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A/N: Thanx to Jessica, Mike, and Minerva for reviewing!

~*~

Buffy scowled at the mountain of paperwork that Spike had ordered her to sort through. “Stupid, worthless sonofa—“ She sighed. At least most files were marked...but still, that was a hell of a lot of paper to get sorted! And she was just barely getting paid minimum wage. Way unfair in her opinion, but then, that was what was wrong with this whole job: no one had asked for her opinion.

“Get the coffee on for when we get back,” she mocked. “Who does he think he is, anyway? A good guy? Strutting around this stupid warehouse, going off to deal with—whatever it was. Bleached idiot.”

“Um...who are you talking to?”

Buffy looked up from the desk, startled. She hadn’t heard anyone come in and crap, hadn’t Spike told her to watch the doors? Oh, well. “Who the hell are you?”

The girl pursed her lips in a manner Buffy found instantly irritating. “I asked first.”

“Your point being? I’m the secretary, I need to know who you are.” Buffy smirked at the brat. She was almost relieved that there was at least one person in this...establishment...she could actually dislike.

“Some secretary. You seriously need niceness lessons,” the girl said.

“Oh yeah? Look who’s talking,” the girl shot back. “You don’t ask ‘Who the hell are you?’ when you’re the secretary. You ask, ‘How may I help you? Want Coffee? Tea?’ God,” she finished, “Did that stupid freak Harmony teach you anything?”

“You know, you are the absolute most annoying little brat I have ever met,” Buffy said in an approximation of a cheerful voice. “Now would you please just tell me your frickin’ name?”

“It’s Dawn,” the girl said, glaring at her. “I’m a client, and a friend, of Spike’s.”

Wonderful. The girl was what, fifteen? And Spike had stuck her out on the streets. Buffy eyed the girl. Whoring, or dealing? Maybe both? Nah, she didn’t have the look of a drug dealer. Which meant...all of a sudden she felt sick. This Dawn kid was being a brat, but that didn’t mean she deserved to live her life as a street whore. I’m gonna have to talk to Captain Rayne about this one. No one that young should have to live such a horrible life.

In the meantime, Spike had said to entertain the girl, and, well, no matter what he’d done to Dawn, she seemed to think of him kinda like a bid brother. No accounting for taste...

“Sorry, Dawn.” Buffy tried to smile. It felt more like gritting her teeth. “Spike’s not here right now, he went...well, to be honest, I’m not sure where he went. But I’ll keep ya company, if you want.”

Dawn just looked at her. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“No, really. I wanna talk.” She stood up and went over to the little waiting area outside Spike’s office, patting the lurid yellow seat beside her. “Come on, sit down.”

Dawn was now staring at her like she thought Buffy was insane, but she complied—warily. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Um...actually, I’m kinda curious about how you know Spike. I really don’t understand much about how his business works.”

“Oh, it’s not a business thing—well, it was,” Dawn corrected herself. “He got me the job I have now!”

And you’re smiling like it’s Christmas and you just got a puppy...why? Buffy thought, but she kept her face blank. “And you like your job?”

“Oh yeah, it’s great!” Dawn grinned. “I mean, before he helped me out, I was just a kid on the streets, ‘cuz you know, Sunnydale’s kinda got lots of those, but then Spike was all, hey, maybe I can help, and so he pulled a few strings, and now—bang!—I’ve got a job!”

Well, okay, maybe if you were homeless, being a prostitute would be a good option. Ha. Buffy knew she was kidding herself. “So, it pays well, huh?”
“Uh-huh!” Dawn beamed. “Taking orders was hard at first, and sometimes the customers are a little snooty, but if I’m extra fast and super nice, I get tips!”

Buffy couldn’t do anything except sit in her neon yellow chair and stare at the girl before her. Dawn looked radiantly happy, and she was talking about her profession like it was something perfectly normal.

“Um, you okay?” Dawn frowned worriedly. “You look pale.”

“Right.” Buffy shook herself, inwardly cursing for being such a sensitive idiot. You have a job here, stupid, and it isn’t just filing papers! “So, you still come to visit him? Spike, I mean.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s like a brother. Well, a big, annoying, bleach-blonde, kinda dumb brother, but hey. Still a brother.” Dawn looked at her questioningly. “Hey, how’d you get your job here.”

“Harmony was a—friend—of mine,” Buffy lied quickly. “Um, another one of my friends, Willow, knew her. Harmony recommended me when she quit.”

“Huh. I’m surprised Spike took her word for it. I mean, some stuff you’re going to be seeing is kinda—you know—sensitive.”

“Sensitive?” Buffy pretended to be confused. “What do you mean? I thought Spike ran an employment business.”

“Well, he does. But what with the, um, extra-curriculars—you know what I’m talking about, right?” Dawn all of a sudden looked guilty, like she knew she shouldn’t be saying all of what she was. “Please say you do. About the other agency, and the lap-dancers, and all that?”

