Disclaimer: I do not own any the characters of BtVS, I’m just a fanatic wielding the power of my own imagination and Microsoft Word program.

Rating: PG-13 for now, though may be subject to rating change later, not sure.

Author’s Note: It is recommended that you read "Fortunate Son" before this since there will be many references to the backstory already established, but this short synopsis should bring you up to speed. Spike is Giles’ estranged son who arrived to Sunnydale, only to find that his mother’s long-lost murderer is none other than Buffy’s true love, Angel. After Buffy turns Angel, he proceeds to kill the remainder of Spike’s family and friends, including his girlfriend, Drusilla. He then tries to open Acathla (much in the same vein of the latter part of S2) and his portal, but Ms. Calendar re-curses him with his soul before Buffy can find out about it. She sends him to Hell minutes later after his soul returns. Spike is forced to stake Dru. Both are broken and in pain, subsequently leaving Sunnydale for L.A. Any more than that, you’ll have to read "Fortunate Son" to clear up any confusion. Also, the first part of this chapter takes dialogue directly from "Anne".

Feedback: Yes, yes please! Also, I have another story currently going on called "Haven". If you haven’t, please be the nicest person ever and check it out! Drop me a line about if you so please! : )

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Chapter 1: Anne

She stood on the beach, her toes curling in the sand. The breeze swirled her golden hair about her shoulders and the light cotton sundress about her tanned legs. Serenity flailed about in the wind and filled her with contentment. She smiled and closed her eyes when she felt the warmth of the sun beat down onto her cheeks. She was safe here, she belonged. She felt loved.

"That’s because you are loved," a male voice assured her as two strong hands settled around her waist. She leaned into his arms and soaked him in. Her hand crept up his cheek and sought the comfort of his dark brown hair. She turned her head round so that she was gazing up into his chocolate eyes.

"By you?"

He grasped her hand, intertwining their fingers together. "Always."

"How did you find me here?"

"If I was blind, I would see you."

She never wanted this to end. But she knew it was coming. The sun was subsiding and bowing under the glittering opalescent blue of the horizon. "Stay with me?" she murmured, holding him tighter.

He chuckled softly into her ear. "Forever, Princess. That’s the whole point. I’ll never leave." His voice suddenly turned forebodingly dark as he whispered, "Not even if you kill me."

She stilled and a shiver ran through her bones. When she turned, she saw him with his chest bloodied and his face singed and burnt. "Bitch!" he yelled and she wanted to scream.

Instead, she woke up.

She sighed and brushed the sweat from her brow. She turned in her damp sheets and read the clock. 4: 05 AM. On schedule. She was shaking, but that was how she awoke for the past few weeks now. The nightmares were painful and heart-wrenchingly regular. She almost could count on them as her own personal alarm clock. Every morning, she would jolt awake in a feverish perspiration. It seemed appropriate that she should wake up when it was still the dead of night outside. She didn’t think she could bear to wake up to light.

She got up out of bed and wearily got ready for work.

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Her name was Anne and she worked the graveyard shift at the little diner around the corner. No one really cared what her name was though. She was always addressed as "Hey you" or "Waitress" or "Yo Blondie!" anyway. All the polite customers didn’t come to the dinner in the dead, quiet hours of the early morning. The customers who did were old, tired, horny or rude truckers who pinched her cheeks when she didn’t ask them to, slapped her ass when she was walking away and waved measly change at her in return for lewd favors. There was a time when she wouldn’t have stood for this and would have rewarded the smarmy old men with a fractured rib. But that wasn’t who she was anymore. She could never be what she was.

She was sullen and silent and non-emotive at work and in consequence, never got many tips. She never flashed a smile like the more amiable waitresses and curtly asked for and delivered orders to customers. No one at the diner exactly liked her, but the manager Mitch, took pity on her. She had arrived in L.A. a little less than a month ago and looked lost and broken, despite her best efforts. He had seen the kind before; doe-eyed heart-broken girl who thought L.A. would be the answer to all her problems. Girls like her needed all the help they could get.

He had given her a job and she was a good worker. She didn’t have very good people skills, but she was a hard worker, he could tell. No one knew what she was running from, but she seemed determined to relieve herself from whatever painful past she had as she busied herself everyday around the restaurant.

Today, she was intensely concentrating on refilling the ketchup bottles when something happened to almost draw her mind away. Another waitress, Sally stared at her in amazement as, for once, she seemed spacey and distracted.

"Hey! Anne! Earth to Anne!"

She had been staring at someone in the window. He was tall and well built with dark brown hair, donning a long black leather coat. Her heart skipped a beat and she nearly dropped the ladle of ketchup into her lap. It seemed like the whole world had stopped for a moment around her. But she squinted harder and realized it was not the person she thought it was. Turning hollow again, she snapped back to attention. "Huh?"

"I’ve been calling your name for five minutes," Sally remarked, annoyed. "You have a customer at Table Five."

She veered her head around and saw someone seated near the window, obscured by the large menu he or she was holding. She sighed and handed Sally the ladle. "Thanks."

She was in no mood to handle customers. Well . . . she never was in the mood to handle customers, but especially today. One passing resemblance and her whole day was destined to be spent in brooding and dark introspection. So she gruffly approached the table and stood in front of the customer impatiently.

"What would you like?"

The menu still hung in the air, hiding the customer from her view. It didn’t matter though. She rarely looked at whomever she was serving.

"Mmmm . . . what could I possibly get for . . . 79 cents?"

She rolled her eyes and slumped restlessly. "79 cents?"

