Chapter 14:

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Carlotta has his head cradled against her chest and is running her fingers through his hair, when the expected knock sounds against the door and Buffy's whispered voice calls through. "Hey, are you guys still up?"

He looks up at his lover and shakes his head, warning her to be silent, to let it be just this once. But she is hot-headed and stubborn when she has a mind to be, and she disentangles herself from him and gets up off the bed. "We're up," she calls. "Come in, Buffy."

He shoots her a murderous glance before turning warily to face the original slayer. "Xander's gone," she says pointlessly, but he understands her need to say something. "He was really upset. I don't think it's all about you, he just…" She trails off as if uncertain how to continue, or perhaps she has just run out of excuses for her friend.

"I think perhaps I will go and find Dawn," Carlotta announces. She gives his hand a firm, reassuring squeeze and abandons him to the inevitable confrontation. He crosses his arms and begins mentally counting down to the moment when she will unleash the worst of her disdain on him, waiting for the threats and abuse, waiting for her to start throwing punches and insults his way.

She surprises him with an awkward apology, "I'm sorry about Xander, he…"

"You taught them the tune slayer" he cuts her off; he is readying his defences, hardening himself against her. "Can't blame them now if they dance to it."

She doesn't answer, just gives thoughtful nod and sits down on the edge of the bed, patting the space next to her in invitation. "What happened?" she asks cautiously once he is beside her.

He glances at her then leans forward, elbows on his knees, to begin the story. "Guess you know all about Shanshu, right?" he asks rhetorically. "The vampire with a soul collects all his coupons and gets to be a real boy.

"Well, when yours truly turns up in LA, all soul-having and ready to atone, it seems the prophecy got its knickers in a right twist. Couldn't cope with two applicants or some such. There was this whole thing with reality unravelling and a cup of Mountain Dew." He waves off the question he can see forming on her lips. "Doesn't matter anyway, the senior partners managed to smooth everything over for a while, keep the fabric of the universe from breaking down and what all.

"Anyway, the night before the big showdown with Wolfram and Hart, I got to thinking, 'We got a bit of an apocalypse coming and two souled vamps lining up to get all pivotal with it,' so I went to see Wes. Not that Wes cared about much at the time, but he'd had the same idea, done a bit of bookwork and come to the same rather unpleasant conclusion.

"So I had myself a bit of a problem. Couldn't have two souled vamps in the big scrap. And I had to fight." He looks away as if embarrassed to admit this part. "These people were the closest I'd had to friends in a long time. So I did what I always do when I can't think what's right. I asked myself, 'What'd Buffy want me to do?'"

He can't help but give her a small nervous smile at the shocked look on her face. "So I got thinking about you, and Angel, and the Shanshu, and I realised I could give you something, something real."

She shakes her head, pretty face scrunched up endearingly in confusion, and he takes a deep, unnecessary breath and explains. "There was a vampire going to get human that night one way or another. It was just a matter of which one. So I thought of you and Angel and the whole nauseating star-crossed lovers thing you two got going, and I knew what to do for the best." Another deep sigh and he's ready to get to the good part.

"Wes helped me. He knew some people who knew a demon who knew a soul eater. We did the ritual in my apartment—well, basement—and bang, no more soul, no more problem. Reality got to stay ravelled up the way we like it, I got to star in the big fight scene, Angel got to be human, and you got Angel. All nice and tidy-like."

Her expression is priceless; he can see the wheels in her head turning. She is working through his little speech, filling in the blanks and joining the dots and all that bollocks. She is working her way slowly to the inevitable conclusion: that he gave up his soul for her, so that she could have her dream.

He holds the breath he doesn't need and waits for her reaction, unsure of what to expect. Tears? Gratitude? Maybe both. What he does not expect is a hard, stinging slap across his cheek.

She is on her feet glaring accusingly at him. "You did what? God, Spike, I expected better from you!"

Her reaction is so extreme, so completely nonsensical, that all he can do is shake his head and squint uncomprehendingly at her.

"How dare you? You of all people; God, I never thought you'd do that to me.” She is pacing angrily now, her whole body resonating with rage. It doesn't make sense, and suddenly he doesn't care; he's just as angry as she is, unreasonable little ingrate that she is.

"Do that to you?" he repeats incredulously as he comes to his feet and advances on her menacingly. "Do what, Buffy? Give up everything I had, everything I was, for you? Turn my back on all the things I wanted so you could have the things you wanted?"

She holds her ground, jaw set, eyes narrowed. "Decide for me. Go behind my back, make decisions for me like I'm some stupid little girl who can't think for herself."

"I gave you the normal life you wanted so bloody bad. Look at you now—living the sodding dream, you and Peaches doing the happily ever after. I made a choice, Buffy. A bloody hard choice just to be certain that you'd have this, that you could be happy."

"And what about my choice?" She is right in his face now, staring up fiercely at him. "Don't I have the right to choose?"

He steps away and gives her a look that says she is being deliberately awkward and obtuse. "Okay," he challenges. "Say I'd given you the choice: me or Angel, human and heading to Rome. Who would you have chosen?"

She swallows hard and there are suddenly tears brimming over in her big expressive eyes. She takes a shaky breath and looks directly at him through a blurring mass of tears, and she knows in this moment that he deserves an honest answer.

"Angel," she whispers hoarsely, "I'd have chosen Angel."

There are tears in his eyes now, too, turning the blue to liquid, and he doesn't speak for a moment, just shrugs and looks at her with and expression of bitter resignation. "There you go, then," he murmurs as he pushes past her.

She waits, holds her tongue until her whispered confession will be drowned out by the slamming of the door. Waits until he is sure not to hear her, because what good would it do anyway if he did. She screws her eyes shut against the tears that are flowing now in salty rivers of regret down her burning cheeks. "I'd have been wrong."

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Chapter 15:

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He is dimly aware that everything is different. There is an air of anticipation about this place, a discordant sense of the inevitable. Perhaps if he were still as he once was, his preternatural senses would be able to pinpoint the cause, but now he feels it only in the white-grey moments between sleep and wakefulness, a strange ethereal understanding that is gone with the opening of his eyes. Something is coming, something big, and the world is shifting in preparation, readying itself.

Buffy has certainly been different since the night she patrolled with Spike, the night they discovered that the demon in their midst is no longer muzzled by human conscience. She has been alternately pensive and distant or excessively carefree and affectionate.

In the matter of Spike, she has exercised her rarely-exploited authority and issued the order that they all continue to make the vampire welcome. It irks him that she is so hard headed on the subject, refusing to allow even the slightest hint that the vampire is not to be trusted.

"This is a waste of bloody time." The vampire in question shatters the absorbed silence of the library with his usual carelessness, causing Giles to flinch visibly as the obviously valuable manuscript he had been reading hits the table with a loud thwack. "I'm gonna go out and get me some dinner."

