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A/N as always big thanks to April for mending my grammer :)

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He can count perfectly the eight careful steps that will take her from his bed again tonight.

Step one: She whispers his name, softly enough so as not to wake him, but loud enough that he would hear her if he were not sleeping.

Step two: She shifts to the edge of the bed, carefully redistributing her weight so that her movements won't rock him into wakefulness.

Step three: She gently frees herself from the comforter, then holds her breath and waits for the tell tale sounds that she has disturbed him.

Step four: She carefully rolls off the bed, freezing as the mattress creaks loudly in the silent room, and stands motionless over him for a moment

Step five: She creeps to the door with all the stealth of her calling.

Step six: She turns the door handle so slowly it doesn't make even the slightest sound and carefully pulls open the door.

Step seven: She whispers his name once more to be certain she hasn't roused him and she can escape unnoticed.

Step eight: She is gone, disappearing silently down the hall towards the back stairs that will take her to the basement and to him.

She did this in the early hours of yesterday morning after they had helped Spike hang Carlotta's body, washed and dressed prettily in deep blue Levis and her worn 1996 Brazilian football shirt, in the magically strengthened chains in the basement. Spike had sat down on the floor opposite her body, his back against the cold damp stone and readied himself for the vigil he will keep until she wakes again.

Giles had ushered them away, tugging insistently on Buffy's arm when it had looked as if she would move to stay with the vampire. "Go back to bed, Buffy," he'd whispered gently. "There's nothing you can do for either of them."

He'd been surprised that she'd complied so readily, allowing him to guide her up the rickety stairs with nothing more than a single mournful glance over her shoulder. He realises now she had always had the intention to return; she merely wished to keep the peace around her ex-lover and his dead girl.

She was back in his bed by the time he woke, and in the morning she gave nothing away. She ate. She comforted Dawn and studiously ignored Willow. She warmed blood and took it to the basement, then retrieved it untouched an hour later. She nodded pensively when Giles informed her that he believed Carlotta was right in her assumption that her blood will now satisfy the spell. She warmed another mug of blood and took it to the basement, only to once again return an hour later to find it untouched. She organised the few remaining slayers still fit enough to patrol and welcomed back Faith and the small party she had led on an expedition to kill a nest of Marock demons in Idaho. At eleven in the evening, she delivered a final mug of blood to the basement before joining him in their bed and silently resisting his lone attempt to hold her.

He guesses that by now she will be approaching the basement door and pictures her slipping quietly down the stairs. In his mind’s eye, he sees her looking worriedly at the motionless vampire, sees her lean against the wall and slide down until she is sitting beside him, knees drawn up to her chest, eyes fixed on his profile. She won't say anything. She'll wait, and eventually he'll speak. It is there that his imagination runs aground. What can Spike say? What comfort could Buffy offer? What secrets will they share with the stale, musty air?

The need to know is overwhelming, but he doesn't move. He could hardly eavesdrop on them. Either one of them would know he was there long before he came into earshot; with their sharp instincts and heightened senses, they would hear even the softest tread on the stairs two flight above them. So he must wait till morning and hope she'll tell him herself. He trusts her to do that at least.

……………………………………..

He hasn't moved at all since she left him alone just as dawn coloured the eastern sky nearly twenty-four hours ago. If he were human, his bones would ache from the cold and his muscles would have seized from inactivity. But he isn't human. He is as dead as the limp body hanging before him, and yet it is easy to forget that.

She doesn't speak, knows there is nothing she can say; no platitudes or trite words of condolence can comfort him now. All she can do is wait. Wait and watch his profile until he is ready to speak to her. She watches him for an hour, until her bones ache and her muscles seize, but she doesn't move and she doesn't speak. He'll talk when he's ready.

"Why?" he says eventually, and she jerks slightly at the suddenness of the sound.

Why? How can she answer that? How can she even begin to address the unfathomable hugeness of the question? He turns to her and she wishes there were tears in his eyes, because that at least would be a sign that underneath the pain he is not completely broken. But looking into his eyes now she has the unsettling feeling that she is looking into a mirror, one that defies the relentless trudging of time to reflect the hollowness of her own expression in the awful year of her resurrection.

It is her fervent wish in this instant that she were him, that she could for just a little while steal his impetuous eloquence, his infuriating ability to say exactly what needs to be said at exactly the moment it should be said. He is still looking at her, silently prompting her for an answer with desolate, guilt-ridden eyes that she knows are soulless but feels now more strongly than ever reflect an ocean of feeling.

"Because she had to." The words come and she must trust that they will be enough. "Because she's brave and strong and selfless and everything else a slayer should be." She looks intently at him as she speaks, as if she can ease his pain by the sheer force of her will. "But most of all, because she loves you."

Guilt and self-loathing flare brightly in his eyes at her words and she belatedly realises how, to him, it must sound almost like an accusation, or perhaps a confirmation of culpability.

"No," she denies vehemently. "No, don't you dare think that this is your fault. It's not."

"Isn't it?" He shakes his head. "Carlotta's a good girl and a good slayer, but she's not the martyr-complex hero type. She's not doing this for the bloody sisterhood or the faceless innocents. She's seen too much, knows as well as anyone there's no such bloody thing."

She had been curious about this before, and she feels the need to steer him away from further self-recrimination. "Yeah," she murmurs softly. "I wondered...she said she knew monsters all her life. I got the feeling she wasn't talking about vampires."

