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Author's Chapter Notes:
Let me just say a huge thank you to all of those that reviewed! I was amazed at the response I got for this, since I was only expected three or four reviews for the first chapter. You guys are amazing, and guess what...

You made me want to write more ;)

So here's a nice, long chapter for you. Not all of it's angst, I added in some humor as well.

Anyway, I hadn't been expecting to post a new chapter for three or four days, but the reviews made me change my mind.

Hey, let's make that a habit. ;) =)
Every ounce of guilt that made itself known, every tear that threatened to drop, and every time she wanted to curse the bleached idiot for blaming her. She channeled all of it into pure rage.

She was letting the Slayer out to play, and giving it all the fuel it needed to kill. There wouldn’t be any more bodies in this town.

Not tonight. Not after so much had already happened.

It was later that night, the night of the funeral. Just five short days after the shooting. After Spike had left the cemetery, Buffy had nearly fallen into a state of tears and self-pitying. That was until her first demon showed up.

She’d already found and killed two demons and three vampires throughout town.

And it had only been two hours since Spike left her alone.

But her energy was beginning to wear down, and she had no anger left to put out. She was completely drained.

Thoughts of “what if” and “what now” continued to dance through her mind, threatening to bring her to tears yet again.

What if she had been able to stop the killer sooner? What if Faith hadn’t died?

Where do I go from here...?

If it were up to principal Snyder, they would’ve been back in school the day after the shooting. Parents fought him on that, and he settled for the not-so-happy medium of allowing students about a week to recuperate.

But she didn’t know how she was supposed to go back and face everyone. She realized that, like Spike, the students had probably all counted on her to be their savior, to take him down before he’d even had a chance to bring his gun out.

Even if they hadn’t expected quite so much from her, they had all seen her save the killer from ending his own life. They wouldn’t understand that it was something she had to do. They wouldn’t see it as saving a life.

They would see it as saving a murderer who deserved to die.

As she thrust her stake into the heart of her last vampire of the night, she slumped against the side of a building, putting a hand over her eyes and willing it all away.

These past few days had been draining her completely dry, and she felt like there wasn’t anything left.

Funny how much a death could hurt when it wasn’t even of someone she was close to.

After a moment, she finally let her hand drop from her face, letting out a long sigh as she stepped away from the brick wall. She surveyed her surroundings, realizing that the fights of the night had led her to an alley not to far from the Bronze.

Feeling like she just needed to go and relax, she concealed her wooden weapon and started for the club.

-----

She couldn’t believe how much a place could change within a matter of five days.

The Bronze was usually crowded, loud, full of life.

Now, there were less than half the people that were usually there. There was no live band, as there usually was. And the people that were there all had places to sit, blankly staring off into nothing.

No one looked over when she came in, despite the fact that the door opening and shutting was practically the only form of noise there was.

She recognized most of the people here as her fellow classmates. Some sat at tables, some on the couches, but hardly anyone spoke.

The entire scene screamed of death and pain.

It wasn’t that everyone there was mourning over the loss of Faith. Some hadn’t even known her. And while Faith usually respected those around her, she had never been incredibly nice to everyone. Some were without a doubt experiencing loss, sure. But what upset them more was the fact that a shooting had actually happened.

They were all so used to dealing with strange occurrences, unexplainable beings. So when a mortal man became the object of their nightmares, it had brought them to a place where they hadn’t been before.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Buffy began to make her way over to the bar when she noticed none other than Spike sitting there.

She hesitated, almost turning around to walk out. But then she simply shook her head and continued over.

She smiled at the bartender and ordered a Coke, then turned to Spike.

“Buffy, Buffy, Buffy,” he said with a chuckle, and she jumped slightly. She thought that he hadn’t seen her yet. “A bloke might think you’re the stalkin’ type.”

She sighed at the slur in his voice and the beer in his hand. When her own beverage was set down in front of her, she glared at the bartender. In Sunnydale, being as small as it was, it wasn’t that hard for a minor to get a beer if they wanted to. Sometimes they’d run you out, but when it wasn’t crowded and it was late, you could most likely drink to your heart’s content. Turning back to Spike, she stated the obvious.

“You’re drunk.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, luv.” She raised an eyebrow at the pet name, then shook it off.

He sighed when he finished the one in his hand and then looked ready to order another. “I don’t think so,” Buffy said, and he turned to glare at her.

“Please,” he said simply. “You’re not my mother.”

“Nice comeback, Spike. Did anyone ever tell you that somehow you get even less intelligent when you’re drunk?”

He rolled his eyes at her retort and shrugged. “Doesn’ matter how dumb I sound. Still smarter than you.”

She shook her head a little and drank some of her Coke. They fell into silence for a good while, both of them getting lost in their distant stares. Finally, Buffy spoke again.

“How are you? I mean besides the whole drowning your sorrows thing,” she asked quietly.

He let out a humorless, cold chuckle and looked to the ceiling for a moment. “I feel like I just lost someone I cared greatly about, and that the bastard that killed her gets to go on living.” He paused, looking at her to make his point. “You?”

“Look, I know this is hard, but-”

“Don’t feed me that crap, Summers,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t know a bleeding thing. You sit up on your high horse, thinking that you’re better than the rest of us. Then pretend to care when we get hurt.”

“You’re not even making sense, Spike,” she pointed out with a sigh.

“My point is, you don’t know what real pain is. You ever lost anyone? Ever had to watch someone you love die? You haven’t ever had to go through what we go through.”

She felt herself getting angrier with each word he said. “Pray tell, who is ‘we’?”

“People. You give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done when you think you’ve helped someone. Truth is, you can’t help hurting people when you’ve never hurt a day in your life.”

She had to bite the side of her mouth to keep from saying anything at first. Finally, when she felt herself somewhat calmed, she replied.

“First of all, I experience death every night after the sun goes down,” she said, not caring if she was giving away anything of her calling at the moment, but also thinking he’d forget by tomorrow anyway. “Second of all, you don’t have to watch someone die to know what pain is.” She paused, shaking her head. “Get up.”

“What the...bloody hell, no,” he said angrily.

“I said, get up,” she said again, standing up. “I’m going home. And I don’t want you getting killed tonight only to have your ghost come back and haunt me.” She looked toward the bartender who had paused with a strange look on his face and an eyebrow raised. “Get up,” she said, looking at Spike again.

He glared at her and stood up, opened his mouth to yell at her, and then nearly passed out. Stumbling for a moment, he tried to regain himself.

Before he could, Buffy was pulling on his arm and practically dragging him from the club. They were outside the doors when Spike was finally able to pull away. Buffy raised an eyebrow at how strong he was even while drunk.

Maybe I’m just having an off night after fighting all those demons, she thought and shrugged it from her mind.

“Listen. I don’t have to do a damn thing you bleeding ask me to,” he yelled, taking a step back and nearly crashing as he did so. “The only reason I’m going home is because I want to,” he said with an almost childlike tone, and she raised an eyebrow but put her hands up in surrender.

“I’m still walking you home,” she told him firmly.

“Like hell you are.”

“Shut up.” Her voice held some anger this time and her look left no room for argument. “You want to get killed? Too bad,” she said simply.

Rolling his eyes, he pushed her arm away when she tried to help him again. “I can walk, woman.”

It took all of two minutes before he began to stumble and Buffy found herself with his arm around her shoulder as he leaned on her to walk. “You tell anyone about this and I’ll-”

“Trust me. I won’t.”

“Ha bloody ha,” he muttered.

It wasn’t long before they reached his house. However, it took longer for Spike to find his key, and Buffy found herself growing tired of standing outside the house.

“Why don’t you just knock so your parents will let you in?”

“Parents aren’t home,” he mumbled absentmindedly. “Da’ is usually out of town. Mum’s working at the hospital a lot lately.” He looked to her for a moment. “Why are you still here?”

“I’m waiting for you to open the door,” she said with that ‘don’t argue with me’ tone of hers.

Finally, he pulled his key out of his jeans pocket and struggled with it before finally getting the door open.

Buffy was ready to walk away when he began to fall before he could even get inside of the house. With her Slayer speed, she rushed forward and caught him before he could hit the ground. She expected him to start trying to stand up on his own, and sighed when he didn’t move at all.

“Spike?” No answer. “Spike?” Looking down at him, she realized that he was now unconscious. “Damn it,” she muttered. With the strength that she had, he wasn’t all that heavy at all, but it still felt strange for her to be carrying him. Once inside the door, she shut it behind her with her foot and started up the stairs, which surprisingly, was a little harder than she thought it would be.

Finally, she was upstairs, going from door to door in the hallway to find his room. He was starting to come to, groaning a little bit. Ignoring him for the moment, she found his room and carried him over to the bed.

It was more than tempting to just throw him on there and leave, but she sighed and gently helped him onto the bed. She wasn’t able to see very well in the darkness, so she went over and turned the lamp on his desk on.

He groaned a little bit and looked over to her, rubbing at his eyes. “I’ve been hit by a truck, and now I’m in hell,” he muttered.

“Not exactly,” Buffy replied, sitting back down.

Spike briefly wondered how in the world a tiny thing like her could have carried him up the stairs, but it left his brain almost as instantly as it came.

“You need anything?” She questioned.

She expected him to be his usual stubborn self and refuse, but to her surprise, he asked her to go downstairs and get him some aspirin.

She was halfway back up the stairs with what he’d requested when she heard a loud noise and hurried back up. She arrived in time to see Spike, boots, duster and shirt now off, with half of his room now all over the floor. If the look of pure anger was any hint, then he wasn’t feeling to happy at the moment.

He didn’t look over at her, though she was sure that he knew she was there. He stood not too far from his bed, one of his fists clenched tightly. “You okay?” She asked softly, not afraid, because she knew she could take him if it came down to it, but a little worried for him. He didn’t answer, and she walked over to him.

When she reached out to hand him the water, she jumped and yelped slightly when he angrily knocked the glass from her hands.

She found herself with his angry gaze on her now, and despite the knowledge that he couldn’t hurt her, she still found herself backing up a little. “What the hell are you doing?” He demanded.

“Me?! I’m not the one throwing a temper tantrum!” She said loudly, feeling tension grow in her stomach. Her back hit the wall and he moved forward, harshly hitting the wall on each side of her head. Feeling trapped wasn’t a feeling the Slayer liked, but for some reason, she didn’t fight.

“You think that you can make me forget how all of this is you fault?” He demanded. “That you can just come in here, pretend to care and take care of me, and I’ll what? Turn to you for comfort?”

“Look, I was just trying to help,” she yelled angrily.

Oops.

Yelling. Huge mistake.

She found out that Spike was really drunk.

Suddenly, he grabbed her shoulders, harshly brought her a little away from the wall, and then slammed her back against it. She winced in pain, and she briefly wondered where all of her own strength had gone, and why Spike was able to hurt her with a simple shove. Must be really angry, she concluded.

Once again he had his hands on either side of her. “Shut. Up,” he said dangerously.

Somewhere, despite her better judgment, she found herself arguing with him again. “You can’t just keep blaming all of this on me! I never-”

She found herself suddenly interrupted again. Which wasn’t so surprising, because Spike never let her get a complete sentence out.

No, the surprise was that he was using his mouth to shut her up. But in the form of kissing, not yelling.

Still in shock, she didn’t return the kiss. She never got the chance before he suddenly pulled away. With wide eyes, she waited, not having a clue as to what he was going to do.

She got her answer when he none-too-gently pulled her to him and crashed his lips upon hers with a brutal kiss.

The weird thing was, she actually found herself kissing him back.

There was no way that she wasn’t in an episode of the Twilight Zone right now. No freaking way.

He was drunk; she knew that. But she also knew that he’d sobered up enough to know what he was doing.

And everything inside of her said that she needed to pull away. She didn’t love him. She didn’t even like him.

He was the one to pull away, first, though, needing to breathe. There was a brief, almost non-existent moment of tenderness when he rested his forehead against hers. And before she could react at all, she found herself harshly pushed against the wall again. She winced a little, but as he moved back toward her, she saw the sadness in his eyes. The utter pain and anguish of losing yet another that he cared for.

And when he began to kiss her again, his hands now moving to the hem of her shirt, all thoughts of breaking away diminished.

He needed this.

He’d probably regret it tomorrow, and hate her until the end of time. But right now, this was the only form of comfort and apology she could offer him.

And maybe she needed it to.

She would let him have tonight.





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