Just for Tonight?

**PART TWO**
CHAPTER SIX

"You can stop that anytime soon."

"But -"

"No!"

"Okay, what's wrong?" Buffy was shook from of her sandwich making zone-out and turned around to her sister and her... She took in their demeanours, one pouty and a moment away from flouncing around the kitchen in sulky protest; the other stiff and unyielding, his arms crossed over his chest and his back firmly rooted against the wall.

(Could this be the strangest get-Dawn-ready-for-school morning ever?)

"Your sister seems to have confused me with a bleeding agony aunt." He fixed his glare on Buffy, waving an accusatory arm at the offending girl.

"What?" Dawn complained in her high pitched, it's-*so*-not-fair voice. "He's a guy. I needed the point of view of a non-Xander guy-type person."

"What's wrong with Xander?"

"Yeah, Xander would make a great agony aunt. He's half way there already -- all he need's a frilly blouse."

"Shut up, Spike."

Dawn shrugged and made a noise somewhere between a huff and a snort. "He's great, just all... uncle-y."

"Sounds perfect. Why don't you go bother him?"

"Spike." Buffy drew the name out slowly, marking it as the second warning it was. He eyed the butter knife she was gripping and turning as so to catch light enough to match the glint in her eye. Shrugging and reproducing Dawn's huff-snort almost perfectly, he fell back against the wall.

"It's just that Kevin -"

"You were asking for *Spike's* advice on *boys*?!" Buffy's eyes were wide with incredulity and her voice a strained chord of uneasiness. (Not the boy thing. Please tell me I don't have to give her The Talk any time soon.)

Dawn froze, as if caught with her hand in the cookie jar, only for defiance to creep back into her eyes. She folded her arms and bounced into an asymmetrical stance. "Yeah. And?"

"Well -"

"You are far too young to be getting fuzzy feelings."

(What the -)

Buffy, still open mouthed from being cut off, turned to stare at Spike. She was about to tell him shut up once more, but was instead cut off by Dawn.

"Buffy wasn't much older than me when she met Angel."

He blinked back a flinch at the name, but was not deterred, his lips curling with satisfaction as he scored the winning point. "And look how that turned out."

"I... hate you." Dawn stormed, long hair billowing out behind her like a smoky trail.

"And I don't care." Spike said to no-one in particular, simply fulfilling a petulant need to get the last word in.

The room hung suspended for half a moment, as if a Drama had finished and the players were a-waiting applause.

"Wow! You really have an effect on people, don't you?"

He looked up at her, smirk in full play and eyes gleaming. "I have an effect on you." Sidling up to her, his head bowed and hooded eyes bored into her as he advanced. It was all too reminiscent of the previous night and her breath hitched as he made contact with her flesh, his fingers reaching under her shirt and splaying out over her abdomen.

"What?"

She repeated the words that had got caught in her suddenly constricted throat. "This is not a good effect."

"No?" His hand glided its way over her hip as he moved in closer. His breath cool and shiver inducing as he blew against the scars on her neck that burned at his proximity. She gasped and clutched at him, grabbing a handful of his shirt and pulling his lips to hers.

"Eww!"

There was no more panicked separation, just a glide apart and a sigh or two.

"That's a pretty nasty habit you're developing there, Bit."

"Not my fault." Dawn said, her lips pressing together and forming a stubborn line as she marched up to the sideboard. "You could at least wait until I'm *out* of the house before jumping each other's bones."

"Dawn!"

"What?"

The sound of him chuckling behind her distracted Buffy from her berating of Dawn, she sighed and packed up the sandwich in a paper bag. Bending over to the fruit bowl and picking up a red and green apple, she held it up to her sister. "I'm guessing this is too much to hope for?"

Dawn shrugged, her nose wrinkling in consideration. "It's not entirely green."

"So we could just eat the red bits?"

That earned her a grin. "Whatever. Put it in -- but I'm not promising anything."

Buffy smiled and let the apple drop in to the bag with a rustle-y crunch that was so strangely satisfying, she conceded to the need to give it a light shake for good measure. "Have a good day at school."

"That'll be the day. Bye, Buffy." There was that huff-snort again that this time passed for a 'goodbye' to Spike as Dawn spun on her heel, her hair fanning out around her like the cascading sweep of a carousel. In a few strides she had cleared the kitchen and was heading for the door.

Buffy waited for the click to of the door and turned to Spike. "You really don't like her, do you?"

He snorted and the corners of his mouth twitched. "She's insufferable."

"Kinda like you then."

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"Insatiable!"

"And you're complaining?"

He made a show of trying to peer past her. "Well I was just try'na watch telly, Love..."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You and your square-eyes." She made a reluctant move to get off him, only for him to snatch her wrists in his hands to hold her.

"I can catch the repeats."

She grinned and closed the distance between their mouths.

"Oh... *bloody* hell!" He ground out in frustration, a rush of air storming through his nose. "Ignore it."

"I can't... it could be an apocalypse."

"Yeah, 'cos apocalypses just come a-knocking at your door."

"They do, if you're me." She gave him a crooked smile as she climbed off of him and headed for the door.

"Will?!"

"Yeah, it's me." Willow said, as if anyone could be left in any doubt after taking in the red hair and the tiny wave.

"Hey you. Wanna come in?"

Willow paused up on her tiptoes, newly conscious that she had been trying to peek into the house. "Uh, sure. I have something I think you're gonna like." She breezed through the door in haze of lavender and jasmine and something Buffy couldn't place.

Buffy indicated to the lounge and watched as Willow entered and her body abruptly stiffened as she came upon Spike. "Uh-oh...Hi!" The wave was this time a stiff-armed parody of a traffic-police officer's signal to stop.

"Hello, yourself."

"Say... you look less bruised."

"Uh, yeah..." Spike managed to exhibit only a vague level of visible discomfort; his elbows digging into the armrests of the armchair he had made his own. "Suppose I have you to thank for my swifty recovery."

Willow shrugged, modesty claiming her voice.

The three were encapsulated in a frozen bubble of a pause. Like a muted advert break there was picture but no sound. Willow nodded several times and Spike glanced at Buffy for an instant until, the picture of nonchalance, his attention reverted to the television. Buffy stared from one to the other, finally pointing out the couch to Willow and sitting down next to her.

"Will! You said you have news?"

Willow seized upon her cue with eye-widening zeal. "Yes! News!" She held up the velvet bag she had in her grasp. Out of which she produced a crystal ball. It was something of an anti-climax.

"I thought you hated that witchy cliché?"

Willow shrugged, the ball managing to stay balanced on her upturned palm. "They have their uses."

On closer inspection Buffy noted a swarm of purple mist undulating within the globe. "And this one is...?"

"It's a fa-" she stopped herself, as if knowing the name would be lost on Buffy. "We're not quite sure if it works yet."

"Why, what is it supposed to do?"

"Act kinda like an alarm clock."

Buffy's nose crinkled as she took the glass ball from Willow's proffering hand. "Thanks, my other one broke... keeps getting stuck at seven-thirty. So how does this thing work exactly?" She lifted it and glanced up at underside.

"I don't think she means *that* kind of alarm clock, you daft wench."

"Hey!" Buffy shot Spike a glare.

"Well it's not," his eyes settled to Willow, "is it?"

Willow shook her head. "No, he's right... it's like a warning device."

"Warning...?" She drifted off, all enthusiasm draining from her like electricity conducting through wood. (Of course, how could I forget?) "Glory," she sighed and put the ball aside.

"Just to be on the safe side, you know." Willow's hand was delving around in the velvet again and Buffy dreaded whatever she was going to pull out of the bag next. "Which is why Anya thought you should have this."

"The -" she was stumped for the name.

"Dagonsphere. The only thing we know that repels Glory."

"It's never over is it?" Buffy's eyes descended to the carpet.

Willow's expression faltered and faded altogether, her eyes flooding with concern. "Buffy, these are just safeguards... I-it just seems to be that the bads are always one step ahead of us, a-and now, with so much at stake..." she paused, her gaze flitting with a subconscious tendency to Spike. "We'd all feel better knowing you're safe."

