talked excitedly about Spike's miraculous return, about her slutty roommate, about her decision to major in ancient Near-eastern Languages ("But you'll have to give me a job when I graduate, Giles, because what else will need me but the Watchers?").

Giles sat and listened and smiled as the room spun slowly, drunkenly. Dawn. He hadn't quite forgotten about Dawn– how could he, when she sent him every Internet joke making the rounds? Still Spike's tacit rebuke stung. He supposed it must seem that Dawn was deserted by them all. But after the closing of the Hellmouth, and the difficulties of early summer, Dawn was the loudest in insisting Buffy needed time away from all her responsibilities, time to spend in spiritual wanderings. And Giles had done his best to get Dawn settled before leaving for England– enrolled her into a sheltered little private college, with a healthy bank account for her expenses. Willow was still in town then, and Xander, and Angel had promised to check in on her. But Willow had gone off with Kennedy, and Xander, well, last heard from, Xander was camping out near the ruins of Sunnydale, working for some highway construction company and drinking himself into oblivion.

Angel no doubt did his duty. He always did. But he hardly knew Dawn.

But here Spike was, hardly a month back from the grave, and already entrenched again in her life.

He emerged, arms full of sheets, and said, "All yours, mate. Sleep as late as you like. Dawn will try not to be too loud getting her breakfast, right, niblet? And will try not to step on me as she goes out?"

"Yes, sir." Dawn made a face, and whispered to Giles, "I'll cut my 11 o'clock class, and we can go to lunch!"

"I heard that," Spike called from the laundry room. "You cut that class last week. Missed a quiz, remember? Rupert and I will pick you up after class, and take you to lunch. Cut the 1:00 class instead."

Giles was too tired to react as he probably ought to this subversive directive. As he trudged off to his fresh-made bed, he heard their low voices and laughter. Dawn was, apparently, up to stay. He wondered if Spike would get any sleep at all.

Chapter Text

The light slanting in through the blinds woke Giles around 10. He found the bathroom, showered and dressed, without ever encountering his host. But then Spike came in through the back door, back from a run with a bag of donuts in his hand. He seemed a bit hungover– he was wearing his human face, but his blue eyes were demon gold around the edges, indicating a demon-sized headache. Still, he took the time to fix Giles a cup of Earl Grey and a donut before he went off to shower, promising dire consequences if all the hot water was gone.

Eventually they walked back to the club and collected Giles's rental car. It was disorienting to see Spike out in the day, his pale skin glistening like marble in the golden light, his eyes shaded behind expensive sunglasses. "Do you like it?" Giles asked once they were settled in the car.

"The day?" Spike rolled down the window and stuck his hand out, as if to prove to himself he wouldn't burn up. "I like it all right. Nice to see clouds occasionally, though here in LA, that's not often. And seeing all the flowers open, after seeing only night-blooming plants for so long. Turn right up there, mate. That brick wall marks the campus boundary." He added, "You know what I like? I like taking Dawn to a matinee at the cinema, and coming out of the dark theater and it's still afternoon, and the contrast is striking. That's what I like. Still a creature of the night, mostly."

After a moment, he said thoughtfully, "Best part of this is reminding Angel about it. I called him last week, asked him to meet me for lunch. Then said, forgot. You can't go out during the day. Sorry." His grin was unrepentant. "Can't help it. Always been bad."

They were early, so they walked along the tree-shaded quadrangle, desultorily comparing this low-slung, mission-style campus with the dreaming spires and Gothic temples of their own university. Spike pointed out the buildings where Dawn had classes– "That's her Intro to Calculus– she's having trouble with that. Can't help her, never learned it the first time. Her Studio Art classroom is over there. She says they're going to do nude drawings from life, but I think she's just trying to shock me. That's the gym. She's taking tae kwan do, already the best in her class, and you can guess why."

Giles said, "You take good care of Dawn. I appreciate that."

"Don't do it for you, mate. And anyway, she takes good care of me too. When I came back– couldn't remember much at all. Angel filled in a lot, but not the last few years. But Dawn, she's been patient with me. Coaches me on my own past. Some memories– Buffy's death, specially– hard to take, but we got through it. Doesn't hold back on my stupid moments either. Glories in them, she does. Likes to pretend she's so much more mature than I ever was."

Giles shook his head. "Well, she's gone through more than most girls her age."

"Too many deaths." He glanced over at Giles. "She told me about the last day. The potentials gone. Amanda was the best of the lot, you know. Smart and sensible. Had hopes of her."

"We took several hard losses that day."

"Anya."

Giles was glad when Spike seemed willing to leave it at that. He wasn't sure he was ready to talk about Anya, about the void her death had left, about the damage done to Xander, about the regrets they all had now. They'd all had regrets with Spike too, but now he was back, and so harder to regret. Anya, however–

"Anya gone. Hard to imagine." So much for Spike's great discretion. "I find myself missing her more with every memory that comes back. Kept pushing away from each other, you know? Drawn together– so much in common– and pushing away. I don't mean... romantically. But we were always friends. Couldn't ever be as good friends as we should have been." Spike shot him one of those acid-etched glances that one would have thought ensoulment and/or redemption would have eliminated. "Didn't want the humans to think we were conspiring."

Giles let that go. Anya was gone. Regrets were irrelevant. And how he would ever fit the likes of Spike and Anya– and Dawn too, come to that– into his cosmology, that was irrelevant too now. Spike could rant on all he liked about the various colors of demon variety, but Giles fought on one side, and couldn't afford empathy. Spike was a demon, souled or not, and proud of it, and the chance he'd cross back over to the other side was enough to keep Giles wary.

And he couldn't afford to worry about charges of hypocrisy. Demons had their uses, and Spike had often proven useful, if seldom containable.

It all gave Giles a headache on top of his hangover. Too much to do, here and in London. Restoration of records. Research. Watcher enlistment. Slayer identification and training. And a Hellmouth yet in Cleveland they hadn't begun to address.

They rounded a corner of the library and headed back towards Dawn's classroom building. He didn't have much time left. Once they had her along, he'd never get a chance to broach the new subject. "The potentials, you know, are mostly scattered back to their homes. And we identify new ones every week. Thirty-three, last count, approaching slayer age."

"Poor girls." Spike kicked at a pebble in his path. "You all thought it was so brilliant when Willow did that spell and granted them Slayer powers. And it worked well enough for the moment. Except for the ones who died. But I think of the rest– not just the crew we had with us, but the others, the ones we don't know. Buffy-style power. No watcher. No training."

The perfect opening, and supplied by the mark himself. Sometimes, Giles thought, Spike was too easy. "Yes. Well, those of us watchers who are left are attempting to come up with a plan of action. Tracking them down as I did last year. Bringing them to one place. A sort of school, or boot camp, where they can be trained."

"Most thing they need to be trained in – don't beat up anyone but the bad ones," Spike said grimly. "Think of them. Suddenly empowered. Big brother throws something at them. Throw big brother out window. Getting superpowers supersudden... dangerous. Take my word for it. You should be monitoring police reports online, looking for such."

It was a good point. Another sign of rightness. Giles was about to broach The Subject At Hand when the iron-strapped doors flung open and students erupted, including Dawn, her face exultant, her hand clasped firmly in the grip of a tall young black man, dressed in the baggy t-shirt and jeans one regrettably saw so much on American campuses.

"Spike! Giles!" She dragged the young man over to them. "This is Ty. Ty, meet Spike. He's like my brother. And Giles. He's like my uncle."

Giles shook the young man's hand– no use finding fault with him this early, he told himself. Spike, of course, had no use for such cavilling. "A word with you, mate?" he said with a grip on the other's arm that made him flinch, and an icy smile that made Dawn groan.

"He always does this," Dawn complained as the two men walked a few feet away. "Scares them to death."

Giles found himself approving. If he had a vamp face and superstrength, he probably would have done the same for Buffy, and it would have saved her considerable grief. "You are still underage, my dear."

"Just for ten months. And Ty doesn't know that."

Ty's head was bent, as he listened to whatever Spike said. Then he glanced back at Dawn, his eyes narrowed. "Ty knows it now," Giles said with some satisfaction, "and good on Spike for informing him."

"He will utterly ruin my social life." But Dawn seemed resigned to it. "He keeps saying that he'll let up someday. Or for the right person. But I don't know that he's going to have the same idea of the right person as I am. I mean, we don't even like the same music. Justin Timberlake could so fall in love with me, and Spike would send him packing."

Giles nodded distractedly, his gaze on the two men, their heads bent together, one dark, one bright. Spike must be making his point, because he moved that fraction of an inch too far into Ty's space, turning a tacit threat into open intimidation. The young man didn't back off. In fact, he pushed his chest forward and said something low and sharp, and for just a second, Giles saw Spike's eyes flicker golden.

Giles straightened up, took a step forward, ready to– what? Protect Spike? Pull him off the poor kid, more likely. But then Spike surprised him. He nodded once, turned and came back to them. Young Ty hesitated for a moment, then returned to Dawn's side. "Got to get on to class, Dawn. See you tomorrow?"

Then he exchanged a glance with Spike– cool, but respectful enough– and strode off.

"That one might not be so bad," Spike observed, taking Dawn's arm. "Let's go. I'm downright peckish."

She wrenched free. "Might not be so bad? Spike, did you .... like him?'

"Didn't say I liked him. But when I told him if he hurt you, I'd rend him limb from limb and feed his eyeballs to the sharks, he said he wouldn't hurt you, but not because he was scared of me. But because he took care not to hurt people, especially a girl he likes."

"He said he liked me?"

"Somethin' like that. Anyway. Goodish answer. Not easily intimidated either. I might let you go out with him. During daylight hours. In a public place. With prior notice, so I can be nearby and make sure he stays respectful."

Dawn was never one to accept victory graciously. "You told him I was only 17, didn't you?"

"That I did, pet, knowing you'd've neglected that little detail. He took it well enough. Understood what I meant by it."

"I'm going to die a virgin, you mean."

"I did. What of it?"

"And it was so terrible you became a vampire!" Dawn stomped off a few feet up the path, but came back a moment later, smiling again. She took Giles's arm, and then Spike's, as if she owned them both. "So he said he liked me."

"That he did, pet," Spike said patiently. "Now maybe you can tell Giles about your class in Sumerian, and ask him about the paper topics."

So Giles found himself eating tacos and making affirming noises as Dawn listed, with various degrees of enthusiasm, the seven potential topics for her final paper. Spike said nothing at all, unusual for him, but then, even Spike had trouble getting a word in when Dawn was on a verbal roll. He contented himself with stealing most of Giles's guacamole and smiling proudly at his charge's obvious erudition.

There was no way, Giles thought, he was going to pry Spike away from Dawn this year. Perhaps Buffy could do it– but he suspected Spike had chosen his latest project, and would not be dislodged. Spike had never been one for planning, but he had a bulldog focus on certain matters, whether it was killing a Slayer, seducing one, or protecting her sister. He drew his identity from taking care of women in one way or another– it could be a useful tool in winning his consent to Giles's latest brilliant idea.

It wasn't until after they'd dropped Dawn back off at her dormitory that Giles brought up the subject again. "This school for slayers I mentioned. What do you think of it?"

Spike was busy reprogramming the car radio, and replied distractedly, "Could do. Not sure how you get them away from their families, though if they're as much trouble as I suspect these days, the parents might be glad to have them gone. Come up with some cover story, scholarship, college prep, strict supervision, psychological oversight."

"Yes, I suppose the parents might see it as a blessing, especially if it cost them nothing. But we'd still have to get the girls' consent. And with no First threatening their very existences, I'm not sure what would lure them away from their current lives."

Spike punched through each programmed station, a burst of a song, quickly cut off, for each, frowned, deleted one inadequate selection, and started over again. Giles sighed. Sometimes it was hard to remember how old Spike really was, perhaps because so often he persisted in behaving like a teenager.

Spike didn't look up, but said musingly, "Set the school somewhere the girls would want to be. Here, f'rinstance. Near the beach where the surfer boys hang out. And don't call it a school." He settled on one station, currently playing a teeth-jarring Metallica cover. "Call it a camp, or an internship. Promise weekly visits to the mall, and field trips to the film studios. Every girl gets her own cellphone, a laptop with broadband, and cable– no, satellite TV. Subscription to Cosmo. A makeup allowance."

"You aren't being slightly sexist here?"

"I've been dealing with a teenaged girl for awhile. It ain't sexism. It's realism. Makeup ranks just behind phones, and far ahead of virtue and academics, on their list of priorities."

"What else would you suggest, to entice the potential slayers?"

"Young instructors. Good-looking, whether male or female. They'll go gaga for the men, and admire the women, 'slong as they're hotties. Make vague suggestions that the WNBA and the Ford Modelling Agency might be staging recruiting fairs in the spring."

"That would be a lie, of course."

"Well, yeah, that's why I say keep it vague. Always maintain deniability. And focus the curriculum on the physical stuff. Tell the parents there's a full academic schedule, but tell the girls the dull stuff is just what's required by law, and most will be done by independent or team study."

Giles had to admit, if only to himself, that he was impressed. All this off the top of Spike's head, while the expensive educational consultant he'd hired was still working on a statement of pedagogical principle. But he forced his tone into skepticism. "All well and good, but where would we find an empty school building near a beach?"

"School building? Rupert, don't be daft. These kids don't want a school building. Get one of those monster mansions and modify it. Like on Real World. Or the X-Men movie. What do you need, really? Some bedrooms, some bathrooms, a few biggish rooms for classes, indoor and outdoor training space. And the beach, of course."

"A mansion. Near a beach. That would cost... millions."

Spike shrugged. "Seem to recall that the late unlamented Watcher headquarters, now rubbled, occupied a sweet corner in Russell Square. Suspect the insurance company paid out... millions."

"It's true," Giles admitted. "As expensive as Los Angeles real estate is, it seems almost reasonable compared to London. And we've decided to lease, not buy, new digs."

"Not to mention the millions in endowment that must have doubled during the go-go nineties. Don't bother to deny it, Rupert. Not stupid here. An operation like that required serious working capital. 'Bout time the girls got a piece of it."

"Yes. Well. Good thoughts. Thank you."

"Your servant. I'll send a bill."

"Actually, Spike, that's something that I'd like to pursue. Your coming aboard in a more... formal capacity."

"Not the formal type, mate." Giles had taken the scenic route, along the beach road, and Spike was looking out the window at a long parade of roller-blading girls in bikinis. "Look your fill, better– won't see a sight like that in England. Not even at Brighton. Poor girls would be one big goosebump."

"I mean it. You worked with the Potentials last spring. Perhaps you'd like to work with a new set also. Training them."

"Dunno." Spike wasn't paying attention. Too many bikinis.

Cursing under his breath, Giles turned back towards Westwood and grabbed the first parking place he saw. "Listen. I'm offering you a job."

"Got a job, don't I?"

"Bartending."

"It's honest. Well, more honest than most of the jobs I've done." Spike was now digging into the glove compartment and took out the map. "It's not like we can water the drinks down, given our clientele's mostly in the same line of work."

"Spike, can you focus just a moment here?"

With an ostentatious sigh, Spike folded the map and slid it back into the glove compartment. "Focusing."

"A job. Training potential slayers. You. Salary."

Spike turned his head and stared at Giles. Then he nodded encouragingly. "That's good, Rupert. Get all those lunatic notions out now, when only I can hear them. I promise never to tell."

Giles took a deep breath, counted to ten. Twisted towards Spike, forced his face into relatively pleasant lines. "If we should decide to start a school. If we locate it here in Los Angeles County. If we keep it part-time so that you can continue your epic bartending career. If we pay you far more than you're worth to anyone else. Will you consider working for us training the slayer-students in the art of slaying?"

"You mean it."

"I am not given to jests about such matters."

"Well, then. No. Thanks for the ride." And Spike got out of the car, slammed the door behind him, and started down the street towards the beach.

Giles cursed under his breath. God spare me from stubborn vampires, he thought, especially those who walk in the sun. He got out of the car, spared a moment to shove some change into the meter, and took off after his prey.

"Why not?" he demanded, coming up beside Spike.

Spike shot him a grim look. "Were you so wasted last night you didn't hear what I said?"

"I heard everything you said. Nothing on point, however, beyond your pledge never to harm slayers or potentials."

"I said no." Spike strode into the street, disregarding the traffic, forcing a cab to screech to a halt a few inches from his leg.

Giles didn't have vampire healing skills, so waited until the light changed, and charged across in the crosswalk, catching up to Spike halfway down the asphalt path to the beachwalk. "Tell me again."

Spike dropped onto a bench facing the ocean and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. "Very slowly now, Giles. Concentrate. One. I have no desire to participate in the sending of innocent girls to certain death. Two. I would do more harm than good anyway. As I said, if the slayer wannabes get to thinking of vampires and demons as maybe something less than totally evil, they might hesitate before striking the deathblow. Their little lives will be forfeit even earlier than otherwise."

To buy some time, Giles held out his hand. "Let me have one of those."

Spike glanced at him suspiciously, but handed the pack over. "End of discussion."

"They will have to do this job whether or not you help. With your help, perhaps they'll –"

"What? Live a bit longer? Just long enough to really regret dying?"

"Buffy has lived far longer than the average Slayer, not in small part due to your help."

"Bollocks." Savagely Spike struck a match and lit his cigarette, then Giles's. Giles wondered if the prized Zippo had been a victim of the apocalypse.

"She can retire, you know. If there are others to take her place."

"Not fair, Rupert. She doesn't want her safety bought with the bodies of other girls."

"Good Christ, man," Giles said sharply. "It's the safety of the world here at stake, not just Buffy. You know it. You're washing your hands of it all, to make yourself feel better. But it'll go on without you, only not so well for them."

Spike rubbed a fist to his forehead, and asked with honest anguish, "Why the fuck me?"

"Because, when it comes to fighting, vampires, demons, you're the expert."

"Me? Forgive me, but aren't you the one who said you'd never need my opinion? That I had nothing to say you needed to hear?"

"That was years ago. You've changed."

"No, mate, the astonishing thing is how little I've changed. I always knew what I was about when it came to fighting. Especially when it came to fighting Slayers. What's changed is you. You're willing to discard a lifetime of strictures and bloody years of antagonism between us, and all you say you believe, because you have decided I'm useful."

Giles nodded. "That's a fair assessment. Yes."

Spike stared at him, and then, finally, laughed. "At least you're honest about it."

"Just for one term. Just to get the school underway. I can't find anyone else on such short notice–"

"Who you ever going to find, mate? Buffy? She's no teacher. She's a Slayer. If she wants to stay in the game, you know she's hardly going to settle for showing others how to slay."

"And Faith has disappeared again. Completely unreliable."

"The slayer-wannabes are all going to be stronger than the strongest human, even the martial arts champions." Spike threw his cigarette into the sand and ground it out with the toe of his boot. "There's no one's going to be able to train them the way you want them trained–"

"Except you." Giles had him where he wanted him now. "You're strong enough. You're the best demon fighter I've ever seen, save for Buffy, and sometimes you're better than she is, because you've more experience. You have the quick healing, just in case one of the wannabes would get lucky. You know all there is to know about vampires and demons and how to kill them. And – most important, you know how to kill slayers, and you know how to keep them alive too."

Spike had his head turned stubbornly away. His shoulders were set in absolute determination. But Giles knew him now. "C'mon, Spike. You're the only one who can help. Those girls need you. And I need you."

Spike turned to him, eyes glowing gold. He snarled, "Fuck you," then stood abruptly and strode off.

Giles smiled to himself. Spike walked back across the road, down the street, and stopped beside the rental car. Waiting for him.

Now it remained only to persuade Buffy to go to Cleveland to check out the Hellmouth. Or back to the mountains for more spiritual questing. Anywhere but here... wasn't that the game the Scoobies used to play? Anywhere for Buffy but here, and he would be happy for her.

Chapter Text

Andrew stood outside the closed door of his apartment and sniffed. He was no vampire, of course, but he had a good nose. And he was smelling Marlboro. He breathed it in, nostalgic for a time too short and too soon past– brought back by the smell of those particular cigarettes.

He didn't smoke, and neither did his two roommates. (Well, they smoked weed sometimes, but that didn't smell like this.) One of the roommates had a guest tonight, he supposed. It made him feel lonely. He was trying to battle against that feeling, the feeling that everyone else had friends, loved ones, lovers, except him. It wasn't a brave feeling, or a heroic one either, and so he fought it. But sometimes something like this smell of smoke would bring those few months back to him– the time he'd spent on Revello Drive with the Slayers, the potentials, the Scoobies, and Spike. The happiest time of his life, even though they were facing the end of the world. Okay, maybe it was because they were facing the end of the world. The best friendships were forged in foxholes, they said, and for awhile there, he thought it was true.

But they didn't need foxholes anymore. Evil had taken a vacation. And the friends had scattered. Willow and Kennedy were the first to take off, driving across country to scout the Hellmouth in Cleveland. The potentials all went home, to train on their own and wait for word. Mr. Giles went back to England to rebuild the Watchers Council– he was going to have to provide watchers for any new Slayers, after all. Principal Wood found a job way out in Orange County, which was okay with Andrew. (Not that Andrew didn't like him. But he'd graduated from high school already, and would just as soon not have to come under a principal's supervision ever again.) Probably he and Faith had broken up, because no one had seen her since summer. Xander had resisted everyone's attempt at comfort and took up residence near the crater– like he thought Anya might crawl out and need a place to stay or something. Buffy had gone off on what she called a Spiritual Quest, off in Tibet. Andrew worried about her. She was a great girl, the best, but she wasn't very spiritual, and he just couldn't imagine her meditating. Maybe she'd climb all the mountains instead. Dawn had enrolled in college, right in town, and emailed Andrew for awhile, suggesting he come to a party or a lecture on Egyptian hieroglyphics. But he didn't feel up to all the rah-rah college stuff. She finally gave up on him a couple months ago, and that made him ashamed.

His whole world had collapsed when Sunnydale collapsed, and all he could manage was the scut job in the video store and the memories.

He'd been okay, really, all this past week. Even went out to a bar after work with another guy at work, someone who actually liked The Phantom Menace. He thought maybe he'd be able to move on pretty soon– go back to school, get a real job, maybe even hang out with Dawn.

But now– smelling that smoke– he felt the despair rise up again. His life was nothing. He was nothing. He'd helped save the world, and no one cared. Their friends– Anya, Spike, Amanda– had died, and no one remembered.

With a sigh, he jammed his key into the lock and opened the door. His mood was dark enough he decided to go ahead and alienate his roommate's guest. What difference did it make? "You know," he called, aiming his comment at the red coal burning in the darkness of the little front room, "this is a no-smoking zone."

"Thought you might make an exception for me, mate."

Andrew's hand stilled on the wall, still inches from the light switch. He slumped back against the opposite wall as his knees gave way, and he slid down to the floor.

"Spike," he whispered.

"The very one."

A light snapped on in the other room, and as Andrew stared, someone – someone– sauntered towards him. He was too scared to look up, so he just watched the walk– that confident stride. That testosterone-fueled swagger. "Spike."

A hand came down into his field of vision. He reached up and took hold, and was yanked in one smooth motion to his feet. And then he was caught in a manly hug, hard and swift, and released. "Let's go get a beer," Spike said.

It really was Spike. Not a ghost, not a memory, not an impostor. Okay, it could be just a dream, but Andrew didn't smell or feel in dreams. And he smelled the cigarette Spike was still holding as he strode ahead. And he'd sure felt Spike, solid and warm– warm.

"Wait a minute." He caught up with Spike at the bottom of the steps. "You're... not real."

"Sure I am, mate. Just resurrected real."

"But your hand. It was warm."

Spike grinned at him. "Cosmic joke. New version of vampire-- with circulation." He glanced up at the dark sky. "Can't prove it now, but no sun allergy either. Was even at the beach, high noon, t'other day."

Andrew had been manipulated enough in his time to be wary. "Tell me something only you and I know."

Spike made a disgusted sound. It was, Andrew had to admit, a sound he'd heard Spike make before. "I mean it. Something no one else knows. Or – or I'll decide you're some new and improved apparition of the First."

"Awesome blossom onions. Have to dip them in ice water for a half hour before battering 'em up."

Andrew stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He couldn't walk and fight back tears at the same time. So he stood there a minute, swallowing hard, as Spike waited, tactfully facing away, a few yards ahead.

Andrew cleared his throat and caught up. "Okay. I believe you. What happened?"

"Usual powers-that-be shit. Don't understand it. Just ended up back here, back in my body, back in my mind."

"Wow. How long you been back?"

"About a month. Five weeks. And, okay, I understand if you're mad I didn't contact you before."

Actually, Andrew was amazed he'd been contacted at all. "Uh–"

"Look, mate. Bit of embarrassing. I didn't come back with a full set of memories. Like I didn't remember much at all, except my goddamned grandsire. And, well, for reasons of his own, which you can guess, he didn't completely fill me in on all the events of the last few years."

They'd reached the bar on the corner, a workingman's place, quiet as the grave compared to most bars, filled with tough silent guys around whom Andrew could never feel safe. Except now. They got settled in a corner booth, and the hard-faced waitress even smiled at Spike as she brought their beers. Andrew took a quick sip to calm himself. "So you're saying, you had amnesia? Cool!"

"Sounds good in theory, maybe. Forget the bad times, you know? But forgot the good too. And it's taken some time to piece it all together. And somethin' happened today. Made me think of you. Remember you."

Andrew flushed with pleasure. "Wow. That's good. You must have remembered everything, if you remembered the onion blossoms."

"That's how it works. I get just a glimpse at first, and then it's like the sky clears and I see everything again. So. Remembered you. Dawn told me where you lived. Showed up."

"Broke in," Andrew finished happily.

"Figured you wouldn't mind. Not the sort of thing that bothers you."

Andrew frowned. "I thought you had to be invited."

"Guess not anymore. I've got new career plans. Cat burglar." He grinned at Andrew, waggling that errant eyebrow. "Just kidding. Anyroad. Been thinking all day. Dangerous. Me thinking. Dangerous for you, at least."

Andrew felt a jolt of adrenaline. "What? You got a mission for me?"

Spike drank down his beer in one long smooth swallow and raised his hand for another. "Wish it was that simple. More, you know. Long-term commitment. Few months, anyway. Still interested?"

Andrew nodded dumbly, and listened in astonishment as Spike outlined Mr. Giles's plan for a school for slayers. Spike finished up, "Rupert's fast when he needs to be. Already found an old place on the beach south of here to lease. Haunted, they say, some cult drank the kool-aid there, so no one wants it, but that shouldn't bother our lot."

Andrew gulped, but said, "Shouldn't bother. Right."

"And he wanted me to come in every day for a few hours. Train the slayerettes in fighting."

"Like you did last spring!"

"Yeah. And all right, so I agreed. Said I'd do it. Poor little girls, off to certain slaughter if they don't get some training. Can't have that. Anyway, thought you might help out there. Two ways."

Andrew gulped. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. First, with training."

Andrew drew in a deep breath and tried not to look intimidated at the thought of training with a group of super-strong slayerettes. "Sure."

"Video, see. You're a dab hand with the camcorder. You camcord the training sessions, edit them, and I'll review the videos, use them to show the girls what they're doing right and wrong. Maybe you could even end up making some training tapes for future classes– instructional tapes."

That was more like it. Andrew's heart swelled, and his chest swelled too. "Yeah, I could do that. Got the camcorder. Got editing equipment too. Everything I need."

"Brilliant."

"What's the other thing you want my help with?"

Spike paused to take the beer from the waitress. Took his time drinking it this time. Andrew sensed that the second thing wasn't as simple as the first.

Finally Spike said, "Won't be anyone there that– you know. Knows me. Giles'll be there part of the time. But he's not going to be working with me. I mean, I'm not lookin' forward to explaining everything. The vampire stuff. The past. The slayer history."

Andrew said loyally, "You don't need to tell them anything you don't want to tell them."

"But also. Can't get too close to them, you know. Can't let them start thinking about a vampire and a demon like a friend or colleague. Got to keep my distance."

"Yeah. I guess." Andrew didn't know how that would be possible. He'd learned a lot about teenaged girls last spring, and the top on the list was– a guy like Spike could keep his distance as much as he liked, but girls were always going to fall for him. Fact of life. The more distant, the more they'd want him, in fact.

"So I thought, maybe you could help keep me in line. Warn me when something's not working. You know. Seen it before. Shared past."

Yeah, Andrew thought. He'd been evil too. Not like Spike– hell, Spike was the bloody Prince of Darkness, or had been before he met Buffy. But he knew that Andrew knew how hard it was to give up evil and embrace redemption. "Know what you mean. Sure. I can do that. Whatever you want, big guy. I owe you. Heck, the world owes you."

"Not waiting for the world to pay me back. That's why 'm negotiating our wages. I'll tell Giles I need a budget for videography. Won't be enough to live on, maybe, but won't be a full day's work either. That okay with you?"

Andrew was trying to keep a tough guy face, so he ruthlessly caged the smile that threatened to break out. "Sure. Be better than last spring. We didn't get paid at all then."

"Giles is in charge now. Not so much into exploitation, is our Giles. No one's to know," Spike added. "About the slayerettes. About the school. You can understand why."

Andrew nodded solemnly. It made it even more of an honor to be trusted like this. To be one of the inner circle. "It's like the X-Men academy. Secret. To protect the girls."

"Right. So you're in."

"I'm in."

"Good." Spike slapped down some bills and stood up. "Be in touch once I got more 411. Got to get to the other job now. Work at a club. Play bass there Saturday nights. Come on out sometime-- I'll introduce you to the band. Sort of alternate-neo-punk post-grunge. Not great, but not bad either."

Andrew walked home, his head spinning. This afternoon, he had been alone. Friendless. Hopeless. Meaningless. Now he was in an elite squad of the formerly-evil-fighters-of-evil with the greatest FEFOE of them all. And he was about to hang out with a band, not to mention a bunch of nubile, if very muscular, teenaged girls. It was scary, how fast a life could change.

Then again, he should be used to that now. Anywhere Spike was, there was change. Transformation. Excitement. And Spike–

Spike was back.

Chapter Text

Spike didn't get a lot of Fed Ex packages. In fact, this was the first he'd ever received. It was a milestone. He was authentically 21st Century now. "This is, like, my first time," he confessed to the delivery man standing in his doorway with his clipboard. "Don't know what to do."

The driver was kind. Gentle, even. He balanced the clipboard on the package and the package on his forearm and handed Spike a pen. "Just sign here, sir, saying you received it."

Spike obeyed and even remembered to hand the pen back.

"I take this carbon. And you get the package now. See, there's the sender's name there– some people like to check that, make sure it's someone they know. Just in case. These days, you know."

"Terrible times we live in," Spike agreed, though personally he thought antibiotics and writeable DVDs made up for most of the terrors of modern times.

The driver went back to his truck as Spike studied the package. A small flat box, not an envelope. Sender: Angel Investigations. Typical. Angel could have called, asked Spike to come pick this up. But he probably thought he was being considerate, assuming for some reason that Spike's life was as jampacked with activity as his own.

And it was. The Fed Ex guy had interrupted his online Free-cell tournament.

He ripped the flap open and withdrew the bubble wrap envelope. Inside was the amulet.

"Stupid git," he said aloud, and swore silently.

Now he'd have to default on the free-cell tournament, though he was in striking distance of first place. One more mark against Angel. But his idiot of a grandsire had been unprotected now for – he checked the shipping label– thirteen hours. (Thirteen hours. Very impressive for delivering a package across the country. But AI hq was four miles away. That was Angel all over, wasn't it? Got to do it the complicated way, the one involving the most steps. And all to deliver something that was supposed to stay put.)

An hour later he was sitting in his grandsire's office, waiting. Angel was in an afternoon meeting. Spike laid his head back, fighting the urge to pull his legs up under him and curl up for a nap. Strange that he was the one who could take the sunlight, and yet he still kept vamp hours. Angel went to great lengths to manipulate his environment so he could share the daytime world with the humans. Neither one or t'other. Either one or t'other. Binary opposites, but both blasted obstinate to do what they weren't supposed to do.

He could keep himself awake, he supposed, by checking out Angel's computer. Just play a few games of Free Cell, right? And if he should happen to view some email too....

But speculation had hardly translated to intent when he sensed Angel coming up the hallway. So much for checking to see if he was in constant email contact with Buffy, wooing her secretly in his strange way–

Spike uncurled himself from the chair so that he was standing when Angel entered.

"They told me you were here." Angel stood for a moment in the doorway, looking displeased, then headed straight for his desk. Spike watched with injured innocence as Angel scanned the papers on his desk and the document on his monitor, looking for signs of incursion.

"Thanks for the brass band welcome, Peaches, but I can't stay. Just have to return this." He pulled the amulet out of his pocket and set it on the desk, curling the chain around the bauble.

Angel closed his eyes. Exasperation personified. "I don't want it."

"Too bad. You've got it. I was supposed to give it to you. You were supposed to keep it." Spike sketched a farewell wave and turned for the door.

"Wait. Spike. Who told you that you were supposed to give it to me?"

"No one. Not how it works. You know that. Itself impelled me. Etc."

"But it's yours. You're the champion. Etc."

"It's not mine anymore, is it? I used it. Done with it. Now it's yours again, and if you don't know why, ask the original owners for more info. All I know is. I woke up. In the rubble. With that in my hand. And in my head the imperative: Deliver it to Angelus. Which I did. And I really don't think Whoever or Whatever would go to this much trouble unless you really needed the damned thing. So accept it graciously. Pick it up and admire it. Say thank you."

Angel almost smiled. He did pick it up. "Ugly."

"Yeah. But you know, I made it look good."

"Don't see how I'm supposed to need it."

"Don't ask me. Just the delivery boy here. Put someone to work researching it. You got enough bespectacled minions here to rival the Watchers' Council."

Angel dropped the amulet back on his desk. "Haven't heard from you lately. How's the new life going?"

"Not bad. Tending bar." He didn't mention the job with Giles. Angel Investigations slash Wolfram & Hart was top on the no-need-to-know list. "Playing with a band."

Angel dropped into his seat. He obviously didn't like the news. "Here in LA?"

"Yeah."

"Big old world out there. You used to roam more. Hard to think of you settling down."

"Had to roam, when I was with Dru. She tended to burn bridges behind her. Not to mention villages and towns. But now– got friends here. Nice flat." He gave into temptation. "The beach. Girls sunbathing in their bikinis. In the sun," he added, just in case Angel hadn't gotten it the first time. "Who could ask for anything more?"

"Right. Well. Glad to hear you're doing well." This was said grudgingly, but Spike didn't fault it. At least they were making the effort to be civil, a development on the order of the fall of the Berlin Wall, considering their history.

Still, Spike couldn't let well enough alone. "You hear anything from the Slayer?"

Angel sat up straighter. "No. Still in Tibet, as far as I know." And immediately, he changed the subject, inquiring with grave solicitude about Spike's financial arrangements. Did he need a banker, did he remember to sign as a resident alien now he had the British passport–

Fat chance, Spike thought, the less he registered on the government radar, the better. He answered temperately enough, and rose to leave, reaching into his jeans pocket for his car keys.

He was just turning towards the door when it opened, and the love of his unlife, and his new life, burst in, a flightbag slung over her shoulder.

"Angel!" she cried. "I got on standby, and I had to come see you, because -- yes!"

"Slayer," Spike whispered.

She turned to him. And then the light faded from her eyes, and she dropped the flightbag, reached out blindly for the chair, and for the first time in living memory, fainted dead away.

Spike still had the vampire reflexes, and caught her in his arms before she hit the floor. He gathered her up, murmuring, and carried her to the couch.

Angel was right there, shoving him away. "You'd better go. She's going to be confused and frightened if she wakes up and sees you. I'll explain everything and then–"

"I'm not leaving."

Angel growled, and for just a second, Spike saw the demon. But he had his own demon, and didn't back down. "I want to talk to her. And I will. Whether you like it or not."

Angel looked ready to protest, but then nodded grudgingly. "I can't stop you. But let me prepare her. Why don't you go wait in the apartment? I'll tell her what's happened, and bring her up there in a half hour or so."

Spike looked down at her face, so beautiful, so familiar, and nodded. "All right. Half hour. If you don't have her there by then, I'm coming to find you."

He left the office, glancing back just once to see Angel kneeling beside her, holding her hand.

A half hour. He couldn't sit in that blasted apartment for a half hour. So he took the elevator down to ground level and went out into the sunlight. He remembered a shop down the street, and headed that way. He'd get Buffy a gift. Something she'd like. Something that showed that he knew what she'd like.

The problem with shopping for something Buffy liked, he decided, gazing down at an array of handmade jewelry, was that Buffy was a typical California girl and... liked everything. He picked up a pair of earrings that were vaguely Buddhist in design, and held them, thinking about the diamonds hidden away in his memory box. Too much too soon. Better start with the baubles first. He pulled out his credit card to pay– still a jolt, using plastic– and got back to the W&H guest apartment with just enough time to make himself a cup of tea before Angel arrived, his arm solicitously around an unprecedentedly timid Buffy.

He stood there in the kitchen archway. Knew enough not to go to her. Waited. She wriggled free of Angel– good girl– and came slowly towards him, her hand outstretched. He let her touch his face, his mouth. Let her touch the pulse in his neck, though it made him profoundly skittish, to feel those strong fingers pressing there.

"Spike," she whispered, staring into his eyes.

He reached up and took her hand and held it against his chest. "Missed you."

Chapter Text

Spike was out in the sun.

They were sitting at a sidewalk café, drinking silly drinks– Spike's had creme of banana in it, and Buffy's had a slice of coconut– and the sun was shining full in his face. He kept trying to brush it away, kept putting on and taking off his sunglasses. She thought he'd be more comfortable in the shadowy interior of the café... but he must want her to see him like this, out in the open, a creature of light again.

She spared a thought for Angel, hermited back in his office behind special glass, and knew that Spike was enjoying this even more because Angel couldn't do it.

He was telling her about his new job, training the young slayers at Giles's academy. "Listen," he said abruptly. "Angel isn't to know, okay? As far as he's concerned, my only job is tending bar."

She'd already been through this with Giles months ago, on that long bus ride away from the Sunnydale crater. Giles insisted that no one know about the empowering of the potential slayers– not even Angel. She'd given in then, because Giles was the Watcher, and she was more than eager to turn over the responsibility for the safety of the girls to him. But still it chafed. "I think we can trust Angel."

"Funny thing that. I know him by another name. Angelus."

"He's not Angelus. And Angel has proved himself trustworthy all this time."

"What he knows, Angelus knows. And no one knows when Angelus is coming out. Besides, Angel's gotten himself attached to Wolfram & Hart. He thinks he's running the place, but I'm not so sure. And– and they're just girls, you know? Got enough danger to look forward to once they're trained."

She saw the worry in his eyes, and softened. He was right– best that no one know, not even Angel. "Okay. Won't say anything about the stealth academy there. I'm glad– " she smiled– "glad you're the one watching their backs. You always did a good job for me."

"Always will, if you let me."

There it was.

What was she going to do now?

Tibet had been a revelation, but not, she suspected, in the way Giles would hope. She'd learned that she wasn't mystical, couldn't meditate, and didn't give a fig about karma. She was a woman of action, not contemplation. And she came back ready to act, finally, on the issue that had plagued her for six years now. Really ready. Ready to agree to a life with Angel.

On the plane across the Pacific, she prepared a speech. Angel was right. They had to renounce their longheld reservations and resolutions. She was no longer a girl with stars in her eyes, and he was by no means a vile seducer and corrupter of innocents. They were two broken souls, and they belonged together now more than ever. They needed to accept their bond forged in pain and loss, or they'd both end up alone, or worse, hurting other lovers.

But she wanted something from him, in return for her agreement. There had to be some way around the curse that any true happiness would render Angel soulless again. Had to be some deed Buffy could perform, some spell Willow could cast, some marker Angel could cash in with the Powers That Be, to earn an exemption on the happiness clause. But wasn't the clause moot anyway? After all, they were hardly likely to find true happiness again, given all that had transpired since their first lovemaking, including, most importantly, her long relationship with his own grandchilde, and that lover's heroic death.

But now that lover was back, more alive than ever, and all her certainty had fled. Spike had returned for her. That's what he said: I came back for you. And there were moments when she felt so happy she might float away, when he smiled that open smile and their fingers touched on the tabletop. But then she was struck with something resembling terror, because his return was unmaking the decision she had finally been able to make.

And now he was pressing the matter. The light talk was over, the laughter quieted. He took her hand and brought it to his lips, and she felt the coolness and knew this time his mouth was only cold from the iced drink. The power shivered through her, that energy that came only from Spike. He was... alive. And he was saying something about a second chance, about a new life– together.

She wanted him to take her to bed– she wanted him to leave her alone. She wanted the force of his passion; she could not take the force of his need. She wanted to love him, but she didn't know what it meant. She just knew she couldn't love him as she once loved Angel. She couldn't love him as he loved her.

"Why did you say that, at the last?" she demanded suddenly. "When I told you I loved you?"

For a moment his blue eyes were cloudy with confusion and she realized he didn't remember. Angel had warned her of this– that the past had not come back entirely, that he would not admit it to her, but that when he was reminded, the memories would come flooding back.

"You said– I remember it exactly– you said, No, you don't. But thanks for saying it. Why did you say that?"

She could tell the memory had returned to him, because his gaze dropped, and his hand slid back from hers.

"I.... I wanted you to leave."

"I was ready to leave. I knew I had to leave. You didn't need to say that to get me to leave." She added, bitterly, "You meant it. Was it because you didn't believe me?"

"You waited too long."

"No. Too long would have been after you died."

He drew a deep breath. He was breathing. She still didn't quite get that.

"It felt like... like you thought that's what I wanted more than anything, that it would give the whole experience meaning, that it would let me die easy. And I didn't need that. We had what we had, those last few nights. And I was happy with it. I didn't need to think it was more than that."

"You don't think I meant it? That I was lying?"

"No. Not lying. But... but I think if it was real, you would have known it earlier. And said it sooner. And that kiss with Angel– you told me it wasn't anything... you knew I'd probably die, and so you told me that, but I didn't know what you were telling him. To wait for you. That's what it must have been, because he's been waiting for you since I came back. Since before. Buffy–"

She was so angry at him she wanted to get up and walk away. But he had come back for her, that's what he said. And she couldn't leave him. Not yet. "Nothing I feel will ever be enough for you, will it? Because it's not as much as you feel. That doesn't mean it's not real!"

"I don't mean it's not real. I know that you have real feelings for me." He stopped there. And it might have been safe then. But Spike – alive, dead, undead, whatever– could never stop where it was safe to stop. He always, always, had to go on and say and do the dangerous thing. It was the scariest thing about him. "But I felt like you were adding things up. You know, some gratitude and some desire and some friendship and some pity, and you glue it all together, and it adds up to something. But is it love when you have to add it up–"

"I did the best I could."

"I know. Oh, Christ." Spike closed his eyes and put his hands to his head and pressed against his temples, as if the sunlight had given him a headache. "I don't want to talk about this. I want to tell you we have another chance now, and we can do it right this time, and I can give you all you need. But you won't believe that now, will you?"

"You want more than I have to give."

"No. I want whatever you have to give."

"Then why didn't you accept it then? Why did you refuse it?"

"I didn't. I just refused ... the words."

"The definition. My definition. What I mean by love, you don't think means love."

"But– hasn't anything changed? We went through hell together last spring. We fought together. I bloody died, Buffy. Didn't you notice? Didn't that matter?"

Don't you really love me now? That's what he was really asking. She couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand his expectation, his longing. He wanted so much from her always. And she knew she was being unfair, because surely he deserved all he wanted. "It mattered. It hurt. You know that."

"So I'm back. A new life. I can be in the sun now, and walk with you, and I've still got the stupid soul, and they keep saying I'm redeemed–"

"I know. I'm glad. But– but I went away too, you know, and I came back, and I was ready for–"

"For what? Angel? Again?"

She couldn't answer. Finally, she whispered, "I don't know. I was ready. But now I don't know anymore. I never thought I'd see you again. So it was easy to choose."

"But now–" He was leaning forward, both of his hands on hers. "I'm back. Let's try."

She felt stupid and inconstant and difficult, and it wasn't fair. She'd resolved it all. She'd taken the big gamble. And now it was all wasted. "I want to go back. I want to talk to Angel."

For a moment, Spike looked panicked– there was no other word for it. She'd never seen him look so scared, even back when he was chipped and the Initiative was after him. Then at least he'd been defiant. But now– he was just scared, and it was all her fault, and she was so tired of hurting him.

He was silent as they walked back to the W&H offices, silent in the elevator. Another woman got on at the third floor, one of those impeccably short-skirted Ally McBeal types who always made Buffy feel immature and unkempt. She was checking Spike out, but he kept his face turned shyly away, as if he found the display of floor buttons endlessly fascinating. When she got out at the 10th floor, he waited till the doors closed, then did what Buffy had been anticipating, dreading, all along– he reached out a hand to her, and pulled her against him, and bent his head to kiss her, a long, slow, sweet kiss, aching with love. His whole body radiated the old love along with the new heat, and she couldn't bear it. How could he love her like this, after so long, after the anger and passion and insanity and sin and redemption and death and rebirth? She didn't want it... didn't deserve it. It was wasted on her, and he had to know it.

But she was only human after all, and kissed him back, and wished it could be enough.

Angel never asked so much of her. It was enough for him that their souls connected. He needed no more than that to know it was love.

Angel had been meditating, so he was calm when Buffy came back to the apartment, Spike a step behind her. Calm, that is, until he saw the just-kissed shape of her mouth, the flush high in her cheeks. But Spike was missing his characteristic swagger, and his eyes were bleak, and Angel took heart. Whatever happened between them, it hadn't made Spike happy.

Angel knew what to do now. He just had to wait. Stupid, impulsive Spike had already rushed the issue– probably forced a kiss on her, and she'd pushed him away, and now she would be angry with him....

Spike always went too far. In a century and a half, he'd never learned patience, and dying twice and being reborn twice hadn't advanced him a bit. All Angel had to do... was wait. Buffy would come to him, because Spike was sure to make some fatal mistake. Maybe he already had, and Buffy was just being polite, letting him come back with her.