He is not certain whether it is the underlying implication in the vampire's words, or the amused indulgent smile that Buffy flashes at him that causes his hackles to rise. "I don't think so." Although what he could do about it in this fragile human body, he isn't sure. "You can't possibly imagine we'd let you to go out hunting."

For three days Spike has tolerated Xander's persistent baiting and veiled threats with a mocking sneer and disinterested sarcasm. He has waved off Buffy's embarrassed, apologetic looks and generally ignored the boy with reasonable good humour, so perhaps the violence of his reaction to this accusation can be explained as merely the snapping of a notoriously short temper. But he is not Xander, and he has known Spike long enough to recognise the hurt swimming in his guarded cobalt eyes, to see past the flaking mask of anger to the raw insecurity beneath.

"What the bloody hell are you trying to say, mate?" The familiarity comes out like a curse as Spike advances on him, eyes igniting with sudden fury. "It doesn't bloody matter, does it? What I do is never fucking good enough for you. You were my sire, man! You were…" He spins away, his duster a swirling accomplice to the display of melodrama. "Well, sod it. I've spent too many bloody years trying to make you… Bugger it and bugger you. I don't need your fucking approval!"

It is then that Buffy chooses to intervene, placing herself bodily between them, her hand resting on Spike's chest in gentle restraint. She leaves her hand there far longer than necessary, looking up at the vampire with soft, solemn eyes. "Don't, Spike. It's okay, I trust you. We trust you."

When his body relaxes, she pulls her hand back—surely it is ridiculously jealous of him to imagine that she does so with reluctance—then her demeanour changes and she rounds on him angrily. "For God's sake, Angel, you of all people should know he's on our side. Remember the big Wolfram and Hart face off? He was right there, risking everything, just like you were."

"It doesn't matter, Buffy." How to make her understand? He remembers the strange opposing kinship of slayer and vampire, but she is as far removed from the raging hunger of the demon as she can be. How can a creature of light possibly understand that Spike cannot be judged now as souled beings are judged, on their words on actions? He must be judged solely on the evil which animates his long dead carcass. "He can never really be on our side, not without a soul. And I of all people should know that."

"He's not you, Angel." She is dismissing and exasperated, with perhaps just a hint of accusation as if she no longer believes that he is not accountable for Angelus' crimes. She must recognise the wounded shock in his eyes because her own soften with regret and she shakes her head slowly as if to deny her own words, her lips beginning to form an apology.

"About bloody time someone pointed that out." Spike interrupts, cutting off anything she might have said, and her impatient glare turns to the vampire. "You hear that, Angel? Huh? Not bloody you. Maybe you need a soul to stop Angelus from torturing his nearest and dearest…"

"Spike, please," she tries diplomatically.

He ignores her and ploughs on grinning in petty triumph. "But then again the soul wasn't much of a guarantee, was it? I remember a story about a basement fulla dead lawyers and something about a deal with an evil law firm that ended with some of the best people I ever met dying in various horrible ways. So if you wa—"

"Spike." This time her voice is a sharp reprimand, and he stops his tirade and looks questioningly at her, for all the world an innocent school boy with no idea that he's done wrong. She shakes her head and fights the smile that threatens her stern expression. "Can I have a word with you?" She indicates with her head that they should go out, and he follows her, obedient as ever.

………………

She is suddenly unsure why she brought him out here. Perhaps to defuse the situation, perhaps to chastise him for attacking Angel. Or perhaps the small, divisive part of her that knows him at least as well as Angel does, the part that recognised the hurt behind his anger, brought him here to offer comfort and reassurance. The point is pretty much moot, though, as soon as he opens his mouth, already confrontational.

"What's up, slayer? Did I scare your little boyfriend?" he mocks snidely "Peaches is a big boy; he can take it. Two centuries of killing'll toughen you right up."

"You'd know," she bites back, a glib automatic response that makes him sneer unpleasantly at her.

"Wouldn't I just?" he drawls. "'Bout the only thing me and your little snuggle bunny got in common, but that's not the point."

"So what is the point?" Suddenly she remembers why she used to punch him in the face so often. The man just keeps redefining annoying. "Is there even a point? Or is it just a chance to have a go at Angel?"

"Hey now, wasn't me that started it." He narrows his eyes and steps in and around her so that she has to twist her neck uncomfortably to face him. "Peaches the Wonderful was the one throwing accusations around, but then he can say whatever the hell he likes, can't he? 'Cos he's human."

"God, what is wrong with you?" She throws her hands up in exasperation. "You don't think you were even a little bit harsh in there?"

"Harsh!" He shakes his head in frustrated disbelief. "And he wasn't? Besides, I didn't say anything that wasn't bloody true. The great poof got 'em killed just so he could be the one that brought down the senior partners—good people, Buffy. All of 'em."

"Spike, stop it! You know why he made that deal and it wasn't just about bringing down Wolfram and Hart. It was about Conner. Maybe it wasn't the best thing he could have done, and he should have given the others a proper choice, but Conner is his family—"

"So am I!" The response seems almost accidental, and his anger fades into embarrassed and grudging honesty. "He's all I got left of family, and I'm sick and tired of not being good enough for him. Not evil enough for Angelus, not pure and lily-bloody-white enough for Angel back in LA, not human enough for him now."

He sighs and sinks with boneless grace onto the second step of the broad, sweeping staircase of the hotel lobby. Her anger flees with his, and she is drawn to sit beside him. It feels oddly familiar, like her back porch on Revello, but now it is her turn to listen, to be a good and supportive friend. Heaven knows she owes him a sympathetic ear for all the nights he let her unburden her troubles on him.

"Sometimes I feel like I spent my whole bloody life not being good enough." It is a soft admission, tired and resigned as if he has slowly come to believe in his own inadequacy. "Angel, Drusilla, you. Always coming up short no matter what I do. It's not enough."

"It's enough." And even she isn't sure if she is offering forgiveness or requesting it. Had it always been enough? He'd been trying—oh, yeah, he'd really messed up most of the time, but he'd always been trying and she'd never given him even the merest scrap of credit for it. How did her hand find its way onto his cheek?

His eyes harden and she feels him stiffen under her gentle caress. "I'm not him." His expression is guarded and suspicious, but he doesn't move away.

Her hand drops and she frowns in confusion. "What? Not who?”

His jaw clenches and he shakes his head annoyed at her lack of understanding. "William," he continues more softly. "I'm not the man you left in the hellmouth, the man you said… I'm not a man at all." He looks away at the last, and the tension seems to drain suddenly from his body.

His skin is cool under her fingers as her hand finds his cheek again in the gentle insistence that he meet her eyes. "It's enough."