"Well a gent’s gotta be economical, doesn’t he?"

If she wasn’t in such a bad mood or in a hurry to be somewhere else, she would have recognized the brusquely British voice from behind the laminated menu. She just tapped her finger on her apron and huffed. "Ummm . . . 79 cents, let’s see . . . you could get . . . yesterday’s old bread crusts . . . apple cores . . . rotten Danishes . . . or . . . coffee."

"Uh-huh. And you got any international flavors with that?"

Her eyes began to widen as she detected a familiar low hilt of pitch in the customer’s tone. Startled, she suddenly felt the impulse to run. "Uh, uh . . . what?"

"International flavors," he repeated with a hint of rudeness. "You know, like those creamers they’ve got on the market . . . Bailey’s Irish cream perhaps . . ."

"Umm . . . we’ve got . . . coffee . . . I-I don’t know anything more than that . . ."

"Well what do you know, you dumb bint?" he launched back sharply, throwing the menu down on the table to face the surly waitress. Surprised, he found no one there. All he could see was a girl with short, cropped blonde hair rapidly speeding away.

"Sally, you’ve got to help me!"

Sally looked up from her Cosmo and crackled her gum. Slightly astonished, she eyed Anne suspiciously as she held out her apron imploringly.

"What is it?"

"That customer, um, at Table Five. Take him for me?"

She glanced back at the bleached-blonde young man stretched out on the booth. "What’s wrong with him?" she said distrustfully.

"Nothing . . . I just don’t feel like taking him. I feel really sick, I-I think I need to go home."

Sally still had her eyes fixed on the black-clad, edgy-looking young lad. Beginning to smile, her gum crack in her mouth again. "He’s dishy," she noted appreciatively. "S’really got that Billy Idol thing going for him. Yum."

"Whatever." Anne thrust the apron into Sally’s arm and turned to make a run for it, but it was too late. He had seen her and shot a frustratingly mischievous grin at her. His whole face lit up when he saw her and he looked prepared to torture her. So she groaned and fled quickly to the back door.

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Dammit. Damn the damn . . . dammit. All she wanted to be was left alone. She didn’t want anyone to find her, not her mother or her sister or her friends. And least of all, not him.

She stalked down Fullerton, gripping herself tightly. Maybe she was just being paranoid. Just because he had caught a glimpse of her didn’t mean he’d track her down and proceed to entertain himself by bothering her.

And she knew he would bother her. He was annoying and perverse and caustic and abrasive. Just mocking her could easily amuse him. She burned inside with vexation just thinking about it. It was the most she had felt in weeks, but she wasn’t very grateful for feeling.

It’s not like she had forgotten how he fought beside her in that last battle. She hadn’t forgotten that he was a good fighter and partner. But that wasn’t her life anymore. She didn’t want to be reminded of it. And what was he, more than a walking reminder of the life she had been trying so hard to avoid?

No, she tried to ease herself into thinking. No, it’s okay. He doesn’t care that much about it. He probably didn’t even see me. He probably doesn’t care if he never sees me again------

And then she heard it.

"Buffy!"

She groaned inwardly. No one had uttered that name for weeks and she had hoped she would go years before hearing it again. She pretended to not hear and continued on her way, rushing down the sidewalk.

He called out her name again. "Buffy!"

She hesitated, but didn’t stop. Not until he called out for the third time, "Buffy!" did she pause. Clenching her fists, she sighed and turned to face him.

"Spike."

He stopped and smirked smugly at her. His face seemed to glow just from the annoyance he was eliciting from her. He nodded. "Slayer. I thought it was you."

She had no time for this. "What do you want?’ she hissed.

"I mean, I couldn’t tell what with the new Supercuts do you got going on.." He pointed at the air around to mimic her own transformation. "But the pissed-off expression just gave it away. What’s with the new bouffant anyway?"

She ground her teeth. "I did it to go unrecognized."

He whistled. "Well let me tell you, I don’t think it did the trick. You want to go covertly- like, you need massive personality overhaul. For instance, that instant bitchy persona is distinctly you. Won’t be easily relieved with a few snippings of the shears."

She shook her head and repeated, "What do you want, Spike?"

"Can’t a fella say ‘ello to a mate if he feels like it?"

She stared at him, mystified. "Mate?"

He shrugged. "Well okay, someone I don’t particularly wish death upon."

She pursed her lips. "Well hi. There you go. Now if you can let me go on my way----"

"Wait a bloody second." He gently grabbed her arm before she could stride off. "I run into one of Sunnydale’s finest and she can’t even spare a little small talk?"

She winced when he had said the dreaded S-word. She wanted to stay unreminded of home at all costs. "We’ve never done small talk, Spike."

"Well I say we start. Come on, how long you been in L.A.? What you been doing here? Painting the town red with Sis and Mum, I bet. Don’t say I get the whole waitressing gig, but I guess it’s always good to rack up a few dollars during the summer."

She widened her eyes. Behind his affable, light socializing, he had no clue. "Don’t . . . don’t you know what happened?"

He looked sincerely blank. "What? What happened?"

"I . . . I’m here in L.A. by myself. Not with my mom or Dawn at all. I left Sunnydale . . . for good."

He stared at her for a moment before erupting into laughter. "Oh gone on!"

She furrowed her brows and glanced around nervously. "I’m serious! I left Sunnydale right after . . . right after that thing with Acathla."

He immediately stilled and stopped laughing. "You left when?"

