Dedication: To all of those people who know that a job well done means you are completely invisible. You are seldom acknowledged, never thanked, always overlooked, and often cursed. But I kinda like you. And most especially for the ones who live their lives surrounded by darkness only to be swallowed by it. According to statistics, 9-1-1 Dispatcher ranks third out of all jobs for stress, exceeded only by police officers and paramedics. They also rank second highest for suicide. In January 2006, a neighboring department lost a good man because while he helped everyone else, no one knew he needed someone to help him. May it never happen again.


In Memory of

Corporal Brandon Davis

For all of the lives that you saved and continue to save
through those you trained, I hope you have found rest in the light.
You deserve it.





Chapter One

Just Another Day At The Office


“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing!?!”

Summers winced, and turned up her volume. She’d regret that later, but whatever Giles’ trainee was up to, he shouldn’t be yelling like that. It would make people think he was saying something they needed to hear.

Like what Tara was saying two desks away.

“Rollover!”

And damn, there went the board. Lit up like a Christmas tree, because everyone who owned a cell phone thought they were the only one who owned a cell phone.

“9-1-1 what is the exact location of the emergency.”
“Um, Sunnydale?” Male. Young. Verging on panicked, but not there yet.
“Yes, sir. This is Sunnydale 9-1-1. What is the exact location of the emergency.”
“On the highway. A semi, man, it just…”
“Sir, is this about the semi truck that rolled over into the median on Hwy 19?”
“No! Will you listen to me? A tractor trailor just flipped over next to the Double
Meat Palace.”
“Is this the Double Meat on highway 19 sir?” Her voice was calm, but Summers couldn’t stop herself from gritting her teeth. Idiots.
“It just flipped over! The Double Meat Palace. Like I said. Jesus, how stupid are you? I just told you where.”
“Sir, there are two restaurants by that name in Sunnydale. Police and an
ambulance are on the way to the accident on highway nineteen. I need to make sure that there aren’t two accidents. Are you on highway nineteen?”
“Listen, bitch, just get help out here. I don’t have time for you to play twenty
Questions!”

Click.

She swallowed, checked her display hoping she was actually calling him and not the cell tower his call last bounced off of, and dialed back. Voicemail. ‘Great. Thank you. I didn’t actually need to know if we’ve got two tractor trailer accidents out there. Hey! Maybe I’ll just use my astounding psychic abilities!’ Same voice, though, calmer, so at least the number was right. She took a deep breath, tried to ignore the blinking light to her left that told her that 22 people were on hold while she tried to confirm that this was a duplicate report, and hit redial.

As she listened to the opening of some rap song she didn‘t recognize instead a nice informative voicemail message, someone behind her broke through the clamor of voices.

“Listen to me!”

Ouch. Rosenburg was yelling. Rosenburg never yelled. She half listened until it became clear her co-worker was trying to get someone to confirm the same address she was confirming. The tones on the board notifying them of unacceptable wait times on emergency lines went up another decibel.

Okay, three was the limit. Mr Curse The Person Trying to Help Me wasn’t going to pick up his phone.

Terrific. She checked pending and active calls, saw there was nothing there at the address of the Double Meat Palace that wasn’t on highway nineteen, and dialed their number from memory.

They were one of only two places in town that would deliver if the order was large enough. Everyone knew their number. Hated the greasy crap food, but ate it anyway because after all you had to eat something and it wasn’t like they could leave.

They practically lived here. Some of them had families once. Very few did right now, though. She thought. It was hard to keep up with who wasn’t divorced yet. Or who was for that matter. Hard to keep such things, when you lived here.

The kid on the other end of the line told her in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t a wreck that he could see from the window. Did she want to place an order?

“Thank you for your help, sir. We appreciate it.” She answered, disconnected, and…

“9-1-1, what is the exact location of your emergency.”
“You people need to do something about the traffic on highway nineteen.” grrrrr…
“Ma’am, are you in any danger right now?” ‘Because I’ve always thought the proper response to a traffic jam was to call 9-1-1. ’ she couldn’t keep from rolling her eyes.
“Did you hear me? The traffic is backed up out here at least half a mile.”
“Yes, ma’am, are you involved in an accident?”
“Don’t get smart with me! You need to send a cop out here to direct traffic. What do we pay you people for?”
“Ma’am, there’s been an injury accident. Police and ambulance are on the way. Do you need help?”
“I just told you you’ve got a major traffic jam on the main highway! Oh, never mind. Bunch of useless…”

Click.

She needed coffee. And a cigarette. Except she didn’t smoke. And chocolate. Ooooh….someone should really invent a chocolate cigarette. She might pick up smoking if someone invented a chocolate cigarette.

“9-1-1, what is the exact location of your emergency.”

She listened just long enough to confirm that, shock of all shocks, there has been a traffic accident on highway nineteen, then let herself go on autopilot, and mostly listened to the other officers.

“Move over!” She almost giggled, which would have been unfortunate since the person on the other end of the line asking for the phone number of somewhere would have thought she was laughing at them. Giles had hit his limit, and was shoving his trainee out of the way so he could take over. Or, more diplomatically, letting his trainee listen for a while so they could try to get the lines cleared in case someone actually needed help that they weren’t already sending help to.

“Sir, the number for information is 4-1-1. 9-1-1 is for life-threatening emergencies.”
“This is an emergency. I’m not stupid. I’m at a pay phone and I don‘t have any change. Get me the number, then I want to make a collect call to that number.”
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“You’re an operator. Do your damned job.”

Click.

She hung up on him. There was a brief flicker of fear that he would call and complain and cause her all sorts of grief, but it faded quickly. If he did, he would probably call the phone company and complain about the operator.

She stared at the switch that put her back in queue for another call. Should hit it. Really. The board was flashing at her, the tones telling her they were deeply swamped with calls wailed at her, but she mostly just wanted the pounding in her head to stop. Harris was yelling something from the police radio console about being completely aware of the accident and please don’t send another fucking call on it to him. She sighed. Trainees.

Her break was supposed to start in seventy five seconds.

She couldn’t do it. She wanted to. The last thing in this world that she wanted was to hit that button and take another call right now. But it was more than a minute until break. Damn.

“9-1-1 what is the exact location of your emergency.”

Silence. Her brows furrowed, and she glanced at the phone display. Hardline call. Name and address. “Anyone got 1426 Fireside Court?”

Several voices yelled ‘negative’ back at her. Great. Probably just a glitch in the system.
Wait. What was that? A scratching sound.

Her heart started to pound.

“Are you at 1426 Fireside Court.” Just in case the system was wrong. It happened. Occasionally. You could never be completely sure.

“Help.” Someone said help. She upped the priority on the police call, then sent a call to the med side for an ambulance just in case.

“Police and an ambulance are going to come to you. What’s the problem, tell me exactly what happened.”

Everything faded. Just - went away. Her fingers flew over her keyboard, her eyes went from the map to the call to staring straight in front of her. She didn’t need her eyes, not really. Not for this. She closed them, so she could hear better.

Her ears she needed.

She spoke slowly, enunciated clearly, strained to hear everything she could possibly hear, and a picture formed.

She could see it. The more she heard, the more he whispered to her, the clearer the picture became.

She muted her mic, yelled ‘Home Invasion’ without bothering to see if anyone responded because she knew that they would, then switched the mic back on and concentrated on her victim.

His name was Darren. He’d given her a last name. She’d typed it, but it was gone already. Forgotten. Just needed it for the record, not for what was important.

She was talking to Darren. The protocols were there if she needed them, but she’d done this for over five years now and knew them without even glancing. She asked the questions, updated the units, and worked her way through in a routine that was finally and blessedly automatic, allowing her to concentrate on what was happening on the other end of the line without losing track of any of the things happening on her end.

“Darren, I know that you’re hurting, but I’m going to help you, okay? I want you to get a clean dry cloth and place it directly on the wound.”

Listened.

“That’s okay. Anything you have will do.”

Damn.

“Can you get your shirt off? We need to put pressure on the wound to try to stop the bleeding.”

She pushed the volume of her headset to the maximum.

“Okay, apply firm constant pressure and don’t lift it up to look. Darren, this is very important, okay? Is the person who shot you still inside the house?” She’d already asked this, but wanted to be absolutely certain.

He didn’t know. She bit her lip.

“That’s okay. Just keep the pressure on that wound, okay? What did he look like?”
Description. Race, sex, clothing. Exactly what happened. The direction the suspect was moving in when he left Darren’s sight. Anything the man on the other end could remember, interspersed with reminders of the medical instructions she’d already given him. No one else in the house, he lived alone.

“My name’s Elizabeth.” They always seemed to ask. “You’re doing a really good job okay.”

And then he said it. She heard it in her sleep, in a hundred voices that went with names she’d forgotten and names she would always remember. And she felt herself die a little more.

“’beth? Where ‘re they?”

“They’re coming.”

Eggie was yelling from the med radio console. “Staging for PD!”

“See ‘em. Ou’side. Where?”

“They’ll be there soon.” ‘The paramedics are there. And I know you can see the lights of the ambulance from where you are, but you don’t know if the man who broke down your door and shot you for a television set is still in the back of the house. So they won’t come in. Can’t come in. Not until the police get there and go through the house to make there’s no one there who will shoot the paramedics. I’m sorry Darren. They’ll get to you as soon as they can. I promise.’ Of course couldn't say any of that. Not to him.

She muted the mic, screamed like a banshee, “Harris, where in the fucking hell is patrol!?!” One quick, deep breath, to be sure all the frustration was out of her voice then went back to Darren.

“Darren? Are you keeping pressure on the wound?” ‘With his shirt. A sixty eight year old man is shot in the stomach with a shotgun and you’re telling him to hold his shirt on it.’ She ignored the sarcastic voice in her head.

“Call my li’l girl?”

“I can have someone call her and tell her to meet you at the hospital.” Rosenburg kept talking to whoever was on the line with her, but stood and pointed to herself while mouthing “number”. Volunteering to call the daughter.

“What’s your daughter’s phone number, Darren?”

Nothing.

“Darren?”

Barely there. But she heard it. It was garbled, almost completely unintelligible. But she knew what he said.

“Come on, Darren. Stay with me. I can’t do that. You’ll have to do that yourself.”

Maybe she was cruel. But just maybe if she didn’t promise to tell his daughter that he loved her, he’d fight a little longer.

Where the hell were those officers? Doughnut shop, probably. Lazy, useless, good for nothing assholes probably stopped on the way to write a traffic ticket.

“Did you hear me Darren?” The sound of his breathing was getting softer. But it was there. Just really slow. Very slow.

“’ere ‘re ‘ey ‘beth?”

“They’re coming.”

'Are they driving from freaking outer mongolia? Where are they?'

“Darren”

Nothing.

Even the breathing was gone. She kept listening, eyes closed, trying to pick up on anything that would tell her something, saying his name over and over again in a calm loud voice.

She heard the unmistakable sounds of police clearing the house before someone hung up the phone.

It took them twenty-seven minutes to get there, and then they didn’t even bother to actually speak into the phone and tell her if he was still alive.

She didn’t want to know anyway. She glanced at the clock. Damn, she’d worked through her break. And it was three hours before she was scheduled for lunch.

For a minute, she just stared at the map. She'd never been to Fireside Court. It was a new subdivision, far from the center of town. Then a hand fell on her shoulder, startling her, and she looked up into blue eyes. Giles shrugged, gave her shoulder a squeeze, and followed his trainee out for their break. Damn, she must look rattled if Spike did anything outside his job description.

And no, she did not just imagine the strength in that grip getting the kinks out of shoulders. Or in any way think of those hands and the word 'kink' in the same paragraph. Absoluely not. Just stress.

She logged out just long enough to tell Sarge she’d worked through her break and was just taking a very quick jaunt to the restroom. There, she splashed some water on her face and bent over to grab her ankles, trying to relieve some of the pressure at the small of her back and between her shoulder blades. Then she dashed back to her station before she pushed the patience of the people who were taking up the slack while she was gone.

Once there, she couldn’t resist pulling up the last call to see if any of the officers had made a note in it from their laptop. Hey, it happened sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.

And Darren was dead. She tried hard not to think that it was because he’d been on hold while she’d been trying to call back Mr. Curse The Person Trying To Help Me and taking too long to hang up on want a phone number man.

She tried harder not to wish it was that little prick who’d wasted so much of her time who had gotten to bleed out with only a stranger to be there with him. And refuse to tell his daughter that he loved her. Which she’d never be able to do, because she had no idea who the daughter was. She should have asked for the daughter’s name instead of the phone number. She could at least try if she’d gotten a name.

Fuck, she was stupid. Incompetent. Should have washed out with the rest of the ones in her class who couldn’t do the job right.

She shook her head. No second guessing. Just keep moving.

“9-1-1 what is the exact location of the emergency.”

Chapter 2
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face



Summers rolled over, burying her head in the blankets. She should get up. It was her day off, and she knew that if she didn’t get out of bed soon, the sun would set and she would have missed it.

This time of year, she went to work in the dark and she came home in the dark. She hated it. It was dark by five in the afternoon, and the sun didn’t rise until almost 7:30 in the morning. And for that reason, since she was working days this month, it was entirely possible - even probable when you took overtime into account - that she could go an entire week without seeing the sun.

They were vampires, the lot of them.

She groaned. Choices, choices.

The lure of the sun was too great. Besides, she shared days off with Rosenburg, and they were supposed to grab some coffee and then head over to the park. Grumbling all the way, she grabbed a pair of jeans and her “Bad Cop - No Donut” t-shirt and stumbled toward the shower.

Her shower was quick, and she was soon washed, dryed, and dressed with her hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail.

Her house was really too big for one person, but she couldn’t leave it. Her mother had loved this house, and sometimes she could almost hear her mom humming in the kitchen. Then she’d walk into the room and be met with the quiet, and her heart would break all over again.

Buffy had been looking forward to being a college freshman in a matter of weeks. She’d been bouncy, and girly, with all the right clothes and perfect hair. She painted her toe nails and thought about boys. And came from the mall one day and saw her mother lying on the couch. Eyes open. Not breathing.

Buffy died that day, too. For a while, she was nobody. Nobody scurrying around trying to figure out exactly what she was and what she was supposed to do. She didn’t know anything about funerals, or insurance policies, or medical bills - or any kind of bills for that matter. She didn’t know how to be anybody. Two months away from eighteen she’d been desperate to prove herself worthy of emancipated minor status to avoid all of it going to a man she hadn’t seen in years. “In trust” for her, of course, but he would have sold it all and acted like handing her check on her eighteenth was better than letting her keep her home.

By the time things were settled, had found some sort of semblance of balance, Buffy had been long gone and Elizabeth had found a purpose in small blurb announcing entrance exams to the academy, and a specialization listed that she never would have dreamed of had she not found her mother dead on the couch. There was a name to go with the voice on the other end of the phone, now. She didn’t work the same as the woman who’d taken her call that day if she could help it. That voice, while it brought her to where she was, always managed to put her back in front of the couch trying to start a heart that seemed too big and full to ever stop working.

College was no longer an option, but she got three and half years of training counting the initial academy time - and was paid for every minute of it. She could have had a degree in very nearly the same amount of time, but degrees were expensive. She figured you paid for people to acknowledge you knew stuff and so you could get a job that made someone else a lot of money. She may not make a lot of money herself, but she wasn’t using her mind to make someone else rich either. Of course, they were paying her to save people, and she didn’t save Darren. Or Sylvia. Or - stop that.

The list of names just kept growing, and then there were the names she couldn’t even remember. She remembered the voices, though. She had images in her mind she’d never actually seen that made sleep torture some nights and the only escape available on others. It would be nice to know which one it was supposed to be when she closed her eyes, but a lot of things would be nice. Nice wasn’t reality.

She would have long since been in a much smaller apartment in a not so nice part of town if not for the insurance money. But her pay was steady, and since she’d paid off the mortgage with insurance funds and had been at her job for a while now, she was comfortable and had even started a savings account a few months ago.

And she’d managed to keep her house. But she was hardly ever here, and there was a fine layer of dust in several of the rooms. Rooms she hadn’t been inside in months. Maybe she should consider downsizing a bit. Still, she couldn’t let go. Not yet.

But she had to get out of here. Into the sun.

The park, then.

Before she went completely insane.





Spike smirked, twisted slightly to the left, and connected. Hard.

His oponent grunted, then held his hands up and stepped back, bending at the waist and breathing hard. “That was full power, asshole.”

Spike shrugged. “Actually, no. ‘Twasn’t. But if the little girl wants a break, I can run a mile or two while she recovers.” Something hit the back of his head, hard, and he sputtered, spinning around with a diatribe on his lips only to come up short and look at the floor, embarrassed. One of the ladies in the gym had heard that, and wasn‘t very happy about it. “Sorry, Detective.”

“Yeah, you are sorry, Giles. But you make up for it by shaking that tight little ass of yours. At least you look like you might be good for something.” Faith Adams leered, overdone and sarcastic about it, then turned back to her heavy bag with a roll of her eyes.

“Okay, that was sexual harrassment. Was that sexual harrassment?” Spike asked, eyebrows raised. He glared at the water bottle at his feet. Well, she could come get it herself, seeing as how she threw it at him.

“No.” Gunn grimaced. “That was Adams. I can see why you might confuse the two, though.” The large detective grabbed his towel from the floor and started wiping the sweat from his face. “I’m done. You thought any more about what I asked you?”

“Which what?”

Gunn glared, “Same as always. Field. You. Go there. Get out that damn chair before your tight little ass is neither tight nor little.”

“Thought you were over that.”

“I’m not.”

“Well, get over it. Not happenin’.” The words were sharper than he intended, but he didn’t care. Interferin’ patronizing pillock could take it. He stalked his way to the showers, still fuming.

Wasn’t sure why, really. The man meant it as a compliment of sorts. Thought he had potential and whatnot.

Like what he was doing was beneath him. Like they were all beneath the great Officer Gunn in his super-cool patrol car.

“Hey, Giles!” Gunn caught up to him in the locker room. Spike really wished he hadn’t. “What’s your problem, man? I‘m just trying to get you out of that girl job. You can do a lot better than answering phones and running radios for a living.”

Yeah. He really just said that.

Ten years ago, he would’ve let loose and clocked the man one for that shit. Now, he hit the locker in front of him instead. It added a dent, hurt his knuckles, and made him feel not one iota less angry.

“How many kids you delivered this month, mate?”

Gunn blinked. “Where’d that come from?”

“Cause I delivered one. Okay, to be honest, talked a scared teenager through delivering it. Thought he’d never get over the whole ‘I’m not looking there on my sister, dude’ thing. Was a boy. Healthy.” He took a deep breath. He didn’t know why he was saying this now. “No idea how many times I did CPR. Talked to some woman who’s husband just beat the shit out of her while you guys jacked around with your thumbs up your asses and took so long to get there I know for a fact you haven’t caught up with him yet.” He was getting loud, now, and realized he was a good three steps closer to his friend than where he’d started. No violence. Save that for the gym, William. “It’s a job. It’s not a girl job. And a whole hell of a lot of those women - and men - in the basement could kick your sorry ass, but that’s another thing all together. I won’t try to go into the field, because I’m not right keen on the demotion.” He smirked. “Go write another traffic ticket now, sweetheart. Call me if you ever figure out what the fuck you’re talking about. ‘Til then, you might wanna stay outta my face.”

He grabbed his bag, still fuming, and headed for the door before he made an even bigger git of himself. Bloody, buggering, hell. It’s not like he knew. He’d just transferred in, and there’d been reams and reams of new gossip since…

“That was harsh.” And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse.

“You actually saying something to me?” he snarled, stopping and dropping his bag.

“Look, Spike.” He stood there, eyebrows coming together. The one man in the world that Spike really didn’t want to see right now. Or ever.

“Shut up, Liam.” He wasn’t sure how he managed to keep his hands at his sides, how he turned around looking casual. He liked that he actually sounded uninterested and bored, though. Had to annoy the hell out of the other man. “Wouldn’t want to make me loose control, would you? I’m crazy. Might hurt somebody.”

“I’m just saying you could have told him that -”

Spike didn’t hear the rest. He left the prancing poof standing in the hallway with his mouth flapping. He had to get outside.

Before he went completely insane.






Coffee was nice, but this was nicer. Rosenburg had a date, and had spent most of the afternoon nervously going over what she would do and say on said date, but was now somewhere in the middle of getting dressed unless Summers missed her guess.

Elizabeth was trying her best to squeeze every second of sunshine out of the day and into her pale skin, reclining on a bench while her eyes darted around the park. She was close to the playground equipment, and children squealed and ran around her like she was just another rock or piece of statuary. She watched without watching, mostly just revelling in the feel of the sun on herskin.

Oh, yeah. This was nice. She slouched down further on the bench, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. Just for a minute. A short minute. Eyes open, the children were yelling and playing. Eyes closed, they were screaming and - okay, eyes open then.

“Same sound, innit?” She jumped, and Giles took a step back, raising his hands, palms out toward her. “Sorry. Thought you saw me.”

“No problem.” She shook her head, slightly off balance. “You work today.”

Spike waved an arm toward the bench, and she nodded, moving over to make room. “Used to. Swapped ‘em. Johnson’s kid is doing the little league thing, wanted to coach. An’ it’s not like I’ve got anything that needs a weekend. Like having mine in the middle of the week, when you can actually get stuff done if you need to. Good subject change. Not obvious or anything.”

She grimaced. “Smartass.”

“And Adams says it’s nice and tight, too.” He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

She snorted, surprising herself. “Well, she is reputed quite the authority on such things. You bucking for a promotion?”

“I wouldn’t buck Faith Adams to be Chief of Bloody Police, it’s untelling what a man might catch that way.” He frowned. “Maybe for Christmas Day off, though. Could be a risk-taker for that.”

She laughed. Not a grunt, or a snort, or a chuckle. A full blown laugh. She had no clue what had gotten into her. “That was pathetic.”

He was staring at her, eyes wide, like he’d never seen her before. She wondered if she had something stuck in her teeth.

“Amazing.”

“What?” Okay, he was starting to freak her out a little.

He shook his head, then smirked. “Okay, it was pretty pathetic. Made you laugh though.”

Yeah. He had. She didn’t really know why. “Don’t get cocky. I was laughing at you, Giles, not with you.”

“Yeah, well. Laugh’s a laugh, innit?” The man really was completely nuts.

“When did you decide you were going to talk to me?” Fair question. They didn’t hang out, and yet here he was sitting next to her on a bench in the park apparently pleased to have her laughing at him.

He looked confused. “I talk to you.”

“Outside.”

“Oh. Well, never saw you outside before, did I?” And that was that. No, she hadn’t actually ever seen him outside of work. Or out of uniform. He looked completely different in black jeans and a tee-shirt with his hair all mussed and the sun on his face. If she hadn’t heard him before she saw him, she may not have recognized him at all. “Sun’s goin’ down.”

“Yeah.” Time to get out of the park. The children were being collected by their parents. Parks weren’t the same after dark. They turned on you. A lot like people that way.

Spike was standing, had actually taken a couple of steps before he turned back to where she was collecting her purse. “You wanna grab a beer?”

She didn’t drink. “Yeah. Sure.” But her house was empty and full of memories, and he had made her laugh. She hadn’t laughed in a really, really long time.

Chapter 3
Why Don’t We Get Drunk



She’d thought they’d go to a club or something.

But now, an hour later, she couldn’t think of why that had ever crossed her mind. He’d been right, much better to stop at a liquor store and had back to his apartment. As he’d put it, they didn’t have a designated driver, and an hour into their ‘grab a beer’ neither one of them was in any shape to drive. And she was having something that was sort of like fun.

She slouched further into the leather couch and put her feet on the coffee table.

“So then I said, ‘it’s not against the law for you to be annoyed, ma’am’. And she like, totally went off on me.”

It caught Spike just as he swallowed, and he choked on his whiskey. Elizabeth smirked.

When he recovered, Spike said, “And that got you…”

The smirk turned even more smug. “Not a damned thing. Sarge pulled the tape, and then called her himself and explained that it actually wasn’t against the law for her neighbor to annoy her.”

“Nope. Sorry. No points for that one. I judge it slightly amusing and yet irrelevant to our discussion.”

“What! You totally almost choked to death!”

“But the Sergeant backed you up, so that means it wasn’t actually a mistake. You got away with it. Not unprofessional or against any regs I know of. And I know ‘em all baby.”

She stuck her bottom lip out, pouting. “Fine then.” She grabbed the bottle from the table took a healthy swig, sputtering.

“You know, we’re drinking this stuff anyway. There should be something else we have to do when we lose.” Spike stared at the bottle, appearing to be very deep in thought as he contemplated this new dilema.

“Nope. You’re stalling. Your turn. If it takes you a whole minute, you forfeit and that’s two from the bottle and refilling the glass.”

“Okay, okay.” He shook his head. “Beatcha. Talked to this man who was abso-fucking-lutely certain that the federal government had scattered cameras and bugs all over his house, and that there was a black helicopter that hovered over his roof at night and he wanted the police to come out and take care of it.”

She snorted. “We get crazy people all the time. Excuse me, mentally ill persons. Doesn’t count.”

“Let me finish. So I told him that wasn’t my department, gave him the phone number for the FBI - not the one in the phone book, the one we’ve got - and the fucker actually called it. Special Agent Wanker called the Chief of Police who came all the way to the basement to yell at the Lieutenant and I got three days suspension and had to do remedial training for the almost but not quite washouts for three months. Haven’t had a halfway competent trainee since then, in fact, but at least I’m not doing remedial anymore.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Borderline. I don’t train, and the rules said no trainee stories.”

“Hey!” He looked completely affronted. “No way. Can’t get away with that. Three days suspension and the training thing was part of the punishment, not part of the call.”

He had her there. “Fine. You win. Again.” She took another swig from the bottle. Wait a minute, was she supposed to do that? She couldn’t remember the rules of the game. “Darren’s dead.”

His smile faded, and his eyes suddenly found something very interesting at the bottom of his glass. “Friend of yours?”

“Yeah.” She muttered, embarrassed at what she’d just said. Done now, though. “For about twenty seven minutes and thirteen seconds.” She shook her head. Oooh, woozy. Her thoughts were all muddled, but it seemed incredibly important to say this. “Can’t figure out what’s different about the ones that stick, you know? Listened to worse things that I let go of easy.”

He sat his drink down, and tilted his head while he studied her, “Easy?”

She shrugged, admitting to the lie. “Easier.”

“Forget it.” He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. Maybe for him it was. She’d never seen him lose it, never seen him walk away from his desk after a call. She’d seen him frenetic but never frantic. Asshole.

“Just like that.”

He slid off the chair, slid the bottle over, sat on the edge of the coffee table with his legs around hers and leaned into her personal space, his eyes boring into hers like he could stare down the memory behind them. She almost thought he could do it. Stare it down until it fled, and she was free of it.

“No, not you. Not just like that.” He leaned closer, and his lips were brushing hers. She should have seen it coming, but she hadn’t.

The kiss was soft, barely there and gone so fast she almost could have imagined it except for the way it made her lips tingle. What were they talking about?

“Not just like that?” Her words sounded breathy, barely a whisper.

“Maybe like this, though.”

And it wasn’t soft. He kissed her hard, forcing her lips apart, and leaning heavily into her. His tongue plunged past her teeth, roamed around her mouth, and his hand came to the back of her head. Fingers twisted in her hair, held her completely still while he ravaged her mouth with his and she forgot.

She forgot everything except the taste of whiskey and cigarettes and him.

She could have been kissed by him forever if she hadn’t had to breathe. It was becoming a desperate issue before he finally pulled away, his eyes glassy when he met hers again, and both of them breathing hard.

“Just let it go. Feel good for a while, yeah?” It was phrased as a question, but felt almost like an order.

“Yeah.”

The word was barely past her lips before he was on her again. He pulled the tie from her hair and ran his hands through it, licked the backs of her teeth, until she finally found the presence of mind to touch him. Her hands came up to frame his face, and she finally touched those curls she’d only recently discovered he had. Yeah. Feel good. Why hadn’t she ever thought of that before.

Then he was gone.

‘Wait, get back here,’ She thought, ‘I’m not done yet’.

Oh, that’s good. That’s real good.

He’d only moved to get a better position. A quick upturn of the bottle and he’d finished it off, then grinned at her when he threw it across the room and kicked the now empty coffee table back to clear a space on the floor.

He’d pulled her off the couch and was on top of her so fast it would have made her head spin, if it hadn’t already been spinning from the whiskey and the kissing.

“Pretty girl, you are.” Spike mumbled against her neck, his tongue making it’s way behind her ear while his hands fumbled with her jeans. Obviously frustrated with the amount of time it was taking, he pushed himself up and back until he was kneeling beside her, then pulled jeans and panties off together. He tossed those in much the same manner he had the whiskey bottle, then shoved her legs wide and moved between her knees. “Feel good, too.”

His fingers went straight to her clit, rubbing it roughly for a moment, then moving down and sliding inside. Holy Crap, is that what that was supposed to feel like? His hands felt nothing like hers. There was a very real danger her hands would never be enough again. And then he stopped.

“Wha?” the words wouldn’t come. Everything was really kind of fuzzy, but in a exhilarating and amazing sort of way. She wasn’t at all sure what she was supposed to do, though. She hadn’t done anything like this since high school, and it seemed a lot different from fumbling around in the back of a car hoping you wouldn’t get caught.

“You drunk, Summers?” He was breathing really hard, and his tongue crept out to lick his lips.

“Huh?”

“Are. You. Drunk.” He sounded slightly disappointed, like that hadn’t been point of the whiskey in the first place. Oh. Now she got it.

“Nope. Kinda. Not that drunk, though. More.” For all her little speech wasn’t all that deep on thought, it had seemed like the fucking state of the union address while she was trying to get it out of her muddled brain. He’d stopped. There should be no stopping. Stopping didn’t feel good.

She thought he said something that sounded vaguely like “Thank God” while he unzipped his jeans.

“Take your shirt off.” His finger dove back inside her, rubbing her inner walls. “I wanna see your tits.”

Sounded like a fair trade. No, wait.

“And touching. There’ll be touching.” Just to be perfectly clear what she expected for her end of the trade.

“Oh yeah. Touching. Licking. Sucking. Lots of good stuff. Show me your tits Summers.”

Well, as long as he kept doing what he was doing with his finger. The shirt was easy enough, but she fumbled a bit with her bra, her fingers didn’t want to cooperate. It seemed like years before she was laying completely naked on the carpet.

Spike groaned, then pulled his fingers out of her pussy, speading her juices across one nipple before leaning down and sucking it into his mouth. His other hand closed around her free breast, then pinched the nipple hard, pulling and twisting hard enough to hurt just a bit.

She felt her inner muscles clench, nearly going over the edge, and he wasn’t even in her yet.

“Please. In me. Now.”

“unnnggh”. The grunt must have been meant as acknowledgement, because between one gasp and the next he shoved his cock into her hard, then pulled her legs up and guided them around his hips.

Elizabeth’s eyes rolled back in her head and strange sounding noises worked their way out of her throat. She was dying. He was huge, and it hurt at first, but then he was moving and the pain melted into pleasure more intense than anything she‘d ever felt.

“Fuck your tight. Not gonna last long.”

“gaaaah.”

He chuckled, laughing at her, then reached between them and pinched her clit.

She screamed, every muscle in her body clenched, over and over again as she came hard around him. Her ears were ringing, light exploded behind her eyelids, and she felt him come inside her, filling her warmth.

Something hot and heavy landed on her right about the time she passed out.








She was glorious.

He’d known that, of course. She was also too damned young for him, but he’d dismissed that months ago when he’d started pestering Johnson to switch off days with him. He’d known he wanted her, and had carefully planned out just what he needed to do to have a chance to get to know her better. He’d wanted a lot of people, but lately he’d been wanting someone to be with outside of the bedroom too. And that meant getting to know her before he even decided if he wanted to ask her out. He’d just liked what he’d seen, and figured to go from there.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. He’d moved her to the bed, tucked the blankets around her, and now just sat there, still dressed, brushing the hair away from her delicate features.

This isn’t how he’d meant it to happen, but maybe he hadn’t completely fucked it up. It had been an impulse approaching her in the park. He hadn’t even had a chance to talk to her on break yet, and here she was spread out in his bed, hair rumpled and lips swollen with finger shaped bruises on her hips.

He’d seen the bruises while he was moving her, and it stung. He hoped he hadn’t hurt her. It was all kind of fuzzy, now. He didn’t even know how long they’d slept in the living room, but the sun was up and he’d only just moved her to his bed.

He needed a shower. Then he’d start the coffee pot, and figure out how to make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea about what happened.

Or maybe even figure for himself what the right idea was he wanted her to get.

He’d not been anywhere near completely sober himself. He was pretty sure he asked her if she was sure, but that was kind of muddled. He remembered sensation. Heat, the feeling of breath against his neck, the incredible vice-like tightness that told him this was not a regular occurrence for her. He’d actually checked for blood, just to be sure he hadn’t taken her virginity without so much as a bed. Just carpet.

He woke up with his jeans around his thighs and his dick buried inside her. Her breathing sounded strained underneath him. Lucky he hadn’t suffocated her or something.

He shook his head, told himself that they would talk it out when she woke up, and stepped into the shower.

He spent the whole shower rushing, hoping like hell he hadn’t completely blown it since she was the first person he’d been remotely interested in for months, then wrapped a towel around his waist and slipped back into the bedroom.

The empty bedroom.

She was gone.

Well, fuck.

Guess that whole ‘don’t screw this one up’ plan just went right out the window.

He closed his eyes and started counting slowly. The anger was at himself this time, but no less overwhelming. He shouldn’t have had a drink last night. Shouldn’t have done anything after his little encounter with his former partner except come home, shower, and blast his stereo until the neighbors complained.

He’d blown it.

Fucking Liam ruined everything, every time.

“Spike?”

Not gone. Not gone, then. The rush of relief was overwhelming, and that fact alone told him this was too much and too fast. But he couldn’t undo it.

She was standing in the doorway, looking uncertain, her bottom lip between her teeth. She was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

“Yeah, baby?”

She blushed. “Um - where do you keep your coffee?”

“I’ve got it. You climb back into bed. Weekend, right? People sleep late on the weekend.”

That seemed to make her uncomfortable. “Look, Giles, I think -”

“Really think we’re beyond the whole last name thing, at least when we’re not at work.”

“And yet you called me Summers while we were - in the middle of - oh, for crying out loud. Fine. Spike.”

“Will.”

“You will what?” She got the cutest little wrinkle between her eyebrows when she was confused.

“My name. Will. William. Unless you actually like Spike, I guess.” He didn’t want to be Spike with her. She didn’t know where it came from.

She hadn’t left. She was waiting for him. She was going to make coffee.

“Fine. Will. Coffee?”

“Cabinet over the coffee maker.” He was grinning so hard his face hurt. She’d stayed. Maybe he hadn’t completely fucked it up.

“Get dressed. We need to talk.”

Oh, balls.

Never was good when a female said that. Ever. Even if he planned on talking out the whole “not how it was supposed to happen” thing. This was her. Saying they needed to talk.

Fuck.

Chapter 4
Too Many Stories




Elizabeth would rather be anywhere on the planet other than the tiny kitchen in which she found herself. Anywhere. Even work during in the first five minutes after an earthquake. She bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood, her eyes firmly riveted on the stream of coffee slowly but surely filling the coffee pot.

Not even caffeine would make this better.

As soon as she realized where she was and exactly what she’d done, she’d felt like throwing up. More importantly, she felt like would have wanted to throw up even with the hangover and the headache from hell. She never drank, and last night she’d been totally gone. But not drunk enough. She couldn’t even blame it fully on the alcohol, because she had a feeling she just may have gone ahead with it sober. Five years was a long time to go without a date, even when you think you really wanted one. Oh no, she’d just gotten just drunk enough to let herself - do what she did.

If it weren’t for the five minutes this morning before that moment of complete clarity, she would’ve run like hell and pretended it never happened.

It was in those five minutes she’d felt better than she’d felt since her mom died. She was rested. Well and truly rested. She felt like she’d slept for a week, and muscles she hadn’t realized were tense were all liquidy and loose. Apparently she’d been tied up in knots so long that she’d forgotten what relaxed felt like.

She wanted to do it again.

Oh, God. She just had a one night stand, and she was standing in a kitchen wondering how to arrange a few more.

What happened to that girl who believed that such things were reserved for someone that you loved with all of your heart? That girls who did what she’d just done were - not good girls. She was a good girl.

She was.

But she really, really liked the deep sleep without any nightmares and the soft groggy feeling she’d had this morning. She felt better with a hangover than she’d felt in years without one, and she knew it wasn’t the alcohol.

She’d tried alcohol before, and all that made you was sick and more depressed than you’d started out.

Shit.

She didn’t let herself think it was anything more than what he’d said it was at the beginning. Just feel good for a while. Just remembering the sound of his voice saying that made her shiver. She was twenty three years old, no matter how long it had been since she’d been out on a date, and she wasn’t going to make him uncomfortable by acting like a love-struck teenager. He wasn’t one of the boys she’d gone out with before she stopped dating all together. He was - well, he had to be at least thirty from some of the stories he told last night, and he had these cute little wrinkles around his eyes that guys didn’t get until at least then. He was a man. She’d never had sex with a man before. A boy once, but that was - not at all like last night.

Okay, maturity. Adult conversation.

I wonder if I was any good?, she thought. Is it okay to ask him? No! Stop that!

She heard him in the hallway and had to grab the edge of the counter to keep from panicking.

She had no idea how to approach this. Everybody knew Spike would sleep with anyone that would sleep with him. It was almost part of training. Don’t get hung up on Spike, because he never visits the same territory twice. But if that’s what you want, flirt a bit and he’ll rattle your teeth for you. And it wasn’t as if they were bad stories, exactly. The women telling them never seemed bitter or disappointed. Sort of matter of fact, with a little grin that said they’d once their teeth rattled.

He didn’t get the nickname from the hair.

But he’d told her to call him Will. Did he tell them all to call him Will?

Gaaaaaah….stop that! You’re acting like a kid. And if you don’t act like you want him to marry you, he just might help you relax a bit every once in a while, and that’s a hell of a lot more than you’ve ever had before. There, that was logical, sturdy Elizabeth. Unflappable. And apparently, slightly slutty.

“There’s cream in the fridge, luv.”

She jumped, sliding in her sock feet and nearly hitting the floor. He caught her before she could fall, and she found herself looking up at him.

He’d pulled on black sweatpants and a teeshirt, and his hair was wet and rumpled looking. Damn. She hadn’t figured out what she wanted to say yet.

“Thanks.” She shifted away, stepped around him to open the refrigerator, and decided that today she’d have cream in her coffee even though she usually drank it black. It gave her something to distract her from him.

The silence was decidedly uncomfortable.

“You want breakfast? I can do scrambled eggs. Or there’s cereal. I think. Might be out of milk.”

“I don’t eat breakfast. Could use a ride back to my car, though.”

He nodded, staring at his coffee for a second before taking a deep breath. “So, you wanted to talk?”

She winced. Oh yeah. The talking thing. She should have just run.

“So is that your secret?”

He looked confused. “What secret.”

“For the whole just forget it thing. Because I gotta admit, it kinda worked.” There, that sounded casual.

The corners of lips twitched, making him look like he wanted to laugh at her but was half afraid it would make her mad.

“That’s one form of therapy that actually works better sober.” He blew out a breath, and put his coffee mug on the counter. “Look, Elizabeth, I’m sorry ‘bout how things went last night.”

Well, guess that answers the question of whether you were any good. She smiled at him, shaking her head, studiedly casual. She hoped. She felt like her stomach had just ripped out through her navel.

“Nothing to be sorry for. We were both a little out of control.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “That’s not what I meant. I’m doing this all wrong.”

She held a hand up before he could get any further. She was the one doing this all wrong. “No, you’re fine. I’d just like to get back to my car and get home, okay? I need a shower and I do have actual things to take care of today before I go back underground for two weeks.”

He frowned. “Two?”

“Overtime.” She grimaced. The very thought of having to work two weeks straight had been setting her on edge since she found she had to at the beginning of the month. “Off topic. Or actually, not really. I’d really appreciate it if this didn’t make the rounds at work, okay? And you don’t have to come up with some speech. I know it was just a mutual stress relief thing. I’m not going to get all clingy on you, Spike.” She put just enough emphasis on the nickname to get her message across, to let him know she wasn’t totally out of the loop even if she never took part in said loop. Just because a girl didn’t run her mouth, that didn’t mean she didn’t use her ears.

For a second, he looked like she’d just kicked him in said spike.

“Right then. I’ll get my keys. Give you a ride.” He nodded, and strode back toward the bedroom.

“It really did help. I haven’t slept that good in ages. I guess I’m saying, with the whole no one else ever knows about this thing rule in place, that if you ever need the favor returned you can call me. Maybe see how much better that therapy works sober.” There. That didn’t sound at all desperate, did it? Very businesslike.

He stopped. It felt like it took minutes for him to turn back toward her, eyebrow raised. It had to be just her imagination. She hadn’t realized how much she really wanted him to agree to it. “Sorry, pet. Just one freebie. I think the goin’ rate’s fifty bucks an hour. Better make that an even hundred if you want your itch scratched sober.”

She was still standing in the kitchen with her mouth hanging open when the bedroom door slammed behind him.

Oh, God. That was too businesslike, then, wasn’t it?

Wait a minute. She threw her cup in the sink, ignoring the sound of shattering glass as she marched behing him and flung the door open.

He was just starting to rummage through the piles of crap on his dresser when she caught up with him.

“What the hell was that supposed to mean?”

“Seemed kind of obvious. You want yourself a hooker, there’s a whole passle of ‘em out on Arbor Drive.”

“You know what, you don’t want to, that’s fine. I was just trying to be mature here, and I’d think you’d appreciate not having to find a polite way to get rid of your latest lay. I’m not some naïve little thing that doesn’t know the score. I don’t see why you have to get all pissy about it.” A passle Who says passle?

“Oh, yeah. Sounds like you know everything.”

“Right. Come on, Giles, tell me you were thinking about picket fences and two point five kids when you fucked me on your living room floor.” She sneered.

Every muscle in his body tensed, and when he finally looked at her again she took a step back. Even the air felt dangerous, and she thought for a second he might actually hit her.

“Wasn’t thinking much of anything, was I? Obviously. Sure wasn’t thinking any of the things I’d heard about you were true. ‘Cause I wouldn’t have invited a frigid bitch who thinks she’s too good to hang out with the rest of us into my home. As for what I was thinking when I did that, no - wait. Didn’t ask, did you?” She probably didn’t actually have to duck the keys that flew at her, but she’d never know that because instinct took over and she dropped. “Drive yourself. Just leave my car there. Feel like a good run, anyway.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. She was sorry. She really was. She’d gotten the whole thing wrong trying not to get the whole thing wrong. She wanted to fix it, even though she wasn’t sure what exactly she was trying to fix. But the words that came out weren’t anything like that.

“People think I’m a frigid bitch and a snob?” Well, it was a surprise. No one had ever said anything like to her face or anything. It wasn’t like she had a nickname. That she actually answered to. So her thinking what they said about him was true was totally understandable!

“Well, yeah. Seemed to have missed out on the whole self-absorbed thing, though.”

“Self-absorbed?” She was really sorry before. Now she was mad again. “I’m self-absorbed!?! If I was, I wouldn’t have been trying to make things easy on you in the first damned place! Which is what started the whole yelling thing! If I was self absorbed I’d’ve been all with the when are you taking me to dinner and what are we doing next weekend and all that stuff that has nothing to do with any of this stuff! I wouldn’t have been completely and totally willing to throw aside my value system - because last night? Not something I do! Ever! - But you do, don’t you? Or that’s what I thought. I’m so damned self-absorbed I was willing to just enjoy your way!” Too much information. Oh, God, she had to get out of here.

She grabbed the keys from the floor, stumbling out of the bedroom and trying to just get to the front door. Everything was blurry, and she was truly and royally pissed off that she was actually crying. She never cried. Crying was for wimps.

A hand closed around her shoulder and she tried to shrug it off, to just keep moving until she was somewhere that she could forget any of this ever happened.

“Stop.” His voice was rough, but he wasn’t yelling. She stopped, and didn’t resist when he took the keys out of her hand.

“Just forget it.” She said, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t mean to screw everything up. I just want to go home now.”

“Which part?”

Huh? “Geez, just stop. I’m done, okay?”

“Which part are we forgetting? ‘Cause I know which part I’d vote for.”

“I really and truly don’t care at this point, Spike.”

“Right then. Well, Spike at least takes the girl home when he’s done with ‘er.” The resignation in his voice was worse than the yelling. For there to be resignation, he had to have actually wanted something other than what she’d offered. Something more than what she’d offered instead of the less that she’d been so sure he as planning on.

“What were you thinking when you invited me here?”

He didn’t answer her right away, and she shook her head and started for the door again. She should have just taken the ride home.

“Not sure, really. I pretty much just knew I wanted to see what it was I wanted from you. Thought I might like you, Summers. Self absorbed snobby bitch that you probably aren’t and all. Wanted to see how much I might like you is all.”

“Yeah, well. I just didn’t want to go back to my house yet.” She met his eyes. “I don’t know what you want, I didn’t even know I wanted anything, but since I apparently treated you in a totally crappy way, I guess the question is how much can you forget? And I don’t think either one of us should let you answer that yet.”

“What if I already know the answer?”

“Then I guess you think about some more.” She looked at him hard, “I’m not - I can’t pretend that all those happily ever after stories exist. We both know they don’t. And if you’ve somehow got it in your head that’s what you want…I don’t know. I will say this. I can do dating if that’s what you want, with the hanging out and talking and the sex. I haven’t done that since I was a kid, so I’ll mess up some. Like today. I don’t cheat, hell it’s unusual for there to be one guy, I really don’t want more than that. But that's it. All I've got. I really don’t believe in fairy tales, Will.”

“Just one question, Elizabeth.”

She bit her lip, half afraid she’d screwed up again and the yelling was about to start back up. “Sure.”

“Can I be finished thinking about it yet?” He was laughing at her, the corners of his mouth twitching at a furious pace.

“Yeah, sure.” She sighed, preparing herself.

“Then I say we walk back into the kitchen, have a cup of coffee, and pick up somewhere around how much better we’d be sober.” He waggled his eyebrows, and she really - truly - wanted to smack him. Arrogant ass.

“Or you can give me a lift to my car, and call me later and we can act like nothing after that happened. Compromise.”

“I can do compromise.” He dropped a kiss on the end of her nose, "And fairy tales are for children, luv. But that's a conversation for a hell of a lot later." He held her hand as they walked out the door.

She kept wondering if she was supposed to swing her arm like she usually did when she walked, or just let it hang there. Geez, but she was clueless when it came to this stuff.

She half-wished she was Buffy again. Buffy had been kind of good at this kind of stuff. These were Buffy things. She hadn’t been Buffy for five years. Elizabeth - well, Elizabeth was clueless about anything that wasn’t her job.

Chapter 5
Home of the Blues


There was a spot, just between her shoulder blades, that had turned in one constant ache. And she could feel her pulse in the top of her head.

It had not been a good day when it was just another day, and by five minutes into hour thirteen Elizabeth was ready to scream. At least she wasn’t on the phone. The radios weren’t much better, though, what with having a grand total of fourteen officers - all already doing something - and twenty seven calls waiting. It was easy, on a phone day, to curse and spit and pretend that it was all patrol’s fault that it took forever to get anywhere. On the radio it was far too obvious that there really wasn’t anyone to blame, and somehow that made it worse.

There were only so many officers, and she wasn’t sending anyone anywhere by himself. These were her officers, and she didn’t believe in super-cop strutting around without back-up. Not that her belief would have mattered, but luckily for her state of mind the brass actually agreed with her on that one.

Her eyes were getting blurry from staring intently at monitors for too long without a break. And sometime soon, her bladder was going to actually explode. She’d put in a request for at least a quick relief a bit ago, and was promised one within ten minutes. She could manage another five minutes if someone didn’t clear their call soon. Hopefully.

At least it kept her from thinking about that. Him. She’d avoided him for two days now, trying to come to terms in her own head with not only what had happened but the vague almost promises she’d made him before parting ways.

Yeah, busy was good.

She jumped when a hand landed on her shoulder. But it wasn’t Harris. Oh shit, had she missed something?

“Sir?”

“You’re at the limit, get out of here.”

She glanced at the pending calls, at the way the way the board was lit up on the other side of the room and the almost dead looking faces of the people answering the phones, and felt vaguely guilty. She looked up at the grim face of her Sergeant.

“I can -”

“No. You can’t. Go. I’ve got it.”

She sure as hell didn’t feel guilty enough to quote him the reg saying that the twelve hour rule could be suspended by - well, him - in the event of an emergency. And that the way the city seemed to have exploded tonight seemed pretty much an emergency to her. Actually, as soon as the thought struck her, she started briefing her boss on her radio as fast as she could manage to talk. Just in case he’d only forgotten, and would take away her reprieve if she wasn’t fast enough.

He was a fast talker anyway, and didn’t seem to notice that she usually wasn‘t, just nodded his head and took over.

Fighting off the slight temptation to hang about for five minutes or so and watch him work - he really was good at it, unlike some of the others who hadn’t touched a radio in decades - she headed out before he could change his mind.

She literally ran out of the building. Well, except for the brief stop at the ladies room.

Some things just couldn’t wait for home.

There was a slight breeze outside, and three steps out the door it felt like that soft brush of wind had sucked every ounce of energy she had left. She blinked, then stared out into the parking lot.

‘Don’t be stupid, Summers’, the thought didn’t help. She knew the kind of things that were happening between here and her house. The vague nervousness was only natural. ‘Innocent bystander’ wasn’t something she ever wanted to be, and sometimes it struck her what a risk it was to get behind the wheel of a car. Or walk down a sidewalk after dark.

Or cross an empty parking lot.

It came out of nowhere, and made her feel like a coward or a crazy person for a few minutes.

Nothing to do for it. Take a deep breath and wait for it to pass.

“Summers.”

She screamed, spinning on her heel and striking out with her right fist. He dodged it, only just, and glared at her.

“What the hell is your problem?”

“Don’t do that!” She hissed at him, glaring around the parking lot just in case someone had seen her overreaction. “You scared me to death!” He was still glaring, and inwardly, she cringed.

He shook his head, “Sorry. You startle easy, though. That’s the second time I did it without so much as tryin’.”

“Oh, yeah. You weren’t being sneaky stalkerish at all.” He’d grabbed her arm, and for some reason she’d let him and was following along behind him. He ducked around the corner into a slight recess in the building where the street lights didn’t reach, and her stomach twisted.

“Well, you’re the one wanting to be all ‘none of anyone’s business so they sure as hell better not find out’. Was trying to be - what’s the word? - discreet.”

She pulled her arm free and fidgeted with her the straps of her bag.

“Yeah. Right.” She took a deep breath, trying not to look toward him. “About that. Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. I just don’t have the time or the energy to -”

He stepped away from her, and she had to fight not to look at him. It didn’t matter if she’d hurt his feelings, didn’t really even matter that she’d said one thing two days ago and was backing out. She couldn’t worry about whether it was fair to him. She had herself to worry about.

“So, what caused the turn-around?”

She shrugged, and decided that the hangnail that’d been pestering her all day was a lot more interesting than whatever expression he was wearing. If she looked hard enough, maybe she could see it in the dark.

“I think you could at least tell me. After all, last we talked, you were saying something about me getting to decide. Doesn’t sound like something a girl who didn’t enjoy herself would say.” His whispers were starting to gain a bit of volume, and she really didn’t need to have this out in the middle of the parking lot at work. It may be true that no one had seen them yet, but if the yelling started someone would surely hear them.

“I never said I didn’t enjoy myself.” She snapped. Her headache kicked up a notch, and all she wanted was to go home. “This isn’t an appropriate place to be having this conversation.”

“Well, it’s the only place I can see you, innit?” He stepped closer, and she finally looked up. He was only a vague shadow, and outline of a person, and she was desperately grateful that she wasn’t being forced to really see him. “You haven’t answered your phone, and we sure as hell haven’t had time to say anything in there.” He gestured vaguely, indicating the whole of where they spent so much time.

“Fine.” There was a pressure behind her eyes that told her she would be crying soon. She should have been home by now. She cried at home. Not at work. Ever. And the arrogant jerk would probably think it was about him. “There’s your reason. I can’t do that and this - whatever this is - too. I just can’t.” Her voice shook, and it just made her angrier at herself.

The silence stretched, and she felt a hand brush down the outside of her arm.

Oh, God. Not now. She started to shake.

“Holy Hell.” He moved even closer, dipping his head and now she could see him. See his eyes boring into hers. Worse, she knew that he could see her. She wanted to crawl into a hole and die, she was so embarrassed. She wanted to crawl inside him and drain him of the comfort that she was afraid was the only thing she wanted of him. She felt - weak.

Then he was there, all around her, a wonderfully strong hand rubbing circles on her back. “It’s okay, I’ve gotcha.”

“You most certainly do not.” But her voice was all shaky, and she thought she heard him snicker in her ear.

“Well, no. Not yet. But I’m working really hard at it, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I just don’t know why.”

“Why not?”

“Please.” She didn’t know what she was saying please, to. Please leave her alone, please stop acting like she could have something she knew better than to dream about, please take her at her word and walk away or please don’t go. She just didn’t know.

“Okay.” Oh. Okay, maybe he knew. “You’re not driving like this. Come on.” He was moving, and as much as she wanted to be left alone, she didn’t have the energy to fight him on it anymore. So she just let him lead her to his car, usher her gently into the passenger seat, and start off into the night.

She rolled the window down so the wind would hit her face, then leaned back and closed her eyes. Minutes passed in blissful silence.

Then, “You do realize I haven’t the slightest clue where you live, right?”

She giggled, and told herself it was hysterical laughter because she was exhausted and stressed and just - tired. She was always tired these days.

“Yep.” She answered, giggling harder.

His answering sigh sounded like relief.

“My place it is, then.”

The giggles stopped. No. Absolutely not. She was on the edge of going back on a decision that had lost her hours sleep as she wavered between the instinct for self-preservation and the thought of someone there who wasn’t her.

“Revello.” She said, looking back out the window.

Spike pulled into a convenience store and turned around in the parking lot. She hadn’t even noticed they’d been moving in the wrong direction.

“So, are you going to talk about it, or was that more of a private breakdown that just happened to be in front of me?”

Elizabeth straightened in her seat. “I did not have a breakdown. I don’t have breakdowns.”

“You’re bloody well coming apart at the seams and you know it.”

She closed her eyes. Terrific. And he out-ranked her, too. What if he told someone at work about her little episode? It didn’t affect her job. Had never affected her job, she made sure of it.

“I’m just tired, Will.” she whispered. “I promise.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, and she pretended not to notice.

“Right then.” He was on her street now, and she directed him to her house. Something about the light being off on the front porch threw her for a minute. She tried to remember to leave it on when she left.

She found herself fighting back more tears.

“Your apartment in the back?”

She felt her lips twitch a bit. “I don’t have an apartment. It’s my house.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, and she shook her head, trying to come up with a way to get rid of him without seeming rude.

“Don’t try it. We’re both going in, we’re going to relax a bit, and then you’re going to tell me what changed since this weekend.”

She glared at him. “You just don’t know when to quit do you?”

“Nope.” He was around the car and opening her door before she finished gathering up her things.

“I have to be back at work by six.”

“Me too. Best get on with it, then.”






He didn’t know why she was fighting him so hard, but there was no way he was going to leave her alone. Not after what he saw.

He knew her. She wouldn’t admit it, and he had no clue why it was true. For years, she’d simply been there. Around. And then, a few months ago, it was as if he’d suddenly seen ]her.

And then he’d actually spent an evening talking and touching and now he was frighteningly close to requiring her. Not need. Not want. Almost like love, but not yet. Maybe not ever. But for now, she was requirement. Like air, or food, or water. He couldn’t stop fighting to stay around her, because he had been graced with what like an almost supernatural knowledge that she was important. Necessary. He didn’t have an explanation or facts, just a niggling feeling that he couldn’t leave her alone.

And damn, how’d the hell she get a house like this? It was decidedly middle class, and not the lower end of middle class that could be explained if she were five or six years older. He didn’t care how much overtime she worked, there had to be something else there for her to own a place like this. Maybe she was an investment whiz or something.

He followed her inside, and felt something he only vaguely from when he was very young. This wasn’t a house. Elizabeth Summers had a home.

“Go change. Get comfortable. Point me toward the kitchen and I’ll put a kettle on.”

She nodded, flung one hand out in the direction of the coffee pot, and told him which cabinet to look in for the necessary supplies. She took the stairs slow, her shoulders slumped, like walking in the door was enough to cut the puppet’s strings.

Something in the general vicinity of his chest ached with seeing her, but he didn’t turn toward the kitchen until she’d disappeared from his sight.

He was in too deep. If there had ever been a chance of keeping himself from falling, it was gone now. And he didn’t know why.

Maybe it was the way she seemed embarrassed by being human. She didn’t cling, didn’t whine, just continued on with what looked to be the weight of the world on her shoulders. She hadn’t figured yet that it was actually heavier alone.

He started the coffee, then started to fidget. This was foreign territory to him. He finally settled on a bar stool, watching the doorway and waiting for her to come through.

When she did she was wearing jeans and a heavy sweatshirt and her hair was still up in its tight bun. He could have sworn he told her to get comfortable, not just out of her uniform.

“You really don’t want me here, do you?” It wasn’t an accusation, as much as he wanted it to be.

“It’s not that simple.” She got cups out, put sugar and a splash of milk in one then looked the question at him.

“Black’s fine.” He suddenly felt very tired himself. “And it is that simple, Elizabeth. If you let it be.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” The resignation in her tone made him feel like something cold had wrapped itself around the base of spine, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “We have to work together. It was a mistake, Will. A really nice mistake, but still a mistake. I just can’t do this now.”

“You keep saying can’t, but I keep hearing won’t.” He was trying not to snap at her, doing his damndest to sound understanding and all those ‘sensitive man’ things he was supposed to be sounding like right now. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to just reach out and strangle the stubborn bint.

“What you hear isn’t my problem.” She poured the coffee, slammed the cup down so hard in front of him that hot liquid splashed over the sides. “Drink. Go. Hate me if you have to, but stop pushing. Please.”

For a while, they just drank coffee and only looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes. It was a tense silence, uncomfortable, and Will fought the urge to make a bad joke.

“Here’s the thing.” And this wasn’t pushing. It truly wasn’t. “Do you do anything other than work, ‘lizbeth?”

Her head snapped up. “What did you call me?”

He blinked. Thought back. Oh. “Sorry. Don’t like nicknames?”

“No, it’s just - I’m Elizabeth.”

“Yeah.” What direction did that conversation just go? “Still haven’t answered my question, luv.”

“That’s because it isn’t any of your business.”

“What I saw tonight makes it my business. You’ll go crazy if you let that place take you over. You have to know that. And part of that is thinking you can’t do anything else. Yeah, it gets hard with the hours, but believe me, you’ve got to have something on the outside or the outside’ll turn into just more of the inside.”

Her lips twitched. “That sentence made absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

“Now that’s bullshit, luv.” He stood up. He was never one to sit still long. It was the hardest part of the job for him, having his movement restrained for hours on end. “You start to forget that your whole job is to deal with everybody else’s worst day. You get a skewed view of the world. Those things you hear, they don’t happen to everybody every day. They’re rare. Once in a liftetime type things most of the time. But you get ‘em one after the other, constant-like, and if you don’t do something outside of work you’ll start to see the world that way.”

“Did you want to date me, or psychoanalyze me?”

“You know what I want. But tonight, this isn’t about what I want. No pushing for that, except for you to think about it some more. No promises about tomorrow. But this, now, this is about you answering my bloody question. You tell me one thing you have that isn’t work. Name it.”

“Get out of my house.”

She meant it. Her chin jutted out, and her eyes flashed at him. Bloody hell, but she was sight like that, her tiny little fists clenched tight and her chest pushed out.

“That answers that. I’m your friend. And I’m not gonna watch you drown in this. You don’t want me, I won’t like it but I’m not a complete prick. I’ll deal with it. Just because we’re not together doesn’t mean I’m goin’ away. You’ll just have to live with that.”

“What?” She seemed to deflate, and suddenly she looked even younger than she was. “I don’t need help. I don’t.”

“Well then, there’s really no reason for you turn down a chance at somebody to hang out with. Can’t say you don’t like me a bit. Already admitted to that.”

“I can’t be friends with you.” She was nervous. “I need you to go away.”

“You want me to go away. I think you need somebody who doesn’t.” The words just came out, he didn’t even know he was going to say them.

There was absolutely no way he could have anticipated their affect.

Elizabeth crumpled. Between heartbeats she went from standing in front of him and sprawled on the floor, shaking, sobs racking her body. And he knew. The thing he’d recognized in her, because it was so much a part of himself. The thing his heart had to have seen all along, that made him not notice her until he was ready for her.

She’d never had anyone not leave before.

She was like him.







She woke up on the couch, feeling like her head was stuffed with cotton and completely disoriented. She was wrapped in the afghan from the back of the couch, a throw pillow under her head. And she remembered.

She’d made an utter and complete fool of herself. One minute she was fighting with Will, trying to get him to see that it was a total and stupid mistake for them to try to have anything outside of working together, and the next he was holding her and - had he been humming?

Elizabeth groaned, and tried to work up the courage to look around for her houseguest. Maybe he’d realized just what a mess she was and gotten out while the getting was good. No, there he was. He was sprawled across her living room chair in his tee shirt and uniform pants. He’d shed his boots and belt, but still didn’t look very comfortable.

His eyes opened.

“You’re awake.”

“What time is it?” Her voice sounded scratchy.

Will shrugged. “Late. Don’t know, really. Could find out if you want.”

“Have to be at work at six.”

“Not six yet. Set the alarm on my cell for four, just in case.”

“I’m sorry.” That seemed to confuse him.

“For what?”

“All of it.” She shifted, scooted up the couch until she was half sitting. “You seem to be around every time I fall apart.”

“Didn’t fall apart.” He reminded her. “You don’t do that.” She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He noticed - he seemed uncannily gifted that way - and went on, “You just hit a wall. Happens to all of us sometimes.”

“I doubt very seriously it would happen to you.”

“Just proves you don’t know me like you think you do.” He sighed, then rubbed a hand across his eyes. “That whole Spike thing? Just another kind of wall, pet. Wanted to feel something that was good, had a couple of other issues goin’ on, and I let it get out of hand for a while. It was a long time ago, but I remember it. Hell, everybody remembers it. You weren’t even around then, and you remember it.”

She winced. “So you think I’ve got some serious problems going on.”

“No. But I think you could, if you don’t remember that you’re just as important as the rest of the world.” He took a deep breath. “Elizabeth, do you really not want to try with me, or do you just not want to go through it falling apart?”

She sighed, “See, even you know it’ll fall apart.”

“I don’t know anything of the sort.” He said it very quietly, then stood up and crossed until he sitting beside her on the couch. She began to get uncomfortable. It was nice, when he was safely on the other side of the room. Now it was too much, too close.

An arm wrapped around her shoulder, and she was pulled closer until her head was resting against his chest.

“Just this. Easier to talk this way, yeah?”

And it was. She told him about her mother. About all the friends she’d had in high school who disappeared when her mother died and she had to grow up overnight. About the almost friendship she’d managed to form with Rosenburg but couldn’t seem to really feel, no matter how much she genuinely liked the other woman. How she hadn’t talked about her mother with anyone since the funeral. She told him about her father who disappeared when she was twelve and returned only long enough to make a hard time harder before fading into the woodwork again.

She talked, and he listened, and he even told her a thing or two about growing up in England until he was fifteen and had been sent to live with a distant cousin after his mum died. She found out he’d been married, which she'd never heard before, but not much else other his wife had died years ago. He said he was too young to try marriage anyway, but she could tell by the way he hedged around the subject and kept turning the conversation back to her that it still hurt him to talk about it.

They talked until his alarm went off, and she went to shower while he drove to his place and dressed before heading back to pick her up.

Chapter 6
Part of Your World





Something cold and hard settled into the pit of his stomach when he unfolded the piece of paper lying in his mailbox.

Police Department letter-head. Heavy white paper, instead of the usual flimsy copier stuff.

It was time. Again. Somehow he’d let it sneak up on him.

In the week since he’d spent the night at her house, Elizabeth had undergone an incredible change, whether she realized it herself or not. She didn’t push at him, didn’t tell him to go away, and last night after work they’d gone to dinner. Sure, it had been cheeseburgers in the back booth of a dingy diner, but the conversation had been easy and familiar. She kept insisting that they weren’t dating, of course, but they’d held hands on the way back to his car and she’d kissed him good night at her door.

He could have sworn that there was an invitation in her eyes at the door, but if there had been she had stopped herself from actually issuing it. He didn’t mind. They were on a nice, slow path to somewhere, and for the first time in forever he was enjoying the journey. He’d never done slow before, but it seemed to be working all right.

And now he got this, as if fate itself refused to give him even a few blessed days of peace.

“Terrific.”

He started, then looked to his left to see Elizabeth grimacing at her own piece of paper.

“They got you too?” He grumbled.

“Yeah. Didn’t realize we were on the same rotation.” She raised her eyebrows, but he ignored the implied question. He had to do this a bit more often than the others, for reasons he wasn’t ready to share with her yet.

“I got patrol. What’d you pull?”

“Medic 4.” She stated, wincing. “I did patrol last time. Guess it’s time for some blood and guts.”

Every dispatcher had to work a shift as a ride-along with each department once a year. It was some sort of ‘team-building understand how the other half lives’ kind of thing. Those who were actual police officers in addition to being dispatchers had to do patrol duty periodically under an entire different regulation.

“Maybe it’ll be a slow shift and you’ll get to sit around the hall gossiping and waiting for a call.” He grinned at her, and she looked around to see if anyone was watching before smiling softly back at him. He chose to forget to notice the insistence no one know she was talking to him, and focused on the smile. It was nearly enough to melt that piece of ice that had settled in his stomach when he’d first seen the letter. “Wanna grab a bite after shift?”

She hesitated, then said, “I can’t tonight. I’ve got plans.”

Spike blinked.

“Plans?”

“Yeah. It was pointed out to me a while back I don’t do anything except work. So I made plans for tonight.” She shrugged. “Class at the gym. Sounded kind of interesting, and cheap to boot.”

When he’d said she should do something outside of work, he’d kind’ve meant she should do him. And on top of that, he really needed her company to keep himself from going slightly off the deep end at the thoughts that it was time for his quarterly evaluation. Again. Of course, she thought it was just a routine ride-along like she’d gotten. Spike forcibly brought himself back to the moment.

“Tomorrow, then?”

“That makes it sound like a date.” she whispered, her eyes wide and darting wildly around. One or two people had noticed them, but role call didn’t start for five more minutes and Will was getting a little sick of her acting like someone finding out they went out would be the end of her world.

“Well, not really. Just pre-planned. You decide it can be a date, you let me know, though.”

She sighed, and he watched the emotions flicker across her features. She was wavering.

“Tomorrow night.” she nodded, “But it’s not a date.” She pouted at him, her bottom lip jutting out, and he caught himself leaning forward to capture it between his teeth. She stepped back and glared, and he shrugged an apology he didn’t mean. She was wonderfully flushed, her hands shaking as she fiddled with her ride-along order. Oh yeah, not long now, any day now she’d give in. And this time he would remember it with perfect clarity.

“’Course not, luv. Not ‘til you say so.”

“Thanks.” It was barely a whisper, but he heard it. And something in the quality of that one word told him that she knew very well it was a date.

Maybe the whole evaluation thing wasn’t such a big deal this time around. He’d pass the field, flunk the psyche, and get back to doing what he’d discovered he actually liked best. Maybe it was even time to ask about making the assignment permanent, and get out of the whole evaluation all together.

His mood lifted, and he whistled while he waited for it to be long enough for him to head to the roll call room without it looking like they’d arrived together. If that’s all it took to keep her around, just a little pretending it wasn’t happening, he could live with that. It was worth it for the way the order didn’t feel quite so heavy in his hand as he refolded it.





Their dinner went well, this time ending with a cup of coffee at her kitchen counter and then more kisses than they’d ever actually shared before on the living room sofa. Slow, long kisses that made his blood burn and his heart pound. But he didn’t push, and she blushed prettily at him when made a show of backing off and slipping out her door with an exaggerated limp that wasn’t as exaggerated as he pretended to her. He nearly came in his pants from a few kisses.

He had it bad.

He had it bad enough that he was still thinking about what might happen when over their upcoming weekend and hadn’t given today a second thought until he was sitting in his car, in full uniform with an actual gun on his hip, staring at the back door to headquarters. Dispatch had it‘s own door, opening into stairs leading to the basement. Patrol worked out of the back of the building. There was very little chance anyone he worked with would actually see him if he didn‘t make an effort to see them. Sure, there were lots of officers who worked Comm, but no one but the Sarge knew that the assignment to Communications Division was supposedly temporary in his case. A transfer instead of termination while he got his shit together. Hell, a lot of the time, he managed to forget himself.

His hands were shaking. Fuck this. It wasn’t worth it. Why he continued to go through this every six months was beyond him. He was fine where he was - didn’t even really want to go back out into the field - and he should just talk to the brass about making the assignment permanent and stop torturing himself this way.

But the thing was, he wanted it to be his choice. He wanted them to offer him his old place back so he would have the opportunity to turn it down and laugh in their faces. Or at least know that he’d finally finished serving time for one bloody mistake he never should have made, that he was where he chose to be instead of the only place he was allowed.

Just get it over with, you stupid ponce. Right then. He straightened his shoulders, and made his way inside the building.

It was different, but the same. Kowalski, who’d been in his original academy class but had never gained any rank, grinned and waved at him. Spike figured the guy would have made Detective by now, or at least Sergeant, but apparently he’d found himself a niche and wanted to stay there. A few of the others tried to stare at him while pretending they were looking in an entirely different direction. Yeah, the crazy guy’s back, still pretending he can be a cop.

He walked up to the podium and handed his orders over Sgt. Alred, who didn’t even glace at them before barking at him that he was aware of his situation and he would be riding with none other than the Sergeant himself.

Okay, unusual, but not unheard of. Nothing to be worried about.

That lack of nerves lasted until they were in the car.

“So, are you going to blow this one on purpose and waste somebody elses time in six months, Giles?”

He blinked, and stared, but he didn’t say anything.

“You gone deaf on me?”

The bloody pillock. Spike stiffened, felt his hands clenching into fists, and turned to glare at the other man. “No, sir.” Not another word. And you aren’t going to hit him. He’s goading you.

“Good.”

“What do you want me to say? I’m here. I’m going through this whole thing - again - and we both know it’s not gonna change anything. Never failed a field test in the first damned place.”

“Except that one time that started this whole thing.” Alred was a big man, with bushy red hair, freckles, and blue eyes to go with his southern accent. He looked like he should be a circus clown or an ice cream vendor. He did not have a disposition that matched his features. He had the disposition of the retired army drill sergeant he actually was.

“Wasn’t a test.”

“It’s all a test. You failed doing the job, no matter how many tests and evals you ace. You should get over it and give us all a break.”

“Because that would be the polite thing to do, right Sarge? Just quietly go away and not bother the real officers, disappear into the basement to never be seen again.” He wished Elizabeth was here. She made the job seem like a calling, something valuable and precious. All these exercises in torture managed to do was remind him his life was the punishment he usually managed to forget it was.

“Hell, no. Come back if you want to. It was a mistake, and everybody makes ‘em. Not everybody has a job where they can be so damned catastrophic, but human beings screw up. But if you don’t want to, if you’re just going to wade through another eval half-assed and wait to be told you failed, just stop doing the damned things. You’ve made rank in your division. Maybe it’s where you belong.”

“I’m here. We going out, or sitting in the parking lot all shift while you talk about things you don’t know the first bloody thing about?” Yep, that did it. He should get out of the car now, since he just blew it. Probably get a nice juicy insubordination charge on top of the whole thing.

“Damn, but you’ve got issues. Let’s go.”

It was all downhill from there.

He had to use his pepper spray on a drunk that thought fist fights were fun and the nice officers could join in if they wanted to. He very nearly ran the damned patrol car into a ditch dodging a drunk driver, and when he turned around to pull the guy over it led to an arrest, sure, but it also led to having his shoes covered in puke and nearly losing it and punching the guy.

Punching some guy got him into this mess in the first damned place. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the punching so much as the kicking. And the threatening by sticking a gun barrel in his mouth. And maybe the taking out the first two other officers trying to pull him off. Hell, if the guy had actually remembered the whole thing when he was no longer stoned, not even the circumstances surrounding the incident could have kept him employed. He got six months administrative leave without pay and pulled off the street, and was damned lucky he hadn’t ended up in jail himself.

He and Sgt. Alred had just finished up with the drunk driver in booking when Harris’s voice came over the radio. Kid probably thought he was doing them a favor, giving Spike a good call for his ride-along. Or maybe Alred had requested to get this one if anyone like it came in - at this point Will wouldn’t have put it past the man.

A young woman called saying she had walked in and found her boyfriend molesting her five year old daughter.

The adrenaline rushed into his system, and he had to close his eyes. It wasn’t a coincidence. He’d been doing these things for six years now, and this had never happened. It wasn’t a common as television made out. Sunnydale had three sectors, all handled by one radio, and only sixteen officers working in the whole town at any given time. These calls practically never happened in Sunnydale. They had problems with gangs, and the vice squad was as big as the whole of the patrol division, but this wasn’t something they dealt with on a daily basis.

“You wanna sit this one out?” The voice had changed, and when he looked at Alred all the hostility was gone. “I’ve gotta go, but you can sit in the car and do the dispatcher ride along thing if you want.”

“But that’s not what I’m here for.” He had said it before he knew he was going to. And he sounded - determined. Damn, was he actually trying to pass this thing?








Elizabeth stretched, and leaned closer to the radio. The night had started out pretty boring. They had one call for a kid that fell off his front porch and broke his arm. The little fella somehow managed to be scared and hurting while still being awed that he was riding in an ambulance. He was cute, and Elizabeth had enjoyed watching him try to take everything in even while he was crying.

Then they had a car accident, but it wasn’t a bad one. Neck pain, and a little bit of best get checked out just in case, and if you were on an ambulance working a car accident that was the kind to get. No blood or guts or dead bodies so far.

And now they were on their way to check out some guy who’d been beaten with a baseball bat. When the update came in, though, it changed everything. All the faces around her changed with it, and she wondered if she looked anything like they did.

“Outta euthanize the bastard.” Powell stated, her eyes going hard.

There were blue lights everywhere, and they staged just outside the perimeter while they waited for the word to go in. It didn’t take long. They offered to let her stay in the ambulance, but she had the certification to go in if she wanted, and she wanted. She didn’t know why. Always before, she had just ridden and watched and listened like a good little dispatcher. She’d returned to the academy when she was twenty-one because she could, and had done a short rotation in patrol because it was required as field training for certification, but she hadn’t worked the job beyond the hours required to keep her certification. Now, those hours were her ticket inside the house, and she found herself wanting to go.

Wasn’t the whole point of ride-alongs to understand what the person on the other side of the radio went through? To make you better at doing your job because you’d seen what actually happened after the call left your console?

The house was remarkably quiet. The medics approached the patient at a nod from the two officers guarding him, and started doing their job. Elizabeth admired the fact that they didn’t seem to treat him any differently from the other patients she’d watched them with today. She’d just taken two steps back to make sure she was out of the way when she heard a commotion in the other room.

“What the hell is he doing here?” And then, “I swear, Giles, you blow my case this time and I’ll see you in jail where you belong.”

What?

“Detective.” She knew that voice. One of the sergeants, and if he’d talk some more she’d know which one. She’d never met him in person, though. “Officer Giles is here doing his job. The suspect was beaten by the mother when she found him.”

There was a silence, then, “You’re actually trying to convince me Spike didn’t hit that guy?” A shuffling, and Elizabeth was absolutely certain there was a lot more here than what she’d overheard. And it was Sgt. Alred. Which wasn’t relevant, but she used her ears more than any other sense, and his voice sounded vaguely different when it wasn’t coming over a radio.

“The sergeant was there when I took her statement. She’s pretty insistent on getting credit for hurting the son of a bitch that touched her kid. You might want to talk to her. Do you want me to call in someone else to interview the little girl?” That was Will. Will was here. He was inside, which was perfectly natural considering he was a sworn officer like her, but it sounded like he’d actually been working.

Dispatchers, even those who were sworn officers - and there weren’t all that many of them - didn’t work the field when they went into it. All being an officer got you was changing how much you got to observe, it didn’t mean you weren’t an observer.

“Are you telling me how to do my job, Spike?”

There. That was the tone that explained him wanting her to call him something other than the nickname. She’d never heard it spoken quite that way before. In the comm center, it was said joking, or like it was simply his name, and he was almost like a mascot. The way the detective said it was beyond nasty. She wasn’t sure she could call him Spike again after that, even if it seemed to suit him in some way she couldn‘t put her finger on.

“We’re transporting.” There was a hand on her shoulder, and Powell glanced toward the other room and rolled her eyes, “You’d think they’d stop bickering long enough to take care of the victim. Police are transporting her in an unmarked car. They want to try to not add to the trauma the things already going through.”

Elizabeth went back to the team she was here with, taking one corner of the gurney. She could at least help lift the guy, even if she didn’t have any of the training to work on him. In this instance, she was glad she wasn’t expected to help him. Oh, she knew he was a human being and he was hurt, and she knew he was innocent until proven guilty, but if there was any truth to the initial report, she didn’t think there was enough pain for him yet. Maybe if she dropped him?

“Gonna be a bumpy ride down the stairs, so brace yourself.” That was Powell, talking to the patient.

Elizabeth was pretty sure the little boy with the broken leg hadn’t been jarred nearly as much as this guy. But then again, he’d been a pretty light load, so she decided to keep her mouth shut and pretend that was the reason.

Part of her was still hearing that Detective get all snide with Will all the way to the hospital. The curiosity building in her gut was understandable. The anger at someone she hadn’t even seen surprised her.






“Hey.” Powell wasn’t a small woman. She had dark hair and darker eyes, and looked like she could lift a football player all by herself. But her hands were gentle, and even washed out like she was at the end of her shift, Elizabeth thought her eyes were remarkably kind. “We‘re going to be stuck for a little while if you want cut out. Shifts officially over in an hour, and we’ll be here that long. Hospital is holding our gurney hostage until they’re finished with the suspect. He’s still on it.”

They were in the ER, which was slowly but surely filling with people with social services, the DA’s office, and some of the officers from the scene. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a female detective kneeling in front of a little girl with red hair clutching a teddy bear. She wanted to throw up.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Or if you need a ride, you can hang out here.” Powell said, looking at her oddly. “It’s a little different out here, huh?” She sounded like she was trying to be understanding, but there was a slight edge to her voice.

“Yeah.” Elizabeth usually would have left it at that, but hanging out with Will seemed to be changing her. She couldn’t help adding, “At my job, I’d’ve just gotten to hear that woman describing what he did to her little girl. It’s different to actually see what happens to him. They usually don’t tell us that part. She looks so - healthy. I always pictured blood and bruises and - I’m not saying the damage isn’t as bad as I thought. She’ll have to live with this for the rest of her life. But she looks like she’ll make it, you know? She’s smiled a couple of times. And I would have pictured the mother as being irresponsible, leaving her with a monster. But she really didn’t know. You can see it in her eyes that she never suspected a thing. Yeah, it’s real different out here.”

Powell seemed to think about that for a long time. “So, you need a lift?”

But Elizabeth’s eyes had found the form of another officer walking through the door, and she suddenly needed more than anything to hear a voice that didn’t belong to the paramedic beside her.

“No, thanks. I’ll catch a lift. If not, I’ll just call a cab. Thanks for letting me ride with you.” The other woman made noises like they’d get together sometime, but she’d been on enough ride-alongs to know better. Powell would have forgotten her by the next shift, and was secretly glad to be done with her babysitting.

Elizabeth didn’t see her leave. She was still staring at Will. Will in full patrol uniform, with his hair slicked back and carrying a gun and handcuffs and everything. He was standing behind a man who could only be Sgt. Alred from the voice, even if he didn’t look anything like her imagination. She’d thought he would be a huge black man with lots of muscles and emotionless eyes. But he looked almost jovial. Huh.

She was walking before the thought that it might be inappropriate hit her.

She saw him see her. Saw his expression change to that of a deer caught in headlights, ready to be plowed down by a car. He turned away from her and she stopped, stunned and a little hurt.

She changed directions to go to the admissions desk and call for a cab. Will apparently didn’t want to talk to her. She was just picking up a phone when there was a voice behind her.

“Don’t turn around.” It was Will. Behind her. She smiled, and picked up the phone, dialing her home number because there wouldn’t be an answer.

“Thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“Can’t. Working. You’re the one wants to be discreet. Look, I know you want some kind of explanation.”

“Duh.”

“I’ll come by your house, yeah? When we’re finished here.”

“Good idea. Now get lost so I can call a cab and go to said house.”

She couldn’t stop smiling, and she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because he wasn’t in a position to talk, but had talked anyway. Maybe it was even though he’d turned his back on her, he’d managed somehow to know exactly where she was going and make his way there.

Or maybe it was because of the way he’d reached down just long enough to squeeze her hand, blocking the action with his body in case someone was looking in their direction.

Maybe it didn’t really matter what it was. It was a good feeling, this smiley thing she had going on lately. Very Buffy-like. Maybe the girl she’d once been wasn’t as gone as she’d believed.

Chapter Seven
Admissions





“I don’t know what to say.” He was standing on her front porch, far too late at night to be disturbing her even if they had both officially begun their weekend. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, unable to stand still. He couldn’t find anything to do with his hands, and they kept going in and out of his pockets.

She thought he looked like a little boy who got caught being naughty. That thought brought images to mind she’d been having to fight harder and harder lately, so she just opened the door wider and stepped aside so he could come in.

“You don’t owe me an explanation.” She couldn’t force herself to say she didn’t want one.

“Yeah, I do. Well, maybe not. But I think I do. Do I?” She laughed, and he looked hurt.

“I’m sorry. You just looked so…” Go ahead, just say it. “You looked cute, all flustered like that. I’ve never seen it before.”

“Hey! I am not cute. Babies are cute. Dogs are cute. Grown men are not ‘cute’.” But his lips twitched, and some of the tension left his shoulders. “I thought you’d be mad at me.”

She couldn’t honestly say she wasn’t. “I shouldn’t be. It’s not like we’re dating and you were hiding this huge thing from me. I figured part of it out. You’re leaving us. Going back into the field. This wasn’t just a ride for you, they were evaluating you.” She didn’t mention the part she hadn’t figured out, the part he couldn’t know she knew. What the hell had all that been between him and the Detective?

“There’s a bit more to it than that, luv.” He was pacing, not looking at her. “And I’ll tell you. Later. If you want. I just - it wasn’t a great night for me, and I’d sort of like to forget about it for the weekend and then tell you later. ‘Cause, yeah, I know I have to if you ever decide that we’re dating, but if we’re not dating then I’d rather not go into it.”

She was confused. “But if you aren’t going to transfer, why would you be working instead of just observing? I mean, you’re sworn, so as long as you can pass an eval all you’d have to do is ride with a training officer for a couple of months if they had an opening and you got it.” Which they hadn’t had, because she would’ve seen the posting. It just didn’t make sense.

“Did you hear the part where I didn’t want to talk about it?”

“Sure. Fine. Whatever. Don’t think you’re going to use my curiosity to blackmail me into the dating thing.”

“I was hoping to use something else all together to tempt you into the dating thing.” His tone had changed, and there was no other word for what he was doing besides stalking. Maybe prowling. Like a big cat.

Who was getting closer to her with every breath, his eyes roaming over her scrungy sweats like she was some kind of temptress and dressed to kill.

Her heart was beating very fast.

“lizbeth?” Damn, but she loved the way his voice sent tingles up and down her spine.

“Uh-huh?”

“You know how sometimes all you can do is forget it and feel good for a while?”

Oh God, did she remember that.

“mmm hmmm” a little nod. His looked - hungry.

“Do we have to be dating to do that?”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath, but didn’t step back. She couldn’t step back, even though her brain was very loudly telling her legs to do so.

He stopped, and closed his eyes, blowing a deep breath out between his teeth.

“Okay.” He wasn’t moving. She wanted him to move again. To finish what her mind had already started, accosting her with visions of them doing all sorts of things that she’d never imagined doing before she started spending time with him. Sexual things she only knew about in theory suddenly seemed very interesting, and he was just standing there.

Oh. Yeah. Was it really blackmail if she were already doing it? She was dating him. Calling it what it was wouldn’t make it dissapear. Apparently, it would make it just that much better.

“I guess we’re dating then, huh?” She whispered, and his eyes flew open.

“You guess? I can’t work with guess. Guess leaves a lot of room for me to make a big bloody mistake and for you to decide you never want to talk to me again.”

Grrrr….he just had to make it hard, didn’t he?

“Fine. We’re dating. We have been dating, and I’m just a stubborn bitch with too much baggage who was trying to avoid being all datey and stuff.”

He grinned at her. “You’re not a bitch.”

But he was moving again.

This time they made it to the bed, and she actually got to see him without his clothes.












Will woke surrounded by warmth, tangled around Elizabeth in her huge bed with her blankets wrapped tightly around them. She was sleeping, her mouth slightly open, with her hair down and spread across his chest.

He’d thought it was good before. He’d not scratched the surface of good. Before had been fast and sloppy and drunk, raw and harsh. This wasn’t anything like before. He’d never felt anything like this before.

It was almost like Dru, before she’d gotten sick. But that was so long ago he sometimes felt like it happened to someone else. Like he’d seen it in a movie or read it in a book. The good times, before her illness and everything that happened after that. Before his life went to shit.

Almost like that, but different. He’d been so young then that he hadn’t understood how common good sex was or how rare making love would turn out to be. He’d loved his wife with all of his heart, but she’d been there since he was fifteen and he’d lived with the assumption that everyone got that. Everyone got someone to love.

And then she was gone, and he’d believed for a long time that it was the end for him. That he would never feel anything remotely like that again, but at least he could get laid.

But that wasn’t all this was, and last night he’d passed his field eval and all he had left was the psyche. He couldn’t force his eyes away from her. It was almost as if she was giving him his life back. The one he’d lost when he lost the person he’d built his life around.

It was different than he remembered. Scarier.

“’ornin”

He chuckled. “Morning. You awake down there?”

“No.” Then the body in arms stiffened, and he the fear flew up several notches. “What time is it?”

“No idea. Why?”

“I’ve got to get to work.” She was struggling to get away from him, so he let her go. “It’s the weekend, sweetheart.”

She stopped, shook her head, and glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Okay.”

When she climbed right back where she’d been before, he sighed in relief.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just afraid you were going to start going on about what a nice mistake it was.” Shouldn’t have said that. He knew better. What was it that made constantly goad her, when he really wanted her to snuggle down and go back to sleep with him?

“Oh.” She was quiet for a long moment, then shrugged, “Nope. Guess not. But you’re all tense and iffy.”

He closed his eyes. “Just thinking.”

She scooted away, and very obviously not looking at him. “What about?” Her voice shook, and she heard his own earlier fear reflected in her voice.

“Nothing bad. Kind of private.”

“We’re naked. In bed. After doing very private things. Twice. I think you can tell me what you’re thinking about.” She did look at him now, and her voice had taken on a teasing tone. Reassured he was where he wanted to be, just that easily. She’d changed so much in such short time that it couldn’t be permanent. He shoved that thought away, and took her mood at face value.

“Was thinking that the last time I felt anything like this was before my wife got sick.”

She flinched like he’d hit her. “So, you were all with the comparing me to your dead wife? That’s what every girl wants to hear.”

“No.” He reached out for her, but she dodged him. At least she didn’t leave the bed. “I just meant - had a lot of sex since then. Hadn’t made love since. Sounds like a bloody cliché, but there is a difference. You make me myself again. Just by existing. Wasn’t comparing you to anyone. No one bloody compares.” He knew the moment he went too far. The instant it clicked with her that his statement implied a word she didn’t want to hear.

He saw her force herself to be still, to not stand up, and when she met his eyes there were tears in hers.

“I really like you. I do. But -”

“That’s enough. You asked what I was thinking, so I told you. We’re dating, right?”

She slumped, relieved. “Yeah. We’re dating.”







She just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Will said he wanted to not even think about it himself for the whole of the weekend, and she’d tacitly agreed to that somewhere in the conversation that had led to more having of sex. Making love.

Will called it making love, and the way he looked at her made her slightly uncomfortable and all warm and gushy at the same time. He made her feel so many things at once that he exhausted her. How was it she could be curious and uncomfortable and excited and secure and scared all at the same time?

Because it was Will, and he did that to her.

And now, he was in her kitchen collecting popcorn and soda’s and she was cuing up the DVD player.

Monty Python. When he’d seen the copy on her shelf, he’d bounced like a little boy and suggested they curl up on the couch and laugh their way through it. He’d looked so excited about it that she found herself actually wanting to, instead of just placating her official boyfriend-like person.

She was actually starting to remember what it was like to want to do things, instead of just having to do things.

And doing things she didn’t want to, like obsess over what was going on with him to be working patrol Friday night, and only forget about that when she wondered what his wife’s name had been and what she’d been like.

He was driving her crazy. He was also settling beside her on the couch. And was there really a reason to examine anything at all this weekend? Was it silly for her to want to take a couple of days and live in the fantasy without worrying about the reality?

She decided that she was going to do just that whether it was right or wrong, and curled into his side to watch the movie. As long as she didn’t think, she could just feel good with him for a little while.

Chapter 8
Come Together

The afternoon sun was sinking, the light filtering through the windows turning the light color of gray that said night was encroaching across the world. Elizabeth was sleeping, her head thrown back tempting him with the expanse of her neck. The robe she’d thrown on to come downstairs gaped open invitingly, revealing the beginning swell of her left breast, her nipples outlined through the thin silky fabric.

At the moment, Will couldn’t have come up with the name of the movie playing on the television screen if his life depended on it. He’d woken from a light doze, turned his head, and was greeted with something so much more interesting to look at than whatever they’d put in after Monty Python drew to a close.

He had to touch her.

Moving slowly to avoid waking her, he slipped from the couch and knelt in front of her on the floor. The position reminded him of losing control, the half-remembered images only making him harder. They’d had rough and drunk, and then last night they’d had the urgency of finally succumbing to something they’d both been wanting since.

Now, in the sleepy quiet of her living room, he was neither drunk nor urgent.

He wanted to see her. To let his eyes drink her in until he could pull her fully formed into his memory when she wasn’t there.

One finger traced the outline of a nipple, and he grinned when it puckered beneath his touch, turning into a hard little pebble easily distinguished through the fabric. Her breathing hitched, barely, and he drew back glancing up at her face and half expecting to see her awake.

She wasn’t. He had no idea how deep a sleeper she was, how much it would take to ease her out of sleep and into the present, but it was experiment he was up for. Literally.

Gently, not ready for her to be aware of him yet, he let his hands find the tie to the long robe and slowly started working at the knot. His breathing came faster, and he shifted as his cock throbbed in anticipation. He licked his lips as the robe finally fell open, and he was greeted with a full view of sleeping naked woman. The fact that she was wearing nothing underneath was a bonus he hadn’t been expecting, easy access to what he’d been craving with no barriers left.

Her nipples were standing at attention, her breasts full and firm and still high in that way that only young fit women enjoyed. Her stomach was flat and firm, all the way to the nest of dark brown curls peeking out from between her thighs. Flashes of things he wanted to do rushed behind his eyes, one after another, until his breathing was heavy and he couldn’t resist the need to reach down and rub himself through the jeans he’d found in the boot of his car earlier. She’d teased him, saying he was so desperate for her that he had been carrying around extra clothes on the off chance of getting to stay over ever since that first time.

She’d been right, but there was no way he would ever admit to it.

That memory helped, but not quite enough, so he leaned back and closed his eyes, forcing his hand away from what was fast becoming center of his awareness. After a few deep breaths the feeling had receded enough that he opened his eyes and stared some more, control back in place.

Beautiful. Amazing. A hundred other words he would have to remember to use later when his mind was capable of coming up with them.

Very gently, he ran his hands lightly up her thighs, nudging her legs until she was spread wide in front of him. The pink folds nestled inside a patch of light brown hair made his mouth water and his cock push painfully against his zipper. He licked his lips, and risked another check on her state.

She was still sleeping, her breasts rising and falling with the slow deep breaths of deep sleep. He imagined touching them, pushing them together and sliding his cock between them until he came, covering her face and chest with - damn. Too much. This was going beyond prurient and into the realm of physically painful far too fast for his liking, so he quickly undid his jeans and let his cock spring free. The air of the room hitting him was shock enough to keep him slightly under control, and as long as he kept his hands away from the blasted thing he should be able to return to his perusal.

He leaned forward just enough to reach one hand to the column of her neck, ghosting his fingers over it and down, tracing her clavicle lightly before continuing to the valley between her breasts. He loved the feel of her chest rising and falling beneath his fingertips, adored the way it made her tits move in front of him. His other hand wrapped itself around his dick of it’s own accord and he bit his bottom lip at the sensation before firmly removing it. It was one thing to wake her and enjoy each other, something else all together to jack off just looking at her.

Although that thought brought another image to mind to torture himself with, and he could almost see her tiny little fingers pumping in and out of her pussy while he watched, her eyes glittering with lust while they stared into his.

Fuck, if he didn’t stop thinking about what they could do and concentrate on what he was doing he’d come before he ever even touched the parts of her he wanted to touch.

He couldn’t resist anymore, and his hand closed gently around her right breast, sqeezing slightly while letting his thumb ghost across the tip of her nipple. Her breaths were coming slightly faster now, and her back arched a bit, but she still seemed to be sleeping. If she didn’t wake up soon - well, he couldn’t decide if he wanted her to wake up right now or let him play a little more first.

His eyes kept darting down to her quim, open for him, just waiting to be touched. With his free hand, he traced around her outer lips, barely touching at first, then found her clit and made slow, steady circles around it, teasing.

He licked suddenly dry lips, and tried to get his breathing under control before he slid one finger inside her. He rubbed the inside of her until her fluids started to flow, then used it wet her clit. She was breathing heavy now, and her head moved back, her neck arching out and a tiny whimpering sound escaped her. Nearly there.

He replaced his finger with his tongue, and felt her whole body start. He grinned and used the hand on her breast to push her back into the couch.

“Don’t move.” His voice sounded ragged, and he met her eyes. “Just lean back and enjoy it.” He’d meant to ask her if this was okay, but her shocked little head nod told him that it was. He spared a breath moment to send thanks to whatever Ultimate Power allowed for that to be so, and went back to staring at her pussy.

She tasted divine on his tongue, and he used his fingers to spread her lips and let him delve as deep as his tonge would go. The hand on her breast started moving again, rolling her nipple between his fingers and pinched. She had glorious breasts, and he wished he could suck them and her pussy at the same time.

But right now her hips were pushing against his face, and the smell of her surrounded him, and with one last tweak he abandoned her tit for later torture so he could dedicate both of his hands and his mouth to making more of those delightful little noises escape from her throat.

She was bucking wildly under him, and he was disappointed that he had to move one hand to her hips to hold her steady to avoid some kind of injury. But it was worth it. He pulled her clit into his mouth and sucked hard, nipping it with his teeth, and shoved two fingers firmly inside of her, curling them up and rubbing hard, and was soaked with her juices as she came around his fingers. She made the most enticing part whimper part grunt when she came, and his own hips started pushing forward, his cock aching with the need to be touched.

He slid his fingers out of her when she relaxed, mumbling something about his prowess and how nice a way that was to wake up.

“Not finished.” He corrected her almost offhandedly, then abandoned her clit to reach inside her with his tongue and collect as much of that ambrosia as he could. He took advantage of the natural lubrication covering his fingers to slide one finger between her cheeks and push a finger into her ass while his tongue worked her quim.

The affect was immediate, the clenching of her muscles suprising him as much as the high pitched squeal ripped from her throat. The orgasm was longer, harder the first and he grunted as the first contraction hit him hard and he was coming too. His hips thrust into the air, seeking, and he had to pull back. Had to. He was spurting even while he shoved his cock inside of her heat, and everything faded around him as he pounded into her, her muscles still clenching around him like a vice.

Minutes later, he opened his eyes and realized his face had come to rest against a heaving chest. If he shifted just a bit he could, yeah. He pulled the pretty pink little into his mouth for a quick suck, then, still breathing hard, tried to find something to say.

“Sweet Jesus.” Well, not exactly poetry, was it.

“uuunng.” She answered.

Okay, so they were both pretty much spent after that.

The memory of her reaction to one finger just barely pressing into that tight ring of muscles was filed away for later exploration. When he was sufficiently recovered. Which he wished was now, but wasn’t, so he considered sliding out of her and moving away enough to keep from crushing her.

That was intention. It really was.

But it was wonderfully warm and wet in there, and sleep sounded like a good idea. He stayed, just a little while, fighting against the lethargy of sleep, until she started pushing slightly on his shoulders.

“Can’t breath.”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t very far, really. Just stand up, stumble a step or two, pull his jeans off - that’s twice now he didn’t even get undressed, he grinned to himself - and he was snuggled together with her on the couch.

He could get used to this.






She woke the second time, groggy and warm and pressed up against a soft t-shirt with the feel of naked man against her thigh. Or maybe, she thought with a tiny grin, she could say half naked man. It was totally unfair the way he was always denying her the view of his luscious body while she was all naked. There was a tiny little uncomfortable feeling niggling her consciousness about that, but she shoved it away and snuggled deeper into the warmth that was her boyfriend.

Boyfriend. She had a boyfriend. That sounded so - high school. There should be another name for what he was. Lover sounded too, well, too much like what he was and not enough like what the romantic waking up inside of her wanted.

She woke up Buffy, and the shock of it nearly had her jumping to her feet and running for her life.

Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, and she only realized how precarious her perch on the couch was when she hit the floor. One couch not made for two people. Will snorted in his sleep, then one eye opened.

“Y’okay?”

“Yeah. Rolling over, not of the good.”

“Wanna go up to bed?”

She did. She really did, and it scared her. She was forgetting, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked the sensation.

She just had sex on her mother’s couch. On the couch her mother died on. She was going to throw up.

“Shower.” She nearly shouted, scooting backward and pulling her robe around her. Will was sitting up now, his head tilted and his eyes boring into her in that way that made her feel like he could hear her thoughts. See her soul. The way she had been starting to enjoy, and now just made her have to be somewhere else. Where he wasn’t.

“You okay? Elizabeth?”

“Fine.” She took a deep breath, deciding she could fake her way through it. “Just kinda got startled out of really good sleep. Go on up to bed. I’m going to have a shower, then I’ll be right there, okay?”

He didn’t look like he was buying it.

“Something’s wrong.”

Damn. She didn’t know how to tell him what was wrong. She didn’t know, not really, just that suddenly she felt like she was far too attached to him. There was no way that he would see that as the bad thing she was certain it was.

“No. Just - I’m not used to this and it threw me. Okay? Nothing bad.” Liar. “Just - I need to get to used to someone else being around I guess.”

He nodded, slowly. Half believing her. “Sure.”

His eyes were roaming over her, and she felt herself start to flush. She was thinking about something before. It was important. She’d wanted some privacy. Hadn’t she?

“Shower?”

“That a question or an invitation?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she felt a hand - his hand, his ohsotalentedIcan’trememberwhyIwasleaving hands.

“Up to you. But I’m all sticky.” She pouted at him,and his cock twitched. Something about that was immensely satisfying, and whatever it was that was making her all weird a second ago faded into the background. She knew it would be back. He would go home, and the house would be empty, and she would remember whatever it was, but right now she was caught by the fact that he wanted her again. They must have slept a while, then, because it was completely dark and he was obviously - recuperated.

“Gonna get sticky again.”

“umm-hmmm”

But not in the living room. Not on the couch. That was important, though she couldn’t remember why. She cast a look over her shoulder while she sauntered up the stairs, not bothering to close her robe. She was surprised it was still hanging from her shoulders in the first place.

He followed her.

She liked that. Could get used to it, actually. To having some kind of power over him.

For now, she ignored the power he’d already proven he had over her.

Chapter 9
Real World


Mondays. Even when it was actually, well, Wednesday - it was her Monday and walking back into the basement had the same affect as waking from cold water thrown in her face.

The weekend, or more precisely her weekend, was over and thinking back on it felt like she’d had a really long, extremely detailed dream. Erotic dream. She’d officially had more sex over her days off than in the sum total of the rest of her life. She’d done things, and had things done to her, that she’d never experienced before. And if she had to choose a word that would wrap it all up in a nice, neat little package that would be embarrassed.

She knew, logically, that there really wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about. She was a grown woman, and she was involved in a monogamous relationship, and if she wanted to spend two days eating junk food and having sex that was her perogative.

But she still couldn’t look at him in the glare of the bad flourescent lighting and not fight the blush that would be a dead give-away to the rumor mill. He was at the next desk, trying to pound the difference between a robbery and a burglary into the head of this month’s trainee, and she noticed that it was a different trainee than the one he’d had the day it all really started. The month had changed over while she was lost in her own head, and the trainees had rotated again. This one at least seemed to get what he was saying, and when she caught Will’s eye his lips quirked in her general direction.

It made heat flood places better not thought about while at work, and she went back to staring at her display. There was nothing happening. Absolutely nothing. Rush hour wouldn’t start for another hour, and the phones were slow while the town slept. She wished something would happen, just to give her something to think about that didn’t involve her. That thought made her feel vaguely guilty, knowing that her phone actually ringing more times than not meant someone was going through something she wouldn’t wish on anyone. But she ignored it in favor of wanting the distraction.

She didn’t recognize herself anymore. She kept having these flashes, brief moments when she felt like she was waking up from a long nightmare, but they would fade and she remember that the nightmare was actually the real world and she’d supposedly gotten used to it.

Will hadn’t left her house until early afternoon yesterday, and every hour since then the overwhelming feeling of embarassment and the feeling that she’d been monumentally stupid grew more powerful. It didn’t help that he hadn’t even spoken to her today, even with the occasional glance. She told herself that she’d insisted on no one knowing, and they were at work, and that he knew she would be angry if he outted them to the whole shift. But still, there was little girl in the back of her head saying he’d forgotten the whole thing already and she should be ready for the fact that he’d gotten what he’d wanted now and wouldn’t talk to her again.

Stupid Buffy. Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Buffy was a silly little girl she’d outgrown ages ago.

She didn’t think about the reasons behind her name change, or even what she’d meant when she put away the old one. It was ingrained now. Elizabeth was an adult, a professional, alone. Buffy had been bubbly and idealistic and had a real future doing the things she wanted to do instead of the things someone had to. Buffy had died years ago, and the resurgence of those old feelings wasn’t the good thing it felt like.

Those were the things her mind said. Since Will, more and more of the time she found herself thinking of Buffy as her true self, something lost that she might have a chance of recapturing. Laughter. Love. Security.

She wanted her mommy. Wanted to ask her which part of her was telling the truth. Wanted someone who knew things to tell her what to do.

Finally - her phone rang, and there was something more important than herself to think about.





Well, it seemed like maybe he was out of the dog house.

Will grinned while he listened to the kid taking the call. Andrew was a strange little man, and he thought most probably gay, but he was catching on quick. It had been so long since Will had a trainee worth trying to train that he almost felt like shouting.

Of course, that could have something to do with the way Summers kept looking at him out of the corner of her eye, and the blushes that she couldn’t seem to hide. He pretended not to notice, and actually hoped no one else had, but it made a soft warm feeling settle in the middle of his chest.

He felt alive again.

“Giles.” He looked up into Sarge’s grinning face, nodded at the signal to meet in the office, and tried to hold onto that warm feeling.

“Trainee?”

“Have him listen to -” there was a pause while the other man looked around, “Mclay, I guess. She’s good.”

His hands were barely shaking at all while he disconnected the monitor and set the kid up to listen to Tara. She smiled over her shoulder at him, and he smiled back. She would have the kid calm and confident by the time he got back, and he distracted himself briefly by thinking again how if he were in charge of such things he’d hound her until she agreed to train. She’d been here long enough, and was really exceptional on the medical side of things.

Then he was in the office, and the door was closing behind him, and he wished more than anything he was back inside that house with it’s homey feel and a warm woman snuggled close to him. Instead, he tried to manage not to fidget while his supervisor read the file that he knew he’d have to face eventually. It was faster this time. He’d just taken the damned psyche yesterday afternoon, and hadn’t wanted to leave Elizabeth that long.

But she’d wanted him to, or she would have asked where it was he had to go, wouldn’t she?

“Well, it looks like you’ll be leaving us, Giles. I’d gotten used to having you around.” It was phrased as a statement, although it was obviously a question he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to.

“Sir?”

“You passed. Good marks on everything. You are hereby free to return to the patrol division.”

Ten years. He’d been here ten years. He’d re-initiated his application for patrol three years ago, and had been going through the evals faithfully ever since, but he’d never actually thought they’d let him back. It was about choice, he’d told himself. He didn’t really want to leave.

But his heart rate picked up, and he felt a rush of adrenaline. Free. He could leave. Be outside of the basement. Out in the world, even if it was the dark side of said world. Damn, it had been too long since his life had fresh air and windows. It would raise his pay by half, like every hour he worked was at his overtime rate.

He realized he was standing with his mouth hanging open.

“I passed the psyche?”

“You sound as surprised as I am.” It was meant as a joke, but it stung a little anyway. “There’s paperwork, of course. You’ll need to see the Patrol Captain, sign a few things, but you are once again officially a police officer.”

“You mean I can be. I mean, not yet, right?” He needed to talk to Elizabeth. He’d avoided the conversation while they were off, distracting the both of them with more pleasant things, but now it was - shit, it was possible.

If anything, the grin got larger when his seemed to sink in, and Sarge looked at him. “Well, you could officially request a permanent transfer and so on and so forth, and I’ve got it on good authority we’d want to keep you around, but officially you already belong to them, you know.”

“Well, yeah, but I thought - I mean - I’ve been here ten years.”

Sarge shrugged. “My guess is you’ll do three months or so with a training officer in the field, but that’s unofficial and just my guess. They may want one month, they may want six, but in the end the result is the same. Unless you want to turn down the opportunity?”

He had meant to say the words immediately, all those times he’d thought about this moment. But he couldn’t. Everything was happening too damned fast.

“Do I have to know today?” Ouch. That sounded really bad.

The grin faded. “I could lose this for a couple of days, if for instance you were out on sick leave, but I’d have to know as soon as you came back.” He was serious now, and Will wondered if his saying something like that meant he actually hoped to keep him in Comm.

“I wouldn’t be lying if I said I felt decidedly nauseous right now.” He’d just said that out loud, hadn’t he? He must have, because his supervisor was indulging in a full out belly laugh.

“Get the hell out of here. But you’d better be ready to receive this news officially when you come back.”

“I owe you, sir.” He meant it. He would do whatever he had to pay back this man. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what they all say. Ask ‘em for a double shift and you’re a demon sent from hell again.”

“Well, yeah. It’s a double shift.” He snarked back as he walked out the door.

Damn. Elizabeth was on the phone, her eyebrows drawn together and her bottom lip working it’s way between her teeth in the pauses. He couldn’t distract her, couldn’t walk over and ask her to take a break. It would be obvious, and people would talk, and she’d dump him if anyone so much as suspected.

So he just sucked a deep breath in between his teeth and slipped out the door, climbing the stairs and shoving open the door.

Walking into the daylight felt almost symbolic.



She noticed it when he left, but it was peripheral. Unimportant.

She was talking to a girl not much older than her. Sarah woke up late because her husband hadn’t woke her, and found him dead in the bed beside her. She was halfway through opening the airway when Sarah said that she couldn’t tilt the head back because he was stiff. And cold. And Elizabeth knew there was nothing she could do beyond talking to the other woman and waiting for someone to get there so she wouldn’t be alone with her new husband’s body.

She was falling apart, and something inside of Elizabeth that had been trying to heal broke all over again.

To feel that, to think she was safe and secure in bed with someone who wasn’t even really there anymore. In her mind, she’d woken up and found Will gone, and that was on wrong on more levels than she could count.

First of all, one did not make such connections with the caller. You connected enough to do your job and no more. Best case scenario, you managed to fake the connection, you didn’t let it touch you. And then there was the fact that this girl was married, had every right to expect her husband to wake up where he’d fallen asleep. Elizabeth was barely even seeing Spike, and that she would make that particular connection at all wasn’t good. It lead to thoughts she shouldn’t have yet, and feelings she knew she wasn’t capable of having.

Three quarters of the way through the call she felt her cell phone vibrate against her hip, and she snuck it off her belt to read the text message the second she hung up.

It was from Will, asking her to meet him at his apartment after work. With lots of question marks. She faked a bathroom break, sent him a text message that there was an extra key at the kitchen door underneath a flower pot, then tried to go back to concentrating on her job.

She should have begged off. One little message from him, and she’s inviting him back to her house. While she wasn’t even there.

That was very relationshippy. She had to put a stop to it before it turned into more than she was willing to risk. She had to.

She wanted to. She was almost sure.

Chapter 10

Old Habits



His apartment felt almost foreign to him.

Will had never had a house. They’d been saving for a down payment when he’d been with Dru, but everything had gone to hell long before they’d managed that, and he’d been left with little more than the shirt on his back by the time everything had settled.

There was no reason for his apartment to feel so small and dark, except that he’d spent an inordinate amount of time away from it lately.

And he hadn’t turned the lights on when he got home.

Elizabeth hadn’t gotten home at five hours after her their regular shift ended. That meant that whatever had kept her at work was sufficiently dire as to allow them to make people stay more than twelve hours. It logically followed that she’d be exhausted and not up to the kind of conversation they needed to have, and he’d been sick of trying to kill time alone in her kitchen. He’d already been to the store, bought some supplies that weren’t microwaveable, and cooked them dinner. He’d killed more time storing it all away in her refrigerator and cleaning up his mess, and she still wasn’t there.

So he came home. And yes, he was sulking in the dark with a bottle of jack daniels and every light in the place turned off.

He didn’t know what he was going to do.

He’d almost gotten used to his work environment. There were no windows. There was only one door, and it was a security door. The flourescent lights seemed sufficient once you got used to them, but he could walk in sulight anymore without his eyes watering for the first fifteen minutes. His skin was pale and unhealthy looking, and he was pretty sure his eyesight was degrading from the monitors and his hearing was not at all what it had been. Some of that could be age, but tonight he was blaming the job. They warned kids about headphones all the time, and he had a radio or telephone headset on at least eight hours a day and usually more.

But there were the other things, too. The things he’d preached to his trainees and not so long ago to Gunn. Doing a job that meant something, actually feeling like you were helping other people.

He didn’t know what he wanted to do.

Well, yeah, he did. He wanted to bend Elizabeth over the railing of her staircase and take her from behind.

But she was at work, and his apartment didn’t have nearly as many interesting possibilities to explore. So he closed his eyes, and let the fantasy play out behind his eyes.

He was almost to the good part when the phone rang.

He put the bottle down so he could pick up the phone and leave his other hand where it was. There was only one person who would call him on his home number. Everyone else only had the cell.

“Just thinkin’ bout you.” Leaning back, giving himself better access. Only to freeze and feel like he was about to hurl when it wasn’t Elizabeth on the other end.

“Is that so?”

“Well, actually sir, not you in particular.”

There wasn’t even a hint of amusement, but this guy wasn’t easily amused at all. Will didn’t think he’d ever seen him smile.

“I’ve been told that you were indisposed, Giles.”

“Feelin’ a might off, sir, yeah. Be fine in a coupla days, I’m sure. What can I do for you?”

“Meet me in an hour.”

Not at all what he’d expected, and not in the regs either.

“I’m on sick leave, sir.” And, so that it didn’t sound like he was a complete slacker, “I’m most probably contagious. Is there any way you can just tell me over the phone.”

“Not advisable.”

“Breakfast then.” He winced at his own voice, but there was no way he could drive anything in his current condition, and he’d only just managed to pass his psyche. He didn’t need the Captain over Vice Division to think he was in the habit of taking sick leave because he was drunk. And he was definitely drunk. And the man on the other side of the phone probably suspected as much. “I’m medicated right now. Couldn’t really drive.” Yeah, meds made lots of people sound drunk.

There was a long pause.

“No bullshit, Giles. Just how drunk are you right now? Because we both know you weren’t really sick when you left this morning, even if that’s what all the paperwork will say.”

Fuck. Bloody buggering fuck. And, also, balls. Shit damn hell et cetera and so forth.

“Marginally. Wasn’t even really properly started. But not drive-able.”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Start a pot of coffee. We need to talk before you talk to anyone else.”

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. He didn’t want to hear anything this man had to say. It would only make the decision harder, and he’d all but decided he was staying in communications. But that’s not what he said.

“I’ll see you then.” He stared at the phone for what seemed a very long time after the other man had disconnected.

Okay, then. He’d decided, hadn’t he? Even if he hadn’t been ready to admit it to himself. He’d obviously been fighting against admitting there wasn’t really a decision to make. You didn’t turn down a chance to get out of the basement. It didn’t come around twice, ever, and no matter how used to it he’d become to it, working there had originally been no more than the only way to keep from losing his job along with everything else he’d lost.

He had just enough time to take a quick shower and make a quick sweep of the apartment, putting away the evidence of his private little pity party. The coffee was nearly finished when the expected knock came at the door, and he was defiantly casual while waving the other man like he was an old friend come to visit.

“Have a seat, Captain.”

The other nodded, closing the door behind himself, and Will went about pouring the coffee. The silence was tense, or it could have been just that Will was tense. The large black man making himself comfortable at the small table that served as a dining area seemed perfectly at ease.

“I’ll get to the point.” But instead of talking, he tossed a file down on the table and leaned back in his chair, waiting.

The top picture was enough to force out of his lungs, and he sat down a bit harder than he probably would have if he’d had the presence of mind to think about appearances.

He thumbed through the rest of the remarkably thin file, seeing what wasn’t there more than what had actually been put together.

“This innit’ anywhere near complete.”

“It’s what we have.” There was a slight grin. “You have anything to add, Hamilton?”

The knuckles of the hand holding his coffee cup had turned white, but he was concentrating too hard on staying seated to notice. Just be still. Don’t move. Deep breaths.

“Name’s Giles.”

“Now.”

“s’my name. Use it.” He threw the file across the table, clumsily, and the contents spread themselves between it’s surface and floor. He could hear pages fluttering to the carpet. Everything seemed exceptionally bright and clear, and time mutated and elongated. “And get the hell out of m’house.”

“Calm down. They told me you passed the psyche the other day.” He didn’t move. Just took another slow sip of the coffee. Using the damn cup like it was a prop. Detached.

“Haven’t hit you yet.” He answered, and to hell with getting fired.

“Yeah. Noticed that. Good job.” He grinned, and shoved the papers back in the general direction of the file. “Giles. You’ve got thirteen years with the department. And, due to circumstances there’s really no reason to get into, no one in town’s seen or heard from you in that capacity for ten. By all rights, you shouldn’t be doin’ anything but riding with a training officer in patrol, and you can do that if you want to. But before you do, have a look at this other file I’ve got.” He had to reach into his briefcase for the second one. Wasn’t part of his little manipulation and test, was it? Had to see if the crazy bastard would assault a superior officer before he got to the good stuff.

Will opened the file, frowned, flipped a couple of pages, then closed his eyes. Holy Shit. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. He’d had everything almost figured out.

“Why?”

“Anyone looking to find out anything about you has been getting that for about a year now. Just in case you passed your psyche. Hell, I‘ve had a few people telling me to ignore the damned regs and go with this whether you passed or not this time. Luckily, you saved me from having to make that decision.”

It could have been true. Easily. The past laid out in front of him was his damned past, with a little less luck and a lot less work. He’d put everything in him into being someone other the man in the file in front of him. He beat the odds. He was a good man.

But he could’ve gone this way. Easily. Hell, they’d only had a change a couple of little things.

“Didn’t say why.”

“That should be obvious.” Yeah, but the damned smug bastard invading his home to say it out loud.

“Spell it out for me.”

“Kevin McConnel is a bit more than the petty dealer and pimp we pegged him for. We know that. You told us when you were eighteen.”

“And.” His voice was very low, and the fact that any enough air to speak at all was escaping the black hole his chest had become amazed him in a slightly detached portion of his mind that was keeping him from crossing the table and wiping that look off the Captain’s face.

There it was. It was slight, but it was there. If he was imagined the slight chagrin, then that was fine. Better than it all really meaning nothing to the man who was asking him to - he didn’t put words to what he was being asked to do.

“And if we’d believed you then, maybe we would have gotten the bastard by now.”

He nodded. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. But at least he said something.

“Well, I’m in.” He blew out a breath, and smirked. “What’s your little plan, Captain Rogers.”

Chapter 11
Three O’clock in the Mornin’



The porch light was a beacon, and Elizabeth shuffled one foot in front of the other, uncertain of her ability to make it up the four steps and to the front door. So she kept her eyes focused on that light and concentrated on staying upright long enough to reach it.

Eighteen hours. Her legs were shaky, her vision faded in and out, and her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wasn’t even sure what had happened at this point. Occasionally, something would bubble just below just below the surface of her thoughts, but she was too tired to form words, even the privacy of her own mind. It was a miracle she’d managed to drive home without having an accident.

Her mind slid away from the reason, was in fact working very hard to bury it under anything and everything else that it could find. The twelve hour rule wasn’t broken on a whim, and there was a very good reason for all of them being pushed to their limits and beyond, but the details were hopefully going to be forever shoved into a closet in her mind, the door firmly locked and - and lots of stuff piled in front of it or something. Away. Never thought of, remembered, contemplated and all those other words that meant she’d have to deal with it.

It was over. Well, for her, anyway. There were people out there for whom tonight would never be over, but those thoughts too were forbidden.

She made it. Her hand was shaking, and it took her far too long to get her key into the lock. Will would be asleep. Or gone. Most likely the second, and she was glad of it. Really. She needed to sleep, and only sleep, and having someone there to cuddle up against would also mean having someone who wanted her to talk, and the first wasn’t worth putting up with the second tonight.

Once inside, she slumped against the door and fought to keep herself from sliding down. That would lead to waking up in her front hall, stiff and sore all over, sometime long after her alarm failed to wake her. And she had to be back at work - she didn’t want to think how short a time she had before she had to be back at work. She did let her eyes close, and the burning behind her eyelids faded marginally. No lights tonight, just straight to bed.

Until the smell hit her. It was faint, but it was there. Her eyes flew open, and for a split second she thought it had all been a dream. That she could yell out that she was home and her mom would stroll out of the kitchen, smiling and asking her how her day had been. But only for a split second. The pain that followed was familiar, but surprisingly not as sharp as the last time she’d had such a moment.

She pushed off of the door and walked almost quickly into the kitchen. It was spotless, but the scent was stronger here. Her stomach clenched, insisting that no lunch or dinner was not what it was used to and would not be tolerated without serious retribution. Maybe that explained all of it, she told herself firmly. The other explanation would be - but no, there was a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. Hardly enough to count a note, but it meant the smells still lingering in her house were real.

“Had to go. Dinner in fridge. See you soon. Will.”

There was a casserole made up of chicken and rice and mushrooms. Salad that was slightly wilted. And a chocolate cheesecake from her favorite bakery. Which would have been kind of freaky if it wasn’t also the only bakery on this side of town.

She slid the casserole into the oven to warm, put some salad into a bowl and grabbed a bottle of water. She was ravenous. While the dinner warmed, she used some of her newfound second wind to slip upstairs and de-uniform. Will had left a t-shirt on the chair in her room, and she didn’t think about why it seemed the most appropriate thing to wear. She just concentrated on the fact that it was soft and loose and on how good it felt to take her bra off.

Elizabeth didn’t cook, was in fact quite the opposite of a talented chef. If it didn’t come in a box and go in the microwave, and wasn’t delivered by someone in a car with a sign on it, she didn’t eat it. She’d never tasted anything so good in her whole life. She gorged herself. She ate more than she remembered eating in a long time.

Her full stomach was acting like a sedative, her second wind was gone, and she was once again doubting her ability to make it to the bed before going to sleep by the time she’d finished cleaning up after her dinner.

The dinner Will had made her. She couldn’t find words for how she was feeling. Sort of warm and tingly, but with a sliver of trepidation that he would be angry she hadn’t gotten home in time to share it with him. He’d obviously gone to a lot of trouble, and even in the midst of the controlled insanity of tonight’s work she’d hadn’t forgotten the look on his face when he slipped from the room. And he hadn’t been one of the ones called back in to help out when things hit the fan.

She needed to make sure he was okay, and that he wasn’t upset with her for not calling and letting him know she had to work late.

He answered on the first ring.

“What happened?” He sounded anxious, worried even. Crap.

“Worked late.” She yawned, wishing she could manage to sound as alert as he obviously was. “Sorry. I should have called.” She didn’t add that the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind until she’d already been home an hour. Which made it well past midnight. “Also, sorry for calling. I didn’t think about the time.”

He was quiet so long she was already opening her mouth to apologize again when he spoke.

“I’m up. Even if I wasn’t, I’d rather you call.” She heard him suck a breath in between his teeth, then, “Can I come over?”

“Now?”

“There’s - look, I need to talk to you. Not on the phone. We hang up, you call in sick for tomorrow, and I’ll be over in twenty minutes. Okay?”

“I’m not sick.” She also wasn’t tracking this conversation. She yawned again.

It wasn’t until he didn’t answer her that she realized he’d already disconnected.

Who the hell does he think he is? She thought, staring at the phone as if her glare could travel across the line. There was a sudden, intense rush of anger that almost immediately gave way to fear.

That’s not like him.

Okay, so maybe it was like him and just not like he’d been with her so far. Probably thought he “had her” now, and all the sweet, caring and patient crap had been just part of the master plan to get into her life. And the alcohol that first night had been to get into her pants. And she’d fallen for the whole thing.

Somehow, even the cynic she’d become couldn’t believe that. Yet. The thought was there, though, and didn’t that mean something?

But he made her dinner. And bought her cheesecake.

And she’d known, hadn’t she, that something was off with him when he left work?

She dialed again. But if this sick day affected her yearly evaluation she was going to kill him. Slowly and in some way that involved great pain. And she wasn’t getting dressed, either. Or making coffee.

Okay, maybe coffee. But only because she didn’t think she could stay awake until he got here without some. And some sweat pants, because it was cool in the house. And she’d put the rest of the casserole in the oven to warm up, because he had made it after all and it was only fair that he get to have some. What was left of the salad really did look kind of wilty and pathetic, too. So she’d just add a bit more fresh lettuce and maybe slice another tomato.

But that was it. Period. He couldn’t expect more than that at three o’clock in the morning.

She was still muttering to herself between yawns when the doorbell rang.

He looked awful. Well, he was always sexy as all hells, but still - he looked worse than she‘d ever seen him. His eyes were red and puffy looking, like he’d either been crying or gone three days without sleep. His hair was stuck out from his head in curly little tufts like he’d been pulling on it. He wasn’t dressed so much as covered up in a wrinkled t-shirt, worn sweat pants, and gym socks. No shoes. He had a weekend bag hanging from his shoulder and he was frowning hard.

“You okay?” She opened the door wide, stepping back for him to enter.

He tossed the bag the living room and before she could get the door closed he was kissing her, his arms tightening almost to the point of pain around her. She was shocked that even as tired as she was, she felt herself responding to the kiss. It was a long time before he pulled away.

He rested his forehead against hers, panting and out of breath from the kiss. “I’m better now. Thanks for letting me come over.”

“Didn’t really give me a chance to say no.” It came out more amused than irritated, and she wondered where the anger from earlier had gone.

Regardless, he stepped back from her and ducked his head, apparently not noticing that she wasn’t mad. “Yeah. Sorry. I shouldn’t have - I’m sorry.” He took another deep breath, and his eyes shot up to hers. “Is that dinner?”

She smiled. “Hey, you made it! You should get to have some of it. Come on in the kitchen before I manage to screw up reheating a casserole and out myself as the worst cook in history.” She was smiling too much, her face and voice overly bright and bubbly in an unconscious attempt to make the frown lines between his eyebrows smooth out.

He tilted his head, looking at her as if he’d never seen anything like her before in his life. “You’re not mad?”

“Um - no. Irritated at the hanging up on me, and the whole ‘you will call in sick tomorrow’ order, but I figure I didn’t even call you to say I wouldn’t home at the regular time when you were waiting at my house so we’ll just call it even and go to sleep. After we eat. And find out what’s got you all weird Will tonight.” She was happy. She shouldn’t be, there were innumerable reasons not to be, and she couldn’t think of a single reason behind the feeling. But she was happy.

Still exhausted - but unreasonably glad to see his face and have him here with her. It didn’t, in this moment, really even matter what was wrong. He came to her.

She wasn’t glad he was upset. Far from it. And in a few minutes she would probably be worrying about him. She may even be angry at him. But right now, she was feeding him, and giving him coffee, and being there for him in a way that he’d already been there for her more times than she was comfortable with.

Somehow, that made it worth it. It made her feel like they were on a more even footing whether that was technically true or not. She was going to be here for him this time. And for the past forever she’d been better at helping other people than accepting help for herself.

This she could do.






He didn’t want to do this. He’d been dreading it all night. It had hovered there in the back of his mind while he planned and then shopped and then planned some more. While he was pulling The Trunk from his life before out of the back of his closet and going through things he’d thought put far behind him. He’d been thinking of her while he cried, and ranted, and punched a fist sized hole in the wall of his living room. And wouldn’t that just go over well with the landlord.

He’d decided that no matter what happened, if she wanted him to he’d call the Captain and back out. Even if it meant getting fired. Because he couldn’t lose her.

He didn’t think he could do this without her. He wasn’t sure he could do it even with her, and he was petrified he’d lose her trying.

She’d sat him at the bar in the kitchen, and was puttering around making him a plate of food and a cup of coffee. She kept fussing over him while he ate, telling lame jokes and obviously trying to lighten his mood. He’d never seen her like this before, though he’d had glimpses here and there that hinted at it.

His Beth was a caretaker. Not in the traditional sense so much. The coffee was really bad, and the casserole he’d put together what seemed like a lifetime ago was now slightly scorched. No, it was her. The way she’d gotten out of bed after a hellish day to do it, even if it wasn’t perfect. The way she kept rubbing the back of her neck and blinking hard trying to hide the fact that she was half asleep. The way she never once suggested going to bed and doing this tomorrow.

The way she had just come up behind and started massaging his shoulders.

“What’s going on?” Soft. Gentle-like. Just there, waiting for him to say what he needed to.

He stood up, then took her hand and led her into the living room. “Let’s get comfy for this, yeah?”

She smiled, and settled herself in the crook of his arm on the sofa, her head resting on his shoulder.

“You’re scaring me a little.” She whispered.

“Sorry.” He shifted, trying to get more comfortable. He felt like pacing, but didn’t want to move that far away from her. “Got some stuff to say. No choice. Don’t much look forward to it.”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me a lot.” She moved away from him, her shoulders stiffening. “If you’ve decided this isn’t a good idea - “

“NO!” He yelled. Didn’t mean to. His heart was beating a mile a minute in his chest at the very thought. “No. Not like that.”

She blew out a breath, and the relief on her face told him more about her feelings about him than anything she’d said. It was nice, to have some sort of confirmation that he wasn’t the only one forming an attachment. He loved her. He knew it. He’d hinted at it to her. The look on her face when he said he wasn’t leaving her was the closest he’d ever gotten to a declaration of her feelings, though.

“So, whatever it is we can handle it.” She said in a matter of fact tone.

“Yeah, well, you’ve not heard it yet. Might be you wants to put an end to things.” He didn’t like the way his voice shook. She just raised her eyebrows at him and waited.

“That bad?”

“Don’t know.” He tried to find the right way to start this. The fact was, this conversation would have been a lot easier if he hadn’t put off the other one. “Lot to cover. I don’t know where to start.”

“The beginning?”

He half-laughed, shaking his head. “I’m thirty three years old, pet. The beginning of this goes back just about that far.” He ran his hands through his hair, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Okay, just say it. I’m gonna have to go away for a bit. Not far. And you might see me. But you won’t be able to act like you saw me, yeah?”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Her chin had come up, like she was about a second away from deciding this was the most creative brush off of all time.

“Not actually part of Communications, you see. Long story short, got dumped there years ago after a bit of a muck up. Tried to jump through the hoops at first and get back on the road, but I was still pretty messed up. Couldn’t pass the evals. I let it drop, had what was pretty much an understanding that I’d stay there and that was that.”

“But something happened today. Yesterday.” She’d calmed down now, but she still didn’t snuggle back up next to him.

“Yeah. Couple of years ago I re-initiated my request to be transferred back. Started doing the evals again.” He had to move. He was up and pacing before it hit him he was going to stand. “Passed this time, see. I wasn’t sure I would do it. Thought I just didn’t want all that stuff hanging over my head. I intended to stay where I was, just with it on the record that I wasn’t - well, crazy.”

“Intended?” She sounded nervous now.

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes. “Except Captain over in Vice comes to my place, yeah? Shows me some stuff I can’t tell you about. Makes me an offer.”

“What kind of offer?” Her voice had gotten small. She sounded like a lost little girl, and it ate at him.

“An assignment. Not kosher. Shouldn’t be a possibility. Wants me to go under. The regs are shot to hell with this thing, Beth. I‘ve not been on the road in ten years, never made detective before that. Just patrol, a little less than two years. Shouldn‘t even be a thought of something‘ like this. ” He hadn’t said it out loud yet. The thing that made it impossible for him not to try. “But he wants me to go after the man that killed Dru.”





She just sat there. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. Just pacing, his arms waving frantically around his head and his accent so thick she wasn’t understanding a third of what he said. Most of the time, he sounded almost like he was from California, with only a couple little quirks in his tone and language that gave away his origins. The accent was stronger when he was tired. And stronger still in bed.

But this, now, was the thickest she’d ever heard it. The only word that came to mind as she watched and tried to listen was tormented.

She crossed the room and grabbed at his hands. It startled him, and he looked at her like he’d forgotten for a moment she was in the room.

“You said Dru was sick.” The rest of it was - unbelievable. But this part, this lie he must have told her before, was the thing that kept resounding in her psyche. She felt herself getting angry against her will. She didn’t want to be angry. She was supposed to be helping him the way he’d been helping her.

He blinked at her, processing what she’d said. “Yeah. She was.”

“But this guy killed her.”

His jaw clenched, but he didn’t pull away from her. He was blinking fast, his eyes filling with tears that shocked her even though she’d thought earlier he’d been crying.

“Was sick, wasn’t she? Didn’t know what she was doing. Had started talking to stars and muttering on and on ‘bout pixies. Hearing voices. Doctors were giving her medication that worked some of the time if I could get it in her. She didn’t like the way it made her feel. Always trying to sneak and skip it ‘cause she said it made the world all dim or some such thing.”

Oh. Oh. Okay. She nodded. “And the guy?”

“Didn’t know she was still hanging around the guy, you know? I’d gotten into the Academy. Had a good job, with health insurance. It was - complicated, yeah? My family, the uncle I’d come to live with when mum passed, wasn’t a good guy. I’ve got - well, there are connections. Bit of a juvenile record for maybe a quarter of the stuff I’d done. And this guy, we’d known him since we were kids. He’d really got his hooks in her. I was busy, and tryin’ to be this person that was a good man. Thought we were out of it. Got married. Changed my name, everything. Thought it was behind us. Finished.”

He looked at her, his whole body seeming to beg her to understand. “She didn’t know what she was doin’. She didn’t, Beth. She didn‘t even know her name a good part of the time!”

He’d been calling her Beth all night, and she let it pass again. Truth be known, she kind of liked it. A name that was neither Elizabeth nor Buffy. The name of the new person she was becoming with him. She focused on that, and on keeping her face from showing the surge of anger that came at his revelations. She didn’t know him. Not at all. Not even his name was true?

But what was a name, anyway? All of these things, they’d happened when she was in pigtails and playing with barbies. Juvenile was under eighteen. The last time he’d done anything that she might not approve of was at least fifteen years ago. When she was eight. It didn’t matter. She did know him. She might not know everything about him, but she knew him.

“Of course she didn’t.” She was proud of how understanding she sounded. “You don’t have to convince me, Will.” She was slid her arms around him, felt him bury his face her neck. He was shaking, and they just stood there for a minute until he pulled away again, looking at her uncertainly.

“So anyway, got to do it, don’t I?”

“No.” She said it softly. “You don’t have to. It’s perfectly understandable if you don’t want to dig all of this stuff back up again.”

His face had changed, and he was looking at her as if he couldn’t decide if she was an angel, or a cold hearted bitch.

“You don’t think I should.”

“I didn’t say that. I said you don’t have to. Honestly, no. I don’t think you should. For all those reasons that you pointed out earlier. I - I’m afraid of this, and of what could happen. But what I meant was, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to do this, don’t let some idea that it’s your responsibility make you, because it isn’t. Don’t do this unless you want to, Will. Don’t let their emotional blackmail put you into a dangerous situation because they think they can use you.” That was as much as she had a right to say, wasn’t it? They weren’t married. They were too new for her to say more, even if she was screaming inside that this was a very bad idea.

“Can we just rest now?” His voice was almost inaudible. “I can’t even think right now. Just rest, and finish this in the morning?”

Some perverse part of her wanted to point out that it was morning. Technically. But she didn’t.

“Yeah. We can do that.”

In the early afternoon, she woke him with her mouth and her hands and they made slow, unhurried love before bringing the rest of the chocolate cheesecake upstairs and eating it in bed. It was quiet and peaceful, neither of them in a hurry to delve back into the abyss that was reality. There was no discussion, no decision to not talk about it yet. Instead, they spoke of some of the things that people in new relationships do.

Her favorite color was blue, and his was black. He’d always wanted to go to college and study literature. He wrote horrible poetry and no she most certainly could not read any of it, hadn’t he just said it was horrible? The guest bedroom was decorated with paintings and drawings from before she stopped doing any such frivolous thing. Her mother had owned an art gallery, and she used to tell people that at least she knew she’d have one show in an actual gallery one day. She hadn’t touched charcoal or paints since the morning her mother died. Not because she decided not to, she’d just fallen into the habit of being too busy. She doodled on the edges of napkins and loose sheets of paper, but that was all.

But eventually, when it started to become obvious that she was hesitant with her questions because she didn’t know which ones would bring them back around to the things that surrounded Drusilla’s death, he slipped it into the conversation as if he was saying the sky was blue or something.

“Name was Hamilton. Before. William Rupert Hamilton.”

Her lips twitched. “Rupert?”

He glared. “Yeah. My father’s name. Rupert.” His expression dared her to laugh.

“You don’t talk about him. When did he die?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Can’t say as he did. Never knew him. Didn’t even know where the name came from ‘til after mum passed. Got her journals, and found out his name and that he’d never known she was pregnant. His father didn’t like her, didn’t think she was posh enough or whatever. Gave her a great big honkin’ check to leave Rupert and cut off communication. She found out later on she was pregnant with me. Gave me the name.”

“Wait a minute. So your father doesn’t know you exist?”

He shrugged. “Not as far as I know. She never spoke to him, as per the agreement. Moved with no forwarding address and all that. If he found out, it had to be from his old man. If that one even knew. She got paid off to leave an’ she did. Doubt she ever told either of them about me. They had money, she was afraid they’d want custody. Now, if her brother had known what was going on, woulda been a different story. He’d’ve gone for every penny he could get. But he was already in the states by then, and she told him my father’d died and the check was insurance money. According to her diary anyway.”

And later, sitting on his chest and trying to get to his chocolate cheesecake mustache with her tongue while he squirmed under her, she said, “I hated being a cheerleader. I wanted to be in the band, but I wanted to be popular more and I so very much didn’t want to be a band geek. So I was on the cheerleading squad instead. But at least it made me flexible.”

She laughed halfway through proving how flexible she was, when the laughs turned to moans and screams.

She’d never equated laughter with sex before.

They’d dozed for a while when she went back to an earlier topic.

“You know, I bet your father would be really proud of you.”

“Never thought about it.”

“Never?” She raised an eyebrow, and he ducked his head, actually blushing a little.

“Maybe not never. Used his last name, too. Still, guy doesn’t know I exist. Or he knows and never bothered to look. Figure he ever wants to find me he can. Not lookin’ him up, though. I mean, what would I say? Can’t just knock on the man’s door and say ’hi dad’. He’d probably think I was after his money or something. Probably has three or four little upper class brats and would be mortified his youthful slumming produced a bastard.”

“Yeah, well, my father’s a secretary shagging mother leaving child neglecting asshole. Knows where I am and hasn’t called in years. And you’re not a bastard.”

“I meant the word literally, pet.”

“Oh. Well, still -”

“Nope. No getting ‘round that one.”

“You’re a love child.”

“Lust child, more likely.” He was laughing at her, rolling his eyes and seemingly completely unbothered by the conversation. She was more bothered by her father than he was by his lack of one.

Go figure.

“Nope. Going with love. If it was lust, your grandfather wouldn’t have been worried enough to pry open the wallet.”

He was looking at her funny, and she was afraid she’d gone too far, until he said, “Wait a mo’ - did you just say shagging?”

Now she was blushing. “You’re rubbing off on me.”

“Wanna rub on me?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

She decided she did, actually, want to rub him a bit.

It was nearly six in the evening and they’d just had a shower when she caught him staring at her with serious eyes.

“You’ve decided to do it, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “I have to. I want to. It’s crazy and stupid and probably a mistake, but I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t do this.”

And that was that. She couldn’t argue with that. He had to. She didn’t want him to.

“How long?”

“I don’t know. I’m not planning on it being a long time. There’s a couple - well, I’ve got some ideas that might speed things up a bit.”

“No. Nothing risky. You do only and exactly what you have to and get out.” She blinked back tears, trying her best not to show just how much she didn’t want him to do this.

“Could be a couple of months.” He was holding her. She didn’t want to wait months for him to hold her.

“Okay. But you can come by sometimes, right?”

“Maybe. Don’t want any of those people to know about you. Ever. And it’s not like you work in a shop at the mall. Better not to risk it just in case.”

“Yeah.” She sniffled. “When are you leaving?”

“Got a meet tomorrow night to go over some stuff with the detectives on the case.”

“I think this sick I’ve got is a forty eight hour bug.”

He grinned at her. “Yeah. You’re all sniffly. Make the call, and I’ll put some dinner on.”

And then that was it. She still had a thousand questions, things about his past and his dead wife and his family and - just a thousand questions that didn’t even touch on what exactly he was about to be doing. But there was no time for the former, and he couldn’t answer the latter anyway. So she called in sick two days in a row, and tried to shove as much as she could into the time before he left.

She didn’t even notice that she’d stopped worrying about whether she should be seeing him or not.

But he did.




They’d spent the first day alternating between talking and marathon sex, but the next had as much business as pleasure. In the early hours of the morning they drove to LA and picked Elizabeth up a prepaid cell phone that they then initiated with a Los Angeles phone number. Will bought an obscene number of minutes for the thing, saying that he was going to call her every chance he got and wanted to be sure they didn’t run out of time.

Then they drove back and Elizabeth ordered Chinese while Will started carrying bags out of the trunk of his car.

“What’s that?”

“Stuff I need.” He stacked the bags on the dining room table, then wrapped his arms around her from behind and started nibbling on her neck.

She fumbled the coffee filter, nearly spilling grounds all over the counter, and he laughed at her.

“Stop that. The delivery guy will be here any minute.”

“Let him have a show.” He turned her around, and she had to dodge to keep his hands from finding the buttons of her shirt.

“No. Absolutely not. After we eat.” She was laughing now, backing away and looking for an escape route.

“Come on. Gonna be gone tomorrow. Want more Beth now.”

The laughter stopped and he looked almost pained. “We need to eat. And you’ve got bags stacked everywhere.” She said, turning her back on him as she went to finish making the coffee.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Well, it is true.”

“Yeah, but spoiled the mood.”

The doorbell rang before she could think of an answer to that.

After eating, Will grabbed one of the bags off the table and shoved it at her.

“Okay. That’s all of it.”

Elizabeth blinked at him, waiting.

“Mum’s journals, a couple of mine. A few other things that I didn’t want around the apartment just in case. Was hoping you’d keep this stuff here.”

“Sure.” She went to set it down next to the couch on the floor. “It’ll be here when you get back.”

“Yeah - see, I thought, maybe, you’d read them.”

That stopped her cold. “What?”

“Well, it’s none of it stuff you wouldn’t find out eventually anyway. Only I’ll not be here to tell it, so I figured you could maybe set a time and - oh, balls. It’s like the dating without all the fun parts. Just if you want.”

She looked at the bag, then back at him, then back at the bag again. “That’s - um - really private stuff.”

“One way to look at it. Or, you could say that this way you know all about me without me having to actually talk about it, yeah?”

“Will, I’m not sure…”

“Last one’s got you in it.” He teased.

“Well, I’ll read that one first, then.”

“They’re in order. Read ‘em that way, or you won’t get the references.” He lectured, then pulled the remaining two bags off the table. “Now, I’ve got to borrow your bathroom for a bit.”

“Okay?”

He grinned at her. “Got a reputation to uphold, don’t I?”

She raised her eyebrows and tried to peak into the bag, but he was too quick for her. The next thing she knew, he was laughing at her from behind a locked bathroom door telling her go put a movie on or something.

Instead, she wandered over to the computer and started up the web browser. It wasn’t like there was much of a chance of her finding anything. And just looking wasn’t an invasion of his privacy or anything. It didn’t take much self-convincing at all to type the name into the search box and start looking.

Well, that wasn’t very helpful at all. Apparently, the name was less unusual than she thought. She exited the program, her eyes drawn to the bag of journals on her floor. Okay, what the heck. It wasn’t like she’d actually find anything, and it would take her mind off of the fact that this was their last afternoon together. She dug until she found the oldest of the books, then started skimming. It didn’t take long. She grabbed an old sketchbook with empty pages in the back so she could jot down notes, then started reading. She got the eye color right away, and had made several other notes before she heard the bathroom door open and shoved had to hurriedly shove any evidence of her new project into the desk drawer before she was caught.

She was sitting on the couch watching Animal Planet by the time she heard him coming down the stairs.

“That was the longest solo shower in the history of -” she broke off, her mouth hanging open.

Will was - not Will. She saw the boots first. Then sinfully tight jeans that would give anyone looking far too good an idea of body parts she found herself referring to as ‘mine’. Tight black tee shirt. And - she couldn’t hold back the laugh if she tried.

“What?”

“Will - what on God’s green earth have you done to your hair?”

He looked nervous, and she was suddenly afraid she’d hurt his feelings.

“It’s not like I can have everybody who’s seen me in the past ten years stopping to say hello, now is it?” He defended.

But she didn’t really hear him. She was still looking at this new Will. Eyeliner, black fingernails, hair so blonde it was almost white slicked back and hiding all his adorable curls. There was an earring, thick silver rings, and a heavy chain around his neck that brought on thoughts of padlocks and handcuffs. She wondered if he’d think she was a pervert if she made him swap the necklace for a nice leather collar. With a little tag to dangle from it with her name on it so everyone would know who he belonged to.

She could tell him it went better with the look, and would keep other people’s hands off him. No, she would say it would give him an excuse not to partake of any offered treats from the ho-bags he was undoubtedly going to come across.

The fact that now it was his mouth hanging open while he blinked at her in silent shock clued her in to fact that she’d said that out loud.

The next thing she knew, she was hanging over his shoulder halfway to the bedroom.

It was hours after that she woke at the feel of him sliding out of the bed.

“Time to go.”

No. Too soon. Not yet.

“Okay.” She was not going to cry.

He leaned over and kissed her. Told her to stay exactly where she was because he wanted to remember her rumpled and flushed, her lips swollen and her eyes heavy with sleep.

She did it, because he asked, and because she couldn’t do the not crying part if she walked him to the door.

Chapter 13
Already There


The first week she spent reading journals and making notes on every possibly identifying feature of Will’s biological father she could find. It kept her mind of him and where he might and what he might be doing.

He called once, just a quick ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry. Gotta go.’ that was so rushed it had the opposite affect of what he’d probably intended. Where was he, that he couldn’t talk for five minutes?

By the end of the second week, she was praying for a call even if it was that short. She put aside his mother’s journals, and picked up the latest of his.




Johnson is a bloody idiot. Nosey ass. I’m offering him the weekend, and he just looks at me with his blank beady little eyes and wants to know why. Like I’d tell him. But he’s the only one who has the same days off as her that should’ve really wanted the weekend. Got a wife and kids, don’t he? You’d think he’d jump at the chance to have his time off the same as theirs. Know I would, if I had that. Moron. I’m gonna have to come up with something else if he doesn’t get finished ‘thinking ‘bout it’ and get back to me.

Far as I can tell, she doesn’t have anyone else sniffin’ around her. What the hell am I doing, anyway? Lot of trouble for nothing, more than likely. Still, can’t get her outta my head, can I? Tried that. Didn’t work. Just something there, tells me I wanna know this girl.

Pretty little thing, too.



Elizabeth blinked. Read the passage again. Blinked again. She started flipping pages, going back in time trying to find the first entry that mentioned her. That’s when she realized that he hadn’t mentioned her name at all, that it might not be her. But the date and the fact that he’d changed to her days off and then tracked her down in a park - well, only an idiot or a nutcase could make themselves believe he was talking about someone else.

Okay, so there was no way to skip backwards and find her name when she didn’t see her name anywhere. She skipped forward a few pages before something caught her eye.





I fucked the whole thing up. I know it. She’s gone, I’ve got the hangover from hell, and she was throwing Spike at me like she had some bloody idea who he was. Part of the point of her was the not knowing, wasn’t it? ‘Least I thought so until I saw her with her hair tied all loose on top of her head sitting on that park bench. She laughed, and I was even further gone on the bint. I’m acting like a soddin’ teenager, only not me. Some middle class glee club teenager. Bet she wore a little cheerleader uniform and bounced around the school like queen of the world. Too good for me. Yeah, she acted like it was fixed when she walked out, but was probly just a way to get out of here and forgot that she fell down to my level for a night.


Wasn’t gonna do that shit again, was I? Never shoulda had the first drink. Never shoulda done anything after the crap afternoon I’d had. What with Gunn being a bleeding wanker and then Liam getting’ in my face. Wish that one would just fall over dead and not be hanging about reminding me he’s the prick that helped ruin my fuckin’ life. Knew what he was doin’ when he did it. Supposed to be my bloody partner and he tells the whole world I’m liable to kill somebody.


I gotta get out. Go do something. Get away from the whole bloody mess.


She’s got these tiny little hands. And she tastes like sunshine and pure things.





Elizabeth sighed. Well, he was right about the reading in order or not getting the references thing.

But she didn’t need to understand all of it. The part that showed her Will wasn’t as confident and swaggering as he acted.

He was terrified, too.

She wanted to hold him and tell him he most certainly was good enough. How could he not see it? How could he have been so oblivious to the fact that he was pulling her out of a deep, dark whole that would’ve sucked the life completely out of her in the end?

And he wasn’t here for her tell him.

Why didn’t he call?









“Elizabeth!”

She stopped walking, taking a deep breath and turning to see Rosenburg jogging across the parking lot in her general direction.

“Hey, Willow.” She’d only just remembered her new friend’s first name. Her use of it made the other woman blink.

“Hey!” Willow was blushing, or flushed from chasing her across the lot one. “Look, I know I’ve been caught up woman and not really talking and stuff, but I was wondering if you wanted to grab a bite to eat?”

“Not tonight. Sorry. I’m beat, and I just wanna go home and have a hot bath and sleep for three days.” With her cell phone clutched firmly in her hand, waiting for a call that after three weeks she was thinking wasn’t going to come. Had Will changed his mind about her while he was off doing cop things?

“Oh.” The other woman’s face fell. “I guess. Okay. Are you mad at me? I mean, I would totally be mad at me, and it’s okay if you are, but I’m really really sorry.”

“I’m not mad. I figured you were in love with this mystery person and didn’t realize we hadn’t done anything in over a month.” Elizabeth smiled, knowing it probably came across looking sickly but completely unable to tell the other woman that it had nothing to do with being angry or upset. At Willow. Crap. “You know what, I changed my mind. Let’s go grab something to eat.”

They ended up in a corner booth in the same dingy diner where she’d had greasy cheeseburgers with Will on what she supposed was their first date. Not counting his apartment. And ignoring the fact that she had claimed they weren’t dating at the time.

“It’s weird without Spike around.” Willow said later, over apple pie and coffee.

Elizabeth jabbed the top of her mouth with a fork prong.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he was just always around. I mean, I wasn’t friends with him or anything. But it’s weird not hearing Britishisms floating around. Wonder what he did. Oh! Xander said he heard from Jonothan that Spike flunked a drug test. And he was kind of, I don’t know, bouncy? Always movin’ around. I know when he sat next to me he drove me crazy bouncing his legs and beating on the desk like it was his own personal drum kit or something.”

She forced to stop gritting her teeth.

“I liked him. And I never saw anything that made me think he’d flunk a drug test.” She couldn’t help it. She was supposed to be keeping her mouth shut about this stuff, but this was the fourth rumor she’d heard. Each one as unflattering as the last.

Willow shrugged. “Well, it’s not like it matters. Just make you wonder, you know? He had that meeting in the office, and then walked out in the middle of the day never to be seen or heard from again. And the Sergeant just keeps saying ‘that‘s not anyone‘s business’ like we didn’t work with the guy forever!”

Elizabeth looked around like she was just making sure no one else could overhear. “Look, Willow, it’s not like that.” She exaggerated her paranoia. Willow knew she didn’t take part in gossip. Okay, before - it was because she didn’t notice other people enough to put faces with half the names. But she detested gossip on principle. And therefore would fight fire with fire.

“You know something!”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t talk much at work. Sometimes people don’t realize I’m around.”

“What people?”

“Actual people in the office?” She shrugged. “Not the rumor mill. The thing is, nobody is even supposed to know, much less say anything. That’s what he asked for, I gathered. Just believe me when I say he’s not fired, he’ll be back, and it really isn’t anybody’s business?”

Willow was frowing at her. “Is he okay?”

I don’t know. Oh God, I wish I knew. Out loud, she said, “Yeah, he will be. Family stuff. It’s a personal leave of unknown duration, though. He’s not fired. And that’s all I’m saying about it. At all. Ever. Shouldn’t have said that. I was just sick of hearing all the crappy stuff he supposedly did when the poor guy’s got some - well, they gave called him and then gave him the leave right then, didn’t they? I won’t say stuff I’m not supposed to know, but when’s the last time you got immediate time off with no hassle?”

There. That should do it. Willow, at least, was looking really guilty. And she didn’t even really lie. Much.





“Beth?”

Her eyes flew open, and Elizabeth sat straight up in bed. She’d been exhausted before the dinner with Rosenburg, and so soundly asleep later that night she hadn’t realized which phone was ringing until she heard the voice on the other end.

“Will! Are you okay? You haven’t called. I’ve been worried sick!” And she shouldn’t be yelling at him, should she? Especially when it made him be all quiet. “Will?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. I’m sorry, baby. I’ve been trying. But I’ve not had a bloody minute to myself when I was sure I wasn’t being - I’ve just not had a chance. Are you okay?”

“I am now. God, Will. I’ve been a mess.”

“So you like me bit, do you?”

Infuriating man. She missed him.

“No, I think you’re evil incarnate. A bloodsucker out to drain me dry and leave my lifeless body in an alley somewhere.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I like you. Thus the worry.” She glanced at the clock. It was after two in the morning.

“You’ve got tomorrow off, yeah? I’m not keeping you from sleeping?”

“Have you been not calling because you didn’t want to wake me up?” She was not yelling. Quite.

“Well - it’s not like I had many chances. I didn’t want to -”

“Like I’ve been sleeping with you who knows where doing God only knows what - you asshole!”

“Right. Got it. No trying to be the thoughtful -”

“Thoughtful? You are unbelievable, do you know that? That is the least thoughtful thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You knew I was waiting, completely useless with worry, and you just didn’t bother to call? I can’t believe you, Will.”

It was quiet for too long. He hung up. Or something happened. Or -

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” He sounded so tired.

But he was still there, on the other side of the phone.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled.” Except she was really angry. Only she shouldn’t be really angry right now. It was wrong, wasn’t it? To be angry right now? She was supposed to be the understanding supportive girlfriend. “Oh! Did you know that you apparently either flunked a drug test or got caught having sex with Andrew in the men’s room?”

“WHAT? Bloody - Andrew? Bethy, tell me you made that one up.”

“Nope.” She was smiling.

“I am not gay!”

“That’s a comfort.” She teased.

“Who said that?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’ll blow over. But I really wanted to go postal when that one started making the rounds. Except for when Andrew, this little mousey guy, stood in the middle of the break room yelling that you most certainly did not because he would have taken you up on it but you weren’t gay.”

There was the indistinct sound of sputtering and several British curses in the background, and Beth snuggled further down under the covers.

“Well, now I’ll be completely uncomfortable around the little geek.”

She laughed. “He waxed poetic about your forearms and tight asss.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Although, I must admit, he had a point. Several. Although, I really think he underestimated the size of -”

“Will you stop?”

She giggled.

“I miss you.”

He sighed. “Soon.”

“How soon?”

“Don’t know. It’s like living in glass box. Everythin’ I do watched like a hawk with half of ‘em waiting for me to screw up and the other half afraid I’m going to take their bloody job. Can’t get away right now.”

“I just wish you were here.”

“I’m there.” He whispered. “Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in that big soft bed of yours with - are in bed?”

“Yeah.” Her breath hitched when his voice dropped into a familiar tone and cadence.

“You naked?”

“I can be.” She whispered.

It was the best phone call she’d ever had.




She spent the first part of the fifth week on the floor of her bathroom with her head hanging over the toilet. It sucked. Especially since she’d taken off two days to be with Will before he left, and couldn’t afford to do so again. She vowed to never call in sick when she wasn’t again, because it led to having to work when you were sure you would die any minute. But there was no fever, so whatever it was probably wasn’t contagious.

She got sent home on the third day when she failed to make it all the way to the bathroom before losing the contents of her stomach. As seemed in line with her run of luck, she found herself feeling better in the afternoon with nothing to do but hang around waiting to see if Will called.

Her research project had wrapped up in the second week. It hadn’t been nearly as time consuming or difficult as she’d thought it would be. Well, maybe not. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the Dr Rupert Giles she’d found working in a museum was the right one. But of course there was no way of knowing.

As she sat on the couch with her new sketchbook doing yet another pencil drawing of Will, her eyes kept straying to the desk and the pile of notes stacked on the corner.

She was drawing again. Not painting yet, because she had no supplies and - and well, she just wanted to play around with her pencils for a while and see if the desire returned to her. So far, she’d only drawn Will.

She was obsessed with that damned stack of papers, and the stamped and addressed envelope teetering on top of it.

It wouldn’t hurt anything to try to confirm it was him. She’d been battling this particular temptation for three weeks now and she would not invade Will’s privacy by -

It hit her at hurricane force, knocking the wind out of her.

Will had been gone for five weeks.

She hadn’t had a period in over eight.

She threw up all over her living room floor.

Chapter 14
Alone



Crap. Damn. Oh, God.

How could she have been so completely and utterly stupid? She kept thinking back, trying to figure out a time when they hadn’t used protection, but her brain refused to work.

No. It was stress. That’s all. She would go to the drug store and get a kit, and it would be negative, and everything could go back to the way it was before. Because she wasn’t ready for this. She might never be ready for this. Ever. She wasn’t really completely convinced it was going to work out at all. Okay, she pretended she was because Will was in a really dangerous place right now and he needed her, but this was too much. Too soon. Too fast.

This was not the way it was supposed to happen.

Will was supposed to finish his stupid job, and they were supposed to date some more. And eventually, honestly, she figured he’d get tired of her and leave.

Only now when that happened, she would be a single mother with a child and not enough income to cover daycare and - oh, God.

Right. Okay. Go to the store. Pick up test. Panic later. It was going to be negative, anyway.

Only four hours later sitting in her bathroom floor staring at the little stick - it wasn’t negative. The phone rang. The Will phone.

She didn’t answer it. She couldn’t talk to him now. Should she tell him? Maybe it would make him come home?

Maybe it would upset him and he’d do something stupid and get hurt.

No, not now. Later. When it was all over.

Oh, and wouldn’t he be just thrilled about the whole pregnant thing. He would freak out. He would probably do something stupid like ask her to marry him and then she’d have to say no because it would just be because of the baby. He would think about how he didn’t know his father and she’d seen the look on his face talking about that. A sort of wistful look, quickly hidden.

The phone rang again. But she couldn’t talk to him now without letting on that something was going on, and he couldn’t be distracted.

Oh, God. What if her not answering distracted him?

She picked up the phone half a second after it stopped ringing. She sat there the rest of the night, staring at it and willing it to ring again while she was really hoping it wouldn’t ring again. Or would.

She was so damned confused.

But one thing she did know. She wasn’t going to hide it from him. She wanted to go for a little bit without telling him, just to make sure he really wanted her by herself. But she couldn’t keep his baby from him. That was cruel, and wrong - and fuck the whole invasion of privacy thing, it had been wrong when Anne did it, too.

She went back out. This time for some antacids, and to mail a package.








Will stared at the cell phone in his hand. He’d gotten a sudden and overwhelming feeling that he needed to talk to Beth. In the middle of his meet with Liam - and wouldn’t you just know it turned out to be him slithering around in the muck these days - he’d been hit with a certainty that she needed him.

Probably all in his head.

“What’re you doing?” Liam glared.

“Nothin’.” He put the phone away. “Wrong number. Unless you’re Bethany and you’ve been giving out my number to strange men.” He wiggled his eyebrows, watching the other man’s jaw start to twitch.

“This isn’t a game, Willie.”

“You’re not gonna provoke me. I gave you what I got. It’s enough. When the hell can I go home?”

“You don’t get to say when it’s enough. I say when it’s enough, and this isn’t enough.”

Don’t hit the wanker. Just don’t hit the wanker.

“I need to get out of this, Liam. I’m telling you, something’s about the go down I’m not in for. I’m about a day away from getting told to kill somebody, you asshole! And one of the girls keeps looking at me funny, like she knows something’s up. This isn’t good. Take what you’ve got, and move on it before the whole thing gets buggered up.”

“I want to know what happens to the girls who aren’t local. Where do they go?”

“LA”

“LAPD says they’ve not seen any of them on the streets there.”

“Look, I don’t work there. I work here. He got two off the street, cleaned ’em up, and sent them to the bloody city with some guy he calls Sheik. Which is the moron’s nickname for everybody he meets of middle eastern descent, so it’s not like this one’s the only one running around calling himself that. That’s everything on the shipment of cocaine, which one would think you’d be interested in. Get him with that and the numbers running and it’s enough.”

“I want to know where the girls go.” Liam started pacing.

“Yeah. Me too. Don’t know, not one to be told. Pull me out before he bloody well makes me, ya daft git.” He’d fallen into old patterns, both speech and behavior, that he didn’t like. He needed to leave. Now. And the fool was going to try to stop him.

“One more week.”

“One.” Shit. No. Something wasn’t right the last couple of days, and he knew - he just bloody knew - he had to leave now.

“Give it one more week. See if you can get anything on those girls. Because this asshole’s shipping them overseas, Spike. I know it, you know it - just get me enough that the Feds will suspect it too. At least that much.”

Oh, balls. “Yeah. One more week. Just one. And I get anything before that, I’m taking off and hiding in a corner of the damned station ’til you get him put away. I’m serious here, Liam. This is bigger than I signed on for, and I want the hell out.”

“You’re the only one we’ve managed to get in. Just do your damned job and stop whining, Spike.” And with that the magnificent poof pranced off to his nice, safe little house, leaving Spike behind to do the real work.

Typical Liam.

Balls.





Elizabeth slammed her headset down and took at a sprint toward the bathroom. She only just made it before what felt like everything she’d ever eaten in her life was violently ejected from her stomach. How in the world did other people work like this? She heard the bathroom door swinging open and cringed.

“Summers?” The other voice wasn’t one she particularly liked hearing, and she muffled a curse as she used her foot to flush the toilet.

“Yeah. I’m coming. Sorry. Just be a minute.” She winced at the squeaky sound of her voice. Damn.

“Meet me in the office when you’re finished here, please.”

And there went any chance of just going back to work until the next spasm hit.

She pondered her situation in front of the sink, rinsing her mouth and dousing her face with cold water. She wasn’t ready to let them know what was going on. It felt wrong to tell anyone before she told Will - and she wasn’t particularly looking forward to telling him anytime soon. On the other hand, she couldn’t keep missing work and running into bathrooms with no warning or permission either.

Shit.

There were two Sergeants and a Lieutenant in the office, all somber faced and staring at her.

“Close the door behind you please.”

She did so, then clasped her hands behind her back and waited.

“You wanted to see me?” Oh, that was the most brilliant thing she’d ever said, she thought sarcastically.

“Summers, we need to talk about your recent job performance.”

She meant to be professional. She wasn’t sure how much she was going to tell them, but it had been her intention to apologize for her recent absences and the lack of attention to duty when she was able to show up. She had visions of being calm and polite and talking her way out of actually telling them anything while satisfying them that she would be back in top form immediately.

Instead, she dove to floor beside the desk and barely got the trash can into position in time.

The good news was it apparently went a long way toward convincing them that she hadn’t been laying out of work for no reason lately. The bad news was that the trash can had been overflowing, and thus - well, overflowed some more. And the Lieutenant’s shoes were just a bit closer to her than she’d thought. And that apparently pregnant looked far closer to “hung over” than she’d ever imagined.

To add to her mortification, she then got a nice little escort to the ER for blood and urine tests. She could feel the eyes in the middle of her back as the patrol officer called in to take her held the door for her. Tears were trying to force their way out of her eyes, and she composed epic monologues about evil pregnancy hormones trying to rob her of what dignity she had left in her head.

But let’s face it, Beth. No dignity left here.

Oh, shut up.

She wanted Will. Needed him. And just what made his dead wife more important than her, anyway? Running off on her when she needed him because somebody took advantage of his precious Dru years and years ago.

She hated him.

And dammit, now she was not crying. She was just - leaking a little. It wasn’t crying if you weren’t making any noise. She couldn’t help it that her eyes watered too much to keep her face from getting wet.








Seven weeks. Seven bloody weeks of this, and every nerve in his body was on fire. There were eyes and ears everywhere. He didn’t know how much of it was paranoia, and how much was truth.

Spike leaned against the wall of the alley, trying to get a bit of shelter from the rain by staying under the overhang. The wind was having none of that, though, and water ran down the back of his neck and dripped from his nose. He’d tried to smoke, but with the wind and the rain it more of hassle to keep the damn thing lit than to put of the nicotine craving.

In the movies, it was always abandoned warehouses and pawn shops. Always made him snicker a bit when he saw that. This particular alley, for instance, was outside an ice cream parlor. On Saturday afternoons, yuppie moms brought the kiddies here never knowing that the guy asking them if they wanted sprinkles had sucked their husbands off on the other side of town last night for twenty dollars. And only got five of that.

He had ten more minutes before he was supposed to be in the back room of the shop, and he glanced around himself again, wondering if he could risk a quick call to Beth. He needed to hear her voice, to imagine her smiling her sleep rumpled good morning smile at him while the sun from the window glinted off her hair. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and pulled her image up in his memory. Maybe he could risk it.

“Yo, Spike!”

No time for phone calls, then.

“Yeah.” He turned his head, looking for the source of the voice, and everything went black.

Chapter 15
Hold On I’m Comin’





Sara Albertson loved her children. She really did. But after three days straight of rain, she couldn’t remember ever wanting anything more than she wanted school to start again. And so she’d packed up her children, picked up one friend for each of them, and determined to spend the day in the park. Four hyperactive six and seven year olds who had been cooped up in separate homes for three days were taxing, and she fantasized briefly of cool winter mornings with a cup of coffee and The View playing in the background while she folded laundry or planned dinner. It was a brief fantasy, interrupted as it was by “he pushed me” and “she took two turns on the slide”. Hadn’t she thought having her children be close in age would give them a built-in playmate?

She’d been a fool. She found a seat on the park bench and had taken a fortifying sip of her coffee shop mocha when it happened.

“Mommy! There’s a dead body in the bushes!”

Good lord, she really had to make sure they were in bed before turning on NCIS.

“Are you running an investigation?” She levered herself to her feet to help with their imaginary crime scene.

When she got to the bushes in question, she dropped her mocha.





“911 what’s the address of the emergency?”

“I’m at Wilkins Memorial Park. There’s a man lying in the bushes. My children found him. I think he might be dead.”

“Are you right beside him now?”

“No. No, I don’t want to get that close. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. My children found him!”

“Ma’am, I’ve got police and an ambulance on the way. What does he look like?”

“A punk.”

“Ma’am?”

“I mean literally. Like punk rock. Or Goth? Is that the word now? Bleached hair, black clothes, long leather jacket, black nail polish, silver skull ring, the whole bit. There’s blood all over him.”

Elizabeth felt her fingers go numb. She’d stopped typing.

“Ma’am, I need you to get close enough to tell me if he’s breathing.”

“Look, this guy doesn’t look like someone I’d…”

“I can tell you how to do CPR and what to do for the bleeding.”

“CPR? There is no way I’m putting my mouth - just no. And there’s blood. I’m not touching some stranger’s blood, there’s no telling what I’d catch!”

“Listen to me you uptight bitch, I need to know if he’s breathing!”

Oh my God. She’d said that out loud. Into the phone. Yelling. Elizabeth sat back, the woman who had remained somewhat calm now yelling things on the other end of the line that didn’t make it past the haze in Elizabeth’s mind. She took her headset off, left it lying on the desk, and Tara, who had heard her gargantuan unprofessional mistake, picked it up and gently pushed on Elizabeth’s shoulder until she had access to the station.

Things had gone kind of blurry, like a veil had fallen between her and the world. Voices echoed around her, and she moved closer reading more description as Tara had apparently talked the woman on the other end back into her calm.

“It’s Officer Down.” She sounded like she was underwater, but Tara looked up at her. The sergeant, who had up until now been glaring at her and planning her punishment, jumped in surprise.

“Summers?”

“Officer Down.” They’d joked about the stupid ring. It was gaudy and ugly and part of the part. He’d said he liked it. That it made the whole thing look real instead of like a costume.

“Know the difference ‘tween a wannabe and the real thing, is all. Can’t get something like this at bloody Walmart. You like the Ramones?’ His hand was sliding up the inside of her thigh, distracting her.

“The who?”

“Ramones. You know, punk.”

“Never heard their stuff.” Oh. My. Goodness. What he could do with that ugly ring against her clit.

“Well, that’s gonna have to be fixed when I get back, innit?”

There was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her slightly, “What makes you think that?” the Sarge said, still glaring a bit. But he was listening.

“I know him. I’m right.” She was still reading what Tara was typing, heard her asking the woman again if she could tell if he was breathing. “Dammit! Tara, tell her he’s a police officer, he’s completely clean, she won’t catch anything, and he’s dressed like that for a reason. Or that it might be him and she needs to check for a wallet with ID or something. She’s just standing there!”

Her whole body was shaking now, and the Sergeant was guiding her toward the office, his hand lightly cupping her elbow. She jerked away from him, turning back toward the station. Everyone was looking at her, some still talking into their headsets, eyebrows all drawn together. She was causing yet another scene. Hadn’t she been the one all about the professional and discreet not so long ago?

“Summers.” The voice was softer now, almost even gentle. “You need to come with me and tell me what’s going on. They’ll handle it out here.”

“I can’t tell you.” Her voice was shaking. “But -”

“In the office.”

Time jumped, and she was sitting in a chair with a cold Sprite in her hand. Her face was wet again, she must be cry- no, leaking. Hormones. Oh, God. He was dead, he was gone, and he didn’t know he was a daddy. Oh God. No.

Her breathing outpaced her control, her chest was burning, and the Sprite was taken away and replaced with a paper bag.

“I need you to calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

She wasn’t supposed to know.

Screw that.

“Call Captain Rogers. Tell him that Will let him blackmail him into that damned stupid job and now he’s - he’s hurt. He’s breathing. Did she check yet that he’s breathing?” Her voice went higher with every sentence, approaching those frequencies only dogs can hear, and panic was trying to break through again. But she was breathing easier. Sort of.

“Shit.” There was the sound of someone scrambling to another desk, but Sarge was still in front of her. Had there been someone else there?

“What’s going on Summers?” There was edge to the kindness in his tone, like he was trying to talk down someone on a roof. Calm, but not really.

“Can’t say. Not supposed to know. Oh, God. The park.” She was trying to stand, but a huge weight was holding her down. Her limbs wouldn’t obey her mind, which was probably wise since there was no coherency there. Just instinct.

She really saw him for the first time in that park. Talking about Adams and getting Christmas off. Laughing.

“I love him.” She said it like the death sentence it apparently was.

She loved him, so he must be gone.







She blinked, and she in the hospital parking lot, Sarge coming around to open the door for her. They didn’t even make it to the door when she heard voices off to the left, a detective and what had to be Captain Rogers, arguing.

“I want to know who the hell put it all over the radio that he was a police officer, and I want to know now!”

“Liam, calm down.”

“No. If that worthless piece of shit blows this investigation -”

“Look, I know you‘re frustrated.”

“Fine. He’s hurt. But now, thanks to his inability to keep his mouth shut and just one time do his damn job right he can’t heal up and go back in. This was a territory thing, he wasn’t blown, and now the whole damned case is shot to hell. I want to know who fucked up, and I want to know yesterday.”

“And you’re sure it was territory.”

Sarge was pulling on her arm, trying to guide her to the door, but she glared at him and nodded toward the detectives. Started walking that way.

Liam was talking again. “Had to be.”

“You said he wanted out last week. That he thought he was about to be made.”

“I said he was whining about wanting out, yeah. But he was wrong. I would know if they’d made him.”

“If you’d had that much of an inside line, we wouldn’t have needed him in the first place. What you should be worried about, detective, is what will happen to you if you refused to pull him out when there was every reason to believe something like this was going to happen. He was the one inside. He says he needs to get out, that’s it. Now get the hell out of my face.”

Elizabeth let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and met her sergeant’s eyes. There was something there that resembled the impotent fury she felt building behind her worry, and it comforted her somewhat to see it.

“Let’s go, Summers.”

“Yeah.”

Nothing else was said until they’d made it to elevators. The door shut with them alone inside, and her companion let out a breath.

“So, you and Spike then?”

Ouch.

“It hasn’t affected the job.” His look said, tell me another one. She sighed. “Well, today it did. But hey, no one even knew so obviously we were managing it.”

“How long?”

“A few months.” It felt like both longer and not as long, though, because for nearly two of those months they’d been restricted to intermittent phone calls.

“So it’s been worry making you toss your cookies all over the place.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been sick. It happens.”

“Yeah.” The doors opened, and they made their way over to the nurses station.

“I’m his sergeant.”

“We spoke to his captain. You can get an update on his condition from him. Other than that, immediate family only. I’m sorry, sir, but privacy laws forbid us from releasing any further information.”

She couldn’t take it any more.

“I need to see him.” She’d shoved herself in front of Sarge, and he looked slightly amused behind his worry.

“Ma’am, as I just stated -”

“I’m his next of kin.”

The nurse laughed, rolled her eyes, and said, “Nice try, honey. But I’ve got the information the police supplied us with and according to that you’re at least thirty years too young and the wrong sex. His condition is listed as critical, visits are for ten minutes every four hours for immediate family only. Have a nice day.”

She smiled at her. The uberbitch actually smiled.

She walked over the waiting room, found a folding chair with a direct view of the nurse’s station, and sat down to glare.

“Summers, they aren’t going to let you back there.” But he sat next to her.

“I’m not leaving.” She crossed her arms, and glared harder at the nurse.

“Well, I have to get back to work, and I can’t leave you stranded here.”

“I’m not leaving.” She turned her glare on him. Only for a moment, the nurse deserved it more, and she aimed it back at the imbecile keeping her away from Will. He was there. Just through those doors. Hurting. She needed to see him, to touch his face, to see him breathe so she could be certain that he was still here. Not gone.

“Okay. Is there anyone I can call for you? Someone who can pick you up in a few hours?”

She blew out a breath. Blinked hard. “No, sir. I don’t have anyone I could call for something like this.” That wasn’t fair. It was no longer true. “Well, no one other than Will. And he’s already here.”

“Is that so?” He stared at her for a long moment. “How about I send Rosenberg over after shift? You two are friends, right?”

Oh. Yeah. Well, sort of. “That’s fine, sir.”

She thought she felt his hand on her back for a moment just before he walked away. But she couldn’t be sure.

She glared at the nurse, and did not cry at all. Not even a little.

She may have leaked just a wee bit, though.








Sound came first. Muffled, beeps and hisses and a deep voice that he suspected he should know, but didn’t. Not at first. And another, not familiar at all. Female. Words bled together, voices distorted, and then peace again.

The second time the sound was accompanied by pain. Everything hurt. Everything. There wasn’t a single spot on his body that wasn’t screaming at him. He opened his eyes, and discovered that there had been. Before. The light was blinding, and he blinked, tried to make a sound but there was something in his throat. It was suffocating him. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t speak, he was choking to death.

“Don’t try to talk. The tube in your throat is to help you breathe.”

The female voice. He couldn’t focus on her. He tried to focus on relaxing his muscles, and breathing suddenly became easier. He wanted that out. Wanted to talk. Needed to.

“Let’s give that just a bit longer. You’re breathing almost completely on your own, so hopefully we’ll be able to lose the tube soon.”

He lifted his hand, almost surprised that it obeyed him. He was trying to tell her something, and the older lady at his side became his favorite member of the nursing profession when she immediately understood him. Bloody brilliant, she was.

“You want to try to write something?” She leaned over him, so he could see her when she smiled at him. “That’s good. There are some people who are going to be very happy to know you’re awake Officer Giles.”

She held up a white board and helped him get somewhat of a grip on the marker. She put her other hand under his elbow, helping hold his arm up to write. He could almost kiss her.

Almost. But there was a tube down his throat, and Beth wouldn’t like it.

He’d almost managed to write his whole message before sleep dragged him under again.








“What are we doing?”

“Stopping.” Tara’s voice was soft but firm as she pulled into the diner.

“No. We’re going to the hospital.” Elizabeth glared. Tara was apparently immune to glaring. Which she should have learned by now, really. The other woman was apparently immune to glaring, rudeness, shouting and even her patented Summers Pout.

“Yes. As soon as we have something to eat.” Tara smiled at her, and she wanted to scream.

But she couldn’t, really.

Elizabeth had learned a lot in the eight days Will had remained unconscious. Tara was the big date and new love of Willow’s, and wasn’t that a shock. They’d done as good a job at keeping their relationship out of the work gossip mill as she and Will. Better, actually, since she and Will had become the talk of the communications center when she fell apart that first day. Andrew was hacker-level good at computers. Dispatchers — even the brass — kept quiet about illegal hacking into hospital computers in exchange for updates on Spike’s condition as long as Andrew understood it was the only hacking allowed. Sarge had an actual name — James — and expected people to only use it in the ICU waiting room.

That first day, she’d been surprised when Tara had arrived with Willow to pick her up. She’d been even more surprised that Harris was with them. He’d given her a sort of half smile, told her the sergeant had filled everybody in, then sat down next to her and told her that he was her relief, and which nurse was it he was supposed to glare at?

When she returned early the next morning, it was to find Andrew sitting in the chair, in dress uniform of all things, glaring at the nurses station. As funny as she would have said Andrew glaring would be before, it wasn’t funny when she saw it. And one after the other, they all showed up. Dress uniform, buttons shined, spotless and professional, sitting in that chair with their arms crossed. Glaring. They came in pairs, so that even if someone needed to go outside for a smoke, or to a vending machine or a restroom, there was always someone in her chair. They just kept coming.

On the third day, when she’d had to return to work, she learned that Sarge had a schedule. It was part of roll call. First the radio assignments, then today’s SpikeWatch. People signed up.

Every. Last. One.

Tara, however, wasn’t on SpikeWatch. She was Summers Sitting - which sounded a lot like babysitting but was actually kind of comforting. She drove her to the hospital after work, gave her occasional breaks when she needed them at work, put casseroles in her refrigerator, and yesterday she’d actually caught the other woman vacuuming her living room floor.

Tara kept her sane.

“I don’t want to eat.”

“But you have to.” Tara smiled again, damn her, and there was no saying no to that sweet look on her face. “You have to take care of yourself.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I said. Why? Is there something else I could have meant by it?” She was teasing.

She knew. Elizabeth wondered if anyone else did, then shoved that thought away.

“Don’t say a word. Please.” She whispered. “He has to know first.”

“Then don’t make me.” Tara replied, smiling again. “We stop, we eat, we go see Spike.”

“Okay.”







There were five people today. Elizabeth, Tara, Willow, Harris and Andrew. Harris was in the chair glaring when Elizabeth and Tara came in. Andrew stood beside him at parade rest, staring straight ahead like he was part of an honor guard. Willow sat next to Harris, holding a huge soda that Harris would occasionally lean over and sip from through the straw. He took his glaring seriously, and wouldn’t even uncross his arms to hold the cup if there was someone available to hold it for him.

Elizabeth thought that last part was his goofy sense of humor showing through, but just in case it wasn’t she refrained from mentioning it. She didn’t want to insult him by thinking it funny if the guy wasn’t trying to be humorous.

“Anything?”

Andrew relaxed, and turned to her. In a loud, clear voice - meant to inform the others in the waiting room what was going on, and possibly to annoy the nurses station - he said, “Ma’am. Had a brief scare earlier when someone back there coded, but it wasn’t Spike.” He glanced meaningfully at his laptop so she would know he was certain, then continued, “The nurses station was approached for an update every hour on the hour. Condition is currently ‘guarded’. Captain Rogers was here for seventeen minutes and thirty four seconds. He left without offering us a more detailed update on our personnel’s condition. Patrol Officer Gunn was here for one hour and twenty two minutes. He attempted conversation three times, but was informed by Corporal Harris that Dispatch is not speaking to Active Sworn Personnel at this time because they took Spike and then they broke him, ma’am.”

She sighed. The first report she got from Andrew had made her smile a bit, but she was used to his — well, to him — by now. And the information was nice to have, however it was presented. “Thank you, Andrew. Are you going now?”

“No ma’am. I am scheduled for another three hours tonight. Would you like for me to bring you some dinner from the cafeteria, ma’am? Or I have a Hot Pocket in my briefcase.”

“What did we say about the ma’am thing?”

“That it wasn’t necessary, ma’am. Have you eaten yet?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Andrew resumed his position, and Harris stopped glaring just long enough to look up at her and wink, take a sip of soda, then turn back around and resumed glaring position.

She loved these guys. She really did.

She was just about to relieve Harris — and she would manage to call him Xander in her mind soon, she really would — when conversation at the nurse’s station stole all of their attention.

An older, heavyset woman was holding a white board out toward the waiting room while she loudly told the nurse engaged in the ritual glaring with Harris to please page Dr Wyatt. Officer Giles had woken briefly, and had even written a bit although he didn’t appear to have finished before falling asleep.

The whiteboard, in large shaky looking printing, said ‘BET’

Her legs buckled. Harris caught her, put her in the chair. He was up again like a shot, but the quiet one — the soft spoken kind one — beat him to it.

Tara stalked over to the nurses station and was shouting. “See! He wants to see Beth!” She pointed over toward their contingent. “You can’t keep him from seeing her if he wants to.”

“Officer, I’m afraid that doesn’t change anything. When the doctor has seen him, he may change the orders, but at this time only Captain Rogers and immediate family are allowed into the ICU.”

Tara glared.

Elizabeth was amazed at how good the usually sweet girl was at glaring.

But it was enough.

Will was asleep. Not unconscious, not in a coma, but only asleep.

And he wanted her. In a moment, she would be trying to kick in the heavy locked door separating them, but for now it was enough that he wanted her.

He was awake. And he wanted her.

Chapter 16
I Wanna Hold You Hand



He wanted to know how long he had been here. He wanted to know what the hell had happened to him. He wanted to know why he couldn’t stay awake long enough to ask any questions.

He needed to know where Beth was.

He’d tried to ask, of course. Unfortunately, the nurse who had understood him the first time hadn’t been back, and the younger woman who had taken her place just smiled at him and added something he was absolutely certain was putting him to sleep to his IV. He didn’t think it could possibly be pain medication, because the pain wasn’t fading at all.

The last thing he was sure he remembered was being in her house. He wasn’t sure exactly when that was, but it felt like years ago. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking that if he could just get there, everything would stop hurting. He knew that was some drug addled fantasy, but he couldn’t imagine anything being wrong inside those particular walls.

But she wasn’t here. And the doctor had said that he’d been here for more than a week.

The good news was, they’d promised to revisit the idea of taking the damn breathing tube out in the morning. Unless that had passed already. His sense of time was completely buggered.

“Calm down.” The nurse was frowning at him, her eyes darting back and forth between his face and the monitor somewhere above his head and to the left.

He shook his head, lifting his hand again. He’d tried this the last time he woke, but she didn’t seem to get the message.

“You need to rest. You’ve been hurt.” One of her hands was stroking his arm, and her she was shushing him like he was a small child. She was trying to be kind, but she still wasn’t getting it.

He made his annoying I’m trying to talk but there’s a tube down my throat noise at her.

“The tube is to help you breathe.”

Bloody hell, he wanted the older nurse back. The pretty one just wasn’t catching on at all.

And then, just when he was about to lose his ongoing battle with sleep again, she appeared in the door as if summoned.

He tried to smile, and raised his hand again.

“You want to talk a bit, do you?” She said, smiling. She dismissed the youngster with the good intentions, and brought him the white board.

He tried to smile at her.

“Oh, you’re a charmer, I can tell.” She was supporting his arm again, which helped more than he wanted to admit.

Now for the hard part. He wanted to know if she’d been here. He wanted to know if she knew he was here at all. He wanted to know if what he remembered was still true, because the doctor had hinted that he’d lost a bit of time to head injuries. He wanted to know if they were an us.

He wrote Beth’s name with a question mark, and figured if the nurse had no clue what he was talking about it would tell him something at least.

“Well, I should have been able to guess that one.” He couldn’t turn his head completely toward her because of all of the tubes, wires and what felt like possibly a neck brace. She leaned over him. “Well, there’s been a lady named Beth in the waiting room since you got here, but she can’t come back just yet. The doctor hasn’t cleared you for visitors who aren’t immediate family. You need your rest.”

She was out there. She’d been out there for over a week? And working on top of that, probably. She needed to get some rest. She would wear herself into exhaustion. And all that would do would be convince her that she didn’t need the aggravation and heartache of him in her life, and she’d be gone like a shot. She’d be thinking alone was easier again. Bloody hell.

He underlined her name three times.

Then he wrote please, and he saw when the older woman broke.

“Just for a minute. If you promise not to tell.” She raised her eyebrows at him, and he tried to nod.





Elizabeth stood outside stood just outside the partition to the ICU cubicle where Will was listening to the nurse’s whispered admonishment that she could have no more than five minutes and that she wasn’t supposed to be back here at all.

“Now, it’s important that you try not to react to his appearance. Don’t upset him. He needs all of his energy for healing right now. I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t convinced seeing you will help him.”

“I understand.” She nodded, still staring at the curtain. She was ignoring the glares from Attila the Nurse in the corner, who was obviously not in agreement with the breaking of the rules. Mostly ignoring her. She felt like she was going to throw up, but she wasn’t sure if that was nerves or that other thing that had been making her throw up lately.

“He’s on a lot of medications, but he was awake and lucid when I left to find you.”

“Can I see him now?” She sounded slightly rude, but the other woman just nodded with a little half smile that suggested she understood the rudeness.

And then he was there. In front of her.

His face was swollen almost beyond recognition, his left eye swollen completely together. A line of stitches bisected one eyebrow, and another ran from the edge of his hairline to just behind his ear. His hair was partially shaven, a thick line of scalp half an inch on either side of the stitches. What hair was left was flattened to his head, with only a stray curl sticking out here and there, and tinged pink in places. The tube that was helping him breath obscured her view a bit, but she could still make out the livid bruising around his jaw.

Oh, God.

She moved slowly to the side of the bed, leaning over into his line of sight.

“Will? Are you awake?”

The eye that wasn’t swollen shut opened, focused on her, and he blinked a couple of times before trying to smile around the breathing tube.

He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. He was in there, awake and aware and trying to smile at her. A tear she’d not noticed dripped off the end of her nose and hit his cheek, and she started laughing.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you, William Rupert Giles.” Her voice was shaking, and she felt his hand move against the back of her arm, reaching.

She slid her fingers between his and squeezed, then rested their joined hands on the mattress. She was never letting go of that hand again.

Later, she would think about being so sure of him when before all of this she’d been anything at all but sure. She might wonder if the emotion she felt was amplified by stress and the fear of raising a child alone. She might even regret all of it when he got tired of her and walked away.

But right now, in this room, she was never more sure of anything in her life than she was of him. Of the fact that had he not made it, had he actually been just another dead body in the park, she would have never felt anything resembling true contentment again. It would have killed the part of her that he had only begun to bring back to life.

“I love you.” She said the words, watched as he blinked and grasped her hand tighter.

“I’m afraid your time is up. We don’t want to get caught.” The whisper came from behind her, but she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from him for an acknowledgment.

The heart rate on the monitor sped up, and his hand tightened almost painfully around hers.

“No.” She said it softly, but with certainty. “Not yet. He wants me to stay until he falls asleep.”

“Officer, I’m not even supposed to have let you back here.”

“I know. I appreciate it. But he’s not letting go here, and I can’t just walk out. Not now.” She ran her fingers through his curls, wondering if there wasn’t some way they could wash his hair for him. She knew it would make him more comfortable. “Did you hear me, Will? I promise. I’m not going anywhere until you fall asleep. I can be pretty stubborn when I have to be, you know.”

He smiled a bit, and his thumb started making circles on the back of her hand.

How could she pull away from him now?

She was still there thirty minutes later when the doctor came in, and she really hoped the nurse didn’t get into trouble. She explained that they were together, that they hadn’t gotten see one another since Will took the job that landed him here, and that he wasn’t letting go of her hand anytime soon.

The doctor didn’t seem the least bit interested, but maybe it would help keep the nurse from getting into trouble. And hey, it meant she got to be there when the breathing tube came out. It had to hurt like the devil, too. She had to bite her lip to keep from grunting when Will’s hand nearly crushed hers.

Somewhere in the back of her mind was the knowledge that she had to tell him she was pregnant. She was three months along as far as she could tell. It happened that first weekend at her house, and when they said that no form of protection was a hundred percent effective they meant it. But how does one broach that subject? Some very small voice in the back of her mind, that sounded suspiciously like her mother, kept saying that this is what happens when you do things all out of order. That this is news that wives are supposed to tell husbands and when you go having sex without the commitment firmly in place first you ended not knowing if you’re about to lose him over it or not.

She told it to shut up, and leaned over to place a kiss on the side of Will’s face.

“Now I can see you properly.” She grinned at him, then at the nurse who was now on his other side holding a cup of ice chips.

“Love you.” Of course, it wasn’t that clear. His voice was scratchy with lack of use, and his tongue was thick from the dry mouth, but she knew what he said.

“You going to rest now?” He was savoring the ice, his eyes closed, but he opened them again when she spoke.

“Stay?” She may be stubborn, but she knew when not to push it.

“I’ll be right outside. And they’ll let me back in at the next visiting hours.” That was really the only reason she was leaving, the fact that the doctor had told her she could come back. In front of the nurse.

“No.”

“You need to rest, Will.” The list of things that had been wrong with him was too long. It was scary. He didn’t have a spleen anymore, she remembered that much. And there were words like skull fracture and punctured lung in there, too. His left knee would never be the same again. He needed to rest and heal.

“Stay.” He was pouting at her.

“There’s no chair here. We really need to give your buddy here a break, okay? That’d be some reward for being nice to us, getting her into even more trouble.” She nodded toward the nurse, who backed her up with a nod and a raised eyebrow at the patient.

Will sighed. “Soon?”

“Yeah. I’ll be back soon.”

“Get sleep, Beth. No working today.”

She rolled her eyes at him, and said, “Yes, sir. All bright eyed Buffy when I get back.”

“Buffy?” He was smirking at her.

“Oh, no. I said it, didn’t I? Old nickname. Very old. Not to be bandied about. Beth I’m starting to actually like a bit. Use that one.”

“Like Buffy.”

“No. Sleep. Now.” Blushing furiously, she slipped back out the doors.

She was late.

There was a routine to his days now. Most of that routine involved sleeping and being poked and prodded. He was in a regular room now, but the doctor kept saying he needed to hang around here for a while so they could keep an eye on his condition.

He had a condition. It annoyed him.

The skull fracture had come with some consequences. Specifically, it was the brain injury that had accompanied the fracture, but something about calling himself brain damaged just didn't sit right. They weren't sure yet how much of his missing knowledge came from the injury and how much was what they were calling "traumatic amnesia." In other words, even the blasted doctors didn't know how much he would be getting back.

It could be worse. As far as he could tell, there wasn't much of anything important gone. Sure, he'd lost some time, but from the amount of pain he'd been in when he first woke up he didn't think he particularly wanted those memories back, anyway. The department was pissed as hell about it, though. Couldn't testify about stuff he didn't remember, could he? Liam, the bloody bastard, had even gotten loud about it in the hallway. He was shooting his mouth off about how convenient the whole memory loss thing was when Beth had come yesterday.

But his girl had been just as loud and given the wanker a piece of her mind. Almost made him laugh.

The Beth parts he wanted back. They'd had a couple of weeks together he couldn't remember, and he could tell by the way she looked at him sometimes that they must have been pretty good days.

"You don't remember making me call in sick right before you left?"

"You never call in sick."

Beth grimaced. "Well, I didn't used to. Been missing quite a bit lately," she said, looking at him as if she were waiting for something specific.

Yeah, he wanted those memories back. And the bits and pieces that seemed to be missing for everyday kinds of things. They'd had some woman come and sit with him for hours trying to come up with a rehabilitation schedule. Which is why he knew he couldn't remember how to tie a shoe, and he had trouble doing two things at once.

He hated it. And he most certainly didn't want to lay here thinking about what other things he might discover he couldn't do anymore. But nothing big so far. Nothing really important, really. He had some trouble remembering a few words. He would be talking, and know there was a way to say what he wanted, but the word wouldn't come. And now, again, he was laying here worrying over things that didn't really matter. He could have died. He should be grateful.

But she was late. And it bothered him. Beth was never late, he would come back from his torture session with the physical therapist working on his knee, and she would be waiting in his room with a cold bottled water and a smile. It had been that way the whole week he'd been here, and the doctor was supposed to come this afternoon to talk about him going home. And Beth was late.

He would be irritated, if he wasn't so afraid that something was wrong.

Ten minutes later, he was getting angry. He didn't want to. His mind kept telling him that he was being unreasonable, but the anger just kept growing.

By the time she came through the door, face flushed and breathing hard, he'd had more than enough of waiting.

"Where the hell have you been?"

She stopped in her tracks, blinking at him. "Well, good afternoon to you, too."

"You were supposed to be here an hour ago."

"Did I miss the doctor?" Her eyebrows drew together and she scrunched her nose in a way that he was most certainly not finding adorable right now.

"No. He's late, too. Serve the lot of you right if I wasn't here when you deigned to show up."

She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Yes. Absolutely. You should do that. Just ignore everything the doctor says and end up back in the ICU. It's not like anyone cares if you kill yourself."

"Well, apparently not enough to take a bit of time out of their busy little schedules and talk to me!" He was breathing heavy now, struggling to stand.

"I swear, if you take one step away from that bed, William Rupert, I'll knock you flat on your ass!" Beth yelled, crossing the room to put her hands on his shoulders.

"I'm bloody well not laying about another soddin' minute! And don't call me Rupert! Rupert's some git goes around knockin' girls up and takin' off."

"Actually, I came as soon as I heard." It was remarkable, how the soft tones cut through the yelling and brought utter and complete silence to the room. "The fact that I heard nearly thirty five years too late, however, no doubt qualifies me as a git."

Spike froze. The man's voice had come from the doorway, and Beth blocked his view, but the upper class accent and the hesitant, almost fearful tone of the voice told him all he needed to know. He turned wide eyes toward his girl and said, "Please tell me I'm not supposed to remember him showing up." His voice came out strangled. Something seemed to have lodged itself midway between his chest and his throat and started to squeeze.

Beth shook her head. "Just don't try to stand up. Lean back in the bed, and I'll take him outside and give you a minute, okay?"

He nodded, running his hands through his hair. He felt himself start to blush and shook his head. Terrific. Just his luck. Throw a tantrum worthy of a two year old, Will, that makes a wonderful first impression. "Yeah. Just a minute. I need..." He ran his hands through his hair again and closed his eyes. "Just need a bit. I look okay?" What did that matter? He didn't care. Hadn't cared in years. Never even bothered to find the man, had he?

And Beth was blinking back tears. Again. "Perfect. All alive and everything." Something else to feel guilty about, the way he kept making her cry. He was well aware that he'd scared her death, and she didn't need him being an ass on top of it.

"Okay."

"You are William Giles, yes?" The man was talking again. He wasn't hearing that yet. Or looking that way. Just for a minute.

"Dr. Giles, let's go out in the hall and give Will a minute, okay?" Beth turned, smiling toward the doorway.

"Yes. Of course." Spike caught a quick glimpse of tweed out of the corner of his eye, then the door closed behind and he could breath again.

His father was here. His actual father.

How the bloody hell had his father found him in a small town in California when there was no reason for him to even suspect he had a son at all?

Did it matter?

And Beth had gone from angry to helpful in the blink of an eye, taking care of him. Running interference to give him a bit to compose himself.

He was going to marry that girl. Eventually. Just as soon as he managed to convince her he wanted to. He intended to tie her to him and keep her forever.

Especially if she kept that person in the hall with her away from him for at least ten minutes.





Oh, crap.

Beth was smiling politely, leading the Englishman beside her toward the end of the hall where they could talk without Will hearing, and swallowing convulsively around the sudden nausea that she'd thought was finally over. And while she did all of these things, her mind was racing.

It was supposed to be the day. She'd stopped by her house to change clothes on her way to the hospital. Yes, it made her a bit late, but her uniform was getting really tight in the bust line and the belt was starting to be uncomfortable. So she'd gone home to change, and had been rehearsing the talk she was going to have with Will after they finished with the doctor. She couldn't wait another day to tell him, this was it, no more excuses.

Then Will yelled at her, and now his father had shown up. This was not good.

"What, you couldn't call first or something?" Her companion took off his glasses and pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket to clean them. He carried a handkerchief in his coat pocket. And he had Will's eyes. Or Will had his. Whatever.

"I do apologize for the abrupt nature of my arrival, Miss - ?"

"Summers. Elizabeth Summers. Will's girlfriend. He's been through a lot lately, and frankly this probably isn't the best time for never-met fathers to drop by and say 'Hi! How have you been for thirty three years? Wanna chat?'" She was glaring at him, which was really not fair. And she knew it. But she'd had plans for today, dammit!

"Yes, well." He cleared his throat, and the glasses cleaning sped up a bit. If he wasn't careful, he was going to pop the lens out of the the frame. "Perhaps this isn't the best time. However, delaying contact was the more unacceptable alternative. Certainly you can understand my hesitance to allow him to learn that I knew of his existence and location and did not come immediately."

"Okay. That's fair." And could you be more pompous, she thought. "So you just wait here for few minutes, I'm going to go in and talk to Will, and I'll let you know when you can come in. If you can come in. This is his business."

"Of course. I have no desire to force my presence on him." Dr. Giles straightened, replacing his glasses and squaring his shoulders. "Also, I must thank you for the letter you sent."

A chill ran down the back of her neck. "Letter? Not me. Nope. No letters from me."

"Certainly I wasn't Doctor Giles when Anne knew me. And yet you addressed me as such. Therefore, you either located me yourself or at the very least were involved in the process. And it was made clear in the letter than William was not aware of the communication."

Crap. Expletive. And any other profanity that would only come to her when the shock and fear wore off. "You're mistaken."

"I see. Well, had you been the person who contacted me, I would be in your debt. Regardless of what decision William makes regarding further contact.

Just how many ways was today going to screw up before the sun went down, anyway?

Will was going to kill her.

And he would be right.

Well, damn.

Chapter 18
Come Monday





It was impossible to tell how long they simply stared at one another. Spike fought back the nearly overwhelming urge to make a sarcastic statement about a man who flew across an ocean to stare at an invalid. To distract himself from that urge, he gave in to the one that kept telling him to slick his hair back and sit up straight.

"I find that I have no idea what to say," the other man admitted, compulsively removing his glasses only to immediately put them on again. "Other than stating once again that I truly had no hint of your existence until recently."

"Yeah. Know that." Spike shrugged. "Not holding it against you, if that's what you're worried about."

The elder Giles blinked, then said, "It sounded remarkably like that wasn't the case when I arrived."

Spike found the unraveling edge of the sheet intensely interesting at the moment, as it provided something to look at that wasn't his father. "Yeah, well. Not in the best of moods." He sighed, trying to find words to explain what was going on in his head. "Convenient target an' all, I guess."

They drifted back into an uncomfortable silence, Spike sneaking glances at the man sitting in what he secretly thought of as Beth's chair. It felt as if she'd been gone an excruciatingly long time. Of course, that was no more than a reaction to the awkward situation, and the thought had scarcely entered his mind when the door opened and the doctor strode in, with Beth only a step or three behind him.

It was both a relief and a frustration. The side of him that was glad of the distraction was at war with the part that wanted to know what his father thought of him. If his existence had been a pleasant surprise or merely a problem to be dealt with. Now that there were others here, he found himself craving the privacy to ask the dozens of questions that he'd shoved out of his mind for most of his life.

His father took the opportunity to step out of the room and find a cup of tea, and while the doctor talked about things like medication schedules and physical therapy appointments, Will found his mind drifting to the question of whether he'd blown his chance. Had he seemed uninterested or hostile toward the stranger that was his father? Would the older man believe himself unwelcome, grab a cab back to the airport and be out of his life before he had a chance to know him? He kept glancing toward the door, wondering if, when the doctor was gone, Rupert would actually come back.

"Will?" Beth's voice broke into his thoughts.

"Yeah. Sorry. I was just thinkin'."

"I said if it's okay with you, you can stay at my house. Since the doctor says you're not going to be able to handle things on your own yet." She looked as nervous as he felt.

"If you don't mind me being there."

"I don't mind. Of course I don't."

He wasn't all that sure of that. As a matter of fact, he was just waiting for Beth to realize that she liked being with him a lot better when he wasn't actually there to push her. He figured in a very short amount of time, she would find his constant presence intrusive and remember that she hadn't been at all sure of him until he became a guy on the other end of a phone for weeks. There was something unreal and decidedly nonthreatening about a telephone romance.

The doctor's voice droned on and on, but Will wasn't listening. He was watching Beth listen. The little wrinkle that formed between her eyebrows was just plain cute, he decided. And when she leaned slightly forward in her chair like that, her breasts stretched the material of the red blouse she was wearing today. Point of fact, she looked decidedly dolled up this evening. Her hair was loose and curling around her shoulders, and she was wearing lipstick and mascara.

He knew he should be listening to the doctor, but his mind was stuck on pretty girl and didn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. He didn't even notice when the doctor left.

"So! Tomorrow is the day, then." She beamed at him, and something twitched that had been decidedly docile since he woke up. He cleared his throat.

"Yeah. You look remarkably beautiful tonight, by the way." There, he said it. And now her smile turned sweetly mischievous.

"I think you're flirting me, sir."

"Oh, yeah."

"You're feeling better." She drew back, and her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

"Bit nervous. You dress up for me or my father, pet?" The joke fell flat, and he noticed that her hands were bunched tight in her lap.

"I had no idea he was coming." She giggled, but it was a nervous giggle. "And he's probably coming back now, and you've had like this hugely big day what with the father thing and the getting out of here tomorrow thing and all the good reports from the medical professionals. So my original plans are kind of inappropriate. Not that there was a plan, totally not planned. Completely unplanned and everything."

Okay, now he was nervous. "Look, you feel uncomfortable 'bout having me at your place and we'll figure something else."

"What? No!" She stood up and started pacing. "It's just, I wanted to talk to you about something, but now there's totally too much going on, and I don't know how to put it into actual words anyway, so I'll just shut up now."

"Hey, if you're asking me to marry you, I'll say yes." He meant it as a joke, something outlandish to make her laugh, and realized too late that she was skittish about him anyway and he'd probably just scared her to death. And yeah, there it was. She looked like a deer caught in headlights, her eyes opened as wide as they'd go with her mouth hanging open. She hadn't blinked yet. Oh, crap.

"What? No, not married." Now she was blinking. She had returned to her chair with a little more force than was necessary, though. "I mean yet. Unless I shouldn't mean yet. And then I just meant. Oh, hell. You want to get married?"

He swallowed. It wasn't a joke any more, he could tell that much. "Not 'til you want to. If ever. Wasn't asking or anything. Just, you know, I'm there when you are. No pressure. Not asking, know it's too soon. Just, I love you, okay?"

Her mouth had opened and closed three times with no sound emanating from it. When it did, he wasn't at all sure he'd heard it right.

"Well, it's too soon for kids, too, but only abstinence is one hundred percent effective and we so very much did not abstain that weekend."

The world was spinning. He would swear it. Everything had gone kind of fuzzy, and he figured Beth's lack of blinking was contagious. He kept replaying her words in his head, trying to wrap his mind around them. It was too much. It was too everything. Too soon, too much, too perfect, too expensive, too much responsibility, all sorts of things that started with "too."

"Are you going to say anything?"

Was he? She hadn't said anything about keeping it. She hadn't said if she were happy about it, or if she were angry with him. He had somewhere in the vicinity of an infinite number of questions. He didn't ask any of them.

Instead, he said, "You're marrying me. No kid of mine's coming into this world a bloody bastard."

And of course, that was the last thing that he should have said.

She was glaring at him, her back stiff, and she'd just taken an exceptionally deep breath in preparation for what he was willing to bet was going to be one hell of a screaming fit when the door opened and they were no longer alone.

"So, what did the doctor say?" Rupert asked, trying to keep the door from slamming while carrying large Styrofoam cups. "They didn't have tea, but I brought you some coffee, Elizabeth. William, I wasn't certain if you were allowed caffeine, but if you are I'll go and get you some as well."

She was smiling now, but he could see her anger in the line of her shoulders and the tensing of her jaw. "That's very thoughtful, Dr. Giles. Why don't you and Will talk some more over coffee, while I step outside for a few minutes. I need to call work and get tomorrow off to take Will home, and I need some air."

She was gone before his father was able to answer, stalking out of the room like she was on her way to find someone to kill. Oh, balls. Shit. Damn. Fuck.

"Catch her."

"I beg your pardon?"

He couldn't seem to get himself twisted around to get out of bed. "Catch her."

"I don't believe you're supposed to be doing that." A hand landed on his shoulder and his arm was up and swinging before he knew it. He managed to halt the movement, but his father was already moving away from him.

"Okay, knee not working. Reflexes apparently and unfortunately back in order. Sorry 'bout that. Din't mean to. Now, you want father of the year award, Rupert, you could do me the favor of catching my girl!"

"She's just going for a walk."

"To Tibet! I screwed up. I said it wrong. Please!" The old bastard was laughing at him!

"Ah. I see. She'll be back tomorrow when I do believe she said she was picking you up to take you home. If, in fact, she doesn't return after getting a bit of air as she indicated. Now, calm down before you rip out your stitches. Although it isn't my business, I am curious about what happened. Your release is good news, I would have thought you'd be celebrating."

"Yeah, it's not your business." Rupert was blessedly discreet about helping get Spike situated back into a semi-comfortable position in the bed. He was starting to like his father. Who would've thought? He was quiet for a minute, unable to keep from staring at the door. "So, you end up gettin' married?"

"Yes, in fact. My wife passed away some years ago, however."

Well, they had that in common then. "Yeah, mine too." He said, quietly. "Hurts like a bugger when that happens." Which was possibly the most asinine thing ever uttered, but maybe he should have remembered that fact before getting involved with someone. But Beth wasn't going to die.

"That's one way of putting it."

"Yeah. So, what did you do when you screwed up royally?"

"Begged." There was amusement there. "But surely you didn't have the time or opportunity to do anything too bad, William. Apologize for what you said, and depending upon the severity of your mistake you could possibly blame the pain medication."

"Not sorry for what I said, though." He finally looked back at the older man, wondering what in the world was making him talk about this to a virtual stranger. That, perhaps, he could blame on the pain medication. "Just the way I said it."

"Ah. And which made her angry, the content or the presentation?"

"Wish I knew," Will muttered. "Don't think she appreciated me sort of ordering her to marry me instead of, you know, actually asking. Then again, could be mad I asked at all. One or the other sent her running."

And it really wasn't funny. No matter how hard the old man was laughing while he cleaned his glasses.

Chapter 19



She wanted to go home.

In point of fact, she could think of nothing quite so tempting as sneaking off to the quiet familiarity of her house and avoiding even the thought of the completely botched conversation with Will. Unfortunately, she'd long since learned that there was no way to avoid certain unpleasant aspects of adulthood, and going back inside to resume the conversation with the father of her child was one of those things that simply couldn't be avoided any longer. Because she'd avoided sufficiently since knowing of said child's existence, that it was absolutely imperative that the two of them come to some sort of understanding. Soon.

After all, tomorrow he would be leaving the hospital and she'd promised him he could move into her house. He was moving into her house with her. Will. In her house. With her.

The last time he was in her house with her had been quite pleasant, if intense.

What was she thinking?

They didn't have a relationship. Well, okay, they had a relationship. And she loved him. At least, she thought she did. When she wasn't thinking about how she couldn't possibly know him well enough to love him yet.

It was well past dark when she forced her feet to turn back back toward the main door of the hospital. When she reached his room, it was to find Dr. Giles sipping tea, sitting beside the bed with a book in his lap. He looked up at her and smiled a bit.

"William was convinced you had run off to Tibet and he would never see you again."

"He seems to have taken it well." Her words were punctuated by a soft huffing sound that was almost a snore coming from the figure of the man in question. There was drool pooling on the pillow under his open mouth, and every so often his nose twitched. It irked her just how cute she found it, and just how much it still thrilled her to watch his rise and fall evenly. She didn't realize she'd been staring until Dr. Giles cleared his throat.

"Not quite. His current state is far more the result of his most recent dose of pain medication than an indication of tranquility."

She sighed. "Still angry, huh?"

"More terrified, I should think." He paused, and she had a feeling he was about to make her night worse. "It isn't any of my business."

"No. It's really not." She cut him off, and took the opportunity to turn her back on him and rummage in her purse for some change. "Since he's asleep, I'll just step out to the vending machine and get a soda."

"I brought you a Sprite." He pointed at the nightstand, where sure enough a can was waiting to rob her of her excuse to leave again. "I've noticed that's what you drink."

Only because caffeine is bad, she thought. Oh well. "Oh. Thank you."

"Don't be too hard on him."

"Yeah. Right. About that none of your business thing..."

"Yes, of course. Were you intending to stay this evening?"

She hadn't been. She'd intended to go home for a hot bath and a soft bed. But now that she was back inside she didn't want to go. Not if he was really afraid she wasn't coming back.

"Yeah. I'm staying. I kind of wanted to talk to him some more."

"I'll just be going then. You have the number at the hotel if you need me?"

"Yeah." It was strange, the way this man had just slipped right into the equation. He made no mention of returning to England, although surely he would have to do so soon. He said nothing about any future plans at all, just waiting quietly for Will to get to know him.

When he was gone, it struck her how very much like his father Will could be. The persistent way he'd forced himself into her life without it feeling forced at all. Oh, sure, he'd made what he wanted infinitely clear to her, but he'd also been willing to just be there with no promises. He was more outlandish, more brash and loud at times, but still, the way Dr. Giles seemed to be almost courting his son was very similar in intent to the way Will had courted her.

That observation led to her cataloging other features the men shared, some obvious and others only hinted at so far. And it was only natural, then, to move on to what that may possibly mean about her child. She had no idea how long she'd spent staring at Will wondering if her child would have curly hair and blue eyes when it infiltrated her thoughts that the eyes she'd been contemplating were open.

"Hey."

Will licked his lips, and she was reaching for his water bottle when he reached out and took her hand instead.

"I buggered that up proper, didn't I?" he asked softly.

She sighed. "Yeah. Kind of. I don't take well to orders. And less well to people calling my baby that word." Bastard. A word that made it sound like she was some sort of fallen woman, a female of loose morals, or some other vaguely Victorian phrase that meant she was immoral and her child somehow less worthy because of it's parent's lack of legal paperwork.

"Was kind of my point." He blew out a breath, and let go of her to run his hand through his hair. "Less fun for the kid, you know. And I was going to ask anyway. Later. When I thought you'd think it had been long enough. Had planned on doing it right, you know? Don't know why I just said it like that."

"See, I don't get that. There's no way you intended to ask me to marry you before you found out I was pregnant. And that isn't reason enough to marry anyone."

"Not saying it is." He looked away from her, and it felt like something had sucked all of the oxygen out of the room. "But yeah, I was already thinkin' it. Since you said you love me."

Oh. Oh, well, that was just crazy. He didn't even remember all of the time they'd spent together, and they hadn't spent that much. It was beyond insane. It was ridiculous. It was...sweet. "Oh. Okay then."

He was looking at her again, eyebrows climbing his forehead. "Okay you believe me, or okay you'll marry me?"

"You haven't ever actually asked me to marry you." she heard herself saying.

"For the love of..." Will glared at her, and a strange giddy feeling washed through her. "I'm asking."

"Asking what?"

"Are you trying to torture me?"

She smiled. "Yes. I feel it's only fair considering the circumstances that I make sure you suffer an amount of torture equal to or greater than what you put me through with the almost dying thing." Her smile faded as she continued, though, trying to say this exactly right to avoid any misunderstandings later. "But I wouldn't answer if you asked right now, anyway. Your pupils are like, totally huge, and your words are all slurred and loopy. How about this, you ask me when you're completely lucid and I'll think about it until then, okay?"

"No. Not okay." He was starting to fade again, his overly rapid blinking and the way he was rubbing his cheek against his pillow a dead giveaway. "You have to promise. Gotta marry me." He lost the battle to keep his eyes open.

"Yeah, I think I gotta do that." She whispered the words so that she wouldn't wake him. He was insufferably sweet sometimes. Dammit.

"Heard that. Hold you to it." Well, double dammit.

"That's not fair. You weren't even supposed to hear that." She was still whispering.

And this time, he seemed to really be asleep.







By the time morning came, she was stiff and sore and wondering why she'd never managed to rouse herself from her chair and go home. She'd stopped spending the night when he'd left the ICU, and she really needed to do a few things to get the house ready for her guest. Fiance. Maybe future fiance? She wasn't clear on if their last exchange constituted a commitment on either of their parts. It had all seemed very real at the time, but when she replayed the conversation in her head it bordered on the hypothetical and the sometime later.

That thought lasted until Will woke up and told the nurse he didn't want his pain meds.

"Will, the doctor said you didn't want to stop those yet. That's one of the reasons you have to have someone to stay with you, remember?" Will was currently glaring the nurse and refusing to take the little paper cup out of her hand. His arms were folded across his chest and he was pouting. For her part, the nurse was just standing there looking disapproving at him.

"And I want them. Just want them later."

"You can't go home on the IV, and we need to be sure you don't have any kind of adverse reaction to the medication change before you go home this afternoon. The longer you delay the greater the chance we'll have to watch you until tomorrow." The nurse smirked at him, sure of her victory.

"Yeah, well, my girl says she won't accept my proposal 'til I ask her all sober-like." Beth glared. He was making a scene, and enjoying every second of it. "So we'll wait 'til what's in me now is all completely worn off. Then I'll try to get the bloody question out between screams of agony, she'll say yes, and you can give me a bloody big shot and keep me as long as you need, right? 'Cause this one here thinks my judgment is all impaired."

And somehow with that little speech he'd managed to manage to make the nurse glare at her.

"Ma'am, he really needs to take the medication for at least another week. It's a lower dosage than he's been getting, but it's still significant. If he doesn't, he's going to be hurting pretty badly."

"Yeah. But if I do, gonna be hurtin' worse, yeah? She don't believe I want to marry her."

"Will, don't be an ass!" She avoided the nurse's glare to the best of her ability, and caught Will fighting to keep the smile off his face. "This isn't funny!"

"Not gonna do it."

"Well, I'm not falling for your blackmail."

"Here I am, tryin' to do what you want, and it's blackmail, now?" He turned back to the nurse. "You see what I mean? All I'm wanting is an answer. Do you think that's too much to ask?"

Beth was about three seconds from shoving the pills down his throat herself when Rupert's laugh filled the doorway.

"William, take your medicine."

"Oi! And you think I'll do what you say now, just because we had a bonding father son type moment, yeah?"

"No, I think you'll do what I say because you actually want to. There's no way you would want to look back on this and realize you proposed in a hospital gown with greasy hair, two days worth of beard, fuzzy teeth and no ring. Your grandchildren will hear about every year at your anniversary party. And it will get worse with every telling."

Will grabbed the pill cup, glaring.

"Fine. Buffy, after I brush my teeth and buy you a ring and I ask you to marry me, will you say yes then?"

The nurse was giggling, and staring at her. Rupert at least had the grace to look away, but she was almost certain it was to hide his expression more than it was to give the semblance of a private moment. She was almost certain he was biting the inside of his cheek. And she should have known Will hadn't forgotten the Buffy thing.

"Fine. Yes. Now take the damned pill."

Will winked at the nurse, and did so. The young woman left, still giggling, and Beth glared. "We are going to be the laughingstock of this entire hospital." She glared at him.

"Naaah. It'll be all 'wasn't that sweet' and 'they were so precious' by lunch, and I'll have my witness if you try to back out."