The sentiment behind the words sprinkled like icing sugar over Buffy and she forced a smile that withered as Spike chose that moment to choke up a bitter sound of irritation. She lifted her eyes to meet his and he didn't need to say anything more.

"His 'akcur'" she imitated the sound with a magician's 'duh-der' gesture of her hands, "may have had a point. If Glory gets back to me, I'm supposed to fight her off with a glowy sphere and a glorified snow globe?"

"Always thought you had some balls for a girl." Spike said with a classic, irking smirk.

"*So* not funny." She glowered at him. Clenching her teeth to hide her smile she threw a cushion at him, a sense of gratification brewing from his muffled protest and pouting scowl. She turned her attention back to Willow.

"Okay, Wills, give me the techs."

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"No, I feel better about this now. And I'm thinking these things will make wicked-cool ornaments. Her eyes flitted to the mantle over the fire. "Much better than that yucky urn anyhow."

"I'm glad." Willow beamed full-force. Her body twisted into a stretch and she pushed her arms out, stopping when her eyes fell on Spike. "I guess we should get a few things straight." She spoke soft and serious and Buffy's heartbeat wavered as she did a double take.

"I don't like you and I have good reasons not to, what with the kidnapping-bottle-in-face-and-threatening-to-kill-Xander thing. But Buffy seems to like having you around, so that means I have to kinda like it too.

"For some reason, you being here seems to make for a whole-lot-smilier Buffy that I kinda like seeing. So if that means you sticking around, then that's the way it has to be."

"Will -" Buffy croaked.

"No! Don't interrupt me, I'm on a roll here." She bristled and with a roll of her shoulders, straightened her back, turning her attention back to a dumbfounded Spike. That was when Buffy decided she could enjoy this after all.

"Right where was I? Oh, yes. This is the part where I say something like: If you hurt her, I'll kill you. Well okay then, if you *do* hurt her, I *will* kill you. Don't look at me like that, I'm pretty nifty with a number two pencil, as it happens... Basically I don't have to like you o-or even like that Buffy likes you, but I like Buffy. You understand me?"

Silence inhaled and it's expanded lungs filled and sealed the room for an infinity or eternity, Buffy couldn't decide. She glanced from Willow to Spike just at the moment his gaping mouth closed and remoulded into a smirk.

"Completely." He nodded with complete confidence and turned back to the television.

"Well then, my work here is done." Willow smiled with quiet satisfaction and set about collecting her things.

"You going?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah. I have a whole *heap* of things I have to do to Tara -- uh," She froze a deep pink blush flourishing in her cheeks that Spike was taking far too much of an unhealthy interest in. "I mean *with* Tara -- no, that's not much better... uh, bye then."

In a flurry of motion she was gone. Spike stared after her for a moment, an expression of longing shaping and softening his features. He finally turned back to find Buffy with crossed arms and raised eyebrows.

"What?"

"You! Checking out my friend's blood circulation."

He smiled, willing to play along. "I'm a cold-blooded Vampire, I can't help it."

The twisting of her lips lifted into a smile.

"Don't worry, Love. I wouldn't want that when..."

He leered at her in a way that initiated a warming chill that fizzled throughout her body. She opened her mouth to reply with something as audacious and inane, only to stop and consider his words. She stared at him, her brow furrowing with the realised implications.

"Then why... *this*," she indicated the air between them, "when you must want..."

He shrugged. "I'll take whatever you can give me."

TBC

**PART TWO**
CHAPTER SEVEN

She caught a flash of the metallic silver object out of the corner of her eye and her senses fixed upon it, turning over in bed so that she didn't have to twist her neck.

"I hope you're not planning on smoking in here."

He shook his head, a wavering expression flitting across his features as he clicked the lighter open igniting a flare of light that masked his bone structure with an amber glow.

Her expression hardened with concentration, a faint nag of concern straightening her back as she wrapped the sheet round herself and sat up. She stared at the hand that hovered only just within minimum-safe-distance of the shivering flame. "What are you -?"

Another shake of his head silenced her once more and her attention returned to the fire, ready to intercede should the element's nature remember Spike's nature. Silence danced within the flickering blue heart of the flame and she was transfixed.

After an eternity or two had been consumed and burnt out by the fire, the lighter snapped to extinguishing the flare and jolting her back into awareness. She glanced up to eyes that that still held the flame's blue heat and was once more captivated. So absorbed that she didn't register his first touch until his hand moved up past her knee. Looking down with furrowed brows, it was a moment before she realised what was different.

"Warm?" His hand had retained the fire's heat. (Not -) Meeting his eyes again she shook her head. "I warm you."

An acknowledging smile crossed his lips as he leant in to kiss her. "That you do."

She gasped as his naturally cool hand met her body the instant his lips brushed hers.

"Ugh!"

"Bad day?" Buffy followed Dawn into the kitchen and spoke to her sister's back, watching as she headed straight for the fridge to load up on and sugar.

Dawn shrugged, cradling her selection snacks up to the island and off-loading them into a heap for further contemplation. "Was okay. If it was bad you'd really know about it."

"Just so long as you're okay."

Dawn glanced up from her perusal. "How can I not be when I have all these munchies?"

Buffy smiled, coming forward to examine the food (if you can call it that). "Think I went overboard with the shopping?"

"No, not overboard. -- More like you drowned in the keeping-greedy-teenagers-happy aisle."

(Happy?)

Buffy glanced up from the ingredients listing she was reading and mirrored Dawn's grin. "This is just a big pile of E numbers isn't it?"

"Uh-huh... and your point is?"

"I have no point." Buffy shrugged. "I am point-less."

"Well you said it." Spike drawled, ignoring Buffy's glare and converging on the pile. "Hmm. Peanut butter."

"Hey! I want that."

"Tough."

Dawn's lip jutted out in a full-blown pout as she lunged for the jar only for Spike to take a step back. "You're evil."

Spike nodded with a strangely familiar glint in his eyes. "Yep." He forced the airtight lid with ease and dipped a finger in for an ample helping of the gooey substance. "There you go."

"Eww... I don't want it now your freaky undead fingers have been in it."

"He'll get you some more, Dawn." She turned and fixed her eyes on a gaping Spike, cutting off any attempt of argument. "Won't you, Spike?"

He produced another of Dawn's patented grunts and set to licking the peanut butter off his finger. Buffy turned away as a flush of heat rose up her neck and burned her cheeks.

"Good."

"Good." Dawn repeated for emphasis. Crossing her arms and smugness in full flow, she glared at Spike.

He paused and blinked, finally recovering his smirk as he swallowed his mouthful. "Still evil."

A bitter breeze nipped at her face as she stepped out on to the step slamming the door behind her. (So much for spring.) She wrapped the flaps of her coat closer around herself and exhaled her frustrations into the wind. Hearing the door open and close behind her, she smiled.

"You okay?" She heard him ask.

She nodded. "Am now."

"It's just—he's only..."

Feeling the by now familiar twist of instinct turn in her as he stepped up behind her, she leant against him. "I know... Xander was just being Xander." She forced a smile and looked back at him. "But I don't want to think about him -"

"Understandable."

"Hey!" She turned in his arms and curled her hands round the lapels of his duster, smiling at the feel of the soft leather under her touch. "He's my friend... he may be an ass sometimes, but he's still my friend. Okay?"

He held her stare, one side of his mouth lifting. "Okay, there will be no bad-mouthing of the baby-sitting ass."

Buffy rolled her eyes, catching a subtle change in his expression she questioned him: "What?"

Averting her stare, he shrugged. "You think... Dawn --?"

"Will be okay... Glory can't come near with the - are you worring about my sister's safety there?"

"What? No, I --"

"Good -- 'cos that's my job."

She relaxed her fingers until her grasp of leather fell away to handfuls of intangible air. An impulse flitted across her mind's eye in a pulsing strobe of light and she clutched at him again, gripping his leather in tight fists as she tugged him into a kiss.

"I like this coat." She breathed as they parted, her palms smoothing it out along his shoulders. "Where'd you get it from?"

An abrupt choke of a laugh caused her to look up at him again. He shook his head. "...Off the last Slayer I killed."

His gaze didn't avert, he was gauging her reaction. She nodded, releasing the instant tension from her muscles and the breath that plugged her lungs with a slow, controlled exhale. "Oh."