Another shake of his head and a humourless huff of laughter: "Hardly." He looks into nothing with a deep sigh. "Never was." Then he smiles suddenly and her heart twists with the knowledge that the warmth of it is not for her. "'Cept for my Anjo, of course."

Another heavy sigh and he leans back on his elbow and studies the ceiling with distracted interest. "Lost a another Slayer today, yeah?"

And there it is again, the ever-present spectre of the disease that haunts this place. "Two," she corrects him, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she feels the weight of responsibility for the girls' condition settle heavily on her shoulders again. If she had not had Willow do the spell…

"Hey now, none of that." It seems he is still almost telepathic when it comes to her emotions. "No way you coulda known. No choice even if you had."

"I know." Intellectually, of course she does, but in her gut she cultivates the growing guilt. With every death, with every girl who slips painfully into coma, with every disappearing pack of Ibuprofen, she is feeding it, helping it grow until she fears there will be no room left inside her for anything else.

"The brat's getting the headaches, too." She didn't know that. God, Willow must be desperate. She buries her head in her hands, fighting off the despair welling in her heart, the drowning hopelessness of it. Their research is not going well, and with every hour and day that passes they risk losing another girl to the ravages of this mystical disease.

"I was thinking." His eyes are sad and serious and inexplicably resigned when she looks at him, and she feels an almost fearful compulsion to lighten the mood, to chase that despondent look from his eyes.

"Careful," she jokes weakly, but he doesn't smile, and she doesn't blame him because Carlotta is among those threatened.

"Red could do Angelus' curse on me, get me all souled up again, then we could try the spell."

She frowns, turning the suggestion over in her mind, surprised now that no one thought of it before. But it had been so hard on him, the weight of his crimes had left him so uncharacteristically weak, and it is only now that she sees him free of it again that she understands how it had sapped the life from him, how it had dulled his vibrant rainbow of colour until he seemed a faded watercolour image of himself. She doesn't want him to do it and she knows that it is a selfish thought, but she can't help but be saddened by the idea of dimming the raging brightness of him. "You'd do that?"

"Will I get a soul for the woman I love? You know I will." He looks at her and the determination in his eyes is absolute. "She's the only person who ever loved me, Buffy. She's my family now. How could I not?"

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Chapter 16:

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She can feel the panic rising in her throat, begging to be let loose; she bites her lip and looks down, fearing that in a moment she will scream. They are talking about a curse: old Romany vengeance magic.

It has taken them four days and the death of two more slayers to bring them to this point. The last straw had been when Kennedy first began getting the headaches and Willow's manic worry had begun to turn to hysteria. The blood extractions had done only a little to help, and only then to slayers exhibiting very early symptoms, and all the leads on other spells had proved to be nothing more than red herrings.

And so now they are talking about a curse, a curse that will restore her lover's soul and perhaps make his blood fit the original spell. But it is a long shot. Dawn and Willow have translated a little more of the original text: "None would create and none would receive," it reads. "That which should not be, that which cannot live. Opposed and yet as one, this great abomination." It is hardly a perfect description of Spike, but the text talks of vampric power and they have no other options. And as Spike says, "had a soul before, don't really mind having one again." It's not that simple, of course. She knows what a burden his soul had been, how it had wounded and weakened him.

The witch, Willow, has performed the curse before—she remembers that from Spike's stories—but now she is talking about altering the spell. "I think to fit in with the whole 'abomination,' it needs to be more than a curse. I think the soul has to be taken willingly, but it's no big. I just have to change a few ingredients and a couple of words."

Fear is pulsing through her body in time with the rapid pounding of her heart. Instinct tells her that this is not right, that there is danger here, that he is in danger here. She grips his hand tighter, and if he were human he would have cried out in pain. He is not; he merely looks down at her and lets his eyes ask her what is wrong. She can't tell him because she doesn't know, but instinct tells her there is danger here and she has learned to trust her instinct.

Buffy is pacing the floor, shooting questions at the redhead, and she realises that the other slayer feels it, too. That this is not some flight of fancy but a legitimate and intuitive concern. "You said when you cursed Angel in LA you had to find his soul first because it had been stolen, right?"

The redhead nods and Buffy continues agitatedly. "His specific soul; it had to be his own soul?"

"Well, yes," the redhead answers with a perplexed nod. "If you were to use another person’s soul, well, there's no telling what might happen."

"Giles." Buffy turns her attention abruptly to the watcher and she feels herself relax. Buffy is taking care of this; she won't let anything happen to Spike. She almost smiles at the thought—when Spike told her tales of this tiny blond-haired girl, Carlotta had marvelled at the unquestioning faith that he and others had put in her. Now, watching her take command, she feels that same unquestioning trust. "Does a soul eater do what it sounds like it does?"

"Um, yeah. The soul eater feeds off the soul, and of course destroys it in the process." He takes off his glasses and studies his slayer carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"Because we need another plan," Buffy tells them authoritatively. "Spike’s soul isn't just lost, it's gone. We can't do the curse."

The subject is closed and she could almost cry with relief.

"What if you did use another soul?" Her eyes widen in shock at her lover’s question. Why now would he be asking this?

"Well, certainly insanity, and there's a fifty/fifty chance that it'd kill you," the redhead answers, and she can tell that Willow is desperate, that she does not believe that Spike's blood will work but she is willing to try anything to save her girlfriend.

She takes another gulp of water. Her throat has been dry all day, a sort of rough tickle she hasn't been able to shift. Spike is looking at her now, face clouded with worry, and then he looks over at Kennedy sitting behind the redhead massaging her temples with both hands. "Right, we'll do it. Red, have you got everything you need?"

"No, Spike!" Buffy's urgent refusal comes in perfect sync with her own "Amando, no!"

"It'll take me a day to get ready," Willow answers, her voice steely calm.

"God, Willow." Buffy shoots a disbelieving scowl at her friend. "Forget it, okay? This is not happening; we will find another way."

"No we won't, Buffy." His voice is unnaturally calm for a man who has just volunteered for a suicide mission, and she knows with a horrible sinking certainty that nothing will stop him from going through with this. Just like every time he threw himself headlong at the demons they faced on patrol, every time he put his body between her and an arcing blade or slashing talon, he will do whatever it takes to protect her.

"We don't have time and this thing is killing them," he says firmly, wrapping his arms around her waist tightly so that she can feel his body shudder against her. "It's killing them all."

……………………….

Carlotta pulls violently out of his arms, swinging round to face him with flying hair and blazing eyes. "No!" she insists hotly, and he has seen this look in her eyes before: righteous indignation and untempered anger. Buffy has been known to wear a similar expression; maybe it's a slayer thing.

"No. I won't let you," she insists vehemently. "I won't let you sacrifice yourself for me."

