AUTHOR: Shadowlass

RATING: R

SUMMARY: Spike returns to Sunnydale with his new addition, version 3,829. And no one’s rolling out the welcome mat…but someone does have a little surprise for him.

EMAIL: shadowlass2000@yahoo.com

DISTRIBUTION: Feel free, but let me know where it’s going.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own BtVS. If I did, Spike would be earning redemption the hard way. Also, he’d give up that unspeakable jewelry.

NOTES: Boundless thanks to my fabulous betas, hold_that_thought, Chris and Devil Piglet.

She knew he was back. The Bit had seen to that. Saw him walking out of the store a couple days before, gave him the most godawful look and then walked off in the other direction. There’s no way Dawn didn’t tell big sis. She knew.

Hadn’t seen her, though. Not that he was looking for her. But he kept his eyes open.

God, how did the kid find out? Was Buffy still there when she got home—in the bathroom? Dawn knew. She wouldn’t have looked at him that way unless she knew. Even after last year, with Dru, she’d never looked at him that way.

What did she expect? He was a vampire. They got on, so she expected him to be good? Tame? Heel nicely? And maybe the Slayer would toss him a bone. Maybe he’d be invited to her next birthday party instead of having to work on her friends until they spilled. Although actually being invited to one of those parties was probably more punishment than reward.

He was an outcast again. He should be used to it; it wasn’t the first time. The only time he’d belonged was when he was with Dru, and he wasn’t interested in a revival, thanks. Didn’t want one last year, and it was unthinkable now. Sunnydale—he couldn’t say it had been good to him, but he didn’t really know where else to go. He was drawn there.

Home sweet home. Christ.

***

When Dawn came back from seeing Spike, she walked past Buffy as if she didn’t exist, stomped up the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door so hard their mother’s Etruscan chalice rattled on the mantelpiece.

In short, it was just like every other time Dawn entered the house.

But this time, up in her room, Dawn was shaking. She curled up into a lump and sobbed like she hadn’t done since Buffy died. It was like she had no tears left. Tara—Tara’s death had been horrible. She was the person Dawn had loved best, and she had been splayed out and abandoned on the bedroom floor, bloody and cold, as if she hadn’t even mattered. Dawn sat with her all day. It was unspeakable. It was terrible to be there but leaving her alone seemed worse, so she stayed. Mostly she only felt shock. She wondered when she’d wake up, since she was probably asleep. And then—after it seemed like she had been there forever—Buffy and Xander had appeared and whisked her away. Upstairs seemed like a dream. A nightmare. But it didn’t end, and Tara never came back. Not like Buffy had.

Spike wasn’t supposed to leave. He’d been on the periphery of Dawn’s life for almost the entire time they’d lived in Sunnydale. Her mom had said some people were goers and some were stayers, and Spike was obviously a stayer.

Not that she’d actually been in Sunnydale long. But she remembered, even if it wasn’t real. She had slipped downstairs the night Buffy told their mother that she was a Slayer—she remembered it. Easing down carefully, knowing that if they saw her she’d be sent up to her room. The police wanted to talk to Buffy. Their mom was at the end of her rope. And she’d peered in and there he was, all silver-white hair and sharp cheekbones and sleek lines, looking around their living room like he’d never seen one before, and then complimenting her mother on the decor. The strangest looking man she’d ever seen, making small talk. If she’d seen him walking towards her on the sidewalk, she’d have crossed the street to avoid him.

But then Buffy had come in and they talked to each other like equals. Not with the queen bee quality Buffy used with her friends—no matter what Buffy told herself, she was about a million times worse than Cordelia. Not with the barely tolerant tone she’d used with their mother. Not with the sappy tone she’d used with Angel when he snuck into her room at night—Dawn had listened whenever she had the chance; her sister had just about used baby talk with him. No, Buffy had spoken to Spike like he was an adult, like he was strong and smart and she needed him.

She didn’t speak to anyone else that way, and she never had.

She hadn’t spoken to Spike like that since—was it Halloween? He’d helped save Dawn from her first vampire boyfriend. Following in her sister’s footsteps already, he’d said on the way home. She’d heard Buffy thank Spike for helping and told him what a good job he’d done. After that it was all curt tones and cutting remarks. They’d played hearts at Buffy’s never-ending birthday party, but didn’t really say anything, just gave each other looks that made Dawn squirm. It was a good kind of squirm, though. It was better than what was to come.

No matter how Buffy treated him, it hadn’t changed how he’d treated Dawn. He’d still come around. They’d played cards and Nintendo, and Spike had cooked for her a few times, with varying success. That had been before Buffy came back, when Dawn didn’t have anyone to do those things for her. She still didn’t, but she was supposed to. Dawn was fairly sure Buffy didn’t want to hear how Spike had taken better care of her than she was.

Then Xander had told her that. It was hateful, it made her sick. And then everything was clear to her. She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been.

And now Spike was back. He’d just waltzed into town like nothing had happened, like they didn’t have a right to be angry with him. She didn’t even know how long he’d been back. Maybe months. Like he had every right. Like he thought everything was okay.

It wasn’t. It hadn’t been for a long time. And she was going to make him pay.

***

"What was that?"

Buffy jerked her head around to face Xander. "What?" She’d been staring up the stairs after her incredible disappearing sister, who had gone from complaining about not getting enough attention to avoiding her at every opportunity. The promise of late spring had evaporated, and they were more awkward than ever. Buffy wasn’t sure how things had deteriorated so completely, but she couldn’t believe how difficult it was to deal with her sister. She was only five years older than Dawn, but it was as if there were generations between them. She had no idea how their mother had managed with her.

"The slam and stomp," Xander explained. "Dawn. Not a word. Didn’t even look at us. Everything okay with her?"

Buffy smothered a sigh. Xander wasn’t Percepto Man. Dawn had been like that all summer, and Xander was just now noticing? Dawn was even more of a joy than she had been before—

Before Spike left. Why not say it? He was gone. Had been for a long time. You think she’d be used to it—it’s what they all did, wasn’t it? Shut up, she thought. But why? It wasn’t anything but the truth. People left. Especially, they left her.

"Dawn has, uhh—it’s been a bad summer," Buffy finally replied. Xander didn’t want to know about how much Dawn missed Spike, and Buffy didn’t want him to know that Dawn was still angry at Xander for telling her about the attack. Dawn hadn’t really trusted him after that, Buffy knew—Xander. He’d destroyed Dawn’s childish admiration for Spike, who had been larger than life—a sexy punk in black leather who listened to cool music, snarked with the best of them, and took care of her when the others were too involved in their own lives. Until the moment Xander told her about the incident in the bathroom, Spike had been something special to her, a refuge. Dawn didn’t have many of those. No wonder she was angry.

So are you, whispered a voice in Buffy’s head. She tried to ignore it as Xander resumed his discourse on the value of latex paints. Finally she stopped trying to listen; she didn’t care about the relative merits of flat vs. glossy anyway, and if she’d ever been able to concentrate when she wasn’t interested her grades would have been better.