Lap-dancers? What the hell—Captain Rayne is gonna hear about that one! But right now, Buffy had to pretend she was in the loop. That way, Dawn would keep talking. “Oh, that. Of course, Harmony filled me in on all that.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief.” Dawn smiled at her. “Spike woulda killed me if—oh, hey, Spike!”

The fifteen-year-old leapt to her feet, smiling cheerfully at Spike. She did that a lot, Buffy had noticed. “Your new secretary is so way cooler than the last one,” she informed him.

“Really?” Spike cocked an eyebrow at Buffy. God, he was sexy when he did that...No, Buffy. Evil man who plucks fifteen-year-olds out of the streets and turns them into happy, well-adjusted prostitutes is not sexy!

“’ll have to stick around when you decide to chat with her, then,” Spike continued. “’Cuz she’s been downright nasty to me.”

“Because you’re a conceited jerk who seems to think that running a business consists of sticking your boots in prone men’s faces and bossing a lowly secretary around,” Buffy retorted. “I’m nice when I actually like the person I’m talking to.”

“You stuck your boots in somebody’s face and didn’t let me watch?” Dawn pouted. “Meany.”

“You’ll get over it, Bit, you always do.” Spike ruffled her hair affectionately before turning back to Buffy. “Listen, I need a file. ‘S labeled lap-dancin’ and it oughta be somewhere in the drawers. Bring it in when you’ve found it.”

“Lap-dancers again?” Buffy rolled her eyes. “This esteemed company’s fixation on lap-dancers is weird to the extreme, ya know.”

“Whatever. You gonna do it or not?” Now she could tell he was annoyed, because that little vein in his temple throbbed. She probably shouldn’t be looking at him so closely that she noticed it, but hey, she was a cop, and cops were supposed to be observant—

Oh, who was she kidding, anyway? What was she going to do, sit in Captain Rayne’s visitor chair and tell him all about the layout of the building, and the suspicious lap-dancers, and oh yeah, the brains of the operation has a little blood vessel that throbs when he’s mad!

Not so much.

So she only smiled at him and said, “Of course. It’s my job, isn’t it? Sorry if I was a pain.”

Now he was the one who looked suspicious. “You feelin’ all right, Blondie?”

“Fine! Absolutely fabulous!” She beamed at him. His eyebrow stayed cocked, and his electric blue eyes let her know that he really wasn’t buying it. “Um...I’ll just get that file, okay?”

“Right. You do that.” He walked back into the office, shutting the door quietly—an action that Buffy had a hunch wasn’t normal for him.

Crap, she thought, and turned to the filing cabinet. Great job, Summers. You’ve really done it now!

*

“What the bleeding hell did you say to her?” Spike demanded.

“Um...well, I mentioned the other side of the company...the extra-curriculars, I called them. And the lap-dancers, but I don’t think she really understood that.”

“So now she knows. Except—wait, she knew before. Didn’t she?” Spike frowned. All of a sudden, some things really didn’t add up. “She’s with Harmony and all the lap-dancin’ rotters, right? So why was she so damn surprised?”

“Good question,” Dawn said, frowning. “Sucks that we don’t have an answer.”

“You don’t think they didn’t tell her, do you?”

“I don’t know. That bitch Harmony sure as hell knew about it.”

“Dawn!”

“Well, she did!” Dawn stared at her friend for a second before realizing that he had no problem with her telling the truth. “Oh. Language.”

“Damn right. When you’re around me, keep it pg-rated, ok?”

“Damn right, I will.” Dawn grinned at him cheekily. “Hey, you get to say it, so do I.”

“You’re a brat, you know that?” Spike only groaned when Dawn nodded. The little bit could be incredibly annoying, but she was also cheerful to a fault. “Now, getting back to Buffy...”

“I don’t know what she doesn’t know, or what she does know, or even if she knows that I don’t know what she does or doesn’t know.”

“And that meant what?”

”That she might be in on what the lap-dancers are doing, or she might not.” Dawn shrugged. “To be honest, there’s no way to tell.”

Spike barely restrained himself from groaning again. Things just kept getting worse, didn’t they? First those nancy-boys he and Gunn had had to deal with, and now the issue with Buffy-bleedin’-Summers. “But we know she’s a plant. Fine then. We let her know only what she needs to. I dunno what she thinks we’re doin’ on our off hours, and frankly, I don’t care. ‘F we keep her in the dark, then she’ll just stay confused. Got that? No more runnin’ your mouth, Bit.”

“Hey,” Dawn said indignantly, “don’t lecture me when half your friends are as floppy-mouth as I am. If you let her near Xander for more than three seconds, he’ll be sure to slip.”

“And if he does, I’ll kill the stupid whelp,” Spike snapped. “Listen, Bit, this is important, a’right? We have to convince Buffy that we’re hardly a threat at all, got that?”

“Good luck. I just think—oh! Oh! Oh!” she suddenly squealed, bouncing up and down in her seat.

“Think what? What’s so exciting?” God knew he could do with a little good news, although knowing Dawn it was probably just that Chad Michael Murray was coming to town, or some rot like that.

“Willow!”