"There he is," Spike said. "You wanted to see him. I don't think he's moved a muscle since we left."

Buffy ignored him, and came to Angel, and took his hand. "You two have had weeks to get used to this. I haven't even had an hour. Will you be patient with me?"

"Always," Angel said, looking deep into her eyes and hoping the message he saw there was more than his own longing.

There was a noise behind them, Spike kicking the front door shut. Angel had to turn away to hide his smile.

Just a matter of time.

Spike came back into the living room, draping himself in that insolent way against the doorframe. "What more do you need to figure it out, then, Buffy? More time with me? Like tonight?"

The suggestion was too obvious to ignore, and Angel felt his fist clench in his pocket. To his relief, Buffy shook her head. "That's just going to confuse me further, and you know it. I don't need more... information. I just need more time. And space. I know everything... I just need to sort it."

Spike straightened up, all insolence gone now. "But... you don't know everything. Sweetheart, I– it's all changed now. It has. I can give you more now– everything. We can have a real life. Got a name and a bloody passport. A job. I'm real now. My heart beats." He crossed the room to her, took her hand and pressed it against his chest. "Feel that? Even got a reflection. Can take you out for picnics every Sunday afternoon. Might even get old with you. I don't know, but might. Maybe I'm already older. Don't I look older?"

"No," she said, a gentle smile playing on her lips. "You still look young."

Angel couldn't stand it. Spike was doing this deliberately, talking to Buffy but taunting Angel with all he could give her now. All Angel couldn't give. And it was a lie. Oh, maybe not a lie. But Angel knew Spike, knew what mattered to him. Knew that the last thing Spike wanted was to grow old, to fade into mortality. But he'd play on that possibility to impress Buffy.

Still, all Angel had to do was wait. And as he expected, Spike took it one step too far.

"We could have it all, everything. Still fight together, but have the rest of it too. Might even give you babies. They say that's all in working order too. Think about it, love. The two of us, with everything we want--"

Angel was watching her face, and saw it go cold. Poor, stupid, impetuous Spike, painting his picture of what he absurdly called real life. He'd lost her, and he'd never understand why.

Buffy pulled her hand away from him. "I'm the Slayer, Spike. I don't get to have everything."

"Course you do. You deserve everything." Spike reached out to touch her cheek, but she flinched away. He regarded her with a hurt sort of puzzlement. Then his eyes narrowed and his voice grew harsh. "You just have to take it, Buffy. Just take it. It's yours if you want it."

Angel took a step closer, angry at him for putting her through this. For forcing it on her– his silly dreams, his fiction about a future, about babies and picnics and Christmas trees. "That's right, Spike. Share some of the vampire philosophy there. Want. Take."

Spike turned on him, fists clenched, his eyes glowing hot and yellow now. "Better than your miserable philosophy– that if you want it bad, you should be denied it. Because you need to be punished. Maybe that works for you, but the Slayer's not you."

"Maybe what you need to realize is– what she wants isn't you." Angel felt himself losing control. These savage words didn't come from Angel. Couldn't. They came like an echo from some long-distant confrontation. "Because you're not good enough and never have been."

Spike smiled, a slow, grim smile. "Well, Angelus, maybe you should let her decide that."

The use of that name snapped something in Angel. "I'm not the one trying to force myself on her."

There was a instant of utter silence. Spike turned to Buffy, and she made the tiniest shake of her head, and before Angel could puzzle any of this out, she said, "A bit less testosterone here is what I'm needing now, fellas. Both of you back off. Angel, Spike doesn't have to prove himself good enough. He's already done that. And Spike– Spike, you always knew about Angel. You always knew what he's meant to me. I never lied to you about how I felt. That I loved him first and would love him forever."

That was it, then, Angel thought. That was it. The declaration.

But what he heard, Spike didn't. Or maybe Spike had heard it so many times, he didn't count it anymore. "Oh, that's right, Slayer. You can love Angel forever. Long distance. ‛Fact, that's best with him, innit? Love without touching. Me– you only love me when you're in my bed. Fucking me."

Buffy made some inarticulate protest, but Angel was already halfway across the room. Spike parried the blow and ducked under the next one, then put his fists down and stood there, seemingly unguarded. "Go ahead. Take your best shot, Peaches. Show me how wrong I am. Show me how much you can love her from a hundred miles away. How good your loving is when you refuse to touch her. How well you can fight for her when you're not with her."

"Stop it!" Buffy ordered. Then she gave a shaky laugh. "I know I should be flattered you're coming to blows over me, but I've seen enough."

Angel swore quietly and backed away. "She's not going to decide on the basis of the best fighter, Spike."

"Lucky that for you, mate." Spike matched his glare, and then said, conversationally, "She's the best fighter around here, anyway. I should know. I've fought beside her for years. While you were here helping the hopeless against the brainless, she and I saved each other a hundred times. And the world a couple times too."

Angel didn't want to hear it. It didn't matter anyway. It ripped at him, but it didn't matter. "What she's trying to tell you is that she chose me years ago. She chose me first, and nothing else has ever changed that. Including you."

"Yeah. Well. She chose me when it mattered. With the amulet."

This was still a sore point with Angel, and he heard his voice come out in a snarl. "That's a good one, Will. She chose you to be the one to die. What's that tell you?"

He was filled with shame, even before he saw the shock on Spike's face, the way he turned to look at Buffy, even before Buffy gasped. "I didn't– Spike." He was standing stockstill, his fists now half-uncurled at his sides. Buffy took a step towards him. "That's not why. I needed Angel for another job. I told him that. He said he understood. It wasn't to – to sacrifice you instead. I didn't– I didn't want to sacrifice anyone."

Spike raised his hand to cut her off. Angel saw the slight tremor there, and thought, lord, what are we doing to him? He's been through hell already, and now–

But his pity didn't last. Couldn't last. Spike wouldn't let it. "Doesn't matter now. What matters is–" he turned to Angel. "She sent you away, you ponce. And you fucking went. Slayer, tell him. Tell him what I would have said if you tried to send me away that night."

Buffy just gazed at him, and finally he growled, "I would have said– Sod leaving. I've–"

And then she whispered along with him, "Got your back, Slayer."

They stared at each other, and then, with one of those romantic gestures that came so naturally to Spike, he took her hand in both of his and dropped to his knees before her. And then, in a voice almost too low for Angel to hear, he said, "But that's never been the issue, has it? Which of us loves you more. There's no contest. You know that, and I know that. Even he knows that."

Angel opened his mouth to protest, then stopped. He wasn't going to get into a debate on who loved her more. It was pointless. But it still hurt him to see Buffy gazing down at Spike, and with her free hand, touching his cheek. "You were my champion. Always."

"Yeah. Always. But it's only on my side. On yours–"

"You know how I feel. I told you."

He hesitated, then bent his head and pressed a kiss on the back of her hand. "Thank you for that, love." Then, softly, "I have already done everything I can imagine. And it's not enough, is it? Or it's too much."

"I– I don't know." She paused, and then said quietly, "You say you'll do anything for me. Will you let me go? If I need that?"

Spike was still for a moment, then said, his voice low and hoarse, "Yes. Is that what you need?"

Angel found himself holding a breath he didn't have. Then Buffy replied, "Not yet. But maybe soon."

Angel felt the triumph fill him. And the pain. Spike was his too, in some way, claimed more than a century ago. And now his face was stark with anguish, his body rigid with it.

But then, releasing her hand, Spike rose and walked towards the door. He stared at it a moment, then said, without looking back at her or Angel, "All I want is for you to be happy. I kept thinking it was me– that I'd make you happy if you just let me. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe you'll never be happy with me. Because you never got to find out what you and he might have had. And maybe I just get in the way. So–" He turned the handle and pushed the door open. "I'll be around if you need me, but– but I'm going to get out of the way. Let you go."

And then he was gone, and Angel let go of another unnecessary breath, and thought, He'll be back. I give him ten minutes. And he opened his arms and took Buffy in, breathing with her, murmuring, "Don't worry about him. Don't worry."

In his inbox three mornings later was an old-fashioned folded notecard, penned in Spike's left-handed, backward-slanted but elegant copperplate. "Got a line on Faith. Back in awhile. Please give this to Buffy. S." And taped underneath was a tiny velvet bag. Inside Angel found a pair of silver and turquoise earrings in the shape of a Tibetan dorje.

Chapter Text

"Hey, you. Logan."

It took Faith an instant to remember her assumed name. The Watchers Council had made sure her fingerprints weren't on file anywhere anymore, so she could be anyone she wanted to be, so long as that anyone was a jail inmate.

She went to the cell door and took hold of the bars. "Yeah?"

The guard pulled out his keychain. "Hands up in the air where I can see them. Step back from the door. Your lawyer's here. "

"I don't–" Faith shut her mouth with a snap. Three months in jail, two of them in solitary– well, she wasn't about to complain if the local yokel judge remembered the Constitution and actually got around to appointing her a public defender. At least it would get her out of the cell for awhile.

Hands shackled in front of her, she was led to a small, dirty room with an old kitchen table and two chairs. She focused on the scarred red formica table top– it was the most color she'd seen in a week, since she'd lost her outside exercise privileges.

"Sit down," the guard ordered.

Faith took a deep breath. She didn't think she'd ever get good at the unquestioning obedience thing. "Sure."

Just as well. If she'd been standing when– when he walked in, she would have collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

She'd always thought him sexy. Off-limits, for a dozen reasons, but a girl could look, and fantasize too. Now he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen, and not just because she never thought she'd see him again.

"Spi–"

He shot her a warning look, two blazes of blue from under the dark slashes of his brows. She shut up.

"Unshackle her."

The guard shook his head. "Sheriff said–"

"I don't care what the sheriff said." His voice was cold and his accent – not British punk. Educated. Expensive. As expensive as the leather briefcase he set down on the table. "The Arizona Supreme Court said in Neville vs. Beckham that defendants meeting with their attorney must not be restrained except at the attorney's request. I do not so request. Unshackle her."

The guard grumbled but pulled out his keys again, and after a moment's fumbling, his awful breath panting in her face, he got the cuffs unlocked.

"Now leave us."

"But–"

"Attorney-client privilege. I meet with my client alone. You may stand outside the door, but I don't want to catch you looking in." His glare got glacial. "You might remember the case that was thrown out because a guard could read lips? Barthez vs. Carroll?"

"Like I can read lips?"

Spike remained standing until the guard had moved sullenly through the door and closed it behind him. Then he hooked the other chair with one highly polished Italian loafer, and pulled it next to hers. He glanced back at the window, and then quickly bent and kissed her on the cheek– as if she was an old friend, as if she was someone he'd missed, as if she mattered.

As he took his seat, she felt an unfamiliar sting in her eyes, and blinked fast and hard. In a harsh whisper, she said, "I thought you were–"

"I was." He shrugged. His shoulder was only about eight inches from hers. Too close. She'd been locked in a cell alone for too long.

"What happened?"

"The Powers That Be." His accent was back in North London. "The usual story. Tossed me back a couple months ago."

She tried to match his casual attitude towards the miraculous. "Too bad for heaven, too good for hell, huh?"

"Oh, bad enough for hell, for sure. But Lucifer figured me for competition." He flashed his patented cocky grin. "I ended up stuck in a celestial antechamber for an eternity or so. Boring."

She wondered what the real story was. But there were more immediate concerns. "How'd you find me?"

He tilted his head to one side. "Been watching the court reports online. For some reason, not too many people named Faith get arrested, so that last hearing notice caught my eye. Faith Logan. Remembered how you watched that X-Men video four times that last week. How you kept pausing and rewinding when that poncey Logan-Wolverine guy came on."

She felt heat rise in her cheeks. "Good catch. But he's not poncey."

"Plus the charges. Assaulting a police officer by manually overturning his vehicle." He gave her a look that might have been admiring. "So thought I'd take a chance and check it out."

"What's the lawyer routine about? And where'd you get the threads?"

He looked down at his charcoal-gray suit and brushed at the lapel. "Versace. Like it?"

She thought he looked like a million bucks, but she wasn't about to tell him so. "Liked the leather coat better. You still have that?"

"Yeah, they sent me back from eternity in it. It's in my trunk. Doesn't fit the image."

"And you think Versace fits the image of some hick lawyer out here on Podunk Mountain."

"Hey, I'm not just some hick lawyer." He pulled out his wallet– more expensive leather– and handed her a card.

It was magnificently engraved, silver letters on a pewter background. "S. Pike Williams. Very cute, Spike. Attorney at Law. Wolfram and Hart, Century City. And the sheriff believed that a fancy fella like you is going to represent the likes of me?"

"I told him how you senators' daughters tend to get a bit wild during the campaign season. He's got an election coming up too, and a son in rehab."

She stared at him, searching the beautiful face for a clue. He smiled back in that lazy way. "Enough of the how, pet. You'll want to know why."

"Yeah. Why are you here?"

"Came to bail you out."

She didn't let herself react. "Gee, thanks. But you know, unless you managed to get a law degree to go with that card of yours, I should warn you. They got me on video. I don't think we're likely to win at trial."

His eyes lightened. "Who says we're sticking around for the trial?"

She was flooded with a mix of emotions: relief, dread, humiliation. To be dragged back like a loser once again, to face everyone after another screwup, well, it was too much. But to be free of this place, to get another chance– another another chance–

"You mean it? You'll get me out of here?"

He put his hand on hers. "Yep."

There was something wrong. Two things wrong. His hand was a little warm. And his eyes were flickering with something like... guilt. Spike's face always was too expressive for his own good. "So what's the catch?"

"The catch? Why do you think there's a catch?"

"Because you've got that look in your eyes."

"Goddamned soul," Spike muttered. "Won't let me get away with anything."

She almost smiled, but caught herself. "I said, so what's the catch?"

He sighed. Squeezed her hand. "I want you to work with me."

Something fluttered in her chest. "Slayer stuff?"

"Uh, yeah. Slayer stuff. Being good guys. Fighting evil. In... you know. Different ways. Need your help."

She bent her head, fighting back those tears again. Jesus. She had to get tough again. Couldn't let something stupid like– like being wanted-- get to her like this. When she was sure of her voice again, she said, "Sure. I guess. If you and Buffy need me, I'm there."

Abruptly, he stood, his chair clattering back on the floor. "Good then. I'll have you out in a nonce."

A nonce turned out to be British for "right soon". She'd hardly gotten back to her cell before the guard unlocked the door and gestured with a jerk of his head. "Your fancy-pants mouthpiece got you sprung."

The door creaked open, and Faith took a deep breath, set her shoulders, and strode towards freedom.

"Where'd you get the wheels?" The wicked black Spyder convertible parked at the no-parking sign reflected the last of the winter sunset. Faith reached out and stroked the passenger door. "Steal it?"

Spike shook his head, regret plain in his face. "Nah. I bought it."

She gave him a skeptical glance. "Where'd you get this kind of money? And the money for my bail?"

"I stopped in Vegas on my way here." He aimed the key at the door and sighed as the doors unlocked. "I don't know that I'll ever get over the pleasure of that."

"You won at the casino?"

"Didn't break the bank, but ended up about $80K in the clear."

He opened her door, and she had to brush against him as she inserted herself into the seat. There was a bottle of Mountain Dew and stack of CDs in the console next to her, and the neck of an electric guitar sticking up out of the narrow back seat. "They must have sent good luck down with that leather coat of yours."

"Yeah, well, I'm due some good luck." He got in the other seat and started the car. Over the seductive hum of the motor, he added, "So I bought the car. Paid cash. And bailed you out. I think I might have enough left for a fancy Vegas hotel, and a couple major steaks. You up for that?"

A shower. Real food. A soft bed. Spike's company– she glanced over at him. "Sure. Just get me out of this jurisdiction, and I'm all yours." She looked over at him. "Hey, Spike? I know it's cold. But– just for a bit, could we have the top down?"

He smiled. "I don't really feel the cold, love. Just tell me when you've had enough."

So they drove through the cool night, Faith holding her hair in one hand, the other resting splay-fingered on the door frame, the wind rushing by. The smell of the jail, of confinement, of loneliness, just blew right away into the darkness. Twenty minutes later they were across the county line, and Faith let go of a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She reached over and touched the hand on the gearshift. "Enough," she said, and he pulled over to the shoulder and raised the top.

"I hate jail," she said conversationally.

"Funny how you keep going back."

She shot him a sharp glance. In the glow of the dashboard lights, his face was more ethereal than ever. The best defense was a good offense, she reminded herself. Her personal motto. "You can't tell me you never been in jail."

"Never for long. Hard to keep a vamp confined." He slanted a look at her. "A Slayer either."

"Well, I think of it as a spa vacation. For the soul. Sweats the sin right out of me."

"If you're into self-abuse, I don't know why you don't do like all the other girls. Grab a razor blade and slice up your inner arm."

She shot back, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yum, yum." He did that tongue waggle thing, the one that made her think he kept it limber with hours of oral sex.

She forced her gaze lower. No, not that low. To his hand, the one on the gearshift. "Why is your skin warm?"

"Weird thing, that."

"It means you've got blood circulating in you, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"And a heartbeat."

"So I keep hearing."

"They made you human."

He didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, quietly, "Hope not."

She puzzled over this, watching his knife-blade of a jaw set in a tenser line. "I thought you would want–"

"I don't. That's Angel's fantasy. Wants to be human again. I never wanted that."

"Angel must be... envious."

"Yeah, well, he can have it. Heart, circulation, lungs moving in and out. I want vamp senses and vamp strength and immortality and all that." He glanced over at her. "Still have it, I think. Least I got the senses, and the strength. Too soon to know about the immortality."

"I don't get it."

"Neither do I.. Can even do the sunlight again."

She sucked in her breath. This was more amazing than the heart. "You can?"

"Yeah. Only I get sunburned right quick. English skin and a century without a tan'll do that."

"What else?" Without letting him answer, she leaned across him and looked into his sideview mirror. She saw the top of her head, the dashboard lights reflected off the window pane– and a bit of Spike's square jaw.

She settled back into her seat. "You can see yourself in a mirror."

"Yeah."

"Too bad," she said. "You already think you're all that."

The tension left his face, and he smiled. "Don't need to see my reflection to know that, sweetheart. Just need to look into the eyes of the ladies."

He was still a flirt, she thought. But it was all show. He wasn't any more a hound-dog than he was a lawyer. As far as she knew, he never stepped out on Buffy. When the Chosen One'd caught them flirting last year, he'd practically made Faith sign an affidavit that there was nothing to it. She'd find it sort of inspiring, if it wasn't so frustrating.

"So what's with this Neville vs. Beckham thing? That a real legal case?"

"In Manchester, maybe."

"What do ya mean?"

"They played for Manchester United. The football team."

"Oh!" Faith said. "Beckham's the cute one. Married to Posh Spice."

"Right. Defected to Madrid, the stupid unpatriotic tosser."

"And Barthez vs...."

"Carroll. They're both goalkeepers. Heated rivalry. I said give Barthez another chance, but no one listens to me."

Faith remembered an hourlong argument last spring about just that between Giles and Spike– funny how an impending apocalypse and an afternoon of ESPN2 got them over their little murderous quarrel– and she preferred to steer Spike away before he could explain why he'd been correct all along on this essential footie issue. Buffy– that topic always diverted him. "So you and Buff– you worked it all out?"

He gave a half-laugh. "You could say that."

"Glad to hear it." She tried to infuse some heartiness into her voice. "She was, like, really broken up when you– died. Or whatever you did."

"Ancient history. She's no longer broken up over me. Now she's broken up with me."

"What does that mean? I mean, come on. The two of you– way close, you know, the last weeks. You were–" Her face grew hot again. "You were the only one who stood by her, you know, when we had that– leadership change. And, you know, like, everyone knew you would. She knew it. She never doubted it."

"Why would she doubt it? Three years, I was with her. Guarding her back. Telling her every day I–" He broke off. "That's never been the issue."

"Oh." She didn't like this. Wasn't good at it– all this interpersonal stuff, this sharing. Insensitive, that's what they told her in her anger management group. She always said the wrong thing. But she had to try, in her clumsy way. "I heard her. That day. The last apocalypse. When I was getting all the girls out. Before you– I heard her tell you she loves you. I mean, isn't that it?"

"We got different definitions of love. To me it means– Never mind. To her, it meant we were comrades-in-arms. Who had great sex together."

Faith felt an ache start somewhere in her chest. "Sounds good to me."

"Sounds good to me too. Just doesn't sound like... love. My fault," he added. "I got this– obsession problem."

"Yeah," she muttered. "She didn't seem to mind your obsession problem before." Buffy had used his devotion, in fact. Abused it sometimes. Everyone saw it. Maybe even Spike.

"Scared her. It was too much. I mean, she's not going to feel that way, you know? Not about me, anyway."

"You mean– you think she feels that way about Angel."

He shrugged. "Well, I'd say yes, except there's this weird problem. She's talking about going to off to Cleveland, and ‛sfar as I know, Angel is staying in LA with me."

"So... what's that mean? Besides, you know, that you and Angel are destined to be together forever?"

To her relief, Spike didn't take offense at this. In fact, he chuckled. "Destined to aggravate each other forever." He paused. "I think it means that she's got even more issues with Angel than she does with me. And he's been a lot more willing to wait for her to figure it out. He's okay with her being gone. That's what feels right to him. They've never been together really."

"So... so you're saying their relationship is the same as ever?"

"Yeah. They– " his mouth twisted. "They don't have to be together to be together, see. Not like me. I need her near. I need to – to touch her. See her. Talk to her. That obsession thing."

Faith contemplated this. "Sorry. I don't get them. Why be together if you're never together?"

"My thoughts exactly. But– but see-- they're still... in love." He said those last words as if they were foreign. "Always have been. I kept thinking, you know, if their love was so great, they'd want to hang out. Watch videos. Wake up together. But no. That's what I needed from love. Not what they needed. Angel says it's because their love is unconditional."

"And yours is–?"

"Don't know. I thought it was unconditional too. At least it's unending. But I guess unconditional really means– that I have to let her find her own happiness. Even if it doesn't include me."

Faith thought that sounded very mature. Which meant it sounded very unSpikelike. She snuck a glance at his marble-hard profile, wondering if he really could let Buffy go that way, after loving her so entirely for so long. Wondering if Buffy was insane, or just crazy.

They travelled another few miles in silence. Spike had his window open, and the night outside came rushing in, the air cool and sweet. He caught her glancing at him, and grinned. "Should be at the hotel by nine. Hey!" He tapped the steering wheel. "What do you say we stay for a day or so? They'll have me listed as high-roller after the other night. Means free rooms. Free drinks."

"Sounds good, Spike. If you're not in any hurry to get back to LA."

"No hurry." After a moment, he said, "Probably ought to stay away a few more days. Let Buffy and the ponce work on their, what do you call it?"

"Relationship?"

"That's the word."

Faith put her hand near the gear shift– near his hand. Not on it. Just near it. She felt him vibrating, almost. It was her Slayer sense, sure, this close to a vampire she was bound to get a bit of a transfer high. But – "Hey, Spike, tell me something. If you've lost her, you know, why are you not, you know, suicidal? I mean, I feel it coming off you. That old demon energy. Like you're ready for some adventure."

"Maybe I am. First time in a century I haven't been tied up with one madwoman or another. I hear they've invented something they call casual sex. Thought it's time to give it a try. What do you think?"

Faith had to swallow before she could speak. "That a proposition, Spike? Because–"

"A proposition? To you? Jesus. You think I'm crazy?"

She didn't have time even to feel the sharpness of this before he continued. "I couldn't be– casual with you. I mean, remember who I am. Two nights with you, and I'd be writing you sonnets. Bad sonnets. Iambic stupidameter. I'd be standing outside your window and playing my guitar and singing Beatles songs."

She stole a glance at him. "You don't mean that."

"Sure I do. You're prime obsession material. A week, and you'd be staking me just so you could get some peace and quiet."

"Can't have that," she said, oddly relieved. Oddly disappointed. Eager to leave this subject behind. "If we're going to work together. So, uh, you never actually explained. What we're going to do together. Especially if Buffy's gone."

"Um, pet, explanations going to have to wait... ‛bout ten miles."

"Ten miles?"

"Yeah. Then we'll be across the state line. And you'll have broken the terms of your bond. And so you won't be able to go back. You'll have to stick with me or face serious charges. Interstate flight. Grand theft auto. Kidnapping."

"Kidnapping?"

"Your poor defenseless lawyer. I was just offering you a ride. You stole my car and abducted me by force."

She contemplated this for a moment. "You're telling me it's so bad, if I'd heard back there, I'd've opted to stay in jail. And now only the threat of a life sentence could make me stick around after you tell me what the job is."

"Yeah. ‛Fraid so."

"Tell me."

"Not till I see that Welcome to Nevada sign."

"You know, Spike, soul or no soul, redeemed or not, you're really bad."

He looked over at her, his eyes alight. "You think so? Thanks. Sometimes I think I'm losing it. That I'm going to end up being good. By default. Then I do something unscrupulous and selfish like this, and it makes me feel better."

She knew he meant her to laugh, but she couldn't. Impulsively she reached out and touched his hand on the gearshift. "Thanks, Spike."

"Hey, don't thank me yet. You'll want to take it back in ten miles."

"I don't mean the bail out. I mean, you know. Sometimes I think you're the only one who knows what it's like to be... bad."

"And like it. I know. We're two of a kind, sweetheart. And we're going to make a great team."

"Yeah, as soon as you clue me in on what this great team is supposed to do."

A few minutes later, they crossed the state line, and Spike sighed. "Okay. You wanted the truth. It's not pretty."

"What? The First Evil is out again?"

"Worse than that." He drew a breath and let it out through his teeth. "You remember the Potentials."

"That mass of teenage humanity always hogging the bathrooms? Yeah, I remember them."

"Giles is starting a school. The school for slayers. Only he's calling it a boot camp for slayers."

"Good idea," Faith said, slowly. "I guess?"

"And he asked me."

When he didn't go on, she prompted, "Asked you what?"

"To train them. You know. The fighting."

"Oh."

"I know. It's ... mad."

"Crazy. You. Training them." She waited a beat, and then said, "Of course, that's what you were doing before. And you did good. Who'd be better at teaching them to fight vampires than a vampire, right?"

"Okay. But."

"What?"

"He gave me a title."

"What? Vampire-in-residence?"

"Assistant," he mumbled. "Headmaster."

Faith leaned back in her seat. "Assistant headmaster. You. That's ... scary."

"Of a girls' school."

"Even worse."

"Thirty girls. Teenaged girls. Constant giggling."

"Dude, you're crazy. And– and if you think I'm going to help you out with that, you're– you're worse than crazy! I already tried it! Being their leader! And I was lousy!"

"No, you weren't. You did fine."

"Oh, right. Now you say that. As I recall, you tried to beat the crap outa me at the time. Said I'd betrayed Buffy."

"Well, yeah. But I didn't mean anything negative about your leadership abilities."

"Just my loyalties."

"Water under the bridge.. First Evil no longer a force. Sunnydale no more. Your loyalties not at issue."

"You mean, Buffy no longer your main squeeze."

Maybe that was cruel. It took Spike awhile to answer. "Right. So. I need you. And your– Slayer skills. And leadership abilities."

"You mean you need me to kick the shit out of them when they get out of line."

"Wouldn't look right if I did it. Being as how I'm male. And a vampire."

"So I get to be your enforcer, huh?"

"I prefer to call it Dean of Women."

"What?"

"That's what they used to call it. The one who – you know. Counsels the girls. Assigns them roommates. Keep them from killing each other in the bathroom. Kicks the shit out of them when they get out of line."

"You're mistaking me for– hell. I don't know who you're mistaking me for."

"Maggie Smith," he said.

"Who?"

"Vanessa Redgrave. Judi Dench." He explained, "You know. The actresses. The ones who order everyone around. Don't take any shit. They play Queen Elizabeth. And C in James Bond. And everyone just falls in line and does what they say." He paused, then added persuasively, "You could be like that. Natural authority. Plus you're hot, so they'll admire you and want to emulate you."

Hot, huh? "Natural authority, huh? You really think I got that?"

"You can boss me around any time you like, love."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. Little Dawnie can boss you around."

"Little Dawnie can boss Judi Dench around. Vanessa Redgrave would be cowing before her."

"So make Dawn Dean of Women."

"She's too young. Too volatile."

"I'm too volatile, you idiot. Haven't you noticed?"

"That's just because you don't have a ... purpose. I know. I was that way too. Restless. Wandering around looking for trouble. Starting fights."

"And you changed... when?"

"Okay. So I'm still in transition. But purpose is good. Gives you focus. Everytime you want to bust a jaw, or overturn a police car, you can think, Does this fit my purpose? And if it does, you go ahead, bust the jaw, overturn the car. But if it doesn't fit the purpose..."

"You go ahead, bust the jaw, overturn the car, and feel bad about it later."

"Yeah." He was silent for a moment, then said, "I didn't say I was any bloody good at it. But I get how it's supposed to work. Hey. Put on some tunes."

She used the faint light from the dash to examine the CDs. Again came the unwelcome rush of emotion. All heavy metal. Metallica. Megadeath. Rob Zombie. Anthrax. Slayer.

She shoved in the Megadeath CD, leaning back, refusing to look over at him. She knew he liked this music all right– loud and bashin' was always in fashion with Spike. But he was more of a classicist, preferring the old punk bands to the modern metal. He'd bought these CDs (or lifted them, never could tell with Spike) for her, to make her feel alive again.

She wasn't used to this. Wasn't sure she liked it. It made her weak.

But then they were charging through the darkness, singing along, competing for volume with the fabulous sound system, Born from the dark, In the black cloak of night. To envelop its prey below, Deliver to the light. And Spike knew all the words, and so did she, and they ended up shouting the last line together and laughing, and it was hard to remind herself why this was so wrong for her.

Chapter Text

The slayerettes– slayer cadets, Giles kept reminding Spike, was the preferred term– started arriving right after New Year's. There were twenty-three of them, aged fifteen to nineteen, and Giles couldn't tell them apart the first few days, until Andrew, already earning his keep, spent an evening with twenty-three white t-shirts and a permanent marker. Mrs. Morelli, the old housekeeper, had to do laundry every night, but eventually Faith and Spike and even Giles got the names and the faces fitted together.

Within a week, Spike and Faith had divided the group of slayerettes... cadets... into three squadrons – Ruby, Diamond, and Sapphire (Faith's suggestion), and appointed the most likely of them squad leaders. Each squad had its own set of rooms and its own dining table, but all the girls came together for classes and slayer training. Competition and cooperation, that was the careful dynamic the instructors tried to maintain.

It helped that Faith and Spike got on so well, Giles thought one afternoon in late January. He was leaning against the balcony railing over the big training room, watching them as they took the cadets through an exercise. The pale vampire and the dark vampire slayer, each tricked out in loose sweatpants and tight t-shirts, lithe and laughing– he still could not quite believe what an effective teaching team they had become in a few short weeks.

The cadets watched intently as Spike demonstrated how a vampire parried a stake. Then Faith positioned them in pairs, staker with a plastic straw and stakee at the ready. She and Spike went up and down the line, adjusting an elbow here, sliding a hand further up a stake. Over and over, and then a switch in roles, each cadet playing the slayer and then the vampire, Spike teasingly demonstrating how to slide into game face, and one poor girl furrowing up her forehead and trying very hard to follow him.

Giles was about to go back to his office once the drill was over. But the cadets were clamoring for a match. And Faith could never turn down such a challenge. With a quick grin, she called, "Wake up, English," and aimed a kick at Spike's head. Slayer, vampire– natural enemies, but comrades now– they managed somehow to make fighting look like friendly fun, with quick jibes and the occasional admiring comment interrupting their sparring.

Giles couldn't help imagining Buffy here. Over the years, he'd gotten used to watching her train with Spike, the only one who could take and return her blows. And he'd gotten used to watching them fight together. He'd admit, if only secretly, that Buffy and Spike in action were a thing of wonder, making the nightly patrol worth the alternating boredom and danger.

It was disorienting watching Spike here now with Faith instead. They weren't quite so seamless a team, oddly enough because their fighting styles were so similar. Faith, like Spike, was more of a streetfighter than the classically trained Buffy, so her actions were harder to predict. But even as Giles watched, Spike was integrating Faith's moves, dancing around like Ali and taunting her– "Dropping a shoulder there, love... I could get you on your follow-through if I wanted..."

"Yeah, right, vampire," Faith retorted. "You and what army?" And she correctly anticipated his lunge, jumping to the side at the last second and grabbing his arm to spin him around.

Buffy would have– but Buffy wasn't here. Giles couldn't help but agree when she said that she wouldn't make any kind of teacher. She operated so much on instinct and intuition– she would probably throw up her hands and say, "Trust yourself!"

Faith and Spike, on the other hand, exhibited a level of patience that made Giles marvel. Spike actually enjoyed analyzing the technical aspects of fighting, while Faith excelled at psychological training– enduring pain, overcoming fear, psyching out the adversary. Three weeks of the two of them as teachers, and Giles was almost ready to hope that these teenaged girls could be turned into a demon-fighting force before the spring was out. If they just fought well and survived long, his quixotic venture would be a success worth replicating again, perhaps next year in England.

They'd never be Buffy, of course, but she was one of a kind. And he was glad. He couldn't regret being Buffy's Watcher, but he'd never let himself get close to another Slayer, no matter how many he supervised.

He missed her.

She came back from Tibet and went right to Angel– and stayed. Oh, Giles had gotten a dinner with her, and lunch with her and Dawn two weeks ago. But Sunnydale was gone, and with it, apparently, Buffy's connection to those who had fought its many battles. She moved into a flat in the district just west of Wolfram & Hart, and seemed to be integrating seamlessly into Angel's little contingent.

Giles thought he understood. Sunnydale wasn't just a successful battle to her. It was the reminder of the day when she'd lost a half-dozen of her comrades, including Spike and Anya. Spike was back (and how strange that is, that she did not approach him– he'd told Giles only, "I'm giving her emotional space," a vampire sounding like a new-age therapist, all the while looking like a tragic Byronic hero). But the rest were gone forever, and Buffy must mourn them in secret, unwilling to count their cost against the victory.

Giles wasn't her Watcher anymore, and she no longer needed a father-figure. And, he supposed, they'd never truly been friends. He kept himself too busy to dwell on it much, glad that he had the school and the twenty-three teenagers to distract him, not to mention the instructors, who often seemed little more than teenagers themselves– Spike might have a soul and a shiny new life, but he still sang too loudly when he was happy, and drank too much when he was not, and even now would rather steal liquor than buy it, with Giles's cabinet as his favorite hunting ground. Faith tended toward the manic whenever she had a date with the elusive Principal Wood, and the depressive– no, the volatile– whenever he was otherwise occupied. Andrew... well, Andrew was a space cadet, given to impromptu lectures on video technique and incomprehensible small talk about long-dead TV shows.

All this left Giles no time to think of all he had lost. It was only those moments when he took a break from building the school and rebuilding the Watchers' Council and watched Spike and Faith fight that he considered the other Slayer.

The next day, as if he'd conjured her up, Buffy came to the school, appearing in his office with a bright smile and a gift– a "Kiss the Librarian" coffee mug to replace the one buried somewhere under Sunnydale. She plopped down on a chair. "Just came to say goodbye. I'm going to Cleveland to scout the Hellmouth."

Giles took it well enough, once she'd told him that it was just for a few weeks, and that Willow and Kennedy would be there with her. In fact, Buffy got the distinct impression that he was pleased. He shook his head and observed, "You just can't give up slaying, can you?"

He didn't ask about Angel. Just as well. She wasn't sure what she would say. We love each other. It's great. It's so great, we don't need to be together? Yes, that would go over well. Or I can't live without him anymore, but I don't need to live with him? It was true. But so was It's so much easier to love Angel from a long way away. And she couldn't say that.

And they couldn't discuss the other subject, Giles's edict that Angel wasn't too be trusted with news of the slayerettes' powers and the Slayer academy. She'd already lost that argument weeks ago, and she didn't even bother to assure him that Angel could be trusted with this essential information. Giles wasn't altogether rational on the subject of Angel, not that she blamed him, she supposed.

So they just avoided the subject of Angel. They could not, however, avoid the subject of Spike, because she was acutely aware that he was somewhere right here in this crazy old mansion, right this minute. She'd heard all about it from Dawn, her source for all news-Spike. As casually as she could, she said, "So where do the baby slayers train?"

"They're called cadets," Giles said sternly. "And they train downstairs, in the old ballroom. Spike and Faith are taking them through their drills now. I'm sure the cadets would be excited to meet you. They've been studying some of your tactics."

Buffy felt pleasure fill her. She told herself that it was because of the compliment, but a voice in her head kept whispering Spike's name. She hadn't seen him for more than a month– he had been a man of his word, staying out of her way while she and Angel eased back into a relationship. She still couldn't believe he'd actually let her go. He had come back for her, and then, after only an hour in her presence, left without a backwards glance.

He was only doing what he thought she wanted. And it was what she wanted, she reminded herself. She needed the clarity that came from being without him. Whenever he was near, she didn't trust her own perceptions, her own feelings, her own judgment. How much of what she felt was just a reflection of his desire? She couldn't tell, when he was close, touching her, watching her, loving her.

But weeks away gave her some sense of possibility. She couldn't be his world, and he couldn't be hers. Angel would always be a part of her life. But so, perhaps, could Spike.

Perhaps.

If he'd agree.

And she thought he would. More than a month apart– he would be longing for her. And for once, for now at least, she wanted to give herself to him.

She knew her sudden appearance would startle Spike. But she wasn't ready for his reaction when Giles ushered her into the wood-floored room full of slayer girls in sweats... and one vampire in blue jeans.

Spike was leading a stake-exchange exercise– the cadets lined up in two rows, practicing nice little underhanded tosses back and forth. He was just fielding a toss when he looked up and saw her, his hand automatically closing on the stake, his face paling now, as pale as it had been last year, before he came back alive. He nodded to her, said, "Your turn," to Faith, and strode out of the room.

Faith saved the moment from becoming embarrassing. She cried, "Hey, girls, here's the Chosen One herself– Buffy Summers! B, we were hoping you'd stop by and talk to the girls." And she came over and took Buffy's arm as if they were best girlfriends, pulling her into the circle of slayer cadets.

The girls were gratifyingly excited, crowding round her full of questions, and it was a couple minutes before she noticed that Faith had also disappeared. So after she gave a little speech, and signed some autographs– seriously squitchy– she went looking for them. Once she was out in the hallway, she just needed to follow the loud, discordant music. She was approaching the open door when she heard the music switch off.

"Well, that was a pretty display of temper, pretty boy."

It was Faith. Buffy edged closer, sliding along the wall until she could see into the workout room. Spike was hanging upside down from a set of rings, his t-shirt slipping to reveal his tense abdominal muscles. Vampire bat, Buffy thought irrelevantly. Faith was standing in front of him, her hands on her hips. "You showed a lack of respect for the Slayer. In front of the class. And you know how essential it is that they have her as a positive role model."

"You're positive role model enough."

"Yeah, I can tell them all about how to survive in prison. Come on. She's their hero, and she ought to be."

Buffy felt heat rise in her face. Faith was getting over her Buffy-envy problem. Why? Because she was happy now? Because she had what she wanted? And what was that?

Spike did a sit-up. For just an instant, she saw his face, grim and set, above the rings. Then he uncurled down, the back of his head to the door. "A bit of a warning might have been in order."

"You think I knew? I would have told you. But it doesn't matter. You made it seem like you couldn't be in the same room– and the girls don't know why. They'll assume the worst."

"What's that?"

"That– I don't know. That you don't like her. That you blame her for your dying."

"That's stupid. I was already dead." He reached up and grabbed the rings, then ran through a quick routine, ending up arms stretched out as on a crucifix. Even from her secret station at the door, Buffy could see the pure line of his back muscles straining under his t-shirt. "She just... took me by surprise. But if–"

Buffy decided it was time to make her presence known. She put on a cheerful face and burst through the door. "Hey, guys!"

Faith turned, her face tense, and Spike did a quick twist dismount, landing lightly on his bare feet. "Slayer," he said, in a tone so formal it was almost unrecognizable. "I apologize for leaving too precipitously there. I will apologize to you in front of the class, also, if you deem it appropriate."

At this pronouncement, Buffy started to demur. Faith said, "Don't worry, Buffy. He just starts channeling Giles occasionally. It's not nearly as weird as when Giles channels him. The other day I heard him call the telephone operator a bloody stupid bint."

"That would be funny," Buffy said inanely. She stretched her smile until it hurt her mouth, and added, "No apologies necessary! Just great to see you both. I'm going to Cleveland, you know, just to scout it out, and wanted to say goodbye."

She was watching closely, but as she made this announcement, Spike turned to get a towel off the vault horse– and, she thought, to hide his expression. Faith glanced over at him, and exclaimed, "Wish I could go with you– the action must be better there. Maybe once the term is over, I'll come and visit, and we can kick some Hellmouth ass."

"I don't know how long I'm going to stay there– long enough to figure out how extreme the problem is. But I'll be sure and call if I need reinforcements!" Buffy waited for Spike to comment, but he was rubbing at the back of his neck with the towel, looking away, towards the door. She turned to see a knot of giggling girls, and before she knew it they were bearing her away to the training room for some demonstrations and slayer stories. She glanced back to Spike, but he was headed out a different door. She'd catch him later. Surely he'd be waiting for her later.

But he wasn't. She couldn't find him anywhere in the public areas of the mansion. So instead she had to resort to Faith, who had a suite over the gymnasium. Buffy begged use of her shower and a change of clothes, and maybe a bit of information.

When she came out of the bathroom in borrowed t-shirt and leggings, Faith was sitting cross-legged on the bed, making notes in a green notebook.

She made a face at Buffy. "Yeah, we have to grade the poor girls. Can you imagine? Geez. I would have so flunked if my watcher had graded me that first few months."

"Me too." Buffy dropped into the chair and made a show of toweling dry her hair. "You guys are doing great work, though. Their staking techniques– top-flight."

"Yeah, that's what having a vampire to demonstrate on does. Real interactive instruction. Poor Spike's chest was a mass of bruises yesterday."

Buffy found a comb in her bag and started working it through the knots in her hair. "So," she said with elaborate casualness, "is Spike, uh, seeing anyone?"

Faith gave her a quick glance, then looked back down at her notebook. "Don't know. He's sort of ... discreet."

"But you're supposed to be, you know, good friends. Doesn't he confide in you?"

"Not hardly. Not anymore." She made a face. "There's this one chick at the club. Gorgeous. Blonde. An actress. Used to just gaze adoringly at him and say the dumbest things."

"So?"

"I called her Harmony 2, and since then, he keeps his private life real private." She jounced a little in place, as if embarrassed. "But he plays in a band. And the chicks love him. They hang around afterwards, flirt with him."

"And he flirts back."

"Well, you know Spike. Can't help himself. He does that little thing with his eyebrow and they start giggling. Then he does the tongue thing– you remember the tongue thing?"

"I think I know what you mean," Buffy said drily.

"And they start moaning. It's enough to make me embarrassed for my whole gender. Geez. I mean, sure, I like oral sex as well as the next girl, but –"

Buffy cut in ruthlessly, "So does he go home with any of them?"

"Can't blame him. Don't know if there's any special one. He told me that he was planning on getting some of that casual sex he missed out on when he was yoked to you and Drusilla." Faith tapped the pen top on her lower lip. "So probably he's getting plenty of action, don't you think? But he's still kind of old-fashioned about that kiss-and-tell thing."

Buffy didn't have time to respond, as Faith was setting aside her notebook and hopping off the bed. "Hey, Andrew wanted to tape you in the gym with the squad leaders, for the video yearbook. Try and catch Spike in the courtyard later, okay? He'll probably want to give you advice about those Amboy demons in Cleveland– not that you need it, but you know how he is."

Chapter Text

Spike found Faith sitting on the seawall, her bare feet dangling, a cigarette in her hand. He dropped down beside her and gave her a look he meant to be admonitory. But he never did that look well. "I thought we quit smoking."

"You quit smoking. I quit letting you bum my smokes."

"We can quit that too. Let me have a hit."

She passed him her cigarette and said, "The girls were hoping you and Buffy would do a demo."

"Maybe some other time."

"Maybe tomorrow."

"Maybe not."

"Maybe when a couple dozen teenaged girls whine at you loud enough, you'll give in. Fact, I'd put down a bet on it. Hey," she added as he reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a hand-rolled. "I thought you said you didn't have any–"

"Weed. Found Giles's latest stash cache. Good stuff." He lit it up quick. Exhaled slow. Needed that first drag. "Someday we need to get him really wasted, and get the name of his source."

"Ah, it's a sad thing, Spike, when the students are all just-say-no types, and the teachers are toking up."

"How else can we deal with the stress of teenage life?"

"Yeah. You know Giles lets you steal his weed to keep you from getting too manic."

Spike looked down at the joint. Sullenly, he said, "He doesn't really let me steal it, does he?"

"Fraid so, boyo. Now gimme." She traded the cigarette for the joint, and inhaled deep, and let it out slow.

He couldn't help himself. "So... did you have a nice talk with Buffy?"

She smiled. "She asked me if you were dating anyone."

"So what did you tell her?"

"Told her the truth. That I didn't know. Only I tried to sort of suggest that you had lots of groupies there at the club, and seldom spent a night in your own bed."

"Thanks, Faith. I mean, that you felt it necessary to lie for me like that. Makes me feel all manly."

"Just wanted to make her jealous... if she's of a mind to be jealous, that is."

"You might ask me if that's what I want." Spike looked away, rubbed his hand on the rough concrete wall. Took some skin off. Ground a bit of sand in. It felt good.

"I think she was sort of angling to find out if we were dating. You and me, I mean."

"Whoa! Yeah! What a bloody great idea! A slayer girlfriend! Why didn't I think of that?"

Faith laughed. "I wanted to tell her you'd never make that mistake again. And that I had a man of my own, didn't need to steal hers this time."

"I'm not hers."

"Yeah, right."

He decided to change the subject. "So how's the principal? Still grading papers?"

"He said he'd call tomorrow."