"Well I thought you would know. Everyone else probably found out the day I left, unless you . . ." She paused. So he hadn’t been trying to track her down after all. He must have left for L.A. before she did, or around the same time. "Wait. When did you arrive in L.A?"

"Day after the Acathla business, same as you." She noticed that he immediately grew dark and guarded, as if he was reluctant to even refer to the event. Suddenly, he perked up and stared at her. "Wait. That means . . . you’ve been in L.A. this whole time, same as me!" He started to laugh. "Well bollocks, we could have gotten together and formed the Lonely Hearts Band!"

She didn’t laugh at all. He grew quiet also when he realized this was more truthful than funny. He sighed and stared down at the pavement, as did she. Feeling slightly more sociable, she looked up and asked him quietly, "So where are you staying?"

He seemed to shrink at the innocent question. Trying to shrug again flippantly, his face masked over so that it was unreadable. "Oh you know . . . places . . . here and there."

Something about his demeanor made her instantly suspicious. "What’s ‘here and there’?"

"What you are, my Mum? ‘Here and there’ is ‘here and there’! You know, mates’ flats and the like."

She shrugged and waved her head around dubiously. "Where do they live? Around here?"

He pursed his lips and clenched his teeth. "Why yes, Mrs. Summers, they do," he crooned in a falsetto accent. "What the hell are you asking for? Sod off."

It was funny how the tables had turned and he was the one who wanted her to shut up. She ignored him. "You know," she said in a patronizing voice. "This neighborhood isn’t exactly the safest place to live."

He furrowed his brows and cocked his head at her. "Speak for yourself."

"Well I think both you and I know I can handle myself, don’t we?"

He shrugged. "Buffy could. But you don’t seem to be her anymore, do you . . . Anne?" He finished, squinting at her little clip-on waitress tag. "What with the hair, the new locale and all. Looks like you’re running away from what you used to be."

She glowered silently as he struck a chord. "Not the only one to be doing that, am I?"

"Oh I fully admit to running away willy-nilly, first chance I got. But at least I’m not pretending to be noble and isolated and anti-social."

She stared at him innocently. "Who’s pretending?"

He smirked at her, then stuffed his hands in his pockets. "If that’s the way you feel, fine. You don’t fancy talking with another member of the human race, I won’t burden you. See you around, princess."

With that, he turned around and walked away, leaving her stunned on the sidewalk. She hadn’t seen that coming. Didn’t think he would leave so abruptly. She was fuming and on edge while talking to him, but she secretly felt better at the same time. It was the most she had spoken to another person in weeks. She watched his retreating, black-duster-waving figure in confusion and furrowed her eyebrows, almost in wistfulness. But it soon passed and she returned to walking home, wondering if she would see him again.

TBC………Haven’t had a chance to edit it, I was too excited to upload it (impatient ol’ me), so excuse some slight typos, I’ll go back and fix them later.

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Chapter 2: Helping Hand

A few nights a week, when she wasn’t too tired from the strenuous hours at the dinner, she went to the little club down the street. It was clean and well lighted and usually occupied by friendly visitors who swayed amiably to the music of the bands that played on the colorful stage, varying night to night. It reminded her of the Bronze, except it was completely different. No place would be like Bronze, not without the usual exclusive group of bookworms, laconic guitarists, and good-hearted buffoons. It would never seem quite as bright, quite as fun, quite as free without these particular people around. It pained her slightly whenever the comparison flitted through her mind, but she sullenly reminded herself that this was how it was supposed to be.

She sat at the bar, morosely stirring her rum and coke in the glass. She was a regular and the bartender knew full well that she was under 21, but she always looked too melancholy to refuse selling a drink to. Besides, she never did anything more than sip. She never had the intention of drowning her sorrows in a bottle. She wanted to look like a droopy alcoholic so that people would knowingly leave her alone. It was character self-assassination.

The bartender shook his head at her as he cleaned the glasses. She raised an eyebrow at him. She knew he knew what she was doing. And he couldn’t understand it. Once, he had asked her, "What does a pretty little girl have to be so broken up about? Guy troubles?"

She nodded resignedly.

"He dumped you?"

She shook her head.

He whistled. "Well whoever he is, he seems like a tool. Who’d wanna hurt a nice sweet kid like you?" He waved a hand at her. "You ask me, he can go to hell."

She was emotionless, but inside, she turned to ice. "If only you knew," she muttered to herself.

Tonight, he had watched as three perfectly nice gentlemen sidled up to her, asking politely for a dance. Coldly, she rejected them, one-by-one, all with a flippant shake of her blonde mane. The bartender whistled again.

"Geez, takes a lot to get a word in with you, huh Blondie? You’re making these guys really work for it."

The look she gave him indicated that they would have to do more than work to get in a word with her. They would have to be "him" . . .

. . . Or Spike, apparently.

She scrunched her face into an intense frown when he carelessly plopped into the chair next to her. It was only when she cleared her throat and shot him a murderous scowl did he look at her with innocent wide eyes.

"Oh I’m sorry, is this seat taken?"

He had said it in a mock-polite tone and she wasn’t falling for it."

"Spike!" she seethed through clenched teeth.

Raised, scarred eyebrow. "Is it?" he persisted genteelly.

She sighed. "If the alternative is you, Spike, then yes."

He shrugged indifferently. "Well finders keepers."

She grabbed the chair out from under him and he stumbled back onto his ass with a yelp. "Can it, Spike. I don’t have times for your games. Can’t you find another girl to annoy?"

