His hands stroked over her, soothing her as little shudders continued to run through her body. Buffy’s face was mashed into his chest, and he wondered if she was hiding, and how long she planned to keep doing it. Not that he minded. He could stand here holding her all night. Longer.

“You okay?” he murmured softly against her ear. She nodded into his shirt. “You smell so good, love. Hot, aroused.” His tone dropped further. “Ready.”

She made a little sound, but still didn’t move. The hands that had been digging into his neck moments ago, had moved down his body and found their way around him, under his duster. They were resting against the small of his back now, fisted into the fabric of his t-shirt.

Didn’t look like she planned to stake him, then, he decided. At least, not yet.

“You still feel warm - like before?” he asked. He was curious about the sensation. He thought she’d experienced it before tonight, too, but they’d never spoken of it.

“No.” She sounded a little sad. “It’s gone.”

“Could see if we can find it again,” he offered, rubbing his chin along the top of her head. Was it really gone? he wondered. He didn’t feel the heat anymore, but he’d felt like parts of it had settled into him, become a part of him.

Her face moved against his chest.

“Shhh. Just for a minute? Let me… Ah… Don’t talk, just… dance.”

Dance? he wondered, before realizing that their bodies were indeed swaying lightly. Must be instinctive on his part, he thought, to keep their bodies moving together. Unless it was instinctive on her part. Or something beyond instinctive - something conscious. Either of those last two possibilities almost had him groaning out loud.

Buffy.

God, he wanted to take hold of her hips and grind himself against her. Show her what she did to him. Wanted to… Spike’s lips twisted. Pretty good chance she knew - their wasn’t exactly much distance between them right now. And he could hold off - deny himself. Before the tower, he’d had months of experience controlling his body around her. Bloody hell, years.

“You think we’re dancing?” he asked. It took a bit of an effort to keep his voice light.

She tipped her head back and met his eyes. Her own looked big in her face, and, to his relief, still full of the warmth he’d grown used to seeing in them in the last few weeks. He felt some of the tension leave him. No need to rush, he reminded himself. They had time.

“That’s all we’ve ever done, isn’t it?”

Spike felt a little jolt of surprised pleasure jump through him. Memory, or coincidence? he wondered.

“Yeah,” he whispered back, his hand sliding into her hair. He bent to kiss her, and she raised herself up to meet him. The kiss was hot and slow, a sweet satisfaction. “Mmmm,” he murmured his approval, lifting his head. His tongue flicked out to touch his lips, tasting her there. “Yeah.”

On the stage, the band shifted into another slow number, one Spike preferred to the last piece, and he began moving more deliberately to the music. Their eyes stayed locked for several long minutes, and for once, he wasn’t spending the time attempting to read her thoughts. Instead he was allowing himself to think about how beautiful she was. Trying to suss out what was going on in his Slayer’s head occupied a lot of his time, but right now, he didn’t feel like probing. He just wanted to enjoy the moment.

Enjoy her.

He ran his hands down her back, letting them come to rest on her hips. Bloody beautiful hips. Buffy broke their eye contact, and turned her head to lay her cheek against his chest. She moved against him, with him, an intimate imitation of dancing. God, she feels so good. Her hands remained tangled in his t-shirt, but their hold was looser, and her knuckles had begun to rub lightly against his back as they swayed together.

A few numbers, and a very pleasant fifteen minutes or so later, when the music changed into something faster, Spike stopped pretending to dance. One of his hands pushed into her hair, and he bent and kissed her again briefly, before detaching himself from her a little.

His sussing out instinct had reasserted itself.

“You wanna talk about what happened, Slayer?”

Her eyes went wide, and her mouth actually dropped open a little, causing his to curve.

“I meant Joan, R.J. - whatever the sodding hell made us forget who we were, and whatever it was made you look like you were in the middle of some teen horror flick when we got our memories back.” He paused. “Course we can talk about the other if you want,” he murmured suggestively, his tongue curling against his teeth. “Talk about it.” His eyes slid down her body. “Do it again, see where it might lead…”

His light taunting seemed to bring Buffy back to herself, and she let her hands fall away from him. They’d shuffled onto the dance floor, and when she glanced around, he knew she was looking for a place that would give them a little privacy. He touched her shoulder, inclining his head toward a quiet corner with a couple of available chairs.

“What’d’you think happened?” he asked, following Buffy as she led the way to the indicated spot. Buffy sat gingerly on the edge of her chair, but Spike slouched back into the cushions of his, limbs sprawled as he lit a cigarette.

“Spell.” What else? her expression said.

“Those vamps were after you - ‘Slayer! Slayer! Come out and play!’” he mimicked, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Stupid prats! Think they zapped some mojo on us, then tried to slip in during the confusion an’ take you out?”

“Maybe. But they seemed to think I knew who I was. You know - calling me ‘slayer’, expecting me to fight…” She shrugged, her body tightening up a little. “But just in case - we got them all, didn’t we?”

His mind rewound what he’d seen outside the Magic Box, reviewed the evening’s body count. “I think so.”

“If they had some spell, then, we can hope it died with them. I’m really not too up with the idea of every demon in town knowing the magic words to wipe out my memory. ‘Cause, I’ve pretty much had enough of the memory problems lately.”

“That you have.”

“Whoever cast it, I wondered if it had affected everyone in town - you know, like that spell those floating Gentlemen creeps cast.”

He looked the question.

“Sunnydale falls victim to mass laryngitis?” she prompted.