She sounded like a teenager waiting for an invite to the prom. Spike tamed his sarcasm– he was a fine one to make fun of the idiocy of love. "That's good, babe. Hey, light me one of those cigs for my very own, huh? What are you planning on doing with your principal?"

Before she had a chance to respond, Buffy called from behind them, "So there you are!"

She sounded false. Bright, cheerful, artificial. He didn't have to turn to know that she was smiling that false smile she used to wear when she was trying to persuade her friends she was just fine, thanks.

As she came down the path to the seawall, Faith jumped up. "Actually, I was just about to go–"

Spike put a hand around her bare ankle and hung on. "Stay and talk to Buffy," he said. "She hasn't told us about her work there at the evil lawfirm."

Faith gave him a you owe me look, but dropped back down on the wall. "Yeah, B, tell us. Spike says they've got wide-screen TV and espresso in the employee lounge. And that the execs get a clothing allowance. So spill."

Buffy dropped to sit cross-legged on the sand in front of the wall, and started explaining the new offensive W&H was waging against pestilential dimensional stowaways, utilizing the latest in detecting technology. "It's pretty boring– that's why I decided to run off to scout Cleveland, just so I don't have to sit through another lecture by Fred and Knox on hormonal secretions."

"Good," Spike heard himself saying. Cursed himself. None of his business, what she did with her time. But his mouth kept going. "You're a slayer, not some poncey executive. Bad enough that Angel's given up the streets and cemeteries–"

Faith jabbed him hard in the ribs, and he shut up. For about eight seconds. "You get back to slaying, there in the Hellmouth, and leave all that compromisin' with corruption to Angel."

Another jab, this one caving in a rib, he thought, and he was going to jab back, only Faith was on her feet, waving her arms. "Giles! Hey, come on out and sit with us. I want Buffy to tell us about her plans for the Hellmouth. Maybe we can send her an assistant."

Giles approached them, stepping carefully in his shiny loafers, one flagstone to the next. He was wearing a Very Special Sweater, right out of GQ, and there was some evidence a blow-dryer had been fluffing on the meager mane. Spike nudged Faith. "Hey, hey, looks like the headmaster's hoping to get lucky tonight."

Giles's Italian-shod foot came down hard on the seawall an inch from his hand. "Fuck you, Spike."

"Can't, luv. Your date won't want sloppy seconds."

Buffy did her no-sex, please, I'm a Slayer thing, like it was all too distasteful. Angel's influence. Sex=dirty. Spike wondered if she'd ever thought of sex as lovely, as fun, as good clean dirty fun. Nah. He knew better than anyone, he supposed. After the first time with Angel– the last time too, he supposed– it always felt wrong to her, even when it felt right.

Not his problem. And she'd quicklike changed the subject anyway.

"Giles, wait, I have to ask a favor."

Rupert waited there, one foot on the wall, one still on the lawn. "Yes?"

"It's about Xander." Buffy looked up, her face entreating. "He called me from Santa Cruz. And I finally got him to agree to rehab. He's doing that intensive two-week treatment at the Moore Clinic, and I think he really wants to get better."

"That's good, Buffy," Rupert said. Impatient. Spike knew it was because he felt guilty, as they all did, really, that they let Xander fall apart like that. But in Rupert, that translated into annoyance. Xander was the past. The present was stressful enough.

Spike understood. Even agreed. Xander was just another casualty of the apocalypse.

But it was good that Buffy didn't feel that way. Meant something that she still cared.

"I was hoping," she said, "that maybe you'd find a place for him here. You know. Give him a job. A purpose. A place to be."

Giles was shaking his head before she'd even finished. "Absolutely not."

"C'mon, Giles," Buffy said. "Xander is family."

Giles gave her a hard look. "This isn't a family. It's a bootcamp. For slayers."

"But–"

"You know." Spike heard himself interrupt. Christ. Old habits. Still guarding the Slayer's back, even against her own watcher. But in for a penny, in for a pound. "I'm bloody tired of the Ruthless Ripper routine. There's life outside your mission, you know. And an old friend in trouble–"

"As if I don't have enough on my hands. A manic-depressive supposedly redeemed ex-vampire who can't seem to give up thieving, gambling, and drinking my single malt. And–" Giles sniffed, just like a vampire, "smoking marijuana."

Spike could feel Faith smile, and knew what she was thinking. Giles didn't want Buffy to know where the evil weed came from. "Sure, Rupert. I'm a major liability around here. You only keep me around for the entertainment value."

Giles pushed on past the interruption. "Then there's Faith. A fugitive felon with serious fashion issues and that unfortunate taste for metal music which will drive me to murder some day."

"What alliterative powers you have, Rupert. Poem me some more."

"Twenty-three girls with superpowers and chronic PMS. Not to mention a dozen or more of Spike's gangbanger wannabes camping in my courtyard and – and rapping at all hours of the night."

Buffy said, "And all you need to complete the choir is a drunk carpenter with an eyepatch and a country music habit."

Faith said, "She's right, Giles. Xander would fit right in. He could, you know, take over maintaining the place."

"When he's not drinking, drunk, hungover, or listening to Patsy Cline. Let me see, that will leave twenty minutes a day, won't it?"

"Slayer says he needs to–"

"The Slayer is not in charge of personnel decisions around here, Spike, and lest you forget, neither are you."

"Lest you forget," Faith said with acid mimicry, "Spike hired me. And I guess I worked out okay, which was probably a disappointment to you."

Giles ignored this. "If I had the slightest hope that you would step forward and take charge of him, Spike, I might consider it. But you can't even be in the same room with him."

"Sure I can. As long as one of us is passed out, we get along fine."

"The last time you saw him, he punched you in the face."

"Make that a disqualification, and Buffy won't ever be allowed back here. She's broken my nose twelve times. C'mon, Rupert. He's a grown man. He can take charge of himself. Just needs a reason."

"You're a grown man– let me see know, six times older than Xander, aren't you? And if you've taken charge of yourself, I've yet to see it. Bounced checks," Giles muttered. "Credit card late fees. Overdrawn expense account."

"Waita you see the one I file for this week. It'll turn your hair gray. Wait. That happened last time, didn't it?"

"Poser."

"Loser."

"Peter Pan."

"Dumbledore."

Buffy murmured, "Are they always like this?"

"Always," Faith said. "The girls call it the Battle of Britain. But they really–"

"Bloody wanker."

Spike stuck out a bare foot and kicked Giles behind the knee, sending him sprawling into the sand. "Only I get to say bloody wanker, you bloody wanker!"

"–like each other."

Giles rose, and deliberately dusted the sand off his hands over Spike's hair. "My final word. No." He stalked off, up the beach towards the school.

Spike called after him, "Anya would want us to take care of him."

Giles stopped. He didn't turn around. But after a moment, he said, "You want him, Spike, you babysit him."

Faith rose, gave them a thumbs-up, and went up the steps to the mansion.

"Thanks, Slayer," Spike said, finally turning to see her. "But your presence is pleasure enough. You didn't have to bring me a gift."

"I've always thought Xander would make a good Watcher," Buffy said. "And you're right. It's what Anya would have wanted."

"Yeah. I'll go get him when the rehab stint is over." Spike couldn't stand it anymore, being so close to her. He got up, and said, "I'm late," and left her there on the beach.

Buffy tried to leave the Slayer Academy, really she did. But the girls wouldn't let her go. They wanted a slumber party. They were just teenagers, after all, and they wouldn't get many slumber parties in the future. So she accepted the offer of a toothbrush ("never used," promised the anxious Kelsey) and a bed in the Sapphire dormitory, and all the adulation she could handle. Faith was nowhere to be seen, and Ashley said that Spike was at his second job, at some club in West LA near his flat.

Spike was, predictably, a subject of some fascination here in the dormitory. Buffy parried insinuating questions about their prior relationship and made a few subtle inquiries of her own. The girls were more forthcoming than Faith, as they kept close track of his schedule, and were quick to say that he didn't have a girlfriend, at least not one who demanded much of his time. "And," Kelsey said, her blue eyes all fake innocence, "not that I'd know, but it sure seems like Spike would, you know, take his time."

Buffy didn't think these girls' education should include the finer points in the vampire libido. So she said, "Hey! My best friend Willow and me, we used to watch fun videos during our slumber parties! So let's do a Keanu night!"

And, good little minions that they were (as Spike would put it), the girls ran off to get Keanu flicks and bowls of popcorn and bottles of diet coke. And Buffy laughed at the right moments and gasped at the right moments and wondered if Spike would be back in the morning.

He was there in the training room, listlessly pummeling a punching bag, when the girls were finished with their academic courses. He barely acknowledged Buffy, except to put her in charge of the Ruby group, while he and Faith took the other two groups outside for running drills.

It wasn't until mid-afternoon, when the drills were all done, that she got her chance, and a little help from her new friends.

"Spike, you know," the tallest cadet said, "you and Buffy fought together for so long. It'd be cool to see you spar."

Spike was shaking his head, but Buffy said, "Sure! Just like old times, right, Spike?"

She couldn't believe the reluctance on his face. He didn't even want to touch her, that was clear. She looked away, hurt blossoming in her chest.

Then she got angry. He wasn't going to embarrass her, not in front of the slayer cadets. She raised her chin and glared at him.

And found his gaze full on her.

His eyes were filled with longing.

And suddenly she understood. It was too difficult for him. She had to push past his resistance. "C'mon, vampire," she said, in a voice so low she knew only he would hear. "You know you want to dance."

And slowly he smiled, that wry, shy smile that she loved best, and said, "Kelsey, go get Andrew. He's going to want to vid this."

A good fight. They always fought well together– too well, actually, for instructional purposes, Spike realized from his new perspective as a teacher. They knew each other too intimately, could predict every move. It was a dance, not a fight, intuitively choreographed in a way a Slayer would never achieve in real life. But it was pretty, for sure, and impressed even the cynical Faith, and maybe reminded Buffy of what it felt like to get physical with a man who knew her every inch, her every need.

Worked. As they ended the dance to the applause of the slayerettes, Buffy was regarding him with those hot eyes, her lips parted, her breath coming in short pants. He remembered when–

Faith sent the slayerettes off to the showers, and Andrew off to his editing machine. But she hung around. She thought she owned him, these days. Just like Rupert, just like Dawn. They all thought they owned him. Sometimes he liked the feeling. Not now, not when Faith was smiling that bright wicked smile and almost winking at him.

"So, Spike, you working tonight?"

"No."

"Going out?"

"No."

"Good. Buff got you good in that shoulder, the one that keeps dislocating. I saw it. It's hurting you. You go home and get in the pool and soak it for awhile, you hear?"

Spike ignored her, or pretended to. "When you leaving for Hellmouth Jr, Slayer?"

"Thursday."

"Thursday!" Faith was a sodding echo. "Well, then, you have some time to, you know. Say your goodbyes first."

"Best of luck, then," he said, and walked towards the door.

"Now remember, Spike," Faith called after him. Whenever things were going well between her and the Principal, she decided everyone else had to get hooked up too. "You go home to your flat on W. Lincoln and soak in the pool. The pool at 457 W. Lincoln."

With friends like that.... Spike headed home, his nerves tingling all the way. Maybe Buffy would come. Maybe not, if he'd alienated her sufficiently with his lack of enthusiasm. Maybe not, if Faith had alienated her with her heavyhanded matchmaking. Maybe–

He passed the pool on the way to his flat. Empty, of course, glowing turquoise in the late afternoon light. It was January, and cool, and no one in the apartment court swam anymore, except for Spike. The manager wanted to keep him happy, so he kept the pool heated even in the winter. Spike thought, if he mentioned moving out again and taking his crime-preventing game-face with him, he might even end up with a hot tub.

There was a message on the machine from Angel. "Call me." Cold.

He took the portable phone out to the pool, and, floating, looking up at the still-light sky, he dialed Angel's number. It's six o'clock, do you know where your slayer is, he thought as he listened to the ring. Angel probably had a tap on her phone, maybe even had some flunky tailing her. And now he'd ring down his jealous wrath on poor innocent Spike.

Spike was smiling when Angel answered.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Just lying here in the pool, looking at the sunset." He splashed for punctuation, and additional provocation. "What's up?"

"That amulet. Did you take it?"

It was the last thing Spike had expected, and he had no answer worth making. Finally he resorted to Faith's echo tactic. "The amulet? Take it? Why would I take it?"

"I don't know. But it's gone."

Spike grew annoyed. "Yeah, Angel, that makes sense. I bring you the bloody thing. You give it back to me. I bring it back again. And then you find it missing, and your first thought is I must have taken it? And you're the great detective, are you?"

Angel was silent for a moment. Then, "Who else would want it?"

"Look around at your evil colleagues, maybe?"

"I sent it down to the lab for analysis. It's no longer there."

Maybe I should be a detective, Spike thought. Sure'd do a better job of it than Angel Investigations and its evil pet lawfirm. "Well, examine the security video, see who came in to the lab. Fingerprints. Psychic tracings. Polygraph tests for the lab workers." He added, "But no. That's way too much trouble when you can just accuse me, huh?"

"All right. You didn't do it. I accept that."

"And you apologize for the false accusation?"

Angel didn't speak for a moment. Then he said coolly, "I'm assuming that perhaps you haven't done what I accused you of, but you've doubtlessly done something else that would provoke me. Something I don't know about yet."

Spike looked up into the dying light. Buffy was standing there at the rose trellis, her bag slipping off her shoulder, her face calm.

"Yeah, Peaches, you're right. No need to apologize. Certain sure I'll do something, probably in the next few hours even, that'll make up for my being unjustly accused in this amulet theft." He rang off without saying goodbye, tossed the phone over onto the lounge chair, and climbed out of the pool.

"Slayer," he said, pulling a towel from the table and starting to dry off. "You here to collect the rest of that dance?"

Chapter Text

Spike insisted on taking a shower and washing off the smell of chlorine. Buffy stood in the middle of his living room, wondering at this. He'd never before worried about such things– but before now, he was a vampire, complete, and knew himself. Now, perhaps, he didn't know himself quite so well, didn't know how good he might be, how appealing....

Spike, of all people, suffering from performance anxiety. It made her feel tender towards him, in a way that was new to her. (And it reassured her, because if he'd indulged since he'd come back from the dead, he wouldn't be so worried– so she must be his first, and his only.)

Without giving herself time to think, she stripped off her clothes and left them on the floor, sneaking naked into the bathroom, and stealthily pulling back the shower curtain and climbing in.

She hadn't fooled him– he still had vampire hearing– and he was waiting for her, his face wary, his body wet and hard. Of course he was hard. No matter what, he couldn't have changed that much. She slid up against him, whispered, "I couldn't wait," into his chest, then held her breath until his arms closed around her.

She lifted her face and he bent to kiss her. Just an instant's contact, then he pulled back, gazing down at her while the water beat against them. "What about–"

He paused, and she took advantage of it to cut off his question. "I've missed you," she said, and joy dawned in his eyes– just like that. Joy.

Ah, Spike. No one else had his gift. The radiance, the joy. Only a moment, but it was forever, his pleasure, and he gave it to her, in those scattered moments when she made him happy. She couldn't feel it anymore– maybe never again– but he could, and as long as he knew joy, she knew it was still in the world.

Now he would kiss her, and his joy was there on his lips, in his hands as they slid up her back, around to her breasts, up to her face. I can still give him this, she thought, leaning back against the wet tiles, surrendering to his passion. Surrendering to her desire.

He held her face gently in his hands, his tongue teasing her lower lip. She flicked her tongue out to touch his, just a fleeting contact, but it made him growl, that wonderful demon growl. She felt the vibrations through her body, all the way down to that poor neglected erogenous zone of hers, and pressed against him, skin to skin as he kissed her again.

He slid his hand through her wet hair, pushing it back from her face, his fingers trailing along her cheek and down her neck. He followed this path with his mouth, kissing the pulse under her jaw, licking the hollow of her throat. "Sweet," he murmured, stroking his wet hand down her wet breast, just brushing his calloused fingertips over her nipple.

Then released her, but just for a moment, sliding down against her to kneel before her. He never noticed the water soaking him, transforming his hair into golden curls, making his body sleek and silvery– he was concentrating on her, his hands going behind her, gripping her bottom, pulling her close to that joyous mouth.

No one else did this. Oh, Riley had tried, dutiful as always. But no one gloried in tonguing her as Spike did, pressing his face against her damp curls, kissing her softly, sweetly, then harder and insistent, mouth and tongue and a dangerous but gentle scrape of teeth. Again and again, his tongue against her clit, between her folds. She would have fallen if his hands weren't on her hips, holding her up.

He pulled away, said threateningly, "Don't come yet."

But it was too late– one more dart of his tongue and she was gone, lost in it, lost in him.

"Bad girl," he whispered, rising and burying his face in her neck. "You have to be punished." And before she could answer, he put his hand between her thighs and slid them apart, entering her, filling her, in a single swift movement. "Bad girl," he murmured against her throat. "Bad girl." With each word, he caressed her inside– warm now, even hot, so much hotter than he'd ever been... the only difference, and so arousing. "Bad girl," he said, then bit her lower lip, sucked on it. "Don't come now. Don't. I won't let you."

And he slid deep up into her, and pressed his thumb suddenly, hard, against her clit, and whispered, "Don't come, don't come," as she shivered against him, shattered around him.

"You're so bad," he said, pulling back to look at her, his eyes dark, his too-pretty mouth set in a frown. "So disobedient."

"Punish me again," she whispered.

And he kissed her tenderly, longingly, his tongue dancing across her lips, his eyes open and staring into hers until she couldn't bear it any longer and closed her eyes, arching against him. He moved in her with aching slowness, making it last, making her whimper with yearning. "Please, Spike. Now."

Finally he let go, gave into her, pressing her back against the tiles, whispering her name. Only then could she sink back into the sensation, now that he'd come too– he always gave her so much, and she had so little to give him, but this time, at least, she gave him all that she had.

The water suddenly turned cold, and Spike cursed, grabbing up the soap and sudsing her up roughly, quickly, up one leg and down the other, along her back and over her breasts, then dropping the bar and rubbing himself against her. "Buffy bar," he murmured, in that silly post-coital way of his, "Slayer suds."

She pushed him away, let the spray rinse them both off, and pulled him out of the tub. There were thick maroon towels on the cupboard shelf, monogrammed with a big S– a housewarming gift, she hoped, not a sign of Spike's new inner Martha Stewart– and she draped one over her shoulders and used another to dry him off, head to foot, until he groaned and nudged her out of the bathroom and over to the bed. He pulled her naked under the covers, cuddling up, sharing what little warmth they had between them. "You're shivering," he said, rubbing her bare arms with his hands, sliding his feet up and down her calves. A friction-machine– he made her laugh, and that made him gather her close and whisper pet names into her damp hair.

They'd never had this so long, not in all their stolen nights, and she wanted to laugh with delight, only she feared it would make her cry. Silly Spike, sweet Spike, all hers again. Always hers. She drifted off to sleep in his arms, and every time she woke up, she opened her eyes to find him still awake, watching her as if she'd vanish otherwise. Don't worry, she wanted to tell him. Don't worry. I'm still here. But she couldn't say it, because it wasn't true, or wouldn't be true very soon.

He woke her at sunrise. She hadn't asked for it, but somehow he knew that she would have to leave early. He lay back, his arm propped under his head, watching as she turned on the light and found her purse and pulled out a comb, tugging it through her tangled hair.

Finally he broke the silence. "What about Angel?"

"You didn't ask me that last night."

"I know. I should have. I ... was weak. Didn't want to hear it. But now I need to know."

"He's still with me. He always will be. I can't explain it. Part of me."

"And... he's okay with this?"

Buffy drew into herself, found the inner voice. "He understands. He knows that it has to be this way, if we're going to be together."

Spike lay his head back down and stared at the ceiling. "So. I'm what? The– the massage therapist? The one you visit to get the kinks out?"

"You – you are my lover."

"Doesn't feel that way."

"I do. Love you. I mean."

"Right. Let's see. You love him metaphysically. Me physically. And you think that can work?"

"It– it did before."

She heard his sharp intake of breath, and knew that she had, involuntarily, hurt him. She didn't even know what she'd said. It was nothing but the truth– a complicated truth. But ... but he'd known all along, hadn't he?

"I'm sorry, Spike. I keep... wounding you."

"Yeah. Well." After a moment he sat up, reached out, took her hand. Smoothed his thumb over her knuckle, down her index finger, along the pale polish on the nail. "I can't do it, Buffy. I'd give anything to be with you. But this I can't do. Every minute I'd be – Being with you would hurt more than being without you."

"You don't– you won't love me anymore?"

His answer came immediate. Imperative. "I'll always love you." A moment. "Whatever I am that is good, it is because of you. I'll never forget that." He brought her hand to his cheek, closed his eyes. "But I can't live like this. Without hope." He drew a ragged breath. "You asked me last month if I'd let you go. Now I'm asking you. Will you let me go? Release me?"

Her throat hurt, but she forced the words out. "From what?"

"From all the vows I took. To stay by you. To never leave you."

"I didn't ask you to vow that."

"I know. But I did. And it's not what you need, and ... and it's not what I need either. But I can't go on unless you release me."

Release him. She opened her mouth to snap out a quick Fine, but found she couldn't. It had been a constant in her life for so long, that if she wanted Spike, if she needed him, he would be there. And he was telling her that he always would be, unless she released him. And all she had to do to keep him was say no.

She looked up at him, gazed into his eyes, so dark, so stormy, and imagined what it would be like to lose him. Forever. Not just push him to the side. Not just close the door on him and leave it unlocked. But to give him up, to give up his love and his loyalty and his devotion....

I can't.

"What about Dawn?" she whispered.

"I'll be here for Dawn. But... but you don't need me like that."

I do.

"Okay." She rose, stood for a moment staring at the floor. From the tangle of clothes heaped there, she located her red blouse. She pulled it over her head, and with her face safely hidden, and her voice muffled, she said, "Does this mean– you know. That we never see each other again?"

"I don't know. Don't know what I can handle." He paused, waited until her face emerged from the collar, looked up at her with something like a smile. "Dawn's graduation. Wedding. You know. Can't stay away from those. Be okay."

"Spike..."

"Just go, pet."

Will you always love me? Really? How can you promise that?

She didn't say it, but he heard her. "Enough, now, love. You know what you know."

But she didn't. "Spike," she said again. "Why can't I? I don't understand it. Why can't I?"

And for the first time, he turned away, his face concealed by the pillow. "I don't know. But it'll kill us both if you have to keep trying. And we've died enough already."

There was nothing else to say, except I'm sorry, and that wasn't right. So she went out into the living room and used his phone to call a cab, and went out and sat in the cool courtyard, right by the pool, watching the sky lighten and waiting for her ride.

Spike didn't get drunk. Didn't bust up the apartment. He just sat in the shade by the pool all morning, feet in the water, hand on the portable phone. It rang only once– Angel. Spike felt jolt of something rather like guilt– but it couldn't be guilt, wouldn't be fair for it to be guilt– and waited for rage. But Angel was only reporting conscientiously that the amulet had been located in the lab after all, and Spike was off the hook for the theft.

Spike thought of a number of things to say, all ill-advised. He considered each of them, discarded all but one. "You're such a prat."

Angel ignored this. "Goodbye."

"Wear it in good health."

A moment. "I'm not going to wear it. Not after you did."

Oho. "No sloppy seconds for our Angel."

"More your style, isn't it?"

Despite his hatred of Angel, and his utter misery, Spike had to laugh. It seemed to sum up a lot about their relationship, especially the sloppy part. "Your point. Hey."

"Yes?"

"Be careful with that thing, you know? I got no clue why you're supposed to have it, and I don't trust those Powers of yours, and I sure don't trust that law firm of yours. The damned thing isn't good. Maybe not evil, but it for sure isn't all good."

Angel was silent for a moment. Then, coolly, he said, "Not your affair anymore."

Fuck you, Spike thought. Another of those ill-advised responses. "Right-o, mate. Your turn to burn." And he hung up, tossed the phone onto his towel, and dove into the pool. He'd swum a half-mile in frustrating 20-yard segments before he was reasonably certain he wasn't going to go toss Angel out his high-rise window into the noonday sun.

Chapter Text

The next training session was all about kicks. Faith was the champ at this, with her powerful thighs and vicious flashing right foot, but Spike was prettier about it, or at least that's what he told the slayerettes. He waited for Faith to come in, quip this one out of the park, say something sneering about his grace, but she missed the cue. She was off in her own dimension today, sparring with a grim abstraction that had nothing to do with him and little to do with any demons except the ones in her own mind.

He sympathized, or would, if he wasn't personally trying to distract himself from never with this very moment.

He blocked her next jab with his forearm, winced at the shock, and decided to explain why forearms weren't the best shield against a jamming boot.

"Hold up," Spike said, and turned to address the students. But Faith, caught up in her thoughts, followed through with a roundhouse that got him right on the temple and sent him staggering back into the vaulting horse. "Jesus!" He grabbed hold of the horse and held himself up, pressing his other hand to his head. "What part of hold up don't you understand?"

"Sorry," Faith muttered.

Spike glared at the students. "Class dismissed. Get the hell out of here."

When they filed out, whispering, he turned to her. "You know, I heal quick, but a fractured skull is still going to be a problem."

"I know. Look. I'm sorry. I'm ... distracted."

"Yeah. How come when you're distracted, I'm the one ends up with the broken head?"

She went to the cooler in the corner and opened it, pulling out a bag of ice. "Sit down. Let me see the cut."

"Never mind." He grabbed the ice out of her hand and turned away, licking up the blood that ran down his cheek. "Take it things didn't go so well with the principal."

"He emailed."

Spike waited, pressing the icepack hard against his temple, enjoying the ache.

"A long email. Bulleted. All sorts of reasons why this isn't going to work. Why we're not suited for each other."

Spike was a romantic, he was the first to admit it, and though he liked to stay modern, he sometimes found himself longing for the old days, when people knew how to conduct their affairs. "He broke up with you by email?"

"Could have been worse. Could have been a fax," she said gloomily.

He dropped onto the floor, sprawling out, using the ice bag as a pillow. "Hey. I feel better now. At least I got the sex sendoff."

"You blew it, huh? The big night with Buffy?"

"I didn't blow it."

Faith gave him a considering glance as she sat Indian style beside him. "Did you send her off, or she send you off? Or was it a simultaneous sendoff? Those are supposed to be the best kind."

He shrugged. He didn't want to remember. He still couldn't believe what he'd said, or how much it hurt. How much it hurt her... he was prepared for hurting himself, but hurting her.... "I guess I gave her an ultimatum. Subtle-like. And when she didn't go for it, I said it was over."

"Did you mean it?"

He hesitated. No. Yes. "At the moment I did. I thought– this isn't why I got sent back. I didn't come back to live another few years trapped in her ambivalence."

"Ambivalence. You think that's better or worse than absolutely positively never again?"

He had to smile. "Faith, babe, if he feels like that, he's crazy, and you don't need a crazy man." When she just looked down, her lip trembling a little, he added more gently, "What did he say?"

"What you'd expect."

"That he just isn't good enough for you?"

"Thanks, hon, but that wasn't the message. More that he was glad I'd settled down some, but he's got a good job now, and – and I really had to settle down more, and, oh, you know, go to college and start dressing like a grownup and get better friends–"

"I was wondering if he'd mention me."

Faith looked up guiltily. "I didn't say–"

"I know. But hell, if my girlfriend had me as a friend, I'd probably tell her to lose me too."

Faith found her way through that tangled sentence, and said, "Well, you did kill his mother."

Spike was done with the self-abnegation. Never took long. "Yeah, when she was trying to kill me, and then he tried to kill me in return, and I let him live. Anyway, I mean, you know, crown me with thorns of guilt and all that, and god knows, I've drowned in it, but– come on. She was the Slayer. I was a vampire. It was our job to fight. And I don't regret that battle. Sorry she died, I reckon, now," he added, belatedly. With renewed enthusiasm, he finished, "But what a way to go– you've never seen such a fight, babe. She was so great. So amazing. If she'd staked me, I would have been just as happy. It was that good."

"You took her coat. And you still wear it."

"Right. And if she were here now, she'd understand. I wear it in honor of her– in honor of the greatest victory of my life, the greatest warrior I've ever defeated." He looked at Faith. "You understand, don't you? I mean, he's a civilian. He thinks it's murder, all that. But it was a battle, and she died gloriously. If you and I fought, you'd understand, right?"

"Yes, Spike, and when I staked you, and took that coat, I'd know you'd be feeling proud to be killed by me."

"I would. I'd thank my stars."

"You'd curse the day."

"No." It came out more fierce than he wanted. But he meant it. He'd done a thousand evils in his time. But fighting the Slayers, even killing them, wasn't evil. It had been his destiny– their destiny. Poor Robin Wood, with his childhood cut short– he couldn't be expected to understand. Faith though–

"I could take you," she said.

"I'd let you," he replied, knowing it would annoy her. "I'd be honored to die at your hands."

"You wouldn't have any choice in the matter, vampire."

It was all very nice, this talk of killing. But it couldn't last. Her face fell, and the lower lip came out again. "You know what fries me? He's all lofty, telling me I shouldn't be hanging out with the likes of you."

"You said yourself he has reason."

"Yeah, but you know what? He wasn't the one who kept watching for me in the police reports. Wasn't the one who tracked me down and bailed me out and got me across the state line and bought me the best steak I ever had in my whole life."

"That was a good steak," Spike recalled. "We should go back. Here in California, they do good radicchio. Not steak. Nice, bloody, rare..." He brought his thoughts back to the present. The blasted present. "So about the principal–"

"Once I was back here, had a job, then he wanted to start up again. But when I needed a friend, when I needed someone to believe in me, where was he?"

"Grading papers in the teacher's lounge?"

"Yeah. And okay. So maybe I do laugh too loud–"

"You have a great laugh!"

She smiled a sad smile. "Don't feel much like laughing now. So I guess he succeeded."

Spike decided to kill him. Search him out in his principal's office and finish the job started last year. Rip his throat out and bring his bleeding vocal cords to Faith and say, Now you can laugh. He won't ever insult you again.

"Spike."

"What?"

"You're going into game face. Geez. You really are scary, you know that?"

The demon slipped back underneath. "You don't have to say that, babe. Appreciate it, though."

"Look like one of my nightmares."

"Okay, that makes up for your kicking the brains out of me."

"Small task, that one." She rolled up her pantleg, frowned at a bruise above her ankle. "Buffy's an idiot."

"Nah, c'mon. She's not–"

"Wait a minute. I criticized Robin. I mean, I said bad things about him. And you're going to just defend Buffy? Some jilted guy you are. Can't even get nasty like I did."

"Hey, Faith, I realize ten nights over eight months constitutes a longterm relationship for you. But –"

"Right. It doesn't compare to twelve years as Buffy's devoted swain."

"Three years." A moment's thought, then grudgingly, "Maybe four."

"And in all that time, she never figured out how good she had it. I call that an idiot." She bumped his ribs with her elbow. "You know what we need?"

"More of Giles's Glenfiddich? Maybe a nickel of his weed?"

"Yeah, that might do it– No. We need a party."

Chapter Text

Buffy gave into panic Wednesday evening. She had to see him again. Just see him. So she drifted, without conscious thought, to the club where Dawn said he worked evenings. If he wasn't there, it wasn't meant to be. If he was–

There was a big hand-lettered poster slapped over the glassed-in Now Playing sign. Heartbreak Night. No cover for those with broken hearts.

She hesitated there in front of the bouncer. "What's the cover?"

"Free. If your heart's been slayed, Spike's already paid." He recited this as if it were some great line of doggerel, with a lilt and half a laugh.

Heart slayed. Spike's paid. A message if she'd ever heard one. She should turn back, go back to her sterile luxury apartment, call Angel and talk to him about forever. Instead she glanced through the open door into the darkness beyond, hearing a band tuning up. "What about if my heart isn't broken?"

The bouncer frowned. "First one tonight. Three dollars, I guess. That's the usual cover."

She opened her purse and found three one-dollar bills and her ID, and with some dread, crossed into the big loud dark room. Wary of being discovered, she kept to the shadows along the edge, sliding past tables and up the stairs to a dark booth in the very back, up on the balcony level, beyond a group of big men in softball uniforms. She slid in to the booth, all the way up against the corner, and concentrated on sending out Don't ask to join me vibes. But she didn't need to worry. The softball team was so big and so loud no one noticed her, not even the waitress. Buffy had to yell to get her attention.

"Sorry, hon! The guys there take up a lot of room. I'll keep checking back on you, cuz I won't be able to see you otherwise. Whatcha want?"

"A wine cooler. And– and can you tell me what's going on tonight?"

The waitress glanced down at the now-deserted bandstand. "The band's going to be back any minute. They're doing something different. Heartbreak songs, like the sign outside says. Singing only the songs that talk about broken hearts." She grinned. "So not their usual metal stuff. Hope you don't mind country music!"

Buffy said slowly, "Hard to imagine. Spike and country."

"You know Spike? What a honey, huh? I'd soothe his heartbreak in a second, he asked me. But I think Faith's got that all sewn up."

"Faith?" Buffy echoed faintly.

"Yeah, you know her? Tough girl. Sings with the band sometimes. Megadeth. Slayer."

Buffy just stared.

"You know. Slayer. The heavy metal band. She sings that Raining Blood song."

"Oh. And... Spike likes her."

"Maybe. Hard to know with him. Flirts with everyone. Never follows through. Hey," the waitress flipped her order book back into her pocket. "Band's comin' on. I'll get your drink."

As the band walked back on the stage, Spike third in line, Buffy pressed up against the corner of the booth, willing herself invisible. Could he still sense her, as he always could back before– before he changed? Or would he assume any Slayer vibes came from Faith, the one, she noted darkly, sitting on the edge of the stage, her legs swinging, her mouth going as usual, calling something out to a group of girls at a nearby table, the ones who were chanting Spike, Spike, Spike?

Spike looked... sad. Sort of. He was gazing down, tuning his bass guitar. Had she ever seen him with a guitar before? There was one in his crypt for awhile, she remembered, leaned against the wall, negligently posed. Then it was gone, and when she asked about it, Spike had muttered something about it being safer somewhere else. Somewhere she wasn't, she was supposed to understand. Or maybe somewhere the owner didn't hurl full bottles of whiskey when he was angry. Or maybe he'd just pawned it to get money for cigarettes. But he'd never played it for her. Never sang to her, except that ridiculous day everyone was singing.

She'd never actually seen him like this, in a context that didn't include her. He'd always been in her orbit before– fighting her demons or stalking through her town or waiting on the edge of the circle of her friends. But this was his place, his context. His band, his club. His friends.

Spike. Friends. She was glad, she told herself, that the young roadie came up to him and said something hopeful and admiring while adjusting the microphone, and that the drummer was calling, "Hey, Spike, listen to my new fill," as they tuned up, and that Faith was there watching out for him, protecting him from the chanting girls, or whatever the hell Faith was doing there. These people here in the club weren't part of Buffy's world. They all knew Spike as Spike the bass player, Spike the bartender, Spike the, well, hottie– not Spike the vampire or Spike the Slayer's ex-boyfriend or Spike the evil soulless thing....

Well, Faith knew him from before. But she had her own past to overcome, or leave behind. She'd be glad of the company.

Buffy kept her focus on Spike even as the young blonde lead guitarist walked to the front of the stage and, glancing around nervously, said, "Uh. Well. This is, like, a special event. We're going to, you know, play songs about, you know. Lost love. Heartbreak. And, like, it's audience participation time too. So, well, if, you know, you have any songs you want to request, or you want to sing, well, we'll try and, well, accommodate it. Try. I mean, probably someone will know most of the songs. And I guess you could, you know, hum it and we could maybe get the tune." He glanced nervously back at Spike, who nodded encouragingly. Then he put his hand over his eyes like a visor and peered around the room. "Hey, Dead, Spike said you'd be here! You know all the old songs. Come on up and play with us."

The man who rose must have been known as Dead because he was a stereotypical Deadhead, an aging hippie with gray hair pulled back into a ponytail and a tie-dyed t-shirt over a paunchy stomach. He made his way to the cheap keyboard set near the back of the stage, clapping Spike on the shoulder as he went past.

The lead guitarist glanced back again at Spike. "So, like, we're going to start with Metallica."

He broke into some crashing guitar chords and shouted into the mike, something harsh and incomprehensible about disappearing and suffering. The softball team liked it, shouted along with the singer, but there were restless stirrings from the tables of women grouped around the stage. And once the heavy-metal song was over, the deadhead keyboardist said, "I think it's time for some Roy Orbison."

Spike looked up from his bass and grinned, and played the first few deep notes of an old song. He and the Deadhead seemed to be the only ones who knew it, but the younger bandmates picked up the melody quickly. In a surprisingly sweet tenor, the deadhead sang I'm cryyyyying... over you, and even over the hoots of the softballers, Buffy heard the sorrow there. It was all melodrama, overdone, wailing... but it stirred something in her, the memory of that summer after she sent Angel to the hellzone. Misery. Utter, miserable misery.

She'd never quite gotten over it. Even after Angel came back, even now that he was hers, she still felt the effects of losing him.

It was the lead guitarist, not Spike, who pulled Faith up to sing. She did lean over to whisper something to Spike, presumably the title of the song, and he nodded and called out a few words to the other two guitarists, and to the deadhead keyboardist, "She wants 'To Love Somebody,' mate, Janis version, not BeeGees, so up the blues level a mite."

Buffy had no reason to be annoyed with Faith. After all, Faith had been her good buddy the other day, telling her Spike's address, urging her to go over there. Faith and Spike were just friends, anyone could see that, not that Buffy had any right to object if their constant companionship– hanging out together after work too?– resulted in something deeper. But... But there was something about Faith that always made Buffy feel... lesser. (She suspected that the reverse was true also. She thought they'd never really be able to be friends, as long as they were both slayers.) Faith was so vivid and vibrant, standing up there in her tight jeans and tight blouse, her nipples hard like walnuts against the red fabric, doing more dancing with one tapping foot than most girls did with their whole body. You don't know what it's like... to love somebody, to love somebody, the way I love you. And it turned out she had a husky bluesy voice, sexy enough to make the softball team settle down and listen and sigh. And Spike was watching her, smiling a little, as he played his bass guitar.

When the applause died down– and there was a lot, and yes, Buffy joined in– Faith stepped back, and Spike and the lead guitarist huddled for a moment, and then he came to the microphone. For a second, he scanned the crowd, and Buffy ducked down, worried that somehow he might sight her. But even with vampire vision, there was no way he could see through the softball team– she had to peer around them to see down to the stage. The girls' chant started up again, and he turned and smiled at the nearest table, and Buffy watched with some irony as two of the girls seemed to swoon under the force of this.

He was beautiful. Sometimes she wondered how it had taken her so long to notice. She'd been entranced with the Angel model, she thought– the big dark hulking figure, all jaw and shoulders and chest– and so of course Riley had seemed just right to her, that first year after Angel left. But she must have been blind whenever she glanced Spike's way back then, because all she saw was the annoying smile and the game-face and the slender body that somehow took up so much space and kept getting in her way. Even when her mother (who knew how old he was, but didn't care) referred to him as "that beautiful boy," and Dawn (who also knew) said he was a total hunkaroo, Buffy ignored them, ignored him. Even when she was in his arms, kissing that mouth, she didn't, couldn't, let herself see the beauty there. He was sexy, and that was an affront to her, a challenge to her, a lure. But beautiful? She would have denied it.

Now she couldn't. His face was so pure in its lines, so sharply cut, his mouth paradoxically soft, his eyes a silver-blue almost hot under the lights. She gazed at him, at the secret smile as he looked down at his guitar, and wondered if she could live without seeing him again, without watching the expressions play across that mobile face, without reading every emotion in his eyes.

It was impossible. And yet, all summer, that was what she understood, that she had said goodbye to him at the Hellmouth, and he would be lost to her forever. And she'd accepted that, as much as she could. He'd chosen his sacrifice, and earned his redemption, and it was a glorious death, an epic death, the ending a champion deserved. Her personal grief seemed almost beside the point. She felt proud that she had been with him at the end of his journey, that she had perhaps even been essential to that journey. Whatever I am that is good, it is because of you.

But then he came back, and nothing made any sense anymore, especially the emptiness still inside her. She'd almost gotten used to it, almost accepted it, until he came back and made her wonder what it would like to be filled– with hope or joy or fear or anything bright and vivid and alive.

He always had that, always had the spark of life. Before, during, after. Spike was so alive, and she wasn't, and all she was ever going to do was dim that spark, douse it–

He bent over the mike. "This is an old REM song."

It was brutally short, brutally sad. Lost. Despairing. He sang it in a deceptively soft voice, drawing out the ending until it was no more than a barren whisper.

I feel great. I lied to save your feelings.
Truth convened, my head smashed through the ceiling
I lost an arm, no one harmed you, diplomatically alarmed.
I sulked away to lick my thin skin.
And I'm not over you.
I'm not over you.

I'm not over you.
I'm not over you.

There was a moment of silence when he stopped, then applause. He turned away, started towards the back of the stage. Buffy couldn't breathe. Then Faith went over to the keyboardist and whispered something to him, and the deadhead nodded and banged his fingers into the keys. A sigh and then a laugh eased out of the crowd at the familiar opening, and Faith moved to the mike. "Spike loves disco, you know."

And Spike turned back to the audience, laughing, and handed his bass to the hovering roadie. "You start it, babe."

And Faith did, striking a militant pose:

First I was afraid, I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side

Once she got going, the audience joined in, and Spike leaned into Faith's mike to sing along with the chorus– I will survive, I will survive– his hand on her back, his eyes bright. When they got to "saving all my lovin' for someone who's lovin' me", they high-fived, the perfect team--

That was Spike– despair, and then defiance.

That was what Buffy loved about him, envied in him. Would miss most. He felt like a tornado.

It went on for a long time. Happy heartbreak, manic misery. Spike did an old Motown song, Every Little Bit Hurts, his voice caressing the words Come back to me, darling, you'll see, I can give you all the things that you wanted before– If you will stay with me. The spotlight was on him, and his eyes were closed, and she remembered that almost always, he closed his eyes when he kissed her, descending into the experience as he was with this song. She used to be glad of this, afraid of what she'd see if she could look into his eyes at such moments. It would reveal far too much.

The softball team was so affected they ordered five more pitchers to drown their sorrow, then, very drunk, they linked arms and sang in a chorus of warbly voices My Heart Will Go On, and the girls at the front table stood up and sang I Will Always Love You, half of them channeling Dolly Parton, the others Whitney Houston. Not a pretty sight, or sound for that matter.

The songs after that alternated between sappy and angry, depending on which bandmember or which audience member seized control of the mike. Spike and Dead were the only ones in the band that knew all of the songs, but the others tried gamely to keep up. Buffy thought it must all be great fun to be up there, singing old songs and playing to the crowd–

Spike was having fun.

She didn't doubt for a moment that he was hurting. She knew him, knew his body, knew his face, and there was pain etched there, pain she had caused, so she recognized it straightaway. But he was laughing and dancing to some dumb old Ramones song, All Screwed Up, she remembered from his endless Ramones mix tape– did she know he could dance so well? Had they ever really danced, the way others danced– to music, on a dancefloor, not just fighting and making love? But of course he could dance, so sensuous and lithe that it was almost sinful just watching him. Every woman there was imagining him as a lover, except for Buffy, who needed only her memories, not her imagination. What if they would have gone dancing together some night, gone to the Bronze and danced instead of just making out in the shadows? Would that have been... fun?

She thought maybe she'd taken that from him. Long ago, when she first knew him, Spike had fun. Was fun. The night at the school when he "messed up all her doilies" and her mother had to save her– the merry chases he led her when they were still enemies– the laughing light in his eyes when he drove them all in that stupid stolen RV.... When was the last time she'd seen that light?

Oh, yeah. The day he died, as the sunlight poured out of him. He was laughing then.

But before that– loving her, she thought, had dimmed that light as nothing else had done.

Once he had whispered to her that she was a creature of the night, like him, and that he was going to draw her into the darkness. He had the parties confused there. Maybe he was the creature of the light, and she was the one who drew him into the dark. Maybe as soon as he started loving her, he lost the light.

Great. Guilt. She didn't need that now.

But maybe this revelation would help her let go. She wasn't good for Spike, not any more. Oh, she had been– back when he'd been so much fun, he'd also been murderous and a-moral and destructive, and she'd helped him find his way to goodness. But now he didn't need her as his conscience, as his incentive. No matter what, he wouldn't destroy his hardwon soul. So what could she give him but her own ambivalence? The obligations and bonds of her painful past? She couldn't give him openness or laughter or devotion–

He was at the mike again, a whiskey bottle in his hand. It made her smile, to see him that way again, swigging from it and passing it back to the drummer. "Got to whiskey up the vocal cords for this one," he said, and nodded to the keyboardist, who started pounding out some harsh, raucous melody.

Now you say you love me, after being so untrue–
I want you to cry, cry for me,
cry me a river, I cried a river over you.

It was the perfect bar song. Now Spike sounded like an old blues singer, roughly melodic, the band building force behind him, loud and jarring. The listeners were all on their feet now– Buffy had to stand and creep to the rail to see the stage– bouncing and waving hands above their heads. She saw Faith at the nearest table, grabbing a black girl's hand, gesturing to the other women, and in a moment she got them organized into a chorus at the edge of the stage, singing "Cry me a river" in counterpoint to Spike. Soon the whole room was singing along, and Faith was urging the chorus girls up the steps of the stage, a conga line headed right for Spike. The redhead at the head of the line stopped in front of him and snaked against him, rubbing her pelvis on his, and Spike's trademark eyebrow quirked before he bent his head to accept the kiss she offered. That set the pattern– every woman in the conga line got her moment's dance, and that kiss, as the audience sang the chorus over and over, and the band banged louder and louder.

Buffy grabbed the balcony rail until she felt the brass start to crumple under her fingers. Mine, she thought fiercely. Mine. She wanted to vault down there and fling those girls away, shove them aside, grab Spike and drag him out. Mine. My man.

But he wasn't.

And oh, they liked him, and they showed it, and he was laughing and –

Faith brought up the end of the line.