He sniffed, climbing into the chair. "Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just asking the good man for a drink." He waved a bill at the bartender. "Scotch on the rocks."

She rolled her eyes disgustedly. "Who are you, Colonel Mustard? Can’t you drink like a normal eighteen-year old?"

"My, aren’t we the prattly one tonight. Here I am, minding my own business and you immediately take to metaphorically boxing my ears."

Eyes slit, she folded her arms across her chest. "Another minute of this, it won’t be so metaphorical."

"Oh don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m not bothering you. I have a right to be here, same as you."

"What happened to leaving me alone?"

"What happened to you being anti-social?" he snorted. "I figure it’d make more sense, me being here than you. Don’t have the same aversion to people you do, pet."

She glared at him, swirling the ice in her glass irritatedly. "I don’t have an aversion to people, just to you."

"Go on girl, you’re making me blush."

The bartender tried unsuccessfully to contain his laughter. "You guys know each other?"

They both answered in unison:

"No."

"Yes."

The bartender laughed again and Spike smugly put his arm around Buffy’s barstool. She roughly pushed him off and he willingly fell back, chuckling as well. With a sigh, Buffy closed her eyes and waved a hand at Spike. "Yes," she admitted. "Unfortunately, yes I know him."

"Oh don’t be so modest, girl." He snaked his arm around her shoulder once more and grinned impishly at the bartender. "Known each other since we were tots, us two. Yea big." He held his hand a few feet from the floor. "Playtime, we used to do this rowdy version of ‘Doctor’----"

Buffy clamped a hand on his mouth and he started laughing again. Inflamed with annoyance, she bit her lip and smacked him upside the head. She glanced apologetically at the bartender. "We didn’t really know each other back then. . . we aren’t really friends . . ." she explained.

"Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten our prepubescent romps and wrestling matches---" Spike cut in once more with a puckish grin, only to be silenced once more by an irate Buffy.

"That’s enough, Spike," she hissed. "I’m serious. Leave me alone."

Once she let go, he unfurled back out into his chair. "But it’s so much more fun this way."

"I can’t believe you," she griped, throwing her hands in the air. She got up to go, incensed. This was too much. He think he could just stride up to her, proceed to mock her and then---

His eyes suddenly widened as he seemed to spot something past her shoulder. Abruptly, he grabbed her arm. "Come on, Blondie, let’s dance." He started to pull her out onto the dance floor.

"What?!" Astounded she tried to wrench free. This was surreal. "What the hell do you think you’re doing?!" She turned around and scanned the crowd to see where he was looking. Staring straight at them was a bulky, towering man with a thick neck and an intimidatingly stone-like face who was rapidly approaching them. "Who is that?"

He had already tugged her onto the floor, grabbing her hands up in jerk-like motions to feign the impression of lively dancing. "My Aunt Betty. Now come on Slayer, get on with your fancy feet." He tried spinning her around in rigid motions, all the time staring fixedly at the man. He held her waist and wrist, trying to wave her around in a rhythmic manner, but he was too absorbed with the presence of tall man to even notice that she was yelping, being thrown into ridiculous spins and awkward dips. He just held onto her and smiled triumphantly at the man when he halted in the crowd.

After being forcibly yanked around, Buffy broke free and glared at him. "Spike! What the hell is going on?!"

He sighed, finally forced to fill her in with the details. "Keep you trap shut," he whispered to her conspiratorially. "If you must know, that ape-like character has been on my tail for days now. I have to make it look like I’m occupied so he won’t take the opportunity to pummel the guts out of me."

Confused, she turned around. The man had his arms crossed, still staring at the steadily. She could tell he meant business with Spike. He was thick and brutal looking, the regular prototype of a hit man. Apprehensively, she turned back to Spike, who was still dancing with her a little less aggressively. "What did you do?" she murmured.

He shrugged. "Nothing to warrant a kicking-of-the-arse. Just borrowed a few bucks from his kid brother, with the full intention of paying him back, but he wants the money back quicker than I can give it back----"

She eyed him skeptically. "What’s a ‘few bucks’?"

He hesitated, but shrugged again. "Y’know . . . well I . . . you see . . ." He sighed, and broke. "Five hundred."

"Five hundred!" she exploded in dismay. "You stole five hundred dollars from that, that . . . goon?!"

"Well stole is such an ugly word . . . Borrowed, more like. Made temporary use of."

"How can you make temporary use of five hundred dollars?!"

"Very easily. Made a trip to Las Vegas, bet all the money, lost all the money and . . . well that pretty much brings us up to date."

This got worse and worse. He was unbelievable, so she told him so. "You bet some guy’s money?! You’re unbelievable!"

"Hey, it was merely an economical venture. I thought I was making a very strategically sound move."

"You stole a mobster’s money! And then you bet on it! That’s not sound, that’s suicidal!"

"Ah ah ah pet, stole is such a-----"

"Shut up!" She threw down his hands. "I can’t believe you’re using me as bait to guard against some criminal, I’m not going to help you-----"

"Is this guy given you trouble ma’am?" The tall man was at their side in an instant, solid and foreboding. Warily, Buffy stared up at him and grew nervous as he eyed Spike, baring his teeth and cracking his massive knuckles. One gold tooth glinted in the light and Buffy shuddered. Unable to do anything else, she wavered and put her hand on Spike’s chest, patting it with a plastered smile.

"O-oh, no s-sir. We’re good. My boyfriend, he just stepped on my brand new Manolo Blahniks. Ugh, he . . . massacred them." She flashed a grand grin and hugged Spike uneasily.

"That’s right!" Spike held her tightly and a bit protectively (although it was more for his protection than hers) and Buffy tried to repress a grimace. "I’m a terrible cad on the dance floor you see, but nothing a little lover’s quarrel won’t straighten out."

The man made no move to leave. He looked them both up and down suspiciously, finally cocking his head at Spike. "We gotta talk first."

Spike trembled with his arms still slung around Buffy, who kept him up. But he regained his composure and said sanctimoniously, "Well, can it wait? Me and Ginger here are just about to get the soft-shoe routine in."

"Pleasure can wait, Dancing Boy. We got business." The man gruffly punctuated this by grabbing Spike round the collar. Spike swallowed hard and submissively followed him through the crowd. Buffy panicked and watched as they made their way through the club, crashing through the back door and out into the alley.

Her hand curled instinctively into a fist. As she watched them, the impulse to grab the tall man and pummel him into meek cowardice was rising within her, but another internal voice willed it down. She didn’t do that anymore. She wasn’t the slayer. She was just a girl. Just a girl.

Conflicted, she didn’t know what to do. She had tried to so hard to avoid her old life, the fighting and the brawls. One half-hour spent with Spike and it all came barreling back what with his criminal antics and his gibing and his mockery of her. God, he was infuriating. She should let him be pounded to a smirking pulp shouldn’t she?

She sighed, finally striding to the back of the club towards the alley.

In the dark alleyway, the tall man had Spike pinned hard against a wall. His fist hung threateningly in the air and Spike already had a black eye.

"Tell me where the money is, punk ass," Tall Man growled.

Spike sighed, his head rolling around on the brick. "Don’t ask me. Circulating among Las Vegas tourists no doubt. Businessmen, blue-haired little old ladies----"

"Shut up!" He dragged Spike off the wall and sent him crashing violently back into the brick. If that wasn’t enough, he grabbed Spike’s head and slammed it to the brick. "You better get me the money and soon."

"I don’t have it---"

He thrust Spike’s head against the wall again and Spike groaned in pain. "Get it," he snarled.

Buffy rolled her eyes and put her hands to her hips. "Hey, Cro-Magnon!" When the tall man turned, Buffy shot him a saucy grin. "Get this."

She immediately launched into a stunning kick that knocked him back a few paces. Astounded, he stared at her for a moment, but she already spun into a roundhouse that sent him stumbling once more. Regaining footing, the tall man tried to rush her, but she ducked and he crashed into the opposite wall. Striding up to him, she pinned him against the wall, punching him powerfully. Although he started to slump, he managed to trip her and kick her in the side. She quickly kicked back up, but he was ready, throwing out a clumsy punch. She ducked his first one and continued to duck as he swung more heavy punches. She suddenly jumped up and whipped out more precise, sharp and heavy blows to his face. Finally, she grabbed him and practically hoisted him up over her head, sending him crashing into a dumpster. He crumpled to the ground and looked up at her in fear. Scrambling up, he started to run out of the alley.

She gazed at him as he ran. He was the first person she had . . . well, not slayed, but saved someone from. She usually felt smug and self-satisfied after something like this, but now she felt only hollow and cold. She didn’t want to have to do this again.

Wiping her hands, she tiredly turned back to Spike, who was still exhaustedly seated on the ground by the wall. She held out her hand, but he just spat blood at her. With his eyes slitted, he murmured, "Bitch."

Taken aback, she drew her hand away quickly. "What?"

He got up and brushed his duster off forcefully, still angry. "You heard me."

"Excuse me if I’m a tad muddled . . . in general customs, people usually offer a ‘thank you’ at times like these."

"Thank you for what? For emasculating me? For showing that bastard I need a girl for protection?"

"Well apparently you do. God, I saved your ass and all you do is gripe. You’re amazingly maddening." She shook her head in disbelief.

"All you did was prolong a beating. That guy’s not gonna stop tracking me down, you know. And now that you bruised more than his ego by kicking the shit out of him, he’ll take it out on me next time around."

She softened. "Oh. I didn’t think . . ."

"’Course you didn’t," Spike sneered. "Not a stretch to say you don’t think of much besides yourself." He started to walk away from her, but she grabbed his arm.

"Wait. Where are you going?"

He paused and darkened. "Home," he finally muttered.

The way he said the word seemed off somehow. She squinted her eyes and scrutinized him carefully. She knew there was something he wasn’t saying. "Where’s home, Spike?" she asked quietly.

He sighed. "We’ve already been through this. Home is---"

"Your ‘mates’, I know. But who are your mates? Where exactly do they live?"

He clenched his teeth and fists and finally cracked. "Fine. Fine Blondie, you want to hear me say it? Fine. I don’t have a home. I’m homeless. Isn’t that the bloody spectacle? Why don’t you laugh it up, say ‘oh that maddening Spike finally got his’. Because I don’t have a home. I sleep in alleyways sometimes, take showers at the YMCA and try to scrounge money when I can. And the people I can scrounge it from try to shoot my bloody head off every time I turn around. Funny isn’t it?" His expression was mordantly bitter, but under all of that, he looked inexplicably lost.

Shocked, Buffy was speechless. Judging from his jesting attitude every time they had met, she didn’t think he had it so bad. She didn’t think he had nowhere to go. Biting her lip, she lightly touched the cut on his forehead and his black eye. "You need to get that looked at," she noted quietly.

He batted her hand away. "It’s fine."

"It isn’t." She paused. "You’re telling me you have no place to go?"

He exploded, hating to look vulnerable. "How many times I gotta say it, Buffy? Like to rub it in my face, don’t you?"

She flinched, but gazed at him steadily. "It’s dangerous out here, what with guys like that looking for you." She looked lost in thought.

He looked up at her with an ambiguous expression. "Yeah . . . what would you know about it, girl?"

She sighed and donned an expression of resolution. "Well, it’s pretty obvious there’s only one thing to do."

He cocked an eyebrow. "And what’s that?"

Innocently, she picked up her purse, strewn on pavement before looking back up. "You’re coming home with me."

TBC…………………….I hope to update soon, but I have mad stuff to do. Also, since the chapters are longer for this story than "Haven", I think it’s be updated less often. I hope you enjoy both the stories all the same.

Chapter 3: Roommates

She entered the tiny apartment with a sigh, throwing the keys to a small desk. He stood outside the door, shuffling his feet awkwardly. She looked around and saw him staring through the doorway darkly so she sighed and rested against the frame.

Raising an eyebrow, she asked coolly, "Coming in?"

He sniffed and jostled his hands around in his pockets. "I find this quite strange."

She indifferently abandoned the door and disappeared into the apartment. "I don’t like it any more than you do," she called. "But it’s better than the alternative of you lying dead in the gutter somewhere."

He pursed his lips and entered the threshold with a frown. "Thanks for the jolly welcome," he muttered, shrugging of his duster. He studied the tidy little apartment carefully. It consisted of a bed, a desk, a dresser, a small bathroom tucked off somewhere and about five square feet of kitchen area. "Nice digs you got," he lied. " Small, but nice."

She emerged from the bathroom with a bottle of iodine, cotton balls and bandages. "Emphasis on small," she agreed. "It’s all I can afford on my miniscule income."

"So you’re perfectly willing to room with another flatmate? Wouldn’t cramp your style?"

She gave him a steady, pointed look. "Didn’t think it would matter much to you."

He returned her look with a glare. "Look, don’t think you’re doing me any favors. Contrary to what you believe, I don’t particularly enjoy staying with people who can’t stand me."

She sighed and approached him, trying to lead him to a chair. "I didn’t say I couldn’t stand you, Spike. I can. I just don’t know how much of you I can."

He wrenched away from her grip. "Well thanks a bloody bunch for the courtesy you’ve shown me, but I think I’ll be on my way. I’d rather sleep in a cardboard box than deal with this."

"Oh stop," she sighed tiredly. "You can’t go back out there. That guy is still looking for you."

"Fabulous. Maybe next time he’ll knock me deaf so I won’t ever have to listen to your harpy yammering again."

She forced him into a seated position in the chair. "Sit. I have to take care of your injuries."

He eyed her skeptically. "I’ve gotta say, your version of Mother Teresa comes off a might bitchy."

She ignored him and dunked the iodine onto a cotton ball. "This’ll sting," she said, reaching for his forehead.

"Yeah, well I figured living with you would be no picnic." He winced as the cotton made contact with his brow. "Oh, you meant the cut."

She made a face, but continued with her work with the bandages and the cotton balls. Quiet for a moment, Spike stared at her as she tended to him emotionlessly. He groaned a bit as she continued to dab his cuts, indifferent to his pain, but he relaxed a little as he finally asked softly, "Well . . . is it better?"

Her face was hovering near his as she taped a bandage to his forehead, but she didn’t even turn to look at him. "Is what better?"

His eyes were fixed on her seriously. "Y’know . . . this. Being here. The whole deal."

She paused and drew her face away to look him in the eyes. His blue pupils were shining earnestly with a kind of emptiness that she could more than understand. She looked down quickly and began gathering the supplies together. "Does it matter?" she whispered brusquely.

"’Course it matters. It always matters."

"Does it matter to you?"

He paused. "It’s different for me."

"What makes it so different?"

He grew visibly sullen, lips twitching. "I didn’t leave better things. They left me. Didn’t have much choice in the matter." His eyes were again on her, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt. But she shook out of it and resumed with her apathetic front.

"Well neither did I."

"Yeah, but you make it sound so weight-of-the-worldly, like being here is such torture."

She straightened, offended. "I never said that."

"Didn’t have to. You act like it. You’ve got this whole martyr complex going on. At least you got a roof over your head. At least you got a steady paycheck. More than I can say for myself."

"Wow Spike. You’ve just opened up my eyes. I can see now that I’ve got riches of the heart beyond the telling of it," she deadpanned.

"No need for glibness. I’m just saying if you hate it so much here, why’d you ever leave Sunnydale?"

She leveled a deathly look at him. He had entered into dangerous territory. "You know why," she murmured.

"I know why you think you left. Or what you tried to convince yourself into believing when you left. But that doesn’t give me the real reason."

She sat back and laughed mirthlessly. "You have me figured out Spike? Highly unlikely."

He cocked an eyebrow at her and continued. "You left because your honey had an extreme case of bipolar disorder. He jumped off the high end and took you down with him. So you had to kill him and it suddenly turned you into Joan of Arc."

She flew up and rage sparked from her hazeled orbs. "Spike," she said in a cautionary tone that encompassed lurking fire. "Shut up."

Ignoring her, he lit up a cigarette lazily and carried on with his dissertation. "Sounds like a right waste if you ask me. He was worthless creature, soul or not."

Springing up from the chair, she shook her head furiously and began to pace the room. "No one did ask you. We are so not talking about this, Spike. Leave it alone."

He was relentless. "I mean, come on. With a soul, he feeds on helpless mothers and attacks innocent teenagers----"

"No one would call you innocent, Spike."

"And without one, he harbors apocalyptic aspirations and an insatiable thirst for chaos."

She grit her teeth. "You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what you’re talking about."

"So really, kind of a chump, he was. Yet you still think he’s worth getting worked up over."

"What about you?" she fired back harshly. "You’re going to tell me the world crumbled the day you staked Dru?"

His features hardened and she knew she had hit the mark she wanted. "It crumbled for me," he rasped out roughly.

"Why Spike? Was it her dazzling display of logical reasoning? Or maybe it was her perfectly normal and all-consuming fixation for dolls. What made her so worthy of getting worked up over, huh?"

"I loved her!" He snapped back with such wrath that it alarmed Buffy for second. Casting a dark look down at her hands, she pursed her lips and replied quietly,

"Well I loved him too."

He clenched his teeth and shook his head. "Not the way I loved Dru."

Her eyes inflamed once more, she scoffed. "That’s right. Because you’re the only one in the world who can understand how to really love."

He looked up at her dangerously. "It wasn’t love with you and Angel. It was obsession."

Shocked, her face went blank. "What are you talking about, Spike?"

"It was like a drug, wasn’t it? Him being so bad. Come on, don’t tell me you don’t see it. Only the sickest girl in the world would fall for a two-hundred-year-old vampire. And a girl who’s the slayer, no less."

She bit her lip and stalked to the kitchen. She had had enough. She aimlessly and frantically searched around in the kitchen for something to distract her from Spike. She clattered around with the pots and pans, hoping the sound would detract from Spike’s stupid, hurtful lies. Except what made them so hurtful was the fact that they weren’t lies. His even voice just rose over the noise.

"Admit it. You like the bad guys. Or . . . guy I should say. But considering he was two sides to an equally threatening coin, I reserve the right to make it plural."

She dropped a pot on the floor futilely and looked up helplessly. She was giving up. She couldn’t stop his tirades. They just kept coming. The tears began forming under her eyes, so weakly, she whispered, "Spike . . ."

"You get off on the danger. It’s a typical suburban valley girl impulse, but with you, it’s ten times as twisted. Because he’s a vampire and you’re the vampire slayer. You like that he hurt you. For some reason, you think you deserve it. That’s why you’re here, exiling yourself from the real people who love you. The people you’ve left who need you. You don’t care, all you care about is the burn he gave you. The burn you craved."

His words were vaguely razor-edged and malicious and she didn’t want to listen anymore. "Stop it!" she cried.

But he was already on a roll, trying to bury her with his storm of barbed words. "It wasn’t love. It was fascination. It was perverse compulsion. You like knowing that your fucking around with death, don’t you?" He knew he was hurting her, but the words wouldn’t stop, unfurling out of his sharp mouth like an exorcism.

That was the straw that broke her back. Infuriated, she suddenly found herself flung upon him, slapping him, despite his injuries. "Shut up!" she screamed. "Just shut up!"

He let her blows rain down on him, not feeling the pain. They were clumsy, for one thing, and hardly made an impact. Besides, he never really felt anything anymore when beaten. He was beaten down enough. But now, some life flickered in him as she hit him, tears running down her face. As she continued screaming and slapping him, he suddenly caught her frail wrists in her hands and grasped them tightly.

Hiccuping a sob, she stopped and stared back at him as he glowered. There was something in his expression that made her know that he was just as lost and broken as she was, despite how abusive his words had been. He was like a reflection of everything she had known and felt for the past few months. Even though she was the Slayer, far excelling him in strength and prowess, they were equals. He somehow understood and knew her. It was the reason he could hurt her so much. And she knew he was only hurting her because she had hurt him too. For a moment, they just sat there in silence, gazing at each other, mystified. She straddled his lap and he held her hands inches from his chest. His face had changed and grown softer somehow and she became aware of it, awkwardly. Suddenly uncomfortable with the position, she freed her hands from his grip and snarled under her breath, "Go to hell."

He blinked twice as if he had broken out of a spell. Baring his lips back from his teeth, he growled back, "Yeah, you like to send all your boys there, don’t you?"

She climbed off of him quickly and grabbed her apron off the desk. "This isn’t going to work. I want you gone." He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off quickly. "You can stay for the night, just to make sure that guy doesn’t hunt you down, but that’s it. I’m going to do a double shift at the diner and when I come back, I want to see an empty apartment."

"You and me both," Spike snapped back. "I wouldn’t stay here if it was the last fucking sanctuary from a world of fire and brimstone!"

"Well good!"

"Fine!"

"Great!"

"Bloody great!"

It would have gone on like this forever if Buffy hadn’t finally punctuated the conversation by thunderously slamming the door.

**********************************************

The whole shift at the diner, Buffy scrubbed the countertops and served customers with unusual vehemence. She accumulated only a few dollars in tips the whole day due to her excessive surliness, but she hardly noticed. Every minute, her mind was preoccupied with hateful thoughts over one bleached-blond resident of her home. In her mind, she envisioned elaborate fantasies in which Spike was shot by a fifty-man firing guard. Or eaten alive by rabid wolves. Or drowned by sword-wielding pirates.

"Damn him, damn him, damn him," she muttered like a chant as she aggressively attacked the lunch top counter. "I hate him. I just . . . I hate him."

"That’s obvious," Gina, one of the older waitresses mused. "Didn’t register the first hundred times you said it, hun."

Whipping her head up, Buffy realized that she had been oblivious to all else in her fury. "Oh, umm . . . s-sorry. I’m just a little stressed out."

"Dearie, both me and that countertop you’ve scrubbed the veneer off of know that must be a massive understatement of some kind. Care to tell me what ails you?"

Buffy cautiously eyed Gina, the kind of waitress who was always amiably chattering with customers. She was used to listening to other people’s troubles and giving them a good-natured word of advice. Buffy wavered, but shook her head. "It’s okay, really."

Gina gave her a sly grin. "Let me guess," she prodded on. "It’s a boy, isn’t it?"

Buffy’s closed her eyes, knowing that Gina imagined a scenario far different than the one currently happening to her. But still, she admitted, "How did you know?"

"I just know about these things. You have that look on your face. That, ‘I don’t know why I put up with him’ look."

She twisted her lips into a half-smile. "I don’t."

"No one does, honey. We only stand by our men because it’s all we can do."

The thin connection between what Gina and Buffy were incongruously thinking of was loosing its correlation. "Oh that’s not it," Buffy said hurriedly. "He’s not . . . ‘my man’. God no."

Gina gave her a knowing smile. "We all try to convince ourselves of that to make it easier," she replied, nodding affably like the sage. "We try to tell ourselves that they’re not a part of our lives. But it never really works, does it?"

Buffy shook her head resolutely. "No, you don’t understand. He really isn’t. He’s not a part of my life at all. He’s more like a . . . an unwelcome visitor. A visitor who’s soon departing. In fact, he’s exiting my life as we speak."

"Right. Which is why you’ve been stewing in hatred for him all night. Face it, Blondie. They don’t really exit your life until they exit your mind. Which he apparently hasn’t done yet."

Buffy paused, not knowing how to respond to this. Gina was making the whole situation sound like a simple lover’s quarrel. She clearly knew that this wasn’t the case, so why did it bother her so much?

The diner clock struck 6am, signifying the end of her shift. Sighing with relief, she handed her apron to Gina. "That’s my cue. I’ll see you later."

Gina nodded. "’Course dear. And remember . . ." Buffy turned around to face her and Gina smiled reassuringly. "Things will work out between you and that boy of yours. Just you wait and see."

Buffy turned away, filled with disgust. Spike would never be her ‘boy’, not if she could help it. Good thing he would be gone by the time she came home. She would never have to ponder over the revolting possibility.

****************************************************

"Spike, what the hell are you doing here?!"

Buffy stood in the door, hands fixed on her hips with dismay. Spike turned around from the tatty old chair that faced the TV.

"Just watching the telly. What are you doin’ here?"

"I live here!! You DON’T!!" her voice exploded with frustration. She stormed into the room and flew to turn off the TV. Spike sat up quickly in protest, waving a frantic hand at the screen.

"What are you doing? That’s Starsky and Hutch, woman!"

"I don’t care if it’s buddy-cop show starring the Pope and Courtney Love. I want to know why the hell you’re still here!"

Spike sank back down into the recliner lazily. "You said I could stay the night."

"Spike! It’s 6 am. AM as in . . . Aye! It’s MORNING!"

He sniffed. "Clever. But I’m not fully rested yet."

"What are you talking about? What happened to not wanting to stay here even if it was the last place on earth?"

"That was before I found out you had cable. And those marvelous Hot Pocket things in the fridge."

"Oh my god, Spike, you’ve got to get out of here!" Buffy cried. "I can’t believe you!"

He looked up at her blankly. "You were the one who told me I could stay here last night. To guard for my life, you said."

"That was before I figured out I didn’t care whether you lived or not!"

He went to turn the TV back on. "You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if I died as a result of you putting me out onto the streets."

She squared her teeth. "It’s a chance I’m willing to take."

"Sorry luv, but I’ve got to be concerned for my own welfare."

"Well be concerned for it somewhere else. And don’t call me that."

"Come on. We could keep each other company. And I get to watch my programs. Get Smart s’on in ten."

She was astounded. He was acting like nothing had happened only a few hours before. He was acting like he hadn’t said those hurtful words, like she hadn’t attacked him hysterically. She couldn’t figure him out and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. All she knew was at the moment, she was far too fatigued to launch into a protest strong enough to pry him from the apartment. So she just sighed and shook her head at him.

"You can stay for one more day, Spike, but that’s it. And don’t think I’m giving in. I’m just too tired to lift you from the premises."

Spike didn’t turn around, his eyes fixed on the screen. "Whatever you say, luv."

"Don’t call me that," she retorted sharply before drifting off into the bathroom to change for bed. When she returned to the room, she awkwardly covered herself up. She was wearing what she always wore to bed, a skimpy camisole and short boxers. But she was only now aware of her appearance in the presence of Spike. He simply raised an eyebrow as she self-consciously made her way to bed, but didn’t say a word. As she climbed into bed and slid under the sheets, she paused and gave him one last word of uneasy semi-harshness.

"Only one more day, Spike."

"We’ll see, duchess."

"I said one more day," she said, her voice stony now.

"And I said we’ll see."

She threw her hands up in ire. "I hate you, Spike."

"Likewise, luv. Now go to sleep."

His tone was emotionless, but strangely comforting. Frowning, she fluffed a pillow and sank down into her bed, feeling unsettled. Somewhere inside, she knew her ‘only one more day’ riff was a lie. Whether she liked it or not, Spike was her roommate now. There was some strange and unspoken link between the two that couldn’t be so easily severed as Buffy desired.

TBC………………….