"Hardly." He seems grateful for the distraction, or perhaps for the chance to talk about Carlotta. "She's an orphan. Spent her life in homes and foster care. People aren't all they should be, you know, and she's always been beautiful. The women were jealous, and the men...well, you can imagine." He makes a show of perking up and it is painful to watch. "Say, maybe when she wakes up me and her'll go on a rampage. Track 'em down and rip their throats out. Or kill 'em real interesting like, get my girl a nickname. How'd you like pick axe?"

"Spike, don't." She lays her hand on his arm, wishing she could physically draw his pain into herself. Is this how he felt? she wonders. Is that why he let her beat him so badly? "It won't be like that."

"It won't?" He lets his pain come out in bitter sarcasm, and the familiarity, the obvious defensiveness, makes her heart ache for him. "Oh, that's all right then. Was a bit worried she was gonna wake up an evil creature of the night with a taste for human blood."

She holds his gaze and he deflates. She can almost see the protective walls crumbing around him. "How do you know?" He is almost begging, and it is strange that it has always been this way between them, even when she was too blind and too damaged to understand their push and pull of strength and weakness, their pendulum deference to the other’s wisdom.

She sits back and sighs, readying herself for her parable. "Remember that night we teamed up against Angelus? You beat up a policeman and my mom found out about me being the slayer."

He nods. Of course he remembers; it was a pivotal moment for them both.

"Well, after you left, I think it kinda sunk in with my mom and she didn't handle it so well. She said 'It stops now,' as if I was dating a drug dealer or skipping school." The memory is fresh and real in her mind. She can see her mother’s face, the stern reprimand that barely covered her fear as she clung like any other Sunnydale resident to the life raft of denial.

"You know what I said?" she asks rhetorically. His expression tells her that he is listening. "I said, 'No, it doesn't stop. It never stops.'" She puffs out air and shakes her head. "I had no idea back then how right I was. Once you're the slayer, you're always the slayer. Even death can't change that. I'm not saying she'll be the same. She'll be a vampire, but she'll still be the slayer."

"And therein lies the problem." He looks impassively at Carlotta, his face a mask of desolate stoicism. "You can't be both."

There's nothing to say to that, most of all because she knows that he is right, so she merely nods and lets the silence settle over them again.

"Why'd you kiss me?" The question is so sudden, so completely out of context, that for a moment she can't process it and she finds herself blinking stupidly at him.

"I...um...I don't know." It's the best she can come up with. Certainly she can't tell him the truth: that he has haunted her heart for so long now that she finds the sudden reality of him irresistible. And there is no way on earth, particularly now, here, in the presence of his new girlfriend’s unhearing corpse, that she could tell him it is because she loves him now as she never imagined she would be able to when she still had the right.

"Right." He tilts his head back and eyes her thoughtfully for a moment before once again turning to his front and studying Carlotta. "It's bloody ridiculous," he says, and for a moment she assumes he is still talking about their brace of stolen kisses. "I'm a vampire. Shouldn't I be glad? She's like me now."

…………………

It's strange how even after all this time he still believes that Buffy will have the answers. Despite that she hardly knows Carlotta, despite that he she has not known him in two long years, he still believes that she will know enough to give him the answers that elude him.

He’s unsure why he asked her about the kisses. It is hardly important in the light of what has happened since. But it has bothered him all day, intruding on his thoughts as he played out Carlotta's rising in his mind, trying to envisage what he will see when she opens her eyes. He has played out the scenario a thousand times, disturbed unwelcome fantasies of her smooth skin contorted into a snarling mask of ridges and fangs and feral, golden eyes. The only thing he is certain he will not see are the warm depths of his Anjo's soul.

So it had been in these moments between, when his mind recoiled in horror at his own worst imaginings, that he found himself invaded by thoughts of Buffy's sunshine and steel kisses. Her answer was a little curious. He had expected an excuse, perhaps an apology—not the threats and denials of years before, but no less painful. He doesn't press, isn't even sure if he wants to, even if his saviour were not dead by her own hand, even if he were not exhausted by grief, uncertainty and guilt. Even then, he isn't sure if he would allow himself the bitter taste of hope.

It won't be long now. Maybe even tonight, but probably not, not with the approaching dawn sending warning tingles over his skin. No, she won't rise tonight, but it won't be long. Part of him is impatient for it. Anything, even the reality of her irrevocable metamorphosis, would be better than this waiting. He feels himself trapped in limbo—the expectant dread of grief without finality—and almost wishes she were truly dead. At least then there would be some certainty. Guilt and sorrow chase in on the heels of that unfaithful thought, and he feels his body shudder violently.

She touches his knee, but he doesn't turn to look at her. He knows that if he does, he risks drowning in the seductive comfort she is offering, and he cannot let that happen. He must be awake and watchful for his dark angel’s rise, but weak as he is, he cannot resist the solace of taking her hand in his.

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A/N Thanks to everyone who bothered to review, really hell swith my enthusiasm for writting, I know I should do it for me, but it's just so nice to get reviews.

On the subject of which, B/S Central has double the number of reviews for this story. Come on Spuffyrealm, are you gonna let them kick your butts like that?

It's tacky to beg for reviews so I thought i'd try appealing to your competetive natures ;)

Hey Pin, sorry to confuse you babe. Glad you like my Xander I'm proud of him :)

Hello cgh, your users name is just a gutterl noise, love it I'm welsh all are words are like that! Or maybe there your initials, anyway thanks for reviewing glad you like! I'll try not to make the wait for the Spuffy be too long.

Hey CordyKitten, If i'd just killed Carlotta off then Spike would have gone to Buffy be default, and your spuffy heart would have hated that, so it'll take a bit longer but it'll be worth it.





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