She stood in front of him with that arrogant stance of hers, one hip jutting out, just a slight sway that made her ass bounce, and a lean into him that had to be bringing her breasts into contact with his chest. And she lifted her head– Buffy couldn't see but could well imagine that wicked glint in her eye.

And Spike's smile slipped off, and he hesitated. Buffy almost laughed aloud at this– so Faith would be disappointed... then he bent and with a gentleness he hadn't shown with the other girls, brushed her cheek with a kiss, and then pulled back to sing the last lines of the song.

Faith stood there stockstill for a moment. But she was nothing if not resilient. She leaned into the mike and sang the chorus with him, then laughed and vaulted off the stage.

Buffy's eyes were stinging and her ears ringing, and she just wanted out– no more reminders of what she had lost (or given up), no more sad songs or angry songs. No more laughter, no more laments. She edged her way past the softball team, down the stairs, and along the shadowy wall to the door.

She was barely outside drawing deep cool breaths of the night air when she heard a familiar voice. "Buffy, wait. You should have told me you were coming– we could have sat together."

She turned to see Giles outlined in the doorway, a mug of beer in his hand.

"I– I came on impulse. You know. Not really my scene." She paused, gestured back towards the stage. "Spike's good, isn't he?"

"Well, we always knew he was a showoff." Giles smiled, shaking his head. "Got the crowd going, didn't he? Now that everyone knows heartbreak can be entertaining, they'll go out and do it again."

Buffy wondered if Giles had paid the cover charge, or if he could claim a heart broken while she wasn't paying attention. "We're not going to see each other anymore," she said.

"I'd presumed as much." Giles reached out and touched her shoulder. "He'll be all right, you know. He bounces pretty well, as tonight should show."

"Yeah, if Faith has anything to say about it." She couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Giles didn't speak for a moment. Then he said gently, "She has been a good friend to him. And he needs good friends now. It's been a disorienting return for him."

A flush rose in her cheeks. "I know. And I'm glad that she's there. I am. I just–" She couldn't think of anything else to say. "Are you heading home?"

"No– back in there. I promised Spike I'd sing Tainted Love once everyone was too drunk to aim tomatoes at me." He gave her a last fuzzy smile and turned back to the door. "Call me when you get to Cleveland."

"I will," she said as he waved and went back in.

And as she got into a waiting cab, she heard another song swelling out of the club– It's a Heartache? Some sad-woman song sung by some sad woman. And impulsively she gave the driver the address of the one place she knew she would find quiet and comfort – Angel's apartment.

Angel was still awake. She'd interrupted his meditation– his face as he opened the door was serene and his form relaxed in his loose-fitting gray clothes. He must have sensed her agitation, because he reached out his hand to her, and drew her in, and in a few minutes had her sitting on a big pillow with a cup of something hot and sweet in her hand. She noticed his nostrils flaring in that funny vampire way, and realized her sweater smelled of the beer spilled by the softball team while they were singing along to that Melissa Etheridge song.

"I went by the club. Spike's club," she said.

"Oh." Angel sat down beside her, stretched out his leg, flexed his foot. Some Tai Chi move, probably. He stared at his knee and said, "To say goodbye?"

"No. I already said goodbye. I just wanted to– to see how he was doing." Buffy stole a glance at him. She didn't know how open she could be. They had so many tacit agreements, she'd forgotten which ones they were supposed to keep tacit, and which could be addressed out loud. "He asked me, a couple days ago, to let him go. To release him. And I did. Of course. I don't want... to hurt him anymore. You know."

Angel slowly drew his leg up two inches off the floor and held it there. For a big man, he was surprisingly limber. "That's good. Time to move on."

At least he didn't speak of it as a mistake, that time Spike had been near the center of her life. For some reason, she felt that she had to say it again. "So I let him go."

"I'd never ask that of you. Never ask you to let me go."

She looked down into her tea, saw the ripples in the smooth dark surface. "I know."

"We can't let each other go."

"No."

The left leg lifted to join the right. Both heels were precisely a fistlength off the floor. "He's all right?"

Buffy thought of Spike, sorrowful, exuberant, vibrant Spike. "I think so. He has... friends now. He's not alone anymore."

"That's good." Angel took ten seconds lowering his feet to the floor. His thigh muscles had to be vibrating. It hurt even to watch.

She didn't know how he'd come to be so understanding about Spike. When she first came back from Tibet, she feared that he'd do something terrible– maybe kill Spike or himself. But he'd gotten control once Spike had "gotten out of the way," as he put it, and Buffy had watched, impressed, as Angel worked through the old jealousy and even expressed sympathy for his rival in this impossible situation.

"And you. How are you?"

She thought about how to answer. Honestly, maybe. This calm, gentle Angel could handle honesty. "It was hard to do. I had to let him go last spring, let him die. And that was hard. This was harder. I don't know that I actually... accomplished it."

Angel considered this, his big hands on his knees, his shoulders rounded, his head bent.

"It's good then that you're going to Cleveland. That will help. Distance." He turned, just his head, and smiled at her. "This sort of thing. The Spike sort of thing. It doesn't really survive distances, does it?"

She didn't really know. She and Spike had been in such close proximity for so long– except for these last months. Maybe Angel was right. With a relationship so dependent on– oh, touching and kissing and talking and fighting– distance would have to loosen the bond.

It was so quiet here with Angel. He'd had the walls specially reinforced to block out the traffic noise, and the only sound was her own breathing and the remnants of the band noise ringing in her ears. So quiet, so serene, Angel's place was, dark walls and clean angles and uncluttered space. He was serene too, beside her, understanding somehow that she wanted things simple, elemental, clear, like this beautiful blank room.

She sighed and leaned against the comforting bulk of his arm. "Things get so complicated."

"Yes. That's why we have to concentrate on first principles. Those are simple because they're true."

She smiled, rubbing her cheek on the silk of his sleeve. "Tell me a first principle."

"Our love."

So easy to surrender to his certainty. "Why is it first, why is it a principle?"

"Because it's fated. Destined. Eternal. Unchanging. We loved before either of us existed on earth, and we'll love after the earth fades from the cosmos."

Dramatic language, and yet it felt right. It felt true. Truer than anything else she knew. No matter what, they loved each other. No matter what she became, or he experienced, no matter who else they knew and how they changed, she and Angel would always love each other. It was the one eternal in what she expected to be a short, turbulent life.

But–

But sometimes that seemed to mean that they didn't have to know each other.

Angel didn't know about her guilt over seven years of slaying. She couldn't tell him, because it would only add to the guilt he felt for his own past. He couldn't know about the paralyzing emotional apathy that made her first turn to Spike– because if Angel knew, he'd assume that it was his fault for leaving her. And that would mean more guilt, and the last thing she wanted was to create more anguish for him. He had enough already.

She did know him, of course. And he knew her. She knew that he valued integrity and had his own code of honor. She knew that he was awkward in new social situations but had intensely loyal friends. She knew that he found order and ritual comforting, but could react spontaneously and effectively to sudden threats.

She knew everytime he looked at her he saw the sweet, generous-hearted girl she'd been when they first met. She just had to look in his eyes and see herself reflected that way.

She knew he thought deeply and felt deeply, and she knew something was breaking his heart, and for once, it wasn't her. He had her. Something else was hurting him now.

"Who is Connor?" she asked, taking his hand.

He looked at her, his face blank with shock. "How– where did you get that name?"

"I saw it on your desk the other day. A letter you were writing. I wasn't snooping. I was just looking for a pen. I didn't read it, I swear. I just saw that you'd written Dear Connor, then line after line crossed out." She added, awkwardly, "I sensed that there was hurt there. You know, all those cross-outs. You don't know what to say."

"It's not real," he said quietly. "The letter. I'm not going to send it. I just ... had to write it. Therapy, I guess. To say the things I should have said when I had the chance." A sigh. "But then I got started, and nothing I wrote was real either. I kept starting over, and never got close."

She stroked his hand, squeezed it. "Who is he?"

Angel slid his hand away, rose to his feet. For a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer. Then, finally, he said, "Someone I killed."

"Someone Angelus killed, you mean?"

"No. I killed him. It– had to be. To save others."

"I understand." She had to understand. That's what she gave him that no one else could– understanding. Acceptance. She could not judge him. Judge not, lest ye be judged....

"He was– was very young. Still a boy. But... dangerous. And I keep wanting to explain it to him. Justify it."

Buffy set her teacup down and went to him, putting her arms around his waist and her cheek against his back. She could feel him forcing himself to relax, to calm. "It's okay," she said. "You can explain it to me. Maybe that would help you find the words."

"But I can't ever say them to him." He gave a short laugh, the vibration rumbling against her cheek. "It's just a useless exercise."

"Maybe not. You can't undo the past, but you can understand it better."

He sighed. "I'm not looking for understanding. I want absolution. And I don't deserve it."

"You did what you had to do–"

"Spike never worries about this sort of thing, does he?" Angel said suddenly, turning to face her.

Buffy's arms dropped to her side, and she stepped back. She didn't want to talk about Spike. But she didn't want him misunderstood either. "I– I don't think he thinks of things as you do. But when he came back, with the soul, he was in a very bad way. I thought he'd gone insane. He was talking like Drusilla talked. He was– cutting himself." She felt suddenly wrong, as if she were violating Spike's privacy. Spike wouldn't want Angel to know this. But maybe Angel had to know– "Starving himself. He burned himself on a cross in a church. I almost thought it would be kinder to let him, you know, kill himself somehow. He was so lost–"

"Didn't last."

"No. It didn't. I needed his help. He couldn't help me if he couldn't pull it together. So he did."

"Seems fine now."

Buffy had to smile. "Well, he's died and been reborn in the meantime. I mean, it's been an eventful year for him."

"He takes everything so lightly."

She knew it would do no good to defend Spike. Angel wasn't even really talking about Spike; he was talking about some not-Angel who knew how to forgive himself. "You can't blame yourself for this Connor. You did what you had to do."

"There must have been something else I could have done."

"In retrospect, there's always something else we could have done. It's just that we can't know that when we make our decisions." Buffy took his hands and held them tight. "I know. It's too hard to lead alone. I keep having to learn that, but eventually it's going to sink in, for both of us. You need to reach out more to your friends, Angel. Have you talked about this with Wes and Fred and Gunn?"

"No!" He pulled his hands away. "They don't know anything about it."

"Well, that might be the problem."

Angel smiled a sad smile. "No, that's the solution. Really, Buffy, I love you for caring. But it's just one of those things I have to get over. You're right– it's hard to lead alone. But sometimes leaders make decisions that have to be made, and there are bad results. And I guess I just need to realize that regrets come with the job."

Buffy thought of Anya, of the lost slayers-in-training, of a town destroyed. Of Spike, reborn and yet still marked. "I know. Maybe– maybe we need to see the regrets as the way we honor the loss. If we didn't care, if we didn't notice, if we could just put it out of our minds, then we'd be losing our – our connection to others." She thought of the heartbreak party this evening, that intense immersion into emotion that she could observe but not experience. "I guess sometimes just feeling is good, even if it's a bad feeling? Because it means we can still feel?"

Angel frowned, considering this. "So you're saying I should just let myself feel bad? Not try to justify what I did, or explain it?"

Buffy shook her head. "I don't know– you know I'm no good at this. But it's not doing you any good to keep it all in, is it?"

"I don't know. Yes, it's doing me good. It's keeping me from putting it on other people, those who aren't to blame." Suddenly he turned and went to the door. "Come on, it's very late. Let me drive you back to your apartment."

Chapter Text

In this new incarnation, Spike got hangovers. Oh, he'd been hungover before in his unlife, bit of fuzz-head, pressure over the bridge of the nose. But now he understood why people made vows to quit drinking altogether. Not that he would make such a vow, but he could see why those of weaker constitutions might. Like his colleagues, say.

Faith called in sick the day after the party. So did Giles.

Spike, however, was made of stronger stuff. He met the three squadrons at 1 pm, as usual, and told the squad leaders to run them through their drills. Then he curled up on a wrestling mat in the corner and pretended to be so unhappy with their performance that he couldn't bear to watch.

No one was fooled, but at least he maintained his dignity.

Buffy never called.

He didn't want her to call. Didn't want his resolve weakened by the sound of her voice.

But still, she could have called. Just to say goodbye.

Friday night he was back at the club, tending bar this time. When he got into a rhythm like this, he could forget about his troubles and just live in the moment. Not that he had much choice, since a waitress and the bouncer had run off to Vegas to get married, so they were shorthanded. No time to think, too busy mixing drinks, making change, promising more singalongs, manhandling a few drunks, arguing the supremacy of world football over the laughable American variety– a typical Friday night at the Rievers.

Two of the girls who'd been in the Cry Me a River chorus were sitting at the bar ordering exotic drinks with provocative names– Hot Sweaty Sex on the Beach, and Wet Nipple, and Big Hairy Pole. He wasn't about to wuss out and consult the drink guide under the counter, so made up his own concoctions with girl-pleasing liqueurs like creme de menthe and kahlua. The girls didn't know any better - then again, maybe they'd made up the drink names– and drank them down and kept giving him tenners for the $5 drinks and telling him to keep the change.

A good night. Great tips, Man U on the telly above him kicking ass even without that traitor Beckham, a call from Dawn crowing that she'd gotten an A on her Sumerian paper, and the manager offering him three nights off in a row if he closed tonight.

The bar finally emptied a half hour after official closing time, and he punched a few old Clash tunes in on the jukebox and sang along as he wiped down the bar and capped up the bottles, and thought proudly that he hadn't thought of Buffy in twenty minutes, until just now, of course, and then there was the usual despair plunge. And the songs ran out, and he didn't feel like putting in more quarters, and he was tired of being sad. So he opened the cash register and sorted out the bills, determinedly thinking of Anya now, his favorite running dog of capitalism, and channeled her pleasure at counting up the daily take. Too bad there was a bit of Marxist static behind the Anya channel, rumbling that it was always the clubowner asleep in his bed who got to take the daily take.

As the club's front door swung open, Spike mentally chanted the current sum– $1746.23– and said out loud to the intruder, "Sorry, mate, not open. I'm just closing up. Forgot to lock the door." Then he sensed vampire, and looked up to see a big man, dark, framed in the doorway. "Angel."

"Walk out with me, will you?"

Come to that, has it, Spike thought. Politeness even. But grim withal. Amulet disappeared again? Or Buffy confessed? "Sure. Need to put this in the night depository at the bank next door, then I'm all yours."

Outside in the cool night, Angel became actually cordial, keeping an eye out while Spike bent over the little metal shelf at the bank entrance, filling out the deposit slip. No junkie in this neighborhood was stupid enough to take Spike on– word got around fast; that's why the deposit duty usually fell to him– but it warmed him a bit, to glance over his shoulder and see Angelus standing there a few feet away, big and powerful, guarding his back. Just like old times.

Angelus.

Automatically, conscientiously, Spike slid the deposit slip into the cash bag's plastic sleeve, then opened the metal bin and shoved the cash bag in and listened to it drop.

Angelus.

Not Angel, the Buffy-adored saintly helper of the hopeless.

Not the stupid terroristic thug the others knew as Angelus.

But Angelus, Spike's grandsire.

The one who trained Spike up and taught him well.

And took his love and tortured him with it.

The one who was supposed to have broken in two after the gypsy curse, into the good with the soul and the bad without.

He turned to face the man he'd spent a century watching for– and felt the sting on his neck. As he slumped into his grandsire's arms, he thought, drugging me, yes, that's Angelus. Never liked an even fight.

The anesthetic effect of the paralyzing drug was wearing off, and the pain came and went in great waves. He was covered in blood from a cut over his eye and other wounds he couldn't identify, so Angel shoved him into the shower, holding him up against the tile wall with one hand. The water was icy, and brought him back to full consciousness. It sluiced down his chest and down his back, through his clothes and into the abused places, bringing more pain and some relief. He leaned his cheek against the wet tile and stared down at the bloody water around his bare feet and just endured until the water ran clear again into the drain. "All right," he whispered, and Angel yanked him out and let him drop to the floor.

After his grandsire left the room, Spike reached out a hand for the towel, wincing as it fell from its rail onto his fingers. Gritting his teeth, he sopped up as much wet as he could from his face and clothing. Then he dragged himself to his feet and out of the shower room. Angel was waiting, his hip parked on the desk, his arms crossed over his chest. The bruise over his jaw was already beginning to fade. He had a couple quarts of Spike's blood fueling the healing.

"God, I'd forgotten how pretty you are beaten up. That mouth all pulpy and purple– delicious. Like a ripe plum. Now – what do you say, boy?"

Spike knew he should submit. Good sense, self-preservation. The vampire way. Angelus was his grandsire. He had exerted dominion, and Spike had to submit. It was their rule.

Too bad there was never a rule that Spike didn't break. "Doesn't matter what I say. I told you– I let her go. She let me go. But it doesn't matter. She'll never be yours. Not completely. All that time when you say you loved her but stayed away, I was by her side, and in her bed, and she'll never forget that."

Angelus should have been angry. He should have been vamped out, the demon to the fore. But he wasn't. His smooth face was exultant as he clasped his hands together and swung the joined fists into Spike's chest, like a beach volleyball player setting up for the slam.

That's it, he thought, as he fell to the concrete floor. When Angelus didn't bother to follow up, Spike regrouped, gathering his body together, and pulled himself into an old wooden armchair by the desk. As his wounded hand scraped on the broken chair arm, he sucked in a painful breath, and felt a shard of rib pierce through him. Couldn't hang on anymore.

He could still breathe, still talk, but he felt the life spilling out of him, into the cavity of his chest. It was strange, to feel himself dying like a human would. Always figured he'd just dry up and turn to dust in the air, but maybe death was going to come for him as a slosh of fluids in his own body. "Angelus. Listen. I– I'm fading here, and... promise me."

Angel turned back to him, his face wary. "What?"

"That you'll get your tame solicitors. Do me a will. Backdate it. Whatever. I want– don't have much. But Rupert. Giles. He's keeping something of mine that's worth something. He'll know what I mean. He should sell it. All the money goes to Dawn. Him as trustee. He can have my guitars. And Clem the TV and videos. Wes gets the books. Faith my music."

"How do you know Wes?"

"Just do."

"And nothing for Buffy. Good boy."

"She's already got everything of me, and she knows it. Won't need any more." That earned him a cuff to the back of his head, but it was only half-hearted, and once he could see again, he added, "Listen. You have to write it down. You can forge my signature once they make up the will. Write it down so I can see you got it right."

"You're giving up? Christ. You disappoint me. You used to be tougher than this. Before you were resurrected. Before you got a soul and a heart. But all right. Just to make you feel better I'll write your little bequests down. Note down all the trivial things you have collected in your sorry unlife. You think that'll help them remember you? Not a chance. Before your dust has even settled on the floor, boy, they'll have forgotten you." He patted Spike comfortingly on the cheek and turned towards the desk. "You're not going to die, though. I know you're feeling weak, Will, but I won't let you get off that easily."

Spike tightened his broken fingers on the chair arm, and waited. When Angel bent over the drawer, rummaging for a pen, Spike shoved himself up. He ignored the blaze of pain, everywhere, oh everywhere, and slung his arm around his grandsire's neck, his other fist – or at least the thumb and the palm– closed around the broken shard of the chair arm. "Don't ever call me Will again," he whispered, pressing the makeshift stake into Angel's back.

Angelus froze. Then a low chuckle shivered through the stake. He was the defiant one now– the two of them were hopeless. Just hopeless.

"You're not going to stake me, are you? Because, despite it all, you love me."

Spike sifted through his desires. Kill. Die. Morphine. "It's almost sunrise. Just leave. We're quits." He let the stake fall to the floor and dropped back into the chair. Closed his eyes. He didn't wait for confirmation. Didn't need it. Angelus was a filthy bastard, but he had his code.

"You're such a fucking sentimentalist, Wi– Spike. It's going to get you killed some day."

Spike didn't open his eyes, so he felt, rather than saw, Angelus above him. "But not today. Unless you tell her." Then the quick, casual kiss, right on the scar on his eyebrow.

The door opened. Then– "Want me to call an ambulance?"

"No. Go."

The door closed.

It took a few minutes, but eventually Spike made it out of the chair. His legs worked okay. His hands.... There was a faint light coming in through a high window, illuminating the desktop. There by the broken lamp was a roll of tape.

He was still a vamp. He was. And vamps always healed. It was just pain. That was all. He could manage the pain. He just needed to dial the phone.

He knocked the tape dispenser on its side and inserted his right index and middle finger through the gap under the stretch of tape. Using the knuckles of his other hand to hold the dispenser down, he pushed his fingers against the sticky side of the tape and started wrapping. The pain eased up a bit– just in those two fingers, but still– and he gazed down at his makeshift cast, small triumph blossoming in his chest.

Then he listened for the repeated squawk that signaled a phone off the hook, and tracked the noise to underneath an overturned table. A place to stand and a lever long, and I can move the world, Archimedes said, in his papa's lovely translation. Two strapped fingers and an unbroken arm– that was all Spike needed to get help.

Giles burrowed under the pillow as the phone rang. And rang. The answering machine picked up, and through the foam rubber, he heard the rasp of a voice. "Rupert, are you there? Please–"

Giles sat up. Spike. Saying please. He must have been taken over by a politeness demon.

"Goddamnit, Rupert, if you're there–"

So much for the demon.

Giles growled and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He grabbed the phone. "This better be good, Spike."

"Need help." The sharp intake of a breath. Giles recognized the sound from painful experience– the air rushing through a punctured lung. And Spike now had lungs that worked best intact.

"Tell me where you are."

"Old warehouse. East a block from my club. There's a broken sign over the door, and a window boarded up next to it."

"Do I need backup?"

"I – I don't know. They're gone, but I don't think I'll be able to walk much. But– but Rupert. Don't bring Buffy. I don't want her to see me."

Buffy had seen Spike after Glory had beaten him to a bloody mass of tissue, and after weeks of torture by the First. He must be bad off. "Buffy's already left for Cleveland."

"Good."

"I'll be there. Soon. Hang on."

He re-set the receiver, then glanced at the caller ID and memorized the number there, just in case he had to call Spike back. Then he dialed another number. "Spike's hurt. I think it's bad. I need you to help carry him. It's near the club. Can you meet me there?"

She was standing by the club door, her hands jammed into her pockets, the early light glinting off her dark hair. He pulled up to the curb and reached over to open the passenger door.

"Hey, Giles." Her voice was casual, but he saw the tension coiled in her shoulders as she got in.

"He said he's in a warehouse a block east. Broken sign. Boarded up window."

She pointed into the growing light to the east. "There."

They got out in front of the brick-fronted industrial building. The lock was broken, but Faith kicked the door in anyway. Giles shone his torch inside the dirty reception area, looking for demons. The light paused on the body of Spike, slumped on the floor in front of the desk, his cheek against the phone. Faith got to him first, bending and gently turning him over.

He opened one eye. The other was swollen shut. "Hey, babe," he whispered.

"Hey, yourself." Faith glanced up at Giles, her face set, then she said conversationally, "Will you be okay if we carry you? Your neck and spine okay?"

"Yeah. Mostly it's my hands. They broke them." He lifted one up to illustrate. Scotch tape held two fingers together. The rest were twisted and blue.

"We'll get you home." Giles knelt on the other side of him, gathered up first one and then the other battered hand and set them tenderly on Spike's chest. "Can you tell us who did this to you?"

But Spike had slipped away. Just as well, Giles thought, as he gathered up Spike's legs and, on Faith's count, rose. The ride back was going to be painful.

This was the worst part of a watcher's job, Giles thought as he laid Spike on his guest bed, putting the wounded back together. Spike healed quickly, but that in itself was a problem. The bones in the hands would already be starting to knit crooked.

Faith came out of the bathroom with a basin full of supplies, which she laid out on the coverlet beside Spike. She started efficiently to clean the cuts on his face. "What about his fingers?"

"Bad. Snapped them one by one. It was torture."

Faith squeezed out a string of ointment and dabbed it on the cut over his eye. "He got on the wrong side of someone. I wish he'd wake up and tell us who."

"He'd go mad from the pain if he did." Giles rubbed at his forehead. There were surely other wounds under the damp clothing, to judge by the bloodstains. But Spike deserved a bit of privacy– "Could you go call Angel and ask him for the number of a doctor who is used to dealing with vampires? I'm afraid if we don't get these fingers set quickly, they'll have to be re-broken."

Faith's face paled. "Sure. I'll call him. Be right back."

Giles took advantage of her departure to strip the sodden shirt and jeans. As he expected, Spike's torso was a mass of bruises and cuts. There was a deep bite mark just above the breastbone. Giles hesitated, studied it. Then he went to the linen closet for an elastic bandage, then felt along the ribcage till he found the break. Gently he turned him over.

He saw the other damage, and drew in his breath. Then, grimly, he finished strapping the bandage around Spike's ribs, and located a pair of sweatpants in the dresser. Spike murmured a protest as Giles dressed him, but didn't wake up.

Faith returned a minute later, and immediately went to the bed to smooth the coverlet over Spike's bare, bruised chest.

"What did Angel say?" Giles asked. His voice sounded even enough. Too even, perhaps. But Faith wasn't one for nuance, and didn't notice.

"He said he'd send the doctor over right away. I could tell he was worried."

"I'm sure he is. After all, he's Spike's grandsire."

"He asked if Spike had said who did this to him. Told him no, but Spike had said they, so more than one." She hooked a chair with her foot and dragged it to the bed. "I told him if he was planning on getting revenge, I wanted to be in on it."

Giles looked down at the battered face. "Let's wait to hear what Spike wants to do about it."

When the doctor came, Giles told him to concentrate on the hands. Everything else was healing, even the lung, to judge from the new ease of Spike's breathing. The old man clucked over the abused fingers but didn't suggest hospitalization or police notification. He didn't even ask how a vampire had come to own a working heart and respiratory system. He just splinted each finger, then wrapped up the hands. Spike woke up halfway through, and Giles saw the pain in his eyes and went immediately to the medicine cabinet.

The doctor made no protest as Giles returned with a couple pills and a glass of water, only observing, "I brought a bottle of dilaudid. Synthetic, but a lot like heroin. It acts quickly. Highly addictive– but he'll be healed in a week, probably, so that shouldn't be a problem."

"I'll monitor it."

"Lots of blood. I gave the girl a coolerful. No alcohol."

"Hey," Spike said weakly. "Not fair. Rupert's got a great cabinet, and I'm not supposed to sample it?"

"Pills or drinks," the doctor said, gathering up his tape and scissors. "Your choice."

It was a Saturday– no classes at the Slayer Academy, and Faith announced her intention of sticking close by the invalid for the day. So Giles got no chance to interrogate him that morning. Just as well. Spike, characteristically, had pocketed the painkillers and was doctoring himself with microwaved blood and the Glenfiddich Olivia sent for Giles's birthday. He couldn't hold the glass, so Faith was able to keep the intake within relatively reasonable levels just by refusing to help.

"He sure does know how to cuss," she said later that afternoon, coming wearily into the kitchen. "I think he's into demon languages now, unless maybe he knows Sanskrit or something wonky. Speaking of Sanskrit, can we get some curry takeout?"

"Why not?" Giles gestured to the phone, resigning himself to an extra houseguest. He wasn't quite clear on Faith and Spike's relationship– probably just the fast friendship of the formerly evil– but he got the picture. She wasn't leaving until Spike was back on his feet.

He did manage a few moments when she took his keys and went out to pick up the food. But Spike wasn't initially forthcoming.

"I know Angel did this."

Spike turned his face into the pillow and didn't speak.

Giles tried again. Go after the macho pride. That always worked with Spike. "I can't believe he got you this bad. Didn't you fight back?"

This got him roused. "Drugged me. That one the pygmies use, that paralyzes."

"Curare?"

"Yeah. I could feel the pain some, but couldn't move. And by the time I could move, he'd already done the fingers, so I couldn't do much to retaliate."

Giles had a moment to contemplate the utter sickness of this. Dread came next. "It was Angelus then."

"Not the one you mean. Don't need to worry that the psychopath has returned. It was... my grandsire. The one I know from before. He had it all planned out."

"Your grandsire? But isn't that the same one, the one without the soul?"

"No. No. I can't explain. Angelus is... always there. He created the other two. They're just, I don't know. Personae. Pieces. Faces. But he's always there behind whichever one is facing outward. And he's got a soul just fine, but he's got the ruthlessness too."

"And he decided to torture you? After so long? Why?"

After a moment, Spike sighed, and then groaned as the ripples hit the ribs. "It's a vamp thing. Dominance. I was supposed to submit. I'm his grandchilde. He's older. The acknowledged master."

"But you didn't."

Another sigh. "No. I should have. He's my grandsire. It's owed him." He pulled the coverlet over his shoulder, over his chin. He must have figured out that Giles could reliably read his face (then again, a nearsighted two-year-old could read Spike's face). So whatever he was thinking, he didn't want it to show. "Shouldn't have made him do this to get what's due him by right."

Giles dropped into the armchair. It was still warm from Faith's sojourn. "I can't pretend to understand that. I can, however, promise you my support if you want to take him out with a flamethrower." He waited for the visible corner of Spike's swollen mouth to quirk up in the usual smile, then added, "So if submitting was the right thing to do, and the sensible thing to do, and the easy thing to do, why didn't you do it?"

The cover wiggled. Spike's body was nearly as expressive as his face. "Dunno." Sullen as a teenager, a half-drunk, morphined teenager.

Giles thought back to the other night, the party at the club, and his surprise at seeing Buffy there, watching her heartbroken swain sing about his heartbreak. Angel must have found out. "It was about Buffy."

"Everything's about Buffy. Put on some music, will you?"

Music. Maybe that would loosen Spike's unprecedentedly tight tongue. "What do you want?"

"Bach."

Giles stopped halfway out through the door, looking back. "Really?"

"You know," Spike said with a bit more spirit, "I grew up in the 1860s. Bach was still top of the charts then."

Giles shook his head and went to sort through his CD collection. No Bach. He'd gone off baroque after Jenny died– Spike was right to choose it; it was healing music, only Giles hadn't wanted to heal then– and never replaced his vinyl with CD. So he went to the old cabinet under the staircase and pulled out the obsolete turntable and a battered LP of The Art of the Fugue, and set it all up in the living room. He turned it up loud enough that Spike could hear it filtering through the hallway, and went back to the guestroom.

"Faith's going to be back in a few minutes. What do you want to do?"

Spike huddled deeper in the covers. "I want to... stop. Just stop."

"You tried that. They started you up again. There must be some reason."

"Divine sadism. Poetic justice. Eternal torture. Hell on earth. Cosmic joke."

Giles waited, and finally Spike said, "You know, I came back minus the sun allergy. Why couldn't I come back minus the Buffy-obsession?"

"Because maybe it's right."

Spike pulled the cover off his head and sat up. Pain flowed all the way across his face, from one temple to the other, like an ocean wave. Just a hint of his vamp-face, then gone. "Christ. That hurt. Rupert, you're going mad. You of all people saying me loving her is right."

"Could be right."

Spike slid back down into the bedclothes. "Could be. Won't be."

"Spike, if she saw you this way, and knew it was Angel..."

"Not Angel. My grandsire. The actual one, not the grim brooding copy. Angel doesn't hurt people. Doesn't have enough desire to do anything dangerous like that."

"Tell me."

"It's too complicated."

"And I'm so simple-minded."

"Didn't mean to insult you." After a moment, he added, "Angelus asserted his claim on her. He's never done that before. He took charge to do that, because Angel alone wouldn't."

"Angelus. Your grandsire. Not the ... thug."

"Right. The thug doesn't care about Buffy. Angel does, but he's all politically correct, at least publically. Buffy's got a right to choose, etc. But Angelus– my grandsire-- says he marked her, claimed her. Drank her blood. Spoke the forever words. It's like... marriage. Only there's no divorce. And it's not done much anymore. I mean, I was with Dru for decades, and we never bothered, thank heaven, or hell, or whoever spared me that complication. But Angelus said he had that with Buffy, and I interfered with his claim. Hence the punishment and the– the rest of it, and the demand for submission."

Giles shook his head. "This is all so... medieval."

"Yeah, well, it's older than that."

"But you didn't submit."

"No. Couldn't. Die first. It's always been the way between us. Always."

"Then why didn't he dust you?"

"Because I got a stake to him."

"Then why didn't you dust him?"

Spike didn't answer for a moment. Then he just said, "It ended a standoff. Both of us still here. Nothing settled. I can't... do it. Can't stop loving her just because he says so."

Almost gently, he said, "I agree. But Buffy has chosen him."

Spike murmured something sort of affirmative. Not affirmative enough.

"What?"

He sighed. "Look, Angelus didn't just decide it was the moment to assert his claim. He'd won her. I'd backed off. Told her whatever made her happy– didn't think he would, but you're right, not my place to tell her otherwise, though I guess I've spent most of the last four years trying. Never worked. So I gave up." His voice came thicker now, his face hidden by the coverlet. "Gave up. Maybe they could make it work if I got out of the way."

"Very... mature of you."

"Yeah, well, it killed me, but I'm still here. I'm always still here. It's the goddamnedest thing. No wonder he fucking hates me."

"So what changed?"

"She came over the other night. After she came to the school. Well, no intent to offend here, Rupert, but I assumed the gypsy curse thing was wearing on her nerves."

"And you were, as ever, willing to act as a tranquilizer."

"Can't say tranquil was the effect I was hoping to create, but.... I don't know. I was leaving it open. See what she said. How insulting she got in couching her demand. How bad I wanted her at that point."

"So she came over, and–"

"And... so we had a night of it. And when sunrise came, we ended it." Spike sighed. "That's the stupidest part of it. I really did end it. And I meant it this time. And she understood."

Giles found his breath somewhere. "You ended it."

"Well, yeah. I mean, I asked her to let me go, and she did. Released me."

There was a spare sorrow in his voice, and Giles felt it resonate through him. "Why?"

"Just looked like it would be a world of hurt for us both. I'd never get what I need from her, I know it now. And she'd always feel lesser because of me. My love would just remind her of all she's lost by being the Slayer." A moment. "Sorry. Not because of the years with you. Just because of all of it."

There was an answer there somewhere, to a question Giles had never let himself ask. And now he found the courage and asked it. "What is it she's lost?"

Spike was silent for another moment. Then– "She can't love anymore. No. She can love. She just can't feel love."

"I don't – don't understand your distinction."

"Love. She can do it. Can make the effort. Can muster it up. Buy the birthday gift. Make the phone call. Visit the hospital room. Save the world. But she's just doing it. Not feeling it. It doesn't give her any joy. And I– I took joy in it, in loving her, and it was... a rebuke to her. A reminder of her lack."

It sounded true. Or maybe that was just Giles's wishful thinking, that she still loved her friends, just couldn't reach them anymore. "And Angel didn't make her feel that."

"There's no joy in him either."

"Still she came to you."

"Sticking her hand into the fire. See if it burned. It didn't. Just ached."

"And he found out somehow."

"She seemed to think he understood. Allowed it. But that can't be so. It's because she doesn't understand that he thinks he's claimed her. He can't have her, not truly, but he won't let her go, specially not to me." He was silent for a moment, then, "So he came by when I was closing up the club last night. I thought it was Angel. You know. The theoretically reasonable one. By the time I realized Angelus was back in charge, he was doing the curare thing."

Angel. Angelus. Thug. Giles couldn't hope to untangle this knot of personalities. But Spike knew them all, and distinguished them. That was enough. "What are you going to do about Buffy?"

Vampire healing was something that never failed to amaze him. Spike sat up, without visible pain this time. His eye was open again, though red with broken blood vessels. His mouth was still swollen, but the ugly rip was closing up. "I'm not going to let that fucker have her."

"Good."

Spike glanced over at him, the fire starting to die in his eyes. "You– you agree?"

"Yes."

This gave Spike pause. "Wait."

"I agree, so it perforce must be wrong? Is that what you're saying?"

"No. No. You're usually right. But... but why? Why do I want to get her away from him?"

"To save her."

"Yeah, well, maybe. And because I want her. As always. But..." He turned his face away. "But it's to get at him too. Revenge. Defiance. As always."

Giles waited. A long moment.

"Rupert, I... I don't know. I thought I loved her, you know. For herself. But he was always there. Always part of it. That evening Buffy and I were together. He'd called me before. About something else. Nasty Angel moment, the usual. And she came to me, and I thought that I wanted her. Always. But I wanted to get him back. To take what he thought was his. And it was so bitter, in the end. Now I see that. I let her go out of love, but I took her out of envy. Spite." He slid his bandaged hand along the cover, to the edge of the bed, held his splinted fingers out over the side. "And he's doing it again, making it about him, and I don't know anymore."

Long ago, Giles had concluded that this idiot vampire had actually fallen in love, and while he didn't approve, he never doubted it. It was the sort of obsessive love that made modern cynics like him profoundly uncomfortable. But it was real. "Don't be stupid, Spike. You loved her. You still love her. If you're denying it now, consider why."

"Not because I'm afraid, you sodding wanker."

Now that was the Spike he knew so well. "Why then?"

"Because... I wanted to let it go. This last time. I really did. I didn't want to keep getting hurt. I didn't think I got sent back here to be hurt by her again."

"I understand. But when she came–"

"I'll always be there when she calls. Won't I? If she needs me. But now... now I'm thinking if I go to love her again, it's to get him back. For hurting me. All those times. And this time. It's worse this time. I'm not his, anymore, am I? Got reborn. And he can't have that. And so he does this. Stakes his claim. To her. But to me too. Showing me he has the right to do this to me, even now...."

"He hasn't." It was so self-evident, Giles didn't know why he bothered to say it.

"He has. By the old rules."

"Spike.... Listen. The point is, are you going to tell Buffy?"

"I don't know." Casually, he added, "Said he'd kill me if I told her." He still wouldn't look at Giles. It was shame that made him hide like that. Not guilt, not anymore. Guilt is about what you do. Shame is about what you are.

"I'd understand if it was too... difficult. Dangerous."

"Not that. I just... there was a moment, I know it, at least a moment, when I loved her purely. Absolutely. For her, not me. And he wasn't anywhere in there. Never crossed my mind. It was last year, before the battle. And it wasn't about sex or obsession or getting her to love me back or anything like that. I just loved her. And she knew it and it gave her strength. Didn't last. Angel came back, and she sent him away, but then it got to be about me proving I loved her more. Which I did, and do; we all three know that. And the whole stupid burning up thing. Figured that was it. Okay, I'd end up dead, certain sure. But she'd know I'd done it for her, that I was worthy, and she'd never be able to go back to him then."

"But she did."

"Yeah. Right after the big sacrifice. Just as if I never existed."

"She did mourn. She was... broken." Giles reached out and touched the cover, near Spike's hand. Couldn't touch him, of course. But touched near him. "Angel was there to help. He mourned too, you know. I think."

"Oh, yeah. I know. Look, I get it. I'm only the intermission in the epic love. The comic relief. I figured that out. But I did love her pure, once, for a little while. Nothing more than just love."

"And having felt that..."

"This feels wrong. Immoral." He said the word as if it were foreign, unfamiliar, but the only word in the world that would work. "To want her in part to spite him. To show him he can't dictate how I feel. To hurt him."

It was a strange thing to find himself arguing, taking Spike's ethic-neutral position for a change. "Shouldn't what's right for her matter?"

"What's that? Me? I can't say that. Not now."

"Spike, if it's what he did to you that's making you feel less–"

"No. Don't say it. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment. But don't say it. Ever."

It was a man Giles hadn't heard for a year or more– the old Spike, the unrepentant killer. And he wouldn't use that hard, low voice with any of his friends, unless he'd been pushed too far. Giles sighed. "All right. Tell me what you need."

"I need you to tell me what to do."

The killer was gone, just like that, replaced by the anguished child, one of those lightning transformations that always disoriented Giles, as when the vamp face slid away to reveal the face of the choirboy Spike had once been.

"I can't."

Spike dragged his bandaged hands up to his face, hiding his eyes. "You have to. I don't know what is right. I don't know. You do. Tell me."

And Giles, conscientious as always, sorted through the evidence, the options. "You don't want to tell her if it's to get back at him, to win her from him. But she might be in danger."

"I don't know. I can't believe he'd hurt her. He does love her."

"He probably loves you too."

"Not Angel. Angelus hurts where he loves. Angel doesn't. And Angel loves her. He'll protect her." After a moment, he added, "Not like she can't take care of herself anyway."

Giles shook his head. "Look, Spike, I don't want her hurt. You know she is mine too. I don't know that I can trust Angel, even if you do. So I'm taking the decision out of your hands. I'm going to Cleveland, and I'm going to tell her–" When he saw the panic in Spike's eyes, he added, "Just that he drugged you. Not how bad. It's bad enough that he'd do it at all. I'll wait till you've healed a bit, so she doesn't need to know the extent of it."

Spike slid back down under the coverlet, and now his voice came muffled. "Is that the right thing to do?"

"It's the right thing for me to do. The right thing for you to do is heal now, and be ready to help her if she needs you."

There was a clatter outside, and suddenly the smell of curry, and Giles murmured, "Faith's back. Buck up, mate."

Faith turned off the Bach, put on Metallica, and danced her way up the stairs, singing along as she entered the bedroom. She had a plastic bag in each hand and set them down on the sidetable Giles dragged up. "Got you the poncey English special, Spike. Mild."

"I can do the hot and spicy," Spike said defensively, sitting up.

"Not with that split lip." She sat down next to him on the bed, her bum against his leg. She was humming, wiggling her shoulders, opening a white takeout container and sticking a spoon into it, withdrawing the spoon, raising it to her vivid red lips, and sucking on it.

Hampered by his nationality, class, and profession, Giles had reached middle age without ever bedding a girl like Faith, and it looked like he never would– certainly he didn't think of Faith in that context, he reminded himself. But he could still appreciate the show. He leaned against the doorjamb, smiling a little as she shook her head and set the container to one side, then opened another, repeating the spoonjob, this time with a bit of rotation on the removal.

"This is yours." She slid the spoon back in, stirred it around, hummed a bit more, looked up at Spike's face through her thick dark eyelashes, and murmured in a Mae West voice, "Ready for me, cowboy?"

Spike's broken mouth quirked in a grin. "Always, babe. Bring it on."

Faith was one of a kind. She'd taken what would be a humiliating experience for a man– being fed because he was too busted up to feed himself– and made it into a lapdance. Performance art. Spike was too busy sucking on her spoon to be embarrassed.

She had a gift. Giles wasn't sure what it was, but it was potent. And it worked with Spike, and that was all that mattered this evening, that she make him feel better, that she make him feel like a man again, and there was no one better at making a man feel manly than Faith.

Giles wasn't sure what the consequences were going to be, considering that they were friends and co-workers and Spike was in love with Buffy. They were both natural flirts, natural teases, and he hoped they both kept it on that level, at least as long as they were working for him. But tonight he thought he was witnessing a most intuitively compassionate act. Faith was good for Spike, good to him, and they could worry about the rest later.

Now Spike was wincing as some spice hit the rip in his lower lip. Faith murmured something comforting and diabolical, then licked her finger, once, twice, three times, and stroked it wet down Spike's lip.

Giles abruptly pushed away from the door jamb. "I'll take some of the hotter stuff, Faith."

She twisted her body so she could hand him his meal, and if she just happened to brush Spike's crotch lightly with her forearm on the return trip, well, Giles could think of nothing that would aid more in recuperation. And by the time she was rubbing the napkin oh so gently over that poor torn mouth of his, murmuring something about finishing up with some nice sherbet to cool him down, Spike had recovered his cocky grin, if not his strength.

If Faith hadn't become a Slayer, she could have had a great career as the Naughty Nurse in porn films, no doubt about it.

Giles took the curry leftovers down to the refrigerator, and when he returned, Faith was sitting up next to Spike, her back against the headboard, reading to him from some sporting magazine. He had his head on her shoulder, his eyes closed, his broken left hand resting on her thigh. Faith gave Giles a defiant glance and resumed reading about Manchester United's triumphant march through the US soccer arenas, deliberately mispronouncing most of the players' names just to get a rise out of Spike. "Rupert," he said without opening his eyes, "tell her Neville doesn't rhyme with EEEvil, will you?"

"If you're talking about Gary Neville," Giles replied, "his performance in that last match could qualify as EEEEvil, don't you think?" And then he left to check the linen closet for another set of sheets and blankets. He'd suggest that Faith sleep out on the couch, but he suspected at best she'd only go so far as the floor of Spike's room.

He glanced back into the room, saw them together like that– two beautiful young warriors (well, Spike only looked young), lithe and powerful and resilient, impulsive and generous and loyal. Only a few years ago, both were certified EEEvil, as Spike pronounced it, and both had been his enemies. Now they were teaching his cadets, drinking his liquor and borrowing his CDs without asking, and patrolling his neighborhood to keep the human and demon riffraff at bay– and at the moment they were ensconced in his guest room. They'd inserted themselves in his life at a time when his dearest companions had died or moved on; they brought noise and foul language and loud opinions to each faculty meeting and started ferocious arguments about the need for official school colors and an official school song and an official school sandwich and– and he hadn't had a moment of quiet in which to be depressed since the term started in January.

He stood there, his arms full of blankets, listening to Spike's drug-and-scotch-fogged voice, and found himself wanting to kill Angel again, as he did after Jenny's death. He didn't want to hear about Angelus, about the soul, about the curse, about whatever explanation Angel would provide to show why he didn't actually do this and shouldn't be blamed for it, and besides, he was making amends, helping the hopeless, etc., etc., etc.

Angel did his best, and he was still, periodically, a monster. Giles had never trusted him, and had been proved right over and over again. He had killed demons and vampires for much less evil than Angel visited on the world even in the last few years, when he was supposed to be good. And there didn't seem to be any prospect of resolution.

Perhaps it wasn't fair. Angel tried so hard. He lived like a Puritan– a rich, epicurean Puritan, permitting himself only the most elegantly spare distractions. He'd given up pleasure and sex and laughter and steeped himself in melancholy, all expressly to keep his demon walled off and his soul in charge. It was a monumental effort, unprecedented, and Giles respected it.