“Oh, yeah.” He hadn’t been paying much attention to anything going on in the world at that time beyond his own newly neutered state. He didn’t remember much about the town’s muteness except that it had happened around the time that he’d been exiled from the joys of being chained in the Watcher’s cozy bathtub to the even more joyous ghetto of Harris’ basement. That, and thinking that even an hour’s reprieve from the boy’s incessant yammering was probably worth whatever evil the demons had been up to. He was fairly sure he’d been enjoying a good book during most of the brouhaha.

“The locals,” her head indicated the normal young adult activities taking place around them, “Don’t seem to be acting any different than usual, so, either denial has risen to new heights in Sunnydale, or - not the whole town.” Her eyes glinted at him. “Gosh, Fred! Do you think maybe it just affected the Scoobie gang?”

Spike snorted. “This cannot surprise you, Slayer.”

“Yeah, if it’s only gonna affect a few, we’re the chosen ones. Sometimes, we’re, like, spell magnets.”

Spike tilted his head slightly to the side, studying her. “You’ve remembered everything, haven’t you? When our memories came back, your fuzzy ones were cleared up, too, weren’t they?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, exhaling heavily.

“Knew something happened.”

He dropped his cigarette to the floor, and sat up, moving to the edge of his own chair. He reached for her hands, holding them much as he had the night she’d been resurrected. Tonight, though, he allowed his thumbs to brush over her knuckles. He leaned toward her.

“You okay, love?”

“I - I don’t know.” She looked genuinely unsure. “God, I really don’t know… It’s great to remember my friends more clearly, my past with them. And my mom…” She leaned in closer to him as well, so that their heads were less than a foot apart, their knees touching. She was staring at the floor near their feet. “But I remembered some other things, too. Some not so great things…”

Spike waited, his hands, his thumbs, offering comfort. He could hear the fear in her voice - the fear he’d sensed in her earlier.

“The Slayer stuff… I didn’t really get it.” She lifted her bent head and looked at him. “The patrolling, the workouts… I thought that’s all it was. You know, kind of like a job. A cop or something. Okay,” her shoulders moved. “Having a ‘Watcher’ did clue me in that it wasn’t quite that simple. And my mind had flashed the words ‘chosen one’ at me a few times. But I didn’t get that it’s not like that at all. Not just a job.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not. It’s what you are.”

“When it hit me, it was… a shock, I guess.”

~*~

Shock hardly covered it. She’d felt like she’s been plunged into some alternate universe, where the world looked the same, but wasn’t, not in anyway.

As she’d sat at the bar in the Bronze staring into the untouched glass of beer, she’d spent some time letting memories of her friends and her personal past wash through her. The lost and fuzzy details were there - accessible - and there had been an amazing sense of release in not having to struggle for her friends’ names, in being able to remember something as simple as laughing at a television show with her mom. She’d wanted those memories back so badly. She’d spent endless hours trying to drag them up, and, whenever they were momentarily clear, trying to figure out how to keep them from slipping away again.

Well, she had them now, but her priorities and her perspectives had shifted.

Those memories, for now at least, had become secondary things, details that seemed to fade into insignificance next to the overwhelming realities of what her life had been.

Responsibility. Choices. Decisions to be made. No easy way out. The necessity to be always, always on top of things.

Duty.

Sacred duty.

And she was transported back to the desolation of the last few months of her life; that time before the final battle, the tower, and the decision to jump… It all rushed into her, swamping her - the terrible stress of her mother’s illness, and the devastating pain of her loss, the doubts she’d been feeling about her ability to love, the fear of Glory and the fear for Dawn.

“I didn’t mean - I shouldn’t have shoved you away like that,” she said. “I was just…”

Buffy’s insides tightened up. She couldn’t do this. Not yet. She wasn’t ready.

Spike’s hands gave hers a quick squeeze as he dipped his head closer to hers. “Just what?” he asked, his voice low. “Talk to me, Buffy.”

She hesitated. “I - it, it was like the coffin.”

“What?” His brow furrowed. “Remembering?”

“No, being the Slayer. Being me.” She looked up at him. “I was trapped. Before - with Glory. Everything was closing in on me, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I knew I couldn’t beat her, couldn’t win. And everyone was counting on me, depending on me to save the world. Even if it meant killing my sister. They expected me to do that. To kill Dawn.”

The memory was so horrifying, she felt a brief return of her earlier nausea.

Spike reacted with a low growl. “I remember.”

“It was like everything was falling on me - like the dirt and rocks falling in on me, burying me alive. And I couldn’t cry out for help, because if I did, the dirt just filled my mouth - more people worrying about me, their concern weighing me down, making it harder for me to fight.

“It was all smothering me. Until there was nothing left but darkness. And death.”

“You came through in the end, Slayer, like you always bloody do. Saved the world. You fought your way out of that coffin.”

“And into another one. I died, Spike.”

His eyes dropped to the floor, and his hands tightened around hers again, squeezing harder this time. She saw his jaw clench.

“You did what you had to do,” he said tightly. “There was nothing more you could have done. Nothing you could have changed.”

His tone made her frown.

“But I couldn’t… I -” Buffy broke off, interrupted by memories.

Where had she heard those words? He’d spoken them to her. Had it been in a dream? No. No. In those first foggy days or weeks… Soon after she’d been brought here, brought back. In his crypt, sitting together on the floor, his hand resting on the back of his down bent head, his hair spiked up. And his voice… full of pain and anguish. It had been the day she’d told him she’d been in heaven…

And another night...“You let - someone - hurt you, torture you, to protect her. And then you promised me you always would. ‘‘Til the end of the world.’ Tell me that’s how it was.”

“Yeah. I didn’t do it, but yeah…” His face twisting, the haunted expression…

“There was nothing more you could have done.”

“You.”

Oh, god.

He blamed himself.

“Spike…”

His head came back up, and he stretched his neck a little, squaring his shoulders. His jaw remained hard.

