“Bye my little Blondie Bear!” Harmony practically squealed as she left his office.

Gunn called it a nooner, a lunchtime booty call in other words, Spike just called it convenience. Just like he was to her. She was the great love of his life and she had called him convenient. His face was shocked with disbelief, even now, after all these years. She was his salvation, his reason to live again, his reason to help people, to be good. Well, it was good in his books anyway. He’d been working officially for Angel for at least a year now, after the dragon incident that left them a man down. He felt bad, like he was taking Wesley’s place in the company, and in the inner circle of Angel’s friends. Being head of demon assassination was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.

He never thought he’d be working for Angel. Actually that was a lie. He’d virtually worked for him for near on one hundred years. What he meant was, he didn’t think he’d be working in an actual business with Angel, where he’d earn actual money for doing actual work. His life was all irony these days.

She was always in his head, his love, his Buffy, even when Harmony would call into his office for one of their ‘nooners’. It was always her, always had been and always will be, even if he couldn’t have the real thing. She was his equal, despite the fact that she had a heartbeat and a pulse that is. In every way possible. She matched his strength, his wit, even his darkness. She had even excelled his darkness at times.

Yes he missed the sex, he’s only a man after all, but it was more than that. Being close, just touching her, holding her, being near her, smelling her. He chuckles at that. He’d always been a sucker for smells, especially that vanilla scented shampoo she used to use, it would linger in his nostrils for days after he’d bury his face in her hair. He’d beaten up Harmony so badly one day that if she were a human, she’d be dead right now. The reason why? For wearing vanilla perfume. The perfume that she used to wear. No-one was allowed to wear that, only her. Only for him.

She still doesn’t know he’s alive. He wants to tell her but fears rejection and the punch that comes after. The most he fears is the girl he’s left behind. Would she be a broken mess or a strong warrior? A light-hearted girl full of happiness or a dark angel, coated head to toe in depression? At this point, he doesn’t know what he fears most.

He taps his pen on the desk, straightens his tie and looks in the wall sized mirror behind his desk and finds himself staring at the wall behind him. He has no idea why he was assigned this office, surely Angel could have given it to somebody living. The mirror taunts him, every time he walks into his office, every time he leaves to retrieve his flask of blood from the kitchen. It tells him how inhuman he is, how wrong he is for her. He wonders for a moment of what he must look like, what she must have seen in him. It had been near on 200 years since he’d looked in a mirror and seen a reflection, and he hadn’t the slightest memory of what that was like. He knows he has distinctive cheeks bones. God, she’s kissed them often enough, caressed them with her delicate fingers, admired them with her eyes. He thinks he’ll make it his favourite part of him, in memory of her, considering he’ll probably never see her again.

He straightens his tie again, out of nervousness. He doesn’t know why, he just is. He always is when he thinks about her, just in case she decides to walk through the door, kick it down and charge in with her wit and sarcasm. She always knew how to make an entrance. In the last few months before he’d gone, she’d ceased to do that, had heard her knock for the first time when he was staying in her basement. It had puzzled him back then, seeing as it was her house. It was the turning point, the first rung on the ladder of trust between them. At least, that’s what he told himself.

“I love you.”

It reverberated in his head, like a blissful dream and his worst nightmare all rolled into one. She had finally said it, and he was on his way to death. He hadn’t believed her, just days before she had turned him down yet again, softer this time and no after-bruises.

“I don’t wanna be the one.”

That had hurt. He’d laughed it off at the time but it hurt just the same. It confused him, she’d told him she didn’t want him yet told him she loved him just days later. She had slept in his bed for Christ’s sake. It had to be love and she was just denying it, yet again. And he’d doubted her, just for a second but it was a second too long, and he had burned to a crisp.

“You’re a silly bugger aren’t you Spike?” He said to himself. He’d kicked himself every day since he’d been back for doubting her and every day it got harder. Every day he knew he could no longer touch her, feel her, talk to her, smell her hair, watch her smile. It didn’t make it any easier that he was working for her ex either, listening to them talk on the phone whilst Angel sshhed him into silence. It just wasn’t say living any more. He’d learned from a very wise girl that the hardest thing in this world is to live in it, and boy was she right. And he’d lived nearly 200 years of this hard life.

“I’ve been alive a bit longer than you, and dead a lot longer than that.”

She would be the death of him, for the second time anyway. Or third but who was counting. As far as he was concerned, life just wasn’t worth living without his girl. He loved saying that. His girl My girl, she’s mine you know, she told me herself. Well, not in so many words but something to that effect. He thinks that if he keeps on believing it, that someday it will come true, and she will be his again. They would live in a house in the country where no-one would be able to find them. They would grow their own vegetables so they wouldn’t have to food shop, they would own cows so he could bring her fresh milk in the mornings, they would stay in bed all day play footsie under the rubble at breakfast. Table, he means table. They would go for picnics at noon and have their own nooners, he would read her his better poetry and she would laugh at all his jokes and kiss him in public. This would only work, he realised, if they lived under a giant parasol.

He glanced at his watch and realised that his day ended half an hour ago. He lugged himself out of his comfy chair and slid on his leather jacket. He picked up his briefcase and walked out of the office heading for a cold shower. Just another working day.