"Yeah... 'oh'."

Silence danced at their feet, mocking her from its short perspective. She flicked it away with a shake of her foot as she turned to head down the steps. "Come on, we'd better be going." She kept her stride short until he appeared beside her.

"Where you taking me anyhow?"

She smiled as she looked at him, picking up speed and noting the ease with which he kept up with her. "You'll see."

"What is this place?"

Buffy watched him turn about the spot, taking in the new environment. "My training room."

He nodded, his lower lip jutting out in appraisal. "I'm impressed."

"Giles was saying I need to get back to training. It's been a while -- ever since..." she trailed off, not needing to say any more.

"Yeah." He reached out and smoothed a loose strand of hair behind her ear before completing one more circuit, taking in the weapons on the wall and the dummy Xander made. "It's nice and all, but what the hell am I doing here?"

She shrugged, letting her arms loll at her sides as she ambled an arc around him. "I kinda thought we could..." looking at him, she grinned at his skewed stance and raised eyebrow, "train."

"Train?"

"Yeah, you know, get with the..." she punched the air in front of her and opened her hands out to carry the gesture over to him.

"You want me to fight you?" His hands were in his pockets as he rocked back in his boots, a quiver of a grin betraying his attempt at incredulity.

"Well, duh! Give the boy a gold star. - You did promise."

His brow furrowed and his gaze turned to the ceiling in confusion. "When?"

"When I was drunk, that first night... You said you'd 'humour' me."

He laughed, his tongue pushing one concave cheek out. "I'm pretty sure there was a 'maybe' in there somewhere."

"Maybe, schmaybe." She cringed but transformed it quickly into a smirk, continuing her meander around him until he had to crane his neck to see her. "You gonna disappoint me? You gone all... soft on me?"

His face clouded at her words and the memory they incited. (It's working.)

"Did I tell you lately just how unbelievably annoying you are?"

She rolled her shoulders as she began bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I am kinda unbelievable aren't I?"

"One of a kind."

A sensation rippled through her body, following the path of his eyes as he looked her up and down and she looked away to hide her smile. "Shame the same can't be said for you."

He flinched, his eyes jerking back up to hers and darkening as they took in her expression. "What?"

"You heard me." She sighed and examined her nails half-heartedly (so in need of a manicure). "There's nothing that makes you different from Vampires I slay every night of week. You've just got some delusions of grandeur 'cos you got lucky with a couple of Slayers -"

"More than a couple."

She ignored him, didn't look at him as she continued. "You're nothing special. The only reason I let you live as long as I did was because I. Felt. Sorry. For you."

His eyes flared as he glared at her, his arms crossing and his gaze narrowing into a keen squint.

(Gotchya.)

"That what you really think... that all this is? Just pity?"

She stopped walking and aligned her body with his, mirroring his stance. "That's entirely what this is.-- But hey - it's mutual, right?"

The flash of hurt that sprinted across his features pulled at her gut, but she ignored it, straightening her back. When she lifted her head the slate of his features had been cleared and chalked with anger.

"I don't believe you." His voice was a shadowy whisper of his usual tone and she had to strain to hear him.

"No?" She smirked at him, opening her arms out into a wide shrug. "Then do something about it... show me what makes you different - Come on Spike. Humour me."

Her vision red-blacked with the impact, a surge of hot pain flaring the whole left side of her face. (Deja vu.) She touched at her cheek, checking for blood as she righted herself back into balance. A laugh fluttered out of her throat as she settled into fighting stance and looked up to see his startled features.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak she dealt the retaliating blow to his jaw. She smirked as his head snapped back with the force and righted to reveal his game face.

"That's more like it."

"Getting tired, Slayer?" He purred as he advanced on her, blood dripping from his re-broken nose and a cut above his eye.

"Not likely. I can keep going all night."

His jaw pushed forward as his tongue pushed against his lower teeth. (Another smirk - maybe I should start cataloging them.)

"Oh, I know that, Slayer."

She wiped the smug grin with another punch. "Shut up."

Somewhere along the line it disintegrated. Somewhere along the line they'd started throwing punches and kicks with the intention to miss. Every now and then he would catch her fist and their fingers and eyes would instinctively interlock until they pushed away from each other with appalled moans of protest. Every now and again floorings and subsequent straddled attempts for dominance had only led to much rolling, grunting and pathetic struggles that were less about harm and more about contact.

The problem was that they had crossed the line.

She went down with a sigh that resounded into a groan from the impacts of the matted floor and his weight crashing down onto her. Hands that should have fought him off clutched at him as he lunged for her neck. She gasped and braced herself, feeling a familiar pressure against her thigh she smiled and twisted her head to extend her neck -

They froze.

Cringing as she felt his biceps contract under her grasp, she reluctantly turned to face the head that was lifting with excruciatingly slow progress to reveal questioning yellow eyes. Silence more than made up for its earlier dismissal, proudly pantomiming despite the lack of audience participation.

(Behind you.)

A nervous burst of laughter emerged from her constricted throat, the sound ricocheting around the few centimetres of space separating them, but nothing was released. The air pressurised, the atmosphere condensed, and she struggled for air as they exchanged the same breaths.

She stared up at him, her eyes flickering across his face to take in the harsh lines of his game face, the feral yellow eyes, the dried blood and the orthodontist's nightmare. He should have repulsed her, but when their eyes met again and he leant in, she found herself responding, opening her mouth so that she could taste the blood on his lips and trace the jagged edges of his deathly acute teeth. She'd been here before, but in a way she hadn't; she knew what was coming, but in way it was alarmingly new. Her pulse accelerated in anticipation and she nodded.

She wanted it.

A sigh of anticipation escaped her as his lips began their descent along her jaw line and down her neck. He paused at her scars and with a mumbled grumble switched to other, untainted side of her neck. He licked the sheen of sweat from her skin, drawing his tongue along the throbbing vein. She gasped as his teeth scraped against the site and he simultaneously ground himself into her groin. Her pulse was racing and her blood rising to the surface, heating her body with an illuminating glow.

She felt his hand on her arm, smoothing down the muscles and descending to take the pulse at her wrist before taking her hand. A twist of digits and palms and their fingers were twined, he squeezed her hand lightly and she responded with a final assent as his teeth punctured her skin.

Fragments of songs whistled through her mind. The tone frail and rasping like fragile shale crushing to dust underfoot. Remnants of childhood rhymes whispered to her, echoing a time when she was all naive innocence and her mother's embrace was warm and soothing.

His embrace was warm, his body heated with her blood. She relaxed against the solid weight of his chest, his hands on her bare shoulders and his legs jutting out on either side of her. He was speaking to her, the deep hum of his voice surrounding her, but she wasn't listening. She sighed and sank further against him, letting the lilt of his words wash over her and the vibrations in his chest percolate through her body and lull her into a contented snooze.

"You okay?"

She grinned at him but it paled into a grimace, she made a few not-word noises and in exacerbation pointed at her neck. "How'm I gonna explain this to Xander?"

His response was a smile, his lips barely moving but his forehead lifting and his eyes shining in the moonlight. "You don't"

"But -"

He silenced her with a kiss and she didn't resist, her body melted against his.

"I have turtlenecks."

"If it bothers you that much - here." He shrugged out of his duster and wrapped it around her, pulling the lapels of her coat up to cover her neck. "Better?"

(Warm)

She smiled. "Better."

TBC (Three chapters left)

**PART TWO**
CHAPTER EIGHT:

"Come on Dawn." She eyeballed the staircase with impatience painting hot streaks from her cheeks to her temples.

"Relax, Love."

"Easy for you to say. You don't have to go see Dawn's principal."

He came up behind her; his hand smoothed over her hair and tingles of sensation permeated through her scalp. The tension draining out of her for a moment as she dissolved against him.

"You're the Slayer. You shouldn't let no bint in a matching twin-set get to you."

"She could do stuff."

He was obviously amused for she could hear his smile before he spoke. "Like what?"

"Like..." The words dissipated into the billowing blend of calm and tension as she concentrated on the cooling progress of his lips and hands. "She has the power of the Detention and the Expulsion."

"Oh, evil! She must be stopped." A short burst of laughter blew against her cheek and infected her with a giggle or two. "That's not what you're worried about, though."