“You’re afraid it will happen again, aren’t you? That everything will pile up on you?”

“Spike…” She tried again to take him back to what he’d said.

“You need to learn how to balance everything, Slayer. What and when you can let go. Stop taking the whole bleeding world onto your shoulders.”

“Spike…”

“For starters, your little pals can run their own lives. Don’t let them muck up yours with their problems.”

Buffy studied his face. His eyes stayed on hers, hard, implacable. Closed doors. She didn’t think she’d ever seen them so cold and distant, lit not even by the fire of rage. She took in the hard line of his jaw, still tightly clenched. Seeing him like this did something, made something turn inside her. She didn’t like seeing him like this.

She took a breath. “I can try,” she told him. “But it isn’t that easy. Being the Slayer means I’m the one who’s ultimately responsible.”

The taut line of his body relaxed slightly, and the hard grip on her hands eased up.

“It’s like - the buck stops at Buffy.” Her eyes glinted. “I’m a buck-stopper.”

He closed his eyes and cranked his neck again. Then his thumbs resumed brushing back and forth across her knuckles as he raised his eyelids.

“You can handle it, Slayer,” he told her, his voice back to normal. “Seen you do it enough times, haven’t I? You come through. And you can damn well learn to delegate. If the Scoobies are gonna be hanin’ about all the time, they can pull their bloody weight.”

“They do! I mean they did!” she objected with some spirit. “And they will again. As, um, as soon as… Soon.” As soon as she felt comfortable with them again, she finished silently. As soon as she let them.

Buffy hesitated before going on. “But there’s something more than that… something I can’t quite…

“You told me I was strong; that I could take you. But I thought it must be because I worked out all the time or something. All this martial arts stuff. I didn’t get it, didn’t know about the powers…”

“Yeah, you’re full of power.” He ran his eyes over her. “Always liked that about you, pet.”

“But I’m not,” she insisted. “I mean, I am. I can see that I’m strong. The fighting… yeah, some of it is there. And now that I’ve remembered more about this whole Slayer thing, it will probably help me more. My technique and the timing you’re always harping on.” She turned her hands, folding her fingers around his. “But Spike, I don’t… The edge - the, the fire, maybe…” She swallowed. “Giles keeps saying that he doesn’t think I quite have my edge back yet, and… I -” Her eyes looked into hi, revealing her fear. “I don’t feel it, Spike. I’m - I don’t think it came back with me.”

“Slayer -”

“I told you, remember? That I felt like some parts of me are missing? Maybe Willow’s spell didn’t quite grab everything and I…”

She did, startled by his harsh tone.

He seemed to be trying to bring himself under control. “You’re pushing too fast again, Slayer,” he began carefully. “Worryin’ yourself for no good reason. You’ve only been back a few weeks. An’ you’ve been dealing with all kinds of things, trying to adjust. Some of your problems got cleared up tonight, and you remembered some others. Doesn’t mean you’re not gonna overcome them, too. You’re worried about getting buried by your duty? Good first step in making sure that doesn’t happen is not beatin’ yourself about the head like this.”

Spike leaned in closer to her, his tone softening and becoming more intimate.

“Listen to me, love.” He bent in nearer yet, running his cheek along hers briefly. “This edge you’re talking about -- you want it back, don’t you?”

“I need it back.”

“No, you don’t. ‘Cause you have it.” His forehead came to rest against her. “I know you. Oh, god, Buffy, I know you. And everything you need is here.” He lifted one of her hands and laid their palms together. His fingers threaded through hers and folded down, gripping her hand tightly. “It’s here,” he repeated, his voice firm, compelling. “I can feel it. It’s in you.”

For a minute they both gazed at their clasped hands, the entwined fingers.

“Look at me, Buffy.”

Her eyes moved to his.

“Maybe it’s like your memories - the edge, the fire. Just not as accessible as it should be. Something zaps some type of mojo on us and your memories are jogged loose. They’re there for you now. You haven’t needed your Slayer edge. Not yet. You need it, it’s gonna be there for you too.”

He held her eyes, and she knew he was trying to drive the point home.

Unconsciously, Buffy disengaged her hand from his and began toying with the fingers of his other hand. Her fingertips traced the edges of each digit, lifted one, then another, as she considered his words.

“You really think it’s in me? That it’ll be there for me?”

“Yeah.”

“’Cause, you know, based on my past, I’m gonna need it.”

“You’ll have it, love.” He promised.

“I’m gonna need that technique, too. All the kicky stuff.”

“And the timing.”

“Yeah.”

“They’ll be there.” He paused. “So will I.”

His low voice held a promise, and her body tensed slightly. “Spike, I don’t know -”

“You know how I feel, Buffy. You know I’m yours.”

Her eyes gentled. “I - yeah,” she said. Her thumb and forefinger were tracing the hard edges of his index finger, and she looked down at their hands, not focusing. “I don’t think I … I don’t feel like I can make any - sort of make any decisions… big, huge, decisions… not right now.” God, she was babbling. “I have to figure myself out, and I…”

“Shhh,” he came to her rescue. “Too soon for you, but…”

Her eyes came up to meet his.

His head tilted to the side, and both his expression and his slight smile were warm, soft. “Earlier, under the stairs… Was that my crumb, Slayer?”

A soft sound of amusement left her as she felt the tension slip away.

“Maybe,” she acknowledged. “Or maybe a little more. Like, a chunk. A big chunk.”

That sentence alone qualified as more than a crumb, and she knew it.

“Felt like a whole slice to me, Slayer.” His mouth brushed her ear. “A generous slice,” he went on. “With a dollop of cream on top.” He drew back just enough to run his eyes down her body, lingering on her lap. “Lovely cream.”

Her breath caught, and she went absolutely still. An entirely different kind of tension started humming though her.

“The slice was delicious, but I didn’t get a chance to taste the cream.”

Oh, god. He had the most amazing voice. So - intimate. It was hypnotizing her, sending little frissons of pleasure through her body. Buffy’s right hand, the one that had been toying with his fingers, had unconsciously curled around his index and middle fingers and was squeezing them tightly.

“And I wanted to. You smelled so good, love.” That beautiful voice dropped further. Became husky. Oh, god. “Still do. You’re gonna taste good, too. I know it.” He brushed his nose softly along her jaw, and stopped, his lips hovering just above hers. His tongue emerged, touching the curve of her lower lip. “Next time, I’m not gonna let that cream go to waste. Not gonna let it go untouched, untasted. I’m gonna take it all in. Savor it. Every. Last. Drop.”

He punctuated each word with a flick of his tongue against her lips.

“Oh, god.”

He breathed her name. “Buffy.”

“Can I get either of you something from the bar?”

As well as making her jump, Buffy was pretty sure the intrusion of the waitress’s voice kept her from melting into a sloppy Buffy puddle on the floor. Spike’s head turned toward the intruder with a sort of slow, menacing deliberation. She imagined that movement had been very effective on other occasions, but the tall brunette didn’t look intimidated in the least.

“We’re having a moment here,” he growled out.

“Sorry.” The waitress, obviously anything but, let her eyes run over them. “I thought you had that earlier,” she drawled. “Over by the stairs.” She smirked at their expressions, and moved off, leaving them staring after her, their mouths slightly agape.

Buffy’s eyes dropped to their hands, and grew wide as she realized how she’d been squeezing and, oh god - pumping - Spike’s fingers. Horrified, she jerked her hands away and pressed them between her knees. She could actually feel the color running into her face. Spike abandoned the killing glare he was directing in the waitress’s wake, and whipped his head back to her as soon as she yanked her hands from his. He watched her lame attempt to hide them, and she saw him suck in his cheeks hard. His blue eyes were wicked with amusement.

Damn him! He was laughing at her!

Spike pried one of her hands out from between her knees which immediately clamped back down on the remaining hand. He lifted it to his mouth, kissing her palm.

“Only for a moment, then the moment’s gone…”

“Dust in the wind,” Buffy continued automatically.

“Is that a threat, Slayer?”

A burst of surprised laughter escaped her. She relaxed her legs, flexed her abused hand, and stood up. “Only if it can be directed at nosy and kinda - what’s the word?

“Smart arsed?” he offered.

Buffy nodded. “That’ll do - nosy and smart arsed waitresses.” She stretched her neck and shoulders. “God, how long have we been here?”

He rose as well. “Hasn’t been that long.” He squinted toward the clock behind the bar. “Couple hours, maybe?”

She must have spent about half of that staring into her beer. Buffy thought.

“I need to go home,” she said. “Check on Dawn and the others.” She glanced up at him. “Coming?”

Spike’s tongue curled against his teeth and he took one slow step toward her, his hands gliding onto her hips. His lips brushed her ear. “Didn’t. But I’m open to any ideas you might have of ways to - rectify that.”

She drew back from him. He was so… “I thought the moment was gone,” she said loftily. She turned away, glancing back at him over her shoulder as she moved toward the exit.

He followed. “And here I was expecting ‘You’re such a pig, Spike.’”

“Your mouth has been surprisingly oink-free lately.”

“Maybe I can rectify that.”

~*~

They were walking along the sidewalk quietly. Even though she knew that he was always alert to what was going on around them, Spike had a way of strolling slowly, exuding calm. Right now, she was envying that. Without the distraction of, er, other things, her earlier fears and confusion had reasserted themselves. Not to the same degree, but… She still felt scrambled, like she was being jerked in several different directions at once.

Now that she’d remembered so many difficult things, she was thinking it might be a really good idea to learn some self relaxation techniques. She’d been battling the panic from the coffin nightmares, and the unsettled sorrow from the dreams of loss, and now this…

How could she have ever forgotten for a moment what that meant? And why, with all the things she’d been struggling to remember, had she not wondered about that? Spike called her ‘Slayer’ all the time. She was fighting vampires and demons, for god’s sake! Why had her brain not tried to understand the deeper meanings of that? Didn’t that seem to be a pretty big deal? Instead she’d just sort of - ignored it. Work out, patrol, try to do her best, listen to Giles and Spike. Period. Not once had she given any deeper thought to it. It was almost as if - when she wasn’t actively engaged in Slayer activities, the ‘Slayer’ didn’t exist.

That wasn’t entirely true, she realized suddenly. She had thought about it a little. The night they’d ridden the motorcycle…

A Slayer is destruction. Absolute. Alone.

That thought had caused her pain, deep pain, and had made her panicky, so she’d pushed it away, refusing to dwell on it.

Had that been the problem? Or part of it? Had she, like Gregory Peck, not wanted to remember? Maybe there had been some reluctance in her mind. Something inside her that remembered the fears and pain of the last months of her life, and had strongly shielded that part of her past from her, taking even curiosity away. Maybe her subconscious had been trying to give her an out, if only temporarily.

Did her subconscious think she was ready now? ‘Cause she thought she could argue that point pretty forcefully…

Her troubled eyes turned to Spike.

“I don’t understand how I could forget all that - what being the Slayer meant. And with all the fogginess that was my memory since I came back, there was no hint of that. None. I was reaching for details - names, places, stuff like that. The whole Slayer thing? Not so much. Or, um, at all.”

Her jaw dropped slightly. “Huh?”

“Revelations, love.”