But he didn't trust it. He had reason not to trust it. Jenny's death. His hands. Buffy's heart.

No, it wasn't fair, because Giles the Watcher of Slayers had just left William the Bloody the Slayer of Slayers in his guest bed cheek by jowl with a Slayer. Even, grudgingly, acknowledged that Spike could have his blessing to love that Other Slayer. Hell, Giles had him training twenty-three brand new slayers, so unskilled and so naive that he could probably pick them off one by one and end up with twenty-five notches in his slayer belt instead of just two.

But Giles trusted Spike.

Spike had none of Angel's immense self-discipline. He was a walking, talking id, a creature of impulse and instinct. He'd been, in his time, a nasty piece of work, a ruthless killer with powerful appetites and a delight in mayhem. But that was then. This was now. And Spike, now, had Giles's reluctant trust. Giles knew him, knew he had made a long and painful journey– painful for everyone around him– and became whatever it was he was now. And he wasn't going to change back to a previous incarnation, or split in two. There was no character schism, no demonic persona lurking in some jail in Spike's brain while the soul held court in the body. There was only Spike, and he'd made himself, all of himself, into someone... well, not good. But what goodness there was in him was all his. And he was someone who could be trusted because he could be known, because he could be one in himself. Demon, soul, body, mind– all one.

If Angel were only Angel– but Angel was also Angelus. There was no union, no compromise, no treaty. His body was the battleground for a civil war.

And once again, he had injured one of Giles's.

Giles didn't actually want Spike to be one of his. He'd rather recently tried to kill him, in fact. But that was done, and they'd let go of the enmity, and Giles could make use of him. And so, reluctantly, he became responsible for him.

More than that. He trusted him with his life and the lives of his cadets, and sometimes he found himself trusting him with his heart too. There were those evenings at the pub, sharing a bottle of scotch, arguing about football or Yeats or demon souls or Oxford colleges. And there were the times Spike drowsily answered the phone at 2 am and then said "Rupert!" in a glad voice, and stifled a yawn and swore that of course he hadn't been asleep, because everyone knows vampires never slept at night; no, he was awake and watching infomercials, and Giles had to be more entertaining than that, right? And then he'd have some dirty joke to share, or some insult to pass on, and after a half hour of typical Spike-inane conversation, Giles could ring off and fall asleep and dream of something other than the dead.

Now Giles stood at the window and watched the moon rise over the dim humps of the nearby houses. He could hear Faith's low laughter, and Spike's drowsy replies.

He had no certainty left in his life.

Angel, the good one, had tortured Spike. And in Buffy's name, for Buffy's sake. Not that Buffy would ever have condoned it– but it was all about Buffy, like so much of Angel's insanity.

Spike wouldn't kill him. That was clear. He had the chance and let Angel go, even knowing how dangerous he was. And Giles couldn't ask it of Buffy, not again.

Chapter Text

The officials at the rehab facility didn't want to give Xander over. They didn't like Spike's battered face. Didn't like the splinted fingers making an awkward signature on the official papers. Didn't like the way Xander said, "Oh, Christ, not you."

So Spike just growled and turned on his heel and left the building. He'd done his duty– by Buffy, by Anya. Xander didn't want to come, Xander could stay there amid the brick and ivy, where everyone frowned sympathetically and spoke in very quiet voices. Welcome to it.

He was jamming his broken fingers into his pocket, cussing low and fierce as he searched for his keys. Xander spoke behind him. "How about you let me drive?"

Spike would have said no, but he was about to pass out from the pain that radiated from his knuckles to his shoulder. He let the keys drop to the gravelled driveway and limped around to the passenger side. "Thought you weren't coming. Seeing as how it was me getting you."

"Shut up." Xander tossed his bag into the little back seat and then got in behind the wheel. Spike fumbled at the door handle until Xander leaned across and pushed it open. "You look like shit."

"Well, you look all rested and recovered and rehabilitated." Spike dropped into his seat. He didn't bother to pretend it didn't hurt to move. This was Harris. He'd seen worse. "All cured and convalesced and cobbled back together."

"Alliteration, even. And through two split lips. I'm impressed."

Spike found his sunglasses. Managed to get them on. The headache didn't abate. He slipped on the vamp face– sometimes that helped with pain– but now it just stretched the skin tighter, and he felt it begin to crack. Back to human.

Xander was sneaking glances at him. "Still a vamp, huh?"

"Yeah. What of it?"

"Buffy said you were back. Could walk in the sun."

"Still a vamp." He didn't mention all the complications, the heart, the lungs. Wished them and the sun at the devil. Wanted to be nothing more than himself again.

"Hope you've still got the vamp healing, because looks like you're going to need it." Xander merged onto the highway, sliding him another glance. "Look worse than you did after Glory got you. Least she let your hands alone."

That made his fingers ache. "I'm okay."

"Right. What the hell are you doing, driving a hundred miles, middle of the day, in that condition? I could have taken the bus."

"Promised Buffy."

"Oh. Right. Promised Buffy."

There was a lot of hidden meaning in that flat echo. Spike didn't want to translate it. Instead he said, "Needed... to get away. Drive for awhile."

"Running from someone?"

Spike was too weary to take offense. "Nah. Just... wanted to drive."

Xander kept quiet for a mile or two. "You still want to drive?"

"Nah. Hurt more than I thought it would."

"You steer with your knees?"

"Thumbs. Thumbs aren't as bad as the rest."

Another couple miles. "This is a hot car. Can't be yours."

"Yeah. Won some at the casino. All gone now." A flicker of pride. "Still got the car."

And Xander laughed. It was a real laugh, one that acknowledged they'd known each other for a long time. Knew all about each other's shaky finances, addictive tendencies, and bad luck with cards and women. "Not repoed yet, huh?"

"Paid cash. Haven't pawned it yet."

"Haven't wrecked it yet."

"No demon dents either."

"You're doing good, my man. How long's it been?"

"Since I bought it?" Spike closed his eyes and counted. "Four months."

"Not bad. How long you have that old DeSoto?"

"Thirty years, give or take. Still ran like a top."

"I beg to differ. It hardly ran at all in the end. I seem to remember pushing it halfway across Sunnydale one night."

"Don't make 'em like that anymore."

"Don't make 'em so heavy, anyway. Almost gave me a heart attack, pushing the damned thing, and I was only, what? Twenty?"

Spike opened his eyes, looked sidelong at Xander. The whelp looked more distant from twenty than Spike himself. Old before his time. Half-blind. Anguish lines etched around his mouth. And no vampire healing for him. "Won't have to push this one."

This remote highway was clear, knifing through the desert, and pretty soon Xander had it up over 100 mph, and they were both easier, hearing the road sing beneath them.

"Who did it?"

Spike shook his head. The question everyone was asking. "Some demons. Didn't leave their names."

Xander gave him a dubious look. Knew him too well. They never once, in all those years, liked each other. But they knew each other. They'd played billiards and poker enough to know all about how the other bluffed.

Fortunately, Xander didn't care enough anymore to pursue it. All the boy said was, "Better hope you can still heal, or your pool-sharking days are over."

"I'm okay. Two days. Already knitting." To change the subject, and because it had to be said, he said, "Sorry about Anya."

"Yeah."

Not enough. Never enough. "She was a good woman. I miss her."

"Fuck you."

Christ. "I didn't mean–" Spike took a deep breath. It rattled in his chest. "She loved you. Always."

Xander stared straight ahead at the broken line on the road. "Right."

So that's where the pain was. Spike closed his eyes again, wondering if that was what hurt Buffy when he was gone– not so much that he was gone, but that he'd loved her. Always. Like Anya loved this boy. Took a demon to love that hard. Humans didn't like that. Thought it was strange and scary and suffocating, to be loved like that. And maybe it was. Spike wouldn't know. No one ever loved him that way, or loved Anya that way either. Maybe .... maybe it made you feel inadequate, to be loved like that.

Xander didn't say anything more. But Spike felt his tension, and understood, and, quiet now, as if to himself, he said, "You remember that time she got some idea out of that Martha Stewart book, and took everyone's picture? And she wanted candid shots, so she'd sneak up on us. Used a flash, so everyone's eyes were red."

"We all looked like werewolves." Xander's hands loosened on the steering wheel. He said, "But she didn't care. Arranged them all in that big frame and hung it in our kitchen. Buffy was mad because she was eating an ice cream cone, and she didn't want anyone to know she always ordered a double-dip."

"Memorialized forever as a carb-hog." Well, not forever. The photograph was buried in the same crater as the photographer.

"And there was that time she decided to learn about football, so she could surprise me with her knowledge when I was watching the 49ers. Only she went to you, and came back full of all this weird stuff about goalkeepers and midfielders and penalty kicks."

"Well," Spike said fairly, "that is the real game. Not the poncey American version played with helmets and fifty pounds of padding."

It was an old argument. In fact, Spike remembered debating this very subject even back when he and Xander were mortal enemies. This time Xander didn't take the bait. He just mentioned something else about Anya, and he smiled as he spoke. And Spike realized Xander never got to talk about her. Oh, maybe to a therapist back at Ivy-covered Sanitarium. But maybe he'd never talked about her to someone who knew Anya, and cared about her.

And so Spike let the boy talk all the way back to the outskirts of town. He didn't have to say much himself, which was good because his mouth hurt. He just had to listen, and once in awhile murmur something about Anya being smart, or good with computers– something to set Xander off on another reminiscence. He thought Xander would cry, but he didn't. Smiled a lot, laughed a couple times. No tears. Maybe losing his eye dried up the tear ducts.

Or maybe he was all cried out. All dried out and all cried out.

They'd have to watch. Make sure he didn't off himself now. That was all that was left when the tears were gone.

Why did you come back and not Anya?

Xander didn't realize he'd actually said that out loud until Spike started answering. "Dunno. Ask myself that sometimes. Why me and not Anya or one of the little girls?"

He was fumbling with his house keys, and finally Xander grabbed them out of the bandaged hands and found the one that looked right and jammed it into the lock. "Worthless," he muttered under his breath, shoving the door open.

"Yeah, well–" But Spike didn't finish what he was going to say.

Xander looked back and saw him biting at that already mashed lower lip, and wished Spike would just say it– I may be worthless but at least I have a home. I may be worthless but at least I have a job. I may be worthless but at least I have a hot car. I may be worthless but at least I didn't get stuck in a nuthouse. I may be worthless but at least I saved the woman I loved. I may be worthless but at least I loved the woman I loved.

But Spike didn't say any of those things. He just led the way into his little flat, and flipped on the light, and went off into the back room. "Buffy had your stuff shipped here, so –"

He emerged with two duffle bags slung awkwardly over his forearms, above the bandaged hands. He let them slide onto the tile floor in the entryway, and said, "You can bunk here on the couch tonight, you want. Rupert's got some place at the mansion for you, but I don't think it's ready."

Xander looked over at the couch, a dark blue velvet affair, and the coffee table in front, with controllers for four different game machines. "You got the new Metal Gear Solid?"

"Yeah. Wanna bee-" Spike broke off, then said, "Cup of tea?"

"Soda." Xander watched as Spike went into the little kitchen. The flat was so small, he could see into the refrigerator– two six-packs, a couple jugs that must have held blood, and four little white Chinese takeout boxes. And a two-liter bottle of Wild Cherry Coke, which Spike withdrew.

"It's because I didn't love her enough," Xander said. It was too painful to watch Spike try to pour the soda, so Xander grabbed the bottle away and did it himself.

"Love who?" Spike said, awkwardly setting the bottle cap on the counter.

"Anya. Maybe that's why she didn't come back. Because I didn't love her enough."

It made all kinds of sense to him. But Spike was shaking his head. "Can't be that. I came back, and it's not like anyone loved me that much."

"Buffy–"

Spike grinned at him through those split lips. He seemed to find this suggestion amusing. "Nah. Nothing to do with love. Nothing to do with you. I–"

The doorbell rang, and Spike pushed away from the counter, muttering something about a neighbor without a phone. But when the door opened, Xander saw Angel silhouetted in the flickering aqua light of the pool. Spike fell back a step, and Angel said, "Can I come in?"

Xander could see Spike's face get hard under the bruises. "Don't need an invite, mate, into a vampire's lair. You know that."

"Trying to be polite," Angel said mildly, crossing into the entryway. "Came by to see how you're doing. You look like shit."

"Consensus opinion." Spike moved back into the kitchen. Xander had the weird feeling he was supposed to stay close by. They'd fought together many times– well, Spike had done most of the fighting, but Xander usually knew when to toss him a stake or to yell a warning. He felt like maybe he should yell a warning now, only he didn't know about what.

Angel was being all nice and solicitous, for Angel, anyway. He greeted Xander without much fuss– Buffy must have told him about the whole sanitarium thing. And then he turned to Spike. "How'd that doctor work out?"

"Good," Spike said. "Thanks for the rec."

"Hope you don't have to make use of his services again." Angel stood in the kitchen archway, shaking his head as he studied his grandchilde. "Jesus. They really worked you over. Tell me the truth. You default on a debt, or is it someone I ought to know about?"

Xander slid his fingers around his plastic cup, leaning one elbow on the tile counter. He didn't need to look at Spike's face to feel his tension. He'd forgotten how Spike radiated like that– vibrated like that. Some kind of high-frequency vibration that maybe you had to know him well to sense. Spike was watching Angel close. Choosing words carefully. "Yeah. Maybe it was a debt. Couldn't see who took me down."

"You must have been drunk, to let them get you like that."

"Paralytic," Spike said. And then he was silent. Watching. Studying Angel.

Angel said something low, like he didn't want Xander to hear. But Xander's hearing had improved to compensate for the vision problem. So he heard it. "Look, I want to get them. Either way. Even if it was because of a debt. Can't have demons taking out – taking out anyone associated with me."

It was as close as Angel would probably get to acknowledging a family tie. And Xander glanced over at Spike, thinking that he'd see some kind of give in that bruised face– some kind of softening. Angel was trying to be nice. Trying to be a grandsire, or whatever. Hell, Xander was sort of touched by it, and he hated Angel. It was just– well, Xander's dad wouldn't have done that. Wouldn't have offered to get the guys who got Xander. He'd just say it was Xander's own fault.

Angel was... trying.

But Spike turned away. Opened the fridge. Used both bandaged hands to take out a beer. "Thanks. But –"

"Come on." Angel's voice was still low. "Come on, Will, what did they–"

"I told you," Spike said. Hard. "Don't ever cal–" Then he broke off. When he spoke again, he sounded calmer. "Look, I don't have much memory of it. Concussion. All that. Let me get some rest, and I'll apply my mind to it, and see what I come up with. Okay?"

Angel came into the kitchen. It was too small a room for three grown men, and to give them more space, Xander edged out the archway into the foyer. He turned just in time to see Angel reach out and touch Spike on the cheek, like he was testing to see if the purple color came off. "Okay. Let me know if you need anything."

Spike stood there rigid. Xander couldn't believe Angel didn't feel it– that opposition. Xander wasn't even in the same room and he felt it. Spike was using up every ounce of strength, just to stand there and let Angel touch him.

And he realized, suddenly, that Spike suspected his grandsire. Suspected him maybe of hiring the demons that beat him this bad.

Xander was vice-president of the suspect-Angel club (Giles was CEO), but this he found hard to credit. Sure, there were times Xander wanted to break Spike's hands and head and various other body parts. But where would be the pleasure in delegation?

"Yeah," Spike said. "I'll let you know."

And he stood there straight until Angel left the flat, closing the door quietly behind him.

Then Spike dropped onto a kitchen chair and put his head in his broken hands.

Xander waited, indecisive, for Spike to rise, to speak, to something. Finally he said, "You okay?"

Spike lifted his head. Xander had seen him this way often enough– his eyes black-rimmed and swollen, his cheeks bruised, his mouth a pulpy mess. But he'd never seen him look so... injured. "You okay?" he said again.

Spike didn't answer him. Instead he said, "It wasn't that you didn't love her enough. Didn't have anything to do with love." He looked back out to the door, as if Angel might be lingering there. And then he finished, "The difference between me and Anya that day was just this. I wore that amulet. She didn't. The amulet brought me back. And I brought the amulet back to Angel– the one who was supposed to wear it. I was just... a cosmic mistake. Fixed the easiest way they could fix it. That's why I'm here. That's the only reason I'm here. Angel was supposed to wear it, and I wore it instead."

Chapter Text

Spike was back to work at the club by Tuesday. But with three fingers on each hand still splinted, he couldn't play with the band, and he wasn't much use at the bar, so he was put out to pasture on the sidewalk, checking IDs. It was an ignominious comedown, and another grievance against– but he wasn't going to think about that, now that the pain was done. He was going to let Giles tell Buffy, and for once stay out of a fight he didn't think he could win.

I could take him in a fair fight.

Okay, so he couldn't quite give off thinking about it. Since he got the goddamned soul, injustice infuriated him, particularly when it was directed at him. And Angelus had been unjust, though Spike supposed in the long list of Angelus's sins, unjustly beating a formerly evil grandchilde ranked fairly low.

He didn't know what to do about Buffy. She had to know, yes, Giles was right. (Giles was always right, except when he was conspiring to murder Spike or refusing to grant a salary advance.) But he didn't want her to know. It was humiliating to be taken like that, to be ambushed and defeated by stealth, when he should have known, should have been prepared.

And he didn't want to know that she'd discounted it, as she'd discounted everything else Angel/us had done over the years. This wasn't as bad as killing Jenny Callendar, or torturing Giles, or trying to end the world, after all, and she'd assigned all that to that Other, and managed to love Angel forever anyway.

But he could hardly tell Giles to shut up about it, especially since Buffy herself could be at some risk.

Of course, if Angelus tried to take Buffy– well, Spike would pay to see that. Buffy would kick his ass and stake his moribund heart.... Only she wouldn't.

The first couple hours sitting on the stool by the club door, he got to turn away three minors. This is what passed for excitement in the life of an ID checker. The manager was trying to spare his feelings and use the term "bouncer", but Spike was always the defacto bouncer as well as bartender and bass player, so he wasn't fooled. He was there to check IDs and keep an eye out for the cops– and flirt with the girls who stopped by.

He was insisting on seeing the ID of a middle-aged woman– "Sorry, but I have to check the ID of anyone who looks under 25, no offense meant, but hand it over, young lady"– when he felt a shimmer of apprehension in his spine and sensed a threat. Smelled a threat, an old opponent. Not Angelus. It took him an instant to assign the smell to a person. He handed the ID back with a quick grin– "Okay, I'll let you in, even though it's obviously a fake ID, you can't possibly be 42"– and rose from the stool and turned to face yet another Buffy ex looming in the darkness.

"Agent Finn," he said.

"Spike."

Riley Finn was outlined by the lights of a passing car. He had lost weight, but he was still a hulk, his shoulders hunched a bit around his thick neck, his meaty hands closed into loose fists. Still in Banana Republic-style military dress, an olive drab sweater over camouflage khakis, a big black web belt across his waist, lots of hooks and pockets for weaponry.

"Fancy seeing you here."

"Dawn told me where to find you."

Spike's automatic retort got stopped halfway to his lips. Finally he said, "Dawn? She told you I'd be here?"

"Yeah. We had us a nice little conversation, me and Dawn. She told me all about you dying and coming back to life." Riley glanced around the street, into the club, with his patented white-bread disapproval expression. "If you call this life."

Spike felt the waves of discontent coming off Riley, the radioactive unhappiness, and decided not to take offense. "Yeah, I do. Wine, women, and song have been life enough for better men than I." He reached into the doorway and pulled out another stool. "Have a seat, if you want."

Riley settled on the stool, moving restlessly, his right foot scraping off the foot rest and dangling for a moment before finding a perch. "Thanks."

Spike was trying to learn patience. It was a tough lesson, one he hadn't mastered in a century and a half, but he was getting good at it. A whole twenty seconds went by before he was compelled to say, "Something you wanted to see me about?"

"Yeah." For the first time, Riley looked him in the eye. "Wanted to know about Buffy."

It was all about Buffy... sometimes Spike got really weary of that essential truth. "And here I thought you came by to apologize."

"Apologize?" This was said a bit too belligerently. Score one for Spike.

"You know, about the demon eggs thing. You actually had Buffy believing they were dangerous. That I was an international arms dealer or something." He smiled as mildly as he could manage. "That her life was shit and she was a loser and she should never have let you go."

Riley glowered a bit, then subsided on his seat. "So what were they? The eggs?"

"Burrowers. Friend of mine used them to dig tunnels. Harmless, less'n they happen to be tearing up your lawn."

"Yeah, well–" Riley said with a show of bravado, "I heard you were storing some eggs, and thought I might as well take advantage of it. You ever explain to her?"

"No point. She broke it off that day, just like you planned. She wasn't going to believe me over you anyway. Didn't want to. The ones who leave, see, are the ones she believes." He shook his head. "It was a long time ago."

"What do you mean? About the ones who leave?"

Poor Riley Finn. Had his shiny master's degree in psychology, and couldn't even analyze himself, much less Buffy. "The ones who leave are the ones she believes, because they're telling her she's not worth staying for. And that's what she wants to know." He paused. "Not being fair, am I. Maybe she's changed. Dunno."

"That's not what I was saying to her."

"Right. You were saying you weren't worth it, and that was probably true. You and I know that. But she didn't hear it that way. You didn't want her to hear it that way." He made an impatient movement of his hands, and flinched at the pain radiating up his arm. "Not important now. So what do you want to know about Buffy that you couldn't get from Dawn?"

Riley hesitated, his fists unclenching and clenching again. "Dawn thought maybe you two were together."

So Buffy hadn't told Dawn. Great. Spike would have to do it then. "Nah. Over now. As of, what, last Tuesday?"

"So she's done with you? For good?"

A gentleman let the world think the lady had done the dismissing. He remembered that much from his distant childhood training. "We're done. For good. Far as I can tell."

Riley studied him. "You okay?"

There was, in that hulking piece of military hardware, a nice boy still. Spike should remember that. "Yeah. Good enough." And he was surprised to find it was true. He was experiencing something new to him, emotional exhaustion. The soul, the First Evil evil takeover and torture, the appointment as champion, the apocalypse, the dying, the rebirth, the rebuilding, the sunshine, the new jobs, the new friends, the Buffy loss, and now the Angelus assault– he was into feelings-overload for the first time in his existence. He could almost understand the dimmer switch Buffy had on her heart, because he was feeling pretty subdued himself. Not bad– just quiet.

This was a little scary. Maybe he needed to get mad.

So he narrowed his eyes at Riley. "Not chipped now, soldier boy. I think I owe you for some gratuitous violence."

Riley looked down at Spike's hands. "Hope you don't intend to punch me with those. Don't want bits of gauze flying in my eyes."

"I was thinking of kicking. And an elbow or two."

Riley edged his stool a couple inches farther along the sidewalk. "I was hoping we could, you know, let bygones be bygones."

"Yeah, you say that now."

But there wasn't any real heat in it. He'd like a good fight... but Riley was only human. A big human, trained to fight, which meant he'd last a couple minutes. But Spike need more than that. A Fyarl demon, maybe. Or a Slayer. He could go a few rounds with Faith tomorrow, if she'd just stop bitching about his "piss-poor excuse for hands".

"So... she seeing anyone else?"

He'd been thinking about Faith, and it took a moment before he realized that the earnest Riley was talking about that Other Slayer. The one it was all about. "Come on, Finn, you know the score, don't you? There'll always be an Angel."

Riley made a disgusted noise. "Rather have her with you than with him."

"Thanks. Same here. I mean, better you than he, if not me."

Riley looked impressed with the rhyme, once he puzzled it out. "But she chose him."

"Who knows? I gave up trying to figure her out last week. Not my job anymore." Okay, so maybe he hadn't reached the end of his ability to feel, because he was feeling again– desolation digging a hole in his heart.

He heard the bartender announce last call, and got to his feet. "Got to collect the night's take for the bank deposit. Buy you a drink first?"

"Sure."

Riley came in after him, looking unsure– he probably worried it was a demon bar, or a biker bar, instead of a nice neighborhood place with fifty beers on tap and a houseband and a good jukebox. Spike slid into a booth near the back, and Sally, the oldest waitress, the one who thought she ran the place and everyone in it, came over with a bottle and a couple of glasses. "Here you go, Spike. You taking care of those hands?"

"Sure, babe, sterilizing them with plenty of alcohol."

After she left, Riley watched him pour the drinks with the splinted fingers stuck out stiffly. "How'd you do that?"

"Lost a fight."

"You?"

He didn't want to explain. Too humiliating. "Yeah. Happens." He shoved the glass over. "So you're going after the Slayer again. Thought you were married."

Riley flinched. "The divorce is final next month."

Spike tilted his head to the side. "This coming after Buffy now. The cause of the divorce, or just the consequence?"

"I don't know. Maybe the cause. Some." He downed the whiskey in a single gulp. "Never really got over her."

Spike poured him another shot, ignoring the sharp twinge in his index finger. "She does have that effect, doesn't she?" He nursed his own drink, examining his feelings. Jealous, maybe, just a bit, that Riley still had hope. Regret that the bloke couldn't move on and had wrecked a marriage because of it. Sympathy, because this new mission of Riley's was bound for failure. "Want my advice?"

"No."

"Then why'd you come? For my permission?"

"Suppose I wanted to know you wouldn't kill me."

Spike laughed shortly. "You're the killer, Finn."

Riley had the grace to look ashamed. Then he muttered, "I didn't, though. Kill you. Just wanted to."

"Yeah, well, I meant it. I'm out of the game. It's not me you need to worry about."

"You mean Angel."

Spike hesitated, decided. He glanced around to make sure Sally was nowhere near, and lowered his voice. "You know what vampire healing is like? Cuts take an hour to close up, skin over, usually. Bones knit by nightfall. I recovered fully from a severed spinal cord in a couple months."

"Yeah. Okay. Lucky you." Of course Riley would take this as some macho pissing contest.

Spike held up his left hand. The knuckles were pink– the scabs had fallen off yesterday. The wrist was ringed by yellow bruises. The fingers that weren't splinted were still swollen. He had bandaids protecting the four bare fingernail beds. "He did this Friday night. Give a thought to what I looked like Saturday morning."

Riley looked from the hand to Spike's face with shock. "Angel did that?"

Spike wasn't up to explaining about his grandsire. "Yeah."

Compulsively Riley picked up the glass and gulped the whiskey. "Come on. I've seen you fight."

"He drugged me first. Beat me when I was paralyzed. Then broke my fingers one by one." He let that sink in. "So think about it."

Riley sat up straighter, a martial light in his eyes. "We need to get her away from him."

"She's already away. She's in Cleveland."

Riley's face fell. Apparently Dawn hadn't bothered to tell him that. "Why Cleveland?"

"Hellmouth Jr. She went to scout it." After a moment, he said grudgingly, "She'll be back in a few weeks probably."

"Did you tell her ... about this?"

"No. But Giles will, before she comes back. Don't know what she'll think, but–"

"But what?"

"This is hardly the worst thing he's done, and she's given him a pass before."

"She's–" Riley made an uncomprehending gesture.

"Yeah. Welcome to my world, Riley Finn."

Riley stared at him. "What do you mean?"

What the hell. Spike decided to tell him the truth. Riley was perhaps the only person in the world who would understand, as he'd been through it himself. "I mean I spent, what, five years now around her. With her in one context or another. And I got a front row seat to the Buffy/Angel saga. And I watched him turn into a monster, and kill her friend and torture her Watcher– and she said, oh, that was Angelus, the one without a soul. Angel can't be blamed. And maybe she believes that, I don't know. But then he– Angel, the one with the bloody soul– kept deserting her. Back early, before I loved her, I thought it was funny. He'd blow into town, and they'd play Romeo and Juliet, and then he'd make a run for the city limits just in time to avoid having to help her. Her mom died, and it was bad, and there was this hellgod after Dawn, and he came for a few hours after the funeral, and then left. It was like a joke, only it got less and less amusing. She didn't even bother to call him when we headed out to face the hellgod and close the demon dimension. Then Buffy died, and he didn't bother to come."

"I should have been there," Riley said gloomily.

Spike got annoyed. "Managed without you, mate, didn't we? And you showed up when it really mattered. Weren't there for the hellgod, but you sure did burn up some demon eggs a few months later."

Riley shoved his glass aside and rose, his hands clenched. Then, slowly, he resumed his seat. "Okay. Maybe I deserved that."

Spike took a deep breath and let it go. "Maybe you didn't. You hung around as long as you could, I suppose."

"Not as long as you."

"I'm stubborner. Or stupider. Couldn't believe she wouldn't eventually accept the truth." He smiled grimly. "My truth, anyway. And so I kept trying to... win her. Got a goddamned soul, which's been nothing but trouble ever since, and came back to a place where everyone despised me, and got myself taken and tortured, and fought by her when she didn't want me there, and stayed with her when she wouldn't give me any hope– did all that and died for her too, and came back for her, and thought I'd finally won her." He looked down into his glass. "I mean, what more could I do? But it wasn't enough. Because Angel was there first. And she's got this thing for him– look."

But Riley wouldn't look at him. Didn't want to hear it.

Spike said it anyway. "Go back to your wife. I bet she loves you. Buffy won't. She can't. If she could love, trust me on this, she'd love me. She wanted to. I know she did. She tried her damnedest." And for the first time, he let himself say the words, the hard truth that broke his heart. "And I deserved it. Really deserved her love finally, and she knew it. And she couldn't do it."

Now he looked straight at Riley. "You think you got a chance with her? You're lying to yourself. Angel ruined her. That's what he did. He ruined her by making her love him and then making her kill him. It's like when you break a leg early. Stunts your growth. He broke her heart, and it didn't grow back right. I gave her everything I had, and I'll love her the rest of my days, but you know, I count myself lucky to finally be free."

This time Riley looked at him, with a level Midwestern gaze. "Yeah. I believe that."

Spike shrugged. "Okay, maybe not. But ... it's all about Buffy, and that's all right. But it's all about Angel too. I kept trying to ignore that, trying not to think about it. But be with Buffy, and you're dragged into Angel's opera. Big arias thundering in your ears. Baritone against mezzo. Good vs. evil. Punishment and pain. Sin and repentance. Rinse well and repeat."

There was the ghost of a smile on Riley's boyish face. "You're mixing metaphors."

"So did Keats. Much have I travelled in the realms of gold– and then he goes into Homer's face." He paused, and added gently, "He's dangerous. Not just Angelus. Angel. I think he's got her under surveillance, at least around here. Phone tapped, at least."

"You must have had a chance to stake him. I know how you fight. I know you could have–"

"Can't." He looked away, ashamed. "First, Buffy would never forgive me. Angelus isn't out there now; it's soulful old Angel showing his face. And– he's my grandsire, you know. Last of the family. There's a taboo– I mean, it'd probably kill me, to kill him. Vamp thing. Maybe if... if I thought he would go after her, hurt her– not that she can't take care of herself--" He stopped. He couldn't really justify letting Angel live, even to himself. Sometimes he thought he'd submitted to Angelus after all, subconsciously, given in like he'd given up on Buffy.

He noticed the quiet, suddenly, and realized everyone had left but the bartender. Billy finished the cash register count and came over with the deposit bag, regarding Spike with some concern. His co-workers had been politely pretending to believe the story about getting his hands caught in a door– most of the other injuries had healed up– but Billy's faith in Spike's invincibility had been shaken. "You take care tonight, okay?"

Spike inclined his head towards Riley. "Got a bodyguard here, I do. Safe as houses."

"Well, in LA, houses fall off hillsides and collapse into mudholes, so–"

"I'll be careful. And I'll lock up. See you tomorrow."

He waited till Billy was gone, and then rose and picked up the canvas bag. "I was taking the night deposit last week, see, when Angel got me."

"Bit spooked?" Riley said as they walked to the door.

"Nah. He won't do it again. I had him good as staked, and let him live."

"You trust him?"

"No." Spike locked the door and dropped the keys into his duster pocket. "But he's predictable in some ways. And I predict, he hears you're nosing around Buffy, he's going to do the same to you. Worse maybe." He led the way down the block to the bank. No matter what he said about being unspooked, every instinct was on alert, all his senses open, feeling for Angel. "See, deep down inside, he loves me. Not a healthy sort of love, but we're bonded. And he could hurt me that bad even so. Enjoyed it. Took me to the brink and almost pushed me off. You, he doesn't give a shit about. He'd probably get hold of you and break your hands and break your legs too."

Riley was silent as Spike stuck the bag into the depository. But then he said, "You talk to him about this?"

Spike let the depository door clang shut. "No. What's to say?"

"I don't know. Do it again and I'll kill you? Ask him why, maybe?"

"I know why. And he knows he can't do it again." He looked at Riley's expression and knew his answer was inadequate. But he couldn't explain that it had something to do with... with shame, with dread, with saying things out loud that he didn't want to hear, with crossing a bridge and burning it behind him.

Riley was giving him that look said you aren't sufficiently macho, and that and a host of previous humiliations made Spike want to beat him to a bloody olive drab pulp. Instead he said, "I'm heading home."

"Wait." Riley took his arm to keep him. His face was open now, earnest again. He looked younger and dumber than Spike had been before he got turned. "You got her address? In Cleveland?"

"Why don't you wait till she comes back? Give her a few weeks."

"Why?" Riley said coldly. No more the earnest farmboy. Killer again. "Because you think she'll be less vulnerable to me then?"

He was right. It wasn't Spike's business anymore. He'd let her go. "Suit yourself." He dragged out his wallet and pulled out a card. "She's staying with Willow. All I got is Willow's phone number."

Riley produced a pen and an officious little notebook from one of his many pockets and took down the number. "Appreciate it."
"Don't say I didn't warn you."

Spike watched him walk away, feeling ten different ways a fool. What if Riley succeeded with her? Maybe he could win her over. She wanted a normal life, or so she kept saying. She'd never get that with Spike, never get away from the memories and the conflicts and the differences between them. Riley wasn't some bland accountant from Topeka, but he was human and relatively sane and Buffy cherished somewhat unwarranted nostalgia for him. And here Spike was, facilitating his pursuit.

He turned into the apartment courtyard, and told himself it was for the best. He wanted her to be happy. And he wanted her away from Angel. If Riley could accomplish what Spike himself had failed at, well, he'd send them a case of champagne for a wedding gift.

I guess I'm aiming for sainthood after all, he thought, and stopped at the pool to strip off his boots. And then he dove, fully dressed, into the neon turquoise water.

Chapter Text

Every evening he woke with a sense of oppression, of dread. He lay there looking at the street light filtering through the blinds and try to remember why, and then remember about Buffy, and about Angelus, and about the pain and the shame, and the future stretching out before him, featureless, unremarkable– that is, if he was lucky.

But he couldn't stay that way for long. He'd get up and take a run, or watched the Black Adder video he'd stolen from Giles, or drive his neighbor Mrs. Chavez to the grocery store– anything to dissipate the black cloud in his head.

It helped that he was healing so fast. This was his first major injury since he came back with the goddamned beating heart, and he had worried that he wouldn't heal like before. But the bones knit right on schedule, and by Thursday afternoon he was back at the school, sparring with Faith, and she was only holding back a little. She did block one of his punches with her elbow, sending him into a spasm of pain, but that worked out for the good, as he was immediately surrounded by slayerettes who petted him and crooned comfort to him and looked daggers at Faith.

He wasn't used to be cosseted like this. Could get used to it.

Faith was even looking a little guilty as she went to the cooler and came back with the ice bag. But as she assiduously applied the bag to his hand, she whispered, "Faker," and gave his arm a sharp little pinch.

He couldn't help himself. He fell back, dropping the ice bag and grabbing his arm with a trembling hand, and gazed at her in betrayal. "Why'd you keep hurting me like that?" he said plaintively, and the slayerettes gathered round him again, protecting him from his abusive colleague.

He probably just wrapped up the teacher of the year award.

Slaying was dancing– Faith understood that, even if Buffy disdained the notion– and so they always ended the class with music. Loud music. Music that Spike and Faith would never admit to actually liking, but, hey, it had a beat and you could dance to it. And they made the girls dance, every day. Today Spike stuck on the Slayer's Anthem Mix CD Andrew had devised, and gathered them around– Faith pretending she was too busy putting away mats to join them– and they all danced and sang: We are family. I got all my sisters with me. He hooked his arms with the two youngest girls– younger than Dawn when he first met her– and taught them a bit of that line dance, and they laughed, and shouted at the top of their lungs– We are family. I got all my sisters with me. And he shouted it too, as they stomped on the gym floor.

Yeah. They had to be family, these girls. Had to be sisters. They were giving up so much. They needed this much– needed each other. Needed to be like Buffy, gathering family around her. Not like Faith, always so alone– until now. Now, though she kept that sullen expression, she joined hands with two girls in the Ruby squadron to sing the other Slayer Anthem, the one he and Faith somehow both knew by heart, even though it was the most disco of disco. As long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive.... I will survive, I will survive.

But when the girls were all breathless and laughing, hugging and handholding, Faith slipped away. Spike felt her go, and felt her anger, and it oppressed him even as he dismissed the slayerettes and headed down the corridor to the kitchen. Getting drunk would help. It always helped.

Rupert was there, rummaging in the refrigerator. And Xander was under the sink, banging at some pipe, his booted feet sticking out of the cabinet.

Spike opened a cabinet above the stove, rummaged around behind all the cookbooks, and came up with a six-pack of Fosters. "Hey, Rupes," he called, and Giles turned away from his futile fridge search and caught the can of beer.

Spike walked over and kicked at Xander's workboot. "You want–"

Xander slid out, his face dusty, and Spike suddenly remembered. Rehab. Oh. Right. He finished lamely, "You want some– some milk?"

Without a word, Xander rose to his feet and grabbed a can from Spike's cache. Giles said, "Now, Xander, are you certain–"

"I'm not a drunk." Xander yanked the pull-tab. "At least no more than either of you."

Spike thought about this, then drank down half his can. "But we're British. It's okay. All the tea counteracts the effect of alcohol."

This made Rupert snort, but Xander sullenly took a gulp and then wiped his mouth off. "You think I was in alcohol rehab?"

Spike exchanged a glance with Giles, and said helpfully, "Well, either that or cocaine. Buffy wasn't real specific. But even I know, if you're treated for addiction, you're supposed to avoid–"

"I wasn't treated for addiction."

"But Buffy said–"

"Yeah. That's what she said. She was just trying to make it sound more... palatable. Unlike this beer," he said. "God. How can you drink beer warm? It's – it's a crime!"

"What do you mean, Xander?" Giles leaned back against the counter and studied him. "Not about the warm beer. About your treatment."

Xander turned and looked away out the window. "I wasn't in for rehab. I was in for–" he sucked in his breath– "attempted suicide."

Oh, Spike thought. "Hmm," he said. "And Buffy–"

"It wasn't just Buffy. I asked her not to–" Xander sighed. "I didn't realize it meant you guys wouldn't drink with me anymore."

Spike tossed him another beer and said, "So how'd you do it?"

"Car. Carbon monoxide. A neighbor smelled it and called it in."

"At least it's not as poncey as pills." Spike glanced over at Giles, who seemed to be choking just a bit. "I tried to off myself once."

"Just once?" Xander said.

Spike decided to ignore the sarcastic tone– always the most sensible tactic with Xander Harris. "Yeah. You remember. I broke your coffee table trying to stake myself."

"That's a really stupid way to commit suicide. Why didn't you just walk out into the sun?"

"Why didn't you just shoot yourself in the head?" Spike waited, but all Xander did was finish off his beer and toss the can at the trashbin. Finally Spike said, "Guess maybe neither of us wanted out that bad, huh?"

Giles coughed, and they both looked at him, and he said, "I have no revelations to share. No suicides, attempted or accomplished."

Spike shook his head. "I guess you're just not as deep as we are."

Xander added, "And not as sensitive."

Spike found this funny and started laughing, and Xander eventually joined in, and Giles sighed. "I have a schoolful of impressionable young women. Xander, if you're going to repeat your attempt, please wait until after the term concludes."

He took Spike's last beer and went out of the room, leaving Xander staring after him. "You know, he used to be, I don't know. More sympathetic."

Spike thought of the man who sheltered him last week, and murmured, "Oh, he's all right. Just... overloaded with concerns." He fixed Xander with a sharp look. "Don't be another one, okay? Come to me if you're feeling mopey."

"Oh, right," Xander said, sliding back under the sink with his wrench. "Because you always cheer me right up."

Spike leaned down and said, "And no Patsy Cline songs, you hear me? She'd make Big Bird consider suicide."

A good exit line. So he exited.

Chapter Text

When Spike found Faith slamming balls in the raquetball court, she was still mad at him. She refused to accompany him to the club to pick up his paycheck, or drop by Clem's to watch a video, or even go patrolling. She'd been touchy all week, initially pushing him for more information about his supposed attackers and then withdrawing when he pretended he couldn't remember. Now she was cold and uncommunicative, knowing he was hiding something.

She deserved the truth, after what she'd done to help him, he knew that. But the truth was too ugly. She liked Angel, counted him a friend. It was one of the few real conflicts between them, but Spike couldn't fault her loyalty. Angel had helped her when she was all alone, and she felt she owed him.

Spike would rather deal with her anger than her disillusion with Angel.

Besides, when she was mad at him, she wasn't looking at him with pity and remembering his shame.

He really only meant to stop by the club that evening for his paycheck, then head over to see what Clem and Maisie were doing. The band was playing, but his hands weren't yet up to picking, so they were stumbling along without a bass and sounding, he was glad to hear, pretty lame. He was heading out the door, check in hand, when the owner Ron called to him. "See what I found at the flea market over the weekend?"

It was an old Bally pinball machine, a Star Trek special, set up in the corner, all polished now, its lights flashing a come-hither signal to Spike. Wait'll Andrew heard about it.

He waited his turn, listening to the kids complain about its inadequacy compared to their favorite videogame. They needed a little attitude adjustment. "That's like saying a Stradivarius is inadequate compared to that Casio keyboard that can pretend to be a violin. This is a classic."

Pinball was another of the many worthless skills he'd picked up in his century-and-a-quarter (and still counting) of misspent youth. In 1971, Dru had eaten some famed London drug dealer named Nicky Longstreet, and in his pockets they found 4500 pounds and the keys to his Porsche and his big playboy mansion in St. John's Wood. Nicky had four pinball games in the TV room, and two ounces of cocaine in the freezer. Spike loved cocaine, but combining it with his natural hyperactivity led to a couple weeks of no sleep. So he used pinball to while away the long daylight hours when the relatively sensible Dru (now that was scary) slept. Vampire senses and reactions being what they were, he conquered all four machines in the few days before the police came to raid the house. After that, he managed to make a few quid here and there in arcades, popping in a single shilling and acquiring a couple dozen games to sell to the teenagers waiting for the table.

It all came back. His fingers were still stiff, but flipping a pinball flipper required less strength than playing power chords. And his hip still remembered how to gently bump the corner of the table, just enough to angle the ball towards the red flashing ball-light or into the bonus pocket. He tilted once, swore under his breath, and adjusted. After that, he managed to keep the silver ball in play for twenty minutes, and was gathering a crowd. Giles came in, watched for awhile, nursing a double scotch, and then drifted away towards the stage. Next thing Spike knew, Giles was up with the band, strapping on the Stratocaster and belting out Pinball Wizard like Roger Daltry gone Oxford.

As the silver ball was bouncing up in the racks, Spike stole a glance over his shoulder and marvelled that he and Faith and the slayerettes were actually getting Rupert loosened up. Maybe pretty soon he'd even take up with a woman again.

Two of the waitresses picked up the chorus, and were singing offkey, one at each of his ears– oh, the curse of vampire hearing– "That deaf dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball." And Sally came up behind him, and seized him by the waist. He responded automatically, his hands dropping from the flippers and clenching into fists, and it was all he could do to keep from going into gameface. But all she wanted was to put a blindfold– a towel– over his eyes, to see if he was a real pinball wizard like the one in the song.

He figured he'd make a fool of himself, but that was okay. He didn't need to prove himself to friends. And once the disorientation of blindness passed, he relaxed into the darkness, pulling back the plunger in that familiar way, imagining the course of the ball through the shute and out into the playing field, setting his index fingers on the buttons and his thumbs on the table frame.

And then, it was as if he could see through his body. It had nothing to do with his eyes– they were well and truly dark. But his pelvis against the front of the table and his fingers on the buttons and his face above the glass top translated the minute vibrations into something very much like sight. In his mind he saw the infrared tracings of the ball through the playing field, and reacted instinctively, jamming the right button, the left button, bumping the corner with his hip, tapping the side with his palm. The girls stopped singing, Sally stopped chattering, and he felt Giles at his shoulder, watching.

It was frightening and exhilarating. He'd always had heightened senses, ever since he was turned, but this was a step beyond.

He finally let the ball fall, weary in every muscle, stepped back and pulled off the blindfold. Sally was shaking her head and smiling, but the younger girls looked a little afraid. Giles had his silent watcher face on.

Time to go, before they started asking questions. So he sketched a wave to Ron, patted Sally on the arm, and headed out with Giles.

"That was interesting," Giles said in his low-key way.

"Yeah."

"Could you see through the blindfold?"

"No. I could just... feel. Heat, maybe? I don't know."

Giles was silent as they walked through the door into the cool night. Finally he said, "I'm trying to think of a way this could be useful."

"Unless I go blind, I think it gets filed with blowing smoke rings and walking on my hands as another of my useless talents." He paused and closed his eyes, tried to replicate the experience. But he was too distracted now, all his other senses probing for signs of– of Angel, of attack. "Come on back to my place. I ordered some hobnobs online." They were both nostalgic for hobnobs, the chocolate-covered oat biscuit popular in London. "Cost $25 for one package, so I'll only give you a couple."

"I'm going to the airport. Red-eye to Chicago, then the hop to Cleveland."

"Oh." Spike knew he ought to say something else, to distract them both from what Giles was going to do in Cleveland. "Need a ride?"

"No– I'm taking my car to the airport so I'll have it when I get back in a couple days."

"Yeah. Well. Faith and I'll watch the girls for you."

"Careful patrolling with them till I get back."

"Yeah, I know. You worry."