He tries to calm her, hands outstretched, palms down and patting the air in a placating gesture. "We don't have any choice, pet. This thing'll kill more than just you if we don't stop it."

"Pah," she spits derisively. "What do you care for the lives of strangers? And what proof do we have that this will work?" She whirls accusingly on the little witch. "Are you certain? Tell me, are you certain that it will work?"

"Er, no," Willow admits, timid in the face of his slayer’s anger.

"Doesn't matter either way. We gotta try. I won't stand by and watch you die, pet." He is trying to remain calm and reasoning, but his own temper is rising to meet hers, and pretty soon they'll be at each other's throats.

"You always do this." She is almost crying now. "This macho hero bullshit. Putting yourself between me and danger. Telling me what to do." She takes a pace away from him, then rounds on him again fear making her desperate and resentful. "Tell me why is it you who must sacrifice, why is it you who must decide which one of us lives and which one dies? Hah, tell me that."

"Because you’re just a fucking child!" She looks for a moment as if he has slapped her, then her fiery Hispanic temper snaps and she is hissing and spitting at him in agitated Portuguese. She is talking too quickly to understand every word, but he gets the idea. He is an arsehole – that she says in English – who considers her a vacuous simpleton only good enough for his bed.

Acutely aware that all eyes are on them, he takes her arm and tries to lead her to the door. But she pulls away. "Screw you, Spike!" she spits, and she is gone, leaving him to trail after her with an infuriated cry of her name.

Buffy finds him an hour later, leaning tiredly against the locked door to his room as he pleads ineffectively with Carlotta to let him in. "Want me to try to talk to her?" she offers helpfully, but he just shakes his head. He's known the girl long enough to know that when she's in one of these moods there's no way to get her out of it.

"Nah." He gives a defeated sigh. "She'll calm down eventually. Bloody women. You two are as bad as each other, you know that?" He softens the words with an affectionate smile that is meant for both of them. What is it with him and high maintenance birds?

"Well, you'll find that we girls don't much like being told what to do." She gives him a crooked smile and invites him with a nod of her head to walk with her. Well, it's better than talking to the door for another hour. When her arm slips through his just a few strides down the hall, he almost stumbles in surprise, and by the sound of her tinkling laugh, he doesn't cover it well. "It doesn't matter how well-meaning you are or how amazingly selfless the thing you do is, a girl—particularly a slayer—likes to decide for herself." And now he knows she isn't talking about Carlotta.

"Come on." She tugs on his arm. "I'll make you a hot chocolate."

……………………..

"Pretty good," he compliments later when they are sitting side by side in the communal kitchen sipping thick, warm chocolate, and she finds herself ridiculously pleased that the drink meets his approval. She has, after all, been making this drink for him for the last two years.

"The secret is to use cocoa and milk, not drinking chocolate," she confides. "And of course you gotta have the little marshmallows." That earns her a smile; he seems pleased that she remembers his preference, doesn't know that there is nothing she has forgotten.

"She'll come ‘round." She tries to comfort him when he is silent for a moment, then feels the need to chastise him good-naturedly. "She's just pissed is all. I mean, 'you're just a f-ing kid'? Spike, what where you thinking?"

"You should know better than anyone that when it comes to me and women, thinking doesn't necessarily come before speaking."

"Oh yeah. I mean, the number of times I was this close—" She holds up her hand, finger and thumb held millimetres apart in illustration, "—to just giving in to you, and you'd say the stupidest thing, make me all mad again."

There is humour in her eyes and he lets out a huff of a laugh through his nose. "Yeah, well, it's funny. Give me a girl I don't give a shit about and I can sweet talk her into anything, but the ones I love…" He trails off with a wry grin. "I'm working on it, though."

"Well, it must be working to get you a girl like Carlotta," she compliments graciously. "I know for a fact you didn't chain her up with your ex and threaten to kill them both, so that's progress."

He laughs then. It's good to be able to joke about this stuff; things that were so painful just a year ago have somehow morphed into fond and amusing memories. "Hey, vampire here. That was pretty damn romantic."

"You can't just say it with flowers?" Then again, if she thinks of it from a vampire perspective—and if she's honest, she has thought about it—it was quite the grand gesture, just hopelessly misguided.

But this is nice, just teasing and joking, sharing their past over hot chocolate, and the warm affectionate looks he is giving her have a strangely addictive quality. "Tell me you didn't use the old, 'only thing better than killing a...'"

"That was supposed to be a compliment," he grumbles, cutting her off.

"Well, in that case," she says, barely able to keep from laughing as she smirks at him, "Flattered."

"Ha bloody ha." He is sullen and teasing all at once, an intoxicating blend of childish petulance and humour. "You know what I meant. That was some great sex. You can't deny that."

"The best," she answers automatically, too caught up in the pleasant banter to watch her words. Her hand flies to her mouth with realisation, as his eyebrow arches and gleeful interest sparks in his eyes.

"The best?" He drawls the question out with practised suggestiveness, and his tongue curls behind his teeth in seductive challenge.

For a moment she is mortified, then she rises to the challenge, rolling her eyes skyward and shaking her head. "Oh yeah." She loses focus for a moment as memories of long hours spent in his crypt bombard her, then she tosses her hair haughtily over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow. "But you tell Angel that and I'll stake you."

They both laugh again and this is nice—better than nice, just taking a break from all the pressures of life just being together without confrontation or misunderstanding, this is perfect. So why does she have to do it? Why can't she just enjoy it instead of letting her stupid big mouth run away with her?

"I missed you." And with that confession the atmosphere instantly changes: she can feel the air thicken to treacle around them, can feel her own heartbeat gallop as he turns to meet her eyes, smile fading and a small frown appearing on his face.

Oh my God, was he this close a minute ago? Surely he couldn't have been. But neither of them has moved and suddenly she is close enough to kiss him, close enough that she can feel cool air rushing across her cheek as he lets out a shaky breath.

He is close enough that he can effortlessly reach a hand to touch her face, and run his cool fingers across her cheek and into her hair. "Missed you, too." It is only a whisper, but he is so close that she has no difficulty hearing him. "More than you know."

And she really shouldn't, because she has already tried this and it didn't go so well, but she can't help it. They are opposite poles and the attraction is irresistible. She moves first, just as she did in the graveyard, but this time he comes to meet her, this time his hand is tangling in her hair, pulling her in as their lips meet. This time his mouth is as greedy and demanding on hers as it ever was.

Her hands come up to grasp his shoulders and she hangs on desperately, pulling herself closer so that their chests are crushed together and she has to twist in her seat until she is almost in his lap. And oh god, oh god it's right, it's utterly and completely wrong and some part of her brain knows it, but at this moment it is just so right.

