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"That's none of your business!" Buffy tried to push by Cameron, but he grabbed her arms. Gage and Dodd stepped in closer.

"You know what they call girls that take money from men and then have sex with them?" His eyes were dark with rage.

"Let me go!" Buffy kicked at his legs and twisted her body to try and get free, but she couldn't get out of his grasp.

"You wouldn't even go to a movie with me." Cameron's jaw twitched. "I waited for you to get over Angel. I gave you time. I even let you date that geek. I accepted him, because it seemed that you did. Then, when I found out that it was all a scam, I was a little relieved. Well, I was after I stopped being angry. I thought that you were free to date me. But, you haven't been around. I couldn't understand why you were angry at us." His voice became shrill. "I found out that you slept with him. Why him?" Cameron gave her a few shakes.

Buffy looked at him right in the eye. She forced down her fear and let her anger rise. "Me, me, me. You're pathetic. I would never date you."

Cameron squeezed her upper arms, causing her cry out. "You seem to like pathetic guys. I don't think you would get any lower if you fucked all of us." Gage and Dodd smiled and stood closer to to Buffy.

"Let's see if it would." Gage grabbed Buffy's arm.

"We're in the middle of the school, you wouldn't do anything." She spat out.

"I don't see anyone around." Cameron whispered, his breath hot. She shook in revulsion.

There was the sound a fist hitting flesh, and Gage let go of Buffy. Taking advantage of the distraction, she untangled herself from Cameron. She looked over to see Gage lying on the floor, slowly making his way back up. Spike, his eyes wild, was now fighting Dodd. Buffy swung her purse with all her might, hitting Gage in the head and knocking him back down.

Cameron grabbed Spike and pushed him into the locker face first. He pulled him back and slammed him again, this time hitting the corner where the lockers came to an end. Buffy's heart lurched to see Spike's face, covered in so much blood, as he pulled Spike back for another slam. She jumped on Cameron's back, feeling her fingernails dig into his face. Cameron dropped Spike, who swung around and punched Dodd.

"Someone's coming!" Gage ran down the hallway. Dodd quickly followed, and Cameron threw Buffy off and ran.

"Are you okay?" Spike, looking concerned, lightly brushed her cheek. Buffy wasn't concerned about herself. There was so much blood on his face, and she couldn't tell where it was coming from.

"You're bleeding." Buffy stepped closer to Spike to see where the cut was.

"What happened here?" A teacher walked up to them. "Was there a fight?"

There was a strict no fighting policy at school, which involved a two week suspension. Since Spike threw the first punch, Buffy knew that he would get into trouble if she told the truth.

"No fight. We were goofing around and William ran into the lockers." Buffy raised her eyebrows at Spike in hopes that he would go with the story.

"I tripped over my big feet." Spike shrugged with a smile.

"This is why you aren't supposed to run in the hallways." The teacher shook her head. "Come on, let's go to the nurse's office to get you cleaned up."

* * *

"I'll have a scar?" Spike looked in the mirror at the bandaid. Maybe it wouldn't be too horrible.

"Probably. The cut's not deep enough to need stitches, but you may have a slight line through your eyebrow." The nurse turned to him with a smile. "If it bothers you, you could always darken it with an eyebrow pencil."

Buffy started laughing. She had an amused expression that was friendly, not mocking. "I have some makeup you could borrow," she teased.

Spike was happy that Buffy stayed with him. He wanted to ask her if she was okay. But if he did, the nurse would have suspected that the cut wasn't from horsing around.

"Well, you two can go home. Everything else looks fine," the nurse said, handing Spike a piece of paper to sign.

"I assume you're riding home with me," Spike said quietly when they were walking towards the parking lot. Earlier, she told Dawn to go home with Willow.

Buffy nodded, suddenly quiet.

"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Spike stopped and looked at her. She was no longer the light hearted girl she had been in the nurse's office.

"I'm fine. They just made threats. I doubt they would have actually done anything." Buffy started walking towards his car.

Spike walked after her. "I don't know how they knew that we slept together. I never told anybody."

"I didn't either. He must have guessed or overheard us talking." Buffy stopped at his car. "It was none of his business anyway."

Spike opened the passenger door for her. After he got into the car, he turned towards her. "I understand, now, why you were so upset with me. I was acting just like them, and it didn't matter that I didn't do anything to you personally. I was a jerk, too, and I'm sorry."

Buffy stared out the windshield and said, "I'm really not the one you should be apologizing to. You never intentionally hurt me."

"But I did hurt you. Dawn told me that you cried, and it hurt more than anything. I don't care if the entire world shuns me, as long as you don't have to cry anymore."

Buffy's shoulders dropped. She gave him a small smile. "I missed you."

Spike felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He started towards her, intending on holding her again. Buffy put up her hand to stop him.

"I'm not saying that we would go back to how things were before. There are things that I need to think about. " Buffy's voice softened and she touched Spike's arm.

Spike smiled. She gave him a crumb, which was more than he thought he would get. He nodded. "Okay. I'll give you as long as you need."

"I think you should talk to Xander and Willow," Buffy said hesitantly. "They're coming over to my house tonight to watch movies. If you want to, you could come over."

Spike felt queazy. "I really hurt them. I can't apologize for that. It's too late."

"It's never too late. Things will probably be rough for a while, but they're good people. I think they would eventually forgive you."

Spike didn't think he deserved forgiveness, but it was tearing him up inside. He had pushed the guilt aside for so long now. First, while he was popular, then lately because he was worried about Buffy. Buffy was right, he needed to talk to them, at least to apologize. He needed to stop being a wimp and just do it.

"What time should I come over?" He asked while starting the car.

***

"You seem nervous." Willow paused filling a bowl with potato chips to look at Buffy. She lowered her voice. "Are you upset over the attack this afternoon?"

"It was more of a confrontation, than an attack. But no, I'm not upset. I-" Buffy tried to think of an easy way to tell Willow that Spike was coming over. She didn't know what Willow's feelings were of Spike, since they never talked about him. Maybe it was too soon. Buffy glanced at Xander and Oz sitting in the living room. They probably couldn't hear her and Willow in the kitchen."I invited Spike to join us." There she said it.

"Oh," Willow said hesitantly. "I understand. He did get hurt saving you from Cameron."

"I know he really hurt you and Xander. If you don't want to see him, I'll call him and tell him not to come over. He's not supposed to come for another hour anyway."

"It's your house. You can invite whomever you want." Willow carried the potato chips into the living room. Xander dove into the chips.

"You invited someone else? Who?" Xander's voice was muffled by the chips.

Even though it was obvious that Willow wasn't happy, she wasn't going to make a scene. Buffy had a feeling, though, that Xander wouldn't be as understanding.

Dawn came into the living room and plopped down in a reclining chair. "Who else is coming?" Her eyes widened with realization. "Oh."

Oz seemed to understand, too, because he walked over to Willow and put an arm around her. The two seemed to communicate without words, and finally Oz seemed content that she was alright.

"Maybe the junk food I eat is finally affecting my brain, but I seem to be the last one who knows who this mystery person is." Xander turned to Buffy. "Who?"

"Spike is coming over in about an hour," Buffy said quietly.

Xander was still for a moment. Suddenly, he got up and left the house, slamming the door. Damn! Buffy didn't want to make her new friends mad.

"I'll go talk to him. He's probably just outside the door." Willow left the house.

"This was a bad idea." Buffy shook her head. Oz walked over and sat down on the couch. "I thought Spike could apologize to them. He seemed so sorry."

"If you want to be Spike's friend again, they'll have to confront one another sometime." Dawn stood up and walked over to Buffy. "If Spike's really sincere, it'll turn out okay."

"I don't want Willow hurt anymore, so I hope he is." Oz surprised them by speaking. "You know him better than I do, so I trust your instinct," he said to Buffy.

Buffy hoped that she was correct in thinking that Spike wanted to apologize. It was possible that he was still desperate to be popular, and was under the illusion that she could make him so. But, Buffy didn't think that was true. He had this look in his eyes that told Buffy that he was really sorry. And she didn't think that he was only sorry about her, either. When she mentioned Willow and Xander, he looked crushed.

Willow and Xander reentered the house. Both of them had reddened eyes, as if they had been crying. Oz immediately went to Willow and hugged her.

Xander looked at Buffy with resignation. "I'll stay, and I'll be civil towards him. I'm not making any promises that I'll talk to him, though."

Buffy stepped towards him and hugged him. "Thank you." She didn't say anything more. She's was just going to have to wait and see how things turned out.

* * *

Spike had stood outside Buffy's front door for ten minutes debating on whether to ring the door bell or to go home. She told him seven-thirty, and it was two minutes past that. He really didn't want to face them. It would be so much easier to just go home and tell Buffy that he was sick or something. While he mentally considered his options once again, the door swung open and Buffy peered at him.

She looked surprised. "Spike, I was just seeing if you were on your way. Well, come in."

Spike walked past Buffy, but stopped just on the other side of her. Willow and Oz were sitting on one of the couches watching him, but they didn't greet him. Xander was sitting in the recliner, reading the backs of the DVDs. He was ignoring him, it seemed. Dawn came in from the kitchen with a big bowl of popcorn. She sat on the other couch and passed the bowl to Xander.

"Spike, if you want some popcorn you'd better take some before Xander eats it all," Dawn said, indicating the bowl.

"What makes you think I'm going to eat all the popcorn?" Xander laughed, but still ignored Spike.

"Because, you always do." She turned to Spike. "We usually end up making a second bowl, so we could have some."

Spike was surprised that Dawn was being nice to him. He didn't want to fight over popcorn, even if it would be all in fun, though. So, he said, "That's okay. I'm not very hungry." Which was true, since he was so nervous.

"Let's sit down." Buffy walked over and sat down next to Dawn on the couch. Spike followed and sat next to Buffy. He was furtherest away from anybody else in the room, since the other couch and Xander's chair were on the other side of Buffy.

Xander started a movie that was already in the DVD player. Spike was a little glad that his apology was being put off. Though, he wanted to get it over with, he knew it would be better when they were used to him being in the room. Or would it? Maybe by prolonging it, the tension in the room would triple, and it would end up in a fiery confrontation that wouldn't leave anybody happy. He glance around the room, they all seemed to be enjoying the movie, even laughing and making comments about the cheesiness. There didn't seem to be that much tension. Spike let out a sigh of relief.

When the movie was over, Buffy announced that she wanted pizza. "What kind does everyone want?" Buffy asked, looking directly at Spike.

Spike realized that everyone, except Xander, was watching and waiting for him to answer. "I don't really mind. I'll eat anything," he said quietly. With that, Buffy shrugged and took suggestions from everyone else.

"Don't start the movie until I get back," Buffy called from the kitchen when she went to order the pizza. Spike realized that she left him alone with everyone else. Everyone was quiet. Xander and Dawn were reading magazines, and Willow and Oz were softly talking to each other. Buffy seemed to be taking a long time.

"They said that it would be two hours to deliver a pizza. Three of their drivers called in sick. But, we can pick up the pizza ourselves, and get it in a half hour." Buffy looked at Oz. "Could you give me a ride over there? I don't have a car."

"I could go with Oz to pick up the pizza." Willow perked up.

Buffy shook her head. "I'm writing them a check, and they check for id. Pizza's on me tonight." Buffy smiled. "Dawn, watch over things, okay?" Buffy and Oz walked out the front door.

Dawn nodded. It looked to Spike that Dawn and Buffy were communicating something else. The whole pizza thing seemed strange. Oh, he realized. Buffy wanted to leave Spike, Willow, and Xander alone, so that they could talk. Dawn must be the moderator.

"How long do you need to keep that bandage on?" Dawn was looking at the cut on Spike's eyebrow.

Spike reached up and touched it. "I'm not sure. It wasn't that bad, so I could probably take it off now." He was hesitant to say much more.

"Those creeps. I wish they'd die," Dawn fumed.

"Dawn!" Willow spoke up. "Don't say things like that. If something actually happened to them, you'd feel horrible."

"No, I wouldn't. They don't care about anything but themselves. They're nothing but bullies, ganging up on people just to make themselves feel bigger. The world would be better off without them."

Dawn's words hit close to home with Spike. He was a one of them, a bully. Spike glanced at Dawn, but she was scowling, staring at nothing. He looked around the room and was surprised to see Xander looking at him. He didn't appear angry, just a little sad.

"I'm sorry," Spike said quietly. "I was a weak, selfish bully. I couldn't stand up to them, and threw away the best friendships I ever had."

Xander's expression darkened a little. "Yes, you were weak and selfish. You destroyed what was between the three of us. Now you feel guilty. Good! Don't look to us to make you feel better."

Spike felt numb. He didn't expect them to forgive him, but it still hurt. Part of him wanted to go home, but the other part wanted to listen to their anger and hurt in order to feel some type of punishment.
"You've changed. You're not the same person who used to be our friend," Willow spoke up. "Our friend William wouldn't have ignored us for weeks. William wouldn't have humiliated us by telling the whole school our secrets in order to get a laugh." She paused. "But William also wouldn't have risked everything to save someone who was about to be assaulted or worse. That was a good thing you did for Buffy."

Dawn patted him on the arm, distracting him. Spike looked at Xander and Willow. They didn't look as angry, anymore. Saving Buffy had given him a chance. Maybe not a chance to be their friend again, but it seemed to give him a chance at forgiveness.

TBC





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