He walked Giles to his car, noting the overnight bag in the back seat. "Say hi to Buffy for me."

Giles just shot him a look "You're feeling better?"

"Top flight."

Giles climbed in the car, slammed the door, rolled down the window. "You're not dealing with this."

"Sure I am. Over it."

"I've been there, remember?" Giles held up his hand. The scars from Angelus's long-ago torture gleamed in the light from the streetlamp. "You don't just ignore it."

"This wasn't anything as bad as your experience. No one's died, for one thing."

"Not yet."

"You forget he pretty much owned me for a decade or more. He's done similar a hundred times before."

"When you were a fledgling."

"Yeah, well, I'm old enough now to be dealing."

Giles shook his head. "It could get ugly. Buffy might not believe me."

Spike looked out into the night. "She'll believe you. She'll just tell you that Angel can't be blamed. And neither you nor I have ever had an adequate answer to that."

"Well. I'll be staying at the Marriott downtown. Call me if you need to." It was a measure of his concern that this undemonstrative man laid a hand, just for a moment, on Spike's arm. "I'm going to bring her back with me."

Giles drove off, and Spike turned to the shadows of the bank next door. "Sensin' Slayer here, I am."

Faith stepped out into the light, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, her face cold. "Were you going to tell me?"

"I don't know."

"Why not? You don't think I deserve to know? After dragging your broken body home, I don't have the right?"

Spike said mildly, "You have the right. I didn't want to upset you, that's all."

"Upset me? You know what would really upset me, if I'd gone after some demon I thought did that to you, and got myself killed trying to avenge you, when all along it was–"

She was right. Spike started to walk home. "Come on. I got some hobnobs." She stayed planted there in middle of the sidewalk. "Okay. Also got some fudge-mint oreos I was saving for a special occasion."

She fell into step beside him. "So it was Angelus. He's back."

"I don't know. Far's I can tell, he doesn't remember. Just one little lapse into brutality, you know?"

"So the world isn't in imminent danger?"

"Don't think so."

"What about you?"

"He's done his worst. I think we're quits."

Faith pondered this as they got settled under the avocado tree with a bottle of mango juice and a plate of oreos. "So you taking your revenge?"

He shrugged. "I had my chance. Didn't." He watched her nibble all the fudge off the cookie before biting into it. Awkwardly, he said, "I know you owe him. He was there at a dark time for you. Stood by you. Don't want you, you know, to have to divide your loyalties."

She watched the light play on the water of the pool, and said finally, "I owe him. But if he's doing wrong, if he's dangerous again, it's not being loyal to let him do it. Angel wouldn't want that. I don't believe he'd want to be hurting people."

"Not that I'm people."

Faith gave him a disgusted look, and then went back to twisting open her cookie.

"You know," he pointed out, "the whole purpose of the fudge mint coating is that you're supposed to eat it all together. Otherwise you could have just had any old Oreo with a spoon in a jar of fudge-mint topping."

"You don't like the way I eat my cookie?" she asked. Deliberately she raised the cookie to her lips and scraped the cream off with her teeth.

Spike grinned. "Just sayin'. Don't let me stop you, babe." She'd been like this the last week, off and on, teasing him with her sensuality. It wasn't a come-on– he thought they were both too protective of their friendship to mess it up with anything else– but... but something. He suspected, with a sick feeling in his stomach, that she'd figured out about Angelus, about that night, and was trying to make him, who knows, feel like a man again. It worked, sort of, but ... but he didn't want her to know. Didn't want her to think about it. Didn't want her to look at him and –

But he played along, because it was kind of her, and because that way she maybe wouldn't know he knew–

Enough. Should be no shame in this. He hadn't done anything wrong.

So he poured her another glass of juice and leaned back in his pool chair and said, "He's going to be like this forever. Periodically becoming Angelus, when it suits him to release the demon."

Faith took the glass and looked out into the darkness. "Last year. They brought Angelus back. Wes and Fred and Gunn. They needed him– his knowledge and power. But then they couldn't make him leave."

Spike thought of the earnest AI flunkies and their devotion to their boss, their experiments and their beakers and their research books. "What happened?"

"They– well, they were going to put his soul back in him, make him Angel again. But the soul got stolen."

Spike waited, but Faith didn't crack a smile. He said, "You're joking."

"No."

"Say it again."

"His soul got stolen. So they couldn't put it back."

It still sounded like a joke to Spike. "So the loopy little trio did what to get Angel back?"

"Wes came and got me- broke me out of jail to fight Angelus. And Willow did the spell again– anyway, it worked. And after that was when I went to Sunnydale to help out."

Spike shook his head. It sounded just like the crew he'd lived with that week in residence at the AI headquarters. Bunch of amateurs. They had to import a Slayer and a witch to undo their little experiment. "You think they're messing around again?"

"I don't know. But I've steered clear of that place. Wasn't for you and Giles and the school, I'd be out of this town, because–" Faith took a swig of the mango juice, desperate, like it was 100 proof rum– "because Wolfram and Hart? Bad news."

"Yeah, I know."

"All this super power. Just right for hostile takeover. Lots of opportunity here in LA."

"We've been careful, though. No one knows about the slayerettes, that they're more than just potentials. That they have the powers. And we've kept them protected, hidden away there at the school. So–"

"So it's just you and me and Angel and Buffy."

"And you and me, not likely. Too ornery." He said it as firmly as he could. Almost believed it.

Faith smiled. "We've been evil. Won't get fooled again."

"Buffy–"

"She's pretty tough. Directed."

"First Evil couldn't get her. Got me, but couldn't get her."

"No one's going to get you now, bucko. You've been blessed by the PTBs. Plus," she added with her wickedest smile, "you've gone soft. No use to the evilistas."

"Sod off. I could be evil again. If I want to."

Faith nodded. "Sure, Spike. Sure." She took another cookie and began denuding it with her fingernail, popping each fudge fragment into her mouth. "Angel's the weak link. Always."

"Just a matter of time before Angelus gets out."

"He said to me– Angelus did– that he's always in there, deep in, and that he'd always find a way out."

"But–" Spike still couldn't articulate his sense that the Angelus that met him at the club wasn't the Angelus Faith meant. He gave it a try, however. "Listen. It's not just the thug we have to worry about. Bad enough. Angel's soul never proves to be a prison strong enough to keep him, you know? But– but this wasn't him. This was my grandsire, the one who trained me. And he's not some stupid maniac. He was one of the strongest vampires out there. He's got all the strength, and Angel's smarts too."

"You think he's, you know, become unified?"

Spike shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe sometimes he just takes over again. When he wants to. He's always there, just likes to let this Angel face show most of the time." He stopped and replayed that in his head. "It sounds stupid."

"About half of our existence sounds stupid. I mean, even you didn't believe the soul in the jar thing."

Despite himself, Spike laughed. "They put it in a jar? Was it, like, a special jar? Waterford crystal?"

"Well, magically reinforced, I guess. But still it got raided."

"I can just see those dolts staring at the empty jar and saying, 'It's gone!'"

Faith tried to look stern. "It's not funny, Spike. They were really worried. Stop laughing."

"Come on, you think it's funny too."

"Maybe I do. But– but it wasn't at the time. It was... scary. And sad. Angelus didn't want to leave. He liked being out. And he– he was ... more than Angel. You know?"

"Yeah, I know. Angel's only the half of him. And that's why Angel'll lose out in the end."

Faith shook her head, her hair bouncing hard on her shoulders. "No. He can't. He's held on this long."

"Things have changed. It's all gone wrong for him." Meditatively he quoted, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, The ceremony of innocence is drowned."

She was regarding him skeptically. "You know, you ought to see someone about this poetry problem of yours."

"It's apt. It's true. His centre isn't holding."

"Okay. But what can we do? Given that neither of us is likely to stake him."

"I don't know." He picked up the glasses and took them back into his flat, then returned to find her staring into the depths of the pool. He felt for her– she wasn't good at this stuff, as she always said, this figuring people out and caring about them. Getting better, but it was still hard for her.

"Wanna kill some demons?" he said.

"Sure," she said, getting to her feet and brushing the chocolate crumbs off her blouse. "You know where some are hanging out? That weird pet cemetery, where all the loony old Hollywood stars bury their pets."

And so they chased down a couple Charter demons, kicking in their soft heads while singing Spike's third all-time favorite Ramones song– I don't want to be buried, in a pet sematery, I don't want to live my life again.

Chapter Text

When he called Spike from the Cleveland airport, Rupert sounded weary. "I'm bringing her back. All I told her was that there was some trouble between you and Angel, and that we'll all be meeting. Can you set up a neutral venue?"

Spike decided right then and there he didn't want this– didn't want to see Buffy, didn't want to see Angel. Didn't want to see them together. Didn't want to confront Angel or hurt Buffy.

But Rupert did. And he was involved– Spike had gotten him involved.

Neutral venue. He couldn't think of any, here in this city teeming with demons and SWAT teams. So he left his office in the main school building and crossed the courtyard under the colonnade, automatically dodging the sharp shafts of sunlight. He went into the carriage house and climbed the interior stairs. At the top he banged on the door– thick planks and an old brass knob.

"Yeah?" Xander sounded drunk. Or just drowsy.

"It's me."

Xander opened the door, his face creased, his hair rumpled, and stood there blocking Spike as surely as that invisible barrier used to, back when Spike needed an invite to enter a human's home.

They'd actually lived together, once upon a time, or twice, maybe. Spike remembered, wondered if Xander did.

"Need your help."

Xander shrugged and stood back to let him in. The room was small and bare, and Spike knew right away that was by Xander's choice. Giles would have housed him better, if only for Anya's sake. But Xander wanted this monk's room above the garage, the wooden floor, the stone walls, the single slit of a window, the narrow unmade bed.

"Yeah. What?"

Spike wouldn't have sat, even if there was a chair for sitting. Xander didn't want him there, probably didn't want anyone there. So he wouldn't try to stay. Not friends. But allies, sometimes.

"I need a space. Maybe big enough for fighting." Now he wanted to fight. Wanted to get back at Angel. Prove he was a man. Again. "Inside. Away from prying eyes. Thought you might know of one. Seeing as how you're in construction. Or deconstruction."

Xander was working weekends on a scavenger crew, demolishing buildings, salvaging the copper wire and sheet metal. Spike might have liked that job too, except it probably meant shards of wood flying here and there in a dangerous fashion.

"A big space." Xander thought about this. "When do you need it?"

"Tonight."

"There's an old warehouse. Couple miles inland, near the freight tracks. The door's chained up–"

"Can break the chain."

"Yeah. Right." Xander went to the microwave and from the basket on top, pulled out a pad of paper. "I don't know the address. But I'll draw you a map." And quickly, efficiently, he scrawled a few lines, a square, an X. He shoved it at Spike.

"Thanks."

Spike stuffed the paper in his pocket and turned to go.

"You're meeting Angel, aren't you."

"Something like that."

Xander let him get halfway down the stairs before he said, "You look okay. Better than before. But– might take some back up. Faith, like."

Spike didn't need backup. Didn't want it, anyway. He was back to full strength, or almost. Close enough. "Don't need it," he muttered, and went out into the light.




Backup was there, whether he liked it or not. At dusk, when he came out of the school, Faith was waiting, her red Charger idling. He stood in the driveway, looking down at her through her open window.

"Come on. I'll drive."

He gave up. Got in. "Xander tell you?"

"No. Giles called, told me where we're going."

"It's my fight," Spike said. "If there's a fight."

Without even pausing at the stop sign, Faith pulled out onto the cross-street. "Agreed. I'm just there for backup. 'Case something goes wrong."

"Just going to talk."

"Right."

"Rupert's bringing Buffy."

Faith gave him a sidelong glance. "What for? After a week?"

Now Spike couldn't actually remember. His head was full of the desire for vengeance– his whole body was thrumming with the need for it. "She needs to know. Something's wrong with Angel."

Faith was silent as they drove through the twilit streets. Then, as they crossed the railroad tracks, she said, "You think she might come back to you? If she knows?"

He started to protest, then shut up. Finally he said, "I don't think that's what this is about. She can help him. But she has to know he needs help."

"Help. That's what this is about?" She reached over the gear shift and took hold of his hand. His fist, that is. "I get the idea you're ready for a fight."

He yanked his hand away. "Ready for whatever comes."




But he wasn't.

They were the first to arrive, so he and Faith broke the chain at the big double door, each pulling on one end till the steel links parted with a sharp whine. The interior was dark, but he found the wall and flipped on the floodlights, and looked back at Faith, standing in the doorway, shielding her eyes.

"Good space," was all she said, looking out at the empty warehouse, the bare concrete floor, the echoingly high ceiling.

Good space for a fight. But he didn't get his fight.

The door clattered, and someone fell in. Not Angel. Andrew. He jumped to his feet, all abashed and defensive, sheltering something in his sweatshirt. "Hi," he said, like they were all meeting in the courtyard at school.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Faith demanded.

Andrew smiled. It was one of those Andrew smiles that somehow always worked on Spike. Sly and innocent. "I sensed something was up. And I followed you in my car."

Spike scowled at him. "You followed us."

"Yeah." Andrew kind of hopped a little, one foot to the other. "And you guys didn't even notice!"

"Why?"

Andrew squinted, wriggled his shoulders. "Uh, I guess I thought you might need some backup."

Spike gave up. Andrew was an eavesdropper, always had been. Probably had wiretaps all over the school. But there wasn't any harm in him, or none meant anyway. "What you got there? Under your shirt?"

Andrew withdrew a tiny camcorder and stared at it like he couldn't figure out how it got there. "I guess– a videocam. Just in case, I guess."

"Just in case of what?" Faith asked. She put her hand out to confiscate it, the way she would if a slayerette was hiding an unauthorized dagger in her sock.

But before Andrew could hand the camera over, the door opened and pushed him, arms flailing, to the side.

It was Rupert, with Buffy protesting behind him. She wanted to know what was going on, where Angel was– she stopped when she saw Spike, and Andrew, and then Faith prowling around kicking at broken bits of plaster. "Oh," she said to Spike. "You're here."

She looked pleased. And for a moment, he let that stir him. It had been two weeks. She missed him. That was... okay. But it wasn't the time to think of that. Angel was arriving– Spike could feel him outside the door. Readying himself. For what?

Not for a fight. Angel entered, his big shoulders hunched, his face wary. But he was looking at Buffy, not Spike. What was he worried about? That she'd be coming back to Spike? Not likely. After tonight she'd be–

Well, Spike didn't know what she'd be. And to judge by the look on his face, neither did Angel.

Giles shot a sharp look at Andrew, but then ignored him to glance around at the others. "I asked you here because I am concerned that Angelus has once again been released."

Well, that was getting right to the point.

Angel and Buffy both stared at Rupert, and finally Angel said, "No. I'd know it if that happened."

Buffy chimed in, "I'd know too. Come on, Giles, you're–"

Spike couldn't take anymore. "I met him, Buffy. We–" He couldn't do it. Couldn't confess how bad it had been, how he'd been taken by surprise. How he had been damaged, inside and out. "We fought."

Angel was shaking his head. "No. I still have my soul. I know it. I feel it."

"Yeah, well, maybe this version of Angelus has a soul. Didn't stop him." Spike's hands started aching the way they'd ached last week. His heart too. Stupid heart. Didn't need it. Didn't want it. Always had it.

Angel started to speak, but then he stopped. "You mean– when Buffy was gone. Someone attacked you. Demons. You owed them money."

Spike wouldn't answer, so Rupert did it for him. "There were no demons. Just you."

"But I wasn't hurt–" Angel fell silent, and looked down at his hands.

Hey, Spike thought, maybe he'd bruised those knuckles a bit, pounding them on my head. But he refused to say that out loud. Refused to admit it out loud, that he hadn't had a chance to fight back. Or that he'd had one finally, and let him go.

Angel was still staring at his hands. "When was it?"

Spike couldn't speak anymore. Just couldn't speak. It felt like something was blocking his throat. So Rupert had to answer. "A week ago. Friday night."

"Friday night," Angel whispered. And then he looked over at Spike. "I don't remember any of it. I accept that something happened. I just don't remember. And it's not something I'd choose to do. Not if I realized what I was doing."

Giles said, very evenly, as if he were just seeking information, "So why don't you remember?"

Angel pressed his palm to his temple and closed his eyes. "When Buffy left, I started... drinking. I held it together during the day. But I didn't like being alone. So that night–" He opened his eyes and looked over at Buffy.

"So it's all Buffy's fault." Faith spoke for the first time. "She should have known you'd fall apart, huh?"

Angel ignored her irony. "No, of course not. It's my fault. I admit it. I don't remember what happened– Spike, you know I don't. I came to see you, remember? Trying to find out who did it. I'd hardly do that if I knew it was me."

"But you know it was you?" Buffy said. Her voice was very low.

"I don't know it. But I accept it." Angel was looking down, away from them. Yeah. Ashamed. That was what it looked like. "But it wasn't Angelus. Just me being – being.... I don't know. Angry. Taking it out on– Look, Spike. I screwed up. I apologize."

"See?" Buffy turned to Spike. "He apologizes. And he's going to stop the drinking, right, Angel?"

"Right," Angel said heavily. "I should have known better. I can't just... just suppress feelings."

Spike felt Rupert's gaze. He wouldn't break a confidence. But he wanted Spike to speak. No. Not that. He'd say something else instead. "It wasn't just Angel being drunk. It was Angelus. My grandsire."

Angel and Buffy both turned to him. The perfect team. In perfect synchrony. "What do you mean, Spike?" she asked.

"I mean that it wasn't this sorry excuse for a vampire," Spike said. Anger was overcoming him. He had to settle. "It was Angelus. All of him."

Buffy shook her head. "Angel's admitted–"

"Come on, Slayer." Angry again. Vicious. "You know. Angel would never fight for you. He doesn't care enough."

She drew in a deep breath. Stared at him. Angel was muttering something behind her, but for a moment, it was just the two of them– Spike and the Slayer. "All he's ever done is let you go. He'd let you go now. It's Angelus that will kill to keep you."

For a second there he thought he'd connected. But then, weirdly, she smiled. "Spike. It's not even about me. It's just your old rivalry. You feel it too. I know you do. Come on. No matter how old you two are, you never grow up enough, do you? Still thrashing each other."

"I didn't–" Spike didn't finish. Didn't bother. Hurt too much.

"Come on, Spike," she said. Cajoling now. She was coming to him, taking his hand. Looking right into his eyes. And she added, very soft, just for him, "You were taken over too, and made to kill, and I defended you– yes, even against Giles there, and he's your new ally. You of all people should understand."

And then something just broke. Not his heart this time, but a bond. Just like a rope that's been stretched too far for too long. He pulled his hand loose from hers. "I told you to stake me then. Remember? And when you wouldn't, I found what was wrong and fixed it. And it won't happen again."

"We can't know that."

"Then stake me now. If you have any worries that I'll become a murderer again. Do it." He held out his hand and waited, and after a moment Giles– not Faith, stubborn bint– tossed him a stake. He thrust it at her. "Take it."

She was only a hands-breadth away, but backed off, like it was her and not him that could die by that stake. She whispered, "No. I don't think that will happen again."

"Can you say the same for him?"

She didn't answer, so he answered for her. "No. In fact you can just about predict it'll happen again. He's made a deal with the devil, hasn't he? And it's eatin' away at him inside. He's losing all his control. And control's the only thing keeping him from killing, because he's got no power over his demon. He'd have to acknowledge it's there to have power over it."

"Spike." Buffy gazed up at him. Her face was intent. "He apologized. For Angel, that's huge. You should forgive him."

"Christ," he said, and turned away. He couldn't look at her. "Buffy, that's it. It's over. We're done, you and me."

He heard her quick indraw of breath, and then, hard, she said, "We already were done. Remember?"

"You know what I mean." And he knew that she did– that he'd given her up. Really this time. For all time.

It killed him. Killed him. Faith moved closer, her eyes dark with concern. She wasn't close enough to touch him. She knew better than to touch him. But she was there, and Rupert was there, and somewhere in some corner, holding his camcorder to his chest– or more likely recording all this– was Andrew.

He could let Buffy go. He would.

When he'd mastered his breathing, he turned back. He didn't look at Buffy. Wouldn't look at Buffy. He looked at Angel instead. "I want shut of you."

"I won't come near--"

"Not enough. I want you to renounce sire rights. Master's rites."

Angel was staring at him. Not with shock– with incomprehension. As if he didn't remember, didn't know. As if there was none of Angelus in him, schooled in the Aurelian way.

"Andrew!"

And the boy appeared, trying to hide his whirring camcorder by his leg. "Yeah, Spike?"

"Give me some paper. A pen."

Andrew goggled at him, then slid his backpack off his shoulder and – still with one hand cradling the camera– pulled a spiral notebook out. He handed it to Spike and then fumbled for a pen.

Spike opened to a clean page and walked forward. He shoved the notebook at Angel. "Write it."

Angel took the pen and stared down at the blank page. "Write what?"

And Spike felt the words rise in him with the rage. "Write this: I, Angelus of Aurelius– write Angelus, not Angel– hereby forswear all sire's rights and all master's rights –"

Angel was trying to balance the notebook on one forearm, and Andrew shoved the camcorder at Faith and ran over there. He slid the pack off and turned his back. Angel hesitated, then balanced the notebook against the arch Andrew provided, and slowly wrote out the words, his lips moving silently.

"... all master's rights to William of Aurelius," Spike continued. His voice sounded implacable. But he looked down, and his hands were trembling. Still he added, "And write this:
William of Aurelius retains all rights and protections of the Order of Aurelius."

He didn't know where this all came from. All those hours spent with Darla as she sat at the feet of the old Master – Angelus knew to stay far away– while justice was done. Vampire justice anyway. Disownments and disinheritances and dismembowelments, all bestowed in the Master's light, amused voice.

"All claims of Angelus to William are hereby revoked."

And Angel finished this and looked up. All ignorant obedience now. No big deal, right? No big deal. Emancipating a childe. Forswearing a claim. He had to pretend like that, because he had to pretend he wasn't Angelus. Wasn't a master. Made no claim.

"Sign it. Sign it as Angelus. In blood."

And Angel, embarrassed now, slipped into vampface for just long enough to slice his own arm. Then he let the blood drip onto the notebook page, and dipped the pen into the blood and scrawled his signature.

"Take it, Andrew," Spike said.

And Andrew took back the notebook, all reverence now, holding it up to let the blood dry– the scrawl, and the stain, and the spidering drips.

"We're done," Spike said. And he turned on his heel and walked out into the night.




In the parking lot, Xander was sitting on the hood of his pickup, under the halogen street lamp. He held up a bottle, the glass glinting in the yellow light.

Spike hesitated. Couldn't be with Faith and her caring now. Couldn't be with chattering Andrew and contemplative Giles. Couldn't be with Buffy. Ever again.

He crossed over to the truck and without a word, got in the passenger side.

Xander said nothing, just put the truck in gear and drove back to the school. But he parked on the beach side, and got out, picking the Jim Beam bottle from the floor.

Spike waited a minute. Calmed his breath. Followed.

They sat side by side on the moonlit beach, watching a cruise ship make its stately way down the coast towards Catalina. Xander never said a word, just passed over the bottle and took it back. They got into a rhythm about it. Spike would grip the bottle and pull it up and take a swig, then shove it over at Xander, who would take a swig and shove it back.

The boy had a pretty good capacity, for a human.

Finally the ship was passed and the bottle was empty. Spike used the seawall to pull himself up. "Going home," he said.

"You can't drive," Xander said. He rose and stood unsteadily in the sand.

"Can't stay here." Spike thought of the slayerettes, Faith. Being drunk and weak and miserable around his girls– he couldn't.

"You can bunk in with me. Lay low till morning. Drive home then."

When Spike didn't answer, Xander grabbed his arm and yanked him towards the stone beach steps. "We'll go the back way. No one'll see us."

Spike let himself be pulled along. Didn't matter anyway. Nothing mattered.

In the little room over the carriage house, Xander surveyed the floor. "Clean enough," he said, and went to a cupboard on the wall and pulled out a sheet and a blanket and a pillow.

"Hard enough," Spike said, because that was what they said to each other, sarcastic things. Complaints. Insults.

"So says the guy who sleeps in a coffin."

Spike threw the pillow at Xander, or at least he aimed it at him, but it went astray and knocked over the lamp and plunged them into darkness.

"Real smart," Xander muttered.

"Can see in the dark." Spike retrieved the pillow and lay down on the floor and closed his eyes, and heard the bed creaking, and he knew that the room was spinning slowly for Xander too. Slow and sick. "We should quit drinking," he said, and Xander snorted.

"Yeah, right."

"Give up women too."

"Already have," Xander said. "That's why I drink."

"Good thinking." Spike listened as the breaths got longer and slower, and finally let himself fall asleep too.




When he awoke, he felt new. Like he felt when he awoke after Dru had turned him. Brand new. Released from care.

He wasn't Buffy's anymore. And he wasn't Angelus's either.

Chapter Text

Who can say when friendship turns into something more? When pleasure turns to need. When need becomes a craving–

All Spike knew was that he couldn't last the night without seeing her safe.

She'd taken the Ruby squad out patrolling, then sent them back to the school after an uneventful hour or so. She went off– where? The girls didn't know. To kill something. Spike started home, telling himself she was a slayer, damnit, and could take care of herself. But he couldn't stand it, not another minute, knowing how she was, how restless, how reckless. Everything was screwed up now, since the confrontation with Buffy and Angel– she was avoiding him again, who knew why. But he couldn't let her go.

He had slayer sense too, that is, he could sense slayers– but it would drive him crazy, with the girls everywhere, if he didn't suppress it most of the time. Tonight, as he drove away from the school, he opened it up again, his slayer channel, seeking out her signal–

He tracked Faith down in that old pet cemetery, his new heart pounding enough to hurt, just to see her there, still standing, still laughing. She was toying with a chronos demon, a big rough-and-ready animal, horned like a rhino, slow and stupid. She didn't need Spike, but when she saw him, she tauntingly let the chronos get closer, close enough that the horn brushed her back as she whirled. Spike growled, more at her than at the demon. Fooling around, showoff, get herself killed someday– but as he approached, she drew the demon farther away. Didn't want his help. Just wanted his attention.

He watched for awhile, appreciating her solid grace, the force behind her kicks, that bulldog look of hers. But slayers tired before demons did, and he thought he might end up having to intervene, and then she'd feel inadequate. Well, maybe not inadequate. Mad. At him. Best to avoid the issue.

"Finish it off, slayer, or no Ben & Jerry's for you," he finally called. She glanced over her shoulder at him, aimed a kick. "Phish Food," he reminded her. "A sundae. In a waffle cone. Hot fudge. Chocolate sprinkles."

"Okay." She launched herself, feet first, at the demon's gullet, smashing it back, impaling it on the wing of a dog-bodied angel. As the demon exploded, she backpedaled furiously, and the demon bits flew harmlessly above her. She rose and shook out her hair and looked over at him, her eyes with that bright gleam like a new moon. "You paying?"

It was two days till payday, and between them they had enough for only one sundae, so they shared it, handing it back and forth as they walked along the boardwalk, arguing amiably about who took the biggest bite and who got the most fudge, and Spike touched his mouth right there by the marshmallow, the chocolate glistening wet where her tongue had been, and he felt peaceful and light... sliding into love, landing without a jolt.

He almost told her, right then. They were candid like that with each other, said what they felt. But... but he couldn't. Maybe she wouldn't believe him. He was just off the Buffy-obsession, after all, and everyone knew how deep he'd been there. And maybe she wouldn't want to hear it. Maybe it would wreck everything, their friendship, their ease.

He'd rather have her halfway than not at all.

He told himself that, then knew it was a lie. He'd never been halfway about anything.

Not yet. Not time.

So he let her have the last bite of cone, the one with the miniature marshmallow, and thought she'd figure it out, that he'd only do that if he loved her, but she just gave him that funny scowl of hers and broke off a piece of waffle and put it in his mouth. They could never stand to get out of balance for long.

He dropped her back at the school, watched her walk in the front door, watched the lights go on– and stay on, skinflint Giles be damned– as she went to her room on the third floor. Then he drove home, listening to her Slayer CD all the way.

He could wait forever.

No. He could wait maybe till next week.

When Giles returned from a weekend trip to London, there was a stack of paperwork on his desk. A companion to the stack of paperwork on the London desk. He sighed and sat down and started signing his name.

After twenty minutes of this, he was ready for an interruption, and it arrived on schedule. Spike, of course, with his excellent timing, walked in without knocking, humming under his breath, and he dropped down into the leather chair as if it were his own.

He seemed... liberated. Liberated from love. Or liberated from Angelus. But he looked easy and happy and Giles almost smiled, then ruthlessly curbed it. "Report?"

Spike said, "All well." And that was it.

Usually Spike's verbal reports were lengthy and detailed, so detailed that Giles usually preferred to get the updates from Faith. But Spike only smiled, and Giles said, "That's all?"

"Might say more if you give me a drink."

Giles shook his head, but pulled out a couple glasses, and withdrew the bottle from his desk drawer. He regarded the level balefully. It was an inch lower than it ought to be. "You bastard. Why don't you buy your own?"

"Macallen? You don't pay me enough. Have to have an independent income for that." Spike held out his hand, waiting for the glass with that vampire sort of expectation. I want. Give or I take. Once Giles had complied– how did one resist that imperious look?– Spike took an easy draw and swallowed it down. No one could make drinking look as wicked as Spike did. But then, he made just lounging in a desk chair look wicked. It was his art.

Giles resented him. Needed him, but resented him. Eternal youth was a curse, he made no doubt of it. But Spike did forever-post-adolescent with irritating elan. And now that he had his drink in hand, he launched into his usual extensive report, narrating the patrols and critiquing the slayer cadets' performances, one by one, as if Giles had been gone a month and not just three days.

"Good," Giles said, cutting short the dissection of the Ruby Squadron's staking acumen. "You seem... pleased."

Spike shrugged. Smiled. There was a faraway look in his eyes. "Our girls. They're topflight."

"You're partly responsible for that." Honesty made him add, "Mostly responsible. You and Faith. Of course–" He poured himself another drink. This new subject made him want to drink. "You're also responsible for that damned senior prom."

"Nah." Spike smiled, his gaze down in the depths of his glass. "It was Faith made me think of it. Said she'd never worn a formal. Never went to a prom. And I thought of those girls– it's not like they chose this route. The least we can do is give them one chance to wear a pretty frock and dance to some soppy boy band."

"As long as you take charge of it."

Spike glanced up at him. The wicked face was suddenly fresh with guilt. Giles sighed. It was difficult dealing with someone so lacking in artifice, whose every fleeting emotion showed up an instant later on his face. Most of Giles's machiavellian talents at ferreting out secret motivations went unused. "Now what?"

"They need to learn how to dance. So... I sort of promised them we'd teach them."

"We? You can't mean you and I?"

"Come on, Giles. You had the same education I did, only a century later. Westminster–"

"I went to Harrow."

"Same difference. Oxford, Christ Church–"

"Balliol."

"Balliol? Christ. Sorry, man. Didn't mean to remind you of your great shame." Spike shook his head, as if somehow college pride had outlasted a century of carnage. "You remember dancing lessons. Painful shoes. Girls in white gloves. Poncey French instructor in tight trousers."

Giles had a memory flash of himself as a lad at the door of an assembly room, his fingers curled around the doorframe, his mother prying him loose and telling him he had no choice at all, he was going to learn to dance so that he would be presentable in polite society. It was swinging London in the late 60s, and polite society was entirely irrelevant, but his mother and the poncey French instructor and the girls in their white gloves didn't notice. He learned to dance.

"It's not something you forget," Spike pointed out.

Spike, of course, liked to dance. All part of the decadent elite vampire lifestyle, Giles supposed, a century of carnage and waltzing, floating by the long ballroom mirrors without leaving a trace. And tangos. He hadn't the slightest doubt that Spike could tango.

"Faith–"

"Yeah, she knows how to dance. Took classes in prison. So there'll be three of us. And a week."

"Spike."

"Come on, Rupert. You're always talking about giving the potentials skills for life." Spike leaned forward earnestly, the empty glass dangling from his hand. "Well, dancing's a skill. Like swimming. Never know when you might need it."

"You know, Spike, I loathe you when you're being sincere."

A quick flash in the silver-blue eyes, something that might have been amusement but was more likely hurt. Spike hurt easily. Sometimes Giles understood how he'd made a sadist of sweet loving Buffy. He was like a kitten, his hurt like a kitten's adorable wounded confusion when confronted face-first with a plate glass window. Giles wasn't a sadist, however, and he needed Spike, and sometimes liked him too. "I'll help you with your dancing lessons."

Happiness dawned. Spike smiled. Simple, joyful Spike. But he was quick to cover it up, however inadequately. "More blackmail material. Someday I'll write my memoirs, and you'll have a chapter of your own, and you'll have to pay me to excise it."

"Back to the matter at hand." Giles sorted through the stack in front of him and pulled out a stapled set of papers. "Next term. Your contract."

"I don't know about doing this again, Rupert. I got plans for the summer. And this doesn't seem like me. Teaching. Patience. Forbearance."

"And yet you're good at it." It was indeed strange. Giles had puzzled over it those first weeks, as he watched Spike adjust to his role. A walking id with no impulse control– that was Spike– but he was so careful with the students. Careful and yet easy. Proper as a rector– the girls were all mad for him, but he never gave any sign of noticing. Giles had seen him flirt with their housekeeper, making her elderly skin glow with blushes, and yet, surrounded by nubile teenaged girls, he didn't even quirk the scarred eyebrow.

"I should be killing more," Spike said casually. "But I have to let them do it, to get the experience. And so I'm left restless–"

Giles couldn't hide a smile. "Ah, the existential dilemma of a redeemed, ensouled vampire with 23 student slayers. To kill, or to let them kill. That is the question."

"You know, if you're going to butcher Shakespeare, at least don't be so trite about it. If we're talking killing, Hamlet doesn't much fit. He killed mostly by accident. And Macbeth– pussy-whipped little princeling. Try... Titus Andronicus. Now that was a killer. Long I have been forlorn, and all for thee. Welcome, dread fury, to my woeful house. Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too!"

Giles didn't like it when the punk here got literary, pulling obscure Shakespeare out of nowhere. It produced cognitive dissonance and gave him a headache. "You were saying. Your summer plans."

"Right. I'm thinking roadtrip. Laying waste to the landscape again. Leaving evil demon bodies strewn across the countryside. Get it out of my system."

"But you'll come back for next term?"

"Will consider it. That's all I promise. But I'll need the company jeep."

"You do have a car of your own."

"It's a sports car. Not enough room for the weaponry. Come on, Rupert. You'll be in England. What difference will it make to you?"

Giles considered the dents. Spike would, of course, hurl demon bodies against the car. He wouldn't do that to his own car, but the school's car? Well, why not? Isn't that why they had insurance? "Any other demands?"

"Salary. I called the union. Teachers get paid for summer months."

"You are not in the union."

"I was thinking of, ya know, organizing a local. Me and Faith. The other guy too, the English teacher. And that part-timer who comes in and does the math classes. And Andrew. Yeah, I know he mostly just drives the bus, but he's doing the training videos too, so I thought he might count. And he'll do anything I tell him. He'll join my union."

Giles started laughing. Spike as labor organizer. No, Spike as extortionist. "You can have the buggering jeep. You can have the salary. Just report back August 15. Non-union."

"Yeah. Well." Spike slid a hand over the desk and snagged the bottle. "There's one other thing."

"Make it a double, why don't you?" Giles said, watching as he splashed the whisky into the glass.

"Thanks, I will. So, what I'm thinking is, on this lay-waste tour of mine. Thought I'd ask Faith to come with me. We'd make a tour of the hotspots, to assign the new slayers. Find the hellmouth wannabes and make them a bit less hospitable to the baddies."

"Sounds good," Giles said, already thinking ahead to next term, when the newly refreshed and killed-out Spike and Faith would take on supervisory chores and leave him to his research. "I'm sure Faith would enjoy–" He stopped with his glass halfway to his lips, then set it down. "Do you mean for Faith to be a simple travelling companion, or –?"

"Or."

"I see." Giles, of course, did see– had seen, in fact, before Spike did, and perhaps before Faith. He was just glad they'd held off long enough to get most of the term finished.

Spike grinned, but Giles noticed that his eyes were wary. "C'mon, Watcher, where's the Are you absolutely certain that's entirely wise?"

It was a note-perfect imitation. Another irritating aspect of life with Spike. "Yes, well, I don't know that you've ever heeded my advice, so I shan't bother to waste my breath. It's just that– " Giles added contemplatively, "I had thought that perhaps, you know, you might wait for Buffy to finish her time of self-discovery. Now that, well, the Angel problem is out in the open, perhaps she might find her way back to you."

Spike stared at him. Then he reached across the desk and seized Giles's wrist and said urgently, "Rupert, if you're in there, hang on. We'll do all we can to get rid of this demon that's taken you over."

Giles jerked his hand away. "You should not be surprised that I think first of her, and her well-being."

"Not surprised. Just stunned that you think her well-being might have aught to do with me."

"You were– well, obviously, Spike, once you got the soul, you did her some good."

"The soul had sod-all to do with it. I did her good long before I got the damned thing. Not that anyone noticed, but I knew it. That's why I kept on with it, even without a return."

"But now–"

"But now I'm done with waiting. It's been, what? Four years since I fell for her? I could put up with it while we were together. At least I could help keep her safe. And there was the occasional– never mind. But now there's no purpose in it. Worse than no purpose. And I'm damned if I'm going to be like Angel used to be, content with the annual phone call and calling that true love."

"So there is nothing left?"

"Oh, Christ. Well, of course there's something left. But you know, I think we needed each other at that particular moment. She needed, who knows. Something to fight. A reason to live. I needed a reason to change. And here I am. Changed. And she's still alive and fighting and doesn't need me anymore. So I guess that counts as a successful relationship."

Giles studied his colleague. This sounded eminently reasonable. Not at all like Spike, however. Spike saw love as epic romantic adventure, not as short-term behavior modification therapy. And yet, what he said was entirely true. The cheerfully a-moral monster who had come to Sunnydale looking to bag his third Slayer had somehow become the protector of Slayers, the champion of the good– and it was all for Buffy. Loving Buffy had transformed him. And perhaps once the transformation was complete, the need to love diminished, and that all-consuming desire dissipated.

For Faith's sake, he hoped so. "But Faith–"

"Don't start."

"Don't start with what?"

"With whatever motive you think I have that isn't the proper motive."

"Do you mean, say, trying to make Buffy jealous."

"Sure. And then there's my alleged fixation with Slayers. Kill two, bed two more."

Spike had a way of speaking aloud what Giles only thought. "And one might also wonder if she's just convenient. No need to explain all the complicated aspects of your existence with Faith."

"Then there's the most stupid reason of all."

"What's that?"

"I love her. And I think she loves me, and we've been holding each other away because of all the above, and I'm weary of it. We can be happy together. I feel it. We're already friends. We know each other through and through. We're too much alike to judge each other."

Yes, Giles thought. After Buffy's eternal disapproval, it must be quite comforting to have Faith with her whatever shrug and her transgressive glee telling Spike that nothing he did was all that bad. Then again, nothing Spike did anymore was all that bad (except for the unregenerate whisky theft), so perhaps it was just as well he wouldn't always find himself judged by someone who knew him way back when. Giles allowed himself a careful hmm. "You seem compatible. And it's hardly sudden, given how much time you spend together, on and off the job. But I have concerns. You do, after all, work together. And as your employer, I'd rather not see your cooperation strained. Does she know?"

"No." Spike paused, and reconsidered. "I think she knows that I want her. But she's used to that. The love– I don't know. She's still so easy with me. I don't think she's realized that part yet."

"You think perhaps it might be a good idea to tell her, before you plan this trip?"

"I'm waiting for the right moment. If I'm wrong– well, so much for friendship."

Giles shook his head. "There's no guarantee she'll overlook all the difficulties and take a chance on this."

"It's worth the risk. She's worth the risk."

Giles thought with a tinge of resentment that for him, as the employer, this passion rubbish was not worth the risk. But what did he expect? Spike was the poster boy for passion, for counting the world well lost for love– over and over again. He'd died for love, letting Dru turn him because the touch of her hand drove him mad. He'd killed for love, to keep her fed, to keep her company. For Buffy, he'd given up his whole aim in life, turned on his own kind. Took a soul. Died again.

"Ah, Spike, you do find your way directly to the romantic hellmouth, don't you? Who knows what you'll end up doing this time to prove your love?"

Spike grinned. "Rupert, we're talking about Faith here. She likes me the way I am. She won't even make me give up drinking."

Giles picked up a pencil and rolled it between his fingers. "But you must come to Faith with a free heart. She does deserve that, you know."

Spike gave this the thought it deserved, then answered slowly, "I've always been a one-woman man. I never stop loving– still dream of Dru even, and she's gone– but I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think I could give my all to Faith."

"And what if Buffy comes back to you next month?" Giles didn't know why he was pushing this line well into the offensive category. Because he liked Faith, and thought she should have a man of her own. Because he loved Buffy, and wanted her to be happy. And she might not be happy, if Spike had truly moved on. And– oh, and because he had some stupid fascination for this, for Spike's whole doomed lover routine, for his epic nonsense, for the torture in his eyes whenever anyone mentioned Buffy. One wanted to believe in eternal love, even if one would never experience it. And Spike, idiot romantic punk, had been the very chalice of eternal love. If he would stop loving... "You did, I recall, once promise to love her forever. Last I looked, forever was still in effect."

Spike rose and quite deliberately hurled his empty glass at the walnut panelling. It shattered on the top of the bookcase, the shards falling to the floor below. So much for redemption. So much for transformation. Spike was still a vandal horde, all on his own. He turned to Giles, eyes blazing silver. "Where do you get off, saying that to me? I've loved exactly three women in a hundred and twenty years. Let's hear about you, old boy. How many women have you said that to– and how many have you left behind?"

Very evenly, Giles said, "I don't think my own record is at issue here."

"Well, neither is mine. I love Buffy. Always will. At any time until quite recently, she could have gotten me back– one word, and I would have gone to her. But – but it's a waste. I love hard and I love well, and it's wasted on her, and we both know it now. Faith needs my love more than Buffy does."

That shut Giles up. Spike's notion of love was at once simple and arcane. A gift. A necessity. Something to spend and waste and always, always, give away. An unending resource, the more given, the more created. Rather inspiring, in a freakish way.

Then again, there was something terrifying there. Raw. Obsessive. The stuff of poets and martyrs and stalkers. If Spike turned all that passion on Faith now–

He wondered, suddenly, if Faith had ever been loved. Certainly she had never been loved as Spike loved. But had she been loved at all? He'd read her file, of course, the dry recordings of the Watcher journals– an unknown father, an addict mother. Ward of the state by the time she was seven. Exploited by the mayor. Exploited by the Watchers too, he admitted.

Maybe this is what she needed. Spike would love her enough to make up for all the ones who should have loved her.

And then, he supposed, she'd find a way to break his heart. That was the price of loving as Spike did. No one ever loved that much back.

He was about to voice some warning, but was, fortunately, interrupted by a rap on the door. Lucia, the Ruby squad leader, slipped in. She did her quick Slayer reconnaissance, checking for danger signs, and noted the broken glass on the floor. Spike immediately put on his most innocent face and glanced significantly at Giles. Then, casually, he took Giles's glass as if it were his, instead of the one lying in shards.

Lucia knew them both well enough not to fall for it. "Spike, uh, it's barbecue night–"

"It is? Jeez. Wasn't it barbecue night just last week?"

"Yes, sir. It's every week. That's how you planned it."

"Oh, right. Right on it, pet."

Barbecue night was another of Spike and Faith's inventions– a weekly barbecue at Spike's, to which the three hardest-working cadets of the week were invited to try out whatever sauce recipe he'd just copied off the Food Network.

"Faith said it's your turn to choose the slayerettes."

Giles closed his eyes at her inadvertent use of the verboten word for Slayer Cadets that only he considered verboten, Spike's habit having turned it into the term of choice among the cadets themselves.

Spike had put down his glass and was actually focusing for a change. "Chang, I guess. She took that kick to the forehead, and came up laughing. It was mostly shock, yeah, but I like her spirit. And Kaylie. She stayed at that one move until she got it down. And– heck, invite Sarah too. Andrew's sweet on her, and maybe if I let him drop in, he'll forget about the tenner I owe him."

"Okay. Thanks." Lucia hesitated there at the door.

"Out with it, girl."

Lucia screwed up her face. "Well, you know, I was thinking, you know, that maybe the squad leaders might, you know, just because we're going to have to work so hard the next week getting the squads ready for the finals–"

Spike swivelled his chair so he was facing Giles again. "Well, I don't know, Luce. I mean, would need more food then. Say... potato salad."

Giles saw Lucia's face open with pleasure. "Oh! My mother makes the best potato salad."

"Yeah. I sort of overheard you braggin' about it a couple months ago. Little red potatoes. Jackets still on."

"And bits of hard-boiled eggs. And lots of celery. It's really good." A bit dubiously, she said, "I guess I could make it. I used to help Mom with it. But I'd have to go to the store."

"You wouldn't be thinking of just picking up some of that mushy storebought potato salad and trying to pass it off as Mum's, would you?"

Lucia gasped. "No! Spike, I'd never–"

"Good. Been thinking about that potato salad all this time."

"I'll go get the ingredients– but... Spike?"

"Yeah, pet?"

"You know it's the last barbecue night of the term. And– well, all the slayerettes really have been working hard, and it kind of doesn't seem fair..."

Spike swivelled back to give her a stern look. "You want us to invite them all?"

"Well, yeah. Sort of."

"But maybe they'd eat all the potato salad. Ever think of that?"

"I'll– I'll make up a special bowl just for you. And I'll label it. You know, for Spike only; violators will be eviscerated."

Spike gave this some consideration. "Sure. That'd work. But I only got a couple racks of ribs. And nothing to drink. Maybe you could pick up some more meat, and some soda, and, hell, crisps, and something for dessert, and– I'd do it, but..." He piously held up Giles's glass. "I been drinkin' a mite bit. Shouldn't drive."