She crawls fully into his lap, hands roaming greedily over his body, the firm muscles of his back and shoulders through the thin cotton of his worn t-shirt, the cool bare skin of his arms, his chest, his neck and into his hair, coarse and brittle from decades of bleaching. His hands are moving, too, from her hair and down her back to clasp her ass and pull her flush against him, across her hips to lift her and….

Suddenly she is on her feet facing him and he is pulling away and running his hands over his face. "Oh, bloody hell. Carlotta."

Realisation hits her like a trainload of guilt. "Angel," she murmurs, bringing her hand to cover her mouth.

"I, um..." He gestures with his head towards the door. "I should go."

"Yeah, um, right. Yeah."

He turns to leave, his back to her, when her voice stops him. "Spike." She doesn't want to have to say this, but she can't just let him walk away like this. "Are we cool?"

His eyes are pained when he looks over his shoulder, despite the small trying smile on his lips. "When were we ever?"

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Chapter 17:

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He will tell Carlotta as soon as soon as he gets back to their room, although this thought is enough to slow his brisk strides to a ponderous dawdle. He will tell her because she is his angel and they have never had any secrets, there is no rumination of the heart he has not shared with her, and she is under no illusions about his feeling for Buffy.

He does not attempt to reason that his honesty is in anyway selfless or noble, such virtues are far beyond him now and he goes in search as much of comfort as he does forgiveness. And he knows that she will offer it willingly, that she who has witnessed jealousy in all it's ugliest forms will no more let it touch her now that Buffy is real in their lives than she did when she lay with him on tangled sheets and listen as he told her of his love for the memory of a girl in a far off country

He wonders if Buffy will also confess her digression to her lover. He doubts it. Buffy has never been anything if not afraid of condemnation. Aside from the obvious possible ramifications of admitting her slight infidelity, there is the added shame that it was committed with a creature such has he. No. Buffy won't be making any confessions tonight, or any night.

There had been, up until the moment she whispered so fervently that she had missed him, a strange sense of anticlimax in her reaction to him. Aside from the brief flaring of her anger at his clandestine behaviour she has welcomed his return – and soulless at that – with an affectionate ease that is almost unnerving. At first he had attributed it the contentment he imagined she had found in her new life with Angel. But if that is the case - and her warmth towards him has it's roots in winsome indifference - then he is at a loss to explain why she has not once but twice kissed him in the few scant moments they have been alone.

And with thoughts of her kisses comes the unwelcome question of what it has meant to her, what he perhaps still means to her. He shakes his head, even if there were some crippled phoenix of affection buried in the long cold ashes of their relationship it is hardly likely to rise now, not now that she has Angel. And yet, he is compelled to ask himself, if she did want him…? No it is beyond ridiculous to even think of it, but if she did, then what would he want?

No he mustn't think like that, he has Carlotta and she is good to him, she is beautiful and vibrant in her love for him and there is no one he would sooner share his life with. Well no one but perhaps Buffy.

……………………………………………..

Her plan is morbid genius; it is heroic and it is madness, but most of all it is horribly desperate and so is her choice of accomplice.

She had come to her earlier, slipped away from her room while Spike was distracted, come to her with a plan knowing that she would offer her help, that she alone was powerful enough and reckless enough to help her do this unthinkable thing.

Lotta reasoned that their actions were not merely in the interests of saving their lovers, but for the good of all her sister slayers, but she is not fooled. She has seen the haunted, anxious look in Carlotta's eyes too often in her own bathroom mirror not to recognise that she is crazed with the need to protect her lover. And this is the girl's way: "If I perceive if that which I love is threatened, I will strike first and it will be decisive." Isn't that what she'd said? Oh, this isn't quite how she had anticipated the threat would pan out, but there is no denying that this pre-emptive strike will be nothing if not decisive, one way or another.

The plan is simplicity itself: a carefully-timed sleeping spell cast from the neighbouring room, a vial of stolen blood and a razor blade is all it will take. That and of course dauntless courage and a heinous crime of utter selflessness.

She hates herself for agreeing, hates that she has been driven to such abhorrent selfishness, but Kennedy is dying and she never believed Spike's blood would satisfy the spell.

Her hands shake as she sets up the spell. This is wrong; this is the wrongest thing she has ever done—well, ever done while in her right mind. But even that she questions. Perhaps she has actually become insane, been driven to this madness by Kennedy's worsening condition. She is so afraid for her girlfriend that she is willing to abandon totally her once treasured morality, but she is not so far gone that she can find the means to justify this.

She waits in the oppressive quiet of the room next to theirs, her heart thumping with dread slowness, nausea churning in her stomach. She heard him return a few minutes ago and now she hears his low rumbling voice, every word clear through the paper-thin walls of the old hotel.

"Luv, I got something I need to tell you," he says, and there is nervousness in his voice. "I, er... Buffy. She kissed me, and I..." Her eyes widen in surprise: why would Buffy do something like that? "I didn't stop her, pet. I should've and I didn't. I'm so sorry, baby."

"Hush amando, it's okay."

"No, it's not, pet. I just, she was there and she was Buffy, and I couldn't… God, luv, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry, my love. I know. I know everything. Hush now. I promise everything is going to be all right." She hears the sound of their bedsprings creaking to accommodate their weight as Carlotta pulls him down to her. "Just make love to me."

And there is nothing she can do but wait, face flaming in embarrassment at the noises coming through the wall, and listen for Carlotta's signal. When it finally comes it is preceded by a loud feral growl. "Spike!" The pleasured scream sounds in her mind like a death knell. It is time to begin.

And once the spell is cast, there is nothing to do but silently clear away the ingredients and slip unnoticed to her own room, thankful that Kennedy is sleeping more heavily since she started getting the headaches, and wait for the tell-tale sounds that it is done.

She lies on her bed, counting the minutes till her spell will wear off, stomach churning with fear and guilt. And when it comes the sound shatters the silence of the hotel like a hammer on crystal. It is a howl, a raw, animalistic proclamation of pain like the cry of a wolf in agony, and she is certain that those on the other side of the building who are not woken by the sound will dream strange and frightening dreams in its wake. She pauses for a moment, having no desire to be first on the scene, telling a confused and sleepy Kennedy that everything is fine: "Stay, go back to sleep," then follows the tortured sound to its source.

Angel is the first person she sees, leaning heavily against the wall in the corridor, face ashen, eyes shocked and full of tears, a surprisingly human reaction to horror she knows he has seen within that room.

Dawn is just inside the bedroom, hand over her mouth, tears pouring down her face. Shocked blue eyes flicker towards her as she enters the room, then back to the bathroom door, through which she can hear that the agonised howl has quelled to a heart wrenching sobbing that sends grief and anguish resonating through the walls of the darkened room.

Another few shaky steps and the putrid fruit of her shameful labour is revealed. And oh god, she hadn't realised there would be so much blood, that the white tiles of the floor would be completely coated in viscous pooling red, that it would be matted in his platinum hair and streaked all over the alabaster skin of his bare chest.