“Huh?”

“The bible…”

“You can quote the bible?” That distracted her.

“It’s called an education, pet,” he explained. “I had one.”

Which really didn’t explain why he could quote bits and pieces from it more than one hundred years later. She’d been in school a lot more recently and she could hardly remember…

“Revelations is your hotly debated book of the bible - lots of stuff about the end of days. But most people read that particular verse as a description of heaven,” he went on. “The last few months of your life, love? I could see it was takin’ a lot out of you. Causing you more pain than you should ever have had to…” he broke off, and took a long drag on his cigarette. “You were in heaven for hundreds of years. Stands to reason, the parts of bein’ the Slayer that caused you pain - they’d be wiped away, wouldn’t they? ‘The former things have passed away…’ Taken from you.”

She looked into his face. How does your mind work? she wanted to ask. She’d told him about not remembering the Slayer details less than half an hour ago, and, even with - other stuff - happening, his mind had already turned it over, studied it, and come up with explanations and possible conclusions. All wrapped up with supporting biblical references. It approached boggley.

“Do you, ah, believe in God?” she asked instead.

He shrugged, not seeming in the least uncomfortable with the subject. She supposed he’d had time to contemplate lots of subjects over the years.

“Don’t need to believe in God to quote the bible, pet,” he told her. “But I figure there’s somethin’,” he admitted. “Don’t quite know what, but some power… Kinda like you said, I guess. Good and evil exist - we know that. Fate, too, maybe. Don’t know if the ‘good’ is God or something else.” He studied her in turn. “You’d know more about it than me, love. You were in heaven.” Another pull on his cigarette. “You didn’t come across an elderly bloke with white robes and a flowing beard while you were there, huh?”

“Yeah, be a typical guy and assume God would be male,” she said. “But no,” she went on over his outraged ‘Typical?!’ “I didn’t come across anyone, remember?” She knew she sounded slightly miffed, and he smiled.

“All that laying about,” he jibed. “You probably slept through the bloody welcome wagon. Either that or you were supposed to report for good deed doing duty or somethin’ an’ didn’t get the memo.”

She made a face, accepting his attempt to lighten the mood. Her mind was spinning and letting it all go for awhile sounded like a great plan. “Oooh. That would be like that nightmare where you lose your class schedule and then find it at the end of the semester and realize there’s a class you haven’t been to once, and now you’re either going to get a big, fat, red “F” for ‘Forgetter’, or be forced to take the final exam completely unprepared or something.” She paused, taking a deeply needed breath. “Only, in a sort of eternal life type way…”

He snorted. “It’s a good thing you’re almost home, Slayer. You’re obviously sleep deprived.”

“Am not,” she stated. “I’ve been sleeping better, for, um, awhile. Definite decrease in nightmares.” One per night was fewer than three, wasn’t it? And the occasional night without any…

“Didn’t get your mental calendar back, huh?”

“I guess not,” Buffy shrugged. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes before continuing casually. “I mean, I know the order things happened in. Like, I know my mom scared you off with an axe on Parent’s Night before I kicked your ass on Halloween, and that both of those were before you showed up in the middle of the day once just to experience a sun-shiny ass-kicking… Things like that…”

“Oh, you’re bloody hilarious, you are.”

“Yeah, I know,” she nodded seriously. “I’ve always made it a point to work on the humor.”

“Not hard enough.”

“Do you suppose I’ll get my punning ability back now?”

“One lives in hope.”

~*~

They paused at the end of the sidewalk leading up to her house.

Spike watched Buffy stare at the house, saw her taking in the blazing lights. Still, she turned a face full of appeal up to his. “You don’t suppose they’re all in bed, do you?”

“Sorry, Slayer. I can hear voices. Can’t make ‘em out, but…”

Spike’s eyes ran over her. He touched her chin, brushed a windblown strand of hair off her cheek. Her huge eyes, shot with wonderful glints of green and golden brown, stayed on his. Enhanced night vision had lots of merits.

“Ready, Joan?”

Amusement touched those hazel eyes, and the golden lights intensified for a moment. “Ready, Rupie.”

He eyed her sternly. “R.J.,” he corrected.

“Right.”

Buffy and Spike came in the front door of the Summers house just in time to see Tara dash up the stairs, tears visible on her face. They stared after her, before switching their attention to Dawn, who was leaning against the wall near the door, her arms folded over her stomach, and Willow, who was looking up the stairs, her own face tear stained. Willow turned to the newcomers, her face tight and hurt and angry, before she pivoted and went into the kitchen. They heard the back door open and close.

“Is everyone alright?” Buffy asked her sister. She glanced back up the stairs. “Physically, anyway?”

“Physically, I think so.” Dawn glanced back and forth between them. “I think Anya and Giles will be spending a couple of days getting over their ‘engagement’, and apparently Anya was completely terrorized by the hundreds of rabbits that showed up in the Magic Box when she and Giles were trying to do some spells. But otherwise I think they’re all okay. Xander took Anya home. He said he had some sedatives, and he was gonna make sure she took some. How about you two?”

Spike looked at Buffy, who seemed to have no idea how to answer that question, and spoke for them. “We’re doin’ okay, luv. What’s wrong with Tara?”

“It’s - she’s upset with Willow.”

Spike’s jaw tightened perceptibly, but Buffy looked confused.

“Why? Not because Willow was flirting a little with Xander at the Magic Box, I hope? She can’t hold that against her. We were all under some kind of spell.”

“No,” Spike drew out the word, and his eyes were hard. “’Cause Will’s the one who did this, isn’t she? Another little attempt to mess with people’s minds. Am I right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dawn said. “She and Tara had a big fight when we got back here.”

“What are you talking about? Mess with people’s minds how? What people?”

“She’s done it to me a few times. Not always successful, but…”

“How?” Buffy looked shocked and disturbed. “Messed with your mind how? Why?”

“She and I don’t always see eye to eye,” Spike dismissed. He wasn’t about to bother her with the details of any of his little run-ins with Red.

Buffy stepped closer to him, touching his arm. “Spike? What did she do?”

He glanced at her hand on his arm, and into her face, taking in her concerned expression. Concerned. For him. He stared into her eyes, slightly stunned. “I - later, love.” He forced his eyes away from her, and looked back at Dawn. “What, exactly, did Tara think Willow did? Did she say?”

Dawn’s arms tightened around her waist. “She and Tara were arguing. I didn’t hear everything.”

Buffy seemed to accept the statement, but Spike just rolled his eyes. “Sure you did, bit. Now spill.”

“She did a spell. To, um… I guess she wanted to make Buffy forget about being in hell.”

“Oh.” Just for a second, Buffy’s face expressed her horror and fear, and Spike watched as she struggled to bring herself under control, to hide her reaction from her sister. Too late.

“Steady, love,” he said quietly, laying a hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “You have your memories.”

Dawn frowned.

Spike’s eyes went to the younger girl, studying her. “You got any idea why the spell wasn’t just cast on Buffy then?”

Dawn shifted under his steady regard. “Not really. Tara just said something about Willow wanting her to forget, too. Um, again. But then they saw me, and they sorta stopped talking.”

“I’m going to see if Willow’s out on the porch,” Buffy told them. “See if she wants to tell us what this is all about.”

“You sure you’re okay, luv?” Spike asked as Buffy went into the kitchen. “The others took care of you alright?” She looked stressed out, and disturbed. He knew it upset her when the people she cared about fought. It always reminded her of watching her parents marriage disintegrate around her.

“We were ducking some vamps in the tunnels, and there was some slayage by Xander , but, yeah, I’m okay.” Her expression changed. “Hey! I helped with the staking.” A note of pride had crept into her voice.

“Did you now?”

“Well, mostly I just tossed Xander a stake, but still…”

“From humble beginnings…”

Dawn’s half hearted smile in response clearly indicated how upset she was.

His eyes stayed on her until she shifted restlessly. “What?” She shifted again, growing uncomfortable under his eyes. “What?” she demanded.

“Stupid hair?”

Color ran into Dawn’s face. “I was all, um, confused,” she said lamely.

“That right, Umad? You didn’t sound confused. You sounded mouthy.”

Dawn bucked up. “Oh, What. Ever. Rupie, Jr. Whatever you do to your hair, I’m sure you’ll always be the badest vamp in Sunnydale,” she informed him in a tone of voice that suggested she’d repeated these particular words far too often.

“That’s a given,” he agreed.

His eyes didn’t stray. Dawn caved.

“Okay, okay, I like the curls! Is that a crime? Geesh!”

“Now, how bleedin’ scary would I be with my head all poofed up?”

“There has to be something between ‘all poofed up’ and helmet hair, Frankie.”

She came closer, and reached up toward his hair. He ducked away. “Hey! Hands off!”

“How about cut short and kinda spikey? That can be punk, right? Look all rebellious and - ooo - scary.”

Spike glared. “I’ve been honing this look for almost a quarter of a century, pidge. Perfected it, too. No need to mess with it now.”

“Oh, yeah? Well guess what? It’s a new century now, fang boy. You could think about joining the rest of us in it.” She looked beyond him. “What’d’you think, Buffy?”

“Uh - uh,” Buffy refused. “You two bicker just fine without me getting in the middle.” She looked between her sister and the vampire before her eyes inevitably drifted to Spike’s hair. “Short and spikey has some possibilities, though.”

“Not too short,” Dawn elaborated, looking victorious. “No need to go all G.I. Joe or anything.”

“Sod off, Umad.”

Dawn laughed, and Buffy smiled.

~*~

Spike was pacing.

It wasn’t a straight back and forth movement, but he was roaming the room, restless, obviously unable to stand still, much less sit and talk in his usual easy manner with Dawn. He got kinda - into it - when they were actually fighting baddies, but she didn’t know if she’d ever seen him quite like this - this hyper. At least since she’d come back.

He’d wanted to know what Willow had to say for herself, and she’d told him that the other girl hadn’t been brooding on the back porch - like I do, she added to herself - and didn’t appear to be wandering anywhere in the yard, either. Using her eyes, she’d also made it quite clear that they were not discussing this any further in front of Dawn. He’d inclined his head in agreement.

But she could see the wait was taking a serious toll on him.

Dawn had been watching his odd behavior, frowning slightly, and finally, she looked at Buffy, rolling her eyes.

“I think I’ll go to bed,” she announced.

Finally. Spike might just as well have said it out loud, Buffy thought, with body gestures and much volume. Dawn disappeared up the stairs, and as soon as they heard the shower start up, he rounded on Buffy.

“There is something seriously wrong with that witch.”

“I know,” she agreed. She’d had a little time to think about this. “Something isn’t right. But we don’t know what, exactly, and I think Giles and I should sit her down and go over it - ”

“Oh, sod that! You need to show her the door, Slayer, Get her as far away from you and the bit as you can.”

“I should at least hear her side of the story, don’t you think?” she asked, heat building.

“You’re gonna let her get away with this, aren’t you? Are you out of your soddin’ mind?”

Buffy’s temper ignited. “Am I supposed to just use the girlfriend equivalent of the ‘See evil, slay evil’?” She eyed him angrily. “And, based on your personal history, you might wanna be careful how you answer that.”

“That little witch tried to mess with your mind. I don’t give a rat’s ass what she does to anyone else. She can toy with them as much as she wants, as much as they wanna let her. But I don’t want her fucking with me, and I don’t want her fucking with you and the bit.”

“We don’t know for sure -”

“Yeah, Slayer, we do. She wanted to make you forget a part of your life. And she has no right to make that decision for you.”

“She thinks I was in hell. I have to believe she was trying to help me.”

“Then tell her you weren’t!” he growled out. “Tell your little friends what they did to you! What they tore you away from.”

“What purpose would that serve?” Buffy argued. “It would only hurt them. It can’t change what happened. I don’t wanna hurt people.”

“Grrraah!” he roared. “What is it with you and protecting your friends? You. Are. A. Killer. Slayer. Hurting people is what you do.”

Rage suffused her. “I’m not a killer! That’s not what I’m about. I’m about protecting the weak from the strong. It’s not the same thing.”

Spike’s head fell back and the tendons in his neck stood out as he clenched his jaw, his eyes squeezed shut. He was breathing hard.

“I know that,” he grated out, after a moment. “I said that wrong. I bloody well know what you’re about. You’re a white hat, a hero.”

His struggle for control gave her a minute to calm down a little, too.

“Spike, listen to me. Willow and I have been friends for years. I know something isn’t right. But - we were so close for so long. I at least need to hear her side of the story. I owe her that. Maybe there’s something we don’t know, some explanation.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Spike might be calmer, but he clearly wasn’t buying into her line of reasoning. “This friend - that would be the one who pulled you out of heaven, right? Bet if you asked she’d tell you she was just trying to fix things - make them better - save you. Rescue you, like she told the bit. ‘Cept you didn’t really need rescuing, did you? And now she’s trying to fix things again by erasing parts of your past. If that doesn’t bother you, it bloody well should. She messed up the spell. You got your memory back, we all did, but what if we hadn’t? Or what if you’d just lost parts of it? Permanently lost them? Parts of your past? Your memories of your mum? Of Dawn?”

He let that sink in. “That first night we took out the motorbike, you talked about being worried that you’d lose your memories of heaven. That’s the part of your life Willow thought you should forget. What if she thinks your memories of your mum are causing you pain and she should take them from you next? Do you want her to have the power to pick and choose which memories she thinks you should keep? I have memories that mean a lot to me, that I damn well don’t want to lose. Ever. And so do you.”

“I -” She broke off when she realized there was really nothing she could say. Looked at from that angle, Willow’s actions created a whole different feeling in her. Unsettled. Twitchy. What had Willow been thinking? ‘I just wanted the pain to stop.’ That’s what her friend had told her, over and over again, during her frequent apologies in the weeks after she’d cast her ‘my will be done’ spell. Buffy had gotten a little tired of hearing it. Even though Willow had been apologizing at the time, it had often come off like she was justifying her actions. Over the weeks following Buffy’s sudden engagement to Spike and Giles’ blindness, ‘I just wanted the pain to stop’ had become, ‘I just wanted the pain to stop; that’s not so bad, is it?’ Had that been her goal again? To stop the pain? Only this time, to stop her pain?

Quickly Buffy tried to push that last thought away. She couldn’t blame Willow. Couldn’t blame any of her friends. It wouldn’t do any good, and she believed they had been trying to rescue her, to save her. She had to believe that. Anything else was just too difficult.

She wanted to trust Willow. They’d been best friends for years. But Spike was right. The spell had been a mistake, a terrible chance Willow should never have taken, to achieve an end Willow had no business choosing. For her, or for anyone, ever.

“And you don’t even know for sure if she was trying to fix things,” Spike went on. “That excuse might work for you - she thinks you were in hell. But what about the rest of us? Did she bugger up the spell, or was she trying to affect all of us? And why? I think your precious Scoobie gang better damned well find out.”

“What could she want the others to forget?”

“Now, how the bleedin’ hell am I supposed to know that, Slayer? Maybe you should ask Tara what she thought Willow wanted her to forget - again.” Spike suggested. His tone softened. “Don’t let her do this, Buffy. Get rid of her. You and the bit would be so much better off without that mob around you.”

Buffy felt her anger flaring up again. “That ‘mob’ and I have been friends for a long time.”

“You can hardly stand to be around them! Have you forgotten that?”

“No! I haven’t forgotten. I feel all weird enough that I don’t feel connected to any of them. Do you have to rub my face in it?”

“Rub your face in -”

Spike broke off, staring into that face. Even though they’d spent most of it, little sparks of anger were still flying between them, and Buffy’s breathing was rapid. His face changed and she saw something come into his eyes. Something - personal.

“Look at you,” he said. The tone of his voice had altered.

“What?”

“All flushed and smart mouthed.” His eyes ran down her. “Body all tight, and eyes shooting daggers at me. Givin’ me hell.”

“Huh?” How did he succeed in distracting her so easily?

“Told you, love,” he said with satisfaction. “Everything you need is inside you.”

Spike’s arm closed around her waist and, with a swift movement, he jerked her off her feet, hauling her against him. His hand sank into the hair at the back of her head and he swooped in and kissed her, hard and fast. She was breathing even more rapidly when he let her go.

“Welcome back, Slayer.”

He gave her one of his patented smirks and strolled casually out of the house.

Her mouth fell open.

“You…” she said into the empty room.

Damn him!

Get back here, she wanted to shout after him. We. Are. Not. Done. Arguing…

~*~

Brilliant. Bloody. Move. You. Stupid. Wanker. He punctuated each word with a vicious blow to the punching bag. He was surprised she hadn’t knocked his teeth down his throat. It might not rank up there with chaining her up and offering to kill Dru to prove his love, but it had it all over beating his practice Buffy about the head with a box of chocolates in frustration.