He whipped around so fast he felt his neck crack. “AURGH! Buggering hell! Where, Dawn?”

“She’s not in the room, moron,” the teenager said, rolling her eyes. “God, you can be stupid sometimes. She mentioned Willow. She’s friends with her.”

Spike stared at her for a second, completely still. Dozens of ideas were rushing through his head, all at once. “Red. ‘Ve got to get in contact with her. She’ll be able to tell me how much Buffy knows.” It had been he who IM’d her a few days ago, of course. Red had told him she was completely ignorant about Jenkins’ true dealings—but now he wasn’t so sure. If Red was Buffy’s friend, then she could easily ply her for the truth.

“OK, you have fun with that.” Dawn checked her watch and sighed. “Well, the customers call. Holy crap, I’m not looking forward to serving people all night long...”

“Have a good time,” Spike muttered. He was rifling through his papers, looking for Red’s number.

Dawn rolled her eyes and left.

As soon as he located the slip of paper with her number on it, he dialed her up. “Hey, can I speak to Willow Rosen—oh, hey, Red! Listen, I need a favor...”

A few minutes after he got off the phone with Willow, Buffy opened the door and strolled in. “I got the file on lap-dancers.” She handed it to him. A crinkle appeared in her brow. “This company is beyond bizarr-o, by the way.”

“Bizarr-o?” Spike arched an eyebrow at her. “Tell me, pet, do you ever talk normally?” God, she looked sexy in that skirt. Abruptly an image came to him, of Buffy sitting on the edge of his desk and slowly, slowly pulling that skirt off...

He shook himself. Good God, man, pull yourself together! She’s one little chit, for Christ’s sake!

Uh-huh, that other voice, the one he could never quite make shut up, said. Just like you’ve got the whole ‘manage the plant and tell her only what we want her to know’ thing under control, right?

Buffy grinned at him. God, she had a cute smile...”Not if I can help it,” she replied. “So, I saw Dawn leave?”

“Uh, yeah, I had work to do,” Spike replied, shaking himself out of the stupor her smile had induced.

“I was nice of you to help her find a job,” Buffy said, but her brow was wrinkled slightly. Spike smirked.

Snoop all you like, sweetheart, you’re not gonna find it easy gettin’ anything outta me, he thought before replying, “Well, that is what we do here. Jenkins’ employment and all.”

“Oh, right. I knew that...” she trailed off for a moment before redoubling her efforts: “So, what are all the offices for?”

“Consultants. Counselors. Helpers. Takes a lot to just find people jobs here,” he replied curtly. He watched with amusement as anger, then stony determination, flashed across her face.

“Oh, okay. I’ll just...go file, then. Call me if you need anything.”

God, the things that flashed through his head when she said that—he was a truly immoral man. “Will do, luv.”

“Um. Bye.” She awkwardly turned on her heel and walked out.

Spike flipped through the file intently. Paperwork really wasn’t his thing, but there were some things in here that really couldn’t be seen by anyone but him. “How the hell did I get into the business, anyway?” he wondered out loud, before remembering: “Oh, yeah. My bitch of a sister Anya forced me to. Said it’d make loads of money, so ‘f course I had to do it.” No, that wasn’t fair. Anya wasn’t a bitch, and she hadn’t forced him, exactly. Just...compelled him.

Persuasively.

And now he was stuck dealing with a way-too-smart-for-her-own-good spy, who also happened to be a drop-dead gorgeous bird, though he didn’t really like her much, and a bunch of lap-dancin’ nancy-boys who barely knew which way was up.

“Bloody—fucking—hell,” he cursed, banging his head on his desk. Maybe if he hit it hard enough, he’d just get knocked into a coma.

God knew it’d be easier than what he was doing now.

*

“And you’re certain he is ignorant of your ties to our organization?” A pair of eyes glittered in the darkness of the room. Riley Finn tried to ignore them as he concentrated on giving prompt answers.

“Yes, Captain. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Excellent. And the girl?”

“Will be eliminated, sir.”

“Yes, but when? This needs to happen soon, Finn.”

“I understand that, Captain. As we speak, the plan is being set in motion.”

“Who have you sent?”

A glint of teeth. “The most trusted member of our venerated psych ward, who else?”

And they both laughed, picturing the demise of the one thing that could keep their plans from coming to fruitation.

Neither of them noticed a third pair of eyes, glinting in the darkness behind the men. And neither noticed when the darkness became a shape that slithered off into the night to bring a report back to the one who sent it.

~*~

A/N: WAH!!! My 12-yr molars wait 3 frickin’ years to come in, and now they HURT!!!! Which, actually, means updates will be faster since typing has little to do with my teeth, unlike talking and pretty much everything else, so hey, it’s all good :) Review plz and the next update’ll be longer!! Sorry they’re so short, but I figure a little is better than nothing, and the gap between updates will be WAY bigger if I wait till I have ten pages into the comp. each time. If it’s a bad idea, just tell me in a review. (Yeah, yeah, it’s manipulation. Sue me, lol )





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