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Disclaimer: Everyone should bloody well know by now that I don't own even a smidgen of the rights to these delicious characters. The creator of BTVS does which is fine and dandy.

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He tossed and turned for three hours straight, staring intensely at the bright blue numbers every few minutes or so which didn't seem to help the restlessness. His gut grumbled it's annoying resonance and it was becoming unbearable. He needed blood, needed to feed right at that exact moment, otherwise go stark raving mad in the meantime.

He knew there was at least one packet of pig's blood stuffed back in the far reaches of the refrigerator, out of sight. He knew because he had put it there the last time he had been over to watch late night movies with the nibblet. But could he go unnoticed and sneak down the stairs to the kitchen without waking the slayer? That was the big question.

His dilemma was apparently obvious. Things just happened to be going fairly well now that "William" and Buffy were becoming friends. Spike didn't want to lose that growing friendship now and thought it best, in his own maniacal way, that Buffy didn't need to know he had regained all of the memories of his vampire existence back. She didn't need to know that Spike was now----well, Spike. He could be deceptive, hell, it's what he lived for. Evil, you know. He may have gone a bit soft, but he could still play the part. He could definitely put on a facade. He was a very good actor and never once thought of the dire consequences in the end.

Right now, all he could think about was feeding his craving. He slipped out of the bed and grabbed his jeans when he realized he was already wearing sweats. For certain one of Buffy's gifts to William. He shrugged not really caring because they were actually quite comfortable. Not his usual bedtime attire, but it would do.

He silently began to tiptoe down the stairs. Spike couldn't believe he had resorted to tiptoeing. About midway, the vampire hit a squeaky floorboard and cringed, cursing under his breath and standing completely still for a few seconds. When he heard nothing coming from Buffy's room he continued down the flight thinking that stalking his prey was a hell of a lot easier than playing keep away from the Slayer.

Once in the kitchen with the refrigerator door standing wide open, he ravishingly began to scoot things around, searching for the butcher's packet. A thought occured to him in the middle of this process. What if she surprised him by showing up in the kitchen? What would he tell her then? He picked up the orange juice container, grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and poured out some juice. As he replaced the container back on the shelf he grabbed the bag of blood. Damn, he wouldn't be able to warm it up. Oh well, he'd had worse.

Stepping out onto the back porch in the cool night air, he vamped out and sunk his teeth into the plastic bag, gulping greedily until he had completely drained it dry. Spike grimaced as he folded the bag into a nice neat square and headed back into the kitchen to stow the spent bag underneath the rest of the garbage in the kitchen trash can. He grabbed the filled glass, swigged the oj down in one gulp and placed the empty glass into the sink.

'Much better' he thought as he patted his tummy and grinned. But the grin turned into a frown. Back to the sneaking part. He was almost tempted to stay downstairs and sleep on the sofa but then would have to come up with a good excuse why he ended up on the couch. This time on the way up the steps he remembered which one was squeaky and bypassed it by stepping over the whole thing. As he shut the bedroom door silently behind him, he smiled and mentally patted himself on the back. 'Sly as a fox' he mused. 'I still got it.' Sleep overtook him quickly this time.

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It was after 10 in the morning when he roused himself from his deep yet unsatisfying sleep. He heard someone making racket downstairs and assumed it to be Buffy since Dawn was long gone to school. He wasn't prepared to face the new day, in fact not really prepared to face Buffy. His confidence in his acting and protrayal of "William" had dipped to a low and he was now feeling a bit queasy about the prospect of flat out lying to her.

He growled at his contemplations. What was he turning into? One lousy realistic dream about Buffy with his declarations of love and he had turned into a bleeding poncy schoolboy with a leash around his neck. He was being led straight into the bottomless pit of lovesick saps yet he hardly gave a struggle to keep his head above the rest. He didn't care; it was a good feeling to him. Much different than what he had with Drusilla. With Buffy, he would follow her around to the ends of the earth just to quench the fires that burned deep inside of him. If this was one way of getting her attention, then so be it. He'd rather be with her as William and feel at least a simplified version of love, than to be chasing after her as Spike and feel ridiculed and lowly.

That did it, he had made up his mind. Plan out the strategies and get into the game. He jumped out of bed and yanked the door open to find a pile of neatly folded brand new clothes sitting on the floor in front of him. He smiled at Buffy's growing sincerities. She had bought him some new clothes and even though they were nothing Spike would actually be caught "dead" in, he chuckled, William would most probably be a rather good-looking bloke in them. Spike scooped them up and headed to the bathroom to shower and change into the new duds.

Twenty minutes later, standing in the middle of the kitchen, he found himself alone in the house. Buffy had stepped out to run to the butcher's to grab some blood and had left a note to confirm her absence. So, Spike wandered back into the living room, very tempted to plop down on the couch and turn the telly on. He figured he better shut the Spike mode off even if he was by himself just in case. He didn't want to have to come up with excuses already in the beginning of his well thought out scheme.

He sat down on the couch anyway and glanced around. Something caught his roving eye; the notebook Dawn had given him the other night. Someone had moved it. He growled as he bent over to pick it up. How could he have been so careless to leave it just lying around for anyone to sneak a peak? Well, actually it was William who had left it out in the open. And he should have known better what with all the ridicule he had received over a century ago of his prose run mad. He began to flip through the pages to refresh his memory of what William had composed.

At the first reading of one of the poems, he groaned, threw his head back and closed his eyes tight. He chuckled in amusement.

"The bloody pouf fell hard, too. Doesn't surprise me, I guess, not in the least."

Spike continued to read the filled pages and was by all means impressed as he continued through the notebook. The first one, of course, was a bit flakey but he had to consider that he was a bit rusty. It had been quite sometime since he felt the urge to write poetry for anyone. And Buffy was just not anyone. She had captured his unbeating heart, and if he had one still, his very soul. His constant thoughts of her hit him to his very core and speaking of which, a deep tingle hit him just as the back door flew open. He quickly shut the notebook and thrust it between the cushion and the couch as he made his way to meet her in the kitchen.

"Good morning, Buffy," he greeted her shyly. "Can I help you in anyway?"

Buffy was trying to shut the door with her foot while balancing the three grocery bags in her arms. She smiled at him sweetly.

"Yes, please. Could you grab a bag or two? I'd appreciate it very much."

"Sure," he rounded the island and grabbed two bags out of her grasp, not noticing the beam of sunlight peeking through the open door which hit him directly on his left hand. He recoiled from it and hissed as the bag tumbled towards the floor. In the nick of time though, he scooped it up in his free arm before it hit. Vampire speed was still there. Buffy hurriedly slammed the door shut and ran to his side, grabbing the injured hand.

"It's alright, I'm alright. Don't worry---," he sputtered out.

"Hush," and she led him over to the sink and turned on the cool water, holding his burnt hand underneath the gentle flow. All he could do was stare at her, adoration plainly etched across his face.

"Thank you for the clothes," he barely voiced to her.

Buffy turned to look at him and got caught in his mesmerizing eyes. They stood there, water running over his hand, staring at one another for what seemed ages.

"You're welcome," she whispered. The phone rang shrilly and broke them both out of the trance. She shook her head and left him standing at the sink to answer the call.

He shut the water off and dried the wound gently just as she popped back up next to him. He showed it to her.

"See, healing already. I love this part---uh, the healing aspect, I mean," he said joyfully.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize the sun was coming in and---."

"Oh, not to worry. I'm sure I've had worse burns. Besides, I didn't think about it either. Me, I was the one who stuck his hand into the frying pan." He snickered at himself. Buffy giggled at the remark, too.

She began to empty out the bags. Seems she had gone to the grocery store as well.

"I bought some blood and I stopped by the Magic Box and picked up some of that Berber weed you seem to like so well, you know, when you were mentally Spike. You said it spiced it up or something like that. I thought it might be easier for you to drink it, you know, at first."

Spike stared at her in awe, transfixed by your thoughtfulness. She noticed him staring at her all goofy looking and everything.

"What?" she laughed.

"Amazing!"

"What's amazing?"

The look he had disappeared. "Oh, um, just that you would remember something like that. I mean, you yourself said you were not close to--- him, me, Spike. I just thought---oh, never you mind. Can I help you?"

"Sure, if you can find a place for these in the black hole we call the refrigerator."

He chuckled slightly as he began to shuffle things and scoot foodstuffs around in the cold abyss. Buffy glanced at him over her shoulder.

"I have two classes this afternoon that I need to go to. You think you will be alright here by yourself until, um, around 4:30ish? Dawn should be home by then and I generally get home around 5 or so."

"I think I can handle myself until then. I'm sure there is plenty of activities around here that will keep me preoccupied."

She took the last remaining items over to him to place in the fridge and stood, gaping at the now reorganized cold arrangement.

"Wow, you have great organizational skills. I always thought it strange how neat your, I mean Spike's, crypt is. Want to organize my closet?" she giggled. He laughed along with her.

She popped the blood filled mug into the microwave and heated it up while he finished up his refrigerator stocking. By the time he was finished, she had the warmed blood, two sandwiches and a pile of carrot sticks sitting out on the island ready to be eaten. Once again, he was amazed that she was so considerate and thoughtful. She would have never done anything like this for Spike, for him. William, on the other hand, was getting to be spoiled.

She took a huge bite out of her ham sandwich and grinned at him as he did the same.

"Tonight," she spoke around the mouthful, "we can sit and talk about being a vampire and all the things that come with the whole package. Sound good?"

He shook his head yes, eyes twinkling. 'Shall be very interesting to find out what the slayer has to say about vampires indeed.' Spike mused.

TBC





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