How. The. Hell. Do. Humans. Control. Their. Tempers?

After swaggering out of Buffy’s house, what he’d really wanted to do was find Red and chat her up a bit. But he’d damned well promised the Watcher he’d let him take care of any contact with the bint. Well, he hadn’t promised exactly. “I’ll see what I can do.” Still, intent… And he knew the Watcher was counting on him to follow through.

His fists plowed into the heavy sack again, a rapid volley. Seeing Willow right now might not be such a brilliant idea, anyway. ‘Cause he was pretty sure it would lead to a headache. So he’d broken into the Magic Box instead. Normally he’d have gone looking for something to kill, but since he had to be back on Revello Drive in less than an hour…

It was hard to even contemplate turning responsibility over to someone else - to not take charge of things on his own. Even when he’d screwed things up, and that had happened far more often than it bloody well should have, especially since he’d come to the Hellmouth, he hadn’t regretted his decision not to delegate. Because he knew he was the only one he could count on.

He’d done it occasionally - turned responsibility for something over to someone else - if the someone else in question was located in the same room with him, and he could keep a very close eye on them. Dalton, for instance, or that vamp that had been helping him with the tunneling needed to unearth the Gem of Amarra. What had his name been? Spike couldn’t remember. He shrugged.

Even Dru - he’d never exactly been able to count on her to come through on specific things. Whether that was due to her fickle nature or her insanity, he didn’t know. Still, she’d never disappointed him, never bored him, never made him feel like anything but the luckiest bloke in the world to have her at his side… Until…

Wanker. You. Are. Supposed. To. Be. Working. Off. Your. Frustration. Thinking. About. Dru. Will. Not. Help.

He’d agreed to let the Watcher take the high road with Willow. To find out what was going on in the witch’s mind. But letting him take charge, placing trust in the Watcher went against everything Spike had ever known.

Argh.

What the hell had that red haired witch been up to? And why?

If he was honest with himself, Spike would have to admit that in the past he’d rather liked Willow. She’d always had a kind of feisty niceness to her that he found more notable than the personalities of Tara or Anya, and less annoying than Harris, or, for that matter, Buffy.

Of course, no one on the bleedin’ earth could be more annoying than Harris. He’d always figured the powers in charge of such things had used the whelp as a sort of Pandora’s Box for Vexing Things, and some wanker just couldn’t resist opening him, releasing him onto the world.

And Buffy? The Slayer had always irked him, deeply. She had aggravated him, irritated and infuriated him, bothered, beset, and beleaguered him. Spike’s mouth curved with affection. Stupid bint aroused him, too, made him hard and hungry, made him ache, made him care, made him feel, made him change…

Once he’d met her, how could he ever have thought for one minute that he’d be able to bring himself to kill such a bloody perfect woman? Had he been out of his sodding mind?

He forced his thoughts back to Willow.

Trust.

There. Was. That. Bleeding. Word. Again.

The Scoobies trusted Red. She’d been a part of the gang, loved, counted on, respected, ever since his Slayer had come to Sunnydale. Even Buffy, twitchy or not, had made it clear she wanted to trust her friend, to believe in her, to give her the benefit of every doubt. Spike feared that even if the others talked this out, mouthed the need to use caution with the witch, their every instinct would be to trust her, and that could prove to be dangerous.

And. There. Wasn’t. A. Bloody. Thing. He. Could. Do. About. It.

Spike glanced at the clock, and stopped the swing of the punching bag. It was time to head back to Buffy’s, take up his vigil on the roof. He swept his duster up off a chair and was pushing his arms into the sleeves when he saw one of Buffy’s jackets hanging on a hook near the door. The sweatshirt Dawn wore during their workouts hung next to it. Spike stroked his hand over each of them, smiling as his hand came away with a long strand of Dawn’s hair. His girls had beautiful hair, he thought. One dark, one light. He brushed the strand of hair from his hand and watched it fall to the floor of the training room.

Clothes. Hair.

Spike’s eyes narrowed.

He could have a protection spell put on them. He knew people. Reliable, white magic types that spurned the dark arts. Trustworthy. He didn’t know if Buffy would go for it, but strictly speaking he didn’t have to tell her. No need for her to know, was there?

Of course there’s a soddin’ reason for her to know, you stupid git.

Soddin’ trust.

His Slayer was big on it. He figured trust was bound to be an ongoing issue between them. Even though things seemed to be going fairly well in that department right now, it would come up again. After all - Slayer, vampire, past attempts to kill one another. He wasn’t gonna bugger things up by having some white witch cast a spell on her without her knowledge, even if it was for her protection. Having one cast on little sis probably wouldn’t sit any better with her.

There was no reason he couldn’t have one cast on himself, though, was there? Nothing too strong. Just a little something to keep Red out of his mind.

Tonight, he decided. He had experience prowling the rooms of the Summers home while the occupants slept. All he had to do was climb in the bit’s window, make a little side trip to Joyce’s old room or the bathroom, pick up a couple things. Some of Willow’s hair, an item or two of clothing. Spike smirked. He even knew which one of Willow’s blouses he would nick. Orangy red number. Fuzzy. Looked like something that might be found on a Muppet. He figured he’d be doing the fashion world a favor making sure it was never seen in public again. If he needed another item, there was that disastrous gold thing with the dangly balls. Red had bleedin’ tragic taste in clothes. Odd that, when his slayer was such a stylish bird. You’d-a thought some of that would have rubbed off on the witch.

He’d told the Watcher he would guard his girls from Willow if he needed to. Keepin’ his head clear of her influence could only be a step in the right direction.

~*~

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