Hoping's Very Fears

Fanfiction
-My Fics
-Collaborations
-Other Buffy/Spike Fics
-Series
-Challenges
-Non Buffy/Spike Fics
History
Links
Link to Me
Updates
Awards Won


Back to Main

E-mail Hilary

Chapter 1: A Change of Perspective

Buffy slammed her fist down on the counter, hard. “Enough, Willie. You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’m going to rearrange your face.”

Willie believed her. Everyone knew the Slayer was on edge lately. It showed up in her increased taste for violent confrontation. And everyone knew that Glory was the cause. But, while Willie would have loved to help her, if only because he happened to like his face the way it was, he didn’t have any info on the Hellgod or her scabby minions, and he’d told the Slayer that. Repeatedly. It wasn’t getting through. “Look, Slayer, I’d love to help,” he whined. “I don’t know anything. So she’s dropped out of sight. Be grateful for the breather.”

“The day I need your advice is the day I retire, Willie,” Buffy snarled in reply. Three weeks had passed, and no word from Glory. She was beginning to get a little nervous; silence did that to her occasionally. “Fine. Be happy you get to stay in one piece.”

“Wait,” Willie called. He glanced around nervously, not wanting to be overheard. Everyone knew he snitched sometimes, but they didn’t have to know what he said. “Look, you might want to look after your friends, Slayer.”

Buffy frowned and peered back at Xander, who shrugged. He had happily followed Buffy to Willie’s bar, especially since Willie was about the only person he had a shot at successfully intimidating. “My friends are fine.”

“What about Spike?” the bartender asked, more nervously still. “You seen him lately?”

Buffy actually laughed at that one. “Spike’s not my friend.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what he done the other day would seem to say otherwise, and there are some people out there who weren’t real appreciative, if you get what I’m saying.” Willie leaned in and looked Buffy in the eyes.

For Buffy’s part, she was both suspicious and a little concerned. Not that she was worried about Spike, but he was her next line of defense in the fight against Glory, and he’d been fairly helpful lately. She wanted all her fighters in one piece. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I owe him, and this pays the debt,” Willie said, satisfied that he’d gotten through to her as much as he was able. “So get out of here, Slayer. You’re scaring the customers.”

Buffy left, but only because she figured she’d gotten as much information out of the little scumbag as she was going to get. Xander was at her heels, and he looked at her uncertainly as she considered the information she’d been given. What she’d wanted was an update on Glory’s doings and whereabouts; what she’d gotten was the cryptic message that something may have gotten to Spike. She sighed. That vampire was nothing but a pain in her ass.

“So what now, Buf?” Xander asked.

The Slayer shook her head and looked down the street in the direction of Spike’s crypt. “I guess we go check on Spike. Not like I want to, but he’s about the only person who has a prayer against Glory except for me, and it would be nice if he were in one piece.”

Xander looked disgusted. “I don’t know, Bufster. Can’t the bloodsucker take care of himself?” At Buffy’s face, he laughed. “Okay, strike that. Can’t we pretend that he can take care of himself?”

She shook her head. “No. If Willie’s right, and something is after Spike, then we should probably check it out. If Willie thinks he’s on our side, that something may be coming after us next, and I want to know about it.”

They made their way to his crypt with little trouble. Not that the undead population had taken a vacation, but Buffy easily staked the two vampires they came across. In her heart of hearts, Buffy knew Spike had been right that night at the Bronze. She was much more vulnerable when she was distracted, and she’d been more distracted than usual lately. Her mom, her sister, her friends, were what tied her to the world, and with her mom sick and a Hellbitch after her sister, she hadn’t been nearly as focused as she needed to be. But things were better now, and she was focused. Intent. Right now she was intent on making sure that Spike hadn’t done anything so stupid as to get all of them killed.

Buffy didn’t bother knocking, she never did. And as she swung the door open, the smell hit her hard, and she took a shaky step back. “What is that?” Xander asked from behind her, his face pale in the moonlight.

She shook her head. “It’s blood.” With a sinking feeling, she entered the crypt. It didn’t smell as it usually did, of dust and dead things. Right now it had the sweet, coppery smell of blood. Not new blood though, old blood, with the edge of decay to it. There wasn’t any light to see by, as the moon was not bright enough to find its way through the small windows or the doorway, but she remembered well enough where the television was supposed to be, and she stumbled over to it in the dark, hopeful that it would work and could give her a little light to see by.

It did. The picture was all snow, but it lit the room enough to outline the still figure who hung on the wall. Buffy didn’t like Spike; she never had, and she strongly doubted that she ever would, but she’d never wanted this. A quick stake through the heart maybe, but not this. He hung by his arms, crucified, two thick pieces of rebar piercing his wrists and the stone wall behind. Buffy didn’t even want to meet the thing strong enough to do that, to get him up there in the first place.

The blood was his, of course. His chest had been carved to pieces; there hardly seemed to be an intact piece of skin, and his face was swollen out of all proportion. She heard Xander make a soft gagging noise behind her and had to agree. “My God,” he whispered, coming up next to her. “What did this?”

“I don’t know,” she replied softly, feeling the same need to whisper. “But I don’t want to find out. We need to get him down from there.” They came up next to him, and Xander braced the lifeless body against the wall as Buffy strained to pull out the metal spikes.

“Buf,” Xander said. “Look, I don’t think it would hurt him anymore than he is already to just pull him off.”

The Slayer winced, even as he said it, but nodded. The rebar was straight metal, and it would be just as bad pulling the metal out as it would to pull Spike off. “All right.” Between her and Xander it was a matter of minutes before he was off the wall and slumped between the two of them. He hadn’t even stirred, and the only indication that he was still unliving was that he wasn’t dust. “Now what?” Xander asked.

Buffy considered. She really didn’t like her options here, but there was only one that made sense. “My house.”

Xander argued with her all the way there, of course. And Buffy had to agree with most of his reasoning. Spike was a dangerous vampire, he had something dangerous after him, he was a bad influence on Dawn, all of it was true. Except maybe for the him being dangerous part. On the other hand, Buffy was completely certain that the only safe place to leave him right now was where she could keep an eye on him. Plus, there was the small issue of him actually having been of help recently, and not asking to get paid for it. Not that Buffy thought he deserved anything from her at all, because, hello, vampire, but she couldn’t help but remember the way he’d sat with her on her back porch the evening she’d found out her mom had to go to the hospital. And how he’d agreed to babysit both her mom and sister. And how he’d helped her look for Dawn after her sister found out she was the Key. She didn’t owe him anything, of course, but there was some small part of her that felt like maybe she did.

She at least owed him a place to stay until she could find out whether or not she needed to worry about something else coming after them.

Buffy opened the front door of her house as quietly as possible, not wanting to risk disturbing any of the other occupants. “I guess we can put him on the couch for right now,” she whispered quietly to Xander. “We’ll need to get him some blood, and—”

“Honey? Is that you?” Joyce’s voice floated down from the upper story. “Is something wrong?” Buffy wanted to tell her mom to stay upstairs, but Joyce was in the foyer before she could say anything. The older woman’s hand flew to her mouth at the sight of the battered vampire. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” her daughter replied truthfully. “I heard from a source that Spike might be in trouble, and this is how we found him.”

Joyce’s face hardened, getting much the same look as Buffy’s did right before she went into battle. “Put him on the couch.”

“Mom, I don’t think—”

“The couch.” There was no room for argument or negotiation in her voice, and Buffy and Xander did as they were told. “What does he need?”

The Slayer stared at her mother. “Mom, I’ve got it.”

“What does he need, Buffy?” Joyce asked again

“Mrs. Summers, it’s just Spike,” Xander broke in. “You don’t need to worry.”

Joyce favored him with her patented “disappointed mom” look, guaranteed to reduce a person to a puddle on the floor. It worked on Xander too. “Spike is a guest in my home, and he’s been injured. What does he need?”

Buffy shook her head, but gave in. “He needs blood.” She quickly checked the clock, noting that it was still relatively early, not yet ten. “The butcher shop should still be open. They don’t close till late.” And then, remembering, she sighed. “Of course, Spike probably still has blood in his fridge. I can check there too. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“I’m fine, Buffy.” Joyce met her daughter’s eyes and held her gaze for a long time, before the Slayer finally nodded and urged Xander out the door. Once alone, Joyce turned to look at the battered figure, still unconscious on her couch. She would need first aid supplies, and a lot of them, she realized. She gathered what she needed and began her work, starting with the puncture wound on his right wrist.

Cognitively she knew that Spike was a vampire, that she was helping one of the things her daughter fought every night. But Joyce had always had a small soft spot for Spike. Perhaps it was because he had no pretense whatsoever. From almost the very beginning he had been honest with her.

“Have we met?”

“Uh, you hit me with an ax once.”

Her lips twitched up in an involuntary smile. It might have been the night he showed up on her front porch, half-drunk and demanding to see Buffy. Spike had been disappointed that she wasn’t at home, and she half-wondered if he’d planned on killing her then. But he had looked so despondent that she had asked him if he was all right, and then asked him in for cocoa. She remembered that his face had changed in that moment, as though he couldn’t quite believe she cared if he was okay or not. Really, as though he couldn’t quite believe that anyone cared.

Ah, that was the moment. His face had changed in that instant, and he’d reminded her of a boy she knew once, a neighbor of theirs when she was a child. He had been a few years older, and hadn’t given her the time of day, and he was rebellious and angry. Dangerous, everyone had said. But she’d found him on his front porch one night, watching the stars, and he’d looked so lonely that she’d asked if everything was alright, and that’s when he told her that no, it really wasn’t. His mother was dying.

Joyce had smoked her first cigarette with him that night, just a puff or two off of his when he offered it to her, while he told her about the stars and the constellations, and his mother’s illness. He had been a very different boy with her than he was with everyone else, but he was back to his old ways the next day. And then they held the funeral a week later.

She had no idea what had happened to him; she’d heard that he’d gone into the Marines only a week after he’d graduated, probably because he didn’t have any other choice, and Joyce had a feeling that he’d probably done very well for himself. Either that or he was dead or maybe in jail. There was no in between for a man like that, and she thought Spike might be the same way. He would never be in between anything; it wasn’t in his nature.

Both wrists bandaged, Joyce began on his chest, gently sponging away the crusted blood to reveal deep cuts. And as she cleared more and more of his chest, she began to realize that there was a pattern there, that someone had carved something into his flesh and bone, though she couldn’t make it out. Wincing involuntarily, she made sure the deep gashes were clean before she began on his face, wiping away the blood, careful of the bruises. Not until then did he stir at all.

She knew he was regaining consciousness when he took a deep breath, almost a gasp, and she hurried to soothe him. “Shh. Spike, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

His eyes were too swollen to open at all, and she could tell that his blindness, however temporary, frightened him. “Joyce?”

“That’s right,” she said gently. “You’re going to be just fine.”

“Where am I?” The tone was almost desperate, his fear tangible, his voice a mere rasp from disuse and torture.

She went back to work on his face, trying to comfort him with touch. “My house. Buffy brought you. Don’t try to talk now.”

But he shook his head. “How?”

“Someone told her you might be in trouble, and she said she found you like this.” The silence held after that, and she finished cleaning his face. There was no chance of cleaning him up any more tonight; he was too broken to stand for long, and she wanted to get him to bed since Buffy wasn’t back yet. “I’m going to set up a bed for you in the basement,” Joyce informed him. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Joyce found the old Army cot easily, and quickly set it up with clean sheets and blankets. Then she headed back up the stairs to get Spike. He was weak, barely able to stand, but they managed the trip with him leaning on her heavily as they made their way slowly down the stairs. “Rest now,” she said softly, once she’d gotten him settled.

“Stay, please,” he whispered, grabbing at her hand blindly. Joyce sat obediently on the edge of the cot, understanding his need to not be alone. Even if he was supposed to be a bad ass vampire.

She left her hand in his, marveling at the inhuman coolness of his flesh. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was strange. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

He gave a humorless chuckle. “I was stupid.” There was a long silence, and then he continued. “Heard a rumor ‘bout a warlock doin’ some ritual. Sounded bad, like somethin’ the Slayer should know about it, but she’s been busy with that Glory bint.”

“And you thought you’d do something about him.” Joyce couldn’t read the _expression on his face, not with the swelling, but she could hear the amusement in his tone.

“Yeah. Disrupted the ritual fine, thought I’d gotten away without the bloke seein’ me, but he tracked me somehow. You can see the rest of the story for yourself.” Spike fell silent then, and Joyce could see that he was fighting a losing battle with sleep.

“Rest now,” Joyce said quietly. “I’ll be here.”

Buffy slipped into the house, brown paper bag in hand. “Mom?”

“In here, sweetheart,” Joyce called, directing her daughter into the living room.

The Slayer frowned when she saw her mom on the couch and no Spike in sight. “Where is he?”

“The basement,” Joyce said quietly. “I set the cot up for him.”

Buffy came and sat by her on the couch. “Did he say anything?”

Her mom quickly told her what Spike had said, and Buffy shook her head. “He’s lying.”

Joyce frowned. “Why? He’s certainly in bad enough shape to be telling the truth.”

There was a long silence as Buffy considered her words, realizing that there was some truth to them. Plus, he had been helping out more recently. “All right, so maybe he’s not lying, but he’s not telling us something. Why would he want to help, without getting paid? And why on earth would this guy do what he did and not kill him? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe,” her mother allowed, “but maybe you should wait and ask him yourself.”

Buffy nodded. “He’s going to need the blood tonight though, to heal. I guess I’ll get him fed and then call Giles. He’ll know what to do about Spike.” The Slayer took the blood downstairs after saying good-night, and gently shook the vampire awake. “I’ve got blood,” she said shortly. “I’m going to let you eat and sleep, but tomorrow you’re going to tell us what happened. I mean it, Spike. I want the whole truth.”

Too tired to do anything but nod, he reached for the plastic container of blood blindly, but his wrists had been too damaged to allow him to grasp it properly. With something nearing compassion, Buffy brought it up to his lips and watched as he drank deeply, trying not to get too grossed out. “Thanks,” he gasped as he finished it up.

“Whatever,” she replied, a trifle ungraciously. “Get some sleep, Spike.” And then she left him alone.

Chapter 2: A Conversation That Never Happened

The next morning, Buffy sat with Giles at the dining room table, discussing what had happened. “When you called last night, I began to look for any significant events,” Giles said. “It seems Spike may have saved us from another apocalypse.”

Buffy’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean he might have actually done something good for a change?”

“Yes, well, it’s possible,” the Watcher acknowledged. “The ritual he most likely stopped was something similar to the Mayor’s Ascension. Only worse, since it most likely would have opened the Hellmouth.”

Buffy stared at him. “Why did I not know about this?”

Giles had the good grace to look a bit sheepish. “Well, no one in their right mind would perform the ritual at all. The last person who tried did so nearly a millennia ago, and he died horribly.”

“So we’re dealing with some insane-o warlock,” she muttered, “on top of a crazy Hellgod. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Sunnydale?”

Giles cleaned his glasses and gave a slight sigh. “Actually, the real damage has already been done, or I should say, averted. The ritual can only be performed at a certain conjunction of time and place. It won’t be possible to attempt it again for another fifty years or so.”

“And by that time, we won’t have to worry about it anymore,” she finished, and then looked up as her Slayer-senses tingled. Spike stood in the doorway, looking—well, she wasn’t sure better was the right word, but his right eye was actually open and the wounds on his chest had scabbed over.

Her Watcher turned around to see what she was staring at, and his eyes widened as he saw the vampire. “Spike. Good Lord. Buffy told me you’d been badly hurt, but—” He broke off. “You had better sit,” he finally said, and watched as Spike obediently limped over to one of the chairs.

“If you want a better look, just say so, Watcher,” Spike rasped, catching Giles staring at the marks on his chest.

Buffy realized with a very sick feeling in her stomach that what she had thought were just random cuts had some sort of pattern. Needing to get out of there, she took the less disgusting option. “There’s more blood if you need it,” she offered, rather sweetly.

The vampire looked up at her with some surprise, both at the offer and the generous tone. “Yeah. Thanks.” There was a moment as they shared a glance and then Buffy left to get Spike’s blood, letting Giles get a better look at the vampire’s lacerated chest by himself. In the kitchen, she took a deep breath as she leaned on the counter. Her attitude had taken a turn during the night, as she’d thought about Spike’s condition as well as what he had told her mother. But there was something he hadn’t said, and that something was bothering her immensely. He hadn’t told Joyce why he had been so bent on stopping the lunatic warlock, other than the fact that she had enough on her plate with Glory. That might have been true enough, but the Spike she knew wouldn’t have cared one way or another. She shook her head. Trying to figure him out would only give her a headache.

When she got back into the dining room, Giles was making notes on the markings on the vampire’s chest, and Spike was looking none too pleased with the situation. “Can you tell me anything about what he did to you?” Giles asked, hurriedly finishing up his transcription.

“Sure,” Spike replied, taking the blood from the Slayer with a grateful nod. “Bloke nailed me to the wall before I knew anyone was even in my crypt, he carved up my chest a bit, and then he left me hanging. End of story.”

“I hardly think that’s the end of it,” the Watcher protested. “These aren’t simply random cuts. There’s a meaning to them, and—”

“Pain,” Spike snarled. “That’s the meaning, Watcher.” He quickly drained the blood. “Look, I stopped the bloody bastard from endin’ the world and all. Can we leave it at that?”

“How do we know he’s not going to return?” Giles protested. “If he’s as powerful as you’ve led me to believe, this could prove difficult and especially dangerous since the Glory problem has not yet been resolved.”

“Not my problem,” the vampire replied bluntly. “Besides, he’s not comin’ back. He came into town for the ceremony, I bollocksed it up, he tortured me, he left.”

“Are you sure he’s not coming back?” Buffy asked, her eyebrows raised. “Because if you’re wrong, you’re putting yourself and the rest of us in danger.”

“It’s done,” he nearly yelled in return, and if the Slayer wasn’t mistaken, there were tears in his eyes. “He’s satisfied, or at least he bloody well should be. There’s not a lot left for him to do.” And with that, he limped back down to the basement.

Buffy was about to follow when she felt a hand on her arm, and she looked over to see her mother standing there. “I’ll talk to him,” Joyce said gently.

Spike sat down on the cot with a muffled thump and cursed his temper. If he could just hold it together for a little longer he would be able to leave. And then go somewhere and sit very, very quietly for a long while. He was exhausted, he hurt, and he couldn’t get the images out of his mind. All those people who had paraded in front of him for days, he wasn’t sure for how long, as he’d been trapped in his own mind, pinned to the wall. For a while he’d even believed what they’d been trying to tell him: there was nothing good about his life. Of course, waking up, he’d realized that it was pretty much true. That had been a disappointment.

Funny that it hadn’t ever occurred to him before that his life was a sad series of failures. He’d liked being a vampire. Hell, he still liked being a vampire, but there were things—He had been pathetic as a human, he’d known that already of course, but he was pathetic as a vampire too.

“Are you all right?” Joyce asked, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Fine,” he mumbled. “I’ve told them all I’m going to.”

She smiled at his stubbornness, as though she were humoring him. Which she was, of course. Joyce was a mother, first and foremost, and she knew how to get answers out of unresponsive children. Not that Spike was a child, or that she always succeeded with either of her daughters, but she had impressive range of arsenal. “Why don’t you tell me?” she asked.

Spike looked at her in surprise. “Huh?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” she repeated patiently. “I’ll tell them whatever you’d like me to.”

He stared at her, wondering if he should take her seriously. “You’re not going to go away until I do,” he said suspiciously.

“Probably not,” she admitted cheerfully.

Spike wasn’t used to admitting defeat, certainly wasn’t used to admitting it to a human, but he was tired, and he hurt. His very soul was bruised, never mind that he didn’t have one. Or maybe he should say his heart had been bruised, even though it didn’t beat. “Tell the Watcher that the ritual he used was the Blood of the Victims. He’ll know what it is, and it’ll tell him why that wanker’s not comin’ back.”

She left then, as he knew she would, and he lay back down on the cot, wanting to save his strength. He would need to leave soon, before he could screw this whole thing up any more than he had already.

“Okay,” Xander said skeptically. “What you’re saying is that this ritual makes a person relive every bad thing they’ve done from the point of view of the person they did it to. I fail to see how that’s a bad thing.”