Lucia gulped. "Sure. I'll take Jessie with me to help. But– Mr. Giles, uh, can I have an advance on next month's stipend to, uh, pay for it?"

As Giles obediently reached for his wallet, Spike interrupted. "I'm not going to have you spending your stipend on my barbecue! When you're a guest and all." Giles started to put his wallet back, but then Spike added, "Mr. Giles will pay for it. He's got a credit card just for such expenses. Don't you, Rupert?"

"And why would I pay for it if I'm not invited?"

"You're always invited. You know that. I didn't mean it when I said you couldn't come back that time– just got tired of you warning about salmonella just 'cause the girls were eating the brownie batter instead of baking it."

Giles held out the credit card, and the tall girl hunched her shoulders and came forward and snatched it out of his fingers and scuttled away, as if she feared he'd snatch it back.

"And don't forget the charcoal, pet."

"I won't, Spike." She glanced back, just once, her face radiant. "Thanks."

"No need to thank me, love. All in a day's work."

Once she was gone, Spike tipped up the bottle and drank down the last quarter inch. "Sorry, Rupert," he said, setting the empty bottle back on the desk. "Seems like someone broke my glass."

"You know, Spike, it's an eternal mystery to me how you've survived this long."

"I haven't. Died twice already. More than enough for any man. Don't think I'll do it again."

Giles thought for a moment, and came up with the perfect revenge. "On this lay-waste tour of yours...."

"Yeah?"

"You have to take Xander."

Spike sat up abruptly. "Wait. No. I mean, come on!"

"You want the car, you want the weapons, you want the funding. You get Xander too."

"Rupert, really. I thought you understood. Planned this trip as sort of... like a honeymoon."

"I'm sure Xander won't get in the way. Much. Besides, I'm taking Andrew to England with me. Why should I have all the fun?" He waited a moment. "Can't leave Xander alone." Another moment. "Anya would want you to help him."

Spike crumbled. Just like that. Of course, he had to stand up and kick at the bookcase (not hard– it survived) and mutter obscenities. But in the end, he walked out, growling, and then, a minute later, stuck his head back in the door. "Okay. But today, you're the one that brings him to the barbecue. I'm going to see quite enough of him in the future."

Giles smiled, and promised. Anya would want it, after all.

After the final barbecue, the end of the school term came pumping in like a locomotive– every event an inevitable step closer to graduation and separation. Faith couldn't wait, only she knew at the end it would break her heart, to send those girls out on their own... no. Not on their own. Spike and she had come up with a plan: The girls would work in pairs, acting as each other's watchers, until the watcher's council rebuilt sufficiently to provide official ones. Now they just had to force it through a reluctant Giles, and soon, before graduation.

"Spike could be a Watcher," Giles said wistfully, sitting with them at the big dining table, looking out at the lawn where the girls were training for the final exam.

"Spike's my Watcher," Faith found herself saying. She was horrified to hear this come out of her mouth, and couldn't look at him to see his reaction. But then she felt his mingle of pleasure and annoyance as he started deconstructing –

"Not a watcher, babe, you know that. Right-hand, that's what I am. Your right hand."

"A left-handed right hand. Just what I need." Now she risked a glance at him. "You watch out for me. That's what I mean."

"Sure I do. And the girls all need someone like that, only there's just the one of me. So they'll have to do for each other for the time being, right, Rupert?"

"It's never been done–"

"Certain sure of that. Until Buffy, there's always been only one girl, and Christ only knows what all those other Watchers did with their time and expense accounts. There are 6 slayers out there now, and our 23 starting up soon, and –" A grin broke out on Spike's face. "And bloody hell, are they going to kick demon arse."

"There's no help but dispersing them, I suppose."

Since the Hellmouth had closed, demons had scattered, joining up in little knots in unlikely places, mostly still in the US– difficult for a slime demon to catch the night flight to Paris. But this meant demonic activity in towns that had no protection.

"Buffy's going to Cleveland every week or so, " Faith pointed out. "And Spike and I can handle California. That's the two biggest centers of activity on this continent. Say keep Jeri and Keiko here to work with us, because they both need more training. Send a couple girls out to Buffy for a couple months, and a couple more to work with Kennedy in Florida–"

"Yeah, which girls do we most want to punish?" put in Spike.

Faith glared at him. "Kennedy's a good slayer."

"Yeah. Too bad I got the soul now, or I'd make her #3."

Giles was bending over his tea-cup, hiding his smile. Faith was the only one who liked Kennedy– even Willow had finally given up and gone to live in London.

"No doubt about it, Kennedy's a blighter," Spike said. "But what the hell, if they can survive her, they'll be able to surmount the apocalypse no prob. And there's always Kim," Spike added. "She's doing okay out in Denver... found her own little demon infestation to deal with. She could use an intern, maybe. And each squad leader gets her own baby hellmouth, and an assistant. Faith and I can be on call as needed."

Faith knew Giles wanted to protest. He'd already made all the arguments, that the girls weren't ready, needed more supervision, but they kept bumping against the unanswerable truth that there wasn't anyone around to do the supervision. And unless the slayerettes put their training right into practice, they'd lose it.

"I just wish..." Giles's voice faded out, along with his wish. They were both worried about him– he was exhausted, spending time in London with the vestiges of the council, working late into the night on eBay to replace the sacred texts lost in the bombing, tracking down potentials and dealing with their parents.... They did what they could to help, but Giles wasn't good at delegating– and Spike and Faith weren't good at the sort of detail-work that most plagued him.

The summer break would be good for him, reduce his workload, let him stay in London for a couple months. "I just wish..." Giles said again, and turned to glare at Spike, "that your sodding prom was over and done."

Chapter Text

The prom that so annoyed Giles was a major production, bigger even than the upcoming final exam exercise with the expensive hired demons. Faith thought maybe they'd bring it off, even without Giles's approval. They rented the ballroom of an old beachside hotel, hired a swing band, and leased a bus for transport. Faith took the squads, one by one, to a department store for dresses courtesy of Giles's capacious credit card, and they came back all pretty and giddy, just girls again, chattering about hair and colors and cosmetics. Spike was in charge of recruiting dates, bribing Dawn to bring a few of her college boy friends, corralling some of the semi-street kids he was training in martial arts in the school courtyard, blackmailing Andrew into supplying three video-store clerks. Had to be more boys than girls, he told Faith, apparently calling upon some long-forgotten Victorian ballroom etiquette manual. And the boys had to be all primed, dressed nice– more wear and tear on Giles's credit card– trained how to ask for a dance, warned about the consequences of getting fresh with girls who could break cannon balls with well-aimed kicks.

The evening was clear and warm, and the girls enchanting and the boys sober and nervous as they climbed off the bus and entered the glittering hotel. It was Faith's first prom too, and she spent a month's pay on her gown, apricot silk to set off her tan, cut low to display her breasts, a full skirt that swayed as she moved, the prettiest dress she'd ever seen, demure and sexy and – and she felt Spike's gaze on her as she entered the ballroom. He wanted her, but he'd always wanted her; that was nothing new. Nothing significant. Still she tossed her head so her earrings danced, and gave him a wink that told him he looked hot too, in a tux that sure looked Versace, and then shoved two of the streetkids towards the knot of girls over by the potted tree. "If you're not both dancing– with girls– in two minutes, I'm going to twist off your ears," she said, smiling as sweetly as she could.

Spike was on the other side of the ballroom, accomplishing the same feat with the video-store clerks, and pretty soon even Andrew had a girl in his arms, and looked stunned.

Spike and Giles were perfect gentlemen, each dancing a dance with every girl, and it wasn't till the very end of the night that Faith saw that eyebrow of Spike's quirk in her direction. She wasn't a foolish girl– she didn't go to him; she crooked a finger at him, and watched him walk towards her, slowly, a laugh tilting his mouth as he approached. It was a good song– Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, not their usual sort of song, but pleasant, and for the first time ever, she felt Spike's arms close around her without there being a fight involved. She concentrated on the snowy white of his shirt– "You look pretty good in a tux, Spike," she murmured, and he thanked her by pressing a little closer. He was hard, but that meant nothing. That was only desire, and between them that meant nothing much, something to tease at and then ignore.

There was something in his eyes, something distant, and she wondered if he was wishing she was Buffy– no, she shouldn't wonder. She should ask. "What are you thinking?"

He smiled down at her. "That our little cinderellas need to get home before they fall asleep in their partners' arms and ruin all our safety lectures."

"I'll go–" and she started to pull away, but he didn't let her go.

"After this dance."

He was a lovely dancer, all sinuous, even dancing formally like this, and she allowed herself one little sigh against him, closing her eyes and letting herself just experience him, so warm and close and hers-- at least for the moment.

The song ended too soon, and Giles, hiding a yawn, herded the children all back into the bus, promising punch and cookies back at the school. Faith started after them, but Spike held her back with a hand on her arm. "Let them go. Let's get a drink. Walk back later."

"Okay," she said, all demure, all stupid. Just because she wore a pretty dress, and he'd loosened that tie and pushed back his sleeves and looked like a predator again, didn't mean anything. They were just getting a drink.

But not in the hotel bar. Spike led her up the wide curving staircase, along a red-carpeted corridor to a double-door at the very end. A suite, she thought, recording the data but afraid to interpret it. "They comped the room, see, because we spent so much money," Spike said, producing a keycard from his pocket. "And I thought maybe it should be for you, because you've been working so hard."

"Oh," she replied. "Thanks."

She was suspicious. He was nervous. He wouldn't look at her. His hand had dropped from her arm somewhere on the walk up here, and he hesitated in the doorway, like he wasn't sure he ought to come in. She finally reached out and pulled at his wrist, and he followed her into the candlelit living room.

The French doors were open, and she could hear the sea, and she felt tears start up in her eyes, because the room was so beautiful, so much better than anything she'd ever seen, with the moonlight spilling in and the smell of the ocean and jasmine filling the air. "Come here," Spike whispered, as if a normal voice might wake her from this dream. "Let me show you something."

He drew her by the hand away from the windows, into a marble bathroom flickering with light.. Now she knew where he'd disappeared to before that last dance. He'd come up here to light the candles and fill the wide tub with that jasmine-scented bubble bath–

A marble pedestal, just next to the tub, held a bottle of champagne in an icebucket, and crystal glasses on a tray.

"Two glasses," she observed. Her throat felt tight. "Were you... planning on staying?"

"If you let me." He was looking down, shy, sweet, and without volition her hand moved up to his cheek.

She wanted to say yes, wanted to pull him close. Instead she found herself touching his face with the gentlest of fingers, and whispering what just about broke her heart, "We can't do this... unless, you know, you love me."

She dreaded his response, but it was so right– he looked up with joy in his eyes, his mouth curving with delight. "Oh, babe, I wanted to say it, but I was scared–"

"Don't be," she said softly, raising her head, wanting a kiss.

She didn't get it. Not right then. "You'll say it back?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yes, you dummy."

"Promise."

"I promise."

And he swept her in his arms, murmuring I love you, I love you, and because she'd promised, she said it back, and finally they stopped and stared at each other, both pleased beyond reckoning.

"Don't tear my dress," she warned. And very respectfully, very carefully, he slid the dress off her, hanging it on the hook on the back of the door, and she scrambled– no sexy striptease now– out of her underthings, and in just a moment they were in the bath, their bodies hot and slick against each other, the soap suds billowing around them.

If this were a dream, it was one she would remember forever. But it couldn't be a dream, because if she were dreaming, Spike would take her fast, the way she liked it– and instead he was taking it slow, very slow, just one finger sliding down her body, the softest of tongue kisses on her mouth. Not the way she liked it, but she decided maybe she loved it, so tantalizing, so sweet, so full of desire and ... and love. And she wouldn't dare to dream that. Wouldn't dare to dream that he loved her.

But that's what he was saying against her mouth, whispering it over and over to the same rhythm his finger was using against her– I love you I love you I love you.

"I guess the romance novels are right," she said later with a sigh. "It's better when you do it with someone you love."

She felt his frown against her cheek. "It's better when you do it with me."

The laugh bubbled up in her. "You are such a cocky bastard."

"You got it, babe," he said, bumping up hard against her. Already hard. Already again.

"Again," she whispered, and he complied, and this time it was hard and fast, because the water was getting cold and she was shivering even before she came.

It was near morning that she panicked. She woke Spike up (though he was almost too pretty sleeping to disturb) and pinning him down with a fist on each shoulder, she demanded, "We're not just comrades-in-arms who have great sex together, are we?"

He frowned, and then he remembered, and he smiled and gathered her close. "No. We're comrades-in-arms who have great sex together and are in love." Then, after the barest moment, he said, "Aren't we?"

She wriggled closer to him and whispered into his neck, "I guess so."

And she thought she ought to ask about Buffy, and about the future, and about promises and all that. But neither of them ever thought much beyond the moment. It was one more thing they shared. And she said that out loud. "We don't have to worry about tomorrow."

When he didn't answer, she moved back and looked at his face, all pretty and guilty in the soft light of dawn. He was going to tell her something. That it was only tonight. That tomorrow would be done. That what he meant by love wasn't–

"I kind of planned the whole summer out."

Oh. The summer. Without her? With her? She took a breath and said, "So?"

"Without asking you first. But– but I thought you'd like it! Seeing the world, killing demons–"

She shook her head. She had to trust him. She did trust him. "And?"

"And it'll be fun, just you wait– visit our slayerettes, lay waste to some lairs. Only–"

It sounded good to her. Spike, demons, killing. "Only what?"

His voice dropped as he hid his face in her cleavage. "Only Rupert insisted we take Xander."

Was that all? All that made him duck his head with guilt? She was going to have to work on that soul of his. Too sensitive. "That's okay."

He lifted his head. "You don't mind Xander coming along?"

"Long as he gets his own room." After a moment, she added, "Paid for by Giles." And then she kissed him, and trusted him, and she just let tomorrow come, as they lay together and watched the dawn light rise outside.

Chapter Text

They decided to keep it secret, at least for now.

That resolution lasted about ten minutes after Spike arrived at school for their regular afternoon training classes in the big gym. He didn't touch Faith, and she was doing her best not to look at him, and even so, Lucia suddenly dropped her stave and said, "Ohmigod."

The members of her squadron followed her gaze to their instructors, who were very deliberately standing six feet apart and pretending not to notice each other. The girls, as one, broke into excited chatter.

Spike looked over at Faith, and she shrugged. No training was going to get done unless they dealt with the speculation.

"Yeah," Spike said, his voice cutting across the babble. "Faith and I are together. Now everyone drop and do fifty pushups." He pulled out a stopwatch. "And I'm timing you."

Just because, while they were sprawled out on the gym floor, he crossed over and took Faith in his arms and pinned her laughing against the vault horse and kissed her good. The poor squad leaders had to keep count during this, and the sharp "heads down!" from Lucia indicated everyone was watching. That was the point, after all. Or maybe the point was Faith sticking her hands in his back pockets and yanking him so close it wasn't just their mouths kissing....

She let him go, pushed him away, murmured, "You're still evil."

The girl knew just what to say to set a man up.

It was going to be hard, fitting a new romance in with a regular life. Not that he had a regular life– two jobs, an unlife-long habit of sleeping all day, Dawn calling on the cellphone every night with Latin declension problems (like his long-ago First in Greats gave him some expertise), Clem and Maisie joining Amway and expecting loading and unloading help, all those slayerettes to prepare for the final exam–

At least, now that it was out in the open, he and Faith didn't have to bother to sneak around. Well, he still did a bit of sneaking– climbed into her window that night, just for fun. Then she took him out on Venice Beach once the moon set, and they climbed up on the lifeguard stand and made out.

Openness and respectability had their appeal, but so did secrecy.

Spike could keep a secret, but he'd never been any good at concealing his emotions. So even people he barely knew noticed. The old lady at the newstand said, "You look happy," when he bought his paper, and the convenience store clerk snarled, "What's so funny?" as Spike smiled down at the twinkies he was getting for Faith.

So it was probably too much to hope that Sally at the club wouldn't notice. She cornered him by the ice chest and demanded to know what was going on, then she had to call Faith, waking her up, and make her promise to be good to Spike, or else. It was good to have dangerous friends, not that he needed protection or anything. Not from Faith, anyway.

Not at this point, at any rate. Couldn't count on Faith always being so sweet, considering that he probably never was going to be a prize of a boyfriend. But he thought he might enjoy her sweetness while it lasted– and he'd probably like her eventual tartness. (Maybe even more.)

He started the short walk home, considering whether he ought to get in his car and drive down to the school and climb in Faith's window and wake her up again....

Then he smelled vampire behind him. Angelus.

No. Not Angelus....

He kept walking, opened up his senses. Casually spread out his fingers, took advantage of the shadows to slip into gameface, both of which added a bit to his perceptions. It felt like Angel, but it wasn't–

He whirled around and grabbed the vampire's neck with one hand, the head with the other– ready to twist.

"Spike!" It came as a strangled whisper, and Spike narrowed his eyes, seeing through the game face to the visage he recognized. He let his hand relax on the throat. There was no pulse underneath his fingers.

"Oh, Christ. Riley. Oh, Christ, I'm sorry."

The vampire face shimmered away, and there was Riley, his cheeks wet with tears. "Don't kill me."

Spike let go of him, and Riley sagged and almost fell. "I won't kill you. Jesus. What– look. Don't say anything yet. Come back with me."

They walked in silence– Riley sobbing once, a sound that hurt in Spike's chest– back towards the apartment court.

Spike didn't trust the security of his flat anymore. So he led Riley around the back to an empty apartment, using his passkey to get in. "Let me show you something." In the hallway, he opened a closet and pulled up the trapdoor. "This goes to the cellar. Come on." When Riley hesitated at the brink of the darkness, Spike looked back up the ladder and said gently, "Don't worry, mate. You can see in the dark now."

He walked unerringly past the pipes and the poles and the stored boxes of tiles to the ladder leading to his own flat, listening without looking as Riley followed. "This is my place. I don't want you to go in there until I check for wiretaps. But that's where it is." He took Riley back to the empty apartment, and went around closing the blinds. "The utilities are all turned on. I'll bring you something to sleep on till tomorrow night. Just– just sit down for a minute. Rest. I'll be back with some blood, and you can tell me what happened."

Spike went back through the basement and up into his closet, his old heart hurting so much he thought it might break. Riley. Poor sod. The last thing he would have wanted–

He got a couple candles from the table, a bedroll out of the cupboard, and a cooler from under the sink. He had mostly human blood from the blood center in the freezer– he did better on it since he came back– but there were a few quarts of pig's blood. He warmed one up in the microwave, and stuck it with the frozen ones in the cooler, and headed back to Riley's dark lair.

Spike set the candles on the bare brick hearth and lit them. Somehow he knew Riley wouldn't want the overhead light on. Would want the vague flickering candlelight, the slender shadows on the wall.

He opened the cooler and pulled out the warmed blood bag. Riley, crouched on a corner of the carpet, still wouldn't talk. But he grabbed at the blood, vampface and fangs descending on cue, and as if he'd done it a thousand times, slit open the bag and sucked it all down. Then he let the empty bag drop and put his head in his hands and cried.

"Jesus, I'm sorry, Riley." Spike had to quit saying that. He sat down next to his old enemy and pulled one wet hand away from Riley's face and held it tight. "It'll be okay." That was no better. "I'll help you."

That got a response. Riley slumped down against the wall, but left his hand in Spike's. "Will you?"

"Sure. Just got to get through these first couple days, and –" And what? "And we'll get this sorted. Tell me what happened. Start with when."

Riley's hand trembled, but his voice was calm, though low. He was used to making reports. "The other night. Last night, I guess. I've had... one day."

"And you survived it." Spike tried to put some enthusiasm into his voice. "That's better than most, mate. Most stumble out into the sun and get burned up. Six hours old. But you survived. So last night--"

"I--" Riley took a deep breath and started again. "I was hungover. Bad."

Something spread in Spike's gut. Dread. "You must have met with Buffy."

Riley turned his head slowly, stared at the candleflame. "Yeah. I went to Cleveland last week, but she'd already left. So I came back here. And I called her. The day before ... this." He pulled his hand free and made a sudden, convulsive movement, scrabbling at his face. "Don't tell her. Please don't tell her."

Buffy should know. And Spike shouldn't be making promises. But he heard himself saying, "I won't tell her. When you saw her, what happened?"

Riley dropped his hand and frowned in thought, like he couldn't quite remember, like it was so long ago. Finally he said, "We met at this place in Westwood. A coffeehouse. She sent me away. She was like you. Said I should go back to my..." He swallowed. "My wife. Oh, God. Sam. What am I–"

Spike broke in. "We'll worry about that later. You said Buffy sent you away."

"Yeah. Said she had to stay with Angel. That he needed her."

Spike drew in a breath. Let it out. His doing. Angel needing her. Her believing it. "Okay. Then what?"

"I – you know. I went on a bender, I guess. And then I came out of it, and I was hungover, and I went to the drug store to get some aspirin. And I got some groceries too. Milk. Rice Krispies." He stopped, as if wondering what had happened to them.

"And someone grabbed you from behind."

"Yeah. In the parking lot. I didn't hear him."

"Did you see him?"

"No. But it was a man. Male. Whatever."

Spike already knew. "And then–"

"He bit me." Riley touched the tiny wound in his neck. "And... I guess he must have dragged me somewhere. I woke up. It felt like waking up anyway. In a shed near the docks. I... knew. It was like a nightmare I used to have. Back when I used to–" He stopped, because he didn't need to finish. Spike already knew about those visits to the vamp whores, the nights Riley spent tempting this same fate. "And it felt the same way as in my dreams. I could... hear everything. Smell everything. I knew the sunlight was dangerous. So I stayed in the shadow. Sat there in the shadows all day long. Till night."

"And ... then what?"

"Came and found you."

This was said so simply that Spike had to turn his face away, just for a moment. "Yeah. Well, that was smart. So... what about feeding?"

Riley started trembling again. Spike could feel it even though they weren't touching. "I didn't. Didn't let myself. "

Spike stared at him. "You didn't feed? All this time?"

"No." Riley's voice was flat. Hard. "I won't." He added, more softly, "Knew you'd take care of me if I found you."

"Good. Good." Spike took a breath, and then gave a short laugh. "Jesus, Riley, you're a tough one. You walked by all those humans and didn't grab. I'm impressed."

A ghost of a smile passed over Riley's face. "I figured if I got started...."

"Yeah. Well, that's pig's blood I gave you. Taste okay to you?"

"Tasted... great. Is there more?"

Spike hooked the cooler with his foot and brought it over. "Few quarts. Should see you through the night and day. I'll get more."

He watched as Riley opened the cooler and gazed longingly at the other three bags, then grabbed one and sliced it open, and sucked on it, though it was still half-frozen. Spike couldn't quite believe it, that Riley kept himself from biting. But if he could do that–

"Listen. Mate. This seems bad. Well, it is bad. But if you stay tough, you can–"

"What?" Riley balled up the empty bag and hurled it across the room. "Come back to life? Be me again?"

"You are you."

"I'm a vampire. Riley Finn is dead."

"No." Spike said this as firmly as he could. "You're Riley Finn. I ought to know. You're already making me want to bang on your stupid head."

This got a bit of a sullen laugh.

"You're Riley. Some new parts, one big part missing. But it's like when it happened to me. I didn't leave. I just became a demon, that's all. Still me."

Riley looked up suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I woke up and I was still me. William Nelson. Didn't much want to be, but I was. I was– well, weaker than you. Gave in to the desire to kill. But–" he hesitated. "Still me. I still, you know, loved my mum. Was worried about her. Went back to check on her."

Riley was regarding him seriously. "Was she all right?"

"No. She was dying. I mean, she was dying before. Consumption. And I –" He'd never actually told anyone this. Not willingly. Didn't know why he was telling now, except he had to– had to reach out like Riley had reached out. Risking all. Risking the truth. "So I thought if I turned her, I'd have her with me forever. Wasn't very smart."

"What happened?"

He paused, then said, "I don't know. Still not sure. Blocked a lot of it. She wasn't herself after. Or she was and didn't want me to know. I don't know which. I think she didn't want to go on. I thought she'd want immortality, an end to the illness. All that. But she didn't. She wanted... her soul back, I reckon. She was a devout churchgoer. It mattered to her. More than to me– Anyway."

"What?"

"I – dusted her. That's what she wanted. Took me awhile to remember that's what happened. I thought... that I'd done it in anger. But I hadn't. Did it to release her. And at the last, she was happy. Grateful." He waited a moment, then said gently, "Is that what you want? To be released?"

"No." Riley sounded ashamed. "No."

"Don't blame you. What happened to you wasn't fair. But if you're willing to deal with it–"

Riley touched his own chest, wonderingly, then looked at his empty hand. He looked straight at Spike. "You said when we met that night. At your club. You said you got back your soul."

"Yeah. Wasn't fun, but did it."

"How... not fun?"

Spike shrugged. "Terrible ordeals, trial by fire, bug-eating, pretty bad. Kind of like on Survivor, you know? But without all the obnoxious tribemembers. Listen. The worst was after. When I got to suffer for my sins. I have lots of sins. Suffered bad. You don't. You haven't killed. You keep clean, okay? And you won't have to suffer."

"You'll help?"

It took Spike a second or two to answer. He thought of Faith and their chance and how entirely he didn't want to fuck it up. How he wanted to be with her without any other obligations– just be hers and no one else's. But this was Riley. Poor git. Deserved better. "Sure. But we got to get you stabilized first, okay? The soul can wait a bit. Because, man, you're tough. Can't believe how tough you are, putting down the bloodlust. Get a few weeks in, get things settled, then I'll take you to get that soul back."

Riley surprised him again. He pressed his big head against Spike's chest and kept murmuring, "Thanks. Thanks. Thanks." Spike patted him on the shoulder, wishing he could turn everything back a week, go back and fix this, reverse it. Stake Angel the way he should have then.

My fault, he thought. My fault. Should have known Angelus wouldn't let go so easy– wouldn't go without a childe. Angelus was a family man. In a perverted way, yeah. But he wouldn't do without progeny.

And this punished Spike. And punished Buffy too. And punished a rival. All in one fell swoop.

Spike thought of Angel in the warehouse, his eyes blank with forgetting, his whole body hunched in and unthreatening. Harmless Angel. Buffy's Angel. Too impotent to do this. He'd deny it, and then maybe accept it, without accepting blame. And always within there'd be Angelus laughing.

He kept patting Riley on the back, murmuring something, anything. Lies, wishes, hopes. Be all right. It'll be all right.

After a few minutes, Riley pulled away and sat back against the wall, turning his face away in embarrassment. "Am I still me? Really?"

"Sure. Same personality, can't you tell? It's because–" He wanted to say, because you were turned by a master. But he wasn't willing to say that out loud. Something– some vestige of loyalty, maybe, or – made him keep from saying the name Angelus. Besides, Spike had been turned by a practically new vamp, an insane one, and he retained most of himself. He didn't know what caused some vamps to stay themselves, just demonic, but others were nothing more than demon-vessels after the turning. Maybe Aurelians sired true, that was all. Some noblesse oblige factor. "Don't know why. Because you're of strong character. Who knows. Anyway, you're yourself." Then, with grudging honesty, he added, "Though don't be surprised if you find you're yourself plus a sudden desire to create chaos, smash things, and live underground."

"What about a desire to screw anything that moves?"

Spike shook his head. "Don't ask me. I spent a century as the world's first monogamous vampire."

This made Riley laugh. It was the same laugh Spike remembered, only now it didn't sound obnoxious. "Were you really?"

"Close enough. The infrequent lapse."

Riley tried a smile, like they were just two guys in a bar discussing their sex lives. "That's as impressive as my going a whole day without killing someone."

"Yeah. But that shows– you can take control. Riley Finn is still in control."

Riley sighed. He put his hand up to his face and found a smooth forehead. "But I won't be able to be in the sun."

"No. On the other hand, you have superstrength, great vision, amazing hearing, and sexual stamina you've seen before only in porn films."

"You're assuming anyone would want to do it with me now."

Spike didn't know what to say to that. Riley probably wouldn't do well with a vamp, because of the whole murderous evil thing– Riley might be a vamp, but he sounded determined not to be evil, and most vampgirls, well, were no better than they had to be. As for human girls–

He had to laugh. Human girls. "Cheer up. You now have sufficient monster in you to suit Buffy."

Riley regarded him with some shock. "You sound like you don't like her anymore."

Spike sighed. It wasn't fair to blame this latest disaster on Buffy. "Not my favorite person right now. But... look. I'm going back to my flat. But I'll be back. Stay with you tonight. I'll bring some cards. Teach you to cheat while you don't have a soul to bother you about it."

"I know how to cheat!" Riley said, as if his manhood was in question. He hadn't changed. Not much, anyway. Maybe a bit. He was holding on to Spike's boot and let go only after repeated assurances of a quick return.

It was full dark now that the moon had set, and Spike went outside into the cool night and rounded the corner of the apartment building. The courtyard was deserted, the pool glowing like an onyx under the floodlights. You can swim underwater for miles, he wanted to tell Riley. You don't have to breathe. You can't drown.

But Riley wasn't ready to hear that. Let him mourn his lost breath, the life he wouldn't ever finish. The wife he'd left and now could never get back.

As Spike searched in his desk drawer for a deck with all the cards of every suit, the door bell rang. He glanced out the window and saw Faith at his doorstep, her hair loose around her face, her hands in the pocket of a red windbreaker.

He opened the door, instinctively glancing back to make sure there wasn't any evidence in the front hall. "What are you doing here?"

It sounded wrong, even to him, and her face closed. "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Just thought you were safe in bed asleep. This late and all." He tried to make it right, tried to draw her close and kiss her, but she wasn't stupid. She noticed him pulling the door shut behind them, and she pushed him away.

"You aren't going to invite me in, huh."

"It's just–" He stopped. She deserved the truth from him. "Look. A friend of mine came by." Well, part of the truth. "A vamp. He's in a bad way. He'll be in a worse way if he sights a slayer."

Faith was still looking suspicious. She was quite pretty when she looked suspicious, her mouth all skeptical and her eyes narrowed in the light from the security lamp. He wanted to kiss her, but he valued his hide too much to try.

"This vamp friend – you watching out for him?"

"Yeah. He's not doing anything wrong. Doesn't want to."

"Doesn't want to?" She gave him a sharp look. "What kind of vamp doesn't want to do wrong?"

He started to say me, but then didn't bother– she knew him too well. "This one. New turned. Trying to stay on the straight and narrow, and–"

"Who is it?" she demanded. And then it dawned on her. "Someone I know."

He shut up. She didn't. "Not– not Xander."

"No."

"Andrew?" She took a breath. "We just saw him today. But– not Giles?"

"No– " he had to stop her. "Look. It's Riley Finn. He doesn't want anyone to know. Anyone. Especially not Buffy. So you can't tell anyone."

She drew back, her eyes wide with shock. "Riley," she whispered. "But how–" And then she understood. "Angel. Angelus."

"Yeah."

"What are you going to do?"

She meant about Angelus. But he didn't know what he was going to do about Angelus, and didn't want to think about it now. "Riley wants to get his soul back. Quick. Before he gives into the bloodlust."

Faith sighed and came back into his arms. "Poor guy. You're going to help him?"

"Guess I have to."

"Yeah." She moved against him, whispered, "I'm so selfish. I am just thinking how I want to be with you–"

"I know." Spike gave in. Pulled her over towards the pool where the light was cooler and softer, and there was a handy chaise lounge sprawled out there looking inviting. "Feel the same way."

She let him draw her onto the pool deck, and then stopped short. "They all think I'm going to break your heart."

"Who's they?"

"Sally. And Giles took me aside yesterday and warned me. And two of the squad leaders gave me a petition signed by all the slayerettes." She glared at him. "This is your fault!"

"My fault?"

"Yeah, you go around looking so sweet and vulnerable. Like you're just waiting to get hurt. I guess it never occurs to them you might break my heart."

He took her hand. "That's because I won't."

"Well, I won't break yours either!"

"Okay," he said. And then after a moment, he added, "It's okay if you do. Don't want to stop just because it might end wrong–"

She pushed him down onto the chaise and held him there with both her hands. "It is not going to end wrong! I won't hurt you!"

"Except for that knee in my liver, that is."

She moved her knee just a bit. "We're going to be nice to each other."

He smiled up at her. "Agreed."

"And we're not going to hurt each other."

"Damn. And here I'd laid in a supply of whips."

She stopped for a second, considering this. "We're going to be good to each other."

"Okay."

"Okay." She kissed him hard, bit his lip, made him cry out. "There. That's the most pain you'll ever get from me."

He closed his eyes, thinking of promises and jinxes and the hurtfulness of the universe. Of Riley wanting to love again. Of the danger of hope. But this was now, right now, and this was enough. "Do it again," he whispered, and she kissed him once more. This time it didn't hurt.

She finally sent him back to Riley, but he forgot the cards and had to make some excuse and go back to his flat to retrieve them. And Riley played for a few moments in silence, then burst out, "You were with a slayer. Buffy."

Spike had to remember the man had a vampire nose now. "No. Not Buffy." He dealt out another hand, and said in a low voice, "Faith. I'll keep her away from you."

Riley gave a snort. "Slayers. Guess I knew that. They'll all go with vampires, huh?"

For some reason, this struck Spike as funny. "Only with me, mate. Something special about me. Like moths to a flame." That didn't sound so good. "Or like bees to a rose."

Riley threw the cards at him, laughing too. But then his laugh faded, and he lay his head back against the wall and whispered, "I don't want to be alone forever."

"You won't be," Spike assured him. But he stopped before he promised anything. Everything had changed, and couldn't change back.

Chapter Text

Spike let his squadron off early, waved a goodbye to Faith, and went right home, or right to Riley's lair anyway. It was dark, though Spike had turned the power on, and Riley was lying there on the bedroll, staring disconsolately at the slice of late afternoon sun on the wood floor.

"You doin' okay, mate?"

"No."

Spike sat down on the hearth and regarded his new... well. Relation. Uncle. Something. This experience was bringing back his own turning, the terror of it, the mystery. But Spike remembered the exhilaration too, the sense of possibility, the vividness of colors and tastes and smells. He wished Riley felt some of that, instead of just this dull despair.

Of course, Riley didn't have Drusilla introducing him not just to his new unlife, but also to the pleasures of the flesh.

Spike supposed it was best, if you had to be turned, to be turned by a dark goddess with a champion-league sex drive.

"Hey, Riley, you got some decisions to make."

Riley sighed and sat up. "I told you. I don't want to be dusted. I do want a soul."

"There's more than that." This was Faith's idea, actually. She couldn't stop thinking about that wife left at home waiting. "You got to think about your wife. She'll be wondering what's happened."

Riley's face crumpled. Just like that. The man gone, replaced not by the vamp, but by the child. "I don't want her to know. I don't want–"

"Yeah. That's what I've been thinking. What're the implications here? If you're dead, what happens to her?"

Riley took a deep breath. Funny how so many vamps did that, even long after the last time they had to breathe. "She– I don't know. We're not divorced yet."

"So there's insurance comin' to her?"

"Yeah, I think–" Suddenly he cried out, "Why can't I focus? I can't even think of how much the policy is for. I can't even keep my mind straight."

"You'll get used to it."

It was the wrong thing to say. Riley gave a short laugh. "I'll get over it? Or just get used to my mind flying around like this?"

"I don't know," Spike said honestly. "I've been this way so long I can't remember. Maybe I was that way as a human too."

But he wasn't. He remembered spending hours patiently translating a passage of Ovid. And rainy afternoons spent putting together puzzles with his little sister.

He used to be able to concentrate better. Now Clem and Maisie wouldn't let him help with their jigsaw puzzles, because he kept trying to force pieces into the wrong place. ("Come on, it's blue!")

But he could focus when it counted. He pulled a notepad out of his pocket, and a Bic pen, and said, "Let's work through what we need to do. What do you want for your wife?"

"I want–" Riley started crying. That was another thing about vamps, or at least Aurelians. Emotions were closer to the surface, something that made them more entertaining, if more dangerous, at parties. At least he wasn't ashamed. No reason to be. The man had the right to mourn his own passing. "I don't want her worrying. I want it over for her."

"So you have to die officially."

"I guess. And– and I want us still to be married when I do. So she'll inherit what we have. And the insurance." His voice was stronger now. "The divorce was going to be final next week. So we don't have much time."

"Take care of it tonight, then."

"I don't want her to be ashamed. And my family. I want...."

Spike said softly, "We can make it that you died in action. On duty. Get a medal out of it."

Riley looked back at the fading slice of sunlight. "That's probably illegal. Falsifying. I ought to care."

"No. You're a vamp now. You don't have to care about stupid things like the forms that get filled out and what gets stencilled on your headstone."

"I guess not." Riley rubbed at his damp face. "No body, huh? I mean, I'm going to need this one."

"Yeah, and when you don't need it anymore, it's going to be dust, not some smelly corpse." Shit. Wrong thing to say again. He went on quickly, "So I got an idea, how to stage a death without a corpse. Empty your pockets."

Riley complied without question– military training made for good minions. He started with the cargo pockets of his pants, then went to the capacious ones in his camo jacket, laying the booty on his bedroll. A wallet, nicely appointed with cash, but the credit cards and identification would have to go. The cell phone too. An army knife they would keep. Keys to the truck. A cardboard package of condoms– he must have had some big plans when he met Buffy at that coffeehouse. Wouldn't need that sort of protection anymore, at least.

Finally Riley reached inside his jacket and pulled out a couple of grenades.

Bingo.

"So what are we going to do?"

Spike looked at the curtained window. The light was gold now. "Sunset's in a few minutes. We'll drive out into the desert. There's a cave there by a dry lake. Danglers used to hang out there– took out a nest of them last week." It was the slayerettes' practicum exercise, but Riley didn't need to know that. "So there'll be plenty of demon detritus left. We drive your truck there, make it look like you got killed going after them."

Riley's minion moments were over. He started protesting. "Danglers? Come on. I want it to be vamps."

"Can't be vamps, unless you want your wife thinking maybe you've been turned and that's why there's no body."

"I don't–"

Spike said coaxingly, "We can blow up the truck. It'll be awesome."

"Really?" Riley jammed all his possessions back into his pockets and rose. "Let's go."

The sky behind them was pink and orange, and only dark ahead. Spike drove into the darkness until the city was ended and the road was all the evidence of humanity in the moonscape of the Mojave. Riley kept up pretty good with the pickup truck, pulling up only a few minutes later in a spray of dust that sparkled in the beam of Spike's headlights. "Cave over there," he said as Riley got out of the truck.

Riley nodded, then pulled out his cell phone and called his wife's voicemail. He did just fine. Restrained. No apologies or goodbyes, just a "let's slow things down... still care... back home soon... let's meet." Nothing that sounded too dramatic. Nothing that sounded like a suicide note. Just a husband maybe thinking twice about maybe no longer being a husband.

As they were easing the truck across the sand towards the cave, he called his unit commander. Nice and terse–he was still military, for all that he was undead now. "Found a nest of demons out in the desert. I'm going to go scout it out– will report back in an hour or so."

He closed the phone and didn't speak again, too busy maneuvering the truck to the entrance of the big cave. "I'll pull it in. Halfway at least. It'll implode better inside the cave."

Without protest, he left his cellphone and wallet ("Take the cash," Spike reminded him) on the driver's seat. Then they walked away, and when the taillights were like red pindots, they stopped. Each took a grenade, and to the count of three, flung it into the bed of the truck, Riley overhanded, Spike underhanded.

The explosion was, as Spike had predicted, awesome. Riley stood there, huddling in his army jacket, the red flames reflecting on his pale face. "I guess I am a vamp now. Heedless destruction. My thing."

"I sort of remember," Spike said, "you got off on exploding my crypt, even back when you were human."

"Yeah," Riley said reminiscently. "All that old furniture of yours burned up real good."

Spike's cell phone rang, and he flipped it open as he walked away from the roar of the fire. "Yeah?"

"Spike?" It was Buffy. She sounded all worn out.

The old protective instinct reared up, and he pushed it down. "I'm here."

"I need to talk."

He turned and looked at Riley, a big dark figure silhouetted by the red glow of the burning truck. "What?"

She was whispering. "Angel. He's dif– okay. Maybe you were right. About him being Angelus. Sort of."

"What happened?" Spike demanded. "Did he hurt you?"

She laughed, but not like she found this funny. "I'm the Slayer. You know he wouldn't even try."

"Right. So?"

"So... he was gone all night a couple nights ago. When he came back, he wasn't Angel anymore. Not really. He was – " She paused, and then said, "He was confident and ... and he kept laughing. And– " She paused, and then rushed on. "He just wasn't Angel anymore."

Spike rubbed his forehead. That was the night Angelus'd set himself up right good, drained Riley of blood. Made a new childe. But Spike couldn't tell her that. He'd promised Riley. But Angelus was dangerous, to her too, for all that she was the slayer. He'd gotten Spike, after all. "What can I do?"

She was silent, as if she hadn't considered this. "I don't know," she said finally. "I just ... needed to tell someone."

"Yeah." He glanced over at Riley. He hadn't moved, even as the dead air in the back of the cave blew out, shooting fire at him. Riley, dead now, or undead, because of Angelus. "Listen. Buffy. It's even more important now that Angelus never learn that the slayerettes are nearby."

"I know. Giles already warned me." After a moment, she said, "Xander told me you're with Faith now."

Well, she was going to learn at some point. "Yeah."

She added shyly, "That's good. I – I think you must be great together. You and Faith."

He didn't want to talk about him and Faith. "We're doing good. Now you talk to anyone about this? Giles is out of town, but what about the minions there? Wesley, and Gunn–"

"They're not minions, Spike. Minions don't quit."

That stopped him. "They quit. Wesley and the rest."

"Yeah. The other day. All four of them. They turned in a joint letter of resignation and walked out."

Now that impressed him. He didn't think the four of them, inventors of the soul jar, had that much initiative. "Did they say why?"

Buffy sighed. "They didn't like something he did. Something about the business. They wouldn't explain it to me. But I guess it was some disagreement. About ethics."

Spike wasn't sure anyone who would work for an evil lawfirm worried too much about ethics. Hmm. That must mean Angel had stepped way out of bounds, further even than his minions were willing to follow him. "What did they tell you, then?"

"Gunn told me to get out while I could."

He heard the bleakness in her voice, and couldn't help himself. "You know there's a place for you. Rupert would love to have you back–"

"I can't." This was said starkly. "I think I'm the only thing keeping him– I can't leave. He needs me. And it's my duty."

There was that word again. Duty. It meant something to her it didn't mean to anyone else he had ever known. "You don't have to stay. He wouldn't want you to stay if it hurt you."

Now her laugh was sad. Despairing even. "Spike. This is what love is. Staying even when it hurts. You taught me that."

"I didn't teach you–" But then he stopped. He believed her. That was love for him too, and be damned to those who called this masochism. That was the way he'd loved her, and the way he wanted her to love him, and she couldn't, and so he never could believe it when she said it. But Angel– she'd always loved him that way. And she deserved better, yeah, but since when did love mean happiness? The opposite, in fact.

He didn't want to think what that meant about him and Faith. They were happy now, and maybe that would be enough to carry them into the future. Better be. Had to be. They were both gambling everything here.

And Buffy– "But I don't want that for you." He hadn't let her go to let her go be unhappy, to sacrifice again. She'd done enough of that in her time as the Slayer. "You should be happy."

"I will be." Her voice gathered resolution. Power. "I will be. As soon as Angel is right. I'll be happy. I promise." And then, she said, very softly. "Help me."

He looked at Riley, straight and dark and lost against the flames and the black and orange desert sky, and he thought of Buffy, his Buffy, his once-Buffy, and he thought of Angelus and all that had been him. "Okay. I will."

Chapter Text

Riley was exhausted with emotion and despair, and he didn't protest when Spike dropped him off at the empty flat with a cooler full of blood. "Get some sleep."

"Yeah," Riley said. He lay down on the bedroll and closed his eyes. Depressed. Didn't want to wash the diesel and smoke smell off. Didn't even want to watch Letterman.

"I'll check in on you later, okay?"

"Wait till noon or so," Riley said. "I'm tired." He opened his eyes just for the moment. "You going to Faith's?"

"Got to call her. But it's early yet. We'll go out first." True enough. But they wouldn't be going to a club or to visit Clem and Maisie at their crypt or to Video Vault for the Kill Bill DVD. He couldn't tell Riley what they were really doing.

Buffy was in the W&H lobby, framed by the big window, watching for him. When he came to the revolving door, she called to the guard to let him in. As Spike entered, it came to him that the last time he'd been here was when he returned the amulet to Angel– and Buffy returned from Tibet.

That was a long time ago.

Buffy came to him her hands out. He took them, but didn't kiss her or anything like that. They were bonded, sure, or at least he was, but not that way anymore.

She didn't seem to notice, and that might have made him laugh at himself, if the moment didn't seem so weighty and tense.

The soft lobby light played across her golden face. She let go of his hands and pushed her hair back. She wasn't crying. She probably didn't do that anymore. "Thanks. Thanks."

That was what Riley said yesterday. Thanks. Thanks.

Spike shook his head to get that voice out. Focus on the moment. On the problem of the moment. "So what do you think we should do?" We. That came too easily to him. So he amended it. "What do you want me to do?"

Buffy glanced over her shoulder at the elevator. But the doors didn't open, and Angelus didn't come out. They were alone in the hard bright space of the lobby. "I want to get him out of here. Out of W&H, and out of LA. I think this building – this firm– is bad for him."

Well, duh, to quote Dawn. "He told me, when I first got back, that he was in charge of this place."

"He's not. Or if he is, he's letting himself be corrupted–" She grabbed his hand again. "I can't let that happen. He's too powerful. He could be too dangerous."

"I know."

"But– but Spike, I can't do it again. I can't. I just can't kill him. I can't send him to hell. I can't."

"Don't blame you." She was squeezing his hand hard enough to break bones, so he withdrew it, touched her shoulder instead. "He doesn't want to hurt you."