(How does he always know?)

The giggles fizzled out into the warming air around them and she nodded. "She could be... make -"

"Make you feel bad. Tell you that you're a bad parent."

Tensing at the words, she felt his arms stiffen around her. She couldn't understand it, but there was almost something empathetic about it, as if - (I really need to stop with the over-analysis.)

He fingered at the scarf that covered her healing scar and she shivered at the sensation of his touch and his whispered words: "I could bite her."

She closed her eyes against the swarm, only for them to snap open in delayed reaction. "No... You don't -"

He chuckled his head leant in to kiss the covered bite mark. "Don't worry, my teeth are all yours."

The urge to roll her eyes struck her, but she lacked the energy and she waned against him once more only to be jolted by high pitched ringing. Making a small noise of frustrated irritation she stepped out of his arms to answer the telephone.

"You should really stop picking arguments with angry walls." Dawn smiled with a small circular motion of her head taking in the new bruises and healing cuts on Spike's face.

Her answer was a glare that held no ice. His pursed-lips pulled into a smirk and then a one-sided grin as he shrugged.

"That was Giles. He sounded..."

"Giles-y?"

Buffy rolled her eyes at her sister, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"Yeah, but kinda like he has something very unpleasant to tell me. I don't know, it just gave me the wiggins."

"Maybe the world's ending." Dawn said with such supreme nonchalance that Buffy had to blink a few times before replying.

"You've been living on the Hellmouth too long, missy."

Dawn grinned. "Guilty."

"We'll get back to that matter later."

"I didn't do... " She began to protest, only to be stopped by Buffy's unyielding expression. "Bye, Spike."

"Bye, Bit."

"Start walking and I'll catch up."

Dawn shot Buffy another scowl before slinking out the door and striding away down the Revello Drive.

"You know, I like her more and more every day."

She turned to him, a wry smile lifting one side of her mouth. "Be nice."

"Aren't I always?"

"Funny that when I think 'Spike', 'nice' isn't the first word that comes to mind. 'Nice' doesn't even figure in the top twenty."

(Oh no.) He was advancing on her again, in slow and steady footfalls that echoed through her. "Then what is the first word you think of?"

"Uh -" She pre-empted him, hauling him into a kiss that melded their smiles together.

His lips, still slightly swollen from last night, were light on hers, parting her lips with soft teases until any thought of pain gave way to the sensations swaying them against each other and tugging at something inside of her. Then they were at her neck, cool fingers pushing away her scarf and touching at the tender skin and gently tapping out jolts of stimulation.

She gasped as his lips closed over the scar, arching into him with an anxious urgency. She heard something, a non-slayer sense perked at some stimulus. Something wasn't right. Was he laughing at her? No (Then what is that noise? That smell?)

Everything ceased with the realisation. Everything falling away until only instinct remained. She pushed him away with enough force to knock him back a few paces onto staggering feet.

Knock him back into the safety of the house's shade.

He stared at her, his eyes fogged with incomprehension until he noticed it too. The sizzling had ceased, but his skin was still smoking in places, grey mists of mortality rising from reddening marks on his hands and one side of his face.

And he laughed, properly laughed, grinning up at her with an expression she'd never seen before. On anybody.

She smiled, her body flushing with relief. (Relief?) Her brow furrowed with the implication. She had possibly saved his life and she was relieved.

Allowing the 'moment' to eke itself out for a few more seconds as they stared at each other, she waved before reaching in and closing the door.

She shivered. The air was charged around her. Nitrates fizzling and bustling against each other. There would be a storm, she reasoned, with thunder and lightening enough to rend the sky into tiny fragmentary remnants of what was once blue. She squinted up into the calm azure for a moment before the tinkling of that damned bell signalled her arrival at the Magic Shop.

Humming. Anya was humming. Little notes of instrumental synchronising with the fluttering of her pink feather duster. So content was she in her task, that she didn't even notice Buffy's entrance. Buffy frowned. Maybe Anya was lost to her capitalist instincts, or perhaps she had some kind of potential customer radar that Buffy, having no money on her, didn't figure upon.

Giles was distracted too. His fingers pressing into the bridge of his nose as he sighed over a pile of books.

There were vibes. Vibes outside in the ionic charged atmosphere, and in here too as Silences jittered and rebounded against each other. She worried for a moment that if she spoke her voice would carry no sound and instead would splinter into a thousand tiny tendrils that Silences would use as ribbons for some parade.

Thankfully Giles looked up and motioned to her before she had the chance to test the theory. She sat down at the table and glanced briefly at the books.

"Right, you're here. Anya?"

"Hmm?" Anya spun round, eagerly gripping the duster in between two sets of fingertips.

"There's not much else to do here. You may as well go."

Anya's gaze flitted to the till and back to Giles. She obviously didn't like the suggestion very much. Her eyes were wide, panicked almost. "But the money. I have to take care of the money..."

Giles nodded, he understood her well enough by now. "I'll do that Anya -"

"...Count it up and sort it out into neat piles, and put it into those cute little bags with the dollar symbols on them, and take them down to the bank..."

"Anya -"

"The money needs me, Giles."

"The money will be fine." Giles took a deep breath as if he was going to heave a particularly heavy sigh, only to pause and rethink. "How... how about I put it all in the safe and you can come in early tomorrow to do... what you do."

Anya glanced at the till again, her face the picture of conflict for a moment as she weighed up Giles' suggestion. A beam of consent lit up her features as she settled. "That would be agreeable... boss."

"Good." Giles let out half-a-sigh of relief. "Now get your things together and you can get home to Xander."

Anya nodded, beam still unwavering. "He will be happy to see me home early. We can go to bed and he can show me just how happy he is to see me." With one more hummed note of satisfaction as she waved the feathers over the sun leeched pages of a row of old volumes, she nodded once more and scurried behind the counter.

Buffy laughed despite her deflation. Giles was blushing, even though he should be infinitely used to Anya by now.

"Are you going to talk about Dawn being bad now?"

"Anya -"

"Or about Spike? I don't mind staying to talk about him."

"Anya. Please... just go."

Giles placed a comfortingly steamy coffee in front of her and she smiled as her hands enveloped the cup, the warmth seeping though into her hands. Smiling at her memories.

"How did it go?" Giles asked as he sat opposite her, shifting a few books to make room for his tea.

"Okay... I guess. The principal she was all kind reason. I didn't like her." She smiled wryly up at Giles. "At least with Snyder, you knew were you stood."

"Yes, quite." A small smile lifted his lips as he lifted the stringed tea bag out of his cup. "What did she have to say?"

Buffy blew out her cheeks and shrugged. "Oh, you know, lots of cleverly disguised lecture-y type things. Basically Dawn's been skipping school and not been doing teacher-y-pet thing like her homework-or even any work."

"Ah... I-it's understandable really, after your mother..."

Buffy looked down as her fingers began to turn the cup within the sphere of her grasp. "Dawn made some protests about things being better since Sp-" she cut herself off and glanced at Giles who acquiesced her with a nod. "The headmistress seemed to agree that her-how did she put it? 'Her progress has picked up of late, though not enough to be entirely convincing.'" Buffy groaned and slumped forward, her head resting on a still warm hand.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded and then shook her head, her eyes closing to in an effort to squeeze the tension out of her face. "Giles, she said stuff... stuff about social services, a-about taking Dawn away from me." She looked up at Giles, her eyes glassy and panicked. "I can't let that happen. She needs me, I need her... she's special."

"Yes, she's The K-"

"No. Not just that, she's my sister... she's me"

Giles nodded, his hand reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. "Yes. I know. It won't come to that, I'm sure."

"Could you... could you... have-talk to her?"

Her eyes were wide in appeal but Giles shook his head.

"I think that's you job now, don't you?"

"It's just... so hard."

"It's never easy, Buffy."

"Actually there was something-a number of things I had to tell you. But perhaps now is not the right time."

(Uh oh.) Buffy slouched, her eyebrows lifting in defiance. "Come on Giles. You can't get all curious on me and then keep quiet."

Giles let out a small laugh of acknowledgement. He knew her too well. "No, I suppose not. It's just I don't really know where to start -"

"How 'bout at number one and work through."

Another laugh, (what's he so nervous about?) "Very well. First of all, Angel called back -"

"Angel?" Buffy repeated in a surprised squeak.

"A while ago actually. Just with... everything, it slipped my mind."

"Mine too." She smiled and so did Giles.

"He wanted to check, see i-if... Spike had turned up."

Buffy's chest swelled with the effort to draw air. She hadn't realised she was holding her breath. She reached out for the potential comfort of her empty coffee mug, but it was cold now. "What did you tell him?"

"The truth."

"What?!" The coffee mug skidded along the tabletop as she pulled back, the scraping sound cutting into the tension in her gut and she cringed against it.

"Well when I say the truth, there may, in fact, have been a few... exclusions." A flicker of smile danced around Giles' eyes and Buffy laughed. "I told him that you dealt with him. That he did indeed show up wanting your blood..."

A swarm of warmth flushed Buffy's cheeks and her fingers shot to the scarf around her neck, she tried to cover up the gesture, but it was too late.

"...and it would appear that he got it."

"Giles, I-I... this is..."

"We've been here before, Buffy." Giles sighed and she dropped her eyes away from his disapproval. "Not too long ago, either. Well you're still here - and breathing no less - so am I to assume that Spike is dead, uh deader?"

She inhaled deeply as she looked up. He may be ashamed of her, but she realised that she wasn't ashamed of herself.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"It was training."

"Training?" Giles asked with the air of someone who really didn't want to be here having this conversation. He took off his glasses and absently rubbed at the lenses with the sleeve of his shirt.

"Yes, training. You should be pleased - you wanted me to get back to it a-and he was more a challenge than Xander's dummy an-"

"Buffy, you don't have to explain yourself to me. I-in fact, the way this is going, I would really rather you didn't."

Buffy took a moment to see the hook she was being let off and smiled in relief. Giles nodded to her, a motion that said it all. That she was her own responsibility and that he trusted her. Silences hopped on to the table and provided a dance interval as she drifted into the melee of her thoughts. "You think Riley was right about me?"

Giles frowned, not expecting to hear that name. "In what way?"

Buffy shifted in her seat, slumping down even further. "What he said - when Dracula... about me being some kind of Vampire groupie?"

Giles cleared his throat. "I don't think he was one to really judge, considering the circumstances in which he left. Besides, Dracula had you under thrall... Did Spike -?"

She guffawed, humour shining in her eyes. "No..." she drew out the sound with incredulity (does he even know how to do that?) But then she deflated again; repeating the word more quietly as her eyes fell to stare at the invisible, spider-webbing patterns she was drawing on the table.

"I don't know if I can keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Giving myself to Vampires."

Giles leant forward to clean away the cups. "As I said... there were circumstances, thralls -"

"No, Giles." She pulled herself to sit upright, forced herself to look him in the eyes. "I don't mean The Master, or Dra--I mean giving myself to Vampires."

"Oh."

"Yes... 'oh'."

TBC

**PART TWO**
CHAPTER NINE:

"So it's a once only deal?"

"Yes." Giles clarified, fully leaning into Watcher-mode. "The opening of dimensions has to coincide with a number of astrological occurrences. Glory has but one chance to unleash hell on Earth. By the council's calculations, these phenomena shouldn't be in line for another few weeks yet."

Buffy exhaled heavily. "That's good news, right?"

"Yes. I-it would appear that the Watcher's Council came through after all."

"And what happens when it doesn't work for her? I'm the first person she's gonna be after. I'm really not liking Dawn's idea about the line of dead people leading up to my door."

Giles cringed as she had and something inside her squirmed and reassembled into an internal smile.

"For once we are one step ahead and we can use the next few weeks to our advantage - plan a strategy and gather some kind of... force to use against her--No one is truly invincible. Everybody has a weak spot - an Achilles Heel. It's just a matter of discovering it."

She thought of Spike harbouring the burns of the morning's sun and smiled. "Yeah... they do."

"So, that's it?" She asked standing up and working the knots out of her back with a long stretch of a yawn.

"Well there is... there is something else."

(Oh no.)

"Spike."

The floor leaped and lurched under her feet as her chest heaved around an airless breath. An intense nausea clogged in her gut as her fingernails gripped at the tabletop.

"I-I'm sorry, Buffy."

"You're sure?" She asked with quick desperation, but she already knew. Knew from Giles' tone of voice when he had said 'there is something else'. Knew from the instinct that uncurled in her with vague yet certain knowledge. Knew from his multiple reminders of his innate nature - a nature she had surely known he wouldn't be able to deny.

"I'm afraid so, Buffy. It--they began this week. There can be no other explanation."

(No. Of course not.) There was only ever one explanation when it came to her love life: Vampire. She swallowed heavily against the lump in her throat.

"I have to go." She stood with an exclamatory scrape back of her chair, her legs taking a few a few moments to recover from the numbness that was threatening to drown her in inertia. On her way to the door something caught her eye and she seized upon it, picking up the black onyx mould and examining it absently in a fruitless search for a price tag. "Tell Anya I'll pay for this... whenever."

Her answer was a curt, and sympathetic nod and the pressing together of lips into something that could have been labelled a half-smile under different circumstances. She repeated the gesture and scowled as the bell signalled her exit.

She silently railed at the inevitability of her life, at the sense of foreboding that was always validated in the most sickening ways. And there she was walking home in through slowly darkening streets as rain began to spittle down on her. There would be a storm and for once she was grateful for the dramatic irony. A weight of dread pitted into her solar plexus as she neared Revello Drive, her fingers beginning to pain against the object in her hand.

Asleep.

Again. Dead to the world. Dead to her?

(I lied.)

Lying prostrate on the sofa in a pose that made known his undead status. His face burrowed in cushions, his body preternaturally lax in a position that would have suffocated anyone who needed to breathe. One arm sprawled over his head and reaching out to a beam of fading light. Fingers twitching in parody of a cardinal rhythm.

She hated him at that moment and concentrated the feeling in a bitter swell that she used to fuel her assault.

"Get up!" The kick to the sofa had no effect and her hands fisted in frustration, one set of fingers white-knuckling around the black object. She tried again. "Get. Up!"

He jolted with a muffled yelp, shook by the reverberating force and hollow echoes of her kick. His head and then body twisted and one blue eye frowned at her.

"What is it?"

A surge of white-blue rage bubbled up and emerged from her throat in a bitter laugh. "Everything."

He knew. Knew something what was wrong. She could sense the instincts kicking in with swooping scopes of his mind. Did he leave his blood out to congeal? Had he forgotten to take his boots off? His inverted gaze fell to his bare feet and settled there.

"You know."

She didn't have anything in her. No words, no energy to transmute into sound, nothing. She nodded and so did he.

"I... It was only a few. Only a bit."

She backed away from him as he stood. Afraid of what he might do, afraid of what she might do, afraid of him and herself. Conflicting impulses swarmed, moulded and melted inside of her, fading away to nothing. No action other than her continued backing-away from him. He met her step for step, not closing but preserving the distance.

There was something in his stance she didn't recognise, his shoulders tense and his body thrumming with... something. "I know I said I wouldn't, but -"

"You just couldn't help yourself." She finished for him, her eyes narrowing against the sickeningly sudden understanding.

"I didn't want to help myself." He met her eyes but there was no defiance there, his gaze wavered slightly as if unsure of his focus and she recognised it finally. Fear. "But I didn't-It was only a bit from each. I didn't kill anyone -"

"Yes! You did." The surge of air rushing out of her stressed each word with desperation for him to understand as she did. Her heartbeat quickened with panic as she searched his eyes for a futile attempt to find some kind of comprehension. She tried again, weaker this time. "Yes... you did." Her shoulders rolled forward in defeat and she fell back against the wall.

"I'm sorry, Buffy."

It was all it took: three words and she straightened back up and back into herself, staring at him in incredulous anger and hatred and -

"Who are you sorry for, Spike?" The steadiness of her voice surprised her and she realised she was borrowing something from the Buffy of years ago, from the Buffy she feared dead. "Me? Yourself? 'Cos you sure as hell aren't sorry for that person you killed. For their families."

