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A/N - I never really bought that Spike was looking for a soul in Africa. I know they said so in season 7 but really in grave it looked like he'd been tricked.

So this is a post grave fic however it's not a soulful but a chipless Spike that emerged from that cave.

Enjoy. And anytime you want to review, good, bad, indifferent your only a click away :)

Thanks as always go to April who fortunately shook off some disturbing temporary blondness to get this proofed. xxx

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"I just can't" It's a plea and Xander can almost see his resolve to be tough on her slipping away. Buffy, always so strong and defiant has been reduced to pleading and that is surely enough to melt anyone's heart. "I want to, really I do. But it hurts too much"

"You make these bad choices Buffy" Anyone at least it seems but Willow, her voice is firm and only tinged so very slightly with sympathy and understanding. "Now you gotta live with the consequences"

"I know" the slayer sighs, deep and regretful. "Just let me sit out a couple of songs okay guys, even my blisters have blisters" she shoots an accusing glare at her new strappy heels. "And I am never wearing these things again, I think a demon may have made them"

"Speaking of demons" Willow's nudge drags his attention away from the suffering slayer and he lets his eyes follow the direction of her inclined head to the door.

And there she is, striding confidently into the bronze, mesmerisingly beautiful as ever. Anya. Her eyes scan the crowd casually and he finds himself in a sudden panic. "You think I should go over?" he demands urgently. "I mean I saw her yesterday. I don't wanna be pushy."

"Definitely go over. It's not pushy, it's friendly. You wanna be friendly right?" Willow nods enthusiastically, keen as ever to encourage her loved ones in the persuit of happiness.

Unconvinced he turns questioning eyes to the slayer. "I'm definitely gonna come down on the side of being friendly" she agrees with a nod. "Plus Anya. Never been much for the subtleties"

It's all the reassurance he needs. "Right then. I'm going over" With a roll of his shoulders and a deep breath he heads off purposefully in his ex-financee's direction. .

"Does he remind anyone else of a puppy?" There is a light sheen of sweat over Dawns shoulders as she steps up alongside Willow, evidence of the energetic dancing that she enjoys so much. She has come of age this summer and Buffy gratefully finds herself proud and smiling far more often than she is angry and disappointed in her sister. "You know the lost kind that just follow you around till you give in and take them home"

"Dawn" The feigned shock in Willow's admonishment is belied by the scant success she has in hiding her amused smile..

"Whatever. Oh wow great tune. Who's for dancing?"

Even the thought causes her feet to relay urgent pain laced warning messages to her brain. "Worlds of no" she looks down again and twiddles her toes experimentally. "My new shoes are trying to eat my feet. You guys go dance I'm gonna drink my soda and watch the world go by"

"The world? Or the hunky college boy over there that keeps giving you the eye?" They laugh at her as Dawn drags an unresisting Willow to the dance floor and she is more than happy to bear their mockery it's just so good to see everyone smiling again.

She smiles too as she watches them. Finally after such a horrible year things are falling into place. Especially now that Willow is back from England clean and eager to make a mends for her little trip to the dark side. Sure she's sad, how could she not be? It's bad enough for the rest of them. Funny how it is only now that she is gone that they truly understand the importance of Tara's gentle maternal presence. They all miss her so very much and the world is undoubtably darker without her in it, but it isn't black and Willow was beginning to see flecks of light and colour in it again.

As for Xander. Well Xander has a mission and just lately operation win-Anya-back has begun to look like it might not be an unmitigated failure after all.

Yeah things are definitely getting better. She scans the room again and does a mental lists of all the goodness of the moment. Dawn absorbed into the group and bonding happily with big sister and big sisters friends. Check. Xander and Anya having a civilised conversation by the bar. Check. Willow beginning to learn how to live without magic and Tara. Check. Hot college guy checking her out. Double check.

She gives him a flirtations smile and enjoys his obvious interest for a moment. But when he makes a questioning gesture with his head that she takes as an invitation to join him in a drink she finds herself shaking her head in response. Yeah he's cute enough—sandy hair, open handsome face, built like a quaterback. Just not really her type.

No. No. Absolutely her type. He's exactly what she likes. Really well built. "I think you mean lumbering and bulky" a sarcastic part of her brain that she doesn't recognise as belonging to her interjects with a mental sneer. Handsome and honest looking. "Vanilla". And now she knows the amused sarcastic voice in her mind belongs to Spike.

She turns back to her drink with an annoyed huff and attacks the ice viciously with her straw. This is no good at all. No good. Her type is bulky and vanilla, it's what she likes in a man. Yep Buffy likes 'em big and nice and boring. Not lean and dangerous. And she definitely does not like her men sardonic and sexy and dead!

Right. Good. Now that that’s all cleared up she'll prove it by dancing with the cute collage boy. Or at least she would if her feet weren't hurting so damned much.

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There is always good hunting in a city like this. A city full of isolated friendless people and over confident youth. Easy pickings. Down and outs too by the score just waiting to be picked off and no one to miss them, no one to care even if they did. Yeah New York is like the old south in summer. The cotton is high and the living is easy.

But at the weekends—that's when you can really have some fun. Saturday night and a demon can trawl the city's myriad of clubs and bars as if they were sweet shops. Loud anonymous places packed to the rafters with happy oblivious people pumped up on drugs, alcohol, lust and adrenaline. Just Delicious. Oh yeah a demon, a vampire, can have a whole lot of fun on Saturday night in New York.

He could be out there too, nothing to stop him now. He could eat every pretty girl in town and snap their boyfriends' necks just for the fun of it. Might do it too. Maybe later on.

"Give us the bottle mate" he throws a handful of dirty crumpled bills down on the bar. Stolen money it was yeah. He'd flashed a bit of fang at some poncy bastard in an Armarni suit, scared the git witless and took his wallet. Yeah he was still bad.

A glance around the half empty demon haunt tells him there's not much in tonight.. Couple of pathetic looking vamps playing pool and talking big, A M'lik demon with an arm missing propping up the bar and a small group of what looked like holy men. Four of them, dressed up like humans but smelling like demon.

No there wouldn't be much fun to be had out of this lot tonight. Not that he ever did his killing near the bar that was a sure way to get yourself barred. But if there was anything challenging in he'd follow 'em. It wasn't a white hat thing he just enjoyed the violence couldn't get a good fight out of a human anyway, demons were much more fun. Yeah right. "Pathetic wanker"

Three months. Three bloody months since he dragged his sorry carcass back over the Atlantic in the bottom of a cargo ship from Africa. Ended up in New York couldn't tell you why except it was pretty much the opposite side of the country from her. Not that that made the slightest bit of sense. He'd been on the other side of the world. Could have headed up through North Africa and back into Europe. He was free now. No chip, no problem. Except it wasn't bloody working. Getting the damn thing out was supposed to stop him feeling like this. About her, about what happened to her, about the whole of man-bloody-kind.

"They say there is a slayer on the Hellmouth" his ears prick but his posture remains unchanged. He's good at this, eves dropping, it's a vamp thing. He can hear a mouse taking a piss at two hundred yards listening in on a hushed conversation a few feet away isn't too much of a strain, even over the bloody awful music pathetic vamp number one has tortured out of the juke box.

"Then we deal with her. Once she's dead nothing will stand in our mistress' way" he could almost laugh, just another group of high and mighty ponces all puffed up and styling themselves slayer slayers. Like it was that bleeding easy, Buffy'd kill 'em all right dead and proper without breaking a sweat.

"She is powerful father, we have not the strength to destroy her." Ah not as stupid as all that then, maybe he'd just keep listening. Not that he cared or anything just interested was all.

"Don't worry my son our mistress has already planned for this. Tomorrow she will awaken Slavrock the Slayer Eater and when he wakes he will hunger for fresh meat." And it isn't the demons cruel chuckle that chills the already icy blood in his veins. "This Buffy Summers won't be a problem to us at all"

The Slavrock, he thought it was a myth a demon holy grail. The Slayer Eater. Yeah he'd heard of it, wasn't a demon on the planet hadn't. They said it could be summoned, brought forth to destroy that one girl in the whole bloody world. Not that he gave a shit, wasn't like he cared what happened to the bloody slayer. Bitch deserved whatever was coming to her for reducing him to this.

The whiskey burns his throat as he takes a long gulp straight from the bottle. How the hell was he gonna get her out of this one?


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A/N remeber what I said about reviewing. Go on, it really helps to get me going on a fic





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