Buffy is with him, kneeling helplessly at his side in that sticky sea of congealing blood where he rocks his lover’s cold limp body in his arms and begs her between racking sobs to come back to him.

"There's a note." Dawn’s shaky, tearful voice disturbs the macabre tableau of the bathroom.

Buffy studies the desolated vampire for a moment, her huge green eyes full of impotent sympathy. "Read it," she commands softly.

"'Spike, '" Dawn begins, voice small and broken. "'Love you always. See you soon.' That's all it says."

…………………………

Something sparks in her mind. The note is not right, everything here is not right. The slayer in her rises, strong and single-minded, and she is no longer just a woman shocked and sickened by a horrific suicide, she is more than just a girl paralysed in the face of a loved one’s pain. She is the slayer and she has work to do here.

"Spike," she whispers in his ear. "You have to let her go for a little while, okay? You need to tell me what happened." He shakes his head against Carlotta's silky black hair, but she insists, gently pulling him away. "Willow and Giles'll look after for a minute okay? Just come with me."

Dazed, he lowers her body reverently to the floor and kisses her forehead. "Be back in a minute, pet," he tells her as he straightens the large black t-shirt she is wearing to better cover her thighs.

"Giles," Buffy whispers to the man who has just arrived at the redhead’s shoulder. "You and Willow stay with her. Have a look around for anything suspicious, okay?"

"Spike, I'm sorry, but you have to tell me what happened."

Confusion is written all over his tear stained face. "I don't know. We were making love, and…" He shakes his head in helpless bewilderment. "I don't remember anything else. I must have fallen asleep."

It doesn't make sense. Spike doesn't just fall asleep after sex like some big useless Riley. He's always awake last, and even if he did—hello, vampire. No way he'd sleep through the sound—not to mention the smell—of his lover bleeding to death on the bathroom floor.

"Buffy." Giles appears in the bathroom door, a small glass jar in his hand, empty but stained with red. "We found this next to the b…" He trails off with a nervous glance at the vampire. "Next to her, and she has a fresh bite."

"Okay, thanks, Giles." she turns back to the vampire standing by numbly. "You bit her tonight?" she asks, consciously trying to ensure that the question cannot be mistaken for an accusation.

"Yeah, we do, most times." He shakes his head and the tears begin to flow again. "She likes it, always says it make her feel closer to me." He looks anxiously over he shoulder towards the bathroom. "I need to get back to her, she doesn't like me to leave her for too long."

And this bemused nonacceptance is the worst of all. She doesn't know what to do, how to make him understand without worsening the pain. But she needn't worry, because if there is one thing Spike understands, it is death. He stumbles to the bed and sits down heavily as if his legs have just stopped working, as though his body has caught up with the desolation in his eyes and simply acknowledged the pointlessness of maintaining the effort of function. And all she can do is watch helplessly as he runs his hand over the sheets where they had made love together such a very short time ago. "Why would she do it, Buffy?" he asks without looking up from where his hand smoothes the rumbled cotton. "I made her happy. I thought I made her happy."

"You did. I know you did." She shakes her head and bites her lip. There is a puzzle here, and the answer should be obvious but she somehow can't piece it together. The bite, the slashed wrists, the empty vile of blood, the strange note, Spike's uncharacteristic lethargy, the large syringe beside the bed. Wait, the syringe? Suddenly everything is clear, and she understands perfectly what has happened. Even as the powerful essence at her core recoils in horror at the very idea, her mind moves forward logically and she turns his arm to reveal the small red needle mark against his pale skin.

"Oh, God."

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"He's getting the body cleaned up." Willow’s voice is low, almost strangled, as she emerges from the bedroom with Giles. “He won't let anybody help, but he's calmer now."

"Thanks, Will." They can't discuss this here. Angel has been doing a good job of sending the curious young slayers back to bed; even so, this is delicate and they need privacy. "In here." She indicates a neighbouring room and they trail in after her, and damn it to hell, Xander's here and that's the last thing they need.

"Buffy?" Dawn’s voice is small and shaky and she is looking at her for answers. What has happened and why? Why would a happy, beautiful, vibrant girl like Carlotta take her own life?

"I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I think…"

It's no surprise that it is Xander who interrupts. "I think it's pretty obvious what happened. He killed her."

"No." She shakes her head in an attempt to bring order to her muddled thoughts. "He wouldn't. Besides, it doesn't make sense."

"Oh, it makes perfect sense. He killed her and tried to make it look like suicide. Or do you buy that crap about sleeping right through it?"

"No, I mean I know he wouldn't do this. But the sleeping part, that doesn't make sense. No way a vampire could sleep with all that slayer blood around." She frowns. Even now that she has fitted together the pieces of this detestable jigsaw in her mind, she still rails against her own impossible conclusions. "I think he was drugged or something. Someone else must…"

"Jesus, Buffy, can you hear yourself?" Xander shakes his head in disgust. "A girl is dead in there, fresh bite in her neck--"

"That didn't kill her." But her protest falls on deaf ears. Xander convinced himself of the vampire's guilt a long time ago and now he has a crime to match his verdict.

"And you still trying to defend him. Come on, Buff, you're doing it again, making excuses, exceptions, and you're not even screwing him anymore." He pauses and regards her with suspicious disdain. "Or are you?" If he'd slapped her it would've hurt less and, God, why is Angel looking at her like that?

"Xander, that's enough." Thank God for Giles, calm and authoritative. "We have no idea what happened in that room and it'll do no good to jump to any conclusions. Now Buffy, can you tell us what you found?"

"Yeah. Spike had a mark on his arm, like a puncture just here." She indicated the soft flesh on the underside of her own elbow. "And there was a syringe by the bed. Someone took blood from him and there was that empty vial in the bathroom that had had blood in it." She shakes her head. "None of it makes sense."

"Unless he killed her, and all this is just to throw us off the scent."

"No, Xander." Angel is such a good man, despite his mistrust, despite the shadow of jealousy and suspicion that has stalked them since she had publicly taken Spike's side over his. Despite all of that, he is a good, honest man. "Spike's a lot of things but he's not stupid. If he'd done this, he'd be long gone."

"And the note. It said, 'see you soon.' I think..." She pauses; no one else has followed her to this impossible conclusion—well, of course not, because it's insanity. "I think she somehow drugged Spike and took the blood. I think she slit her wrists and then I think she drank it." Aghast, uncomprehending looks greet her revelation. "I think she turned herself into a vampire."

"Buffy, that is impossible. She's a slayer." Giles tries to reason. "You yourself know how abhorrent, how inconceivable such an act would be, even to the most corrupt or disturbed of the chosen."