He flinched and her eyes seized upon it, a perk of hope rising to the forefront and keening on his every move. A hand came up to run through his hair and any minute trace of discord was wiped out with the neutralising of his features.

Nothing. (This is what he is. Cold. Remorseless. A killer.) She shivered in the confines of a momentary hesitation of silence.

"I don't... I can't..."

"You can't imagine how they feel." It was a statement, but her ears heard the plea in her own words, knew that she hadn't achieved shutdown just yet. She hated herself. Hated that she didn't hate him.

Silence engorged with the swell of her heartbeat and magnified the distance between them. He was lost to her now... surely?

But then he spoke.

"They'd feel... like you and me."

She choked on a dry sob of what? Relief? Derision? He eyes flitted to the sofa he had helped purge of negative associations. "Then why?"

He shrugged. He really didn't know. All in the moment he looked so lost and out of place and she found herself wanting to shout to him, remind him that this was his place, his home.

"Do you want me to go?"

(Oh God.) She blinked against her liquid vision and shook her head vehemently. "No, no, never. Don't ever ask me that again."

"I don't know if I can -"

"Couldn't you at least try?" She asked against the resistance of her tight chest.

"Why?"

"Because it'd make this easier." She heard something drop with a hollow din and in flashback pictured her weakening fingers losing grasp of the black object. She followed, slumping to the floor and belatedly becoming aware of the deflation and ebbing away of any resolve.

Wide eyes fell to stare at the abstraction of carpet. Only aware of shapes and colours she saw something familiar come to her in a flash of pale skin, a triangle of black and a piercing dot of blue she used as her fixed point as she began to retrace the map of herself.

"It's never easy, Buffy."

Her gaze lifted to his as he sank down in front of her and reached out to skin that craved his touch. She exhaled with a heavy sigh as he made contact leaning in to him and covering the distance and letting his body absorb the tremors of her own.

His hands were in her hair, brushing it back and his lips on her face, kissing her softly, fiercely. Gentle soothing caresses alternating to desperate pressures against her flesh as if he couldn't decide which way forward. She saw it then, in his eyes. She felt it: his desperation. He was so desperate for her to forgive him.

Didn't he know that if she hadn't already, he'd be dead?

"I just know."

He stilled, his head pulling to look at her. "What?"

She shook her head and made it known in other ways. In the way her lips touched his, in the way her fingers splayed against his cheek, in the way she rocked her hips against the hardening in his groin.

"I..." He trailed off with a gasp, the echoes of his every sound surrounding and trickling through her.

She trembled, her insides shivering against the confines of her body as if struggling to externalise, to pull her inside out. Grasping at his shoulders she felt his release with the uncoiling of tension in the muscles under her kneading fingers.

Her forehead dipped to rest against his as they recovered and she allowed her ragged breath to even out into the cadence being set by the rhythm of the letters he was painting with his fingertips on her back. She sighed. Quelling against him, her fingers began to trace something intrinsic on his scalp.

"What's this?" He asked, an amusing glimmer of boy-like curiosity gleaming in his eyes as he picked up the fallen shape. He examined it, turning it over and around and observing how the curve of its hollow captured and reflected the light.

"It's for you." She admitted almost shyly, her eyes dropping to take in their entangled limbs and back up to his smiling eyes. "It's an ashtray."

He chuckled, his chest and shoulders shaking with it and she felt herself smile until his face furrowed and became pensive.

"You don't like it?"

He shook his head, a quirk of a smile twitching at his lips. "I love it. But if it's a present - you have to give it to me."

Rolling her eyes, she took it from his proffering hands. Only there was something in the way he held it out to her, almost challenging her to admit that it was more than just an ashtray.

She cleared her throat and wriggled into a straight-backed pose, her eyes squinting at the ceiling for inspiration before meeting his. "I saw this today and it reminded me of you. I would like you to have it."

He smiled as he leaned in for it, drawing his fingers over hers as he accepted the gift. "Thank you. I'll get you something."

She lifted an eyebrow and he shrugged. His eyes dipping in the way hers had and drawing him into himself. "I am sorry."

"I know." She whispered and pulled him back against her.

Gasping at the sensation of his mouth on her neck, she moved with him as he shuffled on top of her and when she opened her eyes the world stopped.

(No!)

He tensed with her, his head lifting to frown at her. "What?"

She made no move and he followed her panicked gaze over to the mantle piece. Over to the glowing, swarming, warning spheres.

"She's coming."

TBC

**PART TWO** FINAL CHAPTER

A perfect image, framed by the window edges, obliterated and blocked from her view by the black. There was no perfect moment, no photo image, but the black. Behind the eyes she clenched to relieve the burn there were perfect images of friendly smiles and familial warmth and the occasional heart- stopping recollected snapshot of impassioned eyes captured in a gasp of orgasm.

There were moments she could isolate and pair up to the corresponding pang of dread, guilt, pain, grief and loss that either defined or followed. There was always worse to follow. But they were running now, speeding away from the assured dread, guilt, pain and loss that lay-in-wait back in Sunnydale. This was no escape, only preparation. Her time-out and the only way she knew of getting Dawn safe. Get Away From The Hellmouth. From Hell.

- - - -

She liked to watch him drive-ever since that first night when she had drifted in and out of consciousness and spent her most lucid moments furtively watching him under heavy lids. He never acknowledged it, but she had known that he was aware of her every gaze.

He always knew but now, as always, there was no softening of his determined profile, clenched jaw and stiff arms--except for the split seconds he took to take habitual glances of a rear-view mirror that revealed nothing but a sullen and scared Dawn. Then his lips would part slightly as a frown knit at his forehead before his eyes weighted back to the road. But he said nothing, could say nothing to make this any better.

She twisted in her seat to seek out Dawn's hand and found out at the end of a slack, yielding arm. Dawn met her eyes with a tight smile that paled into a grimace that quaked a small tear from glassy eyes. A tear she was quick to dismiss with a sniffle and a wipe of the heel of her palm.

"How far is it now?"

"Not long now, Dawn." She assured with a squeeze of her sisters hand.

The interludes were never long enough. What she wanted was ever-lasting summer. But that was a temporary peace that would only descend with the ashes of yet another averted apocalypse.

- - - -

This had to be as surreal as it got; even in the heyday of the Angel hell that was frought with an unreality etched in her silent screams of 'please don't let this be real', there was still hope until she pushed the sword through his gut. Now there seemed only finality; she went into the fray, beat the bad guy in the nick of time and all was right with the world for a few months.

But what could be right after this? The two sisters cocooned in shadow and trusting the 'minimum safe distance' calculations to a demon. As soon as she thinks she has life figured out something or someone happens to raises the bar. Something like this. The three of them fleeing together in a mockery of a family unit.

(Family) The word twisted in her gut and forced her to think, yet again, of those left behind - of Giles and Willow and Xander and Anya. Their voices - how they understood, understood without question what she had to do. Get. Dawn. Safe. But also understanding in the same breath, that in doing so left them open and vulnerable to attack, with nothing but a box of magic tricks that would stand no stead against the true might of a Hell-God's fury.

(Please let them be safe.) They would be... surely? Glory had no idea about Xander's place - did she? It was only for the night. She only had one night.

Her eyes fell on the dashboard to take in the two spheres that had separated them from Glory and certain death, gave them just enough room for manoeuvre, for getting Dawn safe.

- - - -

"We're here."

"Mmm...?" Dawn mumbled as she unfurled herself from the back seat and out of a sleepless rest. She fingered at the hole in the paint she had chipped her way at during the journey. Squinting through the gap she met with only dark night.

"Angel." Buffy declared, glancing at Spike just in time to catch his flinch.

"Right, well. I'll wait here then shall I?" He shifted in his seat and began patting down his pockets for cigarettes. "Guard the car and all that."

"The car will be fine, Spike."

"Yeah," Dawn agreed with a forced cough of laughter, "who'd wanna steal this lump o' junk-heap meat?"

Spike shot a glare at Dawn through the mirror. With the effect somewhat lessened by his lack of reflection, his features fell away into a grimace, the cigarette search forgotten. "Seriously, I need to, uh, check the oil and... all sorts of other stuff you women wouldn't understand because you don't speak 'car'."