Anya glared at her boyfriend. She had known exactly what Giles was talking about the minute he named the ritual, and they were the only two people who seemed to have any understanding at all of what it entailed. And he wasn’t listening to her. “No one in their right mind performs the Blood of the Victims,” she said for the fifth time. “It’s the only curse forbidden to vengeance demons.”

“And it’s forbidden for Watchers as well,” Giles said tiredly. Once he’d discovered what Spike had been intent upon hiding, he’d felt much better. No doubt the vampire was right about the warlock leaving town. No one stuck around after cursing someone like that.

“It’s fair play, though,” Xander protested. “It’s giving them a taste of their own medicine. What’s so wrong about that?”

“You are so dense!” Anya exclaimed. “You don’t get it, Xander. I told you. It’s not just everything you’ve done, it’s everything that’s been done to you, too. Think of the absolute worst moment of your life. I mean the worst.”

The first thought, and the least embarrassing, was when he’d had to stake Jesse. From the look on his face, Anya knew he was thinking of something bad, and she went on. “Then imagine you had to relive that moment and every other horrible moment over and over again, an infinite number of times, until you couldn’t even remember being happy.” When he paled, the ex-demon knew he’d gotten it.

“Anya has hit it,” Giles admitted. “Actual experiences take much longer than their memories. The ritual traps the victims inside their own minds and forces them to relive their worst moments over and over again. While it was first created to punish those who had committed a crime like murder, it was soon being used even for petty revenge, and that’s when they discovered that it wasn’t just the crimes you committed, it was also all the horrors that had been perpetrated against you. Any number of people went mad.”

“Okay, but why can’t Watchers do the ritual thingy?” Buffy asked. She’d been listening to the whole explanation, uncharacteristically silent, still trying to figure out what was going on with Spike.

Giles began to rub his glasses. “The head of the Council performed the curse on a vampire who had murdered a number of people. It was done as an experiment, because they wanted to know what would happen. The vampire went crazy and killed itself, but a member of its family went and performed the same curse on the Watcher. Because of the nature of the spell, to make one relive all the crimes, he relived not only all of his, but also all of the vampire’s he’d cursed, since that was one of his crimes against another. He died, but not before the Council learned a valuable lesson and forbade its usage again.”

“And that’s why vengeance demons won’t do it either,” Anya said smugly. “You do it one time, and it’s that much easier for anybody to turn the tables on you.”

Buffy frowned. “So you’re saying that the people that had this done to them went crazy?”

“That’s one response,” Giles replied. “Sometimes they killed themselves, others seem to have an easier time handling it.”

“So Spike’s not going to go crazy,” she stated.

Anya shrugged. “He probably would have already gone nuts.”

“There’s something that I don’t understand though,” Xander said. “Why would Spike even try to stop this guy in the first place? What’s in it for him?”

That was the question, Buffy thought later as she walked home. As she walked by Spike’s cemetery, she made a quick detour to his crypt. Why had Spike gone after the warlock when he didn’t have to? Talking about the timing of it all, from what the vampire had told Giles, there had been a day or two at least when he could have told her what he’d done, tried to garner brownie points, but he hadn’t. And from what he’d said, he’d spent at least five days on that wall, maybe six. Even if he hadn’t planned on getting caught, he had taken care of a potentially dangerous enemy, with apparently no thought of recompense. It made no sense.

She paused once she’d gotten into his crypt, realizing suddenly that she really didn’t want to go looking for a clean set of clothing for him. Who knew what she’d find? But she saw the duster where it lay discarded on the stone bier, and refused to think about why she was even doing this for him.

The house was quiet when she got home, and Buffy figured that her mom and Dawn were already in bed. Opening the door to the basement slowly to avoid the squeaky hinge, she stepped softly down the stairs. She could see that the cot was empty immediately, and she called out quietly. “Spike?”

Silence met her question, her only response was a slight shifting from a corner, and she could see him suddenly. It seemed impossible that a man who was so bright, so fair could blend so well in the darkness, vampire or no. “I brought your coat.”

He uncurled himself from the tight ball he was sitting in and stepped out towards her. “Yeah? Thanks.” The coat hung limply from his hand once he’d taken it, and he seemed to be forcing himself to move, to even speak to her. “I’ll be gone by morning.”

“What?” Buffy asked incredulously. “Why? You’re not in any shape to—”

He pulled his coat on wearily. “I’ll be fine, Slayer. Doesn’t matter anyway. Not now.”

Buffy bit her lip. “Spike, I know there’s something that you’re not telling me, and I want the rest of it.”

“Slayer—”

“So here’s the deal,” she continued, as though she hadn’t heard him. “We go to your crypt, you get clean clothes, and then we go to the Bronze where you explain to me why you’d even want to take on a warlock in the first place.”

Spike wanted to tell her to bugger off. He was not in the mood for any of this, and yet it didn’t seem like she was going to give him a choice. “Fine.”

They walked to his crypt in silence, the night settling in around them with its usual sounds. The wind and the crickets played their symphony, and Buffy wondered idly what it would be like to walk the darkness without fear. Without wondering what lay in the shadows. What it would be like if Spike were simply a man she knew, rather than a vampire she hated. She clamped down on that thought quickly, having no idea where it had come from.

When they arrived at their destination, Spike looked at her and said curtly, “Wait here.”

Stung by his tone, and never liking imperatives, she asked, “Why should I?”

“Because there’s blood all over in there, Slayer, and since you probably don’t want to watch me change, there’s no point you following me in,” he explained patiently, and then ducked in the door.

Buffy stayed, but only because she realized that he had a point and because she didn’t really want to go inside. It wasn’t like she was actually following Spike’s directions. And then, just a few minutes later he came out. The shirt he wore was a button-down, and for once it was buttoned, probably because it wouldn’t rub against his chest quite so much. But the black jeans and duster were firmly in place, and he was even lighting up a cigarette, so he really was back to his normal, annoying self. Unless you caught the slight tremor of his hands, or you knew that for Spike’s hair to be anything other than slicked down was unusual in the extreme. But Buffy was intent upon answers, not on the psychological state of her erstwhile ally, and she didn’t notice. Spike, for his part, was grateful.

They maintained their silence all the way to the Bronze, and neither could help remembering what had happened between them the last time they were here together. The circumstances were the same to a large extent; Buffy wanted answers from Spike again. On the other hand, Spike knew now what he should have known then: she believed him beneath her. And he was.

Buffy managed to snag a table in an out-of-the-way corner, where hopefully they wouldn’t be interrupted. Without preamble, she said, “Spill.”

“What do you want to know, Summers?” he asked tiredly. There was little snark in his tone, unlike last time. He was the one beaten and confused; she the one on solid ground.

She stared at him, and her voice was hard as steel when she said, “I want to know why, Spike. Why you’d even risk yourself for something like this.”

“Did Giles tell you what the key ingredient for the spell was?” he asked, almost hopefully. She raised a skeptical eyebrow, and didn’t respond, knowing by now that to ask would be to feed his ego. “Blood. Blood of an innocent, to be specific,” the vampire said. “And only one way to make sure he couldn’t use it.”

“You drank the sacrifice?” Buffy asked, horrified.

Spike shrugged, nonchalantly. “’Course. How else am I gonna get human blood, Slayer, with this bloody chip in my brain? So, free meal and a chance to bugger someone else. What more reason would I need?”

But Buffy wasn’t buying it. Maybe there had been something special about the ritual sacrifice, maybe all Spike had wanted was a spot of violence before bedtime and a good meal. But he could get blood at Willy’s if he wanted it that badly. He could even steal it from the hospital. No, there was something else going on here, and she wanted to know what it was. “All right. Now you can tell me the real reason.”

“Buffy—” All pretense was gone, both knew.

“Spike.” She was implacable.

He met her eyes, and in their depths she could see the truth, the burning of emotion that had, perhaps, been there all along. It was impossible. “No,” she said firmly. “Oh, no. There’s no way.”

“Fine,” he grated out, standing to leave. Spike didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want to be with her, the girl who had managed to turn his unlife upside down with a punch and a kick. Suddenly, he didn’t want to hear what he knew was coming. ‘I hate you, Spike. It’ll never be you, Spike.’ What he wanted was to get away, lick his wounds, and figure out the best way to leave Sunnyhell behind him.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

He rounded on her, snarling, blue eyes sparking yellow. “I’m getting the bloody hell out of here and leavin’ you alone, Slayer. Isn’t that what you wanted? You don’t want to know, and I don’t really want to tell you, so it works out for both of us now, yeah?”

“Wait.” Buffy thought furiously. If Spike thought he was in love with her—if he was obsessed with her—it could get dangerous. She needed to know the depth of his obsession, and what he was planning on doing about it, besides trying to get himself killed. She needed to make sure he wasn’t going to put her family in danger. “We never had this conversation.”

“Huh?” he asked, not understanding, and not sure he cared to.

Buffy motioned for him to sit. “If we have this conversation, it never happened. No one ever knows, nothing is ever mentioned, and we never bring it up again.”

Spike eyed her suspiciously, and then gingerly sat down again, still not sure he should be staying. “Fine. I—” he broke off, and then finished, “I don’t want to see you dead anymore. Can we leave it at that?”

For a moment Buffy was about ready to get up and pound it out of him, to make him admit, in words, what he felt. But something stopped her. “Alright. That’s why you took care of the warlock?”

“Yeah,” he said, no longer meeting her gaze. “You had enough to deal with in the Hellbitch, I figured I’d cut you a break.” He laughed ruefully. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”

Buffy let that thought sink in for a minute, and then asked, “What changed, Spike? You hate me.”

He shrugged gracefully. Even torn up, he moved like the fighter he was. “Dunno. Just did. Look, Buffy, I’m tired, and you know now. There’s no point in goin’ over it anymore.”

She hesitated and then nodded reluctantly. “You’re right. You know that—”

“I know.” He looked at her full in the face. “Please. Don’t say it.”

“Okay.” She watched him leave, and felt as though she were still missing something very important.

Chapter 3: Attitude Adjustment

Buffy came downstairs the next morning to find Dawn staring in horror at the newspaper, a hand over her mouth. “Dawn, sweetie—” Joyce began, but her youngest daughter bolted from the kitchen, tears already evident.

“What happened?” Buffy asked quickly, concerned.

Her mother shook her head. “There was a story in the paper. A young intern from the hospital was killed in a car accident. Dawn knew him.”

Buffy leaned in over Joyce’s shoulder to get a better look at the story, and frowned as she saw the name and the picture. “Ben? Oh, wow. I knew him too. He was there when you were sick.” She felt a sick sensation in her stomach. “That’s so sad.”

“I know,” Joyce replied, hating the fact that someone so young had been killed so senselessly. It didn’t make much sense. “The front page news was worse though,” she said, turning the paper over so Buffy could see the headlines.

The Slayer shook her head as she saw the story about the train massacre. “I’m going to have to check this out.”

“Alone?” her mother asked, a touch worried.

Buffy looked thoughtful. “No, I think I’m going to ask for a little assistance on this one.”

The blood-smell still lingered in the air, though she could see the signs of cleaning. There was no sign of the vampire himself. Buffy sighed. Her mom had asked about him earlier that morning, had asked if he would be safe back in his crypt or if he shouldn’t possibly stay with them for a while longer. Buffy definitely thought that was a bad idea, but had simply said that he had insisted, and she couldn’t force him to stay. Now she wondered if she’d made the right decision.

Not that she thought she should drag him back to her basement, but the right decision about keeping their conversation private. She wondered if she shouldn’t tell someone about his feelings for her, to make them aware of it. Except that he didn’t seem to be doing anything about it, unless you counted his being marginally more helpful. And really, she had enough trouble at this point without dealing with a lovesick vampire. She would much rather ignore it and hope it went away.

“Slayer?” His voice startled her out of her reverie, and she realized that he’d come from some kind of lower level she’d never realized was there before. It was no wonder he could get around town so easily.

“You have a basement,” she blurted.

He looked down at the trapdoor and then back at her, cocking his head. “You need something?”

Spike’s face looked better, less swollen for sure, though he was still wearing a button-down, telling her that his chest hadn’t yet healed. “There was a massacre on a train coming in from L.A.,” she said bluntly. “I think it was vampires. I want you to help me catch whoever did it.”

“Why?”

The question caught her off-guard. “What do you mean, why?”

“Why?” He rolled his eyes expressively. “The conversation we had last night never happened, which means you don’t ask for my help without either offerin’ me money, or a beating or possibly both. So I’m wonderin’ why you’re strollin’ into my crypt askin’ for aid from somebody you hate.”

“You’re a vampire,” she said.

“That’s obvious enough,” he interrupted.

She glared at him. “Shut up, Spike. Look, our conversation happened. You now have an opportunity to give me a hand and get brownie points. Why pass it up?”

“Because I’m movin’ today,” he said easily. “And I don’t really feel like helpin’ anybody at the moment. Besides, you aren’t givin’ out brownie points to the likes of me, so why try?” He shrugged philosophically. “We both know it’s true, pet. No use in fightin’ reality now.”

Buffy stared at him. Something was really, really not right. Spike wasn’t acting like his old self. Except that he was. Buffy was suddenly both angry and confused, and just a tiny bit hurt. Apparently she’d come to rely on his help these last weeks, which should have scared her badly enough to immediately walk out of his crypt, but she didn’t. Instead, she blurted out, “I’ll help you move.”

“Huh?” He stared at her, his mouth slightly open.

Buffy raised her chin just a bit defiantly. “I’ll help you move, you help me track whoever killed those people on the train. Call it quid pro quo.”

“When did you learn Latin, Slayer?” Spike asked with a smirk.

She glared. “Just answer the damn question, Spike.”

Something in his face changed then, and he cocked his head to the side slightly, staring at her, measuring her. “All right,” he said softly. “I’ve just got the one box and the TV to move anyway. With you to help, one more trip should do it.”

“Where are you moving?” Buffy finally asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

He hesitated, and then replied, “The old house on Anders Street. You know it?”

“The abandoned one?”

“That’s right.” Spike waved her down the ladder, and followed close behind. He’d already moved everything down below; it was just a matter of carting it from place to place at this point. “There isn’t anyone in there anymore; checked it out earlier. Figured it wouldn’t be too hard to make it livable.”

“Well, it’ll probably be better than your crypt anyway,” Buffy said, her tone just a hair away from friendly. “What are you going to do about the windows?”

“Dunno,” he admitted. “I’ll have to find some old blankets or something.”

“Mom might have some you could use,” Buffy half offered, and Spike stopped to look at her. “What?”

“Nothin’,” he replied, picking up the TV, and motioning to the lone box with his head. “That’s the last of it there. We can go through the tunnels. By the time we get there and drop this stuff off, should be safe enough to get to the train station above-ground.”

Buffy watched as he started walking, and she reached down and picked up the box, which was lighter than she’d thought. “What made you decide to move anyway?” she asked, surreptitiously trying to figure out what was inside.

“Too many people know where I am,” he said wryly. “Guess I’ll need to keep my head down for a bit, try not to piss anyone off too bad. Don’t really want to end up on another wall.”

Buffy watched his back as he walked. The duster, which she’d thought physically attached to him, was nowhere to be seen. And, despite the fact that they were moving through sewer tunnels, he looked almost normal down here, carrying his TV, she carrying his box. And she was suddenly reminded of helping Xander move into his new apartment, and everyone else helping her move out of the dorms back home. It was odd to think of such normal things in conjunction with the blonde vampire, but then again, what in her life was actually normal?

Spike glanced back over his shoulder at the Slayer, and saw that she wasn’t having a problem keeping up with him. Even in the tunnels, her beauty tore at his heart. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with this new side of her, this almost-kindness she was showing him. Spike had actually expected quite the opposite after what had happened at the Bronze. He had expected her to avoid him like the plague, and here she was yet again. It was inexplicable.

At the moment, he was simply glad that he’d dismantled his shrine. The dreams had woken him after only a few hours sleep, and he’d been unable to drop off again. Lying there, Spike had made the decision that he really didn’t like everyone knowing where to find him and that it was time to find a new place. The Anders place had been vacated about six months before by the most recent tenants, and no one was living there now, nor were they likely to any time soon. The place was rumored to be haunted, and a few lights at odd hours of the day would only substantiate the rumors.

So, he’d started packing. There wasn’t much to move really; this was only the third trip and it took care of everything except his old armchair, which he might come back for later. What had taken the most time was the shrine, and he had carefully dismantled it, making sure the things like the mannequin’s torso and stolen clothing were where they would never be found, burning some of it, and tucking away bits and pieces he couldn’t bear to get rid of. Spike had been packing away a dream, and he knew it. If there was one favor the warlock had done for him it was to show him how desperately insane he’d been to even hope that Buffy might return his affections. How insane he’d been to go after the warlock in hopes of doing her a favor. He hadn’t lied; he wasn’t planning on telling her. On the contrary, he had been scheming to find out how to let her “discover” his aid on her own. Learning his lesson with Olaf the Troll, it didn’t pay to point out his good deeds, since she didn’t seem to care.

Well, it didn’t matter anymore; he knew better now.

“Here we are,” he said abruptly, stopping just below a manhole cover.

Buffy checked her watch. “I’ll take the TV,” she said. “It’s going to be hard for you to make a run for it carrying that thing, and it’s still light enough outside to do some damage.”

Spike stared at her, not understanding where her consideration was coming from, and finally nodded. “Yeah, or I can come back for it later. Doesn’t matter.”

But she climbed the ladder and took the television from him, and then he came up and made a mad dash for the house. The front porch was old, rickety, and shaded. The huge, ancient trees in the front and the overgrown grass made it look that much less inviting, which was just what Spike wanted at the moment.

Buffy was already inside. She set the television down on the floor in the small living room and took a look around. “I guess there really aren’t that many windows.” It was an older house, which meant lots of walls and doors, and not a lot of light.

“One of the bedrooms upstairs faces north,” Spike said quietly. “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem during the day anyway.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but what if you want to watch TV or something during the day?” she asked pragmatically. “You could probably find a blanket or something to go over the window down here.” And then she gave him a sly look filled with good humor. “Or, here’s a thought. You could actually get curtains.”

Spike stared at her, and slowly returned her smile. “Could. But shoppin’ for that kind of thing isn’t my idea of a good time.” There was a beat when both of them realized exactly where they could go with that statement, that they were actually talking like friends, and time seemed to freeze-frame itself.

“I’ll check with Mom,” Buffy finally said. “She might have something you can use.” He nodded, and then they both glanced out the windows, taking a look at the rapidly setting sun. “We should go. It should be safe enough by now, and I really want to get this over with.”

“You got a flashlight, Slayer?” Spike asked, and she winced. “I’ll take that as a no. Give me a mo.”

He disappeared off into another room, and returned a few minutes later with a small flashlight. “I didn’t think vampires needed this kind of thing,” Buffy said with raised eyebrows.

Spike shrugged and grinned at her. “Found it at the dump,” he admitted. “What can I say? I’m a bit of a packrat.”

They made the trip to the station in companionable silence, Buffy wondering once again at the changes in him. It wasn’t like he was different, she supposed, it was more like—She just couldn’t put her finger on it. Something had altered, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. And it was bugging her.

The train station was quiet and deserted, the car itself roped off with yellow tape and easily spotted. “No one’s here,” Spike said quietly, his eyes narrowing as he listened intently.

“Good,” Buffy said. “Let’s get this over with then.”

At least the bodies were gone, but there were signs of blood all over the seats and floor. “What are we lookin’ for exactly, Slayer?” Spike asked, his deep voice resonating in the small space.

Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know. Can’t you do your vampire-sensing thing and tell me—I don’t know, tell me if this was a vampire attack or whatever?”

Spike looked highly amused. “I don’t know what vampire-sensing thing you’re talking about, pet, but—” He froze in place, his eye suddenly caught by something in the luggage rack. Almost against his will, he walked over to it and pulled the doll down, turning it over in his hands.

“Spike?” Buffy stared at him impatiently. “What is it?”

He shook his head wordlessly, unsure of what to tell her. He could put her off probably; she might figure out that he wasn’t telling her everything, but she’d get over it. The best thing to do would be to go hunting Dru on his own, tell her to get out of town. But if she decided to go after Buffy, or after the Slayer’s family—That wouldn’t be completely unheard of for her, and he would never forgive himself if something bad happened to any of the Summers women.

Spike turned and held out the doll. “It’s Dru’s, Slayer.”

Buffy looked at him, and frowned, something in her face gentling. “You’re sure?”