"I know. Everything inside me tells me it's not possible, that a slayer couldn't do this." She shakes her head and chews at her lip. "And Spike once told me it's the same for vampires: killing slayers, that's fine, but none of them would ever consider turning one. It's just—I don't think wrong even covers it; unthinkable, I guess."

"I say it doesn't matter." Xander again. Why can't he just back off for a minute? "I say we got two vampires in there and I say we deal with them."

"No!" There is panic in Willow's voice, and something else that she can't identify, but it is enough to arouse her suspicion.

"Willow?" She lets the question come out hard and accusing. "What do you know?"

Willow’s eyes flash nervously around the room, and for an instant it appears that she will avoid the question. Then she shuts her eyes and begins her confession. "She did it, you’re right. Just like you said, only she didn't put Spike to sleep." A long, pregnant pause. "I did."

"What?" she exclaims in sync with her watcher. "Good God, Willow, why would you do that?"

"She came to me. She knew Spike's blood wasn't going to work in the spell, and she wasn't going to let him die trying. She said she had the answer, she said she knew what the spell wanted. A true vampiric abomination, something utterly detestable to both sides."

"A vamperised slayer?" Horrible, sinking confirmation.

"She had me cast a sleeping spell. I waited in the next room for her signal. Just after he bit her, I cast it. She did the rest."

"I should turn your girlfriend, witch." The room stills at the malevolent calm of the vampire's voice as he comes more fully into the room, advancing slowly on the watery-eyed redhead. "I should turn her and feed you to her before I stake her."

She should intervene, protect Willow from the demon that threatens her, but in this instant she feels no kinship with her oldest friend. And perhaps Spike deserves his revenge. Didn't Willow claim the same herself just four years ago when she stripped the skin from a still-living body with her magic?

At any rate, the sickness broiling in her gut is paralysing. She is beyond horrified, beyond disgusted with Willow. For once her heart and her calling are of one mind; the witch has done something unforgivable and she isn't sure she could move to her friend’s aid even if the vampire had his fangs at her throat.

"You should, but you won't." Willow should not sound so certain, so sure of her own power. "You won’t because you know you still need me."

"I do at that." He regards her with calculated disdain. "You can do your hocus-pocus on the chains?"

"Yes."

"Chains? What chains?" She feels as if events are rushing past like the flashing images she remembers seeing during a particularly hammy drowning scene on some awful made-for-TV flick.

"Right. We'll need something to keep calm her: potion, trinket, whatever." His businesslike attitude is almost more frightening than his grief, and if she did not know him quite so well, she would imagine he cared nothing for the dead girl in the next room.

"I can do that."

"Pray that you can, 'cos you let her down now, it'll be your girl I go after." As always, the most effective threats are those made with icy calm. So much more menacing that way.

"Spike, what are you talking about?" Finally she manages to get his attention, the shrill panic in her voice just enough to make him turn his dark, obdurate eyes on her.

"You can't describe the hunger when you rise, slayer, the desperate uncontrollable desire to feed. You don't think—you can't. All you can do is find the nearest living body and drink until the world turns red around you and you understand that now you are a God." She hates the cool detachment of his voice, hates to recognise the ice cold masquerade of coping that crippled her for so many painful years.

"In three nights’ time," he continues, and if his voice falters a little he covers it well, "Lotta'll rise, and I don't fancy any of our chances of stopping her doing something she might not be able to live with."

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He can count perfectly the eight careful steps that will take her from his bed again tonight.

Step one: She whispers his name, softly enough so as not to wake him, but loud enough that he would hear her if he were not sleeping.

Step two: She shifts to the edge of the bed, carefully redistributing her weight so that her movements won't rock him into wakefulness.

Step three: She gently frees herself from the comforter, then holds her breath and waits for the tell tale sounds that she has disturbed him.

Step four: She carefully rolls off the bed, freezing as the mattress creaks loudly in the silent room, and stands motionless over him for a moment

Step five: She creeps to the door with all the stealth of her calling.

Step six: She turns the door handle so slowly it doesn't make even the slightest sound and carefully pulls open the door.

Step seven: She whispers his name once more to be certain she hasn't roused him and she can escape unnoticed.

Step eight: She is gone, disappearing silently down the hall towards the back stairs that will take her to the basement and to him.

She did this in the early hours of yesterday morning after they had helped Spike hang Carlotta's body, washed and dressed prettily in deep blue Levis and her worn 1996 Brazilian football shirt, in the magically strengthened chains in the basement. Spike had sat down on the floor opposite her body, his back against the cold damp stone and readied himself for the vigil he will keep until she wakes again.

Giles had ushered them away, tugging insistently on Buffy's arm when it had looked as if she would move to stay with the vampire. "Go back to bed, Buffy," he'd whispered gently. "There's nothing you can do for either of them."

He'd been surprised that she'd complied so readily, allowing him to guide her up the rickety stairs with nothing more than a single mournful glance over her shoulder. He realises now she had always had the intention to return; she merely wished to keep the peace around her ex-lover and his dead girl.

She was back in his bed by the time he woke, and in the morning she gave nothing away. She ate. She comforted Dawn and studiously ignored Willow. She warmed blood and took it to the basement, then retrieved it untouched an hour later. She nodded pensively when Giles informed her that he believed Carlotta was right in her assumption that her blood will now satisfy the spell. She warmed another mug of blood and took it to the basement, only to once again return an hour later to find it untouched. She organised the few remaining slayers still fit enough to patrol and welcomed back Faith and the small party she had led on an expedition to kill a nest of Marock demons in Idaho. At eleven in the evening, she delivered a final mug of blood to the basement before joining him in their bed and silently resisting his lone attempt to hold her.

He guesses that by now she will be approaching the basement door and pictures her slipping quietly down the stairs. In his mind’s eye, he sees her looking worriedly at the motionless vampire, sees her lean against the wall and slide down until she is sitting beside him, knees drawn up to her chest, eyes fixed on his profile. She won't say anything. She'll wait, and eventually he'll speak. It is there that his imagination runs aground. What can Spike say? What comfort could Buffy offer? What secrets will they share with the stale, musty air?

The need to know is overwhelming, but he doesn't move. He could hardly eavesdrop on them. Either one of them would know he was there long before he came into earshot; with their sharp instincts and heightened senses, they would hear even the softest tread on the stairs two flight above them. So he must wait till morning and hope she'll tell him herself. He trusts her to do that at least.

……………………………………..

He hasn't moved at all since she left him alone just as dawn coloured the eastern sky nearly twenty-four hours ago. If he were human, his bones would ache from the cold and his muscles would have seized from inactivity. But he isn't human. He is as dead as the limp body hanging before him, and yet it is easy to forget that.