She gave a short laugh. "Yeah. Well, he's doing it anyway. He's ripping me in half." Her face, when she looked up at him, was stark with anguish. "I don't want him to go bad. But I don't want to have to–"

"You won't have to. Come to that, I'll do it–" That was a wrench. That hurt. He was making these reckless promises, and he couldn't be sure he could keep them. Or Faith, he almost said, but no. He couldn't ask that of Faith. She'd do it for him, for Buffy. She was loyal that way. But it would hurt her too much. "There's another way. You have another way."

Buffy took a deep breath. "Yeah. I want to get him on the jet and take him away. To Tibet, see? He was there once, at a monastery, and he found peace there. And I was just there– I know a place, a quiet place, a retreat. And he can regain control there. Meditation, serenity. The mountains. I know it will work."

"But you need to get him there."

"Yeah." She sighed. "I can get him on the jet by force. I can even knock him out. But he'll wake up at some point, and if he gets angry... starts rampaging– and we're at forty thousand feet...."

"I get the point. So where do I come in?"

Buffy said, "I don't know. If you can get him to agree–"

"He won't go along with anything I say, unless–" Spike stopped, thought it through. "Unless I challenge him. Unless we make a wager. He's got his code, Angelus does. And if I win the wager, I think he'll pay up."

"You think?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yeah," he said, more forcefully this time. "He'll pay up. He's too proud not to."

Buffy didn't ask if he'd win. Of course he'd win, right? He would want it more. Angelus had already used up his wanting, weeks ago in that empty office. Spike– Spike still had wanting left. For vengeance. For vindication.

"You'll have to get him to agree to fight."

"No problem," he said, with more confidence than he had. "I can always get him mad."

She smiled. It wasn't much of a smile, but it was there. "That's true. I– I better get back up there. And you'll–"

"Yeah. I'll do it as soon as you're back there with him."

So he waited in the lobby for ten minutes. Used the time to call Faith. Told her it all– the Riley ending, the Buffy request. His need. "Meet me there, okay? That old warehouse. Where we saw Angel last time."

"Sure." Faith sounded like she'd just slapped herself into full wakefulness. "I'll be there in a half hour."

"Wait for me."

"Always."

He closed the phone. He couldn't help but smile. His faithful Faith. Always.

Then he opened the phone again and called Angel, bracing himself before speaking. "It's time. You and me."

Angel– he was pretending to be just Angel again, all careful and slow– said, "Why now?"

And Spike thought of Riley, lying on his bedroll staring at the dark curtains. Smelling of diesel and despair. "You know why."

There was a moment of silence, and then Angel said, "Where?"

"That old warehouse. Meet me there in a half hour."

"And what's going to happen there?"

"You and me. A fair fight."

"A fight fair. You and me. Think that's going to happen?"

"Triumph of hope over experience, mate." Spike stopped, thought of the experience. Thought of Buffy and Riley and his own hopes for a future with Faith. "You tell me."

Angel said, "That was Angelus."

"You are Angelus. I know. I'm the only one who knows, but I know."

Angel said hard, angry. "No. You want to believe that. You think if it's true, you can –"

"Can what? Kill you? You know I can't, or I would have done it already. And you can't kill me, because you fucking are Angelus, and same thing applies. You killed your sire, yes, but you couldn't kill Dru, and you can't kill me. And I won't kill you." He paused. He shouldn't make promises. Goddamn soul made him soft. Of course, he hadn't killed Angelus even when he was unsouled. Wasn't the soul that made him soft. "First fangs to throat. Whoever's to first blood– ends up in charge. Whoever wins, dictates to the other."

"First blood," Angel repeated, his voice tight.

Spike looked down at his hands. One fingernail still had a black blood bruise near the base. "We'll need a referee."

"Buffy," Angel said immediately.

That was good, wasn't it? That he thought of Buffy first? Still trusted her? Somewhere in there Angel knew he needed her, enough to risk her learning the worst about him. Maybe that was what he wanted-- to tell her the worst, or show it to her. But Spike couldn't let him know that he and Buffy had agreed to this. Angelus wouldn't trust them both. "No." Spike said this flatly. "Not good enough. I'm bringing Faith too. Two Slayers to drag us off each other if need be."

When he got to the warehouse, Faith was waiting outside the chained door, her hands in her jacket pockets. The floodlight bathed her face, showing the tense lines of her jaw and mouth. But she tried a smile. "I could've broken this myself," she said, her hand on the door's shiny chain, new since they broke the last one. "But I waited so we could do it together."

He put his hand on hers, then slid it over to grab the cold slick links. On the count of three, they both yanked, and with a shriek of metal, the chain parted.

"This could be the central metaphor of our relationship," Spike said. "Together, we break chains."

He didn't have to explain metaphor to Faith-- she'd taken a couple lit classes in prison, and once proudly told him she understood symbolism inside and out-- which was good, given their weird existence. She pulled the broken chain out and wrapped it loosely around Spike's left wrist. "Guess I prefer this metaphor," she whispered, bending close to him. "Spike in chains. You look real pretty this way."

He slipped his hand out of the loop and pulled the chain out of her grasp and let it fall to the ground. "I bet you look prettier."

Just then the darkness of the parking lot was sliced by headlights, and Spike turned to see. Faith picked up the chain and stuffed it in her pocket, saying, "You got a plan?"

"Sort of," Spike said, watching as the Viper pulled up. Angel, not Angelus, must be driving, because even though the lot was empty, he pulled precisely between the white lines of the parking space.

"Sort of." Faith reached out and took his arm. "I guess that's all the plan you ever have."

"It's a good plan," Spike said, his gaze on that dark car and its dark driver. "I plan to win, and then I plan to let you take me home and congratulate me. Naked."

She pulled his arm, pulled him close. That was all the worry she'd let herself show. As she released him though, her hand brushed his side, and he tensed. But she said, "You got your ribs bandaged? That cracked one still bothering you?"

He smiled. "Don't fret it, love. I'll beat him. Hands down. And--" he added, as Angel and then Buffy emerged from the car, "if I don't, you know what to do."

"Grab you and get the hell out of there?"

"Right."

Chapter Text

As soon as they were inside the cavernous warehouse, Spike stripped off his leather coat and tossed it over a pallet of telephone books. He looked smaller and younger without it. But Faith knew that was an illusion. She hoped Angel knew it too.

Angel kept his coat on. In fact, he kept it buttoned. Maybe it was some show of contempt– maybe he was saying that he could even fight encumbered. Or maybe he thought the leather would absorb some of Spike's blows.

They separately scoped out the warehouse as Buffy and Faith pushed aside boxes and wooden pallets and, together, the big forklift truck by the boiler. They didn't even try to move the tall wall-like stacks of boxes that formed corridors near the door. The fight would just have to stay in the vast concrete expanse in the middle.

That's where Angel and Spike took up their positions. Faith could tell right off that they'd fought this way before, or maybe there was some vampire ritual they'd both learned back in vampire school. At any rate, rehashing the rules took only twenty seconds. No reasons, no handshakes, no nods, just a grunted "Okay, start," from Angel.

It would have been fun to watch if she wasn't in love with Spike and suspicious of Angel. Spike had the stupid soul now, and he probably wouldn't cheat. Angel had a soul too, but it didn't seem to get in his way when he wanted to hurt. She longed to appeal to him, to pull out the old friendship card. But Buffy must have pulled out even better cards, and it must not have worked, because here Angel was, circling Spike, his eyes narrowed and his fists up.

No taunts from either of them. That was weird. Angelus would taunt, wouldn't he? And Spike usually had a line of patter when he fought vampires and demons– insults and callouts and speculations about poncey sires. But he was silent, watchful. He was watching Angel's face, not his hands. Risky. She wanted to tell him that. Watch his hands. But she couldn't break his concentration.

Buffy was standing near her, back to the door, both of them tense, waiting for the end, or at least the beginning.

Both vampires were in human face. Faith didn't like that. Fangs to throat meant you have to have fangs, she wanted to remind Spike. But she supposed it was some strategy, the both of them acting like they weren't in any hurry to bite.

Spike let Angel attack first. More strategy. But Spike – Faith loved him, like she'd never loved anyone, but she had to admit that he wasn't great at strategy. She'd fought with him for months now, and she wasn't surprised (worried, yeah, but not surprised) to see that Angel had figured out whatever strategy that was and aimed his kick right at Spike's legs. Spike had to jump away, and that left him off balance, and Angel took him up on it right away, swiping at him with one long arm. It landed square in the chest, and Spike rocked back, regaining his footing only at the last minute.

She hardly had time to get scared before Spike struck back, in that typical Spike way– full forward, his head down and aimed at Angel's stomach. It was a dangerous maneuver, leaving him open, but that was Spike. She usually admired that aspect, but now she wished her boyfriend would just once be the cautious type.

At least the assault unsettled Angel enough that he backed away, rubbing his stomach. His vamp face came down, and Faith heard Buffy's indrawn breath. She imagined they'd both seen Spike that way a hundred times– he liked to go game-faced sometimes when he fought, just for the fear factor. But Angel, even when he was Angelus, usually kept on his human face. Now he was all vamp, and Spike laughed and shook his head, and there they were, both predators, both fierce, both deadly.

She felt a hand at hers. Buffy. Seeking comfort or comradeship or just mutual anxiety. Faith gripped the hand tightly, and thought Buffy must be torn up inside. As hard as it was for Faith to see her friend and her lover fight, she didn't have a moment's debate about which side she was on. Spike was hers, and she'd back him against God himself.

But Buffy– she had to love both of them. And they were fighting with this controlled savagery, and she couldn't stop them. It must be killing her to stand back and watch.

One of the big light bulbs above was flickering, and it played like a strobe on the two fighters. Spike's lean form was in light and then in shadow as he danced in and out of Angel's reach.

There was a sudden flurry, Angel aiming a roundhouse at Spike and connecting, knocking him down and jumping on him. But Spike, smaller, quicker, squirmed loose and jumped up, laughing again. Don't laugh, Faith begged him silently. It'll only make Angel madder. Don't laugh.

But it was like begging the sun not to shine. Spike just did that. Laughed as he escaped. Laughed more when he landed a punch. Laughed even when Angel landed a punch after punch. The laughter was echoing off the high steel-gridded ceiling, and it was driving Angel crazy.

That wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"Shut up!" Angel yelled, hitting Spike with an uppercut and knocking him into a pile of metal crates. "Just shut up!"

Spike was slow to get up. But the cocky grin was intact as he brushed the dust off his jeans. "Getting to you, aren't I?" Then he leaped, flying through the air. But Angel dodged. Spike, with one of those cool moves, twisted in midair, bending at the waist and snagging Angel with one hand.

But then he fell to earth, and Angel fell on him, fangs bared. Spike held him off, his hands in a stranglehold, both arms locked at the elbow, forcing him away, away.

Faith held her breath. Another time, another place, she might have enjoyed this– two master vampires, two experienced warriors, meeting in combat, each aware of the other's strengths and weaknesses. But now, all she could see was that Angel was so much bigger, his fists like grapefruits and his chest like a beer keg. Spike looked almost like a boy under him, pressed hard against the concrete floor, staring up at Angel's angry face.

Spike couldn't hate like that. He loved about as hard as could be, just wasn't so good at hating. But Angel could hate, and in his fierce face, as he glared down at Spike, there was so much hatred that it scared Faith.

"Not laughing now, are you, little Will?" he said. There– finally the taunts.

"Don't call me–"

"Don't tell me what to do!"

Spike took advantage of Angel's fury and flexed his arms and suddenly shoved, and the big body went flying through the air, across the big room, into the darkness at the edges. Angel got up slowly, shaking his head. Then, with a quickness that belied his size, Angel darted behind a solid wall of freight boxes.

Spike rose, slowly now. There was blood dripping from a gash on his forehead, and a bruise purpling under his eye. "Coward," he called out. "Hiding like that."

Now it was Angel laughing. "You want me? Come and get me."

His human face back, Spike stilled, studying the options. If he tried to knock over the wall, Angel would just jump on the pile of boxes and launch himself off. If Spike went to the recess at the end of the line of boxes, Angel was sure to be waiting to jump him.

This was the sort of moment she wished he'd stocked up on grenades.

She held her breath, listened hard. But she couldn't hear even a scratching of motion behind that wall. She imagined Angel, his back pressed against the box wall, staying still, waiting for impulsive Spike to come barreling around the corner.

"Hey, Faith." Spike's voice was low, conversational, like they were walking down the corridors of the school. "Sing Pinball Wizard."

"Huh?" Faith stared at him, but he was looking away at the wall of boxes, and she couldn't see his face.

"Just sing it. You remember it." And then, still gazing at the boxes, he sang softly, "Ever since I was a young boy–"

She hesitated a second, then joined in. "I played the silver ball. From Soho down to Brighton, I must have played them all." Her voice was a little wavery, so she lowered it, toughened it. "I ain't seen nothing like it in any amusement hall... that deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball."

Buffy was giving her a disbelieving look, and Faith shrugged. Buffy'd been with Spike for years– she had to have noticed that he was crazy. In a good way. Okay, so he was crazy in a bad way too. But he was Faith's crazy. And anyway, there was some purpose to it, she was sure. He and Giles tried some exercise with the slayerettes just last week. – Giles playing the guitar and singing this song (it was kind of funny, Giles with guitar) and Spike putting blindfolds on the girls and making them try to locate him in the gym. Faith tried it too– of course, she found him right off, but she'd had years of experience sensing vampires, and besides, he didn't try real hard to evade her or her roving hands. Giles wasn't really happy with the results, grumbling that the slayerettes were relying too much on their sense of hearing, and not reaching out with their intuition. He made Spike serve as an example, and sure enough, Spike – blindfolded and ear-plugged– went right to Lucia hiding in the mat cupboard. (Not that it was really a fair comparison, as Spike could still use his nose.)

Now Spike closed his eyes, reached out his hand to the wall of crates. Faith kept singing, opening her voice up, letting it rough up on the edges the way that always got him hard. "He's a pinball wizard, he's got to be the best. Pinball wizard, he's got such a supple wrist."

And then Spike punched right through the boxes– Jesus, his eyes were still closed– and grabbed. He yanked, and Angel came crashing through, scattering the boxes and the packing material inside.

He pushed Angel against a steel pillar, and disabled him momentarily with a punch to the jaw. Then Faith saw Spike's game-face come out, feral and joyous, and heard his growl, and Angel's groan, and she sagged back in relief–

But then there was a flash of something– a broken wooden slat sliding out of Angel's sleeve, and before she could get there, he had it raised and plunged it into Spike's back.

Something rose in her, an animal cry, and she was on him, her fist closing on the wood and ripping it out of his hand, raising it as she'd done a thousand times before– seeing Angel's maddened face (human, what did that mean, did she care, no, not now, not ever), the blood on his exposed throat– ready to strike, ready to strike back, something like agony in her heart that she couldn't feel yet–

And then Buffy was yanking her away, yelling in her ear. "Spike's here, he's still here, stop!"

Here. Spike. Still. Faith let her hand drop to her side and turned, and there he was, rising slowly from the floor, moving his shoulders as if they hurt. His game-face was sliding away, but there was still blood on the corner of his mouth– Angel's blood. And he was smiling, fiercely. "I win, you sick son-of-a-bitch."

Angel stood there, hands at his side, the blood seeping slowly from the wound at his throat. "How–"

Spike yanked off his shirt and hurled it to the floor. Underneath was a black vest. "If we vampires weren't so stupid and medieval, we could rule the world– kevlar. Great human invention."

The vest was cropped short, covering his chest but not his belly, and buckled at the side. He took it off and tossed it on the t-shirt, and stood there, and Faith would have started blubbering if they'd been alone, blubbering on his bare ivory chest. She was just so relieved, and proud too. Spike really did have a plan. Okay, so it was only a plan to wear a stakeproof vest, but it showed forethought.

She wrested away from Buffy's grip and ran to him, stopping just short of flinging herself into his arms. "He would have staked you."

"And you would have staked him." Spike smiled at her. "That's my slayer."

She heard Buffy breathe in beside her– a sharp breath. And Faith felt fierce and glad. She was his slayer now, and Buffy might as well get used to it.

But now Buffy was speaking to Spike, her voice low and troubled. "Angel wouldn't. You know he wouldn't. He wouldn't cheat like that. It must have been Angelus."

"Right." Spike was staring at Angel, and when Angel stared back, insolently licked the blood from the corner of his mouth. "It's Angelus. It's Angelus that drugged me. And it's Angelus that–"

"That wants to remind you who is boss." Angel was all Angelus now, arrogant and sure, not bothering to blot up the blood that seeped from the little puncture wound on his neck.

"But you had to cheat to do it, " Spike said bitterly.

And Angelus said, his eyes hard and glittering, "You may have forgotten what it is to be a vampire. But I haven't. Cheating is part of the game."

Spike muttered something and reached down to get his shirt, but Angelus said, very low, as if in afterthought, "I turned it away."

After pulling his shirt on, Spike started walking, towards the big steel doors, and Faith grabbed his arm and held him. She wasn't going to let him go, not yet. "Angel, what do you mean?"

"I –" Angel stopped in confusion, and Spike turned slowly towards him, waiting. Angel started again, his voice still low. "I was going to dust you. I was going to get you in the heart. But at the last second, I... I forced it away. Towards your shoulder."

Spike stood there, silent, staring at him. Buffy was the one who retrieved the kevlar vest and tossed it to Faith. "Try it," Buffy said, her voice strained.

Faith held it up to Spike, who was, for once, standing as still as a statue. There was a dent in the vest right at his shoulder blade. She stared at it for a moment, then nodded at Buffy.

"What does that mean, Angel?" Buffy asked, very soft.

"I wouldn't kill Spike." Angel – no, Angelus– was looking at her, his hands held up, palm out. "I wouldn't kill my own."

Spike moved away from Faith and the vest. "Not yours anymore," he growled.

And Angelus laughed. It wasn't that carefree laugh Faith remembered from the time she'd spent trapped with him, but harsh. "You'll always be mine," he said, looking straight at Spike. "And I'll always–" Then he stopped, as if something was confusing him. He shook his head and finished, "always keep you safe."

"That's a joke," Spike said, only he wasn't laughing.

But Buffy said, "No, Spike, listen. He said that he was going to dust you. And he could have. He could have hit you in the heart. But... he didn't."

Spike was glaring at Angelus, and Faith could tell he wasn't listening, and Angelus wasn't either. Too busy doing the macho staring contest thing. She said sharply, "Angel. You said you turned it away. Why did you have to turn it away?"

And Angelus turned those dark, opaque eyes on her. "Like I said. To keep him safe."

"From what?" Buffy asked.

"From–" Angelus stopped again, and then said wonderingly, "From me. I was going to--" he shook his head, hard, like he was trying to free his thoughts. "I was going to– but I wouldn't. I wouldn't."

Spike said, "Then who?"

Angelus touched his own chest, just once, then stared silently at Spike.

Spike stepped forward and suddenly, his hand moving like lightning, yanked at Angel's coat, then his bloodied shirtfront. The buttons fell away, clattering to the floor, and shining there on the broad chest was a medallion, something gold and gaudy. Angel's hand went to cover it, like he was ashamed.

Buffy whispered, "That's Spike's amulet. The one he wore that last day. The one that killed him. You remember, Faith."

Now she did remember seeing it that day, hard and bright against Spike's black t-shirt. And she reached out and grabbed Spike's cool arm and pulled him back.

He let her hold on to him. He was still staring at the amulet. "It told me to bring it back to you."

That was just gibberish to Faith, but Angel seemed to understand. "It's mine now," he said defensively, dropping his hand.

"Why?" Buffy asked. She was at Angel's side, almost touching him. Buffy was brave, braver than Faith would be. She was staring at the amulet like she hated it (and it was a lot uglier than most of the jewelry Buffy wore). "You know it killed him. Why would you wear it?"

Angel looked down at his chest and said, very low, "Because. It anchors my soul. It means we can–"

Buffy's face flushed red, and Faith realized that they'd, you know. Done it. With the amulet on. She had to think about that– couldn't help it– and decided Angel must have kept his shirt on the whole time, or Buffy would have noticed the amulet. She wondered what his cover story was. Well, Spike had kept most of his clothes on the other night, when they did it on the beach, because he claimed he had tender places where sand shouldn't go, the big wuss. And it was kind of fun, working around all that cloth, just for the once– but she thought she preferred him naked... well, she knew she preferred him naked–

Focus. Buffy was talking, gazing up at Angel's face and not at the amulet. "Your soul doesn't need anchoring. And – and it's not anchoring the soul. It's releasing the demon."

"No." Spike was staring at Angel now. "No. The demon is – Angelus is trying to hold back. Aren't you? Your way. Trying to take back over. Because the amulet is telling you to do what you don't want to do."

Suddenly Buffy moved, grabbed the amulet, ripped it off. Angel raised his hand to his neck.

Buffy flung the chain away into a dark corner. Angel started after it, but Spike moved so quickly he was just a blur, getting between him and the amulet. "No. No. Think, Angel. I brought it back. And then it disappeared."

Angel. Angelus. Faith saw them both in that face, one and then the other. Spike would say they were the same– wanted to believe Angel was like him, all one, just pretending to be broken in half. But it didn't look like pretense to her. Angel anguished, and then Angelus angry, and he moved towards Spike. But then Buffy was there, pressing against him, holding him back, tense with tears she wasn't crying. "Angel. Listen. Listen to him."

Angel stopped. Slowly he put his arms around her.

Spike said, "You remember. It disappeared, and you thought I'd taken it. Then it came back. Just appeared again. Someone took it. Did something to it. Who?"

Angel said slowly, "I don't know. It just... was gone. And then it was back, in my desk." He whispered, "But now... it called to me." He stopped, shook his head. "No. I mean, before. I didn't want it. I sent it back to you. You came back with it. You remember."

"Yeah," Spike said. "I remember."

"And then it was gone, and it came back, and ... then I wanted it."

"Whoever took it, changed it." Spike pulled on his shirt. He wasn't looking at Angel anymore, but at the door. "You put it on, and it tried to take over."

"It couldn't." Angelus again, proud and defiant. "Tried to take over the soul. But I wouldn't let it."

Buffy said, "And the first attack on Spike–"

Angel didn't answer. But Spike said, "They wanted you to kill me. So you'd be the only souled vampire left. So they could control the prophecies. By controlling you." He looked over at Buffy. "I wasn't supposed to wear it that day at the hellmouth. That's why I came back. I was the wrong one."

Faith said– proud of her man– "Not much chance to control you." She turned to look at the corner, imagining that the amulet was pulsing there, red and then blue. "But Angel. Who would use that to control him?"

Buffy was the one who answered. She had her hand on Angel's arm, holding fast. "The Senior Partners."

Angel was silent, and finally Spike spoke. "It was part of the deal, wasn't it? The amulet. Wolfram & Hart. You."

Angel whispered something Faith didn't catch. A name, maybe. And then he said, "I don't want it. Don't want to be controlled."

Spike replied, "Yeah. Good. Keep thinking that."

Angel gave a half-laugh. "But you won. Get to be boss. Get to control me. Remember?"

Faith looked over at Spike and saw that, yeah, he remembered. Now. "What you want him to do, Spike?"

He glanced at Angel, and then over at Buffy. "I'm delegating. Buffy's in charge. You do what she tells you."

Angel opened his mouth like he was going to protest. Like he'd rather have Spike telling him what to do. But then Buffy pressed close to him, her head against his arm, and she whispered something. Come with me. Something like that.

Angel inclined his head. Buffy had her ways.

Faith's heart kind of hurt. Buffy deserved better than this– better than being Angel's warden, keeping him on the straight and narrow. Maybe Angel would go back to being himself now that the amulet was gone. But still, for Buffy, it meant constant vigilance. It wasn't much of a life, not much of a love.

Faith caught Spike's eye, and as one, they moved to the door. At the last minute, she remembered the amulet, and darted into the corner and felt around in the darkness and the dust until she found it. Then she picked it up and went out the door after Spike. She felt the cool air and breathed it deep. Angel was somewhere behind her, and so she spoke barely above a whisper. "What do you think we ought to do with this?"

Spike glanced at the chain in her hand, and then away. "Give it to Giles. He'll do some sorcery over it. Neutralize it."

"Hmm," she said. He was so serious now, so tense. She wanted to laugh him out of it. "I was thinking maybe you should put it on. And then I could get you to do exactly what I wanted tonight."

It worked. In the floodlight from over the door, she saw his mouth curve in a smile. "You can do that anyway. I promise. Do anything you want tonight." He took her hand and pulled her close. "Whatever you want."

"You're the big hero. Maybe I should do whatever you want."

"You know," he said, "bet you it's all the same sort of things."

"Yeah." Faith pressed against him, her mouth against his cool throat. Then she thought of Buffy behind them in the doorway, watching. Had to hurt. And Faith didn't want to hurt her. So she pulled away and said, "Meet you back there," and headed for her car.

And then, with a suddenness that brought a familiar rush, she felt something– vampire. Not Spike. Not Angel. She grabbed for her spare stake, saw Spike halt with his hand on his car door, saw the blur of something from the corner of the building. And Angel standing in the building doorway, bent like an old man, his arm around Buffy's shoulder, his face sad and angry all at once–

"No!" Spike yelled, and hurled past her, another blur aimed at that doorway, at Angel. No. At Riley. She was right behind him as he grabbed the vampire, and quick, before Buffy could detach herself from Angel, Faith kicked the stake out of Riley's hand.

Spike was holding Riley back, arms around his chest, almost crooning now, soothing him down. "Can't do it. Won't let you do it. Stay with me, mate. Just stay with me–"

Faith got herself in front of the wild-eyed Riley, ready to stop him if he broke free. She gripped her stake and looked up at his harsh vampface and remembered that boy she'd once bedded, that innocent boy who thought she was the one he loved, who kissed her with a tenderness she never knew again until Spike. And she wanted to let him go, let him have his vengeance, because Angel or Angelus or whoever the hell he was killed that boy and created this broken man.

But it would be wrong. Wrong for Angel. Wrong for Riley.

And wrong for Buffy, who didn't need more grief.

"Riley," Buffy whispered. She pulled free of Angel and came forward. No fear in her. Just... sorrow. She came to Riley and reached up her hand and touched that angry face, and it melted away, and left only the sadness and shame. "Riley," she said, and slowly Spike let him go.

Riley turned his face away, but Buffy reached out again to stroke his cheek. No more words. No tears either. Maybe she didn't have any left.

Spike finally said, "You can't kill your sire, Riley. Just can't. Angel did that, and it bent him. I won't let you do that to yourself."

Buffy turned, still without words, and looked back at Angel. Angelus. Whoever. "Why did you do this? Because of me?"

Angel started to speak, but Spike interrupted. "Because of me. Because I renounced him. Because Angelus can't be without family. Dru's gone, and I left him, and–"

"That's right," Angel said. Soft. Sinister. "I'll make my own, if I have to."

Faith felt a shiver pass through her. "No more," she said.

"Right," Spike said. "No more."

Angel looked right past Riley as if he didn't exist, right at Spike. "Rip up that damned renunciation I signed. Do that, and –"

She wanted to say no. Wanted Buffy to say no. But Spike was already speaking. "And what? You'll stop all this? Take charge of yourself again? Go with Buffy and get back to goodness?"

"Yes."

"All right," Spike said. "But you let him be."

Angel nodded, and Spike took Riley by the arm. "C'mon. Get you home."

But Riley didn't move. He wouldn't look at Buffy, only past her at Angel. And finally Angel looked back.

"Sorry," Angel whispered. And then, quickly, like he was afraid he might take it back, he said, "That wasn't the amulet. That was me that turned you." And then he strode away across the parking lot.

Buffy reached out as if she meant to touch Riley again. But then she let her hand drop. There was nothing to do, nothing to say. In their world, there was so much like this– permanently wrong.

"Can you take care of him?" she asked Spike. Her voice was so weary. Faith wanted to hold her, comfort her. Tell her that it wasn't her fault. But Buffy wouldn't believe that.

"We're good," Spike said.

And finally Riley spoke, echoing that in a whisper. "We're good." It ended in a laugh, and the laugh trailed off into silence, and Buffy took one last look at Riley and then, slowly, walked back to Angel.

Chapter Text

Floodlights illuminated the big Wolfram & Hart jet on the runway, a square of yellow light spilling from the open hatch. It was back from Tibet and available for the borrowing, and that meant– Spike hoped– that Angel was settled in some monastery and poor Buffy was eating rice again and listening to him chant.

Angel wasn't here, at least, and not making any more progeny, or bedevilling the ones he already had. Spike handed over the letter which would identify Riley to the lurking demon, and asked, "You got everything?"

Riley hefted his army-issue duffel bag. "Yeah. You want to look through to make sure?"

Okay. Spike knew what that meant. Back off. But he couldn't help himself. "Got the map? And the GPS?"

"I got them," Riley exclaimed, dropping duffel on the tarmac. "Jesus. You have a GPS when you went to get your soul? You have a map even?"

"Nah," Spike admitted.

"Someone lend you a private jet to get you to Africa?"

Spike shook his head. "Stowed away in a container ship."

"Probably arrived starved, and still fought the fight."

"You'll fight just as good."

"Yeah, but never so manly. Right? That's what's you're saying."

Spike sighed and looked up at the dark gray night sky. "Not sayin' anything."

Riley smiled. It was an actual smile, not the angry grimace he usually used these days. "I've got no problem admitting it, Spike. Not the man you are."

Spike grabbed him by the arm and shook him. Riley was bigger, but Spike was older and stronger and meaner, and he made it matter. "You manage to keep from biting that pilot, and you're twice the man I am. You got more discipline than I've ever seen in a vampire."

Now Riley's smile was rueful as he pulled away. "Got my own mind-control chip, you know."

Buffy, Spike thought, but Riley surprised him again, saying, "Sam. I think of her, how I screwed up our marriage, went haring after some lost dream– and got myself turned into– into this." He looked down at his hands like they were alien. "I screwed up enough in life. Least I can do is do her proud in my unlife, even if she'll never know."

For just a second, Spike wished Giles was here to hear a brand-new vamp talk about his old life like he owned it, talk about doing his wife proud. Regret his past. Pledge his future. If he heard that, Rupert could never again talk about vampires as just parasites inhabiting human bodies. We are still ourselves, Spike wanted to say, and that's more than nothing.

Yeah, and all they needed was Giles to start repenting all those vampire dustings.

Enough that he had refrained from dusting the one he knew best.

So far.

"You come back," Spike said impulsively, "and there'll be a place for you."

So much for so far. Rupert would take out a hit on Spike if he heard that promise.

Just as well Riley was shaking his head. "Thanks. But... but I think I better strike out on my own." For just a second, his face was bleak in the harsh floodlight. "Need to test myself and the new soul." He stopped and then said, "It's a new soul, right? Not the old one?"

Spike just managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Buffy, Giles, Angel, now Riley. Even Dawn. Obsessed with this soul foolery like a old man with his new bride's virginity. He wanted to say that it wasn't the soul, but the willingness to get one that made a vampire something more than evil. But Riley – already better than any vampire ought to be – wanted to know that the soul would make it easier. And maybe it would. But Riley'd already proved himself. "They don't have labels on 'em, you know. But I think you get back the old one, so if it's already dented up, you're stuck with it."

"Oh," Riley said, hefting his duffel over one shoulder. "It's plenty dented. But it's... still a soul." He reached out– impulsive now, and Spike hoped the soul wouldn't change that– and used his free arm to hug Spike. "Thanks, man. I owe you one. Or ten."

"Just look me up when you come back." Spike watched him walk away towards the jet, some of that military boy swagger still in his stride. "You got my cell phone number, right?"

Riley stopped with a foot on the bottom step. "Yeah, Spike. I got your cell phone number. Got your home phone number. Got your address. Got your email address. Got your instant messenger screenname." He looked back over his shoulder and mounted the steps. "I'll find you."

Spike waited until the jet took off, and then trudged back to his car. Riley was Angelus's get, not his, but Spike felt like he was sending his own kid off to war, or his slayerettes off to the hellmouth. It was hard, this caring. He didn't know that he could keep it up.

Riley was the last, he told himself. Wasn't going to add any more burdens. Too many cares already–

But there were compensations. When he drove to the school and climbed up the trellis, Faith's window was unlocked, and she was waiting in bed, warm and drowsy and naked. "Hey, lover," she murmured, pulling him down from the sill and on top of her.

"Let me get my togs off," he said, but she wouldn't wait, and his trousers ended up twisted around his ankles and his shirt trapping his wrists.

"Mmm-hmm, tied-up Spike. My favorite." She moved over him, her hot breasts trailing up his belly and his chest, her kiss hard on his mouth. "Just stay still. Let me take care of it."

"It" turned out to be not his cuffed ankles or the wrists snared above his head, but his swollen cock. She slid warm and tight over that, held him down with two firm hands on the chest, and whispered again, "Let me take care of it."

What could he do, imprisoned this way? He closed his eyes and let her slide up and down him, move around him, hold him fast. He wasn't going anywhere.

Finally she released him, pulled the shirt the rest of the way off his arms, let him kick the trousers off, and she settled down next to him with a happy sigh. He grabbed up the t-shirt and twisted it thoughtfully in his hands. "Next time," he decided, "let's try this on you."

She made an entirely unFaithly meek assent, and the whole time he feared for his unlife, because if she was just feinting, he was in serious trouble. But she endured the bonds, and endured his control, and waited till it was over to say, "I prefer you being the one tied up."

It wasn't going to last. He knew that as sure as he knew the shirt-scrapes on their wrists would soon fade. They weren't always going to be happy. So, as she burrowed into his side, he said, "What happens when we start hurting each other?"

She stilled, then slid a hand under his back. In that gruff tone she used when it was serious, she said, "Maybe we shouldn't start. And if we do, well." She balled the hand into fist, and dug it into his shoulderblade. "You'll still be my best friend. And my best lover. So we'll have to figure it out, because we're not going to give that up, are we?"

"I guess not." But he moved to hold her, and he thought of himself, and how he liked a fight, and so did Faith, and how easy it was just to walk away if it got too intense. (Okay, not for him. From him, yeah.)

Faith made an exasperated little sound and grabbed his hand. "How about we just trust each other, okay? I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Well," Spike said fairly, "I've killed two of your kind."

This made her laugh. "And I've dusted a thousand of yours. And I'm not going to dust you, and you're not going to kill me. And so if the worst isn't going to happen, what's left?"

There was a lot left. Worse than dusting, maybe. He thought of Buffy, pale and determined, sticking with Angel though there was no joy in it. Maybe that was worse.

But he'd never do that to Faith. He'd dust himself before he put her through that, made her choose between him and happiness. "How about I just make you happy?"

"Works for me," she said. "Maybe I'll try'n make you happy too."

He knew there was more unsaid. More promises to make, and maybe to break. He didn't trust love. But he trusted Faith. And he guessed he trusted himself.

He was good at this, after all. Always been good at loving. Now maybe he had a woman who thought that was worth abiding.

As Spike and his band set up along the brick wall, the slayerettes were massing in the courtyard for the graduation ceremony. Faith had insisted yet again (and Giles gave in quick – he'd finally learned it saved time to give Faith what she wanted first time she wanted it) and not only were there mortarboards and fancy engraved diplomas, but each slayerette wore a brand new business suit under her graduation robe. Spike privately wondered what future slayerish occasion would require a suit, but the girls stood up so straight, and Faith was so proud, all he thought was, "What a fine crew this is," which was the sort of thing Giles would have said, were Giles not struck dumb by the balance on his credit card.

When they were all lined up under that deep blue spring night sky, Andrew started up his camcorder and the CD player simultaneously (the boy had some talents). Pomp and Circumstance, slow and stately just the way old Elgar would like it. The slayerettes walked forward, one by one, to accept a scroll from Giles and a dagger from Faith. Then, when they were all re-assembled, Andrew cut off the CD player mid-note, and Spike and the band struck up a rollicking punk version of the old song. Spike's American bandmates didn't know the lyrics, of course, and Spike himself refused to sing the jingoistic rubbish. But Rupert couldn't help himself. He was British to the core, and he'd no more be able to keep his mouth shut than to sit down during God Save the Queen (even the Sex Pistols version). So above the harsh bass chords and slashing lead rose his fine voice, and the slayerettes gamely tried to hum along:

Dear Land of Hope, thy hope is crowned.
God make thee mightier yet!
On Sov'ran brows, beloved, renowned,
Once more thy crown is set.
Thine equal laws, by Freedom gained,
Have ruled thee well and long;
By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained,
Thine Empire shall be strong.

"That's awesome," the lead guitarist said as the last discordant chords trailed off. "And all these girls–"

Spike didn't bother to warn him that these girls could snap his strumming arm like a twig. They'd all be gone east in a day or so anyway, off to wreak havoc on the demon populations.

And maybe the boy population. Spike couldn't worry about that. He had enough trouble putting the fear of the vamp into Dawn's dates.

Besides, he'd decided not to take on any more cares.

So "touch a one of them, and you die," was all he snarled to his lead guitarist.

Before he could elaborate on the threat, the slayerettes were tossing their mortarboards in the air and cheering loud enough to wake the dead.

Then they scattered. It was hard to let them go. At least they weren't thrown into the deep end, like Buffy and Faith had been, with only inexperienced watchers. Each was trained, and no one was going to be alone, and they'd have funds, and besides, Spike told himself, there wasn't any one big hellmouth to handle, but just a lot of little ones.

Still all the airport runs and driveway farewells tore away at his heart– well, at least there was some consolation, coaxing Faith out of her black mood after each goodbye kiss to a departing slayerette. "The trip," he reminded her as Lucia drove off in her little Porsche with Kelly beside her. "Think of it. You and me."

"And Xander," Faith said gloomily. But then she smiled and took Spike's hand. "We'll have us some fun."

Turned out, they were taking along a couple slayerettes too, Petra and Amachi (Petra had anxiety attacks when she flew, so better to drive her, scary thing, Amachi pointed out, to be stuck on a plane with a slayer in an anxiety attack), but just as far as Denver. There they would serve a year as Kim's interns before getting their own baby hellmouth. They all met in the courtyard just at dusk three days after the graduation, the only slayerettes left at the school, both of them straight and proud and loud, clanging their weapons bags, making threats against demons, though Spike was the only one nearby. Giles was there too, doling out the cash and the Official Slayer Credit Card, which more than any diploma meant they were graduated. "This is a great responsibility," he said, laying the plastic in Amachi's hand but not quite able to let it go. "Official business only. No taking it to the mall."

"Right, chief," Petra and Amachi said together, in that long-suffering tone teenagers always used with authority.

Spike watched as Faith unpacked the jeep once more, hoping that just rearranging all the bags would make more space. "I don't know where we'll put Xander's baggage," she muttered.

Spike looked up at the light spilling from the window over the garage. "Maybe he'll see Petra and Amachi and decide not to come."

No such luck. Xander arrived a minute later, all silent and sullen, and started a slow walk around the truck, kicking the tires. At least he had only one bag, and that he kept with him, so Faith was able to rearrange the back in peace.

Xander was determined to be a boon companion, that was clear. Not. He growled, "You can drop me off in Cleveland. Willow's there."

Spike closed his eyes. Cleveland was most of the way across the country. But they could drop the girls in Denver, and drive all day and night, and get rid of Xander by Tuesday--

Spike's cell phone rang, and when he saw the number displayed, he moved over into the shadows of the colonnades. "Slayer."

"Hi, Spike." Buffy didn't say anything more, and he steeled himself.

"What's up?"

Her words came all in a rush. "I'm here. In the front of the school. Don't tell anyone."

Well, that was cryptic. Spike glanced around, saw everyone was occupied with the car, and said, "Okay, I'll be there in a mo."

He found Buffy sitting on the stone bench beside the front gate. The streetlamp illuminated her thin face, and he felt that unwelcome tug of sympathy. But her blue silk trousers were perfectly creased, and her hair was golden and swept carefully back into a silver comb. She might have just travelled most of the way around the world to drop off her crazy boyfriend, but she still took the time to look stylish. He couldn't help but admire that.

Her words came in a rush, like she'd rehearsed them. "Just wanted to report in. It's going well. Angel's doing fine. I didn't see him much– these Tibetans are so sexist, everything's male-only or female-only– but he sent me a note. He's doing a lot of meditation, and yoga, and all that peace-seeking stuff."

"That's good." He found he didn't much care about Angel. He was supposed to care– he'd ripped up the renunciation of rites, and he was Angelus's grandchilde again, and ought to care. But he didn't, not much, not about the old man's yoga routine, anyway.

But he did care about Buffy, and always would. "How are you?"

"I'm okay," Buffy said. "I hiked one day. Hey, I took out a mountain-migre demon the other day. It was terrorizing one of the high villages, stealing their goats. I had fun."

"Doing your bit to make Tibet a demon-free zone."

"Yeah, but there'll still be the Chinese army occupiers. I can't do anything about them." She heaved a sigh. "The girls all graduate?"

"Yeah. Rupert about busted his vest buttons, he was so proud. Now we're distributing them around the country for on-the-job training."

Buffy laughed. It wasn't much of a laugh, but there it was. "Boy, when I think of the training I got after I was chosen– my ancient first watcher trying to teach me martial arts– not Giles, he was my second watcher, though he seemed pretty ancient himself.... Well. So many changes."

"For the better."

This time her laugh was genuine. "For you, at least! Think of it. Here you are, training slayers, and you were the slayer of slayers!"

"I remind them of that, when they get out of line." He held out his hand. "Come on. Rupert'll want to see you, and Xander and Faith too."

She hesitated, regarding his hand like a gift that might have strings attached. "I don't know– I just wanted to tell you I was back... didn't mean to spoil the going-away party."

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, and she slung her bag over her shoulder and didn't protest much more as he drew her into the school. He said, "Not much of a party. We were pretty jolly, till Xander came out, Mr. Gloom himself. He's got to check every inch of the jeep, you know. Like I don't know how to keep a car running." It was a point of pride for Spike that he kept that DeSoto for 490,000 miles, and he didn't think Xander with all his tire-kicking could do better.

"Are you going somewhere too?" Buffy said. Her voice was wistful, and her hand clutched his.

"Yeah. We're headed out. Me and Faith are going on a demon-destruction tour."

"That sounds like fun. You going after demons in every state."

Now she really sounded wistful, and he hoped it was for the demon part, and not for the him part. He didn't want her to want him, not now, when he couldn't want her back. He detached his hand from hers, and led the way through the kitchen. "We're taking two slayerettes to intern with Kim in Denver. And we're taking Xander."

She caught up with him at the door. "Xander is a good demon magnet," she observed.

"Well, he said he wants to be dropped in Cleveland to see Willow. But we have to put up with him till then." He pushed the door open and got to see Xander lifting up the jeep's hood to check the oil. "I bet he does that every time we stop for petrol."

"Yeah, hands-on guy." Buffy kind of laughed, but she didn't come out into the courtyard with him.

"Come on," he said, annoyed now at her shyness. This was her family. She should remember that. "Giles is still here. He'll want to see you before he leaves for London."

Buffy took a deep breath and stepped onto the flagstones. She might have been facing the First Evil, instead of the people who knew her well. But her voice was bright as she stepped into the light near the car. "Hi, everyone."

There was a moment of silence– Xander pausing with the dipstick halfway back into the oil well, Giles with his wallet still in his hand– and then Faith dropped the cooler full of blood and Mountain Dew and came running up. "B! You're back!"

Buffy accepted her hug and Giles's kiss and waved at Xander. She gazed around at the group around the Jeep. "Just in time to say goodbye to everyone, huh?"

"Hey!" Faith said. "You could come along! You know, help us get the slayerettes settled in with Kim!"

Impulsivity was one of the traits Faith and Spike shared, and now he was thinking maybe it wasn't the best trait to double up on.

But there was Buffy, her eyes starting to light up. And Faith was holding her arm, doing that best girlfriend coaxing-thing with her voice. "Come on, it'll be fun."

"It'll be tight," Xander growled as he slammed the hood shut.

All the expression went out of Buffy's face. But Amachi was already opening the back door. "Hey, we can do it. We'll just squeeze in."

"I'm driving then," Xander said, and punctuated this by getting in the driver's seat. And then he relented, rolling down the window and saying, "You sit up front with me, Buffy, and we can catch up."

So Spike was left with the two slayerettes and Faith and the door to the back seat. Faith. She was making some statement here, but he wasn't going to hear the details till they were alone. And it looked like that might be awhile. So he gestured gallantly to the car. "Come on, ladies, get in. But I get the middle. It'll be like a dream come true. Me, the filling in a slayer sandwich."

Faith growled, "Get him," and the slayerettes obeyed immediately, each grabbing an arm of his and flinging him against the side of the car. Giles moaned something about dents, but Spike was laughing too hard to translate it.

He didn't struggle. And he especially held still when Faith came stalking over to him. She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. A long, hard kiss, with promise and threat in it. She didn't say it aloud – Petra was only 17, after all– but Spike read it in her eyes: You filling any slayer, it's going to be me.

Sure, she was just giving notice. To him, but maybe more to Buffy. But it hit him with all the force in Faith's slayer heart. She loved him. He maybe didn't really believe it before, but now he had to admit it. She loved him. And she wanted everyone to know it.

She let him go and the slayerettes released his arms, and he stood there rubbing his bicep while Petra and Amachi argued about who got the window.

Faith was now trying to jam Buffy's overnight bag into the back, but she felt him watching her and looked up. She flashed him a smile, and mouthed one word– Mine.

Wasn't politically correct. Wasn't liberating modern romance. But it was real. It was his kind of love– fueled by possessiveness and protectiveness and fierceness. Faith had a bit of the demon in her, and he knew it now. She wasn't going to let him go.

"Come on, come on," Xander called out through his window. "Let's get this show on the road."

And so Faith opened the front door and shoved the bag onto Buffy's lap, and then squeezed into the space beside Spike. He was too tough to faint, yeah, but it made him dizzy, one thigh pressed against Faith, the other against Amachi, Petra's arm along the back seat and lying heavy on his shoulder. Surrounded by slayers, his senses filled with their scent and texture.

Faith worked her hand out from between them and laid it on his leg. Her breath was hot against his ear. "Room of our own. Promise."

"I promise." He turned his head so he could kiss her. "I promise," he whispered against her mouth.