Buffy felt her lips curl despite the dread settling and doubling in her gut. "Spike," She drew the name out, almost as a tease, or what could have been under different circumstances. "You're not scared, are you?"

He pffted the notion with a protest of: "No!" before settling back on reason, "No, I... I think you need to go in alone - just you and the kid."

Dawn's exaggerated clearing of the throat set him off on an eye-roll and a half-hearted back track. "'Young-adult brat' then. That better?"

It was Dawn's turn to mark mock annoyance with a dramatic sigh and shuffle for the door.

"No! Dawn, wait. Just in case."

"Okay, okay!" Dawn moaned in exaggerated petulance that she just didn't have the heart for. She did the moves well enough though: her arms folding, her lip pouting and her eyes lifting up to the inner roof. The tableau was soon interrupted by the spontaneous flutter of a giggle that escaped from Dawn's throat.

Buffy blinked at her sister, "Dawn?"

"I was just, just looking," she pointed upwards. "Spike, why are there day- glo stars on your roof?"

Buffy looked up and indeed, there were hundreds of tiny glow-in-the-dark star stickers arranged in intricate constellations above their heads. So tiny that she had never noticed them before and so tiny that even Spike seemed to have forgotten their existence, even though his face gave away enough to know that he was responsible for them. She stared at him as he gaped up at them, his eyes glazing and widening with wonder and the flood of past memories. Finally, in a barely audible voice he admitted: "Dru used to see the stars all the time - read entire fortunes in merest twinkle of one star. I put these up to confuse her."

"Did it work?" Trust Dawn to ask.

He considered this, his eyes glazing in the moment. "I think the stars were inside her. It's what it felt like sometimes when we-" He glanced quickly at Dawn to make sure she hadn't understood. "Never mind."

"Spike!" Buffy stressed through clenching teeth, desperate to get the smirk off his face, desperate for him to be in the here and now and with her. "I need you in there with me."

It worked, in an instant she had his full attention, but then again she always had even when they were fighting to the death. Even so, he wasn't going to make this easy on her, wasn't going to give in every time. She knew the stubbornness - recognised it well. "Yeah so Angel can stake me on sight, great plan."

"I won't let him, okay?" She sighed a slow breath to clear her thoughts. If she wasn't even sure why his presence was so important to her, how could she hope to communicate it to him? "Look, I know it'd be easier if I went in on my own, if Angel never knew about you. I know he's gonna big with the accusations and disappointment faces... But I don't care - I need you... In there. With me."

He met her level gaze with raised eyebrows and said it: "You don't trust me not to leave you."

"I..." She was at a loss for words and since her silence only confirmed the truth in his statement, she decided to go with it, letting it ripple out to fill the vehicle's bubble and resound upon them.

"Looks like I'm coming in then."

She turned to him, her instincts told her that she was smiling but it was only confirmed by the mock-glare he shot at her.

"Well that's better than pouty-face I suppose."

"I was not pouting!" She defended, suddenly giddy despite the situation.

"We're too."

"No, I think you're mistaken, I nev-"

He silenced her with a kiss, gently sucking her bottom lip into his mouth he nipped it gently between his teeth. "Yes, you we're and I love it." He mumbled against her lips before pulling away sharply and using the momentum to push himself out of the car.

- - - -

"I don't get it." Spike paused a few feet before the door and gazed upwards. "I mean this is supposed to be some undercover agency he's running, yeah?" He glanced at Buffy and Dawn a moment for silent confirmation. "So why the bloody big hotel?" He lit a cigarette, took a drag and flicked it away, a one-sided grin catching the glare of a street light. "He must be compensating for something."

"Ha, ha, and on with the not-so-funnies-now can we stop procrastinating and get in there?" she snapped, her stomach setting against a stone of irritation that only partially masked the fear.

"'Procrastinating'? Big word for you there, pet-"

"Spike... *Please*!"

He nodded, shuffling forward and reaching for the door. "Is this still counted as a public place?" He mused to himself before pulling at the door. "Soon find out." When he looked back her something in his face made Buffy pause a moment and smile. "After you."

- - - -

It was strange. Stranger than the fact that she'd never been here before but strange when she considered that this was Angel's life now; that he'd moved on so completely. No longer for him a small office and darkened basement living quarters but a proper business in a proper establishment with people at his side. People she'd never met before. Like the black shaven-headed guy pacing the reception area and spinning a battle-axe effortlessly in his hands.

"Er... hi."

The guy's head shot up as if on alert. "Hey there, you hopeless?" he asked with perturbing enthusiasm, "uh, sorry... I mean helpless." A short laugh and a smile as he strode up to greet them, any menace draining away with every step. "We can usually help but I'm not so sure about today."

Okay, that made her nervous. "What's today?"

His nose crinkled as he shrugged. "Today is a bad day."

Buffy nodded and sighed. "Yeah, I got that memo."

"What, you *know*?"

"Know?"

"About Cordy?"

Her attention was piqued despite her growing annoyance. "What about her? Is she-is she okay?"

Another shrug, this time weightier. "Well that's... that's exactly what we don't know. There was this thing with a portal, and zoom, she's gone-Hey, wait a minute - who are you people?"

"Buffy?"

Her eyes shot to him and she froze, suddenly aware of how this looked, suddenly ashamed of the presence she could feel at her side.

"This is Buffy? The Buffy?"

"Yeah," Angel said, his eyes still on Buffy and full of questions. "Gunn, this is Buffy; her sister, Dawn and..." His gaze hardened as it settled on: "Spike."

"What?! The Spike?" Gunn's face set and his body stiffened as he glared at the figure of offence. "The Vampire Spike that Cordy told me about?"

Spike rolled his eyes, annoyed rather than threatened by Gunn and Angel's stares. "Yeah the one and only. But look that's not the issue here, you see there's-"

"Don't you think it *should* be the issue? You-you're the Vampire Slayer - why haven't you staked his murderous, undead butt already?" Gunn's stare was full of accusation that she could take from him; it was the knowing that if she looked at Angel she'd get the same intense glare and that it would make her sick to her stomach.

"He's... he's..." (He's what?) Harmless? Certainly not that. He wasn't even 'okay' by their standards. "He's with me." She turned to Angel, taking in his confused denial. "He's with me, Angel and he's not here to hurt me o-or Dawn, or any of you, okay?"

"How can that be okay? He's... he's a killer, Buffy. H-how can you-?"

"Hey!" Spike protested, briefly and uselessly, as there was nothing he could deny.

She cringed, closing her eyes against the tone and implications in Angel's voice. "Angel, please! This is not what I came here for." Once she was acquiesced that Angel had relented a notch, only a notch, she continued. "There's this woman, this Hell God - she's after us... after Dawn."

"Dawn?"

Dawn took a step forward, ready to deliver the exposition bit, her voice flat with futility. "I'm the key.Yes," she shot a look at Gunn, "The Key."

"The Key to what?" Angel asked, suddenly all business and reminding her, just a touch, of Giles.

"To everything - to all dimensions. Glory wants to use her to get home-only she doesn't know it's Dawn yet." Her face softened as she implored Angel with her gaze. "And I want to keep it that way. I need you, please, to keep Dawn safe. Just until... until this is over." (It's never over.)

And she knew. Knew suddenly, in Angel's stance and the way his eyes flickered to an office door, that he couldn't, wouldn't help. "Buffy, I... we... Cordy, she's missing, we need to go find her. I'm not sure how we can..."

"I know about Cordy and I'm sorry, really I am, but can't you do both? Look for Cordelia *and* keep Dawn safe?" (Can't you do everything like I used to think you could?) Had it really only been a few weeks since he came to her mother's funeral, full of sympathy and offers to stay and be there for her. It was crazy to think how much had changed in those few weeks, but then here she was with her sister and lover vampire in tow stupidly trying to take him up on an offer that had really expired a long time ago.

"I don't kn-Wesley is working on a way to get to her. I need to go - un- unless... Gunn?"

This is what it came to. He had a whole different set of priorities now and Cordelia cam before her. She understood but it still hurt. I guess they really were hopeless. "It's okay... Gunn. I couldn't ask you to. It's okay, we'll think of something else." And she turned to go.

"But-"

"Spike, don't!"

But he stood firm and in her way. "Buffy, there is noth-"

"Spike, we will think of something."

But he didn't relent until Dawn pulled stepped over to him and pulled lightly on the arm of his duster, her mouth forming a line. He seemed to appreciate her attempt at a smile enough as she tugged him towards the door and he responded.

"I'm sorry, Buffy."

She glanced back at Angel and nodded. "I'm sorry too." Never did the word 'sorry' carry so many connotations for her. For them.

"I hope you find her."

- - - -

"So." Spike said, the sound of slammed doors still echoing silently through the car. "What now?"

"I... I don't kn-"

"What about Dad?" Dawn offered leaning forward so to make sure she was heard. "Dad's in L.A."

"No, Dad's in Spain with his secretary, Dawn."

"Oh,"

The sound was so quiet and timid it broke her heart. She turned to face her sister and reached out to stroke her hair. "I'm sorry. I just don't know what to do and it scares me." Her fingers settling on Dawn's cheek for a still moment. "But I'll get you safe... no matter what."

- - - -

It was a nice sight. At a time like this she was grateful for it. Grateful hat she could look on the sight of Dawn sleeping off her exhaustion and smile to herself. But like all good moments, it never lasted.

"*This* is your plan?" Spike hissed over the sound of the rolling engine and diverted her attention. "You keep Dawn safe by taking her back to *Sunnydale*? By delivering her into the arms of the crazy Hell bitch that's intent on ripping her inside-out?"

(Home.) "I need to get back to the others. We can all protect her - together." All of them together. "It's the only way I know how."

"But -"

"Just drive." She snapped angrily. It was an order with a bite of a threat but he obeyed, turning his eyes back towards the road with no more a small sigh.

- - - -

The car pulls up at a gas station and she gets out to pump the gas because it's daylight. She wonders briefly how it got light so soon, but the feel of the morning sun on her tired skin is too delightful to question. Something is wrong here, more wrong than going back into hell but with the breeze swarming around her and alleviating the stress, she doesn't want to question.

Not until he gets out of the car and she sees him. In sunlight. All surrounded by white-yellow light and she smiles, really smiles... before she remembers.

"Spike, what are you -? Get back in the car before -"

"No," he states so sternly that it causes her to flinch. "Not until you see."

And she does see. See him. Sees the smoke and the eruptions of fire, his skin being eaten away by the flames. She wants to shout, tell him to get back into the car but her heart is in her mouth and she can't talk - can't take her eyes off him. She desperately lurches for him, dropping the pump and spilling gas that only fuels the fire and he's dust - dust filtering between her fingertips as it settles to the ground.

- - - -

She awoke with a start, her hand grasping around something sold and encased in leather and when she looked she found him staring at her, eyebrows lifted and the question in the droop of his bottom lip before he spoke.

"Bad dream?"

She took a deep breath, loosening her strangle hold on his arm and letting her back relax against the seat again. "Something like that." Rolling down the window she stared out at the sky. "It's so dark."

"Yeah, it's always darkest before the -"

(Dawn.) "Stop the car." She knew.

"What?" Spike's voice full of surprise and a bite of hope that only confirmed her sudden revelation. "You thought of something, somewhere else?"

"Someone." She bit her lip, not sure whether it was safe to smile. (Not safe yet.) "Where are we?"

"About a mile from home."

(He calls it home.) "Perfect. Stop the car." She looked out the window as the car slowed to a stop, the blurred scenery identifiable finally in stillness. Once the vehicle was stationary she pushed open the door and got out - stretching out her muscles and arching her head up to the sky. She waited for the sound of his door before walking towards the car's trunk and opening it.

"Care to fill me in, Love?"

She shrugged, wincing slightly against the knots in her shoulders. "Okay, it's simple really. I'm going back alone, you're taking Dawn somewhere. Somewhere safe and far way."

A moment's silence while she pondered the contents of the trunk and he questioned, first his own and then her, sanity.

"*What*?!"

"You heard." She risked a look at him and shrugged once more.

"I don't-are you *mad*? Seriously have you just gone completely off your rocker? Because that's what it sounds like to me. Great plan is that, yeah - leave your little sis' in the capable hands of a bloodsucking monster while you go off and get yourself killed."

Buffy crossed her arms and faced him. "Are you finished?"

He choked on a laugh. "I could go on."

"Please *don't*. Spike, this is me - once I've made up my mind there's not much beside the end of the world-and, hey, already there-that will change it." There was a begrudging assent to her point. "I'm not leaving my sister with just any 'bloodsucking monster', Spike, I'm leaving her with you."

"Oh yeah, big difference there."

"Yeah. There is." She took a step closer to him, inclining her head to force him to meet her eyes. "What makes you different is the way I feel about you."

She had to stop at the look on his face; the shock and wonder so clear and present in a way that made him look so fragile for the briefest moment. Another snapshot for her collection "I trust you. I know you haven't always given me reason to, but I still do.

"Dawn is my world, okay - you know that. She's a part of me and I love her more than anything. You think I'd leave her with you if I didn't know, know that you'd take care of her?"

His gaze flickered and there was an air of defeat about him, that there was no way he could argue with her, make her reconsider. There was no question of saying 'no' though. "I don't want you to go back there alone."

"I won't be alone. And I can fight a whole lot better knowing Dawn is safe... with you-God I know how strange that sounds, how strange this is, but it *feels* right."

"And you can't think of anything else? This is your last resort?"

She had to touch him them, make contact. "No. Not last resort." She traced the arch of his cheek with her thumb and kissed him. "Say yes, please."

He laughed then, his eyes glassy and reflecting starlight. "I thought I already had." He met her eyes and she had to reconsider notions of ground and reality for a second. "Alright then, yes, I'll protect her... 'til the end of the world and all that. "

"Oh God." There was urgency in the way she clutched at him, a sure sense that there was chance she could never see him again. He felt it too, he must have to kiss her like that, like his life, or un-life, whatever, depended upon it.

- - - -

"Promise you'll be okay?" Dawn cried as she sank into Buffy, clinging to her and gripping fistfuls of clothing.

There was something barring her throat, something that couldn't let her promise, couldn't lie. "You'll be okay, Dawn. It will all be okay."

- - - -

"Axe?"

"Check."

"Sword?"

"Check?"

"Here, what's this?" Spike said leaning into the trunk and heaving at some object. "Bloody heavy thing."

"What?" Buffy reached for what was troubling him and picked it up with ease. "This?"

"Uh, yeah. Bloody-heavy-mallet thing?"

She twisted the weapon to catch the waning street light. "Troll hammer - check." Dawn was fast approaching.

"Right now, do me." He smirked and she had to smile.

"Glowy sphere thingies?"

"Check."

"Car with gas in tank."

"Er..." he ran round and peered at the dashboard before coming back to her, "check."

"My sister."

Dawn hovered into view and forced a smile. "Check."

"Goodbye kiss?"

His face clouded and any good spirits melted away. "You'll bring her back in a few days. Once you know it's all... over."

He nodded. "Yeah."

Peering at the sky the first tinges of sunlight were beginning to appear over the horizon and she felt the suddenly urge to get him safe in the car, safe with Dawn and safely driving away. There was time for another hug for Dawn, a glance and attempt to memorise every aspect of her face.

And then his goodbye kiss, soft short and a new flavour of bitter- sweetness.

"Thankyou."

- - - -

She watched them pull away, saw the white palm of Dawn's palm as she waved out the window, heard her cries of 'I love you, Buffy'. But nothing of him except the stopping of the car for a moment before he sped on.

Waited until the car was a blip on the horizon before picking up her bag of weapons and walking home back to her friends, back to her job.

She knew she was there when she reached the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign. A new one as they had to be replaced every time he came back to town. She smiled momentarily and set her eyes forward.

THE END

(Phew!)

Thanks to everyone who has read all this and to those of you who have stuck with this through my writer's block. I don't blame you if you were thinking anything along the lines of 'Who does she think she is? J.K. Rowling?!' But thanks to all of you who have liked this and made the experience worthwhile. You know who you are. But I should say special thanks to Olga who has been pretty-much the closest thing I have to a beta reader.

Bye Bye.