She doesn't speak, knows there is nothing she can say; no platitudes or trite words of condolence can comfort him now. All she can do is wait. Wait and watch his profile until he is ready to speak to her. She watches him for an hour, until her bones ache and her muscles seize, but she doesn't move and she doesn't speak. He'll talk when he's ready.

"Why?" he says eventually, and she jerks slightly at the suddenness of the sound.

Why? How can she answer that? How can she even begin to address the unfathomable hugeness of the question? He turns to her and she wishes there were tears in his eyes, because that at least would be a sign that underneath the pain he is not completely broken. But looking into his eyes now she has the unsettling feeling that she is looking into a mirror, one that defies the relentless trudging of time to reflect the hollowness of her own expression in the awful year of her resurrection.

It is her fervent wish in this instant that she were him, that she could for just a little while steal his impetuous eloquence, his infuriating ability to say exactly what needs to be said at exactly the moment it should be said. He is still looking at her, silently prompting her for an answer with desolate, guilt-ridden eyes that she knows are soulless but feels now more strongly than ever reflect an ocean of feeling.

"Because she had to." The words come and she must trust that they will be enough. "Because she's brave and strong and selfless and everything else a slayer should be." She looks intently at him as she speaks, as if she can ease his pain by the sheer force of her will. "But most of all, because she loves you."

Guilt and self-loathing flare brightly in his eyes at her words and she belatedly realises how, to him, it must sound almost like an accusation, or perhaps a confirmation of culpability.

"No," she denies vehemently. "No, don't you dare think that this is your fault. It's not."

"Isn't it?" He shakes his head. "Carlotta's a good girl and a good slayer, but she's not the martyr-complex hero type. She's not doing this for the bloody sisterhood or the faceless innocents. She's seen too much, knows as well as anyone there's no such bloody thing."

She had been curious about this before, and she feels the need to steer him away from further self-recrimination. "Yeah," she murmurs softly. "I wondered...she said she knew monsters all her life. I got the feeling she wasn't talking about vampires."

"Hardly." He seems grateful for the distraction, or perhaps for the chance to talk about Carlotta. "She's an orphan. Spent her life in homes and foster care. People aren't all they should be, you know, and she's always been beautiful. The women were jealous, and the men...well, you can imagine." He makes a show of perking up and it is painful to watch. "Say, maybe when she wakes up me and her'll go on a rampage. Track 'em down and rip their throats out. Or kill 'em real interesting like, get my girl a nickname. How'd you like pick axe?"

"Spike, don't." She lays her hand on his arm, wishing she could physically draw his pain into herself. Is this how he felt? she wonders. Is that why he let her beat him so badly? "It won't be like that."

"It won't?" He lets his pain come out in bitter sarcasm, and the familiarity, the obvious defensiveness, makes her heart ache for him. "Oh, that's all right then. Was a bit worried she was gonna wake up an evil creature of the night with a taste for human blood."

She holds his gaze and he deflates. She can almost see the protective walls crumbing around him. "How do you know?" He is almost begging, and it is strange that it has always been this way between them, even when she was too blind and too damaged to understand their push and pull of strength and weakness, their pendulum deference to the other’s wisdom.

She sits back and sighs, readying herself for her parable. "Remember that night we teamed up against Angelus? You beat up a policeman and my mom found out about me being the slayer."

He nods. Of course he remembers; it was a pivotal moment for them both.

"Well, after you left, I think it kinda sunk in with my mom and she didn't handle it so well. She said 'It stops now,' as if I was dating a drug dealer or skipping school." The memory is fresh and real in her mind. She can see her mother’s face, the stern reprimand that barely covered her fear as she clung like any other Sunnydale resident to the life raft of denial.

"You know what I said?" she asks rhetorically. His expression tells her that he is listening. "I said, 'No, it doesn't stop. It never stops.'" She puffs out air and shakes her head. "I had no idea back then how right I was. Once you're the slayer, you're always the slayer. Even death can't change that. I'm not saying she'll be the same. She'll be a vampire, but she'll still be the slayer."

"And therein lies the problem." He looks impassively at Carlotta, his face a mask of desolate stoicism. "You can't be both."

There's nothing to say to that, most of all because she knows that he is right, so she merely nods and lets the silence settle over them again.

"Why'd you kiss me?" The question is so sudden, so completely out of context, that for a moment she can't process it and she finds herself blinking stupidly at him.

"I...um...I don't know." It's the best she can come up with. Certainly she can't tell him the truth: that he has haunted her heart for so long now that she finds the sudden reality of him irresistible. And there is no way on earth, particularly now, here, in the presence of his new girlfriend’s unhearing corpse, that she could tell him it is because she loves him now as she never imagined she would be able to when she still had the right.

"Right." He tilts his head back and eyes her thoughtfully for a moment before once again turning to his front and studying Carlotta. "It's bloody ridiculous," he says, and for a moment she assumes he is still talking about their brace of stolen kisses. "I'm a vampire. Shouldn't I be glad? She's like me now."

…………………

It's strange how even after all this time he still believes that Buffy will have the answers. Despite that she hardly knows Carlotta, despite that he she has not known him in two long years, he still believes that she will know enough to give him the answers that elude him.

He’s unsure why he asked her about the kisses. It is hardly important in the light of what has happened since. But it has bothered him all day, intruding on his thoughts as he played out Carlotta's rising in his mind, trying to envisage what he will see when she opens her eyes. He has played out the scenario a thousand times, disturbed unwelcome fantasies of her smooth skin contorted into a snarling mask of ridges and fangs and feral, golden eyes. The only thing he is certain he will not see are the warm depths of his Anjo's soul.

So it had been in these moments between, when his mind recoiled in horror at his own worst imaginings, that he found himself invaded by thoughts of Buffy's sunshine and steel kisses. Her answer was a little curious. He had expected an excuse, perhaps an apology—not the threats and denials of years before, but no less painful. He doesn't press, isn't even sure if he wants to, even if his saviour were not dead by her own hand, even if he were not exhausted by grief, uncertainty and guilt. Even then, he isn't sure if he would allow himself the bitter taste of hope.

It won't be long now. Maybe even tonight, but probably not, not with the approaching dawn sending warning tingles over his skin. No, she won't rise tonight, but it won't be long. Part of him is impatient for it. Anything, even the reality of her irrevocable metamorphosis, would be better than this waiting. He feels himself trapped in limbo—the expectant dread of grief without finality—and almost wishes she were truly dead. At least then there would be some certainty. Guilt and sorrow chase in on the heels of that unfaithful thought, and he feels his body shudder violently.

She touches his knee, but he doesn't turn to look at her. He knows that if he does, he risks drowning in the seductive comfort she is offering, and he cannot let that happen. He must be awake and watchful for his dark angel’s rise, but weak as he is, he cannot resist the solace of taking her hand in his.

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Chapter 20:

Chapter 21: