When he got home it was early morning. The sun was just barely grazing the horizon, and he was cutting it fine. Very fine, in fact.

It had been a long night. The good kind of night, with gore and violence, and that old familiar feeling of victory. An intoxicating feeling that he had barely had a chance to feel since the damn chip. Granted, he got his jollies hunting vamps and demons now, but at least he could still have that. The violence was something he’d always craved and gloried in, so now he’d take it from any source. It made him feel good. Made him feel like himself again. The old him. The wicked him.

It was on this high- with the sunrise snapping at his heels- that Spike strolled into his crypt and sensed her.

It stilled him, for a moment. Then it spurred him into action. She was downstairs, he could tell. She wasn’t pacing around or breaking things, though, which seemed just out-of-character enough to be unsettling.

Spike stalked to the uncovered trapdoor to his bedroom, and cursed her for figuring it out. Nothing was sacred, with the Slayer around. She was probably lying in wait, preparing some prize-winning quips to spoil his good mood. Maybe she was priming herself for an attack, though for the life of him he couldn’t think what he might have done to provoke it.

Carefully, Spike lifted the trapdoor that led down to his lair, and, putting a foot onto the ladder, prepared himself for the next inevitable round as the Slayer’s favorite punching bag.




She was sitting on his bed, with her back to the step ladder. Her bare back.

Spike froze on the bottom rung and stared at the strong curve of her golden flesh. She was completely nude. Completely unafraid. And she turned and looked at him over her shoulder, meeting his eye in the soft, half-light.

He didn’t know what she was playing at. Didn’t know why she was here, or why she was naked. This had to be a trick of some sort, or a test. Maybe it was some kind of mystical punishment for all of his past misdeeds.

She’d vanish, when he got close enough. Or she’d turn to moths and skitter away in all directions. Spike edged further into the room, keeping his eyes on her. Giving her a chance to get up and bolt, if that was what she was going to do.

She kept on watching him, her chin turned and tucked against her bare shoulder. Her blonde hair was tied up in a knot and he decided then and there that if she’d let him touch her, then he’d have it all loose in an instant.

He edged around the room until he was parallel to her, seeing the silhouette of her naked body against the candles that she’d lit. The sight made him wary, and he fixed her face with a stare. “What’re you playing at, Slayer?” He asked, surprised by the flatness of his own voice. Surprised that he’d even managed to get the words out, let alone succeeded in implementing that low tone of distrust.

She said nothing for a while. She stared back into his eyes, and she didn’t look her usual self. Not really. She was missing the snarkiness that normally turned her lip, and the disparaging glint that sharpened her eyes like flint or frost. Then she said, “Come here,” and her voice was soft.

“Spell?” Spike said, toeing his boots off slowly, even as he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Trick?”

“Not a trick.”

“Trap?” His eyes held a tense, suspicious edge. He looked like a cornered animal- afraid that she might turn on him in a heartbeat, even as he bent to pull off his socks. She watched him. She shook her head again, opening her mouth. Then closing it. She raised her knees to her chest and hugged them.

“Not a trap either, Spike.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Something feral. Then the cornered fox was gone and in its place was a handsome wolf. Predator, not prey.

He tugged off his t-shirt and approached her slowly, saunteringly. Making a show of his languid pace, he stopped within feet of her, and softly cocked his head. “Why, then?”

She faced him, her whole body his to look at. He didn’t look, though. Not yet. “Why, Slayer?”
She wouldn’t say ‘why not?’ That would be out of character and an immediate giveaway that something was off. She had so much to lose: her friends, the sodding soldier boy, the Watcher, her mum. She must have something to gain, or else she wouldn’t be here. She must be after something.

She lay back, looking up at him. Then she sat up again, changing tact. Her sudden show of anxiety made him forget his question for a second, and that soft second’s reprise was all that he needed. He took a step forward and caught her by the chin- gently, not as he might’ve done if he were feeling bitter toward her- and he tipped her head back, leaning down with one knee on the mattress to meet her lips in a kiss.

She kissed him back, her hot mouth soft and willing. It was unlike anything. She was unlike anything. Of course she was. Showing up nude in his crypt with no reason at all. Making him forget that she was the bloody thorn in his bloody side. Making him melt against her, until he was pushing her gently back into the sheets and kneeling above her, letting his lips take over on instinct. Letting the kiss go on, until it was quiet and surprisingly slow.

Her hand snaked up around his neck and she pulled him down, fighting hard against his reluctance to be close to her. She drew him down, his chest to hers, and then- as if by accident- his hands were on her.

And once he’d started, he found that it was impossible to stop. Every inch of her was interesting. Worth touching. His cool hands explored her body while she closed her eyes and groaned and explored his mouth. He found her dizzying, perplexing, but he couldn’t stop. She’d started it. She’d wanted him, and that was enough to make him want her too. That was what he needed, after all. That was all he’d ever needed from Dru. Just to be wanted. To be more than just a convenience, or a plaything. He hadn’t expected it from the Slayer, but would never reject it. Not if she wanted him. And she sure did a damn good job of making it look like she did.
Maybe she’d finally snapped. Spike thought that was the most likely explanation, after spell, trick and trap, of course. Maybe she’d had a near death experience, and finally realized what all Slayers come to realize in the end. That she’s meant to be in the shadows. That no one could equal her better than someone like him. And maybe she’d picked him, of all the beasts in Sunnydale.
Course, he didn’t quite believe it. Didn’t want it, either, you understand. But he kissed her deeply all the same. As if, maybe, he did.

And then his hands tangled in her thick swathe of golden hair, and he tugged out the band holding it all in place. He scooped an arm around her back, grasping her, and then hauled her upright against him, watching as that thick blonde hair fell, ransacked, over her chest and shoulders. She was stunning, up close. Her face was flushed, and she panted, with her nose practically touching his and her wide, hazel eyes flickering across his face as if she were trying to figure him out, as much as he was trying to understand her.

He stared back at her with confusion wandering through his gaze. It made his stomach ache, to see the way that she was looking at him. So much… What was that? Desire?
His hands were still in her hair, and he bent his fingers and combed them through. He tucked her hair behind her ears, then cupped both of her cheeks, running his smooth palms down to meet at her chin. He brushed the pads of his thumbs over her flushed cheeks, and then her lips. All the while, she stared at him. They studied each other in silence, and it was more erotic than anything else they’d done.

Buffy touched his chest tentatively, first with just her finger tips, then with her whole hand laid out flat. She pressed her palm to his white flesh, and watched his eyes. He ran his thumb over the break of her lips, and she drummed her fingers above his still heart.

She dropped her hand to his pants, and he held her eye. He looked like a man in this light, not a vampire at all. His head tilted again, and he brushed her hair back over her shoulder. Then he looked down at her hands, and back up at her. “You’re sure, Slayer?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“You want me?”

She nodded again, very seriously. So seriously that he could have laughed, except he didn’t dare. “I want you, Spike.”

“Well… Alright then.”

After that, it happened fast. She eased him out of his pants, then pushed him back against the bed, kissing his neck as if she didn’t mind being close to him at all. She clung to his shoulders like the world was ending around them, and he let her have the moment, let her take the lead.

“Christ, Slayer-” he moaned against her brow, and she darted up and met his lips. There was a slow burn to her closeness. It was like torture, only, he didn’t mind it.

“Spike,” she breathed against his wet mouth, “Will you-”
He flipped them, pinned her against the mattress, and then nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

She sighed, relieved. He looked down at her body then, and marveled at the vision she made. All glossy flesh and perfect limbs. She was flushed, and panting, and beautiful. “Spike, please-”

“Alright, love.” He said gently. He brushed the hair away from her eyes, and then kissed her again. Slowly. Everything about this was fast, but slow. Gentle, and tender. Just the way it shouldn’t be. She’d come here lookin’ for a quick, quiet shag, and that’s what he should’ve given her. Still, didn’t seem able to go any faster than this, now. She looked like she needed something slow, something powerful.

“Ahh,” she said, feeling him against her. With one languid, sensual push, he eased inside of her.

She arched up against him, and he pressed a fervent kiss to her neck. She didn’t freeze. Didn’t shove him off and out of her, as expected. Instead, she tipped her chin and grasped the back of his head, begging him without words to kiss her there again.

He did, and he found a tranquility in her fluttering pulse. It was evidence that her heart sped up for him. He kissed her there a third time, then tilted her head back and kissed her plump lips.

“Nuuugh.” Buffy moaned, as he pumped slowly in and out of her. Taking his time, and feeling her coil up beneath him. She was… Incredible. And yet, there was a sudden sadness in her. In the way she abruptly caught his gaze and stroked his cheek.

He watched the play of emotions with curiosity, and wondered whether this was it. Perhaps the world really was ending, and she’d come to him for solace.

He pressed his brow to hers, pushing deep into her and feeling her quiver. They were so close. They’d never been so close, and yet it seemed to make sense. Not speaking. Not barbing. Not trading hits or insults. Just silent in the early morning, with two bodies made for loving.
“Christ, Slayer, Buffy,” Spike said, clutching her shoulders, then easing the grip of his left hand and sliding it up into her hair. He adored that hair. That much made sense to him now. He adored the Slayer’s hair. “Is that why you’re here?” He asked, his lips now pressed to her ear. “Is the world ending? ‘Cause Christ, Buffy, I can’t think of any other reason. The world must be going to hell.”

And then she said the unthinkable. And she stopped his unneeded breath with her quiet, panting little voice.

“Not anymore.” She said.

His hold on her tightened as every muscle in his body tensed up. For a second, he thought he’d shove her away, but then he felt the crest of the wave hit her, sending her trembling and tumbling, clawing into his back with her fingernails, and he couldn’t help but follow her into the abyss.

He shuddered his release into her and then flopped down against her slick flesh. Her chest rose and fell in quick succession, and he breathed against her neck, sucking deep lungfuls of unneeded air into his aching lungs.

He slid over onto his back, and tensed when he felt her roll in close to him. Her hand reached again for his chest, but she hesitated, and that was when he knew that he should ask.

“Prophecy?” He said, trying to sound off-hand. Stupid idiot, he told himself. The only option left unasked. And of course it had to be the one. Prophecy. Why else would the Slayer come to him, looking like she wanted him, and him alone.

“It was-”

“Right,” he agreed. “Well, spare me the details, luv. I think I can do without them.” He got abruptly to his feet, ignoring the urge to stay beside her, and instead reaching for his discarded jeans and shoving his legs into them. “Go on then.” He said, looping his belt and pulling it tight. “Get up. You got what you came here for, didn’t you?”

Buffy sat up slowly, and he watched the anxiety cross her face. She closed her arms over her chest, and he scoffed, turning away. Of course she’d never look at him as she had and actually mean it. What a bloody fool he was for taking her at face value. Damn Slayer must’ve known that finding her naked on his bed would be enough to have him forego the questioning. Damn crafty bint.

“Come on, Slayer,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder and finding her still seated with arms tightly crossed. “What’re you waiting for? A second go?”

Her eyes sprang up to meet his, and she flinched at the coldness that she found there. He couldn’t help the stab of hatred that he felt for her then. Not because she’d used him to save the world. But because she’d figured out what made him tick- that he wanted to be wanted- and then she’d tricked him into thinking that she wanted him. Now… Now he was humiliated. The Slayer had slept with him to save the world, but what the bloody hell was his excuse? Damn bitch had made him a laughing stock. No warning, no apology.

It figured. When she wasn’t breaking his nose for information, she was seducing him for the good of humankind.

“Not a trick, huh?”

“Spike, I’m-”

“Don’t bother yourself, Slayer.” He said, not looking at her now. He didn’t know if he could.

He stalked over to his step ladder and committed himself to a clean exit. He put a hand onto the rungs and began to climb-

“Spike,” she said, freezing him in place. “I didn’t think you’d…”

Don’t look at her he told himself sharply, knowing how she’d be. Disheveled and shiny-eyed, still gloriously nude and still sitting in amongst his rumpled bed sheets. Looking at her would be suicide. It’d be best if he never looked again. Damn bitch, she’d already sent him loopy. Just one go, and he was mad.

“Buffy,” he said, his voice hot in the silence. Her name ringing out, and sounding strange. He clutched the ladder, and clenched his jaw tight. “Slayer… The next time you need something- because you will; you always do- the next time, just… Ask. Right? Because I might want to say ‘no’.” He sucked in his cheeks, but still didn’t look back to see how his words washed over her. “S’not right to knock a man about, Summers.” He snarled, low. “Does things to his head. Things you wouldn’t like to know about.”

He felt rather than heard it as her heart rate picked up. So he’d frightened her? Hadn’t managed that one in a fair few years. Good. He thought viciously. That’s how it should be.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, before he could cut her off, though the tempo of her apology made it seem like there was more to come. Like she might break out a speech and acknowledge all of the things that she had done to him over the years.

She didn’t though, and the stretching silence stung between them. Fine, Spike thought bitterly. Enough. He wouldn’t say ‘It’s alright Summers,’ because it damn well wasn’t. Screw her. She seemed to think he was a chew toy that she could take out and toss around at will. But it wasn’t that way. She was his damn enemy and it was time he started acting like it.

“Get out.” He said. Voice cold. “And stay the hell away from me.”

She came back, less than a week later. It had been five days, in fact. He’d been counting each merciful hour that went by without her making some kind of unannounced intrusion. He was savoring the silence that stood in the wake of their one, brief morning together.

Still, he knew it was her when the door banged open in the middle of the day, and he could hear her brown leather boots click-clacking over his stone floor. He kept his eyes away from the advancing Slayer and feigned disinterest as well as she feigned confidence.

“Spike.” She came to a stop in front of him, crossing her arms resolutely over her chest. He glanced up, and saw that she was wearing the age-old expression and her usual, flinty eyes. He arched a brow, and knew what was coming.

“Easier to say no to when you’re wearing pants, luv.” He sneered, stretching back and giving her a slow once-over. She flushed. Not the reaction that he would’ve expected, but he sensed that this version of the girl had a bit more give in her than she had done, before. Now that he’d shagged her, he at least had something over her. Ha, he could’ve laughed.

The Slayer tightened her crossed arms, and shifted from one foot to the other.

"Riley's sick with some Initiative thing and he's missing," she said, the words coming out all fast and jumbled. She looked anxious as she regarded him and he marveled slightly at her nerve.

“Thought I said that you-” he started, rising lithely to his feet and looking dangerous “Were to stay the hell away from me.”

The Slayer reached abruptly for her back pocket, and Spike anticipated a stake- the kind she was always waving about in front of him. He was amused, then, when she produced a wad of cash instead, and held it up between them like a peace offering. Spike wanted to scoff, but instead, raised a brow. “Riley’s sick,” she said again. “And missing. I think he's in the caves. No one knows those caves as well as you do… If you could find him, and, and get him to the hospital. I have a doctor from the Initiative. He’ll-”

Spike plucked the stack of bills from between her small fingers, counting it through callously.

“So your hulking hall monitor of a boyfriend’s sick,” he said as he counted. He shuffled the notes, then looked up, unblinking. Frosty. “And I should, what? Give a damn?”

Buffy stared at him, her eyes glossing slightly as she blinked. For Christ’s… what did she expect? That she could just click her fingers and he’d come running again? Well, he’d told her hadn’t he? Things had changed.

Spike narrowed his eyes and then he tore the bills clean in half, shoving them back against her chest.

“Screw you.” He said, his voice taut. He clenched his fist around the bills pressed to her chest, then, in a flash he let them fall. They fluttered to the ground silently, and his hand remained pressed over her heart. Buffy stared at him, her breathing hitching in such a way that he could feel it under his hand, and it made the air around them shift.

Slowly, like he didn’t even mean to do it, Spike flattened his hand so that he had one of her soft breasts under his palm. He watched her eyes fall shut as he cupped it through her shirt, and then he took a slow step closer.

Her breaths came hot and fast, and he slipped his other hand up and under her shirt, brushing a thumb over her nipple. She was flushed and stunning again, beneath his hands. Spike cursed himself for doing it, but he took another step closer still, and then slid the shirt gently up over her head, meeting no resistance.

“Christ,” he groaned, laying his hands on her bare waist and feeling her heat. Her eyes slipped open, and then she looked startled, as if she hadn’t realized what was happening. She looked at Spike like a deer in headlamps, and he knew that he had the power this time.

“Riley-" she started, and he cut her off with a hard kiss.

He pushed her back against the wall, kissing her insistently until she slackened and let him do as he pleased. He ran his hands all over her front, pulling away to look at her greedily, then swooping in to kiss her neck.

“Riley,” she said again, with her tongue free. But he ignored her and she didn’t say anymore.

He pinned her wrists above her head, smiling, with a glint in his eye. Then he trailed a hand over her belly and down beneath the waistband of her jeans. Buffy gasped, feeling his fingers creep beneath the thin cotton of her panties. Feeling his cool fingers slide over her and then inside. She moaned, her legs going weak, but his other hand kept her pinned.

He kissed her mouth, and slid his fingers up inside of her. She was slippery and warm, and it amazed him, for a moment, to find that she was so aroused by him. His brow creased, and he forgot that he was angry with her. He slowed his movements down, and let her wrists go, feeling her hands fall to his shoulders. She held him tightly, and he looked up and touched his lips to hers. She kissed him like he was everything. It frightened him. This wasn’t at all what he’d meant to do.

“Oh, Spike-” she groaned, her hot breath melting his insides. “I’ve wanted-”

Wanted. Want.

The word reverberated around his skull, and Spike yanked back abruptly. Remembering, then, the sting of feeling used. She doesn’t want you, he chastised himself roughly. You idiot, he grimaced, watching her pant and lean forward, grasping her knees. Look at her. She’s a kid. You gave her a glimpse of the world, and she came back for more. It’s a mistake, getting involved with the likes of her.

The Slayer recovered slowly, looking up at him and abruptly wiping away a sharp tear as it crawled down her left cheek. “Riley,” she said, for a third time. She looked incredible, staring at him, topless and flushed and suddenly angry as hell. Christ, but if she were anyone else.

“Get out of here,” he said. Tiredly.

She snatched her shirt up off the stone floor and fled without looking back.

It was a while after she’d left that he realized what she’d said. The hospital. The Initiative doctor. Stupid bint, Spike thought, with a stab of something strange. She’s given me the bloody answer. Stupid, stupid bint.




He heard the chip clink into the bowl, just minutes before Buffy came bursting through the doors with her meathead of a boyfriend in tow. She met his gaze, coming to an abrupt stop in the doorway, her eyes clouding over as they shifted between his face, and the hands of the doctor who was tying off the final stitch.

“Thanks for the heads up, pet,” he said, rising gracefully to his feet as she began to move again. Her expression, which had been one of stark shock, had now settled behind a mask of determination and anger.

Spike thought, for a second, of the flushed, topless girl, writhing beneath his hands just an hour ago. And then he blinked fast, chasing the images away.

“Seems the good doctor here was able to figure out the cause of my little headaches. I know you’ve been awful worried, but chin up, Summers-” he narrowed his eyes and fixed her with a dangerous smirk, “I’m all better now.”

The Slayer’s chin quivered, but she didn’t let her determined expression break. “Means I get to kill you,” she said.

He shifted, then, into his demon guise, and he watched the Slayer’s lips stiffen into a hard line.

“It means you get to try.”




In the background, Spike was vaguely aware of Harm facing off against Finn, and the doctor quietly attempting to make his escape, but for the most part he could see only the Slayer. She hadn’t changed her clothes since earlier. Hadn’t fixed her hair. Hadn’t washed off the slight smudge of a tear-track on her cheek.

She was the same girl that he’d had, half-undressed in his crypt. And yet, she wasn’t. This one was more familiar. Angry, and buzzing, and strong. Thank bleeding Christ for that. He didn’t know if he could fight the other one- the pathetic one, he made himself think. The girl he’d shagged, who flushed and told him ‘sorry’, and said his name, ‘Spike’.

This was the one that he wanted to fight. The angry enemy with venom in her eyes and a sting in her left hook. Oh yes, he reminded himself. The bloody bitch of a Slayer.

She hesitated when he leapt up onto the operating table, and it was all of the opening that he needed. He threw himself down, hitting her by the shoulders and knocking her flat onto her back so that the length of his body was pressed hard against the length of hers.

She arched up against him, trying to throw him off, but he pinned her flat. “Spike-”

He grinned into her belligerent expression. Then he swooped down fast with his fangs itching for the kill. He felt her go lax, saw her chest lowering in defeat, then felt the pain that split his head wide open like a festering sore. “ARRRRGHH-” he tore back from her, grasping his temple, hardly seeing as the light came back on in her eyes and she kicked him off of her with a solid foot to the chest.

A pounding on his door woke him so abruptly that he knew there must be an angry little Slayer behind it. After all, it had been almost six hours. Still, knocking meant that she was bound to be the other girl. The one that flushed, and confused him into doing things he didn’t mean to do. The angry bitch of a Slayer would have kicked his door clear open.

“Hold your horses,” he grumbled loudly, putting an arm over his eyes as he clambered, bare-chested, to the top level of his crypt. “Don’t you know it’s the middle of the bloody day?” He muttered, stalking over to his door.

He kept his eyes shut, scrubbing them with a balled fist as he pulled the door open. “This better be good,” he said.

“The Slayer’s been shot.”

It was the Watcher that spoke, with the Queen’s sharp vernacular tautening each vowel. Spike’s eyes opened a crack, and he peered out at the suddenly old-looking man. He studied the hard, tired features, and felt the Californian air turn cold.

“Wasn’t me, Rupert.” He said quietly.

The man seemed to deflate, his face slackening. “I know.” He said. And Spike wondered how much he did know. The chip, the stunt from earlier with the doc. “That’s not why I’m here.” The Watcher insisted. “Willow and I were with her when it happened and we caught the little beast that did it. But we don’t know what he is, or why he…” The Watcher swiped off his glasses and turned them nervously in his hands. “It’s some kind of boy.” He said, struggling to explain. “He must be about eleven, maybe less. Maybe not. At least, it looks like a boy. We don’t know if it is a boy.”

Ah Spike thought, understanding. So the man wasn’t here to stick him through with a stake: he was after help. “I s’pose none of your Scooby Gang would much enjoy interrogating a kid,” Spike said slyly.

Giles shook his head, looking haunted. “He doesn’t answer any questions, and we’re not accustomed to… using force. We don’t want to.”

“Finn?” Spike prompted, but the Watcher shook his head again.

“He doesn’t know, yet. The doctor’s transferred him to an Initiative center, to keep an eye on him. I haven’t called him and it’ll be a few days before he gets back. I…”

“Keepin’ this in-house, then?” Spike asked, voice dark. The Watcher chewed his lip with unsightly strain.

“It looks like a boy.” He said again, shaking his head. “I don’t trust the Initiative. If it is a boy, then we shouldn’t… I mean, we can’t…”

“Right, Rupes,” Spike intoned, putting up a hand. He made a fist of his fingers. “I’ve cottoned on. I’ve got no soul- so I can interrogate the boy.” No soul, but a chip, Spike added bitterly to himself. Free to frighten, but not to hurt. Unlike the Initiative, who would take any excuse. “Is that it?”

The Watcher instantly pushed the glasses back onto his face, and then reached into his pocket to haul out a stack of notes. Like Watcher, like Slayer. “There’s five hundred dollars there,” he said. “Another five hundred once all of this is behind us.”

Spike stared at the money, feeling more like scum than ever. Funny, it was always Buffy, in a roundabout way. Still, if scum was how they saw him, then scum he might as well be.

“You think I’m going to do anything more than congratulate the little tyke?” he asked, his tone sharp. Watcher had misjudged him, just like the damn Slayer. “The kid’s got you scared, Rupert. I’m impressed.”

“I know you’re angry with her,” Giles said, seeming to change the subject. Spike would have been confused, if the Watcher’s words hadn’t struck a chord. He narrowed his eyes. “I know you feel like she betrayed you, Spike. But she didn’t want it to go that way.”

Spike felt his jaw clench. The Watcher was on dangerously thin ice. “She told you?” he grit out, in disbelief.

“I told her,” the man replied, raising his brows. “Buffy doesn’t read prophecies in her spare time, Spike. I went to her, and I told her to go about it in the way that she went about it. She didn’t want to, but I told her to. I knew it was the cleanest way.”

Spike shook his head, “No,” he said. “A bitch move like that? Only Buffy Summers could’ve come up with soemthin’ so cold. You’re just tryin’ to take the heat so that I’ll help you shake up her shooter. Not happen’ Rupes.”

“The boy could’ve killed her.”

Spike set his jaw, and turned his eyes away. “She’s the Slayer,” he said. “Comes with the territory.”

He couldn’t see the Watcher, but he could imagine the hard flashing of his eyes. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t have cared if Buffy were taken out that way?” Giles asked, “One stray bullet to the gut, and no room for a fight? Just a coward with freckles and an unfair advantage?”

Spike forced the image out from behind his eyes. The Slayer, on her knees before something she can’t possibly hope to fight. A biting bullet that sinks into her flushed flesh and snuffs the light from behind her eyes. No quips, no fight. Spike shook his head hard.

“I wouldn’t care,” he refused gruffly, not meeting the Watcher’s eye.

“Yes you would,” Giles replied. His voice was ice. “You’re a slayer of Slayers, Spike. You betray your integrity by pretending that it wouldn’t smart you to see Buffy killed that way. I know enough about you to know you believe in honor and dignity in battle. Killing Slayers isn’t about killing Slayers to you. It’s about besting them. It’s about the victory.”

Spike turned slightly, looking at the man over his shoulder. He looked older than usual, like all of the fight had gone out of him. And yet, his eyes were sharp as pick-axes, chipping away at Spike’s usual façade. Oh, the Watcher had him pegged alright. But it wouldn’t do to let him know it.

“Even if all that were true,” Spike said, his words measured and careful as he held the other man’s gaze. “There are different rules when it comes to your girl. She’s done too much to me. You don’t know the half, Watcher. I don’t owe her a thing.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t have to believe it. No skin off my nose.”

“Spike-”

“Look, Rupert,” Spike said. “I’m going to be straight with you ‘cos you need to hear it. Your Slayer- she’s done me a lot of damage over the years. Last week was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I’ve had enough of it. I’ve had it with her. I’ve had it with the whole lot of you. There’s nothin’ you can say now that’s gonna make a shred of-”

“Alright.”

Spike stopped, and looked at the other man. He was lax and resigned at last, and it reminded Spike of the way the Slayer had been when he’d had her pinned, with his fangs heading for her neck. That second’s reprise, before the chip kicked in and she sent him reeling. That quiet moment, when she had gone soft as cotton beneath him, and resigned herself to it. To him.

And then, she hadn’t told on him. He’d tried to kill her, and she hadn’t said a word to her surrogate father or to her best friend. Why would she keep that a secret? There would’ve been ample opportunity: she’d been patrolling with Rupert and Red just hours ago. But she’d said nothing.

Spike blinked, and the seconds passed.

He didn’t care. He didn’t. But it did smart a little, perhaps. Stupid, damn bint. Bane of his existence. Stupid Buffy Summers. Always her. Always you, he thought angrily. He wanted to pace a hole in the floor. He wanted a month to think about this. Buffy Summers. Always you.

The Watcher didn’t meet his eye. Spike let out a low growl.

Abruptly, he swiped the money from the Watcher’s hand, and he counted it as he’d counted Buffy’s. “I don’t know if this is going to be enough, Rupes.” He said at last, keeping his voice casual and his eyes on the cash. “It’s a big ask. Not my usual business, you know.”

The Watcher took a shuddering breath, as if recollecting himself. He looked at Spike. He looked at the cash in Spike’s hand. It took a second or two, and then “Okay,” he said. “I can get more. You’ll have to give me a bit of time, but you have my word, and my word is good.”

“How much?” Spike asked, keeping his voice lazy.

“Fifteen hundred.”

“Two grand.” Spike bartered, almost feeling a grin. Getting one over on her, maybe. Helpin’ them out, but not like last time. He wouldn’t be a laughing stock again. He wouldn’t have his friends and enemies questioning his loyalties, or his reputation. “Two grand,” he said again.

“Spike-”

“Alright, alright, seventeen fifty.”

The Watcher squirmed, seeming flustered. “Buffy’s…” He let a long pause slip by, but then he cracked. Thinking of that boy, and what would happen to him if they kept him for too long, or what would happen if the Initiative got a hold of him. “Okay.” He said. “I’ll have to find the money somewhere,” he said. “Alright.”

“Good,” Spike said, holding out his hand. “Then we’re in business.”

The Watcher hesitated, then shook his hand with little, if any, anticipation. The shake was indicative of a handover of duty- of responsibility. It took the wellbeing of a small, scared-looking boy, and placed that fragile thing into the hands of an infamously vicious monster. Because it was easier. Because none of them had been able to do a thing. It was… against everything that the tired old Watcher had always stood for.
And yet, that same boy had taken a gun and aimed it at the Slayer. How could a boy do that? Well, the answer was simple. A boy couldn’t. Not a real boy. So in any case, what did the fragility of his wellbeing mean to them? The Watcher would surely give up his own in the pursuit of truth.

“Better take me to the boy, I s’pose then.” Spike said, stuffing the cash into his back pocket.

“Right, certainly.” Said the Watcher, becoming grim-faced once more. “He’s in the basement of the Summers’ house. I know, I know,” he added, seeing Spike’s face, “but it was Joyce herself who insisted. And she wouldn’t hear reason, I’m afraid.”

“Those bloody Summers women.” Spike groused, shaking his head. “Well, at least I know how to get there by daylight. I suppose I’ll see you in fifteen.”

The Watcher nodded, and was gone. Spike took his stack of notes downstairs and stowed them safely, then grabbed a t-shirt and the brown blanket which spent half of its time smoldering. “Here we go,” he groused to himself, dashing out into the heat of the day.





It was Red’s bird that answered the door when he pounded, and Spike dashed past her into the relative safety of the house. They’d drawn the curtains, he saw. That was sort of nice, so Spike decided to be straight with them, rather than playing games like he might’ve done if they had treated him as they usually did.

The quiet witch at the door patted out a flame on his shoulder, and Spike smiled at her. “Thanks, pet.” He said. Her expression was a little drawn, and Spike struggled against an unwelcome desire to ask her if she was alright. “Rupert around?” he asked instead.

She nodded. “He’s w-with Willow.” She said, with a tremble in her voice as she glanced in the direction of the basement door. “They’re down with the boy.”

“Giles asked me-”

The witch was already nodding again. “Yes, I know.” She said. She still looked worried. “W-whatever you think, S-Spike, it’s not going to be easy. He’s just a boy.”

“We’ll see.”

The bird didn’t know the first thing about him, and even she thought that he was soft.

“Spike,” said Rupert in a stoic voice, as he appeared in the basement doorway. “You’re here.”

“My word’s as good as yours,” the vampire replied dryly.

Willow emerged behind the Watcher, and she looked very shaken as she shut the door. She sniffed hard, “I can’t get any kind of reading from him,” she said, looking at her quiet girlfriend and barely even acknowledging Spike, “He’s practically tingling with magic, but I just can’t pick anything up. He must be slathered in anti-detection spells.” The redhead shivered, “It’s really powerful magic, and I don’t know how to get through it.”

“Could it be a guise?” Spike asked, and Willow looked at him, blinking. “Could it be a demon, I mean, appearing as a boy?”

“That’s what we think.” She said, shaking her head, and looking more as if this was what she hoped. “I mean, it’s the only thing that makes a bit of sense. Right? I just can’t tell for sure.”

“Can’t you use a truth spell on him?” Spike asked. Willow shook her head again.

“He won’t speak.” She said. “A truth spell can’t force a person to talk- it can only verify that what they say is true. It only works if the prisoner is willing to speak, so usually, keeping quiet means that a person is guilty.” She sighed, looking tired. “But we already know that he did it. We saw it happen! We just don’t know why.”

“It’s alright, Willow.” Said Giles, soothingly. “You deserve a break. Why don’t you and Tara go and join Joyce and Xander at the hospital? I’m sure Buffy would love to hear your voices.”

Willow smiled, looking watery. “Yes,” she said. “Maybe there’s been some progress.”

Tara put her arms over Willow’s shoulders, and Willow smiled again, letting herself be led to the door. She glanced back at Spike. “Good luck.” She half smiled. Then the two girls were gone.

Giles turned to Spike. “Right,” he said, his voice frank and cold once more. “You won’t be able to hurt him, if he really is a boy, but I think we should wait on that front. If he’s a boy then it won’t do to have him knowing you can’t hurt him. I suspect he already knows that we won’t.” Rupert pawed off his glasses. “I think you need to go down there in full demon-form and do your best to frighten him. If we can frighten answers out of him, then that is much better than having to hurt him.” Giles paled for a moment, as if struggling with the idea. “We don’t want to hurt him, if we don’t have to.”

Spike vamped out. “Right,” he said, “Frighten the boy. Don’t hurt him- yet.”

“Yes,” Rupert said morosely. “Not yet.”

He looked strained, and very old once more. Spike fought the sudden urge to ask about the Slayer. Didn’t fit his image. Seventeen hundred dollars, that’s why he was doing this. Seventeen hundred dollars, and a bit of a chortle at the Slayer’s expense. Asking after her would make him look like he gave a damn.

Giles opened the basement door, and Spike walked into the great darkness beyond. He glanced back at the Watcher with cool eyes, and the tired man shut the door again with a gentle, regretful click.

It was cold in the basement. Spike wondered whether the temperature was tactical and he embraced his forearms, even though the cold didn’t trouble him as it would a small human. He strode down the stairs with confidence, seeing better in his vamp-guise than the old human one, and seeing the huddled brown lump on the chair by the wall. His wrists were loosely roped to his knees, but it was nowhere near the rough treatment that Spike had received at the hands of the same Scoobies when he had been chipped and helpless the year before.

The lump had a heartbeat which had sky-rocketed, the second Spike had entered the pitch dark room. The lump was breathing fast, and its heart was thumping, but it didn’t smell of fear. It didn’t smell of anything at all, in fact, which Spike found suspicious. He couldn’t think of any reason for a human boy to hide his own scent, or even know how to do it, for that matter.

As Spike approached the trembling thing, he saw that it sat up slowly like a boy, straight-backed and trying to be tall, but also whimpering a bit. Its shoulders went up and down, and the tied hands trembled on the tied knees. It looked around with strange, frightened eyes, which were a dark shade of blue. It had brown hair. It had a smattering of freckles, the kind that fade away as you get older. It wore a red sweatshirt and small, blue jeans. It had a shy face. It looked frightened, defiant and young.

Spike faltered. It looked so much like a boy. No more than eleven or twelve. Maybe younger, he couldn’t tell. It had been a long time since he’d last seen a kid. Years. He couldn’t think.

He stared at the thing, the boy, and then he straightened himself and fit the role he’d been assigned. The kid had used a gun, after all. Used a gun and disguised his scent. Practically tingling with magic, Red had said.

“Why are you shaking?” Spike growled, approaching the chair with long strides.

To his horror the kid went slack, as if the fight had all gone out of him. The boy, the thing, sank back in the hard wooden seat, and dropped its head, rubbing its eyes into its shoulder to get rid of the tears.

Spike stalked over to the dangling light cord, and he yanked it, flooding the room with a sterile white light that flickered and clicked. He turned back to the boy, and found those strange eyes blinking against the brightness, and then all of a sudden watching him. Those eyes were wide and they wobbled with tears that threatened to spill. A damn ruse, Spike reminded himself hastily. If not, who cares? If you’re brave enough to shoot a Slayer, you’re brave enough to face the consequences.

“What are you looking at?” Spike snarled, and the thing’s boy-like face became suddenly blotchy and drawn. “Can’t talk?” Spike asked.

The boy didn’t say anything.

Spike’s temper was fraying, and he walked over to the lump, circling his chair. “So, your voice must be the giveaway then.” He stated. “Maybe you could change yourself enough to look like a boy, but you couldn’t do your voice. Because you’re not a boy, are you? You’re a dirty, stinking demon, who thought he could get away with sticking a bullet into the Slayer.” Spike stopped behind the chair, and then leaned in very close to the thing’s ear, “Is that why I can’t smell anything?” he whispered, his voice menacing. “Because there’s another flaw to your clever plan, little boy. I’m a vampire, see? I can smell everyone – everything. But not you. I guess that means you’re not such a little boy, after all.”

The lump turned its head, looking into Spike’s eyes with its big ones. It had chosen a very clever disguise- but clearly it hadn’t guessed that the good-hearted Scoobies might have a nasty vampire under their employ.

“Do you know what I do to demons?” Spike asked, his voice still low and full of gravel. “You can’t even imagine it.”

The lump started sniffing again, its heart rate was slowly picking back up. Spike watched it snivel and shrink away from him, and he felt confident that he’d frightened it. He took a step back.

“So, why’d you do it?” Spike asked, crossing his arms and striding to stand squarely before it. He leaned forward, “Why, huh?”

Spike caught the thing’s chin between loose fingers, and he forced his face into a close tilt so that they were practically nose to nose.

“I’ve killed Slayer’s myself, boy,” he snarled, making the thing choke as its eyes flooded fast with tears. “I’ve done more terrible things than you can imagine, and those cowards upstairs, they’re going to let me do those things to you. So save yourself the hassle, and tell me who you are and what you want.” The thing was really crying now, and Spike was disgusted. He let the chair tip over onto its side, and took a step back, making himself tall. “Go on,” he said. “Talk.”

The thing coughed and sputtered, with its cheek flat against the chill ground. It was strange to see it crying. It twisted something in Spike- something unfamiliar. But it was only because it looked like a boy, and because Spike never could stand to see women or children cry. Yes, it was a very clever disguise indeed.





Spike went back up again, leaving the thing down in the dark. Giles was waiting anxiously in the kitchen, and Spike shook off his vampire guise, sitting down in front of him.

“That thing doesn’t have any scent.” Spike said abruptly, putting his hands on the table.

Giles frowned. “Not at all?”

“No.” Spike confirmed. “It’s as if he’s covered it up, to keep us from guessing at what he really is. And he won’t talk. I’ll need more time.”

Giles nodded, still frowning. “Not a boy, then,” he mumbled, looking a bit clearer in his eyes.

“Not a normal one, at any rate.” Spike said. He shifted his gaze uncomfortably. “You know,” he said. “I could find out for you. Put your mind at ease.”
Giles looked up fast. Spike could see the cogs turning, but the old eyes were clouded again. Damn Scoobies. The Initiative wouldn’t think twice, boy or not. The little freckled thing was lucky, really. If Finn hadn’t been taken away then things might already be headed down a very different track.

Spike sighed, and he knew he wouldn’t get an answer out of the watcher yet. Instead, he got up and went to the fridge. “Joyce here?” He asked off-handedly, reaching right into the back of the fridge, and grinning slightly when he felt the cool familiarity of a blood bag. Trust the Slayer’s mum to keep a supply.

“She’s at the hospital with Buffy.” Giles said, and Spike’s grin dropped prematurely. He tried to make it again, but it felt wrong. He thought about the way the girl had looked under his hands. He thought of that golden, awe-struck look in her eye. The kind of look he didn’t know a woman could fake- until he shagged Buffy Summers, that is. Damn bitch.

He shoved the fridge door shut, then tore into the plastic blood bag with blunt teeth, reaching for a yellow mug. He poured the thick, viscousy contents into the mug, and then dropped it carelessly into the microwave. He had nothing to say about Buffy. Not really. Could’ve talked about Joyce, but not now that the thought of her had been associated with the Slayer again. All trails lead to Buffy, Spike thought bitterly.

Nothing left to talk about but the boy. Probably for the best anyway, in the interest of maintaining his image.

“What happened?” He asked, after the microwave had pinged and he was sitting down across from the Watcher once more.

“I’m not completely sure,” Rupert said, looking down at his clasped hands, then back up at the vampire again. “She was ahead of Willow and I. We were only there as a bit of company, since she’d seemed so down since Riley’s surgery. I was… Worried about her. She was annoyed, perhaps. She went stalking off ahead, and then when we came around the corner we saw her with him. It didn’t look like much at first. It seemed like she was crouching down to talk to him- maybe she thought he was lost; wanted to help him. We were heading towards them, because we wanted to help, too.” Rupert’s hands were shaking, and Spike could see that he was upset. “When we got closer, we could see that the boy looked strange. He had this… This cold look on his face. It was frightening to see in a child, and we slowed. We shouldn’t have slowed,” he shook his head, “We should have gone over more quickly. Maybe I could’ve gotten between them, or gotten the gun, or-”

“Rupert.”

Spike’s voice was gentler than usual; nudging. The Watcher met his eye, and then he sighed.

“The boy, we could see then, had a gun. A little black pistol: some kind of antique. He didn’t say anything loud enough for us to hear, but Buffy was pleading with him. She was shaking: I’ve never seen her frightened like that. Bullets are different to demons, of course. Little boys, too.”

“And then he shot her?” Spike asked, his eyes dark with imagining. He’d fantasized about it, of course. Quick and satisfyingly brutal. But he’d never have done it. Not like that. Not to her. Even after it all.

“It wasn’t quite then.” Giles said, tapping the table with bent fingers. “He… He let her get close enough to touch. She… She put her hand out to touch his shoulder, and that’s when he did it. He staggered back from her and he found his angle. He aimed so swiftly that he looked like a full-grown man who had been shooting for years. He held the angle for a whole ten seconds, and then he pulled the trigger and the sound was astonishing. A loud crack that shook the whole town.” Giles caught his breath, and Spike pushed his mug of O-neg away with a sudden loss of appetite. “He dropped the gun. Dropped to his knees. Willow took Buffy to the hospital. I brought the boy here.” Giles shook his head. “He didn’t try to fight me. Didn’t say a word. I don’t… I wanted him to be immediately evil, but he was just like a boy. I took him down into the basement and I tied him tight to the chair. The whole time he was just quiet and white. It was like he wasn’t even there. Has hardly spoken since.”

Spike was quiet, his knuckles white. He realized he had curled his fingers into fists, and he smoothed them out consciously. “Why would a boy want to shoot the Slayer?”

Giles shook his head helplessly. “I haven’t stopped asking myself the same question.”

Spike went back down into the darkness. The boy’s chair was still on its side, and he was sleeping where he lay. He was a small scrap of a thing. Looked like he was due for a growth spurt any day; like one of those scruffy boys in the school yard, with lunch box and library books and a satchel full of pencils and drawings. Spike felt odd, looking down at him from such great height. He was hardly tall, but the boy made him feel like a giant. Like a great long shadow at the end of the day, cast up against the wall or on the closet door.

He knelt next to the boy, then reached forward on instinct to unlace his hands and knees.

The skin beneath the ropes was red, and the boy woke slowly as Spike pulled the chair away and put it upright again. The boy looked up at Spike from the floor, blinking with confused, wet eyes.

“Did…?” The boy’s question went unanswered and unasked. Spike stood back up and seemed big as a monster to the boy.

“You need to use the bathroom?” Spike asked brusquely, taking the boy’s arm and tugging him up roughly to his feet.

“Ummm.”

“Yes or no?” Spike barked.

The boy flinched, tried to pull his arm away, and failed. “Yes.” He said at last. “Please.”

Spike’s stomach tumbled, but he ignored it. Either a demon, or a boy with evil intentions, he reminded himself promptly. Not an innocent. Guilty, until proven innocent.

“Come on then.”

Spike tugged the boy up the creaking staircase and out into the light of the hallway. The boy blinked, and rubbed his eyes with the arm that Spike wasn’t holding. He squinted at the photographs of Buffy in the hallway, and Spike yanked him past without allowing him to stop.

“Here.”

The boy went into the bathroom, and he stayed in there for a long time. Spike paced outside. Eventually he rapped his knuckles against the wooden door. “Enough,” he said, and the kid came out moments later. His wide eyes were red, but Spike ignored them, and pushed the boy back towards the basement with a flat palm on his left shoulder blade.

As they passed the front door, it clicked open and all of a sudden Joyce Summers was coming into the house. She froze when she saw Spike with the boy, and she looked quickly between their two faces, her expression blank.

The boy gave a loud and almost instant sniff, and Spike looked down to see a fat tear trailing down his cheek while his bottom lip quivered and his cheeks went red. He squeezed the boy’s shoulder hard in warning, and at the same moment Joyce came back to herself.

“I’m picking up a few things,” she said, “I want to stay overnight at the hospital.”

“How is the Slayer?” Spike asked quickly, and without thinking.

Joyce’s eyes darted back to the little shooter, and she looked very strange. She looked suddenly old, too, just as Rupert had begun to. “Oh,” she said, quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “She’s going to be fine.”

Spike nodded. He stared at her, apologetic, and then he nodded again, grasping the boy’s shoulder. “C’mon,” he said. “Back to the basement.”

In the room again, the boy sat down in the hard wooden chair without speaking and Spike knelt before him, looping the rope around his knees, and then knotting his wrists to them without looking him in the face. He tied the ropes tighter than they had been, and then he tied another knot on top.

He leaned back onto his heels, still crouching, and he said, “It’s easy to shoot somebody. It’s a cowardly thing to do.”

“It wasn’t easy.” The boy whispered.

Spike looked up sharply, and studied the haunted face before him. He wanted to grasp the small chin and force the boy to meet his eyes, but suddenly he didn’t want to touch him. He was… Inexplicable. He made Spike’s gut ache and his chest tight. He understood, already, why Rupert had come to him. This was going to be difficult, and it was going to be ugly as sin.

“I would do it again,” the boy said, looking down with his chin pressed to his chest. “If I have to, I’ll do it again.”




At midnight, Harris arrived. He looked careworn and a little more edgy than he usually did. Spike felt the hackles rise on his neck.

“Where is he?”

“Leave him be,” Spike said carefully. “I’m getting to the bottom of it now.”

“You?” Harris repeated, his lip curled up with disgust. “You probably paid him to do it. Where’s Giles?”

“Sleeping.”

“You better take me to that boy, Spike. You better not stand in my way!”

“Can it, Harris. Rupert’s sleeping, and you’re not going to see the boy tonight. Not like this.”

Xander’s face was very red, and he looked mad as he fought against the rampant desire to rip Spike to shreds. After all, it wasn’t as if the impotent vamp could stop him.

“I want to see the boy.”

“No.” Spike said. The finality of his tone sounded authoritive, and Xander couldn’t help responding to it. He deflated, putting a hand on his chest which seemed, suddenly, to hurt.

“Willow said that he’s smalll,” Harris murmured now, very quiet. He didn’t meet Spike’s eye, but seemed to be confiding something awfully private. “What are we supposed to do with a boy? We can’t keep him, but we can’t hand him over, either. What’ll happen to him?”

Spike shrugged. “I’m getting to the bottom of it,” he said again.

Harris looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed, but his face looked ordinary again. “That boy shot Buffy. He shot her.”

Spike held his gaze, and felt a sudden tightness in his chest. These weren’t his friends, but he felt their ache. Or, at least, he knew the smudge of it.

“Go back to the hospital, Harris.” Spike said, shaking his head. “You’ll be no good, here.”




Spike took a bowl of Wheetabix down to the boy, and watched him spoon it into his mouth with his left hand. He rested his elbows on his roped knees, and tilted the bowl back to drink down the milky remains once he’d finished. Now that he was watching him eat, Spike realized that the boy looked famished. He felt a stab of something, but ignored it.

He wondered what possible motivation this scrap of a boy might have mustered up for shooting the Slayer. He didn’t seem big enough to lift a bloody gun, let alone to use it.

The boy held the bowl out to Spike, and he took it with a gentle tug. “More?” Spike asked, his voice gruff.

The boy’s head tilted anxiously, as if hoping this were not a trick. “Please?”

Spike gave a tart nod, leaving the boy’s hands untied and heading back up the basement steps. In the kitchen he refilled the bowl and was holding the milk jug when he heard the phone go. After three rings it clicked onto the answer phone- “You’ve reached the Summers’ residence, please leave a message”- and then Red’s voice came shakily over the wire.

“Buffy’s woken up,” was all that she said, as if keen to keep the message short and to get right back to the blonde’s bedside. Spike stood there a long time, holding the milk. Then he went upstairs and woke Rupert.

The Watcher dressed hurriedly, “I might be gone a while.” He said, before disappearing out into the brightening morning.

Spike went back to the fridge. He took out the milk again, filled up the bowl and went back down into the basement. The boy was as he’d left him. He looked at Spike with a timid smile. Spike thought about what he’d said. If I have to, I’ll do it again.

From the mouths of babes. Spike wished he hadn’t stumbled into this mess.





Two days later Buffy was discharged and she went back to the dorm room that she shared with Red. He hadn’t seen her since she’d woken, and he didn’t care to, either. Somehow, the anger he felt towards her was magnified, because of the boy.

Before, he was offended by the way she’d used him- by the way she’d shagged him without his permission and without adequate apology. Then he was angry at her for the unwelcome change that seemed to have occurred between them because of that shag. The sexual tension that he hadn’t asked for, and the resulting fumble against the wall of his crypt. He was angry at her, too, for going soft as cotton beneath him when he had wanted to kill a warrior. He was angry at her for besting him again, when the win should have been his. He was angry at her for unwittingly burdening him with the responsibility of a strange-eyed boy, and for being shot in the first place. He was angry at her for leaving herself vulnerable. Angry at her for the sense of obligation he felt, having heard the boys quiet words, I’ll do it again.

He didn’t want to think about her. He hadn’t seen her in the flesh, but didn’t seem able to fight the image that materialized behind his eyes, every time he closed them. She was everywhere. She was nowhere near, but she was haunting him.

So he was angry. He was livid. It was all her fault, all your fault, he thought bitterly, clenching his fists into tight, hanging moons. He wanted to throttle her. He wanted her gone. He wanted her forgotten.
She’d gone back to her dorm, and Joyce had returned to Rovello Drive. Spike stayed, to see to the boy, and they fell into a kind of routine. Joyce bought the blood and the Wheetabix, and Spike worked on finding out where the boy had come from.

“No missing person’s report,” he noticed one day, with eyes blinking fast at the revelation. “No tormented parents, looking for their little lost boy.”

“I don’t have any parents.” The boy said with a quivering lip when Spike questioned him.

“An orphan?” Spike frowned. The boy nodded, chest rising and falling quickly as if to hold back a sudden surge of overwhelming sadness. His red sweater was beginning to unravel at the cuffs, and his hair was getting longer. Not long yet, but longer than a cared-for boy would wear it. “Okay,” said Spike, believing him and storing the information away for later reference.

A week after she’d gone back to the dorms, Spike heard that she’d been beaten up pretty badly in a fight. He didn’t see her, but Rupert and Harris had been by to tell Joyce, and Spike had heard from the basement doorway. They said that she was okay, and Spike gripped the doorframe, looking back down into the darkness where he knew that the boy was sitting. He’d forgotten about the other threats. He’d become emaciated in his ardent suspicion of the boy. He was angry at the Slayer afresh, for making him feel strange.

He didn’t know why, but hearing that she’d been beaten up made him angry with her. Seemed like she was getting careless. Or like she was developing a death wish. She was supposed to be above all of that nonsense, but in the end she was just like the others. Just like any other Slayer.

He didn’t want her to be any other Slayer. She was supposed to be better than that. He couldn’t forgive her that, and so, he added it to the long list of reasons for his fury.





He saw her five days later. In total, it had been almost four weeks since he’d seen her last and it came back with a rush when he laid eyes on her again. Thought I said that you were to stay the hell away from me. In an instant the humiliation of their coupling returned, as did his subsequent inability to keep from thinking of her.

She looked radiant. Curse you, he thought bitterly. Shot and beaten, and still she looked radiant as an effigy in gold.

She stared at him, both of them frozen at opposite ends of the corridor, and she seemed like an animal in headlights. She’d come to Rovello Drive to see Joyce, perhaps. Had no one told her that he was still here? That somehow he had become responsible for finding out why a child had tried to murder her.

His lips turned down in a sour expression, and he span on his heel to leave.

“Spike,” she said, “Wait. Please.” The sound of her voice was akin to a gunshot. It was a sudden trip back in time, as if nothing at all had passed since their tender touching. As if they were back in his crypt, as she was asking him to help find her big lump of a boyfriend.

Spike came to a halt, not turning. He’d had enough of her and her idiotic friends. He’d had enough of all of this- of the bloody cosmic joke that his life had become since he’d let her shag him. He didn’t need all of this. He shouldn’t have taken the money- shouldn’t have gotten involved- shouldn’t have let the bloody Slayer screw with him again. He needed to get out of this town. He needed a clean break, and a fresh start. He couldn’t kill her anyway, so why on earth was he still-

“Spike,” she said again, her tone softer now. She was willing him to turn. It made him want to growl, and spin, and tear her throat out. But he didn’t. He stood still, shoulders hunched, and he waited. “Giles doesn’t want me to tell you… But I.” She stumbled over her sentence, and he knew that talking to his back was making her awkward and uneasy. He didn’t care, though. “I haven’t told anyone. Just Giles. I…”

Spike turned at last. Slow, so as to keep his murderous desire well in check. He fixed her with a glare.

She flinched, but went on regardless. “Last week,” she said. “When I fought with that woman. You know, the one that kicked the crap out of me and got everyone into research overdrive?” he didn’t respond. She looked awkward, but went on. “There was a man, that night. The woman had almost killed him by the time I got him out, but he said things to me. Before he died. He told me what she wants.”

Spike felt he could read her like an American road map: straight roads and perpendicular warehouses. No curves or roundabouts.

“Haven’t told your friends because you think they’ll give it to her.” Spike said, and Buffy looked up at him quick. She gave a half shrug, and noted that he didn’t ask her what it was. Either he didn’t care, or he didn’t want to care.

“She’s looking for a key.” Buffy said, slowly. Softly. “The key can open the door between dimensions. Bring about hell on earth.”

“Just the usual then.” Spike muttered. Nothing changes, he thought. World coming to an end as usual, and the Slayer’s here asking for something.

“Yes.” Buffy agreed. “But she doesn’t know where the key is, or what it looks like. And the man… The man was from this ancient monastery, sworn to protect the key. They knew that I was strong, so they gave the key human form, and they… They sent it to me.”

Spike stared at her. His eyes, uncomprehending and cold, did not waver from hers. She waited for it to sink in. Slowly he looked to the basement door, and quickly back again-

“The boy?” He said, suddenly frowning. “But, they got it wrong then, ‘cause the boy tried to kill you. Why would you protect him, when he tried to-”

Spike was gesturing with an outstretched hand, and Buffy caught it before he’d finished speaking. She looked into his eyes and shook her head,

“Not the boy, no.” She said, then she pressed his flattened palm against her stomach and looked at him again.

It was too soon for a heartbeat, but she knew that he’d feel it if he was close enough. She watched his face, studying the change in his eyes until, finally, he closed them and cut off her connection. Abruptly, he yanked his hand back.

“Why are you telling me?”

Buffy looked like someone had jerked hard on her heart. Her bottom lip quivered, but she sucked in a deep lungful of air and seemed to force herself to keep going. “The monk told me that you’d-”

“Protect it?” Spike guessed, eyes snapping open only to narrow tightly in her direction. “Where the hell do you get off, Slayer? Seems to me, you and yours haven’t stopped askin’ me for favours ever since I told you to keep away from me.”

Buffy stared at him a moment, then set her lips in a firm line. “Right.” She said, dropping a hand to her stomach. She didn’t know what it should feel like to be pregnant, but she wondered at the sudden feeling of hollowness. “Okay, Spike. I get it.”

“Good.” He said. “’Bout bloody time you did.”

He took a step back from her, and she dropped her gaze. Spike wanted to shake her- hard. What the hell was wrong with her? What was this- the millionth time she’d looked surprised that he didn’t want to help her? Christ, anyone would think they weren’t enemies. She sure as hell didn’t seem to understand that they were.

“Summers,” he said, making her look up joltily. She had stupid tears in her eyes, and he hated seeing them there. Hated her for wearing them like jewelry. “Pet,” he said, gentler than he should have done. Shaking himself, and starting again in a rougher tone. “You’ve got to remember that we’re enemies, yeah? I know we shagged, and that seems to have bollocksed everything up, but you can’t keep trackin’ me down, askin’ for favors. Christ, I liked it better when you were breaking my nose on a fortnightly basis. ’Least I understood that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking humiliated. He wondered again just what the hell was wrong with her. Where had all of her snark gone? “You’re right,” she said. “Giles was right. Just don’t… I mean,” her hand fisted in her t-shirt, “You wouldn’t… hurt it, would you?”

Spike frowned, tipping his head as he considered her. “Not my style, pet.”

“Okay,” she said, giving him a weak smile. “Good.” She said. He nodded at her frankly, and turned. “Spike,” she said quickly, her voice taut. “I…”

She just didn’t seem able to let him go. She was haunting him for real, now. She was the bloody splinter in his chest. Spike grimaced, “We’re not doin’ this again, Slayer. I’m stormin’ off now- see?”

“Right- yeah,” she said. “I just… I just want you to know, I’m going to follow your lead on this. Okay?”

Spike glared at her, irritated by the fact that she always seemed to be talking in circles. “You’re gonna ‘follow my lead’,” he repeated, derision in his gaze. “An’ what exactly is that supposed to mean, Buffy?”

He burnt her by using her real name. She looked taken aback, cheeks flushed. But she shook her head and went on, regardless. “I mean, Giles is the only one that knows. And I can tell the others… whatever you like. You know? I’ll follow your lead, Spike.”

He raised his brows. “Alright then, tell ‘em whatever you like.”

Buffy frowned, then deflated. “Okay.” She said. “I guess I’ll… think of something.”

Spike shrugged. “Good.”

“Right.” Buffy shut her eyes, rubbing them. She looked suddenly frustrated. “Look, Spike,” she said. “What I’m trying to say is that Riley- my friends and Riley, and everyone- they can all think that the baby is his. If that’s what you want; if that makes things easier on you. Giles will understand. He’d probably prefer it that way. It’s not a big deal. Just tell me that’s what you want, Spike.” She opened her eyes again, and looked at him. He was staring at her blankly.

He looked down at her flat stomach. He stared at the formation of her hands, and felt the tiny baby, even though it didn’t have a heartbeat yet. He could feel it warm inside of her, and he stared, the silence hanging between them.

Slowly, he looked back up into her eyes. There was something hot and strange prickling through his veins, and when he met her gaze again he felt the beginnings of a headache clawing at the back of his skull. “Slayer,” he said, voice low and dangerous, his finger jutting out to point at her gut. “That’s Finn’s, isn’t it?”

Buffy blinked at him, surprised. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she shook her head. “No.”

Without a second’s warning, Spike grabbed her shoulders and shoved her up against the wall, ignoring her flinch of surprise and the slight, warning zap in his head. “Tell me you’re lyin’,” he growled, pressing his face right against hers. Buffy shivered, but held his gaze. Maybe she’d expected this. Maybe she’d needed it, in some sick way. To have him close again. To have his hands on her, and his lips right next to her ear. “Tell me you’re-”

“Spike, I’m not lying.” She said hotly, panicky, shaking her head back and forth as if he might think she were making it all up. “I’m not.”

“It isn’t possible,” he growled roughly. “I’m dead, Slayer. Shaggin’ won’t do it.”

“The monks did it.” She said. “They made it. They made it out of you and me and said that we could protect it. They said that we were the only ones.”

“And you’ve known all this for a week now.” Spike snarled, gnashing his jaw. His fingers tightened on her shoulders and neither flinched, though it hurt. It hurt. “That you have a baby growin’ inside of you, and that I’m the… I’m…”

“I told you, Giles didn’t think-”

“So you just do as you’re told?” He snapped harshly, and tears jumped into the Slayer’s eyes.
She shook her head and her blonde hair shivered like spun gold. “I’ve been torturing myself, Spike.” She said, achingly, biting down on her lip to keep from blubbing it all out. She gripped his arms, and he looked down at her hands, glad for the excuse to tear his gaze from the weird look in her eyes. “I’ve been trying for days to figure out what to do.” She said, her voice gaining pitch. “I’ve wanted to tell you, just to have someone to talk to. I’m scared, and confused, and hurt and I’ve never felt so-”

“Just- stop it.” He said. “Bloody… Shut up for a minute, will you?”

She blinked, looking down.

His mind cleared, like a lifting fog. “Did you know?”

“What?”

“Did you know? When you shagged me- did you know that this was going to happen?”

Buffy looked up, startled, her wide eyes wet with surprise. “No.”

“No?”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t.” He breathed out, low and hard. She hadn’t known.

And then he swooped, catching her off-guard with his cold, angry lips on hers, and she melted beneath him in an instant. Like this was all that she’d wanted from him after all. Acceptance. Reassurance, though there was little that he could offer.

Her hands came up to rest either side of his neck, and he pinned her where she stood. Kissing her, not to keep her quiet or to frighten her, but because she’d told him the truth for once. He was dark and formidable, and he’d been awful to her since they’d shagged, and her Watcher had told her not to, but still. She’d told him.

He slid his hand into her hair and ran it over the back of her neck, kissing her hotly and honestly. She clung to him, and broke the kiss, but didn’t move her head. Her lips were resting on his jaw as she asked, “Are you angry?”

“I don’t know yet.” He said simply, into the round apple of her cheek.

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay. Alright. Don’t be.”