It wasn’t right. Xander had had no right to tell Dawn about Spike. That was for her to decide, not Xander or anyone else. And if she didn’t want Dawn to know, that was her business. Why did Dawn have to be told? Couldn’t she have one thing that wasn’t spoiled?

Dawn hadn’t mentioned Spike since that day.

"And so my final vote: Satin," concluded Xander.

"What?"

"Uhh…Buff? You were asking my advice on repainting Will—your mom’s room," reminded Xander, catching himself. "Satin finish. No question. Non-reflective, but still washable."

"Satin," she repeated weakly. "Yeah."

They looked at each other, then glanced away. How long had they had trouble talking? Before he found out about Spike. Before she jumped off the tower. Before Riley left? She wasn’t sure. She never confided in him about their relationship, but she never really had confided in him that way anyway. That was more a Willow kind of thing.

Xander looked at her with his searching dark eyes, and she felt unwelcomed guilt. He was sincere. He always tried. Where had their friendship gone? He still came over, they still talked. They were the only remnants of the Scooby Gang. Had Willow been the center of the group? Because without her Buffy and Xander seemed to have little to say to each other, and it made Buffy ache.

"Are you sure you don’t want to go up and see what’s bugging her?"

"No, I’ll just let her be. We both know what her reaction would be if I went up," she pointed out. She and Xander shared a smile—Dawn’s inevitable "Get out, get out, GET OUT!" reply to upstairs queries being legendary among the Scoobies.

After a moment Xander’s smile dimmed. "Aren’t you going to ask how she is?" he prodded hesitantly.

Buffy looked at him in surprise. "I told you, I—"

"Not Dawn. Willow."

***

The crypt had cleaned up all right. Apparently Clem hadn’t just sat around in his underwear, evaluating the relative merits of baked versus fried potato chips. The downstairs was still an ungodly mess, but what did he expect after AK-47’s or bazookas or Tommy guns or whatever the hell they were shot out all the supports and splintered every piece of furniture in the place? The first time Clem had seen it he’d said the only way it could have looked worse was if the people from that redecorating show had come by to have a go.

Wasn’t any more than he expected from the Slayer, really, not by that point. She’d come into his hands willing enough (don’t think about it), dragged off his clothes and taken him without as much as a by-your-leave. Not that he’d minded. It was a good beginning, wasn’t it? A nice solid base of trust—who’d she tell about being in heaven, after all?—topped by a lovely glaze of the most luscious sex he could imagine. Like a dream. In the morning she’d been there, flushed and naked, bruised like him from their fighting and their fucking. Both wonderful. But she couldn’t even wait for a good morning shag before she attacked him, attacked him because she couldn’t attack herself. And so the shape of their relationship was recast, and he kept hoping, but expecting less and less.

When she’d come to him and asked him to tell her that he loved her, he felt a terrible hope. For a moment his heart had forgotten what she’d taught it and he thought, she loves me, she finally realizes it. But an hour later, as they lay together, bodies sheened with sweat from their exertions, he was hugging himself, arms wrapped tightly around his body so that he wouldn’t forget himself and touch her and make her leave. And then Captain America burst in, and he saw the reason she wanted his words. Not because she valued them, but because they were balm. And that’s what she told him the next day, right? He was a bandage, a crutch, and now she wanted to heal naturally.

"Get out of my head," he muttered resentfully. Hadn’t the bint done enough to him already? Christ, he really didn’t know why he was back in town. He’d been fooling himself in that cave; if he hadn’t been so upset he never would have done it. Now he was all soul-having, like it or not, and he couldn’t bring himself to think of her for five minutes at a time without coming off queasy. It had all been a monumental mistake: returning to Sunnydale, going to Africa, falling for the Slayer, getting chipped.

Coming to this stinkhole of a town in the first place.

"So why are you here?" he asked himself conversationally. It wasn’t like he had anyone else to talk to. Clem had come by a few times, trying to tempt him with wings and suggestions of poker with the guys, but Spike wasn’t feeling sociable. Mostly he just wanted to drink and broo—think—in private.

"Thank god for Jack Daniels. And Weetabix," he added.

Idly, he wondered why the Slayer hadn’t been by to see him. It had been three days since the Niblet had seen him, and nothing.

Is that was this is about? Making the first move? he thought. No; since when had he been afraid of anything? Never. Not since he was William, which was a lifetime ago. Several, in fact. And getting the soul hadn’t—what the hell was that?

There. In the corner, by the chest. A bright flag of material, startling in the engulfing shadows of the crypt. A scarf, knotted around something. Curiously he worked the knot. Was it a message? Or simply inadvertently left behind by a would-be thief? The bundle rattled as he unwrapped it, carefully pulling the edges apart to reveal short, bleached bones. Human fingers, completely desiccated. It was a message, all right. A "get out of town" message.

Spike whistled. Jesus. Home sweet home indeed.

All things considered, he’d give the tosser an A for effort, C for execution. A bag of dried-up bones—not bad, for some. Dru would have been on the floor, shrieking about curdled cream and the fish that lived on the moon. Personally, he would have been more upset if there’d been a Dave Matthews tape in the package. Some things were too horrible to contemplate.

Wasn’t entirely certain what to make of it, though. He’d never paid a lot of attention to Angelus and Darla when they talked about ghastly portents and all that—they’d loved to hear themselves talk, rambling on about the most godawful garbage he’d ever heard ‘til eventually he stopped listening, which had been about five minutes after he dragged himself out of the grave.

So when he saw the bones, instead of knowing just what the damned things meant, he’d had a moment, sharp and unpleasant—he was trying to forget it—when he thought it was obscene. Snapping the thin, brittle bones off a skeleton, disturbing someone who deserved some peace. Stolen from the person they belonged to.

Spike winced at his thoughts. What the hell did he care if someone broke off a few old bones? No use when you’re dead. Not like he was dainty or something. When he first moved into the crypt he’d just shoved the remains in the sarcophagus aside and slept next to them. The only reason he’d ever removed them was that they poked him in the side. Damned if he was going to spend all day rearranging himself to avoid the ribs. He’d tossed them behind the crypt and hadn’t thought of them since.

But if the sack was meant to warn him, a brick through the window would have done the job just as well.

Hell, when did he get so particular? The bloke was dead. He’d taken plenty off his victims. Usually more of the money-jewelry-hot leather coat-variety than body parts, of course—

Christ! Guess this is it, he thought, doubling over as he was seized by an intense pain in his abdomen. The bundle wasn’t a warning at all. Voodoo? Or a less exotic magic? Whatever it was, it wasn’t precisely a welcome home gift.

Straightening up despite the pain, Spike moved back to the chest, where he’d placed the sack. Unfolding it, he sifted through the bones, looking for some sign or clue or…something. The bones were coated with a fine, whitish powder he hadn’t seen when he looked initially. That had to be something, right? And then he saw them: three long, colorless strands of hair, almost unnoticeable against the bleached bones. Not his hair. Buffy’s? He couldn’t tell.

"Buffy," he murmured, trying out her name. He hadn’t said it in so long it sounded rusty.

Why hadn’t she been by? To threaten him or attack him or finally just stake him? Didn’t she even care enough to do anything, was she so indifferent to him that she couldn’t work up the interest to bother?

He was jittery, waiting for her. Why didn’t he just go see her? "Hello, Slayer. Long time, eh? Just dropped by for a cuppa." Stake. "Hello, cutie. I really do think it’s about time we discuss our relationship." Stake. Or, of course, "Sorry about the bathroom, ducks, let’s have a kiss." He’d be dusty before he finished talking. Maybe he should…phone her? It worked that other time. Better than he could have hoped, really, but it didn’t seem the thing to do this time, somehow.

What do you say when you attack the woman you love? He was fairly sure Hallmark did not make a card for the occasion. Even if by some miracle she didn’t kill him, there was no way she’d ever view him as anything other than a something to be tolerated. Tolerated until his chip malfunctioned or the world started spinning backwards, and he was suddenly able to bite and maim again.

Ironic, that. He’d made killing Slayers his unlife’s calling, but when he found out he could hurt her he wasn’t thinking any farther ahead than knocking her on her ass and maybe kissing her senseless. He didn’t even think of her blood. Slayer’s blood, rich and enervating, there was nothing on earth like it. When she shoved him up against that wall he’d looked at her, skin flushed with exertion and arousal, the blood streaming so near the surface, and instead of biting her all he’d thought of was how it felt to have his tongue in her mouth. And then later, much later, after she told him he was a thing and couldn’t love and she didn’t want to be with him any more, he went to her to apologize for hurting her with Anya. To tell her again that he loved her, to try to get her to admit she loved him. And when he tried to bring that love to the surface, he hurt her more than he ever had when he was trying to make her his third trophy. Wasn’t life funny.

He’d gone all the way across the world and earned a soul for her. Not been cursed by one, but earned it. And now he was afraid to face her. Give her what she deserved? Maybe what she deserved was some peace. Maybe she deserved to be left alone, and not be forced to look at him and remember.

Spike hissed into the chill fall air. The spell was doing its work nicely, and he clenched his muscles against the pain. Whoever cast it wasn’t joking around. Tucked away in the corner…probably thought he wouldn’t even notice it until it was too late. Until it couldn’t be reversed.

Screw that. He wasn’t the poof to sit around mooning his damn head off and taking everything that came at him like some dumb animal. Someone wanted to fuck with him? They were welcome to take their best shot. He’d gotten a soul, not lost his balls.

***

A good shopkeeper knew that there was a proper place for everything. Some magic shop proprietors seemed to think the way to run a tight ship was to drape shawls and hang crystals all over the place and then finish it off with some dim lighting, as if that would suggest a deep and mysterious atmosphere. The only thing it suggested to Anya was a lack of confidence in their sale goods and possibly slovenly cleaning habits. Her customers knew that Anya would have exactly what they needed, that she could advise them on the correct usage, and that theme merchandise would be offered at a 75 percent discount the day after holidays. Some things were sacrosanct.

The Magic Box had been rebuilt nicely. Initially the building inspector said the place should be torn down. The fire marshal said it was a hazard. Giles had gingerly broached the possibility of selling the building and leasing one downtown, closer to the city center. But Anya remained firm: Moving would be bad luck. The shop had enjoyed success right from the start at its current location, and, despite its near-destruction, had survived the best an apocalypse-craving superwitch could throw at it. It would be very shortsighted indeed to abandon a building which obviously had an exceptional energy. Of course Giles didn’t believe much in such things, but he had been wrong before. For instance, when he left despite the obvious fact that Willow was coming unglued. Anyone could have seen that.

The bell rang at the front of the shop, and Anya perked up. Customers meant the business was doing well, and she was devoting more time than ever to the business. It was nice to have one’s efforts rewarded.

"How many I service your magical needs?" Anya asked cheerfully, turning around to face the counter. She loved customers. With their needs that only she could fill and their almost limitless reserves of money, they were like Xander, only they didn’t criticize her behavior continually. Or ask that she be the one to wear the boots the next time. "Today we have a special on—" She broke off in surprise. Spike was standing in front of her, looking the same as always, except for some reason he wasn’t wearing his duster. Which actually made him look rather vulnerable and naked, but not naked in the way she liked. And his hair—the color was partway grown out, and it was messy, like he’d run out of gel and decided his fingers were a good substitute.

"Hi, love," he said softly, glancing down at the counter. Apparently he was fascinated by Hylian perzant torques, although she couldn’t imagine why. Unless, of course, he was planning to give birth soon, since they were used primarily to reduce labor pains.

"Spike, I haven’t seen you since we engaged in sexual relations and Xander tried to kill you," she noted in her typically blunt manner. "Where have you been? I was wondering if perhaps Buffy had finally staked you."

Spike flinched. God, a thousand years and you’d think the bird would learn some tact. She must have been raised in a barn, if they had barns then.

Unwillingly he regretted his thoughts about her. She didn’t have pretenses like most people. And that was strange to him, because after 120 years as a vampire, he was now more used to people than demons. Anya seemed more foreign to him than Dawn. She hadn’t adjusted socially to life with humans as well as he had because she didn’t have the advantages his education and upbringing had lent him.

God, listen to him. He was sounding more like William every day. Soon he’d be bothering servants to come up with words nobody ever used, to describe a woman who wouldn’t cross the street to spit on him, on the off chance that she realized he was alive.

Kind of a specialty, now that he thought about it.

Enough of that. "I was out of town. Someone’s given me a welcome home present, the black magic kind. What can a person do with bones?"

Anya stared at him blankly. Clearly, her look said, he wasn’t going to leave it at that.

"Bones and…hair. Long. And powder."

"Powder? Like baking powder? Or more like arsenic powder? Or powdered woodwort? Anything can be powdered, you know," she prompted.

"It was white," Spike offered helpfully.

She looked at him, nonplussed. "Do you know how many kinds of white powder there are? And if someone wanted to disguise what kind of powder they were using, they could have treated the powder with bleach and it would appear white. Fraudulently white."

"Why—"

"Did you bring it with you?"

He hadn’t, of course. It was that kind of a night, and he hadn’t really been thinking.

He shook his head, and Anya looked at him like he was simpleminded. "Well, what did the note say?"

"Note? There was no note."

"No note? So it was just the bones and hairs?"

"And powder," Spike pointed out. "So how about it?"

"Well, it was a message. A warning,"Anya specified.

"So it was a threat," said Spike, nodding to himself.

"Well, of course it was a threat. Bones are seldom used for friendly messages—unless, of course, the recipient has a previously expressed interest in bones; that would be different."

"So how do I stop it?"

Anya looked surprised by the query. "Well, you ignore it."

"Ignore it? When it feels like there’s a knife in my gut I’m supposed to pretend nothing’s happening?" Spike scoffed.

"Knife? Gut? What are you talking about?"

Spike felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. He felt for Anya, being left at the altar and unappreciated and all, but Harris did have to put up with a lot from her. She really wasn’t the sharpest stick in the shed.

"The spell," he replied patiently—doing his level best not to snap. "The one that makes it feel like I’m dying, only more painful."

She rolled her eyes. Vampires were so simple—they were sexy and all, yes, that was their strong point, but they weren’t really a brain trust. Blood and sex and scaring people, that’s pretty much what they thought about. And they were good at it, but there really was more to life. Like being a productive member of society and on the waiting list to join the board of directors of the Sunnydale Chamber of Commerce, which would greatly benefit from a thousand years of experience and a good head for numbers.

"The bones were a message—I mean, they can’t do anything to you," she pointed out practically.

Spike ground his teeth. This was getting him nowhere. "Then why the pain?"

"The spell, of course—but that’s being done elsewhere. You said the hairs were long, right? That couldn’t be affecting you. For something like what you’re talking about, they have to have something of yours. If it was your hair, then certainly, there’d be a connection. But long hairs? That wasn’t part of the spell. That was a personal message."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" he demanded. Christ, wasn’t the soul supposed to give him—what? Patience? Then why did he feel like throwing a bloody tantrum? Kicking his heels and screaming like a toddler. Or worse, Darla. The soul was nothing but a pain, upsetting him about bones and making him feel bad for snarling. Within a few weeks he’d be wearing tweed and taking ballroom dance lessons, and then he’d have to kill himself.

"Well, find the person who cast the spell. And then make him break it," said Anya, matter-of-fact.

"And just how am I going to find the bloke?"

"Well, didn’t you smell anything?’

Spike was brought up short. He’d been holding the scarf in his hand, there were hairs in it—hairs—and yet he hadn’t noticed an odor, at least not enough to identify someone. How long had he been drinking before he noticed his little present?

"I don’t remember," he admitted. "I might have been drinking a little."

Anya was impressed. "You drank so much that you lost your sense of smell?"

Hell, Spike thought, the last time I saw you I drank enough to—he suppressed the thought ruthlessly. He’d always enjoyed a good wisecrack, but when had he become such an asshole?

"Something like that. And then—" Spike broke off. What had happened to the place? It looked like a completely different shop. It wasn’t just the absence of Scoobies, either; he’d peered in the windows to make sure they weren’t there. Even with the soul he was Spike, but he was still feeling his way around. And if the Slayer had told them, he couldn’t stop them from dusting him. Hell, Harris had damn near done it because he’d snogged the man’s highly dumped former fiancée. "Uhh—something different here?"

"This is the first you’ve noticed? My, you really must have consumed an unusually excessive amount of alcohol. Possibly a dangerous amount," she theorized. "Yet you still found your way here, like a devoted family pet who was lost miles away but still manages to find his way home."

"Skip the colorful metaphors," he growled. This was getting him nowhere, and he wanted to get back to the crypt. The whole gang might turn up at any moment, and besides, he didn’t want to miss any possible deathograms. It was good to know someone cared.

He turned to go, but Anya’s voice stopped him.

"I’ve been very polite about not asking so far, but what is that?"

"What?" he gritted. This damn night was never going to end.

"That…thing. There’s something about you. You’re different. I mean, besides your hair. Something’s affecting your…well, your something. Xander would say there was a disturbance in your force."

She studied him intently, as if she could pinpoint the change if she stared hard enough. She couldn’t, he knew. The soul was something nobody could see, maybe never would see. He’d gotten it so that Buffy could trust him, trust him with her heart. Enough that she could tell her friends about them, be who she was instead of the person they wanted her to be. But it didn’t come with a handy pin—I got a soul, ask me how!—and he wouldn’t believe anything he had to say at this point, so he didn’t know why Buffy would. All the way to Africa, the flame-handed gentleman, the hungry little roaches, the two-headed snake woman he’d had to fight with a crucifix, and it was his own little secret.

It was tempting to tell Anya. She, out of all of them, was the most like him. Cut off from her powers, alone in this pissant burg, in love with one of the Scoobies—god, the indignity. Used and abandoned. Yeah, they had a lot in common, although he’d been lying when he said she was the only one of the bunch he wouldn’t kill. The birds, he liked them okay. Nothing wrong with them, especially Glinda. The Niblet, of course he’d never hurt her—

He felt sick. Sure, he’d never hurt her, just like he’d never hurt her sister. Saw how well that turned out, right?

"It’s nothing," he muttered, turning away from Anya and leaving the shop behind. "Nothing at all."

The best thing about research was the quiet. Quiet was conducive to concentration, yes, but also to contemplation. He never felt so at ease as when he was studying an ancient text. It enabled him to reach a peace seldom offered in the continuous stream of noise that passed for—

"Spike’s back."

Giles looked up, pen frozen in hand. He hadn’t even heard Anya come in. "What?"

"Spike. He’s back. I thought you’d want to know," she said, crossing over to the desk and leaning her hip against it. If she were a little more comfortable, she’d hitch up a little and sit on the edge, but their relationship wasn’t quite at that stage yet. That is, Giles wasn’t aware they had a relationship, so she didn’t yet feel at ease being so casual.

Giles would be surprised if he knew how careful she was being about the two of them—their impending couplehood. He probably thought she was still the same girl who had referred to Olivia as his orgasm friend. She was much different now, although he didn’t realize it yet. That was all right, she was planning to bring to his attention soon enough.

"Back," repeated Giles softly. That certainly…changed things, didn’t it? Although he wasn’t really sure how. But Buffy was sure to be shaken by his return. The vampire had left without a word, Buffy told him, and been gone for months. Another demon had moved into his crypt, and it seemed that Spike was gone for good.

And all things considered, Giles considered that an excellent state of affairs.

Months before, after he had recovered from his injuries—his Willow-related injuries—he had fruitlessly consulted his books about occurrences of illicit relations between Slayers and vampires. It seemed to him that becoming romantically involved with vampires twice in five years was rather excessive. And yet he knew that Buffy did not become involved with men lightly, and so there must have been some substance to their relationship. He just couldn’t imagine what it was.

Buffy would only say that she felt alive when she was around him. That it was the only time she felt anything. And although she would not tell him why Spike had left Sunnydale, she had told him that it was between the two of them and she could handle things. Whatever that meant. Giles was too discreet to probe further, although he felt sure it was more complicated than she said.

But he had relinquished his right to push, if ever he had it, when he had decided to leave her so that she would grow up and learn to handle things on her own. She had begun to do so, and he could not complain if the way she ran her life disturbed him.

Even if it worried him.

Even if it made him regret his decision.

"Giles? What are you thinking?"

Anya’s voice startled him out of his reverie. He couldn’t precisely tell her that he was wondering about what could draw an ordinary—no, not ordinary, extraordinary—girl like his Buffy to an insufferable, smartmouthed prat who thought the best way to impress a girl was to chain her up in his basement and threaten her life. Buffy had been disgusted by him. She barely even felt sorry for him after Glory had nearly tortured him to death, so offended was she by the robot.

Of course, she also thought the robot looked nothing like her. No one was perfect. But she was perfect to him.

"Can I help? Because I’d be happy to. Help, I mean."

Giles forced himself to focus on Anya. She was certainly trying. He knew she wanted him to return to work at the Magic Box again. She seemed lonely there, which was natural, he supposed, considering her breakup with Xander. Curious that no one had telephoned to notify him of the major goings-on around Sunnydale months ago. He had the feeling that there were still things he had not been told.

Anya dropped by frequently and without notice, regaling him with exacting accountings of the shop’s records, rather pointless stories about the clientele, and occasional hints about what life had been like with Xander. In the midst of a story about how she came by a reliable source of Chalcedian yak horn, she would suddenly refer to something Xander had done months before. Giles wondered if Xander had any idea how often Anya thought about him.

Admittedly, the thoughts were frequently less than warm.

He really hadn’t spoken to Xander since shortly after the aborted end of the world. Xander had his hands full right now, more than full. Giles wasn’t sure it would be a gift to tell him that his former fiancée was still thinking of him. Perhaps when things were more settled with all of them. Until then it was surely kinder to let Xander be.

Thoughts of Xander had crossed his mind frequently of late. He’d never really bonded with Xander, somehow. Not like he had with Buffy and Willow and even Dawn. But he remembered Xander helping him rearrange his furniture, unpack his books, restock the library shelves. Things Buffy and Willow had never done, because the time they spent with him was really mostly time they spent with each other. Xander had sought him out, and somehow he hadn’t really noticed.

It was something he regretted, now.

For some reason he suddenly recalled years before, back when the children were still in high school, when Xander and Cordelia had just broken up. Xander had been crushed, and afterwards spent much time in the library. The incident had been unfortunate: Cordelia and Oz had walked in on Xander and Willow kissing. Cordelia was furious, naturally. Although in all fairness, there were extenuating circumstances, Xander and Willow having been kidnapped by—

Ah, there was Spike again.

It was impossible still for him to believe that Buffy had actually had a…relationship with Spike. He was tempted to pass his feelings about Spike off as hatred, but in all honesty they were simply not that intense. If Angel, while unsouled, had been a master of destruction, Spike was merely a brat prince. Showy and boastful, and ultimately unsuccessful in his ambitions. Not the sort to arouse much more than serious dislike.

But that was the kind of foolish thinking that led to dismissing Spike’s abilities. And although Spike had never bested Buffy, he had destroyed two of her predecessors. Angel, despite his advanced age and the vicious pleasure he took in tormenting others, had never managed one. Even when Buffy was the most vulnerable to him, when her friends were injured and he had allowed himself to be taken and Kendra killed, when Angel had been tormenting Buffy for months, he could not defeat her. And yet, Spike had nearly killed her on more than one occasion.

An eerie chill came over Giles. He had been ignoring the real threat Spike represented because killing a creature who could not harm others seemed unfair, yet that had not stopped him from ending Ben’s life. It had been for Buffy’s own good, and so he had not hesitated.

Next to him, Anya continued to talk, oblivious to his sober thoughts. As he was oblivious to her vivacious chatter. As always, he gave his focus to the most pressing matter at hand. Spike was back, and Buffy was vulnerable still.

Perhaps his job as Watcher was not finished. Not while Spike remained alive.

***

It was a routine, like anything else done for years. Training. Patrolling. Living. Things not done for pleasure, but because she didn’t have a choice.

As Buffy strolled through Pickleweed Park she wondered why she bothered. It was late, and Sunnydale had been fairly quiet for the last few months. She almost couldn’t recall the last time there’d nearly been an apocalypse, but then she remembered and got pissed. That would teach her for thinking.

She should go home. It was late, past midnight, and she had to get up for work in just a few hours. Get up, make Dawn breakfast, shower, brush her teeth, and take the bus to work. She’d considered buying a car, but she didn’t think she could afford the insurance. And car dealers wanted a down payment. Also monthly payments. And she was quite sure she couldn’t afford either. Hence, the bus.

She didn’t even notice the park fading away behind her, until she was standing at the entrance to Spike’s cemetery. The one she still thought of as Spike’s, although really she should just think of it as Larchfield Cemetery, or, more usefully, the Cemetery Between the Really Old One That’s Completely Full and Never Has Any Fledglings and the One Closest to the Espresso Pump. She leaned towards practicality rather than precision in such matters.

She’d been by his crypt a few times, but no Spike. She didn’t know why she was checking, but things felt incomplete. It was like they’d been having an argument and he left in the middle of it.

Which was a pretty crap-ass way of characterizing what he’d done.

It had been a while before she’d been able to think about it, her mind reflexively skittering away from the ugliness in the bathroom. What had begun as an apology, something rare from him, had quickly deteriorated into what so many of their discussions centered around. You love me, we have a once-in-a-lifetime passion, why do you deny it? He seemed the same as always.

And then suddenly he was grappling with her, pulling her to the floor, her head catching the side of the tub. The incomprehensible sight of him trying to drag open her robe. She thought she was dreaming at first. Unbelievable. He had allowed a god to nearly kill him so she wouldn’t lose her sister, but suddenly he couldn’t understand how much what he was trying to do would hurt her. She thought she was imagining it, thought for a moment she had gone mad, before she registered the chill of his hand against her skin as he tried to pull open her robe and realized it was really happening. Realized that he was the one who had gone mad.

Realized the man who had held her hands after she returned wasn’t in there, and the man looking at her with frantic, desperate eyes wasn’t going to stop.

It wasn’t hard for her to stop him. Not physically.

She wasn’t sure how long they were in there together, afterwards. Both of them crying and not saying a word. Then suddenly he was on his feet, she flinched, and he was past her, gone. God knew how long it was before Xander came crashing in, brandishing Spike’s duster like a third-rate detective, ready to tear into her for living her life without his prior approval. For having a lover when his was gone, for it not being him. He didn’t even want it to be him anymore, but five years of jealousy was a hard habit to break.

She didn’t know why she kept coming to his cemetery, kept checking his crypt. But what he’d tried to do didn’t erase what had come before. It didn’t change what he’d done for her, for Dawn. And it didn’t change how tender he was after she returned, tender until she wouldn’t accept it any more and he got her to notice him another way, with his fists. The same way she communicated with him. He still wanted to talk, but she found it easy to shut him up, with her fist or her mouth, or just by leaving.

The bathroom—it was wrong, it was inexcusable. But she did excuse it. For a year he had loved her and helped her and listened to her. She had ignored his love, but knew it was still there. Even unnourished, it provided her with comfort. But somehow that love wasn’t enough. It wasn’t until after he had snarled at her, during his song, that she’d kissed him. Not until he taunted her about coming back wrong, until he gleefully returned her blows, that she’d reached into his jeans and taken him into her hands and then into herself.

Maybe the bathroom was where they’d been headed all along. But what came before was still there.

It made the bathroom worse, somehow.

Buffy halted her progress through the cemetery. There was no point in checking his crypt. He was gone. It made things easier. It should have made her glad.

She wondered why it didn’t.

***

It had been about as useful as anything else in the world that didn’t provide a quick buzz, which is to say, not very.

He didn’t know why he’d gone to see Anya about the package anyway. If she had any judgement she would never have become involved with Harris in the first place, so what was he thinking looking for her advice?

So the question was, who had it in for old Spike? Perhaps a better question would be, who didn’t? The Bit had looked at him fit to kill not even a week ago. Harris had tried to axe him the last time he’d seen him. If Red knew about what happened before he left, she might try some of her mojo on him. So powerful, and she was pretty reckless with the magic.

The Slayer was proof of that.

Would she really tell them? He couldn’t see it. She tried to shield them all from ugliness, even if it meant absorbing everything herself. So that they didn’t suffer, even while she could barely hold her head up for the pain. She was a hero, that’s what made her one, not fighting baddies. Because, despite her ennui, she enjoyed that. It was the only place she could let out those darker emotions, before the two of them became involved. He wondered what would have happened to her, if she weren’t a Slayer and didn’t have that outlet.

He doubted it was anything good.

He didn’t want her to have to be a hero with him. He had tried to absorb the pain when he was around her, and she was happy to lay it on him with her fists, which he could take, and her words, which made him feel like shit. He would have preferred just the fists. That kind of pain didn’t faze him, and sometimes it led to better things. Her words never did. Her hand on his cheek…I’m sorry, William.

Maybe it had been a mistake, trying to talk to her. When she had taken him in that abandoned building, maybe he should just have been happy with that. Forgotten trying to talk things through. Hell, it probably would have lasted longer that way. He always put his foot in it with her, always found the exactly wrong thing to say. She’d be surprised if she knew how articulate he was about their relationship when she wasn’t around. When he was talking to himself, he never compared fucking her to killing the others.

There was no comparison. He lived for her. He went across the world for her, to get something he’d never wanted. Changed everything in him, so she could look at him without hatred. Just for the chance of that.

Maybe it was her, the bundle. Spike snorted with laughter at the thought; if she wanted him dead, she’d just kick open the door to his crypt and stake him. Probably she’d be wearing skintight pants and a tiny little top. That was the kind of thing she usually wore when she burst in to kill him. And if she wanted to torture him first, she could just let him see her, and know that he couldn’t have her. That would be enough. That had been torture enough in the spring, so that he went insane. Just her presence, eating into his unreasonable hopes like acid…he went as mad as Drusilla had ever been.

It was easier not to think of her, but that was pointless. He’d left for her, and returned for her. No use putting off the inevitable. If she didn’t want him in Sunnyhell she could just stake him. He wouldn’t try to stop her. The soul was a promise, not a shield. Not absolution.

But all things considered, seeing her could wait until he was sober. Because if he could barely keep his frustration in check with demon girl, whom he really didn’t give sixpence about, seeing Buffy would be a huge mistake. Damned if he was going to bollocks this up. There was something to be said for sobriety after all.

Like a sense of smell, for one thing. Seeing the Slayer could wait for a couple of days while he took care of his mystery friend. Tomorrow he’d be clean of the liquor and would know whose hairs they were, whose scent was on the handkerchief. He had to get that out of the way, because he had more important things to deal with—well, Buffy and Dawn were actually about it, but he didn’t need any distractions.

Yeah, he’d wait ‘til he was sober. And then he’d—

What the fuck was that?

Inside his crypt. A human. He must have been sobering up, because he could smell it, but not clearly enough to identify the git. Leaving him another little present? Probably thought he was safe. The defanged vampire was out to buy his pathetic little bags of blood or lift some smokes, and even if he returned while the bugger was there everything would be fine, because Spike was all neutered and helpless, right? Well, his visitor had another think coming. Nobody messed with him.

What if it was one of them—the Scoobies? He couldn’t precisely kill them, even Harris. Even if he didn’t have the chip, it wasn’t an option. They were her closest friends. But if it wasn’t a Scooby—well, what then? Rip them to pieces, courtesy of his chip’s non-existent Black Magic Threat Exemption?

Yeah, that sounded good. Too bad he couldn’t—

Christ! There it was again, the pain, stabbing into him, unforgiving. One way or another, this was ending. Damned if he’d spend the rest of his unlife never knowing when he was going to double over and wish he was dust.

He mastered the pain and stalked over to the crypt door. But he hesitated. The answer might be horrible. He didn’t want to think it was someone he cared about, fought beside. Even if he deserved it. For a moment he wanted to turn around, walk off and clear his head, so that when he came back his crypt would be empty, and he wouldn’t have to know.

You’re Spike, not William. Act like it, he told himself. Somewhere inside him a voice whispered, you’re both.

He ignored it and pushed the door open. For a moment he thought he could hear his heart pounding, until he remembered it had been still for a hundred years.

It wasn’t who he expected, any of them. But who else would sit in his crypt with such entitlement? In his favorite chair, like she owned it. Which she did, of course, like she owned everything of his.

"Slayer," he murmured.

He’d never felt so stupid, so inadequate. In life he’d often been reduced to silence by the cruelty of others with more confidence, more money. More friends. A more ready wit, and the desire to expend it. He remembered those days clearly, so long ago, when his strongest wish had been to find words to defend himself, explain his intentions, words that made sense in his mind but failed him when he opened his mouth. And now, facing Buffy, he had the sudden shameful impulse to flee, which he ignored, and to babble about how he loved her, which he also ignored.

So instead, he said nothing.

"You changed your hair," she observed softly. He almost had to strain to catch the words, even with his acute sense of hearing.

"It grew out," he murmured, as softly as she. "It didn’t seem to matter."

She studied him in silence. He thought he would go mad. But this was up to her, how it would go. He would follow her lead. It was the least that he owed her.

"You seem different," she said, her voice stronger, more certain.

For a moment his mind stopped working. She knew. Her Slayer sense had asserted itself and she was able to see it, feel it, his soul. Feel it as he did, sharp and icy and forcing itself into every corner of his being, distinct and harrowing. Burning him inside until he felt cleansed where it had touched. Would she understand? Understand what it meant, that he had done this thing for her? That he would go through this willingly, gladly, in order to make himself worthy of her?

"I mean, the hair and the unpolished nails and the—the no coat, you just look different," she added.

Spike’s heart sank. She hadn’t sensed a thing. He was the same thing to her, the thing that had attacked her. Less than that, even. He’d stopped wearing the black nail polish after he let Glory tear into him like a piñata on Cinco de Mayo and Buffy had come to him and pressed her lips against his. He’d been so bruised, so broken everywhere that he could barely feel the pressure against his mouth, but he had known it was her and not the bot. He couldn’t be so injured, so dazed, that he couldn’t sense her. It was impossible.

But after she came back they had made love to each other all over town, sweet and soft, hard and violent and making each other hurt and bleed, and she hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t wearing the polish. Hadn’t looked at him long enough to see the hands that were touching her, even as she cried out from the pleasure they gave her.

It shouldn’t hurt so much. God.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Gave up the polish. I don’t know where the coat is. Must be somewhere around here, but I haven’t seen it." He could have sworn she flinched when he said that, but he was obviously in a mood to fool himself.

"Did Dawn tell you I was back?" he asked. He felt too formal, somehow, to use one of the nicknames he habitually bestowed. It seemed presumptuous, something he wasn’t entitled to. Not right then, not with Buffy.

But he didn’t feel like himself when he called Dawn by her name, and he wanted to feel like himself. Wanted to be Spike, wanted to be unchanged except for the little item he went to Africa for. The thing that would make everything okay.

That was the plan, at least.

Buffy continued to gaze at him without responding. Finally his words penetrated and she felt shock ripple across her mind. "What? Are you telling me she already knows?"

He hesitated. Obviously the Bit hadn’t told her sister, for whatever reason. Probably mostly that she was a typical adolescent monster. Why didn’t they have Slayers for those, he wondered absently.

Anger flashed through her as she waited for him to answer. What the hell was he was doing—covering for Dawn? Or for himself? Xander may have told Dawn the truth, but Dawn had always been willful, refusing to listen to common sense. And she had always adored Spike. Him back—her not saying a word—it was dangerous. Taking Dawn to Spike’s crypt after the bathroom was one thing—he wouldn’t have hurt her, Buffy knew that, despite what Xander had said. But the thought of Dawn keeping those kind of secrets…"Does she?" she demanded.

He nodded. "Saw her a couple days ago. She took one look and turned in the other direction. Haven’t seen her since."

Buffy absorbed that silently. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Should he say more?

Gingerly he cleared his throat. "Thought she’d told you. Thought that was why you were here."

She forgot her anger for the moment. What was she supposed to tell him? Well, after you tried to rape me I was pretty upset for an hour or two and then I whipped some bad guy butt and a bunch of stuff happened, mostly bad, and then I brought my kid sister over here for you to babysit and after I found out you had left I just kept checking your graveyard like some kind of…I don’t know what, but something? And you were wrong, I don’t love you, I couldn’t love you, but I forgive you and I need you to forgive me?

"No," she answered instead. "I was just out patrolling, and happened by and, uhh…decided to say hi to Clem." Would he buy that? It didn’t really sound believable to her. She’d never been a good liar.

He nodded, to her relief. Apparently he wasn’t as perceptive as he thought.

Actually, she’d known he was back as soon as she saw the burba weed on the sarcophagus he used as a table, and the whiskey bottles littering the periphery of the crypt. Clem was more into orange-toned, processed snack foods and fruit punch. Also the entire line of Hostess products. She’d been by often enough to check the crypt to have found out a lot of his favorite things. She’d never seen a kitten, thank god.

But Spike really hadn’t changed the crypt much since returning, not even getting things back to how he liked them. He hadn’t even taken down the O-Town poster Clem had put up a couple of months after he left. And the bottles strewn around…that wasn’t like Spike, she knew. Usually the only time the crypt was a mess was when they’d destroyed it together. While naked.

"So where were you?"

Right, then. He wasn’t going to lie to her. Even if it would be easier. "I went to see a bloke I’d heard of. I wanted—wanted—" He broke off. Christ, this was a pisser. Her standing there looking at him, all cool and calm and politely interested. And him all naked in front of her, so to speak, telling her everything there was to know and who’s to say she just wouldn’t look at him and shrug? A soul? Why’d you get that? Weren’t you listening all those times I said I could never love you? A soul doesn’t change that.

Why would it? Why would it change anything? She’d met him in an alley where he’d sacrificed a minion in order to size up her fighting skills. He’d applauded and mocked her and done his damnedest to kill her and her little school chums, and that’s how she saw him still. The soulless vampire who’d kidnapped her perfect little loverboy and gotten buried under a pipe organ for his troubles, the creature who’d snatched her best friends for a stupid spell, the demon who’d conspired with a Frankenstein monster to see them all dead. The vampire who wasn’t dust only because it was unsporting to kill something that couldn’t fight back.

That was then, of course. Now he could fight back, at least against her.

But the essential problem…Christ, he’d always led with his heart, not his head. When she’d kicked him off in that bathroom and he’d sat there, crushed by what he’d almost done, all he’d felt was horror. Horror at himself, that he could do such a thing to the woman he loved. Later, in his crypt, all he wanted to do was fix it. Make things right, so that she could trust him. Just rushed in, never even wondered if that was possible.

Because no matter how good he was, no matter how toothless, to her he would always be the same ravening monster who led an army of vampires against a schoolful of parents. No matter what he did, that was who he was to her. Every time they saw each other, he started again from that place. Had he really thought getting a soul would make her see him differently?

And no matter how badly Angel behaved, he was still her blameless, brooding darling. When he did evil, it was his demon. As if they were two different people. As if being souled were his natural state, instead of the result of a curse, a curse that could be broken at any time. But any good Spike did could be attributed to selfishness, somehow.

Dammit, he’d helped save the world more times than the poof ever had, but despite the good he’d done, to her he was still less than the git had been when he was living in alleys, eating rats. Where he’d been content to stay for a hundred years, helping no one. Was the soul that powerful, to make that self-absorbed half-life more worthy than all the times Spike had risked his life?

Like hell. That wasn’t the power of the soul, that was the power of a first impression. And his was long past.

"Spike?" Buffy repeated. "Did you hear me? Where did you go?"

He shook his head. He was buggered. He gritted his teeth so he wouldn’t shout at her, rail that he gotten a soul for her, for them, and deserved a fresh start. He knew he didn’t deserve anything. And damned if he was going to fuck this up with his impatience. It had ruined too many things for him already. "Off. I had to go. I—I couldn’t stay after—" He broke off. "After the bathroom," he said finally. Coward. Couldn’t say it, could he?

Buffy could almost feel the lid clamp down on her emotions. There were a lot of things she didn’t feel like discussing with Spike or anyone else, and the bathroom was up there. Not number one, but up there. "I don’t want to discuss the bathroom," she said. He opened his mouth to speak, and she repeated more forcefully, "I don’t want to discuss the bathroom." The won’t was implied.

Spike nodded mutely. It was typical response from her; she had always loathed talking of anything more meaningful than how to kill the demon du jour and which pair of shoes best showed off her ankles. She shied away from it, emotion. Bury things, don’t discuss them.

But it was up to her. It was only proper that she write the script for it.

He couldn’t believe she was still there talking to him. He had no idea what to say, but he wasn’t going to give up the chance. "How’s Dawn? I didn’t get to ask her when I saw her. Thought she’d mention it to you." Seemed like a safe enough topic.

Buffy shook her head. "No, Dawn’s been quiet all summer. Quiet in a slammy kind of a way," she added, smiling faintly.

He echoed her smile. Dawn could really bring on the pain to those around her, he knew. He let out a small chuckle. "Yeah, last summer she got a bug in her ear about getting her navel pierced. Two weeks of pleading followed by four weeks of slamming, plus all the sullen glares you’d ever want to see," he recalled. "I put my foot down, ‘cause I knew you’d hate it—knew—" He broke off. He’d known she would have hated it, but she’d been in the grave.

She saw his intent in his eyes and shook her head. "Thank you," she said softly. "I know you took good care of her."

"No trouble," he muttered, ducking his head. He didn’t like to think of last summer, even with her here next to him, alive and breathing and…alive. He and Snackpack had sat around a lot of nights, staring at walls and trying to come up with conversation that didn’t revolve around Buffy; it had been a lot easier between them before she died. Didn’t have to avoid any topics then.

But they’d had some fun, too, that summer. One night the two of them escaped the Scoobies and went up into the farmlands outside Sunnydale and made a little crop circle in some yokel’s field. It had ended up more misshapen than geometric, and they hurriedly abandoned their makeshift tools in the middle of the ragged formation and ran off smothering their laughter as they heard the farmer in the distance, shouting and swearing about trespassers.

Probably shouldn’t tell the Slayer about that one.

"How’s the job?" he asked. He kicked himself. What a ridiculous question. She already had enough on her mind without him reminding her about that hellhole. He hated to think of her there, her spirit atrophying for a crap paycheck. Grease on her skin and in her hair. The stench had been absolutely noxious, but he never told her. Never minded, since the smell was accompanied by her.

Buffy found it kind of uncomfortable, talking to him. What was the phrase? An elephant in the room? It was like that. She wished they could just get past it, but she wasn’t sure how to do it. But she didn’t want it there, and the quickest way to deal with it was just ignore it. She had experience in that kind of thing.

But the job was something she could discuss without worry. One of the few things that had gone well in the last several…years, she supposed. "Actually, it’s pretty good," she said, a tone of excitement creeping into her carefully controlled voice.

She saw the surprised look on Spike’s face, and understood why. "I’m not at the Doublemeat anymore," she told him. Suddenly, with unaccountable warmth, she recalled him leaning towards her. Urging her to leave the burger place, telling her it would kill her. She’d been unhappy about that, because she needed the job so desperately. And, almost below her perception, she knew she was angry because he was the only one who seemed to give a damn about it. Giles had known she had ongoing money problems, but hadn’t given her cash beyond that one-time infusion, despite the fact that he was drawing a paycheck from the Council every damn month. Xander had come in and drooled over the food and took what she gave him free. And Willow had never paid any rent, despite the fact that—

Forget that. Forget about that. Forget about her.

Spike’s expectant face drew her mind back to the conversation. "I enrolled in the summer session at UC Sunnydale, and I’m a trainee with the campus police department."

He smiled, looking pleased. "So you finally get paid to patrol."

"About time," she agreed with a faint laugh.

She studied him. He looked…softer, somehow. His face wasn’t set in such hard lines. Before, the only thing soft about his face were his lips, but now his eyes slid shyly from hers and he seemed to lack that tough shell he usually displayed. Usually, not always. She’d seen him without it a few times, mostly when she hurt him. Not by beating him, but by not caring enough.

His hair wasn’t much longer than usual, but only platinum for the last couple of inches. The rest was golden brown, and looked odd on him. Uncharacteristic. Like Santa Claus with black hair. He’d started changing his hair the year before, alternating between the tousled curls she thought of as his boyfriend hair and the slicked back, Big Bad look. Like he couldn’t decide which to be. It was curly now, messier than she’d ever seen it. Like he didn’t care, which disturbed her, although it shouldn’t.

Well, she wasn’t going to beat herself up about her feelings any more. That time was past. If she worried about Spike that was her right. If she wanted to drop by his crypt to see him, that was her right, too.

Abruptly she stood up. "I have to go now," she told him, watching his face fall. He hid the disappointment quickly, though, she had to give him that. He had practice.

He stood back so she could move to the door without coming near him. She didn’t seem to notice. At the entrance she swung around to face him, her face diffident.

"Maybe you could patrol with me, some nights," she suggested, her tone not giving anything away.

"Yeah, I’d like that," he agreed, cautiously.

She nodded, and left without another word.

Spike took a deep breath. He’d been dreading it so long, and now it was over. She’d been there, his home, and she looked at him without hatred. Without contempt. Kindly, almost. He should have hated for her to look at him with kindness, but somehow it seemed closer to tenderness than pity.

Maybe he was fooling himself. He did it fairly often. It was comforting. And, of course, ignoring reality made it easier to focus on his goals. When he was in Brazil with Dru, if he’d seen what he would become—chipped, the Slayer’s willing slave, a punching bag for Harris—Harris—and, unbelievably, souled—he would have taken a nice morning walk. But all those things had come in small increments, and he had adapted. That’s what superpredators did, if they wanted to stay superpredators. Or just stay alive, and partake in the simple but substantial pleasures of spicy Buffalo wings, reasonably good house bands, and the not-inconsiderable joy of laughing his ass off at the gits on Road Rules. Live to drink and dance and fall in love and fuck into sinuous states of languor.

Ah, ignoring reality, one of the keys to living well. Good thing he’d mastered it so long ago.

So he was more than pleased with how this evening had ended. Buffy talking to him like a person, inquiring about him. Not accusing, just asking. Being interested in where he’d been and what he’d done.

Not hating him.

Spike strode around the crypt, the excitement bringing on an excess of energy. He felt like running around and shouting at the top of his voice. He had always had a hyperactive streak, and when he was keyed up he almost didn’t know what to do. It had led to many of his more unfortunate actions.

He moved to the refrigerator, hoping a little blood would calm him down. As he reached for the handle he noticed his nails, short and clean and bare. No polish. Her words returned to him, and he felt his heart contract painfully. Didn’t hate him, but still hadn’t ever really looked at him. When he had been looking at her, absorbing the amazing unbelievable sight of her in his arms, she had only been looking towards oblivion.

What right did he have to complain? She’d noticed now, at least. He’d known what he was doing. Known what she was doing. If it hurt, that’s what made it life. He’d told the Slayer that, a year ago. That there was no guarantee of bliss. Life was pain, years of it until a stranger draws you down an alley and takes you from one life to birth you into another. And after that you meet the sunrise or an errant stake and ash over until everything you were was gone. Pain. It was the way of the world.

The world, incidentally, sucked.

Restlessly he paced around the crypt, wishing for…hell, who knew? Something to throw. Something to drink. Something to do, dammit. Fuck! Fuck, yeah! His present. He felt stone cold sober after his talk with the Slayer. His senses were sharp, he could smell a wino taking a piss three blocks over. One whiff of that sack of hair and bones and he’d know the bastard, be on him faster than mold on French cheese.

Well, provided it was a demon.

He stalked over to the chest, and stopped dead. Of course. Of course, of course. He shouldn’t have expected any less. It wouldn’t have been his unlife any other way. The chest was bare.

The bundle was gone.