“I was with her for over a hundred bloody years,” he reminded her. “I think I’d know her soddin’ doll when I see it.” Spike hesitated, and then looked over at her, “Look, I’m sorry, Slayer, but I don’t think—”

“Shut up, Spike,” she said, not unkindly. “I’m not going to ask you to kill her or even help me hunt her down. Just, don’t let her hurt anyone, okay? If you need to, chase her out of town.”

There was gratitude in his eyes when he looked at her, along with that emotion she’d begun to realize was love. Or a vampire’s strange idea of love. Buffy suddenly wished that she could be certain that he wouldn’t go all evil and obsessed with her, and then manage to get them all killed. Because really, if love made him act like a guard dog, keeping all harm from family and friends, it couldn’t be a bad thing. Even if she did feel a twinge of conscience at using him.

“Thanks.” It was all that needed to be said, and they stared at each other for a few moments more.

Buffy finally sighed. “Well, we’re not going to find her tonight, and I’m tired. I hate to say it, but I think we should get out of here and let it go for now. I’ll talk to Giles in the morning, and we can both figure something out.”

He nodded. “Sure, ducks. I’ll see you around, then.”

Buffy followed Spike out of the car and watched as he turned to back towards his new place. “Wait. Spike.” He looked back over his shoulder at her expectantly. “Why don’t you walk me home. Like I said, Mom might have something you can use, and she was asking how you were anyway. Might as well put her fears to rest, I guess.”

He shrugged and came back to her side. “If that’s what you want, Slayer.”

It was the second time that night that they’d walked somewhere in a way that bordered on friendly. There was silence, but it wasn’t the silence you find between people who hated each other, but between those who had learned to enjoy each other’s company. An odd sort of silence for the Slayer and a vampire.

When they reached the house, Spike opened the door for her and motioned Buffy to precede him inside. Buffy gave him an odd look, but she let it go, calling for her mom as soon as she was inside. “Mom?”

“In the kitchen, sweetheart,” Joyce called back. She smiled at Spike when she saw him following close at Buffy’s heels. “Spike. You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

He looked almost embarrassed, to Buffy’s great amusement. “Yeah, well, thanks for fixin’ me up.”

She smiled at him warmly. “You’re welcome. Are you sure you’ll be fine at your, um, house? If you need a place to stay—”

Spike shook his head. “No, I’ve got a new place, should be safe enough.”

“You found a new house?” Dawn came into the kitchen behind them, glaring at Spike. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

He raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Just moved today, bite size. Your sis is the only other person who knows.”

Dawn unbent enough to smile at him. “Okay, as long as you tell me where your new place is. You never know when I’ll need to run for help.”

“You aren’t going to be bothering Spike all the time, Dawn,” Buffy said in her best warning tone.

He shook his head quickly. “s okay, Slayer. She can visit. If it’s all right with her mum,” he finished quickly looking over at Joyce.

“We’ll talk about it later,” the older woman declared, and then gave Spike another smile. “Do you want to stay for dinner? I mean, I know you don’t eat, but you could stay if you like.”

Spike hesitated, and then looked over at Buffy who gave an almost imperceptible shrug, as though she didn’t care. Perhaps she didn’t. “That would be nice,” he finally admitted. He liked the atmosphere of the Summers’ house, and had no desire to go back to his own. When he was around people he could ignore the thoughts and voices that haunted him.

Buffy found herself watching him through dinner. Watched as he listened politely to all her mom’s gallery stories which should have bored him to tears. Watched as he snitched food from Dawn’s plate, and then looked completely innocent when Dawn glared at him. Watched as he watched her and pretended to be looking at something or someone else every time she caught him at it.

It wasn’t fair, she decided. This was what she would have loved to have from Angel, to have been able to have him over for dinner, to see him getting along with her mom and little sister. And Riley had tried, to be perfectly honest. And he’d come so close, and yet there had always been a little distance between he and them. Maybe it had been her fault for not bringing him home sooner, and maybe it was because Dawn thought Spike that much cooler, but Spike was succeeding in a way no one else ever had.

After a while, Joyce sent Dawn off to bed, and then she sent Buffy to the basement to go find some blankets she didn’t need anymore for Spike. The vampire had risen to follow, but the older woman held him back and motioned for him to sit again. “I need to know what you’re going to do,” Joyce said evenly.

Spike stared at her, and then swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“Of course you do,” Joyce replied. “I know you have feelings for my daughter, Spike. I’m not blind or stupid.”

“Never said you were,” he replied, sighing. And then, “Nothin’. She knows, and I know she knows, an’ we both pretend it’s not there.” Spike let his shield drop for a minute, looking her in the eye. “’m goin’ to take care of her, much as she’ll let me, an’ ‘m goin’ to try not to let anythin’ happen to you or the Niblet. ‘s all I can do.”

“Maybe it will be enough,” Joyce replied softly. “What else did he do to you, Spike?”

Spike stared at her, wondering how she knew, how she of all people had guessed. “Said he cursed me. Said it would take effect soon’s anybody pulled me off that wall, guaranteed to give me perpetual torment, an’ all that rot. Bunch of bollocks if you ask me.”

Joyce hesitated, hearing her daughter’s footsteps on the stairs, and then she stood swiftly, and dropped a kiss on the top of Spike’s head, stunning him. “I’m glad you’re looking out for her, Spike,” she said softly, and then turned as Buffy entered the room. “I should clean up the kitchen, and then I’m going to head to bed as well.”

Spike took that as his cue to leave. “I should get goin’. Thanks for the blankets an’ all, Mrs. Summers.”

Joyce looked at him, and a moment of understanding passed between them. “It’s Joyce, Spike. Just Joyce.”

Buffy walked him to the front door, and handed him the blankets. “Can I ask you a question?”

He stared at her for a moment, and then shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah.”

“Who are you and what did you do with the real Spike?”

Spike suddenly smiled, cocking his head to the side with real good humor. “How do you know that this isn’t the real Spike, Slayer? I’m a vampire of many facets.”

Buffy smiled back. “Well, I like this side. He can stick around for a while.”

He looked away. “I’ll let you know if I see Dru, Slayer,” he promised.

“Thank you.” And she watched as he disappeared into the night.

Chapter 4: A Friend In Need

“What’s up, Buffy?” Willow asked, just a tad too casually as she sat down next to her best friend.

“Not much,” the Slayer replied carefully. She honestly wasn’t sure how to describe the events of the last couple days. Her entire world had seemed to change overnight.

Willow looked at her. “Do you see this face?” she asked seriously. “This is my resolve face, Buf. What’s up?”

Buffy laughed a little. “I can’t resist the resolve face!” she protested.

“No one can,” Willow replied. “So spill.”

Buffy hesitated, and then said, “I took Spike to the Bronze the other night to get some information out of him. You know how Xander was wondering why he’d take on a warlock in the first place?” When Willow nodded, she continued, “Well, he told me why. He said he was in love with me.”

Willow’s eyes went wide with shock. She hadn’t been expecting that. “He actually said that?” she asked incredulously.

Buffy shook her head. “Huh uh. I kind of sensed something and I called him on it. And then he threatened to leave, so I told him that our conversation had never happened. Spike’s exact words were, ‘I don’t want to see you dead anymore.’”

“Oh.” Willow considered that for a minute, and then asked, “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing,” Buffy replied quietly. “I wasn’t even sure I wanted to tell anybody. It’s not that I like him or anything, Will, but he’s different sometimes. When he’s not being incredibly annoying, he’s almost nice to be with.” She shook her head. “I just don’t get him.”

Willow frowned. “Has he changed? I mean, with the whole torture thing and all, it seemed like it was pretty likely he was going to go crazy or something, and if he hasn’t, maybe it changed him another way.”

“I don’t know,” Buffy admitted. “But as long as he doesn’t go all psycho-stalker on me, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for him to be hanging around. He’s basically told me he’s not going to let anything happen to Mom or Dawn.”

Willow shrugged. “Well, Angel was helpful. When he had his soul anyway. Are you going to tell Giles?”

Buffy shook her head emphatically. “He’ll flip. And Spike doesn’t deserve the wrath of Giles right now.” She quickly told Willow what she and Spike had managed to discover on their trip to the train station. “If he didn’t want to help, he wouldn’t have told me it was Drusilla,” Buffy said. “I think we should stick to telling Giles that and let the rest of it go. It’ll work itself out eventually.”

Giles frowned. “I don’t know what to tell you about tracking Drusilla down.” Classes were over for the day, and she and Willow had headed over to the Magic Box immediately to let the Watcher know what Buffy had discovered. “Spike might be able to do that, considering that he’s her childe, but if he wasn’t willing to, I don’t see where that leaves us. I’m not sure we have another way to trace her.”

“I think he would have if I asked him,” Buffy said slowly. “He basically asked me not to ask him to, and I agreed. It wouldn’t be fair to him, and he might not be able to keep himself from helping her.”

Giles nodded, giving Buffy a measuring look. He didn’t think he’d ever heard the words “fair” and “Spike” in the same sentence before. “Speaking of Spike, I think you should know what I’ve discovered about the—wounds on his chest.” The Watcher pulled out a notebook where he’d made a replica of the carving that had been done on the vampire. “As I suspected, the marks were not random, but were rather words. A curse, to be precise.”

Willow leaned over the notebook to take a closer look. “A part of the ritual? The Blood of the Victims?”

Giles shook his head. “No. The ritual itself calls for nothing of the sort. If you were to do this kind of thing to a human, they most likely would soon die from blood loss and shock, negating the efficacy of the ritual. It says, ‘Unbearable torment from harm done as long as this mark lasts.’” He pulled off his glasses and began to clean them. “That’s a translation, and a paraphrase. The actual language doesn’t use articles, so they aren’t there, of course…” He trailed off as he saw the bored look on Buffy’s face. “Yes, well, it seems as though this curse was to begin as soon as the ritual was interrupted. You initiated it by pulling Spike off the wall, in fact, Buffy.”

Buffy made an alarmed face. “I didn’t mean to.”

“No, of course not,” Giles said impatiently. “There was no way you could avoid it, in this case.”

“But what does it mean, Giles?” Willow asked. “Spike doesn’t seem to be going crazy or anything with unbearable torment. What would that mean for a vampire?”

Giles didn’t reply, but only looked carefully at the two girls, waiting for them to come up with their own explanation. He had no proof, but there was no denying that the wording was very interesting indeed. “His soul?” Buffy suddenly whispered. “Angel was supposed to suffer unbearable torment with his soul.”

Willow’s eyes went wide. “Oh boy.” She looked at Giles in alarm. “Is he going to lose it? Can he lose it?”

Giles shook his head. “Vampires do not scar easily, but they can be scarred, as far as I know. It’s a very good possibility that if Spike did get his soul returned to him, or cursed on him, it will never be removed.”

Buffy shook her head. “I can’t believe he wouldn’t tell me.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know,” Giles suggested. “Or perhaps the curse itself means something else; it is difficult to say. You might want to ask him.”

The Slayer nodded slowly. “I think that’s exactly what I want to do.”

Spike woke from the nightmare with a gasp. He sat up, pulling his knees to his chest and putting his head down. This one had been particularly bad, filled with images of him killing. And every time he saw the face of his victim, it was Buffy’s face.

He rose from his nest of blankets with a sigh and pulled on a pair of jeans, deciding to forgo the shirt for the present. Tracing a careful finger over the almost-healed scars on his chest, he winced. Spike knew, of course, what it was supposed to be for, and he hadn’t lied to Giles when he’d said they represented pain. There was good reason for the warlock not to return; he didn’t need to. Killing Spike would not prolong the torture, and that had been his goal, to make the torment last for as long as possible. Spike was fairly certain the warlock had known the story of Angel, because that was basically what he had been duplicating, except that the torment for Spike would never end. He wouldn’t be able to get rid of the curse, not unless he wanted to skin his chest. Not a pleasant thought.

A small noise from downstairs alerted him to the fact that he seemed to have a guest. Spike grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it over his head as he navigated the rickety stairwell. “What are you doing here?”

Dawn looked up guiltily. “I wanted to be sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine, Snack Size,” he said. “So what are you doing here?”

The girl shrugged unhappily. “I didn’t really want to go home or to the Magic Box, you know? They still look at me funny sometimes.” She glanced up at him. “I feel real when I’m with you.”

Spike looked at her hard for a second and then shrugged, relaxing. “Soon’s it gets dark, I’ll walk you home, Bit. Just because Glory hasn’t shown her face for a while, no sense in taking stupid risks.” And then he smiled. “And I’d bet you’d taste real enough, pet. You smell real, and I always trust my nose.”

Dawn followed him as he went into the dilapidated kitchen. “You actually get electricity in here?” she asked, watching as he pulled a bag of blood out of the small fridge.

“Wouldn’t have moved in if I couldn’t. Have to have my telly, don’t I?” Spike looked over at Dawn suspiciously. “Who knows you’re here, Bit?”

Suddenly looking guilty, she stared at the floor. “No one. But they won’t be expecting me for a while yet. It’ll be fine, Spike.”

“Better be,” he muttered.

They spent the afternoon playing gin rummy, while Dawn filled him in on the goings on at the Summers’ house, and talked about the boy she liked. Spike found himself feeling a real fondness for the girl, beyond the fact that she was related to Buffy. Dawn was spunky; she had a mouth on her like no other, and she treated him as much like a real person as he treated her. As soon as the sun set, he found himself walking her home, and he glanced over at her as they neared Revello Drive. “Look, Niblet, you need a place to go, you can come over. But let somebody know, alright? Last thing I need is your sister coming after my head.”

“Thanks, Spike,” Dawn said, and then scampered off home as Spike went back to his, hopefully for a few hours of sleep if he could manage it.

Unfortunately, sleep didn’t seem to be on the menu for him. As soon as he entered the old house, he could sense someone else’s presence, and there was only one person in all the world who had that particular scent. “Hello, Dru,” he said flatly.

“My Spike,” she purred, coming out of the shadows. “I missed you.”

“Too bad,” he murmured, lighting a cigarette. “Maybe you shouldn’t have left.”

Dru came up to him, trailing one limp hand along his shoulder blades. “Poor Spike. Dog can’t bite.”

Spike turned and snarled at her. “Dog won’t bite, Dru, as you probably already know.” He stalked over to the door. “Slayer’s goin’ to kill you for the train, pet. My advice is to get out of town before I’m forced to give her a hand.” Then he left. If he wasn’t going to get any sleep, he was going to get something to drink.

Buffy knocked on Spike’s front door. She wasn’t sure why she was knocking; she never had before. But it just seemed more impolite to burst in on somebody’s house than it did a crypt, she supposed.

There was no response to her knock, and she tried the door, not surprised when it swung open. “Spike?” she called as she entered. “You here?” Sighing she turned and looked over the room. He still didn’t have any furniture, but it seemed he’d made use of her mom’s blankets to cover the windows. Buffy was tempted to sit around and wait for him to come home, but there was no telling when he’d return. Best just to leave and maybe he’d turn up later in the evening.

The Slayer turned back towards the front door when something warned her of a presence behind her. She hadn’t even got all the way turned around when the cattle prod hit her in the back, and she stiffened and fell to the floor, unconscious, dimly hearing Drusilla’s insane laughter.

Spike had three beers under his belt, and they weren’t even taking the edge off. He half-wondered if that curse had something to do with it; couldn’t experience unending torment if you were shit-faced, now could you? He tossed another couple bills on the bar and took the proffered bottle, deciding that this one was going to be his last. If he really wanted to get drunk, he needed more serious liquor to do it.

“Spike!” The vampire turned to see the red-headed witch waving at him. He frowned, and went over to where she was sitting with her girlfriend. “Hey,” she greeted him. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” he admitted, trying not to think about the fact that he’d left Drusilla back at his house. He should be trying to find the Slayer to let her know. He’d promised after all. “Where’s Buffy?”

Willow frowned. “You haven’t seen her? She wanted to talk to you. She said she was going to meet you at your place.”

Spike shook his head. “No, I had to walk the Little Bit home, and then—” He broke off abruptly as he realized exactly what Willow was saying. There was every possibility that he had just missed Buffy, which meant that she would have been left alone with Dru. “Bloody hell,” he swore, setting his bottle down on the table and taking off, not even bothering to try to explain.

His feet hit the ground in a fast-paced rhythm as he used his vampiric speed to his advantage. How could he have just left Dru there? He should have run her out of town himself, made sure she left. The house was silent when he got there, with no signs of life at all, but he knew better. Spike could still scent both Buffy and Dru, and knowing his sire, she would have already found the cellar.

Spike clattered down the ladder-like stairs, not bothering with a sneak attack. Dru had probably sensed him as soon as he came through the front door anyway. And sure enough, there was his sire, squatting in front of Buffy who was just starting to come around. The Slayer’s hands had been tied behind her back, and she was leaning, half-conscious against the wall. Spike wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get to Dru before she took a chunk out of Buffy’s neck, her teeth were that close.

“Get away from her,” Spike growled.

Dru sniggered, not a very nice sound really. “My Spike came back to play.”

He trembled where he stood, wanting to pull her away from Buffy, but not sure how to do it without getting the Slayer hurt. “I’m not yours. I’m not anyone’s.” He felt his own face shift. “Back off, Dru, before I do something we’ll both regret.”

She narrowed green-gold eyes at him. “Nasty bits of wire and plastic,” she pouted. “It’s the heart that counts, luv. You could kill if you wanted to. You should come back to Mummy.”

Spike smiled coldly. “That’s just the thing, pet. Don’t want to. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Surreptitiously, he reached into his duster pocket for the stake he knew was there. He didn’t want to kill her, but he might have to if she didn’t get away from Buffy. “Face it, Dru. If you hadn’t left me, none of this would have happened. We were happy in Brazil, before you took up with that Chaos demon.” He let vent some of the bitterness he still felt over that deal. “A Chaos demon! With the slime, and the horns.”

“I shouldn’t have let you leave,” Drusilla purred quietly. “My brave knight. But I’ll get rid of the Slayer, dancing all ‘round your head.”

And with that she was very ready to plunge her teeth into Buffy’s neck, even as the Slayer opened her mouth to tell him to do something constructive about his ex. Spike could see the fear in the Slayer’s eyes, and it was all the impetus he needed to do what had to be done. With a cry of rage, he thrust the stake into his sire’s unprotected back and pushed her body aside. He knew he’d missed the heart. Barely. “Told you, I’m not yours anymore. Tired of playin’ everybody else’s bloody games.”

Spike waited until Drusilla rose, swaying with pain. “Get out,” he gritted between clenched teeth. “I mean it, Dru. That’s the last time I tell you and the last time I miss. You come back, you won’t even get a warning from me.”

She left then, as he knew she would. Drusilla had a healthy sense of self-preservation, for all her madness. She knew he was serious, and she knew he’d changed, even if no one else seemed to have realized it.

Once she’d gone, he knelt down next to the Slayer, trying to get his fingers around the rope to undo the knots. Fingers that were suddenly clumsy with reaction and grief. “Bloody hell,” he whispered furiously as he tried and failed to undo the knots once again.

“Do you have a knife?” Buffy asked, slightly amused at his frustration and anger.

He nodded. “I’ll be right back, luv.” Spike’s eyes suddenly met hers. “You alright?” When she nodded at him, he left to get the promised knife in order to cut her bonds. A couple minutes later and she was free, already heading up the ladder.

“Coming?” she called behind her, and she heard the heavy creak of wood as Spike’s boots hit the stairs. She turned to look at him as he followed her up and shut the door to the cellar behind him. “You okay?” she asked softly.

“’m fine,” he managed. “You should get home.”

“Spike—”

“’m fine!” he cried angrily. “Sod off, Slayer! I told Dru I’m tired of bein’ everybody else’s Spike. I’m sick of bein’ love’s bitch. What the hell do I get in return?”

Buffy stared at him. He was angry and in pain, and most of it was because of her. At least, partially. Spike had gone after the warlock for her, and gotten cursed for his troubles. He’d come very close to killing his sire for her tonight. And she did the only thing she could think of doing. She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Spike struggled, but only for a moment. Then he relaxed and buried his face in her hair. “Dammit,” he muttered.

Buffy stifled a giggle. It really wasn’t funny, but he was such a drama queen sometimes. “Thank you,” she murmured into his chest.

He heaved a sigh. “’s okay,” Spike replied, tired. “I knew she was here; I was goin’ to try findin’ you.”

“It’s all right,” Buffy said. “Really. No harm done.” She pulled back and looked at him, grabbing his chin when he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Look at me,” she commanded. “I know a little about what that cost you. So thanks.”

Spike pulled away and went to sit down, sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. “It was time. Dru needed to realize I wasn’t comin’ back, an’ that was the only way to get through to her.”

Buffy sat down next to him, their arms barely touching in a companionable distance. “Whatever happens after this, Spike, I won’t forget what you did for me tonight.” She looked over and met his eyes. “We’re friends.”

He cocked his head to the side, brows drawn together in a puzzled frown, as though testing to see whether or not she was telling the truth. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” They sat there until the sun rose, and Spike drifted off to sleep. Buffy left then, but not until she’d found a blanket to put over him and another to pillow his head.

Chapter 5: Selves Unimaginably Mine

Buffy made her way through the crowded frat party, trying not to spill her drink. This was supposed to be fun, she knew, but she found herself beyond bored. Other than the Scoobies, there really wasn’t anyone else she knew, and she’d never been good at making small talk with people. Something about being a Slayer didn’t lend itself well to idle chit chat. (‘Oh, what do you do with your free time?’ ‘You know, kill vampires and demons.’ Right.)

Trying to get herself around a knot of people, she managed to run right into someone’s chest. “Ow! Watch it!” Buffy winced and managed a step back, only to see Spike looking at her with a very annoyed _expression on his face. But the annoyance quickly faded when he saw who it was that had bumped him, and he reached out a steadying hand. “You alright there, pet?”

“Fine,” she replied, shaking liquid off her fingers ruefully. “Just being a klutz, I guess. So what are you doing here?”

Spike held up a drink. “Free beer and snacks, luv. Couldn’t pass it up. You?”

“About the same,” she admitted. “Come on. Let’s get out of the way.” Buffy could sense him following her, and she realized that she wasn’t nearly as bored anymore. Spike had a way of spicing up just about any engagement. Willow, Tara, and Xander were all standing in a small group, and they smiled at her even as they glanced at Spike suspiciously. No one, not even Xander, said anything about his presence. All of them knew about the curse at this point.

“Hey, Spike,” Tara said shyly, the only one to acknowledge him. “You came.”

“Free beer,” he replied, smiling a little at her. And then he frowned as a pretty brunette walked right up to them, looking from one to another.

“Hi. Have you seen Warren? He needs me.” She smiled, blinking in a steady, regular pattern that somehow creeped Spike out. Well, actually, she creeped everybody out.

“Um, no. Sorry,” Buffy replied, she and Spike sharing a look, and then watching as she went off to ask someone else about “Warren.” They might have gone back to chatting but a loud crash startled everyone, and they all turned just in time to see the tail end of a guy go flying through the window. Buffy sighed, handed her drink to Spike, and waded through the crowd to confront the girl, not sure of what it was she was dealing with.

“Hi. Look, I don’t know what he said to you or anything, but you can’t throw people through windows,” Buffy said as politely as she could. “It’s really not done.”

The girl blinked at her twice, and then said, “Do you know my boyfriend?”

Buffy grimaced. “Tell you what. Why don’t you stop looking for your boyfriend, because—”

Whatever she might have said was interrupted by the girl throwing her across the room with no warning whatsoever. Buffy fell hard, stunned, as the strange girl stood over her. “I’m sorry if I hurt you just now, but I need to find Warren. He needs me. I hope your boyfriend takes good care of you.”

“Too right.” Spike’s voice came from the side, and she felt strong hands pick her up and set her back on her feet. When she gave him a look, he shrugged. “Bloke can dream.” They both looked at the girl, who was leaving. “Now that was just a bit odd,” he murmured.

Buffy nodded, rubbing her arm reflexively as the rest of her friends came to stand around her. “Did anybody else think she was a little off? Like she was a—”

“A robot.” Tara looked at the others, who nodded, and Spike got a look of dawning realization on his face.

“Knew something was off,” he said. “Couldn’t hear the heart beat or the blood…” Spike trailed off at the looks the others were giving him. “Knew something was wrong, anyway.”

Buffy sighed. “I suppose we’re going to have to try and find her. Or whoever made her.”

“Well,” Willow pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. “If Warren’s her boyfriend, he’s probably the one that made her. It’s not a common name, and I could probably get a list tonight. Though, we wouldn’t actually be able to narrow it down until tomorrow.”

Buffy nodded. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow then. It didn’t seem as if she was too dangerous, as long as you don’t tell her not to look for her boyfriend.” She rubbed the now-fading ache in her arm reflexively. “I should probably get home, though. Giles is watching Dawn while Mom’s out on her date tonight. It might be a good idea to keep the torture to a minimum.”

“Giles and Dawn?” Tara looked a little surprised. “They’re probably having a great time.”

“Uh huh.” Buffy wasn’t buying that idea for a minute. “I think I’ll do a sweep on the way. Spike, you want to come along?”

The vampire looked a little startled to be the one addressed, but he nodded and quickly set down his glass. “Sure. Why not?” There was actually a chorus of good-nights directed at both of them as Buffy and Spike made their way through the dwindling crowd at the party. “What was that about?” Spike asked suspiciously as they left.

“What was what about?” Buffy asked innocently.

“They were bein’ nice.” At Buffy’s look, he added. “You’re bein’ nice too.”

“Gift horse? Mouth?”

He sighed. “Right. Sorry.” There didn’t seem to be much to say as they made their way to Buffy’s house. They weren’t too far from Revello Drive, when Spike finally broke the silence. “You know, Slayer…”

She gave him an amused look. “Just spit it out, Spike.”

“If you ever need someone to look after the Niblet and the Watcher’s busy or something, you could ask me.” Spike really couldn’t believe he was offering himself up as a babysitter for the Slayer’s little sister. He hadn’t wanted to be at anyone’s beck and call. “If I’m not busy or anythin’,” he quickly added.

“And you want to know why I didn’t ask you tonight?” Buffy said, now highly amused. “I just thought you could use some, you know, alone time or something, after what happened with Drusilla.”

“I told you, Buffy, it had to be done.”

But the Slayer could hear something wistful in his tone, a note of longing for what could not be. “What did you mean about not wanting to be anyone’s?”

Spike looked over at her, and Buffy could see he wanted to say something snarky, something nasty, but whatever he saw in her eyes changed his mind. “I want choices, Slayer,” he finally said. “When Dru made me, I didn’t get much of a choice, an’ then I didn’t have a lot of choices after that. It was always about her. And then I got this bleedin’ chip in my head, and suddenly I had even fewer choices.”

Buffy stared at him, wondering how he could articulate so clearly what she wanted so desperately—to have a choice in life, to be able to make a decision as to what she wanted and where she wanted to go. And she wondered again how it was that she and a vampire could have so much in common in the first place. “I know the feeling,” she murmured.

They walked up to her front door, and it looked as though Spike was going to turn around and leave. Buffy still hadn’t gotten a chance to ask him about the curse, and she turned to him. “Do you want to come in?”

A glimmer of a smile, almost a smirk, hovered around his lips, but all he did was nod. “Sure, luv. That’d be right nice.”

The door suddenly swung open, and Giles stood in the doorway. If he was surprised to see Spike, he gave nothing away. “Buffy, thank God you’re home. We have to change the system. A fourteen-year-old girl is too old to have a babysitter. It’s not fair to her.”

Buffy grinned broadly. “What did she make you do?”

Giles rubbed his aching head. “We listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance, and then we ate cookie dough and talked about boys.”

Spike was having a very hard time not laughing in the other man’s face. “You should have pulled out the cards, mate.”

“The cards?” Giles looked at him, puzzled.

The vampire shrugged. “She’ll clean you out, since she learned how to play from yours truly, but it keeps her away from both cookie dough and the music. Maybe not the talking about boys though,” he added thoughtfully.

Giles looked at Buffy. “Do you mean to tell me Spike knows the secret to babysitting Dawn, and no one thought to ask him?”

Buffy couldn’t help laughing. “Apparently not. Who knew that Spike was the fountain of wisdom for all things Dawn? If it makes you feel better, my evening was pretty boring, the highlight being seeing a guy getting thrown through a window by a robot.”

“A robot?” Giles suddenly looked interested.

“Willow’s looking into it,” Buffy said. “If you wanted, you could stay, and we could—”

Joyce breezed up to the front door. “Who wants to hear everything?”

“—listen to mom talk about boys,” the Slayer finished, smiling as Giles quickly excused himself, and said good night to both women and Spike. She shared a look with the vampire, who followed her inside. Buffy still wasn’t sure what had happened in the last few days. Spike had quickly gone from being a complete and utter pest to being a friend. A friend whom she was becoming very fond of.

Buffy could hear Spike chuckling quietly as her mom teased her about her dating exploits. But, really, the thought of your mother’s bra left anywhere was enough to induce major trauma. After she’d tortured Buffy sufficiently, and when Spike was having a great deal of trouble stifling his laughter, Joyce headed up to bed, leaving Buffy and Spike alone downstairs.

“Give me just a minute, okay?” Buffy asked, glancing at him before heading up the stairs to her room.

Spike stayed where he was on the couch, his duster laid beside him, not quite believing the events of the evening. It was more than Buffy’s kindness towards him, or everyone else’s tolerance. It almost felt as though he was making a place for himself here, with her, and the thought caused the burden he carried to lighten just a little. When the Slayer came back downstairs, she was in loose-fitting knit pants and a sweat-shirt. “You want something to drink?” she offered. “I think we’ve still got some blood left over from when you were here.”

He shrugged. “I ate earlier, pet, but thanks.”

“Hot chocolate?”

“Little marshmallows?”

Buffy grinned at him. “I think I can manage that.” They were soon sipping their drinks companionably at the kitchen island. “So, when were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” he asked, startled by the question.

“About the curse.” At his stare, she explained, “Giles translated the stuff on your chest. He said it meant you might have your soul back. I was coming to ask you about it the other night, but then there was that thing with your ex.”

“Dunno, luv,” he admitted quietly. “It hurts. It hurts all the time, but I dunno what it means, if I have my soul back or not. Kind of feels like it maybe, but—don’t want what I used to want.”

Buffy hesitated. “Can I see?”

There was a long moment, and then Spike lifted up his shirt. The wounds had faded to angry red marks, and Buffy touched one gently. “Does it hurt?”

He shook his head. “Not really. Not there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What was I goin’ to say, Slayer?” he replied in turn. “Why should I say anythin’?” Spike frowned. “I saw—I saw what you see every time you look at me when I was on that wall. An’ there was no relief when you pulled me down. Their voices, their faces were still there every time I closed my eyes or stopped for a moment. What could you do? Why would you want to do anythin’ at all?”

Buffy was silent. He had a really good point, actually, and she understood. She really did. “Spike—why? I mean, I know why you went after that guy, but why would you even feel that way in the first place? I didn’t do anything.”

Spike looked surprised, and then shook his head. “Why would you think you needed to do anythin’ at all, luv? It’s who you are that matters.” When Buffy didn’t look convinced, he continued. “You’re so alive, pet. You move—like no one I’ve ever seen. And you try, even when you know you’re going to lose, you try. Question isn’t why do I feel the way I do, it’s why wouldn’t I?”

Buffy stared at him, almost frightened. Angel had said something like that to her once, when she’d been put through that test the Watcher’s Council had set up. But this was Spike, and there was no denying that he’d felt something even before this mysterious curse was placed on him. It was suddenly time to change the subject. “Do you think Glory’s coming back?”

Spike blinked, confused by the sudden change in topic, but then shrugged. “Dunno. It has been pretty quiet, but it’s hard to tell whether she’s just lyin’ low for a while, or if she’s got some grand scheme in mind.” He paused. “No, actually, probably no grand scheme. Too airheaded.”

Buffy giggled a little, and he smiled in reply, pleased to have been able to make her laugh. She asked him another question, one about his new house. For some reason, it was easy to talk to him, maybe because there was so little acting with Spike. He was who he was, and she was who she was, and that was the end of it.

Except that it was hard to know him, hard to understand who he was underneath all those layers. And somewhere in the midst of her trying to find out what exactly he represented for her, they found themselves on the couch, watching television and talking. It was four in the morning, and near dawn, when he finally stood to go, reluctantly. “I should get home before I’m stuck here for the rest of the day.”

“You could stay,” Buffy offered. “I could set the cot up in the basement again.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s fine. If I leave now, I’ll just make it. Wouldn’t do to make a nuisance of myself.”

“You’re not a nuisance, Spike,” she replied, with more feeling than she’d intended.

He looked surprised. “Buffy—”

“Friends, remember?” she asked.

“I remember.” Spike looked off into the middle distance and smiled thoughtfully. “I know I said I didn’t want to belong to anyone, but if you need me…”

“I’ll call.” She paused. “Well, I probably won’t call, since you don’t have a phone, but I’ll come by or something.”

Spike nodded and went to the door, and Buffy called out after him. “Spike? Same goes for you.”

He smirked. “Better not make that kind of offer around me, luv. You never know what I’ll need.” And with that comment he disappeared out into the night.

“And you’ll never know what I’d offer,” Buffy murmured, once she was certain he was out of ear shot.

Chapter 6: Comforting Those Who Mourn

Spike suppressed the urge to whistle as he neared 1630 Revello Drive. The burden of the curse had lifted significantly with Buffy’s offer of friendship. On this night he’d thought to ask Buffy if she’d like company on patrol, and he had every hope that she’d accept. He wasn’t precisely certain what had changed over the last few days, but something had. Buffy seemed to warming to him in more ways than one, and he was beginning to hope that perhaps his love was not as hopeless as he had thought.

There were no lights on when he approached, and something about the darkness unsettled him. He had expected Joyce to be home at least, and had half-hoped that if Buffy wasn’t available he might have a nice chat with her or the Niblet. But when no one answered the door at his knock, he turned to go, his hands tucked in the pockets of his duster uncertainly. Spike thought about waiting on the porch, or maybe—

The vampire went around back, and knocked on the back door, then tried the knob. It turned easily under his touch, and he frowned in concern. It wasn’t right for the Summers’ place to be so easily accessible. House should have been locked up tight. And he could smell it when he entered, the smell of sickness and sudden death.

Spike took two steps into the kitchen, fear gripping his chest. A noise at the front door warned him that someone was coming home, and he was torn between leaving before anyone could discover that he’d snuck in and finding out what had happened. Curiosity won out, and he passed through the kitchen into the hall to find Buffy, Dawn, and Giles at the front door. The Watcher was asking them if they wanted him to stay, and the Slayer was shaking her head.

“No, that’s okay, Giles. I think both Dawn and I are just going to try and get some sleep. It’s been a long day.” She turned to see Spike standing there, a dawning realization on his face. “Spike? What are you doing here?”

“Came to see if you wanted to patrol, but—” Spike broke off. “What happened?”

Dawn shot over to his side, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Spike, it’s Mom.”

The vampire could feel her shaking, and he reflexively tightened his grip on her. He looked from Giles to Buffy, and it was the Watcher who answered, his own demeanor softened by the look of grief on Spike’s face. “Joyce had an aneurysm earlier today. There was nothing to be done.”

Spike wasn’t sure what to say. He felt just as he had that night on Buffy’s back porch when he’d found out that Joyce was sick; it was a feeling of complete helplessness. His eyes met the Slayer’s, and he nodded. “How long you need me to take patrol for you, Buffy?” he asked.

Buffy gave him a grateful look. “Maybe the next couple days?” she suggested.

“Will do. I’ll see you around, Slayer.” Spike gently disengaged himself from Dawn’s grip. “Keep your chin up, Bit,” he said softly, gently touching Dawn’s cheek.

He was on his way out the door, Giles just in front of him, when Buffy took him by the arm. “Come by after patrol, Spike,” she murmured. “Please?”

“Sure thing, luv.” He followed the Watcher out the door, pulling a stake out of his pocket.

“Spike?” Giles stopped him with his call. “Thank you for taking patrol. It is a help.”

Spike shrugged. “No worries, Watcher.”

“How are you? With the curse?”

“What, with the unbearable torment?” Spike’s smile was self-deprecatory. “Those are the good days.”

Giles looked as though he wanted to say something, but grief and uncertainty closed his mouth, and he said nothing.

Spike took out his worry and anger and grief on the demons and vampires he ran across that night, getting as much of it out of his system as he could before going back to meet the Slayer at her house. It was nearly unbearable to think of Joyce as dead; he wasn’t sure how it was possible. She had been so alive such a short time before that it didn’t make any sense to him.

When he’d finished his rounds he went back towards Buffy’s house, his heart much heavier than it had been when he’d begun his evening. Spike knocked on the front door this time, rather than going around back, and Buffy opened it. He met her eyes reluctantly, unsure of how to comfort her, how to tell her how very sorry he was.

“Liked your mum,” he finally murmured after a long silence. “Joyce was decent. She always had a cuppa, and she never treated me like a freak.”

“Thanks, Spike,” Buffy replied. And then she motioned him inside. Spike decided not to question why she was coming to him for comfort, why she wasn’t going to one of her friends or the Watcher. Perhaps she knew that he, too, wanted to be comforted. “It was horrible,” she said into the darkness of the house. “I found her when I came home today. She was on the couch, and I thought maybe she’d just gone to sleep, but…”

Spike wanted to hold her, to pull her into his arms and offer her the comfort of touch. It was what her friends had most likely done, but it was something he was afraid to offer her. “If there’s anything you need, just name it, luv.”

“Stay,” she replied in answer. “Please. I don’t think I want to be by myself tonight.”

“One of your friends…” he began.

Buffy shook her head. “No, not tonight.” Spike met her eyes, wondering silently if she knew what she was doing, but she nodded, as though in response to his unspoken thoughts.

“If that’s what you need,” he agreed.

They didn’t go into the living room, not where Joyce had been. It was easier for the both of them to go into the kitchen where her presence was tangible, but not overwhelming. “You want something, pet?” Spike asked.

Buffy shook her head. “No, not really.”

“You should try to sleep y’know,” Spike said gently.

“I don’t think I could.”

Spike was at a loss, unable to find the words to say to make it better, unable to do anything to ease the pain. “I should have stayed,” he finally said. When Buffy looked at him in surprise, he explained. “Last night, I should have stayed. I would have been here.”

She gave him what might have been a smile, except that it was so sad. “I said the same thing, that I should have been here. The doctor said that there wasn’t anything anybody could have done, it happened so fast. Mom probably didn’t even know what had happened.” Buffy was suddenly desperate for something, anything to take her mind off of the day’s events. She wanted to feel something other than this numbness, this sense of helplessness. Perhaps that was why she had wanted to be with Spike; there was so little of her life that was connected with him, even though he seemed such an integral part. His role had been at the periphery of things, and sitting here with him held less sadness than it had with Willow or Xander or any of the others.

“Remember the first time I saw your mum,” Spike said suddenly, with a small wistful smile. “You remember that? She hit me over the head with an ax, told me to get the hell away from her daughter.” He looked at her with a tenderness barely hidden. “You have her strength, Buffy.”

“I’m not sure I do,” she replied. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Spike.” It was somehow easier to admit it to him than to anyone else. Changing the subject, she asked, “What about your parents?”

He looked startled. He truthfully hadn’t given any thoughts to his human origins until recently, preferring to focus on the beauty of being a vampire. But he remembered all too well what had become of both of his parents, and he hardly wanted to tell the Slayer. “I don’t think you want to know.”

“If you’re telling me that because you think I can’t handle it, I know what probably happened, Spike. But I need—” Buffy stopped, unsure of how to tell him that she needed to not think about her mom for a while, because tomorrow would be full of funeral arrangements and the mundanities of grief. There were so many things to consider, things that no one ever told you about. They didn’t tell you that you had to pick out a casket and flowers, that you had to call relatives and friends and try not to forget anyone. They didn’t tell you that you had to do all of that while swimming in a sea of grief so deep that you thought you’d never touch bottom, until all you wanted was to forget it had ever happened. No one ever said anything about that.

But Spike seemed to read all of that in her eyes, and he could not refuse. “My father died when I wasn’t much older than the Bit,” he replied softly. “Still remember the funeral an’ all that. He was a good man, y’know?” It got harder to look into her eyes after that. “Mum was sick with consumption when I was turned. I went back…” He made a pattern on the counter with his finger. “You know. I wanted to cure her, and instead I turned her into a monster, so I killed her.”

Spike looked up, expecting to see disgust or anger in Buffy’s eyes, but instead saw only a shared grief. “What was she like?” Buffy asked quietly. It wasn’t a question she had ever asked anyone before, she didn’t think. Angel certainly hadn’t wanted to talk about what he had been like as a human, and Buffy had half-thought he didn’t even remember sometimes. Riley had rarely spoken of his parents; Buffy had often wondered about that, since what he did say was relatively positive. Perhaps he had simply wanted to escape his farm-grown Iowa past. But she thought perhaps Spike had always been more connected to his human roots than most vampires.

Spike was surprised at her question, and part of him was hesitant to share anything with her, because whatever he did say would tell her that he had lied to her that night in the Bronze. She would know who he was, who he had been, and he feared such exposure.

But he told her anyway, telling her about his mother, about her gentle spirit, the way she had always listened to him. (He didn’t tell her he had been a poet.) From there, he found himself weaving stories of growing up in Victorian England, of traveling over the world, of sights he had seen, the smells, the tastes. And for a few hours he gave her the distraction she needed.

The sun had to rise, however, and life had to go on. As on the previous night, just before dawn, Spike took his reluctant leave. “I need to go, luv.”

“I know,” she said. “Thanks. For staying tonight.”

“Anytime.” Spike paused on his way out the back door. “Do you need me to do anything, luv? Other than patrol?”

Buffy was quiet. “If you could look after Dawn—I have to make arrangements, and it might be easier for her to have a place to go to get away from everything. If you don’t mind.”

“Send her over, Slayer. Do what I can.”

“I know, Spike. Thank you.”

The vampire turned, suddenly feeling helpless again, sensing that the weight of her responsibilities was coming back to rest on her shoulders, even if she’d had some time to forget. “Make you the same offer, luv,” he murmured. “You need a place to get away, a shoulder to cry on—” Spike deliberately made the last comment just a little bit suggestive, knowing she’d either laugh or punch him in the nose, figuring either might make her feel better.

To his astonishment, she managed a wan smile. “Nice try, buddy.” And then, surprisingly, “I might take you up on that.”

Spike awoke knowing that he wasn’t alone in the house, and he dressed quickly and went downstairs to find Dawn watching TV listlessly. “Buffy said I could come over.”

“She said you might.” He came to sit next to her where she leaned against the wall, her arms linked loosely around her knees. “You okay?”

“What do you think?” There was really no malice in Dawn’s tone, just a weariness that he hated to hear in a child’s voice.

“Stupid question,” he agreed.

“They were talking about her funeral,” Dawn said quietly. “Buffy said if I needed to get away I could come stay with you for a while. They’re all busy.”

There was a lonely ache in her voice. “I’m not.”

“I know.” And she laid her head on his leg and slept.

Spike woke Dawn up and walked her home as soon as it was dark, dropping her off at the front door and leaving to patrol without going in. He could hear the voices of Buffy and her friends inside, and he thought it might be better if he stayed away. He wasn’t comfortable around them, and knew very well that they felt the same. Again, as he had before, he took out his anger and frustration on the members of the undead population he could find, and then he went home to sleep, though he was tempted to see if the Slayer was as welcoming as she had been previously.

He knew when the funeral was, of course. Dawn had relayed the information. And there was no way he could attend; Sunnydale did not hold funerals after dark. But he went that evening, after the sun had gone down, and he wore his nicest shirt and best pants. There would be no one there to see him, but Joyce would have appreciated the gesture, he was certain. And he brought daisies, because he thought she might have liked those as well, and they reminded him of her.

Spike had no way of knowing that Buffy had stayed, unwilling to leave her mother’s grave on the first night. He certainly couldn’t have known that the great Poof would have shown up to comfort his beloved by the light of the moon. Because honestly, if he had known any of that, he most likely would have put off paying his respects for at least another night, having no desire to air his grief in public.

As it was, he approached the grave from upwind, unarmed, and not thinking of attacks that came from the side. Imagine his surprise when Angel tackled him.

Spike was too surprised to fight back at first, but he soon regained enough equilibrium to get in a few good hits of his own, and for a second it even looked like he might get the upper hand when he heard Buffy shout, “Angel! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Her voice stopped both of them in mid-punch, and Angel looked at her in surprise. “It’s Spike,” he replied, as though that explained everything.

She was hardly appeased. “And?”

“Buffy, it’s Spike.” Angel was surprised at his obtuseness, and the younger vampire took the opportunity to throw his grandsire off and put a few feet in between them.

Buffy rolled her eyes in response. “I know that, Angel. But he has a chip; he doesn’t hurt people now. And besides, he has a soul.”

The look on Angel’s face was almost worth Spike’s sore jaw. The poof looked as though someone had hit him on the back of the head with a board; it was really rather satisfying. At least until Angel’s eyes narrowed. “Look, Buffy, I don’t know what kind of a game he’s playing with you, but Spike doesn’t have a soul.”

“Sod off, Angelus,” Spike growled, feeling himself growing angrier by the second. “You don’t know anything about it.”

Buffy shook her head. “Spike was cursed, Angel. He’s different.”

Angel shook his head more emphatically. “I don’t care what he’s told you, Buffy, or what he wants. He’s lying. I can’t smell a soul on him.”

Spike frowned, suddenly feeling the first pangs of fear. What if it was true? What if the curse that warlock had laid on him was simply an extension of the first, no soul involved? In that case, however Buffy happened to be treating him now wasn’t going to last for very much longer if she believed his grandsire. And suddenly, Spike thought he might believe his grandsire. Maybe he just hurt, aftereffects of being hung on a wall. Maybe he was still just half-crazy with the pain.

“Spike—” Buffy looked at him, and he could see it in her eyes, see that she believed Angel, and that whatever she might feel for him was a fleeting thing. He wasn’t the one she loved. She hadn’t asked him to stand vigil at Joyce’s graveside, she’d asked Angel. She would always choose Angel.

And quite suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore. He was tired of being Love’s bitch, tired of always falling in love with women who couldn’t or wouldn’t love him back. He was really and truly tired of hurting. “Forget it,” he growled, stalking off into the night, leaving the daisies where they had fallen, crushed, by his and Angel’s tumbling. He would find another place to take his grief, and leave her to her own.

Chapter 7: My Deeper Death

Giles frowned, not liking the sound of Buffy’s news. “And Angel was certain of this?”

“Dead certain,” Buffy said. “He said, and I quote, ‘I can’t smell a soul on him.’ Personally, I didn’t realize that souls smelled.”

Willow was looking equally uncertain. “But that doesn’t mean that something didn’t happen to Spike. You said he’d been acting differently, you know, since the whole crucifixion thing.”

“I don’t know,” Buffy sighed. “If I could be sure he had changed, it would be one thing. He did say he was in love with me, and he was acting really strange before that. Hanging around my house, that kind of thing.”

Giles’ head shot up. “What do you mean he said he was in love with you?” he demanded.

Buffy winced. She’d forgotten that she hadn’t told her Watcher about that little conversation in the Bronze. “Actually, what he said was that he didn’t want to see me dead anymore. I kind of guessed the rest of it.”

He frowned. “This could be quite serious, Buffy. And dangerous. If he lied about getting a soul, there’s no telling what he means to do.”

“He didn’t actually lie,” Buffy said slowly. “After you told me about that extra curse I asked him what it meant, and he said he didn’t know whether his soul was back or not. But if the warm fuzzies wear off, and he goes back to being his old annoying self, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Spike is different.” Giles, Willow and Buffy turned to look at Dawn, who was glaring daggers at all three. “He’s nice. He cares about me, and Buffy.”

“Dawnie—”

The girl cut Willow off in mid-sentence. “You’re just saying all this because you don’t really know him. Spike liked Mom too, and she liked him. You just don’t want to have to deal with him because he makes you wonder if you’re all wrong, about everything. But he went after that warlock before any stupid curse, so don’t tell me he’s evil anymore, because I don’t buy it.” And then Dawn stalked off to the back of the shop before anyone could stop her. Of course, they really didn’t have anything to say.

Spike had a theory. Granted, it was a theory conceived at the bottom of a tequila bottle, but it was better than nothing. His theory was that it was all Buffy’s fault. It was her fault he’d come back to Sunnydale, and thus her fault he’d gotten the chip. It was the chip’s fault he didn’t want to eat people, and since he didn’t want to eat people, he actually wanted to help Buffy. That is what had led to indescribable pain and torment. So in the end it was Buffy’s fault.

The cure, he decided, somewhere in between passing out and waking up, was to get the Slayer out of his system. And since out of sight meant out of mind, he would just have to keep the Slayer out of his sight until he could put her out of his mind.

Of course, he had no thought of leaving Sunnydale. That would make things too easy.

But Spike still had to pay his respects. Just because he wasn’t going to talk to Buffy anymore didn’t mean he was going to abandon his loyalties to Joyce or the Bit. He didn’t bother dressing up for this trip, however; Angel had managed to rip his good shirt, so there wasn’t much point. He didn’t bring any new flowers either, since he thought Joyce most likely would have appreciated and recognized the gesture from the previous night. Even if Angel had to come along and ruin it all. In fact, perhaps he needed to revise his theory. Maybe it was all Angel’s fault.

He hefted his ax in his hand. Once he’d paid his respects, the plan was to hunt. It was just what he needed to take his mind off things. And he was surprised once again, this time by a small huddled figure by the grave.

“Bit? What are you doing here?”

“Spike!” The girl looked up at him, startled. “I was just—”

He frowned, recognizing the implements she was using. “You were just tryin’ to raise the dead. I know that book. It’s not a good idea.”

Dawn stared at him. “You don’t know anything about it! I need her.”

Spike’s features softened. “I know.”

“Please, Spike.”

He squatted down next to her and gently ran his fingers along the carved letters, tracing out their pattern. “And what happens when it’s not your mum that comes out of that grave, Bit?” he asked softly. “What happens when it’s a monster and your sister or I have to take care of it? What do you think that would do to Buffy? Or me?”

Dawn suddenly reached out and grabbed the lapels of his leather coat, burying her face in his chest. “I can’t live without her, Spike. Buffy won’t even—she won’t even look at me. Mom was the only one I belonged to.”

He dropped the ax and plopped onto the damp ground. “Told your mum I’d look after you,” he whispered into her hair. “Told her I’d keep you safe. Promised her, I did.”

“Why do you care?” Dawn whispered, looking up at him through teary eyes. “Everybody was talking today, about what Angel said. They said you being nice was going to wear off.”

“And you believed them?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. “I told them they were being stupid.”

“That’s my girl.” He stroked her soft hair for a while, and then helped her stand. “I’ll walk you home, luv, but I’d ‘preciate it if you didn’t tell your sis about this. Think I’ll try to avoid her for a while.”

“Can I still come over?” Dawn asked petulantly.

“’course. Said you could any time, you know. But—” He hesitated, knowing that letting her come over would have Buffy after his head in a heart beat. “You keep it quiet now, hear?”

“Cross my heart,” she promised.

Dawn clung to him all the way home, and he had to wonder why she trusted him when no one else seemed to. And if she did, why her sister couldn’t find it in her heart to feel the same way. He had to wonder why one little girl cared when no one else did. Spike watched to be sure Dawn made it to the door. Watched as the Slayer met her sister and demanded to know where she had been, what she had been doing. Watched as they yelled at one another and screamed, and Buffy slapped her, and then they cried. Spike nodded thoughtfully to himself, knowing they’d be alright now. As he had told Dawn, he had promised Joyce that he would look after them, but from now on he would be a silent watcher, unseen, unheard. At least until he could manage to get the Slayer out of his head and out of his heart.

Buffy discovered something that should have scared her immensely: she missed Spike. In just a few days he had managed to worm his way so deeply into her life that now, when she hadn’t seen him in three days, she started to worry. It was probably all part of his grand scheme to get to her; to be nice for a few days, and then suddenly she would want him around.

But it was undeniable, she missed him. She missed the smell of smoke and leather. She missed the way he moved and missed his snark and bluster. Most of all she missed the way he looked at her, as though she was the best thing since sliced bread.

And even if all of this should have terrified her, it didn’t. It just intensified her desire to see him again, to find out what it was that had changed him. Because the more she thought about Dawn’s words, the more she realized that her little sister had been right. Nothing had made Spike go after that warlock. At least, it wasn’t any curse. And Spike had never claimed to have a soul, it was just an assumption that they had made.

Buffy put the last of the dishes away and then sat down at the table thoughtfully. Checking up on him might be a good idea. Really, she needed to get cracking on finding Glory. For that it would be useful to have Spike around. She shouldn’t have let him run off after Angel’s little proclamation. He was probably sulking right now, maybe at the bottom of a bottle.

She had asked Dawn if she’d seen him within the past two days. Dawn had only sniffed and stalked off, stating that if she really cared she’d go see him herself. Of course, at that point she hadn’t been ready to admit that she cared, but now—

Well, now she’d just have to track him down.

Spike was still trying to figure out the ramifications of the curse carved on his chest. The warlock had been very clear on the perpetual torment, but he hadn’t said anything at all about the guilt. Lots and lots of guilt.

The vampire lay on his back in the darkened bedroom. He’d used his free time in the last couple of days to scour the dump for anything good and had actually managed to find a decent set of box springs and a mattress. While he’d had to nick the sheets and bedding, he squelched whatever remorse might have sprung up over that little infraction, telling whatever passed as a conscience that stealing wasn’t nearly so bad as killing people. And besides, wasn’t he preventing people from being killed now? That had to balance out a little petty theft here and there.

Searching out usable items from the dump and decorating his place hadn’t taken up nearly enough of his time though. And the rest of it he spent in thought, playing that evening over and over again in his mind, trying to get some idea of what that blasted magician had done to him.

The bastard had been quick, that was for sure. One minute he was sitting in his chair, watching the telly, and the next it had felt as though he were being picked up by a giant hand and pinned to the wall, exactly as an entomologist pinned his specimins. Except that the scientist usually had the mercy to kill the bugs first.

The man wasn’t very tall or very big; about average height, average weight, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about him except for his eyes, which were flat and dead. By the eyes, Spike had known that he had more mercy at his most evil than the warlock had.

After pinning him there on the wall, the warlock had started beating on him, explaining very carefully as he did so that he’d managed to track Spike by the blood he’d consumed. And then, as he’d carved up his chest, oh so slowly, he’d explained what he was going to do, in detail. Things got a little fuzzy right around there; Spike knew he’d passed out a couple times, and he had a feeling he’d missed a crucial point of the explanation. But he was certain that the warlock had stated that he would endure perpetual torment for daring to interfere. And, in fact, that since he had already undergone a change in nature, he would simply complete the process.

Whatever the hell that meant.

When Buffy had asked him if his soul had been returned, it had seemed to make sense to Spike. After all, he didn’t want to kill anybody anymore, except perhaps for those who dared hurt the Slayer or his Niblet. In addition, he felt more than a twinge of guilt for the ones he’d killed in the past. He could imagine what they had been through now, and he cared. He had never cared before.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that there were only two explanations for what had happened. Either the ritual itself had a much longer lasting effect than he’d previously thought, or the warlock had added something extra to it in the curse carved into his chest. Perhaps whatever change he’d been going through had begun long before, and this curse had simply pushed him over the edge. That may have been what the warlock had meant about a change in nature and completing it. At this point, he really wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he had quietly gone insane when no one was looking. No sane vampire fell in love with the Slayer. Especially not a vampire without a soul.

Somewhere in the midst of all this pondering, he fell asleep, though it was a restless sleep. (He hadn’t slept well since the curse.) When he finally did wake, it was to the scent of vanilla drifting past his nose. It smelled like—

“Hey.” Spike’s eyes flew open and he stared at the Slayer. She sat on the edge of his bed, and all he could do was stare at her. After doing his best to avoid her for the last few days, she ends up at his place, in his bedroom. “You decorated.”

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

Buffy wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Spike couldn’t help but wonder why. “I wanted to talk to you. I hadn’t seen you for a while.”

“Didn’t know you’d miss me.” His tone was deliberately snarky. If the truth were to be told, he was spoiling for a fight, couldn’t wait to piss her off so she’d leave him alone. It would be easier if she were cruel; it would be harder to love her. At least, in theory.

“Well, surprise,” she said. And her voice was deliberately light, no offense taken.

They stared at each other, having come to a stalemate. “Why did you run off the other night?” she finally asked.

“You had Angel. You didn’t need me.”

Buffy gave a little huff that might have been a laugh. “Angel left. Angel can’t stay because if he does, he’ll lose his soul again, and we all remember how well that ended.” She reached out a tentative hand to where his lay against the sheet. “I told you we were friends, Spike. I’m not planning on taking that back.”

“Oh really?” he snarled. He snatched his hand back and rolled to a sitting position, standing up and pulling on a pair of pants at the same time. “So you make friends with the soulless undead now, do you? I’m sure the rest of the vampires in this town will be happy to hear it, luv.”

“What is wrong with you?” Buffy demanded, standing and looking at him in disbelief. “Is this where whatever happened to you starts to wear off? Because I would have expected you to be happy that we were still friends.”

“Friends?” he asked in disbelief. “Is that what you think we are? We’ll never be friends, Slayer.”

Buffy stared at him. The only thing that was keeping her from walking out and writing him off as a lost cause was the look in his eyes. He looked—hurt, lost even. “You said you liked me.”

“That’s what’s wrong!” he finally cried. “I’m a vampire, or I was. I killed two Slayers. I was feared. I had Drusilla. I was the bloody Big Bad.” Spike paced across the room, unable to stand still, even more unable to look at her. “And then you came along, and now what am I? What am I, Buffy?” he demanded.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

Now Spike stood before her, fists clenched, jaw tight, muscles trembling. “If I don’t have a soul, what am I, Slayer?” he whispered. “If I don’t want to eat people, if I—if I love the Slayer, the one girl in all the world that kills my kind like we kill humans, what does that make me?”

It was the first time he’d used the l-word out loud. Oh, Buffy had guessed. Spike wore his heart on his sleeve; it would have been hard to ignore once she realized it was out there. But this was the first time he had said it, and she knew she had to address it, mostly because she didn’t feel the same way. “Spike—”

“Don’t!” He glared at her, and if looks could kill… “That’s just it. I know now. I know I’m a monster. I know what you see every time you look at me, and that’s half the problem. I don’t even know what I am anymore, and I’m drowning in you, Summers.”

Buffy swallowed. “So you really feel bad about killing? Because if you do—”

“What difference does it make?” he asked impatiently. “If I’m sorry or not, doesn’t bring ‘em back, doesn’t undo one bit of the harm I did. What’s the point?”

“If you’re sorry, then you won’t do it again,” she explained, as though to a slow child.

He laughed, a deeply bitter laugh on the verge of hysteria. “Right, because people with souls never do anything bad and then do it again, even if they feel sorry for it. Tell me another one.”

Buffy was stumped. A soul made a difference. Angel had taught her that. A soul was supposed to make all the difference in the world. But this was Spike, and he really wasn’t that much different than he had been before, except that he was. He was sorry, and he understood that she would never love him because of what he was.

And suddenly the actual soul didn’t seem so important, whatever Angel had said he’d smelled. Spike was acting like he had a soul, and that was good enough for her. “Maybe it doesn’t matter,” she suggested.

He stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Maybe Angel was wrong. I would have thought you would be the last person to listen to anything he said,” Buffy stated. “And even if he wasn’t wrong, you’re different. Unless you’re going to tell me that the Spike who had dinner with my family, who looked after my sister, who stayed with me until nearly dawn was all an act, I’m going to say that maybe it doesn’t matter, the actual soul. Or maybe you’re just weird. But that we already know.”

Spike stared at her, and then the beginnings of a smile twitched at the edges of his mouth. “You’re serious.”

“Dead serious,” Buffy replied. “Look, Spike, I know how you feel about me, and I know it’s hard.” She looked down at her feet, considering her next words carefully. She didn’t want to lie, or give him false hope, but she did want to give him an accurate picture of her feelings. “I need to not be in a relationship for a while,” she finally said, honestly. “I really want some time just to figure out who I am without a boyfriend. Right now I can’t remember a point in time when my life was not revolving around some guy. But that doesn’t mean that someday I won’t be ready to be in a relationship again.”

“But it won’t be me,” he finished sadly.

“I didn’t say that.” She met startled blue eyes. “I won’t say it’s gonna happen, but I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility.”

He gave her a genuine smile. “So I guess that leaves us as friends then.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said we couldn’t be friends.”

“I was tryin’ to piss you off,” he admitted candidly.

Buffy returned his smile and sat down on his bed. “Any particular reason why?”

“Thought if I could do a good enough job you’d leave me alone and I could go about getting you out of my head.” He came and sat down next to her. “Plans haven’t been workin’ out for me lately.”

Buffy was trying hard not to stare at his chest. And his abs. Had Spike always been this attractive? Or was he just this attractive when he wasn’t being annoying? “I kind of noticed.” She was quiet for a minute. “Spike, I need to find out where Glory went to. Now that—now that things have settled down, I need to know what she’s planning.”

He hesitantly put his hand over hers. “You can count on me, pet.”

Buffy smiled at him. And left her hand where it was. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

Chapter 8: Searching for Glory

“So where are we goin’ tonight, pet?” Spike asked. He and Buffy were wandering rather aimlessly under the guise of patrolling. It didn’t seem as though they were doing much of that, or at least they really hadn’t been killing anything.

Buffy shrugged. “Well, I was kind of hoping that the evening’s entertainment would include finding Glory, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”

“You got a starting point?” he asked. “Though, to be honest, seems to me it might be better to let things go, hope she’s forgotten about you, an’ all.”

The Slayer sighed. “If it was just about me, I would, Spike. But she’s after Dawn too. I can’t just hope it’ll go away.”

“Ever thought of takin’ the Bit an’ getting out of Dodge?” he asked quietly, knowing she probably wouldn’t like the suggestion. “Nothin’ wrong with a retreat if it means livin’ another day, you know.”

“For how long?” Buffy asked. “My friends are here, Spike. My life is here. And I can’t just pack Dawn off and send her away. If I knew there was an expiration date on her Key-ness, maybe, but I don’t. The monks didn’t exactly include an instruction manual. Stupid monks.”

Spike smiled at Buffy’s distinctive phrasing. He hadn’t thought he could be more in love with her than he already was, but every moment spent in her company was a revelation. (Especially since she wasn’t beating him up all the time.) Every day he found more things, not just to love, but to like about her.

“You ever wish they hadn’t done it?” he asked abruptly. “I know you don’t remember not havin’ a sister, but you ever wish they’d hidden her somewhere else?”

Buffy blinked. Trust Spike to come up with the tough questions. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Some days Dawn gives me a reason to go on, especially since Mom—” She hesitated, knowing that telling the vampire her darkest, most selfish thoughts wasn’t at all the same as telling her friends. For one thing, she could trust him not to say anything to anyone. For another, confessing your sins to a vampire meant no judging would be taking place, because he’d certainly done and felt worse. “And some days it would be easier if the only person I had to look out for was me.”

Spike looked over at her with a great deal of compassion, an odd look for a vampire to have on his face. “Probably just like some days you wish it wasn’t you who was the Slayer, luv. Nothin’ wrong with that, you know.”

There were times when Buffy was able to convince herself that what Spike felt for her was little more than infatuation, barely more than lusting after the unattainable. But every time she had managed to convince herself of that, Spike would look at her like that, with such indescribable tenderness that it hardly seemed possible. And every time he put another little hole in her theory that he would get over her. Her theory wasn’t really holding water anymore. Deciding to change the subject before she had to address the look in his eyes, she said in response to his earlier question. “There is one place we could start looking for Glory that I haven’t tried yet.”

Spike stifled a sigh, knowing that she was changing the subject. “Where’s that, luv?”

“Glory summoned a snake demon of some kind. A Starbucks demon?”

He blinked in confusion, trying to interpret her unique pronunciation. “A Sobekian snake demon?”

“Right, that,” she said. “Anyway, when it saw Dawn, it somehow knew she was the Key and headed back towards Glory. I caught it before it could get to her, but I think it might have been headed towards an apartment complex.”

“As good a place as any to start,” he agreed. “Lead the way, Slayer.”

They were less certain of what to do once they got to the complex. There was no listing for Glory or Glorificus on the mailboxes; no surprise there. But neither one of them were completely certain of how to proceed short of knocking on every door. “There’s got to be a better way than that,” Buffy protested when Spike suggested that solution.

He thought for a minute. “If you were a Hellgod, where would you live?”

She frowned. “What—” Her eyes lit up. “If I thought the world revolved around me? I’d live in the most expensive apartment.”

“Right then,” he said. “That means top floor, penthouse, balcony, all that. Up we go.”

Buffy followed him into the elevator, a little doubtfully. “What are we going to do, Spike? It’s not like we can just knock on her door and ask her to let us search her place.”

“Leave that to me, pet,” he replied, smirking. And when her look grew even more skeptical he shook his head in mock pain. “Oh ye of little faith.”

They got to the top floor, but there was more than one apartment, and most likely all of them were expensive. “Now what?” she asked, wondering even as she asked why she was letting Spike come up with the plan. It wasn’t as though he was actually known for success in that department.

He gave her a secretive smile and found an alcove for her to disappear into. “Wait here,” he cautioned, and then left. Buffy waited impatiently for all of 30 seconds before deciding to go after him. Before she could move, she heard the shrill sound of the fire alarm, and Spike came to stand next to her.

“What did you do?” she hissed angrily. “You’re going to get us into trouble.”

“Watch,” he replied. Sure enough, a minute or so later, several angry people came out of two of the doors and headed down the stairs. And only a minute after that, several rather scabby looking demons came out of the third door. Once they had disappeared down the stairs, Spike exited the alcove and headed for that third door.

“How do you know she’s not in there?” Buffy asked, close on his heels.

He gave her a look. “Come on, Slayer. No good villain lets their minions run for safety while they stay behind. If they left, she’s not there.”

Buffy shrugged and sighed, acknowledging the logic behind that thought. They broke in easily enough, and Buffy knew immediately that this was Glory’s apartment. The décor went way too well with the bad perm and skanky clothing. “This is it,” she said. “Okay, start looking.”

“What are we looking for?” Spike asked.

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll know it when we see it.”

There didn’t seem to be much there, however. At least, they weren’t finding anything that might give them a clue as to Glory’s whereabouts. “In here, Slayer,” Spike finally called, just as Buffy was getting frustrated. He was pointing to a door she hadn’t previously noticed.

“What’s this?” she asked, following him inside. The room was very different from the rest of the apartment. The colors were more muted, and had a masculine tone. The furnishings were simple, almost spartan. “This doesn’t look like a room Glory would use.”

“That’s because it’s not,” Spike said simply. “Look, Buffy.” She looked over to where he was pointing and saw a picture of a young man in a cap and gown, obviously a graduation day picture of some sort.

“Wait a minute, I know this guy.” Buffy pulled the picture off the wall to get a closer look. “This is Ben, the intern from the hospital. He died in a car accident, maybe a week or so ago. Why would he be living here?”

“A very good question,” Spike agreed. “Getting the answers is going to require some violence though.”

“Huh?” Buffy stared at him, and then nodded in sudden comprehension. “Oh, you mean the scabby hobbits. You think we could snag one and make it talk?”

“It’s a plan,” he agreed, and then he looked up and froze. “But not one we can pull off tonight. We need to get out of here before the authorities start looking for the person who pulled the alarm, Slayer.”

“You mean the vampire that pulled the alarm,” Buffy grumbled. “Fine. I guess we’ll take care of it tomorrow night then.”

It was the next night before Spike finally found a minute to pay his respects. They say the third time is the charm, and it seemed the old adage held true. Joyce wouldn’t have minded though; he was certain she knew that he’d been taking care of her girls in her absence.

“’lo, Joyce,” he said quietly, brushing a bit of dirt off the top of the headstone. “Sorry I haven’t been by before this. I’m sure you know things have been a bit crazy.” He paused, thinking he was probably crazy for talking to a dead woman, but it felt right to him. And Joyce had always been a good listener.

“I’m lookin’ after the both of them, like I promised. Buffy’s actually lettin’ me help. Bit of a stunner there.” He paused again, this time to look around and make sure no one was there; he’d thought he’d heard a sound. “Funny that it’s alright she wants to be friends now, yeah? Never thought I’d be satisfied with that before, but it’s more than I thought I’d get. More than I deserve.”

Spike touched the top of the cold stone again in a kind of benediction, though whether he was giving or receiving it, he couldn’t say. “’m sorry I couldn’t save you. Wish you didn’t have to go.” It was enough; he had said his good-byes. He’d never been able to do it properly before, had, perhaps, never felt the need. But coming here to say his farewells to one of the only people who had ever treated him like a man—well, it was right that he act like a man for her.

He straightened his shoulders. Time to go see the Slayer and continue to fulfill his promise. Spike had promised to meet her at the Magic Box so that they could stake out Glory’s place in the hopes of snatching one of her minions.

He froze as he heard a sound from nearby. Creeping forward stealthily, he could see one of the very demons they had planned on hunting scurrying across the graveyard. Spike watched him for a minute, trying to decide if he was going to lead to somewhere interesting, but then gave it up in the next instant. Why bother following when he and the Slayer were just going to beat the information out of him?

The demon didn’t seem very bright, or very strong. Spike was able to tackle him, taking him down and knocking him out without a sound. It seemed he hadn’t yet lost his touch.

Giles looked up in surprise as Spike entered the shop, dragging a brown-robed demon behind him. “Good Lord,” he said, getting to his feet from where he’d been sitting at the round table. “What are you doing, Spike?”

“Lookin’ for the Slayer,” the vampire replied, dropping his bundle unceremoniously on the floor. “We were s’posed to be huntin’ these guys tonight, and this one got dropped right in my lap.”

The Watcher blinked several times as he regarded the still form, and then shook his head. “Well, I suppose that will save Buffy some trouble. Let me get something and we can tie him up.”

Between them they easily managed to secure the still form, and then Giles looked over at Spike. “Are you certain you didn’t kill him? We can’t obtain anything useful from a dead body.”

Spike looked highly affronted. “Didn’t kill him,” he protested. “He’ll wake up eventually. Where is Buffy, by the way?”

“She had to take Dawn home,” Giles replied. “I believe Willow and Tara are staying with her tonight until Buffy gets back from patrol. Though this certainly simplifies things. Does she know to meet you here?”

Spike shrugged. “Yeah, she said here was best because you might have some ideas.”

“None better than what was already proposed, I’m afraid,” Giles admitted. “To be quite honest, I have no idea why Glory has been so inactive. It worries me.”

The vampire flipped a chair around and sat down, resting his chin thoughtfully on his forearms. “It’s more than a bit odd, especially given what we found at her place the other night. Why she’d even let a bloke crash at her place is beyond me. Doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Giles said, cleaning his glasses on his handkerchief. “But how are you, Spike? Is there any change in—”

Spike cut him off. “If you’re askin’ me what that bastard did to me, I don’t know, Watcher.”

“I didn’t mean to insinuate anything,” Giles said quietly. “But you have changed your behavior.”

“Changed a while ago,” Spike replied. “Not that anyone noticed.”

Giles kept his mouth shut. The fact that Spike had acted to stop the warlock out of any consideration of Buffy at all seemed to support the vampire’s point. “Yes, well, you must admit it’s unprecedented.”

Spike snorted. “Yeah, well, it’s bloody uncomfortable. To be honest, I think I’d rather have skipped the whole torture/curse thing.”

“I’m sure,” Giles replied noncommitally, unsure of what to make of Spike at this point. It wasn’t that he was much more polite than he had been in the past, but he seemed less antagonistic in many ways. He certainly wasn’t going out of his way to irritate Giles, and the Watcher was reminded uncomfortably of the time when he and Spike had briefly shared a flat, not to mention the summer they had watched Passions together. There were times in those days when Spike had seemed almost human, and little more irritating than Xander at his worst. He was saved from having to think of it any further by Buffy’s entrance. The Slayer was not looking any happier than she had been that afternoon, not that Giles could fault her for that. Buffy certainly had more than enough on her plate at the moment.

“Hey, Spike.” The Slayer greeted him with an off-handed friendliness that spoke volumes about how far they had come in such a short time. Then she saw the demon tied to the chair, and her eyes widened. “You already found one?”

“He was wanderin’ through the cemetery,” Spike explained.

She looked over at Giles. “He isn’t dead, is he?”

“Spike assured me that he was not dead,” Giles said. “Did you get Dawn home alright?”

“She’s fine,” Buffy said, her face tightening. “We talked about some things.”

To Spike’s credit, he sensed the tension in the room and decided to postpone asking the Slayer about it. For the moment, they had other fish to fry. “You got a glass of water or something, Watcher?”

Giles brought the water which Spike threw into the demon’s face. He spluttered and woke, immediately getting nervous when he saw who was gathered around him. “Now,” Spike began with an evil smile, “you’re goin’ to tell us what we want to know. Or else.”

He let the threat hang and stood back to give Buffy some room. The Slayer came over to stand in front of him, arms crossed in front of her. “We can start with where Glory is.”

The demon stuttered something about sacred duty, and Spike raised a hand to hit him. The minion immediately began to spill everything, leaving the vampire severely disappointed. He had been looking forward to roughing the little weasel up a bit.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” the minion begged, beady little eyes going from one to the other. “The great Glorificus is gone.” He sounded forlorn.

“Gone?” Buffy asked skeptically. “As in, skipped town?”

“As in buried,” the demon wailed. “Master Ben was killed, and his mortal body dragged the Most Lovely One with it.”

Buffy and Giles were still trying to puzzle out the meaning of that when Spike slapped himself in the forehead. “Bloody hell,” he exclaimed. “That ponce was Glory. That’s why his stuff was in her apartment.”

Buffy’s jaw dropped. “Glory and Ben? Wouldn’t you just know it?! What is it with me and guys?”

Giles shot her a look that clearly said that now was not the time to discuss the complications of her romantic life, and looked at the demon. “Is this true? Glory and Ben shared a body?”

“Oh, yes,” the minion said, clearly happy that they weren’t hitting him. “But we’re going to bring her back. We remain her faithful servants.”

“An’ just how are you goin’ to pull that off?” Spike asked dubiously. “The boy bein’ dead and all.”

The demon beamed proudly. “We have hired an expert in resurrection. He, too, understands the magnificence that is the great Glorificus.”

Buffy and Spike exchanged looks. “And when is this great resurrection supposed to take place?” the Slayer asked.

The demon seemed to suddenly realize that he had given up far too much information, and shut his mouth. But one hard slap upside the head from Spike got his tongue moving again. “In two nights,” he squealed. “And then you’ll be sorry.”

“Right,” Buffy muttered, turning back towards Giles. “Can we stop this?”

Giles sighed. “Most likely. If we can, and Glory stays dead, then we certainly won’t have to worry about her anymore.”

“This expert have a name?” Spike asked the demon, thinking he might just know the guy.

The demon didn’t look as though he was going to answer that question, and Buffy gave him another whap to hurry him up. “Doc,” the minion finally muttered sullenly.

“Okay, so now we have a name, a time, and a plan. Anything else we need?” Buffy asked brightly.

“Location?” Giles suggested. But unfortunately the demon didn’t know where the ritual was to be performed. He wasn’t high enough up the echelon to warrant that kind of information. And given his propensity to answer every other question with only a threat of violence, the chances were pretty good that he really didn’t know.

“Now what?” Buffy asked her Watcher as they drew off away from the demon.

“I’m not certain,” Giles confessed. “Obviously, we need to stop the ritual to prevent Glory from returning. But without knowing the place, or even the exact time, it might be difficult.”

Buffy made a face. “The last thing we need is for Glory to come back. I hadn’t even had a chance to get used to the fact that she was gone.”

“The grave,” Spike said quietly. “They’ll need the body, if they don’t already have it. Body’s still in the coffin, we can sit on it.”

“And if it isn’t in the coffin?” Giles asked dryly.

Buffy shrugged. “We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The Watcher gave her a rueful look. “Why don’t the two of you check out the grave tonight? At least then we’ll know whether or not to look elsewhere.”

“What are we gonna do with him?” Spike asked, nodding at the tied-up demon.

Buffy raised an eyebrow and then sighed. “Well, we can’t let him go.”

“Right then,” Spike said. “I’ll take care of it.” With a quick twist of its neck, the demon was no more. The vampire untied the body, tossed it over his shoulder, and exited out the back.

“How is he, Buffy?” Giles asked quietly, once he was certain the vampire was out of earshot. “Do you think he actually has a soul?”

“I don’t think it matters,” Buffy said quietly. “Spike is acting different. Right now, that’s good enough for me. I don’t need to know why.”

“Be careful, Buffy,” Giles advised. “It might not be the wisest course to get involved with another vampire.”

“We’re not involved, Giles,” Buffy whispered. “We’re friends.”

“Even so,” Giles began, but Buffy was saved from the lecture by Spike’s entrance.

“All taken care of,” he announced. “You all ready, Slayer?”

Buffy shot Giles a look. “Yeah. We just need to get a couple shovels.”

“So, what’s goin’ on, Slayer?” Spike asked as they started digging.

Buffy didn’t look up. “Nothing.”

“Right.” He let it go for a little while, and then asked again. “Buffy, you know you can talk to me.”

She sighed. Spike was too persistent for his own good sometimes. “I’m dropping out of college. And I got called by the school to go see Dawn’s principal tomorrow, something to do with her absences.”

“Wait a minute,” he protested, pausing in his digging to stare at her. “Why drop out, luv?”

“Spike, I can’t do it. Finances are one thing, but someone has to look after Dawn, plus with this Glory thing hanging over our heads…” Buffy shook her head. “I should have known that trying to mix slaying and college was a bad idea.”

Spike frowned. “Did you want to quit?”

“No,” Buffy said, with a slight pout. “That’s what’s so unfair. I actually had a class or two I liked this semester.”

“So don’t drop out,” Spike said.

“Spike—”

“Seriously, luv,” he said earnestly. “If you feel you have to, drop all your classes except the one you like most. If you drop all of them, it’ll be that much harder to start up again later. You keep at least one, you got a chance at goin’ back at least.”

Buffy stared at him. “This sounds like you’ve given it some thought.”

“If it has to do with you, I’ve thought about it, Slayer,” he replied. At Buffy’s skeptical look, he shrugged. “Makes sense. You keep one class, you’ve still got your foot in the door. They can’t shut it on you completely.”

She smiled at him. “Well, I haven’t withdrawn yet, so I’ll think about it.”

“What class are you keepin’?”

“I didn’t say I was.” Spike was silent, waiting for her answer. “If I keep a class it’ll probably be poetry.”

He did a double take. “You like poetry, Slayer?”

“Can’t I like poetry?” She gave him an offended look. “I can like poetry. I have layers.”

“Didn’t say you didn’t,” he muttered. “Just—surprised me, ‘sall. You didn’t exactly seem like a poetry and flowers kind of girl, pet.”

Buffy snorted. “I like flowers. I like poetry. I just haven’t had much of a chance to get them. You know, both my boyfriends in the past were more into saving the world than the hearts and flowers. We didn’t have a lot of opportunity for that kind of thing.”

“You don’t have opportunity, luv, you make it,” Spike said firmly. “I always found time to make sure Dru got her hearts and flowers. Not that she always appreciated it,” he added.

Buffy actually laughed a little bit at that. “So you’re saying you could give Angel and Riley lessons in dating.”

“Didn’t say that exactly,” Spike responded with a smile of his own. “Just sayin’ that you can’t make excuses for that sort of thing. You have it or you don’t, because you make room for it or you don’t. That’s all.”

His shovel hit something hard. “Think we’ve got it.”

“Hop out,” she ordered, brushing the dirt out of the area with her shovel and then reaching down to pull up the lid of the casket. “Ick.”

“I take it he’s in there,” Spike called down, watching as Buffy quickly shut the lid again.

“Look’s like,” she replied. “Well, I suppose we’re going to be on a stakeout the next couple nights. It’s not like they’re going to be able to dig up the body and move it in broad daylight.”

Spike shrugged. “Night is the traditional time for graverobbers,” he agreed. “You gonna think about what I said, luv? About keeping your foot in the door?”

“Yeah,” she glanced over at him. “It’s actually not bad advice. I was kinda thinking it was an all or nothing deal, you know? Either I stayed in school or I didn’t.”

“Well, it is,” he pointed out. “But you can do a lot less to actually stay in college, you know.”

“Yeah. Do you want to watch some graves tomorrow night?”

“With you? Always.” Spike smiled at her.

“Cool. Let’s get this dirt back where it belongs, and then I’m going to bed.” Buffy took the hand that Spike held out for her, and he pulled her out of the hole. “Spike?”

“Yeah, luv?”

“Thanks.” She turned and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, moving quickly away. “For, you know, everything.”

For once Spike was speechless, and all he could do was to smile in reply.

Chapter 9: Night’s Utmost Nothing

Spike dashed into the Magic Box under a smoldering blanket. “’lo, all,” he said as nonchalantly as a person stomping on a burning blanket can.

Willow looked up from the book she was reading. “Hey, Spike. You’re up kinda early.”

The vampire shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I might be useful if I was awake.” He returned Tara’s shy greeting with a smile and waved absently at Giles and Anya. “So what are we workin’ on?”

It was a little more than not being able to sleep, of course. He actually hadn’t been able to catch more than a few hours at a time for weeks now. He’d been up till nearly dawn watching Ben’s grave, making sure no one came for the body. He should have been able to sleep past sunset, but the recurring dreams had haunted him, and so he’d come for the distraction as much as anything else.

“We’re looking up resurrection spells,” Willow explained eagerly. “It’s all really interesting. Whoever they’ve got to do it has to be really powerful. That is, if they really want to bring Glory back, and not a zombie, you know.”

“I-it’s all dark magics,” Tara said quietly. “Who-whoever they’ve got can’t be very nice.”

Giles had wandered up to the table, leaving Anya to look after the cash register. “You said last night that you might know who has been recruited, Spike. Did you recognize the name?”

The vampire glanced up at the Watcher and frowned. “Yeah, but hardly sounds like him. Bloke I’m thinkin’ of’s just this little old guy. But his name’s Doc, an’ he’s got a reputation when it comes to resurrection spells. Could be the same one.”

Giles nodded. “Do you think you could find him? If he is the one, you and Buffy might be able to stop him without waiting until tomorrow night.”

Spike shrugged. “Dunno. But it’s worth a shot. Where is the Slayer, anyway?”

“She had a meeting at Dawnie’s school,” Willow offered. “I think both of them should be here soon, though.” The two witches exchanged a glance when Spike brightened imperceptibly. Now that they knew his true feelings, it was pretty obvious that he had it bad.

“That’s good,” he mumbled, trying to sound as though it didn’t matter, even as his hand wandered to his cheek, touching the spot she’d kissed.

The bell over the door of the shop jingled, and they all turned to see Dawn and Buffy walk in, neither one of them looking very happy. “Ah, hello, Buffy. Dawn,” Giles greeted them. Looking at the Slayer he asked, “Did you get it done?”

“Yeah. Dropped everything but the poetry.” Buffy shot Spike a pointed glance. “Because I’m all about the poetry.”

Looking slightly amused, he said, “Never said you weren’t, pet.”

Buffy almost smiled, nodded a greeting to the two witches, and then turned to Giles. “Can we talk for a minute?” At his nod, she looked at her younger sister. “Dawn, do your homework.”

She followed Giles back toward the training room. Spike frowned. He could smell the tension, and just a touch of fear from the Slayer, which didn’t make him at all happy. “What’s up, Bit?” he asked in an undertone.

“We had to talk to the principal,” Dawn muttered sullenly. “She’s overreacting.”

Spike gave her a pointed look. “Would you like to share with the rest of the class?”

“Not funny, Spike,” she snapped. Dawn pulled out her geometry homework and then groaned. “I just don’t get this.”

Willow scooted her chair over closer to Dawn. “Let me see,” she said. “Oh, geometry. Xander had the worst trouble with that class. Here, let me show you.” She quickly began demonstrating the differences in triangles, and Spike looked over at Tara.

Tara was the one he didn’t quite get. She was the quiet one, but he knew very well that still waters ran deep, and he had a feeling that she saw a lot more than she ever let on. He was about to say something to her, when Willow said, “Spike can help.”

He looked at the red-head suspiciously. “Help with what?” They were still trying to cajole him into acting out a human triangle when Buffy came out. The vampire could see the stiffness of her posture, and unlike the others, he could hear what she was muttering under her breath. Apparently, whatever had happened at Dawn’s school had really jarred her.

“I thought I told you to do your homework, Dawn,” Buffy snapped.

Dawn’s head shot up, a hurt look on her face. “I am. I was. Willow was helping me.”

“Dawn—” Buffy’s voice held a warning.

Willow stepped in, trying to play peacemaker. “We were just trying to explain the different triangles, Buffy. Really.”

Buffy hesitated ever so slightly. “Fine, but I think it might be better if Dawn does her homework at home.”

Willow stared at her, seeming to realize that something was seriously wrong. “Are you sure, Buffy? I could help if you want to stay.”

“No, I think we should both go home.” Buffy looked over at Spike. “You want to meet me tonight?”

Spike nodded hesitantly. He could still smell the fear on her. “Sure, Slayer. Slight change of plans, though. You want me to come to the house?”

She nodded, and then motioned to Dawn. “Let’s go.”

“This is so not fair,” Dawn muttered under her breath angrily, stomping out the door ahead of Buffy.

The vampire watched as they left, frowning slightly. He didn’t like the look of things.

Spike spent most of the day with the witches helping (aka distracting) them while they researched resurrection spells. Spike had, to his astonishment, discovered that he very much liked both of them, and not just because they were connected to Buffy. Perhaps it was because they both seemed to like him; he wasn’t quite sure.

Once the sun had set, he took off for the Summers’ residence, deciding to check Ben’s grave on the way. He wanted to be certain that the body hadn’t gone anywhere as long as they were going to be looking into other leads. It probably would have been a good idea to have the witches, or even the Whelp watch the grave while he and Buffy checked out Doc’s place. But Buffy had other things on her mind and obviously hadn’t thought about it, and Spike had Buffy on his mind.

And then he saw the grave, open, with all their carefully replaced dirt scattered everywhere. “Bloody hell,” he snarled, and took off running for the Slayer’s place.

“We’ve got a problem,” he announced as he stalked into the house, not even bothering to knock.

Buffy glanced up at him from where she was seated on the couch in the living room. “Well, hello to you too, Spike,” she said sourly.

He stared at her, not quite knowing how to interpret the mood she was obviously in. Over a century of living, and he still hadn’t figured out women. “The body’s gone.”

The Slayer sat up straight. “What do you mean, ‘the body’s gone?’”

“The body,” he replied impatiently. “Ben’s body. You know, the one they need for that blasted resurrection spell? It’s gone. Went by the graveyard on the way over here, and somebody’s already taken it.”

“Great,” Buffy muttered. “Just great. Exactly what I needed today. A missing body, a potentially resurrected Hellgod, and social workers breathing down my neck. Perfect.”

Spike stared at her. He got the body and the god part, the meanings there were pretty obvious, but he wasn’t so sure about the social workers. “Huh?”

She glanced over at him. “Sorry. When did they take the body?”

He hesitated, still trying to puzzle out what was going on, and then he shrugged. “Dunno. Had to have been some time today though. I stayed till dawn last night, an’ I went by not that long after sunset.”

“I thought you said graverobbing was a nighttime sport,” Buffy accused.

Spike raised his hands in a gesture of defense. “Don’t blame me, Slayer. I stayed last night, I went by tonight, I did my part. Daylight stakeouts aren’t a possibility for me.”

Her face softened a little. “I know, Spike. I’m sorry I snapped. This hasn’t been the best day.” Spike was still trying to get over the fact that she’d apologized, when she continued. “Okay, we’ve got a missing body. That means we either need to find out what they’ll need and keep them from getting it, or we need to figure out who’s doing it, and stop them.”

“Already there, Slayer,” Spike replied easily. “The guy who’s doin’ the spell, Doc, I think I know where we can find him. I have a pretty good idea anyway.”

Buffy nodded. “All right. Let me get my jacket, and we can go.”

“You want to wait until someone can get here to watch Dawn? I think Red and Glinda are still at the Magic Box.”

Buffy shook her head. “She should be fine on her own for a little while. I’ll call Giles and let him know what’s going on, and he can send someone over. It shouldn’t take too long for one of the gang to get here.” She left to get her jacket and make the call while Spike waited for her by the door. It still seemed odd to be inside her house without Joyce there to offer him a cuppa. He figured it had to be that much worse for the Slayer and her sister. Joyce would be missed for a long time to come.

“Let’s go,” Buffy stated, heading out the door, not even looking behind her to see if he’d follow.

Spike managed to keep up with the Slayer’s angry strides easily enough. He was waiting for her to realize that he knew where they were going while she didn’t. After a couple blocks, she stopped and looked back at him. “Okay, Spike. Where are we going again?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Sure you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong, luv?” Buffy simply looked at him, unable or unwilling to explain. He sighed. “Fine, then. It’s this way.” They had been going in basically the right direction; if they hadn’t he would have stopped her earlier. But Spike still remembered the scent of fear on her earlier that day, and he broached the subject again, wondering if he was just being stupid for wanting to know so badly.

“I know everything isn’t fine, Buffy.” Spike glanced over at her again. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

There was a note of pleading in his tone, and Buffy couldn’t help asking. “Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because you matter to me,” he said reproachfully. “You should know that by now.”

Heaven help her, she did know it. It was hard to miss with him always around, telling her with his eyes, if not his voice, that he loved her. Not fair, she wanted to cry. Not fair that Angel hadn’t loved her this much, not enough to stay. Not fair that his curse made it impossible for them to be together. Not fair that she hadn’t been able to love Riley, to give him what he needed. Why on earth did it have to be Spike? And why on earth did she have to be falling for him? Because at this point she could admit that the friendly feelings she had for him were rapidly becoming just a little more than that.

She sighed, knowing that every time she used him as a sounding board, every time she told him what was going on before she told her friends, she was letting him that much further into her life. “Dawn’s principal wanted to talk to me about the fact that she’s been skipping classes. And her grades are falling, which makes sense since she’s never there.”

Spike frowned, trying to see things from the Slayer’s point of view. Dawn was a teenager, therefore Dawn should be in school. Skipping classes, while not necessarily right up there with murder, was bad. “Wouldn’t tell the Niblet this,” he began hesitantly, “but she’s been through a lot recently. Could just be a stage she’s goin’ through.”

“Which is what I said,” Buffy replied. “Unfortunately, that really doesn’t matter when they’re talking about legal guardianship. Basically the principal warned me that if I can’t make Dawn go to school, they’re going to take her away from me.”

“Oh.” Spike wasn’t quite sure what to say about that. It didn’t seem right, somehow, them threatening that kind of thing.

“Yeah, oh,” Buffy said glumly. “And of course Dawn isn’t helping, because she’s still talking about how she isn’t real and that she shouldn’t have to go to school. I don’t think she’s coping very well either, you know, with friends and stuff.”

Spike was feeling more than a little out of his league at this point, not sure of what to say to her to make it better. Not sure that he could make it better. So he just listened, and finally said, “Anything I can do, luv. You know that.”

Buffy smiled at him. “I know.”

Then they were at Doc’s place, and there was no more time to say the things they might have liked to say. Unfortunately, while both were in the mood for a little violence, it didn’t look like they were going to get any. Doc had cleared out, though from what Spike could tell, he’d left in a hurry, and there were more than a few things he’d left behind. “What now?” Spike asked.

Buffy frowned. “I guess we need to get this stuff back to Giles. He might be able to make some sense out of it, figure out what they’re planning exactly. We need to find out where they’re doing this. I don’t want to have to face Glory again if I can help it.”

“Don’t blame you, pet,” he replied, grabbing one of the boxes. “Let’s go then.”

Willow and Tara were at the Magic Box when she and Spike got back, looking a little frantic. “Buffy!” Willow stood when they entered. “Dawn’s gone.”

The Slayer’s eyes widened. “Where?”

“I don’t know,” Willow said. “Tara and I headed over there as soon as Giles got your call. By the time we got there, Dawn was gone. It looked like someone forced the door.”

Buffy shook her head. “But who? And when? There must have been like what, twenty minutes in between when we left and you got there?”

“They were watchin’ the house,” Spike said dully. “Bloody hell, I can’t believe I didn’t see them, didn’t sense them at least.”

“It’s not your fault,” Buffy snapped, more out of anger at herself than him. She’d had similar thoughts, and felt that it was her fault for not waiting for someone to get there. “Dammit. Where’s Giles?”

“Right here,” her Watcher replied, coming out of the back room. “I just called Xander and Anya. They should be here shortly.”

“Great,” Buffy said. “We have a missing body, a missing demon, and a missing Dawn.”

“You think they’re connected?” Spike asked.

Giles pulled his glasses off to clean them. “It seems a bit too coincidental to not be.” He frowned and looked over at Spike. “How are you at tracking?”

Spike blinked. “You asking me if I can follow the Bit’s scent?” At Giles’ nod, he hesitated. “Dunno,” he confessed. “’m not a bloodhound, but if the trail’s fresh enough, maybe.” Spike was reluctant to finish his thought, but continued anyway. “More scared she is, easier it’ll be to find her. Fear’s about like blood to a vampire. Not quite so easy to trace, but it helps.”

Buffy breathed out quickly. “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but I guess we have to hope that Dawn’s scared silly then.” She turned to the witches and Giles. “Look, go through the stuff that we brought back. Hopefully that’ll help us figure out what’s going on with the resurrection spell. We have at least until tomorrow night on that one. Spike and I will try to find Dawn. Staying here isn’t going to do us any good right now.”

Giles nodded reluctantly. “I agree. Finding Dawn has to be our first priority. If you can’t manage it, however, I’d like you both to come back here immediately.”

“Done,” Buffy said. “Let’s go, Spike.”

They went back to the house on Revello Drive, where Spike took a deep breath, trying to find the scent. He frowned slightly and sniffed again, while Buffy watched worriedly. They had no other way to find Dawn other than Spike’s abilities, and she gave a relieved sigh when he nodded decidedly. “This way.”

Buffy watched him as he followed the trail, his lean form almost cat-like as he moved, sometimes almost running, sometimes moving more slowly. He wasn’t wearing the duster much anymore, she realized. Knowing how he’d gotten it, Buffy could understand why. It was that missing coat that made her realize how deep the change in him went, however. She’d seen faint signs of change before the curse, but he would never have considered not wearing the duster, not for a moment.

Finally, he slowed down, pausing outside a construction yard. “That’s where they took her,” he whispered.

Buffy looked around, and she could see the scabby minions moving around. “Can you tell where?”

“Not without going in there,” he replied. “Not enough cover and too much activity for that right now.”

Buffy had to agree. Sneaking in was not going to be fun. Or, at least, it could turn out very unpleasantly for the both of them if they were caught. “Still, if Dawn’s in there…” she trailed off, and Spike nodded.

“Can’t help but think they wanted her for something,” he agreed. “Better to get her out of there now maybe.”

“Inside there,” Buffy said quietly, pointing to the only building on the premises that was actually built, and really the only place to secure someone.

Spike nodded, and they circled the site until they could find a hole in the chain link fence. He held it back for her so she could duck through and then followed quickly. Buffy went from shadow to shadow, trying to remain unseen as Spike watched her back. The Slayer had to admit it was nice to have Spike there. She felt safer.

They made their way to the building, and when Buffy peeked in one of the windows she saw no sign of her sister. “I don’t see her,” she hissed.

“We’ll have to get inside,” he replied, his lips barely touching her ear. “The window, there.” He pointed up, towards an open window, and Buffy shook her head reluctantly. “Someone should tell Giles and the others where we are.”

“You go, luv,” he murmured. “I’ll grab the Niblet.”

“Spike—”

“You go,” he insisted. “I’ll meet you back at the shop.” When Buffy still hesitated, he grabbed her by the shoulder. “If I don’t make it, you’ll need to come with backup. Go back to the Magic Box. If Dawn and I aren’t there in an hour, you know what to do.”

Buffy searched Spike’s eyes, trying to understand why he was suddenly suicidal. What she saw was complete assurance that if he couldn’t handle it, she could. “Fine. We’ll wait an hour, but no more.” Hesitantly, she touched his cheek. “Be careful.”

“Of course.” Spike watched her go, knowing he’d done the right thing. The Slayer would be able to get her Watcher and her friends to come without question, whereas they would be much more reluctant to listen to him. Besides, if he did run into trouble, he was more likely to survive than the Slayer.

He waited until he was sure she was gone and then opened the window further, trying not to make a sound. Pulling himself through and dropping down, he crept quietly through the building, trying to catch the Bit’s scent. She was close, he could tell, and scared to death. But he couldn’t smell her blood, and that was a good sign.

Spike found the room Dawn was in by trial and error, and when she saw him, her eyes lit up and she opened her mouth to speak. He gave her a quick shake of the head, and then went to work freeing her hands. “You came,” she whispered joyfully. “Where’s my sister?”

“Getting help,” the vampire hissed. “We’re s’posed to meet her back at the shop. What happened?”

Dawn shook her head. “Some demons came in, right after you left, and grabbed me. I tried to fight back, but there were too many of them.”

“Shh,” he comforted. “I’m gonna get you out of here, pet. Just hold tight.” Dawn’s eyes suddenly widened, and he knew there was someone behind him.

The girl’s hands and feet were free, however, and Spike pulled her to her feet and shoved her behind him. “Well, this is interesting,” the small, unimposing man said. “I hadn’t thought to find a vampire in here. Perhaps the Slayer, but not you.”

“I have business here,” Spike said, his voice dangerously soft.

Doc smiled an evil little smile. “Is that right?” And then he moved so quickly, Spike never saw it coming.

Chapter 10: The Nick of Time

Buffy looked at the clock for the umpteenth time, glancing impatiently at Giles, who was still going over the materials they’d found at Doc’s. Spike had asked for an hour, and only half that time had passed, but still Buffy was worried. She should have insisted he come back with her to get backup. She should have sent him back instead. They should have gone in together. A hundred different things might have gone wrong, and she didn’t like thinking about any one of them.

“Ah hah!” Giles exclaimed, shaking his finger at the text in front of him excitedly. “I think I’ve found the ritual this individual plans to perform. I believe the reason they took Dawn was because they need her blood for it to work, to bring Glory back full strength.”

“Why Dawnie’s blood?” Willow asked. “They don’t know she’s the Key, do they?”

Giles shook his head. “It seems he might have done a locator spell for the correct sacrifice,” he said slowly. “There are instructions here that would indicate another spell that would allow a person to pinpoint the necessary ingredients. He needed someone with potent blood, and that might have been either Buffy or Dawn; Buffy because she is the Slayer, and Dawn because she is the Key. My guess is that he went for the easiest target.”

Buffy stood. “Fine. He needs Dawn’s blood? He’s not getting it. Let’s go. We need to get there before he can raise Glory.”

“Didn’t Spike say to give him an hour?” Xander asked. “Maybe we should wait, just in case he’s already on his way back.”

“I’m not waiting,” Buffy replied. “I didn’t like leaving him there on his own in the first place.” She looked around. “We need weapons.”

“We can take whatever’s in the shop of course,” Giles offered.

Anya immediately perked up. “Oh, take the troll hammer! If Glory does show up, you can use it to pound her into a sticky paste.”

Buffy smiled grimly and grabbed the hammer. “Good thinking, Anya. One sticky paste coming right up.”

They all left the shop armed. Willow and Tara had their magic, Giles carried a sword and crossbow, Anya had a sharpened baseball bat, and Xander carried an ax. The Slayer wasn’t at all sure what they were getting themselves into. Her only thought was of grabbing Dawn and getting out. If this Doc guy actually managed to raise Glory, and Buffy couldn’t put her back in the ground, they would need to run.

“What will you do if Glory returns?” Giles asked in a low tone as they made their way to the construction site.

“Get Dawn, and get out of here,” Buffy replied evenly. “But first I’m going to try putting her back where she belongs. I’m just really, really tired of this Hellgod thing.”

“Buffy,” Giles said urgently. “If she does come back, it is imperative that you kill her as soon as possible. The more time she has, the stronger she will become.”

“If they’re even doing it tonight,” Buffy muttered. “I thought that scabby little weasel said we had another day.”

“Perhaps he was mistaken,” Giles replied. “Or perhaps they had to move the day up for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter now.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Buffy agreed. “Because right now, I’m in the mood to kick some demon ass.”

They drove to the site, taking both Giles’ and Xander’s cars. Once there, Buffy led the way to the loose fencing where she and Spike had entered not even an hour before. Buffy was slightly unsure of what to do next. Surprise was still possible, and if they all went through the window, they might still manage it. But she had no idea where her sister or Spike were, or where exactly the ritual was supposed to take place.

“Stay here,” she warned Giles. “I’m going to see if I can find Spike or Dawn.” Buffy followed the same path as Spike, sneaking down the hallway and opening doors until she found him. He was sprawled on the floor, blood seeping out from under him, and Buffy ran to where he lay and rolled him over.

“Slayer,” he said quietly. “You’re early.”

“You were late,” she replied. “Where’s Dawn?”

“Wanker took her outside,” he muttered. “I couldn’t stop him. He was too quick for me.”

Buffy looked grim. “They need Dawn’s blood to perform the ritual.”

“Then you need to get to her,” he replied, his eyes barely open. “Go, Buffy. Don’t worry about me.”

She gave him a look, and then slipped off her jacket, rolling it up and placing it over the wound in his side. Buffy grabbed his hand and put it over the cloth, forcing him to apply pressure. “I’ll be back,” she promised, and then left at a run.

Buffy met the others outside. “Spike was hurt trying to get Dawn out of there. He said they took Dawn outside somewhere.”

They snuck around the building, and it wasn’t hard to see where the ritual was taking place. A bier with Ben’s body lay in the center of a circle of Glory’s minions. Dawn and a rather unimposing elderly man could just be made out in the center. Buffy could see that Dawn had already been cut; her sister’s hand was around one wrist, and blood could be seen seeping out through her fingers.

“Giles, they’ve already started the ritual,” Buffy said, alarmed.

The Watcher took quick stock of the situation. “We need to get in there. We might still be able to interrupt the process.”

“All right,” Buffy agreed. “But if we can’t stop it, I want you to grab Dawn and head out of here. I’ll see what I can do about Glory.”

“Are you certain?” Giles asked quietly. “It won’t be Glory, it will be Ben that you’ll be facing.”

Buffy’s face hardened. “If it means saving Dawn, then I think I can deal. Besides, he’s already dead. I’m just going to do him a favor and makes sure he stays that way.”

The others had been listening to their whispered conversation, and now Buffy paused to give directions to the troops. “Giles, take Willow and Tara around to the other side. You concentrate on stopping the ritual. Xander, Anya and I will try to get through from this side.”

“Are you sure about this?” Xander asked as the others crept off. He watched the demons’ activities anxiously.

Buffy gave him a little smile. “No, but I am sure that I’m not letting that Hellbitch come back if I can help it. She was starting to really annoy me.” Buffy watched to be sure she could see Giles and the witches on the other side of the circle, and she nodded to the other two. “Let’s go.”

They all charged in, with only Willow and Tara holding back, their hands clasped. The Wiccans were waiting for an opportune moment to disrupt the magics surrounding the ritual itself. Such a disruption was not an easy prospect, and it would be very easy to botch the job.

Buffy went for Glory’s minions with her hammer, feeling a great sense of satisfaction as they went flying in every direction. Even the crunching sounds were giving her all kinds of stress relief. It was really too bad they didn’t put up more of a fight, because the battle was all too short for her taste. The lack of a challenge made it harder to concentrate on the fight instead of on her sister’s whimpers and tear-stained face. She was soon left facing the Doc, however, who was holding a golden cup full of Dawn’s blood.

“You’re too late, Slayer.” The man greeted her with equanimity. “The ritual will be completed, and the great Glorificus will return.”

“You know, I’m getting really tired of hearing that,” Buffy replied, taking a step forward with her hammer. “What if we don’t want her back?”

Doc smiled kindly. “Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon.” Before Buffy or anyone else could move, he darted to the body, pouring the blood in its already open mouth.

There was a moment of hushed stillness as they all waited for the worst to happen. The corpse, however, didn’t even twitch, and Doc stood there waiting for, well, something.

Buffy’s eyebrows went up. “Anybody else find this rather anticlimactic?”

Xander, Willow, Tara, and Anya raised their hands. Doc was looking a trifle pissed off, but before he could take his anger out on the nearest person, Willow grabbed Tara’s hand and they both called out something in Latin. Dawn was pushed toward the witches as though by a giant hand, and they caught her and started to rush her off, Giles following close behind.

Buffy, on the other hand, was looking at the still-dead corpse with a smug little smile. “Finally,” she said. “Something goes wrong for somebody who isn’t me.” She didn’t hesitate when Doc rushed toward her, remembering what Spike had said about the demon being too quick for him.

If she’d spent any time at all in the batting cages, she might have said it was like trying to hit a fast ball. But Slayer reflexes and a quick eye were up to the challenge. The hammer hit Doc’s head with a nice, meaty splat, and the demon collapsed in front of her. Buffy made a face. “Okay, that was gross.”

She looked back at Xander and Anya who were both watching with similarly disgusted looks on their faces. “Not to raise the ick factor here,” Xander said. “But shouldn’t we do something about the body? You know, make sure it can’t be used again?”

Giles came up to stand behind them. Danger over, there was no need to run. “We probably should burn the body,” he agreed. “That, and scattering the ashes in running water should take care of the danger.”

Buffy turned to look at Dawn, who was standing behind her with a mixture of pain and relief on her face. “Are you okay?”

Dawn nodded. “I don’t think the cut was very deep.”

Tara nodded her agreement. “It’s probably not hospital worthy. A few butterfly bandages and some gauze, and she should be fine.”

“Guys?” Dawn asked quietly. “Where’s Spike?”

It took a while to get everyone settled. Spike was unconscious by the time they got back to him. Doc had all but eviscerated him. Buffy decided to bring him back to her house where she could keep an eye on both the vampire and her sister at the same time.

Doc being a resurrection expert, Giles wanted to take extra special care with his body, and Ben’s body needed to be burned. He and Xander handled of both of those very dirty jobs, and then they all met back at Buffy’s house to try and figure out what exactly had gone wrong. Or, well, from their point of view, what had gone right.

“Did you see the look on his face when nothing happened?” Dawn asked, now able to laugh a little bit over the whole incident. A fresh shower, bandage, and hot chocolate had repaired much of the damage and restored her sense of humor. “I mean, I thought somebody had hit him over the head.”

Buffy smiled, more with relief than anything else. Glory was definitely gone for good, which meant she could rest easy on that front. Her sister was safe, and Spike was going to unlive. Not a bad ending to the day. She still had one question remaining though.

“Giles, why didn’t the ritual work? Not to complain or anything, but wasn’t it just a little odd?”

“As you said, it was rather anticlimactic,” Giles said. He was still trying to get his bearings after that rather stunning ending. “The only thing I can think of was that he had the wrong ingredients.”

“You mean, he screwed up the spell?” Xander asked. “How often does that happen for us?”

Willow perked up. “You know, resurrection spells are tricky. Maybe one of the ingredients had lost their potency or something.”

Giles blinked. “Of course.” He looked over at Dawn. “Forgive me, Dawn, but do you remember what knife he used?”

“With me, you mean?” Dawn asked. “It was the one he dropped. I thought you picked it up.”

“We did,” Giles replied. “But was it the same one he used on Spike?”

Dawn thought for a minute and then shrugged. “I think so. At least, I only ever saw him with one knife.”

Giles nodded, satisfied. “That’s it then. As Willow said, resurrection spells are tricky. Most likely, he forgot to clean the blade and your blood and Spike’s was mixed.”

“Which would have reduced both the potency and the purity!” Willow exclaimed. “Looks like Spike saved the day without even realizing it.”

Xander made a sour face. “Darn. I suppose I’m going to have to be nice to him now.”

Spike’s eyes blinked open to see the Slayer looking back at him. “You know, we really have to stop meeting like this,” she said cheerfully.

“How’s Dawn?” he asked, struggling to sit up.

Buffy smiled. “She’s good. Pretty much back to normal even. How do you feel?”

“Like I came this close to havin’ my guts on the ground,” he muttered. He managed to sit up and lean back against the wall, swinging his legs over the side of the cot with some difficulty. It looked as though he was back in the Slayer’s basement. “Want to tell me what happened after I got put out of commission?”

Buffy gave him the details and watched as he winced when she told him Dawn had been bled. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly.

“Like hell,” he replied. “Little bastard was too quick for me. Wasn’t expectin’ that.”

She offered him a hand. “Do you think you can make it up the stairs? I’ve got blood for you.”

Spike took the hand she offered and stood with a groan, muttering curses the whole way. “Lead the way, luv,” he said, following more slowly. He wasn’t nearly as badly hurt as he had been just a few short weeks ago. A few days and he’d be fully functional again.

He let her heat the mug up in the microwave and hand it to him. Spike drank the blood down as quickly as possible, and then readily took her offer of another bag. He’d lost a lot of blood.

“So how are you feeling, Slayer?” he asked once he was feeling a bit more like himself.

“Me?” Buffy looked surprised that he’d even asked. “I’m fine.”

“Now that Glory’s gone?”

Spike couldn’t quite read the _expression that flashed across her face, but he suspected that Buffy hadn’t truly been able to grieve her mother yet. There had been too much going on. Her next words confirmed it for him. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I’ve been too busy to really think about it.” She gave him a half-hearted little smile. “I didn’t want to think about it.”

Spike’s gaze softened. “And if you could have one wish, what would it be, luv?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He cocked his head to the side, his blue eyes searching her face. “Pretend I could give you anything, Buffy. What would it be?”

Buffy stared at him, not sure where this was going, and not wanting to wish for something she could never have. At the same time, the way Spike was looking at her made her want to believe that he could give her anything she asked for. “I wish my mom would come back, and that I could go back to my nice college life and not have to worry about anything more than the next vampire. I wish I’d never heard of a Hellgod and that Dawn had always been my sister and was never anyone’s Key. I wish people didn’t keep leaving me.”

The vampire gave her a wistful look. “An’ I wish I could give you all that an’ more, Buffy. Feel like givin’ me something I can tackle?”

She smiled. “Then I wish I could have just one evening where I could be normal-girl.”

“Done,” Spike replied. Feeling greatly daring he stood and placed a fleeting, chaste kiss on her lips.

He was gone moments later, the sun having set. Buffy was left standing in her kitchen, her lips still tingling from the contact. “I don’t know what it says about me,” she muttered out loud, “but that was the best kiss I’ve had in forever.”

Chapter 11: Hoping’s Very Fears

Buffy didn’t have much time to think about Spike’s promise over the next couple days. She had work to catch up on for her class, plus trying to get ready for the final. There was a delinquent younger sister to corral, making sure she actually went to school and did her homework. Plus, of course, there were bills to pay, finances to go over, decisions to make on what was to be done with the gallery, as well as her mother’s things. The list went on ad infinitum. All in all, the last thing on her mind was an evening out as normal-girl and a certain peroxided person of the undead persuasion.

Perhaps that was what made the surprise all the sweeter when Dawn came running up the stairs that Saturday, beaming and slightly out of breath. “Buffy! You got a package!”

Buffy frowned, putting the finishing touches on the final project for her poetry class, and then followed Dawn downstairs. “Are you sure it’s for me, Dawnie?” she asked, trying to figure out who would send her something, and what it might be.

“It has your name on it,” Dawn assured her.

The package, a long, white box, was sitting on the kitchen table, and Buffy walked toward it with a feeling of trepidation. “Who brought it?”

“Delivery guy, just a few minutes ago.” Dawn shrugged. “Whoever it was, they just knocked and left.”

Her curiosity peaked, the Slayer approached cautiously, pulling the bow that held it closed and slowly lifting off the lid. Inside were a dozen roses of various hues and a note in a neat little parchment envelope. “Well, aren’t you going to read what it says?” Dawn asked impatiently when Buffy showed no sign of moving.

Buffy reached out for the envelope, feeling as though she was living a dream. It had been forever since anyone had thought to give her flowers. She was certain she knew who they were from, of course, but still—roses. And a note. It was nice.

Then she read the note, and it was more than nice.

Buffy,

You said you hadn’t had much chance for flowers and poetry, so I thought I’d give it a try. Would have done the red roses, but wasn’t sure you were quite ready for that yet. Next time maybe. And I’d have written the poem myself, but that would be sure to scare you off. So the words aren’t mine, but the sentiment is. If you want the evening out, love, meet me at the Bronze tonight at 8. If you don’t show, no harm done, and I won’t mention it again. As always, your faithful servant,

Spike

silently if,out of not knowable

night’s utmost nothing,wanders a little guess

(only which is this world)more my life does

not leap than with the mystery of your smile

sings or if(spiralling as luminous

they climb oblivion)voices who are dreams,

less into heaven certainly earth swims

than each my deeper death becomes your kiss

losing through you what seemed myself,i find

selves unimaginably mine;beyond

sorrow’s own joys and hoping’s very fears

yours is the light by which my spirit’s born:

yours is the darkness of my soul’s return

--you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars

Buffy recognized the style easily enough from her poetry class. E.E. Cummings was always easy to spot with his distinctive phrasing and creative punctuation. For some reason, she was surprised that Spike knew of him, but it seemed just one more aspect of his character that awaited discovery. But more than the surprise, there was the sense of being touched deep down inside herself, a place Riley had never been able to reach. A place that Angel had only hit a couple times. The poem, and the feelings behind it, were all very real. Quite suddenly she couldn’t imagine not meeting Spike at the Bronze.

“Well?” Dawn finally demanded after too long a silence from her sister. Buffy wordlessly held out the note, letting her read it. Finally the younger girl looked up at her, and asked with a coy smile, “So what are you going to wear?”

Buffy knew she was being a little silly after she tried on, and discarded, the fifth outfit. After all, Spike would be happy to see her whatever she wore, and the longer she took to make a decision, the more important the date itself became. And it wasn’t that important; it was just Spike. But every time she looked at his note, and the poem attached, she couldn’t help but go tingly all over.

Dawn was watching this whole performance with a mixture of curiosity and amusement, and she finally shook her head. “Buffy, just pick something. This is Spike.”

“So?” her sister responded. “Spike said he’d give me an evening out as a normal girl. Normal girls worry about what to wear on a date. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “You are so pathetic. Here.” She stood and starting pulling stuff out of the closet and handing it to Buffy. “Wear this. Spike will love it.”

Her younger sister had surprisingly good taste, because the light-weight black sweater and gray pants were both an attractive combo, and yet not too flirty. “Good call, Dawnie,” Buffy finally admitted.

The ringing of the phone stalled further conversation, and Buffy picked it up on the second ring. “Hello?”

Willow’s voice was cheerful. “Hey, Buffy. How ya doing?”

Buffy smiled. “Good. What’s up?”

“You want to come to the Bronze with us tonight? We all thought it might be good to have some down time, you know?”

Willow sounded so hopeful that Buffy hated to disappoint, but she was going to spend the evening with Spike. She wanted a date, and she was going to get it. “I actually have plans for tonight.”

“Plans?” Willow sounded surprised. “Oh, well, that’s good. With who?”

Buffy bit back a sigh. To tell, or not to tell, that was the question. Of course, if she went with the original plan, they might see her anyway. Explaining to Willow that she had a date with Spike was a bit daunting, however. “Spike.”

Buffy winced in anticipation of Willow’s reaction. “Like on a date?” There was definitely an alarmed squeak in her voice.

“Sort of.” Buffy quickly explained Spike’s promise and the note and flowers. Willow, romantic that she was, instantly melted.

“Oh, Buffy, that’s so sweet.” There was a pause, and then Willow spoke again, a puzzled note in her voice. “Wow. That really is sweet. From Spike.”

“I know.” Buffy sighed. “It’s not like we’re getting serious or anything, Wills, it’s just that I want a night out.”

Willow made a sound that Buffy interpreted as an agreement. “Well, sure. And with Spike you know if anything comes up he’s not gonna freak at the first sign of trouble.”

“No trouble,” the Slayer insisted. “Spike promised an evening trouble-free. Therefore, Buffy is looking forward to nothing more strenuous than a little time on the dance floor.”

Willow thought for a minute. “You definitely deserve it, Buf,” she agreed. “Who’s got Dawn-duty?”

“Dawn is spending the night at a friend’s house,” Buffy explained. “The only problem is Xander. If he sees me with Spike, good bye trouble-free night.”

“You let Tara and I handle Xander,” Willow reassured her. “You just concentrate on having a good time.”

Spike forced himself to not look at his watch again. He shouldn’t have gotten there early, it just made him that much more impatient for Buffy to arrive. It was past 8 though, and Buffy had yet to show up. He’d hated to get his hopes up, that she would show. “Hoping’s very fears,” indeed. His heart seemed a hostage to hope, these days.

The blonde vampire looked up from his drink suddenly. “Hello, luv.”

Buffy stood there smiling a little at him. It was a real smile, and it was just for him. “Hey. I like the roses.”

“Yeah?” Spike stood and pulled the other chair out for her. “’m glad, Buffy.” He waited until she had sat down before he did the same. “Wasn’t sure you were goin’ to come.”

“It was the poem that did it,” she confided.

He smirked. “Was that it? I’ll have to remember that in the future.”

“So what’s up with this date, huh?” she asked. “Are we actually going to do something, or are we just going to sit here all night?”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Well, I s’pose we could dance, if you’ve a mind to.”

Her eyes challenged him. “I do.”

Tara craned her neck a little to get a better view of the couple on the dance floor. They were off to the side and partially hidden in the shadows, so it was unlikely that Xander would catch sight of them any time soon. Even better, though not for him, was the fact that he had somehow strained a muscle. Just the fact that he wouldn’t say how, and Anya looking smug about it, told both her and Willow that they probably didn’t want to know.

She and her girlfriend exchanged a conspiratorial glance and then turned their attention back to the other couple. “So did Buffy say why she couldn’t make it?” Xander asked.

“Uh, no, not really,” Willow lied. Thankfully, she had gotten marginally better at not telling the truth over the years. “I think she just wanted some time to relax.”

Xander looked affronted. “And who better to relax with than her friends?” he demanded.

“Well, sometimes people need to relax alone, you know,” Tara said, quickly covering. Whatever happened to be going on between Buffy and the vampire, she didn’t need Xander on her back about it. Not tonight, anyway.

Anya nodded agreeably. “It’s sometimes good to spend time alone. I find myself refreshed after an evening of counting money by myself, and then I’m ready to have orgasms with Xander.”

Willow and Tara stifled giggles as Xander blushed. “An, honey, we talked about this. Let’s not mention that in front of my friends, okay?”

Anya shrugged, clearly not discomfited. “Fine, but you know it’s true.”

Xander could only look up at the ceiling, as though praying for patience. “Do you guys want anything to drink?” he asked, beginning to get up.

“I’ll get it,” Willow offered, throwing a slightly panicked look at Tara. “You sit, and rest your—” She paused. “Leg.”

“It wasn’t his leg that was strained, it was his—” Xander’s hand cut off the rest of what Anya was going to say as Willow started to walk away. And as the red-head walked past Spike and Buffy, she couldn’t help but see that they were oblivious to everyone and everything but each other.

“Tell me, luv,” Spike murmured. “Is this just for tonight? A one time thing? Or do you think we could make a habit of it?”

Buffy sighed softly, feeling almost content, oddly enough. She’d never have guessed she could feel this happy in Spike’s arms. “You mean like actual dating?”

“Somethin’ like that.” His grip tightened almost imperceptibly. “You said you wanted to wait a bit before getting into another relationship. I was just wonderin’ if the waiting might be over.”

She pulled back a little to look at him. “Would flowers and poetry be a regular feature? Because that would definitely sway me in that direction.”

“Could be,” Spike replied with a hopeful grin.

“And maybe you could even write me a poem yourself,” Buffy suggested playfully.

“If I did that, I’d have to kill you, luv,” he said, his face deadly serious.

She laughed. “Come on, you can’t be that bad. You don’t know until you try.” Spike gave her a look, and Buffy’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh. You have tried, haven’t you?”

“Long time ago, Buffy. And yeah, it was that bad.” His face showed no signs of the humor that had been there just a few minutes ago.

The Slayer shook her head. “That shouldn’t matter if the feeling behind it is right,” she argued.

Spike gave a bitter little laugh. “The poet’s sentiments don’t mean squat if the object of his affection bloody well hates him.”

“Then there would be no problem here,” Buffy replied.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he cocked his head to the side, studying her face. “You mean that? Does this mean we’re an item, you an’ me?”

“I think I might be convinced to go out with you.”

“Even though I’m a vampire? Without a soddin’ soul?” he asked.

She shrugged. “You’ve changed, and Angel’s been wrong before.” Buffy suddenly asked, “What changed you, Spike?”

The vampire smiled, surprised she didn’t already know the answer. “You did, luv.” He leaned down, his mouth next to her ear, and whispered, “’Losing through you what seemed myself, I find selves unimaginably mine; beyond sorrow’s own joys and hoping’s very fears yours is the light by which my spirit’s born. Yours is the darkness of my soul’s return. You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.’”

And then he kissed her, and Buffy drank of him deeply, losing herself and finding herself in the depths of his eyes and his love.

The End